Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga)

by Gail Z. Martin

  Blaine squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to maintain control. He pulled her gently to him for another kiss, long and lingering, in lieu of everything he could not find the words to say.

  The footsteps of the guard in the doorway made Carensa draw back and pull up her hood. She gave his hand one last squeeze and then walked to the door. She looked back, just for a moment, but neither one of them spoke. She followed the guard out the door.

  Edward paused, and sadly shook his head. “Gods be with you, Master Blaine. I’ll pray that your ship sails safely.”

  “Pray it sinks, Edward. If you ever cared at all for me, pray it sinks.”

  Edward nodded. “As you wish, Master Blaine.” He turned and followed Carensa, leaving the guard to pull the door shut behind them.

  “Get on your feet. Time to go.”

  The guard’s voice woke Blaine from uneasy sleep. He staggered to his feet, hobbled by the ankle chains, and managed to make it to the door without falling. Outside, it was barely dawn. Several hundred men and a few dozen women, all shackled at the wrists and ankles, stood nervously as the guards rounded up the group for the walk to the wharves where the transport ship waited.

  Early as it was, jeers greeted them as they stumbled down the narrow lanes. Blaine was glad to be in the center of the group. More than once, women in the upper floors of the hard-used buildings that crowded the twisting streets laughed as they poured out their chamber pots on the prisoners below. Young boys pelted them from the alleyways with rotting produce. Once in a while, the boys’ aim went astray, hitting a guard, who gave chase for a block or two, shouting curses.

  Blaine knew that the distance from the castle to the wharves was less than a mile, but the walk seemed to take forever. He kept his head down, intent on trying to walk without stumbling as the manacles bit into his ankles and the short chain hobbled his stride. They walked five abreast with guards every few rows, shoulder to shoulder.

  “There it is—your new home for the next forty days,” one of the guards announced as they reached the end of the street at the waterfront. A large carrack sat in the harbor with sails furled. In groups of ten, the prisoners queued up to be loaded into flat-bottomed rowboats and taken out to the waiting ship.

  “Rather a dead man in Donderath’s ocean than a slave on Velant’s ice!” One of the prisoners in the front wrested free from the guard who was attempting to load him onto the boat. He twisted, needing only a few inches to gain his freedom, falling from the dock into the water where his heavy chains dragged him under.

  “It’s all the same to me whether you drown or get aboard the boat,” shouted the captain of the guards, breaking the silence as the prisoners stared into the water where the man had disappeared. “If you’re of a mind to do it, there’ll be more food for the rest.”

  “Bloody bastard!” A big man threw his weight against the nearest guard, shoving him out of the way, and hurtled toward the captain. “Let’s see how well you swim!” He bent over and butted the captain in the gut, and the momentum took them both over the side. The captain flailed, trying to keep his head above water while the prisoner’s manacled hands closed around his neck, forcing him under. Two soldiers aboard the rowboat beat with their oars at the spot where the burly man had gone down. Four soldiers, cursing under their breath, jumped in after the captain.

  After considerable splashing, the captain was hauled onto the deck, sputtering water and coughing. Two of the other soldiers had a grip on the big man by the shoulders, keeping his head above the water. One of the soldiers held a knife under the man’s chin. The captain dragged himself to his feet and stood on the dock for a moment, looking down at them.

  “What do we do with him, sir?”

  The captain’s expression hardened. “Give him gills, lad, to help him on his way.”

  The soldier’s knife made a swift slash, cutting the big man’s throat from ear to ear. Blood tinged the water crimson as the soldiers let go of the man’s body, and it sank beneath the waves. When the soldiers had been dragged onto the deck, the captain glared at the prisoners.

  “Any further disturbances and I’ll see to it that you’re all put on half rations for the duration.” His smile was unpleasant. “And I assure you, full rations are little enough.” He turned to his second in command. “Load the boats, and be quick about it.”

  The group fell silent as the guards prodded them into boats. From the other wharf, Blaine could hear women’s voices and the muffled sobbing of children. He looked to the edge of the wharf crowded with women. Most had the look of scullery maids, with tattered dresses, and shawls pulled tight around their shoulders. A few wore the garish colors and low-cut gowns of seaport whores. They shouted a babble of names, calling to the men who crawled into the boats.

  One figure stood apart from the others, near the end of the wharf. A gray cloak fluttered in the wind, and as Blaine watched, the hood fell back, freeing long red hair to tangle on the cold breeze. Carensa did not shout to him. She did not move at all, but he felt her gaze, as if she could pick him out of the crowded mass of prisoners. Not a word, not a gesture, just a mute witness to his banishment. Blaine never took his eyes off her as he stumbled into the boat, earning a cuff on the ear for his clumsiness from the guard. He twisted as far as he dared in his seat to keep her in sight as the boat rowed toward the transport ship.

  When they reached the side of the Cutlass, rope ladders hung from its deck.

  “Climb,” ordered the soldier behind Blaine, giving him a poke in the ribs for good measure. A few of the prisoners lost their footing, screaming as they fell into the black water of the bay. The guards glanced at each other and shrugged. Blaine began to climb, and only the knowledge that Carensa would be witness to his suicide kept him from letting himself fall backward into the waves.

  Shoved and prodded by the guards’ batons, Blaine and the other prisoners shambled down the narrow steps into the hold of the ship. It stank of cabbage and bilgewater. Hammocks were strung side by side, three high, nearly floor to ceiling. A row of portholes, too small for a man to crawl through, provided the only light, save for the wooden ceiling grates that opened to the deck above. Some of the prisoners collapsed onto hammocks or sank to the floor in despair. Blaine shouldered his way to a porthole on the side facing the wharves. In the distance, he could see figures crowded there, though it was too far away to know whether Carensa was among them.

  “How long you figure they’ll stay?” a thin man asked as Blaine stood on tiptoe to see out. The man had dirty blond hair that stuck out at angles like straw on a scarecrow.

  “Until we set sail, I guess,” Blaine answered.

  “One of them yours?”

  “Used to be,” Blaine replied.

  “I told my sister not to come, told her it wouldn’t make it any easier on her,” the thin man said. “Didn’t want her to see me, chained like this.” He sighed. “She came anyhow.” He looked Blaine over from head to toe. “What’d they send you away for?”

  Blaine turned so that the seeping new brand of an “M” on his forearm showed. “Murder. You?”

  The thin man shrugged. “I could say it was for singing off-key, or for the coins I pinched from the last inn where I played for my supper. But the truth is I slept with the wrong man’s wife, and he accused me of stealing his silver.” He gave a wan smile, exposing gapped teeth. “Verran Danning’s my name. Petty thief and wandering minstrel. How ’bout you?”

  Blaine looked back at the distant figures on the wharf. Stripped of his title, lands, and position, lost to Carensa, he felt as dead inside as if the executioner had done his work. Blaine McFadden is dead, he thought. “Mick,” he replied. “Just call me Mick.”

  “I’ll make you a deal, Mick. You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours,” Verran said with a sly grin. “I’ll make sure you get more than your share of food, and as much of the grog as I can pinch. In return,” he said, dropping his voice, “I’d like to count on some protection, to spare my so-called virtue,
in case any of our bunkmates get too friendly.” He held out a hand, manacles clinking. “Deal?”

  With a sigh, Blaine forced himself to turn away from the porthole. He shook Verran’s outstretched hand. “Deal.”

  Velant Penal Colony, Six Years Later

  CHAPTER ONE

  PUT YOUR BACKS INTO IT! WE NEED THOSE FISH.”

  Blaine bent forward, grabbed the rough rope net, and leaned back, working in time with the line of other men who helped to draw the catch on board. The fishing ship Pathi was a herring buss, a fat-bodied vessel good enough to weather the squalls of the Ecardine Sea but not well suited for escape.

  “Good work. That’ll keep the gibbers busy, I warrant.” The overseer stood behind them, chuckling at the size of the catch. “Empty them onto the deck and get the nets out again. Move. Move.”

  “I’m frozen to the bones,” groused the man next to Blaine. Broad-shouldered with muscular arms, the man had eyes as cold and blue as the sea.

  “Would you rather be gibbing?” Blaine asked, with a nod toward the men who scrambled into position to cut the gills and gullet from the fish before salting them and packing them into the barrels that filled the Pathi’s hold.

  “What’s the difference? They’re just as wet as we are,” the man replied, shaking his oilcloth slicker to rid himself of some of the water that had doused them as the net came on board.

  “I figure we’re warmer dragging in nets than sitting still gutting fish—and we might be able to get the fish stink off us once we get back to port,” Blaine replied. “C’mon, Piran, you know it’s true. The last time we got stuck gibbing, I smelled like a herring for a month after I got off the boat.”

  Piran Rowse chuckled. “You’re assuming that you don’t actually smell like that all the time.” Piran had the build and temperament of a fighter, with a muscular frame, a neck like an ox, and a head of thinning light-brown hair, which he preferred to keep shaved, even in the Edgeland cold. Both his face and his body carried the scars of too many fights for Piran to remember, although one jagged scar beneath his eye was a memento from a broken bottle in a bar brawl. His nose was flatter than it should have been and a little off-center, but his blue eyes could glint with merriment for good music and passable ale. Piran’s broad smile had no trouble winning him female companionship, an effect Blaine likened to the appeal of a friendly, but ugly, stray dog.

  From what little Blaine had been able to get out of his friend, Piran had been a mercenary, a onetime soldier, and a bodyguard. Which of those jobs had gone wrong enough to land him in Velant, Piran was cagey about saying. Blaine had met Piran three years ago, when they both were transferred from the miserable ruby mines to the equally miserable herring fleet. Since then, they had become fast friends.

  A high wave splashed over the ship’s side, dousing them. Blaine cursed, getting a face full of seawater. The oilcloth slicker, gloves, and pants could only afford so much protection against the cold northern sea. Even with thick woolen clothing beneath the oilcloth, there was no escaping a dampness that chilled to the bone. Blaine stamped his feet, wishing his heavy leather boots were more waterproof. “At least the catch is good today.”

  Piran grinned. “Good enough to earn us a full measure of grog tonight, I wager.”

  The ever-present smell of fish grew sharper as the gibbers did their work. Blaine and the others continued to haul the heavy nets in with their catch. Other men sealed the barrels of salted fish and carried them below. Shouting to be heard over the wind and the waves, the overseer called out directions and cursed those who moved too slowly.

  “Think the catch is good enough to keep us through the winter?” Piran asked as they shouldered into the next haul.

  “Don’t know. Why?”

  Piran glanced both ways over his shoulder before replying. “Just some of the talk I’ve heard among the guards. Said that the last couple supply ships weren’t as full as usual.”

  Blaine grimaced, standing back as the net cleared the railing and the deck shuddered with the weight of the catch. “If that’s the case, we’ll be living on herring and turnips before the winter’s through.”

  Piran made a sour face. “Not the first time I’ll have done with tight rations, but I’d rather have my belly full while I freeze.”

  A good day’s catch meant backbreaking work. This far north, the sun never completely set, making the six-month “white nights” season the time when convicts and guards alike pitched in to provision the colony for the half year of darkness to come. Blaine shivered. Even after six years, he hadn’t grown accustomed to the long subarctic nights. Donderath, half a world away, had a temperate climate, with four seasons and a winter that, while sometimes harsh, was nothing like Velant’s brutal cold and howling winds.

  After a twelve-candlemark shift at the nets, the “night” haulers came clomping up from the bunk rooms below with their heavy boots, growling and cursing at the cold wind. Weary and numb with cold, Blaine and Piran lined up to go below. Since it never got dark, the buss could fish day and night, and by alternating crew, give the men slightly more room in the cramped quarters belowdecks.

  In the cramped area of the hold set aside for crew, hammocks swung with the motion of the boat. It was cold enough that Blaine kept his oilskin coat on until the hold grew warm from the press of bodies. Piran had wandered off to find someone who was still willing to play him at cards or dice.

  “Give it up, Piran. I’ve already lost two measures of grog and my ration of smoke weed to you,” complained a raw-boned, red-haired man.

  Wide-eyed with feigned innocence, but barely suppressing a grin, Piran turned to the man’s companions and held out his hand with three dice on his open palm. They all groaned loudly. “Not since I lost my best socks to you, dammit,” complained one of the men.

  Piran’s smile widened. “I haven’t worn them yet. You might win them back.”

  Indecision clouded the man’s face for a moment before he nodded. “All right. For the socks.”

  Blaine turned away, chuckling. The longer the boat was at sea, the larger the number of fishermen who realized that Piran was uncannily fortunate when it came to games of chance. His luck stopped just shy of being so good as to raise accusations of cheating, though Blaine had known Piran long enough to suspect that sleight of hand, not magic, helped his chances considerably. Blaine had not played his friend for anything more valuable than a few measures of snuff since they had been in the mines together. On occasion Piran let him win.

  Later, when most of the men lay snoring in their hammocks, Blaine awoke as the ship rose and then fell so sharply that he was nearly thrown from his bed.

  “By the gods! A few more like that, and it’ll send us all to Raka,” Blaine muttered, hanging on to his hammock and hoping that his supper ration remained in his stomach despite the way the ship lurched and pitched.

  “If Raka is warmer than Velant, I’ll go willingly,” Piran replied, holding fast to one of the support beams, but to Blaine’s eye, Piran’s face had taken on a green tint.

  “Velant is where the gods send the men Raka turns away,” said the red-haired man, who had given up trying to stay in his hammock and braced himself between the hull and the support post.

  Water flooded down the stairs from the deck, and the hold erupted with curses. Bad as it was below, Blaine knew it was worse on deck. Storms arose swiftly on the Ecardine Sea, with gale-force winds and sleet that could cut skin. It was not unusual to lose three or four men overboard each trip due to storms. Blaine had no love for Velant, but the idea of dying in the cold northern waters, his body and soul forever prisoner to Yadin, god of the dark water, seemed an even worse alternative.

  That fate had obviously occurred to some of their fellow fishermen, because Blaine heard voices muttering prayers to both major gods and household deities alike, begging safe passage. Then a loud laugh cut across the hold, and Blaine looked at Piran.

  “Tell Yadin and his ice demons that he’s better off with the herr
ing than the likes of us. The herring have more meat on their bones,” Piran said. “As for the other gods, while you’re at it, see if they can magic up better grog. What we’ve got tastes like sheep piss.”

  The red-haired man scowled at Piran. “You mock the gods?”

  Piran laughed again. “I can’t mock what isn’t real.”

  The red-haired man looked as if he might take a swing at Piran, but the boat rose and fell again, sending him sliding across the hold to land hard against the other hull. Piran looked up at the deck above them as if it were the sky. “Is that the best you can do?”

  “Shut up, Piran,” Blaine muttered.

  Piran looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “When did you get devout?”

  Blaine shook his head. “I’m not. But I’d rather not clean you up after our bunkmates are done kicking your sorry ass.”

  Piran grinned. Two missing teeth were testament to just how much he relished a good brawl. “Let them try.”

  The ship canted hard to starboard, and several men lost their grip, slamming across the hold. Above their heads, they heard a crack like thunder, and the shouts and screams of men.

  “We’ve lost a mast,” Blaine muttered.

  Piran let go of his hold on the support post and gave Blaine a shove. “Get up the steps. Now!” All joking was gone from his face. In its place was a cold reckoning that Blaine guessed had gotten Piran through the wars he had survived, battles he would only talk about when drunk.

  Lurching like drunkards, Blaine and Piran stumbled across the hold. A few of the others struggled to their feet, realizing that if the ship were to go over, their odds of surviving were far better on deck than below. Many of the men remained frozen where they were, clinging white-knuckled to their hammocks or to the posts, eyes closed and heads down, praying.

  “Stay below!” a guard shouted as they reached the top of the stairs, and belatedly tried to shut the door against them. Piran and Blaine threw their weight against the door, sending the guard sprawling. When the man attempted to grab at Piran’s legs, Piran kicked him away.