The imp had buried its little face in its master’s neck.
And lying amid the flames two hulking, broken shapes with the blood bubbling in their wounds and swathes of bare, blistered flesh shining where the fur had been burnt off.
One werewolf had a paw clutched to its chest much as Hawkwood nursed his shoulder. The black lips drew back from the teeth in a parody of a smile.
“Your iron has done for me, after all,” it sneered. “Who’d have thought it? The maid a fellow sufferer. Little lady, we could have talked, you and I.”
The other beast was barely conscious. It growled feebly, the light in its eyes becoming fainter moment by moment.
More water cascaded down from above. They had rigged the hand-pumps and were frenziedly pumping seawater over the burning ship.
“You will never find the west,” the werewolf said to Hawkwood, whose eyes were stinging and blurred with smoke and pain. To him the beast that had been Ortelius was nothing but a looming shadow backlit by sputtering flames and brightly lit cascades of seawater. “Better for you and yours that you do not. There are things there best left alone by the men of Normannia. Turn your ship around if it remains afloat, Captain. I am only a messenger; there are others more powerful than I whose faces are set against you. You cannot survive.”
The werewolf hauled itself with startling speed to its feet. At the fore end of the cabin the crowd by the door watched transfixed as it hurled itself, laughing, from the shattered stern and disappeared into the sea beyond.
A volley of shots followed it down into the water, stitching the sea with foam. It was gone.
“Griella,” Murad groaned, and started forward into the fire.
Bardolin stopped him.
“Better to let her burn,” he said with great gentleness. “She cannot live.”
The men watched as the shape in the flames became smaller and paler. The ears shrank, the fur withered away and the eyes dulled. In seconds there was a naked girl lying there in the fire, her body ravaged with terrible wounds. She turned her head to them before the end, and Hawkwood thought she smiled. Then her body blackened, as though some preserving forces had suddenly failed, and the flames were licking around a charred corpse.
Murad’s face was as bleak as a skull.
“She saved my life. She did that for me. She loved me, Bardolin.”
“Get more water in here,” Hawkwood said calmly, “or we’ll lose the ship. Do you hear me there? Don’t just stand around.”
Murad shot him a look of pure hatred and stormed out past the staring soldiers.
“The ship. You must save the ship,” Hawkwood insisted, but the fire and the bulkheads and the faces were retreating down a soundless tunnel away from him. He could not hold the scene in focus. Men were coming and going, and he was being lifted. He thought Bardolin’s face was close to his, lips moving soundlessly. But his tunnel continued to lengthen. Finally it grew so long that it blotted out the light, and all the pictures faded. The faces and the mounting pain dimmed with growing distance. He held on as long as he could, until he could hear the pumps sluicing water all around him. His poor ship.
Then the shadows swooped in on his tired mind, and bore it off with them to some howling place of darkness.
TWENTY-FOUR
“S HAHR Indun Johor,” the vizier announced.
Aurungzeb the Golden waved a hand. “Send him in.”
He kissed the nipple of the raven-haired Ramusian concubine one last time then threw a silk sheet over her naked limbs.
“You will remain,” he said in her barbaric tongue, “but you will be a statue. Do you hear me?”
Heria nodded and bowed her head. He tugged the sheet up until she was entirely covered, then pulled his robe about him and sashed it tight. He thrust his plain-hilted dagger into the sash and when he looked up again Shahr Johor was there, kneeling with his eyes fixed floorwards.
“Up, up,” he said impatiently, and gestured to a low stool while he himself took his place on a silk- upholstered divan by one wall.
They could hear the birds singing in the gardens beyond the seraglio, the bubble of water in the fountains. This room was one of the most private in the entire palace, where Aurungzeb perused the most exquisite of his treasures—such as the girl cowering on the bed by the other wall, the sheet that cloaked her quivering as she breathed. The chamber was thick-walled, isolated from the labyrinth of the rest of the complex. One might scream to the depths of one’s lungs within its confines and yet go unheard.
“Do you know why you are here?” the Sultan of Ostrabar and Aekir asked.
Shahr Johor was a young man with a fine black beard and eyes as dark as polished ebony.
“Yes, Majesty.”
“Good. What think you of your new appointment?”
“I shall try to fulfil your wishes and ambitions to the best extent of my abilities, Majesty. I am yours to command.”
“That’s right,” the Sultan grunted emphatically. “Your predecessor, the esteemed Shahr Baraz, is unfortunately rendered infirm due to the weight of his years. A magnificent soldier, but I am told his faculties are not what they once were—hence our failure before this absurd Ramusian fortress. You will carry on where Baraz left off. You will take Ormann Dyke, but first you will reorganize the army. My sources report that it is somewhat demoralized. Winter is coming on, the Thurian passes are closed and your only supply line is the Ostian river. When you reach the dyke you will put the army into winter quarters, and attack again once the weather has improved. In the meantime the accursed Ramusians will have to contend with coastal raids from our new allies, the Sultanates of Nalbeni and Danrimir. They will be prevented from reinforcing the dyke, and you will storm it when the winter snows abate.”
“Then I am not to attack at once, Majesty?”
“No. As I said, the army is in need of some . . . reorganization. This present campaign is over. You will see that communications between the camps and the supply depots in Aekir are improved. Baraz was building a road, I believe; one of the last of his more coherent plans. Everything must be made ready so that in the spring the army is ready to move again. The dyke will be crushed and you will march on Torunn. A fresh levy will be made available to you then. Have you any questions?”
Shahr Johor, new supreme commander of the Merduk armies of Ostrabar, hesitated a moment and then said:
“One question, Majesty. Why was I selected for this particular honour? Shahr Baraz’s second-in-command Mughal is surely better qualified.”
Aurungzeb’s florid face darkened. His fingers toyed with the hilt of his dagger.
“Mughal has a certain absurd attachment to Shahr Baraz. It would not do to leave him in command. He is being transferred elsewhere, as are most of the previous staff officers. I want a new beginning. We have been shackled by the old
Shahr Johor flung himself to the floor.
“You honour me too much, my Sultan. My life is yours. I will send you the spoils of all the Ramusian kingdoms. The west shall be brought into the fold of the True Faith, if Ahrimuz wills it.”
“He wills it,” Aurungzeb said sharply. “And so do I. Do not forget that.” He waved a hand. “You may go.”
