Wren the Fox Witch (Europa #3: A Dark Fantasy) (6 page)

He shrugged. “It never really seems to work out. Immortality, I mean. I kept thinking that if people only had enough time, they could solve all the mysteries in the world. Science, philosophy, even God. In India, I met a wonderful young man, a prince, and I made him immortal, thinking that if a good man ruled long enough, his goodness would reshape his entire people, his entire culture. And it worked, for a while. But he grew lonely and bored, just like me, and he wandered off. I have no idea whatever happened to him.”

“What about the ones in Rus and Seera?”

“Syria,” he corrected her. “The Syrians were supposed to be my great philosophers. I chose each of them because they were intelligent, disciplined, and dedicated. I taught them everything I knew at the time, and asked them to continue my work studying sun-steel, and aether, and soul-breaking. And they did, for a while, but it didn’t last. Nothing lasts.”

Wren watched his face for a moment, seeing the same faraway sorrow and weariness that always came over him when he talked about his past. She waited, hoping he would keep talking, and when he didn’t she had to nudge him. “And in Rus?”

“Just two. The very last, about five hundred years ago.”

“Lovers?” she asked, her face brightening.

“A mother and her son.”

“Oh.” She let her chin sink back down the rail. It was an uncomfortable position, but she was in the mood to be uncomfortable. Living below decks in the warm rocking belly of the ship had been the quietest, most peaceful two days of her entire journey across Europa. And she hated it.

“Actually, the mother could probably tell us something about those walking corpses back there.” Omar nodded in the direction of Vlachia. “She fancied herself quite the aether-wright, too. She liked talking to the dead. It was something we had in common.”

“You liked her?” Wren elbowed him gently in the ribs.

Omar hesitated, the pale ghost of a smile tugging at his lip. “Maybe once, or twice.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Wren rolled her eyes. “Is there anyone you haven’t slept with?”

As the sun sank and the wind rose, the caravel cruised into the mouth of the Strait, passing a slender white lighthouse on the north shore, and soon after they passed a broader gray lighthouse on the south shore. Traffic on the water quickly increased as more and more fishermen came in from the Black Sea to their homes for the night. Other merchantmen cruised along with them, most of similar size to
La Rosa
, but there was at least one ship far ahead of them, hidden by the glare of the setting sun, that Wren believed to be something much larger.

They entered a wider section of the Strait and she saw a pair of huge sailing ships riding at anchor. The current had swung them both to the west so their long, sharp bowsprits were pointed at
La Rosa
as it approached from the east. Many men in blue and gray and white shirts and coats stood on the decks of the ships with swords on their belts and knives in their hands. They leaned on the rails and looked down at the small caravel as it passed between them. The hulls of the ships wore iron plates along the water line, and the open doors below the railings revealed the dark mouths of the guns, dozens of huge guns arranged in two tiers. Wren recalled Omar’s description of these weapons, and she swallowed loudly as she thought of the black iron shells flying out and smashing their poor little boat into splinters with a roar of fire and smoke.

“Eranian galleons. But don’t worry,” Omar said. “They’re just here to keep the Hellans out of the Black Sea. They won’t bother us.”

“What about the check points?” Wren asked.

At that moment, a smaller gunboat that rode at the same height as
La Rosa
emerged from behind one of the warships and came alongside the caravel as it passed the hulking ironclads.

“Here come the imperial bureaucrats now. Turks, by the look of them.” Omar pointed at the gunboat. It sported a pair of small cannons near the bow and another pair near the stern, but there were no sailors near any of the weapons. Instead there were four grim men by the railing with ropes, and four of the Espani sailors went to stand opposite them. The ropes were thrown across and the two ships were pulled together as other men above deck set about reefing the sails and slowing both ships as they continued west.

Captain Ortiz went to the railing with a leather satchel in his hand, and he tossed it across the rails to his counterpart on the Turkish ship. The other captain opened the bag and flipped through the papers for several minutes, nodded, and threw the satchel back. Then six of his men climbed up on the rails and jumped across to
La Rosa
.

Wren instantly reached for the small bone knife on her belt, but Omar shook his head, and she forced herself to stand still as the six Turkish sailors moved quickly across the deck, glanced at the men, and then trooped below to inspect the cargo. For several long minutes, Wren stood at the rail in the gathering dark as her fox eyes came into focus and she watched the men on both ships go about their duties just as before, tying lines and taking soundings and muttering quietly. Then the Turkish sailors came back on deck and headed for the rail where their own ship awaited. One of them moved away from the others so he could lean in close to Omar and say, “And who are you?”

“Omar Bakhoum,” he said calmly. “I’m a doctor. I was sent to Vlachia to investigate a plague.”

“What plague?”

Wren raised an eyebrow.

They don’t know about it. Is that because it’s too warm here for the walking dead, or just because it hasn’t reached this place yet?

She inhaled the night air, and saw a light flurry of snow just beginning to fall overhead.

It may be cold enough, after all.

“Nothing,” Omar said. “It wasn’t a plague at all. Just some superstitious farmers jumping at shadows and mist.”

The sailor nodded. “And where are you bound now?”

“Back to Alexandria.”

The sailor’s eyes shifted to Wren.

“With my new apprentice,” Omar continued. “She’s from Rus.”

The sailor gave Omar a wink and a shrug and started to leave, but as he moved on he reached out to flick the scarf from Wren’s head. She gasped and scrambled to pull it back over her hair and ears, but it had fallen all the way back to her shoulders and she needed a moment to grab it and flip it back into place. In that moment, the sailor stared at her head.

“What the devil…?”

Omar stepped smoothly in between them and rested his hand on his sword. “You have keen eyes, friend. Now prove that you have keen ears,” he whispered to the sailor. “I didn’t come here for some plague. I came to collect this girl, and now I’m taking her back to my masters to study her. But you saw nothing here except a doctor and his apprentice.”

The sailor narrowed his eyes and reached for the dirk on his belt.

Omar drew his seireiken, but only a hair, only far enough to expose a tiny sliver of the bright sun-steel blade. The light flashed on the sailor’s face, and then the light was gone. Omar said, “You saw nothing.”

The sailor stared down at the sheathed seireiken in wide-eyed astonishment. “You’re one of…”

“Yes.” Omar nodded. “And you. Saw. Nothing.”

“Nothing,” the man whispered, and he darted back to his own ship. The lines were loosed and the gunboat turned away to head back up the channel to the ironclads, and
La Rosa
continued west into the deepening gloom of the night.

Omar gripped the railing as he glared at the dark skyline of the southern shore. “That sailor recognized my seireiken.”

“I noticed that,” Wren said. “What does that mean?”

“It means that there are other members of my little brotherhood here, in Stamballa, most likely advising the Eranian army.”

“You mean the Sons of Osiris? But isn’t that a good thing? Can’t we just go meet with them? Won’t they help us get through the check points and get to Alexandria faster?”

Omar glanced at her. “Maybe. Maybe not. Ours is not a very brotherly brotherhood. It would all depend on who exactly the commander is. He might help us, or he might torture us, interrogate us, kill us, and take our sun-steel.”

“Oh.” Wren nodded. “Well, then, I suppose it won’t hurt us to just stay on board and wait a bit longer.”

As they stood side by side, listening to the creak of the ropes and the rustle of the canvas, a sudden roar of thunder burst from the southern shore as a hailstorm of fire leapt into the sky and soared across the narrow waist of the Strait. Wren jerked back from the railing, but the flaming arrows and shells flew high over
La Rosa
and fell like a hundred thunderbolts on the face of the water. A sparkling silver spray shimmered in the air as the missiles were quenched and hissed, steaming in the night. But some of the arrows and shells fell on a group of small boats near the north shore.

The Hellan sailors dove into the Strait, yelling orders and screaming in terror as the fire clung to their shirts. Their flapping sails roared with yellow flames in the cold wind, and were soon consumed, leaving the hulls crackling and dancing with red lights.

“I take it back,” Wren whispered. “It may hurt us after all.”

Chapter 5. Rumor

Major Tycho Xenakis strode into the war room as quickly as his short legs could carry him. His Spartan dagger clung silently to his left leg, but his white Mazigh revolver clinked in its holster on his right hip with every step, announcing his entrance. As he crossed the room, the Hellan officers and Vlachian warlords glanced up from their maps and reports to cast dark looks at him. Tycho felt their unease, contempt, and fear, but he didn’t waste his own gaze on any of them.

He arrived at the central table, which he could just barely see over, and he rapped his knuckles on the nearest leg. “Gentlemen, we have a problem.”

They looked down at the Spartan officer. On the left stood the Vlachian prince, Vlad the Fourth, the dragon of the Black Sea, grandson of the most feared butcher in the north, the Impaler. On the right he nodded to Lady Nerissa, the Duchess of Constantia, and to the aging Italian knight Salvator Fabris, who was standing just a bit too close to the lady for Tycho’s taste.

“Which problem might that be?” Salvator asked as he smoothed his oiled gray mustache. “The Eranian army across the Strait, the Eranian fleet in the Strait, or the Eranian artillery flying over the Strait?”

Tycho ignored the Italian and looked to his lady. “It’s the witch.”

Prince Vlad hissed as he straightened up and tugged at his black and red jacket. “Lady Yaga is the sainted mother of Rus. Show some respect, you malformed runt.”

“She’s only one man’s mother, and that’s the problem,” Tycho said. “Ever since Koschei was captured by the Turks, Lady Yaga has been haunting the walls, terrifying our men with her threats, or just depressing them her ideas of what awful things the Turks do to their prisoners. She’s ruining morale on the walls.”

“Are Hellan soldiers so fragile to be defeated by the heartbroken cries of one old woman?” Vlad asked. He grasped the short sword on his belt.

Tycho frowned.

We never should have gotten him that sword. Seireikens are for lunatics.

“Prince Vlad, my soldiers have held this city against Darius’s armies for their entire lives,” Lady Nerissa said. “They were born to the clamor of battle, they were raised in shattered homes and streets strewn with rubble, and from the moment they are able, they serve to protect Constantia against the south. And it is their sacrifice that keeps the north free, from Rus to Raska to your own precious Vlachia.”

The hawk-faced lord scowled and turned back to the maps on the table.

But the Duchess continued, “When you pledged the support of these so-called immortals, I was led to believe they would have more to contribute to the war than the average person. But Koschei, for all his martial gifts, was merely one soldier, and his mother has been nothing but a distraction.”

Vlad glowered up through his black brows. “I swore to defend this city against Darius and the infidels of the Mazdan Temple, and I will keep that vow. But I will not stand here and listen to you foul the names of the sainted mother and her valiant son.” He pushed away from the table and strode to the far end of the room to talk with his Vlachian commanders.

Tycho watched him go. “He’s become more and more emotional and irrational since we brought him that damned sword.”

“The sword isn’t the problem. He wanted proof of our commitment and we delivered it to him, as promised,” Lady Nerissa said lightly. “The real problem runs far deeper. Vlachia is a land of summer wars and sea battles. They aren’t accustomed to prolonged siege warfare. Win or lose, they want this war to end, and that may make the Vlachians a liability at some point.”

“As distasteful as I find them,” Salvator said, “I can’t imagine they would betray you.”

“Not willingly, no,” the Duchess said. “But in their hearts? A time may come when they don’t fight as fiercely, when the fire goes out of them, when they embrace the shadows in their hearts and admit defeat simply to end this war.”

“I can see that day all too clearly,” Tycho said. “But what about Yaga? We need to do something about her. She’s scaring our soldiers, to say nothing of the conscripts from Italia and España.”

“That’s not the only thing eating away at morale,” Salvator said. “There’s a rumor in the barracks that Prince Radu has been seen on the walls of Stamballa. If the Vlachians learn that Vlad’s own brother is leading the Turks, it could split their loyalties and we might actually find ourselves behind enemy lines very suddenly.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” Tycho said. “From what I’ve heard, most of the Vlachians hate Radu for converting to the Mazdan Temple, and for turning against his own people. They see him as a traitor.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” Lady Nerissa said. “In the mean time, I have something special for the two of you. This afternoon one of our gunboats sank a trawler carrying an imperial courier home from the north shore.”

Tycho frowned. “Who do you think he was visiting on the north shore?”