Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion)

by James A. West

  As soon as they had arrived, Edrik ordered most of his fellows to begin cutting down slender trees with short swords barely suited to the task. Afterward, they cut the logs into posts the length of a man’s leg, and then sharpened one end. When they had gathered a sizable stack, he ordered them to make several shorter posts, these without a sharpened end.

  Now the men were using the short posts as hammers to drive the sharpened posts into a crack running along the top edge of the gorge.

  Algar tried to envision some kind of weaponry, but no matter how he looked at it, that didn’t make any sense. His next thought was that they were building a shelter, but that made even less sense. Setting up camp would not help them capture Rathe.

  Your master might know, puppet-boy.

  Deep in concentration, his mother’s nattering voice didn’t trouble Algar as much as it normally would, and he even found himself agreeing with her. Brother Jathen, after all, followed the Path of War.

  Stealing deeper into the trees, Algar pulled the seeing glass from the sack at his belt, and used the tip of his finger to trace a rune over its milky white surface.

  ~ ~ ~

  The faint chime sounded continually, stabbing into his dream. Grumbling, Brother Jathen dragged a coarse woolen blanket over his head, blocking the noise and blotting out the thin light within the tent….

  And then he was with Fira again, her fiery hair spread in a fan around her head. She smiled, her green eyes languid in the candle light as he caressed her breasts, rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Take me,” she said, a breathless command.

  “Those are a whore’s words,” he chided, though not minding at all.

  “Then make me your whore.”

  His fingers abandoned her breasts and walked a path down her flat belly. As they ventured lower, she arched her back, lifting her slender hips. His fingers explored the damp heat between her legs.

  “Now,” she moaned.

  He grinned. “All in good time—”

  The chiming came again, and the vision of Fira broke completely apart, only to reform into the sneering face of Algar.

  Snarling, Jathen jerked the blanket off his head and flung it aside. “Goddamned fool refuses to obey me until now?” he asked the empty tent, a mean affair for one of his station. He sat up on the edge of his cot, fingering the healed but still tender scar on his brow. The uneven flesh was cold to the touch. He glanced to the side and saw that the coals in the iron brazier, set beside a wooden stand holding his armor, had gone to ash.

  A young monk of his order hesitantly poked his head through the tent flap. Instead of customary robes, the youth wore a boiled leather breastplate emblazoned with a fiery sun that represented the illuminating light of the Way of Knowing. “General, did you call?”

  General. Jathen savored the title. No brothers of the Way of Knowing had used military rank in long years, not even his order. It had been five centuries since any monk of Skalos had actually lifted a sword or spear with the intention of drawing blood. All that was about to change, thanks to the supporter who had joined him the day before, and who had graciously offered him the eventual rule of the Iron Marches in exchange for Rathe Lahkurin.

  The sergeant shifted nervously. “Sir?”

  Jathen looked up. “No, you babbling fool, I didn’t call for you.”

  “Very well, sir,” the sergeant said uneasily, ducking back out of the tent.

  “Wait!” Jathen snarled, halting the youth. “Bring coals for the brazier. I’m freezing my stones off.”

  “Of course, general. At once, sir.” He ducked out of sight before the last word had passed his lips.

  The chime sounded again.

  With an oath, Jathen reached for a felt-lined box he kept the seeing glass in while traveling. After opening the lid, he drew a rune over the face of the pale orb. The milky surface swirled, revealing Algar’s pinched features. He looked as impatient and angry as usual.

  “You’re late in joining me,” Jathen said, foregoing false pleasantries. More than begin late, the man was an insolent oaf. Yet, he still had his uses. For how long, though? “I trust there’s a reason for your delay?”

  “The bounty hunters are still after Rathe,” Algar said.

  “Bounty hunters?” Jathen thought a moment, but Fira’s face and lush body were still parading through his mind. With some reluctance, he pushed her aside in order to concentrate. Bounty hunters? When he remembered what the insolent fool had told him before, his anger flared anew. “Ah, yes, the outlanders who you said looked like Prythians, but were not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you still troubling yourself with them?”

  Algar ground his teeth together. “I told you before, monk, they’re after Rathe. Now I have reason to fear they mean to take him before the Lamprey can sail through Ruan Breach.”

  Jathen frowned. “Why would you think that?”

  Algar spoke for a time, and Jathen listened. He suddenly sat bolt upright. Can they be so foolish? Considering what Algar had just told him, he supposed they could.

  “You must stop them,” Jathen blurted, interrupting Algar’s report.

  “Why, monk?”

  “Do as I say!”

  Not waiting for a response, Jathen ran his finger over the seeing glass, making Algar’s face vanish. After tucking the orb into its box, he began pulling on his armor. When the sergeant returned with a bucket of coals, Jathen was just finishing with the last buckle. He sent the youth off with a new set of orders.

  Within minutes the large encampment, which lay a league west of Ruan Breach, had become a bedlam of activity.

  Chapter 19

  As day faltered toward dusk, the River Sedge carried the Lamprey along at the pace of a galloping horse over rolling waves and through sucking eddies. A wallowing tub like this shouldn’t go so fast, Rathe thought, standing amidships and listening to the ship’s timbers creak and groan. More disconcerting was the sight of the helmsman using a member of the crew to help him keep the rudder steady.

  Captain Ostre had mentioned that the river would get rougher as it narrowed to no more than a hundred strides, but had also assured Rathe all would be well. “I’ve passed through Ruan Breach more times than I remember. Even in high summer, when the Sedge is at its lowest flow, it’s plenty deep enough for the Lamprey’s draft.”

  Rathe hoped that was true, for if the ship ran aground now, the current would quickly dash it to bits. He and everyone aboard the ship might survive that, but the cold black waters of the Sedge spoke of death with a cold and watery tongue.

  “Crew says a storm is coming,” Loro said, joining Rathe’s side. Dark clouds had been building throughout the day, and were now spitting occasional showers of snow. The wind had picked up, making the rigging sing.

  “Captain Ostre has said the same since we left Iceford,” Rathe allowed, “but we’ve yet to suffer anything worthy of being named a storm.”

  Loro shrugged. “We’re not from these lands, so how can we know?”

  “What else does the crew say?”

  “That these early storms oft bury the land to the height of a man sitting astride a horse.” The cuts on Loro’s face had scabbed over, but the rest was a mottled confusion of swollen and bruised flesh. Still, he looked better than Liamas, who had joined the crew an hour earlier. Battered though the Prythian was, it didn’t keep him from barking orders and making threats. So far, he and Loro had avoided talking, but they had gone so far as to share amicable nods.

  Rathe looked for Edrik’s company along the southern cliff, but by now the day had grown too old and dark to make out anything besides overhanging trees. “I’m more concerned about the outlanders, and whatever they have planned for us.”

  “Bah!” Loro said, flapping a dismissive hand. “The worst those fools can do is lob a few fire arrows our way. With night almost on us, they’ll have a hard time hitting anything.”

  “True enough,” Rathe said, but he w
as not given to discounting the wiles of his enemies. Continuing his study, he asked, “How is it between you and Fira?”

  Loro paused in testing the draw of his bow and dropped a lecherous wink. “I’ll tell you for sure on the morrow.”

  “What of Liamas?” Rathe asked, wanting to change the subject before Loro could ask about him and Nesaea. For himself, Rathe was not sure what had occurred between them, but knew he didn’t like it.

  Loro glanced toward the Prythian giant. “Truth of it is, I cannot blame the quartermaster for making a try at Fira—a blind man can see she’s a fine-looking woman. Now that I’ve cracked the bastard’s head, I expect he’ll prove to be a decent sort.”

  Rathe stifled a chuckle. He had seen the same many times before, two men bitter enough to kill each other over one thing or another, only to become friendly after swapping blows. Women, though, seemed a more grudging breed. He thought Captain Ostre was right about letting Nesaea think she won more often than not in order to keep peace between them. The problem was, Rathe had never been one to surrender out of hand.

  “Rider!” the watchman called from the crow’s nest.

  All eyes turned. At first Rathe saw nothing out of place. Then, framed between two boulders perched high above, he saw a man sitting astride a horse.

  “Seems he’s only enjoying the view,” Loro said.

  Before Rathe could respond, the rider bent over. A moment later he sat up bearing a flaming torch. In the deepening gloom, it appeared he was holding a tiny sun aloft. Not just holding it, but waving it.

  “What’s that fool doing?” Loro asked.

  Rathe’s jaw tightened. “Sending a signal.”

  Leaving Loro’s side, he ran to the poop deck and joined Captain Ostre, who was using a long eyeglass to look farther downriver.

  “What do you see?” Rathe asked.

  “Two more signal fires. There can be no doubt they’ve been watching us all along.”

  “How far to Ruan Breach?”

  “We’re nearly there, lad. In less than a quarter turn of the glass, we’ll be through.”

  “The darkness will help,” Rathe said.

  Ostre lowered the eyeglass. “I’m more a merchant than a fighter, so explain how battling in the dark helps?”

  Rathe pointed at the first rider, now falling behind the Lamprey, then moved to a bright splinter of light rising off the second rider’s torch—the third, he still couldn’t see. “They can drop fire on us, as we feared all along, but we’ll see it coming.

  “There’s a comfort,” Ostre said, sounding anything but comforted.

  “Surprise is the key to a proper ambush,” Rathe explained. “They’ve lost that now. That they gave it up so easily tells me they’re not skilled fighters.”

  Ostre tugged his beard, nodding. “I see what you mean … but I’m of a mind to teach these fools a lesson.”

  “Such as?”

  Instead of answering, Captain Ostre called to Liamas, “Bring up the ballistae—and be quick about it, or we’ll miss our chance.”

  Rathe loosed a burst of wicked laughter. “You surprise me, captain.”

  Ostre shrugged. “After battling the Crimson Gull, I decided the Lamprey would always fight, instead of run. Liamas, being a Prythian, has a head for the ways of war. Loading half a dozen ballistae into the hold was his idea—”

  “Do you hear that?” Rathe interrupted, his head cocked toward a sound akin to drums. He had heard something like that before, but where escaped him.

  “Sounds like battering rams hammering a gate,” Nesaea said, climbing the stairs to the poop deck. She had donned a northern warrior’s garb of dark leathers and furs. Her gloved hands caressed the hilts of the dagger and the sword hanging from either hip. Her eyes cut toward Rathe, as if challenging him to dispute her observation. He had no intention of doing so.

  The Lamprey surged downriver, picking up speed the closer they came to the throat of Ruan Breach. High above, the second torchbearer flashed by, much faster than the previous one. As the ship climbed up and over a frothy swell, snow began to fall in earnest. Not much farther on, the ship was flying through a swirling white squall. The erratic drumming echoed through the gorge, falling on them from all sides, hastening the crewmen to set up the ballistae around the deck on three-footed pedestals.

  “What do you make of that?” Ostre called, pointing past the jagged lips of Ruan Breach not a quarter mile distant. Father downstream, almost lost in the snowfall, a figure was running along the riverbank, frantically waving a torch.

  “Something’s wrong,” Rathe said.

  “For them, or us?” Nesaea asked.

  Before Rathe could answer, a loud, popping crackle sounded through the gorge. The drumming abruptly ceased, replaced by a deep rumbling that vibrated his teeth and bones. The rest of the crew stood looking about in confusion. Rathe scanned the walls of the gorge, but saw only dark rock webbed in ice.

  “We’re nearly through!” Ostre shouted. He jabbed a thick finger toward a pair of crewmen at the bow who were fitting a ballista with a spear-sized bolt. “You there, make ready!”

  As one man used a crank to draw back the heavy bowstring, his companion carefully turned the weapon on its pedestal to take aim at the running man.

  “Wait to fire till we’re through the gap!” Liamas bellowed, running in their direction over a deck that had begun to pitch and roll on the back of the surging river.

  The drumming began again, the tempo increasing by the moment. There came another deep rumble, then a loud, thunderous boom that resonated through Ruan Breach.

  “What was that?” Loro bellowed near the mainmast, his feet spread for balance.

  “Gods!” Rathe gasped, remembering where he had heard such erratic hammering before—at the quarries south of Onareth, where workers drove wedges into faces of marble in order to break the rock.

  Nesaea pressed close to him. “What is it?”

  Rathe’s skin crawled, and his frozen tongue refused to speak. It cannot be!

  The next booming rumble was louder than all the rest, followed by the crackling roar of great stones grinding against one another. Heads turned and eyes flared wide, as the southern wall of Ruan Breach sagged almost imperceptibly, then began breaking apart along a thousand spreading fissures. Rocks and ice rained down into the river, quickly followed by tumbling slabs that churned the black waters into a gauntlet of leaping froth. Clouds of dust spurted from widening cracks in the wall, then the entire southern face of the breach shattered and slid into the river. The rushing current slammed into the obstacle, rolled back on itself, and heaved upstream like a mighty sea wave.

  Rathe caught Nesaea with one hand and held the rail with the other. Loro turned toward Rathe, his mouth yawning around a shout lost under the crashing roar of surging water and falling rock. Crewmen scrambled like rats before a flood, but there was nowhere to go.

  The Lamprey crashed against the colossal wave with a groaning shudder, throwing the sailors off their feet, and breaking the ties holding stacked crates and barrels. A huge comber boiled over the prow, the foaming waters swallowing men and cargo. Rathe saw Loro disappear a second before the wave exploded over the poop deck’s rail and knocked him off his feet. Nesaea’s grip tightened on him, then was gone. Deadly cold water tumbled him toward the stern and pinned him against the squat deck house.

  The booming crunch of exploding timbers below deck kicked Rathe’s heart into a gallop. He was no sailor, but he understood that the keel had run aground. Now turning broadside to the river’s current, the Lamprey began heeling over, breaking apart on the rocks that, moments ago, had channeled the River Sedge through Ruan Breach. As the ship tipped over, water spilled off the deck, and the Lamprey shuddered like a beast in its death throes.

  Rathe hauled himself up, saw Nesaea doing the same nearby, and raced to help. The two helmsmen had vanished, as had Captain Ostre. Another rumble drew Rathe’s startled gaze to a towering column of rock smashing through the starboard qu
arter of the Lamprey’s bow. Frigid water exploded through the shattered deck. Instead of screams and shouts, Rathe heard only the rushing river and breaking wood. The few crewmen remaining on deck fought to get free of tangled rope and debris, their movements stiff, ungainly. The others had either been knocked overboard, or had leaped into the false safety of the river. Rathe looked for Loro, but couldn’t distinguish one struggling man from another.

  “We have to swim,” he said through chattering teeth, helping Nesaea up.

  She shook her head, her face a pale smear in the snowy gloom. “The river will kill us.”

  “We’ll die if we stay.”

  Before she could respond, Loro cried out, “Rathe!” Casting wildly about, he found the portly man standing over the ruin of the hatch. He held a coughing Fira by the sodden hood of her cloak.

  “Here!” Rathe shouted back.

  Dragging Fira along, Loro turned and began slogging toward Rathe. They had almost reached the poop deck, when a yardarm broke loose and swung out of the collapsing rigging like a pendulum. It slammed into Loro, knocking him over the side. Kneeling on the disintegrating deck, Fira looked around in confusion.

  “Loro!” Rathe ran to the rail and looked over. Roiling water and tangled debris met his eye, but not Loro.

  “Can he swim?” Fira screamed, trying to reach Rathe and Nesaea.

  Instead of answering, Rathe remembered Ostre saying to Loro, “All those steel scales on your jerkin won’t help for swimming, and the Sedge is a fearsome cold bitch any time of year—especially now.”

  Spluttering and splashing, the fat man popped up a few feet away, clawing at a pile of sharp rock and shattered timbers. As soon as he caught hold, he went under.

  “Do something!” Fira wailed.

  Torn, Rathe faced the two women.

  Nesaea was already bustling Fira to what was left of the rail near the bow. Nesaea flashed him a grim smile. “We’ll meet you on the riverbank.”

  She ended whatever argument he might have made when she flung herself and Fira over the side. The River Sedge churned and boiled around the spot they had disappeared. They popped up a second later, rapidly drawn downstream by the raging waters. Rathe watched in horror as they bobbed through the broken rocks now partially damming the river, and then passed out of sight.