Stormed Fortress (82 page)

Fionn Areth had observed enough ships in the channel to recognize one in distress. Whatever the difficulty, her heaving stern swung in danger of ramming against the spiked links.

Even as he jockeyed for vantage, a by-standing expert expounded,
'
That ship
'
s not caught aback. She
'
s damaged her rudder.
'

Cattrick grunted agreement, the glass glued against his lined squint.
'
Tiller rope
'
s snapped. They
'
ll have a relieving tackle taking the strain. See the press by the quarterdeck hatch? Crew
'
s scrambling to rig a replacement.
'

Though the sentry still fidgeted over his bet, he knew not to push for his answer. In daylight, the ornery shipwright looked all of his six decades, skin dark as the varnish laid on weathered teak, and his whiskers a silver-tipped wolf pelt.

Out on the vessel, a lantern flashed, twice.

'
Signal!
'
snapped Cattrick. He straightened and shoved the glass at the soldier.
'
Read out the code, man.
'
Still glaring, he spun, his battered felt hat clapped onto his head by a snatching fist.
'
Fetch Arithon!
'
he shouted, straight at Fionn Areth.
'
That
'
s Feylind
'
s brig,
Evenstar,
caught by the tide. She
'
s flying the Sunwheel under a ruse, and knowing her mettle, her damaged steering is likely a blindsiding mock-up. We
'
ve got only minutes before she strikes the chain.
Someone must open the harbour mouth!
'

Else the ship-killing barrier would chew the brig
'
s planks, beam on in a broaching sea.

Through the scream of the wind, the rapt sentry affirmed the shipwright
'
s early assessment.
'
Signal,
'
he agreed.
'
And she
'
s friendly, for sure. The garrison manning the keeps at the headland are being asked to stage a mock fight. At their first flight of arrows, the brig will show a merchant
'
s cowardice, and drop her flags in surrender.
'

'
Is Feylind aboard?
'
Fionn Areth asked, urgent. But knowing the captain, he already guessed: only her errant style, and Teive
'
s courage, would dare the challenge of sailing straight under the Alliance blockade.

'
Run!
'
bellowed Cattrick.
'
That
'
s my ship, caught aback! If she falls to Lysaer
'
s campaign as a prize, I will pound you senseless, then shred your child
'
s equipment for crab bait!
'

Early Winter 5671

Moves

Arrived through the Paravian circle at old Tirans, inside the wards sealing Atwood, Kharadmon updates Traithe concerning the misgivings left by his recent errand:
'
I don
'
t
like
surprises!
The Prime Matriarch was too busy!
When I came to demand that her sisterhood
'
s meddlers pack up her camp at Alestron, she was one jump ahead of Sethvir
'
s intent, with tents folded, already leaving .
.
.
'

Fighting to help his stricken liege resist Desh-thiere
'
s curse-bound insanity, Sulfin Evend relies on Prince Arithon
'
s promise
never
to shoulder an active defence at Alestron:
'
Hang on, friend,
'
the Lord Commander implores,
'
bear up and withstand this!
'
which Lysaer does, up until the set-back news breaks, that a brig laden down with supply has lost steering, positioned to fall into enemy hands and prolong the siege into midwinter . . .

Sprinted to the top of a south-facing battlement, Arithon s
'
Ffalenn bears shocking witness as a light-bolt arcs out, pitched to strike the lone brig pinned against the chain at the harbour mouth; and despite Dakar
'
s shouted dismay, he reacts before thought, his launched Shadow unfolding too late to quite shield the explosive impact.. .

Early Winter 5671

XIII. Stormed Fortress

Parrien
'
s war galley was relaunched from her secure berth in the caverns, bearing the armed men and tackle to tow in the charred hulk of the brig. She crossed the closed harbour, cleaving against wind and the slackening tide, and wrapped under cover of Arithon
'
s Shadow. He stood exposed on the open foredeck. Braced on his feet, his wool mantle snapped in the contrary gusts, he had no thought to spare Talvish, on guard at his shoulder in Kyrialt
'
s stead for his practised experience at sea. Mage-trained focus, unwavering, still sought to defend the floundering ship in the estuary. Overhead, the crack of inbound light-bolts exploded to star-bursts one after the next, their sla
mm
ing reports a continuous thunder. Hot wind and searing steam from the onslaught whipped the rowers, acrid with charred timber and the edged scent of lightning.

Parrien
'
s captaincy drove the warcraft ahead, her men pitched to fight before losing the
Evenstar
'
s
drifting hull, or risking her cargo. Battle nerves overcame any fear. Where a sailing craft must bow to the elements, tacking for headway in confined waters, an oared ship could cut a straight course. Handily as the galley clove the grey chop, swift progress did little for the shattered survivors clinging on the crippled brig.

An Alliance patrol ship already closed in, her withering assault launched to finish the avatar
'
s pre-emptive strike. Fanatics, her boarders swarmed
Evenstar
'
s
rail, undaunted by the threat of Darkness. Their heroic foray would
capture her load of provisions, or else flood her hold to thwart the citadel
'
s relief.

Sevrand
'
s guard in the watchtowers flanking the narrows responded with arrows and steel. Barbed lances and shot shrieked from their seaward arbalests. While sheets of white light roared in overhead, absorbed by defences of Shadow, the lethal cross-fire whined and thumped into charred wood, or ripped down the zealots who rushed to put
Evenstar
'
s
stranded sailhands to the sword.

'
Arithon,
no!
You cannot help!
'
Talvish laid urgent hands on the prince to thwart him from displacing a hand at the benches and seizing an oar.
'
Steady on, liege! Best to maintain your cover of Darkness. Let the duke
'
s fighting seamen to do as they
'
ve been trained since they were beardless lads!
'

Yet the wait came too hard.
'
That
'
s Feylind
'
s brig, out there!
'

'
Ath preserve, don
'
t I know!
'
Talvish ruthlessly strengthened his grip.
'
If her captain
'
s alive, trust this galley
'
s endeavour. We
'
ll reach her and strive for a recovery!
'

Against the anguished cry of the heart, while the screams of the burned and the wounded shrilled from the brig
'
s exposed deck, the war galley shot through the spray knifed off her plunging bow. Parrien shouted, exhorting more speed. Momentarily, the double-time stroke suspended as the oar banks enacted a shift change. The horn-call sounded. The drum boomed again. Soaked looms lapped the sea and drove the prow into the narrows. The vessel leaped forward, while the struggle to reclaim the
Evenstar
'
s
hulk raged ahead with undaunted ferocity.

Through the flickering tangle of levin bolts and hurled Shadow, the watch keeps were launching fast lighters crammed with able men. The small craft plunged into the fray, protected by covering volleys from the towers
'
sharp-shooting bowmen. A swarm of stirred hornets, the boats
'
crews stormed the brig. Assault parties grappled and boarded. Desperate for food stores, or else driven by the bottled rage nursed over weeks of inaction, they swarmed through the smoke, some falling to hostile arrows. The rest became an unstoppable force. They threshed through the Light
'
s self-righteous invaders and mowed down all standing resistance.

By the moment that Parrien
'
s galley hove in, the disputed deck was retaken. The listing hulk was being shackled by hawsers, and rigged tackles warped the heavy bow. Streaming cinders and smoke,
Evenstar
would be hauled into secure waters behind the raised harbour chain. Men at the windlass inside the west watch keep prepared to toss lines to haul her into the calm shallows.

Seen near at hand, the scope of devastation smashed hope. All three masts were razed stumps. The singed decks were entangled with smouldering tackle, crashed from aloft, still aflame. Across blackened planks, lodged in the splinters and wreckage, lay the sprawled bodies of the brave fallen: the burned and the broken; the moaning wounded, stricken by arrows; and the bleeding, hacked sailors, butchered outright by enemy hatred.

Arithon owned a trained seaman
'
s agility. While the galley manoeuvred at speed alongside, he displaced a deck-hand, unlashed a halyard, then slung himself over the closing span of chopped water. Two steps behind, Talvish was left to snatch the dropped line on the back-swing. He followed, while his liege landed running amid the brig
'
s carnage. As he caught up, Arithon and five citadel men were wrestling aside the charred boom of
Evensta
r
'
s
downed spanker.

Underneath, they exposed several bodies, one unmistakably the quartermaster, crushed against the black stump of the wheel mount and the melted bronze binnacle. Between the glaring flash of each light-bolt, and the flung Shadow that muzzled the back-flash, dead flesh glimmered, reduced to paper-grey ash and seared bone. Two others lay bundled amid the remains of a seafarer
'
s oiled mantle, reduced to singed wool and stinking, scorched meat. Arithon crouched. Barehanded, before stupefied action could stop him, he eased the crisped corpse aside and peeled back the underlying layer of scorched fabric. Found Feylind beneath: spared because her first mate, Teive, had thrown himself over her. His staunch love had sheltered her struggling form against the deck while flaming canvas seared him alive.

Nor was his cherished captain unscathed. Arithon sank to his knees at her side. He restarted his stopped breath. Slapped bloodlessly white by the horrific impact, Talvish knelt also, nearly as fast. He gathered her battered head in his hands. Rested her shuddering weight in his lap, to ease the strained gasps as her blistered lungs laboured for air.

Which left Arithon, stricken, to assess the wracked ruin of her. The limbs flayed by burns; the ripped torso with too many white, splintered bones punched through pulp, where the weight of the gaff rig and spanker boom had smashed her encumbered flesh.

'
Tae
'
thadra!
'
he choked. His eyes were streaming.
'
My dear! Most brave, and always a tigress. Of course, you would hoist sail and come. Did you blindside your brother and Tharrick as well? Daunt your mother with your drawn cutlass?
'

Talvish eased the wracked braid from Feylind
'
s split lips. Her blue eyes stayed open and urgent.
'
No such thing,
'
she husked, her whisper a thread through the raging howl of the elements. While Arithon
'
s gift quenched his half-brother
'
s cursed fury, she chose her words with spare strength.
'
My choice was a gang-up agreement.
'
A brief struggle ensued. She could not move her arm. Her right shoulder had been stripped to gristle. Her chest heaved.
'
The chain. At my neck.
'

There, a remnant of tarnished metal remained, stitched through the blood and stuck cinders. Arithon might have balked from sheer grief, had her expectant sight ever left him. For the adamant need in her dying request, he reached out and gently untangled the links from her fouled shirt. His own signet flashed back, green emerald and white gold: unwanted token of an oath renounced, and his pledge of honour to keep her from harm.

'
I grew up,
'
Feylind grated.
'
You will make no apologies.
'

'
You were ever your own mistress
'
Arithon allowed. Through tears, he stayed steady. Strict training let him use what voice he had left to ease her closure through comfort.
'
Love does not cage freedom. I am nothing if not humbled by the devotion and courage that led you to defy the Alliance.
'

'
The stores,
'
Feylind gasped.
'
King Eldir
'
s relief?
'

Around
th
em, through the efforts of Parrien
'
s men, the initial reports were being relayed to the war galley
'
s watch officer: two crewmen below had died defending the locked hatches that accessed the hold.

'
The cargo
'
s secure,
'
Talvish supplied,
'
every cask, net, and barrel of flour untouched. I gather you
'
ve brought limes from Southshire as well, to spare us from the scourge of scurvy
'

Feylind coughed. Her distant eyes closed. The fingers too damaged to clasp Arithon
'
s hand quivered, useless, so much capable muscle, shredded to mangled flesh. The harsh whisper resumed, as pain leached her fierce spirit.
'
Then, my prince, live well. Accept that I
'
m satisfied.
'

But Arithon was not resigned. The agony of this parting would not rest, for the helplessness that stripped him naked.
'
You leave us two children. As my own wards, they shall not want. Never mind that you tried to set my pledge aside, they inherit my claim of protection.
'

Feylind
'
s lips turned. The wisp of her most stubborn smile trembled briefly.
'
When were they ever not under your charge?
'

For one man had filled the empty shoes abandoned by her drowned father. The same generous heart granted Fiark his vocation, and restored Tharrick to the pride of manhood which husbanded Jinesse
'
s healing and peace. For Arithon
'
s caring, a tight family remained, respected and secure at Innish.

'
I had my brig,
'
Feylind whispered.
'
A mentor
'
s bright friendship. And Teive.
'
She shared her last smile: not the imp
'
s grin of the laughing mischievous sprite who ran barefoot on white sands at Merior. This was the fulfilled tribute for her first mate and staunch lover, who had needed no vows to stand firm at her side throughout every madcap endeavour.
'
Enough,
'
Feylind finished.
'
I
'
ve had every desire held dear for the natural course of a lifetime.
'

The struggle reached an end, after that, too swiftly for even Arithon
'
s talent to sing her a masterbard
'
s crossing. Quickly, without dwelling, Feylind passed beyond reach. Arithon shed his cloak. Since he was left too tear-blind to see, Talvish
'
s hands helped to wrap her, along with the bones that remained of her best beloved. The pair of them received her preference for burial, sewn into sailcloth and consigned to the sea. The brief eulogy was spoken, while around Rathain
'
s prince and his silent liegeman, the heaped tackle and decks were cleared of their burden of dead. No wounded from
Evenstar
'
s
company remained: Lysaer
'
s assault had swept all exposed hands. The blockade patrol
'
s rapacious strike had felled the cook, while the two merchant seamen stationed below finished their doomed stand at the hatches.

The tribute to courage was never more poignant: still blanketed by active wards raised of Shadow, Parrien
'
s war galley was being laden with the stores salvaged from the brig
'
s hold. The men rigged the hoist from the sound vessel
'
s mast, working fast, since the storm wind was rising. They emptied the hull of the last cask, sack, and barrel, and down to the precious nets of ripe limes. Amid such disposition, the pending gale broke, a black anvil squall line that howled down the funnelling throat of the estuary. At the ebb-tide, against the fierce eddies that sucked through the winched links of the harbour chain, and under the flickering reports of spat light-bolts, the blizzard came on like whipped smoke. Snow shrouded the singed timbers and stubbed masts in white; masked over the horror and blood, and the broken, charred wood that one day could see repair under Cattrick
'
s sharp eye; or might not.