The Assassin's Edge (Einarinn 5) (25 page)

The waters narrowed as the land advanced on either side, hills leaning ever closer to the strait’s edge. The trees were taller than our mast and here and there an outcrop of dark rock hung ominous overhead. Sailors in the
Eryngo
’s crow’s-nests looked in all directions for any sign of the enemy. Lookouts in the prow fixed their eyes on the shadowed waters, searching for reefs and skerries. The
Dulse
and
Fire Minnow
slid stealthily in our wake, their sister ships
Asterias
and
Nenuphar
not far behind.

“Allin, we’re nearly there.” I was counting off the landmarks we’d scried for along the inlet.

“I’m ready.” She made to untie her gore-smeared apron.

“No, keep that on,” I told her. It wasn’t much of a disguise but it might keep the enemy from picking out the mage among the ordinary folk on deck. “How well can you see from here?”

Allin frowned. “Not very.”

“Try standing on the steps to the rear deck.” I didn’t want her up in plain view on the sterncastle but, Drianon curse it, the girl was unhelpfully short. Guinalle began ordering the lightly injured to carry the worst wounded below decks, her face grim but her hands steady as she folded them on the plaited cord girdle at her waist.

“Sail ho!”

After a frozen instant, the cry set everyone about their allotted tasks. Temar, Ryshad and Halice had gone over this plan time and again and if anyone fouled their duty, I’d personally see that they got to explain themselves to Saedrin.

The first of the signal flags, red saltire on a white ground, ran up the mast, rope humming like an angry hornet. The four coastal ships fanned out from behind the
Eryngo
, blocking the seaway. As we swung around rocks long since tumbled down from a shattered cliff, I saw the first of the pirate ships flying a scarlet pennant with a black snake twisting down its length. The shark at the beakhead below the bowsprit identified it as the
Spurdog
and it looked unholy imposing in these confined waters.

The deck was cleared but for Kellarin’s fighting men ready and eager for action. Guinalle joined me by the doors to the stern cabins while Allin perched on the broad treads of the ladder-like stair to the afterdeck. The wizard-woman’s eyes fixed on the slowly approaching vessel with burning determination. Longboats surged out from behind the
Spurdog
, each packed with pirates, blades cutting bright swathes in the sunlight. The oars dug deep into the water as the rowers fought the strengthening run of the tide.

“Gently,” murmured Guinalle.

“I know.” Allin’s attention was fixed on the raiders’ ship.

I held myself ready, for just what I couldn’t say. I had nothing to say and nothing to do.

The
Spurdog
’s longboats spread out like a pack of wolves intent on harrying some hapless deer but our flotilla was carefully placed to deny the pirates passage past us in one of the narrowest parts of the strait. Then the foremost longboat lurched abruptly as if it had hit a rock hidden beneath the dark water. The man with the rudder yelled rebuke at the man in the prow whose protestations were lost beneath cries of alarm as the boat shuddered again but there was no sound of wood grating on stone. The one behind it stopped dead in unyielding water while a longboat on its other side rocked violently from side to side, wale dipping beneath the water. Some struck out for shore as the boat sank, a few disappearing as the weight of blades and boots dragged them under the glassy waters. Others had no luck seeking help from their fellows. Hands reaching up were met with kicks and pommels smashing grasping fingers. Three or four men reached one longboat together but trying to haul themselves aboard all at once they overturned it, casting the entire complement into the water in a confusion of shouts and curses.

“They’re doing Shiv’s job for him.” I tried to see beyond the pirate vessel but it was impossible to get a clear view. No matter, not as long as we held all their attention to the front.

Allin was still intent on the
Spurdog
. Some sailors were casting ropes and nets over the sides, shouting at men struggling in the water. More crew were aloft, trying to rig sail but the canvas was fighting back, tugged this way and that by hostile winds, ropes snatched out of questing hands, billows snapping in all directions. We were sailing on a gentle breeze just strong enough to give us headway but the pirates found themselves attacked by their very own private storm. With a crack like a thunderbolt, the great stay cables that controlled the flex of the masts snapped. One lashed a man who fell screaming to the deck. Another pirate was snared in the rigging and strangled as he lost his footing. As more ropes snapped, the solid wooden pulleys and blocks swung like morning stars to smash flesh and bone. The raiders abandoned all thought of setting sail, hanging on like Poldrion’s demons to masts now swaying wildly and creaking ominously.

“There!” Guinalle pointed in the same instant as another shout from on high and the second signal flag shot up its lanyard, gold cross on a red ground. The pirates were sending in their second ship.

“Ready, Allin?” I stood beside her. The
Thornray
came forward cautiously, trying to evade the unnatural squalls plaguing its dock mate.

Allin was scanning the masts and forecastles of both hostile vessels. As I heard the first evil chirrup of an arrow, her hand shot forward. Gouts of flame flared in the air as arrows ignited, the acrid stink of burnt feathers drifting in the still air as the metal heads pocked the sea with a rash of stifled hisses.

“Crossbows,” I warned her as a bolt thudded into the
Eryngo
’s main mast. I spared a thought to hope Temar had the sense to keep his head down.

Allin laced her fingers tight together. Men on our ship ducked as crossbow bolts knocked astray from their aim still came clattering in hard enough to do damage. One went skittering down the deck beside us, glowing red hot to score a charred line on the planking.

Wizardry or just chance swept a sheaf of blazing arrows back into the
Spurdog
’s sails. “Come on, Allin,” I encouraged her. “You know what you have to do.”

Her plump face twisted in distress but the heavy, salt-laden canvas still went up like gossamer swept into a candle flame. Rags of searing fire fell away to set other sails alight. Flames ran the length of the rigging like fire devouring a spill of lamp oil. Spars cracked and flared and the iron bindings holding the upper lengths of the main mast together melted in the inferno that was the crow’s-nest. Gouts of molten metal fell to kill men on deck instantly and then the whole section toppled, felled like the mighty tree it had once been in some distant forest. Crashing backwards, it wrecked the aftmast, the deck of the sterncastle disappearing beneath a murderous crush of wood and sail.

A precisely tailored tempest now wrapped around the
Thornray
and shouts from the ship took on a new urgency as the
Dulse
and
Fire Minnow
swung round for the gravel strand where the plundered
Tang
and Den Harkeil’s barque were drawn up. The
Nenuphar
and the
Asterias
backed the
Eryngo
in a solid blockade, Vithrancel’s archers ready to pinion any remaining longboats struggling back to the landing.

The
Spurdog
was burning with a furnace roar and, with the
Thornray
helpless, the pirate vessels drifted apart. I thought I glimpsed something akin to heat haze wrinkling the air beyond. No matter. I had more immediate concerns as the
Fire Minnow
and
Dulse
prepared to send Ryshad and Halice’s forces ashore to do battle with the pirates. An ominous force was gathering among huts and palisades built with the blood and tears of their hapless captives.

Allin took a resolute breath and magefire leapt from the
Spurdog
to the
Thornray
. The masts caught light like trees in a wildfire and her crew began jumping, despairing into the water, some burning as they fell.

“No!” Guinalle was ashen with horror.

“This is battle.” Thinking she was going to faint, I caught her arm.

“They have Artifice, my lady, they have Artifice! I don’t know who but they use it to kill.” To my astonishment, Parrail’s frantic voice echoed inside my head. “Anyone forsworn chokes on their oath. They’re trying to find your mages, I can hear them searching. They’ll kill any wizard they can reach.” He was gabbling and his anguish seared my mind like an unexpected scald.

“Stop your magic,” I yelled at Allin. “Now!” We couldn’t have her reduced to a barely breathing corpse by hostile enchantments.

She stared at me, bemused.

“They’ve aetheric magic seeking you,” gasped Guinalle.

Even Allin’s high colour fled at that. “We have to warn the others.”

I looked beyond the now blazing
Thornray
again but still could barely see more than shimmering haze. “How?” We’d agreed signal flags for every other contingency but who’d expected this?

“I’ll bespeak Usara.” Allin found a ragged tuft of bandage in her apron pocket and caught up a scored metal cup that had held some wound salve.

“You’re too easy to attack,” I objected.

“We can armour her with Artifice.” Guinalle’s face was set as stone and she grabbed my hand. “Just follow my lead. Remember when we worked Artifice together against Kramisak.”

Usara has this theory that belief is the key to aetheric magic. I resolutely thrust all doubts away, summoning instead vivid recollection of Guinalle breaking down that enchanter’s wards when the Elietimm had attacked before. She had sung and I had echoed and we’d confined the bastard’s malevolence with her own, so Ryshad and Temar could cut him in pieces.

“
Tur amal es ryal andal zer, fes amal tur ryal suramer
.”

The archaic words were all but meaningless but the lilts and rhythms were as familiar as breathing. Was it bred into my bones by Forest blood or simply a memory from distant childhood when my wandering minstrel father had sung me to sleep in a garret room?

I heard Allin, muffled as if she were surrounded by fog and a good way off at that. “Parrail says the pirates have Artifice. We have to stop our spells.”

As she spoke, I felt something brush past me but there nothing to be seen. Guinalle strengthened her grip until my fingers started numbing. She was staring straight through me as she repeated her incantation with biting emphasis. I found myself shuddering with that irresistible shiver old folk call the draught from Poldrion’s cloak. I held Guinalle’s hands as tight as she held mine. I had to believe she could do this or we were both lost. If this was all that stood between the wizards and aetheric magic scouring the wits out of their heads, I’d chant until my tongue dried up.

Allin was shouting orders and I could hear urgent activity all around but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from Guinalle’s face. Then the young noblewoman dissolved before me to hang in the air like a shadow. I blinked and Guinalle was there again but the cabin doors behind her, the sterncastle of the ship, Allin, everything else was as insubstantial as smoke. Everything faded to a mist of featureless grey, the
Eryngo
and everyone aboard a mere trick of my vision like the memory of a candle flame snuffed in a darkened room.

I bit my lip and tasted the metallic tang of blood. I could still hear Allin shouting. I could still smell the rank sweat of my own fear and the charring of the burning
Spurdog
. I could still feel the deck beneath my feet and Guinalle’s vice-like grip on my hands. I pictured her face, every detail of her dress. She’d got me into this and, Drianon save me, she’d get me out of it or I’d know the reason why.

Colours gathered around the edges of the grey mist, fleeting if I tried to look at them but soon gathering strength and depth. Shapes emerged, hard to make out at first, as my true surroundings overlaid everything I saw like a shadow from Poldrion’s realm.

We were inside the prisoners’ stockade. I would have ripped my hands free of Guinalle but she held me fast. “We’re no more than shades here.” Her words echoed unspoken inside my head and I remembered I’d once vowed I’d rather be raped than feel that unholy intrusion of someone else’s will into my own again.

A gang of pirates slammed open the gates, swords and clubs swinging. Two prisoners too close to the entrance were dragged to their feet, arms twisted cruelly behind their backs. The rest retreated, too scared to run the gauntlet of the pirates, broken in spirit as well as body, their rags of clothes beyond repair. I tried to pick out Parrail or Naldeth among the bruised and filthy huddle.

Three newcomers ran full tilt into the stockade, two men and a woman, none overtall and all within a year or so Temar’s age or Guinalle’s. The woman wore a mossy skirt, the men dun breeches and all were fair enough to pass for Sorgrad’s kinsmen. All wore shirts laced high to the neck but I still caught the unmistakable glint of silver beneath. The only aetheric enchanters who wore gorgets were—

“Elietimm.” Guinalle’s hatred rang inside my head.

The first man clapped rough hands around a prisoner’s head and the captive writhed in the unforgiving grasp. I couldn’t hear his screams but his pain echoed through Guinalle’s enchantment and I felt it like a blow to the back of the head. The enchanter abandoned the man, gripping the next with the same savagery. The man jerked with one convulsive spasm and, again, the agony battered me but the Elietimm tossed him aside in baffled fury.

The woman barked some order and the pirates advanced.

The prisoners scattered in futile terror like penned sheep who’ve just found a wolf in their fold. One lad ran for the gate but two pirates wrestled him to the ground. Seeing him pinned in the suffocating mud, the second Elietimm man laid a hand on the boy’s rancid hair. After an angry shake of his head, the enchanter caught a cudgel from a pirate and smashed the lad’s skull in brutal frustration.