Chapter 3

A Dread Tide Rising, by Walt Shuler

A Dread Tide Rising is a pulp-flavored, epic fantasy novel set in the world of Thalrassa. It follows the Talon, a group of mercenaries, thieves, and smugglers, as they come face-to-face with an ancient enemy intent on the destruction of the Rakkian Empire.

New to ADTR? Catch up on all the chapters here. You can learn more about the members of the Talon here and explore Thalrassa-related lore here. The map of Thalrassa can be found here.

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Chapter 3

Pale sunlight washed over the island.

“A fat priest of the One God was traveling the road to Farrent. It was getting on, though, and he was worried that the sun would set, and they’d lock the city gate before he could get through,” Hax said, a small smile playing across his lips. “He asked another traveler passing by, ‘My good fellow, do you think I’ll be able to enter the gate?’ The other man looked him up and down and said…”

“I don’t see why not. If a hay cart can fit through, I don’t see why you can’t!” Pax interrupted, laughing.

Hax looked crestfallen. “Now wait a damn minute! I don’t go around spoiling your jokes.”

Pax shrugged. “Sorry, it’s just too easy. I’ll try to avoid the low-hanging fruit.”

Kye laughed. They made an odd pair, she thought. Hax, tall, broad, and muscular, looked the perfect picture of the authoritative man. Pax, on the other hand, was slight and willowy; likely to blow away in a stiff wind, although a closer look showed corded muscle wrapping her slight frame. She held the power in the twins’ peculiar relationship, and the notion amused Kye. She glanced over the rest of her new companions, her gaze landing almost immediately on the hulking giant in their midst.

Gorm was another oddity. He carried only a single weapon - the heavy quarterstaff tied to his saddle - but he moved with the grace of a hunting cat. He was a trained warrior and carried the scars of experience, yet he spoke kindly to her. He stepped gently around Wynn, too, as if he were afraid she might break if he stepped too firmly. And, Kye had to admit, she liked the curly-haired scout, with her quick grin and honest manner.

Then there was Mac. His true name, she had learned, was Macland Toth, and even a young thief from the streets of Rakka had heard of House Toth’s dramatic fall from grace. Mac bore scars from that, she was sure, but he treated her fairly and seemed to do the same for the rest of the companions.

It was her second day traveling with Mac and the members of Talon Company, and it was something beyond her experience. Back in Rakka, the Faceless had been all she had. The rules were simple. Do what you were told. Keep your head down. Bring in some gain. Get nicked, and you were left to dance in the gallows’ wind. Talon Company was different in some indefinable way. Not being able to put her finger on what it was galled her.

They were violent folk she knew, certainly. Not one of them had said boo to the battle at the way station. They sought gain, sure. Mac’s purloined satchel held a kingdom’s value in loose jewels, and they were looking to sell those for their goldweight. There was something, though, under the violent, dirt-smeared surface. Something different to the Faceless, from the empty streets that came before, and the angry fists and whiskey-laden breath that haunted her earliest memories. It was a conundrum, definitely.

They were two days south of Scylline’s Cross and a much longer journey from Rakka. Currently, they rode through a shallow river valley, moving upstream along the path of some minor tributary of the River Cel. There were only enough horses for Talon Company, but Kye was slight enough to ride the pack pony without overloading the poor creature.

Ahead of the group, Kye could make out several wagons pulled off on the side of the road nearest the river. A flurry of activity surrounded the wagon at the rear of the line.

“Looks like they might have a touch of trouble,” Gorm rumbled, seeing her glance. “Merchants. Most likely a busted wheel or axle.”

“That’ll put a damper on your plans, sure enough,” Hax said, sniffling then wiping his nose with the back of an arm.

“Plans are naught but expectations dressed up for the morrow, and expectations are the source of our suffering. Best not to entertain either,” Gorm replied, not looking at the other warrior. Which was likely for the best, judging by Hax’s confused expression. Gorm shaded his eyes, trying to get a better view of the group they approached.

“Mac, you notice anything particular about the folk up ahead?” Gorm asked, voice low.

Mac slowed his horse to a walk beside Gorm’s. “You mean like this being one of the most beautiful places for an ambush I’ve seen?”

Gorm nodded.

“Or that it’s late in the season for a caravan of traders to be on this particular road, in numbers less than a score?”

Gorm nodded again.

Kye and Wynn looked from one to the other, and back again to the trader’s caravan. Pax ran one finger over a hatchet head, while Hax kept his hand firmly on his sword hilt.

“Want me waterside or opposite?” Gorm asked. The road they traveled angled toward the river where the merchants squabbled over their damaged wheel. On the right, the ground dropped down to a rocky bank, swept by the river’s swift current. The valley itself narrowed at this point, steep sides closing in on the edge of the road, creating an almost perfect bottleneck between rock and water.

Mac thought it over for a moment. Both options had their merits, but if things went south, he wanted as much insurance as he could get. That meant one thing. “Take the high ground. I’ll go low. We’ll put Hax and Pax up front.” Mac said the last loud enough for the twins to hear, and they moved into position without a question. “Wynn, I want you and Kye at the rear, in case our friends up there feel tetchy.”

Not privy to Gorm’s observations, Wynn shot the merchants a puzzled glance but did not argue. She drew her crossbow, holding it out of sight, and dropped back, tugging the pack pony’s lead so that she and Kye fell back a few paces.

Ahead of the company, the merchants continued arguing. Most stood around the damaged wagon, the front wheel of which tilted inward at an alarming angle. As they watched, one of the men threw up his hands in frustration, making a rude gesture before stomping away toward another wagon. Sounds of disagreement drifted to them over the air. It seemed some of the traders were in favor of abandoning the wagon and loading the goods into others. The wagon’s owner was understandably unhappy with this arrangement.

As they closed the distance and began to make out individual features of the traders ahead of them, Mac announced their presence. “Ho, the wagon train!” he called out. The traders, most of whom had been so embroiled in either arguing with one another or trying to repair the wagon that they did not notice Mac’s group approach, turned to regard the newcomers.

“Looks like you’ve hit a mite bit of trouble. Anything we can do to help?”

Anxious expressions and suspicious glances answered his question. The traders glanced at one another, apparently unsure who would speak for them, or whether to accept Mac’s offer of help or not. Finally, a gray-haired trader in faded travel leathers stepped forward.

“Let me apologize for the less than cordial welcome.” He glared at his companions. “Name’s Declan, and we’d be obliged for any aid you could render.”

Mac shot a glance at Gorm and both dismounted. The twins stayed mounted, both somehow managing to look casual while keeping their hands close to their weapons. Kye and Wynn remained a safe distance from the traders. It seemed an honest enough situation, but caution paid for itself in the end.

“What’s the problem, Declan?” Mac asked, shaking the trader’s hand. Gorm lumbered up, and the other traders all backed up a few steps. That made Mac smile, but he understood the reaction. He’d had a similar one at their first meeting. Declan led the two toward the wagon.

“It’s my wagon, actually,” he admitted as they neared it. “Axle broke, but I think we can hammer the wheel over the stub and make some headway. I’ll be damned if we leave it behind.”

Mac and Gorm could see the break. The axle had cracked right behind the wheel, splitting the stout oak, dropping the wagon body toward the ground, and causing the wheel to tip inward. Declan would have to leave it and either eat the loss or try to recover it later. The goods could be loaded onto other wagons and the trader could still realize some profit.

Mac shook his head. “Busted axle like that, you’re best off loading your goods in these other wagons. I don’t see much you can do about repairing that here unless you’ve got a wainwright hidden in your packs.”

“I’ll not leave my wagon! We’ve lost too much this season as it is,” Declan argued. “Surely we can fix it. Maybe if we shim the wheel against the axletree to hold it in place…”

Mac shrugged. “I don’t see you’ve got much choice, really.” He turned toward Gorm. “Any advice or words of wisdom? Seems our new friend refuses to bow to common sense.”

Gorm opened his mouth to reply but never got the chance. A glint of sunlight off metal was the only warning before chaos erupted as several merchants moved simultaneously to attack.

Hax and Pax drew their weapons and leaped from their saddles in unison before squaring off against a couple of merchants rushing their position. Declan, the merchant’s face blank with shock, tripped over his own feet and went down in the mud. With a sigh, Gorm pulled his staff from its bindings and prepared to defend. Mac likewise drew his sword but spared a glance for Wynn and Kye before leaping into the fray. Wynn had her crossbow leveled at the group ahead of her and had backed both her mount and Kye’s pack pony farther to the rear, putting some much-needed distance between them and their attackers.

It was a battle unlike anything Mac had experienced before. The traders attacked in complete silence; no battle cries, no threats, no nothing. Mac watched as Gorm’s staff shattered one merchant’s leg. The man went down without a sound, only to be trampled into the mud by his compatriots. Hax took a glancing blow across his chest dealt by a female trader whose grin threatened to split her face in half, yet could not be bothered to so much as grunt in exertion. The warrior’s return left her bleeding from a good-sized hole in her abdomen. Her grin never faltered as she fell to the blood-smeared roadway. Pax was almost a force of nature, tearing through the attackers, twin hatchets smeared with gore, and a snarl on her lips. She dealt death with deft hands, but her assailants refused to make a sound.

Mac found himself facing off against a blonde-haired trader he recognized as the man who had stomped away from the damaged wagon as the company arrived. Gone was the false image of a disgruntled merchant. In its place was a grinning madman with eyes the color of the sea.

Mac danced backward as his opponent slashed, leaving only empty air for the trader’s blade. He parried the next attack, knocking his blade high, but the merchant recovered before Mac could take advantage of the opening. His blade struck at Mac’s face, then at his shoulders, lightning fast. Mac parried each attack but was hard-pressed to do more than hold his own. The trader’s pale lips pulled back even farther, and he redoubled his efforts. A feint followed by a low attack forced Mac to leap out of the way. The sticky mud tried to trap his feet, and his jump turned into something closer to a stumble.

“Why do you resist? We’ll bury you and take our prize anyway.”

Surprised to hear the man speak, Mac fell back, breath coming in gasps as he fought to keep his attacker’s blade from biting flesh. He had no doubt what prize the man meant. They carried only one thing that would be worth their deaths. Mac only wondered how this crew could have known they were behind the break-in at the way station.

“Resistance is kind of our thing,” he answered. “’Sides, if we lay down arms, what’re the chances we walk away all friendly-like?”

The blond merchant spat, then pressed his advantage, launching a blistering series of cuts and feints that left Mac dizzied, and blood dripping from a shallow gash along his left forearm. Mac’s lungs burned with the effort to fuel his body with oxygen, but he did not give in. He probed the merchant’s defenses once, twice, and a third time. That was all he needed. His opponent was good; beyond good, truth be told. But there was a pattern to his attacks. It was subtle but present. One of Mac’s teachers, Alistair McKee, had once chided him for falling into a predictable cycle of moves. “Following a pattern is all well and good, Macland, but don’t let yerself think it’s all ye’ll need. Once a pattern’s been noticed, it takes naught to break the weave.” He had then proven his point by stepping through Mac’s bladework and bloodying his nose.

Mac followed his instructor’s example. He found the point in his attacker’s pattern where the repetition started and then watched for it again. Like clockwork, his opponent came back around to it. Mac was familiar with the motions now and took his opening. Taking a deep breath, he parried and then stepped into the gap he knew was coming, whispering a silent prayer to Mali that luck would be with him. Whether the goddess was listening or not, Mac’s ploy paid off. He found himself inside his opponent’s guard. The blond man’s eyes widened as he realized what Mac was about to do, but he was powerless to prevent it. Mac shoved three feet of sharpened steel through the man’s gut, then wrenched it sideways and pulled it back out. His attacker tried to hold his insides where they belonged, but it was all for nothing. He slipped to his knees, entrails spilling down over his thighs, sea-colored eyes wide in surprise.

“I think we’ll be keeping your prize after all,” Mac told his opponent.

The other man grimaced and went rigid, fingers stiffening into claws. Mac watched in mounting horror as his attacker’s features softened, then seemed to melt. His eyes rolled back, then disappeared into his skull. The nose sagged, becoming little more than a lump of flesh, before being subsumed into the rest of the face. His mouth gaped wider and wider, teeth falling bloody from their sockets and – clack, clack, clack – hitting the back of the man’s throat. The devolution continued, the blonde hair falling out, the flesh on the skull sloughing off, the head folding down into the suddenly cavernous chest cavity.

“Gods above and below!” Mac swore, stumbling backward in horror. Then a flash of blinding light forced him to shield his eyes with one gore-smeared hand. When his vision cleared again, a seagull stood where his opponent had been. As he watched, the bird launched itself skyward, a tendril of blood-smeared seaweed clamped in its yellow beak. The yellow-haired assailant was gone.

“Well, I’ll be damned. That’s not something you see every day,” Mac muttered. His breath still came in ragged gasps, but there were other attackers to handle. No time for rest right now. He turned about, looking for another foe to engage, but found none. Everywhere his eye fell, the traders lay dead, silent now forever. He glanced to where Declan had fallen, but the merchant was dead, too, with a bloody hole in his back.

“Who killed him?” Mac asked of no one. Reviewing the fight in his mind, Mac could come to only one conclusion. One of the other merchants must have slain Declan. Why, though?

“Hax! Pax!” Mac called to the twins. “You two all right?”

Hax nodded while Pax fought to extricate her hatchet from the skull of a fallen trader. She was up and mobile, and Mac saw no obvious wounds.

“Gorm, did you see that madness?” he called. The giant warrior waved from where he knelt, studying one of the fallen traders.

“I saw, and I think we need to talk.”

“In a moment.” Mac turned, searching for Kye and Wynn, and found them easily enough. The pair remained where they had been before the fighting erupted, both still in the saddle. Three dead traders lay on the ground before them. Wynn’s face was pale, but she holstered her crossbow and slid from the saddle, intent on helping Gorm and the others with the grisly task of disposing of the bodies. Kye was paler even than Wynn, but she put on a brave face, sliding down beside the other woman to do what was needed.

Assured that everyone was safe and accounted for, at least for the moment, Mac picked his way to Gorm’s side.

“Ever seen a man do that? I swear, my heart’s still like to jump out of my damn chest.”

“No, there’s some mighty strange things afoot today,” the big man answered. Mac heard an odd note in Gorm’s voice. It wasn’t fear, but it was close. That was something new.

“Agreed. Anything in particular bothering you? I mean beyond the obvious.” He gestured vaguely to where his opponent had so recently stood.

“Beyond your horror show, but it bears directly on it.” Gorm took a moment to compose himself, then said, “If I weren’t completely sure of my sanity, I’d swear I was seeing ghosts.”

“How so?”

Gorm stood and brushed mud from his knees. “The blonde trader, the one you took down. He was the spitting image of Jarl Helmsworth, a trader out of Rom I knew a time ago. Used to ply the waters from the Crown down to Rakka and back. Family was close to House Coët at one time. Not nobles, but pretty well-to-do.”

“Doesn’t seem so odd, other than him melting into goo before turning into a bird and flying away, instead of dying like decent folk would.”

Gorm gave him a thin grin. “Gets odder. Seems like Jarl got himself knifed to death a few years back in a dispute with a few gambling acquaintances. Apparently, Jarl’s dice were weighted, and his friends took offense. Left him poked full of holes.”

Mac stood still for a moment. “Well, that does put a new light on things, doesn’t it?”

Gorm agreed. “It does. What business does a dead trader have walking the road between nowhere and Scylline’s Cross? Why does that trader turn into a bird and fly away, rather than lying down and dying when someone shoves a sword through his belly? Why did they attack us in the first place?”

Mac said, “I think I can answer the last one. He wasn’t particularly talkative before he turned into a puddle, but he did say that they were going to kill us and take their prize.”

“The documents? How’d they even know about them or that we were coming this way?”

“Questions to make a man ponder, but I think I know where to find some answers.”

“What’s it mean?” Wynn asked, coming to stand beside Gorm.

“It means we need to head north and west.”

Pax unleashed a stream of expletives that made Kye’s cheeks burn.

Gorm wiped the last traces of blood from his staff. “Rom. You think there might be answers there?”

Mac shrugged. “Maybe. We’re between jobs at the moment, and I tend to take attacks on my crew personally. I think it might be a good idea to poke around.”

The warrior shot Mac a look. “You think this was premeditated?”

“Seemed like they were waiting for someone, and that someone was us,” Mac indicated the fallen bodies. “I can’t think of any other reason for this. They certainly didn’t show any hesitation about attacking us when we offered to help, and we know that Thynne most likely suspects our involvement in lightening his treasury and the theft of those documents. It fits. ‘Sides, I can offload Thynne’s papers there as well as anywhere else.”

Gorm looked thoughtful, then shrugged. “I’ve got nothing better.”

Pax groaned. “Rom? Mac, you know I hate the cold. And Hax takes sick if we get farther north than Scylline’s Cross, the miserable git.” She shot her brother a venomous look.

“Argue all you want, but that’s our heading. Look at it as an incentive to help me think of a way out of this. And, we still need to get our new friend situated,” Mac nodded toward Kye and then remounted, heels urging his horse onward.

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