by Andy Roberts
‘Tip us over, so you will,’ Brae warned when the hireling attempted to climb in. Sly released his grip and no longer able to reach the seabed with his trailing foot, let the boat pass by. His fingers grabbed at the stern; clawed at it and just managed to hold on. He held as tightly as his failing grip would allow, keeping his head low when another volley of quarrels rained down around them. He knew he had to move now or risk being taken away by the current. He heaved with all his might—the bow rising high out of the water—and screamed with pain as he fell onto the wet, inner hull of the boat. Brae saw the shaft sitting proud of the hireling’s left shoulder blade and considered his few options. Should he go back and hand the man over in exchange for his own life? But who were these people and what did they want? He thought about rowing along the coastline and making his way to the city docks?
‘You get us to that ship out there on the strait,’ Sly said as if reading his mind. He lay on his front shivering violently with both cold and pain, unsure if he’d still be alive when the boy got them there.
Chapter
— 24 —
Rhilf had said far too little in warning. The extent of the damage inflicted upon the inn was truly shocking and well beyond anything Madoc could ever have anticipated. Not a single wall stood taller than a grown man’s shoulders, no beam or window left in place. The farmer saw his best friend talking to the girl and made his way towards them, weaving amongst villagers who were loud with their grieving. He hugged the innkeeper hard. ‘We’ll raise ourselves some good men from the village and—’
Griff pulled away. ‘It’s over. Go home while you still can.’
Madoc frowned. ‘And leave Brae to Gendrick?’ He shook his head. ‘Not likely.’
Griff caught him by the sleeve. ‘You saw him too?’
Madoc spent a good few minutes recounting his own eventful night and then asked about the druid. He slid Windsong off his shoulder and held it in his open hands. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the thing was talkin’ to me the whole way home.’
‘Can’t see him anywhere.’ Philly stopped a villager but when she asked, the old woman waved her away and went back to weeping.
‘Better off without him, so we are.’
‘But we have Windsong now?’ Philly reached for it but Griff pulled it from her, caught it at one end and hurled it into the smouldering ashes.
Brae's forearms burned and his legs felt heavy enough to sink the boat. The shallows had been choppy but the black water of the Wandering Depths carried them up and down on swells that each time threatened to tip them head over heels. His breath came in hot gasps and he fought hard to keep sight of the waiting ship.
Sly reached for an oar but his shoulder wouldn’t allow it. The quarrel was caught tight in the joint, gnawing at the ligaments, rendering the limb almost useless. ‘Pull it out of me.’ He turned and had Brae rest his boot in the middle of his back, screaming terrible words when the shaft was withdrawn without warning.
‘They must make them that way.’ Brae tossed the headless quarrel into the water. The hireling grabbed for him, crying out again as metal ground against flesh and hard bone. ‘I’ve read that some bowmen tip their arrows with poison.’ The teenager smiled widely as he spoke. ‘Either way, you’re a dead man.’ Sly wanted to run the boy through and hurl his butchered body into the churning ocean, but he didn’t have the strength and knew that his most recent movement was the likely cause of the increased bleeding.
Gendrick stood on the main deck of the Raven, watching as the dory entered calmer water beyond the fast-moving rip-tide. The boat tilted violently to one side, then righted itself on the flatter surface, turning one hundred and eighty degrees as it broke free.
‘Book and boy,’ Snake said triumphantly.
‘Raise anchor when they’re on the lower steps.’ Giblin set about issuing orders to a crew that got to work with a telling hush and a noticeable quota of trepidation. Gendrick took a vellum telescope from a slot near the ship’s wheel and extended it by a half-length before putting it to his eye. He searched the water, took the glass away and looked around it before finally settling the viewer on the little rowing boat.
‘What’s wrong?’ Snake ducked from the wind and watched as Gendrick twisted the brass eyepiece first one way and then the other.
The minister sighed, his brow deeply furrowed. ‘I think Sly might be dead.’
The poisoner sniffed. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked. ‘We have everything we need.’
The Raven was intimidating close up and Brae had to crane his neck to see who was barking orders at him. The sailor dropped an armful of oily coils before he could properly ready himself. ‘Now tie it to the cleat.’ The man’s voice was barely audible above the slap of the waves and the sound of the dory banging against the side of the ship. Brae pulled on the rope, his fingers well beyond numb with cold. They burned and stung at the same time, so much so that he couldn’t get them to tie a hitch knot. He bent and used his teeth to wind four wraps of rope to it instead. The man was back, leaning as though preparing to dive in. Brae stood and wobbled, put a foot accidentally on his captor and nearly fell between the two vessels. He grabbed for the ladder, steadying himself against the hull of the Raven and shoved an arm between the slatted, wooden rungs. The ladder swung violently and twisted the wrong way round, slamming him against the oak boards, threatening to feed him to the hungry sea. Brae faced the shore and pushed with his buttocks, heaved and righted himself, managing only two more rungs before twisting again. He dug deep and found the strength from somewhere. Above him, was the impassive face of Vaspar Gendrick. Below, Tyne-Sly lying motionless in a puddle of seawater stained as red as the distant sky.
Tamulan left as they grieved, disappearing into the distance while they were all too preoccupied with their individual and collective losses to notice. He made his way to Madoc’s farm, knew of course that the farmer wasn’t there. He rustled the tallest horse. A chicken clucked and a woman called, but no dog came barking, no farmer carrying a pitchfork or loaded fire-lance. For the druid, life was but a series of considered decisions made on the basis of logic. Emotion blunted the senses as easily as rock does sharp steel, a sentiment that had delivered many a good man to a cold grave. He chose Thresk in the first instance and after that, he wasn’t sure. The winter snows would make the mountain pass to Ewloe impossible to negotiate without risk of falling to his death. Thresk offered several advantages over anywhere else—possessing an all year round mild and dry micro-climate, it was quite unlike that of any of the other near-lands. Now that he’d cleared the border of Randor and entered no-man’s-land, the temperature had already increased by several degrees, his passage made easier by an almost total lack of snow. He could keep his ear to the ground in Thresk and monitor what was happening in Randor. Longer-term options were short in supply now that Gendrick had everything he required—and without Windsong, it was hopeless. Tamulan lowered his hood and set the bare-backed stallion on a gallop.
Snake grabbed a handful of Brae’s shirt-collar and dragged him onto the wet deck.
‘Fetch blankets and dry clothes,’ Gendrick told the toothless sailor.
The man straightened and held the rope in his outstretched hand. ‘And this?’ Gendrick took it from him and let it drop. The sailor peered over the side, looking for his end of the rope. Snake took his cue and forced his boot into the man’s buttocks, sending him somersaulting into the waiting sea.
‘Anyone else want to leave before we get going?’ Gendrick asked the captain and crew. He reached for a length of rigging as he felt the deck shift beneath him, the ship’s sails bloating on the masts like a dress-shirt straining against a lawmaker’s belly.
Tyne-Sly sat up in the dory when it moved away from the Raven. ‘You’re taking us in the wrong direction.’ He rubbed his eyes, cursing when his shoulder stuck fast. The boy was sat in front and not behind as he’d been earlier. Sly kicked out with his boot and then wished he hadn’t when the oarsman turned to r
eveal a gaping neck wound that blew red, frothy bubbles. A baby cried, taking the hireling’s attention to a point beyond the bleeding man and to a young woman who sat alone. She stood and unbuttoned her blouse, exposing her bare breast to him. The baby cried more loudly. Sly’s eyes searched and found the child lying on the floor of the boat, splashing in the cold water, nothing but skin and bones. He looked to the woman once more and saw that her breast was old and withered and long without milk. He wondered how it could be so, that one so young… But now that he checked again, he saw that she wasn’t young. The woman was a hag, bent at the hips and every other part of her that should have been straight. She rubbed her fingers together and mixed spit with grit.
‘There must be punishment,’ she said moving towards him.
Philly rested on a shovel that only hours earlier had been used to clear snow in the village. ‘How do we keep the night-dwellers away from them?’
Griff stared into the grave and swallowed. ‘Not enough left to eat.’ His tears came thick and fast, no matter how hard he tried to keep them away. ‘Help me,’ he said trying to get into a sitting position so that he could lower himself into the hole. They did, and then without words, buried each and every one of them. When they’d finished, Philly stepped alongside the mound of earth and began to sing. She wasn’t a worshipper of Gods, life had convinced her already that the deities didn’t listen to people like her. She knew no hymns and chose something that her mother had sung during happier times. It was sweet and uplifting, like the first flowers blooming in early spring. She nestled against the innkeeper and wished with all her heart that she could save him the pain he now felt. She didn’t falter and kept it going to the very last word. When she finished, Griff couldn’t speak—didn’t need to. All the thanks he could ever give were spoken by his eyes. Philly knew that things couldn’t be left as they were, that if she was to help him, then she’d need to abandon her new ways and live again as an enchantress.
‘There’s room at the bakery,’ Rhilf said with a kind smile.
Griff gave a nod of thanks. ‘Goin’ up to Madoc’s farm, so we are.’ He felt calmer now, as though an enormous weight had been shifted from his weary shoulders. He caught the farmer’s eye. ‘I want you to show me where you last saw Brae.’
‘You need to rest,’ Philly told him. ‘Your foot must be raw.’
‘Food too,’ Madoc agreed. ‘You’ll be no good to Brae if you don’t.’
As they headed for the farm, something shifted in the ashes of what was once the inn. It was alive and almost ready to leave in search of its master. A scaled wing moved with the awkwardness of a turtle covering its eggs on a sandy beach. Then a second appeared, moving with the same paddle-like motion. A long neck and serpentine tail followed next, the creature pushing itself fully upright onto two clawed feet. As the innkeeper and his group disappeared from sight, Windsong took to the air and headed for Thresk, growing to her full size with every beat of her wings.
Chapter
— 25 —
Thresk was almost completely flat, visible from the west side of no-man’s-land well before the druid crossed its open border. He knelt near a stream to fill his cow-bladder waterskin, gulped a good volume and rinsed the dust of the road from his dry mouth. The cold water made his teeth ache and he shuddered as it snaked its way to a place of rest somewhere deep inside of him. He lay the waterskin flat in the bubbling spring and used the palm of his hand to expel the air before forcing a cork stopper tight in its neck.
Tamulan rose with a weary sigh and not wanting the thirsty stallion to take too much water and develop a debilitating colic, led it away from the stream. He let it graze on a patch of nearly-green grass while he stared into the distance at the three, golden domes of the Royal Palace. King Kwoten was no doubt in discussion with his advisers, arguing the finer points of law, deciding whether or not a declaration of war was at all legal.
With his steed fed and watered, the druid climbed onto its bare back and rode into Thresk.
‘Where would we even start?’ Philly asked. ‘They could have taken Brae anywhere.’ They sat at the farmhouse table with cups of hot tea, a log stove providing warmth and a cooking surface. Madoc’s wife, Milda toasted doorstops of homemade bread on a wire grill, applying lashings of butter and raspberry jam from a couple of small, glass jars. She stacked the toasted slices and rushed about without complaint, keeping up with the hungry demands of the exhausted breakfasters. Philly forced a slab of toast into her cup, not caring when on the way to her mouth, she dripped a delightful butter-tea mix along the woodwork and all down the front of her.
‘Takin’ him to the strait, so they are.’ Griff put his cup down and looked towards the window above the sink, and then to the snow-covered fields well beyond. ‘Have to find ourselves a ship, so we will.’
Philly moved her cup out of harm’s way, just in case. ‘Is there no way we can look for the druid first?’
Griff slammed his open hand into the space she’d left. ‘Bollocks we can,’ he said without apology. Milda pursed her lips but given the circumstances, let it pass. ‘Left us to our fate, so he has.’
‘You told him to go, what choice did he have?’
Griff stood and toppled the toast-rack as his hip hit against the corner of the table. He righted it and brushed the crumbs onto the floor. ‘We don’t need him,’ he said leaning across the space between them wearing a misplaced grin. ‘Not when we’ve got our very own enchantress.’
The healer worked on Brae in near silence and was himself, little older than his patient. ‘Warm him too fast and we won’t be able to reverse his faint,’ he explained with an authority that belied his lack of any real-world experience.
Gendrick loomed over them. ‘If he dies, then so do you.’
The minister’s words did little to put off the healer and he soon had a sharp quill inserted into a plump vein at the front of Brae’s elbow. He took the length of thin, rubber hose that was one end attached to a bottle of warmed fluid and slid the other end over the chamfered hub of the white quill. ‘As he warms, he’ll need lots of fluid to prevent a deep faint.’ He put two fingers against the inside of one of Brae’s wrists and counted as he tapped his foot. ‘He’s got a strong heart.’
Satisfied that the healer knew what he was doing, Gendrick came away and hovered over the tatty sea-chart. ‘Is it deep enough for a ship of this size?’
‘Who knows?’ Giblin picked at a torn edge. ‘The map could have been made by anyone.’
Gendrick had himself considered the possibility—the worrying fact that no-one had ever returned from a journey to Ocantis meant that the map’s provenance had to be in some question. But Jopha had assured him that it was genuine, insisted that he use it—“penned by the hand and eye of a true seer,” she’d told him.
Even from the shoreline, the Threskans could tell that the ship was on the move. Though it flew no colours to identify it to other sea-goers, they were as sure as they could be that Vaspar Gendrick was aboard and making his escape. The farmer had spoken of a boy kidnapped by one of the minister’s hirelings—the very same boy seen rowing the dory out to sea, perhaps? The soldiers wondered what was going on in the land of Randor; knew that they needed to inform their commander so that he, in turn, could notify the king.
Tamulan had set the horse loose and now walked the pavements. He’d done all he could to not draw attention to himself but still people kept their distance, some crossing to the other side of the road just to avoid the hooded druid. They knew of him, and that his presence ordinarily meant danger. But Tamulan hadn’t come to rid their city of something terrible, he was running away once again, just as he’d done when he, himself was no older than the smithy’s, young apprentice.
Brae came to with a violent start, his vision blurred, hearing muffled. He sat up and remembered everything in a series of violent flashbacks that had him rip the quill from his arm in a fit of fury. Someone rushed at him and he raised his fists in self-defence, though a voice tol
d him loudly that he needn’t. The owner of the voice took his arm and pressed firmly on the puncture site with a handful of clean cloth, keeping the wad there until the wound no longer bled. A healer, he decided—who on closer examination appeared to be little older than himself. He saw three other men stood in the room, each watching with an unnerving level of interest. One of them possessed the wind-worn look of an experienced seafarer, while the others needed no introduction whatsoever.
‘What do you want from me?’ Brae asked, not at all managing to hide a mounting apprehension made worse by a curious feeling of motion beneath him.
‘Let’s not play games.’ Gendrick perched on the far end of the short cot. ‘It’s more grown up if we don’t.’
‘I won’t raise the Dragon Lord. Wastin’ your time, so you are.’