Wintercraft: Blackwatch

by Jenna Burtenshaw

  He checked the position of the stars. The night was clear and moonlight shone upon the floating ice, making the frosty surfaces shine like ghostly lights as the ship travelled north-east. Silas knew the journey well. They were following the wide sea channel that spread like a scar between Albion and the Continent, heading for the northern Continental town of Grale. He had made that journey many times during his time in Albion’s army, and so far it seemed the captain was keeping his word. The ship was set to reach Grale within the hour. They were right where they were meant to be.

  As the moon moved steadily across the sky, the ship’s heaving sails caught a favourable wind and sliced more swiftly through the frosty waters. None of the crew questioned the whereabouts of the missing passenger – he could have fallen overboard and no one would have cared – so while the smugglers ate their midnight meal Silas patrolled the ship instead, looking for anything else that was out of place.

  If one collector could follow his trail on to that ship, a second could have found it just as easily. He stood at the back of the ship, behind the helmsman’s tied-off wheel, and looked back towards Albion. His homeland’s dark cliffs had long since retreated over the horizon, but between the ship and the distant coast Silas spotted something moving in the water. It was a low black shape, far enough away to be indistinct, even to his sharp eyes. Something was following the ship. Silas made sure he was out of sight, and watched.

  It could have been a whale. Small whales often travelled along the Taegar Sea in winter. But as the shape drew closer a square of black cloth flapped silently above the waves and Silas spotted two shadows crouched beneath it, struggling to keep a small sailing boat on course. The ice had been enough to slow the large ship down, but its hull left clear waters behind it and the little boat was manoeuvrable enough to nip safely between any chunks that passed its way.

  Silas walked through the shadows and stepped up on to the ship’s guard rail. He balanced there perfectly, pulled off the stolen robe and let the icy wind rip through the long leather coat he was wearing underneath. He looked down at the churning ocean. The water sliced and foamed beneath him, black and fast. He waited until the two shadows were looking away, then stepped casually off the rail, plunging feet first through the air and down into the freezing ocean.

  The water swamped over his head and the ship’s powerful wake captured him and pulled him down into the depths. He opened his eyes, waited for the current to release him, and remained underwater, reorienting himself in the direction of the little boat’s hull. The weight of his sword pulled downwards and the ocean blurred his vision, but he did not need clear sight for what he was about to do. His sharp ears lifted tiny sounds from the water, listening for the creak of ropes or the echo of the men’s feet shuffling across the boat’s oiled wood. Dull thuds carried towards him, and Silas’s heartbeat throbbed glacially slow as he stretched out his arms and swam silently towards his enemy.

  No breath left his lungs as he reached the boat and hung beneath it, keeping one hand pressed against the wood, feeling for the movements of the people above as vibrations against his fingertips. One man was talking loudly enough for Silas to hear, and he concentrated until the words became clear.

  ‘. . . enough to bring down a walrus, that one. Don’t think I’ll need it, though. Good old-fashioned cunning . . . that’s what’ll finish him in the end. I’ll bet he hasn’t seen the likes of me in his lifetime, no matter how tough they say he is. Hey! You even listening?’

  Silas felt a hard jolt reverberate through the boat. The other passenger yelped but did not answer.

  ‘Ignorant rat! I never shoulda brought ya along. You’re as useless as a pig at a rabbit shoot. Maybe I should throw ya over the side right now and test those weedy little arms of yours. What do you say to that?’

  Silas placed his other hand on the hull and pulled his knees up into a crouch. The hull was slippery, but he held on and moved along it in a silent crawl until he was as far from its occupants as it was possible to be. His grey eyes broke the surface of the water and he pulled himself up, making the boat rock and shift as he climbed aboard. Two pairs of terrified eyes glared at him in the dark.

  ‘It can’t be!’

  The collector reached for his blade, but Silas was faster. He took five steps across the boat, sent the sword spinning into the sea, then wrenched the man’s arm behind his back before throwing him casually over the side.

  ‘Hey! S-stop!’ the man yelled as the boat left him behind. ‘C-come b-b-back!’ Silas ignored him. In water that cold the fool would be dead within minutes, so he turned his attention to the second passenger, who was now cowering beneath a blanket, a useless sword quivering in his hand. Any apprentice who gave up a fight so easily deserved to be run through by his prey.

  Silas drew his own sword and wrenched the blanket away in his fist. A young boy looked up in terror, dropped his weapon and held his grubby hands up to protect his face. Silas glared down at him and dragged him to his feet. This was definitely not an apprentice. He was scrawny and weak; a servant boy brought along to do whatever the collector did not want to do himself.

  The boy looked down at his feet as his master’s pathetic shouts faded into the distance. Silas studied him carefully. The smugglers’ ship was moving away and the little boat was starting to drift off course.

  ‘Can you sail?’ he demanded.

  The boy nodded quickly.

  ‘And do you know how to reach Grale?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Then get to work. Give me any trouble, and I’ll put you over the side just like your master. Understand?’

  Silas released the boy, who set to work immediately, checking a compass that was sewn into his left sleeve and adjusting the sails to carry them steadily across the waves.

  ‘Keep the sail up,’ ordered Silas, wringing the sea water from his clothes and drying his skin as best he could on an old blanket. ‘Follow the ship until you see land, then turn in towards the cliffs. I do not want to be seen.’

  Under the boy’s guidance, the little boat cut swiftly through the waves while Silas stood at the bow, looking out over the ocean to where the distant shores of the Continent would soon be moving into sight. A single lantern slung from the great ship’s bow glinted ahead of them as the boat kept pace. Silas whistled once – a long piercing call – and was answered by a deep cackle from somewhere amongst the huge sails.

  A small shadow dropped towards the sea and a bedraggled crow skimmed the surface of the water and flapped up to land upon Silas’s shoulder. Its feathers were scruffier than usual and a white line of feathers upon its chest was dull and dirty. It did not like being on open water and it huddled close to Silas’s neck, fluffing itself stubbornly against the freezing wind as distant lights gradually sparkled into life on the horizon.

  While many of Albion’s main towns clustered along the central spine of the country, most Continental towns clung to the coast, as if trying to escape from the sprawling forests, mountains and lakes that dominated the territory further inland. Every western town had guards posted along its beaches in case of an attack from Albion, but Grale’s guards were far less particular about whom they allowed in their waters compared to those posted in the larger towns further south. Grale was too far from anything to be a useful landing point for an invading army, and anyone who risked travelling there found nothing but the pungent smell of fish and smoke to welcome them. War or not, there was still silver to be made and Grale was still open for illegal trade.

  At night the town looked shabby and bleak. The glowing lights came from lanterns slung along wires above Grale’s empty streets that hummed like strings of bees whenever the wind blew through them. The rough faces of Grale’s once white buildings had been stripped back by centuries of powerful sea winds and the people who lived in them were as cold as the streets they walked during the few sunlit hours of their darkened days. The town stood humbly at the mercy of the elements and its residents were opportunists, every one of t
hem devious and unpredictable. Silas had endured dealings with them before.

  ‘Pull in the sail,’ he ordered. ‘Now.’

  The boy obeyed. They were too close to the coast to risk being seen, and before Silas could even demand it the boy had a pair of oars at the ready, preparing to row them to the shore himself.

  ‘No,’ said Silas, noticing that the oars were the same thickness as the boy’s scrawny arms. ‘I plan upon arriving sometime before next week. Give them to me. You keep watch for lens lights.’

  Grale had been a traders’ port before the Continent’s war with Albion had begun, and its inhabitants could still be persuaded to barter with smugglers who did not plan to stay too long. The smugglers’ ship’s arrival would already be expected. Special provision would have been made for it at the docks at a designated time, but Silas would be given no such privilege. If just one man saw the boat out there on the waves, the rest of them would know about it in moments and decide what to do about it.

  Silas rowed swiftly. The sooner he was out of sight, the better.

  The land rose into looming cliffs on either side of the wind-lashed town, each mass topped by a stone watchtower. The boy shivered in silence as they crept inshore. Silas was concentrating on avoiding the clutches of rocks that rose stealthily out of the rising waves when something glimmered up ahead, a flicker of light where a light should not have been.

  Halfway up the cliff face, a shadow moved. Silas kept rowing. Another stroke of the oars . . . two . . . three, carrying the boat closer to the shore. The hairs on his neck began to bristle. He looked up – saw nothing – and then a sound high above him left no room for doubt. There was the thinnest rattle, a scrape of metal against stone, and a gentle hiss as something fell out of the sky.

  Silas was already on his feet. He grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled him over the side of the boat. The crow fluttered up into the darkness and Silas hit the water on his back as a weighted net swamped down on to the boat. The ropes caught upon the mast and tented across it like a dead jellyfish. The air filled with arrows. Silas released the boy and plunged underwater.

  More arrows ripped past him, but his attackers were shooting blind. They had expected him to strike out for the shore and were misjudging his position by a good few feet. He treaded water to stay close to the surface and a squeal of fear sounded nearby as the boy slapped the water uselessly with open palms, battling to stay afloat.

  The frequency of the arrow strikes allowed Silas to calculate how many enemies there were as he swam back towards the frightened boy. A black-shafted arrow stabbed into his arm and he pulled it out without flinching, filling the water with a swirl of blood. He grabbed the boy’s ankle and pulled him down under the water. The sea foamed with air as the lad flailed and fought against him, but Silas kept hold of his foot and dragged him along, heading for the rocky shore.

  The arrows stopped. Silas swam faster. Whoever was up there would be making their way down to the waterline. At last his hand came up against a cold mass of cliff shale. To his right was a huge expanse of rock, solid and black; to his left was a path leading up into the town.

  The sea rose and fell against the coast, pulling the two swimmers away and forcing them back again. Above them four shadows ran along the sheer side of the cliff, suspended by ropes that let them swing between two distant ledges with ease. Silas knew that technique. He had seen it before, which meant that those men were not just ordinary guards. They were something far worse.

  ‘Blackwatch,’ he breathed.

  The Blackwatch were elite soldiers of the Continental army, every one of them highly trained in stealth, infiltration and assassination. Silas had encountered many of their agents in the past but he had not expected to see them there. If the Blackwatch were in Grale, his search for Dalliah Grey was going to be more difficult than he had anticipated.

  Soon the men moved out of sight and Silas pulled himself out of the sea, dragging himself up on to the rocks at the base of the cliff. The boy was right behind him, and the moment he slithered up on to solid ground Silas grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his feet.

  ‘They knew,’ he said coldly. ‘They knew I was coming. How did they know?’

  The boy did not answer.

  ‘What is this?’ Silas dragged on a leather cord hung round the boy’s neck and found a glass lens hanging there.

  The boy cried out as loud as his pitiful lungs would let him. ‘Here! He’s here!’

  Silas grabbed him by the neck and loomed over him. ‘You have chosen the wrong side, boy,’ he said. ‘Pray that you never see me again.’

  The lad’s eyes widened in fear, but he was not looking at Silas; he was looking behind him. Silas saw a shadow move in the reflection within the boy’s eye. He watched it carefully, saw the gleam of a blade shining in the moonlight, and dodged smoothly as it stabbed towards his back. The man wielding it stumbled, the boy ran and Silas killed his attacker instantly with a swift snap of the neck.

  Silas reached for the rock face and pulled himself up the cliff, hand over hand, making for a ledge a few feet above him. The rocks were slippery and smooth, but he reached the ledge, got to his feet and drew his sword ready to defend himself. The ledge was part of a curved pathway sliced into the cliff rock and Silas followed it upwards to gain the advantage of higher ground as the rest of the Blackwatch closed in.

  The sea roared against the cliffs as he climbed higher. His crow screeched a warning and he stopped, spotting a bowman posted up ahead, watching the waves. Silas moved along the rock face, staying out of sight, and took the bowman by surprise. The man loosed an arrow, missed his target, and was dead before the arrowhead found its way into the sea.

  More Blackwatch moved in, flanking Silas on both sides. There was nowhere to go. Arrows flew, but Silas was fast on his feet, dodging every one until a second net edged with weighted blades launched towards him from the dark. The net tangled around him, capturing him beneath it. Silas fought to free himself but the rope had a metal core that could not be cut. He stopped struggling as his enemies gathered around him. He waited, choosing his moment.

  ‘Secure him.’

  Silas did not see who had given the order, but he had no intention of letting anyone see it through. Only six men were left, five with bows or swords raised, and one – the leader – standing behind them, silhouetted in the moonlight. Silas waited until they had crept close enough and then stood up quickly, making the net lift with him. The Blackwatch scrambled to secure the edges and Silas lashed the ropes, using the weighting blades as weapons against them. Two men died when their throats were slashed and a third fell to a thrust of Silas’s sword. He wrenched the net up over his shoulders and threw a fourth man into the sea, leaving only the leader and his last man standing close by.

  ‘Silas Dane,’ said the leader. ‘Welcome back.’

  Silas knew that voice, thick with the deep tones of the Continental north. The voice of an enemy. It had been twelve years since he had heard it last.

  ‘Bandermain,’ he said. ‘I should have known.’

  Silas’s fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword, eager to fight, but this was no time for bloody reunions. The Blackwatch never worked alone. For every group Silas had encountered in the past another had always been posted nearby, and he did not have time to fight them all. He had been betrayed by a child, and the enemy had found him before he had even set foot on land. His arrival on the Continent was not going to plan.

  The last Blackwatch agent raised his bow ready to let loose an arrow. Silas looked out across the ocean, and as the bow snapped he bolted straight for the edge of the path. The arrow snicked behind him, dangerously close to his neck. The bowman quickly readied another and Silas’s feet left the ground as he leapt from the cliff, launching himself far out into the air. The north wind streamed against his face and the sea beneath him bristled with rocks as he brought his arms up into a deathly dive and plummeted down into the waves.

  He plunged hard i
nto the shallow water, buffeted by the tide, which sent him slamming back into the cliff. The rocks sliced his arms and the force of the ocean raked his body hard against the coast.

  The remaining Blackwatch looked down from the path, not daring to follow their target into the sea, but there was no sign of life in the water.

  Silas was gone.

  2

  Judgement

  Kate Winters sat at the back of the empty meeting hall, staring at a pair of slim wooden boxes that stood side by side on a small semicircular stage at the front of the room. One was painted white, the other black, with a wire basket hooked on to either side, each box standing half as tall as a man.