“It wasn’t grand,” Myrrima said. “I suppose it must have seemed so to a tot like him. Castle Coorm was small, a queen’s castle, set in the high hills where the air was cool and crisp during the muggy days of summer. It was a place to retreat, not a seat of power.”
“I should like to see it,” Sage said, but there was no conviction in her voice.
“Much has changed in Mystarria, you understand?” Myrrima said. “It’s not likely that we’ll ever live in a castle again.”
Rain had just brought some mud, and she halted at the mention of Mystarria, her muscles tightening in fear. The girl knew how much the place had changed far more than Myrrima did.
“I understand,” Sage said.
“I don’t think that you do,” Rain told them. “When we left last year, the place was in turmoil. There is no peace in that land, and I think that there never shall be again. The warlords of Internook have been harsh masters, harsher than you know. When my father fled the land, he left a prosperous barony. But months later we heard that all of the people in the barony—women, children, babes—were gone. One morning the warlord’s soldiers came and marched them all into the forests, and none came back. But that evening, wagons began to arrive filled with settlers who had shipped in from Internook, and the houses in the cities were filled, and farmers came to reap crops that they had not sown.
“The warlord Grunswallen had sold our lands months before his soldiers began the extermination. My father had sensed that it was near. He said that he’d felt it coming for days and weeks. He’d seen it in the superior smirks that the Internookers gave us, in the way that they heaped abuse on our people. My family fled just two days before the cleansing occurred. . . . I thank the Powers that we were able to exact a small token of vengeance against that pig Grunswallen. The Internookers wear hides made of pigskin because they are pigs in human form.”
Myrrima peered up at Rain; she worried that the young woman would turn Sage away from the course.
Perhaps that would be best, Myrrima thought. I don’t want to take Sage into such unstable lands. I don’t want to make life-and-death decisions for my child.
“There are other dangers, too,” Rain said. “The mountains and woods are full of strengi-saats, monsters that hunt for young women so that they can lay their eggs in the women’s wombs. You cannot go out by night. The soldiers do a fair job of keeping them away from the towns and the open fields, but each year the strengi-saats’ numbers grow, the monsters range closer into the heartland, and the nights grow more dangerous.”
Sage looked to Rain. “You don’t think I should go?”
Rain stammered, “No—Perhaps there is no right choice. But I think that if you go to Mystarria, you should know what you’re up against.
“And since the change in the world—who knows what things will be like in Mystarria now?” Rain hesitated and then explained to Myrrima: “I heard your husband talking last night about creatures called wyrmlings. . . .”
Myrrima’s heart skipped. If the girl had heard about the wyrmlings, then she’d heard much that Myrrima would wish to keep secret. “What else did you hear?”
“I know that your son Fallion is responsible for this . . . change.” Rain hesitated, her keen green eyes studying Myrrima for a sign of reaction. “But I don’t understand it all. Draken told me that his brothers and sisters had all gone back to Mystarria; I’d already known that Fallion was a flameweaver, but I’ve never heard of a flameweaver who had powers like this.” She shrugged and swept her arms wide, pointing to a ledge nearby where an outcrop of rock was still covered in coral.
“Who else have you told?” Myrrima asked.
Rain had been keeping her voice soft, and she glanced over the deep grass to where the folks in her own camp were beginning to stir. “No one. Nor shall I tell. I think it is best if no one here ever learns who is responsible for this . . . debacle.”
Myrrima found a knot of fear coiling in her stomach. She was worried for Fallion and Talon, for all of her children. What would people think if they knew? Half of Landesfallen had sunk into the sea, millions of people were dead. Certainly, one of their kin would seek vengeance against Fallion, if they knew what he had done.
Yet Myrrima’s worries for her children went far beyond that. Fallion had planned to go deep into the Underworld, to the Seals of Creation, to cast his spell.
With all that had happened, Myrrima could not help but fear for Fallion’s safety. She worried that the tunnels he’d entered had collapsed. Even if the structures had survived, they had been dug by reavers, and it was well known that every time a volcano blew or a large earthquake struck, the reavers grew angry and were likely to attack during the aftermath, much like hornets whose nests have been stirred up.
Fallion had gone to heal the world; Myrrima felt almost certain that he had paid for his trouble with his life. No good deed ever goes unpunished.
Sage had listened to Myrrima’s words, to Rain’s warnings. Now she peered up at her mother with blue eyes blazing. She had deep red hair and a face full of freckles. “I want to go with you. There’s nothing holding me here. Everyone that I knew is gone. I want to find Talon and Fallion, make sure that they are all right. . . .”
Myrrima looked to Rain. “And you? Will you come with us?”
Rain hesitated. “I don’t think so. I don’t see why you have to go looking for trouble. If the wyrmlings come, we can fight them on our own ground.”
Myrrima knew that Rain would try to convince Draken to stay here with her. Myrrima didn’t know how to feel about that—whether to be angry or to hope that she succeeded.
So Myrrima hummed to herself until the shallow pool filled to a depth of a few inches. The Walkin children came by and all stood peering into the water eagerly, until Myrrima began to draw runes of healing and refreshment upon the water.
She bathed then, laving the clean water up over her own head, letting it wash over and through her. She peered up, and wished that she knew what the best course to follow might be. Dare she really take the children back to Mystarria, expose them to such dangers? Or could she possibly stay here? It would be easy to enchant some weapons, cast spells upon them that would vanquish unclean spirits. She could send them with Borenson.
When she finished her mind felt cleared of all doubt. She had to go with Borenson. She would need to enchant weapons not for one man, or even a hundred, but perhaps for thousands.
More importantly, she felt renewed, filled with energy. The bath seemed to wash away the curse that had sapped her strength.
So she bathed Sage now. As she laved the water over the girl, she asked her master for a small blessing upon Sage: “May the stream strengthen you. May the moisture renew you. May Water make you its own.”
As the last handful of water streamed down Sage’s face, she gasped as if in relief, and then broke into tears of gratitude for what her mother had done.
She reached up and began to wipe the tears away, but Myrrima pulled her hand back. “Such tears should be given back to the stream,” she said.
So Sage stood there in the stream, and let her tears fall into its still waters.
Afterward, Myrrima invited Rain into the pool, and offered to repeat the cleansing ceremony with each of the Walkin women and children.
For two long hours Myrrima stood in her blue traveling robes, her long dark hair dangling over one shoulder. Between each ceremony she would have to stoop and trace runes of cleansing and healing on the surface of the pool while water-skippers danced around her fingers.
One by one she washed everyone in the group.
Those children who had been cleansed instantly began darting around camp, their lethargy much diminished, while the womenfolk seemed at last to come alive.
Noon had just passed and Myrrima was thinking about lunch when a call went up from the Walkin children.
“There’s a ship! There’s a ship in the channel!”
The sighting aroused a bit of excitement, and the Walkin chil
dren raced to the lip of the cliff and peered down into the polluted water below.
Myrrima had been trying to keep the children away from the old river channel all day, afraid of what they might see floating past. But now the whole Walkin clan stood on the shore and waved.
“We’re rescued, Mother!” Sage was calling.
Myrrima walked to the bank and stood peering down.
It wasn’t one boat—it was nine, or one boat and eight rafts. They were paddling over the water, following the course seaward.
Three dozen men manned the vessels. “Halloo!” they called, waving bandanas and hats.
Myrrima drew closer, but one of the Walkin women strode forward and acted as voice.
“Need help?” one of the men called from a boat. “We’re from Fossil!” another shouted from a raft. “Is anyone injured?” a third cried.
The men paddled, doing their best to row the clumsy vessels in unison, and a fine tall man with a blunt face and long brown hair hanging free stood up in the boat.
“We’ve got a child dead,” the Walkin woman, Greta, shouted. “She’s beyond anyone’s help.”
“Do you need food or supplies?” the tall man asked.
“We got away with nothing more than what’s on our backs,” Greta said. “We had fish and crabs for dinner last night, but we daren’t eat it today.”
The boat floated near and finally bumped against the shore not far below them. “Where are your menfolk?” the leader called.
“They went west, searching for survivors,” Myrrima answered.
The leader gave them a suspicious look. Then he put on a pleasant face and called up, “I’m Mayor Threngell, from Fossil. We don’t have much in the way of supplies, but you’re welcome in our village. There’s food and shelter for any that need it.”
He searched the faces of the Walkins as if looking for someone familiar. “Are you locals?”
The Walkins hardly dared admit that they were squatters. “New to the area,” one of them answered. “We’re looking to homestead.”
Myrrima had met Mayor Threngell two years back at the autumn Harvest Festival; she recognized him now. “I’m local,” she said. “Borenson’s the name. Our farm was destroyed in the flood.”
The mayor grunted, gave her a cordial nod. “Go east, not twenty miles. It’s not an easy walk, but you should make it. You’ll find food and shelter there,” he affirmed. But the welcome in his voice had all gone cold, as if he wasn’t sure that he wanted to feed squatters. “Tell your men when they get back. Tell them that there is to be no looting of the dead, no salvage operations. This land is under martial law.”
Myrrima wondered at that. Law here in the wilderness was rather malleable. Vandervoot, the king, had lived on the coast. Most likely, Myrrima imagined that he was food for crabs about now. This mayor from a backwater town could hardly declare martial law.
More than that, she could see no justice in what Threngell proposed. Here he was: a man with land and horses, crops and fields, demanding that folks who had nothing take no salvage from the dead. But she knew that often lords would find reasons why they should grow a little fatter while the rest of the world grew a little leaner.
“Under whose authority was martial law declared?” Myrrima asked.
“My authority,” Mayor Threngell said, a warning in his voice.
7
ACTS OF LOVE
Rage can give strength during battle; but he who surrenders to rage surrenders all reason.
—Sir Borenson
Sweating and grunting, Borenson used a log as a lever to pry the bow of the ship up so that it groaned and scraped.
For two long hours he’d been trying, with Draken, Baron Walkin, and the baron’s younger brother Bane to get the ship free. It was grueling labor—pulling wreckage from under the vessel, setting up logs to use as rollers under the ship, setting up other logs to use as pry bars, shoving and straining until Borenson felt that his heart would break.
Now, as the ship began to nudge, he realized that all of their labor might have been for nothing. The rising tide had lifted the back of the ship. Had the tides been extra high, he imagined that they just might have borne the ship out into open water. But the tide wouldn’t rise high enough today, so he shouted, “Heave! Heave!”
As one, all four men threw their weight into their pry bars, and the bow lifted into the air. Suddenly there was a groaning as the roller logs took the weight of the ship, and it began to slide backward into the ocean.
Bane Walkin let out a cry of pain, shouting, “Stop it! Stop it!”
But there was no stopping the vessel now. It rolled backward and splashed into the ocean, spewing foam.
As the bow slid away, Borenson spotted Bane—fallen, clutching his ankle. His foot had obviously gotten caught between the ship and a log.
Borenson rushed to Bane’s aid, and had the man pull off his boot. Draken and Baron Walkin knelt at his side. Gingerly, Borenson twisted the young man’s ankle. It had already begun to swell, and a bruise was setting in. But the man was lucky. At least he still had his foot.
“Good news,” Borenson teased. “We won’t have to amputate!”
Bane gritted his teeth and tried to laugh, though tears had formed in the corners of his eyes.
“Well, at least we won’t have to be hiking home,” Baron Walkin said, and he turned and looked at their ship, bobbing proudly on the waves.
Borenson grinned. I have my ship!
So it was that the four men claimed their prize. With a sail and rope salvaged from another wreck, they set sail nearly at noon. A breeze had kicked up, making small whitecaps on the waves, and with a little trial and error they managed to set out, plying the waters north. The ship had no proper wheel, but instead relied upon a rudder, so Borenson manned it from the captain’s deck while Baron Walkin and Draken trimmed the sails. Bane merely sat on the prow, nursing his foot. He’d wrapped it in wet kelp to keep down the swelling, and now he held on his rubbery green bandage.
In less than an hour they reached the mouth of the channel and turned inland, then retrieved their salvage from the earlier wreck.
Borenson had just loaded the last of the crates and barrels aboard when Draken raised a cry of warning. Borenson looked upstream. Several rafts and a small boat paddled in the distance, perhaps a mile out upon the water.
“Rescuers!” Bane Walkin said.
Borenson doubted it. The men were rowing toward them, hard.
Borenson didn’t like the look of it. “Let’s get under way, quickly.”
“Agreed,” Baron Walkin said, face grim. He nodded toward the wreckage floating nearby. “Looks like we’re done with the salvage. It’s going to turn into a free-for-all out here.”
Draken untied the knots that bound the ship to a tree and shoved off, pulling himself topside at the last moment, while Borenson raised the sails, then took the tiller from Baron Walkin.
As the wind swiftly began driving the ship up the channel, the rafts began to spread out, as if to intercept.
“Give them a wide berth,” Borenson suggested, “until we know what they’re about.”
He pushed hard on the tiller, taking the ship directly north, toward the far shore, some four miles in the distance, while Walkin tacked the sails.
The men in the flotilla waved frantically, trying to hail the ship. There were more than thirty of them.
“Halt!” one man shouted from the boat, his voice carrying over the water. “How long have you had that ship?”
Borenson recognized Mayor Threngell from Fossil. He was a nodding acquaintance. Borenson knew of only one reason that he would ask that question.
“Four years!” he cried out in return, knowing full well that the mayor wouldn’t recognize him, not with the change to his form.
“Bring her about!” the mayor cried. He and his men waved frantically.
“What?” Borenson called. He cupped a hand to his ear, as if he couldn’t hear. Then Draken and the Walkins all waved b
ack, as if to say “good day.”
“That’s the mayor from Fossil. You think he’ll give us trouble?” Draken asked under his breath.
Borenson felt embarrassed to have such a lack-wit for a son.
“Of course they’ll give us trouble,” Baron Walkin said. “A ship like this is worth twenty thousand steel eagles, easily. Everything else out there in the water is just leftovers. He’ll be out to steal it before sundown.”
“He’ll have to catch us first,” Borenson said.
Borenson didn’t think that the ship was worth twenty thousand eagles—it was worth far more. Fossil had always been a nothing town, out in the middle of nowhere. But now with the flood, with the water moving inland, it was in prime position to become a port city, perhaps the largest in Landesfallen.
Mayor Threngell would have figured that out by now. But a port was nothing without ships.
This ship might be Fossil’s only tie to the old world, to trade between the continents. Threngell would see that, in time, too. He’d bring his mob to take the ship.
Borenson realized that he’d need to make his escape quickly, before the mayor had time to act.
The Walkin and Borenson families didn’t have much in the way of stores, but a plan began to form in Borenson’s mind. He could sail up the old river channel to Fossil and buy a few supplies. Those men in their rafts would have a hard time rowing forty or fifty miles upstream, especially now that the tides and turned, and with the lowering of the tide, it would be pulling the rafts back toward the open sea.
But no matter how he figured it, there was no way to avoid the mayor and his lackeys completely.
Fortunately, the mayor and his men weren’t well armed. If it came to a fight, Borenson wasn’t above showing them a trick or two.
It was early afternoon when the ship sailed to camp at the base of the cliff. Draken leapt out of the vessel as it neared shore and swam to a half-submerged tree, tying the boat up to dock.
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