Cold Fury: King's Convicts III

by Gail Z. Martin

  Blaine glared at Piran as the guards tied their wrists with rope and fastened the ends of their tethers to the back of the wagon. If the weather were better, Blaine might suspect the mage meant to have them dragged, but given the sleet and mud, the wagons would be moving at a fraction of their normal pace.

  Piran managed a defiant grin as the horses started forward, nearly pulling him off balance. “Don’t say a word,” Blaine growled, trying to keep his footing in the muddy ruts. “You’re not my favorite person right now.”

  The wind had picked up again, and though the rain was not as heavy as it had been when they were out to sea, the icy mix of sleet and hail cut their skin and clung to their clothing. The wagons lurched and struggled on the up-hill path, so that in addition to keeping their feet, Blaine and Piran had to watch out that the wagon did not slip back and run them over.

  Half-frozen ankle-deep mud threatened to pull their boots from their feet with every step. Their ropes were long enough to give them a few feet of leeway, but every time the wagon gained traction and surged forward, it jerked them hard enough that they staggered. More than once, both men slipped and fell into the muck. Ice frosted their brows and beards, forming a brittle skin over their coats and gloves, and hanging in little icicles from their hats. The rough rope bit into their wrists, cutting into their skin then freezing to the blood and pulling free with every movement.

  They did not waste their breath talking. Blaine was already tired from a full day of fishing, and the hardship and danger of the shipwreck pushed him into exhaustion. It took all Blaine’s waning strength to remain on his feet and stagger after the wagon, and by the time they saw the torches along the prison walls, Blaine’s teeth were chattering so hard that he thought he might break a tooth. Piran looked equally miserable. The fresh blood on his lip was frozen, and his face was bruised where he had hit the wall. They were both shivering so violently, the warmth and welcome of the colonists might have been a fever dream.

  The wagons stopped in front of the barracks. Blaine and Piran fell to their knees, utterly spent. Two soldiers came to cut their bonds. “Get up,” one of the soldiers snapped, giving Piran a kick in the ribs to underscore his order.

  “We’ll get them inside.” Teodor and Torr jumped down from the back of the wagon. Teodor got a shoulder under Piran’s arm, while Torr helped Blaine to his feet. It was all Blaine could do to force his legs to keep moving and his knees not to buckle. The guards did nothing to help or hinder them, but Blaine did not trust their luck until he and the others were inside their barracks and the door shut behind them.

  “By all the gods!” Dawe Killick was the first to spot Blaine, Piran, and the others. Dawe grabbed Verran Danning by the arm. “Come on!”

  Garrick and Dunbar also came running. Ernest gave a shout to rouse the rest of the barracks. During the long dark, Piran had trouble keeping track of time, but the smell of food filled the lower floor of their bunkhouse, suggesting that dinner was not long past.

  Five of the men on the herring boats were from Blaine’s barracks; the rest were drawn from other buildings. They had been spread among the ships, so luckily, not all had been aboard the Petrel. All of Blaine’s bunkmates had returned. Mason and the men who drowned were from other barracks.

  “To Raka with the overseers,” Hort said as he collapsed onto one of the benches near the small stove.

  “I second that,” Josten said, dropping onto the floor a few feet away. Blaine and Piran had practically been dragged from the wagon to the barracks, and it took Dawe and Verran to help them over near the heat.

  “You look like you’ve traveled the Unseen Realms,” Dawe observed worriedly. “Have you eaten?”

  Blaine tried to answer, but he was so cold that all he could do was nod. Piran leaned against the wall, eyes shut, barely conscious. Verran ran to get blankets, and conversation waited until all of the men moved close to the stove and had blankets to warm themselves.

  Verran put a pot on the stove to boil. ‘Tea’ in Velant was just a collection of plant leaves for flavoring, but Blaine could think of nothing he wanted more in the whole world, except perhaps a slug of good brandy.

  “It’ll take a bit to warm up,” Verran said apologetically. “Dinner was a couple of candlemarks ago. We saved your grog rations for you,” he added.

  “It’s been a bad run,” Josten said, and began to tell the others what all had happened during the herring expedition, including the last, doomed battle with the sea. Hort jumped in from time to time with more details. Blaine let them do the telling. He was utterly exhausted. But as bad as he felt, Piran seemed worse, and Blaine watched his friend with concern.

  “You might want to get some of the grog into Piran,” Blaine said finally, when he had warned enough to attempt to talk. “He had the worst of it from the warden-mage.”

  “Pox take his soul,” Verran muttered. “I meant the mage, not Piran,” he clarified, as he rose to get the grog. Verran returned with a bucket of watered rum and tin cups. The other men waited until Blaine and the returned fishermen had drunk their rations. Blaine could tell the others were desperate for any news of the colony or life outside the prison walls. He just wished he had better tales to tell.

  “So Carson’s dead?” Ernest asked. “I can’t say I’ll miss the blighter.”

  “There’ll be someone to take his place,” Shorty, one of the other bunkmates, said. “There always is.”

  “Unfortunately no one thought to push him overboard before the damage was already done,” Piran muttered, and Blaine was certain it was no idle threat. They had already agreed on the raft that they would keep the details of Carson’s death—and Teodor’s role in it—to themselves.

  “And if you had done it earlier, the catastrophe wouldn’t have happened, and no one would praise you for it,” Dawe said, sipping a cup of tea as he listened. “Warnings are all well and good, but sometimes the damage has to be done before anyone will actually listen.”

  Blaine knew that Dawe was right, but it still galled him that Carson’s stubbornness had nearly cost them all their lives. “Captain Davis knew better,” Blaine said, his voice rough and halting. “Carson wouldn’t listen.”

  “Of course not,” Verran said, contempt thick in his tone. “He’s an overseer. They know everything, or think they do.”

  “If the colonists make good on their promise to bring whatever barrels back they can reclaim, Prokief might not have quite a big a fit over it,” Shorty commented. “After all, it was his man who got you into the mess.”

  Dawe slid a sidelong glance at Shorty. “Do you think that will matter?” he asked. “The Commander might be even more upset because it was his person who caused the shipwreck. He knows we know it, and that’s going to gall him.”

  “I’m afraid Dawe’s probably right,” Blaine said. The cold, wet air had made his throat sore, and he could barely speak loudly enough to be heard. His voice sounded like a croak to his own ears, and he hated to think of how it must sound to the others. “Prokief’s men shamed him in front of us and the colonists. The boat captains are going to make an issue of it, and regardless, it can’t be undone. That’s going to rankle with Prokief. He’ll get even.”

  “Get even for being wrong? That’s rich,” Verran muttered. But they all knew the truth of it. Right or wrong, Commander Prokief was always ‘right’. The overseers who survived Prokief’s discipline for disappointing him would be out for revenge as well, since the warden-mage had called them to account in front of an audience.

  “Nearly makes me wish I hadn’t tried so hard to survive,” Hort said. “I suspect there’ll be Raka to settle with.”

  “What did you hear—about home?” Dawe asked. He looked from Blaine to Piran and then to the other men. “You were in the colony for a candlemark. Did they say anything?”

  “I heard that the Crooked House’s ale is almost as good as the Rooster and Pig’s,” Hort said.

  Verran gave him a skeptical look. “Hard to believe,” he said.r />
  “Wouldn’t count on it,” Blaine croaked. “We were talking with the owner. He still went on about the Pig’s bitterbeer.”

  “The lady who brought me my soup said not to be fooled,” Josten said. “Said that the Commander will try to lie to us about our Tickets, but that the king himself demands we be sent to the colony if we survive three years.”

  “Truly?” Dawe asked, perking up.

  “I imagine there are a few exceptions,” Hort said. “But that’s what the colonists told us. They seemed a bit urgent about it, like they knew we hadn’t heard it from Prokief. Apparently, he likes to make out that he has to give permission.”

  “If so, then I have some hope of getting out of here,” Piran rasped. They all chuckled, but Blaine and the others knew it was true. Piran had been enough of a thorn in Prokief’s side that the prison’s commander was likely to throw up whatever obstacles were available to him to keep Piran from going ‘free’. And since we’ve been partners in crime for most of his incidents, that goes for me, too, Blaine thought.

  “Donderath’s on the brink of war,” Piran spoke up. It hurt to listen to him, his voice was so raw.

  The other men looked at him wide-eyed. “What did you hear?”

  “Let me tell it,” Blaine said, since he had more voice left than Piran. Piran nodded, bowing to the circumstances. He told the anxious listeners what Ifrem had recounted, emphasizing that the news was third-hand at best and likely out of date.

  “Still, it’s something,” Verran said, uncharacteristically serious. “By Torven’s horns! We haven’t heard anything in almost three years. Wish it could have been better.”

  “Almost worth nearly drowning to get,” Piran said.

  Blaine slid a reproving glance toward him. “I don’t imagine the drowned men would agree.”

  Piran grimaced. “No, I suppose not,” he replied. “But any fight you walk away from—”

  “—is a good fight,” Blaine finished.

  “What do you make of the news? The fighting?” Dawe asked. He looked right at Piran. “You were a soldier, even if you don’t like to talk about it.”

  “Not much to go on,” Piran said quietly, his voice thready. “Who knows what was left out by the time the stories made it all the way up here? Right now, it’s still a border conflict. It won’t be an easy win if it becomes an all-out war. Meroven trains good soldiers. They’ll put up a hard fight.”

  “You’re worried.” Garrick met Piran’s gaze.

  Piran looked away and shrugged, but Blaine sensed his tension. “Maybe,” Piran croaked. They’re well-provisioned. Their commanders are sharp. They don’t accept failure. They’re your worst nightmare.” He frowned. “This could go badly. We’re too well-matched.”

  “What would happen to us, if we lost?” Dunbar asked. They all turned to look at him. He raised his hands placating, as if they questioned his loyalty. “I hope we don’t. I hope it never gets that far. I just mean, what if we did? Would Meroven bother sending ships?”

  Dawe leaned back, considering the possibility. “Gods, I hope it doesn’t come to that. But you’ve got a good point. If this becomes a real war and Donderath loses, how long would it be before Meroven even remembered we were up here?”

  “The ships wouldn’t sail without pay,” Ernest pointed out. “If there’s a war, no one might care about rubies, but they might still want the herring.”

  “They can have mine,” Blaine muttered. He has disliked the salty fish before he nearly died retrieving it. He doubted he would ever be able to eat herring again without remembering the fishing accident.

  “If Meroven won, they’d want to lay claim to all of Donderath’s territory,” Shorty said. “Including us. Rich men always want rubies. Question is—would we have all starved to death by the time they remembered to send provision ships?”

  “And would Meroven still keep Edgeland as a prison colony, or let us finally go home?” Verran wondered.

  Dawe gave a snort. “Speak for yourself. There’s nothing back in Donderath for me anymore. I’m better off up here.”

  Several of the men nodded. While Blaine suspected that all of them nursed secret dreams of a homecoming; in reality, most had little or nothing left back in Donderath. Even if I went back, what then? Blaine thought. Carensa is likely wed to someone else. I’ve been nothing but trouble for Carr, Mari, and Aunt Judith. I doubt any of them would welcome me with open arms, no matter how right they might think I was for what I did.

  It wasn’t the first time Blaine had been down this line of thinking. By the introspective looks on the faces of many of the men around him, he suspected that they, too, had come to the same conclusion. “This is home now,” Garrick said haltingly. The others looked at him, but he drew himself up.

  “If we get out of here, I get coin and land. The colonists sound like a decent sort, from what you said, better than my neighbors back in Donderath, that’s for certain. I know enough to build a cabin out of logs, and I can hunt and fish for food, earn some coin. It’s a hard life, but a damn sight better than what I’d have if I went home,” Garrick said, with a note of defiance as if he challenged the others to gainsay him.

  “I don’t think anyone would be giving land to the likes of us back in Donderath,” Verran said.

  “Maybe that’s because back home, it’s actual dirt and not just ice,” Piran managed to reply.

  Verran glared at him. “Maybe so. But it’s a better deal than what anyone was going to do for us in Donderath,” he said, “and we’ll all be around to watch each other’s backs.”

  “We’ll never really be freemen, not while Prokief’s around,” Hort pointed out.

  Verran gave a snort. “Can’t say that I was all that ‘free’ back home, if ‘free’ means having choices. That’s what got me where I am today. Up here, I might be able to eat without having to thieve for food.”

  “Play that whistle of yours at the Crooked House, and they’ll throw food at you to make you stop,” Ernest said with a grin, deliberately provoking him.

  Verran rolled his eyes. “I’ll have you know, I earned a mostly honest living playing for my dinner in more than one tavern,” he said, drawing himself up with a show of righteousness belied by the gleam in his eye. “At least, as far as anyone knew,” he added with a broad wink.

  I was noble, and hardly ‘free’, Blaine thought. Carr and Mari and I lived in constant fear of Father’s tempers. I didn’t feel very free being beaten for the old man’s whims, or sneaking around in my own house to avoid his rages.

  Curfew fell, and the guards banged on the door, warning the men to go up to their bunkrooms. Blaine helped Piran stand, but Piran waved off further assistance, limping on his own to the ladder and managing to climb unassisted on sheer, cussed will. Blaine was exhausted, and while he had regained feeling in most of his fingers and toes, his skin burned and his eyes still stung. Every muscle protested, and he was wretchedly tired. He had no idea what duties Prokief would invent for them come morning, and for once, he was too exhausted to worry about it before he fell asleep.

  PART THREE: The Hunt

  “I can’t believe he’s sending us out on the hunt.” Blaine flexed his left hand, still trying to regain all of the sensation in his fingers after nearly freezing aboard the herring boat. “Ifrem was right—Prokief is going to make it as hard as possible for us to earn our Tickets of Leave.”

  “I can’t believe that still surprises you.” Piran’s tone made no secret of his loathing for the commander. “He’s a sadistic son of a bitch.”

  It was the second day after their disastrous run on the herring boats, and well into their second day of confinement. A day’s confinement was normal when prisoner work crews changed assignments, moving from the mines to the herring fleet, or from the farm fields to lumbering. Two days was unusual, and it made Blaine wonder if Prokief might still be sorting out the debacle with the fishing boats.

  “What Mick means is, he can’t believe Prokief would want to be stuck with
the two of you any longer than he has to be,” Garrick said, and the others laughed.

  “Prokief doesn’t lose well,” Dunbar added. “Letting prisoners leave Velant alive might seem like losing to him. But he can’t kill all of us. King Merrill wouldn’t get his herring or his rubies. He might notice.” He shrugged. “Prokief’s a madman. Who knows why he does what he does?”

  “I didn’t survive all this time just to get killed on a hunt a few months before I earn my Ticket,” Blaine muttered.

  “Then get revenge. Don’t die,” Garrick replied.

  Blaine hoped it would be a simple as it sounded. Wolf hunts were a necessity when Edgeland’s wolves grew bold and ventured close to the prison stockade and into the farmyards of the colonists. During the white nights, when prisoners worked in Velant’s fields and headed to the forest for lumber, teams of wolf hunters made regular forays to cull the packs and weed out the most aggressive hunters. During the long dark, the prisoners had fewer reasons to venture outside the stockade, but it still benefitted both the prison and the colony for the wolf packs to be held at bay.

  Stuck in their barracks, there was little to do except sleep, wager, or talk. After almost three years together, none of the men, not even the thieves, would play Piran at cards. Some of the men huddled in small groups betting on dice. Verran leaned against the wall playing tunes on his pennywhistle. Of late, Blaine noticed Verran’s songs tended to be tavern ditties popular before they were exiled, and he wondered if it was Verran’s way of readying himself to earn extra coin playing at the Crooked House once they were released.

  Verran paused his playing and looked up. “Prokief must be pretty desperate to let the two of you have weapons,” he said. “Even with precautions.”

  “I suspect that’s why he’s made it very clear the rest of you are a surety,” Piran grumbled. Blaine, Piran, Carl, Jame, and Bickle had been assigned to the wolf hunt which would leave in two days. Many of them neared the end of their sentence at Velant, as did a few of their bunkmates. When Prokief announced the roster of hunters, he made it extremely clear that any attacks on the soldiers who accompanied the hunting parties or attempts to flee once outside the stockade would bring harsh reprisals against the prisoners left behind, and earn a noose for the miscreants when caught.