The Dreamtrails (33 page)

“You want the ships,” Helvar guessed.

The swiftness of his mind did not surprise me. I sent, “The Herders burned our ships when they fled the Land a year ago, and recently, they had their agents burn replacement ships we had begun to build. It will be many months before new ships are ready, but with these two ships, we could carry a force to the west coast immediately and free the people there. Once this is done, we will unite to deal with the priests upon Herder Isle and Norseland.”

“I understand what you are saying, but what if you are wrong about your friends triumphing? You have never seen the Hedra fight.…”

“And you have never seen my people fight,” I sent. “But I swear to you that if matters go ill for my friends, and the Hedra do win this battle, I will coerce the Herders aboard this ship not to recall that you helped me overpower them. They will think only that they were bewitched by mutants who crept aboard. I can even make them remember both you and Lark defending the Nine, and you and your shipfolk driving off the horde of invading monsters so heroically that any plan to punish Lark for stowing away will be forgotten. Then I will swim ashore.”

“You could do this?”

“I could, but only if the Nine and the other priests are not wearing demon bands.”

“But once they restore them …”

“The coercion will hold even after the bands are put back on. I promise. If you agree to help me, summon your seafolk one at a time and have them remove their demon bands so that I can be assured they are trustworthy.”

“My crew will not betray me,” he said, and his mind projected an image of his first shipman, a tall, scar-faced man called Oma, with dark hair rather than the usual Norse blond, who was his best friend. “Indeed, it may be
you
who has to prove that you have the power to undo what you begin, for the sake of their families.”

“I will convince them,” I promised. “But I must first be sure for myself that they can be trusted. We have been betrayed more than once by those who pretended to be allies.”

“Very well. Then what?”

“You and your men must overcome one of the Hedra. Preferably the Nine.”

“Impossible. The captain of the Hedra, Kaga, watches him constantly, and there are not enough of us to overcome him,”
Helvar answered. Then he frowned. “But I can ensure that a potion is put into his nightmeal.”

“If he is dead, I cannot use him to command the other Hedra to unband.”

“I speak only of a sleep potion. We have plenty aboard, because many of the Hedra suffer wave-sickness. Without Kaga to deal with, I think we could overcome his immediate underling, Ruge. But it might be simpler to drug all the Herders aboard, for then there will be no need to guard them.”

“We will require at least one of them with sufficient rank to deal with the other shipmaster and any Herder aboard his ship. My suggestion is to drug Kaga, if he is as formidable as you say, and overcome the Nine to remove his demon band, for once that is gone, I can use him to control the rest.”

“That can be done,” Helvar said. “Where are you?”

“It is best that you do not know until we have control of the ship,” I told him. This produced a surge of suspicion, as I had anticipated.

“If I refuse to help you, will you not simply use your powers to force me, despite what you have said about our not being your enemies?” Helvar asked.

“I would not force any man or woman or child to obey me, nor enter their mind and thoughts without their leave, save in direst emergency. Would you judge it so, sirrah, when your land is invaded by fanatics who will kill anyone who resists them and enslave the rest? The answer is yes, I will force you to help me, although there are many of you and I might fail, for I am alone. But before you judge me evil, remember it is not I who threatens your son. Our enemies are your enemies.”

Abruptly, the connection between us dissolved as rain began to patter down on the canvas. My heart sank. Within minutes, I heard the sound of boots ringing on metal and a
thud as someone jumped into the boat. The canvas covering me was wrenched away, and I found myself looking into the face of a Norselander with his unmistakable blond side plaits. He carried a lantern, and his expression in its light was so completely astonished that I wondered if I had been mistaken in thinking that Helvar had sent him to find me. I could not probe him, of course, because a demon band glinted at his throat.

He gestured brusquely for me to get up, and I obeyed, stifling a groan as my stiff, battered body protested. The Norselander immediately removed his voluminous rain cloak and draped it around my shoulders, mimicking that I should draw up the hood. I obeyed, hope burgeoning at his civility. He climbed up the ladder first, and I went after him, clenching my teeth and coercing my fingers to hold on, for I was still exhausted from my long immersion. Just as I reached the top, the hood slipped forward, blinding me. When I tried to push it back, I slipped, but before I could fall, a strong hand grasped me by the wrist. I muttered thanks and looked into the deeply scarred face of the powerfully built, dark-haired Oma, whom I had seen in Helvar’s mind.

“Thank you, Oma,” I said.

He looked shocked, but only muttered something to the blond Norselander, which sent him hurrying away down the deck, then he jerked his head for me to follow him. The rain that I had cursed now served us, for it had driven the Herders inside. Oma led me to a stairwell. I followed him down spiraling metal steps into a dark passage, reminding myself that Helvar trusted him like a brother. Oma had not bothered to get a lantern, but he was clearly very familiar with the ship, for he continued on swiftly, though I could see nothing. Then he stopped so suddenly that I cannoned into him, and I heard
a door opening. Oma guided me through it and closed it. Only then did he light a lantern.

We were now in a tiny compact cabin with a porthole above a narrow bed fixed lengthways to the inner hull wall and a single long locker at one end. Sitting on the bed was Lark, a gaunt-faced lad a little younger than Zarak, with very long, very pale hair, partly braided as Oma’s was.

I pushed the sodden hood back, and the boy gasped. “You are a woman!”

Only then did I understand the surprise of the man who had come to find me. It had not occurred to me to mention to Helvar that I was a woman, and Oma had obviously been sent to find a man. Lark was frowning. “Who did that to your face?”

“The man who betrayed the Land to the Herders,” I said.

“You are not afraid?” Oma asked in his rough and yet oddly pleasant voice. He hung the lantern neatly on a hook.

“I am not, for Shipmaster Helvar will not turn me over to the Herders.”

“You have the means to prevent him betraying you?” Oma asked coldly.

“I meant only that betrayal is not in his nature,” I said.

The bleakness faded from the other man’s ravaged face. He said, “Shipmaster Helvar asked me to bring you here. It is safer than his cabin, where the Herders might enter at any moment. This is my cabin, and it is far from the priests’ sleeping chambers.” He gave me an openly appraising look. I did not know what he saw, other than a lean woman with strings of drenched black hair, sodden clothes, and black and purple bruises. His eyes fell to the floor where a puddle of water was forming about my feet, and he frowned and bade me remove the cloak.

I struggled to obey, but the cloth was heavy and clung. With a murmur of exasperation, Oma reached out, peeled it off me, and hung it on one of the hooks set into the door. His fastidiousness reminded me of Reuvan, but perhaps it was more that there was so little room, even upon a greatship, that any clutter or mess could not be tolerated. In its weariness, my mind meandered like a lost sheep, and I tried to think what I should say that might convince Helvar to agree to help me. I swayed, and Lark leapt to his feet. Catching my arm, he steadied me as Oma laid a towel on the bed so I could sit.

Oma said, “Val—that is the man who found you—will have let Helvar know that you are here, and he will come to speak with you when he is able. In the meantime, Lark, see if you can’t go and beg some food from the cook.”

“Can I have some water?” I croaked, speaking aloud for the first time.

Lark hurried away and Oma poured water from a silver jug into a beaten metal cup. “How did you get aboard?” Oma asked as I drained the cup.

“I … swam,” I said, too tired to explain what would not be believed.

“Helvar says your people are waiting for the Hedra.”

“We knew of the invasion, but there were some aspects of it we did not expect. I got caught up in one of them, so I don’t know how things are going.”

“The Hedra all wear demon bands.” He touched his own.

“We expected it,” I said. I met his gaze and found it watchful. “What I did not expect to find was a man like Helvar Shipmaster serving the Faction.”

Oma gave a snorting laugh. “Hel’s greatest enemy is his nobility of mind. It has always got him into trouble.”

“You believe he should not help me,” I guessed.

He shrugged. “If the Herders have successfully invaded the Land, and they learn that we helped you, we will be doomed along with our bondmates and children and family. The fact that we were dead would not prevent their slaughtering our children down to the last babe.”

I nodded. “I know that there is risk in your helping me. But I assure you I can do as I told Helvar and erase from the Herders’ minds anything that will cause you harm, if things go ill for my people.”

He frowned. “You disconcert me, woman. I expected to hear you argue that yours is the right cause and we ought to help out of the goodness of our hearts.”

Before I could answer, there was a loud clanging of bells and the sound of raised voices from above. Oma stiffened at the sound of boots running back and forth on deck and in the passages on the underdeck. Suddenly the door opened and Lark burst in. “The Hedra are retreating! Your people have driven them back!”

He sounded elated, but Oma’s face was somber. Like me, he realized the consequences of what Lark was saying. The Hedra were retreating before I had begun to coerce the priests aboard, and now there would be no time to do so. I had lost the chance to win us the ships!

Lark’s delight faded as he saw our faces and understood, too. “I am sorry,” he told me. He looked at Oma and said, “Kaga has ordered our shipfolk to go and get them. All the ship boats are going out now.”

“I must get off the ship,” I said. “I will swim to shore.”

“I am sorry,” Oma said. “There is no possibility of your leaving the ship unseen now. All the priests, including Kaga, will be on deck, and we will have to go up as well. You must stay here and be silent.”

“Here is what the cook gave me,” Lark said, thrusting a bread roll and a mug of milk into my hands. Oma snuffed the lantern, and they both left, closing the door firmly behind them. I groped for the shelf I had seen set into the wall by the bed and then got up to unfasten the porthole. Rain flew into my face, driven before a rising wind, and I could hear distant shouts, but I could see nothing because the porthole faced away from the Land.

I sank to my knees and buried my head in my hands.
Fool!
I cursed myself. If only I had not come aboard the ship. How conceited I had been to believe I could single-handedly stop the Herder ships from leaving.

Hours seemed to pass as the Hedra were gradually ferried aboard, and I sat helpless, listening to their boots hammering on deck, wondering if they had merely been driven down the steps or if there had been fighting on the beach. I could not imagine what had happened ashore, and a thousand possibilities crowded through my mind as I vacillated between joy at the fact that we had forced a retreat and despair at the realization that I had trapped myself. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of an anchor being hauled in, and a chilly terror flowed through me at the thought that I was being taken to Herder Isle.

I knelt up at the porthole again and watched as the ship turned, until I saw the long wet cliffs of the Land as they hove into view, silver-sheened wherever the moonlight had found a rent in the clouds. I saw specks of orange light moving rapidly down the cliff where the steps would be and knew that must be people descending, carrying lanterns; Landfolk, for the ships were moving away from the Land on the tide. Watching the lights cluster along the beach, I wondered with a wrench if Rushton carried one of them. Certainly he would
have ridden in with Dardelan and the rebel force, for they must have arrived, otherwise, how else would the Hedra have been defeated? Then it struck me that even if Rushton was standing on the shore, neither he nor anyone else could have any idea that
I
was aboard one of the fleeing Herder ships.

I watched helplessly until I lost sight of land, and then I sank back on my heels, appalled at the mess in which I found myself. I was trembling, and I told myself sternly that it was because I was cold. Glad to have some activity to distract me momentarily, I climbed off the bed, peeled off my sodden outer clothes, and hung them and the towel under the cloak on the back of the door. Last of all, I dragged one of the blankets from the bed and wrapped it around me, grateful for the prickly warmth. I sat back on the bed and sternly told myself not to panic. Helvar and his crew would hide me, for if I was found aboard, they would be suspected of helping me. I was going to Herder Isle, but not as a prisoner.

Not
quite
, said a voice drily in the back of my mind.

I ignored it, telling myself that the Norselanders could smuggle me into their village on Fallo, and I would simply hide there until Dardelan and the others built their ships and came to deal with the Faction. I had no doubt they would come, though I dared not guess how long it might take, for lacking the ships we had hoped to capture, they would have to build them first. In the meantime, everyone I loved would think I was dead or taken captive. Unless Maryon foresaw what had happened to me.

I gritted my teeth in anger at the thought that the futureteller might have foreseen it already and chosen to remain silent. Then I chided myself that she would only have done so if she truly believed that it was necessary. But what
good could possibly come of my being carried against my will to Herder Isle? And how long could I hope to remain hidden on Fallo before the Faction learned of it? A village was not like a city where a lone person could live unnoticed. And if I was discovered, it would not just be the seamen aboard the
Stormdancer
who would die, but all those in the village.