By the second hour of sailing, the Flazeans remaining on the ship tried to burn it themselves. I could hear them planning it, and then executing it, and I was grieved.
If they burned the ships, I would never reach First Deathsinger Zasha and her ilk and my revenge would be thwarted.
The Flazeans deserved vengeance upon the Brinn; they wholeheartedly did. By what right was my vengeance more worthy than theirs?
I could not say.
In the end, I had to conclude that I was the only champion of the Datrean people left, and their vengeance needed to be my priority.
More than that, Yethyr and his men were going to suffer later. I intended to make sure of it. There was no reason to destroy such magnificent works of craftsmanship in order to make them suffer early.
I tipped Yethyr off; I made him smell the smoke just a few minutes before he naturally would.
I squirmed with guilt when he put all the Flazean saboteurs to death.
Of course, with no Flazeans, the ships had no experts to guide them. The thralls rowed and tended the sails, and they were keeping speed even against the current of the river, but they struggled with turning or controlling their speed.
By midnight, they had more or less crashed on the beach. They decided to camp there. With the loss of one-third of their supplies, the Brinn were eager to hunt while they could.
They were not confident in the Flazean fishing lessons.
Yethyr, most of his guards, and Nisari stayed behind to watch the river and sound the alarm if the attackers were seen further downriver as Vezemar, Kvelir, Tular, Dathari, Dethur, Kettir and Hegrir set out among the nearby pines, looking for prey.
They were not particularly successful. If I concentrated hard enough and tuned out Yethyr’s discussion with Mandorias about maps, I could hear their grumblings even that deep in the woods.
“This is a hunt beset by misfortune,” Dethur was saying.
“Are we talking about tonight’s or the whole thing?” his sister asked.
“The whole thing reeks of doom,” Hegrir cut in.
“Doom is a strong word,” Tular argued.
“Perhaps,” Kvelir said, “but misfortune is inevitable in a hunt led by a weak hand,”
“Weak!” Vezemar hissed. “Are you fools?”
The party fell into awkward silence. They had forgotten that the Prince’s oldest guard was among them.
“Do you not know your own prince?”
“We know he never passed the Hunt Trials,” Tular said quietly. “All know this.”
“Hunt Trials? Bah! Small meaningless quarry. What does that matter when you are dueling a demon?
“That is a charitable way to describe possession.”
“Possession implies spoils seized after victory, and yet, he stands tall under his own will. Does that look like a demon victory to you?” A hushed awe fell over Vezemar’s voice. “Spryne himself is in his bones. Every step he takes, every moment he breathes is in defiance of a Highlord of Hell. I remember when it began. I was there when the Dreaded Wyrm first burrowed into him and rebuked all attempts at exorcism. The Prince was a child then. Easy prey, I am sure the demon thought and yet, in all these years, he has never broken, never submitted. Over a decade since and Spryne has never conquered him.”
“Be that as it may, that doesn't make him a Hunter of Heaven,” Dath said. “The Trial would lose meaning if we just ignored it.”
Vezemar laughed. “So is the Lady Jaetheiri not a Hunter of Heaven then?”
Dath swallowed her words.
“There are other ways to prove yourself to the angel. The Oredeirium exists after all. Proof the Hunt Trial is not the only test Maethe can issue. A divine challenge can take many forms and many far harder than we can possibly know. Your precious trial is a single day’s labor. Heaven has seen fit to bless the Prince with a test of endurance.”
Vezemar must have sneered; I could hear it in his voice.
“How long do you think you could endure a constant assault on your body's autonomy? A decade? A year? A single day?”
Kvelir scoffed. “I could survive a day.”
“Perhaps. Even if you could keep Spryne from controlling you, do you really think you could so much as stand while he was eating you? Could you conquer a city? Could you lead a hunt such as this? Could you?”
The hunters were silent.
“I thought not. When you have been tasked with such a divine burden, then you may call the Prince weak.”
My steel shuddered. If this was so, dominating him was going to be difficult. Why did Yethyr have to be the one person in the world with a decade of training to resist me?
But if Spryne was constantly trying to dominate his body, why had I sensed nothing? Besides in Yethyr’s dreams, I had never felt Spryne trying to exercise his will. Not once. Had Vezemar been exaggerating or was the demon conserving his strength for a more focused attack or…
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Or was my presence affecting his ability to exert control while Yethyr was awake?
If that was true, I had much more power than I thought. A lot more power.
Power I could leverage.
The party returned with a few rabbits, glum, subdued, and clearly chided. Oblivious, Yethyr called a meeting to discuss how they did not know how to command a ship.
Perhaps inspired by Vezemar’s fervor, Kvelir offered to help.
“My mother was of Azza, the Southern port by the Sea. I was actually born on a boat. My mother taught me a bit.”
So Kvelir officially took command of The Wily Seal.
They rested. Jaetheiri dreamed of bloody handprints on ornate doors. Tular and Dath spoke by themselves on each other’s watch with her brother none the wiser.
Come morning, they successfully got the ship into the water and continued on as fast as they could. Constantly, everyone looked over their shoulders back down the river. Were the attacking Brinn going to chase them? Did they take the remaining Flavean boats to give chase? Could they keep up without the boats?
No one could say, but they sailed through the night, day after day, using up their supplies just in case.
Yethyr distracted himself as best he could by teaching Wes the principles of Brinn necromantic notation. He picked it up fast, as one could expect from a disciple of Daened, but Wes himself was not encouraged.
“I can see how this would work for deathsong, but there is no guarantee that this would work for steelsong.”
“I see no reason why you shouldn’t try.”
“I will need metal then. You said one of the principles of this technique is that it must be written or carved on the surface of something that can sing the music. For deathsong, that is bone and hide.”
“And blood. You can write on any surface if the ink can sing. That’s how I made the Death Circle. Black blood of a Cozzat Wyvern.”
That was good to know. I had mistaken it for black chalk when I had seen it.
Wes winced, he did not like to be reminded of the Death Circle so he moved on.
“For steelsong, my writing surface or ‘ink’ would have to be metal. Any would do.”
“Didn’t you bring some from your forge?”
“Of course, but I would not dare use such precious materials for practice.”
The Brinn did not have much metal on them, but Yethyr was able to scrape together a few Datrean gold coins, the copper wire Jaetheiri had found in Arsari’s pack, and a few iron nails. Wes sat in a desolate corner of the ship and spent days tinkering with whatever scraps could be found.
He sang as he worked, even though he knew the metal could not hear him.
It was the Datrean way and he would not abandon it. He hummed steelsong melodies in the frequency of death he was now restricted to. Only Yethyr and I could hear it, a sailing song for only us. Sometimes, Wes added lyrics when he thought Yethyr was out of earshot.
“In my palm sits a coin I know well,
The same I tossed in the singing well.
The same I laid over my mother’s eyes.
In the shade of the necropolis.
Now I rub my thumb over an etched palace,
Mother of necessary lies.
I flip the coin and there is the mountain tall
Shade still ever following my fall,
Father of underground skies.
I deface it with the markings of the enemy.
A little treason in a river of treachery.
Why does a betrayal so small,
Taste the most bitter of them all?
Wes underestimated how sharp Yethyr’s ears were for deathsong. No matter where he stood on the ship, the Prince could hear his song.
He could have ordered him to stop. He was supposed to. It was heresy upon his faith to act as angels do and sing so freely.
And yet, so haunting and beautiful was my maker’s voice, Yethyr never could bring himself to silence him.
Even at night. Wes did not need to sleep and his voice became a constant companion of Yethyr’s dreams. I imagined they were more pleasant than what actually accompanied his dreams.
On the third night, the Prince finally cried out. After seeing him endure his constant physical pain without a whimper, it was a disturbing, terrible sound.
His guards reacted to it immediately, even Jaetheiri, who was awoken by it so quickly, that her dream of bloody crowns still clouded her mind. They all burst into Yethyr’s room as if ready for war.
I was blind. I had no idea what they saw as they watched the Prince’s sleeping form, but eventually, they seemed to calm and return to their posts, which in Jaetheiri’s case, was bed.
The next morning, she was tired and grim. “There was a false alarm last night.”
“From me?”
“Yes.”
Yethyr was distinctly uncomfortable. “What of it?”
“The Flazeans killed one of your guards in the street, my prince. With Grethyr dead, we are vulnerable.”
From what?
Yethyr knew; he did not question her alarm. “Well, I’m not sure what you want to do about it. It’s not like we’re drowning in volunteers out here.”
“Someone has already volunteered.”
That surprised Yethyr. Such was his disbelief that he had Jaetheiri call Kettir before him. They met in his captain’s quarters, away from the gossiping thralls and judging hunters’ eyes.
“You wish to be my huntguard?”
Kettir fell to his knees. “If it would please you.”
“Why? There is not much glory to be found in the position.”
“You are the Prince. There could be no higher renown.”
Yethyr was flattered. “Do you commit your hunts to me?”
Kettir’s blue eyes were bright. “As if you were my Tezem.”
“For how long?”
“Until Maethe deems that my service to you is done.”
“Show me.”
Kettir unsheathed his warfang and offered it to the Prince.
Yethyr hesitated. Usually, he wasn’t strong enough to do this part of the ritual. Jaetheiri took a step forward to do it for him.
“No,” he raised his hand. “I’ll do it.”
He had me now.
He took Kettir’s hilt and drew on me to hold it up. I was tempted to fail him, but beyond being hilarious and embarrassing him, it was hardly worth it.
I needed him to need me.
I gave him the strength to hold Kettir’s own warfang to his throat and very ritualistically tilt his chin up to meet his eyes.
Kettir looked serene and composed. With his own edge held against his clean-shaven face, I was suddenly struck by how soft and young he was.
“With the Conquering Fang as my witness, I accept your assistance,” Yethyr said.
“With Maethe as my witness, I swear to defend you from all but her fury.”
“Maethe?” Yethyr tilted his head. “What fang do you feed?”
“My family commit ourselves to Maethe herself. I am willing however to invoke the Conquering Fang when hunting for you.”
“That satisfies me.”
Kettir lowered his lashes. “May the Conquering Fang be satisfied by my meager offerings.”
“He will. We sail to conquer the last of great and terrible Datrea. He could only be pleased.” Yethyr lowered the warfang to Kettir’s heart and then lower still to his right hand, resting on his knee. He raised it back to his heart and then even lower to his left hand pressed into the floor. It was an old ritual, loaded with meaning I did not know.
Yethyr returned Kettir his warfang and smiled. “Let us please him together.”
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