by Marc Turner
He looked along the alley. Loop’s death-magic had left a black stain in the air that was only now beginning to dissolve. Amid the murk stood Loop, white with dust. He was staring toward the square. Kempis’s mouth was dry. Where was Duffle? Had the boy stayed behind so as not to get in Loop’s way?
The mage’s grim expression didn’t auger well for his fate.
Kempis opened his mouth to speak.
A flash of light from the mage’s right—the direction of Orsan—and a throwing knife buried itself to the hilt in Loop’s neck, snapping his head round. Wide-eyed, Loop raised a hand to the weapon.
His gaze turned to Kempis. “Bastard!” he breathed.
Then he collapsed.
* * *
Agenta looked south. The approaching dragon remained a copper smudge on the horizon, but a smudge that was growing larger with each moment. If the creature caught up to the Crest there would only be one outcome, for there were no sorcerous weapons on board. And if Balen broke off his struggle with Orsan to attack the dragon, he would leave the other mage free to unleash a wave of water-magic against the ship. Their only chance was to make it to shore; at least they still had Selis’s air-magic to fill the Crest’s sails.
Suddenly the ship’s pace began to slacken, and she glanced up to see the sails hanging limp. The vessel floundered.
The kalisch located Selis near the starboard rail on the quarterdeck. He was staring at Olaire. “You’re looking the wrong way, mage,” she shouted, pointing south. “The dragon is over there.”
Selis’s gaze remained fixed on the city. “That’s Orsan.”
“I know who it is! Now, get us out of here, or I’ll make sure you’re the first one down that dragon’s throat when it attacks. If we’re lucky you may stick in its gullet.”
The mage sneered. “Your quarrel with the emira is no business of mine. I won’t be goaded into taking sides.”
“Your side has already been chosen for you. You think Imerle will let you live, knowing what you do?”
“I’ll live longer if I remain neutral than if I throw in my lot with you,” he said. Then he gestured with one hand and was snatched into the air. He rose as high as the top of the mainmast.
Agenta looked for Warner and saw him standing near the ship’s wheel. “Trita! Prick that fat fool’s gut with an arrow. Maybe we can let some of the air out of him.”
Warner stared at her before nodding. He spoke to an archer beside him. The soldier didn’t nock an arrow to his bow, though. Instead he coiled a length of rope to form a lasso and cast it into the air.
It struck an invisible barrier beneath Selis and fell back to the deck.
Agenta scowled. Had her order been so unclear that the trita had struggled to understand it?
Behind her someone cleared his throat. She turned to see Dutia Elemy Meddes. “Kalisch,” he said, “I am needed in Olaire to coordinate the city’s defense. We must dock immediately.”
Brilliant idea. Why hadn’t Agenta thought of it? She spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“If we cannot go forward we must choose another course. Take us along the coast—”
“It’s not that easy,” Balen cut in. The strain of his fight with Orsan showed in his voice. “Whichever direction I try to take the Crest in, Orsan will counter my efforts. Our sorceries cancel each other out…”
His next words were lost beneath a roar of water as the ship lurched forward. A wave of water-magic had formed beneath the ship and was lifting it into the air. Glancing over the rail, Agenta saw a seething, hissing wall of white. “What’s happening?” she called to Balen.
“It’s Orsan. Instead of holding us here, he’s added his will to mine.”
Elemy said, “He’s driving us onto the Deeps. The submerged roofs will crack the hull open like a nut.”
Agenta pursed her lips. There was sense in what the dutia said, but why hadn’t Orsan left the Crest to the dragon’s mercy? Had he grown tired of his contest with Balen? Could he not see the beast from his vantage point?
The wave beneath the Crest began to recede, and Agenta realized Balen had thrown his will against Orsan’s to halt the vessel’s passage.
She smiled.
“Mage,” she said, “stop fighting him. I’ve got an idea where we can set the ship down.”
* * *
By the time Kempis reached Loop’s side, the mage’s chest had fallen still. His eyes stared back at the septia accusingly, and Kempis felt the usual queasy mix of sadness and relief—that it wasn’t him there on the ground. A look into the square confirmed his fears regarding Duffle. The youth lay to his left, dead. There was a joke doing the rounds in Olaire’s taverns about a Watchman who wore his breastplate on his back, but Duffle couldn’t have been fleeing because the assassin’s crossbow bolt had struck him between the eyes. Kempis took a shuddering breath. Why had the lad gone for the stone-skin early? Had he heard something he’d mistaken for the septia’s signal? Or had he seen the woman train her crossbow on Orsan and given up waiting for Kempis to make his move?
Sniffer came to stand beside him. There was nothing to say, and they stood for a while in silence. Kempis looked toward the sea. Dust from the building hit by Loop’s death-magic hung thick in the air—thick enough to conceal whoever had thrown the knife at the Watchman. Orsan? It had to be. Perhaps the water-mage had mistaken Loop for the assassin, or perhaps he’d thought Loop’s sorcery was aimed at him. Most likely, though, the bastard had just decided not to take chances. That was the blueblood way, wasn’t it? Shoot first and ask questions later. Kempis clenched his hands into fists. If so, Orsan was going down, and to Shroud with the consequences.
The breeze was beginning to tug apart the cloud of dust, and the buildings on the waterline were now blurred outlines in the haze. The invaders’ boats became visible, and among them …
Kempis’s skin prickled. Facedown in the waves lay Orsan, his head banging over and over against the hull of a boat. In the flooded street beyond him, a man wearing green robes was wading out to sea. Big bastard, he was. He must have heard something to alert him to the septia’s presence for he turned. Kempis muttered an oath. Another stone-skin. Where had he sprung from? Had he come here to meet the assassin Loop had killed? Or had he followed Orsan to this place just as Orsan had followed the female stone-skin?
Going by the man’s expression, he was wondering whether to return to shore and dispose of Kempis. Instead he smiled a humorless smile and looked over his shoulder.
The septia followed his gaze.
By the Sender.
He’d forgotten about the sorcerous wave carrying the Gilgamarian ship. When he’d seen it earlier it had been half a dozen armspans tall. Now it was nearly double that size, and it came surging toward the Deeps with a sound that built from a rustle to the hiss of a thousand wither snakes. On the forecastle of the vessel atop it was a blue-robed man with big ears and goofy teeth—the water-mage who had conjured the wave, presumably. Near him stood a dark-skinned woman with eyes as sharp as flint.
Kempis swore. What in the Nine Hells were the Gilgamarians doing? That wave was going to wash half the Shallows away. Ordinarily the septia would have paid to watch it happen, but his viewpoint was a lot closer to the action than was comfortable.
The sea at the edge of the square began to retreat, taking with it the invaders’ boats. Darkness gathered. The wave rose to brush the sky, and a flock of limewings on a rooftop in its path took flight. The wind was now in the septia’s face, strengthening all the while, as if it too were fleeing the sea’s approach. Around the square, doors were thrown open. People emerged from their homes to gawp at the swell before bolting inland. Kempis should have been doing the same, he knew, but what was the point?
There would be no outrunning that wave.
PART IV
SEA OF BLOOD
CHAPTER 18
SENAR EMERGED from the citadel’s gatehouse into bright sunshine. The tenement blocks across the stree
t had been reduced to rubble by the tremors that must have shaken the city while he was in the fortress. From the south—the direction of the harbor—came sounds of battle: the clash of weapons, the screams of combatants, the crackle of sorcery. When Senar looked in that direction he found his view obstructed by the roofs of the warehouses fronting onto the dry docks. No way of knowing, then, which side was winning, but the one thing he could be sure of was that he wouldn’t be slipping away on a ship in the confusion. He was trapped in Olaire. Trapped until Imerle’s play for power ran its course.
Mazana had stayed in the citadel to wait for the Everlord’s severed leg to regenerate. She’d asked Senar to accompany her when she went to confront Imerle, but he’d declined. Instead he had agreed to deliver Fume’s bones to Jambar because that would give him space to think—something he should have been doing a lot more of lately. How long had he been in Olaire? Three days. Just three days, and he’d managed to make an enemy of the most powerful woman on the island. Three days, and he’d almost lost sight of what his real objective here was. Survival. Anonymity. Getting back to Erin Elal by whatever means necessary.
Of all the possible ways to return, it seemed he’d chosen a casket.
Idiot.
Mazana’s words from earlier came back to him. All you brought with you from Erin Elal are memories. There was truth in that, Senar knew. Even before he’d traveled through the Merigan portal he’d dwelled too much on better times, but when the past was so bright, was it not natural his eye should be drawn to it? Conversely, what did the future of the Guardians have to offer? Nothing but a slow descent into oblivion—a descent that had already started with the defection of Borkoth from the Guardian Council, the decimation of the Guardians’ numbers in the attack on the Black Tower, the divisions within the Council over how to counter the emperor’s schemes. Things would never return to the way they had been, however much Senar might wish it otherwise.
Avallon’s image appeared in his mind’s eye. He felt the heat rise within him. His anger was a pale thing compared to what it had been after Jessca’s death, for the months of imprisonment had seen the fire of it burn down to embers. But they were embers that could be blown back to life. For centuries the Guardian order had served Erin Elal, and the emperor had wiped it out in the span of a decade. And why? Because he resented the check on his power the Guardians represented. Because they had refused to bow at his command. Such a betrayal surely demanded an answer. Didn’t Senar owe it to the Guardians who had died to seek vengeance? Didn’t he owe it to the friends who still lived to stand alongside them?
He thought of Fume’s bones in his pocket—of the risk he would take in delivering them to Jambar. For a moment he was tempted to toss them into the nearest pile of rubble. He’d given his word to Mazana, though, hadn’t he?
As you gave your word to the emira?
Shaking his head, he set off for the palace.
The intersections of Olaire’s main streets were blockaded and manned by soldiers. Some of them wore the emblem of Imerle’s personal guard, others the insignia of the Storm Lords. There were also bands of pale-skinned men in gray cloaks that Senar took for the mercenaries Mazana had told him about. None of the warriors had any reason to pick a fight with a lone, nonuniformed stranger such as the Guardian, though, and by steering clear of the roadblocks he was able to pass through the city unchallenged.
He paused on the flank of Kalin’s Hill to look down on Olaire. To the west he saw a dozen galleys with gray sails. Two were guarding the entrance to the Causeway; the rest were in the harbor. One of the ships at quayside had been set alight, and the flames had spread to the quays themselves. The streets round the harbor were swarming with warriors battling amid smoke and flames. More fighting was taking place at one of the barracks complexes, where armored figures had overwhelmed the defenders at the gates and were now pouring into the barracks yard. A single-story building within the compound was struck by a blast of sorcery. Fire jetted from its windows, and its roof lifted into the air. Then the structure collapsed in a cloud of dust that billowed up to hide the battle.
Senar had already seen enough, though, to know the fight was as good as lost for the defenders. Judging by the uniforms on show at the roadblocks, Imerle’s uprising had split the Storm Guard, and if she was half the commander he took her for she would have already taken care of the enemy top brass to deprive the opposition of leadership. What force could now oppose her? The Storm Lords? If Mazana was correct, they would be dead already. Mazana herself? There was no guarantee Fume’s power would allow her to match Imerle. She might not even make it as far as the palace with the whole city turned against her. Her words from their meeting at her house came back to him: You backed the wrong horse, Guardian.
Not once but twice now, it seemed.
A flicker of movement to his left caught his eye. A stone’s throw from the Deeps, and borne on a wave of water-magic four times a man’s height, was a galleon flying the Gilgamarian flag. And farther south …
Senar’s eyes widened.
A quarter of a league behind the ship, a copper-scaled head broke the surface of the sea before rising into the air on a long sinuous neck. The dragon sprayed water from its nostrils, then trumpeted, the sound fierce with joy. On Dragon Day the creature that passed beneath the Dragon Gate was supposed to be the one hunted, but evidently no one had told the beast of that fact, for it was driving the Gilgamarian ship toward the Deeps. Senar watched the wave carrying the galleon grow higher and higher. The rush of water built to a roar.
Then he felt a dampness in his trouser pocket, and he remembered Fume’s severed fingers.
The need to be done with this business was suddenly strong in him. He spun on his heel and started down Kalin’s Hill toward the palace.
* * *
“Come on!” Sniffer said, seizing Kempis by the arm.
The septia allowed himself to be dragged to the house hit by Loop’s death-magic. A jagged hole had been punched through the corner walls, making it look as if some creature had taken a bite from the building. Sniffer wrestled Kempis through the opening. He found himself in a room that was empty but for furniture covered by sheets. Ahead was a breach in one of the internal walls. The Untarian didn’t lead him there, though; instead she took him to a fireplace on the south-facing wall. What, were they going to build a fire? Sit round it and sing a few songs, perhaps?
Sniffer said, “We need somewhere to brace ourselves!”
What they needed was a staircase to the upper floor, but there probably wasn’t time to reach it before the wave struck. The ground trembled at the water’s approach. Motes of dust vibrated in the air, and furniture danced across the floor with a scrape of wood on stone. A section of wall to Kempis’s left collapsed. He looked up at the ceiling, fearing it would be next. Then the absurdity of the thought struck him. If he had to die, he’d always hoped it would be of old age, but given the choice between drowning and being crushed …
Sniffer bullied him to the fireplace. Placing a webbed hand on his head, she pushed him beneath the mantelpiece. The grate had been removed, but a pile of ash remained, speckled with bird shit. Kempis sat down with a bump, throwing up puffs of dust. There was barely room for one person inside the opening, but before the septia could object Sniffer crawled into his lap. She grinned as their gazes met. Nothing to fear for her, though, was there? Damned Untarians could stay underwater for several bells, but the last time Kempis had looked his cheeks hadn’t sported a set of gills to match hers.
The roar of the sea made his ears hum. His breaths were coming so quickly he was in danger of hyperventilating, but hells, these breaths were likely to be his last so he may as well get in as many as he could. Through a hole in the eastern wall he saw the wave roll over the rubble-strewn square. An instant later a frothing gray flood came crashing into the house. Kempis cursed. Why had he let Sniffer trap him here? At least outside he’d have had a chance of swimming to safety. He started struggling to escape the fireplac
e, but with the Untarian’s weight on top of him he succeeded only in cracking his skull against the lintel. Lights flashed before his eyes.
Sniffer seized his head between her hands. “Don’t you dare read anything into this, sir, you hear me!” she shouted.
Then she kissed him.
The shock of that alone was enough to quell Kempis’s struggles.
A mass of water exploded over him, pushing him against the wall at the back of the fireplace. The sea was in his eyes, his nose, his ears. Through water fizzing with bubbles he saw the gills on Sniffer’s cheeks twitch, then felt her warm breath as she blew down his throat. Now he understood. The air had a fishy flavor to it, but it tasted sweet as nectar to Kempis as he drew in a lungful. A moment later he exhaled before realizing he had blown the stale air back into Sniffer’s mouth. She glared at him. He breathed out through his nose instead, sending bubbles floating up past his face.
Water was trickling into his mouth at the corners, so Sniffer pressed her lips more tightly over his. Her eyes were right in front of him, and he looked at the hole in the wall—anywhere to avoid meeting her gaze. When he inhaled again, she wasn’t ready for him—she was breathing for two people, after all—and he had to wait before her gills moved and the next breath came. For as long as his blood was up he would need air faster than Sniffer could give it to him, so he had to find a way to steady himself—to take his mind off Loop and Duffle and the water all about. Perhaps if he closed his eyes …
Behind his eyelids awaited a memory of the night he’d spent in the flooded ground-floor room of the red-plastered house. As the tide had risen he’d scratched his fingers bloody prying loose two rotten floorboards from the room above. There had been just enough space for him to get his head and right shoulder through. Cold and shivering, he’d twitched at every splash of water outside in case it signaled the approach of the crossbowmen who had killed Corrick. Those had been six of the worst bells of his life—and there’d been some stiff competition on that score recently. The next morning, when he made it back to shore, he’d sworn never to get in the water again.