Ye Wretched Few (Solo)

[Dawnmorrow]

Too much water moulds the wood.

The second breath was easier than the first breath, but the third brought it all back again. There was a hard pain in his left shoulder, and muscles cramping in his arms and legs as they strained against his bonds. Some oily cloth that tasted faintly of coppery, dusty blood had been laid ‘twixt his teeth, some time after Treyn had started whispering in his fevered state of terror.


Too much water moulds the wood.

None of it had made much sense, least of all to the slavers. Large and blonde and cruel, even they exchanged discomfited glances as Treyn muttered to himself, “On-on-onwards. On-on-onwards.” He had been a small boat in a large sea with a giant’s eyeball to light his way, but they had plucked him out with steel whips and the taste of coppery, dusty blood.


Too much water moulds the wood.

The timber beneath him swayed too gently to be appropriate. Maybe it was trying to soothe him. They were on the open sea now. He could almost taste the salt through the wood. Give me back to the ocean. When the seed spends its fruit, where does it go? Where does it go? Where does it go? The flavour of blood was a myth in a story, the quick lick of the scratch on your hand. Blood is thicker than seawater, but is it saltier? Water had never tasted this coppery.


Too much water moulds the wood.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The smell of the sea permeated any stretch of Scara Brae that Treyn sought out, though he could not certainly say whether it lingered in imagination or followed in reality. Through trees and their green, green canopies, he could smell the fresh blue as if it was right behind him, waiting for him to turn and smile and beckon to it. In the city of Scara Brae, the smell settled into the dust on the streets, the pores on passers’-by skins. When he came upon the docks, the sea was grand and wide and glittering in soulful welcome, smelling as strong as it had ever done. Treyn breathed it in deep and locked it inside his lungs.

The docks were full of barges and sailboats, impressive tickets to faraway lands. Treyn strolled down the length of their faces, pondering their timber and their sturdiness. To one side was a steady collection of taverns, spewing out drunken sailors and coquettish girls alike. Some lad was grilling fish by his boat, offering it out as a meal to any who could sate his taste in coin. When the sun came to its peak in brightness, Treyn escaped into the smallest tavern he could find, hoping for that ever elusive notion of peace.

The interior was misted with smoke from food and drink. Patrons were served steaming bowls of fish stew, creamy white in colour with floating tubers on their surface. Large, heavy tankards of deep, black beer were passed around like the tavern’s own sub-currency. If’n ye can’t finish that stew o’ yours, I’ll be havin’ it for a price o’ this beer, eh? Small though the tavern might be, its wee shadowed corners were filled tight with hasty bodies and rumbling bellies. Treyn stood to one side and pivoted on one heel and the other, trying to look past steam and flurrying arms to find an out-of-the-way seat to sit and dream upon.

Th-wick! Treyn’s staff whistled out of his loose grip and onto the floor, knocked out of the way by a big black boot. Languidly, the fisherman’s son blinked down at his empty hand.

“Ah.” A deep voice. “Let me have that for you.”

Tall and blonde and barrel-chested was the stranger who bent at his waist to retrieve the yew staff. A moment was spent weighing and feeling its balance before, with a thin grin, the piece of wood was returned to Treyn. “A sturdy thing,” the stranger noted. “Could leave a good lump on someone’s head.”

It was a violent and unwelcome thought. Treyn frowned, gracefully accepting the offered staff. “I suppose.” Back again in his loose grip, the staff lazed at an acute angle to the floor. “I would use it for better things, though. Pleasant things.”

“Pleasant,” the blonde man repeated. He observed Treyn closely, much as Treyn observed he. “That would make you a nicer man than many. Boys these days, make violent ruffians.” The thoughtful switch between “man” and “boy” snagged on Treyn’s filter of mind, hanging there in the breeze for consideration. After a moment of pursed lips, it was set free and discarded to one side. “Nicer than me, though. I haven’t introduced myself. Drink with me, and we can share our names.”

Conscience tapped lightly on Treyn’s shoulder. He did not have any abundance in gold, and what little he had should not so casually be spent on beer. “I would rather a good stew,” he suggested. “I’m not here for long, you see.”

“A good stew without a good beer? Come now, my friend – is it the gold that worries you? No doubt! Let me have the honour of paying. Cease that troubled frown.”

The stranger’s strong arm came about Treyn’s shoulders with surprising strength, and perhaps the stranger too was surprised at how well the young lad was built. Mild-mannered still, and confused atop of it, Treyn allowed himself to be moved along to an available table. Sitting around it with grim faces and expressions that bordered on bored, two more men with fair hair and firm chests sat and waited o’er their dark mugs of beer.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It hadn’t taken long for Treyn to make out that he wasn’t alone here in the dark belly of the ship. The shadowed silhouettes of prone bodies and the gentle breathing of conscious and unconscious alike tickled at the young lad’s muddled senses. Two of the tall, blonde slavers stood stoic watch at the head of the steps that led into this crowded underworld. From a distance, Treyn couldn’t make out if they had been in the tavern with him. Drunk with him. Shared friendly words . . .

His father’s warm, brown face rose up in his imagination, smiling broadly. A hard day’s work is a small price to pay for a man’s freedom, he would say, as he slid the tooth of a long knife into a gleaming fish belly. When the blood stained his fingertips, Treyn had never wondered how it tasted. How coppery it was.

The terrible cloth in his mouth choked him with stifling claustrophobia. He cringed against his bonds, and felt sharp pains climb up his cramped arms and legs. He had been a small boat in the watery hands of a one-eyed giant. He should have considered how easily the giant could close his fists around him, and tear his timber apart.

[Dawnmorrow]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“He will do.”

Three soft words in a gentle murmur that was easily overwhelmed by the tavern noise. The lad had given his name after only two swallows of the dark beer. Treyn. It was too soft for the slaver’s liking, but the boy himself wasn’t. ‘Twas clear as day that he was a labourer – someone who toiled for many long hours of the day beneath the sun. His work ethic would translate well, and if not? Some wealthy bastard would find use for him in something more “pleasant”, as the lad seemed to prefer. A grim smile touched the slaver’s lips, but Treyn was unaware.

The beer was getting to the lad, starting as a tingle in his fingertips and spreading further and further. It occurred to Treyn that this was irresponsible, but these men were friendly and interested. They had provided little information in comparison to Treyn, a portion of which was that they hailed from Salvar. The fisherman’s son knew very little of anyplace outside of Scara Brae, but his mind drew up pictures of snow-capped mountains and terrible, gusting winds. The men’s eyes were as blue and sharp as ice.

“Aye,” the other slaver murmured back. He smiled widely and cupped a hand around Treyn’s arm, leaning in close so the boy could hear him now. “Take a walk with us, lad! The air is sweet outside, and ripe with the sea.”

The boy’s eyes brightened, sparkling gleefully in their curious sea-green shade. When he stood up, he did so too quickly. Vision spun and whooped, and legs trembled like thin sails. One of the tall goldenheads steadied him with a friendly arm, and Treyn graced himself with a deprecating laugh as he shook him away and leaned on his staff instead.

“Careful now,” the third slaver intoned. Careful now. He’s drunk, but he’s strong. Careful of the strong ones.

Not a head turned to look as the three blonds led Treyn from the tavern. Merry parties came and went, and never gave pause to those who saw enough of it all. The sun was turning blood orange in the sky outside, and the ocean darkened itself to suit its whims. There was something ominous about the evening sea, as though it delved into its secrets to ponder which monster to unleash that night. Treyn Dawnmorrow could barely find his feet, with his stomach churning in intoxicated nausea as well as unease. He was turned from the docks and the ocean, curving around the side of the tavern. Deep shadows touched the toes of his sandals.

“Stop,” he tried to say. “Wait just a moment.” Only the first syllable slurred out of his mouth, before the back of someone’s elbow crashed into the base of his skull.

Lights. A thousand whizzing, dancing lights, exploding out of darkness to turn a crazy pirouette around Treyn’s head. The breeze whistled in his ears, and his cheek scratched against rough cobbles. One hand found wild tufts of grass, prying out of the corner of a stone to scream for the sun; the other held onto the yew staff somehow, tight and desperate. “Idiot,” he heard one of his new friends say, and bile built up like a pearl in his throat.

Run, run, RUN.

He had always been a good runner – a fast runner – as much as he had been a good and fast swimmer. The water would not carry him now, and he could not trust his feet . . . but what other choice did he have? I’m a boat in the sea and they’re coming after me, runrunrun for your life, whyaren’tyourunning? Nails dug through the grass and into his palm. When he launched to his feet, the tufts came up with him.

One of Salvar's men swore. Treyn's legs moved like melting slugs, but he was still faster than them. Bronze hair flew free behind him as he launched down the narrow alley beside the tavern. Somewhere up ahead, there must be a dead end. It was the sea he must run to, not further into the shadows. Three pairs of angry feet came after him – angry, sober feet. Bile jogged out into the open of Treyn's mouth, but his face was paralysed in a grimace of terror that allowed naught out.

Who are you to sail alone on my sea? the one-eyed giant roared in despair, holding the small boat up to his sad, down-turned mouth. The sea roiled in storm below him, and the yew staff that had guided him . . . the staff.

Could leave a good lump on someone’s head, the man from Salvar had said. A slender wooden staff, crafted into a simple shape by the hands of his own father – a symbol of good will for Treyn’s travels. Of good fortune. Aim for their skull; I will bring you good fortune. He saw his own fingers drawing a thin blade against a gleaming silver belly, spewing fish guts out onto his father’s wooden table. Hit more than once if necessary. I will bring you good fortune.

A thick stone wall rose up ahead in the shadows, crates of beer stacked against it. He could climb them, if his jellied legs would allow it. There was a higher chance he might fall and injure himself, leaving him as ripe pickings for the three men from Salvar. You could stand and fight. You could leave a good lump on someone’s head.

The tip of his right sandal brushed against the first crate, began to scale it . . . one of the goldenheads had come up faster than the others. His breath was almost on Treyn’s shoulder.

WHO ARE YOU TO SAIL ALONE ON MY SEA?

He could do it. Take one out, climb the crates. He had no choice.

With almost sober grace, Treyn turned to face the oncoming storm. The man’s ice-blue eyes were calm and disinterested, even as his legs pumped fiercely beneath him to carry him to Treyn. The fisherman’s son held the staff in front of him, more like a shield than a weapon. Bracing himself for impact. A desperate wail that might substitute as a war cry was ready to spring out of him.

WHO ARE YOU – ?

Aim for the skull. Hit him. The staff quivered harmlessly in Treyn’s hands. Closer and closer came the man, slowing down now. His blue eyes twinkled in jaded amusement. One arm reached around behind his barrel chest, sliding something out of his belt. Treyn had seen knives too many times in his life, but never to draw the blood of another man out of his flesh.

HIT HIM.

“No,” Treyn let out in a weak whisper. “I can’t hurt you. Please – I can’t hurt you.”

He turned desperately, eyes seeking the wall . . . and the man came up behind him, sinking the knife into the depth of Treyn’s left shoulder as he reached for the first crate of beer. A startled scream of pain and disbelief echoed out of the fisherman’s son.

“That’s a shame, lad,” the slaver said. “Let me do it for you.”

[Dawnmorrow]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A woman came down into the ship’s underbelly with a giant’s eye in her hand, swinging in gentle and maniacal routine. The new slaves turned their aching faces away from the blinding light – all except for Treyn, who gazed upon it with hungry hope and literal thirst. The two goldenheads at the peak of the steps let the woman pass in disdain. She was small, brown and dark of hair. Most likely just another slave. She took her time squatting beside each prone body in the shadows, allowing them no more than a sip of stale water each. When she came to Treyn, he tried to drink past his share, and she pulled the water skin back sharply.

“No more,” she told him. “No more.”

“Please,” he murmured. “I’m very thirsty.”

Her dark eyes were distant. She did not hear him, not truly. One of the guards called to her, “Look at their wounds, too. We need them in good working condition, or they will be bartered for half their price.”

Eyes slid down to the gash in Treyn’s shoulder, and the blood crusting its mouth. “On your side,” she said. When he was too slow, she helped him along roughly. Her hands felt like burnt grass, hot and bristly to the touch. Fingers poked and prodded at the wound, and Treyn clenched his teeth to hold back pathetic mewls.

“Bring me needle,” the woman said to the guards. “Bring me hot wine.”

One went, while the other remained in judgemental watch. He returned with a thin bone needle the length of his palm, and a smooth, hourglass-shaped bottle made of wood. The woman took them gingerly, and Treyn could feel the heat from the bottle caress his face.

“You will scream,” the woman said. “Try not be so loud.”

She unwound the cord from around the neck of the bottle and slid it through the eye of the needle. Then she used her teeth to pull the cork out, steam sliding up against her ink-black lashes. “Still,” she told Treyn, before she tilted the bottle o’er his wound.

He did scream.

The sound dissolved into wretched whimpers and sobs, and he wondered how he could be the same lad who’d swam with ease beside his father’s boat, ducking his head beneath saltwater and imagining himself as something free and wild and beautiful. In DuBoue, he had been considered strong and reliable. Men avoided trouble with him, more for the goodness in his heart than nought – but doubtless they had thought he would beat them bloody if he must. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to hit one of the slavers over the head with his staff. Now the staff was gone, and perhaps he had lost himself too.

When the noise died away, Treyn realised the woman was already stitching him up. His shoulder tingled, numb from the heat and the pain. “You will have scar,” she spoke shortly when the sewing was done. “But you will work good.”

She rose to her feet and turned to the other slaves. Some watched her with wide, glassy eyes; others seemed too ill to even notice her beside them. I am fortunate, Treyn suddenly thought, distinct and clear. A wound to the shoulder is all I have – stitched now, and it will leave only a scar. Some of these people will not make it across the ocean. They will die where they lie.

That was only a casual downside to the slavers’ business. If they died, they would simply be replaced. Kidnappings, raids, human payments and more – that was how this sort of thing worked, wasn’t it? And Treyn had been naïve, alone; fragile in his hope and easy to pluck away from a father who did not expect to see him again for many years. They must have laughed when they first saw him. Idiot. That’s what they thought of him. That’s what he was.

“Lady,” he called softly. The dark woman did not heed him until he called thrice more, and she turned emotionless eyes to him and waited in silence, bent over a little girl’s twisted foot. “Thank you, lady. I will not forget your kindness.”

Once, long ago, the words might have moved her, but she had seen too much and heard too much since. She gazed at him for a moment longer, and then turned away. The goldenheads at the peak of the steps shared a quiet snicker amongst themselves.

“We will be free again, I think,” Treyn murmured as he lowered his head to the timber below, closing his eyes to ease away the pain in his shoulder. “You and I. We will be free again.”

[Dawnmorrow]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He dreamt of being swallowed by gods and sliding down their throats on rafts made of bone. Sea serpents lay in their bellies, and would try to tear their way out with sharp, venomous teeth. Treyn was only human, and his mouth was full of worms. He swayed endlessly on his bone raft, waiting for his voice to return to him. Our songs come to us when we have no tune to give them. On-on-onwards, into the dark belly of gods. One day, you will be a serpent like they are. He opened his mouth until his jaw touched the raft, and the worms lengthened into glowing eels.

One day.

He woke when the goldenhead nudged his aching shoulder with his boot, forcing stale water and rock-hard bread upon him. Everything tasted vaguely of salt. Is it the sea I taste, or is it blood? Eat, drink, sleep. At some point in time, Treyn envied that he would not sleep forever. He could not say when that was – infinity is a hard stretch to measure.

If a man carried my burden, he would break his back. I have no wealth, but I always leave silver in my track.

Like a great wooden snail, the slavers’ ship crept across the ragged blue sea. Treyn slipped in and out of his dreams, finding solace in the bellies of gods. Each time he woke, there were fewer bodies in the ship’s underbelly. He tried not to think of where they went.

If a man carried my burden, he would break his back . . .

The last time that the goldenhead rammed his boot into Treyn’s belly, the dreams were violent. Eels feasted upon him like leeches, and someone whispered to him over and over, “Kill them. Kill them and be done with it.” The fisherman’s son wept, and begged for mercy. “Please,” he said. “I cannot hurt them. Please.”

“Up with you,” said the man from Salvar. “Up. Up.”

The slaves were chained in one long line and led up to the surface of the ship. Drawn and pale and tired, they squinted away from the sunlight and stared down at their own skin, bare to the world. Only the cloth that covered their extremities had been spared. Treyn shivered where he stood, gooseprickles covering his flesh like mountains upon a map. Up here, at least, he could smell the salt. The muddled cobwebs of his mind, tempted there by pain and exhaustion, slowly began to dissemble.

The ship was coming into port on clear waters. Gulls circled low, an almost predatory threat o’er the heads of the slaves. It was a full and busy port, and the city that rose above it was larger than Treyn could have ever imagined; a gleaming wooden hive belonging to a fantastic story; a destination in a hero’s quest. At its heart, a stone keep rested itself atop old, sallowed ruins. A bee queen watching over her workers, the lad thought. At any moment now, she will rise up on silver wings..

“Welcome to Pestovo!” a grizzled slaver bellowed to his fresh-faced comrade. A long, cruel whip coiled delicately in the palm of his large hand. Salvar, Treyn thought. I am in their land now. He could not trust his knees to hold the weight of his soul, and the sun was too bright on this day. With a soft jingle of the chain, he sagged against the timber of the ship . . . and the whip sang a grim hymn upon his back.

“They grow weaker as the days go by,” the slaver sneered, whipping him again. “The world is out of strong men – we have enslaved them all!”

Over and over did the lash fall, until Treyn stumbled to his feet again. When the slaver’s black leathern tongue licked across his shoulder, he let out a shuddering cry. “Quiet,” the man snarled, and whipped him again for good measure. The damage was a game to him, distant and inconsequential. Treyn was nothing more than an object to be fixed at its first failure.

Why do good men fall? his father questioned him from the hazy vales of time gone by. The expanse of ship and sea and city melted away into a pale blur; nothing more than a thin veil caught upon his eyelids. Through it, he saw his childhood home in DuBoue. At a small log table – lit only by a half-stub candle – a hard man with large hands and gentle eyes peered closely at Treyn.

“Why do good men fall?” he quizzed, voice slow and ponderous. He was twisting wiry cord into a fish hook with wise, trained fingers, efficient and graceful. “Tell me that, lad.”

“To get back up again,” Treyn said, voice small and boyish. “That’s what you always say. The good men always have to get back up.”

“And why do I say that? Do you know?”

Silence. The father smiled, holding the point of his fish hook to the flickering light of the candle. A serpent’s shadow was cast o’er the table, curved and ominous. “Every man has a shadow,” he said. “Do you have a shadow, Treyn?”

“Aye. Look, I got a shadow.”

“Aye. Every man has a shadow, and every man leaves something with it behind him. Sometimes, though, even the good men make mistakes. It’s a stain that they can’t wipe clean – something they must live with forever. When a good man taints his shadow, he falls a step beyond the reach of his greatest desires. That is his punishment, you see.”

Treyn frowned. “Good men fall to be punished?”

“No, lad. Good men fall to learn. Only fools refuse to see the lesson in their punishment. You’ll know that one day, Treyn. You’ll know it well.”

The blazing fire in his shoulder was dimming, allowing him to regain his breath and escape from the tendrils of his childhood. The chain trembled as his hands shook, and though he was cold he sweated a-plenty. His tormentor had moved further down the line of slaves, whipping them into shape and bellowing as he did so.

I am far from home; far from Scara Brae. My father’s words won’t save me now.

Here was the ugly hush of the world, rearing its head for all to see. Long had Treyn Dawnmorrow turned a cold shoulder to scarred truths and petulant sins, stating clear preference to beauty and whim. Was this his punishment? His fall? Am I so good, that I must fall so hard? No. He was not a good man, he did not think. He had not earned those gloried and fabled stripes, and his desires were still wee infants. This fall had been unplanned and sudden. Fate had blinked as it passed it by, forgetting to write it into its schedule. Good men fall because they can. Good men fall because the bad men want them to.

And in a sudden moment of clarity, Treyn saw himself with his yew staff in hand. Its simple head dripped with dark blood, and below him lay a slaver with a broken skull. Behind him, stacks of beer crates lined up against a slick stone wall. If he climbed it quick enough, he could get away. He was a faster runner than anyone he knew. He was wild and unstoppable. No man – from Salvar or beyond – could tame him.

If life is so worthless to them, take it. They don’t need it. They don’t desire it. They don’t cherish it.

The sentiment built and swelled in crescendo, and his vision tinged with red . . . then fear. Fear brought him back, and pain. Sadness too. Exhaustion. Please. I cannot hurt you. I cannot hurt anyone. Wild things did not belong in chains – would not stay in chains. The wilderness would laugh at him, and he would accept it. He was man, not beast. Life was too precious to take away from anyone so callously.

Even these men who would call him slave.

[Dawnmorrow]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Garrash Kos felt little comfortable here beneath the walls of the Trading Company. He had glimpsed the Stokes’s Estate south of Archen just once before, but this was his first step within the headquarters of the Vogruk-Stokes Trading Company in Pestovo. So too was this his first year commanding the Thimble, an aged war galley that had seen its prime through the latter quarter of Salvar’s Foundation and beyond. Its previous captain had lost his life some time during the last civil war. He wondered if the Thimble might resent him for taking her former master’s place.

Little more than she would resent him for filling her belly up with half-dead slaves, likely.

It was a custom of sorts during wars past to assign prisoners below deck, killing themselves at the paddles before the state killed them first. In this tentative era of peace, and with the Thimble cruising along quietly as an old and low priority, her new captain found himself peering into the Trading Company’s dark underworld to fill up his rank of rowers. The war galley would be retired as an escort to the Trading Company’s various merchant ships as they established trade across the world. Fitting, perhaps. A thimble had no place in gruesome things such as war.

“Sold!” the goldenhead cried at his podium, his words echoing throughout the great vaulted hall. A young girl with a limp to her foot was pulled away by her new plump and wealthy master, lips wet with saliva and large grin. Garrash felt his stomach politely churn.

“None of them look up to the task,” Liattas, his second mate, observed. He had been a pretty boy once, ‘til he lost his eye to a butcher’s carver, and half his face along with it. He was alright, though, if you looked at him from his better side. “Half look sickly, and the other half are women.”

“You’ll be surprised what a woman could do with a whip at her back. Wasn’t it a woman who carved your eye out, with pig guts still on ‘er hands?”

Liattas grinned, faint and hollow. “Why d’ya think I cuss ‘em so much?”

A moment of silence, and then Garrash extended his arm and finger to the left of the goldenhead, nudging his chin forward. “There,” he said. “Them boys look fit enough. Sickly, yes – but that’s what some long days on a seaward journey’ll do to ya, if ye ain’t careful. It’s a long journey out to Pestovo. You’d be green by the end of it, too.”

“If I remember correctly, you’re the one with his head o’er the rails each time we come into port. I heard the catch is weak of late – no doubt all them fishes have wiggled away from the stink o’ your vomit.”

A harsh laugh bubbled forth from the captain of the Thimble, echoing loud across the hall. The goldenhead at his podium shot him an irritated glance. One of them fit boys was being brought forward. He had the making of good scars already all across his back, and a large un in particular on his left shoulder. Strong, too, by the looks of it – prettier around the face than Liattas could have ever claimed, but that would be fixed in time. Another carver, maybe. Some man’s fist.

“I’ll have ‘im,” Garrash yelled, flicking a gold coin up into the air. “And a dozen more like him, if you’ll spare me the time.”

The fat wealthy man with his new girl slave held up two gold coins, shrilly calling out, “Two for the pretty boy, I say.”

“Whichever one he goes to, he’ll be fucked,” Liattas muttered. Garrash grinned. Three coins, and then four.

“Don’t have the time for bargaining, stranger. Let me have the boys, and you can stock up on yer pretty little girls. Don’t make no difference to me, long as I have a good crew to row my ship.”

The boy watched him dully from the goldenhead’s side. There was something about his eyes that Garrash didn’t like. He don’t blink enough, he suddenly realised. That’s the problem. If a man don’t blink enough, he ain’t worth your trust. Fortunately for him, he didn’t need to trust the men who worked for him. Hell, he didn’t even need to respect them.

By the time he could claim the boy and a dozen of his comrades for the Thimble, the handful of coins had turned into a handful of pouches. The fat man glowered at him from across the hall, whilst he stepped forward with Liattas to gather the slaves together. “Come on, then!” Garrash roared. “Looks like you’ve all been whipped enough, but don’t you worry – I’ll add to the lashes if I have to!”

His fingers dipped to the leathern handle of the whip coiled at his side, fastened next to his blade. Neither he nor Liattas saw the unblinking boy stare almost longingly at it, his own fingers twitching in desperation.

“Row hard an’ I’ll be good to ye,” Garrash intoned as they swept out of the hall. “Row soft, and I’ll beat your head bloody to match. You should be thanking your stars that it was me who picked ye. A life on the galley is better than a life waitin’ on some fat lil’ lord, suckling his teats. Good, strong men will be made out o’ ye yet.”

“And if not that, you’ll be dead and given to the sea,” Liattas grinned. Garrash walked on his corpse side, and closely saw the way the bare flesh and sinews twisted and puckered to accommodate the gesture. “If you pray to any gods, best you pray now. There’s a long and hard journey in front of you yet.”

The slaves kept their silence. That was the thing about slaves, Garrash thought. No sense of humour. No sense of adventure. Couldn’t blame them, though. There was nothing more precious to him than his own freedom. Wouldn’t be much to live for without it, would there?

[Dawnmorrow]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Thimble sailed for nine weeks ‘cross clear seas as it circled around the mainland, passing Alerar and through the strait ‘twixt Raiaera and Corone. It trailed in the shadows of its merchant convoy, slow and patient in its glide over the still waters. Though it was old, aye, it had the fine grace that younger vessels carelessly lacked. Garrash Kos would stand at the rails, his pitch-black hair fluttering like tattered pirate flags in the salt-stained breeze. Treyn could feel his presence even from his seat below deck. He could sketch the man’s silhouette with his eyes closed – and in his nightmares, he would uncoil the leathern whip from the captain’s hip and lash it around the fullness of his throat; draw it tight until the eyes of Garrash Kos rolled into the back of his skull and sunk into a deep red ocean within. He felt no joy, no remorse; he felt nothing except the terror as he woke, trying to rub the firmness of the whip’s grip from his fingertips. After a time, his fingers grew numb . . . but he could not tell if it was from his dreams, or from the oars he pulled through night and day.

They pressed hot iron into his skin, three letters over the fresh, puckered scar on the back of his left shoulder. Each gentle vision of home and Scara Brae sucked itself dry as the fiery pain flowed o’er him, and he knew the branding would not leave him for as long as he lived: GAL, for galley slave, leaving the history of a free man behind him forever.

“Try running now,” Liattas had grinned, half his face composed of the scream of a dead man. He was only the second mate of the Thimble – a hand to Garrash Kos, but not his dominant one. The first mate branded the slaves himself, gently blowing the silver smoke off his irons. He walked with silent cat’s feet amongst the rowers below deck, a longer and crueler whip than Garrash could boast trailing from his milk-white fingers. Ragged hair fell in thin, snowy wisps over his forehead, and his eyes – the sickly pink of diluted blood – always watched; always knew. He would kneel in front of Treyn, his tongue slithering out between his teeth like a little red snake. The fisherman’s son would count his breaths, every single stinking one, and always on the tenth the first mate would speak.

“I knew a wee slave once,” he whispered. “Wasn’t mine, o’ course . . . ne’er had the money for one. Was a pretty one, though. Pretty for a boy. Didn’ know when t’ keep his mouth shut . . . always hangin’ open, like some halfwit. Think his master liked him that way.

“One day – ‘twas a bad day for me, y’know – it just . . . hung open for too long. He liked t’ stare at me, y’see. Liked t’ . . . liked t’ see if my hair would change colour day by day . . . if my eyes would.” The first mate grinned, the tip of his tongue still stuck in the hollow ‘twixt his molars. “I broke his jaw first, since he liked it open so much. Took out his eyes afterward. I still have them wi’ me, you see . . . so he can look at me every day. See if I changed.” His milk-white fingers touched a dirty cloth pouch at his throat, so delicate in their caress. Treyn thought he might have to look upon the stolen eyes and swallow his bile like fine wine . . . but then the first mate stood up, stiff and abrupt, before he resumed his cat’s walk amongst the slaves with his slow, stinking breaths.

Now the Thimble took its slow path to the port of Tirel, where a kinder respite awaited the captain and his mates than there did for the slaves. Each pull of the oar reminded Treyn of the new scars upon his skin, and each keen reminder would heighten his nightmares to a feverish pitch. As he grew hungrier, he would dream of digging his teeth into Garrash’s flesh after he suffocated him with his whip. Somewhere over him, the nameless first mate would watch and whisper about pretty slaves. About their eyes.

And on deck, Garrash Kos stood a free man, holding his head high and proud against the salty sea wind.

“Bring her in, boys!” he roared out as Tirel rose up on the horizon, rich crimson in the light of the waning sun. The first mate strode past Treyn on his walk, the side of his whip brushing lightly against the lad’s skin in such close quarters. Liattas shrieked out his orders as the Thimble prepared for port. The slaves’ arms pumped and pumped, bringing the oars up and down. Up and down.

“On-on-onwards,” Treyn whispered, eyes levelled straight forward and unfocused as he heaved to and fro, his scarred shoulders straining with newfound muscle. The muscle of a slave. “On-on-onwards.”

[Dawnmorrow]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ever onwards.

This thought was not drawn out in feverish pitch, but uttered in weary mumble within the echoes of a tired captain’s mind. Garrash Kos was back on land once more, savouring the noise and fresh life of Tirel. When he breathed in, the salt of the sea ebbed out of his lungs. Then he grinned.

“Y’know,” he spoke aloud, patting the timber of the Thimble as he leaned against her docked side, “this is quite the change.”

Liattas, second mate – almost comical in his retching – straightened up for long enough to glower at the captain. The crew stepped delicately around the man they called Half-Face, pulling bemused expressions at the stink of this frightening man’s vomit. Garrash had quenched his fear of Liattas long ago. He knew him too well now.

“See,” he went on. “I seem to recall – and I recall quite well, mind you – a certain scallywag tellin’ me just how green I get comin’ into port. Ya don’t happen to remember that, do you? Give me an answer when you can talk again, mind.”

Liattas spat the last of his ship supper into the sea, straightening with a hand across his half-dead mouth. “Best keep your tongue held tight, cap’n. I don’t have to take your bull when I’m off that bitch.” He gestured wildly at the Thimble with his free hand, brimming with disdain. The amusement died gracefully off the captain’s face as he lifted soaring grey eyes to her looming hull. Indeed, he looked rather wise and thoughtful in these brief instances of contemplative silence.

Bitch. It echoed down the corridors of a mind far more aged than its mask would let on. She’s too good for a name like that. Bitch. Thimble. She deserves a better name. A majestic name.

The second mate expelled angry air through his nose as he stepped away from her shadow. Garrash ran gentle fingertips o’er Thimble’s side. He’d never known an actual woman so intimately. The sea had run in his blood from a childhood gone hazy, and ever since then he had been in love with ships. Gone from scrubbing his knuckles raw keeping the decks clean, to standing upon them as captain. Thimble. Bitch. That was no name for his prize, after all these years.

I’ll think of something better. Truer. His hand slid off the wood like dried kelp. He found himself suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the harsh sun, sending its last powerful rays across the ocean floor. Above him, the soft clink-ing of chains drummed the heat deeper and deeper into his spine. It even gave Liattas pause as he licked bile-stained spittle from his chapped lips.

“Are they going to stay up there?” he asked, awkwardly naïve. Garrash shrugged. He’d never dealt with slaves before, but Daedran had. The milk-coloured first mate with his glazed pink eyes had been the one to advise him on the purchase. I ‘ave some payments due, he’d said. When Garrash had jingled his purse, Daedran gave his terrible grin and shook his head. Not in gold, friend.

“Can’t go around pullin’ them into taverns with us, can we?” Garrash drawled. He stepped out of the Thimble’s shadow as well, twisting around to get a good view of her deck. Slowly and carefully, Daedran was wrapping his long, silver chain around the galley slaves. They swarmed in a flesh circle around the mast, beaten and broken from the whip at the first mate’s hip. Garrash’s own whip was foreign to him; almost unwelcome. Grimacing suddenly at the itch of the heat, he spat to one side and declared, “I don’t like ‘im.”

“Who are you on about now?”

“Him. That one. You ‘aven’t noticed him? Never blinks. Just stares right ahead . . . watches me sometimes, when he sees me. Watches me like he wants to kill me.”

The silver chain went round and round, tight against the chest of the young lad Garrash Kos directed his hate towards. Even now he stared ahead with unfocused sea-green eyes, lost in a world of his own – or so it seemed. Liattas clucked, bemused.

“What’s this now? Our great captain, afraid of a slave?”

“Not afraid,” Garrash said, a bit too sharply. Yes I am. I’m afraid of them all. Men like them, they have nothin’ to lose. Nothin’ to live for, but everything to die for. Liattas could laugh, and Daedran could have his fun – but aye, the captain avoided his own slaves like a mouse pawing away from cats. They didn’t belong on the Thimble. You need good, hard-working men on the oars; not men who would kill you the first chance they got. He’s still laughing at me on the inside, o’ second mate of mine. He could be the death of me too, one day. Funny how you can’t trust your own friends.

“Daedran!”

The first mate paused, stretched upwards. His white hair gleamed like liquid marble along his shoulders, softly glowing in the light of the dying sun. When he turned towards Garrash, his bleeding eyes were bright and eerie, like a nocturnal predator’s. “Unchain that one,” the captain declared. “Bring him down ‘ere.”

Liattas wasn’t laughing now. Just behind Garrash’s shoulder he stood, an expression of hungry anticipation touching upon one live, fleshy cheek, and then upon raw, dead flesh. Daedran cocked his head and sniffed the words as they came to him. Then, with his slow-moving grace, he began to free the young slave from his bonds. Life flooded back into those unblinking eyes, and they met with the captain’s uplifted gaze. It was like staring into a bleached skull. They were only holes. Worms would crawl out of them soon.

It took half an age for Daedran to lead the lad down to the dock. The slave’s legs were clumsy beneath him, and the trousers around them tattered. He tripped on one low-hanging strip of rag and ended upon his knees in front of Garrash. The fresh scars against his shoulders and back glittered with beads of sweat. Irritated, the captain thrust his hand under the lad’s arm, pulling him up sharp so that their eyes were almost level. Curse ‘em all, the boy was taller than he was.

“You’re the one from Scara Brae,” he said. “Heard a bit about you from your captors.”

The bleached skull wasn’t chattering today. Those weren’t worms in his sockets either, but actual eyes. Human eyes, startling in their clarity and hue. This was a boy little girls would sing songs about – would’ve sung songs about. Little girls wanted princes, not dirty slaves. The boy from Scara Brae kept his back straight, shoulders pulled back – and he stared down at Garrash, superior and innocent still. Deep inside, a part of him was yet to be broken. Yet to be touched.

“Tell you what,” Garrash said. “I’m gonna drag this one into a tavern with me. What d’you think, boy? Some nice hot wine . . . maybe some bread? We can play at kings for a night, drink until we can’t piss straight. Would you prefer that over the mast?”

Silence. The captain had seen statues more welcoming than this lad. He noted how strong the boy’s arms were. They’d be good in a fight.

“Get your tongue workin’, boy,” Liattas jeered. “Your captain’s talkin’ to you.”

Daedran’s head slid sideways in his silent amusement, pale lips parting in an echo of his terrible, terrible grin. Garrash smiled, but it felt as though his cheeks had turned to stone.

“You see that? My second mate . . . he’s an angry man. Gets angrier when he’s had a few drinks. Makes for terrible company. Are you like that, boy? Are you angry?”

Something did stir in the depths of those saturated eyes. A candle flame, perhaps, lit by a sentimental spark. The tips of the captain’s teeth flashed themselves, triumphant. “Oooh,” he let out quietly. When he leaned his face forwards, he could smell all that salt on the boy’s skin. Smelled like a fish. “You’re angry. Angry boys don’t like me. What would you do if you had me alone in a shady little corner of a tavern, with just a knife between us two?” The eyes rippled, blinked; darted away and down to the slave’s own feet, shamed. “No need to feel guilty about it. You would kill me. And rightfully so.”

He straightened again, suddenly weary of this open air. It seemed the evening sea was full of eyes, and none of them blinked. “Give me a leash,” he told Daedran. The first mate flung a short chain around the slave’s throat and wrapped it like a noose. The long end fell into the captain’s palm, cold and bitter. The lad’s empty eyes were tinged with fear before uncertainty, and Garrash was gladdened to see it. “Come, dog,” he said. “Let us share the wisdom of wine.”


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The wine was bitter and heavy on Treyn’s tongue – almost coppery, like blood. His hand was leaden as it lifted the cup to his lips, over and over and over. The leash lay limp around his neck like a heavy mantle of shame. In this tavern, he was no secret. Everyone knew he was a slave.

And yet, it was his owner who deigned to treat him like a free man. He put a leash around his neck, yes . . . but he bought him wine. Talked to him like a petulant father. Looked upon him as if his skin was crawling with a thousand wiggling maggots.

No man should fear a slave like he does.

The wine swilled down the captain’s throat with far more enthusiasm and familiarity than Treyn could understand. After each swallow, he smacked his lips with sweet satisfaction. Liattas watched them closely from the opposite side of the tavern. Leave me with the dog, Garrash had said, and the second mate had obeyed. The submissive hand did not talk back.

Thud. The tip of the captain’s knife dug deep into the grain of the wood table between them. Treyn’s fingers tightened instinctively around his cup of wine, and his mouth dried to an ancient desert. Garrash tilted his head, a cryptic smile upon his lips.

“Tell me, boy,” he said. “Have you ever killed a man?”

Silent, Treyn shook his head. A shiver ran through him, even in the stifled heat of the tavern.

“No? Not even nicked one?” Garrash chuckled. “You’re pure, aren’t ye? Pure. Good. You remind me of the righteous men I’ve come to know and dislike. Men who think they’re better than me, just because they do things a little differently.”

“Many men are better than you.” It came out of Treyn before he could consider the words. He hadn’t spoken in so long, too, that his voice was a dry rattle, almost inaudible. Garrash’s smile widened into a delighted grin.

“So you really do hate me.” Another swallow of wine, and a glad sigh. “Good. Hatred’s what keeps a man’s feet movin’. I don’t believe in love unless it concerns a ship, and good for me too. I ain’t dead yet. You’ll be soon, no doubt. Pure men always die in their youth.”

Silence settled over them again in noxious clouds. The knife quivered gently not an arm’s width from the slave. He could pluck it from the wood, slide it against Garrash’s throat . . . Liattas was so far away, he could never stop Treyn in time.

“Drink,” the captain urged. “You’ll need it.”

He did not drink. He only watched. The knife ceased its quiver, putting forth its best features with a seductive shine. What if Treyn could gut the captain as he had gutted his father’s fish? Would the captain bleed as much as they had? He need only retrieve the blade and find out. He could make his dreams come true.

“You say many men are better than me,” Garrash mused. “You’re right, too. Some might say they even lead better lives. Seems worth it, don’t it? If you can live pure and live grand . . . well, that’s all a good man can dream of.” He paused, sliding his fingers across one knee as he leaned back on his stool. His eyes were grey like a gathering storm, and as dangerous. “I suppose,” he resumed softly, “you’d count your father as a . . . good man.”

Another storm, roiling in Treyn’s throat. His fingers tightened again, squeezing the thin wood of his cup. “You know nothing of him.”

“Oh? Had a lot of debts, didn’t he? Owed some money to some dangerous people.” He chuckled when the familiarity of his words struck Treyn like a physical blow, straining his scarred skin tight o’er his bones. “I would know. I told you, I asked about ye. Didn’t like the look of ye from the start. Turns out, your good, loving father . . . he owes some gold to a good friend o’ mine. To good friends of a lot of deadly, murderous people. The thing is, lad . . . your father don’t have much gold.” He clucked his tongue lightly, shaking his head. “However can he repay his dirty old debts?”

“You,” Treyn drew out quietly, “know nothing of him.” A trickle of thick red wine trailed out of his cup, gliding over the young slave’s fingertip and bruising it with heat. Not even that could make him flinch as much as the captain’s words.

“I think I’m provin’ ye wrong on that.” Garrash lowered his eyes to the contents of his own cup, pursing his lips. “I wasted a lot of money on ye, and the rest of ye wretched few. Turns out, you were a free gift all along; a gift from your father, to appease angry men. How does that make you feel, dog? You’re worth even less than the scum you’re pulling oars with.”

He could not say with what strength he pulled the blade from the table, nor with what strength he sent that surface sprawling on its side. Holding the knife with blazing fury before him, Treyn’s free hand slammed the captain’s right shoulder back against the wall of their shadowed alcove. Wine spilled upon the floor like blood, thick and tar-like in the dim light.

“You know nothing of him!” the young slave cried. Momentary fear flickered in and out of Garrash’s stormy eyes. He masked it quickly with a wry grin that had seen many years, and many angry faces.

“Go on, then,” he said. “Kill your first man. Be that ugly little monster you’re hiding behind those ugly eyes o’ yours. Prove me right.”

In his dreams – no, his nightmares – Treyn would do just that. Always, the death centred around the captain’s throat. That was where the seeds of his lies grew, fermented with his smugness and his callousness towards life. Digging the knife into its core would be doing the world a favour. He would rid the place of another evil, cruel man. The pure may die in their youth, but the impure had their own debts to pay.

But Treyn Dawnmorrow was not that man of vengeance. He could not be the world’s scales, weighing both the pure and impure, and harvesting out judgement to restore its balance. In silent despair, he pulled the blade away from the captain’s throat. Somewhere behind him, the second mate must have seen it all. No doubt he would taste the lash of the whip as punishment, while Garrash Kos gloated over him in ugly pride. He could not bring himself to meet the captain’s stormy gaze.

“You’re a fool,” he heard him say. “A damn good fool.”

The tavern was utterly silent. This exchange between captain and slave was a miracle – hardly a display oft seen in public. In this harsh silence, a man could easily hear defensive blades being drawn. There were none. The second mate watched as all others watched. They all let out their bated breaths in a gentle breeze that carried to Treyn like a song. The words were familiar, and sounded oddly like his father.

With a fisherman’s clean precision, he sunk the knife into Garrash Kos’s gut. It seemed to him, in that moment, that the captain’s seaworn skin parted even more gracefully than the silver scales of his father’s favoured catch.

[Dawnmorrow]

Hot blood gushed like thick, scorching wine over his fingers. It was more tangible than a cold iron chain, or letters branded into a man’s shoulder. It seared hotter than flame, and the knife might have fallen heavy from his grip had he not clasped it like a dead man tasting sweet decay upon his tongue. The captain slouched over him, ragged and limp; the tattered pirate sails of his hair fluttered into Treyn’s eyes, smothering his vision to a dullness that matched his hearing and smell.

What do you do after you gut the fish? It was a lesson fishermen taught their sons lovingly. Proudly. His child should be the man’s greatest treasure. His muscled arms buckled as he wrenched the blade from the captain’s belly. Blood trickled like gleaming red wax along the paths of his veins. Every light twist of flesh played out in slow grace as Dawnmorrow observed upon it. The palms of his hands had painted themselves crimson, and the knife was a silver lining across his fingers.

Garrash Kos fell to his knees, his entrails dipping to the floor. Then he lurched forward onto his face.

Like coal erupting, the smell of blood hit Treyn with sickening suddenness. Tables scraped back against rough wooden floorboards. Blades were drawn in panicked defence. Dawnmorrow spread his fingers wide, and the knife delivered to him a sultry wink.

“Kill him!” Liattas shrieked, and the twisted dead half of his face morphed his words into a distorted vocabulary. “Kill him! Gut him!”

A shadow danced against Treyn’s scarred shoulder. With a surge of adrenaline and fear, he pivoted around with a wild wave of his knife. A tavern girl, younger than him by quarters, shrieked out in terror as the sharpened tip grazed against her cheek. Blood dotted her skin like scarlet boats bobbing on a porcelain sea. Alarmed, the innocent drew into a collective mass towards the entrance of the tavern. Liattas and his men stumbled in their thick, suffocating midst, howling in rage and frustration.

RUN.

His fingers left slick red trails on his table as he knocked it to the floor over the captain’s lurching remains. Hot wine flew through the air, chasing the tavern girl from him as she screamed for murder. His legs were heavy and clumsy, his throat restricted. The chain, he thought, and his bloodied fingers scrabbled at his neck to free himself from his leash.

HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL, DOG?

It would not come loose. His fingernails scratched gashes into his throat. Liattas howled, and he howled with him. He closed a hand around the long end of his leash, swinging harmlessly down his back; with it, he hurled a terrible iron whip through the air, landing it on the nose of the first sailor to reach him. Bone split and blood spurted, dotting Treyn’s arms in a particular artwork.

WhO aRe YoU tO sAiL aLoNe On My SeA? The words filled him with swelling, boiling rage and panic. He swung the chain again, and the sailor fell, gurgling. “My sea!” he screamed. “My-y-y se-e-ea-a-a!”

The chain flew back and forth, clearing a circle of defence around him. His leaden legs carried him towards the kitchens, away from scream and shout and mass hysteria. The scent of blood was so strong that he could taste it. He felt the part of a shark with fresh kill on his teeth, ready and eager to brutalise again. The serving boys and girls fled from him like schools of slippery fish. They were so small, he could not bring himself to care for them. Bring me meat, bring me bone. Who are you to sail alone on my sea?

“Slave!” Liattas shrieked, the reaper at his doorstep. “Sla-a-a-ve!”

The spinning chain sent platters of half-baked fish and pitchers of boiling wine behind Dawnmorrow. Somewhere, the second mate slipped, bringing a cacophony of splintering sound to his ears. The Half-Face was screaming incessantly for blood like a hungry hyena, and it powered Treyn forward like bonfires lit at his feet. Or maybe that was the wine.

Wine. Was it the wine he had drunk that warmed his belly so, or was it the blood of Garrash Kos?

Drink from the sea and have your just disease. Who are you to sail alone on my se-e-ea-a-a?

Pottery crunched sickeningly quiet on the rough-hewn floor. Fine red mist swam in and out of Treyn’s eyes as he looked for the source, the iron leash curiously light in his grasp. His empty gaze narrowed upon a young shape, short and budding and promised with a soiled and wine-stained future. The boy, no doubt younger than ten, was frozen in a candle’s stance two feet away, hands quaking like a rocking table. His details were blurred – almost inconsequential to Dawnmorrow. He was the shark, and this was his day’s meal. He need only sink the chain into the boy’s soft neck, bury it deep beneath the base of his skull . . .

WHO ARE YOU TO SAIL ALONE ON MY SEA, BOY? WHO ARE YOU, DOG? HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL? WHO ARE YOU?

A soft, terrified whimper bubbled forth from the young’in. His fingers clutched at empty air, searching for the pot that had slipped from his grasp. Fish stew crawled meekly up to his toes, begging for new shelter. His lips fought for words, and they sounded like, “P-Please . . . p-please don’t . . . ”

Behind Treyn, Liattas scuttled to his feet, slipping once . . . twice . . . cursing in despairing fury.

“Please don’t,” the boy wailed quietly, his restricted throat not allowing for volume. “I had nothin’ to do with any of it . . . I don’t hate you or anythin’ . . . ”

Treyn’s shoulders were shaking, and a sudden coldness swept down from the leash around his neck to the bottom of his aching spine. The iron links in his hand were slowly gaining back their weight, groaning against the flesh of his palm. In his chest, breath drummed like an oncoming war, and everything was toosmalltoosmall,whatwashedoing?

The long end of the leash fell to the floorboards, dragging Treyn down along with it. He gasped at the renewed tightness on his throat – gagged at the matted blood between his fingers and up to his elbows. Even his own bile tasted like copper, thick and choking. “Go,” he whined to the boy’s frozen feet. “Go quickly.”

The child needed no urging. He turned and sprinted, sobs wracking up to his slobbering lips. The slave’s nails dug into the floorboards, and he found that he couldn’t feel their pain as they splintered against the pressure.

“Got you now,” Liattas hissed as he shook on his feet. There was, unmistakeably, a note of terror and disbelief to his voice. “You crazy cunt. You lunatic.”

Treyn searched the floor. Where was the knife? Where had it fallen? His hands ran slick over the floor in a futile search. I’m a fool, I’m a murderer; I don’t deserve life. I don’t deserve that which I rob from others. The red rage receded further and further within him until it was only a pinprick of shame upon his soul, bleeding and oozing guilt and horror. The sole of the second mate’s boot found the back of his neck and sent it ricocheting to the wooden boards beneath.

“I should kill you now,” Liattas whispered. “I should put you down like the dog ye are.”

“Do it.” Who said that? It must have been Treyn, but his lips were numb and pursed to bloodstained wood. “Do it,” he insisted, and he felt his own teeth scrape the inside of his cheek.

The point of the sailor’s blade scraped roughly along the outside of Treyn’s neck, hindered only by the same man’s boot. He cursed again, quick and nervous, before the whistle of an arcing death blow sung through the air.

It was met by the deafening clash of steel on steel, and the second mate’s curse was, this time, louder and far more natural.

“Daedran – !”

Now the softer sound of steel gliding into flesh, and the haunting scent of fresh blood.

“Goodnight,” the first mate murmured. Liattas fell atop of Treyn, gushing his life into the slave’s mouth as the boy from Scara Brae screamed.

[Dawnmorrow]

“Get up.”

It was not a voice that Treyn had heard before, dripping forth icicles of venom and sweet bile. A hard hand wrenched his shoulder out from beneath the second mate’s elbow, then clasped his throat. The fingers felt like frozen steel claws.

“Get up.”

Somehow his feet found platform beneath him. Glittering pink eyes granted him audience, the pupils within a flickering spider’s web of shadow. Treyn’s lips were numb, cursed with the spill of Liattas’s blood. He could only gaze in broken stupor at this man who, several slow hours before, had dragged hissing whips across his back.

“Look at me,” Daedran commanded him. The steel claws on his throat tightened. “Are you a slave, boy? Do you not do as you are commanded? Look in my eyes. Look deep.”

The pupils expanded, threatening to swallow the pink irises whole. Treyn was looking into nothingness – into the very soul of a void. His lips tingled and quivered in fear. “What are you?” he whispered weakly.

“He who owns you. He who collects his debts.” The steel claw released Treyn. Dim light caught the sparkling tips of Daedran’s fingers. His sharp, elongated claws seemed to recede and morph back to a natural shape of tattered nails. Surely a mere trick of light. His pale skin seemed to shimmer, begging to be released from unseen constraints. Daedran rolled his neck, lips parting in a silent sigh. “And now I free you from your price.”

Treyn’s legs could hardly bear him. His feet were planted in Liattas’s blood as it soaked languidly into the floorboards. “I do not understand.”

“I free you from your price,” Daedran repeated. His black pupils gleamed mild and curious as he appraised Dawnmorrow, snow-white hair sifting as he lent his head to one side. “Your soul is not pure.”

Purity. Had it been for purity that his own father gave Treyn away in the stead of coin? Had the elder Dawnmorrow’s soul not sparkled prettily enough for Daedran the Inhuman, after years of rough salt waves and mouldy ale? He felt his fingers curl into fists, the broken shards of his identity battling against his weakened chest. The monster before him witnessed the gesture, calm and unaffected.

“Life is a most precious thing,” it spoke. “It is a beauty that I have lost sight of; a purity that flees me. You have soiled your beauty, Treyn Dawnmorrow, as I have done many times over. This is a legacy you will walk for centuries – and it is not one I desire.” Its bloodsoaked blade sighed as it drew up against the cloth on its leg, leaving behind gruesome stains. The monster bowed a respectful head over it, before relieving it to its sheath. “There is no place for murderers upon my vessel.”

“You are a murderer,” Treyn hissed. The words scratched in futile desperation against his tongue. “You are the cursed one!”

For the first time, Daedran almost smiled. One pale lip curled, and then the other, and some deadly tide in his throat rumbled and purred. “Aye. My soul is black and dead . . . and hungry. You will know this suffering well, Dawnmorrow. Your vessel will sail the terrible seas . . . and then you will feed as I do.”

It bared its mouth in a ghastly grin, each tooth ending in a short and brutal point – like a shark’s, Treyn thought with sudden repulsion and fear. Did its skin, too, begin to seem startlingly grey in shade? Did his eyes drown in the black of their pupils, beady and lustful like some ocean predator’s? The fisherman’s son recoiled and fell upon the second mate’s corpse, and as he scrambled for escape, the chain around his neck broke into dozens of glittering debris.

“Run free now,” Daedran purred, slinking into the shadows. “There is a murderer on the loose.”

Was it possible now that Liattas turned his head to gape in deathly glee upon Treyn? Silent screams clawed out of the lad’s freed throat, and backwards he scrambled, travelling on hands and rear. Spilled fish stew seared the palms of his hands, cooking a mixture with coppery blood. Confused noise returned to him as he fled – his own heavy breathing, and the screams of a terrified boy. “Murderer! Murderer!”

“No,” he croaked. His feet gathered beneath him, and he swung up to his full height. Dead men sprinkled a path to where he stood, and the innocent amassed by the tavern’s gloomy entrance with hard, horrified stares. “It was not . . . it was not . . . ”

A high-pitched wail pierced the stifling dimness. “You killed him! You killed my son! My son!”

And so the little lad lay, not far from Liattas, with blood smeared around his throat and his mouth. Glazed, pearly eyes stared far ahead into the cobwebs beneath overturned tables. Not far from his white hands was the cracked shards of the pot he had dropped. The fish stew was still caked painfully across Treyn’s palms, and it felt thicker than the blood beneath it.

There is a murderer on the loose.

He wailed along with the boy’s mother, the chain in pieces around his feet. In hindsight, such a thing would seem symbolic to him. The observation was, however, still too far away to be made.

“Not him,” Treyn wept. “Not him!”

None dared come near him until the armed men arrived, with practised indifference to take him away into the deep, deep darks of a harsh city’s dungeons.