He raised his hand-but before he could slap palm to wood, an arrow struck exactly where he had intended to place his hand. The thunk of its impact startled him back a step. It was as if the arrow had sprouted out of the hull, rather than being shot from afar.
The feathered end quivered at his nose.
But that was not all.
Skewered on the shaft of the arrow was a raven, one of the messengers he had sent ahead.
Here at last had come his answer from the Huntress.
A threat by marksmanship.
At any moment, an arrow could be sent through his own heart.
He lowered his arm.
Krevan came dashing out, leading others from the ship.
“Run!” the pirate shouted and pointed an arm up the slope.
Before Tylar could even turn, the top of the flippercraft exploded away in a great gout of swirling flame. A wall of heat knocked them all off their feet. Krevan was the first back up, scooping Dart under one arm, dragging Brant by an arm.
“Go!” he shouted.
They were all running as fiery planks fell, raining down into the loam. It was sheer luck that no one was struck. Once clear, Tylar counted heads. Too few.
“Horas? his men?” he asked.
Krevan shook his head. “The arrows…bore a dark alchemy of loam, anathema to air. Captain tried to tamp the mekanical. Save the ship.”
The pirate turned to Tylar. Fire shone in his eyes, burning with the promise of revenge.
As if challenging this threat, laughter carried to them, floating out of the mists above, as if from clouds themselves.
Brant stepped to Tylar’s shoulder. “The Huntress,” the boy said, naming the true source of the amusement, hidden up in the mists, aloft in her castillion.
Her words echoed down to him, powered by Grace.
“Welcome, Godslayer…welcome to Saysh Mal!”
A SCRATCH AT THE WINDOW
“Are all the townsfolk secure?” Kathryn asked.
Keeper Ryngold nodded. “We’ve turned the Grand Court into a makeshift inn. The accommodations in the amphitheater will be nothing more than a stone bed and a blanket, but it’s warm and out of the winds.”
They spoke in private outside the door to a gathering room midlevel in Stormwatch. She heard the murmur of voices beyond the door. She was to meet this morning with representatives of the retinues from the various realms. It was her current role here in Tashijan. No more than innkeeper, settling disputes and addressing concerns of those under their roof.
Warden Fields had even banned her from the strategies in the fieldroom. If you see little reason to keep me abreast of your plots and plans, then there is little reason for me to do the same. Normally a castellan could not be so easily cast aside. As they usually arose out of the Council of Masters to fill that high seat, a castellan had the backing of all the masters with their alchemies and knowledge. No warden would dare treat a castellan so dismissively.
But Kathryn did not have the support of the Council of Masters. If anything, she had gained their enmity as well. Especially Master Hesharian. He had been more purple of face than even Argent, and had offered no objection to her being shut out of the fieldroom.
Still, it could have been worse. She could have been locked up for treason. After Tylar and the others departed by flippercraft, she had stood behind her decision. If the storm gods wanted the Godslayer, then better Tylar be sent away. His flight might draw off attention. She justified her secrecy by relating what Tylar had found in their cellars, evidence of some collusion between Tashijan and the daemon army below. It was beyond mere chance that Mirra nabbed the skull shortly after those in the fieldroom learned of its existence. Even Argent had glanced around the table then. He was no fool.
So she managed to keep herself free of bars and locks.
But little else.
In fact, she had been the last to learn about the emptying of the town that huddled outside Tashijan. Argent had sent a good portion of his knightly force beyond the walls to shepherd the people inside. The townsfolk swelled into Tashijan with stories of the storm closing down upon their homes, whispers of strange beasts seen behind swirls of snow, of bodies found frozen and ripped.
Upon hearing this, Kathryn had gone under cloak to see for herself. The storm had tightened down upon the shield walls of Tashijan, swallowing up the outer village. There was a savagery and fury in the winds, almost tasted on the tongue. And despite the additional burden and loss of life, the raging uplifted her spirits.
The anger here could mean only one thing: Tylar and the others had escaped. The storm god tore into the town in his fury, closing tighter around Tashijan.
But so far that was the only change. Over the past three days, the siege had stretched with a deceptive calm. Argent had fires blazing again throughout the lower levels of the tower. He had even bricked up the tunnel behind the Shield Gong in the Grand Court as it stretched down into the Masterlevels. Yet there had been no further move by Mirra.
It was as if both sides were holding their breath, preparing for a final assault. But how would it strike? In what form? Or would they be merely starved out? Pondering this worry…
“How are we doing on food and fresh water?” she asked the keeper of the towers.
“Lucky the warden had planned a grand series of feasts for the regent’s knighting,” Keeper Ryngold said with a tired grin. “Our ice lockers and foodstores were heavily fortified prior to the attack. We’ll make do for the moment, but the townsfolk will stretch us thin.”
“We’ll have to manage.”
“Of course,” he said with a nod to the door, “you’ll have to convince our esteemed guests inside there that the heft and variety of their meal boards may be less than they are accustomed to enjoying.”
She sighed. “I’ll do my best.”
With a slight bow, Keeper Ryngold departed. She watched him move down the hall, admiring the man’s fortitude. In many ways, here was the true warden of the towers.
And at least he was still speaking with her.
She turned back to the door, took hold of the latch and her patience, and pushed into the crowd inside. The gathering room was one of the teaching halls, lined by two long tables, with an elevated stage at the front. Lamps flickered along the walls.
She spotted Delia near the front of one table and nodded. Kathryn still felt a certain discomfort around the younger woman, still picturing the stolen kiss with Tylar. She knew such resentments were petty and unfair, and over the past days, they had begun to fade as the two women were forced to work closely alongside each other. Delia had proven herself as adept as Keeper Ryngold in maintaining some degree of control over the various households of the gods. Kathryn had come to rely on her calmness in the face of strife, on her evenhanded decisions. She was surprised how relieved she was to find Delia already at work today. It was good to have one ally.
There certainly were enough here with complaints.
The leader of the disgruntled fronted the second table: the lithe, snow blond Hand from Oldenbrook. Alongside her sat a swarthy slug in purple, the sole Hand dispatched from neighboring Foulsham Dell. Despite their plain dislike for one another-and more disparate appearance and manner-they had joined forces to plague Kathryn for the past two days.
Filling the rest of the boards, divided almost equally into the two camps, were the other heads of the retinues trapped at Tashijan. With Delia sat the representatives from Mistdale, Snowfox River, Crooked Wood, Fitz Crossing, and surprisingly the embittered crook-backed Hand from Moor Eld. The other table bore the hard faces from Akkabak Harbor, Five Forks, Wintering Isles, and Martyrstone.
Liannora rose to her feet before Kathryn even reached the teaching dais. “Thank you for attending to our grievances.”