Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) (32 page)

‘Oh, dear.’

Jilseth looked hastily around but there was no one close enough to have heard Mellitha’s dismay. Following the magewoman’s silently pointing finger, she saw twin pillars of smoke rising. Fire burned in the waist of each galley.

Those Aldabreshin swordsmen who had swarmed aboard were fleeing the ships. Some fell headlong down the ladders in their haste. Hauling themselves up from the stones, they limped away or clutched a broken arm across an armoured chest.

That disembodied head rolled back through the glistening pools of blood and the mutilated corpses. Relshazri watchmen had appeared in the alleys between the tall storehouses.

They wore Aldabreshin chainmail; the Magistracy could well afford to buy the finest armour. They did not favour Archipelagan swords though or the heavier, straighter blades more usual on the mainland. The watchmen all carried polearms with iron-shod hafts. Each one topped with a collar of spikes below a curved cutting blade which was tipped in turn with a piercing spike a handspan long.

‘You put out that fire or you answer for it!’ The nearest sergeant’s outraged bellow fought the chaos spreading further along the quay.

More watchmen were yelling the same. Other detachments escorted frightened men hauling laden handcarts. Jilseth recognised the ungainly bulk of a fire pump; the squat apparatus framed by horizontal bars on either side.

The Archipelagans recognised the leather serpents looped on the tops of the pumps, waiting for quenching water to be forced through their coils towards each one’s gaping brass head.

At first the Aldabreshi retreated, swords lowered, too bloody to sheathe. They shouted back at the watchmen, some in Relshazri dialect, most in the Archipelagan tongue. Jilseth couldn’t make out what any of them said.

Then she couldn’t hear anything at all. Her head pounded painfully in this magical silence.

‘Fire-starting in any Relshazri dockyard is a capital offence.’ Mellith looked grim through the blurring of Velindre’s azure magic.

The tall magewoman repeated the shouted Archipelagan justification. ‘But only fire will cleanse the stain of magic from this harbour which they consider as good as their own territory.’

Mellitha shook her head, in dismay rather than denial. ‘We must stop this getting any worse.’

‘And quickly.’ Jilseth flinched as a handful of Aldabreshi attacked a hapless fire gang.

Several Relshazri reeled away clutching spurting cuts. One fell to his knees, mouth gaping in a silent scream as he clutched the stump of his severed hand.

Watchmen immediately raced to their aid. The first Aldabreshi to stand his ground was skewered by a pole arm’s needle-point driven deep into his chest. The next was felled by a slicing blade sweeping low to smash his knees. The butt of the weapon finished him off, crushing one eye socket into bloody splinters.

Jilseth found the carnage all the more ghastly for unfolding in the utter quiet of elemental silence.

‘No one must suspect magic,’ Velindre insisted.

‘There’s no law forbidding us here,’ Jilseth protested, ‘and the Archmage—’

Mellitha cut her short. ‘We cannot have the Archipelagans believing that the Magistracy let wizards loose on them.’

‘Quite so.’ Velindre’s eyes were darting this way and that. ‘Jilseth, blunt blades and offer some shield to those being attacked. I’ll stifle the fires until the Relshazri can get through to douse them.’

Before she could hear what Mellitha was supposed to do, Jilseth was deafened by the maelstrom of yells and abuse. She staggered backwards into the unyielding door of a building. To her relief, the other two magewoman followed her unintentional lead into that precarious shelter.

Hastily gathering her wits, Jilseth was relieved to see that most of the Aldabreshi had recovered their senses sufficiently not to attack the Relshazri without direct provocation.

Though the Archipelagans were adamant that the galleys should burn. They drew up into haphazard ranks all along the waterfront. Any attempt by the watchmen to force a path for a fire pump prompted savage retaliation.

Jilseth focused on the Archipelagans’ single-edged swords, each one razor sharp. It was the work of a moment to smooth her magic along the metal. Now the blades would bruise and perhaps cut flesh but no longer slice clean through bone.

For an instant, she lingered, her affinity flowing through the intricacy of the weapons’ steel. These layers upon layers of wafer-thin metal were quite unlike the watered silk patterns that she had felt in mainland swords.

She threw off the distraction, turning instead to the closest handcart. The fire gang cowered behind a handful of watchmen. Three Aldabreshi attacked; intent on destroying the pump itself. The first fell, betrayed by a slick of blood. As he sprawled headlong, the second lost his footing and then the third.

Jilseth’s wizard sight caught fugitive glimpses of emerald magelight all along the dockside as men were thrown off balance by the gore underfoot. Not so obviously as to look ridiculous or, worse, suspicious, but sufficient to rob their sword strokes of fatal effect if not deadly purpose.

A Relshazri sergeant drove his men forward to seize that breach in the Aldabreshin line. More watchmen rushed to support them, shoulder to shoulder with their pole-arms jabbing and stabbing, their longer reach defying Archipelagan swords.

The Relshazri wedge drove through to the edge of the quay. The men divided into two resolute lines, back to back and forcing the Aldabreshi to retreat step by step. The watchmen found firm footing while the islanders slipped and stumbled.

Now solid bulwarks guarded the fire pump’s path to the waterside. The watchmen gave the fire gang no choice but to advance. Despite all the frantic Aldabreshin efforts, the handcart rattled to the water’s edge.

A swift tug of Jilseth’s magic and the water serpent’s leather loops obediently uncoiled when the sweating pump master grabbed them. As the tail end fell down from the quayside into the harbour, she felt the surge of Mellitha’s affinity sending seawater soaring up into the pump.

As soon as the gang started hauling the side bars up and down, Jilseth turned her attention to the brass valves between the pump and the serpent’s gaping jaws. If the pump master ever wondered at how easily the stiff metal turned under his hands, he could put it down to his own strength born of terror.

Water spewed from the brass serpent’s mouth, arcing upwards to fall down into the midst of the galley. Seeing Velindre’s sparkling magecraft cleave a path through the air for the jet itself driven on by Mellitha’s wizardry, Jilseth had no doubt that the fires would quickly be quenched.

She turned her attention back to blunting the ire of those still intent on mayhem. She threaded her wizardry through the links of their armour. Though their chainmail had been wrought of fine steel, now it burdened the wearers like lead. Their swords weighed twice and thrice as much in their weary hands. Exhaustion would force the men to a standstill.

Once again, sudden silence left her momentarily dizzy.

‘Those fires won’t be rekindled.’ Velindre’s shimmering lips curved in a cold smile.

‘We’d better make haste home.’ Mellitha’s water affinity had coloured the invisibility cloaking her almost turquoise after all her exertions. ‘I’ll be summoned by the Magistracy before the next chime.’ She turned her glittering gaze on Jilseth. ‘You had better come with me as Hadrumal’s envoy.’

‘I can’t claim that office,’ she protested.

‘Why not?’ Velindre challenged her. ‘Planir sent you here and you’ve just proved your worth as a wizard. There’s no need for any more nonsense about whether or not you can control your affinity.’

‘I—’ Jilseth stared at the hard-faced magewoman. There was no denying that she had forgotten all her doubts amid this chaos. That she had worked her magic with the ease and competence which she had truly feared was lost.

She also realised that she was rank with sweat and though translucent as she was thanks to Velindre’s wizardry, she could see her gown was spattered with tiny dark stains. It was scant comfort to see the other two magewomen were equally dishevelled.

Velindre’s iridescent eyes were unreadable through the veil of the magic. ‘I know what it’s like to have drained your magic to such an extent that you fear it will never return.’

‘Enough.’ Mellitha silenced them both with upraised hands. ‘We must tell Planir what’s transpired here as soon as the Magistrates are done with us.’

‘I will be discovered in the gem-cutters’ quarter,’ Velindre announced, ‘ready to be astonished by such tales of anarchy along the dockside. Bespeak me when you’ve placated the Magistrates. We should speak to Planir together.’

She vanished from the quayside between one step and the next.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

Black Turtle Isle

In the domain of Nahik Jarir

‘G
ET THEM ALL
together.’ Anskal roused Hosh with a kick.

Hosh had already been rolling away. Sleeping in the furthest pavilion’s entrance hall, he stirred whenever a sand-coloured lizard scuttled up the walls or a wind-blown leaf scraped along the terrace outside.

He had a comfortable bed now; a pile of three cotton-stuffed palliasses purloined from Archipelagan rope-strung bed frames. For the present, a single light quilt sufficed but come winter, he could have all the coverlets he might want. Not that he expected to be alive come winter.

‘Yes, my lord mage.’ He rubbed the remnants of sleep from his eyes with his other hand.

He winced at the insidious tenderness beneath the dent in his face. The toothless side of his upper jaw felt puffy and sore to his probing tongue and the taste in his mouth on waking grew more vile each successive morning. But there was nothing to be done about that without Imais and her herbal concoctions.

Hosh pulled his cotton tunic over his head and retied the drawstring of his trousers which he’d loosened for sleep. If something happened in the night, he wasn’t going to Saedrin’s door bare-arsed.

As he hurried down the terrace steps Anskal shouted an afterthought. ‘Tell them to bring food!’

‘Yes, my lord mage.’ As Hosh raised his hand in acknowledgement, he saw movement at a window beneath the shady eaves of the closest dwelling.

Those shutters stayed wide open, day and night. Six Archipelagans had claimed that pavilion, all erstwhile swordsmen from the corsair triremes. Standing sentry turn by turn, they kept a close eye on Anskal from one sunset to the next.

Hosh headed for the steps, fringed with lush green grass where deep rooted tufts formerly crushed by trampling feet had been renewed by the rains.

‘That’s close enough, broken face.’ A corsair appeared up on the black stone platform, more alert than hostile. ‘What do you want?’

Hosh jerked his head back towards the furthest pavilion. ‘He wants you all to join him. Bring something for breakfast.’

The corsair looked warily across the open space. ‘What does he want?’

Hosh shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

He would never have dared to answer the swordsman so carelessly without his magical arm ring. The Archipelagan wore two swords and three daggers which Hosh could see, never mind whatever lesser blades the man had surely concealed about himself.