by Ian Irvine
The guards hurtled up. Ten feet… twelve. They skidded to a stop at the end of the pier, screaming abuse, for the gap was now beyond any man to jump. Fifteen feet… twenty. Kroni left the wheel and hauled on ropes, trimming the sail. It caught the wind and shot down the channel into the bay, and she was safe. From immediate pursuit, at least. Though not from the water, and perhaps not from Kroni either.
“Come in out of the wind,” said Kroni.
She followed him into the cabin. It was about six feet by eight, beautifully built from honey-coloured timber that had been polished until it shone and coated with layers of varnish. There was a large round window forward, small portholes to either side and a sliding door onto the rear deck.
Bench seats ran along the left side and the rear, to the door, and there was a small fixed table in the corner in front of the seats. A low door, latched open, led to a square hatch and a ladder that ran down into a lower cabin, or perhaps the hold. She couldn’t tell; it was dark down there.
“Anything else you want to tell me?” said Kroni, gesturing to the seats.
“Don’t think so.” Tali sat, wanting to lie down and close her eyes and not move for a week. “What about you, Kroni?”
“Kroni,” he said, smiling. “That takes me back. I really am a clockmaker, you know. A good one, though you may think me boastful for saying it. You would have realised that Kroni was a pseudonym. My name is Holm.”
“Holm what?”
“It’ll do for the time being.”
“Whose boat is this?”
“Mine. I built it twenty years ago.”
“So you’re also a master boat builder?”
“I dabble.”
“What do you want me for?”
“Youth of today!” he sighed theatrically. “So suspicious. I don’t want you for anything.”
“Everyone I’ve ever met wanted something from me… except Tobry.” Tears welled and she turned away hastily.
He adjusted the pocket handkerchief sail and returned to the wheel. “The only Tobry I’ve heard of came from the fallen House of Lagger.”
She nodded. She could not trust herself to speak.
“And?” he prompted.
She told the bitter story in as few words as possible.
“And you had feelings for him?” said Holm.
“I didn’t plan to.”
“Does anyone ever plan to have feelings for another person?” he asked mildly.
Tali felt a fool. “I swore to gain justice for my murdered mother. I didn’t have time for anything else…”
“But those treacherous feelings crept up on you anyway?” Holm was smirking now.
“I was too busy. I was on a quest.”
“So you denied your own feelings.”
“All right! Yes, I loved Tobry,” she said, sniffling. “But I didn’t realise it until it was too late.”
“I’m sorry.”
She did not want his sorrow or his pity. She wiped her eyes. “Where are you taking me?”
“Won’t know until we get out through the heads.”
“Why not?”
“Depends what we see. It’s been weeks since I was out on the open sea. Things change rapidly at this time of year.”
“Which way do you want to go?”
“North towards Bleddimire, of course.”
“Why there?” said Tali.
“It’s warmer, safer and further from the enemy.”
“What if you can’t go north?”
“Not west. There’s solid ice for a thousand miles.”
“South?”
“I hope not. Too much pack ice. Get some rest.”
She shivered. “Have you got a spare coat?”
He took a heavy, fur-lined coat from a long, narrow compartment and handed it to her. Tali wrapped it around herself. He closed the cabin door. She hunched in the corner of the two bench seats, behind the table, braced herself against the rolling and closed her eyes, hoping for sleep.
It did not come, and she knew why. She was in a tiny, flimsy piece of wood, on the vast and endless sea, and if anything went wrong she was going to drown. She had nearly drowned once, crossing a lake in the Seethings with Rix and Tobry, and it had left her with a terror of water.
Time drifted; she could not have told whether ten minutes had passed, or an hour. Then suddenly the movement of the vessel changed. Instead of rolling gently it was pitching up and down, as well as rocking back and forth in plank-creaking jerks that kept hurling her off her seat.
She became aware of the wind whistling through the lines and shaking the boat violently. Occasionally a gust would heel it over until the rail almost broke the sea and all she could see were enormous, foaming waves rolling towards them in every direction. They were passing through the heads, out into the open sea.
“Coming up for a bit of weather,” Holm said laconically.
The boat righted itself. They passed out through the heads. The wind howled and hurled rain at them like solid pellets. The waves out here seemed twice as high as before. Holm turned north. They crested a wave bigger than any they had encountered before. The wind flung them over, the boat righted itself like a cork, and ahead, covering the sea from east to west, Tali saw it.
A wall of ice, hundreds of feet high.
“Guess we’re not going north after all,” said Holm.
CHAPTER 21
The night dragged on, one of the most gut-gnawing of Tali’s life. Every minute she expected the little craft to founder and plunge to the bottom, or to strike one of the many floes and icebergs that littered the sea like white confetti. They were larger, more jagged and more numerous the further south they went.
But whatever else Holm was, he was a master seaman. He handled the little craft with the delicacy of a surgeon, picking his way between the bergs and floes without so much as a scrape in the varnish.
As the hours crept by, her need for sleep became a desperate, all-consuming ache, but the more she tried to sleep the more it eluded her. Whenever she closed her eyes her head spun until she thought she was going to throw up. She hunched in the corner with a blanket wrapped around her sea coat and endured the dizziness and nausea as best she could.
“Drink this,” he said, shaking her by the shoulder.
He was holding a steaming metal cup. “What is it?”
“Ginger tea. It’ll settle your stomach.”
“Stomach isn’t the problem. It’s my spinning head.”
“It’ll do your head some good, too.”
She took the cup and warmed her cold fingers around it. “How do you boil water on a wooden boat?”
“There’s a stove. We have all the comforts here. It’s just like home.”
The boat climbed a monster swell, up and up, revealing terrifying, white-capped waves through the round front window. She shuddered.
“When I was a slave in Cython, home was a tiny cell carved out of rock, with a stone bunk, and my only possession was a loincloth.”
“But it felt like home?”
“When I was little. When my mother was alive. It was all I knew.”
“Well, there you are. And this boat is my home.”
Tali sipped her tea. The sickening motion inside her head eased, though it did not disappear.
“Would you like breakfast? Bacon? Eggs?”
She salivated. “I… don’t think I’ll risk it.”
“You’ve got to eat something.”
He checked all around, lashed the wheel so the boat would run straight, then went down the ladder, returning with a steaming saucepan.
“That was quick,” said Tali.
“I put it on when I made the tea.”
He dropped a knob of butter into the saucepan, spooned in a quarter of a cup of honey and handed her the saucepan and a spoon.
“What is it?” she said, eyeing the grey, buttery mess uneasily.
“Just porridge. It’ll put a healthy lining on your stomach — what there is of it.”
He smiled with his eyes. “Compliments, eh? I’ll cook for you any day.”
The porridge settled her stomach and the honey sent a surge of energy through her. The weakness in her knees retreated a little.
They sailed on. Holm went in and out many times, adjusting the little sail. The hot tea delivered a tingling heat and the wonderful coat kept it in. It was the first time she had been truly warm since Caulderon. She dozed.
“Where are we going?” she said, as a watery, haloed sun clawed its way over the horizon. She rubbed her sore eyes.
“South to The Cape, then east along the strait between Hightspall and Suden — if we can manage it.”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
“Pack ice. We can’t go far offshore, but close to shore is equally dangerous.”
“Why?” She didn’t know much about the sea. “Are there reefs?”
“Yes, and shoals, and dangerous currents, but they’re not the main dangers. People are.”
“Pirates?” She wasn’t entirely sure that Holm wasn’t one.
“The chancellor controls the land south of Rutherin to The Cape, and he’ll be watching for us. But after we round The Cape, southern Hightspall is now Cythonian territory all the way to Esterlyz.”
“What’s Esterlyz?”
“The south-eastern corner of Hightspall. Why does the enemy want to kill you, anyway?”
“I told you,” Tali muttered, not meeting his eye. These waters were as dangerous to navigate as the ones he was sailing through.
“I don’t believe you did.”
“Well, I would have thought it was obvious.”
“I’m set in my ways and I like things spelled out. Indulge me.”
“Because I was the first slave to escape from Cython. They have to punish me and set an example to the other slaves.”
“That all?”
“I also know Cython’s secrets.”
“What, all of them?” he said, grinning.
Was he mocking her? “Enough to be invaluable if the chancellor ever attacks Cython.”
“I still don’t see why he wants you so badly. Didn’t he question you about Cython?”
“At length.”
“And all the enemy prisoners would have been interrogated. The chancellor’s cartographers would have made maps of Cython.”
“A map’s not as good as a guide!” she blurted, then flushed.
“A guide for what? Leading an army into Cython?” For the first time, Holm seemed off-balance.
“How would I know?” she said lamely.
The muscles along his jaw had gone tight. “What the hell is he thinking?”
“He’s preparing the ground; gathering his forces; evaluating all kinds of options.” Why was she defending him?
“While the enemy is seizing the ground and destroying our forces.”
“Well, he’s making alliances…” Tali noticed Holm’s grim smile. “What’s the matter?”
“Why are you apologising for your enemy’s failures?”
“I–I don’t know. We often talked. The chancellor told me things he can’t say to anyone else.”
“If he doesn’t stop talking and start fighting it’ll be too late. Then all the strategies and alliances won’t make a jot of difference — ”
Holm broke off, adjusted the sail then took the wheel again, rubbing his jaw.
Tali looked out but saw nothing save ice and heavy seas. “Is something wrong?”
“Thought I saw something in the water, way across to port.”
“What do you mean, ‘to port’?”
He jerked a gnarled thumb to the left. “That way.”
In the morning light, the crisscrossing scars on his fingers stood out against the tanned skin. “Have you been tortured?”
He looked down. “They’re work scars. From clock springs, mostly.”
“I’ve no idea what a clock spring is.”
“It’s a long strip of metal — steel or brass — wound into a tight coil. The tension drives the clock. Some clocks, anyway. But when you have to take a coil out, sometimes it snaps open. Bloody business.”
“How did you come to be a clockmaker?”
“I failed at something important — ” His mouth tightened; he looked away. “The opportunity came up. Always been good with my hands.”
He went out and climbed twenty feet up the mast, hanging on with one hand and staring off to port. With every sickening roll of the boat the mast swayed halfway across the sky and she felt sure he was going to be hurled off, to break every bone in his body. Or go over the side and never be seen again.
What would she do if he went into the water? How would she get him out? In her present state she would not have a hope.
Tali imagined being trapped on a boat she had no idea how to sail, frantically trying to work the sail and the rudder without having any idea what she was doing, fighting the wind and the waves at the same time… Then the slow, sickening roll, the monstrous seas coming over the side and the little vessel foundering and carrying her down with it, the icy water flooding into her lungs -
Holm hit the deck with a thump, burst in and spun the wheel.
“What’s the matter?” cried Tali.
“Shell racers.”
“What are shell racers?”
“Long, low racing craft, rowed by four oarsmen. With a scrap of sail they’re faster than anything in the water, downwind. And infinitely manoeuvrable. They can go anywhere, even upwind.”
“I wouldn’t want to be out in these seas on a little rowing boat.”
“Nor I,” said Holm. “I’ve rowed them. They break up too easily.”
“What happens if they break up?”
“Go in water this cold and there’s only one minute to get you out. Beyond a minute, you die.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, studying her face. “But the massive reward the chancellor will be offering for you is worth any risk.”
And Tali still had no idea what Holm wanted from her.
He paused, then went on, slowly, “Time was when I would have thought the same. I was a great risk taker when I was young… though not all of them came off.”
Tali wasn’t sure how to interpret that. “What do we do when they catch us?”
“Can you shoot a bow and arrow?”
“No.”
“But you do know how to fight?”
“Only with my hands.”
“How good are you?”
“Not good enough to beat armed men.”
CHAPTER 22
“Not long now,” said Rix, frowning at the immense range that ran across their path. “Garramide is up there.”
It was raining again. Ten days had passed since they fled Caulderon, and it had snowed or rained every day. Ten days of travelling by night through the wildest country he could find, constantly looking behind, expecting his enemies to be there. Ten days of covering their tracks; ten days of practising with Maloch left-handed until he burst the blisters on his palm over and again. He would never be as good as he had been with his right hand, but he had to be good enough to beat most swordsmen.
The escarpment was covered in thick forest woven with vines and from this vantage point it blocked out half the sky. Inside the forest, the ground, the rocks and fallen trees were carpeted in moss, vivid green in the dull light. Water ran out of the slope in a dozen places, forming little, trickling rivulets only a foot across.
“It looks awfully steep. And wet,” said Glynnie.
“It’s rainforest.”
“Rainforest?”
“Temperate rainforest. It rains here two hundred days a year, I’ve heard. And snows for fifty.”
“How do we get up?”
“There’s a road of sorts up the eastern end. They can haul carts up in dry weather, but when it’s wet, or deep in snow as it is now, the only way up is on foot. But we can’t go that w
ay. Their sentinels would see us hours before we got there.”
“But if Garramide is yours — ”
“It’s legally mine — but since the war began, anything could have happened.”
“So how do we get up?”
“According to the letter my great-aunt wrote me before she died, there’s a secret way up the western end. But we’ll have to set the horses free. It’s too steep for them.”
“What’s up there?”
“A volcanic plateau, four thousand feet high.”
“Sounds miserably cold,” said Glynnie.
“It has hard winters, to be sure,” said Rix, “but fertile soil and plenty of rain. There’s a good living to be had. More importantly, with mountains on three sides and this escarpment on the fourth, it’s easily defended.”
They dismounted, set the horses free and turned to the slope. “It’s as high as a mountain,” muttered Glynnie. “This is going to take a week.”
“At least half a day, I’m told, so we’d better get going.”
“It’s desolate,” said Glynnie, when they reached the top in the early afternoon and scaled a rocky hilltop to get a better view.
The plateau was about four miles long by two wide, undulating farmland covered in snow. She made out several manors and half a dozen villages. Black, ice-sheathed mountains defended the far sides.
“Pretty country though,” said Rix. “And the most beautiful fortress I’ve ever seen. One of the strongest, too,” he added approvingly.
Fortress Garramide was only a few hundred yards away. It had been built on a rocky hill at the edge of the plateau, an outcrop cliffed on two sides and surrounded by a thirty-foot-high wall that must have enclosed forty acres. Every fifty yards along the wall was a watchtower.
“The wall is eight feet thick at the top, and solid stone all the way through,” he recalled.
“It’s enormous,” said Glynnie.
The inner fortress arose from the highest point of the hill and contained a great, stepped castle built from golden stone and topped with five towers, four at the corners and a larger one in the centre, surmounted by copper-clad domes tarnished to a rusty green. A tall, narrow tower behind the others had no dome, and neither did a separate tower immediately behind the gates. It ended in a flat war platform a hundred feet up, surrounded by walls with arrow slits through them.