David Weber - The Road to Hell

When they reached the deck, the captain, himself, helped her out of the boat while Howan Fai steadied her. She clutched the blanket around her as the captain said, “Vothan be praised, Your Grand Highness! Let’s get you both someplace safe and warm.”

Someone else turned up-a grizzled Marine chief armsman, with four enlisted men at his back. There was a heavy Halanch and Welnahr revolver at the noncom’s side, all four of his men carried both revolvers and slide-action shotguns, and their faces were grim, their expressions harsh in the light of Peregrine ’s fires. They fell in about her and Howan Fai as the captain escorted them across the swarming deck. They passed sailors who stood rigidly at attention, faces wet, but eyes shining as she passed, and she tried hard to smile at them.

They were met part way across the deck by another officer, running to meet them. He carried a surgeon’s bag, and several medical assistants were right behind him with stretchers. The moment the ship’s surgeon touched her, Andrin knew she was safe, in the hands of a master healer. A wondrous rush of warmth and strength washed through her, and then she was lifted up, carefully, and placed on one of the stretchers.

“I can walk,” she protested.

“So you can,” the surgeon nodded, sounding her pulse, “but I won’t be letting you, so just rest quietly, Your Grand Highness. We’ll have you in sick bay and feeling better in no time.”

She didn’t want to let go of Howan Fai’s hand, but the surgeon ordered him onto the other stretcher after the briefest touch on his shoulder. The stretcher bearers lifted them, and she suddenly realized they were taking her away and the captain wasn’t coming with them.

“Wait!” she cried. “Captain, I need to tell you something! Urgently!”

He was at her side in an instant, even as the surgeon sent another flood of healing energy into her, inducing drowsiness.

“We heard two men on a cabin cruiser out there,” Andrin said, gripping the captain’s hand. “While we were in the water. They’d planned this whole monstrous thing. They might still be out there. They have a Masker and”-her mouth twisted-“someone who Calls sharks.”

The captain’s face flared with sudden blazing interest.

“You know who did this, Your Highness? Was it agents from Arcana?”

She shook her head, wishing it were so, but Arcanans didn’t have Talents and they didn’t speak Shurkhali.

“No,” she said in a hoarse rasp. “It was the Seneschal.” Her voice went harsh with hatred. “We heard his filthy hirelings talking about it, not thirty feet away. He sent men to board the Peregrine in the dark to throw me over the rail to the sharks. They meant to make certain I was dead before the bomb went off-they probably didn’t know the yacht had so much fuel aboard and they were afraid I might have survived the explosion somehow-but I had a Glimpse just seconds before they attacked. We saw men swarm up over the rail and come running at us across the deck, right before Howan Fai threw me over the rail. My armsmen and Marines were shooting back in a gun battle as we went overboard.”

The captain turned from Andrin to Howan Fai then spoke roughly, “Your Grand Highness, you have my gratitude and deepest respect.” He saluted Howan Fai, sharply.

“Thank you, Captain. But if not for Andrin’s Glimpse, the Seneschal’s plan would have worked and I’d be dead, along with all the rest.”

Water started to stream down Andrin’s face again-the inhaled ocean water stung her eyes and nose now that she had time to notice it-but her tears more than that. Raw fury clawed at her throat.

“That evil man has to be found, has to be punished! His people blew up the yacht, killed my staff, my armsmen. And Lazima!” She remembered her personal armsman turning to face the running dark figures, the revolver spitting flame in his hand, the way he’d stepped directly between her and the threat. “Did chan Zindico-? Has Lazima chan Zindico been found? I don’t remember having time to tell him. He was right there not two steps away from us. No, no, he wasn’t in the water. One of them threw something at us in the Glimpse and he moved into it. He couldn’t have jumped, or if he had he would have already been bleeding, and the sharks-”

She froze, her throat closing in anguish for just a moment, but then something went through her-something hard, and deadly, and icy cold, and her voice went hard as flint.

“That bastard arranged all this. My yacht, my servants, my armsmen, and, and-The palace! I saw it burning too. Are my sisters…?” She turned to look towards the coastline where orange firelight flickered too brightly on the spot where the Tajvana Palace should have shone with festival lighting.

She was sobbing again, as grief and fear lashed through her. She was responsible for those deaths. She’d been the target. The target to destroy. It hurt so deeply, she couldn’t breathe against it, but that freezing tide of lethal fury bore her up, turned her quivering sinews to iron and her will to steel.

“Find them!” she rasped. “Find them and arrest them!”

“Your Grand Highness,” the captain gripped her shoulders, peering down into fiery gray eyes which streamed with tears and flashed with fury, “my Voice will flash that message to every law enforcement agency, every military base on Sharona. Those bastards will go down. I swear by Vothan, they will go down. Tonight . There’s no hole deep enough to hide them, not anywhere on Sharona.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she whispered.

Then she turned her gaze helplessly to stare at the burning palace on the shore and that terrible, supporting rage flickered and she sagged as the agony whipped through her again. The surgeon’s hands touched her, urging her to lie flat, and the moment his hands touched her, the terrible pain in her heart eased away, grew dim, disappeared. He was murmuring softly to her.

“Rest, now, Your Grand Highness, close your eyes, yes, that’s right, we’ve got you safe, hush, now. Breathe softly…softly…light as down feathers from a gosling…”

Her eyes closed over unutterable weariness.

Andrin’s last thought was a plea to Shalana. Have mercy, Lady, please. Let my parents and sisters be alive. Please, I can’t bear this burden alone…

Then even that disappeared.

* * *

Relatha Kindare had come a long way from Estafel and the servants’ quarters at Hawkwing Palace. Trainee Healer . Those two words meant more to her than anything ever had in her life, and she had the crown princess to thank for it. Not only had she been accepted into the training program at the legendary Tajvana Healing Academy, one of the Imperial Healers had volunteered to give her extra tutelage in his spare time.

But for tonight, she was just Relatha the servant, again, by choice. She’d wanted to be part of the celebration at the Grand Palace, and gods knew the Grand Palace staff needed all the help they could get! Since she was already well-known and thoroughly vetted by Security, it had been relatively easy to be added to the duty roster for the evening.

So here she was, in the midst of the glittering assemblage on the stone terrace, carrying a tray of drinks, enjoying the fireworks, and surreptitiously stealing glances at the Ylani Straits. She hadn’t learned until just a few minutes ago that the crown princess and her husband were leaving Tajvana for a few weeks of long delayed honeymoon.

If she looked sharp, she could just pick out the dark silhouette of the royal yacht slipping out of the harbor, to be joined by the destroyers waiting in mid-channel, and her eyes went watery. Such a good man, she’d found. Relatha had gone nearly out of her mind thinking about Andrin in the hands of one of Chava Busar’s unholy brood. During her work at the clinic attached to the school, she’d heard horror tales of girls who’d come in for medical help and emotional counseling after running afoul of the Uromathian emperor’s sons. The thought of any of them with Crown Princess Andrin had made Relatha’s blood run cold.