The Assassin's Edge

To Gamar Tilot, Scholar of the University of Col,

From Ely Laisen, Hadrumal.

Dear Gamar,

Some curious things have been turning up in our libraries lately and our mutual friend thought this might be of interest. It seems to have been written within the last generation, possibly even the last handful of years. The original is some kind of verse but the Mountain lass who translated it is far too much of a clod to compose anything like it herself.

The men of Dachasekke had long shared the Grey Seal Isle with the men of Haeldasekke. The isle bore no stones and thus men of each blood kindred returned to their own circles for justice, pleas and guidance.

So it came to pass on the whitest of nights that his ancestors sent a vision to the Clan Chief of Dachasekke and he vowed to raise a circle on the Grey Seal Isle on a rocky knoll where there was no soil for plough nor yet fodder for grazing. The Clan Chief of Haeldasekke had no such vision but, though the more influential, would not gainsay Kolbin of Dachasekke’s right to honour the dead within their own bounds.

All was well until the time of hay and harvest. Then the men of Dachasekke invited those of Haeldasekke dwelling on the Grey Seal Isle to step within their circle to honour those below the earth. This circle is closer to your homes, they said. Let us hold it in common, as we have blood in common. The Clan Chief of Haeldasekke decided he would hold more land in common if Dachasekke was wont to be so generous. He moved boundary cairns to claim the whole of the Lesser Slough once Dachasekke had made harvest.

The Clan Chief of Dachasekke was angered and summoned Scafet of Haeldasekke to meet him on the black sands of treaty that lie in the strait between his fastness and the Grey Seal Isle. He summoned Fedin of Evadasekke to stand as Law Speaker but the men of Haeldasekke would not accept him. Nor yet would they propose a Law Speaker of their own, denying any wrongdoing on their part that would justify a Law Speaker coming within their domain. The Clan Chief of Haeldasekke would not discuss the cairns but told Kolbin of Dachasekke instead of his plans to wed a daughter of Kehannasekke when the time of goat killing came.

Kolbin of Dachasekke saw this would leave him with unfriendly faces to both his flanks. He acquiesced and slew those who had invited men of Haeldasekke within their circle before withdrawing to his fastness. At the time of goat killing Scafet of Haeldasekke’s son Osmaeld married Renkana daughter to Rafekan of Kehannasekke beneath an arch of raised turf. He was an able boy with a strong spear arm while she was both promising of body and fair of face. No Law Speaker was called to stand witness to the wedding as Scafet of Haeldasekke and Rafekan of Kehannasekke agreed bride price and dowry were matters best agreed between themselves alone. Both kindreds made merry to the final part of the night.

The days of dark and hunger came and all men withdrew to their firesides. The darkest of nights came and word spread that a scorn pole had been found outside the hall of Kehannasekke’s fastness when the sun rose again. It was carved with the likeness of Renkana being used by Scafet as a dog does a bitch. No one knew whose hand raised it. Rafekan burned it and strewed the ashes into the sea, ignoring those who called this unmanly behaviour.

The hall of Haeldasekke’s fastness burned the following night.

All within the hall were killed. When the fire cooled, dead were found locked within their bed closets and the main door barred from without. Every bone was charred and broken and none could be buried without dishonour. The Clan Chief of Thrielsekke whose sister was wife to Scafet of Haeldasekke demanded that Rafekan of Kehannasekke summon a Law Speaker to determine the truth of the outrage. The Clan Chief of Kehannasekke refused, saying Scafet had suffered the judgement of his ancestors for dishonouring the wife of his son.

In the early days of the following summer Ilkehan of Kehannasekke threw down his father Rafekan and, being a capable man, was acclaimed as Clan Chief At the time of hay and harvest, Ilkehan of Kehannasekke and Kolbin of Dachasekke divided the Grey Seal Isle between themselves. The Clan Chiefs of Thrielsekke and Evadasekke both demanded they justify this action before a Law Speaker but none could be found whom all could agree on.

At the time of goat killing, the Clan Chief of Kehannasekke raised a circle for the men of the Grey Seal Isle now of Kehannasekke on a rocky knoll where there was no soil for plough nor yet fodder for grazing.

Kehannasekke, Islands of the Elietimm, 11th of For-Summer

My first thought on waking was astonishment that I could have closed my eyes long enough to fall asleep. The second was utter determination to get out of this black hole. I was on my feet with my next breath.

“Livak?” Ryshad’s voice came from somewhere in the blackness.

“Who are you expecting?” Sorgrad’s voice was amused.

“Some long-dead Elietimm?” queried ’Gren with relish.

“That’s not funny,” I said severely. Realising Ryshad’s jerkin had pillowed my head, I bent down to pick it up. No one could see me so I held it close to breathe in the reassuring scent of him.

The stones began to glow with the nimbus of magelight. “Good morning.” Shiv unfolded his long limbs from the niche and yawned. “You wouldn’t believe how stiff I am.”

“Trust me, I can.” I stretched my arms above my head in a vain attempt to ease the kinks out of my back. “Let’s sleep in proper beds tonight.”

The strengthening light reached Ryshad sitting at the base of the stair. He smiled at me with unmistakable promise. I winked pertly at him before turning serious. “Do we have any notion if Elietimm are still netting this burrow?”

“I went up top when I woke.” ’Gren shrugged in the pale light radiating from the far wall. “I couldn’t hear a thing.”

“That’s the good news.” Sorgrad perched unconcerned in one of the bone-filled niches. “The bad news is that’s definitely the only way out of here.”

“Definitely.” Ryshad confirmed our predicament. If the brothers brought up in the cave-riddled mountains and Ryshad with his knowledge of stone working couldn’t find another door, there wasn’t one to find. “Shiv, can you tell if there’s anyone up above?”

The nondescript light deepened to a pool of mossy green around the mage and a puddle of water coalesced in his cupped hands. He grimaced. “Can someone drop some ink in here, please?”

Ryshad obliged from his belt pouch.

“Why are you carrying ink?” asked ’Gren with interest.

“You never know when you might want some.” Ryshad was looking at the mage as intently as the rest of us. “Just a quick look, Shiv. We don’t want you falling foul of some adept out to revenge Ilkehan.”

Shiv nodded. “There’s no one waiting for us.” He splashed the water into his face to wash the sleep from his eyes. I was about to point out there’d been ink in it but, with blue paint still coating us all, there wasn’t much point.

“Where are we heading?” Sorgrad jumped down to the floor and crossed to the stair, his boots echoing on the stone floor. I joined him, ’Gren ushering Shiv ahead and taking up the rearguard.

“We get well away from here, then we let Halice and Temar know Ilkehan’s out of the game. They can set about throwing Muredarch and his wharf rats into the ocean.” Ryshad reached down to my raised hand and pulled me up beside him. I brushed a brief kiss across his cheek as I returned his jerkin.

“I need a shave,” he grimaced.

“I’ll forgive you, just this once,” I mocked affectionately.

Sorgrad led the way up the narrow and deliberately disorienting stair. I followed Ryshad, so glad to be leaving this eerie charnel house I had to hold back from shoving him along as he deliberately placed his boots noiselessly on each slab. That reminded me we weren’t safe till we were well clear of all the Elietimm with their mysterious powers and intrigues. Until then, we needed to watch our every step. No one ever got hung for being too cautious.

Mind you; no one ever got rich, either. I wondered privately just what kind of reward the Sieur D’Alsennin might be inclined to give us. With Halice to lead his troops, Temar should win enough booty from the pirates to remedy Kellarin’s woeful lack of coin. I’d need a reasonable coffer to get myself launched into the wine trade, after all.

Ahead of me, Ryshad stopped, bringing me rudely back to the here and now. He bent beneath the stone slab, braced to lift it. Sorgrad had a dagger in each hand. He nodded and Ryshad heaved the solid slab up to drop it with a thud.

They were both out of the hole together. Ryshad swung round to his offside, alert for anything unexpected. Sorgrad met him coming the other way.

“All clear.”

“No one here.”

That was enough for me and I scrambled out. It was well into morning up top, the light painfully bright for the first few moments. The sky was pale blue with improbably fluffy clouds rising in serried ranks from the west. The breeze was cool and refreshing on my face after the hushed stillness of the hargeard chamber. Then the acrid sharpness of burnt timber caught me by the throat and I coughed uncontrollably. I tried to stop but only succeeded in half choking myself.

Ryshad caught me by one arm. “Watch your step.”

Blinking through tears, I saw the top of the mound was strewn with fragments of shattered stone and burnt, splintered timber.

“That’s a good job done, I’d say,” remarked Sorgrad with pride.

“Definitely,” Shiv agreed wryly.

“Has anyone got any food?” ’Gren walked cautiously to the edge of the mound, shielding himself behind the broken stump of a sarsen.

I got my coughing under control. “Not me.”

Ryshad shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Save the day in a ballad and your hero gets a banquet and a willing princess,” ’Gren grumbled. “Let’s see if we can get back in time to help Halice fight the pirates.”

“The faster we let them know what’s happened, the better,” Ryshad allowed.

“Do I work the spell here?” Shiv looked at him.

“Time’s pressing,” I pointed out.

Ryshad shrugged. “Let’s see what happens.”

“I’ll work the spell with as much finesse as I can.” Shiv dug in his pack for his silver salver and then swore. “I’ve no candles.”

Sorgrad picked up a dewed fragment of blackened wood. “Try this.”

“I’ll do my best.” Shiv managed to summon a subdued flicker of scarlet from the brand. “Usara?”

We all waited expectantly. Nothing happened. Shiv frowned and snuffed out his flame with a workaday gesture. “He must be asleep.” Squaring his shoulders, he brought renewed fire to the wood. “Allin? Allin, it’s me, Shiv.”

The shining silver stayed obstinately blank. We all looked at Shiv and I wasn’t reassured to see his face mirror my own confusion.

“Do you want something else shiny?” ’Gren reached for his pack’s buckle.

Shiv frowned. “That won’t make a difference.”

“What would?” Ryshad asked bluntly.

Shiv didn’t answer, lifting the salver again and focusing all his attention on it. “Larissa?” The wood burned with a ferocious crimson. “Curse it!” Shiv swept the brand through the air to kill the flame, relighting it in the next breath. “Darni!”

“They can’t all be asleep, surely?” I heard concern catch in my voice.

“Is there some aetheric hindrance?” Ryshad asked, perplexed

“There’s no power here any more.” Sorgrad spoke up as Shiv shook his head. “It’s like the Shernasekke hargeard; nothing to react to the magic.” He walked round in a slow circle. “We’d have heard that bell sound if there was.”

Ryshad’s thoughts were long leagues away. “We have to let Temar and Halice know they can attack the pirates. Shiv, what else can you do? Livak, do you have any Artifice to contact Guinalle?”

“I’m afraid not.” I was sorry to have to disappoint him.

“Let’s see what scrying can show us.” Shiv cast aside the blackened wood and knelt on the damp grass. He laid the salver flat and dew sparkled briefly as it rolled across the turf, oozing over the metal to form a thickening emerald skin. Ryshad handed over his pot of ink and Shiv let a single drop fall from the stopper.

We crowded round. It took me a moment to realise the green mists had dissipated because initially all we saw were green leaves of almost exactly the same hue. Shiv drew the vision along the shore until we saw the camp laid out before us, neat campfires with people busy about them.

“That looks orderly enough.” I held both relief and worry firmly in check. There were more campfires than I expected but nowhere near enough people.

Ryshad was seeing the same as me. “Where’s Halice? Temar?”

Shiv wasn’t listening. He betrayed a sigh of release as the scrying found Pered standing outside the hut the pirates had left us, deep in conversation with someone I didn’t recognise. Whoever he was, someone had given him the worst beating I’d seen outside a mercenary camp.

I held my peace, counting a silent handful of heartbeats so Shiv could be sure his beloved was fine.

’Gren had no such delicacy. ”Where’s Halice, curse you!”

“Give me a moment.” Pered’s face faded and the water dulled to a stagnant jade before new magic suffused the water with verdant brilliance.

“There she is,” said Shiv with fervent relief.

I squinted at the image confined in the silver platter. “Where?”

“They’ve taken the Suthyfer landing,” exclaimed Ryshad.

“They have?” Sorgrad abandoned his thoughtful circuit of the mound to join us.

“We’re totally after the fair.” ’Gren was seriously displeased. ”No one to fight and no chance of any share in the loot.”

Shiv was still intent on his spell. “What do you suppose happened here?” The scrying showed us the burnt-out remnants of the pirates’ stockade, a group of mercenaries getting filthy tearing it down.

“Looks like you’re not the only ones who got carried away with your fire starting.” I smiled at Sorgrad who was studying the scene with interest.

“How did Halice know they could attack and be safe from the enchanters?” Shiv wondered aloud.

“Good question.” But Ryshad was well enough satisfied. “Still, the fight’s done and we won.”

“It can’t have been an easy fight, even without the Elietimm,” I pointed out. “If ’Sar and the others were using all their wits and wizardry, they’re probably still sleeping.”

There was no doubt our friends were masters of the landing. Like those miniature ships that sailors too old to be hired like to sell, we saw the Dulse and the Fire Minnow riding blithely at safe anchor. Solitary watchmen paced their decks with none of the fearful urgency of men expecting attack. Halice’s troops were reclaiming Kellarin’s cargoes from the ramshackle remnants of the pirates’ encampments, sentries circling with the same desultory stroll.

“Rosarn, Vaspret, Minare.” I ticked off faces I recognised on my fingers before chewing my lip as Shiv’s roving spell swept across callously piled bodies. Those had to be pirates. Our dead would be treated with far more respect lest Ostrin turn up in one of his legendary disguises to ask the reason why.

“No mages, nor Guinalle,” observed Ryshad.

“They’ll be sitting down to a rich breakfast aboard ship,” said ’Gren scornfully. “Noble born pay mercenaries to sit and eat their gruel on the cold ground.”

“Shiv, can you see inside the cabins?”

Not without—” The wizard froze and I heard a most unwelcome sound carried by the questing breeze.

“Goat bells.”

“Goat pizzles,” growled ’Gren. “I’d have bet yesterday scared them off for a season and a half.” He drew his long knife.

“Let’s leave them to it,” I pleaded. “We’ve seen Suthyfer’s secure. Let’s not risk our necks in some pointless scrap with the locals.”

“This is supposed to be the work of vengeful Eldritch Kin.” Ryshad waved a hand around the ruined circle. “Some gutted goatherd will set everyone looking for a man with a blade instead.” He ran a hand through wind-tousled curls. “Shiv, can you get us back to Suthyfer with Sorgrad’s help?”

Shiv shook his head. “Only one at a time. That would take the better part of two days and I’d need to sleep safe in between times.”

“We’re not splitting up,” ’Gren warned. “Not us and not her.”

“We need to lie up until we can get a nexus worked to lift us out of here together,” said Sorgrad with authority.

“The safest place will be Olret’s fiefdom,” Ryshad pointed out.

“I could take us all that far with one spell,” said Shiv confidently.

“About Olret.” I’d pushed him and his secrets to the back of my mind while Ilkehan dominated the foreground. “Are you suggesting we go back to his keep?” I sat on a convenient stump of rock.

“His laundresses could spare us some soap.” Sorgrad scratched at the soot-smudged and smeary colour still greasy on his forearm. “I’ll never hear the last of it if Halice sees me painted up like a masquerader.”

“Some of those pretty girls might be interested in finding out just how far the blue goes.” ’Gren’s lascivious chuckle ruined his air of spurious innocence.

Ryshad looked closely at me. “What about Olret?”

’Gren was still pursuing his own line of thought. “He should be a sound bet for a good breakfast.”

“You recall those locked gates on his stairs?” I said casually. That won me everyone’s attention.

“Yes,” said Shiv slowly.

This wasn’t the time for dancing round the truth. “Olret keeps a handful of women locked in cages up there, penned like animals in their own filth. They claim to be from Shernasekke, taken captive by Olret when he joined Ilkehan in attacking their house.”

“You didn’t think to mention this before?” Shiv was incredulous.

“You didn’t believe them?” Ryshad wasn’t wasting time with recriminations but the stern glint in his eye warned me to explain myself when we were alone together.

“I didn’t know what to believe. They have powerful Artifice but Olret somehow limits their powers to that one room. They wanted me to get word to their kin in Evadasekke.” I racked my memory. “And Froilasekke and somewhere else.”

“Why’s Olret holding them?” Sorgrad demanded as Shiv fumbled for his map.

“To try and get a blood claim on the Shernasekke lands when one of the girls decides his bed is a better place than a prison.” I scowled at ’Gren who looked ready to make some inappropriate quip. “And it seems they keep their lore very close, these Elietimm adepts. The Shernasekke women reckoned they could work Artifice that Olret couldn’t master. Those secrets were something else he wanted.”

Sorgrad shrugged. “That sounds fair enough, if you’re Olret.”

“Or they could have been lying,” Ryshad said reluctantly. “Olret could have perfectly good reason to keep them locked up. I hate to sound like Mistal but you’ve only their word to go on.”

’Gren was looking confused. “Ryshad’s brother,” I reminded him. “The advocate before the law courts.”

Shiv looked up from his map. “I can’t find Evadesekke but I think this may be Froilasekke.” He held up the parchment and pointed.

“That’s clear over the other side of the islands,” I said without enthusiasm.

“I’d go further than that for the right kind of gratitude from a rescued maiden.” ’Gren’s mood was brightening again.

Ryshad shot him an unreadable glance before returning to me. “You didn’t think we should involve ourselves before. Why tell us now?”

“Those goats are getting nearer,” warned Sorgrad.

“Olret was happy to help us as long as we were going to kill Ilkehan.” I met Ryshad’s gaze with a challenge of my own. “I’m not sure how he’ll react to us coming back, if he’s got secrets of his own to protect.”

“He doesn’t know we know about the women.” Ryshad looked thoughtful.

“I say we steer clear of Olret and let him do as he pleases.” Sorgrad scowled at ’Gren who was predictably bright eyed at the prospect of some new excuse for a fight. “Rettasekke or Shernasekke, they’re nothing to us. We owed Ilkehan a full measure of vengeance and killing him served everyone’s purpose. Now that’s done, let’s go home and reap the rewards.”

“I agree.” I raised my hand to stay Sorgrad’s approval. “But I don’t want to find myself coming back here next summer, because Olret’s set himself up in Ilkehan’s place.”

“So what do you propose to do?” Sorgrad challenged me and Ryshad both. “Kill Olret as well?”

“I don’t know what to do.” I’d had enough of killing, even of those we knew without doubt to be guilty but I didn’t bother telling Sorgrad since he wouldn’t consider it relevant.

Ryshad sucked his teeth. “Olret showed us a fair enough face but as our host he would do, of course.”

“And if Olret keeps these women locked up, they’re bound to blacken his name.” I spread my hands. “Now do you see why I didn’t muddy the waters stirring all this up?”

“We are going back then?” ’Gren glanced from me to Sorgrad, long knife ready in his hand.

“Not to the keep, not unless we have to.” Ryshad looked to us each for agreement and then at Shiv. “Can you take us to some quiet spot inside Olret’s boundaries until we can raise Usara and leave this all behind?”

The mage nodded. “There’s a place I saw as we rowed up the coast.”

“What about breakfast?” ’Gren complained.

“What about these women and their claims?” Shiv was looking dour.

“Maybe Guinalle can read the truth of it all in Olret’s dreams or some such,” I suggested.

“Shiv, get us out of here, please.” Ryshad cocked his head at goat bells again. “Whatever Olret may be, his people should be friendly to us and, Dast knows, no one hereabouts will be.”

“Depends what they reckoned to Ilkehan,” countered ’Gren.

His irrepressible voice faded as Shiv wrapped his spell around us. A breeze spiralled ever closer, ever faster, cool against my skin with the soft moisture of wind from the southern sea. The waterfall and grey rocks vanished as the breeze thickened to azure brilliance on the very edge of sight. Then the dizzying spiral seemed to get inside my head and the pleasant cool turned to a chill and wearisome damp making my very bones ache. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard but the sensation of my feet leaving the ground jolted me just that bit too hard. As solid ground lurched beneath my feet once more, I felt my gorge rising and hastily darted to one side.

“Good thing we haven’t had breakfast,” said ’Gren cheerily. “You’d just have wasted it.”

When I’d finished retching, I glowered at him. Ryshad handed me his water bottle and I rinsed my mouth and spat, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth. “Where are we?”

“Inland and up the coast a way from Olret’s settlement.” Shiv had brought us to the edge of some looming barrens, grey rock ripping through the threadbare green on the steep hillsides. We were hidden from the keep by a substantial buttress of rock thrust forward from one of the mountains guarding the interior. It was striped with unusually pale scree and on one face some upheaval had snapped the smooth line of the rock to leave a splintered cliff above a litter of shattered stone.

Sorgrad was peering out towards a long slew of morning mist cloaking the sea. “How do you suppose that fight for the fort’s gone?”

’Gren had other concerns. “Who do you suppose lives there?” He pointed at a long low house surrounded by a cluster of shabby outbuildings, goatskins nailed up for drying making pale patches on the gable ends. The wind shifted and brought us a whiff of mingled earthy smoke and cooking smells.

“Do you think we could ask for some food?” I looked at Ryshad.

“They can only say no.” He looked at one of the lesser buildings where a puff of steam escaped a window to be swept away by the gusting breezes. “I’d pay solid coin for the chance of a bath and a shave.”

Sorgrad was already moving towards the isolated homestead. “We’ll get ourselves clean and fed and then we’ll try bespeaking ’Sar again.”

“Wait a moment,” Shiv said, irritated. “Do you want whoever’s in there scared out of their wits?”

The air shimmered around us and magic leached much of the colour from our skin and hair. We were still an unnatural hue but, with Halcarion’s blessing, a stranger’s first thought should be we were just filthy and exhausted rather than dread messengers from the Eldritch Kin.

’Gren picked up the pace as we crossed the wind-scoured turf. People busy about the scatter of buildings paused to stare at us. “You stay here,” Sorgrad commanded as we reached a low wall of close-fitted stone. He and ’Gren crossed another stretch of grass that yielded to a raggedly cobbled yard in front of the long central house. A couple of men leaned on long narrow spades crusted with dark earth. Both house and the random outbuildings looked built from whatever rock had tumbled down the mountainside, sides bulging with irregular-shaped stones. Few windows pierced the thick walls and those couldn’t have admitted much light through their grimy horn panes.

“This doesn’t look very promising,” I murmured to Ryshad while trying to look innocuous under the suspicious gaze of the Elietimm men.

“Let’s see what Mountain charm can do for us,” he said with a certain sarcasm.

One of the men called into the doorway open on to the blackness inside the dwelling. A thickset woman with a dull orange scarf wound tight around her head appeared fast enough to suggest she’d been keeping a look-out through some peephole. Sorgrad stepped forward with a courteous bow and a sweeping gesture in the general direction of Olret’s keep. The woman stepped out of the doorway and waved a hand at one of the outhouses.

“Isn’t that where the steam came from?” Shiv looked hopeful.

’Gren turned to wave us forward. I was in a mood to take a gamble as well. “I don’t know about you two but I’m more than ready for a bath.”

The sturdy woman waited with Sorgrad and ’Gren while her sons or whoever they were took themselves off to their daily duties. She stood, feet solid on the irregular cobbles, arms folded across an ample bosom. Her face was creased with age and disillusion, mouth sunken on to almost toothless gums. She was certainly the oldest Elietimm I’d seen thus far and her speech was sufficiently fast and slurred that I understood none of it.

“We can wash in the laundry house,” Sorgrad told us. ’Gren was already unlatching the door. “She’ll send some food out later.”

“Please thank her for us.” I smiled to convey my gratitude but all I got in return was a dour grunt before our grudging hostess stomped off. “What did you tell her?” I asked in a low tone as Sorgrad ushered me towards the wash house, a low building with an irregular roof ridge and more than one loose slate.

“I said we were travellers who had visited Olret with a view to trading and had been seeing what his lands had to offer in return for our goods.” He was looking thoughtful. “I said we wanted to make ourselves presentable before returning to his keep.”

“It was Olret’s name made the difference,” ’Gren piped up. ”Until then, I thought she’d be setting the dogs on us.”

“I don’t suppose they get many visitors hereabouts.” Ryshad unbuttoned his jerkin as we crossed the wash house’s threshold. He unlaced his shirt and pulled it over his head, grimacing at both the smell and the ingrained stains of paint and dirt. I wasn’t any too taken with him smelling like a hard-ridden horse either but I doubted I smelled of roses or anything close.

“It won’t have time to dry, even if you wash it,” I advised reluctantly as I shed my own foetid clothes.

“Shiv?” Ryshad grinned. “Don’t you mages help out in Hadrumal’s laundry at all?”

“Are you mocking the arcane mysteries of elemental magic?” The wizard was already stripped to his breeches and unlacing them. “Actually, apprentices generally work these things out when they’ve done something stupid or dangerous and need to wash out the evidence.” He laughed at a sudden memory. “Let’s get ourselves clean and then I’ll see about the linen.”

“You don’t want Pered choking on your stench, do you?” I joked. With the door shut and warm steam hanging around us, I began to relax for the first time since we’d come to these islands. Perhaps it was the familiar scents of damp cloth and harsh lye just like the wash house at home. Knowing Ilkehan was good and dead certainly did a lot to calm my nerves. Now we could get clean and fed and then join the celebrations at Suthyfer. It would be good to swap yarns with Halice now that the danger was safely past. My spirits rose still further.

“Do we get in here?”

’Gren was naked, pale skin stark beneath the paint on his face. He peered into a broad stone basin in the centre of the floor where clouded water steamed.

Sorgrad threw his breeches and underlinen aside and joined him, leaning on the waist-high rim wide enough to rest a bucket on or, in ’Gren’s case, a buttock. “I don’t think so. That’s a hot spring in there and we don’t want to foul it.”

“Do you suppose there might be a wash tub?” I shivered in my shirt as I looked around the laundry. It had bigger windows than the main house with some bladder or membrane dried stiff and yellow and cut to fit the bone frames. The frames were none too tightly fitted and let in wicked draughts as well as a fair amount of light. More cold air whistled along a crude drain running down the centre of the sloping floor to disappear through a hole in one wall.

“You could just about get in here.” Ryshad was stood something halfway between a horse trough and a sink, one of several standing against one wall with long lengths of coarse cloth looped on racks above them. Long and narrow with steep sides, each seemed to have been carved from a single block of pale grey stone veined with faintest white. All but the one at the end were heaped with thick brown blankets soaking in lye and waiting for someone to sluice water through them and beat out the dirt with the bleached bone paddles racked above.

“Find the plug.” I grabbed a pail from a stone ledge and dipped it into the stone basin. The water was hotter than I’d have liked for a bath but I wasn’t about to complain.

“Soap root.” Sorgrad was investigating the contents of small baskets and bowls on a shelf. He tossed me a tangled mass of slick fibres.

I wasn’t impressed but didn’t want to upset our reluctant hostess by using anything better that had taken time and trouble to concoct from her scarce resources. My mother had given me more than one lecture on the costs and aggravation of soap making when my only concern had been simply looking pretty and smelling sweet for whatever swain I’d fancied flirting with.

I sloshed the bucket into the trough and Ryshad did the same. The clouded water smelled faintly reminiscent of a colic draught from an apothecary’s shop but that was still preferable to wearing stale sweat and old smoke when we returned triumphant to Suthyfer and everyone’s congratulations.

“In you get,” Ryshad smiled at me. Warm with the olive skin of southern Tormalin and dusted with black hair, his broad chest and strong arms looked quite bizarre against the paint staining his hands and forearms.

I dumped my stale shirt on top of my grimy breeches and swung a leg over the hard edge of the trough, careful not to slip on the smooth base. Crouching in the shallow water, I rubbed at my arms with the pulpy root until I won a faint lather that turned a faint blue-grey. “It’s coming off.” I scrubbed hard at my face with the crumbling shreds.

“Close your eyes.”

I barely had time to heed Ryshad’s warning before he dumped a bucket of water over me. Once I recovered from the shock, it was wonderful to feel the heat scouring me clean. “Wait a moment.” I squeezed as much foam from the soap root as I could into my hair.

“Let me.” I closed my eyes, savouring the deft touch of Ryshad’s strong fingers. Slick, his hands moved to my shoulders, blunt thumbs digging in gently to loosen muscle knotted by exhausted sleep on a cold stone floor. Just his touch roused my blood and I hoped the others would put my sudden blush down to the heat of the water.

“Eyes closed?” His hands left me and another bucketful came crashing down on my head. I puffed and wiped water from my eyes, appalled at the colour of the water I was kneeling in. Had I really been that filthy?

“Who was that?” Sorgrad was in the middle of soaping his own hair with grated root when a figure went running past the window.

’Gren didn’t pause as he scoured his face. ”No idea.”

“Nor me.” I couldn’t have said if the person had been male or female, young or grown, not through that clouded excuse for a window.

“Watch out!”

’Gren didn’t so much rinse his brother down as slosh a bucket full in his face.

“Did you see?” Ryshad turned to the mage but Shiv was sitting on the rim of the spring’s basin, tracing a slow circle in the steaming water with a curious finger. His intense concentration looked ludicrous coupled with his lean nakedness. I tucked away a private observation that Pered was a lucky man.

The mage looked up. “Sorry?”

“What’s so fascinating?” Sorgrad had stripped enough colour from his hair to leave it dun and lifeless but the paint on his arms was proving more stubborn.

Shiv began scrubbing at his own hands. “The way the fire beneath the rocks reacts with the water. I wonder—” He broke off and looked more closely at the inadequate lather. “This isn’t doing too much good.”

“Can you do better?” ’Gren challenged, lobbing a handful of soap root at the wizard’s face.

Shiv caught it deftly and made as if to throw it back, laughing as ’Gren ducked to one side. “Let’s see what a little wizardry can do.” He spun the fresh green of new rushes into the tangle of fibres and tossed me and Ryshad each a clump. Trying to see what we had left ’Gren sufficiently off guard that Shiv managed to hit him full in the face with his. Sorgrad came to his brother’s aid and soaked the mage with a pail of water.

“Behave, children,” I chided while trying not to laugh. Whatever Shiv did to the soap roots was remarkably effective and the darkness poured out of my hair when I had another go at washing it. “How do I look?” I squinted up at Ryshad.

He looked at me, head on one side. “Muddy brown.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and stood up to let him sluice the dirty water off me. My arms were still tainted blue but you had to look close to see it. With luck, once I was dressed, people would just think I was feeling the cold.

“Your turn.” I tugged the stopper out of the hole in the bottom of the trough and got out, pleased to see the Eldritch disguise flow down the gully and out beneath the wall. Filling the trough again helped keep me warm but I began to shiver as I washed Ryshad’s hair while he scoured his forearms.

“Shiv? Any chance of some fresher linen?” The idea of putting that frowsty shirt on my clean body revolted me.

“Give me a moment.” The wizard’s wet hair was black and sleek against his head.

“Can you fetch me my shaving gear?” Ryshad grimaced as he ran a hand over his bristles.

’Gren tested his own chin as I rummaged in Ryshad’s bag. ”I don’t think I’ll bother.”

“You can leave it half a season and no one notices unless your whiskers catch the light,” I teased.

A knock at the door startled us all.

“Hello?” Sorgrad wiped soap from his face.

“Towels?” ’Gren wondered hopefully.

A voice outside said something I didn’t catch.

“Food!” ’Gren’s face broke into a broad smile. “Even better.”

I moved to avoid brightening up any passing goatherd’s day as ’Gren opened the door entirely heedless of the fact he was bare-arsed and dripping wet. Wiry and muscular, he crouched to pick up a loaded tray.

“What have we got?” Sorgrad picked up a lidded flagon and they set the spoils on the broad rim of the pool. Ryshad finished his cursory shave with a few strokes of his razor and came dripping across the floor.

“You can share that.” A boiled goat’s head sitting in broth thick with herbs didn’t appeal to me. I prefer my food without an expression. I reached instead for a small plump bird and was agreeably surprised to find it had been stuffed with a sweet dough before baking to succulence.

“Our hostess must be better disposed than she looked.”

Shiv bit into a fat, glistening sausage. The mouthful muffled his curses as sizeable scraps of hot offal spilt down his chest.

Ryshad coughed. “It looks like everyone wants to get us drunk.” He handed the flagon to me and I took a cautious sip.

“What kind of liquor is that to give travellers?” I coughed. The powerful fumes of the spirit made my eyes water.

’Gren paused, mouth stuffed with flatbread scorched from the skillet. ”There’s enough food here to keep us busy for a while.”

“From a woman none too pleased to see us in the first place.” Sorgrad ate a dark blood sausage in a series of rapid bites.

We all looked at each other. Ryshad and I shared a lifetime’s habit of suspicion with Sorgrad and ’Gren and even Shiv was looking doubtful.

“What can you see in the yard?” Ryshad scooped a bizarre concoction of cheese pressed with scraps of meat and herbs on to a slab of bread. Chewing, he crossed to a far window and tugged the bone frame just far enough awry for a clear view out.

“There’s no one lifting so much as a slop pail out here,” said Sorgrad slowly.

“Where are the people we saw before?” I watched Ryshad rummage in his bag.

“Nowhere.” Sorgrad craned his neck for a better view out of the clouded window.

“That doesn’t sound too friendly.” ’Gren stripped the meat from the goat’s head with deft fingers and packed it inside a hollow flatbread.

Shiv looked at Ryshad. “Anything on your side.”

Ryshad rested his spyglass on the sill. “Men running in ranks like a proper drilled troop are coming this way in a hurry.”

“The old woman sent Olret a message,” said Shiv slowly.

“He’s sent us an escort back to the keep?” Sorgrad was sceptical.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Ryshad finished his food in a few swift mouthfuls. “Let’s be ready to meet them, either way.”

We pulled on shirts and jerkins, stepping into breeches and boots, ignoring travel stains and staleness. A shadow caught my eye and as I looked through the yellowed membranes of the nearest window, several furtive figures passed between the blurred outlines of the house and outbuildings. “The old woman’s menfolk are ready to argue the point if we try to leave.”

Sorgrad was stuffing what of the remaining food would travel best into his and ’Gren’s bags. “If it comes to a fight, we take them all on at once.”

“Can’t we just leave them gawping at an empty trap?” I asked at Shiv as I laced up my shirt. “ ’Sar can’t still be snoring?”

“What is there to burn?” Shiv dug out his silver salver and looked around. “I need wood or wax.”

But bone was all there was hereabouts, thanks to the local lack of trees. Wanting trees made me think of the Forest and I threw Shiv one of my everyday rune sticks.

He didn’t hesitate, summoning a flame that burned with a strange green tint. He worked his now familiar magic once, then a second time, then a third, the rune stick burning with unnatural rapidity. Growing concern furrowed the mage’s brow as I concentrated on securing my bag and Ryshad’s to stop myself standing over Shiv. Ryshad was tense at his window while Sorgrad kept watch on the yard outside.

“Well, wizard?” ’Gren demanded, his bag and Sorgrad’s slung on his back, knives ready to fight anyone who offered.

“I can’t bespeak anyone, not Usara, not Allin, not Larissa.” I heard considerable disquiet in Shiv’s voice.

“Can’t you rouse Planir or someone in Hadrumal?” Apprehension deepened Ryshad’s tone.

“Give me a moment.” Shiv set down his salver and the half-burnt rune stick and heaved a weary sigh. It wasn’t paint causing those dark hollows under his eyes, I realised with a sinking feeling. This wasn’t the time to find Shiv had spent all his wizardry, not if we couldn’t summon help from beyond these islands. What could have happened to the other mages?

“They’ll be at the boundary wall any moment now,” Ryshad warned from his vantage point.

“I can see those slackers with their spades hiding round the corner of the house,” Sorgrad said ominously.

’Gren and I stood watching Shiv work his spell once more.

“Planir, it’s me, Shiv.” The mage’s voice hardened as he bent closer to the amber radiance. “Open to my spell, curse you! I have to speak to you!”

But the light faded inexorably from the cold metal. “Don’t do this to me!” spat Shiv, heedless of the rune stick burning his fingers. He gripped the salver so hard the silver buckled. With a snap that startled us all, it twisted out of his hands to fall blackened to the floor. Shiv stared at it aghast. “The magic turned against me.”

A horrible notion struck me. “Was it the rune stick? The Forest Folk foretelling is Artifice even if they don’t call it that—”

Shiv wasn’t listening. “There’s something very wrong.”

“There will be if we can’t fight a way out of here.” Ryshad snapped his spyglass shut and shoved it in a pocket. We all drew our blades as we heard running feet on the stones of the yard.

“It’s only a double handful or so,” said ’Gren scornfully.

“Shiv, can’t you just lift us out of here?” I asked.

“Where to?” he asked, exasperated. “Olret’s keep? That’s the only other place around here I know well enough to carry us to—and that’ll just about finish me.”

“We’ve fought our way out of tighter corners than this.” ’Gren was unconcerned but then ’Gren was always unconcerned. Moving figures passed by the windows.

“It’s whoever Olret’s sent that we have to worry about.” Sorgrad assessed the situation calmly. “If we deal with them, farm boys aren’t going to stand up to us.”

Ryshad didn’t take his eyes off the door. “How do we do this?”

Sorgrad used his dagger to loosen the bone frame in the stone aperture beside him. “We let them in through the door.” The window loosened. “Then we go out this way.”

Ryshad scowled. “You three, maybe. Not me and Shiv.”

“I can slow them down,” the mage assured him.

“Once we’re out, we attack them from the back.” I resolutely ignored my own misgivings.

“No more time to worry about it.”

’Gren leapt for the door as someone lifted the latch on the other side. He ripped it open and the Elietimm soldier fell into the wash house, taken unawares. He took that surprise to whatever afterlife awaited him as ’Gren struck his head clean off before darting out of the reach of the second man’s naked blade.

“Go!” Sorgrad stood between me and the Elietimm forcing their way into the cramped building, bent on ugly slaughter. I used a pail as a step and, tossing the loosened frame aside, I went through the window feet first. ’Gren dived after me to roll on the bruising ground with all the skill of a fairground tumbler. He was on his feet, blades bright in the morning sun before Olret’s men realised what was happening.

Most were already inside the wash house. Three were left outside to gawp at our sudden arrival. Two went for ’Gren and the last ran at me. I wasn’t about to start swordplay with someone half a head taller so I ducked down and caught up a loose stone the size of my fist. Catching him full in the cheek wasn’t as good as a strike to the temple but it sent him staggering back. He fell hard on his arse so I could shove my sword under his jaw to leave him twitching on the dusty ground. I don’t kill with ’Gren’s insouciance but if someone tries to kill me, I’ll answer to Saedrin for his death when my times comes. It was only then I realised I’d taken the insane risk of using the ancient Kel Ar’Ayen blade I carried.

With deft footwork and vicious swordplay, ’Gren added the other two to a tally that’ll keep the elder god busy and everyone else waiting in line. Hearing their cries, one came back out of the door and I retreated rapidly, shoving the sword into my belt and reaching into my pouch for darts.

But he wasn’t interested in fighting, running so fast even ’Gren couldn’t catch him before he jumped the boundary wall and fled.

Curiosity warred with caution and I risked going a little closer. Two Elietimm in the doorway had their backs to me and whoever they were fighting had to be one of my friends so I darted in to hamstring the closest with my longest dagger. He fell, to be killed by Sorgrad and I caught a glimpse of Ryshad struggling with someone further in.

A scream of agony shocked us all to stillness but me and Sorgrad recovered first. As I slashed at the other man’s knees from behind, Sorgrad caught the enemy under the breastbone. The man died, vain pleading silenced by a gush of blood. Sorgrad tried to throw the body back off his blade. I stepped forward to help, holding the corpse down with one boot and saw Ryshad hacking at two men unaccountably tangled in choking coils of sodden cloth.

“Shiv got the laundry on our side,” grinned Sorgrad over the corpse between us.

Shiv was standing on the rim of the pool, a narrow column of scalding steam untroubled by the cold air from the open door and coiling down and around a man whose face was pale, pulpy and undeniably dead. I spoke without thinking. “You cooked him like a pudding.”

“Pretty much.” The mage sighed. “And I really am all but spent.”

Ryshad kicked the swathed bodies at his feet to make sure they were good and dead. Blood oozed from rents in the blankets and flowed across the floor to join water and lye seeping down the drain. “Let’s get out of here.”

He and Sorgrad were first out of the door, me following with an arm ready in case Shiv needed support. ’Gren was in the centre of the yard, proud and belligerent as a cockerel ready to leave all comers bleeding in the dust.

“Let me repay your hospitality,” he taunted the unseen inhabitants of the steading. “My mother throws better bread than your women make to the dogs!”

“We’re leaving,” Sorgrad warned him as we passed. ’Gren took a moment to piss copiously on the ground and then ran to catch up.

Ryshad fell back to let the two of them go on ahead. “Shiv?”

“I’ll be all right,” said the wizard tightly. “I just need some rest and to work out why my magic’s not reaching as it should.” He sounded quite as annoyed as weary.

“Rest may solve it. How often does a mage do half what you’ve done these past few days?” Still, I was starting to share his concern that something, somewhere must be very wrong if we couldn’t contact any other mage.

We passed the boundary wall, Ryshad checking all the while to be sure we weren’t pursued. “We’ll find somewhere to hide up and work out our next move,” he said decisively. “And we don’t want to be disturbed. Livak, can you work that aetheric charm against being tracked?”

I did my best to sing the jaunty tune as we ran, hoping the Artifice was proof against my ragged breath and the jolting of the uneven, stony ground.

Suthyfer, Fellaemion’s Landing, 11th of For-Summer

You’re building pyres already?” Temar felt distantly proud that he could keep his voice level.

“No reason to delay.” Halice sounded weary.

“I’d forgotten what it was like.” Temar didn’t mind Halice hearing his shame. “I fought with the cohorts for a year and a half but we were never involved in clearing the carrion, not esquires from the noblest Houses. We were all honour and valour and rushing to leave the battlefield as soon as our commanders gave us leave. It’s the comrades you remember, the fooling in the camps, the celebrations and the grateful whores. Not the death.”

“You’re a commander this time,” said Halice without censure. “Now you know why wiser men than us call a battle won the closest evil to a battle lost.”

The two of them watched shrouded bodies being respectfully laid in a line along the crest of the rising land. The only sound was from the pry bars and axes breaking up what remained of the hulks of the Tang and Den Harkeil’s ill-fated ship.

“Did Peyt live?” Temar asked after a while.

Halice shook her head. “Not beyond midnight.”

A sullen line of those pirates who’d escaped summary slaughter carried the salvaged wood up to the burning ground.

“They should burn cleanly enough,” Temar remarked when the burden of silence weighed too heavily for him to bear. He plucked unaware at the edge of the bandage dressing the wound on his arm.

“I reckon so.” Halice watched other captives sewing sailcloth winding sheets around the dead to be honoured with cleansing fire. Minare and his troop stalked among them, cudgels ready to chastise any who failed to show respect to the fallen. “Though a little magecraft couldn’t hurt. Has Allin recovered at all?”

“Not as yet.” Temar couldn’t say that in an even tone and didn’t even try.

“We’ll have to keep the burning hot enough without her then.” Halice pointed at the pyres being built with sombre efficiency by a bloodstained gang of mercenaries. “Deg knows how to catch the wind to best advantage.”

“What do we put the ashes in?” asked Temar with sudden consternation.

“We’d better talk to Rosarn. She’s inventorying the salvage,” Halice replied. “There must be pickle jars, butter crocks, wide-necked carafes, that kind of thing.”

“You’d send someone’s son home in a pickle jar?” Temar was appalled, both at the notion and the realisation he had nothing better to suggest.

“I’ve sent people home as no more than a few charred bones in a twist of greased sacking before now.” Halice turned her gaze from the measured destruction of the beached ships and Temar saw tears in her eyes. “I always told myself it was better their family know what had happened than be left with hope and fear from season to season.”

“I’m sorry.” Temar couldn’t think what else to say.

Halice smiled without humour, her sorrow retreating. “I wasn’t sorry to think I’d left all that behind. Me and Deg and all the rest of us who opted to stay in Kellarin.”

“Will you still be staying?” Temar wondered aloud.

“Oh yes,” Halice assured him. “We’ve shed too much blood to give up on you now.”

“In the cohorts, any man wounded in battle was recompensed according to the severity of his wounds,” said Temar distantly. “I don’t know if the custom still holds but I intend to abide by it.”

They watched the work continue for a while longer in the same pensive stillness. Other captives were dumping their fallen comrades in long boats with scant ceremony. The Fire Minnow waited in the middle of the strait to tow the carrion into open water. Her crew made ready to sail, with billows of white canvas and the D’Alsennin pennant jaunty at her masthead.

“They’re taking those well clear?” asked Temar, concerned. “We don’t want corpses washing back on the tide!”

“The sharks will make short work of that lot,” said Halice with grim satisfaction. “Remind me to tell Naldeth what we’ve done.”

Temar looked again at the pyres being built, running an idle finger over his bandage until he inadvertently touched the tender sore beneath it. He banished the treacherous thought that Guinalle could heal the hurt for him. Her talents were needed elsewhere. He could heal as time and Ostrin allowed. “We need a shrine,” he said with sudden decision. “If we keep these ashes in humble containers, so be it but we should at least give them the sanctity of a proper shrine.”

“Agreed.” Halice nodded firm approval. “Some families will want to leave the ashes where their loved ones fell anyway. We should make sure a roll of the dead goes back on the first ships to Tormalin. Do you think Tadriol would let us use the Imperial Despatch to send word to the families in Lescar and Caladhria?”

“It’s not for the Emperor to permit or deny couriers to an acknowledged Sieur,” Temar retorted with some spirit. “The Imperial Despatch can take word of your losses to the far side of Solura or answer to me for it.”

“Word to Bremilayne will reach Toremal quicker but the quickest way to get news to Caladhria and Lescar will be sending someone to Zyoutessela, so a courier can take passage on to Relshaz. Someone needs to take word to Hadrumal as well.” She reached into her jerkin and dug in an inside pocket to retrieve a thick silver ring. “This was Larissa’s. It should go back with her ashes.”

Temar was puzzled. “I don’t recall her wearing that.”

“Nor me.” Pity and apprehension mixed uneasily in Halice’s words. “I think it belonged to Planir.”

“We’ll discuss who goes where when we have all the ships together.” Temar knew he was avoiding the question but he’d face down Emperor Tadriol and the entire Convocation of Princes before he’d tell Planir the woman he’d loved was dead. “We should bring them all in here, and everyone from the sentry island.”

“Not today,” Halice said firmly. She nodded at the gangs of toiling mercenaries. “They’ll end up roaring drunk tonight and meaner than privy house rats. You should make sure any prisoners you don’t want lynched are locked safely in the Dulse’s hold as well.”

“Oh.” Temar hesitated. “Do you think that’s wise, letting the men have such liberty? What if some of the pirates who fled sneak back in hopes of more mischief or stealing a boat?”

“Then they’ll live to regret it just so long as it takes someone to sling a rope over a tree or gut them like a fish.” New vigour sounded in Halice’s voice. “Still, you’re right. One spark makes a lot of work if it catches. Rosarn can take out her scouts tomorrow.”

“As soon as Guinalle can spare the time, she can drill me in the Artifice to search out any stragglers.” Temar straightened his back, shoulders square. “Ros can start a survey as well as clearing out vermin. Vaspret can help. The sooner we know what we hold here, the better we can plan how to use these islands.”

Halice smiled. “You’ll be telling Tadriol Kellarin claims these islands? In your capacity as Sieur?”

“Yes,” Temar said firmly. “Do you have some objection?”

“None at all.” Halice looked at the steadily rising pyres. “It’ll be nice to see a battleground showing something more permanent than burn scars for winter storms to wash away.”

For all his newfound determination, Temar’s thoughts turned inexorably sorrowful, so he was accordingly grateful for an apologetic cough at his elbow. It was Glane.

“Beg pardon, Messire, Commander but what are we to do with the prisoners that aren’t working? Some are saying they were never pirates, only captives. And then there’s the wounded—”

“I’ll see to the wounded.” Halice clapped Temar on the shoulder. “Justice and mercy are your prerogative, Messire.”

Temar bit his lip as the tall mercenary strode away.

“Rosarn! Do we have any kind of inventory yet? I want decent food for the wounded,” Halice called out. She kicked at a rickety remnant of some hovel and it collapsed with a clatter. “And somewhere a cursed sight better than this to sleep!”

Temar turned to Glane. “Where are these prisoners?”

The boy led him across gravel and dusty turf to a sullen gathering guarded by grim-faced men from Edisgesset. Some were blank faced with fear, staring dejected at the ground, some not even easing the painful bonds constraining them. Others huddled in twos and threes warily alert for any chance to flee, eyes vicious as feral dogs. One woman sat silent, hugging her knees, green dress bloodied around the hem and scorched on one sleeve, the skin beneath red and blistered. Temar felt she was not so much beaten as slyly husbanding her strength. Her hair was still secure in a tidy black braid pinned around her head.

“Build a gallows,” he said in matter-of-fact tones. “Fit to hang a handful at a time.”

A few faces disintegrated into sickened rage or wretched whimpers, his words confirming their worst fears. Consternation wracked the rest, several trying to stand for all the bonds hampering them. Their protests came thick and fast.

“No, your honour—”

“Your mercy, we beg you—”

“They forced me—”

“Silence!” Temar held up his hands. “You’ll all have your chance to plead for pardon.”

“And to bear witness?” A bedraggled girl struggled to her bruised feet, tied hands awkwardly clutching a blanket some mercenary had thrown her to cover her ragged chemise. “Hang me if you wish, Messire. I don’t care but don’t let that bitch escape the death she deserves!” She turned on the woman in the green dress whose eyes were still fixed on the ground. “Muredarch’s whore, the filthy slut, she kept all his secrets.” She broke into wild sobs, kicking at the silent woman. “She made a whore out of me! Let any of them use me—” As she lashed out again, the woman in green tripped her with a deft foot. The hysterical girl fell hard and other prisoners turned on the woman in green and then on each other.

“Break it up!” Temar ordered. Edisgesset men were already wading into the melee, pulling apart the struggling bodies, merciless with some, more gentle with others.

One stood, the trampled girl unconscious in his arms. “What do I do with her, Sieur?”

“Take her to join the wounded.” Temar gestured towards the edge of the woods where those hurt were being nursed away from the bloodstained battleground. He studied the woman in the green dress who was sitting still and silent once more. Her braid was ripped askew and a bruise purpled one cheek.

“What’s your name?” asked Temar.

“Ingella,” one of the other prisoners snarled.

“Were you truly Muredarch’s woman?” Temar demanded.

Ingella did not answer, her gaze not wavering from a tuft of grass that seemed to fascinate her.

Temar was aware that every other eye was on him. “Keep your own counsel,” he said mildly. “Muredarch wasn’t the only one with Artifice to call on. We will have your guilt or innocence out of you one way or another.”

Ingella’s face came up with a jerk, horror in her dark eyes.

Temar indicated the others who betrayed new terror with rapid jabs of his finger. “Those, take them and lock them securely in the bottom hold of the Dulse. No one will escape punishment for their crimes here. As for the rest of you, I won’t hang any who don’t deserve it. You may work or you may be confined in the cargo deck of the ship.”

Some looked at him with faint hope rising above their despair and Temar walked briskly away before anyone could see the sudden tremor in his hands or the quake in his spine as the full weight of his responsibility bore down on him.

“What is it?” Halice appeared at his side. He hadn’t even seen her approaching.

“My grandsire was always determined to tell me rank brings duty as well as privilege. Now I know why.” Temar gritted his teeth. “I must see Guinalle. We’ll have to set up a proper assize. If we’re to separate those who went willingly to Muredarch from those who were coerced, I need her to work a truthsaying and a powerful one at that.” Temar saw Halice was looking even grimmer than she had before. He wouldn’t have thought that was possible. “What is it?”

“Darni’s died,” Halice said shortly.

Temar realised it was possible to feel worse than he did already. “Perhaps it was for the best,” he said after a long pause. “His face was smashed beyond hope of repair.”

“And his arm. I was all but ready to give him a clean death myself once he’d seen us kill Muredarch.” Halice sighed. “Then I wondered if Artifice might save him.” She scowled. “It was easier when there was no chance of such things.”

Black despair threatened to overwhelm Temar. “He has a wife, doesn’t he? And a child?”

“Two.” Halice bit the word off.

“I wish Ryshad was here.” The words came unbidden from Temar’s lips.

“And Livak.” Halice scrubbed a sketchily washed hand through her short, unruly hair. “Have you been aboard this morning? Usara might be awake by now, or Allin.”

“I think Guinalle would have sent word.” Temar looked at Halice. “We should see how they are though.” They were walking towards the shingle strand, pace increasing with every step, Temar matching Halice stride for stride.

“You there!” She hailed a sailor pushing off a laden longboat with a single oar over the stern. “We’re for the Dulse.”

Temar stayed silent for the short crossing to the ship, nothing to say as he climbed the rope ladder up to the deck.

“Demoiselle Guinalle?” Halice caught a passing sailor with her question.

“Cabin.” He nodded backwards before going on his way.

Temar’s feet felt leaden. Halice looked back at him. “Not knowing won’t make any difference.” She opened the door like the best-trained lackey in his grandsire’s house. He took a deep breath and went in.

“Temar.” Female voices greeted him, both fraught with emotion and exhaustion.

“Guinalle.” He felt weak with relief. “Allin. How are you, both of you?”

The demoiselle sat on a low stool, leaning back against the wooden hull of the ship. “Weary but time will mend that.”

Allin was sitting on her bunk, hair tangled around her pale face. Temar knelt and held her close. The mage-girl drew a long shuddering breath, slipped her arms around him and held tight.

“If you’re going to hug me, Halice, do be careful.” Lying on the other bunk, Usara attempted to prop himself on one elbow. “I feel as if I might snap.”

“You look like a death’s head on a mopstick,” Halice told him with friendly concern.

“I rather thought I might.” Usara gave up the uneven struggle and lay back down.

“What happened?” Temar realised that was a foolish question even as he sat on the bunk beside Allin.

“Guinalle saved us.” Allin’s reply was muffled as she hid her face against Temar’s neck.

“I couldn’t let any mage suffer Otrick’s fate.” Guinalle did her best to sound matter-of-fact. “And your own defences proved themselves against the Artifice.”

“Nice to know I hadn’t been wasting my time with Aritane,” remarked Usara.

“Larissa’s dead, isn’t she?” Allin clung to Temar. “I felt her die, didn’t I?”

He eased free of her embrace so he could see her face. “Yes, my love. I’m so sorry.”

Grief welled up in Allin’s eyes. Temar held her close again and felt her warm tears on his skin.

“The adepts found her first,” Guinalle explained with bitter regret. “That’s what alerted me to their plan for you all to share their death. She held out long enough for me to ward you two from the worst of their malice.”

“That’s scant consolation for her loss.” Usara rolled his head to look at them all. “There must be some reason we’re so cursed vulnerable to Artifice when we’re working wizardry.”

Temar opened his mouth to try and describe what he had seen of Larissa’s fate but Guinalle spoke first. “I believe I have some insight into that now.”

Allin stiffened in Temar’s arms, her words putting any other considerations to flight. “If the pirates are dead, can’t we get them home, Livak and Ryshad and Shiv?”

“And Sorgrad and ’Gren.” Halice did her best to contain her impatience. “When might one of you be strong enough to bespeak them?”

“No time like the present,” said Usara with grim determination. He swung his legs over the side of the bunk and pushed himself upright with visible effort.

“You’re hardly in a fit state for magic,” Temar protested but Allin was already moving out of the protective reach of his arm.

She knelt on the floor to pull a small coffer out from beneath the bunk. “Let me, Usara. Fire’s my element.” Allin had already summoned a modest flame from the candle she took from the coffer. She handed Temar a small silver gilt mirror and her expression warned him not to protest. He swallowed his objections as the rising golden light of magic played on Allin’s face. Temar wondered again how he could ever have thought her plain. The amber gleam turned the brown of her eyes into a pleated tapestry of light and shade looking into this mystery he could never comprehend.

“Curse it.” She blew out the candle with a chagrined puff. “I can’t reach either of them.”

“Is there something wrong?” demanded Halice. “With them, I mean.”

“No, I’m just too tired.” Allin looked absurdly cross.

All at once Temar was hard put not to laugh. “Will you mages ever accept someone else’s word without having to prove a thing for yourselves?”

“Not before we get our third set of teeth, according to Otrick.” Usara managed a grin. “I’ll try scrying. That’s an easier spell.”

Allin reached into her coffer for a shallow silver bowl and Guinalle fetched the wide-bottomed, narrow-necked ewer from the table. Usara rested the bowl carefully on his knees and studied it as she filled it.

“Let’s see what we can see,” Usara murmured, taking a small vial from Allin with a nod of thanks. He let delicate drops of herb-scented green oil fall on to the water before cupping his hands around the bowl, taking a deep breath.

Temar waited tensely for the glow of magelight in the water. His heart sank as a feeble radiance barely reached the low rim of the bowl. Usara scowled and the circling swirl of oil began to whirl faster but just when Temar thought the shimmering light might break into the unearthly brilliance of magecraft, the spiral broke to leave blobs of oil floating aimlessly on the stubborn water.

Usara’s lips narrowed to invisibility. “I’m faring no better than you, Allin.”

“We just need some rest.” Woebegone, the mage-girl looked at Temar and Halice. “I’m so sorry. It’s just we’ve—”

“Hush, sweetheart.” Temar reached for her hand. “No one blames you, either of you!” He was about to elaborate on all that the fighting men owed the wizards when Guinalle began a soft incantation. “What are you doing?”

“Seeing what my skills can do for us.” The demoiselle sat on her stool, eyes closed as she concentrated. “Tiadar velaesar lei, Livak eman frer. Sorgren an vel arimel, lek al treradir.”

Her rhythmic chant was the only sound in the cabin. Usara leant forward, eyes fixed on Guinalle and full of questions. Temar put his arm round Allin’s shoulders as she still agonised over her own failure to work the magic he needed. Halice folded her arms and leaned against the door, face impassive.

“I cannot find either of them.” Guinalle threw up her hands in uncharacteristic exasperation. “So much for the superiority of Artifice over wizardry.”

“You’re weary, just the same as Usara and Allin,” Temar pointed out.

“Could you seek out Ryshad instead, or Shiv?” suggested Usara.

Guinalle shook her head. “Any wizard is horribly hard to find—unless he’s working magic of course, and Ryshad’s distrust of Artifice is such that it’s almost a defence in itself. Anyway, that’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?” Temar asked, frustrated.

“Livak’s working a charm to conceal them.” Guinalle’s brows knitted. “She doesn’t want to be found by anyone’s Artifice, not just mine.”

“But Ilkehan’s dead,” began Temar.

“So she’s hiding from someone else,” said Halice from the door. “Which likely means some trouble’s chasing them.”

“Someone probably took offence at them killing Ilkehan,” Usara said drily.

“What can we do?” cried Allin.

“Rest and restore yourselves and then you can bespeak Shiv or Sorgrad.” Temar tried to keep the vexation he felt out of his words.

“There’s only so much you can do before you overtax yourself. That’s what the masters say, isn’t it, Allin?” Usara let slip a wordless growl of anger. “This is a pissing inconvenient time for Otrick to be proved right!”

Halice snapped her fingers with exasperation and dug in her breast pocket. “Would this help either of you?”

“Where did you get that?” Usara was astonished.

“Otrick’s ring,” said Allin in the same breath.

“Otrick’s and Azazir before him.” Usara held out a hand and Halice handed it over. “But polished like new. Planir’s ensorcelled it.” He looked at the unblemished circle with wonder.

“Which means what?” asked Temar keenly.

“This is a ring of elemental power.” Usara slipped it on the central finger of his off hand and studied it. New colour rose in his drawn face and he laughed. “Kalion would have four kinds of fit if he knew about this!”

“Why so?” Guinalle sat forward, curiosity getting the better of her weariness.

“Wizards haven’t instilled inherent magic into things for a handful of generations, maybe more.” Usara held up his hand. “People like Kalion have decreed it degrades the mystery of wizardry to allow the non-mageborn any sense of magic.”

“One of us could cast spells wearing that?” Halice was incredulous. “That sounds like something out of a bad ballad!”

“No, that’s truly a minstrel’s myth.” Usara took off the ring and tossed it to Allin who fumbled but caught it. “But a mage can bespeak a non-mageborn person wearing such a thing.”

“That could be useful.” Temar’s interest grew.

“Oh!” Allin blushed with surprise as she tried the ring on. Temar looked at her with some concern.

Usara grinned. “What Kalion and his ilk don’t appreciate is the main use of such things isn’t to favour the mundane with some taste of mageborn power but to share and renew elemental powers between wizards.”

“Does it give you the strength to scry for Livak and the others?” Halice demanded at once.

“It’s worth another try.” Usara held out a hand to take the ring from Allin but paused and looked intently at Guinalle.

“What is it?” She coloured slightly.

“I was just wondering,” the mage said slowly, “what might happen if you tried it on.”

Rettasekke, Islands of the Elietimm, 11th of For-Summer

Are you ready?” Sorgrad looked at Ryshad and Shiv.

“It’s all right. We’ve done this before.” I smiled at Ryshad with a reassurance rather more feigned than sincere. Beneath his studied calm, I could see enough concern for both of us.

“Come on!”

’Gren was already barely concealed by the thorn bushes fringing the long pond between us and Olret’s demesne. Water lapped at the dam. The recent tide had brought it surging through the open gates and now the sluices held it until it was needed. We had plans for that water.

“Go,” Sorgrad ordered and ’Gren ran, long knives out and ready. Sorgrad and I were a bare stride behind him, boots scuffing dust from the trampled top of the causeway. The tall block of the mill house shielded us from the keep’s view but we weren’t about to take any chances.

The door wasn’t locked; there was no need, after all. ’Gren went through it without pause for breath, cutting down the man gaping at our unexpected arrival. He fell hard, blood dark against the flour spilling all around, mouth gaping like the sack he’d been filling from the chute beside him. I didn’t wait to see if ’Gren took a second stroke to kill the man, racing after Sorgrad up the ladders to the upper floors of the wide building.

The miller tending the great millstones heard the commotion below but with nothing to serve as a weapon at hand, he had no choice but death beneath Sorgrad’s impersonal blade. When we were done I could spare a pang for two poor bastards dead for simply being in the wrong place but, for now, I was more concerned with saving my own skin.

“Shut off the grain,” ordered Sorgrad.

I was already at the chute carrying kernels down from the hopper on the floor above. The bone slide poised to stop the cascade was immediately apparent and I rammed it home. Sorgrad was busy with the levers that governed the cogs driven by the shafts and axles turned by the waterwheels far below us. As he worked, I heard the rising roar of water gushing through the sluices.

’Gren found the right ropes.” I had to raise my voice above the rumble of the mill now rapidly gathering pace.

“He’s no fool.” Sorgrad did something that set the grindstones racing. “Not when he sees the chance of this kind of fun.”

I watched the grain already between the stones being ground to fine powder falling over the edge of the stone in dwindling trails. “We’re nearly done here.”

Sorgrad was pulling open the trap doors serving the various hoists that carried sacks up and down between the floors of the mill. Pale clouds puffed up from below and he coughed. “Close those shutters.”

Doing as he bade, I kept a close eye on the grindstones. A squeak like a knife scraping across an earthenware plate told there was barely any grain left for the rough-keyed gritstone to bite on.

“Time to go,” I warned him.

Sorgrad knew as well as I did what would happen when those harsh stones struck sparks from each other for lack of grist. We didn’t bother with the ladders, each grabbing a braided leather rope and sliding through the nearest trap to the floor below. I coughed and squinted through air opaque with flour. ’Gren was still slashing sacks with his knife, tossing handfuls into the air. “Come on!”

He didn’t need telling twice either. As white as if he’d been caught in a snowstorm, ’Gren ran for the door without delay. I was hard on his heels with Sorgrad a scant pace behind.

“How sharp were those stones?” Sorgrad yelled as we hared back along the causeway. “How hard?”

“I didn’t stop to look!” Ahead, I could see Ryshad’s set face behind the thorn bushes, Shiv rose beside him, apprehension more plainly written on his raw-boned face.

“Get down!” I waved to them.

As I spoke, the mill house behind us exploded. The noise was incredible, a thunderclap that struck like a box to the ears and left my head ringing. A buffet like a sudden wind made me stumble, ’Gren ahead of me was jarred just the same as a surge of air ran past to rattle the bushes where Shiv and Ryshad waited, racing beyond to be lost in the scrubland. Birds rose in startled shrieking clouds from the rippling waters of the pond and the rocky shores beyond the causeway.

Debris rained down all around. Shutters from the ranks of unglazed windows were ripped off whole, sailing far out across the millpond or splashing into the newly liberated waters racing for the sea. Shards of slate hissed through the air, rattling on the rocks of the dam. A sizeable piece struck me full in the back and I hunched my shoulders as I cursed it. Lesser pieces pattered against my head and shoulders. A monumental crash made the causeway shudder beneath our feet and told us a floor or a wall had given way. I didn’t turn to look until we reached the comparative safety of the thorn bushes. Ryshad stepped out to catch me as I flung myself off the edge of the causeway. I rested in his arms, panting for breath.

’Gren threw himself to the ground beside us, chest heaving, face alight with exultation. “There you are, Shiv. Not a sniff of wizardry needed!”

Shiv gazed at the wreck of the mill with a nice confusion of shock and laughter. “No wonder you don’t feel a need to study in Hadrumal, Sorgrad.”

He was looking back with a curious expression. “You mages could probably tell me why a spark can make powder in the air go up like firedamp.”

I twisted round in Ryshad’s arms to see just what we’d achieved. The only time I’d let ’Gren talk me into this before, it had been a little windmill we’d reduced to kindling. I was startled to see how comprehensively such a big, solid building had been wrecked.

“These people don’t use enough wood to fuel a really good fire.” ’Gren sounded disappointed.

“We can settle for this.” Ryshad shook his head at the devastation. Each side of the mill had a gaping hole punched through the wall, masonry still tumbling down. The beams and struts of the roof were broken and falling into the midst of the ruin of the shafts and axles and cogs that had driven the millstones, hoisted the sacks and worked all the other mysteries of the miller’s craft. A rapidly growing fire filled the hollow heart of the stricken building, voracious flames licking ever higher. As the ever-present breeze helpfully fanned the blaze, its greedy roar rose above sharp sounds of further collapse.

“You say you’ve done that before?” Ryshad’s embrace tightened round me.

“Twice, ’Gren confirmed gleefully.

“Just the once with me,” I reminded him.

“Why?” Ryshad’s bemusement made me turn my head to look at him.

“We needed a distraction,” I shrugged.

“Which is what we wanted here.” Sorgrad still wasn’t quite sharing ’Gren’s uncomplicated jubilation but his eyes were bright with elation. “I’d say we’ve got one.”

Beyond the causeway, the abrupt devastation of the mill had thrown Olret’s people into utter confusion. Girls ran screaming from the goat sheds, too startled to secure the gates so they were instantly pursued by their yammering herds. Girls and goats alike collided with men and women pouring out of the storehouses by the keep, some rushing for the shore, others pausing to look at the mountains inland, wild gestures eloquent of their fear that some fire from beneath the earth was about to erupt and destroy them. Wiser heads might have got some grip on the situation but went unheard as folk rushing from the long sheds down by the jetties added to the uproar with questions no one could answer.

Men in twos and threes headed unbidden towards the destruction but were diverted almost at once as the goats seized the chance to run loose among the yards and fields. Some leapt the walls surrounding the banked and enclosed fields, eager to gorge themselves on the precious crops. Others jinked around the troughs of gutted fish, heads high and noses questing. Several tried to evade capture by running out on to the landing stages only to misjudge their footing and fall with a splash into the sea or on to a boat and cause yet more chaos.

“Time to go, Shiv.” Ryshad held me closer still.

“This has to be quick so it’ll be rough,” the wizard warned.

“Hold on to your breakfast,” ’Gren advised.

I would have stuck out my tongue at him but on balance thought clamping my jaws shut more sensible. The magic was different this time; a rapid blanket of cold mist shot through with blue that enveloped us inside half a breath. Thorn bushes, dam and millpond all vanished into whiteness. The shift was a brutal one, jarring me from head to heels but paradoxically, I felt less inclined to throw up. Fog was still filling my eyes and I rubbed at them.

“Ah!” Shiv let out a harsh gasp. “I’ve one more spell in me.”

“Let’s make it count,” suggested ’Gren.

“Where are we?” Sorgrad demanded urgently.

As my vision cleared, I saw we stood in the corridor below the floor with the captive women. I headed for the stairs, Ryshad at my side, his sword drawn. ’Gren said something I didn’t catch. I turned to see him and Sorgrad racing down the corridor in the other direction.

“Where are they going?” demanded Ryshad.

’Gren’s just remembered something,” was all Shiv had to say with sharp annoyance.

“Leave them to it.” I was sorting lock picks and knelt by the metal gate.

“We agreed a plan,” Ryshad fumed.

“It’s only ever a plan as long as they choose to go along with it.” I glanced up to see he’d dearly love to expand on the dangers of such ill-discipline. “Keep watch and let me open this.”

Shiv stood where he could see down the corridor and Ryshad moved for a better view of the stairs. Turmoil was coming and going in waves below us, urgent shouts beating down wrathful voices answering impossible queries. People ran and doors slammed but, as we’d intended, everyone’s attention was on the inexplicable catastrophe over on the causeway. That’s where everyone was heading, either to help or more likely just to gawp and exclaim over the misfortune of it all.

“Can you work that concealment charm?” Ryshad asked, voice low and cautious.

“Would you like me to juggle a few knives while I’m at it?” I muttered the arcane words under my breath and did my best to hold the refrain in my mind while probing at the workings of the lock. I closed my eyes the better to concentrate, my fingers remembering the pattern I’d teased out of the hidden shapes before. The lock snicked open. “That’s it.” I stood and pushed the gate open.

“Lock it behind us,” Ryshad ordered.

“What about ’Grad and ’Gren?” I objected.

“Leave it.” Shiv was already taking the stairs two at a time. “If Olret comes after us, he’ll have a key.”

I shrugged as Ryshad hissed through his teeth and we both went after the mage.

“It’s me.” I knocked on the bolted door a brisk double tap. Ryshad knelt to pull the lower bolt aside, Shiv reaching for the upper one. “With friends.” I hastily wiped any wish for concealment from my mind and sincerely hoped someone within had the skills to read my intent for the truth. Otherwise we were in more trouble than I wanted to contemplate with no ally at our backs. I took a deep breath before I had to brave the stench within and lifted the latch.

“Do you bring help?” As before, Shernasekke’s lady wasn’t wasting time on pleasantries. “Have you spoken to our kin?”

“We’ll help you if you help us,” I matched her directness. “We’ve killed Ilkehan and now Olret wants us dead. Give me your word your friends will defend us and we’ll get you out of there.”

“I swear by the duty I owe the land of my line and those of my blood within it.” The woman’s blue eyes were pale in her drawn and filthy face.

“That sounds good enough.” Ryshad moved warily towards the cage that held her. “Stand back.” He kicked hard at the crude lock with his booted heel once, twice and with a curse, a third time. It might have been proof against the women’s fingers but this onslaught twisted it sufficiently for Ryshad to wrench the door aside. The woman seized her little daughter’s hand and pulled her out of their prison, slipping on the ordure underfoot.

Shiv was keeping watch by the door. “How far do you need to be from here to use your Artifice to contact your kin?”

She looked blankly at him.

“Your lore.” I remembered the Mountain word for the aetheric enchantments of the Sheltya. “True magic.”

The woman’s face cleared, then she grimaced. “Do you have anything to eat? I’m famished beyond all reason.”

I was about to say we didn’t have time to dine when Ryshad pulled a flatbread stuffed with goat meat out of his bag. “My lady.” He proffered it with the instinctive courtesy drilled into him by years in D’Olbriot’s service.

“I’m no one’s lady now, good sir.” She managed a wry smile around a mouthful of food before bolting the rest with far from ladylike grace. “Just Frala Shernasdir.”

“Get us out,” the grandmother demanded urgently. “If we can touch hands, we can work together!”

Ryshad broke her free and I tripped the locks of a cage that held one of Frala’s sisters. She gripped my hand as I let the door swing open. “You have the lifelong gratitude of Gyslin Shernasdir.” Her fervent words had a formality ill suited to her stained green dress and grimy face.

“You’re entirely welcome.” I moved on to the next sister who was all but rattling her bars in her desperation. Ryshad released the younger girls, both rushing to cling to each other in a shaky embrace.

“Get your wits about you,” their grandmother snapped. “Forget your aches and your bellies and concentrate on what has to be done.”

Of course, I realised belatedly. Olret wasn’t just being a vindictive bastard keeping them in this squalor. He was making certain sufficient physical discomfort hampered their capacity to use Artifice, if not curbed it all together. I dug in my own bag for whatever food ’Gren had cached there and shared it out as best I could between Gyslin, her sister and their daughters.

Ryshad handed the grandmother a battered hunk of sausage and unhooked his water bottle from his belt. “Shiv—”

The wizard cut him short with an impatient hand. “Someone’s coming up the stairs.” He moved behind the door, keeping watch through the crack at the hinges.

The women froze, food forgotten. Ryshad flattened himself on the open side of the door, sword ready. “Shiv, can you bolt it?”

An urgent whistle pierced the tense silence. “No, wait.” I left my last few darts still in my belt pouch. “It’s them.”

Ryshad muttered something under his breath. Shiv didn’t close the door and I risked a quick look around it. Sorgrad and ’Gren came running down the corridor from the opposite stairway, each with a cloth-swathed bundle over one shoulder, swords in hand.

“Here!” I beckoned them in and each dropped their burden with a muffled clatter.

“This is hardly the time to go thieving,” I told Sorgrad forcefully.

Sorgrad raised innocent eyebrows, plainly unrepentant. “Not even for more Kellarin artefacts?” The patterned cloth fell aside to reveal the gleam of old steel and the copper binding of a dagger handle. “Maybe even the last ones you need?”

’Gren was smirking too. ”Whatever Guinalle doesn’t want is ours, remember that.”

“You’ll cut me a share or I’ll know the reason why.” I couldn’t help smiling until I saw the blood on ’Gren’s blade. “Who did you kill to get it?”

“No one,” ’Gren protested, injured. “That’s from the miller. The nurse all but pissed herself and ran like a scolded dog.”

“I guessed he’d hide valuables in that room where his son lies.” Sorgrad answered Ryshad’s unspoken question, daring the swordsman to challenge him.

’Gren had already dismissed the matter, turning to sweep a low bow to the women who were looking at the two of them with lively curiosity. “My ladies, my duty to you.” He winked at me. “We needn’t have worried about finding a bath.”

Ryshad had more important things on his mind. “Shiv, take us out of here now.”

Before the mage could reply, the grandmother choked on her meat. “Olret comes,” she gasped.

Her three daughters instantly joined hands, Frala in the middle.

“Quickly.” Gyslin beckoned urgently to her daughter and niece. The grandmother hobbled to the other end of their line and the little girl hid her face in Frala’s skirts.

“We’ll just have to risk it.” Shiv set his jaw.

“No!”

“Guinalle?” I couldn’t help myself; I actually looked round to see if the demoiselle was there in the room.

“What?” Ryshad and Shiv stared at me as if I’d lost my wits.

“Livak, it’s me.” I heard the noblewoman’s voice again but from the bemused faces all around, I was plainly the only one. “Don’t let Shiv work any magic,” she went on urgently. “Olret will kill him.”

“No spells, Shiv. Guinalle says no spells.” I struggled to hear her words at the same time as I was trying to explain. “Usara’s scrying for us and Guinalle’s working her Artifice through his spell.”

“How are they working that?” Shiv was intrigued.

“Can’t that wait?” I glared at him. “Just remember you can’t do any magic without Artifice to ward you or Olret will kill you!”

“Swords’ll kill us a cursed sight faster.” Sorgrad was next to the door, ’Gren beside him. “Half a cohort’s on its way.” The tramp of nailed boots echoed ominously up the stone stairwells.

“Shut the door,” Ryshad ordered. “Bolt it, one of you.” He swept his sword at the women.

I heard the bolts slam home as I tried to concentrate on Guinalle’s far-distant voice. “I have to speak to the adepts you’ve found. Join their line.”

I really didn’t want to do that and not only because the girl’s hand closest to me was so filthy, but we were running out of options fast so I grabbed for her.

The room turned dim around me and for one appalling moment I thought I was fainting. Then I realised I was somehow locked in a corner of my own mind with Guinalle’s will controlling my body, my voice, my gestures. I could look out through my own eyes but in a peculiar, cramped fashion, only able to look directly ahead and as if through Ryshad’s spyglass. I did my best to quell the panic rising within me and then realised that it would do me no good to yield to the impulse to scream, to protest, to fight the enchantment. I had no voice to cry for help, no strength to hit back.

“I am Guinalle Tor Priminale, acolyte of Larasion, sworn to the discipline of Ostrin.” She spoke with my lips and raised my hand to the grandmother. “Will you aid me in the name of all that you hold sacred?”

“We will.” The voices of all six Elietimm adepts echoed around me as the grandmother took Guinalle’s hand to complete the inward-looking circle. The room was instantly overlaid with new images; glimpses of Suthyfer and the newly reclaimed landing, Vithrancel and the busy market place, Edisgesset and the no-nonsense realm of the miners. Each place and person within them was as abiding and as ephemeral as the reality I could no longer feel beneath feet that no longer belonged to me. Something froze around me then Guinalle smashed it like someone breaking winter ice to reveal the fast flowing mysteries of the river beneath. My mother had warned me never to play on a frozen river with graphic tales of children carried away beneath the ice and drowned unable reach the light and air above. The fear I’d felt then was nothing to the terror paralysing me now, even as I felt the women of Shernasekke reaching for the aetheric power long denied them with all the desperate thirst of travellers lost in a waterless waste.

I wanted none of it, struggling not to fall into that torrent of mystery and peril, straining to see the world beyond the enchantment trapping me. Ryshad and Shiv were breaking apart the cages as best they could, ’Gren and Sorgrad piling the twisted bars and frames against the door, wedging broken bits of metal under the bottom, into the hinges, under the latch.

All that was less real than Guinalle now standing before me, dressed in the proud elegance of the Old Empire. Rings shone on every finger, a crescent of gold set with diamonds in her hair, more diamonds around her neck brilliant with fire struck by some unseen light shining on the silk of her flame-coloured gown. The soiled faces of the starved women each faded behind some simulacrum of how they wished to be seen. Frala’s hair lightened to the pale gold of sun-bleached straw, piled high on her head with bone pins tipped with blood-red gems. Her full-skirted gown was a maroon rich against her milky skin. Gyslin and the other sister were dressed in the same style, in differing shades of blue, a many stranded rope of curious milky gemstones twisted around Gyslin’s neck. The younger women wore less costly shades of green, dresses cut to display nubile charms instead of matronly modesty. The grandmother wore black made all the more severe by a few silver ornaments. With her thin face and sharp nose, she looked more like a crow than ever. Only the little girl was left in her grubby chemise, still clinging to her mother’s skirts with one filthy hand and her bedraggled animal in the other.

A booming assault on the door helped pull my wits back to the real world where Ryshad and Shiv were bracing themselves against the wood with ’Gren and Sorgrad still reinforcing their stubborn barricade.

“If we are not all to die at Olret’s hand, we must have help,” Guinalle began.

Civility be cursed, I thought furiously. Get on with it!

“Seldviar namayenar ek tal rath,” chorused the Elietimm women and their questing dragged me along with them. Now a third layer of reality or illusion overlaid everything and I knew without question I was in very real danger of being swept away by the currents of aether coiling around me.

“Har dag Vadesorna abrigal.” Frala summoned up a thickset man as bald as an egg, shoulders bunching in anger as she spoke to him so rapidly I hadn’t a hope of understanding her. He turned and stormed off into invisibility, melting like a shape imagined in smoke.

“Edach ger vistal mor din.” Gyslin and her daughter were pleading with a nervous-looking woman whose jaw dropped in shock, shadowy shapes hurrying to cluster round her.

“Olret evid enames Froilasen ral Ashernasen.” The grandmother wasn’t about to stand any nonsense from the well-muscled youth her enchantment had lighted upon. Fortunately he seemed as much inclined for action as her, a spear appearing in his hands in answer to his unspoken wish and his shirt dissolving into a dark cuirass of hardened leather.

Frala turned to Guinalle. “We have summoned aid. They come as fast as they may.”

Was that going to be fast enough? Even through the Artifice clouding my perception, I heard the splintering crash of an axe hitting the far side of the door. I forced a memory of the room before my mind’s eye, picturing Ryshad’s face and Sorgrad’s, Shiv’s lanky frame and ’Gren’s short, wiry one. Thought became reality and I saw the wood splintering as blows came hard and fast, Ryshad and Shiv forced back lest they lose an eye or worse.

“Olret comes!” Gyslin’s simulacrum turned towards the door even as her true form remained locked in the circle.

Even through the wall, I felt Olret’s complete conviction that his intent was strong enough to overwhelm the physical constraints of wood and metal barring his way. He wasn’t wrong. The door shattered into kindling almost as completely as the mill had done, splinters gashing Ryshad and the others. Their swords met those of Olret’s men who could reach through the narrow doorway. Ryshad and ’Gren took on the foremost guards while Sorgrad and Shiv used twisted lengths of metal on the second rank.

Olret’s Artifice slammed into the circle of women but that held. I could see the bastard lurking behind the skirmish in the doorway, face twisted with hate.

“Guinalle! Guinalle!” He sounded as if he were half a league away but that was definitely Usara speaking. “Give me the ring! Temar, put it on!”

“I can only shield you for a short time.” That was Temar’s voice, grim with determination and warning in equal measure.

“That’ll be enough.” I was startled to hear Allin sounding so forceful. “Shiv! Sorgrad! We’re going to form a nexus so make ready.”

A sphere of light appeared between the two of them; long-schooled wizard and untrained mageborn. It burned with a ruddy fire, not the crimson of elemental flame but darker, more ominous, weighted with the power of the earth. Shiv reached a hand out towards it and the colour darkened still further yet paradoxically burning all the more fiercely as his own magelight surrounded him with an emerald aura. Shiv nodded to Sorgrad who set his jaw, no more about to duck this challenge than any other he’d ever faced. He spread his hands in an oddly defiant gesture and blue radiance surrounded him, his fine hair blown about as if he stood exposed to a winter storm. Ducking his head like a bull about to charge, Sorgrad thrust his hands, palm out towards the roiling nexus of power. The spell sucked at the caerulean light and the confusion of colour burned away to leave only an eye-scorching whiteness.

“Now!” commanded Usara.

The nexus burst outward into a sheet of flame. It ripped through the room to set Olret’s men alight, sending them screaming from the doorway even as the first to be hit burned to fragments of charred flesh and naked bone tumbling to the untouched floor. The spell left Ryshad and ’Gren happily unscorched and free to rush at Olret who was also somehow proof against the magic.

Olret raised a hand and unseen power threw ’Gren backwards into Ryshad. The two of them fell hard among the litter of the ruined door and wrecked cages. The Elietimm advanced, menace plain on his face. In the curious double vision of Artifice, I saw he considered himself a good deal taller and more handsome than a mirror would ever show him. Every detail of the simulacrum was precise, his skin smooth and freshly bathed, a brown cloak richly patterned with orange weave slung back from his shoulders to show a livery of grey leather ornamented with copper studs.

Every instinct screamed at me to move, to run, to draw dagger, darts, even throw the filth from the floor at the man but with Guinalle in control of my body I couldn’t move. I would have wept with frustration, if I’d still had the use of my own eyes.

Shiv and Sorgrad moved to stand between Olret and the circle of motionless women. He snarled something, hands moving as if he were swatting flies but a swathe of white light wrapped around them both and nothing happened that I could see.

Olret’s remorseless advance slowed. He looked like a man struggling through a bog. Sorgrad raised a hand and lightning cracked out like a whip. Brow twisted with fury, Olret waved it away but a blackened score appeared down his sleeve all the same. Sorgrad lashed him again and again and, for the first time, consternation shadowed Olret’s eyes.

Shiv squared his shoulders and now Olret’s boots were all but sticking to the floor. He could barely manage to scrape his feet across the boards, struggling like a prisoner shackled to a dragging weight. But that was only the real Olret. His simulacrum came storming onwards, brushing through Shiv and Sorgrad and the light surrounding them as if they weren’t even there.

The aetheric embodiments of the women whirled round to form a new circle, faces outward, elbows linked, expressions determined. Olret’s arrogant opinion of himself marched through the ring of their physical forms, plainly no barrier and slapped Gyslin’s simulacrum hard in the face. She screwed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth and this time he punched her full in the mouth.

“You will not!” Frala’s fury earned her Olret’s hand twisting in her hair and wrenching her head sideways with a violence that would have snapped a real woman’s neck.

“Curse you,” she gasped. “You and your seed to the ninth generation!”

“I’ll kill you!” he roared, wrenching her head to and fro and hammering at her with his other fist. With her arms pinioned, Frala couldn’t defend herself. I watched with mounting horror as her image didn’t bleed or bruise but began to blur and fade beneath this onslaught.

“You will not!” This was not one new voice but three. The people I’d seen Frala and the others asking for help suddenly appeared. Now Olret was surrounded. The younger man seized his raised arm, twisting it behind his back as the older baldpate unwound the bastard’s fingers from Frala’s hair. They pulled Olret away, forcing him round to face the hesitant woman who slapped him full in the face.

It wasn’t a hard blow but whatever power lay behind it did more damage than a broadsword through the side of his head. Olret’s face was ripped askew, left twisted like a child’s clay model crossly squashed for not coming out right. The woman slapped him again and the colour began to bleed from his clothes, brown, grey and copper running together into dull and muddy uncertainty. She struck him a third time, no harder than before and now he began to fade. Not all at once, not like an evil dream as you realise you’re waking but with great rents appearing in his head and body, soon big enough to see through to the room beyond. His simulacrum tore into sinking fragments that vanished as they hit the floor. His distorted head was the last to disappear, eyes rolling wildly, lolling tongue lashing.

The bald-headed man looked down then turned to Frala. “We come,” he said simply and all three of them vanished.

“I can’t stay,” Guinalle gasped and her image fled into nothingness, leaving me collapsing. I ripped my hands free of the grandmother’s merciless grasp and from the girl on my other side. As soon as the circle was broken, everyone fell to the floor, panting like animals. The only one left standing was the little girl, bemused as she looked at the crumpled figures around her.

“Mama?” She knelt to push at Frala’s shoulder.

I was on my knees and couldn’t have got to my feet if Saedrin himself had asked for it but there was still the noise of fighting in the corridor. I scrubbed at my eyes so fiercely it hurt but I was determined to clear every vestige of aetheric blurring from my vision. I fumbled at my belt, reaching for darts, dagger, anything to use against whatever might come through the door.

I forced my head up, blinking furiously as tears filled my eyes. Olret stood just beyond the doorway; the real Olret. He was held stock-still and from the flickering patterns of many hued light wheeling round him, this was some magical coil worked by the nexus of wizardry. His remaining men were doing their best to reach him but Ryshad and ’Gren stood on either side, barring their way with lethal effectiveness.

That bastard wasn’t dead yet no matter what had happened to his aetheric counterpart. I took a deep breath and reached carefully for a dart, reminding myself that poisoning myself by accident would be a monumentally stupid thing to do. I need not have troubled.

Sorgrad threw a handful of lightning at Olret and this time it scored him from head to toe, raising blisters down his blackened face and shattering his forward foot. If wizardry hadn’t held him up, he’d have collapsed. Even with the magic pinioning him, he cried out in agony.

“Nothing to save you now, shithead,” crowed Sorgrad.

“Let’s just kill him,” said Shiv wearily.

The wheeling light closed in around Olret and he burst into flames. The fire burned odourless and so hot I could feel it on my face and the brightness of the ruby, emerald, amber and sapphire in the flickering blaze was too painful to behold.

Ryshad and ’Gren stumbled in through the door as everyone fighting them fell away, fear more potent than loyalty for Olret’s men. Both were bleeding or covered with someone else’s blood, I couldn’t tell which.

“Burn him, burn every bone in his body. Scatter him on the winds to be lost in the trackless ocean.” It was the grandmother, crouching on her hands and knees with more of the poised cat than the whipped cur about her. The white fire consuming Olret reflected in her hungry eyes.

Ryshad staggered towards me, falling to his knees, bleeding from a handful of shallow nicks on arms and legs. I clung to him and together we watched Olret die. The old woman got her wish. When the flames closed in on themselves to finally vanish, all that was left was a twisting column of ash. Shiv shattered the windows with a rattle of hailstones and Sorgrad swept all that was left of Olret out to oblivion on a rush of icy air.

“Are we done?” I was shaking so much I could barely get the words out.

“Dast’s teeth, we’d better be.” Ryshad wrapped his arms around me, cruelly tight but I didn’t mind as his strength damped down the tremors wracking me. I could do without breath for the moment. He pressed his head close to mine and whispered words for me alone. “It’s all right, it’s all right. I know, I know.” That was no meaningless reassurance and I clung to the distant promise of calm. Ryshad knew. I heard the truth of it in every beat of his heart hammering beneath his ribs. He’d been imprisoned by Artifice, used by another’s will. I’d never be impatient with his distrust of enchantments again, I vowed. I should have stuck to my old beliefs; all magic brings is trouble.

“I need clean linen and water!” Sorgrad’s urgent shout roused me from these incoherent thoughts.

“What?”

“Where?”

Sorgrad was kneeling over ’Gren. He was face down on the filthy floor as Sorgrad sliced off his jerkin, already ripped through and soaked in blood. “One of them got him as he turned,” he explained tersely.

“Shit.” Ryshad tried to wipe away the blood coating ’Gren’s back but there was just too much, soaking his breeches, pooling on the floor around Ryshad’s knees. Sorgrad was already bloodied to the elbows.

I lifted ’Gren’s head out of the muck, cradling his face, biting my lip so hard I drew blood, welcoming the pain as it cleared my mind enough to still my shaking hands.

“Just hold on.” I told him with a smile that hid pain twisting inside me like a hot knife. Drianon, Halcarion, Saedrin, Poldrion, any cursed god who might be listening, please don’t let this happen, please don’t let him die. We’d won, hadn’t we? Why couldn’t we just walk away with our victory? Why did it have to be stained with blood?

’Gren squinted up at me with one blue eye glazed with pain. ”It hurts, girl. Curses, it hurts.” He tried to grin but could only manage a puzzled grimace.

“Give me some room.”

Ryshad moved to let Shiv get closer and water poured from the wizard’s hands on to ’Gren’s naked back. Washed clean, we all saw a deep, ragged gash slicing deep into his side just above his hip. It vanished again as ’Gren’s lifeblood came welling out. Ryshad ripped off his jerkin and shirt, Sorgrad doing the same and bundling the linen tight.

“Come on, you skinny little bastard,” Ryshad muttered. “Put that bloodymindedness to good use for a change. Tell Poldrion where he can stick his ferry pole.”

’Gren meant precious little to Ryshad but Aiten had been his closest friend for ten or more years and I could see the memory of that loss darkening my beloved’s brow.

“Let me see him.” The grandmother was at my side.

“You don’t touch this wound with those foul hands,” snarled Sorgrad and if he hadn’t been fully occupied trying to staunch the flow, I swear he would have hit her.

But she didn’t want to touch the wound. Rather she laid a gentle hand on ’Gren’s head as it rested in my hands. “What manner of man are you?” she wondered softly.

’Gren was barely conscious. ”What Misaen made me.”

“And that is—”

I knew the reason for the grandmother’s sharp intake of breath. I loved ’Gren like a brother but that didn’t blind me to his blithe lack of conscience. Then there was the uncomplicated delight he took in bedding any girl willing and fighting any man fool enough to think ’Gren wouldn’t kill him just for the excitement of proving his prowess and filling his purse by way of a bonus.

“He’s my friend,” I begged her. “And he risked his life to save you all.”

The woman looked at me stony faced. “Which might count for something if he valued what he risked, if he valued what he fought for, if he ever looked beyond the moment he dwells in.”

All at once I was furious with the skinny old crone. What did she know about ’Gren and what he meant to me, no matter what he was? Nor was I about to leave someone else dead on these god-cursed rocks, not after losing Geris and Aiten to this horrible place and its cruel people with their ice-coated hearts.

“Whatever you can do, you just do it.” I wasn’t begging now, I was telling her and I started to rack my brains for some way of forcing her to act. Unfortunately all I could think of was knocking her on her bony arse, which didn’t promise to be either effective or overly safe for the rest of us.

She tried to rise but stumbled. Frala caught her arm, helping her to her feet and something passed between them that replaced Frala’s look of confusion with one of wary distaste. “Who are you to make such demands on us?” she snapped curtly. “Outdwellers all and tainting true magic with your corrupted touch.”

Shiv’s distress turned to bitter rage. “Without our wizardry, my lady, Olret would have ripped your head off!”

“Silence!” The grandmother cut off Frala’s reply with a sweep of her hand.

“It’s slowing, the bleeding’s slowing.” Relief and disbelief mingled in Ryshad’s voice.

I looked from the old woman to the horrible wound and saw that the blood was indeed lessening. As I watched, it stopped altogether; gore clotting around the ugly gash already beginning to knit together, swiftly closing to a lumpy purple scar.

“Thank you,” said Sorgrad tightly.

“I don’t want your thanks.” The grandmother fixed him with a cold glare. “I would not have his blood stake any claim to this land, not even though it be that of my worst enemy. Nor yet will I condemn mine own hargeard to have such ill-omened bones entombed within it.”

“The life of your friend settles all debts between us,” Frala declared with finality and a hint of hostility. “Make no more claims upon us.”

“They’re here, Vadesor and his men.” Gyslin had managed to drag herself to the window and was peering out to the court below. I realised I could hear a distant commotion. “Olret’s men are surrendering.”

The younger women looked towards the windows and at each other, their fearful expressions saying more plainly than words that they’d rather take their chances with whatever army had turned up downstairs than the four of us still standing.

“You may leave,” said Frala, uncompromising. “As soon as you may.”

“Then we will.” Sorgrad threw away the blood-soaked remains of his shirt and nodded at ’Gren, still prostrate and unconscious on the floor. “Help me get him up.”

Ryshad laid a firm hand between ’Gren’s shoulder blades. “No. We don’t want to move him any more than we can avoid.”

I began to shake again, exhausted, too tired to deal with any quarrel between Ryshad and Sorgrad, too scared and too angry to tell these ungrateful bitches what I thought of them, too furious with myself for ever suggesting we come back to these god-cursed islands.

“Shiv,” I forced the words out. “Just use that pissing nexus to get us home.”

Even as my gorge rose within me under the assault of the magic, I welcomed the nausea.