by David Keck
In the hole, he saw gray shapes: a writhing of limbs. He saw fingers and elbows, soft as porridge, stirring. He saw a mass of black hair, turning—and drew back before the face could emerge from the knot of limbs.
Lamoric had charged up at his shoulder, but Durand held him back.
The monk teetered before them. He stood little past Durand’s belt’s buckle.
“How long have you prayed here?” asked Durand.
“They stepped from the Wards of the Ancient Patriarchs, these folk,” said the little man, nodding. “Long before, Gunderic, Saerdan’s man, fought wild sorcerers here. Creation was violated: deeply wounded. And so Saerdan’s Patriarchs bound that wound, knotting it into the vast wards they stretched across the kingdom, binding it tight—these idols mark the place—and farmers came to the glen. They lived and died here for a dozen generations. Then, after an argument with their priest, they hung that holy man among the idols.
“And those people?” He gestured toward the shapes in the hole.
“Creation is weak at such places. Torn. And with their desecration, these men thrust themselves beyond the protection of the Patriarchs, a perilous thing in such a place. There are a thousand like it in Errest the Old.”
“You’re bloody madmen!” Badan concluded. He looked ready to launch himself on the monk, but Durand got between them.
Badan subsided, looking up at Durand and the men looking on. “You’d best watch yourself,” he snarled. “I know you. I know what you’re like.” But he backed down, and Durand helped the monk throw earth over the writhing shapes.
The monk touched Durand’s arm as he tossed a last shovel on. “The wards are loosening. From the passes of the Black-roots to the Mount of Eagles. Something is on the move in the land.”
6. The Night Leap
Not one man abandoned Lamoric.
Before Master Odemar had finished his porridge, the knights stood by a loaded Bittern, long oars in their hands like an honor guard of lancers. This was both a show for Lamoric and something to tell Odemar that they were no longer passengers—an idea of Deorwen’s. Every back was ready to row—though Badan had needed a cuff or two from big Ouen.
Lamoric clasped each man’s hand; the ship’s master simply grunted and got on board.
Despite the men’s good intentions, the afternoon’s delay stretched to two or three days as they bailed the battered Bittern and hauled her out in pastures, by old mills, and among the boats of a fishing village. The forty-foot vessel weighed as much as a yoke of oxen and could be just as stubborn. At the last village, Odemar tramped up among the muddy lanes and appeared with pitch, oakum, and a pair of proper caulking irons. The men decided that he looked pleased.
In the quiet stretches, they drilled, pulling starboard and larboard and “giving way” together. By the end they could even “hold water” from a running start—breaking the boat’s drive by jamming the oars deep—or “toss oars,” with every oar straight up.
Mostly, they rowed hard.
In the first hour of the fifth day, the cliffs of the Maidensbier opened and the company of the Bittern saw the silence of Yestreen and the Handglass still beyond. Seat of the dukes of Gireth so long ago, Yestreen’s dark keep now loomed over a fishing village. Durand made out the turtle-back shapes of a few score rowboats upturned below the walls. This was where the Lady of the Maidensbier had ended her journey.
At Gireth’s beginning, Yestreen had been the duke’s seat and the staging ground for Gunderic and his Sons of Atthi as they carried their banners to the mountains’ feet. Now, though generations beyond counting had passed since that time, Yestreen still recalled the days before its duke departed, and the evening when its future closed before it.
The shell of Yestreen stood where the Maidensbier poured into the cool depths of the Handglass. The Bittern slid onto the bay, carried by the current. Below the keel, they could see blue pebbles that must be fathoms from the surface. The air was still and cold.
As the river let them go, every eye turned to Odemar. When he nodded, they rowed.
THE LIGHT FAILED as they reached Silvermere itself.
Rowing, every man faced Master Odemar and the high curve of the sternpost. Durand learned to read the knobs and bristles of the master’s face. He could see, for example, that Odemar’s black-button eyes were searching the shoreline gloom now, looking for a place to put in for the hours of darkness.
He would soon turn the Bittern into the wind.
Then the man’s eyes were jumping. His beard squirmed. Deorwen passed Durand’s elbow. Abandoning her position in the bows, she climbed over thwarts and barrels to the stern where Odemar stood with his well-worn tiller.
“I know little enough about sailing, Master Odemar,” she said. “I understand that we must cross the mere to Red Winding and follow the Red Winding to Ragnal’s capital. But how is the crossing to be made?”
The man hooked a finger in a tight cord he wore around his neck. “A wise man keeps the shore to windward, ‘case the mere blows up. Ladyship.”
“And the wind’s from the northeast?”
“Last while, aye. Ladyship.”
“So, around by the Halls of Silence, then.”
The man nodded. “There’s coves and bays enough to shelter for the night. So long as no one goes ashore, the old kings don’t give no trouble.”
Deorwen nodded. “I suppose there are men who live under the eaves of the forest, right now, in Farona. And you’ve lived across the Maidensbier in the Burrstones.”
Odemar didn’t smile, though he gave the neck cord a tug under his beard. “I’ve spent many a night in coves along that shore. Saw one of the old ones once. Tall as this mast here.”
“What is that, by the way?” she asked, indicating the twist of leather at his neck.
Odemar scowled. “This? Cauls! They’re cauls.”
“I don’t . . .”
He thrust his beard forward. “A man born in the caul don’t drown so long as he keeps it by him.”
“Ah. And your wrists?”
“Cauls. Aye, Ladyship.”
“You’ve got three?”
“My brothers, Ladyship. They were ship’s masters before me.”
“And how did you come by . . .”
“They didn’t drown, Ladyship,” he explained.
The rowing had ceased.
Coensar leaned on his oar.
“You’ve heard what we’re doing—the message and the oaths?” asked Coensar.
Odemar scratched where beard and caul met. “Aye.”
“The way we sail, will we see Eldinor before the moon’s out?”
The ship’s master stepped out from behind his steering oar—just one hand on the tiller—and squinted straight up into the empty Heavens.
“We might try the night leap,” he said.
Some of the oarsmen muttered.
“What is this ‘night leap’?” asked Lamoric.
“Lordship. A man sets off by daylight, sighting off the lodestar to keep a straight course.”
“Out of sight of land?”
“Aye. You set your course at Last Twilight, then press through. On the sea, you must hope to sight land then, when the Eye rises, or you’re lost. It’s different on the mere.”
“And what of shoals and banks—”
“Best done in deep water. Should be a broad enough channel west.”
Durand eyed the others—Lamoric, Coensar, Deorwen—wondering whether this was what they’d had in mind. Sailing alone in the blackness.
As Deorwen nodded and made her way back into the bows, Durand had a feeling she had known exactly what she was asking—and that there was no one else aboard who could have posed the question.
“Well, gentlemen. It does not sound like the safe course,” said Lamoric. “I don’t think it would be fair to—”
Berchard stopped him. “Shut up, Your Lordship. We’re in the boat already, aren’t we?” There was laughter in the gloom.
Odemar merely nodd
ed. “Starboard bank, give way together,” he ordered, and the Bittern lurched toward Silvermere. Dimly visible, the last quarter of the Lambing Moon already hung in the Heavens. Soon it would the only light in Creation.
“Pick up the stroke, all,” Odemar commanded. “Slow and steady. Let’s see if we can’t get the sail to do some pulling.”
THEY ROWED AS the horizon’s smudges crumbled into the mere, and stars glittered in the black waves. Before long, they were alone with the sloshing water. Durand could hear, more than see, the breeze playing feebly in the sailcloth.
They dragged up some riverman’s chants.
Someone was bailing. Durand could hear the comic-hollow scoop of a leather bucket. His back and shoulders ached with the relentless effort of rowing. Behind him, Badan spat and snarled. He swore when Durand’s oar crossed his. When Durand’s blade skipped a splash back at him, he threatened to stick a knife in Durand’s neck.
When songs failed them, Ouen spoke. “I’ll tell you about my string of bad luck. The first man I served, I rode five years at his side—until his wedding.”
“Wife got a look at you, eh?” sneered Badan.
“He and his brother rode off a cliff the next morning, near as we could figure.”
Berchard clucked his tongue. “My wife was a bit like that.”
“Fog,” said Ouen. “Like you’ve never seen. That one was a good man. He’d been meaning to have me take over a hall and some river land. I thought I was going to be there for life.”
Durand glanced over to see Ouen’s teeth wink.
“The next one, I served four years till one day we rode out hunting—too far to get back before nightfall. Rain drove us into a country shrine. And His Lordship didn’t like leaving the serving men outside, or the horses outside—or the dogs. The next day, the shrine was heaped with crap and there was His Lordship, blind and full of—what do they call those?—hives! Hives, he had. All over his body.”
“You don’t make a house of the Powers into a stable.”
“Or kennel, aye. We sussed that out right away. I think it might have been a holy day too. His bloody Lordship had been dangling a young widow under my nose, but he didn’t need a tournament thug after the blinding. I remember the widow though. Her hair was that red they call strawberry—a sort of roany chestnut, like.”
Deorwen laughed.
“Hells, Ouen,” said Badan, “you’ve been an unlucky bastard.”
“One killed his own liege lord—accidentally with a hunting arrow—and wound up across the Sea of Thunder somewhere.” He paused. “Another choked on a pie of—what was it?—larks, I think. Something like that. Another ordered they build him a ship up in Beoran. I’d managed to fight my way to his right hand. Lost my teeth for him. Called the ship Otter and, sure enough, she rolled over the same hour she left the harbor—just like a real damned otter. His wife, his sons, were all on board. You could see them crawling over the Otter’s belly, I swear.”
Over Durand’s shoulder, Badan was cackling. “Careful what you name a ship, eh?”
“The bittern a diving bird?” Berchard wondered, but Ouen kept talking.
“Every time I feel a nice bit of land—a corner of forest, a bit of rolling valley—at my fingertips, no matter how many winters I spend stealing up on it, whisk, something snatches it away.”
A cold breeze stirred over the water. The sail flapped, like something fitfully waking, then bellied out—the Bittern heeling. In the moonlight, Durand could see Odemar considering. He might ask them to pull the oars out. They might have a break from rowing.
The wind freshened again, pulling creaks of protest from stays and shrouds. The Bittern heeled farther.
“Bank oars, all,” Odemar said, the sweeps rattling inboard at his command. “Hands to the sheets. Let’s brace up. Bring the larboard in.” His eyes darted down the boat. “Let’s trim her fore-and-aft while we can. By my eye, we’re low in the bows. Make fast whatever’s loose. I don’t know what time we’ve got.”
Any cheer the men felt at hauling the cursed oars out froze in their blood. The men stared from their benches, but the master scratched under the leather at his neck. There was weather coming on. Badan said, “Hells.” Durand met Deorwen’s glance down the length of the boat. He had seen the mere in a storm, both aboard ship and from unshakable Gunderic’s Tower in Acconel. But now, it would be night and in this undecked boat with untrained men. He wanted to lift Deorwen out of it all, to be one of those giants from the Halls of Silence to stride with her across the mere.
“How many, Ouen?” said Durand.
“They called me Ouen of the Nine Masters for a while. Now, I don’t count. Coensar’s been trying longer than I have—but not much. There’s a little poison in hope. You can take that from me.”
For an hour, they ran before the spreading wings of the storm, then the Bittern rolled through a deep trough and slipped into blackness as the Lambing Moon surrendered the Heavens to darkness.
Another deep trough took the Bittern, throwing men on their knees. The wind snapped in the sail, a cold weight.
“Each man, get your oar on a lanyard,” said Odemar’s voice.
“If I could see the bloody oar,” griped Badan, “I’d jam it up your—”
The Bittern rose and slewed through the blackness, Durand catching an icy wave over chest and breeches. He blinked at the thunderbolt chill. He wondered how the master could keep the boat on course—then he realized. With a twist in his seat, he watched the last stars blotted out. Odemar was as blind as any of them.
The master said, “If you’ve anything loose, now’s the time to—”
Another wave lifted the boat and sent it shuddering down. Durand heard a clatter from the stern, then Odemar cursing—he was likely climbing back to his feet.
“Who’s bailing?” the master demanded.
Deorwen’s voice answered, “I will,” from somewhere up in the bows. The sound stole Durand’s breath.
His oar was alive in his hands, though all but the blade was hauled inboard. It should have been well out of the waves.
Above the creak of the rigging and the splash of water, there came a new sound: a hiss across the darkness, at first far away, and then closer. Finally, a wet-gravel sleet slapped down, drumrolling over the sail.
“That’s it! No time to brail up. Mind your heads, I’m bringing the yard down.” There was a clatter of parrel bearings as the yard dropped on the forearms of the men in the boat’s waist. Tents worth of canvas filled the Bittern. “Get it in the boat!” Odemar said. “Lay it down the keel.”
The Bittern dove; she bounded high.
“Ready at the oars! And watch yourselves when the water catches them.”
As Durand braced to shoot the long oar out over the waves, a tower of black water crashed over the boat. In an instant, he was off his bench and tumbling. Voices shouted and bodies collided. Just as he felt the gunnel under his hand, a weight struck him hard against it: a body. In a sick instant, he knew the body was already going over the side.
He heard a voice: a high sound tumbling into the waves. All he could think was “Deorwen!”
Blind, he lashed out, groping into waves and wind. The world was dark and full of storms, but there was no one there. His fingers snagged a trailing line. That was all.
He hung over the gunnel, feeling his heart beating. Then the line jerked taut.
He imagined a cough, snatched by the wind. The line was slithering from his fingers. He caught the hairy rope in both fists. While the others shouted and scrambled around him—all blind, no one seeing—Durand hauled for her life.
Then there were gasps and scrabbling fingers. Durand reached deep beyond the gunnel, catching a fistful of cloth, and then they collapsed into the stern.
“Thank God . . . Deorwen,” Durand gasped.
“You’ve got the wrong girl!” Big Ouen’s laugh spluttered. “But, Heaven help me, I’ll bloody play along if it keeps me out of the mere.”
Now, it was Od
emar’s turn. The two men had fallen on him. “Get to your oars! I must get the prow in the wind’s eye. Do as I say!”
7. The Winding Road
They wrestled the storm through all the dark hours, rowing by touch while the Bittern flexed and twisted. As the boat crashed over the waves, they heaved, racking their oars like a dying man breathes. The wind or waves would catch the prow and throw it left or right, ready to roll the boat and kill them. Oars and gunnels bloodied their noses and blackened their eyes.
Somewhere in the dark, Deorwen cringed under the same coffin-chilled waves, but Durand could not so much as see her. Though the Bittern might carry them down, he could not say a word. He could only row and hope that she would live.
Then a moment came when Durand realized that he could see the rain that lashed him. Thick, pale ice hung on the gunnels and rolled on mottled waves.
Odemar stood with his fists on the tiller, as he had before the light failed them. He could have been dead. Durand, twisting as he pulled his oar, found that Deorwen still rode in the bow, emptying buckets over the side. Durand shut his eyes in relief.
When he opened his eyes, Ouen smacked a kiss in his direction, his beard rattling with ice. “My hero.”
Finally, Odemar’s voice croaked out. “Stop. Oars out. Pointless. We could be anyplace.” The man’s breath floated in the air around his head. The swell had died, and now Creation was a still place bounded by mist.
Boots scraped in the bottom of the boat as the men looked out.
“Some ship’s master you are,” said Badan. There was a rattle among the man’s last teeth. “Whoreson.”
“Quiet,” said Coensar. “Hold still.”
Now that the oars were silent, a faint lapping reached the boat from the fog: a beach or another vessel in the gray distance.
“That sounds good,” said Lamoric. Frost had stiffened panels of his surcoat. “I think we’d better get these men under shelter while it may still do some good, eh, Master Odemar?”