The Larion Senators

THE HARBOUR

Major Tavon didn’t look tired, though she had been awake for days, but spry, well-rested and cheery. However, her uniform, unchanged in as many days, was filthy, accompanying what Captain Blackford assumed was the breakdown in Tavon’s mind. Her shirt was untucked, her leather belt and boots mottled with mud and neglect, and she looked as though she had been beaten up by a gang of dockers. It was clear that the once-excellent soldier had been taken over by a destructive force that had driven her to retrieve the stone artefact, whatever it was, and see it safely to Orindale. If we’re even staying in Orindale, Captain Blackford thought.

Major Tavon stood outside the boxy living-quarters stacked on the aft end of the westbound barge like so many discarded crates. She was standing a silent vigil; she hadn’t moved from her place in front of the centremost wooden door. She had instructed Blackford, Hershaw and the single platoon of soldiers accompanying them to make fast the granite relic for their journey downstream.

Colonel Pace had come as quickly as he could to Wellham Ridge. When news reached him that the major had murdered several men and then taken the battalion into the foothills without orders or any communication with any senior officers, he had mustered a company of soldiers, including one squad of the disgusting but brutally effective Seron warriors, and made the trip east in hopes of quelling the unrest.

Major Tavon had killed him with a glance. Like Captain Denne, Colonel Pace’s body was left looking as though he had been torn open by wild animals. One look from her had quelled the company commander accompanying Pace. Even the Seron seemed to know better than to mobilise against the wiry little woman. With Pace dead and Captains Hershaw and Blackford standing by, it didn’t take the colonel’s Orindale security force long to understand that if they crossed this woman, they would die.

Before leaving Wellham Ridge, Major Tavon had appointed the company commander, a captain from Averil named Regic, battalion commander, promoting him to major in an impromptu and illegal ceremony. She then ordered him to take what remained of her battered and footsore battalion along with his own platoons and march them all to Orindale’s southern wharf. When the newly appointed officer asked why, Tavon silenced him with a glare. ‘You will find out when you arrive, Major.’

‘Er, ma’am… you do understand that by taking the entire battalion to Orindale I am essentially abandoning our position in southern Falkan.’ Major Regic looked as though he would rather have been lashed to a torture-rack than be standing here before this foul-smelling, possessed woman.

‘It is of no matter any more, Regic,’ Major Tavon replied. ‘It’s time for this occupation force to move on.’ She turned to leave.

‘To move on, ma’am?’ Regic said hesitantly.

‘To move on,’ Tavon repeated, then shouted for Captain Blackford, who was never far away. ‘Come with me,’ she told him. ‘We need to get messages to Rona as quickly as possible. We’ll need riders, six of our best-’

‘We don’t have many left in any condition…’ His voice died away as he blanched and beads of sweat broke out along his hairline: he had interrupted her.

Tavon stopped, stood ramrod-straight and said, ‘I hope you realise what will happen if you ever do that to me again, Captain.’

Blackford swallowed; it seemed to take avens for his throat to open far enough to speak. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Good. I don’t care what condition they’re in. I want them ready to ride for Rona. This far east it seems a shame to wait until we’re in the capital.’

‘Good point, ma’am.’

‘Now, if you and Major Regic are through second-guessing me, I would like to get our cargo loaded on the first barge ready. Bring Captain Hershaw and one platoon of our healthiest soldiers.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ The captain saluted. After her dough-headed forced march into the foothills, he knew without checking that there was not a full platoon of healthy soldiers left in the battalion. No matter; he and Hershaw would scrape together the strongest of the lot and encourage the major to grant them some much-needed rest on their journey downriver.

Now, standing a post on the barge Tavon had chosen to carry her precious cargo safely into Orindale Harbour, Captain Blackford watched large clumpy snowflakes fall on the Falkan capital in one of the coastal city’s rare snowstorms. The flakes dusted Major Tavon’s head and shoulders; she didn’t bother to brush them off. Blackford marvelled at how whatever it was that had purloined his commander’s body could stand so still for so long, staring out at nothing, perhaps seeing nothing, even ignoring the snowflakes that clung to her lashes and melted into her eyes. Tavon didn’t blink.

The barge passed through the city towards the harbour. Blackford and Hershaw huddled in one of the shack-like cabins. It was clear the major did not plan to remain in the capital very long. Before dispatching riders east towards the Merchants’ Highway and the Ronan border, Blackford had sneaked a look at one of Tavon’s hastily scribbled messages: using Prince Malagon and General Oaklen’s names, she had ordered the entire occupation army in the Eastlands back to Pellia as soon as ships could be commandeered and safe passage ensured. With a northern Twinmoon coming, tides would be high in the archipelago. If the army was needed in Malakasia, there would be no better time to order them all home than now.

Given the inanity of Tavon’s dispatches, Captain Blackford was determined to be as far from the major as luck and determination could get him before word of her exploits reached the officers in Orindale. General Oaklen, wherever he was this Twinmoon, would not appreciate any field commander using his name to direct entire divisions home to Pellia. Blackford guessed that the general had made his way back into Orindale; he might even be staying at the old imperial palace just off the river. He certainly wasn’t within screaming range of any of the messages Major Tavon had sent to Rona. She had run rampant over the battalion while they trudged through the snowy drifts south of Wellham Ridge. Here in the capital, with an entire palace full of Malakasian officers hunkered down for the winter Twinmoon, circumstances would be different; surely she wouldn’t be able to engage in random murders without drawing attention? He couldn’t guess what Tavon had planned for the barge or the stone table, but he was pretty sure that things were about to get much worse.

Puffy snowflakes fell about his face as he stood in silence, waiting for his commanding officer to direct him once again. He watched the city snowscape roll by. The barge was passing through rows and rows of trenches dug hastily two Twinmoons earlier, a blockade of the entire city by every available soldier in the southern divisions. Blackford’s own trench had been several hundred paces north of the Medera, hidden now by the snow.

Then came the imperial palace, a grand old edifice with its sprawling gardens – lying fallow under trampled snow – stretching out towards the wharf and the commercial districts. One wing had been destroyed recently in a freak explosion; Blackford had heard the blast from his trench. Now he could see boarded-up windows and one collapsed wall, the stones of which had been piled into a heap. On through a well-to-do neighbourhood; he wondered what people did to afford such homes, especially in an occupied nation. On his lieutenant’s wages – Blackford didn’t expect ever to see one Marek of a captain’s pay – he would not have been able to purchase even a quarter of such a home. Slate roofs, stone walls, multiple chimneys; who were these people? Business owners? Ship captains? They certainly weren’t soldiers. Most of them had probably worked out some kind of lucrative, symbiotic agreement with the occupation Tavon was gone.

Captain Blackford rushed aft and knocked on one of the dilapidated doors. ‘Hershaw,’ he hissed, ‘wake up, get out here.’

He ran to a corporal standing watch. ‘You there,’ he said to the startled soldier who’d jumped to rigid attention, ‘where is the major?’

‘Sorry, sir. If she’s not back there, where she’s been for the past two days, sir, I don’t know, sir.’

‘Rutting whores,’ Blackford muttered, leaving the corporal looking confused. He went back to rapping on Hershaw’s cabin. ‘Captain, I need you out here right away,’ he called again.

Nervous, uncertain, needing an outlet for his anxiety, Blackford started pacing and swearing. Wringing his hands, he mumbled to himself, ‘Rutting demonpissing… opening the whoring thing again… dead out here… godswhoring cold-’

On the riverbank above him, a heap of large barrels stood in haphazard arrangement outside a waterfront alehouse, a big wooden place with a sloping roof, and plenty of raucous noise coming from within. It looked, sounded and smelled like a lonely soldier’s spiritual redemption, and Blackford found himself longing for a tankard of ale, maybe two. That would set him right. He watched a boy, probably no more than seventy-five Twinmoons, hurrying out of a side-door to scoop a bucketful of what looked to be sawdust from the closest of the wooden containers. That’s for the floor, gods love ‘em, to soak up the blood and piss. He looked again for Hershaw, although for what, other than helping him calm down, he couldn’t say. There’ll be blood on this floor soon enough, he thought to himself. No sawdust here to soak it up, though.

They were about to pass under the massive arched bridge separating Orindale’s northern wharf and its fine taverns, expensive apartments and fancy businesses from the southern wharf, where the many tarred and scarred wooden fingers of the town pier reached out into deep water. Compared with the northern wharf it was a dingy, colourless place, yet this was where Orindale’s heart beat the strongest.

When Hershaw finally emerged, Blackford nearly ran him down. ‘She’s gone,’ he barked.

Hershaw blanched. ‘Gone? What do you mean she’s gone?’

‘I think she’s in there.’ Blackford nodded towards the ramshackle cabin that housed the mysterious stone table.

‘Oh, gods-rut-a-whore.’ Hershaw ran his fingers through sleep-tousled hair and started straightening his crumpled uniform. ‘What do we do?’

‘I don’t know. Wait? Take cover? Swim for shore?’

The corporal Blackford had startled remained at his post, but he was staring at the two nervous officers, obviously straining to hear what was being said. His superiors were not instilling him with much confidence.

The barge passed beneath the stone bridge and, moving quickly with the current, slipped out the inlet and into the harbour.

With the corporal watching, Hershaw tried to project an air of quiet confidence and leadership; instead, he looked like someone with bad stomach cramps, trying his best to stand upright.

Blackford said, ‘Let’s send him.’

‘Who?’

‘Him.’ He nodded towards the anxious sentry.

‘Send him where?’

‘The imperial palace, the old Barstag place. It’s not far from here. He could sound the alarm, rally the whole division, tell the whole story, General Oaklen’s dispatches, Pace’s murder, all of it. But we need to act quickly-’

The barge moved towards a group of mooring buoys several hundred paces offshore; it would be too far to swim in this weather. They had either to convince the corporal to slip over the side right away, or one of them would have to go themselves.

Hershaw pressed his lips together in a tight smile, made eye-contact with the soldier and waved him over It was too late. A low resonating humming sound began behind them, coming from the major’s quarters. Blackford and Hershaw braced themselves for something terrible, but even so, they both jumped when the first ship, a Malakasian schooner moored nearby, began to break apart.

Mark slogged through the muck, stepping over exposed roots and fallen trees, all the while trying to get to the centre of the marble trough, to the bridge. He hadn’t noticed the bridge last time; he had been distracted by the tadpoles with their tumours, and the snakes chasing them down. But the bridge was there, lit by the glow coming from the top of the shallow rise. It spanned the marble trough, a short arch also made of marble, a miniature version of something he might have seen in Venice, the Ponte de Rialto… but Mark decided to cross there, nevertheless. He didn’t want to be back in that water again.

Why have a bridge if I don’t need to use it? Mark thought, and wasn’t surprised when someone answered; it sounded like him.

Now you’re thinking. Why don’t you come up here with me?

He stopped near the edge of the nightmarish koi pond. It was longer than he remembered and lined on both sides by rows of marble columns. Shaker, baker, candlestick-maker columns? Neo-classical. That’s it. Neo-classical columns, the ones like they have in front of the Capitol Building in DC, hell, they’re all over DC, marble bones holding the place up.

That’s not the right place, Mark.

Blow me; I’m busy.

The bridge was a trap; it had to be. He could jump this trough. It wasn’t more than four or five feet across. Hell, he could step over it, step through it. He’d already been elbow-deep in the thing, and as long as there were none of those snakes – he was fairly sure the crippled tadpole sperm were no threat – he’d be fine.

I didn’t put the bridge there, Mark. You did.

I did?

I don’t give a shit if you get across. I’m fine over here by myself.

You sound like me. Why do you sound like me?

Blow me; I’m busy.

‘Fucker,’ Mark said aloud. ‘Where are you? Why don’t you leave the lights on in here, and I’ll come kick the shit out of you, just for fun. Huh?’

The lights dimmed and Mark heard something slither through the slime. Panic gripped him; his voice changed and he begged, ‘No! No, leave them on.’

It does get friendly in here when it’s dark, doesn’t it?

Something crawled from his boot onto the skin of his lower leg; it had too many of its own legs to count. Mark swatted it away and felt it crunch beneath his palm. ‘Screw it,’ he said, ‘I’ll take the bridge.’

Good choice.

He pushed on until he reached the marble trough then hugging the perimeter, he walked on the stone coping. It was solid and clean, free of marshy debris, and it made for faster going. He just had to be careful he didn’t step off and slip into that putrid water. He shivered at thought of it.

The tadpoles were there, not fleeing this time but lazing in the pool. Fat bulbous tumours still disfigured them. There mustn’t be any snakes around, Mark thought.

You want snakes?

No.

The others had a job to do for you.

For me?

For me.

They’re gone?

We have a few snakes left in here if you need one.

Mark squinted through the gloom. Whoever was talking to him – thinking to me – had to be the one working on top of the rise. If he could just get over the bridge, he could run up there, hit him, just a couple of quick cathartic shots to the head, and then make for the clearing. That sky meant safety; somehow he knew it did.

He slipped and fell, hitting his head on one of the columns. The marble was wet in places, and treacherous. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Rolling over, he used the column to regain his feet, but something gripped his right ankle, a whorl of snarled root protruding through the muck. Mark tugged his lower leg, trying to extricate himself. It was hot here, and humid, hard to breathe. His clothes were soaked through with sweat and clung to his flesh like a peelable second skin. He was covered head to toe in marsh muck and shit… and he reached for the root, pulled hard and slipped his boot free.

A coral snake – those are poisonous! – slipped from behind the root and up onto the back of his hand. Mark, covered almost entirely in goose pimples, screeched and jerked back reflexively. The rainbow-coloured serpent went on its way, slipping over the root, across the marble ledge and into the trough.

Told you we had a few more.

Fuck you.

I’m not the one doing this to you, Mark. I was happy with you in the dark. I have what I need, and I’ll call you when I need you again.

The lights began to dim. Before they faded all the way to black, Mark checked the length of the rectangular koi pond. It was marble, narrow, shallow, and lined as far as he could see with neo-classical columns. Where had he seen these columns before? The Capitol Building. Those were the ones that flared up in his memory, anyway.

Wrong again. The voice was fading with the lights. That’s not the right place, Mark, it said, echoing its earlier admonition.

Well, where then?

The column was cold. Real marble had a way of staying cold, no matter where you put it. The marble columns of Hell would be nice and cool, a good place to rest while enjoying a cold drink, whatever they’re serving down there. He tried to memorise the lie of the land between himself and the bridge. If I can follow the columns, I’ll get there. I’ll cross in the dark. That’ll surprise him, the bastard. I’ll cross in the dark and the next time he turns on the lights, I’ll be there.

There were eight or nine columns between Mark and the bridge. They were each about twenty feet apart. One hundred and sixty feet. I can make that. Just stay on the edge, I can make it.

He remembered the coral snake. That one’ll bite you. The others wouldn’t, but that one will. That’s the one I have to watch. Mark used the dying light to check for the colourful serpent. It was there, keeping pace with him in the water. It would know if he moved. He hugged the column; it felt good against his face. He had to stay put. The snake would bite him – more than once, too. It’ll go on for a while – if he tried to reach the bridge in the darkness.

Night closed in.

Where had he seen these columns?

The Capitol? New Orleans? Europe? They were all over Europe. The Gloriette. What the hell is a Gloriette?

Now you’re thinking.

It was dark again; the coral snake slithered onto the edge of the marble trough and waited between Mark’s boots.

‘Over the side! Over the side!’ Gilmour shouted, shoving Garec and Kellin towards the rail where the barge’s first mate had tethered their horses. ‘Just cut the reins, cut them!’ he yelled, checking to be sure the spell book and far portal were safely lashed to his saddle.

‘What is it?’ Steven followed the others. The magic was bubbling over, preparing for battle.

Gilmour ignored him. ‘Lead the horses to that shore. We’ll go north, find cover and dry out. But be quick now, quick. You have to get as far into the shallows as possible. Don’t look; just head for shore.’ The riverbank was no more than sixty or seventy paces off, but to Gilmour the relative safety of dry land seemed a Moon’s travel away.

‘Gilmour!’ Steven shouted, ‘what is it? What’s he doing? What’s coming for us?’

‘I was too tired, too rutting tired from yesterday, from chatting too long with Milla,’ he lamented. ‘I didn’t feel it – I should have, when those waves rolled past.’

‘The waves?’

Gilmour tried to untie his horse’s reins, then, frustrated, cast a noisy blast that blast through the starboard gunwale. ‘Just ride off the deck and into the water. But stay with your horse. They’ll be able to move through the shallows and up the riverbank faster than we will.’

Garec held his own horse by the bridle, trying to keep it steady after Gilmour’s explosion. ‘They won’t step into the river, Gilmour. They know how cold it is.’

‘I’ll help them,’ he said, his hand already glowing red. ‘Now, go.’ Gilmour slapped Kellin’s horse, sending a bolt of Larion lightning into the animal’s hindquarter, and with a loud whinny, the horse, with Kellin in tow, plunged through the broken slats and into the frigid waters of the Medera River.

‘You do have a way with women,’ Garec said with a wry grin.

‘No time to chat,’ Gilmour replied, and slapped Garec’s horse with a similar charge.

Still confused, Steven said, ‘It’s too cold. Why are we doing this? Let’s stand and fight here, where it’s dry.’

Gilmour took him by both shoulders and shoved him towards his horse. ‘Mount up. Stay in the saddle, just hang on. She’ll get to shore; you just hang on.’

‘Gilmour, what-?’

The old Larion Senator pointed downriver.

Steven gaped at the wall of water coming towards them. ‘Oh my dear Christ.’ It was massive, nearly eighty feet high, an unstoppable nightmare dragging all manner of debris: broken bits of lumber, cracked spars trailing torn sails, wooden doors, fence-posts, and scores of uprooted trees. What remained of a ship, wrenched in two, rode the crest of the rogue flood. There were carcasses, too: cows, a horse, most of a pig, and too many people. Steven set his jaw and looked away. Reaching shore was pointless; they would need to be at least a hundred feet higher to avoid being swept all the way back to Wellham Ridge. He knew they wouldn’t make it; the barge would be reduced to splinters.

Somewhere near the bow he heard a scream and then a splash. It was followed a moment later by two others. The crew was abandoning ship.

‘Go, go!’ Gilmour shouted, smacking Steven’s horse into the river behind Kellin and Garec. ‘Stay with her, hold on as long as you can.’ He checked a final time for the spell book and far portal, then spurred his own horse as, with a deafening roar, the floodtide ploughed its way towards Wellham Ridge.

The barge was lifted up and tumbled head over heels before it finally shattered in a prolonged ripping crack, like so many brittle bones snapping beneath the weight of a hundred thousand tons of water.

‘Alen?’ Milla touched him gently on the shoulder. ‘Alen? Are you awake?’

Cramped and stiff as a corpse, Alen Jasper opened one eye, swallowed dryly and groaned, ‘I am now, Pepperweed. What’s wrong? You need the pot? There’s a clean one under the-’

‘Something’s happening,’ the little girl cut him off.

Alen propped himself up and rubbed his eyes. Yawning, he asked, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘The people are in trouble. Should I try to help them?’

‘What are you-?’ Alen sat up, found a goblet beside the bed and drained whatever had been inside.

‘The people, they’re far away, but they’re in trouble from the water.’

Now Alen felt it begin, quietly at first, like the low hum of a familiar tune. He shrugged off his irritability and focused his attention inward. ‘What is it, Pepperweed? Can you tell where it’s coming from?’

‘Far away, back where Gilmour fell when I let him go,’ she whispered.

Alen tried to hone in on the monstrously powerful magic, but it was distant, half a world away. ‘You’re right, Milla,’ he said finally. ‘It’s coming right from where Fantu- um, Gilmour said he was going.’

‘Should I try to help them?’ she asked again.

‘Do you think you can?’ He let the distant drone fade, knowing the shockwaves would reach him in a moment, like huge ripples churning a mill pond.

‘I can try.’

Orindale Harbour was the busiest port in Eldarn, even during the coldest winter Twinmoon. Moorings were rented by the Moon when necessary, but most captains paid for a few days’ anchorage at a time. Cargoes were loaded, offloaded, speculated on, bought and sold, day and night, in all weathers and at all tides. The northern wharf was tucked into a crooked semi-circle of a cove, a natural jetty of topsoil and rocks rolled or dragged across southern Falkan by the river over the ages. The southern wharf was larger, if more sparsely populated, and it dominated the lower part of the waterfront, a sprawling testament to the city’s industrial growth.

On the day that Mark Jenkins sailed into the harbour, thinly disguised as Major Nell Tavon of Malagon Whitward’s occupation army, absent without leave and in command of a missing platoon, there were thirty-two merchant and naval vessels docked, moored or making their way into the harbour on the inbound tide. Hundreds more small barges, skiffs, ketches and transport vessels worked the harbour as well, but Mark was interested only in the fat ones, the fancy sailing ships rigged for the gusty headwinds that blew along the Ravenian Sea. A scattering of naval vessels monitored the passage of merchant ships to and from the wharf; Mark didn’t give these a second glance.

With the spell table opened, his first target was a Malakasian schooner, which started breaking apart audibly. When the mainmast snapped, it was loud enough that Captain Blackford covered his ears and he was still holding his head when the thick post crashed through the foredeck, bringing down the main and topsails in a tangle of canvas and rigging. The hull opened and the sea poured in, but by that time Blackford had been distracted by the devastation in other quarters and when he briefly looked back to the schooner, it was already gone, the few crew members who had escaped rowing towards shore in an overfilled launch boat Mark had overlooked – but before they reached the wharf, he’d spotted it and set the small boat aflame. A couple of sailors managed to swim the last few paces to shore, but that was all.

A Pragan galleon, crammed to bursting with textiles, tanned leather, mortar sand and quarried stone was also on fire. Her crew had been watching the schooner snap in two when their own vessel started to burn. Their screams filled the air as they tried to reach the sides and jump over. The flames, oddly resistant, quickly engulfed the galleon, and once the rigging went up and the fore, main and mizzen masts were burning, the firelight lit the whole harbour. Heat radiated across the water and the sailors working Major Tavon’s barge felt it warm their faces. The fire was a beacon, and could be seen from anywhere in the city, a harbinger of grim events yet to come.

As the news spread, the city of Orindale turned out in force to watch as frigates, barges, two more galleons, a massive carrack and a handful of sleek schooners were all sent to the bottom, ripped in half, punctured, blown to splintered bits or simply set ablaze and burned to the waterline. One sloop, a single-masted vessel from Strandson, was lifted from the water and those watching from the relative safety of the wharf talked for Twinmoons about seeing its keel clear the surface as it rolled lazily to port then back to starboard before wrenching itself in two, snapping like a handful of kindling and disappearing beneath the waves. Two barges were swept clean of their cargo by rogue waves and then broken into flotsam. The bits that remained afloat caught fire, looking like a string of macabre lanterns floating upstream.

A Falkan carrack, one of the largest ships currently making its stately way into the harbour, came about hastily, despite the tide, and endeavoured to tack into the open sea. Onlookers cheered – it was a local ship, after all – and when the captain ordered the top and main sails set, the waterfront erupted with an ovation Blackford could hear halfway across the harbour.

‘Stop cheering!’ he shouted, ‘don’t you understand? You’ll make it worse! Stop cheering!’

The cheering did stop when the carrack exploded. It was almost to the horizon, almost into the currents – almost free – when the proud giant simply blew apart. The concussion was massive, throwing Blackford and his men to the deck as the shockwaves passed by. He had never seen such a disaster, had never heard such an explosion – nothing in Eldarn exploded like that! This was the work of a god.

All manner of vessels set out on a mercy mission in hopes of rescuing the hundreds of sailors, soldiers and merchant seamen now drifting amongst the floating debris, though many had already drowned; either they couldn’t swim or they had succumbed to the cold.

Fathers and mothers, fat merchants, aged grandparents and children barely old enough to grasp an oar all rowed, hauled lines, gripped tillers and tied great loops into heavy rescue lines, a flotilla of venerable, chipped, rotting and battered family boats, making their way into the harbour to save what lives they could. Even the soldiers, the Malakasian brutes who periodically beat them, or hanged them for no reason on the common near the imperial palace, even they did not deserve to die like this.

Mark attacked them all, using five-foot waves to wipe the sea clean of the determined but irritating little boats. The more seaworthy craft, those that rode the five-foot swells, he set on fire or snapped into splinters. There was howling from everywhere as people burned to death, drowned or succumbed to hypothermia: everyone cried for mercy in the same miserable language.

When it was over, the galleon burned brightest, a signal fire warning all craft away from this place. With the chill snaking into their bones, many of the spectators, their lust for carnage sated, realised with a catch in their throats that perhaps the gods weren’t done with them yet; perhaps the devastation they had witnessed was just the beginning; perhaps the city itself was next. There was a moment of stunned silence, broken only by the crackle and snap of the flames and the piercing cries of the injured and dying, then panic blew through the crowd like a fogbank and, pushing, pulling, shoving, punching and kicking, the people of Orindale turned and fled as one.

Captain Hershaw offered a hand to Captain Blackford, still lying on the barge’s deck. They were both in shock, mute in disbelief.

‘Why?’ Blackford finally managed.

Hershaw gestured towards the southern wharf. Three ships remained intact, tied to a deepwater pier and facing north, as if they knew somehow that they would survive the morning. These were frigates, giants, capable of carrying massive cargoes to anywhere in Eldarn.

Hershaw said, ‘I don’t think she wants to be followed.’

‘So we’re going home in those?’

‘Not just us.’

Blackford tried for a moment to figure out who might be joining them when he heard a change in the low humming coming from Major Tavon’s quarters. It was slight but unmistakable as the pitch ratcheted up a tone or two, resonating with an extra pinch of mystical intensity.

He looked at Hershaw. ‘Rutters! She’s not yet done!’

As if hearing him, the harbour itself rose up. Swelling first in the middle, a hummock of smooth water bubbling up from below, it grew into a rounded hill, higher than the tallest buildings along the waterfront. Burning ships tumbled off its slopes and were extinguished in the waves. Bits of jetsam and floating debris slipped down its sides and scuttled across the surface. Still the hill grew until it was a tremendous liquid dome, dwarfing the waterfront like an alpine range.

‘Great rutting whores,’ Blackford said, ‘she’s going to destroy the city!’

‘Let’s go,’ Hershaw said, drawing his sword.

‘She’ll kill us both,’ Blackford argued, ‘we can’t-’

‘We have to.’

Trembling, Blackford followed, hoping he would get the chance to run Tavon through, especially if she was distracted, even for an instant, by the stone table. Or by killing Hershaw.

But before they had reached her, she struck, and the blast ripped the door from its leather hinges and sent much of it ripping through Captain Hershaw’s body in jagged splinters. He was dead before he stopped tumbling, somewhere amidships.

‘Blackford!’ Tavon screamed.

He approached warily. His face and arms were bleeding, and he feared he would spend the next aven picking splinters out of his skin, but he was still here, still alive. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said politely.

‘I want you to watch this, Blackford.’ Tavon was elbow-deep in what looked like a waist-high circular pool. Blackford knew better, though. It was the stone table, transformed somehow by magic into a fluid, unending cauldron of energy and power. He watched the colours change, flickering from hue to hue as the major’s wiry arms pulled and pressed spells and charms about inside. There was an animal, something that looked like a tadpole, and then a snake, and a hideous-looking fellow with a grim countenance, if that was possible. There was a creature Blackford guessed was an almor and then a blurry and indistinct image of a man, a South Coaster hiding in a stone temple with a rainbow-coloured serpent coiled at his feet.

‘Why are you doing this?’ he whispered. ‘Please, Major, enough.’

‘Oh, shut up, Blackford, your breath stinks. It’d stop my watch if I hadn’t given it to that Ronan slut.’ The pool changed again; this time, Blackford could see the outline of the Orindale waterfront. The northern and southern wharfs were on either side of the inlet. He saw the Medera and the stone bridge arching above it, connecting everything in the Falkan capital. The bridge looked different, though: cleaner, whiter, as if it had been carved from pristine marble. When the centre of the table rose up in an aquamarine hummock, Blackford understood what he was about to witness.

‘Please, Major,’ he repeated, shaking.

‘Watch this, Captain.’ She released her hold on the hill of magical energy she had called up beneath the waters of Orindale Harbour and, as the tiny hillock of blue careened through the imagined inlet and across the waterfront Blackford could see lining the circular edge of the stone table, he heard the deafening roar of the actual harbour rushing east to swallow the wharf and flood the Medera from Orindale to Wellham Ridge. Inside the spell table, Blackford saw the waters crash over the stone bridge, collapsing it like a bit of folded paper. Without looking towards the city, he knew that the bridge spanning the Medera had fallen as well. There had been hundreds of people on that bridge. They’d be dead now; there was no way they could have survived. Hearing the fading thunder as the great floodtide rolled east into Falkan, Blackford tasted something tangy and metallic in his throat. The dead would number in the thousands.

‘Captain.’

‘Yes, ma’am?’ He was crying and didn’t care. He wiped his nose with his sleeve. No matter. He hadn’t changed his uniform since they had ventured into the foothills.

‘I want you to seize those three frigates and get them prepared for a journey north.’ She pointed towards the ships still tethered to the wharf. They bobbed gently in the small swells that skidded along the shore in the aftermath of the mammoth tide.

‘No, ma’am.’ Blackford swallowed, coughed and said, ‘Kill me now, ma’am.’

Tavon laughed: a hearty, belly-laugh that chilled Blackford’s blood. ‘Oh, but that is funny, Captain.’ She withdrew her hands from the pool, waved them over the surface and waited while the depthless cauldron congealed and then froze into solid granite. Still laughing, she picked a small bit of stone from its centre and slipped it into her uniform pocket. ‘No, really, Blackford. I want you to get those ships ready. Pay the captains, kill them; I don’t care, but I want them ready to sail by high tide, three days from now.’ Major Tavon chuckled then mimicked him, ‘Kill me now, ma’am.’

‘Yes, please.’ His hands were shaking and he laced his fingers together in hopes of appearing brave.

‘You’re a coward, Blackford, a whimpering baby. You don’t want to die any more than I want to kill you. I need you. When I’m through needing you, if you’ve done what I ask, you’ll enjoy a long life. At that time, whether you’re a coward or a hero, I don’t give a shit. I’ll be going home. So, stop dicking around making jokes and get those boats ready to go.’

Blackford took a breath and tried, unsuccessfully, to compose himself. ‘To where, ma’am?’

‘Ah, finally a cogent response. Good. To Pellia. I want as many soldiers as we can muster, including your former colleagues from Wellham Ridge, on board, well fed and ready to hit the road in three days. Got it?’

‘Hit the road, ma’am?’

‘Right, skedaddle, bug out, take off, hit the highway, jet back to Kansas with Toto. Know what I mean?’

‘Yes, ma’am. To Pellia.’

‘Excellent, Blackford. Now, get us south to one of those open piers. I want you to scare us up some beer and maybe a burger.’

Blackford backed away. ‘Yes, ma’am. Whatever you like, ma’am.’ He kept eye contact with her, not because he wanted her to see that he had summoned every bit of his courage to stand there with Captain Hershaw’s body spilling blood all over the deck, but rather because he did not want to be caught looking at her pocket. The stone. Don’t look down, or she’ll know. But you’ve got to get that stone.

Orindale Harbour was a ruin. The waterfront had sustained massive damage, and apart from the three frigates Blackford had been ordered to commandeer and the few naval ships that had almost miraculously escaped the devastation, there was not another seaworthy vessel in sight.

Jacrys’ skin tightened into gooseflesh. Something’s wrong. He didn’t have much magic, just a few spells he learned from the failed carnival conjurer-turned-fennaroot addict, a lodger beneath the brothel where he had worked as a boy, but he knew enough to sense that something significant was occurring. Rolling over the Ravenian Sea like summer thunder, the distant spells penetrated the weary spy’s bones. Someone powerful was painting with a broad brush.

‘Malagon,’ he whispered. ‘So you’re not dead after all.’ He rested against the bulkhead. ‘Unless,’ he mused, ‘it’s someone else.’

As he did every time he woke, Jacrys tried to draw a full breath. It was the benchmark against which he charted his recovery. General Oaklen’s healer, an elderly man named- named some rutting thing the injured spy couldn’t recall; Jacrys had been so thoroughly smothered by the mind-numbing power of his querlis poultice that he couldn’t remember much more than sleeping, ordering Captain Thadrake to confiscate Carpello’s yacht, and enlisting the services of… Mirron. That was it: Mirron Something, one of General Oaklen’s healers. Otherwise, the only recent memories were recollections of how well he had managed to breathe the previous day, and of Brexan Carderie, the partisan spy haunting his dreams.

He breathed in now, his lungs filling with smoke from the wood Mirron had left burning in the brazier. Jacrys coughed; pain stabbed through his chest like a rapier.

‘Pissing demons,’ he choked, ‘pissing motherwhoring demons.’ He could barely speak; his voice was a whisper, barely audible above the sounds of Carpello Jax’s private yacht, a sleek, twin-masted ketch the bloated Orindale merchant almost never used. Carpello had struggled with sea travel.

‘Mirron,’ Jacrys wheezed. He sucked in a stabilising lungful then cried, ‘Mirron!’

The healer ducked in from the companionway and saw Jacrys fighting to sit upright. ‘No, no, no, sir,’ he pleaded, ‘you must lie back down. Look at you; you’re all sweating and flushed. What were you trying to do, sing?’

Mirron Something was an army officer, but he was more a fixture in the division than a legitimate rung in the military hierarchy. He was over four hundred and twenty Twinmoons old, and he couldn’t remember the last order he had given that anyone had actually followed. He was alarmingly tall and thin, with a head of unkempt lank white hair; he looked rather like a wall torch that had grown tired of standing about in a boring sconce.

‘Breathe, you worthless lump of grettanshit, I was trying to breathe,’ Jacrys growled. Worn out with the effort of summoning the healer, he let his head fall back into the pillows and ignored Mirron rambling on about torn scar tissue, internal bleeding and allowing his lung to heal fully before shouting. Jacrys concentrated on his respiration. In, hollow tree… easy… out, loose gravel… easy. And again. Slowly, he regained control. ‘I wish to go up on deck.’

‘No sir, you mustn’t,’ Mirron said, agitated. ‘You need more rest, another Moon at the very least. Every time you tear that scar tissue, you end up all the way back at the beginning of this journey – shouting, standing up, walking around, all these things put you at risk. You may already be bleeding again in your lung-’

‘I don’t care,’ Jacrys snarled through gritted teeth. Sweat dripped from his face onto the coverlet that stank of smoke, spilled broth and pungent bodily fluids – even his berth revolted him.

‘Here,’ Mirron said as he reached into a leather pouch, ‘let me give you another application of querlis.’

‘No, not that. It’s like getting hit in the head with a club. Trust me on that, I know.’ He pushed Mirron’s hands away. ‘I want to go on deck. I want to breathe something other than the gods-rutting smoke you’ve got billowing in here. I want to stand up and I want real food.’

‘As your healer, I must tell you tha-’

‘You’re my subordinate, and I am giving you an order,’ Jacrys whispered. ‘If you can’t follow it, get Captain Thadrake in here, and I will have you in irons for the remainder of our journey.’ It was an empty threat and Jacrys knew it; Carpello might have left a cupboard-full of silk tunics in the main cabin, but there were no manacles on his yacht.

‘Very well.’ Mirron poked his head into the companionway and shouted for the captain, who arrived a moment later. ‘He’d like to stand up, go on deck and eat solid food,’ the healer said. ‘It may kill him.’

Looking at Jacrys, Captain Thadrake said, ‘You could die. Do you understand that, sir?’

‘Of course I understand,’ Jacrys whispered, ‘and I can assure you I’m not planning on dancing. I just want fresh air.’

‘All right,’ Thadrake said, ‘we’ll see you on deck.’

Mirron said, ‘I reiterate: he could die.’ And then to Jacrys, ‘Sir, you could die.’

Jacrys nodded.

The captain said, ‘Listen, Mirron, if he dies, we’ll toss his body over the side and make for Southport, or better yet, Estrad Village. I’ll buy the jemma-steaks and you buy the beer.’

Jacrys coughed back a rare bout of genuine laughter. Clutching his chest, he wheezed, ‘That’s the spirit, Captain.’

‘See you on deck, sir,’ Thadrake repeated, and was gone.

Once outside, he felt energised, refreshed by the icy cold. He stood at the starboard rail, almost hoping for a wave to splash him in the face. They had come far north, through the Narrows, and were closing in on the archipelago. With any luck, they would ride the Twinmoon tides through the Northeast Channel and into Pellia. Memories of his youth intruded as he stood there. Below, in his berth, only pain and anger kept him company – and the girl, don’t forget her. She’s been with you all along – but out here, Jacrys found himself wrapped in a sense of homecoming.

Watching the waves, he remembered his father, and evenings kneading bread dough beside the hearth. His mother had died when he was young, and he had grown up with only his father to look after him – but that was fine; he had no regrets. It had been so long since he had been in Pellia that he wondered if his father was even alive, and if they would find anything to say to one another. Would he even recognise his father if they met in the street? ‘It’s worth a try,’ he murmured to himself. They were approaching the Northeast Channel; it wouldn’t be long now.

‘Feeling better?’

Jacrys jumped. In his melancholic, injured state he had permitted someone to sneak up behind him. Perhaps his decision to retire had come at exactly the right moment. Smiling, he said, ‘Captain Ellis?’

Wenra Ellis joined him at the rail. Middle-aged, wiry and obviously tough, Captain Ellis had run Carpello’s yacht for nearly thirty Twinmoons. The sandy-haired sailor had skin like tanned hide, but she was not unattractive; still, Jacrys seriously doubted that Carpello had ever managed to bed this woman. He enjoyed a good fight in bed, but Carpello also enjoyed winning, and Jacrys didn’t think Captain Ellis was the type of woman to tolerate that sort of nonsense.

‘Going home?’ she asked him.

He nodded. ‘I grew up just south of the city, on the west bank. It was a nice old place. My father did a lot to make it comfortable for us.’

‘Is that where you’re bound?’ She checked the main sheet and automatically tugged on a ratline.

Jacrys said, ‘Eventually, maybe.’

‘Is he still there?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I don’t know who you are, or what you do for General Oaklen,’ Captain Ellis began, ‘but I’m impressed that you’ve been assigned a healer and a company commander just to see you home.’

There was no longer any point in hiding who he was, Jacrys thought. ‘I was a spy for Prince Malagon and his officers, a good one,’ he whispered. ‘Recently I killed a powerful partisan, Gilmour Stow, who was rumoured to be a Larion Senator – though I don’t know if I believe that, because when I stabbed him, he just died. No magic, no great blinding light, nothing. But I’m sick, I’m tired, and I’m hurt. And more than anything I want to go home.’

‘Aspy?’ She sounded a little surprised, and maybe a little impressed.

‘I’m out of shape,’ Jacrys explained. ‘I’ve been hit too many times, climbed too many icy mountains, stabbed too many sleeping partisans. Just now, you came up behind me, and I had no idea you were there. Five Twinmoons ago, I would have gutted you before you’d even realised I’d heard you.’

Captain Ellis backed away a step, her forehead creased. ‘I’ll be careful next time.’ She forced a chuckle.

‘Not to worry,’ Jacrys said, ‘all I want now is to go home.’ That isn’t true, you liar. More than anything, you want Brexan Carderic: you covet her, you who have never coveted anything. You want to feel her, to taste the salty tang of her sweat as it runs across her skin, to taste her blood as it splashes over her breasts. And you want to kill her, and that’s what’s different: you’ve never wanted to kill anyone before, not Steven Taylor, not even Gilmour Stow. You want to kill Brexan Carderic.

‘Well, sir,’ she said, ‘going home can be a cathartic experience for any of us. Perhaps you’ll find the rejuvenation you need to get back to work.’

‘I hope not.’ He stared out across the waves. The winter sun, cool but bright, shone in blinding glints off the water.

‘Looking for redemption?’

‘There is no redemption for me.’

‘Just peace and quiet then?’

‘A place to regroup, to decide what comes next, and especially to let go of a few things.’

‘I know that feeling,’ she said a wry laugh.

‘You do?’ It was Jacrys’ turn to be surprised.

‘I work for a Falkan traitor, a man who beats and molests young women. It’s no secret: Carpello Jax is a monster. Do you know how many nights he’s slept in the main stateroom while I’ve been up here, considering what an enormous favour I could do for Eldarn if I just slipped in and slit his throat?’

‘Many?’

‘None.’

‘None?’ Jacrys smirked. ‘Let me guess: because you have learned how to let go of a few things.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So how do you look at yourself in the mirror, Captain?’

‘I don’t,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve never been what anyone would call pretty-’

‘Now, I wouldn’t-’

‘So,’ she cut him off, ‘I’ve never had any need for mirrors. If I need to get a look at myself, I do my job well and then try to catch a clear glimpse of my face reflected in the silver that fat son-of-a-whore pays me to take care of his little boat.’

‘That sounds like overly simple cynicism, Captain Ellis.’ Jacrys gripped the rail with both hands. The talking was wearing him down.

‘Overly simple cynicism, Jacrys?’ Captain Ellis laughed. ‘You have many mirrors in your house?’

He was beaten – but he felt a bit better. The truth was doing him good. ‘No, I suppose I don’t.’

Captain Ellis changed the subject. ‘You don’t look good. You’re too pale; you ought to have some water, maybe some fruit. I’ve got tempines in my personal stores.’

Jacrys managed a smile of thanks. ‘I am hungry, a little.’

‘You want to go back below, lie down for a while?’

‘No. I’d rather stand here a bit longer and then maybe try to eat something, maybe drink a beer.’

She nodded laconically; Jacrys guessed that Captain Ellis wouldn’t waste a great deal of energy flailing about out of control. ‘Very well,’ she said, walking away, ‘suit yourself.’

‘Captain?’ Jacrys called, and fell victim to another coughing spasm. Something came loose in his chest, something lumpy, tasting like salt. Whatever it was threatened to make him retch, and he swallowed: he didn’t want to think that he was bleeding internally, and he especially didn’t want to be spitting blood in front of Captain Ellis. Bleeding into his lungs was bad enough; having Ellis see it, somehow, would be worse.

‘Are you all right?’ she called, hurrying back. ‘Let me get Mirron. Where is he?’

‘No!’ Jacrys wheezed, ‘no, I’m fine, I just need a minute.’

She guided him towards the forward hatch and helped him sit, then offered him water.

Jacrys ignored her, asking instead, ‘Captain, have you ever coveted anything? Anyone?’

Surprised, Captain Ellis tilted her head for a moment, considered the sea rushing by and said, ‘Just this, I guess, the chance to feel this degree of freedom, to earn my silver doing my job, rather than peddling something – bread, wine, my tits and backside – you know.’

‘I understand.’ As another who had revelled in his job, Jacrys felt an unexpectedly strong kinship with the Falkan sailor.

‘Why?’ she asked, ‘what is it you covet?’

Again Jacrys surprised himself by being truthful. ‘A woman.’

Captain Ellis laughed. ‘Isn’t that always the way it goes?’

‘Not like that,’ he interrupted, ‘she beat me – she was a beginner, a clumsy pawn in a dangerous game and I could have killed her several times over. Probably should have, now that I think about it. But oddly, I didn’t. And in the end, she sneaked into the most secure barracks in the Eastlands. I have no clue as to why. It was essentially suicide, even to try, but she knew my personal password, killed my guard and stabbed me in the chest before leaving me for dead.’

‘She broke in just to kill you?’ the captain asked. ‘What did you ever do to her?’

‘I killed her commanding officer.’ Jacrys frowned. ‘He was just a platoon lieutenant, a nobody.’

‘Maybe she was in love with him – was it a him?’

‘Yes, and maybe you’re right, maybe it was love.’

‘So, you covet killing this woman? This clumsy traitor-spy who tempted death just to kill you and avenge her platoon commander?’

‘I do.’ Jacrys shifted on the hatch, trying for a comfortable position.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know why,’ Jacrys said, ‘and if you don’t mind me speaking plainly, it’s more than that, because I don’t know if I want to screw her like a whore, or just kill her and open her up to see if what’s inside is really flesh and bone.’

‘You realise, Jacrys, that we can sail this little boat all the way across the North Sea and back again, but you aren’t going to find any redemption, any peace, any quiet, anything at all, until you deal with this irritating little fixation of yours.’ She absentmindedly tugged her tunic straps tight and pushed her hair more securely beneath her hood. ‘There is no rest for those of us who covet.’

Jacrys smiled, then, afraid his teeth might be coated with blood, pressed his lips together. ‘I know, but maybe I deserve it. A measure of unrest might help me remember who I have allowed myself to become.’

‘A measure of unrest does that to all of us, Jacrys.’ Captain Ellis patted him on the knee. ‘I’ll send Thadrake; he’ll help you find something to eat.’

‘Thank you, Captain,’ Jacrys said. ‘I hope I haven’t frightened you, or made you feel uneasy. That wasn’t my intention.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Perhaps we can talk again later?’

‘You just get busy healing.’

‘I think I already have,’ Jacrys whispered.