Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  ‘The mother was a healthy beast which indicates that the omens overall are to be read in a positive light and everything that I saw in the mirror of its liver was a favourable indicator for the success of our pearl harvest. The spawn did its best to bite me. It failed and, more significantly, it died at the hands of your warlord, which suggests that Chazen interests will be safe for some while, wouldn’t you say? Dev, we’ll take that with us.’ He nodded at the infant shark. ‘Borha, have the jaw cut out of the adult’s head and share out the teeth among the divers for talismans. Take the carcass well out to sea before you dump it, where the currents will take it away from the reefs. We don’t want its kin coming to see where it got to.’ The burly diver was the first to raise a cheer. Loud approbation spread among the islanders, even those faces that had been uneasy before soon clearing. Kheda waited, smiling, as he dried his arms on a white cotton cloth offered by yet another maiden, this one all coquettish smiles that faded a little as he waved her away. At the first hint of an ebb in the surge of fervour, he turned to walk unhurriedly back up the slope towards the pavilion and the crowd drifted apart.

  Dev walked at his shoulder, studying the infant shark as he carried it skewered on a spear he had pulled from the larger fish. ‘So all the omens are good.’ His face was studiedly neutral. ‘Does that mean we can get back to hunting down those invaders? There’s no telling what might have happened out to the west while we’ve been trailing around the rest of the domain,’ he concluded with ill-concealed frustration. ‘For the pearl harvest, the portents are certainly most favourable. As for that shark spawn, I’m not sure what such a thing might mean,’ Kheda admitted in a low voice as they returned to the shade of the pavilion and its illusion of privacy.

  ‘Does it really matter?’ Dev was unexpectedly curious.

  ‘It almost got its teeth into me,’ Kheda said soberly. ‘That has to mean it’s a personal portent. I’ll have to consult Chazen Saril’s library when we rejoin Itrac at the residence. I’m really not clear on the lore of sharks.’

  And I had better be before I have to counter whatever verdict any other soothsayer sets running around as rumour, out of honest belief or treacherous intent.

  He tossed Dev the cloth he’d been wiping his arms with. ‘Wrap it in that. I don’t want to be mobbed by gulls all the way back.’

  ‘What now?’ Dev took the cloth and swaddled the infant shark securely.

  ‘Favourable portents are all well and good but once word sprearls, that’ll encourage any hovering sea hawks to prey on such a plentiful pearl harvest.’ Kheda shaded his eyes with a hand as he stared out to the strait where the Yellow Serpent waited; light skiffs were busy ferrying food and water to the rowers. ‘There are still too many opportunists sneaking about Chazen waters for my peace of mind. Itrac won’t do much trade for sailer grain or horsehair or anything else if some enterprising pirate plunders the galleys she sends to collect the pearl chests.’

  ‘Which would be an unfortunate omen,’ Dev commented sarcastically.

  ‘Quite,’ said Kheda shortly. ‘So when you’ve dropped a pearl or two into every hand that’s done us a service here, we need to get back to the Yellow Serpent and tell Hesi to set a course to check up on that motley flotilla of boats we left to guard the seaways. Share out the rest of that box between Hesi and the trireme’s shipmaster.’

  ‘Which means yet more delay before we sail back to the western isles,’ muttered Dev with stifled anger. ‘We will still be back at the residence for the night of the new year.’ Kheda looked at the barbarian, his green eyes cold as jade. ‘Though if I deem it necessary after that, we’ll repeat this entire voyage around the domain, just to be sure all is well.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Dev. ‘When I can tell you precisely where every boat might be—every islander if you give me time—be they friendly or unfriendly, without you having to move a muscle.’

  ‘And how do we explain how we came by such knowledge? What will you do when we’re discovered?’ Kheda looked at him with ill-concealed anger. You using magic and me condoning it? You think I’d escape having my throat cut so that my blood might dilute the stain of wizardry in yours, as it soaks into the ground while you’re skinned alive and your hide turned inside out to expiate your every touch on Aldabreshin soil?’ His voice thickened. Do you think Itrac would lift a finger to save either of us? Do you think she could? These people of Chazen don’t just detest wizardry like the other domains of the Archipelago, for all its foul assault on the natural order of things. They truly fear and loathe it after all the misery and death those invaders and their brutal enchanters brought with them. The day your secret is out is the day you die.’

  ‘Fools, the lot of them.’ Dev gritted his teeth. When it was my magic saved them from those savage mages. Just so long as we head west as soon as we can after you’ve played your new-year games.’ The barbarian wizard bent to retrieve Kheda’s helmet. As Kheda reached out to take it, Dev’s fingers closed over the warlord’s, pressing them painfully against the hard metal and unyielding facets of the diamonds on the brow band.

  ‘You promised me I’d be there to see the last nests of those savages rooted out. I killed their wizards for you but the survivors may be hoarding something that could give me a hint of how they worked their magic. You really don’t want to break your word to me, Kheda. You shouldn’t need any portents to warn you just what a bad idea that would be.’

  Chapter Two

  Just where have our supposed guardians of these seaways got to?’ Kheda scowled past the upswept stern posts of the Mist Dove as the trireme pulled away from yet another landing empty of Chazen ships. ‘At least no one’s offered tales of trouble washing up on their beaches.’ Dev waved as the trireme eased along the shore watched by a party of huntsmen clutching the heavy square-ended blades they used for hacking paths through the dense forest.

  ‘And at least they look ready to drive it off, if trouble turns up.’ Kheda raised a hand to acknowledge two fishermen pausing to raise their long spears in salute on their hunt for the ugly bristle-mouthed fish that lurked among the roots of the coppery reed beds.

  ‘There should be more boats on the waters, shouldn’t there?’ Dev queried idly. ‘Trade’s in the Aldabreshin blood around here as much as in the central domains.’

  Where you hid so effectively under the mask of a thoroughly amoral merchant for so many years.

  ‘Village spokesmen should be keeping in touch with one another, at the very least.’ Kheda’s irritation was unabated. ‘I want to know where Nyral is.’

  The trireme continued to pick a cautious path between low, muddy islets, slowing almost to walking pace to navigate the turbid channel between the encroaching groves of knot trees. The breezes off the open seas were baffled by the smothering vegetation and the sun beat down ever hotter from above. The still air smelled more of silt than of salt and the raucous cries of crookbeaks crashed through the taller lilla trees set back from the shore.

  Kheda wiped sweat from his face and accepted a cup of water from Dev. ‘Shaiam? Any suggestions where we might look for Nyral next?’

  A tall, wiry man with plaited black hair and beard climbed up the ladderlike stair from the rowing deck. Nothing we haven’t already thought of, my lord.’ The trireme’s shipmaster clutched a battered and salt-stained black book in a hand almost the same hue as the leather cover. His naturally dark complexion had been deepened by years in the strong southern sun, striking against the vivid red of the long sleeveless mantle he wore over his bare chest. His russet trousers were cut short just below the knee, revealing sturdy calves and long splayed toes that gripped the smooth wood of the deck ‘So we’re still heading for Kalan?’ Alert in his seat just in front of the shipmaster’s lofty chair, the helmsman Yere gripped the twin stern oars that governed the mighty trireme’s movements. He spared a glance for the book open on his knees, bound in unfaded indigo leather.

  Kheda noted that the helmsman’s painstakingly compiled record of Chazen’s s
ea lanes was nowhere near as thick as Shaiam’s mute testament to the older man’s years of experience.

  A book holding so many of the secrets that the shipmasters barter between themselves. How many of Chazen’s hapless mariners were forced to trade away such precious knowledge as they fled the invaders? What else could they offer in return for water or food or a secure anchorage? Who has such knowledge now?

  He stared out over the clouded waters as the narrow channel opened up and the rowing master down below signalled for the piper to pick up the pace.

  ‘We’d best not make a long stop at Kalan, my lord, not if we want to be back at the dry-season residence for the new-year rites.’ Yere’s serious expression sat oddly on his cheerful brown face, exuberant black hair curling untamed to his shoulders.

  ‘Let’s hope we find Shipmaster Nyral quickly, then,’ Kheda said curtly. ‘I’ll be interested to hear just how he and his crew plan on keeping bilge rats out of our waters when he’s nowhere to be found in the reach he was set to guard.’

  ‘We can make up some time here, my lord.’ Shaiam lifted callused fingers to his mouth to whistle down to the rowing master, who looked up from the sunlit aisle between the rowers on their staggered seats. Nodding, he clapped his hands briskly to encourage the oarsmen, indistinct on each side in the shade cast by the split upper deck of the trireme. The shrill note of the flute gathered speed, the piper sitting on the wooden block half-way down the aisle where the mast would be stepped, should Shaiam decide that the wind was favourable enough to call for the sail.

  Kheda looked down at the shadowy oarsmen as the trireme shivered beneath his feet.

  What would you rowers think if you knew I’d taken an oar in a merchant galley, pulling my weight all the way to the northernmost domains in search of lore to drive the invaders and their magic out of these southern waters? Would it strengthen your loyalty to know that I understand how the world shrinks to the oar in your hands and the pipe note in your ears after a long day’s haul? Would you be impressed that I know all the tricks of tying a rope grommet to secure an oar and how best to repair an oar port’s leather sleeve?

  Or would you just want to know exactly what it was that I found in the far north? Would you guess it was Dev? Would you start speculating on just how it was that he could help me kill the savages’ wizards?

  The oarsmen murmured a count among themselves to measure their increasing pace. The ship gathered speed, driven on by the rushing oars. The rowers fell silent as they settled into a regular rhythm, the only sounds from the lower deck the pipe, the creak of rope, leather and wood and, lower still, the susurration of water beneath the trireme’s long, lithe hull.

  ‘Of course, Nyral could have found someone making free with Chazen resources,’ remarked Dev thoughtfully, ‘and come to grief himself.’

  Kheda shot a glance at the barbarian before nodding slowly. ‘It’s possible. Let’s be certain we’re ready for a fight.’

  He walked swiftly forward along one half of the uppermost deck as the Mist Dove ploughed through a broad, shallow channel thick with mats of floating lily leaves. The small detachment of armoured men on the trireme’s bow platform rose dutifully to their feet at his approach and bowed low.

  Ten swordsmen and four archers is the complement for a fast trireme sailing as advance scout or messenger. A heavy trireme like this should have fifty men ready to put paid to any mischief. And loyal as they are, these hopeful warriors are the remnants of those too old and too young to fight the savages last year. All Chazen’s best swordsmen died in defence of their women and children as they fled the murderous magic.

  ‘My lord.’ The senior warrior stepped forward and bowed low. In a plain chain-mail hauberk like the rest, helm of dull steel unadorned, he was sweating profusely in the breathless heat.

  ‘Aysi.’ Kheda inclined his head by way of acknowledgement. ‘I was wondering if Shipmaster Nyral might have run into trouble. Will you be ready to meet any challenge that comes our way?’

  ‘Ready and willing to serve, my lord.’ The grizzled swordsman stroked his close-cropped beard thoughtfully. ‘Ridu will probably be safest in a fight. His strokes are still so wild no one will dare come near him, for fear of losing their head by accident.’ He spared a glance for the youngest of his ill-assorted detachment, a lad with a beard barely a hopeful shadow on his round jaw. The lad ducked his head in discomfiture as the others studiously avoided catching each other’s gaze.

  Atoun would never have embarrassed a lad like that. He had the knack of welding the most ill-matched men into a fighting force that won respect for Daish from all our neighbours. There’s no one in Chazen to equal him, to take his place as commander of the warlord’s warriors. Any man who could is probably dead like Atoun, at the claws of the monsters the invaders wrought with their magic.

  Kheda turned to the archers. ‘Will we have fresh meat to feed these brave warriors this evening, Tawai?’

  ‘Give us half a day and we could feed a fleet, my lord.’ The oldest of the archers grinned, then his lined, leathery face turned serious as he patted the quiver at his hip, bristling with red and brown goose feathers. But we can’t bring down armoured men with blunt fowling arrows. We need chisel-heads to get through armour and broad-heads with barbs to be sure of a crippling wound, and we’ve few enough of those.’

  ‘I’ll be happy to let Tawai and his lads drop any scoundrels from a distance. It’s too hot for close-quarters fighting.’ Aysi didn’t quite succeed in making a joke of his interjection.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll make every shot count, if we do run into trouble,’ Kheda assured the archers with an encouraging smile.

  Because I can hardly give Dev your fowling blunts and watch while he melts the very metal of the arrowheads in the palm of his hand, then reshapes it with his sorcery to suit your needs.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Kheda saw the wizard intent on something ahead of the Mist Dove, the creases around his eyes deepening as he squinted against the brilliance of sea and sky. His already thin lips narrowed further. ‘There’s the Yellow SerpentV

  As Dev pointed, Kheda saw the light galley emerge from a distant channel. A brassy flourish from the Mist Dove’s signal horn rang out and the Yellow Serpent altered her course with a crash of oars stirring dirty foam from the sluggish waters.

  ‘Still on her own, I see.’ Forcing his face into a polished mask of serenity, Kheda left the Mist Dove’s bow to her paltry fighting force and returned to the stern platform.

  No sign of Nyral, it seems.’ Shaiam sat in the shipmaster’s chair, signal horn loose in his lap as he looked over Yere’s head to gauge the distant galley’s speed.

  ‘My lord, let’s have both of our ships draw into that bay.’ Dev pointed abruptly to one of the few lumps of land where tandra trees reinforced by the lofty grey trunks of ironwoods defied the all-pervasive knot trees.

  ‘Why?’ Kheda looked at the wizard, bemused.

  ‘You could go ashore and see if there’s any bird pepper growing thereabouts,’ said Dev with heavy emphasis. ‘You were saying you would be needing some if the turn of the year brought any cases of worm fever. It’ll only take the two of us and we’ll barely be delayed.’

  ‘What?’ Kheda stared for a moment before realisation dawned. ‘Yes, that’s very true. Good thinking, Dev.’ He glanced at the shipmaster with an apologetic smile. ‘If you would, Shaiam. I imagine there will be a shortage of healers this year.’

  ‘My lord.’ At Shaiam’s nod, Yere leaned against his steering oar to turn the ship towards the shore. Kheda jerked his head at Dev and the two men passed behind the shipmaster’s chair to lean against the solid baulk of timber made by the curved stern planking rising up above their heads.

  Good thinking, Dev, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, but you could have been more tactful. Telouet would have made some joke about making landfall to look for plants at every opportunity, to disguise any true intention.

  He studied the uncommunicat
ive back of Shaiam’s head.

  And Jatta would have had something to say about it, as shipmaster of my personal trireme for six years and more. Smooth as the seas he sailed, he’d still have reminded me of all the reasons why I was needed back at the residence sooner rather than later and that any delay should be avoided. Let’s hope he still serves Daish as loyally.

  Kheda glanced at Dev but the wizard was intent on the Yellow Serpent, which had noted the Mist Dove’s change of course and was following suit. The gap between the two ships was narrowing rapidly and every eye on the trireme was on the light galley.

  You people are always so hesitant about speaking your mind, on this ship, at the residence, in any village I visit. Why so diffident? Chazen Saril was no brute. Though his father had a harsh reputation and his grandfather was a byword for ruthlessness according to Daish Reik. I don’t suppose anyone taught Saril that encouraging friendship and even honest disagreement would strengthen his people’s loyalty, not weaken his authority.

  But how do I encourage openness and honesty when I have so much to hide, such deceits burdening me? The Mist Dove slowed and the rowers deftly turned the vessel before backing the trireme into a shelving landing. Gritty mud grated beneath the shallow hull and anchors splashed into the water at Shaiam’s command, an answering shout coming from the sailmaster up on the prow platform.

  Dev threw a rope ladder down beside the stern posts, the perfect attentive slave. ‘Let’s be quick, my lord, then we can be back aboard before the Yellow Serpent reaches us with her news.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Kheda climbed down the ladder to discover that the water at the trireme’s stern was waist deep. Pausing to thread one arm through the rope rungs, he unbuckled his sword belt and held his blades shoulder high as he waded ashore, bare toes feeling more mud than sand underfoot. At least the cool seawater was refreshing in the heat of the day. Reaching the water’s edge, he paused to don his twin-looped sword belt and secure his weapons again, watching Dev stride through the sea towards him. ‘Finally, some privacy.’ The wizard grinned with satisfaction as he paused on the water’s edge. ‘Though there’s not much point having a password for our excursions if you can’t remember it. I thought it’d take you till sunset to catch my meaning.’