Knights of the Crown

Chapter 16

Pirvan and haimya were not sure precisely when dawn came to Crater Gulf. They slept long and deeply after they had hid themselves and their gear. Once Pirvan woke briefly to discover Haimya curled against him. This felt quite as pleasant as he had expected. If she had no complaints, he would make none. Also, on the hillside it was cool enough to make it worth sleeping close and sharing blankets.

The clouds also gave them an uncertain sense of time. Pirvan’s first notion on waking was that he and Haimya had been buried under a vast pile of raw wool. However, there was no smell of sheep, many smells of other things (mostly less agreeable), and far too many trees and vines all around. The cloud-wool and the trees together left them in a curious sort of twilight, but there was enough light to find water and start packing.

They came to an argument when Haimya insisted that they take everything with them, even if that meant being loaded down like pack mules. Pirvan prudently did not treat her as if she had broken a promise, but discovered that subtler methods were not that much more useful.

“We can’t run with these loads,” Pirvan began.

“We won’t need to run this far from the pirates’ camps,” Haimya said. “This is what soldiers call an approach march.”

“I believe you. I also believe you have heard of armies that were so burdened that the soldiers were exhausted before the battle, and because of that, lost it. What about making a sled, if you won’t leave anything?”

There was nothing around with which to make a sled, Haimya pointed out. Also, sleds left tracks.

“So will we, carrying this kind of a load.”

“The only way we could avoid leaving tracks is to approach wearing nothing but daggers and loinguards. That would undoubtedly draw the pirates’ attention. Having come this far, I would like to ransom my betrothed and learn a trifle about what is happening on the shores of Crater Gulf.” She added that a sled would limit them to level and open ground, of which she did not see much around here.

At no time could anyone who did not know Haimya well have detected the slightest trace of sarcasm. Pirvan was grateful enough for this to concede without further argument.

They finally contrived to both carry and divide the loads. In pouches across their chests they carried the ransom, food, water, flasks of Tarothin’s healing potion, Lady Eskaia’s letter of introduction to Synsaga, and mirrors for signaling to Hipparan. Everything else was on their backs, easily dropped if they needed to run.

“If all goes well, we can load some of the burden on Gerik.” Haimya grinned. “We will not do all the work of rescuing him if he is at all fit to march.”

“What if he isn’t?”

“Then we work harder than ever for a peaceful ransoming, and ask Synsaga for some hearty stretcher bearers.”

“And if there is no peace?”

“Synsaga is not fool enough to mortally offend House Encuintras by treachery. An Encuintras fleet loaded with mercenaries sailing to the gulf will cost him far more than he gains by stealing the rubies.”

Pirvan thought that Synsaga might be no fool, but he was a man with whole new vistas of power and wealth opening before him. Such men had been known to throw prudence to the winds as they would not have done before. Pirvan had known both thieves and lawful men who had died that way.

However, he and Haimya had their own wits, surprise, the ransom jewels, and their own dragon to set against all that might tempt Synsaga to treachery. To take counsel of fears was the way of neither thief nor soldier; he and Haimya had at least that much in common.

Pirvan was already sweating by the time he had his pack on and settled in place, but it seemed less burdensome than he had feared. Or was it Haimya’s smiling back at him as she thrust her walking staff into the moss and took the lead?

* * * * *

“Deck ahoy!”

The cry penetrated Lady Eskaia’s sleep-fogged ears. She had slept fitfully on a damp pallet on her cabin floor; that waking was going to be a burden.

Then wakefulness came in a rush, at the second cry:

“Two sail, dead stern.”

Tarothin’s sleep ended in midsnore as Eskaia prodded him in the ribs. He sat up and combed his hair with his fingers. It was abundant and a pleasant shade of brown, with a thatching of darker curls on his muscular chest.

A voice that sounded like Haimya’s whispered in her head, Enough, my lady. There is appreciating men and there is being wanton. Beware of crossing the boundary.

At the moment, Eskaia wanted most of all to cross to her wardrobe, preferably without touching the deck. She needed a heavy gown, a cloak, and above all, shoes. Even the best woolen bedsocks did not keep out the damp chill of the deck.

Tarothin, wearing respectable short-drawers, stumbled out of bed. He looked tired now rather than ill, and stared around for his staff.

“Under the bed, wrapped in oilskin,” Eskaia said. “Are you fit to return to your cabin?”

“I’d better be if we have visitors,” the wizard said, with a wry grin. He rubbed his forehead as if that would knead out a lingering headache. “My thanks for your hospitality. I will try to repay it by identifying those ships.”

“We will be grateful. If they are enemies, we can only hope to fight them off. We cannot run.”

“Some morning I shall wake to hear good news. But it will not be on this quest.”

Tarothin rummaged his staff out from under the bed and was out the door before Eskaia had raised the hem of her outer shift.

* * * * *

Pirvan and Haimya made their way around the mountain while staying on the edge of the thick forest. The going was easier, the chances of spying out sentries or patrols from a distance better, and dragons easier to see, whether friend or foe.

Hipparan was supposed to return at night and seek them out at the head of a small gorge overlooking a ruined castle above the camps. They had so far seen and heard nothing to suggest that he was in peril, but matters might require him to come quickly, find them still more quickly, and lift them out with the speed of the wind.

A good view of the sky might not make so much difference if the black dragon came. The clouds were low, almost brushing the mountaintop, and mist dimmed vision farther down the slopes. A quick dash into the trees might save them from whatever breath weapons the dragon commanded, but he would certainly warn the camp if he saw them. He might also reach deep into the tall timber with dragonfear or whatever other spells he commanded.

Within an hour, they crossed a spring-fed stream that let them fill their canteens, then a stand of trees whose fruit Haimya said was edible.

“At least they look very much like what they call grivan’s jug, in the Qualinesti borderlands,” she added.

“No doubt, and I admit to being hungry,” Pirvan said. “I also remember a friend who confused two very similar kinds of mushroom when he made a stew. Six people were sick, and he was never right afterward.”

They munched on trail bread as they strode on.

Hipparan found them when the cloudy sky was still dark gray rather than black. It was also raining, and trees fit to make the pillars of a god’s dwelling stood between them and the pirates.

“We should be hard to find without magic,” Hipparan said. “I think I have remembered a spell I once knew, to fight off anyone trying to find me by magic. Of course, it may turn out to be a spell for making onion stew. But I believe I can at least confuse anyone casting a spell that needs to be accurately aimed.”

“May it be so,” Pirvan said.

Even the most potent wizards and mages could not just spray magic across the landscape like a gardener with a watering can. That quickly exhausted the magic-worker and reduced the effect at the other end.

“I have not found the black dragon, but I smelled the scent of at least two lairs,” Hipparan went on. “I hope that does not mean two dragons. That would create a difficult situation.”

“Your talent for understatement is admirable,” Haimya said. “But pray, exercise it some other time. Where are these lairs?”

One was near the southern end of Crater Gulf, too far for anyone but Hipparan to reach. The other was in the ruined castle not far downhill.

“I also sensed traces of magic that wasn’t a dragon’s,” Hipparan went on. “That is all I can say about it. But there were sentries in two camps around the ruins. The camps looked new.”

Haimya and Pirvan looked at each other. The thief held his tongue, knowing that they would have as good a plan and also save Haimya’s pride if he let her speak first.

Haimya frowned. “I think we should study this castle first. Someone there may know where Gerik is, or be a suitable hostage. Whatever new power Synsaga commands, he cannot afford to waste the lives of his men. That would turn them against him, and dragons and mages are small use when the knife’s in your back or the poison’s in your wine.”

“If you take a captive, I will hide him,” Hipparan said.

It seemed they had their night’s work as well planned as possible. Hipparan took to the sky with a clap of wings, staying at treetop height until he vanished into the mizzling darkness.

Pirvan heaved his pack again onto his aching back and took up his staff. Matters were not going as badly as they might, which was better than they had for some time. He would not say, “If Golden Cup had not been dismasted …” for “if” was not a word he honored.

But when he and Haimya were safely away with her betrothed, he would not only be saying farewell to her He would say farewell to any more traveling aboard ships. If the gods wanted him to change his profession and take up questing, he would do so, but only on dry land.

* * * * *

Lady Eskaia was buckling a belt on over her gown when she heard more hailing from the lookouts. The belt was a simple affair of leather and silver, intended for wear outdoors when it might be needed to support weighty purses, daggers, and the like.

It was also one she could don herself, as was everything else she wore now. Eskaia had never believed in needing maids to put on every garment from shift to gown and from sandals to hat plume. With Haimya’s help, she had picked a dozen arrays, for everything from temple ceremonies to berry-picking, that she could put on by herself. Then she had packed that dozen aboard Golden Cup.

Some of them would never be the same again, she feared. Salt air and drenchings in seawater wrought enough havoc on the robust garb of sailors. With a respectable woman’s wardrobe, they made a shambles of anything they could reach.

Perhaps she should find a good seafarer’s tailor when she returned to Istar. A few gowns of heavy wool, with robust trousers to wear underneath (short-drawers let the breezes up), and some sailors’ jackets, with a trifle of embroidery to set them apart …

Eskaia broke off her musings as she realized that the ship had fallen silent. She snatched a box of hairpins, chose a handful at random, and started putting her hair up. It would be convenient to wear it as short as Haimya’s, which never needed more than a ribbon if that, but …

The silence ended abruptly in a din, where everyone aboardship seemed to be shouting at once. Eskaia thrust the last pin into her hair and nearly pierced her scalp as the door to her cabin flew open.

“Is knocking an art unknown to sailors?” she snapped. Then she recognized Grimsoar One-Eye.

“Your pardon, my lady” Pirvan’s big friend was breathing heavily, and his good eye was twitching fiercely, something she had not seen it do since the dismasting.

“What is happening?”

“Minotaurs, my lady.”

“Spare the ‘my ladys’ and tell me more. Those two ships?”

Grimsoar nodded. “They’ve the rig of minotaur ships, for certain. Nobody else uses it, or buys a minotaur ship without rerigging her. Ever seen the tackle on a minotaur ship?”

“I’ve seen minotaurs,” Eskaia said. “I can imagine it.”

“Good. Then you can imagine that we’re in trouble.”

“Are minotaurs always hostile? Bad-tempered, yes, but that’s not the same thing-”

Grimsoar laughed. “Glad somebody can find something funny in this. No, I think they’re coming in for a fight. They don’t look like merchant ships, and even one of their traders might take a chance at us, helpless as we are.”

“Thank you,” Eskaia said. She hooked her purse on one side of the belt and her dagger on the other. “If you will escort me on deck-”

Grimsoar used several choice phrases that indicated how extremely unlikely it was that he would do any such thing. He also mentioned several gods whose assistance Eskaia would need to get past him.

Eskaia wanted to laugh. But the big man was in a position that she owed it to him not to make more humiliating.

“Step aside, please, Grimsoar.”

“Pirvan and Haimya-”

“Are not here. I am my own mistress.” She cocked her head to one side, decided not to bat her eyelashes at him, but used her most winning smile.

“Have you orders to keep me below?”

“Ah-”

“No, I suppose.”

“Well, put it that way …”

“I thought as much. Then please, step aside.”

Grimsoar frowned but did not move. Eskaia sighed. She wanted to use some of the big man’s words right back at him. There was, however, the dignity of House Encuintras to preserve.

“You cannot keep me below without using force,” she said coolly. “If you have no orders to keep me below, then using force will be assaulting me. For that you could be hanged or thrown overboard with weights on your feet.

Of course, they may decide to spare you until after the fight. You are a good fighting man. But they will certainly expect you to get killed in the fighting. I will expect.

“You may live and you will not be dishonored if you let me pass. If you hold me here against my will, you will surely die and you may be dishonored.”

Grimsoar’s wits were much faster than one might expect in a man of his size and appearance. He sighed and stepped away from the door.

“On your head be it, my lady. Ah-do you want a helmet, so if what’s on your head is a stone-?”

“Thank you, Grimsoar.”

“I’ll see if there’s one that fits.” He went out, muttering not quite under his breath about the futility of helmets for women who didn’t have anything important in their heads.

* * * * *

The two sentries both looked like men farther out in the darkness and much farther from their comrades than they cared for. They were also well armed, one with a bow as well as a sword. Both wore breastplates and low-crowned helmets with rims.

They would still have been no great matter except for one problem. Their post was astride the only route Pirvan and Haimya could take to the castle without passing close to one of the two guard camps. Each of those camps contained twenty times two soldiers, and would have sentries out as thick as bees around a rosebush.

Haimya whispered, “If those two have the wits of a hen, we can’t take one without alerting the other. We don’t have bows, and one of them does. So we have to be close, silent, and take both of them at once.”

Her words did not say that this was impossible or at least dangerous. Her tone was eloquent.

Pirvan feared he would need eloquence, too, if he was to persuade her of the need to avoid killing.

“We also have to leave them alive,” he said.

“In our rear?”

“If they are senseless-”

“They can awake and give the alarm. Even their absence from their posts might do that.”

“They will be even more absent if we kill them and have to dispose of the bodies. That will cost us time, and perhaps any hope of peace with Synsaga. He may not hold his men back from vengeance for slain comrades.”

“You were not so reluctant to kill the night we went to Hipparan.”

“Nor will I be reluctant if such a situation comes again. It has not.”

Her jaw set. He wanted to loosen it with a kiss, but knew she would in return loosen his teeth, at the very least.

“Haimya, once you spoke of doing the work we came here for. So do I.”

A silence broken only by dripping from the trees and a distant rumble of thunder lasted so long that Pirvan wondered if his companion was still breathing. Then she sighed.

“Perhaps a soldier’s memories are not always the best guide.”

“I will say the same of a thief’s. Now, let me turn a thief’s eye on these gentlemen.”

Pirvan studied the edges of the open ground where the sentries stood. If they had a comrade, even one, hiding under cover-

He saw no one, and his night-sight was as good in the country as in the city. He picked a tree near the left-hand sentry, one whose branches drooped with a burden of seed pods. He began the familiar exercise of committing every detail of the tree to memory, until the spell would let him appear to be that tree for a few minutes.

Which, with luck, would be all they needed.

“Pirvan, what-?”

Pirvan put a finger to his lips. He finished the memory work, then motioned Haimya back into the thicket, where they could whisper without fear of being overheard.

“We have to move fast, because I don’t know when they relieve the sentries. If we wait, we could stumble on four men instead of two.”

“A pleasure I can do without.”

“Likewise. But the two-have you noticed that they’ve chosen places where they can watch without having to move far?”

“Places with good views, too.”

“Yes, but their movements are still predictable.”

“I have done sentry duty, Pirvan.”

“I’m sure of it. And I’m sure you moved around unpredictably. I wasn’t trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs.”

“Then what-”

“There’s a part of their rounds that brings them close together, close enough that they can be taken together.”

“If they weren’t out in the open, able to see anyone coming …”

“What about trees?”

“Walking trees-?” Her face started to show scorn, then her mouth opened. “Your Spell of Seeing the Expected?”

Pirvan nodded.

* * * * *

By the time Eskaia came on deck, the two minotaur ships were close enough that she could make out details.

They were low, rakish craft, more like Jemar’s ships than Golden Cup, though minotaur size meant they were higher out of the water. They had two masts, with square rigging on the foremast and lateen on the mainmast, a bowsprit, and what looked unpleasantly like rams at the bows.

As Eskaia watched, minotaurs swarmed into the rigging and clutched lines. Their red-and-green sails vanished, and the ships slowed until the water barely rippled over their rams.

Then white sweeps thrust out of ports set low along the waterline. It made the minotaur ships look as if they had a sea bird’s wings.

Kurulus came up beside Eskaia. “Here, Ma’am. Grimsoar found it, but he had to go up forward.”

Eskaia set the helmet on her head. It was heavy enough to make her arms tremble while she held it, and her neck trembled after she put it on. She had worn pageant armor for costume parties a few times, but this was very different-smelling of leather, sweat, and oil, tight on top and loose at the sides, and with a chin strap she was making a hopeless botch of tying.

“Let me help you, Ma’am.”

She stood, staring at the approaching ships as the crew took battle stations. Most remained on the fore and aftercastles, where they would have the advantage of height. That would make it harder for the minotaurs to force a hand-to-hand grapple, where their superior strength and reach would give them the advantage.

Now the two minotaur ships were turning bows-on to Golden Cup’s port side. Smoke curled up from their low aftercastles, and Eskaia wondered if they mounted siege engines, or by some miracle had caught fire.

It was neither. Two smoking pots rose slowly up the mainmasts, until they dangled just below the tops, swaying in the slight breeze. The smoke drifted away downwind, turning from black to brown to pale gray before vanishing in the haze over the sea.

Eskaia started as the mate slammed a large fist against the bulwarks. Her mouth was too dry to let her ask what was happening. Besides, she knew she would learn in moments.

“Sorry, Ma’am,” the mate said. His words came out like the last breaths of a dying man. “That’s the sign for an honor fight.”

“Is that-?”

“Important? Yes. Those minotaurs-they’ve had their honor attacked. So they’re out to regain it. They’ll fight hard and demand high ransoms if they win and think we’ve fought honorably.”

“What happens if they think we haven’t-?”

“Then they’ll give no quarter.”

No quarter. No quarter. No quarter. The words tolled in Eskaia’s mind like a great bell in some distant shrine, borne down the wind.

Then foam gushed over the enemy’s rams, as both teams of rowers dug in their sweeps.

* * * * *

Pirvan raised a hand, then dropped it palm down. The two sentries were both looking away from him. This wouldn’t last more than a few seconds, but that would be enough for him to prepare his only spell.

Without looking behind him, he took three steps to the right and two forward, then knelt. The kneeling made him harder to see. He could not safely change position while surrounded by the spell. (That was one of the few things that made him regret not putting himself in the hands of the Towers for more formal testing or training.)

The two sentries seemed to be talking. Certainly they were close enough to do so, without Pirvan hearing. Lower down on the mountain, the jungle life was louder.

The sentry would never accept the tree sprouting from nowhere as he watched. The spell had to be done before the man turned back-

There. Everything around Pirvan took on the wavering aspect of the world seen through the veil of magic. The jungle noises were as loud as ever. So was the sound of footsteps coming up behind Pirvan.

Haimya, barefoot and lightly armed, sprinted up behind Pirvan, slapped both hands on his shoulders, vaulting over him. Her impact jarred him from teeth to knees. For a moment he feared the spell would break.

It did not. What broke was the silence, as Haimya dashed up behind the nearer sentry and punched him in the neck. Then she rammed her knee into the small of his back.

He was the archer. Haimya snatched up bow and quiver almost as the man hit the ground. The other sentry stood gaping at the spectacle of a woman apparently sprung from the earth or fallen from the tree behind her.

Pirvan heard the twang of the bowstring. The arrow skewered the second man’s leg-and as he began to dance around on one leg, a third man burst out of cover to Pirvan’s right. He ran toward Haimya, a foolish thing when he should have fled to give warning, but showing honorable courage as well.

He also had a good chance of killing Haimya, if he closed faster than she could shoot again. For speed, she had left behind all other weapons but her knife, and he had a sword.

Pirvan’s dagger was in his hand before he thought of drawing it, then in the air. The pommel cracked against the third man’s temple, below the rim of his helmet. He went down in midstride, furrowing the mud with his face.

Meanwhile the crippled second man had realized it was prudent to flee. Prudence came to him too late. Haimya caught him before he reached cover and kicked him hard under the jaw. If Haimya had not been barefoot, she would have broken his neck, if not taken his head clean off his shoulders.

The Spell of Seeing the Expected had died the moment Pirvan had drawn his dagger. The thief rose to his feet. He really wanted to sit-or better, lie down, preferably with some brandy and a bowl of lamb stew.…

“You would make a good soldier, Pirvan,” Haimya said as she came up.

Pirvan let her squeeze his shoulders until the worst of the pains were gone. Then he touched the back of his hand to her cheek. It left a muddy streak.

“You would make a good thief, I should say.”

“Thank you. Shall we bind these gentlemen and be about our business?”