Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (7 page)

BOOK: Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane
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Rafe was slowly nibbling on a mango. His appetite was not the equal of Kal’s. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘I’m just a soldier, not a detective. But Kal—you don’t have to deal with this anymore; that’s my job. Why don’t you go home? You’re rich now! You could buy a small house on Arcus Hill with what you won last night!’

Kal shook her head. ‘I’m not rich,’ she said. ‘Only a fraction of that money is mine to keep. I have backers who each take a percentage of my winnings. But they cover my losses too, so it’s their risk, not mine. Not that I often lose, of course …’

Rafe was intrigued. ‘Oh? So who are these mystery backers then?’

‘Well, you might know one of them. Benedict Godsword.’

Rafe frowned. ‘Benedict … Senator Godsword? Is that why you’re here, Kal? Did he send you too?’

‘Yes. That’s how I know there’s a gold mine out there somewhere. It’s Benedict’s. Well, it was.’

She watched Rafe try to process this information. ‘The senator has a gold mine? I didn’t know about this! But there’s no record of … if he’s hiding it from the Senate, then that’s illegal …’

‘Rafe,’ Kal said. ‘It doesn’t matter right now if that mine belongs to the Senate or to Benedict or anyone. If Gron Darklaw’s controlling it and killing people to hide it, then we have to stop him, right?’

Rafe nodded slowly. ‘You’d risk your life for Benedict Godsword?’

‘Yes,’ Kal said simply. ‘I
owe
him my life.’

She drained the last of her giant mug of black coffee. ‘But that’s a story for another time. Come on, let’s get going.’

 

* * *

 

They stood side by side admiring the sloop. The headsail was grey, the mainsail deep red, the cedarwood boards were stained a deep black. It was thirty feet long and expensively detailed: the wheel and rails were padded with leather, and the cleats, lanterns and other fittings were a polished silvery metal.

‘That’s a man’s boat, alright,’ Rafe commented. ‘Why is the bottom made of metal?’

‘The hull,’ Kal corrected him. ‘I don’t know.’ She peered into the clear water that was lit by the harbour lights. ‘It looks like it’s made of platinum. Who would build a boat with a platinum hull?’

‘Someone who was very rich and wanted everyone to know it,’ Rafe said.

They left Darklaw’s boat and continued along the wharf. In the distance, smoke could be seen drifting in front of the stars. Kal saw Lula hurrying towards them through the crowds. She looked serious.

‘Vanrar’s warehouses have burned down,’ Lula said when she reached them.

Kal swore. ‘Where’s Vanrar? Is he safe?’

‘It’s too late, Kal,’ Lula said. ‘He was in the warehouse when it burned. He’s dead!’

Kal swore again.
Darklaw!
It had to be. The big man hadn’t been impressed with the merchant’s lack of respect for his dragon stories. Darklaw was a bully alright, and of the worst kind: one who would not only indirectly threaten people, but also act to keep them in line.

‘Let me guess,’ Kal said, ‘people are saying a dragon did it?’

‘That’s the word on the street,’ Lula confirmed. ‘There was a flying shadow …’

Kal shook her head.
Smoke and mirrors!
What was actually real in this town?

‘We need to get to that island and sort this out once and for all,’ Rafe said. ‘Lula, take us to your boat.’

Lula pulled herself together visibly. ‘Yes, Sir!’ she snapped.

 

* * *

 

Lula’s boat was a small two-seater canoe. Kal made Rafe sit in the aft, and she sat opposite him in the bow.

‘Thanks, Lula,’ Kal said, as they pushed off from the jetty. ‘Remember, if anyone asks about us, we’ve gone back to Amaranthium!’

‘Take care, Kal!’ Lula said. ‘Look after her, Rafe. I need to know there’s going to be more nights like last night to come. But without these sort of mornings after, of course!’

Rafe grunted in reply as he pulled on the oars. With a flash of her gold hooped earrings, Lula vanished from sight. Rafe rowed in silence as they slid through the water, under the watchtower and out through the seagate. The night was moonless and the water was calm. With luck, they would make it to the island in around six hours.

Kal doubled-checked her equipment. She was wearing a rough grey linen dress, open-sleeved and cut to the knees. She also wore her steel vambraces, and her leather boots and cuchuck-stitched gloves; she might need the grip if they went rock-climbing. Her knife was at her belt and her shortsword strapped across her back. What else did she need? Nothing: all she had to do was make sure she had a blade for Darklaw’s neck.

After a time, Kal took over the oars, and when they were far enough from the town, they put up the small sail. There was a warm westerly breeze that would help them on their way. Kal made sure that Rafe was happy keeping the canoe on port tack with the sail held on a diagonal, then she tried to find a comfortable position in the cramped hull to lie down. ‘Wake me in an hour,’ she instructed, and laid her head on a coil of rope.

It only seemed like a moment later when Rafe tapped her on the leg. ‘An hour, I said,’ Kal complained.

‘That
was
an hour,’ Rafe grinned. ‘I would have given you a few more minutes, but your snoring was frightening the fish. Come on, change over!’

Kal took up the oars and resumed the slow, heavy rhythm. Under both oar
and
sail they were cutting briskly through the water. The night was pitch black, and the lights of Balibu had faded behind them. The God Star burned brightly in the northern sky, though, so Kal fixed their course by that. Rafe watched her row. He was also dressed in loose, light clothes: a vest and breeches torn off mid-thigh. He had insisted on wearing his blue silk surcoat over it all, though: the spiral of stars that decorated it would mark him out as an official representative of the Senate should they need to talk their way out of trouble. In case talks broke down he had also brought a bag of various weapons, as well as his lance.

‘You’re quite strong for a girl,’ he said as he watched Kal.

‘Shut up and get some rest,’ she rebuked him. ‘You’re on again in an hour.’

Rafe lay back and draped his hand over the side of the canoe, letting his fingers trail through the dark water. ‘It’s warm,’ he noted. ‘The water is really warm.’

‘The sea holds the day’s warmth,’ Kal explained, but she took a moment to test the water. Rafe was right—the water was unusually hot.

‘Can dragons breathe fire underwater?’ he asked her seriously.

Kal laughed. ‘Have you ever seen a dragon breathe fire?’ she asked him.

‘Not yet!’

‘Well, I would worry more about working out how they manage to do that at all, rather than sweating the details.’

Rafe fell silent. Kal continued to row. Maybe she had offended him, but she couldn’t think of anything to say.
Conversation Killer
, they should call her. She concentrated on pulling and lifting the oars. The physical exertion was making her hungry—not just for food, but for action. The nervous thrill she felt on the eve of an assignment was like the excitement of sitting down at a card table, but magnified many times over. Rafe must have noticed Kal grinning to herself; his own smile had returned.

A school of large fish had started to follow the canoe. Rafe let them nudge at his fingertips. ‘I could just reach down and grab one,’ he said. ‘We could cook it when we get to the island.’

‘They’re sharpfins,’ Kal said. ‘They could reduce your arm to bone in less than a minute.’

Rafe jerked his hand out of the water.

‘But it’s okay!’ she said brightly. ‘They only go after blood and shiny things!’

 

* * *

 

Three hours later, Rafe woke Kal for the last time. ‘I'm done!’ he said. He had already taken down the sail. ‘You can take us in.’

She looked out to sea. Ahead of them, looming out of the darkness was the island. It was about five miles across, and at its centre a triangular mountain rose out of a surrounding girdle of trees. Kal could see the starlight glittering on the surf that was breaking on the beaches.

Dragon or Darklaw
, she thought,
Whatever you are, I’m coming for you
!

 

 

 

 

 

 

III.vii

 

Black Sand

 

 

 

Kal seemed to a have drawn the short straw when it came to the final stretch of rowing. The ebb and flow of the tide meant that for every ten yards she pulled them closer to the beach, they were dragged back out five. Coral scraped the bottom of the small canoe, and twice they got stuck. Rafe used his lance to free them from the reef, but Kal could tell that he wasn’t happy using his weapon as a punt. Eventually, though, they made it, speeding towards the shore in the wake of one of the gentle rollers. Rafe leaped out as the canoe hit the sand, and dragged them clear of the water.

Kal disembarked and Rafe easily pulled the empty canoe up the beach towards the shelter of the mangrove trees. Kal followed after him, kicking sand over their tracks to hide any trace of their passage. They had seen no other vessels or lights on the island on the voyage over, so with luck nobody knew of their arrival. At the edge of the trees she crouched and scooped up a handful of sand. She let it sift through her fingers: it was fine, black and sensuously soft. She frowned; warm water and black sand … what did that signify?

She turned and followed Rafe into the gloomy darkness of the mangroves. The low trees grew close together, their roots twisting around each other in the swampy ground. Rafe had found an elevated spot of dry mud and had already covered the canoe in leaves and driftwood to hide it. Beneath the shelter of a large flat-leaved saltwine bush he had laid out a blanket and was unpacking their food.

‘Dried beef—come and get it!’ he said. ‘Or there’s fresh crab if you think we could risk some cooking.’ He pulled a large red crustacean from under the blanket and held its wriggling legs out to Kal.

‘He looks delicious,’ she said. ‘We should be alright if we dig a hole to hide the fire.’

They sat together on the blanket and ate the soft white meat on toasted bread. Through a gap in the trees they could see the mountain, a looming black void against the star-strewn night sky. Their plan was to get a few hours’ rest and then explore the island at dawn, starting by following the coastline and looking for signs of other ships coming and going. Somewhere there was a natural harbour near the mine entrance, and Kal was convinced that they would find evidence of Darklaw visiting the island.

‘Where did you get your knife?’ Rafe asked her. Kal was cutting bread with it; the blade glimmered in the firelight.

She had noticed him eyeing her weapon several times since they had met. She handed it over. ‘It was a gift. Have a look: it’s not magic or anything.’

Rafe weighed it in his hand. He looked almost disappointed. ‘It’s bloody sharp, though,’ he noted.

‘It needs to be,’ Kal said. ‘This bread’s bloody tough—’

She froze. Something was flying by, its massive silhouette visible in flashes through the branches of the trees. Kal and Rafe drew back under the cover of their bush as the shape passed almost directly overhead. When it did, they could see exactly what it was: the snub-nosed snout, the thick neck and bulky tubular body, the black wingspan that was fifty feet across, the sinuous tail that followed in its wake. It glided past without a sound.

Kal stood up and watched it slowly circle around the mountain. It caught an updraft and, with a lazy shake of its wings, shifted its course and made for the face of the mountain about half way up. It disappeared into shadow where there must have been a cave entrance.

She felt a shiver of fear run down her body. So there
was
a dragon on the island after all. Kal had a horrible feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Darklaw she could have dealt with, and she had already survived one encounter with the strange hobgoblin creatures. But a dragon? Did she really want to go through all this again?

She looked at Rafe. He was standing behind her, staring up at the mountain, an awed expression on his face. Kal realised that it must have been the first time that he had seen one of the winged beasts. ‘It’s actually here, Kal!’ he said. ‘A dragon! They must have really done it: the Dragonites, they finally found a way to summon one. You know what this means—this is just the beginning of the great war between monsters and men, a war that will be the stuff of legends.’ Rafe could hardly contain himself. ‘And we’re going to be part of it. They’ll be writing songs about us, Kal. In a hundred years’ time,
we
will be the heroes, and people will talk about
us
the way that
we
talk of the gods.’

Rafe was breaking Kal’s heart. ‘The Dragonites can’t summon dragons, Rafe,’ she insisted. ‘They’re just a noisy cult. I’ve read their stupid book,
Calling the Dragon
; it’s all nonsense. Arcane rituals and human sacrifice—what self-respecting dragon would take any notice of that?’

Rafe looked affronted. ‘So why
is
the dragon here?’

‘I don’t know!’ she said, throwing herself back down on the blanket. ‘Maybe it just wants a nice warm place to nest and raise a family. When it gets light, we’ll go and take a look in that cave. Maybe you can ask it. But don’t expect it to leave without a fight; I’ve seen how stubborn dragons can be.’

Rafe rejoined her on the blanket. ‘Lula told me you’ve tangled with dragons before.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

I still dream about it every night!

Rafe leaned closer. ‘Can you kill them?’

‘They’re clever,’ Kal warned him. ‘Cunning even. But their brains aren’t any bigger than ours; it’s their thick skulls that take up most of the room in their head. If you’re smart you can
trick
them.’

‘Then we can take it down, Kal, between us! Two brains against one. Benedict will have to knight us both: Sir Rafe and Dame Kalina!’

Dame Kalina!
Kal had to laugh. She returned her companion’s gaze. Rafe had changed somewhat in the three weeks that she had known him: his pale skin had tanned, and his blond hair—once straight and silky—had now turned wavy and tangled by saltwater, and was tied back from his face with a leather thong. But he hadn’t yet lost his optimism and enthusiasm. ‘Why do you want to be a knight so bad, Rafe?’ she asked him.

BOOK: Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane
8.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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