Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) (58 page)

‘As far as you can see,’ Corrain echoed, sceptical.

‘I can show you,’ Jilseth offered. ‘I can scry out the anchorage and you already know that land better than anyone else who we could ask to fight there.’

‘You need ask no-one to fight there.’ Corrain persisted in his refusal. ‘I have seen what wizardry can do. Why so coy? If this mage and all who follow him are to die, what’s to stay the Archmage’s hand? There will be no witnesses left to tell the truth to anyone else.’

‘Not everyone on that island deserves to die.’ Jilseth bit her lip. ‘What about your friend Hosh?’

Corrain stared at her. ‘You cold-hearted bitch.’

Jilseth raised her eyebrows. ‘Truly? When I offer you a chance to bring your lost friend home? To settle all accounts with the corsair captain who wears those gold chains in his beard?’

‘How do you know about him?’ Corrain was on the verge of seizing her shoulders and shaking the truth out of her.

‘I am a necromancer,’ she said unexpectedly testily. ‘My magic showed me your lord’s death when I found your murdered comrades in the marshes.’

Inexplicable as that sounded, her matter of fact tone offered Corrain a salutary reminder that he was dealing with a mage. Laying hands on her in anger would most likely be an appalling mistake.

Though hopefully not a fatal one since she was the one who had come to him with the Archmage’s request.

Corrain stepped back and forced himself to think this through as rationally as he could. ‘This will settle all accounts between this barony and Hadrumal?’

‘It will,’ Jilseth assured him.

Corrain allowed himself a wry grimace. He still wasn’t sure he could trust any wizard, however much Halferan owed to Jilseth. He wouldn’t accuse her of lying to him but no doubt there were facets to this tale which she was keeping hidden.

But how better to lay to rest any lingering rumour that Halferan was unduly indebted to the Archmage than to show that the barony was capable of pursuing its own vengeance and recovering the last of its lost men?

How better to show the parliament that Halferan was worthy of their full respect than by proving that the corsairs were defeated once and for all?

He rubbed a hand around the back of his neck, beneath his plaited hair. How better to fulfil his oath to his dead lord? To throw this weighty braid and the manacle encumbering his wrist into Talagrin’s teeth. To be free of his burdens.

And if he died on this mad quest? Then he would have nothing to apologise for, if he truly found himself standing at Saedrin’s door.

But no, he couldn’t risk that and leave Lady Zurenne, Ilysh and Esnina all unprotected once again. A captain’s life could be risked. A baron had a higher duty to his people.

For the first time, Corrain allowed himself to think the unthinkable. His dead master, the true Lord Halferan should never have taken command of that expedition into the marshes to drive out the corsairs. Captain Gefren had been perfectly capable of leading the guard troop. All the more so, surely, since they had all believed they had a wizard to call on. Until Minelas had shown his true treacherous colours.

Anger burned through his disloyalty. It was the renegade wizard who was to blame for his lord’s death. He must never forget that.

He forced his thoughts back to the problem at hand. He had no captain to call on. No one competent to lead Halferan’s troopers into a fight on some unknown Archipelagan isle.

‘I will not send honest fighting men to their deaths,’ he growled. ‘Anskal could kill them all as soon as look at us.’

‘We will not let that happen.’ Jilseth wasn’t offering reassurance so much as a plain statement of fact. ‘Powerful as he is, the Mandarkin is only one mage. The Archmage will be bringing a nexus of Hadrumal’s most powerful wizards to bear.’

‘While we attack the galleys and triremes?’ Corrain still couldn’t bring himself to contemplate this. ‘Where could we find ships ready to sail south with the equinox almost upon us? How could we possibly expect to reach that cursed anchorage with every warlord’s sea lanes between Relshaz and the corsairs’ island closed to us? A fleet of triremes would sink us before we were a day into the Archipelago.’

‘You think we would give Anskal such advance warning? When we know he is scrying all the island’s approaches for fear of an Archipelagan assault?’ Jilseth looked at him, exasperated. ‘Hadrumal’s mages will carry you and your men to the anchorage as easily as Tornauld has been ferrying bricks for you.’

Corrain shook his head. ‘I cannot abandon Halferan. I cannot risk leaving Lady Ilysh a widow.’

Jilseth narrowed her eyes. ‘She will hardly find herself as friendless as her mother did. Besides, you will not be killed.’

‘You can be certain of that?’ Corrain demanded.

Jilseth pointed at Fitrel. ‘Ask him if he would trust me to keep his hide whole. I saved his skin and countless others from those corsairs,’ she said with unexpected bitterness.

Surprised to hear an echo in the magewoman’s words of a swordsman’s guilt after his first kill, Corrain was momentarily lost for words.

‘No one will expect this attack,’ Jilseth stressed. ‘Neither Anskal nor the corsairs. They will be taken wholly unawares and the Mandarkin will have no chance to defend his new allies when he faces the Element Masters and Mistress of Hadrumal.’

‘Five galleys and three triremes.’ Despite his reluctance, Corrain found himself assessing the size of the troop he would need. He managed to turn his next ill-thought-out objection into a question. ‘Will you see those ships driven ashore for us to attack?’

Now he was remembering the successful assault he’d led on the first corsair galley destroyed on Caladhria’s coast. Halferan’s men and the Tallat captain he’d duped into helping had killed those bastards without any need for magical aid.

Could he persuade Captain Mersed to lend his own men and expertise to this fight? Perhaps, if he made it clear to Lord Tallat himself that the slate between their two baronies would be wiped entirely clean by such assistance. That Lord Tallat would be able to claim a share in the credit for making certain that that Caladhria would never again see raiders’ black ships on the dawn horizon.

Then there were Lord Licanin’s men. They would be as eager as Halferan’s own men to kill the last remnants of the force which had slaughtered their comrades here in this very manor and forced them into that humiliating retreat to Karpis’s gloating shelter.

What of Lord Antathele? He had shown every sign of late that he was willing to be friends with Halferan, even if that was only thanks to his abiding dislike of Baron Karpis.

Fourteen days and Corrain would be seeing his fellow barons at the next quarterly parliament. Would it be better to try and convince them separately or to invite them all to dine and persuade them over some fine wine?

‘I might be able to raise the requisite force,’ Corrain said slowly. ‘Sometime after the Equinox—’

‘No.’ Jilseth shook her head in absolute denial. ‘We attack the day after tomorrow.’

Corrain threw up his hands. ‘That is impossible.’

His heart twisted within him though. How could he throw away the slightest chance of rescuing Hosh?

He turned back to the magewoman.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
T
WO

Trydek’s Hall, Hadrumal

37th of For-Autumn

J
ILSETH KNEW THAT
other mages were watching her. Some would doubtless be scrying from their rooms in more remote towers and quadrangles; those who didn’t have some excuse to visit a friend who could boast accommodation in Trydek’s first sanctuary.

She could imagine what they were saying to each other. As fast as word of that astonishing Council meeting had spread through Hadrumal, it had been outstripped by fervid speculation as to what the Archmage planned to do.

But there hadn’t been a whisper to indicate Planir’s intentions. So all those wizards could be doing was wondering why she was pacing back and forth across this flagstoned courtyard below Trydek’s tower.

The answer to that question was simple. Because she couldn’t bear to sit down. Not until Tornauld brought them the final pieces for this game of white raven which the Archmage was planning. When the Mandarkin mage wouldn’t merely be driven out of some painted forest to be dropped back in a box.

That was another reason why Jilseth didn’t want leisure to sit and think. To contemplate the renegade Anskal’s fate, however richly he might deserve it.

Wizards didn’t take part in warfare. She had learned that at her mageborn grandmother’s knee. She had never imagined that she would see the day when wizards made war on each other. Still less that she would be part of it.

Jilseth turned on her heel to begin crossing the quadrangle again. All at once, Tornauld and Corrain appeared at the end of her path. Kusint, the Forest lad was standing behind them.

She quickened her pace. ‘Well?’

Tornauld grinned. ‘Lord Tallat will be honoured to lend his men’s valour to such a noble enterprise.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Jilseth would have liked to hear that news with her own ears, if only to save herself this past morning of frustration.

Until Planir had reminded her of the way in which she had both scared and humiliated Lord Tallat in front of all his peers when the parliament had last met in Kevil. When the hapless nobleman had been boasting how Corrain had secured Hadrumal’s aid to drive off the vile corsairs. The nobleman had been wholly unaware of the captain’s desperate lies, as indeed he still was.

Lord Antathele, only recently inheriting his father’s honours, had clearly witnessed their encounter. Jilseth couldn’t doubt that, after seeing his wide-eyed apprehension when she arrived on his threshold with Corrain. She certainly didn’t think that Lord Antathele’s haste to pledge his support was only rooted in his family’s dislike of Baron Karpis.

‘Where is the Archmage?’ Corrain asked with strained courtesy. ‘We should tell him our news.’

The Forest lad Kusint didn’t say a word. He was looking around the quadrangle, overawed.

‘This way.’ Jilseth led them all up the stairs to the Archmage’s broad sitting room.

The chairs had all been pushed right back against the windowed walls and the long table was piled high with books garnered from seemingly every shelf and dusty storage chest in Hadrumal’s libraries. The closest texts that Jilseth could see left lying open were not merely printed in Tormalin letters. She could see angular Soluran writing and the arcane Mountain script.

The room was full of wizards. Corrain and Kusint advanced barely a handful of paces before halting in silent accord.

‘I think that the Hearth Master will agree,’ Canfor regarded Merenel with ill-concealed irritation, ‘that I should go to this island.’

‘Since we are embarking on such a vital endeavour,’ Ely immediately concurred.

Planir broke off from his conversation with Troanna and Herion of Wellery’s Hall.

‘Much as I value your expertise, Canfor,’ he said firmly, ‘I also prefer to bet on certainties wherever I can. With so much nexus magic to be worked in such close proximity, I want established quartets addressing themselves to the complexities of quintessential wizardry. As you say, this is such a critical venture for Hadrumal.’