by Ellyn, Court
Without further instruction, Laniel and Zellel led the dranithion down the hill and into the trees. The horse and mule smelled the threat, stomped and whinnied, ears laid flat. “We should turn them loose,” Kieryn said, unable to bear Diorval’s panic. Then he remembered, “My bow.” The saddles and equipment were stacked below the hill.
“You’ll do as my brother commanded, avedra,” Lyrienn said.
An ugly bull-like bellow tore through the trees, and terror tore the spine from Kieryn’s argument. Underbrush and saplings danced with battle blows. Lightning cracked—presumably from Zellel’s fingers—and the thunder shook the earth. Pale dawnlight revealed shadows of Elarion darting among branch and vine. A breath of wind carried the stench of carrion.
The sword in Kieryn’s grasp was a thing of grace, the blade slender and light. When he slashed the air with it, it sang a crystalline note. While his father had insisted he learn how to use a sword, Kieryn’s skill was far from honed. If he could get to his bow, he would feel more confident. Lyrienn cursed him for a fool when he secured the sword in his belt and started down the hill. “Hurry, duínovë!” she cried as a pair of saplings cracked aside. A putrid creature more than eight-feet-tall emerged from the foliage. Its skin was mottled gray-green, its eyes small, red, and searching. A broad nose sniffed out the Elari and the avedra on the hill. The ogre bellowed and charged.
Kieryn half ran, half tumbled down the hill, tore bow and quiver from their harness. In seconds that drew out like centuries he had the bow bent and the string’s loop in the groove. He hardly felt himself take up the arrow and notch it before feathers sprouted from the ogre’s throat. The monstrous beast kept coming for a couple of heart-stopping steps before it tumbled down at Kieryn’s feet, sending up a spray of leaves and dust.
Two more ogres followed in its wake. Kieryn retreated up the hill, notching an arrow as he ran. At the summit, he turned to aim, but an ogre was upon him. It bared yellow tusks in a savage snarl and swung a double-edged axe. Cleaved in two, the bow fell apart in Kieryn’s hands. He dove under the axe’s backswing, pulled the sword free of his belt and plunged it into the ogre’s fat green belly. The ogre grunted and swept the axe within a handspan of Kieryn’s face. A pair of knives whistled past his ear and buried deep in the ogre’s fleshy neck. It dropped the axe to swipe at the blades, but its red eyes rolled back in its skull, and the ogre crashed down the hill.
The last ogre roared and hammered a rusted, serrated sword into the humming Elaran blade. The force nearly dislocated Kieryn’s shoulder. He couldn’t feel his fingers, saw they were empty, and dove for the fallen axe. The ogre’s ham-sized fist grazed Kieryn across the face, sent him reeling to the ground.
How long did he lay in the leaves, senseless? Moments only, it seemed, for when he opened his eyes, he found the ogre reaching for Lyrienn. She kept a tree between herself and the ogre, hurling her knives when she got the chance. Some were batted aside, some caught the ogre in the shoulders or arms, even the hard muscled belly, but the tree was a shield for the ogre as much as for Lyrienn. She reached for another blade, found her belt empty, and bolted for open ground. The serrated blade swept at Lyrienn’s golden head, but a blinding tongue of fire flung the ogre aside. The beast landed with a crack of bones halfway down the hill, a black hole seared through its spine.
Kieryn fell to his knees, fighting for consciousness. The nerves in his hand coursed with fire, but the only redness in his flesh appeared around Rhorek’s onyx ring.
Lyrienn dropped down beside him and gripped him by the shoulders. She wore the smile of the astonished. Her eyes were gray like her brother’s. “I didn’t think you could do that yet, avedra.”
“Always,” he said. Kill to save. He didn’t feel sorry for it this time. “Are there any more?”
“No.”
He thought it very unlike himself that he didn’t feel the urge to panic. Quite the contrary, when he’d seen the ogre chase after Lyrienn, a surreal calm had stolen through him, and the low, tremulous buzzing joined the roar of blood in his ears. Now the buzzing began to recede, but the calm remained. Perhaps the feeling was merely shock, perhaps something else.
He pressed his burning palm to the throb in his cheekbone and glanced around for any sign of the other Elarion. The woods had fallen silent.
Lyrienn huddled near his shoulder, her pretty chin beginning to tremble. With fear? Kieryn doubted it. With worry for her brother, then.
“There,” she said, pointing. Forest shadows shifted, and Laniel and Zellel emerged into the clearing, followed by the dranithion. Bright blood, nearly orange in color, splotched faces and stained jerkins. They approached slowly, warily, until they saw the big corpse at the base of the hill. Laniel broke into a run. He topped the hill in a matter of bounds and swept his sister into his arms.
“Vayan jynavh,” she reassured him—We’re all right.
“I don’t know how they got around us. I’m so sorry.”
Zellel hoisted Kieryn to his feet and scrutinized the red flesh of his hand. “Thought I heard thunder not my own,” he muttered. “Did it get away?”
“He’s … it’s … down there, on the other side of the hill.”
Zellel went to the southeastern rim and made a quick survey of the damage. He nodded approval, and Laniel cast him a grin of approbation. Kieryn tucked his hands into the wide sleeves of his robe.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, boy,” Zellel said.
Laniel took Kieryn by the shoulder. “You did well, h’aurien. And that’s three ogre-kills for you. Do you want your stripes now or later?”
“Huh? Two. Two kills. Lyrienn killed that one.” Kieryn indicated the ogre with the knives in its neck.
Lyrienn snorted indelicately. “You can wear my stripe for me.”
“But I’m no warrior,” Kieryn repeated.
“No?” Laniel questioned. “You’ve proven you can kill ogres with the best of us.”
“Zellel?” Kieryn asked, whether seeking permission or confirmation he didn’t know.
The avedra pushed back his wide green sleeves, revealing forearms collaged with stripes. “I’ve killed more of those bastards of the earth than any god can count. These aren’t half the stripes I should own. Accept the honor, I say.”
Did he really deserve this? He wondered what his brother would think. Kelyn would smile at him, probably gape a bit at what his scholar-of-a-brother had done, then say he’d be stupid not to accept. “Sure,” he said. “I guess now’s as good as later.”
Laniel clapped his shoulder, overjoyed, then tried to capture a semblance of solemnity as he extended his hands over Kieryn’s wrists. “To Kieryn of Ilswythe, I, Laniel Falconeye, Captain of the Dranithion Quethiel, hereby bestow these tokens of courage and prowess, three in number.” Closing his eyes, he spoke lowly in Elaran. The texture of his voice and that of his own language melded beautifully together. The air about his hands began to glow with viridescent light, and Kieryn’s wrists tingled as if his skin were holding onto a recent caress. To his surprise, the black stone in his ring ignited with a green flame deep in its heart.
The words grew silent, the glowing and the tickling subsided, and Laniel lowered his hands, leaving Kieryn with two green cat-like stripes on his right wrist and one on his left.
“Wear them with pride, my avedra-warrior friend.”
Lyrienn presented him the two halves of his bow. “Ogres are faster than they look, aren’t they?” she said. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you a new one in the city.” She graced his cheek with a kiss, soft and startling. “I suppose I approve of you, after all, though I still think you’re taller than a human has a right to be.”
Kieryn laughed and said, “My father is an inch taller still.”
“And your mother?”
“Only a finger-span taller than Zellel.”
“Then you get your Old Blood from your father?”
Kieryn dropped his eyes. “Even if he knew for certain, he’d never admit it.”
“Oh,” she said sadly. “You suffered, then, to come here.” Not a question, but a statement of understanding.
“Shall we be on our way, sister?” Laniel asked. “Before our pathetic, young avedra steals your heart from me?”
Lyrienn blushed as deep a crimson as Kieryn ever had and fled down the hill, muttering curses for her brother all the way.
The dranithion dragged away the ogres to be burned, a practice that would prevent the stink of the carcasses from drawing others. While the avedrin saddled their mounts and packed their supplies, Kieryn felt Zellel’s eyes on him. At last, the old man’s thoughts intruded, Lyrienn may be Elari, but—”
“Stop!” Kieryn demanded.
Replace one thing with another.
Kieryn couldn’t believe Zellel’s heartlessness. Without waiting for the order to move out, he climbed into the saddle, Diorval prancing sideways and lashing her tail. Kieryn’s anger was plain enough to her. “Never speak to me of this again,” he said, then dug in his heels.
~~~~
20
Twenty-nine war galleons hovered below the cliffs of Windhaven, hulls low in the restless waters. Rhoslyn stood on the pier, surveying the old veteran vessels. The naked keels of two dozen new ships lined the dry docks like the ribs of whales. The noise of wrights’ hammers bounced along the quay, and shullas screamed overhead. At Rhoslyn’s side, Admiral Beryr presented a new report on the state of the duke’s navy. Silver side-whiskers and a long hooked nose gave him the appearance of a half-plucked and fretful seabird, though he was as stout as the masts of his ship. When Rhoslyn was a child, he had seemed just as tall. He clutched his plumed hat formally under his arm as he considered her question. “On the contrary, my lady,” he replied. “Lord Rorin has not disappointed. He’s determined to provide more ships than Princess Rilyth. They’ve waged a contest of sorts.”
“They had better not waste the king’s funds on blunders,” Rhoslyn said.
“Once the fleets of Westport and Brimlad converge with yours, m’ lady, His Grace will be able to present the king an armada of nearly one hundred and fifty ships.”
“And the ballistae?”
“With minimal redesign, each of the new ladies will boast thirty-four ballistae instead of twenty-two, as on the old girls. Every man aboard is being trained to use them, of course, and Lord Erum is trying to develop a way to reinforce our hulls.”
“I don’t mean to sound naïve, Admiral, but is that necessary? I mean, it was Erum who developed the anvil-headed garrots, and he’s on our side.”
“Ah, yes, well, that was a decade ago, wasn’t it, m’ lady. Every ship that succumbed to pirates in the years since gave up her goods, if you understand me. Leanian vessels are known to have gotten hold of the weaponry some years ago, probably paid a hefty sum, and if both pirates and Leanians own anvil-heads, you can be sure the Fierans do.”
On the grounds of the naval yard, the Salamanders, or the sea-going soldiers, were busy correcting sailors in the method of loading, calibrating, and firing the ballistae. The hull of a retired galleon provided a target. While the regular garrots, shaped like fat spears, just stuck in the rotten planks, the anvil-heads punched right through, though they couldn’t travel as far. Rhoslyn had hoped that with these special missiles, her ships would devastate King Shadryk’s navy, but Beryr’s last bit of news put a damper on her confidence.
“When can you sail, Admiral?” she asked, glancing skyward. Thyrra’s silver crescent floated alone among clouds that thickened with rain. Forath had set before dawn. While the red Warrior Moon pulled the Great Fire Sea toward the far shores of Heret and Dovnya, Thyrra tugged the waters toward Windy Coves and Galdan Bay.
Beryr eyed the unsettled waves and swirling rip currents. “I would prefer to wait until the moons converge. But, as I’ve heard said, ‘For neither man nor moon will the sea lie still.’ When we receive our orders, we may sail when Thyrra sets and takes the tide out with her—but before Forath rises and brings the waters running back again. It’s a narrow margin of time, but we can manage it.”
In moments like this, moments of a dozen unclear paths, Rhoslyn felt the panic closing in on her. The decisions to be made, the answers to give, the risks to take and those to avoid, weighed on her brain like stones until she couldn’t think at all. She pressed her temples and said, “I’m prepared to wait only so long for the king’s orders. If he doesn’t send a courier soon, we may have to rely on my father’s decision. Until then, what can we do but wait and see what the tide brings in?”
Beryr’s sea-weathered face crinkled with a grin. “I have sailed long enough to learn that Ana often provides strange and unexpected gifts when the tides are in a turmoil.”
Rhoslyn stared at Beryr, astonished. He had agreed with her! He didn’t know the right and proper course, and he didn’t expect her to know. Perhaps it was all right that she didn’t have the answers. She didn’t have to pretend. She could be honest with her commanders. And with herself. What would it feel like to take off the duchess’s mask in front of them? Would they respect that?
“Ah, Captain Drael,” announced Beryr.
The commander of the palace guard wound through a bickering crowd of silk traders and saluted with a fist to his chest. “My lord Admiral.”
For only a moment, Rhoslyn’s conclusions had lightened her heart, but she realized Drael must have a grave reason for riding across the city to fetch her. “Father?”
“Yes, m’ lady. His Grace has sent for you.” Rhoslyn listened for a note of urgency or grief in his voice, but Drael smiled pleasantly enough. “I have brought the carriage, if it please you, m’ lady. We may have a spot of rain before we reach the house.”
Aunt Halayn was waiting in the courtyard when Rhoslyn climbed down from the carriage. Head wrapped in a shawl against a fine drizzle, she beckoned her niece with a flapping hand.
“What is wrong, Aunt?”
Halayn wound her arm through Rhoslyn’s and hurried her into the palace. “I knew he was paying no attention to what I was reading. I could see his mind working. Then all of a sudden, he said, ‘I must see my daughter at once.’ How he fussed when I told him you were across the river this morning.”
At the duke’s door, the ladies hadn’t time to knock before Harac called, “Come, come, come, Rhoslyn.” His speech might be hampered, but his ears were not.
The duke reclined in an armchair modified with wheels. This morning Halayn had rolled her brother into the fragrant sunlight drifting in from the garden. “Sister, wait outside.” Halayn began to protest, thought better of it, and curtsied an exit. Harac beckoned his daughter with his stronger right hand.
“Why the haste, Father?” she asked, moving Halayn’s reading chair closer to his.
An unusual gleam of excitement brightened his eyes. He drew a great breath and said, “I’ve been thinking, daughter. Our ships … for the … blockade … they’ve not sailed yet?”
Rhoslyn worried his enthusiasm would exhaust him. “Father, I would’ve informed you.”
“And the new ships. Those in dry dock. Tell the wrights to finish those they’ve begun, then stop.”
“Father, we need to increase our fleet.”
“Yes, daughter,” he sighed. “Remember, invalid, not senile.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Listen. The sea is full of ships … that might be put … to noble use. We need only … convince them … to come into our service. We’ll need silver for that.”
“I don’t follow you, Father.”
“Yes, you do. Think, Duchess.”
His use of the title frightened her. More frightening still was Rhoslyn’s suspicion. “The pirates?”
Half of Harac’s face lifted in a grin.
“Impossible!” she cried, rising. “Even if we could pay them enough, we could never be certain of their loyalty. If the White Falcon hears about it, he’ll pay them more to betray us. And Rhorek would never sanction the use of pirates. We’re not desperate, Father, not ye
t.”
“Desperation … has nothing to do with it,” Harac said, shaking a finger at her. “Practicality.”
“What is so practical about hiring men we can’t trust—”
“We can … perhaps … trust one.”
“Do tell,” she demanded, sinking into the chair again. Ought she interpret the gleam in his eyes as utter madness?
He took up her hand and for an intolerable time lay his head against a pillow, gasping and frowning. At last he had the right words. He whispered, “My father had a brother. A younger brother.”
“Yes,” Rhoslyn sighed, humoring him, “he died. At sea.”
“No, no. That is what my father … wanted everyone to believe. We—Halayn, Halla, and I—we did as our father wished … and spoke of our uncle as dead. But, in truth, he betrayed our father. Uncle Rhis loved the sea . . . above all else. While my father took care of affairs … on land, Uncle Rhis … took charge of the pirate patrol.”
“Ah.”
“Yes, daughter, you can see … where it all leads.”
“Go on.”
“For some reason, under my uncle’s watch … few pirates were caught and brought to the gallows. Father inquired into the matter, and one of his sailors … confessed that my uncle had not only … accepted bribes from the men he hunted, but befriended many of them. He had even taken to wife a pirate-king’s daughter, in secret, of course. When Father learnt of this, he … banished Uncle Rhis from Evaronna’s shores and proclaimed him dead, lost at sea.”
“So he became one of them.”
“Aye. Tales say he didn’t have … an easy time of it. The pirate-duke, they called him, which for the captain of a ship is belittling. But his pirate wife gave him higher standing, and it’s said … she killed many a man for my uncle . . . before she was swept away in a storm.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve talked with their son. My uncle’s son. My pirate cousin. Your second cousin, Rhoslyn.” Rhoslyn slid her hand free of her father’s. “You know how I loved to go to sea … when you were a child,” he added, “sail with the silk merchants to far cities.”