Wrath of Storms Read online

  Does she know it was because of me?

  ‘Anything else?’ A melody flitted through Ventris’ Tarevian accent, like a child’s lullaby. Colette’s death didn’t seem to concern her.

  ‘Two of the thrusters took a hit. Piece of junk.’

  Wordless, Ventris strode past the hostages, scanning them with lifeless eyes. She carried herself in a different manner to the other pirates; they revelled in violence, but Ventris moved like a Sky Fleet officer. Her skin was pale, like the sun had cowered from her for too long. Her mud-brown hair was tied back into a short ponytail, and her uneven fringe curled around her brow. She wore a swallow-tailed military trench coat missing half of its buttons, and a pair of brown boots with tarnished buckles.

  A wicked-looking sword with a curved blade hung at her side. Slender fingers the colour of bleached bones pressed through her gloves—the tips carried a reddish-pink hue, like she’d dipped them in blood. One of her eyes was the dulled grey of a dirty window; the other shone with the violet tint common among Phadrosi.

  The pirates tossed more hostages down to the floor—including Vabrizio and Myriel.

  She’s alive… Where’s Enoch?

  A kid around nine started wailing, drawing the pirate captain’s attention.

  ‘Child.’ Ventris’ voice tinkled like dying notes from a rusty music box. She bent down low and wiped a tear from the kid’s cheek with a reddened finger. ‘No need to cry. Do you believe in Aerulus the One Father? Of course you do—all young boys believe in him. Do you think he cried when he rode upon Torenir, slaying Orinul warriors and driving them from our world?’

  The boy shook his head.

  ‘See? You’ve no need to be afraid of me.’ Ventris squeezed his shoulder. ‘Not when there are worse things in the world.’

  One of the raiders approached the pirate captain and stood to attention. ‘It’ll take some time before we scour the whole rig, but she’s ours.’ He sounded pleased, like a kid presented with a new jigsaw.

  ‘Good,’ said Ventris. ‘Go. Have your fun. Eat. Drink. Take whatever you want, whomever you want. Stop only when you die.’

  Ventris stepped past Serena and appraised her like an unimpressed child with an old toy.

  Tiera’s presence made sense now. She’s back with her old crew. ‘You’re the Scalpel,’ Serena said. Gallows had told her stories about the infamous pirate queen. ‘You’re supposed to be dead.’

  Ventris leaned close to her and whispered, ‘Don’t believe what you read in the broadsheets.’ Then she stood straight and bellowed, ‘Dump the dead—match the living to the passenger manifest. And someone bring me Vabrizio.’

  ‘He’s here.’ Solassis pulled Captain Vabrizio over to Ventris. His clothes were dishevelled, and swollen skin concealed his left eye.

  Solassis pulled Vabrizio’s flintlock pistol from its holster and wedged it into her belt.

  ‘That was tal Varaldo’s,’ Vabrizio mewled.

  ‘Then it’ll still be worth something after I shoot you with it. Where’s the passenger manifest?’

  Vabrizio whimpered. ‘It’s in the quartermaster’s office.’

  Captain Ventris toyed with Vabrizio, using a curved scimitar to draw a line of blood in his cheek. ‘I hope you’re telling the truth.’

  ‘I—I wouldn’t lie to you.’ Sweat trailed down Vabrizio’s face, but he didn’t dare wipe it.

  ‘Let’s test that theory,’ said Ventris. ‘Bring me the singer.’

  A stocky pirate with thick stubble dragged Genevieve through the hall and presented her to Ventris.

  ‘Let her go, asshole!’ Gallows demanded. He received a kick to the head for his outburst.

  Fabian Aereli was next to protest: ‘Haven’t you done enough?’

  The pirate captain paid him no mind. She angled her head like a curious kitten. ‘What do you think, Vabrizio? You or Couressa? Who should die?’

  ‘I… I… Please—’

  ‘Choose.’

  They won’t murder Genevieve. She’s worth too much. Surely they won’t hurt her…

  Vabrizio trembled, but Genevieve stood still, fearless.

  ‘Choose,’ Ventris repeated, drawing her blade close to Vabrizio’s throat. ‘Choose who dies.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Choose.’

  Vabrizio’s mouth hung open. ‘…Her. I choose her.’

  A knot tightened in Serena’s belly.

  Ventris pressed the sword to Genevieve’s throat. ‘Colette enjoyed your music.’

  Shaking, Serena got to her feet, willing the siren-song. ‘Wait, please, don’t. I’m the one who—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Genevieve consoled her. A bead of blood snaked down her neck. But even in the face of death, strength radiated from her. ‘It’s okay.’

  Ventris grinned. ‘Say that in a second.’

  She whipped the blade around and sliced Vabrizio’s throat. A fountain of blood showered the floor.

  He fell to his knees, hands clutching the wound. It did nothing to stem the flow of blood.

  Ventris towered over him. ‘Cowards like you sit in your castles and toss crumbs to the rest of us, Captain Vabrizio. No longer. My army and I will reclaim what was taken—and teach the world to bleed.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  The breeze breathing through the Solacewood sang lyrics and whispered secrets.

  The weak flutter of a damselfly weaving melodies over the rush of the river, the churn of soil beneath a deer’s hooves, the high-pitched cat-call of buzzards…

  Damien Fieri knew the woods the way a man knew the curve of his lover’s back. His breath floated away in the cold air, dissipating like a distant phantom. He kept his heart beating in a steady rhythm, felt each dimple of the coarse rock in his palms.

  He’d been suspended between the two frosty cliff faces for almost an hour now. The rush of the white river beneath called out a warning to him. At this distance, it would be like hitting concrete—a man would die in an instant.

  But you are no ordinary man.

  The wood around him sparkled with the frost of a new winter. He’d seen it like this before—nothing had changed, yet it looked alien.

  Because you’re the one who changed, ‘Damien’.

  ‘Not enough. Not yet.’

  Damien stayed between the rock faces until his muscles strained before climbing back.

  The day began.

  His cabin squatted among a cluster of conifers—it was the last of Cleric Adravan’s structures.

  Damien stepped through the doorway, avoiding the tripwire running along the length of the threshold. He set everything out in his kitchen—jars, dried meat, bags containing cabbage, squash and winter radishes. He’d build a root cellar to store them in.

  There’s a leak in the roof. He heard the drip before it hit the floor.

  Winter crept in closer each day, drawing the days in and prolonging the night. With it, Damien’s night terrors grew more violent. Some nights, he woke bolt upright, convinced that Cleric Adravan was in the room with him, readying another dark command to chip Damien’s humanity away.

  Worse were the memories of Azima—her breath on his neck, her scent, the contours of her arched back…

  Let the thoughts pass. They cannot hurt you.

  She’d awoken desires in Damien that he didn’t know he’d possessed—desires that other men talked of openly, but for which he’d never been able to muster any interest.

  And the desires I did possess, Azima celebrated.

  The Solacewood was a strange place to find love. Damien remembered how its breeze sang a dirge as Azima’s warm blood flowed over his knuckles.

  Before lunch, Damien would repair the roof, then walk to Hawthorn Gnarl for more supplies. And in the evening, he would read. The Solacewood was perfect for that, for reading and reflecting—

  And denying your desire.

  Damien’s fist drove into the oak floor—he found that pain warded against intrusive thoughts.

  Except they come back, s
tronger.

  His fingers twitched at the phantom sensation of steel cutting flesh—of blood spraying from a neck wound, of witnessing frantic, bulging eyes become dull in front of him.

  Let the thoughts pass. They cannot hurt you.

  Let the thoughts pass. They cannot hurt you.

  In the evening, Damien read Auferustrina, a parable of the mortal man who stole lightning from Aerulus’ palm. He’d read it a dozen times, in multiple languages, but good books were hard to come by. In any case, it was better than the Fayth Codex.

  The Gods will offer you no salvation.

  ‘The bookshop in Hawthorn Gnarl was out of Captain Crimsonwing novels.’

  Damien’s words echoed in the silence.

  Then tell a tale of your own—a story written in blood. One that never has to end.

  Azima had said something similar, long ago. She’d wanted Damien not in spite of his urges but because of them.

  A pang swelled in his gut, but Damien dismissed it. He slammed the book shut and lay flat on his back, hands placed at his side. The rough floor of the cabin chafed his skin, but Damien welcomed it—he’d slept in soft beds for too long. Let his guard down. Made him weak.

  Outside, he listened as two grey foxes tore at one another over their prey.

  Snow had fallen overnight, leaving a thick, pristine white blanket outside the cabin window. The breeze sang in harsher tones today, and whispered no secrets—only warnings. Nearby, the river churned with fury, crashing against its banks and—

  Damien sprang to his feet.

  A familiar aroma, carried by the breeze—coming from Hawthorn Gnarl.

  Blood.

  Columns of smoke merged with the expanse of smudgy, grey cloud. Fire, coming from the bookshop.

  Damien flitted over the ground, silent as a ghost, and flew up the trunk of a tall conifer tree. He analysed the area—men screamed, women shouted, children cried. They were being corralled into the town hall to the north-west. Raiders—but there is nothing here worth raiding for.

  Sticking among the trees, Damien leapt from one vantage point to another, settling onto a branch jutting from a huge, rosewood hyperia tree. The frost made for insecure footing—Damien slipped; his arms shot out and wrapped across a jutting branch underneath, sending clumps of snow falling.

  Concentrate.

  Slithering over the branch and closing his eyes, Damien tuned his senses. The heat from the bookshop… The blacksmith’s shop lying empty, no laughter or clatter of cutlery from the inn… No ignium, nor gunpowder…

  A heartbeat.

  Damien opened his eyes—the heartbeat belonged to a thin young man wrapped in a thick scarf and heavy sheepskin coat.

  The raider stopped by the tree and fumbled with the buckle on his belt—he didn’t have time to scream before Damien dropped down, spun him around and slammed him hard into the hyperia’s iron-hard trunk.

  A stream of urine trickled from the boy’s trouser leg.

  Feel the pulse of his heart, ‘Damien’. End it.

  Damien pressed harder. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I…. We’re just…’

  Damien punched the raider in his temple and repeated the question.

  ‘Heard there was treasure b-but there isn’t. Please… Please let me go.’

  Damien’s fingers caressed the lad’s throat, gliding over the bumps of sinew under the skin.

  Inhaling deep, he said, ‘Run.’

  Glass glinted beneath the blacksmith’s broken window, and a door to a ransacked home squealed on its hinges. The scent of blood filled Damien’s nostrils.

  Staying low, he inched towards the main thoroughfare. The flames in the bookshop raged, but Damien didn’t sense a soul inside.

  There is a special place in hell for those who burn books.

  Laughing, two men spilled out of Hawthorn Gnarl’s inn, carrying sacks and reeking of beer. One of them was wiry and rakish, the other old and portly. The elder’s straggly grey beard was flecked with blood, and both men shared a flat nose and bushy eyebrows. Father and son.

  Damien marched towards them.

  ‘Hold up,’ said the father. ‘Get Margus.’

  The son dropped his sack and ran towards the town hall, skidding on the ice.

  The father tossed his loot to the side and said, ‘You’re not one of the townsfo—’

  Damien launched into a flying kick and the old man toppled to the ground, wheezing and clutching his chest.

  Damien bent low. ‘I cracked your sternum. If you don’t leave this place, I’ll break your rib and puncture your lung. Are you familiar with tension pneumothorax?’

  ‘Piss on you.’

  The wheezing gasp undercut the old man’s insult somewhat.

  ‘Tension pneumothorax,’ Damien explained, ‘occurs when the lung leaks air but is unable to breathe it back in. Your lung will collapse—eventually.’ Damien leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘But more likely, it’s the increased pressure on your heart that will get you. It’ll take, oh, thirty minutes to kill you—but this I promise: That half-hour will be the longest of your life.’

  Pearls of sweat dotted the old man’s forehead. Kill him, ‘Damien’.

  Damien stood. ‘Or you could leave. Find a boat downriver. Put this place at your back.’

  At the far end of the road, the town hall’s doors burst open. Six men wrapped in furs stepped out and onto the town hall’s stone staircase.

  ‘My friends…’ wheezed the raider. ‘They’ll kill you, you sadistic bastard.’

  See how the life begs to escape from this man?

  Damien left the older man panting on the ground. Of the newcomers, only one looked like he’d pose a threat: He wore a sleeveless jacket in spite of the cold, and his long, grey hair was tied in a single braid, like the Ryndaran warriors of old. Scars ran up and down his arms.

  ‘Margus?’ Damien asked.

  ‘Aye.’ Margus eyed the old man by the inn. ‘He’s alive, then. Adrian?’

  The young man I sent off. Damien nodded. If Margus was glad of the answer, he didn’t show it.

  ‘Leave,’ Damien called. ‘All of you.’

  ‘Don’t think we will.’ Margus strolled down the steps. His men fanned out, surrounding Damien, knives hissing from sheaths.

  Paint the snow with their blood.

  Switching tactics during a fight to keep your enemy guessing was something Damien had mastered—but there was a lot to be said about sticking with what worked.

  Damien sprinted towards Margus and flew into a kick, sending Margus flying back. The base of his skull smacked the stone steps.

  At once, his allies retaliated.

  Damien ducked beneath a whistling knife and—in one fluid movement—broke its owner’s arm and kicked another raider’s knee inward. They screamed, and the ice welcomed them.

  Another lunged, slipping on the snow and splitting his head on a rock before Damien even touched him.

  The last two took their time, fanning out as best they could.

  Knives slashed the air, but Damien ducked and weaved, disarming the men with chops to the wrist and punches to the head and throat, disorienting and confusing them.

  Margus scrambled to his feet and charged like a bull; Damien pushed the two combatants away and vaulted over Margus’ head, then followed up with a knee to the back of his leg, bringing him down for a second time.

  The other two scrambled for their knives and slashed at Damien—he punched the first’s hand away, yanked the knife from it, and sent it spinning into his partner’s groin, before dislocating the first man’s shoulder and tossing him to the ground.

  A chunk of ice struck Damien in the back—pain exploded through him and he tumbled.

  Weak.

  Margus took the opportunity to kick Damien in the head and pounce on him, pinning him to the frozen ground. They wrestled on the ice; Margus’ eyes were wide with fury, his skin a blazing red. His rough hands wrapped around Damien’s throat—Damien press
ed his thumbs into Margus’ eyes, fury feeding him strength.

  Margus’ left eye popped like a grape.

  The raider screamed and clutched his hand over the wound.

  Damien rolled to his feet. The other men cowered before him, exchanging nervous glances as their leader howled on the ground.

  The raiders were armed, but they were untrained, undisciplined—blunt instruments against a finely-honed weapon of war. Damien afforded them no quarter—he struck like a bolt of lightning.

  He used their momentum against them; he feinted left and right, dancing between their attacks, using the environment to his advantage. He hurled snow into one’s face, dislocated his shoulder and used him as a shield as another raider stabbed downward with a knife. The human shield cried out in pain as the blade struck his chest.

  Damien yanked the blade out and tossed it away. ‘Leave and dress the wound. Stay, and I’ll watch as you bleed to death.’

  Every one of them retreated—except Margus.

  The leader knelt, his hand clutched to his face, gore oozing through his fingers.

  Sense how your bloodlust strengthens you. Kill him—kill him, and savour his life’s escape.

  ‘No.’ In the cold, Damien’s voice echoed through Hawthorn Gnarl. ‘No.’

  Margus clambered up to his feet and spat blood, wearing the grim look of a man resigned to his fate. ‘Aye, I eard the Solacewood was home to demon hunters and witch finders—reckoned they were just stories. But seeing you?’

  Damien stepped forward.

  Margus lips curled. ‘You don’t get to live as long as I have in my game without taking a few beatings—and learning to put an escape plan in place.’ Margus angled his head towards the town hall. ‘You got a hall full of people with a naked flame and leaking igneus—you tell me how that story ends.’

  Damien sensed no trace of a lie—no superfluous smiles, no rapidly blinking eyes, no averting his gaze.

  ‘When I return,’ Damien breathed, ‘be elsewhere.’

  Damien flew up the stone steps of the town hall, booted the doors open and dared inside. The framed pictures normally on display behind the reception desk had been torn down. Papers lay strewn across the floor, drawers had been pulled out and picked clean of anything of value.