by Ellyn, Court
Late in the day, two of his scouts thundered back along the highway. Throwing their fists across their chests, they reported, “The Crossroads is abandoned, sir.”
“No sign of Brengarra?” he asked, suspicious.
“Nor Zhianese either. Looks like they meant to make a stand there, though. A few ditches were started, and campfires hadn’t been properly doused.”
Kelyn searched for Thorn among the vanguard, the Falcon Guard, and Ilswythe’s knights immediately to the rear, but the avedra seemed to have better things to do than keep a tedious pace with an army. Did he know where Brengarra’s men were or why they had pulled back?
“Too much to hope that the Fierans will keep this up all the way to Brynduvh,” said Rhorek.
“If they’re not at the Crossroads yet, they will be,” Kelyn said.
“Pull back only to return?”
“Thorn told me last night. Goryth is at Brengarra. He won’t give ground. And now we’ll meet their combined forces. Sire, I wish you would agree to ride back to Bramoran. Why must you be a battlefield king?”
“You know why. If my people must bleed for my realm, that’s where I’ll be.”
“But tomorrow promises to be—”
“Yes, it does. That’s why I’ll be there.”
Surely Kelyn’s father had sighed the same sigh of exasperation over this man’s stubborn loyalty.
“And if Shadryk wants my crown, he’ll be gravely disappointed, even if he manages to win my head.”
“Why is that, sire?” Crown or head seemed the same to Kelyn.
“My crown is in my queen’s care, deep in the halls of Thyrvael. If the worst happens, he’s welcome to try and take it from that woman.”
The Aralorri host approached the Crossroads as dusk blurred the hills. Where the highway forked, a fire sprang to life. Beside it stood Thorn Kingshield, his robe billowing dark in the night wind, the orb of the staff bright with eldritch light. Kelyn couldn’t help but smile. His brother, keeping watch on the road ahead, lighting the way.
~~~~
Late into the night, the Aralorri camp stirred. Cauldrons bubbled over fires, smiths jabbed horseshoes into red coals and hammered fiercely, replacing shoes thrown during the march. Though soldiers and archers unfurled their bedrolls, few occupied them with intentions of sleeping. Some headed off into the dark with camp followers, some diced. Knights gathered outside tents, telling tall tales and taking bets on one aspect of tomorrow’s battle or another. Lady Ulna had an arm around Lord Morach as they sang some baudy song of battle, harmonizing so badly that the stray dogs that followed the host threw back their heads and howled. Too many stared into swaying firelight, secluding themselves with quiet, dangerous contemplation.
Little of it made sense to Thorn. He sat beside his own campfire on the outskirts of the camp, waiting for Saffron to return from the coast. Sipping from his flask, he searched the dark with Veil Sight. The rágazeth had fewer places to hide here. Open ground, long stretches of highway, a few trees left standing on the rolling hills. Plenty of human azethion filling the camp with soft luminescence, but no shadow.
The lead surgeon had been grateful for his help in setting up the new hospital tent this evening but voiced disappointment when Thorn told him he would be with the War Commander on the morrow. An unfamiliar feeling, being necessary in many places at once.
A sun-bright lifelight flashed across his vision. Blinking, he snuffed the Veil Sight. A long-legged youth hurried past, bound for Kelyn’s pavilion. “Laral!” called Thorn.
The squire turned back. “Yes, m’ lord?”
“Sit a spell, can you?”
Laral crouched across the fire. “Kelyn says you’ll be on hand tomorrow.”
Thorn nodded, a nervous twinge in his belly. He didn’t know what the War Commander expected of him, nor what he himself was willing to do. But tomorrow’s battle wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. “When you were younger … maybe before you came to Ilswythe … did you ever, er …” How to phrase it delicately? “Well, did my mother ever happen to mention to you what I …?”
Laral leant closer.
Ah, just out with it. “Did you ever happen to see fairies?”
Laral’s dark eyebrows shot up. “See what?”
“No,” Thorn assumed. “What about birds?”
“Did I ever see birds?”
“I mean, did you ever think you understood what they were chirping on about?”
Laral scrubbed his hairless chin. “Do you need me to get something for you, m’ lord?”
Thorn laughed. “No, I’m not crazy, promise. If I told you the Old Blood runs through your veins, would you throw a fit?”
Those elvish gray eyes widened. “Are you saying I’m avedra?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. But I can’t say you’re not either. You know, I didn’t discover till I was eighteen. Some people never discover it.”
“My sister.”
“Ruthan?”
“Aye. She sees things. Knows things. I never guessed it was because … She’s avedra, do you think?”
“I’d have to see her to be sure, but it seems likely.”
“Father’s the one who’ll have the fit. He’d never let you train her.”
“At his own risk. And you? You’ve never felt anything out of the ordinary?
“If I had, it would probably feel ordinary to me, wouldn’t it.”
Thorn grinned. “I suppose. If the abilities never manifest in you, they might in your children. Keep an eye out—”
“I’m never having a family,” Laral declared. “I’ll be a soldier and soldiers shouldn’t have families.”
Bless the boy, he’d seen too many die. Thorn tossed another log onto the fire. “Remember that when you see her.”
“See who?”
“Her.”
“There is no ‘her,’ my oath on it.”
“Have you asked your sister?”
Laral’s certainty flagged, and Thorn took pity. “You may turn in, squire. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone what I saw.”
Rising, Laral said with blunt conviction, “You are what you are, I am what I am, and I don’t care who knows it or what they think about it, m’ lord.”
Impressed, the avedra said, “Thorn. I only inherited a library. That doesn’t make me lord of much more than words and knowledge.”
Laral grinned. “Didn’t you tell me once that knowledge was more valuable than lands and herds of sheep? Goodnight, Thorn.”
As soon as the squire disappeared inside the War Commander’s tent, Thorn felt a caress upon his cheek. With Veil Sight he saw Saffron hovering near his shoulder, her tiny features taut with urgency. “The ships?” he asked, rising to his knees.
They’re in position off Gildancove. Just after dark, the dwarves took to the little boats. They’re rowing ashore now.
They didn’t wait for my order! It’s too soon.
The dwarves were sick. Likely they fought the captain and got their way.
Damn it …
There’ s more, Thorn. Fieran galleons. Sailing north to stop them.
~~~~
71
Peering through her spyglass, Athna smiled. “They’re landing just fine, Brugge.” On a lonely stretch of beach a league northwest of Gildancove’s harbor, the orange lights of a fishing village and the red light of the warrior moon backlit a fleet of jolly boats riding the tide. Short-legged men jumped eagerly from the unsteady boats onto firmer shore and waved small lanterns to indicate a safe landing. Sailors rowed the jollies into black water again where five vessels waited with more dwarves still.
On the quarterdeck beside Athna, Brugge grunted. He hadn’t spoken much since the seasickness set in; likely he didn’t trust his stomach to spare him his dignity. Accepting the spyglass from her, he peered landward until he was satisfied with her report.
Bobbing languidly, silently in the darkness beside the Pirate’s Bane Two, the Aurion and three Leanian galleons had douse
d their lanterns and hauled in their sails in the hopes of going unnoticed until their mission was complete. Not long now. The last of the dwarven warriors climbed down the ladders and into the jollies.
“You’re next, sir,” Athna said. Brugge returned the spyglass, then grunting and grumbling, hefted his pack of supplies onto his back and double-checked the keen-pointed khorza harnessed to his belt. Athna decided she would miss the complaining, seasick dwarves, Brugge in particular. For two weeks they had provided some of the more interesting company she’d hosted aboard her ship. Only a steady supply of grog had kept them congenial, though the consequent spinning in their heads surely contributed to their seasickness.
Ready, Brugge gave Athna’s hand a squeeze. “Captain. Lady. I’ll not soon forget you or how you cared for my men. May the wind and waves—such as they are—always favor you.”
“And may your riches and joys be many.” She followed his uncertain gait down the steps to the main deck, where he inspected each of his men before he struggled away down the ladder. What was her cousin Kelyn thinking, sending dwarves inland into enemy territory with no way to pull them out if things went wrong? After getting to know most of the fifty dwarves assigned to her ship, she’d come to fear for them. She suspected that the dark faceless helms crowding the jollies were the last she’d ever see of them.
When Brugge and the last of his men were halfway to shore, she called to her boatswain, “Haul anchor. Ready the sails.” Didn’t feel right, abandoning Brugge like this. She had half a mind to send her Hellbenders along, but to what end?
Over the clanking of the anchor’s chain and the rumble of canvas dropping free, a lookout cried down from the crosstrees, “Captain! Fieran galleons. At least half a dozen.”
“Where away, man?” Athna ran up to the quarterdeck and pressed the spyglass to her eye.
“To stern, Cap’n.”
Yes, five, six galleons, sailing in the wake of Athna’s little fleet in a loose wedge formation. The Fierans must have spied them before they arrived at their offload point and taken up the pursuit. Worse, the ship in the lead owned two decks of ballistae and flew rows of flags along her shrouds. In daylight, those flags would be green, but in the dark they looked as black as the sky and the sea. Athna had heard that Admiral Madon had named his new flagship Shadow’s Scion.
“Ready ballistae!” she bellowed. “Wyllan, signal the other ships.”
The lieutenant lit a lantern from the binnacle and swung it back and forth. Someone aboard the Aurion signaled back, and suddenly the night grumbled with gruff shouts, hammering feet, and ballistae rolling into place.
“Hennah,” Athna called to her sailing master, “put us between them and the dwarves.”
“We’re already as shallow as we dare go, Cap’n.”
Athna glared at the woman.
“Between them and shore, aye, Cap’n.”
“Send up a warning garrot, so the dwarves know, too.”
The Hellbender who commanded the ballistae in the stern, loaded the pitch-soaked garrot himself and set a spark to it. Aimed high, the ballista’s arms thunked, launching the signal.
The sailors who rowed the jollies redoubled their efforts. Fieran galleons were no sea serpents, but the same terror coiled up in Athna’s belly as when the hungry beast had reared its head over her racing crew. The shore was so much closer now, and the dwarves were almost there, but it wouldn’t be long before the Fierans sailed within range to loose upon them.
“Our depth?” asked Madam Hennah from the wheel.
The man on the rail called it out. Not too shallow yet. The Aurion followed close behind the Bane. The other galleons, the Tyrant, the Suncrest, and Pa’ella’s Pearl, refused to risk the shallows and slowly circled farther out to sea. Luck was with them. A south wind filled their sails and carried Athna’s fleet to each side of the Fieran formation. Ballistae twanged and thumped. Garrots splashed into the waves, scraped freeboard, and tore through canvas.
One of the Fieran galleons, the White Wing her prow read, separated from the formation and dared the shallows. A dozen blazing garrots scarred the darkness, and dwarves leapt to their feet, pick axes raised futilely. The garrots rained down on them. Gruff cries rose from the jolly. One dwarf, with a garrot through his chest, plummeted into the billows. Others dived aside; the boat teetered and the dwarves’ attempts to steady it only increased the rocking. The boat flipped, flinging dwarves and sailors into the sea. Though the sailors rose, flailing, and clung to the boat, the dwarves’ heavy armor dragged them down out of sight.
Swinging the spyglass, Athna found Brugge standing in the prow of his jolly, shaking a fist and bellowing something at the top of his lungs. Sailing from Graynor Harbor, he’d told her, “An insult, to die out here. Unseemly for a dwarf. We oughta be surrounded by stone, not water.” If he shouted something similar to the Fierans aboard the White Wing, they never heard. The galleon’s daring move proved to be her last. Her hull scraped sand; her planks gave a thunderous shudder. Teetering on her keel, she leaned heavily on her portside at last, as doomed as a beached whale.
Brugge’s jolly skidded onto dry sand. He and his comrades leapt out and followed the rest of the dwarves into the shadows of the village.
Satisfied that her mission was complete and her friends were safely off, Athna turned attention to her enemies. The Bane’s main foresail burned, but so did several sails aboard the Shadow’s Scion. The first pass was over, and Madam Hennah turned the wheel hard to port, making for deeper waters.
The Fierans, too, turned. Sweeping around from the south, they now had the wind, more speed, more maneuverability.
“Let’s rake them, close as we can,” Athna told her sailing master. “Men! Anvil-heads. Aim straight for their waterline.” Nodding, she accepted a crossbow and quiver from the weapons officer.
Far behind the Fieran galleons, one of their number hung back. Was she badly wounded? Athna couldn’t tell. Familiar tactic, she thought, recalling the ship that had waited to pick up the Shadow’s crew from the wreckage so long ago.
Whether or not Athna’s comrades remembered the tale, the captain of Pa’ella’s Pearl had no intention of letting the Fieran galleon sit there quietly. She tacked hard into the wind and approached the Fieran vessel nearly nose to nose for a close raking, perhaps even meaning to board.
As for the rest, the Tyrant and the Suncrest lined up behind the Bane. Where was the Aurion? Rehaan’s brig circled wide while her men replaced a couple of fire-tattered jibs. The rest of her sails whisked her closer, however. If the Aurion didn’t straighten her course, the Bane might strike her broadside. Damn pirate, Athna swore, causing her to worry about him. She couldn’t afford it right now. “I’m not certain this is the wisest thing I’ve ever done,” she had told him that first night he’d joined her in her apartments in the officers’ quarters.
“No,” he’d replied, fingers tracing the whiplash scar on her cheek. “Daring is rarely wise. But you never can tell what may come of it.”
She’d laughed. Was taking up with a pirate more daring than taking to sea at eleven? More daring than facing down a sea serpent with a saber? More daring than battling the Shadow of the Seas, not once, but twice?
The Fieran galleons sailed into range. Garrots hissed across the wind. Athna cranked back her crossbow and loosed the bolt at a Fieran officer who stood, oh, so proudly amidships, barking orders. Down he went. The screams of men surrounded her, a storm of pain and fear and rage.
“Captain!” Her carpenter’s mate poked his head up through the hatch. “We’re hit.”
“No doubt,” she shouted. “Plug it up. I won’t lose another ship!”
One Fieran galleon and the next swept past. The Shadow’s Scion followed grandly, her ballistae trained on the Bane. Anticipating the thunderous assault, Athna had time to feel grateful that shore was so near, less than a quarter of a league away, and that most of her men might be able to swim to safety before the serpents arrived.
The Aurion
plunged into the narrow space of water between the Bane and the Scion.
“What in the Abyss is he doing?” cried Athna, leaning hard on the rail, searching for Rehaan on the deck below. He stood at the wheel himself. Was he intent on stealing the glory? Or something else? The Scion’s ballistae loosed. Many had changed trajectory fast enough to pummel the Aurion’s decks, but many more garrots sailed through the brig’s rigging and punched dents in the Bane, well above the waterline. Bolts from crossbows whizzed between the vessels like hordes of warring hornets.
“They’re going to collide!” Wyllan cried, hands paused in the act of cranking his own crossbow.
The bowsprit snapped. Planks shuddered. The Aurion’s starboard rail buckled, while her side gouged a long hole in the Scion’s freeboard.
Was Rehaan drunk? As soon as Athna got her hands on him, she’d kill him.
~~~~
Rehaan tore the crossbow’s bolt from his thigh. Blood gushed after it, coming in quick spurts that matched the hammering of his heart. He swore and sagged against the wheel. His men rushed to the broken rail, jabbing sabers through the Scion’s lower portals even while the Fierans tried to rearm their ballistae. The combat didn’t last long, however. The Scion slipped free, boards grating against the brig, and fired feebly on the Leanian galleons as she passed.
Either Rehaan was getting dizzy or the Aurion’s deck was leaning to starboard.
“She’s dying, Cap’n,” said Angrev, hurrying from the broken rail. “Gutted clean through.”
Rehaan stood straight, hoping his mate didn’t see the blood slicking his hands. “Get the men onto the jollies. The Bane will take them on. Hurry now.”
