Sword of Fire and Sea (The Chaos Knight Book One) (16 page)

When they emerged at last on the ground floor of the temple and staggered out onto the stone courtyard, two pairs of familiar golden-painted wings were waiting. “Kaltak! Ishrak!” Vidarian shouted.

The two brothers, harnessed again to the little “flying boat” (as Vidarian had come to think of it), parted their beaks in welcome, feathers rousing—but they clacked shut again and smoothed, all business, when Thalnarra roared out onto the courtyard behind them. The acolyte who had harnessed the two harrier gryphons started babbling at Thalnarra in confusion when she saw the gryphon priestess's flaming aura and battle-raised feathers, and Thalnarra curtly ordered her back into the temple, lifting her own lead harness with her claws and climbing into it by herself.

//
We meet again, brother!
// Kaltak welcomed cheerfully, oblivious to his commanding officer and the acolyte.

The acolyte fled, shouting, back into the temple, just meeting Endera and the two Vkorthans as they emerged.

//
Up
, // Thalnarra barked, and the three gryphons leapt into the air, leaving Ariadel and Vidarian to scramble into the craft behind them. In moments, they were aloft. //
Shield yourselves
, // Thalnarra warned, and auras of fire leapt up around Kaltak, Ishrak, and Ariadel. Vidarian clumsily followed suit, but his blended energy made things difficult—the water pulled at the fire, which snapped back at the water. The strange buzzing he'd felt over the Vkorthan island filled his mind again, and that strange murmur, the wordless song that brought to mind Aleha's wild eyes.

You're doing well
, Ariadel encouraged, and he worked to focus words back at her:
Where are we going?

“To sea,” she shouted, and Thalnarra cried a piercing agreement. “To Val Harlon, and the
Quest.
To my father.”

T

//
You're no good to her dead.
// Thalnarra spoke his thought, but in her voice it was with pungent irony, and more of that predatory focus that made the small mammal inside his brain want to find cover.

Below, the twisting river marked their path to Val Harlon, perched on the horizon and marked by the sparkle of the western sea and the sun that arced slowly toward it as late afternoon advanced into evening. The two younger gryphons flew unevenly, even to Vidarian's ill-practiced eye, but Thalnarra's determined, angry wingbeats kept them from voicing any question, at least where their passengers could hear. Feather-tipped ears flicked back toward them now and then with what could have been speculation or silent conversation with their leader.

“I should have known Endera was capable of this,” Ariadel said, breaking him out of his contemplation of gryphon and skyview. “But I didn't.” Her eyes and her voice were full of hopelessness that cut at his heart, and he shifted carefully in the basket to wrap an arm around her.

“This whole business blew off course long ago,” he said. “If I'd had my father's business sense, I'd have seen Endera was angling to betray us.” A laugh escaped him, hard and bitter, and Ariadel squinted askance. “Marielle,” he said, battling a surge of guilt and the flash of anger that came with it. “She said fire priestesses were trouble, before all this started.”

“Well, they are,” Ariadel said, all lightness, but her fists clenched and unclenched for just a moment.

“There are many in your family?”

“No, actually,” she said, surprising him. “I'm the first in several generations.”

“But I thought—“ he began, but stiffened when she gasped, staring fixedly at his neck. “What—?”

“Hold still!” Her hand darted out to brush his collarbone, then came back, curled. She cupped it with her other hand, and when she parted her fingers just enough for him to see, a tiny golden spider skittered across her curved palms.

“Not another one,” he said, beginning to be unnerved by the whole thing, in spite of considerably more shocking recent events.

“No, it's the same one,” Ariadel said, motioning with her elbow for him to dig through the craft's storage crates for something to keep it in. “Thalarra knocked over its enclosure, and it must have jumped onto you when we escaped.” He suppressed a shiver at the thought.

He found an oiled packet of string, but Ariadel vetoed it with a shake of her head. A tiny traveling tinderbox passed muster, and she gingerly emptied the spider into it, then tucked the box into a pocket of her robe. He didn't bother asking what in the world they were going to do with it on ship.

“My parents came from air and earth families,” she said, picking up the earlier, spider-free thread. “'Windhammer’ is a conjugate name. I have an aunt four generations back who was a fire priestess, but no one since.”

“Your family from air and earth,” he said, “mine from fire and water. Trouble, the lot of it.”

She laughed, and said, “My father will like you.”

“Your father,” he said, remembering her instructions to Thalnarra. “Why are we going to see him? And where?”

“The Selturians, and he can help you,” she said. “He's a magus. An Air monk.”

“What?” Vidarian was stunned. “I've only read about them. I thought they were all gone.” A male element-wielder…

“He's one of the last. The priestesshood doesn't like to admit he exists.” Ariadel smiled sadly and seemed about to say more, but Thalnarra called out from ahead.

//
Angling down.
// With her words she sent a dizzyingly sharp mental image—via gryphon-enhanced eye—of the shoreline, just now coming into view. They squinted against the sun, and what Vidarian caught sight of made his gut clench with anger.

“Is that what I think it is?” he shouted up to Thalnarra.

//
Yes. They've surrounded your ship.
// Another mental picture, impossibly detailed from this distance: the
Quest
, Marielle at the port bow, her sword arm raised angrily—while the knife-prowed messenger craft of the fire temple hedged the ship in from all sides. //
I doubt they intend to let you board.
//

“She'll not steal my ship from me—“ Vidarian snarled, a white rage bubbling up in him now. Elemental priestess or not, Endera had gone too far.

“Not that I disagree,” Ariadel murmured, in a tone he'd begun to recognize meant she was trying to defuse a situation that she recognized as unreasonable, “but at the moment we have a question of resources. Not even the five of us can succeed against so many ships and priestesses—if we try, they'll have us back on the mountain by nightfall.”

//
She's right
, // Thalnarra said, breaking over his immediate argument like a drenching tide. //
You must focus on what you need, not what you want.
//

“We need to get to sea,” Ariadel said, again her voice calm, persuasive. “We don't necessarily need the
Quest
—yet.”

In his fury, Vidarian couldn't mask a flash of recognition as he caught sight of another ship on the edge of the harbor.

“What's that?” Ariadel followed his sightline, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “You know that ship?”

“I might,” he prevaricated. “It's been a long time.”

“Thalnarra, can you land us close to the harbor but outside the city?”

//
There's an inlet north of the harbor—we can take you to the shore there.
//

As one, the gryphons banked, tipping their right wings down while their lefts went up, catching the wind coming in off the ocean. The flying craft tilted sharply and Vidarian and Ariadel scrambled for purchase; soon they were angling around the southeastern edge of the city, turning northwest. The broad loop would keep them out of eyesight of Endera's messenger ships, and perhaps buy them a little time before discovery.

They landed in a long clearing flanked by a stand of coastal pine and then the shore beyond. Vidarian thought that Thalnarra would remain and see them to their destination, but she didn't move.

//
We must go to our flight at once
, // she said, her mind still clenched with thought and anger as it had been since Kara'zul. //
There's much I must discuss regarding our alliance with the priestesshood.
//

“Thalnarra—” Ariadel began.

//
This is beyond your reach, Priestess
, // Thalnarra said, and an apologetic softness only just took the sting out of her words, but Ariadel lowered her head, chastened. //
Endera does not yet know what she's set in motion. But I suspect neither do you two.
// Some of her old humor was back at this last, and Vidarian managed a brief smile.

“Charnak; vikktu ari lashuul
,” Vidarian said, and Kaltak let out a trilling whoop of approval.

Thalnarra's voice was warmer, but still guarded. //
Your memory proves excellent again.
// She reared back and stretched her wings, then folded them again. //
I could wish we would not need that particular blessing, but fear that we shall.
//

//
And we extend it to you also.
// Ishrak, smallest of the three creatures and usually quietest, gave this solemnly, and the other two nodded, an odd expression from beaked faces.

//
Good luck to you. We will meet again soon, goddess willing.
// Thalnarra's voice, Vidarian realized, was comforting, like a crackling fire in autumn. He would miss it.

They stepped back as the three gryphons first shook out their feathers—beginning with the tips of their beaks and extending all the way to the plumes at the ends of their leonine tails—and then began to beat their wings in preparation for taking to the air. Ariadel and Vidarian watched, taking in the wonder of powerful muscle and feather, until they completed a tight upward spiral and disappeared over the trees to the southeast.

As they watched from the north shore of the harbor, Val Harlon went about its business with tranquil ordinariness. Ships passed in and out of the harbor, queued for inspectors, were shuttled in and out of drydock. The dull thud of carpenters’ hammers echoed off the shoreline here, where the soundest trees had long ago been cut back for ship lumber.

Vidarian knew some of the ships, but none sufficient for the kind of favor they needed: a sea journey across the Outwater. Grudgingly, he told Ariadel as much.

“What was that ship you recognized? Out on the harbor's edge?”

“It's called the
Viere d'Inar,”
he said, knowing the name itself would mean nothing to her.

“Is that Velinese?”

“Yes,” he said, impressed. “It means ‘the crown of the sea.'”

“Rather ostentatious.”

“It comes by the name honestly.”

Ariadel squinted at him. “What aren't you wanting to say?”

Vidarian drew in a deep breath and held it, then exhaled fast. “It's a Sea Kingdom ship. A close ally of my family's.”

“Then we should speak with the captain!”

“It might not be so simple.” Gods, this was tortuous. But better, he decided finally, to have it all out at once. “Her name is Roana. Years ago, her mother and my parents thought that she and I should marry to cement a business alliance.”

Ariadel blinked. “Oh.”

Vidarian soldiered on. “She's the West Sea Queen now, after her mother.” Ariadel's eyes widened even as he felt a pang at the words—Rhiannon had died when they were teenagers in some sort of duel. “Once she became the Sea Queen so young, a business alliance became far beneath her station.”

“Isn't it dangerous for her to be here?”

“Probably. But the Sea Kingdoms are peculiar. If she were to show weakness, a fear of a particular port, no matter how reasonable, she could be challenged and even overthrown.”

Ariadel looked out over the water, to the far side of the harbor and the
Viere.
It was a large ship—half again larger than the
Quest
, truly a queen of the waves. Strong and formidable, even in the Outwater. He saw Ariadel making these calculations, eyeing the other ships in the harbor, turning at last to face him again. “I think we should ask her. I don't think we have a choice.”

“We can't afford to linger in the city,” he said, “but I can at least look around in the shipyard. Could be there are other friends here.”

“We have little to bargain with,” she reminded him, and he nodded. “This could be fortune.”

“Or more ill luck,” he agreed glumly, ire still tickling the back of his eyes whenever he caught sight of the
Quest
, so close and yet impossibly out of reach.

The shipyard of Val Harlon was run by an old ship's carpenter known to the Rulorats—he'd even repaired the
Quest
a time or two. Stimson Allanmark seemed to have been crushed by the weight of the sun over his years, and had handled so much tar it now marked a permanent dappling on his hands and forearms. His beard, knotted with sea air, gave him a perpetually put-upon expression that made it difficult to tell when he was being friendly.