Silently, the raedrs clambered up the Hael greatship’s elaborately painted larboard bow, Ruell at their head. To a casual observer, the shadows moving up her hull might be nothing more than a trick of the eye.
In the water below, Araam and Uelaat swam sternward. The young raed commander led his friend away from the faint yellow rectangle of light shed by the storm window, keeping their approach in darkness.
They had just reached the towering stern castle when Ceolr’s hurricane roar shook the boarded vessel to its timbers. The clash of steel on steel filled the salty air as a hundred or more Hael warriors attempted to repel the score of sopping wet raedrs.
Araam’s blood filled with the urgency to fight alongside them, but even the best raed commander could not force victory by being in two places. He must trust the men he’d chosen to carry out their part in this attack.
The lowest gallery of the greatship loomed twenty feet over his head, but he timed his leap with the next heavy swell, caught hold of the ornate scrolling woodwork and clambered up until he reached the slick rail of her stern walk.
He hauled himself over the rail, took the swordbreaker from his teeth, and spared a moment to assess his way forward.
Framed by the walk were the thick, swirled panes of stormglass that made up the rear windows. These afforded the best cabins in the ship with fresh air and a view while protecting them from being swamped by powerful waves.
Uelaat swung over the rail beside him, water pouring from his huge form.
Where now? he signaled.
Araam nodded starboard. The best handholds had led them to the larboard side of the castle, away from the cabin they sought.
Dripping, they crept along the walk, searching each stormglass in turn for treachery until they reached the glow of lamplight.
His treasure sat locked within, shining golden as the sun and swathed in silk and jewels. It was hard to make out details through the blur, but Araam knew it was her. She had lit the stormlamp to guide him, burning valuable whale oil every night in anticipation of his arrival. In the month since he had promised her he would come, she had not given up.
Araam levered the tip of the swordbreaker into the casement frame and searched for the catch.
He must have made a sound. Inside, the silk-covered form started. She turned toward the windows. Through the blurry glass, he saw her pull up her silken scarves, covering her hair and face, hiding everything but her eyes.
God of the Waves, tonight he would see her face! His hands shook with the urgency to get inside.
Mercifully, the catch triggered, and the thick casement swung open. The greatship rolled suddenly, pitching the heavy, swinging stormglass back toward him. Araam braced himself on the rail and caught the window before it could knock him into the surf.
Taking the rare initiative, Uelaat snatched the casement away, holding it so his friend could climb inside.
Araam saw nothing of the cabin as his wet feet hit the warm dry wood of its floor. The most brilliant teal eyes gleamed at him from between swatches of red-orange silk, pitch-dark lashes making the oceanic gems shine brighter than belief.
This was the bride he had chosen, the eyes he had built Haelbringr for, the woman he had risked his name and his honor and his manhood for.
She was also the one who had so lovingly crafted Haelbringr’s beautiful alaan canvas with those slender, clever fingers. The day the sheets had been smuggled onto the Raen greatship and into Araam’s hands, he had stood taller than any rogue wave.
“Mehet, Daughter of Troanr Leviathan-Killer, Chief of the Hael, Sixth Tribe of the Ocean Rovers,” he said, savoring every word of her name. “I claim you as mine. From this day forth, any man who seeks to place himself between you and me—”
Uelaat cringed. He had been about to cross between the lovers to gather the ceremonial bag of pearls the bride kept at her side. The big raedr stepped back.
Sweet laughter tinkled from behind Mehet’s silken wrap like windchimes in a favorable breeze.
Araam’s soul blazed like ball lightning at the feminine sound. Ocean Rover women covered their faces to hide the emotions they chose not to share. An audible laugh was an intentional glimpse of her mood, and Mehet’s was almost painfully beautiful.
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A second later, a more masculine sound caught Araam’s attention. The clash of battle from the greatship’s deck was spreading.
“—any man who seeks to place himself between you and me will taste the steel of my cutlass,” he hurried to complete the rote. “Daughter of the Hael no longer, my tribe is your tribe. From here to eternity, let this woman always be known as Mehet, Wife of the Son of Olaan, and one day Chieftainess of the Raen, First Tribe of the Ocean Rovers.”
“I shall raise the alarm,” she said, the ritual response unconvincing in its mirth.
“Then I shall wait no longer.” Crossing the cabin, Araam scooped the silk-bundled form into his arms. The scent of a dozen heady spices engulfed him at once. Warm, enticing. It felt like sacrilege that his rough, wet clothing was soaking her fine silks, but she would soon be soaked through, as he was.
A shout in the corridors. The thunder of feet.
Chief Troanr had seen through the distraction and was now storming below to protect his greatest treasure. From the noise, there must have been a hundred men at his heels.
Araam would have a lifetime to breathe in the perfumed oils his bride wore, but only if he made it back to the Raen greatship with her. Ocean Rover bridal procedures had been greatly formalized since the olden days when the tribes warred and raided one another, but this last bit of the ritual was the roughest, where marriages were still known to capsize.
“Get her to Haelbringr,” Araam said, thrusting his wife into Uelaat’s arms.
Without hesitation, the big raedr plunged through the heavy, swinging casement, his wide shoulders and tough head shielding the stolen bride from harm.
Behind Araam, the cabin door burst open. A white-bearded Hael as elaborately bedecked as his greatship shouldered through, swinging a sapphire-encrusted saber.
Araam ran to meet the chief’s attack. He caught the first blow on his swordbreaker, the edges of the saber screaming as it wedged in one of the dagger’s deep serrations.
Chief Troanr bore down with the strength of decades spent surviving on harsh seas. Araam’s muscles knotted, and his arm shook with the effort to hold the saber at bay. He could still lose this night, his wife, his name, everything.
He brought his foot up, planted it in Troanr’s gut, and kicked him away.
In that breath of space, Araam ripped his cutlass free of his belt. He was almost too slow. The older man was already throwing himself at Araam once again. Araam parried and slashed and met ready steel. Troanr fought like a man half his age, as fast and fearless as the poets said he had been when he killed the leviathan, gladly accepting smaller wounds in pursuit of the greater victory.
Araam felt as if he were fighting the leviathan more than the man. He trapped an attack between swordbreaker and cutlass. Troanr tried to yank free, but Araam twisted his blades. The older man’s wrist turned, his thick knuckles caught inside the saber’s jewel-studded rings.
Troanr was off balance, but not beaten. With his free hand, he yanked a longknife from his boot. The old man lurched up, snapping his head into the underside of Araam’s jaw.
Lightning flashed inside Araam’s skull. Blood poured into his mouth from his bitten tongue.
But the longknife.
Araam threw himself into a blind roll, praying to the God of the Waves that he’d picked the direction away from Troanr’s attack. No cold blade sank into his vitals. He slammed into a wooden bulkhead and bolted to his feet, blinking sparks from his eyes.
And ducked. The sapphire-encrusted saber sliced through the air where his head had been. Wood splintered, showering him with chips.
Troanr’s body was too far forward. His reckless style had betrayed him. He had committed too heavily into the swing at Araam’s neck.
As the old man stepped to catch himself, Araam kicked Troanr’s foot out from beneath him. The Hael chief tumbled to the deck, but did not stop fighting.
Troanr rolled onto his side and swung the saber. Araam stomped the jewel-encrusted blade to the ground. The longknife stabbed for his foot, seeking to pin him to the planks. He smacked aside the dagger with the superior reach of his cutlass.
The clang of steel on steel rang outside the cabin, the pitched battle between the Hael men and the Raen raedrs reaching a frenzy, as Araam pressed the swordbreaker to Troanr’s throat.
The chief had fought like a man possessed by demons from the deep, but he went still at the cold caress of the toothed blade.
The battle between tribesmen stilled in a ripple, beginning with those fighters closest to the cabin and spreading down the corridor. In moments, the only sounds were the endless creak of the greatship, the harsh breathing of the combatants, and the clinking of the Hael men’s jewelry.
Araam spat the blood from his teeth. “Kill them all.”
At his command, raedrs brought their swords to throats and mimicked a slaughter. Most of the defeated Hael crouched rather than knelt in defeat, not wishing to dirty their extravagant garments any more than they already had, and offered up their weapons.
Every blade was crafted from the deadly black steel of the Waeld, the Third Tribe among the Ocean Rovers, renowned for their weaponsmithing—but Araam knew none were the defeated warriors’ best weapons. Mehet’s tribe had had weeks to prepare for Araam’s eventual attack, and would have stored their most prized blades in their quarters until the marriage ceremony was complete.
From the floor, the Chief of the Hael studied his newly acquired son-in-law. “What name will you take when you return to your tribe? I would know what to call the father of my grandchildren when I ask for the God of the Waves’s favor upon his ship.”
“The God will tell you my name when you meet Him.” Araam pulled back his cutlass and imitated a beheading swing.
Troanr’s eyes warmed with approval. “You are a leviathan in a sea of sharks, Son of Olaan.”
The old man shifted to his knees, grunting as his aging joints cracked, and handed off his sapphire-encrusted saber.
“Mehet is my finest treasure, worth a thousand of these,” he said. “Treat her well and she will make your tribe as great and strong as her mother did the Hael.”
Araam turned his back on the chief, then signaled to his men. One by one, they carried their plunder through the casement and leapt from the stern walk to the churning waters below. There the Haelbringr circled, ready to disappear into the night.