The Castle of the Winds

by Michael Scott Rohan

  ‘What …’ Olvar glanced up at the helmsman, and lowered his voice. ‘What was it?’

  ‘What was the whole business about?’ demanded Gille softly, easing his sore shoulder. ‘I thought it was just footpads!’

  Kunrad tapped one fist into another. ‘Too many of ’em. And they all went straight for me. I don’t think footpads would have done that. And there was somebody hanging back, giving orders – hissing them, maybe so the voice wouldn’t be recognised. At a guess that was our quarry. But as to who, or why, or what they did … well, I’m baffled.’

  ‘Cold again,’ said Gille. ‘Killing cold, like Haldin.’

  ‘Too like,’ agreed Kunrad unwillingly.

  Olvar snorted. ‘But that was a … a monster, in the wilderness! This was in a city, among men! And that was a man I was chasing, for all the cloak that muffled him. Normal number of arms and legs, a bit skinny. And a voice, though it was mostly panting.’

  ‘Then maybe he had some trick given him, or somebody else was watching over him. I’ve never heard of smithcraft that could do such a thing, but who knows? And there are other forces in the world.’ He shivered. ‘That old man … But why us? Why should we come under their eyes, be they what they are?’

  ‘Your bloody search,’ said Gille bitterly. ‘He said it was bound to attract attention.’

  ‘I was thinking of that. So maybe – let’s say, somebody important doesn’t want it to succeed. Why? Because they want Merthian to? That just extends the question – why him? And while we’re about it, how did they find us, when we’re no longer on his heels? So, have you any of your quick answers to that, Gille my lad? Because I do not. And until I do, I’ll go on searching.’

  It was Olvar who spoke, then, over the wallow and splash of the rising swell. ‘Maybe we’re looking at the wrong end of things. This ship was raided, too, remember. Maybe we were jumped just ’cause we’re the paying passengers.’

  ‘Or maybe the ship was raided because of us. It cuts both ways. I’m baffled, I don’t mind admitting it. And I can’t think straight with this accursed hulk dancing about under me!’

  ‘Dancing!’ groaned Gille. ‘More like corkscrewing!’

  ‘Well, sirs?’ demanded Ceinor cheerfully from the deck. ‘We’re running free now, nice and near the wind. A good speed for breakfast! No fires till we anchor at even, but there’s a grand fresh cut of fat salt pork—’

  Kunrad’s face was turning as green as Gille’s, and suddenly he sprang up and bent over the gunwale. The example was enough for Gille, who followed him, retching violently. The helmsman patted the young man’s back kindly enough. ‘That’s it, lads! Not into the wind. Sure, it’ll pass soon enough!’

  Leaving Olvar to watch them, he leaned back on his oar. The two Northerners slid down the planks, groaning. ‘Not the pork, then?’ inquired Ceinor.

  Their sickness buried their other concerns for that time. They were hardy men, though, and as the days passed and they grew more used to the motion and the labour, they talked over and over again of what befell them. They came no nearer an answer, nonetheless; and Kunrad, more than any of them, found himself staring out in anger at the grey infinity of ocean, as if somewhere along the hazy horizon he might make it out. He had seen many things there – the round heads of seals, so close he could look in their liquid brown eyes; the wide brown kelpbeds, swaying like forests; the low necks and blunt heads of the great seacows, fifty feet or more to their rounded tailtips, that browsed them, vanishing like panicked sheep as the rounded backs and knifing fins of orca packs parted the weed. He had seen greater whales breach, and been awed by their vast serpentine curves among banners of arcing spray, and the thunder of their flukes. Yet still, impatient, unsatisfied, he would turn to the low contours of the land off the larboard bow. He would imagine his suit of armour, and Merthian – he could not help thinking of them in that order, though he laughed at it himself – making their way southward.

  Floundering, probably, in the Great Marshes; but the idea gave him no satisfaction. Strangely enough, he did not want to lose either armour or man, and it did not take him long to see why. He had liked Merthian, and he felt still that he had not been altogether mistaken, and that every villainy the man had done was somehow counter to his real self. The paradox caused Kunrad an almost physical pain, as unexpected hurt does to a child. As in all else in his life, he needed to understand, to see as complete a picture as he could. He desperately wanted to ask Merthian why, and close the gulf in his understanding; but still more, he wanted his armour. And to get that answer, he would forgo the other if he had to.

  He gripped the gunwale, and felt the salt-hardened wood creak under the strength in his hands, still greater after long stints of rowing. It seemed like a twig he could snap without effort. He had never hurt anybody before he was forced out on this mad venture; now he had killed several, and hated the memory of it. Merthian had driven him to that. He baulked at the thought; but he knew now that, if he had to, he would kill again.

  ‘My poor Ravenswing’ll get there no quicker for you tearing bits off it!’ said Ceinor mildly at his side. ‘Somewhere out there, is he?’

  ‘Who might that be?’ asked Kunrad guardedly.

  ‘By your face, a walking dead man. Though dead he may be, if it’s there – for see, yonder, where the line of the hills diminishes and gives way to the grey margins at sea level. Those are grass and reedbeds, swamps and dunes. There begin the Debatable Lands, and beyond them the Great Marshes. Making his way south, is he? Well, he may well be sunk without trace already, or spirited off by some marsh-demon. Best you contain yourself in patience. Our greatest danger begins here also.’

  Kunrad stared at the harmless-looking grey line, and the tongues of dark sand that extended out into the turbulent sea, as if in challenge. In his first struggles with the sea, and the haunting terror of that last night ashore, he had quite forgotten the danger of the corsairs.

  ‘Lurk in the rivermouths, they do,’ said Ceinor, and spat generously over the side. ‘Among the flies and the midges, being themselves greater bloodsuckers – aye, and the marsh-demons also, most like. Waiting for a sail to pass, standing into shore – and then they swarm out in all manner of craft and swarm aboard like lice. Look your fill upon the land, Mastersmith, for we must needs stand out as far as we can over the next few days.’

  So they did, till the land was the barest thread distinguishing one horizon from another. It was quite far enough for Kunrad and Gille, though Olvar scoffed. ‘Safer far to be out in the open sea and beyond sight of shore!’

  Ceinor looked at him with hooded eyes. ‘And if the corsairs are out there also, where’ll you run to? Where hide? You Northerners in your little ships may skitter whither you will, but I’ll stay within sight of land like any man of sense. Best save your breath for rowing, brown man!’

  Yet as the days passed they did not have to. The winds grew lighter and the airs warmer, the sea that had seemed so grey and misty began to sparkle in the sun. The distant shore seemed to be a lighter shade of green, and less often overhung by rainclouds. Men’s moods lightened as they claimed to smell the flowers of the Southlands on the land-breeze. The Ravenswing rode easily over the swell, and all their unease was forgotten. The sea seemed bluer here, though for Kunrad it never lost the feeling of fierce energy it had had. Porpoises came to race their bows, and fat fish leaped and glittered in the clear light as if daring anyone to catch them. Ceinor visibly relaxed, for they were past the last of the Marshes now, and would soon be entering the waters of the Southlands, where the corsairs did not dare to linger. A few days more, and they would be sighting the harbour towers of Ker Bryhaine itself. That gave Kunrad cause for thought, for then he would have to bring his plans into effect; and he spent more and more time in reflection.

  Gille seemed to be enjoying himself as much as the sothrans, basking on the warm deck, but Olvar remained quietly watchful, even climbing to the masthead at times now that his feet had healed, although Kunrad half
expected to see it bend under his bulk. Most of all Olvar took the watch at dawn and evening, when the low light threw long deceptive shadows like great seabeasts across the waves, and the shore faded in the sea mists.

  So it was that his voice woke them, bringing the sleepy deck-watch to their feet in the clammy cool of dawn, and rousing the others out of their oil-scented sleep among the warm wool bales below. ‘Ahoy! A ship! Two ships, three, off the landward bow!’

  Ceinor was on deck ahead of all the rest, buckling his belt. ‘Whither away, Northman?’ he yelled, shading his eyes. ‘I see nothing!’

  ‘Landward ho!’ boomed Olvar. ‘Three hulls, no sails, low to the waves and rowing fast on our bearing!’

  ‘Olvar has better eyes than most men,’ said Kunrad at his side.

  Ceinor stood an instant, breathing hard. ‘Can you see how many oars a side?’

  ‘I can not! Can you count a centipede’s legs? For so they rise and fall!’

  Ceinor beat on the steering oar. ‘Corsairs, for sure! The luck, damn it, the luck! Longboats piled gunwale-high with hungry outlaws, rowing in relays! Well, they’ve left it too long! We’ll sweat those starvelings close to the Southlands – and any that overhaul us, why, we’ll send them home on the tide, to foul the beaches with their bony carrion! To your sweeps, every man!’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Light in the Marshes

  THEY BENT THEIR BACKS and strained, pitting every fibre of their muscle to lighten the load on the sail, until the bows lifted and it seemed that the Ravenswing sought to live up to her name. But now those on the landward oars, Kunrad among them, could see the distant shapes in the mist, low dark arrow-streaks that sliced through the steely wavecrests with alarming speed. Ceinor stalked up and down the deck, alternately calling the stroke and cursing hoarsely. ‘Pull, now! And – pull! Asleep, are you, you lousy whoresons? Dreaming of your scabby port-girls? Pull, swine – and pull! Or they’ll needs find better men to scratch their itches!’

  He laid about him with his scabbard, landing stinging cracks on the rowers’ backs, Kunrad’s included; but no man had breath to yell or protest, not with those arrows driving in upon them.

  ‘Pull! Till you break your backs – pull! Till you puke out your hearts – pull! Better that than a corsair pike!’

  But very soon he ceased even to swear. For all they could do, the Ravenswing, much larger and heavily laden, was unmistakably being overhauled. Ceinor, clambering up to the quarterdeck, half drew his sword, then slammed it back in the scabbard. ‘Well, then, sod it! If we can’t slip them, we’ll teach them a trick or two! Ship your sweeps! Ready about!’ Rowers leaped from the benches to man the ropes. ‘Helm! Put ’er over at my call! Lee’O!’

  The heavy yard groaned around the flexing mast as the ship, suddenly baulked of her speed, swung broadside to the waves and then about, in a long listing arc upon the water. The sail sagged, the sheets dipped low into the wavecrests and rose dripping. Then the hull righted, the crew frantically hauled the sheets in around the cleats, the sail thumped taut again, and the Ravenswing bucked on to her new course, heeling low against the wind. Suddenly there was only sea in Kunrad’s sight, at a crazy angle; but on the bench opposite, Olvar, craning over his shoulder, growled suddenly and bent to his oar, just as Ceinor shouted ‘Out sweeps, and fast! Now, for your lives! We’re going to ram them!’

  He stamped the time, screamed it, punched it in the air with his fists, an impossible pounding beat that somehow they kept up. Blood oozed along the leatherbound grips, the rowlocks creaked, the heeling ship topped the wavecrests and bounced along in great spouts of blinding spray. Still Kunrad saw nothing but the swaying horizon. Spray and sweat soaked him, pouring into his eyes; and then at Ceinor’s warning cry he swung up his oar with the rest and braced himself against the thwart.

  The impact was frightening, a boneshaking jar and crash. The mast juddered and twanged, the sail convulsed like a stricken animal, and a horrible medley of howls and screams burst out as if from Hella’s gate. Then they were past, between long, narrow black bows and stern upthrust on either side, sinking swiftly among a flailing scatter of arms and bobbing heads. They had sliced the corsair longboat in two. A great howl of derision arose, and Ceinor, dancing on the quarterdeck, bayed like a hound.

  The other boats were backing water frantically, turning faster than any sailing boat could to face them. They were readying something in the bows—

  A flat heavy snap, a brief whistle and over the side a snake flew and struck clattering across the deck – a three-pronged grapnel. Ceinor, sword upraised, sprang to cut it free. Then the line jerked tight, the grapnel leaped from the deck and Ceinor screamed as it caught him by the chest and threw him back against the rail. The helmsman ran to help, but Ceinor was pulled over and into the sea. An arrow sang, and the helmsman staggered and slumped down. Kunrad, horrified, saw the heavy catapults in the longboats’ bows and sterns swing around. More grapnels soared over the ship, with arrows hissing after them. A rower near Kunrad hacked at a grapnel’s tail, but the first few feet were chain. He cut once, twice, and then Kunrad’s sword smashed through the metal. An arrow hissed past him and caught the other man in the side. Then a line whipped dripping from the water, and another grapnel snapped tight.

  Caught helmless and heeling by the sudden drag of the longboat, the Ravenswing jolted violently. The sail thrashed and bellied, the mast bucked out of its socket, and the forestay snapped. The rowers, no longer braced, were hurled headlong from their benches. The mast swung to one side, half overboard, the yard tilted and the sail slapped down into the sea. The Ravenswing lost all its way and wallowed in the swell, while the longboats slipped sharklike alongside. Kunrad, picking himself up, glimpsed a frieze of fierce faces, some pale, some dark, all with the same fixed hungry grin. In that boat alone there was twice the Ravenswing’s crew. Then the hulls bumped, the frieze broke and came spilling in a yelling tide over the rail.

  The crew were already on their feet, Kunrad and Olvar among them. Gille ducked behind them only just in time, as boarding pikes bit into the rowers’ benches. Kunrad hesitated, then, to his own surprise, shouted ‘Now!’ and slashed out at the first aboard. They fell, and others with them as the crewmen hit out desperately, unable to miss. But those behind leaped over the men who fell, pressing in until there was little room to fight, slashing with dagger and boarding pike, tearing rings from ears and fingers even as they fought. Somebody somewhere was bellowing orders, but no voice Kunrad knew; it must be a corsair leader. The flat of a swinging pike-blade slapped at him, he staggered and was pushed back with the rest. Suddenly there was no deck beneath him, he was falling down among the benches. Feet caught him, then the benches and the sweepshafts, and he sprawled among them, bruised and breathless, while a wash of yelling and screaming passed over him, and sudden hot spatters of blood.

  Then the noise faded, as suddenly as a blow, it seemed. He tried to sit up, failed and sank back with a groan. Something near by blotted out the glaring sunlight, and he was hoisted sharply to the deck, where he fell to his knees. He looked up, trying to see Olvar and Gille, but a hand in his hair turned his face to a tall man sitting on the quarterdeck’s single step, a man with dirty ginger hair fastened in a gold-broidered band, and a blunt, ugly face made worse by a crisscross of old scars and bruises. His hair was wildly tousled, his gaudy patchwork jerkin splashed with blood, and he sat awkwardly, favouring one leg, but his face was expressionless as he looked at the cowed survivors. He picked up a short heavy cutlass and tapped it in the palm of one hand.

  ‘Huh!’ he said. ‘Well, that’s that.’ His speech was sothran, heavily accented and hard to make out from the book dialect Kunrad had learned. ‘Not bad, though, not at all. We might use you. Or a few, anyhow. We don’t need you, mind, but you’ve sunk a few good lads today, and we could stand to replace them.’ He jabbed the cutlass at one crewman, who was hustled forward. ‘Nothing personal, friend—’ Without a second’s hesitation, the cutlass slash
ed at the sailor’s neck, slicing it almost through.

  The corsairs who held him flung the still flailing man over the side. ‘That’s just to show you how we do things,’ grunted their commander, expressionless and calm. ‘Might have been a good enough lad, but we’ve plenty. Sailors especially, so you don’t much matter. You want to live, you take orders from this moment on, now and for ever. Answer when you’re spoken to, shut up when you aren’t, and you live and die when we say, like we’re your pa and ma together. One word out of place, and I’ll make half your number gut the other half.’ He rattled out the speech as if from long habit. ‘Now, answer me – anyone else on board with other skills ’side sailoring? Passengers, like?’

  Kunrad couldn’t blame the man who burst out, ‘There’re smiths! Three of them!’

  The commander nodded. ‘Smart lad. Learns quickly. Which three?’

  It eased Kunrad’s heart when Gille was pointed out, and Olvar, sitting nursing his head. At least they were alive; but then the whole burden of keeping them so fell back on his shoulders. The corsair jabbed the bloody cutlass at him. ‘Northern smiths?’

  Kunrad hesitated, and the cutlass jabbed him in the midriff, not hard enough to break the skin. ‘I said Northern smiths? You get the second chance ’cause I saw you fight, and ’cause you might be some use. Make the best of it, big man.’

  Kunrad nodded, though it hurt his head. ‘Northern smiths, yes. I’m a master. These are my men.’

  ‘Get ’em in the boat!’ said the corsair. Kunrad’s arms were seized, he was hauled to his feet and more or less bundled overside. He landed on an oarbench in the long-ship, and a length of chain was slapped around his legs. In front of him Olvar arrived with a crash that nearly broke the bench, and Gille was dumped ahead of him, chained like the others. After them corsairs came spilling, and Kunrad half expected to be kicked or taunted. But they filed to their benches without fuss, and settled themselves easily at the oars. Another man, burly and brown-haired, barked an order, and they seized the oars in almost perfect unison. A lash landed on his back, and he seized his. The longboat was shoved off from the Ravenswing, where he could see the crewmen hurriedly restepping the mast under corsair orders. Another order started his side rowing, swinging the longboat back towards the shore, into the light of the sunrise. It beat hotly on Kunrad’s bruised back, and his mouth, cracked and dry already, but he knew he would have to row hard before he could rest or drink. There was no sign of provisions in the crowded boat, neither for corsair nor captive, only room for booty. These were not common outlaws. Their discipline was frightening, even in their brutality, and he was having his first lesson in it now. His head reeled from hard use, his heart welled up with dark despair, but he would endure. He had no choice.