The Sorcerer's Vengeance: Book 4 of the Sorcerer's Path (4 page)

“We made it! I really was not sure we would. I half expected to get stuck out in the middle with no way back or forward!” Azerick exclaimed, breathing heavily and trying to catch his breath.

“You didn’t think we would make it and you tried it anyway?” Borik demanded. “What in the fiery plains of the abyss is wrong with you wizards? Are you all crazy?”

“A little bit I suppose, to varying degrees,” Azerick agreed lightly.

“Let’s go find the horses and make camp. I don’t know about you all, but I’m exhausted and I don’t feel like traveling very far right now,” Maude suggested.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Azerick agreed. “Let’s get a little ways away from here before we make camp.”

There was no argument as they set off to find a good place to collapse and bleed off the exhaustion they were all feeling.

CHAPTER
2

Zeb sailed north on the
Iron Shark
with his most experienced crew and the biggest, strongest men he could find in the city. As usual,
Iron Shark
drew strange looks whenever she came in or left port. The ship rode lower in the water when empty than many did when carrying a moderate load of cargo. Her iron-capped prow was not unheard of amongst warships designed to ram enemy vessels but was never seen on a merchant freighter. Coupled with the four sturdy booms, one on each end and sides of the ship, from which swung an iron spear point that must have weighed well over a thousand pounds apiece, she was an odd vessel to be sure.

Oars stuck out of her sides like the legs of a centipede and propelled the ship out of the harbor, hard going even with her two masts full of sails to help push it along. The oars were another thing that distinguished the S
hark
form other ships. Its oars were higher up the hull than normal and canted downward where they struck the water rather close to the ship’s sides. Inside, the oar handles angled so that the rowers still enjoyed, if the word enjoy could be used in conjunction with the onerous task of rowing, a natural angle and rowing stroke.

Despite her great weight, the wind was good and blew strongly northward as it usually did time of year, pushing the ship towards the frozen wastelands. Two weeks into their voyage, the air was freezing and ice coated the deck, sails, and rigging. Men climbed the treacherous rigging, wielding flat paddles with which they beat the ropes and sails to clear away the ice that enveloped them.

Many of the sails and much of the rigging had been taken down and the rowers put to work propelling the ship to avoid the large icebergs that began populating the sea. This is precisely why Zeb brought only his most experienced and trustworthy sailors. The slightest mistake and even the
Shark’
s reinforced hull could be torn out from under her by one of the floating mountains of ice.

Zeb kept the ship pointed towards the rising, snow-covered granite peaks in the distance. This was his second year and knew where to find the bay they would set anchor in and begin their hunting. Part of the crew stayed near the ship and set out in longboats to hunt the white fur seals whose soft pelts brought a fortune on the open market. He and Toron took the smallest contingent onto the land and hunt arctic foxes, snow hares, and the great ice bears.

There was also some very good fishing to be had near the mouth of a large river that fed into the bay. The salmon’s rich pink flesh was highly coveted by all of the southern people that could afford it. The northern lands were harsh and unforgivable but rich in the bounty that it offered. Even now, a large pod of wolf whales swam next to the big ship, curious as to who had invaded their undisputed territory. Their great black and white forms undulated in and out of the water, occasionally displaying their grace and power by launching their huge, multi-ton bodies high enough into the air that some of the sailors were afraid they might one day leap onto the deck of the ship and devour them.

Such was never the case. Even when the men went out in the longboats the sea wolves never acted aggressively even though they could easily shatter the vessel into splinters. Zeb and his crew spent three days watching the creatures hunt and found their intelligence and use of group tactics even more amazing than their awesome size.

He and his men once watched in awe when a large seal tried to take refuge on a sheet of ice. Up to a dozen of the wolf whales charged towards the floating haven at incredible speed, all as perfectly aligned as a charging group of elite cavalry lancers. They breached the surface and pushed their bodied onto the edge of the ice and sent a wave of water flooding across its surface until finally the hapless seal was washed over the side into the maws of the rest of the pod waiting on the other side.

Even aboard his sturdy ship, the sea wolves had nothing to fear from the humans. Although the sailors did take an occasional whale or two, their kind was safe from the human’s predation as they lacked the large oil sacks of their kin that was so coveted. The wolf whales escorted the
Iron Shark
all the way into the bay before growing bored with the strange giant fish that swam atop the water and went to go find something to eat.

It was late afternoon bordering on evening, which came rather early this time of the year, when they finally dropped anchor just two hundred yards from shore. They would wait until morning before setting out in their separate directions for the hunt. The shoreline was lost from sight by the thickening fog that rolled in before the night was able to steal it away first.

“Captain Zeb,” Balor called out, “you might want to take a look at this.”

The captain had been on his way to his quarters located at deck level below the low stern castle and arms room. Zeb turned around at his first mate’s beckoning.

“What is it, lad?”

“Look out there, maybe a quarter mile inland,” Balor instructed, pointing a finger out past the fog-blanketed shoreline.

Zeb squinted at the dark, murky landscape. His vision was not as good as it once was, and although the cold evening air pushed the fog down to a height of five or six feet, it was still difficult for him to make anything out beyond a slight contrast in the few shrubs and pathetic trees that managed to sprout up far enough to peek out over the miasma.

The mists parted just slightly and Zeb was able to barely make out what had attracted his first mate’s attention. “Ah, I see it. You make it out to be a small fire?”

“Most likely; it flickers too much to be a lamp and is a bit large for a torch.”

The mists closed back in and swallowed the only bit of color not white in the entire landscape. “Not much to see is it? I’m impressed you spotted it in this soup.”

“It was Derran who brought it to my attention, otherwise I doubt I would have seen it myself,” Balor replied.

“That figures. What I wouldn’t give to have that boy’s eyes. I’d trade him ten years of my experience for them and ten years of his youth. Make that fifteen,” Zeb said with a smile.

“Who would be this far north, the Thule maybe?” Balor asked, referencing the small, tan-skinned nomadic people that lived at least part of the year in the most northern extremes of the known land and beyond.

Zeb shook his head. “From what I know of them, which like most people is very little, they should be further east and south chasing the caribou herds. The Eislanders should be much further south this time of year, but I only know a little more of those people than I do the Thule. I do know enough that between the two we had better hope it’s a Thule party.”

Balor nodded his agreement. The small Thule were a strange and reclusive people but friendly when they chose to approach the few Utgardr, or southern people, that managed to travel that far north. The Eislanders on the other hand were the exact opposite. Fair of skin and hair, they were a huge and aggressive people, rivaling Toron in size and strength. The only thing that distinguished them from the dark-haired barbarians further to the south and east was a fair sophistication in ship and weapon manufacturing.

Eislanders originally hailed from a series of rocky and inhospitable islands to the far north and hundreds of miles west of Valeria. However, in the past hundred years or so they established a few large settlements four or five hundred miles to the south of where they were now near the coastline.

They made occasional raids to the south as far as North Haven in the past, but the city has grown too large and the southerners’ ships too advanced for their pirating to be profitable. Most of their raids these days were limited to their barbarian neighbors and northern island nations closer to their ancestral homelands. At least those that still plied the seas.

A few large groups had moved further inland, which created tensions between them and the scattered Akkadian barbarian tribes. The name Akkadian was a term used by the elves as a reference for all of the human barbarians of the northern great forest since the Akkadians themselves have no name for their people other than that used for individual tribes.

The Akkadians could be dealt with fairly so long as you were invited into their territory. The few people that made the long and arduous journey far enough north to trade steel for raw gold or the occasional gems often had to camp for days just outside the nearest tribe’s territory, awaiting one of the tribal representatives to examine their goods and decide if they were desirable enough to allow them further into their territory where a temporary trade camp would be established miles from the nearest Akkadian village.

Zeb seriously doubted that any Akkadian band had ventured this far north, far from their bountiful home ranges, but it was only slightly more unlikely than it being Eislanders. The only thing that Zeb could think of was that perhaps an Eislander or Akkadian had learned the value of the pristine white furs of the far northern animals and had struck out to bring such rare treasures home.

If that were the case, then there should be little cause for conflict. Neither party would claim this remote land as a personal hunting ground. Eislanders may choose to raid them if they thought they had the numbers and the spoils were worth the potential losses. Akkadians were not above using bows in both hunting or warfare but Eislanders used missile weapons purely for hunting, disdaining their use in combat as a coward’s weapon which gave the sailors a slight advantage if it came to blows.

As the two sailors pondered the significance of the campfire, several pairs of blue eyes watched the ship’s lanterns from the shoreline, their heavy white and grey furs rendering them nearly invisible to anyone more than a few feet away. Large, calloused hands twisted on the smooth wooden hafts of the wicked battleaxes they carried.

“What do you make of the Utgardr ship, Magni?” one of the powerfully built Eislanders asked. “Do you think they are the ones responsible and followed us north to continue their evil black magics?”

“”I do not know, Modi,” the other replied through his thick, blond, braided beard, “but if they have, we will find out soon enough. Then we will spill so much of their blood that the snows will melt and the rivers will run red. By Djev’s radiant axe, I swear it!”

There were no further signs of human life for the rest of the night nor was there in the morning as the sailors loaded up their longboats with the gear each party would need for their hunting forays. Zeb and Toron’s party required the most equipment despite being one of the smaller groups. One longboat was sufficient to ferry every man in the party to shore but three more were required to haul their gear.

Balor led two longboats carrying two score of men that would go in search of seals out on the ice flows and perhaps a few small whales. The long spiraled tusks of the unicorn whale were especially prized and the meat, blubber, and oil were all prized on the southern markets as well.

Another group of men in two longboats dropped nets near the mouth of the river and spent much of their days fishing for the prized salmon, ensuring that the ship did not run into any trouble, and provided a rescue force if either of the other groups did not return at their scheduled time.

Derran was also part of Zeb and Toron’s crew, his sharp eyes invaluable when it came to spotting prey. They and the nine burly rowers set about unloading the longboats. Sleds were assembled before strapping their gear onto them to make for easier traveling and hauling back the results of their hunting.

Two tents, each with a small iron stove and a sack of coal provided their shelter and heat when wood was unavailable. Foodstuffs went on next as well as spare clothing, rope, and traveling gear. Half the men carried heavy crossbows while the other half carried lighter and less-cumbersome crossbows for smaller game such as foxes and hares, reserving the powerful heavy crossbows for ice bears—or Eislanders if it came to a fight.

The last things they loaded were a pair of scorpios. Scorpios were nothing more than a very heavy crossbow mounted on a base and were too large and too heavy to be wielded by anyone with the possible exception of Toron, although even he would find the things far too cumbersome to be efficiently wielded by hand. Each scorpio was manned by a team of three who were trained to set it up and have it ready to fire in less than a minute.

The scorpios were a weapon of dire emergencies. The heavy crossbows and pikes could take down an ice bear, even the big ones that stood over twelve feet tall and could reach a weight near fifteen hundred pounds. However, even the powerful crossbows and large spears wielded by the oarsmen would do little to deter a dire ice bear.

Dire ice bears were essentially a dire bear that had made its home in the far north, its fur growing in white to help conceal itself from prey in the largely colorless landscape. These fearsome beasts often exceeded three thousand pounds and could shake off all but the most powerful weapons. The scorpios were the human’s only real defense against such a creature and not an impressive one at that.

Crossbows at the ready and spears close at hand, Zeb let their professional hunter and Derran lead them out with most of the men pulling and pushing the sleds that would only get heavier as their hunting became successful. Whoever had been out here last night was gone now and had left no trace of their ever being present. Zeb started to wonder if perhaps they had not seen a willowisp. Maybe they were just all delusional.