Raed dared a glimpse into the orb. The stone thinned the barrier between the beyond and the real world. It was a very dangerous thing, and it made the hair on his arms stand up, but it had saved them all on numerous occasions. “What sort of trouble?” he asked through a dry throat.
“A couple of shades on top of the cliffs. Probably the souls of people lost in a wreck of some sort.”
Raed concealed a shudder as best he could. As always the image of his mother’s horrified face flashed in his eye, the taste of her blood in his mouth. Not for the first time did he wish that suicide was an option. If only his sister, Fraine, wasn’t next in line for the title Pretender and the Curse that went with it.
He just had to do his best by staying on the ocean. It would have almost served Felstaad right if he’d run across a geist in his court . . . almost. That was the danger of dry land: the constant threat of geists. If they had crossed his path on the cliff tops . . . He pulled his mind away from that possibility.
And now they would be sailing toward another port, and with Dominion being pulled from her native environment, he would have no choice. “Well, maybe if I just stay on the beach with my feet in the water while we’re in Ulrich, everything will be all right.” He chuckled.
Aachon frowned, never a connoisseur of Raed’s sense of humor at the best of times.
The Pretender shook his head with a little sigh. “What other choice do we have, old friend? Dominion needs to be repaired and scraped down. She’s slow in the water and we’re leaking every time the sea gets rough. We can only survive if we can run.”
It was actually possible to hear Aachon grind his teeth in frustration. Most people just used it as an expression; the first mate used it as a method of communication. He nodded reluctantly.
They had reached the heaving sides of their ship. Raed scrambled up the side with the others while the rowboat was tied in close to her stern. He hadn’t been born to life on the open seas, but after so many years he was as nimble on deck as those who had been. Aloft in the rigging he might not be the fastest, but he had been known to climb up if an emergency called. He might be captain, but he was all too aware that it was a title he sometimes had to work at.
Up on deck, the rest of the crew waited. They were a collection of every ethnic group on the continent, with a slight majority from the warmer southern climes where the legend of the Unsung still might mean something. Most were male, though several women had also tied their fortunes to the Pretender. Now all were looking at him and waiting for the word on how his petition had gone.
“Well”—he grinned at them—“as I remembered, Felstaad is a bastard.”
They snickered at that, but held back the belly laughs until certain of the outcome.
“But I finally convinced him that he might want to at least cover all the angles and give us brief sanctuary. He’s allowing us to make use of Ulrich harbor.”
As expected, his announcement wasn’t greeted with uproars of delight. Several whispers murmured through the crew as some of the assembled turned to their neighbors with quiet questions about the unfamiliar port. Raed managed not to take it personally. He didn’t hold it against them, but he knew it was a reflection of his standing in the world; once, the mere mention of his distant father would have brought a bushel of princes rushing to his aid. Since the Assembly at Briet had brought the Delmaire man over, life had gotten harder and harder. If he thought about it too much, he might just stop running altogether.
Bless them, though; none grumbled about the distance to get there, or the isolation of the place. Raed was just about to express his gratitude in some joke or other, when a call came from above. High in the crow’s nest, Aleck called out the one word none of them wanted to hear. “Warship!”
Everyone scattered to their stations. Aachon slapped a spyglass in Raed’s hands and he trained it in the direction Aleck was pointing. To the north was indeed an Imperial warship: Corsair. They’d had repeated run-ins with that very same vessel for the past three months. It was patrolling the northeast shore with a disturbing new show of interest in the area. They’d made a successful run for it each time that Corsair had shown up before. However, they were in a sheltered harbor with light winds, and their anchor was down. Raed didn’t like the odds.
Bringing the warship into focus, he tried to make out whether her gunports were open. They weren’t, but as he looked he noticed two very odd things: there was no one visible on the deck and, more important, no hand was at the wheel.
“By the Blood,” he whispered to himself and swung the spyglass backward and forward over the ship’s length before raising the glass toward the rigging. This too was bare of any sign of life, and the sails themselves were tied in as if for running before a high wind, rather than for today’s light conditions. Captain Moresh ran a tight ship, from what Raed had heard. A knot of tension began to form in the Pretender’s neck.
“She’s coming in slow.” Aachon, without the benefit of the spyglass, had a hand raised over his eyes as he squinted at Corsair.
“Prepare to board,” Raed said evenly.
“But, Captain . . .” Aachon protested, until he was handed the spyglass. His argument died on his lips. When he lowered the glass, sweat beaded on his forehead. He wiped it off with the back of one hand and wrapped his other around the hilt of his cutlass. “Mistress Laython, prepare your party to board and offer assistance.”
On the lower deck, the battle-scarred quartermaster grinned. They had seen little action lately, and her skills had not been in much demand. She began shouting at the crew in a voice like a foghorn.
“Seems as if you put that weirstone away too early, old friend,” Raed said to Aachon under his breath.
Despite the ship’s sad condition, Dominion’s crew knew her intimately and were quickly under way. With expert ease, Aachon set them to their work getting her out into open waters. Within half an hour, they had turned about and were matching speed with the warship. As they neared, it became apparent to all that she was, in fact, in worse state than their own vessel. Coming up on the port side, they could see that sails were ripped as if from a terrible storm. The hull damage only a little above the waterline looked nothing like the impact of cannon; instead it looked as if something had blown out from inside, though it was nowhere near where the powder room was located. The Pretender’s hand clenched on his cutlass.
Even though Corsair had pursued her for so long, Raed felt real pity for the once-magnificent warship. She was a sad remnant of the pride of the Imperial Navy.
Their own party was ready; he and Aachon were in the lead with weapons drawn. Laython and her grinning party were at their backs. Yet as they drew up alongside and the boarding hooks were thrown across, Raed knew that there would be no fight.
The deck was covered in bodies, all wearing the dark green of the Imperial Marines or the sky blue of the Navy, though both shades were much darker than they should have been. The sharp smell of blood wafted from Corsair in a palpable cloud.
With a glance over his shoulder, Raed saw that most of his crew had turned very pale. They were sailors in the main, not used to battle and blood.
“Aachon, is the weirstone showing anything?” he asked quietly over his shoulder.
His first mate should have protested, perhaps reminding his captain that they were in open water, but with one look at the carnage on board Corsair, he mutely removed the heavy orb from his pocket.
Aachon’s eyes changed when he looked into the orb, going to a clear milky white as if he were blind. He kept his back to the crew whenever using his Sight; he knew it disturbed them. When he’d been cast from the Order, Aachon’s pride had taken a deep beating. Now he cosseted what little talent remained.