Ocean Of Fear (Book 6)
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
FEET THUNDERED ACROSS the trireme’s deck as the crew raced to their battle stations. Drums sounded the beat for the straining oarsmen. Marines strapped on shields and drew shortswords. Crossbowmen wound their arbalests and fitted bolts into place. Sweating and puffing, the engine crew on the sterncastle manoeuvred the ballista to cover the shoreline.
Standing at the prow of the warship above the great beak of the ram, the tall greying man watched the distant village burn. A frown made his scarred face even more sinister. He shaded his cold grey eyes against the sea glare and studied the devastated little township on the forest’s edge.
Smoke rose above the huts and fires crackled along the wooden palisade. Dead bodies, some pierced with arrows, sprawled on the sand of the beach. He could make out no sign of life.
He walked back towards the stern. Superstitious sailors avoided his glance and made the Sign of the Sun when they thought he would not notice. They knew what sort of man carried a sword on his back. They knew why he was aboard and they did not like it. Since he had joined the ship three days ago in the northern Siderean port of Grahal, he had done nothing but make them uneasy.
As the man approached the sterncastle the ship’s captain broke off his discussion with the chaplain and nodded permission to join him on the command deck. “You may come up, Sir Kormak,” he said.
Kormak stalked up the stairs and studied the captain. Elias Zamara, by Grace of King-Emperor Aemon of Siderea, Captain of the Ocean’s Blade and admiral of this small pirate-hunting fleet, was almost as tall as Kormak, with the copper-blond hair and hawk-like features of a Siderean nobleman. He wore the elaborate ruffled collar and purple cloak of the royal court. A gold Elder Sign with three interlocked five-pointed stars hung on his chest like a badge of office. His manner was supercilious; the easy way he strode the command deck said that he was not a man to be taken lightly.
“Have we found what we are looking for?” Zamara asked. His haughty tone could not hide his nervousness. Distant cousin to the king or not, Elias Zamara was still a young man with no great experience in dealing with sorcery, no matter how many sea battles he had fought in.
“Too early to say,” said Kormak. “All I can see is a burned out village. Could be anything from Thurian raiders to an attack by elves who resent their lands being colonised.”
“They were most likely only heretics anyway,” said Frater Jonas. He gestured at the village as if condemning every soul in it to eternal damnation under the Shadow. The fleet’s chaplain was a short bird-like man with very black hair, very dark eyes and a neatly clipped spade beard. His olive skin, darker than the captain’s, made it clear that he belonged not to his country’s Sunlander nobility but to its peasantry.
Jonas wore the yellow robes of the Order of the Eternal Sun, an organisation said to wield power second only to the King-Emperor in Siderea. His hand stroked the solar emblem of his Order the way a man might a favourite cat. “They come here with their foul ways to escape the Holy Sun’s sight.”
The young nobleman looked at him with distaste, nor perhaps so much for the sentiments expressed but for the peasant accent they were expressed in.
“Someone certainly wanted them dead,” Kormak said. “The question is why.”
“There’s only one way we’re going to find out,” said the captain. “We’re going to have to send in a landing party.”
“Very well,” Kormak said. “Let’s go take a look.”
Scores of armed warriors from each of the fleet’s three ships filled the rowboats.
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