Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga)

by Gail Z. Martin

  A palpable fear had taken root in the hold. Unlike the other storms, even the terrible flight from their ruined kingdom, tonight the fear of death clung to his fellow refugees. Men fingered smooth rune stones and women caressed prayer beads. Crazy Benna, the seer, had made black streaks on her face and arms with the lampblack, a mark of mourning or contrition. She had managed to light a bundle of sage from one of the lanterns, and its sweet, smoky scent fought with the stench of unwashed bodies.

  As the ship was suddenly swept skyward, Connor’s stomach lurched. The ship came down hard, with a terrible crunch and the crack of breaking beams against something much more solid than water. There was a sickening moment of silence, when the world itself seemed to hold its breath, and then the Prowess listed hard to port, crashing against whatever it was that had stopped the ship’s forward motion.

  Portholes shattered, and icy seawater began to stream in. People screamed and scrambled to keep their footing. Connor hauled Dorin to his feet and shouldered under his arm. Hazy with the drug, Dorin opened his eyes and stared at Connor as if trying to place him.

  “What’s going on?” Dorin slurred.

  “We’re sinking.”

  Already, the seams along the port hull were giving way, and wood splintered under the weight of the ship and the sea waves. “Get to the stairs!” Engraham shouted above the screams and cries. Connor wrapped one arm around Dorin’s waist and was attempting to make his way through the crowd when the ship shifted beneath his feet. It felt to Connor as if Yadin himself had lifted the ship in the palm of his hand and thrown it into the air once more.

  Awkward and heavy, the beleaguered ship could not hold together. Connor watched in horror as boards peeled away from the ribs of the ship, and the deck above him separated with a loud snap. The portion of the deck connected to the stairs collapsed, trapping those who had nearly made it to the questionable safety above. The ship trembled, and Connor heard a mighty crack that reverberated through every board as the keel of the Prowess snapped. The whole forward section ripped away from the aft, and the ship tumbled back to the ocean, spilling its fragile cargo into the black waves.

  All around Connor, bodies plummeted through the air. He was pelted with fragments of wood, and with the fractured contents of the hold. He still had a hold of Dorin when the deck dropped out from beneath his feet, but as he fell, Dorin’s dead weight tore out of his grip, and Connor tumbled into the sea.

  Connor screamed, but he knew enough not to flail his arms and to hit the water’s surface as cleanly as he could. He gulped a lungful of frigid air before his body knifed beneath the waves. A few powerful strokes of his arms brought him to the surface, but he ducked beneath the water just as quickly to avoid the bodies and debris that came raining down all around him. Screams echoed in the strange dim glow of a perpetual night that was blacker than twilight but not true dark.

  A large barrel floated by, and Connor grabbed at it, hoisting himself mostly over it. He immediately reconsidered as the air began to freeze his clothing to his skin. The sea was a bone-chilling cold, and Connor had no illusions about how long they would stay alive. For an instant, he envied Dorin, who had likely drowned or been killed upon impact.

  “Connor!”

  Certain he was hallucinating, Connor tried to maintain his grip on the barrel and look around. In the near darkness, he could barely make out the shadows of people and flotsam. Only a few of the body-shaped silhouettes were upright. Most floated on the water, a sea of corpses, amid the wreckage of the Prowess.

  “Connor! Over here!”

  Connor followed the sound, willing his shivering arms to propel him toward Engraham’s voice. He found the tavern master clinging to a section of hull that was almost raft-size.

  “Where’s Dorin?”

  Connor shook his head. “I lost him. When we fell, I couldn’t hold him—”

  “Probably for the best,” Engraham said. “I didn’t think you’d have approved, but it crossed my mind to just give him the rest of the laudanum and let him drift off in his sleep.”

  “Might have been a kindness,” Connor agreed through chattering teeth.

  Engraham had thrown a couple of mid-length boards atop his section of hull. “We’re not far from shore,” Engraham said, and pointed. Connor could make out a solid line of darkness in the twilight, and farther away, the glow of lights.

  “I think we can paddle ashore.” Engraham hauled himself atop the makeshift raft, threw a length of salvaged rope to Connor, and pulled him close enough to help him onto the raft. He handed him a broken board. “The storm’s dying down, but we’ve only got a few minutes before we’re too cold to think straight. When that happens, we’ll die. We might still freeze on shore, but I’d rather die with dry ground under my feet.”

  Together, they rowed toward the dark shore of Edgeland. The winds had lessened, but the water was still rough. Connor kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, willing himself not to see the corpses that floated on the water, not to think about the ship that had once been assembled out of the bits of broken wood scattered across the ocean. He heard the shouts and cries of the other passengers who bobbed in the water, and he could make out their dark shapes swimming toward the shore or clinging to larger debris. His whole body was trembling violently, and his teeth hit against each other hard enough that Connor was sure he would break a tooth. His hands were clenched around the board, but he was cold enough that he doubted he could have forced his frozen fingers to let go.

  As the shoreline loomed, the raft scraped against the rocky shallows. Connor toppled onto his hands and knees. The rocks may have split open his skin, but he was too cold to know or care. Together, he and Engraham staggered the last few feet out of the water and collapsed on the brushy shore.

  Connor fought to remain conscious. He thought he heard voices, but dismissed it as the visions of the dying. He heard the sound again: unfamiliar voices, shouting something he couldn’t quite make out. There were footsteps, and then someone grasped Connor by the shoulders and rolled him onto his back.

  “This one’s alive!” the stranger’s voice shouted. “What about yours?”

  “So’s this one, but they won’t be for long in this cold.”

  Connor heard a groan and recognized Engraham’s voice. “Take us—” Engraham struggled to say.

  “Don’t fret yourself,” the stranger said. “Whatever it is, you can tell us later.”

  Connor’s rescuer lifted him and carried him a few paces to a wagon. He set Connor down and wrapped him in a rough blanket. Another man wrestled Engraham’s lanky frame into the wagon, tucking the blanket around him when it was clear Engraham was shivering too badly to do it for himself.

  “Don’t know where you thought you were going, but you’re in Edgeland, if you wondered,” one of their rescuers said. “We saw the ship from the lookout tower, and when we lost sight of you in the storm, we feared the worst.”

  Several other men walked up to the wagon. “Did you find anyone else?” Connor’s rescuer asked.

  “Maybe a dozen or so alive,” the voice answered. “Otherwise, just corpses.”

  Connor’s rescuer nodded. “All right, then. Let’s get the survivors back to town and into dry clothes. We can scavenge the wreck tomorrow.”

  Engraham grabbed at the man’s sleeve. “Take us—” he struggled to say, but the seawater in his throat choked him.

  “Where do you think we can take you?” the man asked. “You’re at the end of the world.” He paused. “Is there someone here you know? Is that it?”

  Engraham nodded his head. “I have a friend here,” he managed to whisper. “Take us to Lord Blaine McFadden.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MICK!” PIRAN ROWSE’S VOICE CARRIED THROUGH the cold autumn night. “Mick McFadden!”

  Blaine looked up. He was just getting back to the Crooked House tavern after several candlemarks spent searching Edgeland’s coast for survivors of the shipwreck, and he could barely feel his hands. The long dar
k had come a few weeks ago, and with it, Edgeland’s icy cold.

  “Over here!” he shouted.

  Piran shouldered through the crowd outside of the Crooked House. Some of those assembled were the tavern’s regulars, excited to have news. Others had come to be on hand should survivors be found. That included Kestel and Verran, who had gathered anyone with any healing experience. Dawe and Blaine had been part of the search teams, heading up and down Edgeland’s rocky coast with wagons looking for survivors or usable items that could be scavenged. Blaine sighed, wishing for nothing more than a glass of brandy and a warm bed.

  “Did you find survivors?” Blaine tried to ignore a headache that was building just behind his temples.

  Piran nodded. “Twelve that my group found. Maybe a few more among the other searchers. Everyone else—” He let his voice drift off, but Blaine understood. Given the freezing-cold water and the chill air, it was a miracle any of the passengers managed to get ashore alive.

  “What are the odds that they’ll stay alive—at least long enough for us to find out what they were doing out there?”

  Piran shrugged. “Most of them were in pretty bad shape. They’ve been taken to the healers. I wouldn’t bet money on some of them.” He paused. “A couple were able to speak when we picked them up.” He nodded toward the doorway to the Crooked House. “Just took those two inside to let Kestel and the others fix them up. Get some hot soup into them and a nip of brandy, and they’ll probably be fine as long as fever doesn’t set in.”

  “Convicts?” Blaine asked.

  Piran frowned. “Not so we could tell. Didn’t see a brand on them, or irons.”

  Blaine looked out over the dark sea that stretched from the wharves to the horizon. “Then what in the Sea of Souls were they doing way up here? Were they from Donderath?”

  “They answered our questions in Donderan just fine.” Piran paused. “Mick, do you know of any other McFadden who’s a prisoner here?”

  Blaine gave a bitter laugh. “No. It’s not a common name. I’m the only black sheep.” He paused at the odd look Piran gave him. “Why?”

  “Because one of our new guests asked to see ‘Lord’ Blaine McFadden. That wouldn’t be you, Mick, would it?”

  For a moment, Blaine felt as if the cold had stolen his breath. “What else did he say?” Blaine asked when he found his voice again.

  Piran’s eyes narrowed, and Blaine knew his friend recognized the evasion. “Not much. Had lungs full of seawater. Said this Lord McFadden was his friend.”

  “Sweet Esthrane,” Blaine whispered.

  Piran laid a hand on Blaine’s arm. “You’re a lord, Mick? A bleedin’ lord? We’ve been mates for what—six years? And you didn’t bother to mention it?”

  Blaine let out a long breath. “As far as I’m concerned, ‘Lord’ McFadden died on the ship from Donderath. I lost my lands and title when Merrill passed sentence. I’m not lord of anything—not anymore.”

  “King Merrill passed sentence—in person? By Torven, Mick, you’ve been holding out on your mates. Let me get this straight—the king himself sentenced you?”

  “Don’t be so impressed. All it did was win me exile rather than the noose—or worse. Merrill had been friends with my father.”

  “So isn’t your father Lord McFadden?”

  “Who do you think I killed?”

  Piran stared at him, dumbfounded. “Do the others know?”

  “Just Kestel.”

  “You told Kestel?”

  “I didn’t have to. Kestel recognized me from court.”

  “From court.” Piran gave Blaine an incredulous look. “So all her blather about being a rich man’s fancy whore—she was telling the truth?”

  “Kestel was the most sought-after courtesan in King Merrill’s court. She was also a damn good spy—and an assassin.”

  Piran let out a low whistle. “Well, that’s a few notches up from where I’d figured, even though she’s easy on the eyes.” He shook his head. “Were you ever going to let the rest of us in on the whole story?”

  Blaine shrugged uncomfortably. “What would have been the point? What I had, I lost. Who I used to be doesn’t matter up here. I’m a murderer, a convict, and an exile. And I’ve gotten rather used to being Mick instead of Blaine. I’d just as soon leave Blaine dead and buried.”

  Piran gave him a knowing glance. “Don’t know if that’s going to be possible, Mick m’boy, once our new guests tell their stories.”

  Blaine sighed. His breath steamed in the cold air. “Then we’d best get in there and see if we can contain the damage.”

  Blaine and Piran walked into the crowded tavern. It might have been his imagination, but Blaine felt the eyes of the crowd on him as he and Piran made their way to the back room, where two of the survivors had been taken.

  They stayed out of the way against the wall as Kestel and one of the Bay-town healers saw to the castaways’ needs in the warmth of the inn’s kitchen. Verran had tagged along and was lending a hand. Without magic, the healer would be limited to potions and poultices.

  Blaine looked at the two men. On the bench closest to him lay a man whom Blaine guessed to be in his late teens or early twenties. He was of average height, with dark-blond hair. It was hard for Blaine to tell much about the man’s waterlogged and worn clothing, but from what he could make out, the cut and cloth had once been quite good.

  Neither he nor his friend have the look of a laborer, or a farmer, Blaine mused. Perhaps merchants, or lesser nobility. The blond man might even have worn such an outfit at court if he were a valet or squire. Interesting. The man would have been barely apprenticed when Blaine had been sent to Velant. Doubtful that he would be the one to have gone looking for a long-disgraced lord at the edge of the world.

  The other man was probably a few years older than Blaine, perhaps in his early thirties, Blaine guessed. He had wavy brown hair, and Blaine felt sure that when the stranger opened his eyes, they would be blue. With a start, Blaine knew where he had seen the man before. Engraham, his memory supplied. Lord Forden’s bastard. Now what’s he doing so far away from the Rooster and Pig?

  Ifrem came down the back stairs carrying an armful of dry clothing.

  “See if any of these fit,” Ifrem said. “They’re odds and ends from what patrons have left behind, but they’re dry and fairly clean.” He set the clothing on a worktable and went out front to tend the bar.

  Kestel and Verran began stripping the blond man out of his soggy clothing. He was barely conscious, unable to give more assistance than to keep himself from falling off the bench. Blaine saw a look pass between Kestel and Verran, and Kestel’s hand brushed against the folds of her skirt with an object Blaine couldn’t quite make out. Never let me forget to add “master thief” among Kestel’s many accomplishments, Blaine thought. What could she have found worth taking? Petty theft isn’t Kestel’s style.

  Without comment, Kestel and Verran finished getting the man changed into the mismatched garments Ifrem provided. On the other bench, the second man whom Blaine was increasingly sure was Engraham was only a bit more responsive as the healer got him changed into dry clothing. The healer plied both men with tea, and Blaine could smell the potent herbs in the brew that would ward off both chill and fever. To Blaine’s relief, neither man seemed up to talking, and the healer’s potion put both of them to sleep. After a murmured discussion between Kestel and the healer, the healer left the room and Kestel headed over to where Blaine and Piran stood, with Verran on her heels.

  “The healers were more than happy to let me take the first shift,” Kestel reported, answering their unspoken question. “There are several more castaways to care of, and these two seem to be in the best shape.”

  Verran reached out and poked Blaine in the shoulder.

  “What was that for?” Blaine asked, giving Verran a questioning look.

  Verran grinned. “Never poked a lord before. By the gods! I’ve been bunking in the same room with nobility for years now and I never
knew it.”

  Kestel rolled her eyes and gave an elaborate sigh. “Sorry, Mick. I’m guessing Piran’s already told you that our new neighbor washed ashore looking for his old ‘friend’ Blaine.”

  “Yeah, he told me.” Blaine watched Engraham’s sleeping form with mixed feelings. Curiosity at what had brought Engraham to Edgeland looking for him. Worry that their darkest fears about the war in Donderath might have come true. And more than a little resentment that Engraham’s arrival could blow apart everything Blaine had worked to build since he’d gained his Ticket of Leave.

  “Do you know him?” Kestel asked.

  Blaine nodded. “He looks like Engraham, who ran the Rooster and Pig tavern down on the wharves. Lord Forden’s bastard son.” He looked at Kestel. “Have you ever met him?”

  Kestel nodded. “I’d have put money on it being Engraham. I had clients who liked to gamble in the back room at the Rooster and Pig. Forden’s friends liked to play cards there along with their ‘companions.’ Place had the best bitterbeer in Castle Reach.”

  “What do you think he’s doing all the way up here?” Piran asked.

  Kestel shrugged. “By the time he and his friend got here, they could barely sit up long enough to get a dose of elixir in them. They’re lucky to be alive.”

  “If it’s luck that brings anyone to Edgeland,” Verran murmured.

  Blaine met Kestel’s eyes. “You pocketed something off the first man. What was it?”

  Kestel smiled. From a hidden pouch in the folds of her skirt, she produced a slim wooden case and an obsidian disk on a leather strap. “Something I thought looked interesting. Now, if you were thrown into the sea, what would be so important to you that you’d make sure you took it with you?” She weighed the wooden box across her palms.