The Fox (39 page)

Dripping blood onto the deck, Inda lowered the glass, too stunned for thought.

Jeje shuddered, sucked in a deep breath, then deliberately turned her back on the bay. “Inda,” she called across the little distance between
Vixen
and Inda’s craft.

He looked down into her face, usually a smooth brown, the straight black brows that always signaled her emotions without evasion or falsity. Inda took in the dark marks under her brown eyes, the stress lines emphasized by smoke grime, thinking,
So she will look when she is old
.

“You should know this,” she said, her naturally low voice rough as a hunting cat’s growl. “After I left you I got a whirtler from the
Garth,
which had gotten separated from
Cocodu
. Seems they were on the far south wing, where you put them, and some local in a little ketch came up. Rowed up. Said they had pirates hiding in galleys in two of the inlets over yonder, waiting to attack any boats that tried to land.” She waved vaguely at the rocky coast, where Inda could now see smoke lazily rising to brush against the underside of the clouds. “So Tau led a few of ours to fight ’em.”

Inda knew Jeje had to have a reason for speaking as she did, though he was too tired to find it. “And?”

Ramis’ ships tacked, all at once, sails flashing yet again. Jeje kept her back to them, as if not seeing them would ward against an attack; a battle she could face, but against that terrible magic she had no defense. If Ramis intended to smite them through that black rent in the universe, she did not want to see it coming.

Inda would face it, and fight it if he could. So he squared his stance as the three ships tacked steadily in his direction, cutting off the
Death
from view.

“Tau?” he asked sharply.

“Hasn’t returned that I know of. I have Barend below. Mutt patched him up. He’s asleep.”

“No he’s not.” Barend emerged, smoke-blackened, arm bandaged. “You better wrap that,” he added, in a steadier voice, pointing up at Inda’s left arm.

Inda looked down. Oh. “It can wait,” he observed, as if of the weather. “The right hurts worse,” he added, flexing his fingers, which sent a throbbing from wrist to shoulder.

Then Jeje gasped. “He’s coming
here . . .
he’s—I think he’s after
you,
Inda.” She scowled at the
Knife
as if a glare could drive it back. “How can that be? The pirates all went after the
Death
like you thought they would—everyone thinks you’re on the
Death
.” She considered what she’d seen during the time she’d sailed beside the trysail in case it needed aid or transport. “They think Fox is you. Wherever he was on the ship, that’s where the arrows all flew, and the boarders tried to get to him—”

Gillor cut through Jeje’s exhausted ramble. “He’s definitely coming for us.”

“Couldn’t be,” Inda breathed, numb with disbelief. “The
Death
is the flagship—they know it, they know the
Cocodu
—”

The
Knife
bore up, the enormous curve of its prow towering over them. Gillor had loosed the schooner’s sails to keep it out of the great Venn prow’s path.

Inda tipped his head back, saw ordinary humans scrambling along yards and shrouds—fast, efficient. Aft on the captain’s deck, in front of the two-man whipstaff that steered the Venn ships, stood a lone figure, hands clasped behind him. Within a very short time—there was nowhere to go—Inda gazed up at Ramis the One-Eyed, whose face was livid purple all down one side, that eye covered with a patch. It was hard to look past that scar. Inda didn’t even try, as the man faced him across the intervening waters, brought one gloved hand up, and made a slight sign.

The two men at the whipstaff leaned hard into their crosspieces, and the
Knife
heeled over. From the foretopgallant masthead there was a sharp
twang
and an arrow whizzed across the water to thunk into the mast a forearm’s length from where Inda stood. Ramis called across in accent-free Iascan, “Meet me at Halfmoon Harbor above Ghost Island. You’ll find a chart there.”

Inda gritted his teeth. “I will not take my fleet into Norsunder willingly.”

The one-eyed man retorted, “Had I wanted you, Indevan Algara-Vayir, you would be gone.” He even pronounced the name correctly.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” someone behind Inda was muttering softly in a high, breathy voice. The mast creaked above, and Inda thought of Nugget. He didn’t see her on the
Vixen
.

His focus splintered. He pressed the heel of his right hand to his forehead, forcing his thoughts into order. Then he staggered, not from the deck’s movement but from a sudden wave of dizziness as he reached for the arrow.

It had paper wrapped around it. “We have taken damage, ” he said, sounding far away to his own ears. “And it is winter.”

“Repair first,” came the reply across the widening gulf.

Inda croaked, “Where? We heard the coast has been destroyed. ”
The coast of my homeland—where I was told I cannot return.

“You will find what you need north at Lindeth.”

“The Venn?”

“They watched,” came the answer. “Until midway through the night. They stood off to the west.”

And that explained where Ramis had been during most of the battle. His timing, then, had been extraordinarily close. Possible questions splintered into more questions, the shards spinning away and vanishing into the fog of exhaustion before Inda could catch and hold but a single, inescapable truth: he had yet to deal with Ramis, and the Venn.

But he did not have to do it now.

Ramis turned his head, and Inda glimpsed brown hair tied simply back and an everyday woolen sea jacket before the
Knife
heeled again, tacking away northward into the wind that was, at last, shifting into its winter path.

Inda stared witlessly, thinking over and over,
How could you have known who I am—and where I was?

“Don’t give your orders yet.”

The voice came from the
Vixen
.

Inda turned. Staggered again.

“Before you start northward, I wish to be put ashore,” Barend called, his voice flat.

Inda faced east and saw the long, uneven line that formed Parayid Harbor and beyond that Fera-Vayir—and north of that, Choraed Elgaer.

Inda looked down at Jeje’s exhausted face beneath its smears of smoke grime. “Where’s Loos?”

“Down below. Took a couple of arrows.”

“Nugget?”

“Insisted on going with Tau. I would have had to tie her up to stop her.”

Inda sighed, feeling sick right down to his bones. He forced himself to look up. One order at a time. First a person. Then a ship. He was a commander, he must command.

“Barend, Jeje will take you to Parayid. Jeje, search for survivors who might have gone ashore. When you’re sure they are all accounted for, meet us at Lindeth. My guess is we’ll need a week or so to get supplies and finish the repairs we cannot make on the way up the coast.”

Jeje nodded agreement, lower lip caught between her teeth. She would never tell Inda how Barend had shivered and wept when they first pulled him out of the water after he’d led the last boarding party to take a huge brigantine, one whose decks had run with blood. He’d called for the last of their oil and set it afire, then dove overboard for the second time that night. When they’d pulled him up, he said with almost voiceless anguish,
No one should see what I saw below
, and then, as he trembled with fear while they bound his wounds, he whispered over and over,
I must go home, I must go home
.

Barend walked aft on Inda’s scout, his eyes bleak, and Inda forced himself to move, to twist the ring from his hand, and pull from inside his clothing the map he’d worn next to his skin ever since Barend bought it from the chatty old chart maker on Pirate Island.

He handed both items to Barend. “Go to Tenthen,” he said. “Go with my good will,” he added, hoping that the words would mean something to his father and brother, unseen for six years.

Barend folded his fingers into a fist and brought it to rest against his heart, then leaped over to the
Vixen,
which plowed coastward on the strengthening wind.

Inda lifted his head, saw Ramis’ ships already hull down in the northwest, heading straight out to sea. Of course he knew deep-water navigation. A powerful sorcerer from Norsunder—assuming that’s what he was—would know that.

Inda forced himself around again to survey the remains of the battle in the strengthening morning light. All red-sail ships had lowered their red banners. He was in command of the remains of the Brotherhood as well as his people still afloat.
I’ve won,
Inda thought, but he felt nothing.

Mutt appeared at Inda’s side. “Come on. Let me bind that wound before I have to scrub the entire deck. And how did that Ramis know how to find you anyway?”

No answer.

Chapter Twenty-four

THE news that the red-sailed pirate ships that had been striking along the coast were sighted heading south gave the Sierlaef his new excuse not to go home for Convocation.

"It’s Elgar the Fox, coming up from the Land Bridge to meet them, that’s what everyone says,” Nallan had added to the end of his report on his ride east a couple of weeks before.

The Sierlaef knew that shifty look. “And?”

“They say Elgar the Fox is Indevan-Laef Algara-Vayir.”

This was not the first time the Sierlaef had heard that rumor. The same claim had been in everyone’s mouth in every harbor, ever since late autumn—with muttered insults and sidelong glances the Sierlaef’s way for his failure to prevent their damned fish-smelling shacks from being burned.

That made him furious. It was easy to order battle on the plains, where you can see the enemy advancing. But it was impossible to prepare for attacks from the sea, which could come without warning at any point along the shore, a length equal to two months’ hard ride. And it wasn’t as if his forces hadn’t killed plenty of pirates—even burned a few of their ships, the times they’d been at a harbor when the red sails struck. But no, that wasn’t
enough,
it didn’t
count
for the times they missed an attack—

No use arguing inside his head. Or even with Nallan.

Indevan Algara-Vayir! He could barely remember the boy himself. One of the many scrubs surrounding his idiot brother years ago, but for some reason his uncle had taken a dislike to him. Wanted him disgraced. So he’d done what he was told—and it was not his fault the other scrub slipped and died.

He hated remembering that summer. Hated any mention of Inda Algara-Vayir because the name reminded him of that Noth boy, lying dead in the stream bed.

No one had ever said Inda was dead, just vanished. And the “Elgar” was too close to Choraed Elgaer to be coincidence. The news—rumors or not—had made him uneasy. “You go. Find out,” he’d said, then touched his own chest. “South. Coast. Inspect.”

And so Nallan had ridden off, leaving the Sierlaef to his real task: finding Joret Dei.

The Sierlaef sighed as he rode along the snowy trail, his Honor Guard talking quietly among themselves behind him, passing back and forth a flask of distilled rye to warm themselves up. Now, with weeks to think about it, he didn’t really care who Elgar the Fox was. His biggest concern was that the coastal war not end before he found Joret; the war gave him his excuse not to return home. Because he would not return home until he found her—and while he could force his uncle to cover for him, he knew his father would be angry indeed if he found out his true goal.

The last place Joret had been was at the Cassad citadel, for a wedding that he’d forgotten about. By the time he found out she’d been invited for a protracted stay, it was too late to ride east over snow-clogged roads, ostensibly to honor the newly married pair. But that time, word was she was preparing to leave.

That was two weeks before; six days earlier one of his subsidiary Runners sent east to watch the roads had reported a big cavalcade with Cassad pennons riding toward the middle plains. He’d turned right around and rode back as fast as the snowstorms would let him.

Middle plains!

The question that galled him now: Was it possible Joret would dare to ride to Darchelde?

Oh, but the
women
could cross the border into Montredavan-An lands and it broke no treaty.

The Sierlaef brooded as he rode along, not seeing the slushy ground, the snow piled along the sides of the road— forced labor from the locals, commanded by scouts a day ahead. He could feel his father’s and uncle’s anger at his not being at New Year’s Convocation, for not marrying Hadand. Well, he was in command of the west, and they’d put him there. So they had to deal with the consequences—

A screamer from ahead broke into his thoughts. He held up his hand, and his Honor Guard pulled up, the horses’ ears twitching. The horns came: Marlovan. He grimaced, disgusted at the racing of his own heart. Must have been all that thinking about pirates earlier.

Marlovans, from the east—not going north to Convocation.

It had to be the Cassad party. At last.

And Joret.

He raised his fist and his entourage began to trot until they topped a gentle rise and saw the white-draped river valley of the Marlovar below. There they were, numbering at a rough guess at least three ridings, with a jumble of lackeys at the back. A tall blond was at the front: Tanrid Cassad, heir, once one of his own Sier-Danas, though the companions so carefully put together for him by his uncle hadn’t lasted much beyond the academy days.

The Sierlaef looked past him, and his heart drummed when he made out a female with glossy black hair framed by her hood and eyes the color of the summer sky.
Joret.
At last, at last. Frustrated desire gripped him so hard his hands trembled.

The parties closed far too slowly. Then he had to wait while they mouthed their way through the formal deferences. He didn’t listen. Why had she stayed in Cassad for months? He watched Cassad with Joret, furious at the possibility that she could take
him
as a lover, a skinny, rat-faced Cassad. Anger burned up his throat until he finally turned his attention to the tall, heavy-faced, pale-blond young woman riding on Cassad’s other side: Carleas Ndarga, Cassad’s new wife and Joret’s old friend. He knew that from the days when Joret was with his mother and he’d set Nallan to find out whom Joret spent her free time with, and where, when she wasn’t attending the queen.