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Darek was surprised to see a figure with a familiar gait step up to join the other boys. Not so familiar. This figure had the faint semblance of Lvis, dressed in full leathers, a horned helm pulled down around her face and hair clipped and dyed. So her father didn’t know she was competing? Darek’s eyes briefly caught hers. She seemed surprised that he hadn’t already escaped. He shook his head, in answer to her questioning gaze.
No sooner had the drum boomed than the start of the trails began with booted feet pounding the planks. Darek steadied himself on the swaying walkway and ducked a whistling strike that would have knocked him senseless. He ploughed head first into an opponent, knocking the wind out of him and sending him reeling to the swaying planks. Darek kicked the weapon out of another’s hand and held the stave to his throat. “Yield?”
“Yield, I yield!” cried the boy.
Darek snarled and pushed his way forward, as did others. The defeated jumped into the water and swam back to shore. Briad was already suffering multiple hits, his muffled yells drifting to Darek’s ears.
Nax was pushing his way across the crowded pathway to get to Darek. There was nowhere to turn amid those hacking and jabbing staves. Dark bruises shone on Darek’s left cheek under a blackening eye. Briad was no better off. The young man’s breath rasped, his gaze feverish. Darek lunged, hacked at another’s legs, parried a high blow and nearly lost his weapon to the shivering sting that shot up his arm. The flat of a blade slapped into his stomach and a sharp pain rose. He doubled over, rolled underfoot of a cursing youth’s boots, grabbed desperately at his ankle and upended him into the water.
Darek had taken a wrong turn and now was forced to backtrack. Nax had him cornered and charged with a triumphant cry.
Lvis, deep in battle with a blond-braided giant, turned about, distracted by the sound. A buffet landed on her helm. The giant’s staff descended and struck low. The giant gave chase but tripped on an uprooted plank and lost his balance. Lvis kicked him into the water and out of the competition. Lvis staggered through the broken wall, still dazed, as Darek fended off hit after hit from Nax.
Chance would have it that they were deep within the rear of the maze away from the shore, bordering the forbidden Nargale into which Darek had unwittingly led them. These rope walkways swayed as fighters crossed them, threatening to topple the entire structure into the lagoon.
Briad scrambled up behind Nax, striking him with a sharp cry and a crack of bone. With a roar of fury, Nax spun and knocked Briad back toward the barrier, smashing through protective housing surrounding the forbidden waters. Briad nearly fell into the Nargale-infested water. They could see their cold blue-yellow eyes as the creatures finned forth, whipping their flashing tails as they swam hungrily below. A fin broke the surface, razor-white teeth showed above the water.
Sensing his friend’s plight, Darek redoubled his attack on Nax. Darek hit Nax square in the jaw with a blow that sent a tooth flying into the water below. Sputtering and cursing, the injured boy floundered, and Darek took opportunity to press his advantage, pulling him over a slatted railing. Nax quickly recovered, crouching low in a defensive position.
Lvis pulled Briad up, just as a Nargale leaped below.
Briad mumbled an incoherent thanks.
Darek peered around wildly. Only a handful of youths still remained on the boardwalks. Nax suddenly lurched forward, swinging with all his strength.
Darek’s stave broke in two on Nax’s weapon. He cursed as it fell into the Nargale water, surrounded by a flurry of bubbles as the creatures swarmed in with wide grey mouths breaking the surface.
Nax gave a gleeful snort and swung at Darek. Lvis threw herself at Nax, raining blows with her stave upon his back, fists, feet.
Coughing in fury, Nax struck back with his stave across her shoulders. She fell gasping, sprawled over the walkway’s edge. Her long curls hung down, facing the teeth of the jumping predators.
“Lvis, no!” Darmenstra screeched from the shore, realizing at that moment that her daughter had snuck into the competition.
“Damn her,” came Serle’s hissing curse. “Get up there! Now!” He yelled at several of his henchmen.
Pirates lurched up the ramp, Darmenstra in the lead. Lvis’s life was in danger.
Darek twisted under Nax’s swing, trying to shield Lvis with his back as Briad launched his own attack. Briad’s strikes did little but enrage Nax, earning him a sharp blow to the ribs. The pain doubled him over.
Nax stared wild-eyed, rage thick in his throat. “I’ll kill you.”
“Yield, I yield,” Darek gasped. But Nax laid into him again, windmilling his stave like a battle ax. Lvis made a grab for Nax’s weapon, pulling it from his hand. Nax twisted and pounced on Darek, straddling him, choking him with his bare hands.
Darek could feel his vision go dark and his breath wheezing out of his lungs. The brute was going to strangle the life out of him!
Like a disembodied spirit, Darek felt himself lift from his body. He felt as if he traveled back through the ages where an instinctual memory burned like a beacon, whispering of survival. In a burst of energy, he visualized a ball of pulsing fire punching through the bully’s thickset body. Nax’s sweaty torso flew back, as if wrenched from behind by an invisible force.
What the—? Darek sucked air back in his lungs, shaking his dimming vision back to normal. The other pirates were nearly upon them. Darek dove on top of Nax, digging dirty fingernails into the boy’s flesh, pressing his full weight on top of him. He bore them to the edge of the walkway. Nax, realizing his danger, snatched a quick look; he was inches away from a leaping Nargale’s mouth. He screeched in terror. Darek straddling his chest, shoved his hands aside and pushed him down even lower. One swipe, two swipes of the bloodthirsty fish’s teeth and Nax’s life would be over.
The bloodlust in him fading, Darek thought he heard Lvis calling his name. Darek didn’t know what had come over him. With a grunt of effort, he hauled his enemy up onto the roped platforms and the two lay gasping on the planks. Hreg got there first and lifted Darek like a doll, and in a mad dream he saw green water looming closer. But Darmenstra put a stop to it, snapping Hreg with her whip and ordering him to stand down.
With a vicious growl, Hreg stepped over his gaping son, rounding on Darmenstra, his own sword gleaming in the sun’s bright glare.
Darmenstra caught the weapon with her whip, her grin wide and heavy. “Try it, Harpoonmaster.”
Hreg realized suddenly whose wife he was threatening and pulled back sharply with a snarl.
Serle spoke a dark word behind him. “Go ahead, Hreg, I’d like to see you try to dunk her. Your son has already proven himself a fool. Let’s not make his father one as well.”
Hreg’s bitter anger faded into shame as he let his sword arm fall.
Lvis was carted away, while Hreg hauled Nax roughly to his feet and two other seamen lifted Darek and the dazed Briad up and dragged them down the boardwalk to the shore.
* * *
In his private yurt, Serle interrogated his daughter with rough words. “What were you thinking sneaking into the fight and challenging Nax? He’ll never marry you now.”
“I’ve told you before—”
“What am I do with a pig-headed daughter like you?”
“Why don’t you let me join you on your raids?”
Serle shook his head. “It isn’t our way. Already the more superstitious folk among us believe this Red Claw boy is a demon, some curse laid upon us that must be extinguished. I’m inclined to agree with them. First Manx’s death and our ship destroyed by serpents, now this. I won’t add to it by having you killed sailing with us. As for the boy...”
A desperate look gleamed in her eye. “But you saw, father, that he saved me, and his friend. He didn’t even kill Nax when he had the chance. How can that be a curse?”
“My hands are tied, I cannot go up against the voice of the people.”
Lvis’s face turned a shade of white. “You’re a coward. What happened to the father I used to know? One who defied rules and took on all challenges?”
Serle’s lip formed into a curl of anger. “Don’t press your luck. You’re already confined to home from now on.”
“What? That’s not fair!” Lvis screamed.
“Go!” bellowed Serle. Lvis shook her head in frustration and stormed out of the yurt blinking back tears.
Serle was afraid of what he had seen the boy do, both the violence and the restraint. He mumbled darkly to himself and he wondered how the day had gone so sour.
Darmenstra came to pay him a visit shortly after. “What did you say to her?”
Serle made a gruff sound. “What she needed to hear.”
Darmenstra’s lower lip twitched. “The girl’s run off.”
“What?” Serle demanded.
Putting an arm on his shoulder, she tried to calm her husband. “She’ll come back. She always does.”
Serle shook his head. “This time, I don’t think so. I know my daughter. She’s taken with that slave boy. She won’t stand idly by and watch him be executed.”
Darmenstra sighed. “I think you’re right,” she said. “I could sense the fire in her belly the first time those two laid eyes on each other.”
Serle growled. “So be it, Darmenstra. Lvis’ll have to understand the basic truth of things. Slaves have their place and no more. Like Osun who culls the fish.”
“You’re a fool Serle. You spew this superstition about Osun as easily as that witch hunter Jonse, and you can no more control your fragile kingdom than you can control Lvis or me. Your daughter has come to realize it, and she’s old enough to choose her own life’s course.”
“Leave me be!” he cried angrily. He hated being lectured, though he knew his wife was right. Denying it would change nothing.
* * *
Darek and Briad found themselves once again in their cell, this time with a guard posted. The tattooed man was one of Serle’s and kept glancing Darek’s way, while making a sign of protection across his eye.
Briad winced as he ran his fingers over the bruise forming on his ribs. “We should’ve tried to swim to your boat instead of staying to help Lvis,” he said.
“How can you be so heartless?” returned Darek. “She saved your life.”
“A lot of good it’s done,” muttered Briad, “I overheard one of the guards saying we’re to be burned for witchcraft tomorrow—they would’ve done it by now but they wanted to wait for the one they call Jonse to come in on the morning tide.”
Darek scowled. “We still have the knife.”
“Great. One knife and two half-starved slaves covered in bruises against an island of pirates.” Briad nodded to a table where a dark figure sat drinking slowly from a rum bottle. “You think Hreg over there is going to take his eyes off us after what you did to Nax?”
They might have been able to escape before, but it would be impossible while under the watchful eye of both a guard and the Harpoonmaster.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Darek asked.
“Don’t know,” said Briad with a shrug, “you sure burned him up bad though.”
They broke eye contact. It was best not to think of what had happened. Darek sank down hopelessly on his haunches and tried to ignore his wounds.
He must have dozed off, for the next thing he knew men were running and someone was yelling “Fire!” Darek shot to his feet. A black swirl of smoke rose from the straw-roofed huts near the auroch pen. The terrified animals began to bellow, pushing against their pens as the smell of fire filled the air.
“Tend to the animals!” cried Darmenstra, running toward them. A figure in dark clothing ducked into the shadows just as the gate swung open. The massive creatures began to stampede. People, food carts, and wagons were swept aside by the charging sea of flesh. It was utter chaos—a perfect chance to escape.
Chapter 10.
