Chaosbound (14 page)

Myrrima wondered at that. Law here in the wilderness was rather malleable. Vandervoot, the king, had lived on the coast. Most likely, Myrrima imagined that he was food for crabs about now. This mayor from a backwater town could hardly declare martial law.

More than that, she could see no justice in what Threngell proposed. Here he was: a man with land and horses, crops and fields, demanding that folks who had nothing take no salvage from the dead. But she knew that often lords would find reasons why they should grow a little fatter while the rest of the world grew a little leaner.

“Under whose authority was martial law declared?” Myrrima asked.

“My authority,” Mayor Threngell said, a warning in his voice.

7

Rage can give strength during battle; but he who surrenders to rage surrenders all reason
.

—Sir Borenson

Sweating and grunting, Borenson used a log as a lever to pry the bow of the ship up so that it groaned and scraped.

For two long hours he'd been trying, with Draken, Baron Walkin, and the baron's younger brother Bane to get the ship free. It was grueling labor—pulling wreckage from under the vessel, setting up logs to use as rollers under the ship, setting up other logs to use as pry bars, shoving and straining until Borenson felt that his heart would break.

Now, as the ship began to nudge, he realized that all of their labor might have been for nothing. The rising tide had lifted the back of the ship. Had the tides been extra high, he imagined that they just might have borne the ship out into open water. But the tide wouldn't rise high enough today, so he shouted, “Heave! Heave!”

As one, all four men threw their weight into their pry bars, and the bow lifted into the air. Suddenly there was a groaning as the roller logs took the weight of the ship, and it began to slide backward into the ocean.

Bane Walkin let out a cry of pain, shouting, “Stop it! Stop it!”

But there was no stopping the vessel now. It rolled backward and splashed into the ocean, spewing foam.

As the bow slid away, Borenson spotted Bane—fallen, clutching his ankle. His foot had obviously gotten caught between the ship and a log.

Borenson rushed to Bane's aid, and had the man pull off his boot.
Draken and Baron Walkin knelt at his side. Gingerly, Borenson twisted the young man's ankle. It had already begun to swell, and a bruise was setting in. But the man was lucky. At least he still had his foot.

“Good news,” Borenson teased. “We won't have to amputate!”

Bane gritted his teeth and tried to laugh, though tears had formed in the corners of his eyes.

“Well, at least we won't have to be hiking home,” Baron Walkin said, and he turned and looked at their ship, bobbing proudly on the waves.

Borenson grinned. I have my ship!

So it was that the four men claimed their prize. With a sail and rope salvaged from another wreck, they set sail nearly at noon. A breeze had kicked up, making small whitecaps on the waves, and with a little trial and error they managed to set out, plying the waters north. The ship had no proper wheel, but instead relied upon a rudder, so Borenson manned it from the captain's deck while Baron Walkin and Draken trimmed the sails. Bane merely sat on the prow, nursing his foot. He'd wrapped it in wet kelp to keep down the swelling, and now he held on his rubbery green bandage.

In less than an hour they reached the mouth of the channel and turned inland, then retrieved their salvage from the earlier wreck.

Borenson had just loaded the last of the crates and barrels aboard when Draken raised a cry of warning. Borenson looked upstream. Several rafts and a small boat paddled in the distance, perhaps a mile out upon the water.

“Rescuers!” Bane Walkin said.

Borenson doubted it. The men were rowing toward them, hard.

Borenson didn't like the look of it. “Let's get under way, quickly.”

“Agreed,” Baron Walkin said, face grim. He nodded toward the wreckage floating nearby. “Looks like we're done with the salvage. It's going to turn into a free-for-all out here.”

Draken untied the knots that bound the ship to a tree and shoved off, pulling himself topside at the last moment, while Borenson raised the sails, then took the tiller from Baron Walkin.

As the wind swiftly began driving the ship up the channel, the rafts began to spread out, as if to intercept.

“Give them a wide berth,” Borenson suggested, “until we know what they're about.”

He pushed hard on the tiller, taking the ship directly north, toward the far shore, some four miles in the distance, while Walkin tacked the sails.

The men in the flotilla waved frantically, trying to hail the ship. There were more than thirty of them.

“Halt!” one man shouted from the boat, his voice carrying over the water. “How long have you had that ship?”

Borenson recognized Mayor Threngell from Fossil. He was a nodding acquaintance. Borenson knew of only one reason that he would ask that question.

“Four years!” he cried out in return, knowing full well that the mayor wouldn't recognize him, not with the change to his form.

“Bring her about!” the mayor cried. He and his men waved frantically.

“What?” Borenson called. He cupped a hand to his ear, as if he couldn't hear. Then Draken and the Walkins all waved back, as if to say “good day.”

“That's the mayor from Fossil. You think he'll give us trouble?” Draken asked under his breath.

Borenson felt embarrassed to have such a lack-wit for a son.

“Of course they'll give us trouble,” Baron Walkin said. “A ship like this is worth twenty thousand steel eagles, easily. Everything else out there in the water is just leftovers. He'll be out to steal it before sundown.”

“He'll have to catch us first,” Borenson said.

Borenson didn't think that the ship was worth twenty thousand eagles—it was worth far more. Fossil had always been a nothing town, out in the middle of nowhere. But now with the flood, with the water moving inland, it was in prime position to become a port city, perhaps the largest in Landesfallen.

Mayor Threngell would have figured that out by now. But a port was nothing without ships.

This ship might be Fossil's only tie to the old world, to trade between the continents. Threngell would see that, in time, too. He'd bring his mob to take the ship.

Borenson realized that he'd need to make his escape quickly, before the mayor had time to act.

The Walkin and Borenson families didn't have much in the way of stores, but a plan began to form in Borenson's mind. He could sail up the old river channel to Fossil and buy a few supplies. Those men in their rafts would have a hard time rowing forty or fifty miles upstream, especially now that the tides and turned, and with the lowering of the tide, it would be pulling the rafts back toward the open sea.

But no matter how he figured it, there was no way to avoid the mayor and his lackeys completely.

Fortunately, the mayor and his men weren't well armed. If it came to a fight, Borenson wasn't above showing them a trick or two.

It was early afternoon when the ship sailed to camp at the base of the cliff. Draken leapt out of the vessel as it neared shore and swam to a half-submerged tree, tying the boat up to dock.

The entire camp swarmed down to see the ship, the children leaping about excitedly. It was a great treasure, a valuable find. The only person who didn't come down, it seemed, was Rain, and she was the one person that Draken most wanted to see.

So while the Walkins showed off the white ship with its makeshift sails and a few barrels and crates of odd salvage, Draken scrambled up the cliff.

He found Rain preparing dinner for the clan, roasting some hapless burrow bear.

“These are for you,” he said, setting a pocketful of plums on a large rock that served as a table. He'd picked them this morning, and had been saving them all day. “They grow along the creeks.”

Rain fell into his arms, and Draken hugged her. He realized that she had been waiting for him, staying back up here while the others buzzed around the ship.

Holding her, touching her, felt like coming home.

She was a slender girl, so narrow of hip that it often surprised him when he put his arms around her to feel how little of her there really was. She had pale blond hair tied back in a sensible style, and copious freckles. Her jaw was strong, her lips thin, and her green eyes looked as if she was a woman who would brook no argument. She did not wear a dress, but a cream-colored summer tunic that was wearing thin, over a pair of tight woolen pants.

After a long kiss, Rain whispered, “Has your father told you the news?”

“What?” Draken asked.

“He plans to go back to Mystarria, to fight some war. Your mother told me all about it. She asked if I would come with you.”

Draken was surprised to learn the news this way, rather than hear it from his father. Now Rain whispered hurriedly, giving what few details she could. Mostly, it seemed that she had only guesses and suppositions, but the news was grave indeed.

“Do you want to go?” Draken asked, fighting back his worry. He didn't want her to. He didn't want to take her into danger.

She thought long and hard. She'd told him much of how they had fled Rofehavan in the first place, but he knew that she still had secrets.

The brutish warlords of Internook had taken over the coastal cities of Mystarria, and they were harsh taskmasters. They'd driven the peasants mercilessly, and every few months they would march through the villages and demand a levy, taking the finest of the family's sheep and cattle, seizing anything of worth, and dragging off the fairest virgins in the city.

For the past three years, Rain had spent her days and nights in hiding, as much as she could.

Townsfolk died, driven to starvation, and each time some land opened up, a family of barbarians from Internook would show up and lay claim to it.

Soon, neighbors were spying upon neighbors, telling which family might be hiding a cow in the woods or a daughter in the cellar, so that the levies would be paid.

As a baron, Owen Walkin had commanded respect among his people,
but the time had finally come when hope failed him, and he'd taken his family and run off, crossing through cities and countryside by night, until they reached the land of Toom.

He'd fled just in time, as Rain told it, for two days later the entire barony was destroyed, its citizens forced to march into the forest and never return.

Rain finally answered, “We had it hard enough escaping from Mystarria the first time. I'm not eager to go back. I don't think I could ever go back. Stay here with me—please.”

Her voice had become soft and urgent at the last, and she begged him to stay with her eyes more than with her words. She clutched his hands, as if begging him to stay forever.

Dare I stay? he wondered. His mother and father were going away, going to fight. He couldn't imagine leaving them to their own devices.

A moment later, Borenson came lumbering up the cliff and stood for a moment. He seemed to weave on his feet, and Draken realized that he had to be exhausted. As far as he could tell, his father had gotten no sleep since yesterday morning.