Stormwarden (2 page)

* * *

But night fell without her return. Too late Emien thought of the dark ship which had sailed from the fishers' wharf that afternoon, to anchor beyond the headland.

"I'll find her," he promised, wounded by his mother's tears. He took a sack of biscuit from the pantry shelf and let himself out onto the puddled brick of Rat's Alley.

The moon curved like a sail needle over the water at the harbor's edge. Emien cast off the mooring of his cousin's sloop
Dacsen,
fear coiled in his gut.

"Taen, I'll kill you," he said bitterly, and wept as he hauled on the halyard. Tanbark canvas flapped sullenly up the mast. Emien abruptly wished he could kill the Stormwarden instead, for stealing the child's trust.

* * *

The black ship
Crow
rolled mildly at her anchorage, tugged by the rhythmic swell off the barrier reefs. Gimbaled oil lamps swung in the tight confines of her aft cabin, fanning splayed shadows across the curly head and fat shoulders of the Constable where he sat at the chart table. He had shed his scarlet finery in favor of a dressing robe of white silk and he reeked of drink.

"You disappointed the Guard Sergeant," he said. "He expected the villagers to fight for you, and he wanted to bash heads. How very clever of you to plead guilty, Anshiri. Blessed Fires! Instead he had to protect you from them." The Constable crashed his cup, empty, onto the chart locker. He stroked his stomach. "The Sergeant cursed you for that."

A fainter gleam of white stirred in the dimness beside the bulkhead, accompanied by the clink of enchanted fetters. "But I am guilty, Eminence." Anskiere spoke with dry irony. "Had I not spared your mistress's life, Tierl Enneth would not have drowned at her hand."

The fat man chuckled. "Tathagres richly enjoyed your performance, you know. It was entertaining to hear you confess in her place, just to spare an islet of shit-stinking fisher folk. Or were you truly eager to escape their gull-splattered rock?"

Anskiere sat with his head bent. The oil lamp carved deep shadows under his eyes and tinted his skin as yellow as an old painting.

"I forgot." The Constable belched. "You love fish stench and poverty and, oh yes, a boy whose sister has a twisted leg. Tell me, was he good?"

"Innocent as you are foul." Anskiere spoke softly, but his glance held warning. "Why mention the boy?"

The Constable smiled and bellowed for more wine. He licked wet lips, and his hands stilled on his belly. "Ah, it was touching, Anshiri. The forecastle watch caught the boy climbing the anchor cable. He claimed his sister had stowed away, for love of you, and he came to fetch her home in a fish-reeking little boat. He was angry. I believe he hates you."

The Constable's chuckle was clipped by Anskiere's query.

"What? The girl?" The official blinked, then sobered. "We searched, of course, but didn't find her. Perhaps she fell overboard." Planks creaked under his bulk as he leaned forward, slitted eyes intent on the prisoner's face. His features oozed into another smile. "You lied, Anshiri. You said Tathagres had no means to force your will. But I think now that she does."

* * *

Taen woke to her brother's sudden shout.

"No!" His words carried clearly to her hiding place in the ship's galley. "I beg you! Without
Dacsen,
my mother and cousins will starve."

Emien's protest was answered by the drawl of a deckhand. "Cap'n said cut her adrift, boy." Laughter followed.

Taen shivered. The chilly rims of cooking pots gouged her back as she pressed her face against a crack in the planking to see out. Torches flickered amidships, casting sultry light over the naked shoulders of the sailors. Black armor gleamed in their midst. Taen saw her brother hoisted in the grip of a foot lancer. The boy struggled as a rigging knife flashed in a sailor's hand. A rope parted under its edge, and the whispered flop of
Dacsen's
sails silenced as wind swung her bow out of the dark ship's shadow.

"That was unjust." Emien's desperation turned sullen with anger. "I've done no wrong."

The foot lancer shook him. In the pot locker, Taen flinched, and her fingers twisted in the cloth of her shift.

"Cap'n don't like flotsam dragglin' aft." The sailor sheathed his knife and nodded toward the open hatch grating. "An" he won't have shore rats messin' his deck, neither. You'll go below."

Helplessly Taen watched the foot lancers drag her brother away. The sailors clustered round the hatch, grinning at Emien's curses; aft, the deck was deserted. Taen bit her lip, hesitant. Earlier she had seen the Constable push Anskiere through a companion way left unguarded. Abruptly resolved, the girl crept from the cranny which had sheltered her and slipped from the galley, the drag of her lame foot masked by the slap of wavelets against the hull. She paused, trembling, by the mainmast. Torches moved up forward. A deckhand said something coarse, and a splatter of laughter followed. The white crash of breakers on the reef to starboard was joined by a hollow scream of splintering plank.

Taen blinked back tears.
Dacsen
had struck. Through wet eyes she saw sailors crowding the forecastle rail to watch the sea pound the small sloop to wreckage. With a restraint beyond her years, Taen seized her opportunity while their backs were turned. She crossed the open deck into the dark gloom of the quarterdeck.

The latch lifted soundlessly in her hands. Beyond lay a narrow passage lit dimly by the glow which spilled from the open door of the mate's cabin. Taen heard voices arguing within. She peered through, and saw the two sorcerers who had bound Anskiere's power leaning over the mate's berth. Bright against the woolen blanket lay a staff capped with a looped interlace of brass and counterweighted at the base. Beside it rested Anskiere's leather satchel.

"Fool!" The sorcerer robed in red gestured with thin splayed fingers at the man in the braid. "You may know your way about a ship,
Captain.
You know nothing of craft. Anskiere's staff is harmless."

The captain moved to interrupt. Fast as a cat, the sorcerer in black hooked his sleeve. "Believe him, Captain. That staff was discharged by Tathagres herself. How else could she have raised the sea and ruined Tierl Enneth? You don't believe the power was her own, do you?"

"Fires, no." The captain fretted uncomfortably and tugged his clothing free. "But I'll certainly have mutiny, a bloody one, unless you can convince my crew that Anskiere can work no vengeance."

"That should not prove difficult." The sorcerer in red caught the satchel with a veined hand, and in the doorway Taen shrank from his smile. "An enchanter separated from his staff seldom goes undefended. Anskiere will not differ." The sorcerer loosened the knots of the pouch, upended it, and spilled its contents with a rustle onto the blanket.

Taen strained for a glimpse of what lay between the men.

"Feathers!" The captain reached out contemptuously, and found his wrist captured in a bony grip.

"Don't touch. Would you ruin us?" Disgustedly, the sorcerer released the captain. "Each of those feathers is a weather ward, set by Anskiere against need. You look upon enough force to level Imrill Kand, captain."

The dark sorcerer lifted a slim brown quill from the pile. Taen recognized the wing feather of a shearwater. She watched with stony eyes as the sorcerer tossed it lightly into the air.

As the feather drifted downward into a spin, it became to the eye a blur ringed suddenly by a halo of blue-violet light. From its center sprang the sleek, elegant form of the bird itself, wings extended for flight. Damp salt wind arose from nowhere, tossing the lamp on its hook. Shadows danced crazily.

The red sorcerer clapped a hand to his belt. A dagger flashed in his fist. He struck like a snake. The bird was wrenched from midair and tumbled limp to the deck, blood jumping in bright beads across the oiled wood. The bird quivered once, and the breeze died with it.

Taen shivered in the grip of nausea. The red sorcerer wiped the knife on his sleeve while the dark sorcerer picked another feather from the bed. Before long the hem of his robe hung splattered with scarlet. A pile of winged corpses grew at his feet, and blood ran with the roll of the ship. At each bird's death there was a fleeting scent of spring rain, or a touch of mellow summer sun, and more than once the harsh cold edge of the gales of autumn. At last, sickened beyond tolerance Taen stumbled past the door. Preoccupied with their slaughter, the men within did not notice.

* * *

Beyond the chartroom door, Taen heard the wet bubbly snores of the Constable. The lamp had burned low. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the gloom. Past the chart table and the Constable's slumped bulk, Anskiere sat with his head resting on crossed arms. Enchanted fetters shone like coals through tangled hair, and his robe was dusty and creased.

Taen stepped through the door. At the faint scrape of her lame foot, Anskiere roused, opened eyes flat as slate, and saw her in the doorway. He beckoned, and the chime of his bonds masked her clumsy run as she flung herself into his arms.

"The soldiers took Emien, and
Dacsen
wrecked on the reef." Her whisper caught as a sob wrenched her throat.

"I know, little one." Anskiere held her grief-racked body close.

Taen gripped his sleeve urgently. "Warden, the sorcerers are killing your birds. I saw them."

"Hush, child. They've not taken the one that matters most." Anskiere flicked a tear from the girl's chin. "Can I trust her to your care?"

Taen nodded. She watched gravely as the Stormwarden made a rip in the seam of his hood lining. He drew forth a tawny feather barred with black and laid it in her palm.

The girl turned the quill over in her hands. The shape was thin, keen as a knife, and the markings unfamiliar. Anskiere touched her shoulder. Reluctantly she looked up.

"Taen, listen carefully. Go on deck and loose the feather on the wind."

The girl nodded. "On the wind," she repeated, and started at the sudden tramp of feet beyond the door. Fast as a rat, she scuttled into the shadow of the chart table. The Constable snored on above her head, oblivious.

Men entered; the captain and both sorcerers. Blood-streaked hands seized Anskiere and hauled him upright, leaving Taen with a view of his feet.

"Where is it?" The red sorcerer's voice was shrill. Anskiere's reply held arctic calm. "Be specific, Hearvia." Somebody slapped him.

The black sorcerer advanced. His robe left smears on the deck. "You have a stormfalcon among your collection, yes? It was not in the satchel."

"You'll not find her."

"Won't we?" The black sorcerer laughed. Taen shivered with gooseflesh at the sound, and gripped the feather tightly against her chest.

"Search him."

Cloth tore and Anskiere staggered. Taen cowered against the Constable's boots as the sorcerers ripped Anskiere's cloak and robe to rags. Near the table's edge, mangled wool fell to the deck, marked across with bloody fingerprints.

"It isn't on him," said the captain anxiously. "What shall I tell the crew?"

The red sorcerer whirled crossly. "Tell them nothing, fool!" Taen heard a squeal Of hinges as he yanked open the chart room door. "Confine the Stormwarden under guard, and keep him from the boy."

The stamp of feet dwindled down the passage, underscored by the glassy clink of Anskiere's fetters. Taen shivered with the aftermath of terror, and against her, the Constable twitched like a dog in his sleep. The smell of sweat and spilled wine, and the impact of all she had witnessed, suddenly wrung Taen with dizziness. She left the shelter of the table and bolted through the open door. With the feather clamped in whitened fingers, she turned starboard, clumsily dragging her twisted foot up the companionway which led to the quarterdeck.

A sailor lounged topside, one elbow hooked over the binnacle. Taen saw his silhouette against the spoked curve of the wheel, and dodged just as the sailor spotted her.

"You!" He dove and missed. His knuckles barked against hatchboards. Taen skinned past and ran for the taffrail.

"Fires!" the sailor cursed. At her heels Taen heard a scuffle of movement as he untangled himself from the binnacle.

Torches moved amidships. At the edge of her vision, Taen saw the black outline of a foot lancer's helm above the companionway stair. Driven and desperate, she flung herself upward against the beaded wood of the rail. Hard hands caught her, yanked her back. She flailed wildly, balance lost, and the sea breeze snatched the feather from her fingers. It skimmed upward out of reach.

Taen felt herself shaken till her teeth rattled. Through blurred eyes she watched Anskiere's feather whirl away on the wind. It shimmered, exploded with a snap into a tawny falcon marked with black. Violet and blue against the stars, a heavy triple halo of light circled its outstretched wings. Taen smelled lightning on the air. The man above her swore, and below, a crowd began to gather in the ship's waist.

"Stormfalcon!" a sailor cried. His companions shouted maledictions, threaded through with Anskiere's name, as the bird overhead took flight. Wind gusted, screaming, through the rigging. Half quenched by spray blown off the reef, the torches streamed ragged tails of smoke.

Smothered by the cloth of her captor's sleeve, Taen heard someone yell for a bow. But the falcon vanished into the night long before one could be brought. The sergeant rounded angrily on the girl held pinioned by the deckhand.

"Is that the brat the boy came looking for? I'll whip the blazes out of her. She's caused us a skinful of trouble!"

But the voice of the black sorcerer cut like a whip through the confusion.
"Leave the child be."

Startled stillness fell; the wind had died, leaving the mournful rush of the swells etched against silence. The onlookers shifted hastily out of the sorcerer's path as he approached the sergeant who held Taen in his arms.

"The harm is done." The sorcerer's voice was as brittle as shells. "The stormfalcon is already flown. The girl, I'm told, is valued by Anskiere. Give her to me. He will soon be forced to recall his bird."

Taen was passed like a bundle of goods to the sorcerer. The touch of his bony wrists, crisscrossed still with bloodstains, caused her at last to be sick.

"Fires!" The sergeant laughed. "Take her with my blessing."

"Go and tell Tathagres what has passed," said the sorcerer, and the sergeant's mirth died off as though choked.