by Marc Turner
He sheathed his sword, then extended his hand and used the Will to call Strike’s blade to him. The weapon stuck for a moment in the bodyguard’s grip. His sword arm pulled straight, then his body swiveled to face Senar and began sliding across the blood-streaked floor until the blade abruptly came free and flashed through the murk. Its hilt settled into the Guardian’s palm. He closed his fingers around it.
The tattooed stone-skin smiled faintly.
A strange reaction, that, to Senar’s display of power. In the Augeran’s eyes there was a look akin to recognition, but if Senar had met the man before, he was sure he would have remembered. Then understanding came to him. He doesn’t recognize me, he recognizes the Will. He knows me for a Guardian. There was more to it than that, though. Something in the stone-skin’s look suggested Senar should know him too—should know something that had a bearing on their coming clash. Something that went beyond the skill the Augeran had shown in brushing Strike aside.
Senar gave the bodyguard’s sword a swing. Its whine was like the buzz of a needlefly. The earth-magic invested in it made it light as a wooden practice blade. He’d owned a sword like this many years ago, a sword he’d taken from a Kalanese pasha that he’d assassinated outside Kal Kartin. Alas, a blade only held its enchantment for a few weeks, and there was never a powerful earth-mage around when you needed one to top up the sorcery.
Earth was dominant over air, meaning the weapon would cut faster through the air than a normal sword, and land with the weight of an anvil besides. Judging by the tattooed stone-skin’s size, though—he was almost as big as the executioner—that was likely to afford the Guardian only parity in their duel.
He moved forward and halted in front of the pool of Strike’s blood. The Augeran remained still. Who would attack first? Who was most content to wait if it meant keeping the other out of the fight in the yard?
From the opposite side of the square, the thunder of a sorcerous concussion rattled Senar’s teeth. He caught a glimpse of the emperor, surrounded by Breakers.
Then the stone-skin kicked Strike’s head toward him and charged in after it.
* * *
Amerel watched from behind the mainmast as stone-skins swarmed over the devilship’s rail. Noon was in the thick of the action, fighting with two swords. The Breaker caught a stone-skin’s thrust on one blade, then hacked down with the other, cutting clean through his opponent’s shoulder. The Augeran’s arm fell to the deck. As he opened his mouth to scream, Noon’s shoulder caught him in the midriff and pitched him back into the woman behind. The Erin Elalese slashed his sword across her throat before she could recover. Continuing his swing, he chopped through the ankles of a man on the rail, and the Augeran toppled shrieking back into the close-packed ranks on the enemy deck.
Not bad. For a Breaker.
Up until this point, only black-cloaked stone-skins had been doing the fighting, but now a dozen Red Cloaks came howling into the fray. A woman leapt over the rail and exchanged a series of blows with Tattoo before tripping on the recently severed arm. The Rubyholter’s backhand cut split her skull with a clicking sound that Amerel heard even above the tumult. Farther right, another Augeran charged in behind his shield and knocked two Islanders off their feet. For a moment there was a gap in the Rubyholt line, but as the stone-skin pushed through it, one of his fallen enemies grabbed his leg and sank his teeth into it. Maybe he’d missed breakfast. The Augeran bellowed and slammed the rim of his shield down onto his attacker’s skull.
A swing of Noon’s sword lifted the stone-skin’s head from his shoulders, but more of the foe were pressing in behind.
Now, Galantas, Amerel silently urged.
Galantas had been holding back a reserve of men, and—right on cue—he drew his sword to signal the advance. Alas, such was the quantity of blood already on the deck that the charge became a slipping, slithering dash that carried one of the attackers straight onto the blade of an enemy swordsman. Another Islander barreled into a kinsman and knocked him into the Augeran he’d been fighting. All three went down. The two Rubyholters reacted first, grabbing a handful of their opponent’s hair before ramming his head into the boards. Crunch, crunch, the stone-skin’s face dissolved into blood and splinters of bone.
Shouts sounded from the south, and Amerel glanced across to see another Rubyholt ship rushing toward the Fury on a wave of water-magic. Improbably, it looked like Galantas’s kinsmen meant to come to his aid. The way things were going, though, they would arrive too late. Amerel was needed on the main deck. Of course, she’d have liked nothing better than to wade into that shitstorm. First, however, she had a task to perform that might even the odds a little in the Islanders’ favor.
The devilship’s wailing made her head throb as she scanned the stone-skin ship. Unlike Barnick, the Augeran mage hadn’t obligingly advertised his presence by wearing blue robes, yet picking him out should still be straightforward.…
There!
Sheltering beside the binnacle was a red-cloaked man half a head shorter than the two spearmen flanking him. At his hip was a sword with a gilded hilt too ostentatious to be anything but decorative. His eyes twitched this way and that, searching for an arrow with his name on it.
Gathering her power, Amerel reached out and curled her Will around the hilt of a dagger in the baldric of one of the mage’s guards. She took a breath.
One movement to draw the knife from its scabbard, another to turn it and plunge it into the throat of the sorcerer.
The mage didn’t even see the blow coming. It took him a heartbeat to process what had happened. Then he gave a frothy gurgle and raised his hands to his neck as if he thought he could staunch the flow of blood.
His two minders looked on, slack-jawed.
Amerel withdrew.
* * *
“Their mage is down!” Barnick shouted.
Galantas swayed back from a sword slash and felt his opponent’s blade cut the air in front of his face. The Augeran blocked Galantas’s counter, and their two swords locked long enough for Galantas to get a whiff of the stone-skin’s last meal. Then the deck shuddered. That shudder would be Barnick’s work, Galantas knew. The mage was stirring up the seas, thinking the Rubyholters were more used to fighting on a pitching deck than their foes. He seemed to be right too, for Galantas’s assailant tottered back against the rail, then threw out his arms for balance.
Galantas ran him through. “Kill them!” he yelled. “Kill them all!”
Not that he expected anyone to hear him above the clamor, or be able to carry out his command if they did. His men were now battling just to hold their ground, for if the stone-skins pushed them back from the rail, they would be outflanked and overwhelmed. To his right six Augerans carrying shields had formed a wedge allowing their kinsmen to gain the Fury’s deck behind. A red-cloaked swordsman climbed to the rail only to take a Rubyholt arrow in the neck and topple backward. But more would surely follow in his wake.
Recognizing the danger, Qinta hurled himself at the wedge. His sword caught the rim of a shield and made the metal sing. Galantas moved to support him, but before he could reach his friend, a concussion sounded from within the ranks of the Augeran shield bearers. Air-magic. Cayda. The warriors staggered. Qinta charged in among them, swinging his sword two-handed. Beside him, the quartermaster, Drefel, aimed a clumsy stroke at another foe, but the stone-skin blocked the attack and retaliated with a cut that lopped off Drefel’s left hand. A decisive blow you would have thought, yet Drefel’s devilship-inspired madness was such that he didn’t even register the wound. He thrust his stump into his opponent’s face before dispatching him with a disemboweling cut.
Galantas felt the same madness tugging at him, but he would not yield to it. He had to hold on to his reason—to harness the Fury’s rage rather than give in to it. Because Drefel’s fate had showed him what happened to those who drank too deep of the devilship’s spirit. He threw himself at one of the surviving shield bearers. The man parried his strike, then unleas
hed a sequence of cuts and thrusts that had Galantas’s sword twitching every way. When the feint came, he didn’t pick it in time. His blade swung low just as the stone-skin brought his weapon high in a stroke intended to rob Galantas of his remaining arm. He tried to sway back, knew he was too late.
The Augeran’s sword bounced off an invisible barrier. Then someone else’s blade swung over the stone-skin’s weapon and took the man in the throat.
He dropped to the boards.
Galantas glanced across to see who had saved him. Cayda, of course. She was already turning to find the next enemy. For a heartbeat Galantas could only stare after her, too bemused to question what had happened, too relieved to care.
If she kept saving his life like this, he might end up owing her one.
The deck trembled to the pounding of the combatants’ feet. To the south, Galantas heard Tub’s men singing as the Willow Reed sailed closer. Most likely Tub intended to veer off at the last moment, but at least this time he had the decency to pretend to attack before retreating. Some of Galantas’s own crew were singing themselves. Not the Scourge now, but some new song that set his guts crawling and created an otherworldly harmony to the figurehead’s voice. Galantas watched Wex spit its words in a Red Cloak’s face even as the stone-skin drove a spear into his chest.
Another Augeran reared up in front of Galantas. The woman was grinning. Then a blow from a Rubyholt mace crumpled her skull, and she lost her smile with the rest of her face. Beyond, the Needle ship rushed closer. For a moment Galantas thought Tub meant to ram the exposed starboard side of the Augeran vessel. Then the wave of water-magic beneath the Willow Reed subsided, and the bowsprit swung round so that the two ships came together, flank to flank.
Hells, the man actually meant to attack! With ten fighters!
The Willow Reed thudded into the Augeran ship, and Galantas set his feet against the contact. A female stone-skin blundered into him. He pushed her off, then drove his sword through her neck. Black blood bubbled from the woman’s mouth, and her lips twitched as if she were trying to speak, but no words came out.
Something caught in her throat, maybe.
Galantas looked for the next foe. More, he wanted more! The Fury’s song had taken the heaviness from his limbs so that he could barely feel the weight of his weapon. Through the maelstrom of combatants, he saw Tub’s Needles attacking along the opposite flank of the Augeran ship. A brave move, but their numbers were so few the enemy didn’t even have to redirect forces from their assault on the Fury. The tipping point was close, Galantas knew. For all the ferocity of his crew’s defense, the stone-skins’ superior numbers were starting to tell. The time to surrender, or at least to offer to, had surely come, but even as the idea came to him, it was swept away on a surge of bloodlust. The figurehead’s voice was loud in Galantas’s ears, promising him strength if he would only give in to it.
A female Augeran clambered onto the Fury’s deck. Galantas’s sword thrust had her twisting away. Her feet tangled in a line, but another foe was already hurdling the rail, then another and another. Galantas was driven back toward the steps leading to the quarterdeck. The stone-skins came at him in a huddle, crouched behind their shields. A Squall launched himself at them like a ball at a rack of skittles, taking two of the warriors down.
Then someone behind Galantas shouted something in his ear. Something that quenched his bloodrage as surely as a bucket of water in his face.
It came again.
“Dragon from the east!”
* * *
Ebon emerged blinking onto the top of the Chain Tower. To his left the tower gave way to the wall that formed one half of the Neck, while to his right was a section of shattered parapet where a stone-skin rock must have struck it. The Chain Tower had its own catapult—a monstrous construction twice the size of the one on the smaller Buck Tower. The machine stood idle, its operators all crowding the eastern battlements. Ebon joined them and looked down to see the waterway below, fizzing white from the ever-breaking wave of water-magic carrying the nearest stone-skin ship. The chains—spotted with rust, and each so large Ebon couldn’t have wrapped his arms around them—emerged from holes in the wall below him and disappeared into holes in the wall opposite. The highest chain had been severed and now hung flush to the wall on this side of the Neck.
On this side of the Neck. Meaning it had been cut on the other.
Ebon shifted his gaze to the hole across from him through which the chain had once passed. The stones around the opening looked singed, but there was no flicker of red to suggest a fire had been lit beyond. In any case, what fire could undo steel? On the battlements above, a handful of stone-skins stood about a catapult of equal size to the one behind Ebon. Evidently the enemy had launched a strike on that side of the wall as well as this, and with considerable success too. The stone-skins’ position across the Neck would be all but unassailable now, assuming they’d captured the other forts along the wall. And of course they didn’t need to hold out indefinitely—just long enough to take down the other chains so their ships could enter the harbor.
Ebon had to get across to that tower.
A Gilgamarian soldier hurled across the channel a grapple tied to a rope. It landed with a clatter on the opposite battlements. The soldier hauled on the rope, trying to make the grapple bite on the parapet, but before he could do so, a stone-skin seized the grapple and tossed it over the battlements. The Gilgamarian cursed and reeled it in again for another cast. Might as well not bother, though. Even if he could get a line over the Neck, there wouldn’t be many volunteers willing to pull themselves across it, under fire from the stone-skins and without a free hand to hold a shield.
“More grapples!” someone shouted. “They can’t throw twenty back at once!”
Where were they going to find twenty grapples, though? How many were kept in the tower on the off chance the soldiers needed to storm a battlement instead of defend one? And Ebon suspected that the stone-skins who’d gone zipping down those lines had been careful to take theirs with them.
A steady flow of Revenants climbed to the battlements behind him, and with them came a group of pale-skinned men, hard-faced and bristling with threat. There was a whiff of bad blood between the newcomers and the Gray Cloaks, but if they were spoiling for a fight, they’d get one soon enough when the first stone-skin ship entered the Neck. “Erin Elalese,” Ebon heard one of the Revenants whisper, and instinctively he looked for Luker Essendar among them—before realizing the man was hundreds of leagues to the southwest.
With the Erin Elalese was a Mellikian with so many piercings through his face it made Ebon’s skin hurt just to look at him. The man glided to the wall next to Twist and looked down at the channel below—looked so long that Ebon began to wonder if there was something there that he’d missed. The rocks the stone-skins had flung at the Chain Tower showed as wavering shadows beneath the surface.
“How long since the first chain a-went down?” the Mellikian asked of no one in particular.
It was a Gilgamarian officer who answered. “Tenth of a bell, maybe.”
“And no sign of a second chain following. That means whatever the stone-skins are a-doing in that tower, it’s taking time.”
The Gilgamarian snorted. “Course it bloody is. Those chains are reinforced with earth-magic. Should be impossible for the stone-skins to drop them.”
“And yet that thing a-hanging down from the wall below us—that does look a bit like a chain, does it not?”
An Erin Elalese woman wearing an eyepatch spoke. “How many chains have to come down before the stone-skins can get a ship over?” she asked the Mellikian.
He considered. “Maybe three, maybe two. Depends how many of their mages combine their wills. And how quickly they react when I a-counter them.”
Counter them? So the Mellikian was a water-mage too?
The woman with the eyepatch looked toward the harbor. “If you brought a ship over here, we could climb down. Then you could ferry us acros
s—”
A shake of her companion’s head cut her off. “I can’t lift a ship as high as that tower. So you’d still have the problem of a-scaling the wall. Even if we had enough time to try, we don’t have enough men.”
“You got a better plan?”
“I do,” Ebon said. The idea had come to him while he was looking at the rocks in the waterway. They’d sparked a memory of a certain river near Estapharriol, and of a shattered bridge that Galea had restored by raising the stones submersed in the water. “I might be able to fashion a way across the channel with the rocks the stone-skins have been throwing at us.”
For a heartbeat everyone stared at him.
Then Twist said, “So what are you waitin’ for? A Shroud-cursed drumroll?”
Ebon already regretted opening his mouth. He’d only done this once before, and that had been under Galea’s guidance. “If I can do this, it won’t be so much a bridge as a line of stepping-stones. Wet stones.”
“And?”
“And if you slip and fall, I imagine you’ll find swimming in your armor a challenge.”
“I ain’t gonna slip. Now, are we done talkin’ here, or should I pull up a chair and get comfortable?”
Ebon gave a tight smile.
They made a space for him to work as if they thought the stones he’d be maneuvering might come raining down around him. Perhaps they would. Could he really say he knew what he was doing? In Estapharriol he’d been restoring an old bridge, whereas here he’d be fashioning something new. Did that make a difference? Should it? He reached out with his power toward the nearest submerged rock, and it rose into the air, dripping water. Simple enough, but what about when he tried to lift another? Would the first one fall as he shifted his focus to the second? Could he section off his mind enough times to raise all the rocks he would need to make a crossing?
If this were the first time he’d attempted this—if he’d had to shape conscious thought to do the task—he suspected the answer would have been no. He suspected lifting even three rocks into the air would have been as hard as juggling the same number of balls. Galea, though, had left some imprint on his mind when she’d repaired the bridge in Estapharriol. It was as if she’d gifted him the skills of a master juggler, and now all he had to do was throw the balls in the air and decide in what pattern to make them dance. Up came the stones; five, six, seven, then more. One watery shadow turned out to be not a rock but a crayfish cage tangled with fireweed, another a rusted breastplate. These he let fall again.