Path of the Stonebreaker

Chapter 120

The Stranger

The crew of Connie’s ship were not comfortable with staying at Wailing Rocks. The first night had terrified them, instilling in them a very real and visceral fear of the draega. Good. Femira thought, it’s good that they understand what the danger is that we’re up against.

For five days Connie’s ship sailed around the islands of Wailing Rocks, never staying in the same cove for longer than a single night. Every night, another set of the serpentine draega creatures attacked, and every night, Femira fought and defeated them. Similar to how the last time she’d fought the draega with Landryn, Femira was gaining confidence in fighting this specific kind. She was wiser than she was before however, and knew her limits. If she felt for a moment that there was an alpha nearby, she would tell Connie it was time to leave. So far, she didn’t get that feeling. While she didn’t know what kind of draega these were, she was confident that wherever their alpha was, it was not near the islands.

Staying in the shelter of the coves protected the ship from the waves that would come in hard against the cliffs. But it didn’t seem to matter whether they were out on the water or in an inlet, once night fell, the draega always attacked.

Upon seeing the corpse of one of the creatures for the first time, Sleek and other members of the crew claimed they’d heard other sailors describe creatures like this before. They’d called them scylla, monstrous snake creatures that attacked ships that approached Wailing Rocks. Until recently, many of them had waved off the stories as just that. Stories. So do many people when it comes to the draega.

Femira noted that the scylla behaved similarly to the kraglings, they were usually found in groups smaller than six, and attacked together. They had animalistic intelligence, and targeted humans specifically when they could. They also—luckily—only emerged after dark which meant that Femira could sleep and rest during the daylight. The key differences between the scylla and the kraglings was that they were larger, and more akin to snakes than crabs.

She and Nyth were falling into a steady rhythm with each other. Training with black metal over the past months had been beneficial, but there was no beating real combat when it came to propelling her skills. Nyth was becoming more and more responsive to her thoughts, often reforming shape to suit the tactic that Femira was formulating in her mind. Femira had heard stories of bonded warrior pairs from southern Keiran, whose minds were somehow connected and they worked in synchronicity as a fighting pair. She wondered if it was similar to how she and Nyth communicated.

Connie had taken to staying awake with Femira on the night watches and alerting her whenever she felt something approaching the ship. Sleek had been openly disapproving of at first with the idea of Connie being exposed but soon realised that with Connie’s assistance, Femira was able to kill all of the scylla before they reached the ship more often than not.

“I reckon we’ll be safe to leave these islands tomorrow,” Sleek suggested, “too long for those warships to hang around just to catch a small vessel like ours.”

“Especially when they don’t even know what we’re carrying,” Connie added. Femira agreed, there was no way that whoever was leading those warships could know that Femira was aboard this ship. She was also eager to get back to moving back in the direction of Rubane.

“Although, we do need to think of what we’re going to do if Nordock is under attack,” Connie put forward, “we evaded those Reldoni now, but we might be sailing straight back into their sights.”

“There's Kez's place,” Sleek offered, “his cave is about half a day north of Nordock. The Reldoni couldn’t know about that. Not yet anyway. If we make for Kez’s, then we can stow the ship in the cave for weeks.”

“And pay Kez’s extortionary tariff for the privilege,” Connie grimaced, “but it’s a good plan. We can scout ahead to the city to see what’s happening on foot.”

“Kez is a friend of yours? Is he trustworthy?” Femira asked.

“Wouldn’t call him a friend,” Sleek grunted, “he shelters smugglers like ourselves, and takes his coin for the trouble.”

“More often n’ not,” Connie put in “he shelters pirates. I wouldn’t stow the ship with Kez unless we’re desperate.”

“So another night around these islands?” Femira continued.

“You getting tired of fighting, bloodshedder?” Connie asked with a slight bite to the term.

“I’ve told you before, I’m not one of them anymore. I’m working alone,” Femira retorted.

“That ain’t true,” Sleek lay a hand on her shoulder, “you’re working with us. Ain’t that right, Con?” Sleek gave Connie a heavy stare.

The admiration towards Femira that Sleek, Cowbell and the other crew members that she’d rescued in Port Novic had grown exponentially over the past few days. Seeing and hearing her kill the draega every night was really sinking it in.

While Femira appreciated their support in her decisions, she was becoming a little uncomfortable with how much they started looking to her like she was their leader. That last point was the biggest piece of contention between her and Connie. Femira was their protector, but Connie was still their captain. Connie definitely did not like how much her crew were beginning to almost venerate Femira, and Femira was worried that might make the woman choose to not help her. Their initial agreement had been to simply drop her off at Nordock. But the situation had changed drastically since then and Femira needed to trust that Connie would still be waiting for her at Nordock when she returned with Daegan Tredain.

“Aye,” Connie said half-heartedly.

“I’m good to keep fighting anyway,” Femira replied to Connie’s earlier question, “so long as the numbers don’t increase, or we get any signs of an alpha.” She dreaded to think what an alpha scylla would look like. If the scale between the kraglings and their alpha was anything to go by, then they’d be dealing with a sea serpent larger than one of the islands.

“Good” Connie replied.

“You know,” Sleek postulated, “these islands would make for a great hideaway, not many peo—”

“—absolutely not,” Connie cut him off, giving him a tight glare.

“What?” Sleek threw his hands up defensively, “if Femira were to become a more permanent part of our crew—”

“—I’m not,” Femira interjected, but Sleek continued as if she hadn’t said anything.

“—then she can keep all these scylla monsters away. Think of it, a resting spot little over a week from Port Novic. Avriem’s patrol ships wouldn’t ever dare chase us in here.”

“I’m not staying on these islands a day longer than we have to, there’s a reason why nobody ever comes here and…” she trailed off, her eyes flicking to the misty shore.

Sleek turned his head about too in surprise and it took Femira a moment to realise what captured their attention. Music? In the distance were the faintest strains of a string instrument.

“Sirens,” Sleek paled.

“Don’t be daft…” Connie chided, but then chewed her lip nervously.

“Daft?! There’s been scylla attacking our ship every night since we arrived here and you draw the line at sirens?” Sleek huffed.

The rest of the crew had paused their work, and were now all worriedly looking toward the shore and the distant melody. They threw occasional glances towards Femira, she could see the question in those faces. Can you protect us? Is what their eyes were saying. Lydia made her way to stand beside Femira, her body language tense.

Cowbell was on lookout but he wasn’t ringing his signature bell. Everyone could already hear the music. It drifted on the breeze; a soothing, ethereal song. Despite the calming nature of the melody itself, everyone on the ship was anxious of its presence.

Nyth, do you feel anything? Femira asked internally, conveying the thought with the image of a river being diverted into canals, one of Nyth’s favourites for depicting mindstone. The idea of a chain being rattled was the response. So that’s a no then. She was reasonably confident that whenever Nyth conveyed an idea of ‘rattling’ type sound, it meant ‘no’.

“There’s a person on the beach,” Connie said, her voice calm and collected. She pointed at a dark solitary figure standing on the shore. The islands of Wailing Rocks typically didn’t have beaches, most were rocky cliffs or reefs leading into jagged shelves. Although some had small coves. This was one such cove, that the group had hoped to take shelter in it for the night.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Sleek replied, “we should turn around and drop anchor on the cliffs further down.”

“They don’t look like a threat,” Femira said, squinted to see through the fog, “look! They’ve got a campfire and a dingy. Probably just another person passing through.” Connie gave her a sidelong look.

“People don’t just ‘pass through’ Wailing Rocks,” Connie said flatly.

“Isn’t that we’re doing?” Femira flashed Connie a sly smile as she spoke.

“If we’re going to be working together,” Connie leaned to Femira in a hushed tone, “I’d like for you to be upfront with me. Do you know this person?”

“No,” Femira replied honestly, “but I’m curious. Draega have attacked us every night since we arrived. This person is either exceptionally capable or exceptionally stupid… if they’re the latter then I don’t like the idea of leaving them to their fate if they were just unlucky enough to land here.”

“And what if they’re on the more capable side?”

“Then we find out what they’re doing here.”

The rest of the crew were still waiting in apprehension for Connie’s decision. Their uneasiness was apparent when she told them to carry on towards the beach.

“It’s the best spot for the night,” Connie determined, “and we’ve got our new bloodsh—” she looked at Femira, “—our new friend here,” she said with an accepting nod. “So we’ve got nothing to worry about, eh?” Surprisingly that did seem to put a lot of them at ease. It was understandable considering she’d protected them from execution and now from literal monsters.

Maybe it was the music drifting out from the camp at the beach—and the fact that they appeared to be alone—but Femira didn’t get any gut feeling that there was any danger here. Not from this person anyway. She was acutely aware that there were still draega swarming around the islands.

As the ship drew closer, the details of the camp could be made out. There was a small cookfire, a bedroll, and a boat no bigger than a fishing dinghy. Femira wouldn’t have liked to be out on the open water in that. She thought of the violent tides and waves that swirled around Altarea where she’d lived most of her life. That boat would get torn apart.

They dropped anchor not far from the shore. Whenever they stopped at a cove, crewmembers often went ashore to see what supplies could be foraged. Cowbell more often than not came back with herbs and other wild vegetables and berries that he would include in his cooking for the night. He was always very pleased with the results. Today, however, even Cowbell was reluctant to go ashore.

“Looks like they might want to have a chat,” Sleek said, nodding to the person on the beach. It was a man, from what Femira could guess. He wore a cloak, concealing his face, and was now standing away from his camp, directly in front of the ship. Despite the music being louder closer to the camp, it sounded soft and relaxing. The source of it still eluded Femira.

“Well,” Connie sighed, “let’s be about it. See what this lunatic is doing out here.”

Connie’s ship had a smaller tender that could carry three people on it which they used to reach the beach. Connie was quick to shoot down any suggestions from Sleek that she shouldn’t go ashore. Femira was obviously going and Cowbell was chosen as the third—another logical choice considering the man’s size. His presence alone would be intimidating. Sleek, however, was insistent that if Connie was going, that he too would go. So the four of them squeezed onto the tiny rowboat. They were all armed, Sleek and Cowbell both had daggers and Femira caught a glimpse of Connie’s pistol in her cloak.

After they’d gotten off the rowboat and Femira felt her feet on solid ground again did she realise how large the person on the beach was. He was an entire head taller than Cowbell and was making his way casually towards them. Connie was twitchy and stayed near the boat as he approached.

“Dunlaak mahen?” The stranger called out, his voice a deep rumble like distant thunder. Femira didn’t recognise the greeting. The parts of his skin that she could see were dark. Very dark.

“Do you speak common tongue?” Femira called out, and then in her own native language, “or can you speak Keiran?”

“My Keiran gathers moss,” the stranger answered, “common tongue will suffice.” He had a peculiar accent, sharp and strong, made even more so with his deep voice.

“What is your purpose here?” The man asked without preamble.

“We would ask the same of you,” Connie shot back.

“Ah, but my boat touched these sands first, did they not?” he replied.

“We’re just taking shelter in the cove for the night,” Femira answered, “and then we’ll be on our way. My name is Femira,” she offered, “these are my companions; Connie, the Captain of our ship, Sleek and Cowbell, our cook. What is your name?”

“I have had many names,” the stranger replied, “I feel that my true name might be too difficult for you to pronounce. You may call me Mahel.”

“What is this music?” Femira asked, her eyes glancing around for the source of the sound.

“Ah,” she could see the white teeth of a smile from within Mahel’s hood as he spoke, “the melody is that of vishan ahel. A piece I quite like and one that suits this place particularly well, I find.”

“Where’s it coming from?” Femira pressed on.

“My harp, of course. I am known to many as Mahel, the Harp Player.” he gestured to a shape next to his campfire. At this distance, Femira could see that it was indeed a harp, but there was nobody sitting at it.

“It’s just playing on its own,” Sleek commented, pointing out the obvious whilst also objectively pointing at the harp.

“Indeed, I’m a whispering harpist,” Mahel revealed. “Dreams and music are oft aligned.” Femira wasn’t sure if this Mahel simply had a poor grasp of Common Tongue. His sentences didn’t make much sense, but then he seemed well spoken.

“Are you really a player if you don’t touch the strings?” Sleek grunted. Femira felt a smirk on her lip, amused by Sleek’s sulky tone.

“Your friend, Femira,” Mahel responded to Sleek’s comment, “your warrior. She wields a mighty blade without truly touching it, does she not?”

Femira stiffened, her eyes locking onto Mahel. The other three all tensed.

“I mean you no harm,” Mahel held up his hands in a peaceful gesture, “and I will only speak truth for you. I have been watching you ship.”

“Bullshit,” Connie snapped, “we’d have spotted you.”

“In darkness of night, your eyes falter, yet in that, blame finds no place, for this limitation is simply a flaw of your making.”

“You’re saying we can’t see as good as you can in the dark?” Connie replied, “Just be straight up and clear, ya hear? You mentioned you've been keeping an eye on us, so let's make sure we're all on the same page about what you're up to.”

“My apologies,” Mahel said, “I don’t often have a chance to speak with your kind.”

“What are you?” Connie asked directly, she took a step towards Mahel, stretching up but her small stature still made her look like a child compared to Mahel.

Mahel reached up and pulled back his hood. Femira was surprised by how dark his face was. She suspected, from the parts of his skin she could see, that he was southern Keiran who were very dark-skinned, but Mahel’s face was jet black, his eyes a striking bright blue.