Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

“Separately, they will be vulnerable to me.” Guinalle didn’t sound as if she relished that prospect.

“Let’s go and see what Muredarch has to offer,” Temar suggested.

Everyone moved towards the door, Guinalle the most reluctant. Temar hurried ahead to warn Darni what was afoot. “And Larissa will stay with you this time,” he concluded, deliberately not reacting as he heard the mage-girl’s protest behind him. Darni’s reply drowned out whatever it was Usara said to her.

“That’s well enough by me.” The big man grinned ferociously before raising an almighty bellow. “On your feet! First corps, take the watch! Second corps, you can use the time for some sword drill. If those bastards think they’re coming here, you can meet them with a blade in your hand.”

Halice’s mercenaries were the heart of the first corps, along with those of Sorgrad’s recruits whose skills matched up to their often vague claims of experience in battle. Deglain and Minare each took a detachment to the headlands now readied with treetop vantage points and fuelled beacons. The second corps gathered on the beach with eager faces. Kellarin’s men were determined to outshine the sailors who were in turn set on improving Halice’s opinion of their skills. As the Dulse ’s crew lofted her sails, Temar watched his men cut and thrust and parry and stab with growing pride.

“What do you think?” he asked Halice as she came to join him.

“I want them a cursed sight more practised before push comes to shove.” Halice looked towards Suthyfer. “And I want to know what goad Muredarch thinks he’s found today”

Temar looked up at the aftdeck where Usara and Allin were deep in conversation with Guinalle. “How much more do you think the demoiselle can stand?” he asked Halice in a low voice.

“Hard to tell,” the mercenary admitted frankly. “She’s a will of iron, that much is certain but one hard blow can shatter iron. It all depends if she’s cast or wrought.”

That was precious little reassurance to Temar but, as he kept covert watch on Guinalle, he was encouraged to see some of the strain lifting from her face as she discussed whatever it was with Usara.

The Dulse sailed on, flags signalling to the circling Maelstrom that this was an unplanned voyage rather than the expected relief. With the bigger ship resigned to a longer wait, they headed for the entrance to the sound between the islands. Some little while later, Muredarch’s toiling sloop came slowly into view.

“My duty, Messire!” The pirate hailed Temar genially.

Temar bowed his head in curt acknowledgement. “What do you want?”

“What I wanted before.” Muredarch stood high in the stern of the boat, dressed in his customary finery. “Rope, sails, nails and bolts.”

“We’ve already had this conversation.” Temar tried to see who it was a couple of Muredarch’s men had subdued on the single-master’s deck.

“This time I’ve got something I know you want.” Muredarch nodded to his subordinates and a heavy-set, thickly bearded man hauled up an unresisting prisoner.

“He should go bareheaded before his Sieur, Greik,” Muredarch said in mock rebuke. The pirate pulled the sacking off the prisoner’s head.

Temar fought to keep his face impassive and his voice level as Naldeth was revealed. “I want all of my people, not one at a time.”

Naldeth was pale with fear beneath bruises and filth, and a scarlet sore festered on one arm. He wore nothing beyond ragged breeches belted with a strip of cloth, bare feet cut and swollen. Temar’s stomach turned as he saw the wizard’s cringe of fear at an unexpected movement by the pirate Greik.

“You want some more than others.” Muredarch nodded to another man who heaved the contents of a bucket over the rail. Blood and entrails floated across the gently rippling sea. “My friends from the north want this lad given over to them,” Muredarch continued conversationally. “Seems he’s one of your mageborn.”

“Is he?” Temar’s attempt at bluff was futile at best. “Any man I can’t brand is touched with some sorcery,” snapped Muredarch before recovering his poise. “My friends from the north are all for turning his head inside out with their enchantments but I thought you might like to trade your boy for a few concessions.”

He nodded to the man with the beard who promptly punched Naldeth in the kidneys. As the mage’s knees buckled, the pirate knotted a rope securely around his chest.

“Let’s see just how much you value your friends.” Mure-darch’s voice was silky with menace and he stepped aside as Greik hauled Naldeth on to the tiny afterdeck. A second sailor flung a noisome bucketful of blood and butchered bones into the sea. Temar saw sharply angled fins cutting the water beneath the sloop’s stern but these were not the dolphins that frolicked on the ship’s carvings.

“Sharks,” growled Halice at Temar’s side. “I’d heard tell this was a game with the worst of pirates.”

Dark ominous shapes were gliding below the surface of the sea, vanishing only to reappear in the shadows of the boats, blue-grey fins broaching the ruffled waves, some tipped with white, some with black.

“All I want is to refit a ship and have your seal agreeing my writ runs in these islands.” Muredarch spoke with the reasonable air of a peaceable man. “I can be of considerable service to you and yours.”

Temar cleared his throat. “Rule over these islands is not mine to grant.”

Muredarch leaned back on the stern rail as Greik tied off the other end of the rope holding Naldeth. “You have the Emperor’s ear, you have highly placed friends in Hadrumal. With your word backing me, they won’t argue the roll of the runes.”

“You have an exaggerated opinion of my consequence,” Temar said coldly. “Neither Emperor Tadriol nor Archmage Planir will accept my decree on this.”

Muredarch shook his head. “But your man here, since he’s so desperate to convince us he’s worth less than the shit on my shoe, says Emperor and Archmage both have left you to your own devices and won’t come running to rescue him or anyone else. Well, they can hardly complain when you make dispositions of land and trade as you see fit. Especially when you’re forced into it.”

Temar stared at Muredarch, determined to avoid catching Naldeth’s eye. “We will not be intimidated by scum like you.”

“Then we have a problem. Or rather, your friend here does.” Muredarch considered the quaking wizard, head on one side. “Not enough blood on him, Greik.”

The bearded man forced Naldeth towards Muredarch who drew his dagger with slow, deliberate malice and scored burning lines across Naldeth’s bare chest. The mage writhed in a vain attempt to evade the torment but the bearded pirate held him firm.

“Planir may not involve himself in Kellarin’s affairs but harm one of Hadrumal’s own and by Saedrin’s very keys, he’ll involve himself in yours!” shouted Temar furiously.

At Muredarch’s nod, Greik turned Naldeth to show everyone aboard the Dulse a bold letter M carved into the mage, flourishes at the end of every stroke. “Can’t brand him but can carve him.” Muredarch shook his head. “If only I’d thought of that earlier. But then, we’d never have uncovered your wizard. Some good comes from every mistake, that’s what my father would say.”

“You witless son of a poxed whore,” Halice called out. “If you knew your father it was only thanks to him being some brothel-keeper’s runner.”

Muredarch ignored her. “Now, do we start high on the tally and I come down a notch or so for every mouthful you lose of your man? No. Let’s see if you’ve the stones to play for high stakes, boy. Give me what I want and you have him back whole. Hold out and the price goes up.”