Priestess of the White

They both chuckled. Leiard set the veez down on the seat. It began to beg for food again so Auraya opened her basket and brought out refreshments for them all. Then she read aloud the instructions for the toy and they speculated on the wisdom of teaching such tricks to the creature.

Too soon, the punt reappeared. Leiard waited until it was tied to the bollards before standing. He paused and looked down at her.

“When do you sail for Somrey?”

She shrugged. “That depends on whether I find an adviser. If I don’t, Mairae will probably go alone in a month or so.”

“If you do?”

“Sooner.”

He nodded, then turned and walked toward the punt. After a few steps he paused and looked back, smiled faintly and inclined his head.

“It was a pleasure talking to you, Auraya the White. I will accept this position you have offered me. When would you like me to meet with you?”

She stared at him in surprise. “What happened to spending some time in consideration?”

His shoulders lifted. “I just did.”

She looked at him closely. There was no sign of the turmoil that had filled his mind earlier. It seemed reason had overcome his fear, now that he’d had a chance to think about it.

“I’ll tell Juran you have accepted. When I need you to come to the Tower, I’ll send you a message.”

He nodded once. Turning away, he stepped down to the punt and folded himself onto the low seat. She nodded to the pole men, who tossed ropes onto the craft and stepped aboard. Soon they were pushing their way upstream, Leiard sitting calmly between them.

Watching them, Auraya considered the doubts she’d had. She’d feared he wouldn’t meet with her, but he had. She’d worried that the meeting would be awkward, but she’d felt as at ease with him as she always had. At the same time, she had anxiously wondered what his answer would be.

Now she had only to fret about the possibility that this whole arrangement might ruin their friendship.

When the punt had moved out of sight, Auraya called to Mischief, picked up her basket and started back toward the White Tower.

Fiamo swallowed the last of the spicewater and leaned back against the mast. He was feeling particularly pleased with himself, and it wasn’t just the effect of the liquor. Summer always brought bigger catches, but today’s had been better than the season’s average. He’d made a good sum of money.

He smiled to himself. Most would go to the crew when they got back - and his wife. But he had a mind to put a little aside to buy presents for his sons when he next took a trip northeast.

For now there was nothing to do but lounge around the pier of Meran. The wind had dropped off, and probably wouldn’t return until late afternoon. In the meantime it was promising to be one of those warm, lazy afternoons good for nothing but drinking with his crew.

His men were neighbors and family. He had worked with them for years, first as crew working with his father, now as captain since his father had died of lungrot five years before.

Fiamo felt the boat tilt fractionally and heard the sound of boots on the gangplank. He looked up and grinned as Old Marro stepped onto the deck, carrying an earthenware jug and a large flatloaf of bread.

“Supplies,” the man said. “Like you ordered.”

“About time,” Fiamo said gruffly. “I thought you’d—”

“Captain!” This came from Harro, the youngest of Fiamo’s crew - a neighbor’s son. Fiamo looked up at the boy, hearing uncertainty and warning in the young voice. Harro was standing at the prow, his eyes fixed on the small village.

“Eh?”

“There’s a... there’s a hunt of vorns coming down the road. Maybe ten of them.”

“There’s what?”

Fiamo clambered to his feet, and for a moment his vision blurred from spicewater and the sudden movement. As his sight cleared he saw what the boy had noticed. Meran was the largest port a local could reach in a day’s sailing, but it was small as far as villages went. A road began at the end of the pier and climbed steadily up into rolling hills. Coming down that road was a surging, leaping mass of black creatures.

“Gods protect us,” he gasped, and made the one-handed symbol of the circle. “Untie us. Ring the bell.”

He had seen a vorn once in the light of a full moon. It had been big, most likely enlarged in his eyes by his fear. These vorns were larger than his imagination had ever painted them. They seemed unperturbed by the sunlight, too. They were running down the road toward him in one sinuous black mass.

“Hurry up,” he snapped.

The crew had risen to see this impossible sight. At his words, they sprang to the ropes. Fiamo moved to the rail and shouted a warning to the other fishermen tied there. He felt his own boat rock as his men pushed it away from the pier. Harro rang the warning bell urgently.

Sails were unfurled, but remained slack. Fiamo realized his heart was pounding. He watched as the few villagers still outdoors in the small town sighted the coming mass of animals and fled inside their houses. The gap between his boat and the pier widened slowly. The length of road between the vorns and the pier was shrinking much faster.

“Oars!” he shouted.

Men scrambled to obey. As Fiamo stared at the advancing creatures they reached level ground. A shape appeared in the middle of them and he heard himself gasp in disbelief.

“A man! A man riding one of them!” Harro yelled.

At the same time, Fiamo felt the boat’s progress speed as oars dipped into the water on either side. He looked around the pier. The other boats, smaller and lighter, had made better progress. His was now the closest to the pier. Though he doubted even vorns of that size could leap the gap, something told him he was not out of danger yet.

The hunt spilled through the village like a black flood. Fiamo could see the rider better now, a man dressed in clothes like no commoner would wear. The boat was more than twenty strides from the pier and gathering speed as fear lent strength to the crew. The vorns ignored the houses. They loped onto the pier, then milled at the edge. The rider looked around at the fleeing boats, and his gaze returned to Fiamo’s. He raised a hand.

Fiamo drew in a breath, ready to defy the stranger’s order to return. No voice came across the water. Instead, the boat shuddered to a halt.

Then it rushed backward.

The oars jammed in their rings. Crew struggled uselessly with them. The boy gave a high-pitched shriek. Others cried out names of the gods. Fiamo crouched, paralyzed by terror, as his boat raced back to the shore like a woman who had just laid eyes on her lost love.

We‘re going to smash into the pier, he thought.

At the last moment, the boat slowed. Even before it bumped into the pier, vorns were leaping aboard. There were splashes on either side as those men who could swim dived into the water. I should go too, he thought, but he remained where he was. Cursed fool I am. I can’t bring myself to give up my boat so easily.

A thought had burrowed its way into his mind. If this man could control these beasts, then he had only the man to fear. A man could be bargained with.

Still, Fiamo’s heart thundered in his chest as the vorns surged past him, their tongues lolling in mouths lined with sharp teeth. A few circled him, but they did not leap for his throat. He turned as yells of pain came from behind, and cried out in dismay as he saw vorns with their jaws fixed on the arms and legs of crew, but they were dragging the men away from the railing, not pulling them to the deck. With their added weight the boat floated low in the water.

Hearing the sound of wood sliding over wood, Fiamo turned back to see the gangplank move, unaided by any human, to the edge of the deck. As it settled on the pier the stranger rode aboard. He slid off the back of his mount and turned to stare at Fiamo.

“Captain,” the man said in a strange accent. “Tell crew take oars.”