Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

The man laughed with scant humour. “Lady, I don’t want your notch on my tally stick.”

“Not given the choice.” The pirate rubbing his bruised face was looking up at her daughter’s legs hanging helpless above him. He grabbed her calf and the raiders above dropped the girl. The man slid his rough-skinned hand up her stockings and beneath her skirts as he caught her around the waist with his other arm.

The lass jerked rigid in his embrace and in panic, she spat full in the pirate’s face. “How dare you!”

“Beg pardon, my lady.” He removed his hands with elaborate care and a lascivious smile. “You come find me, if you change your mind.”

Parrail and Naldeth were pushed towards the rail. The scholar kicked the mage hard on the ankle and saw bemused realisation of pain burn through the shock fogging the wizard’s eyes. Parrail nodded at the rope ladders and to his relief, Naldeth managed to fumble his way down to the longboat. Parrail gripped the rungs with trembling hands, nails digging into the tarred rope, trying to go as fast as he could, fearful lest he fall but more scared of the consequences if he did.

“That’s your lot!” The pirate with spittle still glistening on his unshaven cheek waved to the ship and urged his rowers to their oars. “Get on!”

The passengers huddled on the central thwarts of the boat, the mother sobbing into her daughter’s breast. Naldeth was still staring ahead with unseeing eyes but Parrail twisted to try and gain some idea of where they were being taken.

He saw a crude stockade of green timber some little distance inshore, bark still on the trees, fresh axe marks still pale on the sharpened ends. A scatter of rough shelters, lean-tos and tents sprawled over the close-cropped turf between the stony beach and the thick underbrush that cloaked the rising land. Returning pirates were stirring fires to life, cauldrons and kettles swung over the flames. The few who’d stayed hidden ashore came out of the undergrowth and from the stockade, shouts of congratulation audible over the smooth waters of the anchorage. The sun was warm, the breeze gentle and the islands looked verdant and hospitable. Parrail felt utterly desolate.

The boat crunched to a halt on the shingle spit. “All out and sharp about it!”

As they scrambled over the side, stumbling in the knee-deep water, Parrail risked a quick look round for any hope of escape. He wasn’t the only one.

“Nowhere to run, sorry.” The scornful pirate wasn’t looking at him but Parrail still coloured, humiliated by the mocking laugh of several brutes waiting at the water’s edge.

“You’re in the stockade for tonight.” A thickset man with a shaven head in sharp contrast to his plaited brown beard stepped forward. He wasn’t dressed for raiding but wore buff breeches and jerkin of a cut and quality Parrail would have expected on any Vanam street. “Give us your oath that you’ll join us in the morning and you can set up your own patch.” He indicated the ramshackle camp with an expansive gesture.

Parrail shoved Naldeth into the centre of their group as they headed meekly for the stockade. The scholar hoped the grey despair on the wizard’s face would be taken for the defeat that hung heavy on the rest. Their captors seemed keen to dispel such gloom.

“Muredarch’s a great leader,” volunteered a muscular youth, tanned beneath a sleeveless shirt unlaced to the waist. “You should think about his offer. It’s the best chance for serious wealth for the likes of us this side of Saedrin’s door.”

“It’s good living,” his companion agreed, slapping at the gilt and enamel decorations on the expensive baldric that carried his sword. He swung a flagon of wine in the other hand, cheery in the bright sun that mocked the prisoners’ misery.

Parrail wondered where the wine had come from and who had died for it. They reached the stockade and were roughly shoved inside the crude gates. Parrail was hard put to stifle abject tears when he heard the rough-hewn bar outside secure it. He dashed them angrily from his eyes and grabbed Naldeth. The wizard looked at him numbly and Parrail shook him bodily before urging him into the narrow shadow cast by the crude walkway that offered their few token guards a vantage point.

“We have to send word.” He quailed lest anyone overhear his urgent whisper.

Uncomprehending, Naldeth struggled to find some response but none came.

Parrail found the first stirrings of anger fighting to rise above his fear and nausea. “We’re the only ones who can send for help.”

Naldeth shuddered and rubbed a shaking hand over his mouth. “Who?” he managed to croak.

Parrail licked dry lips. “Hadrumal?” The great mages had defended Mentor Tonin and his scholars before; Planir, Otrick and Kalion wielding mighty magic to send Kellarin’s foes screaming before them. That seemed so very far away and long ago compared to his present predicament.

Some animation was returning to Naldeth’s face. “I need to conjure a flame if I’m going to bespeak anyone.” He looked around. “And something shiny, something metal.”

Parrail looked around as well. “They haven’t left anyone so much as a hair pin.”

“Nor any fire.” Naldeth shivered. “It’s going to be a cold night.”

“Any flame will give you away as the mage.” Parrail wished he hadn’t spoken when he saw stifling dread threaten Naldeth’s fragile composure again. “Think, man! What are we going to do?”

The wizard drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Can’t you use Artifice?”

Parrail hugged his aching belly. “I can try but what if someone hears me?” He looked round at the other prisoners but all were sunk in their own misery, some clinging to each other, others lost and alone in their shock.

“Do you think they’ll give us up?” Naldeth asked in a hollow voice.

“Master Gede didn’t.” Parrail’s voice cracked.

“He’s not dead yet—and neither are we.” Naldeth grasped the scholar’s shoulder in a clumsy attempt at comfort. “I’ve just thought of something; I can weave air to cover your incantations, can’t I?”

Parrail managed a wan smile. “Let’s see who I can reach.”

He moved to the negligible protection of a rough-hewn upright supporting the walkway and sat facing the blank wall of the stockade. Naldeth dropped down beside him, sitting with bent knees and feet flat to the trampled grass, elbows resting on his knees, head and hands seemingly hanging limp. Only Parrail could see the utter concentration holding the mage rigid. This was no time to let any hint of magelight escape his working.

“When—” The silence that swallowed his tentative query told the scholar he could attempt his own enchantment. Parrail forced himself to breathe long and slow, concentrating on the memory of Vanam’s university quarter and banishing the reality of this nest of pirates. He pictured the scholarly halls where learned men shared their theories in lecture and demonstration, the dusty libraries where long-dead rivalries stood shoulder to shoulder in the chained ranks of books. With a longing that twisted his heart, he focused his thoughts on the cramped house where Mentor Tonin shared his enthusiasm for the lost lore of the ancients with his students, conscientious in tutoring even those he only took on for the sake of their fathers’ fat purses, their gold keeping the roof over the heads of those poorer but diligent like Parrail.

He mouthed the words of the enchantment that should carry his words to Tonin but felt nothing. The image in his mind’s eye was as stiff and unresponsive as a painted panel. He tried again but there was none of the thrill he recalled from his past use of Artifice. Where was the vivid connection, the wondrous sense of touching the aether that linked all living things, thought speaking to thought, free from the fetters of distance or difference? Vanam was as unreachable as the sun sailing high and untroubled above them.