The Winds of Khalakovo Read Free Page B

more, swallowed again, as his stomach began to heave.
    Then finally, all of it was down.
    He leaned forward, holding on to his knees while breathing deeply. The scent of the deck was gone, as were the smells of the sea. All that remained was the bitter scent of the oil and weeks-old chestnuts.
    The numbness on his tongue was growing worse, but he was able to stand and once again breathe with some small amount of ease.
    But then his stomach reeled and he began heaving and gagging heavily. He turned and ran to the gunwale behind him. As he stood there, hands gripping in rigor, the contents of his stomach raged up his throat and coursed toward open sea.

CHAPTER 2
    Nikandr spit to clear his mouth of the bits of undigested grub.
    How desperate had he become? How blind?
    The need to save himself, to save Victania, had grown stronger as various remedies had failed to help. He’d placed his faith in ever-more-obscure treatments until finally arriving here, at the belief that a worm taken from the desert to the south of the Great Empire would heal the wasting.
    “Are you well, My Lord Prince?”
    One of the deckhands. Nikandr waved him away. “Too much vodka, too little bread.”
    “Of course, My Lord.”
    Nikandr stared down at the waves as they broke upon the rocks, wondering—when the last stages of the disease had finally taken hold—if he would allow it to consume him or if he’d launch himself from the cliffs like so many of the seamen chose to do.
    As he pulled the second vial from his coat and stared at the white grub within, a burst of anger boiled up inside him. He reared back and launched it as far as he could toward the sea and the tall pillars of rock below. It twirled downward, the sun catching the glass, making it glint under the morning sun, until finally it was lost from view.
    In his mind he cataloged the broths, the salves, the unguents he had secretly purchased and tried. Other than the first few days after realizing he had the disease, he hadn’t felt any sense of desperation—he’d felt like he would somehow find a solution, that it would reverse course—but now, with no avenues left except for the vicious blooding rituals employed by the people of the lowlands, despair was taking hold.
    “Looking for your fortune?”
    Nikandr turned and found Jahalan standing at the top of the aftcastle stairs. He was a tall man with a gaunt face and sharp, sunken eyes. Had Nikandr not known him for so long, he would have thought he had the wasting, but it was simply how he was built—that and the fact that he ate like a bird. He wore a circlet upon his brow that held an alabaster gem. The gem glowed softly from within—an indication that his bond to a spirit of the wind was active.
    “I am,” Nikandr replied, “but I always seem to be looking in the wrong place.”
    Jahalan raised his eyebrows and smiled. “That is the way of things, isn’t it?” He looked around the ship, as if taking it in for the first time. “Are you ready, son of Iaros?”
    Nikandr shrugged. “As ready as I can be.”
    Jahalan, perhaps sensing Nikandr’s mood, took his leave and moved to the starward mainmast, the position from which he would use the spirit bound to him to guide the winds and take the ship on its short maiden voyage.
    Udra, a wizened old woman, was already there. She wore a circlet as well, though it held not a stone of alabaster but an almond-shaped opal that gave off a radiance the sun could not completely account for. Aramahn like Udra used opals to bond with dhoshahezhan, spirits that allowed her to control the heft of the ship. Her eyes were closed in concentration, her hands pressed gently to the mast, preparing herself and the ship for the coming voyage. It was an insult, her refusal to give him greeting, but it was one he had grown accustomed to. Udra knew her work, and that was good enough for him.
    The crew stopped what they were doing as a familiar sound rose above the din of the eyrie. It was the rhythm