with arkemical lanterns, on through the fort’s guts. More wulfguard flanked a broad set of double doors ahead. The men nodded to Sigursson and glanced at Mia and her comrades with bored expressions. The doors were oak, carved with grim reliefs of drakes and hooksquid and craykith and other horrors of the deep. The nevernight wind howled through the fort’s belly like a lonely wolf, and the cold shivered Mia’s skin.
“Where the ’byss is Tric?” Ashlinn whispered.
“No clue,” Mia murmured in reply. “Not far, I hope.”
The doors opened wide.
The room was almost two hundred feet across, circular, built similar to an amphitheater. Three concentric wooden rings rose around the edges, akin to the tiers of an arena. The rings were filled with seamen and sailors, a motley of leather caps and tricorns, greatcoats and ruffled cravats and leathers, scarred faces and silver teeth. Smoking pipes and gleaming blades and feral smiles. Pirates, all.
In the center of the room was a broad tidal pool, carved directly into the limestone floor and open to the ocean beneath. The waters were blue, slightly clouded, rippling with faint chop. Suspended above the pool was a mesh of taut steel wires, each spaced two feet apart, forming a grid six feet above the water’s surface. The crowd was cheering and baying around it. And balanced atop it, two men were dueling.
A lean Dweymeri and a broad Liisian, both stripped to the waist. They fought with wooden swords, which Mia found a little odd. The weapons were edged with obsidian shards, so they could cut well enough—each man was bleeding from a gash or two, their claret dripping down into the water below. But without a direct blow to an artery, the weapons wouldn’t be enough to kill.
“What is this?” Sidonius hissed.
“Affray,” Butcher explained. “Fifth Law of the Salt. Trial by combat.”
“Fuck the salt and its law,” Ashlinn whispered. “Who the ’byss is that?”
Mia followed Ash’s eyeline. At the highest tier in the circles, separate from the others, Mia saw a mighty chair. Its back was a ship’s wheel with twelve broad spokes, but the vessel it came from must have been crewed by giants. The rest of the seat was crafted of bleached coral and human bones, carved and twisted into the likes of horrors from the deep. It was hung with a hundred trinkets and ornaments and curios—some Mia recognized from the salted she’d seen roaming the streets of Amai. A rope tied into a noose. A red leather glove. A white rag stitched with a death’s head.
Tributes, she realized.
A man sat sprawled on the throne, one leg propped lazily on the back of a slave boy, who was bent on hands and knees before him. A chill ran down Mia’s spine as she set eyes on him—an involuntary shiver she couldn’t quite suppress. His eyes were rimmed with kohl, the most piercing green she’d ever seen, like emeralds shattered and sharpened into knives. His skin was tanned by years in sunslight, blond hair shaved into an undercut and running in long plaits across the top of his scalp. His beard was plaited, too, his jaw heavy, his face flecked and nicked with a dozen scars. He was built like a blacksmith, clad in leather britches, long boots. His muscular chest was bare, and over his shoulders hung a greatcoat made of cured human faces, stitched all together. The coat was so long, it trailed to the floor at his feet.
“That’s Einar Valdyr,” Butcher whispered, clearly terrified.
“On his Scoundrel’s Throne,” Mia murmured.
The wulfguard shuffled them to one side. Mia met Ash’s eyes, saw she was tense and ready. As the men clashed on the wires, Mia again scanned the room, looking for the exits, shadows. There were two hundred privateers in here at least, thirty more wulfguard, Valdyr himself. Fighting wasn’t an option. And as the doors slammed shut behind them, escape seemed a distant dream.
The crowd roared and Mia turned her eyes to the duel—the Dweymeri had drawn blood again, a fresh gash along the Liisian’s shoulder, dripping down into the waters beneath them. The wires hummed like lyre strings as the men danced and lunged, the Dweymeri skipping across one cable to avoid his foe’s sword, the Liisian’s blow going wide. The smaller man lost his balance, started to wobble. The Dweymeri struck a quick blow into the Liisian’s knee, almost tumbling himself. The Liisian cried out, his footing failed, and as the crowd rose up and roared, the man slipped through