The Assassin's Edge (Einarinn 5) (12 page)

“
Nis tal eld ar fen.
” Parrail wiped bile from his chin. He knelt beside Master Gede but his eyes were fixed on the murderous pirate below. The man yelled and clapped his hands to his face, swords forgotten as he swung this way and that rubbing at his eyes.

“I have him!” Naldeth exulted. He pulled a shaft of lightning from the confusion of grey and white clouds overhead and seared the man dead but a blue echo of his magic flashed all around him drawing several arrows. Worse, pirates below made a concerted move towards the rear deck.

Parrail grabbed at the mage’s tunic. He drew a deep breath, enunciating an incantation with meticulous care. Naldeth was simply frozen with fear until he saw the pirates intent on his death had halted, confused like a pack of questing hounds who’d lost their scent. Faces turned to the aftdeck seemed to be looking straight through him.

Parrail’s eyes were hollow with consternation. “What do we do now?”

“Take hold.” Naldeth held out a shaking hand, hoping he was equal to his sudden inspiration.

Parr ail snatched at it like a drowning man. “But Master Gede—”

Too late. An azure spiral of power bound his arms to his sides, his feet leaving the deck for an instant before he was plunged into darkness. Parrail groaned with misery as his abused stomach sought to empty itself once more. Then he realised they were in the dimness below decks. Panicked voices rose in the broad hold where those hoping for a life in Kellarin had been waiting out the long days at sea among their hammocks and chests of treasured possessions.

“What’s happening?” demanded a man’s voice.

“It’s pirates!” Naldeth replied, anguished. “They’re killing everyone!”

The consternation that provoked threatened to turn to outright hysteria but everyone fell silent a few moments later when a hatch at the far end of the deck opened to the white and terrified faces below.

“Out!” A swarthy Gidestan beckoned with a bloodstained glove.

The hapless youth at the bottom of the ladder looked around wildly for guidance but everyone else dropped their gaze.

“Out, all of you.” The Gidestan sounded menacing.

The lad climbed slowly up the ladder, yelping as his head reached deck level and unexpected hands hauled him bodily through the hatch.

“And the rest!” What little patience the Gidestan had was plainly exhausted.

Someone else was half pushed, half urged up the ladder and others followed. A surge of bodies carried Naldeth and Parrail closer to the shaft of pitiless daylight, whimpers of fear and ragged breaths of distress all around them.

“We work no magic or enchantment.” Parrail dug painful fingers into Naldeth’s arm as the wizard opened his mouth. “We have to live long enough to get word out to Hadrumal or somewhere, anywhere.”

The press brought the two of them to the ladder and they had no choice but to climb, Parrail first then Naldeth close behind him. Scrambling on to the deck, rough hands shoved them towards the motionless crowd clustered around the main mast. Homespun folk with the honest faces of craftsmen and farmers huddled together, watching the pirates casually tossing the bodies of the slain overboard. Parrail recognised the ship’s sailmaker, the helmsman, a farmer from Dalasor whose name he couldn’t recall.

A few were looking wide-eyed at the forecastle where a bare-chested pirate was tying up the remaining sailors. A few struggled with the pirates restraining them, more went with sullen obedience but one man managed to break free. He hit out wildly, felling one and then kicking out to catch another in the groin, shouting some incomprehensible abuse. The defiance died on his lips as the bare-chested man smashed the back of his head with an iron bar. He twisted his fingers in the blood-soaked wavy hair and held the corpse up to warn sailors and passengers alike. “That’s what making trouble gets you!”

Naldeth’s gorge rose at the sight of the dead man’s misshapen pate, bone gleaming white around grey pulp and gore. He swallowed hard and his terror unexpectedly receded in the face of desperate calm as he forced himself to assess his plight. At least he and Parrail were dressed much the same as the rest of the passengers. For the first time since his childhood he breathed a thanks to Saedrin. The showy robes and elemental colours fashionable in Hadrumal would have condemned him as a mage at once.

With the unresisting sailors now bound, pirates were moving among the prisoners, cutting knives and purses from belts, ripping the few pieces of jewellery visible from necks and wrists, dumping all the spoils in a prosaic wicker basket once destined for a goodwife’s trips to market.

“Your rings.” One gestured at a yeoman’s gold-circled fingers with a bloodstained knife and an evil grin on his undernourished face. “Take ’em off or I cut ’em off.”

Naldeth offered no resistance as rough hands searched his jerkin and breeches pockets, his coin purse torn from the cord he wore beneath his shirt. Then the rat-faced man reached for Parrail’s hand.

“The ring,” the pirate ordered.

Parrail’s stricken expression was little different to those all around but Naldeth saw the added pain in the scholar’s eyes as he surrendered the silver emblem of Vanam, hard-earned symbol of long years of study and self-denial.

That distraction left the mage slow to realise why everyone had fallen silent. All the pirates standing upright and ready, faces turned to the far rail. Naldeth saw the single mast of the ship that he’d failed to hit with any useful magic, snake pennon whipping to and fro in lazy mockery.

A taller man than any Naldeth could recall climbed over the rail with a deftness belying his bulk. The pirates raised a loud cheer, boots stamping, swords smacked together in raucous celebration. The tall man swept a courtly wave to acknowledge those on the forecastle and Naldeth noticed he was lacking the little finger on his sword hand. He had black hair with a curl to it, long enough to fall below his shoulders if it hadn’t been pulled back into a merciless queue. Those shoulders looked broad enough to bear any burden but the man was dressed like a noble who’d never had to soil his hands.

As he turned to share his approval with his pirates, Naldeth saw a delighted smile deepening creases beginning to claim a permanent place around the pirate’s eyes. He was a man in the prime of life, teeth white against the trimmed and disciplined beard that showed just a touch of grey. “Well done, my lads. Now, let’s have a little hush.” His voice was a carrying boom well suited to his barrel chest. The pirate approached the terrified colonists, heedless of his polished boots as he kicked some bloodied body aside.

“Good day to you.” He bowed low with ostentatious politeness. “I am Muredarch and I am the leader of these—” His smile turned feral. ”We’re pirates. You’re prisoners, though you’ll get a choice about that. We’re taking everything we find on this ship. You don’t get a choice about that.” He grinned at a stifled squeak of protest. ”But we’ll be handing out fair shares because that’s the way we do things in my fleet. If you want a share, all you have to do is swear fealty to me and do as I say until I say different. Show a talent for our life and you’ll find it’s recognised. Birth means nothing here but ability counts for a lot.”

He brushed a casual hand over his sea-blue tunic, embroidered velvet and belted with silver, the breeze ruffling the lawn sleeves of his shirt. “I don’t promise a long life but by all that’s holy, it’s a merry one while it lasts. We take our pleasures as readily as we take our plunder,” he continued airily. “Wine, women, good food and if you’re hurt, we’ll see you doctored and kept in comfort. If you’re left unable to fight, we don’t cast you off; there’s always jobs to be done that don’t need a sword. When you’ve earned me enough loot to pay me for sparing your lives, you are free to go, with whatever you’ve saved for yourselves. But most stay on and make themselves richer still.”

The lesser pirates hanging on his every word laughed but Naldeth heard genuine merriment, not the sycophancy he’d expected and found that worried him more.

“You ladies can work for us as you choose.” Muredarch turned a serious face to a mother clutching a daughter just blooming into girlhood. “No man will take you against your will, not without being gelded for it. Share your favours and be paid for the courtesy or earn your keep with cooking, washing, nursing.” He shrugged. “Or you give your oath with the men, sign on the roster and earn an equal share. Where’s Otalin?” A chorus of approval rose from the pirates as one stepped forward from a blood-soaked foursome on the forecastle. “We don’t keep women to firesides and distaffs if they don’t care for such things.”

Otalin shouted something derisory at the bound sailors, proving her womanhood by pulling jerkin and shirt apart to bare her breasts. It was, Naldeth decided, quite the least erotic display he’d ever seen.

Muredarch clapped his hands, which brought instant silence. “Anyone endangering the fleet in any way dies for it. Anyone starting a quarrel on board ship hangs for it,” he said with quiet menace. “You can settle a score in blood ashore as long as you don’t involve anyone else. If you can live by our rules, you’ll earn more gold than you ever dreamed of. If you can’t, we’ll take our price for your life out of you in work but I warn you, that’s the long way to earn your freedom. The quickest way out is not to work, then you won’t eat and you’ll die soon enough. If that’s your choice, so be it. You’ve till dawn tomorrow to think it through and then I’ll want a decision from each and every one of you.”

He turned to nod to the pirates on the sterncastle. “Bring him here.”

Naldeth heard a sharp intake of breath from Parrail as Master Gede was pushed down the ladder to the deck. He fell heavily, blood dark and matted in his grey hair. The woman Otalin jumped down lightly beside him and hauled him to his feet. The master sailor was pale, eyes bruised, arms bound behind him and looking unsteady but his jaw was set.

“Good day to you, Captain.” Muredarch inclined his head, one equal to another. “I take it you understand you’re in my fleet now?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “A captain should always stay with his ship, shouldn’t he? I always do my best to see to that. So you have a choice to make.”

“Turn pirate and prey on honest men?” growled Gede with contempt. “Never.”

“I said you had till tomorrow to make that decision.”

Muredarch smiled that feral smile again. “No, I’ve something else to ask you. Who’s the wizard?”

Gede’s eyes fixed on Muredarch, face expressionless.

“Who’s the wizard?” Muredarch repeated, soft and venomous. “Give him up. He didn’t do you much good, did he?”

Naldeth’s heartbeat sounded so loud inside his head it deafened him. The breath caught in his throat and his groin shrivelled with fear.

Gede stayed silent, eyes focused only on the pirate chieftain. He didn’t dare look anywhere else in case he gave some hint away, Naldeth realised. Numb with shock, he wished he could look away from the appalling sight but he dared not turn lest he meet someone else’s accusing eyes, see some pointing finger handing him over to this brute. His thoughts disintegrated into wretchedness and terror.

Muredarch was studying Gede intently. “No, you won’t give him up, will you? Not without a little persuasion. But I’m a man of my word. I’ll let you stay with your ship.”

The pirates laughed and Naldeth saw savage expectation on their faces all around. Otalin shoved Gede towards the main mast and the passengers scattered in alarm. Muredarch casually drew one of several daggers sheathed on his silver ornamented belt and the bare-chested man jumped down from the foredeck. He carried a hammer and sharp iron spikes as long as a man’s forearm. Muredarch cut Gede’s bonds but two pirates were waiting to grab his hands. Their chieftain stepped aside as the pair pulled Gede’s arms behind him, one either side of the mast, forcing his hands flat to the wood.

At Muredarch’s nod, the bare-chested man drove a spike through Gede’s hand, nailing him to the mast. The captain couldn’t restrain a yell of anguish. “Dast curse your seed!”

Muredarch was unmoved. “Show me the wizard.”

Gede shook his head, biting his lip so hard blood ran down his chin.

Muredarch nodded and the second spike hammered home. Gede’s cry was joined by sobs and distress all around.

“Show me the wizard.” But Gede stayed silent.

Despite the murmurs of distress all around him, Naldeth made no sound. He couldn’t have done so to save his life.

The pirate chieftain shook his head with regret as Gede’s chin sank to his chest. He wound strong fingers in the sailor’s hair to yank his head up. “Till tomorrow‘ Turning his back on Gede he walked unhurried to the rail. ”Get them ashore.” He swung himself down to his gaff-rigged ship.

As soon as Muredarch was off the deck, the pirates moved, belaying pins and the flats of blades herding the comprehensively cowed passengers. Parrail caught Naldeth by the elbow, urging the shocked mage forward. An older man with a dyer’s stained hands shot them both a fearful look from beneath lowered brows. The scholar swallowed hard on his own fear, foul bitterness in his mouth, gullet and belly sour and scalded. Surely these people wouldn’t give them up to these torturers, not when magic might be their only salvation? He dropped his own gaze, concentrating on moving with the crowd, on keeping Naldeth moving, terrified lest either of them do something to attract unwelcome attention.

The pirates simply counted off their captives into the waiting longboats like so many head of sheep; the pockmarked ruffian in charge didn’t tolerate delay. The woman with the daughter baulked at the rope ladders strung over the side of the ship and at his nod, two burly raiders swung her bodily over the side where she dangled, whimpering.

The man waiting below laughed until her flailing shoe caught him in the face. “Watch what you’re at, you clumsy bitch!” Snatching at her petticoats he pulled her down with an audible rip of cloth. If another pirate in the boat hadn’t caught her arm, the woman would have fallen into the dark waters but she was too frightened to realise he was saving her and pulled free with a cry of alarm.

The man laughed with scant humour. “Lady, I don’t want your notch on my tally stick.”