Six months ago she had become too weak even for such use, so had been put out of the castle and taken to a city called Malayu on the mainland. There the Recruiters had received her and pressed her into less onerous service, still draining her when the Voice or other magic was required, but far less often than on Andratan. Her periods of consciousness lasted much longer now, and she began to fight her new masters in ways they would not notice; at first a series of small defiances, then by teaching herself a language of sorts in case she ever had a chance to communicate. How she had wished she could speak to the eager youths of the Fisher Coast during her journey southwards, to warn them of what awaited them in Andratan, but she was never given a chance.
She had wondered why they brought her southwards along the coast. Surely they could have assigned her to another Recruiting Cabal? Or did they know nothing of her history? Gradually it dawned on her that they saw her as completely powerless and had not bothered to ask her Andratan tutors anything about her past. There was little about her current appearance that marked her as one from the Fisher Coast, and so when the Cabal finally arrived in Fossa her masters truly had no idea that they had brought her home.
Arathé had seen her father the previous night, dancing and drinking at the Fossan celebrations. Even though she’d hoped to meet her family, she had been shocked to see him, her first link to any sort of life in nearly two years, and in that moment a desperate plan came to her. Her resolve was strengthened beyond measure the next morning when she discovered her younger brother was one of the candidates for recruitment. She knew with a dreadful certainty that he would be chosen. He had been equally Voice-gifted as a child. They would not miss it.
She watched him fight, heard his answer to their two-edged question and revised her opinion. He had the greater gift. With all her being she knew she had to warn him of his likely fate, so she used the Voice to put the Recruiters to sleep, then left them in their tent near Nadoce Square and used the back streets to find her family at their house in Old Fossa Road.
There her plan came closest to foundering, for the house she had been brought up in was now home to another, and she could not ask the new occupants what had become of her family without risking everything. So she had gone down to the beach in despair, hoping that her father might be there mending nets, even though he had been commanded home. There her luck had turned, for she found the boat named after her and, knowing her mother, guessed the rest. She knew where the Fisher’s cliff-house was, and made her way as swiftly as her abused frame allowed.
And now, she asked them, what were they to do?
A dozen plans surged through the fisherman’s mind like a king tide through The Rhoos. Flee? They would have to travel on foot. They had no horses. They would be caught. Take the boat and sail away? Perhaps, but the Arathé was built for fishing, not speed. Any Neherian rake would run her down, and any Neherian captain would be only too keen to chase a Fossan vessel—particularly his. Hide somewhere in the village? They would be found. Resist? His skills with the sword were as rusty as his blade, and even at their best would barely match what he had seen this morning.
They were given no chance to implement any plan.
Boom, boom, boom came a series of heavy blows on the door. Opuntia shrieked, then put a hand across her mouth. Noetos knew nobody who knocked like that.
Boom, boom, boom.
Arathé knew who it was. She’d got it horribly wrong, had taken far too long to tell her story, and had clearly not been as effective with the Voice as she’d hoped.
The Recruiters had come for her.
CHAPTER 2
BURNING HIS BOATS
‘DON’T MAKE THEM WAIT,’ Anomer said to his father. ‘Go and answer the door. They may be here only to speak to me. I will take Mother and Arathé into the kitchen.’
Noetos stood in the centre of the great room, composing himself.
‘Go on!’ his son urged, shoving him in the small of the back. The fisherman stumbled over to the stout wooden door of his magnificent home and opened it a hand’s-width.
‘Who is this disturbing our sleep?’ he grumbled, blinking as though roused from early afternoon torpor, running a careless hand through his dishevelled hair while observing every detail with sharp eyes. He needed to walk through this carefully. His son had acted quickly, shaming him, and it might be that the lives of everyone he loved depended on how he behaved in the next few minutes.
Two grey-cloaked figures stood on his portico, one behind the other. The closer of the two seemed relaxed, his head cocked to one side under his cowl, a non-threatening posture designed to put him at ease; but the other Recruiter stood in a slight crouch, coiled for action, hand on his sword-hilt, head moving slightly from side to side as he watched carefully for danger. Not a friendly visit, then. They want more than just Anomer. They know.
‘Your son answered our question this morning so wondrously well,’ the nearer figure said in his high-pitched, singsong voice. ‘We have a few more questions for him. And some for his father as well,’ he added with the barest hint of menace. ‘May we come in?’
‘I’m sorry, sirs, but my wife is unwell, and I have summoned the village physician to her bedside. We are in no position to entertain visitors this afternoon. Perhaps you might return tomorrow. Or maybe Anomer could accompany you to your own accommodation?’
‘Ah, then our arrival is indeed providential, for my companion here is a physician. A good one, undoubtedly superior to any hedge-doctor that might have washed up on the coarse sand of this village. Open your door and let him attend her.’
Noetos began to sweat, and wished he could wipe away the betraying sheen that had sprung up on his brow. ‘My lords, I thank you for your offer. But our physician is well versed in the needs of my wife, and brings with him the unguent she needs—’
‘What she needs, if she wishes to retain any semblance of good health,’ the second Recruiter said, his mellifluous voice all the more intimidating because of its mildness, ‘is for her foolish husband to open the door to this house. Do it now.’ He drew his sword a few inches out of its scabbard, and its sharp edge glittered in the harsh Fossan sunlight.
In answer Noetos slammed the door shut and drew down the bar. Beside him Anomer drove a wedge under the jamb. ‘Have your mother and sister escaped?’ Noetos asked him.
‘Two more Recruiters wait outside the back door. I listened to them talk: they tracked Arathé by the sword she took from them, and know she is here. We cannot get past them.’
‘Yet we must. We must. I have my family back, son. I would not lose you now.’
The Recruiters did not try to force open the front door by strength. What they were doing became clear as a shimmer of blue fire spread over the wooden surface of the door. Noetos sprang back: it was cold to the touch. He’d never seen magic before, aside from the battlefield, and that only in the distance. Illusion, he’d been told. This, however, looked disturbingly real.
The door began to splinter.
‘Go back to the others!’ Noetos cried, then grabbed a chair, stood on it and stretched up towards the translucent cupola that served to let light into their living room. Feeling around the joint where the glass dome met the stone ceiling, he found his old scabbard, then his sword, along with a few cockroach husks. Ignoring the latter, he belted the scabbard around his waist, where it hung comfortably, as it had always done. Years since he’d worn it, years since he’d used anything but training blades with Arathé and Anomer. Once learned, never forgotten. He hoped.
Sudden shouts erupted behind him, somewhere down the end of the hallway that led to the kitchen and bedrooms. Fear gripped his heart then, and he leaped down from the chair just in time to watch his front door collapse in a sheet of flame that washed outwards, then vanished. Behind the magic flame the two Recruiters, swords drawn, strode into his house. The might of Andratan.
It was nearly twenty years since Noetos had fought in the Neherian war. He’d been a teenager when he last drew a ki
lling sword, fighting beside his father. He slew Neherians, took wounds, but the fields of battle lost their lustre well before the time he found himself sitting on a rocky Neherian field, his father’s head in his lap, sightless eyes staring into his own.
Twenty years, but it seemed his arm remembered the sword all too well. He threw himself backwards across the room to the hallway, then took a position at the entrance. Behind him the sounds of fighting continued, blade on blade. Anomer must have retrieved his short sword from his bedroom, or perhaps he’d picked up his sister’s blade. Good. If it has gone on this long, Anomer must have secured some kind of advantage.
Within seconds the Recruiters were upon him. There was no cry, no challenge, no quarter. Just blows swifter than he could imagine, heavier than anything the Neherians had brought to bear on him. His arm remembered the sword, but he had never been accounted a good defensive swordsman. His years of training had not prepared him for this.
He backed further into the hallway, defending grimly but bleeding from a nick to his sword arm, and drew the two swordsmen in. Now they were constricted, and could not make the swings necessary for their fearsome blows. It became a contest of thrust and parry, rapier-like, with swords ill suited for the purpose. The fisherman expected more magic from the Recruiters at any moment, but none came: perhaps they had over-extended themselves with the door? He could only hope.
Risking the briefest glance over his shoulder, Noetos caught a pale flash—Anomer, he thought—fighting off two swordsmen identical to those in front of him. This can end only one way, the fisherman admitted, and tried out an idea just forming in his mind. Slashing upwards, he brought down the night curtain separating the hallway from the gathering room. The falling cloth took the Recruiters by surprise, fouling their blades.
‘Now, Anomer!’ he cried, hoping that the boy remained sharp-witted. As he turned he was relieved to see his son slipping through the kitchen door. Noetos made it through moments before the Recruiters came storming down the hallway. Not a substantial door. He grabbed at the kitchen table, tipped the remains of the midday meal onto the floor with a clatter, and wedged it across the door. A few more seconds bought.
Arathé stood there, still looking nothing like the daughter he knew, with a bloody sword in her hands. ‘She got one of them, father,’ Anomer said. ‘She said something and he just froze…’
‘Scullery window!’ Noetos whispered urgently. ‘Now!’ Behind him the Recruiters did not bother with magic this time. Instead they beat at the door with their sword-hilts, blows that rattled the bar and loosened the hinges. ‘Hurry!’
Noetos flung himself at the narrow window, bruising his shoulders in an attempt to clamber through. A hand reached out and pulled him forward. For a moment the fisherman stuck, his hips wedged fast, but he twisted back and forth until he came free, accompanied by a ripping sound. He had thought the hand was his son’s, but as he emerged into the shadows under the cliff he found himself looking into the grim face of his wife.
After nodding his thanks, he spun around and reached back through the window, clasping his daughter’s cold hands in his. She struggled up onto the bench, gritted her teeth and tried to squeeze through, but it was immediately apparent that she would never make it. Half in, half out, she hissed in frustration, looked into her father’s eyes and slipped her hand from his.
‘Nngo!’ she said, twisting her mouth to shape the words. ‘Ngo!’
She still had the Voice. Noetos found himself scrambling with his wife and son down the narrow gully behind the house, under the cliff, at her command. He could not resist her even though her words cut against his deepest desire. The Voice relaxed its hold on him, however, and instantly he turned and headed back up the gully—just in time to hear a woman scream, then to witness some sort of detonation accompanied by a blue flash. The ground rocked beneath them.
‘Arathé!’ he cried, as two more explosions followed, caving in the rear of the Fisher House and bringing rocks cascading down from the cliff above them. ‘Arathé!’
A hand took him by the shoulder; he struck at it half-heartedly, eyes still on the spot where the kitchen had been, now a place of blue fire and rising smoke and dust. ‘They will kill us if they catch us,’ Anomer said. ‘Fetch help from the village. Hurry!’
Finally his son’s urgency reached him, and within moments Noetos and what remained of his family stood on The Circle.
‘I will get help from the Hegeoman,’ Opuntia said huskily, her first words since the Recruiters had invaded their home. ‘Anomer will protect me.’
‘And I will raise Old Fossa,’ said the big fisherman grimly, nodding towards the ruins of his house. ‘Then nothing will protect them.’
His wife and son ran along The Circle, disappearing around a curve in the road, safe for the moment. He had to check. She might be lying there, wounded or dying. But he could not leave. He’d run away before, twenty years ago, had abandoned his family, leaving them in a Neherian clearing on a terrible day of ambush, betrayal and torture. He had lived then, when everyone else had died.
He’d hated himself ever since.
Noetos turned from the top of the Zig Zag and crept back towards the Fisher House. This was madness. The Recruiters would be waiting with their swords and their magic. Suicidal madness, a special sort of insanity born of the irreconcilable clash of guilt and love. But a worse insanity waited to seize him if he chose to flee. He had abandoned her once; he could not do it again.
He made it to the front door without glimpsing his attackers. A quick glance inside: still no sign of them. He eased through the remains of the door, picked his way past scattered furniture and ventured carefully towards the hallway. Faint scuffling sounds came from ahead of him; blue smoke drifted out of the darkened entrance, clearing enough for him to see a robed figure lying face down in the hallway. Bald-headed, limbs splayed brokenly, kitchen knife protruding from her back, unmoving. He froze.
Two cowled figures glided out of the blue mist, swords raised. Noetos, shouting in grief and frustration, backed away from them. One of the Recruiters barked a word of command, and from their swords came two bright blue flashes. The crack of magical power lifted Noetos off his feet, throwing him back against the wall, knocking his sword from his hand.
His foot bumped against something—the sculpture of his daughter—and he snatched it from its plinth, ready to throw it if the Recruiters came closer. They did not need to. The fisherman did not see what happened then, as he closed his eyes against the killing magic. There was a rumble, a blue flare against his eyelids, then shouts of chagrin from the Recruiters. When Noetos opened his eyes all that remained was a momentary blue crackling around the bust in his hand, then nothing. His two foes looked at each other, astonished.
Noetos jerked himself upright, tucking the carving into his belt. He could not leave it. His daughter was beyond saving, his sword was beyond reach, and clearly he could not defeat two wielders of such magic. In a swift motion he leapt high into the air, his hands awkwardly grasping the base of the cupola, then swung himself up into the light-filled space. Safe from swords for a moment, but exposed even so. As the Recruiters ran towards the spot where he had been, he snatched the carving from his belt and smashed at a pane of glass with it. He heaved himself through the hole he had made.
Rapid as thought he picked himself up, then ran across the roof and hurled himself over the edge, across the three-pace gap to the flat roof of his bathhouse. Encumbered by the carving, he barely gained purchase on the small flat roof. He considered throwing the object away, but found he could not. It was all he had left of her.
First one, then the other of the Recruiters emerged onto the roof of the Fisher House and looked around in bewilderment, which grew into incomprehension and shouts of anger when a thorough search of the roof and grounds failed to reveal any sign of the man.
There were mysteries tied up in riddles here in this village. A boy who handled a sword like a warrior, who had answered Ataphaxus in a Voi
ce so pure it could, with training, shape anything its owner put his mind to, and who had intelligence to go with his skill. What could he become once he discovered his power? His father was a bluff fisherman who wielded with real skill a sword marked with the device of the legendary Duke of Rhoudhos, and who, to pile wonder on wonder, carried a carving made of pure huanu stone, surely the largest piece in existence. And their own tongueless servant who had unerringly found her way to these extraordinary people, who had then risked their lives to protect her. These people had to be found. Questions had to be asked, connections made. And the huanu stone had, at all costs, to be recovered.
Noetos heard the shouting. It encouraged him to run even faster along The Circle towards the spur that led down to the shore. A quick glance behind him revealed nothing. He saw the entrance to the little-used Bridge Path, ducked to his right and set off along the stony track. Along here, down to the beach, then back up to Old Fossa.
Bridge Path led from The Circle into a small embayment in the cliffs known as The Crater, where the dead of Fossa enjoyed their final rest. Open only to the east, and that a narrow entrance surrounded by bluffs, The Crater was shrouded in almost perpetual shadow. Near Tipper Bridge the fisherman stopped for a moment, undecided about his route, and heard the rattle of stones behind him.
They had not given up.
The village must surely have been roused by now. Opuntia and Anomer would have enlisted the aid of their Hegeoman, who would have gathered dozens of villagers. The explosions must have echoed around the cliffs, and the smoke would draw a crowd. Surely there was little even four such as the Recruiters could do against a whole village.
Around the bluff and into the entrance to The Crater came his two pursuers, then a third, running hard. Noetos waited where he was a moment longer, expecting to see villagers sprinting after them, but the path behind them remained stubbornly empty.
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