The giant tossed his weapon onto the bricks at Ian’s feet.
“Pick it up!” Ragget said.
Ian glanced at the sword. It was gigantic, much longer than his family sword, and easily twice as wide. He’d be lucky if he could lift it with both hands let alone wield it.
“I said, pick it up!”
“No. I’ll take this matter before the king.”
“PICK IT UP!” The vein in Ragget’s forehead throbbed. He took a step back and with a wild flourish he removed his sword from Ian’s chest. Ian hesitated. The crazed look in Ragget’s eyes prompted him to stoop and retrieve the weapon. Damn if it wasn’t as heavy as he had guessed. Heavy and unwieldy. It felt like the rest of the world was anchored to its tip.
“If you attack me, the king will have your head.”
Ragget’s laugh was vicious and hard. “The same king who granted me your outpost?” His lips curled with disgust. “No, I think he would congratulate me for ridding the city of an adulterous fraud!”
Ian was caught off guard. “A what . . .?”
Ragget’s thin sword shot forward snake-quick. Ian hauled the giant’s blade up dragging the whole world along with it, but he was much too slow. A stinging pain bloomed in his shoulder and Ragget’s blade was gone again before the big clumsy weapon finished its first arc. Ian winced and danced away. “That’s enough!” he shouted. “Stop!”
Ragget responded with another thrust.
Ian twisted aside. Ragget pressed the attack. His sword darted in again and again, pricking at Ian’s edges, never at his center. Ian scrambled around the patio, amazed he was able to stay ahead of most of Ragget’s attacks and then it dawned on him. Ragget was still toying with him.
But why? Either Ragget truly wanted to do him harm or this was . . . what? An act?
Ian blocked the next two strikes, noting even if he’d missed them, they would not have cut him deeply, and he was reminded of Tyran and Kylpin’s mock swordfight in his sitting room. He glanced around the patio. For whom were they performing? The silent giant? Someone else?
Ragget came after him again. His thin sword clanged hard against the blade in Ian’s hands once, twice, three times. The last knocked Ian back a couple of steps and for a moment he wondered if he’d misinterpreted the Yordicians intentions all along. If this was an act, it was becoming increasing more real with each strike.
“Put away your sword,” Ian demanded. “We don’t need to do this!”
Ragget’s eyes told another story. A cold fear sliced through Ian. The Yordician lord may have started out wanting a bit of fun, but now he looked ready for more. He wanted blood.
Sweat poured down Ian’s face as he fought a defensive retreat, beating aside the relentless attacks until he could barely raise his arms. He parried a low strike and saw Ragget reverse his attack. The next one would be high . . .
Ian grunted. The blade was so heavy! The narrow sword whipped forward, and Ian knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. He contorted his body, twisting sharply to one side and the muscles in his aching back screamed. Still it wasn’t enough.
Harsh pain erupted in Ian’s left shoulder. Ragget’s blade punched through his skin and struck bone. He was knocked sideways, and a wave of dizziness crashed over him. He stumbled awkwardly and backed into the forked trunk of the willow tree. He hadn’t even realized the tree was behind him, but he was glad of its support. Glad it was keeping him on his feet. Blood leaked down his arm, stained his silk shirt and dripped from his numb fingers to form a small puddle beside him.
“Ragget, no . . . no more . . .” Ian murmured.
Ragget was beyond listening. He lifted his sword over his head. The blade gleamed in the afternoon sun, shimmering like a beacon of death . . .
And then the burning sun disappeared behind the oncoming storm clouds and the entire patio was cast in shadows. The shining blade turned a grim shade of silver-black. The dark sword began its downward arc.
“NO!”
The scream matched Ian’s desires, but he was certain the cry hadn’t come from his lips.
The lone word seemed to catch the blade in midair. Ian struggled to lift the giant’s blade, to put it between himself and Ragget’s sword, but the tip only dragged across the dirt creating a wavy line.
“No! . . . no! . . . no! . . .” The lone word echoed across the courtyard. Ian blinked the sweat from his eyes. Whose shout had saved him? Only Ragget and the giant were on the patio with him.
Ian slipped on something wet and lost his balance. The tree bark tore at his thin shirt and left long scratches down his back. The giant’s sword tumbled out of his hand. His left shoulder was on fire.
“Get him out of my sight,” Ragged snarled.
The giant lumbered forward.
“Amarias!” The shouted voice again, a woman’s voice. “Don’t hurt him.”
The voice . . . where was it coming from? It sounded . . . familiar. Before he could sort out who his mysterious benefactor was, Amarias hoisted him off the ground and slung him across his broad shoulders as if he were a fallen deer killed in the hunt.
“Ragget . . .” Ian murmured. “The king will hear about this . . .”
He was answered by a strange chuckle and then the giant was swiftly carrying him away. Blackness swirled around him and his vision narrowed. Just before he lost consciousness, Ian could have sworn he saw a woman staring down at him from one of the estate’s high windows, her gently painted face framed by a sea of blonde curls.
“Cecily . . .?” Ian muttered and then the blackness closed in around him and he knew nothing more for a while.
Chapter 52
Kylpin stopped pacing. He didn’t like the solid feel of the road beneath his boots. He leaned against the tall stone wall next to the locked gate. After Ian had been led away by the giant, the two remaining guards had escorted him off the grounds and out onto the street. He didn’t like that either. He should have stayed with Ian, but it was too late to protest now. He kicked the wall with the heel of his boot. He hated feeling helpless.
He stooped and picked up a handful of pebbles. “I should have insisted on going with him damn it.”
A couple of passing ladies gave him a curious look. Kylpin doffed his wide-brimmed hat and flattered them with a smile. “Pardon me, ladies, I’m just talking to myself.”
They hurried past. Kylpin watched them go, admiring the swaying of their retreating hips. “Have a good afternoon,” he called after them. He used his hat to fan himself before shoving it back on his head. Their delightful curves made him long for Evie.
She had been absent from her room last night and again early this morning.
Kylpin pushed off the wall and paced in front of the metal gate a couple of times. He glanced up the long drive toward the estate on each pass, but he saw no sign of Ian. What could be taking so long? He tossed the pebbles back and forth in his hands. Without the comfortable feel of a rolling ship beneath his feet, he was a bit less patient and just a tad more irritable.
Or was he feeling out of sorts because he hadn’t seen Evie last night. Her abrupt departure from the Prancing Piper yesterday afternoon was not like her? She’d never left him unsatisfied before.
Kylpin tossed the pebbles aside and wiped his hands on his leather trousers. Even though he went months without seeing her at a time, when he was in Belyne she usually spent her nights with him. He knew it was selfish to expect her to drop everything just because he was in port, but that was how their relationship worked.
He stopped pacing. Had she found another man?
The familiar dark thought pushed to the front of his mind and he mulled it over. Evie met men, strangers, every night, but none of them were searching for love. Men did not search for love in a whore’s bedroom.
Kylpin folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall again. But he had done just that, hadn’t he? And she had reciprocated, hadn’t she? What had started out as a desperate need for companionship had turned into . . . lo
ve?
Was it love?
He wasn’t sure. Maybe. And if it wasn’t love, it was at least something very close to it. And the gods knew something close to love wasn’t half bad.
He pulled out his flask and took a slow steadying sip. The heated alcohol burned the back of his throat and his nostrils flared. If it could happen once for her, could it happen again?
Kylpin wiped his mouth and put the flask away. He wouldn’t blame her for finding love elsewhere, but why hadn’t she told him about it yesterday at the bar? There was no need for secrets between them. A twinge of jealousy reared inside him and he struggled to stamp it back.
Frustrated, he paced across the street and glanced back at the western horizon. The black storm clouds were thickening over the mountains and moving swiftly toward the city. Within an hour or two, the storm would unleash its fury on Belyne and then pass over to further vent its anger on the sea. He stroked his thin beard.
In whose arms would Evie find comfort once the thunder and lightning came?
That thought only enraged the green-eyed she-demon inside him. He kicked at a rock and sent it clattering down the street. It narrowly missed a hooded Chondaltian cleric out for a late afternoon stroll.
“Sorry . . .!”
Kylpin felt more than saw the cleric’s cold eyes staring back at him from beneath his shadowy cowl. Chondaltians were more trouble than they were worth and generally not to be trifled with, but this one continued past without saying a word. Once he was out of sight, Kylpin let out a great sigh of relief.
He walked over to a shady bench within sight of Ragget’s main gate and tried sitting. His thoughts returned to Evie. Would she take him back if he gave up the sea? He was without a ship now; perhaps he could find work on land.
Bah! He stopped himself immediately at such an absurd thought.
He’d spent most of his life at sea and not even a woman could make him give that up. Evie had known that about him from the start and if he tried to change for her-if he gave it all up to be with her, he would become an empty, bitter, unhappy man.
And their love or whatever the hell it was they shared, would fail.
Kylpin sighed as the inevitability of their doomed relationship flowed over him like the incoming tide and he began to wonder what had caused him to feel the touch of jealousy now, after all these years.
Was it because he had just lost the only family he had ever known yesterday, and he was hoping to use his relationship with Evie to replace it?
Huh.
He stood mulling that over, too impatient to sit. He stared east out over the city, his gaze inevitably drawn to the sea. Hundreds of ships filled the crescent bay, great galleys from Seneice, caravels from Dardynia, small fishing vessels returning from beyond the Splintered Islands, and beyond them all, twenty galleons. The pride of the Yordician navy was anchored around a small island about a mile offshore. The hot, afternoon sun danced across the surface of the water until it was consumed by the advancing clouds. The city fell into shadows and the air around him cooled. A chill wind swept down through the hillside city announcing the coming storm.
Kylpin bowed his head and tried to imagine the feel of his ship beneath him again. His true love was indeed the sea and with Serenity and her crew gone, a large piece of himself seemed missing as well. He understood now what his first mate, Arne Salmini, had meant when he’d catch the old, one-armed sailor scratching the air in front of his stump.
“It feels like m’ arm’s still there,” Arne would say with a wry smile and a shrug.
His ship and his men felt like they were still ‘there’ too, as if all he had to do was walk back to the docks and he’d find them all waiting impatiently for his return. They would rib him for spending so much time ashore, ask him about Evie-oh how they loved to hear the details of her fine body-and then weigh anchor. He’d guide Serenity out of the bay, past the lighthouse at the end of the harbor wall and into the open sea.
It was out there, beneath the vast sky, sailing the wide ocean where he could really breathe and feel alive.
“Why’d’ya name ‘er that?” Arne had asked him years ago. “Serenity? Doesn’t that mean calm? You’ll jinx’er for sure!”
Kylpin had only smiled. Serenity was named for the calmness he felt inside when he was at sea . . . not for the calmness of the sea. He tried to explain it to Arne, but the crafty, old sailor simply shook his bald head and shuffled away. As luck would have it, on her maiden voyage, while amid the dangerous Northern Reef, the winds had died. The sea became still and flat. Not a breath of wind stirred the air for three days. The shark fins circled the ship, occasionally brushing against her hull. During those three long days, he waited for Arne to say something about the ship’s name, but his first mate remained uncharacteristically silent. Finally, as dawn rose on the fourth day, a gentle breeze lifted their sails and they continued north toward Scylthia.
He finally cornered Arne by the mainsail. “After all this, you have nothing to say about the ship’s name, my friend?”
Arne eyed him for a moment and shrugged. “It’s a fine name, Captain.” He flashed a toothy grin. “Better than Gale Storm.”
The metal gates screeched open. Kylpin spun around, pushing his memories aside. The giant was returning with Ian slung over his broad shoulders.
“What the hell happened in there?!” Kylpin demanded, running across the street.
Amarias placed Ian on the ground and straightened. “He should see a healer.”
“I asked you what happened!” Kylpin knelt beside Ian and examined his bloody shoulder. “Did Lord Ragget do this to him?”
Amarias rested his hand on the hilt of a dagger. “The two lords exchanged words.”
“He wasn’t injured by words,” Kylpin shouted, glaring up at the giant. “He wasn’t even armed!”
Amarias shrugged and headed back inside the gate.
Kylpin jumped up and reached for his sword. He would get a straight answer out of the giant even if he-
Ian’s groan stopped him short. Slamming the half-drawn sword back into its sheath, Kylpin returned to Ian’s side. “Don’t worry, my friend, I’ll take care of you.”
He searched the street for a city carriage and found one at the far end. Whistling shrilly, he caught the driver’s attention and gave him a frantic wave.
“I’ll have you home in no time.”
Ian’s eyes fluttered open. “Cecily?”
“No, not quite, my friend.” Kylpin put a hand on Ian’s forehead. “And if you think I look anything like her, perhaps you’ve caught a fever as well.”
“Cecily . . .” Ian tried to sit.
“Easy, my friend, easy.” Kylpin held him down until the carriage stopped beside them. “Give me a hand here, driver.”
Ian stared up at Kylpin. “Have you betrayed me?”
“What are you talking about, my friend?” With the driver’s help, he loaded Ian into the back of the carriage.
“The Infirmary?” the driver asked.
“No, take him home. Weatherall Estate.”
The driver’s eyes widened in recognition of the name and he vaulted back into his seat and cracked his whip over the backs of his horses.
Kylpin dropped onto the cloth bench beside Ian as the coach lurched forward. “Now, what is this talk about me betraying you, my friend?”
Ian winced. “The Northern Reef. How did Ragget’s ships get through?”
Kylpin blinked in astonishment. He had been so surprised by the fall of the outpost the ‘how’ of it all had never occurred to him before. “I . . . I haven’t told the secret of the reef’s passage to anyone!”
“Your men?” Ian asked.
Kylpin shook his head. “They are all, were all, loyal to me, every last one of them.”
“What about the trials?”
The lines on Kylpin’s forehead deepened. “What trials, my friend?”
“Yesterday, at the tavern, you told me about holding trials at sea, dumping a man into the
ocean . . . Maybe someone retaliated.”
“Oh!” Kylpin understood now. “I told you, the threat of such trials kept the men in line. Besides, for the past few years, my men were-”
“You never actually held a trial?”
“We had three. Twice the men confessed to their crimes and were given quick deaths.”
“And the third?”
“He was a mean, nasty, stubborn bastard, my friend. He refused to confess all day. Even after the sharks arrived, he just kept cursing us until they hit him.”
“He didn’t survive?”
Kylpin shook his head. “The last time I saw Ole’ Nate, he was beating on the head of a big, bull Horned Shark which was dragging him under, just south of the reef.” Kylpin patted Ian’s hand. “Horrible way to go, my friend, but Ole’ Nate was a horrible man.”
“Someone else must know,” Ian muttered.
“Let me worry about that, my friend.” Kylpin glanced out the window. “We’re almost there.” He sat back, deep in thought. Arne Salmini had taught him the secret of the Northern Reef and no one else. His men had all been loyal, happy even, especially these past few years. Ian had paid them all well for their work and their silence, but apparently someone had betrayed the secret. His mind raced over the names and faces of each of his lost crewmen. Who among them had turned traitor?
He was at a loss. Even telling another would not have been enough. Someone had to have guided those ships through the harrowing maze of underwater rocks. It was the only way.
But none of his men had deserted and now they were all dead.
All except him.
Chapter 53
“Attacking Ian was not part of the plan,” Cecily called out as she stalked across the brick patio. Devin’s back was to her and he was leaning against the willow tree. She was upset and out of breath and though the sun was behind the clouds the day was still an uncomfortably hot one. “I want to be free of him, but I want the scandal to be on his head, not ours!”
“I’m sorry,” Devin said. His voice was oddly more than a whisper. “I tried to maintain a civil conversation with him, but the way he spoke about you . . . the horrible things he said . . . I just couldn’t listen to any more of his lies.” He turned around, his left hand clutched to his chest. “I’m sorry, my dear.”
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