Ironcrown Moon (58 page)

“The chills and sweats are worse,” Radd confided to Sir Gavlok. They were in the deepest part of the overhang, where the ground was driest, and Snudge lay beside a tiny fire. “That’s not all.

He almost never moves. I can’t rouse him enough to get water down his throat, and he gags at swallowing mush. His piss is scanty and orange in color. If this was anything but a sickness brought on by sorcery, I’d fear he was dying of poison.”

“He warned me that doing the magic would provoke awful pain, but said nothing at all about these other things. Perhaps he didn’t know.”

Gavlok bent over the figure shrouded entirely in blankets, uncovered his friend’s face, and laid a hand on his forehead. “Shite! His brow’s like ice. And if he won’t drink, he’s surely in a bad way.

Have you tried plying him with a bit of liquor?”

The Swordsman shook his head. “It’d do harm to one in his state, that I’m sure of. Sweet warm tea and broth are the best drinks for Sir

Deveron—if we could only get him to swallow. But what our commander really needs is a doctor and some stronger remedies. The map shows a wee village not far south of here. It might have a resident herb-wife, if nothing else.”

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Gavlok winced at the thought. “Do we dare risk it? They’ll be wary of strangers. They’re bound to report us to their overlord in Skullbone

Peel. We’ll be captured, perhaps killed if they suspect we’re after Princess Maude. At the least, our mission might fail.”

“As it will in certainty if Sir Deveron never awakens,” Radd said starkly. “None of us can use these magic amulets to rescue the lady and her son. You must make the decision. But if we’re to try the village, it’s best we do so at once, before Sir Deveron gets any worse. We’d have to bring the healer here. Gold would provide incentive enough in a poor region like this. Maybe gold would stop the healer’s gob, too

—at least for a little while! We could say our boat’s pulled up in the ravine cove for repair of a sprung garboard strake. We were taking on water so fast we couldn’t make it to the village harbor. Our sick shipmate that we were hoping to bring to the shamans at Fort Ramis took a turn for the worse.”

Gavlok bowed his head, either in thought or prayer. After a long moment he looked up and held Radd’s eye. “It’d have to be you and me who go. We can’t leave the armigers alone. They
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might betray themselves to the enemy with some incautious action. Hulo must stay with them.”

Radd climbed to his feet. “We’re off, then, right now! You find some money and put on clothes that aren’t so grand. I’ll talk to Hulo about how to care for Sir Deveron, and fetch the things we’ll need.”

==========

After two days aboard Duke Feribor’s speeding frigate, Bozuk was in misery from seasickness and the strain of generating favorable winds. The ship had made a splendid rate of knots until reaching the area of the Icebear Channel off the upper Lavalands Peninsula. There the natural wind fell off and thick fog closed in. More ominous, there were many icebergs. The captain had immediately demanded that the shaman either push away the bergs and melt the fog with sorcery, or else use his scrying ability to guide them through the treacherous waters. All this while keeping the ship’s sails filled.

Bozuk had already worn himself out generating the wind. Moving drifting mountains of ice was impossible, and as fast as he dissipated the fog, more rolled in from the Barren Lands to the north. So he was obliged to search out their route, which meant huddling on the cold, damp quarterdeck for hours on end, giving orders to the steersman. Unlike weaker magickers such as the Zeth Brethren and the

Glaumerie Guild wizards of Moss, a top-notch shaman such as he had no difficulty performing two acts of sorcery at once—provided neither was too strenuous. So he kept a breeze blowing in near-dead-calm conditions as he oversaw the ship’s course, shivering in a cocoon of woolen shawls and calling down curses on Duke Feribor or anyone else who had the temerity to interrupt his work.

Including Induna.

You’ve got to bespeak me, Eldpapa. It’s important. I won’t wait until later. Listen to me!

Damn the wicked jade! Why wouldn’t she let him be, stop breaking his concentration? It was too hard to hear her from so far away whilst scrying and wind-whistling together. Let her wait until the ship rounded the tip of Lava-lands and escaped the cursed fog and ice.

Eldpapa! Someone else is here. Five men

—

maybe six. They’re hiding near the peel. I think they might try to rescue the princess and her son

.

He gave it up. “Lower sail,” he commanded the first mate, who stood on the other side of the helmsman. “Drag an anchor—or however you slow the bloody ship down. Have your own men watch out for ice. I must cease this work for a time and go to my cabin.”

The mate began to protest. “But my lord duke has given orders—”

“Putter Feribor and his orders!” Bozuk shrieked. He threw off the wrappings and tottered to the companionway. Before he entered his little cabin, he told an amazed seaman: “If any man dares to disturb me, I’ll turn him into a toad! Give warning—and be sure you tell the damned duke!”

He slammed the door, shed his damp robe, and flopped onto his bunk, rolling himself in the feather-tick he’d insisted on bringing and making sad moans until he finally felt warm and dry and fit to bespeak Induna.

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“Granddaughter, respond to me at once! Tell me everything you know about the men you’ve found. Everything—or it’ll be the worse for you.”

More nasty threats, Eldpapa? Will you never learn?

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“You young ingrate! Why can’t you show respect? I’ve a good mind not to share the second part of the bounty with you. Why should I?

Our agreement was for you to get a third of the five thousand. It’s quite enough. What does a young wench like you need with more?

You’d only squander it on baubles and gowns—”

Stop it. You’ll waste what little strength you have left. Now listen! I only just located these interlopers, and I don’t think the talented ones at the peel have taken note of them yet. They’re encamped in a seaside ravine about half a league from the peel. Five of them are hale and sturdy and well armed. The sixth man if he is indeed a person and not merely a heap of blankets and gear, lies unmoving and may

—

be sick. It’s impossible for me to scry him clearly, covered up and hidden beneath a rock ledge as he is. The style of the men’s garb is

Cathran, and I believe they’ve surely come for the princess and her son

.

“Did they arrive by sea? On horseback? How could they have eluded the oversight of Shaman-Lord Ontel as well as your own?”

I know not. There’s nary a trace of boat or mounts. As to why they weren’t scried, I can’t say, except that I never thought to look for such persons earlier, as I rode towards the whaling village from the Mornash track. Perhaps Lord Ontel didn’t think anyone would come looking for his prisoners so soon. The men are very craftily concealed from oversight down in the ravine. The true mystery is why Red

Ansel never spotted them. What do you want me to do?

“Slay them!” Bozuk cried in a frenzy.

Eldpapa, be sensible. I’m a healer! I don’t use my talent to harm people. Only in self-defense would I even consider smiting another with my sorcery.

“We’re stuck in the damned fog up here,” the old man raged. “We won’t sail out of it until tomorrow, at least, then it’s another eighty leagues to the cove below Skullbone. Our arrival might be delayed until day after tomorrow. These mysterious fellows must not be allowed to leave their hiding place. If Ontel is alarmed, he may remove the prisoners to another place. Then my plan to coerce him with the ship’s guns and tarnblaze will be ruined—and God knows what Duke Feribor would do! The man’s temper smolders like a volcano, Induna. He ordered a seaman flogged to death for a petty bit of insolence this morning. The day before, he smote a clumsy steward senseless for spilling the soup. The poor knave’s jaw was broken! What if Feribor turns against me?”

Freeze him solid. Fling a ball of lightning at him. Send him mad with frightful visions… Why do you ask me what to do, you silly thing?

Aren’t you Blind Bozuk, the mightiest renegade shaman in all of Tarn?

“Feribor could attack me before I realized the danger. And I’m so weary, Induna! Too old and decrepit to perform the magical feats that have been demanded of me. I thought I’d only have to create a little wind. The God of the Heights and Depths knows that this ship of the duke’s is a marvel of speed even without my pushing its sails. But in a dead calm, such as we have in this miserable fog… is there much wind where you are?”

There was yesterday. Today the sea is flat and it rains straight down.

Bozuk gave a croak of despair. “Do what you can to keep the strangers away from Skullbone Peel. Will you promise me that, lass?”

Certainly. I’ll think of something. Take care of yourself, Eldpapa. Farewell.

The old man groaned again. And then there came a strong rapping at his cabin door. “Master Bozuk! It’s Feribor. Open to me! What’s this nonsense about toads?”

“Coming, my lord,” the shaman said. Slowly, he unrolled himself from the feather-tick and shuffled to the door.

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Induna sighed as she cut the windthread. Rain tapped on the slate roof of the cottage, but her little loft chamber was cosy enough. It was almost time for the midday meal: whale stew. She shuddered.

Well, perhaps she ought to scry out the lurking men again and give serious effort to reading their lips. They might furnish useful information.

She sat on a stool and covered her eyes.

Five minutes later, with her face gone very pale, she pulled on a pair of stout boots, grabbed up her cloak and a leather sack of herbal medicines, and was off into the pouring rain before the affronted goodwife of the cottage could object.

==========

Smoke from the chimneys hung low, and an odd, pervasive stench filled the air. There was not a flower or a patch of greenery to be seen anywhere within the muddy precincts of the hamlet.

Three men in oilskins worked on the hull of a careened sailboat, hauled up on a shingle slope just below the cliff. Aside from them, not another soul was to be seen.

“What a hellhole,” Gavlok murmured. “And this is high summer! Imagine what it must be like in wintertime, when the sun peeps over the horizon for scarcely two hours a day and the arctic tempests roar.”

“Folk live where they can find work,” Radd said mildly. “We are not all belted knights attending upon a king and dwelling in a palace.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Hush!” The veteran Swordsman had wrenched his body about and stared in narrow-eyed alarm at the rolling plateau behind them. He muttered a curse. “I hear someone coming up the path from the village. Crouch down in the weeds and don’t move.”

Gavlok obeyed. After a few moments, he heard the footsteps, too, splashing and crunching and now and then dislodging a loose stone, becoming ever louder. But no one came into sight.

“Where is he?” Gavlok whispered frantically. “God knows, he makes enough noise—but I see no one.”

A female voice said, “Because I don’t wish to be seen.”

Both men gave great starts. Still acrouch, Radd drew his long dagger and assumed a righting stance. Gavlok was too bemused to do anything save sit on the wet ground and stare wildly about.

“Who are you?” the voice said. It was high and clear. “What do you want?”

Radd said, “We’re Cathran mariners in trouble, beached a few leagues to the north. One of our number is taken ill. We hoped to find a healer in yonder village, but we hesitated to approach, not knowing how we’d be received. Some folk hereabouts don’t welcome strangers.”

“Put up your blade. As it happens, you’re in luck.”

Wondering, Radd sheathed his dagger. He and Gavlok were now on their feet, looking this way and that for the unseen speaker.

She appeared, and even as they exclaimed in surprise, they realized that she’d been there all the time—but somehow their minds had refused to admit the fact. Small of stature, she was nevertheless a woman full-grown, sixteen or seventeen years of age, with a pretty round face and steady dark eyes. Strands of curly red-gold hair stole from beneath the hood of her rain-cloak,
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and she carried a bulging leather scrip and a walking staff.

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“I am Gavlok Whitfell and this is Radd Falcontop.” The tall knight bowed politely and touched his brow in salute. “Madam, are you a sorceress?”

“I’m an apprentice shaman and a healer,” she said. “My name is Induna of Barking Sands.”

Gavlok cried out eagerly, “Will you come and look to our sick friend, Mistress Induna? We fear he may be dying. We’ll gladly pay for your services—”

“I’ll come, and no payment will be necessary.”

Radd’s eyes went slitty as he studied her with a slow smile. “We’re indeed lucky to have met you, all dressed for travel and willing to accompany us with no ado. It’s almost as though you were expecting us! Do you carry medicines in your bag?”