The Storm Witch

by Violette Malan

  “The Mortaxa said they wouldn’t even treat with us any longer,” Darlara finished, “That they couldn’t trust us, not now we’d threatened them.”

  “Many wanted to fight, but the Crayx said try talking again, that there would always be time to fight later.”

  Parno caught Dhulyn’s eye, prepared to share a silent laugh at this familiar, and sensible, attitude, but the smile she gave him was late and stiff.

  “Then the Tarxin says their Seers say Paledyn will come with a solution. We’re to bring them a Paledyn, or don’t come back at all.”

  Parno glanced again at Dhulyn, holding his breath. She was frowning, her blood-red brows drawn down in a vee. She had not missed the reference to a Seer, that was certain.

  “Paledyn.” Darlara reached her hand across the table between them. “Just want our rights,” she said. “They should hold by the ancient treaties, or at least bargain to make new ones, not just toss us aside and try to wreck our ships with storms.”

  “Wait, wait.” Dhulyn patted the air in front of her. “I don’t know as much about the far side of the Long Ocean as you do, but surely even there the rain must fall.”

  “Think this weather is natural? The rains here, even here, in the Midland Sea? This is to remind us of our task, since they don’t trust us to do it.”

  “This weather? You mean yesterday’s rain?” Dhulyn’s hand tightened on the cup she had been about to raise to her lips. Her glance met Parno’s and he nodded, mindful of the storms of the day before, and the unseasonable winds that had accompanied their sailing in the Catseye to Lesonika.

  “And more. Wait a moment.”

  Malfin went to the door of the cabin and opened it. “Devin,” he said. “Come here a moment, lad.” He turned back to the Mercenaries. “Wait until you see this, Paledyn. Then ask me again about the rain.”

  The young boy came in and grinned at them again. He had good teeth, Parno noticed. So did they all, now that he came to think of it.

  “Show the Mercenary Brothers your ears, lad.”

  What Parno had taken for a scarf around the boy’s head was a length of fine fishnet holding pads of linen over his ears. Both Parno and Dhulyn stood and came around the table to see. Devin tilted his head back, exposing his ears completely. Parno leaned closer. The cartilage at the top of the ears was a dull gray color, as if there was no blood circulating there.

  “Can you stop in Navra for a Healer?” Dhulyn’s voice was tight and Parno looked at her with surprise.

  “No.” Malfin shook his head. “Just enough time to get through the Straits as it is.”

  “You know what caused this,” Darlara said.

  Parno frowned, searching through his memory for the knowledge he felt must be there. He’d seen this type of injury before. The answer was just within his grasp when Dhulyn spoke.

  “This is frostbite.”

  Three

  “I TAKE IT YOU DON’T sail into the southernmost seas,” Dhulyn said. She took the boy Devin by the chin and tilted his face to catch the light better. There were telltale marks of the killing cold on the firm curve of his left cheek as well, just below the eye, though it seemed the dead skin there would slough off without leaving more behind it than a small scar.

  “Never. Frostbite—heard the word, surely—but you know it? You’ve seen it?”

  Dhulyn nodded. “We’re Mercenary Brothers, there’s little we haven’t seen. If there’s to be no Healer, the ears will have to be trimmed of this dead flesh, or the death will spread.”

  While she was speaking, Dhulyn caught the attention of both captains, questioning them with raised brows, reaching her free hand up the back of her vest for her dagger. Understanding what was wanted, Parno mirrored her position on the boy’s other side.

  The captains hesitated, eyes narrowing as they considered. When they nodded, Dhulyn and Parno moved, their blades flashing so swiftly that it took the boy Devin a moment to even realize he’d been cut. By then, Dhulyn had taken up the pads of linen and was already pressing them to the boy’s ears as Parno retied the bits of netting.

  “Anyone else who was affected must be dealt with the same way,” Dhulyn said. “Even fingers or toes must be cut, and quickly if the limbs are to be saved.”

  “Go help Jessika, boy, tell her what Dhulyn Wolfshead has said. Jessika’s our Knife,” Darlara said, turning to Dhulyn. “She’ll see to it now she knows what needs to be done.”

  The boy nodded and turned to the door, his eyes as round as coins, his grin gone.

  “Were crossing when this cold overtook us at the midpoint, some fifteen days from Mortaxa. Ice fell from the sky, and then a wind like a knife for three days.” Darlara’s eyes were still on the cabin door Devin had closed behind him.

  “Knew right away it wasn’t natural, any more than this rain,” Malfin said.

  Dhulyn shivered, and saw the same chill mirrored in Parno’s eyes. Unusual for this time of year, that’s what everyone had been saying about the rains. But hail? Followed by a killing cold? Unnatural was the proper word.

  Darlara nodded at their silence. “Not imagining things, Mercenaries. Live by the weather more than most, and can tell what’s natural from what’s Mage work. The Mortaxa have a Storm Witch, that’s certain.”

  Dhulyn’s hand tightened around her teacup. Sun and Moon. A Mage? That’s all they needed.

  “Can you be certain?”

  Malfin Cor snorted. “Who else can bring ice and snow in the warm oceans?”

  “Or this unnatural rain?” added his sister.

  “But why would they?” Parno said. “They’ve sent you, you say, to find Paledyn. Why attack you on your journey?”

  The two captains exchanged another look. “We’ve wondered,” Darlara finally said. “Did they send us? Said Paledyn would solve all problems.”

  “Perhaps don’t want conflict solved,” Malfin said.

  “Maybe just to show us what they can do. That the Witch’s power extends so far . . .” Both captains shook their heads, the identical movement almost hypnotizing.

  Dhulyn blinked, looked into her empty cup, and held it out as Darlara turned to the teapot. Say there is a Mage, she thought, or a Witch, as the Nomads called him. It did not necessarily follow that the man was doing anything more or less than defending his people. And the Nomads admitted they’d made threats.

  “Say you let them build their ships,” Dhulyn said. “This Storm Witch would leave you be, and you might be able to trade for his services, as you do for the Marked. It would be years, perhaps generations, before the Mortaxa became any real threat to you in terms of trade. In this part of the world there are many traders, and all find profit.” Automatically, Dhulyn’s Schooled mind fell into the logical paths most useful for negotiation. “If nothing else, you’ll have bought their goodwill, and that will buy you time to learn more.”

  “It’s not just the trade,” Malfin said. “For the Mortaxa—”

  “Or anyone else,” interjected Darlara.

  “Or anyone else,” Malfin agreed, “to build ships and travel on the oceans is an affront to the Crayx. It’s they have dominion over the oceans, and us their children, no one else.”

  Dhulyn pursed her lips, keeping her eyes focused once more on her refilled cup. They’d been talking long enough that, insulated basket or no, the ginger tea was losing its heat.

  Parno cleared his throat “Is ‘Crayx’ another word for ‘Caid’?” he asked. Dhulyn looked up.

  But both Nomads were shaking their heads.

  “The Crayx knew them, in their time. Was the Caids granted this domain,” Malfin said.

  “So ancient is their agreement and binding on all who follow,” Darlara agreed. “The Crayx are the guardians of the waters of the world.”

  “You worship them?”

  “Oh, no.” Here the Nomads seemed almost to laugh, though they grew serious again at once.

  “We’re the same people. We belong to them,” Darlara said. “And they to us.”
r />   “As you two belong to each other.”

  Well, there was no disputing that. She and Parno were Partnered, they did belong to each other. But as difficult as the Partnership of Mercenary Brothers was for outsiders to understand, at least they were sitting down together, in the same room. Able to touch, argue, and fight side by side.

  Dhulyn glanced at him and saw that Parno was wearing his blandest look, but his left eyebrow was raised. The Mercenary Brotherhood was open-minded about the religious beliefs of others—they had to be. But these “Crayx” were something neither of them had ever heard of.

  Malfin slid out from behind the table and stood. “Come,” he said, and indicated the door. “Show you.”

  Dhulyn followed Darlara out of the cabin, letting Malfin and Parno bring up the rear. Darlara glanced up and over her shoulder, nodding at the woman now at the wheel, before acknowledging the mate as he moved toward them across the deck. The sun had gone behind the clouds once again, though the wind had picked up and Dhulyn’s finely Schooled balance detected the slight pitch of the deck to port.

  The ordinary business of the day had begun while they were in the captains’ cabin, and the deck, so empty when the sun had barely risen, was almost crowded with men and women—and children, Dhulyn saw with some surprise until she remembered that these were Nomads, and like the nomads of the land, would travel with their families. All seemed busy. There was movement in and out of the cabins in the central part of the deck, where a young, fair-haired woman who was clearly the Knife was hard at work on the other frostbite victims. Much of the rest of the crew were engaged in the usual work found at all times on all ships, repairing the damage caused by salt on the metalwork, and by wear on ropes and railings. Nearest them, two white-haired men with identical laugh lines were mending a net with fingers made crooked by age, and a middle-aged woman sitting with them was putting a new end on a fraying rope.

  Dhulyn slowed, looking around her. What was wrong with what she saw? Of course. There were no lines of apprentices drilling in the Shora as there would have been on the ship where she was Schooled. To her right, out of the wind, was a man reading to a group of small children sitting cross-legged at his feet, while a similar group of young people several years older were listening with rapt attention to a man with a garwon in his hands.

  As if they felt her watching them, the youngest of the children turned to stare at the Mercenaries as they passed, and Dhulyn suppressed a smile as she saw Parno straighten his spine and add a slight swagger to his walk, his hand falling casually to the hilt of his sword. The others, older children and crew alike, studiously avoided looking directly at them, though Dhulyn could feel the glances that were aimed out of the corners of eyes as they followed the two captains to an unoccupied section of the rail.

  Malfin leaned out, bracing both hands on the rail, his brow furrowed in concentration as he scanned the water rushing past the hull. Darlara motioned the Mercenaries forward with a gesture, inviting them to join Malfin, as she hung back. With a twitch of her left hand, Dhulyn signaled Parno to take up position at Malfin’s right while she stayed back beside Darlara. It wouldn’t do to have both of them turn their backs on the crew at the same time.

  “Demons and perverts.” Parno was using the tone he normally saved for visits to religious shrines—only with less fake courtesy and more genuine awe. “You’d better come see this, my heart.” He stepped back from the rail to let her take his place, though he didn’t move as far away as she had been. Dhulyn looked over the side.

  As she watched, a darkness rose up from the depth of the sea, and took the form of a scaled back. A very large, very long scaled back. Finally, the tail flicked out of the water, somehow giving Dhulyn a sense of playfulness and fun.

  “What is it?” She was glad to hear her own voice so steady.

  “That is the Crayx.”

  “Ah. Now I see why your ship has no oars.”

  A soft “click” made Parno Lionsmane’s eyes flutter open. Dhulyn was sitting at their cabin’s small table with her back to him, but he had seen her in that position many times—back straight as a lance, head tilted down, fingertips resting on the edge of the table—and knew that she was looking at her vera tiles.

  He blinked, just stopping himself from speaking. Looking at her tiles, seeking a Vision, was something Dhulyn hardly ever did on her own. It was always his job to nudge her, persuade her. Parno could tell the moment the Visions began by the change in Dhulyn’s breathing, and the shift in the angle of her shoulders as she leaned forward. Still, he made no move to rise from his bunk. Instead, he closed his eyes again and let his own breathing slow. Whatever reason Dhulyn had for hiding this from him, he would let her tell him in her own time.

  Finally, Parno heard Dhulyn release her breath in a ragged sigh and begin putting the tiles away, almost soundlessly, into their silk-lined box. He waited until she’d slipped the box back into her pack and nudged his shoulder with her knee before he rolled over, reaching up to rub at his face.

  “Bring your sword,” she told him from the doorway.

  Dhulyn Wolfshead raised her face to the rushing air and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, mentally chanting the closing words of the Scholar’s Shora. From up in the Racha’s nest she could make out an edge of rosy light on the horizon as the sun began to rise. The pains from her woman’s time had kept her wakeful all night, despite the valerian Parno had mixed into a cup of wine for her. Finally she’d gotten up, as quietly as she could, and used a meditation Shora to relax enough to try the tiles again. As usual during her woman’s time, the Visions had been crisp and focused. She’d Seen a narrow path between rock and crisply trimmed hedges, an unknown Finder bending over a dark blue scrying bowl. But no matter what question she asked, what tile she used as her beginning, she could not change the Vision of Parno that appeared. Nor could she See, as she had done sometimes in the past, any Vision of Parno that might come from a different future, a future in which he did not die in the Long Ocean.

  The climb up the rigging to the Racha’s nest had loosened the muscles in her lower back, and helped her vent at least some of her frustration. She and Parno had always spoken of her Sight as erratic and unreliable—and so it was, since she could no more guarantee what Vision would come than she could guarantee a given cat would chase a given mouse. But the Visions themselves were clear and truthful, even if she didn’t always understand them. And what she did See would come to pass, if steps were not taken to change the circumstances.

  But now, if she could not See Parno in any Vision other than the one in which he died, it seemed her days of avoiding this particular future were over.

  Movement drew her eyes downward. There he was now. Some instinct made him look immediately upward as he secured the cabin door behind him. His teeth flashed white in the dark gold of his beard and he lifted his fist above his right shoulder, signaling “In Battle.”

  Dhulyn raised her open hand, fingers spread wide, over her own right shoulder, answering the salute, “In Death.”

  Parno spoke, but Dhulyn shook her head at him. Between the height and the rushing air, it was impossible to hear him.

  Come down, Parno signaled.

  She shook her head. You come up. It’s only twenty spans.

  “If I cannot tell you,” she said, knowing she was safe to speak. “Then I must never let you guess.”

  That had been the answer her meditation had shown her. She’d made the right choice yesterday when, talking to Malfin Cor, she’d decided to behave as though this were any normal assignment. Not waking Parno, skipping the morning Shora—something that all Mercenary Brothers did every day unless injured—those had been mistakes.

  If she stepped too far from the path of her normal behavior, if she acted as if nothing—not the job, not the Shora, not the Common Rule—mattered anymore, Parno would notice and ask questions. As soon as he realized Dhulyn had Seen it, Parno had made her promise never to tell him how he would die. If she could not keep
him alive, she could at least keep her promise.

  If only it wasn’t this death. Dhulyn gripped the narrow rail around the Racha’s nest tighter and leaned out, giving Parno as encouraging a grin as she could manage. He was almost halfway up the rigging, but with luck he wouldn’t notice anything unnatural about her smile.

  “Don’t slip and fall, my soul,” she called out. Parno didn’t look up, but he did make a most rude signal with his left hand. Dhulyn laughed, strangely comforted.

  Mercenary Brothers expected to die, their Schooling prepared them for it. But they hoped to die in battle, and preferably at the hands of a worthy opponent. The best death—the one that they all hoped for—was at the hands of another Mercenary Brother.

  Not the way Parno would die. Not drowning.

  “Oh, my soul, I’m so sorry,” she murmured. But not quietly enough.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “Sorry for this.” Dhulyn swung her legs over the side of the Racha’s nest, pushed Parno to one side with a foot to his sternum, and fell, catching at the rigging from time to time to slow her descent. It was a game the apprentice mercenaries had often played on the Black Traveler . The sound of Parno’s cursing followed her all the way down until her bare feet hit the closely fitted planks of the deck.

  “Crab Shora,” she announced as Parno landed beside her, and pulled her second-best sword from its harness at her back. One of the basic twenty-seven Shoras that all Mercenary Brothers learned in School, the Crab was designed for right-handed sword and uneven ground. But it was just as well suited to the subtly shifting deck beneath their feet.

  Parno’s sword flicked out to meet hers. “Come on, then,” he said, motioning her forward with beckoning fingers. “Winner gets both breakfasts.”

  *Where are they* Malfin Cor resisted the urge to crane his neck around and search out the nooks and crannies of the ship. Usually, he’d know where anyone on board was without having to look. Having landsters among them changed so many things.