Cheris finally found the courage to look up. Trask’s voice was cutting through her like a hot rapier. Her heart was pounding and her brain throbbed in her skull, making it feel like her head might explode. As she looked at Morgan, though, she felt aghast. He appeared to be actually going over Trask’s words. considering them carefully. He couldn’t. Surely he couldn’t.
‘You are suggesting a country of equals?’ Morgan spoke quietly.
‘A country where everyone is born equal, yes. But thereafter merit takes over, the strong will always preside over the weak. It is the law of the Gods.’
‘I am not so sure of that,’ said Morgan. ‘And what of your bastards? You have many after all; would you use your position to set them above other men, or would only their capabilities see them rise as high as you?’
Trask smiled. ‘I care not for my bastards. They are on their own.’
‘Calvannen is a baron. Would he give up his title for you?’
‘Yes, his status would be undiminished as a general and he can rule the south as he sees fit. He knows I have no interest in it.’
Morgan looked at Dominic, who looked concerned. If Morgan was to turn, what would happen to him? Cheris felt the tension like a tightly pulled cord, close to snapping. She had made such a mistake coming out here; just the sight of Trask, arrogant as ever, brought it all flooding back – the glade, his breath, his strength, the smell of leather and the pain inside her as she lay helpless, pathetic under him. And now Morgan was thinking of joining him, a betrayal worse than any as she had trusted him so. She felt her magic stir within her; she may have to kill again, just to survive here. Whatever happens, she thought, Trask would be first.
She was pulled from her reverie by the most unexpected of sounds – Morgan was laughing.
‘You were close, Trask; I give you that. In many ways your plan is laudable. What loyalty do I have to the Grand Duke? A man who has waited years before deigning to join us out here, who cared nothing for us until his own duchy started to wobble? You are right, I should owe him no loyalty at all. And who among us would be disappointed to see barons disappear? Then, though, you all went terribly wrong. I thought you were proposing a system like they have in Crown Haven, where people cast lots on issues that affect them. Instead you are suggesting replacing one set of powerful rapacious men with another set of powerful rapacious men, a set that happens to include you. And try as I might, I cannot see you sharing power with anyone, least of all me, against whom you have fought on more than one occasion. Your offer is considered and refused. Bring your army on. Let the Gods decide who is right in this issue. No one behind those walls fears you.’
If Trask was disappointed, he gave no sign. ‘Well, the offer has been made; I could do no less. I thank you, too, for letting me see that you have a sorceress on your side. I suspected as much when my men did not return. If you have not yet had her, I recommend that you try. She squirms most entertainingly and uses some musk behind her ears.’ He looked over at her, his smile broad and cruel.
At last she found her voice, though she wished she sounded stronger.
‘We will not see each other again,’ she said, this time looking directly at him. ‘But I want you to know that even had Morgan accepted your proposal, it would have meant nothing. For you will die soon. You will die and I want you to know that it will be me that kills you. Remember that as you look upon your death. When you join this Fenchard at the furnace, know that it is I who has put you there, for I will have my vengeance upon you, no matter the cost.’
Her terse, angry words provoked a response. ‘Listen to you! You would think what was done to you was unique, that there was something special about you. Let me make it clear to you: outside of your ability as a conjuror, you are nothing extraordinary, a skinny girl who somehow thinks herself better than others, who thinks that what happened to her gives her some righteous authority in her pursuit of revenge. Time to disabuse yourself of such notions, my girl. You are not remarkable. The women in this land are well used to being treated in this way. It has happened to most of them and on more than one occasion. The difference is that the women here are tough. They take their punishment and get on with life; they don’t whine and bleat about it like a spoiled child brought up among books, never having to lift a finger. You should learn from them. Have you ever seen your children with no food in their bellies? Heard that your man is coming back from the war crippled and cannot provide for you, just another mouth to feed. You are cosseted, pampered, privileged with an education denied to most. Stop contemplating your own misery and think of those who make something of themselves, despite having none of your advantages.’
Her horse stirred, sensing her suppressed fury. ‘And hear how you justify what you have done! You make it sound as if you are helping these women by servicing them! Well, I promise you that you are not; they will all rise to thank me when they hear of your demise. Your days in this world are numbered, Trask, that I swear.’
Trask’s smile remained. ‘I had forgotten your temper. I remember that was the best thing about you. I imagine after we had finished it took you some time before you could sit anywhere, let alone on a saddle. I tell you again, Morgan, give her a go; she is most obliging. There is no part of her body to which you are denied access, if you push hard enough.’
‘Enough!’ Morgan spoke firmly, his voice raised. He could see Cheris reddening and lowering her head so that her hair covered her face. ‘We are done here; there is nothing more to discuss. Goodbye, Trask, see you on the furnace.’ He started to turn his horse.
‘One more thing,’ said Trask. ‘You may match me man for man but your city walls will be hard to defend. I will show no mercy when I breach them, I will kill you and your knights and take the blonde for my woman. Imagine our children, assassin; nothing could stand against them. Farewell, Morgan, you have missed your chance.’
He spurred his horse around and was gone with his men, their hooves clattering on the hard ground. ‘I wait with bated breath,’ Syalin whispered softly at his retreating back. It was done. They turned and rode back to the city, knowing that siege was the only possible outcome now. Morgan hoped that the stark and frowning rock walls of Felmere had the durability to withstand it, for he doubted that he had it within him to achieve such a task.
37
From the quarterdeck of the galleon Saint Dunventia Duke Nicholas Hartfield beheld the rocky promontories and austere bluffs of the island of Osperitsan and reflected on the events of the last few days. He remembered being woken from his deep slumber in his cabin to be told that his ship was under attack, that men with incendiaries had climbed aboard unseen and that the deck had been ablaze before anyone had any time to react. It had been true: there was no way the fire could be extinguished before irreparable damage had been done to the vessel. He oversaw the evacuation of the crew until the ship’s captain told him that the last boat was for him. He climbed on board with the last of the ship’s complement, leaving only the captain behind – to what fate he did not know, though he could guess.
Then, as they headed to the harbour, they came under fire from archers on the wall. With men dying or falling injured all around him he grabbed an oar himself and helped to turn the vessel around, towards the open sea. After hugging the coast all night, praying that the vessel would not snag on rocks and be holed, they were fortunate enough to be picked up by a ship that had decided that the harbour was too dangerous for them and would be heading instead for the secure port of Thakholm.
Treachery. He had little inkling in his visit to Wulfthram and his daughter that plots against the Duchy were afoot or indeed so advanced. The scale of the rebellion and its perpetrators did not become known to him until he reached Thakholm, listened to the gossip and secured a vessel to catch up with the fleet.
And then Baron Skellar came to see him and showed him that letter.
He was proud of all four of his children. His son, lordly and capable, a knight and leader of men and one also mooted as a f
uture grand duke should Leontius fail to produce an heir. His two eldest daughters, born within a year of each other and close as sisters could be. Both had married well and made him a proud grandparent. They took after their mother in looks but were far quicker to laughter than she, never having been burdened with the onerous responsibilities of being the matriarch of the Duchy’s second family.
And then his fourth child had come along.
She was so small when she was born; he had never thought that she would survive. But she did, and he soon saw why. For all her slightness and delicacy she was a tough little thing. When she had colic she would screw her tiny face up and fight it every inch of the way. As she grew, she would like to walk on the edge of cliffs or climb rocks on the beach. Such adventure worried him as a parent and as a result he swaddled her, protected her, forbad her from risking herself, for she was precious to him; he realised with no little guilt that he loved her more than his other children.
And then she grew up. Grew into a playful, capricious young woman with a wicked sense of humour and, like him, a predilection towards occasional bouts of deep melancholia. Of all his children she was the one most like him.
And now, so it seemed, he had lost her. Lost her to some ancient magic that he did not fully understand. Her letter showed she had been tormented by it for some time. And he had known nothing about it for she had never told him. With her marriage, something he had argued long and hard with Leontius over with little success, she had been taken from him and sent to the other end of the country. Now in all probability she was gone for good. Her letter stated that she was giving herself up to these forces; she would change, and if strange phenomena were soon sighted in the area, then she had succeeded and would not return to human society again. It was a cryptic letter; it seemed that she was unsure herself what would happen but the whole thing read like one of those missives left by those desperate people for whom life had become nothing but a terrible burden and who wished to be rid of it by their own hand. Despite all the evidence, he still hoped against hope that when he returned to Thakholm she would be standing there, smiling, just as she used to when he used to ride back to Edgecliff, with the gifts she used to love receiving.
He was not allowed to dwell on such things for long, though, for – as the dawn of his first day back at sea broke – three things happened.
The first was the sighting of his fleet and, within the hour and with dawn’s red flare coating the tranquil ocean, he had boarded the new flagship and was discussing matters with the Admiral. Both men had fought battles at sea before, against corsairs from Kudreya and Fash so were well versed in procedure, the Admiral would command the ships and he would have overall command of the marines. It was the way things were done in Tanaren.
The second thing happened shortly after. A cry went up from one of the faster ships at the head of the fleet followed by a flurry of flag signals from several ships in front of them. The Kudreyans had been sighted.
The fleet of Tanaren had some thirty-six vessels, five great galleons, fifteen sturdy carracks, with the remainder being swift, lightly armed caravels and other support craft. The Kudreyan fleet numbered some twenty ships but all of similar size and design. Swift, triple-masted vessels, sleek and deadly, limited in artillery but full of men well versed in hand-to-hand fighting on the narrow confines of a deck. They would ride through the barrage of missiles as quickly as they could so that they could grapple the enemy and swarm them. And their secret weapon? On the bow of each ship was a ram, each fashioned from a great tree with a head of metal designed to splinter the hull of their foes. These rams were often shaped into the head of an animal – a wolf, or a bear or a bull for those that believed in Mytha. They would impale their foes, overwhelm the defences and then either appropriate the captured vessel for themselves or scuttle them. Duke Nicholas felt that in this case it would be the latter.
On a glass-like sea the battle lines were drawn, the enemy adopting a powerful if unsubtle wedge formation designed to shatter the heart of the fleet while minimising its own vulnerability to missiles. The fleet of Tanaren sent its swift ships out in two wings, to encircle the enemy and do what longrange damage it could; flaming arrows would be used in the hope of starting fires on the pirate decks. The galleons and carracks waited, arranged in a line to maximise their firepower, and to swiftly support each other when the Kudreyans got close enough to use their rams. And it was then that the third thing happened, causing all hope for his daughter to evaporate like mist under a strong sun.
It was heard before it was seen, a number of sharp high-pitched screeches, a sound so strange and unexpected that everyone looked at each other thinking they must have imagined it. Above them the clouds were low and heavy, flecked with dawn pink and it was through these clouds that they finally came.
He did not know how many there were, for they darkened the sky with their wings; maybe as many as thirty he could not tell. Each one of them had a long snake-like body, broad, bat-like wings and the head of a reptile, with gleaming red eyes slitted like a cat’s. They had no forelegs, or none that he could see, just two rear legs, short and powerful with four toes each bearing a colossal scythe-like claw. Their tails extended far behind them and each tail seemed to end in a series of spines extending upwards. As they flew, they screeched, squabbling even with each other and they got lower and lower in the sky, until all could see that each one was nearly half the length of a carrack, their glistening wet scales of green and black the size of a small shield, their scaly white underbellies thicker than troll hide and they appeared to be heading for the fleet.
Men all around him screamed in terror, throwing themselves to the deck, hiding behind barrels, wailing as they sought whatever cover they could.
‘Dragons!’ they all cried. ‘The Gods have sent dragons to devour us.’
But Nicholas did not hide. He stood tall on the deck watching the creatures intently. And as he did he saw them fly past the fleet, in the direction of the Kudreyans. He also felt a need to correct the crew for as a child one of his favourite books was entitled Ancient Beasts Lost to Science: Their Description and Habits. It was a tome he read avidly again and again – for what child could fail to be enthralled by monsters? And in it these creatures were described perfectly.
‘They are passing,’ he called to the men around him. ‘And they are not dragons but wyverns, a lesser creature both in size and intelligence. They are fierce though and their tails are poisonous, but they are not after us – they seek a different quarry.’
It was true; for as the men recovered their wits and stood again they saw the wyverns fly past both them and the Kudreyans. They headed onwards, into the north and west, towards Osperitsan Island.
The Admiral turned to him. ‘You know of these creatures?’
‘I do,’ said Nicholas. ‘And I also know that they fight for us. Let us put these pirates to the torch and see such a thing for ourselves!’
Brave words, he thought. In his mind, though, a picture of his daughter came to him. She was smiling and happy, and it was an image he tried to keep even as battle raged all around him, for he knew now that he would never see the real thing again.
Never was a form of warfare so determined by the whims of the Gods than battles at sea. No sooner had the wyverns disappeared back into the lowering clouds, then the north wind started to pick up and the scent of approaching rain filled the air. It got stronger, even as the pirate ships got close enough for Nicholas to see the men readying the gangplanks and hanging in the rigging. The caravels encircled their foes, discharging volleys of flaming arrows that bounced of hulls, skipped over decks or lodged in sails. Small fires were started, but the pirates were prepared, dousing them with sand, water or sailcloth. The Kudreyans got ever closer; it would be minutes before the fleets clashed.
Then Nicholas and the Admiral nodded at each other and the signal was given. From every waiting ship, all twenty of them, both large and small, the artillery was released. The lead Kudreyan ships
were deluged by ballistae raking their decks, wreaking havoc among the tightly packed men waiting to board their targets. Catapults fired great faggots of burning wood soaked in pitch. The wind caught some of them, causing them to drop hissing into the sea, but others clattered on to the decks or caught the sails, causing real fires this time, ones that could not be easily extinguished. Arrows were exchanged between both sides as the seas started to churn in the strengthening wind. Soon the decks of the Kudreyan vessels were slick with blood and even Nicholas could hear the screams and cries of the wounded. But still the Kudreyans kept coming. Most of their ships were screened by the lead vessels and were relatively unscathed and their decks were swarming with people armed with short stabbing blades, cudgels and knives, weapons suited for the cramped conditions of a boarding action.
Then the lead pirate ship, its sails burning, its decks littered with dead and wounded caught a nearby carrack, one smaller than itself, its ram driving into the vessel’s stern with a crack and groan of broken timber. The grappling hooks and gangplanks were flung from both sides and over them swarmed the pirates, tattooed on both face and body, gold rings through ear, nose, lip and eyebrow, screaming their bloodlust at their foes, many of them spitting blood from self-inflicted wounds designed to terrify the enemy. From his position close by Nicholas could hear the ring of steel and lusty screams of the combatants. The battle had finally begun.
And so did the rain, cold, heavy, hitting the ship at a steep angle. The leaden waves rose and fell, ever the more powerful as the wind increased. The pirate ships were driven by sail only, with no provision for oars, and many were caught by surprise. They bunched, a few even collided before the sails could be partially furled and their keels turned. It was now or never.
The signals were given and using both oar and sail three of the galleons including the Dunventia headed straight for the heart of the disrupted enemy fleet, swatting any vessels too slow to take evasive action to one side.
The Forgotten War Page 125