The Chernagor Pirates

Would those ever really matter again? Every time Avornis tried to reclaim the lost provinces, disaster had followed. No King of Avornis for the past two centuries and more had dared do any serious campaigning south of the Stura. And yet Grus talked about going after the Scepter of Mercy in a way that suggested he was serious and would do it if he got the chance. Lanius would have been more likely to take that as bluster if the Banished One hadn’t stirred up so much trouble for Avornis far from the Stura. Didn’t that suggest he was worried about what might happen if the Avornans did try once more to reclaim the Scepter and their lost lands?

Didn’t it? Or did it? How could a mere mortal know? Maybe the outcast god was stirring up trouble elsewhere for its own sake. Or maybe he was laying an uncommonly deep trap, building up belief in their chances so he could do a better job of cutting them down.

That troubled Lanius enough to drive him out of the royal archives—and over to the great cathedral and the ecclesiastical archives. He’d seen they held more about the Banished One than the royal archives did. The expelled deity had been a theological problem even before he became a political problem.

Lanius paid his respects to Arch-Hallow Anser. Then he called on Ixoreus. The green-robed priest held no high rank. But what he didn’t know of the archives under the cathedral, no man living did.

After a moment’s thought, the king wondered about that. As he and the white-bearded archivist went downstairs, Lanius asked, as casually as he could, “Have you ever run across the name Milvago in all these parchments?”

Ixoreus stopped. His eyes widened slightly—no, more than slightly. “Oh, yes, Your Majesty,” he said in a low voice. “I have run across that name. I didn’t know you had.”

“I often wish I hadn’t,” Lanius said. “Do you know what that name means?”

“Oh, yes,” the archivist repeated. “But I have never told a living soul of it. Have you?”

“One,” Lanius answered. “I told Grus. He had to know.”

Ixoreus considered. At last, with some reluctance, he nodded. “Yes, I suppose he did. But can he keep his mouth shut?” He spoke of the other king with a casual lack of respect. Lanius was suddenly sure the old man spoke about him the same way when he was out of earshot.

“Yes,” he said. “Grus and I don’t always get along, but he can hold a secret.”

“I suppose so,” Ixoreus said. “He hasn’t told the arch-hallow. I’m sure of that—and Anser is his own flesh and blood. I never told anybody—not Arch-Hallow Bucco, not King Mergus, not King Scolopax— gods, no!—not anybody. And I wouldn’t have told you, either, if you hadn’t found out for yourself.”

Considering what this secret was… “Good,” Lanius told the priest.

The gray stone walls of Nishevatz frowned down on the Avornan army encamped in front of them. Grus studied the formidable stonework.

“Here we are again,” he said to Hirundo. “How do we do better this time than we did two years ago?”

“Yes, here we are again,” the general agreed lightly. “How do we do better? Taking the city would be good, don’t you think?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.” King Grus matched him dry for dry. “And how do we go about that, if you’d be so kind?”

They stood not far from the outer opening of the tunnel Prince Vsevolod had used to escape from Nishevatz, the tunnel Avornan and Chernagor soldiers had entered to sneak into the town… and from which, by all appearances, they’d never emerged. Hirundos eyes flicked in the direction of that opening. “One thing we’d better not do,” he said, “and that’s try going underground again.”

“True,” Grus said. “That means we have to go over the wall—or through it.”

He and Hirundo both looked toward Nishevatz’s works. From behind battlements, Chernagor fighting men in iron helmets and mail-shirts looked back. Two years earlier, Grus had seen how well they could fight defending one of their towns. He had no reason to believe they’d gone soft in those two years. That meant breaking into Nishevatz wouldn’t be easy.

“Do you think the wizard can do us any good?” Hirundo asked.

“I don’t know,” Grus answered. “We’d better find out, though, eh?”

Pterocles looked his usual haggard self. Grus could hardly blame him. The last time he’d looked at these walls, he’d almost died. Now, though, he managed a nod. “I’ll do what I can, Your Majesty.”

“How much do you think that will be?” Grus asked. “If you can’t help us, tell me now so I can try to make other plans.”

“I think I can,” the wizard said. “I don’t feel anything of the presence that beat me the last time. That makes me think it was the Banished One, and that now he’s busy somewhere else.”

Was that good news? Grus wasn’t altogether sure. “Do you know where? Can you sense what he’s doing?”

“No, Your Majesty,” Pterocles replied. “I don’t feel him at all. That’s all I can tell you.” He paused. “No. It’s not. I’m not sorry not to feel him, either.”

Grus pointed north, toward the sea. “Without a sorcerous foe here, can you do anything about the supply ships that are keeping Nishevatz fed? If the grain doesn’t come in, this turns into a real siege, one we can win without trying to storm the walls.”

“I don’t know.” Pterocles looked dubious. “I can try, but magic doesn’t usually travel well over water—not unless you’re the Banished One, of course. He can do things ordinary wizards only dream of.”

There are reasons for that, too, Grus thought; he knew more of them than even Pterocles did. Since he couldn’t tell the wizard what he knew, he said, “It’s not the water we want to aim the magic at. It’s those ships.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Pterocles said impatiently. “I’m not altogether an idiot, you know.”

“Well, good,” Grus murmured. “I do like to have that reassurance.” As he’d hoped, Pterocles sent him a dirty look. An angry wizard, he thought, would do a better job than one just going through the motions. He hoped so, anyhow.

Ships full of grain kept getting into Nishevatz for the next few days. Grus could watch them put in at quays beyond the reach of his catapults. He could watch men haul sacks of grain into the Chernagor town on their backs and load more sacks into carts and wagons that donkeys and horses took inside the walls. As far as he could tell, Prince Vasilko’s soldiers were eating better than his own men. And he couldn’t do anything about it.

He couldn’t—but maybe Pterocles could. The wizard didn’t show his face for some time. Grus checked on him once, and found him sitting with his chin in his hands staring down at a grimoire on a folding table in front of him. Pterocles didn’t look up. He didn’t seem to notice the king was there. Grus silently withdrew. If Pterocles was getting ready to do something large and important, Grus didn’t want to interfere. If, on the other hand, the wizard was just sitting there…

If that’s all he’s doing, he’ll be very sorry, Grus thought. I’ll make sure he’s very sorry.

In due course, Pterocles emerged. He looked pale but determined. He always looked pale. Determination often seemed harder to come by. Nodding to Grus, the wizard said, “I’m ready, Your Majesty.”

Grus nodded. “Good. So are we. Gods grant you good fortune.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. What I can do, I will.” Pterocles brought out a basin filled with water. On it floated toy ships made of chips of wood, with stick masts and scraps of cloth for sails. Pointing to the basin, he told Grus, “It’s filled with seawater from the Northern Sea.”

To him, the point of that seemed clear. To Grus, it was opaque. The king asked, “Why?”

“To make it more closely resemble that which is real,” the wizard replied. “The more closely the magical and the real correspond, the better the result of the spell is likely to be.”

“You know your business,” Grus said. I hope you know your business.

Pterocles got down to it as though he knew his business. He began to chant in a dialect of Avornan even older than the one priests used to celebrate the sacred liturgies in temples and cathedrals. When a cloud drifted close to the sun, he pointed a finger at it and spoke in threatening tones, though the dialect was so old-fashioned, Grus couldn’t make out exactly what he said. The cloud slid past without covering the sun. Maybe the wind would have taken it that way anyhow. Grus didn’t think so, not with the direction in which it was blowing, but maybe. Still, mortal wizards had trouble manipulating the weather, so maybe not, too.