Rowena Daniells - The uncrowned King

Nefysto advanced on him, his face a cold mask, making him look older.

'I could order your death and no one would question it, monk. In fact they'd leap to obey me. Unlike you, my men have never known a privileged life,' Nefysto said. 'Do you understand?'

Fyn managed a small nod and, at the captain's signal, Bantam released him.

Nefysto gestured to the desk. 'If you make yourself useful, I may just let you live.'

Bantam shoved Fyn forwards. He staggered, ending up in the captain's seat.

'This is not Halcyon Abbey, lad. The rules are different here,' Nefysto told him. 'You'd do well to remember that. Now get to work.'

He went out on deck, leaving Fyn under Bantam's watchful eye.

Fyn wondered how much to reveal. He knew a lot more about the state of his father's army than a monk would. Nefysto's master might have other sources, so he kept as close to the truth as possible, while writing a brief outline of what he had observed.

As he did this, he was vaguely aware of cries on deck and a change in the ship's rhythm. At last he put the quill aside and massaged his cramped hand.

Captain Nefysto returned. 'Finished? That was good timing. Give him a weapon, Bantam.'

Fyn's heart lurched. Were they about to kill him for sport? If so, why give him a weapon?

He rose from the captain's seat, stretching his tense shoulders, playing for time. Bantam handed him a short curved sword. Fyn took the weapon, feeling the welcome but unfamiliar weight and balance.

Bantam regarded him keenly. 'I don't doubt you'd like to spill my guts on the deck, little monk. But before nightfall you'll be too busy saving your own miserable life!'

Fyn looked to the captain for an explanation.

'We've sighted a fat ship ripe for plucking. She's running before the wind, but her canvas is no match for ours. We should have her boarded by dusk and then we'll see if the fighting prowess of Halcyon's warrior monks is as great as rumour has it.'

Fyn's stomach knotted. A ship ripe for plucking? It sounded like a merchant ship. It seemed these sea-hounds did a little plundering on the side after all. And he was expected to kill at Captain Nefysto's command. Everything the abbey had instilled in him revolted. If he could not kill the man who had murdered Piro, how could he kill an innocent man?

But if he wanted to live long enough to jump ship, he'd have to win the captain's trust. Fyn decided he would turn the flat of his blade and when that failed, he would injure the merchant sailors, rather than kill.

Only to protect his own life would he take another's. He was not a killer and they could not turn him into one.

But perhaps he was wrong and the captain was about to live up to the sea-hounds' reputation by attacking Utlander raiders. Fyn went on deck, where he found the vessel they pursued had the distinctive outline of a fat-bellied merchant ship.

He was disappointed in Nefysto.

Piro had grown up on stories of Merofynia's wonders, but seeing Mulcibar's Gate was more astonishing than any of her mother's descriptions. A hush fell over the crowded deck. In the darkness, a stream of hot rock rolled slowly down the slope, gleaming like living fire. A dark outer casing covered it and, through the many small cracks, she could see the bright red, molten rock within. Waves crashed where it met the sea, sending steam high into the air as the two elements clashed.

Piro pulled her cloak more tightly about her shoulders, unable to look away from the battle between Cyena, goddess of the sea and winter, and Mulcibar, god of fire and war.

The headlands dwarfed their convoy. To her right on the eastern cliff was Cyena Abbey, where the abbess served the Merofynian goddess of the sea, ice and winter, much as Rolencia's abbess served Sylion.

But the eastern side of the bay's entrance belonged to Mulcibar, god of the earth, fire and summer. In many ways Merofynia was the reverse image of Rolencia. Mulcibar was not a warm nurturing deity like goddess Halcyon. Now, seeing Mulcibar's Gate, Piro understood why he was the patron god of war.

A particularly large wave crashed on the molten lava, sending steam high into the air.

'Mulcibar's breath, they call it,' Dunstany said. 'Now are you glad I made you get up early and come up on deck?'

'Is it dangerous?'

'It has been burning on and off like this for as long as the monks have been serving Mulcibar,' he said. 'Where the hot rock meets the sea it cools, forming new land. Mulcibar's monks have been taking measurements. They estimate, if it continues to form at this rate, Mulcibar's Gate will be closed in two hundred years. But I've calculated that it will miss Cyena's Headland, curving back into the bay.'

'What a pity you won't be alive to find out if you are right,' the Utlander remarked.

Piro stiffened. She had not heard him approach.

'Oh, I'm much harder to kill than you imagine,' Dunstany said.

The Utlander's eyes narrowed and he stalked past them, going over to Palatyne who stood at the wheel.

'I don't like that Utlander,' Piro whispered. 'And he doesn't like you.'

'Very observant.'

Piro studied Dunstany but, in the dim predawn light, could not make out if he was laughing at her.

He smiled, and she couldn't help smiling back. She was looking forward to seeing the place where her mother had been born and walking the corridors she had known as a girl.

Grief made her gut clench. Her mother was lost to her, and it had only been in those last few days, before the castle fell, that she had begun to know Queen Myrella. Piro felt cheated of a mother who might have grown to be a friend.

If only she had gone to the queen sooner with her fears. In a way Seela had kept them apart. Not that her old nurse meant to do harm. Seela was loyal to the bone. Piro was glad she'd sent their old nurse to Byren, that last morning in Rolenhold. As for Fyn, she only hoped he was safe. He had to be safer than her at least, after all she was being sent into the enemy's palace as a spy.

'…Seelon?'

'Sorry, Lord Dunstany, I was thinking.'

His black eyes fixed on her suddenly serious. 'Soon you go into a court fraught with intrigue, where few can be trusted. You will be my eyes and ears, report back everything you hear. I may do or say things that seem odd to you. But remember this, if you are ever in danger, you can trust me.'

She wanted to. But…

How could she trust him, when he held her soul captive in the amber pendant?

Somehow Piro avoided looking at the pendant and found a smile.

'Of course I trust you,' she lied, and she must have been getting better at lying, as the noble Power-worker looked satisfied.

Dawn found Fyn crouching behind barriers of stacked bales as arrows whistled through the air, striking any man foolish enough to peer over the makeshift shields. Their own archers clung to the ship's rigging. Agile as monkeys, they picked off targets on the merchant ship's deck, crowing each time they scored a hit.

Last night they had failed to catch the merchant ship. The Merofynian captain had tried evading them by weaving his ship through the islands, but the winds failed him. He'd tried to slip away during the night, but Captain Nefysto had second-guessed him, anticipating the direction he would take so that now, as the sun came up, they were closing in.

'Let her fly!' the captain ordered.

Flaming tar-dipped arrows streaked across the narrowing distance, some falling onto the deck where they were quickly stamped out, others hitting the canvas.

'That'll keep them busy,' Bantam muttered with satisfaction.

A flaming arrow flew over Fyn's barrier. He ducked instinctively and it landed harmlessly in the sea. Another struck the sail above them, spluttered and went out.