Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)(55)

Nina had been a fool, but she didn’t have to be a traitor. She pleaded with them in Kaelish, not Ravkan, and she didn’t cry out for help – not when they bound her hands, not when they threatened her, not when they tossed her in a rowboat like a bag of millet. She wanted to scream her terror, bring Zoya running, beg for someone to save her, but she wouldn’t risk the others’ lives. The drüskelle rowed her to a ship anchored off the coast and threw her into a cage belowdecks full of other captive Grisha.

That was when the real horror had begun.

Night blended into day in the dank belly of the ship. The Grisha prisoners’ hands were kept tightly bound to keep them from using their power. They were fed tough bread crawling with weevils – only enough to keep them alive – and had to ration fresh water carefully since they never knew when they might have it next. They’d been given no place to relieve themselves, and the stink of bodies and worse was nearly unbearable.

Occasionally the ship would drop anchor, and the drüskelle would return with another captive. The Fjerdans would stand outside their cages, eating and drinking, mocking their filthy clothes and the way they smelled. As bad as it was, the fear of what might await them was much more frightening –

the inquisitors at the Ice Court, torture, and inevitably death. Nina dreamed of being burned alive on a pyre and woke up screaming. Nightmare and fear and the delirium of hunger tangled together so that she stopped being certain of what was real and what wasn’t.

Then one day, the drüskelle had crowded into the hold dressed in freshly pressed uniforms of black and silver, the white wolf’s head on their sleeves. They’d fallen into orderly ranks and stood at attention as their commander entered. Like all of them, he was tall, but he wore a tidy beard, and his long blond hair showed grey at the temples. He walked the length of the hold, then came to a halt in front of the prisoners.

“How many?” he asked.

“Fifteen,” replied the burnished gold boy who had captured her. It was the first time she had seen him in the hold.

The commanding officer cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am Jarl Brum.”

A tremor of fear passed through Nina, and she felt it reverberate through the Grisha in the cell, a warning call none of them were free to heed.

In school, Nina had been obsessed with the drüskelle. They’d been the creatures of her nightmares with their white wolves and their cruel knives and the horses they bred for battle with Grisha. It was why she’d studied to perfect her Fjerdan and her knowledge of their culture. It had been a way of preparing herself for them, for the battle to come. And Jarl Brum was the worst of them.

He was a legend, the monster waiting in the dark. The drüskelle had existed for hundreds of years, but under Brum’s leadership, their force had doubled in size and become infinitely more deadly. He had changed their training, developed new techniques for rooting out Grisha in Fjerda, infiltrated Ravka’s borders, and begun pursuing rogue Grisha in other lands, even hunting down slaving ships,

‘liberating’ Grisha captives with the sole purpose of clapping them back in chains and sending them to Fjerda for trial and execution. She’d imagined facing Brum one day as an avenging warrior or a clever spy. She hadn’t pictured herself confronting him caged and starving, hands bound, dressed in rags.

Brum must have known the effect his name would have. He waited a long moment before he said in excellent Kaelish, “What stands before you is the next generation of drüskelle, the holy order charged with protecting the sovereign nation of Fjerda by eradicating your kind. They will bring you to Fjerda to face trial and so earn the rank of officer. They are the strongest and best of our kind.”

Bullies, Nina thought.

“When we reach Fjerda, you will be interrogated and tried for your crimes.”

“Please,” said one of the prisoners. “I’ve done nothing. I’m a farmer. I’ve done you no harm.”

“You are an insult to Djel,” Brum replied. “A blight on this earth. You speak peace, but what of your children to whom you may pass on this demonic power? What about their children? I save my mercy for the helpless men and women mowed down by Grisha abominations.”

He faced the drüskelle. “Good work, lads,” he said in Fjerdan. “We sail for Djerholm immediately.”

The drüskelle seemed ready to burst with pride. As soon as Brum exited the hold, they were knocking each other affectionately on the shoulders, laughing in relief and satisfaction.

“Good work is right,” one said in Fjerdan. “Fifteen Grisha to deliver to the Ice Court!”

“If this doesn’t earn us our teeth—”

“You know it will.”

“Good, I’m sick of shaving every morning.”

“I’m going to grow a beard down to my navel.”

Then one of them reached through the bars and snatched Nina up by her hair. “I like this one, still nice and round. Maybe we should open that cage door and hose her down.”

The boy with the burnished hair smacked his comrade’s hand away. “What’s wrong with you?” he

said, the first time he’d spoken since Brum had vanished. The brief rush of gratitude she’d felt



withered when he said, “Would you fornicate with a dog?”