The Awakening (42 page)

The old fool has his uses after all,
she thought.
Declan was right to stop me from killing him.
At the thought of his name she looked around for Declan. He had been increasingly distant of late and it bothered her. He knew far too many of her secrets to be allowed too long a line. It was time to reel him in a bit.

With a gesture she summoned Erin. ‘Go and find Declan,’ she said. ‘And bring him here.’

Erin scurried away in search of the Sailer. As she went, she remembered the drunken conversation she
had had with him. Ever since then he had been polite, almost deferential to her, as if he feared he had said too much and she would betray him. Erin, however, was thinking something else entirely. Her anger that had started with Morag’s uncaring behaviour grew with the knowledge of her duplicity. Declan had unwittingly provided Erin with the last piece of the puzzle. She had already begun to believe in Hwenfayre and when Declan called her the Mistress of the Waters her last doubts vanished. Hwenfayre was the Danan and Morag had tried to kill her when she could not control her.

She went looking for Declan, knowing what she must do.

By noon the two fleets had readied themselves. During the hours of morning they manoeuvred, circling warily, seeking the best positions, testing the water. Some shots had been fired, falling harmlessly into the cold, black Sea. None but the three attack boats had been lost. Aboard the
Misty Seal
, the damage was repaired and the weapons reloaded. Nolin watched the winds with intense concentration while Wyn relayed to him the movements of the Children’s fleet. Just before noon, the Navigator smiled broadly.

‘We have them now,’ he said. ‘Old Sirran has taken command. He taught me everything he knew.’ He turned to Wyn. ‘He is a brilliant tactician. If this fleet was not the size it is there would be no hope. But as it is, who knows?’

‘And the Priestesses?’ asked Wyn.

‘If Sirran has set up the attack plan I think he has, they will all be coordinated. So there won’t be
anything unexpected. We can allow for them.’ He called to the Commander and the Raider fleet closed for battle.

The ships of the Raiders were larger and more heavily armed, but the attack boats, although smaller, were faster and more manoeuvrable. The light winds the Priestesses summoned were perfect for the smaller vessels and they were able to make lightning passes through and past the Raiders. They were hard to hit, but when the Raiders’ weapons landed the damage was terrible. In a short time the air filled with smoke, the Sea was littered with burning wreckage and the cries of the wounded were carried on the light winds.

But Hwenfayre was oblivious to the carnage all around her. She stood in the prow of the
Misty Seal
, lost in the cries of the Sea. Despite the furious sounds of battle raging about her, she heard only the turmoil of the waters. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced.

When she had called down the storm on the Raiders as they attacked the wall, she had felt a great anguish. The violence of wind and water mirrored her own pain, and as she sang the torment within her found expression, took form and achieved release. As the storm died down, so did her pain.

When she summoned the storm to hunt down Wyn and kill him, she did so out of her anger and sense of betrayal. The storm that sought him was the simple expression of her soul. On any occasion that she had sung to the Sea, she felt at peace. Even when the Sea responded to her in violence, she had felt nothing like what she was feeling now.

This was pain, a crying out in anguish that made her troubles over Wyn seem trivial, childish in comparison. Her soul ached as the waves of torment washed over her. Her head spun with a tumult of conflict. Never before had the voice of the Sea come to her; always she had called out to the Sea. And when she did, the Sea affirmed, enhanced and strengthened her own emotions.

But now Hwenfayre reeled under a relentless flood of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her mind. This emotion surged in on her, over her and through her. She felt herself begin to drown in the alien flow, gasping at the energy and intensity of feelings so basic, so raw. They tore at her mind and heart, threatening to unravel her completely, leaving her with nothing.

She stood, swaying unsteadily as the world turned into smoke and fire around her. Without consciousness she sang, her hands caressing the strings of an unseen harp. Her song was of pain, of loneliness, of desperate longing for peace. She sang without realising what she sang.

Slowly, the tide of the battle turned. Despite its larger vessels and superior firepower, the Raider fleet was being undone by the speed of the attack boats and the fluky winds. They simply could not manoeuvre fast enough in the conditions to be able to bring their weapons to bear on the Children’s boats. They were being progressively annihilated. Onboard the
Kelpie
, Morag saw it and rejoiced.

She turned with her eyes shining to Declan, who stood silently beside her. ‘You see, my love,’ she said, ‘it is all going beautifully.’

He nodded, not trusting himself to say anything because he saw things differently. Where she saw victory, he was seeing his friends being killed. Despite the fact that they were clearly winning this battle, victory would come at a vast cost. Already a third of their fleet was destroyed, vanished below the icy waters, with a third of what remained heavily damaged. Inwardly he burned with the fleet, yet his heart was strangely cold as he reminded himself of what was to come.

He reminded himself about how she had used him, had taken him away from the only family he had ever known and now how she was leading his people into destruction in her vainglorious quest for power. Mostly he simply despised her for pretending to love him.

‘Yes, my love,’ he muttered. ‘It will all go well.’ Quietly, and without Morag noticing, he slipped away.

As she watched the battle the High Priestess saw what she knew would happen. It was what Sirran had promised her. The Raiders’ fleet broke and turned. Like a school of fish herded by caruda, they sought the protection of closeness, safety in numbers. Knowing they were beaten, they hastened towards the Wrested Archipelago, no doubt seeking to lose their attackers in the maze of islands. But even though they owned the archipelago, they still could not know it like a Navigator of the First Rank. Their ploy would be their undoing.

Sirran, expecting this, sent word for the Children’s fleet to follow.

And this was what Declan and Erin had also been waiting for. As the orders were shouted and the
Kelpie
swung around, Erin moved up behind Morag.

‘High Priestess,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ asked Morag without turning.

‘High Priestess, Declan would like to speak with you.’

‘He knows where I am,’ she said, her eyes still focused on the Raiders’ retreating fleet.

‘He said,’ Erin hesitated, ‘he said he would like to speak with you in your cabin. Below.’

Morag turned, noticing his absence for the first time. ‘Would he now?’ She smiled, imagining the passionate embrace that awaited her. Declan was a superb lover, and now that she had rid the seas of the Southern Raiders forever, she would finally take him as husband so that they could rule together.
Yes, I will tell him now
, she thought.
I’ll make it my gift to him.
Without a glance at Erin, she swept past her and hurried down to her cabin to tell him. Erin followed her at a distance.

‘High Priestess! The Raiders!’

Morag turned, on her heel, almost colliding with Erin. ‘Out of my way, girl,’ she snapped. The Novice, following close, stepped hurriedly aside, bowing her head deferentially. The High Priestess paused briefly, fixing her with a steely gaze. ‘Now what, I wonder, are you doing?’ she asked. The seaman who had called did so again, distracting Morag. ‘I think you and I will need to have a conversation about your role,’ she said as she walked away.

‘What is it?’ Morag asked the seaman.

‘The Raiders, High Priestess. They are fleeing!’

‘I knew that! It was Sirran’s plan to drive them into the Archipelago where we could cut them to pieces.’

‘No, High Priestess, they are fleeing, not heading into the Archipelago. They are scattering and heading north!’

‘What?’ She dashed to the prow, where she stood, watching as the still-large Raider fleet scattered. They had turned away from their strongholds on the Archipelago and were fleeing north under full sail. In the stronger winds, the Raiders were pulling away from the pursuing attack boats, slowly moving out of range of even their own weapons. She watched her quarry escape her, puzzled by their sudden change of heart.

Why would they flee when they had the superior weaponry, as well as the possession of the Wrested Archipelago? She knew from bitter experience that the settlers on the rocks would have been well prepared to sink any attack boat foolish enough to stray too close. Even with a Navigator of the skills of Sirran, a battle through the Archipelago would have been dangerous.

‘Damn you!’ she screamed at the retreating fleet. ‘Cowards!’

‘Do we continue to chase, High Priestess?’ asked the sailor who had called her.

She did not turn around, preferring to watch as the Raider fleet escaped her, feeling the cold wind on her back that whipped her cloak around, carrying with it the sharp tang of the frozen waters far to the south. It had increased enough in strength to give the Raider fleet the speed they needed to get away.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Let them go. We can’t catch them now, not with this wind—’ She stopped suddenly, realising what she was saying.
We control the wind!
she thought. Something colder than a southern wind chilled her suddenly. Slowly she turned away from her contemplation of the fleeing fleet.

On the southern horizon she could just make out a build-up of cloud. ‘Lookout!’ she called. ‘To the south, what do you see?’

‘Storm.’

‘What quarter?’

‘Both of them.’

Morag was about to reply when Sirran grabbed her by the arm and wrenched her around. ‘Don’t you smell it?’ he asked.

‘Smell?’

‘The ice. You know where that wind is coming from.’ He roughly shoved her towards the railing. ‘Look. Do you see what is coming?’

She stared at the vast purple-black thunderhead that rose over the horizon, her mind unable to comprehend what the old Navigator was saying.

‘Do you know what you have done to us?’ he screamed. ‘You have unleashed the Danan upon us!’

Even in the few moments she looked at it, the storm seemed to come closer. ‘How fast is that thing moving?’ she whispered.

Sirran shook his head. ‘We are lost. Even this fleet cannot outrun it.’

‘But the Raiders? They are lost too, aren’t they?’

Sirran stared over the High Priestess’s head at the onrushing storm. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They saw it before we did and they fled. Someone knew what it was and
they will probably survive.’

‘But who?’ asked Morag. Her eyes were blank, uncomprehending, as if unable to recognise what was happening.

‘It doesn’t matter who, you fool!’ Sirran said. ‘All that matters is that we get away, now!’

Morag nodded dumbly. Sirran shook his head and then turned to give the orders.

The fleet followed the Raiders north. As they scudded past the Wrested Archipelago, they ignored the frantic calls and signals from those onshore. The Raiders on the naked rocks had also seen the storm, and they could not escape its fury, but the Children of the Raft had neither time nor inclination to rescue their enemies, so they left them to their fate. Morag wondered why they wasted time going around the Archipelago rather than cutting through, but Sirran ignored her question.

‘We would stand no chance if we were caught in among the islands,’ Erin told her. ‘We may be able to survive in open water.’

But the time they lost was more than they had. Barely had they cleared the last of the islands when the storm hit them like a hammer.

Within seconds they were plunged into a world of screaming winds and driving rain. Mountainous seas, steep and black, soared around them, tossing the small attack boats like so much flotsam. They smashed over the islands of the Archipelago, sending white spray high into the winds. The terrified screams of the dying were lost in the deafening anger of the storm.

Lightning shattered the inky blackness, illuminating the nightmarish scene. More than one
sailor was hurled into the ravening sea as they released their grip to cover their ears as the thunder, so close as to be a single eruption, cracked across the wind.

With every lightning strike a new scene of terror flickered into view. They were coming so frequently that it was like a blink; each time another face starkly imprinted its mindless horror on Morag’s broken mind.

She clung for her life to the mast as the
Kelpie
alternately climbed up a wave face then plunged down. Her mind was beyond numb; it had simply ceased to function. No new information registered as her eyes jerked through stark scenes, each one a deeper trip into madness. She saw sailors, Novices, Priestesses hurled into the water or broken like dolls by the force of the winds. A fragment of her mind reminded her of Sirran. Of how he had been picked up bodily by a wave and carried away, cursing her as he died. At least she thought he had been cursing her; his words were lost, whipped from his lips before they found form.

Her arms, locked around the stub of the broken mast, burned with the pain of holding on. But what was left of her sanity would not allow them to move. She knew she was screaming but her voice was lost, shredded into the storm. Somewhere within her broken mind, she registered that her clothes had been torn from her and she lay naked before the Sea. Another part of her mind told her that this should mean something, but it was beyond her to know what it was. So she hung there, naked, frozen, battered by the wind and the waves, waiting to die.

Somehow, a thought intruded.
I lost
, she thought.
I tried, I tried so hard—but I lost.