Adira Strongheart surveyed the scene. Brown pine needles were churned, so black loam showed like open wounds.
Smashed branches and greenery bore jots of blood and scraps of leather and fur. The pirate craned her neck and saw, high up, that a circle of pine trees showed stark white breaks.
"What happened? Did Johan call down a meteor on someone's head?"
"There'd be scorch marks," said Heath. "A good spot for an ambush."
Jasmine the druid dabbed a finger in blood and tasted it. "Meat eaters. Pine dwellers must have run afoul of Johan."
"You said the pine people quit this forest," objected Adira.
Jasmine only shrugged, and the party pressed on.
"Is it good luck or bad we cut Johan's trail?" asked Virgil.
"Good," said Adira. "He steers for Buzzard's Bay, our goal."
Over the dull thud of hooves, Lieutenant Peregrine called, "I've a question. Why is yon port called Buzzard's Bay?"
"Ask rather why it's called the Storm Coast." Simone the Siren rode with her cutlass handy in a saddle scabbard, and now she tugged the blade free to test it.
"All right," Peregrine played along, "why?"
"Because storms wrack it six months out of nine." Simone's voice lost its mirth. "Anyone who ventures past the headlands consigns his soul to the sea and to squalls. So many ships wreck on the rocks, the buzzards can't fly from gorging on smashed corpses that wash ashore."
On that note, the party wended after Johan, bearing west of north.
As the last switching horsetail passed out of sight, a jittering was heard like locust wings. From the scrub flitted a tiny feather-thin figure dressed in rabbit fur. Buzzing on wings a yard wide, the pixie droned through the forest like a bumblebee, wary of hawks and owls that might prowl by day. Miles on, the pixie alighted beside a slender man in leather and wolf skin. Panting, she piped a message in a jerky voice like a chickadee's.
"West of north, eh. On horseback?" The scout pondered. "We can't spare hands for an ambush. Still, stay awake. We'll await their return, and make them pay in blood."
Chapter 9
"I seek the library," said Johan without preamble.
"Library?" The woman had once been tall and robust, like most of the coastal folk, but middle age and many children had softened her. Her hair was more gray than blonde, and her robes were patched, puckered, and peppered with burn holes and stains.
"I own the only library in Buzzard's Bay. Forty-two books, I'm proud. See for yourself. I am Hebe, a sea sage, by the way. You are…?"
Disguised as the drab monk, Johan gave no name as he glanced^ around the room. Tilting shelves were jammed with bric-a-brac. A stuffed seagull perched atop a conch shell. Strings of dried starfish dangled from the low ceiling. A horseshoe crab shell served as a dish for smaller shells. Tables were heaped with dried seaweed and blowfish, and nets bulging with oddments hung in comers. A slovenly bed and stool were all the furniture. In the corner hearth, a driftwood fire burned blue and green. The room reeked of sea salt and spoiled fish, for it occupied a loft above a fishmonger's market.
A clever, ruthless man, Johan could be pleasant when it served, yet politeness got him nothing. He studied the clutter as the sage fiddled, sizing similar shells on a board propped between tables. Alone most of the day, she blathered at her company.
"You've the look of a scholar, poor and thin like me, ha ha. You're welcome to read my books, but only here. They were hard-won, hard as plucking a drowning man from storm surf. Three, I confess, I wrote myself. I track sightings of sea monsters, you see, and other odd things the fishermen report. Fairy lights, ghosts who walk on water, tritons, giant turtles. If it floats above or below the waves, I hear the tales. The ocean harbors a thousand secrets."
Sliding edgeways past stacks and heaps of objects, Johan laid a hand on a crooked shelf of books. "The library I seek belongs to another. Not this trash."
The tyrant hurled the bookshelf over. Volumes thumped and skittered on tables and the filthy floor. Shells and sponges and skate purses were smashed and scattered. Johan shoved over a table with his bare foot and wrenched strings of starfish from the ceiling.
"You… you barbarian!" Horrified, Hebe shrilled curses as she grabbed a gaff studded with a rusty shark hook. Johan scooped a heavy book from a table and slung it backhanded. The volume smacked Hebe in the face and bowled her against yet another table. Johan picked up a shark's jaw and slashed the woman across the forehead. As blood ran in her eyes, he hooked a foot to dump her on the floor.
Stamping one foot on Hebe's flabby neck, Johan pressed hard enough to strangle her, then let up a bit. "I ask you, where is the library?"
Wedged amid debris, suffocating, Hebe gasped, "You'll- never-"
"I always," corrected Johan.
Sticking two fingers in his mouth, he flicked them at the ceiling. Instantly there whispered down a fine mist all about the room. Droplets hissed louder as they settled on spilled books and seawrack. As the mild rain touched Hebe's face, she screamed as if burned and struggled valiantly. The evil mage only shifted his stance and mashed her throat harder. Smoke began to fizzle from tables and parchment. The old librarian struggled and writhed.
"It bums savagely, does it not, Hebe?" Johan's gleaming pate sported glistening raindrops at a half-inch removed, for his invisible aura shielded him. "Don't open your eyes, else you'll be blinded. Tell me, quickly, and I'll release you. Where lies the fabled library?"
"You'll s-suffer!" Shuddering, the tough old woman tried to protect her face with her elbows. "The t-townsfolk will f-find you-"
"You waste breath." Exasperated, Johan picked up the gaff with the rusty shark hook. He snagged the point through Hebe's scalp and began to pull, twisting. Blood flowed. "The library is where?"
"Ar-Arboria! Aghh!" Helplessly Hebe flailed her arms as iron tore and acid ate her flesh. Squirming in pain, she babbled, "D-deep in the forest! Fol-follow the coast south to Fulmar's Fort! Wh-where the river spills to the sea, follow its b-banks into the depths! But you'll never survive Shauku! Oh, p-please, release m-me! I'm dying!"
"True, but too slowly." Still pinning the sage, Johan picked up a thick book no bigger than his hand. Stooping, he struck the sages nose, making her yelp, then shoved the book in her mouth and stamped with his free foot. Choking, the sage bucked and shuddered but couldn't squirm free. Johan added, "I'll release you dead, I'm afraid. I couldn't bear you babbling my destination to others."
Patiently Johan pressed on the old woman's face until finally, with a chest-breaking sigh, she fell limp. Climbing off his murder victim, Johan uttered a single word to dispel the rain of death. Puddled with poison, parchments were curled and browned, shells had turned dark, seaweed and oddments had shriveled.
Johan stepped to the hearth fire. He planned to strew live coals to fire the room and cover his tracks but halted. Just as he'd left cripples behind in the pine forest to spread tales of terror, here too the sage's body might rattle his pursuers.
"Even better," murmured the murderous mage, "her death might aid my cause immeasurably."
Nodding grimly, Johan left clutter and corpse lying, then passed out the door and pulled it shut. Tracing a line around the doorframe, he sealed the portal with a simple binding spell. The spell would remain until magically dispelled, which he doubted any in Buzzard's Bay could do. Mortals would need to batter down the door.
Descending the narrow stairs, Johan passed through the echoing fish house on the ground floor and outside into the narrow twisted street. As always, the sky was overcast, the buildings drear, and the streets a welter of mud and rushed seashells.
Buzzard's Bay was a huge bite in the eternally battered Storm Coast, one of very few safe harbors, and hardly safe at that. The bay was riddled with jagged rocks, many lurking just below the churning surface. Seamounts of scoured granite thrust from the water to encircle this southern arm of the bay, called the Witch's Weir, where squatted this port. Hunkered on a long ragged spit, the town was lashed steadily by the western wind as it swirled around the weir. Even the landward retreat climbed a fierce slope of stone before meeting a green plateau that verged on Arboria, the endless pine forest to the south.