“They threw that kid of yours to his death!” Hugh raised his sword, holding it above the neck of the unconscious elf. “Then I’ll have to get rid of them here. I can’t take a chance on them coming around.”
He started to cut the slender neck, but a strange reluctance halted him. A voice came to him from out of a vast and horrifying darkness.
All your life you served us.
“Please, sir!” Alfred caught hold of his arm. “Their ship is still attached to ours.” He pointed to where the remnants of the elven vessel nosed alongside the dragonship, the grappling hooks holding it fast. “I could transfer them back there. At least they’d have a chance of being rescued.”
“Very well.” Too sick and tired to argue, Hugh gave in with an ill grace. “Do what you want. Just get rid of them. What do you care about elves. anyway? They murdered your precious prince.”
“All life is sacred,” said Alfred softly, leaning down to lift the unconscious elf captain by the shoulders. “We learned that. Too late. Too late.”
At least that’s what Hugh thought he said. The wind was whistling through the rigging, he was sick and in pain, and who cared anyway?
Alfred performed the task in his usual bumbling fashion- tripping over the planks, dropping the bodies, once nearly hanging himself when he became entangled in one of the wing cables. Eventually he managed to haul the unconscious elves to the ship’s rail and heaved them onto their own ship with a strength the Hand found difficult to credit in the tall, gangling man.
But then, there was a lot about Alfred that was inexplicable. Was I really dead? Did Alfred bring me back to life? And, if so, how? Not even the mysteriarchs have the ability to restore the dead.
“All life is sacred. . . . Too late. Too late.”
Hugh shook his head and was immediately sorry. He thought his eyeballs must burst out of their sockets.
Alfred returned to find Hugh trying to knot a clumsy bandage around his arm.
“Sir Hugh?” Alfred began timidly.
Hugh did not look up from his work. Gently the chamberlain took over, tying the bandage deftly.
“I think you should come and see something, sir.”
“I know. We’re still falling. But I can pull us out. How close are we to the Maelstrom?”
“It’s not just that, sir. It’s the prince. He’s safe!”
“Safe?” Hugh stared at him, thinking the man had gone mad.
“It’s very peculiar, sir. Although not so peculiar, I suppose, considering who he is and who his father is.”
Who the hell is he? Hugh wanted to ask, but now was not the time. Sick and hurting, he made his way across the deck, whose movements were becoming more and more erratic as they drew nearer the storm. Looking down below, he could not repress a low whistle of amazement.
“His father is a mysteriarch of the High Realm,” said Alfred. “I suppose he taught the boy to do that.”
“They communicate through the amulet,” said the Hand, recalling his failing vision focusing on the boy clasping the feather in his hand.
“Yes.”
Hugh could see the boy’s upturned face, looking at them triumphantly, evidently quite pleased with himself.
“I’m supposed to rescue him, I suppose. A kid who tried to poison me. A kid who wrecked my ship. A kid who tried to turn us all over to the elves!”
“After all, sir,” replied Alfred, gazing at Hugh steadily, “you did agree to murder him-for money.”
Hugh glanced back down at Bane. They were nearing the Maelstrom. He could see the stinging clouds of dust and debris floating above it and hear the dull booming of the thunder. A cool, moist wind smelling of rain was causing the tail rudder to flap wildly. Right now, Hugh should be examining the snapped cables, trying to rig them so that he could extend the wings and regain the upper air before the ship drifted too close, before the winds of the storm could prevent them from rising. And the pounding in his head was making him sick.
Turning, Hugh left the rail.