Cassia’s head swung from Fadan to Venia then back again, her lips attempting to form words. “I… where will we go? How will I find you?”
“We’ll find a way, your majesty,” Venia replied. “Leave that to me.”
Cassia swallowed through the constriction in her throat, then sighed. She slowly removed her Glowstone pendant from her neck. “The enchantment is weak, but it still works,” she said.
The thin, blue shard swung around like a pendulum until it stopped, obliquely, as if a magnet was pulling it sideways.
Fadan grabbed the necklace, but Cassia clenched her fingers.
“Please, be careful.”
With a smile, Fadan hugged his mother. “You too.”
The cry of a seagull woke Fadan. He felt sweaty, despite the cold breeze, and his arm flattened against the wooden deck, itched with numbness. He sat up, leaning on the ship’s bulwark, the Saffya’s tame undulation sprinkling water on his arms and face.
A single, tall mast dominated the seventy-foot-long river barge. It creaked as the boat swung from one side to other.
“Good morning,” Lucilla said. She was standing next to Fadan, holding onto the eagle’s head on the ship’s keel. “Not the most comfortable place you’ve slept in, I imagine.”
“Yes, one would imagine that, wouldn’t they?” Fadan said, rubbing at his eyes.
Besides Lucilla and the sailors steering the ship, everyone else seemed to still be asleep, wrapped in cloaks and spread around the dummy cargo occupying most of the deck.
Fadan stood, the freezing wind cutting across his cheeks. “Is that Capra?” he asked.
The silhouettes of buildings grew on the horizon, spreading north and south like a mountain range.
“We should be docking within the hour,” Lucilla replied.
The Prince reached into his shirt. He had both his mother’s necklace and the Transmogaphon around his neck.
“I’m wearing more Glowstone than most people have seen their whole lives,” he said, taking the artifacts out. He held his mother’s pendant up and the tiny blue shard stretched westward. “I suppose we’re still headed in the right direction. How far behind do you reckon we are?”
“Hard to say, but we should know more as soon as we dock. Our people in Capra will have taken notice of a prisoner shipment that large. Most importantly, they’ll need to move the prisoners into a seaworthy vessel. It should delay them at least an hour.”
“We’ll need to have a faster ship than theirs,” Fadan said.
Lucilla nodded. “Most of our ships are fast. We can’t afford to be boarded very often, and we’ll be travelling much lighter. I think our chances are good.”
Another taller, wider ship, travelling up the river, passed by them, a couple hundred feet off their port side. It left a trail of tall waves in its wake which sent their own ship into a series of steep climbs and falls. The turbulence woke several of the sleeping crewmembers with startled noises as waves showered over the deck.
Lucilla closed her eyes, water pouring over her. As the river calmed down, she reopened her eyes, wiping water off her shaved skull. “What does trouble me, though, is how many guards will we be facing,” she said. “I think it’s pretty likely we’ll be heavily outnumbered. Which means we will be counting on your magic.”
The Prince was now soaked and shivering. He sent Lucilla a resentful look. “Yeah, thanks. I definitely needed to hear that.”
In her years in the Citadel, Cassia had had few pleasures. Watching both her sons chasing each other in the gardens around the Core Palace, taking a warm bath in the Citadel thermae all by herself, and, of course, humiliating Tarsus over a game of Lagaht.
The Emperor wasn’t a terribly bad player, but he was predictable. No matter what was happening in the game, he would always attack any vulnerable piece he spotted. Every time Cassia laid out a trap she had a feeling that her luck had finally run out, that there was no chance Tarsus would fall for it again. And yet he would do exactly that. This wasn’t the sole reason she almost always managed to defeat him, but it certainly helped.
The board they were using today was Tarsus’ favorite; an alabaster hexagon with a mountain range occupying most of its center, which forced the battles to take place on the edges of the map. It made for interesting choices.
A fire warmed Cassia’s legs and glared on the polished surface of the miniature armies. The Emperor’s lines were in shambles. His right flank had all but fallen, which meant it was a matter of time before Cassia’s silver cavalry trampled over his reserves.
What an odd way to say goodbye, she thought, glancing over the golden leftovers of her husband’s forces.
Tarsus bent forward and moved a horseman, taking one of Cassia’s swords, but, in turn, exposing itself to one of her spears. He was getting desperate, sacrificing pieces he could no longer afford to lose. How wonderfully ironic.
Cassia didn’t need much time to think about her next move. All that was left for her to do was bring her cavalry across from Tarsus’ defeated right flank and mop up his survivors. Her horse clinked on the alabaster board like a Legionary’s boot on the marble steps of the palace, and she leaned back in her chair.
One of the reasons she truly loved these games was how little they talked. There was no need to weigh her answers, disguise her contempt, or restrain herself from snapping at him. She could just enjoy beating him at something he considered himself superior.
Come to think of it, this is the perfect way to say goodbye.
Venia wouldn’t need more than a couple of hours to arrange their escape. As soon as this game was over, the two of them would be on their way.
There was a crackle in the fireplace, and a log tumbled and rolled across the hearth. Tarsus glanced at it.
“That seems like a bad omen,” he said.
Cassia looked at her husband, the fire’s orange hue trembling over the wrinkles of his face. “Since when are you superstitious?”
“It’s not superstition if it involves fire, my dear,” Tarsus replied. He leaned over the board, scanned his few remaining pieces, and pulled a spear back from his main force.
“Is there anything you regret, Tarsus?” Cassia heard herself ask. She regretted those words as soon as they left her mouth. She couldn’t afford to act suspiciously.
The Emperor stared at her, contemplating the question with absolute seriousness. “Yes,” he replied as Cassia moved another one of her horses, closing the jaws of her army around Tarsus’ vulnerable forces.
“Care to be a little more specific?” she asked, leaning back with a satisfied smile on her face.
Tarsus ignored the Lagaht board for a while and glanced outside. A heavy downpour rattled the wide windows of the room.
“I regret…” He paused, considering his words. “I regret bringing your other son to the Citadel.” He looked into her eyes. “He should have stayed with his father. I think it would have saved us all a lot of bitterness.” Tarsus focused on the game again. “Besides, a boy should be with his father.”
Cassia shifted on her chair, struggling to keep her mouth closed. What bothered her the most about what he had just said was how much sense it made.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Cassia said far too quickly.
Venia padded inside. “I have completed my chores, your majesty,” she said, her head low.
The Empress was forced to hold down a smile. “You should rest then. Come, warm yourself by the fire.”
Venia quietly obeyed while the Emperor moved one of his pieces. He was trying to rearrange his troops into a more defensible formation.
It was time to finish him off. Cassia consulted her hand. She still had one last spell card. One of the best in this board’s entire deck. She laid it down, showing Tarsus its content: Choose and destroy an enemy piece for every enemy piece you take during the next three turns.
Tarsus’ eyebrows jumped. “I guess this is it,” he said.
A chuckle escape
d Cassia. “I guess so.”
Before Tarsus could make his move, however, there was another knock. The door opened to let Sagun inside. The Castellan strode towards the Emperor without a word and leaned into his ear. Cassia watched him whisper, trying to read her husband’s blank expression.
The Emperor nodded and waved Sagun out of the room. “I still have one spell card left as well,” he told Cassia.
The door of the study clicked shut behind Sagun and Cassia sat up straighter.
“I am a firm believer in patience,” Tarsus added, showing her his last card. It read: Take control of every active enemy spell. He stood up, throwing the card onto the alabaster board. “You’re still able to take some of my pieces, but in the next three turns, I’ll destroy half of your army. By then, you’ll be the outnumbered one. You may want to see this game through to the very end, but as far as I’m concerned, it is over.” He stepped away from the table and yelled towards the door. “Send him in.”
The study’s double doors burst open and a bloodied Lord Fabian stumbled inside, crashing to the floor, flanked by a pair of Paladins.
Augusta’s Docks could be the Empire’s commercial heart, but this was its brain, and it was busy.
Capra was the gateway to the Saffyan route, a sprawling metropolis surrounding its magnificent port. Or, better yet, ports, as there were two of them, the riverside port and the seaside port, connected by a large canal. Both were magnificent feats of engineering, consisting of artificial bays capable of docking hundreds of ships at the same time. A network of towers, some surrounding the two ports, others erupting from the water, stood watch over the ceaseless comings and goings of ships.
At the center of the riverside port stood a circular fortification, connected to the shore by a single stone bridge. The island fort had its own docking piers around its outer wall, and, docked to them, Fadan recognized the third flotilla of the Western Fleet. One hundred Imperial war galleys, each bridled with ballistae like a wild beast baring its fangs.
After mooring the river barge, the group proceeded to the seaside port, where Lucilla assured them a ship had been prepared and was waiting for them.
Bells rang every once in a while, signaling the arrival and departure of more vessels. Captains and local merchants haggled over imports and exports so loudly they deafened the cries of the seagulls littering the sky.
Everywhere Fadan looked, throngs of workers pushed wooden containers to and from ships and warehouses. The crowd was so thick they were forced into a single file, meandering as they carved a path to the seaside port.
“This is it,” Lucilla finally indicated, waving towards the dark hull of a two-masted ship.
It was small, for an ocean-going vessel. So small it had no castle, aft or fore.
Fadan halted in front of the boat’s nearly vertical keel. “This?” he asked. “You said it would be a fast ship.”
“It is fast!”
The voice did not come from anyone in the group, but from someone up on the ship’s deck. Fadan looked up, shielding his eyes from the bright, morning sun. There was a man perched upon the ship, his feet atop the bulwark while his hands wrapped around a thick rope tying one of the sails to the keel.
“It’s a tiny, old caravel,” Fadan told the man.
“Which makes it fast and maneuverable,” the man replied, scratching his dark beard. “Lucilla, Shayna.”
Both women greeted him with a simple, “Drusus.”
“I was expecting something a bit more modern,” Fadan insisted, following the others into the boat. “Like a Thepian frigate, for example.”
The Captain jumped from the bulwark and landed on the main deck just as they climbed onto it. “I guarantee the Blessed Marian is as fast as any frigate,” he said, kissing Lucilla’s hand.
“This is Captain Drusus,” Lucilla told Fadan, then turned to the Captain. “I suppose you know who this is?”
Drusus nodded. “Your bird reached us, yes,” he said. “Still a bit hard to believe. Even if he is standing right here.”
“Well,” Shayna said, climbing onboard, “we’re the ones who brought him, and I’m still struggling with it…”
“Alman!” the Captain yelled. “Alman Larsa, you beautiful sack of bones.”
“Drusus,” Alman greeted as the two embraced each other. “I’m sure we have a lot of catching up to do, but we should be going.”
The Captain nodded in agreement, then stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled so loud Fadan lost his hearing for a moment.
“Wake up, you lazy mutts,” Drusus barked at his crew. “Let’s get the girl back in her waters.”
A small crowd of olive skinned, bare chested men and scantily clad women came alive across the entire boat, tying knots here, untying knots there, and getting to their respective positions.
“Make yourselves comfortable in my cabin,” Drusus told Lucilla, pointing at a door aft of the ship. “I’ll meet you shortly. Just want to make sure we don’t sail into the customs building.”
Around them, sails unfurled and swelled as the crew got the ship in motion. The soldiers who had accompanied them from Augusta were led below deck through a trap door while Fadan followed Lucilla, Shayna, and Alman to the Captain’s cabin.
It was a narrow, dark room, lit only by a small window behind a desk. It smelled like an empty wine barrel and looked slightly less clean than one. Besides the desk, the only other furnishing was a wardrobe and a narrow bed that had been nailed to the floor and wall.
Fadan walked to the tiny window and looked outside, the city slowly drifting further away as they picked up speed.
“If Drusus says this ship is fast, it’s because it is,” Lucilla said.
“Then my question is, is it fast enough?” Fadan muttered.
“And the answer is the same,” Drusus replied, surging through the door. “Yes, it is.” He walked to the wardrobe and opened it.
Fadan’s eyebrows jumped. Instead of clothes, the wardrobe was packed full of bottles. Drusus selected one and poured himself a cup of its contents.
“How can you be sure?” Fadan asked. “Any frigate will be faster than this ship.”
“That’s not true,” the Captain retorted. His expression softened and he raised the bottle. “A sip, anyone?” They all passed. “Besides, we’re not chasing a frigate. They moved the prisoners to a big, fat carrack called The Faint Star.”
“You are sure of this?” Lucilla asked.
Drusus swallowed a mouthful of his drink. Golden droplets spilled into his beard. “Nothing happens in our port that we don’t know about,” he replied. “And that’s not all we found out. We have all the details of his Imperial vileness’ plan.” He turned to Fadan. “No offense.”
“Go on,” the Prince said.
“Well, it’s devilishly simple. The Faint Star’s entire water supply has been poisoned. The crew will die and the ship will be left adrift. There will be a search, of course, but ultimately, the investigators will conclude that the carrack sunk somewhere along its route. For all intents and purposes, everyone on board will be the victim of an unfortunate, unknown accident. Including those the Empress has been guaranteed will be kept alive.”
“Like Doric,” Fadan muttered. “And all those people will die, even the Paladins and the crew members…” He looked down. “Just because he’s jealous…”
“Hey, this is great for us,” Drusus said, his arms wide. “Think about it. The crew will be dead. There will be no one left to guard the prisoners. It’ll be easier than bribing an Akhami.”
The Captain’s enthusiasm met little echo as Alman, Lucilla, and Shayna sent concerned glances at Fadan, who didn’t even look like he was listening.
“Did you hear me?” Drusus asked. “The Emperor won’t even know we rescued his prisoners. He doesn’t expect anyone on that ship to return. There won’t be a report. He’ll be none the wiser.”
“Yes, we get it, Drusus,” Alman said. “What about… what if the ship ends up washing up on
some beach or something. I mean, if there’s no one to steer it…”
“Not in the Western sea, old friend,” the Captain replied.
“If they’re adrift,” Fadan told Alman, “the current will drag them southwest, to the broken sea.”
“All we have to do is find them before they get that far,” Drusus said.
“Yes,” Fadan agreed, narrowing his eyes towards the Captain. “As long as your ship is fast enough.”
Cassia jumped from the chair, her heart hammering in her chest. She didn’t even notice the Emperor striding past her until he was on top of the old General.
“Traitor!” Tarsus screamed.
Fabian tried to hoist himself from the floor, but one of his arms failed him and he fell again. The guards had beat him into a pulp. His left eye was so swollen the man couldn’t even open it.
“Majesty…” he mumbled through the bloody swell of his lips. “I never‒‒”
“Liar!” The Emperor shouted. “I know everything, you scum.”
Cassia found her hands grasping at the neckline of her dress, but her pendant wasn’t there anymore. Beside her, Venia shifted sideways, edging slowly towards one of the windows.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Tarsus asked, beginning to pace around Fabian’s defeated body. “Did you think you could betray me in my own palace?”
The Empress opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She felt like something was reaching inside her guts and tearing her apart.
He knows…
Tarsus knelt beside Fabian, grabbed his hair, and pulled the man’s head back. “You will not die quickly, Fabian.” He dropped the man’s head and stood back up, facing his guards. “Escort the Empress to her quarters.”
For a moment, Cassia was sure she was about to vomit.
“And the maid?” one of the Paladins asked.
Venia stiffened and the Emperor looked at her, disgust twisting the corners of his mouth.
“Take her as well.”
Thunder crackled in the sky just as the ship reached the crest of a wave, flattening and tumbling forward, falling down the other side as if they were sliding down a steep hill. The sky was so dark it felt like night had already fallen. Around them, the ocean had turned into mountainous black swells, rising and falling furiously. Sprinkles of foam twirled in the air, dissolving into the swathes of rain blowing sideways.
The Dragon Hunter and the Mage Page 43