Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (54 page)

Kal’s mouth was dry, and a prickle of dread was creeping up her spine.
Don’t let him get to you
, she chided herself.

A third card was placed atop the previous two: the Nine of Pentacles. ‘Twenty-nine,’ the fortune teller announced with some finality.

Kal wasn’t going to stand for this nonsense. ‘This is bullshit,’ she said. ‘Did Lula put you up to this? You claim to know all this, but do you even know my name?’

The man said nothing. He let the cards do the talking, riffling them with such speed that Kal, who had a practiced eye for catching out cheating
card mechanics
at the gaming tables, couldn’t see any way he could have stacked the deck.

He dealt two cards. The first was the Moon. The second was the Three of Swords.

The illustration on the Three of Swords was three blades skewering a large red bleeding heart.

II.iii

Zombie Nation

Kal stepped outside the tent. It was just as uncomfortable outside as inside; the hot Reaping Wind did nothing to cool the sweat that had broken out over her body. Her clothes unbearably clingy, and she tugged at them for some relief.
Supernatural weather and ominous prophecy!
Not to mention the prospect of battling zombies in the alien jungle outside of the town. Why had she agreed to come here again? It would have been safer back in Amaranthium: at least the scheming politicians and underworld denizens there were human.

She struck off uphill, heading for the top of town, where the buildings were bigger and spaced further apart. The mansions and commercial buildings were painted bright cool colours—white, pink and lime—with oversized louvred windows to let in the air, and high ceilings to take up the worst of the tropical heat. This part of town wasn’t exempt from the chaos of the carnival though, and as the night’s revelry reached a climax, other more violent and sinister aspects of Port Black revealed themselves: Kal could see a building on fire across town, and as she rubbernecked and walked at the same time, she almost tripped over a corpse lying in the street. Everyone else was just passing around it as if it were a just a puddle.

Where is the law?
Kal wondered. Back home, the City Watch would break up any altercation, often before it had even begun (sometimes with more violence than either transgressor intended to mete out upon each other in the first place, but still …) Here, though, Kal had not seen anyone in any kind of official uniform since she had stepped off the boat.

When she made it to the top of Main Street, she found out why.

Kal stood at the foot of the driveway that led up to the governor’s mansion. The gardens on either side were wild and overgrown, and the massive three-storey brick building had been given a slap-dash coating of red paint, which was already flaking off, revealing patches of the original white underneath. A sign hung from a metal post where Kal stood, but instead of displaying the name and title of the Republic’s representative here in the Auspice Islands, the sign showed a crude representation of a thick male member. Scrawled along its length were the words:
The Blue Mahoe
.

No wonder Lula and Bosun had laughed when Dogwood declared he would be staying at the governor’s mansion.

The mansion was now the biggest den of iniquity in Port Black.

* * *

Kal stepped through the front doors into an enormous entrance lobby. Pink stucco walls and white balconies and stair rails provided a clean, cool backdrop to a riot of potted palms, gilded furniture and brightly-coloured chaise longues. A thousand candles made a crystal chandelier glow almost brighter than the sun, and in this artificial daylight smooth, perfumed courtiers mingled with hairy, filthy sailors.

Jako went by with two women on each arm. One was young and plump, the other skinny and in her sixties. ‘Kal!’ the navigator exclaimed. ‘I appear to have my hands full here. Care to help out?’

‘Not tonight, Jako,’ Kal said. ‘So … the governor runs a brothel now?’

Jako shook his head. ‘The governor was run out of here last summer. He’s holed up in the fort on the edge of town with what’s left of his garrison. No one’s seen him since.’

A year?
Kal was surprised. Someone had obviously kept word from reaching Amaranthium on the other side of the world. It had only been the discrepancies in the governor’s accounts that had alerted Ben of trouble brewing here.

‘So … who’s running the town now?’ Kal asked.

The girls either side of Jako simultaneously made the sign for warding off evil: raising their index and little fingers in the shape of
the Dragon’s
horns. Jako looked irritated. ‘We don’t talk about
him
while we’re having fun, Kal. Or indeed at any other time, if we can help it. You don’t want to draw
his
attention. Just enjoy yourself while we’re here. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Lula says we’re going on a zombie hunt.’

And with that, he took his girls upstairs.

Kal followed him up at a respectful distance, trying to blank out the shouts and squeals coming from all around her. She was dog-tired, and craved the kind of comfort that only Lula’s bed and glass pipe could provide. Kal was so absorbed in her thoughts that she almost didn’t notice the couple sitting together on the first floor landing.

‘Hey, man,’ Che said, wafting away the smoke from a giant reefer. He was with a pretty girl with ringlets in her hair. She couldn’t have been much older than sixteen.

‘Che,’ Kal said. ‘You made it here, then. I bet Port Black has changed a bit since you last saw it.’

‘Mos def,’ Che agreed. ‘I never knew Rose that time. She new here, and lucky me is her first ever customer.’

‘And also my last!’ the girl said, gazing up adoringly at the albino. ‘I’m quitting this place tomorrow. I didn’t expect a man to be so … gentle and caring. It was incredible.’

Kal smiled. ‘Depends on what you like, I guess,’ she said, painfully aware of Bosun’s screams floating down from the rooms above. She bid farewell to the new lovers, after declining a toke on Che’s ‘herb’, and headed up to the top floor of the east wing. She knocked on Lula’s door, having got the room number from one of the
Swordfish’s
crew she passed in the corridor.

This time Lula didn’t come to the door. ‘Get some sleep, Kal,’ she called. ‘Your room’s next door. I’ll see you in the morning.’

Kal didn’t know what to do. She remained outside the door for a moment, refusing to leave. ‘I want you,’ she said in a low voice, more to herself really, but Lula must have heard because the door finally opened. Lula’s dressing gown was done tightly up.

‘Kal,’ Lula said, in a soft voice. ‘We don’t have a
thing
, me and you. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I’m not saying we won’t hook up again in future, but I’m not looking to get tied down right now, you know?’

‘Oh,’ Kal said. ‘But I thought …’

Lula flashed her an unreadable smile. ‘I still love you, Kal. So let’s not complicate things, okay?’

Kal stumbled into her own room and fell onto the bed. It was too hot to sleep, so she lay awake all night stewing over things in her head. Why hadn’t Lula or any of the rest of crew told her that the governor was no longer in control? Were they trying to protect this mysterious person Jako had alluded to? Did they think Kal would blab to Dogwood? Kal figured she still had quite a way to go to gain the confidence of the crew.

And what about Lula herself? Did she know that Kal had followed her earlier? Or could Kal attribute tonight’s snub to the mercurial Lula that she already knew so well? Most likely the latter, she thought.
What did I expect when I got involved with her? What did I expect when I got involved in any of this? Trouble!

After an hour of fitful tossing and turning, Kal got up and went back downstairs.
If I can’t get some rest, I may as well go and find some fun!

* * *

The morning sun was so bright, Kal felt like her eyelids were being attacked. She had forgotten to angle the shutters in the window the night before, and now bars of sunshine were raking the bed. Kal had a rule, though: once she was out of bed, she had to resist the temptation to get back in it; so once she had adjusted the window, she fell to her morning exercise routine.

Twenty minutes later, she was glowing with a coating of sweat. She let it dry on her skin: no one else in her company seemed to bother washing very often, so why should she go to any trouble. She didn’t want bad breath too, though, so she unpacked her tooth cloth and pot of tooth powder—a delightful mixture of chalk and peppermint—and scrubbed her mouth out.

Lula entered the room as Kal was strapping on her arm bracers. ‘Zombies don’t carry weapons, Kal,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to be
that
careful.’

‘What about their teeth?’ Kal said. ‘Do they bite?’

Lula shook her head. ‘No. If they do get violent, they tend to try and grab you around the neck and throttle you.’

Kal went to her chest and took out one more piece of equipment: a wide leather choker with spiked studs fitted all around. She fastened it around her neck. She also had a long knife at each hip, and a strap over her shoulder, from which her butchers’ cleaver hung down between her shoulder blades. ‘I think I’m ready,’ she said.

Lula grinned with delight. All of last night’s awkward encounter was seemingly forgotten—not that Kal would have expected anything less from her friend. Kal smiled back and the tension was completely broken, but she still felt a twinge of regret looking at Lula, who was dressed in black trousers, a black silk shirt, and a black hat with a purple ribbon in it. She looked amazing. Kal was wearing a simple linen shirt that had once been a deep navy, but was now a faded blue. She promised herself that she would go shopping for something more exciting as soon as they returned from the jungle.

Jako was waiting for them at the front door. His outfit consisted of a leather thong and sandals, and there was more leather in the sandals than in the thong. He had
two
full-length scimitars at his belt. ‘I’m ambidextrous,’ he explained when he caught Kal’s look.
And evidently strong enough to wield two swords at once, as well
, Kal thought. Jako would be a powerful ally in a fight … or a dangerous enemy.

Jako had brought along a bag of fresh fruit for breakfast. He tossed Kal a banana, and then the three of them stepped out into the day, a vivid world of white and blue: whitewashed buildings, white sand, and blue sky and sea. Port Black in the day was a complete contrast to Port Black at night, not least because it was silent.

‘Where is everybody?’ Kal said. ‘It’s not that early!’

‘Asleep,’ Jako said. ‘Nobody gets up before noon here.’

Kal didn’t buy it. In Amaranthium she was usually woken by the smell of baking bread, and the sound of the market below her window. ‘Nobody? What about market traders and fishing boat crews? No town ever just stops dead.’

‘There’s next to no local economy any more,’ Lula explained. ‘Everyone here is either a captain or a merchant, or employed by a captain or a merchant, or in the business of feeding, watering and
entertaining
people employed by captains and merchants. This town was built on the profits of trade and piracy—on the buying and selling of exotic and illegal goods.’

Kal caught sight of the fort: a round, squat turret bristling with cannon, that rose from the water a hundred yards out to sea. ‘And the governor runs the whole show on behalf of the Republic,’ she said, as if simply remarking on the obvious.

‘Not any more,’ Lula said. ‘The Republic is half a world away. It was bad enough when we had to send ten percent of our profits back, but when your friend Senator Godsword and his cronies demanded twenty, we rose up and ran the governor out of town.’

Lula laughed. ‘I say
we
, but I’m just a lowly sailor. The richest captains control the trade now, and protect their profits with so many mercenaries and bodyguards you could almost call them private armies. There’s no law or justice in Port Black any more, just the law of supply and demand. Whoever has the most money, the biggest ship and the heaviest cannon calls the shots here.’

Him!
Kal remembered Jako’s wenches warding against evil last night. ‘And who might that be?’ she asked, as casually as she could manage.

Jako looked around nervously as they walked. The street was empty save for a man sheltering under a wide-brimmed hat, driving a horse-drawn wagon laden with ale barrels. ‘
The Magician
,’ Jako whispered.

Lula waved her hand. ‘Don’t listen to this frightened fool, Kal,’ she said. ‘The Magician may be a strange one, but he’s the most generous businessman in Port Black. Everyone who works for him or trades with him is generously and fairly paid. He believes in sharing out profits and spoils equally, and he demands that everyone else in town follows his example. Me and the rest of the
Swordfish
crew have done well for ourselves smuggling for him.
And
he keeps the zombies out of Port Black …’

They had reached the palisade at the edge of town. The row of twenty-foot sharpened stakes was enough to keep out all but the most determined mortal enemies. But strung along a rope above the sharpened spikes was one extra row of defences—a collection of wards and talismans: silver trinkets, wooden effigies, feathers, posies of dried flowers … and tarot cards.

* * *

The jungle outside Port Black was a riot of bamboo, ferns and rosewood. What paths there once were had long overgrown since the zombie infestation, and Kal, Lula and Jako had to use their weapons to hack their way through the foliage. It was hot, thirsty work, and they stopped to gulp down water from the first stream they came across. Before she drank, though, Kal cupped the water in her palms, and carried it to a spot where a shaft of sunlight broke through the canopy. She held the water under the light and peered into it

‘The water’s clean,’ Jako said. ‘I’ve drunk contaminated water many times before, anyway. Its didn’t turn me into a zombie; it just gave me the shits.’