by Janny Wurts
Tathagres stepped clear of the doorway, both hands in contact with her neckband. Her murdered ally writhed in agony on the hearth, but she made no effort to help him. Slim, straight and savagely beautiful in her silver mail, she met her squire's defiance with dangerous fury. "Fool," she said coldly. "Give the Keys of Elrinfaer to me."
* * *
Taen cried out from the depths of dream trance. Sweat dampened her brow and she twisted against Jaric's hands. He held her shoulders firmly, preventing her from thrashing against the gritty wall of the cavern. The tunnel which led from the east keep dungeon was narrow, hastily constructed and shored up with scraps of timber and undressed rocks. Sloping gently, it opened into a muddy cave whose entrance lay hidden behind an outcrop above the harbor. There by the light of a single lantern a wizened healer cleaned and dressed the Kielmark's abrasions with old, careful hands. Throughout the disturbance, his touch on the wounds stayed neat and sure, and if his salves were astringent enough to make Jaric's eyes water, the King of Renegades ignored the sting. Like the Firelord's heir, he sat hunched and still, attention fixed with unwavering intensity upon the dream-weaver who sought news of the trap which closed over King Kisburn's attack force in the fortress above.
Taen shivered and abruptly opened her eyes. In a voice which trembled with shock, she said, "Emien has murdered the King. He wishes Tathagres' death also and has seized the Keys of Elrinfaer on the chance their powers might prove useful against her. As yet Anskiere's sorceries are beyond his ability to master."
"He's ignorant." The Kielmark fretted as the healer wrapped a fresh bandage on his forearm. "The Keys have no purpose except to preserve the wards over Elrinfaer Tower."
Taen offered no reply. Suspended once more in the dream link, she sagged against Jaric's shoulder. But the tension did not smooth from her young face as she merged her consciousness with Emien. Her hands remained clenched in her lap. The Firelord's heir stroked tangled hair from her brow, unhappily aware the Keys' recovery might now cost Taen's brother his life. More than ever before, Jaric wished he had insisted the dream-weaver leave before Kisburn's assault as the Vaere had directed.
But Taen remained unaware of the concern which troubled the Firelord's heir. Absorbed by the mysteries of her craft, she heard nothing as the Kielmark swore and excused the healer with an irritable flick of his wrist. Bound to her brother, she stood in a room panelled in gilt and cedar, the chilly weight of the Keys to Elrinfaer Tower poised between sweating fingers.
Tathagres confronted Emien by the doorway, both hands clenched to her neckband. "I warned you, boy." Though her tone was harsh with threat, she seemed strangely reluctant to engage sorcery and attack. Taen expanded her focus, seeking the reason; she caught the elusive flicker of something similar to fear in the woman's violet eyes.
But fatigue made Taen sloppy. Her dream search brushed Emien's frame of reference, tripped it slightly out of balance. The boy also sensed Tathagres' hesitation. Suddenly brazenly unafraid, he laughed and crossed the floor, treading fragments of glass into the carpet. Taen drew back, alarmed. But Tathagres watched her squire's approach without anxiety, cold calculation on her face. She did not shrink as he stopped, so close he hedged her against the brass-rimmed wood of the door frame. Neither did she flinch as, with a smile of insolent malice, he twisted bloody fingers in her hair and kissed the angry line of her lips.
Although her fingers never left the band at her neck, Tathagres softened slightly under his touch. Only when the boy stepped back and presented the Keys of Elrinfaer with exaggerated courtesy did she relax and lower her hands.
Tapped into dream link, Taen felt satisfaction flood like ice water through Tathagres' thoughts. The boy could still be managed. Relieved she would not need to contest him for possession of the Keys, she glanced toward the fireplace. The King lay dead by the andiron, his opened mouth pooled in blood. He could no longer be used as a hostage to threaten cooperation from the men at arms; to escape the Kielmark's trap she would need sorcery and help from her demon allies.
Taen dissolved her contact before the idea finished forming in Tathagres' mind. Once the witch engaged her sorceries, the link might reveal a dream-weaver's presence. Unwilling to risk notice by the demons, Taen wakened in the earthy darkness of the cave. She sat up, weary to the point where even her bones ached.
"Well?" The Kielmark knotted the ends of the bandage across his wrist, using one grimy fist and his teeth. He paid no heed to the healer's wince of annoyance. "What did you find?"
Taen met his impatience with words stripped bare by exhaustion. "Kisburn is dead. Tathagres has the Keys. She intends to depart for Elrinfaer at once, with Emien."
The Kielmark crowed loudly and grinned at Jaric. "We have her boxed. Every gate in the fortress is barred from the outside and covered by archers in concealment. The fleet arrives with reinforcements by afternoon."
"No." Taen shook her head, desolate in Jaric's arms. "Archers cannot stop her." She drew a quivering breath and qualified. "The witch calls upon the Gierj even as we speak. The instant the melding trance is complete, she will draw upon their power and transfer."
"She won't get away with it." Linen parted with a coarse scream of sound as the Kielmark tore away the excess bandage. With single-minded disregard for his stiffened, abused body, he surged to his knees and scrambled across the cave to the brush which screened the entrance. There he grabbed the bow which waited in a niche already strung, and nocked an arrow with a streamer affixed to one end. Scarlet flecks soaked the bandage as he flexed his wrist and drew.
The Kielmark aimed high and released; the arrow leaped outward in a long steep arc, streamer trailing like a comet's tail across the overcast sky. The shaft slowed, almost hesitated midflight, then plunged earthward with a rush. Behind the Kielmark's bulk, Taen and Jaric watched it fall, cognizant of the fact that the signal sentenced brave men to die. The arrow commanded the first stage of the attack to retake the harbor; but the fleet which should have supported the strategy had yet to breast the horizon.
XXIII
Elrinfaer
Tathagres engaged the powers of the Gierj-demons and Kisburn's private chamber dissolved in a shower of light. Red-orange sparks streaked across Emien's vision and vanished in a scorching blast of wind. Unlike the earlier transfer from the ice cliffs, the boy felt a bucking lurch. Sorcery whipped his hair into snarls as he tumbled through air and darkness. He landed gasping beside his mistress on a beach laced with stinking strands of kelp.
Emien looked up, disappointed. A glance showed them still on Cliffhaven; but outside the fortress walls just a stone's throw from the dockside. Bruised and winded, Emien struggled to his feet. Sand dribbled out of his cuffs as he straightened his swordbelt and extended his hand to Tathagres.
She accepted his help with none of the acid unpleasantness he remembered from Skane's Edge. The sorcery of the transfer had taxed her. Her delicate features were drawn and pale under a light sheen of sweat. Tremors of fatigue passed through her as she gripped Emien's arm. She stumbled to her feet as if the demon's powers had left her slightly dazed.
Emien watched like a starved cat, fingers inching toward his sword. Yet Tathagres rallied before he gathered the nerve to exploit her weakness. She swept a rapacious glance across strand, warehouses and the line of the horizon beyond the boom which closed the harbor, and thought rapidly.
"Find a boat quickly and get us to sea." She flicked sand from her hair with an arrogant toss of her wrist. "To transfer to Elrinfaer I must merge again with the Gierj. This cannot be attempted within reach of men at arms."
Whether she referred to Kisburn's men or the Kielmark's pirates made no difference; both sides would carry steel. Emien complied without argument. Outgoing tide creamed over a breakwater fifty paces to the south. Beyond, the shore lifted into rugged bastions of rock too steep for safe anchorage. Northward past the untenanted jumble of dockside taverns and shops a wharf extended beyond the corner of a warehouse. Black against leaden clouds, an
angular assembly of spars and rigging reared above the shingled roofs.
Emien pointed. "There."
Tathagres nodded. Together they ran over sand still packed from the tide. The beach ended, shored up by a breakwater of granite. Emien caught Tathagres' elbow, steadying her as she climbed over rocks crusted with barnacles. A push would tumble her onto the jagged stones below. Since she intended a transfer to Elrinfaer, Emien chose patience. Pressed flat against weather-beaten boards, he hurried past the warehouse. The boat lay tied thirty feet out on the pier. She appeared unguarded. After a hasty glance at her lines Emien saw why, and swore under his breath. The boat was aged and ungainly. Yet her planking showed signs of recent repair and she still looked fit to sail.
Tathagres shared none of the boy's annoyance. Although she appeared peaked and tired, she spoke before he managed any complaint. "The boat must serve. The Kielmark has cleared his harbor of everything else."
"Let's hope he was thorough." Emien grimaced. "If that relic sails at all, she'll go clunky as a farmer's wooden bucket."
Suddenly a shout rang from the alley behind the warehouse. Steel clanged, announcing a rapid exchange of swordplay. Out of time to seek options, Emien caught his mistress's elbow and bolted for the dock. The foolish old fishing craft was surely preferable to getting trapped like rats on the shore.
Emien leaped across three feet of water onto the port gunwale; an engraved plaque beneath his boot named the craft Callinde. Leaving the docklines for Tathagres, Emien dove for the mess of rope at the base of the mast and uncleated the main halyard.
Callinde rocked sharply as Tathagres followed him on board. Without looking around, Emien hoisted. The heavy yard rattled up the mast, unfurling a patched square of sail. "Cast off," he said tersely, and whipped the line onto a cleat. "Let the stern off last."
Tathagres ducked forward, shadowed by canvas as Emien raised the jib. Wind caught the clew, snaking lines across the deck. The boy dug aft beneath bunched acres of spanker for the knots which lashed the tiller. His hand slammed into floor boards and he cursed. Antique to her last fitting, Callinde came equipped with a steering oar.
Line splashed into water and the high curved prow swung free. Tathagres raised the spanker as Emien slashed the stern line with his sword. Callinde drifted from the wharf, sails flogging aloft. Emien dove for the sheets, dragged them hissing through the blocks. Canvas fell taut with a whump; the old craft shouldered on starboard tack across the bay.
Emien hauled on the steering oar, eyes trained forward. Kisburn's two ships lay moored to leeward; water stretched ahead in an open line to the sea. Emien felt his hair prickle at the base of his neck.
"Mistress!" He bent to see past the spanker and discovered her kneeling by the mast. "The boom is gone from the entrance of the harbor."
Tathagres hurried to the gunwale and looked out. Her voice came back above the crash of spray beneath the keel. "Kielmark's work. The flag-bearer must have turned coat again."
A deep rumble sounded across the bay. Emien glanced aft, distressed. The entire seaward side of a warehouse slid open to reveal stone crenelations inside. Two catapults reared behind and the barbed bolts of four loaded arbalests glittered through notches cut in the wall.
"Sail!" Tathagres' voice broke. "If they loose any bolts on us, I can manage."
Emien dragged Callinde straight-and shouted. One of Kisburn's ships had launched a longboat. Drawn by the frosty gleam of Tathagres' hair, six seamen bent over the looms, driving their craft straight across his path. Emien adjusted lines and tried frantically to coax more speed from his sails.
The first of the arbalests released. But Callinde was not the target; the bolt whined overhead and drove with a plume of spray into the waves off Morra's stern.
"They aim to disable the Gierj!" Tathagres leaned over Callinde's thwart and shouted to the officer in the approaching longboat. "Return to your ship and man your weapons. Defend the demons from steel!"
The officer saluted. His oarsmen reversed stroke, turning the longboat aside. Emien corrected Callinde's course. Another quarrel tore through the air, followed by a third which grazed through Morra's mooring ropes. The men at the arbalests would shortly perfect their aim, and over the splash of Callinde's passage Emien heard the sour clank of the winch which cocked a catapult.
Tathagres crouched beneath the gunwale. "I'm going to summon the Gierj and pull us out before the enemy spoil their powers with steel. Make for the open sea. Whatever befalls, I must reach Elrinfaer with all speed."
Tathagres settled against the mast. She bowed her head on crossed arms, her hands in light contact with her neckband, and slipped gradually into rapport with the demons. Emien steered against rising gusts, irritated to discover how soft he had grown during his months at court. Callinde tossed like a wayward horse over the crests, wrenching his shoulders without mercy. Emien hauled her straight and bitterly cursed her designer. Morra fell slowly astern. Carried downwind, the keening chant of the Gierj-demons pierced through the rush of the wake. In a moment, his mistress would focus enough power for transfer. Frustrated by the speed of her magic, Emien hoped Callinde would end on a reef.
That instant the first catapult launched with a crack. Emien whirled, saw a dark line writhe in an arc across the sky. His joy abruptly disintegrated. The enemy fired chain shot. Steel links wailed through the air and splashed with a geyser of spray a scant yard shy of Morra's bowsprit. Disturbed by the brief proximity of the steel, the Gierj chant dipped and leveled. Emien cursed in earnest. Iron in any form disrupted their powers; one strike to Morra's rigging would cripple both flagship and demons.
* * *
Screened by the brush at the lip of the cave, the Kielmark sprawled on his belly, a brass-banded ship's glass focused on the harbor. Glad not to rely on Taen's talents for information, he watched soldiers delivered ashore by enemy longboats as they rushed in black lines for the warehouse. In a moment the men who manned the embrasure would be under attack. The whistle of the Gierj-demons shrilled across the harbor, eerily ascending in pitch. Unmoved as a boulder, the Kielmark counted attackers and calculated. The catapults had maybe three minutes to set their range.
An arbalest released. Steel rushed through the air, banged soundly into wood. The Gierj wavered and fell off pitch. The Kielmark lowered his glass and grinned boyishly at Jaric. "They'll have her," he said. "Quit sulking."
Jaric did not answer. Tense and still by the Kielmark's side, he fingered the blade of his unsheathed sword and tried not to think while Mathieson's boat drove steadily seaward, her sails curved taut to the wind. Taen had tried vainly to ease Jaric's discomfort since the moment Emien had slashed the docklines. The possibility the Keys to Elrinfaer might slip beyond reach troubled the boy less than his oath to Keldric that Callinde would be treasured and kept safe.
"Well, don't rust your fittings with tears," said the Kielmark. But his harsh face reflected sympathy and the Firelord's heir did not weep. "If we don't get flamed by Gierj in the next minute and a half I'll loan you Troessa. She's faster than Callinde and rigged for quick handling."
A catapult cracked from the warehouse. The Kielmark jerked the glass to his eye in time to see a sharpened length of chain snag Morra's headstay. Steel whipped in an arc, slashing among tarred line, and the foretopmast jerked, angled brokenly forward. Chain slithered to the deck; and the Gierj chant unravelled into dissonance.
* * *
Tathagres cried out sharply from her trance. Sparks crackled across her knuckles and winked out. Flung back against the mast, she lay still, her throat bared to the sky and her hands slack by her sides. Emien could not tell whether she had died or was only unconscious. He dared not leave the helm to check.
Ragged shouting broke out astern. The roof of the warehouse which housed the weaponry burst into flame, smudging the sky with smoke. But the catapults launched still, their aim corrected and deadly. More chain shot scythed through rigging, leaving a trail of wreckage. Sailors died trying to clear the steel
from Morra's gear, while quarrels from the arbalests pocked her paint with scars. The Gierj were crippled; their chant rose into ragged wails of pain and tailed off into silence. By the time the men at arms overran the warehouse and fought the crew who manned the arbalests to a standstill, the entire forward section of the ship stood riddled with bolts. To remove the steel and deliver the demons from agony would require a crew and tools and hours of time.
Emien looked away from the harbor, his face a mask of disgust. The deckhands feared the Gierj; the confusion set loose by the Kielmark's ruse would grant them excuse enough to upset discipline. Tide against a sand castle, Emien thought, reminded of a bitter expression from boyhood. Kisburn's officers would never set Morra to rights. He had no choice but sail for Elrinfaer alone.
Callinde breasted the waves, steady despite her mulish lines. She reached the headlands of Cliffhaven's harbor faster than the boy expected. He glanced toward Tathagres. Sprawled like a porcelain doll on the floorboards, she showed no sign of consciousness. Emien licked salty lips. He might easily knife her as she lay helpless. Once he stole the necklace, he could at last bring vengeance on Anskiere.
Confident of his plan, Emien turned Callinde into the wind. The boat wallowed, jostling Tathagres' limp form. Emien ignored her, rummaging in a locker until he located a ship's glass. This time he would not be balked by carelessness. Bracing his foot on the thwart, he lifted the glass to his eye and swept it across the sea to check whether Kisburn's patrol ship lay in his path.
But the horizon was not empty as he expected. Etched like scrimshaw against a taut band of sky stood a line of masts, each flying the sea wolf blazon of the Kielmark. A wave lifted Callinde's prow. Water broke with a hiss of foam beneath her keel as Emien crossed to the opposite thwart and trained his glass to the south. Ships approached from that quarter also, nearer still, and with the wind behind them. Carrying every stitch of canvas, the Kielmark's fleet returned to defend their island.