Dangerous Waters (62 page)

‘True enough.’ Kalion said grudgingly.

‘Once we have some idea what they’re planning, your baronial contacts will be invaluable,’ Planir assured him.

‘Never mind the Caladhrian parliament,’ Rafrid said dubiously. ‘You’ll have to persuade the Widow Halferan of our goodwill, after our nexus rescued Jilseth and left her all alone on the road.’

‘Her men fought safely through to Karpis.’ Troanna was strikingly unsympathetic.

Jilseth would have expected more compassion of a mother, and Troanna was a grandmother to boot.

But the Flood Mistress was first and foremost a mage. It was never wise to assume that a wizard would react as some mundane man or woman might.

A thought hovered on the edge of her exhausted mind. How much more foolish it might be to assume they could guess the Mandarkin’s future course. They knew nothing of the man himself and precious little of his deadly magecraft, or the harsh land that had spawned it.

The Archmage had an answer for Rafrid. ‘We can start by making good on our promise to Lady Zurenne, to find her errant erstwhile steward.’

Jilseth had no idea what Planir was talking about. Then she remembered. Starrid. She’d promised to find him for Zurenne and recover whatever he’d stolen. Was that only a few days ago? It seemed like half a year.

She wouldn’t be doing that any time soon, not unless her magic returned to some approximation of her usual strength. Jilseth’s chin lifted defiantly against the nagging fear that it never would. A fear she couldn’t admit to anyone, not even Planir.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
N
INE

Siprel Inlet, Caladhria

12th of Aft-Summer

‘
YOU CANNOT KILL
everyone.’ Corrain grabbed Anskal’s bony shoulder. ‘You must not destroy the ship, not before we have seen who is captive below decks or chained to the oars.’

Not that Lady Zurenne would be shackled on the rowing benches, nor her daughters. But Corrain clung to that last fragile hope; they might be here with other newly enslaved innocents in the galley’s hold.

He hadn’t found their bodies when he’d steeled himself to search those abandoned wagons on the road leading away from the manor, demanding that one concession from Anskal before agreeing to tell him what he knew of the raiders’ vessels and who might be aboard. The Mandarkin mage had been very eager to find the black-bearded corsair’s galley and whatever treasure it might hold.

Once Anskal had asked his questions, blood from one of those killed in Halferan had been enough to bring them here. Corrain was surprised to see that the black-bearded corsair had brought his galley to anchor in this inlet. The bastard must have seen those two half-submerged blackened hulks, as his rowers rounded that bend.

Doubtless he’d been too arrogant to imagine such a fate could ever befall him. More fool him, Corrain thought, though the notion brought him no great comfort.

Nor was it much consolation to see how well the men of Tallat and Myrist had done, to send so many of the raiders to Saedrin to answer for their crimes. Bodies jostled in the water. The retreating tide was forcing them ever closer together in the shrinking stream. Laggard corpses were stranded, one by one.

Marsh kites weren’t letting this windfall go to waste. From their vantage point behind one of the ubiquitous salt-thorn thickets, Corrain watched the brindled birds feed. They must have come from leagues around. Lesser scavengers could only wheel overhead, calling plaintively.

Where the reeds met the mud, silver lizards darted out to snatch mouthfuls from some rotting corsair already washed back and forth by successive tides. When the waters returned, the crabs would come scuttling to claim their share. Not too swiftly, Corrain hoped. These scum deserved a generation of torment at the claws of Poldrion’s demons. A Soluran generation; thirty three years compared to the Tormalin twenty five.

‘I cannot burn this one?’ Anskal gestured at the galley riding at anchor close by the burned-out wrecks.

‘Not till we know there are no innocents aboard.’ Corrain repeated. ‘Not before we’ve found your coin,’ he added quickly.

That gave Anskal pause for thought. The mage stared at the galley, eyes narrowing.

Had Captain Mersed burned those captured ships deliberately? Corrain was sure he’d warned him against leaving such alarming evidence to warn off other corsairs who might fall into their hands. Had the young Tallat captain ignored him? Or had some sticky fire got away from the raiders when they tried to hurl it at their attackers?

On one ship, perhaps, but to burn both so thoroughly? Corrain could always go to Tallat and ask. Then he would be taken straight to the baron, who would ask him all manner of questions, and Corrain would have to admit to his abject failure to make good on the boasts he’d made before so many witnesses, before he’d sailed north from this very inlet.

Anskal nodded. ‘I have it.’

Before Corrain could ask what he meant, three horizontal shafts of lighting sliced across the inlet. Each one skewered a man standing on the stern platform beside the ladders grounded on the mud. Ripping straight through each man’s chest, the lacerating brightness leaped onwards to the closest corsair. As those men died, the lightning bolts sprang on to kill the next and the next after that.

Before Corrain could shake off the tormenting recollection of Minelas murdering Captain Gefren and his comrades in these very marshes, the galley was rid of all the armed and armoured Aldabreshi. Their gaping wounds smoking, they sprawled dead and blackened from the stern platform all along the central walkway to the prow and its upthrust post.

‘Now we find the gold,’ Anskal gloated. Corrain followed him across the sodden earth and up the galley’s stern ladders. ‘Where?’ Anskal demanded.

Silent, Corrain kicked a lightning-scarred corpse aside and hauled up the stern hatch. ‘Down here.’

He went first, ignoring the mage’s annoyance. If there were any Halferan women and children below, Corrain would see them brought up into the sunlight without any delay.

But no such good fortune offset all the calamities he had returned to thus far. The holds were empty of people. Instead, coin coffers were stacked waist high and topped with baskets filled with platters and cutlery, candlesticks and any other fine wares a household might boast of, wrought from silver or pewter. The black-bearded bastard and his gang had been plundering the Caladhrian coast far and wide.

Corrain opened the topmost of a slew of leather bags bundled together in sacking. He saw tangled gold and the glitter of gems; jewellery from the humblest ring cut from a dead woman’s hand to necklaces once gracing the neck of a fine merchant’s wife. Corrain threw the bag away. The thought of finding some festival gift that Lord Halferan had given Zurenne wasn’t to be borne.

‘Ah, I see.’ Anskal pushed past him.

Sick at heart, Corrain turned back to climb the ladder, ignoring the Mandarkin’s thanks. Setting his jaw, he walked down the centre of the galley, searching the benches on either side for any face that he might recognise among the terrified, cowering slaves. Fitrel hadn’t been among the corpses on the road, nor yet Reven or fat old Captain Arigo.

But as Corrain looked with growing desperation, he saw the slaves chained to these oars were men as ragged and filthy as he had been, all bearing the old scars of long-standing captivity.

Anskal emerged from the galley’s stern hatch. ‘I find more silver and copper than gold.’ He didn’t sound too displeased.

‘There will be plenty of gold in their anchorage.’ Corrain brushed aside an irritating tangle of hair. The chain dangling from his manacle caught a knotted lock teased by the wind.

As he ripped it free, heedless of the stinging, he recalled that brash vow which he’d thrown at Talagrin’s feet. Was that why Zurenne and her daughters had died? To punish him for all the insults he’d hurled?

Had Corrain’s impiety been the death of Hosh as well, getting the fool boy killed for the sake of his escape with Kusint? Where was the Forest youth now? Had he made his way safely back to his own people in Solura or had some hostile Forest Folk waylaid him to steal the food and coin he carried?

Anskal was looking at the chained slaves. ‘What of these?’

Was that compassion in the Mandarkin’s voice? Numb with exhaustion, physical and mental, sickened by his failure to find any survivors from Halferan, Corrain couldn’t find it in his heart to care. ‘Do as you think best.’

Anskal shrugged and raised a hand. The slaves began to scream and weep, utterly terrified whether they were Archipelagan or mainland born. Some were trying to hide beneath their benches as if padded goat-hide could possibly save them from lethal wizardry.

The sharp crack of splitting metal echoed around the inlet. The slaves’ yelps were cut short as they realised they weren’t being harmed. As the first few sprang to their feet, Corrain realised that Anskal’s magic had merely shattered their fetters, freeing their feet.

The closest to hand looked at the Mandarkin, wonder on their faces. Some of them clasped beseeching hands, not that Corrain or Anskal could understand their desperate pleading.

Anskal pointed at the stern ladders. As soon as they realised that they weren’t to be killed, the rowers began to run.

Corrain stood aside, letting them flee. They’d soon lose themselves in the marshes. If they survived the quicksands and plunge pools, they could take their chances on the highways and byways. The mainland-born or those who spoke some Tormalin would probably meet with mercy. If the rest were slain out of hand for their dusky skin and incomprehensible tongue, that was surely a tragedy, but Corrain couldn’t grieve for them. Not when he was already beset by so much heartbreak.

As Anskal came to stand beside him, Corrain realised some goodwife’s cherished perfume was trying and largely failing to mask the reek of his unwashed body. The Mandarkin had also shed his rancid leathers for an Aldabreshin tunic, bright as a bankfisher’s wing, and scarlet trews. The shore breeze tugged at the hem of a grey brocade cloak doubtless stolen from some village headman’s festival clothes press.

Anskal was looking north and south as the anchored galley swayed at the whim of wind and water. ‘There will be more ships along the coast.’

He had an inconvenient memory for anything Corrain said, whatever his lack of fluency in Tormalin.

‘Perhaps but the highest tide was two, three days ago. They’ll most likely have ridden the ebb out to sea yesterday or the day before.’

‘This is the sea?’ Anskal looked around the inlet. ‘I had thought it would be bigger,’ he commented, mystified.

‘You’ve never seen the sea?’ Corrain realised that was hardly a surprise, if Mandarkin was a country of cold mountains and northern deserts. No wonder talk of springing tides and ebbs would mean nothing to the mage.

‘The sea is out there.’ He pointed. ‘Salt water, open water, from horizon to horizon. Can you catch ships so far from land that you cannot even see it? If you can, what will you do with your loot?’

He gestured at the thicket of salthorn where they’d been hiding. Anskal would know he was pointing to the dark scar beside the tangled stems. As soon as they had arrived, the mage’s sorcery had summoned up his booty from Halferan so he could cache it like a squirrel hiding nuts for the winter. Or a Mandarkin scouting party preparing the way for an invading army.

Corrain shook his wrist to slide the manacle round and tucked the chain back up his sleeve. If nothing else remained, there was still vengeance.

‘Go to their anchorage now and you’ll take them all by surprise; those at anchor and those sailing home. You can have all their treasure.’

Anskal shook his head. ‘We will see what remains on this shore.’

He snapped his fingers and a gout of water surged up from the inlet, sparkling in the sunlight. At Anskal’s nod it fell into a waiting bucket. The Mandarkin gestured at the rowers’ benches. Scraps of goat hide and matted tufts of cotton tore themselves free. At the sweep of his hand, they plunged into the bucket. The water shimmered and glimpses of mud, reeds and surging foam visions rippled across the surface, too fast for Corrain to see.