Mystic: A Book of Underrealm (13 page)

“You almost had her! Keep going!” cried Loren.

“She can halt my magic just as I can stall hers.” Xain sounded wearier than Loren had ever heard him, even when they rode without sleep during their flight from Jordel. The magestones flashed into her mind, but she dared not suggest them to Xain in the open, where Brimlad would surely hear.
 

With one hand firmly on the rail, Xain reached the other forwards and plucked at the air. A stream of water erupted from the river’s surface, and when the wizard lifted his arm the stream rose ever higher. It faltered as Vivien made a gesture, but he swept upwards again and the stream resumed. With a hiss, it crashed upon the Yerrin ship’s two great sails, soaking them straight through.

“Heavy sails won’t slow them enough, boy,” cried Brimlad. “That ship is made for the sea.”

“Heavy sails, no.” Xain’s clutching fingers tightened into a fist, which he dragged to his waist.
 

Water in the sails coalesced, forming something almost solid, like ice but warm. It dragged down the sails and ripped into the canvas. Soon both sails hung limp and listless in the air. Slowly, the ship fell back as Brimlad’s boat sailed on.

The captain and Loren shouted in victory, but their elation quickly died. A moment later, the ship’s sides sprang a dozen wooden spars, like the arms of a spider sprouting from its carapace. They plunged into the river and swept backwards—oars rowing them forward. Vivien’s eyes brightened, and Loren looked up to see a hole appear in their own sail. A few fingers, dragging downwards and spreading.

“No!” Xain thrust his left hand at the sail and shouted a foreign word. The hole stopped moving. With his right hand he swept at the Mystic and spoke again. A blast of water and air nearly threw her from the foredeck.

The Yerrin ship drew closer still, now powered by its oars. With Vivien fighting Xain’s hurricane, he summoned forth a beam of flame. It slammed into the hull of the Yerrin vessel just above the water and then vanished, leaving a blackened smudge of charred wood behind it. Xain tried again, but Vivien thwarted him once more. Worse, Loren could see him swaying. The wizard was nearly dead on his feet.

The time for caution was past. “Xain! You need Annis!”

He risked a glance over his shoulder, but Loren could read nothing in the white glow of his eyes. “Very well,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Loren dove for the hatch leading into the ship’s belly. She found Gem and Annis cowering in the corner. Gem had his head buried in Annis’s shoulder, and his front was covered in vomit. Annis held him tightly, trying to reassure him, but her eyes were equally terrified.
 

“A magestone. Give it to me. Just one.”

Annis looked at Loren with vacant eyes.

“Now, Annis! Or we are all dead!”

Her shout shoved Annis into motion. The girl dug in her pocket. The cloth packet spilled as she opened it, and black crystals scattered the floor. Thankfully, none broke. Annis snatched one up and held it out.

Loren took it without a word and ran to Xain’s side. He summoned no magic but held his hands out in warding. Loren could see no result, but imagined he must be suspending the Mystic.

She gripped the rail beside him while offering the magestone, holding it before his body where Brimlad could not see. “Here,” she said, quiet and urgent.

Through gritted teeth, he said, “Break it in half, and put one piece between my lips.”

Loren gripped the magestone and bent. To her surprise, it broke as easily as a sliver of carrot. She lifted one piece and put it into his mouth. The wizard crushed it between his teeth.

Loren did not know what to expect but jumped when the glow in Xain’s eyes turned to a horrible black. His body shuddered, shoulders trembling under his coat.
 

His body grew still, the look on his face almost serene. He swept his arms in a calm, even gesture.
 

Every sound died. Vivien was now too far for Loren to see her face, but she saw the Mystic’s arms jerk back as if shocked.
 

Xain’s hand turned to claws, and from each sprang a white-hot beam of light. It licked the air like fire, glowing white like the sun.
 

The fire tore through the ship’s hull, and with a sweep of his arms Xain ripped twenty feet from the ship’s waterline.
 

Steam plumed where flame met water, and Loren saw many crewmen on the ship recoil from the insufferable heat.

But Xain had not finished.
 

With another sweep of his hands, he sent long tendrils of water shooting up to wrap Vivien’s legs and haul her over the rail, dragging her under the river’s surface with a lingering scream.

“Xain!” Loren seized the wizard and spun him around.

She could see no emotion in his black eyes, but the furious twist of his mouth nearly stopped her. Then the glow vanished, and Xain’s face returned to normal.

“She lives,” said Xain. “See?”

He pointed, and Loren saw Vivien’s red hood bobbing in the water. The Mystic sputtered and cried out. A crewman threw her a rope. But the ship listed to the side, drifting towards the shore—or mayhap the captain steered it there, for it seemed clear the beast would soon sink.
 

Loren sighed with relief. “Good. The last thing we need is to stir even greater wrath from the Mystics. The family Yerrin seems intent enough on catching us already.”

“And of course, we would have broken your precious
rule,”
said Xain, his voice twisting on the word. Loren looked at the wizard again, but now he seemed calm. Mayhap she had imagined his scorn.

Brimlad looked over his shoulder at the two of them and at the ship slowly sinking into the water, now drawing farther and farther away. “Good work indeed, lad. How on earth did you manage it? I knew you were something special amongst your kind, but this . . .”

Xain met Loren’s eyes, and she knew his mind:
Do not speak of it.
“The Mystic is uncommonly strong. But not so strong as I. We were fortunate.”

“Fortunate indeed,” said Loren.

Soon, the river twisted, and Loren lost sight of the Yerrin vessel just before it reached land. Brimlad pushed the tiller and brought them to the river’s center, and under a hot sun they sailed on for Wellmont.

sixteen

THEY SAW NO OTHER SHIPS after leaving Vivien’s vessel stranded upon the riverbank. Nor did they see any ship ahead for the next two days. It made for eerily quiet sailing, all the more unsettling for the violence that had preceded it.

They were still without food, and no effort of Loren’s could produce any fish from the river’s flowing waters. Late in the afternoon, Xain managed to snatch one from the water with his magic, but the effort left him so weak that he could hardly stand. Under Brimlad’s strict orders, he retired belowdecks and remained there all that day and the next.

Just after dawn, on the second day following the wizards’ duel, they at last drew near to Wellmont. Loren woke with the sun, too famished for sleep. Hunger and fatigue had worked her hard. When she cupped water in her hands and looked upon her reflection, she was shocked by the hollows in her cheeks. She had just begun to prepare herself for another day spent lying on the deck, trying not to move or think of anything akin to food, when she heard the captain’s gruff voice.

“What under the sky . . .”

Something in his tone pulled Loren’s attention from her growling stomach, and she wandered listlessly to his side. Brimlad looked to the horizon ahead. Following his gaze she saw a black cloud sitting low in the sky, long tendrils reaching down, like fingers sinking into the land.

“A storm?” Loren could do little more than mumble.

“I would wager not,” said Brimlad. “Not the right season, and it moves up.”

“What, then?”
 

“Smoke,” said Brimlad, “from many fires, or one of great size.”

Loren remembered the mercenary army she had seen with Jordel, and fear squeezed her heart.

Gem and Annis rose shortly. Xain remained below; he hardly roused from slumber now. Together, they stood upon the deck, watching the cloud slowly swallow the sky.

“Perhaps it is only from the city’s fires,” said Gem. “Surely, they must have smiths and chimneys.”

“I have sailed this river most of my life, boy,” said Brimlad. “For Wellmont to make that much smoke, you would have to set the place ablaze. And look—’tis too far south.”

Loren could not see more than a few miles upriver, but it seemed the captain spoke true; they were heading quite a ways north from where the smoke cloud sat upon the horizon. That, at least, heartened her. The city was not burning.

But her heart fell again when they drew at last within sight of Wellmont’s great rivergate, and saw the army waiting upon its doorstep.

Loren had thought the mercenaries a mighty force. They were many hundreds strong—more people than she had ever seen in once place, more even than on the streets of Cabrus. But the army stretching before her now dwarfed the force of sellswords. Men and horses clustered so tightly that they ceased to appear as individuals—instead, moving like swarms of insects across the land. They stood well beyond the range of bowshot from the city walls, waiting for something—but they were not idle. Up and down the lines, men were walking left and right, the army arranging itself, preparing to march forth into battle.

“A siege,” said Brimlad, though it hardly needed saying.

“Who are they?” asked Gem with a quivering voice.
 

“Dorseans,” said Annis. “See? They wear red and yellow.”

Loren saw it now. Neither bright nor proud, these men wore colors smeared with mud, and mayhap darker things. Only their banners still hung high and clean, whipping in the wind as the air batted them about.

“Some border skirmish, then?” said Loren. “I have heard that Dorsea enjoys making war upon Selvan’s southern cities and towns, trying to reclaim land they have long considered their own. They say the people here have grown used to it.”

“Open your eyes, girl,” said Brimlad. “That is no border raiding party. ’Tis a force of conquest. They mean to take the city before marching north into Selvan.”

“But . . . but they cannot do that,” said Loren. “The High King would never allow it.”

“The High King is countless leagues away and like as not has heard nothing of this yet.” Annis’s face was grim, and Loren saw steel in her eyes that looked too much like her mother’s. “The Dorseans will take care that no word of this escapes the city. The High King will hear nothing until the campaign is all but over and the time for arms in response has passed.”
 

“And then what?” said Loren.

“Then it will be easier to do nothing,” said Annis with a sigh. “The High King will censure the Dorseans, to be sure, but what more can he do? She would not muster the other kingdoms against them. Some king’s minor conquests are hardly worth civil war.”

Gem looked at her with wide eyes, his lips parted in wonder. “How do you know this?”

“I have lived upon the Seat all my life,” Annis said. “I learned these games before most children learn dice. There are always kings hungry for power, and families such as mine must learn to use that craving for our ends.”

“My respect for you grows, girl,” Gem muttered.

“And mine, but respect will not gain us the rivergate nor a bite to eat,” said Brimlad. “If the city is besieged, they will have sealed the gates. What is more, if the Dorseans have half an ounce of sense, they will have placed a blockade on the river. We cannot reach Wellmont.”

“What?” said Loren. “What shall we do, then? We are close to starving.”

“You think I know this not, girl? I have more belly to lose than the three of you together,” the captain growled. “We shall put on the shore and see if we can enter the city from the north. Mayhap we can wait within while the Kings sort their differences.”

“No!” said Loren. “We cannot stay within the city, not any longer than we must.”

“Are you afraid it will be sacked? Worry not,” said Brimlad. “The Dorseans will march through the gates, take Wellmont’s food and water, and move on. So goes warfare in the nine lands, girl, and I have seen enough to know its make.”

“They do not mean only to sack the city.”

“And what makes you so sure of that, Loren of the family Nelda?”

Xain’s voice startled her. She turned to see him standing at the hatch that led belowdecks, leaning heavily upon the jamb, dark bags hanging beneath his eyes. He looked worse than Loren, if that were possible.

Brimlad’s face turned grim. “You are not fit to be walking, Xain. Get back to bed. You have done enough.”

“I am fine,” the wizard said, and to Loren’s surprise she believed him. His body was weak, but he had strength in his voice. And his eyes, though pained, pierced her like a hawk’s. “I say again, girl: What do you know of Wellmont?”

Loren cleared her throat. “It is something I saw with Jordel.”

“Who?” said Brimlad.

“Another Mystic,” said Xain. “The girl is thick with them. Let her speak, Brimlad.”

But the captain erupted into a sputtering shout. “More Mystics? Sky above and sea below, I have had enough of this madness, Xain. All my life I have never found cause to tangle with their kind, and now you have brought me two in a week.”

“Only one,” said Xain. “Jordel is long behind us. We are fortunate in that, for he is more dangerous than the mentalist I vanquished. But I say again, let Loren speak.”

“As we rode south in search of you, we saw an army near the road. Sellswords they were, though Jordel seemed to think most were Dulmun men. We found them north of Redbrook, but they marched west. The Mystic thought they made for Wellmont.”

“I see,” said Xain. “So you fear their approach even now?”

“I believe they mean to catch Wellmont unawares while it fights another foe from the south. I think they mean to raze it.”

Brimlad scoffed again. “Or they might mean to force the city’s surrender. Surrounding a foe does not mean you wish to slaughter them all.”

“Jordel thought—”