Nature's Master (The Nature Mage Series Book 4)

by Duncan Pile

“Long day?” Taurnil asked.

  “Always,” Gaspi said. “I’m exhausted.” When Taurnil didn’t respond, he peered at him suspiciously. “Not gonna tell me to slow down? Emmy’s always on my case about it.”

  “Not a chance,” Taurnil said. “What if enchanting just one more weapon makes the difference between winning and losing the battle? I don’t miss a single drill for the same reason.”

  “Exactly,” Gaspi said. “So how are the new recruits coming along?” Taurnil was helping Trask with their training.

  Taurnil grunted and took a sip of his beer. “We’ve drafted in half the city. Most of them don’t know which end of the sword to hold.”

  “Sounds like a ball-ache,” Gaspi said with a sympathetic grimace.

  “Don’t get me wrong. They’re trying their best, and I’m doing everything I can to help them, but I worry about their chances of getting through a battle alive.”

  “You can only do what you can,” Gaspi said.

  They fell into a comfortable silence, sipping on their beer. It was Gaspi that spoke next. “So how’s the wedding coming on?”

  Taurnil’s composure slipped before his eyes. “Damned if I know! Lydia’s got so many irons in the fire it’s impossible to keep up. She wants all the wagons decorated the same way, a specific type of incense to burn during the ceremony and fragrant wood for the fire, none of which are easy to get hold of, and then there’s the feast. You’d think it’d be simple – just stick an animal on a skewer and shove it over a fire – but Lydia keeps saying that this is going to be a big deal because it’s a Soul-bound wedding. Roland has sent messengers out in every direction, inviting other families to the celebration.” Taurnil barked a near hysterical laugh. “I thought it’d be small!”

  Taurnil’s eyes were so wide Gaspi could see the whites around his irises. That, combined with his friend’s indignant expression, was too much for him and he burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Gaspi, who had never seen his friend so out of his depth, took pity on him and restrained himself. “Sorry Taurn, you should just see your face, that’s all.”

  Taurnil harrumphed and leaned back in his chair. “Glad someone’s enjoying this.”

  “Look, you just have to do what you’re told. Let Lydia worry about the details.”

  Taurnil smiled at him, but only faintly. “I guess I can do that.”

  “There you go,” Gaspi said, getting up to go to the privy. “Back in a moment.”

  Taurnil didn’t respond, but as Gaspi stepped out the door, he heard his friend mumbling mutinously to himself.

  …

  “Thank you, my dear,” Elijah said to the serving girl, smacking her on the rump as she left. He raised his glass. “To your health.”

  Ferast took a sip of the sweet, elderflower concoction. Elijah always seemed to have a drink in his hand but Ferast had never seen him drunk.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Elijah asked.

  “You can dispense with the courtesies,” Ferast said. “Speak plainly or don’t speak at all.” Elijah’s tongue was his greatest weapon, disarming his opponents with wit, guile and charm. Ferast did not like it being used against him.

  Elijah raised an eyebrow. “How can I help?”

  With some difficulty, Ferast swallowed his ire. He needed Elijah, for now. “I need a commander for the army.”

  Elijah looked surprised. “You won’t be leading the army yourself?”

  “Behind the scenes, yes, but I need someone the men will follow; a natural leader.” Ferast was no-one’s fool. Soldiers were fighting men, and would need one of their own as a figurehead. Besides, he needed someone to oversee the many practical challenges facing an army on the move – the placement of latrines, establishing and protecting the supply chain, policing the camp-following and other such tiresome but necessary details.

  “I see. You’ll need a man with experience,” Elijah speculated. “Someone that even mercenaries respect.”

  “Do you know of such a man?”

  Elijah smiled. “As a matter of fact I do. The day you petitioned the council, did you perchance notice a man in black with a heavily scarred face?”

  “Was he seated near the front, carrying a large, unadorned dagger?”

  Elijah nodded. “That’s him. His name is Antoine, and he leads the most feared mercenary crew in the city. I’ve used them myself in the past. They don’t come cheap but they are the absolute best.”

  “Interesting,” Ferast said. “What’s his story?”

  Elijah shook his head. “Nobody knows. He appeared in Namert several years ago and worked his way up to his current position. The man guards his privacy better than he guards Stringfellow’s treasure.”

  “Stringfellow?”

  “Antoine and his crew are currently in the old man’s employ.”

  “As you well know, Stringfellow is in my thrall. If Antoine passes the test, I will ensure he is available for recruitment.”

  “What test?”

  “Call it a test of character” Ferast said, feeling the first hot flush of anticipation. “Do you know where they’re keeping Parker?”

  “Parker?”

  “The bowman who tried to kill you.”

  “Oh, him. In the dungeons.”

  “Take me to him.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, right now. And make sure Antoine visits Parker’s cell at the turn of second watch.”

  “That should be easy enough to arrange.”

  …

  Antoine rose from his seat and entered the Black Guard’s arena to a chorus of playful jeers. The crew had finished sparring and only Taft remained undefeated, which earned him the right to face Antoine on the arena floor.

  He drew his own weapon – his fabled black scimitar, Cleaver – and placed it in the rack before starting to limber up.

  “Come on boss!” Taft called. “This isn’t a dancing class.”

  Grinning, Antoine took hold of a practice sword and moved towards his opponent. Taft was a wily, long-limbed fighter who was deadly with a staff. The crew would be unanimously on Taft’s side, but that was all part of the fun. Antoine had never been defeated in the arena, and every man in his crew fought hard to win their weekly sparring sessions so they could try to take him down.

  Bouncing off his front foot, Antoine surprised Taft with a broad, flat swing of his sword. Taft was forced to defend himself, raising his staff to block the stroke before it brained him. The staff was angled to deflect the blow, but Taft’s defence was badly set and Antoine’s used his superior strength to drive the staff backwards, smacking Taft squarely in the forehead with his own weapon.

  Taft staggered away, shaking his head to clear his vision, but Antoine was on him, rapping the butt of his sword against his opponent’s skull. Taft’s eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped to the floor like a stone.

  All around, the crew groaned, but Antoine grinned in response. “You’ll have to do much better than that, I’m afraid.”

  The crew’s jeering died away as a messenger entered the arena and approached Antoine directly.

  “From Elijah, Exalted of the City,” the messenger announced, placing a scroll into Antoine’s hand.

  Antoine examined the seal – it was Elijah’s, sure enough – and broke it open. He unrolled the scroll and read the message:

  Cell D27. Be there at second watch to meet the magician, Ferast. You will be rewarded.

  Antoine took the quill the runner offered him, signed his name and handed it back. The runner departed immediately, leaving Antoine to wonder what the councillor might want of him. Long had he watched the machinations of the Eleven, and in his opinion Elijah was the most cunning of them all. He’d always enjoyed working for the councillor, whose commissions were unusual and varied, but Elijah hadn’t offered him a contract in at least a year. He couldn’t help feeling curious about the councillor’s renewed interest in the Black Guard. Whatever Elijah had in mind,
it was guaranteed to be interesting.

  Ten

  Antoine slipped quietly down the stairs that led to Namert’s labyrinthine dungeons. They snaked for more than half a mile beneath the city, populated by citizens who had fallen foul of the Eleven in one way or another. Some of the inhabitants were hardened criminals – murderers, rapists, thieves and fraudsters – but most were there because they couldn’t pay their debts. The city charged a weekly fee for occupying a cell, which was added to the prisoners’ arrears, making it unlikely that they’d ever be released. Occasionally, a rich relative might intervene and clear their account, but that was a rare occurrence. Namert wasn’t exactly a breeding ground for tender-heartedness.

  The prisoners’ fate didn’t concern Antoine all that much; you couldn’t grow up among the Ghannai without hardening yourself to injustice. Antoine had spent his childhood on Seaholme, a rocky island fortress that served as the hub of the Ghannai’s far-reaching operations. The corsairs were nomadic, their lives spent on the open seas, but every vessel needed a safe harbour and no crew in the world could stay on board all year round. They were smugglers, trafficking in every illegal trade – narcotics, exotic poisons and slavery among them – and much of their merchandise passed through Seaholme. Vast wealth was hoarded there, guarded behind thick, heavily-manned walls, and any ship approaching without invitation would be peppered with flaming arrows, shot from hundreds of narrow, defensive apertures. Pots of burning oil hung day and night over the single entrance to the otherwise impenetrable fastness.

  The son of the Corsair General, Antoine had never known a time when the strong weren’t treading on the backs of the weak. Boy to man, he’d been surrounded by bandits and ruffians who terrorised the seas, and no-one had taught him to pity those they plundered.

  Antoine might have remained on Seaholme and succeeded his father as Corsair General if not for one thing. He had a secret, and one that he kept most diligently, for its discovery would mean his death; Antoine’s lust was for men and not for women – a practice the Ghannai detested and forbade. Any Ghannai caught lying with another man was emasculated and trussed up on the rocks below the battlements. The wind would scour, the waves would beat and the crows would peck at his ruined groin until at long last, life fled his broken body.

  Antoine’s nightmare had begun at the age of ten. Drawn to an older boy, he’d taken to following him around the fortress. He never questioned the nature of his admiration for Emmanuel until the day he visited the boy’s room and caught sight of him undressing through a crack in the door. The sight of his smooth chest and long, slender arms had sparked off an alarming reaction, and he’d fled before his shame could be discovered.

  Antoine had denied his feelings for years, forcing himself to join in with the other boys and their raucous talk. It hadn’t been too difficult – among his friends he was the strongest, the best fighter, the most foul-mouthed. He was the last person anyone would suspect of being gay.

  Acknowledging his deviancy had been a matter of survival; he couldn’t afford to let his guard down for a single moment, but he couldn’t hide something he hadn’t first accepted. And so it was that, at the age of fourteen, he stood in front of the mirror, looked himself square in the eye and admitted that he was gay. Thereafter, he worked day and night to conceal the truth, believing that he would be able to maintain the pretence for the rest of his life.

  In the name of preserving his secret, he had played along with the other boys, talking of girls in the same bawdy terms as his fellows. His facade had been tested many a time, but never more than when the slave girl, Nabiya, had come to Seaholme. She was a beauty – dark-skinned with a slim waist, full breasts and almond-shaped eyes – and was instantly the object of every young man’s lust. The property of a prominent captain, she was kept in his quarters while her master sailed off on another raid. One of the boys – a popular young rabble-rouser known as Devon – had stolen the key from his father, who worked as a chamberlain to several of the captains, and together with a gang of his friends had broken into the captain’s chambers. A key member of the group, Antoine had been dragged along with the others, unsure exactly what was happening until two of the boys grabbed Nabiya by the arms and Devon forced himself on her. Antoine had been horrified, a feeling that only grew as each of the boys took their turn while the slave-girl keened and wailed. By the time his friends shoved him forward, calling his name and jeering, Nabiya was sobbing disconsolately, her spirit broken. What followed was the worst shame of Antoine’s life, but his lie had survived intact.

  His secret had remained safe for long, loveless years until he met Guillaume – a newly appointed ship’s captain who hosted regular card games in his cabin. Many of the Ghannai sought a seat at the table, gambling away their treasures and drinking till they couldn’t stand up. Antoine attended as often as he could, drawn to Guillaume like a rudderless ship, swept towards the rocks. Guillaume’s hollow cheeks and storm grey eyes awoke in him a desire that eclipsed the adolescent attraction he’d felt for Emmanuel. It was visceral, a stirring of the blood that obliterated reason and left him in a desperate jangle of need and desire.

  He’d managed to make it through the first evening aboard Poison Arrow without giving himself away but, against his better judgment, he found himself returning night after night. Even then, he might never have been found out if not for a discovery that sealed his fate – Guillaume was gay too. He remembered the night of that ruinous revelation with an ache that the years had done nothing to diminish – the prolonged eye-contact, the casual nudges, the bump of an elbow, the slide of Guillaume’s hand against his own as they both reached for a drink. He remembered the way it escalated, the first kiss, and the long night of illicit pleasure in the captain’s arms.

  He’d snuck out while it was still dark, terrified of being seen exiting Guillaume’s ship at such an hour, but he made it clear of the docks without incident and hurried back to his room. He’d lain awake for hours, horrified by the risk he’d taken and yet he couldn’t help reliving every moment of the encounter. The following night he’d visited the ship again, and the one after that, losing himself in Guillaume’s arms.

  It was one of their fellow gamblers that found them out. Emboldened by success, they had become careless, and someone had noticed one too many casual touches, or perhaps the intimate pressure of Guillaume’s foot against his own beneath the table. The guards had arrived the very next morning; one troop at Guillaume’s berth and another at Antoine’s door. He’d been dragged from his room and taken before his father, who pronounced his execution without the slightest hesitation, as if the person before him was a stranger and not his own flesh and blood.

  Antoine had been insensible, unable to comprehend what was happening as the men dragged him down to the cells. When they were well out of sight, his captors turned off the main corridor and shoved him into a storeroom. Antoine had thought they were going to kill him until one of them bent down and removed his shackles. He remembered it all too well…

  The guard pushed aside a stack of crates and opened a hidden doorway. “Get out of here!” he said. Antoine stared at him in bewilderment. “It leads to the goods locker on the lower docks. Someone will be waiting there for you there.” Antoine didn’t move. “There’s no time to explain. Just go!”

  Antoine’s brain finally caught up with reality. “What about Guillaume? Are you getting him too?”

  The two men exchanged a look. “We’re just following orders.”

  “Orders from who?”

  “There’s no time for this,” the guard snapped. “If you don’t go right now you won’t get out at all. Get moving!”

  Reluctantly, Antoine entered the tunnel, all his thoughts on Guillaume. Was someone else rescuing him too?

  “Just keep walking. There’s only one exit,” the other guard said. The door swung shut, leaving him in sudden and total darkness.

  Antoine raised a hand before his face, but he couldn’t see even the faintest outline of his
fingers. Quelling a rush of panic, he started forward, bending low to avoid the craggy ceiling. Even so, he soon banged his head on a low-hanging spar. A questing finger of blood ran from his scalp and trickled hotly down his neck. Moments later he banged his head again, opening a gash across his forehead. He tripped and fell to his knees, once, twice, scraping the heels of his hands and jarring his elbows. Panic coiled around his chest and squeezed tight, making it hard to breath. It took everything he had to keep it at bay as he scrambled blindly forward. He lost all sense of direction, stumbling ever onward until at last he saw a pale smear of light in the distance. It brightened, step by hopeful step, until he emerged from the tunnel’s exit and sank to the ground, gasping great lungfuls of air.

  “Get up,” a rough voice said. Antoine leapt to his feet, clenching his trembling hands into fists. The speaker was a stranger to him, stocky and bearded. “Calm down lad, I’m not going to hurt you. Now move aside,” he said, stepping past Antoine and stacking a pile of crates before the exit, obscuring it entirely. “Come with me.”

  “Where’s Guillaume?”

  The stranger eyed him intently. “I don’t know, but I suggest we get moving.”

  Antoine crossed his arms, desperate and defiant. “I’m not leaving without him.”

  The stranger held his gaze. “Look, I don’t know everything that’s happening. I’ve got orders to get you out of here, and I’m going to obey them. Both our lives are on the line here, so don’t make this harder than it has to be, alright?”

  Antoine had no choice but to give in. “Alright.”

  The stranger led him out onto a rough, natural dock, dwarfed by the vast overhang of Seaholme’s rocky bulk. In a more reputable part of the world, it was the kind of place smugglers might use to land their goods. In Seaholme, where every questionable trade was plied openly, the dock was just a dock – one of many natural quaysides giving access to the lower shelf of the city.