The Assassin's Edge

To Cadan Lench, Prefect,

From Sul Gavial, Librarian.

It’s all very well you asking me and my staff to search through boxes of litter our forebears were too idle to throw away but have you any idea what a thankless task this is? What isn’t faded to illegibility is either shredded by mice or noxious with beetles. This pious claptrap is the sole prize from an entire annal compiled by some priest in the first year of Nemith the Last’s reign.

I am delighted to learn that you will be joining our family of adepts and bringing a flavour of Col’s celebrated harmonies to our liturgies. You will join acolytes from the great temples of Relshaz and Draximal as well as the myriad lesser shrines of Caladhria and beyond. We are born to all degrees of rank, from the lowliest Names with the honour of but a single hall to shelter Sieur and tenants alike, to the lofty privilege enjoyed by the mightiest Princes of Convocation.

Distinctions are meaningless in our isolated retreat. In the hospitality enjoined by Ostrin’s favour, we welcome all as equals. Come to this lonely place with humility and a mind relieved of all distractions of precedence and you may learn all we can teach you. Study the lore of Artifice with diligence and piety and you will return with redoubled skill to serve your first allegiance and those loyal to your House by birth or sworn by choice.

We seek to perfect the arts of healing, to honour Ostrin to whom we are sworn above all. Beneath Drianon’s guiding hand, we watch over those making the hazardous journey from the Otherworld into this by way of a mother’s womb. As the year turns, we learn how to read Larasion’s promises of storm and sun and beseeching Drianon, we may increase the fertility that is her blessing on the earth. Attain the discipline to lift your mind from things seen to the unseen and you may seek Arimelin’s help in speaking to those far distant. Under Halcarion’s tutelage, you may travel the infinite paths marked by the moons.

As the gods grant rewards of power, they exact solemn duties in return. As those set above you uphold justice within their domains, you will swear to answer to Raeponin for the truth you prompt from a silent tongue or lift from an unwilling mind. Your sincerity will be tested never so sorely as when you comfort those passing into Poldrion’s care. It will be laid upon you to ease the fears of the dying as their lives are come before Saedrin’s scrutiny.

We are entitled to satisfaction and even a measure of pride in the execution of our Artifice but let us always remember that such skills as we master, are granted only by the grace of the gods whom we honour, as is their due. In their service, we of this shrine are sworn to curtail the arrogance of any who might be tempted to abuse the lore we entrust to them.

Suthyfer, the Northern Sentry Island, 1st of For-Summer

I walked to the far corner of the bay and looked out to sea. White ruffs of foam trimmed mysterious waters shining like black silk beneath the clear silver light of the greater moon. She was gliding serene in the cloudless night sky, perfect circle framed in subtle radiance. Her lesser sister hovered near the horizon, face half hidden as if by a veil drawn aslant, modest handmaiden to that pale beauty, waiting her own turn in the dance of the heavens. The sea breeze perfumed the air with a cleansing freshness, every now and then overlaid momentarily with the sweetness of some unknown blossom unseen in the darkness of the untrodden forest cloaking this hitherto untroubled speck of land. The rhythmic rush of the waves on the sand soothed like the rock of a cradle for a fractious babe while low voices behind me went about some unhurried business. I turned a flat stone over and over between my fingers.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Pered joined me.

“Hmm.” I managed a non-committal noise.

“What’s wrong?” He wasn’t being nosy, just offering a friendly ear. I’d noticed his talent for that before.

I cleared my throat. “Did Shiv ever tell you about Geris?” Gentle, trusting Geris. I’d never had the chance to teach him it was just agreeable flirtation and casual lust landing me in his bed, not the high-flown romance of his imagining.

“The scholar from Vanam.” Pered nodded soberly. “Elietimm killed him.”

“Same as Parrail.” At least I was managing not to cry. “Well, worse. They tortured him.” Sudden anger surprised me. All Geris had been doing was sniffing out ancient lore for Planir, with Shiv and Darni along to keep him out of trouble. How did that warrant kidnap by the Elietimm, a death broken and mutilated, all his innocent illusions brutally shattered? “It’s time we stopped these scum bringing murder and misery wherever it suits them.” I spun the stone out across the water to vent my fury. It struck silver sparks from the blackness once, twice, six skips in all.

“That’s quite a trick.” Pered looked around his feet. “Do you want another?”

“No, thanks all the same.” I’d hold on to the rest of my rage. Its heat was better than cold emptiness beneath my breastbone when I thought of all those dead at Elietimm hands. “Did you want something?”

Turning to Pered meant acknowledging the noise behind me was no comfortable everyday bustle. On this side of the beach the dubious crew Sorgrad had gathered for Shiv were still allocating supplies from the caches in the nearby woods and rocks that Rosarn andVaspret had unearthed. Vithrancel’s mercenaries had long since divided their spoils and were bedded down around their own campfires on the far reach of sand. Spread in desultory knots between them were those ordinary men of Kellarin who remained after the Eryngo, Nenuphar and Asterias had been hastily provisioned from looted stores and sent to battle wind and tide all the way to the southern end of the strait. We had to block that before any pirates could get some ship seaworthy and try to escape.

“It’s past midnight.” Pered shivered though it wasn’t particularly cold.

I glanced at him. “Never thought you’d rue the day you weren’t mageborn?”

“What’s it like?” He struggled for the right word. “To be used for Artifice?”

The skin down my spine crawled with distaste but I fought to quell the feeling. Having an Elietimm enchanter inside my head had been worse than any rape—and I knew enough of violated women not to say that lightly. How to describe being used for Guinalle’s convenience? More akin to the sale and purchase of a disinterested body for a purse of silver?

“It’s not so bad,” I said, offhand.

“I’d still rather not.” Pered’s usually insouciant eyes were shadowed with more than the dark of the night. “But I don’t suppose we have a choice.”

“Walking away from a bad run of luck only guarantees your losses,” I said lightly. “Staying to play is the only way to come out ahead.”

“Even when someone doubles the stakes?”

An ear-splitting whistle saved me from having to find an answer to that. I saw ’Gren waving at me, oblivious to annoyed glares from those he’d startled from sleep.

“Time to go,” I told Pered bracingly.

We walked around the scored and soiled sand where a pit had hastily been dug for corpses attracting too many crabs and flies for anyone’s peace of mind. Picking our way past snoring heaps of blankets and upturned boots, we reached the rough-hewn cabin that the raiders had helpfully built for us. I caught Darni looking at us from an efficient shelter rigged from oilskin but ignored him. The last thing I wanted was his abrasive intrusion into this.

’Gren was by the door, eyes bright with anticipation, fair hair all but colourless in the half-light. ”She says they should all be asleep by now.”

“I wouldn’t argue with that.” Usara came up yawning and we all went inside. Guinalle stood by some board salvaged from the wrecked pinnace and set on two hastily lashed trestles. Ryshad and Temar were setting out stools. The cabin smelt damply of green lumber with a musty undertone of stale sweat. Lamps threw shadows over gear discarded by pirates hopefully too dead to intend reclaiming it. The acrid heat of burning oil caught in the back of my throat.

Guinalle looked up. “Let’s begin.”

I sat beside Ryshad, Temar and Pered on the other side of the table. Everyone showed varying degrees of reluctance, apart from ’Gren at the end whose enthusiastic eyes were fixed on the noblewoman still standing at the head of the board.

“We must find out all we can about these Elietimm without alerting them. The best way to do that is to skim their dreams. To do that, I need a strength in the aether that I’m just not finding, not with the ocean all around and lacking the usual resources of the shrines.” Apart from these somewhat unnecessary explanations, Guinalle was as self-possessed as I’d ever seen her, no trace of the hysteria that had seized her earlier. “With you all to help me, we should manage.”

I sincerely hoped so. Back in Vithrancel, the placid belief of Mistress Cheven, Master Drage and all the rest provided a solid foundation for Guinalle’s enchantments. Out here, she had mostly mercenaries and sailors sailing just close enough to the wind not to be hanged for pirates themselves. I’d noted precious little piety in either contingent.

“Livak has some knowledge in the lesser uses of Artifice as well as her Forest instincts. Ryshad should share something of your training, Temar, thanks to the Artifice that linked you.” Guinalle favoured D’Alsennin with a smile that evidently surprised the lad.

I reached for Ryshad’s hand beneath the table. Only I knew the full depths of the horror he’d known when Temar’s trapped mind had broken through the confining enchantment, fighting blindly to take Ryshad’s body for his own.

Guinalle continued, perhaps setting all this out for Usara’s benefit, more likely to instil some confidence in the rest of us. “I’m still not sure how but it’s undeniable Sorgren has been proof against assault from both Sheltya and Elietimm in the past.”

“No one comes looking inside my head without a by your leave,” shrugged ’Gren.

“I’m just here to make up the numbers, am I?” Pered’s quip was a little forced.

Guinalle looked steadily at him. “You’re an artist; you see beyond the immediate and the physical. That’s much the sensitivity demanded of an adept. Just concentrate on following my lead.”

She sat and held out her hands to Temar and Ryshad and we joined in a circle. Ryshad’s strong grip held my off hand and ’Gren’s blunt fingers gave my knife hand a gleeful squeeze. I narrowed my eyes at him in mute warning but all I got was a cheery wink. Temar and Pered were fixed on Guinalle who had closed her eyes. Temar did the same and after a moment, so did Ryshad. I considered it but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Guinalle caught her breath and opened her eyes. I shut mine guiltily.

“I’m sorry, Ryshad.” Guinalle shook her head. “Your mistrust of Artifice is too strong.”

Ryshad’s face betrayed an instant of chagrin. He dropped Guinalle’s hand before giving mine a courtly kiss. “I’m sorry, everyone.”

“You can keep watch with me for anything going awry.” Usara was by the door, all the while watching Guinalle intently.

“What do we do if it does?” I heard Ryshad mutter under his breath as he went to join the mage.

“Let’s continue, shall we?” Temar set his jaw and held out demanding hands.

’Gren and I shuffled our stools to draw the circle tighter. Guinalle began a low incantation as soon as her hand touched mine and the crude cabin faded around me much as the Eryngo had done. The others were clear enough but everything outside our linked hands was as indistinct as smoke. This time I didn’t see a new place but rather a face. It hung in the air between us, motionless, expression slack in sleep. It was the woman, Yalda, the silver gorget that marked her as enchanter among the Elietimm bright around her neck.

Guinalle opened her eyes. “Concentrate on her.” In some distant recess of my mind, I could hear the first incantation still binding us with its rhythms but Guinalle was somehow separating her thoughts into several, separate threads, each with its own focus. Was this the secret to Higher Artifice, I wondered, no more complicated than remembering the roll of the runes at the same time as anticipating an opponent’s next wager and all the while keeping a weather eye out for the Watch?

I still wasn’t sure I wanted to learn this Higher Artifice though. Emotions swirled around our circle. Pered had framed the girl in the imagined oval of a miniature frame, picking out details to paint like the gathering creases at the corner of her eyes. ’Gren was comparing her, none too flatteringly, to a golden-haired dancing girl of his acquaintance and I did my best to ignore his speculations about what lay beneath Yalda’s nightgown. Temar saw her only as an enemy, determined to secure whatever knowledge might aid our cause.

All that was to be expected. What unsettled me was Guinalle carefully masking her hatred, lulling the girl’s sleeping mind with an insidious charm that she spread to net first the man Moin and the younger Darige. There was none of the brutality the Elietimm had used on Parrail but I knew beyond doubt that Guinalle’s revenge could more than repay them for his murder, if she so chose. I made a mental note never to play against the demoiselle for money or favours and then wondered if everyone else knew I’d thought that in that instant.

Guinalle began a new incantation quite different in pitch and pace and new images hung in the empty air. The fluid, distorted shapes were nothing like the vividness of scrying or bespeaking and I wondered what Ryshad and Usara might be seeing.

The images slowly coalesced to a grey stone keep on a rise above a harbour cutting sharply into a meagre, dune-swept coast. I couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath as I recognised the place where Ryshad, Shiv and I had been held prisoner, caught in our fruitless quest to rescue poor Geris. Me, Ryshad, Shiv and Aiten. Aiten’s was another death we owed these scum.

“Do not rouse them with your anger,” Guinalle chided me soundlessly. The image drifted to show us the garden within the keep. It was much as I remembered it; no mere pleasaunce but closely planted with vital crops while glasshouses on all sides reared plants too tender for the harsh climate. The chill I felt owed nothing to the cold winds of the far north. Fear, pure and simple, was raising the hairs on the back of my neck but, to my surprise, I realised this wasn’t my dread.

A white-haired man was tending a climbing plant, clipping undisciplined shoots from the base and training wayward tendrils within the strict confines of a trellis. This was the bastard who’d set all the confusion of these last few years in motion. This was the man who’d sent Elietimm spies to Tormalin and beyond. They had robbed and murdered with the help of his Artifice as they hunted for those artefacts that would enable their master to kill all who might oppose his seizure of Kellarin’s rich lands. I sensed Temar throttling his own rage and tried to contain my own hatred but our detestation was a muted note beneath the resounding apprehension of all three sleeping enchanters. They saw themselves as much subject to him as the mindless vine. They must seek nothing but his bidding, so their skills and knowledge of Artifice might flourish under his guidance. Painful awareness lurked just beneath such thoughts. Any deviation from his will would be cruelly punished, their freedom curtailed with every last person they loved sharing their fate for any dire transgression.

“Ilkehan,” breathed Guinalle with satisfaction. “Now we have his name.”

We’d just called him the Ice Man when we’d been his captives. It had suited his dead white hair, fleshless, merciless face and his calculated brutality, lethal and indifferent as winter’s bitterest chill.

Faces flickered across our vision like memory slipping out of reach. A baby, too small to be identified as boy or girl, came and went almost before we realised but we all felt a surge of fatherly love from the sleeping Moin. A couple, elderly by Ice Islander reckoning, prompted filial affection from Darige that touched even me, who’d walked away from such ties without regret. The girl Yalda kept her devotion for a barrel-chested warrior looking not unlike Sorgrad, his leather armour studded with emblems of rank.

“He’s that bastard Eresken’s father,” remarked ’Gren with interest.

“Who?” Temar frowned.

“The warrior?” I was puzzled as well.

“Yon Ilkehan.” At ’Gren’s naming of him, we saw the Ice Man again. He was addressing cowed Elietimm among a scattering of squalid hovels, who waited in rags for grain doled out by Ilkehan’s well-fed minions. We couldn’t taste their hunger but we felt their trepidation. On every side, black-liveried troops stood alert for any dissent.

“No, who’s Eresken?” Temar let slip exasperation.

“The Elietimm enchanter who tried to rouse the Mountain Men to war last year.” Pered summoned sufficient confidence to join our silent conversation. “The one who seduced Aritane from the Sheltya.” She’d been all too ready to believe Eresken’s promises that Artifice would right the many and manifest wrongs the Mountain Men had suffered as recent generations of lowlanders encroached on their territories. Personally I’d have been suspicious, given Eresken openly acknowledged his descent from a clique long exiled from the Mountains for the highest crime of using enchantment to serve their ambitions. But I hadn’t suffered the frustrations of Aritane’s celibate life and the curbs the Sheltya voluntarily imposed on their own so-called true magic.

The image suddenly shifted. We saw Eresken’s face, coldly handsome and then a ghastly mask of blood, neck half hacked through.

“I thought cutting his head off was safest,” ’Gren explained genially.

Eresken vanished to whatever punishment Poldrion’s demons had prepared for him. Then we saw another Elietimm enchanter, the one who’d sought Ryshad’s death by conniving at his enslavement among the perils of the Aldabreshin Archipelago, for the sake of the D’Alsennin sword he carried.

Temar knew this one’s name. “Kramisak.” Quick as imagination, I saw Ryshad’s sword foiling the bastard’s mace stroke and ripping out his throat when their rival quests for the lost colonists had brought them face to face.

“Ilkehan’s sent three because one alone is too vulnerable.” Guinalle nodded to herself.

“But they’re not as strong as either of the other two.” Inadequate as Temar’s Artifice might be, it was showing him something hidden from the rest of us. I shared a shrug of incomprehension with Pered and ’Gren.

“He keeps so much learning to himself.” Guinalle looked thoughtful as she read the blank, sleeping faces. “He has no one stronger to send.”

“Why doesn’t this big man come himself?” ’Gren’s eyes lit with his unvarying readiness for a fight.

“It’s not in his nature.” As Temar spoke, we saw Ilkehan in the study I’d at least managed to loot of maps and sundry other records before we’d escaped the Ice Islands. Pen in hand, he was making notes on some chart. This bastard was a schemer, a conniver of other men’s deaths who seldom got blood on his own hands. I didn’t need magic to tell me that.

“Other concerns keep him close to home.” Guinalle’s words threw the image into confusion so abruptly we were all startled.

This slaughter had none of the riot of battle we’d known today but the shadowy Elietimm lay surely dead. Two armies were meeting on a barren pewter shore, broken rocks behind them strewn over a scant stretch of faded grass, stark heights behind still topped with winter’s stubborn snows. Warriors’ boots churned up the shallow grey-green sea as they hacked each other to pieces. We couldn’t feel the cold spray or the cutting wind, the treacherous sand beneath our feet but turbulent emotions roiled around us. Panic lest his own entrails be ripped out spurred one man on to gut another. Rage burned a youth so fiercely that anyone within sword reach was mere blood for spilling to quench his anger.

Ilkehan’s men were clad in the black leather we’d come to know and loathe while their opponents wore a dull brown.

“Is this real or imagined?” Temar studied the aetheric vision.

“Hard to say,” Guinalle murmured. “That’s Moin, though.”

We saw him on an arid turf bank. Liveried like a soldier, gorget bright at his collar, he raised a hand and brown-clad figures began dropping like medlars from a frosted tree, gashes in their faces and chests showing red like the flesh of burst fruit, the only splash of colour in the pallid landscape. Moin’s livery sprouted new adornments and his gorget blurred from silver to gold. We saw Eresken again, at Ilkehan’s shoulder, then his face blurred and became Moin’s.

“Our boy’s looking for promotion,” commented ’Gren.

“So he’s the one to watch?” I felt Temar promise himself the man’s early death.

Guinalle shook her head slowly. “He’s just the one whose thoughts are closest to his skin.”

I noticed the woman Yalda tossing and turning in her distant sleep. “What happens if they wake up?” As I asked, I felt alarm from Pered and perverse anticipation from ’Gren. In a nauseating instant, I learned how Eresken had come to grief. It seemed getting out of ’Gren’s head was nowhere near as easy as getting in. The Mountain Man was eager to try driving another intrusive enchanter into insanity and death using only the untrammelled force of a mind blithely untroubled by conscience.

Guinalle spared ’Gren a faintly repelled look before focusing her attention once more on the sleeping Elietimm. “I just want to see what they know of this pirate.”

She coaxed memories from their dreams like a musician drawing music from a lyre. We saw a broad haven sheltered by a mighty headland offering sanctuary from the savage rocks and seas of Toremal’s ocean coast. A town sprawled behind the tufted dunes and rowboats ferried men and goods between the shore and ships swaying at anchor.

“Kalaven.” Pered was surprised. “We stopped there before setting course for Suthyfer.”

“Sorgrad found some good crewmen there,” ’Gren observed.

“So did Muredarch.” Guinalle encouraged Yalda’s recollection of a startlingly tall man with wiry black hair and a savage cast to an otherwise handsome face, if you made allowance for the ragged beard and the crow’s-feet of age and disillusion framing his eyes. He’d been down on his luck back then, breeches dirty, shirt stained and boots inadequately patched. He was talking to Darige.

“So much for Emperor Tadriol smoking every Elietimm spy out of his thatch.” I’d always had my doubts about that, hearing Ryshad tell of frustrating pursuits of rumour and suspicion as his prince set him hunting the thieves who’d cut down a younger son of the House for an heirloom ring. He’d only learned later it was a Kellarin artefact when his path crossed mine and Darni’s and Shiv’s.

“Guinalle,” Temar warned.

“Very well.” Her lips narrowed with frustration before she soothed the air to emptiness with a lilting incantation. The sleeping faces vanished and I was abruptly aware of crippling stiffness in my neck and shoulders and the promise of a truly spectacular headache.

“I need some fresh air.” Pered got unsteadily to his feet and Ryshad promptly opened the door.

“I’ll settle for a drink.” Even ’Gren was looking unsure of himself and that was as rare as a moonless night.

Resting my forehead on my upturned palms, I felt Ryshad’s strong fingers rubbing my shoulders. “So what did you see?”

Ryshad took a moment to answer. “Colours, shapes, nothing I could make sense of. ’Sar couldn’t even see that much.”

“Another instance where Artifice and elemental magic don’t mix?” I rubbed my temples with cautious fingertips and squinted up at Ryshad. “What now?”

“Sar’s gone to get the others. Are you all right?” His grimness promised trouble for someone if I wasn’t.

I nodded carefully. “I will be.” Kneeling, he gathered me to him. I laid my head on his shoulder and thought very seriously about going to sleep and leaving everything to the rest of them, at least until the morning.

“Where’s Allin?”

I opened my eyes to see Temar scrubbing his face with the heels of his hands.

“With the rest of the mageborn. They were going to discuss just what wizardry they might venture without risking Elietimm attack.” Ryshad stood and lifted me to my feet before sitting on the stool himself. I sat on his lap, arms loose around his shoulders.

“Usara was saying Aritane’s helped him devise certain defences over the winter.” Guinalle’s voice was weary.

We sat in silence for a short time until Halice kicked open the door to wrestle a cumbersome basket of bottles inside. “If you’re done, let’s hear what you know and make a plan.”

We all winced at the crash and clink of glass apart from ’Gren who perked up immediately. “Always best done with a drink in your hand.” He helped himself to a fat-bellied bottle studded with a blobby wax seal.

Halice handed out a motley selection of wines. “So what did you learn?”

By the time Temar had explained, to no one’s great surprise, that our old enemy was the driving force behind the pirates, the wizards had arrived. Shiv had an arm around Pered, eyes searching for the least hint that Artifice had hurt his beloved. Usara went to press some wine on the largely silent Guinalle with detached courtesy. He had even managed to find a gold-trimmed silver goblet from somewhere.

“Can we get Naldeth out of there?” asked Allin. She’d been preoccupied with the mage’s fate ever since we’d had to leave him behind.

“He’s one of ours, is he?” Sorgrad had helped ’Gren shift the table to the side of the room and the brothers sat on it, swinging their feet idly. He downed a hefty swallow of white brandy.

“Guinalle?” Temar passed Allin his pale green bottle of Caladhrian white and she took a hesitant sip.

“I don’t think we dare try reach him.” The demoiselle sighed with eloquent frustration before looking round at all the mageborn. “You had better limit your magic to things within reach, things you can see. The Elietimm shouldn’t be able to attack you unless you’re seeking something beyond your immediate senses.”

“So we can still blow pirates out of the water with fire and lightning?” Sorgrad winked at Larissa who was standing a little apart from Shiv and Pered, silent and watchful. She smiled shyly back at him.

“Which will be useful,” observed Ryshad drily as he took red wine offered by Halice.

Sorgrad shot him an enigmatic look, which Ryshad met with level imperturbability. With all that had been going on, they’d had no real chance to take each other’s measure as yet but that would happen sometime soon. I took the bottle from Ryshad and swallowed a mouthful of Sitalcan, its bracing bite cutting through the weariness fogging my mind. I’d better make sure I was around to stop my oldest friends and my newest love coming to blows over their undoubted differences. I wasn’t expecting them to like each other but I hoped they’d at least respect each other’s talents.

Halice had other concerns. “We’ll not get rid of those pirates as long as they’ve aetheric magic backing them.”

“We’ve aetheric magic to use against them.” Usara smiled at Guinalle but we could all see the worry in his eyes.

“Are you certain you’re proof against these three? We’re barely adept enough to back you.” Temar sketched a circle to include me, ’Gren and Pered. ”Usara, might that Sheltya woman be induced to help us?”

“Aritane?” Guinalle shook her head regretfully. “Even if she were prepared to leave the sanctuary of Hadrumal, I don’t believe she’s come to terms with Eresken’s betrayal of her and her people. That alone would leave her horribly vulnerable.”

“So we’ve a cursed sight more than pirates to worry about now‘ Ryshad swirled the wine around in his bottle thoughtfully. ”What does Ilkehan want with Suthyfer?”

“Elietimm holding these islands will be a dagger at Vithrancel’s throat and all the Tormalin ocean ports,” glowered Halice.

For some reason, I thought about the Ice Man pruning his creeper. I remembered how my mother had waged constant warfare on knotgrass that had the temerity to continually reappear among the herbs and flowers she cultivated in the modest patch permitted her by the wealthy merchant who owned the big house. Every time my mother thought she had the thing beaten, another stem of jaunty little leaves capped with red-trimmed white flowers would spring up to mock her. As a fat-legged little girl I had played uncomprehending through one long afternoon while my father, on one of his rare and longed-for visits, had carefully dug up every cherished gillyflower and clump of heartsease, each woody sprig of spikenard swathed with leathery green leaves. He’d laid them all tenderly in moist shade before digging out every last root of that cursed knotgrass, following every stubborn rootlet down to its end. I recalled his conspiratorial grin as he lay flat on the black earth to reach as far as he could, soil dusting his coppery hair and smudging his face. Joining him in the normally forbidden delights of digging and dirt, I’d been just as filthy by the time we’d finished but at least my mother had never seen the knotgrass again.

“We have to get rid of Ilkehan.” It was remarkably easy to put such a momentous notion into words. As easy as casting the handful of runes that could make your fortune or break your neck. “Everything leads back to him.”

“When you say ‘we’?” Ryshad inclined his head as he looked at me and I knew he understood.

“Kellarin could never raise an army to fight the Elietimm.” Temar plainly didn’t. “Would the Emperor go to war on our behalf? Could he raise the ships, the men?”

“Stop thinking with your cohorts,” chided Sorgrad.

“I don’t think this will be something the Emperor can risk being linked with,” Ryshad said slowly. “He came out of last summer’s confusion well enough placed but the Sieurs of the leading Houses will still be watching him for any excessive independence.” Temar’s unexpected arrival had seriously disrupted the complex game of checks and balances that the princes of Toremal played among themselves and the Emperor had had to walk a fine line between keeping them in check or seeing them turn on him instead of D’Alsennin.

“Overlord or not, Tadriol rules with the Sieurs’ consent. They won’t be overly reassured to see him killing people who irritate him out of hand. ” Halice rubbed a thoughtful finger round the wide neck of the flagon she held. It made a soft squeaking noise. “Anyway, the back of a knife makes a neater job of cracking an egg than a rock the size of your head.”

“A knife’s what you want,” said ’Gren with relish. “A raiding party to cut the bastard’s throat for him will settle this nonsense.”

“Get the drop on them and hit them hard, you can kill pretty much anyone,” Sorgrad stated firmly before grinning suddenly. “Why do you suppose your noblemen spend so much money on sworn men and mercenaries?”

“Assassination?” Temar looked startled. “That’s hardly honourable.”

Guinalle opened her mouth but shut it again without speaking.

“We’re mercenaries,” Halice pointed out mildly. “Honourable doesn’t pay, as a rule.”

“It would be an execution,” Ryshad corrected Temar sternly. “That man has lives without number to pay for, even if other hands swung the blades at his command.”

“Parrail,” snapped Halice with sudden anger.

“Geris,” I said shortly.

“Aiten.” Ryshad’s nostrils flared as he struggled to contain the rage and sorrow that I knew always lurked in some locked corner of his thoughts. Aiten had been his friend for many years, sworn to D’Olbriot, at Ryshad’s side as they hunted whoever had left the House’s young esquire for dead. We’d all but escaped the islands of the Elietimm when Ilkehan’s enchantments had stolen away his mind, setting him to kill us all. I brushed a kiss across Ryshad’s forehead and felt his arms tighten around my waist. In those intense conversations lovers keep for the midnight hours of troubled nights, Ryshad had told me he’d vowed revenge, for the sake of the oaths they’d shared.

I wouldn’t try talking him out of it, not when I owed Ilkehan a full measure of vengeance for leaving me the only one with the chance to kill poor Aiten before he became the death of the rest of us. Could I wash that blood off my hands with Ilkehan’s own? “What of the missing artefacts? Could Ilkehan hold them?”

Guinalle looked stricken. I recalled what Halice had told me of her Equinox and Solstice visits to the Edisgesset cavern, her anguished prayers as she burned incense to Arimelin at the altar she’d had set there.

“Quite possibly.” Usara looked thoughtful. “And we surely want to restore those last few, now that the danger you saved them from is past.” He smiled at Guinalle but, as always, she was too racked with remorse over their present predicament to credit herself with saving these people from bloody death hands in the distant past.

If ’Sar’s words didn’t strike a chord with Guinalle, they certainly did with Ryshad. “We’ll only be visiting his own practices on the man,” he said forcefully. “He kills by stealth to serve his own ends, heedless of the innocent. Justice will weight our actions against his in Raeponin’s balance.”

“The man’s crimes would condemn him in any court from Toremal to the capital of Solura,” Shiv said perfunctorily. “How do you propose administering this summary justice?”

Ryshad and I looked at him and saw the mage already knew what we were thinking.

“We’re the only ones who know the layout of his keep,” I pointed out reluctantly.

“You’re the only mage who’s been there, who can translocate us all,” added Ryshad with an apologetic glance at Pered. The artist set his square jaw, pale beneath his freckles, but didn’t speak.

“Then we’re coming too.” Sorgrad’s tone brooked no argument. He jabbed a finger at Ryshad. “You’re not taking our girl there into some enchanter’s snake pit without us to back her up.”

“No Chosen man ever made a good assassin.” ’Gren took a blithe swig from his bottle. ”Too much honour in you, but that’s your problem. Me, I don’t care who I kill.”

“So I’ve heard,” replied Ryshad blandly.

Sorgrad gave him another measuring look before addressing himself to Temar. “We owe this Ilkehan for the Mountain dead that Eresken’s plots and deceit piled up.” He grinned, predatory. “What say we just walk in there, saying we met Eresken last summer, offering some new alliance? We could cut out Ilkehan’s heart and be done inside half a day.”

“You’ve no interest in getting out alive?” Halice set her flagon on the table with a sharp smack. “If—”

“No,” said Ryshad firmly. “If we’re going to do this, it just takes the handful of us. Any more and we might as well send a fleet blowing horns and flying flags.”

“You’ll still have Muredarch to deal with,” I pointed out to Halice. “He’s hardly going to throw up his hands just because his pet enchanters lose their master all of a sudden.”

“I cannot take on these pirates without your help, Halice,” Temar said hastily.

“We can deal with them in short order as long as there’s no threat of Artifice.” She looked a little mollified. “Will killing this Ilkehan knock out those three enchanters?”

“Guinalle?” Usara’s gaze hadn’t left her.

“I think so.” The noblewoman looked up and continued with studied neutrality. “If his death is public, certainly public knowledge and widely known as fast as possible. A shameful death, something grotesque or humiliating, that will undercut all the awe he inspires.” Her voice was cold. “His power is founded on fear rather than any true devotion so his death will leave his adepts on little better than shifting sand.”

Ryshad raised an eyebrow at me and I shrugged. I’d been thinking more of sticking a poisoned dagger in the bastard’s back and discreetly running away.

“Shall we cut his head off?” Sorgrad and ’Gren on the other hand were swapping bottles and ideas with conspiratorial glee. “Stick it on a pike for all his folk to see?”

“From everything we know, Ilkehan holds some preeminent position among the Elietimm clans.” Usara was looking thoughtful again. “If we can knock him off the top of the tree, that might well leave the rest of them more interested in squabbling over the spoils than attacking us.”

“Especially once we’ve made it plain taking on Kellarin leaves you so very nastily dead,” Sorgrad agreed with relish.

“Men like Ilkehan keep tight hold on power by cutting down any poppies growing taller than the rest,” said Ryshad slowly.

“Which is a coin with two sides.” I saw the potential weakness in Ilkehan’s armour as plainly as Ryshad. “With Kramisak and Eresken dead, he has no obvious successor.”

“Certainly not if we kill these three here.” Temar looked determined.

“I’ll settle for a likely pay-off, not hold out for bonuses. Killing Ilkehan should leave Muredarch’s enchanters leaderless and that should buy us enough time to deal with the rest of the scum.” Halice looked at Guinalle who nodded reluctant confirmation.

I handed the wine back to Ryshad. “We saw his soldiers fighting those people in the brown liveries again.”

“That other mob who snuck about over here, stealing things and ransacking shrines.” Ryshad pursed speculative lips. “We never did find out what they were about, did we?”

“Let’s find out while we’re there,” suggested ’Gren obligingly.

“This isn’t some trading trip.” Sorgrad gave his brother a withering look. “But we might find ourselves an ally, somewhere safe to run while we’re there.” He raised his brows at Ryshad who nodded slowly. I was relieved to see the two of them showing cautious acknowledgement of the other’s battle wisdom.

“What do we tell Planir?” demanded Usara abruptly.

“Why tell him anything?” countered Shiv. “He made it plain enough we were on our own.”

“But that was before we knew Ilkehan was involved,” protested Usara.

“He said we had a free hand to act for Kellarin as we saw fit.” Shiv shook his head. “Anyway, the Archmage of Hadrumal can no more afford to be associated with summary executions than the Emperor of Tormalin.” Sarcasm sharpened his tone.

“We won’t tell,” said Sorgrad with spurious innocence.

“Not as long as he makes it worth our while.” ’Gren raised a mock serious finger.

“Planir wouldn’t object.” Larissa spoke up defiantly from her corner. “He wouldn’t shirk from exacting such a penalty from any wizard whose abuse of magic truly warranted death.”

“He let that madman Azazir go free.” Shiv let slip a sceptical aside to Pered.

“You don’t know half what Planir does to keep Hadrumal on an even keel, Shiv.” Larissa glared at him. “Wizardry would be in a parlous state without him.”

“I don’t know about that but then I don’t know a lot about wizardry.” Sorgrad jumped down from the table and turned a charming smile on Larissa. “If I’m to be any use backing Shiv on this trip, my lady mage, I could do with some more instruction from you before we leave.”

“Livak!” Guinalle left off studying her hands to get my attention. “I had better drill you in your Artifice, just to make sure it’s all clear in your mind.”

“Very well.” That wasn’t the most appealing prospect.

“Let’s get some sleep and set the pieces in play tomorrow.” Halice started gathering up bottles, nodding to Pered to open the door.

I looked at Ryshad. “Even lower Artifice could save our necks somehow.”

“Indeed. We certainly want every kind of shot in our quiver.” He kissed me before setting me on my feet and standing himself. “Are we sleeping on board ship or ashore?”

“Ashore, please,” I said fervently.

“I’ll get some blankets.” Ryshad ushered Shiv and Pered out, the tall mage still scowling. Sorgrad followed, escorting Larissa out with flattering courtesy, ’Gren sauntering along behind.

“Would he be so admirably eager to learn if the lady mage were not quite such a beauty?” Temar wandered over, face disapproving.

“What was it interested you in studying Artifice with Guinalle, back in the way back when?” I smiled just enough to take the edge off my words. I was certain Sorgrad’s main ambition was getting his hands on Larissa’s staylaces but no one criticises my friends but me. Well, me and Halice.

Temar coloured. “It’s late. I’ll see you in the morning.” Allin jumped up from the stool where she’d sat all but unnoticed and hurried after him.

“Good night.” I left Usara finding comforts for Guinalle that she’d never have looked for herself and went outside, yawning, to meet Ryshad just where the crushed plants around the hut yielded to gritty sand. He had an armful of blankets and we made ourselves comfortable in a discreet hollow.

He lay back and held out an arm. I curled into his embrace and he held me tight.

“Are we doing the right thing?” I asked him. Bold plans made with trusted allies and a reinforcing drink in your hand have to stand up to scrutiny in the cold light of dawn, if they’re not to lead to disaster.

I counted five echoing heartbeats in his chest before he replied. “I can’t see what else to do.”

“Oh, very reassuring,” I grumbled.

“No, I didn’t mean that.” Ryshad shifted slightly so he could wrap both arms around me. “We have to get these pirates out of the islands and we need magic, wizardry to do that. We daren’t risk Shiv and ’Sar or anyone else, if these Elietimm can use Artifice to leave them for dead while they’re at it. For all Guinalle’s skills, she’s certainly no inclination to use aetheric magic to attack people and, frankly, I doubt she’d know how to, even if it came down to a fight between them. It’s just not her way. So you’re right. We need to kill the Ice Man. We’ve seen him trying to cause trouble everywhere he can; pirates this time, in the Mountains last year, in the Archipelago before that. Kellarin will never be safe as long as he’s there. It’s simple.”

“Simple.” I echoed. “I hope it will be.”

“We got out alive last time, didn’t we?” Ryshad kissed my hair. “And we didn’t know what we were facing, nor yet have magic to back us, not after Shiv got that smack on the head.”

I turned my face to him, dim in the darkness. “Geris or Aiten didn’t get out.”

“Geris didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body, from what you’ve told me, nor yet a suspicious one.” Ryshad cleared his throat. “So he never stood a chance. Ait, poor bastard, he was just cursed unlucky.” He sighed. “But he always said if the dawn turns up your death runes, there’s nothing to be done about it.”

“I prefer to make my own luck,” I muttered.

Ryshad hugged me close. “We know what we’re dealing with and we’ve got Shiv, Sorgrad and ’Gren to back us.”

“Yes, we have.” I craned my head back to kiss his bristly cheek. “You need a shave.”

“In the morning,” he yawned. “Now go to sleep.”

Since there was nothing else I could do, I did.

Shernasekke, Islands of the Elietimm, 2nd of For-Summer

With everyone agreed that Ilkehan must die, we’d woken to a day of ceaseless activity that somehow managed to be incredibly tedious. By the time we were standing between Larissa and Allin, with Usara and Shiv discussing who should act as focus for their nexus of magic, all I felt was relief that we were finally leaving. That was before I remembered just how revolting it felt to be flung across the leagues by wizardry. I can’t begin to describe the solace of gravel crunching beneath my boots. I ground my feet just to hear the noise again. A few deep breaths helped settle my stomach and the painful ringing in my ears faded to be replaced by a soft murmur of surf. I knuckled my eyes to try and clear the yellow flashes obscuring my vision.

“Are you all right?” Ryshad steadied me with concerned hands.

“Just about,” I said with some irritation. “You seem fine.” He grinned sympathetically. “I don’t get seasick either.” I looked round for the others. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Sorgrad said absently, deep in thought about something.

I managed a slight smile. “How long before you work out that trick?”

“Give me time,” winked Sorgrad.

“Don’t try translocation without me or ’Sar around,” Shiv told him seriously. “Not until you get the hang of it. With a dual affinity, you’ll end up—”

“Why are we waiting for someone to come and cut our throats for us?” demanded ’Gren impatiently.

Ryshad looked around the rocky beach. “Let’s find some cover.”

There was precious little on offer. Dark rubble was strewn over sands the colour of wood ash, the grey sea lapping the shallow shore. Slews of stinking weed tangled between the boulders, hiding hollows and pits to sink the unwary up to their knees. Out to sea, the mists of the late afternoon blurred the line between water and sky. They could have been hiding a double handful of ships for all I could tell. We had to get off this exposed shore.

Ryshad headed for a scar worn by feet, human or animal, where the pebbles rolled up beneath a sharply undercut bank topped with a stretch of dusty green turf. We all looked cautiously over to see a stretch of scrubby grassland running up to a steep ridge of broken rock. Greater heights beyond were blunt and sere and, even in this first half of summer, topped with a rime of white that could only be snow. These dismal islands felt half a world away from the rich lushness of Suthyfer, even if Temar’s charts said different.

“Does this look familiar?” Sorgrad shifted the satchel he wore to his other shoulder.

“Yes.” I’d have laughed in the face of anyone who’d told me I’d come back to these islands. But here I was and, worse, it was my own god-cursed idea.

“Close enough, Shiv.” Ryshad grinned at the mage whose answering smile betrayed his relief.

“Come on.”

’Gren was already on the top of the bank, looking in all directions, dagger ready.

“We want to bear that way.” Shiv had a map, thanks to Pered’s assiduous work with pen and ink all morning while the three of us scoured every memory of our previous visit here. ”That village is over yonder, so hoods up.”

Ryshad and I obliged while Sorgrad ostentatiously ran a hand over his own golden head. “Try to look like we belong, ’Gren.”

“For the moment,” Gren chuckled with happy anticipation.

“Let’s not get close enough for anyone to wonder.” I didn’t imagine there were too many redheads hereabouts and we didn’t want anyone seeing we were armed, never mind Ryshad and Shiv’s dark colouring.

We moved off and, away from the scour of the wind, I saw summer had swathed the few stunted trees in leaves. “There’s barely enough forage for an unfussy donkey,” I said uneasily to Ryshad. “We should have brought more food.”

“Carrying too much will just get us noticed.” He continued scanning the flat plain.

“Don’t worry,” Sorgrad smiled. “We’ll be honoured guests before nightfall and fed to suit.”

“What was that?”

’Gren halted and we all stood still.

I heard a faint scrabbling and what could have been a warning voice, muffled and incomprehensible. “Where’s that coming from?” A faint shiver ran down my spine.

Sorgrad dropped to his knees and we all did the same.

“What are you doing?” he said, surprised.

“The same as you,” I told him tartly. “Why?”

He nodded to a hole in the turf. “Whatever’s making your noise is down there.”

“That’d be a tight fit for a hungry rabbit.” Ryshad got up, brushing fine, dusty earth from his breeches. “I don’t think we need worry.” Wary amusement lessened the tension in the air.

“I wonder what it is.”

’Gren knelt, hand reaching for the burrow.

“Something that could bite your fingers off and leave you with festering stumps?” I suggested. “Just leave well alone.”

“There’s someone coming.” Shiv tucked his map in the breast of his hooded jerkin. We saw a solitary figure carefully removing the larger stones that served for a gate in one of the low walls dividing this barren hinterland.

“Move.” Ryshad set a pace just fast enough to suggest purpose but not so hurried to attract attention.

The edge of my hood hid the figure from me, which left my back itching. “What’s he doing?”

“Nothing. Just keep going.” Sorgrad led us towards a low notch in the jagged ridge. ’Gren didn’t bother with the narrow path, heedless boots crushing the few flowers crouching in the coarse grass, bruised herbs momentarily sweetening the gusting breeze.

“Keep a weather eye out for goats,” I warned him. “We could barely move without tripping over the cursed things last time.”

“Let’s see that map, Shiv.” Sorgrad ducked into a sheltered hollow between two tall boulders sticking through the grass like broken teeth.

Ryshad and I each held a corner flat against the lichen-spotted stone.

“We need to go north.” I traced a line on the parchment.

“Giving that village a wide berth.” Ryshad jabbed it with an emphatic finger.

Shiv ran a thumbnail along a faint blue line and a darker brown one. “Once we’re over that river, we follow the road inland.”

Sorgrad looked dubious. “Follow it or shadow it? I don’t fancy being asked to explain myself if we run into someone nosy.”

Ryshad shook his head. “We’d attract more attention off the road than on it.”

“We have to take the road, regardless. It’s mostly sheer rock and screes where it cuts through the high ground.” I held Sorgrad’s gaze until he decided I was telling him the truth, not just siding with Ryshad.

“Let’s get going,” ’Gren complained.

We crested the ridge and headed down the far side. More stone walls scored dry lines across close-cropped grass. Dark splodges of muck were the only sign of goats and I was wondering where they were, when I nearly tripped headlong into a ditch hidden by rushy grasses.

“Watch your step.” Ryshad caught my hand and we stepped carefully over the dark brown water.

“I can smell food.”

’Gren was looking at the distant roofs of the village we were avoiding. Bluish smoke rose from a few stubby chimneys.

“At this distance?” I scoffed. “You’re imagining it.”

“You’ll have walked up a better appetite by the time we get there,” Sorgrad told him sternly.

“What if this man with the brown troopers doesn’t want to help us?” ’Gren enquired thoughtfully. ”Do we kill him as well?”

Sorgrad shrugged. “Depends what he says, I reckon.”

The pair of them moved ahead to scout out our path. Ryshad and Shiv were some little way behind me.

“Just what did Usara reckon to travelling with these two?” I heard Ryshad ask the mage.

“Sorgrad’s the one you have to make listen to reason,” Shiv answered in an undertone. “ ’Gren’s just interested in drinking, eating, fighting and tumbling pretty girls, in whatever combination he’s offered. As long as he thinks he’s in with a chance of one or more, he’ll go along with whatever his brother tells him.”

I smiled to myself and picked up my pace, so I could keep Sorgrad and ’Gren in sight. Comparatively sheltered between the ridge and the high ground, the grass grew thicker, softer underfoot and dotted with bell-shaped blue flowers trembling on fragile stems. Bolder white flowers drifted around clumps of frilled and leathery green leaves topped with red flowers clasping some secret in their petal globes. I wondered again where all the goats had gone to let such prettiness bloom uneaten.

’Gren was soon bored with casting around like a badly trained hound and came to walk beside me. ”This isn’t so bad.”

“You want to try it here in winter,” I told him. We’d only been here at the very start of the season and that had been bad enough.

“Soft lowlander,” he chided. “Me and ’Grad, we’re used to harder living.”

“Hard living and your life and death at the whim of some Ilkehan’s boot heel?” I queried.

’Gren was unconcerned. “We’ll put an end to that.”

I was about to ask him what augury he’d seen when a sharp whistle from Sorgrad prompted Ryshad and Shiv to catch us up. We joined him at the top of a rise, just short of the river. He’d propped his rump on a handy lump of rock, the ever-present breeze ruffling his fine yellow hair, and was rummaging in one pocket.

“Apricot?” Sorgrad held out a little washleather pouch.

I took a sticky lump of dried golden fruit, tucking my other hand through my belt. “What’s to do?”

“Over yonder.” Sorgrad waved casually at the land running down to the river. The flow was narrow enough for crossing stones here, widening out below us into a broad estuary of sandbars and glistening channels. Black and white and pied birds waded and prodded for worms or some such in the shallows, darker shapes wheeling above them in the washed-out blue.

“There.” Ryshad pointed as a wide, triangular net suddenly swept up and around just beyond a shallow knoll crowned with yellow flower spikes.

“What’s he after?” wondered Shiv.

“Those.” I pointed at a squat, short-winged bird all black but for a white belly and a comical tuft of scarlet and yellow feathers behind each eye. “Look, he’s got one.”

The hunter had indeed netted one from a small flock coming in to land. The rest hit the ground with less of a bump than I expected from such clumsy-looking fowl and vanished down burrows. I laughed. “That’s what made those noises.”

’Gren studied the hunter’s lair. ”What are we going to do about him?”

“We cross there and we leave him alone,” said Ryshad firmly, pointing at the stepping-stones.

“Do we?”

’Gren demanded of me and his brother.

“We’ve no need to kill him unless he comes after us,” I told Sorgrad.

He shrugged. “Fair enough.”

That was enough to send ’Gren heading for the stepping-stones. They were slick with slimy green growth and Shiv hurried past me. “Wait a moment, ’Gren.”

The weed began to steam, drying from shining emerald to a muted green that crisped into a dull brown, the unceasing wind carrying the lightest wisps away. Sorgrad watched, intent, while ’Gren looked downstream, still keeping watch on the hunter.

“He’d kill him in a moment, wouldn’t he?” There was concern beneath Ryshad’s distaste. “And never give it a second thought.”

“It gives him an edge over the rest of us.” I shrugged.

“That’s kept him and me alive more than once. Believe me, I’d rather be with him than without him on a trip like this.”

“I know he’s your friend but I wouldn’t have him under my command,” said Ryshad slowly.

“I’m not asking you to like him and, anyway, he wouldn’t serve under your command,” I pointed out to my well-drilled beloved. “He’s a mercenary, though, and he understands discipline in a fight. Halice wouldn’t stand for anything less.”

“Just as long as he realises I won’t,” muttered Ryshad as we made our way down to the river and over without incident. As soon as we were across, all ’Gren’s attention turned to the way ahead, the bird hunter forgotten, as I’d known he would be.

Hills rose on either side as we followed the road inland. We all stayed alert for any other travellers but as the day lengthened into a long evening, no one came from either direction. I even began to relax until that realisation made me frown.

“Where is everyone?” I turned to Ryshad and Shiv who were bringing up the rear again.

“How many times did we have to hide last time?” Shiv nodded at the tangled bushes lining the route, their vicious thorns currently hidden by flourishes of leaves and the rosettes of pink-tinted blossom.

“Not even goat shit to tread in, is there?” frowned Ryshad.

I realised something else was wrong. “Weren’t there pillars marking this road?”

“What is it?” Sorgrad and ’Gren came back towards us.

’Gren slapped at something buzzing around his face as I explained. ”Cursed midges.”

Shiv looked at a stretch of flatter land where the pass the road was following widened out a little. “They’re coming from over there.” As if he’d given some signal, a cloud of little black bloodsuckers came roving towards us.

“Must be the time of year for them,” I grimaced.

“Hurry up and we’ll leave them behind,” urged Ryshad.

Shiv was still studying the peaty stretch beside the road. “These people are willing to kill to get off these rocks, because there’s so little decent land, isn’t that right?” He pointed to deep chevrons cut into the bog. “So why let those ditches clog up? This is usable land, if it’s drained.” It didn’t look halfway usable land to me but I’d take Shiv’s word for it. He’d grown up in the Kevil fens of Caladhria and there aren’t many bigger swamps.

“Livak, I found your pillars,” Sorgrad called out. “And here.”

’Gren was a little way beyond his brother, looking in the gully that edged the road.

We joined them to see dark stones broken and stained with the muck pooled around them.

“What’s this?” Sorgrad jumped down for a closer look and ran a finger down deep chisel marks obscuring overlapping lines set in an incised square.

“It was clan insignia of some sort.” Ryshad was studying ’Gren’s pillar. “This one’s defaced as well.”

Shiv hissed with frustration. “Usara might know how to read something from the stone.”

“We brought the wrong wizard.”

’Gren was ready to make a joke of it but no one else was inclined to laugh.

I looked up and down the road whose emptiness was taking on a sinister aspect. “Let’s get on.” I told myself not to be fanciful but kept a hand on my dagger hilt just in case.

“Here.” Ryshad handed me a few long, oily-looking leaves. “Rub those on yourself. It’ll keep off the midges.”

Sorgrad immediately began searching the side of the road until he came up with some smaller, hairier plant. “These are better.”

I smiled at them both and rubbed Sorgrad’s on my wrists and Ryshad’s on my neck. The sooner they both got the message I wasn’t about to choose between them and no one could make me, the better we’d all get along. More importantly, the midges didn’t bother me after that, be it thanks to one plant, the other or both. That was relief because I wouldn’t have put it past ’Gren to count my bites and make a score out of them, just to see who’d be more put out, my lover or his brother.

Ryshad and Shiv forced the pace with their longer legs until we shorter ones were half walking, half jogging. No one complained and we made good speed until we reached the jutting rise of stark grey rock that hid our destination.

Sorgrad recognised it too; he only ever needs one look at a map. “Who’s going first?”

’Gren took a pace forward, eyes bright with expectation.

Ryshad looked at me and Shiv and then nodded to Sorgrad. “Just a quick look and come straight back here.”

“Sit tight, my girl.” Sorgrad winked at me and the pair disappeared around the outcrop.

“I can’t hear anything.” Ryshad cocked his head.

I listened. “Birds, breeze.” But no voices, no sound of tools or the bustle we’d seen here last time.

Shiv rubbed his hands together. “Shall I—”

Sorgrad’s whistle interrupted him and we hurried round the curve in the road, my dagger ready, Ryshad’s sword half drawn.

“What in Saedrin’s name happened here?” I exclaimed.

“Dast’s teeth!” Ryshad’s sword hissed all the way out of its sheath.

“I don’t think we’re going to find any allies hereabouts.” Shiv surveyed the scene in the hollow of the flower-speckled hills.

The road was lined with small houses, a scatter of others on the grass beyond. Even allowing the Elietimm were generally short folk, I’d thought before these people risked bumping their heads on their rafters. Now I realised the floors of the low-roofed houses were actually dug a good half span below the ground outside. I could see that because every roof had been ripped off, walls left defenceless before the harshness of wind and weather. Every house looked to be built to the same pattern; a windowless, stone-paved room at one end, something that looked like a quern stone set in the wall that separated it from a wider room beyond. That had windows and a flagged floor, open hearth backed by an upright slab of stone to foil the draught of doors to the front and to rooms beyond. Earthen floors and tethering rings in those suggested byres or stables, finally more storage ending in a circular arrangement of tumbled stones above a stoke hole. That could have been a corn kiln, a brew house, a laundry vat or some other domestic necessity but no tools or utensils remained to give any clue.

“Look for some clue as to what happened here,” Ryshad ordered. “Keep someone else in view all the time.”

“Let’s not disturb too much,” I added. “We don’t want it too obvious we’ve been here.”

Ryshad nodded, sword at the ready as he strode down the road, Shiv at his side. Sorgrad cut off to one side, blade in hand. I reckoned me staying with ’Gren would be safest all round.

“Nothing.” He was poking his dagger in a soggy mess of part-burned thatch. “Whoever did this stripped the place.”

“Not quite.” I looked down into a house some way down the track. The central room was black with soot and charcoal where timbers had been stacked and burned. “How many trees have you seen big enough to make roof trusses? This is like melting down a stack of coin hereabouts.”

“So someone was making a point.”

’Gren shied a stone at something scurrying through the mire of the deep ditch separating the houses from the road. ”There’s nothing here to say what or who, though.”

I looked at the devastated houses. Birds much the size and hue of hooded crows were building nests on the ragged walls, plundering the scattered straw and turf that had once covered the roofs. Their chucks and caws emphasised the empty silence.

“Let’s see what the others have found.” We ran down the track to join Ryshad in front of what had been this settlement’s central stronghold. He held out his hand to me. “Think you can get in there again?”

“If you give me a boost.” That was a joke. When we’d come looking for Geris, the wall around this formidable house of stern grey stone had risen well above my head. Now I could step across the blocks marking the foundation.

“Not one course left upon another,” murmured Shiv in a portentous voice.

“Like something out of a bad ballad,” I agreed. But this was no comfortable tale to while away a winter’s evening.

“Let’s see if there’s anyone still in residence.” I took a cautious step up and over the broken wall, dagger in hand. Ryshad began a slow circuit from what had been the guardhouse while Shiv headed for the opposite corner. Sorgrad and ’Gren spread out to reconnoitre the far side of the compound.

“Didn’t we think this was a forge?” Shiv stopped to look at tumbled stones blackened with fire. There had been a whole range of buildings along the inner face of the wall when we’d sat and spied on the place before.

“And this would be the mill.” I kicked at the last charred heartwood of a tangle of roof timbers.

“Someone had wanted this house razed beyond hope of repair.” Ryshad was walking cautiously through the rubble where the whole front face of the house had been pulled down, side walls and back reduced to broken outlines barely waist high.

“This is where I got in last time, where the window was.”

I stepped through the empty air above the chipped stones. Broken wooden frames and splinters of horn were strewn across a floor hacked and cracked by malicious axes. The stubby remains of the internal walls sheltered sodden drifts of grey ash bleeding black stains across the pale flagstones. I shoved a piece of timber with a boot to reveal a stark white outline where it had lain. I’d say no one’s been here since this disaster struck.”

“But what was the disaster?” wondered Shiv.

“Or who,” said Ryshad grimly. I could make a guess.

There had been rugs on these floors, carefully woven hangings, polished stone tables. A family had lived here and many more besides within the compound and in the village beyond, making what passed for a decent life on these rocks. Now there was no one, beyond vermin lurking in the drains and the nesting birds rearing their chicks in a quiet corner. Where had the people flown? Or had they been netted like the fat little fowls on the riverbank?

Ryshad’s thoughts were following the same scent. “I can’t find any bodies, nor yet any bones,” he said as he joined me.

“Is that good or bad?” Shiv was unsure and I had no answers.

Ryshad looked up. “Where’s Sorgrad? Or ’Gren, come to that.” He looked annoyed.

“You just said keep someone in view,” I reminded him. “I’ll bet they can see each other.” I used my fingers for the whistle the three of us had used for more years than I cared to recall.

Blond heads appeared above a ridge behind the derelict stronghold and Sorgrad beckoned to us. “Come see.”

“What were you looking for up here?” To my relief Ryshad kept his tone mild.

“Goat shit,”

’Gren answered brightly. ”Catch a goat, it squeals, brings someone running. We want answers—”

I waved him to silence.

“What do you make of this?” Sorgrad invited as we scrambled to the top of the rise.

We hadn’t come this way on our previous circumspect visit so we hadn’t seen the stone circle the brothers had found. That was a shame because it must have been quite a sight before the sarsens had been toppled.

“Wrecking this wasn’t a quick or easy job,” said Ryshad.

I didn’t need a mason’s skills to tell me that. Each stone must have been twice my height, massive blue-grey rocks roughly shaped and raised with some trick I couldn’t begin to guess at. The colossal fingers of stone had been the innermost circle within numinous rings of ditch and banked mound. Once we left the rise behind us, this was the highest point on a wide expanse of tussocky grass running away into mossy hollows and a few scrubby thickets. I couldn’t see anything else before the plain blurred into the muted colours of distant hills.

“What was this place for?”

’Gren had a foot up on one of the prone megaliths like a hunter celebrating his kill. Splintered scraps of timber and a snapped-off length of braided hide rope were discarded close by. Perhaps that’s how the wreckers had brought the giants down.

“We found one before. That was a grave circle.” Ryshad wrinkled his nose with unconscious distaste.

Sorgren squatted and casually pulled a finger bone from spoil dug from the pit where a stone had stood. “Sheltya lore links the bones of a people to their land and I don’t suppose these Alyatimm are any different.” He used the ancient Mountain name for the exiles. “You lowlanders are all for burning your dead but taking bones, breaking them, that’s a desecration in the Mountains, an act of war to the death.”

Ryshad nodded. “Break a rival’s house to rubble and dig up his ancestors, no one’s going to gainsay your victory.”

“If this is what passes for a shrine hereabouts, wouldn’t it be a pretty effective way of scuppering your enemy’s magic?” I couldn’t see anyone having a lot of confidence in the leader of the brown-liveried men now, even assuming he wasn’t already dead.

Sorgrad was scowling. “We’re not going to find an ally here.”

I’d been thinking the same thing. Still, I reminded myself firmly, we had Shiv and that meant magic to call on, as long as he could summon it without getting himself attacked. No matter, we’d got out of here without magic last time, thanks to Ryshad’s fortitude. Come to that, I’d been in tight corners when I’d worked some risky deceptions with Sorgrad and ’Gren. This was no different. We had our plan, we’d do what we’d come for and then we’d leave. Why did we need anyone else?

“No chance of supper,” grumbled ’Gren.

“Or a bolthole.” Ryshad’s face was grim.

“Someone’s still coming here.” Shiv was skirting around the edge of the circle, stopping here and there to poke a stick into the ditch that divided the sacred enclosure from the profane land around it. He pointed at a square stone set to one side within the circle.

’Gren, keep an eye out.” I followed Ryshad for a closer look and the brothers came too.

The stone was about the height of a table made to feed a farmhouse and maybe half as long again. The top was scored with interlaced circles and some had narrow hollows at their centre, steep sided and filled with rain. Judging by the grass growing thick all around, it had been left undisturbed by the wreckers.

I poked a long grass stem into one. “A handspan deep.”

’Gren blew at a crude mimicry of a boat fashioned from a scrap of wood and a dry furled leaf. It bobbed on the dark water. “What’s this?”

Sorgrad used his dagger to probe and fished a bedraggled lump of cloth out of another cup-shaped hollow. “Solurans are great ones for votive offerings at their holy places.”

“A prayer to keep a ship safe at sea would make sense hereabouts.” Ryshad tapped the little boat with a finger. “It’s not been there long.”

Sorgrad squeezed water from the sodden lump. “Token for a baby maybe, wanting one or to keep a newborn healthy?” Cords tied the coarse cloth into an unmistakable swaddled shape.

Ryshad stepped away to study the nearest toppled stone. “When would you say this was done?” He appealed to Shiv who was completing his circuit of the ditch.

The mage paused. “Well before last winter.”

“Someone still comes here.” Sorgrad dropped the baby poppet back in its hollow.

“Loyalty’s harder to kill than people,” I agreed.

Ryshad looked at us all. “Whoever might be coming could well have some answers.”

“And no reason to love Ilkehan, if he did do this.” I looked around at the devastation.

“Let’s set a snare.” Ryshad gestured. “We hide in the ditch, well spaced out, until whoever comes to make an offering is well inside.”

“What if nobody comes? It could be days,” ’Gren challenged. “How long do we wait?”

“Give it till dark?” suggested Ryshad equably. “It’ll be safer for us to travel by night in any case.”

“Where to?” ’Gren countered. “And night’s a long time coming, pal, this far north, this far into the year.”

“Shut up, ’Gren.” Sorgrad looked at Shiv. “If we catch someone, we don’t want him yelling for help and bringing trouble. What can you do about that?”

Shiv ran long fingers through his hair, face thoughtful. “I don’t want to work magic within the circle, that’s for certain but I can wrap silence around the outside.”

Sorgrad nodded. “You don’t want spells inside the stones. Two people finding they can’t hear each other talking will soon start wondering why.”

“It’s not that.” Shiv shook his head. “Last time we were here, there was some aetheric ward that went off like a temple bell when I’d barely summoned magic”

“I can sing a charm to hide us.” I dug a folded parchment out of my belt pouch. While Pered had been adding every last detail to Shiv’s map, I’d been copying out seemingly nonsensical words culled from Forest Folk ballads whose verses sang of enchantment. Guinalle had insisted and, in the circumstances, I hadn’t been inclined to argue. Besides, I was the one who’d been proved right when I’d insisted aetheric lore lay hidden in the lays sung in blithe ignorance by minstrels like my father. That surely entitled me to use the Artifice of my ancestors.

Sorgrad flicked the parchment with a mocking finger. “Think it’ll work?”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Better than your magic, prentice wizard.”

“Let’s get settled.” Ryshad gestured to Shiv. “You and me opposite each other?”

“I’m thirsty,” ’Gren said abruptly. ”Where’s the nearest water fit to drink?”

“Where’s your waterskin?” Ryshad let slip exasperation.

“Empty.” ’Gren waved it provocatively.

“Fill it from the ditch,” Shiv said curtly. “I can make sure it won’t poison you.”

’Gren was about to object and I didn’t blame him when movement in the distance caught my eye. “Something’s up over yonder.”

That settled that squabble as we all ducked into the ditch. I looked out cautiously, my head barely over the lip. “That’s smoke.”

Grey smudges rose listlessly to lose themselves against the leaden sky. The wind carried incautious shouts to us and I began to make out figures among the lumps and bumps of the uneven ground.

“Someone’s setting fires.” Ryshad raised himself cautiously up on his hands for a clearer view. The smoke was marking out a distinct line by now, slewing across the grassland.

“I don’t think they’re coming this way.” I began to sing the hiding song under my breath nevertheless.

“What are they doing?” Sorgrad wondered, frustrated at not being able to see.

We all watched as the men slowly came closer and I picked out some with nets, spreading out ahead of those carrying slowly smouldering torches. “They’re smoking something out.”

The dense tussocks burned sluggishly with plenty of smoke but precious little flame. With the mossy dampness of our ditch, we were safe from any blaze with ambitions to better itself but being smoked like a Caladhrian ham became a distinct possibility. The shifting wind carried rank fumes to sting our eyes and throats.

“Someone’s coming.” Ryshad flattened himself.

I concentrated on the hiding charm as I watched a single figure falling behind the fire setters who were veering off towards a low saddle in the distant hills. Something long-tailed and russet-furred sprang up almost beneath the man’s boots but he paid no heed as it jinked and bounced away, all his attention on escaping notice as he headed for the fallen stones.

“ ’Gren, Shiv, round the back. Sorgrad, you take that side.” Ryshad gave his orders and no one disputed them. We spread out around the ditch, me between Sorgrad and Ryshad, which suited me very well. As I crouched and waited, all the while trying to keep the charm running under my breath, I considered swapping my dagger for a handful of throwing darts. There was a small vial of poison in the same belt pouch, thick paste in a sturdy jar sealed with wax and lead and sewn around with leather. I settled for untying the pouch so the darts were ready to hand if I needed them. I left the poison untouched. We wanted this man fit to give us answers and he’d be hard put to talk if he was frothing at the mouth. Besides, I wanted that venom for whatever blade was going to cut Ilkehan’s malice short. If the opportunity arose I’d happily see him disgraced if that’s what Guinalle advised, but mostly I wanted him dead. Dead, with the least chance possible he’d see his fate coming or have any chance to ward it off. Ryshad could call it justice if he wanted to and perhaps Raeponin would agree. I’d settle for vengeance, quicker and more straightforward.

“Let him get right inside the circle.” Ryshad was braced and ready in the bottom of the ditch. I huddled down as small as I could, all my concentration focused on the incantation.

The Ice Islander didn’t even glance in my direction. All his thoughts were on the pitted stone and fulfilling whatever errand had brought him here. He was stocky beneath his crude shirt and a tunic that was little more than a length of folded cloth sewn roughly up both sides. As blond as Sorgrad and ’Gren, his hair was coarser, more dry grass than finished flax. A smouldering torch hung slackly in one hand and I hoped the idiot wouldn’t set light to the old yellowed grass all around.

“Now,” Ryshad shouted in the same breath as Sorgrad’s whistle and we all sprang up to encircle our prey.

“Run and we’ll kill you.”

’Gren took a step forward to level his viciously sharp smallsword at the man’s eyes.

“Shout and no one will hear you.” Sorgrad held his own sword point down, voice more soothing than his brother’s.

Our captive seemed to understand them well enough, for all the generations separating their bloodlines. Eresken’s antics in the uplands had shown us the Mountain and Elietimm tongues had stayed mutually comprehensible.

Shiv and Ryshad were standing silent but needed no language to promise the man a fight if he tried anything. He looked warily at them before giving me a hard look. I held his gaze with all the threat I could muster.

The man’s shoulders sagged but it was only a feint. He wheeled round towards me, swirling his firebrand to raise sudden flames from the smouldering pitch and jabbed the thing full at my face.

I ducked to one side, bringing my dagger up to slice down his forearm. Ryshad and Sorgrad were almost on him from behind, so I just sought a wound deep enough to give him pause. It was his bad luck he was still trying to take my head off with the torch. He brought it down as my blade went up and the steel went straight through his wrist. I felt it grate between the small bones and hold fast. Recoiling, he pulled the dagger’s hilt out of my hand and the burning brand spun out of his nerveless fingers. I had my arm up to block it but it hit me hard all the same.

“Livak!” Ryshad looked up, horrified as he and Sorgrad pinned the man to the ground.

“It’s all right.” I rubbed a painful bruise but I’d settle for that over being scarred for life. The molten pitch was cold and solid before it hit me. “Thanks, Shiv.”

“My pleasure.” The mage grinned and kicked the torch into the ditch where it landed with a heavy clunk.

“So much for not using magic inside the circle,” observed Sorgrad lightly. “What were you saying about aetheric wards?”

As Shiv looked first chagrined and then puzzled, ’Gren grabbed the Elietimm’s collar. ”Let’s get our prize out of sight.”

The three of them dragged him backwards, his heels scoring lines on the turf as he struggled vainly to dig in his feet. Shiv and I followed as they held him against the pitted stone. Ryshad pulled his shoulders back just enough to curve his spine uncomfortably against the unyielding stone. ’Gren had the arm with the dagger still in it; heedless of the blood running down to lace his fingers.

Sorgrad stood in front of the man, Shiv on one side, me on the other.

“I believe your life would be forfeit for coming here, still more so for leaving tokens.” Sorgrad spoke in conversational tones as he searched the man’s pockets to find an embroidered ribbon tied in an elaborate bow. “More lives than your own, I wouldn’t wonder.”

The man’s eyes darted frantically between us, desperate for some hint of hope. Shiv conveyed a convincing threat, black brows slightly furrowed. Our prisoner wasn’t to know he had no clue what Sorgrad was saying. I at least knew enough to follow most simple conversations but Ryshad would be as hampered as Shiv by lack of the Mountain tongue.

“Let’s get on with it,” ’Gren said with happy malice. “Before his pals come looking for him.”

“Do you want me to try a truth charm?” I asked Sorgrad in the fast colloquial Tormalin we all used in Ensaimin.

“Not for the moment.” Sorgrad switched back to the Mountain tongue. “You’re fortunate we’re no friends to Ilkehan.”

The prisoner stiffened at that name.

“Tell us what happened, here and over yonder, ” Sorgrad invited. The man winced as he glanced at the dagger still stuck into his arm, blood soaking his sleeve. He kept his mouth firmly shut.

Sorgrad gave me a nod and I rattled off the liquid syllables of an incantation to leave those speaking falsehood voiceless until they opted for truth. Panic flared in the prisoner’s eyes as he saw we had Artifice to call on and I smiled warmly at him. Inside, I was chilled by how easily I’d terrified him. Elietimm Artifice was a more potent weapon than steel for ambitious men like Ilkehan. No wonder the Sheltya kept such resolute watch lest any of their number be seduced by the potential for power within their magic.

“What happened?” Sorgrad asked again.

“Ilkehan attacked last year,” gasped the man bitterly. “Ashernan paid full price for his folly in trying to challenge Ilkehan. When Evadesekke fell, we were encircled. Rettasekke might have come to our aid but Ashernan had dishonoured the truce. Olret held his own borders against Ilkehan but would not cross them.” Despair pained him worse than his wound. “His house is burned, his line sundered from past and future. We are no longer his people; we have no hargeard.”

We all did our best to look as if we understood what he was saying. Then puzzlement wrinkled his brow along with his suffering. “Are you of Rettasekke? None other stands against Ilkehan. Or does some eastern sekke still hold out?”

Sorgrad nodded at ’Gren. “We’re Anyatimm. Our companions are of Tren Ar’Dryen.”

The ancient name for the Mountain Men who’d driven out the Elietimm forefathers meant no more to this man than the archaic name for the lands to the west of the ocean. Despair quenched the fleeting glimmer of hope that had chased across his square features. “Then all you bring is war upon us and death on yourselves.”

Sorgrad considered this. “We should not challenge this Ilkehan?”

“He is a monster.” Hatred thickened the man’s accent. “He raises armies that none can withstand and backs them with the strongest magic in these islands. When he took Evadesekke, he bridged the very bogs around the citadel with the bodies of his own dead. He will make truce upon a sacred islet and defile it that selfsame day. He has no honour yet he turns a kindly face to those who acquiesce when he declares himself their overlord. Many submit rather than face his wrath.” Now our captive’s face twisted with the anguish of uncertainty. “He claims the Mother’s favour, that her blessing dwells in his hargeard. He swears he is the sword of the Maker, forged in the fires of these testing times. Many believe it; how could they not?”

He was genuinely asking a question but Sorgrad stayed silent, face as bland as I’d ever seen him waiting for an opponent to betray the runes held close in his hand. Our prisoner shook his head fervently. “The mountains speak with tongues of flame and destroy Ilkehan’s foes in floods of ice and fire. Those uncertain starve, no choice but to fall to their knees before him, if they would not perish. He will be overlord, whether all will it or none. If you are no friend to Ilkehan, you are his enemy. He will not have it otherwise.”

Our captive fell silent.

“So Ilkehan killed Ashernan and now holds his land?” Sorgrad smiled his understanding. “If you accept his rule, you go on much as you did before.”

I explained as much to Ryshad and Shiv who were both visibly frustrated by now.

“So you’re not about to cross him. You’re already thinking you’ve said too much.” The prisoner stayed motionless, watching Sorgrad warily.

“I’ll get him to talk some more,” ’Gren offered obligingly. He made to twist my dagger in the man’s wound.

“No.” Ryshad glared at him.

’Gren shrugged and pulled the blade out in one swift movement. Our captive gasped; suddenly weak at the knees and blood ran free from the oozing wound. ’Gren reversed his grip and cut the man’s throat in a single backhanded stroke. He was dead before his life’s blood choked his final breath.

“Shit!” Ryshad let go and the corpse fell forward on to the dry grass.

’Gren crouched down, stabbing my dagger into the turf to clean it. ”That wants sharpening, my girl.” He handed it back, disapproving.

“What did you do that for?” Shiv was shocked, Ryshad scowling blackly.

’Gren looked puzzled. “He’d said all he was going to.”

Sorgrad had taken a prudent step aside to avoid the spray of blood. “You heard him; he was Ilkehan’s man, willingly or not. We couldn’t risk him trying to garner some favour by betraying us.”

Shiv couldn’t argue with that, though his face suggested he’d like to.

I looked at Ryshad with silent appeal. “Even if he kept his mouth shut for the sake of his own skin, that wound would set people asking questions in a place like this. Then Ilkehan’s adepts could pull the answers out of his head whether or not he wanted to give us up.”

“True enough.” Ryshad was still looking thunderous. “It’s still a coward’s trick to cut a man’s throat when he’s not expecting it.”

“It’s easier than when he does,” said ’Gren irrepressibly.

“Shut up.” I didn’t like being in the middle of this argument any better than I liked the fallen stones encircling us. “It might have been better not to kill him here, if this is some kind of shrine.”

“It’s done, so we move on,” announced Sorgrad. “We came looking for an ally but this Ashernan is deader than last year’s mutton. If this Olret’s still holding out against Ilkehan, I say we find him.” He turned to Shiv. “Where?”

The mage slowly got out his map. “If we’re here, that’s the island with Ilkehan’s stronghold. He pointed to a long, wide island with a broken chain of mountains running through it. A river cut deep into a central plain.

“Kehannasekke.” Sorgrad nodded impatient understanding. “So where’s this Olret?”

“Rettasekke?” I pointed a tentative finger.

’Gren looked dubiously at the islands scattered across the substantial patch of sea between us and the possibility of an ally. ”How do we get there?”

“You say there are fords and causeways over the sands and shallows?” Sorgrad raised his brows at me. “Travel by night and take it slow and careful.”

Ryshad laughed with precious little humour. “I take it you pair are as handy with boats as Livak?”

“There’s not much call for them in the uplands, pal.” There was an edge to ’Gren’s voice.

Ryshad smiled at him. “I grew up on the ocean side of Zyoutessela and Shiv’s a Kevilman. We steal a boat.”

“It’ll be easier to steer clear of other people if we’re on the water.” I looked appealingly at Sorgrad. “And it’ll be faster.”

“Fair enough.” The notion plainly appealed as little to Sorgrad as it did to me.

Ryshad was looking at the corpse with barely concealed displeasure. “We can’t leave this to start a hue and cry after us.”

“We’ve nothing for a pyre and anyway smoke’ll bring people looking for the fire.” I wondered what to do. If Saedrin was marking down my share in this unfortunate’s death against the day when I had to explain myself to him, disrespecting the corpse wouldn’t win me any favours.

“His shade won’t thank you for burning his bones, you ignorant lowlander,” Sorgrad rebuked me. “They should lie where his beliefs held despite all his terror of Ilkehan.” At his nod, ’Gren helped him carry the body to one of the pits beside a fallen sarsen.

“Let me.” Shiv spread his hands and the earth, hard packed by a full year and more of rain and sun, crumbled into fresh-turned tilth, flowing up and over the tumbled corpse. It jerked and twitched with a nauseating parody of life as the soil shifted beneath it and soon disappeared from view.

Sorgrad muttered something sounding vaguely liturgical in Mountain speech too archaic for me to understand.

Untroubled, ’Gren gazed down into the pit. “The Maker can hold his bones until the Mother takes back his spirit.” He used the same terms as the Elietimm had.

“Misaen and Maewelin?” I guessed. Those two gods had been sufficient for the ancient Mountain Men and even these days, the uplands paid scant respect to the rest of the pantheon.

Shiv drew a deep breath and continued to concentrate on the pit. The soil sank down, smoothing itself to the sides of the hole, soon as compact as if it had never been disturbed.

“Nicely done, Shiv,” Ryshad approved from the far side of this new grave. “Now let’s go and steal a boat.”

Suthyfer, Sentry Island, 3rd of For-Summer

Halice came striding across the beach, the early sun throwing a long shadow behind her. “You’re not scrying, are you?” She looked into the pool left shining among the scoured slabs of rock by the retreating sea.

“No,” Usara assured her. He dusted sand off his hands. “Though Guinalle thinks working with a natural pool would make it harder for the Elietimm enchanters to find me.”

Halice looked uncertain. “I thought you needed antique silver bowls and priceless inks.”

“Hedge wizards and charlatans can’t work without them,” Usara told her with some amusement. “And granted, ink or oil makes it easier but I can scry in anything.”

Halice looked at Guinalle who was swathed in a soft grey cloak against the dawn chill. “Have you any Artifice to show you how they’re getting on?”

“I think it best to let well alone,” Guinalle said without emotion. “Shiv was taking them to a place well outside Ilkehan’s domains. If some mischance shows these enchanters my interest there, that could just give him reason to go looking.”

“It’s not worth the risk,” said Usara firmly. “For anyone.”

“You didn’t feel any hint of that Ilkehan noticing them arriving?” Halice looked out at the placid ocean barely troubled by so much as a rippling wave, gilded by the sun huge and orange on the horizon. The tide had washed away most of the evidence of the slaughters.

“Not a suspicion.” Guinalle looked north and east to the unseen Ice Islands as well.

“His kind suspect everyone and everything, every waking moment,” Halice said sourly. “That’s how they avoid knives in the back.”

“They’ve got Shiv,” Usara pointed out. “He can bespeak wizards from here to Hadrumal if they fall foul of Ilkehan’s malice.”

“Which could leave him no better than a drooling idiot.” Halice put her hands on her hips.

“Not if he’s careful, and he will be,” insisted Usara. “And now we’ve worked together, it need only be me, Larissa and Allin bringing them back. We don’t even need Shiv in the nexus.”

“Ilkehan won’t be able to touch mages at this distance, not with Artifice warding them,” Guinalle added.

“As long as he doesn’t somehow rope in those adepts of his to help.” Halice scowled at the central islands of Suthyfer secretive across the dark blue waters.

“The best way we can keep Ilkehan from realising he has enemies close at hand is to keep his attention turned to his people’s fight here.” Usara nodded at Guinalle. “We’ve been discussing how best to do that. Do you fancy working a little magic, Halice?”

“Me?” The mercenary was startled.

“You can hold a tune can’t you?” Usara asked innocently. “Sing a marching pace or a rope song along with a ship’s crew?”

Guinalle had a book in one hand, her fingers pale against the age-darkened patina of ancient leather. Whatever gold leaf had once illuminated the spine was worn to an indecipherable shadow. “The Artifice in these songs is ancient but none the less effective for that.”

“What are you thinking of doing?” Halice was intrigued, despite herself.

“The pirates have one sailing ship left. It’s only a single-masted sloop but it could make a break for the open sea,” the noblewoman replied composedly. “We’re discussing how we might discourage it.”

Halice looked out to sea again. “The Eryngo, Nenuphar and Asterias have closed off escape to the south. We’ve the other three ships keeping watch up here.”

Usara raised his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t six ships north and south be better? Maybe nine?”

Halice folded her arms, head on one side. “How?”

Usara’s grin widened. “Aetheric illusion.”

“I’m certain the jalquezan in the ballad of Garidar and his hundred sheep creates mirror images to baffle an enemy.” Even Guinalle, tired as she was, couldn’t restrain a smile.

Halice nodded but frowned an instant later. “There’s no chance these enchanters are making fools of us with some Artifice masquerade? Showing you what you want to see while Muredarch’s lads come sneaking up the strait?”

“No chance at all.” Guinalle shook her head. “That’s one advantage aetheric far-seeing has over scrying.”

“You’re sure?” Halice plainly wasn’t. A new thought occurred to her. “If you could see through any illusion they wrought, why won’t they just see straight through this trick?”

Guinalle looked affronted. “Because I can ensure that they don’t.”

Usara stepped in. “Halice, please allow we’re as competent in our duties as you are in yours.”

“Of course.” A rueful smile lightened the mercenary’s severe expression and she bowed with mock solemnity. “I beg your pardon, both you and your lady mages. So, how will this work?”

Guinalle held the book up. “We convince one man on every ship that this will defend them and then he can lead the rest in singing it as they work.”

“Then you want the boatswains. They love their ships better than their mistresses.” Halice stretched out her well-muscled arms before easing her broad shoulders with a grimace. “Very well, we’ll have mystical ships as well as wooden ones to blockade these wharf rats. The next thing we need to make is a plan for attacking their hole.”

Usara was watching Guinalle who had paled. “We need to be ready to act as soon as Ilkehan dies,” he said gently.

“I wish I knew how long it’ll take them.” Halice was looking out to sea again. “The sooner we can attack, the less time Muredarch’s mob have to dig themselves in. On the other hand, the more we can drill Temar’s haymakers and Sorgrad’s dock-sweepings, the more chance we’ll have something approaching a corps. Well, that’s something I can make a start on. Let me know what your far-seeing shows you.”

Mage and noblewoman watched Halice walk away across the beach, kicking sleeping feet, pulling resentful blankets away from blinking faces aghast once they realised how early it was. “All of you, boots on. Let’s see if you’re as good with those weapons as you are with your boasts. As soon as we get the word, I’ll want you going through those pirates like scald through a cheap whorehouse!”

Usara smiled before turning serious once more. “Shall we ask the Maelstrom’s master when the best time to contact the other ships might be?”

Guinalle didn’t reply and when the mage looked to see why, he saw desolation in her eyes. He held out an impulsive hand but she affected not to see it, hugging the ancient songbook close to her breast like a talisman. Usara looked away, tucking his hands through the braided leather strap he wore buckled around his waist. He hesitated before continuing with studied casualness. “You said something about finding a way to knock the wits out of those enchanters?”

Guinalle closed her eyes before replying with determined composure. “The question is, which wits should I harass first?”

Bemusement replaced the faint injury in Usara’s eyes. “I’m sorry?”

Guinalle looked at him, puzzled in her turn. “What do you mean?”

“You say ‘which wits’?” Usara spread uncomprehending hands. “I don’t understand.”

“I cannot decide which of the five wits I should try undermining first,” said Guinalle slowly.

“Five wits?” asked Usara with lively curiosity.

“Are you going to repeat everything I say?” Amusement animated Guinalle’s weary face.

“Please explain,” Usara invited. “Talk of five wits means nothing to me.”

“It was the first thing I was taught at the Shrine of Ostrin. The least of adepts would have known it before—” Guinalle bit off her words. “Very well. There are five wits that make up the whole mind, as I was taught anyway. Common wit; the everyday intelligence that we use to live by.” She tucked the songbook under one arm and held up a hand, ringless fingers spread. She tucked her thumb to her palm before continuing. “Imagination; weaving ideas of the practical kind. Fantasy; giving free rein to unbounded notions. Estimation; the sense to make a judgement. Memory; the faculty for recollection.” Guinalle folded her little finger down and considered the fist she had made before opening her hand as if releasing something. “Artifice is the working of stronger and more disciplined will upon the wits of another. Surely Aritane told you that? You said you’d been working with her all winter.”

Usara shook his head slowly. “There’s nothing like that in the Sheltya tradition. They liken their true magic to the four winds of the runes; calm, storm, cold dry wind from the north, warm wet wind from the south.” He sighed with frustration. “We really must find time to sit down and go through your initial instruction. If we’re to find any correspondences between aetheric and elemental magic—”

“I fear that will have to wait.” Guinalle gestured towards the pirates’ cabin. Temar was heading in their direction, picking his way between men hastily cooking scavenged breakfasts.

“Usara, Allin needs your help.” He waved a hand back towards the rough-hewn hut.

“Is there word from Shiv?” Usara was instantly alert.

“No, no,” Temar reassured him. “Allin’s thinking of ways to make the pirates’ lives that bit harder. She was wondering if the pair of you couldn’t combine her fire affinity and your power over the earth to dry up the wells and springs around their encampment.”

Usara rubbed a hand across his beard. “That’s an interesting notion.”

“See if you can do it,” Guinalle suggested.

“It can wait until after breakfast.” The mage looked at her. “You could do with something to eat.”

“In a moment.” She didn’t meet his eye, turning instead to the sea. “Halice wanted me to work a far-seeing to the southern ships. Temar can spare a moment to help. It’ll put my mind at ease as well.”

Usara looked as if he’d like to argue the point but settled for giving Temar a warning look. “Don’t take too long about it.”

Temar watched him go. “What was that all about?”

“Nothing.” Guinalle coloured and held out a hand to Temar. “Help me?”

Something in her voice made Temar uneasy. He scanned the encampment. “I see Pered over there. Let’s get you some breakfast first and then we can both support you.”

“Halice will have Pered copying maps all day.” Guinalle reached for Temar’s hand. “We can do this between us. We’ve done it before.”

“When we were surveying upriver for Den Fellaemion?” A laugh of recollection surprised Temar. “I was going to say that feels like an age ago, but then it was, wasn’t it?”

“Not to me.” Guinalle tightened her grasp.

Temar gasped. “I don’t think this is wise.”

“Let me be foolish, just for a little while.” Guinalle closed her eyes. “I want to remember something better than all this strife.”

Memories wrapped Temar in peace and contentment. High on a hillside above an irregular bay, a perfect circle of dry stone devotedly fitted, offered sanctuary from the sternest weather that might storm in from the ocean. On the inland face, away from the prevailing winds, the gate stood open to welcome any seeking knowledge in this distant place. The path to that gate met the lines of rounded tiles covering conduits bringing water from a springhouse some way further up the slope. Within the wall, a neatly worked garden surrounded each modest dwelling, round beneath a conical roof of slate slabs. In the centre, three bigger square buildings with steeply pitched roofs had larger windows to throw light on the adepts within, unshuttered now that winter’s squalls were past.

Guinalle’s memory bathed the sanctuary in wistful sunlight. She dwelt on the plain house she had shared with two other girls, all of them happy to escape the intricate formalities of noble etiquette and dress. Her mind’s eye turned to the library where nascent aptitude for Artifice won her merit, not blood and heritage. Her piercing sorrow for her gentle, long-dead teachers pricked Temar’s eyes.

“I was so happy there,” she said softly.

“You’d never recognise Bremilayne now,” he began bracingly. ”When I was there last year—”

“I don’t want to know.” Guinalle’s grip was painful. “Don’t you wish it could all be as it was?”

A rush of recollection assailed Temar. A hammer-beamed hall decked with green boughs, a massive fire roaring in the hearth, silks, jewel bright in candle- and firelight, as dancing gowns swished across the rush-strewn floor, matrons as deft as their slender nieces and daughters. Their partners were just as gaudy, gold and silver buttons bright on doublets and gowns woven with shimmering brocade. Double doors opened into a broad room of tables set with every delicacy and temptation that a noble House could command. Laughter echoed silently in Temar’s head, floating above a merry mix of celebration and flirtation laced with pious thanks to Poldrion for another year safely past.

“Festival’s nothing like how you remember it either.” Temar tried to turn to his own recollections to the summer Solstice he’d passed in Toremal. It was a futile effort. Guinalle held stubbornly to her memory and she was far more adept at this than he. Temar gritted his teeth and summoned the thrill and exhilaration of the vivid, sunlit city of Toremal. He recalled his astonishment at the sprawling districts that dwarfed and surrounded the old walled town they had known, at the elegant Houses Sieurs new and old had built to ring the city with all the artistry gold could buy. “The world’s moved on, Guinalle. You should come and see for yourself.”

“See what?” Behind the mask of Guinalle’s relentless self-control, Temar felt grief for her family so long dead, rage at the House that had so long forgotten and then disowned her.

“There’s no use pining for what’s lost.” Temar did his best to quell his unease, trying instead to let Guinalle see how his own sorrow and rage had run their course. “We have to look forward, not back. Tormalin rebuilt itself from the ruins of the Chaos; we’re doing the same for Kellarin.” If the people of Kellarin no longer had any place in this new Tormalin, by all his hope of Saedrin’s mercy, Temar would build them a new home, raise a new power across the ocean.

“Is that what we have to look forward to?” Guinalle’s low voice was strained. “Some mockery of the colony we planned, built on the charity of these Sieurs who rule this changed new world of yours? Oh, I’ve tried, Temar, I’ve really tried. I spend my days curing bellyaches and dressing blisters while people bring me petty squabbles over patches of dirt or smelly animals. Is this to be my life? I was a princess. Tor Priminale was a name to claim precedence in any gathering, honoured for husbanding vast lands and tenantry numbering thousands.”

“Which you turned your back on, as I recall.” Temar kept his tone light with some effort. He didn’t want to provoke her to outright hysteria but, curse her, Guinalle wasn’t going to get away with this nonsense.

“I set my rank aside to study the arts of enchantment. Acolyte of Larasion, Adept of Ostrin: that means nothing now,” Guinalle answered, stricken. “I cannot even reclaim my own Name, I’m just handed over to a House all but dead before we even sailed.”

“Thanks to the Crusted Pox,” said Temar coldly. “That plague and my grandsire taught me a hard lesson very young, Guinalle. I could weep and howl all day and all night but my father wouldn’t hear me in the Otherworld. No brothers or sisters could repass Saedrin’s threshold to comfort me. All I could do was strive with the life that was granted me, to honour their memory.”

“It’s just that I miss them all so; Vahil, Elsire, the Sieur Den Rannion, his maitresse, all those others cut down in their blood.” Guinalle’s brittle belligerence crumbled and a single tear spilled from her brown eyes, dark pools of misery. “My uncle, Den Fellaemion, a byword for boldness and success. He had such hopes, such plans, but he always told me, if it all fell to pieces, we could just go home. Now where do we go? Where do we belong?” She choked on a bitter laugh. “You say so much has changed. Not everything. We flee black-hearted invaders and I hide everyone who escapes beneath enchantment, since it can’t be more than a season before help arrives. But we wake to find I’ve condemned us all to a life where everyone we ever knew and loved is dead, but these same foul marauders are still trying to kill us! Then I learn that my enchantment threw the balance of the Aether into such disarray that adepts clear across the Empire were cast into confusion. With that last prop shattered, chaos destroyed our world, Temar, and it was all my doing!”

“It’s not your fault.” Temar chose his words with exquisite care. “I know how difficult this is, Guinalle. I’ve thought just the same in the silence of the night, and wept for lack of answers and simple misery. Anyway, Nemith did more to bring down the Empire than you ever could. You know what he was like.” He faltered. “But we are alive and where there’s life, there must be hope and however much the world has changed around us, we can still look for warmth and succour to heal our hurts.”

“Can we?” Guinalle took both Temar’s hands and held them tight.

Vivid as a dream on waking, he remembered his desire the first time he’d seen her, his nervous awareness that she wasn’t some easy conquest like those many who roused his passing lust in his carefree youth. Memory sped through his painstaking courtship to linger on his astonished delight when she’d first accepted his kiss, permitted his decorous embraces and soon encouraged more. “Oh, don’t, Guinalle.” He tried to curb his embarrassment but felt a blush burning his cheeks.

“Couldn’t we offer each other a little solace?” she asked defiantly.

“You’re a fine one to talk about the ethics of Artifice, if this is how you’re going to behave!” Temar said crossly.

“You wanted to share everything with me.” Guinalle rebuked him with a memory of uncovering her nakedness in a secluded glade. “You wanted to marry me.”

“You declined that honour, Demoiselle,” Temar retorted, stung. But that wound was not as tender as it had been, he realised with some surprise. “Anyway, you were right; we were never meant to be more than friends.” The sour taint of Guinalle’s unguarded jealousy surprised him. “What’s Allin ever done to you?”

“Oh, no more than any other mage. Just dismissed my Artifice as quaint enchantment from a forgotten age, good for healing but no challenge to their crude and gaudy magic.” With the Artifice linking them, Guinalle’s sarcasm could not hide her hurt.

Temar found he wasn’t inclined to sympathy. “You’re exaggerating and you know it. Usara’s all but split his skull trying to work out where aetheric magic and wizardry might meet. He has nothing but respect for your lore. Saedrin’s stones, Guinalle, Artifice can leave a wizard mindless! Isn’t that enough superiority for you?” Temar fought a desire to take the demoiselle by the shoulders and give her a good shake.

“Once Usara’s worked out how to defend himself against such things, how much more interest will he have in me then?”

Temar saw she was mired in confusion over her feelings for the mage.

“Don’t you dare pity me!” she gasped, dropping his hands at once.

“We can’t go back, not any of us, Guinalle.” Temar rubbed at bruises left by her fingertips. “I’m not doing this with you, not now, not ever again.” He swallowed hard and glanced involuntarily across the beach. Mercenaries, yeomen and sailors were all going unconcerned about their business while he was knee deep in anguished emotion. “Let’s concentrate on the matter in hand, shall we? Debates over present, past or future will be entirely pointless if we’re dead at the hands of these pirates or their Elietimm friends.”

For a tense moment, he wondered if Guinalle was going to weep, storm off, or slap him in the face. Instead she girded her customary self-possession tight once more and held out her hand. “Halice will want to know what far-seeing has shown us.”

Temar seriously considered not taking it. Then he recalled what fits of pique had cost him in the past. Abandoning his aetheric studies to pay Guinalle back for her rejection of his youthful love, for instance. If he hadn’t done that he could work this far-seeing himself. If he were to truly lead these people as their Sieur, he had to know what their enemy was doing. Temar set his jaw, took Guinalle’s hand and tried to summon up every defence she’d taught him in case her feelings got the better of her again.

But Guinalle had turned her back on her own inner turmoil. Her seeking mind rose high above the islands of Suthyfer, intent on the echoes of hopes and desires whispering through the unseen aether. Her stern purpose brought them to the Nenuphar, captain and crew keeping alert watch. Guinalle wove their myriad thoughts into a vision of the empty sea between the headlands that marked the strait between the islands, bright sunlight dancing on the water. Temar saw the Eryngo reassuringly massive in the water, bright red paint weathered to a satin coral hue. Pennants at every masthead declared the ship’s determination to bar the way to any pirate. The Asterias cut broad circles in the sea a little way off, foam scoring the rippling surface as the lesser ship made sure no pirate lurked in the hidden corners of the coast. Her master stood by the foremast, feet solid, watchful and at one with his ship and men.

“This looks well enough,” Temar said with relief.

“Let’s see what else they’re up to.” Guinalle sounded as if her adamant discipline had never so much as splintered, let alone cracked to reveal her vulnerability.

Temar silently thanked Ostrin for his long-dead adepts and the way they had trained her and then winced as the poisonous discord around the pirates’ camp rang like a tocsin in his head. “Can you find Naldeth?” Allin was sure to ask him.

“I daren’t go so close.” Guinalle held herself aloof, the gravel strand a distant vision. “There’s precious little subtlety to their Artifice but even they’d feel me coming any nearer. I daren’t lead them to him.”

“That’s their sloop being rigged and readied.” Temar closed his eyes the better to study the picture painting itself inside his mind. “They’re up to something.”

“He’s not sure what he’s dealing with as yet.” Guinalle watched dispassionate as Muredarch walked to the water’s edge. “He can’t make a plan until he does.”

“We’re not dealing with a fool.” Temar didn’t need Artifice to tell him that.

“They’re coming north.” As Guinalle spoke, Muredarch stepped into a battered longboat with pale new wood hastily patching its wounds. The oarsmen pushed off for the deeper water of the channel. “His enchanters have told him we’re here.”

“What are they doing?” frowned Temar.

“Waiting for instruction.” Satisfaction coloured Guinalle’s thoughts. “It seems Ilkehan doesn’t encourage initiative.”

Temar watched the pirates coaxing the sloop against the discouraging wind Larissa was carefully spinning from the breeze of the open ocean.

“He’s going to offer a parley.” Guinalle dropped Temar’s hand.

He opened his eyes. “We’d better tell Halice.”

The corps commander’s reaction was immediate and uncompromising. “Vaspret! Signal the Dulse. We want her underway as soon as maybe. Ros! Get your troop together and ready for anything. This Muredarch wants to talk.”

“I’m coming too.” Temar caught Halice’s sleeve.

She looked at him, considering. “All right. Darni! You’re in command here. I can’t see how they could try anything but that doesn’t mean they won’t.”

The mercenaries sprang into action leaving Temar and Guinalle looking apprehensively at each other.

Usara and Allin came out of the cabin.

“What’s all the commotion?” the mage-girl asked, concerned.

“Muredarch’s sailing to parley with us,” Guinalle replied, voice steady.

Usara was watching her closely. “Do you suspect some deceit?”

Guinalle’s brow creased. “I don’t believe so.”

“I would welcome your presence.” Temar looked from Allin to Usara. “Both of you. Just in case.”

“You’ll need me.” Larissa had come, unnoticed, to stand a few paces off.

Temar was uncertain. “Darni won’t like it.”

“Darni’s not my keeper,” snapped Larissa.

“No, I mean that will leave him without a mage, should he need one, should we need to send him some message.”

“Any mage can bespeak Darni,” Larissa said quickly. “He’s an affinity, for all it’s too weak to be any use.”

That left Temar on the wrong foot. Before he could think what to say, Allin spoke.

“It’s all right. I’ll stay.”

Temar found either prospect bothered him; taking Allin into possible danger or leaving her here where some unforeseen trouble might come down on her.

“It’s better you take Larissa,” Allin continued. “Her element’s the air, after all.”

“Very well,” he agreed reluctantly.

“Come on!” Halice was waiting by a longboat on the water-line. “We want to be waiting to meet the bastard. He needs to know we’re wise to his every move.”

Temar hurried down the beach, flanked by Usara and Larissa. He managed not to look back for Allin until he was on board the Dulse. Then he found her close by Darni’s reassuring bulk.

“He’ll keep her safe.” Usara stood by him at the ship’s rail.

“And she him, no doubt.” Temar turned to look at the afterdeck where Larissa stood by the helmsman, ill-concealed triumph on her face as she raised her arms and summoned skeins of sapphire power to swell the sails. “Just what is she trying to prove, ’Sar?”

“I’m not really sure.” The mage paused. “I don’t think she is either.”

Whatever drove Larissa, Temar had to acknowledge her skills as her wizardry drove the Dulse through the water so fast that foam surged beneath her prow. By the time the labouring pirates had coaxed their sluggish ship all the way up the strait, the Dulse had been waiting long enough for Halice to become visibly impatient.

“At last,” she muttered as the lookout hailed the expectant gathering on the aftdeck.

“They look exhausted,” remarked Temar with satisfaction.

Larissa giggled, bright eyed. “Shall I slacken the breeze a little?”

“Can you encircle them?” Temar asked. “Make sure they’ve no chance to make a run for it?”

“Oh yes,” Larissa said confidently.

“Mute your magelight,” Usara said suddenly. “He knows we have magic but not necessarily who are the mages.” Larissa blushed and did as she was bidden.

“Temar.” Halice nodded to the pirate’s snake-crested pennant, which was sliding to halfway down the sloop’s single mast. “Time to play the Sieur for all you’re worth.”

Temar took a deep breath as the mercenary ushered him down the steps to the main deck. Usara followed him to the side of the ship as, at Halice’s nod, the helmsman skilfully swung the Dulse closer to the pirates. Not too close. Not within the reach of a grapnel.

“That’s a rich man’s plaything,” commented the Dulse’s boatswain. He gestured towards the gilded carving all around the sloop’s stern, the leaded glass in the cramped single cabin’s windows. The aftdeck above it was barely big enough to give the helmsman room to wrestle the whipstaff but it was adorned with two highly polished lamps and a carved dolphin springing along the stern rail. Another one arched beneath the bowsprit.

“I wonder who he killed to get it,” Temar murmured. He took a deep breath to calm his stomach. This was no time to get seasick.

Muredarch stood amidships by the leeboard that could be lowered or raised to adjust the vessel’s draught. He gave Temar a lordly wave that set sunlight striking blue fire from the diamonds studding his rings.

“Dressed fit for an audience with Tadriol, isn’t he?” Usara leaned on the rail and studied their foe.

“He’s certainly prospered since he met those enchanters in Kalaven,” said Temar. “What is it?” He saw concentration furrowing the wizard’s brow, which did nothing to calm his nervousness.

“I’m making the water run counter to Larissa’s spell.” Usara kept his attention fixed on the sea. “Just so they’re going nowhere without our permission.”

Guinalle appeared on Temar’s other side. “None of the Elietimm are aboard.”

“That’s good to know.” Though Temar hadn’t thought they would be.

“Esquire,” Muredarch called. “I’m offering a parley as you see. May I come aboard?”

“No!” Temar’s reply rang out half a breath ahead of a chorus of refusal from the Dulse.

“You will address the Sieur D’Alsennin with proper courtesy,” bellowed Halice.

“Messire.” Muredarch bowed from the waist and the sloop’s sparse crew did the same. Temar felt sure he was being mocked and anger drove out the qualms in his belly.

“Can you work a truth charm for me?” Temar murmured to Guinalle. “Just for a little while.” She nodded and stepped a pace back, murmuring an incantation under her breath.

“That’s close enough,” warned Halice from the aftcastle as the pirate vessel came almost within reach of the catheads supporting the Dulse’s anchor.

“So, Messire D’Alsennin, what can I do for you?” Muredarch stood up, strong legs in black broadcloth and polished boots set wide to balance easily on the swaying boards.

“It’s your parley.” Temar rested his hands lightly on the rail. “It’s for you to offer me something, isn’t it?”

“I feel I should explain myself first.” Muredarch’s words carried easily across the water, a resonant note to his voice. The man could probably make himself heard in a hurricane, Temar thought.

“You doubtless think me merely a pirate.” Muredarch held up a hand though no one on the Dulse was disputing this. “Well, perhaps. In my youth, yes, I strayed among the free traders but that’s my point really. Pursuing letters of marque, bounties and the like, that’s a young man’s game and you can see my grey hairs from there, can’t you?” His self-deprecating laugh invited them to join in. Temar stayed stony-faced, Usara unmoved beside him, Guinalle’s expression unreadable on his other side. The pirate scanned their countenances, glancing up to Halice high on the aftdeck. His face hardened and Temar looked to see the mercenary commander wasn’t bothering to conceal her disdain as she sneered down on the pirate.

“I’m looking for a new role for myself, something more suited to my years and experience,” Muredarch continued conversationally. “These islands belong to no one and I’ve a mind to set up here.” He smiled amiably before adding with a first hint of menace, “You can’t show me any writ of yours running here, nor yet Tadriol’s.”

Temar ignored that. Halice might not think much of his training with the Imperial cohorts but even he knew better than to pick a fight on hopeless ground. “What exactly are you hoping to set up?”

Muredarch’s smile broadened with growing confidence. “You’ll be hoping to trade across the ocean, when you get this colony of yours on its feet. I could run a nice watering station for you here, offer a place where cargoes could be bought and sold maybe. That would cut everyone’s journeys. Surely, that would be worth a share in the coin you’ll all be earning? Good anchorage, secure warehousing and the men to make sure everyone keeps honest would look a handsome offer to most merchants I know.”

“I find it a remarkable offer from a pirate who’s been preying on our ships,” Temar replied with chilly formality.

“What if I agreed to leave your ships well alone? You don’t bother me; I don’t bother you. No, wait, I can do more for you than that.” A confiding note warmed Muredarch’s voice. “You’ll be a powerful rival to Inglis inside a few years, if you’ve any sense. They won’t like that, now will they? There’ll be letters of marque issued against your ships; they’ll find some reason to do it. If I were to be sitting here, a few good ships to back me, I could turn hunters into hunted. Curtailing the Inglis trade at your nod, I could improve your markets just when you needed it.”

“I hardly think so,” said Temar coldly.

“You know what they’re saying around Inglis, do you? And Kalaven, Blacklith?” Muredarch challenged him, beard jutting. “That you’re an untried boy holding one small corner of a vast land, gold in the rivers for the picking, gems in the sands of the beaches. They’re saying land and riches are for the taking, for anyone with the courage to risk the ocean. What are you going to do when ships land up your coast and set up a town for themselves? I could put a stop to all that before it starts and no one will write me off as some weakling.” The threat in his last words was unmistakable.

Temar matched his forcefulness. “Why should I grant you anything when you have stolen my colony’s goods and made slaves of innocent people?”

“You do have some spirit!” Muredarch laughed. “You want those people back? They’re building my trade town for me just now.” His face turned sly. “Well, perhaps that’s a trade we can discuss. I need rope, sailcloth, pitch for a start.”

“You misunderstand me,” Temar told him coldly. “You surrender your prisoners and your loot and then I will consider letting you live rather than hanging you for the crows for your crimes.”

“There’s spirit and then there’s foolhardiness, lad.” Muredarch scowled at Temar. “Don’t think you’ve got the hand on the whipstaff here. What makes you think you can do anything to stop me?”

“This parley is over.” Temar addressed himself to Halice, striving to equal his long-dead grandsire’s autocratic manner.

She nodded and turned to the helmsman.

“You’re young and you’re foolish, boy,” Muredarch shouted angrily. “Shame you won’t live to learn the error of your ways.” As quick as the snake on his pennant, he whipped a hand back and threw a knife at Temar. The small blade flew hard and accurate before a gust of wind suddenly flung it upward. As it fell to the water, everyone saw the blade bend back on itself, crushed by unseen hands before it disappeared into the depths.

Temar shook his head slowly. “You forget that I have other advantages to counter your years and experience. You’re as much a prisoner here as those unfortunates you’ve kidnapped. Don’t think your little ship can slip past our blockade.” He flicked a contemptuous hand at the sloop, barely two-thirds the beam or length of the Dulse.

“You’d do that, would you?” Muredarch sounded interested. “Run away and leave your men to die unheeded? No, my lad, I’ll be leaving here with all my men and all your goods and in my own good time.” The pirate didn’t look in the least disconcerted. “I have magic to call on too, boy.”

“We’re leaving.” Temar gestured to Halice. The Dulse surged forward, heeling away from the single-masted ship. Temar hurried to the afterdeck, to keep the pirate in sight. “None of you let any magelight slip,” he said anxiously as Usara joined Larissa and an implacable swell gathered to drive Muredarch back between the islands.

The mages looked at each other with some amusement. “No, we’ll be careful,” Larissa assured him.

“I wish I knew I could set a magic working and just leave it like that.” Guinalle watched the seas push the sloop down the strait.

“It’s not an easy as it looks,” Usara said with feeling. “And a spell left unchecked can cause chaos, believe me. Azazir—”

“Magical theory can wait.” Halice tapped him on the shoulder. “Where does this leave us, Messire?”

“He won’t leave things like this, will he?” Temar gnawed on a thumbnail. “We make sure he goes nowhere and see what he comes up with next time?” He looked for agreement.

“He certainly thinks you’ll trade something for the prisoners,” Guinalle said slowly.

“Can we ask for Naldeth by name?” asked Larissa, hopeful.

“Not without Muredarch doubling whatever price he puts on his head,” Halice told her tartly.

“I would not make any deal with him, over anyone,” Guinalle said with evident distress. “He has no intention of keeping his word about anything.”

“I hardly need Artifice to tell me that,” said Temar without thinking. He smiled hastily at her but Guinalle was too preoccupied to notice.

“He’s a pure opportunist,” she continued. “No fool and not given to ill-considered impulse, so we mustn’t make that mistake. He can plan ahead and on a grand scale; he’s determined to make himself overlord of some free traders’ fiefdom in these islands. He’s quite confident he can do it. But that’s as much as he intends. He doesn’t see himself ruling Kellarin for instance, just plundering it judiciously.”

“Where do the Elietimm fit in to his plans?” demanded Temar.

“He really has no idea what he’s dealing with.” Surprise and concern coloured Guinalle’s reply. “He sees them as a tool for his use and believes them entirely loyal to his ambitions.” She smiled without humour. “They have made sure of that. As far as Muredarch knows, Ilkehan is sole ruler of another group of islands, a predator on trade and the Dalasorian coasts much the same as himself, just more successful at keeping himself hidden. He sees him as an equal and a potential ally in gaining a stranglehold on as much ocean trade as possible.”

“So what do we do now?” Temar looked from Usara to Halice and back again.

Halice didn’t seem to see it warranted a question. “Keep them penned in until Ilkehan’s dead. Go in and kill the lot of them.”

“Couldn’t we trade a few things?” Guinalle pleaded. “Not enough to get a ship seaworthy but just to get a few people safely out of there.”

“This isn’t a game of Raven,” Halice warned her. “Don’t try being too clever; we’re dealing with real lives and deaths.”

“We want him concentrating on us, don’t we?” Temar looked at her. “Even with this other Elietimm leader’s help, it going to take time for Livak and Ryshad to reach Ilkehan’s keep. Then they’ve to find some way of killing the man. Keeping him talking might keep that pirate off balance. Then our final attack will be all the more effective, if they’re wrong-footed.”

Halice nodded with a twinkle in her eye. “A fair point, for someone trained in the Imperial cohorts.”

“If Muredarch’s concentrating on us and our deeds, those enchanters will be doing the same,” Usara said seriously to Guinalle who was still looking upset. “That should draw Ilkehan’s attention south and lessen any chance of him suspecting attack closer at hand. Do you want to sit down? Shiv was showing me how he helped Livak—”

But the noblewoman shook off his hand and went to stand at the very stern of the Dulse, looking out over the waves towards Suthyfer.

“Come on, ’Sar.” Temar ducked as the mizzen sail unfurled above him with a rattle of canvas and ropes. “Let’s get back to our island and work out how best to make Muredarch’s life difficult, shall we?”