Reaper's Gale
A huge world indeed.
The sweeps lifted clear of the water and were quietly shipped as the Undying Gratitude sidled up alongside the Edur wreck. Shurq Elalle moved to the rail and studied the visible deck of the Blackwood ship.
‘Riding low,’ Skorgen muttered.
No bodies amidst the clutter. But there was clutter. ‘No orderly evacuation,’ Shurq Elalle said, as grappling hooks sailed out, the tines biting as the lines were drawn taut. ‘Six with us, weapons out,’ she commanded, unsheathing her own rapier, then stepping up onto the rail.
She leapt across, landed lightly on the mid deck two strides from the splintered stump of the mainmast.
Moments later Skorgen joined her, arriving with a grunt then a curse as he jarred his bad leg.
So where were the bodies? Frowning, Shurq Elalle made her way to the cabin’s hatchway. She paused at the hold, seeing that the hatch had been staved in. Nudging it aside with her boot, she crouched and looked down into the gloom of the hold.
The glimmer of water, and things floating. ‘Skorgen, there’s booty here. Come over and reach down for one of those amphorae.’
The second mate, Misery, called over from their ship, ‘Captain! That hulk’s lower in the water than it was when we arrived.’
She could now hear the soft groans of the hull.
Skorgen used his good arm to reach down and hook his hand through an ear of the amphora. Hissing with the weight, he lifted the hip-high object into view, rolling it onto the deck between himself and the captain.
Skorgen had drawn a knife and was cutting away at the seal, stripping away the thick wax binding the stopper.
After a moment he succeeded in working it loose. He tugged the stopper free, then leapt back as thick blood poured forth, spreading on the deck.
It looked fresh, and from it rose a scent of flowers, pungent and oversweet.
‘Kagenza pollen,’ Skorgen said. ‘Keeps blood from thickening-the Edur use it when they paint temples in the forest-you know, on trees. The blood sanctifies. It’s not a real temple, of course. No walls, or ceiling, just a grove-’
‘I don’t like first mates who babble,’ Shurq Elalle said, straightening once more. ‘Get the others out. The vessels alone will make us rich for a month or two.’ She resumed her walk to the cabin.
In the cabin itself, more signs of looting, while on the lloor was spreadeagled an Edur corpse. Hands and feet had been spiked into the floorboards, and someone had used a knife on him, methodically. The room stank of spilled wastes, and the expression frozen on the face was a twisted, a^’ony-racked mask, the eyes staring out as if witness to a shattered faith, a terrible revelation at the moment of death.
She heard Skorgen come up behind her, heard his low curse upon seeing the body. ‘Tortured ‘im,’ he said. ‘ Tortured the captain. This one was Merude, damn near an Elder. Errant save us, Captain, we’re gonna get blamed if anyone else comes on this afore it all sinks. Torture. I don’t get that-’
It’s simple,’ she said. ‘They wanted information.’
‘About what?’
Shurq Elalle looked round. ‘They took the log, the charts. Now, maybe pirates might do that, if they were strangers to Lether, but then they’d have no need to torture this poor bastard. Besides, they’d have taken the loot. No, whoever did this wanted more information-not what you could get from charts. And they didn’t give a damn about booty.’