The Fight Against the Dark

by Wacht, Peter

  With that in mind, she had suggested that Thomas and his band make their way to a hidden cove on the eastern shore of the lake well south of Eamhain Mhacha to see if they could locate a particular captain who could assist them in their travels to the Armaghian capital. In case he actually found the suggested captain, she provided a letter of introduction to smooth the way, explaining that something else would likely be required to ensure a quick passage. But he could worry about that when the time came.

  Using the Talent, Thomas had found the hidden cove along the edge of the lake, confirming that several sleek ships, built for speed, were berthed in the protected anchorage. With the sun coloring the morning’s low-hanging clouds a burnt orange, Thomas led Oso, Rynlin and several other Marchers past the still dozing sentries and down a hidden path in search of a particular vessel. Oso had felt the urge to berate the sailors stationed along the trail, appalled that they had fallen asleep at their posts. Thomas had dissuaded him, noting that the men assigned to guard the small bay were more skilled in secrecy rather than security. Oso could only shake his head in disgust as the Marchers tread silently into the smugglers’ secret lough.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A Debt Owed

  Kendrick Winsloe reluctantly opened an eye as the rising sun forced its way through an open porthole. Scratching his belly, he cursed to himself silently, regretting the long night of drinking that he had engaged in with the other captains moored along the lakeshore. Rolling onto his back, he tried to convince himself that he should go back to sleep, the pounding in his head only getting worse every time that he moved. But he knew that he didn’t have the time. He had promised a friend that he would have the expected cargo to Eamhain Mhacha in three days, and that was a promise he intended to keep. He liked to brag that his ship, the Windswept, was the fastest on any body of water in the Kingdoms. Making this run would help to establish his reputation. That would mean more business in the future. And that’s what he needed, because keeping his ship in the best of shape and paying his crew were expensive propositions.

  Rubbing his eyes, Kendrick swept his legs over the edge of his hammock and fought back a sudden wave of nausea. When he had acquired the Windswept, he had made the decision to create as much storage space as possible, which meant more cargo, and, of course, more profit. But it had come at the expense of his private captain’s quarters. He had instead taken a small berth in the aft of the ship, something that even a first mate would be loath to call his own. But he didn’t care. He found the trade-off worthwhile. A few more profitable runs and he might be able to purchase another ship, and then he would be well on his way to building the fleet of merchant ships that remained his dream. His stomach somewhat settled, he began to push himself up onto his feet when a voice stopped him.

  “I thought smugglers were early risers. I guess I was mistaken.”

  About to stand up, Kendrick fell back into his hammock. He reached for the knife that he kept on his hip, even when he slept, but much to his surprise he found the sheath empty. Behind the tall man with the roguish smile stood an even larger man, crowding the small cabin with his height and width. He flipped Kendrick’s foot-long blade casually from hand to hand as if it were no more than a child’s toy.

  Despite his shock, Kendrick tried to gain some control over the situation. He didn’t bother to deny that smuggling might account for a small portion of his business activities. Who in their right mind wouldn’t try to avoid the ridiculously high taxes? “Might I ask why you’ve boarded my ship? And may I ask what’s happened to my crew?”

  “They’re going about their business as they should,” replied the tall man, his blue eyes flashing. “In fact, they’re preparing the ship to catch the tide.”

  “What?” Kendrick shot out of his hammock, forgetting the size of his cabin and knocking his head on the thick wood beam that ran above his bunk. He tried to ignore the pain as he ran a hand over the knot forming on his scalp. “This is my ship, and I decide where we go.”

  “Your men were quite clear that you were making for Eamhain Mhacha,” answered the tall man, his tone level. “As it would happen, we’re going there as well, so ours is a fortunate meeting.”

  “That doesn’t matter. This is my ship and …”

  “Then perhaps this will help.”

  Another man, smaller than the other two but giving off a similar sense of danger, stepped forward. Kendrick fell back down into his hammock again, taken aback by this new arrival. His eyes glowed green in the dim light of the cabin. The intense young man handed a folded parchment to him.

  Fumbling with the document, Kendrick reached over to the small bed stand built into the side of the cabin for his reading glasses. Once in place, his expression turned to disbelief.

  “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

  “You know exactly from whom we got it.”

  “But, the Queen of Benewyn …”

  The smaller man stepped forward, while the larger intruder caught the hilt of Kendrick’s dagger in his hand as if he were about to use it. It seemed that their patience with his questions was wearing thin.

  “The Queen of Benewyn rarely provides such letters of introduction, I know. But Sarelle was quite explicit that you were the captain we needed for the task at hand, thus the letter.”

  “You know the Queen?”

  “We do. She also said that this might help persuade you.”

  The smaller man tossed him a heavy bag that jangled when he caught it. Feeling its weight, he guessed that it contained several dozen gold pieces, more than he was slated to earn with the cargo already in his hold.

  “The Queen of Benewyn has always protected her traders, so I’m inclined to assist,” smiled Kendrick. The three men noticed that the bag of gold had already disappeared. “Might I ask our cargo?”

  “It’s something of a surprise,” answered the man with the menacing glare, his blue eyes flashing in the light.

  “A surprise for whom?”

  “The High King,” answered the green-eyed man. “He owes us something, and we mean to collect it from him.”

  “And if I may ask, what might that be?” Kendrick regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth, thinking that he might have overstepped. But the smuggler side of him had always struggled to control his curiosity.

  “His Kingdom,” answered the large man who barely fit through the door to his cabin, his muscled bulk blocking the entrance and maintaining a perpetual gloom in the tight space but for the single ray of early morning sunlight that shined through the porthole.

  Kendrick started to laugh, thinking that these strange, clearly dangerous men were having fun with him. But then he realized that the other two weren’t laughing. The sounds of his crew sailing the ship out of the hidden cove and into the lake filtered down to him. That and the tread of many more footsteps than normal, as well as the hard clop of horses being led across the deck to the hold, so he could guess at what else the Windswept now carried. He eyed the men before him more carefully.

  A hazardous task? Probably. But also a lucrative one. Besides, he’d never liked the High King.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Into the Gloom

  The journey across the Heartland Lake sped by, a strong wind filling the ship’s three triangular sails and blowing the swift vessel rapidly toward Eamhain Mhacha. In fact, nature itself seemed to want the Windswept to get to its final destination as quickly as possible. At least that was Kendrick’s take on it, as during many of the previous times that he had journeyed north up the lakeshore often he had struggled to find the wind. As a result, on the third day since leaving the cove the smuggler did everything that he could to slow his ship down, not wanting to come too close to the capital of Armagh until well after dark.

  All three days his guests, as he liked to call them, kept to themselves. His crew didn’t seem to mind. The warriors, clearly Marchers, made his sailors uncomfortable, the premonition of barely contained violence emanating from these hardene
d fighters. Their grim visages and quiet words among each other portended dire things to come, a feeling that permeated the ship. Kendrick could understand, having heard some of the stories about what had occurred in the Highlands these ten years past. If this group planned to rectify matters or perhaps take their revenge, he’d be pleased to play a small part, as he had no love for the High King, a man who appeared to be more focused on meeting his own needs rather than the needs of his people.

  Yet the tall one with the black beard flecked with grey didn’t seem to notice the crew’s hesitancy and discomfort, as he spent a good bit of time talking with Kendrick about what the ship captain had seen and heard on his travels to the various Kingdoms during the past year. He soon realized that his passenger rarely talked, rather just guiding Kendrick along with questions to learn what he wanted.

  That was fine with Kendrick. He didn’t sense he’d have any problems with this group. They were paying him well, their stated purpose appealed to him, they clearly had a strong connection to his Queen, and he had learned some things of his own during the last few days. That was the way of it if you were to be successful as a ship’s captain and sometime smuggler.

  You needed to pick up useful information whenever possible, even as you shared what you knew about the happenings to the north and west. You needed to know the lay of the land, or the flow of the water in this case, to be successful in this business. The increasing number of stories about dark creatures roaming the countryside, villages burned, the rising tension and conflict within various Kingdoms as some useless noble sought to gain advantage at the expense of some other useless noble, all could affect him and his crew. The tall man was more than willing to share a story or two himself, several of which threatened to turn Kendrick’s hair white, what with his tales of Ogren and other terrifying monsters rampaging through the Grasslands and Great Sharks hunting in the Inland Sea. That last alone had convinced him to set extra lookouts across the length of his ship. No one had reported the massive dark creatures in the Heartland Lake yet, and he didn’t want to be the first to do so. But better to be prepared. One of those beasts could sink his ship if he wasn’t careful. If nothing else, the conversation with this imposing stranger made the time go by quickly.

  Near midnight, Kendrick reefed the sails, taking the blacked-out Windswept quietly beyond the Eamhain Mhacha harbor toward the base of the fortress to the west. He used the torches burning along the town’s waterfront to guide him along the coast, looking for the marker that required him to heel the ship sharply starboard as he approached the darkened citadel.

  “How goes it?” asked the tall man, his blue eyes shining brightly in the gloom of night.

  “Almost there,” replied Kendrick, his attention focused on the water in front of him. “We need to find the channel, and that will take us in. If we miss it, we’ll be stuck on a sandbar or rock waiting for the soldiers of Eamhain Mhacha to find us in the morning.”

  “Let’s avoid that if at all possible.”

  “Aye.” Kendrick kept his eyes on the water, reading the waves, knowing exactly what he was looking for having made this run several times before. “I’d hate to be found with your group. The High King likely wouldn’t look kindly on my participation.”

  “That would be an understatement,” grinned the tall man, flashing a smile, apparently amused by the thought.

  Kendrick continued to watch the waves, then found what he sought.

  “Hard port,” he called quietly, the helmsman turning the wheel sharply.

  The Windswept glided between two large rock formations that rose sharply out of the water, finding the narrow channel that required a gentle starboard turn halfway along to avoid crashing into the rocks upon which the Eamhain Mhacha fortress had been built, and then another gentle turn back to port. Sailors scampered around the ship, taking in the sails to slow the speed of the vessel and allow the light wash of the water running through the tapered neck to take them beneath the keep, which rose several hundred feet above them.

  As they approached, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks drowned out any noise. The Marchers moved to the bow of the ship and the sides to track their progress through the channel, several growing apprehensive as the ship drifted closer and closer to the jagged rocks. Right before they expected to hear the sound of splintering wood and water rushing into a cracked hull, Kendrick called out again quietly.

  “Hard starboard.” The helmsman responded immediately, having expected the command.

  The Windswept turned sharply once again, drifting between a ragged break in the rock wall, so tight that the Highlanders on either side of the ship could reach out and scrape their fingers along the rock that ran past. In just a few seconds, they were through, arriving in a large, sheltered bay underneath the citadel, the calm water slapping quietly at the shore. Just ahead a small pier jutted out from the darkness of the beach. The Windswept glided toward it, the sailors moving quickly but silently about their tasks as they drew up alongside the jetty to tie the vessel off.

  In a series of practiced maneuvers, Kendrick and his crew slid the gangplank down to the pier and began to help the Marchers and their mounts off. Many of the crew goggled at the two unicorns, horns as deadly as a soldier’s lance, leading the way. Clearly the sailors had done this before, as there was no noise but the rustling of the water lapping against the pier and the hull of the ship and an every so often clink of steel against steel as the Marchers walked down the jetty into the massive cave that beckoned just ahead.

  The three men who had first visited Kendrick in his cabin that night less than a week before were the last off the Windswept. The two taller ones nodded their thanks as they stepped down the ship’s ramp. The smaller one, his eyes glowing a bright green in the darkness even with the bare illumination provided by the single lantern hoisted on one of the masts, nodded with a smile.

  “My thanks, Captain.” He handed over a bag that jingled with the rest of the promised gold, in fact more than Kendrick had expected. “I hope we weren’t too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all, though I think my boys are glad to see you go. Marchers put them on edge.”

  The smaller man chuckled as he walked down the gangplank. “Marchers tend to do that to most people.”

  “Indeed they do. Thank you for the generous payment, my lord. And remember what we discussed. The passages to the left will take you higher into the fortress through the basements that are no longer used, except by those seeking to do some illicit trading. The tunnels to the right go deeper into the foundation and are for the most part impassable.”

  “I remember, Captain Winsloe.”

  “And that trail I mentioned for your mounts. You’ll find it at the very edge of the cave. Because of the overhanging rocks, the guards on the keep’s walls won’t be able to see you. Assuming there are no ships patrolling along the shore this morning, you can reach the city gates before you’re noticed.”

  “By that time we will have completed our task,” said the intense young man. “Thank you for the guidance and the help. I suggest that you move away from here quickly before there’s any chance of your discovery.”

  “Oh, I mean to, my lord. I mean to.” The green-eyed man began striding down the pier, turning back when Kendrick quietly called to him a final time. “And if I may, Lord Kestrel, I wish you luck. If at any time in the future you need my assistance, you know where to find me.”

  Thomas Kestrel smiled, assuming that the sharp-minded Captain Winsloe would see through the ruse at some point.

  “Indeed I will, Captain. Thank you again.”

  Kendrick watched the Lord Kestrel disappear into the gloom, then quickly whispered his commands to his men to get the ship turned around and back onto Heartland Lake. He would wait awhile before entering the harbor to drop off his legitimate cargo. He had a feeling that with Marchers prowling below the citadel the next few days would be a bit unsettled, which was fine with him. A little unrest could favor a smart busi
nessman.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Dark Creatures

  As Thomas entered the large, damp, murky cave, Oso and his Marchers had already set about their tasks. Having three days on the ship to review their strategy gave them plenty of time to prepare for their assignments to the point where they functioned solely on instinct.

  Walking deeper into the grotto, Thomas came to a small passage, a set of slippery stairs cut out of the rock that led from the small, sandy beach. Oso appeared in front of him at the top of the steps, standing at the entrance to a room that was likely once used as a torture chamber. Cells carved from the rough stone ran along one wall and receded into the darkness. Thomas noted several drains in the stone floor, which likely carried away the blood and other human debris of those unfortunate souls brought down here to die.

  “The Marchers are about their work,” said Oso. “The horses and unicorns have been led away on the trail. No guards as of yet, but we’re keeping a sharp eye. Though I should note that the two unicorns were uneasy, almost agitated. They tried to enter the cave at first. I don’t know if it was because they were cooped up on the ship for too long or there was something else to it.”

  The Marchers had broken into groups of ten, each squad having been assigned an objective. The goal was to gain control of the citadel as quietly and with as little bloodshed as possible. But as Thomas knew, the best laid plans usually failed to survive first contact with the enemy.

  “Good,” said Thomas, distracted for a moment by Oso’s last comment. “Let’s get as far into the fortress as we can before we’re discovered.”

  Thomas stopped in his tracks, standing stock still. The sensation that had seized him sent a shiver through his body. He reached out with the Talent delicately. Now he understood why Acero and Militus had at first balked at going along the trail, instead wanting to enter the cave. Much like the wolves, hatred of the Shadow Lord’s dark creatures ran strong in unicorns. Based on what he was experiencing now, Thomas was surprised that the Marchers assigned to care for the horses had succeeded in persuading the two unicorns to go with them.