Rudolfo sucked in his breath at the sight of them. He’d tossed and turned through four sleepless nights after his decision to pursue Sanctorum Lux. He’d known it was the best path left to him, but it haunted him. He prided himself on the inner compass his father had gifted him with-confidence in the right direction to take at any point in time. But how to choose the best of two courses of action where neither offered any reasonable assurance of success? And now, having placed his hope in Charles’s knowledge of another unlikely path, he found himself confronting Vlad Li Tam’s iron armada.
He counted the ships-a slow moving circle of six with one anchored in the center.
Rudolfo realized he was holding his breath and released it. “It’s Tam’s fleet.” But just more than half of it, he realized.
“Aye,” Rafe Merrique answered. “One flies a flag of quarantine. And the one in the center flies colors of distress.”
The anchored ship was sleeker and slightly smaller than the others, suggesting that it might be the flagship. Rudolfo couldn’t be certain, but it was as good a place as any to start. “I need to speak with them.”
He heard wariness in Rafe’s voice. “The six are at Third Alarm,” he said. “They’ve manned their guns-better than the one the Androfrancines granted me, I’ll wager-and they’ve longboats in the water under colors of parley. I’ll not put the Kinshark in cannon range. We wait and watch.”
Rudolfo opened his mouth to protest, but a muffled boom-followed quickly by another-closed it. He saw smoke and panned the spyglass until he found the source of it-the pilot house of the quarantined vessel had collapsed in a ruin of bent metal, smoke and flames. It veered off course toward the open sea. And this time, Rudolfo saw a flash and gout of smoke from a seemingly empty patch of sea in a close-range broadside shot that opened a tear in the hull at the vessel’s waterline. “They’re under fire.”
Rafe Merrique snatched the telescope from his hands. “Under fire?”
Rudolfo had spent little time at sea, but he knew full well how jealously the Androfrancines guarded the ancient war-making knowledge. He’d seen firsthand what it could do-losing a Gypsy Scout to Resolute’s hand cannon in the last war. The very hand cannon that false Pope had used to end his life. These cannons were far larger, and Rudolfo had seen them only on Tam’s iron armada and Merrique’s Kinshark.
But who else?
More explosions drifted across the whitecapped morning sea. “It’s an ambush,” Rafe Merrique said incredulously.
Rudolfo squinted ahead. He now could just make out the ships as the Kinshark made its careful approach. “How is an ambush possible on the open sea?” But even as he said it, he knew the answer. They weren’t the only magicked vessel in the water. At least two more attacked Vlad Li Tam’s iron armada-magicked and armed with bits of so-called Androfrancine light.
He heard Rafe Merrique exhale suddenly. “They’re being boarded.” Then, his voice rose. “Take us in slow; keep us hidden and out of range.” He passed the glass to Rudolfo’s hands.
Raising it to his eye, he watched as an invisible blade cut through a crowd of armed men in saffron robes. He watched as groups of three or four of Tam’s household tried to bring down even one of the boarders and suddenly, he was in his own banquet hall, his nose filled with blood and sweat and his ears full of shouting and screaming as the hurricane of assassins slashed through them to take Hanric and Ansylus.
He watched the decks cleared and watched as children were herded onto the deck by invisible soldiers. It stirred something in him, and Jakob’s face flashed across his inner eye. He loathed Tam, and yet he remembered also the tear he’d seen on that day at the bonfire, when he’d confronted his father-in-law about the murder of his brother and his parents. He’d told him that day that if he ever had a child, he’d not use him as a game piece. And yet, he did not doubt that Tam loved his children in some way-even the ones he sacrificed so readily in service to his strategic cause.
And now, Rudolfo watched as the youngest of those children-grandchildren or great-grandchildren more likely, he supposed-were rounded up upon the forecastle, on display for the others to see.
A voice blasted out across the waters. “Surrender,” it said. It made no threat and did not utter another word. The force of the word, even at ten leagues, was enough to raise Rudolfo’s hair.
He scanned quickly and saw two other vessels with children crowded in the upper decks, terror and blood upon their faces.
“We have to do something,” he said.
“We are,” Rafe Merrique said. “We’re watching and waiting. We’re one wooden vessel, Rudolfo, with no real sense of the odds.”
Rudolfo handed the telescope over to Merrique. “I don’t think we’ll wait long,” he said in a quiet voice.
And they didn’t. Two of the vessels tried to pull out of the circle but found themselves fired upon. And now, in the flashes of light and gouts of smoke, they were close enough that Rudolfo could see the dim outline from one of the large, magicked vessels that surrounded the circling ships and the deep rent in the waters from the invisible craft’s displacement.
They were too far away to be certain, but to Rudolfo’s eye, based on its size, the attacking ship could easily be another of Tam’s iron vessels.
The realization struck him. “They’ve been divided,” he said.
And even as he said it, he watched the colors lower on all but the flagship. Their engines slowed, and the remains of Vlad Li Tam’s iron armada scattered into a loose formation with the flagship at its head. When Rafe passed back the telescope, Rudolfo scanned the waters and saw that the longboats were gone now, brought in during the fighting. Men and women wearing loose silks lined the decks under invisible guard. On three of the ships, white-faced and wide-eyed young men and women heaved the bodies of their fallen parents over the railing and into the sea.
“We’ve another choice to make now,” Rafe said. “We are less than four days from the horn. Nine from where your Charles tells us is the best landfall to reach his Sanctorum Lux.” Rudolfo heard the pirate’s words, but his eyes still swept the scene ahead. Two of the ships limped and smoked now. Two of the others were sinking slowly, their crews lined up upon the deck as their longboats were lowered. The captain continued. “We either press on for the Wastes or-”
Rudolfo sighed. “We follow them.”
His first instinct had been to find Tam. Jin Li Tam was a fierce, formidable woman, and she had believed her sister would know how to counter the powders she’d used to give Rudolfo’s soldiers back their swords. The near impossibility of the task had truly not entered into the matter.
But the promise of this new library-the hope he held that it offered a cure for his son-had crept upon him unawares when serendipity had brought Charles across his path. And though now they appeared to have found Tam, they had done so under alarming circumstances. He’d not needed to decode Petronus’s notes to grasp that the old Pope-along with the Order he once served-believed some external force threatened them. Tam had believed it, it seemed, and fled the Named Lands to investigate. And now, House Li Tam had been divided or had somehow lost nearly half its fleet into unknown hands. Unknown hands with access to the same blood magicks that had torn through the Named Lands just weeks ago and the same stealth magicks that until now had made the Kinshark one of a kind.
Yes, he thought, another choice.
But was it really? The compass within him pointed squarely in one direction, and it frightened him how easily he read it, knowing full well the cost and risk. In the end it wasn’t really a choice at all, he realized.
He felt his jawline tightening with resolve even as he spoke the words again.
“We follow them,” Rudolfo said, and this time his voice was firm and commanding.
Then he returned belowdecks to sharpen his knives and ponder what they might find at the heart of this newest Whymer Maze.
Neb
Days blurred past Neb, his waking hours filled with the smell of burnt earth and stone and the steady sound of his feet slapping ground in an endless race across the Wastes. The nights were shorter now as they tried to make up distance, sleeping for a handful of hours and running before the sun rose. The landscape and the full moon seemed to accommodate them, but Neb secretly wondered if he was simply getting good enough at running the uneven terrain that Renard’s concerns about the dark were lessening. He had no doubt that the lean Waster had run plenty of moonless nights in times past.
Regardless, they ran more and his muscles no longer ached from it. The farther in they ran, the warmer the climate grew until he was peeling away layers of clothing and letting the sun bake his skin to a dirty bronze color.
They’d turned south from Rufello’s Cave, running until they were within sight of the expansive salt dunes that marked the southernmost shore. Then, they cut east and continued on Isaak’s trail.
During the days, they ran in silence unless Renard pointed out something of note along the way. At night, exhausted from the run, they ate whatever Renard found on the hunt, if there was wood for a fire. If not, they went without meat and relied upon their scout rations. Neb took advantage of the time to watch and study. He’d already learned where to find pockets of bitter water hidden beneath the veneer of desolation and had learned a half dozen ways to extract it and treat it to strip any madness or disease from it. He’d learned where to find bits of root and bramble that could sustain him and how to harvest the black root they chewed throughout the day should he find himself stranded and out of the powerful earth magick.
And he realized he learned differently now. What had once been best passed to him through books, Neb now easily retained just from watching it done. He wasn’t sure why, but the Waste called strength out in him that he’d never experienced before. His mind was focused, clear and calm. His body felt like a lute coming into tune, and his sleep, dreamless and deep, was more restful than any he’d ever known.
This place is changing me, and I like what I am becoming. He felt the truth of the thought. Yet, in the corner of his heart, he remembered Winters and it wrenched him.
They ran and ran, and on the fourth night since they left Rufello’s Cave, they stopped at the edge of a chasm that, according to Renard, divided the continent. Nightfall had already swallowed the deep canyon, but looking south from the edge of it, Neb saw what he thought might be the wide and dangerous sea east of the horn-haunted waters the first settlers referred to as the Ghosting Crests. Neb had heard tell of secret Androfrancine-financed voyages around the horn, but these were largely apocryphal. Though reason dictated that such a crossing was possible, history was replete with tales of vessels lost in those waters to the ghosts that swam them.
Renard turned north, and Neb followed him. By the time the sun vanished entirely and the moon rose, they reached a high, arching bridge that spanned the gap. Blue and green light reflected from it.
They slowed and stopped at the base of it.
“It’s said that one of the Younger Gods was awakened by Y’Zir’s spell when it broke the world open again. They say he placed this bridge to aid those few survivors that they might find their way west.” His voice deepened to nearly a growl. “At least until the Androfrancines manned the Wall and stopped the gate shut but for their own interests.”
It was the first time Neb had heard bitterness in the man’s voice. He noted it but said nothing. Instead, he nodded to the bridge ahead. “How long ago did they pass this way?”
Renard smiled. “Hours. if that. We’re close again.”
Neb nodded, and they set out at a run. They’d crested the apex of the bridge when they heard strange sounds from the east and below. They slowed, and Renard brought out his thorn rifle, walking a few paces ahead of Neb. As they drew closer to the noise, they saw the dim amber glow of glass eyes fluttering below them and heard the wheezing of bellows. Reedy, metallic voices met their ears.
“You must listen to reason, Cousin, and turn back with your colleagues now,” the first voice said. “You are not authorized to travel beyond this geographical point. Message follows: Under holy unction I declare the lands beyond D’Anjite’s Bridge closed, under seal and signet, Introspect III, Holy See of the Androfrancine Order and Seated King of Windwir.” The voice was flat and matter-of-fact.