The Assassin's Tale (Isle of Dreams) (40 page)

‘Emiror!’

St Martine’s
tortured cry was echoed in the look on Mage Grapple’s face.  Mistral
willed herself not to look at Fabian.    

As Emiror
unwound more of her protective scarves the wind blew her robes flat to her
body, the fine cotton pressing itself perfectly to her swollen waist.

She was
heavily pregnant.

A wave of
feeling swept through the Ri warriors.  Killing of innocents was abhorred,
and nothing was more innocent than the unborn. 

Emiror raised
her head at the sound of her name but made no move either to dismount or ride
on.  Her face was both proud and beautiful.  Mistral wondered if Mage
Grapple had looked similar before he had been so horrifically scarred ...
perhaps that was why her face looked familiar.

Fleetingly,
she caressed her swollen belly, her face tender then resigned.  Mistral
was struck by how vulnerable she looked, unarmed and alone in the middle of a
battlefield.  At that exact moment in time she was the only thing stopping
either army from attacking. 

Emiror turned
to face the Ri.  Raising both hands out in a beseeching gesture she called
out, first to Rufus, then turning to repeat her impassioned plea to her husband
and her brother.

St Martine
began to ride forward at once, his face a mask of agony.  Mage Grapple
spoke quickly to Fabian before they both rode after him.  Behind her,
Mistral could hear a rapid conversation between Rufus and his General followed
by the thudding sounds of Rufus’ heavy warhorse lumbering forward through the
ranks of his army.  Flanked by his standard bearer and sour-faced General,
Rufus rode out through the blurred heat haze to where Emiror sat alone on her
spent horse.

Rufus’ army
jostled nervously as their King rode out unprotected into the sands.  The
Ri watched with unblinking eyes, tautly poised to act at the slightest sign of
a trap.

St Martine
rode out slightly faster than Rufus, with Mage Grapple and Fabian keeping just
behind him on either side.  He reached Emiror seconds before Rufus
did.  The Ri warriors tensed expectantly and behind them came the sound of
Rufus’ archers drawing their bowstrings tight.

‘
Hold!
’
 Gleacher bellowed in a voice thick with strain.

Emiror began
to speak in a rapid voice, too quietly for anyone other than the five men
around her to hear.  Mistral could feel Grendel leaning forward slightly
in an effort to catch what Emiror was saying, every pair of eyes was fixed on
the scene being played out in front of them.  Mistral knew that the lives
of all of the Ri warriors now depended on what Emiror was saying and felt a
wave of frustration.  She hated not being in control of her destiny. 
Forcing all of her attention on to Emiror, she took a deep breath and slowly
pushed all of the tension out of her mind, letting a calmness flow through
her.  Almost immediately Emiror’s aura materialised in a myriad of colours
around her head. 

A wreath of
royal blue hung suspended directly above her, its velvety hues shot through
with glistening mother of pearl, like clouds in a blue sky.  There was
pink too and, forming a double-edged border to the deep blue cloud, a ring of
pale green and copper. 

Purpose, hope,
love, sadness and stubbornness.

Mistral was
mildly impressed despite herself; there was no fear in Emiror’s mind.  It
was no wonder Fabian found her attractive.

Fabian.

She risked a
glance in his direction.  His face was an inscrutable mask and he was too
far away for his eyes to betray anything.  She had no need of his aura to
know how this would be tearing him apart and felt a burst of compassion for his
pain.  Drawing her attention back to the warriors, Mistral could
immediately sense that the stress levels had risen to breaking point. 
Rufus’ army were being commanded to silence by a lieutenant, but to little or
no avail.  The soldiers were steadily becoming more vocal in their need to
know what was going on.

Gleacher was
an unmoving statue staring with iron focus at the party on the battlefield,
watching for any hints or signs of aggression from either party that would
signal their call to battle.

Suddenly Rufus
threw back his head and roared with laughter.  It was as though a
tightrope had been cut and his army heaved a collective sigh of relief. 
They had obviously heard that laugh before and knew what it signified. 
Still laughing, Rufus clapped St Martine thunderously on the back and kicked
his heavy warhorse into an unwilling canter back towards his waiting army, his
General and standard bearer trotting along in his wake. 

‘Prepare the
main tent!’ he bellowed.  ‘Food, wine and more wine!  We negotiate!’

As he neared
the outer flanks of Ri warriors his bloodshot eye fell of Mistral.

‘Women on the
battle field,’ he leered patronisingly.  ‘Whatever next?’

Then louder,
for the general benefit of his army,

‘I wager St
Martine will be getting an earful later!  Feisty, that wife of his! 
I almost pity him!  Women are like horses and dogs; the more you beat
them, the better they be!’  Rufus roared with laughter at his own joke, his
sycophantic army joining in a split second later.

Mistral kept
her eyes downcast and her face carefully neutral.  There was a lot of pent
up aggression in the ranks of Rufus’ army and she didn’t want to be the cause
of an outbreak.  She sensed Grendel struggling to restrain himself beside
her.  Swifter and more silent than a shadow, Gleacher was beside them in
an instant.  He did not speak but his presence was enough to warn Grendel
that any action would be foolish.

Rufus urged
his warhorse on towards the camp, his army broiling riotously around him,
cheering and shouting as though he had just fought and won the battle
single-handed.  The Ri remained where they were, all eyes fixed on
Gleacher.  He waited for the army to pass then signalled wordlessly for
them to pack up and leave at once.  Without hesitation the warriors
slipped quickly from the battlefield, not together as they had entered, but
silently and stealthily, heading for the deep shadows thrown by the brightly
coloured tents. 

Not a word was
spoken as they stole into the large tent they had occupied and rapidly gathered
their stashed belongings.  One by one they slid from the tent and made
their way to the horse enclosure, hugging the sides of the tents where the
shadows were darkest.  The sounds of revelry were already picking up as
they saddled their horses.  The negotiations for a treaty would be held in
Rufus’ main tent and it sounded like a party was already in progress. 

Once the
horses were saddled Gleacher mounted and gave the signal for them to leave at a
walk; any faster would create too much noise and draw attention to their rapid
departure.  Mistral’s back prickled uncomfortably while they walked out of
the camp onto the dusty road leading back to the harbour.  She hated to
expose her back to any potential danger and fought the urge to look over her
shoulder every few seconds. 

She was
surprised to find herself riding beside Konrad.  His face had reassumed
its usual perpetually discontented expression.  Intrigued, Mistral looked
around for Columbine and spotted her riding three horses back, her surly
features had lost their miserable look and were fixed in the familiar
cantankerous expression she normally wore.  Mistral guessed that she must
be feeling better now that she knew she would be seeing Golden again which
explained why Konrad wasn’t drawn to her any more. 

‘Mistral,’
Saul murmured her name as he rode up on her right side.  ‘Am I glad to be
leaving that camp behind!’ 

‘Why all the
secrecy about us leaving?’ she whispered, noticing that no-one else was talking
yet.

‘We got paid
in advance and no battle happened.  There’s a lot of wine being drunk and
a lot of blood lust to be vented.  Rufus’ men still haven’t been paid and
Gleacher thinks they would’ve turned on us,’ he muttered back.

Mistral nodded
as she absorbed this piece of information and realised with a grimace that she
had just risked her own life for an idiot like Rufus and not been paid for any
of it.  Rolling her eyes in disdain at her own stupidity Mistral reflected
sourly that she was going to make a terrible warrior if she did everything for
free.  Fabian was right, she was totally ruled by her pride and her
temper.

Fabian. 
His name rang like a bell inside her.

Lost in her
own thoughts, Mistral only noticed that the warriors had begun talking amongst
themselves again when a gruff voice behind her spoke.

‘A good
day.  We got paid and no blood was shed.’

‘More’s the
pity,’ Grendel grumbled, stomping up between her and the speaker, a Ri warrior
Mistral didn’t know.  Grendel shoved past them bad-temperedly and broke
into a heavy run as Gleacher gave the order for them to up the pace; he had
still not found a horse capable of carrying his bulk, forcing him to still go
everywhere on foot. 

The warriors
cantered into the village to find it still eerily deserted.  Mistral
looked around at the closely shuttered houses and wondered if they were still
in hiding or had gone up to the camp to celebrate.  Either way, it made
their departure a whole lot easier. 

The Ri’s ship
was moored where Mistral had last seen it, looking like a piece dropped off
from Mage Grapple’s massive warship docked a short distance away.  There
were no signs of life on the warship.  It would be some time before he would
be able to leave the treaty negotiations. 

‘Is that Mage
Grapple’s warship?’  Brutus asked in an awestruck voice, dragging his
reluctant horse forward to stand beside Cirrus who promptly tried to bite him.

Mistral
nodded, staring up at the vast sweep of the wooden hull, remembering the
strange journey here.

‘But … where
are the sails?’ he asked in a curious voice.

‘It’s a
sorcerer’s ship,’ Mistral muttered with a half-smile, echoing Fabian’s exact
words to her.

She wondered
distractedly what he was doing now and quickly surmised that he was probably
stuck in the treaty negotiations.  With a sudden burst of black humour
Mistral imagined him being sat next to his love rival, Marcus of St
Martine.  She could almost see the look on his face. 

The rest of the
warriors dismounted and gathered on the quayside whilst Gleacher boarded to
speak with the Captain.  Mistral studied the Ri’s ship more closely while
they waited.  It was about half the size of the monstrous vessel that Mage
Grapple had commanded on the journey here.  Sails and ropes were being
prepared for their homeward journey.  She watched, fascinated, as the crew
scrambled up and down the rigging, appearing like insects high up above to
vanish under reams of heavy white sail cloth.

Gleacher soon
returned to the quay.  His face bore the satisfied look of someone who had
received good news.

‘I have spoken
with the Captain, the winds are fair and we sail immediately.  Load the
horses and bank the straw high and thick; there’s storm coming in.  The
Captain is confident we can run before it.  If he’s right, we should make
good time.’

‘And if he’s
wrong?’ growled Grendel.

‘Then we swim
to Elysium,’ replied Gleacher shortly.

Mistral felt a
chill run down her spine, not the thrill of fear she normally felt when faced
with a dangerous situation, but a genuine desire not to drown. 
What
the hell is wrong with me
?  she thought in exasperation.  Feeling
compassion for a lovesick Mage, fighting for free and now afraid to die? 
At this rate she was going to have to hang up her swords and take up knitting.

With that
depressing thought in mind, Mistral led Cirrus up the wooden ramp into the
gloomy hold of the ship.  Once she was satisfied that he was secure in his
stall with enough straw to pack him in during the storm she quickly made her
way up onto the deck.

The deck was
laid out in a similar way to Mage Grapple’s warship but with more provisions
for longer journeys since the Ri did not travel with the same unnatural
speed.  Chicken coops, barrels of water and fruit, sacks of grain and
crates of dried meats were all securely lashed down.  She made her way
carefully to the bow, keeping out of the way of the crew who were busy throwing
sheets of oilskin over the crates of provisions, tying them down tightly to protect
them from the storm.  Mistral stayed at the bow and watched the ship being
cast off, listening to the rattling sounds of the anchor being hauled up, the
hiss of ropes being flung from the quay to the boat and the surprising boom of
the unfurled sails filling with wind.  She remained on deck as the ship
negotiated the harbour entrance and for the second time in as many days Mistral
found herself staring out at a vast empty ocean.

Mistral turned
to look behind her, watching the harbour and the desert village shrink into the
distance.  The huge sand dunes rising up behind the village were soon just
a slither of yellow on the horizon below an ominously heavy sky of inky black
clouds.  The storm was moving in quickly.  Already the wind had taken
on a distinct raw edge, blowing icy spatters of rain across the empty deck.
 Mistral could hear the muffled noises of the Ri warriors settling in
below deck.  Despite the news of the pending storm the mood was
light.  There had been no casualties during the Contract and good money
had been made.  The unmistakable sounds of a card game getting underway
drifted up to her.  She could hear Xerxes loudly taking bets, someone was
playing an instrument, it sounded like a pipe of some kind.  Mistral had
no desire to go and join them, preferring to stay alone on the deck for as long
as the conditions permitted.  She leaned against the rails and reflected
on the events of the last week, knowing that she should feel some elation or in
the very least gratification that everyone was travelling back to the valley
alive despite the odds that had been stacked against them.  She sighed and
tried to drag up the enthusiasm to join the warriors in their celebrations
below decks, but an incomprehensible feeling of listlessness was rooting her
feet to the deck.  She felt powerless to wrench her gaze from the
vanishing stretch of land on the horizon.  The further it slipped from her
sight the more a strange numbness began to grow inside of her.  With every
rise and fall of the deck Mistral knew the ship was moving further out into the
ocean and, inexplicably, it felt like she was slowly dying with every inch it
travelled.