Page 8 of Of Steel and Scale

Then Oran’s magic sharpened, and we were abruptly wrapped in a bubble of calm. The ship settled and surged forward again, slicing through the seas at speed, the bubble preceding us while the storm’s violence crashed into the foam of our wake. I sent a silent prayer to Túxn—the goddess of good luck—that Oran’s strength outlasted the worst of the storm. I really didn’t want to be sailing around the Throat of Huskain when it failed.

We were a little over two hours into the four-hour journey home when the vague feeling that something was wrong stirred.

At first I thought it was simply our nearness to the Throat; the seas that crashed against its fortress-like walls might provide rich pickings for fishermen, but the uncertain currents made it a dangerous area to traverse in calm seas, let alone storm-clad.

But the closer we got, the more certain I became the wrongness had nothing to do with the sea or the storm.

Then the vibration began along the mental lines.

I frowned and silently reached out, trying to find the source of whatever I was sensing. After a moment, I pinned it down—it was at the very far edges of my reach, and it was a mind unlike anything I’d ever come across before. It was fierce and cruel, a mind whose patterns of thought were both foreign and bizarre. In thirty years of existence, I’d not sensed anything like it.

But as I tried to forge a deeper connection, the link was severed, and so damn brutally that pain rebounded and made me gasp.

I blinked back tears and rubbed my head. Though I had no idea what I’d briefly connected to, I was certain of one thing. Someoneelsehad severed the connection.

I rose, clipped myself onto the guide rail, and then stepped out of the shelter. Oran’s bubble continued to protect us, but the seas around the Throat were so unpredictable the occasional wave got through. The unwary—or unsecured—could easily be washed overboard.

Rutgar hurried over. “Is there a problem, Captain?”

“Maybe.”

I studied the white-capped seas uneasily. There was life underneath those waves—white-finned blackfish, sea devils, and deadly spear rays. None of them were the source of what I’d sensed.

My gaze rose. Light rolled across the darkness, a brief flash that lent the low clouds an ominous glow.

And hid whatever it was that now approached.

Rutgar’s gaze followed mine. “You sensing a drakkon?”

“Drakkons have more sense than to come out in weather like this.”

“Not so. We’ve lost ships to them before, and in storms far worse than this.”

“Only because we were killing them en masse,” I said. “There hasn’t been an attack since the ballistas fell silent.”

“Revenge is a trait both humans and drakkons share,” he said.

And no matter what I said, I wasn’t going to convince him otherwise. “Whatever is out there isn’t a drakkon.”

Something thumped heavily against the roof of the covered area. I spun around, one hand instinctively gripping my sword. On the top of the wooden structure was what appeared to be a mound of dung. Dung that was meltingintothe wooden struts.

Before I could investigate further, a shout from the prow had me spinning around again. An oarsman was down. Rutgar swore and sprinted forward. I followed.

More thumps. More steaming piles of stinking dung. More men down.

Screams of shock and anger now filled the air, the noise almost masking another—a thick, ominous splintering.

My gaze jumped to the mast. A crack raced down its center, cleaving the thick beam in two. It crashed onto the deck, smashing into the gunwale and killing two oarsmen who didn’t get out of the way fast enough.

“What in Vahree’s name is happening?” Rutgar shouted.

“I don’t know, but the sooner we get out of here, the better.” I spun around. “Oran, we need?—”

The rest of the sentence died in my throat. Oran was dead, slumped sideways on the bench, half his face sliced away. Something glittered in the bloody remnant of his left cheek—something that was gold and metallic.

I swore but before I could do anything, say anything, the bubble protecting us shattered, leaving us at the full mercy of the storm. The boat plunged steeply, sending me tumbling toward the broken part of the hull. A second before I would have plunged into the icy water, the safety rope snapped taut, cutting deep into my waist even as it stopped my fall.

“Ingrid, Tennent!” Rutgar was shouting. “Get the trysail and jib up!”

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