Storm of Sharks (16 page)

‘I only see one monster here,’
replied Casper coldly. He could feel sweat pooling against his palms as he gripped the
sword’s handle. ‘I ain’t never killed a man before.’

The guard gulped. ‘You don’t
wanna start now,’ he whispered.

A clawed hand touched Casper’s
shoulder, gentle but firm. A squeeze was all it took to draw him away from the villain
and the dark act that might follow. Casper stumbled back, light-headed and unsteady on
his feet, as the beast turned his
bloody muzzle back to the
Krakenguard. Slowly, the Werewolf’s lips peeled back, teeth bared, jaws
opening.

‘Please,’ said the soldier, his
eyes wide with terror. ‘Sosha, no!’

The wounded soldier made to scream, but the
sound never escaped his lips, as the Werewolf’s fist struck him clean across the
temple and plunged him into a deep and troubled sleep.

‘Sing me another shanty, old-timer.
Something involving a handsome sea captain this time, and the colourful death of a
spineless squid.’

While his fellow prisoner struck up a tune a
few feet away, Count Vega, buccaneer pirate prince and former captain of the
Maelstrom
, leaned forward and allowed the chains to take his weight. He
glanced at the outlawed silver manacles fastened tight about his wrists, the links of
steel securing him to the wall at his back. Vega looked down at the waves raging in the
darkness far below. The occasional spume of white froth materialized, caught in
starlight before vanishing from sight. The constant rocking motion was familiar to his
sea legs, but the sheer distance from the ocean remained alarming. He’d climbed
what he’d thought were tall crow’s nests before, where
the
pitch could fling a man to his death, but nothing compared to this.

Vega smiled at the shanty, a variation on an
old favourite from the Cluster Isles. The elderly chap singing was a navigator by the
name of Florimo, imprisoned for the composing and performance of a defamatory ditty
about Lord Ghul’s parentage. Observing the harmless chap’s apparent
dementia, it struck Vega as cruel beyond words that the Squidlord was holding him
prisoner, but few of the Kraken’s actions surprised him. Florimo had been kind
enough to sing the words of the offending song to the count, and the two had quickly
become friends.

Vega strained his neck further, inspecting
the tower’s curving walls. Other figures were manacled to the structure’s
exterior, above and below.
Captive captains like me?
he wondered, the
occasional wail sounding over the ocean’s roar. Walkways, ladders and bamboo
gantries crisscrossed the wall in all directions, allowing the jailers access to their
prisoners.

‘Shut that racket up!’ came a
shout from above. Vega looked up, spying a couple of figures jumping down the walkways,
drawing close to where he and Florimo were chained.

‘Racket?’ the senile old sailor
piped up in shock. ‘You wouldn’t know a fine tune if it bit you on your
–’

‘Silence!’ yelled the heavyset
man as he swung down from the platform overhead, landing with an almighty rattle on the
runged floor. He rose quickly, a head shorter than the Sharklord but twice as wide. Lord
Ghul had paid Vega a visit every day since his capture, and the sea marshal of the
Lion’s fleet dished out torture at every opportunity.

‘Do my words offend your delicate
ears, my lord?’ crooned the toothless Florimo. ‘Oh, but your poor, sweet
lugholes! Free my treacherous hands from these chains and I would cut my tongue out, if
it should please you!’

Vega’s grin was short-lived as the
Squidlord grabbed Florimo by the throat.

‘If I wanted your tongue, you tatty
old bird, I’d tear it from your scrawny throat myself.’ The Kraken sneered,
his broad hand rippling beneath the prisoner’s jaw. ‘You’re only alive
because your miserable plight amuses me, you wretched excuse for a sailor. Too infirm to
sail ship, to haul rope, to mop decks – I wouldn’t trust you with the
slop bucket; you’d probably drown in it!’

‘Strictly speaking, my lord,’
spluttered Florimo, ‘I’m a navigator, and such duties are beneath
–’

Vega watched in horror as the flesh of the
Kraken’s hand tore apart between thumb and forefinger. The gash ran up the sea
marshal’s arm like a fault line, severing the limb in two as
the
twin appendages thickened. All the while, the remainder of the Squidlord remained
unchanged. Ghul had complete mastery over his therianthropy, and was able to control
individual portions of his form as only the greatest Werelords could. The digits
disappeared, fused into the transforming skin of the Weresquid, the pair of tentacles
beginning to burst forth circular suckers that shone with sharp teeth. One writhing limb
caressed Florimo’s face as the man cried out fearfully, the razor rings catching
his skin.

‘I could flay the flesh from your
body,’ whispered Ghul, his voice gurgling as if partly submerged in water.

‘Leave the old man alone, you wobbling
sack of guts,’ called Vega. ‘It’s me you’re here to torment,
isn’t it?’

The Kraken glared at him, drawn away from
the assault on Florimo. His lips peeled back, revealing the shifting insides of his
mouth. Vega’s stomach lurched at the sight of the Squidlord’s beak, grating
and snapping where teeth should have been. The other tentacle snaked through the air
towards the count, rising up like a cobra, ready to strike.

‘Leave them be!’ a woman cried
as she swung down from the gantry overhead, landing on the lurching deck with easy
grace.

Ghul reluctantly released his hold on the
old sailor’s face, the tentacle slipping away to reveal circular cuts scarring the
man’s cheek.

‘My lady,’ said Ghul
submissively, even managing an awkward bow.

‘You can drop the courtesy,’
said the woman. ‘Such a title has never sat well with me, and we both know
I’m certainly no lady.’

‘You’ve sat on my throne for
years, Ghul, yet you still bow like a hunchbacked cretin,’ Vega taunted the
Squidlord.

The woman’s black skin shimmered in
the starlight, her shaved head cocked to one side as she turned to look the Sharklord up
and down. ‘I’d be careful what you say if I were you, Count Vega,’ she
purred, the accent in her velvet-smooth voice revealing her homeland as Bast. ‘The
only reason you’re here now is that my dear friend Lord Ghul has very strict
orders to keep you alive. You have him to thank for the very fact you draw breath.
Consider that the next time you mock the Lord of the Cluster Isles.’

‘Thank
you … er … my lady,’ said Ghul, struggling to fulfil her
request.

‘Call the Kraken what you like,’
said Vega, ‘but there’s only ever been one Lord of the Cluster Isles. I made
that title my own, remember, Ghul? You’ll be calling yourself a pirate prince
next, I wager. Dress yourself in a bonnet and crown yourself Queen of the Sirens for all
I care – it won’t change what you are.’

‘And what’s that, little
fish?’ asked the Squidlord, stepping up to the woman’s side.

‘A backstabbing, lying, thieving bag
o’ blubber,’ Vega stated plainly.

Ghul laughed. ‘I’ll only take
offence at that last bit. Those other three things? Well, we’re
pirates – that’s what we do, isn’t it?’

‘Some, perhaps, but there’s a
code that many abide by. You broke that code long ago, many times over.’

‘I make the law, just as you did
before me!’

‘I abided by the law, even when I
ruled in Cutter’s Cove,
just as I did aboard the
Maelstrom
. All men are equal in my eyes.’

‘Some are more equal than
others.’ Ghul laughed, his tentacles recoiling as he slowly shifted back to human
form.

The woman raised a hand between the two men,
signalling an end to their confrontation. ‘I didn’t travel from Highcliff,
Lord Ghul, to witness your spat with the Sharklord.’

‘Forgive my impertinence, but why
have
you travelled here, Opal?’ asked Vega. ‘An interest in my
predicament? Make no mistake, I’m terribly flattered that one as important as
yourself has my well-being at heart.’

‘So you know who I am, Count
Vega?’ said Opal, looking down the length of the fortress wall.

‘Your reputation precedes you,’
replied the Sharklord. He’d heard tales of how striking Opal was, and now that she
stood before him, he could see they weren’t mere rumours. ‘As your
brother’s might is spoken of throughout the known lands, so is your elegance. If
Onyx is the Beast of Bast, then you are indeed the Beauty.’

Opal faced him again. ‘I wasn’t
expecting such eloquence from a man who has been chained to a wall, facing the elements,
for the last three weeks. You flatter me,’ she said with a smile, while the
sneering Ghul looked on.

Vega’s teeth sparkled as he threw her
his best roguish grin. Wars were fought on many fronts. This wasn’t the first time
Vega had been held captive by the opposite sex, and it was a game in which he was well
versed. Even ravaged and exhausted, manacled to a rocking tower by silver and steel, he
wasn’t entirely unarmed. He still had his charm.

‘No flattery, though admittedly not all
accounts have been so kind. You do, after all, represent an invading force in Lyssia.
I’ve met the odd soul who described you as a monster, but I see now that such
stories are ludicrous propaganda.’

The count wasn’t a fool. He knew that
Opal was almost as deadly as her brother. He’d heard about what she’d done
in the Horselord palace of High Stable, publicly murdering Duke Lorimer before ordering
Lucas to slay the captured Bearlord, Broghan. He needed to win her over, and from there
perhaps escape, but he also needed to be careful. He was playing a dangerous game with a
deadly foe.

‘Don’t listen to him,’
said Ghul. ‘He deceives you!’

‘Quiet, Ghul,’ said Opal, her
eyes fixed on the Sharklord with unblinking fascination. ‘You don’t think me
a monster then?’

‘I’ve yet to see anything that
would give me that impression.’

‘You don’t know me,
Vega.’

‘Nor you me. I understand if you
consider me your enemy. But look at us – we’re being civil, are we not?
Our differences don’t have to end in bloodshed.’

‘They don’t
have
to,’ she said, as the fortress rocked suddenly once again. The Catlady almost lost
her footing, and Ghul reached out and grabbed her by the forearm.

‘Be careful, Opal,’ said Vega,
his voice thick with concern. Ghul’s jaw fell open, annoyed that the Shark had
stolen his thunder. ‘You risk much already by climbing down these walls to speak
with me. Why not move me inside the tower so we can continue our discussion? Keep me
manacled, by all means
– I am, after all, your
prisoner – but perhaps we could conduct this conversation in more hospitable
surroundings?’

‘Don’t worry about my safety,
Count Vega,’ Opal said as she disengaged the Kraken’s hand from her arm.
‘I’m a Panther of Bast. I’m sure-footed anywhere, even on your White
Sea.’

‘Of course, how silly of me,’ he
said with a smile.

Opal stepped right up to Vega until they
were nose to nose. Her perfume assailed him, sweet and intoxicating, while her flawless
skin glistened with sea mist. He might have been laying on the compliments, but he
wasn’t lying. She was truly one of the most attractive women he’d ever
encountered.

‘I find you fascinating, Vega,’
she whispered.

‘The feeling’s mutual,’ he
replied.

‘In more peaceful times, perhaps
something beautiful might’ve blossomed between us.’

‘Something may yet.’

‘If it did, would you give me your
loyalty?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you give me your heart?’
she asked breathlessly, moving her face past his, her lips brushing his cheek.

‘I fear I would.’

‘Would you give me your
ship?’

Vega sucked air through his teeth.
‘That’s a devil’s question to ask a pirate prince!’

‘You’ve caused us a great deal
of trouble in recent months, Count Vega,’ the Catlady said huskily, sniffing at
his sweat- and salt-soaked shoulder. He felt her fingertips tracing a circle over his
heart. ‘You must understand, that makes the high lords of Bast and the Lion of
Westland most unhappy. We’re
grateful to Lord Ghul for capturing
you. You were proving quite a thorn in our side.’

Vega laughed as the Kraken smiled proudly.
‘Take off my manacles and let me hug my old friend, show him how thankful I
am,’ the pirate prince dead-panned.