by Angus Wells
The Kern lay with his hands folded across his stomach, eyes fixed on the boards above, his hawkish features set in harsh lines. Calandryll said, “There was nothing else we could do. He’d have ordered us killed had we refused.”
Bracht snorted and rolled on his side, presenting his back to Calandryll. The younger man opened his mouth to speak again, but then thought better of it, holding silent as he stretched out, staring helplessly at the planks above him: there seemed nothing they could do save wait; that, and hope.
THE day passed slowly. The Sea Dancer altered course from time to time, tacking in forlorn hope of using the steadily decreasing wind, the warboat intermittently visible, still some distance off, but clearly narrowing the gap between the two vessels. Around noon a silent Mehemmed brought them food and fresh water, and Bracht took more of the nostrum. Calandryll wished he had a book, but contented himself with a careful study of the map.
“You waste your time,” Bracht said, irritable.
“Perhaps,” Calandryll returned, himself irked by his comrade’s sullen attitude, “Perhaps not.”
Bracht rose on one elbow to peer from the window. “It’s closer,” he said. “Before long it’ll overhaul us and that fat coward will hand us over.”
Calandryll set the map aside, kneeling on Bracht’s bunk to study the warboat. It was, indeed, closer: he could see the black rectangle of the sail, like the vessel of his dream, clear against the blue of the afternoon sky, the sleek hull below, curving up to the figurehead.
“It’s a sea dragon,” he murmured.
“What?” Bracht frowned.
“The prow—it’s carved in the shape of a sea dragon.”
Bracht grunted.
“If he does,” Calandryll said softly, “I’ll toss the satchel overboard. The coin it holds is weighty enough to sink it—at least Azumandias won’t get the map.”
“He’ll have us instead,” Bracht said.
“So?”
Calandryll regained his bunk as the Sea Dancer turned, fighting the fear the Kern’s flat statement roused; affecting calm.
“So you’ve studied the chart,” Bracht said, “and doubtless it’s fixed in that scholar’s mind of yours. And Azumandias is a warlock—of great power, Varent said. Do you not think he’ll use magic to leech the knowledge from you?”
Calandryll swallowed hard: that possibility had not occurred to him. He licked his lips nervously. There were sages claimed that a man’s mind retained all he saw, all he read; that every experience of his life was kept within some indefinable mental receptacle. And he had done his best to memorize the chart. If the sages—if Bracht—were right, then Azumandias would draw out that knowledge: he could not resist magic.
He nodded, steeling himself, and said, “Then I must go down with it.”
Bracht stared at him.
“That’s a thing said easier than it’s done.”
“Azumandias must not gain the chart,” he said fiercely. “He must not find the way to Tez. He’ll likely kill us, anyway. That, or something worse. I’d sooner drown than let him raise the Mad God.”
“Noble sentiments,” Bracht murmured, and for a moment Calandryll wondered if he mocked, “but perhaps there’s another way.”
“What? We’re prisoners here, unarmed. What other way is there?”
“The stone,” Bracht said, “and Varent’s spell.”
Calandryll frowned, shaking his head.
“What good invisibility?”
“If ek’Jemm proposes to hand us over, he’ll likely have us brought on deck. The … poop’s? … the most likely place—from there we’ll be in clear sight. Use the stone and disappear! Hide. This tub’s large enough a man who can’t be seen should be able to hide.”
“And you?”
Bracht shrugged, white teeth exposed in a cold grin.
“I’m a Kern freesword hired to escort you. I can’t read; I’ve not studied the map. What can I tell Azumandias, save what he already knows?”
“Hell kill you,” Calandryll said.
“Probably, but it appears I face death whichever way I turn.”
“He’ll know,” Calandryll protested. “He’ll know there’s magic afoot.”
Again Bracht shrugged.
“But perhaps he’ll not be able to find you. Who knows? Perhaps he’ll send ek’Jemm to the bottom and you’ll drown anyway. Perhaps he’ll choose to let the ship go—hope to hunt you down in Kandahar. It seems the only chance we have.”
“I have,” Calandryll corrected.
“The only chance to prevent Azumandias laying hands on the chart, then. It’s worth taking.”
Calandryll nodded; reluctantly.
“Yes.”
“Be ready,” said the Kern, and stretched back on the bunk, closing his eyes.
Calandryll fingered the red stone at his throat. It was cold to the touch and when he raised it he saw only a glassy ovoid like an overlarge, crimson teardrop, a hint of flame faint within its depths. He tucked it back beneath his shirt and folded the map back inside the satchel as he pondered Bracht’s suggestion. It was a desperate plan—and one, it seemed to him, that had little chance of success—but it was, as the Kern had pointed out, the only one they had alternative to his suicide. Perhaps he would be able to hide on the Sea Dancer, and if Azumandias wanted the map, the warlock was unlikely to risk sending it down with a sinking ship. But could he evade the wizard’s magic? Would the spell Varent had taught him conceal him from occult investigation? That he could not know until the time came.
He studied Bracht, abruptly melancholy. It seemed the mercenary was prepared to die, leaving him a chance to live, to continue their mission, and the thought of going on without the blunt-spoken freesword depressed him. For all Bracht’s doubts, for all his mistrust of Varent, he had come to like the Kern. He truly believed the man was one of the comrades foretold by Reba. He sighed, remembering the spaewife’s warning that water offered danger: had he sacrificed properly to Burash, might they have avoided this impasse? Was it his omission had brought them to this point? He sighed again and stretched out on the bunk, the satchel for a pillow.
HE realized that he had drowsed when the door opened to admit Mehemmed with the evening meal. The cabin was dark, and when he looked to the window, the war-boat was lost in the night.
“It’s still there,” said the young sailor. “Closer now. I think that by dawn they’ll be within hailing distance.”
His voice was carefully neutral, as though he feared to show any hint of weakness to the seaman Calandryll saw stood just beyond the hatch, but there was a flicker of sympathy in his eyes and he smiled as he set the tray down.
“Will your captain use his arbalests?” Bracht asked.
Mehemmed shrugged, the movement conveying all such responsibilities to his captain, and ducked out of the cabin. The door closed and the bolt thudded home. Calandryll saw that a flask of wine was included among the items on the tray: he filled the two mugs, passing one to Bracht.
The Kern grunted his thanks, dosing himself with the nostrum before downing the alcohol.
“At least he feeds us,” Calandryll said. Bracht nodded and began to eat.
After, there was little to do save rest on the bunks and talk until sleep took them.
“Tell me about Kern,” Calandryll asked.
Bracht sniffed and said, “Kern is your word for it, a southern word. We call it Cuan na’For, which means the Land of Horses.”
“The forest is the Cuan na’Dra, is it not?” Calandryll prompted when his companion fell silent. “What does that mean?”
“The Heartland,” came the answer. “The Cuan na’Dru is the great forest that surrounds Ahrd. That’s a sacred place, tended by the Gruagach, who were created when the world was young. The folk of Cuan na’For seldom venture there, for the Gruagach are jealous guardians and apt to treat intruders unkindly.”
He laughed curtly and emptied the last of the flagon into his mug.
“They tend to kill p
eople. They are strange creatures—devoted to their wardship of the Holy Tree—but they care for Ahrd. The rest?” He sighed fondly. “Oh, it’s a fine, free place, unlike your home. We have no cities, but live in tents and follow our herds over the grass. It’s foaling time now, and the grass will be lush. The sun will shine and the wind will blow; the rivers will run blue, and my clan will follow the horses north.”
“You said you were Asyth,” Calandryll murmured into the darkness. “There are five tribes, I believe.”
“The Asyth, the Lykard, the Valan, the Helim, and the Yelle,” said Bracht. “The Asyth raise the finest horses and the stoutest warriors.”
“Are you at war with the Lykard?” asked Calandryll.
“Not when I left,” said Bracht. “Why?”
“When I spoke of leaving Gessyth by the Geff Pass you said the Lykard were enemies.”
Bracht chuckled.
“Mine; I am not much loved by the Asyth, either.”
“Why not?”
There was a long silence, then the Kern said, “It is a personal thing.”
Calandryll frowned but made no attempt to press the matter: it was obvious that Bracht had no wish to discuss it. Instead, he asked, “Were you a warrior?”
“We are all warriors,” Bracht said. “Sometimes the clans fight one another, and we steal horses—that’s the way of Cuan na’For—and sometimes the Jesserytes cross the Kess Imbrun to make war.”
“It’s strange that the folk of Kern—Cuan na’For,” Calandryll amended, “worship a tree when you raise the finest horses, while the Jesserytes worship Horul.”
“The Horse God?” Bracht sniffed again, dismissively. “The Jesserytes are a strange folk. It’s said they worship a horse because they couple with them, but I think that may not be true. We worship Ahrd because we have always worshiped Ahrd.”
He yawned sleepily. Calandryll asked, “Have you fought them?”
“Aye, at times,” Bracht answered, “When the mood comes on them they seek to cross the Kess Imbrun after our horses and our women, and we join to send them back. Or give them to the crows. But those are little more than skirmishes—we’ve fought no great war since the High Khan Tejoval sought to invade us, in my grandfather’s time. He brought an army over the rift, vowing that he would burn the Cuan na’Dru and Ahrd with it. All the clans sent warriors then, and we destroyed the Jesseryte army. The old men say it was a mighty battle and the rift river was red with Jesseryte blood. They say the crows got too bloated to fly then.”
The bunk creaked as he shifted, yawning again. Calandryll wondered how he could be sleepy: he felt too nervous to contemplate slumber. He asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
Bracht sighed and said, “Do you think of your Nadama?”
Now Calandryll paused, taken aback. The question had sprung unbidden to his lips, and he was not sure why he had asked it. He realized that he had not thought of Nadama since … When was the last time? Since their encounter with the byah? Since the dreams along the trail to Aldarin? He said, “No.”
“I thought I was,” Bracht said, “Once. But … something happened.”
His voice grew flat and Calandryll sensed that he touched on another forbidden subject. “I think,” he said slowly, “that I have accepted she’s lost to me. She might be wed to Tobias by now; certainly by the time I return.”
If I return.
He was surprised by his own acceptance, by the absence of that knife that had turned each time he thought of her. It was gone now: it seemed that imminent danger, the possibility of death, cauterized the wound. He conjured an image of her face and found it blurred, as though time and distance eroded the edges of his memory. He felt a weight was lifted, something in his soul freed: he chuckled.
“Good,” said Bracht.
“Aye,” he agreed, “it is.”
“And so is sleep” said the Kern.
Calandryll nodded in the darkness, hearing Bracht change position, the bunk creaking. Through the port he heard the steady, soothing slap of waves against the hull, the low, slow groaning of timbers. He closed his eyes.
And found himself standing on the deck of the Sea Dancer, the sun bright on his face, the wind died away to a listless murmur that draped the sails like wet sheets hung from the spars. All around, the Narrow Sea glistened, smooth as a millpond, and the crew moved past him, unseeing. Rahamman ek’Jemm stood behind the wheel with Bracht at his side. The mercenary’s hands were bound and when Calandryll called his name he gave no sign that he heard, staring at the black boat that drew steadily closer, driven by great black oars that swept the waves in silence, a figure in a black cloak standing at the prow, one hand caressing the dragon’s head. The boat came alongside and the figure sprang to the Sea Dancer’s deck. Calandryll could not see its face. A hand beckoned and ek’Jemm bowed, pushing Bracht to the companion-way. The black-cloaked figure towered over the Kern as he was shoved rudely forward, then reached out, grasping him by the waist, lifting him high. Calandryll began to run as the monstrous figure held Bracht high, turning to the rail, but his legs were jelly and the planking of the deck seemed to buckle and give way under his feet. He shouted, but no one heard and all he could do was watch as Bracht was tossed over the side, to the warboat that was no longer a vessel, but a huge, black dragon that raised a gaping, many-toothed maw to accept the body. Calandryll shouted again and this time the black figure turned toward him and he saw red eyes burning within the smoky shadows of the face. He struggled to draw his sword, but the blade was mired in the scabbard as firmly as he was mired to the deck, and all he could do as the relentless figure strode toward him was raise his hands in protest, feeling fingers like steel claws lock about his wrists, lifting him as they had lifted Bracht… Who said, “You dream! Calandryll, you dream!” pinning his flailing arms down on the bunk.
He opened his eyes and saw the Kern’s face close, his breath redolent of ek’Jemm’s nostrum.
“Dera!” he mumbled, wiping sweat from his brow. “I thought …”
He shook his head, the dream already fading, the images breaking as the mist had broken in Aldarin harbor, swirling and dissipating, lost even as he tried to hold them.
Bracht let loose his arms and pointed to the window.
“I think you had best ready yourself.”
He crossed to the port, squinting into the brightness of a hew day, and groaned. The warboat stood off the starboard quarter, its sail furled, the sweeps that drove it like giant drumsticks beating a relentless rhythm on the skin of the sea. He could see the figurehead. See the bulging red eyes and the flared nostrils, the carved fangs, painted white, a curling scarlet tongue between the black lips. Circular shields decorated with a variety of fanciful designs hung along the bulwarks and behind the prow and among the oarsmen stood archers, shafts notched ready. He felt a vibration from above, heard a dull twanging sound, and saw a bolt whistle through the morning air. It raised a splash to port of the warboat.
“Ek’Jemm uses the arbalest,” he cried. “Perhaps he means to fight.”
“Perhaps I misjudged him,” Bracht said. “Perhaps his bolts will frighten them off—if they be no more than ordinary corsairs.”
A second bolt fountained a glittering column no closer than the first and the warboat veered rapidly to starboard, cutting around the Sea Dancer’s stern with an agility the larger vessel had no hope of matching. Calandryll saw the archers raise their bows. The arrows were brief, dark flashes against the blue sky. He heard a man scream, the sound shrill as a sea gull’s cry, and the dark boat was gone from sight.
He turned as the hatch opened and a hulking seaman armed with a cutlass filled the doorway. Behind him stood three more: hope faded.
“You’re to come topside.”
The man stood back, cutlass poised. His order required no translation: Bracht glanced at Calandryll and smiled.
“Ahrd be with you, and your own goddess.”
“And with you.”
Calandryll wanted to say
something more in reply but could not find the words. He slung the satchel from his shoulder, briefly touched the talisman concealed beneath his shirt, and stepped into the narrow corridor. Bracht followed him, menaced by the sailors’ heavy blades, and they clambered out onto the deck, to the companionway, and up to the poop.
RAHAMMAN ek’Jemm stood with folded arms and dour face beside the helmsman. A bare-chested Kand stood miserably by the arbalest; another lay moaning on the deck, two arrows protruding from his right leg. The war-boat was already past the merchantman, swinging wide around her bow, gone past before the arbalest mounted there had time to sight and fire.
“I tried,” ek’Jemm said, “and that’s the result.”
He pointed to the wounded seaman, the shafts bristling from deck and mast and sails.
Bracht grunted and said, “You give up easily, Captain.”
The Kand turned cold green eves on the freesword. “As I told your comrade, I’ll not forfeit my ship for a miserable one hundred varre. If it’s you they want, they’ll see you now and I’ll give you to them. If not,” he shrugged, “then we’ll fight.”
As if to emphasize his point a second volley of arrows arched into the azure. They seemed to hang for a moment, suspended at the apex of their flight, before rattling onto the Sea Dancer’s deck.
“A warning,” ek’Jemm murmured, studying the dark shafts that thrust from the planking.
The warboat came back along their port flank, dancing over the waves, driven by the steady sweeping of the oars. Calandryll saw that the stem rose up, fashioned in the shape of a dragon’s tail, a massive, paddlelike rudder at its base. Two men held shields raised to protect the helmsman. The archers stood on a small deck behind the prow and on a raised aisle that ran like a spine down the length of the warboat, the oarsmen sat on recessed benches to either side. They appeared to follow the orders of a slim figure wearing fine silver mail that glittered proudly in the sun, the face hidden beneath the shadow of a beaked helm.
