David Coe - Bonds of Vengeance

He gaped at her, his head spinning as if he were fevered. “ Are you mad?” He dropped to his knees beside the man, but already he could see the life fading in the soldier’s dark eyes. There wasn’t even time to call for a healer.

“No, Lord Kentigern. I’m merely doing what’s necessary, what you couldn’t bring yourself to do.”

“Surely you didn’t expect me to do this!”

“I expected you to honor your agreement with us. Now you have no choice but to do so.”

“You are mad.”

She wiped her blade on her trousers and returned it to the sheath on her belt. “You’d best send Kearney’s other men back to the City of Kings, Lord Kentigern. And then I’d suggest that you prepare for war.” She glanced at the dead man one last time, then let herself out of the chamber.

Aindreas should have gone after her. He should have killed her for what she had done, though he wasn’t certain how to go about killing a shaper. Instead, he just knelt there.

And the king’s man stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

Duvenry, Wethyrn, Anton’s Moon waning

Their ride from the City of Kings to Rennach took two days longer than Grinsa had told Keziah it would. Two days. And though the gleaner and Tavis quickly found a Wethy merchant who agreed to give them passage across the Gulf of Kreanna, they had to wait a full day before he and his crew were ready to set sail. The man’s price was reasonable, but they would be sailing to Duvenry rather than Helke, which would add more time to their travels. Still, Grinsa and Tavis were not in a position to be particular. Even the passage itself would have cost them a day had it not been for Grinsa’s magic. The weather was clear, the winds calm, as he had hoped they would be for Tavis’s sake. Indeed, the day proved so mild that the ship nearly was becalmed in the first hours of their journey.

The captain, a dour, black-haired Eandi, with a barrel chest and thick forearms that were tanned and marked with pale scars, had his men lower the mainsail and go belowdecks to row. Grinsa thought about offering to raise a wind, but judging from the way the captain eyed him, he knew the man would refuse. He and Tavis had been fortunate just to gain passage-clearly this Eandi captain didn’t care for Qirsi. Still, their speed on oar was intolerably slow, and even with the waters of the gulf as tranquil as Grinsa had ever seen them, Tavis was leaning over the edge of the top deck, his face so ashen that his scars looked black.

With nothing to lose and time to be gained, Grinsa stood beside the young lord, using his magic to raise a soft breeze. He did it so gradually, with so little visible effort, that neither the captain nor his crew seemed to suspect anything. He even went to far as to draw the wind from the southwest, so that they couldn’t steer a direct course to Duvenry, fearing that a more favorable wind might have raised the captain’s suspicions.

Feeling the wind freshen, the crew raised the mainsail again, and the small ship began to carve a crooked course across the gulf. After a time Tavis raised his head, eyeing the gleaner.

“Are you doing this?” he asked, his voice low.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Tavis, but already this is taking more time than I would have liked.”

The lord shook his head, the mere motion seeming to make his stomach turn. “It’s all right. The sooner I’m off this damned ship the better.”

They sailed around the north shore of Brigands’ Island, a small mass of trees and rock whose narrow coves and difficult landings had once been a haven for privateers. Then they turned south, away from the promontory of the lower Crown and toward the port of Duvenry. The shore appeared close, as if they could reach it in just moments if they simply turned due west, but the passage took the better part of the day.

Tavis said little, though after emptying his stomach early in the journey, he did seem to adjust to the gentle rhythm of the ship. The captain’s men ignored them, as if ordered to do so, leaving Grinsa to his thoughts and the subtle, constant demands of the wind he had conjured. Eventually, as the day went on, a natural breeze began to rise, and he was able to drop his wind, a good thing, since they encountered more ships as they drew nearer to Wethyrn, and it would have raised eyebrows had theirs been the only ship under sail.

As he watched gulls wheeling over the ship, and murres floating lazily on the gentle swells of the gulf, Grinsa’s thoughts turned again and again to Cresenne and Bryntelle. For just that one last night in Audun’s Castle, they had been a family, tied to one another by love and the shared sense that this was the future awaiting them, if only they could survive the coming war. He had long dreamed of again sharing his life with another, of knowing such passion and intimacy and-dare he think it? — joy. Years before, when he had been too young to appreciate fully what it meant to be tied to someone in this way, he had thought to share his life with Pheba, his Eandi wife, who died from the pestilence shordy after their joining. Now, it seemed, he had it with Cresenne. In the night they passed together, there had been the promise of a lifetime together. Yet there had been something else as well, an aching sadness, as if they both understood that the future they foresaw was but a dream. So many obstacles stood before them, so many paths to pain and grief and loss. Grinsa felt as though he were standing at the mouth of a great labyrinth, knowing that Cresenne and Bryntelle stood waiting on the other side, but unable to discern any pattern to the twists and turns in between that might lead him to them.

“Is that Duvenry?”

The gleaner looked up from the dark waters. Tavis was pointing toward a great walled city before them on the shore, bathed in the golden light of late day. Beyond the rocky coast and the formidable wall of the city, stood a great fortress, solid and implacable, grey as smoke save for the yellow and black banners rippling in the light wind above its towers. Grinsa had only been to Wethyrn’s royal city once before, and that had been many years ago. But Duvenry Castle was unmistakable and there was no other city in the realm that compared with this one.

“Yes. That’s Duvenry.” The gleaner straightened, and glanced about the ship. Already the captain was calling for his men to lower the mainsail and return to their sweeps. They would be docking shortly.

“How long will it take us to reach Helke?”

Hearing the tightness in Tavis’s voice, Grinsa regarded him for a moment before responding. His color had returned, leading the gleaner to hope that their return voyage across the gulf wouldn’t take such a toll on the boy. But still the young lord looked anxious.

“We can still turn back, Tavis. There’d be no shame in it, despite what you might think. Certainly I would never question the wisdom of doing so, nor would your parents.”

“I don’t want to go back. I’m just asking how long the journey north will take.”

Grinsa shrugged, staring at Duvenry Castle. “Five or six days, perhaps four, if we can manage to purchase mounts.”

Tavis’s father had given them more gold for the journey, though he had made no effort to conceal his disapproval. They could afford horses, and they would have no reason not to stay at whatever inns would have them. They would have little choice, though, but to stay in Duvenry this night before setting out for the northern city in the morning, and Grinsa begrudged even this delay. Every day he spent away from the City of Kings placed Cresenne, Bryntelle, and Keziah in greater danger, for each passing day increased the likelihood that the Weaver would grow impatient with Keziah’s failure to kill Cresenne and would make another attempt on her life himself. The gleaner would gladly have traded all the gold in their pockets for a quick return to Audun’s Castle.