Shadow and Flame

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Mick and Piran were at the front of the mob that broke Velant open the night magic died,” Verran recounted. “They went in after Dawe.” He glanced toward Connor. “Of course, that was before we found out Mick was a bleedin’ lord.” He was quiet for a moment, staring up at the ruined prison before he shook himself out of his thoughts.

  “Now that we’re here, do you have any idea how to get in touch with Grimur?” Verran asked Connor. “I’d just as soon not find him like we did the last time.” Grimur had rescued them from an avalanche. Just thinking about it made Connor shiver.

  “Nidhud said he could find him,” Connor replied. “We can’t do anything until after sundown anyhow.”

  Verran grinned. “I don’t know about you, but I intend to see if Engraham’s found a way to make as good bitterbeer at the Crooked House as he did when he ran the Rooster and Pig.”

  “We seem to have attracted attention,” Zaryae observed. As the ship’s masts came into view, people began to gather on the long-unused docks, eager for news. By the time the Nomad approached the wharves, a crowd was assembled. Just at the edge of the harbor, the Nomad dropped anchor.

  “We’ll wait for you here,” Trad said from behind them.

  Verran looked at the man as if he were mad. “What? You’re expecting us to swim in?”

  Trad shook his head. “We’ll lower a rowboat for you. We don’t know what the Cataclysm did to the depth of the berths, and we’d rather not run aground to find out. Can’t imagine there’ve been any ships through here since the Great Fire.”

  “The Nomad got in and out of the bay just fine the last time,” Connor said. “But we’ll check and confirm the depths. We need to off-load the supplies.” If other ships had also found their way to Edgeland, they had not remained in the bay, nor had they returned to Castle Reach.

  “What about Nidhud?” Zaryae asked.

  “He left word that he would see to his own way,” Trad replied with a shrug. “I’m not going to argue with a biter.”

  Connor regarded Trad with suspicion. “How do we know you won’t leave us here?”

  Trad scowled at Connor. “Much as I might like that idea, Captain Whitney has given his word to Aldwin Carlisle to bring you back again safely, and he intends to keep his promise.”

  Not to mention the fact that his talishte lord would know from the kruvgaldur if he didn’t, Connor thought.

  “I wonder how Engraham and his mother got on at the Homestead,” Verran mused. “We told them they could live there while we were gone, and if none of us came back to reclaim it in three years, it was theirs.”

  “Thinking of moving back?” Borya asked with a grin.

  Verran fixed him with a glare. “Move back to the arctic, when I can sponge off Lord Mick in a right proper manor house and all, at a place that doesn’t freeze my nuts off or stay dark half the year? And all I have to do to keep that soft position is risk my sorry ass on occasion and go out spying or sail to the bloody top of the world.”

  “Is that a no?” Desya asked.

  Verran strained to see the faces of the crowd gathered on the wharves, and his bantering mood evaporated. “I’m not planning to move back,” he murmured, “but I never thought that it would feel like home to come here again.”

  Throughout the final week of the voyage, Verran had grown more introspective, preferring to sit alone in a corner of their quarters playing his pennywhistle. Borya and Desya were seldom down below except to sleep, while Connor and Zaryae passed the time playing cards or telling tales, since Connor felt the crew’s discomfort keenly whenever he did venture on deck. Still, it seemed that returning to Edgeland weighed heavily on the minstrel’s mind.

  “If Engraham’s selling the bitterbeer he used to make at the Rooster and Pig, he’s probably the richest man in Edgeland,” Connor said. “Gods and Goddess! I haven’t had a glass of bitterbeer since the Great Fire, and I thought that I never would again.”

  Verran mustered a pained smile and slapped Connor on the shoulder. “Then, my friend, you’re in luck. You’ve just made the longest trek for a beer in history.”

  The crowd at the wharves had swelled to dozens by the time Trad let the rowboat down into the water, and their shouts when they saw that a boat was coming ashore brought more colonists running. Connor and the others were still too far away to make out individual faces, but from their stances he could see that the townspeople were wary of newcomers.

  “Let me do the talking,” Verran said as they rowed to one of the docks that was still standing.

  “You didn’t run out on any gambling debts that you forgot to mention to us, did you, Verran, old buddy?” Borya asked, and Connor heard an edge of nervousness in his voice.

  “That would be Piran,” Verran replied.

  They rowed the boat close to the dock and threw the line ashore. Connor saw the colonists craning their necks to get a look at them. Verran made sure he was the first to step out of the boat and onto the dock.

  “Hello, everyone,” Verran said in a big voice. “Did ya miss me?”

  “Oh, Sweet Esthrane, it’s Verran Danning!” a woman said loudly from the rear of the group. “Gods save us! Donderath’s started sending convicts again!”

  Connor and the others could not resist a guffaw as Verran’s cheeks colored. “We are not convicts!” Verran said firmly. “We’re here on orders from Lord Blaine McFadden.”

  “You mean Mick McFadden?” a man yelled.

  “He’s a bleedin’ warlord now, so watch your mouth,” Verran snapped. “Anyhow, he sent us up here to take care of some business. Hush-hush, very secret. Good to see all of you. Is the Crooked House still open?”

  “Aye, and the beer’s better than when you were here,” another man said, moving forward to clap Verran on the shoulder. “Welcome back. Staying long?”

  Verran grinned. “Not too long—but I brought plenty of supplies, and some news you’re not going to believe!”

  The crowd followed them to the Crooked House Tavern, not far from the docks. On the way, Connor could see where fire and storms had scarred some of the log structures nearest the wharves. A few buildings looked disused, and he realized that without trade from the main kingdom and sailors making regular dockings, the town would need only the services they themselves could use and support.

  As word spread, the colonists gathered around the travelers, shaking Verran’s hand and slapping him on the shoulder or embracing him as if to assure themselves that he was real. Verran knew them all by name, though Connor quickly lost track in the press of strange faces. Zaryae slipped her arm through his to avoid being separated in the crush. Borya and Desya looked dazed and uncomfortable from all the attention, not in the least because their magic-changed eyes drew gasps and whispered comments.

  Verran entered the Crooked House at the head of a parade of followers. Connor, Zaryae, and the twins stayed close behind, and the onlookers from the docks pressed inside after them, eager for news.

  A man in his middle years with a bald head and a patch over one eye looked at Verran as if he were seeing a ghost. “By the stars! Verran Danning?”

  “Hello, Ifrem! Still serving up Adger’s rotgut, or have you moved up to a better grade of swill since I’ve been gone?”

  A lanky man with brown hair came out of the back just then. “The mutton’s done roasting if you—” he said, and stopped in his tracks, jaw open.

  “Torven take my soul,” Engraham gasped. “Verran.” He looked to Connor, and his eyes widened further. “And Bevin Connor. How in the name of Esthrane—”

  “It’s a long story, one that I’ll be glad to share over a pint or two of bitterbeer,” Verran said with a wide grin. “And keep the beer coming. You won’t believe what our very own Mick McFadden and the rest of my mates have been up to.”

  Gauging by the crowd that jammed into the Crooked House, their unexpected arrival was possibly the most interesting thing to happen in Edgeland since the Great Fire, Connor thought. Ifrem and Engraham, now co-owne
rs of the pub, declared that Verran and his friends could have their drinks on the house, but the others had bloody better well pay their own tab. That settled, even the tavern owners strained to hear the stories in between filling a steady stream of empty tankards.

  “Here’s the good news!” Verran said as he climbed onto a chair so that everyone in the Crooked House could see him. “We brought a boat full of supplies—food, tools, seeds, and more. And we expect to be able to start up trade again between Donderath and Edgeland soon, so you can send us more herring!” A cheer went up, giving Connor to suspect the colonists were well and truly tired of eating the briny fish themselves.

  “What’s the bad news?”

  Verran let out a long breath. “That’s a long story. And I’ll tell you the whole thing in just a minute. But here’s what’s really important. We had to dodge pirates on the way out of Castle Reach, and we fought some off on the way here. They may be desperate enough to come to Edgeland. If they don’t, it’ll be someone else. So the harbor defenses need to be in place.”

  He paused. “And right now, there’s a war for control of Donderath. Mick McFadden is a warlord now, and he’s done a lot to pull the kingdom out of the ashes. But we’re up against a big enemy. So if about four hundred of you want to go back to Donderath to fight, we’ve got room on the Nomad to take you, and Mick would be much obliged.”

  At that, the room erupted into a buzz of conversation, which did not subside until Borya let out an earsplitting whistle. Verran grinned. “And now, if someone would be kind enough to pass me a fresh bitterbeer, I’ll start at the beginning and tell you a tale the likes of which you’ve never heard—and it’s all true!”

  If Connor had any doubts about Verran’s newly enhanced magical talent to sway a crowd, he need not have worried, since Verran kept the crowd hanging on every word. Here and there, Verran looked to one of his companions to verify his assertions or to add a bit to the story, but it was clear that Verran was relishing being the center of attention with an audience for his performance.

  “So Mick really was a lord?” a pudgy man at one of the tables said. “And he and Kestel got married? Well, whaddya know?”

  “Anybody kill Piran Rowse yet?” someone yelled from the back, and a number of people chuckled.

  “Not yet,” Verran responded, “although many have tried!”

  “Tell him he still owes me two silvers!” the man replied. “With interest!”

  “How about Dawe Killick? Didn’t he go back with you, too?” a blond woman near the front asked.

  “He was about to get married when we left Donderath—to Mick’s younger sister,” Verran said. “Dawe half runs Mick’s manor house while Mick and Piran and Kestel are out fighting battles. Quite the country gentleman he’s become!”

  “What of Castle Reach?” Engraham asked, bringing them all a new round of drinks. “And the Rooster and Pig. Does it stand?”

  Verran nodded. “It’s still standing, but worse for the wear. And from what I’ve heard, Adger’s rotgut beats what the new owner has been serving.”

  It took the better part of two candlemarks before Verran and Connor had answered the crowd’s questions about the homeland they left behind. Connor had to admit that despite the hardship of brewing bitterbeer in an arctic outpost, Engraham’s concoction tasted much more like what he had served before the Great Fire than anything Connor had drunk since then.

  As the evening wore on, Verran had the chance to ask his own questions. Connor was certain that Verran had engineered the timing, since by now the crowd was drunk and in a fine mood. “What of Adger?” Verran asked. “And Fiella?” Connor searched his memory, recalling that Adger had been Bay-town’s whiskey distiller, and Fiella was the head of the whores’ guild.

  “Adger’s heart gave out on him last winter,” one of the men near the bar replied. “Fiella and her girls are still making money, when there’s any coin to be had.”

  “Peters and Mama Jean?” Verran questioned. “Wills Jothra and Annalise?” They were names Connor remembered his friends mentioning on more than one occasion, though he could not place them beyond recalling that they had been merchants.

  “Wills Jothra married a girl whose daddy runs one of the herring boats,” one person volunteered. “Peters and Mama Jean are no different from when you left. Annalise had a bad spell of fever during the last Long Dark, but she’s better now.”

  “How was it here, when the magic came back?” Verran asked. “Did anything unusual happen?”

  That was the crux of what Verran wanted to know, Connor thought. All the rest had been warming up the crowd. He wants to see if there’s anything strange going on, before we go out on the ice looking for a talishte mage who doesn’t usually want to be found.

  “It got bad here, when the magic didn’t work.” All heads turned to Ifrem, who stood behind the bar, pausing from filling tankards. “Folks died. We might have gotten by better if there had still been ships from Donderath, but without them and with no magic… it was worse than usual.”

  Connor did not need to stretch his imagination to envision what had happened. Little flickers of small magic were used so frequently before the Cataclysm to mend structures, heal people and animals, preserve food, attract fish or game, patch boats, or do a hundred other useful things. After the Great Fire, Donderath had felt the hardship of having to relearn how to do those tasks without magic, and the toll had been great. He could only guess how much worse it was in Edgeland’s brutal winter, without additional supplies, food, or medicine.

  “Still haven’t gotten rid of the damn magicked beasts that came with the storms,” one of the women said. “Between the wild-magic storms and the run of bad weather we had this spring, it’s a wonder any of us survived.”

  Connor and his friends knew the real reason the spring weather had been especially bad, and Verran shared that information with the colonists. Before the Meroven War, King Merrill’s mages had used their magic to alter the weather, for battle and shipping and convenience. When control of magic faltered, nature seized the chance to readjust, and the shift was harsh. Castle Reach had lost many buildings to the high winds, storm surges, and huge waves. Connor did not want to imagine how much worse the storms could have been in Edgeland.

  “Tell me about the beasts that came when the magic was wild,” Verran said, and took another sip of his bitterbeer. He looked up at a taxidermied trophy above the fireplace. The mounted head was as large as a horse’s, with a rack of antlers that were flat and knife-edge sharp. The lips were drawn back to reveal teeth as fierce as those of any lynx or wolf.

  “We call those capreols,” a stocky man in the back spoke up. “They look like that, and they eat meat. Run as fast as a horse, too, with those sharp teeth chomping right behind you. Take a man’s head off in one bite, they can, if you’re unlucky enough to get caught.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Verran said. “I’m not drunk enough to believe that.”

  “Believe him,” Engraham said. “I was in one of the hunting parties that went out to track down a capreol that had killed a farmer and some livestock not too far from your old homestead. We had quite a fight on our hands to bring it down, and even then, one of the men lost an arm.”

  “Nice place you brought us to, Verran,” Borya said. “If the weather doesn’t kill you, the wildlife will.”

  Verran silenced him with an impolite hand gesture. “Not much different from some of the things that chased us across Donderath, out of the wild-magic storms.”

  “Sounds like these things have even bigger teeth,” Desya said. He pointed to another stuffed and mounted trophy, one that looked like a cross between a bear and a wolf.

  “Those are howlers,” a woman near the fireplace replied. “They hunt in packs like wolves, and they’re smart, too. Made it hard to go out trapping on the far ice. I’ll tell you, it’s a load on your mind, between worrying about those things eating you, or having them eat what you trapped.”

  “At least you s
ee the howlers coming. Most times, no one sees those damn tunnelers until it’s too late,” a bearded man spoke up from the other side of the bar. “About the size of a big dog they are, with bristly fur and very sharp teeth. They tunnel under the deep snow, and when the snow on top collapses, they rip their prey apart with their long claws.” He shivered. “Saw a man die like that. Won’t ever forget it.”

  “Have you had any luck at killing the monsters off since the wild magic went away?” Connor asked.

  The hunter shrugged. “We do our best, but the ice goes on for a long way, and they’ve got plenty of places to hide. Usually, it’s the hunters who get in a shot when they’re out on their trap lines. Most of them go in groups now, because of the monsters. Sometimes one of those things comes in too close to the farms, and then we get up a posse and go after it.”

  “Don’t know how the wild magic did it, but the monsters it gave us took to the snow like they were made for it,” Engraham added.

  “Not all of them,” the woman who described the howlers said. “Don’t you recall those fish things with all the teeth and tentacles that showed up during that really bad magic squall? Haven’t found a one of them that wasn’t frozen solid.”

  “Except for the one beyond the bay that got a herring boat,” the bearded man corrected.

  “Still, there’s no telling where the wild magic got those things,” the woman continued. “But the point is, they got dropped here, as if we needed something to make it even harder to survive.”

  The crowd showed no sign of being ready to move on as the night grew late. By the time Ifrem rang the bell for last call, it seemed to Connor that Verran had news about every colonist in Edgeland, and had promised to convey messages for at least a dozen to family back in Donderath.