Chapter 44
44
K ANTHE KEPT THEIR group moving through the panicked chaos of Havensfayre. Wagons thundered down streets. Men on horseback whipped anyone in their way. Most of the crowd were simply townspeople carrying their lives on their backs. Many more cowered behind shuttered windows.
Bells clanged all around, cutting through the shouts and bellows.
Their group would have had difficulty wading against that tide, except for the large wet beast leading their way. Aamon’s hackles shivered in a tall threatening ridge. His muzzle was fixed in a rippling snarl, baring white fangs. The seas parted before his menacing growl, allowing them passage through the town.
“Where do we go?” Jace asked, voicing the question plaguing them all.
Frell glanced behind them. “We should settle that before long. Especially now that we’re safely into the depths of this town.”
Kanthe frowned at him. “We’re far from safe here.”
Moments ago, they had all heard the boom of cannon fire. They did not know what that portended, but the bombardment had pushed them harder. By now, smoke choked the air, darkening the mists. All around, flames glowed off in the distance, except to the east, toward the mooring fields. That was the direction most of the townspeople were fleeing, but Kanthe knew there was no safe passage that way. One or both of the warships would soon commandeer those fields.
“Then what do we do?” Jace asked again, gripping his new ax with both hands, sticking protectively close to Nyx.
Kanthe huffed, tired of just running. “Over here.”
He drew them all under the eaves of an abandoned shop, letting the crush of people sweep past them. He got them all huddled together, while Aamon guarded their privacy. All eyes were upon him.
Kanthe laid out their situation. “Knowing Haddan, once he has this place locked up, the legion will search the town, section by section, burning everything behind them to ensure nothing was missed. Afterward, if they don’t find us, they’ll sift those ashes.”
Jace’s eyes were huge platters. “Then where do we go? Where can we hide?”
Kanthe pointed ahead. “The Golden Bough.”
“Back to the inn? Why there?” Frell asked. “It seems a risky choice. I paid gold for silence when we were last there, but I fear such largesse will not extend if the entire town is burning.”
Kanthe laid out his points as quickly as he could. “We’re not renting rooms there, Frell. We sneak in and head straight down into the wine cellars.”
“The wine cellars?” Jace asked with a wrinkled brow.
“I checked the place out when you were all droning on and on about plans last night, plans that are plainly dashed. Where else would the drunken Tallywag of Highmount go to while away the night?”
Frell frowned at him, as if sensing his lie.
In fact, he had not gone down there to sample those dusty bottles. Instead, he went to canvass for a place to retreat to if the inn were attacked. After all that had happened, he saw enemies in every shadow now. Such fears had kept him sober and unable to sleep.
“The cellars are buried under the roots of the inn’s giant tree. It’s a maze down there. Not only does it delve deep, which could protect us from any flames that might be burning above, but there is a score of ways to slip out. A young fetcher in the red cap of the inn showed me two exits and pointed out several others. All for the cost of three brass pinches. A fee I’m now happy to have paid.”
Frell studied him for a breath, then nodded. “Then that’s where we’ll go.”
Kanthe grabbed the alchymist before the man could turn away. “Plus, there is all that wine down there. We can’t discount the value of getting good and soused if worse comes to worst.”
Frell shook loose with a roll of his eyes and pushed Kanthe back toward the clamor of the crowds. “Let’s go.”
They set off again, only pausing here and there to nab someone and demand directions. Aamon encouraged their cooperation amidst the panic.
Finally, the gilded sign of the Golden Bough appeared. The sprawl hardly looked all that different than before. Several of the glowing windows in the giant trunk had gone dark, but the huge doors into the commons remained open. Jolly music flowed out, along with the usual bellows and bouts of laughter.
Though to Kanthe’s experienced ear, it all sounded far more drunken. Apparently, there were those who were already heeding his earlier advice.
To get good and soused as the world burned.
He led the others gallantly toward those people who shared his spirit—until a growl rose behind him.
He turned to find Nyx staring off into the smoky mists of the town. Her hand rested on Aamon’s side, which vibrated with tension. The vargr’s narrow eyes were fixed in the same direction. Both his ears stood stiff and tall, their bells pointing there, too.
Nyx cocked her head, as if listening to a song only she could hear.
Jace shifted closer. “What’s wrong?”
She answered without looking at her friend. “Something’s coming.”
G RAYLIN WOKE BACK into a world of panicked shouting, accompanied by thunderous blasts that nearly sent him back into oblivion. He fought against passing out. His head ached with every heartbeat. He used each throb to steady himself. Still, his vision was like looking up from a well. The noise was muffled by a roaring in his ears.
He grabbed the neighboring seatback and pulled himself up. Somehow he had kept his grip on his sword. He hauled Heartsthorn around. He finally understood why he was still alive, still free.
Before succumbing a few breaths ago, he had committed the only act he could. He had slashed at the stanchion rope that held the row of barrels atop the nearest sloped track. The casks, full of alchymical fire, had rolled across the deck, each fuse igniting as it brushed past a wheel of flint at the track’s end.
As he gained his feet, he watched a barrel with a longer fuse explode in a wash of fire, cracking the planks under it. Other pools of flaming oil already dotted the deck. Black smoke choked the ship, trapped under the expanse of the balloon. Deckhands fought the fires with pails of sand, while knights in light armor regrouped for an assault on the crippled sailraft.
Graylin knew he had only another moment before they would charge. Especially as a pair of giant Mongers joined the legionnaires, hefting huge iron hammers.
Knowing he dared not be trapped inside the broken raft, he stepped forward and slashed the rope securing the second rail of barrels. As the casks rolled away, sparking their fuses, Graylin followed after them. He stopped only long enough to lodge his dagger into the end of the track, trapping the last three barrels in place, with the foremost one’s fuse sparking. With no more time, he leaped out of the raft and rushed along the wake of the bouncing, bobbling barrels.
The knights ahead fled to either side with fresh cries of alarm.
Unfortunately, the Gyn held their ground and used their hammers to knock barrels away, sending them flying over the rails. The pair then came at him with a roar of fury.
One bashed at the last rolling barrel, only to have it explode on impact. His huge body was blasted high, covered in flaming oil.
The other Gyn reached Graylin and swung at him. Expecting such an attack, he dodged under the hammer and spun away—straight toward a cluster of knights who had their swords lifted at him.
He skidded to a stop to avoid impaling himself.
Thwarted from an easy kill, they lunged at him, but he danced back while a count ran down in his head. When that number reached zero, he leaped sideways and sprawled headlong across the deck.
The knights, momentarily baffled, paused—when the last three casks inside the sailraft’s hold exploded. The blast shook the entire ship, jolting the deck, sending men flying. The skiff shattered, casting out fiery spears in all directions, even into the balloon overhead.
Knowing the tough skin of a warship’s balloon, he did not expect the slivers to do any true damage. Still, the barrage scattered a wide swath around him. Men screamed, some on fire, others speared clean through or peppered with shards.
Graylin felt stings in the backs of his thighs and shoulders. Still, he gained his legs, ready to bolt for one of the open doors that led down into the depths of the ship. He hoped to hide below and perhaps do more damage.
He aimed for the closest hatch, an open door in the forecastle, but a larger set of doors heaved open next to it. More knights piled out. Amidst them clambered a lone stallion, draped in black armor, saddled by a rider bearing a lance.
Graylin knew that rider, even with the man’s features shadowed under a helm.
Haddan sy Marc.
The liege general had only been a commander back when Graylin had been banished. Still, he knew the cold cruelty of that man. Haddan had been the one who had broken his arm during the gauntlet of chastisement, before Graylin was exiled. Most other knights, pitying him, had only whipped, punched, or nicked him as he passed under their onslaught. Haddan had smashed his upper sword arm with a hammer, shattering the bone into pieces.
Haddan now intended to do far worse. The general spurred his steed hard, kicking the stallion into a thunderous gallop, and lowered his lance. Knights closed behind Graylin, cutting off any retreat.
So be it.
Graylin lifted Heartsthorn, bracing a leg back.
Then the entire warship bucked as a series of explosions ripped overhead. Everyone, including Graylin, was thrown flat. Only the stallion kept its footing, rearing up and dancing on its hind legs. It crashed back down with its rider still saddled and gripping his lance.
Graylin rolled to a low crouch, searching overhead, wondering if the raft’s fiery splinters had actually pierced and ignited the mighty gasbag. But the underside looked intact. Farther overhead, smoke billowed, and flames trailed from the crest of the balloon.
Then a huge iron-spiked barrel came bouncing down along the flank of the balloon. It finally struck with enough force to impale itself in place—then exploded with a great gout of flame, ripping a hole in the side of the balloon. The force buffeted the entire warship, swinging the huge boat under it.
Graylin stumbled toward the rail, trying to keep his feet.
Haddan roared and charged his stallion across the teetered deck, refusing to lose his target, intending to spear him clean through.
Rather than continuing to fight the slant of the slope, Graylin turned and raced down it. He held out one hope. Overhead, a shadow glided out of the smoke above the fiery balloon. It was the underside of a sleeker craft.
The Sparrowhawk.
He also spotted a rope ladder unfurl from an open hatch. It draped along the side of the balloon, then swung free as the swyftship cleared the gasbag. The Sparrowhawk turned and dropped lower, bringing the end of the ladder closer.
Graylin ran toward the portside rail as the huge warship began to swing back the other way, canting the deck up under him. He fought the steepening slope. The clatter of hooves grew thunderous behind him. At any moment, he expected the point of a lance to pierce his back.
But he safely reached the row of abandoned ballista, lunged between two of them, and leaped to the rail. He catapulted himself off the top and dove headlong through the air. He aimed for the swaying rope ladder. He clutched Heartsthorn in one hand and stretched out his other arm.
He quickly recognized he would fall short. Luckily, Darant must have distrusted the strength of Graylin’s legs and rolled the Sparrowhawk, swinging the ladder to meet him.
Its length struck him in the face.
He managed to hook his free arm through the lowermost rung and caught himself, but just barely. He struggled his sword back into its sheath and snatched his other arm to secure his hold. As he did, the Sparrowhawk heaved upward and around, running for the clouds.
The ladder swung and twisted in the air, as if trying to throw him off, but he clung tightly. He looked up at the keel of the swyftship.
How is it here?
A glance across the lake showed blooms of fire still flashing in the mists. He remembered Darant’s claim about the expertise of his brigands. He pictured the Sparrowhawk ’s second skiff racing through those clouds, haranguing the enemy. Whoever was out there must be tricking the wolves into chasing their own tails, a ruse that must have allowed Darant to escape and circle around the other side of the lake, coming upon the warship from the other direction. Once here, Darant must have decided to take advantage of Graylin’s crash and make a run at the larger ship.
As Graylin spun in the air, he caught glimpses of the warship listing crookedly over the lake. He spotted the dark shape of a stallion, dancing back and forth furiously. Higher up, a good portion of the balloon puckered and smoked from the swyftship’s attack. The remainder of the gasbag seemed to be holding. He knew the balloons of warships were compartmentalized with fireproof baffles. It would take more than a rain of fire from a single swyftship, even one with the talons of the Sparrowhawk, to bring down a warship.
Still, the damage was done.
Before Graylin was swung into the clouds, he watched the huge craft limp in the direction of Havensfayre. It continued to drift lower. To reach the town’s mooring field, the boat would have to be dragged across the treetops, sustaining even more damage along the way.
But would it be enough? Would it buy Nyx and the others time to hide, maybe even limit the legion’s ability to burn the town with a crippled warship grounded at its mooring field?
He could not know, but he was certain about one thing: That wasn’t the only ship prowling these white seas.
As Graylin was pulled into the clouds, a horn echoed through the mists, rising from the foundering craft and calling to its twin.
Despite their meager victory, Graylin recognized a hard truth.
Such a ruse will not work a second time.