After consuming the goats, Hunger chased the female. She was keeping to less-used roads. Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered if she had ridden on well-used ones: he still would have been able to sniff her out of the mix. Up hill, down dale he went, all the time the scent getting stronger, which meant he was getting closer. And then he found that she had separated from her horse.
Perhaps she’d been brushed off by a branch. Or it had run off on her while she’d gone to get a drink or relieve herself. Or maybe she’d run it too hard. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He was getting closer. He would have her soon.
The road he was on now wasn’t so much of a road but a wide wash for the spring rains. Only the smallest trickle of water ran down the bed of the wash now. The last stretch had been rocky. It would slow her down, but it wouldn’t slow him.
Trees grew thickly along the banks of the wash. Hunger raced around a bend and saw a trail split off the wash and rise up and over one of the banks. He saw one of her muddy footprints at the base of the trail. He splashed through the tiny brooklet and prepared to charge up the bank. But before he could start up the trail, he caught the stink of magic on the wind.
He ran a few more paces and then stopped. The female had left the wash. He could smell that. He followed her trail up. The trees along the banks immediately gave way to mown oat fields. He could not see her, but he could see that the trail ran straight for some distance through the middle of the fields.
However, the stink was weaker at the top of the bank. He descended back to the bottom of the wash. Yes, it was here. He had found that the human’s magic all had a slightly different taste to it. River’s had carried a slightly different odor from Argoth’s down in the cellar. And the scent of the burning boy had carried, yet again, a tinge of something else. He thought he recognized this one.
He took his time, opened his mouth wide, and followed the scent a few paces up the wash. Hogan, the Koramite, had been here. And his scent had been kept in the shade from the sun. Hunger crossed the wash.
It didn’t take him long to puzzle out what had happened. Many men on horses had come this way, traveling from the fields where the female had gone, down into the wash, and then on to a trail that led up the opposite bank.
He’d smelled no magic on the female. He’d hoped she’d lead him to Sleth. And she had. He had a sure trail now. He would follow it. Besides, the female was on foot, which meant she’d leave a stronger trail. She wasn’t that far ahead. Maybe a mile or two. He could come back here and resume his chase later.
He breathed in the Koramite’s scent. Yes. He would take the sure thing first.
rgoth lay bound on the surgeon’s table, his arm throbbing with pain. Old blood stained the wooden floor in blotchy patterns and spattered up the wall on his right. Above the blood spots hung a bone saw, pincers, a long, wicked implement he could not imagine a healthy use for, and flesh needles. To the side of the surgeon’s tools sat blue and yellow bottles of nostrums neatly arranged in a three-shelf rack.
The Skir Master held Argoth’s thrall in one hand, the stomach holding Nettle’s Fire in the other. “Clansman?” he demanded.
Argoth said nothing. It was treason to possess such things. If you found one, it was treason not to immediately report it. He could say nothing. He simply looked the Skir Master in his inhuman, black eyes.
The Skir Master examined the thrall. “If I’m not mistaken, this is a pattern of the Trolumbay masters, isn’t it?” He nodded to himself. “Of course, they were destroyed centuries ago. So that means you either stole it or are the heir of a vanished glorydom.”
The door opened and Leaf entered, moving with his deadly grace.
The Skir Master looked over at him.
“Great One, nothing was found among his effects or the cargo he brought on board.”
The Skir Master shook his head. “I’m disappointed.” He looked down at the stomach. “I’d hoped there would be more like these.” He turned to Argoth. “I tasted the Fire in this stomach, Clansman. Clean, sharp-delicious. I must compliment you.”
Argoth could not speak.
The Skir Master turned to Leaf. “The link with the Fir-Noy has not yet matured. So send a pigeon back to him. Tell him we’ll return in a week with two full cohorts. Tell him there’s going to be a cleansing.”
Fir-Noy?
It was the Crab. Argoth was sure of it. But the news of the cohorts is what shocked him. It would require three or four ships to carry so many men. And even with the Skir wind, going to and from Mokad would take almost a month. The only answer was that the ships were waiting off one of the outer islands or along the coast a few days south of the settlements.
The Skir Master seated himself close to Argoth’s head and spoke to him like a friend. “You see, the spectacles are useful, not only for partially extending sight, but also for questioning all manner of lord and lady. Yet the spectacles, while they influence, do not enthrall. They’re a tool used best with subtlety. But this rudimentary thing.” He held Argoth’s thrall up. “This will bind you quite nicely.”
He smiled at Argoth. “You, Clansman, are going to die. As will your family.” He held up his hand. “I know you think they fled, but we foresaw that.”
Despair welled in Argoth.
“Disheartening, isn’t it?”
“You are a blind fool,” said Argoth. Blind about life. Blind about everything that was important. Argoth thought of the Crab. If he were in league with the Skir Master, he could have easily hidden in the woods and moved in on Serah and the children soon after Argoth left. Argoth was going to kill that one himself.
“I will seek every one of you and know every last one of your secrets. But it doesn’t need to be too painful. Cooperate, and I’ll make your wife comfortable. We’ll need a little agony, but I’m sure this arm,” the Skir Master prodded just below the break, sending pain shooting through Argoth’s body, “would feel better set and splinted. Tell me who killed Lumen, and I’ll help you.”
Lumen? “I know nothing of Lumen’s death.”
“Oh, come.”
“We know only what his servants claimed: that he lost himself to the call of the warrens.”
“You’re talking about the stone-wights, aren’t you? What’s in those caves?”
Argoth hesitated. He realized there was leverage here, something he could do with this information.
The Skir Master sighed. “I suppose you must fight. But it doesn’t matter.” He held up the thrall. “The Trolumbay patterns were crude and slow, yet for all their clumsiness they were still effective. I estimate this one will take two or three days. Two or three days and you will beg to tell me all.”
He placed the thrall about Argoth’s neck, lifting his head and clasping it at the back.
“I’m going to remove the king’s collar. It interferes with the working of the thrall. But do not think of escape. Your bonds are woven with wire. You will not be able to break them. Not even one as powerful as Leaf can do so.”
Then he released the collar. Immediately Argoth felt a change and began to build his Fire.
The Skir Master smiled. “Multiplying yourself will only multiply the effect of the thrall, Clansman. Of course, it would please me if you’d do so.”
Argoth paused. Was he lying? He didn’t know. And that realization struck him like a hammer: the Order didn’t know.
“Do you know how to quicken a thrall, Clansman?”
Argoth said nothing.
“Come, come,” said the Skir Master. “Do not be modest.”
Argoth ignored the Skir Master. All he could think of was the fact that Nettle had given most of his life for nothing, to support a hero who had no skill.
The Skir Master grabbed his face with two fingers and turned it so Argoth was looking at him. “Speak to me. How do you quicken a thrall?”
“You can’t feel it thrumming?” asked Argoth.
“Thrumming?” said the Skir Master. “You soul-eaters are so sloppy with your terminology. Weaves do not ‘thrum’; I told you before, they sing. ‘Sing’ is the right word. But that’s not quite all there is to it.” The Skir Master paused. “You haven’t ever used this, have you?”
Argoth looked the Skir Master in the eye. He’d read the old texts. He’d quickened a variety of other weaves. This couldn’t be so very different.
The Skir Master shook his head. He reached back and took Argoth by the nape of the neck. “It’s appalling, such ignorance.”
Then a giddiness washed through Argoth and a door opened in his mind. Behind it stood the Skir Master. Beyond him another door opened, and Argoth perceived the Glory of Mokad. But yet another door opened behind the Glory, and Argoth perceived… something luminous, something so beautiful it took his breath away. A woman who consumed all thought. Then she turned and noticed him, and fear mingled with his adoration. He wanted to join her, but didn’t dare. She regarded him for one more delicious and terrible moment, then all the doors between her and him slammed shut and the force of it made him gasp.
“And so it wakens,” said the Skir Master. He released his hold upon the thrall. “Two days to work its way into the fiber of your being.” He stood and grabbed the pincers from the wall. “We’ve found that a bit of pain in the very beginning speeds the process. Is that because it distracts the mind or stresses and weakens the body? We don’t know. All we know is that it works.” Then he wedged the large pincers under the break in Argoth’s arm and turned them so they pressed upwards.
White flashed in Argoth’s mind. He arched his back and gritted his teeth against the pain until he could no longer contain his cries. But by that time the Skir Master had walked out and shut the door.
____________________
For some time Argoth fought just to control himself. He moaned, panted, lost consciousness twice. And in the pain one thought rose and kept him from losing all hope: the barrels still sat below. Somehow he had to get to them. He had to get to them and then give the liquid inside one sweet kiss of fire.
Argoth multiplied himself, but found he could not break the bonds, could not wriggle out of them. He couldn’t rock the table for it was nailed to the floor. And so he lay there in his sweat and pain, praying to his ancestors to help him get just one more chance.
The Skir Master returned around midmorning. “Do you want us to splint that arm?”
He could barely control his voice. “Yes,” he said.
“A reasonable choice,” said the Skir Master, and he removed the pincers. He picked up a cloth from a cabinet and wiped the snot and tears from Argoth’s face. “It would be petty and pointless for anyone to expect you to choose otherwise since nothing but your comfort is lost.”
“I don’t know who or what killed Lumen,” said Argoth.
“We always need subjects for our experiments. In a few days I will know if you’re lying. If you are, we can put you to a great many uses. Of course, that’s after we’ve used up your wife and children.”
“I have talents,” said Argoth. “I have connections.”
“Your paltry talents I already possess. Your connections I will take from your mind.”
“I’ll prove myself,” said Argoth.
“Please,” said the Skir Master. “Your fate is set.” He felt along Argoth’s arm, then jerked the two ends out and reset the bone.
Argoth closed his eyes against the pain. He took three deep breaths. “The seafire,” he said. “That was mine. You’ll need more than facts, more than a simple recipe to make that.”
The Skir Master retrieved two thin slats to use in Argoth’s splint. He looked down at Argoth and said nothing.
“I could show you how,” said Argoth. “You could let my wife and children go free.”
“Stop it,” said the Skir Master. “I detest sniveling.”
Argoth looked away from the Skir Master’s face. “Yes, Great One.”
And in that moment he saw an opening, a slim one but an opening nevertheless. If he could only convince the Skir Master he was one easily turned.
“Why did you bring this thrall aboard?”
“To bind you, Great One. To take what we could from your mind, then destroy you to preserve our secret.”
“Ambitious. And who is your master?”
“Hogan, the Koramite.”
“The one the Fir-Noy so desperately wanted a seeking for?”
“The same.”
“And this man of grass and earth? Who does it belong to?”
Argoth paused. “We thought it was yours, Great One.”
The Skir Master stood silently looking into Argoth’s eyes. “Are you telling me there is more than one murder of soul-eaters in the New Lands?”
“I don’t know,” said Argoth.
The Skir Master laid his hand on the break he’d just set. “A broken arm is a small thing, Clansman.”
“I’m not lying,” said Argoth. “When you seek me you will see I tell the truth. Perhaps it is the Bone Faces. Perhaps someone else has begun to move their wizards. Perhaps that is what took Lumen in the caves.”
The Skir Master’s gaze bored into Argoth, his tongue feeling the edge of his lips as if he were in thought. “If you are lying to me-”
“No,” said Argoth. “No, I’m telling the truth. Why else would we risk something so stupid and foolhardy as attacking a Divine himself? Please, believe me.”
The Skir Master gazed at him a few moments more, then he shook his head in frustration, laid the splints on Argoth’s chest, and walked out.
He returned some time later with Leaf and two dreadmen.
“How long would it take to mount a fire lance on this ship?” asked the Skir Master.
Argoth thought. “A day, Great One, with a good carpenter.”
“And the seafire below, how many lances will it support?”
“That depends on the length of the battle and how hard the pump gang works. The distance too, for you have to force a large quantity to build the pressure that will send the fire even sixty yards.”
“How many?” the Skir Master snapped.
“Three,” said Argoth. “Three if they’re careful and do not waste.”
“Three?” said the Skir Master in amazement. “I saw lances on six galleys. Are you telling me that you left the seafire for those galleys behind?”
“No. We only supply the galleys on patrol. I dared not make great quantities. The Bone Faces sent many spies seeking to steal the seafire so that they might unlock its secrets.”
The Skir Master’s face turned to thunder. “So you had them load the few barrels of finished product and left the component materials on the land?”
“No,” said Argoth. “No, we have them aboard.”
Argoth could not read the Skir Master’s face. Could the man already know his thoughts? It was impossible.
“Splint his arm,” said the Skir Master to Leaf. “Then bring him below.”
Leaf took Argoth’s arm matter-of-factly as if Argoth’s arm were nothing more than a spade that had come loose from its handle. Then he splinted Argoth’s arm using strips of the surgeon’s cloths. Argoth studied the flaring eye tattoos as he worked. Each eye’s tattoo was different, one sharp-edged and jagged, the other smooth, but Argoth could not read their meaning. Leaf finished, then led Argoth out to the area of the lower deck where the barrels were stored.
The Skir Master stood, holding a covered lamp. “You’re going to teach me how to make this seafire. And then you’re going to teach my men how to use it.”
“Yes, Great One,” said Argoth. “Thank you.”
The Skir Master wanted four lances: two just off the prow on both sides, and two at either side of the ship’s waist.
Three triangular sails, jibs, were rigged to lines running from the foremast to the bowsprit that stuck out over the prow. Those jibs might prove troublesome if a crew on one of the fore lances were spewing fire and the wind changed. So Argoth convinced the Skir Master to move the lances back.
Argoth directed the carpenter and his boy for most of the day as they installed the fittings for the four lances. Three times during the day he felt an intrusion upon his mind, a constricting. He dismissed the first two as the effects of fatigue. But when the third came, he realized what it was: the thrall had begun working into him.
When they finished the last fitting and mounted the lance, it was early evening. The sun was an hour or so from setting. Argoth leaned against the railing and stared at the sails in the orange and yellow light. The ship had two masts that were three sails high, and, with the studding sail booms rigged on both ends of each yard, three sails wide-it was such an amazing press of sail.
He couldn’t see her, but somewhere above the sails in the clear evening sky, Shegom moved, the wake of her passing creating the wind that filled the canvas.
They moved south, at an angle to the normal winds. Argoth knew this because at the edges of Shegom’s wind, in an oval perhaps a league across, the winds clashed, kicking up a scud that blew westward.
He imagined the clan galleys in a battle against this ship now fitted with fire lances. With Shegom above, moving hither and thither to the Skir Master’s commands, the sails of the clan galleys would be of no use. They would have to furl them and move under the power of the oarsmen. And all the while the Ardent would race about them, blown by Shegom, throwing her deadly fire at will. She’d be a wolf roving among lambs.
Argoth knew if he followed Shim’s advice and ursurped power in the New Lands, he’d face the Ardent at sea, and she would sink anything he sent against her. She’d shut down all trade. She’d land cohorts of men on any beach she liked. And she wouldn’t be the only one. Others would be built like her. He suspected the only way to fight her would be to harness a skir and blow the fire back in her face.
There were no Skir Masters in the Order. And he saw that the Skir Master was right: such ignorance posed an immense danger to them all.
Are you finished?
Argoth turned, expecting to see the Skir Master standing right behind him. But the Skir Master stood almost a ship’s length away at the rear of the after-castle. It had not been a shout, but a voice right behind him.
Clansman?
It was the Skir Master, a whisper almost. He could have counted it as a trick of the wind, but the Skir Master’s lips had not moved. He stood gazing at Argoth across the length of the ship.
“We are finished,” whispered Argoth.
Meet me in the officer’s mess, said the Skir Master in his mind.
Argoth stood with the Skir Master at the table. Leaf sat with quill and vellum. Bowls of firewater, sulfur, and pitch lay between them.
“You will teach me how to make the seafire,” said the Skir Master. “I must be able to replicate it before morning.”
Argoth felt a light wave of desire wash over him. “Of course, Great One,” he said. And for the first time he meant it. The Skir Master was great. A fine man. No, not just a man. A master.
Moments later the desire ebbed and left him standing in shock. He’d always imagined it would be more like a battle, a contest of wills. But this thrall did not batter him down; it simply turned his will traitor.
“Well?” said the Skir Master.
Argoth brought himself back to the task at hand. “Let us begin with the firewater, but may we open the windows first? The vapors are not good to breathe.”
The Skir Master opened the windows, letting in a small but ineffective breeze. Then Argoth began. He told them how one gathered the firewater from black springs and distilled it. When Leaf had captured every detail on the vellum, Argoth poured a small measure into an empty bowl and lit it on fire.
“Such is good for firepots, but you want something that will burn on water and cleave together like tar. For that we must add pitch from pines and terebinth trees and a fine sulfur powder. Such a mixture can be extinguished only with great quantities of vinegar, urine, or earth.”
He told them how to make the pitch, how to find sulfur of the right color and grind it to powder. Leaf wrote everything up, and was as graceful with the pen as he was fighting or walking. But he did not write quickly and made Argoth repeat his instructions numerous times.
An hour passed, maybe more. They moved to the process of mixing. He showed the Skir Master how he had to mix the firewater and sulfur first and wait. He showed him how he could tell this preliminary mixture was correct by the color of the flame, and the quantity of smoke. Then the Skir Master demanded to do it himself.
Argoth walked the Skir Master through each step and admired his quick mind, the way he said aloud what he was doing as he did it.
At one point, the Skir Master stretched as if to relieve his back, and Argoth found himself standing next to him holding a chair.
“Perhaps you’d like to sit, Great One.”
“No,” the Skir Master said and waved him off.
Argoth was crestfallen. “Forgive me,” he said and replaced the chair. How could he have been so stupid as to offer a chair? Who needed chairs? Certainly not someone as strong and capable as the Skir Master.
Argoth resolved to be silent until spoken to. He stood aside, watching the Skir Master continue with the preparations.
A thought came to him: how many had the opportunity to stand in the presence of such a man? How many people had the opportunity to share their talent with him?
Argoth was among a fortunate few, and he beamed at his fortune.
In the back of his mind a resentment, an anger, twisted upon itself. How dare this man take on such honors with lies? But Argoth began to admire the fine lines of the Skir Master’s hands and the thought passed.
The Skir Master arrived at the step where he needed to measure in the pitch. He had too much. Suddenly the Skir Master stopped.
“No, I don’t,” said the Skir Master. “One measure. That is what you said.”
Argoth was disoriented for a moment, had he actually spoken those words unbidden? But Leaf looked as confused as he. Then he realized the Skir Master had heard his thoughts.
And in that moment he knew he did not have two days. He didn’t have one. The thrall was changing him, bending his desires and forming a link between their minds. It might take two days for his admiration to bloom into full worship, for his thoughts to roll open like a scroll before his master. But long before that the Skir Master-
He cut himself off. He needed to move them down to the lower deck next; he needed to get to the barrels of seafire.
The Skir Master looked up. “What did you say?”
“A semiliquid is what we want,” Argoth said. “Too thick and you’ll plug the pumps and lances.”
Argoth felt light-headed. He needed to think and not think. He walked to the window to breathe in fresh air. The sun had sunk low in the west. Over the horizon lay the New Lands and his wife. Nettle. Shim. Thinking of them brought clarity. “Great One,” he said. “We’ve been using bowls. If we want to produce a great quantity, I fear we must move to a larger, more ventilated place.”
“There are too many eyes and ears on the main deck,” said Leaf.
“Then, Great One, let us work on the lower deck, where the materials are.”
The Skir Master looked at the bowls and nodded. He turned to Leaf. “Have this moved to the lower deck. And I want something to eat.”
Half an hour later Argoth stood on the lower deck, the barrels of seafire half a dozen paces aft of where they were set to work. The cook’s boy brought three bowls of food to them. Both the Skir Master and Leaf were given beef, pickled radishes, and rice. Argoth was given a foul-looking stew full of knuckles, the hard cartilage between bones. He dipped his spoon in and saw a white hair poking out. He plucked it up. It wasn’t a hair, but a whisker still attached to the severed muzzle of a rat. Argoth dropped it back. He turned the stew with his spoon. There was an ear and a foot, and who knew what else.
He set the stew aside.
“Eat,” said Leaf with a grin.
“I’m fasting,” said Argoth.
“Eat,” said the Skir Master. “We have a long night ahead of us.”
The Master was right. Of course, he should eat. The food may be filthy, but he needed his strength to teach. Argoth dipped his spoon into the stew, filled it with a hearty helping, and brought it to his mouth. It stank, and when he put it in his mouth, he convulsed, but the Master needed him, so he crunched the knuckles and other bits and swallowed the mess down.
The Skir Master scooped the last clumps of rice from his bowl and set it aside. “It is too quiet. We need more privacy. Order pipes and dancing.”
Leaf nodded. He took the stairs above. Soon the sound of pipes and pounding feet came from above. Leaf rejoined them, this time with grog. Argoth was sure someone had pissed in his cup, but the Master had said he’d need his strength.
He brought it to his lips and thought of Nettle. The boy had pissed in his cup once as a child when they’d weaned him from diapers. He’d cleverly, if mistakenly, used it as a chamber pot.
Argoth put the mug down.
Upon the table two open-flame lamps burned. They were there for light, but also to test the mixtures. They were too large to fit through a bunghole.
The Skir Master looked at Argoth with puzzlement on his face.
Argoth cursed himself and quickly shifted his focus. It was good the bungholes were so small, he thought. Very safe. Very much like keeping the lamps away from the bed when he and Serah made love. However, the crew should be banned from this area. No telling what careless men might do. “Let us compare your mixture, Great One, with the finished product.”
“Leaf,” said the Skir Master and gestured at the barrels with his chin.
Leaf walked over to one of the barrels, easily worked its lid off and set it aside. Then he dipped a cup and brought it back to the table.
The open flame of the lamps on the table, the bowl of dark seafire, the barrels just paces behind-this was his opportunity.
“Now the consistency,” said Argoth.
The Skir Master reached out and grasped both lamps and pulled them back slightly.
Argoth dipped the thumb and two fingers of his good arm into the bowl of seafire and rubbed them against each other. He held them out for the Skir Master to see. “That is what you want, Great One. Mark it.”
“What are you hiding?” asked the Skir Master.
He should not hide things from the Master. He should tell him all.
“This,” said Argoth. Then he stuck his fingers in the flame of one of the lamps. They flashed blue, then spat into flame. Argoth brought them up.
The Skir Master raised an eyebrow in alarm.
Then Argoth mustered all his will, turned, and dashed for the open barrel.
“Stop him!” shouted the Skir Master.
Argoth raced to the barrel, his fingers aflame.
One pace from the open barrel, Leaf grabbed his splinted arm and jerked back.
The pain screamed up his arm. But he’d fought through worse. He turned and shoved his flaming fingers into Leaf’s eye, wiping seafire along the socket and nose and up the tattoo.
Leaf cried out, raising one hand to his face. But he did not fully release Argoth.
Argoth twisted and chopped down with his good hand. Then he was free. He turned, lunged for the barrel.
“Stop!” the Skir Master commanded.
Argoth froze, the sea fire inches away, his fingers blackening and blistering in the flame. The pain was immense.
The Skir Master strode toward Argoth, and horror overtook him: what had he done? How could he have betrayed his master? He almost fell to his knees. But there was one small part of him that wanted something else.
“Nettle,” he said.
“Down!” ordered the Skir Master.
Argoth faltered. Then he mustered all his strength. “Nettle,” he said. His son’s sacrifice would not be wasted. And suddenly the Skir Master’s command seemed less important than it had before.
“For Nettle,” he said more forcefully. This was for him and for Grace, Serentity, and Joy. For Serah. A battle cry rose within him, and he shouted his son’s name. “Nettle! For Nettle and light!”
His mind cleared momentarily and he thrust his burning fingers into the black liquid.
A blue-green fire raced over the surface.
Argoth almost faltered from the pain, but he snatched his hand back and wrapped it in his tunic, wiping off both flame and skin.
The seafire in the barrel spit, flashed, then, with a cracking thunder, flames exploded upward. Thick smoke poured forth and rolled along the ceiling.
The Skir Master took a step back.
Argoth retrieved the hatchet he’d stowed between the barrels earlier. He brought it up and swung it against the rope binding the barrel. It split cleanly.
Leaf had fallen to his knees, violently trying to wipe the seafire from his face with his tunic. The Skir Master leapt over Leaf.
Argoth grabbed the lip of the burning barrel with the head of the hatchet and pulled with all his weight.
The barrel tipped, fell over, and spilled the burning seafire over the deck, over the Master’s boots. It circled the man.
The blue flame raced over the surface of the widening pool.
Argoth backed away.
The Skir Master looked down at the spreading fire. Then the pool of seafire burst into flame and choked the passageway with smoke. And Argoth felt the Skir Master recede from his mind.
Clasping the hatchet, Argoth turned and ran. Men shouted from the stern. The cook stepped out holding a long knife and looked up the passageway. Argoth swung the flat of the hatchet and struck him in the face.
Argoth raced up the stairs to the main deck. Thick brown and yellow smoke billowed out of the hatches, the skir wind carrying it forward over the deck into the sailors who had recently been dancing. An officer shouted for a team to descend with barrels of sand.
Argoth leapt up the stairs to the aftercastle and raced to the stern. A dread-man stood by the helmsman. “The Skir Master!” Argoth shouted. “Help me get the ship’s boat in the water!”
The dreadman hesitated, then joined Argoth. He ran to the rope and pulleys of one of the davits, Argoth to the other. But Argoth had no time for an easy lowering. He hacked through the ropes and his end of the boat swung down and out.
The unexpected weight caught the dreadman off guard. The rope raced through his hands, burning them. He stumbled forward, cursed, and looked at Argoth with anger.
The boat had fallen, but not all the way. It dragged behind the ship, half of it still out of the water.
Argoth raced to the dreadman’s side. He acted as if he were going to hack through the tangle. Instead, he buried his hatchet in the man’s leg.
The dreadman yelled out.
Argoth pulled the hatchet out and kicked him overboard.
Men raced up the stairs to the aftercastle.
Then an explosion rocked the ship and the men racing up the stairs fell from the stairs or sprawled forward.
Argoth brought the hatchet down with all his might, cutting the rope, and the boat fell to rest of the distance to the water.
A man shouted blood-curdling intent behind him.
Argoth turned and saw a dreadman charging him, sword held high. A large eye had been tattooed on his bare chest.
Argoth brought up his hatchet and parried the blow, but the force of it knocked the hatchet out of Argoth’s hand.
The dreadman brought his sword back.
Argoth was no match for him, so he scuttled backward and over the edge of the stern. Then he was falling, watching the Ardent pull away and the dreadman looking on.
Argoth pulled his broken arm to his chest to protect it, bracing himself, thinking he was going to land on the boat.
But he did not land on the boat. He crashed heels over head into a shock of cold water and pain. He gasped in a lungful of water, rolled, then came to the surface choking.
Argoth turned, looking for the boat. A wave lifted him. He spotted it, and began to sidestroke with all his might, holding his useless arm at his chest.
The dreadman flashed down in the corner of his eye and splashed into the water.
At the crest of the next swell, he looked back. The dreadman was swimming after him, gaining on him.
Argoth swam with all his might. Two, four, eight strokes.
He looked back. The dreadman was only a few yards behind.
Another stroke and he touched the boat. Argoth reached up with his good hand, grasped the top wale, and swung his leg up.
Then it was over the wale and onto one of the thwarts.
He looked frantically about for a weapon. There was nothing but the length of rope that had attached the boat to the davit.
The dreadman’s hand grasped the wale behind him.
Argoth lunged for the rope where it lay under one of the thwarts.
The dreadman pulled himself up.
Argoth spun around, lunged at the man, and slipped a makeshift noose over his neck. He looped the rope about his body and heaved back.
The rope tightened about the dreadman’s neck and pulled him into the boat.
But Argoth knew that wouldn’t be enough. He turned, and before the dreadman could gain leverage to pull Argoth to him, Argoth took one bounding step and jumped off the side of the boat opposite the dreadman and into the water.
He attempted to swim under the boat, but he came to the end of the rope.
It wasn’t going to work. The dreadman would pull him back in. But no tug came, and Argoth burst to the surface. He tread water, fearing what would come, but nothing moved on the boat.
The dreadman could be waiting in the boat, waiting for him to swing over.
Men cried over the waves. They would see this boat and those that knew how to swim would soon reach it.
Argoth steeled himself, then he reached up and pulled himself in.
The dreadman lay across the thwarts, his neck broken, the water from his clothing dripping into the bilge.
A good soldier, thought Argoth. A good soldier gone to waste.
He unlooped the rope, pushed the body aside, then began to tie the tiller. He would not have enough time to erect the ship’s small mast and rig the sail. If he tied the tiller, he might, with one oar, row in a straight line away from the burning Ardent and her men.
With the tiller tied, he looked back at the ship. The sails had caught fire-yards and yards of fire billowing in the evening sky.
Then an enormous explosion cracked like thunder, shuddering the ship, throwing men, wood, and great gouts of fire up into the rigging and out to sea. One of the thrown men, his entire body aflame, snagged in the rigging and writhed there.
Moments later a rain of fire began to fall to the sea, great infernos and small drops, all of it streaking through the sky to burn atop the darkening sea.
Another explosion tore the air. The force of the blast, even from this distance, almost knocked Argoth into the thwarts. It rent the ship, and she began to list.
Argoth retrieved an oar, fitted it, and sat on the thwart. He was about to turn the boat to row directly away from the Ardent when a fierce wind kicked up about him. Sea spray stung his eyes.
The skir wind.
He crouched low in the boat, the wind whipping about him. Moments later a violent gust kicked the boat, knocking him into the wale. And then, as quickly as it had come, it departed with one final line, a spray that receded away toward the Ardent.
Argoth’s fingers throbbed with pain. They were black, and where the outer charred skin had sloughed off, a bright pink. They didn’t hurt as much as he would have suspected, but that only meant the fire had burned all of his nerves. He might never feel in those fingers again.
The splint about his broken arm hung loosely. He tightened it up as best he could with his burned hand. Then he set one oar in a lock, sat upon a thwart, and began to row, the red and green eye of the paddle dipping in and out of the water.
He hadn’t gone very far when he heard the Master’s command in his mind. Come to me.
“Nettle,” he said. “Serah. Serenity. Grace. Joy.” He began to repeat the names of his family members again like some murmured prayer, and the Skir Master’s compulsion eased.
The Skir Master shouted in the back of his mind.
But Argoth rowed on, the names covering that voice like a blanket.
The ship burned brightly. Any ship within miles would be able to see it. His only hope was that they were nowhere near the other ships the Master had brought. His only hope was that the Master would die before they came.
When he did, Argoth would feel it. For the thrall only had power when the Master was alive. When he died, so would the bond. Of course, he had read that the bond worked through a man like roots in the soil. So although the bond might die, the roots would remain, and it would take some time before all traces of the thrall were gone.
Argoth wondered how many thralls the Master had. Dozens? A hundred? Surely, the inlay by the pulpit was some thrall. And how many of his slaves were skir? Certainly Shegom was one of them.
He looked up and found that the sky was clear. The first evening stars shone in the heavens. He took a moment to get his bearings by them and considered trying to rig the sail.
A wind buffeted him, then another.
At first he thought it a normal gust, but it did not abate.
The sound of sea spray hasted toward the boat. Argoth turned and saw the skir wind racing to him.
Shegom.
He had heard of Skir Masters summoning whirlwinds to the field of battle, of men being picked up and carried away.
Argoth released the oar and immediately wriggled underneath the thwarts, wedging himself as best he could.
The wind knocked the boat, lifting it to one side and pushing it sideways. Then the pitch of the wind rose, screeching over the wales.
The oar jerked violently in its lock, then it broke free with a wrench and flew away into the air.
The pitch of the wind screaming over the wales rose until it howled.
The boat tipped precariously on its side and scudded over a wave. The dread-man tumbled out and disappeared beneath the water.
Sea spray kicked up, driving into Argoth’s face like needles. He shut his eyes against it and turned his face into the side of the boat.
The boat lurched, twisted, was tossed about like a leaf. And then it was airborne. He felt as if he were going to slide out and braced himself. But it wasn’t enough, he was slipping.
Moments later, through the water and spray he smelled the foul smoke of the seafire and felt the heat. Then the boat slapped down into the water. It bobbed then rocked.
Argoth opened his eyes. The sky was full of smoke.
When nothing happened, he wriggled halfway out from under the thwarts and looked around. All about him pieces of flotsam burned, smoke piling into the sky.
Someone shouted.
A hand grasped the wale.
Argoth kicked at the man’s head as he came over. He bent over to untie another oar so that he might use it as a weapon. But the boat rocked again.
Argoth turned, oar in hand.
Leaf stood before him, water running from his clothes into the boat. The skin about his eye was blackened and cracked from the burn. Raw pink and red flesh shone where much of his eye tattoo had been.
Argoth drew back to strike, but Leaf simply snatched the oar out of his hand and kicked him into the prow. Argoth’s head smacked against the side of the boat.
He tried to get up, but couldn’t seem to get his balance.
Another dreadman entered the boat.
Then Leaf reached over the side and pulled the Master up. Clutched to his breast was the weave that had been inlaid into the deck of the ship by the bowl.
Shegom’s thrall.
The Master wore no boots. The legs of his pants were scorched. The flesh underneath blistered.
A normal sailor tried to climb into the boat.
“What are you doing?” said the Master and kicked the man in the face.
Then he stepped over the thwarts to where Argoth lay and looked down upon him.
“You should have drowned yourself, Clansman. You should have tied a stone to your neck and jumped into the sea. For now you will taste the fury of the Glory of Mokad.”
“Dreadmen!” he shouted over the waves. “To me!”