The Wayward Knights

Chapter 8

Torvik looked aft from Red Elf's stern platform, wary of the swings and lunges of the tiller as the ship cut across the choppy sea under full sail. The fleet was steadily falling astern, with some of the smaller or more distant ships already hull down. He could still count seventy or more, from flyboats smaller than Red Elf and barely fit to be this far offshore, to Shield of Virtue, looming like a temple amid peasant huts.

Indeed, the fleet looked like a city afloat, and carried as many people, even if there were fewer women and hardly any children among them, and only the arts of war, seafaring, and magic represented. Torvik hoped that such strength would make even minotaurs think that prudence and honor together spoke in favor of peace.

Not that any number of human hopes ever moved a single minotaur, when he or she was determined on a fight. The best Torvik expected was that the strength of the human fleet would give the minotaurs pause, while they looked for weak spots at which to strike without sacrificing themselves to no purpose.

That might be enough, if a quick answer came to the mysteries of Suivinari Island. No sailor, human or minotaur, enjoyed dangerous mysteries that had already cost them a safe watering stop, and might spread farther out to sea. Even those sailors of either race who might in principal welcome war would in practice be content with being once again unable to sail safely near Suivinari.

The problem lay in the sailors not being altogether their own masters. War chiefs among the minotaurs and merchants and kingpriest's friends among the humans could both be ready to shed others' blood to pursue their own ends, which lay in the misty realms of racial honor and the pursuit of money and virtue.

Torvik wished he had been able to speak to his sister Chuina, serving as a corporal of archers aboard Windmaster's Gift. At her rank, folk doubtless talked more freely to her than they ever would to a captain. But the two ships had never been close enough for an easy visit, and letters or signals might be read or seen by unwelcome eyes.

Torvik looked forward. The waist of his ship was crowded with more than forty fighters sent aboard her from the rest of the fleet, and what planks the newcomers didn't cover, their baggage and weapons hid. He had asked that they all be fit to row as well as fight, because much of the advantage of a threefold increase in his fighting strength would be lost if the forty could not lend a hand at the oars. Red Elf's own crew lacked the numbers to both fight and row, and facing minotaurs or unknown minotaur-slayers, she might have to do both at once.

That was as chance and the gods would have it, however. The fighters looked stouthearted and their arms were neither too shiny nor too rusty. As to their thoughts, Torvik would not have read those if he could have. He did hope that sharp ears among the loyal folk of Red Elf and prudence among the fighters would forestall any treachery.

He would gladly die fighting minotaurs or anyone else, as long as his short life would end with honor. He would shed neither his own blood nor his people's to provoke a war with the minotaurs from which others would reap the glory.

Beyond Red Elf's raking prow, the peaks of Suivinari's mountains began to peer over the horizon.

Zeskuk's cabin was low for a minotaur's comfort, not surprising in a ship built for humans, however generously. It was likewise so dim that he needed a lamp lit even now, with full daylight on deck.

The whale oil in the glass globe of the lamp rippled as Cleaver rolled to the swell in the anchorage. Zeskuk scraped soot from the chimney with his dagger, and with his wrist wiped more from the inscription on the lamp's bronze base.

"To my brother Zeskuk. May his honor never be questioned."

The lamp was a gift from Zeskuk's eldest sibling, Yunigan, some twenty years ago, when the elder minotaur's honor was called into question. He had sailed out with two ships to silence the questions, and had done so, though at the price of his own life and one of his ships. The battle against the humans of Golden Cup and Jemar the Fair's squadron had, so the tales ran, been one for the praise songs. There had been honor enough for both sides before the battle was done and the last body cast into the sea.

Footsteps thumped on the deck outside and a heavy fist rattled the door on its hinges.

"Enter, Sister," Zeskuk called.

Fulvura strode in. She was tall for a woman, able to look her brother in the eye. She wore a kilt and tunic, a dagger on her belt, and a shatang slung across her back, as well as her usual sober look.

"The lookouts on the Green Mountain report the human fleet in sight. A scout is in advance, bound for the island," she said.

"Let him come."

"Even if he steers toward our anchorage?"

"Even so," Zeskuk said. "If the lookouts are alert, we will have ample warning. If they are not, I will have their heads."

"One of them is Thenvor's cousin. He might call challenge on you for his cousin's blood."

"Let him. I fear Thenvor somewhat less than I do the humans," he grumbled.

"What about dividing our ships," Fulvura offered, "sending half to the north of the island, to lurk inshore and thereby conceal our strength?"

Zeskuk considered his sister's suggestion. It smelled of prudence, even caution. Not something to let pass unnoticed in another minotaur-unless she was one's last sibling, most trusted adviser, and right more often than not.

"That hides," he said flatly "It also divides, and in the face of what lurks below as well as in the faces of the humans."

"Who knows if what lurks below even has a face?" Fulvura replied. "The humans at least are known enemies. Hiding a portion of our strength works against them, unless they are uncommonly shrewd."

"They have been known to be so."

"Now who argues for marching with babe's steps?" Fulvura said, with a guffaw that made the lamp rattle on Zeskuk's table. "We are the Chosen Ones, the Destined Race. It was never written that any one of us could be sure of being alive to see our Day of Destiny. But I would be as glad as not to be alive on the day of victory, to hear the praise songs."

"Are you sure, Sister?" Zeskuk asked. "What if the praiser cannot sing?"

Fulvura had begun to glare before she understood the jest. Instead, she made the lamp flicker with her laughter.

Torvik had no orders about how to approach the island. This suggested either great trust in his knowledge of the waters, in spite of his youth, or a great reluctance on anyone's part to be responsible for his death through obeying their orders.

He would have liked to believe the first, and it might even be true for some. He suspected the second, but it might come as much from fear of the wrath of his mother, father-by-marriage, and friends among the Knights of Solamnia as from anything else.

Regardless, Torvik steered a course well to the east, to come upon the island as far from the common haunts of the minotaurs as possible. Whether this also took him far from the haunts of the minotaur-slayers, he did not know.

What he had seen and the tales he had heard all spoke of uncanny and deadly things haunting all shores of the island. So there might be a creature or creatures lairing in the reefs on every side of the island, like monstrous watchdogs set there by Zeboim or someone in her favor.

Or there might be only a single creature behind all the tales and the dead minotaurs, lairing where it could strike with equal speed in any direction. Torvik wondered at this. There were no tales of sea caves in the Green Mountain. Many were said to pierce the sides of the Smoker, but the heart of a volcano still seemed no place for even a creature created and guarded by magic.

Both mountains towered against the sunset before Torvik ordered Red Elf's sails doused and all hands to the oars. Under those oars the ship glided swiftly across waters barely ruffled by the dying evening breeze, while the handful of crew not rowing kept watch and made ready to lower the anchor.

Torvik himself did a stint at the oars, to encourage the others. He came on deck afterward soaked with sweat, half-deafened by the clatter and squeal belowdecks, and ready to gulp in the sweet salt air of the evening as if it were the most delicate wine.

Now it was nearly dark, the wind altogether silent, and the only waves were those Red Elf made by her passage, rising white at her sharp prow and falling away into the purple twilight astern. Even on deck, the oars made such a din that Torvik was sure that only a minotaur too old and weak of hearing to be sailing in a warship could fail to hear them from the far end of the island.

Yet one sound did touch his ears, over the rowing, although so lightly that Torvik himself at first doubted what he heard. He also saw that no one else seemed to hear it, so he held his tongue.

Far off, from the direction of the island, he heard the yelping bark of sea otters.

The Dimernesti woman who named herself Mirraleen (when she did not wish to give her full name, not much shorter than a gnome's) was called the Red Walker by the true sea otters of her band. Walker for her shapechanging power, that let her take elven form and stride upright on the land, and Red for the color of her hair.

She did not know how she came by that auburn hair that flowed down to her knees when she let it fall free. There were many fewer of the Dimernesti, the shallows-dwellers, than there had been in the days when they and the Dargonesti ruled the seas of Krynn and even struck at the rule of the elves on land. Among those long gone were most of the Dimernesti elders who could have pondered or even explained why Mirraleen had auburn hair and a paler blue skin than all the others of her race whom she had ever met.

Not that these numbered more than ten, so they proved little. She sometimes wondered if that was all the Dimernesti now left alive, or at least all who still swam in the waters about northeastern Ansalon. Sometimes, she even feared that this was indeed the case, or the call for help she had sent out when she learned of the peril rising from Suivinari Island should have long since been answered.

It seemed too likely that the work here was in her hands alone, and that of any friends she could make. Nor did she have great hope of such friendships. The humans had slain so many shallows-dwellers in both elven and otter shape that it seemed likely they thought only with their harpoons and bows, where it concerned the Dimernesti.

But the barking she heard was a signal from her band of the approach of a lone ship. As she willed herself into sea otter form, she heard the watchers identify the ship, and then, much to her surprise, its captain.

They had recognized on deck the same young man who had been on the island less than half a year before. He had used wits rather than steel, and insofar as she could read his thoughts, they were bloodthirsty toward no one.

Mirraleen thrust her tail against the water and darted forward as if she were trying to reach the finest of oyster beds before her kin ate it bare. It might be foolish to trust any land-dweller, and it was certainly foolish to hope for more from him than learning of his fleet's purpose in these waters.

But even that would put the Dimernesti-would put Mirraleen, who here and now was the Dimernesti-well forward of where she had been.

She was listening now, for the sound of the ship's oars beating the water. Before long she heard it, even over the rushing water of her own swift passage. She rolled on her back to judge time by the moonlight on the surface, broached to judge the ship's course, and saw it proceeding as her friends had described.

Pursuing and meeting it might be easy. Meeting the captain alone would surely be otherwise, but far more important. Mirraleen eased her pace through the dark waters. She would need the strength to take her elven form and the breath to speak in it, when she met the captain.

The bow anchor line rasped through the blocks until the anchor splashed into the glassy waters of the bay. A second rasp and splash told Torvik that the stern anchor was also down.

Held at bow and stern. Red Elf heeled to the tide, for the moment the only movement in the water. It was a Solinari ebb, gentle enough that Torvik had no fear for the ship from it, or from the weather, unless the wind got up from the southeast in a way not common at this time of the year in these waters.

He told himself sharply that he was a boy whistling to keep up his courage as he walked past the ruins of the ghoul-lord's castle. All the men aboard Red Elf together could probably not save her from what had slain the minotaurs.

The best he could contrive was to see that their deaths would not be in vain. The fleet was coming for knowledge. Very well, let him lead boats out to buy that knowledge-with blood if necessary.

Since even a son of Jemar the Fair and Eskaia of Encuintras could only be in one place at a time, he decided to begin scouting the bay with a single boat. Eight picked companions, all skilled as sailors as well as fighters, would surely discover what was there to be discovered. If they returned, splendid.

If they did not, Red Elf could still fight and sail.

Torvik thought of picking the boat's crew only from Red Elf. But that might sow distrust enough to make matters worse, and taking nearly half his people would leave the rest outnumbered four to one if treachery came to the minds of others.

So it was half folk of Red Elf and half the embarked fighters who grasped the oars of the ship's longboat when it finally splashed into the water. Torvik himself took the tiller, which was not so easy a task that he could be called slack, nor so demanding that he could not meanwhile keep a sharp lookout.

Now, if he only knew what-besides sea otters who might or might not be Dimernesti, and something that might have no shape ever seen by the eyes of gods or men-he was watching for!

Wilthur the Brown scried attentively. As his knowledge of the visitors grew, he regretted more and more that he had not given his Creation a shapechanger's power.

He had tried, but it had enough wits and will to call itself sacred to Zeboim, and threatened to invoke her aid if he changed its shape. Otherwise he would have gladly made it present itself as a band of sea otters, so that the Dimernesti among them would be speared as readily as their non-elven shapemates.

Wilthur could not be sure that his Creation was telling the truth, but he was always prudent in dealing with the evil sea goddess, daughter of the Dragon Queen herself. Zeboim would be a bad enemy for any mage whose use of all three colors made him an offense to gods of all three natures. She would be the worse, for his being on an island in the middle of her watery realm.

The scrying glance went blank for a moment, then a single colossal eye stared out of it, a green circle within a black circle, and around that a rim the color of old and ill-kept ivory.

"Seek the boat," Wilthur said, though not in words that it would have been lawful for any human to hear. "Seek the boat, and let it be as before. But wait until the shallows-dwellers are close enough to seem the cause of what befalls the boat."

The eye blinked. The intelligence of the eye's owner allowed it to be stubborn as well, and it insisted on understanding Wilthur's commands before deciding whether to obey them. By the time the eye closed in obedience, he wondered if the boat might have wandered beyond the range within which his Creation could sense and pursue it.

If he had to guide it by magic, anyone listening for his spells would hear far too clearly for his peace of mind.

Wilthur the Brown fretted to no purpose.

His Creation's senses were quite adequate to finding Torvik's boat, for all that it was moving along at a good pace, cutting across the tide rather than battling it head-on.

Torvik's first thought at the splash ahead was that they were approaching a reef.

So was his second thought, as a part of the darkness turned solid and jagged, like part of a reef thrust above the water. It was when the solid darkness moved, then opened to become a gigantic claw, that he realized they had found their quarry. Or, more likely, it had found them.

Something wrapped itself around the tiller, nearly jerking the solid bar of wood out of his hands. Then the tiller jerked again, slamming hard against Torvik's chest. He heard ribs creaking, and was sure his spine had suffered grave hurt as his back crashed against the gunwale of the boat.

Then the boat tilted, as one sucker-studded tentacle heaved the tiller completely out of its socket and brandished it in the air. A man rose to retrieve it. Another tried to pull him down. A third drew his sword.

Torvik shouted at all of them to get down, but it was too late. The boat had tilted beyond its balance point even before a second length of rank, sucker-studded flesh slapped over the gunwale with a hideous sound, like a man drowning in boiling glue.

It caught the man with the sword, who slashed at it. Purplish fluid oozed, the arm twitched but did not loosen its grip, and in the next moment the man was gone, over the side. He had time for one despairing shriek before he was pulled under.

Then the boat itself went over. Torvik had just decided to leap overboard and dive after the man, who could hardly save himself unaided, when he found himself in the water regardless. He was trying to count the heads bobbing in the water beside the boat's upturned bottom, when what might have been a band of iron gripped his left foot.

His father's sword was long and supple; it could thrust as well as slash. He thrust down, and the iron band's pressure eased.

Then a second took his other foot, and a third looped about his sword arm and squeezed. He had sworn many years ago to die rather than let the sword fall into an enemy's hands, but it fell out of his hand now because his fingers could no longer grip anything.

Fury and shame left no room for fear in Torvik Jemarsson, as the Creation's tentacles drew him under the water.