Free The Last Quarrel (The Complete Edition) by Duncan Lay

a bottle and sat back, letting tide and wind carry them back home. The boat’s owner, a grizzled old fisherman, had his arm over the tiller but, apart from that, they were only focused on the bottle that was being passed around. He drank deeply when it was his turn.
    “Come on, Ahearn! You need all your wits about you to steer us home,” one of his men said, only half-joking. “Don’t want you to steer us into a nest of selkies.”
    “You’ve had far too much already if you are seeing selkies, my lad,” Ahearn told him lightly.
    “No, that’s what everyone is saying. There’s been boats disappear, others come back empty of men. Folk are saying the selkies are angry with us, that we’re taking all their fish. It’s Zorva’s judgment on the wicked, the priest told me.”
    “Well, that’s bloody stupid,” Ahearn growled. “Why would Zorva want to punish the wicked? He likes the wicked!”
    “I’m just saying what I heard.”
    “Then don’t believe everything you hear. Have you ever seen a selkie?”
    “Well, your missus first thing in the morning on the way to get water ain’t a pretty sight,” someone called out, safe in the darkness.
    “Another joke like that and this bottle’ll go over the side,” Ahearn warned. “There’s no such thing as selkies. There’s evil in this world, right enough, but it comes from men and women. They fall for Zorva’s promise of power, then use his magic to do terrible things.”
    “How do you know all about that?” someone accused.
    “You’re too young to remember but we had one like that in the village, near on a century ago. Folk turned up dead, hearts ripped out or worse, skinned, torn apart – looked like it couldn’t have been done by another man. And I guess he wasn’t a man no more. Certainly not a selkie. But my grandfather and other men caught him and killed him and burned his body to ash.”
    “Why don’t the church tell us of things like that then?”
    “Because they don’t want to tell you the truth, in case some fool decides to try it. To get Zorva’s power, all you have to give him is your soul – and the blood of a loved one. And the more blood you give him, the more power he gives you. To someone with nothing, that might sound like a fine bargain, until they learn what it means. So it’s easier for the church to terrify you with monsters than to tell you the truth about people.”
    “That don’t seem right.”
    “Right? Next thing you’ll want life to be fair. Might as well wish for fish to fall from the sky like rain.”
    “How about you stop talking our ears off and pass the bottle?”
    Ahearn lowered the bottle with the sigh and was about to pass it on when he gasped with horror.
    “What, don’t tell us it’s empty!”
    “The lights – they’re gone!” He pointed.
    They all turned to look then: the familiar home fires had vanished into the night.
    “And what’s that smell?” someone asked.
    “Don’t look at me,” Ahearn answered without thinking.
    Then the sail hung limp as the wind died.
    “Get the oars out,” Ahearn said but before they could find them in the darkness, the boat thumped into something and stopped.
    “What in Aroaril’s name is going on?” someone shouted.
    Next moment the blackness blazed into light – and they screamed as they saw the answer.

CHAPTER 6
    Fallon found himself relaxing as he joined Kerrin on the rugs, helping him refight the battle of Caragh Lake, more than one hundred and fifty years earlier. The people, outraged by the King’s new plan to tax them for every child, had come together in a huge uprising. Thousands had marched on Berry, demanding the end of unfair taxes. The King had promised to meet them – and then sent out his guards instead, backed by the guards of the nobles. Men on horseback, dressed in armor and carrying lances and swords, had gone up against a mixture of farmers and fishers carrying knives, axes and hoes. It had not been much of a battle.
    However, both