Karlo Yeager Rodríguez - [BCS301 S02] Read online

  When she offered it, he opened his mouth and sucked at it, silent but for the occasional hiccup. He brought one hand, then the other, to push the dull and ruddy gem into his mouth. Manni’s smile grew wider, and Estelle was glad to see his color coming back.

  She told him everything. When she finished, knowing what she would do next, she fished out a pebble of godsblood and swallowed it. The child of the sea in her womb grew and kept growing as if to catch up with his sibling.

  Within a month, Estelle gave birth, to another boy.

  Within a year, both boys grew as much as children of seven years, and though one rarely spoke, both Estelle and Manni loved them both as their sea-born children. The boys grew long of limb and healthy, always honoring their parents in the ways good children do, but always with one eye cast towards the sea.

  The darkness was a hand clamped over my mouth and nose, my hoarse screams smothered unheard, just like in the old dreams. No matter how much I thrashed, I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and a slow thump shivered through me, steady as a heartbeat.

  “Stop.” Someone yanked the sack off my head.

  I was aboard a ship. On my right, a porthole let some light in but obscured the other side of the berth. An old sailor, white hair silver in the light, tossed aside the sack he’d pulled off me. Grunting, he sat me up and ran his hands over my body in a series of deft pokes and squeezes, like I was some piece of fruit at market and he wasn’t yet decided on buying.

  He nodded at me, encouraging me to speak. I hesitated, loath to say a thing after being crossed that way. I was aboard a ship, then. The way the deck pitched and rolled felt like it was anchored in deeper waters. The last thing I had seen was the guard, trying to hold back the blood spurting from his neck, and a chill ran through me.

  Was this a Jemmite ship?

  I was far from anyone who could hear my screams whenever the Jemmites started to ask me questions real hard about how much I knew. Not what, but how much. Once I’d told the Jemmites what they wanted to hear, they’d feed me to the fish.

  For all my brother’s talk of destiny, he hadn’t foreseen this.

  “You expecting a ransom?”

  The old sailor narrowed his eyes as if what I’d said was something he couldn’t quite believe, like hearing a dog stop licking its ass long enough to recite scripture.

  “My brother will pay handsomely for my release. You know Ostred?”

  At my brother’s name, the old sailor blinked. The faintest smile flitted across his face before he stepped back into the shadows to crack open the hatch. His silhouette stood out against the slice of moonslit main deck I could see through the opening. He spoke with someone just outside. Conversation ended and he snapped to attention, bringing a fist to his chest. He held the door open while someone else entered, clasping the furred collar of his oiled cloak close as he shut the hatch behind him.

  I allowed myself a smile. It had been a small victory, but seeing how mention of my brother’s name had stirred things up kept my mind from what came next. The visitor sat on the dark side of the berth and took a long breath before he spoke.

  “Welcome back, dear brother.”

  It couldn’t be, but that voice belonged to—

  “Ostred?” I tried to say something else, but words left me. Anger and fear roiled in me, each fighting the other for control, but most embarrassing was the sense of relief. I wouldn’t have to haggle for my life with strangers, at least.

  Who else would it be? His chuckle was the low, wet sound of mud bubbling up around a boot. “Did my first mate Santos welcome you aboard my ship, The Sea’s Promise?”

  “How did you find me, Ostred?”

  “Chinto.” He repeated my childhood nickname under his breath and tsked. “You thought the god couldn’t tug at all the currents of fate to bring you back into my waters?”

  “The god wrote that letter,” I said. “Sent a messenger to die.”

  “Two months past, he sent me an omen.” Ostred said. “I was in Qawaati waters, pulling up anchor and ready to catch the tide when I spied a runaway barge snapped free of its mooring. It floated low, so overladen with slabs of salt ready for the millhouse, it was slowly sinking as the current carried out into open waters.”

  “I’m sure you think that story makes everything clear to me.”

  “To the faithful,” Ostred said, “the god’s will is written across the sky every sunrise. Didn’t you used to believe that, Chinto?”

  “I did, once upon a time.” Even though his face was in shadows, I could feel his gaze on me. “You’re going to tell me the god knew all about the Jemmites, too?”

  I knew what the answer would be, but I needed to hear him say it. Ostred shifted in the dark and leaned forward so his clasped hands emerged from the shadows.

  “‘All blood ever flows back to the sea—'”

  “‘—as we come from it, so we return,'” I cut in, spitting the rest of the funereal prayer. “You made them kill each other.”

  “Blood must answer blood,” he said. “You know this, brother. They’ve had it coming for a long time. After what they did to us, what else should I have I done?”

  “Not that.”

  “Oh, Chinto,” Ostred snapped. “You and your wish to keep your hands clean are what put us both in this, remember? The sea itself trembled in wait for your knife to fall, for the flow of blood that would rouse the god and bring him to save us from our enemies. Blood will be shed, brother. How did you expect this to happen?”

  “You’re a monster,” I wheezed, unable to breathe. I was huddled against the wall of the orphanage, waiting for Ostred all over again. “I should’ve known that when you left.”

  “I meant to come back,” Ostred said, almost to himself.

  “But you never did, Ossie.”

  “I was only a boy, afraid—”

  “And I was younger and smaller than you!” I pushed forward, straining against my bonds until my joints popped. “You know what they did? Every morning, they’d come. Lead me into their baptismal pool. See, Mama and Papa left their stain on me, one the Jemmites had to wash away to save me, they said. Then they would push me under, again and again.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “They almost killed me!”

  “What do you think they did to me?” Ostred roared.

  He loomed over me, panting. His face, now visible in the moonslight, sagged as his anger drained away. “Why do you think I left in the first place? And if they’d caught me when I came back? I’d have been just another accident at the orphanage. So tragic when they’re so young, everyone would say and not think about it. I signed onto the first ship I could find. I meant to come back, but—” Ostred gave the slightest shrug, eyes distant. “I was afraid and told myself I wasn’t destined to survive like you were, brother.”

  “Destined?” I scoffed. “Is that supposed to console me?”

  “Ever since they found you, out on the waves, Mama and Papa treated you like the god’s gift to them.” Ostred looked out the porthole. “I was their child, but you were ever their seaward star.”

  “What?” I gave Ostred a searching look. If Mama and Papa had ever loved me better, it was the same way Jemmite priests adored their unspeaking marble idols. “I know they always crowned me as Opener of the Way before we’d run around and jump from deck to deck playing, but that was back when Mama and Papa could still dandle you on their knees.”

  Ostred grimaced, looking like he wanted to say something more.

  The hatch opened, interrupting whatever else my brother was about to say. His first mate poked his head in and saluted, waiting for leave to speak.

  “What?” Ostred shifted back into the shadows.

  “Beg pardon, captain. Lookout’s sighted ships approaching.”

  “How many?”

  “Three, flying Jemmite colors.” He glanced at me, and plain on his face was a different question than Heave up?

  Ostred nodded, waiting for Santos to bark his commands and f
or the crew to echo them in acknowledgement. The ship came alive as they pulled up anchor. Ostred stood and brushed past Santos. “Bring him with us.”

  The two crewmen Santos commanded had their orders, and regardless of my struggles, they pried me out of the berth like a conch from its shell. Then, they frog-marched me to where Ostred and Santos waited for me at the bow.

  The Sea’s Promise was turning towards open waters wine-dark in the moonslight. To stern, the lights of Bloodport twinkled like stars. The faint shouts of the crew told me where to look for our pursuer’s square sails.

  “You’ll want to keep still,” my brother said.

  Santos gripped one of my arms and drew his blade, an ugly length of black iron with one gleaming edge. He pressed it into the meat of my forearm and blood flowed, dripping on the deck.

  “Father,” Ostred intoned, bowing his head. “Deliver us from those who would spill our blood. It is by rights yours. Bring us into your grace, into the light of your regard. Call us to your side the way the shore calls to the tide, the way blood calls to blood.”

  Santos flicked his blade, sending droplets of my blood flying in a wide arc to patter into the waters of the Wound.

  “So the Fallen may rise,” he and Ostred said in unison.

  The sea churned under the ship, and the crew shouted their warnings as a wave crested to stern. Timbers creaking, the ship yawed as its prow cut through the slope of water. We surged ahead, as if The Sea’s Promise was no more than a plaything being pulled on a string, and left our pursuers behind.

  It was a time of wonders, for in the shadow of Mount Ajh the boys with separate fathers grew long of limb and strong. Their shoreward father Manni loved and raised them with his wife Estelle, and their seaward father revealed to them all how much he favored his sons.

  Remos, the eldest, was fair as a bright day, and his brother Radames was dark and silent as a midnight prayer. Remos loved his brother just as Radames loved him in return, and they both honored their shoreward parents in all the ways good children do.

  The brothers’ inheritance made certain the sea answered their wishes. Holding the smallest pebble of godsblood aloft and whispering to their seaward father was enough to ensure their cast nets never returned empty and their spear-tips always found fish. Estelle dried and salted what she could of what they caught until their larder groaned under the weight of all the food. The remainder she put into her baskets and hoisted onto her shoulders to visit the families who once had called her bloodmonger but now bought fish from her.

  She returned troubled by what she had seen, and that night Radames overheard her speaking to his father about her visits down the shore.

  “So many had nothing, and supped on dust and shadows.” His mother’s sob was the small sound of a heart breaking. “So many of them are just waiting for Old Gaunt to rap his bony knuckles on their doors and lead them under the earth. And they all had the same story—Jemmites breaking down their doors to seize what godsblood I’d long ago given them in trade.”

  Radames whispered what he’d overheard into his brother’s ear, urging him to welcome the starving, the poor, and the wretched to their shore and share their bounty.

  Heeding that advice, the brothers visited their nearest neighbors, bringing fish for them to eat. Word of their generosity spread, and not long afterwards, the brothers woke to find scores of people camped on their beach.

  “The sea brought us all to these shores,” Remos said to those gathered. Many sighed with relief, for his smile was the first ray of sun piercing the storm-wracked skies to shine on the waters ahead. “And in honor to our father, we share in his bounty.”

  So the brothers opened their larder to their neighbors, and no one suffered want that day. Radames stayed in his brother’s shadow, letting Remos speak and sing and laugh along with the group, for Remos was better suited to the task.

  On the second day, the brothers woke to find even more people. Remos once again welcomed them, and they both flung open their larder again, ensuring none among their congregation went hungry.

  On the third day, the brothers awoke to a great many more camped on their shores. However, Radames, while his brother listened to the stories of Jemmite raids on even the farthest shores on the Wound, realized how best he and his brother could help their neighbors. This time, when they flung upon their larder doors, the brothers parceled out their inheritance, one piece of godsblood at a time.

  At that moment, several of the congregation shrugged off their cloaks to reveal the crimson tabards of Jemmite zealots. As one, they drew their swords and, hurling imprecations against those gathered, cut down the faithful nearest them. Some of the congregation cried out in dismay at the enemies in their midst, but others found their anger stoked to fury.

  And now, they held in their fists the means to strike back.

  The brothers joined their people in calling upon their seaward father to deliver them from the swords of their enemies. Even as zealots snatched godsblood from lifeless hands, their blades dripping with gore from their butcher’s work, whitecaps frothed the waters of the Wound.

  Then, the sea answered.

  Crimson waters surged, pushing aside the congregation to engulf the Jemmites in their chilly embrace before ripping them from shore. Currents deep and wild pulled all but one of the invaders far out into the Wound to be claimed by the waters. As the sea receded, Remos and Radames stanched the wounds of those who still drew breath. For the dead, however, the brothers let their blood flow, to be lapped up by the hungry waves.

  The lone Jemmite survivor fled back to Mount Ajh to report to the Grand Heirophant what had happened. For a day and the following night, the brothers and their congregation recovered only to wake to clouds of dust darkening the sky as the Jemmites marched towards the sea. They grew fearful, murmuring amongst themselves that they should scatter to their hiding places and secret coves along the coast. Radames heard them and whispered into his brother’s ear once more. Remos, moved to speak by this brother’s words, stood before their followers.

  “Brothers and sisters, hear me!” Remos’s voice rang out, turning every ear in his audience from the low thunder of the approaching enemy. “Let us be strengthened by our faith in our seaward father. He who is lord over the bitter waters calls upon us to return to him. We are his children, people of the bitter waters, and so to the bitter waters we must return.”

  At this, the brothers turned towards the sea with arms raised, and for the first time the congregation heard Radames speak, and his was the voice of bells sounding in the deeps.

  He called upon his father, and the waters grew still.

  Again, and his father’s name only rippled over the waves.

  Before he called out a third time, Radames knew his father was listening, waiting for him to speak in the language he liked best, and he bowed his head. He shed bitter tears, to be lost in the waves, as he understood what his father asked of him. He turned to his brother, who also understood what was asked of them, and they gazed upon each other’s faces. At last, Remos knelt before his brother, tearing open his shirt to expose his chest. Radames drew his knife and plunged it between his brother’s ribs, calling out for his father a third time.

  At this, the waters peeled back and opened a path through the muck. Radames croaked a command to move ahead and lifted his brother’s body, carrying Remos draped between his arms.

  So, it came to pass that they walked, arm-in-arm, into the welcoming sea ahead of their enemies, and the sea closed the way behind them as they passed beyond the rim of the world and into their seaward father’s embrace.

  Third night of the seabound chase, and dawn was playing coy. With the skies clenching into the threat of storms, I couldn’t fault the sun for wanting to duck back under the world. We had crossed into the untamed deeps of the Wound during the night, and the waters changed from the color of old rust to the wine-dark of the towering swells around us.

  Two of the Jemmite ships had fallen behind, their crews lik
ely mutinied. The last ship continued to give chase. The crew of The Sea’s Promise kept us ahead by catching some winks here and there at their posts, ready to man them again at any moment.

  Now The Sea’s Promise creaked, climbing the face of a swell. The crew went about their tasks, each with one ear cocked for the lookout’s cry. When the alarm was raised at last—square sails, half a league to stern—a collective groan rippled across the main deck as sailors resumed their battle stations.

  When our ship crested, the lookout called down, warning of the lead enemy ship’s turn. “Three masts!”

  “Three masts, aye,” Ostred repeated. “Hard to larboard!”

  Santos repeated the orders and was echoed by the sailors across the main deck and the rigging. He shared a look with my brother, then drew his blade and sliced through the rope binding my arms. Pinpricks flooded through my muscles. Then, he looped the same length of rope around my waist and tied me to the railing.

  Once done, he joined the helmsmen, who were straining against the tiller to turn The Sea’s Promise. The deck tilted as our ship cut across the face of a dark swell. My hands still too numb to hold onto anything, I lost my footing and tumbled across the deck. I would have slid across it, right over the side, if not for Santos’s knot-work.

  By the time the enemy ship crested at broadsides to The Sea’s Promise, we’d moved out of range of all but their best archers, presenting our stern as a smaller target. Even then, the lookout cried out a warning.

  “Volley away!”

  “Volley, aye,” Ostred’s voice rang out. “Shields!”

  Before I could react, Santos slid next to me, holding a round wooden shield over both of our heads. All that to have the enemy’s arrows bite nothing more than water. Santos waited, expecting another volley, before he stood and helped me regain my footing.

  The crew eyed me, their gazes shying away when my eyes met theirs. I turned to Ostred, who took in the situation and answered my question before I’d even put it together.