The Chernagor Pirates

of that for him.

It could be worse, he told himself, and then immediately asked, How? But that had an answer. Once, the Banished One himself had sent an ambassador to the city of Avornis—the first time he’d done so in more than a hundred years. The kingdom had gotten through that; Lanius supposed it would get through this, too.

He asked, “When will the Menteshe get here?”

“Not for a while, Your Majesty,” the courier replied. “Nobody down south’ll hurry him along. We know you need to get ready.”

“Good,” Lanius said.

“Will King Grus be able to get back in time to deal with him?” the courier asked hopefully.

“No.” That was the only answer Lanius could give. The courier looked disappointed. The king affected not to notice. This fellow had done all he could to help. What would Grus do for a man like that? He’d reward him, that’s what. Lanius said, “You’ll have gold for your hard ride.”

He was annoyed at himself. He should have thought of that without needing to think of Grus. The courier didn’t seem upset—of course, he couldn’t know what was in Lanius’ mind. He only knew he was getting a gift. Bowing low, he said, “Thank you very much, Your Majesty!”

“You’re welcome. You’ve earned it.” Lanius snapped his fingers.

“One thing more. Does Ulash’s ambassador have a wizard with him, or is he by any chance a wizard himself?”

“He had several servants with him when he crossed over the Stura, but I didn’t see one who looked like a wizard,” the rider said. “Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one dressed up like an ordinary servant. And I have no idea whether he’s a wizard himself. I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

“It’s all right. You’ve told me what you know, and you haven’t tried to make up stories to pad that out.” Lanius gestured in dismissal. The courier bowed again and left his presence. To stay on the safe side, I’ll have to have a wizard with me when the envoy gets here, Lanius thought.

He wished Alca the witch were still in the city of Avornis. She remained the best sorceress he’d known. He also wished Grus hadn’t taken Pterocles with him when he went north to the land of the Chernagors. Now he would have to find someone else, someone whose power and reliability he wouldn’t know nearly so well.

No help for it, though, not unless he wanted to face Ulash’s man without any wizard at his side. And he didn’t. Ulash was a powerful prince in his own right. That made him dangerous. But he was also a glove manipulated by the hand of the Banished One. That made him dangerous, too, but in a different way. “A wizard,” Lanius muttered. “I must see about a wizard.” The wizard he needed to see was Pterocles… and Pterocles, unfortunately, was far, far away.

Grus’ army advanced through fog. Men muttered about the uncanny weather. As they came down into the seaside lowlands of the Chernagor country, they met these ghostly mists almost every morning. “Do they know what they’re talking about?” Grus asked his wizard. “Is there anything unnatural about these fogs?”

“Not that I can find, Your Majesty,” Pterocles answered. “We’re down by the Northern Sea, after all. It’s only to be expected that we have fog in the morning. Men who come from the plains and the uplands haven’t seen anything like it, and so they get upset. Foolishness, if you ask me. You don’t see the Chernagors jumping up and down and flapping their arms, do you?”

“Well, no,” Grus admitted. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to see the Chernagors jumping up and down and flapping their arms. That would be more interesting than anything that’s happened since we came down from Varazdin.”

Pterocles gave him a reproachful look. The wizard was a serious man. He wanted everyone else to be serious, too. Grus wasn’t, not often enough to suit him. The king missed Alca. She’d had a sense of whimsy. That was one of the things that had made her attractive to him—and one of the reasons he’d had to send her away.

He sighed. His breath made more fog, a little billow amidst the great cottony swirls of the stuff. It tasted like water and salt on his lips. Kisses and tears, he thought, and shook his head. Stop that.

The mist seemed to swallow most of his soldiers. He looked around. By what his senses told him, he had men close by him, wavering specters a little farther away, and creatures that made noise but could not be seen beyond those ghosts. He hoped his senses were wrong. He also hoped his outriders would note other creatures that made noise before they could be seen.

Pterocles was muttering to himself. He would drop the reins, make a few passes, and then grab for what he’d just dropped; he wasn’t much of a horseman. Alca had never had any trouble casting a spell and staying on her horse at the same time. Grus did a little muttering of his own. Law allowed a King of Avornis six wives. Estrilda, whom Grus had married long before he dreamt of becoming King of Avornis, had strong opinions on the subject—opinions that had nothing to do with what the law allowed.

When Pterocles went on muttering and mumbling, Grus pushed Alca out of his mind—a relief and a pain at the same time—and asked, “Something?”

“I don’t know,” the wizard answered, which was not at all what Grus wanted to hear. Pterocles went on, “If I had to guess, I’d say it was another wizard, feeling for me the same way as I’m feeling for him.”

“I… see.” Grus drummed the fingers of his right hand against his thigh. “You’re not supposed to guess, not on something like this. You’re supposed to know.”

“I work magic, Your Majesty. I don’t work miracles,” Pterocles said tartly. “If I had to guess” —he took an obvious sour pleasure in repeating the phrase— “that other groping wizard out there is as confused as am.”

No, you don’t work miracles, Grus thought. But the Banished One is liable to. He didn’t say that to Pterocles. His wizard had to know it already. Harping on it would hurt the man’s confidence, which wouldn’t help his magic.

From out of the mist ahead came a shout. “Who goes there?” Grus needed a moment to realize the call was in Avornan, which meant it had to have come from the throat of one of his own scouts. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. He hated fighting from horseback. Whether he hated it or not, though, it was enormously preferable to getting killed out of hand.

An answering shout came back. Grus did some muttering and mumbling of his own. The fog played tricks with sound as well as with sight. Not only did he fail to make out any words in that answer, he couldn’t even tell in what language it had been. Logically, those had to be Chernagors out there… didn’t they? What do you expect? he asked himself. Menteshe to spring out of nowhere, here, hundreds of miles from their land?

He wished he hadn’t just thought that the Banished One might work miracles.

But it wasn’t the Banished One. A couple of minutes later, the scout came back to the main body of the Avornan army. “Your Majesty! Your Majesty! We’ve met Prince Vsevolod and his men!”

For a moment, Grus took that for good news. Then, realizing what it was likely to mean, he cursed furiously. “Why isn’t Vsevolod in Nishevatz, by the gods?” he demanded.

The answer was what he’d feared. The scout said, “Because Prince Vasilko’s cast him out.” Grus cursed again. He’d come too late. The man the Banished One backed had seized the city.

CHAPTER THREE

The more Lanius thought about it, the more he wondered why on earth he’d ever wanted to rule Avornis. Too much was happening too fast, and not enough of it was good. Prince Ulash’s ambassador now waited in a hostel only a couple of blocks from the royal palace. Lanius didn’t want to have anything to do with the fellow, whose name was Farrukh-Zad. The king had sent quiet orders to delay the envoy’s arrival as much as possible. He’d hoped Grus would get back and deal with the fellow. But Grus had troubles of his own in the north.

His father-in-law couldn’t do much about the Menteshe while he was campaigning up in the Chernagor country. And the news Grus sent back from the north wasn’t good. About half the Chernagors seemed to welcome