The Storm Witch

by Violette Malan

  Ah, he’s got us there, Parno thought. He’d be having fun, if Dhulyn wasn’t so pale, and so still.

  Dhulyn was still hesitating. “There are other Mercenary Brothers here in Lesonika. Let me find you one of those,” she finally said. “We have a matter for judgment in our House here, a matter of our Brotherhood, and we are not free to take employment until it is resolved.”

  Now Parno thought he understood Dhulyn’s behavior. They were bound by all their oaths of Brotherhood to await the summons of their House. Kedneara the late Queen of Tegrian had asked for a judgment of outlawry against them—mistakenly, of course, but she’d died before being able to withdraw it. They had sworn documents from the present Queen, but if they missed this judgment, if their documents were not presented, it could very well result in outlawry for them.

  And the Mercenary Brotherhood was the only home Dhulyn Wolfshead had ever known. No surprise that she was ignoring the reference to a Seer, and considering—even if only for a moment—letting Huelra and his people die rather than lose it. After all, death was what lay in store for all of them. Eventually.

  But Captain Malfin Cor was shaking his head. “Must leave with this tide—now, in fact. Who knows how long it might take to find others.” He lifted his hand as Dhulyn started to speak again. “It’s not we can’t wait. It’s the Crayx.”

  “I begin to see why they have problems negotiating with these others,” Parno said, under his breath.

  Dhulyn nodded, but slowly. “We could agree, and then kill you all.”

  Parno forced his eyebrows to remain at their normal level. That was a negotiating tactic he’d never heard her use before.

  Another snort of laughter came out of the shadows behind Captain Darlara Cor. Before the sound died away, Parno’s hand flicked out, and the hilt of his heaviest dagger bounced off the forehead of the third man to the left. There was a THUNK as the man fell to his knees and pitched forward into the flickering light of the lanterns.

  “You were saying?” Dhulyn’s rough voice sounded courteous and soft in the sudden silence.

  Blinking, Malfin Cor cleared his throat. “You would not,” he said. “You are Paledyn.” This time he did not sound quite so sure. “You would swear not to.”

  Dhulyn sighed and Parno caught her glance, lifting his left eyebrow in answer to her look. They would be bound, no question of it. For a Mercenary Brother there was no such thing as a forced oath. They would die rather than swear one. That was their Common Rule.

  “And what prevents you from killing your hostages in any case?” Parno said. “Once we’ve agreed and we’re at sea? I only ask since you admit that you can’t be trusted.”

  Captain Malfin Cor bit his lower lip. “Of course,” he said nodding, “that would free you from your oaths.”

  A creak of rope made them all look up.

  “Wolfshead.” Their friend Captain Huelra’s voice was tight, but there was nothing else, no plea for himself or his crew. His throat moved as he swallowed. Huelra had no say here, no control over the events around him; so, like a sensible man, he stayed quiet . . . and trusted to his gods.

  Well, his gods were looking after him tonight, that was certain.

  “How if I came with you myself, and my Partner remained here.”

  “Dhulyn!”

  Even as the words left her mouth, Dhulyn knew what Parno’s reaction would be. But it was too late to call them back, and whatever else happened, short of breaking the oaths of the Common Rule—short of breaking the oaths of their Partnership, to which her suggestion came perilously close—she must do whatever she could to keep Parno off the Long Ocean ship.

  Without telling him why.

  “Without me,” she said to him now, “the Mercenary House can rule quickly, they need not wait for a Brother Senior to me. You can explain what has happened here, and I will return as quickly as I can.” She turned with lifted eyebrows to Malfin Cor and his sister-captain.

  “As soon as our business is finished,” he said.

  “No.” Parno’s voice startled her, she had never heard him speak so sharply before. “We are Partnered,” he said. “I will not—I cannot—be left behind.”

  “I am Senior—” Dhulyn began.

  “In Battle,” Parno said, touching his forehead with the tips of his fingers.

  Dhulyn held off, but there was only one answer, and her Partner knew it. “Or in Death,” she answered him lifting her own hand to answer his salute. She clenched her teeth against the words she could not say. Another rope creaked overhead, or perhaps the same one, and she cleared her throat.

  “Let Huelra and his crew go,” she said, her heart tight in her chest. “Now. Free them, and we come with you.” What was her alternative? Let them die? And when her Partner asked her why she’d let that happen—because he would ask her, no question—what answer could she give him? That she could not tell him why, that it was all part of the one thing she had promised never to tell him?

  “Wolfshead.” The tone in Huelra’s voice was now completely different. Evidently, he had not been so very certain what their answer would be.

  “Huelra,” she said. She wondered if anyone else noticed the tightness in her voice. “You must be our advocate to our House. The documents they have already, but you must go, explain to them what has happened, and ask them to wait their judgment.” She swallowed. “Ask them to look after our horses.”

  “It will be done, Wolfshead. Depend on me.”

  Dhulyn kept her attention on the last few items she was removing from their largest pack. They’d had to abandon much of their gear—not counting weapons, of course—after the battle of Limona, and even after restocking in Beolind there wasn’t much. They had moved their packs only after having seen Huelra’s crew restored to the Catseye, and the cabin they’d been given on the Wavetreader—Co-captain Darlara’s own, as it turned out—was more than spacious. Or it would be, if Parno wasn’t hovering over her like a schoolmaster looming over a student. She kept her hands busy and her eyes down. Not that it did her any good.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “Not now, my soul.”

  But he persisted, as she’d known he would. “How could you say you would go alone? Demons and perverts, we’re Partnered, why would you say such a thing?”

  Because you are going to die out there, she thought, her lips pressed tight. Because she’d known ever since she’d first touched him that Parno was going to die at sea. Her Vision had shown her the storm, and the deck tilting, and the wall of water that would sweep her Partner over the side. And she had promised never to tell him how he would die. Never.

  “I was worried about the hearing,” she said finally. “I lost my head.”

  Parno crouched down next to her, blocking her light, and put his hand on her shoulder. “And the Seer? You felt we must stay, and yet you wanted to go.” Here he was, finding excuses for her.

  “Now is not a good time to be touching me,” she said from between clenched teeth.

  Parno lifted his hand immediately and edged back. “Did you have a Vision? Is that what this is all about?” he said, lowering his voice.

  Dhulyn froze, her hands caught flattening the pack for folding, her lower lip between her teeth. Partners did not lie to each other, as a rule. Was there any part of the truth that could serve?

  “Yes,” she said finally. “I’ve Seen that a sea voyage will prove to be unlucky for us.”

  Parno sat back on his heels, blowing out his cheeks. “Well, then.” He rubbed at the beard stubble on his chin. “Still, what could you do? Let them kill Huelra and his people? A large price to buy our way out of some bad luck.” He stood up and edged around her to where the heavy silk bag holding his pipes lay on the cabin’s small table.

  “Let’s not worry too much, in any case,” he said. “With your Sight so chancy as it is, it may be nothing more than the sea illness. Do you want to try using the vera tiles?”

  Dhulyn shook her head. She closed the latch on the
locker underneath the lower bunk and sat back on her heels, delaying the moment that he would expect her to turn toward him.

  “Let it wait a day or two,” she said. “My woman’s time is coming. And it may be best if our hosts don’t know of my Mark.”

  Parno nodded, rubbing at his face once more. He’d have to let his beard grow again, she thought. It was hard to shave at sea unless you’d had plenty of practice. Her heart lurched again. Practice he wasn’t going to get.

  “It doesn’t sound as though they have a problem with this Seer they’ve mentioned. Especially since they’re doing what she asked. Still, chances are they’re more familiar with the commoner ones, Menders, Finders, Healers.”

  “And if, unlike me, the Seer they know has been fully trained . . .”

  Parno nodded. “They’ll have the usual expectations.”

  They would, the same as any reasonable person. That she See for them, look into the future. And she would have to explain once again that her Sight was erratic, that she’d never been trained to use it properly, that her glimpses of the future were not as useful as people might think.

  Very few ever believed her.

  “Fine, then. Let’s hide your Mark from the Nomads,” Parno said. “At least until we have some idea of what they actually know about the Marked, and how they feel about them.”

  Dhulyn looked up at him. Parno was frowning, his eyes focused on the middle distance. Funny how he still thought of the Marked as “them,” she thought. But, of course, to him she was his Partner first, and a Seer second.

  “Still, it can’t do any harm for us to check the tiles, just for ourselves, try to head off this bad luck you’re talking about.” He held up his hands as she opened her mouth. “I know what you’re going to say. Unreliable. But we know much more about your Sight now than we did before. If your woman’s time is near, and you use the tiles, that gives us the best possible chance of accuracy. After all, we know what to expect, it won’t be the first Vision we’ve dealt with.”

  Dhulyn took a deep breath and consciously willed her hands to loosen from the fists she’d made. She was sorely tempted to tell him and be done with it, lest the short time they had left be spoiled by evasions and half-truths. But she’d sworn, hadn’t she, when they’d first Partnered and she’d told Parno that she was Marked. Sworn it would be the one thing she would never tell him. The one secret that would free her to tell him everything—anything—else.

  She’d done all she could to keep him off the deep seas, the Long Ocean here in the east, the larger Round Ocean in the Great King’s realm far to the west. Even here, in the Midland Sea, she’d made sure they only took coastal vessels such as Captain Huelra’s Catseye.

  And she’d done what she could to keep them from this voyage as well. Had she done the right thing? Could she have left Huelra and his crew to die? Was following the honorable path of the Common Rule really worth Parno’s life? Tradition said that one Partner did not survive the death of the other, but that hadn’t even entered her thoughts until now. She looked up, but her Partner was focused on his pipes, checking the air bag for soundness. It was Parno she wanted to save, not herself. But if she acted dishonorably, if she broke the Common Rule, what kind of life was she saving for them?

  Two

  DHULYN WOLFSHEAD TRIED to focus her attention on the book in her hands, but not even the poems of the great The onyn offered her any escape from her thoughts. She had hardly slept. The sound of water shushing under the hull should have been soothing, a reminder of her days of Schooling aboard the Black Traveler, but the sound was wrong somehow, jarring. And as for Parno’s breathing, every familiar sigh filled her with reproach. Finally, as soon as there was light enough in the sky, she’d let herself out of their cabin and found a spot where she would be out of the way of the crew on watch but there’d be light enough to read.

  Dhulyn wrinkled her nose. A sharp, almost spicy smell overlaid the familiar and expected odors of brine, ozone, oiled decks, and bodies too long washed in salt water. She massaged her temples with the tips of her fingers. Perhaps it was the strange smell causing her headache. And perhaps pigs would become Racha birds. She’d found a coil of rope to sit on, her back against the high rail, in a sheltered spot not far from the man at the wheel, though out of his line of sight. Her sword was hooked to her belt, and her best throwing dagger hung in its thin harness under her vest, between her shoulder blades. She badly missed the knives she would normally carry in her boot tops, but without proper deck shoes, she’d chosen to go barefoot.

  The unusual rain had lasted through the night, stopping at sunrise. The wind seemed light for the speed they were making, but she’d seen no sign of oars. The watch had just changed, and Dhulyn was well aware of the looks and sideways glances of the few whose duties brought them on deck at this hour, though none of them ventured near her. She couldn’t be sure what caused the interest, that she was a Mercenary Brother, or that she was reading. She had lowered her eyes once more to her book when a whisper of sound automatically made her slow her breathing and concentrate, reaching out with all her senses. A shadow fell on the page in front of her.

  “You are in my light, Captain Malfin Cor,” she said without lifting her eyes.

  “Seem very comfortable there. Right in thinking you’ve been on ships before, Dhulyn?” She was getting the feel of the accent, she thought, but that unusual dropping of pronouns . . .

  She closed Theonyn’s book on the index finger of her right hand. “My name is pronounced ‘Dillin,’ ” she reminded him. “But only my Brothers may call me that. You must call me Wolfshead, or Scholar. And my Partner is Lionsmane, or Chanter.”

  She leaned back, propping her elbow on a crosspiece of wood. This was the first opportunity she’d had to see the captain in unobstructed light. He was just a finger’s width or two shorter than she was herself—and she was tall for a woman—and dressed in the same dark clothing as the rest of his crew, though his loose trousers and simple shirt looked to be of costlier fabric. Like his sister-captain, and one or two of the senior crew including the man at the wheel, Malfin Cor wore a vest—almost a cuirass—made of a peculiar thick leather that would have resembled the skin of a fish, except the scales were much too large. Dhulyn’s nostrils widened. The armor also seemed to be the source of the odd smell. Rather than boots, or a town man’s shoes, he wore sailor’s clogs on his bare feet. The easier to kick them off if he went into the water, Dhulyn remembered from her own Schooling.

  Only the captain’s chin was clean-shaven. His mustache joined his sideburns, and his braid, she noticed as he turned his head away from her to watch the progress of a very young boy up the forward mast, was reinforced with leather thongs and long enough to reach all the way down his back, and wrap around his waist to form a belt. Dhulyn resisted the urge to touch her own hair, still barely long enough to fall into her eyes. She looked around her. Not everyone she could see had the same hairstyle as the captain, but certainly all who wore one of the odd leather cuirasses.

  Dhulyn blew out a silent sigh. Malfin Cor was showing no inclination to move from her side. While it was she who drove the bargains, it was usually Parno who undertook the job of making conversation with clients.

  “Last night you called us ‘Paledyn,’ ” she said. “I have heard a similar word among the Berdani, but it is not much used in general.”

  “More a word of the Mortaxa than ours.” Malfin Cor leaned his hip against the rail, folding his arms. “Mortaxa tales and songs tell of warriors and sages of paramount honor and fair dealing, the Hands, in this world, of the Slain God.” He gestured toward Dhulyn’s hairline. “Known by their shaven and tattooed heads. When we first carried tales of the Mercenary Brotherhood back across Long Ocean, the Mortaxa believed you must be descendants of that order.”

  Dhulyn nodded. It could be. It was widely held in the Scholars’ Libraries that the Mercenary Brotherhood, the Jaldean Priesthood, and the Scholars themselves had been formed by the last of the Caids wh
o had the old knowledge, before that race had died out. The Caids were supposed to have occupied the whole world—small wonder, then, if similar tales and writings were found everywhere.

  Dhulyn straightened, blinking. Perhaps there were books there, across the Long Ocean; books that were unknown in the continent of Boravia. They had been in such a hurry to catch the ebbing tide the night before that there had been no discussion of payment or fees. She wondered now if perhaps they could be paid in books. She glanced down at the worn inseam of her linen trousers. Well, perhaps only partly in books.

  Her breath caught and she squeezed shut her eyes. For a moment it seemed her heart stopped beating. How was it possible that she’d forgotten? They wouldn’t be paid at all. Things wouldn’t get that far.

  “Something’s amiss?” Malfin Cor was looking at her with furrowed brows.

  Blood. She’d need to control her face better than this. She closed her book completely and slipped it under her sword sash at the small of her back.

  “You say the Mortaxa have this belief, yet it was you who were sure we would not leave Huelra and his crew to die.”

  Malfin Cor shrugged. “Desperation makes a man grasp at anything. There’s none of us among the Crayx haven’t heard the stories of the Paledyn, and many have seen the Mercenary Brotherhood. But saw last night not all feel the same way. Plus there’s some begrudge having to use this voyage to come fetch you, and may try to show you how much.”

  “No one can grudge our presence here more than we do ourselves, Malfin Cor.” Dhulyn could hear the sincerity in her own voice, and apparently the captain could, too, for he nodded and looked away.

  Pain throbbed behind Dhulyn’s right eye, and was answered by a sudden but familiar spasm of a muscle in her lower back, the herald of her woman’s time, no doubt of it. Sun and Moon, just what she needed when she had to be at her sharpest.

  “Tell me more about the Mortaxa,” she said. Much as she would have liked to ignore the captain, his crew, and the whole blooded ship, some instinct told her to act as naturally as the circumstances would allow. If this were any other job, she would be asking questions, gathering information, formulating plans. “And all you know,” she added, “of your dispute with them.”