Tarothin shook his head. “Jemar is right, and it’s mostly your doing, my lady.”
“How so?”
“That minotaur you did not push overboard-he is the son of Jheegair, one of the two leaders of our honor-seeking friends. Or rather, he was one of the two leaders. His-associate-was too badly wounded to keep the deck, so Jheegair’s voice is the one now obeyed by all.
“He not only owes us a debt for honorable fighting and another for defeating him. He owes us a third debt for his son. I am certain neither he nor any who follow him will be back. Furthermore, I would wager my second best spellbook that he will tell all minotaurs that no one should attack Golden Cup unless they wish the battle to be as hard as it would be against their own folk.”
Kurulus’s mutterings indicated that Tarothin might wager spellbooks, but that he and his crew would be wagering their lives if Golden Cup was left undefended.
Jemar frowned. “I can leave one ship with you until you are jury-rigged again and fit to return to Istar. That will leave me only three ships and they short-manned, which is slight strength for entering Synsaga’s lair-”
“Slighter strength has already done so, or have you forgotten who we sent south?” Eskaia snapped. “Pirvan, Haimya, and a dragon barely out of his childhood are already facing Synsaga, mages, spells, black dragons, treachery, reefs, storms, poisonous snakes, starvation disease-” She ran out of breath before running out the list of perils her friends were facing, and drank half her cup to clear her throat.
The wine was strong indeed; it took a moment for her vision to clear after the wine seared her throat on the way to making a warm, glowing ball in her stomach. She thought Jemar looked ready to take her in his arms again-and indeed, would protest, for those arms were strong and even welcoming, or so she’d dared to think.…
Eskaia stood up, pressing both hands on the table until her fingernails gouged the wood. “Jemar, there is no need to divide our strength. Golden Cup can be left to Habbakuk’s mercy-”
Kurulus rose so violently that the table rocked and his chair crashed backward. “My lady, this ship-”
“-belongs to House Encuintras, not to you or your captain. By law, I am the senior representative of House Encuintras present here. By law and family custom, I may choose to dispose of any piece of House Encuintras property, so long as a fair price is received for it and carried to the house accounts, or the interests of the house are otherwise served. I submit that abandoning Golden Cup serves the interests of House Encuintras.
“Ships can be replaced, Kurulus. Good men are another matter. You and Grimsoar, the captain, the boys, the wounded-they are all good men.”
Kurulus sat down again, his jaw sagging open too wide to let him even grunt. After she was certain he would remain silent, Eskaia turned to Jemar.
“I have called you, to your face and to others, a fair and gallant captain. I now swear this, by Paladine and Habbakuk, likewise by the memory of Drigan Encuintras, the first of our house, and-” she swallowed “-my own honor in every respect-”
She took a deep breath. “I swear that if you, Jemar called the Fair, take all of us aboard your ships and sail with us south to rescue our comrades, I, Eskaia of House Encuintras, will give you my hand in marriage.”
* * * * *
Haimya doubted that her sickness was the lung fever. She could breathe as readily as ever; indeed, it sometimes seemed that she was taking in enough air to make her light-headed. That might be from some other sort of fever, however, and she certainly felt the aches in her joints and the queasiness within that told of some kind of sickness coming on.
She could not easily have finished the journey to Fustiar’s tower on foot, or at least been fighting-fit when she reached it. She dismounted from Hipparan’s back knowing that she owed the dragon as great a debt as she could conceive any human owing to a dragon. What she could not conceive was how to pay it.
“Oh, that will come to you in time, I am sure,” Hipparan whispered in her ear. The dragon had learned to control his speech so that he could, if he wished, make no more noise than a purring kitten.
Haimya subdued her resentment at having her thoughts read, and replied without speech. If you can hear my mind, then you know I was not so grateful during the flight.
“I know that,” Hipparan said. “It was all I could do to keep from laughing, though I suppose it was not at all amusing to you.”
“It was not,” Haimya said shortly. Hipparan had flown toward the tower by a long, meandering route that seemed to retreat two yards for every three it advanced. He flew as slowly as he could and still stay in the air, except sometimes when he dived down to treetop height and gained speed by losing altitude.
Sometimes he even dropped below the treetops, when ravines or cleared land opened before him. Haimya remembered one such passage, with night-walking apes staring glow-eyed from the trees at the dragon and his riders. The apes were mercifully silent, perhaps because they were too astonished at the madness they saw to muster speech.
At least the flight proved that Haimya’s inward queasiness could not be too serious yet. She did not need to drop to her knees and empty her stomach when Hipparan had landed. She merely wished to.
Pirvan kept a respectful distance until the urge had passed, then handed her a water bottle. The last of the spring water went down, bitingly fresh and still cool, and both stomach and head cleared. She patted Hipparan’s neck, then darted aside as the dragon leaped for the sky.
If you see me coming back before you meet Gerik, it is certain that something is awry. Otherwise, the best I can do is avoid provoking the black dragon.
Haimya rather wished that she and Pirvan could hope to do the same. But two humans intruding into his master’s tower might not receive the same charity from the black as another dragon. Their best hope in that case was to persuade the black that Hipparan would take vengeance for harm done to them, and also that they had no designs on Fustiar or any of his work.
The first was the entire truth; the second could be made so. They did not need to ruin Fustiar’s work if they could learn what it was and snatch Gerik free without doing so. What others might do with their knowledge of Fustiar’s work was out of their hands.
Gerik would not be. He would end this night in their hands or she would know why, and from his own lips. Even if he had sworn an oath to Synsaga, it might be the sort of oath that would be considered coerced, and not valid or punishable once he was returned to Istar and free of danger and duress.…
“Time to be off,” Pirvan said beside her.
She nodded and slung on her pack. Was it her imagination, or was some of the lightness in her head now flowing into the pack? Certainly it seemed an easier burden, and when she test drew her sword, it seemed to fly into her hand. The ground was firmer, too, or else she had learned the art of walking across mud like a water strider on a pond.…
* * * * *
The first reaction to Eskaia’s pronouncement was Tarothin’s. He rose from his chair, put a hand on the table to steady himself, then his eyes rolled up in his head and he toppled forward. His fall knocked over his wine cup, and he ended with his nose in his plate.
There followed a lively few minutes as the other three in the cabin tried to heal, or at least revive, their healer. The last thing that any of them wished was to have this fainting spell known all over Golden Cup, let alone Jemar’s squadron.
“I can imagine my people acceding to your wish if we have a wizard to match Synsaga’s mage,” Jemar said. “If they think we lack such, I doubt I could persuade them if I offered every man a woman as fair as you, and every woman a man-”