It was.
At sunset Tarrant rose up from his hiding place within the cargo hold, and came to where Damien stood, shivering and exhausted. Without a word he took hold of the wheel and nodded for the ex-priest to withdraw. It took Damien a minute to get his flesh to respond, so frozen was he in that attitude. At last, stiffly, he started back to where the turbine still churned, meaning to feed it more fuel. “I’ve already taken care of it,” Tarrant informed him, as he swung the boat about on a new heading. For a moment Damien could neither move nor respond, then he walked a few steps to where a narrow bench was fixed to the deck and fell down onto it, heavily.
“It would have been nice if you’d done something to calm down that storm,” he muttered.
“I did. As much as any man can, who conjures wind in such a hurry.”
“I meant during the day.” Hell, what was the point of this? But he couldn’t stop the words from coming, not after all those hours. “It was dark enough—”
“I did,” the Hunter snapped. “Forgive me for not coming up on deck to make a show of it. Or did you think that the storm died down just in time out of liking for us?” He glanced toward the shore as if judging their distance from it, then back at the water directly ahead of them. “Weather-Working is a risky art, Vryce, I told you that before. Under the circumstances, I did the best I could.” He glanced back at Damien; the look of concern on his face was almost human. “Get some sleep,” he urged. And then, dryly: “I’ll wake you before the fun starts.”
He started to respond, then didn’t. His mouth framed a question, then lost it. With a groan he forced himself to his feet—no easy task, that, not once he had allowed himself the luxury of sitting down—and started back toward the cabin. There should be a comfortable place in there somewhere, if the horses didn’t trample him while he looked for it. Definitely worth the search.
That decided, he sank down to the deck beside the bench, lowered his head to the rain-washed wood, and drifted off into a sound and untroubled sleep.
Waves against wood. Wind slapping canvas. For a moment he couldn’t place where he was, and then it all came back to him. Along with the pain.
“God,” he whispered. His neck, the only part of him that hadn’t hurt earlier, was cramped from his awkward sleeping posture. He tried to massage out the knot that had formed in it while pushing himself up to a sitting position. “Where are we?”
Tarrant was still at the wheel. “Check the furnace,” he said, without turning around. Damien muttered something incoherent and moved to obey.
There was still fuel, but not much. He stayed around for a minute to watch it burn, reveling in the feel of its heat upon his face, and then climbed back up to the captain’s perch.
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah,” he affirmed. “If you don’t count that the horses nearly killed me.
The Hunter glanced at him. “My Working didn’t hold?”
“They’re scared and they’re hungry; you’ve got a lot to Work against.” Heavily he sat down on the bench once more, gazing out at the water ahead. It seemed to him that there was something dark along the horizon, that might or might not be land. “You bringing us in?”
“Unless you’d care to spend another day on the water.”
“Please.” He shivered melodramatically. “Don’t even joke about it.”
It seemed to him that Tarrant smiled ever so slightly. Damien studied his slender hands resting on the wheel, so elegant, so confident—so different from his own anxious grip—and asked, “So when the hell did you learn to sail?”
“When I accompanied Gannon and his troops to Westmark.” The Hunter shifted the wheel slightly to the right, toward the land ahead. “Unlike you, I take every opportunity to expand my store of knowledge.”
“You also had a crew to back you up.”
“You did fine, Reverend—” Damien heard his quick intake of breath as he caught himself. “You did fine,” he said softly. “We’re still afloat, aren’t we? That’s what matters.”
Damien stood again and studied the view; the thing that might be land was growing steadily larger ahead of them. “So where are we?”
“Halfway between Hade and Asmody, if I judge it correctly.”
Farther east than they’d planned on. “How can you tell?”
“I have Vision, remember? To my eyes this whole region is alive with power, and the Forest—” he nodded toward the darkness ahead and to the left of them, “—is as bright as a beacon to my eyes.”
Something occurred to him then, that never had before. “You’re never really in darkness, are you?”
It seemed to him that the Hunter smiled slightly. “Not as you know the word. Although when we were out in the ocean there were nights that came close. And the Unnamed—”
He stopped then, unwilling or unable to say more, but Damien could see the muscles along his face and neck tense as he remembered. What had the Unnamed done to him, there in his custom-designed Hell? Damien didn’t want to ask.
“So what now?” he said quietly.
Tarrant exhaled softly, accepting the reprieve. “Calesta will no doubt expect us to put into Hade or Asmody, and continue northward from there.”
“Which means he’s probably prepared a reception for us in both places.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Damn.” It was hard enough avoiding pursuit on open land, where you could go in nearly any direction. How did you do it pulling into a harbor, where one man with a farseer could spot you in time to raise a regiment? “Any idea how he’s controlling these people?”
The Hunter shrugged stiffly. “Dreams, perhaps. Visions. Or perhaps even direct control, using those few men who have bonded with him. Does it matter? The result is deadly for us, no matter what the technique.”
“So what do we do?” he demanded. “Sail east past Hade, and hope we can make the next port by morning? Hope that he hasn’t fortified that one as well?”
For a moment Tarrant didn’t answer. Then, without a word, he pointed toward the dark mass before them.
Damien drew in a sharp breath. “You’re crazy.”
“Prima’s full overhead, and Domina’s half should rise soon. That should give us good enough light.”
“For what? To see ourselves get killed?”
“I hope something less dramatic than that.” He glanced to the left slightly, as if measuring their direction against the Forest’s chill glow. All Damien could see was water. “We can’t just sail into port. Surely you realize that. Which leaves only one way to land—”
“They built a port on every hospitable mile of this coast,” Damien reminded him. “Which means, by definition, that any place without a port is going to be nasty.”
“So it is,” he agreed. “How fortunate that we both know how to swim.” The pale eyes fixed on Damien. “You do know how to swim, don’t you?”
“I can swim,” he growled.
“It’ll take us about an hour to get into position. The horses should be brought out by then, in case I miscalculate. As for supplies—”
“What chance is there of that?”
“What?”
“That you’ll miscalculate.”
It seemed to him that a fleeting smile flitted across the man’s face. God damn him if he finds thisamusing. “I can get some sense of the ground beneath us by the light of the earth-fae, but that won’t come into clear focus until we’re very close. And there is, as you say, no truly hospitable shore. Nevertheless ...” He adjusted the wheel again, ever so slightly; it seemed to Damien that the shadow ahead was noticeably larger. “Even such risk is preferable to marching right into Calesta’s hands, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” he growled. “Only ... oh, hell.” He drew in a deep breath and counted to ten. Exhaled it slowly. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Just tell me when to jump.”
Now the Hunter’s amusement was clear. Damn him to hell for it.
“I will,” he promised.
 
; Damien had been on a freighter once that had gotten caught up in a tsunami. It had been a simple flood wave that brought them in, not a bore, but that made it no less frightening. The wave had borne them into the harbor amidst a sea of wreckage and then withdrawn beneath them, dashing them down upon the very pier it had deluged mere moments ago. He still remembered the sound of the hull smashing as mooring piles stabbed into it from beneath, the screams of men and women as the deck canted wildly, spilling the less fortunate into the madly churning harbor. It was a scene that still haunted his dreams, that had driven him to choose land over sea whenever possible, that had developed in him an almost pathological hatred of the sea and all its arts.
Compared to such a landing, he had to admit, this one wasn’t the worst he had experienced.
But it came damned close.
Tarrant brought them in as close as he dared, then paralleled the coast for some miles searching for a promising site. Lacking his adept’s Vision, unable to Work his own equivalent with a fathom of water between him and the earth-fae, Damien could only watch and pray as mile after dark mile passed to the starboard. At last he saw Tarrant begin to bring about the wheel, a look of grim determination on his face.
“Good spot?” he dared. “Best we’ll get,” the Hunter responded.
Great.
They drove the boat aground on a rocky slope, their speed carrying them forward for yards more even as the ground ripped wood from the hull beneath them. The sound awakened memories in Damien that were better off forgotten, and he tried to focus on the mechanisms of immediate survival as a way of escaping them. Get the horses into the water as safely as possible, and see that they were moving toward shore. Clear the boat himself and get far away, lest it slip from its precarious grounding and drag him out into the sea in its wake. Try to keep sight of the shore as the breaking waves frothed over his head, pointedly not reminding himself how much he hated to swim even at a civilized beach....
But Tarrant had done it well, give him credit for that. Not yards beyond the place where they ran aground Damien felt solid earth beneath his feet. Within yards more he was walking, as securely as one could with surf pounding at one’s chest, and he saw to his satisfaction—and relief—that the horses had likewise found solid footing. He didn’t bother to look for Tarrant—if, God forbid, the current dragged the adept under, he could use the earth-fae beneath the water to save himself—but struggled toward land, sputtering and cursing the fate that seemed determined to drown him.
And then at last he was on shore. A prayer of thankfulness rose to his lips as he struggled along the rocky beach, to a boulder-strewn slope that even the horses didn’t seem anxious to climb. There he collapsed, cursed briefly at the impact of sharp rocks against his flesh, and took a few deep breaths to celebrate his safety. From where he sat he could see Tarrant coming up on the beach, and rather than come up directly to where Damien was he loosed the slip knot at his belt and began to pull in the rope that led back to the boat. For a moment Damien held his breath, wondering if their last-minute plan would bear fruit, and then he saw a low shadow coming toward them, riding the waves. He forced himself back up to his feet and down to the water’s edge, where he helped the Hunter pull. Their makeshift raft trembled as the waves broke over it, but made it to shore without real incident. Quickly they unloaded the supplies they had lashed upon it, and carried them up to where the horses, milling nervously, waited for them.
“Whoever owns that boat isn’t going to be happy about this,” Damien noted, as the last of the small ship’s stores was brought out of reach of the water.
“Let’s hope he has insurance.” The Hunter was running his hands over the horses’ legs, making sure they had sustained no injury in the landing. “This one’s bleeding,” he warned Damien, and the priest limped over to Heal the wound. Was there a category of insurance for having your boat stolen by an undead sorcerer while the owner was away attending a demon-inspired posse? If so, the rate schedule must be interesting.
The Hunter walked back to the edge of the water. Damien almost moved to follow him, then decided that if the man wanted help he would have asked for it. He watched while Tarrant fixed his eyes on the wounded boat. Working, no doubt, but toward what end? Then the boat, half-submerged in the water, tore loose from its rocky mooring with a crack of wood and screech of metal so loud that Damien stiffened despite himself. Slowly, inch by inch, it began to back its way out into the Serpent. He could see it shaking as if struggling to rise up, some trapped air pocket not yet willing to acquiesce to the watery embrace, but Tarrant’s power and the underwater currents held it fast. The rail slipped beneath the water’s surface, then the cabin roof, then the polished wooden wheel, spinning madly as though in protest. Soon only the masts remained, rising up like sea serpents out of the black water. Damien could see Tarrant tense, as an athlete might before lifting a great weight. And then the masts began to bend to one side, and the waves seemed to tremble, and it seemed to him that the earth itself grew warm as the wooden beams finally cracked at their base and plummeted down into the waves. There the power of the Hunter weighted them down, until they sank into a grave that no mere sea might unearth.
“Can’t Calesta just create an illusion that it’s still there?” he asked as the Hunter came back up the slope.
“We don’t yet know the limits of his power.” Damien could hear the exhaustion in his voice, from an exercise which, however impressive, shouldn’t have drained that much. “Why make it easy on him?” How long had it been since Tarrant had fed properly? Four days at least. He’d planned to find fresh blood in Seth, or across the Serpent if that failed. What would he do now that the cities were off limits?
When the animals were Healed and calmed—the latter by Tarrant’s skill, and against considerable resistance—they negotiated the rocky slope at the point where it seemed most navigable. Though their mounts slipped once or twice and Damien had to stop to pry a stone out from between the toes of his, they made it to the top without major mishap, and finally looked out upon the land where fate had deposited them.
It was a bleak and barren landscape, and the cold, lifeless moonlight did little to soften its edge. The rocky ground was softened only by lichens and an occasional island of coarse grass, and jagged black monuments broke upward through its surface like knife blades, eerily aligned all at the same angle. There would be little grazing here, nothing on which to fuel a fire, and no certain cover come daybreak. Thank God they had brought the ship’s store of supplies along with them, now strapped to their saddlebags in makeshift oilcloth packs.
“North,” the Hunter directed, and they proceeded with all due haste. Once or twice he called for a halt, dismounting momentarily so that he might make direct contact with the earth-currents. Damien saw him Working, and guessed that he was doing something to hide their trail. An Obscuring? No, that would be too easily countered by their enemy. More likely some Working that actually stirred the dirt and stones until their marks were truly invisible, so that it would take more than a mere illusion to uncover them. Nevertheless he could see a hard truth in the Hunter’s eyes, backlit by a growing fear: if the demon Calesta knew where they were going, how great an effort would it take for him to lead men to them? “Let him at least work for it,” the Hunter muttered as he remounted. And they started off again.
Some two hours north of the shore the land grew marginally gentler, and plants could be seen to sprout where time and wind had broken the stone down to a hospitable soil. Tarrant Knew some five or six species of grass before at last he pulled up where one clustered, announcing, “This will do.” As soon as he released the horses from the Working that bound them, they lowered their heads to the fresh plants and began to eat as if there were no tomorrow. Which, Damien mused darkly, there might not be.
“Where now?” he asked, as Tarrant rescued his maps from an oilcloth bundle. The well-wrapped papers had suffered little from their immersion, thank Tarrant’s power for that. The Hunter was nothing if not
thorough. As Damien rescued a meal’s worth of food from his saddlebag—the horses were so intent on their own meal that they didn’t notice him at all—Tarrant studied the currents to all sides of them as a mariner might study the stars. “We’re here,” he said at last. He spread out the map on a mound of rock and weighted its corners down with stones. Sitting down on the opposite side of it, Damien studied the familiar handwriting with its assortment of notes. They had indeed come to land midway between Hade and Asmody, as Tarrant had guessed; even now the men of those two cities might be searching the rocky shore for traces of their passage. The Hunter’s slender finger marked a place some miles north of the water, then moved upward: over the first line of hills, through the Raksha Valley, up to a mountain range labeled Black Ridge. “We have to cross this,” he told Damien. “And there are only three ways to do that, short of riding up over the top. This pass—” and he moved his finger west, to a place near the Forest’s own border, “—is by far the easier crossing, and the one I would have preferred. But there’s little doubt in my mind, given our experience in Seth, that Calesta will marshal local forces to make that pass inaccessible.”
“No argument there,” he muttered, thinking of all the violence that had been taking place at the Forest’s edge. The men of Yamas and Sheva would be all too happy to ambush a pair of sorcerers, if they believed that by doing so they might render their families safer.
“So: here.” The Hunter moved his finger eastward along the Ridge, until it came to rest at a place labeled Gastine Pass, some forty miles north and twenty miles east of them. “It’s bound to be safer than the other right now.”
“And pretty far out of our way.”