Wading through another broken wave, thigh-deep in places, Vaddi and Cellester struggled toward the craft. Menneath was wrestling with the ropes that set the single, curved sail. Its canvas was plain, without the customary unicorn of House Orien emblazoned upon it. Menneath tied off the rope and swung out over the rocking side of the craft, holding out his hand to Vaddi.
“Come aboard!” he yelled above the scream of the winds.
They clawed at Vaddi as he took his friend’s hand, seemingly determined to rip him away and plunge him into the churning seas, but then Vaddi was across the gap and info the craft. Menneath clamped an arm around his shoulders and laughed, mocking the wind.
Both of them turned to the cleric. He was judging his moment to cross, his lips moving as if in a silent prayer. Vaddi remembered that Cellester had powers of his own. There was a lull in the screaming of the wind, a flicker of calmness on the waters. The cleric crossed to the boat, sure-footed as a hill goat, but his face showed no emotion as he took his place down in the stern of the craft.
“Can this tub traverse such a storm?” Vaddi yelled.
Menneath’s face was a mask of amusement. “Of course! Call this a storm? And don’t speak lightly of Marella. She’s sturdy enough!”
“Marella? Sovereigns, you’re not in love again? You named your craft after that skinny creature?”
“Watch what you say! Marella is not in the least bit skinny, you troll! She’s a fine girl—”
Vaddi laughed in spite of the pain that was wrenching at his heart. The craft lurched wildly and he was nearly pitched out, his hands grabbing the lines to steady himself.
“Concentrate!” he yelled. “Time enough to think about your beloved Marella later.”
Menneath cast off the mooring lines and turned the sail. He was several inches taller than Vaddi, more muscular, with a shock of thick black hair that constantly threatened to blind him as it tumbled across his face. Straining at the ropes as he did now, head flung back, neck muscles corded with effort, he looked more like an elemental than a man. But the fishermen of these northern waters were bred from such stock, and the men of Thrane often swore they had saltwater for blood.
As the craft flipped out across the heaving waters, Vaddi felt the cleric observing him. He turned and saw the man seated in the stern, strangely relaxed. He nodded to Vaddi.
He’s using magic, Vaddi thought. Sovereigns know in this storm we’ll need it.
Menneath guided the craft into the raging waters. The Marella plunged, seemingly straight to her doom, but miraculously shot forward. Around his neck Menneath wore a pendant, a blue stone carved with a sigil. He swore it has a chip from a dragonshard, fallen from the Rings of Siberys that surrounded the world. In the hours that followed. Vaddi could have believed it as the Marella ploughed through the raging sea, past the fangs of numerous rocks, underwater reefs, and tall, looming islands.
2
Treachery in Rookstack
The storm showed no sign of abating, but Menneath was able to guide the craft with apparent ease to the east, following the line of islands that clustered about the mainland shores. North of them, on the seaward side, other islands rose up like broken fangs, while overhead clouds tore across the skies like shrouds to cover Marazanath.
Vaddi went back to Menneath, who was looking puzzled over something.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Marella. She’s not responding fully.”
He leaned this way and that, but to Vaddi’s eye, the craft seemed to obey her master.
“If I try to swing out into the main channel, north of east, she’s sluggish.”
“Damaged?” Vaddi asked.
“I don’t think so. I would have felt it.”
Vaddi grimaced. “Will she make it?”
“To Rookstack? I think so.” Menneath spoke the name as though it were a curse. “Ever been there?”
“The freebooter’s den? No. Why?”
“I wouldn’t want to fetch up in that rat-hole. Why are we going there?”
“My—” a sob tried to seize Vaddi’s throat, but he choked it down. “My father said he has contacts there.”
“Your father has contacts all over Khorvaire. Why are we going to thrice-cursed Rookstack?”
Vaddi went back to the Cleric. “Why are we going to Rookstack, cleric?”
Cellester looked uneasy. “Thrane would be safest, true, but our enemies will suspect as much. Their eyes will be turned westward for now.”
Vaddi was about to respond, but something overhead made him lift his head to the skies. There was a momentary break in the clouds, like a long gash of light reaching back westward along the coast toward Marazanath. In the far distance, rising up to the heavens like a black, contorted pillar, smoke rose, boiling and contorting itself, masking the coastline as it billowed outward, the very breath of chaos. He thought of his father, his half-brothers, all dead now, wiped away in that one night of carnage.
You must not be taken, his father had said. Vaddi felt again the horrific gaze of the vampire lord upon him, the look of pure lust in his eyes, and the pain of Vaddi’s loss clashed with the fury of his anger. The break in the clouds closed, and the storm drew a final veil over the smoking pyre that had been Marazanath.
Rookstack was a unique port, its main area hewn out of the living rock of a tall island, like an oversize rabbit warren. Dominating it and the natural curve of harbor, a dozen columns of rock towered up, their bizarre forms eroded by wind and weather, as if some deranged sculptor had been at work on them. Human skulls and bones hung from them—a warning to outsiders that this was no place to linger. Among these leaning towers, clouds of rooks flocked, their croaks and calls echoing from the chiselled rock. The harbor itself, enclosed by two claw-like outcrops of jagged rock, had been chopped out of the base of the central rock by dwarves in centuries gone by, its quayside narrow, its stone constantly buffeted by the waves that churned in from the sea. This was the leeward side of the island, but only the most skilled of sailors could negotiate the entrance to the harbor and ease their craft up to the quayside.
A dozen unkempt onlookers stood on that quay now, eagerly watching Menneath as he guided Marella to a berth. They nodded their reluctant approval as the youth deftly eased the small boat in and flung up a rope. One of them caught it and tied it off. His burly companions, hands on sword hilts, waited for the three intruders to alight.
“Who are you and what business have you got here?” said one of them. A scar down one side of his face danced as he spoke.
“Fleeing from the storm,” said Cellester before Menneath could reply.
“Aye,” nodded the huge seaman who had tied off the craft. “Not been many like it in our time.”
The man with the scar pointed to Menneath. “Yon boy’s a fisherman. One of Drudesh’s whelps, if I know him. Seen him in coastal waters. But you others—you’re not sea folk.”
Vaddi fell anger stirring within him, but Cellester spoke before he could voice it. “You’ll come across more like us in the days that follow. There’s fighting in Marazanath. Some local dispute, I guess. More than a few will have to detour round it. We’re from southern Karrnath. On Church business. I am a cleric and this is my novice. We’ll go back to our lands when chance permits it.”
The men glowered at them for a while longer, then grunted. Few questions were asked in Rookstack, but Cellester knew that they would be watched. House Orien had more than once stated its intent to rid these waters of the freebooters, and the pirates were justifiably not quick to give their trust.