The shot struck the cork float, and the dipped fletching burst into stream-ered flame.
Feylind whooped. Arithon whipped the reloaded sling, and the sequence repeated, with the idle crew taking odds with manic abandon.
'We chose them for nerve,' the mate said, laconic, then shaded his eyes and surveyed the horizon.
'Steady on, boy. Take hold of the ship. No mistake, we're about to get hammered.'
There seemed no disturbance. No cloud-burst approached. The sun shone on varnish and railings, untrammelled, while the air hung lucent and breathlessly still. Yet the mate's seasoned instinct had not roused in error.
Against the horizon, where ocean met sky, an angry, dark band raced over the water to meet them. 'Deck there!' cried the look-out. 'Heads up, we have trouble!'
The mate's shouted order brought the man down from the ratlines, then rousted the crew. 'Move now! Dog the hatches!'
Throughout, the paired missiles continued to fly. The sling whistled and released; arrows launched from the bow, until Evenstar's hull drifted inside a match-stick ring of fluttering flame.
Late Autumn 5670
Assault
By the time the battened hatches were nailed shut, Fionn Areth had insinuated himself amid the party on the quarter-deck, close enough to track Arithon's least move, and overhear words pitched too low for the sailhands at large. To judge by Dakar's scowl, the additional fastenings the ship's joiner had set would do little to stop iyats from breaching the hold. At best, the deterrent might only forestall air-borne objects from straying above deck, there to inflict havoc, or become dispossessed and tossed past hope of salvage into the sea.
No more could be done. The band of riffled waters raced down on the drifting brig. Unsettled murmurs arose from the crew; of sharper interest to Fionn Areth, the tension that flared between the Master of Shadow and the Mad Prophet.
'Why did you leave Kewar?' The scorching intensity of the question was pitched to throw its victim off guard.
Arithon stood, fingers interlaced on the quarter-deck rail. Stripped of his jerkin, he appeared too slight-boned to inspire dread.
Yet something caused Dakar to draw a hissed breath. 'Your response was ill-done,' he persisted. Straight courage, or some driving weight of cold fear pressed him further. 'You know what must happen. She'll be duty-bound, now, to leave her safe place in Ath's hostel. She has no choice but to position herself at your side. Prisoned under her Prime's direct order, what can she bring except heartache, and a wide-open door to disaster?'
Fionn Areth was brushed by an unwonted chill. No name had been mentioned. But the woman implied behind Dakar's rebuke could only be the Koriani enchantress, Elaira. Her entanglement with the Master of Shadow might not be public knowledge; yet in Jaelot, during a healing to restore his lamed knee, the goatherd had witnessed the Masterbard's song, invoked by no more than the spirit of her intangible presence. Even in recall, the incident burned: its stark clarity etched by the strain of doomed love and the agony of enforced separation.
Which cruel provocation turned Arithon's head: his wide-open eyes brightly incensed, he said, 'Where did you learn what you know?'
The Mad Prophet flushed. 'I partnered Kharadmon through the warding of Rockfell' Arms folded, he held his mulish ground. 'The Sorcerer knows of her worth, and her steadfast quality. His concern matches mine. Her love where you are concerned makes too ready a tool for the Prime to enact your destruction.'
' You'll not broach those fears, here!' Though Arithon spoke for Dakar's ear alone, Fionn Areth shamelessly hovered. Even caught second hand, the warning bristled. 'Your advice is well-meant. And henceforward, unwanted. I will not be governed. Not by her bravery, and not even once by Prime Selidie's designs, endorsed by your gutless cowardice!'
'The breathing life on this world lies at stake! Against that, the crew on this vessel does not signify!' Ludicrous and fat, eyes blood-shot with drink, Dakar pressed his point, not courageous, but caring. 'The Prime covets your capture. To gain that end, every one of us serves as your bait! Had you withstood the pressure to rise to her lure, the Koriani Matriarch would forsake her interest. In time, without provocation from you, we would have all been released.'
Arithon bent his head, exquisite hands now clenched on the taffrail until every knuckle gleamed white. 'But the teeth in this trap are armed galleys flying the sunwheel banner.' Against the savagery of repressed emotion, his last line came wholly mild. 'Dhirken died, Dakar.'
The riposte scored too hard, after the horror unveiled by today's flash of prescience: the spellbinder lost words, while threat grew, apace.
The voracious fury of Selidie's assault converged across empty water. No storm of fiends ever rivalled the pack descending at speed upon Evenstar. The front line ploughed in as a breaking wave, rushed by a glassine shimmer of air, fractured to rippling distortion. Yet where a mirage would have settled in silence, the sea heaved, snagged to ominous foam. White spouts trampled skywards. They towered and coiled like whipped smoke, then dispersed as though scattered by whimsy.
'You might still fail.' The Mad Prophet dug in, his obstinacy tempered by pity. 'Who loses then?'
Softly, Arithon Teir's'Ffalerrn gave his answer. 'There are many reasons to avoid taking risks. Friendship is not among them.'
'You came for Feylind?' At next breath, the fiends would be on them. Too ill to do battle on two fronts at once, Dakar blotted his sweaty palms on his shirt. 'Arithon. You are not free to offer yourself as a sacrifice! Your presence here has raised drastic stakes! Damn your birth-born compassion to Sithaer! What you call a risk is too likely to stage the horrific potential for massacre.'
But response was eclipsed as the on-coming storm trampled into the floating array of lit constructs. If their purpose had been to delay the sprites, enthralling them with the elemental power compacted by Arithon's talent, that hope died. Wood, fire, cork float, and marked runes, the perimeter laid down through arrows and spells became shredded. The papers with their guarding ciphers exploded to match-stick splinters and smoke. Wind and heat, every coiled force contained by skilled talent, ripped wholesale out of constraint.
The fiends fed. They gorged, soaking up the burst energies like the howl of an indrawn breath. Beyond sated, the creatures shed the excess in shearing knots that thrashed up whirling water-spouts. The air itself burned. Sound grazed the ears, too high for natural hearing. The buffeting horde shot off acrid smells and hurtful, sharp flashes of light.
'Merciful mother of invention,' swore Dakar. 'We can't survive this ferocious an onslaught!' The first fool who panicked would bring the swarm in.
And yet, no voices raised outcry. Every man present witnessed the force that razed the scrap billets to flotsam. Yet none showed distress. Far from unhinged, Fionn Areth found himself swept by a puzzling bout of deep lassitude. Suspicious, he shared the piquant discovery with Dakar, that the Master of Shadow was not, after all, doing nothing.
Those disingenuous fingers were cupped at the rail, with Arithon, head bent, singing into them. His melody seemed little more than a whisper. Yet that light, keening sound ran into the wood, arousing a tonal vibration. Fionn Areth sensed the low notes through his feet, as the deck-planking shuddered to resonance. Phrased in rhythmic song, the bard's spell of calm used the whole brig as its sounding-board. Anxious men who should have quaked outright subsided to half-lidded drowsiness.
The spellbinder deduced the primary intent. 'A sleep summoning, surrounding Prime Selidie's sigil? That's an ambitious innovation.'
For the reactive sprites were not clever. Reeled in by the Matriarch's lure, their interest would hook first on the reckless energies offered by Arithon's smashed constructs. Though powerful spells of attraction bound the iyats to the Evenstar's presence, the harmonics of calm now laced through her timbers would offer no sport, by comparison. The swarm might well overlook the hushed ship, or abandon its deadened temptation without contest.
'We won't be invisible,' Dakar pointed out, though
the bard he addressed stayed engrossed. 'The line that you draw is critically fine. How long do you think that you can sustain? There's small chance you can hold your rhythm and pitch without falling prey to distraction.'
Even Fionn Areth grasped the frightful extent of the danger: if the brig's crew became too deeply enthralled, or lapsed into an unnatural sleep, they might stagger overboard and drown before they recovered their wits. Yet Arithon's art shaped the sole, fragile stay, sparing Evenstar from the trap. Dakar was left to stand guard by default, while the first questing fiends flowed across the ship's decks and explored every object and cranny. All they encountered roused tinkering interest. Their invisible prickle played over the skin, frazzling nerves and striking up gooseflesh. Their invasive tickle poked into men's ears, and their unpleasant, charged warmth flicked the stilled air to whistles and smears of distortion.
Despite the close timing, no loose ends remained to tempt the caprice of the sprites. The pin-rails had been stripped. Sail halyards, sheaves, blocks, and running tackle were all stowed out of harm's way. The galley fire was doused. Ship's bell and binnacle were unbolted and wrapped under ward, yet the dearth of fodder did not defer exploration. Iyats combed through every spooled rail and bare spar with indefatigable curiosity.
At the helm, one hand lifted to smother a yawn, Feylind watched the compass lose orientation. The needle revolved in erratic circles, with no quiver to suggest true north. The ship's wheel spun next. Though its squealing gyrations plumed smoke from the bearings, no crewman risked breaking a hand in prevention. The mate's astute forethought had seen the rudder pins locked and the steering cables unshackled.
Eyes shut, Arithon stayed unmoved by the diversion. His lyric tones flowed unimpeded, evoking a powerful symmetry that remade all the world as a formless dream. Apprehensive anxiety settled and faded, as thought and senses spun down into blanketing drowsiness.
Time passed without measure. Dulled awareness suspended. Fiercely as Fionn Areth resisted, the melody lulled him until he succumbed. He drifted, lost in a somnolence that lasted until a shadow scythed over his face. The brisk slap of wind that rode in its wake jolted open his drooping lids.
Before him, the startling form of an eagle folded bronze wings on the taffrail.
The bird was not canny. Preternarurally aware, it swivelled its sleek head. A golden-brown eye fixed on Rathain's prince. As though called by name, the Master of Shadow fell silent. While the ringing vibrations he had struck through wood dwindled down to a diminished whisper, Arithon matched that intelligent glance. Deep thoughts were shared in communion.
Then the bird peered askance. Fionn Areth found himself raked in turn by a survey of scorching irony before the sorcerous creature took off. The thunderous launch whipped Arithon's hair and moved Dakar to shake an impotent fist at the fan of departing tail-feathers.
'Temper, my friend!' the Teir's'Ffalenn warned. 'You don't want to risk reckless offence in that quarter, or feed the Prime's crazed visitation.'
'Iyats!' Dakar slapped his forehead and accosted the prince. 'Death's fist on Fate's Wheel, they're the least of the dangers you court!' Perhaps unwisely, since nervous crewmen were listening, he ran on in acid remonstrance. 'A madman knows not to consort with Davien! His meddling bargains will tear you apart. Who can guess what terrible price you might pay when the hour comes due for the reckoning?'
'To date, Davien's been the party enacting his dealings with me.' Arithon stayed disengaged from his spelled defence, though the running vibrations that thrummed through the brig rapidly passed beyond hearing. 'I hope,' he said, bland, 'that your touch with iyats has improved since the last time I saw you.'
Dakar's eyes widened. 'What do you know? What ill-advised counsel has that feckless Sorcerer whispered into your ear?'
'That Prime Selidie has whistled in fresh reinforcements.' Arithon shared that nuance with Feylind and the mate, then pitched his tone for the crewmen at large. 'The Koriani Matriarch has raised the stakes and engaged an additional ring of enchantresses. Their meddling has hazed in a new pack of iyats and dispatched them in pursuit. We won't have an hour. The next wave will strike the ship within minutes, and the unconsumed fuel that's left from my constructs won't be enough to detain them.'
'She'll bid for your capture.' Distraught, the Mad Prophet jammed his loose shirt-tails into his buttonless waistband. 'We're lame chicks in a maelstrom. What under Ath's sky can you hope to do?'
Arithon raised his eyebrows. 'Ever played "duck, duck, goose, who jumps for the wolf"? What else but give three dozen pullets the headache they richly deserve.' While the deck-crew pressed close, the better to hear, he grinned with insane provocation. 'Listen up, sluggards! We'll need softened wax.' His glance toward Feylind begged her indulgent apology, as, speaking fast, he listed necessities. 'Plugs of cotton, perhaps torn from the stuffing inside a dry fender, do we have it?'
'We do,' said the cook, ham fist stroking his beard. 'Is it ear-plugs you're wanting, mannie?' 'Some of the men might require that protection.'
Not waiting for Arithon's clipped affirmation, the ship's cooper already leaped to draw the spelled nails from the hatch. Accosted at once by a loose bar of soap, and a barrage of spools, thread denuded, he cursed, batting objects, and descended.
'You'll have to hang on and ride out the storm,' the Master of Shadow explained while the anxious deck-hands clustered about him. 'It boils down to a brute trial of endurance.' With the Koriani sigil set under the water-line, and inside the hull's copper sheathing, no hurried remedy could destroy the source. His counter-measure must be diffused through the brig, which meant, as before, the unfiltered effects would also trouble the crew. 'I'm going to try dissonance. The back-lash may hurt. A few sensitives could suffer headaches, or dizziness. Can we manage to endure a few fiends, and perhaps, a rough spell of dry heaves? Whatever we suffer, I promise, the enchantresses will feel that much worse. The craft they've engaged keeps them linked, in reverse. As long as they test us, they're vulnerable, and while they work to shepherd their spells, they'll be held at my mercy, unshielded.'
The mate's boisterous guffaw shattered the tension. 'It's a straight game of knock-down with thirty-six ladies!'
As chuckles broke out, Captain Feylind retorted, 'Dharkaron's black vengeance, that's scarcely a contest!'
'Oh, aye.' The mate elbowed her ribs with good cheer. 'Hardly worth spit in the wind, for a wager. Not with a lot that's stone-cold in the twat from a lifetime as tight-lipped virgins!' He glanced at the men, stoked to brazen challenge. 'We're agreed? Let the Prince of Rathain serve the mim-faced old sticks their comeuppance!'
Handclaps and cheering broke over the deck. Fionrt Areth did not share the coarse round of bravado. Far more than alarmed, he glared at the figure still braced, with his unruffled back to the rail. Arithon's expression showed inquiring diffidence, the deft handling of an appalling dilemma underplayed to the point where his steadfast concern appeared genuine. In fact, he had done little to win peerless loyalty from these rough-cut men, who were strangers.
'They forget they would not be endangered at all if their captain wasn't enthralled by a felon's unsavoury company!' Mistakenly, Fionn Areth had grumbled aloud, raising slurred contradiction from the side-lines.
'He leaves them the dignity and freedom to choose.' Flushed red, stout arms folded, the Mad Prophet still nursed his sour disapproval. Yet his planted stance - that the Master of Shadow outweighed the game-piece of this one brig, and all of the living aboard her - did not extend to supporting a herder caught up past his depth.
'What makes you defend him?' Fionn Areth asked, desolate. 'His criminal record of killing inspires no standard of morals. He enacts no grand cause. Nor does he make any offer of betterment, or promise prosperity, or safety.'
Dakar sighed, then winced for the daylight that mauled his insufferably sore head. 'Stay your tongue for one day, drop your infantile ideals, and you might understand why those exact qualities make an unimpeachable crown prince.'
'So does frost kill the grass!' exclaimed Fionn Areth. 'I might have been cozened to wear a spelled face, but you people react to unnatural straits as though you've been bound in possession!'
The assessment seemed accurate at surface appearance: the helpless brig bobbled like a cast-off cork, bombarded by whizzing fragments of wood, and the random buffet of infested waters. Yet her terrified deck-hands still acted in concert. The hatch stayed unsealed. Brave men went below to net the strayed gear and refasten burst lockers. Look-outs ran aloft to check damages. Each one knew he might face death, even drowning, if the hull sprung her planks or lost caulking. Yet Feylind's haranguing steadied them on, and the mate seemed at hand to lend help wherever activity faltered. Such team-work, deployed amid staring disaster, did indeed bear the stamp of the prince, self-contained where he knelt, hearing out the stammering distress of the ship's lad.
Arithon's patience was more firm than complacent. His words to the boy were not honeyed with false reassurance.
Yet where. Fionn Areth misperceived the exchange as a sorcerer's ploy to weave delusion, the Mad Prophet recognized instead the rejection of officious authority. From earliest childhood, Arithon had taught Feylind to know her own strengths, then apply them. He had backed the bold means for her to step forward, and abandoned support, if she shrank. Idolize him though she would, her life in his absence remained self-complete. From the crew she had chosen to man her brig, to the mate who had fathered her children, she had matched the example before her.
'His Grace doesn't pander to weakness,' Dakar said. 'Until you stop reasoning with other men's thoughts, and start to stand on your own, you won't see. A hollow mind makes you too ready a dupe. You will dance on the puppet-strings of his enemies, dumb and blind, for as long as you choose not to think.'
'You hated him, once,' Fionn Areth retorted.
'I also took the Prime's bespelled arrow in my back to keep him this side of Fate's Wheel.' Dakar added, not flinching, 'My death at the time would have left no regrets. Had Arithon gone down, a true light would have been lost from the world, with the balance tipped toward disaster.'