“I hope that’s all we have to avenge.”
Chapter 16
Pirvan and haimya were not sure precisely when dawn came to Crater Gulf. They slept long and deeply after they had hid themselves and their gear. Once Pirvan woke briefly to discover Haimya curled against him. This felt quite as pleasant as he had expected. If she had no complaints, he would make none. Also, on the hillside it was cool enough to make it worth sleeping close and sharing blankets.
The clouds also gave them an uncertain sense of time. Pirvan’s first notion on waking was that he and Haimya had been buried under a vast pile of raw wool. However, there was no smell of sheep, many smells of other things (mostly less agreeable), and far too many trees and vines all around. The cloud-wool and the trees together left them in a curious sort of twilight, but there was enough light to find water and start packing.
They came to an argument when Haimya insisted that they take everything with them, even if that meant being loaded down like pack mules. Pirvan prudently did not treat her as if she had broken a promise, but discovered that subtler methods were not that much more useful.
“We can’t run with these loads,” Pirvan began.
“We won’t need to run this far from the pirates’ camps,” Haimya said. “This is what soldiers call an approach march.”
“I believe you. I also believe you have heard of armies that were so burdened that the soldiers were exhausted before the battle, and because of that, lost it. What about making a sled, if you won’t leave anything?”
There was nothing around with which to make a sled, Haimya pointed out. Also, sleds left tracks.
“So will we, carrying this kind of a load.”
“The only way we could avoid leaving tracks is to approach wearing nothing but daggers and loinguards. That would undoubtedly draw the pirates’ attention. Having come this far, I would like to ransom my betrothed and learn a trifle about what is happening on the shores of Crater Gulf.” She added that a sled would limit them to level and open ground, of which she did not see much around here.
At no time could anyone who did not know Haimya well have detected the slightest trace of sarcasm. Pirvan was grateful enough for this to concede without further argument.
They finally contrived to both carry and divide the loads. In pouches across their chests they carried the ransom, food, water, flasks of Tarothin’s healing potion, Lady Eskaia’s letter of introduction to Synsaga, and mirrors for signaling to Hipparan. Everything else was on their backs, easily dropped if they needed to run.
“If all goes well, we can load some of the burden on Gerik.” Haimya grinned. “We will not do all the work of rescuing him if he is at all fit to march.”
“What if he isn’t?”
“Then we work harder than ever for a peaceful ransoming, and ask Synsaga for some hearty stretcher bearers.”
“And if there is no peace?”
“Synsaga is not fool enough to mortally offend House Encuintras by treachery. An Encuintras fleet loaded with mercenaries sailing to the gulf will cost him far more than he gains by stealing the rubies.”
Pirvan thought that Synsaga might be no fool, but he was a man with whole new vistas of power and wealth opening before him. Such men had been known to throw prudence to the winds as they would not have done before. Pirvan had known both thieves and lawful men who had died that way.
However, he and Haimya had their own wits, surprise, the ransom jewels, and their own dragon to set against all that might tempt Synsaga to treachery. To take counsel of fears was the way of neither thief nor soldier; he and Haimya had at least that much in common.
Pirvan was already sweating by the time he had his pack on and settled in place, but it seemed less burdensome than he had feared. Or was it Haimya’s smiling back at him as she thrust her walking staff into the moss and took the lead?
* * * * *
“Deck ahoy!”
The cry penetrated Lady Eskaia’s sleep-fogged ears. She had slept fitfully on a damp pallet on her cabin floor; that waking was going to be a burden.
Then wakefulness came in a rush, at the second cry:
“Two sail, dead stern.”
Tarothin’s sleep ended in midsnore as Eskaia prodded him in the ribs. He sat up and combed his hair with his fingers. It was abundant and a pleasant shade of brown, with a thatching of darker curls on his muscular chest.
A voice that sounded like Haimya’s whispered in her head, Enough, my lady. There is appreciating men and there is being wanton. Beware of crossing the boundary.
At the moment, Eskaia wanted most of all to cross to her wardrobe, preferably without touching the deck. She needed a heavy gown, a cloak, and above all, shoes. Even the best woolen bedsocks did not keep out the damp chill of the deck.
Tarothin, wearing respectable short-drawers, stumbled out of bed. He looked tired now rather than ill, and stared around for his staff.
“Under the bed, wrapped in oilskin,” Eskaia said. “Are you fit to return to your cabin?”
“I’d better be if we have visitors,” the wizard said, with a wry grin. He rubbed his forehead as if that would knead out a lingering headache. “My thanks for your hospitality. I will try to repay it by identifying those ships.”
“We will be grateful. If they are enemies, we can only hope to fight them off. We cannot run.”
“Some morning I shall wake to hear good news. But it will not be on this quest.”
Tarothin rummaged his staff out from under the bed and was out the door before Eskaia had raised the hem of her outer shift.
* * * * *
Pirvan and Haimya made their way around the mountain while staying on the edge of the thick forest. The going was easier, the chances of spying out sentries or patrols from a distance better, and dragons easier to see, whether friend or foe.
Hipparan was supposed to return at night and seek them out at the head of a small gorge overlooking a ruined castle above the camps. They had so far seen and heard nothing to suggest that he was in peril, but matters might require him to come quickly, find them still more quickly, and lift them out with the speed of the wind.
A good view of the sky might not make so much difference if the black dragon came. The clouds were low, almost brushing the mountaintop, and mist dimmed vision farther down the slopes. A quick dash into the trees might save them from whatever breath weapons the dragon commanded, but he would certainly warn the camp if he saw them. He might also reach deep into the tall timber with dragonfear or whatever other spells he commanded.
Within an hour, they crossed a spring-fed stream that let them fill their canteens, then a stand of trees whose fruit Haimya said was edible.
“At least they look very much like what they call grivan’s jug, in the Qualinesti borderlands,” she added.
“No doubt, and I admit to being hungry,” Pirvan said. “I also remember a friend who confused two very similar kinds of mushroom when he made a stew. Six people were sick, and he was never right afterward.”
They munched on trail bread as they strode on.
Hipparan found them when the cloudy sky was still dark gray rather than black. It was also raining, and trees fit to make the pillars of a god’s dwelling stood between them and the pirates.
“We should be hard to find without magic,” Hipparan said. “I think I have remembered a spell I once knew, to fight off anyone trying to find me by magic. Of course, it may turn out to be a spell for making onion stew. But I believe I can at least confuse anyone casting a spell that needs to be accurately aimed.”
“May it be so,” Pirvan said.
Even the most potent wizards and mages could not just spray magic across the landscape like a gardener with a watering can. That quickly exhausted the magic-worker and reduced the effect at the other end.