by Robert Brady
Raven knew what god favored her, but she’d been able to touch Earth, too. She could move her will through Earth and sense things through him—through the dirt they called his skin.
If Earth, than why not Water? Water was supposedly a wounded goddess here, but Slurn’s people worshipped her. He thought she had power no one had tapped into yet.
As she had with Earth, she stood and forced her will down through her feet, down through her body and the deck of the ship she sat on, into the water below, into the salt and H2O, imagining all of the water molecules, swishing around randomly, refracting the light, keeping her from seeing through it.
She couldn’t see through the water because the light refracted against it and made it act like a solid. She could look down and see deceptively far, if she moved to the railing, because with the light behind her the effect was less. What she needed to do was to line up those water molecules like a tunnel—then she could see through them like a telescope.
So she imagined that, for just a few seconds, every molecule would line up, like the lattice of a diamond, perfectly straight, rigid, becoming a tunnel she could look right through.
She imagined it, focused it in her mind, and willed it to be.
A clang like some gigantic metal door slamming shut rang off of the horizon. Fish flew up out of the Bay in a straight line from a point two thirds of the way to the horizon, for as far as the eye could see, some of them torn apart and bloody.
All eyes turned to the huge, clear tunnel she’d created, like a hole punched in the water a daheer away from the ship she sat on. Through it, they all saw the square sails of Eldadorian Sea Wolves, several hulls and some of the bronze tubes that warned of Eldadorian Fire.
Raven’s vision wavered. The spell sucked the life out of her like a leech! She fell to her knees, clutching for support and finding the dog’s back. The dog licked Raven’s face as Raven released the spell, and barely heard a sound like a sonic boom as the water righted itself again.
She thought, I really need to stop doing stuff like that, as she fell across the dog and out of consciousness.
* * *
Glynn sat with her peer, Avek Noir, and the Ymir on the Confluni flag ship, where the Bay rocked them in a nauseating manner and the three boys who attended the obese Confluni female sickened her further with the acts she had them perform, some of them in front of her Uman-Chi guests.
Those of the race of Men, she reminded herself, were barely more than animals.
She’d just propositioned the Ymir for the second time today to redirect to Volkhydro rather than Conflu, where these troops could be added to the Volkhydran defense. Her brother had informed her the Emperor’s ambitions now lay there, provoked by her own King.
Of course, Ancenon did not accompany them. His own ship first ran out ahead of them for the Straights, then fell far behind as theirs surpassed him. Glynn reminded herself that, come what may, she mustn’t let this canvas fall to the Confluni Ymir.
The Ymir had only just opened up her flabby maw to respond when suddenly a noise like a hammer on an anvil, magnified one thousand times, rang across the cabin, shaking the ship to its core.
“By Adriam’s beard!” Avek swore, standing. The three boys cowered at their mistress’ feet. Glynn reached out instinctively with her mind, seeking the powerful cause of such an effect.
Of course, she was rewarded with the unique flavor of her protégé’s magic.
The Ymir struggled to right herself as an even louder crash shook their ship, followed by a sensation of speed that had the furniture moving across the cabin.
She heard Confluni screaming and calling out to each other outside on the weather decks. Avek leapt for the door before she could stop him and yanked it open.
A wave of salt water swept in, drenching all of them. Glynn shook the stinging salt spray from her eyes. Looking past it she could see the ship was in a spin. Other Confluni vessels were tossed upon inexplicably rough seas, under a clear blue sky.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The Bay righted itself and the swells returned.
Her mind reached out and found Zarshar’s.
“Such power!” he exclaimed. She questioned him, and discovered that, as expected, Raven had been blindly applying her power, ironically to enable them to see.
“And how many sails did you count?” she pressed him. No point in wasting what they’d learned.
“I couldn’t be sure—the spell didn’t even last a minute,” Zarshar informed her, “but I saw more sails than I could count that fast.”
Glynn bit back a sarcastic response. She’d clearly been spending too much time in the company of Karl Henekhson.
“Has the girl recovered?” Glynn asked.
She waited as the Swamp Devil checked. Meanwhile the Ymir’s three boys were peeling her wet clothing from her body while Avek Noir had left to see to the crew. A better caster might have done more to protect them, however Avek Noir was not one, and she’d been caught by surprise.
“She breathes,” Zarshar informed her, breaking her from her reverie. “If she has the black mind, it’s too soon to tell.”
Glynn acknowledged him in her mind and broke the connection. She’d have to go to their ship herself. She’d left a focus on their lower decks, then sealed the room where she’d created it.
Avek returned from the weather decks. “They lost a few ships,” he informed her in the language of the Uman-Chi. “Can I assume this is the work of your Raven?”
“The girl is undisciplined,” Glynn answered him. “We’d thought to pair her with Karl, hoping she’d benefit from his direction, however Jahunga’s death has sorely affected him.”
“Supposedly a great tunnel opened up through the Bay,” Avek informed her. As they spoke, the three boys were blotting the salt water from their mistress’ fat rolls and ringing sea water from her long, black hair.
“They could see through it as it tore the fish apart,” he continued. “Then it exploded and threw a huge wave in every direction. If they did in fact see the Eldadorian fleet on the other side, then its ships could have faired no better than ours.”
Glynn nodded. She turned her attention to the Ymir. She could see no point in not using this opportunity to benefit them.
“Ymir Effecate Hagadashi Boohoori,” she said, turning to the naked woman, sprawled out across her divan, “I regret to inform you we are discovered by the Eldadorian fleet.”
The look of fear and loathing that crossed the woman’s face was terrible to see. Glynn suppressed a smile, maintaining her calm.
“I told you this way wasn’t safe,” she drawled, pushing one of the boys away from her breasts. “Was this an attack
by—?”
Glynn nodded. “Our Raven caught it at the last moment and deflected it,” she said. “She’s swooned, but you’ve lost as many as a dozen ships, while your enemy’s power has been turned back on its fleet. We have a path to break, if we desire it.”
“To the Silent Isle?” the Ymir asked.
Glynn smiled and shook her head. “I hate to inform you the Trenboni fleet has quit for Volkhydro,” she said, “and we should do the same, and to their protection.”
The Ymir sighed. “How do propose to guarantee my safety?”
“You forget, good lady,” Glynn said, “that you carry with you Karl Henekhson, the Hero of Tamara. You could not be better guaranteed in Volkhydro.”
The Ymir nodded and gave the order. The ship heeled to starboard, north to the Volkhydran shore.
Opportunity, Glynn reminded herself, is a dessert before the meal, rather than an entrée.
* * *
Nantar rode at the head of his Daff Kanaari army, listening to his old friend grumble as he had been for almost two weeks.
“Right out of my grasp,” Brown Arath complained. “I had them, and they slid right out of my grasp.”
“Yes,” Nantar agreed with him. “They did. It is very unfair.”
They’d broken off from
Black Lupus’ main army with ten thousand warriors. Now they headed up north to Andurin with eight thousand five hundred.
Nantar actually found it sort of amusing. They’d arrived just in time to see the fleet of Confluni ships travel over the horizon—nothing for it but to let the warriors take a day after the hard march, then turn them north.
They’d sent fast riders to Galnesh Eldador, and heard back just this morning that Black Lupus had taken off for Volkhydro, after his fleet had been defeated by the Uman-Chi.
Thorn had been right—they’d tried to take Thera with the Volkhydran fleet and, victory or defeat, the Eldadorians had turned them and saved the city.
Now Lupus characteristically had to get his own strike in, and had left for Volkhydro with 30,000 Eldadorian regulars.
They’d meet the combined Fovean armies. Nantar and Thorn both knew these warriors would come in handy, if they could be moved there in time.
What they’d come across, instead, was dismal weather off the Forgotten Sea, hard marches and cold camps on an endless walk.
Now they could actually see the outriders from Andurin. They’d called formation and had been marching tight for an hour, waiting for what came next.
The outriders pounded in, pulling up tight in front of their horses. Nantar counted five, all Uman, in Andurin’s colors.
“Your business?” one demanded. Nantar gave him a casual look, then took another, and recognized the warrior.
“K’delden?” he asked. Arath perked up from being sullen on his mount. K’delden had been one of their Daff Kanaari warriors, rising to the level of commander of 100 after the Battle of Katarran.
“Lord Nantar,” he said, and inclined his head. “Lord Arath, your Excellency. We’ve been waiting for you here.”
“You have, huh?” Arath asked him. Arath didn’t like it when anyone left the Free Legion, especially not anyone with a command.
K’delden nodded. “We have Sea Wolves waiting to port you and your warriors.”
Arath and Nantar shared a glance. They hadn’t even told anyone they were turning north. Lupus either had been watching them or shown great intuition.
“Port us?” Arath asked. “Where exactly are we going?”
K’delden passed Arath a scroll, sealed with the stamp of Andurin. They didn’t actually take orders from Duke Groff, however they knew about Eldador’s Central Communications, and Black Lupus might actually just be conveying advice through him.
Arath popped open the seal and pulled open the scroll. He read it, laughed out loud and handed it to Nantar. Nantar accepted it, read it once,and had to read it again—just to be sure.
He looked at Brown Arath—now he was the happy one.
“You must be kidding me.”
* * *
Shela had been enjoying a rare moment alone with her husband when a hole ripped itself out of the ocean to her east. For a moment she saw a whole fleet of Confluni warships through it, then they were gone, and the Bay itself rose up to strike them.
She knew no magic to control Tren Bay. Perhaps if Dilvesh had been here—however there was no time to consider that. Their ship rose up on a huge wave, teetered, and then fell sickeningly down its other side, the crew scrambling to secure the rigging as men and cargo were swept into the water.
Lupus leapt to his feet, his first instinct for his crew. Before she’d met him—she assumed before he’d come here—he’d been a sailor, and since he’d loved the sea. He’d made of himself a passable hand on his Sea Wolves, and he knew the complicated rigging and how to manage its many sails.
“Up the mains’l,” he bellowed. “Three quarter left rudder—you there, secure that line!”
Wolf Soldiers scrambled to obey him. Many ran to throw lines or flotation devices to those who’d fallen overboard. The captain of the ship, Admiral Jaspar, took command from Lupus and continued directing the ship’s recovery. Shela stood in the doorway to their cabin, watching them, trying to decide what had happened.
She could smell the power that had been used—a strange mix of different gods. Whoever had done this had learned of Power, Earth and Water, and some other that she hadn’t ever encountered—some application that defied magic somehow.
For a moment, she’d seen through the ocean, through the horizon, to a fleet that had to be daheeri away. Shela knew, even if she crippled herself, she wouldn’t be able to channel the energy required to create an effect like that. More importantly, she wouldn’t even know how.
As fast as it had come, the wave was gone. The sky above them remained blue as could be. The Bitch righted herself, tacking into the wind. Jaspar ordered that they deploy something that he called a ‘sea anchor,’ and that brought them to a complete stop, even while the Bay roiled beneath them. Shela saw the carcasses of uncountable dead fish, the gulls and other predators already converging on the unexpected feast. Wolf Soldiers paddled on their flotation barrels or hauled themselves in on the ship’s ratlines in fear of what would swim out of deeper water to feed.
There were sharks in Tren Bay.
Lupus returned to her, blotting his face with a towel, the concern in his blue eyes telling. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.
She shook her head, her wet black hair clinging to her neck and to the sides of her face. “I have no idea, Yonega Waya,” she told him. “Some use of power, less than what a god is capable of, more than any mortal should know, even the Uman-Chi.”
“Angron Aurelias?” Lupus asked. Shela shook her head again.
“To what end?” she asked. “Where are the Tech Ships, swooping in to catch us unawares? Where are the—”
“The illusion!” Lupus exclaimed, and looked around him.
Nothing. All they saw on the waves were gulls and carcasses.
“By Power,” Shela swore, and focused herself. The air shimmered, and around them the ‘fleet’ reappeared, dozens upon dozens of Sea Wolves, many armed with Eldadorian fire.
“Pointless now,” Lupus growled. “If that was Angron then he knows—”
Shela stroked the side of his face. “Be of good faith, Yonega Waya,” she said. “As I said, this was past the ability even of Angron Aurelias. Whatever we just witnessed, it’s beyond what I know of magic, and if it came from anywhere, then it was from that Confluni fleet past the eastern horizon.”
Lupus didn’t look satisfied. She’d already told him of that fleet—they were waiting to see if it tried to sail past or turn around. They didn’t think for a moment the Confluni would engage them, unless they saw through their illusion somehow.
Like this.
However, once again, where were the ships sweeping in over the horizon? Where was the follow-up strike? If they expected an illusion, they could have dispelled it at a fraction of the exertion.
Whatever had just happened, all they could do now was to wait here for it. They were alone, and didn’t have the ability to send a few ships out to stir up their enemies. Their strategy, in fact, if they were discovered, was simply to stay out of weapon’s range of whatever might chase them.
Lupus had a plan for Volkhydro and, as Shela had heard him say before, they weren’t it.
Chapter Nineteen
Combat, in All of its Forms
Slurn had never seen anything terrifying about the ocean or Tren Bay. Some of his people saw those wide expanses of water and craved the closeness and the comfort of the shallow swamp, where one’s claws always touched the bottom.
When he awoke on the deck of a Confluni ship, spinning out of control across the waves, the dark female whom he guarded laying slumped across the dog-beast, he knew a kind of terror he hadn’t experienced since his early days after hatching.
“What was that?” Karl demanded, in the language of Men. “Who did—what? Did she?”
Vedeen leapt to Raven’s side, where the dog-beast hovered protectively, not knowing whether to lay down and to comfort, or to jump out and attack. Slurn kept his distance, knowing his intrusion might set the thing off.
&n
bsp; “Glynn wants to know if she’s alive,” Zarshar demanded. Vedeen reached for the girl’s neck. The ship’s spinning slowed, its deck awash with salt water, strewn with cargo, some of its crew hanging from the sides.
“She lives,” Vedeen announced. “I know not how. She was the source of that magic, and it must have drained her mightily.”
The dog-beast laid its great head down across the girl’s midriff, where she lay on the deck. Karl knelt upon her long, black hair, his hand on her cheek.
“Raven,” he called to her. “Raven!”
Vedeen placed a hand on his shoulder. “She cannot hear you,” she said. “The energy is out of her—she sleeps now. She may in fact have the black mind—an anomaly—”
“I know what black mind is,” he growled, then stood. “Stupid! Stupid! I can’t believe how stupid—”
“You curse her while she lays sleeping?” Zarshar demanded, looking angry. But when, Slurn wondered, did their kind not?
“Not her,” Karl said, looking up at the black devil. “Me—I’m the one supposed to watch over her. I’m supposed to be there, to guide her. First I let Jahunga die—now this.”
Zarshar shook his head and turned away. A Swamp Devil would have contempt for any show of weakness, no matter how slight. Slee understood better, especially Slurn.
“Zarshar,” he said, the Swamp Devil turned to him, the disgust on his face plain.
“Tell him it’s not his fault.”
Zarshar bared his red teeth. “Who’s to say it isn’t?” he asked.
Slurn’s tail twitched in aggravation. “You know where we’re going?” he asked.
Zarshar just looked at him.
“Then you know what that one has to do,” Slurn continued. “He won’t be able to do it with a mind full of rot and self-loathing.”
Karl and Vedeen watched the exchange. The dog-beast growled low in its throat.
Zarshar growled back, drawing the dog-beast’s hackles. “Karl Henekhson,” he said, “Slurn asks me to inform you that you’re not to blame, and on reflection I have to agree with him.”