Jeje waited for him to appear. She was silent, grim. She’d refused to say farewell to Tau, because it felt too final. Now she regretted her decision with a sick conviction that they would never see one another again.
Inda went straight below. Jeje could feel in the minute jerks and thumps of the deck under her bare feet Inda’s movements as he set up the mirror chart where the old chart used to be.
On deck, Nugget stood poised at the jib, her silhouette stark against Cocodu’s enormous, faintly glowing mainsail as Vixen and Death drew apart. Her head gradually turned as Cocodu dwindled behind Death.
Jeje did not have to reach for her glass to know that Mutt was over there on the captain’s deck trying to make out Vixen—and Nugget. Too many farewells, or what should have been farewells. We didn’t have that problem in the old days, she thought, and then cursed as she swung the tiller.
The Vixen headed straight out to sea. When Inda could not find any running lights anywhere on the horizon, he came up on deck. He and Jeje squinted up at the stars, and Jeje brought her chin down in a short nod: there were enough to guide by, along with the distant rough line of the Chwahir coast far to the south. They began beating up into the wind.
“We’ll be riding in on Barend’s flank,” Inda said. “Let Loos take the tiller. I want you to watch this chart. See how the dots move. You’d better get a sense of it, because you’ll be guiding us when things get hot.”
“Right,” said Jeje. Something to do. Then I won’t be thinking of all the things I didn’t do. “Right.” She poked Inda in the chest. “Your eyes are redder than a couple of berries. Go get some sleep.”
“I’m not—” He was taken by a sudden, violent yawn, then grinned. “Well. Maybe we should all swap off, watch by watch.”
“Great idea,” Jeje said. “You first.”
Inda shucked his clothes and crawled into her bunk, kicking aside the quilt and pulling the sheet over him. The air was too warm for quilts. He was ordering in his mind the things to do during the midnight watch when he fell straight down into sleep.
And did not waken until light teased his eyelids, reddish sparkles from sun striking the waves outside the stern window.
Sun. He opened his eyes. Jeje crouched over the map almost in arm’s reach. Her profile was absorbed—narrow jaw, dark eyes under heavy, expressive brows. Inda lay looking up at her. Strange, how Jeje had seemed unchanged since they were ship rats aboard the Ryala Pim, but he could see tiny shadows at the corners of her eyes, her mouth. Not yet lines, but they would be. What was she, almost thirty?
She’d ripped the sleeves off her old shirt, which was soft from years of washings. Jeje was the only person Inda knew who had less interest in clothing than he. Her brown arms were bare, the skin smooth, muscles sleek as a mountain cat’s. A rush of emotion warmed him, partly erotic as he lay in this bunk with Jeje’s scent on sheets and pillow. But far stronger was the hollowing of tenderness, intensified by his heartbeat—steady, just a little fast—in his ears. A fight was nigh.
Jeje looked up, her dark brows quirked.
“You were supposed to wake me,” Inda said.
“You were snoring away so nice, it seemed a shame to yank you out of your dreams.”
“Jeje, you need to be rested as much as I do.”
“What are you going to do, kick me out of the battle?” she retorted. “I’ve been in more ship fights than you, Inda. I know when I need rest, which isn’t now.” She grinned and pointed. “Or you got something else in mind?”
Inda’s face heated. “That’s me in the morning.”
Jeje chuckled. “I love the way men are made.”
Inda was too embarrassed to say how much he liked the way women were made, so he busied himself disentangling from the bedding.
Jeje laughed again, more softly. She’d never had any attraction to Inda. He’d always been too young, and by the time he’d finally reached the age of awareness, he’d slid firmly into “brother” in her mind. But loyalty was strong, and so she said, “If you want to, what with the battle, well, here I am.”
He blushed even more. “Naw.”
“Then finish getting those clothes on and come look at this thing, there’s something odd going on. The lights smear, kind of.”
“Are we running out of magic?” Inda fastened the shank on his trousers and thrashed impatiently into his shirt, ignoring the smell of stale sweat as he bent his attention to the mirror chart.
A small spur of relief eased the vise gripping the back of his neck when he saw that the magic was as bright as ever. But when Jeje made the wave twice, there was an odd effect.
“Do it again.”
A blurring of the dots radiated out in a complication of rings, a little like the intersecting of raindrops early on in a storm, when the smooth face of water was patterned by ringing ripples.
“They’re tinging often,” Inda said, as the raindrop pattern shifted into meaning. “Maybe ten times each turn of the glass. They must do that just before battle.”
Jeje brought her chin down, a decisive gesture. “There’s something else I’m seeing.”
“What?”
She narrowed her eyes, chewed her lower lip, then said, “I’m not going to yap. Not yet. Because I’m not sure I’m right. But I’m going to keep watching. Why don’t you go up on deck and do whatever you were going to do? Loos spotted the Delfs, by the by, just after dawn. They should even be hull up by now.”
Inda grabbed the dipper from the ensorcelled bucket and took a drink, mostly so the water would clean the inside of his mouth. As he left the tiny cabin Viac Fisher said, “Inda. Eat this,” and thrust a biscuit stuffed with greens and cheese into his hand.
Inda gulped down the food as he climbed up the hatch to the deck. He’d do some warm-ups soon as he scanned sea, sky, wind.
“Inda look at that!” Nugget held out her spyglass. “ ’bout four points off.” She kicked up a foot just larboard of the direction of the bow and wiggled her toes.
She was at the mainsail, so Inda went forward, laughing at the ugly old moss-splotched, patched sail that Jeje had saved from the old days. Nets and barrels sat about on the deck—they’d taken on the guise of a worn old fisher.
Inda propped his bare foot on the rail and leaned his elbow on his knee to steady his hand. When the glass encountered Ramis’ Knife, he gasped.
It was an extraordinarily beautiful ship—a three master rigged for square sail. Black sails, a pure black that seemed to swallow light, but Inda only glanced at them. Drawing his attention was the prow, seen before as the anonymous upward curve of Venn drakans. But now the ship wore its dragon-head prow. Even at this distance, the carving was fantastic, as if a dragon had flown out of ancient days and frozen there, horns extended at an aggressive angle from a lean open-jawed skull.
“Where’d he get that dragon head? I don’t remember that,” Inda said.
Loos sidled a look around—as if Venn spies had sneaked through the water and were listening in. “My granddam used to tell us our ancestors put the heads on before a big battle. Taking years to carve ’em, they didn’t sail with ’em everyday, like. They don’t even have the dragon heads anymore.” He laughed, deep in his throat, almost a growl, then spat over the side. “That thing’ll make ’em piss their pants.”
Inda noticed a twinkling abaft the dragon-prow: someone waving something red. He put glass to eye. “Heh. There’s Barend. Pull us under their lee.”
In these light airs, with the Vixen fighting up into the wind, it would take a while, so Inda went below again, the dragon-head clear in mind. Why didn’t you warn me about Wafri, Ramis? he thought. Three most dangerous enemies, Ramis had told him once: Durasnir, Rajnir, and Erkric.
Because Wafri wasn’t a danger until my stupid decision to go ashore myself.
So here he was, choosing to go after Erkric, Rajnir, and Durasnir, all by himself. Another stupid decision? Or had Ramis somehow known it would happen and sent his drakan-ship, complete to the thousa
nd-year-old war prow?
How would he know?
Probably the same way Ramis could make a line between sky and sea and shove six ships through. It all seemed to come back to Norsunder, and Erkric’s willingness to use Norsundrian magic. Inda felt itchy and restless thinking about it. Too many questions unresolved.
He dropped down onto the bunk, and the locket shifted under his shirt.
Evred. That reminded Inda of the series of bad dreams he’d had just before dawn, inchoate images of home, the Jarls shouting Inda-Harskialdna Sigun as blood dripped down the walls from a row of the heads of enemies Inda had cut down . . . He jerked up again, his head pounding. He dug out pen and paper, used his wrist knife to cut a thin slip of the paper, then sat back, trying to find the right words.
He would rather have not thought about the aftermath of battle. He might not be there to see it. But if he was . . . if he was . . .
He sighed. Busy as he’d been, he never saw Captain Deliyeth’s wary, suspicious face without remembering her accusation. Then there was the request for a treaty letter that Princess Kliessin of Bren was expecting. It sounded reasonable . . . except Evred was right.
Inda remembered the harbors during his boyhood, the shrugs people gave to widespread corruption, the harsh consequences to the sudden change of kingship in Khanerenth, and he knew Evred was right about that.
Inda had seen Idayago during his winter visit, and Cama proudly pointed out how the place had improved since his arrival. People had waved at him, stopped to talk to him—not all the Idayagans hated the Marlovans. So Evred had been right there, too.
And finally, Evred had given him orders at Convocation. If all the Jarls felt it was right to extend Marlovan law down the strait, well, then, it had to be right.
So why did he have bad dreams? Oh, he knew why. He had only to think of Deliyeth, and her scorn for his pirate throne.
Pirate empire.
He reached for his paper and ink.
Evred: Battle soon. If I am here after, Everon and Ymar don’t want us. They think I’m going to create an empire and crown myself Inda the First.
On the other side of the continent, the midnight watch was two turns of the glass away.
Evred felt the tap of the locket. He forced his hands to stay still, and his body to relax, as the guests at his banquet table chattered on. He tried to subdue his irritation, but he wondered when this banquet would ever end. It was far too hot to be sitting in the heavy wine fumes over the remains of a meal he had not wanted to eat.
Fareas-Iofre turned his way. “When did it begin?”
“Did what?” he was forced to ask, after a quick search of his mind for echoes of conversation. There were none—he’d been shutting them all out.
Fareas-Iofre’s brows rose, but her expression was concerned, understanding. She extended her hand toward Tdor. “That knife-throwing contest between the best of your big boys and the best of the girls. I know we did not do that in my day. Though I must say, I enjoyed it very much.”
Hadand laughed unsteadily, her face shiny with high color and the heat. “Tanrid and I started it.”
Tdor saw in the flicker of Fareas’ eyelids, the thinning of her lips, the dart to the heart of grief that never went away, and it was instinct to leap from there to How will I bear it if my child dies young? She closed her eyes, struggling against this new and terrible emotion, the fear of losing a child. Get hold of yourself, Tdor scolded inwardly. Nothing has happened. My babe is safe.
“I never really knew Tanrid,” Hadand went on reminiscently. “Though that day was a good one.”
“I remember hearing about that day.” Fareas-Iofre smiled. “You wrote to me about it, and Tanrid told me when he got home. How proud he was of that display, and of Anderle-Harskialdna’s singling him out for praise. Well, Anderle was the Sierandael then, before the war in the north. You didn’t tell me you added that competition to the games.”
“We had to.” Hadand chuckled. “The girls would have mutinied else.”
“And it’s been good, because when we win . . .” Tdor laughed, giddy with relief to see Fareas’ smile. You do recover. She has Inda back again. She has grandchildren to love. “When the girls win, the horsetails always get serious about their knife work the next year.”
The girls sitting nearby drummed their hands on the table in triumph. The horsetails reacted with blushes and elbow-digs at sisters and future wives.
The hilarity was not unanimous, Hadand saw. Evred had that headache strain in his forehead, and she remembered him saying the day before that Inda would be in his ship battle any time.
“Well, let us sing the ‘Hymn to the Beginning’ over our last toast, and then everyone can get some rest.” Hadand held up her wine goblet in both hands. “Tomorrow will likely be very hot. You should get as early a start as you can.”
Evred found the patience to finish the song, and the toast, and then he walked around the table, saying individual farewells to fathers, boys, and girls. Then he slipped away, grateful to Hadand, who lingered after giving him only one glance—as always, they communicated without words.
The moment he was alone in the hallway, he read Inda’s note. They don’t want us? What had that to do with anything? Of course corrupt governments did not want anyone interfering with their corruption!
It has to be battle pressure, Evred thought and forced himself not to run to his rooms, which were comparatively cool, and were definitely quiet. As he walked, he composed his answer.
He wrote two drafts, and when he was satisfied, copied it all onto a tiny paper.
He was just folding it to send when a quiet, tentative knock sounded at the door. Tdor’s knock. Since he’d waved off the duty Runner so he could be alone, Evred answered it, and as expected, found Tdor.
She said, “Is the sea battle starting?”
“It is imminent.”
Tdor looked away, then back. “Will you do something for me?”
Evred said immediately, “Of course.”
To his surprise, she held out a small square of blank paper. “Send that to him, please? When it’s time. I know he’ll write to you, when it begins.”
“I will, if you wish. But do you not want to write a message on this paper?”
Tdor looked down. “I know it probably sounds stupid. But I kissed it. So did Hadand. Hastred and Jarend slobbered on it. That’s why I didn’t fold it. Still damp.” She pointed. “I think—I want Inda to have it.”
“I promise,” Evred said. “Just before the battle starts.”
She left. He carefully laid the paper on his desk, then sent his note.
At The Fangs, the Vixen began to round under the Knife’s lee. How beautiful the Venn drakan was! The patterns of leaves on the pale gold oak rails had sharpened into clarity when Inda felt the tap of the locket.
Inda gauged the distance between the two ships, then thumbed out the message. The handwriting was tiny but clear and painstaking.
Inda: Now is the time to demonstrate even-handed law that is not the whim of greedy, petty monarchs who won’t bestir themselves to defend their own kingdoms. You might have to show force because that’s what they have come to understand. But you will have proven yourself. They will welcome the peace that only you can bring.
Chapter Twenty-five
HORNS blatted down the Oneli south flank.
Oneli Stalna Durasnir blinked against the sun as he peered through his glass toward the signal flags on the nearest raider sailing as sentinel. Enemy in sight.
He lowered his glass, his gaze falling on the Dag of all the Venn, who stood at the rail with his own glass.
Whatever’s happening, he knows about it. Durasnir held his breath, determined to master the hot rage that demanded utterance.
An ensign dashed up to report, “Fleet coming from the south. Sentinel counts say nine nines, Delfin warships. Red flags at the foremast.”
The rage flared into blinding fury. “Why did we not know about these before?” Durasn
ir addressed the ensign, whose face blanched.
The only sounds were the creak of masts, the rattle of blocks, the wash of the sea down the sides of the ship. The ensign was not at fault. Durasnir knew his scouts were not either; a fast glance Dag Erkric’s way revealed patently false surprise on the old man’s face. He knew. Durasnir turned his attention outward as he got control of his anger.
The airs were too light for the cut booms to gain much force: unless the wind picked up, this would be a bitter, bloody, yardarm-to-yardarm battle.
And Dag Erkric knew about this fleet of Delfs.
Durasnir swung around, goaded at last beyond endurance.
“May I remind you of the king’s orders?” Dag Erkric asked, smooth and calm. “Shall I summon the dags to service?”
Durasnir jolted to a stop, knowing how very close he’d come to betrayal. It was not Rajnir’s fault that he had no mind. And now was not the time to destroy what semblance of unity his people had.
He was aware of every pair of ears listening, every pair of eyes watching. They were shortly to go into battle. He must not dishearten or confuse his people; the accusations had to wait. Erkric wanted Durasnir to request the aid of the dags.
That would happen only when Durasnir was dead.
“I believe the Oneli are capable of handling this turn of events.” Durasnir’s tone tightened spines and shoulders all over the deck, but the Dag’s smile deepened at the corners.
“Hull up—ho!” the lookout called, the last word wrung inadvertently.
Durasnir had his most trusted lookouts on duty, so this sidestep from the rigidity of proper response caused every eyeglass on the deck to swing out to sea.
And when Dag Erkric hissed, a long painful inward breath, almost a gasp, Durasnir’s nerves chilled. He made out the shape of the foremost ship: the black-sailed drakan Knife, once before seen. Only then it had not worn a ten-century-old dragon-head, relic of a fabled king.
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