warriors, swarmed up the two masts and released more sail.
Linsha watched with mingled respect and frustration as the tough fabric unfurled, snapping and dancing in the wind. Swiftly the sailors tied down the sails and dropped back to the deck. A drum boomed once on the rowers’ deck below, Linsha heard a shout, and in one smooth movement the ship’s oars dropped into the water and bit into the waves. The drumbeat set the rhythm, and the oars began their steady lift and pull. The ship leaped forward.
“We are moving into the lee of a large peninsula,” Lanther told her. “When Lord Ariakan came here, his ship landed to the north on the western edge of the continent. He did not come to Sarczatha until later.”
Linsha shuddered at the mention of
Another wave crashed over Linsha and her companion, leaving them breathless and drenched, and that was the last of the large storm waves. Pushed on by the oars and the wind in the square sails, the ship sped out of the teeth of the storm into the shelter of the large land mass.
Linsha blinked in the rain and saw it at last-a dark, indistinct line on the horizon. All too soon the blurred shadows became high hills, rain-soaked grasslands, and tall bluffs of gray stone.
“There!” Lanther said. His finger indicated a promontory that jutted out of the peninsula. At its tip sat a great, hulking mass of walls and forbidding towers. A single light burned in the highest tower, a light so bright it sheered through the stormy gloom as a brilliant beacon. “There is Orchemenarc,” he told her proudly. “My father helped build it. It marks the entrance to the harbor.”
Linsha remembered his father had been a Knight of Takhisis stationed with the Tarmaks as a liaison. She bit back the rude comment that came to mind and merely watched as the ship sailed closer. She wasn’t surprised to hear a Dark Knight helped construct a thing like that. It exuded a grim power and vigilance that made her skin crawl.
The waves had settled from large combers to mere rollers that smacked the sides of the ship and splashed its occupants with flying spray. The pitch and roll of the vessel eased to a more comfortable rise and fall. Overhead, rain still poured down, but the lightning had faded away and the wind had dropped to a stiff breeze. The gray afternoon light dimmed toward a stormy evening.
Linsha heard the captain bellow another command and the drumbeat below deck boomed faster. The oarsmen leaned into their oars. Driven by sail and oar, the Tarmak ship charged by the dark walls of the fortress and aimed its bow into a large natural harbor carved like a half-moon into the limestone hills.
For the first time Linsha saw the mouth of a river and the high hills that lifted on either side. To the east of the river she saw stone buildings and edifices rising level after level from the sand beaches of the harbor to the grass-crowned foothills that vanished into the mist and rain. This was the Tarmak capitol city of Sarczatha. Five hills it covered with busy streets, large buildings, temples, and teeming markets. On a high bluff farther to the east, she noticed another sprawling complex of stone buildings. They were barely visible in the failing light.
It wasn’t the size of the city or the beauty of its colorful architecture that took her breath away. It was the sight of the vast fleet tied at anchor in the harbor that made her blood run cold. Row after row of the sleek, deadly war vessels rocked at their moorings, crowding the smaller pleasure craft, fishing boats, and cargo ships. She shot a look at Lanther and saw with growing alarm an expression of grim satisfaction on his rugged features. After he had revealed his real identity and assumed the leadership of the Tarmak as the Akkad-Dar, he had allowed his facial hair to grow into a trim beard in the manner of many of the Tarmaks. In the gray light of the fading day, his bearded expression looked forbidding, hardened by the purposeful intensity of a zealot.
He saw her look and the arrogant grin returned. “There lie the instruments of our final subjugation of the Plains. From those ships we will launch an invasion that will carry the Tarmaks as far west as the Kharolis Mountains and as far north as the New Sea. We will go deep into the Silvanesti Forest.” His hand swept out to encompass the entire fleet. “We will sweep the Plains clean of the tribes and clans, rid the forest of those pitiful refugee elves, and destroy the last vestiges of resistance. Even Sable in her lair will think twice before invading our empire.”
Linsha, who had met the monstrous black dragon face to face, said, “Oh, she may think twice. But she won’t let second thoughts stop her.”
His grin spread even wider. “Then perhaps we’ll have to add her blood to the Abyssal Lance.”
Linsha stopped listening. She did not want to hear any more of his boasting and certainly no more of the dreadful Abyssal Lance. That cruel weapon had killed Iyesta and badly wounded Crucible. She still didn’t know if the bronze was dead or alive. She wondered briefly if the lance was on this ship or if Lanther had left it in the Missing City. Given the opportunity, she’d toss it into the ocean.
She turned her attention back to the harbor and the fleet of warships ahead. From the highest tower of the Orchemenarc a horn sounded a welcome that rang through the harbor. It was taken up by signal horns on almost every ship until the wet afternoon rang with music. Figures appeared on the decks and on the distant docks of the city’s waterfront. Shouts of welcome and loud cheers could be heard even over the rhythmic boom and splash of the oars.
With the eye of a spy, Linsha counted the ships as they sailed through an open passage toward the central wharf.
There were fifty-two at least, some with double rows of oars, some with triple, and all with the small swiveling catapults on the ships’ bridges, the reinforced prows, and the capacity to carry one hundred fifty to two hundred highly trained Tarmaks. Worst of all, they were poised and ready to swoop down on the Plains of Dust, whose defenders were already depleted and demoralized.
Behind her, Lanther put his hands on her shoulders and forced her around to face him. He kissed her hard, his lips and tongue salty against hers. Then he laughed with pleasure and left her alone while he returned to the ship’s bridge. Linsha spat on the deck where he had stood and shook her head as if to rid her nose of a foul smell. She had agreed to marry the traitor, to be his wife. But being with him now, unmarried and unescorted, took all of her resolve. How was she going to bear their time alone as husband and wife? Thank Kiri-Jolith that was in the future, because at the moment she could not conceive of it. At one time she had considered him a friend, and if he had pursued more than a friendship with her, perhaps she would have considered it. But that friendship was dead, drowned in the blood of too many friends and forever replaced in her heart by terrible memories and unending grief. The only feelings she had for him now were murderous.
Drawing a deep breath, she pushed her salt-drenched hair out of her eyes and trudged back to the hatch below decks.
The only ally she had now was time.
2
While Linsha dripped her way below deck, the Tarmaks furled the sails, drew in the oars, and guided the ship alongside a long pier where a crowd waited in the rain for their arrival. Drums beat a welcome from nearby ships and signal horns sounded across the harbor.
In her small cabin beneath the bridge, Linsha listened to the noise above and wondered how long it would be before the Tarmaks dragged the women out to be paraded with the crates of steel, gold, jewels, and other precious items stolen from Iyesta’s hoard. Anticipating sooner rather than later, she packed their few belongings then wrapped Callista in a blanket and urged the young woman to drink a little water.
The courtesan lifted drooping eyelids. Although she was accompanying Linsha as her serving maid, she had been seasick most of the voyage, and Linsha spent most of the time caring for her. Not that it mattered to Linsha.
