Doern missed the by-play, which was just as well. He was studying Aldric as if trying to interpret something from the warrior’s expression.
“So,” he muttered. “You seem honest enough.” He turned to his men, gestured at the hold and issued orders. All four marines went below and by the noise they made carried out a most thorough search. There was a sudden clatter and the enraged neighing of a war-horse; Aldric grinned wickedly at the burst of Drusalan swearwords which followed. Then a marine half-emerged from the deck gratings and said something which brought Doern across the planks in two noisy strides. When he straightened there was a helmet like his own dangling by its chinstrap from one outstretched hand. “Whose is this?” he demanded in a low, dangerous voice. “
Whose
?”
“Mine,” said Dewan.
The
hautmarin
glowered at him. “There is a full harness down there,” he grated. “Our cavalry pattern. Where did
you
get it?”
“As standard issue,” ar Korentin replied crisply, lapsing into fluent Drusalan, “when I served with the Bodyguard in Drakkesborg.” He paused just long enough for his words to sink in, then went for the kill. “Holding
eldheisart
rank.”
The pine deck boomed as all five Imperial soldiers crashed to attention. “My apologies, lord-commander,” muttered Doern. “You should have made yourself known at once.”
Ar Korentin cleared his throat but said nothing, letting them stew for a little by taking a short walk around the deck. The
hautmarin
and his marines stayed where they were, heels together and eyes straight ahead. Thus they missed the small wink which Dewan directed at Aldric and
En Sohra’s
captain.
“
Hautmarin
... Doern, wasn’t it?” said the Vreijek at length, not looking round. “I didn’t… make myself known to you at all. There was no Imperial armour aboard this vessel. You encountered nothing out of the ordinary.” He strode up to the officer and stared at him. “Do I make myself perfectly clear,
hautmarin
?”
“Sir!” Doern slammed once through the rhythmic sequence of a full salute and then looked through ar Korentin as if he was not there. “Reembark!” he ordered. “There’s no contraband here. Good day to you, shipmaster.”
“One question only,
hautmarin”
Dewan said quietly. “Doing… what I do, I hear little news from home. How can your ship sail against the wind?”
Doern glanced sideways. “I shouldn’t tell even you, sir, but—call it an exchange of confidences. Grand Warlord Etzel paid a sorcerer to lay enchantment on the
Aalkhorst
—to charm a witch-wind into the sails. We can go where we please. But—but I don’t like it, sir; magic’s been proscribed for years and now to make so free with it… Something’s wrong.”
“
Hautmarin”
Dewan cautioned, “I didn’t hear you say that. And don’t let—” His insincerities broke off as Kyrin shouted, pointing at the sky. She had whiled away a conversation which she could not understand by peering through a long-glass at whatever caught her attention. One such distant speck had seemed to be a gull at first, but closer scrutiny and her own suspicions revealed it to be nothing of the sort. Crossing the quarterdeck in two long strides, Aldric seized the glass and raised it to his eye, then flinched visibly and muttered something savage under his breath. “What the hell is
that
?” he heard ar Korentin gasp.
Aldric’s mouth was dry and he could taste the acrid bitterness of fear under his tongue. So soon after Esel, he thought, and felt an ill-suppressed shiver crawl along his spine. “I can’t give you a name,” he answered very softly, “but I think it’s looking for…” His voice was drowned by a thin whistling shriek of exhalation as the isghun passed high overhead, and
En Sohra’s
deck blinked dark as vast wings slid across the sun. The spell-beast turned, spiralling on one wingtip with heavy, ominous grace, and came back low and fast.
It skimmed past the gallon’s portside just above the waves, the banshee scream of its breath slapping back from whirling disturbed water in its wake, and for just an instant Aldric met the demon’s eyes. The force of that unhuman gaze was like a blow and, horribly, there was recognition in it. Then the isghun was gone, soaring into the hard blue sky white the storm-wind of its passage flailed across both ships.
Aldric laid one hand to
taiken-hilt
, sickly aware of how small both he and Widowmaker were beside the monster’s bulk. He was conscious too of other things; of how the hand had trembled before he clenched it tight, of how wind-blown hair and clothing stuck to skin already chilled by sweat, of how he felt more alone than ever in his life. And more afraid. Esel had at least been manlike and familiar, no matter what his shape concealed. But
this
...
The
eijo’s
last rational thought was one of disbelief that anything so big could move so fast, as the isghun swept around and dived like a falcon on a mouse. Then he flung himself clear of the quarterdeck. A shadow flashed across
En Sohra
and there was a rending crash right at his heels which made the galion vibrate from stem to stern. Though he landed heavily and barely kept his balance, Aldric was still able to glance up in time to see what might have been his own fate.
The isghun’s tail had whiplashed around the companion-ladder where he had been standing and had wrenched it clean out of the deck without apparent effort. Emitting a deep; disgusted grunt, it let the false catch drop more than three hundred feet in a slow end-over-end tumble until the stairway smashed to matchwood against
Aalkh-orsfs
armoured stern.
Aldric could hear the sonorous howl as air pumped through great vents in the creature’s wings, driven by rippling contractions of muscle to thrust it forward. Its mode of flight gave his racing mind a clue to what might well prove weakness. If only he was able to—
It broke off its lazy circuit of the ship and plunged straight towards him, body rearing high so that its tail was free to clutch. But the tail did not even come close. Over eager, perhaps impatient, straining to reach its victim, the isghun slammed into
En Sohra’s
mainmast with an impact that sprang timbers all over the merchant vessel and then slewed across the deck fighting to stay airborne. As its hideous head came lurching closer Aldric yelped, rolling aside and upright. Isileth Widowmaker blurred out of her scabbard.
Behind the spellbeast sailors lunged with boarding-pikes, only to be hurled aside by its thrashing tail. An arrow ripped through its wing and acid-smelling fluid spurted out of the wound. More missiles drove into its body, penetrating with an ease that betrayed the monster’s fragile flesh, if flesh it was. Suction dragged at Al-dric’s body as air rushed into the isghun, expanding its body even as he watched; none was released and, guessing what was about to happen, the
eijo
gripped something solid and held on tightly.
Muscles contracted, fleshy valves snapped open and what air the demon had drawn in came shrieking out, blasting its body upwards and hurling three men overboard. Aldric, though unsteady on his feet, was not one of them. He slashed Widowmaker deep into the swollen belly passing just above his head.
A bellow of agony all but deafened him and the isghun lurched uncontrollably sideways as half its body underwent a violent deflation. Then it struggled skywards and Aldric cried out in shock, for the demon’s tail had looped around his legs and he went up as well. Somebody shouted incoherently in panic. Himself? The brutal grip was crushing both his knees and as he was jerked upside-down his shoulders crashed first against the deck and then against
En Sohra’s
sterncastle. It was impossible to use the
taiken
now, because his legs and the isghun’s tail were so entangled that to cut one would almost certainly wound the other. Unless… Aldric closed both hands around his longsword’s hilt; the loss of a foot was preferable to what Kalarr and Duergar had in store for him.
The inverted deck jumped up as he abruptly dropped towards it, but his only pain was in the skull he cracked on landing. A length of severed tail uncoiled from his kicking legs, the vinegary stench of isghun blood was in his nostrils and it was dripping from Kyrin’s sword-blade as she clattered down the remaining stairway from the quarterdeck. If my face is as white as hers… Aldric thought grimly, somehow dredging up a feeble smile of thanks. “Where is it now?” he demanded, following Kyrin as she ran towards the poop. The girl raised her arm in silence and Aldric knew he had been right about the isghun’s vulnerable spot. Injured and unbalanced, it could only fly in sluggish oblique swoops while the
Aalk-horst
closed at flank speed with white water boiling from her prow.
Dewan and
Hautmarin
Doern, bearing crossbows, were both at the starboard rail, and as Aldric drew level with him the Imperial officer clenched his fist and muttered “
Now
!” As if in response the warship loosened a ranging volley; then unleashed a salvo from her forward batteries that made the isghun shudder in midair. Right from the start, when only two turrets had been enough to fill
En Sohra’s
deck with darts, Aldric had suspected that the battleram was armed with something out of the ordinary. He was right. Her first three turrets carried quick-firing catapults both wound and triggered by the same geared mechanism; they could shoot as fast as crews could crank them.
With its wings shredded and its body punched full of gaping holes, the isghun fell towards the waiting sea. And just before it struck, it vanished—winked out of existence as if it had never been; although
En Sohra’s
condition gave the lie to that suggestion. Doern watched his battleram swing back towards them and drew a long deep breath before settling his helmet’ back in place. “That was…?”
“Sent by my enemies,
hautmarin”
Aldric returned unsteadily. He felt very tired. “I told you they were powerful.”
“Quite…” The officer cleared his throat and spat across the rail. “I know now what I dislike about sorcery. Every hell-damned detail! Good luck to you, mercenary.” He swung outboard and down towards his waiting cutter, then paused and looked back. “I fancy you may need it.”
The witch-wind filled
Aalkhorsfs
sails and with a rustle of canvas she drew away from the galion before turning leisurely, a wide, arrogant sweep which flaunted her armoured, destructive might to all aboard the merchantman. As she swung onto a parallel course the warship’s bow rose and foam creamed from her ram as she came slicing past. A surge of wash made
En Sohra
roll heavily; then the battleram was gone, dwindling towards the horizon at the tip of an arrow-straight wake.
As they began to put their damaged ship to rights, the Elherran crew avoided Aldric, tacitly blaming him for what had happened. The young
eijo
did not care. He slumped down in a quiet corner of the deck, knees drawn up, head resting on his folded arms, weak and shaking with reaction. Kyrin sat crosslegged beside him, polishing her sword. “Aldric-ain,” she said, “there’s something odd about this ship.”
Aldric glanced at her and grimaced slightly. “It’s not the ship,” he muttered, reluctant to talk. “And it’s not my business.”
“I think it is.” She told him briefly of the look she had seen pass between the captain and ar Korentin, and of its circumstances. Aldric realised that the girl was right: this affair had become his business.
Dewan was not disturbed by the interrogation which followed; he was more surprised by the Alban’s calm, not knowing that its source was simply weariness. Aldric was too exhausted to be angry. “It isn’t that we didn’t trust you,” ar Korentin told him, “but the fewer who know of this, the better.” Aldric settled back into the captain’s chair and let the Vreijek talk. “Your ignorance meant that you told Doern the truth—as you knew it. And he was convinced. He didn’t really expect to find anything aboard, much less the gold we—”
“Gold… ? What gold?” There was an edge to Al-dric’s voice that Dewan disliked and he chose his words more carefully.
“To finance another thorn in Warlord Etzel’s side. Just as he financed Duergar Vathach.”
The
eijo
stared at him, his grey-green eyes devoid of all expression. “Ignorance,” Aldric repeated, as if tasting the word. A faint smile twitched his mouth. “You are a devious bastard.” Dewan acknowledged the compliment with a slight bow.
“One of my varied talents,” he retorted blandly.
Down on deck Kyrin listened, appreciating the trick. Then she stiffened and gripped her
estoc’s
hilt more firmly. There was a soft fluttering noise behind her—and its source was moving. The girl half-turned and bared her teeth disgustedly at the ball of jelly hovering on small wings beside the rail. Without thinking she chopped the thing in two and watched the pieces drop into the sea; then, very carefully, began to clean her sword again.
Kalarr jerked back from his magic mirror and spat an oath. “Bitch!” he finished with feeling.
“You’ve lost them now,” Duergar pointed out unkindly. “What will you do?”
“We,” Kalarr emphasised the plural, “will wait. He’ll come back. For you, if nothing else.” The Drusalan flinched, but Kalarr still knew he had lost face. Rising suddenly, the sorcerer turned to Baiart who was watching from the shadows by the door. “You said one was the king’s man. Do you know what that means?” The clan-lord shook his head. “It means, my friend”—and that word dripped vitriol—”that your brother has been speaking to King Rynert. From now on, you don’t go back to Cerdor.”
“But—” Baiart started, before he was silenced by a glare from eyes as cold and black as the spaces between the stars.
“You will never leave this citadel again.” Kalarr’s lips thinned above his teeth. “Not even to go to your own execution. And that, dear Baiart, is final.”
Lying on his back, Aldric made complicated patterns from the dappled sunlight reflected on to his cabin ceiling by the sea. As
En Sohra
rose on the slow deep-water swell, golden blotches chased one another across the planking and down a panelled wall. He had woken at sunrise with a feeling that the ship was no longer moving, but lying at anchor in calm water. Even so, at such a time of the morning he had no intention of leaving his bed—or rather, bunk. It was uncomfortable, narrow and hard, with sheets of linen cloth instead of the usual quilt, and not really big enough for two to sleep in. All the same, he and Kyrin had managed fairly well.