by C F Welburn
He had no intention of returning to Riorn since he would be extremely loath to give up Greydent after witnessing its effectiveness. His brother, however, was essential. Hendy licked his lips and dabbed a tear upon seeing the two chart pieces finally joined. Using a convoluted sliding device, a floating bubble, a pair of extendable pincers, and a shaft of sunlight, he was able to reel off a sequence of numbers. Balagir would check them once back in the captain’s cabin. He promised the cartographer news of his findings, left him the chart pieces to put his family’s ghosts to rest, and crossed town into the Rusted Hook, over to Goffle’s side.
He had not thought it possible the pale man could look more pallid, but he had somehow achieved it.
“I’m ready to leave this place,” he miserably concurred.
“I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses. You missed out on some good business yesterday.”
“I’m a fool. Camen, she’s different today.”
“The cruel light of day. You should probably get some air. This place reeks of self-loathing.”
“Do not judge me, Balagir. The road has been lonely.”
“Fear not. I’m certain amongst our pirate friends your transgression is relatively mild.” The white, pock-faced man had never ridden highly in his estimation, and one more foul had changed little. “Now, let’s be away. My time, for one, has been well spent on Silione, but we’ve lingered long enough.” Goffle agreed, settling his bill hastily before his toothless temptress could descend.
The waterfront showcased all manner of inhabitants from the world’s flung reaches. Odd accents tickled his ears, whiffs of exotic spices coloured the air, and outfits too outlandish to be seen in Silione’s courts were strutted with shameless aplomb. The moored vessels were equally as disparate with impressive galleons glittering gold leaf and gossamer sails, shoulder to shoulder with patched-up trawlers that stank of fish guts.
They were about halfway along the harbour when the gossip caught them.
“I didn’t even know she was with child,” one fishmonger was telling another.
“Nobody did. All hush-hush. Those flowing gowns can hide anything.”
“And she’s already in labour?”
“Last I heard.”
Unable to hide his curiosity, Balagir leant in. “You wouldn’t be talking about the Thella, would you?”
“Indeed sir! What great news! Grimwater will be celebrating all week should she bear the Thell a son.”
“Yes. Good news indeed,” he said grimly, leading Goffle away by the elbow.
“What’s wrong?” the ugly ashen asked.
“We must leave at once.”
“But I thought—”
“I’ll explain later. Hurry.” Goffle looked concerned and accordingly quickened his pace.
They were cutting through the main square when Riorn apprehended them.
“Not now,” Balagir said brusquely.
“A paranoid man might think you were trying to avoid him,” the smith said coldly. “Now, give me what was promised, or I’ll have my steel back.”
Balagir was spared mustering a retort as commotion broke out. Across the square, people began screaming and pointing at the sky. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he saw the dark plum form of a haryek circling the town. From its talons dangled a struggling figure whose bright green hose marked him as one of the Thell’s household.
They were promptly given a closer look when the haryek loosed its prey. The guard fell like a stone, bounced off a red roof, and landed with a crunch on the cobbles amidst a clatter of dislodged tiles. The man’s head was as empty as a cracked eggshell. Onlookers fainted, others were sick, and the rest screamed and ran for cover as the haryek descended and snatched another helpless bystander. It swept upward in such an arc as to snap the fisherwoman into silence before releasing her. She landed close enough to Hendy’s shop that the sound of a dropped pumpkin made the cartographer blanch and flee for shelter.
Balagir and Goffle followed suit as the creature swooped again. A cake seller, as frozen as the figurines upon icing, was its next victim; the only sign he had stood there at all was the spilt cherries rolling on the ground.
It was at that point Grimwater guards arrived en masse, loosing arrows into the air as efficiently as throwing sand in a gale. They did more harm than good, and several luckless observers caught shafts between ribs.
A guard was crushed beneath the discarded cake seller, and their ranks scattered. Of the few that held, several of their arrows found their mark. The haryek screeched, snatching a guardsman Balagir recognised from his long wait at the Thell’s gate. In his defence, he put up a fight, stabbing at the long leg as it bore him upwards before he was dashed against a high wall.
An old woman proved its next target, though it received several more arrows in the process. Wounded, it could not clear the eaves in its curving assent. It crashed heavily into the gutter and down into the courtyard, the woman—dead of fright—still clutched in its claws. It screeched, struggling to rise, but the guards moved in, hacking until its body was nought but pulp.
They stood back, shaken.
“You see its face?” one breathless guard stammered. The other nodded, disturbed. They made a circle symbol over their brows, backing away.
As people emerged from their hiding places, Balagir and Goffle approached the dead creature. It was similar to the haryek he had dealt with in the north, with one grim difference. This abomination bore the resemblance of the Thell.
“Time to go,” he muttered, tugging Goffle’s elbow.
Too late. Barrowhawk roared into the square, enough swords at his back to sack a village.
“There!” he yelled, gesturing wildly. “Stop those ashen!” Goffle could only blink before an arrow passed through one cheek and out through the other in a splatter of red spittle and teeth. He clasped his hands to his mouth with wide eyes of shock, but Balagir did not give him chance to let pain sink in.
“Run, Goffle!” he cried, steering the white man whose face had been rendered even more unsightly.
They stumbled up the lane and ascended the cliffs, a score of angry men in pursuit.
It was only the guards’ heavier plating and years of settled indulgence that enabled Balagir and Goffle to reach the fire first. Even so, the grass about them prickled with arrows, and twice more Riorn’s armour proved its worth.
The other ashen leapt to their feet when they burst into the fire circle. Especially when Goffle tried to speak and his cheek flapped open like a broken red wing.
“What’s happened?” Drak barked, swords in hands.
“The egg we found,” Balagir panted, struggling for breath. “It worked.”
“What? How can that be? We only delivered it yesterday.”
“Precisely! You can imagine the state of the babe, not to mention the mood of the father.” No one dared ponder the condition of the mother. Balagir shuddered as the image of her in her ball gown flittered into his mind.
“We must get to the ship!”
But it was too late. The guards’ heavy breathing and clanking armour came into earshot.
“Calm yourselves,” Kolak said. “They can do us no harm here.”
Balagir frowned, but suddenly no explanation was required.
The soldiers stumbled into the fire circle and faded from view. It wasn’t that they weren’t there, for they most certainly were. Their distant voices and wispy forms attested to that. But they were like ghosts in another time; all stirring breezes and whispers.
“They can’t see us?” Balagir hissed, relieved, yet far from comfortable.
“You’ve not questioned why there are never settlers at the fire?”
Balagir shrugged. He was plagued by so many uncertainties, intriguing as this was, it had been far down the litany.
“How can we escape?” Drak asked. “We’re surrounded.”
“We could warp,” Kolak suggested.
“That might be an option for you,” growled Drak, “but I
spent my smoke yesterday.”
Balagir had smoke upon him but was reluctant to waste it, nor would he abandon the Spite Spear. He looked at Goffle, Drak, and Imram, the latter of which was shaking his head ruefully.
“I’ll not leave without my ship,” he declared.
“Then we must make a break for it,” Kolak said. “I can make out fifteen guards. More are on their way. We’ll be hopelessly surrounded if we don’t move.”
Drak nodded desperately, Imram muttered despondently, and Goffle just slobbered and slurped.
“Know that as soon as we emerge from the circle, we’ll be vulnerable again.”
“Then we flee where their line is weakest, and run without stopping,” Balagir commanded. “You know where the ship lies?”
“Aye,” Drak said. “But run faster than arrows, I cannot.”
“So we each pick our targets, and when we break the circle, we dispose of them,” Kolak said ruthlessly. “We’re five, that leaves three each.”
“We do have the element of surprise,” Drak added, convincing himself.
Balagir did not like it. It felt like murder. But what other choice remained? More guards were arriving by the moment. Goffle was already looking faint; he would never make it to the ship if they were being shot at. It was doubtful whether he would even be able to handle his share of guards.
“I’ve something that might help,” Drak grudgingly admitted.
“Then speak up,” Balagir said.
“A ring of refraction.”
“In layman’s terms?” Kolak snapped.
“An invisibility ring,” Drak explained. “So to speak. A mere trick in truth. It refracts the light where we are.”
“Your loyalty is impressive,” Kolak commended. “Many would have used it without mention and fled.” Drak but shrugged.
“Fled where? One man cannot sail a ship. And besides, it’s still beyond my command.” It brought him shame to spit this out. “Perhaps one of you may be able? If we link hands, the effect might encompass us all. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”
“I believe I could wield it,” Kolak offered, “but I’m unable to determine the band’s potency without looking upon it. May I?”
“I’d rather Balagir tried,” Drak said, guardedly. He did not outrightly accuse the jaegir, but the implication was clear. Kolak shrugged, but his glare said it was not the last of the matter. Whether or not there would be bad blood between them would be seen later. Drak reluctantly handed it over, and Balagir’s was not the only hand that strayed to the hilt. Imram peered intently at the exchange.
“If you’ll permit my opinion, it may work, but not for long. The engraving shows it to be of medium strength. We are five, this is designed for one. It might get us beyond the fire circle and a few moments of surprise, but then we’d be visible.”
“Better than a slaughter,” Drak said.
“Very well,” Balagir agreed, realising that all responsibility had fallen to him. “Such is our lot.” He gingerly tried on the band, activated it, and vanished. His companions were clearly relieved when he reappeared. Then they tried it with five and, as Imram had predicted, they flickered as if blinked in and out of existence by a disbelieving drunk. It would have to do.
With a nod they broke the circle and hurried north, cumbersomely linked by their hands. They managed to make it a short distance before a cry told them they had been spotted.
The temporary cloak had given them a slight lead, and they did not squander it. Abandoning all stealth, they turned and fled as more men breached the hill and loosed their arrows. Amongst them stood Barrowhawk, his furious cry startling birds from the cliffs.
Before long, they had outfled the range of the arrows, but they did not let up. Ahead lay the precarious climb down to the ship, where all manner of missiles could be hurled upon them. Indeed, they had barely made the bottom when a boulder crumpled Imram’s shoulder so that his arm dangled like a doll’s. They pushed the boat out and rowed like madmen. Half the soldiers on the cliff remained to shoot arrows, the other half had sped away, thundering towards the harbour to launch their own ships.
Res, proving his worth, already had the sails up and was locking about the wheel as they gained the deck.
Slowly the ship picked up momentum, and the island fell behind, dwindling. After some time, two large ships detached themselves from Grimwater Bay, but they were too far behind, and the Spite Spear was fleet. Balagir stood at the railing and watched Silione fade.
Ashen would not be welcome there again, and he knew the Thell would devote the rest of his days to hunting him down.
In the rush, Meeker and his hired hands had been forgotten, though any mystery would likely be cleared up by Grimwater’s rumour mill, proven to work with astounding efficiency.
He turned his attention then to the wounded. To Goffle’s cheek and Imram’s shoulder. Then he retired to his cabin, where he drank deeply of Murdak’s reserves and matched Hendy’s coordinates to an old yellowed chart.
X.i
THE IDOL FISH
“Where we bound, Captain?” Kolak asked him later. He sensed a mocking tone, but could not argue with the technicality. Like it or not, he had somehow become head of this little, battered band.
“Far from Silione,” he responded, looking out to sea. Drak appeared out of the hatch, a half-empty bottle in his hand.
“How are they?” Balagir enquired.
“Holding up. Imram will never swing a great sword. Goffle will woo no damsels.”
“No change then,” he said, taking out his spyglass and looking to the horizon.
“Where we headed?” Drak slurred.
“A little isle called Shale.”
“And on this isle?”
“Smoke,” was all he promised, and they shrugged and had to be satisfied for the while.
“Is that normal?” Balagir asked, lowering the spyglass. The jaegir’s eyes swept the dark, pulsating horizon.
“Define normal,” he said, and that was the end of the conversation.
Res had told him to expect a three-day journey if the weather held. He was not sure if that distant storm had been factored into the equation.
Next, he went to check on the wounded. Jests aside, Goffle could not have looked worse. Already hideous, his cheeks were now laced by crude black stitches. Encountered on the road, he would as likely be struck down as befriended. He tried to say something, winced, and thought better of it.
Imram sat in a sling, staring bleakly at the wall.
“Books,” he muttered, mourning the library as the loss of a friend. It might have seemed dramatic had not his earlier words niggled them. The truth they all ignored: none of them knew their origins, nor for what they were destined. Settlers, for all their shortcomings, were a resource to be drawn on. They remembered the past, had documented time far beyond the ashen’s reckoning. They should be exploited, albeit delicately; never more so than now in wake of Silione.
“If you return, they’ll kill you,” Balagir warned.
Imram made a miserable sound. “Cut off my arm and I’ll live. Cut off my knowledge and I might as well not have.”
“We’ll find more books,” Balagir promised weakly. “Better ones.” Imram gave an expression too slight to be called a smile and went back to gazing at the wall.
Having ensured that his ship was in order, Balagir returned to his cabin, where he drank wine, had Era entertain him by sending her pirouetting across the air, and squinted at the charts without truly seeing. He slept well; for a short time.
“Captain!” Balagir lurched awake. It took him a moment to link the moniker with himself.
“What is it?”
“There’s something you should see.” He stood, swaying from both wine and wave.
The cloud had swallowed them whole, shimmering unnaturally in all directions.
“At first I thought it a flickering fog,” Res reported, “but there’s no end to it. And...”
“And what?”
“Tell me.”
The steersman grimaced, looking bashful. “Well, there are voices, sir.”
Balagir raised a brow. “You been drinking, Res?”
“No more than usual, sir. Follow me.”
Together they went to the prow, and he strained with an intensity he had not known his ears were capable of. Yet still, he heard nothing.
“Hold true, good Res,” he said at last with a weary smile. “I’m going back to my cabin—” But the first mate’s raised hand stopped him short. In the distant silence, he detected something. Something strange. Something intoxicating. The laughter of a woman.
“What is it?” he whispered.
The sailor shrugged. “Don’t know, but it’s luring us. It was to our port earlier, and now comes from just ahead.”
“We should turn about,” Balagir decided, disquieted.
“I’ve tried, Captain, but whichever way I turn, the voice is before us.”
Balagir cursed and checked his sword.
“Then let us follow. I’ll wake the men.”
By the time the five of them stood on deck, with Pegs suspended above, the voices were everywhere. The thinning fog hinted at the dark outline of an isle. Dropping anchor so as to avoid any rocks, the ashen boarded the landing craft, leaving Res and Pegs to tend the ship and Imram to heal and wallow.
They rowed in silence, the splash of the oars and distant lap of waves the only sounds in the ethereal greyness. Their drawn weapons illustrated their anxiousness.
“Look! A figure.” Drak pointed. Balagir looked up from the oars to see a woman standing on the stony shore, watching their approach.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “A witch, you think? A siren?”
“Of some such ilk,” Kolak muttered darkly. “Keep your wits about you. They’re beguiling creatures, should the tales be true.”
“Whoever she is, she’s not alone,” Drak added. Further up the beach, several more figures detached themselves, making their way to the shore. Closer inspection revealed them all to be women, and further scrutiny that they were all flawless.