53. [Red Tide] Solstice, Part One (Patreon)

The year turned.

 Soon, the calendar would be reordered around the Granting, but not yet. At the closing of the First Age, the year still ended on the last day of Frett, the darkest day of the cycle for the northern continent and the brightest for the southern.

Freed from the siege, King Hectore’s pyramidal city felt eerily silent. There had been no solstice celebrations for Infinzel in a decade and they were slow to resume now. The people still tiptoed through the tunnels of stone, hunching and scuttling, like beetles after a rain. Or so I am told.

The slovenly king of Infinzel found himself comforted by his people’s unease. It reflected his own.  By all accounts, the king had sequestered himself in his rooms while his younger brother Cizco managed the day-to-day operations of the city. Hectore had been abandoned by his foreigner wife, who had been marked with the coin and blade. He had been shaken by his encounter with the gods and, more so, by King Mudt’s attack. Hectore remembered how it felt to be pinned beneath the mighty Mudt, to see his knife plunging down over and over, and to be saved only by the fickle protection of the gods. He dreamt of this, and his nightly screams made his guards whisper.

Only at his younger brother’s urging had Hectore used the power of his quill. Hectore made his brother a champion, of course, and then chose three others from the warriors who remained in the pyramidal city. Other Quills in other cities were quick to use their rite of banishment upon the Orvesian hordes, but not King Hectore. He waited months before casting out the Orvesians, and only after an argument with his brother that echoed through the halls.

“It is unnatural!” King Hectore shouted. “These powers they have given us should not be!”

“Would you rather be dead, brother?” Cizco replied. “Would you rather our people have gone on enduring and suffering forever? The gods show us mercy.”

“Mercy!” King Hectore cackled, and it is said he turned to his windows to peer out at the Orvesian campfires, the army still there waiting for a siege that would never resume. “The fields will look so empty without them.”

And so, on that moonlit solstice, King Hectore gazed out again upon the dark fields around Infinzel and saw nothing but blackness. It took some trial and error—he was not a man of particular skill—but he managed to build a fire on the rarely used balcony outside his chamber. To that fire he dragged all the fine clothes that his traitorous wife had left behind, and he burned them. He drank alone, and he dozed off under the stars, and he woke up covered in the ashes of his old life.

It was the first time in months King Hectore had slept soundly.

--Record of the First Granting and Dawning of the Second Age

Lyus Crodd, Scribe of the Dead Kingdom of Orvesis

***

Red Tide, Enchantress of the 4th Renown, The Reef

Those she has met so far…

…and those she will meet soon

***

30 Frett, 61 AW

The northern edge of Besaden, North Continent

150 days until the next Granting

Red Tide hadn't been around dogs before, but she knew they were supposed to bark. The land-walkers trained them as companions, like the oca’em did dolphins, and they behaved similarly—darting, playing, nosing around for bits of food. But not these dogs. Two teams of eight attached to the sleds, sixteen in total, all of them fiercely muscled beneath their spiky grey coats. They all stared straight ahead, their breath curling from their muzzles in near unison. If not for the breathing and the occasional shake one did to dislodge the snow steadily accumulating across their backs, Red Tide would have thought them taxidermy statues like the animals displayed inside the lodge. 

“Good, looks good,” Yodor Dominik said. The owl-eyed beastlord squatted with the dogs, peeling back their eyelids to do some inspection of his magic. “They will get you to the trolkin. I have told them the way. Work them only during daylight. Melt snow for them to drink every few hours. Cooked rice for breakfast. More for dinner, to go with the meat. They will hunt for themselves—and you—by night. Do not fear sleeping amongst them. It may become necessary.”

Red Tide scrunched up her nose at the thought, but kept her reply simple. “Understood, beastlord.”

Although she found him off-putting, Red Tide couldn’t deny that Yodor had aided them greatly after they left Heartwood. They stood in front of his lodge—a log cabin big enough to host twenty, though unoccupied now except for the Reef’s champions, Yodor, and the trophies from his hunts. This was a place for beastlords as they had once been, Yodor had explained, when they were masters of Besaden rather than its conservators. The differences between this secreted outpost and the village were stark—the lodge was built from felled trees, Yodor burned fire here, and cooked meat.

“What do we do with them once we reach the north?” Red Tide asked. “Will they know to come back to you?”

Yodor straightened up and shook his head. “No.” He glanced down at the lines of dogs, alert yet unmoving. “The trolkin eat dogs, I think. Set them loose, trade them, it doesn’t matter. They’re yours.”

Again, Red Tide kept her expression neutral. If they survived the Granting, they had promised this man access to a newly restored leviathan. What would he do with that offering? Make sketches in his little book? Or something more unsettling?

“And what do we owe you for this, you hairy little freak?” Salt Wall asked, laughter in her voice. “You want me to sit upon your face so you can make some notes?”

The berserker stood next to Red Tide. She wore only her ward-weave breastplate on her upper body, her arms and shoulders exposed to the cold. Being from the northern pods, Salt Wall liked the cold more than the rest of them. She was most eager to set out north from the comforts of Besaden, not least because of the news that her people might be facing an attack from the Coralline Throne. In the meantime, she’d taken up tormenting Yodor as a kind of sport.

He blinked at Salt Wall now like he was genuinely considering her offer. “No time for that,” he said eventually. “At least, if you want to set out today.”

“We do,” Red Tide said quickly.

Glancing at the lodge behind them, where Turtle Jaw and the rest of the Reef’s champions sheltered, Yodor edged forward. His voice dropped low enough to just be audible above the wind.

“Although it is not my place, there is something else you should know,” the beastlord said.

Red Tide cocked her head. “What?”

“Throne Gazer…” Yodor gave a musical lilt to the words, almost like he was attempting a naming song. “After you refused the merchant champion, he returned to the tree. He agreed to the arrangement and said he would bring you others around.”

Red Tide allowed herself a tight smile. “Did he, now?”

Yodor nodded. Salt Wall reached out to stroke him under the chin with her knuckle.

“Such a helpful beastlord,” she cooed.

***

“I want you to stop thinking about the Reef,” Meera Rootgarde said. As if to emphasize her point, she dragged her fingernails down Vikael Rambrother’s hairy back. “I am sick to death of this damn moping.”

“I’m not thinking about them,” he replied. “Don’t pretend you know my mind, you damn witch.”

Meera snorted. Of course he’d been thinking about Red Tide and the others. Vikael stood at the north-facing window of their rooms, the vines thrust aside to let in the bitter air. He gazed out at the stoic wall of redwoods, almost like if he stared hard enough he might be able to see how the oca’em fared in their journey.

“It’ll be heavy snow to the north by now,” he said eventually. “Are they built for that?”

“Foolish notions of heroism have filled that empty head of yours,” Meera said, rapping her knuckles on the back of his skull. “We should have taken the wash when Niko did, like I wanted.”

“And leave Zayda with three new champions and Yodor to lead them?” Vikael shook his head. “There’s work to be done.”

“You think you haven’t done enough yet, is that it? You fear for your legacy, stupid man? You think they will bury you in flowers if you stand for the helpless of the Reef?”

Vikael’s broad shoulders tightened as his wife pelted him with these questions. There weren’t any answers he could give that she wouldn’t easily turn around on him. “They came to us looking for mercy and we showed them our backs. Set them up to be servants to the Bay.”

“And who are you servant to, huh?” Meera yanked on a tuft of his dark hair like she was pulling an alarm bell. “Huh, bastard? Who?”

He spun to face her at last. She glared up at him with that round face and sharp eyes. Meera wore only a thin tunic she kept for sleeping. He could see goosebumps on her neck, and the roundness of her belly.

“You,” he said, slapping her hand away. “I serve you, my bitch wife.”

“And?”

Vikael put a hand on her stomach. “And the lamb.”

“Perhaps you grow more protective as I expand,” Meera said softly, draping her hand over his. “I understand it. But do not let it make you reckless, husband.”

Vikael grunted and half-turned so he could close the vines and seal their window. The healers had assured them that the baby would come before the Granting. He would not let his wife catch cold in the meantime.

***

Lucinda Elivo had been docked at the blasted fishing village for two weeks and hadn't bothered to disembark from her gellezza. She refused to even learn the name of this horrid place. Leave that to her helmsman; he could read the maps. Bad enough to have the locals gawking at her ship every evening as they returned to port in their sad canoes carrying sagging nets of skinny fish. Even their Ink looked pathetic—a crooked fishing rod on each wrinkled neck. Lucinda was sure that these people wished for a bountiful harvest every year and, by the looks of things, failed to achieve it. Their champions probably died of malnourishment.

Gods, how she hated this northern coast. Crass desperation in every direction. She hated how these people made her feel cruel.

Lucinda would not have been able to stomach the attention if these people of the fishing rod knew a champion of the Bay visited. She doubted there was anywhere in town as well-appointed and comfortable as her own captain's quarters. The food was likely terrible. And she’d no doubt have to speak with some idiot Quill grasping for relevancy.

No. She would stay on her ship with her novels and her wine. She would moisturize her skin and brush her hair and occasionally shove a gust of wind across the water to knock one of the silly canoes off course. That would pass the time.

Of course, Lucinda made sure her crew spent plenty of rounds in the local tavern, and told them to pay the extortionate exchange rate for angles. She also insisted that her ship's steward purchase a few barrels of salted fish without haggling, even if they'd end up dumping most of the stuff overboard when they returned to sea. These people weren't visited by the Bay often, and so it was wise that they establish a reputation for generosity. The bloodless executive would be proud. She would carry out this assignment with sterling conduct and no complaint, and perhaps the next time he needed someone to fetch Gucco Arovi, the bloodless executive would choose someone else. 

Lucinda had nearly run out of reading material when Gucco finally showed himself. She smelled her fellow champion and heard his boisterous laugh before she saw actually saw him. Gods but it was too cold for the man to stink as badly as he did, like he’d just come traipsing out of the jungle from digging a trench. The musk seeped out from his leathers and silks, so garish, his clothes out of fashion for a decade, at best.

An old-fashioned killer. Good at only the one thing. But very good at that, Lucinda begrudgingly admitted.

Some of her crew—the ones most likely to need bailing out from a port’s local jail—gathered around Gucco like a gang of excited schoolboys. They’d fashioned him with a flagon of ale and a leg of meat. Or maybe he’d brought the drumstick with him. Either way, her subordinates scattered when Lucinda’s heels clicked across the deck. Gucco splashed ale as he bowed to her, the oca’em braids he’d sewn into that disgusting coat swaying.

“Permission to board, captain,” Gucco said.

“Granted,” Lucinda replied. She held up a perfumed handkerchief to her upturned nose. “Did you find your wayward fish, hunter?”

Lucinda almost hoped that the answer would be no. Failure would mean prolonging this expedition, but she found herself rooting against Gucco in all things.

“Does Gucco not always bring down what he sets his sights upon?”

He tongued one of his gold teeth and leered at her. Lucinda scowled—she knew too many women, and a few men, who had laid with this greased pig. The list even included Milena Russi, who she otherwise respected. Gucco had a certain reputation for vigor, but had few repeat customers. The clownish brute existed as a sort of living and breathing dare. A hot pepper of a human being. Lucinda hated even being downwind of him.

“And?” she asked.

“Oh, they despised Gucco,” he said with a laugh. “A spirited bunch. They looked at Gucco much like you look at him now.”

“Then they won’t serve? Pity. I suppose Gucco will have his games after all, and more work for the rest of us.”

Lucinda pulled her dark hair into a ponytail. If that was all Gucco had for news, she would send out word for her crew to return and summon the wind. They could put the north out of sight before nightfall.

“Brave as a group,” Gucco continued. “Wiser alone. The one they call Throne Gazer approached Gucco. He sees the wisdom in our proposal and will try to convince the others.”

“The fish queen’s nephew, isn’t he?” Lucinda asked. “Is he their leader?”

Gucco thoughtfully sucked at the end gristle on his turkey leg. “No,” he said. “Although he puts on good airs for a fish, even he looks to the one called Red Tide.”

“Why do I know that name?”

Gucco grinned. “She killed Juseph Grice-Russi.”

Of course. The harp player. Lucinda had a book of short stories in her cabin—Terrors of the Sea—wherein the oca’em woman featured prominently. Salacious tales of sex and blood on the water, where the bloodthirsty oca’em were always outwitted in the end by the most innocent of the victimized ship’s crew members. Red Tide’s story was the only one where the villain escaped.

“Juseph’s stupidity killed him, as I remember it. He left the safety of our currents on a foolish notion. This Red Tide no more killed him than if she’d pointed him toward a cliff and he decided to jump.”

Lucinda stated all this firmly, but her mouth had gone dry. She knew the calculations of their Granting changed now. And with things already so delicate…

“That is your way of looking at it. The analytical and dull way,” Gucco said, as he tossed his bone overboard. “Gucco thinks Milena will see it different. Gucco thinks she will be very interested to meet the fish who murdered her brother. Gucco thinks, this year, he does not hunt alone.”