Weight of Stone (48 page)

Jerzy’s breathing came too loud, harsh and ragged, and he tried to
modulate it, calming himself the way he would before a major incantation. But his legs trembled under him, and his back ached, and his thoughts refused to settle. What if the fire broke loose and spread? What if one of the sailors saw them? What if, even if they did reach the ship safely, the other ship caught up to them, even with half their crew on shore? What if …

Then the bulk of the
Heart
loomed in front of them, and Kaïnam was reaching for a rope that dangled from the side, just as they had left it, pulling them tight against the hull.

“Ao, you’re quickest. Up and throw down the ladder, but quietly,” the prince ordered, and Ao scrambled to obey, going hand over hand up the rope, barely making a sound. There was a pause, too many heartbeats waiting for a shout of discovery, or the twang of a bolt being loosed, hitting wood or flesh. Jerzy felt the itch to turn around, to look back at the shore, to see if the other ship had noticed them yet, but he stilled the urge. He was not superstitious, he did not believe that doing so might tempt the silent gods, but he would not risk that it might, either.

The rope ladder came down, making a banging nose as it hit the side of the ship, and Jerzy flinched, knowing how easily sound traveled over water, at night.

“Go!” Kaïnam urged them. Mahault was first, grabbing a pack and slinging it over her shoulder, then going up the ladder at a steady clip. Jerzy looked at the half casks, then at the ladder. He could lift the casks easily, but not without both hands. How would he get up the ladder? He would have to use magic, but it would take so long….

“Lift the entire fool boat,” Kaïnam said, sensing his dilemma. “After you’re safe onboard.” Jerzy blinked at the obviousness of the solution, then grabbed his pack and a wineskin marked with Giordan’s sigil, and scrambled up after Mahault.

Behind him, Kaïnam tied the smaller boat securely to the tug-rope, then followed up the ladder.

On deck, Jerzy saw that Mahault was already at the wheel, checking to make sure that nothing had been damaged or disturbed while they
were away. The small spell-light was still burning over the wheelhouse, catching glints of gold in her hair as she worked, her movements swift but sure as she unlocked the wheel and rechecked the map she had carried from the shore.

Ao had already lifted the weigh-anchor and was standing by the railing looking back toward land. Jerzy finally gave in to the urge, and looked as well.

The sheet of fire still raged, shards of angry white flame reaching twice a man’s height, building a wall nothing living could pass. It was holding the narrow line Jerzy had directed it into, and Jerzy felt some of the tension leave him. The two longboats had made it to shore, but their captains wisely kept them in the water, directing the sailors—and, Jerzy presumed, Washers—to slog through to the sand itself. The flames blocked them from where the campsite had been, however, preventing them from getting close enough to see they were gone.

Neth was no fool, and he knew what Vinearts were capable of. It would not take the Washers long to realize they had been tricked. The
Heart
had to be under way before then.

“Clear space,” Jerzy said to the other two, gesturing with his right arm as he lifted the wineskin and pulled the wax stopper out with his teeth. The skin felt warm in his hands, and he worried briefly that the rough treatment had damaged the wine. Spellwines were hardly delicate, once incanted, but it was still possible for them to become ruined by mishandling.

One sip, barely wetting his tongue before the crisp, bright aroma filled his mouth and nose, allayed his fears. The familiar sense of a weatherwine hit Jerzy’s awareness, and with it came the sound of Vineart Giordan’s strangely appealing bark of laughter, the way his hands moved when he spoke, the look in his eyes that last day, when he realized he had been trapped, and called up one final storm to try and free himself….

Jerzy shut those memories off, and let the
vin magica
ready itself.

“Wind under wood,” he whispered, enunciating carefully to ensure the decantation was clear. “Lift like a babe, safely stored. Go.”

The command took effect, and the smaller craft shuddered and began to move, as though lifted by an invisible hand.

“Kaï, they’re going to see us soon, if they haven’t already. Can you show them we have teeth as well?”

“There are bows stored belowdeck,” Kaï said grimly. “Night shooting is tricky, but if need be, I can prick them a bit.”

“Go, do that.” Jerzy did not want to use magic against them. He had killed three times, using magic, and the memory still made him feel ill, even though twice had been mercy killings, the last a matter of survival.

The smaller boat was almost even with the railing now, and Jerzy and Ao reached up to grasp it, untying the rope and preparing to guide it down onto the deck, when something hit the bottom of the
Heart
, making it rock, and them stagger. Jerzy’s attention distracted, the spell wavered, and the smaller craft crashed to the deck, parts of its hull splintering.

“What was that?” Ao asked, looking around, even as they heard shouts coming from the other ship, and Mahl swung hard on the wheel, moving the
Heart
away from whatever had hit them.

“Someone, the sails!” she called, her voice high with panic. “Get the sails!”

Jerzy looked back at her and saw what she had seen, rising out of the water too close for comfort, too close for safety. “Oh, root and rot,” he swore, even as he was scuttling backward, away from the side of the boat. He grabbed at the wineskin, trying to remember the proper decantation, then lifted the skin to his mouth, but another blow hit them, against the side of the ship this time, and he choked on the liquid, sending it down the wrong way, the misdirected magic making his chest burn.

And then the cause of the bump rose over the railing, illuminated in the starlight.

Up close, the serpent’s head was even more terrifying than the ones he had seen at a distance, the head and sinewy neck covered with muddy brown scales, the milky-white eyes scanning for movement that might indicate prey. The Guardian might have the same basic shape as this beast, but there was no more relation between them, especially as the beast opened its black-lipped maw, revealing a ragged double row of teeth, and the stench of things long-dead and rotted.

Had he called it? Had his magic drawn the beast to do its master’s dire bidding, the way he had called the cat’s-paw on the road, that afternoon?

“Down!” Kaïnam cried, breaking Jerzy’s panicked thoughts. Even as Ao threw himself to the deck, dragging Jerzy with him, there was the sound of something flying past them, like a hawk stooping to the kill, and a thick bolt embedded itself into the beast’s head just below one dead-looking eye, where the scales did not completely defend.

The sea serpent let out a high-pitched keening noise, and more of the great, scaled neck appeared, rising up into the sky as the beast looked for its attacker.

Shouting, no, screaming came from the sailors, and Jerzy had a passing thought that it would be a terrible but useful thing if the serpent decided those on the beach would make easier prey, but the beast seemed intent upon them.

There was the sound of something soft and heavy hitting wood, and then the welcome noise of ropes being hauled on, and the mainsail going up, cracking and bracing in the night air.

“Shoot it again!” Ao cried, but it was taking too long for Kaïnam to reload the bow, and the serpent had found them. The head swooped down, even as Jerzy pulled all the quiet-magic he had in his body and threw it at the beast, imagining the shape to the Guardian, created to protect all of House Malech: stone wrapped in fire, aimed like another, far more deadly crossbow bolt.

He let the magic fly just as the serpent’s head dipped closer and its mouth opened over him. The heavy stink of rotted flesh and sour
vina
rolled up from its gullet, too many rows of sharp teeth visible, and Jerzy knew in that instant that, no matter what he did, he would die.

Even as he thought that, consigning himself to Sin Washer’s solace, there was a mad howl, the sound of a wolf in full rage, and Ao threw himself at the creature’s head, knocking into it, distracting it from Jerzy even as the spell hit the beast directly between the eyes.

Jerzy rolled, trying to get out of the way, hearing only the crack and flap of the sails over his pounding heartbeat, all else fallen away to a dull roar of background noise. He landed facedown on the deck, waiting for those terrible teeth to come down on him, to swallow him whole.

Instead, there was a heavy, wet thunk, and an even heavier splash of something falling back into the water. And then silence.

A heartbeat later, the silence was broken by the sound of Mahault’s scream, followed by the sound of feet racing across the deck. Jerzy got to his knees, pushing up against the deck, and realized that his hands were wet and sticky. He looked down, saw that he had placed his palms into a puddle of something dark and wet. He frowned. The serpent he had helped kill near Darcen the year before had not bled.

“Get a tarp, something to wrap him in,” Mahault was yelling over her shoulder, knelt down by something. Jerzy crawled forward, not trusting his legs to hold him, leaving a trail of red handprints on the weathered wooden planks.

“And healwine! Jerzy, get healwine, quickly!”

Cradled in Mahault’s arms, Ao lay, slack-jawed and ashen, his eyelids fluttering as he tried to focus. The blood was coming from him, Jerzy realized, even as Kaïnam dropped a handful of flasks on the deck beside them.

“I didn’t know which one,” he said, his gaze fastened onto Ao and Mahault, flinching when Ao let out a low, pained moan. “I didn’t … Sin Washer’s mercy, Jer, do something!”

Crawling closer, Jerzy saw what the others had already known; Ao’s upper body was intact, barely scarred by the serpent’s teeth—but both of his legs now ended just above the knee. The blood on the deck came from him, not the serpent.

His gorge rose up into his throat, and Jerzy forced it back down, refusing to allow himself to pass out. Mahault was still cradling Ao, murmuring something to him in a soft voice, while Kaïnam dropped to his knees on the other side, trying awkwardly to wrap a tarp around his lower body.

“No.” Jerzy’s voice was harsh, cold, and Kaï stopped midmotion. “Put him down. Both of you. Put him down.”

“But he’s bleeding, he’ll bleed to death if we don’t—”

“He’s dead already, no matter what you do.” Ao had gone from ashen to sickly, his skin coated with sweat, the pulsemark in his neck throbbing with effort, and the blood was still streaming from the ragged stumps, all—

Jerzy averted his gaze, swallowing hard. He couldn’t think about the fact that this was Ao, bitten off like a … no. There was no time, no chance. No chance but one.

A Vineart did not show weakness. A Vineart stood apart. There was no time to calm himself, no possibility that he could be calm, or careful. Jerzy grabbed the nearest wineskin, not caring which it was, and pulled the cork out with his teeth, splashing the liquid down his throat.

Bitter-ripe, rough as bark but potent as fire, the spellwine resented being treated that way, burning his throat and making him gag and cough. He pushed Kaïnam aside, ignoring the blood drenching his trou and staining his hands, and put his fingers directly onto the wounds, feeling the wet warmth of his skin and the sharp jagged jut of bone.

“Stay with us,” he whispered, not a spell but an order, risking a brief look at Ao’s face. “Stay with us.”

Ao’s head moved, and Jerzy decided it was a nod of assent.

He knew the decantation he needed; Master Malech had taught him, in the weeks after the cart accident, when two slaves had died. “For when the worst happens,” Malech had said. Not if, but when.

“Blood to blood, flesh and bone. Bind and succor, make him whole.” Jerzy paused, feeling panicked that it wasn’t enough, not powerful, not determined enough. He thought of the figurehead, of the hands holding
the wreath of leaves, protecting this ship, and directed the decantation as much at it as the magic within him. “Go.”

Jerzy thought he had known what to expect. He was wrong. The surge of magic pulled out of him like he had been thrown into the press himself and crushed with the Harvest, all the magic flowing out of his body. All he had, his magic, his anger, his fear, the memory of Ao that first meeting in the maiar’s House, the offer of friendship to a young Vineart who had no understanding of what that meant; everything went into the spell, spreading up into Ao’s damaged body, finding and mending, cauterizing the wounds and keeping him aware, and alive.

When it was done, Jerzy fell back, not feeling—or caring—when the back of his head hit the deck.

“He’s breathing,” he heard Mahault say, her voice catching on a sob. “He’s breathing.”

Jerzy turned his head enough to see her catching up the tarp and wrapping it around Ao’s body, hiding the now-cauterized stubs from sight.

“Get us out of here,” he told Kaïnam. “Now.”

The serpent would keep the others from following; even if it was dead, the sailors would fear another appearing from the night-dark waters, stranding those on shore.

The serpent had allowed them to escape.

Jerzy laughed, knowing it was horrible, hearing the exhaustion, the fear, in his voice, but unable to stop as he felt the ship shudder underneath them as they picked up wind and headed back out into the wide sea.

The thought struck him, a cold blade to his throat that stopped the laughter, and left only exhaustion.

Too much water. Too much emptiness where there should be soil. No touch of leaves, no whisper of magic … it was empty, barren, and it left him weak and adrift. He could not fight an enemy that strong, could not hope to win, like this.

More: he could not help Ao. Legless, with so much blood loss, held intact only by Jerzy’s magic …

If Jerzy ordered it, they would keep to their plan, follow the scrying into the unknown of the Forsaken Sea.