The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) (30 page)

Gilan had slept. It had seemed the best thing to do, and he could sleep anywhere, any time. He had taken his rest upstairs in the law house where Ulric had provided a number of surprisingly comfortable beds in otherwise austere rooms. He had closed his eyes and was asleep at once.

It was the noise that woke him – a commotion in the rooms below – and he had pulled his boots on and grabbed his blade before going down to find out what it was all about. He found a great number of lawkeepers, perhaps all that there were, gathered in the big room. He pushed his way to the front and found the chief there.

“We will divide,” Hekman was saying. “Four will go by ship, and twelve by land.” He looked at Gilan. “Gilan will command on the ship. The rest of you will be with me.”

Gilan did not especially want another sea voyage since the last one had been so eventful, but he did not protest. “The Falcon, chief?” he asked. Hekman nodded. “Then you need only send Diara and I,” Gilan said. “The ship is full of fighting men and they know how to take an order if it be spoken clearly enough.”

“Very well,” Hekman said. “Just the two of you. Your task is to make certain that the prisoner remains honest and does not give us away before our trap is sprung.” He turned to the others and began to lay out his plans for what was to happen on the shore, but Gilan had a nagging doubt. They had said that there was a spy somewhere in the building, perhaps a lawkeeper, and here they all were hearing the plan. It made no sense.

He withdrew to the back of the room and looked out of the door, but nobody was there. He had almost expected to find someone listening. He settled at the back, leaning against the door jamb and watched the others. Diara appeared at his side. She didn’t say anything.

The plan seemed sound to Gilan, if a little thin. They really didn’t have enough people to seal off an area of the shore so that none could slip through their line, especially as they would have to be far enough back to allow the killers to enter the area without seeing them.

When Hekman had finished talking he walked through the room, speaking a word here and a word there until he got to Gilan. He indicated that they should step out into the corridor, and when they were alone he spoke quietly.

“Serhan is waiting for you in my office. He’ll take you to the ship.”

“Now?”

“There’s a lot we have to get done.”

“You don’t know who the traitor is?” Gilan asked. Hekman shook his head.

“No. We just have to hope we move too quickly for them. If someone’s going to meet the Falcon where her captain said, they must have left the city some hours ago.”

“They might already be there,” Gilan replied.

“Aye, too late for our traitor to warn them, and we must be careful. It’s not two hours until the sun goes down and we must have set our ambush by then.”

Gilan nodded and set off for the chief’s office with Diara close behind. She had her bow and a full quiver and it was a comfort to Gilan to know that she would be watching his back. You never knew what might happen and it was hard to find someone like Diara who you could really trust.

Serhan was waiting for them, the black door already open – a black void that drank the evening sunlight coming through the window.

“The Falcon?” Gilan asked.

Serhan nodded and Gilan stepped through to find himself once again on the main deck of the brigand’s ship, below the snap of white sails and in a breeze that carried the scent of the sea. Diara was through a moment later and the black door dissolved.

Almost at once a man approached them. Gilan recognised him as the mate from the Sword of Samara, now prize captain of the Falcon. The man offered his hand.

“Horrigan,” he said. “Apparently we’re to do your bidding.” There was no resentment in the statement, which Gilan might have expected of a sailor told to bow to a soldier. Instead he heard respect.

“Thank you, Captain,” Gilan said. He had discovered that it paid to return courtesy when it was offered. “You have the prisoner?”

“He’s below.”

“Then let us join him and prepare our strategy.”

It was simple enough, really. The protocol of the meeting had been decided by Delantic when he’d paid the brigands. They would do as agreed and meet whoever it was that came. And kill them, Gilan hoped.

The plan being laid out and agreed, the brigand captain was removed from their company and they sat down to a light meal as the sun dipped towards the horizon. Horrigan was a simple man, much as Gilan saw himself, and they ate simple food and enjoyed simple conversation. None of them drank wine. It was a time for clear heads.

“The scuttlebutt is that our quarry may be skilled,” Horrigan said.

“It’s likely,” Gilan admitted. “I’ve crossed blades with two of them and been bettered both times, and I was considered useful with a blade at Ocean’s Gate.”

“Best take them with bows then,” Horrigan said.

“Will the ship be so close to shore?”

“Not in this water. We will take four oarsmen, and they will carry bows. They should be enough to shoot one man, and we can shoot before he has time to run.”

“An arrow will bring him down, sure enough,” Gilan agreed. He’d seen Diara knock down Delantic with a single arrow, and this time he’d take the head at once. There was no sense in letting the man get up again.

After dark they went up on deck. The wind had slackened off, and they came towards the shore at a very leisurely pace, the sails billowing fitfully above their heads, flapping like so many flags. It was a fine night though, and with the moon at their back Gilan could make out the dark line of the land rising unevenly out of the sea before them, bordered by starlight. It was as though they approached stealthily, but Gilan was sure that the moon showed them as well as any lantern. From the shore they would be a black hulk sailing down the moon’s silver road.

The brigand captain was brought on deck, and after a little while studying the dark land before them he agreed that this was the place he had been told to come.

“So they are waiting for us?” Gilan asked.

“For Delantic,” the brigand said. “Who’ll play his part?”

“I will,” Gilan suggested.

“He was a head shorter than you,” Diara told him. “They’ll see it’s not Delantic as soon as you stand.”

She was right. Sometimes Gilan forgot that he was bigger than other men. “Who then?”

The brigand pointed to Diara. “She’s about the right size.”

“And half the weight,” Gilan countered.

“Put a coat and hat on her and nobody will tell the difference in the dark.”

“I can do it,” Diara said. “We only need to fool them until we set foot on shore, then the trap is sprung.”

Gilan nodded. “Very well,” he said.

A coat was found, a couple of sizes too large it seemed, and Diara put it on. She looked clumsy in it, but it hid her bow well enough.

Horrigan called out and men began to rush about the ship again. Sails were furled and a chain rattled out of the bow and stern as anchors dropped into the sea. The land was close now, but still out of bowshot. Gilan would have been more comfortable with the whole ship full of men on the beach.

“The signal,” the brigand said.

“Make it a true one if you value your life,” Horrigan said, putting a hand on his blade. Gilan thought it an ill judged threat, since the brigand’s life was already forfeit, but the pirate seemed to accept his fate. He took the lamp from a crewman and made his way, closely escorted, to the bow. He held the lamp up above his head and waved it from side to side. He lowered it, raised it again and repeated the waving.

The shore remained dark. Gilan tried to make out details. There was a beach there, a faint and pale shroud at the foot of a low cliff. He could see no shadows upon it, no men, no horses.

A light flared, just at the back of the sand. It was raised and moved from side to side in answer to their own signal, then vanished once more.

“All clear,” the brigand said. “That was the agreed signal. They say it is safe to come ashore.”

It was time. Gilan found his hand was on the hilt of his sword.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” he said.

Cal Serhan was the last to step through the black door. He stepped into a twilit forest, surrounded by nervous lawkeepers. Sam was waiting for him, and Arla was by his side. He looked up at the sky. What he could see of it was still blue, but there were shades of pink touching the clouds, and darkness was close.

“How far from the beach are we?” Sam asked.

“Two hundred paces. No more.” Serhan kept his voice low. Even this far away there was a chance that it would carry to anyone waiting by the beach. “Wait here.”

Cal stepped away from the group. Only a dozen paces and he was quite alone, but he went further, not closer to the sea, but parallel. After a while he stopped.

“Show yourself,” he whispered.

A large bird detached itself from the canopy above him and glided down to where he stood. It landed next to his feet. It was quite convincing apart from the eyes, which were white. Almost as soon as its feet touched the forest floor it began to change shape, swelling upwards until it filled an approximately human profile.

“I am here.”

“Well?”

“Nobody has arrived,” Borbonil said. “The beach is deserted. I have been two miles towards Samara and seen nothing.”

It was what Cal had hoped. Delantic’s friends were still some way away. He could move the lawkeepers forwards quickly and without regard for stealth. The Lord of Ocean’s Gate, the Faer Karani Borbonil, was now his most useful vassal – a shape shifter made the perfect spy.

“Stay and keep watch,” Cal said. “When they come do not show yourself. If any escape, follow them to where they go, and it is most important that you do not lose them. You know why.”

Borbonil nodded, which was an odd gesture on a Faer Karani. “I will do as you say,” he said, and at once transformed again into a large, white eyed bird and flapped up into the darkening canopy.

Cal made his way back through the forest until he found Sam and his lawkeepers.

“It’s clear,” he said. “There’s nobody here.” He saw the acceptance. He was the mage lord and they did not ask him how he knew, how certain he was. There was a growing temptation to use that uncritical trust in ways that he would consider wrong.

Sam deployed his inadequate force along the top of the small cliff at the back of the beach. It was less than twenty feet high, and sloped so that a careful man could descend it quickly in relative safety. It was a perfect position. Cal was impressed that Sam did not let his people place themselves too close to the edge. The position so obviously bestowed a tactical advantage that both of them expected Delantic’s friends to occupy it, and that would trigger a confrontation as soon as they arrived, which Sam and Cal did not want. Instead Sam pulled his people back ten paces into the forest where they could lie concealed in the dark.

Cal waited on the cliff edge, silent and still, watching the beach. The sun set. Blue surrendered to red, and red, eventually to black. The moon hung in the southern sky and stars shone down between lazy clouds. There was very little wind. He wondered if the ship would arrive in good time.

Eventually their prey came.

He heard a clink of metal, and moments later a shape emerged onto the white sand of the beach. It was a man on horseback. Cal hardly dared breathe. He knew that still as he was and dressed in dark cloth he could not be seen, but it seemed impossible. The man was so close. He eased his foot away from the edge.

Another horseman appeared. This one rode up to the first so that they were side by side, and they looked out at the sea together. Cal could see the magic. It surprised him that it was so obvious. Sam Hekman had been a mass of blue threads when he had been under the influence of the crystal, but that had been conflict, and this man was clearly in harmony with the thing. Wherever his skin showed there was a hint of blue, and his face glowed.

More men came onto the beach. Cal stopped retreating and looked down. There were more men here than he had expected. He counted twenty three, all on horseback. It was a small private army.

There was a second man bearing the mark of a crystal. He glowed like the first. Cal watched them talk, and even as he watched he eased back into the forest making no more noise than the sea breeze. He settled down, keeping low. It would not do for them to spring the trap before the ship arrived. The trap should have two sides.

He watched as men climbed the cliff, saw them come over the top and set themselves. Archers. They were setting a trap of their own, or perhaps it was merely caution. It was impossible to know.

The night became quiet again. From where he was concealed Cal could see the ocean. The moon lit it beautifully, painting the water white so any ship that approached could not be missed. He waited. Every now and then words were exchanged on the beach, but he could not make out what the men said. They lit no fire, but there was a lamp. He saw it lit and then concealed.

Left and right he was aware of Sam’s lawkeepers. He couldn’t see them, but the forest felt tense around him, like a drawn bow.

The ship appeared. It happened quite quickly, the dark hull emerging from the night and sailing into the moon’s track. Cal heard the chains running out, heard the splash as the anchor hit the water. He saw a light on the ship, waving, and a second time. The lamp on shore was used to answer it. He heard a rustle from the archers on the top of the cliff and his hand found its way to the hilt of his sword.

He watched the boat lowered. There was movement as people climbed down into it. Gilan would be badly outnumbered on the beach. They would have to be quick to lend their aid. Cal knew that Sam would have seen this, and Arla, too. His thumb found the ring on his right hand and turned it once – a nervous gesture. The ring had been a gift from Gerique, his former Faer Karan master, in different times. Despite its origin he regarded it as a lucky piece. It had served him well.

The boat rowed quickly to shore. Cal eased himself upright. There was an archer just five paces in front of him, but the man’s eyes were fixed ahead, watching the boat, oblivious to the threat behind him. Cal drew Soul Eater. The blade emerged from its sheath without a sound.

The boat touched the shore.