The Shadow Sorceress (40 page)

Secca glanced from the piers out into the harbor, empty except for the vessels tied at the heavy wooden piers. The morning was chill, made more so by the wind blowing off the dark gray water. There were five vessels of varying lengths at the piers—but the largest was perhaps sixty yards in length, the smallest little more than thirty. A line of mounts stretched along the pier. Secca watched as one was led up a gangway and onto the deck of the
Foamsprite
, the nearest vessel.

“We'll do what we can, Lady Sorceress,” offered Weyla, captain of the largest schooner, the
Alycet
. The captain was a wiry woman almost as tall as Drysel, and a good fifteen years older, but Secca would have wagered her golds on Weyla in any contest between the two. “Luck and Harmonies with us, and we'll get well south of the Sand Hills. If not…” She shrugged. “We land you where we can.” Her eyebrows lifted. “Unless your sorcery can help.”

“It's possible. I'll certainly try if we need it, but I've never tried it on a ship.”

“Like you,” the captain continued, “I'd be wishing we could carry all on one crossing. The problem was not the lancers, but the mounts. Easy for a company or two, but six be a problem. Safer to make one crossing with five vessels than five with one.”

“That's what Counselor Veria told us,” Secca replied.

“Take the morning to load, and then we'll sail. Usually get a southwesterly by afternoon. Sweeps inland to the Sand Hills, especially this time of year. Small pier at Ilygot. We can't get that far, and you'll have to swim them ashore…won't be bad…we don't draft that deep…and the water here's not that cold, not like up near Ostwye.”

“Why couldn't we get that far? The Sturinnese?”

The weathered captain nodded. “We can go shallow along the Sand Hills. Know the waters and the shoals. South of that, the shallows narrow, and they can get to us unless we hole up in one of the shallow bights. There we'd have to hoist the mounts clear, and you'd swim 'em in. Probably not more than a hundred yards—fifty in some places.”

“Let's hope we can get to a place with a pier,” Secca said. “Maybe sorcery can help.”

“We'd prefer such, lady,” replied the captain. “Faster for us, and it will let us make a second run without the Sea-Priests havin' time to bring in one of those patrol schooners that can go where we do. 'Course, better here than in their lands. They got slave galleys there, and with thunder-drums and oars, and shallow draft…best you not be anywhere close.”

“They don't have anything like that here, do they?” asked the sorceress.

“Only the smaller schooners, but they take Dumar, and it won't be long before Dumuran captives'll be rowing galleys.” Weyla inclined her head. “Be seeing you on board.”

Secca bowed. “I'll be there shortly:” She watched as the weathered captain walked down the pier toward the seaward end where the
Alycet
was moored.

As she watched, Alcaren and Wilten appeared from behind a group of sailors in pale blue trousers and jackets and walked up the pier from where they had been overseeing the loading of the SouthWomen's mounts on the
Foamsprite
.

“How is everything going?”

“It's not the loading I'm worried about, lady…” Wilten coughed, then fingered his chin. “The captain there…she said…we might have to swim the mounts to shore.”

“So did the captain of the
Alycet
,” Secca replied. “I don't know that many of our lancers can swim.” Secca wasn't that sure she'd do well in the water, either.

“That be true, lady,” admitted Wilten.

“All they have to do is hang on to the mounts,” Alcaren offered. “The water isn't that deep except in the center channel.”

That was easy enough for Alcaren to say, Secca reflected. “Can you both travel on the
Alycet
with me and the players? We need to have some time to talk over things.”

“My captains would not object, I do not think,” said Alcaren.

“Nor mine.” Wilten shrugged. “They cannot go off somewhere on their own.”

Secca nodded. “I'll tell Captain Weyla.” She looked toward the
Alycet
, hoping again that she wouldn't have to swim her mount from the ship to a strange shore.

With the sea spray misting around her, whipped by the brisk wind, Secca walked forward, along the right side of the
Alycet
, her hand not all that far from the heavy wooden railing, trying to adjust to moving on a surface that slowly pitched with the long rolling and following swells.

To her right, to the west, she could just make out a long and low dark smudge that one of the crew had said was land—swampy wetlands that were still a part of Elahwa. South of the
swamps were higher and far drier bluffs, and south of the bluffs—well out of sight—were the Sand Hills.

Stiff as the wind was, with the full late afternoon sun falling on the schooner, Secca felt warmer than she had at the piers in Elahwa that morning. She eased up to the railing where Alcaren leaned on the polished but worn wood, looking to the southwest.

The Ranuan did not turn as Secca joined him. “We might just get to see a hint of the Sand Hills before sunset.”

The wood on which Alcaren's hands, overlarge for his frame, rested was battered, but buffed smooth and varnished. The Ranuan followed Secca's probing eyes. “You have to keep the wood sealed. It splinters and rots, otherwise. Doesn't matter so much on the rails here, except for you and me, but anywhere the sails could touch, you don't want splinters or sharp edges—put a rip in the canvas, and then where would you be?”

“In some sort of trouble. Why did you say the rails didn't matter except to you and me?” Secca frowned.

“Real sailors scarcely ever touch the rails.”

As if to make that point, the
Alycet
pitched forward more steeply. Secca had to grab the railing. The ship then rode the following swell, still maintaining a southwest heading, or so it seemed from the position of the sun.

“Do you always stay up here on the front?” asked Secca, loosening her grip on the varnished but salt-sticky railing.

“The bow?” Alcaren grimaced. “I do indeed. Here, the air is cool and fresh.”

Secca glanced southward. “This seems wide enough for a larger vessel.”

“Here…it is, but before long, the deep part of the channel will narrow, and it would take less than a glass for the captain to have us in water where you could walk to shore. That's why we pitch so much with so little wind.”

“Because the water is shallow?” asked Secca. She thought any water over her head was too deep.

Alcaren nodded. “Where you see the waves break…” He pointed to the west, his arm almost in front of Secca's nose. “That is where there are shallows and shoals.”

Secca followed his gesture, seeing white spray less than a dek away. “It doesn't look shallow.”

“One of those big Sturinnese war brigs would get hung up there and break her back, just like that.” Alcaren smiled. “But they know that. We won't see them until the channel widens.”

“How long will that be?”

“Late the day after tomorrow at the earliest.”

Secca glanced upward. As the mast seemed to move, she could see Clearsong, almost at its zenith. It would be high in the sky well into evening. She hoped that was a good sign.

A few scattered high white clouds scudded across the late morning sky, moving to the south with the wind that carried the
Alycet
southward. Somewhere to the west—just beyond the horizon, according to Alcaren—were the last traces of the Sand Hills. Secca stood on the raised rear deck of the
Alycet
, close to the railing around the wheel platform. To her left was Weyla, although the captain's eyes were never still, and never turned toward the sorceress. Alcaren stood almost at the starboard rail, facing into the wind. Richina leaned on the railing as well, less than two yards from Alcaren, but farther forward.

Perhaps a half-dek astern and to the north of the
Alycet
followed the
Foamsprite
. For a moment, Secca watched the smaller vessel, her bow cutting into the long swells, with spray and foam seemingly almost touching the base of the bowsprit. Then the sorceress looked forward again.

On the lower mid-deck, Palian was rehearsing the first players, and the sound of strings and horns drifted aft to Secca. The
second players stood on the raised forward deck, as if waiting for the first players to finish rehearsing.

“A good half-day out of the channel…another few glasses, and we can run for Ilygot,” said the tall and wiry captain.

“How far are we from there?”

“Half a day, if the wind holds.”

“Sail to the east!” came a call from the lookout above.

The captain turned away from Secca, peering to her left and back toward the east. “Can't see yet, but can't be other than the dissonant Sea-Pigs.” She glanced eastward, then looked toward the helmsman. “Bring her ten starboard.”

“Ten starboard, aye. Coming starboard.”

As the
Alycet
swung to the west, with the wind coming into the sails more directly, Richina climbed up the ladder from the lower deck. “We're turning…”

Secca gestured toward the east. “There are ships there.”

Behind Richina, Wilten appeared, his face slightly pale. “Sorceress?”

“The Sea-Priests may have found us.”

Weyla glanced upward, toward the lookout. “How many?”

“Four, mayhap five!” came back the call.

Five vessels had to be Sturinnese, Secca reflected. She stepped forward until she looked down on the mid-deck. “Players, stand by. The lookout has sighted the Sturinnese.”

“Stand by,” called Palian.

“Second players to position,” ordered Delvor.

The second players began to climb down the ladders to the main deck.

Secca walked back toward the captain, who pointed eastward. “Just out there.”

Secca could see but specks of white above the dark blue water.

“They're running with the wind, and they carry far more sail than do we.”

“Can we make it to Ilygot?” asked the sorceress.

“I'd wager against it.” Weyla looked westward, then walked toward the raised platform that held the helm, where she studied the map fastened on an inclined plot.

Secca eased behind the captain, leaving Richina, Wilten, and Alcaren by the railing, all three now peering out to the east.

“We are here…most exposed.” Weyla pointed to the map, at a series of dotted lines in the green space that seemed to represent water. “The shallows to the west of us are narrow. Don't offer much protection. Another five deks south, there is a reef, and we could almost reach Ilygot behind it.”

“That's where we're headed?”

The captain nodded. “For now. Need to watch, see how fast they're closing.”

Secca frowned, catching the concern in the older woman's voice. “You think they're faster than we are?”

“The wind favors them, and there was but a short time between when the lookout sighted them and when we could see sail from the deck.”

For a time, all watched the dark blue waters to the east, and the specks of white on the horizon that quickly grew into sails above white hulls. Secca began a vocalise, trying to warm up slowly, sensing she would need sorcery, and wondering how singing on the sea would affect the results of the spell.

“Five vessels—two brigs and three of the shallow-draft schooners—all full-rigged,” Weyla pointed out.

Secca frowned. “I thought there were only three of those schooners. That's what the glass showed.”

“They had to be using their own glasses,” suggested Alcaren from behind Secca. His face was pale.

“They use scrying glasses often,” Secca said, “and they were following us all the time in Ebra.” She paused. “I worry about the drums on the water.”

“You think the thunder-drums work better at sea?” questioned Richina.

“Why else would they have developed them?”

The captain inclined her head, and Secca slipped away from the railing toward Weyla.

“Sorceress,” Weyla said slowly, her voice pitched low, “never have I seen a ship that size move with that quickness. On this course we cannot reach the reef before they reach us.” She gestured
again. “The three small war schooners can follow us into the shallows.”

Secca glanced at the oncoming vessels, white sails billowing in the midday sun. The Sturinnese were not within normal spell range, but…could she speed the five Elahwan ships with a wind spell? “I will see what I can do.” She stepped forward, looking down on the main deck, and called to Palian, “Players! The fourth building song!”

“Form up! The fourth building song!”

Secca's command was echoed by both Delvor and Palian, and both sets of players formed up on the mid-deck, the second players forming an arc around the first, both facing eastward. As the scrambling for position died away, and renewed tuning echoed upward, Palian glanced to Secca.

“When you're ready,” called Secca.

“The fourth building song. On my mark…Mark!”

The gentle pitching of the deck had little effect on the players as the first bars poured forth from the strings and horns—and from the lutars of the second players. Secca faced forward and sang.

The sails billowed and the
Alycet
seemed to lurch forward, spray cascading in sheets almost to the forward rails, with a salty mist drifting aft toward Secca. Several players lurched sideways with the ship's motion.

Secca took a deep breath, then looked at the wiry captain. Weyla glanced from Secca to the helmsman, and then to the pursuing Sturinnese.

The sorceress followed the captain's eyes. While the five Elahwan vessels clearly were increasing speed, the sails of the Sturinnese remained billowed and taut, and the distance between the Sturinnese and the
Alycet
continued to decrease, if more slowly.

Were the Sturinnese using wind sorcery backed by drums, as Richina had suggested and Secca feared?

Whatever the Sturinnese were using, it was allowing the pursuing vessels to close on the Elahwan ships, despite the increased speed afforded by Secca's sorcery-boosted winds.

“We need to run for shore, sorceress.”

“Do what you think best, captain.” Secca eased to the rail, putting a hand out to steady herself. From there, she studied the oncoming vessels, trying to think of what spell she could use, and how.

“Starboard thirty!” Weyla ordered the helm. “Bring her round easy!”

“Aye. Starboard thirty. Easy as she goes.”

Richina eased up beside Secca. “They must be using sorcery, too.”

“I fear so.” Secca looked to the north, where the other Elahwan vessels stretched almost in a line abreast, except for the northernmost, which had begun to fall behind the four others.

The two sorceresses continued to watch as the white-hulled vessels drew nearer to the
Alycet
and the other four ships carrying Secca's force.

Secca ran through another vocalise, trying to fix the spell in her mind—a spell she wasn't sure would even work. Yet she
knew
the Sturinnese had to be closer before any spell would carry to them.

The five Sturinnese vessels were less than a dek to the east, when Weyla barked an order. “Fire parties on the deck! Fire parties on the deck!” She looked toward Alcaren, Wilten, and the two sorceresses. “Best you move forward of the helm. Put the mast 'tween you and the Sea-Pigs.”

As Secca slipped to the starboard side of the
Alycet
, following the captain's directions, from somewhere below appeared nearly a half-score sailors, six men and four women, each carrying two buckets. Of each pair, one bucket held sand, the second was empty but was attached to a long coiled line.

The
Alycet
and the
Foamsprite
, and the two vessels immediately abreast of them, were pulling away from the other Elahwan vessel.

Weyla shook her head. “Told Ilspeth that rig wasn't right.”

“The rig?” asked Secca.

“
Wavesinger
's rigged for a northern run. Tighter, but you don't get as much sail in a following wind.”

“So she can't use the wind as fully?”

Weyla nodded. “Afore long, they'll be using the big crossbows to send fireshafts into us. Could be before we cross the shallows.”

Secca could see whitecaps ahead, but they seemed distant, more than deks away, and the land beyond was but a thick line on the horizon. Her eyes darted back to the white-hulled pursuers, the closest—one of the smaller schooners—less than five hundred yards aft.

“Can you offer another spell?” asked the captain. “The flame shafts will be striking soon.”

Secca tried to gauge the distance. How would she know? Too early and the spell would be wasted. “Perhaps…”

Hissssssss…thunk!

Secca's head jerked up at the sound, her mouth opening as a flaming shaft slammed into the deck. Before she could utter a word, one of the women sailors had stepped forward, struck the shaft with an iron hammer to knock it loose and flat on the wooden deck, then covered the flames with damp sand from the bucket she carried.

Hissss….

Secca ducked, but the second flaming shaft had already passed a good yard over her head at an angle and plunged into the dark blue waters of the Southern Ocean. A flicker of orange caught her eye. She swallowed as she saw flames begin to climb up the canvas of the aft mast of the trailing
Wavesinger
. She looked at her companions. Alcaren and Richina looked greenish. Wilten's countenance was drawn. Even Weyla looked worried.

Secca stepped forward and looked down at the players. On the deck below, Palian's face bore a greenish cast, as did Rowal's. “The third building song!”

Secca's command was echoed by both Delvor and Palian, and both sets of players began to re-form, now facing southeast, not quite toward the pursuing Sturinnese.

“The third building song…on my mark!” Palian's words were forced.

“Now!” ordered Secca. On the third bar, the one that began the spell proper, she launched into the words.

As she finished the spell, Secca could only hope her visualizations of the stormwinds were accurate enough, and that her voice and the tones of the players were strong enough. Yet, even before the echoes of the spellsong died away, the once-clear sky began to darken, and a lightning bolt flashed from above, striking the second Sturinnese vessel.

Winds whipped through the canvas above her, cracking the sails like the whip of a teamster. The
Alycet
pitched forward in swells that had become waves five yards or more from crest to trough.

A line of dark rain—almost like a black curtain—formed to the south of the ten ships, and began to move northward…but too slowly. The leading Sturinnese brig surged before the storm, less than a hundred yards from the
Alycet
, plunging directly toward the
Alycet
's stern quarter.

“Richina—get me a lutar! Any lutar!” Secca yelled.

“A lutar! A lutar!” Richina's voice rose over the storm, penetrating the whistle of the wind, and the crashing of the bow into heavier and heavier swells. “A lutar for Lady Secca!” The younger sorceress was halfway down the ladder to the mid-deck, swinging one-armed.

A player staggered and slid toward the blonde sorceress, thrusting a lutar at her. Richina grasped it, and then struggled up the ladder one-handed.

Secca tried to move forward to meet Richina, but found her feet sliding, carrying her aft. An arm—Alcaren's arm—reached out and lifted her toward the railing, which she grasped with both hands to steady herself. Then she made her way forward, hand over hand.

Richina thrust the dark-bodied instrument at Secca.

Taking the heavy lutar in her left hand, Secca half-walked, half-lurched along the side of the taffrail until she stood just to the starboard of the back of the helm platform. The Sturinnese ship was so close that she could see the letters of the name stenciled beneath the bowsprit. She braced herself with one leg against the taffrail, ran her fingers over the strings quickly, hoping the instrument was close to being in tune, cleared her throat, and began the spell.

More lightnings flared out of the blackened sky, some so close to Secca that she felt the heat across her face. Screams echoed from the doomed Sturinnese vessel. The smell of charred flesh swept across the
Alycet
in waves…between spray and wind.

Secca clasped the borrowed lutar with one hand, the railing with the other as the
Alycet
pitched away from the burning mass that had been, moments before, a proud and dangerous white-hulled warship.