by John Gwynne
He had picked up the technique of rowing well enough – he’d pulled an oar a few times with the Gadrai, along the dark tree- shrouded waters of the Rhenus. He’d done better than others, anyway. Some of them were dead now, unable to master the technique, whipped until their backs were a shredded mess; some the fever took, others just collapsed with exhaustion. Regardless, they all went the same way, tipped unceremoniously over the side and fed to the river.
Orgull was still alive, a few benches in front of him. He was not in good shape, though. The warrior with the ruined nose made a point of visiting Orgull each day, giving him a taste of a whip or cudgel. One time he clubbed Orgull unconscious, then had him dragged down the centre isle and doused with a few buckets of water, then clubbed some more. Orgull took the torture in silence, his only response being to stare at his tormentor, which seemed to incite the man to greater acts of violence. Maquin was surprised even Orgull could survive the beatings he was taking, and manage the torture of rowing every waking hour.
Part of him just wanted to lay down his oar, to tell these pirates to go to hell, and smile as they sent him across the bridge of swords; part of him would welcome that. But there was a stubbornness in him that refused to quit, that refused to admit the battle was over. And one thought above all others kept him going. Jael. Each day he remembered the smile on Jael’s face as Maquin had been dragged onto the ship, remembered the man’s mocking laughter drifting after him. He fantasized about killing Jael, quickly, slowly, painfully, every conceivable way, and those thoughts stoked the fire in him, kept him pulling, league after league after league.
A shadow fell across him and looking up he saw Lykos, his captor and the leader of these corsairs staring down at him, arms folded across his chest. His face was unreadable, a sharp intellect dancing in his eyes. The pirate captain regarded him a long while.
‘You still live, then,’ Lykos said. Maquin was unsure whether it was a statement or a question.
‘Clearly,’ Maquin said, focusing on his rowing.
‘I mean in here,’ Lykos said, tapping Maquin’s chest. ‘The death wish is on you, I can see it plainly, but there is more to you than that – something deeper. A will to live.’
Maquin said nothing.
‘Most of your comrades with the death wish, they’ve gone over the side, food for fish by now. Yet you’re still here.’
Maquin shrugged.
‘I’m glad of that, my friend.’
‘I’m not your friend,’ Maquin said, unable to keep the passion from his voice. ‘And why do you care?’
‘No, you are right: you are not my friend. You are my property,’ Lykos said, grinning, his teeth white and straight. ‘And I would not say that I care. But I am interested. You may be useful to me.’
‘Isn’t pulling an oar for you use enough?’ Maquin asked.
‘I’ve something more entertaining in mind.’
‘What?’
Lykos grinned again, clapping Maquin on the shoulder. ‘We’ll talk again, when we’re home. If you’re still alive.’
As the days merged, Maquin began to judge the passage of time by the changing of the landscape around them. The rolling hills of Dun Kellen were far behind now, the horizon opening up into a flat vista, trees disappearing, replaced by tall, thick banks of reed and dense walls of scrub, punctuated by spindly sycamore and willow. Every evening was defined by great clouds of mosquitoes, and every morning Maquin would wake with a multitude of itching bites.
One morning their fleet landed against the silt-edged riverbank and they were all herded onto the spongy ground. A level of shock seeped through Maquin’s exhaustion and confusion as the corsairs began dragging their ships onto land, using thick, tar-crusted ropes. The ships came onto land surprisingly easily – they were sleek and shallow-draughted – and once out of the water the corsairs fetched the long timbers that they used as masts or kept as spares against storm damage. Maquin watched with growing understanding as the masts were placed under the prows of the boats and they were dragged further onto land, then the second mast put in place, and the third, the first one fetched from the rear and carried around to the front, beginning the process all over again. It was quite a sight, thirty ships being pulled across the land, all in a row.
Then orders were yelled and the whips started snapping, and he and his fellow captives were set to work, some put on the ropes to drag the boats across the land, others to do the running with the makeshift rollers. More than one man on that task ended up crushed under a ship’s keel. They crossed countless leagues of fenland, the ground flat and treacherous. After a day of this, Maquin was praying to return to rowing; a whole different set of muscles was feeling close to failure. Also his feet were quickly soaked through, and by the second evening felt as if they had swollen to twice their normal size.
On the third day they reached another body of water, only a little wider than a stream. They followed its course and within half a day it had widened into a river. Soon after, the fleet of ships was dragged back into water, Maquin collapsing for a few instants’ rest. Something bumped into him and he turned, looking up into Orgull’s bruised and swollen face.
‘Be strong, brother,’ Orgull whispered as he brushed past, being herded back onto their ship. Maquin did not have the strength or wits to respond, then Orgull was gone, trudging up a wide plank.
It took a while to get everyone back on the ships, into their places at the benches. Maquin used the brief moments of rest to empty his boots of water, then the oar drum was beating again and Maquin was back to the rhythm of pull, lift, stretch, dip, pull, over and over.
They rowed through leagues of swamp and fen, the smell of rotting vegetation mingling with the odours of the ship – of tar and timber, but mostly sweating men. Slowly the landscape around them changed, the river broadening as they reached the edges of marshland. The land became greener and soon Maquin saw trees again. A day after that and they were entering woodland, trees growing thick and dense upon the riverbanks, branches almost blotting out the sky, reminiscent of Forn, though not so ancient, not so daunting. A ten-night later the river curled out of the forest; a wooden fortress sat on a hill to the north. People watched them pass, warriors ranked upon the fortress walls arrayed in black and gold. They passed under a stone bridge that would have smashed their masts to splinters if they had been raised. Soon, the river widened into an estuary and Maquin heard the call of gulls. Now the masts were raised, great sails of cloth bound with strips of leather were unfurled and billowed as the ships met the swell of the sea. The beat of the drum increased and Maquin’s ship felt as if it was cutting a line through the waves, almost flying.
That first night on the ocean Lykos and his corsairs set a fire burning in a cauldron, with metal rods resting in the flames. Lykos soon approached Maquin, who was still chained to the oar and bench. Lykos was holding a rod of iron, a swirling design at its tip glowing white hot. With one hand and a knee, Lykos pinned Maquin down and pressed the rod into Maquin’s back, just behind his shoulder. There was a sizzling sound and the sudden smell of burning flesh. Maquin stifled a scream, struggling as pain lanced through him, but he was weak to the point of collapse, and Lykos had an iron strength in his frame.
‘Never doubt that you are mine, old wolf,’ Lykos whispered as he branded Maquin, the blood trickling hot and wet down his back. ‘I have marked you now, as my slave. You belong to me. This mark is part of you now, as am I, until death.’
‘Your death,’ Maquin snarled, jerking violently as Lykos released the pressure from his back.
‘That’s the spirit,’ Lykos laughed and cuffed him across the head.
The next day Maquin was shivering, his body burning. He was still led to his station at the oar, forced to row. The fever took him, giving him wild hallucinations. Gerda’s head on a spike, twisting to look at him, berating him for failing her son. Kastell, his body pale, bloodless, sitting on the chair in the burial chamber beneath Haldis. You failed me, Kastell said to him,
and Maquin wept, even as he rowed. He vomited, rowed through it, the stink of it turning his stomach, causing him to vomit once more, but he did not stop rowing. He knew if he faltered, if he stopped, he would be heaved over the ship’s rail. Some days he felt close to embracing that end, felt he had not the strength to pull one more stroke, but something kept him pulling. Jael. The thought of him was a burning coal in his gut, a cleansing pain, a beacon in an otherwise dark, fog-shrouded world. Rage kept him alive through those days, when others all about him surrendered to exhaustion and hopelessness and died. It was a cold white rage, burning, holding the emptiness of submission at bay, forcing a strength into his muscle and sinew that had otherwise long since departed.
Slowly the climate changed. Maquin knew that they must be moving towards autumn, but somehow it did not get colder; the opposite – it felt warmer, the sun brighter, the sea bluer. Some days he would see dolphins swimming parallel to the ship, racing it, sea spray sparkling like gems as they arced out of the water.
Always ahead of him he saw the broad back of Orgull, the benches thinning around him as men died, but Orgull was always there.
Time passed and the heat of Maquin’s anger began to dim, the flame fading; the thought of Jael seemed to lose its power, and a day came when Maquin could not even conjure up the man’s face in his mind. Despair closed in upon him; the knowledge that this was the sum of his existence, to pull an oar for the rest of his life, drained him of will and purpose. The only counter to this was that, slowly, a little each day, he felt his strength returning to him, a new power in his back and arms and grip, a physicality that he thought had deserted him. He welcomed it through the long days, nurtured it, prayed that he would have an opportunity to use it, even if only against Lykos, or any one of his captors. A last burst of defiance before the end came.
The next day, before highsun, Maquin spied a shape on the horizon – first a dark line, rapidly solidifying, growing quickly larger. Land. Rocky coves soon loomed close, waves smashing against high cliffs. The fleet followed the coastline until it reached a bay. Horn blasts echoed on the cliffs that surrounded it. Maquin’s ship moored up to a long quay that stretched out into the water, the other ships in the fleet dropping anchor in deeper waters. It was not long before Maquin and the others were herded from the ship, shuffling down the gangplank and onto a beach of white sand. Maquin and Orgull sat together, no words to say to each other, or no strength to say them.
In time, Lykos’ shieldman with the mangled nose, Deinon, approached and, unshackling Maquin, dragged him to Lykos. The sea shimmered turquoise behind the corsair.
Now is my chance, thought Maquin. His eyes flickered to Deinon, a thick-muscled man, each striated cord defined and shifting under his skin as he moved.
‘Don’t do it,’ Lykos said, a hardness in his voice. ‘It will be the last thing you do.’
Maquin’s fingers twitched but he resisted the urge. Small chance if I took them by surprise, none with them ready.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
Maquin stared sullenly at the corsair.
‘You are the only survivor from Dun Kellen I took for myself who has survived the voyage. True, I did not claim many – I am a generous man and shared your sword-brothers amongst my crew. But still, for you to survive the journey only to be cut down now would be a shame.’
They stared at each other a while, Lykos crossing his arms, fingers twisting the silver ring about his bicep.
‘I am leaving, almost immediately, and you will be staying here,’ Lykos said.
‘Where is here?’
‘Panos, one of the Three Islands. My home.’
‘And where are you going?’
‘Away. That is not your concern. But what I want to tell you is that I do not want to find you dead when I return. The death wish wars within you, I can see it still. It has not consumed you yet, but hopelessness feeds it. You feel you have nothing left, nothing to live for, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are mistaken. Deinon here was in your position once. He earned his freedom.’
‘Really?’ Maquin looked Deinon up and down. ‘Then why is he still here?’
‘I offered him a place as my shieldman. He chose to stay. Others have not – some leave, some stay and work my crew, some are now captains of their own ships.’
‘How?’
‘By fighting for me.’
‘I’ll not be a corsair for you – robbing, burning, murdering.’
‘Corsair is too good for you.’ Lykos snorted. ‘I am not asking anything of you,’ he continued. ‘I am not bargaining or negotiating. I am telling you the facts. One day soon you shall be thrown into a pit. Others will be thrown in also. Only one will come out alive.’ He shrugged. ‘You will be that man, or you will not. It is up to you.’
‘Pit-fighting,’ Maquin said, twisting his lips as if the phrase tasted sour. ‘I’ll not be your slave warrior, spilling others’ blood to earn you gold.’
‘That is up to you,’ Lykos said. He turned to walk away, then paused and looked back over his shoulder. ‘But I saw how you looked at Jael. A rare hatred you have there. I am giving you a chance – admittedly a very small one, but nevertheless it is a chance – to walk away from here, to find Jael and take your vengeance.’
He walked away then, called back as he left.
‘All you have to do is fight – and win.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CYWEN
Cywen was riding in a sprawling column. Behind her Rhin’s warband stretched all the way to the sea, the slate-grey waters merging with the horizon. The ships they had arrived on were just a mass of small dots bobbing upon the white-flecked waves. A little way ahead of her Nathair rode atop his lumbering draig, its head low to the ground, tail swaying from side to side. Beyond him Rhin’s warriors marched northward into undulating foothills.
Cywen leaned forward in her saddle and ran her hand down Shield’s shoulder, her fingers searching out the smooth circle of scar tissue. It was all that was left of the horse’s arrow wound. From his movement you would never know he had been injured at all.
Those Jehar are gifted – cursed but gifted, she thought, looking about instinctively to catch a glance of them. Amazing riders. She had been shocked to see that so many of them were women, and remembered them on the night Dun Carreg had fallen, how she had thrown knife after knife at them, seen the way they fought. She remembered their leader, Sumur, asking her questions about Gar. Why is he so interested in Gar?
Surrounding Nathair was a circle of the Jehar, all mounted, a substantial space between them and the draig. She had seen Nathair feeding it earlier, but it seemed very fond of horse, so the Jehar were wise to keep their distance.
The rest of the Jehar, and there were many of them, thousands, Cywen had noted, were riding out on the wings of this disordered column, appearing fleetingly between rolling hills and stretches of woodland. No one was likely to ambush Rhin’s warband in Cambren, her own realm, but the Jehar, apparently, were not inclined to leave such things to chance.
The sound of hooves grew behind her, out of time with the rest of them – faster. It was Veradis, the giant with the black axe striding easily next to him. Veradis pulled up beside her and glanced at her wrists. They bore red marks where she had been bound, though the ropes were cut now.
‘Bos, is she behaving?’ he asked the warrior who rode close to Cywen, her guard since the night she had tried to kill Morcant. He was a big man, bald though young and not as dim as she had first thought.
‘So far,’ Bos said. ‘Biding her time, maybe.’ He said it with the flicker of a smile.
‘Can you be trusted to not cause any trouble?’ Veradis asked her.
‘There’s a sea between me and Morcant now,’ she said, scowling. She had hated seeing him standing on the beach at Dun Carreg – her home – as she had sailed away. Just another thing to put on the long list of wrong in her recent past.
‘I know. But now that he’s not h
ere for you to obsess over, I am thinking you might turn your attentions onto someone else.’
‘Starting to regret cutting my bonds?’
‘A little. Should I?’
‘I hate you all,’ she said with conviction, ‘but there’s no one here I’d pick out above the rest to try and kill.’
The giant chuckled at that, a rumbling sound, like stones rattling down a hill.
‘Except perhaps Rhin,’ she added. Or Nathair. He played a part in opening Stonegate to Owain.
‘What about that lad, Rafe? I’ve seen the way you look at him. I think you might be tempted to try sticking a knife in him. I can’t have that.’
Is it that obvious? ‘It’s fair to say I don’t like him, but he’s not worth being tied all the way to wherever we are going. Domhain, I am guessing.’
‘You guess right. I think perhaps I should bind your wrists again.’
‘Please, no,’ Cywen said with feeling.
Veradis looked at her long and hard. ‘I’m going to trust you, against my better judgement, and leave you unbound. For now.’
‘My thanks. I will not cause any more trouble. Besides, if that friend of yours – Calidus?’
‘Aye.’
‘If he was right, then I am moving closer to my family – to Corban at least.’ She chewed her lip. ‘How could Calidus tell that Corban was across the water, in Cambren, just by touching Ban’s old smith’s apron?’ If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
‘I don’t know,’ Veradis said uncomfortably. ‘He is . . . gifted.’
The giant snorted. Veradis looked at him.
‘That was nothing compared to what he can do,’ the giant said. ‘If Calidus had a lock of hair, he could do much more.’