Stormwarden

by Janny Wurts

  The vicious pride in him brought tears to Taen's eyes. To the bitter edge of death the Kielmark's word would stand. But Tamlin's warning lay heavy on her mind as the man kicked his mount to a gallop. He vanished over the dunes to the south while Jaric stood like a man stunned by a blow. No power on Keithland could call the Kielmark back and change his mind.

  * * *

  Five days after Anskiere's second storm loosened its grip over Cliffhaven, King Kisburn's three warships entered the narrows of Mainstrait. The wind blew yet from the west, a misfortune which made the captains irritable; forced to beat every league of the way in ships overloaded with troops and supplies, passage had been grindingly slow. And with Kor's Accursed on board, the sailors muttered and started at every order, making signs against evil even while they worked aloft.

  Except for Tathagres, only one man of Morra's company remained at ease in the presence of demons. Disdainful of the stuffy cabin he shared with two lieutenants, Emien lounged on the foredeck with his back braced against the rail, a woolen cloak draped over the wood beneath his elbow. He felt peculiarly unclothed without the accustomed weight of sword and dagger at his belt. But since the Gierj-demons could raise no power in the presence of iron, not a man aboard the flagship bore arms. Morra had been stripped of anchors and chains, and fitters had replaced every scrap of steel gear with parts made of brass. She carried ballast of sand specially for the passage across the straits.

  Denied the security of their weapons, the soldiers huddled below decks, nervously whispering. Their uneasiness moved Emien to scorn. After long delay, Cliffhaven lay just two leagues off the bow. The vindictive hatred Emien felt for Anskiere far outweighed any distrust of the demons brought along to achieve the Kielmark's downfall. Eager for the first stage of conquest to commence, the boy leaned over the rail beneath the rising angle of the headsails.

  The breeze freshened, funnelled between the gapped peninsulas of the straits. Morra sailed with every stitch of canvas pinched tight. Emien squinted at the wavelets and cursed; the tide had recently turned. Ebbing current would shortly reduce their headway nearly to naught.

  The captain called for a leadsman to sound the depth, that the ship could be run to the limit of her draft on each tack. Morra ghosted close against a craggy head of land which loomed black and forbidding beneath a lowering moon. At least the light lay in their favor, Emien reflected sourly. Any ship set against them would be exposed like an inked silhouette against the silvered face of the sea. That the Kielmark would attack was certain; the Thienz demon had promised it.

  The Thienz itself stood propped against the mizzenmast just aft of the helm. The stern running lamps were unlit; but in the reddish glow of the compass lantern, Emien picked out the dim outline of grinning toadlike lips, slitted eyes and the crested headdress which adorned the creature's crown.

  The leadsman's line splashed beneath Emien's perch. In a clear voice the man sounded the mark; five fathoms, then four, then three. The bottom was shoaling rapidly. The captain signaled and the boastwain shouted. "Ready about. All hands, man sheets and braces!"

  The quartermaster spun the wheel. The boatswain called orders over the crack of canvas and tackle as Morra swung into the wind. Sails ruffled. Sailors heaved on the sheets. With a squeal of blocks, the lines banged taut and Morra laid onto her new tack. Downwind like an echo the following ship repeated the flag's maneuver. Excitedly, Emien searched the sea beyond the straits. The Kielmark's ambush lurked in the darkness ahead; alone among Kisburn's men, the boy was curious to see how the demons would send them to slaughter.

  Suddenly the Thienz stiffened. Its massive head lifted, blunt face trained forward like a bloodhound tracking an elusive scent. But the Thienz did not pause to sniff the breeze. Half blind by daylight and utterly lacking a sense of smell, it possessed empathic sensitivity more developed than any Sathid-linked talent trained by the Vaere. From a position nine leagues distant, it sounded currents no human could perceive, and reliably listed the position, numbers and attack plan of the Kielmark's defending fleet. Emien fidgeted in smug anticipation. The renowned Lord of Renegades had no chance against them at all.

  The captain fretted behind the quartermaster's shoulder. "Do you sense anything?"

  The Thienz whuffed through its gills, noncommittal. But its pose remained tautly attentive. Emien strained to overhear as the captain addressed the mate on watch. "Fetch Tathagres. The Gierj should come on deck. If perfect timing exists for attack, this must surely be the moment."

  The Thienz stretched its gillflaps and croaked. Beaded ornaments gleamed upon knotted wrists as it lifted the appendage which passed for a hand and pointed. "Ships, twelve to port, seventeen to starboard. They are signaled by watchfire from the island yonder, and now captains hoist canvas. They will round the points on both sides and bear downwind in a line. They hope to engage us and board."

  Metal jingled in the companionway. Clad in ornamental mail wrought of silver and a tunic of dyed leather, Tathagres stepped lightly onto the quarterdeck. She smiled to the captain, who plucked nervously at his beard. "They play straight into our hands, don't you see?" With provocative grace, she hooked her scarlet cloak on a belaying pin and regarded the six creatures which swarmed across the deck at her heels.

  Ropy, lean and blackened like clotted shadow in the darkness, the Gierj-demons scuttled round her boots. Their eyes glowed pale and lambent as sorcerer's candles. Emien shivered despite his interest. Often demon races left unbound, the Gierj were most dangerous. Spurred feet scraped against planking as they moved, furtive and quick as weasels, and formed into a circle. Their bodies appeared to melt into a single form as they lowered narrowed heads into a huddle.

  "Distribute jackets to the crew," said the captain to the mate. The sweat on his brow was not entirely raised by heat; his thick hands trembled as he accepted his own cloak from the cabin steward.

  The Thienz whuffed loudly and barked. Tiny as toys, the Kielmark's first ships rounded the massive shoulders of land up the straits. Emien snatched up his cloak. Wool prickled his skin as he pinned it snugly about his neck. But watching in starved anticipation as the ships rounded the point, the boy forgot to scratch.

  The Kielmark's captains maintained position with seamanship unequaled the breadth of Keithland; precise as clockwork, each vessel swung before the wind for the run down the straits. Lacking a ship's glass, Emien could only guess their size and rig; visible only briefly, the enemy craft jibed neatly and steered just inside the shore, for a few brief minutes escaping the backlit cast of the moonlight. Once clear of the land's shadow, they came head on in formation. The outline of the first ship became hopelessly muddled by those following behind.

  Emien smiled. Against human foes, the Kielmark's tactics would be powerfully effective. Yet with Gierj on board, the enviable skill of his crewmen served only to aid his defeat.

  On the quarterdeck, Tathagres licked pale lips. Bracelets clinked on her wrist as she touched the captain's arm. "They make it easy for us," she said, amused by the man's discomfort. "Closely bunched, those boats will burn like Koridan's Fires, you will see."

  But her complacence felt misplaced to a man who had twice battled the wiliest sea dog on Keithland and been defeated. The captain anxiously checked the heading over the quartermaster's broad shoulders time and again.

  With the wind in their favor, the Kielmark's fleet bore down with startling speed. Tathagres plucked her cloak from the rail, cast it over her shoulders with languid grace. The Gierj began to chant. The leadsman called the three fathom mark over an unsettling quaver of sound. Men dashed to the sheets as Morra came about once again. Emien crossed the forecastle and settled against the starboard rail. Slowly the ship clawed away from the shoreline. The demons' incantation rose and blended into a single flowing note which set Emien's teeth on edge. No longer could he pretend to be comfortable with the creatures on Morra's quarterdeck.

  "Captain, shorten sail and heave to." Tathagres stepped into the circle of demons and ca
refully fastened her cloak.

  Sailhands swarmed up the shrouds to reef canvas. The Gierj chant ascended in pitch, ringing across the sea like a discordant shrilling of flutes. Emien covered both ears with his hands and wondered how men in the shrouds could bear the sting of that inhuman sound.

  Tathagres spoke in an alien tongue from the quarterdeck. The Thienz replied, gestured with scrawny arms, then lowered its bulk down the companionway. No longer were its powers of observation required; lined up like sheep for slaughter, the Kielmark's ships sailed to their doom.

  The Gierj shifted pitch. Their song flung screeching discord across the waters. Inured to their presence, the grizzled quartermaster swung Morra's bow into the wind and steadied the helm. The flagship drifted in the current, balanced like a moth in a draft, while enemies closed on both quarters. The wail of the Gierj warbled, abruptly descended and became a bare whisper of sound. Tathagres placed her fingers lightly against her neckband. She spoke a sibilant word and around her the temperature plunged into winter.

  Air burned with startling cold in Emien's lungs. He gasped, knifed to the marrow by chill so intense his cloak stiffened like paper across his shoulders. Hoar frost traced the ship like crystal in the moonlight, whitening rail and rigging and wheel; the quartermaster's mustache sprouted a rim of ice. Still the temperature fell. With fingers numbed and noses reddened, men blinked frost from their lashes.

  The Gierj's song wavered and broke upon the air. Tathagres raised a stiffened arm to the advancing lines of ships. The temperature dropped yet again, bringing the terrible cold of Arctic night. Ropes cracked like old bones and timbers moaned as ice strained the wood. A sudden aura of sorcery blazed around the Gierj. The faces of captain and quartermaster shone blue and their breath plumed against the dark. Tathagres raised her arms. Energy shot like lightning from the Gierj-demons' midst and broke in a blaze of light over her palms. Emien squinted, but the spell grew too brilliant to bear.

  He shielded his eyes with his hands. The Gierj's chant ceased, choked off in midbeat. A high, ululating cry burst from Tathagres' throat. Power exploded from her fingers and the night split with a peal like thunder. Morra drifted placidly, cloaked in ordinary shadow. But beyond her forestay Emien saw fire burst like the wrath of Kor across the Kielmark's advancing ships.

  Flames speared skyward, pinwheeling sparks and debris across the surface of the sea. In the space of a single instant, every enemy vessel was transformed to a raging inferno. Above the crackle of blazing timbers, a barrage of agonized screams rebounded down the straits as Cliffhaven's defenders perished at their posts. Emien gripped the rail with sweating hands. The scope of the demons' destruction left him awed. Confused by elation and a sickened sense of horror, he watched, rapt, while twenty-nine ships burned to the waterline.

  Unnoticed beneath the companionway, the Thienz pressed finlike fingers to its face, delicate psychic senses overpowered by the discharge of energy. Blinded to its own element, it rocked and moaned in discomfort, while the cold traced rims of frost about its gills. On the quarterdeck Tathagres stood poised like a cruel marble goddess while the Gierj stirred and scratched at her feet. They turned lean faces up the straits, dispassionate eyes reflecting the ruinous conflagration their powers had unleashed. The living stood motionless on Morra's decks while the fires up the straits roared and snapped and at last subsided into smoke.

  On the foredeck Emien shivered. His mouth curved with surly desire. No mortal on Keithland could withstand the forces summoned by the Gierj; the Kielmark would be brought to his knees like a child and even Anskiere's great bastions of ice would soften and dissolve into the sea. The screams of dying sailors no longer troubled Emien's ears. If he could defeat Tathagres, the powers of demons would be his to command.

  XXII

  Fallen Lord

  Led by the flagship Morra, Kisburn's fleet of three cleared Mainstrait, contested by nothing but current and wind; if the vessels were forced to tack often to avoid the smoking snarls of wreckage which drifted across their course, none of the captains complained. The fact that the Lord of Pirates had been defeated on his own waters seemed impossible to believe; yet in the gray dawn, beneath a mottled cover of clouds, Morra and one companion vessel anchored in Cliffhaven's main harbor utterly unchallenged. The third was sent on patrol to watch for attack by sea.

  Emien leaned on the quarterdeck rail, eyes trained intently on the dockside. The bronze penknife he had lately used to pare his nails lay forgotten between half-clenched fingers. He glanced up as Tathagres paused by his side. Still clad in the mail and tunic she had worn the previous night, she appeared fully refreshed. Her appeal quickened the breath in his throat. But this once Emien had no mind to indulge his desire.

  "There are no ships at anchorage, Lady." Carefully noncommittal, the boy returned his knife to his wallet. "When we last put in with the Stormwarden there were upwards of thirty, and by sailors' accounts the Kielmark never slept with less than two score vessels on moorings."

  But Tathagres awarded the comment even less concern than the possibility survivors might have swum ashore from the encounter in the strait the previous night. Posed with perfect grace against the rails, she studied the stone corners of the warehouses which usually housed tribute, as if expecting something.

  "There," she said suddenly and pointed.

  Emien looked. A shirtless figure raced through the alleys toward the harbor, a white banner streaming from a pole in his hand. "That's a trap," the boy said, surprised into rash words. "The Kielmark ran a man through with a sword once for objecting to the fact he had no white for surrender among the ensigns aboard his ships."

  "He still doesn't." Tathagres smiled with pleased satisfaction. "What you see is a strip cut from a bedsheet. The Kielmark had no part in the matter, I assure you. My Thienz informed me an hour ago; it seems the Lord of Renegades has at last fallen victim to the lawless. His own men have betrayed him. We are about to be invited through the main gates and there the Kielmark himself will be delivered to us in chains."

  Emien bit his lip in disbelief as the shirtless man leaped into a longboat, propped his makeshift banner in the bow and cast off. Oars winked like matchsticks against leaden swells, then drove in rhythmic strokes toward the flagship.

  "Why?" he said. "Why now of all times?"

  Tathagres shook her hair free of its jeweled comb and loosed a bright peal of laughter. "A spy brought word of the Gierj-demons. The sentries on duty in the tower watched their companions burn in Mainstrait last night." She pricked Emien's arm lightly with the prongs of the hair pin. "Don't fret over the remaining ships, my love. Cliffhaven is ours. With the Kielmark hostage, any captains who remain loyal will be easily managed."

  But her attitude was too confident, Emien thought. Like the time Tathagres had murdered the guards by the ice cliffs, her air of reckless assurance grated against his sensibility. Yet he followed when she called the captain on deck to receive the longboat. Certain of her one true weakness, he wondered when he would have the opportunity to exploit it.

  * * *

  The chains which operated the front gates of Cliffhaven clanked across the winches. Heavy steel-bound portals swung wide and thumped against the walls, raising small puffs of dust. From his place to the rear of the King's advance guard, Emien heard a raucous scream of laughter backed by the incongruous notes of a flute. The Grand Warlord-General bellowed an order; the column began smartly to march. But the soldiers ahead had to clear the span of the arch before Emien gained a view of the courtyard.

  A score of leather-clad men danced and cavorted in the open; others looked on clapping, all of them drunk except one. Chained by the wrists to the ring which normally tethered the saddled horse, a huge man knelt in their midst, his muscles knotted in wild anger. Blue eyes followed King Kisburn's entry with murderous intent. With a shock of disbelief, Emien recognized the Kielmark. The man's hair was filthy with dust. Flies buzzed about a gash above one eyebrow. The flagstone lay speckled with blood under his
knees and the steel links dripped red from a swordcut across his forearm. But Emien observed that the men who had betrayed the legendary Lord of Renegades to defeat were careful to celebrate beyond reach.

  The King commanded the Warlord-General to transfer the prisoner to the great hall. The flute player trailed off into silence and the dancers stilled to stare. Each recalled times when the Kielmark had killed for less. Five men moved cautiously from the lines, followed by the spokesman who carried the flag of surrender. Emien licked sweat from his lips. It seemed impossible that Cliffhaven could fall with no struggle after twenty years of dominance; countless bitter forays had ended in broken ships each time Keithland's rulers tried to break the Kielmark's stranglehold over Mainstrait. Yet nothing appeared extraordinary about the flag-bearer. With a snarl of hatred, he lowered his pole like a weapon and jabbed it savagely into the pit of the Kielmark's stomach. The man's body doubled, and he retched, gasping helplessly for air, while soldiers rushed in and unfastened the chains from the ring. They jerked the Kielmark to his feet.

  Emien shivered in the morning heat, distressed that a ruler of such stature could suffer common vindictive abuse. Deeply shaken, Emien trailed the royal party down vaulted corridors.

  Solid stone felt suddenly unsound beneath his boots and marching feet seemed to rattle the very keystones in the arches. The most defensible fortress on Keithland could not stand against human treachery. Sapped by growing insecurity, Emien passed between the gaudy trophies which littered Cliffhaven's great hall. His eyes saw none of the wealth. He chose a seat to the left of Tathagres, his thoughts trained with fanatical clarity upon the gold which circled her neck.

  Guards sprang at the King's command. The chamber reverberated with the scrape of furniture as men cleared space for the prisoner. Seated in the Kielmark's own chair, Kisburn watched with fascinated satisfaction as his men hauled the Lord of Renegades onto the open floor in front of the dais.