Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis)

by McKenna Juliet E.

  As the Mandarkin had angrily berated him, Hosh didn’t need any omens to tell him how perilous his situation was. He was a dead man if Anskal concluded he was either lying or that he was simply too ignorant to be of continued use as a source of information about these islands.

  So he had brought the wizard here this morning, to this sacrosanct hollow beyond the line of ironwood trees some way inland from the pavilions and the hut settlement. To his profound relief, these ancient stones had finally enabled the Mandarkin to grasp his meaning.

  ‘Each also marks an arc of this earthly compass, where they look for omens of any kind; birds, clouds, some unforeseen occurrence. To give them some answers as to questions of partnership, death, travel?’ Anskal marked out the first quarter of the circle with his pointing finger before cocking his head at Hosh. ‘But these stars are not anywhere close to these stones at the moment. What of that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Hosh hated to say so but there was so much he didn’t understand about the Archipelagans’ philosophies.

  ‘This is also where they test their slaves?’ The Mandarkin had lost interest, returning once again to the dark stains marring the trampled soil.

  ‘Yes.’ Hosh swallowed stomach-churning recollection of the slaughter he had seen here, when newly-chained captives had been set to fight each other. The corsairs had both wagered and read portents into who lived and who had died.

  There were days when he still couldn’t believe that he had survived being hurled into such deadly combat. Followed by nights when he dreamed of the half-starved, half-witted unfortunate whom he’d had to kill to live. Hosh kept telling himself that the dead man must surely have been reborn, all unknowing by now. That Saedrin would understand he’d had no choice at all. That was scant consolation when he woke sweating, his heart pounding, his stomach heaving.

  ‘That is good.’ Once again Anskal was nodding.

  Hosh couldn’t decide which was more disturbing; that the wizard so clearly approved of such brutality or that he had recognised these blood stains for what they were before Hosh had begun to explain. What was this distant homeland of his like?

  ‘All the same, very strange.’ Anskal shook his head in wonderment before turning back to Hosh. ‘Now you will go and talk to those who fled across the island.’

  The Mandarkin nodded and turning his back, began walking back towards the shady trees, heading for the huts and the pavilions beyond overlooking the curve of the beach at the head of the anchorage.

  Hosh watched him go. The bastard clearly didn’t doubt for an instant that he would be obeyed.

  Because the wizard wasn’t wrong, he thought unhappily. As wretched as his life was, Hosh wasn’t yet so tired of life that he’d defy the Mandarkin outright and die in some magical agony before he’d so much as closed his mouth on the words.

  But wouldn’t that happen regardless, if he came back from the island’s far shore with some message of rejection from the corsairs and their slaves? Because Hosh couldn’t think how he could possibly persuade them to listen to any wizard’s proposal.

  He contemplated the stained earth. The blood shed here wasn’t only from captured slaves. The corsairs had clustered in the hollow, seeking desperately for omens in the first terrified days after Anskal’s arrival. Fear and anger had seen them turn murderously on each other. Hosh had seen Ducah kill a double handful of men and more, for no reason beyond his own impotent fury.

  He felt for the silver-gilt and crystal arm ring hidden under his tunic sleeve. It seemed a horribly flimsy protection against a corsair horde’s fury. He could only trust that it was proof against however many blades he might face. Surely Anskal wouldn’t knowingly send him to his death? Hosh wished he could be sure of that. He began walking regardless.

  As he left the bloody hollow, he looked up at the blue sky streaked with the clouds of the rains that would come shortly after noon. He had bought himself a few days by insisting to Anskal that if he was to get any hearing at all, they must wait for the most favourable alignments of the heavenly jewels.

  Just at present, as any Aldabreshin would know, day or night, all the most significant coloured stars and both the moons were in the same quarter of the sky. Apart from the Sapphire which took seven years to traverse a single arc, if Hosh had understood Imais the slave cook correctly, and the Topaz which crossed those invisible boundaries only once a year, thus marking the calendar for the Aldabreshi some time in For-Spring by the Caladhrian almanac.

  Hosh shoved his way through a flourishing thicket of fringe tree saplings. It was remarkable how the island’s greenery had returned without the corsairs’ greedy blades hacking everything down for firewood and after half a season of the island’s drenching rains.

  The Amethyst for calm and humility floated serene with the Pearl that supposedly soothed unruly emotion and promoted intuition. It was also a talisman against magic and with the Lesser Moon waxing, Hosh could only hope all that would count against these jewels being in the compass arc for omens of death. The stars there were the Mirror Bird and that was another talisman against magic, wasn’t it?

  Didn’t that mean they could at least listen to him without being stained by wizardry’s corruption? Hosh only hoped he’d get the chance to make that argument. If he could only find Nifai.

  Of all the Reef Eagle’s crewmen, the overseer had been the keenest to trade his share of their loot to maximum advantage. That was one reason he’d saved Hosh’s life; to learn more of the Tormalin tongue, in order to deal with mainland merchants in person without losing a portion of his gains to some more fluent middleman.

  A thicker tangle blocked his path and Hosh had to cast back and forth to either side before he found a gap he could squeeze through without risking the knotted vine’s vicious spines. The slightest scratch from those could fester so vilely in this place. He’d seen enough men die to know, deliberately lashed with the things for some corsair ship master’s entertainment.

  Perhaps he should have asked Anskal if he could have a hacking blade, to cut himself a path? No, Hosh concluded with a sigh as he retraced his steps yet again to avoid a wall of red canes with razor sharp leaves. Asking the wizard for anything that might be used against him was surely as good as cutting his own throat.

  Besides, was there anything else here that he might need to defend himself against? Hosh paused and listened but could barely hear a trill of bird song. There hadn’t been much by way of animals left on this island with the corsairs’ ever-hungry slaves ready to catch anything that moved. Now he guessed that the raiders themselves had been driven to eat that same poor fare in place of their plundered feasting. Well, Hosh supposed he could thank Raeponin for that small measure of justice.

  He toiled up a long, long slope, rehearsing yet again the arguments which he hoped to make. He could point to the Ruby, jewel for courage and moreover in the arc of Travel and Learning alongside the Opal for truth and good faith. And if the Greater Moon was unhelpfully waning, that gemstone was also another talisman against wizards and the stars of the Bowl in that same arc advocated sharing. Surely that should mean he should at least get a hearing?

  After a tiresome struggle to find a way through the broken gullies marring the island’s highest ridge, he eventually realised he had begun the gradual descent towards the far shore.

  Hosh began to feel increasingly nervous. He was much less certain about the Diamond. Granted it was a sign for clarity of thought and purpose and currently rode alongside the slow-moving Emerald, token for growth and peace. But those gems were together in the arc on the eastern horizon where omens for marriages were most commonly sought. Hosh vaguely recalled Imais saying that omens there also counted for any dealings between two individuals and no more, but mostly he remembered the more brutal corsairs joking about whatever they saw there as a guide to the women whom they’d seize and violate when they were making ready for a raid.

  He was horribly thirsty by now. He took his time finding a stream running down from the hi
gher ground. It had to be swift running and clear. Captain Corrain had taught him that, when neither of them dared risk the gut rot that saw men driven from the anchorage to die inside a handful of days if they were ashore or taken from their oar to be tossed to the sharks at once if they were aboard.

  Sitting to cleanse his hands as best he could with the particular leaves which Imais had shown him were best for the purpose and then cupping the refreshing water to his mouth, Hosh wondered uneasily how the corsairs were faring on this side of the island. This was the furthest they could flee without a vessel to brave the waves. Surely they must have had sufficient water to drink with these streams running down to the shore.

  But what had they had to eat? They must be starving now, raiders and slavers alike, standing shoulder to shoulder on the barren sands. Unless they’d started eating each other. The darkest rumours of Aldabreshin customs back in the Halferan barrack hall had hinted at such atrocities. Hosh’s own insistent hunger after his long morning’s exertions turned to hollow nausea.

  He hugged his knees close, burying his face. He didn’t want to go on. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t go back and admit his cowardice. Were there any lies that he could tell that could possibly deceive a wizard? Miserably wiping his face, Hosh had to admit that was unlikely. He’d never been able to fool anyone, not once they’d seen their tenth solstice anyway.

  He forced himself to his feet and crept reluctantly onwards. Now his fate surely depended, one way or the other, on who he encountered first.

  As the gradual slope smoothed out towards the water, Hosh saw the first traces of the fleeing corsairs. Dead bodies sprawled amid nut palms stunted by the fierce winds blowing constantly along this shore. He buried his face in his sleeve to counter the worst of the stink, brutal even through his broken and snuffling nose. Abandoned cloud bread wasn’t the only thing rotting in this season.

  He moved hastily upwind. The light through the trees brightened and he realised he was getting close to the rocky beaches. He’d only been over this way once before, when the oar slaves had been left to their own devices for days at a time over the winter, when storms made all but infrequent voyages to neighbouring domains too perilous.

  As soon as he’d realised it could be done, Captain Corrain had insisted on making a complete circuit of the island. They had been forced to acknowledge that the old blind corsair Grewa had chosen this hideout well. No other island was visible from any point on the shore and they hadn’t seen a single ship even hull down on the far horizon. Not from some triangular-rigged fishing skiff to any great square-sailed galley with a triple bank of oars.

  So what, Hosh wondered, were the corsairs hoping to find here? He peered up through the nut palms’ burgeoning crowns of leaves but could see no column of smoke from any signal fire. There must be fish to be caught, he supposed, but if there was any scent of cooking, it couldn’t penetrate the lingering stench of the dead.

  He saw movement ahead. Hosh dropped to his hands and knees. His heart pounded. Remembering his magic arm ring did nothing to slow his panic. Then he realised the slowly moving figure was a woman. She was cradling something in one arm. As he watched, Hosh realised she was plucking leaves from the tips of a sprawling shrub’s branches and dropping them into a fold of cloth.

  She was looking cautiously around, in all directions but most often towards the sea. Doubtless she feared being robbed of her foraging’s spoils. Or perhaps she feared the man with the sword shadowing her, for all that he was supposed to be protecting her. Hosh noticed the raider just in time to crouch behind a dense cluster of spiny-tipped leatherspears. Like the woman, the swordsman was most concerned with some threat from their seaward side.

  Hosh didn’t recognise the woman or her guardian at all. But just perhaps if he followed them, he would find someone whom he knew?

  As best he could judge, peering up through the trees, midday had come and gone before the unknown woman turned towards the shore, her shadow trailing after her. Hosh followed, his guts knotted with apprehension. Finally he followed her to a makeshift shelter of nut palm branches laid across the gap between two black and broken boulders.

  Drianon, goddess of hearth and home, of women and wheat be blessed now and for ever more. Among the assorted slaves clustered close to the rocks, Hosh could see Imais using a roughly shaped wooden pestle to pound something into mush inside a basket woven from green palm fronds.

  But how could he hope to approach her with a double handful of gaunt swordsmen prowling the edge of this crude encampment? Hosh found himself a fringe tree thicket to hide in and pondered that challenge as the first drops of rain began to fall.

  Within a few breaths, the rain was coming down in cupfuls as was customary hereabouts. Hosh was soaked to the skin, something he’d also grown well used to. He watched the roaming swordsmen head back towards the black boulders. They didn’t need to use their blades to claim what little shelter the makeshift roof of palm branches offered. The slaves hastily yielded to sit out in the rain.

  Hosh watched Imais walk to a nut palm where he’d already noted a patch of clean-swept earth at its base. She carefully nudged aside the few wind-blown leaves with a stick. She had been one of the first to warn Hosh of the Archipelago’s countless venomous spiders, insects and snakes.

  Satisfied, she sat down and leaned back against the tree trunk, closing her eyes as the rain streamed through the tight dark curls dotting her scalp like peppercorns and on down her rounded coppery features. Though Hosh saw she wasn’t nearly as comfortably plump as she had been when she was living in the anchorage as the Reef Eagle’s pavilion’s cook.

  He looked at the black rocks. The raider swordsmen were nowhere to be seen. The other slaves were sitting close by, heads hanging, heedless of anything beyond the rain hammering down on their heads.

  Edging carefully along behind the fringe tree thicket, Hosh moved as close as he dared to Imais. He was much too far away to risk calling out though and she still had her eyes closed. He wrestled with a sappy twig until he managed to break off a short length.

  He stripped off the leaves but for a few at the end. Would that help it fly like an arrow? Breathing a desperate prayer to Talagrin, god of hunters and wild places, Hosh hurled the stick at Imais.

  It landed a little way short of her foot. But when she shifted her position, Hosh saw her toe catch the twig. He already had another ready. He threw it as hard as he could. Imais stiffened as it flopped onto the dark earth a handspan away from the first one.

  Hosh could see her peering in his direction. He looked hastily towards the black rocks. There was no sign that anyone there had noticed. Desperately hoping the fringe thicket hid him from view, he rose from his painful crouch, waving a cautious hand.

  Imais hid her face in her hands. Was that some signal? If so, Hosh had no notion what it might mean. Before he could worry about that, he saw Imais get to her feet. Unhurried, tugging at the drawstring as though to loosen her grimy trews, the woman walked towards the fringe trees.

  Now Hosh understood. Hopefully anyone watching would assume she was going to find some hollow to piss in.

  Imais had originally come from the Archipelago’s southernmost reaches, if Hosh had understood her markedly different dialect correctly. She had been born and sold anything up to a thousand leagues away, before being bought and sold again across more domains than he could comprehend. He didn’t know if she’d been slave-born or captured in some warlord’s raid or traded away by her own family in their desperation to save her from starvation or disease. Had she ever had children? Hosh had never dared to ask, for fear of learning that some dreadful fate had befallen a once-beloved son or daughter.

  She rounded the thicket and halted, to stare at him in disbelief. ‘Both died, mouse and scorpion.’ Mystified, she shook her head. ‘But no sting to kill the mouse and with the canthira leaves still green.’

  It took Hosh a moment to realise what she was talking about. The glass jar. It had repelled him, though h
e’d taken care not to show it.

  With the Canthira Tree stars on the horizon, Imais had taken a spray of leaves from the earthly tree and put them in a jar with one of those deadly creatures, a scorpion, as well as a little mouse captured in the kitchen. As long as the mouse clung to the leaves in the top half of the jar, it could stay out of reach of the scorpion’s sting.

  She had been looking for an omen, as she had done the time before, when she’d trapped a spray of vizail blossoms with the jar’s lid. That time the mouse had lived. Hosh didn’t understand why but Imais had said that the portent promised good fortune for him.

  He didn’t want to know what she thought this second result of her cruelty might mean. He spoke before she could tell him.

  ‘The wizard, he wants to speak to someone. I need to find Nifai.’

  ‘His taint kills all.’ Imais spat on the ground.

  Hosh knew from that gesture that she was talking about the wizard, not the overseer. Did she blame Anskal’s presence for whatever had gone wrong with her carefully prepared jar?

  Hosh could think of any number of reasons why the mouse had died. Terror alone could have killed the poor little beast, trapped in a cloth-covered jar with a scorpion scuttling around the bottom.

  ‘I need to find Nifai,’ he repeated. ‘The wizard says he will let you go—there are terms,’ he added hastily as he saw desperate hope dawn in Imais’s dark eyes. ‘A bargain to be made.’ Surely the Aldabreshi would understand that?

  Imais stared at him for a long moment. ‘Have you seen Grewa?’

  The rain rattled the leaves all around them.

  Hosh blinked water out of his eyes. ‘Grewa?’

  The blind corsair who had previously ruled this nest of thieves? Surely the only question was whether he had been inside that pavilion, shattered when Anskal struck, or had he burned alive along with his crew and hapless oar slaves when magical fire consumed his trireme.