Deus Necros - Chapter 596: Merry Go

Chapter 596: Merry Go

The carriage swayed and rolled out through streets that had grown quiet with the hour. Lamps hung low from doorways and cast thin coins of light on thresh and stair. Dogs nosed refuse and did not bark at the city guard. Far off, signal fires had burned themselves down to red bowls. A woman poured grey water from a second-floor balcony and paused when she saw the marked coach, her hand hanging as if the water were a rope she did not want to drop.

The group kept quiet until they reached the harbor district, where the stink of tar and new rope and old salt lay in the air despite the endless miles of sand that separated this city from real sea. The desert was its own ocean. They were led on foot by the captain through a forest of masts and tall poles and rigs that caught the dawn winds better than any sail. The harbor was a mouth where caravans entered and left on sled-keels rather than hulls, where shipwrights wore desert scarves and spoke of dunes as if they were waves.

They reached the ship.

Taking another look, the small ship that Kasim had was completely refurbished. The hull had metal sheets now, plates riveted with a smith’s care in lines that did not pretend to be beautiful and so were. It no longer smelled of dangerous illegal fumes and stolen fuel. Oil and polish had been worked into the wood until the grain itself shone. It was polished to the point of making one’s eyes hurt if they stared long. And there he was, Kasim, perched in the crow’s nest with one foot hooked on a rung and a rag in hand, humming a tune only he knew while wiping a stain only he saw.

“Kasim!” the captain howled up.

The man looked down and cupped his mouth. “Aye sirs!” He slid, hand over hand, down a rope that had been tarred and braided to trust men like him. He hit the deck with his knees bent, grinned, and hurried to Ludwig. The grin lived mostly in the eyes and belonged to a man who liked his work.

“Ah sir, how may I be of service?!”

“Looks like you got something out of getting the priestess to the palace safely,” Ludwig said, letting his gaze travel over the rivet lines and the new cross-bracing.

“Yes, her majesty was very generous. So I remodeled the ship a bit.”

’So it was the queen that rewarded him… interesting,” Ludwig thought.

He then climbed the gangplank, the boards flexing underfoot the way a good plank should. “I thought you’d want a bigger ship considering that’s what you wanted last time.”

“I thought about it,” Kasim said, already walking toward a panel near the wheel to check a bank of gauges that were more feel than measure. “But I could not abandon Merry. She’s the only thing my father left me. Now she’s faster than before.”

“Even without the illegal fuel?” Ludwig asked.

Kasim smiled without moving his mouth. “We do not talk about that here. So, where to this time?”

Ludwig sighed. “North. We will be moving north. I have an idea where to go so just guide us there.”

“North is broad,” Kasim said, and shrugged. “But I trust sir. And who are these?”

“These are our new companions,” Ludwig said.

“Right then, let us get on,” Kasim said as he took the wheel and laid his palm along the worn wood as if greeting a shoulder. He didn’t judge or take a second look at ludwig’s companions. He was that kind of man, when Ludwig had helped him and made him both richer and more famous, he was ready to lay down his own life for him if need be. Attaining status in the Kingdom of the sand isn’t an easy feat, and its usually accompanied by blood.

Once everyone got on, excluding the guard captain who saluted them with two fingers to the brow and then stepped back into the business of keeping a city intact, Kasim began small talk that served to hide the fast work of hands running checks. “Sir, you changed your clothes? Quite different from the old ones.”

“Yeah,” Ludwig said. He glanced down and let the feel of the fabric settle him. He was back into his old regalia. No need to wear the glamour that turned him into a son of the sand. He had revealed himself and the veil was no longer useful for this part of the road. “Feels much more at home now. Let’s head out.”

The ship began to hum and then to vibrate. The hum crawled up through the boards and into bones. Ludwig was the first to brace himself, legs a fraction wider, hand at the nearest rail. He had learned to respect Merry the hard way.

Upon seeing him, Tull frowned. “When is this ship even taking off. At this rate we are better off walking.”

Ludwig smiled and did not bother to answer. The prince noticed the small change in Ludwig’s hips and immediately placed a hand on the ship’s railing. Redd’s hair prickled along the nape, the way a beast’s does when storms are close.

Merry eased herself forward, a lazy shove of a shoulder out of the cradle of moorings. She nosed past two slower hulls and slipped along the last knotted ropes of the harbor’s boundary posts. The instant her prow crossed that invisible line between city and not-city, the sound of the engine shifted from a contained rattle to a smooth rumble, and then Merry leaped.

She went from a respectful trot to a gallop. From gallop to a flat run that threw her wake in long fans of sand. The desert did not look like water until it did. In that moment it took on the same life, rising in waves that curled off the bow in sparkling sheets, each grain a small star tumbling, each sheet a new curtain flung aside. Merry’s keel bit and rode and bit again, and the hull sang like a string plucked by a giant finger.

People on the nearest docks shouted curses that did not wait to be invented. Sand sprayed their faces, settled in their hair, found the cool necks of their shirts and melted there to grit. A vendor threw a cloth over his dates and then raised it too late and swore at the grit on the skins.

The prince was almost torn from the rail but managed to clamp his hand, knuckles whitening. Redd crouched low without thinking, both palms and the pads of his fingers finding purchase like a cat clinging to a beam. Tull, who had chosen to stand to show his legs had good sense, was almost hurled over the side. He let his weight go with the pull, turned into it, and made a tight backflip that would have looked like show in a calmer place. He landed at the end of the ship with both feet and caught a rope with a grip that asked no one’s help.

“Damn she’s fast!” Kasim shouted, hair blown back, eyes narrow with the joy of a man who has built a thing that does what he asked and then some.

Merry settled into her pace. The first astonishment burned away and left the steadier care that follows whenever a tool proves it can do more than expected. The city pulled back into a low line behind them. The palace lights gathered themselves into a small constellation and then dropped below a dune. The night opened. Stars hung low and numerous. The desert cold crept up sleeves and under collars and was a relief after palace air.

Once they adjusted to the speed, Ludwig let go of the railing and turned to everyone. Tull rolled his shoulders once, testing for pulled muscle, pride bruised only in the way a man like him allows. The prince blew out a breath that showed white and then stood straighter as if nothing had tried to fold him in half. Redd stretched his fingers and sniffed, tasting the direction in the wind.

“Now,” Ludwig said. He did not raise his voice. The engine’s note leveled into a soft iron purr that carried words along the deck without tearing them. “Let me tell you all what I could not say before.”