I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1479: Grey Sickness

The Storm Belt did not break.

It had been weeks since the Sixth Legion vanguard left Grimhaven, and in all that time the ocean had not shown them the sky once. The flagship was no longer sailing. It was surviving, pitching through black water and freezing swells the size of hills.

Down in the lower decks, the cold sat on a man’s chest like a sack of wet sand.

The air stank of vomit, stale sweat, and damp wool. The lanterns had been rationed to save oil, so the cramped wooden corridors lived in a weak yellow half-light that swung with every roll of the ship. Frost formed on the iron bolts of the hull and thawed again in the heat of packed bodies, dripping a steady rhythm of freezing water onto the soldiers crammed into the hammocks below.

They called it the Grey Sickness.

It came from the raw essence of the deep ocean, which seeped into a man’s core and threw its natural flow into disorder. The navy had a cure left over from its last crossing, a bitter root tincture kept in the captain’s hold, but there was only enough for critical crew. The infantry was left to sweat it out in the dark.

Rian stood in the narrowest stretch of the port-side hold with his hands buried in the pockets of his coat.

His eyes were burning.

The dye hiding his Asgardian blue irises was running dangerously low. To keep what remained of it bound to his eyes, he had to hold his aura completely flat, pressing his essence down so deep that his body stopped trying to flush the foreign substance out. But the ship never stopped pitching, and every lurch demanded a hundred small corrections of balance, each one chipping at his concentration.

He didn’t rub his eyes. He kept them on the corridor ahead.

Inquisitor Mourne was moving through the hold.

The Ascendant priest wore the gold-and-white livery of El Fach. Somehow, her robes were clean, untouched by the filth and seawater sloshing across the lower decks. She held a heavy brass-rimmed lens in her right hand and a thick leather ledger in her left.

She was using the panic over the sickness as cover.

”Look up,” Mourne commanded, her voice cold and unyielding.

A legionary of the vanguard, shivering inside three soaked blankets, lifted his head. Mourne held the brass lens a few inches from his face, and a sharp beam of white light flared from the glass into his irises. She held it there for three long seconds, searching for the silver striations of the northern bloodlines.

”Standard,” Mourne said.

She stepped over the man’s legs and moved to the next hammock.

She was ten paces away from Rian.

If she put that lens to his face while his dye was thinning, the Ascendant-level light would burn straight through the disguise. It would expose the deep, impossible blue of the Beija, and the slow abyssal rings of his suppressed Shingan turning beneath it.

Pam stepped out from the shadow of the next bulkhead.

”Oh, thank the stars you’re here, Inquisitor!” Pam gasped, her voice climbing into a high, girlish panic. She threw herself into Mourne’s path, flapping her hands. ”It’s my cousin! He’s burning up, he’s coughing blood, I think the sickness has hit his core!”

Mourne stopped, and the lines of her severe face tightened. ”Step aside, auxiliary.”

”But his eyes!” Pam pressed, stepping sideways to block the priest again. ”His eyes rolled completely back, they went all white, is that part of the sickness? The quartermaster said the Grey Sickness only affects the lungs, but he’s—”

”Quiet,” Mourne snapped.

She reached out to shove Pam aside.

A heavy, wet smack echoed down the corridor.

Tema had been sitting quietly on a crate near the stairs. He whistled a sharp, crooked tune, and a big salt-crusted northern seagull dropped from the grating above. The bird slammed into a hanging lantern and knocked the glass open. Hot oil splashed across the floorboards and went up in a sudden yellow flash of flame, inches from the hem of Mourne’s white robes.

Mourne flinched back, dropping her ledger as she stamped at the spreading fire with her heavy boots.

In the confusion, Rian walked right past her.

He didn’t run. He didn’t lower his head. He kept his hands in his pockets and strolled through the smoke and the shouting soldiers. Mourne glanced up, and her eyes followed the black-haired mercenary for a step, but the flames were already licking at the timbers.

”Get water on this!” Mourne yelled, her Ascendant aura flaring to smother the flames.

Rian reached the stairs and climbed toward the middle deck, leaving the Inquisition behind him.

’I should give Pam a raise... if I paid her.’

The middle deck was wider. It held the main armory and the heavy cargo crates, and it was also a good deal louder.

Rian stepped off the stairs and stopped.

Twenty vanguard legionaries had formed a ragged semicircle against the starboard hull. Their armor was dull with salt, their eyes were sunk deep in grey faces, and every single one of them had his broadsword drawn.

At the front of the mob stood Centurion Vane.

The Master-rank officer was sweating heavily, his face pale and slick with the first stage of the Grey Sickness. He held a heavy ironwood spear, and its steel tip trembled as he leveled it at the crates.

”It brought the curse,” Vane yelled, his voice cracking. ”It’s a monster. The sea wants it back!”

Behind the crates, Mr. Fluffy sat on his haunches.

He was holding his snow hound form, though he was big enough that the disguise barely held up. He looked at the screaming men with bored indifference.

The Eleventh Squad stood between the vanguard and the beast.

Baletta stood with her feet planted wide and her hand resting easily on her sword hilt. She didn’t look scared. She looked like she was measuring the exact distance she would need to open Vane’s belly before he could thrust.

Iren stood beside her, perfectly still, with faint arcs of yellow lightning crackling across his knuckles.

”Back off, Centurion,” Iren said.

”That thing is unnatural!” Vane shouted, taking half a step forward. ”We’ve lost three ships! Thirty men died in the fog! Now half the hold is rotting from the inside out! Throw it overboard before it sinks the flagship!”

Doron exhaled. Thick, inky shadow-fog began to pour from his leather boots and creep across the floorboards, and the air around everyone’s ankles went cold.

”I’m Eleventh Squad,” Doron said flatly. ”You touch the dog, I take your eyes.”

The vanguard soldiers shifted and raised their shields. They outnumbered the border veterans badly, but they were regular infantry, and the men in front of them were killers who had come back alive from the northern valleys.

Rian walked forward.

The heavy thud of his boots made Vane flinch. The Centurion turned his head, and his eyes darted to Rian’s black coat.

”Call them off, Mercenary!” Vane demanded, stepping back and swinging the spear tip toward Rian. ”The beast goes into the water. By order of the vanguard!”

Rian stopped two paces from Vane.

He didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t flare his aura. He looked at the shaking steel tip of the spear, and then up at Vane’s sweating face.

”He has a war-beast ration,” Rian said, his voice dry. ”He’s imperial property. You’re pointing a spear at a commissioned officer, Vane.”

”I don’t care about your fake commission!” Vane screamed, lunging forward to close the distance. ”I care about surviving this crossing! Push them aside! Kill the dog!”

Before Vane could thrust, the temperature in the hold dropped.

It wasn’t Doron’s fog. It was pressure.

Captain Ysolde Vaertia came down the iron-grated stairs from the upper deck. She didn’t shout. She simply let her Ascendant aura bleed into the enclosed space until the air grew so heavy that the vanguard soldiers staggered where they stood.

Ysolde stepped onto the floorboards with her dark blue coat hanging perfectly straight.

”Drop the steel,” Ysolde ordered.

Her voice was as dry as parchment, and the whole weight of the Sixth Legion stood behind it.

Three of the vanguard soldiers dropped their swords at once, and the steel clattered against the wood. Vane froze with his spear still leveled, his chest heaving as he stared at his commander.

”Captain,” Vane pleaded, his voice breaking. ”The beast—”

”You have drawn a weapon against an allied unit on my flagship,” Ysolde interrupted. She walked toward Vane at an even pace, her boots clicking on the boards. ”You are inciting a panic. You are wasting energy during a critical crossing.”

”They brought the curse!” Vane yelled, refusing to lower the spear.

Ysolde didn’t break her stride. She reached out with her bare hand, caught the steel tip of the spear, and crushed it.

The enchanted imperial steel crumpled in her grip like a tin cup. She ripped the splintered ironwood shaft out of Vane’s hands and tossed it onto the floorboards, and Vane stumbled backward into his own men.

”Strip him of his rank,” Ysolde said, not looking at the Centurion as he fell. ”Ten lashes at the mainmast. If any man in this company draws steel on an ally again, I will have you thrown into the sea myself.”

Bosun ”Mother” Grael had come down the stairs right behind her. She stepped over the broken spear, dug the wad of tobacco out of her lip, and spat it onto Vane’s boots.

”There’s no curse, you bleeding idiots,” Grael growled over the groan of the storm. ”The sea doesn’t care about a dog. It doesn’t care about your prayers. It’s just the ocean. Learn to sail in it or drown quietly.”

The vanguard soldiers scrambled back, dragging a sobbing Vane away from the crates.

Rian watched them retreat into the deeper shadows of the hold, his hands still in his pockets.

’Humans are always so eager to do the monsters’ work for them.’

The Eleventh Squad stood down. Baletta cracked her neck. Doron drew his shadow-fog back into his boots. Iren stepped away from Mr. Fluffy and settled into his usual silent parade rest.

Ysolde turned to Rian.

She took in his easy posture, the faded black coat, and the dark eyes that never quite showed panic. She didn’t ask how he had earned that kind of loyalty from veterans who used to hate him.

”Thirty-six,” Ysolde said quietly, barely moving her lips.

Rian met her gaze.

”Four more died in the lower hold this morning,” Ysolde clarified, her face showing nothing at all. ”The sickness. The storm. The toll rises, Rian.”

”Then we should sail faster, Captain,” Rian said.

Ysolde gave him one sideways look, turned, and walked back up the stairs.