Hosh heaved a sigh. Why try to puzzle it out? What did any of this matter? One way or another, he would surely soon be dead. Maybe Saedrin would offer some answers, before he ushered him through the door to blissfully ignorant rebirth in the Otherworld. If he didn’t, that was no great concern since Hosh wouldn’t remember any of this torment.
He blinked. He frowned and looked more closely. Was that a pale ripple of foam on the star-burnished water? Because that galley was certainly moving. Hosh could see the outline creeping along against the unchanging silhouette of the headland behind it, though the lanterns that might have betrayed it had been inexplicably doused.
But the vessel was moving so slowly. Far too slowly to ruffle the placid waters. So what was that pale smudge? And there was another. And now that trireme was moving too, where it had been formerly settled at anchor.
Anchors. That was what those pale smudges on the water were; the stone slabs that the Aldabreshi used.
With metal so scarce in these islands, stone slabs were pierced to bristle with sharpened wooden stakes to catch on the reefs and the seabed like a real anchor’s flukes. The stone was more than heavy enough to curb any tendency of the wood to float. Except those stones were now bobbing on the water’s surface like some bladder full of air.
How could that happen? Magic. It had to be.
Hosh’s breath caught in his throat. In the next instant, he looked up at the uncaring stars, drawing in a great gasp. His heart was hammering in his chest.
He so desperately wanted to look round. Were lamps being kindled behind the pavilion’s shutters as someone inside had seen what he had seen? Anskal would be swift to draw the same conclusions. Hosh had no doubt of that.
Unless this was the Mandarkin’s magic? But why would Anskal be sending those ships edging toward the shallows? Why would any of the other mageborn do such a thing, even assuming they had the skills? Even assuming they dared take such independent action.
With agonising slowness, Hosh looked casually across the anchorage to the encampment along the shore. There was no sign of a light anywhere, not a candle nor a lamp and assuredly no tell-tale glow of magelight. Nothing to offer him any answers or to raise Grewa’s suspicions, supposing the old lecher was awake.
A soft bird call drifted through the trees. A brindle owl. Hosh stiffened and peered blindly into the darkness where the ironwood trees met the burning ground.
There were no brindle owls in the Archipelago. They hunted through Caladhria’s thickets and woodlands far inland from the sea. No Aldabreshin, even one who had regularly prowled the coastal saltings would ever have heard one.
How could there possibly be Caladhrians here? Hosh’s gut twisted between disbelief and frantic hope. Corrain had been here once before. Hosh knew that much. The Mandarkin had said so. The captain had brought Anskal to destroy the corsairs.
Not that the plan had worked out as Corrain had intended. Hosh knew that would infuriate the captain. Would he ever have let that go? No, Corrain would not rest until the Mandarkin had paid for his treachery. Hosh was ready to wager every last gold coin and jewel that Anskal had stolen on that.
No. Hosh was ready to bet still more on the roll of this rune. He was ready to risk his life. What was living worth to him anyway? To eke out his days as the blind corsair’s eyes, to give Anskal the satisfaction of denying Molcho the murder which the black-bearded raider so plainly lusted for?
Hosh got slowly to his feet, careful not to glance towards the water. Feeling along the terrace’s stone with his bare feet as much as seeing his way in the darkness, he made his way to the pavilion’s wall and followed it to the pottery trough full of dead, dry herbs. His groping fingers found the scabbard of the sword which he had hidden there more in desperate defiance than in any real hope of ever using it.
So no one had discovered it. He could take that for a portent if he liked. Slowly, carefully, he edged the weapon out of the gap.
But he mustn’t be too slow. He must act and quickly if that owl’s cry had truly been a signal of some approaching Caladhrian attack. If he hadn’t been mistaken, half drowsing and longing for home.
Hosh found he didn’t care if he had been dreaming. He took the sword by its hilt and kept the weapon pressed to his thigh, the blade running down his leg to make certain that no jutting outline could possibly betray him.
He eased the pavilion’s main door open, his body shielding the blade. His leathery soles scuffed on the tiles. As dim as the starlight was outside, the darkness within the building was absolute. He strained his ears for any hint of movement at either end of the hallway, where doors opened onto corridors linking the four sides of this hollow building.
He crossed to the inner door and went through the chamber to open the windowed doors overlooking the garden. Hosh had made up his mind. He would see this through to the end. Whatever that end might be.
He walked carefully through the garden, as silently as he could along the paths of crushed seashells. Reaching the far side, he could hear snoring. Hosh took a moment to remind himself where the raiders were sleeping. Grewa had taken the room in the off-hand corner for his own. Molcho had claimed the chamber beside it. The women had taken the central suite and Anskal slept at the other end.
Hosh didn’t know what had governed their choices. He didn’t care. But he had to get into Molcho’s room without making any noise to raise an alarm. Gripping the sword, he stooped low and felt ahead with his off-hand. His questing fingers found the edge of the window.
On the other side of these perilous scales, he had to move fast enough to strike before the Caladhrians attacked. With their leaders to rally them, those galley and trireme crews would put up a ferocious defence. Hosh had no doubt of that after these past few days sitting in that audience chamber listening to the newly-returned corsairs discuss the Archipelagan assault with the mageborn raiders.
Without their leaders the returned corsairs would be thrown into disarray. Beyond that Hosh could only hope that the Caladhrians were backed by some wizardry fit to frustrate Anskal and his prentice mages.
His fingertips traced the join of the window’s louvered shutters. One side jutted slightly proud of the other. The shutters weren’t latched from the inside. Hosh dug his chipped fingernails into the oiled wood. He managed to ease the shutter open a hand’s width.
The hinges squeaked, no louder than the most timid mouse. Hosh froze all the same before rebuking himself. What would serve him best now; stealth or boldness?
He hauled open the shutter and sprang over the low sill. With a little light now filtering through the room, he saw two figures sprawled satiated amid rumpled quilts. Three quick steps took him to the bedside. One figure stirred.
Hosh ripped the blade free from its scabbard. He drew the sword back as far as he could before slashing it down across Molcho’s throat. He felt the blade bite deep into flesh and bone. No enchantments protected the black-haired raider now that Anskal had stripped those chains from his beard.
Warmth sprayed across Hosh’s arm. The metallic scent of blood overrode the rankness of sex in the room’s fetid air. As he tore the sword free, drawing it back for a second strike, he heard a moist gurgle and the dark shape on the bed lurched upwards.
Hosh staggered backwards, dazzled. The woman sat up, a mage flame dancing on her outstretched palm. Her naked skin glistened with sweat and blood as she took in the charnel scene.
Molcho was pressing one hand to the gaping wound in his throat, gasping in mute astonishment. His other hand grabbed for Hosh.
He smacked the empty scabbard down as hard as he could on Molcho’s wrist. Something cracked; bone or the leather-bound wood.
The magewoman looked up at Hosh. He must decide whether or not he was going to kill her. Before he could, she vanished, leaving only the pale outline of her sleeping form amid the gore staining the mattress. Though for some reason, she had left him the mage flame hovering in the air.
Fresh blood splashed across the white cotton
where she had lain. Molcho collapsed backwards onto the pillows, his hand falling away from his throat. The last spark of life in his dark eyes dulled, a final mist of blood spitting from his slack mouth.
Hosh stood there, trembling. He had really done it. If the Caladhrians were truly attacking, then he had deprived their enemy of their doughtiest captain.
If they weren’t, he had finally avenged Lord Halferan. That would be enough for him to lay before Saedrin, to win him passage to the Otherworld without delay.
Then he heard a shout of alarm from the room next door. Grewa was awake. Hosh kicked open through the inner door and strode down the corridor.
The mage flame followed him. Hosh didn’t care. If the blind corsair saw his own death approaching, it was no more than he deserved.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Black Turtle Isle
In the domain of Nahik Jarir
38th of For-Autumn
‘ARE WE ALL ready?’ Sannin’s calm whisper floated through the burning circle hanging in the air.
Crouched beside Jilseth in the Archipelagan darkness, Tornauld turned towards the bespeaking. ‘Are you?’ His voice was uncharacteristically sharp.
‘Is the Archmage?’ That was all Jilseth wanted to know.
She heard a distant voice through the spell. Canfor. Then she heard the elegant magewoman reject whatever last minute argument the tall wizard had concocted.
Jilseth was relieved that the night hid her inadvertent smile. It wouldn’t do to antagonise Canfor if he saw her satisfaction through Master Herion’s scrying.
‘Planir says that everyone here is prepared,’ Sannin assured Jilseth and all those crouched beside her. ‘Corrain and his men can make their way to their places, as soon as you are ready.’
Jilseth looked at the Caladhrian. ‘As soon as we make you ready.’
‘Very well.’
In those two words, Jilseth could hear Corrain’s voice shaking. Though the Forest-born lad, Kusint, looked more relaxed. Had he experienced wizardry’s touch before, thanks to some Soluran mage? Jilseth realised she had neglected to ask.
‘Relax and trust us.’ Merenel laced her slim fingers together. Turning her palms outward, the Tormalin born magewoman flexed her hands back until her knuckles cracked. A shimmer of faintest ruby magelight came and went in the blink of an eye.
‘Are you alright?’ Jilseth heard her own whisper harsh with tension.
At least no one else could hear beyond the six of them, assuming that Tornauld’s silence spell was wrapped as tight as he had promised.
One look at the Ensaimin wizard reassured Jilseth as to that but other doubts tormented her.
All the debate and argument and beseeching and planning for this night’s work would come to nothing if these Caladhrian guardsmen couldn’t set aside their own fears and uncertainty. If they couldn’t make use of the spell which Merenel had now loosed to spread among them as one lurking man touched hands with the warrior beside him.
‘I am ready. We all are.’
Corrain’s resolute answer helped soothe Jilseth’s uncertainty, though nothing could quiet the quivering deep beneath her breastbone.
‘Give me your hand.’ As she reached for him, his touch drew her into Merenel’s spell. Now she could see the kneeling men outlined with faint red radiance, its elemental glow illuminating the trees and shrubs and the narrow goat tracks between them.
With the Caladhrians now able to see in the dark, no glimmer of the dimmest dark-lantern need betray their presence before battle was joined.
Jilseth concentrated on her own magic. She sent her affinity deep into Corrain’s skin. Her magic sought out the roots of every fine hair on his forearm. She could feel each one bristling like a startled cat. Despite all his earlier promises, he recoiled.
‘Stay still!’ she hissed.
He grunted uncomfortably but he stopped moving. Jilseth gathered up the threads of her magic again. Now she was concentrating on that within his skin which was bound on a level beneath seeing to the hair and scale and horn which protected so many living creatures. Within a few breaths, Corrain’s entire skin was imbued with all the toughness of the hardest turtle shell.
‘Pass that on,’ she muttered.
‘Reven.’ Corrain reached for the lad beside him. ‘You won’t like it,’ he warned, ‘but you’ll like a corsair’s sword through the guts less.’
Although Tornauld now relaxed his silence spell enough for the other men to hear their baron’s encouraging words, the haze of amber magelight tracing this spell’s progress was only visible to the four wizards. As Jilseth watched her magecraft spread through the Caladhrian cohort, she stole a glimpse at Merenel. Even through the eerily shifted vision granted by the fire mage’s spell, Jilseth could see that particular wizardry had taken as much out of the Tormalin magewoman as magically armouring the men had drained herself.
And they both had to sustain these intense and subtle workings for as long as they were called on. Jilseth could only hope that Corrain was right, when he swore that this battle would quickly be concluded.
That was all the more likely, given Jilseth had spent the past day and a half darkening the entire cohort’s blades with the black wizardry which Planir had shown her before these same cursed corsairs had attacked Halferan Manor.
After all, as she had told Corrain, there was no telling if Anskal had gifted the corsairs with this same magic which turned the merest scratch from a blade into an ever-deepening gash.
Kusint had recalled how they had seen that very spell for themselves, when Anskal and his fellow Mandarkin spies had been fighting the Soluran mages in the far reaches of the Great Forest.
Planir hadn’t forbidden them this wizardry, Jilseth told herself firmly, when the four of them in this nexus had laid their plans for defending the Caladhrians before the Archmage. Though to be strictly accurate, no one had mentioned the spell at all. Well, if necessary she would face his displeasure when this night’s work was done.
‘We can all see where we’re going now, can’t we, lads?’ Corrain’s whisper strengthened. ‘And I want to see a corsair’s face when he tries sticking a blade into me, eh? So let’s show them what we can do!’
Jilseth heard murmurs answering with growing confidence. With a soft rustle of undergrowth, the guardsmen moved towards the shore and their unsuspecting victims.
‘Don’t touch the mageborn!’ Tornauld sent that last reminder to every ear on an urgent breath of ensorcelled air.
Jilseth could only hope the Caladhrians remembered in the heat of battle. They had been told time and again. They were to kill the corsairs. The wizards of Hadrumal would put paid to the Mandarkin and his minions.
More than anything else they’d been warned, if any Caladhrian got in the way of Element Masters and Mistress’s lethal magic directed at the mageborn, the Archmage would not be answerable for the consequences.
Sooner than she might have imagined, the four mages were left alone amid the humid, strangely scented undergrowth.
‘They are still coming,’ Nolyen said in strangled tones. ‘Scores of galleys and triremes.’
He knelt, hunched over the smallest, most shallow scrying that Jilseth had ever seen. A glow worm would cast more light.
‘They will not prevail against an ensorcelled tide,’ Jilseth assured him.
Whatever she might think of Canfor personally, she would never deny his talents either as a mage or within a nexus. The same was true of Ely and while she had never warmed to Galen, Jilseth was ready to acknowledge his talents with the elemental earth. With Sannin to further strengthen them, Jilseth truly had no doubts that their distant nexus could hold off the approaching Aldabreshin fleets.
Nolyen wasn’t mollified. ‘Why do the Archipelagans have to attack tonight?’
‘Velindre explained. It’s all to do with their heavenly compass.’ Tornauld answered with more tolerance than Jilseth could have managed.
‘Why isn’t Anskal preparing to meet their a
ttack?’ Nolyen persisted.
Why couldn’t he be content that his last scrying into the remaining pavilions had shown them the Mandarkin wizard preparing for bed?
Jilseth’s patience snapped. ‘We don’t know and it doesn’t matter.’
Once again, Tornauld offered an answer. ‘Velindre suspects he wants these southern warlords to attack, so he can drive them off as he did the first fleet. Then word of his power will spread further through the Archipelago. And he’ll show these recently returned corsairs exactly how mighty his magic really is.’
Merenel agreed. ‘So he’s getting his head down before they arrive at dawn. He’s in for a rude awakening.’
Jilseth fervently hoped so, before reproaching herself for this suggestion of doubt. The Element Masters and Mistress’s nexus could surely hide the assembled legions of Toremal, never mind three contingents of Caladhrian guardsmen, from one Mandarkin mage’s scrying or some sentry’s unaided eye.
She looked across the anchorage, beyond the scatter of tents where the line of trees marked the edge of the beach. Was that wretched lad Hosh still sitting on that last pavilion’s terrace while the corsair leader and the captain of his raiders rutted with those mageborn women who knew no better than to debase themselves so?
Jilseth was sorely tempted to ask Nolyen to scry the wretched boy out again. But they had no time for such indulgences. Either Corrain would find Hosh where he had seen him sitting or they would have to wait and hope that the pitiful lad managed to stay alive until the dust of this battle settled.
‘Nol,’ Jilseth prompted. ‘The anchors?’
The Caladhrian mage nodded and closed his hand to extinguish the last glint of his scrying. ‘The water is already moving towards the beach.’
That was good news; that the nexus led by Sannin was indeed managing both to repel the Archipelagans and to send a countercurrent to wash these corsair ships ashore so their crews might meet waiting Caladhrian swords.
Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) Page 42
