There she came, emerging from the periphery of his vision in the lowering dark afternoon, the Ocean Elm slewing from side to side like some giant drunkard. At her helm, someone with no notion of the rudder in relation to the wheel, the strength or direction of the wind or the inertia of the beautiful vessel. It was no elf that steered and in that moment he and his crew mourned the dead on their sister ship.
Jevin acknowledged their passing and led a prayer to the Gods of the Seas and the winds to keep their souls safe in the bosom of the ocean. And then he watched and waited for the inevitable.
He shook his head time and again as he observed the Elm's progress. Saw her wander this way and that under full sail. No one stood ready in the rigging, no one swung lines. Not one of them would be ready and in that he would take some satisfaction. Perhaps most of them would drown and spend eternity in a twilight of pain, just too far from the surface to draw breath. He wished for it.
He briefly feared collision but in truth, the fools on the Elm could not steer well enough to orchestrate any such thing. He wondered. whether they had paused to question why he travelled under such little sail, content to amble while his crew took soundings from every part of his ship. He wondered whether they had even seen him at all.
So he watched, and when it happened he heaved a sigh. Beauty destroyed. The sight came to him before the sound. Perhaps only a mile distant, the Elm slowed suddenly as if the hand of a God had grabbed her prow. She rose up, still driving forward, then toppled sideways, still coming, the holes in her hull awful and mortal. It was a horrible sight.
The sound came a heartbeat later, a rending, tearing, grinding sound. The death wail of a helpless ship. He imagined… he hoped, he could hear the screams of those onboard as they pitched into the merciless sea or were dashed against rock and timber. The water around her boiled as she foundered, sinking quickly.
'Bows ready!' he ordered.
A dozen crewmen lined the port quarter, arrows nocked, ready to draw and fire.
They came like he knew they would. Cowards too scared for their own skins even to attempt the launch of a boat. And while their surviving ship-bound companions made desperate attempts to save themselves, the mages flew. He tracked them, his gaze skipping across the sky, one carrying another like Denser had done Hirad.
'Don't let them close,' warned Jevin. 'None of them will touch my deck while they still breathe.'
Strings were drawn, longbows bent, arms strained. Jevin waited while they approached, aiming to fly along the channel, presumably in the hope of finding their Dordovan friends. Jevin found that, although they presented no danger to his ship, he couldn't let them fly free from what they had done to the Elm or her crew.
'Shoot them down.'
The volley of a dozen arrows flashed away into the sky. Five dropped screaming, their magical wings gone, the sea closing over their thrashing limbs, the gods helping them to hell. Three remained, including the carrier, wheeling away. More arrows nocked, the thrum of bow strings again, the sight of the black shafts whipping out after their prey.
Another mage fell and the carried man cried out. Jevin couldn't quite make out where the arrow had struck. He trusted the wound would bring him a slow death. Perhaps a lung. He nodded.
'Stow the weapons!' he called. 'Lookouts to port. Let's see if any elves survived.'
But the looks on the faces of his crew told him that they felt what he knew already.
Ilkar flew back towards the skiff which carried The Raven. He'd seen all he needed to see. He let the wind blow full into his face and felt
the first drops of new rain start to fall. At least he'd soon be on solid ground.
Although he hadn't actually been seasick after the first couple of days on the Catalan Sun, knowing he could avoid vomiting didn't make him any happier about sailing and he had no intention of landing on the boat.
He came alongside, matching speed and flying next to The Unknown just as the intensity of the rain increased and began to sting in the blustery wind.
'How's it looking?' asked The Unknown.
'Well, there are three Dordovan ships still coming,' said Ilkar. 'They won't make it all the way down this channel by nightfall, they're going too slowly, but they'll make it to where we left our ship.'
'Hmm.' The Unknown stared back, gauging distances. 'We can expect attack after dark, then,' he said at length. 'They can sail skiffs down here in darkness, particularly if there are any elves in the crews. They can also send mages in by air. Pity we can't shut off that bloody beacon.'
'We don't know we can't,' said Ilkar.
'No indeed,' replied The Unknown. 'Well, seeing as you're clearly not about to get back in with us, why don't you go and see what you can do?'
'The thought had more than crossed my mind,' said Ilkar. 'I'd take one of you with me but I think I'd better conserve stamina.'
'See you in a couple of hours, then,' said The Unknown.
'Any sign of the Kaan?' asked Hirad.
Ilkar shook his head. 'No. Nor Jevin, nor the Elm. Not from where I was, anyway. Sorry.'
Glad to be heading for cover, Ilkar shot away towards Heren-deneth.
Erienne's pulse was thudding in her throat by the time she neared Herendeneth. She had been away for less than fifteen days but so much had changed. So much had been damaged.
The Raven's long view of the cliffs was more shocking close to. The illusion was decaying almost before her eyes. It swirled, fragmented and reformed indistinctly, almost mosaic-like at the weakest
.
but still existing points. Elsewhere, it had gone altogether as the extraordinarily complex mana structure unravelled and destabilised. There would come a critical point where it collapsed completely but that hardly mattered now.
The fact was that to anyone the carefully laid illusory mask of angry-looking rock was compromised; and what lay behind it, beyond the harsh reality of the nestling reefs, was an eminently habitable island with a canopy of trees, pardy covering verdant steppes up to a central dormant volcanic peak.
From above, it was yet more obvious. Erienne flew in at a height of around a hundred feet and could make out the house, gardens and graves immediately. Coming in closer, the damage to the house made her gasp.
The whole west wing was gone; so much rubble and splintered wood collapsed into a tear in the ground that ran away up the slope behind eating into the beauty and sanctity of the steppes, scarring them forever.
The gentle streams, pools and falls had become fast-flowing rivers, and where they had burst their banks water rushed up to and surely into the house at four points she could see at a glance. Holes speckled the roof in too many places to count and littering the ground was the debris of storms. Glass, wood, slate and stone. All carelessly smashed.
But what dominated the house was the beacon of visible mana light that Lyanna, it had to be Lyanna, had created. It stood silent and stunning, shot through with the colours of the four Colleges, a deep calm brown and flares of black, a gentle swirl in its make up that spiralled faster as it rose.
High above her, the cloud mass spun about it, rolling with thunder and crackling with lightning. There was a pale mist clinging to the underside of the cloud and around the column, spreading out across the island and beyond, coating everything beneath it in a cool, fine rain.
Erienne took a brief pass around the light, which came from the centre of the orchard, and as she flew down to land, saw a sight that gladdened her pounding, nervous heart. A little girl had run from the ruins of the main doors and was staring up at her, eyes hooded with one hand, waving vaguely with the other.
Lyanna.
Erienne called out and curved in steeply, a strong backward beat of her wings stalling her so she could step off the air. She dismissed the spell as she crouched, pulling Lyanna to her in an embrace she had thought she would never enjoy again. She held it for a long while, the little girl clinging back, one of Erienne's hands moving up to stroke the hair at the back of her head.