“We only need a few,” Sir Connor said. “Even one might do. Someone who can get us to the armoury. After that, we’ll do the rest.”
Amara was torn on that. “If we take up arms against the whale, some, even all of us could die. He’s got a score of Bladeborn in his ranks.”
“Weak Bladeborn, my lady. There are two or three knights of good bloodlines here, I’ll grant, but the rest...no. We’ll deal with them easily enough.”
“He has a hundred soldiers too,” Amara said. “More, probably, out on the boats and dispersed across the islands.” The Great One might have an army of thousands, for all she knew. This main island was but one of many, all with secret coves and hideouts. Some of the islands even connected to one another underground, she’d heard, with tunnels and caverns excavated beneath the bottom of the lake. She wondered if that might be their best way out of here. “I haven’t yet been to the back of the Lard Lord’s palace, but I’m certain there’s a way down into the tunnels from there,” she told the others. “We might be able to escape that way.”
Sir Connor didn’t think so. “We have no idea what’s down there. We could run into an entire garrison, or something else we cannot anticipate. And where would we come out? My lady, I fear that option leads only to more questions. The best way off this island is by longboat.”
“The oars are chained and guarded, Connor,” Amara told him. “Every time a longship comes ashore, they lock those oars away. And besides, there are only five of us. We would be chased down for a certainty and recaptured. The Blubber King promises he will make an example of us if he should catch us trying to leave.”
“Then we kill him,” said Carly, squeezing a fist. “The walking whale needs to die, my lady. I doubt many here would miss him.”
Amara didn’t disagree, except for the ‘walking’ part. The whale had never walked, so far as she had seen. Any time she was summoned to join him, he was either seated on his huge oaken throne or stuffing his face at his table. On the odd occasion she’d seen him outside of his palace, he’d been lying on a litter, hauled about by a host of strong men. Where he went, she couldn’t say. To the water, possibly. He had the look of a seal, after all. Perhaps he swims like one too?
The others were nodding assent. “Killing him is the only way,” Sir Connor Crawfield said. “We all know the idiom about cutting the head off the snake. It applies here, my lady.”
“And his men? Those loyal to him? What do you imagine they will say to that?”
“They will voice their displeasure with blades and blood, I would think. But those will be few. Carly is not wrong. I’ve heard the talk about the village, and from some of the soldiers as well. The whale is not well-loved.”
“No,” Amara said, agreeing. She remembered the look the maidservant gave the food. The Lord of Lard’s ‘children’, as he liked to call them, did not eat half so well as their father did. Eating those feelings of yours will not endear you to your people, my lord. “There are other pirate lords on the other islands,” she said. “Lesser lords who pay the Seal King fealty. When he dies there will be a power struggle. The people may wish to avoid that, Connor. Sometimes it is better the devil you know.”
“Not a devil who feasts nightly while his people sit and starve. He is a cancer of these islands, and needs to be removed. You spoke before of the boats, passing through the lake. I have heard some of the sailors talking about them too. Most avoid the mists about these islands, but not all. These are people, good people fleeing from the war, and what is becoming of them? They are being warded off, or worse, killed. These islands could become a haven for thousands, even tens of thousands, but no, the whale refuses.”
The others nodded. Carly slammed a fist on the table. Their voices were starting to rise a little, so Amara put a finger to her lips, instructing silence. Then they all looked to the door, listening, and Jovyn, who was sitting across the table in front of her, rose from the bench and put his ear to the wood. After a long moment he turned to them, and shook his head. “I don’t think anyone’s listening,” he whispered, creeping back to retake his seat.
Amara thought it all through. The Lord of Lard needed to die, that was clear, the islands opened for others to come. Perhaps the seneschal could be entrusted with that? Slimy sycophant though he was, he had the bearing of a survivor, in the same way a cockroach does. Kill his master and threaten him with the same fate, and most likely he would yield. Amara put that to the group, and received a round of nods.
“He’ll need strong swords about him,” Sir Connor said. “To make sure there is no power struggle. If not some other pirate tyrant will just continue the Seal King’s work.”
Amara took the point, though in truth there would be nothing they could do to prevent that. She did not mean to stay or lend her aid in this endeavour. That said… “When we return to Varinar, we can spread the word that these islands may offer safe refuge,” she proposed. “A strong cohort of trusted Vandarian soldiers ought to quell any power struggle, if that does occur.”
More nods. But first they needed to overthrow the sack of suet and that required some thinking. She looked each of her faithful protectors in the eye - gloomy Connor Crawfield and spirited Penrose Brightwood, Carly Flame Mane, so fierce and feisty, Jovyn, quietly assured. “There are two Bladeborn men who guard the door to the palace. His best and bravest, I would think, utterly loyal to him and deadly with godsteel to grasp. Getting past them will not be easy.”
“It will be for me,” Carly said. “Get me a godsteel dagger, and I’ll see this done. I’ll be in and out, quick as that.” She clipped her fingers. “They’ll never even know I was there.”
Amara had to smile at the girl’s confidence. She hadn’t even seen the palace, or entered the grove of trees in which it had been grown, yet she backed herself all the same. “There are other guardsmen that pepper the way. I don’t see how you would be able to sneak past them all without detection, Carly.” She could describe the layout, tell the girl everything she’d seen, but that would only get them so far. There were likely to be guards in places she didn’t see, and if a single one of them raised the alarm, the whale would escape his well-earned fate and make an example of them, as he’d promised.
No, we have to be smarter than that.
“We need help, my lady,” Sir Connor said. “Perhaps we might be able to rush the men outside right now, and take their weapons, but even if so, there would not be enough arms to go around and we would be quickly overwhelmed. We need to get access to the armoury.”
The armoury was across the island, Amara knew, under guard at all times. Getting there without sufficient help would be impossible. She picked up her cup of mead and took a long drink, trying to puzzle it out. She could see no other way than waiting, right now. Much as it pained her, they needed more time to win allies, and that process was not a fast one, lest they show their hand too early.
“Sir Talmer may be willing,” she said. “I have told him of Lord Kanabar’s death at the Bane, and I saw the look in his eyes when I did. He fought for Wallis during the last war, and may wish to reenter this one. It may be time to ask him outright. I feel, at least, he would be a man to tender a warning, before speaking of our plans to Lord Lard.”
“That would make one,” Connor said. “We’ll need more.”
“Brazen Ben. He has a thing for Carly.” Amara looked at the fiery sellsword. “Keep flirting with him, and he may bend. I do not think he would join us alone, but if we can muster a few others, I think he would help.”
Jovyn was peering at the door. “They’re both outside now, my lady. Brazen Ben and Sir Talmer.”
“I know. I spoke to them before I entered.”
“Maybe we should speak to them now,” Carly said. “Invite them both in for a little chit-chat?”
Amara shook her head. That two of the men most likely to join them were stationed outside their door was no coincidence, she didn’t imagine. The Lord of Seals was more wily than he looked, and might have placed them there as bait. Or he may not, she thought. Was she giving the oaf too much credit? She didn’t know for certain, though was not quite ready to take that risk. We must be smart, she thought again.
“There are others,” she went on, in a whisper, still leaning forward across the table conspiratorially. “Sir Hockney, Sir Mordont. I have sensed some disillusionment in both of them. Sir Ryger as well. These men may have lost their way, but there is honour inside them still. We can give them a chance to regain it.”
Jovyn gave that a nod. “I spoke with Sir Ryger myself, my lady. He is from Green Harbour, the same as me. He even remembers my father, Lord Colborn. He spoke well of him, and recalls him fondly. We only need to make these men remember who they once were, and what they stood for.”
Amara smiled at the youth, liking that. “If we can get all five, then that should be enough. They need not bloody their blades, unless necessary…merely standing aside and not interfering may suffice, when all of you are armed. When the Blubber’s King’s chief protectors have been dealt with, the rest may throw down their arms.”
“And if they don’t?” asked Carly.
“Then we do what we must. But I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Amara Daecar wrapped her fingers around her wooden cup, lifting it to the centre of the table. The others did the same until five cups were raised. There was something thrilling about all this, she had to admit, a distraction from her grief that gave her focus and drive. Perhaps I’ll thank the Lord of Lard for that when I watch the blood gush from his neck? “We have our targets,” she said. “If others present themselves, that’s all the better. But be careful with who you speak to, and what you say. We’re to tiptoe into this, understand? Nothing reckless, nothing overt. Not until I say so.”
They nodded, all of them, and tapped their cups in a quiet toast. Then they drank to their plot, draining their mead. With that it was done. Amara stood from the bench. “Get some rest,” she told them. “I will see you all in the morning.”
She stepped outside, into the cool evening air, to walk the beach as she liked to do each night, pacing the shore and listening to the echoing sounds of the cavern, watching the moonlight shimmer off the water where it shone in through the mouth of the cave. The longboats would come and go at all hours too, and she liked to watch those as well. Sometimes they brought nets of fish, or the corpses of seals and sharks. At other times, they came bearing tidings, the fisherfolk whispering of the world beyond and the great darkness that was spreading. That was the sort of catch that interested Amara Daecar.
Neither Sir Talmer nor Brazen Ben Barrett eyed her with suspicion as she exited the cabin, suggesting to Amara that they hadn’t been listening. “Off on your wanderings, my lady?” the sellsword asked, with his bucktoothed grin. They knew her habits well enough by now.
“I like to wear myself out before sleeping,” she said. Amara did not stay with the others. Given her high station, she had been provided with a private cabin of her own - a small place, with a single bed and reading table - a little further down the beach. “Good night to you both.”
