Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (64 page)

‘Throw it in the fire,’ Kal said. Her voice was cold.

Never!
Lula had to think fast to come up with a way to save it from the flames. She tossed the pouch …
over
the fire to Kal, who instinctively caught it. ‘You keep it,’ Lula said. ‘It’s worth a lot of money. No point in wasting it.’

Kal grunted, but seemed to accept this, as Lula knew she would. ‘Alright,’ Lula said. ‘Get on with your story about how you escaped Port Black. And it had better be exciting enough to take my mind off the cravings I’m getting.’

* * *

‘I refused to fight him,’ Kal said, picking up her story at the part where the Magician ordered Dead Leg to kill her. ‘I was dancing and dodging all around the cramped guardroom, knocking into the stone walls and the bars of the cells. Che was shouting for his father to stop it, to call Dead Leg off, but the Magician only chuckled.
Tell me where you hid the treasure first!
he said.
Don’t tell him!
I said to Che, because I had suddenly realised how I might find my way to the hiding place myself. All I had to do was escape this room.

‘I eventually got out: not through the door in the fort wall we had come through, but up a narrow stair that led up the battlements. Dead Leg was hot on my heels, and there were zombies shambling around up top. The front gate was still shut tight, so the only way out was to jump.

‘So I dived off the walls. I had no idea how deep the water below was, and there’s only one way to stop yourself from cracking your head open on the rocks—I turned my dive into a belly flop, and smacked down with such force that I was knocked out cold. But Dogwood had brought the Swordfish around, and managed to haul us in.’

‘Us?’ Lula said.

‘Yes,’ Kal said. ‘Dead Leg jumped after me. He smashed his wrist apart on the rocks and banged his skull pretty bad. But the good news is that when we got him on board, he had regained his senses. The Magician’s influence had worn off. Well, we think so anyway—he’s still zombified, just not aggressive any more. We locked him below deck for his own safety, and set off around the coast in pursuit of you and Azul.

‘Azul’s ship was still moored just offshore from your village. It was still dark, but even so there was no way even a surprise attack was going to succeed. Let’s face it, smugglers don’t make good fighters. So we came up with a plan to do some smuggling instead … I decided to smuggle myself aboard.

‘I swam out to the Azul’s ship and climbed the anchor line, entering the ship by the hawsehole. I didn’t have a plan at that time: I’d told Dogwood and the
Swordfish
not to come back for me, and sent them away to a safe cove. I was prepared to risk everything and kill a lot of people to break you out, Lu. But I was sneaking across the deck to the captain’s cabin when I overheard Azul talking to his first mate. He was telling him to keep it a secret, but they were going to abandon you on some old island hideout for a week or so.’

A week or so!
Lula was furious. If the bastard had the nerve to come back, she’d show him what she thought of his games … she would return his bullet to him, right between the eyes!

‘So that’s when my plan changed,’ Kal said. ‘I thought it would be safer to keep my head down until we got here. Now here were are: Azul’s long gone, and the
Swordfish
will be along to pick us up long before he ever comes back.’

Lula smiled and shook her head.
Kal Moonheart!
What would she ever do without her? ‘There’s just one problem with your plan, Kal,’ she said. ‘Like I told you, nobody but Azul knows where we are. This is an uncharted island—one tiny speck in a thousand that all look the same. How is anyone going to know we are here to rescue us?’

Kal laughed. ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ she said. ‘We’re not at Azul’s hideout at all. Azul wrote down a course for his navigator to follow, but I got hold of it and switched it. This island is even more remote and secret; nobody has set foot here for at least a decade.’

Kal drank in Lula’s stunned silence for a few moments, before delivering the final broadside: ‘Certainly not since Che came here to bury his stolen treasure.’

III.iv

The Demon-Haunted World

As darkness fell, so did the rain, and then hundred-mile-an-hour winds that turned what would have been a light shower into a freezing full-frontal assault. Lula and Kal set up their shelter inside the banyan tree. Its roots formed a cage that was two yards across, and inside they dug a smaller fire pit and constructed a cot either side of it, raised a foot off the ground to keep insects and snakes at bay.

They lay facing each other, snug and warm in their den. The smoke from the pit stung Lula’s eyes, but the fire was burning lemongrass to keep the mosquitos away, so the trade-off was worth it. Rain shook the roof of ferns, and the occasional drip fell and sizzled in the flames. Lula had crushed some of the bunches of lemongrass, and was rubbing the oil into her skin.

‘You smell nice,’ Kal said.

‘I should bottle this stuff and sell it,’ Lula said. ‘Repels mosquitos and attracts women. It would be more popular than aqua vita.’

Kal laughed. ‘I said you smell nice, not that I’m attracted to you.’

‘If you say so,’ Lula said, catching and holding Kal’s gaze. Kal broke the connection first, shifting uncomfortably on her bed.

‘Get some sleep, Lu,’ Kal said. ‘You look tired. We need to be fit for treasure hunting in the morning.’ She turned over to face away from Lula and instantly began to snore.

Lula may have looked tired, but she was wide awake. Her body ached, and she couldn’t decide whether to wait until Kal was asleep and steal back her Sirensbane, or wake Kal and ask her about—

‘—the map.’

‘Hmmm,’ Kal said dreamily.

‘The treasure map,’ Lula said. ‘The one you got off the cook.’

Kal just grumbled something, reached into her bag, and tossed a leather-bound book over to Lula.

The cover was plain and stained with food. Lula turned to the first page, squinting in the dim light of the fire. The neat, hand-written title said:
RECIPES

What the hell?
Lula flipped through page after page of Che’s rambling, half-legible instructions for making, among other things, shrimp gumbo, goat curry and shark’s fin soup. She reached the back cover without finding a map, or any kind of navigational coordinates. The book was useless.

The recipe book had been laying open in the galley of the
Swordfish
every day of the voyage. What had Kal seen in it that no-one else had? No doubt she would make Lula wait all night, then tease her with a drip-feed of clues in the morning.
Damn you, Kal. You’re too damn clever for your own good.

There was no way Lula was going to give Kal that satisfaction. She turned back to the beginning of the book.

Ten pages in, something made her pause. An unfamiliar concoction with a bizarre list of ingredients:

VUDA’S BOUNTY

A Traditional wayfarers’s dish from Port Black.

40 pounds of Wide Nose Whale.

4 Squid Eyes.

36 Naiad Wings.

Mix with salt water, egg whites (and shells) and green vegetables, then place at the bottom of a deep stone oven. Soak in water when cooked, and garnish with black lotus.

Lula sat cross-legged on her cot, face screwed up in thought. This strange recipe had to mean something, but what? Kal’s rumbling snores weren’t helping her concentrate. Lula looked at the recipe again.

A Traditional wayfarers’ dish from Port Black.

… from
Port Black.

Lula smiled. Suddenly the rest of it all made sense. She tossed the book aside and flopped onto her back. To hell with Kal’s games and teasing; now Lula could sleep easily and dream of treasure. It was almost enough to take her mind off her body’s aching for Sirensbane.

A piercing shriek split the night. Sleep wasn’t going to be so easy after all. The demons that guarded the island would see to that. Thinking about the monsters that haunted the island’s interior, Lula had a sudden horrible sense of foreboding. She picked the book off the floor and read the last line of the recipe again:

… and garnish with black lotus.

‘Oh no,’ Lula breathed. ‘No treasure is worth this.’ Tales from her childhood were slipping back into her mind: fireside legends of lost civilisations, abandoned ruins and creeping monsters. She knew now where they were. It wasn’t just any old island that Che had chosen to stash his treasure on…

This was Vuda’s secret sanctuary.

The Forbidden Island.

* * *

Lula’s sleep was fitful, and she woke up hungry. She could hear noise outside their den, and her paranoid mind conjured up a hundred horrible things that it could be. Then she realised that is was just Kal moving around outside. Lula’s lethargic body slumped back onto her cot; she felt sick inside at the thought of venturing out into the jungle today. A dangerous desert island wasn’t the best place to be if you were coming down off Sirensbane.

Kal appeared with breakfast: two small snappers that she had caught on the end of a sharpened stick, and smoked over the fire. ‘Get up, sleepyhead,’ she said. ‘It’s time to go treasure hunting.’

Lula nibbled at the fish. It felt tasteless in her mouth. ‘You shouldn’t have brought us here, Kal,’ she said. ‘This is the worst place to be in the Auspice Islands. We shouldn’t go any further inland. Let’s just stay on the beach and wait to be picked up.’

Kal didn’t seem bothered. ‘So you worked out where we are then?’

‘Of course,’ Lula said. ‘Che’s recipe was directions for how to get here
from Port Black
. It was all written in some crazy code.
Forty pounds of Wide Nose Whale
means sail forty miles West North West.
Squid Eyes
is South East, and
Naiad Wings
—whatever they are—means North West.
Salt water, egg whites and shells, and vegetables
is the island: sea, sand and jungle.’

She paused to recall what came next. ‘
A deep stone oven
could be the temple of Vuda. But there’s only one place in the world where the black lotus grow: the Forbidden Island.’

Kal was literally drooling as she chewed on her fish. ‘I know! Che brought his treasure, by chance or by fate, to the very place where Vuda gathered all the ancient gold of her people centuries ago. Now that may or may not be just an old legend, but I don’t doubt that Che’s horde was made up of a lot of Inzec gold collected over the years, so in a way the old legends have come true.’

‘Yes,’ Lula said. ‘And it was probably Vuda who guided Che here. Hell, Kal, it was probably Vuda who put the idea in the poor fellow’s head to steal the gold in the first place. And now that it’s here, you want to go and
steal it from under the nose of a god
?’

Kal just raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you scared, Lu?’

‘Of course I am!’ Lula said. ‘And so should you be. When I came to the city asking for your help, I didn’t expect us to end up here in a million years. Why couldn’t you have picked a quiet, remote island, where we could have sheltered safely?’

Kal’s patience looked like it was wearing thin. ‘That’s always been your problem, Lu,’ she said, standing up. ‘Always wanting the easy life. You get involved in a smuggling, ill-advised love affairs, fooling around with drugs and other high jinks, but you haven’t got the guts to face up to a real challenge; a real adventure! This treasure could set us both up for life. Well, if you’re not with me, then I guess I get to keep it all!’

And with that, Kal stormed out into the jungle. Lula could hear her hacking away at roots and vines with her cleaver. What had gotten in to her? Kal was supposed to be the sensible one, but when she got a sniff of treasure then it was Lula who was suddenly the voice of reason. Kal had become far too cocksure, far too confident and headstrong, and it just wasn’t attractive any more.

Lula groaned as she pulled her aching body into action. Being clean wasn’t as fun as being high; and being responsible wasn’t as fun as being reckless. But she had to go and look out for her friend.

* * *

Lula caught up with Kal half a mile into the jungle. Kal was standing in a clearing where a trickle of sunlight broke through the canopy, and sparkled on her sweat-drenched body. ‘So, you came,’ she said with a wry smile.

‘I’m not a coward,’ Lula said. ‘I just don’t have a death wish. You seem to, though, so I’ve come to watch your back.’

Kal’s expression softened. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone else watching it,’ she said. ‘Lu, I’m sorry, but when I signed up for this, both you and Ben promised there would be opportunities along the way for loot and reward. Well, I saw an opportunity, and I’m taking it. It’s not as dangerous as you think.’

‘I guessed Ben gave you some orders,’ Lula said. ‘What’s he using you for this time, Kal?’

‘He’s not using me,’ Kal protested, taking up her cleaver and resuming her assault on the foliage. Then she slumped and turned back to Lula. ‘Alright, he’s probably using me. He sent me to investigate the governor, knowing full well that I’d probably stir up a whole hornet’s nest of trouble. Well, he was right. But when we find this treasure, Lu, we’ll get far away from here … leave Ben and the Magician to fight it out between themselves.’

Kal went on hacking a path through the jungle. Lula stood watching for a moment, lost in thought. But she wasn’t dreaming of running away with armfuls of treasure; she was thinking of Amaro Azul’s threat: the Eldragoran Armada was going to descend on Port Black. Now it seemed that the Republic fleet were, too. And caught in the middle of it all were the islands she loved, the people she grew up with … the father she left behind when she was eighteen, and who might still be alive somewhere. Could she run while her home was despoiled?

Damn it. She knew Kal wouldn’t care. But then Kal’s home had been destroyed years ago—by a dragon, of all things! Maybe that was why her heart was a little harder than Lula’s.