Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 72

Serrimundi sprawled across low hills surrounding a harbor that was crowded with tall sailing ships and fishing boats. Closely built homes lined the slopes that had been forested at one time. Serrimundi was an ancient city, and all that remained of the untamed woods were spacious parks. Wide canals guided water between the hills and into the bay. Boatmen poled shallow vessels along the canals, delivering supplies or ferrying people.

From a high point in the hills as Nicci stared across the rolling streets, the dark tile roofs, the whitewashed buildings, she acknowledged that Serrimundi was indeed a beautiful city. And entirely vulnerable.

When she emerged from the sliph, Nicci coughed and sucked in a deep breath. She realized that the sliph had not admonished her to “Breathe!” As she regained her balance, she turned to see the silvery figure staring at her with a hard expression. Without even acknowledging that she had delivered her passenger, the moody creature dropped back into her well and retreated into the unfathomable depths.

Nicci found herself in the open sunlight on a hill above the harbor. The sliph well was part of an unoccupied open-air temple with fluted support pillars. Tall urns filled with fresh-cut flowers were arranged across the tiled floor. A platter of overripe fruit sat on an altar, an offering to some god or goddess that had apparently gone unheeded for days. Dry leaves skittered across the floor, and birds chirped in the vines overhead.

Nicci turned to see a statue of a revered woman with long, flowing locks of hair, like the waves on the sea. Her hands extended as if calling supplicants. Nicci had seen a similar statue before, a giant carving on a cliff at the mouth of Serrimundi Harbor. The Sea Mother.

On Chiriya Island, Bannon had been brought up to worship the Sea Mother, and the religion was common along the coast of the Old World. It was generally compatible with the prevalent belief in spirits and the underworld, which Nicci knew to be true because of her direct experience with the Keeper. She decided this must be an isolated temple to the Sea Mother.

Strangely, the goddess bore a striking similarity to the sliph. Nicci wondered if some gullible observer, thousands of years ago, had seen the quicksilver woman emerge from the well, delivering travelers who secretly served Emperor Sulachan. Could that have been the inspiration for the Sea Mother’s appearance and the huge statue on the cliff?

Though empty, the temple was obviously still used. Supplicants to the Sea Mother generally made their sacrifices in the open ocean, but if the original sliph well was up here, someone would have built a temple to mark that spot. Gardens spread out beyond the temple, and stone footpaths wound in haphazard directions, as if supplicants were expected to walk a contemplative path before they arrived at the altar.

Nicci heard voices and saw figures passing among tall hedges, approaching the open temple. Since she didn’t want to explain where she had come from, she departed down a different path, making her way toward the residential buildings closer to the harbor.

She reached the crowded streets where women sat outside sewing garments and men toiled at craft benches. Some of the people acknowledged her as she walked past. The inhabitants of Serrimundi were not suspicious, not even curious about the stranger. Nicci’s black dress was different from the style of their own clothes, but she realized that the bustling harbor city must see many foreigners.

She had been here once before, when she and Nathan sailed south from Tanimura aboard the Wavewalker. Back then, they were simply traveling the Old World as emissaries for the D’Haran Empire. Nicci had briefly met the harborlord, a man named Otto, when Captain Eli Corwin took on more supplies. She decided to start with the harborlord and deliver her warning.

She walked along one of the canals until a boatman drifted by and offered her a ride. Nicci didn’t mind walking, but she was in a hurry, and so she accepted. As she balanced on the boat while the man poled them along, she scanned the hills, buildings, commercial districts, orchards. Serrimundi was open, thriving. They would be entirely unprepared if General Utros’s invading army crashed into the city.

Serrimundi had been mostly unscathed by the Imperial Order, and now she could see they were too complacent. She would have to change their mind-set.

Eventually, she reached the offices of the harborlord, near the water’s edge. Clerks inside the harborlord’s office kept detailed ledgers of all ships that entered Serrimundi Harbor, along with notations of their captains, their primary cargo, and their ports of origin. Three older men with nearly identical fringes of short white hair around their bald skulls sat squinting over their books.

One of the men glanced up at Nicci, squinted as if she were more difficult to see than the notations in his leather-bound ledger. “Harborlord Otto isn’t here, miss. He went down to meet a ship. His daughter’s just been betrothed to Captain Ganley.”

“Which ship?” Nicci asked. “I will find him on the docks.”

“The Mist Maiden,” said one of the other men. “He should be there.”

Nicci set off along the harbor’s edge, carrying the cloth-wrapped rectangle of glass that showed the vast ancient army. She passed a foul-smelling krakener, whose hull was permeated with the slime of the tentacled sea creatures they hunted. One ship had just pushed off from its dock and drifted away from the crowded piers, heading toward the mouth of the harbor, where waves crashed against a rock outcropping that stood like a sentinel. A towering female figure had been carved there, a woman bursting from the raw rock, the Sea Mother. Again, Nicci recognized the familiar features of the sliph.

The Mist Maiden was a three-masted cargo ship, even larger than the Wavewalker. Its sails were tied up, and thick hawsers lashed the hull against the largest pier in the harbor. The ship’s crew had already disembarked except for a handful of men still lounging aboard on the open deck. Large crates of cargo had been stacked while workers and carters hauled the goods away. Merchants squabbled over the division of the shipment.

Nicci recognized Harborlord Otto as he strolled down the gangplank of the Mist Maiden. He walked with a spring in his step, adjusting his floppy leather hat that she remembered from before. On the deck of the Mist Maiden, she saw a young woman talking to the bearded captain and guessed it might be Otto’s daughter, Shira. The young woman had lost her husband, Captain Corwin, when the Wavewalker was wrecked by the selka. Soon, Shira would be marrying a new husband, Captain Ganley.

The harborlord was hearty, good-humored, and well respected in Serrimundi. If Nicci could enlist Otto as an ally, he would help spread the warning and prepare the city’s defenses.

She called out in a brisk, businesslike voice. “Harborlord, I need to speak with you.”

He turned his caramel-colored eyes to her. “How may I help you?”

“You can help me spread a warning throughout Serrimundi.”

He frowned. “A warning about what?”

“An enemy army, a huge force of ancient soldiers that may eventually move against the Old World. They are far away, laying siege to Ildakar, but Serrimundi must be prepared. Luckily, there is time, if you act.”

Harborlord Otto seemed more puzzled than alarmed by the suggestion. “An enemy army? Do you mean the Imperial Order? We heard that Emperor Jagang is dead and his entire force defeated. What is there to worry about?”

“Yes, Jagang is dead.” Nicci didn’t point out that she herself had killed him. “This is another army, one that served Iron Fang fifteen centuries ago. They were under a spell, but now they are reawakened.”

Otto chuckled. “I’ve heard sailors tell many stories about sea monsters, selka, and krakens. You are having a joke on me.”

Nicci unwrapped the glass and showed him the image of Utros’s army. “It is true. The legendary city of Ildakar is besieged, and regardless of whether they survive or fall, General Utros is likely to continue his conquest. He will eventually come to the coast and Serrimundi. You need to build up your defenses.”

Otto chuckled again. “But Ildakar is on the other side of the world, if it even exists! No one has heard of it in centuries.”

“Ildakar exists, and is not as far away as you might think. The D’Haran Empire has been alerted, and Lord Rahl’s soldiers will be moving south from the Tanimura garrison. Serrimundi needs to help as well.”

The harborlord scoffed. “We don’t fear any invasion. We survived the Imperial Order, miss.” He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the glass. “How did you get this image?” He tapped the pane with his fingernail as if expecting the figures to dissolve. “Did you come by ship? Which vessel were you aboard?”

“I am a sorceress, and I came by other means,” she said. “You and I met briefly some months ago, when I arrived aboard the Wavewalker. Afterward I sent a message by courier that the ship had been sunk by selka.”

He hung his head, suddenly serious now. “Yes, we received that news. It was tragic.” Otto struggled to recall a name. “You are … Nicci?”

“Yes.” She held up the glass again. “And you need to listen to me about this army. General Utros has a force as great as the Imperial Order. Sooner or later you will be under attack.”

He frowned as he struggled to recall a conversation. “Now that you mention it, I heard secondhand from a fishing boat that came in this morning, something about one or two coastal villages being destroyed, Effren and one other. But I have no further proof, and I don’t think we should overreact until the news has been verified. Is that what you mean? Is this enemy army attacking the coast?” He pointed toward her pane of glass.

“No. General Utros is far inland, but he will be moving. I promise you, this is a threat. You must prepare.” She could see that her words were not getting through to him.

He nodded distractedly. “Thank you, I will make note of it, but Serrimundi has no standing army. Our harbor is busy, as you can see. Our population is healthy and prosperous. Everyone trades with us. We are not on a war footing.”

“That’s why I came to warn you.” Even though Elsa’s preserved images proved what Nicci said, the sheer distance from Ildakar to Serrimundi made the threat seem a small one, but Utros had already dispatched large portions of his army. If those forces continued marching, needing no supplies of food or water, they could cross the continent more swiftly than anyone expected. “You don’t comprehend the danger, Harborlord. This is not an army to be ignored.”

Otto paused to consider the glass again. “The Sea Mother will protect Serrimundi as she always has. We need not fear an attack.”

Growing frustrated, Nicci wrapped the cloth over the glass, covering the image. “Remember that I warned you.”

As if he didn’t give her a second thought, Otto adjusted his leather hat and strolled down the dock, still smiling. From the deck of the Mist Maiden, his daughter waved and wrapped her arm around the other captain, her fiancé.

Hoping she would have better luck if she spread the word around the harbor, Nicci made her way along the piers where sailors lounged about, waiting near their ships. Some whittled scraps of wood or kraken-horn ivory. Three deeply tanned and unshaven sailors passed around a bottle of wine. She showed many others her pane of glass, talking to merchant captains, kraken hunters, fishermen. To little use.

She came upon four shirtless, arrogant young men who lounged on a pile of sailcloth as if someone had placed it there for their bed. By the strings of tattoos across their chests, she recognized them to be wishpearl divers. The similar divers she had met aboard the Wavewalker were unpleasant, self-important men who refused to do work aboard the ship. They had poisoned her, diminished her powers, tried to rape her. They hadn’t succeeded. When the selka killed all of them, Nicci had not grieved.

She regarded the divers with a scowl as they roused themselves, curious about her attention. She asked, “If Serrimundi were under attack from an enemy force, would you lift a hand to defend it? Or are you as worthless as the other wishpearl divers I’ve met?”

Angrily, the four shirtless men climbed to their feet and sneered at her. One man said, “I might lift a finger if you came to my bed.”

“Then I might lift a finger to crush all of your bones into little pieces,” she said. “Mark my words, the threat is coming, an army that could destroy this city.”

“What army?” asked one of the other divers. “We’ve heard of no army.”

“I am telling you so you can prepare, if you know how to fight.”

“We know how to swim,” said one of the divers, chuckling.

None of them took her seriously. She showed them Elsa’s image on the glass, which they found interesting, but unconvincing. “That is an army in the mountains. We have no mountains here.”

“Armies can cross mountains,” Nicci said. “They are on the move.”

“If they are far away, then I’m not worried yet,” said one diver.

“I don’t even believe there is an army,” said another, squinting closer at the preserved pane. “It’s just a trick. There is magic in that glass. She could be showing us anything.”

“Heh, I know something I’d like her to show me,” said the lecherous diver.

Nicci was of a mind to burst his testicles right there, which would certainly gain his attention, but she hadn’t expected to earn any support from wishpearl divers in the first place, and they didn’t disappoint her. After a long day she had hoped to rouse the people of Serrimundi, though she knew it would be a more difficult task than convincing General Linden and the D’Haran garrison. These people did not know her. Not yet.

As the wishpearl divers laughed, mocking her story about the great army, she heard shouts raised across the harbor. A lookout on the Mist Maiden’s tall mast was casting dried bread to screaming gulls, but he suddenly dropped his basket and began hollering at the top of his lungs. Around the harbor, other ships picked up the alarm. Loud ship’s bells rang.

Beyond the rocky promontory at the mouth of the harbor, Nicci saw smoke in the sky. A ship was sailing into the harbor, engulfed in flames. It bobbed and yawed without guidance, its sails ablaze, a krakener riding low in the water. She saw several sailors dive overboard. Two of them were caught in the current and swept up against the outcropping beneath the carving of the Sea Mother. The burning ship continued to drift into the crowded harbor.

“Ship on fire, ship on fire!” The outcries spread among the vessels. The krakener listed to one side as the flames grew more intense. Harbor workers scrambled about, afraid that the fire would spread to other vessels. Several fishing boats rapidly set sail away from the docks to get clear. The krakener took on water as it began to sink near the mouth of the harbor.

Nicci shaded her eyes, wondering what could have set the ship ablaze. It was like a warning torch thrown at the city of Serrimundi. Soon enough, she had her answer. They all did.

With midnight-blue sails fully stretched and line after line of oars extended, a Norukai serpent ship cruised around the promontory, coming in from the sea and entering Serrimundi Harbor, following the krakener they had set ablaze.

Behind the first Norukai serpent ship came another, and another, a line of ten raiders. Frantic shouts roared among the dockworkers, and the harbor bells clanged. Nicci had never seen so many Norukai ships, and they were coming to invade Serrimundi.

This was not the army she had warned them about, but it was a threat just as deadly.