Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (52 page)

She clung to the mainmast shrouds for a while, grimly nodding and smiling at people as they passed. It wasn’t too bad; in fact, being able to see the horizon actually helped ease the disorientation that brought on the sea-sickness. Even so, when Dead Leg came by she asked the captain the question she didn’t really want to know the answer to: ‘Is this as bad as the storm gets?’

He laughed a merry laugh. ‘The storm hasn’t reached us yet, Moonheart! This is just the …’ His words were stolen away by the thirty-knot wind.

Dogwood descended slowly from the crow’s nest. His face and surcoat were dripping with what looked like potato and coconut curry.

‘What are you doing down here, matey?’ Dead Leg shouted at him over the wind. ‘It’s not the end of your shift!’

‘I threw up into the wind,’ Dogwood moaned. ‘And the wind threw it back at me. I’ve been shouting down, but you can’t hear me: there’s land ahead!’

Oh, thank god!
Kal thought, as Dogwood told them what he had seen. They were only a week out from Port Black, but a safe anchorage to wait out the storm would be worth a day or two’s delay. ‘I’ll go tell Jako!’ Kal said, feeling more confident now.

She hauled herself up to the stern via the web of ropes that the crew had crisscrossed all over the ship to provide hand-holds on the slippery deck. ‘Two islands to the south-west!’ she told the navigator. ‘Or maybe it’s two outcroppings of headland, about a mile apart.’

Jako’s response to this information was to take some rope and start looping it around his bare chest and then around the stern rail. ‘This is it, then, Kal,’ he said. ‘The final stretch.’

‘What are you doing?’ she said, a terrible sense of forboding washing over her. ‘We’re going to wait out the storm in a sheltered bay, right?’

‘There’s no shelter on those shores, Kal,’ Jako said. ‘You’ll see as we get closer. They’re the outermost of two parallel chains of islands that run five hundred miles all the way to the Auspice Islands. Some of them are hidden below the surface of the water, others are just spikes of rock or shit-covered breeding grounds for birds. At some points, the channel between the islands is less than twenty yards wide and five fathoms deep.’

Jako’s wild grin didn’t seem a good fit with the scene he had just described. Yet he was holding course straight for the islands, which Kal could now see as two black jagged shapes ahead of them. The crew were busy lowering the sails to about half their normal height, and even dismantling the upper yardarms.

‘Then why the hell are we going there?’ Kal asked Jako, incredulously.

‘Because there’s a powerful current that runs straight down the channel, and a prevailing wind that blows in from the north. It doesn’t matter where the typhoon comes in from, or how strong it blows; the
Swordfish
and the storm will get blown south together. We don’t need no crew or charts now—just me at the tiller for three days and nights, steering her home!’

‘You sure you can do that, Jako?’

He smiled his rotten-toothed smile. ‘They say calm seas never made a great sailor,’ he said. ‘And I am a
great
sailor!’

Lightning flashed as they neared the first of the islands. Kal saw desolate black rocks glistening with surf and spray. Piled up on the higher ground near the island’s interior was not just one, but
five
wrecked hulks. A mile or so further south there was another island, then another, interspersed with fingers of black rock like waystones or signposts. But Kal couldn’t read the terrain; it was impossible to see where the safe route through the archipelago lay.

‘Welcome to Thunder Road, Kal!’ Jako shouted over the boom of the surf and storm. ‘Best get back to you cabin and lock yourself in for the next few days. Don’t bother coming out for food: you won’t be able to hold it down!’

* * *

Kal lay in her bunk, soaked in sweat and clutching an almost-empty bottle of rum she had stolen from the captain’s cabin. She had hoped that drunkenness would provide an escape from the storm, but she still felt stone-cold sober, as if the storm and the rum fought each other with equal might, leaving Kal hanging high and dry in-between. The cabin was spinning, but she wasn’t sure if that was the work of the alcohol or the waves. At one point she thought she imagined the whole ship had turned upside down and rolled like a barrel.

She couldn’t take any more of this, and she dreaded the thought of reaching the bottom of the bottle. She rolled off her bunk and fought her way to the door. The passage to the hold was running with water, and Kal had to dodge a broken crate that had slipped its moorings and was crashing up and down the ship. She staggered to the stern cabin and banged on the door.

Lula opened it a crack. She seemed calm, and her eyes were dark and gleaming. ‘I hoped you’d come,’ she said.

Kal slipped inside. Lula’s cabin was directly below the captain’s, and was the second largest on the ship. The small glass portholes were only barely above the waterline, and the cabin was alternately plunged into darkness as a wave slopped against the aft, then vividly lit-up as the cabin tilted to the lightning-wracked sky. Lula had a large futon covered in soft pillows in the middle of the floor, and Kal dropped onto it without asking. Remaining standing wasn’t an option.

‘I need rum,’ she said. ‘Please tell me you’ve got some left!’

Lula stood over Kal, graceful and loose-limbed, despite the rolling floor beneath her. She wore just a thin silk dressing gown, and didn’t seem bothered that it was open, revealing her body to Kal.

‘I can think of something better to take your mind off the storm,’ Lula said, fixing Kal with a cool gaze.

Kal was surprised. Her friend had never made any kind of advance towards her before. Kal watched Lula’s breasts move with the sway of the ship. The thought of losing herself in the other girl’s body excited her.

‘Alright then,’ she said simply.

Lula knelt before Kal on the sheets. Kal sat up and touched Lula’s knee, but Lula was busy with something else: unwrapping a cloth parcel and taking out a glass tube with a bulbous end. The glass was fouled inside with a strange black residue. Next, Lula reached for a bolt of calico lying beside the futon, and yanked off a handful of the beads from the tassels. She sorted through the beads in her hand, picking out the black glass ones, which she proceeded to cut with a small knife, dropping the shards into a small hole in the glass bulb.

Black Ice!

‘Want to try something new?’ Lula said, at which point Kal realised that she hadn’t been talking about sex.

‘I’ll try anything twice,’ Kal joked, but her nervousness made the words catch in her throat.

‘Don’t worry,’ Lula said as she lit a candle under the glass bulb. The black crystals turned glossy and started to smoke. ‘One hit won’t hurt you. It focuses your mind and body, turns your feelings inwards; it will make the storm seem like a minor distraction. They call it
Black Ice
,
Night Quartz
or sometimes simply
Blade
. It’s only dangerous to certain other creatures. In the Auspice Islands, it was responsible for wiping out almost the entire population of merpeople; in Port Black they call it
Sirensbane
.’

Lula handed Kal the pipe. Kal inhaled deeply. The smoke tasted sour, but the effect was instantaneous: the swaying of the cabin seemed to cease, and Kal felt wide-awake, strong and clear-headed. She coughed briefly, and then her body relaxed.

Lula took the tube and took a hit. ‘This stuff is too expensive to waste,’ she said, licking her lips and sighing deeply. ‘We’ll take just enough to get us through the storm.’

Kal didn’t need another taste. She felt like going outside and dancing on deck. She felt like she could climb the mainmast, dive into the raging sea and swim alongside the ship.

She felt like she could do anything she wanted.

She bent forward and kissed Lula on the mouth. The Island girl tasted of rum and spice, and her skin smelled like the sun.

After a time, Lula pulled away. ‘I always wondered what it would be like to taste the mouth that ripped out a dragon’s jugular,’ she said.

‘Why didn’t you say so earlier?’ Kal said. ‘I just wasted four weeks watching Dogwood toss dice.’

They kissed again. Kal pulled down Lula’s gown, and turned her attention to Lula’s neck, then started to move slowly down her body. Lula had to fight her off, pushing Kal away and then pulling her out of her shirt and pantaloons. Kal fell flat on her back among the soft sheets, every nerve in her body buzzing. Lula kissed Kal’s knees and the inside of her thighs, then slowly moved her tongue upwards.

Outside, the storm screamed in anger; inside, Kal howled in pleasure.

END OF PART ONE

PART TWO

PORT BLACK

A friendly fish, a mermaid’s kiss,

Who could wish for more than this?

Ride a seahorse all night and day,

And catch a starfish along the way.

II.i

Fool’s Gold

Kal and Deros fought their way up the forested mountain slopes. The mountain fought back: it sent snowdrifts to slow them down, ice to make them slide and tumble, and fog to disorient them and throw them off course. When all around them was white, though, all they had to do was just keep going upwards … if they could only determine which way the ground sloped under all the snow.

‘Deros!’ Kal shouted ‘Slow down!’ Her voice bounced off the snow and echoed around the otherwise silent forest.

Deros halted. ‘What’s the matter, Kal? Can’t keep up?’

Kal waited until she had reached him before replying. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not that. I just think you’re leading us the wrong way.’

Deros gave her a disgruntled look, pulled off his fur-lined mittens, and took a scroll of parchment out of his coat pocket. ‘No, I’m sure we’re going the
right
way,’ he said. ‘Look—you go diagonally up from here to get to Dark Dell.’

‘Ooh, that’s a long word,’ Kal said. ‘
Diagonally
. You been reading what’s left of the book again?’ Kal knew that the only book the Browns had was an old encyclopedia that was nailed to the door in their outdoor privy. Every day, there were less and less pages left to read. ‘Look,’ she pointed out to him. ‘The map’s not to scale. And we can’t go directly that way anyway; there’s a ridge with no way up or around. We have to go north instead, and then cut across to the west.’

Deros studied the map in silence for a while. ‘I know: what if we go up past Goblin Stone, and turn west at the Watcher Tree?’

That was exactly what Kal had been trying to say, but she let Deros take the credit. They trudged on through the forest. Under the pines there was less snow, but more undergrowth to battle through. Kal was sweating under her sheepskin. ‘Why do you get to keep the map, anyway?’ she asked Deros.

‘It was me who found it,’ he said.

‘In my folks’ woodpile!’ Kal reminded him. ‘And that was only because you were trying to steal our logs, rather than chop your own.’

Deros decided not to go any further down
that
road. ‘I’m the oldest,’ he tried instead.

‘Yeah,’ Kal said. ‘By two months. I’m the
tallest
though! I’m five foot six!’

And so it went on, as they pushed their way through tangled copses of fir and spruce, and followed game trails where the snow was two feet deep, undisturbed by animals who were now snuggled in their burrows. Kal and Deros stopped for a breather at a large round rock that was taller than the both of them. Someone had carved a rough, leering face in the rock with a mason’s chisel. When Deros climbed up to brush the snow off, he revealed two horn-like protrusions.

‘Have you ever seen a real goblin, Kal?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. Then, before she could stop herself: ‘Have you?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Last year. I was out hunting rabbits with my bow, just up the trail from here, and one stepped out right in front of me.’

‘Gosh,’ Kal said. ‘What did you do?’

‘I shot it!’ Deros said. ‘Right in the belly. It crawled away. I didn’t tell anyone, obviously, ‘cos there was no body, and the rain washed away the blood.’

Kal smiled.
Obviously.
No one had seen a goblin, or indeed any kind of monster, in the forests around Refuge for more than a generation. Yet even now, a lot of people were afraid to walk alone more than a few miles out from the village. This was still
the Wild
after all, and there were no walls between here and the goblins, trolls and dragons who roamed the uninhabitable parts of the world.

‘My dad saw the body of a goblin over in Grim Tor when he went to trade some furs,’ Kal said. ‘What did
your
goblin look like, Deros?’

Deros didn’t answer, and instead struck out up a steep, stony slope. Kal followed, grabbing onto branches for support. Sometimes they slipped out of her hands and whacked her in the face. Snow slid off the trees and into her eyes. Snowmelt was getting inside her clothes. Was this what adventure was like? Pain and struggle? Still, she would rather be out here than sitting at home by the fire.

An hour later, they reached the tree line, three hundred feet above the village, and five thousand feet above something that Kal had heard called
sea level
. She stood with Deros under the row of twisted and stunted trees that were exposed to the freezing mountain winds. The trees only had branches and needles on the downward, sheltered side. Another half a mile up the slopes, though, a single great pine had somehow managed to survive alone where no other trees grew:
the Watcher Tree
.

In days gone by, the villagers had taken turns to sit in the tree, to keep it occupied day and night, and to ring a bell if any monsters came across the mountains. No one sat there now, but the great bronze bell still hung thirty feet up, swinging from a chain wrapped around the V formed by a split in the trunk. The wind howled around and inside the bell now, making a sonorous sigh that sounded like an army of approaching ghosts.