Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2) (6 page)

Batumar strode to the merchant schooner as boldly as if he were an expected guest, his stride strong and sure, yet not the regal stride of a High Lord. His gait and posture transformed into that of an ordinary foot soldier. He ignored the pirates coming and going and eyed the tallest man on board, who wore a round hard hat decorated with seagull feathers.

Batumar called up, even his tone different, sounding as if he’d grown up on the docks of Kaharta Reh. “Greetings to the captain.”

The man measured him up with a cold glance. Then he looked me over and smiled, showing a single black tooth on the bottom.

“We wish to book passage,” Batumar said with the deference of a man talking to someone he is asking for a favor.

I could but stare at him, so changed was his entire demeanor.

The captain scoffed. “Ye got yer eyes up yer arse?” He jerked his head toward the red sails above him that clearly designated them as pirates. “We take nay passengers.”

Batumar reached under his cloak and retrieved a small leather pouch. “Ten blue crystals for taking us across the ocean.”

No sooner had he said the words than he was attacked from behind. One pirate grabbed his elbows and jerked them back; another held a knife to his throat. Before I could decide what to do, the third pirate divested him of his coin, then tossed the pouch up to the captain. I was left standing there, gaping, my hand closed around the small paring knife that hung from my belt, hidden by my cloak from the men.

“Twenty blue crystals,” Batumar said without fighting back. “It is all we have.”

“’Tis what I got. Ye got shite.” The captain jerked his head toward his men.

They released Batumar, one eyeing his cloak, the other his sword, no doubt picking out what they would take once they managed to subdue him and tied him up to be sold at the nearest slave market, or planning to cut him down if he fought too hard.

But Batumar did not move to fight. Instead, he pulled back his cloak and showed our food sack. “We have our own food. We will not be any trouble. I can help on deck.”

Batumar was a strong man, and a ship could always use more muscle. But the captain shook his head, returning his gaze to me with a speculative gleam in his beady eyes that I did not like. I had been sold into slavery before.

I stepped forward and held my head high, tucking in the edge of my Shahala healer’s veil so it would not flutter in the wind. “I am a traveling healer. The passage is a dangerous one. You might yet need my skill.”

He sucked his black tooth and narrowed his eyes at me. “Why are ye leavin’ Karamur?”

I was certain he already had my worth calculated, and Batumar’s, along with how many men he would lose while subduing my guard.

Yet his ship was our only chance to bring help for our people. I stood tall before him. “The siege is long over. There are few to heal, and those prefer the Lady Tera. No room for a simple traveling healer now.”

He watched me for a long moment. “And the Gate is broken. Bloody Kerghi bastards.” He spat, returning his gaze to Batumar. “Ye nay have the look of a fool. ‘Tis a mighty foolish thing, seekin’ passage with pirates.”

The two men spent a tense moment staring at each other in silence, each measuring up the other all over again.

Batumar spoke first. “Tatip the Cutthroat said you were the most honest pirate he knew.”

The captain spat over the railing into the sea. “Insulting me will nay get ye on my ship.” He spat again. “Never did like mine idiot brother.”

“He said you might say that. He said you owed him a favor.” Batumar kept his tone easy, even jesting.

“How’s that?”

Batumar’s lips twitched. “He said he will give your woman a good poking whilst you are at sea. Teach her about the ways of real men.”

For a moment, none of the pirates on board or on shore drew a breath, and, in the sudden tension, I couldn’t either. Then the hard expression on the captain’s face dissolved as he broke into laughter, and the others laughed with him.

He shook his head, the feathers in his hat waving madly as he called down, “I’ll take ye to Ishaf.” He flashed a dark, terrifying grin. “Ye’ll be as safe with us as on mine mother’s own lap.”

I sighed a breath of relief, although I had doubts about how nice the pirate captain’s mother had been if she had produced a son such as this, and another that had
cutthroat
for a nickname.

Batumar kept his hand near his sword as we walked up the plank. I followed a few steps behind to give him room to move, should this be a trap. The roughly hewn wood swayed perilously under us, cold waves churning below, as if hoping for our misstep. But we made it aboard without incident.

Some of the men watched us openly; others paid as little attention to us as they did to the seabirds. Two pirates, right in our path, were having a contest over who had more injuries. They were measuring scars, stripping off clothes. The taller one was nearly naked.

We stepped around them.

When Batumar walked straight up to the captain, I stopped a distance away, once again giving the High Lord room to defend himself should he be set upon. I prayed to the spirits for our safety.

“I am Umar,” he said, using a common name he had no doubt picked out for the journey beforehand. “The mistress’s hired guard.”

The captain spat. “How do ye know my shite-for-brains brother?”

“I did some small favor for him during the siege.”

I knew nothing of this. Since no imminent danger seemed afoot, I moved up next to Batumar, which I immediately regretted since I could suddenly smell the captain, four full steps away.

“I am Mistress Onra.” I used the first name that came to mind, that of the first true friend I had made on Kadar land.

She had suffered with me as a slave, then suffered more during the battle. But she was safely inside Karamur’s walls now, married to a kindly baker. She oft visited me at the palace.

The pirate captain watched me. “One-Tooth Tum.” He ran his tongue over his black tooth. “Was born with this one, I was. Chewed mine way out of mine mother with it.” He flashed another dark grin.

I did my best to look half-frightened, half-impressed. I suspected pirates were fond of their terrible reputations. But I had birthed enough babes to know that none had chewed their way anywhere. They were all pushed into the world the regular way, which was difficult enough without adding any horrors to it.

He must have been satisfied with my reaction, because he turned back to Batumar. “We’ll stop at Rabeen tomorrow before sailin’ out into the storms. If this floatin’ tub cannay get ye through the storms, naything will.”

The man puffed out his chest. “Welcome onboard the
Doomed
.” Then he gestured toward the sloop with his head. “And that would be the
Damned
. They but sail round the island.” He spat again. “Bunch o’ fair-weather rats.”

Batumar glanced toward the dark hole that led belowdecks. “Would there be a cabin for us, Captain?”

The captain laughed, a bellowing sound that came straight from his belly. “Ye think yer on some southern king’s barge?” He sucked his tooth, then scratched his chin. “Ye cannot sleep onboard in a storm, fer damn certain.”

He called a ragged boy of about twelve summers off the mainmast next to us. “Show ’em below, Pek. Past the grain sacks. Be quick with it, ye wee bastard.”

Pek shot across the ship, quick as an eel.

Entering the dark belly of the ship made my skin pucker.

I had once gone aboard a slaver to heal their sick cargo, but they locked me in a cabin instead and sailed with me to a cold Kadar port, sold me as a slave to a hard lord. Before Batumar claimed me, I had lived some difficult times under the rule of a cruel concubine, and I had the scars of flogging on my back to prove it.

But on the
Doomed
, we were not set upon in the dark passageway. Our only inconvenience was the rats that scurried along without paying us much attention. We had to step over them when we crossed paths. They seemed disinclined to move out of our way.

“A ship full of rats is a happy ship,” Pek said with a sinister chuckle.

I did not understand his meaning then. I came to understand it later.

We headed aft, following Pek’s wiry frame. His clothes were dirty and rent, too large on him, likely hand-me-downs from the other pirates. He pointed over his bony shoulder toward the prow. “Best ye dinnay stray near the captain’s cabin up there. He might think yer after his treasure.”

He made a sharp, cutting gesture over his throat with his grimy hand, his face lighting up with mirth when I blanched.

He led us to a cramped, dank storage room filled about three-quarters of the way with potato sacks. Already, some of the sacks were covered in mold and rot.

I poked the lumpy cargo. “Are we to sleep on top of that?”

“Aye. Best watch ’em in a storm when they roll about,” the boy said with no small amount of glee. “Likely ye’ll be crushed to death.”

A strange boy.

When he left us, whistling, I climbed on top of the stacks that reached to just under the porthole.

Batumar stayed in the small clear space in front of the door, his hand still on his sword. “If they are to attack us, they will do it either as soon as the ship is clear of the island or just as we reach Rabeen.”

My heart clenched.

He watched me with an unfathomable look in his dark eyes as the ship began to move slowly out of the cove first, then faster once it reached open water and all the sails unfurled. The sound of them snapping above in the wind reached us below in the cabin.

I smiled to make sure the High Lord did not think I regretted accompanying him on his journey. Then I shifted, trying to find a spot comfortable enough for settling in. The bags made a lumpy bed. We had room to sit but not to stand.

“Here.” Batumar laid his fur cloak down, and that helped matters once I rearranged myself anew on top.

He opened the thick-glassed porthole for me, and I watched as our island grew smaller, then soon disappeared. Sadness washed over me, and an odd sense of grief.

We had fought hard in the siege and lost many good people. The stone walls of the city had been repaired, but we barely had warriors enough to man those walls. And the enemy had learned our weaknesses, would use them against us when they attacked again.

We had to return with help. Eventually, the enemy would find a way to open the Gate from the other side. If Karamur fell, the whole island would fall. All of our people would die, or worse, become slaves.

“Why is the Emperor so set on taking our island?” I asked. “Dahru has no great treasure. The Shahala live in their huts and heal. The Kadar are great warriors, but truly, just soldiers when it comes down to it, with no special powers. Between us, the Desert of Sparkling Death, with its poisonous minerals.”

“He must have discovered that our Gate is the Gate of the World,” Batumar said, tight-lipped.

My breath caught. The hardstorms made sailing the ocean nearly impossible—if not altogether impossible; that remained to be seen. Only the Gates allowed transport from kingdom to kingdom. Each Gate opened a portal to nearby Gates. But the Gate of the World, a well-kept secret on Dahru, could reach all other Gates. If the Emperor possessed it, he could conquer the entire world with his darkness.

“He wants to be the Emperor of the Four Quarters.” Batumar’s words confirmed my thoughts.

I swallowed painfully.
We must not fail.
“All has happened according to your plan. We left the palace unseen, we found our way through the mountain, and we are on a ship.”

Batumar kept guard, dipping his head toward the door to listen for sounds outside. “Boarding a pirate ship is not the hardest part, my lady. I fear that leaving it on our own terms will prove the greater difficulty.”

Chapter Five

(Rabeen)

Safe for the moment, we both slept, exhausted from our journey through the mountain. I awoke the next morning in good spirits, but then suddenly remembered that Rabeen had a renowned slave market. Would our journey end there?

Before I could ask Batumar, who was already awake and sitting up, he held out our ravaged food sack toward me with a grimace. “The rats ate our food in the night.”

I blinked to see better in the dim light, then stared at the holes in the burlap. My stomach growled in protest as I silently cursed the rats and sat up to stretch. “Why didn’t they eat the potatoes?”

The great, lumpy pile under us did not appear the least diminished. After a moment’s inspection, I found that the potato sacks’ strong fibers had been soaked in some kind of substance that I had mistaken for mold and rot the day before.

I rubbed my fingers over the mystery coating and held it up to my nose, sniffed. I detected no scent. “I wish I knew what it is. It would serve well at the palace. And it might be useful for other purposes.”

Batumar watched me with mild amusement. He often teased me that my first thoughts were always herbs. I suppose that was common enough for a healer.

I pulled our own destroyed burlap sack on my lap, fingering it as my stomach growled again. “Do we have any crystals to purchase food, my lord?”

On our island, people still used blue crystals in trade, mined with great effort in the poison desert, as was our ancient tradition. But in most of the world, gold coins were exchanged, a material not as precious, the coins easily struck.

“Our coin should be enough until we reach Ishaf,” Batumar said.

I nodded. In truth, going hungry for a day or two was the least of our worries. I tugged at a loose thread of burlap until it came free. “I wish I had a needle.” Now that I had thread.

Batumar reached into his boot and pulled out his dagger. He turned to the wall and cut a sliver from the rough plank, then pressed his blade into the thicker end, splitting the wood, but not all the way.

He handed it to me on his palm, sidling closer. “How is this?”

I grinned my answer and wedged the end of my thread into the split that gripped the thread tightly. And then I went to work on our food sack to repair the damage.