His keen night-vision saved them. A Ahmud Ki saw the soldiers lurking in the shadows between the cargo crates on the wharf before the soldiers could launch their ambush. ‘It’s a trap,’ he whispered to Meg as they walked through the misty midnight, illuminated by the torches of their sailor escorts and faint moon glow. ‘Stop.’
The party stopped. ‘Where?’ she asked.
‘Don’t look in the direction when I tell you,’ he warned. ‘They are forty paces on, between us and the end of the wharf.’ He glanced back towards the warehouse. ‘Another group are behind us.’
‘Now what?’ Talemaker whispered.
‘We have to keep moving or they’ll suspect we know,’ said Cutter.
‘They already know,’ said A Ahmud Ki, looking directly at the soldiers emerging from the shadows. Cutter’s hand slipped to his sword and Talemaker shifted nervously on his feet as the Kerwyn spread out, blocking their passage, raising thundermakers to take aim.
‘I count twenty,’ said Cutter.
A figure pushed through the line to face Meg and her companions. Torchlight flickered on his blue robe. ‘You have nowhere to go,’ the Seer told them. ‘Put down your weapons and surrender.’
‘We’re leaving,’ Meg replied. ‘The kingdom is yours.’
‘I can’t let you leave,’ replied the Seer. ‘His Eminence insists that you accompany me back to Port of Joy at once.’
‘We’re leaving,’ Meg repeated and took a step forward. Whisper wriggled out of her grasp and slid to the wharf.
The Seer raised a hand. ‘Another step, the thundermakers will speak and it will be a waste.’
‘I am Lady Amber,’ said Meg. ‘You know what I can do.’
‘Even Lady Amber’s magic isn’t a match for a thundermaker,’ said the Seer with an air of confidence. ‘Please don’t make this messy.’
As he finished speaking, Meg sensed a metallic flash and the Seer grunted as if he’d been punched. A Ahmud Ki pulled on Meg’s arm, yelling, ‘Down!’ She toppled to her right as the night exploded in flashes of light and a tumultuous roar of thundermakers, but before she could recover, A Ahmud Ki was wrenching her to her feet. ‘Run!’ he screamed and pushed her forward. She charged through the acrid smoke, barrelling into a soldier who was struggling to draw his sword, broke free and sprinted for the end of the wharf where a solitary lantern beckoned. A few steps from the end, someone grabbed her waist and pulled her down to the wooden planks and thundermakers boomed again. Hearing a scream, she looked up to see a sailor at the end of the wharf topple backwards into the water. ‘Get up!’ A Ahmud Ki yelled as he dragged her forward. They reached the end in a few strides and scrambled down a rope ladder into a boat.
‘Where are the others?’ a sailor asked.
‘Row!’ A Ahmud Ki ordered.
‘But Cutter and Talemaker?’ Meg asked frantically, fighting against A Ahmud Ki’s grip. ‘And Whisper? Where is she? We can’t go yet!’
‘Your friends saved your life,’ he said. ‘Row hard!’ he ordered the sailors. The thrill of magic coursed through him as he held Meg’s arms to stop her from standing in the boat.
‘I’m not leaving without them!’ she screamed, struggling.
‘You can’t save them!’ he yelled. ‘They’re already dead! There’s nothing you can do!’ He felt the power surging through him as he fought his rabid desire to reach into Meg’s chest and rip the Conduit from her. ‘Don’t fight me!’ he begged with authority. ‘Don’t fight me!’ A small black shape leapt from the jetty onto his shoulder and scrambled onto Meg’s lap.
What stopped Meg’s struggling was neither Whisper’s arrival nor A Ahmud Ki’s voice, which took on a strange dimension, but something that made her skin crawl with horror. A Ahmud Ki’s eyes glowed like red embers in a smouldering fire—the eyes of a demon—and she shrank from the vision like a child from a terrifying tale. She shook free of his grip and sank into the boat, hugging Whisper to her chest, staring at A Ahmud Ki towering above her, watching the weird light in his eyes dissolve. What had she set free from Se’Treya?
The crack of the sails startled her as the wind curved the canvas and the big ship began to heel in the darkness. Her feet threatened to slip from the wooden deck and she grabbed a rail to stay upright. Whisper slipped from inside her cloak and scampered across the deck and into a coil of rope. ‘Weigh anchors!’ a voice cried, answered by two others from the foredeck, ‘Anchors aweigh!’
‘The wind is fresh!’ Captain Marlin declared beside her. ‘We should make good headway before the sun rises.’
Meg heard the water beginning to rush along the ship’s hull, and the bow started to rise and fall as the speed increased. The salty air was refreshing, if chilly. To the east the sky showed the first dull glow of pale yellow across the ridge of the world. Men shouted and lights bobbed on the deck and in the rigging. ‘We’re lucky to be here,’ said A Ahmud Ki.
She wheeled on him accusingly. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Do what?’ he asked. He was a shadow, a dark shape against the fading nightscape.
‘Sorry to interrupt, people,’ Captain Marlin said as he stepped between them. ‘Seems the locals are very keen to keep you.’ Meg followed his pointing arm to see lights on the water behind them.
‘What is it?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.
‘Most likely Kerwyn ships,’ the captain replied.
‘Chasing us?’ Meg asked.
‘Looks like it,’ Marlin said, as if the matter was minor.
‘What do we do?’ she asked.
‘You don’t do anything. I’ll show you to your cabin and you can get some rest.’
‘But what about the Kerwyn?’ she persisted.
The captain laughed as if he found her question foolish. ‘My lady, the wind sits in our favour and there’s no Kerwyn ship on this coastline that can keep up with our dragon ship. They’ll lose pace and give up before the sun is up.’ Meg looked back at the swaying lights that were sometimes consumed by the background of lights from Westport. ‘I’ll take you to your cabin,’ the captain offered again.
‘Not with him,’ Meg said, glaring at A Ahmud Ki’s shadow. The ship’s rolling motion threatened to throw her to the deck.
‘My lady, there’s only one small cabin we keep aboard for the occasional passenger needing passage,’ Marlin explained. ‘We expected four of you.’
‘And that’s why I’m not sharing a cabin with him!’ Meg vehemently replied. ‘I will not share any space with him.’
Marlin glanced at A Ahmud Ki, but he was unable to see the man’s face in the dark. ‘I’ll make an arrangement for the coxswain to move out of his cabin near mine,’ the captain offered. ‘Your ladyship can have that cabin and—’ He paused as if he was uncertain of his next words—‘and A Ahmud Ki can have the passenger cabin to himself. Will that help?’
Meg didn’t need to answer, her anger boiling. She gripped the railing, her knuckles aching from the pressure, and stared at the eastern glow. The pale yellow was deepening transforming to gold and flaring as if it was setting the peaks alight, and higher in the purple clouds a pink hue coloured the edges as the dawn spread. She would not look at the creature who betrayed and killed her friends with his rash action. He was a liability, just as she had decided, and he was dangerously unpredictable.
Clattering boots along the wooden deck woke her from a fitful sleep. Daylight streamed through the cabin’s tiny porthole and the men were shouting again. She fought a dizzy sensation and unease in her gullet as she stumbled to the door and opened it to see sailors climbing into the rigging and hauling on ropes. Outside, the fresh sea air stung her face and arms as she searched for Captain Marlin. He was above her, beside the helmsman who was furiously spinning the helm to starboard, and beside him was A Ahmud Ki staring down at her. There was a distant boom. A spout of water erupted near the hull, the ship bucked and she lost her footing, collapsing to the deck. A firm hand took her arm as she clambered to her feet and when she looked up she found that her
helper was A Ahmud Ki. ‘I don’t need your help,’ she said.
‘You’d better go back to your cabin,’ he advised.
‘Why? What’s happening?’ The air resounded to several distant booms.
‘Down!’ A Ahmud Ki warned.
As she sank to her knees, more water spouts erupted around the ship and a fireball exploded halfway up the third mast, sending a sailor plummeting into the ocean. ‘What is this?’ she cried.
‘Kerwyn ships,’ A Ahmud Ki explained quickly. ‘They set a blockade to trap us. They’re firing giant thundermakers—that’s what you call them, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve never seen them,’ she replied.
‘Your people said it is magic, but Captain Marlin calls it invention.’
Meg stood to stare over the railing, using her hand to cover her eyes from the sun’s glare, and A Ahmud Ki stood beside her. ‘There are ships out there,’ he said, pointing east and out to sea. ‘And there,’ he added, pointing to the stern of the ship. ‘They chased us before dawn, but the dragon ship was easily outrunning them. Unfortunately that was what they wanted because there’s a fleet waiting directly ahead.’ His hand pointed over the ship’s bow where Meg saw a line of cream sails stretching across the ocean. ‘The wind’s stopped and we can’t go anywhere.’
‘Bring the woman up here!’ Captain Marlin shouted.
Meg glared at him. ‘We’d better go,’ A Ahmud Ki suggested and grinned, but she returned his humour with an icy stare before she climbed the steps to the top deck. A series of thundermaker reports echoed across the water and Meg braced against the railing as watery plumes erupted several lengths short of the dragon ship.
‘Noisy and nasty, but not very accurate at a distance,’ said Captain Marlin. ‘We were making good headway with the wind, but it’s dropped and we’re becalmed. And our Kerwyn friends have joined us. It seems, my lady, that you’ve really stirred up a hornet’s nest. Maybe you’d care to tell me why the entire Kerwyn navy would be desperate to stop my dragon ship?’
Meg studied the captain’s bearded visage, noting a strange combination of energy and suspicion sparkling in his dark eyes. ‘They think I’m someone I’m not,’ she said calmly, although the ship’s rocking motion was preying on her sense of wellbeing.
‘And who might that be?’ Marlin asked.
Meg glanced at A Ahmud Ki before replying, ‘There was a legend in recent times about someone named Lady Amber. They think I’m her.’
Marlin’s left eyebrow rose a notch, but before he could comment he was distracted by a call from a sailor high on the second mast. ‘Pull her about sou’-sou’-west!’ he bellowed. ‘Lower the sheets and get every available hand on the rotors! We’ll make for the gap and break out to sea!’ Thundermakers boomed, and two heavy iron balls crashed into the ship’s hull. ‘You bastards will pay for damaging the Waverunner!’ Marlin yelled to the west, shaking his fist over his head. Then he returned his attention to Meg, and said, ‘Well, I know the songs from some of the sailors we’ve hired in Shessian ports and they talk of a red-haired beauty who could wield wild magic, and you’d sure pass for what they sing about, but I thought that lady was long dead.’
‘Hence a legend,’ Meg agreed. ‘Lady Amber never really existed anyway.’
‘Then why would they say you were her?’ he asked. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘None,’ she agreed. ‘Superstition, maybe.’
‘Magic is superstition,’ said Marlin. ‘Your people still cling to it like they want it to be real.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘Of course, now I have to choose whether or not you’re worth getting blown out of the water for,’ he said and scratched his beard, adding, ‘and maybe there’s a reward for handing you back to the Kerwyn.’
Meg’s heart raced. She looked across the waves at the line of Kerwyn ships, wondering who would be aboard waiting to take her into captivity. A Seer had confronted her in Westport. Were the Kerwyn already embracing the Seers and their Jarudhan faith? If the captain turned her over to the Kerwyn she would never see her children again. ‘I can’t go back,’ she murmured, her fear rising.
‘Don’t fret, my lady,’ Marlin said, winking. ‘I’ve no interest in local politics except as it affects my ship and anyone who tries to blow my ship out of the water doesn’t get my vote of support.’ He turned away and yelled, ‘Full ahead!’ The order was relayed along the deck and then repeated below. ‘Best go to your cabin, my lady,’ Marlin said. ‘I’ll call you when we’re away from these Kerwyn insects.’
As she began to climb down the steps, Meg realised that very few sailors were on deck, except for a handful lashing down lines. A grinding sound rose from below decks and the wind around her shoulders and head picked up, and then she realised that the great fan on the stern of the dragon ship was turning, gathering speed, its blades pushing wind into the sails. She stared at the spinning blades within the circular housing before she turned to descend.
The ship was rising and falling, crashing across the waves, by the time she sat on her bunk and her queasiness increased threatening to make her vomit. She hadn’t eaten for some time and was feeling thirsty. Beyond the wooden walls she heard a dull wallop above the sound of the water rushing past the hull and wondered how long it would be before they were out of the thundermakers’ range. She let her head sink to the pillow and closed her eyes in a vain hope that the nausea would pass.
The dream unfolded—she was perched above a city, like a bird, staring down on the people who moved like ants—until a hand gripped her arm and she woke. A Ahmud Ki was in her cabin. ‘We’re in trouble,’ he was saying. ‘We need your magic to escape this one.’ She shook her head, trying to focus, trying to drive out the dizziness that pervaded her world. ‘Hurry,’ he urged.
She staggered to her feet and let him lead her from her cabin onto the deck where she was greeted by sailors fighting flames. A mast leaned sickeningly to port, threatening to fall, held in place by temporary ropes, and fires were burning along the foredeck and starboard. Some of the great sails were shredded and the dragon ship listed to port under the weight of the damaged debris. When did this happen? she wondered. Did I sleep so heavily? Then she saw the surrounding sails of the Kerwyn vessels, some less than two ship’s lengths from the dragon ship. She spotted Captain Marlin at the railing with three of his men and went to him. ‘How did this happen?’ she asked.
‘Lucky shot,’ he replied grimly. ‘I thought we’d got through the blockade. We were making for the open sea and then one thunderclap from a chancy thundermaker blew the windwheel to smithereens.’
She saw the shattered, burning remnants of the giant fan that had been generating the dragon ship’s artificial wind. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We wait to see what your friends are demanding,’ Marlin replied and indicated three longboats pulling towards the dragon ship.
Meg studied the longboats nervously. Each carried thirty men and in the centre boat were two men in familiar blue robes. The Seers were determined to imprison her now that they knew she wasn’t dead. She looked at the captain who was focussed on the incoming boats and then at A Ahmud Ki. ‘You don’t have to let this happen,’ he said quietly.
She held his querying gaze, his eyes grey like fog on the ocean. I don’t have to let this happen, she repeated in her mind. But how? She recalled a spell from her memory and saw herself standing with an army on a ridge in the rain. I can re-form the weather, she remembered. She cautiously stepped away from the railing, conscious of A Ahmud Ki watching her expectantly, and closed her eyes, imagining the gentle wind drifting around her hair was hers to command. When she opened her green eyes she let her mind push the air towards the line of Kerwyn ships. Wind rippled outward from the dragon ship across the waves, flicking the tops into white spray, and the Kerwyn sails suddenly flapped and filled and the ships started to turn.
‘Where did that come from?’ she heard Captain Marlin ask his crewmates.
She concentrated and lifted the wind’s i
ntensity and the waves rose and foamed around the longboats, and when the wind reached the surrounding Kerwyn ships it hit with sufficient force to make them heel leeward.
Captain Marlin looked up at his own sails and was bewildered to find them hanging listlessly. ‘What magic is this?’ he gasped and looked at Meg.
She remained still, but she smiled at him and said, ‘Have your men get ready to sail.’
‘Why?’ Marlin asked.
‘Can’t you feel it?’ Meg asked. ‘The weather’s turning.’ As she spoke, the sails rippled and began to fill. ‘I thought of all men a shipmaster would recognise a weather change.’
Marlin looked as if he wanted to question her, but he turned and walked away, bellowing orders to his crew while Meg refocussed on the Kerwyn ships. The longboats were frantically retreating across the ever-increasing swell, the rowers struggling to reach safety, and the ship’s crews were battling to bring the ships about in the rising wind. A lone thundermaker boomed, but the shot went well wide of the dragon ship.
‘I’m impressed,’ said A Ahmud Ki and touched her arm.
Meg withdrew it and the wind dropped. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned.
‘My apologies,’ he responded and took a step away.
She glared to make it clear that he was not to come any closer before she returned to her conjuring, pushing the wind outward from the dragon ship to drive the Kerwyn back while filling the dragon ship’s sails to escape the cordon, until the weather gathered momentum and crept out of her control as it had on Kangaroo Ridge so many years earlier.
With the sailors busily adjusting the rigging and battening down in the increasing gale conditions, Captain Marlin returned, studying Meg as he approached. ‘I’ve never seen such strange weather,’ he said. ‘It’s like there are winds blowing in all directions.’
‘It’s strange,’ she agreed, her concentration waning with the rising seasickness in her stomach from the ship’s motion. ‘I don’t feel well.’
A Solitary Journey Page 37