Chaosbound (34 page)

Now Crull-maldor planted a seed. “You have come a long way,” the lich whispered, “but you have accomplished nothing. Your people at Caer Luciare have all been killed or captured. Emperor Zul-torac has seen to that. The land is covered in darkness, and all of it is under the emperor's power. The woman you love is no more. Any children that you sired have likely been eaten. Your friends and comrades—both those whom you admired and those whom you held in contempt—are gone forever.

“There may yet be a few who survive, deep in the dark recesses of Rugassa. Some have been reserved for torture, no doubt. Others have been put to the forcible.

“So perhaps your woman still lives on. Perhaps your children cry in the night, hoping that you will come.

“But you cannot save them. To even try is vain. You shall die tonight in front of those you thought to free . . . by the
emperor's
command.”

The berserker Aaath Ulber roared at that, and once again he strained at the cords, his knotted muscles bulging, his face twisted with rage and desperation. Though his wrists were cut deeply, he struggled against the ropes, striking at hallucinatory foes, until the thick wooden slats beneath him cracked under the tremendous stress.

Aaath Ulber's eyes were glazed from rage and pain. Speaking to him any longer would accomplish nothing, for he was past hearing.

Instead, with the fury of a wounded animal he continued to bellow and moan, eager to break free from his bonds, hoping to fight his way south.

In his dreams, Crull-maldor thought, he is already in Rugassa, emptying the dungeons of the emperor.

Crull-maldor leaned back and smiled in deep satisfaction.

20

Ah, there is nothing that I enjoy more than the arena, where so many great hearts lie beating upon the floor!

—The Emperor Zul-torac

For the first three hours after Aaath Ulber left, Draken managed to keep his composure. A slight wind arose, worrying the sea. Long swells began to rise up and whitecaps slapped the hull, but Myrrima used her powers to keep the fog wrapped around the boat.

Twice in the morning other vessels drew near, but gave Draken's ship a wide berth.

Draken had spent the night guiding the vessel, but he could not sleep, so he stayed topside to peer out into the fog.

It was autumn, and with the coming of fall the salmon had begun to gather near shore. Draken saw huge ones around the boat, silver in the water, lazing about, finning in slow circles. The sight of them only sharpened his hunger. He'd never liked salmon, but it was better than the rancid bear he'd been eating.

Myrrima spotted some olive-green kelp floating by, and she used a staff to pull it in, then sat on the railing and began chewing it.

She offered some to Draken and the others but they all declined. Draken found that salty food only made him thirsty.

Sage amused herself by singing softly, and for long hours the family waited.

After four hours, Draken told himself that Aaath Ulber must have stopped at an inn for a drink, as his father was known to do.

After six hours, his lips drew tight across his teeth with worry. By mid-afternoon, he was sure that there was trouble.

Of course there is trouble, he told himself.

“When's Father coming back?” Sage finally demanded, well into the afternoon.

Draken was angry by then, angry at himself for letting Rain go into town without him. He felt weak from lack of decent food, and the weakness left his nerves frayed.

“Soon,” Myrrima promised. “If he does not return by nightfall, I'll go find him.”

“Not without me,” Draken said.

Myrrima gave him a hard look, as if to say, “If I don't come back, you'll need to take your sister and flee.” But then her face softened as she realized his predicament. His betrothed was out there somewhere.

“Your sister's safety comes first,” she said.

Draken didn't dare voice his own thoughts to Sage. Why can't the child see? he wondered. Her father is never coming back.

At sunset Myrrima let her cloak of mist blow away in the evening breeze, and then waited until darkness had fallen before Draken lowered the away boat. The evening fog rose from the water, creating clouds at the limit of vision. A waxing moon was just cresting the horizon like a glowing white eye in the socket of the sea. Stars danced upon the glassy waves. A slight breeze had come up from the south, surprisingly cool, like the touch of the dead. Draken almost imagined that he felt spirits on the water.

As soon as the boat was lowered, Draken dropped into it. His mother shot him an angry look, but he stared her in the eye. “You can't ask me to stay,” he said.

Myrrima hesitated, as if to voice some argument. “Will you follow my orders?” she demanded.

“Yes,” Draken said.

“Then I order you to get out of this boat and take care of your sister.”

“Perhaps in going with you, I would take better care of my sister. We don't know what kind of trouble you might be walking into.”

His mother stared hard at him, and at last sighed. The truth was that neither of them knew what was right. “You'll keep your head down.”

Myrrima gave Sage some final instructions. “If Draken and I don't come back by dawn, take the ship south to Toom or Haversind. Don't come looking for us.”

“I won't leave you,” Sage said, as if by will alone she might hope to save them.

“Promise me you won't try to come for us,” Myrrima said. “If we get in trouble, then I doubt that you could help, Sage. You have a long life ahead of you. If we don't return, know that we love you—and know that above all, I want you to make the best life for yourself that you can.”

Sage jutted her chin and refused to promise.

I suppose that I should not be surprised if my little sister is hardheaded, Draken told himself, considering who we have as parents.

Draken took the oars. Myrrima drew some runes upon the water to ease their way, and Draken began to row.

He could smell the smoke of cooking fires on the water, and as he drew near to shore, he spotted a large village rising upon a nearby hill; he was surprised by its size. It sprawled north and south along the shoreline for as far as he could see.

Internook always did have an excess of people, he thought.

A pair of beacons had been lit on the arms of the bay. The fires themselves burned in censers held by statues of men with the heads of bulls, carved from white stone. The firelight gleamed upon the surface of the stone, turning the monstrous statues orange-yellow, so that they could be seen from afar. Their horns looked to be covered in gold, and they spread wide and nearly circled the pyre like bloody crowns.

Draken recalled hearing once that each port had its own symbol, its own effigy at the mouth of the bay, so that ships passing by night might better navigate.

He knew that the word
vagr
was old Internookish for port. But he could not guess at the word for
bull
.

“Do you know where we are?” Draken asked.

Myrrima shook her head no.

Draken made his way by starlight toward the docks, pulling his cloak up to hide his face. As he drew nearer the village, he studied the rocky beach. He could see no wreckage as there had been in Landesfallen.

Internook, it appeared, had actually risen a bit, rather than sinking into into the sea.

What a shame, Draken thought. The world would have been better off without the barbarians.

He silently rowed up into the bay, and the reek of a town grew strong. He could smell fish guts and dead crabs, the leftover of the day's catch. Sea lions barked somewhere among the rocks along the shore, and that surprised him, given the warlords' penchant for wearing boiled sealskins as armor when they went to war.

Lights shone all through town—wan lights that only yellowed the thin hides that the barbarians used for windows. There were no lanterns placed upon the darkened streets, as he would have seen in Mystarria. The houses looked strange and widely spread. There were huge long-houses upon the hill; each was a dark, monolithic fortress with forty or fifty acres of farmland surrounding it. Dozens of families might live in a long house.

It made the village seem surprisingly . . . desolate, Draken decided. It was spread over a broad area, and each long house squatted like a small keep, an island in its own private wilderness.

No one walked the streets that he could see. There were no rich travelers with torchbearers, as you might notice in more civilized countries. There were clean bright houses down near the docks, but he could not hear any travelers at the inns, raising their voices in song.

The entire village was preternaturally quiet.

This is not the Internook of legend, Draken thought, where warlords drink and gamble through the long nights, while their dogs are made to fight bears for sport.

He pulled up to the docks in the starlight, climbed from the boat, and pulled his hood low over his face. His mother took the lead.

They climbed onto the wooden decks, which creaked and trembled under the onslaught of small waves, and made their way up toward a steep ridge, where he could see stairs climbing into town.

Hundreds of small fishing boats were moored at the docks, and as Myrrima passed one, she grabbed an empty sack, stuffed in some rope, and slung it over her back, as if hoping that in the darkness she might pass for some fisherwoman, bringing her catch home from the sea.

The ruse worked with the cats at least. A dozen hungry dock cats came rushing up to greet her, tails raised high and twitching in excitement. Some of them mewed sweetly, eager for fish. But when Draken peered down at one orange tom in the moonlight, he saw that its face had been clawed by other cats until it was swollen and disfigured. One eye was closed with pussy wounds, and as it mewed, it sounded vicious and threatening, as if it was accustomed to demanding fish rather than begging.

Myrrima stomped her foot, shooing the monstrosities away, and climbed the stairs into town, with Draken at her back. They came out of the darkness onto a deserted street, and peered both ways. The cold wind gusted suddenly at Draken's back, and once again he felt that odd chill creeping up his spine, like the touch of the dead.

It seemed early for the streets to be so barren. No one walked them, not a solitary man.

Sailor folk live here, Draken told himself. That's why the streets are barren. They'll need to be up at dawn, to sail with the tide.

Yet that answer didn't entirely satisfy him. He'd seen the docks at the Courts of Tide in Mystarria, where sailors caroused to all hours.

Perhaps it is unsafe to walk the streets at night here, he wondered.

Myrrima halted, and spoke, her voice shaking. “This is odd. It's almost as if the town is deserted.”

Then Draken heard something, a bit of music carried on the wind, the distant sound of singing, like men carousing in an alehouse.

“That way!” he said. “I hear something.”

Myrrima looked baffled, but followed his lead.