Bloodstorm by Dan Abnett & Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett & Dan Abnett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2010-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE BLACK SAIL

It was only an hour past dawn when the lashing storm lost its strength and the clouds gave way to early spring sunshine. They found themselves well out to sea, with no trace of land in sight, bearing north by north-west on a general course towards Ulthuan. Dark sails of human hide caught the freshening wind and soon the Harrier was flying across the waves like a bird on the wing.

Bruglir took the ship north and east, following the northern raiding route around the eastern coast of the elven homeland. They reached Ulthuan within several weeks, passing it late in the night; Urial stood a watch of his own then, peering into the darkness like a wolf, lost in private thoughts of fire and ruin.

Yasmir had retreated to her cabin once more after the last of the boarders had been slain. One moment she’d stood on the mid-deck among the piles of the dead, then the next she was gone. Her quarters were just down the passageway from the chart room where Malus tried to sleep; from time to time, always late at night, he heard faint whispers coming from that direction. Once, he’d risen from his makeshift bed and crept to the door. Peering into the dimly lit passage, he saw Urial kneeling outside her door, head bent as if in prayer and chanting softly under his breath, as though he knelt before a shrine to the Bloody-Handed God.

Amid the blood and mayhem of the confused battle in the storm it was a wonder that neither Tanithra nor Urial had been murdered, to say nothing of Bruglir himself. Of all the highborn on the ship, the only person to narrowly escape assassination that night had been himself.

And why not? They had little reason to fear him outside of the writ. Bruglir and Tanithra had a fleet of ships and men to avenge them. Yasmir had her suitors. Urial had the temple. He had nothing. The thought was enough to keep him in his own cabin after nightfall, drinking bottles of wine that Hauclir had pilfered from the galley.

He’d suffered no more dreams or waking visions since the battle in the storm. Malus suspected that the copious amount of wine he drank had something to do with it. It certainly seemed to keep the daemon quiescent, which made the effort worthwhile all by itself.

A week after breaking out of the Bretonnians’ trap the Harrier reached the Pearl Sack, a secret meeting point among the tiny atolls where lost Nagarythe once lay. By the time Bruglir’s ship arrived, the rest of the fleet lay waiting at anchor in the sheltered cove, riding indigo waters that threw back pearlescent reflections when the pale sun hung high overhead.

There were two ships missing. The Bloodied Knife was presumed lost, having collided with a Bretonnian ship in the storm. Another, the Dragon’s Claw, had simply disappeared. She’d last been seen sailing with much of her sails set; possibly she’d been lost, or perhaps so damaged that she’d been forced to abandon the cruise and limp back to Clar Karond.

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