But Hytha did not answer, at least not immediately. While the crew could spend the day scrubbing decks and attending to the forgotten jobs around the ship, the passengers could do little more than huddle in their cloaks and stare gloomily at the enveloping white swirls as they reached out with their icy tendrils to brush their noses and ears. They could do little more than wait.
Morning became afternoon, and, just as Wulfthram decided to go below decks for some potage rustled up by the ship’s cook, he felt something pull at his hair and the hem of his cloak.
‘The wind!’ the captain called. ‘The wind is picking up! That will drive this fog away. Hytha has heard us, after all.’
And he was right. The breeze became stronger and, as he peered over at the sea, he realised, with difficulty at first but then with increasing conviction, that the stifling white blanket was dispersing. Suddenly he had to cover his eyes as a shaft of pure sunlight broke through the miasma to illuminate the frowning grey sea.
‘To work, lads! Get the sails hoisted! We can be away in minutes,’ and then to Wulfthram: ‘We will be in Oxhagen by nightfall, my Lord.’
He was as good as his word. In no time at all the twin sails were catching the prevailing wind and the Arnberg was skipping lightly over the white foam, breaking through the last feeble remnants of fog. Ceriana mounted the stern quarterdeck, peering to the port side with a sense of relief. Alys was with her and, as she shielded her eyes against the elements, she said to her excitedly:
‘Look, the land, can you see?’
‘Yes, my Lady, and there is the ruined city.’
They were drawing closer and Ceriana could see the truth in Alys’s words. The sea, buoyed by wind and tide, was crashing against a rocky headland crowned with green, on top of which were fragments of white stone, some of it approximating a wall, but a wall reduced to rubble rising never higher than a few feet. After Ulian’s description of the city she felt a little disappointed that more didn’t remain. She expressed this to Alys.
‘I think this is but the northern portion of the city; it continues for some distance along the coast and the ruins become more substantial the farther south we go. The part of it I visited with Master Cedric was much more substantial than this.’
Ceriana continued to watch, despite the cold that was numbing her fingers and toes. Sometimes the ruins would disappear entirely for a distance, only for a cluster of ruined white towers, little more than bases surrounded by tumbledown stone, to spring up like mushrooms from the ground. Gradually, though, the ruins grew more defined, just as Alys had said. The walls increased in height and the towers became more recognisable as such. She became aware of the sun against the back of her neck and realised it was beginning to drop beneath the horizon. Her husband joined her with a blanket, which he put over her shoulders.
‘If memory serves me right, just behind this rocky outcropping we have...’
He paused as the Arnberg swept past the high stones and bore eastward. There, as the shore grew closer than ever, she saw a series of towers hiding behind white walls perched on the cliff top, the largest she had seen so far. South of them the cliff dropped substantially and she saw where it bottomed out a series of small sandy beaches; and, at the southern headland where it pushed into the sea like a broken finger, she saw at last a group of huddled buildings clinging around a small harbour. One building had a tower and another, the largest there, was surrounded by a wall with battlements.
‘Oxhagen,’ he finished, smiling.
The sun was dropping fast now, the lateen sails casting triangular shadows over the sea. But something odd was happening for the little harbour was suddenly becoming more and more difficult to pick out, as if it was being covered in a ghostly shroud.
‘Well, what have we done to the Gods today?’ Wulfthram hissed under his breath.
It was unmistakeable now – not just Oxhagen but the elven towers – the very shoreline – were becoming indistinct. The fog was returning.
There were no oars on the Arnberg. It was a ship built for speed, after all, and as a result the captain was keen to weigh anchor again but Wulfthram was having none of it. After a brief but futile protest, the captain assented. One of the sails was pulled down and the vessel approached close to the shore. Periodically, great dark shoulders of rock would loom out of the mist, lowering and threatening, but the captain was skilful, the Arnberg never getting too close to danger. Up in the crow’s nest one of the more experienced sailors kept calling down, instructing the captain as to the safe distance to keep from the shore, while another was dropping a line into the sea keeping track of the depth. In the mist the voices of the sailors were amplified, echoing off the rock, hollow and ghostly. The waves, too, were the same; it sounded almost like they were in a watery cave with the briny splashing around their very ears.
Everyone was on deck, the slow progress of the Arnberg and the close proximity of the cliffs and the town they were destined for meant nervous tension was passing from person to person like a virus. No one said a word; Ceriana clutched the port rail, her knuckles getting whiter by the minute.
Suddenly they all felt a sense of space as if the cliffs had crashed to the ocean floor. The man in the crow’s nest called out ‘Cove; keep the course steady ahead.’
The Arnberg continued forward. The cliffs might have disappeared but no one was fooled; everyone waited for them re-emerge to hover over them once more, but before that happened the man called out again: ‘Ship! There is a ship in the cove!’
Ceriana squinted. The fog seemed to be affecting her breathing; she coughed slightly, putting her hand to her chest where she felt the amulet against her skin. So far it had worked; she had not experienced anything untoward since she had put it on – no dragons, no transformations. For a second her thoughts flew to the sepulchral black priest who had given it to her, and then ahead of her the mist cleared briefly but just enough to reinforce her belief in fate and the capriciousness of the Gods.
Only the outline of the other craft could be seen. It bobbed silently and impassively in the murk, –there was no movement on its decks, no lights, no flaming torches. As the Arnberg inched onward, the full length of the other vessel came into view, its prow at last becoming visible.
Its dragon-shaped prow.
Ceriana cried out as her heart flew into her throat.
Wulfthram heard her. ‘Is that...?’ he asked.
‘Yes. They are here.’
Haelward was standing close by. After getting some clarification from Ulian, he came up to the two of them.
‘If these are the people who want to take that trinket by force, then you will need some steel in your party. Supernatural foes may be beyond me, but men, armed or otherwise, are a different matter. I will come with you, if only to keep them off your back.’
Wulfthram nodded slowly, his gaze not leaving the other vessel until finally the Arnberg had cleared the cove and the high rock of the cliff face had returned.
‘I couldn’t see any of them on deck,’ he said.
‘They are not here just to bob around on the water,’ said Ceriana quietly. ‘They are waiting for us – or, rather, me. This amulet will protect me from the guardians but not from them. That was one of the reasons they gave it to me. The rest of you can be thrown to the mercies of whatever is waiting for us as far as they are concerned.’
‘Well, we know they are here now. We can hole up at an inn or even stay on board this evening before climbing the cliff tomorrow. I would rather face them in daylight.’
‘You don’t understand.’ she said. ‘They are protected from these spirits; they will all have the same amulet as I have. They may be in the labyrinth already, waiting for us. They will let the guardians get the rest of you then move in on me. They are nothing if not patient. It has taken them nearly a thousand years to trace these stones remember. Like a dragon, they see a millennium as just another timespan to be endured.’
‘These priests,’ said Haelward, ‘are they as unsettling
as they sound?’
Ceriana looked at him, a look that needed no words of confirmation.
‘I thought as much, my Lady,’ the deflated soldier replied.
They sailed on for another few minutes until the announcement came: ‘Oxhagen harbour ahead!’
The mist was getting thicker, but there was no mistaking the shoulder of rock coming into view ahead of them. At its crest the outline of buildings could be seen, Ceriana could make out what looked like a statue of Hytha, standing proudly at the harbour’s head. Inland, further blocky shapes could be seen, silhouettes of buildings large and small.
There was something odd, though, something intangible; she couldn’t put her finger on it until finally her husband articulated it for her.
‘Where are the lights?
‘You are right,’ she said. ‘There is not a single one.’
The mist lay heavy on the city; twisting ropes of it wound over the cobbles of the street on the harbour front but everywhere was in darkness. No flaming torches flickered in their brackets on the harbour wall and every window in every cottage, tavern and shop was a dark, eyeless void. There was no one out on the street and the whole town seemed to be smothered in a blanket of silence. All there was were the gentle sounds of waves lapping against rock and the groaning of the Arnberg’s hull in the shallow waters. The captain came up to Wulfthram, his consternation written all over his face.
‘What shall we do, my Lord? The whole town seems deserted.’
‘Drop anchor in the harbour. Some of us will take the skiff and see what is going on here.’
‘As you wish, my Lord.’
Within a very short time the Arnberg was sitting in the harbour, listing slightly as the outgoing tide tugged gently at its moorings. The skiff was readied, a small oar-powered vessel capable of holding around eight people.
‘Before you say anything,’ Ceriana told her husband, ‘I am going with you. Do not make a final attempt to stop me. I know...’
‘That’s fine,’ he replied, cutting her short. ‘I was just about to ask you to take your seat. I will not ask you to row, though; I cannot see my wife with callouses on her palms.’
‘I am probably not even strong enough to lift an oar; fortunately, I am surrounded by lots of strong men who can do all the hard work for me, which is exactly how I like it.’
Ignoring his sideways look, she took her place in the boat.
Wulfthram sat in a rowing position as Ulian took his place alongside Ceriana. Wulfthram’s men, Strogar and Derkss, took up the other rowing positions along with Haelward. Willem called out to Ulian. ‘Shall I come as well?’
‘No, my boy, stay here with Alys and the books. If we are not back by the morning, well, I am sure you will know what to do.’
‘We will be back long before then,’ said Wulfthram. ‘I am not trying those tunnels until I know what is going on here. Captain Devin, keep a watch out and the ballista manned. No one sleeps tonight, at least till we return.’
And with that the crew lowered the skiff gently into the water. After a few awkward seconds when the oars got tangled and the little craft turned a full circle, they finally got their orientation correct and were headed towards the town, a town in which there was nothing but silence.
40
‘What in the name of Artorus’s balls is going on here!’
Baron Lukas Felmere was not a happy man. He was standing on the riverbank in the pouring rain, watching his engineers’ pathetic attempt at a bridge get washed away piece by piece. In all fairness to them, the weather had been absolutely atrocious and the river was swollen to the point of bursting its banks. The earth under his iron-shod feet squelched as liquid mud came up almost to his ankles.
Delays, delays, delays. So much for attacking the enemy within ten days! It was nearly two weeks since his army’s triumph and they were still stuck here, bogged down on ground beginning to actually liquefy under their feet. The problem with being so close to the mountains was that any weather front heading up from the south tended to drop any precipitation that it carried either over the mountains or directly over their heads. And now it was over their heads. They could not proceed without the bridges to secure their supply lines and to carry the army over the river in safety, but safety was the last word that sprang to mind in the face of the raging torrent before him. On top of all this there had been an outbreak of dysentery in the camp, laying many a man low; the healing mage had been working all hours trying to combat the illness until she had collapsed with exhaustion. The outbreak was under control now and he had sent her away with the other mages for this conference she was so keen to have, and for the rest she needed if she was to be of any further use to him. They had left that very morning with instructions to return within five days. If the army was not ready to move by then, the whole plan of attack would have to be abandoned for the winter.
And it had got worse. With thousands of men frustrated by their inability to engage the enemy and virtually confined to their camp, petty quarrels became disputes and disputes became arguments; arguments that eventually found recourse in violence. The historical animosity between Lasgaart’s and Vinoyen’s men had expressed itself in a succession of bloody brawls, until eventually a man had died. The perpetrators had been swiftly executed but the simmering bad blood remained. Grest itself had seen problems, too; its bars and brothels had been too great a temptation to some of the men and, following representations from the magistrate, he had had to impose a curfew and restrict visiting rights to the town. He pictured the gods Artorus and Mytha sitting either side of a chequerboard, moving and toying with its pieces and laughing uproariously as they did so.
Reynard Lanthorpe was speaking to the engineers. He hadn’t approached them himself for fear his own volatile temper would rise to the surface; he didn’t want morale to drop further. His stomach had been playing him up lately, too; the constant burning had even caused him to give up the drink ... well almost.
Lanthorpe came up to him. ‘They are telling me that it isn’t as bad as it looks; the piles are there under the water, so it is just a question of getting a break in the weather. If they get that, they reckon they could have one bridge operational in a couple of days at the most.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I see no reason to argue with them; all we need is a day with no rain.’
‘Is that all?’ Felmere laughed bitterly. ‘Tell me, do you think the Gods are pissing over us because they have drunk too much, or because they can’t stop themselves from laughing at us?’
‘The Gods gave us victory less than two weeks ago, Baron. That is something we shouldn’t forget.’
‘Well, it might be a next-to-meaningless victory if the rain doesn’t stop. Three days I am giving it, three days, and then we keep a garrison here but disband the troops until spring. We don’t have enough food here to keep a full army for more than a week or so.’
‘Hello,’ said Lanthorpe slowly, ‘is that a scout, or an Arshuman deserter?’
Across the river a horseman was approaching the small staging post the engineers had built there. As they watched, he dismounted, briefly spoke to one of the men, and the two of them clambered into a small rowing boat before pushing off into the ferocious torrent. It carried them downriver quite a way until they appeared as little more than a speck. Eventually, though, they made land, pulling the boat up behind them. Some soldiers went to speak to them.
‘To be honest,’ Felmere said, ‘I won’t be too disappointed if we have to cancel the attack. The fire of battle was in me when I committed to it, so maybe the Gods are just pointing me in the right direction. It will be nice to go and see my boy soon if we do have to abandon things till the spring.’
‘It would be worth it just to see Fenchard’s face,’ said Lanthorpe, laughing, ‘and Trask’s, for that matter.’
‘How many have we seen, Lanthorpe, fresh-faced barons eager to make their mark only to wind up dead within a week. I fear young Fenchard will be joi
ning an ever-growing list soon.’
‘I am not so sure,’ said Lanthorpe. ‘There is something a bit different about our Fenchard. Hiring Trask was a smart move for one.’
‘A move that might well come back to bite him on the arse. Trask is loyal to one man and one man alone. That’s why no one else will touch him with the tip of a pole arm.’
‘He has fought for both sides, hasn’t he?’
‘In a manner of speaking. After the Serpent Knights kicked him out, he joined a bunch of mercenaries fighting for coin – the only thing that matters to him. Both sides hired him in the early years and he fought against us at Axmian. He has ... qualities, though, so he is generally forgiven for his eccentricities.’ He sneezed into his hands. ‘Artorus’s teeth, they are bringing that man here – what has happened now?’
Two guards were approaching, with the man they had seen earlier walking between them. His boots were caked with mud and his hair and dark cloak were saturated with rain. He bowed slightly before he spoke to them.
‘Baron Felmere, Sir Reynard, my name is Roden. I am one of your own scouts, my Lord, and have been in the lands of the enemy these past ten days.’
‘Good man,’ said Felmere. ‘Give us your report and you can go into the town for a bath and an ale.’
‘Thank you, my Lord. It has been dangerous work out there. Many of their light cavalry were scattered after the battle here and keeping out of their way has been Keth’s own work, let alone getting to Tantala to gauge the strength of their forces.’
‘But did you get to Tantala?’
‘I did, my Lord. There are a few low hills in the area covered in trees and I concealed myself in one of them.’
‘And what of his strength?,’ said Reynard. ‘Could that be gauged?’
‘Growing by degrees; firstly with stragglers returning from the army we defeated, then a contingent arrived from the south, bringing their total to well over two thousand men. They are getting more organised every day. They have constructed catapults and dug a ditch around the town, but that is not all.’
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