Deathcaster (Shattered Realms)

by Cinda Williams Chima

That was one of the reasons he’d promised to help Lyssa Gray defend her embattled realm from its enemies. He preferred to do it with an Ardenine army and the backing of the Ardenine king, but he’d do it on his own if need be. He hoped he could find his family, and the families of the other thanes, and send them home. That would fulfill his last great promise to the empire he had served for so long.

  If he and Alyssa succeeded in preserving the queendom, he’d hoped he might one day live in the north and serve the Gray Wolf line in whatever way he could contribute. In whatever way she would allow.

  But that would, of course, mean that he would likely be leaving his family behind.

  Hal’s father had promised that once he captured Ardenscourt, he would be free to take an army north. So he laid the groundwork by meeting with his officers and enlisted men. Soldiers rarely get choices, but Hal made an exception in this case. He made plans for military governance of captured territory and asked for volunteers to come north with him. Again, there were so many that he had to turn some away. He assembled the ordnance and supplies they would need for the march north.

  In just a few days’ time, word came that the advance scouts of the rebel army had come into sight north of the city. Hal raised the Matelon spreading oak banner over the ramparts and waited.

  Eventually, a handful of horsemen spurred toward the gates, the soldier in the lead waving the flag of parley. Every rebel thane was there, and each brought a contingent of horsemen carrying the banners of their houses—Tourant wearing the sword and crown, Pascal and Rolande DeLacroix in the shield and cross, his father and Jan Rives for the spreading oak, and Rafe Heresford with the tower on the water.

  The horsemen halted a short distance away as the thanes continued forward. They didn’t come too close to the walls, though. They were far too familiar with Ardenine tactics to take that risk until they knew who was in charge.

  Hal, Robert, and Mercier rode out to meet them, backed by a dozen of his Ardenine regulars, the spreading oak plastered over their red hawk signia. The eyes of the rebel thanes grew wider as they recognized the Matelon brothers.

  Sergeant Rives looked at Hal, then up at the Matelon flag flying over the walls, back to Hal. “Little H— General, sir, ah—what the hell is going on?”

  “A very good question,” Lord DeLacroix said. “What is going on? Have you betrayed us? Are you fighting for Jarat after all?”

  “The battle is over, and we have won the city,” Hal said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “Who is we?” Tourant demanded.

  “Me and my army,” Hal said, gesturing back toward the walls. A roar went up from the battlements—“Matelon!”

  “I thought you were marching north!” Rolande protested. “What are you doing here?”

  “We saw an opportunity,” Hal said, “and we took it.”

  “But—you had a salvo at best!” Heresford said, a note of admiration in his voice.

  “It’s not the size of your army,” Mercier said, “it’s the skill of the commander.”

  Again a shout went up from the walls.

  “It looks like there’s more than a salvo on the walls,” Heresford said drily. “Where did the rest come from?”

  “What’s the matter, gentlemen?” Lord Matelon said, his voice ringing out over the delegation. “Are we moving too fast for you?”

  As Hal looked over the posse of thanes, his father was the only one smiling, his face alight with triumph.

  “What are you waiting for, General?” DeLacroix said. “Open the gates.” He turned to wave his platoon forward.

  “To be honest, Lord DeLacroix, we’ve no need of more soldiers inside the walls,” Hal said. “Things are well in hand, and I want to minimize contact between our militias and civilians.”

  “You’re not going to let us in?” Tourant practically shouted.

  “You are welcome to come in,” Hal said, “but leave your armies outside.”

  This was met by a rumble of discontent.

  “You expect us to enter the city without protection?” DeLacroix drew himself up. “You expect us to put ourselves at your mercy? What’s to prevent you Matelons from taking advantage of this situation to eliminate your rivals?”

  Hal put on a perplexed expression. “I thought we were allies,” he said, “not rivals.”

  “So said King Gerard as he plucked us, one by one,” Tourant snarled.

  This was the last thing Hal wanted. He’d never meant for it to turn into a power struggle among the thanes, though he’d known that was a possibility, if not a probability.

  “We need to convene a council of thanes,” Hal said, “to discuss our next move. I assume that, whatever happens in the north, Jarat and his army will eventually come back. Perhaps sooner rather than later, once word reaches him about the fall of the city. We need to plan for that, as well as to prepare to—”

  He broke off as a flicker of movement amid the mixed militias caught Hal’s eye. A brace of bowmen stood tall in their stirrups, raised their crossbows, and—

  “Look out, Hal!” Robert spurred his horse into Hal’s stallion, causing him to lurch sideways so that the bolts hissed past Hal, though one ripped through Robert’s shoulder before it pinged against the city walls.

  Mercier urged his horse forward so that he stood between Hal and Robert and the thanes. Above, Hal heard the rattle of wood against stone as the bowmen on the walls nocked arrows and raised their weapons.

  “Robert!” Hal cried, gripping his brother’s horse’s bridle and leaning down to look into his brother’s face.

  Robert managed to keep his seat, though his face was deathly pale. “I’m all right,” he said. “Just—just get me inside so I don’t fall off my horse in front of everyone.”

  Some of Hal’s regulars hustled Robert through the city gates and out of danger. Hal’s father and his bannermen surged forward and formed a prickly wall between the militias and Hal’s party. The other thanes and their bannermen dissolved into a melee as they put more distance between themselves and Hal’s archers.

  Hal thrust his fist into the air. “Hold!” he shouted to his men. Then turned toward the thanes, struggling to control the rage welling up inside him. “This is exactly why we don’t need more soldiers inside the walls,” he said. “I am, however, assembling an army to march north to free our families and fight the empress in the east. If any of you are willing to contribute to that effort, send word to me. If you are willing to come into the city under a flag of truce for a thane council, you are welcome. If not, I suggest you take your men and horses back to the fields you’ve been so worried about so that we can look forward to a good harvest this season.”

  The thanes looked at each other, their hands on their swords. Their horses snorted and stamped and banners snapped in the wind. But nobody moved. The thanes who had been so reluctant to fight were equally reluctant to leave the spoils in the hands of those who had done the bloody work.

  “But—in the absence of a council, who’s in charge, then?” Tourant demanded.

  “I suppose I am,” Hal said.

  40

  HIDDEN BAY

  Evan woke to a bad case of the all-over itches. Also, the smell of grilled fish.

  He opened his eyes, blinked once, twice, until his eyes focused.

  He was propped against the winch housing at midships. They were at anchor in quiet waters, the stars a glittering vault overhead, the dark shapes of cliffs looming all around. Hearing quiet conversation, he looked forward, to where Prince Adrian and Sasha were sitting, their backs against the collar of the mainmast, a feast spread before them.

  “Well,” he said loudly, “it seems we are not drowned after all.”

  They stopped talking abruptly, their heads turning his way.

  Evan breathed in sharply. “And I smell something worth waking up for.” He slid his hips backward until he was sitting up, then fingered the lump on the back of his head. His hair was sticky with blood, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped
.

  “I know I’m not in heaven because I have the mother of all headaches.”

  “You know you’re not in heaven because they’d never let you in,” Sasha said, whacking a large fish into pieces with her knife.

  “And I itch all over.”

  “That’s the residue of the nerve poison,” Adrian said. “A parting gift from your shiplords. Be glad that you missed the worst of it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Evan said.

  When he groped for his amulet, the healer said, “I took your amulet back. I needed it to—”

  “I’m sure you put it to good use.”

  “Are you hungry?” The healer gestured toward the food spread out on the decking.

  “Ravenous.” Evan carefully stood, gripping the mizzen shroud for balance, then made his way forward like a drylander on his first blue-water crossing.

  They were in a small cove. Evan could hear the slap of waves against stone along the shore.

  “Where are we?” he asked, sitting next to Sasha and pouring himself some cider.

  “Somewhere between Tarvos and Deepwater Court,” Sasha said, pushing a platter toward him.

  “How did we get here?” Strangward looked from the healer to Sasha, pretending bafflement but unable to keep a straight face.

  “We sailed here,” Adrian said. He and Sasha clinked their cups, looking smug.

  Strangward grinned and stretched, put his cup down, and carefully laced his fingers behind his head. “My work is done,” he said. “Carry on.”

  “You carry on, Strangward,” Sasha said, licking her fingers.

  “Call me Evan,” Evan said. Then he added, “Captain Evan.”

  “We’ve been sailing all night, Captain Evan. Then we netted the fish and cooked it. Now we’re eating, and you’re on watch.”

  Evan laughed and helped himself to fish. “I hereby proclaim you able-bodied seamen,” he said. “Adrian and—”

  “Call me Ash,” the healer said.

  “Ash?”

  “Stands for ‘Adrian sul-Han,’” the healer said.

  “Call me Sasha,” Talbot said, “terror of the high seas.”

  Evan got the impression that they’d been at the cider for a while.

  “How come your maps are different from the ones we brought from home?” Sasha said. “None of this . . .” She raised her hands, gesturing at the small bay around them. “None of this is on our maps.”

  “Mine are smugglers’ maps,” Evan said. “They offer a little more detail. I started out as a smuggler, sailing from Tarvos.” He fell silent, ambushed by memory of all he’d lost since then. It was especially poignant to be aboard Destiny once again. That had been such a hopeful time—making plans with Destin for a future that now seemed out of reach.

  “So now you’ve lost your home port,” Ash said, reading his mood. “I’m sorry.”

  Evan half-shrugged. “Maybe. Kel and Maslin seemed determined to stand and fight. We’ll see how it plays out.”

  “What do you think the shiplords will do?” Sasha said.

  “Right now I’d rather be me than them. Celestine is not a forgiving sort of person. It’s soothing to know that their betrayal of me may cost them their lives or their freedom.”

  “Still,” Ash said.

  “It just means that it’s more important than ever that we succeed,” Evan said. “Tomorrow, we’ll sail for the Northern Islands.”

  The next morning, they left the hidden bay behind and continued on north, hugging the shore, hoping they would pass for a coastal smuggler and not attract the attention of Celestine’s shiplords. In particular, Evan did not want to meet Celestine on her way south to Tarvos to claim her prize. He ran Endruvian colors up the mast, explaining to the others that Endru was so impoverished that its vessels never made an attractive target for a pirate.

  They sailed past Deepwater Court without stopping. Evan warned Ash and Sasha that the port was a routine stopping-off point for Celestine’s captains, who preferred to come and go from that northernmost port than to brave the Boil with a heavy cargo. Besides, they’d been delayed too long in Tarvos. His wetland crew grew edgier as the days went by.

  Especially Sasha. The closer they came to the narrows between the mainland and the Northern Islands, the more restless she became. Evan wondered if it was just worry about the crossing, though she hadn’t shown any particular nervousness about sailing before.

  Maybe “terror of the high seas” had a totally different meaning.

  Ash noticed it, too. “What’s the matter?” the healer said finally.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said. “It seems—it’s almost like we’re getting farther away from Lyss rather than closer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. But I feel like we’re going in the wrong direction.”

  “What’s the right direction, then?” Evan said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice nearly inaudible.

  Ash put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re not just losing confidence because you’re the first bound captain of the Gray Wolf line who wasn’t a Byrne?”

  “That’s the thing,” Sasha said, with a bit of her usual spirit. “I am confident. I’m confident that we’re going in the wrong direction.”

  “We’ve come this far,” Evan said. “We can’t turn back now. If we don’t find your queen at Celesgarde, we’ll go wherever you suggest. But in order to do that, we’ll need a seaworthy ship. So I want to go over some strategies for getting through the stormwall without losing our rigging.”

  Evan knew from the charts he’d collected over the years that as soon as they rounded the head north of Deepwater Court, the westerly currents around the storm head of Carthis would drive them straight into the Boil. However, he hoped to control their entrance into the storms by leaving only the mizzen deployed and driving air into it in order to slow and control their forward movement.

  He wished he could practice this strategy with his novice crew, but he had no idea how to predict the conditions inside the storm and account for them. Riding out a storm was one thing—he’d encountered typhoons several times around the Southern Islands. In this case, they couldn’t wait for better weather. They had to deal with the weather they had.

  All he could do was practice both hand signals and verbal orders in the hopes that they could change the running rigging on the fly. A dozen times he second-guessed his decision to sail with these wetlanders instead of his trusted crew.

  No, he thought. This is the crew I’ll need on land.

  Based on Evan’s reading of the tides, they planned the crossing for just after dawn the day they rounded the head. Evan handled the tiller, and Sasha and Ash served as sail crew to port and starboard. Even in the semidarkness, Evan could see the rips that signified the rogue currents beyond the headland.

  “We’re in for it,” Evan said. “Make sure everything movable is lashed to the deck, hatches battened, lines stowed. We’re going to have a following sea—at first, anyway. We’ll be sailing close-hauled, but I’m guessing it’ll be a beam reach once we’re into it.”

  The wind freshened as they came about, into the wind, where, he hoped, he could balance the forces of air and water. Destiny shivered as the currents struck her, then all but stood still in the water, her masts creaking and leaning rakish against the night sky as wind and water fought for dominance.

  All at once, she surged forward as the mainsail ripped free and the seas caught her. Evan had to cling to the binnacle to remain upright. Ahead, the stormwall was a dark blot against the brightening sky.

  Evan struggled to tease the winds around, but his efforts seemed to have little if any effect. This was weather birthed in magic—not the kind he was accustomed to managing. He gripped the hammer-and-tongs amulet and wrung power from it. It seemed to take everything he had to keep his ship from shaking into splinters.

  He shouted out his orders, hoping his crew of two re
membered some of what they’d been practicing.

  “Drop the mizzen. We’re going to go in on the jib only.”

  Ash and Sasha scrambled to comply. As they struck the stormwall, the crossbeam winds drove rain and ice and salt water into Evan’s face. All at once, they were running before the wind, caught in the funneling weather that surrounded the island. But they couldn’t just circle the Sisters, they had to cross through.

  Evan eased the rudder over, and they turned until they were sailing on a broad reach. Though the jib was closely reefed, he still heard lines snapping overhead. Their little ship heeled over until seawater slopped over the gunwales. Once again, Evan pushed back against the gale with all his might, nearly wringing his amulet dry, and Destiny righted herself enough to avoid foundering.

  The tiller went loose in his hand, and he knew that the rudder had broken free. The sails were all he had left to control her. Racing forward, he pushed air into the jib in a desperate effort to keep their momentum so as to push through the inner stormwall. And then, all at once, the countervailing winds were gone. Under pressure of Evan’s weathermaking, the mizzen gave way with a heart-rending crack and fell forward, all but taking out the mainmast as well. By now, the deck was awash with rigging and sails.

  “Ash? Sasha? Are you all right?”

  His voice seemed to echo in the sudden silence as the ketch slid forward on calm seas. He looked over his shoulder, all the way to the bloody orb of the sun as it cleared the horizon.

  The stormwall was gone.

  41

  PORT IN A STORM

  Jenna and the dragons continued to search the islands but found no sign of Celestine or Lyss.

  You waited too long. That message resonated in her head, driving regret deep into her bones. You’re too late.

  For weeks, Celestine had been within reach, and Jenna had spent her time hiding out on the mountaintop, using Cas’s damaged wing and the raising of the hatchlings as an excuse for inaction.

  Jenna had been fighting her personal war of vengeance since she was eleven years old. She was skilled with fire and explosives. She did not need the help of her dragon brethren to burn the nests of her enemies. The next time, she would not hesitate. The next time, she would not fail.