Red Tide (58 page)

Finally he picked up his bones again. Another cast? Third time lucky, perhaps?

Instead of releasing the bones, he put them into a bag and made for the door. On his way to call on someone, evidently, but who?

More and more interesting.

Romany drifted after him.

His destination turned out to be just three doors distant. Mazana Creed's quarters. The emira was there, reading a book to Uriel, and the sight of the boy reminded Romany to find out who had won the duel between Twist and Strike. Later, though. Something was happening here. Mazana must have sensed it too, because she sent Uriel to his room without Jambar having to ask.

As the shaman started talking, Romany's brows knitted.

Interesting indeed.

*   *   *

Senar's tread was heavy as he climbed the ramp to the Key Tower at the western end of the seawall. He'd left the Alcazar half a bell ago claiming he needed a breath of air, but the reality was he wanted to escape the pressure building upon him from all quarters. The pressure of expectation. The pressure to choose sides. On the
Raven,
Kolloken had said a man couldn't ride two horses at the same time, yet wasn't that what the Guardian was doing? Maybe soon the different courses those mounts took would force him to surrender his hold on one or risk being torn apart. Until then, though, didn't he have to try to keep his seat?
Someone
had to span the divide between the two sides.

Foolishly, he'd come to Gilgamar thinking Mazana would recognize the scale of the Augeran threat and throw in her lot with the emperor. As he was coming to realize, though, he couldn't read her any better now than when they first met. She was shrewd enough to know the worth of the stone-skins' professed friendship, and to know what the fallout would be from her meeting with Hex. So why had she agreed to speak to the man? When Senar had told Avallon of their discussions, the emperor's reaction had been predictably explosive. What did Mazana hope to gain by goading him? Did she think she could extract concessions as to a future alliance? But concessions on what, exactly?

No, the sad fact was that she thought her best interests lay in abandoning Erin Elal to its fate. And that she did not trust the emperor any more than she did Hex. Senar couldn't blame her. How had Kolloken put it on the
Raven
?
If he has to raze every city in the League to save Erin Elal, he won't hesitate.
Avallon would stop at nothing to bring his neighbors into the conflict, and the maneuverings to that end had already begun. This morning the emperor had met with Gilgamar's Ruling Council, as well as the Sabian survivors of Dragon Day, trying to drum up support. At best Mazana would consider this an intrusion on her patch, at worst a move to undermine her authority.

Then there was the rumor that Cauroy still lived—a rumor Mazana thought Avallon had started.

Senar scowled. There had to be a way to bring the various factions together. To find common ground before the squabbling delivered not just Erin Elal but the whole continent into Augera's hands.

The entrance to the Key Tower was guarded by four Gilgamarian soldiers, sheltering in the shade of its arched gateway. More soldiers slouched in the guardhouse itself, their red jackets unbuttoned against the heat. One man lay snoring against a wall. At a table three soldiers sat playing dice. None of them looked up as Senar walked by. He scratched at the dragon scales on his neck. Overnight the plates had advanced a fingerspan toward his face, but he wouldn't think about them. That way, there was a chance they would just go away, right?

Turning left, he passed through another gateway and stepped back into the hammer of the sun. The battlements of the wall stretched before him, curving to the east. The wind was off the sea to his right, seasoned with salt and hot as the sun's own breath. When he looked down over the parapet, he saw far below a slope covered with blocks of stone. Their purpose was to blunt the break of the sea and to prevent ships—even those riding waves of water-magic—from approaching too close to the wall. The rocks were draped with fireweed, and among them were scraps of wood from vessels that must once have been smashed to ruin on them. Foam hissed and bubbled between the stones.

Senar started along the wall. Ahead was another tower of similar size to the Key Tower—the Buck Tower, it was called—and beyond that he could make out the battlements of the Chain Tower where the mechanism that raised the chains across the Neck was housed. Atop it Senar saw the arm of a catapult pointing out to sea. He halted. To his left the greasy waters of the harbor shifted lazily. Flying at the masts of the ships at quayside, he recognized the flags of Thax and White Wing, Mercerie and Andros. Survivors of the Dragon Hunt, no doubt, now marooned here until their captains found the courage to make a break for home.

A flash of light caught his eye. Docked at the western end of the harbor was the ship he knew belonged to Galantas Galair. Plated in steel, its hull looked like the armored flank of a dragon. Its decks were deserted, as was the quay at which it was berthed, but Senar knew a handful of watchers—both Revenants and Erin Elalese—would be observing the vessel. The harbormaster had reported that its crew was made up of Rubyholters. After docking, those sailors had disappeared belowdecks, and they must still be there now, along with Shroud knew how many stone-skins.

“Striking ship, ain't it?” a voice behind him said in Erin Elalese.

Senar turned to see Kolloken standing a few paces away. “Too striking, perhaps,” the Guardian replied.

The Breaker nodded. “Stone-skins were keen their arrival didn't go unnoticed. Clearly they were set on stirring up the manure, and I'd say the emira has played right into their hands, wouldn't you?”

Senar frowned and looked away.

A group of Gilgamarian soldiers walked past him on the battlements. One of them must have been a new recruit, for the red of his jacket stood out starkly against his companions' faded pink. Farther along, two more soldiers threw stones at the limewings diving for fish in the Ribbon Sea.

“Come to inspect the defenses?” Kolloken said.

Senar left enough of a pause to let the man know his presence was unwelcome. “I had some time to kill.”

“And this was the farthest you could get from the Alcazar, eh?” The Breaker chuckled, then pointed at the Chain Tower. “You seen inside the fortress—the machinery that raises the chains?”

“No.”

“Impressive sight. Each of them chains is as thick as a tree trunk. They're invested with earth-magic, too. Strong enough to take a battering from a dragon.” He stroked his crooked nose. “And it ain't just the dragons they keep out, neither. The highest chain is far enough above the water that even the most powerful water-mage can't lift a ship over it. And even if a ship
did
get past, it'd still have to run the gauntlet of the Neck, with defenders raining down missiles from both sides.”

The man had clearly done his homework. “What about an attack from inside the city?” Senar asked.

“You mean could a force take the wall and lower the chains?” Kolloken sucked at his gums. “Don't see how. You've seen how solid the Key Tower is. And if an invader took that, they'd still have to get past the Buck Tower before they even reached the Chain Tower. That's where their problems would really start. The place is locked up tighter than a virgin's corset. Portcullis, barbican, the works. Ain't no way an attacker is getting through to the chains.”

“Chains have two ends. And the tower on the other side of the Neck isn't half as impressive.”

“Doesn't need to be. All it guards is the stones that them chains are fixed into. And they're invested with earth-magic too, in case you're wondering. No point the chains themselves being unbreakable if the dragons can just rip them from the walls.” Kolloken leaned against the merlon. “In fact the only weak point in the defenses is the one that matters most: the men. You know when this wall was last attacked?”

“I have a feeling you're going to tell me.”

“Three hundred years ago. Some Corinian Storm Lord turned traitor and was tossed to the dragons on Dragon Day, but he survived and returned with a fleet of devilships.” Kolloken spat over the wall. “Three hundred years. How many of the soldiers round here were alive back then, do you reckon? The closest most of them have seen to fighting is putting down a brawl in the ghettos—or starting one, who knows. How long do you think they'd stand if the stone-skins come knocking?”

Senar made a sour face. If the texts from before the Exile were right, no one would be standing before the Augeran military machine.

Kolloken must have guessed his thoughts, for he curled his lip and said, “What, you reckon just because the Guardians got their ass handed to them eight hundred years ago, the Breakers won't put up a fight now?”

“It's not the putting-up-a-fight bit that concerns me. It's the winning. Before the Exile, there were hundreds of Guardians, and we still lost. How many Breakers are there now?”

“Enough.”

Enough?
There was no way of knowing how many stone-skins were coming, or what they were capable of. Yet apparently Kolloken had already plotted their downfall. “How long have you been learning the Will?” Senar asked. “One year? Two?”

“We'll have more time before the stone-skins arrive. If they've only just started talking to the Rubyholters, they ain't likely to launch a campaign this side of winter. That gives us another six months, maybe nine.”

A whole nine months?
The Breakers could carve their headstones in that time. “After four years' studying, I was still an initiate. And I was one of the stronger ones. How many of your friends have shown a gift for the Will? How many can wield it at the same time as a blade? And how many of
those
can do more with it than part an enemy's hair?”

Kolloken's eyes were cold. “Perhaps if you'd shared your knowledge sooner, we wouldn't be in this mess, eh? You know, even after the news of the stone-skins broke, none of your Guardian pals would teach what they knew. They'd much rather take the knowledge to their graves, even if it means those graves become
our
graves too.”

Because if the Breakers had known the secret behind the Will, they'd have given it up long ago, of course. Because power like that was so much safer in the hands of any deadbeat who could shape a thought. Senar kept his silence, though. He knew better than to bang his head against that wall.

“But you're different, ain't you?” Kolloken went on. “You'll teach me. Hells, we can start now, if you like.”

Time to change the subject. “What about the risk of the stone-skins landing along the coast and marching on the city?” Senar said. “The seawall counts for nothing if an enemy can just go around it.”

The Breaker was a long time in answering. “East of here there's nothing but rocks as far as Dian. There are bays to the west, but any force approaching that way would have to advance along a corridor of land barely wide enough…”

His voice trailed off.

Senar glanced across. Kolloken was looking toward the harbor.

It didn't take the Guardian long to spot what had caught the man's eye. On the quay leading to Galantas's metal-plated ship was a gray-cloaked figure—a Revenant—gesticulating to a companion. As the babble of their voices reached Senar, the second mercenary turned and fled toward the docks. The first figure drew his sword and retreated after his friend.

Senar's belly was sour.

Trouble. It had only been a matter of time, hadn't it?

He trotted back along the wall toward the Key Tower, Kolloken beside him.

 

C
HAPTER
19

A
MEREL SHIELDED
her eyes as she stared north. On the horizon, the topsails of the stone-skin fleet looked like puffs of cloud infused with the dawn. Perhaps Amerel should have been heartened to see those ships after a night spent following nothing more than the glimmer of their lights. But if she could see the Augerans, they would be able to see her too, and since Galantas had ordered his own lanterns doused for the journey, this would be the first the enemy knew about the pursuit.

Soon they would have to give an answer.

The stone-skin commander had pushed his water-mages hard through the night, for not once had the fleet's speed slackened. In order for the vessels to stay together, that speed must have been limited to what the slowest ship could muster. Yet it had been a challenging pace all the same, for while Barnick had had no trouble matching it, the same could not be said of the other Rubyholt mages. With the coming of dawn, Amerel had discovered that, of the other six vessels that had set forth with the
Fury,
only two remained. One was half a league behind, the other a smudge on the southern skyline. She'd heard the
Fury
's crew muttering that the missing ships had slipped away in the night. Galantas, though, would not believe it. They had merely fallen behind, he insisted, and might yet catch up. For while they could no longer follow the stone-skins by sight, their course was set and could be easily followed to its destination.

Gilgamar.
If there had been any doubt before, it was gone now. The city lay just four bells to the north. Last night Amerel had quizzed Noon on the relevance of the place to Erin Elalese interests, but he'd claimed ignorance. She was even minded to believe him. Not difficult to believe ignorance of a Breaker, after all.

The devilship began keening, feeding on the crew's growing anxiety now that the Augeran fleet had been sighted. On the main deck, a handful of men were hunched over the rail, gazing north with furrowed brows. One looked like he was ready to vomit. But fear, Amerel had heard, was a healthy thing when the enemy drew close. It taught you caution. It got the blood pumping round you so you were ready for the off.