The Darkness at the Edge of Noon: a Thalassia novel

by Patrick McClafferty

  “They’re just fine. They miss you, but they are holding up.”

  “Thank you for what you’re doing Rhiannon. I...” He swallowed. “Tell the children that I love them.” He almost jerked his hand off the medallion.

  The two wounded sailors were sitting on an empty crate, backs to the cold fire when he found them. One man had a crude bandage around his head, the other a bloody rag tied about his arm. Both smelled of fear—and despair.

  Logan reached down and grabbed them by their collars, dragging them to their feet. “All right, you two. Let’s go.”

  “Jes make it fast, will ye?” The leaner man with the bandaged head moaned.

  “Oh, it will be fast.” Logan dragged the men toward the still shadowed woods. “You’ll never feel a thing.” He could feel the men shudder in his grip. He knew that he was being needlessly cruel, but he was like that sometimes.

  The shadows wrapped around the three like waiting arms and Logan, after fixing the place he wanted to go firmly in his mind, reached out in some way and—twisted. Like before, a razor thin cut appeared in the air before them, and turned to become a black, reflectionless door.

  “What the...?” The stockier of the two sailors exclaimed, with an edge of panic. Logan stepped through the door and jerked the men after him before they could even think.

  It was raining on the other side, and the air smelled like dead fish. The cold drizzle coming down out of heavy gray clouds made the boundary between sea and air hazy and indistinct. The dock creaked ominously under their combined weight.

  “What the bloody?” The first sailor stumbled, and then stood stock still, head swiveling on his thin neck.

  “We’re back on the bleedin dock in the bleedin fishin village.” The second sailor finished.

  “Y’ ain’t gunna kill us then?” There was a hopeful note in the first sailor’s voice.

  Logan turned toward the black doorway. “Nope. I’ll leave that to Kellic. He should be back here in a few weeks, if the wind’s right. I’m sure that he will be glad to see you.” Logan watched elation turn to fear in the sailor’s eyes. “If you start running now, you might be able to escape. Oh, by the way, watch out for the green, four armed monsters that wander about. Two plump sailors would fit quite well into one of their cookpots, you know.” The men were frozen with fear.

 

  Logan shuddered. He turned toward the doorway.

  She sounded miffed.

 

  “Wait!” There was a desperate note to the second sailor’s voice. “Take us with...”

  Logan closed the doorway almost on his heel, and the forest was again quiet.

  “Should we get a crew to clean up the mess?” Grady was grinning broadly when Logan returned to the small camp.

  “No need.” He was wiping his hands on his pants. “There are no bodies.” At the big man’s frown, Logan clarified his statement. “They are still alive. I just brought them home, the same way I saved the squad from the Zzzkntti that first day just outside Stirling’s front door.”

  “Ohhh.” His look was sour. “You getting soft on us, boss? Letting the enemy go and all?”

  Logan slapped Grady’s shoulder. “I don’t think so. When Kellic finds them he may be a little upset.”

  Grady’s laugh was low and mean. “He’ll skin them alive, slowly. If they run, the Zzzkntti will tear them into small pieces.”

  “They might survive if they can make it to the pirates, if the pirates want them, that is. But after the raiders find out that the two sailors were responsible for the loss of one of their ships, they might not be so hospitable.” Logan smiled. “I figure that their odds are about one hundred to one against, for surviving.

  Padraig was sitting by the fire smoking his pipe, and he looked up with a thoughtful expression on his face at Logan’s arrival. “It was an elegant solution to a sticky problem. Justice is served, but it won’t be served by you. How did you get rid of them, exactly?” Blue smoke wreathed the lean man’s face, and his hard gray eyes were sharp and intent.

  Logan thought about it for a moment. If he could do it, it would be good to have someone else who could get their asses out of a jam if necessary. “Leave your pipe here, and follow me.” He turned back to the shadowed forest. There was a certain reluctance in his second in command, but the man still followed. Logan stopped where the shadows were deepest. “The first thing that you have to do is to know exactly where you are. Today it’s simple. We can see the woods, we know that the beach is behind us, and we know that we are on the island of Sverd I Fjell. Things might not be so simple if it was foggy and we were in an unknown land. Do you follow me?”

  Hansen nodded. “Know where you are. Got it.”

  “Next you have to know where you are going. I pictured the dock where we all boarded the Seabird.”

  “Near that wretched fishing village with its homes propped up out of the water, on rotting poles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Got it.”

  “Now comes the hard part, and maybe your K’Dreex can help. You have to watch what I’m doing with your mind. You have to see how I twist space to open a door. Watch.” He did it very slowly, and the black door crawled into existence.

  “I almost saw it.” Padraig’s voice was tight with concentration. “Please do it again.”

  “All right.” One more time the door crept into existence. A moment later a second door appeared next to it. Padraig was sweating.

  “I thought it would be harder to do something so simple.” The second doorway vanished, and then the first.

  “There’s nothing simple about opening a doorway in space-time with your mind, Padraig. If I hadn’t been on the verge of being killed the first time, I don’t think I ever could have done it.” He could sense a flicker of pride in the tall man.

 

 

  Her thought was dubious.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “Yes, I do.” His look was intent. “What’s stopping you from granting shore leave? You could split the Marines down the middle. Half could go back to Medin tonight. Half could go back tomorrow night. It would give us all a break.”

  Logan scratched his jaw. “We all have a long way to go yet. Cloch Dabhiolla, our destination, is still half an ocean away. Months at sea. The men and women are kind-of used to life at sea by now. If I send them back, when they return they will be miserable when we set out again. Everyone will want to go home at night, every night. What of the ex-pirates and the other sailors? What will they think? Is it fair to them? I don’t want a mutiny on my hands. When we get onto dry land and leave the sailors behind, then maybe we can discuss shore leave again. Right now it’s out of the question.”

  Hansen was quiet for some time, as he mulled this over. “I never thought that being a captain would be so difficult. You have to look at all sides of the picture, don’t you, all the time?” Padraig sounded almost embarrassed.

  “Pretty much, yes. It’s not always a yes or no answer though, and those decisions are the hardest. Then it boils down to the lesser of two evils, or the better of two goods.” Logan turned and headed back to the camp. “How are the ship repairs coming?”

  Padraig sighed, following him slowly. “Two days, maybe. I thought that we might chop some local wood and fashion some sort of a cabin on the aft of the ship to keep a few of us dry. We’ll only have half the usual number of sailors, so weight shouldn’t be a problem, even on that small boat and even with the iron.”

  “That’s a good idea, Padraig. D
o we have anyone that’s handy with a saw and hammer?”

  Hansen chuckled. “The two sailors who came over from the Seabird were the carpenter and the carpenter’s mate. I suppose that Kellic is missing them—right about now.”

  “That sorry pile of logs he calls a boat might just sink and he’d drown. What a shame.”

  “Terrible.” Padraig winked. “Now, about that cabin. I was thinking...”

  Three days later they were on their way.

  Chapter 12

  Two weeks out of the island, Logan woke early one gray and sleepless morning to find that the whole sky was quickly darkening to a roiling black. Swells tossed the ship like she was riding up and down the sides of a watery mountain and the wind rose to a shriek, lashing spray against his face with the force of a whip.

  He crawled his way to the tiller. “Mister Barr!” He had to shout to be heard over the screaming wind. “Are we in danger?”

  Insanely, the big First Mate was grinning wildly. “Nah!” He chortled. “This here be a good ship. Better’n Seabird. We’ll be fine. Better git the lads and ladies in the cabin, before she gits much worse. Jes leave me three good sailors to man the braces.” He turned a feral grin on Logan. “An you, o’course. Te help with the wheel ye see.”

  A monstrous wave slammed the side of the ship and Logan staggered. “Are you sure?”

  “Yep.” Barr stood wide-legged behind the thick tiller and put all his muscles behind the stout wooden bar. Slowly the boat began to turn slightly into the wind, and the pounding became less. “There!” The First Mate shouted. “Move yer people now!” Logan began to shout at the top of his lungs. It was barely enough.

  Logan cursed as maps slid off the table again. Actually the table was no more than a box with a sodden blanket spread on top, in the small cubby of a shelter they had constructed at the stern of the boat. It was the fourth time it had happened in the last hour. He picked them up and then staggered as another wave hit the frail craft, lifting the sleek vessel then sending her down the backside of the wave in a sickening corkscrew motion. It was the third day of the storm, and although it showed some signs of weakening, the crew didn’t feel hopeful. He swallowed hard. Half the crew were crawling-on-hands-and-knees sick, while the other half struggled to keep the unmanageable warboat afloat. He set the map back down and clipped the four corners to the table with small strips of springfish hide. The ship shuddered.

  “Do you know where we are, sir?” Ryanne was looking at him over the table with wide blue eyes, and a green pallor. She wasn’t a good sailor. He had held her gently and wiped her face with a cool damp cloth after she threw up everything she’d eaten in the last week.

  “I think so. We’ve gone quite a ways east of where we wanted to go, but the island surrounds us like the top half of a big circle. If we keep going straight we’ll hit land, sooner or later. I just keep the rising sun on my right.”

  Ryanne just shut her eyes and groaned as she lowered herself into her makeshift bunk. “That’s nice. Just don’t bury me at sea. It’s all I ask.”

  “Ryanne, you’re not that sick. Megan is worse than you, and she only has a sprained ankle.”

  “I feel dreadful.”

  Logan touched the woman’s arm, wiped her face with a cool damp sponge and ducked out of the small cramped cabin. The men on the deck were moving about. Some of them. Most of the Marines had just found small, dark, out-of-the-way spots on the deck and curled into miserable balls. Logan stepped gingerly over Grady on his way to the bow. A wave splashed his face with icy water and, swallowing a curse, he wiped the stinging salt water from his eyes.

  Then he blinked. There was another sail, hull down on the distant horizon. He forgot the stinging water as he headed for the First Mate standing calmly at the tiller.

  “How long has THAT been out there?”

  “Hour. Mebby a bit more.”

  Logan growled. “Were you going to tell me?”

  “Yed see it when ye looked, I figgered.”

  “Won’t they see us?”

  “Nah. Are sails be reefed, an closer to the water. As long as we don’t get no closer we’re safe.”

  Logan was beginning to get an idea. “If we ran parallel to them, and stayed the same distance, could we follow them and remain unseen?”

  “Cain’t see why not. You figgerin on following em te port?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good plan.” The huge sailor pushed on the tiller and slowly the ship came round.

  They sighted land the very next day. It had been three and a half months since they left the rickety dock in Reachrainn to board the Seabird. The crew and the Marines didn’t have the energy to even cheer.

  The strange ship ran parallel to the coast for another three days before she turned into land, and began to reduce her sail. The water was a dark mysterious sapphire blue and the reflections off of Thalassia’s rings sent fiery sparkles running alongside the ship. The air, since their departure from Sverd I Fjell, had dropped steadily in temperature and the sailor’s breaths puffed out in great steaming clouds.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Maeve had come up quietly, and her presence made him jump.

  “Yes, it is.” Logan took a deep breath. “Today we should set foot on dry land. That too will be a beautiful thing.”

  Her laughter was soft. “You never told me that you had the soul of a poet.”

  “I have the soul of a drill sergeant. The squad needs exercise on dry land. They’re getting soft.”

  “Three months on the sweeps have made them anything but soft, Logan. Even the women are starting to develop wide shoulders and thick biceps.” She flexed a shapely, well-muscled arm.

  “I always liked strong women.” Logan’s voice was teasing.

  “You have a whole shipload of them, so you had better watch out.”

  He sighed. “Some men would call it heaven.”

  “But not you?”

  “Not me.” Logan let his eyes wander out over the water.

  She was standing close to him now, almost shoulder to shoulder. “Why, Logan MacKennit? Why not you?”

  He looked into her dark eyes. “Because...”

  “Logan!” The call from the tiller broke their reverie, and Maeve cursed. “The other boat has dropped her sail. They’ve reached their dock. What do we do now?”

  Logan patted the woman’s hand before he turned away. “Follow them in. That’s what we’ve come all this way for, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Marines, see to your gear.” There was a scuffling and bumping, and many smiling faces as the men and women prepared to disembark.

  The wooden pier jutting out into the middle of the raggedly circular harbor was huge, fully a cable long and forty or fifty feet wide. Three other slim ships sat at the dock, in various stages of loading or unloading, while four or five more rested at anchor in the wide calm harbor. Overlooking the anchorage, like some great hulking beast, was the castle. Sitting with its back against a steep rocky hill, it was more a fortified city, with immense walls two hundred feet tall with squat ugly towers overhanging the corners. Surrounding the castle was a deep spike lined fosse crossed by a heavy drawbridge. Logan could see men patrolling the top of the castle wall and everywhere there seemed to be preparations for battle.

  “This doesn’t look too good.” Logan didn’t have to turn to know the speaker was Grady.

  “No it doesn’t.” Logan watched a group of heavyset men starting to unload the recently docked vessel. They were all burly and bearded, and all had axes that they wore slung over their backs.

  Jade’s thought was mild, as if she didn’t want to disturb his gloomy reflections.

  The white guard boat was long and skinny, and was moved along by twelve long flat-bladed sweeps. It looked to Logan, like a huge water bug, skimming along the surface of a pond.

  “Ahoy!” A voice shouted from the small vessel. “What ship?”

  “Lainie Mairi.” He cal
led back. “From Reachrainn by way of Sverd I Fjell. We have goods to trade. Several hundredweight of iron for swords.” Logan could hear the excited buzz of talk in the small boat.

  “Follow us and dock exactly where we tell you to, do you understand?” The voice called back.

  “Aye, we understand.” They weren’t taking any chances with the strangers. Armed warboats in your harbor tended to make everyone nervous. The guard boat spun in its own length, and glided off toward the bustling dock. Mister Barr was already shouting while men were scrambling to extend the long sweeps.

  The Lainie Mairi was barely one hundred feet from the dock when the horn started to blow. Men on the shore and the lower end of the dock were running for the drawbridge to the castle, while others, further out on the long dock were trying vainly to cut the moorings on their boats.

  “Put us in right at the end of the dock!” Logan shouted to the First Mate.

  “That not be where...”

  “I don’t care. Put us at the end of the dock—and then stand by to get us out of there in a hurry. DO IT!” He roared.

  “All right, all right.” He heard Barr mumble crossly. “Don’t get yer tail in a knot, boy.” The boat turned and Logan picked up a speaking trumpet even as huge four armed creatures burst out of the surrounding forest. He gasped and his heart missed a beat. There were hundreds of them. A wave of green creatures seemed to cover the shore and spread down the dock. Dimly he heard the drawbridge boom shut. He put the trumpet to his lips.

  “Ahoy the dock. This way lads! Get aboard our vessel and we’ll get you out of harm’s way. Over here! Over here!” The sailors on the dock took one look at the advancing horde, dropped what they were doing and ran for the ship. “Marines!” Logan shouted again. “Onto the dock and cover the retreat of those sailors. Crossbows, Bel in the bow and Tiana in the stern. Get as many as you can, ladies. GO!” The Marines grabbed their weapons and ran, pushing the amazed sailors out of their way. “Barr! Prepare to receive the refugees. As soon as we have all we can hold we’ll put out into the harbor. I don’t think that the monsters can swim, so we should be quite safe.”