Free Storm of Sharks by Curtis Jobling Page A

dizziness sweeping over her. The man struggled to stand, grinning,
but the smirk didn’t last long. The needle tip of a rapier emerged through his
chest, travelling clean through his heart, before being whipped out of his back as he
slumped onto his companions. Violca stood in his place, flicking the blood from her
blade, the first mate, Ramzi, at her side.
    ‘Quickly, my lady,’ said Violca,
helping Whitley rise. ‘We must get you and the shepherd off the ship. Mister
Ramzi’s prepared a boat for you at the stern. He’ll see you to
safety.’
    The Werelady looked down the ship towards
the prow. The fighting was thickest there, at the point where the enemy had piled
aboard. With no lantern light and the moon and stars hidden by cloud, only the
occasional dim flash of a blade could be seen as smugglers and pirates warred with one
another.
    ‘I left the shepherd below. I thought
he’d be safe there.’
    ‘Well, he’s no longer below, and
he’s far from safe,’ replied Violca, catching sight of something large and
dark bounding across the foredecks, into the heart of the melee. ‘Go now!
I’ll bring him to you!’
    Ramzi placed his arm under Whitley’s
to support the injured Bearlady. He led her swiftly down the ship’s starboard
side, the girl glancing back all the while as the captain raced off to where the
fighting was worst. She was soon lost in the darkness and the screams of the dying.

2

The Mother of Icegarden
    Hector grimaced, pinching the bridge of his
nose. The pain persisted, a constant strain behind the eyes that lanced through his head
like a hot poker. He pushed his right palm into his eye socket, trying to massage the
headache away. Opening his red-ringed eyes, he focused on the woman who sat chained to
the chair before him.
    ‘Why do we have to play these silly
games?’ he asked miserably.
    Duchess Freya glared back, a look of
withering, unrivalled hatred that made Hector feel terribly small. Chained though she
was by Sturmish steel manacles, the magick rolled off her in waves. He could scarcely
believe that the most powerful of the Daughters of Icegarden, magisters of the
Strakenberg – and mother to Duke Henrik and Lady Greta – was a
prisoner before him. The Boarlord spied the bruises that marked theWhite Bear’s face and neck and shivered. His henchman, Ibal, stood by the door,
jailer to many of Hector’s prisoners and witness to all their interrogations. But
his usual nervous giggles had all but vanished in the presence of the duchess, the
Boarguard sensing her aura of power.
    ‘A game would suggest
entertainment,’ she said. ‘I can assure you, Blackhand, your visits
don’t amuse me.’
    ‘Yet still you make me ask the same
question, day after day, offering me no answer. Do you think I enjoy this
pantomime?’
    ‘Honestly?’ replied the duchess.
‘Yes. I think you do.’
    Hector snapped his fingers and pointed at
her, spittle dribbling from his snarling lips. ‘You’re trying my patience,
my lady. Are you so foolish that you’d hasten the pain?’
    ‘Ask your question, you sick little
boy,’ said the elderly therian, turning her face from him in defiance. She fixed
her eyes upon Ibal, who looked away. ‘Bring me your pain; see what it gets
you.’
    Hector’s left fist rose slowly, his
dark robe falling away to reveal gnarled, black flesh. He flicked it open as if
releasing a trapped butterfly from his hand, sending his brother’s vile racing on
its way towards the duchess. He watched as the smoky phantom, visible only to Hector,
swirled around her, circling like a shark around its prey, awaiting his command. He
flung his hand forward, and the Vincent-vile raked the Bearlady’s face as it
rushed past. As Hector’s arm came back the other way, the vile struck Freya once
more, and the chair she sat on rocked forward on to its front legs, threatening to bring
her crashing face-first to the ground. Ibal took a stepforward, trying
to grab the seat just as it clattered