Only the Destined

“Magic!” the captain said, taking a step back.

Royce reached for the crystal sword and staggered. Too late, he realized just how shaky and uncertain he felt on his feet. The flask! There had been something in the flask! Mark was already half-slumped against the railings.

“We’ll take you to your friends,” the captain said, “and maybe we’ll find a way to get you to talk if we hurt them enough. The king will pay handsomely for you, but them… we can cut them as much as we need to.”

He clapped his hands, and a couple of sailors came forward, grabbing Mark and Royce, dragging them back toward the stern of the ship.

“Why do this?” Royce demanded, the words seeming to come through a fog as thick as the one around the approaching Seven Isles.

“Why do anything?” the captain said with a shrug. “Money! I could take you all the way to the Seven Isles, risking my ship on the rocks there, or I could take your money and then make whatever the reward is as well for bringing you to King Carris.”

“Help me, and I’ll find a way to reward you just as well,” Royce managed. It was desperate sounding even to his ears.

The captain laughed. “With what? You’ve no coin. Or are you planning to be king yourself? There’s no profit in starting a war, boy. I do comfortably enough as it is, taking a few people where they need to go, selling a few where there’s coin for them, robbing the odd ship that’s out alone. I do very nicely with things as they are.”

Royce wanted to strike out at the man, but sailors had him by the wrists now, and the lethargy spreading through him made it hard to fight back against them.

“Oh, you want to fight?” the captain asked. “Trust me, after the effort you’ve put me to, I wouldn’t. All this way… I only took you this far because I thought there was a chance of delivering the old king as well as you. I’m not breaking my ship on those rocks, though.”

A thought came to Royce; a desperate, dangerous thought.

“You’ll never find my father unless you’re willing to go there,” he said.

“So you’ll tell us where he is?” the captain asked.

“I…” Royce pretended broken exhaustion. “I can show you.”

The captain rubbed his hands together, nodding to the sailors with him. He led the way to the ship’s bridge, where Matilde, Neave, and Bolis were all tied while a sailor worked the wheel. The sailors threw Mark down beside them, while Gwylim padded along in their wake.

The captain took out a knife, heading across to Mark. “So, your friend is going to tell us where to find the old king, and if he gives us any trouble, I’m going to cut pieces off you until he does.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Royce said. The knife so close to Mark made this more dangerous, but there was no other option. “I’ll guide you.”

He gazed through Ember’s eyes, looking down on the rocks and the wrecks close to the first of the islands. Using her sight, he started to call out instructions.

“Left a little,” he said.

“You think you get to tell us where to go?” the captain demanded.

“Do you want me to guide you to my father or not?” Royce asked. He still felt so weak. If he had his strength, he would simply cut through the ship’s crew and save his friends. As it was… as it was, this was desperate. “If you don’t believe me, keep an eye on the bird. Ember is leading us.”

The captain looked up, and Royce looked over to Gwylim, wondering just how much the wolf-like creature understood. He looked over to the captain pointedly, hoping it was enough. He kept looking through Ember’s eyes, letting the ship get closer to land and waiting for his chance…

“Now!” Royce called out, and the bhargir leapt, striking the captain in the chest even as Royce grabbed the wheel and wrenched it around toward a set of rocks.

The ship lurched, and even as it did so, Royce was already lunging toward his friends. Drugged as he was, it felt as though he were moving in slow motion, sounds and sights distorted as he heard the noise of a vicious fight coming to him from just a little way away. He couldn’t hope to join that fight, as unsteady as he was, but he could try to free his friends. He drew the crystal sword, leaning down to cut at the ropes holding Matilde’s hands.

“Thanks,” she said as she rubbed her wrists. “I’ll… behind you!”

Royce spun and thrust his blade into the chest of a sailor who was running at him. Even unsteady, barely able to stand, Royce had the strength to drive the crystal sword right through the man. The sailor’s sword cut down, and Royce felt something impact on his armor even as the sailor stood transfixed for a moment, and then collapsed.

Royce continued cutting the others free, and another sailor ran at them. This time, Ember swooped down to claw at his face, holding him still long enough for Bolis to kick him back over the side.

Then the ship hit the rocks with a screech of wood like a forest being uprooted, and the whole deck turned sideways.

Men screamed as they toppled from it, down into the waters below. Royce saw something rise up from that water, long and snakelike, fan-finned and knife-toothed, to meet them. The creature came up out of the water, rising like a tower from it, a man caught in its mouth and screaming as those needle teeth clamped down. Another was wrapped in its coils, and Royce heard the crack of bones as the movement of the great beast crushed him.

Royce had a moment to simply stare at the cruelty of the death, then he slid along the deck toward the edge, toward the sea serpent’s waiting maw.

He grabbed for the railings, barely holding himself in place. Beside him, Mark, Matilde, Bolis, and Neave clung on for their lives, while the ship continued to tear itself apart.

“What exactly was your plan?” Mark asked.

“This is pretty much it,” Royce admitted. Crash the ship and then try to work out what to do next. It had been a move founded on nothing more than hope, and now it had left them on a ship that was slowly tearing in half, its two parts ready to topple them down to the rocks, or worse, drag them into the depths.

“What do we do now?” Neave asked. She had one arm wrapped around the railings, the other around Matilde.

“I think…” Royce said, trying to think through the fog of his thoughts. “I think we need to jump!”

“Jump in that?” Bolis said. “Are you mad?”

“If we stay, we’ll be tangled in the wreckage and dragged down,” Royce said. “We need to get clear, and the only way to do that is jump!”

There was another reason to jump, too. Men were advancing along the deck, and there were too many to fight in his weakened state. In any state. Gwylim was there, blood around his mouth as he growled, but what could even a creature like him do about a situation like this?

There was only one choice left, so Royce made it for his friends. Without hesitating, he pushed Bolis and Mark over the side. Matilde looked as though she might try to stay, but Neave dragged her off the rail. Gwylim stepped up to it, the bhargir growling before it leapt clear.

That just left one thing to do. Royce stood up on the railing, looking down to where the water frothed and swirled below. He put the crystal sword back in its sheath, hoped the armor he’d found in the tower was as light as it felt…

…and leapt.

CHAPTER FOUR

Raymond stood at a crossroads on the edge of the old duke’s territory with his brothers, knowing that he ought to press on, but at the same time not wanting to split away from the others just yet. Soon, he, Lofen, and Garet would have to go off and undertake the things that Royce needed; that all of them needed.

“Nervous?” he asked the others.

“Of course not,” Lofen said, the bravado obvious. Lofen was always ready for a fight, and maybe that would serve him well in going to seek out the Picti, but even so, Raymond found himself thinking that it would have been better if he’d had more than a map and a general idea.

“I’ll do what we need,” Garet said, obviously trying to look as brave as his brothers. Raymond wanted to tell him that he knew Garet was brave—he’d seen how strong the others had been when they’d been trapped down in Altfor’s dungeon. “I’ll get the bannermen for our cause.”

“I’ll find you the ones who will help,” Moira said, her horse next to Garet’s. Raymond wasn’t sure what to think about her presence there. The fact that she was a noble would help in getting the nobles on their side, and she had volunteered to help, but Raymond could already see the way Garet was looking at her, and he just knew that was going to be complicated.

“See that you keep safe,” Raymond said to his youngest brother. He turned his attention to Moira. There was no denying she was beautiful, and he wasn’t going to blame her for having been taken by the nobles, but even so, there was something about the way she’d volunteered for this that made him uneasy. “See that you keep him safe.”

“I’m not a child,” Garet said. “I’m a man, and I’ll do a man’s work of this.”

“Just so long as you get us the people we need,” Raymond said.