Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  And we civilised men know that taking a girl to your bed because you feel sorry for her and angry with some other woman is seldom a good idea. At least, I used to know that. I certainly owe Itrac better than that, when we get back. Though I don’t know what that will mean for me and Risala, whenever she returns. Will she have thought better of tying herself to my fate, when she can still turn aside to make a new life for herself? ‘Do you have any news for me?’ Kheda looked meaningfully at the supposed slave. ‘Did you have an enjoyable shave?’

  The wizard grinned, running a hand over his bald pate before he put his helmet on. Then he slid a covert glance at the side deck to be sure the trireme’s archers weren’t close enough to overhear him. ‘She left Jagai waters yesterday.’

  ‘She’s a couple of days out from Relshaz, then.’ Kheda fixed Dev with an unblinking stare. ‘Is there anyone there for her to meet?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dev replied with repressed savagery. ‘The stupid bitch is brushing aside my questions. I don’t know where she learned that trick.’

  Has this magewoman learned the tricks we need, that we were promised? Or is there something Dev isn’t telling me?

  He bit down on the questions crowding on the tip of his tongue, conscious of the storage space under the planking beneath their feet.

  Do you know who’s in there? Some of the sail crew? The ship’s carpenter, about some innocent business? No, so watch your words.

  The Mist Dove was rowing steadily past a shallow white slope of sand where a coral islet barely broke the waves. The Gossamer Shark and the Brittle Crab flanked the heavy trireme. Kheda looked out past the upswept prow, frustration burning like acid in the back of his throat. ‘Risala has courier doves. She’ll send word when she reaches Relshaz. Itrac knows to send out a dispatch galley with news from the north at once. Until then, all we can do is go on.’

  How long can I rely on that sole omen of the infant shark? When will I see something more to guide me? And what an irony this is: I’m risking my life consorting with wizards and I’m still reduced to relying on birds carrying messages because Dev and this magewoman have somehow lost touch. ‘Go on slaughtering savages?’ Dev raised an eyebrow. ‘I suppose it’s a living.’

  ‘You imagine we’re enjoying this?’ Kheda rounded on the wizard. ‘You don’t think we’re all sick to our stomachs of the stink of blood and bowels?’ He gestured at the armoured swordsmen sitting along the rails of the trireme or lying down on the side decks. All showed signs of fatigue, some sitting with heads hanging or eyes closed, faces drawn. Hauberks and helms betrayed signs of rough cleaning but foulness still stained metal and leather. Only swords were bright and unspotted. Plenty of warriors were busy with whetstone, rag and oil while the archers sat to check that the fletching on their arrows was secure and that no damp threatened the soundness of their bows or mildew compromised their strings. At least I got my armour back and no one was killed fetching it. Is that any kind of omen? ‘It has to be done,’ Kheda said with weary determination as he wiped away a trickle of sweat from underneath his helm’s brow band. ‘And it will be done. We will clear every last island of these savages and then Chazen can look to the future.’

  And pursuing them gets me away from the residence where everyone pursues me looking for answers and judgements. Where Itrac increasingly wants something more than affection, something I find I just cannot give her.

  ‘This little campaign of yours is certainly doing wonders for my swordplay,’ Dev commented idly. ‘I can really play the part nowadays. And it’s keeping everyone’s mind off the dragon,’ he added in a lower, thoughtful tone. Kheda rubbed a hand over his beard. ‘Is it possible we’ve already killed whoever was summoning it?’ he asked quietly. ‘There’s been no sign of it, no word, since the full of the Lesser Moon.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet your residence on it,’ Dev said frankly. ‘Let’s see what’s happened at this village we’re heading for first. That sounds like the work of some wild wizard with a rush of blood to the head.’

  ‘It’s done no good for morale, has it?’ Kheda leaned back against the prow post, surveying the trireme’s tired contingent. ‘We thought we had the last of then penned in on the rocks beyond Conti with nowhere to go but the empty ocean and then we get news of a village razed to the ground two days’ hard pull behind us.’

  ‘Which is what makes me suspect some prentice wizard has felt his stones drop.’ Dev cracked his knuckles. ‘Who wants a quick and lethal lesson in his art.’

  ‘You’re to keep watch for the dragon,’ Kheda told him forcefully. We want to kill them all before it arrives. Try to think of anything we might do to drive it off, if we can’t get away in time, even if we’ve no idea how to kill it as yet.’

  ‘Without getting myself killed?’ queried Dev sceptically. ‘By the beast or by my own side,’ he added in a low tone.

  Kheda looked up at the empty skies. ‘We can tell every archer to watch for it. Perhaps a storm of arrows will send it looking for an easier meal.’

  ‘As I said, my lord, I wouldn’t bet your residence on that,’ Dev scoffed.

  ‘Then we’ll have to try throwing gems at it.’ Kheda shrugged. ‘You know where the chests are.’

  A warlord’s ransom in jewels extorted from Daish and stacked in the stern cabin of this trireme. It’s a good thing any pirates have long since fled these waters for fear of the dragon.

  He frowned as he saw activity on the shore on the far side of the strait the Mist Dove had turned into. Skiffs with deft triangular sails were drawn up on the sand and bare-chested fishermen were landing a fresh catch and haggling with islanders in creased and sweat-stained cotton who sat on sacks of sailer grain, baskets of vegetables by their feet. Youths waiting out on the water saw the triremes and began shouting and waving.

  Ready to give us all the precious sailer from storehouses that barely hold enough to see them to the end of the dry season. They’ll strip their village plots of reckal roots and send children into the forest to forage for hira beets instead, if that’s what it takes to support their warlord and his warriors, so we can put an end to these savages, so they can return to a life with only the usual chances and hardships to fear. ‘They’re a bit cursed close to this village that was attacked, aren’t they?’ Dev frowned. ‘They don’t seem overly worried’

  ‘It’s possible no one got away to raise the alarm.’ Kheda looked towards a slew of larger islands rising in low palm-fringed green hummocks. Pale reefs in the channels between them made a turquoise and lapis mosaic of the waters. ‘Maybe the savages killed everyone there.’

  ‘Hadn’t we better warn that lot dallying on the beach?’ asked Dev.

  ‘I don’t want to start a panic,’ said Kheda slowly. ‘Let’s see how bad it is before we do anything rash.’ I’d rather kill every last savage and take those islanders the news that the danger they didn’t even know about is gone without threatening their fragile peace.

  ‘Shouldn’t be long now,’ Dev murmured.

  ‘Get me some water, will you, please?’ Kheda licked lips dry with thirst and apprehension. He watched Dev make his way back along the ship through the warriors on the side decks.

  Earl day’s wanner than the one before. We’ve this last cycle of the Greater Moon to fight through before the rains break and the heat will rise like a stoked furnace between now and then. We must finish this butchery before we have to abandon this campaign because the men in armour are boiling in their own sweat.

  As Kheda watched, Shipmaster Shaiam got out of his seat and, after a brief discussion with the helmsman Yere, said something to the young warrior Ridu who was sitting on the top of the ladder leading down to the rowing deck. The word was passed along and the swordsmen on both side decks drew themselves up, alert. Archers had their bows at the ready and every eye was turned outwards. Across the water Kheda heard the purposeful rattle of the troops aboard the Gossamer Shark and the Brittle Crab making ready. He walked back to the stern, meeting the grim deter
mination on the faces of the Chazen warriors with nods of equal resolve.

  ‘Keep a lookout for those log boats of theirs, Shaiam.’

  ‘We’ll crush them under the ram and the scum can drown, my lord.’ The shipmaster ran long, dark fingers through the plaits of his beard, crow’s feet around his eyes deepening as he watched the fleeter, narrower Brittle Crab pull ahead of the other two ships. ‘That’s if they run, my lord. I think they’re more likely to be hiding in the cane brakes again.’

  ‘Then we’ll hem them in and hunt them out again.’ Kheda turned to follow the line of Shaiam’s gaze. ‘Hunting such wily prey in this thick cover has cost us good men already on this campaign, my lord,’ the shipmaster said tentatively. ‘Setting a few fires might send the savages running for the open.’

  ‘And fire would purify the land their foul feet have trodden.’ Kheda nodded. ‘Unfortunately that cursed dragon seems to relish fire. I’m disinclined to draw its attention this way.’ He managed a wry smile. Not till I’ve learned how we’re to kill it.’

  ‘Do you truly believe your slave, that there are barbarians who know how to kill these creatures?’ asked Shaiam quietly. He glanced down to the oar deck where Dev was carefully filling a brass ewer from a water cask. ‘Can we trust a barbarian’s word? Magic runs through their lives like rot through wood.’

  ‘Dev’s been an Archipelagan longer than he was a barbarian.’ Kheda shrugged with well-feigned unconcern. ‘And we’ve seen Aldabreshin wisdom find ways to foil magic in the northern reaches. That saved us last year.’

  ‘True, my lord,’ Shaiam allowed. Distaste still creased his face.

  ‘Let’s deal with one problem at a time,’ suggested Kheda. ‘Let’s see what’s become of this village.’

  ‘My lord.’ Dev climbed up the steep stair to the stern platform, carrying the ewer and a broad-based brass goblet.

  ‘Thank you.’ Kheda drank gratefully before refilling the goblet and offering it to Shaiam.

  ‘My lord.’ The shipmaster bowed before quenching his own thirst.

  The brassy scream of a horn from the Brittle Crab silenced the chatter from the oarsmen and all activity on the side decks halted. Everyone watched the fast trireme round a headland choked with tangled dark-green vines and edged with jagged grey rocks.

  Shaiam shouted orders down to the rowing master, the trireme’s piper translating his commands into shrill whistles. The shipmaster stood by the helmsman’s chair, one hand gripping Yere’s shoulder. The youth’s cheerful face was deadly serious as he glanced from side to side, judging the courses of the other two ships, hands gripping the twin steering oars.

  The oarsmen on their triple-tiered seats below leaned over their sweeps and the oars crashed into the water. On the side decks, the swordsmen lined the rails, dulled armour still catching the sun here and there. The archers stood alert on the prow platform, ready to loose a rain of arrows in an instant. The Gossamer Shark was running level with the Mist Dove, white spume foaming up around the mighty ship’s brass-sheathed ram. The two ships swung around, giving a wide berth to the broken waters where the eager current gnawed at a long finger of land.

  As Yere pulled on his steering oars and the rowing master shouted his orders to each rank of rowers, the Mist Dove wheeled around. Kheda, Dev and Shaiam turned as one man to get a clear view of the long beach protected by the curve of the headland. It was empty—both of defiant, painted savages and of any sign that there had ever been a settlement there.

  ‘Shaiam?’ As Kheda voiced his surprise, a querulous horn sounded from the Brittle Crab, seeking instructions.

  ‘This is where we were told the village had been seen.’ The shipmaster was splitting his attention between watching Yere’s steering and riffling through the pages of his route records.

  ‘A new village,’ Kheda reminded him. ‘A fresh start for some of those who escaped last year. Perhaps we’ve been misdirected.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Shaiam looked at the vacant shore, baffled. ‘We certainly haven’t gone astray,’ he insisted. A second horn sounded from the Gossamer Shark as the heavy trireme took up position guarding the Mist Dove’s seaward flank.

  Kheda saw that the warriors on the side decks were similarly bemused, more and more faces turning to the stern expectantly, their hands still resting on their sword hilts. The murmur of speculation among the rowers below grew louder.

  ‘Shaiam, this can’t be the right beach.’ He tried not to sound too severe.

  ‘I can’t see how we made a mistake.’ Yere twisted to pull his own book out of a deep pocket in his over-mantle. ‘It was the Lilla Bat that saw it. I know their helmsman—’

  ‘They said it was just like before,’ Shaiam insisted. ‘A village burning, a stockade for prisoners, wild men clubbing women and children to death!’

  Kheda looked at Dev and jerked his head towards the stern post. The two of them retreated as far from Shaiam and Yere as possible.

  ‘Is there magic at work here?’ Kheda demanded in a low tone, under cover of a vehement argument erupting around the helmsman’s chair as the rowing master and Ridu arrived to demand an explanation. ‘Hiding the wild men?’ Dev looked past the curve of the stern. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Don’t think, be certain!’ snapped Kheda.

  Dev scowled before narrowing his eyes. He rubbed his palms lightly together, lips moving soundlessly. ‘It’s—’

  He got no further. The trireme shuddered from end to end and the stern reared up out of the water. Soaked by a wave of spray, and with the deck tilting abruptly beneath them, Kheda and Dev both lost their footing. They slid down the planking, Kheda bracing himself behind the shipmaster’s chair. Dev barely managed to grab hold, fingers slipping on the smooth wood. Kheda grabbed at the neck of the barbarian’s hauberk, hauling him up to share the inadequate perch.

  Yere clung to his useless steering oars, feet slipping on the deck. Shaiam was hanging on to the helmsman’s seat with one hand, the other maintaining a precarious grip on Yere’s tunic. Ridu and the rowing master were nowhere to be seen. Down in the body of the ship, the rowers were clinging to their oars as the swordsmen fell in amongst them. Other warriors had fallen over the rails to land among the oar blades with yells of shock and pain.

  Kheda looked to see what incomprehensible disaster had overtaken the ship’s bow. The dragon looked back at him, cavernous mouth agape, its long crimson tongue flickering over those glittering white teeth. It had landed full on the front of the ship, hind legs breaking down the upswept prow posts before seizing a foothold on the brass-sheathed ram, claws tearing through the thickness of the metal. Its massive front feet, with vicious curved claws the colour of old bone, splintered the planking of the bow platform and the downdraught from its outspread wings sent showers of debris to land in the water.

  Those swordsmen who hadn’t fallen to death or injury were flinging themselves from the rails into the sea. Some died under a hail of arrows hissing in from the Gossamer Shark and the Brittle Crab, both vessels coming as close at they dared. Shouts of terrified consternation mingled with the screams of the Mist Dove’s stricken crew.

  Ignoring the arrows skidding harmlessly off its crimson scales, the dragon ducked its head towards blood oozing through the shattered wood at its forefeet. It paused to lick at a man’s torn leg protruding from the wreckage before scorning it with a rumble deep in its colossal chest. It took a pace forward, drawing in its enormous leathery wings. More of its weight bore down on the hapless trireme. The upper decks buckled and broke, crushing the oarsmen trapped beneath. The ship sank deeper, the rising waters cutting short the screams from the rowing deck.

  The dragon looked up at the stern and advanced, step by ponderous step. The Mist Dove levelled out as it sank still further, seas rising to the middle oar ports. The dragon looked down, careful not to let its feet slip into the chaos of bloodied foam, shattered oars and broken bodies. Its heavy, blunt head swept from side to side, forked tongue still flickering over those mur
derous teeth. Pinpoints of golden fire burned in its ruby eyes as it nosed among the injured and dying men tangled up with the shattered planks. Then it looked up at the four men still clinging to the sloping stern platform. Crimson scales fringing its head and jaw bristled and its great red flanks swelled as it opened its maw. The fire in its eyes burned white hot and it breathed a great gout of scarlet flame.

  What hope is there for Chazen now?

  When his next breath wasn’t one of searing fire, Kheda forced himself to open his eyes. He wished he hadn’t when he saw Yere and Shaiam being consumed by the flames. The shipmaster threw himself blindly away from the ship, searching for the sea. There was no escape. The malicious red fire that enveloped him kept on burning even after he had sunk beneath the waves. The helmsman burned to a blackened skeleton still clinging vainly to the charred steering oars.

  Why aren’t we dead?

  Kheda saw the scarlet flames abandon Yere’s contorted corpse to split apart the deck that had been risen above the worst of seas. The wood crackled and disintegrated into feathery ash blown away by the punishing down-draught of the dragon’s wings. But the planking where the warlord knelt was somehow proof against the enchanted flames.

  Dev crouched beside Kheda with one palm outstretched, denying the dragon’s fire. Frustrated, the crimson flames crawled around their refuge to reunite behind them, racing up the trireme’s stern posts to devour the seasoned timber like the driest kindling. The sorcerous red fire was burning whatever remained above the water-line. Scarlet flames sprang across the cowering seas to devour wood, cloth, flesh and bone floating helpless in the turmoil.

  The dragon roared, deafening Kheda. The blaze all around leapt up as high as the beast’s scaly spine, wreathing the creature in fire. Its scales glowed like molten metal as it breathed another furnace blast straight at the two of them. Dev kept his arm outstretched to deny it as he swept his other hand around to gather a handful of enchanted fire from the burning stem. He flung it at the dragon, a blazing missile shooting straight at the creature’s eye. It sprang up, great wings fanning the flames to even greater fury. The Mist Dove rocked violently, relieved of the massive weight, and water poured over the burning decks. The seas were still helpless to quench the murderous magical fires.