“Invasion,” agreed Bernardo.
“From where?”
Bernardo was silent for a moment, then said, “I can only speculate some power of whom we are ignorant from Alastor. It can’t be any force from Enast. We control most of them,” he added, meaning the Church of the One.
“That leaves Alastor,” agreed Piccolo.
“Unless there’s a nation beyond it we’ve not heard of.”
“You’re better educated than me, Your Eminence. But even I know there are three small continents beyond Alastor, but some travelers have been there and returned, so we’d know if any threat was . . .” His voice trailed away as he saw a far-off gaze in Bernardo’s eyes.
“I wonder,” said the prelate softly. He looked at his man and said, “Eat. Rest. Tomorrow I want you to gather your best men here and return to the west. Put yourself at no risk for now: information is more valuable than gold. I’ll pen messages to send to our ‘friends,’ to see if they have any information about these new invaders.”
Rising slowly, his bones aching from fatigue, Marco Belli said, “I do not entirely trust our ‘friends,’ Your Eminence.”
“They are a dark and mysterious race, the Azhante.”
“We do not even know where they come from, Master. These Azhante . . . is that their nation or race? We know so little about them.”
“And I do not trust those agents of Coaltachin we’ve employed before, so who better to see they behave?”
“There’s something about the Azhante that makes me fearful.”
“You, Piccolo? Fearful? I thought you feared no man.”
“I fear no man I understand, and I understand most men, but not these men.”
“Well, let us endeavor to use them, even if we don’t entirely trust them. Yet it seems that as long as we have gold, they serve.”
“That I do understand,” said Piccolo with a faint, false humor in his voice. He bowed and departed.
Bernardo pondered what his best agent had told him and tried to gather his thoughts. First impressions led to flights of fancy and wild speculation, so he gave in to those impulses for a moment, before ordering his thoughts back to what was known. After a short while he conceded that very little was known, despite the enormity of the events.
The Azhante had been made known to him before the Betrayal, and while he knew King Lodavico of Sandura had employed agents from Coaltachin, Bernardo had secretly arranged his first contract with the Azhante and had used their skills several times since. Their services were costly but worth every weight of gold he had spent. He agreed with Piccolo as to their mysterious nature. He had thought himself clever, using spies unknown to Lodavico or anyone besides Piccolo. Now he wondered: Had he used them, or had they used him?
He turned to his writing table, took pen and paper, and began writing orders to be sent back to his allies in Enast, at the original cathedral of the Church of the One. He knew that within an hour or two Lodavico would request his presence, so he wrote quickly. He would have to return later to finish his messages, so that before Piccolo departed in the morning, messengers would be on their way. Above all he needed as much information as any of his agents could find about the people, nations, and armies of Alastor. And, he added, at some point he needed to discover what he could about these mysterious Azhante who had come into his service almost twenty years earlier.
Hava used her time as best she could. With no outside source of light, she could only guess it was nearing dawn. Her single clue was the tempo of movement above slowing, then stopping, which suggested the cargo had been loaded, so all that remained was the captain’s order to weigh anchor and set sail on whichever tide best suited him. She assumed that most of the crew were eating or resting before the order was given. That was all she had to go on: assumptions. Yet she had come to understand some of what was happening around her from close observation. The few bits of information she had gleaned were logical.
She had worried at the bindings on her wrists enough that the cord was almost completely frayed through. It should take her only moments to finally break them. The first guard at the ladder had dozed, and she had considered, then rejected, the idea of freeing them completely, but the manacles on her ankles restricted her movement, and that meant he would have to be much closer for her to get her hands on him. Without her feet solidly under her, most of the hand-to-hand fighting she had learned all her life would be useless. Her preceptors had trained her in every dirty trick a woman fighting a larger, stronger man could use to quickly incapacitate him, but they all required her to be able to balance herself.
In the dim light the sailor didn’t appear to be particularly big, and she had no idea of his age, but as a deckhand working on a deep-water ship, he was almost certainly fit and strong enough that he could easily overpower her with her ankles shackled.
After a while he had been relieved, first by a new guard, a small, thick-necked, and barrel-chested fellow who moved with more caution than his predecessor. Hava instantly judged him to be a far more dangerous foe than the first guard. He moved like a fighter.
Time passed as she studied the new guard, then three men joined him, bringing water to the captives. They unceremoniously kicked feet and shouted awake the sleeping prisoners. They moved quickly from one prisoner to the next, handing each a large ladle of fresh water, letting them gulp down a decent swallow before pulling away the long-handled dipper and moving to the next prisoner. A few captives protested but a sharp blow silenced them.
No one offered food, so Hava considered it possible they might not be fed until the crew was, and with this ship being readied to get under way, that might not be for many hours.
She experienced bouts of nausea, but she didn’t know if it was the effect of the blow to her head or from not having eaten anything for quite some time. She also had a frustrating lack of new information since coming awake.
She planned. Taught since childhood that if captured, live, escape, and return to Coaltachin, she amended that to first she’d live, then escape, then find Hatushaly. She had no plan to speak of, just general concepts. She had to either slip away now—which was difficult, if not impossible, as she would need to free herself from the manacles around her ankles, steal up the ladder, and get over the side while still close enough to land to swim there before drowning—or wait until they reached their destination and escape then.
The problem with the latter was obvious: she had no idea where they were bound or what sort of reception the prisoners would receive. She had traveled while training to cities with slave auctions and knew from experience that slaves were generally delivered starved and hopeless, then given some food and rest before being put up for sale, so they would be more attractive to buyers. As a result, the guards tended to be a little more sure of themselves, but she certainly couldn’t be the first captive plotting to escape, so she judged it unlikely she’d get away safely once the ship docked. She considered several plans, quickly discarding each as it arose, coming finally to the conclusion that she needed more information and, most of all, the means to free herself from the shackles and a weapon.
She lay back, attempting to think of some opportunity she had missed, fighting back rising frustration at being caught like an animal in a trap, her thinking clouded by hunger and her throbbing head. Then Hava felt a strange sensation, an odd moment of calm, as if the entire ship had paused, and three men entered the hold, coming down the ladder one after the other. The single guard stood away, and even in the dim light Hava could see he was intimidated by these men.
“No talking!” shouted the last man down, and instantly the murmur of voices fell away. He was dressed like a seaman, but the two who had come before him were not.
Hava felt the hair on the back of her neck stiffen slightly, and the skin on her arms prickled in what the matrons at the school called “chill bumps.” The men were dressed in black. Their head coverings were familiar to her: they were called shemagh, keffiyeh, or ghutrah, depending on where the w
earer hailed from. A cloth wrapped around the crown of the head, like a tight turban, rather than a hood, then drawn over the face, tucked into the other side, leaving only the eyes revealed. Unlike the sicari of her home island, whose headwear was little more than a skullcap of black cloth, these turbans were worn by people from a hot land. Also, these men wore loose tunics rather than close-fitting clothing, and the shoulders were exaggerated, suggesting padding or perhaps light armor under their tunics.
They also wore black enameled amulets, and the chains around their necks were blackened.
Hava sensed this was her first good look at the men about whom Hatu had spoken, the Azhante. She now understood what he had meant, that they looked a little like sicari, perhaps even Quelli Nascosti, “The Hidden,” the elite assassins and spies of Coaltachin.
The leader walked toward the bow and the second man stood silently.
“All in order,” said the last man to enter, and Hava took him for a mate or perhaps even the captain of this ship.
The two black-clad men moved forward toward the bow, leaving the others waiting, and after a short time, returned. With a heavy accent, one of the two men Hava thought of as sicari or Quelli Nascosti said, “Keep as many of the slaves alive as possible, for we counted them and we expect few losses. And do not trouble the women, for our master wishes them to arrive undamaged.” He paused and, as if he felt the need to be specific, he added, “Not just the young pretty girls. All the women, especially those who can work.” Again he paused, then asked, “Understand?”
“Perfectly,” answered the sailor in charge. As he turned to go, the man who had spoken to him turned to his companion.
Hava’s neck hairs rose again, because she understood most of what he said. His accent was strange, a few words were pronounced oddly, and some were unrecognizable, but she got the gist through context. She was certain he said, “Should more than ten die before reaching home . . .”—followed by something she didn’t understand—“. . . I will have his head on a spike.”
The second man chuckled. “He is a dead man then. For surely more than ten will perish. Many have . . .” Another word that took a moment for Hava to understand, and then she realized it was injuries. “. . . that will see them dead, some before we depart.”
The first man nodded, and his eyes were cold as he said, “He’s seen too much of us and knows about the Heartland, so it is a good excuse to rid . . .” Again he slipped into a phrase Hava couldn’t quite grasp, and finished, “. . . need a reason, or others like him will not serve willingly. His father was important, and he rests on that . . .” Hava assumed it was a term for reputation. “But still many heed him. The useful among the outlanders can become dangerous.”
The second man nodded and they left, and the sailor who had first come down with water was the last to leave.
Hava lay back as comfortably as she could manage, her mind racing. Who were these men? She knew any hope of escape depended on avoiding a confrontation with them. And she fought hard not to fall into despair as she struggled to ascertain what this new information might give her as a means to get free of this slave ship.
13
Plans and Consequences
Hava waited silently, considering her choices, discarding plan after plan. What was it Master Bodai had said? “Too many unknowns”? Of all the masters, he was the most insistent that no operation of any complexity was to be undertaken until it was clear that every possible issue that might arise had been accounted for, and even then there was always the risk of the unexpected. By comparison, Master Kugal was impulsive, even rash, and the other masters lay somewhere between the two.
At this point, waiting for the ship to weigh anchor and begin its journey to some distant land, Hava had a rough idea of what she needed to do, but the how was still eluding her. She had finally conceded that whatever plan she settled upon was going to be a bad one, but that would be better than no plan at all.
She’d worried the cord to the point where it appeared to the casual eye that she was bound, but she knew she could snap it simply by twisting her wrists; however, she still had to come up with an idea of how to deal with the iron shackles on her ankles. If only she had a nail and decent light she was certain she could pick the lock, but in the dark with only damp straw at hand, it was impossible.
So she waited and listened and eventually heard distant shouting from the main deck and saw two men come down the companionway. The first carried a torch, which caused Hava to look away for a moment, for the light was almost blinding.
At that moment the ship seemed to shudder and he looked behind him, and Hava felt every shred of hope she had been clutching to fade. For the second man to descend the ladder was a black-clad sicari.
The captured people in the hold started to stir and mutter.
The sicari spoke to the first man, the one who had seemed to be the mate in charge the last time he was down below.
The mate shouted, “Quiet! Listen! You will be given more water and food after we are under way. Anyone who causes trouble will be cast overboard to the sharks. Remain calm and live.”
But this warning didn’t stem the rising voices from the prisoners. Hava heard more female voices from the other end of the deck, nearer to the bow, as well as male voices coming from the other side of the hold. As the man with the torch came past Hava, she could see shapes moving between bars and realized that some of the men were caged.
Turning to look at the man she thought of as sicari, she saw him scanning the shackled women, and as his gaze reached her, Hava lowered her eyes. She didn’t have to feign fear. There was no possible reason for him to think of her as anything more than another girl from Port Colos, yet she felt a sudden terror that he would somehow see her for what she was, a child of Coaltachin.
Her moment of irrational panic passed as the sicari continued his inspection of the women and then caught up with the mate; he spoke to him softly enough that Hava understood only a little of what he said, but she deduced that he was leaving the ship now and felt her hope return.
The two men walked back toward the companionway, but the mate turned to cast a last look at the slaves. For a brief instant he looked at Hava and their gazes locked for a moment. Hava gave the man a slight nod and then fell back as if exhausted. She hoped he was intelligent enough to recognize that she had something to tell him.
There was the faintest hesitation on the sailor’s part, but he said nothing and followed the black-clad assassin up the companionway. Hava let out a long breath of relief: every move she made now was from a position of profound disadvantage and the slightest mistake on her part could quickly lead to death. She was quite sure that she wasn’t ready to die: she needed to be free to find Hatu.
Baron Dumarch found the city in turmoil as he rode in at the northern gate and moved down a side road, taking the fastest route to the castle, avoiding the more crowded streets of Marquenet. His brother, an honor guard, and the prisoner Donte followed him. The main force lay an hour behind them.
The postern gate to the marshaling yard opened as the baron approached, and by the time he was through, lackeys were ready to take his mount. Waiting for him were his two sons, Wilton and Marius.
“Your mother?” asked Daylon, removing his heavy gauntlets and handing them to a servant who had appeared at his side as a lackey led away his exhausted mount.
“She’s getting the girls ready to travel. A ship is waiting to carry them to the island villa,” answered Wilton, his eldest.
Daylon shook his head. “No ships. I want a fast carriage and light horse guard—just ten men. Pick them from those who remained here; the men who traveled with me are barely able to stand. Have them ready to leave for Ilcomen at a moment’s notice. We should know by sundown if we are going to be attacked tomorrow. If they haven’t landed men by then, they’ll need tomorrow to stage. My family can be safely away before that.”
Wilton was a man now, despite being young, and Marius was approaching manhood, his shoulder
s starting to broaden and a hint of a beard showed on his cheeks. They were both ready to stay and fight, but Daylon said, “I want you both to ride with them.”
Wilton nodded, but Marius started to object. His father cut him off quickly.
“I need people I can trust to protect your mother and sisters,” he said to them both, though he fixed his gaze on his younger son. “I trust no one more than you two.” Then he gripped each lad by the shoulder and gave them a squeeze. “Now go ready yourselves for travel.” To Marius he said, “Go to the armory and choose armor and weapons. It’s time. You’ve earned it.”
The boy’s expression quickly ran from surprise to happiness, then to determination. “I will see that no harm comes to Mother or the girls.”
Daylon gave his younger son a tired smile and said, “I know I can trust you. Now go.”
As Daylon’s sons hurried away, Balven approached. “They’re like you were when you were young, anxious to be a grown man and to fight.”
Daylon gave his half brother a brief nod. “I remember exactly how it felt, and that’s why I’m sending them away. If what’s coming is as bad as it seems, we’re in a poor position to make a defense. I’m as guilty as Father, Grandfather, and all those who came before of relying on the Covenant and wealth and, after the Betrayal, assuming that any attack would come from the east.”
“What do you want me to do with that lad Donte?”
Daylon looked to where Donte now stood calmly between two guards, his expression hinting at some odd humor. “Damned if I know right now,” answered the baron.
“Toss him in a cell?”
Daylon weighed his answer, then said, “No, I’d like him a little closer than down in a dungeon. I want him feeling inclined to talk without having to waste days being beaten and starved. We don’t have time.
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