Shadow Over Kiriath (36 page)
And, also as on that first morning, he stood in her wake, reeling, not with surprise anymore, but with the power of what he felt for her and the fact it was undeniably reciprocated.
The next morning Abramm stood at the base of the excavated mound in the inner ward at Graymeer’s and stared up at the orb resting atop the trio of now-straightened struts. It looked no different than the last time he’d seen it: pebbled, gray skin streaked with black, the uppermost portions of it starting to shrivel. After the incident with the bedgown scarf yesterday, he’d not expected to hear any more from Maddie, but she’d surprised him by sending Philip over with her thoughts on the guardstar. It was a dry and academic missive and not very helpful. She also suggested he visit the royal gallery again, and so he had.
But though he’d examined closely the original picture of Avramm’s coronation, he’d gleaned nothing new. Several other works had been uncovered by the search team Abramm had assigned to go through the gallery after his initial discovery, and while they made it clear that at one time there had been a guardstar here—as well as at Avramm’s Landing, and even Sterlen—none indicated how they might be activated. Nor did a record of what once was provide any reassurance that the guardstars might remain in any of the three locations.
“Well,” said Trap, standing at his side, “maybe if you went up there and struck it with the Light.”
Abramm frowned at the orb silhouetted against the foggy sky. He had worn Avramm’s crown today, hoping it might enable him to see something he’d missed before, but so far it had not. Now he shrugged. “Worth trying, I guess.” Especially since he had no other ideas. With a wary glance round for attacking sea gulls, he climbed the stair to the top of the mount.
After the day the birds knocked Maddie into Abramm’s arms, Commander Weston had gone on a campaign to eradicate them, stationing men around the mound with clubs to chase them away, assigning others to net and kill those who persisted in roosting there at night, and finally setting out poisoned fish when they grew too wary to roost. As a result there was only a handful of them here today, the most, Weston said, they’d seen in over a week. Which Abramm considered as significant as their aggressive presence had been the day he’d had the mound dug out. They circled him closely now, and he thought perhaps the crown was what made him know they watched him with more than just birds’ eyes and brains.
Dropping into the dug out hollow beneath the orb, he held up his hand and directed a flow of Light at the artifact. When that had no effect, he pulled himself lightly back onto the wall, then leaned out along one of the struts to physically touch the orb so the Light could flow directly into it.
And that time he felt something. Not a stirring exactly, but a sense of hollow darkness that sucked the Light into it and would not let it out. Which had to be a lie, for he knew without doubt that the Shadow was not stronger than the Light and could not hold it captive. It had only consumed Tersius because he had agreed to allow it to, and in the end he had overcome it.
So maybe this orb is allowing the darkness to hold it. But why? And how can I change its mind?
He tried it again, with the same results.
And then the distant, flat boom of a cannon echoed across the compound, bringing him to rigid attention. He looked over his shoulder. “What the plague was that?”
“Probably Kildar running ranging exercises,” Trap said.
“I thought they’d be moving up the ammo all morning.” Abramm slid off the strut and jogged down the mound’s stairway.
“Maybe they’re ahead of schedule,” Trap said. “I know Simon’s gone out there, so maybe he’s gotten them moving faster than usual.”
Weston was nodding. “We’ll be ready to start our own practices here, right soon.” He paused. “It could also be one of the Chesedhan vessels at practice.”
“Without telling us?” Abramm asked. “They’d have to be—”
He was cut off by another boom, followed by a bellow from the ramparts, confirming that the men at Kildar were indeed firing upon something.
Despite his gimpy hip, Abramm was first up to the wallwalk, though only because the others had held back out of respect. Weston handed his own telescope to Abramm and took that of the sentry. Two flashes lit the morning mist still veiling Kildar as the fortress guns went off again—but several moments passed before they heard the paired booms of their firing.
Abramm aimed his scope south of the muzzle flashes, searching for a target, or even one of the five Chesedhan vessels on patrol out there, but only gray mist filled the telescope’s circle of view.
A sudden high-pitched scream drew his gaze around and up to a bright, smoke-spewing streak now hurtling skyward from the fortress. He stared at it in shock, watching it blossom into a fountain of white sparks against the tattered sky. It was a signal rocket, alerting Kildar’s sister fortress and the ships in the harbor that Kalladorne Bay was under attack.
At his side, Weston began bawling out orders. In moments the wallwalk swarmed with activity as the cannon crews raced up the stairs to jockey their guns into position, as the bores were cleaned, the charges placed, the balls rolled in. In the yard below Abramm heard the oven fired up to prepare the hot shot. Then it was back to tight, tense waiting as the mists floated desultorily between them and Kildar. . . .
Before long the civilian vessels that had been called to action drifted into position, a ragged line stretching from headland to headland composed of everything from three-masted merchant vessels to rowboats. Armed mostly with pikes and gaffs and whaling harpoons, they constituted little more than a physical barrier, but it was better than nothing.
Once more they saw muzzle flashes at the fortress, heard the delayed reports of their firing. Then out in the mist, another gun flashed and boomed. Three more rounds followed from the same vicinity, and finally Abramm glimpsed the topgallants of one of the Chesedhan vessels. Men’s voices carried eerily across the water, bellowing orders. More flashes preceded more booms. And still no sign of the enemy.
Are they so spooked they’re firing on themselves?
Abramm wondered.
He had his spyglass focused on the point where he’d last seen the topsails when Weston loosed an oath. “There they be, boys!”
Abramm lowered the telescope and saw them—three black, long-necked vessels, riding low in the water, each with two square sails and ranks of shining oars along both sides. They glided easily through the still seas, evading the bigger, wind-dependent vessels as if they were no more than dangerous shoals. “Hold your fire,” Weston commanded. He’d wait, Abramm knew, until they were well within range, making use of the fact that Graymeer’s wasn’t supposed to be an active fortress yet.
Kildar fired again, the ball splashing not far off the most distant galley’s starboard oars. Now came the Chesedhans sailing slowly after, with not a prayer of catching up. The galleys drew up together in the mouth of the bay, languid oarstrokes stopping altogether, both banks trailing in the water to bring the vessels to a stop, still far enough from the line of civilian vessels to gain ramming speed if needed.
“What are they doing?” Weston growled.
As if in answer, the lead-most galley unfurled a banner down its forward sail, a white background emblazoned with a red dragon rampant.
And again Weston expressed his shock and displeasure. “That’s Belthre’gar’s personal device, sir!”
“Yes.”
“Why are they just waiting? Chesedhans’ll catch them for sure like this.”
Abramm squinted through his telescope at the men standing on the deck of the lead galley, the one flying the red dragon rampant. They were darkskinned, dark-haired, dark-tunicked men, the leader of whom was made obvious by the gold threads in his purple tunic. But there was more that caught his eye than golden threads. For though the face was too small to be distinguished clearly, it still had a sharp, hatchet cast that was familiar, as was the short, broad-shouldered frame and silvery hair pulled back tightly into a warrior’s knot on the nape of the man’s neck. The figure of a man Abramm knew well.
Beside him Trap said in surprise, “Why, isn’t that—”
Abramm was already pushing off the parapet, heading for Weston, now some ten strides down the wallwalk directing the aiming of the nearest cannon.
“I want you to fire well over and in front of them,” Abramm told him. “And see that a boat is prepared. With my coat of arms hung from the mast so the device can be clearly seen.”
Weston frowned only slightly. “A boat, sir.” His inflection didn’t quite make it a question.
“I know the dock’s been repaired,” said Abramm, “and I thought you’d been equipped with a couple of officer’s skiffs.”
“Well . . . yes, sir, we have been . . .” Weston frowned a moment more, then turned and gave the order.
As the underling scurried off, Trap joined them, telescoping his spyglass back to its smallest size. During all of this, Captain Channon had been staring from Abramm to the galleys and back again. Now he said to the king, “You’re going out to meet them.”
“I am. As is Duke Eltrap. And I’ll expect you to accompany us, Captain Channon.”
Channon blanched. “Of course, sir.”
With the soldiers looking on in astonishment, they left the wallwalk and shortly were bobbing out across the gentle swells of the calm morning sea to meet the galleys. Which, Abramm thought as they approached, looked much larger now than they’d appeared from Graymeer’s ramparts. He felt a sudden squall of concern that he’d made a mistake when none of the stern, dark faces looking down at him from the galley’s railing were familiar. Then he realized they were standing stiffly, as if at attention, and he relaxed.
Sure enough, when he swung over the gunwale after Channon and Trap, he found himself awaited by two short rows of dark-tunicked men: the Esurhite equivalent of an honor guard. And standing at the end of that aisle was his former master and present friend, Katahn ul Manus. The estranged father of Belthre’gar himself, Katahn wore his Terstan shield displayed defiantly between the unbuttoned neck edges of his tunic.
Trap and Channon had parted as soon as they reached the deck, and they now flanked Abramm as he walked the honor guard stone-faced, determined to maintain as much kingly dignity as possible. Katahn welcomed him with a similar expressionless mien, until Abramm drew closer and the stoicism turned to surprise as the man’s eyes traveled slowly up Abramm’s form to fix upon his face, lingering on the scars before meeting his eyes.
Abramm stopped before him, and for a moment neither of them said anything. Then . . .
“So the tales are true,” Katahn said in the Tahg. “You did, indeed, slay the Shadow dog. Though why I should be surprised, I do not know.” His eyes ran down Abramm’s form one more time, snagging now on his left arm, not hanging quite straight at his side. “And I see it was not without cost.”
“No, not without cost,” Abramm agreed in the same tongue.
“And now you are King of Kiriath.” He paused, then added soberly, “Soon the great tales of the Games will be enacted for real, it seems.”
“But not with the ending envisioned by the Game Masters, I hope,” Abramm said, just as soberly.
And then, as quick as that, they grinned and embraced Dorsaddi style. Afterward, Katahn turned to accord Trap similar honors while Channon stood by, looking profoundly uneasy. The greetings concluded, Abramm instructed his captain to take the skiff over to the leader of the harbor defense line and tell them to stand down.
Channon left without protest, though it appeared to take all his strength of will to do so.
Abramm turned again to Katahn, relief and joy expressing themselves in exasperation: “Are you mad, sir? Coming in here bold as gulls when you must have known we’d see your ships as hostile?”
Katahn’s teeth flashed in his dark face. “A Gamer’s luck, Pretender.”
“A Gamer’s audacity, more like. Especially when you unfurled that banner!”
“It was my device before it was Regar’s. I have every right to sail under it.”
“Every right, perhaps, but it’s only by Eidon’s grace you weren’t all sunk.”
“On a day as still as this?” He glanced skyward as he gestured toward the sea. “We had the undeniable advantage. Though you surprised me with the shots from Graymeer’s. I hadn’t heard you’d gotten it operational yet.” Now he grinned. “In any case, I thought you might welcome the demonstration, just in case your people still aren’t convinced of the deadliness of our ‘primitive rowboats.”’
Abramm nodded. “And for that I thank you. It has been a most effective lesson.”
By now Channon had reached the lead vessel of the harbor defense line— a bulky fishing trawler with booms extending on both sides. Through Katahn’s spyglass, Abramm watched him argue with the trawler’s brawny, bearded captain, finally turning to gesture back at the lead galley where Abramm’s own banner had been unfurled beside Katahn’s red dragon.
Katahn, it turned out, had come up from Thilos along the coast, staying mostly in the mists to avoid just such a welcome as he’d received. They assumed at first his fleet had accounted for the recent sightings—until they compared locations and found that not all of them matched. On the other hand, he’d been well out from the shore and had seen no sign of any larger force, though he wouldn’t rule out its existence solely on the basis of that. And when Abramm related his reasons for fearing an attack might be launched on his wedding day and his suspicions about the Gull Islands, Katahn nodded in grim agreement.
“The winds have died almost completely across the gap from Qarkeshan,” he said. “And if the stories of a secret channel leading to the largest of the islands is true, you could have a big problem on your hands. Especially if they’ve got a corridor operating there.”
“This is not good news you bring me, old friend.”
Katahn grinned at him. “You are the White Pretender, sir. I’m sure you’ll figure a way. And fortunately, you are also a friend of the great Katahn ul Manus, who is a few weeks late for your coronation but brings you gifts that may aid you in your struggle.”