By Blood Hunted: Kingsblood Chronicles Part Two (The Kingsblood Chronicles Book 2)

by David J. Houpt

  So much for leaving Searcher in southern Shara, Alan thought to Gem as they stood the mainwatch on the poop deck. The sea had taken on a clear, smooth texture as if it was formed of poured glass instead of water, and the ship cut through the surface at more than eight knots.

  I wasn’t happy making a landing in Jarthol or the Duchies anyhow, the sword replied. They’re too close to Rishak’s lands for my comfort. And what if they decided to land in Fendar Port? The sword couldn’t shiver or shudder, but that prospect daunted her.

  The Usurper, before he’d taken the throne for himself, had ruled the Grand Duchy of Southmark. His lands stretched from the mountain kingdom of Kessel on the west to Firian Bay to the east, though well south of Fendar Port. Southmark’s capital city of Mourning was a fortress that commanded both sides of the Enor River, and the duchy’s southern reaches bordered the so-called Client States, five nations long ago subjugated by the Theocracy but maintained as semi-independent states as a buffer against the elves of the Sylvan Forest.

  Under the Kingdom of Dunshor, the Client States were granted independence, and their cowed nobilities emerged from under their respective rocks. The westernmost kingdom, Saschal, had rebelled against nobility that had willingly given them over to the mages when asked, and Rishak and his men had spent two years fighting in Saschal to put an end to the bloody and vicious civil war that had resulted.

  In a move that had always made Alan respect his uncle, the Grand Duke had instituted a series of tourneys for the aristocracy and nobility that remained, to earn their way to a Grand Tourney that would decide who would rule. The process had taken another year, and had had more than its share of trials and tribulations, but the resulting King of Saschal, Damael the First, had not been chosen by Dunshor, but rather by the will of the gods and by skill at arms.

  Who was the best jouster wasn’t the best way to pick a monarch, but it was better than appointing a governor and forcing rulership down the throats of the Saschali. Rishak’s troops had remained in the kingdom for five years, supporting the new king as well as serving as a reminder that Rishak could simply conquer the kingdom if he had to.

  The other four nations had their own problems stemming from the sudden change of power in Dunshor, and the southernmost kingdom, Astasa, had broken off all relations with Dunshor, declaring their alliance to the elves on their southern border. It had taken twenty years for the Dunshorian ambassador to be welcomed at the Astasian court, and even by the time of Rishak’s coup a decade later, the distrust between the two nations ran deep.

  That wouldn’t have been a good thing, Alan replied. Fendar Port was effectively a castle overlooking a deep channel, and once inside the Dunshorian naval headquarters, it might prove difficult to get out.

  But despite the proximity to Dunshor, he continued, I’d have preferred to leave the ship in southern Shara. He’d been feeling more and more certain that it was a better course to leave the ship immediately, although he couldn’t put a definite reason to the urge. To a great degree, though, we must go where the wind blows us.

  Cedrick poked his head around the base of the port stairway. “Alan!” he called.

  “Aye, Captain?” Alan answered, walking to the railing overlooking the main deck and gazing down at his captain.

  “Have Garvel relieve you for now and come to my cabin,” the captain ordered, pleased Alan hadn’t kept him waiting for a response.

  “Aye, sir,” Alan replied and Cedrick went aft into his cabin. Alan had Garvel relieve him after taking a look around the ship to see if anything was amiss. Making a mental note that the crew was slacking on some of the cleaning work, he went inside.

  Cedrick was poring over his charts. “Have a seat,” he gestured to one of the stools that surrounded the chart table. Alan had spent a lot of time working with those charts, and by now—according to Cedrick—was a moderately competent navigator and comfortable working closely with the older man.

  “We’ve got enough provisions to make the Empire, Alan, but I’d prefer not to push our luck,” he said, stomping his foot on the deck as a ward against bad luck. When Alan had come aboard, it had seemed misfortune was stalking Searcher, for the ship had suffered a long run of adversity. That had begun to turn around after Seagate, or at least it seemed that way to the crew.

  “I aim to make port in Avethiel,” he said, pointing at the elven port city on the map. “Assuming the wind’s going to oblige us by not getting more off beam, what’s the best way to get there?”

  Avethiel was on the southern coast of the elven lands and was about four hundred nautical miles west of the southeastern tip of the cape that was the southeastern corner of the continent. Along that long peninsula was the wild Sylvan Forest, an ancient wood that was the elves’ last bastion.

  Alan peered at the maps and charts and picked up two different compass dividers, setting one to roughly two hundred nautical miles and the other to one-third that distance. Laying the first divider at their estimated position, he walked it to the point of the cape, marked the count of eighteen aloud, and then used the second divider to walk off the distance to the city.

  “Twenty-four days if the wind holds and we can tack without any problem from the wave bearing,” he murmured, remeasuring the initial leg to the cape to confirm the count.

  Cedrick didn’t interrupt him, having learned Alan’s manner of thinking aloud in the months he’d known him. He sat there with an almost proprietary smile on his face. Gem knew the captain was proud of Alan’s progress in seamanship and navigation and that he’d be disappointed when Alan left the warship’s company.

  Alan then tracked a more southerly course, swinging a hundred leagues south of the cape and using a broader tack to make their way westward against the headwind. He quickly shook his head. “That’ll only cost us time unless the waves are coming abeam and we can’t tack properly, won’t it, Captain?” he said ruefully. In that circumstance, the waves would make one leg of the tack difficult, if not impossible.

  Cedrick softly clouted him on the shoulder, having long learned that Alan wore armor under his tunic nearly constantly. “When we started this, you’d have picked the more southerly course right off,” he said. “Hugging the coast as tightly as we can and then tacking our way west is the best course unless the sea fights back.

  “I made us at between twenty-two and twenty-eight days’ transit if the wind holds, and your estimate’s right on top of mine. Good job, son.”

  Alan smiled a little in pleasure at the praise, basking in the captain’s approval.

  It took him a little off guard when Cedrick said, “And that’s where you’ll leave us, aye?”

  Alan was taken aback, momentarily speechless. His discomfiture was worsened by the knowledge that his lack of a response was in and of itself an answer. With a sigh, he met his captain’s gaze and nodded. “Yes, sir. It’s time Snog and I moved on.” He wondered what had given him away.

  “You’re honest, Alan,” Cedrick said. “It’s one of the things I like best about you. Thank you for an honest answer, although you must realize it leaves us in a poor position for engineers.”

  Alan nodded again, though he had to suppress a stab of guilt over Cedrick’s comment about his honesty. Kess was nowhere near ready to take over as the chief engineer, although the prince knew that had Cedrick known his true age, he’d never have accepted him for the post, either. “I’m sorry about that, Captain, but…”

  Cedrick interrupted him. “I’ll hire new siegemen at the next opportunity, Alan. Would you consider staying on long enough to train them? I’m sure I can convince Arden to make it worth your while.”

  Alan frowned and cocked his head, considering the offer. Looking back up into Cedrick’s eyes, he said, “I’m sorry, Captain, but we need to move on.”

  Cedrick sat back on his stool, considering Alan coolly for several minutes. Under his gaze, Alan found himself looking down to the charts and fingering the divider in his hand.

  “I think you’re better
off with us than on your own,” Cedrick said at last. “But you’ve got to make your own way. We’ll see you have your final pay in Avethiel.”

  He took a deep breath and then said, “Fare well, Alan of Staikal, or whatever your name is. I wish you the best of luck, no matter where the winds take you, and if you ever get ahead of whatever’s after you, I’ll have a place for a good man.”

  Alan swallowed hard, forcing himself to keep a steady voice though it was damned hard to do so. “Thank you, Captain,” he said a little hoarsely. “I appreciate all you’ve taught me, and that you’re understanding about this.”

  Cedrick nodded and clapped Alan on the shoulder. “Best see to your duties topside, Alan,” he said, dismissing the younger man.

  Later, standing his watch alongside the helmsman, Alan’s mind was elsewhere. Though he still took note of the condition of the ship and sea, his eyes cast far out to the distant southern horizon.

  After a long while, he said silently to Gem, What do you think gave our intentions away?

  Gem gave a mental snort. I think it was an educated guess, my son, she said. He knew you were leaving some time and this will be the first port of call that’s relatively far away from where we started.

  You think so? he asked.

  I do, she replied. I’m sure he was actually hoping you’d tell him that you’ve changed your mind and want a permanent position with the ship. He hid his disappointment well, but it was there.

  Alan shifted his position to the starboard rail and called down to some of the sailors lounging about below him on the main deck near the cookhouse. “Let’s get those ropes coiled fore and aft!” he yelled, and seeing they were complying, returned to the helm.

  I’ve never been to Avethiel, he thought to his companion. Darwyn thought well of the city, though, when she and Kale went there. His eldest sister and her husband, a prince of Esros, had visited the elven enclave a number of times to further peaceful relations between Dunshor and the elves, to some positive effect.

  After Kale’s death last year in a hunting accident—a hunting accident that Alan and Gem both looked at in a completely different light after the coup—Darwyn had spoken of returning to the elven lands as a permanent ambassador, and she and their parents had been discussing that over dinner on the evening of Rishak’s strike.

  Both the young man and the sword felt deep pangs of sorrow at the knowledge that she was dead at a mere twenty-five years of age. It occurred to both of them that many of the crewmen and soldiers were older than that.

  Gem was the first to master her grief enough to speak again. It might be a good place to inquire about Fulnor, if we’re careful about it, she said. Elowyn’s folk are well-traveled and very knowledgeable.

  Alan tried not to snuffle as he inhaled deeply to try to loosen the grip of pain in his heart. If we get a really good opportunity, maybe, but I’d prefer no one on the continent knowing we’ve gone to Vella to seek it.

  That’s a good point, she replied. Have you given thought to what we need to do in Fulnor if we can find out where it is?

  He shook his head physically but minimally. I don’t have the first clue. They didn’t speak a language I even recognized, and their culture seemed very warlike, if expressed in a strange way. I’m afraid we’re going to have to feel our way into whatever the Young Avenger intended I do down there.

  He knew that Gem had misgivings about the prince’s faith in the vision of Dalgarin he’d been granted, but he knew with a certitude of faith that the encounter had really happened. He supposed that if had been Gem who’d met the goddess of vengeance and told him about it, he’d have been skeptical, too. I suspect that Fulnor’s in the far south in any event, and we’ve got to deal with getting there one step at a time, Alan continued. First, we avoid hunters in the elven lands, then find passage to Shardis and deal with whatever dangers the next ship might hold, then… He trailed off the thought deliberately.

  All true, my boy, she thought back affectionately. I just don’t want you to forget to look at the horizon from time to time as we take those smaller steps.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  As he’d expected, Lian had begun moving rapidly once his ship had settled upon a course, and at first it had outpaced him, even though his mount was under the strongest enhancing spell he knew and could gallop untiringly for days. He’d be buying remounts generously, he knew, because once the spell ran out, the horse would very likely drop dead from exhaustion.

  Something slowed the ship’s passage, however, and after a time it became easier to get ahead of the prince as he rode through Dethiel and then into the Engean Duchies. He used magic, stealth, or guile where he needed to in order to avoid difficulties with the local military and border officials, but for the most part, people simply got out of his way as he galloped south.

  He passed through the southern Engean border and into the Sylvan Forest after more than two weeks of riding, and only his elven stamina kept him in the saddle. Lian’s progress south had remained fairly constant, but because the ship didn’t stop for something as minor as nightfall, it chewed up nearly two hundred miles a day in its southerly progress. He’d stopped only for a few minutes’ time each day to take a bearing with the jade frog, marking the progress against his own position as he moved. The ship was nearing the Sharan shoreline as it moved south, and he could think of only one reason it might do so—it was bound for Avethiel, which presented something of a problem for him.

  He and his half-brother had shared a mother, but while Elowyn’s father had been a Silei elf, Celewyn’s father Suvia had been a tall, blond Avani elf. Other than Elowyn’s hair color, neither brother had taken after Nieilwyn, their mother, in appearance—a fortunate thing, given their profession and her notoriety in elven court circles—so while they shared blood, their appearances were very different. The Sylvan Forest was ruled by the dark-haired Silei, as it had been for countless millennia, and while the Avani were tolerated within its borders, they weren’t exactly welcomed. The elves had dwindled in numbers and power in the long years since the fall of the elven kingdom, and despite the old feuds between the two main clans of elves, banning any elf from the forest had become unthinkable to those who remained.

  That wasn’t true of Avethiel city proper. The Avani could move among the docks and warehouses, and one could find hostels and inns in the edges of the city that would admit the Avani, though for a higher price than for Silei or even humans.

  If Lian were headed for Avethiel, which seemed likely given the ship appeared to be heading to round the cape, and if he remained on the strand, Celewyn could easily find a way to approach him, although what happened after that remained to be seen. If the ship was merely bound south by southwest by coincidence and was actually headed for the southern continent, the elf could find passage southward to follow him readily enough, but if Lian made landfall at Avethiel and then headed into the inner enclave, it would be much harder to get to him.

  Not impossible—he’d stolen into Avethiel before, after all—but much more difficult, and much more likely to rouse the prince’s suspicions. It was a bridge he’d cross when he had to, and for now he merely looked to the condition of his current mount. It was all he could do.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  The warship Searcher glided into the harbor on a light afternoon wind. The solidly built inner fortress-tower of the elves’ port city dominated the shoreline, rising two hundred yards into the sky in seven equally sized spires. The sleek and slender elven warships that had come to meet them had returned to their patrols, for Arden and his ship were known to the elves and welcome there.

  Only a handful of merchant ships, mostly southern galleons from the Empire, were docked at the long circular dockworks, the fourteen individual piers pushing far out away from shore in intersecting lines. None of the piers came close to meeting one of the others, leaving a huge open circle of water in the center of the harbor, and it was to that center point that Searcher held her course. It wasn’t how a human architect would
have built a harbor, and it presented challenges in getting larger vessels in and out, but it was well made, having stood the test of time for countless centuries.

  Avethiel had ever been a merchant port of call, not naval, which is why it survived the war with the Pelorian Empire so long ago. None of the naval ports, the home bases of the great Dragon Fleet, had survived the terrible conflict with the Pelorians. Even so, the dragon motif of the ancient elven nation could be seen engraved on the rocky hills that overlooked the harbor’s entrance, and the tall spires of the tower were embossed with long wyrms coiling around them.

  Unlike human cities, which tended to grow organically and somewhat randomly, Avethiel was typical of elven settlements in that it had been planned from the beginning. Straight lines demarked streets and alleyways, efficiently laid out to be both useful and defensible. Multiple walls and gateworks divided the docks from the different sectors of the city, and any attacking force must go over the walls or else wind their way through the teeth of the next sector’s inner defenses.

  Typically, the gates between each sector were kept open for civilian traffic, for trade was encouraged by the elves. Elven steel weapons and implements, lighter than steel but just as strong, were in great demand everywhere, and while the humans had long ago learned the art of forging penalirin, the elves were still past masters at the craft. Penalirin implements were not the only items traded here, for elven craftsmen had an advantage that the short-lived humans did not typically possess: effective immortality.

  Elves as a whole varied as much as humans did and were called to different trades, each according to their talents, aptitudes, and preferences. Their long lifespans gave them tremendous patience and the ability to focus for long periods of time on a single task, and consequently they learned tricks of their trade that humans simply didn’t have time to develop before infirmity struck. Also unlike many human craftsmen, who often jealously guarded the secrets they acquired to monopolize upon them, elven artists usually took on dozens of apprentices to spread the knowledge far and wide so it would not be lost. Although they did not age and were tremendously resistant to most diseases and poisons, elves most certainly could die from accident, mishap, or the fortunes of war, and to them, the loss of a new secret in goldsmithing was to throw the gods’ gift of knowledge back in their divine faces.