The kheld king, p.21
The Kheld King, page 21
Tidus, who had helped Legon at the rear, also spoke with short breath. “Wreckers. They descend upon any unfortunates who founder on this coast. They are vultures. Some worse than others.”
“The enemy ship?”
“Not as good sailors as we are. Storm’s driving them onto the rocks.”
Maybe the wreckers would take care of them. Dorilian drew a deep breath. The land on which they stood was barren, without shelter or defenses. The air tasted oppressive. Sulphureous. He peered through the lashing rain that cut across the crusted headland in glistening rivulets, into the heart of the storm. Black, slashed by veils of fiery opalescence, opened and revealed a heart of madness, a vision at once ethereal and terrible. Above and to every side of them soared a city, shining, sky-reaching and vastly beautiful.
Only one of the Five Cities gifted to men by Leur had ever stood in this ill-fated place—or looked like that.
Mulsor.
“Oh hells,” Tidus whispered. He saw it too. “Gods forbid. Our dooms are sealed, all of us.”
Dorilian was not about to let superstition interfere with survival. “Old tales. That city is not even real, not anymore.”
Few people ever saw Mulsor—the ghostly vision appeared only during Rift events on the Kolpos, and ships avoided those. Destroyed by a calamity that had ignited the Devastation, the city didn’t manifest with every event and most sailors or land dwellers who glimpsed it would never admit to what they had seen. All souls who saw Mulsor were branded as doomed either to greatness or disaster, and often both.
“Well, there it is. The fucking end of the First Creation.” Tutto grunted. “As if we don’t have enough trouble on our hands.”
Even as they watched, violence shattered the phantom city. Riven towers, still beautiful, fell apart like sand as they collapsed into the sea. Broken. Crashing. Dying as the raging storm screamed. The image of Mulsor wavered before it blew away on the wind and was swallowed by the waves, its imprint on the Creation’s shattered memory too insubstantial to endure.
Tutto’s reminder that they faced more immediate problems was apt. Dorilian wasn’t Nammuor’s only prey here on the edge of Sordan’s domains.
“Tell me how we fare with things that are real.”
Tutto complied. “We have forty-seven men and eleven of Haeskos’s sailors, all armed. Seven wounded, two unarmed. No water. No supplies. The ship is aflame. The enemy vessel is caught on the rocks and any men who reach shore are beset by what I can only assume are savages.”
“We are in Sansordan, Tutto. Those savages are my subjects.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. If they were, they would have recognized your flag and emblems. Instead of attacking and trying to kill Legon and his men, they would have bowed down before them. Something tells me they aren’t going to bow down to you either.”
“They are going to attack us, then?”
“They saw our men run up the path and only stayed back for easier pickings. I say we hide our numbers and lure them in. Permission to set a deception.”
The storm still hammered the windswept headland with nails of rain as Tutto set men to act as wounded, gathered in the scant shelter of the outcropping. He also positioned the corpses of their dead to heighten the impression their band of survivors was composed of sailors and hapless travelers. Legon’s soldiers turned their cloaks inside out to conceal their insignia. This enemy would not be expecting a Hierarch’s elite guard.
When the attack came, it was from men who whooped and hollered and wore little more than rags. They wielded as many clubs as swords. Tutto’s decoys leaped to their feet and established battle formations. The attackers encountered three times as many fighting men as they had assumed.
“Get back!” Legon yelled as Dorilian joined him.
Dorilian saw no reason to retreat. Another sword would make quicker work of this rabble. He swung his blade, nearly decapitating the man who charged him. Twitching, the corpse dropped to the ground as Tutto made his way to Dorilian’s other side. Together, the three men fought as a unit, years of sparring and practice put to work. At one point a man made it through their screen of flashing steel to swing a club against Dorilian’s ribs. The armor absorbed the energy of the attack so completely he did not even feel the blow. He saw the club hit, and the look of surprise on the brute’s face. With a single movement, Dorilian laid open his attacker’s ribcage.
It took only minutes for the soldiers—better-armed and better equipped—to decimate their foes. Dorilian stepped back from the fight so Legon and Tutto could turn their attention to finishing the job. He returned to the outcropping and Haeskos, whose left leg had been badly burned in the final assault on the ship. The man had his sword in hand, though, and looked prepared to use it.
“Damn scavengers,” Haeskos said. “They wait for Rift storms and hope for ships to fare ill. They pick off the survivors and steal all they can. Look!” He pointed to a few shadowy shapes fleeing the field of combat. “Cowards. They’re running away.”
Back to their den. Dorilian ran back toward the intact line of his Eagles, and Legon, who he interrupted from saying anything. “We’re going after them! I want those vermin run down.”
“But sire—”
“Do as I say.” Dorilian wanted those wretches. He was their damned Hierarch, and would chase them to the ends of this World.
Dorilian gave Tutto twenty of his guards. If any Mormantalorans had survived the wreckers, Haeskos and others who needed to stay behind might need a defense. With Tidus and a few sailors to bolster his Eagle Guards’ numbers, Dorilian led the pursuit. His daily runs in the Va Haira or along Rhondda’s beaches now proved their worth. They encountered and slew fleeing wreckers who had neither the speed nor stamina to outrun them.
A scant handful of the scavengers made it back to their hovels. Deep violet twilight did not conceal them running toward a collection of huts built from scavenged ship wood in a tarp-strewn hollow. The primitive system might collect enough water to sustain their poor numbers, but clearly they lived on the edge of desperation. Upon seeing him and his men advancing upon their dwellings, the remaining wreckers threw down their battered swords and clubs. Following this, they fell to their knees. To a man, they faced Dorilian. He understood why. Derlon’s armor clothed him with a glimmer of moonlight and power.
Legon’s men gathered the miserable creatures at sword point. Then they went hut by hut and dragged out everyone else. Ragged, filthy figures tumbled out into a ring of firelight set so their Hierarch might examine them.
No old men or women. A few younger of the latter, barely clothed and obviously ill-used, cowered and kept their wild-haired heads lowered, eyes averted. One had a babe, a mewling, sickly thing. A handful of rag-wearing children huddled near two women clad in crude aprons. There were also two men, naked and unkempt, both wearing chains, one of whom wept and clutched at his right leg, which had been amputated below his knee. A stinking, blood-soaked bandage had been knotted about the stump. Something, maybe pain, made this man braver than the others and he looked up defiantly. At once his face transformed.
“Mekan dantha, Nemenori! Adantefarren!”
One of the Raudra’s sailors stepped forward. “He speaks Ardaenan, Thrice Royal. He asks you to help him. He thinks you are a Nemenor noble.”
Legon tilted his head to cover a laugh.
Dorilian had understood the plea. “Nen. Nen Nemenori. Dorilian Sordaneon esh, Hierarch Sordanos. Vosno Sordano. Handu yedhetos?”
The Ardaenan’s black hair fell across his face as he ducked his head. His fellow captive looked equally amazed, and three of the huddled women at last raised their bruised faces to look upon him. They whispered and clasped at each other as the first man gave an emotion-wrought, halting answer. Dorilian’s stomach turned at what he heard.
“Their ship foundered two months ago.” He translated for the benefit of his men who did not speak the language. “These… animals took them. Now we know what these wreckers eat. When the provisions from these people’s ship ran out, they ate fresh meat. Their last meal was this man’s leg.”
“Fucking hell!” Tidus swallowed hard and looked ready to vomit. He was not the only one.
Legon sent a narrow glare at the kneeling wretches his men held at the edge of the firelight. They did not appear to realize what was being said about them.
Cannibals. Predators and murderers, and probably rapists as well.
“We kill the unholy, Sordan man.” One of the five men they’d just beaten in battle and followed to the camp spoke up loudly. “We kill the cursed ones. The Doomed. Those who see Mulsor we kill to spare the World.”
Why did they want to tell him that? Dorilian merely turned his head to address the claim. “I saw Mulsor. So did you. Do you kill yourselves?”
“Already cursed. Doomed to suffer. Doomed to kill. Holy work.”
Holy. What in Three Worlds was holy about slaughtering unfortunates? Mulsor was a specter, a curse writ on the World—an indelible memory of Aryati madness—not a command for the world to corrupt itself all over again.
“Well, you are not going to kill me.” Dorilian turned to Legon. “Execute them. All of them, for attacking their Hierarch. Spare the women and children, and these two men. We will sort out their stories.”
By the time Tidus and several other men accompanied him back to the cliffs, clouds obscured the moon and blanketed their way in darkness. Dorilian generated an orbus by which to see their path. Only Legon among the men had ever seen him do so and the resulting whispers punctuated his success with dire warning.
Sorcerer. Godborn.
Pooling ambient energy to create light was the least of Highborn gifts. Levyathan could already summon a flicker, albeit by using knowledge beyond his years. But the whispers proved too that any act Dorilian performed would be subject to comment and rumor. And rumor could mutate into weapons.
Secrets sheathed swords… but were difficult to keep.
When they reached the cliffs, they found a makeshift camp. Haeskos and Tutto communed by a fire. No other attacks had befallen them. The sailors had salvaged wood from the ship, along with some food and two barrels of water. At least one thing was certain: Dorilian’s men would not be eating each other.
“She was a good ship,” Haeskos lamented. Though the storm had passed, and the rain with it, gray hair was still plastered in curls to his head. “Shame to have beached her, but it was the right thing to do.”
Dorilian hunkered beside the two men. “We had to give ourselves our best chance. I will rebuild the ship.”
“New name,” Haeskos suggested. “Better luck.”
“Yes. Better luck.”
“I trust you know the way to get the better of Mulsor’s curse?”
Dorilian eyed Haeskos across the fire’s steady flames. If anyone knew such a secret, it would be this man.
“Don’t believe in it.” Haeskos tipped his cup to add weight to his point. “And don’t tell anyone who does believe.”
Good advice, considering what they all had just witnessed. Dorilian glanced at Tutto, who he could see was in agreement. Probably the two old veterans had talked about it. He would have to surround himself with more people like them.
“I do not believe in Mulsor’s curse,” he assured them. “And I am not about to tell anyone. My life is difficult enough without people thinking I am cursed.” Too many people already thought him an abomination. To Haeskos he said, “We have too few supplies to attempt an overland journey. Please tell me our escort ships will come back for us, and soon.”
Concern shadowed the admiral’s face. “Raudra serves as a beacon and my lads have set watchfires. Someone will come.”
A glance to Tutto showed a grim frown. “We cannot know for sure if the escorts survived the storm. They may also have been blown off course. My fear is that those Mormantaloran ships we chased off anticipated the attack and circled around.”
Which they might have.
“My money’s on we sank them.” Haeskos saluted some god or other with his cup. “I gave that order.”
“Let us pray your men made good on it.” Another, and darker fear clawed at Dorilian as he gazed upon the watchfires ablaze upon the cliff. Rescue, if it happened at all, might not come soon enough. “And let us pray those escort ships arrive soon. I am not the only target of this attack. My Heir is in Ilmar—and Nammuor wants Levyathan even more than he wants me.”
18
Raxa grabbed Palimia’s wrist and all but dragged her into the room that served the palace as a temporary nursery. Night had just fallen upon Ilmar. Far to the west, the sky no longer painted itself or the sea in fiery hues. The nurse pointed to a low bed, upon which two small figures curled.
“He’s been like this for hours, Lady.”
Fahme lifted her head when Palimia sat upon the edge of the bed. Honey-dark hair spilled over the girl’s shoulders onto the mattress and around her distressed little face. “Lev won’t eat.”
It was more than that. Raxa wrung her hands. “The lad just stares and stares. If I touch him, he screams and all that does is bring in the guards. Fahme is the only one he’ll let touch him. Lady, what do I do?”
Levyathan lay on his side, eyes open but not moving. Staring. Fahme patted his cheek.
Palimia’s heart ached at what she saw. “When did this happen?”
“Just a few hours ago, after the meal. It was nothing he ate, I’m sure of it. Fahme ate the same thing. So did I!” Raxa was awash in fright and tears.
“Did he say anything?”
“Nothing I understood. He ran to look at the ocean”—Raxa gestured to the tall columns at one end of the room, beyond which was an open loggia; darkness currently cloaked the view of the sea—“and babbled about fire. But there was no fire, not anywhere to be seen.”
This was starting to make sense. Palimia looked into Fahme’s grave, pinched face. “Fire?”
“Blue fire,” said Fahme.
Ordinary fire was never blue, and Levyathan would not invent such a thing.
Dorilian. This could be nothing else. The Highborn felt each other’s deaths—but possibly much more. Possibly danger as well. Palimia had learned much in the year since Dorilian had taken her to be his intimate companion, especially about how sensitive the godborn could be to others of their kind.
“Lev?” She hoped her voice would reach him. Based on what Raxa had said, Palimia did not dare risk touching him. “It’s Mia. I am here. I want to help. Tell me about the fire.”
Tell me about Dorilian.
Levyathan’s jaw sagged and for a moment Palimia hoped he would speak, but he didn’t. He looked so small, so helpless—lips pale and eyes wide from things unknown.
Fahme’s plump little hand gave Levyathan’s shoulder a push. “Mia,” she said, to make sure he heard.
When that received no response, Palimia turned to Raxa. “He’s not ill. He is in contact with his father, I think.”
Raxa blew out a sigh, part relief and part continued anxiety. “These Highborn—”
“Yes.” Palimia felt much the same.
“Noemi would have known what to do. She used to tend the young Lord and she knew ever so much.” Noemi had trained a younger Raxa. That, even more than Raxa’s abundant milk supply after the loss of a stillborn daughter, had convinced Dorilian to retain her as his son’s nurse.
Palimia had never met the first Levyathan, Dorilian’s younger brother—a boy of whom she had heard a great deal. Gifted. Strange. His namesake was hardly less so.
“Please tell me you have alerted Bas Tiflan.”
Puffy-eyed, Raxa nodded. “I told him first. He calmed the lad somehow, and then he went to ready the ship.”
“The ship?”
“To take us back in the morning.”
Tomorrow they were to start their journey back to Sordan. Dorilian had sent a schooner ahead for that purpose because the barge would have to be hauled upstream. “We will just have to keep him comfortable then. I think his state will resolve when his father returns.”
None knew when that might be. Dorilian should have returned already from his sailing of the new ship. There were a hundred reasons a ship might be late in coming to port. He might even be at the dock, delayed by his admiral or by Tiflan reporting on the readiness of the schooner. Though if Dorilian had heard even a word about this turn with Levyathan, nothing would have kept him from the boy’s side.
Palimia took a soft light blanket, woven of the gauziest seshi wool, and laid it over both children. Fahme did not want to leave Levyathan but continued to peer into his staring eyes. That he was odd, the girl accepted as ordinary. That Fahme would feel so much distress pointed to something gone wrong.
“Fire. Fire, fire, blue,” Fahme whispered. She knew fire was dangerous.
Palimia had just resolved to offer a distraction, perhaps to play with Fahme for a bit, when Levyathan drew a shuddering breath.
“No fire,” he said. His gaze focused on Fahme’s wide stare. “No fire. No more. Rain. The ones who attacked him are dead.” Levyathan’s gaze sought Palimia next. “Dor is safe… we are not.”
“Not safe?” Though Dorilian had taken a cohort of his best troops to sail with him on the new ship, he had left three hundred men of the Eagle Guard to protect his family.
The boy sat up in the bed, the blanket puddled over his legs. “He cannot help us.” Though he spoke with a childish lisp, Levyathan communicated better than any two-year-old she had ever known. “Dor’s ship was attacked. Mage fire. He is safe now but he is afraid. Afraid for us. He fears Nammuor will seize me.”
If Dorilian feared this, Palimia must believe that danger was real. She turned to Raxa. “Find Tiflan. Search every corner. He needs to hear this.”
While Raxa fetched the man charged with their safety, Palimia went to the loggia and looked out at the ink-dark sea. Light towers marked the many channels and shallows of the delta and its breakwaters. Inhaling a breeze redolent of salt and storms, she walked the colonnade’s white length to the corner at the south end, from which she could look out upon the river proper. Below the palace was the pier, busy with activity as men readied the berthed schooner. She had no idea what to do. How would Nammuor or his agents approach this place? By sea? By land? What if they were here already?
