The House Of Gaian (21 page)

Just as Morag breathed a sigh of relief, a huntsman, deathly pale and trembling, approached them.

“Hunter?” he said.

What now
? Morag thought wearily. The day had barely begun, and she suspected Ashk would set a grueling pace the rest of the day.

Ashk studied him. “You’re one of Gwynith’s escorts.”

“I am, Hunter. She entrusted me to find you and deliver this.” He reached into his leather, thigh-length vest, withdrew a folded piece of paper, and held it out to her.

Ashk took it, then asked, “Will you be returning to Gwynith?”

He shook his head. “She has other messages for me to deliver.”

Aiden stepped forward. “If you meet up with a bard or minstrel who is coming east with messages, perhaps you could exchange them. That way each of you would have less of a journey.”

The huntsman tipped his head. “I thank you for the suggestion, Bard. I would like to return to Lady Gwynith as soon as possible.”

“She is well?” Ashk asked.

“She is well, Hunter.” He hesitated. “She rides with the Lady of the Moon.”

“I see. Safe journey, huntsman.”

As the huntsman followed Ashk’s men to the stables, the Hunter walked away from all of them, then broke the seal on the letter and began to read.

With shaking hands, Aiden helped Lyrra to her feet.

“Mother’s mercy, Aiden,” she said, clinging to him. “Did you know any of this when you decided to find the Hunter?”

“No.”

“Would you have still searched if you knew?”

“I don’t know.” Aiden led her to a bench near the edge of the open ground. “It wouldn’t have mattered.

The Black Coats attacked her Clan, her family. She would have come east to gather the Fae whether we

’d found her or not.”

But we wouldn‘t have been riding with her, probably wouldn’t have been at this Clan house on
this day to experience what she could do
. The Inquisitors were a vicious threat to all of Sylvalan, but for the Fae personally, the Hunter was more terrifying.

Sinking down on the bench beside Lyrra, he rubbed his chest. He’d always felt embarrassed that his other form was a tiny whoo-it owl, and he seldom changed to that form to enjoy the gliding flight through woods and over fields except when he was alone—or with Lyrra, who ran beneath him, her red fox coat shining in moonlight. Knowing how easily it could be taken away from him, he didn’t think he’d ever feel embarrassed about his other form again. He didn’t want to lose it, didn’t want to lose a vital part of what made him Fae.

Ashk would have come east anyway. And some foolish Lord of the Woods would have challenged her because she was female—and the Fae would have learned why they should fear her.

“He challenged her,” Lyrra said, her voice sounding shaky. “It was within her rights to kill him.”

“I know.” He felt Lyrra shudder.

“Bard?”

He looked over at the young, terrified minstrel who stood a man’s length away from the bench.

“I’m the Bard.”

“W-what are we supposed to do?” The minstrel began to cry. “
What are we supposed to do
?”

Aiden was up and leading the youth to the bench. He hugged him, kissed his forehead to soothe as he would a frightened child. “We do as the Hunter commands.”

“But we
can’t,”
the minstrel wailed. “If we don’t obey the Huntress, she’ll be angry with us.”

A chill swept through Aiden. “You have a message for me about the Huntress?”

The minstrel nodded, his head resting on Aiden’s shoulder.

“What is it?” Aiden asked, working to keep his voice gentle.

The minstrel sniffed, then pulled a wax-sealed paper out of the inner pocket of his traveling vest.

With a comforting squeeze, Aiden withdrew enough to break the seal and read the message.

He read it twice—and then a third time.

“Aiden?”

He closed his eyes and savored the warmth of Lyrra’s hand on his arm. He didn’t want to give the words power by speaking them out loud. Not yet.

He handed the paper to her. With his eyes closed, the world faded to the sound of the minstrel’s quiet sniffles and Lyrra’s ragged breathing.

At least they didn’t have to choose, Aiden thought. Which was something the young minstrel didn’t fully understand or was too frightened right now to realize. Between Ashk’s demonstration and Selena’s threat, the minstrel had good reason to be frightened.

“Mother’s mercy,” Lyrra finally said.

“You have news, Bard?”

He opened his eyes and looked at Ashk, standing before him, with Morag beside her. He licked his lips.

“The Huntress has sent a message to all the Clans. They have until the full moon to send fighters down to Sylvalan to defend it against the Inquisitors’ army. If they don’t defend Sylvalan, she will close the shining roads in a way that won’t destroy Tir Alainn but will lock the Fae out of the human world. Forever.” He glanced at the paper she held in one hand. “And you, Hunter? Have you also had news?”

“The same,” Ashk replied. “With two additions. Having personally witnessed the power the new Lady of the Moon wields, Gwynith believes Selena can do exactly what she says she can do.”

“It’s fortunate the Fae don’t have to choose which of you to obey, since you’re both commanding them to do the same tiling,” Morag murmured, echoing Aiden’s thoughts.

“Yes, it is fortunate,” Ashk agreed.

Aiden watched Ashk, a sick feeling in his belly. “What’s the second addition?”

“The Huntress wants to meet me before the full moon. At Willowsbrook.”

Breanna. Mother be merciful. He could imagine how Breanna was going to react to Fae pouring into the Old Place.

“I hope Baron Liam’s brief encounter with the Fae was sufficient to educate him.” Ashk smiled with grim amusement. “It would seem he’s about to have a houseful of unexpected guests.”

Ubel strode down Seahaven’s waterfront with two hundred of his warriors behind him. They broke off in companies led by captains to swiftly search the warehouses and the ships. Buckets, used as chamberpots, were being emptied over the side in the darkest hours of night. The stench was strong.

Ship captains might be able to sneak people into the cargo holds and hide them, but they couldn’t hide the
evidence
of those people.

In the end, it would be simple. Loyal merchant captains and fishermen would keep their ships—and would prosper since they would have fewer rivals for their business and could set a higher price for their goods. They would need that income to pay for the license each ship would be required to carry in order to prove that loyalty—income that would build ships, as Wolfram had done, to keep the harbors and seaports clean of unsuitable traders or visitors. Income that would finance an estate for the Inquisitors who would have to remain here to keep the barons under control and continue the search for escaped witches.

Right now, however, his goal was to flush out the witches and witch sympathizers who had fled from Durham and the southern counties of Sylvalan, flooding into Seahaven in the hope of finding any kind of seaworthy craft that would take them away from the Inquisitors’ justice. Rats and witches. Both vermin.

Both plague carriers in their own way. He’d find plenty of both on this waterfront. And when he was done cleansing Seahaven, only the rats would remain.

Right now, his eyes were on that merchant ship at the far end of the docks—a ship, according to the harbor master, that had slipped in and out of Seahaven several times in the past few days, taking on some cargo, but nothing like the usual amounts. And having nothing to unload to speak of. Most unusual, the harbor master had said, since the ship was one of several belonging to a well-to-do merchant family.

A merchant family that was also a filthy nest of witches and men so ensnared by the bitches that they pumped good seed into foul wombs to produce more filth. Oh, plenty of those vermin had already been eliminated, burned in their very ships or taken by the Inquisitors and the barons to be questioned and exterminated. But that nest was being rebuilt somewhere by the witches who had escaped, and he suspected the captain of that ship would be able to tell him the exact spot—after he’d softened the man sufficiently.

“Why do you accost me this way?” said a loud, panicked voice. “I’ve done nothing. Nothing! I’m an honest merchant just trying to catch the evening tide to take my goods to Wellingsford!”

Ubel hesitated. Stopped. Finally, with a last look at the merchant ship at the end of the docks, he motioned the guards to continue on as he turned toward the commotion behind him.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” Craig whispered fiercely, his tone a mixture of gratitude and anger. “

You shouldn’t have waited for me.”

“You’re family,” Mihail replied.
And we’ve already lost too many
. He shifted a little, easing the strain of leg muscles that had been in a crouch position too long. Something was happening at one of the other docks, but he couldn’t quite see around the crates he and Craig were hiding behind.

Craig was right. He shouldn’t have made this last trip, shouldn’t have waited one more day for one man when his cargo hold was filled with people—strangers who had offered him their last coins for standing room in the holds of his ship. But among them was a woman, with her daughter, who had lived close to Durham. So he’d stayed one more day, hoping Craig had gotten out of Durham, too, and had managed to reach Seahaven.

If he’d left yesterday evening, he’d be out in the open sea right now, and
Sweet Selkie’s
sails would be full of a Mother-blessed wind that would take him back to Sealand, back to Jenny and the boys, back to safe harbor.

If he’d left yesterday... before the Inquisitors’ ships had sailed into the harbor and the harbor master had sent bellringers to make the announcement that no ship was permitted to leave Seahaven until it had been inspected by the Inquisitors and duly licensed as a ship loyal to the barons.

Barons. Bah. Inquisitor puppets. Puppets or not, it wasn’t going to be easy to get
Sweet Selkie
out of the harbor, and he couldn’t afford to let her be boarded. Not with the living cargo he was carrying.

“You shouldn’t have stayed,” Craig said again. “She’s the last ship, Mihail.
The last one
.”

“I know it.” He just couldn’t think about it. His brothers gone. His father gone. Had his wife and daughter gotten to Willowsbrook safely, or were they gone, too? How long would it be before he knew? Would he ever know?

Couldn’t think of it. Couldn’t think that way. He needed to think of the sea, of the strong tide drawing
Sweet Selkie
away from the dock, giving her room to run, to flee fast enough to get past the Inquisitors’

ships and out to the open sea. He could outrun them in the open. Had to outrun them.

First, he and Craig had to get to the ship.

“You—”

“You stayed,” Mihail snapped.

Craig said nothing. What could he say? He’d stayed in Durham, pretending he didn’t see the danger coming closer and closer as he sold off what he could, drained the assets to get as much gold and silver to family members as he could, quietly burned the business records that would have told the enemy where to look for other branches of the family. In the end, he’d escaped by setting the warehouse on fire just ahead of the guards breaking down the door to bring him in for questioning.

That commotion at the other end of the docks sounded like it was heating up. Mihail straightened up enough to peer over the top of the crates. Warriors forming a circle around someone. A buzz of angry voices—a low sound slowing gaining in volume as more sailors and dock workers moved closer to whatever was happening.

Mihail crouched again, shifting the heavy leather satchel slung over one shoulder—a twin to the one on Craig’s shoulder. How had the man managed to walk to Seahaven carrying both satchels? “I never realized ledgers were so heavy,” he muttered.

For a moment, a smile eased Craig’s grim expression. “There’s only one ledger in that bag. One that’s any use to the family anyway. The other three are hollowed out and filled with the last of the gold and silver I had in the family coffers at the warehouse. That’s why it’s so heavy.”

Mihail rested his forehead against the crates. “Mother’s tits. Did you think to bring a clean shirt and another pair of socks?”

“They’re in this bag. Isn’t my fault you grabbed the heavier one.”

Mihail just shook his head, then turned a little to study the dock where
Sweet Selkie
was moored. The docking ropes were untied. Two of his men stood at the bow, playing out rope that had been slipped through a dock ring, letting the ship ease back with the tide. His orders to his first mate had been clear.

They sailed with the tide, with or without him. The gangplank had been withdrawn. Now only a board wide enough for a nimble man’s feet was being balanced by another member of his crew so that it wouldn’t scrape on the dock and draw someone’s attention.

He noticed the way the men kept glancing around, searching for some sign of him while trying not to look like they were searching for someone. And he noticed the sea hawk perched on the end of the dock, watching his ship.

Another one glided low over the water and looked at the stern, as if trying to read the ship’s name under the mud he’d smeared over it to hide it.

But hawks couldn’t read.

Unless they weren’t hawks.

A shiver went through him. Hope. Fear. He wasn’t sure.

“The tide’s going out,” he said. “We have to go now while we can.”

“The guards will spot us.”

“No choice. Come on.”

They stood up in time to see a merchant captain break free of the circle of warriors and run for his ship.

“I’m an honest merchant!”

Ubel stared at the sweating, shaking man. “If that is true, you’ll have no objection to my warriors searching your ship to confirm that.”

“I-I carry nothing that would interest the Inquisitors.”

“That is for me to decide. Search the ship.” Ubel nodded to two archers as several warriors turned toward the ship’s gangplank. From a special pouch, the archers carefully withdrew a thick shaft of wood with the glass ball secured to the end. They fitted the shafts into their bowstrings and looked at him, waiting for the signal.

“No!” The merchant captain broke through the warriors and ran for his ship, his crew shouting now, panicked as other archers nocked arrows in their bows and took aim.

Ubel waited until the captain had reached the gangplank, gave the man that moment to think he’d escaped. “Now.”

Arrows flew, finding their mark in the captain’s back. He teetered on the gangplank, his hands reaching for the hands his crew held out to him. More arrows flew, and the men who had tried to help were felled.

The captain tumbled off the gangplank and into the water.

“Now,” Ubel said again.

The archers with the glass-balled arrows took aim. As the glass balls hit the mast and deck, they exploded, spraying a liquid that burst into flames, burning men, burning wood.

“The ship’s on fire!” someone screamed.

Two more glass-balled arrows flew, and more liquid fire washed across the deck, caught the sails.

People rushed on deck now—women, children, old men, young men. Some jumped into the water. Men, mostly. The women were too burdened with long skirts and arms full of children. They knew they had no chance in the water, so they ran down the gangplank to the dock, as terrified and mindless as rats, uncomprehending that there was nowhere to go, no way to escape.

And his archers exterminated them as efficiently as they would any other vermin.

A howl of rage suddenly filled the waterfront. Ubel spun around as sailors, armed with boot knives or clubs, and dock workers, with sharp hooks, threw themselves at the warriors, turning an extermination into an ugly fight.

Suddenly surrounded by screaming, fighting men, Ubel pushed his way to a clear space on the dock, falling to his hands and knees as he tripped over a dying woman crawling away from the other bodies.

He’d miscalculated. He should have used the Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion to quiet that merchant captain, should have handled the extermination more carefully. He should have realized that the sailors had helped sneak people onto the ships, that the dock workers had looked the other way when supplies in the warehouses had gone missing. Should have realized that some of them might have family or friends hidden on the ship.

As he got to his feet, he noticed two men walking swiftly toward the last dock. The ship he knew belonged to a witch-loving merchant family was already quietly slipping back with the tide.

“Stop those men! ”

The warriors who had gone ahead of him and had turned back to join their comrades couldn’t have heard him. But they must have seen his urgent hand gestures and, looking in the direction he was pointing, spotted the easier prey.

“Fire the ships!”

The Wolfram captains riding anchor in the harbor couldn’t hear him either. No matter. They already had their orders. They knew what to do. Even if that witch-loving bastard captain managed to reach his ship, he wasn’t going to escape.

The tone of the fight behind him changed. The sailors were no longer fighting the warriors, exactly. Now they were fighting to reach the ships, the smaller fishing boats, anything that would get them away from the docks.

As if they actually believed they could get out of the harbor.

“You there!” someone shouted.

Glancing back, Mihail saw the warriors moving toward them. “Run,” he said, grabbing Craig’s arm.

No need to say it twice, not when the two sea hawks perched on the dock near his ship suddenly screamed and took flight.

They ran for the end of the dock. The sailor dropped the wooden plank. It scraped along the dock as
Sweet Selkie
began following the tide to open water.

Just one chance. Two other men stood by on board, ready to throw ropes that would keep him and Craig from tumbling into the sea.

“Go!” Mihail said, pushing Craig toward the plank as his men threw the ropes. Craig grabbed one and hurried up the bucking, bowing plank as fast as he could.

As soon as his men grabbed Craig’s arms to pull him on board, Mihail rushed up the plank. He was knocked aside by Craig before both feet touched the deck.

Glass shattered. Craig screamed. Mihail felt a sudden burning along his left shoulder and down his back.

More screams.

Mihail twisted—and stared.

The right side of Craig’s face was on fire. Fire burned down his neck, down his arm. The satchel he was still holding burned.

Someone beat Mihail’s left shoulder and back, and he cried out in pain.

“You’re on fire!” a crewman shouted.

Fire. “Water!” he shouted, putting his heart into the command, the plea.

Two barrels of fresh water burst open as he grabbed Craig, still staggering and screaming, and pulled him down on the deck. The water arched as if following a bridge of air and came down in a waterfall on both of them.