Ambassador (Conqueror of Isles Book 1)

by Stephen L. Hadley

  “Sorry to wake you,” Raltson said in the same, hoarse voice as always. “Captain said to inform you—she knows.”

  Chapter Ten

  It was still dark when Elias emerged on deck, though the eastern horizon had progressed from black to a rich blue. The sight offered no comfort, however. If anything, the dawn would only make it easier for Cotora to track them.

  He looked for her ship as he climbed the quarterdeck stairs with Kyra and Rhona trailing after him. It wasn’t until he reached the deck proper that he spotted it, however. As soon as he had, he immediately wished he hadn’t.

  The elven warship was no longer a speck lingering near the horizon. It had swiftly covered at least half the distance between them and one glance at its full sails and trajectory confirmed it would be no more than a couple of hours before it managed the rest.

  Avans was not standing in his usual place beside the Dark Dawn’s pilot. Instead, he leaned heavily against the quarterdeck rail, shoulders hunched and eyes fixed on the vessel’s bow. Aside from his unusually grave demeanor, he could almost have been unaware of their pursuer.

  “How did she find out?” Elias asked as he approached.

  Avans shrugged. “Ask the elf,” he said, not even glancing in Rhona’s direction. “Maybe this Cotora has more sorcerers than she thought. Maybe she gave that officer of hers orders on how to sail us and she figured it out when we ignored them. Not that it really matters. She knows now.”

  “What should we do?” Elias asked. When Avans did not reply, he joined the man at the rail and leaned forward until he could half-look him in the eyes. “David, what should we do?”

  Avans chewed his lip for a moment then shrugged again.

  “Not much we can do,” he admitted. “We don’t have the speed to out-sail her or the numbers to outfight her. But we’re only a few hours from the coast. Assuming the charts are correct, there’s a small peninsula to our northeast. I’ll be damned if I let that bitch take my ship again. We’ll ground the Dawn and try to outrun them on land. Chances are we’ll all be dead by nightfall, but…” Trailing off, he shrugged a third time.

  Elias nodded slowly and followed the man’s gaze. Through the gaps in the rigging, he almost imagined he could see a hazy blur that might have been land. Given how dark it still was, it was probably wishful thinking.

  “Thank you,” he murmured. “I know… I know how much this ship means to you.”

  “Aye,” Avans agreed, snorting softly. “But she’s better off a worthless wreck than sailing under foreign hands.”

  “I understand. Is there any way we can help prepare?”

  “Grab anything you don’t want the elves to have. Just don’t weigh yourself down. We’ll need to travel fast and light. Old Cook is bagging up rations and water so don’t bother with that.”

  “What about weapons?”

  “We’ll be taking them too, of course. Oh!” For the first time since they’d begun, Avans turned toward him and flashed a weak grin. “We found where the elves stashed that sword of yours. Raltson has it, I think.”

  “Thank you,” Elias said. His own earnestness surprised him. “How did you find it?”

  “Well, we weren’t trying to do you any favors,” Avans teased. “Found it while the men were tossing bodies overboard. I thought about carving them up as a bit of payback, but figured that wouldn’t be the best look for an Ambassador.”

  “No,” Elias agreed. He tried and failed to suppress his shudder. “No, it wouldn’t be.”

  “Well, in any case, you might want to grab it soon. By the look of things, you might need to use it.”

  Elias couldn’t argue with that, nor could he keep from glancing back at Cotora’s ship as he quit the quarterdeck to search for Raltson. He found the lieutenant conversing in hushed tones with several members of the crew and waited until they’d dispersed to approach. At his inquiry, Raltson merely nodded and gestured to Avans’ cabin.

  He’d only just found the sword atop the captain’s bed beside several others when Rhona joined him. The Gwydas’ face was calm and almost expressionless, but there was an odd, nervous energy to her movements that reminded him of a small bird.

  “Yes?” he asked as he refastened the sword to his hip. “What is it?”

  She continued to fidget, toying with the edges of her cloak. “The captain,” she said at last. “He says he carves the dead? This is true?”

  “No, no,” Elias assured her quickly. “He was just talking about it. He didn’t actually do it.”

  “But he thinks to do it? He is… to cut the dead pleases him?” There was a peculiar urgency to her questions that kept Elias from smiling.

  “No, I don’t think so. He’s… David is…” he trailed off, trying to decide on the correct way to explain. “Afraid. And angry. He loves this ship and knowing that he’s about to lose it, well, I think it makes him feel better. He wouldn’t actually, uh, do what he talked about.”

  Rhona sighed deeply and offered a brief, flickering smile. Then, before Elias could even think of stopping her, she stepped close and wrapped him in a cautious embrace.

  Elias froze, too stunned to embrace her back. The gentle warmth of her body, soft, yielding, and scandalously close to unclothed, was plenty distracting on its own. The fact that it was coming, here and now, from Rhona, was enough to stop his tongue entirely.

  But, it did not end there. Slowly, almost shyly, Rhona leaned up and pressed her lips to his cheek. The kiss was brief and innocent but burned hot against his skin. And when Rhona drew back and pulled shut her cloak a moment later, he could just spy the hint of a blush on her cheeks as well.

  “You are a good man, Elias,” she said. “And, I think, a good Sha’nijur. My people and yours need you much.”

  “I…” he began. He paused, waiting for his tight, constricted throat to loosen. “Thank you, Rhona.”

  She smiled warmly and he answered with a grin of his own.

  He was still grinning when the first violent wave shook the Dark Dawn.

  ***

  Elias lunged for the cabin door but stumbled when the Dark Dawn shuddered again. Bashing his shoulder on the edge, he cursed and glanced back to make sure Rhona was still on her feet. She was, but the ready terror on her face nearly made him freeze. Forcing aside his panic and confusion, he threw open the door and lurched onto the deck.

  He’d gone barely three paces when the next wave struck, a torrent of foaming water surging over the bulwark and soaking him to the waist. Alarmed, he raced for the quarterdeck. And this time, he managed more than half the length of the ship before he was interrupted.

  Elias didn’t see the man who struck him. He landed hard, grunting from the first impact then crying out in pain as the man fell atop him. He struggled to rise, thrashing his way free. It wasn’t until the second man pounced and drove his knee into his back that Elias realized something was wrong.

  “Move, you!” he snarled.

  Seizing a handful of hair, the man shoved his head back down to the deck.

  “Sorry, sir,” the sailor rumbled. “I can’t do that.”

  “What’re you—” Elias began. His words failed when he spotted Avans.

  The captain was red-faced and bellowing, spittle flying from his lips like water from a ship’s bow. It had taken four men to restrain him and haul him down the quarterdeck stairs. Kyra fought equally hard, though she required only two.

  “Raltson!” Elias roared as he caught sight of the man. “What the fuck is going on? Tell these bastards—!”

  Yet again, he fell silent. This time, it was the look on the lieutenant’s face that stopped his words. Raltson wore a look of anguished determination that, paired with the stiffness of his back, told Elias everything he needed to know. Even so, the man strode closer as the crew roughly deposited Avans and Kyra onto the deck.

  “Get your hands off of me, you fucking cowards!” Avans raged. The man’s eyes were wild, his teeth bloodied and bar
ed with ferocity. “I’ll kill you for this! I’ll hang every last one of you!”

  “No, you won’t, sir,” Raltson said calmly. The lieutenant grabbed ahold of a tackline and waited until the next wave had washed over the deck before continuing. “You’re the one who brought us here. It’s you three that the elves want. Er, four—Shep, grab that elf woman, too. We’ll put you lot in the cutter and see who they go after.”

  “Are you mad?” Elias gasped. Raltson glanced at him, but Avans’ wrath resumed before he could reply.

  “You damned fool!” Avans snarled. “You think they’ll let you sail away? They’re elves! You won’t manage a league before they’ve slaughtered you all!”

  “The winds are on our side. We’ll have a better chance than we would on land,” Raltson said. Turning to the men who held Avans, he nodded. “Put them in the cutter. If they won’t climb down, just throw them in. They can keep their swords, though.”

  “You’re a worthless piece of shit, Raltson.”

  “It’s been a pleasure, captain. We’ll be sure to tell the Governor-General you died fighting.”

  Elias glared at the lieutenant as the men hauled him roughly to his feet. He wanted to struggle, to fight his way free, but knew there would be no point. Even if he, Avans, Kyra, and Rhona all managed to break loose at the same instant, the crew outnumbered them ten-to-one. Besides, Kyra and Rhona were unarmed.

  Then he noticed the sky. He could, perhaps, be forgiven for missing it until now—mutinies had a way of commanding attention. But now that he’d looked up, Elias found he could hardly look away.

  A vast ring of dark and swirling clouds spun violently overhead, unnaturally out of place against the otherwise empty sky. In the early morning gloom, it took him a moment to realize precisely what he was staring at. Once he noticed it, however, the sight reopened the enormous pit in his gut that had troubled him so often the last day and a half.

  It was as though the wildest storm imaginable had chosen their present location to manifest. For a quarter-league in every direction, the deep roiled with vast, irregular waves. And yet, just beyond that boundary, the seas grew still and calm as glass. Another wave struck the Dark Dawn then. Elias stumbled and kept his feet only thanks to the men holding him.

  He looked for Rhona. The elf was wincing, her arms grasped hard behind her back by one of Raltson’s sailors. But despite her obvious pain, Elias could see the fear in her eyes. It wasn’t just fear, though. There was dread there of the same sort he’d spotted in the cabin.

  Several of the crew had readied the cutter, which looked pitifully small and vulnerable as it bobbed in the unnaturally rough seas. Avans descended first, snarling curses and hurling insults even as he went. His fury didn’t stop him from finding his feet and catching Kyra as she slipped and fell the last few spans.

  The men pushed Elias forward next, but he wrenched himself free and gestured to Rhona.

  “Let her go first,” he demanded.

  The men exchanged looks, then one shrugged and the rest complied. Rhona grimaced as she eased herself over the side, her fingers clutching the slick bulwark for support. Her boots slipped noisily against the hull for a moment, but just as Elias was about to help her, she found purchase.

  Neither her hands nor her boots survived the impact of the next wave. Rhona cried out as she lost her grip, pitching backward and plummeting headfirst into the dark waters below.

  If he’d hesitated for even an instant, Elias would never have moved. And so, he didn’t. Vaulting the side, Elias dove headfirst into the waves. The impact stunned him; it had been years since he’d last gone swimming in Islesmark’s harbor, but he’d expected the sensations to be somewhat akin. Instead, it felt like landing face-first on solid ground. Dazed, he tried to right himself, only to find that he could no longer tell which way was up.

  Fortunately, the disorientation passed quickly. Bobbing to the surface, he gasped for breath and blinked the water from his stinging eyes.

  “Eli, there!” Kyra called.

  He struggled to follow the path of her outstretched arm but managed to spot Rhona’s face amid the waves. She wasn’t quite sinking, but neither was she thriving. And there was a certain desperation to the way she grabbed him as he swam near.

  “I’ve got you,” he growled, spitting seawater as he wrapped an arm around her. “Just kick.”

  It took him only a few moments to paddle back to the cutter, but those minutes felt like an eternity. His clothes and sword weren’t terribly heavy, but by the time he caught Avans’ outstretched hand, they felt liable to pull him under. The cold was worse. Though warmer than the waters near Islesmark, the present sea was still chilly and he’d begun to lose the feeling in his toes and fingers by the time they hauled him aboard.

  If he was uncomfortable, however, Elias could only imagine how Rhona felt. The elf sat trembling in the bottom of the cutter, doubled over and hugging herself for warmth. She’d somehow lost her cloak amid the waves—or perhaps she’d abandoned it to keep from sinking. In either case, her waterlogged robe was no better than being naked.

  “Gods damned fool,” Avans growled. “Why’d you jump in after her? Would’ve taken two seconds to row and grab her. What were you thinking?”

  Despite everything, Elias grinned. “I wasn’t,” he admitted.

  “I’ll say.” Shaking his head in exasperation, Avans pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to Rhona. “Here, use that to dry off. I’m sure it smells, but… better that than soaking wet.”

  Still shaking, Rhona nodded and did as instructed. Elias watched her for a second then quickly averted his eyes. As a result, he was rewarded with a brief, fleeting glimpse of Kyra’s face. The woman stared past him at Avans and, for the first time, seemed to be looking at him with something other than playful contempt. If anything, she looked almost impressed.

  “Oy, don’t just sit there!” Avans said. “Grab the oars! Chances are the elves will go after the Dawn first. We need to get to shore before they finish the job!”

  His words snapped Elias back to reality. The Dark Dawn was pulling away from them by the second. And although the waves had mostly hidden the elven warship from view, they might well be run over unless they managed to create some distance.

  Under Avans’ skilled instruction, they soon adopted a regular, if rather inefficient rhythm. Elias rowed until the pain he’d felt on their arrival at Eh’kaavi was but a mild inconvenience. Even Kyra did not offer a word of protest. After a few minutes, she shifted on her bench to make room for Rhona and the pair labored together in determined silence.

  At first, Elias felt little sense of progress. The waves seemed to hold them motionless and without any clear landmarks, they might have been rowing in circles. Slowly, however, the waves subsided and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  It wasn’t long before that small blessing grew into a curse. True to Avans’ prediction, the elves had not been distracted by Raltson’s ploy. The elves continued to pursue the Dark Dawn with all possible speed. And, as it turned out, they did not even need to board her.

  Elias jumped and nearly dropped his oars at the first bolt of lightning. Several others followed in quick succession, striking the Dark Dawn’s mainmast one after another. In seconds, the sails and rigging were ablaze.

  They were too far away to hear the screams, but Elias knew there must have been plenty. The flames spread quickly, igniting the foremast as well. Then, with an echoing crack that could almost have passed for more lightning, the mainmast toppled.

  Listing dangerously beneath the weight, the ship pitched as the waves around it grew more and more violent. As unbearable as the display was to watch, Elias couldn’t tear his eyes away. It was not until the final wave struck and the vessel rolled that he realized he’d been holding his breath and let out a ragged sigh.

  “Poor bastards,” Avans muttered. He spoke softly enough that Elias wasn’t sure if he was meant to overhear. “I tried to tell them.”r />
  Elias turned and glanced at the man, then frowned and stared past him. The once distant shoreline was still worryingly far, but had grown significantly closer in the interim. He could almost make out the distinct columns of broad tree trunks near the rocky beach.

  “We’re getting closer,” he said, struggling to keep the exhaustion from his voice. “Can we make it in time? Before the elves catch up?”

  Avans flinched as if waking from a daydream. Frowning, the man glanced over his shoulder and hesitated just long enough for Elias to know what his answer would be. He smiled weakly as he turned back around.

  “Sure,” Avans lied. “Of course we can.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The first sign of Cotora’s return, at least, the first that Elias noticed, was a slight choppiness to the waves. He tried to convince himself it was his imagination at first, but when the roughness persisted and the elven warship grew slowly but inevitably larger on the horizon, such hopes were quickly dashed. He tried glancing at Avans for reassurance, but the man’s face had hardened into a bitter scowl. Kyra’s was equally grim. And so, muttering a curse, he turned to Rhona.

  “How are they doing that?” he complained between straining at the oars.

  He didn’t actually expect an explanation, but Rhona provided one anyway.

  “Marssa,” she said. Her hands were raw from the oars and she hastily adjusted Avans’ shirt which she’d used to bind them in time for the next stroke. “She is goddess of the sea. There is a temple. Many of my people go there for blessing. After, some join Cotora.”

  “I understand that,” Elias growled through his teeth. “But doesn’t this Marssa get tired of answering prayers all the time?”

  At his back, he heard Avans chuckle grimly. Rhona however, merely frowned.

  “Can the sea tire?” she asked. “Does she say, ‘no, the tide sleeps this day?’”

  “She would if she had to row like this,” he muttered, prompting Rhona to frown deeper and drawing another laugh from Avans. To his surprise, however, that was not all.