The Swordsman's Oath toe-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  “Maybe so, but that’ll be over some vicious, steep ground, won’t it?” Grethist laughed nevertheless. “I’ll take sail to see it, until they build a decent high road.”

  Temar smiled. “I’ll hitch a ride with you, Master.”

  A shout from above turned the mariner’s head and Temar turned his attention back to his journal, leafing through it to find the news of the southern expedition that Guinalle had relayed to him just after they had set out on this voyage. That had come from one of Guinalle’s most recently trained adepts, hadn’t it? Artifice had kept that other flotilla firmly linked to the port, information passed back every second or third day. What had befallen this northern expedition, what had happened to the ships they were now seeking, that they had vanished so thoroughly without even a hint from the Adepts aboard? What sort of things might have affected the use of Artifice? How well skilled had the Adepts been who had joined the expedition? Temar stifled a regret at his ill-tempered decision to abandon his own studies of Artifice during the winter seasons, unable to stand being in such close contact with Guinalle on a daily basis.

  “Sail ho!”

  Temar’s head snapped around at the look-out’s bellow, jaw dropping in disbelief. Jostled by eager sailors, he forced his way to the rail to see a three-masted ship around the far headland, a full load of sail rigged.

  “Who is it?” a voice rang out from behind, frustrated at not being able to see.

  “Looks like the Salmon!” came the reply, supported by noises of agreement and delight all round. Temar squinted at the fast approaching vessel, looking for the rune at its bow, all but obscured by flying foam, cheers all around as the sailors waved and whistled.

  “Temar! Temar!” Guinalle’s frantic shout dragged Temar back away from the side of the ship. He pushed his way up the steps to the stern where Guinalle stood wringing her hands next to the captain. The sailor was starting to frown, a hand shading his deep-set eyes as he peered at the rapidly closing ship.

  “They’re not flying any flag at all, not even their pennant. I’d expect a signal too, given the situation.” Grethist murmured, doubt coloring his tone.

  “I can’t reach them, Temar,” Guinalle caught at his sleeve, “something’s desperately wrong on board that ship!”

  Temar looked past her toward the captain. “I can see our lads, plain enough,” Grethist went on slowly, “but they’re not working the lines, nor managing their sail.”

  “Every mind on that ship is closed to me, Temar,” Guinalle insisted. “I know some of that crew, I should be able to reach them from here!”

  “Run a signal, Meig!” bellowed the captain suddenly. “Can’t they see we’re at anchor?”

  A flurry of disquiet ran through the waiting crew as the long looked-for ship continued to come up the estuary at a reckless pace.

  “Temar!” Guinalle shook his arm, a gesture of fear and frustration in equal measure.

  “They’re going to broadside us, if they—” The mariner shook his grizzled head in disbelief. “Meig, cut the anchor! All of you, get some sail aloft, we’ve got to get underway— brace yourself, my lady.”

  The captain jumped down from the aftcastle as the crew scrambled to get their ship moving, the second vessel swooping down on her with predatory intent. Temar grabbed at the rail with one hand, reaching for Guinalle with the other as the ships collided with a shattering crash. Guinalle was knocked clean off her feet and Temar to his knees, and several men went plummeting from the rigging into the foaming waters, yells of shock lost in the mounting clamor in deck. Temar struggled to his feet as the boats swung apart, tossing wildly, sails flapping in confusion. As he looked for any explanation of this turn of events he saw the men of the Salmon dropping like clubbed beasts, other forms leaping up from the waist of the ship to cast grapnels and ropes across the gap, hauling the vessels together. A sailor clinging desperately to the rail was crushed between the tall wooden walls, his scream of agony lost as howling figures in black leather leaped across the rails, short swords and axes naked in their hands. The sailors grabbed whatever was at hand to defend themselves with, belaying pins and rope spikes, belt knives raised in desperation.

  Temar vaulted over the rail of the aftcastle, drawing his long sword and catching several of the invaders unawares, their blood making the decking treacherous beneath his feet as they fell beneath his wrathful blade. The others drew back a little, cold blue eyes assessing him as Temar looked for his own opening, glaring at flaxen heads pale above studded leather armor. These were soldiers, Temar realized belatedly. Where were they from?

  “Cut the ropes!” Grethist’s bellow lifted above the tumult, a roar to rise above the direst of storms. Temar darted forward to protect a handful of sailors as they sawed desperately at the taut hemp holding the clinging irons fast, jumping to avoid an attacker falling at his feet in agony, a rope spike embedded in one eye. Temar sent the metal deep into the man’s skull with a heavy stamp of his boot and kicked the corpse aside. As more assailants pressed on over the rail, Temar dodged and weaved, skills born of long practice saving him from anything worse than a stinging scratch to one arm as a blade ripped through the linen of his sleeve. That reminder of his lack of protection sobered Temar a little, though with his leather jerkin and buff breeches, he was still better off than the sailors in their sailcloth tunics and trews. Even a spent blow could rip through the fabric and every bleeding cut would weaken.

  He hacked at a questing axe, shoving the haft aside to open the man’s defenses. With a deft thrust he caught the unbalanced soldier at the angle of neck and shoulder, the keen blade contemptuous of studded leather, biting deep into bone and flesh. The axe fell to the deck, the clatter lost in the uproar as the man stumbled blindly to fall over the side.

  “Ware feet!” Temar yelled as he kicked the loose weapon backward to arm any sailor who could grab it. As his next victim fell away in a flurry of gore, legs cut from beneath him, two more came at Temar abreast but he had the reach on them with his longer blade and soon felled them for an eager pair of sailors to finish with their belt knives. Further assault broke and faltered on a rapidly improvised barrier of spars and captured weapons as the crew rallied to support Temar, bringing all the savagery of dockside brawls to bear in the battle, kicking, gouging, spitting, biting as the sailors dodged to get inside the reach of swords and axes and bring their own crude weapons to bear with devastating effect. A shudder ran through the vessels as the Eagle fought to pull free.

  A yell from behind hauled Temar’s head round. One sailor had managed to free a grapnel, gouging his hand grievously in the process. Now he dropped to his knees, screaming as he clutched at his head, eyes stark with terror and pain. A second fell, convulsing, howling. Temar spared them a horrified glance before looking around wildly for any explanation of this unexpected turn of events.

  “Temar!” Guinalle’s shout tore through the chaos. He found her instantly, on her knees on the stern deck, skirts all stained and bloodied to the elbows as she tried to help a dying sailor. Temar looked frantically for any black-clad figure threatening her but could see none.

  “It’s him, that man, up in the prow. He’s the one with the Artifice!” Guinalle shouted, her voice hoarse with effort. She shrieked abruptly, her own hands rising to claw at her eyes before she managed to control them. Falling forward, she lay there, panting for a moment that seemed an eternity to Temar before dragging herself upright again, jaw set, eyes huge in her white face. “Kill him!” she screamed, shrill as a stricken hawk.

  Temar looked at the motionless figure high in the prow of the entangled Salmon and took a breath to assess their situation. The crew of the Eagle were holding their line, the air thick with curses. A flutter of color overhead caught Temar’s eye. Aloft in the rigging, Meig and a couple of others were raising a signal to bring the longboat back with reinforcements and weapons. The bastards, Temar realized with sudden, impotent fury; they had been standing off behind that headland, waiting until the Eagle was w
eakened by the departure of half her complement. Guinalle might not have been able to see them but somehow that bastard in the long cloak had been spying on the Tormalin ship as he held the strings of the marionettes he had made of the innocent colonists. Just as Temar thought this a hapless figure fell headlong from the ropes above his head, Meig making no move to save himself with nerveless hands as he crashed to the deck to lie motionless in a broken huddle.

  Temar lifted one foot on to the swaying rail, one hand reaching up for a rope as the ships struggled against each other, planks splintering, lines creaking under the strain, canvas snapping overhead. His sword was ready in his other hand, the razor-sharp edge showing silver through the clotting blood choking the fuller.

  “Who’s with me?” he yelled, all the while judging the narrowing gap as the Salmon swung back into the battered side of the Eagle. Satisfied with the bloodthirsty howls at his back, Temar leaped, putting every effort he possessed into his jump, falling to his hands and knees on the far deck, sword nevertheless poised and ready. Thuds behind him announced the arrival of a handful of the Eagle’s crew, eager to make use of their captured weaponry.

  “Ramsen!” Temar saw one of his men drop his guard as he gaped at a figure rolled this way and that by the plunging motion of the trapped vessels. “They’re lost!” Temar shouted harshly, his own stomach hollow as he recognized a face slack and white among the fallen crew of the Salmon. “Watch yourselves!”

  The enemy were quick to react to this unexpected counterattack and a close-knit detachment was making its way down the deck, blades raised. Temar steadied himself, his longer sword at the ready to defend and to rend, but half an eye spared for the tall figure in the forecastle, blond hair blowing in the breeze, a gold gorget bright at his throat as he focused all his attention and skills on the attack on the other ship.

  An axe came scything in at Temar’s head but he blocked the blow with ease, following up to force the man backward. Taking a pace forward but careful not to outstrip the others behind him, Temar cut and sliced, feinted and parried, less to kill than to gradually force those opposing him into a gradual retreat up the ship. He focused all his efforts on the men before him, trusting the sailors at his back and the stout defense of the ship’s rail to his off hand. Step by step, Temar and his men drew closer to the enemy Artificer, who abruptly turned to face them, arms raised, hands spread, hatred twisting his face as he spat at them in an unknown, harsh-accented tongue.

  The air before Temar seemed to shimmer and ripple, the faces before him distorted as if seen through poor glass. The deck beneath his feet suddenly felt rough and broken, like a rocky road. Temar took a pace forward but his footing shifted and slipped, snarls as of wild beasts echoing all around him, greedy and eager for blood. The hair on Temar’s neck rose as every instinct told him to flee and he heard cries of dismay and terror from the men behind him. Temar shook his head in frenzied denial and furiously ransacked his memory for the wards and defenses that Guinalle had been teaching him before their friendship had foundered.

  “Tur ryal myn ammel,” he yelled, screwing his eyes shut for a scant breath to put every effort he could summon into throwing the Artificer’s touch from his mind. Panting, he opened his eyes and found his gaze was clear again, more than that, the sailors at his back seemed to have recovered. Temar spared a moment to wonder just what the incantation he had half remembered was actually supposed to do.

  The shouts of the enemy back aboard the Eagle grew suddenly louder, but now they were ringing with consternation rather than victory. A dull tremor shivered through the deck and rolled the lifeless body of another crewman at Temar’s feet, threatening to trip him until he steeled himself to kick it aside. Tormalin voices suddenly rose in shouts of triumph from the other ship, taunts mingled with obscenities and curses. Temar spared a glance to see several of the black-clad invaders dropping their weapons to struggle, screaming, with some unseen threat, scrambling backward to escape some horror only they could see, one tumbling over the rail to vanish into the turbid waters as the ships swung apart and crashed back together. The soldiers facing Temar and his men fell back to the steps leading up to the aft castle, weapons now ready to defend rather than to attack.

  Temar looked back to the enemy Artificer and saw consternation mingled with hatred on the thin, lined face as the man stared at Guinalle, now standing on the aft deck, a circle of sailors defending her as she wrought unseen destruction on the attackers. As Temar watched a handful hurled themselves yelling toward her, felled even before they could bring blade to bear on the ring of wood and iron. The Artificer raised a hand, the threat in the gesture unmistakable, but a sudden lurch of the deck threw him off balance. Temar grabbed at the rail himself but a bark of humorless laughter escaped him nevertheless.

  “The longboat!” One of the sailors shook Temar’s shoulder and he nodded with grim satisfaction as he saw the returning crew of the rowing-boat scrambling up over the distant rail of the Eagle, weapons raised, fresh wrath pouring over the attackers like a breaking sea, sweeping the black-clad figures aside like so much flotsam. The deck swung beneath Temar’s feet again and he realized nearly all of the grappling irons had been unhooked.

  “We need to get back to the Eagle!” he shouted over his shoulder, loud agreement coming from the sailors. They retreated, slowly, weapons raised, alert for any sudden rush from the enemy. Several of the black-clad assailants paced them down the deck, just out of reach, taunts clear in their unintelligible tongue. “Ignore them.” Temar shook his head at a sailor whose backward steps had halted, captured axe eager to rejoin the fray.

  Temar felt inside the breast of his jerkin for his throwing dagger. Retreating like this was all very well, but it was too slow. As the ships writhed in the snapping toils of the ropes, he could hear the snap and whistle of breaking hemp, every movement as the wind tugged at the Eagle’s sails putting intolerable strain on the remaining lines. He palmed the dagger as they drew level with the remaining grapnels, relieved to hear eager shouts from the Eagle’s deck, hands and ropes offering assistance.

  “Make ready to go,” he commanded sternly, judging distance and wind, wondering if he could do this.

  “When?” demanded a sailor at his elbow.

  “Now!” yelled Temar. He took a pace forward and brought his hand up and back in one fluid movement, sending the bright blade shooting the length of the vessel, a flash of silver in the sunlight as it buried itself in the Artificer’s chest. His yell of agony halted the troops on deck who were just about to fling themselves on the sailors desperately scrambling back over the rails of the two ships, unable to defend themselves adequately. As blond heads turned this way and that, Temar and his men seized the moment of indecision to escape to the Eagle, where waiting knives hacked through the last fibers of the entangling ropes to free the vessel.

  “Make sail and head for open water!” Captain Grethist roared, his voice sending sailors scrambling into the rigging, hands still sticky with gore, clothing stained with their own blood and that of others. The Eagle moved on rising wings of white canvas to pull away from the Salmon, now drifting away at the mercy of wind and current as dark figures struggled with her ropes.

  “We can’t just abandon the Salmon!” a voice protested.

  “How do we go about retaking her?” demanded Grethist scornfully, but his own outrage was plain on his twisted face as he moved to instruct the helmsman. “No, we’ll let those bastards look after her for a little while, just as long as it takes us to get back to port, raise a flotilla and come back to send every last fancy whore’s son straight to Dastennin’s feet!”

  This prediction raised a general shout of agreement and defiance, insults hurled from every side as the Salmon finally got under way and lurched toward the distant headland.

  “D’Alsennin!”

  Temar looked toward the stern of the ship, trying to place the unfamiliar voice. He saw the tall, spare figure of Avila For Arrial on the aft-deck, struggling to support a faint
ing Guinalle.

  “Here, let me,” Temar shoved his way through to the aft-castle and swept Guinalle up in his arms, alarmed by her extreme pallor.

  “Let’s get her to our cabin.” Avila silenced the startled questions of the sailors with an imperious look and hurried to open the doors to the accommodation in the rear of the ship. Temar laid Guinalle gently down on the narrow cot and clenched his hands in unconscious dismay as Avila deftly untied Guinalle’s girdle, unlacing the high neck of her gown to check the pulse in her neck. The older woman bent her head close to Guinalle’s, a grunt of satisfaction as she felt the girl’s breath on her cheek.

  “She’ll do well enough. She’s just exhausted herself.” Avila laid a fond hand on Guinalle’s forehead, herb-stained fingers brown against the white skin.

  Temar didn’t know whether to be more relieved or furious with Guinalle for giving him such a fright. “She always thinks she can do everything herself,” he burst out. “Is this the first time she’s over-reached herself like this? Why can’t she pace herself better?”

  Avila was pouring water into a shallow bowl and paused, a linen cloth in her hand. “The reason Guinalle has to do so much is the lack of other trained hands to lift the burden from her,” she said crisply. “If enough people would come forward to be trained in Artifice, her life would be a great deal easier. The problem is that so many of those that start give up as soon as the studies become at all demanding.” She didn’t bother concealing the contempt in her voice or in her eyes as she looked across the cramped cabin at Temar, brushing a wisp of graying hair back from her broad brow with the back of her hand.

  “I had my reasons and I have my own duties,” Temar snapped. He looked at Guinalle again, a faint flush of pink starting to soften her cheeks again. “Messire Den Fellaemion asks too much of her,” he said reluctantly, hating himself for the disloyalty.

  “Messire Den Fellaemion is ill.” Avila sprinkled an aromatic oil from a tiny bottle and laid the dampened cloth across Guinalle’s forehead. “Guinalle’s Artifice is just about the only thing keeping him on his feet some days.”