by Roland Green
So Zeskuk lunged in under the prow of the boat and heaved it up and back, putting all his strength into making the heave as high and violent as he could. Darin sprang backward, ducking under a sword slash, and took his place at the stern as the boat tilted up on end.
Only in champion tales would the five Servants have fallen headlong and broken their necks or skulls, as the boat rose to the vertical. All of them did fall out; only the two captives tied to the thwarts remained in the boat.
However, all five of them landed on their feet, hardly even off-balance. Zeskuk also supposed that such as they were too thick-skulled and stiff-necked to be hurt even if they had tumbled out feet over fork.
Zeskuk and Darin were both ready for fighting opponents, however. Zeskuk let one Servant sink his edge into the minotaur's left arm. Before the man could draw the blade back, Zeskuk chopped his other hand down on the man's sword arm. It shattered; the man screamed; Zeskuk turned the screams to gasps with a punch to the stomach. As the man fell forward, he exposed the back of his neck, and Zeskuk struck again, the edge of his right hand scything down on the exposed spine.
Meanwhile, Darin had taken two steps backward, stood on one foot like a stork, then wheeled and slammed the other foot into the chest of one opponent. Sword-steel ripped Darin's leg, but the foot was the size of a minotaur's hoof and nearly as hard. Zeskuk heard ribs shatter and saw the man fly backward into a comrade, knocking him down. Zeskuk had to take only two steps and fend off only one sword slash before he could kick the man in the head. The man's head nearly parted company with his neck.
This left Zeskuk and Darin with only one opponent apiece. Darin picked up a fallen sword and tossed one to Zeskuk, to further improve the odds. Zeskuk grinned, having somehow expected the knight to finish the bout barehanded, out of some notion put in his head by the Oath or the Measure or Sir Pirvan.
Instead, Darin proved that he knew the minotaur principle of not wasting honorable fighting on a dishonorable opponent. He feinted, let the leader unbalance himself with a wild lunge, then struck together with sword and fist. The leader described a bloody arc in the air and toppled, one arm all but severed.
By the time Darin had knelt, ripped off the leader's mask, and begun binding the captive's ruined arm with it, Zeskuk had finished his opponent. The man tried to run, but Zeskuk still had one good arm and a loose oar from the boat. He also had most of the skill that had won him prizes at throwing the shatang.
The oar was not as well balanced as a shatang, but it did its work. Zeskuk heard the man's teeth slam together as the oar hit him in the back of the head. The oar struck so hard that the man skidded into the churned sand at the base of the shield, with his head facedown and half buried in the sand.
In that position he doubtless could not breathe. Zeskuk doubted that the man would breathe again anyway. The minotaur turned back to Darin and saw the human finish binding the leader's arm and sit down beside him.
"He'll do for a prisoner," Darin panted, "if we can find healing for him."
"There are healers aplenty outside the shield, if they can make up their minds to take it down," Zeskuk said. He would not name Lujimar to Darin, for all that he doubted minotaur priest and human warrior had that many secrets from each other.
"Then let them," Darin said. "I would not care to sit for long tonight, and you need both arms."
"True, but we did swear challenge, and we are still in the arena," the minotaur reminded the knight. "Should we not fulfill our oaths?"
"Of course," Darin said. He limped over to Zeskuk, knotted both fists into a single weapon, and tapped the minotaur at the base of his left horn.
The token blow alone made Zeskuk's head spin. He replied by punching Darin in the small of the back with his good hand.
"I declare that Zeskuk meant no dishonor in anything he planned," Darin said.
"I declare that Darin proved courage in all he did within the arena," Zeskuk replied.
Then both of them had to sit down again, so as not to fall senseless. They were trying not to do so anyway when the shield went down, letting cool sea air and a wall of sound from voices, human and minotaur, burst over them.
For moments after the shield-spell ended, Lujimar swayed, seemingly about to fall even more helpless than those he had saved.
Pirvan resolved to protect the minotaur priest, by standing over him with a drawn sword if necessary, and to the Abyss with scandal. Lujimar might have made any number of enemies tonight. If one of them reached him with steel, all the good done so far might yet be undone.
But Lujimar steadied himself, and walked into the arena, past where humans and minotaurs were busily relighting blown-out torches. The crowd that had rushed toward the fighters and the fallen Servants gave way before the minotaur's presence, and the size of the fists he held up before him also eased his passage.
Lady Revella was now standing again, turning red eyes toward the arena. "I wonder if Lujimar has a place for me in his household," she said softly. "As a kitchen slave, if no more. I hardly deserve better."
"That is for the gods to judge, and perhaps men if they know what you have done," Pirvan said. "Can you tell me a little of it, so that I may seem as if I knew what was happening?"
"Gladly—no, not gladly," Revella answered. "Never gladly. This has cost too much blood. But I will tell you. Someplace quieter, though, and after you tell me how you knew Rubina was my daughter."
"You were prepared to go against the kingpriest to befriend those who saved Rubina," Pirvan said. "I would do many things to repay those who helped a friend or distant kin. But something like that—something against Oath and Measure—only for Haimya or my children."
"I thank you," Haimya said, in a tone half tart and half tender. "But look closely at Revella, and see if she does not remind you of Rubina."
"Tarothin also saw the blood tie," Revella said. "But he chose to respect a fellow wizard's secret."
"At the wrong time, I fear," Pirvan said. "I judge that Rubina favored her father more than you?"
"Yes, but one who seeks can find the resemblance."
There was no place to be truly private, not without going dangerously far from light and protection, and Pirvan could not go far even were it safe. Until Sir Niebar and Tarothin landed, he was as close to a leader as there could be on this shore.
He listened intently as Lady Revella explained how she had helped certain men who wished to test a spell allowing them to travel inland undetected. It might not work, and if so they were lost. If they succeeded, it was a step toward victory.
But she had not spoken to these men directly. She had dealt with them through an intermediary, who, it appeared, had also taken Lujimar into his confidence. The intermediary also knew or guessed that the men's plans went far beyond what they wished him to admit to Lady Revella.
"So he told Lujimar, but not you, and you were surprised but Lujimar was not?" Pirvan asked.
"That seems as good a way to put it as any," Revella said.
Pirvan muttered curses. "I should like to speak to this—person. It will be useful for all to know that the kingpriest's Servants of Silence are not only thriving again, but taking into their confidence minotaur spies and trying to corrupt high wizards."
"The name is not my secret to—"
This time Pirvan's curses were not muttered. "There has been too much thinking of others' secrets, and not enough thinking that our honor also lies in keeping them safe!" he snapped. He pointed at the boat, where Lujimar was now untying Torvik and Mirraleen—snapping the ropes with his bare hands, and twisting the chains off the oarlocks.
"If Torvik had said just a trifle more, would he and Mirraleen have suffered tonight's ordeal?" Pirvan continued. "Would Zeskuk and Darin have put themselves at risk in the arena? Would I have had to threaten to break a wizard's staff, which makes a man look foolish if he can't and dead if he can?"
Torvik and Mirraleen were now staggering to their feet, each holding on to one of Lujimar's arms. Even f
rom a distance, Mirraleen showed a ghastly array of cuts and bruises. Torvik's pain seemed more within, judging from his face, and he clutched Mirraleen's hand as if by so doing he could take her wounds on himself.
Revella looked ready to weep again, and Pirvan wondered if he had dealt too harshly with her. He would still learn the spy's name, even if he had to ask Sir Niebar to devote the secret matters office entirely to that purpose. When one finds the vital spot in a hitherto mysterious opponent, one does not humbly petition for the right to drive in the knife.
But there was Sir Niebar coming up the beach, surrounded by guards, and with Tarothin dropping away from the rear of the procession to join Lujimar in healing the two fighters and keeping the prisoner alive. Pirvan sent some of his own guards to guard the healers' backs. There had to be many in the crowd ready to use steel on the Servants, for vengeance or to silence them.
Then came a long, weary time of reporting to Sir Niebar just what had happened, dividing the report into what Pirvan had seen and what he suspected. Sir Niebar was full of praise and also of questions, and asked some of them of Haimya and even of Fulvura.
By the time Sir Niebar was done, Torvik was on a litter, bound on the shoulders of Red Elf's folk to a boat and his own cabin. The dead Servants had been removed with the rest of the offal and the prisoners healed and bound. Rynthala had taken command of Darin's care, and Zeskuk was deep in a conversation with Lujimar that Pirvan would have given ten years off his life to overhear, if he'd thought there was any hope at all.
Mirraleen, however, seemed to have utterly vanished.
Wilthur the Brown raged.
Certain highly-placed servants of the kingpriest did the same. There was no silence anywhere near them, that night off Suivinari.
Out to sea, five Dimernesti crouched low on a rock, waiting for a sixth to swim into view. They knew that she was alive; they could wish that they knew when she was coming.
Deep within the waters, Zeboim's thoughts moved like the currents. The goddess was everywhere, except when she was nowhere, or (as very rarely) in her turtle form.
Habbakuk listened to those thoughts of Zeboim's, but found nothing in them to disturb him. Lady Revella might have heard Zeboim, too, except that she was too deeply asleep.
Far to the south, Horimpsot Elderdrake scrambled up the wall of Tirabot Manor and almost fell into Shumeen's arms.
"You must bathe before we bring your news to the young lord," she said. "You look as if you had crawled all the way, most of it through a midden pit."
"I ran most of the way," the other kender said. "But I suppose I didn't watch where I was going. My uncle—the one on the Rootslicer side—no, there were two, but it was one of them—he always said hurrying too much ends up making you slower in the end."
"I thank your uncles for saying it," Shumeen snapped. "I would thank them more if they had been able to make you listen. Now get out of those clothes before I slice them off you with a dagger, and if I take some of your hide with them it will be no more than you deserve!"
Chapter 16
Torvik slept the sleep of exhaustion until nearly dawn. He then awoke under the ministrations of Beeyona, whom Yavanna had escorted over from Kingfisher's Claw on Sorraz's orders. He awoke fully when he learned that Mirraleen had disappeared. Indeed, he leaped out of bed and began to dress himself. Beeyona finally told him that if he ran wild after Mirraleen, she would have to put him to sleep again. This time she, rather than nature, would say when he awoke.
"But something could have happened to her!" Torvik said.
"There are as many sea otters in sight as ever," Beeyona said. "This would not be so if a Dimernesti had come to harm."
"There are also as many who hate peace as ever," Torvik replied.
"Unfortunately, this is also true," Beeyona said, emptying two phials into a wooden bowl and stirring the resulting mixture with her thumb. "But I am not one of them, for all that you look at me as if I were."
"I beg your pardon, Beeyona," Torvik said. "But understand that the peace is fragile. Not all of those who attacked us last night have been taken—"
"This is true, and known to all," Beeyona said, licking her thumb to test the mixture. "It is even the subject of a proclamation, signed by Sir Niebar, Gildas Aurhinius, Zeskuk, and Andrys Puhrad. It appoints Sir Pirvan of Tirabot 'War Chief of the Fleet Off Suivinari,' and promises a pardon to all of your abductors who submit peacefully and confess fully within two days. After that they are outlaws, and any man or minotaur may slay them on sight."
The proclamation was encouraging news, if true, and Beeyona was as likely to lie in such a matter as a ship made of iron was to float. Torvik still made one last thrust.
"Then all the more reason to find Mirraleen," he said. "She has a better memory for faces than I do."
Truly. It took you three weeks to stop calling me 'Berylla.' But when she wishes to be found, she will be. Until then you cannot make her well by making yourself sick, or bring her here by going everywhere else. Drink this."
An order from the kingpriest would have had less force, one from a god hardly more. Torvik drank.
It did not taste like something stirred by someone's thumb. Indeed, Torvik was not sure what it tasted like.
He was still wondering when his eyes grew heavy and his breathing slow. His last memory was of wanting to laugh at how neatly Beeyona had tricked him.
A summer-hot day at Tirabot Manor was coming to an end with the heat fleeing before a howling gale. Rain hammered on the shutters of Gerik's chambers, nearly loud enough to drown out the thunder. The lightning was so bright that it crept in around the edge of the shutters, outshining the candles hanging above the table and rising from its center.
"I still call it a bad idea, both you and Bertsa going to burn the supplies," Grimsoar One-Eye said. "We've not only got the manor to defend now, we've the villagers—and anybody else who wants to go—to get across the border into Solamnia. That's one more caravan, maybe two. We've work for two captains here. I may be two men in bulk, but not two captains in skill. Nor can I be in two places at once."
"You're one good, trustworthy captain," Gerik said, "If we can make our enemies stumble before they attack, one will be enough. If we do not, twenty will be too few."
"Then send Bertsa and stay yourself," Grimsoar said. "With you here, attacking the manor is attacking a knight's blood and property, if not the knight himself."
"If House Dirivan cared about law, they would not have lent themselves to the kingpriest's schemes," Wylum said "Nothing will keep their troops from the manor, save the coming of those Solamnics Dargaard Keep was supposed to be sending." Her tone said that she expected them to come when snow fell on Midsummer Eve.
"But the sell-swords they have hired are a weak spot," she continued. "We must first destroy the supplies the hirelings trust to make their work easy. Then, when they have grown reluctant, Gerik and I must both play on their fears of scant reward and dire punishment. Gerik has the right. I know sell-swords' law. I may even know some of the captains."
Her tone implied that under other circumstances, she would not have admitted knowing any sell-sword who would stoop so low as to serve House Dirivan.
Grimsoar growled deep in his throat, like a bear feeding on salmon too long dead. Serafina patted his hand and said, "Do not doubt yourself, my love. Who was it who, single-handed, saved the village?"
"And who afterward had to be saved by a girl not yet twelve?" Grimsoar muttered. "A fine captain he was."
Rubina's escapade was clearly still a sore point with the old sailor. Gerik tapped on the table with his signet ring.
"It must be as we have planned it," he said. "Unless the Solamnics ride up to the gate before sunset, and even then I may ask some of them to join us as witnesses.
"But now, there is something else. It would be proper and just to give Lady Ellysta betrothal rights over me and mine, even had I not called her 'my lady' with half a hundred witnesses. I am of age, and so is she. S
he has no kin, and none of mine of lawful age would disapprove. Will you all be witnesses to our betrothal oaths?"
If anyone at the table wished to be elsewhere, they were not bold enough to say so. Gerik rose, walked to Ellysta's chair, knelt beside her and said, "My—my lady. This betrothal is my wish, more than anything ever has been. Is it your wish also?"
Ellysta put her hands on Gerik's shoulders. "With all my heart," she whispered.
She rose. "I, Ellysta, of lawful age and birth, here under the roof of just folk and the sky of the true gods—"
For a moment, thunder rolled so that the sky seemed about to be falling on the roof, gods and all. Ellysta tightened her grip on Gerik.
"—in the presence of honest witnesses, declare that I am in my eyes and the eyes of the gods, the betrothed wife of Gerik of Tirabot, with all the duties and rights belonging to that office, and may I meanly perish if foresworn."
It was a short form of one of the standard betrothal oaths, and Gerik noted that Ellysta had put "duties" before "rights," instead of the way his mother would surely have preferred. However, "rights" had little meaning in a battle to the death, and they had no time for long oaths.
At least the betrothal had long since been consummated. That gave Ellysta even more rights than she perhaps realized, including making any child she might bear entirely legitimate.
Now, if the rain would just stop before the roads turned to swamps—or else go on until it washed away the enemy's supply tent and all its contents, and maybe send a few-score sell-swords bobbing downstream after it….
Torvik awoke to see ruddy sunset light filling his cabin. He also awoke to hear a faint scraping close to his ear.
He had just remembered that one of the cabin ports lay there when the port flew open. It nearly hit him on the head. In avoiding it Torvik rolled out of his bunk. So he was on the floor, reaching for steel he was not wearing, when Mirraleen crawled in through the port.