If that were the case, would Jasen think less of him?
No, he decided, for the same reason that he could not think less of himself for sending the troll overboard. The beast never had emerged from the seas again, and Jasen felt himself curiously empty at the thought.
Some things were necessary, and Burund was an honorable man. If he had killed before setting foot upon this war galley, it would surely have been only if it were absolutely necessary—to save his own skin, or the lives of his men, for instance. Not for proving a point, the way these Prenasians and their trolls had.
“It will come as no surprise to you,” said Longwell, standing proud and clutching his lance, “that I petition you to allow us to track Baraghosa, that we may do battle with him once more.”
Alixa snorted. Arms folded tight across her chest, she made a great point of looking away from Jasen, Longwell and Huanatha.
After the mutiny, Alixa had quietly disappeared and found a cabin of her own. She’d relocated with Scourgey, and as a result, Jasen had hardly seen them. He’d gone looking for her, but she seemed determined to avoid him and made haste in escaping him on the rare occasions where they did run into one another.
Burund sighed and rubbed a bruised hand across his jaw. “You are correct. This does not surprise me.”
“The sorcerer must be eradicated,” Huanatha said. “He is a threat to all men.”
Another snort from Alixa. She shook her head. “You are obsessed, the lot of you.”
Huanatha rounded on Alixa, but it was Longwell who stepped in to answer her. “Baraghosa is a vile serpent of a man, a monstrosity made flesh, who sows dissent everywhere that he treads. He must be stopped—”
“And the three of you must be the ones to stop him,” said Alixa. “Of all the souls in all the world, it must be my loon of a cousin, a high-strung former queen, and a clanking suit of armor to do it.”
Huanatha looked furious, but
Longwell took her insult with better grace. “There are others who feel as we do.”
Burund looked at them from under hooded eyes. “You have faced this Baraghosa twice already. Failure has been the end result both times. Why would you consider pursuing him again?”
“It’s folly,” Alixa added.
Huanatha opened her mouth, but Longwell stilled her with a touch.
“Baraghosa is—” he began, but Alixa cut him off.
“A serpent,” Alixa repeated. “I know. He came to my village and took children from us year after year. He took them away to die. He left families broken. But he is stronger than us. I have thrown myself into this battle, and I understand your desire to go after him. Yet it is madness, and it has gone on long enough.” She turned to Burund. “I will not be following these people to their deaths. I request instead that you help me find passage to Emerald Fields, so I may reunite with my countrymen, my brothers and sisters of Luukessia.”
“Your brothers are dead,” said Jasen, words coming unbidden and sudden, and very hot.
“And Baraghosa had nothing to do with it,” Alixa said, with a surprising calm. “Baraghosa said as much—the mountain was not his doing. I have no score to settle with him.” She turned again to Burund: “I am not a part of this deranged quest any longer. Nor should you be.”
Kuura, whose broken arm hung in a cloth sling around his neck, nodded. Thus far he’d been quiet, watching from the sidelines. Now he made his voice heard. “I am in agreement with Alixa.”
Huanatha gasped. “Kuura—!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he really did look it, though maybe it was partly out of fear that she would turn her fury upon him too. “I have fought alongside you—an honor—but I am not as young as I used to be. This fight is above me … and it is not mine.” Looking sheepish, he went on: “I was dragged into this as I was looking out for the well-being of these young Luukessians. If you go after Baraghosa again …” He looked pointedly at Jasen and shrugged, “… there is no aid I can give that will make you safe.”
Huanatha snarled. “You coward. All this time, I thought you a man of honor, with the spirit of a warrior, and it was all deception.”
Kuura held up his hand, the one not hanging limp at the end of a sling. “I did not mean to deceive—”
But Huanatha would have none of it. Striding for him, she jabbed at him with a finger. “You think this battle is not yours? So you have heard nothing of Trattorias, the king of Muratam? The one Baraghosa replaced me with upon the throne?”
Kuura’s eyebrows knitted. “Yes, but—”
“Muratam now rains war down on its former allies, sends foot soldiers into their lands, even as we speak. It cuts the heads from the leaders of villages, kills the men who would threaten to usurp them, and makes slaves of the people who they conquer. All of this is sown in Trattorias’s name—and who brought him to power? Baraghosa.” She said it with such utter contempt, such pure hatred, that her accent grew thick and the ‘r’ and ‘s’ in the sorcerer’s name curled richly. “He is the cause of this bloodshed—bloodshed that may one day destroy your own people, Kuura of Nunahk. Your land is not so far from my own. Think of it—your own family, your own children, their heads cleaved from their shoulders, your wife held down by soldiers as they—”
“This is quite enough,” said Burund. He did not raise his voice, but there was a firmness to his words, the way he issued commands, that cut over Huanatha and stopped her before she could say anymore.
Kuura‘s lips were pressed together in a thin line.
“Baraghosa creates chaos wherever he travels,” said Longwell, his words quieter and more measured than Huanatha’s. “He causes harm to all who he comes across, at least all who cannot further his own goals, anyway, whatever they may be.”
“Surely you know this,” Huanatha said to Alixa.
“I do,” she answered. “He came to our village every year, trading seed for a child. And now there are only two children from Terreas left.” She looked pointedly at Jasen. “So why should we sacrifice ourselves, if that is what it takes, when we are all that remain?”
“Because it is right,” said Huanatha.
“He has not killed us, even though we challenged him,” she said. “He has shown some degree of mercy, for all his misdeeds.”
“But you have shown no great threat to him thus far,” said Burund thoughtfully.
Alixa’s face twitched. “Regardless,” she said, “it would be lunacy to squander our lives now, when he has at least made efforts to spare us.”
“You think he has made efforts to spare us?” Huanatha asked. “To spare you?” She bared her teeth like a wolf. “You forget how close he came to sinking a knife into your belly? To goring you there in front of all of us? Do you forget the feel of the blade pressing into your skin, a millimeter away from cutting you open and spilling your lifeblood until your veins ran dry? Do you forget?”
Alixa, like Kuura before her, had paled. She swallowed, and Jasen could almost see, in her eyes, her mind replaying those awful moments there in Baraghosa’s tower, where by his magic he had held her aloft, like a puppet … and that blade, glinting and sharp, sailing toward her, gripped by an invisible hand …
“I remember vividly,” she said quietly. “And it is not an experience I wish to repeat—or to goad Baraghosa into repeating. I will not be going with you.”
Huanatha opened her mouth to argue.
“My word is final,” said Alixa, cutting her off before she could begin. “I will not be moved on this. I have seen enough violence, enough death, for this lifetime.”
Burund nodded. “I have heard your thoughts—all of you, very clearly. Now I must weigh them.”
“Wait,” said Longwell. “Before you do … Alixa, I understand you do not wish to reconsider—but Shipmaster, Kuura, perhaps I can convince you.”
The dragoon’s eyes narrowed. “I was Lord Protector of a city called Reikonos. Perhaps some of you have heard of it. I have shepherded that place for many years—from the scour
ge, when they came upon our shores—” he glanced at Scourgey here, tucked as she was behind Alixa, her head rising as Longwell spoke, listening, “—and from other threats, both internal and external.
“In facing these threats, we were united. But when Baraghosa came …” Longwell’s lips pressed into a thin line as the memory came back over him. “He sowed division, and from it began an insurrection, my own people turning against me, all for the purposes of placing his own pawns in command of the city. Men I had fought alongside, men I had dedicated so many years to protecting, to guiding, they rose up and forced me from my post—because of him.
“It is a familiar story. And it will be the same the world over. Wherever Baraghosa goes, he does this again and again, finding the weak spots of those who stand in his way and exploiting them. He is one man, and one man alone, and yet he is capable of so much … Much that we know … and much that is beyond our comprehension.”
A flash of the storms Baraghosa had caused flickered across Jasen’s mind’s eye—the strobing, unnatural colors of lightning, the way the ocean swelled into blisters where it struck, then sloughed off into great waves …
That he could do even worse than this, Jasen had no doubt.
“It happened to Huanatha, just as it happened to me,” Longwell went on, “and so it has happened to many more, and will happen to even more still. It is happening even as we speak, I am certain. He lived in my city for decades before he pressed his scrawny fingers into the cracks and split them wider, first advising us …”
“Where does he come from?” Jasen suddenly asked. It had been eight full days now since Longwell had promised him this answer.
Longwell’s lips thinned. “He comes from a place called Saekaj Sovar.” A hesitation. His tongue ran across the very tip of his top lip momentarily—considering just how much to say, perhaps, or how to say it.
“When not covered in spellcraft and illusion,” he went on, “he does not look so dissimilar from these Prenasians, really. His father is descended from their stock, originally—the ancient, Arkarian variation, at least.”
Another hesitation. This one was longer. His features tightened.
“His father was one of the gods of Arkaria. His name was Yartraak. Baraghosa is a bastard of his, one of the last alive. He is learned in spellcraft and possessed of strength not normally found on our continent, and he is a keen fighter. He helped keep Reikonos free during the coming of the scourge … and he helped nearly destroy us when his purpose turned. His machinations left people dead, left my honor amongst my own citizens compromised. So I left to pursue him, giving my advisors charge in my absence.” His knuckles turned white as he tightened his hold upon his lance. “I will not return until I have settled this score with him.”
Baraghosa, bastard child of a god—so that was the cause of Longwell’s hesitation. He was not weighing up what Jasen should know; rather, he weighed up just what he should tell Burund, lest the knowledge sway him from Baraghosa’s pursuit.
Whether Burund was influence by this last bit of information or whether his mind was already made up, Jasen would never know.
“You can, perhaps, find a ship in Nonthen that will carry you on this errand,” he said. “Both of you, if you wish it,” he added, looking to Huanatha—and then, turning his gaze upon Jasen: “Or all three of you, should you desire to pursue this foolishness to its conclusion.”
Foolishness. The word stung even more at the victorious look that passed over Alixa’s face as Burund said it.
But Jasen pushed it aside. This was not the time to feel hurt. The shipmaster had made his decision, and Jasen would respect it. Burund had done much for him, after all, far more than Jasen had had any right to wish for. It was not right to keep dragging him, or the men of the Lady Vizola, into danger when they did not wish to follow.
“You will not take us,” said Longwell—not a question, but a statement.
Burund looked out over his men, working furiously upon the deck to maintain control of a vessel that required so many more to man it.
“I can only see what these brushes have brought me close to; what they have cost me.” Pain flickered in his eyes—after these long weeks, he was tiring. “My responsibilities are elsewhere. So no, I will not take you. I will take the wiser course …” He looked to Alixa. “And stay away from Baraghosa.”
15
If Alixa had been scarce after their arrival aboard the war galley, she vanished entirely after Burund’s decision was made. Jasen did not see her at mealtimes, not in the mornings or evenings. He asked Longwell, Huanatha, and Kuura if they saw her. None had, and none had time to walk Jasen through the bowels of a ship that still confounded all sense of direction to search for her room by room.
He wondered if perhaps Scourgey—no, Niamh, the name was so difficult to keep in his head—he wondered if she could sniff Alixa out, like a dog.
Or perhaps she knew where Alixa was already, in that strange, mystical way of hers that Huanatha could tap into. Alas, it was foreign to him, and Huanatha was distracted. She had sharpened what was left of Tanukke’s shattered blade and practiced with it from dawn to dusk, swinging and stabbing, learning the weight of her new-old weapon. Why she did not trade it in for something more complete Jasen could not fathom, for there was a well-stocked armory available to her.
He joined too, him and Huanatha and Longwell upon the deck below the mizzenmast. Huanatha and Longwell blurred as they moved. Jasen, by comparison, was clumsy. The lessons he’d learned upon the Lady Vizola had mostly deserted him. Perhaps it was the way his brains had been rattled when he swam out to rescue Hamisi. Maybe it was connected to those white spots that kept clouding his vision, and the fog that had begun to precede them these past few days. He knew what that augured, and that most likely, both things were connected.
He tried not to think of it. That would only open other questions—like how long he had left. That he was declining was unquestionable, but at what rate, he could not be sure.
Scourgey might know, could perhaps smell it on him. And so Huanatha could too.
He wouldn’t ask. Better not to know. He needed only live long enough to see Baraghosa faced justice. After that …
Well, nothing else would matter, would it?
*
Jasen awoke just before dawn on the morning of their announced arrival at Nonthen, his head light and a sick feeling in his stomach. It seemed to always be with him in the mornings when he awoke, along with that weak feeling that lingered throughout the day. He struggled upright, ignoring the lightheadedness. It would pass. It had to.
It would be mid-morning when the Lady Vizola II pulled into port, so said Kuura the day before, perhaps a little earlier or later depending upon how the ocean currents and the wind carried them.
Scourgey—for crying out loud, Niamh!—lay at the foot of the bed. Although he did not recall it, going by the tangle that was the bedcovers, he’d not slept particularly well. The only part that remained in place was the oblong Scourgey occupied.
She raised her head to peer at him through the dim light from the lantern. It was burned down almost to a nub. Jasen didn’t especially like to keep it lit—the war galley was, after all, a glorified wooden box, and therefore flammable—but without a window in these quarters for the pre-dawn light to come in, better the slim risk of a lantern on very low than tripping in his sheets and knocking himself out on the bedframe.
He patted Scourgey’s head idly, using the heel of his free palm to wipe the sleep out of his eyes.
Oh. That was—damn it, another white spot. But no headache this time.
He blinked at it, Scourgey forgotten.
It didn’t disappear. But it did seem to dislodge, after maybe seven or eight hard blinks, slipping down his vision like a mote of dust falling in a sunbeam.
It lowered to the bottom fourth of his vision, to one side … and then it stayed there.
He shook his head. Damn it.
Well, they were drawing in to Nonthen
today. He, Longwell and Huanatha could be in pursuit of Baraghosa before midday.
“You coming?” he asked Scourgey as he stepped from the bed.
Her answer was to lower her head. She’d not gone far at all the past week and a half, restricting herself almost entirely to this room, with only the occasional foray up to the deck with Alixa or himself. In the end, Jasen had needed to bring water and food to her, she was so unwilling to move for it. Today was apparently going to be the same again.
“I’ll get you breakfast,” he said. “Back soon.”
He left the room.
On the Lady Vizola, breakfast for the scourge had been scraps of meat from the mess, which she’d eaten happily. Now that Jasen knew that she had once been a person, though, he made an effort to fetch finer things for her. Of course, on this vessel, “finer things” still amounted to cured meats and dry crackers, although the Prenasians also travelled with barrels of oranges and limes and an overly sweet pink fruit with barbed points across its skin.
Jasen stepped into the mess hall and made for the serving station at its far end.
Like the rest of the war galley, the mess hall was a utilitarian affair. A vast oblong, it was split into rows by tables with benches, bolted to the floor. A handful of windows provided light, streaking in faint bars across the onyx wood. This time of morning, it was dim, very dim. And empty.
Jasen meandered across the hall to the serving station. He stepped around it, thinking still of Scourgey, how unpleasant it must be to go from being a human to being an animal, subsisting off scraps and entrails. Which of those was worse, he wasn’t entirely sure.
Nor did he get to make a decision, for as he rounded the serving station, he saw, bent low over a barrel, head and shoulders fully inside of it—
“Alixa!”
She straightened so fast he almost thought he heard her spine crack like a whip.
Accusing eyes stared at him.
A Home in the Hills Page 12