The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [77]
Set her by the mast for now, the voice said, and Sarasper's limbs moved to obey without any bidding from him. The voice almost seemed to be speaking to someone else, someone not quite at hand…
That keelpin. Turn thus, to hide it. Now take it up, into your sleeve.
The ship was canting over now, the right-hand rail dipping under the water. The body of one crewman, huddled around the three arrows that had slain him, suddenly rolled across the decks and left the ship with a splash. Sarasper had a brief glimpse of a mouth forever frozen open, and then the rushing boat left the dead man behind.
The healer's own body was moving under the bidding of the mysterious presence in his mind, climbing back along the dry side of the boat with a speed and deftness Sarasper could not have managed by himself. Old Oak brought him to where Craer and Hawkril were struggling with the sluggish tiller.
The procurer was cutting away a tangle of fallen shrouds as Sarasper came up behind him, waited until the sudden lolling of another sailor's body took Hawkril's attention in another direction, and then clubbed down with the keelpin, hard.
Craer's body danced under the impact, and for a moment the procurer started to turn, bringing the knife in his hand up… a blade that fell from opening fingers as Craer slumped to the deck. Sarasper was already moving, ducking along the aft rail behind the armaragor as Hawkril heard his friend's dagger clatter to the deck.
"Longfingers, what?!…" the warrior roared, reaching out an arm from the tiller to pluck at Craer's belt. "Ar-"
Sarasper sprang into the air, to make the force of his blow as numbingly heavy as possible, and brought the keelpin down.
The armaragor reeled, fell onto the tiller, and then struggled to rise. Sarasper struck him again, above one ear, and then a third time, and Hawkril fell on his face, leaving the tiller to swing.
The healer stood over him, swaying, as the irresistible voice of Old Oak thundered orders. He was to lash Embra to a rail to keep her safely aboard, and then hold the heads of his two unconscious companions underwater for a good long time before rolling their bodies off the listing ship into the river. Then he was…
Flying helplessly through the air in a tangle of ropes and rigging, as the boat crashed head-on into jagged rocks and tried to ride up over them. The deck buckled, erupting into deadly slivers as long as a man stands tall. Sarasper saw the boatmaster transfixed on one shard, clawing the air and wriggling vainly, before he struck something very hard, and everything rushed away on a roaring, echoing red tide, down into darkness…
9
Chasing Stones and Starting Wars
In a high, grand hall of white stone, two old men in robes that did not fit them sat stiffly side by side at a table, not looking at each other. Across the table from them stood an ornate chair whose lofty back bore the flame-winged crow of Cardassa; a chair that would soon hold the baron himself. At his request, it was early rising for both of them. An attentive eye-like the unseen one peering at the old men through a gap in the tapestry behind that empty chair-would readily, and several times, have noticed the tightening of jaw and throat, and flaring of nostrils, that marks a courtier's stifled yawn.
The rays of the rising sun chose that moment to touch the tops of the tall, narrow east windows, flooding the room with sudden light. As if that radiance had been a signal, the tapestry stirred, and from behind it strode a richly robed man with piercing dark eyes, glossy ringlets of black hair, and large red hands that bore many gleaming rings. They flashed back the rosy light as he took his high-backed seat, glanced at the open doors of the room, and nodded at the discreet hand signal of a man in mirror-bright armor who stood in the doorway. He made a sign of his own, in return.
The armored officer nodded and murmured something to the impassive cortahars behind him. Doors that soared almost to the ceiling slammed thunderously under