War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  Haim's face was once again relieved. He almost laughed. "That's alright, Jecha. I'm glad to get off so light."

  She smiled at him, an old woman's smile no less winning for all that a few teeth were missing. "Go and fetch Tuchek, will you?"

  Tuchek sat at the table and looked at Jecha long before he spoke. "I don't want to do this, you know."

  She nodded. "Of course you don't, Eskeriel. You have sought to deny your blood from the beginning. It is only the guilt of what happened last night that brings you to this table, I know that."

  "Then why do you insist on it, if you know I'm not willing?"

  "I don't do this for you, Eskeriel, as much as I think you need it. You are larger than your own concerns, and you cannot deny the need of others. Give me your hand."

  Tuchek neither flinched nor looked down as she cut his palm slightly to squeeze blood into the vial she'd prepared. Jecha, on the other hand, watched intently as his blood entered the water cleanly, falling true and swift to the very bottom of the clear container. After a moment of intense concentration, she looked up and met his eyes. "It is all true, what Allein told you."

  Angrily he shook his head. "I make my own choices witch-woman. I don't care how the blood flows."

  "He made his own choices, too, Tuchek. His blood lies in every stone, leaf and tree in the land. Even in the true steel of your sword. You are of the land and the land is you."

  Tuchek pulled his hand away. "I made my oath, woman. I will avenge what happened here and I will go back to what I was. Simply Tuchek the Aulig."

  "You will have need of that name, as well as the other two you have used. In time you will have many other names."

  "Don't play riddle games with me, Jecha."

  She shook her head. "Or what? You will kill me? I've already lived past my time, Tuchek, and after today death would be a blessing."

  "You know that is not what I meant!" Tuchek hissed.

  "I don't, Tuchek. That is what this all means, don't you see? The ancient blood splits into a million streams, but in you it has all flowed back together again. You and only you. You are the free man. No curse can ever touch you, no magic thwart you, no enemy stop you unless you will it to be so. Even death is optional for Rakond-a-Briech-a-Dhaur."

  Tuchek stood up from the table suddenly. "I deny it, Jecha. I won't take it from you, my father or anyone else. I never wanted it and I don't want it now."

  Again she shook her head. "That too may be your choice, Rakond-Eskeriel-Tuchek. You have all the choices. Just remember, all prophecy is guesswork in a world made of dreams, and even seers may be blinded by tomorrows unseen. Just because a thing is predicted, it may not be as it seems."

  "Fields of blood and the dead like a crop of flowers, Jecha? How do you suppose that might have been misconstrued? How about, the land riven, the dead walking, the shadow falls. Where do you find the good in that? You say I have choices, that I am a free man. I don't want to be the one who brings dragons to the ancient land, Jecha."

  "But that is only part of it, Eskeriel…" Jecha began, but Tuchek interrupted her.

  "You don’t need to tell me that, Jecha. I know all of it, line for line, straight from the high druid himself. The man who lay with a woman he despised so that I could be born again. The man who murdered her and half a hundred of her kin to bring me into his grasp!"

  Jecha sat patiently, hiding the anxiety that ate at her soul. Tuchek stood shaking before her, slowly getting a grip on his anger. "Are you through, Eskeriel?"

  He closed his eyes. For a moment he only breathed, then he nodded.

  "You don't need to hear what you know I would tell you, Eskeriel. You have heard it before from your father. Let me tell you this, then. I lied to that young man a few minutes ago, the Tolrissan boy. I will not lie to you, but you must not tell him. He carries the blood of a thousand curses, Eskeriel, and you know what that means."

  Tuchek's eyes widened in shock. His jaw dropped. "Hazrax's blood!"

  Jecha hissed at him and grabbed his arm. "Be silent, fool. That name is never to be spoken aloud. He cannot know! You cannot tell him!"

  "Do you want me to…"

  "Kill him? No. Remember, thrice cursed is a blessing. There is good in his blood, along with the taint. Still, I wonder. Hazrax's blood mingled with the blood of the man who killed him. I don't know if he is a blessing or a curse. He needs watching, though, and you are probably the one man in the world who can do it properly."

  "Light damn me!" Tuchek exclaimed, more quietly. "Is that why the seeker was here? For him?"

  "No, Eskeriel. The seeker was looking for you. Of that I am sure. Else why would it have come after you when he was nearby? No, it was ordained that you three should come together, you and he and the other boy. I don't know why, but your path lies with them for a time. As for the seeker, it came to mark you for its master and his minions, and that it has done. You can expect trouble now from any quarter."

  "What do you know about the seeker's master?" Tuchek growled. She had heard him speak his oath in his true name, and she knew that he meant to avenge family Haila on whoever had sent the seeker to find him.

  "Only that he dwells far away, beyond the shores of Mortentia, and that he is steeped in evil so deep he may not find redemption ever."

  "Redemption? Certainly not if I find him first." Waves of menace poured off of the blademaster.

  Chapter 23: Southern Portions of Jagle Bay

  Levin was surprised to find that the rocking of the ship in the deep bellied umber waves did not bother his stomach in the least. He was half a day out of Kancro Town and Captain Berrol had been too busy with getting his ship underway to pay any attention to the latest addition to his crew. The mate, a hard faced beetle-browed man named Parry Meade, was only a few years shy of the captain’s five decades, and he paid Levin enough attention to more than make up for the lack. Within minutes of coming aboard Levin had been assigned two posts for his bed, a hammock that was slung into place only during his off-watch, then rolled up again during the two watches a day he was expected to be working. Space was at a premium on the Sally's High Touch, and other than the captain's quarters, every inch was given over to the cargo. The sailors were permitted to keep only so many personal belongings as could be wrapped in a hammock and slung from the rafters in the upper hold. Fortunately for Levin, he owned little more than the clothing on his back and a few coins.

  The mate assured him that he didn't have to worry about the coins being stolen if he kept them in the hammock. "Ye can drop 'em on the deck and kick 'em around, me boy, if ye like. En't no one gonner lift so much as a copper mark of yer gear. The Captain don't hold wit' stealin', see, and I won't stand fer it neither. The Sally's High Touch is an honest ship, by damn." Levin had nodded in reply, and set about stashing the coin and a few dice. The mate reached out a hand expectantly.

  "You want the dice?" Levin had asked.

  "Aye. There's no gamblin' on ship, no drinkin', no whorin' and don't ye be takin' oaths agin' Lio. Them's the captain's orders, and they're firm rules."

  Levin arched an eyebrow even as he handed the dice over. "Any other rules I need to know?"

  "You keep yerself clean, boy. Each man on board washes once a day wit' seawater, and once a week wit' rainwater if'n we ain't shy of it. You do as I say until ye get yer sea legs under you and ye get your tasks set in yer mind. Then ye do it without my sayin' it, see?"

  Levin nodded. His adventure at sea was starting to sound more like drudge work, but it was getting him away from Mortentia proper, at least. He was put to work immediately, rolling up lines and using a caustic paste of water and gritty sand to clean all of the metal work on the vessel.

  Levin knew little enough of ships, despite the months he's spent along the King's Town waterfront, but he knew enough to recognize the quality of the Sally's High Touch. She was all of sixty paces in length, and she drafted at least four ells, with a high forecastle and a raised stern. Unlike most of the merchant ships he'd seen, the
captain quartered in a small but well-appointed cabin in the front, rather than in the stern. The crew's quarters and a tiny galley were in the stern, a level and a half beneath the broad poop deck. There were no windows in the rear of the ship, and a half-deck, which Levin supposed held more cargo or supplies, lay above the wide room where the hammocks would be slung. She sported two masts, a tall mainmast nearly a cubit thick and a foremast half again as stout. When fully rigged and jibbed, she could hoist half again as much sail as most vessels her size. With a strong wind behind her, as she had leaving Kancro Town, she also threw out a wide-bellied spinnaker to make use of every ounce of available wind.

  The warm early summer wind was like a caress, but Levin learned that the crew worked barefoot through the whole summer, no matter how cold it got. Bare feet would not slip on a wet deck. Only in winter would the crew wear light, soft-soled shoes with thick socks.

  While he worked, he was introduced to the rest of the Touch's crew. He found that at just seventeen he was the youngest seaman, and vastly the least experienced. Every one of the fifteen other crewmen had served with Captain Berrol for at least one full summer previously, many had served through the winter months as well, when the ship plied the waters between Torth Island and the King's Town.

  Levin immediately took a liking to Coril Jemms, a seaman who'd only been with Captain Berrol for a little more than a year. Like Levin, Coril was seventeen years old, and also like Levin, most of Coril's tasks were menial, although he worked without the mate's constant direction. "Your first ship?" Coril asked him, once they had exchanged names.

  "Yes. I decided I wanted to try my hand at sailing."

  "You don't say yes on a sailing ship, Levin." The young man smiled. "It's Aye or Nay…" -he pronounced both words so that they rhymed with 'eye'- "…or mebbe. If you're talking to the Cap'n you put a 'sir' or a 'cap'n' on the end of it. If you're talking to Parry, you add 'mate'. For the rest of us, just our names will do."

  "Is it true what he said, that I don't have to worry about my money on board?"

  "By Lio's hand it is." Coril replied. "Captain Berrol's a faithful man, and he won't have a liar or a thief on board. He catches you stealing and it's over the side, whether we're in port or no. Another thing you'd better remember, too. Among the mate and the rest of us she's the Touch or the Sally or just the ship, but if you're talking at Captain Berrol it's the Sally's High Touch or nothing."

  "He seems pretty particular."

  "That he is, Levin, but I'll promise you this. You won't find a finer ship on the Sea of Rhum, nor the Tolrissan Sea either. He runs this ship like he's married to her, and he expects us to treat her the same."

  "Well, I guess I can give up dicing for a while. At least until I get to Torth." Levin's voice was wry.

  "And in Torth, too, if you're smart. The Captain doesn't hold with his men getting rowdy in port. No gambling, no getting drunk, no carousing. Most of all, no shagging sailor's wives." At the surprised look on Levin's face, Coril grinned knowingly. "There ain't any secrets on a boat this size, Levin. Enna's husband never left her, and if you look closely in your pouch you'll find a few of your silver marks are now copper."

  Levin shook his head and grinned ruefully. "Well, I guess I should have expected no less."

  "We've all had our turn with a girl like Enna, from time to time. The Captain frowns on it, but there's no stopping that sort of thing. We are sailors, after all."

  The wind was strong from the west, and the Touch made good headway for several days, beating the waves as they sped eastward. Even under full sail, however, there was always something that needed doing. Levin found himself climbing the rigging to mend ropes, tarring the few worn planks on the vessel, handling the ropes and, of course, swabbing the deck. His soft hands blistered, then the blisters split and blistered again, stinging in the salty spray. Still, he was content, even as his hands hardened and his muscles grew lean and taut under the daily tasks.

  For the first two days the mate hollered at him constantly, only pausing from time to time to holler at someone else. Like the other sailors, Levin took it in stride, working as hard as he ever had in his life and truly enjoying it. Even at night, when he fell into the hammock half-asleep before his head even settled into the canvas folds, he was satisfied with things. His muscles aching with another day's hard labor and his hands still cramped with the constant gripping, pulling, scrubbing and dragging he would sigh, close his eyes, and let the Sea of Rhum rock him to sleep in her constant motion.

  By the third day at sea the mate's yelling had become more a matter of form than anything. Levin had adapted to the work and thrown himself into it headlong, and even Parry Meade had to be impressed. "By damn, boy, you'll make a seaman yet." He said at one point, after Levin had spent nearly three hours in the rigging nimbly dancing from rope to rope with a mending cord in his hand. It was as near a compliment as Levin ever heard from the hard-faced man.

  "I aim to, mate Meade." He replied.

  The rest of the crew were standoffish at first, until they saw Levin working just as hard, if not as skillfully, as they did. One by one he won them over, however, and they began to include him in their conversations on deck.

  "If you're a sailor to be, Levin, its my needle you'd better be feeling." Eldrian Cane told him one morning as he passed the pot-bellied, silver bearded cook.

  "Beg pardon?"

  "My needle, boy. I'm the skintinter on the Touch." The cook looked at Levin as if he should know what he was talking about.

  "What is a skintinter, pray tell?" Levin asked. "You mean you do the tattooing?"

  Eldrian frowned mightily. "Tattoos! You don't know any better than that? Tattoos be what you get in port, Levin. You pay some half-drunk midwife to put lockjaw in yer arm misspelling your mama's name inside a crooked lovestar, that's a tattoo. On a ship you get skintinting, and there be a big difference. I know all the fair runes. Luck, riches, shark proofing, even a rune to keep you from drowning or being blowed over in a gale."

  Levin turned a skeptical eye toward the man, but he could tell Eldrian was speaking in earnest. In his hand the pot-bellied cook held a single hollow-tipped needle and a small bottle of ink.

  "Does everyone have tattoos…I mean skintintings…on this ship?"

  "Everyone except the captain. He don't be believing in it, or at least he says he don't."

  "Well, if the captain is against it…"

  "Oh, no, Levin. I don't mean he's against it. What I mean is he says he don't believe it works. I've got half a score of men I've tinted that'll tell you different, though. You can ask Elo there." Eldrian pointed his needle at the man halfway across the crew's quarters. Elo O'Zoric was a giant of a man, who shaved and oiled his great pale head every morning. No matter how much sun Elo got, he only freckled, he did not darken a whit. There were five men in the crew quarters, and they had all been listening to the conversation. Elo nodded when he heard his name. For the first time Levin really took notice of the fact that scarcely an inch of Elo's upper torso was not marked in ink.

  "It's for true, Levin," the big man said, his voice curiously high-pitched to be coming from such a gigantic frame. "I got swept off the decks south of Torth last spring and it took the Captain a full hour to bring the Touch back around to pick me up. Hadn't been for Eldrian's ward against drowning, I'd be dead for sure. I was swimming poor, and I could feel the ward warming up the more I felt I was going down. When they pulled me up the ward had clean washed away, just like it was paint, but I was still alive." Levin's scornful reply died in his mouth when he heard the other experienced sailors mutter in agreement.

  "He had only the one tinting, then." Eldrian explained in a confidential voice. "After that, though, scarce a week has gone by he hasn't wanted me to tint some other rune on him." He pointed out the different symbols on the big man's chest. "That's the ward against drowning." He pointed out a trident in the center of Elo's chest. "This spider web keeps the dark one away, this four pointed star is for luck, the
dolphin prevents sharkbite and the cat's paw holds Elo tight to the deck. He hasn't slipped once since I give it to him."

  Levin smiled, half to himself. What the hells, he thought to himself. He'd wanted to be a sailor. "What's this one with the flying fish do?"

  An hour later Eldrian wiped the last of the blood from Levin's shoulder and grinned. "There you go, boy. You never need fear falling out of the rigging again."

  Days passed slowly on the Touch, but Levin was always busy. The constant work put callouses on his hands and feet alike, and the bright sunlight coming from the coppery sky and the sparkling sea first burned him red, then once he'd peeled, browned him as dark as his hostler's best saddle. In all that time he scarcely saw Captain Berrol, the only man on board who wore shoes, for the Captain spent most of his time in his own quarters or on the pilot deck, conferring with Parry Meade or D'barran Brinn, the ship's other pilot, on the course the Sally's High Touch was taking.

  During the nights he sang with his mates or shared stories that had been handed down for centuries in the holds and on the decks of ships throughout the inner seas. He heard about the fierce painted pirates of Hyndrant, whose black sailed ships swept down on unescorted merchants in packs. He learned about the Thimenian raiders in their long boats, each with a single great square sail and a bank of oars; longboats that couldn't catch a Mortentian ship unless it got caught in a dead calm. He even heard rumors of the dreadful Brizaki sea-fortresses, great boxy ships that hurled lightning and brought their own wind with them. He heard of Kraken, serpents, leviathans and sea people until he had a hard time keeping them straight.

  Most of all, though, his fellow seamen talked about the girls they'd left at home or the girls they were going to meet one day, and their families, or their wives. Elo claimed to have two wives, one in the King's Town and one on Torth Island, and neither one knowing about the other. Between them he claimed to have fathered fifteen children, and he had trouble keeping all the names straight when he was in port. "Belike I couldn't have found a better ship than the Touch." The big man explained. "She pays twice what any other merchant do, and I got to turn over all me pay to Allys and then turn around and give the other run's pay to Dellera so's they don't get suspicious. Both of them think I'm holding out on them, too."