He’d been shot. He’d been shot protecting her. Violet stumbled backward into a crate, staring.
A Steward had just saved her life.
The French Steward had drawn her sword. ‘They’re coming.’
Justice drew his sword alongside her, ignoring the bullet in his shoulder. ‘We kill Simon’s Lion, then strip the cargo from this ship.’
Tom. She didn’t have time to react. Another pistol shot burst half the wood from the corner of a cargo crate – the fight was suddenly in the hold. Simon’s men were reloading and taking aim at the Stewards, while others struggled on the stairs, a tangle of bodies and the slash of swords. One of the hanging lamps was smashed sideways, a short-lived burning arc that extinguished itself in the water, making visibility harder.
She had to get to her brother. She pushed off the crate and took her first steps, only to look down and find that the water level was now up to her knees. The dark swirl of it was tugging at her legs, swelling in at a disturbing speed.
That isn’t right. There shouldn’t be water in the hold, and it shouldn’t be this deep, knee height and rising.
She looked up at the cargo. She felt that cold sense of dread again, as if there was something dark and terrible down here with her. Her eyes fixed on one crate, chained down the way the others weren’t. As soon as she looked at it, the feeling of aversion became almost overpowering. That crate – that was it.
There’s something else down here. It’s something dark and old, and it feels—
‘You’re not going anywhere, Steward.’
She jerked around to see Tom, standing silhouetted in the entrance to the hold.
Alive. Tom was alive. A rush of relief and pride almost overwhelmed her. His shirt was slashed open, and he was covered in blood, holding the iron bar. But he was her brother, and he was going to win the fight for Simon and her family.
‘Where’s Marcus?’ said Justice.
Tom came down the steps, iron bar at the ready. ‘I’ve killed the others.’
‘You’re going to tell me what you’ve done with Marcus,’ said Justice. ‘Or I’ll cut down everyone on this ship – then find him anyway.’
‘You won’t get past me,’ said Tom.
Tom’s strong, she thought. Tom will show him.
But as the two young men came together, it was immediately clear that if Tom was strong, Justice was stronger.
He came in under Tom’s iron bar, and with a single blow sent Tom flying in an arc across the hold, into the heavy beams of the ship. The impact took out the support struts near the stairs, pulverising the wood, and sent huge beams crashing in a collapse that came smashing down, exploding crates open in the dark depths of the hold.
And that single crate, the one that she had seen and not wanted to go near, was knocked from its stack to crash down onto the planking.
No—
A wave of sick horror rolled over Violet as the crate shattered, a choking, tangible feeling, as if something terrible had been released into the hold. She didn’t want to turn her head and look at it. One of Simon’s men nearby whitened visibly, as if the wave of sickness from the crate had hit him even more strongly. A moment later, he swayed, his skin mottling. She made herself turn and look.
There’s something else here, and it feels—
She saw people staggering, vomiting, collapsing into the water, then she lifted her eyes further—
—like it’s trying to get out.
It looked plain except for its black hilt, and its long, carved black sheath. It was a sword that had fallen out of a smashed container, and now lay tumbled on the edge of a crate. The fall had exposed a single sliver of its black blade, the rest of the sword still quiescent in its sheath.
The wave of revulsion she felt at that glimpse of black blade was like nothing she had ever felt before. Sheathe it! she wanted to scream, knowing immediately that it was the source of the roiling sickness. In the next moment, she saw arcs of black flame leaping out from the blade, striking the hull and pulverising it, letting in a new rush of water. As she watched, the flame struck one of Simon’s men, and he vomited up black ichor, as though his internal organs had rotted through. Sheathe it! Cover it!
But no one could get to it without risking the black fire.
Around her people were screaming and scrabbling to get to the exit, panicking as the black flame flared like unholy lightning, killing anyone it touched. Others were simply trying to get as far away from the sword as they could, whimpering and hiding behind crates that wouldn’t save them when the black fire struck. All the Stewards were dead.