Wolf Captured (89 page)

Shivadtmon reached the same conclusion a few minutes later. Carefully testing every step, he made his way across to the door. It was slightly stuck in its frame, but Elwyn’s muscular arms worked it loose without much effort.

“What’s there?” Waln asked eagerly.

“Stair,” Shivadtmon said, “going up.”

It said something about the level of trust between the men that Waln came over and inspected the stairwell himself.

Rahniseeta longed to join them, but knew she dared not show too much interest. Even though she had continued to act beaten and vague long after she had formed her resolve to get away, someone always seemed to be watching her—Shelby most often. There was a proprietary edge to his watchfulness that she did not want to challenge until she had some hope of escaping.

“Nolan,” Waln said, “run up those stairs and see if there’s any sign we’re being followed.”

Nolan shook his head decisively, the first real defiance of Waln’s will that Rahniseeta had witnessed.

“With Shivadtmon warning us to watch the floor in case it breaks under us?” Nolan retorted. “I don’t think so. Let’s see how sound the building is before we go running up stairs.”

At Nolan’s words, a thrill of mingled anticipation and fear touched Rahniseeta’s heart. She hadn’t thought about the possibility that the stairway might be unsound, but now that Nolan had voiced his fear, the others would be slower to pursue. She’d have to risk it when the time came.

If the time came.

“The stair looks sound enough to me,” Waln said, “but if you don’t want to go …”

“I don’t,” Nolan interrupted sharply, “and don’t you think your calling me a coward will make me do your bidding, neither. If you’re so eager, go yourself.”

Shivadtmon stepped in, making himself peacemaker.

“No need to quarrel. It’s unlikely in any case that we could see much. The forests have grown thick since the days when the Old Country ruled, arching over many of the channels between the islands. As for ships at sea, how could we tell whether one pursued us or not? The bay is a busy place. In any case, I think pursuit unlikely.”

Waln let himself be persuaded without further argument. Indeed his gaze was already on the doors in the back wall.

“Fine. We should get these doors open. Possibly there’s a matching staircase to this one on the other side of the wall—a staircase leading down.”

The sailors, already tired of clearing away leaves and rubble with their hands and the makeshift brooms Tedgewinn had put together, were more than happy to take his suggestion.

Once the floor in the first room had been tested and declared fairly sound, everyone crowded into the building. Rahniseeta let herself be herded along, but took care not to press forward, edging herself toward the side of the room where the staircase was. Now all she needed was a distraction of some sort.

She contemplated how she might create a distraction while Wain and his men forced open the two interior doors. These led to another larger, deeper room with remnants of fine tile work on the walls. There was no convenient door to a cellar stair, however, and the debris that covered the floor was deeper than in the outer room.

Waln set the now grumbling sailors to work clearing away the leaves, bracken, and bits of broken tile, but he didn’t forget to post guards. Rarby was set on the outer door, and Shelby just inside. No one stated that Shelby was to guard Rahniseeta, but Shelby clearly found her at least as interesting to watch as the work going on in the inner room.

Rather than meet Shelby’s eyes and accidentally do anything that could possibly be interpreted as invitation, Rahinseeta kept her gaze fastened on the work inside. It was sickly fascinating to mark the progress, for unlike those who hoped for riches, she could only anticipate disaster. She distracted herself from visions of being carried off to sea as just another piece of loot by inspecting the room.

Here, too, a window shutter had broken against the pummeling of time. By the light it admitted, rather than by that of the lanterns Waln had ordered lit, Rahniseeta inspected the beams that held the floor above. Some were solid, as were the sections of floor they supported, but others were seamed with slips and cracks. One was so far gone that it hung in a distorted V, bits of flooring gathered in a mass at its tip. The beam might hold for another hundred years, but to Rahniseeta it looked as if a robin’s weight would be more than it could bear.

It was while Rahinseeta was scanning the ceiling and wondering if she should offer some sort of warning that she noticed motion near the broken shutter. At first she thought it might be her rescuers, and imagined them sneaking up on the far side, where Rarby—jealous of missing anything—only reluctantly patrolled. Then she realized the motion was a raven, a raven moving with considerable stealth and purpose.

Unnoticed by any but her, the raven squeezed in through the broken shutter. It stood for a long moment on the sill, bobbing up and down as it inspected the activity below. Then its head turned and Rahniseeta could have sworn the bright gaze fastened on her directly.

The raven held her gaze for a long moment, then dipped its beak toward its own breast. When it lifted its head again, Rahniseeta saw it held something that shot rainbows in the light.

The raven made an odd tossing gesture of its head, and Rahniseeta realized that it had been wearing a pendant of some sort. With this in its beak, it flew silently to where Elwyn and Wiatt were clearing away debris. The raven let the pendant fall onto the nearest heap. Then, still unnoticed by the men whose attention was fixed so resolutely down, it flew out again through the window.

Rahniseeta realized the raven had—deliberately or not—created the diversion she needed, but that the sailors had not noticed. Seizing the opportunity, she raised her voice and called out in a voice in which the note of excitement was not in the least feigned.

“I see something glittering! Over there, by Elwyn. Is it gold?”

As Rahniseeta expected, her words caused a general scrabbling toward Elwyn and Wiatt. Even Shelby turned his attention that way. When Elwyn’s atonal voice blatted out “It’s gem! Gems on a golden chain! Finders keepers, fart faces!” Shelby forgot he’d ever been on guard.

Not waiting to see if Rarby had responded to the commotion, Rahniseeta turned for the stairwell. Shivadtmon had left the door ajar, and she pulled it closed as soon as she had slipped inside. The bolt had rusted into place and defied her efforts to pull it, so she left it and she ran up, praying to Magic, to whom this building had been dedicated, that the old stone stairs would not give beneath her.

She felt creaks beneath her feet and one ominous crack, but Magic answered her prayer.

As in u-Nahal, the stair ran along the wall, and at the first landing there was a door. Rahniseeta pressed up the latch and pushed her shoulder against the wood, but the door was swollen tightly into place. She abandoned it and ran up to the next landing. Here again there was a door, and this time the latch rose to her touch and the door moved.

Rahniseeta pushed the door open, then closed it solidly behind her. There was another bolt here, and unlike below, this one could be forced into place. Ancient brackets awaited a bar, and Rahniseeta cast around for something that might fit. She found a length of hardwood where it might have been left over a century before.

She did not wonder at this, but picked the bar up and shoved it into place. Her precautions might not help for long, but she was looking for time, not to withstand a long siege.

A shout below announced her flight had been noticed, and Rahniseeta pivoted around to inspect this refuge she had found—and see if it held anything she might turn into a weapon. For several long, ragged breaths her eyes refused to comprehend what stood among the old furnishing and remnants of carpeting, framed by the fragmenting mosaic work that adorned the walls.

The room was filled with monsters.

Rahniseeta froze in terror. Then, in a voice so shrill and piercing she hardly knew it for her own, she began to scream.

XXXVII

DERIAN WON A FEW new blisters helping Harjeedian sail the smaller sailboat they’d commandeered. Firekeeper crouched in the bows calling back navigational instructions, relayed—presumably—from the seal.

“We’re fortunate that the seal will help us at all,” Harjeedian said. “There must be those among the yarimaimalom who consider that the treaty between our people has now been broken.”

Derian wiped his sweaty forehead on the back of his arm.

“Surely the yarimaimalom realize that this is the act of several renegades, not a change of your government’s policies?”

“Do they?” Harjeedian said. “Do even yarimaimalom think that way?”

Firekeeper, the only one who might have answered that question, remained noticeably silent. Other than when she must repeat the seal’s instructions, she said nothing. From the way Blind Seer hovered close, Derian guessed that the wolf-woman’s seasickness had returned.

The jaguar Truth was indifferent to the human’s discomfort, but sat crouched in the widest part of the boat. Occasionally Truth shook off the spray that beaded on the plush black and gold of her coat, but otherwise she remained so still and watchful that Derian could have once again mistaken a living creature for a statue.

With the seal to guide them, finding where the
Islander
had tied up was simplicity itself. Harjeedian stood the vessel off outside of crossbow range and hailed her. In this, as in navigation, they were better informed than they would have been without the cooperation of the yarimaimalom. A raven Firekeeper called Bitter had reported that except for Barnet Lobster, the
Islander
was empty.

“Ho, the
Islander
!” called Harjeedian. “Barnet Lobster, are you there?”

He repeated the question in Pellish, and by the time he had completed the last phrase, Barnet’s fair head was visible coming up the companionway from below.

“I am here,” he replied in Liglimosh.

“Will you surrender to us?” Harjeedian said.

Barnet, now moving to the rail, made a gesture to show that he carried no weapons of any sort.

“On the same terms that I came here with Waln,” he said. “I don’t set foot on any of the islands.”

Harjeedian had begun to bring their own sailboat closer, but he paused long enough to ask, “Why won’t you go ashore?”

“Because I don’t agree with Shivadtmon’s interpretation of events,” Barnet replied easily. “He may say that Lady Blysse’s visit to Misheemnekuru means the yarimaimalom no longer wish sanctuary here, but I’m not going to bet my life on it.”

The minstrel looked down into the water where now numerous seals could be glimpsed swirling just below the surface.

“I think those fellows,” he went on with a toss of his head, “might have had something to say about our venturing this way at all, but Waln threatened them and they backed off.”

“Threatened?” Firekeeper asked, her voice hoarser than usual.

“Crossbow and harpoon,” Barnet replied. “And men who are very good at using them. Guess the Wise Seals didn’t want to lose a friend or family member.”

“Yes,” Firekeeper said.

Barnet addressed Harjeedian again. “He’s got something worse than a crossbow bolt to hold you off, Aridisdu. He’s got your sister.”

“We know,” Harjeedian replied shortly. “Rahniseeta left a note after she overheard your discussion with Elwyn. When we couldn’t find her, and discovered all of you gone …”

“You guessed,” Barnet said.

“And the yarimaimalom have confirmed it,” Derian added.

Derian knew his voice was tight, but he couldn’t help it. All night he’d been trying hard not to think about what Rahniseeta might be going through. Now to have Barnet talking so calmly about her. There’d even been a teasing note in his voice when he’d told Harjeedian that Waln had Rahniseeta.

The small sailboat was near shore now and Barnet bent down from the
Islander
to help them secure her.

“Waln and the rest have gone up the hill, to where those towers are,” the minstrel volunteered. “I’ll mind your boat for you, but I won’t be forsworn, not even if the jaguar invites me to come along and speaks fine Pellish to do so.”

Firekeeper had leapt down and waded through the shallows to shore. Now she stood wringing the water out of her trouser legs and making sure her knife blade was dry. Her impulsiveness was typical and unnecessary—Derian and Harjeedian disembarked dry-shod, their gear dry with them.

“If Truth invite you,” Firekeeper said to Barnet, “you come, but she not asking. Is all of them there, and how armed?”

Barnet blinked at the wolf-woman’s blunt rudeness, but answered calmly enough.

“There are nine of them—counting Rahniseeta. Everyone has crossbows, knives and such, but Shelby and Rarby are the only real killers among them.”

“And Waln,” Derian said, “and Shivadtmon, too, I suspect.”

“I won’t argue with your judgment,” Barnet said, “but I will add that all of them will fight if they believe their lives are in danger—and Waln will make sure they think that’s the case.”