by K. G. McAbee
Too soon, the soup was finished. Val wiped his mouth on his hand, seized his mug and downed the contents with one huge gulp. The fiery wine coursed through his veins, adding strength to his weakened muscles, clearing his still-addled brain.
"I was walking around the town earlier and…" Val began, anxious to tell Madryn of the strange happenings in the alleyway.
"And I have found us a ship to Lakazsh; it leaves tomorrow at noon," she interrupted. "I'm…eager to be shut of this pestiferous place, and we need to get to Lakazsh before the yearly caravan leaves for the mountains. If we don't, we'll have to travel alone, and that's not the safest way to journey to the Janus Ridge."
Val nodded. "While I was walking," he began again, "I entered—"
The harried boy reappeared with another tray, his return timed to coincide with the emptying of their soup bowls. Piling the dirty bowls on top of each other, he dealt out two plates already heaped with grilled fish and bread.
Madryn leaned closer to her plate and gave a suspicious sniff. She picked up a piece of fish that had fallen away from the bones and popped it into her mouth. "Good," she mumbled. "Do go on, Val. You were walking in town. And?"
Val opened his mouth—then shut it. What could he tell her? The images were fading away even as he tried to grasp them. He remembered little more than awakening in the alley, a dirty boy slapping his face.
"It's a strange town," he said at last.
Madryn nodded. "Well, we won't be here much longer, and that's a relief. Eat your supper."
They exchanged no more words as the fish disappeared, followed by huge slabs of yellow pudding that tasted faintly of grapes.
At last, they were both replete and sleepy after too much food and wine. Val had almost managed to still the questions that still plagued him. He leaned back in his chair and gazed about the crowded room.
Madryn's hand locked onto his knee under the cover of the table. Val just managed not to jump; he also just managed not to let a silly smile spread across his face.
"Those three, there at the table closest the door. I think they're watching us," she whispered, her lips barely moving.
Val glanced about the room again, his eyes moving idly as one who has dined too well and is interested in nothing. The three that Madryn pointed out—two men and a woman—were armed with swords and daggers. They sat, sipping from mugs, their eyes playing over the entire room.
Except for the table where sat Madryn and Val.
"Yes, you're right," Val nodded, his voice loud as if he were far gone in drink. "It's time for bed."
Madryn nodded and rose, shoving her chair back so hard that it bounced off the wall behind her. The resultant clatter, falling as it did in the midst of a momentary silence, brought heads turning toward them from all over the room.
Except for the heads of the three near the door.
Chapter Seven
"I believe it's time to return to the inn, don't you, Val?"
Val groped for his swordbelt at Madryn's whisper; he watched as she rose to her feet and began to clumsily buckle her own belt.
The three at the table still did not glance their way.
Val buckled his belt and checked his boot dagger as Madryn tossed coins on the table to pay for their meal; then they made their way to the door.
The three who had been so carefully not watching them rose and followed them out the door. Outside, it was full dark, with a sickle moon riding high in a starry sky. For the moment, the street was empty. Val followed Madryn toward their inn.
There was a rush and a clatter behind them, just as they reached the mouth of an alleyway. Pale moonlight glinted on steel, on ruddy bronze, as a stern voice ordered "Halt!"
Val's sword sprang from its scabbard like a living thing; Madryn's was already out. Without words they maneuvered back-to-back, Val with a fleeting sense of surprise at her skill and knowledge. But he had no time to wonder long. A sliver of steel came flashing towards him; he flung up his sword to meet it. Sparks flew in the dim night. The clang and clash rang up and down the street, as from the shadows there sprang the watchers that always appear when trouble erupted.
Madryn parried the thrust of a slender blade with surprising skill, even as Val tore his eyes away and fought off an attack from a short woman who knew full well which side of a sword to grasp. A sighing gasp echoed behind him and he heard the sound of a body collapsing onto cobblestones.
Another filled the gap thus created, with another behind him, Val noted with quick glimpses over his shoulder. Then he had to give up watching Madryn as his own blade was engaged again and again. Strong blows, slashing at throat and belly, aiming for a kill instead of a crippling. This was no robber attack, meant to steal their coins and blades. Nor were they after an escaped slave, to take him back for vengeance. These people wished Val and Madryn dead.
Why?
The crowd grew; the townsfolk had not had such an entertainment in a long while. Val could feel Madryn's body behind him, her back pressed to his. He struck out, flinging away a blade seeking his throat, then yelled at her over his shoulder, "Run!"
To Val's surprise, the maddening woman laughed at him!
"Not this time, Val." Madryn disposed of another attacker with a quick, vicious thrust. Then she shouted, "Tax collectors!"
At once, the gawking bystanders were transformed into a yelling mob. The three who had first attacked them, added to the other four that had been waiting in the alley, were overcome by a mass of club-wielding, rock-throwing, enraged and murderous townsfolk.
"Now we run!" Madryn shouted. Seizing Val's arm, she raced with him, twisting through the angry mass of people to the safety of their inn's front door.
The innkeeper was waiting for them. They shot inside and she slammed the door to, barring it with a stout board.
Panting, Madryn leaned against the wall, her tawny hair drooping about her sweaty face, her sleek leather boots spattered with mud and filth.
To Val, she had never been more desirable.
"How did you know to shout that?" he gasped.
"A guess," she grinned. "But a calculated one, in a village as poor as this."
***
Val patted Daemon's glossy neck and whispered soothing words into a twitching, upright ear. The two of them stood on the shore next to the quay. Tied to the ramshackle pier was the Atria, her stout, broad outline not looking particularly seaworthy to Val. But then, he'd never been to sea, so he didn't think he had much right to judge.
Daemon tamped one hoof in irritation; the sodden earth that coated the shore was stuck in his hooves and as he stamped, great clots of mud the color of dried blood flew in all directions.
Madryn stood on the spotless deck of the tubby craft. She was arguing with the captain, a small man with the widespread legs of a sailor. Up to now, Captain Zenobio had had little trouble understanding Madryn's speech, but he had suddenly lost the habit of it. He gabbled and shook his head as she held out a handful of silver coins.
"This is the price we agreed upon, Captain," Madryn insisted. "Half now, half when we reach Lakazsh."
The captain shook his head; it was wrapped in a colorful red cloth woven in the southern plains and traditionally worn by sailors. He spat over the side of his craft, his study legs braced for the waves that did not enter this peaceful harbor.
"More," he said. "The horse will take up valuable cargo room. Another three pieces of silver or you find another way."
Madryn shrugged and handed him another coin. "The rest when we arrive," she said.
A stream of profanity gushed from the captain's mouth around stumps of teeth that resembled brown fence posts rotted from bad weather.
Val watched the bargaining continue as he thought back over the events of the previous evening.
***
The streets outside their inn were empty; they could see no one as they gazed down from the window in the corridor. No fallen warriors. No stricken saviors.
No one at all.
; "Why were they after us?" Val looked at Madryn in the pale moonlight trickling in through the unshuttered window.
She shrugged. "I don't know." She closed the shutter and latched it. "Could have been a number of reasons."
Val took her arm and spun her around to face him. "They were after me, of course," he said, not caring that his fingers dug into the flesh of her upper arm.
Madryn gave no sigh of pain, nor did she try to shake off his fierce grip. "I don't think so. But even if they were, what could we do about it? Give you to them? That's not one of our options, Valaren."
Val looked up and down the corridor. All doors were closed. Even so, he lowered his voice to the merest whisper…though the intensity in that whisper was louder than if he'd shouted the words. "I'm not Valaren," he said. "I'm Valerik. An escaped slave. And if they catch you with me, we're both dead. I'm leaving tomorrow. Alone."
Could he leave her?
"No. We're both leaving tomorrow." Madryn shook off his hands with an ease that surprised him, then strode towards their room at the end of the hallway. At the door, she paused, looking back at him. "Well? Are you coming in? Or do you want to sleep out here?"
Val looked at her, standing impatiently, one hand on the latch. An image of her naked body rose before him—stripped, whipped and cast out, to be hunted by a pack of ravenous hounds. A chill went through him at the very thought; a chill that had gone through him dozens, hundreds of times since they'd met and begun this strange journey together.
Damn the woman, he thought. When he wasn't burning for her, he was freezing for her. With a sharp bark of laughter at his thoughts, he followed Madryn into their room. She slammed the door behind him with unnecessary force.
"Valerik," she said distinctly as she watched him unbuckle his belt, "we are in this together. I need you. I need your help. I had hoped, at the beginning, that I would need no one's help, but I was wrong. Now I know I cannot…"
Val paused in the act of unbuttoning his shirt. "Cannot do what?"
Madryn shook her head, wandered over to the tiny grate that held dying embers. She gave a vicious kick to a log, leaned against the mantel; her back was to Val. "I'm going south to finish something I started long ago. I thought I could do it alone, but it appears I cannot. I need your help," she repeated. "I can't tell you any more just now, but I need your help."
Val sat down in the room's only chair. "Is that why you helped me, back in the forest?"
"Why else?" Madryn shrugged.
Why else indeed, he thought. Why else would she have helped a slave? She had no doubt been on watch even then for someone whose aid she could enlist. Val was just the one who came along first. For a moment he allowed himself to sink to abysmal depths of despair, worse than he had felt when on the run for his life. Gone were the rosy dreams of Madryn helping him because she'd been drawn to him from the first. Foolish dreams, he had known from their outset, but they had proved irresistible. Like a drug, they had filled his mind with hope and comfort.
But now Val knew the truth. Madryn had used him, would continue to use him for as long as she needed him. Them she would cast him aside and go on with her life. What else could he have expected, really? He was a slave, after all.
"Val," Madryn began.
He interrupted her, his voice harsh and unyielding "It doesn't matter. I'll do all I can for you. If they catch us, I'll say I forced you to take me. You can say the same. They'll believe a noblewoman like you." He laughed. "The ones who haven't seen you fight, at any rate."
Madryn turned to face him at last. There was a look in her eyes that Val had never seen before, a look he had never seen in anyone's eyes at all.
But Val's pain was too great at this moment to examine that look further. If he had, he might not have felt the way he was feeling now.
He might have shouted for joy.
Chapter Eight
The good ship Atria wallowed like a cow in the rolling waves. Val's stomach surged in sympathy.
They had been at sea for six days and until today, his stomach had been a gentleman…although his dreams had not. Ever since his adventure in the alley, he had tossed and turned each night, caught up in powerful dreams, only to awaken each morning, tired and bleary-eyed. Strange images, confused and frightening but somehow oddly…familiar…haunted his sleeping mind; images he could not recall clearly when he awoke, save for flashes and shreds.
Val debated about telling Madryn of his dreams. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. He had told her nothing about what had happened—what he thought had happened—to him in the alleyway at the time, and since then she'd been distracted and worried. Val had no desire to add to her anxiety. They had passed their days on board the small craft apart, avoiding each other as the gentle waves rolled the broad-beamed ship hypnotically from side to side.
But today the waves were enormous. The storm that had been brewing all morning was increasing in intensity, and Val's insides were reacting to the shifting, rolling deck. He held tight to the frayed rope that stretched down from the forestay sail as the stubby craft pitched, laboring to stay afloat in the heavy seas. The Atria was a two-masted galley, and Val tried to shut out the terrified cries of the galley slaves as they stood to their oars in the dank hold below.
Captain Zenobio shouted some unintelligible nautical term from his precarious position on the afterdeck. A brace of sailors sprang to the ropes, swarming up them like apes from the southern jungles. High above, in a position so elevated that Val's neck hurt every time he tried to look up at it, the crow's nest harbored a restless sailor with a spyglass growing from one eye.
They were in pirate waters. The captain had told Madryn and Val about the area the previous morning, before the seas had become so heavy. Pirates. Just what they needed. Val could almost feel the weight of a slave collar around his neck again. For if they were captured, they would either be held for ransom or enslaved. And who'd pay a ransom for him?
Val looked up as Madryn slithered down the afterdeck ladder and, seizing handholds where she could, made her slow way through the salt spray towards him. Stopping a length or two away, she shouted over the roaring winds, "Captain says go below!"
Val reached out for a fresh handhold while releasing the one he had—just at the worst possible time. A wave struck the slab-sided craft and rolled her sideways, immersing the larboard side almost to the gunwales in foaming salt water. Val, caught between handholds, grabbed frantically at the multitudes of hanging ropes that draped the ship. As if toying with him, they stayed just out of his grasp; he stumbled sideways, towards the low barrier that was his only protection from the raging seas. He tripped; fell to his knees, his mouth full of salt and fear. The sodden deck, awash knee-deep, offered no foothold and Val began an inexorable slither towards the waist-high railing.
A strong hand caught hold of Val's shirt and heaved him into a tangle of ropes that had come loose from the mainmast. He thrust his hands into the mass of rough hemp and wrapped lengths about both arms.
"Graceful as ever," shouted Madryn into his ear. She held on with equal desperation beside him. A wave washed over their heads and, as if in answer to it, a moaning roar rose from below decks—where the galley slaves sat chained to their posts.
A crack like a cannon ball sounded over their heads. Val spat out a mouthful of seawater and looked up, expecting to see the mainmast come tumbling down onto their heads. It had indeed cracked in half, but it dangled, trapped and entangled by the huge canvas sails.
Around them, sailors clung to the woven ropes. One poor woman, her eyes starting from her head, was so entangled that a loop had encircled her neck, choking the life from her struggling body as others around her watched, helpless.
But surely the waves were dying down, their intensity lessening? Val would have prayed so, if he had known the names of any gods.
A slippery rope slid through Madryn's hand and she snatched at another. Unattached, it gave way as well, falling as limp as a lifeless snake. Val grabbed her by her
silk shirt—it split with a sound like a rotten stick breaking in his hand. Her back was bare to the waist.
Val felt himself go cold, even though the sultry, stormy seas were warm. Crisscrossing Madryn's back were long scars, a sick pale white against her brown skin.
Val knew what made scars like those. He had a quite impressive collection on his own back. A lash. A whip, long leather strips interlaced with metal wires or bits of sharp bone, that would cut through the skin and bring blood from a single blow.
A shrill whistle sounded above them. From the still intact foremast, a shout: "Land ho! Land, Cap'n!"
Val gave a mighty jerk and pulled Madryn to him, her bare back hidden against his broad chest, one brawny arm around her waist, while the other held them both safe in the tangle of rope.
A wave rose up, up, higher than the broken mainmast, higher than any other wave they'd seen. It broke over the Atria, pouring its huge weight of water onto the frail craft.
But the Atria was made of far sterner stuff than she looked. She shivered like a dog bitten by a snake as the horrible weight cracked and split her aging timbers.
But she stayed afloat.
Val hugged Madryn tight, her hair plastered across his face. Against his straining arm, he could feel the quick but steady beat of her heart. She twisted in his grip and he was at once filled with the fear of losing her. He pulled her closer still, amazed that even now, even with their lives so close to what might be the end, he could feel a wild sort of thrill from her nearness. He threw a leg across her as well, just to increase that blessed contact. For now, for all the time that they might have left, he would have her for his own.
With a snap of cracking wood, the broken mainmast tore free from its entangling mass of sail. Val watched in hopeless fascination as it drifted down in a slow and stately fall from grace. It tumbled end over end.
And landed full atop Val and Madryn. A smothering mass of sodden and dripping canvas settled over them like a shroud. One splintered piece of spar cracked Val sharply over the head and he fell down, down into the waiting darkness.