Page 16 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

Einar waved a hand, yanked up a hatch, and paused. Henrik closed in behind him as Einar dropped below the deck, knife out. He swung in a circle, recoiling with his arm to his nose.

“More bodies down here. Dead on the ground, in the hall. I count at least ten.”

“Attack?”

“Not that I can see.”

“No blood?”

“No.”

Putrefaction and hot sealstone blasted Henrik’s face, unlocked from the entombed lower floors.

The ship rocked from a deep wave trough as Einar advanced out of sight.

On the top deck, a door creaked open a few steps away, revealing a desk and paperwork.

Henrik used the tip of his knife to swing the door wider.

Parchments and envelopes littered the floor.

One, stuck on a corner, clung to the desk and fluttered in a breeze from a partially-opened porthole.

He plucked them carefully from the floorboards, skimming each.

A shaft of light fell through the open hole, allowing him to observe a familiar handwriting.

His Glory.

Henrik skimmed the correspondences. Messages for the Captain, mostly. Two regarding sailor assignments, changing acquisitions. Nothing specific about the load, in particular. Three were old, dated months ago, with commands to find Captain Arvid at any cost.

He gathered all of them, shoved them together, and folded them in half. When he straightened, Einar ascended the ladder. The sun inched toward the horizon, casting a buttery glow on the abandoned vessel.

Henrik held up the bundle of messages. “From His Glory!” he called. “I think there’s information in them.”

Pedr lifted a hand, but nothing happened. His already irate scowl deepened. He disappeared for ten seconds, popped back into view, and hurled a lidded bucket onto the frigate. The rope sailed with it, extending between the ships.

“The arcane isn’t working,” Pedr shouted. “Grab the rope and get back here now. We’re leaving. Something is wrong with that ship. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

Einar stared at the open hatch near the stern. “I don’t know how His Glory is responsible for this, and all the sailors dead below, but he must be. The bastid,” he added.

Henrik ignored the emotional exclamation. Einar had always been labile and restless, but since their successful departure from the soldats, his wild tongue had loosened. Dramatically. Einar no longer relied on facts, which was a dangerous game.

“We don’t know what caused it yet,” Henrik said, “but we’ll find out. I agree with Pedr. Something is wrong.”

“Oy!” Pedr raced across his deck to shout at them, eyes flashing. “Watch it!”

Henrik paused, Pedr’s warning ringing in his ears. His feet began to tremble. A juddering motion jolted his ankles, hips, torso.

Einar held out his arms to steady himself. “What is that?” he snapped.

Sensing movement out of the corner of his eye, Henrik ducked. A hatchet whizzed overhead and slammed into the main mast. The wood split. The hatchet dropped with a thunk that echoed in the sudden quiet.

Henrik leaped to his feet as the hatch nearest him exploded open.

Sailors climbed up the ladder, but not sailors .

Scrawny, dead bodies with mottled blue skin peeling off in sections stumbled onto the deck.

Their limbs, rigid and ungainly, slowed them.

Bloodshot eyes, white irises, sluggish movements.

He might have laughed if their presence hadn’t been so shocking.

“Ondeds!” Einar muttered.

Henrik swore.

“Einar!” Agnes screeched. “Get out of there!”

As the half-dead sailors stumbled close, Einar and Henrik ducked their weak advances. One fell, shattered to bones and the same dust coating the ship. It billowed from the shattered body, expiring to ash and dancing on the wind.

Knife unleashed, Henrik slammed his weapon through the neck of the closest staggering onded. The moment it contacted the putrid frame, the onded fizzled into a poof. Henrik tripped away, his stomach lurching.

Did he imagine the sky tilting?

His head whirling?

He slammed into Einar, who dropped to his knees, both hands on his head. He shouted unintelligibly.

“Idiots!” Pedr shouted, sputtering. “Stupid arcane! Get back here! I can’t leave the bloody ship to save your lives. Britt!” Pedr roared, “don’t you dare!”

A whirling sensation filled Henrik’s head as he struggled to stay upright.

The dust filled his nose, gummed the corner of his mouth.

Distantly, he heard Agnes cry out, Britt shouting.

The awful thought that she might come over here, touch this horrid stuff, shoved him to his feet.

He stood, fell, and attempted again. On this third try, after fending off another oafish onded, he kept his feet.

Pedr shouted. “Jump in the ocean! Get it off of you.”

Henrik grabbed Einar, hauled him off the deck.

Ondeds staggered toward them. One, bent backward at the waist, swung a fleshy arm toward Einar.

It detached halfway. Einar sliced the rest off with his knife and powder exploded.

Henrik tried to hold his breath, but the sticky cloud settled on him, regardless.

A headache exploded through his skull. The air thickened. Another hatchet whizzed past his head, whistling as it skimmed his ear, so close the cold graze snapped him from his torpor. The strength behind the throw sent it across the gap, where it shattered against Pedr’s ship.

Shite.

They had to move.

But movement wasn’t easy. His elbows didn’t bend, nor his knees. His thickening blood felt like paste. Every heartbeat hurt. Somewhere in the distance, Pedr’s belligerent rage echoed through a tunnel. A spin-on-the-spot tunnel.

Henrik could have laughed.

What was this?

He stumbled over to the side of the ship, Einar in his grip.

“The water!” Pedr screamed, irate. “Get. In. The. Water.”

An onded set his putrid hand on Henrik’s shoulder. He dodged it, nearly dropping Einar, and his hip slammed into the railing. Clutching Einar, Henrik grunted, yanked Einar half over the wall, and pushed. Einar tumbled over the side of the ship.

As Henrik threw his almost-paralyzed leg over the sidewall, his eyes locked with the yellowed whites of an armed onded. The mad-eyed, mouldering worm of a body smiled, revealing a skeleton’s teeth and a hole in the face where its nose should have been. It hurled a hatchet with shocking strength.

Henrik dropped.

He slid into the narrow strip of ocean between the ships, sliding below the waves as a scream sounded above.

The cool kiss of water was an instant balm. The itchy heat, the onded’s slimy grip, and the horrendous mixture of rotting flesh and mutilated life vanished. Sweet seawater peeled the filth away with a soothing balm.

Henrik didn’t battle for the top. He hovered, allowing his mind to clear. The nauseating spin ceased, leaving him level-headed. Regaining his mental grip, he paddled upward, releasing bubbles to satisfy his burning chest.

Another splash sounded above.

He surfaced.

The moment he breached air, Pedr shouted incomprehensible phrases. Number thirteen drifted away, the rope abandoned. Weak tongues of bright pink fire sprang from Pedr’s hands and onto the frigate. They spread like oil across the deck.

“Henrik!” Britt shouted.

His focus shifted.

Blood coated the top of the water, staining his fingers pink. He registered a hatchet sticking out of the water, impaled into a soft white shift, a second before he understood Britt’s rabid scream.

Horror overcame him when he recognized Agnes’s hair trailing in the water, spreading wide. The hatchet began to sink at the same moment Einar emerged. He drew in a breath, shucking the water from his hair, and said, “That shite piece of?—”

He choked off.

Henrik, swearing a litany of curses, lunged for Agnes before the sea claimed her. He closed a hand around her falling arm, yanked her to the top. Einar was at his side, panting.

“Agnes? Agnes!”

Her head lolled, unresponsive. Water streaked over her closed eyelashes. The hatchet, leeching blood into the water, crushed her breastbone. It jutted from the bottom edge of her heart.

Einar gripped her and whispered in raw disbelief, “Agnes?” His hand touched her unresponsive face. “Agnes?” he demanded. “AGNES!”

Pedr leaned over the side of the ship. “Swim here,” he barked. “Right now! That frigate is going to blow up.”

A deranged fire crackled. Surging plumes of heat overtook the decks. The powder caught to flame with undeniable furor.

“Einar,” Henrik shouted. “Swim!”

Einar didn’t hear him. He’d wrenched the hatchet from Agnes’s chest and blood ballooned in the water. A stark whisper broke his lips.

“Agnes?”

A rope landed in the water next to Henrik. Britt’s horrified expression peered at him from above, near the top of the rope. Henrik grabbed it, plunged under the water, and wrapped it around Agnes’s waist. Once secure at her back, he surfaced.

“Take her up!” he called.

Einar, thrashing in the water, shouted. “Don’t you dare!”

“Take her!” Henrik demanded.

Pedr appeared over the top of Britt, then retreated. Moments later, Agnes elevated out of the water, moving in jerky gasps. Her arms and legs hung to the side, limp. Cherry red blood stained her dress. Pedr and Britt must be pulling her instead of the arcane.

Heat from the frigate radiated, threatening to consume them as Einar choked. Agnes disappeared over the sidewall, and the rope returned. Flames roared from the frigate, a black cloud bursting. Despite the continuing separation of the ships, the heat threatened to torch his skin.

Henrik gripped the rope, shoved Einar’s foot into the loop that once held Agnes, and shouted, “Ready!”

This time, a steady pull took them higher. The arcane clearly built power up as they distanced from the onded nightmare. They elevated quick; the rope slung them onto the deck with hard thuds.

Henrik’s head smacked the ground, his ears rang. Einar shoved off the deck, raced away. He skidded on his knees to Britt, who cradled Agnes in her lap. Tears rolled down Britt’s cheeks, staining the skin a bright red.

“Agnes,” she whispered, stroking her shining, auburn hair. “Agnes.”

Henrik rolled onto his back, filled with a terrible, awful certainty. After several ragged breaths, Britt came into view. Tears clotted her eyes when she pressed her hand to his cheek.

“Henrik?”

“Fine,” he growled.

The sails unfurled. Color zipped through ropes like overhead trails.

The jolt of the ship gaining instant speed whisked them to the east again.

The distant conflagration issued repetitive bursts of sizzling flames, belching sable smoke.

If they had been any closer, the shrapnel would have impaled them.

Henrik stared at Britt’s teary eyes.

“Agnes?”

Lips pressed, Britt shook her head.

Henrik shoved off the deck, his ears ringing. He stumbled to Einar, who crushed Agnes’s limp body to his chest. Blood streaked the deck, swirling in rivulets and eddies. Henrik put a hand on Einar’s shaking shoulder and squeezed.

“I’m here, brother,” he whispered. “I’m here.”