The ship was enormous. A warship named the War Lion, she was loading with a full battalion of Regulars and Hussars, all headed home for reassignment in Ehrenberg at the Emperor’s pleasure. Or at the Warlord’s discretion. Her sails were being raised–thousands of yards of white canvas while the tugs waited patiently to pull her out from the dock into the harbor current that allowed her to swivel and aim her bows towards the sea.
They were still frantically loading her and the wharves were awash with bustling bodies. I nearly staggered as I dismounted the coach; only the witch’s hand kept me from falling. I shuffled between the guards following his black coat up the gangplank. To my surprise and embarrassment, everything stopped and all eyes were on me. If I could’ve turned into a snail and crawled into my shell, I would have done so. Activity resumed the moment as I was out of sight and on deck.
We stood some 40 feet above the wharf and were met by the ship’s captain. No words were spoken, he merely nodded and led us below to a small state room pleasantly furnished. I thought to myself ‘this won’t be so bad’.
Until he flung open a heavily barred door to expose a room twice as large as a coffin, lined with metal plates. No windows, no cot, nothing but blank walls and floor. Even the ceiling hadn’t spaces to pry at, it almost looked like a bank vault.
“Get in,” Blackfin said flatly and I knew that this was my last chance at anything. I gathered myself in what I knew was a futile effort but I had to try. Before I had taken two steps, he stabbed me in the chest with a fingernail.
Instantly, I collapsed boneless. Unable to move or to speak. I lay there while he pointed and the captain pushed, rolled and kicked me into the cell. He slammed the door on me and I lay in darkness.
I could feel the difference once the ship left the dock and entered the mouth of the harbor. The swells were larger, longer and made the floor under me rise and fall. It triggered my motion sickness and I vomited until all that came up was blood.
I didn’t see anyone or anything, he left me to rot in the hole for the first day. It took that long for whatever he had done to me to wear off and for me to be able to move again.
I blinked in the sudden brightening of light as the door opened and Blackfin stood in the doorway dressed in a beautiful gown of red silk embroidered with gold and white threads. His hair was down and he looked so beautiful that it made my skin crawl.
“Are you hungry yet, Tobias?” He smiled sweetly and tried to help me to my feet. I pushed his hand away and struggled up on my own to stand weak kneed and disoriented in the cabin. His bed was turned down, the fire was burning cheerily and the table was set with food and tea. “I’d ask you to join me but I’m sure you won’t be able to partake.” He gestured and the chains came off my feet but remained on my wrists. I held them up.
“What? You think I’m going to brain you, overpower the entire crew, commandeer the ship and sail home?” I asked sardonically.
“No, Toby. I think you would either knock me out, hide somewhere in the cargo hold until we docked or worse, throw yourself overboard because you believe your life isn’t worth living,” he returned and I gaped at him, amazed that he could see into my thoughts. “Oh, you foolish boy,” he laughed. “I can’t read your mind–just your face. It’s as clear as a mirror. You wear your heart on your sleeve. Who is she?”
“She who?” I asked stupidly, clenching my fists.
“The girl with you. She was no ordinary woman, she managed to elude King’s Rangers and Hussars.”
“Just a girl,” I returned, my heart speeding up but glad to know that she had escaped.
“She wasn’t with you when you checked in at the Constable’s in Brookglen. You picked her up right before you found the last three horses.”
“How do you know this? Did you have a spy with the men I was tracking?” I demanded.
He sneered. “Do you think you are on your own, Tobias? That the Lemieux brothers just happened upon your farm and your horses? Everything you did was engineered by me and by your grandfather. Even the dust adder hidden in the wall. Although, I am surprised that you managed not to be bitten. I know your fear of snakes.”
“I was bitten,” I told him quietly. He did not believe me.
“If you had been bitten, you would be dead,” he said scornfully. I didn’t explain but let him think me a liar. He told me to exit the little room and I stumbled over to the stool near the fireplace even as he pointed to the bed.
“I won’t sleep with you,” I told him flatly. “Not even if you threaten me with death or starvation.”
“I could drug or witch you, Toby and you wouldn’t know I’d done it,” he said. “Of course, you would be lacking in the fear that I desire. I enjoy it so much more when my victim is terrified. Do you play quoits or chess?”
“Not with you.”
“Then the next six weeks on board will be extremely dull for you, Tobias. Go back to the cell.” I stood up wearily and retraced my steps into the dark, tiny room. For the first few hours, I paced the room which was to say I took one step and turned around as it was barely large enough inside for me to lie down.
I explored the walls with my hands, searching for a seam, a crack, or a rivet. Anything I could distract my mind by attempting to work a piece loose and fooling myself into thinking I was making an escape attempt. I failed, the inside of the vault was a seamless cube of metal except for the door; almost as if they had constructed this coffin-size box, laid it on its back and poured molten copper inside. I was puzzled, copper was a relatively soft metal and my cuffs were silver. At the very least, I should have been able to scratch the surface.
Yet there was a curious effect on the wall. When my wrist restraints struck its surface, sparks of blue fire shot off providing me with a few seconds of light. In that light, I could see images upon the glass-like surface, almost as if I was watching through a picture window. It showed me Arianell running through the forest with my horses for that few precious seconds.
Frantic, I struck again and now, I saw her mounted on Diomed, watching a group of Rangers and uniformed soldiers racing towards the city in the distance. From that fleeting glimpse, it was hard to recognize anyone yet I could see a horse carrying double with an unconscious figure in dark green. Me.
I played with this new discovery for days and it showed me Arianell’s actions in tiny slices of moments so I was able to piece together what she had done and how long it had been.
She followed the Rangers all the way into the city, found where they had taken me and left the horses at a farm outside the city limits taking only Diomed with her.
She paid for herself and the stud onto the very ship I was on, as a passenger and no one made any connection between her and myself. When I saw her on board the ship, I realized why. My captor was a man living as a woman, Arianell was a woman masquerading as a man. Gone was her long dark hair, it was cut short, a dark blonde in a small queue and her eyes which had been deep violet were a pale blue so piercing that most men could not meet them. I understood the term ‘glacial eyes’.
In this fashion, I kept my sanity. I was able to replay each moment of the last sennight in bits and pieces like skimming the pages of a book. So the days passed.
I lost track of time and only knew some time had passed when my stomach began growling and that same strange feeling in my body began. Weakness, thirst, ravening hunger that consumed me. I tried to chew on my clothing yet the sensations became so intense that it dominated my every thought. Only the knowledge that that I would have to cede to the sorcerer kept me from calling out to Blackfin.
By the second day of it, I was mad, I think. I tried to bite my own wrists but the taste of my flesh made me sick and there was no blood in my veins. Just a thick, powdery dust that drifted in the light from the cuff striking the wall.
I’d heard the expression ‘even my hair hurt’ and it was true. I could feel each individual hair stand up on my body, each tooth and nail was sensitive to the point that a light touch of clothing against them made me scream. It echoed in the tiny room and made me think it was also soundproofed because no one came to investigate the noise.
I beat on the walls, the door until my hands were raw but not bloody. I couldn’t even satisfy my hunger with my own blood. Eventually, I grew too weak to do anything but lie on the floor, curl up and moan. I was grateful, I knew that the next step would be coma and then, death. I would be released and would not have to cave in to my bloodlust or the wizard’s demands.
How pitiful and stupid I was. He opened the door and handed me a cup. I could smell the blood before it neared me, saw past him a young boy lying naked on his bed. Pale, with an oozing wound in his neck yet I saw his eyes blink and his arm move languidly down to scratch his balls. The smell of sex was heavy in the air and made me gag.
“Drink.”
“No,” I whispered feebly.
“Drink or I’ll gut him here in front of your eyes. He is still alive but his life is in your hands. He is no more to me than the hole I stick my cock into, a blood bank I can draw upon. What is he to you?”
“A stranger–,” I trailed off. A stranger, yes but a young lad only a few years older than I, his life threatened because of me.
“I can bleed him three times before he dies,” he said. “That will feed you for a month. Or, I can drain his blood and keep you till the end of the trip. Or, I can rip out his guts so he dies in agony, and throw his body over the rail to the sea creatures.”
“Does it matter? All three ways leave him murdered.” I watched the cup, desperately wanting to snatch and drink but forced myself to look away.
“How he dies matters to you. The first way he dies slowly, without pain or fear in ecstasy. The second, he will know why and how, that is why such powerful blood feeds you longer. The third, he dies in agony and you will bear the curse and pain of it as well as knowing you let his blood go to waste. You will suffer such hunger that you might well go mad.”
“No.”
He cursed, threw the goblet on the floor where I watched it seep into the cracks between the planks atop the wood and crawl slowly towards my doorway. I was forced to watch him torture the boy in ways my soul would never forget. I begged him to end it cleanly and quickly. His answer was to hold the cup to my eyes. Mine was to spit although my saliva had become too dry to conjure up.
His cabin reeked of blood and guts, the stench of torn intestines and offal. I wondered how such screams and scent had not brought the entire ship down on him yet he seemed unconcerned. When he was through with the boy’s corpse, he threw it across the room where it landed against my back wall, and a hidden giant hand shoved me inside as the door slammed shut behind us.
I was left alone with the boy’s corpse. To my utter horror, I licked what blood was left off his torn skin and even sucked out his heart. In despair, I threw the flattened organ away from me, huddled against the door and cried heavy tears that burned my cheeks as they fell slowly. When one drop reached my lips, my tongue flicked out involuntarily and tasted. Blood. It was blood. I was crying tears of salty blood. My stomach twisted. Not in nausea but in hunger.