Cursors's Fury

A low murmur of responses went through the officers in the tent.

“I have my orders. We are to proceed west to the town at the Elinarch. The bridge there is the only one over the entire western leg of the Tiber River. The First Aleran is to secure that bridge.”

The officers murmured again, low and surprised.

The Tribune Auxiliarus, Cadius Hadrian, stepped forward. His voice was deep and very quiet. “Sir. What about the stars?”

“What about them?” Cyril asked.

“Do we know why they’ve changed color?”

“Tribune,” Cyril said calmly, “stars do not concern the First Aleran. Our only concern is that bridge.”

Which Tavi took to mean that Cyril had no idea, either.

Valiar Marcus took a step forward from his place against the tent’s wall, and said, “Captain. With all due respect, sir, most of the fish aren’.t ready.”

“I have my orders, First Spear,” Cyril said. He looked around at the officers, and said, “And now you all have yours. You know your duties.” He lifted his chin, and said, “We march at dawn.”

Chapter 18

When the stars burned red, the inhabitants of Westmiston did not panic so much as freeze in place, like a hare who senses a predator nearby.

Ullus had shaken Ehren from his sleep without a word, and they had gone out of the bungalow to stare up in total silence. The other folk of Westmiston did the same. No one carried a light, as though afraid to be noticed by something looking down on them.

No one spoke.

Waves broke on the shore.

Wind stirred fitfully, restlessly.

The sullen light of the stars illuminated nothing. The shadows grew, their edges indistinct, and within the light all movement was veiled, blurred, making it difficult to tell the difference between stationary objects, living things, and the shadows themselves.

The sun rose the next morning, pure and golden for a few moments-but then it took on a sullen, sanguine hue. The colors of sunset looked bizarre with the light coming down from overhead, strong and bright. It was unsettling. Few folk moved about Westmiston. Those who did sought wine, rum, and ale. The captain of the only ship currently in the harbor was murdered in the street at noon, cut down by his own crew when he ordered them down to the harbor to set sail. The body lay untouched where it fell.

Sailors stared fearfully up at the sky, muttering darkly under their breaths and making superstitious gestures of warding and protection. Then they drank as much alcohol as possible, walking over their former captain’s remains to enter the wine house.

Ullus stepped out of his bungalow to squint up at the sky, fists on his hips. “Bloody crows,” he complained, his tone personally offended. “Everyone in the whole crowbegotten town is staying indoors. This could be bad for business.”

Ehren set his pen down for a moment and rested his forehead on the edge of his desk. He bit back a dozen insulting replies and settled for a sigh before he went back to his writing, and said, “You may be right.”

Someone began ringing the town’s storm bell.

Ullus shook his head with disgust, stalked over to a cabinet, and jerked out a large bottle of cheap rum. “Go see what that fool of a watchman is on about now.”

“Yes, sir,” Ehren said, glad to be able to move. Like everyone else, except possibly Ullus, Ehren was worried about the portents in the sky, the haze of blood over sun and stars. Unlike everyone else, Ehren knew about the vast storms that the Canim had hurled at the western shores of Alera only a few years ago. Ehren knew that their ritualists were capable of great feats of power rivaling or surpassing the furycraft of the Realm.

And Ehren knew that an unscrupulous captain with no time to spare and a suspiciously large load of goods to sell had, three weeks and one day ago, sailed from Westmiston for the Canim homeland.

The bloody-hued sky was surely no natural event. If, as he suspected, it meant that the Canim were exerting their power again, and this time on a scale no one had dreamed they could manage, then business was going to be very bad in Westmiston-and anywhere else within sailing range of Canim raiders.

He finished the line he was working on-his notes, encoded in a cipher known only to the Cursors, rather than the books Ullus assumed he was balancing. He’d already prepared a summary of all that he had learned in the past months, and only the last several days’ worth of observations needed to be added to the small, waterproof case at Ehren’s belt.

He did so, then left the bungalow, jogging down toward the harbor at an easy pace. His footsteps sounded loud in the unusual silence of the islands. It did not take him long to see why the watchman had begun ringing the chimes-a ship had arrived in the harbor. It took him a moment to be sure, but when he saw Captain Demos on deck, he recognized the vessel as the Slive. She had come in under a strong wind and full sail, and her crewmen moved with the jerking haste of tired men with no time to spare.

A sudden gust of cold wind pushed at Ehren, and he peered out at the western horizon. There, far out over the sea, he could see a long line of darkness on the horizon. Storm clouds.

The Slive spent its incoming momentum on a sudden turn, and her timbers shook and groaned. A bow wave pressed out ahead of the vessel, high enough to send a sheet of seawater over the quay, before the ship itself bellied up to the quay, already facing back to the west, toward the mouth of the harbor, ready to run for open water.

Ehren was suddenly very sure that he wanted off the island.

He headed on down to the harbor and went out along the rickety old quay to the Slive.

Two men loitering on deck with bows in hand took note of him as he did. Ehren slowed his steps cautiously as he approached the ship, and he stood well back from the gangplank as it was cast down.

Captain Demos was the first man onto the plank, and he gave Ehren a flat stare with nothing human in it but for an instant of recognition. He nodded, and said, “The fence’s scribe.”

“Yes, Captain,” Ehren said with a bow of his head. “How may I serve you?”

“Take me to your master, and be quick.” He whistled sharply without using his fingers, and half a dozen men dropped what they were doing and came down the gangplank after him. Each of the men, Ehren noted, was large, armed, and looked unfriendly. In point of fact, every single man aboard was armed, even as they readied the ship to depart again. There were even a few pieces of armor in evidence-mostly abbreviated chain shirts and sections of boiled leather.

That was hardly the normal state of affairs, even on a pirate vessel. Weaponry presented nothing but a hindrance to a sailor in the rigging. Wearing even light armor on a ship was all but a death sentence should one fall into the sea. No sailor, pirate or otherwise, would don such gear without a compelling reason.

Ehren found Captain Demos staring at him with an unnerving amount of intensity and no expression on his face. His hand rested negligently on the hilt of his sword. “Question, scribe?”

Ehren looked up at Demos, sensing that he was in immediate danger. He bowed his head carefully, and said, “No, sir. It is no business of mine.”

Demos nodded, and lifted his hand from his sword to gesture for Ehren to precede them. “Remember it.”

‘Yes, Captain. This way, sir.”

Ehren led Demos and his men up to Ullus’s bungalow. The fence came out to meet them, wearing a rusted old gladius through his belt, his face set in a scowl made fearless by drink. “Good day, Captain.”

“Fence,” Demos said, his tone flat. “I am here for my money.”

“Ah,” Ullus said. He looked at Demos’s armed escort and narrowed his eyes. “Well as I said, sir, three weeks was hardly time enough in which to liquidate your articles.”

“And as I said. You will pay me in cash for anything not sold.”