Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

“Crossbows,” I warned her as a bolt thudded into the Eryngo ’s main mast. I spared a thought to hope Temar had the sense to keep his head down.

Allin laced her fingers tight together. Men on our ship ducked as crossbow bolts knocked astray from their aim still came clattering in hard enough to do damage. One went skittering down the deck beside us, glowing red hot to score a charred line on the planking.

Wizardry or just chance swept a sheaf of blazing arrows back into the Spurdog ’s sails. “Come on, Allin,” I encouraged her. “You know what you have to do.”

Her plump face twisted in distress but the heavy, salt-laden canvas still went up like gossamer swept into a candle flame. Rags of searing fire fell away to set other sails alight. Flames ran the length of the rigging like fire devouring a spill of lamp oil. Spars cracked and flared and the iron bindings holding the upper lengths of the main mast together melted in the inferno that was the crow’s-nest. Gouts of molten metal fell to kill men on deck instantly and then the whole section toppled, felled like the mighty tree it had once been in some distant forest. Crashing backwards, it wrecked the aftmast, the deck of the sterncastle disappearing beneath a murderous crush of wood and sail.

A precisely tailored tempest now wrapped around the Thornray and shouts from the ship took on a new urgency as the Dulse and Fire Minnow swung round for the gravel strand where the plundered Tang and Den Harkeil’s barque were drawn up. The Nenuphar and the Asterias backed the Eryngo in a solid blockade, Vithrancel’s archers ready to pinion any remaining longboats struggling back to the landing.

The Spurdog was burning with a furnace roar and, with the Thornray helpless, the pirate vessels drifted apart. I thought I glimpsed something akin to heat haze wrinkling the air beyond. No matter. I had more immediate concerns as the Fire Minnow and Dulse prepared to send Ryshad and Halice’s forces ashore to do battle with the pirates. An ominous force was gathering among huts and palisades built with the blood and tears of their hapless captives.

Allin took a resolute breath and magefire leapt from the Spurdog to the Thornray . The masts caught light like trees in a wildfire and her crew began jumping, despairing into the water, some burning as they fell.

“No!” Guinalle was ashen with horror.

“This is battle.” Thinking she was going to faint, I caught her arm.

“They have Artifice, my lady, they have Artifice! I don’t know who but they use it to kill.” To my astonishment, Parrail’s frantic voice echoed inside my head. “Anyone forsworn chokes on their oath. They’re trying to find your mages, I can hear them searching. They’ll kill any wizard they can reach.” He was gabbling and his anguish seared my mind like an unexpected scald.

“Stop your magic,” I yelled at Allin. “Now!” We couldn’t have her reduced to a barely breathing corpse by hostile enchantments.

She stared at me, bemused.

“They’ve aetheric magic seeking you,” gasped Guinalle.

Even Allin’s high colour fled at that. “We have to warn the others.”

I looked beyond the now blazing Thornray again but still could barely see more than shimmering haze. “How?” We’d agreed signal flags for every other contingency but who’d expected this?

“I’ll bespeak Usara.” Allin found a ragged tuft of bandage in her apron pocket and caught up a scored metal cup that had held some wound salve.

“You’re too easy to attack,” I objected.

“We can armour her with Artifice.” Guinalle’s face was set as stone and she grabbed my hand. “Just follow my lead. Remember when we worked Artifice together against Kramisak.”

Usara has this theory that belief is the key to aetheric magic. I resolutely thrust all doubts away, summoning instead vivid recollection of Guinalle breaking down that enchanter’s wards when the Elietimm had attacked before. She had sung and I had echoed and we’d confined the bastard’s malevolence with her own, so Ryshad and Temar could cut him in pieces.

“ Tur amal es ryal andal zer, fes amal tur ryal suramer .”

The archaic words were all but meaningless but the lilts and rhythms were as familiar as breathing. Was it bred into my bones by Forest blood or simply a memory from distant childhood when my wandering minstrel father had sung me to sleep in a garret room?

I heard Allin, muffled as if she were surrounded by fog and a good way off at that. “Parrail says the pirates have Artifice. We have to stop our spells.”

As she spoke, I felt something brush past me but there nothing to be seen. Guinalle strengthened her grip until my fingers started numbing. She was staring straight through me as she repeated her incantation with biting emphasis. I found myself shuddering with that irresistible shiver old folk call the draught from Poldrion’s cloak. I held Guinalle’s hands as tight as she held mine. I had to believe she could do this or we were both lost. If this was all that stood between the wizards and aetheric magic scouring the wits out of their heads, I’d chant until my tongue dried up.

Allin was shouting orders and I could hear urgent activity all around but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from Guinalle’s face. Then the young noblewoman dissolved before me to hang in the air like a shadow. I blinked and Guinalle was there again but the cabin doors behind her, the sterncastle of the ship, Allin, everything else was as insubstantial as smoke. Everything faded to a mist of featureless grey, the Eryngo and everyone aboard a mere trick of my vision like the memory of a candle flame snuffed in a darkened room.

I bit my lip and tasted the metallic tang of blood. I could still hear Allin shouting. I could still smell the rank sweat of my own fear and the charring of the burning Spurdog . I could still feel the deck beneath my feet and Guinalle’s vice-like grip on my hands. I pictured her face, every detail of her dress. She’d got me into this and, Drianon save me, she’d get me out of it or I’d know the reason why.

Colours gathered around the edges of the grey mist, fleeting if I tried to look at them but soon gathering strength and depth. Shapes emerged, hard to make out at first, as my true surroundings overlaid everything I saw like a shadow from Poldrion’s realm.

We were inside the prisoners’ stockade. I would have ripped my hands free of Guinalle but she held me fast. “We’re no more than shades here.” Her words echoed unspoken inside my head and I remembered I’d once vowed I’d rather be raped than feel that unholy intrusion of someone else’s will into my own again.

A gang of pirates slammed open the gates, swords and clubs swinging. Two prisoners too close to the entrance were dragged to their feet, arms twisted cruelly behind their backs. The rest retreated, too scared to run the gauntlet of the pirates, broken in spirit as well as body, their rags of clothes beyond repair. I tried to pick out Parrail or Naldeth among the bruised and filthy huddle.

Three newcomers ran full tilt into the stockade, two men and a woman, none overtall and all within a year or so Temar’s age or Guinalle’s. The woman wore a mossy skirt, the men dun breeches and all were fair enough to pass for Sorgrad’s kinsmen. All wore shirts laced high to the neck but I still caught the unmistakable glint of silver beneath. The only aetheric enchanters who wore gorgets were—

“Elietimm.” Guinalle’s hatred rang inside my head.

The first man clapped rough hands around a prisoner’s head and the captive writhed in the unforgiving grasp. I couldn’t hear his screams but his pain echoed through Guinalle’s enchantment and I felt it like a blow to the back of the head. The enchanter abandoned the man, gripping the next with the same savagery. The man jerked with one convulsive spasm and, again, the agony battered me but the Elietimm tossed him aside in baffled fury.