Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) (3 page)

“Until we set sail, I guess,” Blaine answered.

“One of them yours?”

“Used to be,” Blaine replied.

“I told my sister not to come, told her it wouldn’t make it any easier on her,” the thin man said. “Didn’t want her to see me, chained like this.” He sighed. “She came anyhow.” He looked Blaine over from head to toe. “What’d they send you away for?”

Blaine turned so that the seeping new brand of an “M” on his forearm showed. “Murder. You?”

The thin man shrugged. “I could say it was for singing off-key, or for the coins I pinched from the last inn where I played for my supper. But the truth is I slept with the wrong man’s wife, and he accused me of stealing his silver.” He gave a wan smile, exposing gapped teeth. “Verran Danning’s my name. Petty thief and wandering minstrel. How ’bout you?”

Blaine looked back at the distant figures on the wharf. Stripped of his title, lands, and position, lost to Carensa, he felt as dead inside as if the executioner had done his work.
Blaine McFadden is dead
, he thought. “Mick,” he replied. “Just call me Mick.”

“I’ll make you a deal, Mick. You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours,” Verran said with a sly grin. “I’ll make sure you get more than your share of food, and as much of the grog as I can pinch. In return,” he said, dropping his voice, “I’d like to count on some protection, to spare my so-called virtue, in case any of our bunkmates get too friendly.” He held out a hand, manacles clinking. “Deal?”

With a sigh, Blaine forced himself to turn away from the porthole. He shook Verran’s outstretched hand. “Deal.”

Velant Penal Colony, Six Years Later

P
UT YOUR BACKS INTO IT! WE NEED THOSE FISH.”

Blaine bent forward, grabbed the rough rope net, and leaned back, working in time with the line of other men who helped to draw the catch on board. The fishing ship
Pathi
was a herring buss, a fat-bodied vessel good enough to weather the squalls of the Ecardine Sea but not well suited for escape.

“Good work. That’ll keep the gibbers busy, I warrant.” The overseer stood behind them, chuckling at the size of the catch. “Empty them onto the deck and get the nets out again. Move. Move.”

“I’m frozen to the bones,” groused the man next to Blaine. Broad-shouldered with muscular arms, the man had eyes as cold and blue as the sea.

“Would you rather be gibbing?” Blaine asked, with a nod toward the men who scrambled into position to cut the gills and gullet from the fish before salting them and packing them into the barrels that filled the
Pathi
’s hold.

“What’s the difference? They’re just as wet as we are,” the man replied, shaking his oilcloth slicker to rid himself of some of the water that had doused them as the net came on board.

“I figure we’re warmer dragging in nets than sitting still gutting fish—and we might be able to get the fish stink off us once we get back to port,” Blaine replied. “C’mon, Piran, you know it’s true. The last time we got stuck gibbing, I smelled like a herring for a month after I got off the boat.”

Piran Rowse chuckled. “You’re assuming that you don’t actually smell like that all the time.” Piran had the build and temperament of a fighter, with a muscular frame, a neck like an ox, and a head of thinning light-brown hair, which he preferred to keep shaved, even in the Edgeland cold. Both his face and his body carried the scars of too many fights for Piran to remember, although one jagged scar beneath his eye was a memento from a broken bottle in a bar brawl. His nose was flatter than it should have been and a little off-center, but his blue eyes could glint with merriment for good music and passable ale. Piran’s broad smile had no trouble winning him female companionship, an effect Blaine likened to the appeal of a friendly, but ugly, stray dog.

From what little Blaine had been able to get out of his friend, Piran had been a mercenary, a onetime soldier, and a bodyguard. Which of those jobs had gone wrong enough to land him in Velant, Piran was cagey about saying. Blaine had met Piran three years ago, when they both were transferred from the miserable ruby mines to the equally miserable herring fleet. Since then, they had become fast friends.

A high wave splashed over the ship’s side, dousing them. Blaine cursed, getting a face full of seawater. The oilcloth slicker, gloves, and pants could only afford so much protection against the cold northern sea. Even with thick woolen clothing beneath the oilcloth, there was no escaping a dampness that chilled to the bone. Blaine stamped his feet, wishing his heavy leather boots were more waterproof. “At least the catch is good today.”

Piran grinned. “Good enough to earn us a full measure of grog tonight, I wager.”

The ever-present smell of fish grew sharper as the gibbers did their work. Blaine and the others continued to haul the heavy nets in with their catch. Other men sealed the barrels of salted fish and carried them below. Shouting to be heard over the wind and the waves, the overseer called out directions and cursed those who moved too slowly.

“Think the catch is good enough to keep us through the winter?” Piran asked as they shouldered into the next haul.

“Don’t know. Why?”

Piran glanced both ways over his shoulder before replying. “Just some of the talk I’ve heard among the guards. Said that the last couple supply ships weren’t as full as usual.”

Blaine grimaced, standing back as the net cleared the railing and the deck shuddered with the weight of the catch. “If that’s the case, we’ll be living on herring and turnips before the winter’s through.”

Piran made a sour face. “Not the first time I’ll have done with tight rations, but I’d rather have my belly full while I freeze.”

A good day’s catch meant backbreaking work. This far north, the sun never completely set, making the six-month “white nights” season the time when convicts and guards alike pitched in to provision the colony for the half year of darkness to come. Blaine shivered. Even after six years, he hadn’t grown accustomed to the long subarctic nights. Donderath, half a world away, had a temperate climate, with four seasons and a winter that, while sometimes harsh, was nothing like Velant’s brutal cold and howling winds.

After a twelve-candlemark shift at the nets, the “night” haulers came clomping up from the bunk rooms below with their
heavy boots, growling and cursing at the cold wind. Weary and numb with cold, Blaine and Piran lined up to go below. Since it never got dark, the buss could fish day and night, and by alternating crew, give the men slightly more room in the cramped quarters belowdecks.

In the cramped area of the hold set aside for crew, hammocks swung with the motion of the boat. It was cold enough that Blaine kept his oilskin coat on until the hold grew warm from the press of bodies. Piran had wandered off to find someone who was still willing to play him at cards or dice.

“Give it up, Piran. I’ve already lost two measures of grog and my ration of smoke weed to you,” complained a raw-boned, red-haired man.

Wide-eyed with feigned innocence, but barely suppressing a grin, Piran turned to the man’s companions and held out his hand with three dice on his open palm. They all groaned loudly. “Not since I lost my best socks to you, dammit,” complained one of the men.

Piran’s smile widened. “I haven’t worn them yet. You might win them back.”

Indecision clouded the man’s face for a moment before he nodded. “All right. For the socks.”

Blaine turned away, chuckling. The longer the boat was at sea, the larger the number of fishermen who realized that Piran was uncannily fortunate when it came to games of chance. His luck stopped just shy of being so good as to raise accusations of cheating, though Blaine had known Piran long enough to suspect that sleight of hand, not magic, helped his chances considerably. Blaine had not played his friend for anything more valuable than a few measures of snuff since they had been in the mines together. On occasion Piran let him win.

Later, when most of the men lay snoring in their hammocks,
Blaine awoke as the ship rose and then fell so sharply that he was nearly thrown from his bed.

“By the gods! A few more like that, and it’ll send us all to Raka,” Blaine muttered, hanging on to his hammock and hoping that his supper ration remained in his stomach despite the way the ship lurched and pitched.

“If Raka is warmer than Velant, I’ll go willingly,” Piran replied, holding fast to one of the support beams, but to Blaine’s eye, Piran’s face had taken on a green tint.

“Velant is where the gods send the men Raka turns away,” said the red-haired man, who had given up trying to stay in his hammock and braced himself between the hull and the support post.

Water flooded down the stairs from the deck, and the hold erupted with curses. Bad as it was below, Blaine knew it was worse on deck. Storms arose swiftly on the Ecardine Sea, with gale-force winds and sleet that could cut skin. It was not unusual to lose three or four men overboard each trip due to storms. Blaine had no love for Velant, but the idea of dying in the cold northern waters, his body and soul forever prisoner to Yadin, god of the dark water, seemed an even worse alternative.

That fate had obviously occurred to some of their fellow fishermen, because Blaine heard voices muttering prayers to both major gods and household deities alike, begging safe passage. Then a loud laugh cut across the hold, and Blaine looked at Piran.

“Tell Yadin and his ice demons that he’s better off with the herring than the likes of us. The herring have more meat on their bones,” Piran said. “As for the other gods, while you’re at it, see if they can magic up better grog. What we’ve got tastes like sheep piss.”

The red-haired man scowled at Piran. “You mock the gods?”

Piran laughed again. “I can’t mock what isn’t real.”

The red-haired man looked as if he might take a swing at Piran, but the boat rose and fell again, sending him sliding across the hold to land hard against the other hull. Piran looked up at the deck above them as if it were the sky. “Is that the best you can do?”

“Shut up, Piran,” Blaine muttered.

Piran looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “When did you get devout?”

Blaine shook his head. “I’m not. But I’d rather not clean you up after our bunkmates are done kicking your sorry ass.”

Piran grinned. Two missing teeth were testament to just how much he relished a good brawl. “Let them try.”

The ship canted hard to starboard, and several men lost their grip, slamming across the hold. Above their heads, they heard a crack like thunder, and the shouts and screams of men.

“We’ve lost a mast,” Blaine muttered.

Piran let go of his hold on the support post and gave Blaine a shove. “Get up the steps. Now!” All joking was gone from his face. In its place was a cold reckoning that Blaine guessed had gotten Piran through the wars he had survived, battles he would only talk about when drunk.

Lurching like drunkards, Blaine and Piran stumbled across the hold. A few of the others struggled to their feet, realizing that if the ship were to go over, their odds of surviving were far better on deck than below. Many of the men remained frozen where they were, clinging white-knuckled to their hammocks or to the posts, eyes closed and heads down, praying.

“Stay below!” a guard shouted as they reached the top of the stairs, and belatedly tried to shut the door against them. Piran and Blaine threw their weight against the door, sending the
guard sprawling. When the man attempted to grab at Piran’s legs, Piran kicked him away.

“Maybe the gods were listening,” Blaine murmured as they reached the deck. The main mast of the buss had splintered, leaving only the mizzen standing. The deck was awash with seawater, and the fishermen and sailors alike had lashed themselves to the rails. Piran and Blaine managed to do the same, ducking to avoid the worst of another wave that broke over the bow. Blaine came up sputtering.

“We’ll drown by inches at this rate,” Piran said, holding tight as the ship pitched.

“Can you see any of the other ships?” The
Pathi
had been one of thirty ships in Velant’s fleet of herring boats. When Blaine had been on deck before the storm, he had spotted many of the other ships spread out across the water.

“I can barely see my hand at the end of my own damn arm,” Piran replied. “Clouds above, rain between, and the sea below. I can’t see worth shit.”

If we founder, would the other ships bother to look for survivors? Or would they just gather the herring barrels they could find and head back to port?
On one hand, Velant wouldn’t care if two dozen convicts drowned. But even Commander Prokief might count the loss of an experienced crew, given the colony’s dependence on fish for both food and trade with Donderath. And while the fishermen aboard the
Pathi
were convicts, they had fished long enough to be valuable.

Gradually, the storm lost its fury. Blaine dragged himself to his feet, gripping the rail hard enough that he thought his fingers might make indentations in the wood. The deck smelled of vomit and seawater, and every man aboard the
Pathi
was ashen-faced.