Page 94

Chapter 2

Tahlia

P artially blocked by Lija’s wings, Tahlia discarded her wet underthings and put her riding leathers and boots back on.

Titus frowned and looked out over the waves. “If his ship is down, where are the others? He couldn’t have been killed that long ago if the reports on land were accurate. I’d have thought his men would have been here, sounding the mourning horns.”

“Mourning horns?” Tahlia asked.

Marius stared toward the open ocean and Tahlia knew he was doing his best not to sneak a peek of her getting dressed. “They blow brass horns the dawn after a fellow Eelsmen’s death, usually within sight of where their man went down.”

Tahlia strapped her weapons belt back on, then wiped a bit of salt from her chin.

“But they can’t possibly do that when their fellow pirate died during a sea battle, right? Because then they’d be all ‘Eh, we are right here, being sad and vulnerable. Why don’t you attack us again while we aren’t ready?’”

Titus inclined his head. “The Eelsmen don’t lose to anyone except kraken.”

“And kraken go deep after a kill, so they’re not a threat immediately after destroying a ship or taking a life,” Maiwenn said.

Tahlia shivered and Lija echoed the movement.

Have you ever encountered one? Tahlia asked the dragon.

Yes.

Tahlia waited for more detail, but Lija just gave her a look that said she didn’t care to reminisce. Maybe she’d get it out of her by the fire after this mission was over.

Marius was pacing. Not a great sign.

“What if it was a random storm?” Ewan looked toward Marius, his dark eyes shining with curiosity. “Like that waterspout, we dealt with two years back.”

Enora blew out a breath, her freckles standing out as her already fair face paled. “That was a nightmare.”

Atticus nodded his horned head and muttered something about water getting into places it should never be.

You’d have no trouble in a waterspout, rider, Lija said.

Why?

We would escape under the waves, down far enough to flee the storm.

I don’t think either of us would want to leave our fellow knights and dragons.

Surviving is the first step to helping others escape.

Tahlia rolled that piece of wisdom around in her head.

“I don’t think it was a storm,” Marius said.

Fara tromped out of the berry-heavy shrubs under the willowface palms. “Could the whole crew have contracted a plague and the Eelsmen sunk the ship to put the men afflicted out of their misery?”

Growling, Marius continued pacing. “There’s not a chance they would give up a ship like that for a mercy killing.”

Tahlia gave Fara a smile. It was great to have her here. Fara had persuaded Marius to let her come on the argument that they should always have a Healer in tow for these pirate escapades.

Back at home, she’d said, “From what I’ve heard, you continually suffer from reduced numbers due to injuries a Healer could fix fairly quickly.”

“But what dragon would take you?” Titus had asked Fara.

“Lija will,” Tahlia had answered, and then the rest of the strategy had smoothed itself out rather easily.

Fara couldn’t go underwater with Tahlia and Lija though. She wasn’t bonded to the dragon and didn’t have access to the power that permitted the use of runestones or the strength and seaworthiness, for lack of a better term, that had developed in Tahlia over the last weeks. Lija and Tahlia had practiced their abilities in the bodies of water near Dragon Tail Peak, hardly taking the time to eat and sleep. But in the sky, Lija was fine with carrying Fara and the risks were minimal.

“But perhaps plague was part of the story,” Claudia said, flicking her orange tail this way and that as she picked at a piece of dried meat. She offered some to her dragon. “The captain grew ill and lost his mind and ended up skewered on the rocks. That coral shelf out there is set into some viciously sharp rocks if I remember correctly.”

“It is.” Marius eyed Fara and then Claudia. “Regardless of how the captain went down, we need to know where the Eelsmen are now and who is leading them. We must know our enemy to fight them efficiently.”

Maiwenn adjusted Donan’s saddle. “Donan is saying that we could do a flyover of the island and to the northeast. He is plenty rested for the job.”

“We will all go,” Marius said. He paused and looked up at Ragewing, whose chest rumbled. Tahlia knew they were speaking through their bond. Marius faced everyone once more. “Ragewing agrees. Let’s mount up, knights.”

“Aye, Commander!” everyone said in a quick chorus.

Fara climbed into Lija’s double saddle and Tahlia sat in front of her. “Less squeezing my guts out of my eyeballs this time, all right?”

Fara pushed her forehead against Tahlia’s back. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything.”

Tahlia patted her friend’s hand, the hand currently crushing her ribs. “Lija’s got you. Don’t worry.”

Fara snorted. “Sure.”

“Once again, your idea.”

“I know. Shut up.”

Tahlia leaned her head back to bop Fara’s. Fara snarled and then Lija bounded forward, jumped, and took off.

“I can feel your silent scream in my back, Fara.”

“Deal with it!” she shouted into Tahlia’s vest.

Soon they were soaring over the pale blue, the rounded mountains of green, and the black rocks typical of this area.

Glassy rock like that is called obsidian, Lija said. She’d been teaching Tahlia about the north off and on during the mission. She jutted her snout toward a tumble of stone covered in holes. Those are hag stones. The obsidian can be used for weapons if handled by the right Fae craftsman.

I’d love a blade like that. It looks far more evil than adamant.

Lija chuckled. You are so bloodthirsty now, Lady Tahlia.

Only toward the ones who have earned some serious wrath.

Of course, rider. I know your heart.

At first, Tahlia felt childish when Lija had talked about her heart. Like she was too naive perhaps. But after a while, Tahlia recalled the horrible way some souls acted in this world, and she stopped worrying about whether or not she was “adult” enough. Screw the people who looked down on a determined sense of wonder and a joy in righting wrongs. She was who she was and she didn’t give a rat’s ass who didn’t like it. Her dragon loved her. Her mate loved her. Her fellow knights loved her. The rest of the population could deal with it.

The island’s coasts tightened like a fisted hand and the sea grew choppier.

That’s Ketch’s Strait,” Lija said. Named for the hangman, I believe. Pirates name many things they hate after the hangman.

Because that’s how the locals put them to death when they get their hands on them?

Exactly.

You’d think they would name more hated geographical oddities after us riders and you dragons. The order has slain more pirates than any locals, right?

Yes, but they don’t want to admit that. Pirates are too arrogant to give us the satisfaction. They find dark humor in the locals getting the best of them on occasion.

A strange sense of humor.

Agreed, rider.

Beyond Ketch’s Strait, Marius and Ragewing led the units northwest and a scattering of islands appeared, bridges stretching between them and docks reaching into multiple sandy coves and natural bays. There were at least six large ships docked around the cluster of islands. All of them looking like pirate vessels. Their decks were not scrubbed clean like the locals’ official ships. Dark flags, too far to see clearly, waved occasionally in the breeze.