Heart of Black Ice (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  King Grieve leaned forward, studying the general’s half mask. “I may want one of those myself. I like the way it looks.”

  Utros peeled off the golden covering to reveal his flayed face. By now the wound had healed, the dark muscle scabbed and hardened over the skull. “It was not my choice. It was necessary for a spell.”

  The Norukai nodded appreciatively and fingered the mouth scars on his own cheeks. “Sometimes we do what is necessary.” He planted his elbows on the rough wooden table. “So tell me your plan to conquer the world.”

  Utros gazed beyond the pavilion toward his huge army. “I have many thousands of fighters, armed and ready to march. Are any of your ships still intact after being crushed in the river ice?”

  Chalk squirmed at the rough-hewn table. “Ships and fish, ice and fire, great serpent ships.” He grinned. “Serpent ships! Splintered ships now!”

  “Not splinters!” Grieve roughly knocked the albino in the shoulder, then apologized by sweeping his arm around Chalk, squeezing the scrawny man. He faced Utros. “When the river froze, a hundred ships were anchored in the river, many up against the docks so we could climb the bluffs and invade Ildakar. The ice crushed some hulls, snapped the keels.” He pounded a heavy fist on the table. His knuckles, augmented with small iron plates, made the wood ring loudly from the blow. “But we will repair them. The Norukai are great shipbuilders.” Grieve glanced behind him toward where the land dropped abruptly to the river. “The swamps provide all the wood we need. We have tools. We have slaves.”

  The general took him at his word. “We will need your vessels and your Norukai fighters for the war. You said you have many more ships back at your islands? We require your navy and your fighters, along with my entire army.” He grew more serious. “Your ships will move faster down the river out to sea. Even at a hard pace, my army will take longer to travel overland to the coast.”

  “Some of my serpent ships are nearly repaired, and I am anxious to move, too,” Grieve said. “I will sail back to our Norukai islands, where I expect another hundred ships will be completed by now. My raiders are thirsty for victory and plunder. While we wait for your marching soldiers, we will attack cities on the coast, like a storm of steel and blood.”

  In his calculating mind, Utros manipulated the pieces, saw the large tactical picture. “If the Norukai raiders attack the coast, and my army sweeps overland, we will form a pincer across the Old World.”

  Grieve bit down on the bone from which he had stripped the deer meat. “We will crush the land like a grape between two fingers. It is a good plan.”

  “Once our fighting forces unite,” Utros added, “we will march together and subjugate Tanimura, Altur’Rang, and then move on to the New World.”

  “King Grieve!” Chalk cried. “They’ll all grieve.”

  “Yes, they’ll all grieve,” said General Utros.

  The Norukai weren’t much for small talk. After they finished their feast, the raiders were anxious to get back to their ships. Like General Utros, they had expected to conquer Ildakar, but now that the city itself was gone, neither army had a reason to remain here in this empty place. King Grieve departed as if the two commanders had planned the entire war in detail, and Utros realized that the Norukai were not much for planning. They simply attacked, moved on, then returned whenever they felt like it.

  He suspected Grieve would be an even worse leader than Iron Fang had been, but Utros would worry about the brute later, when it became an issue. He would use these violent Norukai to accomplish his aims. He had sworn to grind the entire continent under his boot heel—out of loyalty to his emperor and secretly out of love for Majel. Now all of that had broken inside him, and so Utros would have to do it for himself and no other reason.

  The Norukai returned to the bluffs above the river and climbed back down to their damaged ships. When the ugly raiders were gone, First Commander Enoch approached Utros, deeply concerned. “All the supplies were distributed, General. They did not go far.”

  “I did not expect them to,” Utros said. “There was truth in what the Norukai king said. Recently, our scouts mapped out some nearby settlements. We know where there are supplies for the taking—at least a few—and we must have them. Disperse raiding parties in all directions. Find every town and strip them of every scrap of food.” He lowered his head. “It’s the only way our army can survive.”

  CHAPTER 4

  As the following dawn spilled across the river flatlands, Norukai taskmasters pounded on drums to rouse the groaning slaves, kicking the ones who didn’t move swiftly enough.

  “Time to work!” bellowed Gara, a muscular female shipwright with gray braids dangling like drowned vipers from her patchy scalp. “Work until your fingers bleed.” She opened her scarred mouth and snapped her teeth back together.

  Tied on the tilted deck of a damaged Norukai ship, Bannon squirmed to avoid a vicious kick. A raider cut his bonds so he could join the others at work.

  The captives set about their repairs in the faint dawn light. Gara used a mallet to pound boards and pegs into place, but Bannon had seen the ugly woman employ the bulky tool to bash the skull of a slave who worked too slowly.

  As Bannon rubbed his raw wrists where the rope had chafed him during the night, the ghostly pale shaman crept up and grasped his shoulders with spidery fingers. “Time to hammer, or time to be a nail!”

  Bannon shook him off, uneasy about the strange behavior of the scarred albino. At least he understood the uncouth Norukai, but Chalk was deeply unsettling. For some reason, the shaman found him fascinating.

  After days of captivity, Bannon’s body was battered and sore. He still had healing cuts, torn fingers, and massive bruises from fighting the Norukai invaders on the bluffs below Ildakar. He had nearly killed Chalk and King Grieve before they all tumbled down the cliffside to crash in a heap of bodies and weapons.

  But rather than dying then, Bannon had been taken as a slave. Being captured by the Norukai was one of his greatest nightmares, ever since the slavers tried to seize him as a boy on Chiriya Island. Back then, his best friend, Ian, had been seized in his stead while Bannon got away, and he had regretted that moment of cowardice ever since. Now, many years later, he found himself a slave after all.

  Chalk shook him by the shoulders again, and Bannon lashed out instinctively, remembering what they had done to Ian. “Don’t touch me, filthy Norukai!”

  The albino cackled, delighted by Bannon’s reaction. In the brightening daylight, King Grieve saw him rebuff his pale friend, and the big man strode forward, his expression like an angry storm rolling across the sea. “Show respect or die, slave!” Grieve grabbed Bannon by the neck and yanked him off the deck. “Are you worth the air you breathe? Are you worth the water you piss?”

  Bannon struggled, ready to fight back even though he knew he’d be severely beaten or killed. He was not a coward, but he would not be an example for these monsters.

  Scowling, shipwright Gara stepped up to intervene. “Break him later, my king. We need the workers if you want these ships repaired. Lost three men yesterday, and we’re not getting any more workers from the city.” The shipwright glanced at the bluffs rising above the river. The top of the cliff above, where Ildakar had been, looked like a cleanly sheared tree stump, the city simply swept away. “We need to use the ones we have, at least until we’re done.”

  Grieve released his hold and let Bannon drop unceremoniously to the slanted deck. He raised a heavy battle-axe in his hand, threatening, and that provoked a delighted reaction from Chalk. He crowed, “The axe cleaves the wood! The sword cleaves the bone!”

  Bannon didn’t know what the shaman meant, but his jabbering often made no sense. Chalk looked at Bannon and nodded, as if he expected the young man to agree with him. “The axe cleaves the wood! The sword cleaves the bone!”

  Grieve dismissed his odd friend. “My axe can cleave bone just as well, and it will take off this one’s head as soon as the ship repairs are done.”

/>   “Not yet, my Grieve. Not yet.” Chalk stroked Bannon’s long ginger hair, which made his skin crawl. “Not this one.”

  Slave crews got to work among the numerous damaged vessels. The Norukai fleet had consisted of a hundred serpent ships sailing up the Killraven River and closing on Ildakar. The raiders had intended to climb the bluffs and overwhelm the city’s defenses, but they didn’t know anything about the besieging army of General Utros on the other side of the city. Bannon and his morazeth partner Lila had fought with hundreds of other defenders on the cliffs, hurling down projectiles, battling with spears and swords to drive the raiders away, but the Norukai had overwhelmed them.

  He had fallen from the cliff, been knocked unconscious and taken captive. Bannon didn’t know what had happened to Lila since then, and even if he managed to escape from the countless hundreds of watchful Norukai all around him, he did not know how he could reunite with his friends. Nathan had been leading a huge raid against General Utros when the city vanished beneath the shroud of eternity, and Nicci had gone on another mission, to warn Serrimundi. Bannon had no hope of meeting up with any of them ever again, so he would have to fend for himself. If he ever got away.

  When Elsa’s transference magic had frozen the entire river, the ice-locked ships were structurally damaged. The angry Norukai now worked like ants, making repairs and forcing their captives to do the hardest labor, cutting down trees in the swamps, dragging the logs back, and sawing the wood into lumber.

  Some of the serpent ships had sunk to the silty river bottom. Those wrecks were stripped of ropes, which were used to repair the rigging of other ships. Sheets of midnight-blue sailcloth were moved to the intact ships and mounted as sails. Workers sawed the masts from the scuttled ships and installed them on other vessels; salvaged wood provided new hull boards where needed. Expert Norukai shipwrights like Gara moved from vessel to vessel directing the repairs, commanding slave teams.

  Always looking for his chance to escape, Bannon reluctantly hauled lengths of rope from one deck to another, carrying tools and supplies. During the hot, endless work, he considered using the mallets and pry bars as weapons. He knew he could harm several of the slavers, but it would be an impotent gesture against thousands of ruthless Norukai, and he would just end up dead. He wrestled with what to do.

  The day before, one of the Ildakar slaves attempted to fight back and succeeded in injuring one Norukai, who was taken by surprise with his back turned. Though Bannon applauded the man’s effort, it was poorly planned, and the Norukai instantly subdued the rebellious slave. They were not quick about killing him. They forced Bannon and the other captives to watch as they broke the bones in the slave’s arms one at a time, then his legs. They piled heavy weight stones on his chest, one after another with a long pause in between, until his ribs cracked, his eyes hemorrhaged, and blood spouted from his mouth. When the poor man gasped for mercy, one of the Norukai simply stepped on the weights, slowly pressing until his sternum cracked.

  Though Bannon wanted to murder these tormentors, he wouldn’t waste his life to no purpose. He watched and waited, knowing an opportunity would arise, and he hoped he could help the other captives as well as himself.

  Sullen slaves dismantled a sunken wreck, using pry bars to detach the hull boards for patching holes in other vessels. The exhausted workers were fed little and allowed no rest. They had only the greenish river water to drink.

  King Grieve bellowed from the prow of one of the nearly finished ships. “I want to sail soon. Finish these ships so we can head back to the Norukai islands and launch our war.”

  Bannon muttered, “Since so many Norukai were killed here, you’ll need fewer ships going home.” The shipwright reached over and slapped Bannon hard on the face, bloodying his lip and leaving a bright red mark on his cheek.

  Chalk laughed as if the young swordsman’s remark was the funniest thing he had ever heard. He squatted in front of Bannon and nodded, grinning. Unfortunately, the king also heard the comment. Grieve grabbed him again, ready to kill him, but Gara hissed her warning again. “We need him to work!”

  The king lifted Bannon and tossed him over the side of the ship and into the river. “He can work at the waterline, soaking up mud and slime.”

  With a yelp, Bannon fell, plunging into the river. Spluttering, he struggled for something to hold on to. He trod water and looked up, his reddish hair hanging in muddy strands like weeds. Grieve leaned over the rail and growled from above. “Next time I’ll put weights on your ankles! Then you can repair the bottom of the boat until you drown.”

  Chalk peered over the rail, staring down at Bannon with incomprehensible concern.

  Gara threw a mallet down to him, which splashed in the water. Four other slaves were tied to the listing ship alongside spare boards and wooden buckets filled with nails. The river sounds hummed in the oppressive humid air around them. Norukai guards passed close in landing boats, ferrying equipment and people from one serpent vessel to the next, while also keeping watch on the slaves working at the waterline.

  Bannon realized that further resistance—today—would accomplish nothing more, so he grudgingly took the floating mallet and followed instructions. For now. Picking up one of the patch boards, he reached into a bucket of nails that hung on a rope and joined the other slaves in pounding the wood into place, overlapping hull boards. Another slave dug his hands into a pot of warm pitch and slathered a waterproof seal across the wood.

  A nearby slave commiserated, “Terrible duty, but better than bilge work.”

  Bannon had seen other slaves going into the dark and stuffy lower decks of the damaged ships, hauling out buckets of water so the vessels could float higher. “I guess we can always think of something worse.” Optimism had often been Bannon’s saving grace, and he clung to hope that frequently turned out to be foolish. But it was the core of his personality. He would find a way to escape these disgusting captors, and he would make things better. He wouldn’t give up.

  The slave beside him let out a bitter chuckle. “This is much better than the bilge—” Suddenly, his face twisted in an expression of pain and terror. He flailed at the rope holding him, but something yanked his body beneath the water before he could scream. The rope stretched tight, then snapped, and blood blossomed in the water.

  Bannon instinctively reached out to save the man, but the victim was snatched away. The other slaves scrambled to get out of the river as the knobby reptilian back of a swamp predator broke the surface and swam briskly away with the poor man’s broken body in its scissorlike jaws. The swamp dragon dove under the water, taking its meal.

  The slaves in the water screamed, pulling on their ropes as they tried to lift themselves to safety. Bannon grabbed the snapped cable that had held the victim and used it to climb the hull, reaching down to help the others. Norukai rushed to the rails with boat hooks and spears. They jabbed downward, knocking the slaves away. “Back in the water. Back to work!”

  “Monsters in the river!” one of the slaves cried. “We’ll be killed.”

  “You should be more afraid of us than anything down there,” Gara said.

  Bannon still held his wooden mallet, wishing he had his faithful sword, Sturdy. He wanted to kill these hideous people, but as he looked up at the forest of jagged spear points, the curved swords and the angry scarred faces, he realized he would just be throwing his life away. Chalk was watching him, shaking his head and wagging his finger, as if warning Bannon.

  Despising the Norukai more than ever, Bannon let himself slip back into the river, alert for ripples in the water and the scaly backs of swamp monsters. Soon he knew he was going to have to kill something.

  *

  Lila kept to the thickets on the riverbank, hidden but close enough that she could have thrown a spear and killed a Norukai warrior, right out in the open. But right now that would have wasted her element of surprise to no good purpose. She had already quietly killed nine of them under cover of darkness and fed their bodies to predato
rs, and that satisfied her for a while. Now, though, she lurked in her camouflage, watching and waiting for her chance.

  Bannon needed her.

  When Ildakar had disappeared in the middle of the battle, she, too, had fallen from the bluff. Despite what should have been a fatal plunge, she had tumbled into shallow water and soft river mud. Stunned, Lila had drifted down the current until her body caught in the tangled bushes, where she pulled herself to shore. The Norukai hadn’t seen her.

  Now, days later, her short brown hair was caked with mud, and her face was sunburned. She wore only scant black leather. The branded runes on her skin protected her from magic, but did nothing to ward off insect bites or dangerous thorns. She had a dagger, but she had lost her short sword in the fall. Since she was a morazeth, though, her entire body was a weapon. She relied on her muscles and reflexes. She would bide her time and do whatever damage she could, any time she caught one of the Norukai alone. . . .

  Lila and her morazeth sisters had sworn to defend Ildakar, which was now gone, but she had also accepted personal responsibility for Bannon, promising to protect him. She had trained the boy in the combat pits, challenged him with her harshest exercises. She had even occasionally taken him as a lover to reward him when he did well, and as time went by, she found more and more excuses to reward him in such a way. Lila didn’t understand why the young swordsman failed to appreciate all that she had taught him. Her hard lessons had certainly saved his life more than once.

  At one point, during an assault on the army of General Utros, Bannon had been taken prisoner and nearly killed. That incident had shown her that she didn’t want to lose him. She realized it wasn’t just a matter of pride for her. Bannon was cocky, believing he was a good fighter—which he was—but Lila was better. The two of them fought well together, but she doubted he could survive without her.