There was no time for regrets now. “Get the arms and armour,” Amara said.
The men went to work, rushing in and out of the armoury, returning with breastplates, faulds, gorgets, gauntlets and helms, blades and sheathes and swordbelts. Amara could hear the ring of steel through the trees as they worked, feel the pumping of her heart as it hammered against her ribs.
Sir Talmer and Sir Hockney helped Penrose and Jovyn put on their armour, as Brazen Ben watched the trees. “Men coming,” he warned. “We got about thirty seconds before they get here.”
Amara looked over, saw the shadows approaching, lit by the lanterns in the branches. There was a lot of fighting back there, she sensed. Aside from her men here, she had a further dozen out there. Sir Ryger was one, Sir Mondant another, and Captain had recruited several others as well. One was a knight from Rasalan, Sir Montague Shaw, who’d served briefly with the Suncoats in another life, before suffering an injury. When he recovered the order had expelled him, claiming he was not up to their standards anymore. That bitterness had eventually brought him here. There were eight further sailor-soldiers with their sea-creature halfhelms and sealskin cloaks who Captain had brought on board.
And Connor, Amara thought. He would be in there too, fighting with the blade Sir Ryger Joyce would have given him. But without armour, he would be vulnerable. “Quickly!” Amara shouted. “Hurry up! We don’t have all night!”
Sir Penrose had his breastplate fixed, gauntlets too, and was fastening his swordbelt as Sir Talmer clicked his gorget into place. Once that was done, he picked up a shirt of godsteel mail, as well as a swordbelt with fixed sheath and dagger, and rushed over to her. “Take these, my lady. For protection.”
She didn’t much like the idea of wearing a shirt of mail, but supposed it was worth the precaution. “Fine.” She’d never worn such garb before. “Help me get it on, Pen.”
He did so, pulling it down her head and arms and torso, the heavy links settling uncomfortably on her shoulders, then girded her waist with the belt. It pulled at one side, where the weight of the godsteel dagger was attached. Ahead, some dozen or so men were emerging from the trees, pulling blades as they rushed down to the beach. Two were Bladeborn by the mists that came with them, the rest common men. Sir Talmer stepped out, shoving Brazen Ben aside. “You needn’t die,” he called out to them as they ran. “None of you. Lay down your arms and you’ll be spared.”
The men at the front didn’t heed him. The men at the back didn’t hear. Sir Talmer gave a grunt, and paced forward, in the confident stride of an experienced Bladeborn knight. Brazen Ben loped out beside him.
“Pen, we need to get to Carly,” Amara said. She could not remain here at the beach. She looked over. Sir Hockney was still fitting Jovyn’s armour, struggling with clumsy fingers. That’ll be long years of inactivity, she thought. He’s a blade that’s turned blunt, that man. “Jovyn, stay here,” Amara called to the squire. “Hold the beach.”
The youth frowned. “But...”
“No buts. Hold the beach.”
She trusted the youth to do just that. He was to be a Varin Knight, a level beyond the rest of these men. Even at the tender age of fifteen she suspected he was a superior swordsman to most others on this island.
She dashed off with Sir Penrose Brightwood, rushing away as battle rang out across the strand. The godsteel mail made movement difficult for her, yet such was the strength of her Bladeborn blood that the weight would soon reduce. They passed into the woods, hurrying along a decked path, the planks rattling underfoot. Shouts rang out, and the ring of steel. The chaos was spreading like wildfire.
She guided Sir Penrose along, passing skirmishes along the way. Evidently some of the soldiers had decided to join the revolt, even using it as an excuse to settle scores with other men they did not like. Elsewhere they had already yielded, throwing down their arms, dropping to their knees. In a clearing, Amara glimpsed Sir Ryger engaged in battle with a foe, another of the Seal King’s Bladeborn thralls. The fighting looked fierce, a fine knightly duel, misting steel connecting, clanging, bursting in puffs of silver smoke.
They rushed past, making hard for the corridor of trees that led to the Lard Lord’s palace. Amara’s thighs were aflame, her lungs burning. They turned a corner, reaching the trees, running beneath the branches. Outside the door of hanging vines, several men lay dead. One was Sir Mordant, she saw at once, his neck opened up to the bone, face twisted into an eternal rictus of pain. Another Amara recognised as one of the two burly champions who watched the Seal King’s door. He was slumped forward on his knees, cradling his intestines, his belly opened up beneath his breastplate. Sir Penrose stepped forward, shoved him aside with his foot, and a nest of pink snakes slithered to the floor, steaming and stinking.
There was shouting beyond, a high-pitched screaming, the puff of men in combat, steel kissing steel. Sir Penrose swept the vines aside and rushed in. Amara followed. The earthy interior of the Seal King’s palace came into view. The feasting table was overturned, plates of food and jugs of wine splashed and smashed all over the floor. About it, Sir Connor Crawfield and Carly Flame Mane were in battle with the Seal King’s second guard. Connor, upright, stance wide, striking forth in clean form; Carly leaping and slashing, using her agility. There was blood all over the girl, sprayed across her face, covering her hands, further reddening her fiery hair. Sir Connor looked to have taken a wound to his left shoulder, the flesh hewn open, but it was shallow.
There was screaming in the corner of the room, a maidservant cowering away, shaking all over, urine running down the inside of her leg. Another girl was dead, lying in a pool of spreading blood, caught by an errant blade most likely. The top of her head had been sliced clean off.
Amara raised her eyes to the rear, beyond the Great One’s massive oaken throne. A trail of blood led through another door of vines. There was a sound of choked whimpering back there.
“Pen, help them.”
She left the knight to help finish off their foe, stepping around the overturned table, up past the stage and oaken throne, through the hanging vines. The Seal King’s bedchamber was beyond, a large room, furnished with rugs, with candles burning in little alcoves along the walls and a hundred little lanterns dangling from the ceiling on vines, all at different heights, flickering in the darkness like fireflies.
The Great One lay on his enormous bed, undressed but for a sail-sized breechclout that wrapped about his immense girth. There was blood everywhere, his skin turned grey to red. A dozen stab wounds had disabled him, each shallow, cutting at his blubber. There was blood spray on the walls and the floor, gouts spattered across the room like stars in a night sky. His body was grotesque, mountainous, flesh flowing over the sides of the bed frame. A plaintive bleating sound was bubbling off his lips, eyes running with tears.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Amara said, from the doorway.
He saw her, eyes widening. His cheeks and chins were quivering, blood bubbling about the corners of his blowhole of a mouth. “The girl…she…she stabbed me. She said…she said…”
“That she would lay with you if you let her leave? Yes, I know.” Amara continued into the room. “Did anything happen? Did you touch her?”
“I never…we never got that far. I was only…we were only talking and then…then she reached down and…” He coughed, his entire body rippling with a great wave of bloodied blubber. Amara had seen whale hunts before, watched the great ocean beasts hauled onto shore, harpoons sticking out of their flesh, great swells of blood and oil pulsing and pouring down their hides. She was reminded of them now. “I never saw the…the knife until…” He shuddered, convulsing, and turned his head, spewing vomit across his shoulder.
Amara watched, disgusted. Yet there was a part of her that pitied him too. She had not forgotten what he’d told her of cruelty. This man has lost a lot. A son, a daughter, he watched his mother raped and murdered, his father slain by a rival. He had admitted his faults and follies to her, but it wasn’t enough to save him. “You should have let us leave,” she told him. “You would have spared yourself a deal of pain. And your men as well. Listen.”
The sound of battle was still ringing out across the island, echoing between the great rock walls of the cavern. Another shudder and blubbery ripple. The Great One wretched again. “I never…I was only trying to…”
“Protect them? Or yourself?”
“Both,” he admitted, coughing the word out. “Both, of course both. I am a glutton, my lady, I…I admit it freely. A glutton and a pig and a cruel one too. But my children…my children…” His face screwed up in pain, features squashing together to hide his eyes. “I had to think of them, my lady. If I had opened these islands, we’d have been swamped and overwhelmed. When a ship goes down, most men go down with it. There are only so many…so many who can fit on a raft…”
She understood the analogy, but it wasn’t going to save him. “I would consider letting you live if I trusted you,” she said. “I don’t. And I have made promises.” She drew her knife and stepped closer.
He heaved, trying to shift his great bulk off the bed, waving a flipper for purchase. Blood bubbled up out of his wounds, scarring his belly and chest, shoulders, and arms, seeping through the slashes and cuts. He screamed out for help, tears streaming from his tiny little eyes. “Please, my lady…please, you don’t need to do this. I’ll serve you…I will. I’ll be yours to command, your loyal servant…please, please…”
“It’s too late for all that.” She slashed at his throat, the godsteel dagger slicing through the meat and muscle. The flesh of his neck parted, opening out as the blood came gushing forth. He slapped a flipper down to stem the flow, beady eyes bulging, but it would make no difference. It was instinctive, Vesryn had once told her. Everyone did it. Even seals, it would seem.
She left him there to choke and die, stepping back out of the bedchamber to find that the Great One’s second champion was dead. Sir Connor stood above him, valiant and victorious, pulling his blade from the man’s chest. Beyond the palace, sounds of battle could still be heard, though more distantly now. “Go,” Amara said at once. “I want this battle done as soon as possible.”
They all made for the door, Sir Connor and Sir Penrose leading, Carly remaining at Amara’s side. “You finished him off?” the girl asked, blood dripping down her face.
Amara nodded. “Cut this throat.” They moved out through the hanging vines, past the bodies on the ground.
“What happened to Mondant?” Carly asked, seeing him there.
“Other Bladeborn guard got him,” said Sir Connor Crawfield. “I got him back in return.”
The worst of the fighting was down at the beach, as Sir Ryger Joyce had foretold, men clashing with sword and axe and spear by the light of the bioluminescent moss, glowing on the cavern ceiling. At the mouth of the cave, moonlight poured in from outside, reflecting off the water, and there Amara saw several longships and smaller fishing boats skimming out toward the river. Fleeing, she thought. She didn’t blame them, with all this bloodshed. She left the others to add their blades to the fray - all but Sir Penrose, who remained on guard at her side - and marched straight down to where Captain stood at his boat, observing the action. His oarsmen were with him, though their numbers seemed to have swelled dramatically since last Amara saw.
“You have new friends,” she said.
