TWOLAS - 08 - Stormed Fortress

  Persistence unearthed a striking reward: the master shipwright who had betrayed Arithon's piracy at Riverton eighteen years ago had claimed sanctuary from Lysaer s'Ilessid under ducal protection. He was here at Alestron, still. Given the name, Fionn Areth ventured down to the wharf-side to search out a craftsman called Cattrick.

  The inquiry landed him at the chandler's, which anywhere else would be a weathered shed, attached to a sail-loft, and a small foundry. At Alestron, the cavernous edifice was built into the buttressed stone of the sea-quarter bastion. Besides sundry ships' fittings, the blacksmith also forged tempered points for the arbalests. If the blockade against maritime trade had crimped commerce, demand had not slackened to idleness. Hemp rope and new chain, tanned ox-hides and tackles, and intricate joinery were also required for war. The fortified warehouse was not empty when Fionn Areth sauntered in from the dock-side.

  Cloud-grey light stamped his brief silhouette. Then the plank door swung shut, leaving him in deep gloom, felted with the scents of pine and hot tar, overlaid by the taint of a fish oil lamp. His arrival met the hung silence of more than one paused conversation. Fionn Areth advanced. Hedged by tiered shelving packed with boxes and bales, and baskets glinting with cleats, he found himself pinned by the avid stares of a dozen rough-mannered craftsmen.

  'Ath's glory,' declared one unshaven brute. 'Before my two eyes, we're getting a visit from Fellowship-sanctioned blood royalty.'

  'Is he now?' That pealing jibe arose from a dimmed corner, underlaid by the scrape of stiff rope. A hunched figure, half-hidden, cackled with glee. 'Then, buckos, sit up and ask why he's here. Won't be for our light entertainment.'

  Fionn Areth stifled his grass-lander's drawl and announced to the ham-fisted gathering, 'I'm looking for Cattrick.'

  'Ah! So you could be.' Another gruff snigger: the wizened old splicer perched on a stool. His claw fingers busied with lacing an eye-splice, the unkempt creature declared, 'In that case, we're left awesome curious.' While his cronies lounged, grinning, the spokesman licked a spatulate thumb. 'Come here, fellow.'

  'Do I know you?' Fionn Areth demanded, his brisk imitation of Arithon's tone used to further his prying inquiry.

  'Bad question.' Removed from the dizzying reek of the lamp, the cantankerous inquisitor swung his beaked face towards the approaching tread. His porcelain-white eyes were quite blind. 'You, at least, are not Arithon s'Ffalenn,' he observed with supercilious certainty. 'Your feet are too heavy, your voice is too loud, and stripling? You're poorly informed in the bargain. Yon cocky, wee sorcerer knows me by name, mocked up in an Araethurian twang, or speaking the birth-born lack of it.'

  Someone else quipped, 'Who'd forget you, old snake. Mug as ugly as yours could scare bones from the grave on a screaming flight to the devil.'

  Another man lounging nearby slapped his knee, to hooting mirth from his comrades. 'Can't hoodwink Ivel, boy. You must be the double. Why's a goatherd come here seeking Cattrick?'

  Dice clattered across an up-ended barrel, as three burly longshoremen turned their backs and resumed an on-going game. The fourth and the largest among them ignored the thrown score. Rough-cut and corded with muscle beneath his leather jerkin, he straightened and tipped back a battered felt hat.

  Fionn Areth confronted the squint of a measuring eye. The craftsman's bristled jaw jutted as he said in the lazy vowels of the southcoast, 'Better speak, infant. Don't claim you were sent. His Grace won't deliver his words in the mouth of another.'

  Snide as a whip-crack, the splicer took issue. 'Are we mean-spirited? Ungrateful?' He freed a callused hand in magnanimous invitation. 'Let the lad speak! What's the harm? We're not bored? Since the dock-side bawds flitted, we should pant for the chance to enjoy his command performance.'

  Fionn Areth shrugged his cloak straight, too brazen to shrink before ridicule. 'Cattrick might prefer to receive my inquiry in private.'

  'My stars!' Ivel thumped his thin chest. 'It's a closet spat? A tiff between lovers? Or no! Lend us your tender confidence, young sir. You're here to confess that for weeks, from a distance, you've been nursing a moon-calf obsession.'

  Laughter from the bystanders cut off to a bang as the huge man at the dice game kicked over his seat and surged upright. He towered. Brown hair tinged with white tumbled to his broad shoulders, while fists like mauls braced with ominous care on the barrel top. 'What makes you think, boy? Since we're not delicate, why the implication you might be privy to everyone's secrets?'

  Fionn Areth snapped up his chin. 'You're Cattrick? The same master shipwright who played on both sides, then turned coat until every staked interest at Riverton was betrayed to the opposite party? I want the reason you spurned Lysaer's employ, and why, since the day you took sanctuary with s'Brydion, Arithon s'Ffalenn doesn't speak to you.'

  'Or to you, evidently,' the blind splicer attacked. 'Whose side claims your loyalty, hinnysop?'

  Before Fionn Areth could retort, the snide dicer shoved forward to thrash him. A rabbit-fast nip behind the tiered shelving might buy him the moment to run. Hold his ground, and he would catch a bout of ham-fisted unpleasantness.

  Except, at that moment, the latched door breezed open and let in one of Bransian's warmongering sentries. 'Cattrick!' The bursting shout rattled the sheaves in the tackles. 'Half of my lot of winnings to you if my latest wager pays off. My coin's laid on, that a merchant brig built to your lines flies a Sunwheel flag in the estuary.'

  'What? Is this rape, or extortion?' The huge man bashed over the barrel. Dice flew, and a flittering hail of small coins. Cattrick batted them out of the air, cobra quick, as he roared away in bass umbrage, 'Yon's no ship o' mine, butty! Or be sure I'll throttle the pirate myself, for putting a prize won in battle to a shameful endeavour. Don't claim that brig's running supply for the war camp! Not off a design I've sweated my own blood to keep close to my chest as a baby. Nor would I sell out to s'Ilessid, though his princely blue eyes should leak tears o' gold royals, and beg with a sealed pardon for granting the privilege.'

  The shipwright plunged forward. His charge met Fionn Areth, planted foursquare in the path to the doorway.

  One crashing blow knocked the grass-lander sprawling. The young man struck the shelving, hands pressed to his face, while a tipped box of rivets showered over his head. Cattrick snatched his prey from the spill. Fist snagged in black hair, he said, snarling, 'Insolent whelp! You'll tell me later what gives you the right to think I should answer for what occurred in my yard back in Tysan.'

  The Southshireman dumped his brute hold straightaway. Fionn Areth dropped to his knees amid the scattered hardware. Stomped rivets clinked across the gouged floor-boards as the cantankerous shipwright followed the betting sentry into the street. The idlers crowding the chandler's surged after, hell-bent on enjoying the outcome.

  Which left Fionn Areth to nurse his bruised face in the splicer's obstreperous company.

  'You think you hurt now, pup? Then count yourself warned. Cattrick's meaner than a gaffed shark, once he's crossed.' Thoughtful, in darkness, the old craftsman resumed weaving plies with the speed of experience. 'Don't press your luck. The last time a born fool messed with his business, the wretch wore the burn scars the rest of his life. You've got no sick taste for punishment? Then scarper while nobody's looking.'

  Fionn Areth said nothing, his bitten tongue busy with counting his battered teeth. Some were knocked loose. Sleeve pressed to his split mouth, he swore at Parrien's seamen, whose malice had neglected to mention the exiled shipwright's vile temper. The grass-lander grappled for balance and stood. Snow scooped from a drift would ease his bruises, since he had every intention of pursuing his grievance onto the Sea Gate battlement.

  When Fionn Areth arrived, out of breath, atop the rectangular keep, Cattrick leaned over the bay-side crenel, surrounded by his motley friends from the chandler's. The ship's glass he held was trained on the narrows between the keeps guarding the harbour chain. The tide was poised to turn. Under black cloud, the roiled water heaved
pewter, chopped by the rip current's whitecaps. The brig under survey bucked the frothing crests, head to wind and her tan-bark sails slatting.

  Fionn Areth had observed enough ships in the channel to recognize one in distress. Whatever the difficulty, her heaving stern swung in danger of ramming against the spiked links.

  Even as he jockeyed for vantage, a by-standing expert expounded, 'That ship's not caught aback. She's damaged her rudder.'

  Cattrick grunted agreement, the glass glued against his lined squint. 'Tiller rope's snapped. They'll have a relieving tackle taking the strain. See the press by the quarterdeck hatch? Crew's scrambling to rig a replacement.'

  Though the sentry still fidgeted over his bet, he knew not to push for his answer. In daylight, the ornery shipwright looked all of his six decades, skin dark as the varnish laid on weathered teak, and his whiskers a silver-tipped wolf pelt.

  Out on the vessel, a lantern flashed, twice.

  'Signal!' snapped Cattrick. He straightened and shoved the glass at the soldier. 'Read out the code, man.' Still glaring, he spun, his battered felt hat clapped onto his head by a snatching fist. 'Fetch Arithon!' he shouted, straight at Fionn Areth. 'That's Feylind's brig, Evenstar, caught by the tide. She's flying the Sunwheel under a ruse, and knowing her mettle, her damaged steering is likely a blindsiding mock-up. We've got only minutes before she strikes the chain. Someone must open the harbour mouth!'

  Else the ship-killing barrier would chew the brig's planks, beam on in a broaching sea.

  Through the scream of the wind, the rapt sentry affirmed the shipwright's early assessment. 'Signal,' he agreed. 'And she's friendly, for sure. The garrison manning the keeps at the headland are being asked to stage a mock fight. At their first flight of arrows, the brig will show a merchant's cowardice, and drop her flags in surrender.'

  'Is Feylind aboard?' Fionn Areth asked, urgent. But knowing the captain, he already guessed: only her errant style, and Teive's courage, would dare the challenge of sailing straight under the Alliance blockade.

  'Run!' bellowed Cattrick. 'That's my ship, caught aback! If she falls to Lysaer's campaign as a prize, I will pound you senseless, then shred your child's equipment for crab bait!'

  Early Winter 5671

  Moves

  Arrived through the Paravian circle at old Tirans, inside the wards sealing Atwood, Kharadmon updates Traithe concerning the misgivings left by his recent errand: 'I don't like surprises! The Prime Matriarch was too busy! When I came to demand that her sisterhood's meddlers pack up her camp at Alestron, she was one jump ahead of Sethvir's intent, with tents folded, already leaving . . .'

  Fighting to help his stricken liege resist Desh-thiere's curse-bound insanity, Sulfin Evend relies on Prince Arithon's promise never to shoulder an active defence at Alestron: 'Hang on, friend,' the Lord Commander implores, 'bear up and withstand this!' which Lysaer does, up until the set-back news breaks, that a brig laden down with supply has lost steering, positioned to fall into enemy hands and prolong the siege into midwinter . . .

  Sprinted to the top of a south-facing battlement, Arithon s'Ffalenn bears shocking witness as a light-bolt arcs out, pitched to strike the lone brig pinned against the chain at the harbour mouth; and despite Dakar's shouted dismay, he reacts before thought, his launched Shadow unfolding too late to quite shield the explosive impact.. .

  Early Winter 5671

  XIII. Stormed Fortress

  Parrien's war galley was relaunched from her secure berth in the caverns, bearing the armed men and tackle to tow in the charred hulk of the brig. She crossed the closed harbour, cleaving against wind and the slackening tide, and wrapped under cover of Arithon's Shadow. He stood exposed on the open foredeck. Braced on his feet, his wool mantle snapped in the contrary gusts, he had no thought to spare Talvish, on guard at his shoulder in Kyrialt's stead for his practised experience at sea. Mage-trained focus, unwavering, still sought to defend the floundering ship in the estuary. Overhead, the crack of inbound light-bolts exploded to star-bursts one after the next, their slamming reports a continuous thunder. Hot wind and searing steam from the onslaught whipped the rowers, acrid with charred timber and the edged scent of lightning.

  Parrien's captaincy drove the warcraft ahead, her men pitched to fight before losing the Evenstar's drifting hull, or risking her cargo. Battle nerves overcame any fear. Where a sailing craft must bow to the elements, tacking for headway in confined waters, an oared ship could cut a straight course. Handily as the galley clove the grey chop, swift progress did little for the shattered survivors clinging on the crippled brig.

  An Alliance patrol ship already closed in, her withering assault launched to finish the avatar's pre-emptive strike. Fanatics, her boarders swarmed Evenstar's rail, undaunted by the threat of Darkness. Their heroic foray would capture her load of provisions, or else flood her hold to thwart the citadel's relief.

  Sevrand's guard in the watchtowers flanking the narrows responded with arrows and steel. Barbed lances and shot shrieked from their seaward arbalests. While sheets of white light roared in overhead, absorbed by defences of Shadow, the lethal cross-fire whined and thumped into charred wood, or ripped down the zealots who rushed to put Evenstar's stranded sailhands to the sword.

  'Arithon, no! You cannot help!' Talvish laid urgent hands on the prince to thwart him from displacing a hand at the benches and seizing an oar. 'Steady on, liege! Best to maintain your cover of Darkness. Let the duke's fighting seamen to do as they've been trained since they were beardless lads!'

  Yet the wait came too hard. 'That's Feylind's brig, out there!'

  'Ath preserve, don't I know!' Talvish ruthlessly strengthened his grip. 'If her captain's alive, trust this galley's endeavour. We'll reach her and strive for a recovery!'

  Against the anguished cry of the heart, while the screams of the burned and the wounded shrilled from the brig's exposed deck, the war galley shot through the spray knifed off her plunging bow. Parrien shouted, exhorting more speed. Momentarily, the double-time stroke suspended as the oar banks enacted a shift change. The horn-call sounded. The drum boomed again. Soaked looms lapped the sea and drove the prow into the narrows. The vessel leaped forward, while the struggle to reclaim the Evenstar's hulk raged ahead with undaunted ferocity.

  Through the flickering tangle of levin bolts and hurled Shadow, the watch keeps were launching fast lighters crammed with able men. The small craft plunged into the fray, protected by covering volleys from the towers' sharp-shooting bowmen. A swarm of stirred hornets, the boats' crews stormed the brig. Assault parties grappled and boarded. Desperate for food stores, or else driven by the bottled rage nursed over weeks of inaction, they swarmed through the smoke, some falling to hostile arrows. The rest became an unstoppable force. They threshed through the Light's self-righteous invaders and mowed down all standing resistance.

  By the moment that Parrien's galley hove in, the disputed deck was retaken. The listing hulk was being shackled by hawsers, and rigged tackles warped the heavy bow. Streaming cinders and smoke, Evenstar would be hauled into secure waters behind the raised harbour chain. Men at the windlass inside the west watch keep prepared to toss lines to haul her into the calm shallows.

  Seen near at hand, the scope of devastation smashed hope. All three masts were razed stumps. The singed decks were entangled with smouldering tackle, crashed from aloft, still aflame. Across blackened planks, lodged in the splinters and wreckage, lay the sprawled bodies of the brave fallen: the burned and the broken; the moaning wounded, stricken by arrows; and the bleeding, hacked sailors, butchered outright by enemy hatred.

  Arithon owned a trained seaman's agility. While the galley manoeuvred at speed alongside, he displaced a deck-hand, unlashed a halyard, then slung himself over the closing span of chopped water. Two steps behind, Talvish was left to snatch the dropped line on the back-swing. He followed, while his liege landed running amid the brig's carnage. As he caught up, Arithon and five citadel men were wrestling aside the charred boom of E
venstar's downed spanker.

  Underneath, they exposed several bodies, one unmistakably the quartermaster, crushed against the black stump of the wheel mount and the melted bronze binnacle. Between the glaring flash of each light-bolt, and the flung Shadow that muzzled the back-flash, dead flesh glimmered, reduced to paper-grey ash and seared bone. Two others lay bundled amid the remains of a seafarer's oiled mantle, reduced to singed wool and stinking, scorched meat. Arithon crouched. Barehanded, before stupefied action could stop him, he eased the crisped corpse aside and peeled back the underlying layer of scorched fabric. Found Feylind beneath: spared because her first mate, Teive, had thrown himself over her. His staunch love had sheltered her struggling form against the deck while flaming canvas seared him alive.

  Nor was his cherished captain unscathed. Arithon sank to his knees at her side. He restarted his stopped breath. Slapped bloodlessly white by the horrific impact, Talvish knelt also, nearly as fast. He gathered her battered head in his hands. Rested her shuddering weight in his lap, to ease the strained gasps as her blistered lungs laboured for air.

  Which left Arithon, stricken, to assess the wracked ruin of her. The limbs flayed by burns; the ripped torso with too many white, splintered bones punched through pulp, where the weight of the gaff rig and spanker boom had smashed her encumbered flesh.

  'Tae'thadra!' he choked. His eyes were streaming. 'My dear! Most brave, and always a tigress. Of course, you would hoist sail and come. Did you blindside your brother and Tharrick as well? Daunt your mother with your drawn cutlass?'