Silently, the raedrs cmbered up the Hael greatship’s eborately painted rboard 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.
Ier below, Araam a swam sternward. The young raed ander led his friend away from the faint yellow regle of light shed by the storm window, keeping their approa darkness.
They had just reached the t stern castle when Ceolr’s hurrie roar shook the boarded vessel to its timbers. The csh of steel on steel filled the salty air as a hundred or more Hael warriors attempted to repel the score of soppi raedrs.
Araam’s blood filled with the urgency to fight alongside them, but even the best raed ander could not force victory by being in two pces. 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 heavy swell, caught hold of the ornate scrolling woodwork and cmbered 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 stss that made up the rear windows. These afforded the best s in the ship with fresh air and a view while proteg them from being sed by powerful waves.
Ueat swung over the rail beside him, water p from his huge form.
Where now? he signaled.
Araam arboard. The best handholds had led them to the rboard side of the castle, away from the they sought.
Dripping, they crept along the walk, searg each stss in turn for treachery until they reached the glow of mplight.
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 k was her. She had lit the stormmp to guide him, burning valuable whale oil every night in anticipation of his arrival. In the month since he had promised her he would e, 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. Ihe silk-covered form started. She turoward the windows. Through the blurry gss, he saw her pull up her silken scarves, c 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, pitg the heavy, swinging stss 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, Ueat snatched the casement away, holding it so his friend could climb inside.
Araam saw nothing of the 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-e silk, pitch-dark shes making the oic 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 aan vas with those slender, clever fingers. The day the sheets had been smuggled onto the Raeship and into Araam’s hands, he had stood taller than any rogue wave.
“Mehet, Daughter of Troahan-Killer, Chief of the Hael, Sixth Tribe of the O Rovers,” he said, sav every word of her name. “I cim you as mine. From this day forth, any man who seeks to pce himself between you and me—”
Ueat ged. 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 ughter tinkled from behi’s silken like windchimes in a favorable breeze.
Araam’s soul bzed like ball lightning at the feminine sound. O Rover women covered their faces to hide the emotions they chose not to share. An audible ugh was an iional glimpse of her mood, a’s was almost painfully beautiful.
A sed ter, a more mase sound caught Araam’s attention. The csh of battle from the greatship’s deck reading.
“—any man who seeks to pce himself between you and me will taste the steel of my cutss,” he hurried to plete 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 Oan, and one day Chieftainess of the Raen, First Tribe of the O Rovers.”
“I shall raise the arm,” she said, the ritual response unving in its mirth.
“Then I shall wait no longer.” Crossing the , Araam scooped the silk-bundled form into his arms. The st of a dozen heady spices engulfed him at once. Warm, entig. 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 distra and was now st below to protect his greatest treasure. From the here 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 Raeship with her. O Rover bridal procedures had beely formalized sihe olden days wheribes warred and raided one another, but this st bit of the ritual was the roughest, where marriages were still known to capsize.
“Get her to Haelbringr,” Araam said, thrusting his wife into Ueat’s arms.
Without hesitation, the big raedr pluhrough the heavy, swinging casement, his wide shoulders and tough head shielding the stolen bride from harm.
Behind Araam, the door burst open. A white-bearded Hael as eborately 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, p in Trut, and kicked him away.
In that breath of space, Araam ripped his cutss free of his belt. He was almost too slow. The older man was already throwing himself at Araam once again. Araam parried and sshed a 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, gdly accepting smaller wounds in pursuit of the greater victory.
Araam felt as if he were fighting the leviathan more than the marapped an attack between swordbreaker and cutss. Troanr tried to yank free, but Araam twisted his bdes. The older man’s wrist turned, his thiuckles caught ihe saber’s jewel-studded rings.
Troanr was off bance, 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 fshed 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 dire away from Troanr’s attao cold bde sank into his vitals. He smmed 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, sh him with chips.
Troanr’s body was too far forward. His reckless style had betrayed him. He had itted too heavily into the swing at Araam’s neck.
As the old man stepped to catch himself, Araam kicked Troanr’s foot out from beh 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 bde to the ground. The longkabbed for his foot, seeking to pin him to the pnks. He smacked aside the dagger with the superior reach of his cutss.
The g of steel on steel rang outside the , the pitched battle between the Hael men and the Raen raedrs reag 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 bde.
The battle between tribesmen stilled in a ripple, beginning with those fighters closest to the and spreading down the corridor. In moments, the only sounds were the endless creak of the greatship, the harsh breathing of the batants, and the king of the Hael men’s jewelry.
Araam spat the blood from his teeth. “Kill them all.”
At his and, raedrs brought their swords to throats and mimicked a sughter. Most of the defeated Hael crouched rather tha i, not wishing to dirty their extravagant garments any more than they already had, and offered up their ons.
Every bde was crafted from the deadly bck steel of the Waeld, the Third Tribe among the O Rovers, renowned for their onsmithing—but Araam knew nohe defeated warriors’ best ons. Mehet’s tribe had had weeks to prepare for Araam’s eventual attack, and would have stored their most prized bdes in their quarters until the marriage ceremony was plete.
From the floor, the Chief of the Hael studied his newly acquired son-in-w. “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 cutss and imitated a beheading swing.
Troanr’s eyes warmed with approval. “You are a leviathan in a sea of sharks, Son of Oan.”
The old man shifted to his knees, grunting as his aging joints cracked, and handed off his sapphire-encrusted saber.
“Mehet is my fireasure, 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 ba the chief, then sigo his men. One by ohey carried their pluhrough the casement a from the stern walk to the ing waters below. There the Haelbringr circled, ready to disappear into the night.
