Craig Saunders - Tides of Rythe

“I’m not that bloody old,” he had said when he found out, his teeth grating.

“Old enough to be my grandfather,” said Renir with a straight face.

The old warrior had bristled, and sputtered, until Renir had laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m just tugging your beard, Bear. You don’t look a day over sixty.”

“Bloody sixty! Cheeky groat. Wait till your beard grows in and I’ll teach you some respect.”

“My beard’s as full as any man’s!” blurted Renir, and then turned his back on Bourninund’s satisfied smile. “Point taken,” he had said with a chuckle.

That morning they had practised their weapons once again, slowly, as they were using real blades. It had loosened knots he hadn’t know were there. Also, it had gained him a few female admirers. The seafarer women made parts of him ache he had long forgotten, even if they were only looking. With a wink, often, it was true, and sometimes a playful hitch of the skirt. Long, lithe, tanned legs, dark hair and blonde…remembering Shorn’s predicament, he kept himself to himself. And for wonder, so did Bourninund.

As Dow reached the horizon, he wondered what Shorn was doing. These last two days he had missed the surly warrior’s company.

He was already turning down the attentions of fine looking women. Next, he would be asking Wen to share his evening meal.

“Shall we dance on the seas, Bear? There are no women for us this night…” He put an arm around Bourninund’s shoulder, winking, and laughed more heartily than he had in days as the bear shook him off disgustedly.

It was just one surprise after another when a man was too long at sea.

The river trickled over the stone beside the hut. Further to the north, the trickle was a roar, to the south a sweet suggestion of the sea. The windows cast a toad-green glow inside, warm as summer. The windows themselves could barely be seen through.

In his cabin, Gurt read the letter again, more thoroughly, eyes watering in the dim light of a low candle.

So it was not Tirielle who had called on him, but his own blood?

He shook his head, and with his aching hands held the letter over the flame. He could not put it off any longer. It was time to leave.

Duty was a strange beast. It wore many guises, hid behind many cloaks. His had two heads — one, his blood, the second, his promise to Tirielle’s father. But he could not deny his blood, and he had to admit it to himself, Tirielle was gone.

He did not know if she was even alive, or dead in some ignoble town like her father before her, her ideals proving no more protection from an enemy’s blade than the vagaries of the wind.

He could wait no longer for his mistress. He could not deny his blood.

Reluctantly, with more than a hint of apprehension, he buckled on his armour, wincing at the tight buckles on his sword. He closed the door to the cabin behind him, and led the horse out into the night. Wey snickered loudly.

At least the mare was pleased to be on the road again.

Shorn frowned at Dainar through the candlelight. As far as he could tell, the fat man had not changed one whit. He was still a fool. Perhaps a little more girth, and maybe an extra chin or two.

How long, Shorn thought to himself, until you go in search of the peaceful land?

He said nothing. He needed his approval. Dainar might not kill them, now that his daughter’s shame was revealed, but he could be obstinate.

The rest of the council were persuaded, but Dainar led the council. Without his say so, they would be ferried back to the closest shores. The seafarers did not like to travel the northern seas. They had been stuck in ice floes for the whole of the winter before, but it was summer now. Shorn could not understand his reticence to help them, unless Dainar, too, felt shame at his daughter’s betrayal. But he would take little more.

If he had to kill him to get his way, he would. He would find a way. The anger that lived under the surface strove to rise like bile in his throat. With a great effort, he fought it back, the only way he knew how. Gradually it subsided. Words came back to his ears as the sound of rushing blood faded and he regained his calm. Drun’s influence was a good thing, sometimes. It paid to place thought before violence. He could see the sense in the old man’s words.

He calmed his breathing, as Wen had taught him. It was a lesson he had never forgotten. Both Wen and Drun had a hand in shaping him, but one was fire, one water. He could only hope he would not crack between them. But he knew he was pure steel inside. He could take the stoking, and the dousing. When he was finally forged he would be stronger for it.

“You must understand, the north is far more dangerous than it ever was. There are ice mountains drifting even as far as Jagged Cove. Floes break from the great ice sheets and drift south. We cannot force a path through ice so thick. Our boats would not fare so well if holed. Even we cannot survive should we be forced to swim such icy waters back to the Diandom.”

Shorn stopped himself from growling at a raised eyebrow from Drun. The old priest was trying to rein him in, as though he could read his private thoughts. I’ll do what I must, old man, he said within his head, and looked at the old man to see if he really could read his mind. Sometimes Drun worried him. He was an unknown quantity, something Shorn could not claim to understand. Usually, if he did not understand something, he hit it, or stabbed at it until it went away. If he was tired, he might just curse it soundly.

He turned his face away from Drun and spoke to Dainar instead of letting his thoughts run away with him.

“I’m not the kind of man to gnaw at stones, Dainar. You’ll help us go our way, or you won’t. Drun has told you all you need to know, and don’t pretend you don’t know of him. He is the watcher, and your people hid him long years, supplied him, even. If his word is not good enough for you…” Shorn opened his hands, as if such a simple gesture would suffice in the place of words.

“But we have not found land. None of our ships have beached on the forgotten shores — the signs are just not there.”

“I know your prophesies as well as you, I think, Dainar,” said Drun in his irritatingly calm tones. “You will not find land until the last wizard boils the seas away, and raises the land to the heavens. The signs are yet to come. The seas will toil, old lands will be rear once more, and the new will sink below. The skies will turn to ash. These things I know for I am the watcher — I have seen it in my dreams, and the first stones of my temple were laid with the prophesies carved into them. But also I know that a child of the seas, sired by a landfarer, will herald your new beginning. For these things to come to pass, frightening though they may be, you must speed us on our way. Shorn is the boy’s father, and of that there is no doubt. He has his eyes, not his mother’s, or her husband’s, but Shorn’s. The boy is the child of the seas. He is the herald. Shorn is the Saviour, Dainar. This I know, as well do you, so stop this obstinacy now and send us on our way. Let go your fear. Let what will be, be. The child will lead you to land.”

Dainar sighed and knuckled his temples. “It is true. I am afraid. If Poul is the one, my own grandchild will see the end of our old ways. We will find land again, and forget the seas. I am scared, and the people are scared. They know the prophesies as well as you or I. But Watcher, if I send you to Teryithyr, they will know the time has come. There will be such upheaval as we have never seen.”

“Prophesy is never easy, Dainar,” said Wen more softly than Shorn would have imagined possible for his old master. “But it is time. You can be in no doubt, and if you stand in its way it will crush you. Be prepared, and save those you can. Lead them, and guide Poul, make him a man. He too, must be ready. The end draws near and we will not all survive to see the new world born from the old. You know it.”