Path of the Stonebreaker

Chapter 126

Firebrand

“We’ll be at Kez’s by nightfall,” Sleek called to the crew, his voice cutting through the wind. “Ecko’s full tonight, so we can expect a strong tide to pull us right in. But don’t get lazy—this inlet’s got more hidden rocks than a May Roses proving day.”

“May Roses?” Femira asked Lydia, stepping up beside her on the deck.

“Athlin’s most infamous all-female mercenary band,” Lydia replied, giving a slight smirk. “They hold an annual proving day for new recruits. Men tend to try sneaking in.”

“Why?”

Lydia shrugged. “May Roses are... athletic. And men are idiots. Some think they’ll sneak in, join up, get close to ‘em.”

“They pretend to be women just to try and sleep with them? That’s idiotic.”

“It is. But men aren’t often known for their brilliance.”

Sleek was still barking out orders, but he stumbled over a loose rope, losing no small measure of his command, “Farns move that damn rope! I know what you’re all thinking. ‘We’ve done this before’, ‘we’ve sailed through tighter spots than this.’ Don’t get cocky! An Ecko tide is nothing to scoff at coming into Kez’s.

“So here’s the deal; you watch your station like your life depends on it—because it bloody well does. Riggers, I want those sails trimmed to a hair’s breadth. Bosun, keep your eyes sharp and your voice louder than the wind. We’ll need to tack on my call, and there’ll be no time for second guesses. And Connie when I tell you to—”

“—You’ll tell me nothin’,” she barked back at him, “I make the shots on guiding the waves. I know this ship, Sleek.”

Femira couldn’t help but smirk at the interaction. Sleek was the official captain of the ship but Connie acted like it more often than not. She never took any direction from Sleek, despite always insisting that he was the captain, not her. They were an odd pair, and Femira didn’t miss the moments of genuine affection between them. She suspected they were actually lovers, and likely had been for a very long time, why they kept that from the crew, Femira couldn’t guess.

In the days since leaving Wailing Rocks, they’d only come upon the red and black sails of Reldoni warships twice. Both times the warships hadn’t spotted them before Connie had called up the vieling wave trick, as Femira had started calling it.

“Needs a name,” she’d told Connie, “all good runewielding tricks need a name.”

“I just call it ‘hiding the ship from people who might want to murder us’” Connie had replied, deadpan.

“Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue though, does it. We’re calling it the Vieling Wave.”

“Sink or swim, makes no odds to me,”

“Vieling Wave it is, then,” Femira had said with a grin, claiming victory.

Connie’s Vieling Wave had kept them safely out of sight from the Reldoni ships as they neared the coast of Rubane. Altarian sailors had often described Rubane as ‘the gods’ frozen pisspot,’ and now, Femira understood the insult all too well. Well into spring, and still snow covered the white cliffs like winter hadn’t got the message. So much white. She squinted at the view—snow, cliffs, overcast sky—a dreary palette of muted greys and whites.

And it’s so bloody cold.

Since they’d left Wailing Rocks, the temperature had dropped sharply, each day colder than the last. Femira had taken to running through her bloodshedder drills with Nyth just to stay warm. Swing, thrust, block—over and over until her muscles burned and her breath came in clouds. But the moment she stopped, the sweat cooling on her skin hit her like a curse.

Nyth didn’t seem bothered by the cold. I guess when your body is made of metal instead of squishy meat, it doesn’t tend to react to the temperature changes.

Nyth sent her the mental image of a metal blade being melted down in a forge at high heat. Fair point, she smirked. Nyth was seemingly getting better at understanding her direct thoughts and responding to them. Maybe she was just getting better at thinking the way it liked.

She wasn’t as creeped out by having a sentient blob of metal living inside her body and reading her thoughts as she would have thought a year ago. She trusted Nyth. It hadn’t failed her yet in combat, always shifting into exactly what she needed. More than that, it had been integral to her learning of Garld’s manipulation—and his treasons.

She’d only realised after leaving Wailing Rocks that she’d forgotten to question Mahel about Nythilium. She didn’t doubt the mysterious traveller knew a lot more than she did about the stuff. Nyth didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual about Mahel, he was just another fleshy humanlike thing to it.

“These May Roses,” Femira asked, pulling her attention back to the conversation with Lydia. “If they’re so prestigious, why haven't your revolutionaries hired them?”

Lydia gave a derisive snort. “Prestigious? They're notorious, not prestigious.”

"Notorious, eh?” Femira raised an eyebrow, her tone edged with amusement. “Seems like the kind of folks your people would love to have.”

“They’ve got a reputation for leaving more chaos than they solve. They’re not exactly… stable,” Lydia replied, crossing her arms as she leaned on the railing. “Revolution isn’t just about fighting. It’s about building something afterward. The May Roses? Chances are they’d burn down half of Port Novic if the coin was good enough.”

Seems like half the city was burning anyway when the revolutionaries had fuelled the riots in the city. When Femira had stopped the executions at the Red Throne. She kept that thought to herself though.

“Is that what your people are worried about?” Femira said instead in a rare moment of guarding her tongue.

“Among other things,” Lydia sighed. “Mercs can’t be trusted to not switch sides when the money runs out. We need loyalty, not someone who’ll turn their coat the second someone jingles a few extra coins in their direction. May Roses have built a reputation of not doing that, but all the same… Besides, we don’t have the kind of coin to keep mercenaries like the May Roses on payroll. We’ve got barely enough to keep our own people fed, let alone a merc band that charges double the moment they realise they’re in demand. Avriem can afford to pay a lot more than us.

“Mercs are too unreliable in the long term, sure, they’ll be good in a direct fight with Avriem if it comes to it. But what happens when the battle’s over? They’ll take their pay and be gone. We need people who believe in the cause, who are in it for the long haul, not just until the next payday. Mercenaries aren’t the kind you want watching your back when things get tough.”

Lydia shook her head. “No cause. No loyalty.”

Femira huffed a breath that misted in the cold air. “Sounds like the kind of people I used to run with.”

“The bloodshedders?” Lydia gave her sidelong glance. “Reldon’s elite runewielders are no better than mercs?”

“Not them,” Femira gave a humourless chuckle, “before… I was with a crew in Altaria. Mostly thefts, scams, small-time stuff.”

“You’ve come a long way from a thief.”

“To what?”

Femira could tell that Lydia was hiding a smile. She knew what Lydia wanted from her. She wanted Femira to join her revolution, to give her loyalty to their cause. But Femira had already pledged her loyalty to something, and for once she intended to hold it.

Landryn. For all his flaws. For all these claims of him becoming a conqueror, a warmonger, a murderer. She knew him. No part of her would ever let her even tread towards the idea that she maybe even loved him, those thoughts were quickly sent scattering away like scavengers from a sand-lion standing over a fresh kill.

“I’m looking forward to getting off this damn ship,” Femira shifted the topic. She needed to keep her mind focused on what came next—finding Daegan Tredain. Trouble was, she had little to go on. The only solid lead she had was that Misandrei and her squad had been sent to some backwater town called Urundock, supposedly the last place anyone had spotted Daegan. Beyond that, she didn’t even have whispers, literally nothing.

Ferath Vitares—one of their own—had been ordered to kill the prince, but he’d botched it, leaving Daegan running for the farthest corners of Rubane. She hoped that when she got to Rubane she might start gleaming a little more information. How hard could it be to find a Reldoni prince running around the countryside?

Another problem was that she barely knew anything about Rubane. A map was all she had, swiped from the palace cartographer’s office. She’d had a laugh when she noticed Prince Daegan’s signature at the bottom of it, he’d either worked on the thing himself or just slapped his name on it for show. Typical, really. But it was better than nothing.

Femira’s eyes narrowed against the cold white of the scene. The city of Nordock was still a distant blur, though she could see the smoke from their ironworks on the horizon. Her mind was already working through the plan. She wasn’t one to go in blind—at least, not anymore.

The first step was always the hardest in an unfamiliar city. But she’d done this before. Altaria, Epilas, Port Novic. Nordock would be no different. She just needed to treat this like a job.

Her first step would be to find the local criminal hub, the black market or whatever passed for one here. Nordock wasn’t exactly famous for its organised crime, but she’d bet her blade that a port city this big had more than a few seedy taverns where information flowed as freely as ale.

Connie or Sleek would be the best place to start. Both smugglers had been through Nordock plenty of times, and they wouldn’t have survived this long without knowing the right people—or at least knowing who to avoid.

It had been different in Port Novic. She’d known nobody, she’d hoped to simply purchase passage on any vessel going to Rubane, but Duke Avriem’s embargo had made that impossible. It hadn’t been hard to find the sleazy part of town, those were normally always close to the docks and sailors could usually point you in the right direction. Finding a smuggler she didn’t think was scamming her or worse—planning to sell her to a slaver—had taken a lot longer.

"You mentioned you had contacts in Nordock?" Femira asked Lydia, her tone casual but laced with intent.

“The revolution needs weapons,” Lydia replied, arms crossed, her gaze distant. “Rubane’s the best place for that. I’ve made a few trips.”

“Think you could help me find some information?”

Lydia was a diehard insurgent. Femira had seen that much by now. She was a true believer in the cause, convinced that Femira could somehow be the key to overthrowing Avriem. Femira had also saved the woman from a gruesome execution on the Red Throne. Lydia claimed that she owed a debt to Femira, even if Femira didn’t see it that way. All of that led Femira to thinking that maybe she could trust Lydia to not betray her.

“Can you introduce me to your contacts?”

Lydia gave a curt nod. "I can."

“Are they…?”

“Firebrands.”

“That’s what you call yourselves?”

“Those of us that are committed.”

“And how exactly do you prove your commitment?” For the bloodshedders, Femira had had to reshape her very soul to be brought officially into their ranks. And then only once she’d actually killed enemies of Rubane with her own hands had they begun to accept her. The sensation of a blade grinding against the bone of an eye socket suddenly rose up causing her stomach to knot. She shoved down the thought with force. Not now.

“You prove it with blood,” Lydia said, voice flat. “Same as any fight worth winning.”

“So… what? You kill one of Avriem’s soldiers and then you get to call yourself a firebrand?”

“Doesn’t have to be a soldier,” Lydia admitted freely, “though any less of those on Avriem’s payroll the better. Only when you’ve proved you’re willing to kill—and die—for the cause.”

Lydia had been about to die, that was for sure. Although Femira wouldn’t have called it willing, her cadre leader seemed a lot more willing when he sat on that throne and burst apart like a rotten gourd. Lydia had been kicking and screaming before Femira had finally stepped in to stop it.

“You killed those soldiers in Krastac’s Hall,” Lydia said.

Femira’s jaw tightened. She probably had, though she hadn’t meant to. She’d had Nyth take blunt forms, focusing instead on causing commotion instead of killing. But then she’d needed to bring down the whole domed ceiling to cause enough of a scene to escape. She didn’t know how many people—guilty or otherwise—got trapped under the rubble. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, one that Lydia clearly didn’t share.

She’d trust Lydia to an extent. But at the end of the day, the woman was what she claimed. A firebrand—someone who’d burn the world down if it meant raising up something new from the ashes.

“I need to find Daegan Tredain, you know that much already.” Femira steered the conversation. “Last I heard, he was seen in a place called Urundock, but that was three months ago. I need leads, rumours—anything that points me in his direction.”

“Finding one man in all of Rubane? No small task, especially considering that Rubane is under attack from the Reldoni. Daegan Tredain is the Blightwind King’s brother. If he’s still alive, he’s likely stashed in some Duke’s dungeon as ransom..”

“Can you help me or not?”

“I’ll help you,” Lydia said without hesitation. A debt paid then. Femira couldn’t shake the feeling this was part of some larger game. Would this be Lydia’s plan? to keep helping Femira until that feeling was reversed. Until Femira felt obligated to help her in Port Novic. Or maybe Lydia simply thought that, given enough time, she could turn Femira into a true firebrand herself.