“I accept,” said Silver. “And I apologise for inciting you.” This he addressed to Karmana. The girl scowled but admitted, “I let my emotion carry me away. I shall ride in peace with this silver pig.”
Silver looked despairingly at Raven. “If it weren’t true I’d answer back.”
“True enough,” said Raven, “and let us ride to the river.”
Within a few hours they came atop the high hills that led down to the winding river Lym. Away to the north west sprawled the city of Lym itself, its low, red brick buildings, and high watchtowers, seeming to rise and fall across the undulating land. Its wharves and harbours were filled with ships, and anchored in the deeper waters were the unmistakable vessels of M’rystal’s fleet, great red-hulled, high-backed four-masters. From the distance they were hard to study, but below the, easing its way towards the fleet, was the Altan’s flagship. From around the hull some forty or fifty oars stroked the great vessel westwards; a single mizzen sail was unfurled, and it caught the wind billowing and flapping with a sound which, even at this distance, was like a whiplash. Hundreds of men squatted on the wide deck, and the sun caught the bright polished heads of spears and arrows. Naked slaves ran along the river bank on each side, tugging ropes that kept the vessel in the centre of the wide and deep channel.
The carved image of the prow was that of a skull, and in the skull’s eyes were two great green jewels. Even though the Skull of Quez was destroyed, its image and importance had been taken to heart.
“With favorable winds and currents they will be at Kragg in no time, a few days at the most.” Spellbinder seemed to talk to no one as he watched the great ship negotiating the winding river. It would have come no further than the deep water river-port at Balim for beyond Balim the river grew too shallow for the great war vessels, though small ships could negotiate the Lym as far as Lake Thaal.
“There will be vessels for hire in Lym,” said one of the warriors from the Altanate, a woman with plaited hair that was as yellow as sand, and green eyes like emerald gems. She kicked her horse to ride up beside Ravaen. “I am from Lym myself. Whenever a war fleet sails for whatever destination, the boat builders of Lym have a thousand small, swift vessels for hire to the Altan as his runners. We could pretend to be several such, and hire a boat for no more than forty kush and a promise of sixty more. I know the way they work.”
“A fine idea,” said Raven. “You shall negotiate for us.”
“Not I,” said the girl, whose name was Mariak. “In Lym the men cling jealously to their superiority. It will have to be a man or lese we will find ourselves offered a ship for four hundred kush or not at all.”
Raven shrugged. “Such attitudes will pass with time. There is little point in feeling anger at it. Where is Jirram?”
“Here, Raven.” The tall man from Irkar rode forward. His face was covered with the fine stubble of a new beard; he was darker-haired than most Altanate men, something of Ishkar in his bearing, but his accent was unmistakable, and his clothing that of a horse-rider in the army.
“Can you negotiate a good price for us?”
“Aye, Raven, I have done it many times, though not in time of war. A business man will always negotiate a good price when his neck senses it is near to negotiating a steel blade.”
They rode, then, down to the river, and swam across it at its shallower point, which is not to say that the water was in any way shallow. The current carried them towards the sea quite fast, and when they eventually hauled gasping horses to the bank, the band had been spread out over two miles. They re-grouped quickly and rode to Lym to approach it from the north, through the less difficult gate of the city.
Jirram announced them mercenaries racing to catch up with the fleet, and because of the excitement in Lym, as in all cities, they were passed through without question.
Raven thought how easy it would be to take this city should any Warlord feel the urge. But for the moment they were in, and rode carefully through the flagstoned streets of the place until they came to the long harbour, the southernmost harbour of the Altanate.
M’rystal’s fleet was already moving out to sea, a thousand white and red sails full blow before the wind, a hundred red painted hulls leaning to starboard, ploughing through the wind-whipped oceans with all the ease of a gull riding the heavens.
Eight
“A bond of true-felt trust is a bond of love. This is the way great empires are made.”
The Books of Kharwhan
The small vessel skimmed across the ocean like a flattened stone skipped for sport by a giant. The speed was mere illusion, however, and as the days passed so the broad, red sails of M’rystal’s fleet slid further towards the horizon, and finally, one dawn, were no longer there.
Nevertheless (Spellbinder pointed out), they were over half way between Lym and the island of Kragg, and no more than a day behind the Altan. “He will blockade the island for longer than that before he attempts an assault.”
“Lifebane’s cliff-based ongars and archers will cause some havoc amongst the fleet,” said Jirram, speaking from experience. Raven smiled at the thought.
Arreena, glowing and in high spirits because she was going home, shook her head. “The reefs around Kragg will hold the ships at a distance, and out of range of the cliff weapons. But M’rystal will be hard put to get his men on to the island. There is only one channel into a safe harbourage and Lifebane will have blocked that off.”
Raven’s though was of their own entry to the island, but she remained quiet for the moment.
The sky darkened and a storm threatened, but no storm broke, though the sea grew fierce and high, each foam-topped crest breaking across the planks of the low deck as if it sought to suck the ship to the sea bed. A heavy mist rose from the ocean, cutting their aspect to a few hundred yards, but Spellbinder was equipped with a seaman’s knowledge, and he kept the ship on a good and true course for the island.
One dawn, as Raven came up from the low-ceilinged poop cabin, stiff and disheveled after an uncomfortable night’s sleep, she saw Spellbinder standing at the low prow, his cloak whipping about him in the cold wind. “Raven,” he called, and she looked beyond him, into the find white mist that rose some miles distant.
“Kragg!” she cried, and ran to the prow, wrapping her own cloak tight about her body.
Her cry brought the others scampering across the deck, and they crowded there and stared at the Ocean Hold of Gondor Lifebane’s sea wolves.
Dark and sombre, the great pinnacles and cliffs of granite rose sheer from the foaming, dark water ocean. Raven could hear the booming roar of waves that broke against the undercuts in the cliff, and she could see the sudden breaking of great lines of white where the waves crashed and smacked against the immobile, eternal rock.
Clouds hugged the high pinnacles, and all that could be seen were the walls and wheeling gulls that nestled and nested in the deep scoured cracks and crevasses of the Eastern aspect.
As they drew near so the clouds lifted, and though the hostile rock remained shrouded in a haze of sea-wrack, they could at last see the jagged contours of the land above—Gondar’s land, his haven! There was no sign of life, only the mournful sounds of the waves as they broke and echoed against the shallow caves, and the screeching anger of the gulls which disliked the great fleet of the Altan crowding their sea below.
The fleet lay half a kli off the reef, the flagship centrally placed, the war vessels spread around the channel leading to Kragg in a great vee. What defences Lifebane had erected to guard this channel Raven could not tell, but a small ship came very fast between the two rocks, like jagged teeth, that marked the entrance to the calmer waters beyond the reef, and a moment later a boulder, the size of four men, crashed into the sea beside it, sending the vessel keeling over to the starboard.
The defences were there!
Moonshadow, now fully recovered, whistled low. “Fine shooting. A few more feet would have drowned the ship whilst keeping it intact for salvage.”
“The fact that it missed,” said Raven, “proves that it was bad shooting.” She remembered Argor’s words of a year before: never delude yourself that the scare you put into an enemy with a near miss will last for more than a moment. Make every stroke count true, for be assured, he will.
Spellbinder walked calmly to the aft and turned the small vessel away from the fleet, and out of sight. They sailed around the great rising walls of Kragg for the better part of a day, and then:
“Look! There!”
Arreena was pointing up the sheer cliff to where the outline of the land above was a dark cut against the clouded but bright sky.
When Raven looked she saw what she thought to be man-made walls of a fort. “Is that a Holding? A cliff edge Hold?”
“Aye,” said Arreena, “there are several such, scattered around the northern and western aspects of Kragg. They are ancient defensive sites, strongly built castles which can house an army and have only one wall exposed to the enemy. Lifebane uses them frequently, and can retire to them if the channel is breeched.”
Raven said, “But which will he choose? Which is he likely to choose?”
Arreena shook her head. “I know not, though he will build up the defeces of the fort he has chosen.”
Spellbinder grinned. “Furl the sails, let us rest here for a while. I have an easy spell that may help us.”
They crowded around the Sorcerer who fetched from the sea a bucket of clear, green-tinged water. Then he scattered crumbs of bread and biscuit on the deck and spoke words in a strange language, his eyes half closed.
After a while a small bird dropped from the sky and walked among the silent men and women, eating the crumbs as if unaware of how close it was to capture. But Spellbinder made no move to capture it.
“Eyes become our eyes, wings become our wings, song becomes our song.”
As he spoke he held his hands towards the tiny green-crested bird and at length it flew on to his hand. Spellbinder murmur quietly to it, then flung it high in the air and it flew rapidly away to the west.
In the water in the bucket appeared a vision of Gondar’s land, seen from above, a picture that rapidly moved.
“We see what the bird sees,” said Spellbinder. “A useful spell.”
“Amazing,” said Moonsahdow, genuinely impressed as he watched the landscape in the water reflection pass below. Villages and settlements, moving lines of men at arms, and great herds of animals being driven to some point in the west.
“Would that all spells were so easy to acquire.”
At length they saw a great fort, three high and thick walls protecting a vast land area from the attack of men from the south and east, while behind the land there dropped the cliffs to the surging ocean, many hundreds of feet below. There was great activity there, men swarming across the walls like ants, while huge piles of stone near each wall told of the repair and consolidation that was occurring.
“Lifebane will be there, making his strategy,” said Arreena. “That is the Black Ford, not far from the fort that lies above us. Its seaward wall is low, and stained black with some weed that grows upon it.”
“And how high the cliffs?” asked Karmana. Raven was pleased that it had been she who voiced that question, for it was a point on which Raven too was anxious.
“High,” said Arreena cryptically. “Not for those who would lose their stomachs when a man becomes a dust speck below them.”
“The answer to that,” said Moonshadow with a grin, “is that we all climb.”
“Comforting,” said Raven. “But let’s not sit here feeling our heads spin.”
“Aye,” said Spellbinder, and went to the poop deck where he supervised the preparations for continuing their journey.
It was late afternoon when Arreena called out for them to look upwards.
“The Black Fort! You can just make it out…see the black stain upon the walls?”
“I see scant more than sheer cliff,” confessed Raven, though she could make out the dark stone of some structure towering higher than the high cliff.
“Sound here echoes very loudly up the cliff,” said Arreena, “so keep quiet and run the ship into the undercut.”
Spellbinder did as he had been bidden. The sea had cut deeply into the cliff and had formed a natural cave some hundred paces deep, and quite wide at the mouth. They dropped anchor and wallowed there for a while, the tiny vessel being carried inwards with each wave, and then outwards with each returning foam-drenched crest. The sound of the sea was loud, a booming sound that was deafening.
There were no caves that were known to lead to the surface (Arreena said) though legend told of many.
Without delay they began to climb. Each in turn swam to the rocky ledge outside the cave and stood there as they gathered, feet awash in the rising tide. Raven went, and so did Arreena and Karmana. Spellbinder and Jirrem decided to go too, and Silver, indecisive to the last, finally clapped his hands together, blazed like bright steel and committed himself to the foolishness. The rest stayed with the vessel.
Hand over hand, using the many cracks and crevasses in the rock, Raven led the way upwards. The immediacy of the sea rushing and roaring faded away to become a distant sound. The wind whistled about her, caught her hair and blew it out in great waving locks. Her fingers started to ache, and her legs to tremble. Cold an irritating sweat daubed her body. She tasted blood as she bit through her lip in the effort of hauling her body upwards.
“This is agony,” she heard someone say.
“Cling close to the rock if your strength and stamina fail you. When you climb, climb as a spider, body out from the wall. It is easier.”
“Thank you Silver,” called Moonshadow.
It had been easy to start with. The cracks, sea worn and pebble scored, were numerous and deep. But after while the cracks grew fewer and Raven found herself reaching, stretching, for the fissure that ran between two layers of rock. Her fingers gained a slight hold, and then she had to release her secure grip with her feet and try to run up the sheer cliff, whilst wedging her fingers tighter into the crack. It was agony, and each time she released her foothold her stomach churned as she felt herself swing out over empty space below. The top of the cliff came no nearer. Below her, when she foolishly looked down, the sea was blue, white specked, distant. At times she could see the prow of the ship floating out of concealment, and it seemed like a toy. One of the band, clinging to the prow and watching the ascent, was just a dark dot against the water, a dot that occasionally waved.
“Have you no spell that will push us up the cliff on a column of warm air?” asked Jirrem of Spellbinder. His breath came hard, telling of his exhaustion, and there was still so much left to climb.
“For one, perhaps,” said Spellbinder, “but it would exhaust me beyond endurance.”
“Ten nights in my bed if you’ll let me be that favoured one,” said Arreena.
“Twenty,” said Karmana.
Spellbinder laughed. “I thank you, but the answer is no. I am saving the spell for myself. My strength is near gone.”
Raven, gasping for breath, paused in her exertions and hugged the rock, her arms beside her as she gripped a fissure at her waist.
She felt the rock on which she stood give way and yelled just before she felt herself drop! Her fingers held and she swung there, her grip loosening inexorably, he legs and feet flailing beneath her as she sought some grip, some tiny pock mark in the rock that would support her.
“I’m lost!” she cried, and felt her fingers give. She plummeted down the cliff, her hair covering her face, her stomach surging up into her mouth.
She fell for an instant. Losing half her awareness with the dizzying sensation of the descent. Then a strong arm caught her and swung her back to the rock face. She found a grip with her fingers, then felt a hand push her foot into a deep fissure. Tossing back her hair she found herself looking at the grinning features of Silver.
“My thanks,” she said.
“That will be
twenty nights,” he said.
Raven, too breathless even to laugh, just smiled. “You seem at ease, friend Silver.”
“Aye. I was petrified at first, but my old skills have returned. I climbed the Obsidian Tower in my youth, when I ventured to find out what strange power lies there. The tower is smooth as the surface of water, but I climbed it to the top. This is child’s play.”
Raven murmured something foul, then began to climb again. As she hauled herself above Silver she felt his hand slip inside her tunic and affectionately pat her naked behind.
“Smoother, even, than the Obsidian Tower,” said the warrior with a grin. “But I would still climb it!”
A biting wind tugged at them as they neared the cliff top. Hair streaming, clothes pressed tight against their bodies, the several warriors finally struggled over the rim of the land, and lay on safe ground, gasping for breath.
Nearby, the high walls of the Black Fort rose from the ground, dry stone piled on dry stone to a height near thrice that of a man. Between the fort and the invader lay an area of spikes and sharp-edged pits that would make traverse difficult, but more worrying for the moment was that they would be seen and shot before they could identify themselves.
They could hear the sound of building, the clatter of stones and the babble of voices. It was probably a face that Lifebane never dreamed that there would be a cliff assault.
Raven led the way across the treacherous ground, with Spellbinder close behind. They came into the dusk shadow of the wall, and waited there for night.
When darkness closed in around them Raven was heaved up the wall and she peered cautiously over. Torches were scattered around the interior, illuminating the second wall some distance away. Cattle grazed there, and horses roamed free, running in small numbers across the bumpy ground. The whole band of Raven’s followers dropped quietly to the defensive ledge on the inside of the wall and then ran to the second wall. Inside this there were people camped, the builders, perhaps, or city dwellers who had decided to play it safe and take to the last ditch defences in good time. Tents were scattered about, and fires burned bright and welcome. Food smells made Raven’s mouth water, but there were more important issues at hand than satisfying empty bellies.
A Time of Ghosts Page 11
