Knights of the Sword

Chapter 19

Aurhinius slept through the dawn uproar of turning out the morning watch, cleaning the decks, and setting to rights anything that had gone awry during the night. What eventually awoke him was his secretary, shaking him. He stared up into the young man’s face.

“What now?”

“The Minotaur’s ship-gone.”

“Sunk?” Aurhinius allowed himself a pleasant moment’s fantasy in which Pride of the Mountains had rammed and sunk Gullwing. Then he could offer the Karthayans to Waydol as the price of peace-

“No. Stolen away, in the night. That heir was treacherous, after all.”

“Either that or a bad navigator. Did he possibly follow the transports when they parted company, thinking they were the main fleet?” The landing party was on its way south; Aurhinius had spent all the time that he could spare, praying for their safe arrival.

The secretary shook his head dolefully. “It was no mischance, my lord. We found a boat they’d set adrift with a lantern tied aloft in her midst, to deceive us.”

Aurhinius put his feet out of bed. The deck seemed colder than last night. So did the air. In these waters, such a drop in the temperature often meant a storm. Several other things seemed more useful at the moment.

“I presume the fleet is pursuing?”

“Yes. The foremost scout reports she has Gullwing in sight, but may not be able to close with her before nightfall even if the wind stays fair and the weather clear.”

“I am ecstatic,” Aurhinius said. Another matter left dangling suddenly struck him. “Has anything been seen of Tarothin?”

“Nothing, my lord.”

“Where was Pride of the Mountains when Gullwing disappeared?”

“Ah-in the next column, or so I have heard.”

“Within-shall we say-swimming distance?”

“For a strong, bold swimmer, perhaps, but wizards are-”

“More apt to use their heads than anyone in this fleet seems to be doing at the moment.”

Aurhinius retained the powers of speech after this last remark, but declined to waste words that would accomplish nothing. He pointed at the door. The secretary could not have departed, or the servants entered, more swiftly, if Aurhinius had sworn the sails from the masts and the masts from the deck.

* * * * *

Darin wanted to climb to Gullwing’s masthead and study his pursuers himself. Instead, he kept his feet on the deck and his faith in the lookouts. They were carefully chosen for keen eyes and cool heads, and the least of them was more agile aloft than he was.

Find good men under you, and you will not need to be everywhere at once and do everything yourself. It was as if Waydol’s voice had spoken to him on the sea wind.

“Deck, there!” the lookout called. “I can see some more ships behind the lead one.”

No need to ask if they were Istarians. Darin looked aft. At first sighting, the Istarian pursuer had been visible only from the top. Now he could make out its sails from the deck. The other Istarians were still too far off for anyone but the lookouts.

“Think we ought to lighten the ship?” the Mate of the Deck said.

“How?” Darin asked. “I don’t like dropping ballast when it may be coming on to blow, and that’s slow work anyway.”

“I was thinking of the food and water. We’re either not going to be out here long, or we’ll be out here forever and needing no food or water.”

“You are in fine spirits this morning,” Darin said in gentle reproof.

“I can count fingers held up in front of my face,” the mate replied. “Leastways, until after the fourth cup.”

Darin considered. Gullwing had been loaded with stores for a long voyage with a full crew. They’d reckoned that if the ship returned early, it would be to carry off Waydol’s men, with no time for loading new stores.

Now it seemed that the first task was to make sure that Gullwing returned at all.

“Start with the water casks,” Darin said. “Broach them and pump the water overboard. Then lay out sails to catch any rain the storm may bring. And have Tarothin come to me. I trust he is well?”

“Oh, well he is, Heir. Willing, that’s another matter. But he’ll see reason.”

* * * * *

Jemar and Eskaia stood side by side atop the midships deckhouse of Windsword. It was not as high as Jemar wished to go, but it was as high as he dared allow Eskaia.

Also, climbing aloft and making the lookouts uneasy would speed no sightings of friend or foe.

What made Jemar more uneasy was the sudden drop in the temperature overnight, together with the rising wind. The fog was long gone, but he felt in his bones that a storm was coming.

A natural storm, for now. But it’s no secret that weather magic is easier when you can play with power already set afoot instead of doing everything with your own spells.

Tarothin commanded some weather spells; Jemar hoped the Red Robe was looking for a chance to use them.

“Deck!” called the lookout. “Signal from Thunderlaugh. She’s sighted beacons ashore. Says they’re your private signal.”

Eskaia’s sigh of relief nearly matched the force of the wind, and she gripped her husband’s hand. Jemar would have danced if he’d no dignity to think of.

“Well and good,” Jemar said. A messenger ran forward, to the sailors at the signal halyards. Soon flags were soaring up to the yardarms and breaking into blazes of color against the sullen sky.

Thunderlaugh signaled back, with the course and distance to the beacons. Jemar sent thanks and promise of reward to Kurulus, shouted the same to the lookout, and then unbent enough to hug Eskaia.

“Almost done?” she said, returning the embrace.

“Call it a good, long step forward,” Jemar said, freeing one hand reluctantly to make a gesture of aversion. The sea gave men victory only reluctantly, and it could strike back in many a natural way before the men ashore were safe.

Jemar made another gesture of aversion, this one with both hands. He had just performed it when the lookout called down again, this time in a voice cracking with excitement.

“Sail, ho! It’s a galley with a minotaur’s head on her foresail. Gullwing for sure, and she’s coming on fast, like someone was chasing her.”

Jemar frowned. The galley would be out of signaling range for some while yet, and even then its crew might have no way to read sea barbarian signals. Should he deploy his ships for battle now, or wait until he knew more?

One thing he knew: His ships were already beating hard to windward. Maneuvering them into battle formation would slow them still further.

Something else he also knew: The time to take care was when danger was only a possibility. True enough on land, and ten times truer at sea.

Jemar looked at his ships, then began inking three signals on a smooth-shaven wooden message board.

“I see what you want the ships to do,” Eskaia said, looking at the board. “But why?”

“This way, we’ll leave the heavier ships in open water, to meet Gullwing and her pursuers. They’ll stay between the enemy, if there is one, and the lighter ships will go in to Waydol.”

“Will it come to a fight?”

“You sound almost eager.”

Eskaia flushed. “I beg your pardon. The fight aboard Golden Cup was quite enough for me. Besides, I am quite unfit to wrestle minotaurs now.”

Jemar embraced her again. If it was the Istarians pursuing Gullwing, he wasn’t sure they wouldn’t be better off facing minotaurs!

* * * * *

Tarothin lay in his bunk, not because he was sick, reluctant, or entranced. He merely needed all his concentration to understand the message he was receiving.

He also needed more than concentration to believe it in the first place.

The first ticklings of the message were not in his mind, but in other parts of his body. Parts associated with certain ancient rites that he had performed with Rubina, more than once and with great joy. At least on his side, and he was gentleman enough to hope that she had taken as much as she gave.

This was the first time he had ever begun magic in such a fashion, as he was not skilled in the kind of spells normally associated with that particular rite. Although a man could become accustomed to this kind of magic, he mused.

It was about this point in the message that he began to put a name to the person sending it.

“Rubina?”

The reply came not in words, but in an image. It was an image that did nothing for Tarothin’s ability to concentrate.

Then words came:

I wanted to be sure you would recognize me.

Rubina, I am quite sure that there are many other men who would also recognize that image of you.

I do not kiss and brag. Besides, you are the only wizard.

So? That does not explain why you are seeking me out. This is a potent spell you seem to be using for idle chatter.

Rubina’s image returned. Now she stamped her foot, her eyes turned red, and her hair transformed itself into green snakes with purple eyes and fangs that Tarothin did not care to observe too closely.

Was that Takhisis or temper, Lady?

I should leave you to the Dark Queen and her daughter’s servants, if you go on like this!

Nothing could have restored Tarothin’s concentration more quickly than the hint about Zeboim.

Rubina apparently plucked Tarothin’s surprise and fear from his mind, turned it over in her own mind to look at it from all sides, and then replied.

The servants of Zeboim are at work. Or will be soon, to shape the storm. Can we-work together, that they may not succeed as they wish?

Many possible answers poured through Tarothin’s thoughts, regardless of his knowledge that Rubina might be aware of every one of them.

He decided that what she had to know could be said briefly and plainly:

You are a Black Robe, servant of Zeboim’s mother, yet you propose to fight the Sea Queen. How can I trust your word?

The first image danced along the fringes of Tarothin’s mind. He replied brusquely.

That is not enough to bind me to you in treachery against our friends.

The reply came with surprising speed and clarity.

You speak truly. They are our friends. Also, there is Karthay, my city. Finally, it is not clear that those against us serve Zeboim, true daughter to Takhisis, or only those aspects of Zeboim that the kingpriest allows them to see.

That was wandering off into scholars’ territory, besides imputing an alarming amount of power to the kingpriest. However, the thought of a magical storm sending Jemar’s ships to the bottom and marooning Pirvan and Waydol’s band at the mercy of the Istarians was still more terrifying.

What do you propose?

You have weather spells at your command that you can work on the water. Mine avail only on land, unless I join them to those of another wizard who is already on the water.

Tarothin was again briefly skeptical. Indeed, it would have been within reason to say that he was appalled. Such links were neither impossible, unknown, nor even particularly dangerous-except for such as Rubina proposed, which would link a Black and a Red Robe, who had never linked before, at least magically, over a considerable distance, using exceedingly potent spells, against equally potent and unrestrained enemies.

At that moment, the only virtue to Rubina’s proposal seemed to be that, linked to her, he could at least neutralize any attempted treachery before it had fatal effects-at least to his friends. His own fate-

Will you put our friends in danger, while you fret like a child with a toothache about what I have no intention whatever of doing?

Her tone reminded him of more than one of their bedtime quarrels.

Yes, I am in the same mood. But I remember how those quarrels often ended.

Tarothin sighed, both with his body and with his mind. He thought longingly of oaths of celibacy. Then he replied to Rubina.

Shall we begin now?

Yes, if it is not already too late.

* * * * *

Darin repeated his request for Tarothin to come on deck, growing less polite in his choice of words each time. Then he began to make the request an order.

In due course, it was discovered that the Red Robe had locked his cabin door. He was the only man aboard besides Darin with a cabin to himself.

“Break it down,” Darin said.

Those who heard the order, from the Mate of the Deck on down, looked dubious. They did, however, obey-or at least attempt to obey.

Minutes later, they streamed up on deck, babbling and shouting so that Darin had to roar for silence before he could hear what had happened.

The cabin door had resisted all efforts to open it. It was as if it had turned to stone. When they brought up logs of firewood from the galley and began trying to smash their way through, the logs flew out of men’s hands.

Then they tried to remove the hinges, and the hinges glowed red-hot, without setting the door or anything else afire.

Finally, they tried to pry out the latch-and it turned into the head of a serpent, with fangs dripping venom that painfully burned several men who did not back away in time.

Darin looked at the swollen red marks on several of his crewmen, and noted that Tarothin owed these men a healing and an apology when the wizard had dealt with other, more urgent matters. It also seemed to Darin that perhaps he owed the wizard an apology, for not remembering the folly of disturbing a magic-worker when he is casting potent spells.

The only question left unanswered was this: If Tarothin was casting potent spells, what were they doing? The closest of the pursuers was now hull-up from the deck. The sharp-eyed on deck could make out the topsails of other Istarians to the east.

Darin decided to take a turn at the pumps, which were emptying the water from the casks out of the bilges. Exercise might settle his mind; it would at least keep him from standing around, plainly wondering what Tarothin might be about.

He had just set foot on the ladder to the hold when the lookout shrieked.

“Sail, ho, dead ahead! A whole squadron! We’re trapped!”

Darin saw panic born on the faces of the men on deck and bellowed, “Nonsense! That’s either a merchant fleet or Jemar!”

That halted the panic for the moment, though the Mate of the Deck whispered in Darin’s ear, “What if it’s minotaurs coming to help Waydol?”

“Then they’ll have to fight the Istarians for the privilege,” Darin replied. “Every ship and man the Istarians send to fight somebody else is one less to fight us.”

The Mate of the Deck looked like a man who would believe in the virtue of one minotaur at a time, but he nodded.

Then the lookout screamed again, no words in his cry. He needed no words, and in fact need not have spoken at all. No one aboard Gullwing or any other ship in sight needed lookouts to see the storms rise.

* * * * *

No two men saw the storms in quite the same form. Indeed, few men agreed on how many storms there were. The lowest guess was two, the highest ran into the scores.

By and large, what men saw was a gray-green wall rising from the sea, as hard-edged as if it were made of stone, as translucent as if it were made of glass, swirling within those hard edges as if it were mist. It grew just ahead of the closest Istarian pursuer, and the water at the base of the wall turned into foam as a fierce wind blew from it.

Then a wave rose opposite the wall, as tall as the mast of a ship. Incredibly enough, it remained that tall for longer than any natural wave could-until it broke on the wind and the wall. Where there had been foam before, now there was a caldron of white, leaping so high that the wall sometimes disappeared.

Wind and water fought each other. Gusts and waves spread out in all directions from the battlefield, like ripples on a pond.

But these were not ripples. Gullwing heeled under the combined force of wind and wave, until water slapped at its leeward railing. The aftersail blew off its yard like a kerchief snatched from a child’s head. Most of it flew away on the blast, flapping like a dragon’s wings; a few forlorn rags remained standing out from the yard.

Darin did not need to order the foreyard down; men were already cutting its ropes with axes and knives. The broken rope ends lashed about, knocking men into the scuppers, and the yard itself came down with a crash that drowned out the storm.

But Gullwing now rode under bare poles, and men were already dashing below to close the oarports. Lightened both below and aloft, the ship had at least more than a prayer of staying afloat. If the wave storm and the wind-wall storm balanced each other long enough, it might even make enough headway to learn if the newcomers were Jemar or someone else, friend or foe.

* * * * *

Pirvan and Haimya had risen early and ridden out with a small escort, to scout possible landing places outside the cove, for friend or enemy. The cove’s entrance was narrow, for all that this made for a sheltered, deep anchorage inside and easy defense.

Enemies would need to land somewhere else; friends might wish to. Hence the scouting.

Pirvan did much of the actual climbing, though Haimya scrambled up and down many of the steeper slopes along with him. She was less agile, and certainly kept her eyes fixed firmly on the sky, but in a few more years she would be able to climb wherever she needed to.

Sirbones had offered a spell to remove the fear of heights from her mind; Haimya had refused it so fiercely that it took a while to soothe the priest of Mishakal back into an equable temper.

It was Haimya, with her eyes on the sky, who first saw the motion in the clouds. “Pirvan!” she called. “We’d best ride for home. That storm’s breaking!”

Pirvan looked up. It seemed that an immense whirlpool had opened in the sky, with the clouds swirling into concentric circles. If they were moving, it was too slowly for the eye to catch; it was as if the whole sky had been conjured into this shape in a moment.

A storm was indeed breaking, but Pirvan’s instincts told him that it was no natural storm.

“Hulloooo!” one of the horse-holders up the slope shouted. “Someone says there’s a waterspout out to sea, the biggest he’s ever seen! Can’t see it from down there, but up on the cliffs you can see everything. They say there’s ships out to sea, two or three squadrons of them right to each side of the waterspout, too.”

To Pirvan, that settled the question of the storm’s causes. He could only wait and pray, to see its consequences.

A wave higher than usual broke over the rocks only a man’s height below Pirvan. A second wave followed it, at an impossibly short interval. This one was solid green water.

It rose like the river’s flood, and if Pirvan had not leaped for the next higher rock, it would have risen as high as his knees, perhaps pulling him off in the backwash. But Pirvan leaped, then leaped again, then Haimya was pulling him up past the last bad ground, squeezing his hand, and kissing his cheek where he’d grazed it bloody on one leap.

“Send messengers!” he shouted to the horse-holders. “Everybody is to stay a good height above the water.”

“How good?”

“If you’re washed away, you know it’s not good enough.”

The horse-holders laughed as if Pirvan had made a fine jest. He did not feel in the least amused; magic unleashed did not always stop where the magic-workers intended it to-and in this battle, one side might not intend to stop at all.

* * * * *

Windsword took several large waves as gracefully as it usually did. Jemar had just begun to let pride in his favorite ship overcome his doubts about the unleashed magic when two waves struck together.

They were the vanguard of two chains of waves, which chose to collide exactly at Windsword. Jemar had heard of such wave chains and how they could produce monster waves by their collision. He had never seen one. Still less had he expected to ever be in the middle of the collision.

Windsword did not heel. There was too much water pouring onto the ship’s deck from both sides. It merely sank lower, then lower still, until the entire main deck was awash. The railings dipped under, boats and deck gear began breaking loose, stays flew free, and the foremast swayed and crashed over the side.

Jemar was too busy clinging to anything that offered a handhold and thanking the gods that Eskaia was below, to think about his ship for a moment. Then he knew that he’d have to get men forward to cut away the foremast, take in sail on the other masts, do what he could for the injured-

The waves rolled on away toward the horizon, the water drained from Windsword’s deck, and like a pig rising from its wallow, it lifted.

As it did so, the last ropes holding the broken foremast snapped. Instead of remaining to batter at Windsword’s bow, the foremast went sailing off on a voyage of its own.

Jemar fought a ludicrous urge to wave farewell to it.

Instead he looked down. The decks looked as if they had been ravaged by drunken minotaurs with axes, with wreckage everywhere and more than a few men sprawled flat. But most of them were moving, some cursing lustily, and the two who did not move had shipmates helping them.

His own ship was afloat, for now, and its crew needed no help from him in rigging it for foul weather, magical or otherwise. Jemar turned his own eyes outward, to look first for Gullwing, then the rest of his ships.

He had to count twice before he could begin to believe that every ship-his ten and Gullwing-was afloat. Some of them looked as if they’d met gale-force gusts or deck-swamping waves, too, but so far he had no lost ships to mourn.

Also, he had lost none of the strength he would need to remove Waydol and his band from that stronghold behind the beacons.

Just to be sure that his wishes were not deceiving his eyes, Jemar started a third count. He was halfway through it when a sailor popped up the ladder.

“Captain! You’re needed below! Your lady’s hurt!”

* * * * *

Waydol was trying to meditate when Birak Epron ran in so suddenly that the Minotaur had snatched a katar from a side table before he recognized his visitor.

“If you wish to tell me of the magic storm at sea, that is stale news,” Waydol said, mustering as much patience as he could.

“This is more. We have sighted the main body of the town levies. Two thousand at least, with half that many soldiers of Istar with them.”

“How close?”

“Their vanguard is already past the place of your trial.”

“Honor lingers there. May they hear its voice,” Waydol said, in a voice that made Epron flinch. “Is there other word from the sea?”

“Istarian ships in two squadrons. One close to shore, likely carrying a landing party for when the sea goes down. The other is on the far side of the storm from Jemar’s squadron.”

“That is certain? Jemar has come?”

“He has come as far as he can while the wizards conjure up this ravening sea!” Epron snapped.

Meditation at this time would not only be dishonorable, it was becoming impossible as well. Waydol rose and began opening his weapons chests.

At least he would not have to wait on wizards to finish their games before he found enemies within striking distance.

* * * * *

No storms troubled the land where Sir Niebar and his six companions rode swiftly toward the Inn of the Chained Ogre. Yet they rode in shadow, for they were taking byroads and trails through the forest wherever it lay thick enough to hide them from unfriendly eyes.

For the moment, Sir Niebar assumed all eyes were unfriendly. They might not be able to do harm out of that lack of friendship, for the seven riders were none of them recognizable as Knights of Solamnia or men-at-arms in the service of any respectable house. They looked more like tavern brawlers in search of a tavern to empty with their fists; the rest of their weapons were carefully hidden inside tunics, under cloaks, and in saddlebags.

The only eyes that might not be unfriendly were those of the nonhumans who inhabited these woods. Niebar was certain of kender and suspected gnomes; gully dwarves were everywhere, but made poor spies when a man wanted accurate news quickly. Centaurs also lived hereabouts, at least one small herd, but they so seldom cared much about what humans did (as long as it wasn’t trapping, shooting, or poisoning them) that they were no more a menace than the gully dwarves.

The kender had eyes to see, wits to understand, and tongues to tell. There could have been no warning to the local kender that did not risk warning the innkeeper and his friends. So Niebar could only pray to Paladine, Kiri-Jolith, and Majere that the kender would realize he and his men were coming to end their kinsman’s torments, not add to them.

* * * * *

Jemar tried to compose his face before he entered his cabin. Coming to Eskaia with a look of stark terror ruling every feature would not help matters.

From the look Delia gave him as he came in, Jemar had not been entirely successful. Then he abandoned self-restraint, rushed to the bed, and knelt beside it.

Eskaia smiled. It reminded Jemar of the smile he had once seen on the face of a criminal being impaled, but it made Eskaia seem real once more.

How long would she remain that way?

“What happened?” he asked. Now he thought he had command of his voice, if not his face. Eskaia actually raised both hands in salute-then dropped them again as pain twisted her face.

Delia favored the captain with a grim smile. “She fell. Hard. Forward.”

“Of course it was forward,” Eskaia murmured. “You’ve always said I was well padded-ah-astern …” She bit her lip, and Jemar noticed that blood had dried on both lip and chin.

“Can’t you at least put her out of the pain?” Jemar asked. He wanted to snarl, scream, roar, or otherwise sound like bull thanoi in the mating season. He kept his voice low, for Eskaia’s sake.

“Not without making things worse,” Delia said. “I don’t know if I should tell you this-”

“Jemar knows that I had some potential to be a cleric,” Eskaia said wearily. “Delia, talk quickly, or let me tell my lord the story.”

Delia swallowed, and Jemar had to do her the justice to admit that she then told the story quickly and even well.

Eskaia had fallen during the great wave-collision. She had so shaken her womb that she was in grave danger of miscarrying. Also, she might be bleeding from within.

There were spells Delia knew to heal each condition separately, but both had to be healed together if they were not to lose babe or mother. The only spell that could do that had to be performed on dry land. Attempted out at sea, and in the presence of so much magic already unleashed, the spell would surely fail, probably killing both babe and mother together.

“We must put in to land at once,” Delia concluded. “In hours, it will be too late. I have heard there is a safe harbor we can reach in that time. Steer for it, Captain, in the name of all good gods!”

“Delia, Jemar can’t take his bannership off and leave the rest of the fleet to-oh-to face the-the enemy,” Eskaia got out, between gasps.

“He can if he wants you to see another sunrise,” Delia snapped.

“I could go to another-” Eskaia began.

Delia squeezed her eyes shut and her hands into fists. Jemar wanted to shake her, then saw that she was weeping. Over that, he had no right to quarrel with anyone.

“If she stays aboard Windsword,” Delia said, hoarsely, “what I can do, and the help she gives me-this may keep her alive long enough. Putting her in a boat-you may as well fling her over the side!”

She glared at Jemar, as if daring him to raise hand or voice to her.

“It won’t help me to have you quarreling,” Eskaia said, with a ghost of her old fierceness in argument. “Jemar, do what you judge best. I will have no quarrel with anything you do.”

“Well, I cannot turn into a dragon and fly you to shore,” Jemar said. He bowed his head briefly, in remembrance of a bronze dragon who had died a hero at Crater Gulf, for all that he had been waked from dragonsleep for no other purpose than to balance a black dragon waked by a renegade mage.

“But we can steer for Waydol’s cove, I think. Delia, is speed all we seek, or will easing the motion of the ship help?”

“It will help if you can do it,” Delia said. “I am no sailor, but I think those wind-conjuring wizards out there will make it less easy than it could be.”

For once, Jemar found himself agreeing with the midwife-healer.