‘Because that works so well for them? Grow up, Safi. You can’t throw everything away, unless you have something to replace it with.’
Saffazi flushed and bit her bottom lip.
Imoshen regretted her harsh words. ‘These things take time –’
‘I can’t wait. And I don’t see why I should.’
Imoshen turned away to hide her smile. To be so young...
You could not force change on people who were not ready. There were some in positions of power would resist change because they feared it, and others would resist it because they did not want to give up power. Just as the sisterhoods had not hesitated to tell her to execute her father for daring to break the covenant, there were T’Enatuath leaders who would not hesitate to kill to protect their stature.
Imoshen might agree with Saffazi, but she did not trust the young initiate’s discretion. ‘Exile will bring change. For now, don’t make waves –’
‘I can’t believe you’re saying this. Iraayel says you hate it too.’ Her pretty mouth twisted in a grimace of angry frustration. ‘How can you be so hypocritical?’
Saffazi went to walk off, and Imoshen caught her arm. She had been about to warn the girl to hold her tongue, but she could sense the young initiate’s gift wound tight inside her and her own gift surged. What it revealed frightened Imoshen.
‘Safi, the gift is tied to you. If you feed this anger it will corrupt your gift. Even the gift-wright can’t help you if you aren’t willing to let her.’
‘So I should just make the best of it?’ Saffazi gave a bitter laugh. ‘You might, but I am never going to give up what I believe in.’
Which stung, but Imoshen let it pass as the seventeen-year-old stormed off.
S
ORNE WOKE WITH
the sense that the ship was at anchor. For a moment he didn’t understand why this was significant. Then he recalled they were making their way through the islands. Perhaps the next section was tricky and could only be navigated in daylight.
He thought it was dusk. Why had he fallen asleep during the day? He rolled off the too-short bunk and came to his feet, feeling dizzy and nauseous. Was he sickening with something?
Fresh air would help.
Opening the cabin door, he stumbled up the passage to the ladder. He just wanted to get up on deck, where he could think straight. As he climbed out and staggered to the side of the ship, he was aware of the ship’s crew watching him warily. The horizon kept moving, yet they were at anchor in still water.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone run up the steps to the rear-deck.
If they thought he was sick with some contagion, they might dump him on one of the islands, for fear he’d infect the rest of the ship.
Sorne straightened up and turned around... Only to see several skiffs at anchor and, beyond them, a small jumble of dwellings gathered around an inlet. Lights glowed in ramshackle buildings, and smoke drifted from chimneys.
This wasn’t Ivernia.
Sorne set off to confront the captain, only to find him coming across the deck.
‘You don’t look well. You should go back to your cabin,’ the captain said, but his gaze flicked to something over Sorne’s shoulder.
He started to turn.
Too late, someone grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms as a hessian sack descended on him.
‘Bind his arms good and tight. He’s a big one,’ the captain shouted as several men struggled to contain him.
Onions... the sack had contained onion. His stomach heaved. He was not going to throw up inside a sack. But it was a near thing.
They tied the sack around his waist, then they knocked his legs out from under him and he fell heavily.
‘Don’t get up,’ the captain said, delivering a kick to his ribs for emphasis. ‘Tell cook, next time he needs to double the dose. When I saw the half-blood on his feet, my heart nearly gave out.’
Sorne took shallow, onion-tainted breaths; each gulp of air sent a jolt of pain through his ribs, but he didn’t think anything was broken.
‘Just in time,’ the captain said. ‘Here comes the Maygharian. You know he calls himself a sea-king? Even has his own banner!’
They were selling him to the Maygharians? That was both good and bad – bad, because he was hated in Maygharia, after he’d helped put down their revolt, and good because the queen owed him a favour, having set her on the course to depose Norholtz and reclaim her kingdom. But only he and the queen knew this.
Sorne managed to sit up as the Maygharian and his men came aboard.
‘So, what have you got for us this time, captain?’ The Maygharian spoke Chalcedonian with only the slightest of accents. ‘More pretty little exotics?’
‘Not so little and certainly not pretty, but this one will fetch a good price.’ The captain’s voice came closer as lantern light seeped through the hessian weave. ‘It’s the Warrior’s-voice, the Butcher of Maygharia.’
‘You don’t say? Well, you’ll forgive me if I make sure.’
‘Go ahead, take a look.’
Someone grabbed the top of the sack and a sharp blade sliced clean through the material, just missing Sorne’s throat. He blinked in the sudden light.
The Maygharian swore in three languages, caught Sorne by his hair and tilted his head this way and that. Then let him go with a vicious twist that brought tears to Sorne’s remaining eye.
‘Hard to fake a face like that,’ the Maygharian said. ‘That bald patch over his left temple, half the ear missing and smooth skin where the left eye should have been.’
‘He’ll fetch a good price.’
‘That he will.’ The Maygharian hesitated. ‘I don’t have that much coin with me. Come ashore, take a drink with my men.’
‘You’ll forgive me if I turn down your invitation. You’ll wait out here with me, until your men bring me my coin.’
‘Fair enough. Take the butcher to the boat, boys.’
Hands grabbed Sorne, hauled him to his feet and drove him towards the side. His head spun. He took one look at the rope ladder and shook his head. ‘I can’t climb down with my arms –’
Someone clipped him over the head. While his wits were still reeling, they lowered him over the side into the ten-man rowboat.
The waiting man shoved him into the boat’s belly and the rest climbed down. As they rowed back to the sea-vermin’s nest, Sorne thought it best to cooperate for now. When they neared the kingdom of Maygharia, he would ask to speak to the sea-king. He’d convince the man that the queen would pay a better price for him than anyone wanting revenge. At least he hoped she would.
They hauled him out of the boat, drove him up the beach above the high tide line, towards a lop-sided tavern built of driftwood and wreck salvage. As they drove him up the steps, he spotted cellar doors, which opened at ground level, and then he was inside the one-room tavern. He spotted about two dozen disreputable-looking True-men and a sprinkling of women. A sea-eagle banner hung over the fireplace. Then they shoved him down a ladder into the darkness of the cellar. The stairs went down further than he anticipated and he tripped on the final step, sprawling onto the sandy floor.
The light disappeared as they slammed the door. All he could smell was onions, but he’d caught a glimpse of ale barrels.
It could be worse.
After a moment, he heard soft scrabbling. Rats. He hated rats.
Sibilant whispers. Indistinct words.
‘Who’s there?’
No one answered.
Glimmers of light came through the cracks in the cellar doors and under the tavern door at the top of the stairs. The floorboards themselves were ill-fitting, letting in shafts of pale light. His sight gradually adjusted, and he spotted pale faces and dark eyes, watching him from the corners of the cellar, peering around barrels and sacks – children.
‘It’s all right. I won’t hurt you,’ Sorne told them. Then he wondered if they’d hurt him.
Why would sea-vermin lock up children? He suspected they were unfortunate captives who were destined to become indentured servants, or perhaps they were to be sold to brothels down south.
Up in the tavern above, he heard shouting, laughter and frenetic pipes. The floorboards shook. Dust drifted down on slivers of light. Someone was exhorting the others to join them.
Sorne sat on the second step and shrugged his shoulders to ease the tension. ‘How about one of you release my arms before my fingers go numb?’
He might be able to steal a boat. He knew how to raise and lower a sail, and how to handle a rudder, and he knew Ivernia lay to the south-west.
One of the children ventured closer. Sorne could make out a pale face, fair hair, dark eyes. Judging by his size, he was no more than seven or eight.
‘That’s right.’ Sorne tried to sound friendly and hoped they wouldn’t be frightened of his missing eye.
Another child grabbed the boy’s arm. ‘Don’t, Orza.’
They’d spoken T’En. Sorne went cold with shock, and a sick feeling settled in his stomach.
‘How did T’Enatuath children end up in the cellar of sea-vermin?’ he asked in their language.
And he was inundated by children of all ages and sizes. There had to be over twenty of them, mostly Malaunje, but he spotted a few fair-headed T’En, like Orza. The smallest were no bigger than two, while the eldest would have been around thirteen.
They all spoke at once, in intense whispers, as they told him their stories. And they pawed him, seeking the reassurance of his gift. He realised they’d mistaken his white hair for silver in the dimness.
‘You came to save us,’ Orza said and burst into tears.
A nimble-fingered T’En girl undid Sorne’s bindings. He pulled the remains of the hessian sack over his head and tossed it aside with relief. As if this was a signal, the littlest ones climbed into his lap, while several children climbed up the steps behind him. He could feel them hugging his back, patting his head.
‘Where’s your gift? Why don’t you share?’ little voices pleaded.
‘I’m Malaunje,’ Sorne said.
They told him their stories, and by the time he had settled them down, he’d worked out who they were. Not everyone on the estates had been massacred. Some children had escaped, been captured and passed on from Mieren to Mieren. Others had been on their way to port with the people from their estates when they’d been attacked. Again, they’d been captured and passed on.
And they had ended up here.
‘But why?’ Sorne asked.
They didn’t seem to know.
‘I think they mean to sell us,’ said the T’En girl who had freed him from the ropes. ‘The one with the strange way of speaking –’
‘The Maygharian,’ Sorne inserted.
‘He called us “exotics.”’ She pronounced the Chalcedonian word as if it didn’t make sense. ‘He said wealthy southerners would pay top price for us. I don’t trust him, but when the dirty men tried to take Tiasely away, he wouldn’t let them.’
The other children gestured to a beautiful Malaunje girl, who was as big as an adult Mieren woman, for all that she was probably only thirteen.
‘I think he’s going to sell us as slaves,’ the T’En girl said. ‘I didn’t know the Mieren kept slaves.’
They didn’t, strictly speaking, but these children would have ended up in high-class brothels or in the private collection of wealthy men.
‘Now that you’re here, we don’t need to worry,’ Orza said, wrapping his arms around Sorne.
The little ones believed him and many wept with relief. Sorne soothed them, but his heart sank; he could not desert them, yet he did not see how he could save them all.
‘Quiet, everyone,’ Tiasely said.
They obeyed her and tilted their heads, listening. The music had stopped, and there was only one pair of footsteps shuffling across the floor above.
‘Everyone’s gone,’ Orza said.
Several children ran up the stairs to peer into the tavern through the cracks in the door and confirmed this. Others ran over to the cellar doors, climbed onto barrels and peered through the gaps.
‘There’s a couple of rowboats on the beach. Everyone’s getting into them,’ one reported.
Sorne slid two small children off his lap and went over to the cellar doors. From this angle he could see the slope down to the beach, the inlet and the different vessels.
‘No lanterns,’ a boy said. ‘They’re being sneaky.’
He was right. The rowboats glided from the shore, making their way across the silvery sea of the inlet towards the merchant vessel.
‘They’re attacking the ship that delivered me,’ Sorne said.
‘Why would they do that?’ someone asked.
‘Because then they don’t have to pay for me.’ Yet he’d gained the impression they’d paid for ‘exotics’ in the past.
‘The ship’s crew have spotted them,’ one of the boys reported. He kept up a running commentary for the rest of the children, as the sea-vermin boarded the ship. The crew fought valiantly, but they were overrun. Before long, bodies tumbled into the sea and there was celebrating on the ship.
Sorne climbed down. Perhaps he could escape, but in good conscience, he could not leave these children behind.
What was he going to do?
Chapter Thirty
T
OBAZIM LOOKED UP
from his book, not sure what had disturbed him. Then he heard it again.
The thump of bodies hitting a wall.
‘Fighting in thecabin below,’ Hand-of-force Norsasno said, coming to his feet. ‘That’s the initiates’ cabin. They’re not known for thinking before they act. I’d better –’
‘Wait...’ Ceyne held up a hand. ‘There’s bound to be some rivalry between the survivors of Chariode and Tamaron’s brotherhoods and ours. Let them work it out.’
An even louder thump was followed by the sound of breaking glass.
Ceyne snorted and reached for his bag.
Tobazim almost got up, but his gift rose and he sensed the forces at play in his brotherhood. If he went with the saw-bones and Norsasno it would make it seem he did not have faith in his hand-of-force. He waved them off.
This left him alone with the brotherhood’s gift-tutor. It was the perfect opportunity to broach something that had been bothering him.
He joined Deimosh at the desk. ‘What I am about to ask must go no further.’