Juliet McKenna - The Warrior's Bond

Time enough for idle thoughts later. I focused on the second boat, a round-bellied coastal craft with triangular sails plump and complacent when it should have been fighting for its life in those surging seas. Heedless of raging swells fighting to ram it on to the rocks, it was sweeping serenely towards the harbour.

“Oh.” Casuel’s tone was heavy with displeasure.

“Magic?” I hardly needed mystical communion with the elements to realise that, when I could see the ship defying all sense and logic.

“An advanced practitioner,” Casuel confirmed with glum envy.

I looked for some telltale of magic, a crackle of blue light or a ball of unearthly radiance clinging to the masthead. Deep-water sailors talk of such things, calling it the Eye of Dastennin. There was nothing to see; perhaps this unknown wizard considered it enough to set the ship riding high in the water, untouched by the storm.

I looked back abruptly to the first vessel, now heeling dangerously. It had moved a full length or more closer to the seething rocks, its plight ever more perilous. As we watched, helpless, a great wave plunged over the deck, the waist of the ship vanishing completely, deck castles alone resisting the insatiable seas. We held ourselves motionless until the ship struggled up to ride the surface once more. But now it had a dangerous list; cargo must have shifted in the hold, and that had been the death of many a crew.

“They’re going to help.”

The breath came easier in my chest as I realised Casuel was right. The little coastal vessel veered toward the reefs.

“Dast’s teeth!” I took an involuntary step backwards as lightning split the darkness like a rip in the very fabric of the sky. A shimmering spear lanced down to the mast of the struggling vessel and I expected to see the burning blue-white light set ropes and spars ablaze, but the incandescent arc floated free from the clouds, reaching over to the bobbing coast boat and fastening itself to the stern. The ocean ship was pulled up short with a visible jerk, prow wheeling round like some toy tugged by exuberant hands. For an instant it seemed storm and sea froze in mutual amazement. I watched with equal astonishment. The ocean ship should have been pulling the coast boat in to share its doom on the saw-edged reefs but the magic was proof against the pull of the bigger vessel. The little vessel barely slowed its pace towards the harbour, triangular sails full-bellied and ignoring winds that should have ripped them to rags.

Casuel made a sudden grab for my spyglass, making me bring it up so fast I nearly blacked my own eye. In the brass circle I saw figures emerge on to the sodden decks of the ocean ship, even at this distance their gestures eloquent of bewilderment and relief. A flash of green and gold defied the all-encompassing grey of the storm as a pennon was run up the foremast. The lynx’s mask was no more than a yellow blur above the chevron, but the ancient pattern of the D’Olbriot insignia was plain enough to me.

I slapped Casuel on the shoulder. “It’s them! Let’s get down to the dock.” Rival emotions jostled my thoughts. Relief for the sake of all on board barely masked hollow realisation that all Messire’s current ambitions had nearly been sunk along with the vessel. Then I would have lost all, committed to the Sieur’s service for no hope of the reward that had persuaded me to renew my oath to the House. Elation crowded out such pointless worry. The ship and its precious passengers were here. Now I could promote my patron’s interests in good conscience, while also settling those obligations that touched my honour. Once such debts were settled on either hand, I could hope for future independence with Livak at my side. Exhilaration carried me as far as the door before I realised Casuel was still standing at the window, arms crossed over his narrow chest and with a scowl so black it threatened to tangle his brows in his hair.

“Come on,” I urged. “They may need help.”

Casuel sniffed. “Any mage who can wield that kind of power is going to have little use for my assistance.”

There’s a widely held belief in Tormalin that wizards are so air-headed they’re no earthly use. Casuel confirmed this more thoroughly than any other mage I’d met. Before Messire’s command and Dastennin’s whim had tangled me up in these arcane complexities, I’d had no cause to meet mages. Like most folk, I vaguely assumed studying the mysteries of magebirth conferred wisdom, as always seemed the case in ancient tales. In reality I’d not met anyone quite so small-minded as Casuel since the dame-school where I learned my letters. Always fretting over what other people might think of him, suspicious that he was never given his due, he was a tangled mess of petty ambition. I’d been born to a family of no-nonsense craftsmen, and had chosen a life among soldiers in service to a noble House, so I’m used to men straightforward to the point of bluntness and confident in acknowledged skills. Casuel tested my patience sorely.

But he’s a dedicated scholar, I reminded myself, a talent you can’t claim. Just as important, Casuel was Tormalin born and bred, so knew and respected the ranks and customs of our country, which undoubtedly made him the most fitting wizard to act as link between Hadrumal and Toremal. It was just a shame he wasn’t easier to work with.

“We’re here to greet the Kellarin colonists on behalf of the Sieur and the Archmage, aren’t we?” I held the door open. These past few seasons shepherding Casuel around the byways and bridleways of Tormalin in search of ancient tomes buried in ancestral libraries had taught me that arguing simply set the wizard digging in his expensive boot heels. Calm assumption of his cooperation soon had him picking up his cloak, grumbling under his breath as he followed me.

I drew my own cape close as we stepped out of the superior guest house into the extensive grounds of Ostrin’s shrine. The flighty wind snatched at my hood and I let it fall back rather than struggle to keep my head dry as Casuel was doing. The porter at the main gate opened the postern for us with a friendly smile to lighten his grimace as he left his sheltered niche. The wind slammed the heavy oak behind us.

Catching Casuel by the arm, I pulled him out of the path of a sled skittering down the hill on gleaming metal runners. We placed our feet on the slick blue cobbles with care but locals ran down the notoriously steep streets of Bremilayne with the practised abandon of goats from the mountains rising up behind the city. Rain poured from the slate-hung eaves of houses stepped on foundations obstinately defying the slope, the door of one often nigh on a level with the upstairs windows of its neighbour. The wider-spaced houses of the upper town gave way to cramped and dirty lanes. By the time we emerged on to the broad sweep of the quayside, a crowd was assembling, drawn from unsavoury harbour taverns. Dockers were eager to earn their ale money unloading the new arrivals, hawkers and whores keen to take any advantage. I forced a way through those just avid for spectacle and Casuel scurried close behind me.

“I’ve never seen the like, not magic used like that.” One man spoke across me, awe mixed with uncertainty.

“And won’t do again, I’d say,’ agreed his friend, sounding relieved.

“I’ll grant it was novelty enough but if they’d gone down, we’d have had some wreck-sale.” A third was looking with greedy eyes at the tilted masts of the ocean ship. ‘Think of the salvage that would have washed ashore.”

I elbowed the would-be scavenger gull aside. With the list on the ship still severe, the crew and dockers were fighting to secure sodden ropes running slick and uncooperative round battered bollards. I wrenched on my own gloves and added my weight to steady a hawser that two men were struggling to make safe. “Casuel! Lend a hand, man!”