The Wayward Knights

Chapter 14

The humans had not only put the tent in a clearing deep in the forest, they had tied down the edges all around it, except for the front, which was guarded. So Horimpsot Elderdrake went in from the back of the tent, using a sharp knife. He did not cut the canvas because it was tough and this was his best knife. Also, the cut would show. Instead, he cut the ropes and vines tying down the edge of the tent, then lifted the canvas and crawled in. If he could get out again before anyone came by, he would pull the canvas, ropes, and vines back into place. Then nobody would see anything until daylight, when he would be far away.

The opening in the front of the tent let in enough light for Elderdrake to see that the guard was on duty but did not have his mind on it. He and a local farm girl seemed to be much more interested in each other than the guard was in watching the tent.

So Elderdrake could wander around the tent the way he sometimes wandered around a potter's shop in town, at least until the potter saw him and chased him out. He found every kind of horse gear, including saddles, bridles, and even some horse armor. There were helmets and breastplates for more men than the kender wanted to think about, also swords, knives, waterskins, boots, belts, and bandages. He found crates of hard bread, salted meat, and dried fruit, barrels of wine and ale, and even a few bottles of dwarf spirits.

Whoever had put all this here was obviously putting together a private army. Elderdrake could recognize the House Dirivan marking, and saw it on the crates and barrels. But why put the supplies here when the men were somewhere else?

Down here to the south of Tirabot, there were fewer eyes to see. If they saw the supplies with no men about-well, crates and barrels without men didn't make an army. If they saw the men coming, unarmed and walking, that also would not look like an army. Only when the men reached the tent would Tirabot Manor's enemies have an army. By then it would be too late for the manor.

Quite ingenious, for humans. In fact, Elderdrake was growing more impressed by the ingenuity of humans every day. Not their judgment-they were using all this ingenuity in a cause that no kender would have thought worth a cup of the cheapest wine-but their ingenuity.

A kender can be noisier than a dozen minotaurs or more silent than falling snow. Elderdrake was the latter, as he slipped out of the tent, covered his tracks, and hurried off to warn his friends.

Torvik had taken the smallest boat from those tied up around Red Elf. It was still intended for two pairs of oars, and muffling the one pair he was using made it slower still.

The only other choices would have been company, when he'd rejected even his sister's, or swimming. The second course didn't risk betraying Mirraleen so much as it risked his not reaching her at all. She had assured him that Wilthur's Creation would not strike near the fleet, but there was plenty of empty water between the fleet and where he was to meet her.

Also, Wilthur's pet might not be the only thing with a taste for human flesh swimming around in these dark waters. Sharks, giant eels, nagas, and dwarf kraken could all have appeared by now, drawn by curiosity about the noise the offal regularly flung into the water by the sailors.

The oars made only the faintest of thumps as the boat slipped across the smooth water. From time to time Torvik halted to tighten the sweat band that kept his eyes clear and to look over his shoulder for the landmarks.

Mirraleen had given him marks to steer by, whether the night was dark or clear. Tonight it was clear, but Nuitari was the highest of the moons, with Solinari only a faint glow from behind the Smoker. He had more light from a vent on the Smoker's flank, which every few minutes glowed yellow. By the yellow glow, he could see ash, steam, and hot gas spewing into the air.

Was it his imagination, or had the Smoker been working harder at earning its name lately? He knew that spells cast outside common laws and customs governing magic could have unpredictable effects on nature. He also hoped that somebody with the fleet, even a minotaur, was making it their business to predict what the Smoker might do.

The boat was grinding its way past the jutting teeth of a reef before Torvik was aware of it. He jerked his mind from a pleasant image of Mirraleen standing waist deep in the water, with flowers in her hair-white ones would go best with that auburn, he thought-and started to back water. Then he realized that, barely thirty paces away, phosphorescence glowed a dim green around a rock shaped like the head of a goat with one horn. That was the last mark. Stand on the rock, Mirraleen had said, then wade in the direction the horn points until you reach a beach of black gravel.

Torvik swung his boat around and found a place where for now it would be hard to see from either landward or seaward. The tide was at the ebb, of course, so in time it might rise out of its hiding place. So he gave the boat a good long mooring line, to keep it at least from drifting away.

The water was almost milk warm. When Torvik stepped off the rock and began wading, it was barely up to his chest. He tried to move silently, but was sure that he was making more noise wading than he had in the boat. He saw the phosphorescence glimmer about his torso, and reached down for his dagger.

With the knife unsheathed and in his hand, he felt better. It seemed a long way to the land, and a little rust on the blade seemed a small price for an easy mind as he pushed through the water.

Zeskuk was drowsing when he heard the knock. Wrapping his kilt hastily about him, he opened the door.

It was Juiksum, Thenvor's son. Fortunately, he did not look as if he was bearing a challenge. He might be sober, even grim, but he was not showing the ritual anger of a challenge-bearer.

"Message from Sir Darin," Juiksum growled. "Is sunset tomorrow acceptable for your match?"

Zeskuk nodded.

Juiksum coughed. "It must be written," he said.

"Then bring me pen and paper-no, wait, I keep some here."

With sleep-slowed hands, Zeskuk laid out paper, pen, and ink on the folding table beside his bed. With sleep-blurred eyes, he wrote his acceptance and handed it to his visitor.

Juiksum read it, then asked, "You did not mention torches."

"We can decide that at the time," Zeskuk said. If he was going to end a busy day tomorrow by fighting a human warrior fully equal to a minotaur, he did not want to spend any more of tonight chattering like a squirrel over trivial matters.

"You have faith in Darin's honor," Juiksum said. It did not come out like a question.

"Yes," Zeskuk said. "Do you?" He almost added, "If you have no more wits than your father…"

Juiksum smiled. "I do. Neither of you need fear treachery, and Darin's night vision must be equal to yours or he would not be a warrior of the Solamnic Orders."

Having night vision equal to Zeskuk's was no great achievement. If they fought without torches, the minotaur chief knew he might end with a few aches and bruises he would otherwise have escaped. But honor was worth more than a few broken bones, let alone aches and bruises.

"Lujimar is sacrificing tonight, that this fight bring justice and honor," Juiksum said. "He did not say to whom."

With ears ready to carry tales to Thenvor, that was probably wise.

"I hope we can also have peace with the humans, for here, for now," Juiksum added.

"How so?" Zeskuk said. "Is that not arguing from fear?"

By instinct, Juiksum's nostrils flared and his fists clenched. Then he shook his head. "It is arguing from a desire to win the great victory rather than the small one," he said. "Cleansing Suivinari needs human and minotaur both. It is a coward who runs from a fight or counts the odds, when another forces it upon him. But it is not a coward who refuses to fight one weaker than he, who has not challenged him, and may even help him."

Zeskuk pushed the desk in and lay down. "Juiksum," he said, "I wish you prowess in the arena equal to your wisdom. Surely then you will become Emperor."

"Do you not fear that my father will then try to rule through me," Juiksum asked, "or at least gain my ear?"

"No. I think you are more likely to have his ear-in a gold frame, hanging on the wall of the throne room. To warn those who offer unwelcome advice. Good night, wise young warrior."

"Good night, sagacious war chief," Juiksum replied.

It was pleasant, Zeskuk reflected as the door closed behind Juiksum, to deal from time to time with those who presented no mysteries.

Mirraleen crouched behind a boulder as Torvik stepped out of the water. It seemed as if the night was holding its breath. Even her acute hearing could make out no sound louder than the water dripping from the young man.

He looked like a pirate, with his well-crafted dagger in his hand. The only way he could have looked more like one, indeed, was to have the dagger clenched in his teeth. In spite of what it did for his appearance, the dagger spoke of his good sense. No one could have followed her underwater, at least not without detection, or crossed the magic-haunted island to come up on her from landward. Torvik was not so fortunate.

She must have made a sound, or Torvik had hearing like an orca, because he suddenly stiffened and went into a fighter's crouch. The dagger gleamed dully, reflecting the last of the phosphorescence. His movements, she could not help noticing, were sure, graceful, and spoke of his being both strong and dangerous in spite of his lack of height.

Also, in spite of his lack of years. By human measurement he was young, by elven measurement a child, but by what Mirraleen saw he was a man in strength, skill, and wisdom. She could safely trust him with much, beginning with the secret of the underwater way into the heart of the Smoker.

She stepped out from behind her boulder. His dagger darted up, and she realized that he had the skill and the dagger had the balance for throwing. She raised both hands, palms outward, then touched a finger to her lips.

He said nothing until they were well inside the boulder-strewn approach to the beach. Even then, he first kissed the finger she had held to her lips, with a smile that made him look much younger or much older-perhaps both at once.

Then she put both hands on his temples. She realized she wanted to play with his dark hair, now damp, soon to be stiff with salt. She furiously mastered an impulse that she knew arose from too many years of celibacy, and would keep more important work from being done tonight.

Torvik was a gentleman. He did not reply to her touch by more than a smile that told her that touch was not unwelcome.

"We cannot be here long, or talk much aloud," she whispered. "If I touch you like this, I can put into your memory the way to enter the caves below the Smoker, where Wilthur's Creation lives. Once it is slain, the back door to the mage's stronghold is open, and no spells he can cast in front of it can save him."

"He has worn three robes, so can he not cast spells in three ways?" Torvik said, sensibly. "Moreover, killing the Creation will not be easy work."

"You will have help," she said. "I hope."

"Best if you can do more than hope," he told her. "Mirraleen, should you not come out to the fleet, and speak to at least a few others? There are some whose silence I would swear to, and who would hide your coming and going. Then whether the help you hope for comes or not, you and I will not be alone."

"I thought young men always wished to be alone with fine women," she teased.

"Yes, and the finer, the more alone. Much more alone than we could ever be on Suivinari Island, where only a few thousand humans and minotaurs, the odd wizard and his pet monsters, and the gods know what else disturb our peace.

"But jesting aside, what do you say?" he said. "I know it will be even more dangerous than the common waterfront tavern, but-"

She laughed in spite of herself, trying to muffle it with her hands. When she could speak plainly again, she shook her head and said, "Not until after the way is in your memory. There have to be two of us who know the way from the sea to deep in the rock. Two of us able to speak to the friends I hope will come to help. This is knowledge that cannot die with me."

"Then what we are doing is much more dangerous than a tavern," Torvik said. "I always thought there was a reason I stayed out of them." He raised one hand and twined the fingers in her hair with the touch of one who would gladly let his hand linger, or even wander.

She warmed to that touch, but took his hand and pushed it down into his lap. "Be still," she whispered. "This will not take long, and when it is done…"

She herself did not know what would come after. For now it was enough to press her hands to his temples again, and feel his memory ready to listen to her message and hold it.

The Dimernesti known as Medlessarn the Silent flopped ungracefully on the rock. As swiftly as he could, he flowed upward and outward into his elven form.

He sometimes wished the gods had made the Dimernesti's animal form something other than a sea otter. The creatures were splendid in the water, hardly less so than the porpoise-form of the Dargonesti, but they were only a trifle less awkward than a porpoise on land as well.

With his head some six feet above a rock already that far clear of the water, Medlessarn could hear, smell, and if necessary see much farther. He also had less natural senses at his command but only moderately, and these might be too dangerous to use until he learned what the enemy here could sense with his own magic.

The breeze was toward the land, so scent and hearing both failed him. In his home waters perhaps he could have picked out a fellow Dimernesti against wind and water alike. Amid this riot of new sensations (for Suivinari was long unvisited by his clan), he could hardly have smelled a rotten fish.

At least he had come this far unmolested. It would be as well to wait until at least a few more of those who heard the call swam up. Then if they met danger farther inshore, someone would surely escape, to warn the rest of the shallows-dwellers. Certainly the sea otters here had not of late been hunted nearly as much as one would have expected, from a fleet of this size. That gave them the right to any assistance the shallows-dwellers could give, without danger to themselves.

As for more-well, that was why Medlessarn had swum so far in so little time, to answer a warning so full of mystery and menace. To whom, he had yet to learn.

Torvik had just put into words for the third time the way into the beast's lair. He was now ready for the next test of his memory-drawing a map.

He wondered what else he might be ready for, afterward.

If he was not back aboard Red Elf by dawn there would be uproar, confusion, and a search for him that might undo all his night's work. Reluctantly, he concluded that there would most likely be no "afterward."

He hoped that Mirraleen would not be offended.

He reached for his pouch, to see if the paper and charcoal in their fishskin wrappers had survived the journey. As his hands undid the straps, his ears caught the faint click of pebbles. It came from inland, not the way other Dimernesti would come to help, if they came at all. Inland swarmed with Wilthur's creations, likely enough to bar any human or minotaur passage, so it could not be a friend who made that noise.

Torvik put a finger to Mirraleen's lips, then to his own. She nodded. He stood up-and the night was shot with raw fire in half a score of hideous shades, as something tried to tear his skull open.

He reeled back against the rock, clutching at Mirraleen's arm to draw her with him to safety, as he imagined. Instead she was down on her knees, clawing at her temples, as if the same pain was tearing at her skull. He thought he heard her cry out.

Then the pain ebbed as the darkness around them turned into a wall of human forms. Most were garbed like sailors. All were armed. Two stepped forward, and what these wore was no garb an honest sailor ever had.

They wore short, sleeveless black tunics and boots that even now Torvik thought must have been hideously awkward and uncomfortable on rough ground. Over their faces they wore masks, with prominent eyes and noses, but no mouths. The masks were white, in startling contrast to the black tunics.

The masks and tunics together had been the ritual garb of the Servants of Silence, the bloody-handed terrormongers of the kingpriests. The order had been formally abolished; no one had ever said that all who had served it were dead, though. Now even its abolition seemed doubtful.

Torvik endured, as if it were happening to someone else, the sailors binding him and Mirraleen. They were skilled. He knew he could not break out of his bonds and doubted that Mirraleen could do so swiftly enough to escape notice.

Two sailors jerked Torvik to his feet and held him, as one of the mask-wearers stepped forward and stood above Mirraleen. He held a tapered piece of hardwood in one hand.

"Now," an unfamiliar voice echoed from behind the mask, "you who call yourself captain, yet consort with abominations-do you know her secrets?"

"No," Torvik lied. "She keeps them close-"

The mask-wearer backhanded Torvik across the face. "Your light punishment for what I think is a lie," the masked man said. "Now, witness hers."

The wood-the club-came down across Mirraleen's shoulders.

Presently she was screaming. Long before that, Torvik had wished he could close his eyes, then his ears. Now he wished he could knock himself senseless or force these-their own word "abominations" was good enough-to do it for him.

At last he realized that easy escape would be a dangerous course. It would assure the enemy that he was weak, or lying, or worst of all, both. Then Mirraleen's torment would go on until one of them broke and confessed, or until she died.

He stared straight ahead and tried doing navigational calculations in his head, to keep his mind busy. He succeeded well enough that he only heard the reply to something a sailor muttered.

"No, we came here to punish consorting with abominations. Not to do it ourselves."

From that answer, Torvik knew what the question must have been. Mirraleen was spared that particular horror, at least. But his vengeance for what she was suffering would be just as bloody. He suspected hers would be, too, if she was fit to take it.

"Pirvan, Pirvan! Wake up!"

The knight realized that Haimya was no longer in bed beside him, but standing over him and shaking him. She was not yet dressed, but fully awake.

She also looked as if her wakefulness at this hour-it would hardly be dawn yet-came from no good news. Her face was grim enough for an image of Takhisis.

"Wilthur the Brown has fled to the fleet, asking us to save him from his own pet?" Pirvan asked. He had to say something.

Haimya looked ready to slap him. "Torvik is gone," she said.

"Gone? How? Where?"

"If I knew that, I would have said that he is dead or abducted or sprouted wings and flown away like a pegasus," Haimya grumbled. "No one knows. What is certain is that trouble is coming because of it."

Haimya told her husband the crisis the fleet faced, briefly but still so completely that Pirvan only had to interrupt her twice with questions. Torvik had not slept aboard Red Elf last night. His sister Chuina had admitted seeing him, but not seeing him depart, nor would she say what they had talked about.

So Istarans had arrested Chuina on suspicion of guilty knowledge of her brother's disappearance. This had led to a protest aboard Red Elf, whose crew refused to release Chuina into Istaran custody. In this refusal they were supported by many elsewhere in the fleet, particularly those who had once sailed with Jemar the Fair or his kin. They were certain that Chuina could not have done it.

Equally certain were the Istarans. Chuina might not have done it but surely knew who had. Protecting her did her brother no service, nor her mother, nor her father's memory.

Indeed, it was mutiny. The penalty for mutiny could be death, enslavement, or at least losing ship, weapons, property, and all hope of sailing with Istar's blessing.

The people of Red Elf had told the Istarans what they could do with their blessing. In detail, and at some length.

Pirvan frowned, and asked, "You say, Red Elf s people?"

"Yes."

"The Istarans among the fighters, too?"

"I have heard that some of them at least signed the proclamation," Haimya told him.

Pirvan sat up. "Well, that's some good news, that Red Elf's crew is united behind their captain and his sister," he said. "Fewer heads for us and Gildas to send home to Eskaia, if Torvik does not come back."