He shook his head, knowing all three of his companions would mark the motion in the darkness of the cabin. “I’m also concerned that Arden hasn’t fully considered the consequences of this job. Sure, Marshelle’s behind our involvement, and a year ago, I’d have said an operation like this would be considered just part of her rivalry with King Givern and overlooked by the High King.
“But things have changed, and Rivan’s got a much more heated situation on his hands than before the coup.” He managed to talk about Rishak’s betrayal without his voice breaking, although it was an effort. “The Princess is stepping across a line here, and she damn well knows it, and I can’t help thinking that we make a good scapegoat. She may well claim—maybe even probably will claim—that she did hire Searcher to deliver her ultimatums but that Arden turned pirate and initiated the raid all by himself.”
Lord Grey said, “I don’t think that King Rivan will believe that, Alan. He knows Arden well, at least by the crew’s accounts. However, after the raid, he’ll be searching for a way to keep Pellorn and Varsha from open warfare, and that might mean he has to throw Searcher to the sharks. Now, our mercenary captain is no fool, and if Arden hadn’t already been planning to get out of Islander waters, I don’t think he’d have taken the job.”
“And if he wasn’t so short on coin, he wouldn’t ‘a taken it anyhow,” Snog interjected. “It would’a been better to have bought lots of slaves then resold the ones we didn’t need.”
Searcher’s crew had taken numerous casualties before the four had joined the ship’s company, and several after, and the captains had been forced to buy slaves in Seagate to replenish their sailing company. The slave masters of Hyriel had quickly realized that Arden was seeking to buy himself a crew, and they’d culled the best of the lot and raised their price two- and three-fold for each wretched one.
Alan felt doubly guilty over the matter, firstly because at the time his quick mind had settled on the most efficient way to acquire the slaves they needed. He’d also realized that in his persona as Alan of Staikal he wouldn’t flinch at the idea, so he had, in fact, suggested the same course of action as Snog: to buy whole lots of slaves, winnow out the ones they needed or wanted, and then sell the rest back to the slave masters at a loss.
Secondly, he had in his possession the means to lessen Arden’s financial concerns, for he carried nearly a hundred thousand shillings’ worth of Truesilver ingots recovered from the necromancer Lyrial’s possessions after his defeat near Greythorn City. The value of the lashthirin far outweighed the value of the rest of his possessions—he considered Gem, Lord Grey, and the Key of Firavon all beyond price—and it was in his nature to be generous.
He’d toyed with the idea of offering to buy a share of Searcher, but whatever he wanted to do, he knew that Elowyn, his father’s Master of Assassins, would have been very disappointed in him had he done so. The Silei elf had been his teacher almost since the cradle, and he had schooled his young charge in matters of statecraft, warfare, espionage, politics, and even assassination. As the youngest of the princes and princesses, had the terrible coup d’état not occurred, Prince Lian Evanson would never have gotten near the throne except in support of his elder siblings’ eventual rule. His role would most likely have been an ambassador to a neighboring kingdom or as a marshal of one of Dunshor’s armies.
The cunning elf had not settled for such a lowly aspiration, as he put it to his student, and set out to train all of Adrienne’s children how to be rulers as well as to be ones who serve, in keeping with the elven philosophy that rulers serve their people, not the other way around. Evan and Adrienne had agreed with that philosophy and had given Elowyn carte blanche in most aspects of their children’s education. Adrienne hadn’t liked the bloodier aspects of Elowyn’s training curriculum, but she’d recognized the necessity of violence in maintaining the young kingdom’s independence and stature.
By the time Lian and Radiel, the youngest children, were nine years old, the middle children, Jenine and Keven, had graduated from the assassin’s direct tutelage, though he advised all the members of the royal family on various matters. This meant that the youngest, the twins, received most of the elven assassin’s attention, and since Radiel spent many hours developing her voice and her talent for magic, Lian had been the primary recipient of the elf’s time when his duties permitted.
Elowyn’s teaching style was harsh and he tolerated mistakes only once, but he had taught “Alan” skills that had gotten him out of Dunshor City and that had, so far, kept him alive. It would be a poor way to repay the Master of Assassins for his years of tutelage to waste his small fortune on a group he must leave and who could never know who had sailed with them, no matter how much he liked and respected the two captains and the company of Searcher.
“That’s a moot point, Snog,” said Gem. “They didn’t, and Arden spent most of his reserve capital on a crew. Those are the facts we must deal with, and I agree that it means we should leave Searcher at the next opportunity.”
The goblin frowned and nodded. “Yer right o’ course, milady,” he replied, touching gently on the honorific Lord Grey had used to address the enchanted blade’s spirit. The honorific of “Lady Sword” had been intended to influence her opinion of the necromancer, but it hadn’t worked very well, especially because none of them could be caught using it publicly. To keep themselves from slipping and addressing Gem aloud, Alan and Snog rarely did so, even in their quarters.
Alan, of course, was telepathically bonded to the weapon, so she wasn’t cut off from speaking to her wielder. Because of her sharp senses—or rather, her sharp use of Alan’s senses when in contact with him—Gem was also able to communicate with Lord Grey nearly silently. The senses of the skull-bound necromancer were sharp indeed, and the two of them could converse in whispers no one else could hear, at least when it was reasonably quiet.
As she found watching Alan sleep one of her less enjoyable activities, she relished her conversations with the ancient spellcaster. She didn’t trust him, but to her surprise he hadn’t overtly tried to manipulate her into trusting him either, merely discussing their situation and sharing knowledge of magic and music. The sword spirit felt that was probably because he was trying to win her over through a subtle path, what Elowyn called the long con.
The big betrayal would come later, she was sure.
“So it’s decided,” Alan finally said. “We help Arden’s Company finish this job and put ashore at the next opportunity. I’d prefer that be a southern Sharan port, but I’ll settle for somewhere we can hire passage on a reputable ship.”
Snog said, “Aye, milord. All we got ‘ta do is survive the operation.”
Chapter Three
“The doom that came to the Pelorians was inevitable. Long had they tempted fate and defied the majority of the gods with their vile practices and dark witchery, and the Pelorians who had brought the ancient Eternal Empire of the elves low were undone by their own sorcerous power.
“The dead rose from every graveyard in all of Peloria on the night of the Great Lunar Alignment, and every warding and protection the Pelorians wove failed them. The great wyrm serpents, so long the instruments of Pelorian might, broke free of their bindings, and the spells to recapture control were ineffective. Even the spells that kept their great floating fortresses aloft suddenly ceased, although that at least was mitigated in most cases by the precaution of landing them before the alignment. A thousand different calamities struck.
“These things were not unknown to the Imperials, for such disasters, curses, and broken magic come every thirty years with the alignment of the moons. What was unexpected was that all of them happened at once and that they did not end for a full five days.”
-- Excerpt from “The Pelorian Empire, Volume XXII,”, also known as “The Fall of the Pelorian Empire,” the final volume on the subject by Sage Kommath
The agony of singing was a constant reminder of his failure.
He didn’t blame the gods for his misfortune, ev
en fickle Ashira or spiteful Bes. He didn’t blame his quarry or the mischance that allowed him to wake briefly when the assassin-mage was in a position to strike him in the northern Greythorn town of Mola without interference. He didn’t even fault she who’d caused him such pain and misery.
He blamed himself, for Ammon Ramri had always been brutally honest, especially in regard to his own actions. It had been his arrogance that had been his undoing, plain and simple. Had he reconnoitered the area; had he waited until an opportune moment; had he even bothered to note the mercenary ship’s destination of Seagate and struck there, his quarry would be dead and his vocal cords wouldn’t be healing…so…damned…slowly.
He was fortunate, he knew, that he hadn’t lost the use of his voice entirely. The tiny vampiress had torn out his throat and broken his spine, and while the contingency healing magics he’d prepared ahead of time had saved his life and slid his neck and throat back into place, it had been a close thing. He’d lain in a comatose state for almost four days and nearly died of thirst.
To die of thirst after having survived an attack by the ancient and infamous Sileth of the Silks would have been the ultimate irony, and despite his pain and self-chastisement, Ammon could not help but find some amusement in the idea.
Focusing on conjuring his magical power—at least she hadn’t damaged that in the attack—he sang one of the easier spells he knew. Smoke gathered about the rune-carved candle in the center of his conjuring circle, refusing to become flame, and he increased his effort to sing the spell at the correct pitches. The pain of forcing the magical syllables and phrasing, which he knew well, into a musical form that could make the magic real was great, but not as great as it had been a month ago, or even a week.
The first time he’d tried to light the candle, he’d coughed up blood and the magic had gone awry, setting fire to the corner of his robe. Now, the flame flickered into being precisely as he visualized it in his mind’s eye.
It’s coming along, he thought, pleased despite himself with the progress. Another month and I’ll be back to form. He knew that really meant back to as close to form as he could manage, but he had hope that he would regain all of his former musical ability, and thus his former magical power.
He stopped singing and crossed to drink a small glass of the herbal concoction he was buying by the bucketful, it seemed. The sharp feeling of the camphor-laced potion made him feel like his throat was freezing, but that soon gave way to the fiery pain of the peppery counterpoint. His throat, already sore, now felt like it had been flayed and each strip dipped in acid, but he drank the liquid slowly and in sips as he’d been instructed, enduring this pain along with the others he’d suffered since the encounter in Mola.
Picking up his harp, he sat on the stool on the other side of the conjuring circle. As he began to play, he again focused his magical power, manifesting it through the clear tones of the silver and penalirin alloy strings. Elven-made, it was a testament to his skill and dexterity that he could play it, for the lap harp had fifty-six strings, finely placed so close together that most humans couldn’t have played it. Even he had to use finger and thumb plectra to have the fine placement and control he needed to do so.
The thin penalirin rings on each finger and thumb were capped by what most men would have said looked like a housecat’s claws, but these were the picks Ammon used to pluck the harpstrings. Carefully chosen for the proper thickness, the plectra created the delicate sound necessary to the spell.
This conjuring was far more complex than the one he’d just finished singing, for there was nothing wrong with Ammon’s harp playing. Using a musical instrument to focus magic was a slow thing, ill-suited to battle, but if the musician was of consummate skill, nearly as capable. This spell was a slow, almost hesitant one, intended to find a way around the protections his quarry had constructed against scrying.
Even Ammon’s best direct scrying spells had not been able to penetrate Prince Lian’s ward against divinatory magics. He’d give much to know just how the fugitive royal was managing that, but suspected he’d never know for certain.
Divination was not his strong suit, he knew, and if the seers and oracles that King Rishak was paying to find the wayward prince were unable to find him, Ammon rather doubted that he could. Still he had checked, albeit perfunctorily, just to be thorough, but that had come to naught weeks before.
In working tonight’s magic, he strove to take advantage of a piece of information that none of Lian’s other hunters possessed: that he had sailed on Searcher and might yet still be aboard. As the haunting, elusive melody emanated from the strings of the harp, he could feel the stirrings of the spell, slow to respond to the notes of the song. Motes of dust began moving in counterpoint to the chords of the spell, swirling about the lit candle.
In time, the runes began to glow with their own light, responding to the power the harp extracted from the mage. Slowly it built, higher and higher in intensity, until Ammon could no longer see the candle at all for the brightness. Still he played, hoping that he’d made the candle properly and that it wouldn’t melt too soon under the heat generated as a consequence of the power moving through the runes.
For more than an hour, he played, far longer than he could have sung even before the injury, until finally the spell was complete and the last note faded into silence. Holding his harp securely with his arms, for he didn’t trust his trembling, exhausted hands, he rose from the stool and approached the still-hot center of the circle.
The candle had indeed melted into a shapeless glob of wax on the floor, but the runes had reformed in the magical heat and floated on the wax as it cooled. They formed a single word: YLEN.
^ ^ ^ ^^
Searcher was less than eighty nautical miles southwest of Varsha, having arrived at this position after swinging wide around her original course toward Pellorn. She now approached Gaelin Island from the side opposite King Givern’s homeland, five days after her departure from the Givern’s capital city of Raeveni. Her sails were still over the horizon from those dwelling on the island and, they hoped, from the picket ships, but that would change in less than a day.
The ship was running with the mizzen and main sails rigged but reefed, motive power coming only from the three jibs. Pushing through the water at a leisurely six knots, Searcher prepared for battle. Usually, the ship’s crew were not armed beyond a stout knife and the tools necessary to their particular job on the vessel; now every hand was at least lightly armed with weapons of war.
Arden’s Company was also readying for battle, the sixty-four men, two goblins, and one woman performing maintenance on their armor and weapons, as well as making other preparations. Alan hoped they wouldn’t need to swim once the battle commenced, for the lightest armor in evidence, other than the unarmored Yarek, was chainmail over hardened leather breastplates. Kar and Sar, the goblin brothers, intended to be much more heavily armored in their plate armor, and both had heavy kite shields and wicked spiked flails in addition to the axes they always bore on their belts.
Arden himself was repairing his chainmail hauberk, adjusting the plate cuirass. Alan had been fencing with the mercenary captain, both of them armed with broadsword and heater shield lately, the choice of weapons Arden’s. The prince suspected that meant Arden intended to trade his normal rapier for the heavier weapons. The mercenaries would be wearing tabards over their armor that bore the blue mermaid and crossed sword symbol of both the company and the ship.
Even Nan, who usually wore animal hides, planned to armor herself similarly to Arden, although her weapon of choice was a pair of horsemen’s battleaxes. They were heavy, but Alan had sparred with her as well. She could use them with skill and was strong enough—even without going berserk, which Alan had never yet seen her do—to use them effectively.
Yarek’s nod to armor was a pavise he could place before him and use for cover while handling his bow. The large shield had a spaded end with a footrest where the spade joined the face and could be thrust into
the ground. In point of fact, it was too heavy to be used effectively in any other way, at least by a human.
It was crowded on deck with the mercenaries all present, but they made way when a crewman needed access. Although many of the sailing crew were liberated slaves from Seagate and had only been with the ship for a few months, they’d adapted well to Cedrick’s, Olaf’s, and even Alan’s leadership and example. A few of the ex-slaves had very rough edges indeed, but they were deeply grateful to find themselves not only free but employed on a ship. Searcher had a reputation around the Island Kingdoms for having run into a long string of ill luck, but no sign of it had been seen since before Hyriel.
Some of the former slaves had asked to be included in the landing party, hungering for an opportunity to break some Islander heads, but Cedrick had explained Searcher had her own role to play and that he needed every able-bodied sailor aboard.
Alan was pleased that Cedrick and Arden had already considered the best way to handle the scorpions of the Varshan warships—to destroy them before they could reach effective range—when they met for the crossover at the end of his watch. They wanted Alan to develop his own concerns and plans in regard to the upcoming engagement, and were pleased he was thinking ahead.
“There could be as many as three men-o’-war standing off the island, and it’s in the nature of sailing ships that they aren’t easy things to sneak up on an enemy with,” Cedrick had said at that meeting. “That means, bow weapons alone, we could be dealing with six scorpions in addition to the warships’ other weapons.”
“Twelve if you count their stern chasers,” Arden had added.
“Aye, but we won’t be coming up from astern of them,” Cedrick had replied. “That means we can leave each ballista with three or four firebolts after reducing the scorpions, if your marksmanship is as good as I hope it is. I’ll maneuver so that different mounts can bear so we can even out the count.
By Blood Hunted: Kingsblood Chronicles Part Two (The Kingsblood Chronicles Book 2) Page 4