The Black King (Book 7) (52 page)

Arianna was the only one who seemed unaffected. She had a grim determination that kept them all focused on the task at hand. She was the one who got the Gull Riders to stay at the school. She was the one who agreed that Bridge should stay. And she was the one who actually had the makings of a plan for their return.

She had wanted Gift, Coulter, and herself to fly back on those contraptions that Rugad had used. Skya had known how to make them. But with the death of Ace and the loss of the Gull Riders, there weren’t enough Bird Riders to handle the contraptions, even if someone had been able to make them.

The group had to go back by ship.

Arianna was extremely worried about this. She felt that Rugad would be watching for them, preparing for them. They needed to find a way to survive.

It was difficult to fight from a ship and they didn’t have a lot of weapons. She and Gift agreed that they’d hold the Lights of Midday until they got back to Jahn. They had no bows and arrows, very few things that could be used to attack from the water.

Only Beast Riders and Coulter.

Gift wasn’t sure if Coulter would use his powers to attack Fey again, like he had so many years ago. Arianna had said that she would work on him. Gift didn’t know if she had been successful.

One of the Nyeians touched Gift on the shoulder, startling him out of his reverie. “Ilipe would like to speak to you.”

Gift didn’t like the sound of that. Ilipe was his best Navigator. Gift walked to the wheel. Ilipe was handling it himself. He didn’t even look at Gift. He stared straight ahead, as if he could see through the fog.

“There’s word of other ships.” Ilipe’s voice was hollow, as if he were speaking in a large cave. Perhaps he was. He was getting information from four different Sailors, and he was steering the ship.

“From what?” Gift had learned to ask long ago. Some creatures in the deep didn’t see all that well and couldn’t be trusted. Some inexperienced Sailors used them anyway.

There was a momentary pause before Ilipe said, “The Ze.”

The Ze could be trusted. “Where is it?”

Again the pause. Information took time to travel along these links. “The ships are ahead of us. Not far. But I cannot be exact.”

“I don’t suppose a Ze would know whose ships they are.”

“The Ze say ships are rare here.” Ilipe still stared straight forward. Apparently he had already asked that question himself.

Gift stiffened. Why would Rugad send ships? Was he going to risk attacking Gift directly? Or did he assume that the Assassin succeeded and Gift was dead? “How many ships?”

“Two.” Ilipe’s mouth remained open for a moment as if he had forgotten to shut it. “They are covered with barnacles and have much rot. The Ze think they are not very sea-worthy.”

In one of their conversations, Arianna had said that Rugad would have to work hard to find an army to send forth. That had apparently been true of his navy as well.

“They travel side-by-side. The Ze think that is dangerous.”

The Ze were quite opinionated. Gift almost smiled. “What else have the Ze observed?”

Ilipe paused. “Two things. First, the ships carry a lot of weight. Second, the Ze are also helping them navigate the river.”

Gift let out a small breath of air. So the ships knew about his presence as well. He peered into the fog. They were too far away to see, but close enough that the Ze were working with all sets of Sailors. In this strange fog, he might not know that the ships were near him until they were right on top of him.

He stopped a nearby Nyeian. “Get my sister, a Bird Rider, and Coulter. Make it quick.”

The Nyeian nodded and hurried below decks. Arianna wouldn’t arrive quickly—that wasn’t in her power at the moment—but Coulter would.

The Bird Rider came up first. It was Beak, an extremely experienced Gull Rider, the only one of the group that attacked the Assassin who had managed to keep her Gull self under control. She was delicate, her black hair feathered like most Riders, her large nose strange on her tiny face.

“There are ships ahead,” Gift said. “Let me know how far away they are and what kind of force they have, if any.”

She nodded, then Shifted to her Gull form as she flew away. Her clothing littered the deck like leaves on a windy day.

“What’s happening?” Coulter came out of the fog like an apparition.

Gift told him.

Coulter looked very serious. He peered into the fog. The Nyeian came up, with Arianna not far behind. The fog was good cloak right now, but it wouldn’t last. Gift turned to the Nyeian one last time. “Get me a Weather Sprite and Skya.”

The Nyeian nodded.

By the time they had finished the discussion, Coulter had told Arianna about the ships.

Arianna’s expression hadn’t changed. She had looked concerned when she had come up and she looked concerned now. Gift still wasn’t used to the immobility of her face. The old Arianna would have had a reaction, however slight, to the news.

“I can’t believe any Fey would attack knowing that Gift is on this ship,” Coulter said.

“Maybe they don’t know,” Arianna said.

“When Beak gets back, we’ll send her out again,” Coulter said. “We’ll tell them that this is the Black Heir’s ship. They have to know that Gift is on Blue Isle.”

Gift nodded. “That might work.”

“Of course it will work,” Arianna said. “Any Fey who knows about the Black Heir will tremble at killing him. But that doesn’t solve the real problem.”

“It solves
our
problem,” Coulter said.

She turned. “Does it?”

“Of course it does. They’ll let us pass. Won’t they?” He asked this last of Gift.

“Most Fey would,” Gift said, remembering his reception all through Galinas and Vion.

“So we’ll get to Jahn and we’ll be able to face Rugad,” Arianna said. “At what cost?”

Gift felt cold, and knew that the chill wasn’t coming from the fog.

Skya joined them. She walked past Gift and stopped beside Coulter, as if he had become an ally. Coulter saw Gift’s glance and gave a minute shrug, as if to say he hadn’t chosen that position. Her dark eyes met Gift’s. He wasn’t ready to update her. When had she stopped being his partner? When had he replaced her with Arianna and Coulter?

When he found out about the child. When he realized that she hadn’t been honest with him.

He turned away. “What are you talking about?” he asked Arianna. “What do you mean, cost?”

“Rugad isn’t going to send two ships to attack us.”

Skya’s eyes widened. She caught on fast.

“He’s sending them on another mission. If they kill us, fine. It’ll seem accidental, at least to those who count.”

“The Powers,” Skya whispered.

“That’s right.” Arianna’s words were clipped.

“So what’s the mission?” Coulter was pale.

Gift was shaking. He knew exactly what the mission was. He had lived through a similar one fifteen years ago.

“He’s going to burn the countryside. He’s sending them to destroy Constant.” Gift kept his voice as level as he could.

Coulter shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “They didn’t do anything.”

“He knew you were hiding Arianna there, didn’t he?” Gift asked. “He knew about the school.”

“He knew that Matt came from there,” Arianna said. “He knew that Matt was Matthias’s son. Matt told him.”

“Then we have to go back,” Coulter said. “He won’t do this with just two ships. There’ll be more troops. We have to help.”

“We help here.” Skya’s voice was soft. Gift met her gaze. She looked away from him. “That’s what you’re discussing, right? Two ships coming here. Now.”

“Yes,” Arianna said.

“Then we destroy the ships and we continue forward.”

“And if those ships destroy us, Rugad wins,” Coulter said. “He wins the Empire without causing the Blood.”

“What do you suggest?” Skya’s voice held deep sarcasm. “That you shield this ship from view? That we make it as hard to see as that Assassin back there and sneak into Jahn?”

Gift looked at her. “That might be a plan.”

She glared at him. The anger that she had been rigidly controlling flared out of her eyes, only to be dampened as if it had never been.

“Coulter’s right,” Arianna said. “Two ships can’t destroy Constant. There’s too much magick there and Rugad knows it. He has to have a larger force.”

“We can use the Riders to find out what that is,” Gift said.

“We can’t engage those ships,” Coulter said. “Not with you and me and Arianna and Skya on board. We can’t. We’d risk too much.”

“We’d need a good strategy,” Arianna said to Gift as if Coulter hadn’t spoken. “We’d have to attack them without warning.”

He nodded. “Surprise always works.”

“What about those globes?” Skya asked.

“No,” Arianna said. “They’re for Rugad.”

“We might not get to Rugad,” Skya said.

The Nyeian approached, a Weather Sprite behind him. This was one of the older Weather Sprites, one of the ones who had come with Bridge. Gift did not know her name. Her face was leathery and tough from too much time outdoors. Her features were almost hidden by her wrinkles. Like Gift, she wore a Domestic spelled cape. She looked lost inside hers, as if the years of her magick took away some of her mass.

Gift held up a hand to her, signaling her to wait until they were done.

“We will not use the globes,” Arianna said.

“We don’t have many weapons here.” Skya looked at Gift. “This is not a military ship.”

“Do you think Rugad is on one of those ships?” Coulter asked.

“No,” Gift said. “I’d be surprised if Rugad ever came back to the Cliffs of Blood.”

“That’s a hunch,” Skya said.

“If you had seen how he died here, you would understand why he would never ever get close to the Place of Power again.”

“Gift’s right,” Arianna said.

“But this is not close to the Place of Power,” Coulter said. “Maybe he meant to meet us here.”

“He sent an Assassin,” Gift said. “He’s not taking a risk on his own these days.”

Beak emerged from the fog. She landed on the deck and immediately shifted into her Fey form. Even though she was naked, she didn’t seem to be cold.

“We have perhaps an hour,” she said. “I’m not good at measuring the speed at which ships travel.”

Gift nodded. He turned to the Weather Sprite. “Can you clear the fog all at once, so that we have a direct view of that ship?”

“With help,” she said.

“Do you have enough Sprites?”

She nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Get them and prepare them. You’ll do it on my order.”

She spun and headed back into the fog.

“I hope this means you have a plan,” Arianna said.

Gift shot a look at her, hoping she understood. She blinked, a long close of the eye, as if the message were received, and then she sighed softly. She did understand. The plan took Coulter.

“It doesn’t matter how many weapons they have or what kind of Fey are on board that ship,” Gift said. “The Fey developed their fighting style because Enchanters were rare.”

“No,” Coulter said.

“Two fireballs,” Gift said, “Landing in the middle of the ships. The Ze say those ships are old and poorly kept. They’ll ignite.”

“In this weather?” Skya snapped.

Gift turned. He was angry at her too. “Then you think of a spell that will work for him. You’re the one trained as a Spell Warder. It’s your job. We have the best weapon of all here. Help us use it. Find us a way to destroy those ships.”

“I am not a weapon,” Coulter said.

“You’re all we’ve got.” Gift sounded harsh even to his own ears. But he had to be harsh. Coulter had let them down once before. Arianna had said that Coulter hadn’t wanted to go back to Jahn, even when it became clear that he had to. Gift couldn’t let him fail now.

“We can think of something else,” Coulter said. “Skya’s right. The globes—”

“Could hurt every Fey on this ship.” Arianna sounded just as harsh as Gift. “Gift’s right, Coulter.”

“Think of it as a way to redeem yourself,” Gift said.

“Redeem myself?” Coulter asked. “By killing people?”

“If you don’t,” Gift said, “we’ll die. Just like Adrian did.”

Arianna sucked in a breath. Coulter looked even paler than he had before. “That’s not fair,” he said.

“I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to save lives. Why is it when things get difficult you can never see that?”

Skya wiped water off her face. She shook her head slightly, and then said, “I might be able to manage a fireball. A small one. I have enough magick to do it.”

“One won’t do us any good,” Gift said. “We have to attack both ships.”

“Maybe that and one of the globes—”

“No,” Arianna said. “You don’t know how those globes work. I do. If they’re used wrong, they’ll hit everyone who is within range. On all the ships.”

“Then I don’t know what to do,” Skya said.

Gift was watching Coulter. He was peering through the fog again, as if he could see the other ships.

“I’ll do it,” Coulter whispered.

FIFTY-THREE

GRANTLEY USED HIS MAGNIFIER to check the progress of the
Tashka
. The fog was thick and he continually had to wipe off the lens. Still, he could see a group of figures on the deck, but he couldn’t see who they were.

To his surprise, Targil had understood the reasons Grantley had decided not to attack. She had supported him completely. She had even wondered if they should do something as they passed—some kind of uniform bow or shout in recognition of the Black Heir.

Grantley had decided against that. If they sped by quietly, the Black Heir wouldn’t even have to know what the ships were doing. Somehow, Grantley had a feeling the Black Heir did not know about the pending attack.

Grantley brought his magnifier down. He would stand at attention on the deck and watch as the ships passed. It would probably be the closest Grantley would get to the Black Heir.

Then, miraculously, the fog cleared. Above, a cloudless sky appeared and the winter-thin sunlight was almost blinding.