Treason's Shore (68 page)

The little group stepped back as Durasnir’s chosen Drenga guards mounted the stair from the dock to the pier and spread out, steel drawn, points down.

When they had satisfied themselves that no weapons were in sight, they parted, and Durasnir and Seigmad climbed up. A woman stepped forward. “We have prepared a place to hold the parley.” The feathers in her upbraided hair looked limp. Seigmad wondered if these people had never heard of lacquer.

Durasnir motioned for them to lead the way.

Byoren Henga was on point; to him belonged the honor of dying first if the locals planned treachery. Durasnir contemplated the delegation while Seigmad assessed Henga’s grip, his grim mood. Here was a man who longed for death, but he would take as many of the enemy with him as he could. Seigmad still could not quite fathom why Durasnir had demoted Henga after the Drenga captain’s success at Andahi Castle in clearing the way for the failed invasion.

The harbormaster’s building sat squarely athwart the land end of the main dock, encircled by boardwalk.

Henga and the guards ducked under the low doorway opening into the ground floor of the building. The room was empty of anything but a table and chairs, except for a steaming pot of something sitting on a sideboard next to some lemon cakes.

The last guard signaled the all clear, and the Venn commanders followed the others inside. Durasnir glanced around. He’d been stationed in Llyenthur for two years on his first cruise, before his brothers fought their duels and died. The carved panels of dragons and leaves that he remembered in this room, once the Oneli command center, had been hacked out and replaced by brick. The furnishings—the clean-lined curule chairs and the tables with rune-carved circular legs—were all gone. Someone had replaced them with rough-hewn tables and benches. Or maybe those had been brought specifically for this meeting as an oblique insult.

The delegates settled around the table after a series of nods and hand motions. The woman with the drooping feathers sat at one end, and the fat man with the military bearing stood behind her, his elbows out, hands on hips, his broad forehead beaded with sweat above heat-flushed cheeks.

“Would you like refreshment?” the woman asked.

The food was probably not poisoned. That was the swift way to martyrdom. Loaded with overpowering spices would merely be humiliating to the unwanted invaders. Durasnir made a negating motion.

“What do you want?” the man said, the civilities over.

Durasnir said, “We have returned, as you see. We will use this harbor as a base, but you will be free to carry on your trade under our regulation. For our part, we promise there will be no more alliance with pirates. They will not be tolerated in any waters we patrol.”

“And in the future?”

“The future will take care of itself. We are concerned with the present. Either you make peace, or we will secure the harbor by force.”

The woman with the feathers reddened, and a younger man looked down, his fists tight at his sides.

“Are my words unexpected?” Durasnir asked. “You must know that we hold Granthan, which was given the same message. Your people abandoned it after half a watch of resistance.”

“And you destroyed the town,” the fat man said, his jowls quivering with rage.

Durasnir said, “It was necessary in order to establish control. My orders are specific. If you surrender the harbor, we take over use of the primary buildings and leave the remainder in peace. Otherwise, we destroy all buildings, tunnels, passages—everything that constitutes what we consider a military threat. We will require local labor to rebuild according to our design.”

“Peace!” the young man said, his voice husky with rage. “We heard what kind of peace you gave them over the water in Andahi, when they hauled their flag down.”

“Chopping up little girls after putting out their eyes,” the woman said, and spat on the floor near Durasnir’s feet. “Go ahead,” she declared, her voice thin and quavering. “Put mine out. Chop me up. For speaking my mind. I’d as soon it was now as later.”

Seigmad’s jaw sagged.

Durasnir flicked him a glance and tipped his head toward the door. Battle it was, then.

Seigmad followed, impatient to get far enough out of earshot of the locals (now heard vehemently arguing with one another) to demand an explanation. His impatience intensified when he caught a glance between Durasnir and Henga.

For five, ten strides, he controlled his impatience, then burst out, “
Little girls?
You never showed me the Andahi report. No, don’t waste time telling me the report belongs to the Hilda as Captain Henga was under Talkar’s command. Tell me this. Did Talkar break Henga or did you, and why?”

The thud of their heels on the warped dock timbers were the only sound; Durasnir peered under his hand. The white glare was nearly blinding, but he made out long ripples out on the water, its color a deep, almost startling green.

Seigmad waited for an answer.

“Erkric caused Talkar to commend Henga,” Durasnir said finally. “I ordered Henga to choose an appropriate action after he confessed to me.”

“That he murdered children?”

“No, but the world will always believe that.” Durasnir lifted his voice. “Henga? Why did you choose demotion?”

The man was directly behind them, his gaze remote.

Was she a coward or a traitor to her people, this Jarlan
? Henga’s wife had asked.

There were girls?
Henga’s daughter had demanded.
There were girls defending, and you killed them?

Yes
. And he told them how.

“Drenskar,” he said flatly, “requires one to respect one’s enemy. That means necessary strength against a worthy foe.”

Seigmad grimaced, head down. Henga was that rarity, good at command on water and land, as Drenga must be. Now thrown away. No, he’d thrown himself away. Seigmad understood now. Henga had removed himself from command because in extremity, he had surrendered to bloodlust when his foe had lost the power to resist.

Seigmad wondered which was worse, the demotion or the memories.

They had nearly reached the end of the pier. “It’ll take us a week at least here,” Seigmad said. “If not longer. It’s madness to expect us to take Nelsaiam and the north coast this summer, much less attempt both sides of the strait.”

The madness of Rainorec,
Durasnir thought, remembering what Brun had said.
Erkric is rushing the Oneli into victory or death. The more of us who die, the easier it is for him to put his dags in our place
.

He paused halfway down the barnacle-covered ladder to the boat, then dropped the rest of the way. “Heh. Signal flags.”

Seigmad settled beside him, his joints protesting as he slewed around. “Command to win sea room,” he translated, and clamped his mouth shut on the question,
Who got that souleater Erkric to listen to sense?

As the boat crew plied their oars, the two commanders observed the expert shift of sail along that vast row, following which the ships turned, beautiful in profile against the thickening white haze. All sails set, even studding sails extending to either side, an impressive sight, or would be impressive when the sagging sailcloth filled.

Seigmad wiped sweat out of his eyes and sat back, considering his words. If he looked sideways, he could catch the faint glimmer of magic along the gunwales, reminding him of the ever-present spiderwebs. “I don’t understand that comment about surrender. The Marlovans never surrendered, everyone attests to that.”

“Talkar, Henga, everyone reported that the women cut down their own flag in response to the offer of peaceful surrender. My guess is, Idayagans watching from the mountain heights above Andahi Castle misread the gesture. Thought it capitulation.”

“Idayagans would have shit themselves if we’d hove up on the horizon when they held that castle.” Seigmad chuckled.

“They certainly wouldn’t have been able to surrender fast enough,” Durasnir said as he lifted his glass to the mountain heights on either side of the river, then swept it over the terraced city below. He focused on the steady stream of inhabitants, many pulling small carts as they evacuated into the hills. The line wavered, some gesturing away toward the east. A few began to hasten back down again. Others stood around in knots, talking and gesticulating.

“Looks like a cross-sea getting up,” Seigmad said as the first of a set of waves rolled toward them. The boat began rocking, sending up refreshing splashes of water.

Durasnir said to the crew, “Stretch out.”

Not that they needed the reminder; the boat soon reached the
Petrel,
which promptly raised sail and tacked away on the fitful, hot gusts blowing out of the west, veering sharply south and then back again.

By the time Durasnir reached the
Cormorant,
the opaque white line all dreaded formed with deceptive slowness across the eastern horizon, thickening rapidly.

The sail crews had already taken in the jibs and studding sails. The maincourse came down as Durasnir clambered aboard, yelling, “Luff! Luff! Abandon the boat!” They’d just begun to ease off when the first wind hit, knocking the ship on its beam ends.

The main- and fore-topsails ripped free of the bolt-ropes edging them; several men were flung overboard, their cries unheard as the wind screamed, sleet flying horizontally with the force of arrows.

Crack!
The foremast tipped slowly toward sudden mountainous seas, rigging snaking after. Durasnir grabbed up a hatchet, hacking madly at the tangle. For an endless time everyone on board fought to cut away the snarl of rigging and canvas and wood, then to get a scrap of sail on the maintop, enough to keep them up into the wind. They had lost sight of the others. They existed alone in lightning-flared blackness, sky, sea, storm all one ferocious vortex.

When the storm at last expended itself the next morning, leaving a white-foaming sea strewn with wreckage, Erkric emerged from the great cabin, his face blanched into extreme age.

“The king wishes us to take this harbor at once.” His voice shook.

Durasnir had expected those orders. As the storm began to lose force, the sea dags had begun locating themselves and reporting in, the lists of damage appalling. Devastating as the storm had been on the Oneli, it would have been equally terrible on shore, and Durasnir doubted that Llyenthur would put up much of a fight. How many of their ships had been wrecked on the rocks of those islands they’d been hiding behind?

Then Erkric spoke again, and this time took Durasnir by surprise. “Once you have secured this harbor, the king wishes to establish a base here. You will send messages under white flag to Bren and Nelsaiam, giving them a year to surrender their harbors.”

Durasnir gave the necessary orders, then retreated to his cabin.
Erkric must have been frightened by his first typhoon,
Durasnir thought, sitting down to wait for the first food and drink he’d had since the morning before the storm. He crossed his arms and laid his head down, falling immediately into a deep slumber.

Erkric prowled the deck, making and discarding plans. The storm was already forgotten. What frightened him had occurred before the storm hit, while Durasnir and Seigmad were en route from the parley.

All on his own, with no signal or sign, Rajnir had suddenly said, “I want the fleet to win sea room.” And he had turned to Erkric, his blue eyes
aware
. “Order the signals, my Dag.”

O
N a balcony one floor above the King’s Saunter, the once-grand boardwalk sweeping in a grand arc along the inner harbor at Freeport, Nugget stood with a spyglass to her eye. “
Cocodu
’s warping back in,” she called.

Footsteps pounded up the staircase from the bakery below. Pilvig appeared, her black eyes wide, round face flushed. “We’re all ready.”

Nugget squealed, a shrill, keening squeal that stopped the strollers below, causing most to laugh, some to shake heads, a few sourmouths to curse.

But most of the people in Freeport Harbor were in good moods, because today was Midsummer’s Day. There’d been no spring this year, so Flower Day’s Games had been postponed until now.

By the end of breakfast, one of Dhalshev’s staff had run along the Saunter to each of the businesses, collecting donations for the favorite event: the gold bag run.

The time was set for noon, just as the tide would turn. Volunteer guards stood glowering along the docks floating on the water below the Saunter, protecting the rowboats waiting for the competing teams.

Mutt sat at the best table at the best tavern on the Saunter, observing with a combination of amazement and satisfaction the sweep of windows in a broad, semicircular bank. They slanted inward, emulating the stern windows of a captain’s cabin as they overlooked the northern end of the Saunter, the main square, and the pier end of Freeport’s main street. When the sun dropped westward toward the entrance to the harbor, sometimes it threw light reflections over the ceiling of the tavern, with its ancient painting of some night sky no one could figure out.