"What's the matter?" Enna asked from the bedside in the other room.
"I don't believe the door is the right way, after all." He replied with a sigh, closing it and dropping the heavy bar. "What about the back window?"
"There's a narrow path along the side of the house, a bit of bracken beyond that, then the cliff side. Walk half a hundred ells south and there's a path down to the piers."
He thanked her for the information, and then put a leg over the windowsill. "A last kiss, then?"
"Oh, aye." She giggled indecently and lifted the nightshirt up over her shoulders. "A last little hug, too."
Her skin was very warm, and it was another quarter hour before Levin had the opportunity to depart.
From the shadows, Denjar watched the house. The light that had gone on briefly at the innkeeper's coming had gone out again, leaving the small cottage in darkness. Two neighboring cottages lined the cliffside, and Denjar did not want to take a chance on openly approaching the place. To be caught in town after the warning he had received might not be too healthy. Even a blademaster had to consider such things.
Something, some subtle something in the darkness around the house, changed. Although Denjar could not define the change and would have been at pains to describe how he knew, he yet knew. The bird was on the wing. Risking discovery, he walked his horse from the woods onto the main road. It was well after midnight, and the town was as empty and quiet as it ever was. A quarter moon low on the horizon provided but a little light. Dawn was not far off.
He heard the sound of wooden shutters clattering and cursed to himself. He had not considered the windows on the back of the house. He kneed his horse forward, riding the narrow path between the houses. He was just in time to get the impression of a shadow ducking out of sight over the edge of the cliff as he rode into the back yards.
"Ere you there!" A husky, full-throated woman's voice came out of a dark window on one of the houses. "What d'yer mean riding a damn horse across me garden?"
Without replying, Denjar turned his horse back onto the main cobbled street and spurred it down the lane. He would catch his man when he got to the waterfront.
Levin heard the woman's exclamation even as he skinned his palms on the sharp rocks that lined the narrow path down the cliffside. In the darkness he nearly lost his footing twice, and he skinned his knees a couple of times, ripping his clothes. Still, he ran now with reckless haste, with a good suspicion of who was behind him. He did not know he had reached the waterfront until his shoes rattled hollowly on the wooden boardwalk lining the piers. A single figure stood beneath the sea-lamp, a tall, rangy man with a wry grin on his face. It was no one Levin had ever seen before.
"Pardon me, sir. Could you point me to the long pier? I've a ship waiting."
"Sally's High Touch?" There was a knowing sound to the voice, and many years of experience behind it.
"Aye, that's the one."
"You'd be Captain D'juren's boy, then. Come with me, I'll take ye aboard."
"Are you one of the crew?"
"Hardly." The man touched Levin's shoulder lightly, keeping him from falling off of the pier in the darkness. "I'm Cap'm Endam Berrol. Welcome aboard." Together they climbed a rope ladder onto the waiting vessel, visible only as a black shadow against the starry night behind her.
Dawn came to beautiful Kancro town by the sea, and Denjar cursed at the sliver of sun as it cleared the eastern horizon and sent a glittering orange reflection across the water. "That ship, boy." He said to one of the young fishermen coming down to the short pier for the day's launch. "Where is she bound?"
The boy prided himself on knowing all there was to know about the sailing ships that docked in Kancro, just as all boys his age knew. One day he would be a sailor, too, Lio willing.
"The Sally's High Touch?" Already the ship was a furlong out to sea, taking advantage of the dawn wind and the outgoing tide. "Torth Island, of course."
Denjar cursed again, bitterly, careless of who was there to hear it.
Chapter 20: West of the Redwater River, Cthochi Aulig Territory
"So how many children are missing now?"
"Nine altogether, Ghaill, if you count the ones from last autumn." The speaker was Kerrick the Sword, the Ghaill’s right hand man, a tall and battle-scarred warrior who wore his hair in a single thick black braid down his back, next to a heavy war sword in a wide leather scabbard. He was one of the few Auligs who also wore a half-coat of Mortentian chain mail, and one of the few Cthochi the Ghaill trusted to tell him the unadorned truth.
Ghaill Earthspeaker considered this. He too was a giant among his kind, standing nearly seven feet tall and known for his expertise with the spear and the longbow, although now his hair was thinner and grayer than it had been when he was Kerrick’s age. At fifty, he was the old bull among the Cthochi Aulig, leader of the largest band known. He was entrusted with the care of his people, and the stonecutters had gone too far this time.
Nine children meant nine families disrupted. It meant nine fathers from four different clans clamoring for blood. "Any doubt it was the stone cutters?"
"Not in the mind of the Clan Elders, Ghaill. The trackers all report the same signs, booted feet headed across the river."
"Did anyone follow the tracks across the river?"
"No, Ghaill."
"Can anyone explain to me how the children were taken out of camps watched by our hunters without alerting the dogs or the babies' mothers?"
Kerrick the Sword said nothing. These were all mysteries the Ghaill had discussed with him before. There were no answers.
"What does the spook-pusher say?" The Ghaill's mouth thinned with unvoiced disapproval. He had little use for shamans, and the fact that the Cthochi's chief druid was the great Allein-a-Briech made it no easier. Even here, in his own tent, closeted with his chief warrior in secret counsel, he dared not speak his feelings aloud. He could not be sure that the druid did not have his ways of listening. The old man had been his father's and grandfather's chief advisor, and it was said he could speak to animals. Doubtless some vole or squirrel lay concealed somewhere in his tent to report on his doings to the old man. Ghaill Earthspeaker, who feared no man in a fair fight, was secretly afraid of his own druid.
"He says what he has been saying. All that business about the great darkness coming and the final war." Kerrick, too, feared to speak ill of the druid aloud, although by his expression the Ghaill read the doubt there. Kerrick was a man of action, of strength and little subtlety. He'd made it plain enough in the past that he despised the druid, even if he dared not voice the thought aloud.
The Ghaill sighed. "He has been saying that since we lost Rakond to the others."
"Yes. But he's never seemed as certain as now. A lot of the people are paying attention now."
The Ghaill stood and walked to the hide tent's single entrance. "Well, there is little enough we can do about it now. The elders' blood is up. If the stonecutters are responsible, they've earned what is coming."
"And if not?"
"It has been coming to this for some time anyway."
Hanjenger D'Tarman was the last of the foresters to come into the hall, and the fifteen others who had preceded him stood out of respect. Despite his high birth, their leader and the oldest among them had proven himself a hundred times. He walked purposefully to the large rectangular table that formed the centerpiece of the building, and he took his seat at its head, stroking his thick brown beard thoughtfully.
"Let's bring this meeting to order." He commanded.
Prior Handel, a slightly fat but still hardy forester with some religious training, stood and asked for Lio's blessing on them all while each man bowed his head in silent respect. Handel could manage a crossbow or a two-handed sword as well as any man at the table, despite his priestly mien. At Hanjenger's nod, a serving wench brought ale in great flagons on four separate trays. Once each man had taken his drink, the chief of the Northcraven foresters addressed his men.
"I've come from Maslit with the last of the reports. There's little question, now. Five children missing from Maslit, six from the hamlets along the river and two from just outside of Northcraven's walls. In the two or three instances where any tracks were found, the report is the same. Soft leather moccasins leading to and from the riverbank. In Maslit I found a place where two hide coracles were drawn up to wait." The men did not question his report, for the fifty year old Hanjenger had taught each of them the fine points of reading tracks. If he said the marks were from coracles, they were. Only Auligs used the small boats made of hide stretched over small frames of wood.
"That's it, then." Sanjer O'Hiam said angrily. He was new to the King's Foresters, and more than once Hanjenger had noticed his strong hatred for the Cthochi, the Aulig tribe across the river. Sanjer's eyes were an almost icy blue-white, a rarity among the Mortentians, and that combined with his short cropped silver-white hair gave him a somewhat cold appearance. His body was thick with muscle and there was not a bit of fat on him. Having seen him fight, Hanjenger knew he could be as coldly efficient and deadly as a serpent.
"But why?" Anajel Heath cried out, frustrated. The thin, round-faced archer knew Auligs better than most, and he was usually welcomed in their camps. "We've had peace with the Cthochi for over five years. It's not like they don't have children of their own." Anajel had sat beside Hanjenger when the most recent treaty was negotiated, and everyone understood his desire that it be maintained.
"What does it matter why?" Sanjer replied, before Hanjenger could call him to order. "They are taking our children, and one of them was found strangled on the road! We've allowed them to make summer camp across the river for far too long as it is. The duke wants a recommendation; the evidence is clear."
"We should speak to the Ghaill Earthspeaker before we act." Aldebar J'lenti, second in command of the foresters, had a voice like tearing wood on the few occasions when he chose to speak. He was a huge man and was widely recognized in Northcraven for his strength.
Hanjenger looked at Aldebar and nodded. "We should. At least we should make the attempt. On the other hand, if we send a delegation to the Auligs with these accusations, they may just pack up and head back to their winter camps. They would take with them any chance at recovering the children or even finding out what they are up to with this."
"So what do you suggest?" Anajel had looked up hopefully at the mention of speaking to the Aulig chieftain, but Hanjenger's declining a formal delegation had put worry back into his face. "We can't break the treaty without giving them some chance to explain themselves."
"The abyss we can't!" Sanjer's voice was caustic.
"No." Hanjenger said, giving the silver-haired ranger a warning glance. "We can't start a war without at least talking to them. I must speak personally with the Ghaill. I will go across the Redwater with Anajel tonight. I shall return no later than the day after tomorrow with his answer."
"The duke will not want to wait that long." Aldebar noted.
"Aye, well, he'll have to."
Dejon Blaise had not been born a criminal, but he took to it at an early age. Now, at a full twenty-six years, he had been to the dungeon at Orr twice, and he'd lost one finger to the king's justice. Had he a horse, or any skill at riding, he would doubtless have become an outlaw highwayman, robbing fine gentlemen of their jewels and strongboxes until his cupidity got him hanged.
As it was, he had neither the horse nor the skill, although he was an experienced boatman. No one from Northcraven to Maslit would have employed him, of course, for he was a known criminal and it was common knowledge that you could not trust him with so much as a tin penny. He had a way of standing with his thin shoulders forward that looked like skulking, and a face like a beaten potato, apart from his beak of a nose.
He had been drunk last year and looking for something to steal when the woman approached him. She was maybe twenty, maybe thirty… It was hard to tell. She might have passed for a goodwife if it had not been for a certain hardness around her eyes. Her hair was that inky flat black that wouldn't reveal age until it suddenly went stark white, like his mother's had just before she died.
She had a boat, she said. She needed a hand, one who was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and his eyes closed when necessary. The pay was in gold, and there was that little matter of the king's writ as well.
He'd grown pale at her mention of it. No one on the Northcraven docks knew about his escape from the Blackhill, or so he'd thought. A word of it, even a hint of it to the godsknights or the duke's men and he'd go back to the Blackhill and get his neck stretched, for escape meant the hanging tree. Oh, she had him by the ballocks, all right.
"I'm a fine boatman." He'd said, returning her cold witch's smile as best he could.
That was over a twelve-month ago, and he'd manned the ropes well on the low, darkly painted boat since. The Kalgareth was a smuggler's ship, of that Dejon had no doubt, although he was never permitted to take a look at her cargo. The witch-woman's right-hand man, whom everyone just called the 'captain', saw to that. He was one of those rare tall men that lost nothing of strength with his height. Dejon had seen his sword, too, in his quarters when the captain thought he wasn't looking. It wasn't any simple boarding cutlass like a common sailor would use, but a real steel weapon, foreign made, with a thick scalloped blade and jewels set in the hilt.
No one but a blademaster or a highborn was likely to possess such a sword, and Dejon doubted the Captain was highborn. The man had too much of the waterfront in him. There was something foreign in the way he talked, too.
The rest of the crew seemed to have been selected for the same reason Dejon had, for he hadn't been among such a collection of crookthieves since his time in the Blackhill. Still, they weren't encouraged to speak to each other, and Dejon could only speculate as to what the witchwoman had over the heads of the others.
Overall, they were a surly, quiet lot, and Dejon with them.
Lately, though, Dejon had begun to feel a bit of the old avarice welling up in his dark little soul, and his fingers had started itching. It wasn't that the pay wasn't all right, for by his reckoning he'd stashed away some fifteen silver pennies and three or four eagles in the little hidey-hole he concealed beneath his rolled up blankets next to his hammock. Truth be told, it was more money than he'd ever earned, which made him only more certain that the witch woman was up to some sort of crooked dealings. Nobody paid boat hands that handsomely.
After a year he still had nary a clue as to what the deal was, however, for they'd been up and down the Redwater three times, out to sea twice and in the harbors at Northcraven and Maslit more times than Dejon could count. In all that time, they'd brought nothing to market. They'd never been inspected either, and that spoke of highly placed bribes.
Dejon had felt the boat stop many times in the dead dark of early morning, however, and always on moonless nights. He'd heard booted feet walking quietly on the deck above his head and the hushed whispers of secret things being done. He'd also heard the main hatch being opened, and he was certain that there was more to the crew of the Kalgareth than just the hands like himself.
Something big was going on below decks, something big and secret and money-making, and Dejon had lately determined that he would get himself a piece of it, whatever it was. He looked over the side of the boat at the lights of Northcraven Harbor. Already it was nearing midnight.
By the time the Ghaill Earthspeaker had walked across the camp to the council fire, the new bull had been readied. The elders had gathered around, dressed for battle, and when he looked into their eyes, he saw the same steely resolve in each of them. He nodded to Lothin and the gathered elders of his own clan.
"It looks as if it has already been decided." He said loudly, stilling the murmurs of conversation among the gathered old men. Fully sixty old men, forty elders from the four clans as well as a score of their escorts and war chiefs, sat or stood around the bonfire at the center of the glade. They all turned to him when h
e spoke, as he was the chosen war leader. His eyes were drawn to two figures standing next to the fire.
"Who do you speak for?" He asked them. They were men he did not recognize, but each wore a single white headband, marking them as emissaries.
"I am Haid-a-Dar and this is Esam-a-Kantem. I speak for the Wintry Hills and he for Whitefoot Island. He has the Sons of the Bear of Karltan Island behind him."
"And what do your Ghaills say?"
Haid-a-Dar said nothing, but he drew a stone knife from his belt and handed it to the Cthochi Ghaill. Esam-a-Kantem did the same. Both knives were painted elaborately in red and white.
The two emissaries had just placed the lives of over fifty thousand warriors in his hands.
A tall figure, bent with age and leaning on a rough-carved staff approached from out of the night. It was Allein-a-Briech, and several men bowed or went to one knee at the sight of him. Even the Ghaill felt the urge to bow, although it would have been grossly improper for him to do so. The druid's hair had gone white and his face was as seamed and wrinkled as a snow-thawed apple, but power and majesty seemed to radiate from his bent and half-crippled form. He wore animal skins instead of the heavily dyed wool most Cthochi preferred, and thin strips of leather dangled with oddly carved beads, bones and jewels about his person. The druid's eyes were as clear and sharp as a young hunter's, though, and the Ghaill knew he missed nothing.
"They are asking for war, shaman." The Ghaill tried to keep the superstitious dread he always felt at the sight of the warlock from his voice. "Have you anything to say?"
A wry, wintry smile broke across the old man's face. Despite his age, every one of his perfectly white teeth gleamed redly in the firelight. "Don't you mean spook-pusher, Ghaill? Haven't I heard such words from you?"
"I'm sure I do not know everything you have heard, shaman." The Ghaill smiled back, although there was no warmth in it.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 16