Hell at the Gates, page 4
“But he—”
“We’ve said what we came here to say, Jon,” the older man repeated sternly. “The Captain’s made his decision, as is his right.”
Eidorn glared at Hamner, anger and disappointment warring on his face.
“Come on.” The older knight had to physically turn the boy around and usher him out the cabin door.
The door snicked shut. A figure stepped from the corner of the cabin to Hamner’s right, platinum hair hanging about a scarred inhuman face. Marya fluttered and nearly lost her footing in her shock at the sight of the Fey. The lithe, inhuman figure turned to Hamner and spat a stream of melodic phrases at him. Hamner replied in the same tongue. The Fey added something else, something the language barrier did not disguise as heated disagreement.
“Look, I can’t worry about that right now!” Hamner snapped, back in his native tongue. “If you want to go, then go ahead!”
The Fey headed for the door.
“But if you do,” Hamner growled, “you go alone; take anyone with you and you can forget boarding this ship again.”
The Fey froze at the door for an instant. He flung the door open and stalked out, letting it bang shut behind him.
Marya leaned further into the window as she watched Hamner, sighing as he slouched in his seat. The Captain glanced to his left, to the corner of the cabin out of Marya’s sight.
“And you?” Hamner asked, kneading his brow. “You’ve said nothing.”
A dusky-hued hand shot out and clamped around Marya.
She was so surprised that she’d been caught and drawn fully into the cabin that she barely managed a very un-birdlike squawk. Fingers tightened like steel bands about her, pinched harder with her increasingly panicked struggles. Dark, exotic features regarded her with a smirk. Marya was given a shake as Hamner shot to his feet with a bark of shock.
“What the hell are you – “
“It appears we have an eavesdropper,” the strange woman who’d snatched Marya said.
“Fey magic?” Hamner asked.
“No,” the woman said. “Human, I’d say.”
Hamner scowled. “A spy from our hosts, then.”
“If I had to guess.” The woman stroked Marya’s feathered back, fingertips caressing and drawing ripples across Marya’s psyche that she recognized to be another magic-user’s inspection. “There, there, dear. Who sent you?”
Marya struggled again in the woman’s unrelenting grasp. It accomplished little. By the One...father...Dwymli, what will they say?
“Who?”
Marya intensified her struggle. The grip tightened and she felt the breath crushing from her. Her vision began to spot and she knew with panic that blackout was approaching. I can’t...I can’t...
The woman sighed. “Very well...” She produced a short, bone-handled knife with a wicked curve. “The blood will tell us where you come from.”
Marya’s eyes widened on the gleam of the blade and fear overrode humiliation at her state. “No, wait!” she squeaked. “All right! Stop! All right!”
She spat a stream of phrases, killing the spell. She did not remember her conversion back to human form, remembered only the jolt of striking the floor and blood in her mouth from a bitten lip. She quivered there on the planks of the Captain’s cabin for time. Cool air kissed her skin into a ripple of goosebumps and she remembered...
By the One, I’m...
Marya folded up with her back to the two pirates to cover her nakedness.
“Get me...something to cover.”
“Who in the—” Hamner’s voice caught in his throat. “Oh my. It’s Your Highness, isn’t it?”
“Don’t look at me!” Marya snarled. “Damn you both, get me something to cover up with!”
Hamner burst into laughter. “Oh my, oh my. Why don’t you scrounge up the Princess a blanket or something, Dayar’ah, my dear?”
“Behave your self,” the woman said in a warning tone.
“I’m a smuggler, not a pervert,” Hamner chuckled.
Marya heard footsteps and the cabin door opening and closing. Then the creak of the Captain settling back into his chair and the tinkle of glassware drew her attention. Cautiously, she looked over her shoulder.
Hamner leaned back in his chair, pouring himself a goblet of wine. He took a sip, smirking, but not looking at her. “It is Princess—” his gaze slid briefly over her “—Marya, correct?”
“Keep your foul eyes off me!” she barked. The cool was getting to her, and the exertion of her spell-work, and shivers began to overtake her.
Hamner’s sighed and conspicuously looked away. “What are you doing so far from your palace, Princess?”
“None of your business, pirate!”
“Mm...” Hamner downed the goblet of wine with a gulp and slowly poured himself another. “Could be some time getting you that blanket.”
Marya drew in a breath and tensed, could feel another spell, a dash at quick escape building up.
Hamner smiled. “Yes, I suppose you could escape now, with Dayar’ah gone. Before you go, though, answer my question; it will cost you nothing. Why?”
“You’ll mock me,” Marya snapped.
“I may very well.”
“Fine!” Marya calmed herself, said more softly, “Fine. I was curious.”
Hamner’s brows furrowed, wrinkled his scarred but somehow still handsome features. “Curious?”
“Yes,” Marya answered. “Curious about you, about this ship. There’s a lot of talk—wild tales—about you, Captain Rougan Hamner and his Witch of Vendar, the ‘Terror of the Yderrean’. I was curious as to the legend, and to what kind of villains my father’s desperation has attached our destiny.”
“Villains,” Hamner snorted. “That’s my fault, I imagine. When I was younger, I craved such notoriety. Now it seems an anchor chain about my neck. If you’re questioning as to whether I’ve been on the wrong side of the law a few times then the answer’s certainly yes. But whose laws, I ask you?”
“You’ve taken Vendaran silver to plunder Oldavian shipping.”
“I’ve taken a lot of nations’ silver to plunder their rivals’ shipping. A contract’s a contract.”
“A lovely sense of loyalty,” Marya shot haughtily.
“There are different kinds of loyalty, Your Highness,” Hamner said with a sour expression. “There’s loyalty to employers and loyalty to people. The needs and whims of employer are prone to change with the wind. To assume a business relationship will remain to your advantage—or even stable—is the pinnacle of foolishness.” He paused to take a sip of wine. “Now people...individuals can be worthy of loyalty.”
“Oh? And what does it take to earn such loyalty?”
Hamner grinned and didn’t hide the way his eyes slid over her form. “Why does a Princess of Ranai even care?”
Marya tightened her grip about herself, worming to hide every inch of her naked form as she growled, “You’re an exasperating man.”
“I know it.”
Marya looked him in the eye. “You’re not what I expected.”
“I’m sure I’m not,” Hamner said, some of the wicked amusement going from his face. He drained his goblet again. “Sorry to disappoint you; the ‘Terror of the Ydderean’ is just a tired, old merchant, trying to keep his ship together and his crew from mutinying because they didn’t get paid on time, or aren’t getting fed enough, or had their wine ration cut.” He wiped perspiration from his forehead and for a moment looked as tired and old as he claimed to be. “My life is rather more boredom, drudgery, and occasional terror than whatever lurid tales you’ve heard might suggest, My Lady.”
“And yet you’ve seen the New Continent?”
He shrugged. “A couple times. Pretty place.” He flickered his eyebrows. “I could take you.”
Marya ignored the barb. “You’ve plundered shipping on the Ydderean from the Isles to Sannyvia. You’ve outfought the Saedrannan fleet, the Kets, and now the Feyan Imperial Navy.”
“Yes, yes...all that good stuff,” Hamner said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “And as thanks, I’ve been excommunicated and declared an enemy of the state in most of the Human Kingdoms—” he flickered his eyebrows again “—including this one.”
“Yes.” Marya recalled some of the ire in her father’s council. “Archbishop Lethus hates you. Why?”
Hamner’s face went ugly, the scar going livid. “Lethus is a bloodthirsty dog. Some of my older hands remember him well and I’ve had a devil of a time keeping them from making a go at him—not that I really want to.”
Marya shrank from the man’s sudden fury, barely managed to quaver, “Why?”
Hamner considered her, some of the normal color returning to his face. He poured himself a fresh goblet. “You’ve heard the little tale about our escape from Ponte, about fifteen years ago? I’ve heard it’s become quite the story after years of embellishment.”
“Yes,” Marya replied. “You blasted your way out of Ponte with a hold full of New Continent treasure due for the coffers of the church. It’s how you got excommunicated.”
“‘Blasted’,” Hamner snorted. “We fired a single broadside and hit nothing of importance, then got chased by half the Saedrannan fleet all the way to Vendar.” Hamner took a long pull on his wine. “Anyway, Lethus, the bastard, was Bishop of Ponte at the time and very active in the Eyes of God.”
“Now, that can’t be,” Marya denied. “My grandfather disbanded the Eyes long before then, for their excesses.”
“Well, then, someone in Saedranna never got the message, You Highness,” Hamner said, leaning forward towards her with menace in his eyes. “At the time, the Eyes, operating with the consent of the local church and King Amlynn, were collecting a ‘toll’ on all traffic in port. I had a hold full of silver due for my investors in the city. Lethus and his lapdogs found out and demanded thirty percent—enough of a cut to bankrupt me.” He took another drink. “I refused so Lethus had some of my crew on leave seized on trumped-up charges and demanded I hand over everything, or they would pay for it. Ydath organized a group to try and break our people out. They found the poor wretches had already been butchered and hung by their own entrails.”
Marya gasped.
Hamner continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Most of Ydath’s gang was cut down in the flight back to the ship. So, we pulled out, fired off a few culverins for good measure and ran like hell for Confederate waters.” He emptied the goblet. “She was the Daughter of Vendar, in those days.” He shook his head. “Never again. Been the Witch ever since.”
Marya couldn’t think of something to say, could only imagine withered old Lethus, bitter, back-biting and a nuisance; but a murderer?
Hamner, whose eyes had stared off into some point far away, looked at her in her silence. “Again, not what you expected?
“Archbishop Lethus anointed me into our faith as a child in the Shrine of the One,” was all Marya could manage to say.
The ugliness passed in a wave across Hamner’s features, only to be replaced by a blank disdain. He gave a disgusted shrug and leaned back in his chair. “Believe what you want to believe, then...”
“It’s not—” Marya began in a rush but was cut off by the return of the woman, Dayar’ah, with a ragged blanket. She gave Hamner a dirty look before offering it to Marya, who accepted it.
Wrapping the coarse fabric about her, Marya stood and regarded Hamner. “Is Lethus the reason you won’t help us?”
Hamner groaned and shook his head. “I think I’ve covered this topic quite sufficiently tonight, Your Highness.”
“Because Sir Eidorn was correct,” Marya pressed. “If you joined us, others would follow.”
“I’ll have Dayar’ah escort you to the Skaeda Bastion,” Hamner said without inflection.
Marya felt her skin warm. “So...that’s all?”
“The Reckoning Knights are preparing to leave, but they’ll probably have a detachment to spare to take you back to your palace.”
Marya blinked back the sting of frustration in her eyes, knew suddenly the fury that had almost overcome the young Sir Eidorn. “No,” she said coolly, “That’s all right...”
Marya stepped to the cabin window, letting the blanket fall away as the spell came to her in a flurry. And then she was sailing out the window, hurtling forth into the night.
Her course carried her up, high over the Jeweled Bay and the embattled city, fury and frustration and hot embarrassment driving her wings to beat a frenzied pattern. The night air, far above the oppressive smokiness and fear, with the moon huge and seemingly so close, refreshed her as it lashed through her feathers. She stung with the callous uncaring of Hamner’s words. And part of her lurched at the sickening memory of the man’s eyes all over her body.
More troubling, another part of her knew she hadn’t minded those eyes.
A Feyan cannon boomed below, one of the big pieces that worried her father’s advisors so. She saw its streak of fire and the moonlight shimmering in the mighty billow of smoke. She heard the scream of the monstrous shot and the anticlimactic whumpf of it striking the wall. Then a crash that went on and on. And a plume of dust and ruin churned skyward, towards her. A clamor of bells followed and firefly patterns of torches converged on the conflagration.
Oh no...
Marya shifted course, diving now for the Imperial Bastion.
While she had been playing games and courting pirates, the Fey had breached the walls of Ranai.
“THIS ONE’S ABOUT USED up,” Edisten was saying to Dwymli, holding out a hand for another page of Bloody Hand manuscript. The glow of the gnome’s white fire in a brazier cast hard shadows across the open tower top overlooking the Shrine of the One.
But Dwymli froze, listening as a roar spread across the city towards him. He turned away from Edisten, waving away the noxious fumes of the fire and he came to stand at the tower’s crenellated edge. His gaze went southwest and he saw by the reddish glow of converging torches the mighty cloud of dust mushrooming into the sky.
“This will have to wait,” the wizard said to the gnome. In his skull tightness grew, pinching thought away into dull pain and a reddish haze at the corners of his vision. He took a shuddering breath.
“They’re coming.”
SLAVES HAD BROUGHT a table into Arneus’ pavilion and he had watched as Nazrak spread a map across it depicting Ranai and its immediate environs, complete with hastily-scrawled lines for trenches and revetments and notes left by engineers. The Grand Aga’s aides placed wooden models representing units arrayed for battle. Officers and nobles leaned in around Nazrak as he spelled out the plan of attack.
“Everything is in place,” Nazrak said. “The artillery will keep up its fire, right up until the last moment, keeping the human heads down and continuing to damage the walls. An hour before dawn, Janizarry sharpshooters will infiltrate closely and begin a steady harassing fire on any humans attempting repairs on the breach. At sunrise, the artillery will cease and the attack goes in.”
Nazrak pointed a dagger towards the lead models on the map. “The Irregulars will spearhead the assault. Select companies will be carrying faggots and debris to dam up the moat. That will be, in fact, their primary goal.”
A murmur of discontent went through some of the gathered Fey. The Irregulars were scum, the dregs of a continent, criminals and deserters led by wash-outs from Feyan units and adventurers of the lower aristocracy with no other means of upward mobility. They were little better than a mob with uneven discipline – where they possessed it at all. But they were numerous. And they could be thrown away.
“Janizarry Head-taker assault battalions will follow, once the moat is achieved,” Nazrak continued, “exploiting the breakthrough and herding the Irregulars forward. They will be supported by the Black Guard.” Nazrak’s dagger point waved to other models. “Syvannian and Wild One units will press the walls all along the perimeter as this is happening, preventing the defenders from reinforcing the endangered sector.”
“The breach is still fresh, and narrow,” Kai Manzarba spoke up. “There will be no room for maneuver, once the troops are in there, and they will be taking enfilade fire from the Saint Mordanus gun towers. Perhaps another day or two to widen the breach would be in order?”
Arneus hid a scowl as he glanced at the Grand Vizier. Manzarba’s hesitation and protestations—at highly inappropriate moments, such as this—had grown more obvious, more daring as the days had worn on. Curse the old fool! With advisors such as him it is no wonder my father lapsed into so prolonged a downward slide, at the end.
Nazrak didn’t try to hide his annoyance. “Our forward observation says the humans have already erected repairs and hasty works in the breach, Grand Vizier, despite the ongoing barrage. A delay will only allow them more time for improvements.”
“Then perhaps the navy should try to force the boom and the Jeweled Bay,” Manzarba replied, glancing to the corner of the pavilion where Hadai cowered, as he always did, far from the Shaedar’s immediate attention. “The Vynn Gulf squadrons are arriving now. With the bay open, the belly of the city would be exposed for the savaging.”
Nazrak offered a snort of contempt. “This would the same navy that couldn’t keep three ships out of the city?”
Some chuckles at that and glances at the red-faced Hadai.
“But a simultaneous coordination might—”
“No.” Arneus cut the infuriating Grand Vizier off. “The assault will go forward as Nazrak has detailed.” He shot Manzarba a look and the old Fey acquiesced with a bow. “The Impure will taunt us no longer from behind their pitiful barriers,” Arneus boomed, looking around the room, challenging anyone to meet his gaze with a hint of doubt. None did and he nodded in satisfaction. “Tonight, the heavens will roil with the chorus of the humans’ misery. Tonight, we dine in the Shrine of the Impure!”
A growl of eagerness rippled through the commanders, even Manzarba permitting himself a smile at the words. Arneus grinned, his blood warm at the swelling lust for violence. He waved the group into dismissal and they began to break up, crowding to the exits in excited knots. They’re hungry, he thought, the grin widening. And sick of dust and trenches and waiting.
“We’ve said what we came here to say, Jon,” the older man repeated sternly. “The Captain’s made his decision, as is his right.”
Eidorn glared at Hamner, anger and disappointment warring on his face.
“Come on.” The older knight had to physically turn the boy around and usher him out the cabin door.
The door snicked shut. A figure stepped from the corner of the cabin to Hamner’s right, platinum hair hanging about a scarred inhuman face. Marya fluttered and nearly lost her footing in her shock at the sight of the Fey. The lithe, inhuman figure turned to Hamner and spat a stream of melodic phrases at him. Hamner replied in the same tongue. The Fey added something else, something the language barrier did not disguise as heated disagreement.
“Look, I can’t worry about that right now!” Hamner snapped, back in his native tongue. “If you want to go, then go ahead!”
The Fey headed for the door.
“But if you do,” Hamner growled, “you go alone; take anyone with you and you can forget boarding this ship again.”
The Fey froze at the door for an instant. He flung the door open and stalked out, letting it bang shut behind him.
Marya leaned further into the window as she watched Hamner, sighing as he slouched in his seat. The Captain glanced to his left, to the corner of the cabin out of Marya’s sight.
“And you?” Hamner asked, kneading his brow. “You’ve said nothing.”
A dusky-hued hand shot out and clamped around Marya.
She was so surprised that she’d been caught and drawn fully into the cabin that she barely managed a very un-birdlike squawk. Fingers tightened like steel bands about her, pinched harder with her increasingly panicked struggles. Dark, exotic features regarded her with a smirk. Marya was given a shake as Hamner shot to his feet with a bark of shock.
“What the hell are you – “
“It appears we have an eavesdropper,” the strange woman who’d snatched Marya said.
“Fey magic?” Hamner asked.
“No,” the woman said. “Human, I’d say.”
Hamner scowled. “A spy from our hosts, then.”
“If I had to guess.” The woman stroked Marya’s feathered back, fingertips caressing and drawing ripples across Marya’s psyche that she recognized to be another magic-user’s inspection. “There, there, dear. Who sent you?”
Marya struggled again in the woman’s unrelenting grasp. It accomplished little. By the One...father...Dwymli, what will they say?
“Who?”
Marya intensified her struggle. The grip tightened and she felt the breath crushing from her. Her vision began to spot and she knew with panic that blackout was approaching. I can’t...I can’t...
The woman sighed. “Very well...” She produced a short, bone-handled knife with a wicked curve. “The blood will tell us where you come from.”
Marya’s eyes widened on the gleam of the blade and fear overrode humiliation at her state. “No, wait!” she squeaked. “All right! Stop! All right!”
She spat a stream of phrases, killing the spell. She did not remember her conversion back to human form, remembered only the jolt of striking the floor and blood in her mouth from a bitten lip. She quivered there on the planks of the Captain’s cabin for time. Cool air kissed her skin into a ripple of goosebumps and she remembered...
By the One, I’m...
Marya folded up with her back to the two pirates to cover her nakedness.
“Get me...something to cover.”
“Who in the—” Hamner’s voice caught in his throat. “Oh my. It’s Your Highness, isn’t it?”
“Don’t look at me!” Marya snarled. “Damn you both, get me something to cover up with!”
Hamner burst into laughter. “Oh my, oh my. Why don’t you scrounge up the Princess a blanket or something, Dayar’ah, my dear?”
“Behave your self,” the woman said in a warning tone.
“I’m a smuggler, not a pervert,” Hamner chuckled.
Marya heard footsteps and the cabin door opening and closing. Then the creak of the Captain settling back into his chair and the tinkle of glassware drew her attention. Cautiously, she looked over her shoulder.
Hamner leaned back in his chair, pouring himself a goblet of wine. He took a sip, smirking, but not looking at her. “It is Princess—” his gaze slid briefly over her “—Marya, correct?”
“Keep your foul eyes off me!” she barked. The cool was getting to her, and the exertion of her spell-work, and shivers began to overtake her.
Hamner’s sighed and conspicuously looked away. “What are you doing so far from your palace, Princess?”
“None of your business, pirate!”
“Mm...” Hamner downed the goblet of wine with a gulp and slowly poured himself another. “Could be some time getting you that blanket.”
Marya drew in a breath and tensed, could feel another spell, a dash at quick escape building up.
Hamner smiled. “Yes, I suppose you could escape now, with Dayar’ah gone. Before you go, though, answer my question; it will cost you nothing. Why?”
“You’ll mock me,” Marya snapped.
“I may very well.”
“Fine!” Marya calmed herself, said more softly, “Fine. I was curious.”
Hamner’s brows furrowed, wrinkled his scarred but somehow still handsome features. “Curious?”
“Yes,” Marya answered. “Curious about you, about this ship. There’s a lot of talk—wild tales—about you, Captain Rougan Hamner and his Witch of Vendar, the ‘Terror of the Yderrean’. I was curious as to the legend, and to what kind of villains my father’s desperation has attached our destiny.”
“Villains,” Hamner snorted. “That’s my fault, I imagine. When I was younger, I craved such notoriety. Now it seems an anchor chain about my neck. If you’re questioning as to whether I’ve been on the wrong side of the law a few times then the answer’s certainly yes. But whose laws, I ask you?”
“You’ve taken Vendaran silver to plunder Oldavian shipping.”
“I’ve taken a lot of nations’ silver to plunder their rivals’ shipping. A contract’s a contract.”
“A lovely sense of loyalty,” Marya shot haughtily.
“There are different kinds of loyalty, Your Highness,” Hamner said with a sour expression. “There’s loyalty to employers and loyalty to people. The needs and whims of employer are prone to change with the wind. To assume a business relationship will remain to your advantage—or even stable—is the pinnacle of foolishness.” He paused to take a sip of wine. “Now people...individuals can be worthy of loyalty.”
“Oh? And what does it take to earn such loyalty?”
Hamner grinned and didn’t hide the way his eyes slid over her form. “Why does a Princess of Ranai even care?”
Marya tightened her grip about herself, worming to hide every inch of her naked form as she growled, “You’re an exasperating man.”
“I know it.”
Marya looked him in the eye. “You’re not what I expected.”
“I’m sure I’m not,” Hamner said, some of the wicked amusement going from his face. He drained his goblet again. “Sorry to disappoint you; the ‘Terror of the Ydderean’ is just a tired, old merchant, trying to keep his ship together and his crew from mutinying because they didn’t get paid on time, or aren’t getting fed enough, or had their wine ration cut.” He wiped perspiration from his forehead and for a moment looked as tired and old as he claimed to be. “My life is rather more boredom, drudgery, and occasional terror than whatever lurid tales you’ve heard might suggest, My Lady.”
“And yet you’ve seen the New Continent?”
He shrugged. “A couple times. Pretty place.” He flickered his eyebrows. “I could take you.”
Marya ignored the barb. “You’ve plundered shipping on the Ydderean from the Isles to Sannyvia. You’ve outfought the Saedrannan fleet, the Kets, and now the Feyan Imperial Navy.”
“Yes, yes...all that good stuff,” Hamner said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “And as thanks, I’ve been excommunicated and declared an enemy of the state in most of the Human Kingdoms—” he flickered his eyebrows again “—including this one.”
“Yes.” Marya recalled some of the ire in her father’s council. “Archbishop Lethus hates you. Why?”
Hamner’s face went ugly, the scar going livid. “Lethus is a bloodthirsty dog. Some of my older hands remember him well and I’ve had a devil of a time keeping them from making a go at him—not that I really want to.”
Marya shrank from the man’s sudden fury, barely managed to quaver, “Why?”
Hamner considered her, some of the normal color returning to his face. He poured himself a fresh goblet. “You’ve heard the little tale about our escape from Ponte, about fifteen years ago? I’ve heard it’s become quite the story after years of embellishment.”
“Yes,” Marya replied. “You blasted your way out of Ponte with a hold full of New Continent treasure due for the coffers of the church. It’s how you got excommunicated.”
“‘Blasted’,” Hamner snorted. “We fired a single broadside and hit nothing of importance, then got chased by half the Saedrannan fleet all the way to Vendar.” Hamner took a long pull on his wine. “Anyway, Lethus, the bastard, was Bishop of Ponte at the time and very active in the Eyes of God.”
“Now, that can’t be,” Marya denied. “My grandfather disbanded the Eyes long before then, for their excesses.”
“Well, then, someone in Saedranna never got the message, You Highness,” Hamner said, leaning forward towards her with menace in his eyes. “At the time, the Eyes, operating with the consent of the local church and King Amlynn, were collecting a ‘toll’ on all traffic in port. I had a hold full of silver due for my investors in the city. Lethus and his lapdogs found out and demanded thirty percent—enough of a cut to bankrupt me.” He took another drink. “I refused so Lethus had some of my crew on leave seized on trumped-up charges and demanded I hand over everything, or they would pay for it. Ydath organized a group to try and break our people out. They found the poor wretches had already been butchered and hung by their own entrails.”
Marya gasped.
Hamner continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Most of Ydath’s gang was cut down in the flight back to the ship. So, we pulled out, fired off a few culverins for good measure and ran like hell for Confederate waters.” He emptied the goblet. “She was the Daughter of Vendar, in those days.” He shook his head. “Never again. Been the Witch ever since.”
Marya couldn’t think of something to say, could only imagine withered old Lethus, bitter, back-biting and a nuisance; but a murderer?
Hamner, whose eyes had stared off into some point far away, looked at her in her silence. “Again, not what you expected?
“Archbishop Lethus anointed me into our faith as a child in the Shrine of the One,” was all Marya could manage to say.
The ugliness passed in a wave across Hamner’s features, only to be replaced by a blank disdain. He gave a disgusted shrug and leaned back in his chair. “Believe what you want to believe, then...”
“It’s not—” Marya began in a rush but was cut off by the return of the woman, Dayar’ah, with a ragged blanket. She gave Hamner a dirty look before offering it to Marya, who accepted it.
Wrapping the coarse fabric about her, Marya stood and regarded Hamner. “Is Lethus the reason you won’t help us?”
Hamner groaned and shook his head. “I think I’ve covered this topic quite sufficiently tonight, Your Highness.”
“Because Sir Eidorn was correct,” Marya pressed. “If you joined us, others would follow.”
“I’ll have Dayar’ah escort you to the Skaeda Bastion,” Hamner said without inflection.
Marya felt her skin warm. “So...that’s all?”
“The Reckoning Knights are preparing to leave, but they’ll probably have a detachment to spare to take you back to your palace.”
Marya blinked back the sting of frustration in her eyes, knew suddenly the fury that had almost overcome the young Sir Eidorn. “No,” she said coolly, “That’s all right...”
Marya stepped to the cabin window, letting the blanket fall away as the spell came to her in a flurry. And then she was sailing out the window, hurtling forth into the night.
Her course carried her up, high over the Jeweled Bay and the embattled city, fury and frustration and hot embarrassment driving her wings to beat a frenzied pattern. The night air, far above the oppressive smokiness and fear, with the moon huge and seemingly so close, refreshed her as it lashed through her feathers. She stung with the callous uncaring of Hamner’s words. And part of her lurched at the sickening memory of the man’s eyes all over her body.
More troubling, another part of her knew she hadn’t minded those eyes.
A Feyan cannon boomed below, one of the big pieces that worried her father’s advisors so. She saw its streak of fire and the moonlight shimmering in the mighty billow of smoke. She heard the scream of the monstrous shot and the anticlimactic whumpf of it striking the wall. Then a crash that went on and on. And a plume of dust and ruin churned skyward, towards her. A clamor of bells followed and firefly patterns of torches converged on the conflagration.
Oh no...
Marya shifted course, diving now for the Imperial Bastion.
While she had been playing games and courting pirates, the Fey had breached the walls of Ranai.
“THIS ONE’S ABOUT USED up,” Edisten was saying to Dwymli, holding out a hand for another page of Bloody Hand manuscript. The glow of the gnome’s white fire in a brazier cast hard shadows across the open tower top overlooking the Shrine of the One.
But Dwymli froze, listening as a roar spread across the city towards him. He turned away from Edisten, waving away the noxious fumes of the fire and he came to stand at the tower’s crenellated edge. His gaze went southwest and he saw by the reddish glow of converging torches the mighty cloud of dust mushrooming into the sky.
“This will have to wait,” the wizard said to the gnome. In his skull tightness grew, pinching thought away into dull pain and a reddish haze at the corners of his vision. He took a shuddering breath.
“They’re coming.”
SLAVES HAD BROUGHT a table into Arneus’ pavilion and he had watched as Nazrak spread a map across it depicting Ranai and its immediate environs, complete with hastily-scrawled lines for trenches and revetments and notes left by engineers. The Grand Aga’s aides placed wooden models representing units arrayed for battle. Officers and nobles leaned in around Nazrak as he spelled out the plan of attack.
“Everything is in place,” Nazrak said. “The artillery will keep up its fire, right up until the last moment, keeping the human heads down and continuing to damage the walls. An hour before dawn, Janizarry sharpshooters will infiltrate closely and begin a steady harassing fire on any humans attempting repairs on the breach. At sunrise, the artillery will cease and the attack goes in.”
Nazrak pointed a dagger towards the lead models on the map. “The Irregulars will spearhead the assault. Select companies will be carrying faggots and debris to dam up the moat. That will be, in fact, their primary goal.”
A murmur of discontent went through some of the gathered Fey. The Irregulars were scum, the dregs of a continent, criminals and deserters led by wash-outs from Feyan units and adventurers of the lower aristocracy with no other means of upward mobility. They were little better than a mob with uneven discipline – where they possessed it at all. But they were numerous. And they could be thrown away.
“Janizarry Head-taker assault battalions will follow, once the moat is achieved,” Nazrak continued, “exploiting the breakthrough and herding the Irregulars forward. They will be supported by the Black Guard.” Nazrak’s dagger point waved to other models. “Syvannian and Wild One units will press the walls all along the perimeter as this is happening, preventing the defenders from reinforcing the endangered sector.”
“The breach is still fresh, and narrow,” Kai Manzarba spoke up. “There will be no room for maneuver, once the troops are in there, and they will be taking enfilade fire from the Saint Mordanus gun towers. Perhaps another day or two to widen the breach would be in order?”
Arneus hid a scowl as he glanced at the Grand Vizier. Manzarba’s hesitation and protestations—at highly inappropriate moments, such as this—had grown more obvious, more daring as the days had worn on. Curse the old fool! With advisors such as him it is no wonder my father lapsed into so prolonged a downward slide, at the end.
Nazrak didn’t try to hide his annoyance. “Our forward observation says the humans have already erected repairs and hasty works in the breach, Grand Vizier, despite the ongoing barrage. A delay will only allow them more time for improvements.”
“Then perhaps the navy should try to force the boom and the Jeweled Bay,” Manzarba replied, glancing to the corner of the pavilion where Hadai cowered, as he always did, far from the Shaedar’s immediate attention. “The Vynn Gulf squadrons are arriving now. With the bay open, the belly of the city would be exposed for the savaging.”
Nazrak offered a snort of contempt. “This would the same navy that couldn’t keep three ships out of the city?”
Some chuckles at that and glances at the red-faced Hadai.
“But a simultaneous coordination might—”
“No.” Arneus cut the infuriating Grand Vizier off. “The assault will go forward as Nazrak has detailed.” He shot Manzarba a look and the old Fey acquiesced with a bow. “The Impure will taunt us no longer from behind their pitiful barriers,” Arneus boomed, looking around the room, challenging anyone to meet his gaze with a hint of doubt. None did and he nodded in satisfaction. “Tonight, the heavens will roil with the chorus of the humans’ misery. Tonight, we dine in the Shrine of the Impure!”
A growl of eagerness rippled through the commanders, even Manzarba permitting himself a smile at the words. Arneus grinned, his blood warm at the swelling lust for violence. He waved the group into dismissal and they began to break up, crowding to the exits in excited knots. They’re hungry, he thought, the grin widening. And sick of dust and trenches and waiting.
