Corsair (4 page)

Geran remembered the figurehead of the tentacled mermaid. The name fit the ship. “How did they catch you?”

“They stole up on us before sunrise this morning. When the sun came up and we spotted them, they were only a couple of miles off. Master Parman tried to outrun the pirate ship, but the wind died down around noon, and after that Whitewing didn’t stand a chance.” Nimessa hesitated, and she huddled deeper in Geran’s cloak. “They killed everyone else, but the pirate captain ordered his men to spare me for—later.”

“You don’t have to say more.”

Nimessa fell silent, and Geran frowned, digesting the story. Whitewing made five ships he knew of that hadn’t reached Hulburg in the last few months. Piracy was choking the trade of the city little by little. Something would have to be done, and soon. “Well, it’s over now,” he told her. “You’re out of their reach. Try to sleep for a few hours.”

He let her have his bedroll and went to tend to his horse. He gave the animal an extra pat on the neck by way of apologizing for a hard run at the end of a long day. By the time he returned to the fireside, Nimessa was curled up on her side under his blankets and breathing deeply and slowly. He studied her face; she had wide eyes, a delicate point to her chin, and smooth skin that seemed a pale gold in the firelight, hinting at sun elf ancestry. In sleep she looked young and innocent. It was hard to say with someone of elf descent, but he would have guessed her to be twenty-five or so. Younger than Alliere, he decided. And she was fair-haired, while Alliere’s hair was dark as moonshadows. Of course he’d never watched Alliere sleep during the brief months that he’d loved her. Elves didn’t sleep as humans— or half-elves—did. Strange how two peoples could be so much alike and yet so different.

“She’s not Alliere,” Geran told himself softly. With a sigh, he turned away and looked to settle himself for a long night. Nimessa had his bedroll, so all he could do was wrap himself in his cloak. He resigned himself to

a night with little rest and found a spot where he could sit with his back to a wall and have a good view of the overgrown fields outside. The night was still and quiet.

He dozed off a couple of times during the night, but no one came along to interrupt their rest. Finally, as the eastern sky began to gray, he roused himself. He didn’t think Kraken Queen’s men were anywhere nearby, but his trail would be easier to follow in daylight. He packed up the camp quietly, allowing Nimessa to sleep a little longer, then he woke her. “Morning is near. We should move on.”

Nimessa opened her eyes, looked at him, then sat up sharply with a gasp. She frowned in puzzlement, then she remembered where she was. “Sweet Selune,” she murmured. “For a moment I thought it was all a terrible dream.”

“I’m afraid not,” he told her. He gave her a crooked smile. “I’d offer you some breakfast, but we ate everything I had with me before we went to sleep. Lunch is in Hulburg.”

In a few minutes he packed up the last of his gear, and they set off again. A high overcast was stealing in from the west. Rather than heading back to the coastal trail, Geran decided to put the sunrise on his right and cut northeast through the hills. It would shave a couple of miles off their journey, even if it was more rugged country, and it was also much less likely to lead them into any pirates who might still be looking for them. These hills marked the rolling fall of the land from the high moors of Thar to the Moonsea. The folk of Hulburg called them the Highfells, and Geran knew them well. As a youth he’d explored every vale and hill for a day’s ride around his home. They rode at an easy pace for several miles, slowly climbing higher into the hills and leaving the coast behind them. The higher slopes were treeless and marked by wide slashes of bare, mossy rock.

“It’s so empty,” Nimessa said as they crested a ridge. “Nobody lives here?”

“Shepherds and goatherds sometimes bring their flocks into these hills in the summertime, but we’re past that now,” Geran answered. “A few people settled the coastal hills in the time of old Thentur, but that was two or three centuries ago. Now?” He shook his head. “No, no one lives up here.”

“Where are the mines? And the forests your people cut?”

Geran pointed past her at a faint, gray-green range that marched across their path many miles away. “The Galena Mountains. They lie about

fifteen or twenty miles east of Hulburg. That’s where you’ll find the mining and timber camps. West of Hulburg there’s nothing but the Highfells and Thar.” He reined in and swung himself down from the saddle. “You keep riding. I’ll walk a bit.”

“I’m perfectly capable of walking a few miles,” Nimessa answered.

“I don’t doubt it, but I’d feel better if you rode.”

She looked at him with a skeptical expression. “You don’t have to impress me with your gallantry, you know.”

“Would it make you feel better if I said I was mindful of the horse, not you?”

Nimessa laughed briefly and shook her head. She had a pleasant laugh, light and soft, much like many of the elves Geran had known in Myth Drannor. He smiled and set off again, walking at her stirrup as they picked their way down a hillside. If he had his bearings right, they’d hit the inland trail from Thentia soon. “So what business do you have in Hulburg? It seems a fair distance from your home.”

“I’m taking over the management of our House’s ttadeyard. My father isn’t satisfied with the return on our investments in Hulburg. He feels that it’s time a Sokol stepped in to put things in order.”

Geran looked up at her. He wondered if she had much experience in overseeing Sokol business. Was her father seeing to her education in the affairs of House Sokol, or was she expected to take a direct hand in the business? He was more than a little responsible for the decline in Sokol profits over the last few months, since he’d played a large part in exposing the corruption of the Merchant Council in Hulburg—although it was Geran’s own cousin Sergen who’d been behind much of that. In the aftermath of Sergen’s failed attempt to seize power, Harmach Grigor had closely examined the leases and rents paid by each of the foreign merchant concessions in Hulburg. Most of the big merchant costers were now paying much more for the right to cut the harmach’s timber and mine the harmach’s hills than they had when Sergen was running things. Of course, that meant Nimessa would be on the other side of the table from him when it came time to negotiate those rights.

“There are still plenty of Veruna leases available,” he observed. House Veruna of Mulmaster had been Sergen’s chief accomplice in the recent troubles. “House Sokol could do worse than to bid on a few of those, since the Verunas won’t be getting them back.”

“The Verunas have made it clear to us that they’d take a very dim view of other families or costers buying up their Hulburg leases,” Nimessa answered. “They feel they’re still the rightful holders, and they’ll retaliate against any other House that takes advantage of your uncle’s draconian measures.”

“Draconian?”

Nimessa tilted her head. “So the Verunas say. I wasn’t here, so I really can’t make a judgment about whether the harmach was within his rights to expel House Veruna and confiscate their holdings.”

Geran snorted to himself. He didn’t have any doubt of it, but of course he was a Hulmaster. He decided that Nimessa wasn’t in Hulburg to learn anything. She was here because her father trusted her to look after Sokol interests. Nimessa hadn’t forgotten that he was a Hulmaster, and despite the fact that she was riding through the middle of nowhere with a borrowed shirt and oversized cloak, she was careful to keep her thoughts to herself about her family’s business.

The rest of the morning passed by quietly enough. From time to time they talked of small things; Geran told Nimessa some of the stories he knew about the Highfells and their brooding barrows, while Nimessa told him about events and doings in Phlan. They saw no signs of Kraken Queen’s crew or any other travelers for that matter. Eventually they struck the Thentian trail Geran was looking for, and two hours more brought them to the edge of the Winterspear Vale a couple of miles north of Hulburg itself. As Geran had promised, they came to the Burned Bridge over the Winterspear in the early afternoon. .

Hulburg itself lay south of the old bridge, a ramshackle town bustling with commerce and trade. Here, where the Winterspear emptied into the Moonsea, an older city had stood hundreds of years ago. The town of Hulburg was built atop its ruins. On the east bank of the river, the castle of Griffonwatch—home of the Hulmasters—overlooked the town’s landward edge, guarding against attack from the wild lands of Thar. The tradeyards and concessions of the foreign merchant companies stood mostly on the west bank, hard by the town’s wharves. A steady stream of wagons and carts pushed out along the road leading inland, ferrying provisions and tools to the camps outside of town. The ruins of an old city wall meandered around the edge of the town, but stonemasons were at work in various spots—Harmach Grigor was pouring most of the Tower’s newfound wealth into repairing the old defenses.

Geran stole a glance at Nimessa’s face, trying to read her reaction to her first sight of the town. She frowned, perhaps taking in the unpaved roads or the smoking smelters. “It’s not quite as cheerless as it looks,” he told het. “The streets down by the bayside are a little more, well, civilized.”

She summoned a small smile. “It’s busy,” she observed. “That’s a good sign. Besides, I’ve been told that the lodgings in the Sokol concession are fairly comfortable. I’ll be fine.” Then she nodded off to Geran’s left. “It looks like there was a fire.”

Geran followed her gaze. Near the spot where the Vale Road passed through the ancient walls stood a large wooden building on a footing of old stone. One corner was scorched, and a patch of the wooden shakes over that part of the building was missing. A thin plume of smoke rose from a hole in the roof. “The Troll and Tankard,” he said with a frown.

“A tavern?”

“The best ale in Hulburg.” They rode by slowly. A number of workmen were busy with the work of tearing down the ruined siding with hatchets and saws. Several more stood watch over the scene, each with a blue cloth tied around the arm. Geran spotted Brun Osting, the tavernkeeper, studying the scene with his thick arms folded across his chest and a fierce scowl on his bearded face. Brun had run the Troll and Tankard ever since his father died fighting to stop the Bloody Skull ores from pillaging the town five months past. Geran detoured closer and hailed him. “What happened here, Brun?”

The tavernkeeper looked around. He was a young man of strapping build, easily two or three inches taller than Geran and fifty pounds heavier. “M’lord Geran—and m’lady,” he said, touching his knuckle to his brow. If he was surprised to see Geran riding with a pretty young yoman in the front of his saddle, he didn’t say anything. “It was the Cinderfists. A gang of ‘em tried to fire the Troll during the night, but they made enough noise to rouse my brothers. We drove ‘em off and saved most of the building.”

Geran studied the damage and frowned. “Anyone hurt?”

“The Cinderfists carried off two or three o’ theirs, but I don’t think no one got killed. My brother Stunder took a bad cut, but he’s patched up now.” Brun Osting shook his head. “There’s trouble in the making, m’lord. Mark my words. The Cinderfists try burning out good Hulburgans again, and there’ll be killing over it.”

“I hear you,” Geran said. “Is there anything I can do to help? The Hulmasters are in your family’s debt.”

The young brewer waved his hand. “It’s just a few hours’ work to cut some new shakes and planks, m’lord. The Troll wasn’t that handsome to look at anyway, but I’ll bet the smell of smoke’s going to be in the rafters for years.”

Geran shook his head and rode off, allowing the brewer to get back to his morning’s work. When they were out of earshot, Nimessa glanced up at him. “Who are the Cinderfists?” she asked.

“You might call them a guild or militia, or you might call them a gang. They’re mostly newcomers to Hulburg, men from places like Melvaunt and Mulmaster. Many work in the smelters and foundries.” During the troubles of the past spring, Geran had spurred the common folk of Hulburg to band together against the mercenaries of the foreign merchants. It hadn’t taken long for the poorer foreigners to copy their example and begin organizing their own guilds and militias to protect themselves too. The Moonshields—the native Hulburgan militia—were loyal to the harmach. The Cinderfists, on the other hand were largely dependent on foreign merchants for their livelihood. “I can’t prove anything, but I suspect House Jannarsk and their Crimson Chain allies are behind them. Hulburg is full of poor men from other cities who just want a chance to do better for themselves, but there are a few that came here for different sorts of opportunities.”

“Have they caused a lot of trouble?”

“Some,” Geran admitted. “But Brun Osting’s right—there’s more on the way if things keep going on as they are.” They rode into the small square at the foot of the causeway leading up to Griffonwatch. Geran reined in again and looked down at Nimessa. “Can I offer you the hospitality of Griffonwatch? I’m sure that we can find you something better to wear. Or would you rather go to your family’s holding now?”

“The Sokol concession, please,” Nimessa answered. “I have to tell our people there about Whitewing and send word to my father right away. But I thank you for the offer.”

“As you wish. Consider it a standing invitation.” Geran hid his disappointment behind a small nod. He found that he was reluctant to part company so soon. Once he escorted her to the Sokol compound, she would be back among the people and surroundings she was familiar with.

He’d check on her in a few days, and if she recovered as well as he thought she might then he’d leave her be. It would likely be for the best.

Then again … he’d been haunted for almost two years now by the memories of Alliere. Maybe some part of him was hoping that Nimessa was not interested, simply so that he could go on dreaming about the elf princess he would never see again. Or was he afraid of what Mirya Erstenwold might think, if he were to start courting again? He frowned behind Nimessa, unhappy with his musings. He’d never been one to puzzle out the workings of his own heart. All he knew was that he’d spent two years living like a cloistered monk because Alliere had broken his heart, and Nimessa Sokol reminded him that he wanted to be free of her ghost.