Red Tide

by Marc Turner

  The stone-skins.

  Amerel swung her gaze back to the door to Talet’s study. A coincidence that the Augerans had come as she was due to meet the spy? It had to be. Otherwise Talet would have had to know what the stone-skins were planning, which in turn would mean he’d sold her out to the enemy. If this was a trap, though, why weren’t any Augerans here? Had they only wanted to ensure Amerel was far from the harbor so she couldn’t escape before the attack came? No, that couldn’t be right. As Amerel understood the Rubyholt alarm system, those bells meant stone-skin ships had been sighted in the outer isles. It would take them longer to reach Bezzle than it would for Amerel to reach the harbor. But would the Whitecap still be there when she arrived? Would she be able to get to it with everyone in the city looking to flee?

  Problems for later. First she had to deal with Talet.

  She strode across the courtyard and flung open the door to his study.

  The room beyond was exactly how she remembered it from her spirit-walk: roughly twenty armspans across and thirty deep; a concave wall opposite with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on a garden. The place stank of moonblossom. At a desk near the windows sat Talet, his back to Amerel, writing on a sheet of parchment. Composing a farewell note to a friend, maybe? Or a tearful confession to Dresk?

  When he did not acknowledge Amerel, she said, “Anyone else hear those bells?”

  Scratch, scratch went his quill on the parchment.

  Amerel took a step toward him. That feeling of wrongness was back, but she couldn’t find the cause. She looked into the garden, expecting to see stone-skins storming toward her through the flowerbeds.

  Nothing.

  Scratch, scratch. That Shroud-cursed quill was like a claw across her eardrums.

  “You wanted to see us?” Amerel said.

  Still no answer.

  She took another step closer. What game was Talet playing? Why invite her here if he meant to ignore her? His hair was thinning at the back, and through it Amerel could see his scalp was red from the sun. Her hand moved to the hilt of her sword. The spy’s posture was strangely cramped, and there was something jerky about the movement of his writing hand. Over his shoulder Amerel caught a glimpse of the parchment he was writing on.…

  She went still.

  It was empty of words. No ink on the quill, no inkpot on the desk.

  Scratch, scratch.

  A clank of metal on stone sounded behind, and Amerel spun round to see that a portcullis had slammed down across the doorway through which she had entered. A portcullis in a house? How had she missed that on the way in? It wasn’t an illusion either, for Amerel would have sensed someone trying to manipulate her thoughts.

  Noon’s voice was tense. “What’s going on?” he said.

  What indeed?

  Amerel swung back to the spy.

  To find him now slumped motionless over the desk. His shirt had disappeared to reveal that his back had been lashed to the bone. Judging by the bluish cast to his skin, he must have passed through Shroud’s Gate several bells ago. Of course, the moonblossom—to hide the smell of rot. Amerel felt the gorge rise in her throat. Flayed to death—a particularly unpleasant way to go, and she should know. The blood-dream was already bubbling up in her mind.

  She forced it down.

  “Welcome,” said a disembodied voice, and a figure materialized to her right.

  Something told Amerel she shouldn’t have been surprised.

  It was the stone-skin Scarface.

  * * *

  Gesturing to Barnick, Galantas crossed to the stairwell leading down to the lower floor of the temple. He took the steps three at a time. When he reached the bottom, Qinta and Carlo were waiting for him, with Vos approaching at a splash along the Gully. Nothing needed to be said. That second stone-skin vessel changed everything. It meant the Augerans had found a way to bypass the Isles’ network of watchtowers. It meant more of their ships would be coming. Bezzle was doomed, and it was a fate Galantas would share unless he could reach the Eternal and get out of here.

  He set off toward the harbor at a run. The Gully was still flooded from the wave of water-magic, and his steps kicked up spray. He could hear the clash of blades from the waterfront, but he knew any resistance would quickly be swept aside. Men and women poured into the Gully from the wharfs, and Galantas had to fight against the flow. “Out of the way!” he roared, but he could barely hear his own voice over the tumult.

  He drew his sword.

  Faces melted past. To his left a bare-chested man tripped on the heels of a woman, and they went down together and were trampled by the press. Another man sought to escape a building overlooking the Gulley by throwing himself from a first-story window and using the crowd to break his fall. Galantas didn’t see the jumper land, because a woman with blue-dyed hair had grabbed him by the shoulders and was screaming something into his face. He heaved her aside. This was hopeless. The Eternal was far to the south of here, so even if he could reach the waterfront, he’d have no chance of fighting through to it.

  Brine Alley was on his right, and he dashed into it. Running parallel to the waterfront, it was three paces across and under a finger’s width of water. Boarded windows and poster-filled walls flashed by. People streamed into the alley from the buildings to Galantas’s left. Some carried possessions they had rescued from their homes—a model galleon, a bronze bust of the Sender, even a hafters board with a solitary piece on it. Galantas had to swerve to avoid the board-carrier and scraped his shoulder against the wall. “Out of the way!” he shouted again, but no one was listening.

  From the waterfront came the sound of crumbling masonry as a building collapsed. There was a clash of swords, a thump of sorcery. Galantas tried to judge the progress of the stone-skin assault, but it was impossible to make sense of anything over the screams and sobs all about. A dozen paces ahead was a crossroads. People ran past from left to right, and behind them came the foaming dregs of another sorcerous wave. If Galantas could make it over the junction and into the alley beyond—

  Two black-cloaked figures holding shields stepped into the passage. It was too late for Galantas to turn about, so he charged them.

  They lowered their spears.

  “Barnick!” Galantas shouted, and the water on the ground around the stone-skins vaporized in a hiss of scalding steam. The Augerans cried out, covered their eyes with their sleeves.

  Galantas barreled into them.

  He broke between their shields and sprawled into shallow water, the mist warm on his face. The wave of water-magic had retreated toward the harbor, leaving a scattering of runefish flopping on the flagstones. Voices from his left, the stamp of feet. More stone-skins? Galantas tried to rise, caught a stray boot in the ribs, and went down again.

  Qinta’s battle cry sounded. Grunts, curses, the clatter of swords. From Galantas’s prone position, all he could see in the mist were the legs of the combatants. Perhaps it would have been safer for him to play dead, but his blood was up, and when a black-cloaked man came within range, he chopped at the Augeran’s leg with his sword. Missed. A spear tip came for his chest. He rolled to evade it, heard it clatter off the flagstones. A female stone-skin reared above him, her spear drawn back to strike.

  A mace cut through the murk, shattering her jaw in a shower of blood and teeth. She dropped with a mangled gargle.

  Galantas scrambled to his feet. The mist was dispersing, and a look around revealed only one Augeran still upright, huddled behind his shield. Qinta and Carlo took turns putting dents in it. In the harbor beyond, a three-masted Rubyholt ship sped away from the quay—the Wraith, if Galantas remembered rightly. Faloman’s ship. Didn’t mean Faloman was on it, of course, and it occurred to Galantas he should be fleeing on the first ship he came to, rather than trying to reach the Eternal.

  Then a wave of black sorcery struck the Wraith’s port side, and its main deck and mast dissolved to dust.

  That complicated things.

  More Augerans pounde
d along the street toward Galantas. Barnick must have seen them too, because the water on the flagstones in front of them vaporized in white curls.

  Time to go.

  Galantas bolted into the alley beyond the junction. “Qinta, to me!” he called.

  He scowled as he ran. The Eternal was lost. His ship was still more than a stone’s throw away, and even if he could get to it, he would likely be annihilated by sorcery before he escaped the harbor. The realization left a bitter taste in his mouth. A captain without a ship was like a turtle without its shell. More important, the Eternal was part of Galantas’s legend. Having the most celebrated ship in the Isles just meant his disgrace would be that much greater when he lost it. But it would be only a temporary loss. He would take it back, no matter the cost.

  The bells of the Meridian Watchtower continued to ring. Ahead the alley was blocked by crates of gallow crabs. A woman knelt beside them, beseeching the skies as if she thought some immortal would reach down and lift her to safety. To Galantas’s right the houses had given way to shops, and he careered into the backyard of one before scampering to the store itself. When he flung open the door he was greeted by the smell of galtane and caramir. An apothecary, then. He vaulted a counter and overturned a jar of silverspark flowers. It smashed on the floor, spilling petals. Glass crunched beneath his feet as he ran for the door.

  He emerged breathless into the glare and clamor. In front and to his left, Tanner Road led deeper into the city. The press of people was thicker here than it had been along the Gully, but at least there were no red or black cloaks among them. And this time Galantas was moving with the flow, not against it. He risked a look behind and was relieved to see Barnick and Qinta with him. No sign of Carlo, Reska or Vos, alas, but Galantas had more important things to worry about just now. If he couldn’t reach the Eternal, he’d need another way off the island.

  And he’d need it fast.

  CHAPTER 11

  KARMEL PEERED southwest toward Bezzle. The city crawled with frantic motion like an anthill kicked to life. Mazana Creed hadn’t said the place would be under attack when the Chameleons arrived, but the stone-skins’ presence cast a new light on Mokinda’s unease at the delays they’d experienced in Gilgamar.

  The Storm Lord sat on the forecastle steps, conversing in a series of glances with the captain a dozen paces away. In close attendance were the ship’s two water-mages, their furrowed brows suggesting they thought the captain should already have withdrawn. Scullen was there too. His cockiness had vanished a quarter of a bell ago with the first sorcerous concussion of the stone-skin offensive. Now he was leading the calls for the Grace to flee, his voice growing shriller with each heartbeat. Karmel might have enjoyed his discomfort if her own mouth hadn’t been so dry.

  The captain’s silent discussion with Mokinda concluded, and she shouted at her mages to heave to. The Grace abruptly settled on the swell. A barge was on tow behind, and at an order from the captain it was hauled forward to the port side.

  “That’s us,” Caval said to Karmel. He’d brought her gear up from the cabin, and now dropped her pack and blowpipe at her feet. The smell of oscura was heavy on his breath.

  It took an instant for his words to sink in. “We’re still going through with this?” she said. “We’re going to land while the stone-skins are attacking?”

  “Why not? The raid has only just started. There’s no way the stone-skins will have taken the city.”

  “Not the whole city, perhaps, but their first target will be the warlord’s fortress. And our route is going to take us across theirs. Across it.”

  Caval shrugged. “So the stone-skins see us, so what? We’ll just be two more locals running for their lives.”

  But two locals who had never set foot in the city before. Two locals relying on a map that looked like it had been scribbled by a child. Karmel didn’t voice the thought, however. What was she going to do? Cry off with a headache?

  She picked up her pack and followed Caval.

  Her brother crossed to the port rail where Mokinda waited. Steps were carved into the Grace’s hull, and Caval descended to the barge now floating below. Scullen demanded to know where the Chameleons were going, but Karmel paid him no mind. Never thought she’d be sad to leave him behind. She started down the ladder. The lower steps were slimy with growth, and when the time came to step into the barge, it seemed always that the boat would dip just as the Grace was rising. In the end Caval had to grab Karmel and haul her into the prow, where she sat down with a bump.

  The priestess wouldn’t need her blowpipe for this first part of the mission, so she stored it beneath a sailcloth cover. Across from her, Caval sat gazing up at the sky. There was no hint of nervousness in his expression. Sensing her gaze upon him, he looked over and said. “Your boyfriend not joining us?”

  Karmel gave a weary sigh.

  “You needn’t worry,” Caval added, “I gave him our details in Olaire. When he’s next in town he promised to drop in.”

  “From a very great height, we can hope.”

  Her brother laughed.

  Mokinda stepped down from the ladder onto the rear thwart. He settled himself on the oar bench, shipped the oars, and used one to push the boat away from the Grace. There was no more disquiet in his look than there was in Caval’s, but then neither of them had fought that stone-skin in the Dianese citadel. This is madness, Karmel thought. On Dragon Day, just one Augeran had defeated her and Veran, yet now they were about to enter a city full of them?

  Mokinda hauled on the oars. The Grace rose on a sorcerous wave, and a line of grim faces watched Karmel from the rail as the ship turned and started back the way it had come. Only when the vessel was far away did Mokinda summon up his own wave to carry the boat to shore—slowly at first, then faster and faster until the barge zipped across the water like a skimmed stone.

  Ahead a deserted watchtower marked the northern end of a bay at the edge of the city. A handful of fishing boats were moving away from shore. All were brimful with people. Two boats yet remained in the shallows, and Rubyholters swarmed and fought around them like beggars around a corpse. Of the stone-skins, there was no sign. The city was alive with screams.

  Karmel looked south toward the harbor. A thump of sorcery set the waterfront shaking, and left a black stain on the air that the breeze could not disperse. A forest of masts was visible over the rooftops. No telling how many of those masts belonged to Augeran ships, or what resistance the Bezzlians were putting up. With luck, the defenders would hold the enemy until the Chameleons reached their destination; though judging by the stampede at the beach, it was clear the locals didn’t think much of their kinsmen’s chances.

  The priestess removed her baldric from her pack and strapped it across her chest. The last fishing boat pulled away from shore. There seemed to be as many people in it as had sailed south with Karmel on the Grace. Yet more Bezzlians swam alongside the craft, trying to heave themselves aboard, while those with a seat punched and scratched and shrieked at them to be gone. On the beach behind, two men wrestled back and forth with their hands around each other’s throats, apparently unaware that the boat they fought over had left.

  Mokinda’s voice cut through her thoughts. “You’ll have to wade the last part,” he said.

  It was only then that Karmel noticed how close to shore they were. Bezzlians were running along the beach toward them, and Mokinda halted the craft a short distance from the surf to ensure he didn’t pick up any baggage for the outward passage.

  “I’ll see you at the meeting point.”

  Caval pushed himself upright and raised one foot to the gunwale. “Ready?” he said to Karmel. There was an unaccustomed concern in his look that suggested he would have called the whole thing off if she’d asked it.

  She gathered herself, then nodded.

  * * *

  Amerel watched the Augeran caper into the center of the room and perform a clumsy pirouette. His face was a lattice of evenly spaced scars, as if someone
had cut the lines in his skin so they could use him as a hafters board. Looking out from the devastation was the deadest pair of eyes Amerel had ever seen—deader even than the eyes that stared back at her from the mirror when she looked in it.

  Noon stepped between her and the stone-skin. My hero. His expression was assured. Purposeful. After the mystery of that suddenly appearing portcullis, here was something he could understand: an enemy with a beating heart. The two men faced each other like duelists waiting for the referee’s call. Scarface grinned, his head cocked to one side as if he didn’t know why the Breaker was being so unfriendly. Noon reached over his shoulders for the twin shortswords scabbarded at his back.

  Then his arms snapped forward. His hands were holding not his swords, but two throwing knives that must have been sheathed at his wrists. The daggers flashed toward the stone-skin.

  A clever move, Amerel had to admit: lull the Augeran enemy into thinking Noon was reaching for one weapon, then surprise him with a strike from another. Scarface certainly seemed to have been wrong-footed, for he made no move to evade the Breaker’s knives. The first thudded into his chest over the heart. The second took him in his left eye, and his head snapped back. That was one wound he wouldn’t be stitching up after. Amerel waited for the stone-skin to fall.

  But he didn’t fall. Instead he took a step back and righted himself.

  Then giggled.

  He tugged the knives free and tossed them onto the floor. Where his eye had been was now a hole in raw pink flesh, leaking gray fluids. But no blood. He placed a finger in the hole and wiggled it around. Was this the point where Amerel was supposed to clap and ask how it was done? She watched the hole close, the skin drawing up around a new eye that formed where the old one had been. Scarface rolled the eye to test it, then sent his other orb turning the opposite way. His chest wound had healed too, leaving just a tear in his shirt where the knife had struck.