“You may speak,” Greoc said warily.
“Eldred. There are Denalaits at the gates, four men who say they’re from the ship Fallstar. Their leader is Captain Vinsen Solarcis, and he requests words with you.”
Chapter Ten
Palemount
“How did they—” Greoc stopped, since Ruay wasn’t likely to know; she’d clearly been struggling just to return home. “You’re dismissed.”
“Yes, Eldred.” She was up as though she couldn’t bear to be on that step much longer, which didn’t surprise Greoc. Ruay was one of the people in Palemount who owed her existence itself to him, so her duty was all the more important to her.
She slipped out by the inner door, on the opposite side of the great pedestal, as he ordered the warden to make certain the Denalaits left their weapons outside the chamber. “And, Jevashl?” A man on the step of protection turned. “I want four more of my guards here first.”
“Yes, my lord,” Jevashl said, and went out by the same door Ruay had used. The guards were there in moments, taking up their places around him, hookspears held perfectly straight. The sharp blades gleamed as their helms and breastplates did, and Greoc was confident they could deal with a handful of Denalaits.
If they failed to do so, there was always the Faith.
“Bring them in,” he said to the warden, who bowed. Greoc straightened his back and watched the great outer doors. Patterned in a filigree design, they should have been transparent, but the glass-over-glass layers distorted whatever lay beyond them, meaning he had as much privacy as if the doors had been steel.
The doors opened. The Denalaits entered as if they had every right to be in his chamber, but he could tell they weren’t as at-ease as they wanted to appear. They stayed close together, staring at everything—the mosaic floor which showed no specific pattern no matter how long someone gaped at it, the high galleries flanking the pedestal, the windows which let in the same amount of light during the darkest months of winter.
Without exception, both the Denalaits’ clothes and bodies showed the effects of trudging through an iceberg. Disarmed as well, they were no threat. Except he didn’t know how they had found a way out of the hollows, and he didn’t like the way the man in the lead looked at the white marble pedestal, gaze traveling slowly up it until he studied Greoc.
Behind them, the doors swung shut.
“You are in the presence of Greoc Rund, master of Palemount.” The warden might have been old, but his voice rang out proudly. One or two of the Denalaits looked more wary—which was the best reaction he could hope for from such people—but the man in the lead only waited for the echoes to die away into silence.
“I’m Vinsen Solarcis,” he said. “Captain of the merchant ship Fallstar, sworn to the service of the Unity and the people of Denalay.”
The Unity was some great secret of that land, which Greoc took as the Denalaits’ desperate attempt to put themselves on a par with other nations of Eden. Lacking magic, lacking technology, lacking the Tree of Life, they had to put on at least a show of strength. Well, they could call on their Unity all they liked. He’d pit the Faith against it any day.
“You kneel on the first step,” the warden said. Captain Solarcis gave him a puzzled look, so the warden pointed the step out.
Another Denalait had the temerity to roll his eyes. “Gives way, does it? Spikes underneath?”
The warden, a man in his sixties who had served House Rund all his life, drew himself up with dignity. “The blood of Bleakhaven does not need to resort to such trickery.”
From the looks on the Denalaits’ faces, they looked forward to seeing what color the blood of Bleakhaven ran, but the warden had to go further. “That is the step of supplication, the proper place for someone come to plead mercy from our master.”
Captain Solarcis actually laughed. It had been a long time since anyone had dared to laugh in Greoc’s presence, and the reaction was all the more insulting when some of the other Denalaits chuckled. “We’re not here to beg. We’re here to discuss terms.”
Something about the man made Greoc uneasy, and he wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps the lack of a blaze, which made a face not only blank-looking but a little more difficult to read. He dressed like the rest of his men, in black wool and brown bearhide, an empty sheath hanging from one hip. No apparent mark of rank, but Greoc didn’t know what subtle signs Denalaits might use in that regard. The captain stood straight-backed, arms at his sides, as though he wasn’t aware his men were outnumbered by hookspears which could drive through their chests and pull their spines out.
“What terms?” Greoc said.
“We understand you want a ship. We can give you that—Denalay is rich in ships. You don’t have to let Fallstar go first. Let a small delegation from the ship leave, because we have a civilian on board, and I like to keep my passengers safe. They’ll return with a ship for you, Fallstar will be released and we can all go home.”
Oh, they’ll return with a ship. Many ships. That was the detail the man had left out; Denalay was rich in ships built for battle and honed by war. Such ships could do nothing to damage the iceberg, but they would surround it and land boarding parties. He couldn’t repel them all—he had power, but they had sheer strength of numbers—and eventually he’d exhaust his supply of the Faith. Then the noose would tighten around his throat.
Besides, he and his people could never go home.
Home. He saw it as if the far wall had turned to another kind of door, a way back to Bleakhaven. Not the thousand towers of lovely Rund Province, but a cluster of cottages tucked into the bend of a river, animals grazing around them, people laboring in the fields. Stagskin. He hadn’t thought of the place for a long time.
He would never think of it again. He closed his mind’s eye and looked down at the Denalaits in silence.
Captain Solarcis seemed to draw the right conclusion from the lack of a reply, because he went on. “We have enough supplies to weather a siege. We’ll even share our food with you, if you agree to our terms.”
The man might speak as if from a position of power, but the very act of coming to Palemount meant desperation. The Denalait government wasn’t likely to agree to hand a ship over, and if they did, it would only be to buy time. Time for them to contact Bleakhaven, time for the Church and Concordium—probably acting together for once—to find him. No.
To be certain of his position, he tested the Faith which encircled the ship. Denalaits were different from Bleakhaveners in that he couldn’t influence or use them, but he’d sent enough of the Faith against the ship that he could sense the foreigners. The higher their emotions ran, the easier it was to detect their presence, so most of them should be dead, the few survivors either panicked or despairing.
Instead, an exhausted exhilaration ran crackling through the strands of his web, and any desperation he felt was an eagerness to flee. They were as numerous as ever, the razor edges of their alien minds undulled by slow suffocation.
“What have you done?” The words burst from him before he could help it, and everyone except his guards stared at him. He stifled the shock, hands clenching where they rested on his thighs. That was the second time he’d tried to seize the ship, and now both force and Faith had failed him.
But it wouldn’t happen a third time. Once he finished these Denalaits off, he’d freeze their ship in a block of ice if he had to.
“What are you talking about?” Captain Solarcis said warily.
“Your ship.” Though as he recovered his composure, Greoc knew there was no point in questioning the man; he hadn’t been on the ship when they had broken through the ice somehow. The inner door opened and someone paced in, but Greoc never looked away from the Denalait.
Captain Solarcis shrugged. “This is all you need to know—our line in the sand is that we won’t allow Fallstar to be seized. We’ll sink her first. If we have to die,
we’ll take you with us.”
Artek Langwer appeared at the edge of Greoc’s peripheral vision, then moved to the pedestal. “Eldred.” He knelt on the first step, to request a favor. “I ask your leave to deal with this man myself.”
The Denalait captain frowned. “Who are you?”
In Bleakhaven, foreigners spoke when they were spoken to and would not have dreamed of interrupting someone’s interaction with an Eldred, but that was another lesson Artek could take pleasure in teaching the Denalait. The master of guards went tense, shoulders stiffened in outrage, and Greoc gave him a nod. Artek needed no more prompting. He pivoted on one knee, so fast that the Denalait took a pace back.
“Wylick. Nafol. Mandry. Longteeth.” As Artek rose, the words fell like drumbeats into the chamber, and more footsteps entered from the inner door. Like ghosts being summoned by the sounds of their names, though Greoc knew those were his living scouts and guards, the ones who had survived the ill-fated raid. Artek stepped onto the mosaic floor.
“That’s who I am,” he said to the Denalait captain. “Those whom you killed. My name is Artek Langwer, but through me they will face you, and they will have justice when you die.”
It was the principle of the Faith, of all being one, and Greoc smiled. “Those are our terms,” he said to Captain Solarcis. “Artek is the master of guards, a man who has never been defeated in combat.”
“Just in battle,” another Denalait murmured.
If they had believed the insolence would have any impact, Greoc was pleased that the collective response proved them wrong. His people didn’t like that, but their cold poise held strong. Tendons stood out in relief beneath Artek’s skin, taut as ropes, but Artek fed off fury, rather than allowing it to make him rash. The angrier he was, the better he fought.
The Denalaits were dead men.
With that settled, Greoc went on calmly. “Bring Artek to his knees and you can go free, along with your men. And if he wins, your lives are forfeit.”
“You expect us to fight without weapons?” Captain Solarcis said.
Greoc ordered a guard to bring a pair of knives in from where the Denalaits had left their weapons, while the gathered people cleared a wide space before the pedestal. The captain seemed to have fought with a knife before, and he turned to present only the side of his body to Artek, his weight on the balls of his feet.
Abruptly one of the other Denalaits spoke up. “Wait, how do we know you won’t join in on his side? With your Faith?”
Greoc didn’t bother looking in the man’s direction. “I won’t need to.”
Artek shrugged off his fur cloak. Knife in hand, he mirrored the Denalait’s stance. Perhaps the length of a man’s body separated them in distance, and their shadows, pale and blurred in the soft diffuse light, slanted across the mosaic tiles. The room hushed, waiting.
Greoc wondered if the Denalaits expected a ritualized dance of blades. He devoutly hoped so, because they would be all the more startled when—
Artek moved.
He rushed forward. With no time to twist aside, the Denalait slashed out. But his blade was held at waist level, where it would have gutted an enemy, and Artek dived instead. He flung himself at the man’s legs. The blade missed his head by inches and his weight took the Denalait down. They went sprawling together with Artek on top, and since Artek had never let go of his own knife, he drove it in.
The Denalait shrieked. Artek wrenched the knife back and brought it down on the man’s chest. The angle was off, Greoc could see that from the top of the pedestal, and the blade didn’t slip neatly between ribs. But with Artek’s strength behind it, that hardly mattered. Bone crunched. There was a wet sound like cloth tearing, and the scream ended.
From where he knelt, smiling, Greoc saw the muscles of the Denalait’s face slacken. His body convulsed once, then went limp. Artek pushed himself up quickly, leaving the knife’s hilt standing upright, and Greoc understood his haste; dark blood welled up in a rush from a stab wound in the Denalait’s stomach. The man would have died anyway from that, only more slowly. His eyes stared up at the ceiling, flat and brown as copper pennies.
The other Denalaits stared numbly at his corpse, but Greoc’s guards lowered their hookspears as one. Every Bleakhavener except the guards retreated. The Denalaits stood alone, their backs to the wall, and one of them tried to speak.
“Finish them,” Artek said indifferently, and the guards did.
When Ruay tossed aside the drape that served as a door to her cellule, she heard a distant scream.
She paused, listening. The silence from the sleeping quarters to either side told her where the other scouts and guards and servants were likely to be—with Greoc Rund, not only to watch him dealing with their enemies but to surround him and keep him safe. Was it one of them or a Denalait who had cried out?
She hurried to the pedestal chamber, reindeer-hide boots scuffing softly, and a chant of Artek’s name rang out, a cheer and a salute in one. Her heart would have leaped if she hadn’t smelled the sharp, pungent heat of blood. Was he injured? She pushed through the crowd.
The floor around him was spattered red, vivid on the pale marble, but he was busy cleaning off a knife. Bodies lay beyond him and Ruay stopped in her tracks, but Artek glanced up and saw her.
“Ruay!” The relief in his voice was warm as life itself, and although any other display of emotion would have been unseemly in front of the Eldred or the pedestal which symbolized all the belief structure that underpinned the Faith, she didn’t need it. He looked at her as though he could never get enough of doing so, and his blaze was darker than she had ever seen it. “We’ve dealt with them. This is the man who held you prisoner and struck you, isn’t he? I killed him myself.”
Too good to be true. She didn’t believe Captain Solarcis would deliver himself into their hands, ending their troubles so neatly, but she made her way to Artek and stopped clear of the bodies, so her boots wouldn’t be stained.
“You mean Captain Solarcis?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
There was an indrawn breath from the pedestal, and Artek’s look of satisfaction gave way to blank shock. “That—that’s not him?” He pointed at one of the bodies.
The clothes were what she remembered Captain Solarcis wearing, but although both faces were alike in their lack of a blaze, they weren’t the same person. Ruay knew at once why he’d done that. With the combat attracting all the guards, everyone in Palemount—
“Artek, search the place,” Greoc Rund’s voice snapped out. “Make sure the vault is secure as well. I want them found and stopped.”
“Yes, my lord.” Artek still sounded stunned, but the answer came from long training. The vault doors couldn’t be opened by key or by strength, so he didn’t need to take any of the guards with him for that. Instead, he gave them their orders, recovering as he always did when faced with a practical responsibility. Ruay stood off to one side, hoping no one would notice her as she thought fast.
Artek finished dividing Palemount so no corner would go overlooked and no efforts would be duplicated. The outer doors would be sealed with the Faith—but the Faith emanated from the vault.
So if Captain Solarcis could find his way out of the hollows and send Denalaits into Palemount, who was to say he wouldn’t know where the vault was too? As Artek set off alone, she fell into step beside him.
“You think he’ll be there?” he said, once they were well out of hearing of the pedestal chamber.
Ruay nodded, but she also thought, Not quite. I think he’ll be inside. Then we’ll see just what price we paid for what we needed.
Earlier that day, Vinsen lost two more men in climbing out of the hollow, though thankfully they didn’t die. He’d sent a scout up first, to make sure the grappling-iron was secured and that the lip of broken stone above them wasn’t likely to crumble away
, while the others spread their bedrolls on the ground below where they intended to climb.
Halfway up, Ewin fell and didn’t seem capable of rising to his feet, though after examining him, Brander drew Vinsen aside. “He says he’s in pain, but it’s not a broken leg. Could be a sprain, but the flesh doesn’t feel hot enough for that.”
“You’re saying he’s malingering.” Vinsen was torn between meting out discipline—that was a serious breach of duty on a ship—and the knowledge that this wasn’t the right place or time to do so. Besides, it also occurred to him that Ewin hadn’t exactly signed up to wander through an iceberg in search of Bleakhaveners with magic that had nearly killed them all.
Brander put his gloves back on, apparently concentrating hard on that task. “I’ve applied ice to his ankle, bandaged it and given him some laudanum.”
“Laudanum? He wants to sleep here?” Vinsen wouldn’t have dared close his eyes if he had been alone.
“Alvert Sladue is willing to stay and watch over him.”
“Ah. I’m guessing the two of them are friends, and worked out this arrangement?”
“It’s not for me to say, Captain. I can only report on the men’s medical condition.”
Vinsen gave up, mostly because there was no point in taking people with him against their will. The last thing he needed was someone who might break and run at a crucial moment. And in any case, the rest of the men seemed to have figured out what was going on, and some contemptuous looks were directed in Ewin’s direction as he was made comfortable in a corner of the cavern. Vinsen supposed that once they were all were out of sight, Ewin and Alvert would climb out on their own and return to Fallstar, so he silently wished them joy in answering to Joama under those circumstances.
Still, Joama wasn’t likely to kill them. So he said nothing more as his men reached the surface. Occasionally a bit of rock or ice would crumble away, but the surface held. The friction of the rope warmed his hands through his gloves as he climbed out, where Jak was releasing the dog from the makeshift harness she’d ridden in.
The Coldest Sea Page 18