Crusty snow was numbing his backside. Rathe carefully got to his feet, moved closer to the boulder. It shifted again, and he held his breath, sure Durogg had heard the low grinding. But no, the man was still busy rooting through Horge’s belongings.
Thinking to gain a better vantage point, Rathe set his feet and began to climb higher. Snow and rocks slid underfoot. Rathe went still, and the boulder rocked unsteadily. His eyes widened, and he glanced downslope.
With a quick check to make sure the angles were right, and a prayer that he did not inadvertently kill the horses, Rathe slammed his shoulder against the boulder. It rocked forward a few inches, then its great weight pushed him back. Wishing he had Loro at his side, he tried again. The boulder rocked farther than before, teetered back.
Down below, Durogg kicked one of Horge’s panniers aside with a curse. Knowing it was only a matter of time before the man moved, Rathe spun and dropped down. He dug his feet into the slope, pressed his back against cold stone. Straining, he rocked the boulder back and forth. At the right moment, he heaved with all his strength.
The boulder tumbled free with a warning rumble. Rathe fell into the hole where it had sat since the dawn of time. He quickly flipped onto his belly to watch the great stone roll down the mountain. He lost sight of a bellowing Durogg. A tremendous flash turned the night to day. Streams of fire burst around the boulder, and it exploded into smaller fragments. Durogg tried to flee, but the bouncing rocks crashed into him. He went down with a scream, half buried under smoking rubble.
Motionless, Rathe watched for any indication the man had any life left in him. Durogg did not so much as twitch.
“You bagged him,” Loro called warily. “Guess he’s yours to claim.”
“By all means,” Rathe muttered.
With utmost care, he clambered down to the camp, slipping and sliding over loose rock and ice. When he came near, Durogg’s eyes fluttered open. Sword ready, Rathe froze in place, prepared to leap aside if the man had any more surprises.
“May all the demons of the Abyss sup upon your bones, Scorpion,” Durogg grated. Mud and snow had befouled his once fine robes. He fell into a fit of coughing, and blood welled over his lips to stain his pristine beard.
“You gave me no choice,” Rathe said evenly.
“And, fool that you are,” Durogg rasped, “you do not know the man you protect. Better had you let me turn you into charcoal, than suffer the company of Horge.”
Rathe frowned. “What do you mean?”
Before Durogg could answer, Horge burst from the brambles. “He’s a fire mage! Don’t let him touch you!”
Rathe moved too late. Durogg swung the broken staff, and its flaming head slapped against his leg. Despite the fur-lined leggings he wore, searing pain swept through him, as if molten iron had replaced the blood in his veins. Biting back a howl, Rathe stumbled out of reach, dropped to his knees.
“No!” Horge raged, thrusting a fist against the fire mage’s chest. Durogg’s eyes went wide and his jaw gaped, but only a rattling hiss and a puff of steam passed his lips. Horge pressed harder, and spreading hoarfrost obscured the mage’s robes, then his skin.
After feathers of ice had fully cocooned Durogg, Horge stood away, clawing at his frosted hand. A ring, black as ten sins, fell off his finger and shattered on the rocks at his feet.
Loro rushed into camp, looking from the fire mage to Horge, and finally to Rathe. “Gods, what did he do to you?”
Rathe shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m well.” The fire inside him had departed as fast as it came. He felt flushed, but after wondering more days than he cared to count if he would ever know warmth again, that seemed a blessing.
“You’re not well,” Horge said. “Not at all. We must hurry before….”
“Before what, you wretched coward?” Loro demanded.
Horge swallowed. “Before he dies. The touch of a fire mage is death.”
“I feel fine,” Rathe protested, standing up to prove it.
Next he knew, he was lying face down, struggling to get his hands in a position to push himself up.
Loro rolled him over, jerked back with a hiss. “He’s burning up!”
Horge did a nervous little dance. “Unless we get him to those I spoke of earlier, he will continue to burn, until only a husk remains.”
“You mean the monks,” Loro snarled. “Who you warned us to avoid?”
Rathe tried to follow the conversation, but he felt sleepy and warm … so perfectly warm.
Horge cast Loro a nervous glance. “Aye. They have means to rid Rathe of the dark magic spreading inside him. If we don’t hurry, it won’t matter.”
“Then why are we prattling?” Loro snapped, knocking Horge aside in his haste to reach the horses.
Horge trailed Loro with his eyes, fidgeted a moment, then crept over to Durogg’s staff. With his death, the fire at its top had gone cold. Slinking like a rodent, Horge bent over the end of the staff and used a knife to pry something from it. With a relieved sigh, he lifted a dully glowing red gem before his eyes. When he saw Rathe looking, he hurriedly tucked it inside his tunic.
“All will be well,” Horge promised. He looked more hopeful than sure.
“I’m fine,” Rathe tried to say, but mangled the words. His tongue did not want to work. He laughed, and it sounded like he was strangling. He laughed all the harder when Horge began frantically packing his jerkin with clumps of snow and ice. The melt water dribbling over his ribs felt like warm milk.
By the time Loro returned, tongues of flame had begun to lick at Rathe’s insides, and his laughter had become tormented cries.
Chapter 15
A horizon-spanning wall of cloud the hue of old bruises devoured the golden sunlight. The gray-green waters of the Sea of Muika sloshed over the
Lamprey’s
deck, as the sow-bellied cog wallowed through a crest and plunged into a deep trough. Sails and rigging snapped in the rising wind, and an ominous creaking rose from the ship’s timbers.
“I can’t suffer another storm,” Fira groaned, arms wrapped around her belly. In the days since setting sail, her legs had grown accustomed to the deck’s constant rocking, but not her insides.
Nesaea looked away from the brooding horizon. “I warned you to remain in Millport with the others.” She envied the Maidens of the Lyre, doubtless cozy warm in one inn or another.
Pale and drawn, Fira opened her mouth to protest, only to throw herself against the ship’s rail and retch noisily. Nesaea held back her coppery hair, trying not to think about warmth. So far north, the warmest day felt cold to her. The
Lamprey’s
crew did not seem to notice, and went about their tasks wearing only knee-length breeches and thin tunics.
Captain Ostre joined Nesaea and Fira at the rail. Squat as a barrel, strong as an ox, the captain gave them a once over, as if confirming to himself that they were, indeed, women under all their snug leather and fur. With nervous grumbling, his eye skipped over the sword hilts poking from their heavy cloaks. Nesaea had seen that look before from Ostre and his crew. By all measure, she and Fira gave the appearance of rogues, more than proper ladies, and many folk found that unsettling. Nesaea found it reassuring.
“You’ll want to head below decks,” the captain said, voice hoarse and hard.
“I’d rather not,” Fira answered weakly. “The air is better up here.” Her skin, usually pale and smooth as cream, had taken on a worrying green tint.
Captain Ostre tugged off his wide-brimmed felt hat, raked stubby fingers through hair as black and wild as his beard. “’Tis no request, girl, but an order.”
“We’re not your crew,” Fira snapped, then abruptly pressed the back of a hand to her lips, closed her eyes. She was getting greener by the minute.
“We do not wish to cause trouble,” Nesaea said, rubbing Fira’s back, as the woman bent to spew again over the side. “The courtesy of an explanation would go better than a sharp tongue.”
Ostre snugged his hat on with a curse. “Having you aboard has already caused me a fair bit of trouble with my crew.”
“Bad luck, is it?” Nesaea asked scornfully.
He gave her a quizzical look, then his salt-toughened face showed understanding. “We are no sailors of warm jade seas and fair winds, those who have naught better to do than soak in sunlight and create superstitions.” His gazed hardened. “The trouble, girl, comes from my crew dreaming about the feel of you warm wenches wriggling under them, instead of fixing their minds on sailing the
Lamprey
.”
Nesaea glanced around. None of the crewmen were looking directly at her, but only because several had quickly averted their gazes. It was not so different than the scrutiny she tolerated while singing or dancing. “You’ve not minded where we were before.”
“Before, we was not making to pass through the Demon Gate.” He pointed beyond the prow to a headland of sharp black crags that reached far west before sinking into the salty deep. “The Gyntors fall off the land there, but keep on for two hundred leagues. The Demon Gate is the only passage through to the White Sea.”
Nesaea squinted at the toothy wall of mountains, made out a narrow breach dotted white with thousands of spiraling seabirds. Though still miles off, she could not imagine a ship fitting through, and said as much.
“Aye, ‘tis a tight fit,” Ostre said, bracing himself as the ship shuddered through a frothing wave. “’Tis also a curse to all ships.”
“And you mean to sail through with night coming on?” Fira asked, swabbing her wet lips with a gloved hand.
Captain Ostre shrugged big shoulders. “Tide favors us now. Time wasted, for the likes of the
Lamprey
, is coin lost.” He laughed at her astonishment. “Be at ease, girl. ‘Tis not the first my crew has made the voyage under moon and stars.”
“Ship!” cried the watchman in the crow’s nest, pointing his brass eyeglass to the south. The crew stopped what they were doing.
“Her colors?” Ostre shouted back, concern pinching his face.
“’Tis the
Crimson Gull!
” the watchman called shrilly.
Ostre shouted to the quartermaster. “Liamas! Double the oarsmen! The rest of you slinking whoreson curs, make this wallowing sow ready to fly!”
The crew stood frozen. Liamas, a fair-haired Prythian giant, roared orders. In an instant, the deck boiled with rushing men, half going to the rigging, half clambering down through the deck hatch.
Nesaea watched the goings on for a few seconds, then faced the captain. “Can we not fight?”
“If a merchant wants to live so long as to see his hair gone or gray, he does not battle corsairs, and never the
Crimson Gull
. Most like, she’s down from raiding whalers of the White Sea, and seeking an easy kill. ” Under his breath, he added, “We run, for all the good running will do.”
Nesaea leaned against the rail, scanning over waves feathered with whitecaps. Then she saw the galley’s sails, red as blood and fat with wind. Two banks of oars to a side skipped her across the waves. “
Can
we outrun her?”
Ostre gauged the distance to the corsair ship. “Unless the gods favor us, the
Crimson Gull
will swoop down on us before we make the Demon Gate. Comes to it, we’ll surrender. Her captain will loot us. Mayhap he’ll let us go afterward, in hopes of taking us again another day.”
Nesaea noticed he did not look her way when he spoke. “They will take me and Fira.”
“Aye,” Ostre said regretfully. “There are those in Giliron who’d pay more for just one of you, than for all the goods in my hold.”
Nesaea’s skin crawled at memories of Giliron, and her stomach cramped to recall all the blood she had spilled to escape that island kingdom. “Do you mean to let them have us, Captain?”
“’Tis not a matter of
letting
them,” Ostre said, expression pained. “They’ll have what they will, or me and my men will die resisting.”
“What if you’re wrong, Captain? What if you fight?”
He stood tall, though still avoiding Nesaea’s eye. “I am a man of honor, and a father to young daughters.” He swallowed. “As such, I leave the fate of the
Lamprey
in your hands. At my command, if you would risk so many lives for your own, I will fight.”
Nesaea wondered if he would have given her that choice, had she and Fira been in their cramped cabin below decks, unaware of the nearing threat. Still, she was not given to surrender, and would rather die than return to Giliron and serve as a stranger’s enslaved lover. She was also uncomfortably aware that she would sacrifice those aboard the
Lamprey
to ensure that did not happen. Allaying some of that unease, was the confidence she held in her abilities to achieve victory.
“Do you have jars aboard, those that can be sealed with pitch, and the like?” Ostre blinked at the question, nodded slowly. “Then, Captain, prepare your crew to fight,” Nesaea said resolutely. This was no time to sound hesitant.
Ostre sighed and bobbed his head. “You know the dice has rolled against the
Lamprey
.” He spoke as one facing the headsman’s axe.
“I do,” Nesaea said. “But we are about to roll them again, and change the game.”