The Silver Tide (Copper Cat) Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Jen Williams

  The right of Jen Williams to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2016

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 1119 4

  Cover images © Shutterstock

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About Jen Williams

  About the Book

  Also By Jen Williams

  Praise

  Dedication

  Part One: The Poison Chalice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Two: The Wolf with Two Faces

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Part Three: A Parting of the Ways

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Part Four: The Black Feather Three

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Acknowledgements

  About Jen Williams

  JEN WILLIAMS lives in London with her partner and her cat. She started writing about pirates and dragons as a young girl and has never stopped. Her short stories have featured in numerous anthologies and she was nominated for Best Newcomer in the 2015 British Fantasy Awards. The Silver Tide follows on from The Copper Promise and The Iron Ghost, and is the final novel in Jen’s spectacular Copper Cat trilogy.

  About the Book

  You can’t teach an old god new tricks

  Tales of the Black Feather Three and their exploits abound far and wide, and Wydrin of Crosshaven, Lord Aaron Frith and Sir Sebastian have become sell swords in demand. Having foiled powerful mages and evil magic, they now face a challenge unlike any before – in the form of Wydrin’s mother.

  Devinia the Red, notorious pirate and captain of the Poison Chalice, is intent on finding the fabled treasure hidden within the jungles of the cursed island of Euriale. She needs the skills of her daughter Wydrin and her companions to get there, and our heroes cannot resist the lure of coin and adventure. But no explorer has returned from the heart of the island, and it’s not long before the Three find themselves in the clutches of peril. Deep within the island of the gods, there are remnants of forces best left undisturbed …

  Follow the reckless heroes of THE COPPER PROMISE and THE IRON GHOST in an epic quest unlike any they have faced before.

  By Jen Williams and available from Headline

  The Copper Promise

  The Iron Ghost

  The Silver Tide

  Praise for The Iron Ghost:

  ‘Williams has thrown out the rulebook and injected a fun tone into epic fantasy without lightening or watering down the excitement and adventure … Highly recommended’ Independent

  ‘The second outing is as entertaining as the first, being absolutely stuffed with ghoulish action. There is never a dull page’ SciFiNow

  ‘A highly inventive, vibrant high fantasy with a cast you can care about; fast-moving enough to ensure there is never a dull moment …’ The British Fantasy Society

  ‘Just as magical, just as action packed, just as clever and just as much fun as its predecessor … You’ll find a great deal to enjoy here’ www.fantasy-faction.com

  ‘Atmospheric and vivid … with a rich history and mythology and colourful, well-written and complex characters, that all combine to suck you in to the world and keep you enchanted up until the very last page’ www.realitysabore.blogspot.co.uk

  ‘Everything you need for a great fantasy read is right here’ www.lizlovesbooks.com

  ‘Nothing short of marvellous – it’s this light, fun, immersive kind of fantasy that kindled my love for the genre in the first place …’ Lucy Hounsom, www.tor.com

  ‘A fast-paced magical adventure that will enthral you’ Sci-Fi Bulletin

  ‘This is an excellent follow up to The Copper Promise, Jen Williams expresses a vivid Tolkien-like fantasy imagination in her writing, her wit will make you laugh, her horror will make you gasp’ www.fantasybooks.me.uk

  ‘I have absolutely adored living with the characters and the world that Williams has created. The Iron Ghost and its predecessor are full of fun, adventure, humour, angst, sorrow, life and magic … I can’t wait for the next book’ www.libertyfallsdown.wordpress.com

  Praise for The Copper Promise:

  ‘Fresh and exciting, full of wit and wonder and magic and action, The Copper Promise is *the* fantasy novel we’ve been waiting for’

  Adam Christopher

  ‘The Copper Promise is dark, often bloody, frequently frightening, but ther
e’s also bucket loads of camaraderie, sarcasm, and an unashamed love of fantasy and the fantastic’

  Den Patrick, author of The Boy with the Porcelain Blade

  ‘The Copper Promise is an excellent book, stuffed with all the ingredients of sword and sorcery mixed to a fresh new recipe. It’s a shamelessly good old-fashioned blood-and-thunder tale, heroic fantasy the way it’s meant to be’ Joanne Hall, www.hierath.wordpress.com

  ‘The characterisation is second to none, and there are some great new innovations and interesting reworkings of old tropes … This book may have been based on the promise of copper but it delivers gold’ Quicksilver on Goodreads

  ‘It is a killer of a fantasy novel that is indicative of how the classic genre of sword and sorcery is not only still very much alive, but also still the best the genre has to offer’

  www.leocristea.wordpress.com

  ‘If there was one word I’d use to describe The Copper Promise, it would be “joyful”’ www.graemesff.blogspot.co.uk

  ‘Fast-paced and wonderfully-realised, Jen Williams’ first novel is a delight. The reader will encounter pirates, dragons, zombies, gods and demons, to name but a few, on their journey through this exciting new world’ www.readerdad.co.uk

  ‘Each page is a wild ride into the unknown and follows a cast of characters that you will root for from start to finish’

  www.sleeplessmusingsofawellgroomedmoustachedman.wordpress.com

  ‘A wonderful sword and sorcery novel with some very memorable characters and a dragon to boot. If you enjoy full-throttle action, awesome monsters, and fun, snarky dialogues then The Copper Promise is definitely a story you won’t want to miss’ www.afantasticallibrarian.com

  For Mum,

  (who is thankfully nothing like Devinia)

  With love.

  PART ONE

  The Poison Chalice

  1

  Chen stood on the back doorstep, feeling the sweat cool on his skin. The moon had painted the clouds with light, and they hung in the sky like ghostly courtiers paying homage to their queen. Behind him, the roar of the tavern was constant, even at this time of night; the Banshee’s small company of ships had made port at Two-Birds that morning, and there were a lot of thirsty men and women with coin to spend. For Chen, cook and occasional scrubber of pots at The Blinkered Inn, this meant a long night in a stuffy kitchen. The Blinkered was on the outskirts of the crowded town, where the buildings ended and the rest of the island began, but it was worth the uphill walk for ale that had only been watered down a touch, and, in Chen’s opinion, the best double-meat stew Two-Birds had to offer.

  It was a hot night, as most nights on Euriale were. Sometimes the heat would make Chen’s scars itch, and each scored line would become a map of his mistakes, his conflicts, his triumphs. Sighing, he slipped a finger under his eyepatch and scratched at the sweat gathering in the puckered hole that had once been his eye, lost when a line snapped in a storm; it had snaked out of the night like a lightning bolt and turned his eye to jelly in an instant. Chen had seen men have their heads sliced from their necks in such accidents, so he had considered himself lucky at the time. Chen, or Screaming Mad Chen, as he’d been known in those days, believed in looking on the bright side. The Graces had been with him that day.

  A figure leaned out of the door behind him. It was Molly, her hair gathered into a kerchief and a look of extreme irritation on her face. Chen could see sweat glistening on her forehead in the moonlight. ‘I’ve got another six orders here, Chen. When you’ve quite finished taking the air, do you think you could give me a bloody hand?’

  Chen drew himself up to his full height.

  ‘I’m collecting ingredients, woman. Don’t you fuss me now. Some of these ingredients, they need to be collected at night. Or do you want just any old stew?’

  Molly rolled her eyes at him.

  ‘Don’t you pull that cook shit with me, old man. Just get what you need and get back in here, or I’ll find some other one-eyed fraud to boil up this slop.’

  Chen waved a hand at her and she disappeared back inside the tavern.

  ‘Slop indeed.’

  He left the step and headed to his garden. He had planted it himself over the last few years, buying seeds from the ships that sold such things, watching over the seedlings, even going as far as to cover the more fragile plants with an oilcloth when the worst storms hit. This small garden, his job at The Blinkered Inn – this was his retirement, of a sort. He had sailed with several crews over his long life, and hadn’t regretted a single moment of it, but his bones were too old for sea voyages now. So, it wasn’t exciting and Molly gave him no respect, but it was better than dying at sea. Better than watching a cutlass open your guts, or drowning in the deep, the weight of the sea pushing you down into the dark.

  Chen bent and plucked a sprig of colder’s fern, smiling faintly as the crushed leaves gave off a peppery scent. He stuck them in his apron pocket and began a quick circuit of the garden, picking herbs for that night’s stew, as well as for tomorrow’s breakfast. What he’d said to Molly wasn’t complete bullshit; some plants were better picked at night, their flavours sealed in by darkness, and not sweated out by the sun. He chuckled quietly. He was getting to be a poet in his old age. Screaming Mad Chen, dithering under the moon and fussing over herbs. Well, bollocks to it, he thought. The men he’d sailed with would have laughed at him, but most of them were dead.

  He paused at the furthest reach of his garden. It backed on to the wild woods, and the trees loomed over him like a bank of storm cloud. That was the end of Two-Birds, pirate port and town, and the beginning of Euriale itself. As he looked at that dark mass, some of his good cheer leaked away. He supposed it suited a pirate to grow old on an island such as Euriale – always close to danger, always close to death – but at night-time, in the dark, the usual bravado and jokes didn’t quite erase the sense of foreboding. You only ever left Two-Birds by sea, you didn’t venture beyond the town, and you certainly didn’t go walking in those trees after dark. Those who did, didn’t come back, and that wasn’t a story made up to tell around a tavern fire. That was the cold truth.

  ‘Cursed place,’ he murmured, and he scratched beneath his eyepatch again. His skin felt livid with scars, just as though the newest one wasn’t over a decade old. ‘Poison. That’s what it is.’

  As he moved to go, his thoughts already turning to the next batch of stew, something pale at the base of the nearest tree caught his eye. It was a clutch of moonroot mushrooms – he’d tried to cultivate them in his own garden several times, and they had never taken. Now here they were, growing just a few steps from his small, neat fence. Growing not in Two-Birds, but in Euriale. The distinction was important.

  Chen cleared his throat and glanced back at the tavern. Lamps shone at every window, and beyond it, the gathered lights of Two-Birds curled along the bay like a constellation of impossibly bright stars. Just looking at it made him feel a little braver.

  ‘I’m Screaming Mad Chen,’ he muttered to himself, before stepping over the fence. He scampered to the treeline, trying not to notice how quickly he was moving, or how his heart had started to beat faster. Immediately it felt colder, and the pleasant scents of his garden were lost. Instead, he could smell the thick, wild scent of the island; it smelled of animal dung and rotten things and madness.

  ‘Bloody nonsense.’

  He knelt and quickly picked several handfuls of the moonroot. Once he’d had a chance to wash these and steep them, tomorrow’s stew would be the best he’d ever made. He allowed himself a smile, pleased with his own luck and no small bravery, and stood up to go back to his garden. Beyond the trees he was startled to see a man standing in the dark, lit from within by some sort of strange, bluish light. The man was tall and broad, his hair curling close to his head. From what Chen could make out, he was handsome, his strong jaw smooth, his posture straight and true. The man seemed to be looking at him, and then he turned away.

  Chen would never know why he fo
llowed him into the trees. He simply dropped the last of the moonroot and went after him, stepping from the light into the dark. The man was already some distance away, moving silently between the tree trunks. Chen caught sight of a section of his broad back, still lit from within with that strange light, and then a glimpse of the back of his head, and then he was no more than a distant glow. Chen stumbled, holding out one hand and catching on a nearby trunk for support.

  ‘What am I …?’

  Chen blinked rapidly. It was like waking up after dozing off by the fire; sounds seemed louder, lights brighter. There was a rustling in the trees that seemed to come from all around, although there was no breeze to speak of.

  ‘Stupid old man.’ He took a few rapid steps backwards. The trees pressed in on all sides, their darkness suffocating, but despite the closeness he felt terribly exposed. ‘I must be getting feeble.’

  He turned back, searching for Two-Birds’ lights through the trees. Thick vines hung everywhere, obscuring his view.

  ‘Graces be damned.’

  The glowing figure had been an odd shadow, or a bit of moon magic. Perhaps he’d mistaken the mushrooms, and just the touch of their skins had given him a strange dream. He’d made a mistake, a big one, but it wouldn’t matter. He’d go back inside, and it wasn’t as if he’d tell anyone about it, oh no …

  There was a low thud, and Chen was pushed violently forward. Only a lifetime spent keeping his balance on storm-lashed decks stopped him falling to his knees. He looked down to see something long and glistening sprouting from his chest. It took him a second to realise that it was the head of an arrow.