Stormed Fortress (89 page)

By Parrien
'
s word, Cattrick and his labourers were the only others who had seen paid service under both Lysaer
s
'
Ilessid
and Arithon s
'
Ffalenn. His portion completed, Fionn Areth squeezed out, stretching his kinked back as he finished his contentious point. "The s
'
Brydion duke had cause to turn, bound under a title that
'
s tied to clan law.
'

The dangling puzzle remained: that Cattrick was a town citizen from Southshire, with family and kin ties in Shand. Since the coastal ports had declared for the Light, his choice to betray the Divine Prince had stranded him as an exile. If the sacrifice was made in Prince Arithon
'
s behalf, there had been no reunion, and no warmth extended in fellowship.

'
You don
'
t have to like a man to respect him,
'
the caulker remarked, head poked out of the chain-locker. Tar-brush clamped in his teeth, he emerged before granting his dour admission.
'
Master o
'
Shadow worked the crews plenty hard. But his silver was timely. No one could say that his terms weren
'
t fair.
'

'
You sweated under his Grace, also?
'
Fionn Areth inquired, then caught the bundle of batt sacks he was thrown. Choked by puffed dust, he heard his answer through a paroxysm of sneezes.

'
Most of us did, son. Though make no mistake, we don
'
t bow and scrape over titles. Mostly our loyalty
'
s given to Cattrick, and Ath bear witness, the affray back in Tysan left him and us on raw terms with the Koriathain.
'

Since the reference applied to a past oath of debt, discharged against Arithon
'
s interests, Fionn Areth wisely withheld from untoward comment. As the work progressed down the starboard decks, the laid fuses and oiled kindling made ready for reiving, the story was left to surface in unforced conversation: of the underhand plot that had placed the shipyard labourers under arraignment at Riverton, then the brutal ordeal that put them to the question by the order
'
s coercive spellcraft.

'
Sisterhood used their trained seers with spelled crystals to break a man
'
s mind!
'
the sail-maker said in cold anger.

The caulker shuddered, and brandished his brush.
'
Shrinks my gut to remember. No breathing human should suffer such horror, nor any creature born living in Ath
'
s creation.
'

'
Damned witches want the Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn taken down as their captive trophy,
'
the stout sail-maker ran on with fresh venom.
'
For spite
'
s sake, I
'
d thwart them. All here who survived their cruel handling would deny the Prime Matriarch
'
s satisfaction.
'

'
Nothing to what the bitches did to your face!
'
Unbent enough to show brutish sympathy, the caulker clapped Fionn Areth on the shoulder.
'
Can
'
t have liked being rigged out as their decoy
'

'
Less than you know,
'
Fionn Areth allowed, beyond words for the depth of his rancour.

The labour crept forward in the cold dark, by the trembling flame of the lantern. The very fact the activity passed unquestioned bespoke a garrison pressed hard by short numbers. No one mentioned the fear that the cavern might be cut off if the battle outside changed to rout. Now and again the force of the assault rumbled echoes beneath the stone vaulting. The massive, grilled gates of the tidal lock shuddered on their tracks, jostled by disturbed eddies of current as siege rams shocked the harbour-side wall. Othertimes, muffled shouts filtered in, or the distanced clangour of weapons, as the enemy galleys thrashed in at full stroke, and ploughed into bitter resistance.

Fionn Areth blinked sweat from his eyes, galled to have been disbarred from the fight with the veterans in Vhandon
'
s company. Ever and always, his spell-turned appearance placed his character under question. Few trusted his loyalties. No one he befriended asked for his thoughts. However he strove for a life of his own, wherever he wished to grant loyalty, his place was presumed, either hobbled or cast into bitter eclipse by the dictates of the Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn.

Now masked in the shadow of the brig
'
s lower hold, the young grass-lander served unstinting amid the rough company of the shipyard labourers: men well-respected for their independence, who argued with forthright opinions. Already, his stubborn grit earned their praise. His quaint quips prompted chaffing and laughter. When the fire-ship sailed, and he volunteered, he avowed that
this time
he might win an acceptance on the unbiased strength of his merits.

His bold moment approached. The topside repairs now finished apace, the pounding of mallets replaced by loose talk. The splashing thump of oar strokes from outside the hull signalled the launch of the long-boats. At Cattrick
'
s brusque order, the unreeled warp lines hissed down. Spliced ends slapped the water, to bumping scrapes as the men in the tenders made fast the tow cables to warp the brig into the lock.

'
Best wrap up here,
'
urged the sail-maker, while the last batt and wick string was tarred into place, and the joiner collected his tools.

Fionn Areth followed the crowd at the hatch, using touch where the lantern
'
s gleam faltered. Emerged on the main-deck, he brushed off his grimed clothes. Shoulders squared and chin raised, he lit off to appease Cattrick.

The irascible master shipwright stood braced at the portside railing, the frizzled hair in a sailhand
'
s queue set apart from the caps of his fellows. The Araethurian
'
s confiscated sword had been shoved through a loop in his apron. His back stayed turned as he shouted praise over the dusty sacks bearing mill stamps, tossed up to the deck by his ankles.

'
Flour?
'
Fionn Areth said in puzzled inquiry.

'
Aye, lad.
'
The sail-maker flashed a blood-letting grin.
'
Loft that stuff into the air down below, you
'
ll witness one baleful explosion.
'

'
Not our hold, peggy,
'
a bystander decried.
'
We
'
re sending the long-boats with picked crews, ahead. They
'
ll scull in and grapple those Sunwheel galleys, then waft flour in pokes through the oar-ports. While everyone
'
s folded double and coughing, our
Evenstar
slips in behind. She
'
ll serve up our prearranged packet o
'
hell, and torch off Dharkaron
'
s own vengeance.
'

'
I want to go with them,
'
Fionn Areth announced, unable to check-rein his eagerness.
'
Let me pull an oar. Or at the least, bide on
Evenstar
'
s
hulk with a slow match.
'

Talk froze. Through the choked silence, Cattrick spun from the rail to dress down the impertinence.
'
Why?
'
A step forward brought his narrowed stare closer.
'
Why?
'
The stripped demand blistered.
'
You
'
ve shared our company for less than one hour! What did you think? That the counterfeit mug of a prince gives you the born right to collaborate?
'

Fionn Areth burned scarlet.
'
No! Like you and yours, I
'
m not sworn to Rathain, or reduced to a Koriani pawn dropped into the Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn
'
s pocket!
'

Cattrick gave back his least civil smile.
'
I
'
d say not,
'
he agreed.

No warning was given, nor any kindly support from the craftsmen clustered behind. Fionn Areth never saw whose hand turned against him. He felt only the blow that hammered his nape, and dropped him straight down into darkness.

* * *

Awareness returned to a shattering headache and the misery of numbed extremities. Fionn Areth groaned. His shuddering breath brought the smell of damp wood, and his hearing, the slosh of salt water. Queasy with dizziness, and hounded by pain, he found that Cattrick
'
s wrangling scoundrels had dumped him in the bilge of a long-boat. Spinning vision showed him that the craft was moored to a piling by the dry dock. His wrists were bound, hands in front of him. Another rope lashed his ankles. The deserted quiet meant the
Evenstar
had already embarked.

'
Motherless sons of a goat-humping dog!
'
Fionn Areth shivered, furious. If he laid eyes on the shipwrights again, he would carve that vile ancestry into their livers. But before retribution, he had to win free. His untoward bout of unconsciousness left him half-stunned by the cold.

Most of the lamps he remembered were gone. By the fluttering light that remained, he discovered his long sword, jutted over the stern seat. The hilt was placed within easy reach, a reprieve that earned no forgiveness. Fionn Areth muttered another ripe curse, and awkwardly manoeuvred himself upright. As he suspected, the brig
'
s berth was empty, the weir gates cranked shut and locked since the vessel
'
s stealthy departure.

Outraged as he wrestled to unsheathe his steel, Fionn Areth made out smatterings of muffled talk beyond the strapped grille and planking. His savage ignominy galled all the worse for the fact that some loudmouth still cracked jokes at his absent expense.
'
Dharkaron spear those two-faced rats for the maggots!
'

Cattrick
'
s covert foray had scarcely been launched: the primed hull was settled inside of the closed lock, forced to wait while the sluices let down the water. The sea-level egress, which accessed the harbour, had yet to draw clear of immersion.

The Araethurian braced his blade and hacked rope with fever-pitched fury. Head down and back turned, he encountered changed fortune: the sturdy curve of the long-boat
'
s thwart shielded him. He was not battered flat as a
boom
like trapped thunder blasted a breach through the weir gates behind him.

Early Winter 5671

Breach

Entrained on the warfront from her distanced vantage, Prime Selidie ends her incantation, then bids Lirenda to cut the tie of compulsion forced onto a dying shipwright; while before her, a ship
'
s ceremonial effigy burns, incited to premature explosion, she praises her Senior Circle:
'
Out of set-back, we triumph! Alestron
'
s sea-side defences are weakened for the Alliance attackers to seize fatal access .
. .
'

Still thwarted by the ornery watch at the lift, the Mad Prophet cries warning, overcome as Seer
'
s vision shows the lower lock gateway torched into ruinous flame;
the disaster he fears does not stem from Fionn Areth,
but springs instead from a latent imprint in crystal, held over a shipwright since Riverton: a discarded pawn and an innocent man, until passage outside the Paravian defences left him prey to the wiles of Koriathain . . .

Shocked by the unforeseen blast that demolishes the shipwork
'
s lower weir gate, Vhandon and Talvish take pause on the wharf-side battlement, their search for Fionn Areth lapsed in the face of staring disaster: below their snatched vantage, white water thrashes out through the breached cut, while enemy war galleys equipped with siege platforms ram upstream for aggressive assault. .
.