Red Tide (61 page)

“You know this means war, don't you?” he said. “Between Galitia and Mercerie. When my father finds out you took me—”

“He'll do nothing,” Ocarn cut him off. “You forget, I left Mercerie only two weeks ago, which meant I was there when word arrived of the attack on Majack.” He stepped closer. “Your people are weak. Weaker now than they've ever been. You think your father will risk a fight while he's threatened by Garat Hallon and the Kinevar? And by the time those threats are resolved, if indeed they ever are, I'll have likely taken my father's throne and struck at Galitia myself.”

Ebon held back a smile. Everything Ocarn had said was true, but Ebon had never believed that war was a possibility. That hadn't been the purpose of his question.
When my father finds out,
he'd said, and Ocarn hadn't tried to deny that Isanovir
would
find out. And who alone knew enough of what had happened here in Gilgamar to carry word home to Galitia?

Vale.

Meaning the Endorian had not been captured.

Time for me to do some taunting of my own.
“You, on Mercerie's throne?” he said. “Sounds like my father will have you just where he wants you.”

Ocarn gave a chill smile. “Well, well. It seems the cock hasn't completely lost his crow. Let's see what we can do about that.” He gestured to his man behind Ebon. “Hold him.”

“Are you sure you've got that right?” Ebon said. “Are you sure it shouldn't be you doing the holding and your man the punching?”

The Mercerien laughed. “That's funny. I like that. Tell you what, you keep the lines coming. We'll see if they can outlast my punches.”

“Or you could try taking a run up this time,” Ebon suggested. “Get some extra force behind the blow.”

Ocarn did not reply. Instead he flexed his fingers. His cheeks were flushed, and Ebon wanted him hot if that meant he'd hold nothing back when he threw his next punch.

Because when that punch came, a wall of Ebon's sorcery would be waiting to meet it.

*   *   *

Senar descended the ladder into the bake-oven air of the
Eternal
's hold. The stench of bilge greeted him, and there was a smell of rot too. He stepped down onto the planking above the bilge and turned. An Erin Elalese soldier held a lantern. By its smoky light, Senar saw a wall of barrels and casks to his left. To his right was the mizzenmast where it descended through the ceiling to join the keel below. Beyond, the vertical beams supporting the orlop deck faded into darkness, black like the trunks of burned trees.

Above the creak of shifting wood, Senar heard the scratch of rats' claws, the metallic thud of the hull bumping into the quay. He stepped forward to make room for Kolloken behind. At the base of the wall of barrels, bodies had been piled into a mound of flesh and gore.
Rubyholters.
Among them were women and children. All had had their throats cut. Flies buzzed about.

To one side was a smaller heap of four corpses, all wearing gray cloaks—presumably the Revenants who'd been guarding the quay at which the
Eternal
was docked. Their throats, too, had been cut. Crouching next to the bodies was the Revenant subcommander, Twist, his expression as dark as the bruises on his face. A few paces away, standing beside the lantern bearer, was the Erin Elalese water-mage Jelek. His skin glistened with sweat. As his gaze met Senar's, he put a sweet in his mouth. His teeth were brown and rotten.

“Who found the bodies?” the Guardian asked.

The lantern bearer grunted responsibility.

“And?”

The man looked at Jelek as if seeking permission to talk, but the mage just stared back. After a pause the lantern bearer said, “Me and Cutter. We were following that Hex guy down from the Alcazar. He left maybe a bell ago. We watched him skip down the quay and across the gangplank”—he glanced at Twist—“but we couldn't see any Gray Cloaks standing guard. That got us thinking. So we went to check up on our lads in the Bloodfish.”

“The Bloodfish?”

“The inn at the end of the wharf. Couple of our boys have been keeping an eye on the ship—you know, watching the Gray Cloaks' backs, and all. Well, we get to their room and find them dead, their throats cut just like these. So we thought maybe we should take a look round the ship, find out what's been going down.”

Jelek popped another sweet into his mouth, then pointed to the larger pile of corpses. “These-a souls,” he said in his singsong voice, “must be the Rubyholters who sailed the ship from Bezzle. Looks-a like the stone-skins kept hostages belowdecks to guarantee the sailors' cooperation, then killed them all to stop them a-talking.”

Made sense. That would also mean, Senar realized, that the Augerans and the Rubyholters were at war, for the notion of Galantas lending his ship to the stone-skins was irreconcilable with the presence of hostages on board. He wondered if Galantas's corpse would be found in the pile. “Easy enough to kill the Rubyholters unwitnessed,” he said. “But what about the Revenants? Someone must have seen or heard something.”

“Not that they're admitting to,” the lantern bearer said.

“You asked at the inn?”

“Aye.”

Kolloken said, “If our lads at the Bloodfish had seen someone attack the Gray Cloaks, they would have hollered.”

Senar nodded. “Meaning the Augerans must have silenced the Erin Elalese in the inn first. But how? I doubt they get so many stone-skins round here that a few more wouldn't have caught the eye.”

“Maybe there weren't no stone-skins to see. Maybe they had friends working for them. Gilgamarian friends.”

“Maybe.” The Guardian turned back to the pile of gray-cloaked corpses. “But that doesn't explain how four Revenants got butchered without anyone noticing.”

Twist looked up from his crouch. “If their throats were cut, they must've been taken by surprise. But they were stationed on the quay. Ain't no way someone could have crept up on them without them seein'.” He flashed a look at Jelek like he wondered whether the culprits were Erin Elalese.

It was a possibility, Senar had to concede. For while the Gray Cloaks wouldn't have counted Avallon's men as friends, they wouldn't have counted them as enemies either, to be kept always at spear's length. And if Breakers
had
slain the mercenaries, that would explain why the Erin Elalese soldiers in the Bloodfish hadn't raised the alarm … if not why those soldiers had themselves been killed.

No, it had to be the stone-skins.

“Was there any blood on the quay?” Senar asked.

“No,” the lantern bearer said.

“Then maybe the Gray Cloaks weren't killed there. Maybe they were lured onto the ship.”

Twist frowned as if the suggestion was a slight to his men's professionalism. “All four of them?”

It did seem unlikely, but what part of this mess didn't?

The pitch of the deck made the pile of Rubyholt bodies move. A young woman slid to the boards, causing a cloud of flies to rise into the gloom. Senar tugged at his collar. The heat was making it difficult to think. “No matter how or where the Gray Cloaks were killed, the stone-skins would have needed numbers to do it. So where are they all?” He turned to the lantern bearer. “You searched the ship?”

The man nodded.

“Search it again.”

“Search it yourself. They ain't here, I'm telling you.”

“A group of stone-skins doesn't just walk down the quay and blend into the scenery.”

Kolloken said, “Maybe they lowered a barge over the side and rowed to another part of the harbor.”

The lantern bearer spat on the boards. “Already thought of that. The ship's still got its full complement of boats.”

“So maybe they brought another with them to throw us off the scent.”

Jelek chewed thoughtfully on another sweet. The light from the lantern caught sparkles in his metal piercings. “If they took a barge, they still had to come ashore somewhere.”

An idea surfaced in Senar's head. “Unless they went through the Neck and left the harbor.”

Could that be it? Had the stone-skins feared Avallon would seize them, and so slipped away while no one was looking? The Guardian wasn't buying it, and judging by the expressions of those around him, neither were his companions. If the Augerans' intent had been solely to flee the city, why dispose of the Rubyholters?

“Daylight,” Senar said, his voice betraying his bemusement. “How did they do this in daylight without a soul noticing?”
Unless …
“When did they dock this morning?”

“A bell before dawn,” Kolloken said. “The harbormaster lowered the chains for them specially.”

“Meaning it was dark when they arrived. Could they have slipped away then?”

“They could have done, but then who killed the Gray Cloaks and our boys? They ain't been dead that long. And why did Hex come down to the ship
now
? Odds are, it's because he meant to disappear with his friends—maybe even help them do it.”

Twist straightened. “The hows of it will have to wait,” he said. “First we got to find out where the bastards went. Because if they're still in Gilgamar, the fact they didn't wait till tonight to pull this stunt means there's somethin' going down—and going down soon.” He looked from Senar to Jelek. “The chica and the emperor must be told.”

*   *   *

Ocarn threw a punch at Ebon's head, putting his whole body into it, twisting for leverage.

To the sound of cracking bones, his hand struck a wall of Ebon's sorcery and buckled. Such was Ocarn's momentum, his elbow followed through to strike the shield too. He let out a wail of pain, staggered back a pace, and fell to his knees. He seemed to collapse in upon himself, curling up round the blood-smeared hand now clutched to his chest.

Hurts, does it?

Ebon didn't give Ocarn's men a chance to react. Dropping his sorcerous barrier, he gathered his Will and lashed out. Not at Ocarn or at his own bonds—none of his powers could be used to sever them—but at one of the windows to his left.

Glass and shutters exploded outward with a splintering roar. Such was the force of the detonation, the stones around the window were torn loose as well to leave a jagged hole. There was a grating, settling sound, followed by the patter of falling mortar and splinters of wood. Clouds of dust billowed up. Above Ocarn's gurgling whimpers came distant screams, questioning shouts. A good sign, Ebon decided, for even if Vale wasn't already waiting outside, a blast like that was sure to draw him.

Or more of Ocarn's guards, perhaps.

Ebon, expecting the Mercerien guard behind him to strike, threw himself left. His chair jerked free of the man's grasp and teetered on two legs before toppling. The room pitched. Ebon tensed his neck muscles to stop his head hitting the floor. Instead it was his left shoulder that took the impact, sending a spike of pain along his arm.

The room stretched tall above him. Through the hole in the wall he saw hazy shapes in the dust. He waited with held breath for one to resolve itself into Vale, but the shapes weren't moving. It dawned on him then that he didn't know what lay beyond the wall. He'd been dragged into a room at the rear of the embassy. Did the building back onto a road? A courtyard? He cocked his head, straining to hear a crunch of wood or glass that would indicate approaching footsteps. Nothing. He thought to call for help, but the destruction of the window was surely call enough. If Vale hadn't heard that, he wouldn't hear Ebon's shout either.

From behind him came a ringing of steel as swords were drawn from their scabbards. Ebon glanced at Ocarn, still on his knees. The Mercerien looked through the hole in the wall, clearly conscious of the risk posed by Vale. Let him look. His men wouldn't move against Ebon without his say-so, and every heartbeat he spent watching was another heartbeat for Vale to get here.

Then the spell broke. Ocarn shook his head to clear it.

Ebon needed a way to slow him down—to buy Vale more time. “It's not too late to end this,” he said to Ocarn. “Release me now and we can—”

Ocarn's growl cut him off. “Xable,” he said to one of his men, “get him out of here.” He nodded toward Ebon, then clambered upright, cradling his injured hand. “You others, drag that desk over to the wall and block the hole.”

Oh no you don't.

Gathering his power again, Ebon struck out at Ocarn. The blow lacked the force of the strike that had shattered the window, but it was enough to send the Mercerien reeling backward. He tripped over the rolled-up rug and fell against the desk. Then the rug slid from under his feet, and he slumped to the floor.

Something thumped into the side of Ebon's chair—a weapon most likely. One of Ocarn's men must have aimed a blow at him, but the chair stole the force of the attack, so that when it hit Ebon in the ribs, it only bumped rather than cut. He lashed out behind with his power. Facing the wrong way as he was, he couldn't see who he was aiming at. With his assailant so close, though, he couldn't miss, and he was rewarded with a hiss of expelled air, a clatter of metal on stone.

Ocarn was back on his feet. With his left hand he drew a dagger—

Vale's battle cry, sped up to double time, seemed to warble as the Endorian leapt through the hole in the wall. His sword, held two-handed, struck sparks off the stone to one side. He slipped as he landed on the carpet of glass and splinters, took a wobbling step to get his balance. An eyeblink was all he needed to read the room. Then he flashed to engage the soldiers behind Ebon, his movements so fast they appeared jerky.

Ebon liked his odds better all of a sudden.

A part of him expected Ocarn to run for the door, but instead the Mercerien surged forward. Light glinted off his knife. If he reached Ebon, he could hold the blade to his throat, make Vale stand down until more guards arrived.