The Wizard's Coming (3 page)

Corrain disappeared through the door to the stable yard.

* * *

'The captain said make haste.' Treche looked warily around, his face shadowed by a dusty black hood.

No one was hurrying through this market place, thronged with people. Merchants were selling all manner of wares from trestle tables beneath broad awnings. With the sun turning its face towards noon, most were replenishing their stock, stacking baskets as they emptied them.

'The captain said get the word through.' Unlil had swapped his grey uniform cloak for a long green cape. A man carrying freshly baked pies twisted through the crowd and trod on the tattered hem, tearing it further.

Treche lowered the handles of the laden push-cart he was laboriously shoving over the cobbles and blew on his fingers. While the day was agreeably bright, it was still bitterly cold. 'You don't think everyone else will already be home?'

Two men peddling trinkets from trays hung around their necks paused just ahead, rearranging their depleted offerings so their displays looked less sparse.

'Maybe so, maybe not.' Unlil glowered at a plump townswoman as she barged past him.

'You can explain to my lord's horse-master how you traded two good mounts for a barrow load of pease and a rag-man's cast-offs,' Treche muttered. He reached for the push-cart's handles and grunted with pain. 'Ah!' Straightening, he knuckled the small of his back.

'I'll take my turn--' Unlil broke off.

As Treche brought his hand forward, they both saw the glistening red bright in the sunlight. Treche's knees gave way and he slumped over the handcart. There was a dull gleam on his faded cloak, the cloth freshly dyed with his blood.

Unlil looked around wildly. No one looked back. Everyone in the crowd was intent on their own affairs. A man jostled him from behind. Unlil turned, fumbling for his sword. Hampered by the voluminous cape, he was too slow. As the heedless jostler went on his way, Unlil looked down to see a stubby knife hilt pinning the green cloth draping his thigh.

He gasped in sudden agony. Crippled by the burning poison, he fell to his knees like Treche. He wrenched the knife out of his leg but never heard the rising shrieks as passers-by suddenly realised there were two dead men in their midst.

* * *

'You keep looking at the door, my lord Halferan.' A short man spoke, his gaudy robe of embroidered scarlet velvet like a flame against the dark wooden panelling hiding the lower half of the hall's tall stone walls. Long lancet windows pierced the whitewashed upper expanses, burning with the last glow of sunset. 'Are you expecting someone?' As his dark eyes slid towards the entrance, he toyed with his short black beard, slicked to a point with scented oil.

'My people often seek my counsel.' Halferan's poise was commendable, apparently relaxed as he sat in his canopied chair. It dominated the dais at the northern end of the hammer-beamed hall.

'They rely on you to defend their interests.' The man in the red robe walked along the edge of the dais, disdaining the grey-liveried swordsmen standing around the smouldering hearth just below. 'Which means protecting them from the corsairs' raids.'

Though Halferan was dressed in finer cloth than his warriors, he wore fighting gear like them, booted and spurred. Such garb flattered his wide shoulders and long, muscular legs. Like most, his hair was an undistinguished middling brown, his complexion faded from summer's deep tan to a winter's pallor.

He looked at the stocky man with undisguised contempt. 'My men cut their teeth driving off such curs, Master Scavarin.'

Though the men around the hearth growled their agreement, their lord's defiance rang painfully hollow.

The bearded man smiled, quite confident. 'But then those teeth are knocked out by corsair fists, which black their eyes besides, and break their bones.' As he turned to stroll back across the dais, his unprotected back was impervious to the warriors' lacerating glares.

Distant, away by the double door, men in drab brown sniggered into tankards of ale. Like Scavarin, they were dark of hair and eye, sallow skinned. Only one wasn't drinking, gold rings glinting on his fingers as he watched intently, his hands loose in his lap.

'Even victory leaves wounded men sapping your strength,' Scavarin continued with blithe assurance. 'How many raids do you successfully drive off? How often do your men arrive too late, to find houses burned and barns ransacked? How many women and children have been ravished or stolen away to be sold into slavery among the Aldabreshi?'

Lascivious guffaws down by the door prompted one of Halferan's men to half draw his sword, the rest stirring with anger.

Halferan gestured and the man rammed the blade back into its scabbard. 'Keep your ruffians quiet, Scavarin. Don't imagine I don't know they'll have to account for my people's blood before Saedrin.'

'Blood or gold, my lord. Which do you prefer to pay?' Scavarin waved artless hands, a ruby seal ring catching the light of candles lit against the encroaching twilight. 'And you promised us safe conduct, my lord. My associates have surrendered their swords. Go back on your word and utter destruction will be visited upon your lands,' he hissed with sudden venom.

'What if no one's left alive to tell them how you died?' a voice demanded, anonymous among the warriors.

'They might conclude you betrayed them,' Halferan mused. 'And took my gold for yourself.'

Scavarin stood motionless for an instant before smiling serenely once again. 'To business, my lord. My associates, or rather, their masters, undertake to leave your lands alone if you pay a suitable sum--'

'A suitable sum?' Halferan's scorn was caustic. 'Will your associates be satisfied with the same amount next year? Or will I be asked for more and still more the following year? You would beggar me.'

Scavarin sighed heavily. 'I understood on my last visit that this was all agreed in principle. I thought I was bringing my associates to agree a figure acceptable to both parties. Why the delay, my lord?'

'I am reconsidering my decision to accept this thieves' bargain,' Halferan said austerely.

Scavarin shook his head sorrowfully. 'You don't want your people to welcome spring planting secure in the knowledge that they can raise their crops and husband their livestock and cherish their children in safety?' He looked straight at Halferan. 'Winter's storms will soon be over, my lord. The corsairs will sail and your people will suffer. How much greater their anguish will be, when they learn you could have stopped all their torment. Will they thank you for hoarding your gold in your strong room? Because they will find out, my lord.' He waved his hand towards the door once again. 'We shall make sure word spreads.'

'You admit you're as one with these scum.' Halferan nodded, contemptuous. 'So much for your claim of being an honest broker.'

'This isn't about me, my lord. It's about you.' Scavarin was unperturbed. He smiled as if suddenly amused. 'Or are you delaying in hopes that the wizard will come?'

'I don't know what you mean.' Lord Halferan tried to pretend confusion but too many men in the hall froze at the corsair envoy's words.

'Do you honestly believe a wizard's coming will save you?' Scavarin was openly pitying. 'Don't deny you've sent begging letters to the mage-halls of Hadrumal, to the Archmage himself. I know you have. Know this, my lord. No mage will ever involve himself in the petty squabbles of Caladhrian lordlings and insignificant coastal raiders. Because that's all we are to the mighty wizards of Hadrumal.'

'When I find whoever is passing you information I will hang them to feed the crows,' Halferan said tightly.

'Build a big gallows, my lord.' Scavarin shrugged. 'Many people have doubts about your rule. Concern prompts loose talk.' He spread his hands in an obsequious appeal. 'Let's concentrate on the issue before us. Agree a sum, pay up and secure peace for your people. Delay and the price goes up until the black ships come ashore. Mages have no need of gold or land or even a precious daughter's hand in marriage. But we will accept your gold, my lord, and leave your lands in peace.' His smile turned cruel. 'Your daughters will go virgin to their marriage beds.'

'You go too far!' A red flush of fury seared Halferan's cheekbones.

Tense silence held the hall in thrall. The swordsmen around the hearth glowered at the corsairs by the door. The unwelcome guests sat motionless. The man who wasn't drinking clenched beringed fists.

Scavarin threw up his hands in apparent surrender. 'Forgive me, my lord. That was uncouth--'

Outside, a thunderous storm of blows attacked the great entrance.

'My lord--' A man-at-arms threw open the small porter's door cut into the larger one and stuck his head through. He vanished abruptly as a hand wrenched him backwards.

'My lord Halferan!' A second man ducked through the low portal, scraping his shoulder. 'The wizard's coming!'

'Corrain?' Incredulous, Halferan sprang to his feet.

'Alar, no!'

The corsair with the fists full of rings was instantly on his feet. Ignoring Scavarin, he drew a broad dagger from some concealed sheath to threaten Corrain.

Several of the guards had made for the door as soon as they heard knocking. They broke into a run down the long central aisle, others hard on their heels. None could hope to reach Corrain before the corsair was on him.

The saturnine trooper recoiled from the dagger's murderous down-stroke. The squat blade ripped into the coarse weave of his cloak. Corrain snatched a handful of the cloth and wrapped it around the corsair's dagger and forearm both, punching the raider full in the throat with his other hand. The corsair collapsed, choking and clawing at his neck.

'My lord, our safe-conduct--' As Scavarin turned, protesting, he found Halferan's sword point pricking just below the oiled point of his beard.

'Safe conduct on condition you surrendered your blades,' Halferan spat. 'Seize them!'

Scavarin called out in an unknown tongue. The rest of the corsairs threw down daggers they had belatedly produced, raising empty hands in insolent surrender as the guards reached them.

'My lord.' Scavarin swallowed hard and looked down the length of the shining steel. 'Your man says a wizard is coming. No mage is here yet. You'd be ill-advised to kill us before you're certain of him. If your man's mistaken, I can still negotiate a new agreement to safeguard your people. If I'm still alive.'

'True.' Halferan didn't lower his sword. 'Take them all to the dungeons. Lock this weasel up apart from the rest of the vermin.'

'Have a care, my lord.' Scavarin made no move as two warriors scrambled up to the dais to seize his arms. He twisted in the men's grip to look around at Halferan as they hauled him away unresisting. 'If I don't send word to my associates out at sea within three days, they'll assume you've killed me and attack regardless.'

Halferan ignored him, intent on Corrain as the man hurried down the hall.

As the men dragged Scavarin out through a side door his voice cracked with fear and anger. 'They'll burn your hall to the ground, my lord, and slaughter every living thing within it. Once they've raped everything in skirts--'

The door slammed on Scavarin's threats as Halferan jumped down from the dais to meet the swordsman. 'How soon will Gefren get him here?'

'I don't know,' Corrain answered apprehensively.

* * *

'Where is he?' Narich backed down the stubby jetty, naked sword in hand. His gaze searched every doorway and alley dividing the shuttered houses huddled beneath the sandstone cliff.

'Where are they?' Hollow-eyed with tiredness, Gefren was intent on the single-masted ship tied up beside the outthrust finger of squared-off stone. On deck, a few sailors were tidying ropes and storm-torn sails in desultory fashion.

'We lost them.' Narich didn't sound convinced. 'Elkan and Avayan are keeping watch.'

As he gestured, the two other men waved back. Elkan was at the end of the row of houses, beside a modest tavern. Avayan was at the top of a path writhing back and forth up the sloping shoulder of land sheltering this fishing village. It was the only way to the top of the cliffs.

'He's here,' breathed Gefren.

Narich looked back over his shoulder to see a slight figure walking down the gangplank. Despite the unceasing wind, a cobalt cloak hung down from his shoulders in untroubled folds. Beneath it he wore riding boots and breeches and a long-sleeved midnight-blue jerkin over a creamy linen shirt.

'Master Minelas.' Gefren hurried down the jetty. 'We're here--'

'--from Lord Halferan. I know.' The slim wizard was quite composed. 'I assume you have a horse for me?'

'Can't you--' Narich hesitated. 'Isn't there some magic--'

The wizard turned pale blue eyes on the trooper. 'Not to take a mage somewhere he's never been before.' He shook his head ruefully, the watery sunlight burnishing his golden hair. 'Otherwise I'd have been at your lord's side as soon as I'd read his letter.'

'That's a shame,' Narich said with feeling.

'We've horses stabled.' Gefren gestured towards Elkan, who waved back and vanished into the yard behind the tavern.

Ayavan's loud shout from the heights echoed around the cliffs. 'Raiders!'

'Corsairs have been hunting us all along the coast.' Narich sounded on the verge of despair.

As the three men on the jetty watched, Avayan scrambled down the precipitous path.

'We're betrayed, master mage,' Gefren said tightly.

'Indeed.' Minelas was untroubled.

Gefren groaned as six horsemen appeared and their steeds began picking cautiously down the steep slope. 'Let us go first, master mage. We'll try to cut you a path.' He looked towards the tavern as Elkan reappeared, a boy helping him control a handful of saddled and bridled horses. 'Narich will stay with you--'

'Your lord asks for wizardry to defend his people against these brutes.' Minelas took a pace forward, flexing his long fingers. 'Let's make a start here.'

The foremost corsair's horse stumbled and whinnied. Its hind hooves slid out from under it and it sat down hard on its black rump, forelegs thrust out forwards to brace itself on the perilous path. Its rider managed to keep his seat to no avail. Neither spurs nor whip could induce the petrified horse to stand, leaving the path blocked.