The Legend of Asahiel: Book 02 - The Obsidian Key (20 page)

“Except that you gave it to the wizard.” In the echo of his own voice, Torin could hear his conviction slipping.

“The wizard doesn’t have your sword. Not yet, anyway. Although it probably won’t take him long to find it.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll explain along the way,” said Raven, turning at last to face him. “But first I must know, are you with us, or against us?”

Torin let his gaze slip briefly over the others before fixing on their captain. “I’m with you, of course—though I feel like a blind man.”

Raven nodded to his mates, who slid the stool—grudgingly, it seemed—beneath his feet. The captain climbed up next to him to have at the slackened cuffs.

“Wait,” Torin said. “How could you have known the wizard wouldn’t kill you—kill all of us—right there on the beach?”

“Hold still,” Raven chided him. “I visited the man before, remember? As cocksure as they come. Only cowards go about killing foes recklessly, so as not to risk facing them again. Men who believe themselves impervious think first as to how they might profit by keeping others—even enemies—alive. If I’m no threat to him, why not use me?”

Torin shook his head. “But—”

“That offer he spoke of was to retain my services on an ongoing basis. I refused, of course. And I’ve done nothing since that he wouldn’t expect, giving him no reason to raise his guard, and certainly no reason to dispose of me out of hand.”

The pirate uttered a brief exclamation a heartbeat before Torin’s shackles opened up. The young king lowered his arms to his side, massaging his wrists as he’d seen the others do, while mulling through Raven’s reasoning.

“Seems to me a rather dangerous maneuver,” he decided.

The pirate nodded. “A gallows wager. But with better odds than that he would turn Autumn over to me and let us leave.” He stepped from the stool onto solid ground, beckoning Torin to do the same.

“I still think you might have warned me as to your plans.”

“And risk letting you set them awry?” Raven asked, askance. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly, slipping his lock picks into the greasy mop of his hair and turning his attention toward the door. “There were already more wild cards than I normally care to deal with,” he said, shuffling ahead of the
others. “The less you knew, the less likely you could betray me—willingly or otherwise.” He reached the door of studded iron and leaned an ear against its surface. “Besides, would knowing my plans have given you any greater sense of peace?”

Torin considered this, a step back from the others, and determined the pirate was right. Still, he wasn’t ready to give the other the satisfaction. “Depends on what else you have in mind,” he muttered. He added gravely, “Especially since I doubt he’ll spare any of you a second time.”

Raven offered him a wink. “I wouldn’t.”

Torin wasn’t sure which he preferred: the glowering, uncompromising brigand he had met aboard the
Raven’s Squall,
or this new, almost playful rogue crouched before him. Nor did he get the chance to decide; for as quickly as the mood had come, it seemed to wash past the pirate, who placed his hand upon the door’s pull ring, all business once more.

His shipmates fanned out to either side, arming themselves with stones. Torin hadn’t been paying close attention, but he believed the door to their prison contained a locking bar on the outside. Sure enough, it refused to open when Raven yanked upon the ring. He half expected a sentry to come barging in at the attempt, but there was no noise from without. It seemed they had truly been abandoned.

While his mates and so-called marauders continued to stand guard, Raven slipped from under his belt a long, waving piece of metal that had been looped around his waist. It looked like a shortsword, only hammered to a mirror finish, thin as parchment. It fit between door and frame as if made for just that purpose, and while Torin immediately doubted it would be sturdy enough to unseat the locking bar on the other side, he kept the comment to himself.

“These tools of yours,” he wondered instead. “Why didn’t Madrach take them?”

“I’ve only acquired these skills over the past few years,” Raven confessed. “Had he not betrayed me when he did, my brother, too, might have learned them.”

Torin thought to ask a follow-up question, but a growl from Black Spar persuaded him against it. With nothing else to do, he watched the captain work in silence. For several moments, Raven struggled with both the weight and position of the unseen bar. More than once, he retracted his slip of metal through the lightless gap to begin again from a new angle. In that time, Torin matched eyes with Keel Haul, and thought back to his mistreatment aboard the
Squall
. As it had turned out, Raven had been right not to show him any kindness, due to Talyzar’s presence onboard. The pirate had disavowed any knowledge of the assassin, but Torin wondered if he had not at least suspected the wizard of prying eyes, and if that—and not cruel-hearted malice—had been the cause of his actions.

Before his thoughts could wander any further afield, there was a dull clattering from beyond the door and a whispered cry of exuberance from the man leading their escape. Raven jumped back, whipping his metal serpent back through the tiny fissure. The others held their positions, adjusting their grips
on their stones. All was quiet as they listened intently for a reaction from without. For several moments, Torin heard nothing over the drumming of his own pulse.

At last, Raven reached again for the pull ring, leaving the giant Black Spar to guard the crack. As the door groaned open, Spar nodded. He lowered his rock and thrust his bulk through the opening, first his head, then his shoulders. After a quick look to either side, he ducked back in.

“All clear,” he rumbled.

Raven smiled at Torin, signaling silence before he scooted out into the rough-hewn corridor. The others followed on his heels. Beyond, the captain paused just long enough to close the door and replace the locking bar before herding them all down the tunnel and into the first available alcove.

When all were tucked aside, Raven produced yet another hidden device, this one resembling a compass. He studied it for a moment, glancing down the corridor in the direction its needle pointed. Apparently satisfied, he then snapped its lid shut and drew his mates close in a tight huddle.

“Time now to find where Autumn is being held, retrieve the Sword, kill the wizard, and escape. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

In these close quarters, Torin was more concerned with the smell, an offensive musk of breath and sweat that made him long for a bath. When he realized that Raven’s question was directed primarily at him, he shook his head fiercely.

“How do we do it, Cap’n?” asked Kell.

“The wizard must keep a ship or two upon this isle. Spar, I need you to find it. The rest of you will go with him. Seize it, and send signal to the
Squall
. She’s to be hiding off the north coast, out of view of this tower.”

Flambard scowled; his features seemed incapable of anything else. “What about you?”

“Torin and I will start by tracking down the Sword. I’m guessing that will lead us to Autumn, and to the wizard.”

“Just the two of you?” Flambard’s scowl deepened, and Torin, as always, seemed to be the target of his ire. “You should let one of us come with you.”

“You’ll do as commanded,” Raven snapped. “When he learns of our escape, the wizard will expect us to flee. The theft of his vessel will confirm this, and draw his attention. He won’t then be expecting our attack.” He turned to Torin, who was shaking his head. “Better that we be rid of him now,” Raven insisted. “We won’t get a better opportunity.”

“I’m not opposed to that,” Torin clarified. “I’m only wondering how you mean to find him, and to lay hands on the Sword before he does.”

Raven explained. “This compass is attracted to the box in which your blade is hidden. The box itself is a smuggler’s device. There is a switch, near the bottom on the back, disguised as a knot of wood. This switch must be triggered when the lid is opened. Otherwise, the box will reveal a secondary chamber and the weapon inside—that of an ordinary broadsword.”

Torin’s brow furrowed in suspicion. He looked to Black Spar, who nodded.

“Clearly,” Raven continued, “I don’t expect to fool the wizard for long.
But it should buy us some time. Time enough for the
Squall
to return and launch a diversion assault. Time enough for us to lay hands on the real Sword and rescue Autumn.”

If he understood the plan correctly, Torin could spot a dozen holes before they’d even begun. It was like setting sail in a leaky skiff. Impressed by the manner in which Raven had won them entrance into the keep and then set them free, he had dared hope the pirate captain would have some brilliant scheme for carrying out their escape. Still, even this was probably more than he could rightfully have hoped for, and wasting time in further debate could only hurt their chances.

“So be it,” he agreed.

Not to be outdone, the other pirates nodded or grunted or slapped their fists in accord.

They shuffled from the alcove and back into the corridor, where Raven double-checked his strange compass. The needle held its direction, and the captain bade them all follow. At the next fork, a sloping tunnel, he consulted the compass again. It led upward, which caused him to pull Spar aside.

“We split here. Look for a hidden harbor, somewhere within the cliff. When in doubt, go down.”

Spar grunted, and clasped the captain’s outstretched arm.

“Full sail,” Raven tendered. “Oh, and Spar, I’d prefer to deal with Madrach myself, but should he get in the way, do not feel obliged to spare him on my account.”

Spar grunted again and turned to the others. “Mates.”

With that, the brute took off down the tunnel, drawing the others after like a shark leading scavenging minnows. Each of them—Pike, Flambard, and Keel Haul—shared a nod and handclasp with his captain before departing, and even glanced or glared in Torin’s direction. The young king met those looks until a chill weight settled upon his shoulders. At once, he turned his gaze back down the passage from which they had come, where for half a heartbeat he thought he spied a flicker of movement.

“What is it?” Raven asked him when the others had gone.

Torin squinted, but could detect nothing unordinary about the shadows that skulked amid the staggered line of torches.

“Bats in my vision,” he mumbled, shaking the heavy feeling aside.

“Shall we do this?”

“I’ll be right beside you.”

Raven flashed him a roguish grin—meant to be reassuring, Torin supposed—before squaring his jaw in determination. “For Autumn.”

For Marisha,
Torin amended silently, then had to hurry to catch up.

“I
ASSUME YOU’RE PERMITTING THIS,”
Xarius hissed, perched again in the doorway of the chamber in which the wizard busied himself.

Soric did not deign to look his way as he tapped fluid from a vial over the flat head of a statue on the far side of the room. “Of course I’m permitting it. Within this keep, I sense their movements as clearly as I sense yours.”

“And you would have them roam free?”

“For a time,” the wizard said, wringing his hands above the statue as if warming them over a flame. “Madrach has been told not to let them off the isle.”

Xarius withheld a snide remark regarding his faith in the mercenary’s abilities—he who had become Soric’s right hand while the assassin was left to linger in Alson. “They do not seek escape,” he said instead. “They seek a reckoning.”

“Do they now?” The wizard added a few more drops of his arcane solution. “For that is what they shall find.”

“They are tracking the Sword as we speak. With a compass drawn to some manner of lodestone, it seems.”

“Good. Then it will not take them long to find their way to me.” The wizard stoppered his vial and returned it to a pouch on his belt. He turned toward the center of the room, where the box containing the Sword rested upon a plinth at the edge of a swirled pattern etched into the granite floor.

It occurred to Xarius to mention the secret of the box and its trigger, but, for now, he preferred to keep that information to himself. “Might it be you’re underestimating this rogue?”

Soric laughed, a mirthless hacking sound. “Madrach already suggested as much, when I ordered their prison unguarded.” He stared at the assassin with a gimlet gaze. “Your concerns are touching, Talyzar, but unnecessary.”

Xarius wondered if the shadows were sufficient to hide his true heart from the wizard’s vaunted insight. For it would seem Soric had it wrong. He had indeed come to warn the other of the prisoners’ escape, but only to mask his own intentions on the wizard’s life.

“I don’t understand these games,” he said.

Soric drew sand from a small leather pouch and sprinkled it over the floor near the Sword. “That surprises me. For I’ve always admired your artistry.
Poetic, is it not, that an enemy choose his own fate, rather than having it forced upon him?” He paused to stare again at the assassin. “Rest assured, I take no chances with my life in doing so, and misery unto those who think to catch me unawares.”

The wizard’s words echoed with grim warning. Given his own treacherous thoughts, Xarius dared not move, blink, or breathe, lest something in his manner betray him.

“Power is born of perception,” Soric added. “And nothing is more demoralizing than to believe you have an advantage over your enemy, only to find that you were playing into his hands all along.”

“You still mean for the pirate to join you,” Xarius reasoned. It seemed to him a poor excuse for the risks being taken, however minuscule they might be.

“If possible.” The wizard smirked. “But come. Should it soothe your worries, stand guard as I grant our guests their final choice, and watch how easily I dispatch those who oppose me.”

Xarius bowed. “I think that might be best.”

Soric’s smirk became more of a grimace as he stowed his powder. “Bring the woman then, from my chambers. By the time you return, I shall be ready.”

“How many guard the keep?”

“Twoscore, not counting the servant staff, which is more protection than I require.”

Xarius nodded in obeisance. “The pirates mean to signal their vessel, which is waiting to attack.”

Soric waved dismissively. “Madrach will see to that. A boat full of brigands is of no threat to us. If need be, I will deal with them when this other matter is finished.”

“As you will,” the Shadow whispered, and bled into those of the hallway behind him.

As he padded silently down its length, an itch of readiness went with him. For one of his trade, the sensation was never far off, like the buzzing of a persistent bee. But its presence was heightened by what seemed to Xarius an opportunity. A dangerous one, to be sure, but it might be the only chance he would get.

If the wizard seemed overconfident, he had every reason to be. Despite such reckless talk—poetry for Torin, a lesson in power for Raven—Xarius was not about to presume his master on the verge of a mistake. But the assassin was determined to reclaim his freedom, and it had become clear that the only way to achieve this was to see Soric slain. If he could find a way to turn the upcoming showdown to his advantage, he might rid himself of the wizard and extract the information he so needed from Torin on Kylac’s whereabouts—all in one fell swoop.

He had done his part, Xarius brooded silently. He had resisted the urge to abduct the young king himself and had instead followed him across the seas, sending messages to Soric by sign language over dim flame, making certain the bounty was delivered in accordance with the wizard’s every request. He
had then foiled the pirates’ bid to keep the Sword aboard ship as a bargaining tool, imparting both the weapon and its handlers as additional gifts. All had been done so as to win the wizard’s favor and that which had been promised in return.

Soric had betrayed him, sure and simple. And while the assassin would never allow his pride to overrule caution, it was in fact the core of who he was—the reason he was compelled to hunt down Kylac, and something that no one would take from him, not even one as formidable as this wizard.

He knew not how he would manage it; he need only be ready to exploit the possibilities. There would be no plan, no scheme whose hitch or failure might leave him paralyzed. Though he preferred to know every potential outcome to a situation beforehand, such was not always feasible. No matter. He was ultimately a creature of instinct, trained to react with serpentine reflexes to each situation as it arose. So it would be this night, and given the opening, he would strike.

Coiling in preparation, he pressed onward, upward, toward the wizard’s tower. To fetch this pirate’s woman, and the final piece of bait.

“H
OLD, YOU FOOL
!” S
PAR RASPED,
seizing Flambard’s shoulder with a muscled paw.

Flambard scowled, but could not break the other’s grasp. “The way is clear,” he protested. “All is quiet.”

Spar drew his mate roughly back. “Too quiet,” he whispered with a frown of his own.

Kell, hunkered along with Pike a pace back from his mates, agreed. His eyes scoured the near-darkness, searching for sign of that which crawled like an army of insects along his spine. Beyond the mouth of the tunnel in which they crouched, ocean waters heaved restlessly against rock and piling. In the closed quarters of the cavern, its quiet murmur, like that of a slumbering dragon, echoed a dull roar.

Raven had been right about the harbor. Although the reef that warded the shores of Shattercove seemed to skirt the entire isle, there was a break here on the eastern side, in the shadow of the cliff upon which the wizard’s tower was planted. They had traversed a maze of tunnels from their dungeon to find it, aiming ever downward, trailing Spar as they might a bloodhound. At last they had arrived at the edge of this hollowed, sea-filled cavern, where now they considered their next move.

“Where are all the men?” Pike asked, suggesting that he, too, shared the reservations that held his shipmates, Kell and Spar, in check.

“Sleeping,” Flambard insisted. The flame-haired pirate peered hungrily through the tunnel opening, staring out at the giant carrack lying in berth beside a wooden dock. Its handful of longboats were tied off alongside. All rested upon the black waters, limned by fog-shrouded moonlight pouring through a cleft in the cliff face off to their right. “We’re wasting time.”

Kell wondered at his mate’s anxiousness. Likely, the man was simply eager to be away from this place. The overwhelming temptation, this close to free
dom, was to make a dash for it. So thought the mouse with the cat waiting to pounce outside its hole.

“We’d be hard-pressed to set sail on that thing with just the four of us,” Spar muttered grimly. “They’re like to catch us before we’ve unfurled the course sails.”

“What then? Sit around here till dawn? Cap’n wanted a diversion.”

“The diversion comes when we signal the
Squall,
” said Pike. “We’d do better shoving off in one of those longboats.”

Kell nodded quickly. Silent sounded safer than swift.

Spar’s eyes glittered black in the darkness. “Too long,” he decided. “We don’t know how far out the
Squall
might be. Besides, in this murk, she may not see us.”

What did that leave them? Kell wondered. There were no mid-sized craft that they might rig quickly to carry them on their way. For such smaller vessels, it would be a difficult voyage indeed from the mainland to this treacherous isle. All they had to choose from was that which floated before them.

“Flambard is right,” Spar agreed at last. “We’ve no choice but to launch the carrack.”

A hole opened in Kell’s stomach, and any protest he might have uttered was sucked into it. He stared again at the imposing ship, then swept the harbor for sign of sentries. Their view here was partially obscured. They might very well be spotted the moment they stepped from the tunnel.

“Follow my lead,” Spar growled at Flambard, who was itching again to get moving.

Once again, the marauders fell into line behind their giant first mate—Flambard, then Pike, then Kell—moving ahead in a crouch and glancing to either side. Setting foot within the main cavern felt to Kell like emerging naked onto a frigid snowscape. The eyes of imagined enemies dug like slivers of ice into his skin. Every hair stood on end.

But there were no sounds, no sudden movements. It seemed Madrach’s mercenaries were indeed tucked away in their billets, wherever those might be. Difficult to believe, but since they’d not felt need to post dungeon guards, why should they post any here?

Still, Kell gripped his rocks in his sweating palms, ready to hurl them at the slightest skittering. Odds were, he’d end up braining a rat or cracking the shell of a rock crab—assuming his throw was true—and give them all away.

For this reason, he tried to steady himself as they crept from stony ground onto the planks of the makeshift wharf. Ocean waves growled, surging in and out of the cavern breach. While listening, Kell scanned the many caves and alcoves lining the subterranean walls, searching their yawning depths for anything that might justify his alarm.

At last they reached the carrack, rising and falling in its berth. The gangplank was raised, but a series of rope ladders hung over her sides. The members of their company took turns peering over one another’s shoulders, taking one last look around. They listened, but all they heard were the waves.

Spar let Flambard go first. The marauder scurried nimbly up the rungs and
rolled over the edge. After a tense moment, his head popped back into view and he gave a signal. All clear.

Pike went next. Then Kell, tucking his rocks into his shirt. Spar remained below, his back to the hull, searching. Only after Kell had clambered over and onto the main deck did their first mate make move to join them.

They waited for him, though by now Kell was as antsy as Flambard. It was too late to do anything but go forward. Should they be discovered, they might scatter, but where could they run?

“Haul,” Spar grunted quietly, “find us some weapons. Pike, Flambard, make ready to sail.”

The pirates nodded, then scrambled in opposite directions, running low and on the balls of their feet. Flambard claimed the foremast, Pike the mizzenmast, and Spar the mainmast. Kell went in search of the nearest weapons closet. He didn’t have to go far. The main deck was lined with them, chests filled with hooks and pikes, hand-axes and shortswords. He claimed a couple for himself, then scooped up an armful and wheeled toward the pilothouse.

“Hello, Keel Haul.”

Kell nearly soiled his breeches to hear Madrach’s voice, and to see the mutineer standing so suddenly before him. As it was, he dropped his load of arms and stumbled backward, pitching over the rail. There was a rush of cold air, then the plunge into what might as well have been a bucket of ice, so frigid was the winter sea.

When finally he righted himself in that depthless void, he kicked toward the surface, where his attempt to draw one big breath resulted instead in a staggered series of small ones, fractured by the cold. Over the sound of his own splashing and wheezing, he could hear an odd mix of shouts and laughter from above.

“Fish him out,” Madrach hollered. Men barked and crossbows hummed, and Kell knew his comrades were under fire.

His first instinct was to pull himself from that water as quickly as possible. It clutched at him like fingers from the grave, chill and sharp, and with a dying man’s insistence. Had Madrach’s mercenaries tossed him a rope then and there, he might have seized it, heedless of the consequences.

But it took them a moment to gather themselves, and to overcome their merriment at his expense. In that time, Kell’s thoughts cleared. Not for anything he might consider actual reasoning, but enough that one urgent need overcame the other. The need to reach the longboats. The need to warn the
Squall
.

His frantic effort to tread water became an equally frantic swim. He did not stop to calculate the odds, or even to worry about his mates. They would cover for him, if they could. Perhaps one or more would escape on his own. It all depended on whether Madrach’s orders were to kill or recapture. He could let neither happen to him.

And so he strained against the cold, against the darkness. He slipped under, carving his strokes beneath the surface, hoping to hide his intent. He did not pause to look back, and came up to breathe only when his lungs demanded
it. Every now and then, he opened his eyes to confirm his path and direction. Otherwise, he simply swam.

He nearly rammed the skiff before he saw it—a collision that could have knocked him senseless. Kicking and pulling, he tumbled aboard, grateful to be free of the sucking sea.