Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (53 page)

‘Want to go climb it?’ Kal said.

‘Um, maybe not this time,’ Deros said in a small voice. ‘We’ve maybe got two hours until we’re due back, and Dark Dell is still a mile along the tree line from here.’

They set off west, the pale afternoon winter sun shining off the snow and into their eyes. Their destination lived up to its name, though: Dark Dell—a knotty grove of spiny cedar and yew. It lay under the shadow of a great spur of the mountain that reached down like a giant arm, the fist meeting—and hanging over—the tree line.
One day
, it seemed to say to Kal.
One day. It might be tomorrow, it might be in a thousand years, but one day I’m going to come crashing down and crush every living creature nesting, grazing or passing beneath me.

They had brought lanterns. Deros lit one and hurried ahead. Kal knelt and examined some strange markings that had been cut into the trunk of one of the thickest trees. Something wasn’t right here …

She found Deros staring at a solid wall of roots and branches at the back of the dell. ‘The cave entrance should be here,’ he said. ‘But we’ll never get through without—’

Kal handed him an axe.

‘Where did you find this?’ he said, looking around.

Kal laughed. ‘In my dad’s shed,’ she said. ‘What? Didn’t you bring a weapon too?’

Deros took the axe and started chopping away. Kal sat by and watched, content to let Deros provide the brawn now that she had supplied the brain. Ten minutes later, Deros stepped away from the hole he had hacked. The map proved true to its promise: there was a tunnel beyond, just tall enough for them to stand up straight in. Deros looked at Kal, trepidation in his eyes. She shrugged. No animals would have been able to get in or out past the roots, so the chances were the tunnel was empty. She took the lead for a change, and her friend followed.

The tunnel went on for about twenty paces, ending in an open chamber that was about fifteen feet wide. There was a wooden crate in the middle of the cave floor. Deros tried to push past Kal to get to it, but she held out an arm to restrain him. ‘Careful,’ she said.

The floor of the cave was strewn with bones.

Kal bent down to examine them. They looked like the remains of deer, foxes and badgers. Kal picked up a large thigh bone and examined it. There were curious scratches scored into it.

‘Is it safe?’ Deros asked. He was hopping up and down in excitement.

Kal tossed the bone aside. ‘It’s safe,’ she declared.

Deros ran to crate, flipped off the lid, and whooped in joy. ‘Kal!’ he said. ‘We’re rich!’

She went to look. The chest was indeed filled with chunks of glittering gold.

‘If we’re rich,’ Deros said, ‘does that mean we still have to go to school?’

Kal picked up a piece of the treasure. ‘We’re not rich,’ she told him.

He looked bewildered. ‘We’re not?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Come on, Deros, did you really believe that the treasure map just floated into the village and blew into the woodpile at the side of my house? It was put there so that we would find it! There are marks carved into the trees outside this cave: hunters’ marks. People have been here recently; probably our fathers on one of their expeditions. And the bones in this cave aren’t the complete skeletons of animals that have died here: they’re a random assortment that someone must have collected from off the forest floor, or saved after skinning a haunch of deer. One of the bones had knife marks on it!’

Deros looked crestfallen. ‘But …’ he said, holding up his gold plaintively.

‘It’s fire iron,’ Kal said. ‘Otherwise known as fool’s gold. I bet it was my dad’s idea. Something to keep us busy for an afternoon. He will probably try and make out that it’s some kind of lesson or something.’

Deros tossed the iron away and they trudged back down the tunnel, abandoning their treasure. ‘So now what?’ he said.

Kal looked up as they stepped back outside. The sky was darkening in the east; the eastern slopes where bright and tinged with gold; the western slopes were in grey shadow, but there was still a bit more daylight left. She had forgotten what time they were supposed to be home by.

She turned to Deros and said, ‘Want to go on a
real
adventure?’

II.ii

A Slippery Deck

Kal and Lula stepped up on deck, hand in hand, to a silent world of darkness and flame. Kal couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing, but Lula squeezed her hand excitedly. ‘We’re here,’ she said.

Of course: the coral maze. This was the closest Kal had ever got to Port Black before; she and Lula had dived for shells here some three years earlier. The Auspice Islands were protected from the violence and terrors of the Silver Sea by a ten-mile-wide barrier reef, through which a labyrinth of narrow channels had been cut by hand. The paths were marked by torches on poles, but the correct route through them was a secret, and any vessel or monster taking a wrong turn would end up jammed in an ever-narrowing dead end.

Dead Leg stood at the prow, holding out a lantern in each hand to signal to Jako. The
Swordfish
progressed carefully through the maze under oar. They passed the occasional sandy cay that glittered like diamonds in the moonlight. The night was balmy, and a hot wind blew in their face, bringing with it the distant sound of calypso music: steelpans and catgut guitar.

‘The Reaping Wind,’ Lula said. ‘Every night it blows across the islands, puts the weak and ill to rest, and carries away the souls of the dead. It’s too bad we didn’t sail in on the Paradise Wind in the morning. That would have been a more auspicious start, breathing new life into the Islands, and cleansing away bad karma and jinxes.’

‘No,’ Kal said. ‘This is more appropriate. I bring death. I always have.’

They cleared the reef, and entered waters as still as a mountain tarn. Kal could see a haze of lights ahead: red, green and yellow. Port Black was a lazy sprawl that covered a flat peninsula that jutted out of the largest of the Auspice Islands. There was no natural harbour: the town was surrounded on three sides by white beaches, and backed by jungles and mountains.

Dead Leg clapped his hands loudly. ‘That’s far enough! We’re safely through. Drop anchor and ready the boats!’

‘Safe from sea monsters,’ Kal remarked to Lula, ‘but not from zombies. I’ve a longing to stay on board, in bed in your cabin, for a few more weeks.’

Lula held up her palm. The white stain was almost touching her fingers. ‘If you do,’ she said, ‘you’ll be sharing your bed with a zombie before long. Come on, let’s grab our things to take ashore.’

A group of four of the crew came up on deck, holding Che up on their shoulders. They were calling him
Lucky
and promising him a night to remember at some place called the
Blue Mahoe
. They piled into a launch that was half-filled with barrels—to be refilled with fresh water ashore, Kal guessed—and set off for the town.

Quarter of an hour later, Kal found herself at the oar of the second boat, with Lula, Dogwood and the
Swordfish’s
boatswain—a tall blond woman whose job it was to keep the ship in good repair. Kal didn’t know her name, since everyone just called her
Bosun
.

‘We’ve rented the whole east wing of the Blue Mahoe,’ Lula said as they pulled through the dark water. ‘You’ll like it, Kal. The food is excellent. Especially the crabs!’

Bosun snorted in laughter.

‘What is this Blue Mahoe I keep hearing about?’ Dogwood asked.

‘It’s Port Black’s premier brothel,’ Bosun told him. ‘I can’t wait to get back there, myself. They have this one fellow, he’s so good you can only visit him once while you’re in town.’

Kal raised an eyebrow. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Because you can’t walk for a week afterwards!’ Bosun chortled.

Dogwood’s face was grim. ‘I’ll be seeking accommodation at the governor’s mansion,’ he said haughtily.

For some reason, both Lula and Bosun found this hilarious, and fell about laughing, almost threatening to capsize the boat. Kal put all her effort into getting them to shore as fast as possible. What with the four of them and a dozen barrels in such a tiny boat, the gunwall was lipping astern. The barrels were full, Kal realised, possibly with that fishy substance that Dogwood had sniffed out earlier in the voyage. One more mystery to solve, when she got the chance!

They hit a soft sand bar, and had to drag the boat through the shallows and up to the strandline. Would there ever be a time when Kal’s breeches weren’t soaked? There were bonfires burning on the beach, and as her eyes adjusted to the glow, Kal could make out people and palm-thatched huts, smoky barbecues and strings of coloured lanterns. People were shouting, singing and chanting, and a crowd gathered around the boat, making aggressive or challenging remarks in several languages. Kal saw a man whose jet black skin was painted with a white skull and bones, and a woman with a skirt of fish scales and a clam shell brassiere. Another man had a jacket made of black crows’ feathers that contrasted with his white skin; another woman wore no brassiere at all.

She fought down a wave of panic as the strange crowd pushed closer. What kind of fresh hell had she wound up in now? But then the crew from the first boat came down the beach to help haul away the barrels, and Lula took Kal’s hand and pulled her through the crowd. Bosun lifted Kal’s sea chest high above her head and followed.

‘Every night is carnival now in Port Black,’ Lula explained as they shoved their way through a throng of customers at an open-air bar. ‘They drink and dance and screw, all in the name of Vuda, hoping that she will lift her curse.’

Kal looked around as they left the beach and entered sand-swept streets where the wooden buildings looked only slightly less temporary than the huts. In the heaving nightlife she saw dragons and sea-nymphs, satyrs and elves. One woman was painted entirely red, with a fantastic pair of minotaur horns sprouting from her head. ‘At least I don’t see any zombies,’ Kal shouted to Lula over the noise of a marching band.

‘They put a palisade up around the town to keep them out,’ Lula said. ‘We’ll go out into the jungle tomorrow to look for some! Listen, Kal, I have to go and wrap up some business in town. Follow this street all the way up the hill until you reach the Blue Mahoe. You can’t miss it! I’ll meet you there later.’

She whirled away and vanished into the crowds, leaving Kal standing alone. Dogwood had been lured away by a nearby gaming house, its cosmic racing tables spilling out into the street. Bosun and the crew had carried off the chests and barrels elsewhere.

Kal patted her pocket to make sure she still had Ben’s letter of marque. That was the only thing she couldn’t afford to lose. She looked up the street; did Lula really expect her to turn in early and keep the bed warm for her?

Not a chance in hell!
Kal decided to follow her friend and see what she got up to in her home town. She fought her way through the crush in the direction she thought she saw Lula go. It was a difficult pursuit: Kal was harassed by the leader of a procession of dancers, who presented her with a crown of paper flowers. A naked man coated head to toe in sugar cane syrup and wearing cat ears gave Kal a spontaneous kiss and a bouquet of
real
flowers—bright purple orchids. His eyes were dark too, and Kal recognised the signs of a
Sirensbane
user. She found herself unconsciously licking her lips. Then she spotted Lula darting down an alley between a grog shop and a vudu charm emporium. Holding her flowers to her face, Kal followed close behind.

She emerged in a plaza where a crowd had gathered to watch a troupe of fire-eaters. Kal saw Lula enter a tent on the far side, so she hurried on over.
This should be Dogwood’s job,
she thought,
investigating the smuggling operation.
She looked back to check that the Guard captain wasn’t actually on Lula’s tail too. Then she yanked the tent flap and stepped inside.

Whatever she had expected to find inside the tent, it wasn’t
this
. A thin man sat at a small round table, slowly shuffling an oversized deck of cards. The tent was cool and dark, lit only by two tall red candles on sconces either side of the table. Swathes of coloured silk hung from the roof, as did hundreds of tiny curious charms: glass globes, wicker dolls, silver stars, and small cloth bags, contents unknown. The candlelight made the man’s brown skin glow orange. Lula was nowhere in sight.

‘Sit down,’ the man said.

Kal remained standing. ‘Have you seen a girl?’ she asked. ‘Long black hair. Good looking.’

The man shook his head. ‘Sit down,’ he repeated.

Kal shrugged and took a seat opposite him. He slid the top card off the deck, and flipped it over with a long, thin finger.

The Six of Swords. It was an illustrated deck, and the card showed a ferryman punting a barge towards a distant coast or river bank.

‘You have travelled here over water,’ the man stated in a toneless, uninterested voice.

Kal flashed him her best smile. ‘You think I got this pasty face from living here?’

He didn’t smile back. The next card wasn’t a numbered card. The deck was obviously an expanded deck, with all the Major Arcana cards that were used mainly for divination. The new card was the Tower, and the illustration was of a stone turret being smashed by lightning.

‘You bring calamity,’ the fortune teller said, sliding off another card. ‘And death …’

The third card showed a man at the end of a rope, but the card had been dealt upside down. ‘The Hanged Man, reversed,’ the fortune teller said, prodding the card with his finger, ‘meaning that
you
bring death to others. Let us see how many lives you will take …’

He turned a fourth card: a man carrying a bundle of wooden staves. ‘Ten …’ he said.

‘Is that all?’ Kal tried to joke. She was getting impatient with this charade. ‘I’ll be finished by tomorrow lunchtime then.’

But the man wasn’t finished yet. He placed another card on top of the last: the Ten of Cups. ‘Twenty …’ he counted.