David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"Dead ahead on the horizon," Kulit called, his voice strong but just a half tone higher than Ilna had heard it on other occasions. "I saw a mast when the… when the sky was bright, you know?"

Chalcus hopped to the top of the deckhouse, the highest vantage on theBird since they'd unstepped the mast and left it back on the quay. "Row on, lads," he said in a tone of quiet excitement. "That's theQueen of Heaven or another so like her it makes no never mind. There's lights aboard her, and it's more lights than any captain would burn while anchored in calm weather. We'll learn something soon or I'll know the reason why."

He dropped beside Ilna again and crossed his hands before him. "Had I left the mast up," he said, "we'd have a better view as you doubtless are thinking. But we'd have been visible from farther out as well, and that concerned me more than whatwe could see."

"I wasn't thinking anything of the sort," said Ilna tartly. "I assumed you knew your business; and I certainlydon't know your business."

She was knotting and loosing patterns as she spoke. She'd taken the cords out of her sleeve almost as soon as she awakened, and she'd been working-and unworking-them ever since. She saw Chalcus glance at the latest version and quickly cupped it between her palms. He couldn't have gotten a clear enough look anyway, but "That wouldn't be a good thing to see," Ilna said without letting her voice display her terror at what had almost happened. "I'm nervous, you see, and when I'm nervous my mind calms itself by thinking of dark places to send my enemies."

"Ah!" said Chalcus. "I can understand how that might be." He laughed merrily and hugged her with his left arm, though his eyes continued to scan the sea ahead of them.

TheBird of the Tide drove over the slow swells. The steering oar was raised and lashed to the rail where it didn't drag against the vessel's progress. Ilna knew there was a current because of what the sailors had told her and from the way bubbles of foam slowly drifted right to left, but Nabarbi and Tellura on the portside oars were compensating for it by taking longer strokes than their shipmates to starboard.

"There's theQueen or her twin…," said Chalcus, pitching his voice just loud enough to be heard over the faint squeal of the rowlocks. The crew had tallowed them just after nightfall, before they opened their bedrolls to sleep. "And there's boats in the water beside her, low ones. Hutena, were any of the fishing boats missing from the harbor tonight?"

"They were not," said the bosun, standing with a hand on the tiller and a hand on his axe head, ready at instant need to drop the steering oar into the water. "Every boat that went out this morning came back to harbor, saving the one you say the demons took. And every boat that came back was there in her berth as we put out."

"My thought as well," said Chalcus with a smile. "And there's more and bigger vessels by theQueen than one poor fishing boat that was left for the Rua."

Wizardlight pulsed in the deep sea, spreading outward like a ripple on a pond. It silhouetted the merchantman, now little more than a bowshot away, and two long, low barges moored to it. An instant later theBird of the Tide was suspended in crimson purity. Fish, caught in the same clarity, hung lower in the light-shot void, and arrowing through the sea toward the merchantman was the great seawolf Ilna had glimpsed from the deck of theDefender.

The flash spread on and vanished. It hadn't affected Ilna's night vision.

"Dear one, do you know what it was that just happened?" Chalcus asked in a voice all the crew could hear. He held his bow in his left hand with an arrow between his fingers, but his right hand wasn't on the cord. The light had shown everything nearby; the air was empty of Rua and of every other thing beneath the clouds.

"Beyond the obvious, that there's a wizard working," Ilna said, "I know nothing at all."

She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. She realized that the crew, brave men though they were, needed or at least deserved reassurance, so she had to be willing to offer it.

A question formed in Ilna's mind and resolved itself; she chuckled, but she didn't explain the reason when Chalcus raised a quizzical eyebrow. She'd thought, How can telling the men that we're completely ignorant be reassuring? And the answer came as swiftly: We've told them they're as well off as the people putting them to this risk; and that's not what they'd assume if we failed to tell them.

"A hard pull and we'll come up alongside the barge at the stern," Chalcus said. "Hutena, have you seen ships like that before?"

"Grain scows on the River Erd," Kulit answered in the place of the silent bosun. "A hundred feet long and forty broad, but they'll swim in water that won't come to your waist."

"There's marshes on the west side of the castle where you could land a barge," said Shausga. "I sailed the Carcosa run when I was a lad. Though why you'd want to berth there with Terness Harbor so good, I don't see."

"Indeed, a marsh?" said Chalcus. "It'd conceal your barges from an agent of Prince Garric with his eye on theDefender, would it not?"

"They're not hidden now," said Ilna. "Wherever they land and sail from, we can see the barges as soon as they're used."

"Aye, my love," said Chalcus. "And so could anyone else who put out when he saw wizardry in the sky at night. But would, do you think, every agent choose to do that? And if he did, or she did-would their crew obey the orders to put out?"

Chalcus laughed, but quietly. They were coming up on theQueen of Heaven and her attendant barges. In a conversational tone he went on, "Conn us around, Kulit, starboard to starboard with the barge. Not that I think they'll try to chase us down, this lot, but for the craftsmanship of the thing."

He grinned at Ilna. She smiled back, touched by the humor but aware also of the patterns that formed and scattered under the play of her fingers.

There were many lights on the merchantman's deck, more than Ilna could count with both hands. She heard men's voices, often that of Commander Lusius himself, shouting angry orders.

"Won't they see us coming?" she asked in a quiet voice, almost a whisper. "Don'tthey see us?"

Things splashed into the sea, followed moments later by a swirl of water and theclop of great jaws. Ilna'd seen the seawolf; now she knew why it followed whenever Lusius put out to sea.

"Not this lot," Chalcus murmured. "Not till we tread on their toes, and maybe not even then."

"We're going aboard, captain?" asked Hutena as theBird of the Tide slipped toward the barge with a soapy ease. Shausga and Ninon shipped their long oars; crewmen on the port side backed water to kill the vessel's remaining momentum. "We know who the pirates are already, don't we?"

"I think we know who," said Chalcus. "But not how, and just possibly not who either-since our Lusius wouldn't be one to leave a derelict with a full hold. You and I will board her, Hutena, while the others will wait ready to cast off."

"And I'm coming, of course," said Ilna. She'd made a choice of the pattern to have in her hands; she'd chosen or her fingers had, either one. She sometimes thought that her hands had not only more skill than her conscious mind but more wisdom as well. If she'd been wise, she'd be rich and powerful beyond all other folk-but she wouldn't be Ilna os-Kenset any more, and that was a greater price than she was willing to pay for anything in the world or beyond it.

"Of course you are, my heart," said Chalcus, striding forward to hand his bow and the bundle of arrows to Kulit. "Of course you'll come with us, or there'd be no reason for us to be here at all."

Thick hawsers at bow and stern lashed the barge to the merchantman. A coarse swatch of rope netting draped the bigger ship's side provided a ladder which several at a time could climb. A few worked on the barge by the light of several lanterns, stowing bales which the larger number who'd gone aboard threw over the merchantman's railing.