pulse that lasted less than a second and traveled no more than a few yards from where they stood, but the crew touched by the light faltered, lowered their weapons as if stunned or unsure what they were doing. And in that second, Garnet and Lisha struck.
What the hell?.
Three of the enemy fell bleeding to the deck before they knew what was happening. Then Orgos was among them, his swords spinning, and two more collapsed screaming.
While I was trying to get my brain around what had just happened, Renthrette appeared from our cabin, armed with her broadsword and shield. She stalked unnoticed by the men who continued to close around the castle until she reached the captain’s quarters. Mithos followed and took up a position behind the cabin door as Renthrette opened it. I sat up, crossbow at the ready, and my heart pounding fast.
Three guards exploded out of the cabin. She stepped back quickly and I had a clear shot. I followed the first one unsteadily with the bow for a split second before pulling the trigger. The weapon bucked slightly in my hands as the bolt left it. It wasn’t a good shot, but it would do. My target crashed to the decking, clutching his hip. Renthrette raised sword and shield to meet the next, and Mithos engaged the third.
Renthrette’s assailant crashed into her, hewing madly at her raised shield. She stood her ground, then lunged with her broadsword under the rim of her shield. The steel tip of her sword pierced his chest and, with a short-lived scream that turned every head on the ship, he crumpled at her feet. She looked absolutely controlled, even calm.
Then Mithos’s man went down and he was in, flinging the captain back against the wall.
I scrambled to my feet. There was a sudden churning sensation in the pit of my stomach, and my hands were shaking like poplars in a high wind. In a few strides I was almost with Renthrette, drawing my rapier as Mithos hissed, “Call them off or you’re a dead man!”
He bundled the wild-eyed captain onto the deck. I grabbed his cutlass and held on to it as the crew moved to see what was going on. Mithos showed them.
The captain had sagged against him, too frightened to hold himself vertically. He was babbling to himself and growling. Mithos let him slip to the deck and placed the tip of his sword against the back of his neck.
“Tell them to steer us into the harbor,” he hissed to the scarlet-jacketed bundle at his ankles.
The captain hesitated only a moment before following Mithos’s command.
“Men like him value nothing more than their own necks,” Orgos remarked. In his mouth and in that situation, the words sounded pretty scathing, but it raised an awkward question in my mind. Was I any different?
An hour and a half later, as we eased between the shipyard buildings of Shale, which rose up on each side of us, I still had no answer to that. I did have another question, though, and the moment I could get Orgos alone, I asked it.
“You going to tell me what happened there?” I demanded, nodding to where Orgos had held off the sailors. “That light. And don’t bother telling me that little gem in your sword hilt is just for decoration.”
Orgos frowned, hitching his equipment duffel over his shoulder. “What do you want me to say?”
“The truth,” I said.
“Before he died,” said Orgos, “my father used to say ‘Never ask a question unless you know you can handle the answer.’ ”
“Very touching and profound,” I said. “So. About that sword?”
“It’s magic,” said Orgos. “Enchanted.”
“Bollocks,” I said.
“All right.” He shrugged.
“What am I? Five years old?” I said. “Magic? There’s no such thing.”
“I told you, Will. You should have listened to my father.”
And that was that. He walked away and I stared after him, finally shouting, “Fine! Don’t tell me.”
He kept walking.
It was late afternoon by the time we got everything unloaded, and we were too tired to think or move. Finding a tavern, we settled there for the rest of the day and left the procurement of a pair of wagons to the innkeeper. I drank several pints of watery beer in big wooden mugs and followed them with a glass of what was supposed to be whiskey but tasted like paint thinner. By the time I stumbled off to my bed, the ground felt like it was undulating beneath me, coursing in great alcoholic ripples. It was, I had already decided, the closest I would ever get to being at sea again.
SCENE XVII A Kind of Welcome
At eight o’clock that evening Orgos woke me.
“Come on, Will,” he said wearily, “we’re moving.”
“Of course,” I muttered. “After all, I’ve slept several hours already this week.”
Downstairs, Lisha and Mithos were waiting for us, and with them was a wiry man with a thin neck and grey stubble on his chin. His hair was short, straight, and silver. His eyes were small, which, in conjunction with his thin- lipped, unsmiling mouth, made it hard to tell if he was pleased to see us.
I had half guessed who he was from the black silk robe with its tiny filigree dragon embroidery, but Mithos introduced him anyway. “This is Dathel, chancellor to the county of Shale. He and his men will escort us to the town of Adsine, in the north, where the count awaits us.”
I couldn’t help noticing that as Mithos made this pronouncement, Lisha became one of us, and not even a conspicuous one at that. I wasn’t sure why, but I could see that this Chancellor Dathel was supposed to take Mithos to be the leader. Not that I cared one way or the other. Exhaustion and the beginnings of a slight hangover combined to make me thoroughly apathetic.
“Good evening,” said our death-suited host. “My lord the count, and, indeed, all the people of Shale have awaited your coming. Your wagons are packed and I have a twenty-man cavalry escort outside. If we leave now, we should reach Adsine by dawn. Hopefully, you will be able to sleep in the wagons.”
He spoke Thrusian like the rest of us but there was a lilt to it that squared with what I had gleaned from my dusty studies.
Once more I swung my pack onto my shoulders and followed them, mule-like, outside where the light was fading fast, the sky striped pink and amber.
There were two large wagons with four horses each, almost exactly like the ones we had driven across the Hrof. I clambered in, leaving whatever I was carrying where it fell. I glanced out of the back as the mounted troopers with their black dragon-pennanted lances and plumed helms drew up their formation around us. Two thoughts crossed my already-dozing mind.
First, why did anyone who could field soldiers like these need the likes of us?
Second, and more important: With such an escort, I could sleep soundly. For the first time since I left Cresdon I wouldn’t have to spend an hour or more on guard, and my sleep wouldn’t be scarred by fears of snakes, Empire patrols, or the murderous crew of the
I rolled myself up in two blankets, wrapped another into a kind of pillow, and, within seconds of feeling the wagon roll off, fell asleep.
I woke once in the night and lay still for a while until the sense of motion and the rhythmic clop of the horses lulled me back into slumber. When I woke next, light was pouring in through the half-open tailgate, where Mithos and Orgos sat, chatting quietly, absorbing something of this new land.
I caught the familiar sounds of an early-morning market and realized we were in Adsine.
“How is it?” I asked.
“The town?” said Orgos. “Poor,” he answered simply.
A few minutes later I could hear running water below us, and Mithos, consulting a map, said, “That must be the Wardsfall River. We are nearly there.”
A couple of minutes after that we stopped and climbed out, stretching and yawning, in the courtyard of
