Eyes narrowed, Gaelin stood and set his feet, waiting. The pirate’s axe hand was hindered by the cabin beside him, while Gaelin’s own blade was free, but the axe was a much more formidable weapon than the dagger Gaelin had appropriated.
The pirate brought the axe across his chest in a backhand cut, lunging forward to swing at Gaelin’s head. Gaelin ducked, and the axe bit into the wooden bulkhead and stuck, just long enough for Gaelin to step forward and stab his opponent underneath the breastbone. Gaelin unceremoniously shouldered him over the side, snatching the axe out of his hands as the pirate lost his balance and fell. “There’s another one for you, Daene,” he breathed. He ran forward and peered around the deckhouse at the open bow.
Madislav stood there, roaring like a wounded bear as he held off three more pirates with his heavy sword. Two huddled forms on the deck attested to the Vos warrior’s success so far, but he was bleeding from a long gash across his ribs.
Despite Madislav’s skill and strength, he was in trouble – the brigands had him surrounded and were waiting for a fatal mistake. None of them had seen Gaelin yet, and one had his back to the prince. Gaelin stepped forward and brained him with the axe. Distracted by Gaelin’s appearance, another man took his eyes off Madislav at the exact wrong instant and lost an arm to Madislav’s blade.
“I’ve got the prince up here!” shouted the remaining pirate, backing away from Gaelin and Madislav. “Crossbows! Quick!”
Madislav cursed in Vos and looked at Gaelin. “Excusing me,” he said. He grabbed Gaelin’s axe out of his hand and hurled it at the pirate with all his strength, at a range of only four paces. It wasn’t enough for the blade to turn over, but the blunt side of the iron axehead struck the fellow right between the eyes. From the way he went down, Gaelin suspected that would do for him.
“Where’s Ruide?” Gaelin asked.
“I left him in the cabin. Daene followed you.” Madislav stepped forward to peer around the deckhouse at the pirate’s ketch, and quickly drew his head back. “Two with crossbows on the other boat, coming this way.”
“We’ve got two of our own with the horses,” Gaelin said, nodding at the saddles and bags stowed on the deck. He dashed over, avoiding the stamping horses, and crouched down behind them while he fished out a dry string and readied a bow. Madislav followed him and started on the other bow. He finished stringing the bow, set his foot in the weapon’s stirrup and cocked it. Three brigands clattered onto the bow of the keelboat, shouting, while Gaelin noticed dark forms appearing at the ketch’s rail. “Damn,” he muttered.
“The prince! Get him, lads!”
Madislav stood and leveled his bow at the cutthroat leading the charge, dropping him with a quarrel in the throat.
Gaelin stood a moment later and fired at the second man. His bolt took the wretch between the eyes, and the fellow staggered back three steps before falling over the side with a cold splash. Gaelin discarded his crossbow and stepped forward to meet the attack of the last man, a fellow fighting with knives in each hand. The prince parried the first cut, blocked the second with his wrist, slashed at the rake’s face, and then twisted away as the man riposted and nicked his side.
Madislav worked furiously to reload his crossbow before the bowmen on the ketch could fire.
Gaelin dodged away from the knifeman again, taking two quick steps to get clear of his opponent. That was a mistake.
For a moment, he was standing on the open deck, and a brigand on the ketch fired a crossbow at him. A heavy blow struck him low in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and Gaelin looked down to see a quarrel’s fletchings jutting out of his belly, an inch or two left of his navel. The strength drained from his legs, and he went to one knee, cupping a hand around the bolt as warm, red blood ran through his fingers.
He looked up and saw the knifeman moving close to administer the killing blow. “Madislav!”
There was another snap of a crossbow. A few feet away in the fog, Gaelin heard a choking cry and the sound of a body falling to the deck. Distantly, he realized that Madislav had just shot the man who had shot him. A burning, sickening pain was growing in Gaelin’s belly, and he gasped in shock.
Looking up, he saw the knifeman poised to finish him. But a moment later, Madislav bellowed a Vos war cry and slammed into the fellow like a blood-maddened bear, hacking at him with a berserker’s fury.
“Fall back, lads! The prince is dead!” A hoarse voice called out from the ketch. Gaelin’s knees failed, and he toppled to the deck, landing heavily on his side. With a curious detachment, he noticed that the sounds of the fighting aft had died down. The ketch was drawing back, and a handful of the pirates were climbing back aboard their own vessel. With a creaking of rope and timber, the keelboat righted itself, the canted deck returning to the horizontal.
Cursing bitterly, Madislav picked up the fighting axe from where it had fallen and hurled it across the widening gap of water. A shriek of pain and a splash rewarded the warrior’s parting effort. The yellow halo of lantern light faded into darkness as the brigands’ vessel vanished into the fog.
Gaelin found Madislav and Ruide standing over him. The valet bled from a long, shallow cut across his hairline, and to Gaelin he seemed a little incoherent. Madislav knelt beside him. “Gaelin, I am sorry. If I had shot a moment sooner…”
Grunting in effort, Gaelin struggled to prop himself up against the gunwale. Madislav helped him. “Pull out the quarrel,” he said between his teeth.
“That could kill you!” Ruide exclaimed. “Gaelin, we need to find a physician. Maybe there’s one in that Alamien town.”
Madislav reached out to lay a hand on Ruide’s shoulder.
“No, Gaelin is right.” When the old gods of Cerilia had been destroyed in a mighty cataclysm at the battle of Mount Deismaar fifteen hundred years before, their dissipating powers imbued the ancient heroes who fought in the battle. An ancestor of the Mhoried line had been among these heroes, and as a scion of that house, Gaelin had been born with the blood gift of accelerated healing.
“No! You could make the injury worse!” Ruide protested.
“Gaelin is right,” Madislav repeated. “I have seen him recover from wounds before. Is best to let his gift repair the injury.”
He looked at Gaelin. “Although I have never seen you hurt this badly, Gaelin. You are sure you want to be doing this?”
Gaelin gasped and nodded. Madislav met his eyes. He set his hand on the bolt, took a moment to be certain of his grip, and pulled the quarrel away with one swift motion. Gaelin screamed and fainted from the pain, the world spinning away into harsh white light. He drifted in a dark void, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
After a long time, he opened his eyes again. It was still dark, but he could tell dawn was near. The keelboat was underway again, drifting slowly down the river. I survived, he realized. He was lying in one of the deckhouse bunks, with Ruide nodding asleep in a chair beside him. He lifted the covers and looked down at his stomach; there was a dark, puckered depression where the wound had been. It ached horribly, and he could feel that the injury was still fragile. He guessed it would be several days at least before he completely recovered. I would be dead now, if not for the Mhoried blood, he thought. I never realized how fortunate I was. Groaning, he swung his feet out of bed and rose, moving carefully. Wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, he stepped outside, trying not to disturb Ruide.
The keelboat was listing to the port side, and it moved more awkwardly than before. Leaning against the deckhouse, he pushed himself aft and found Madislav and Viensen back by the boat’s helm. The deck was still slippery with blood, but the bodies of the sailors who had fallen were wrapped in sail canvas and laid carefully to one side of the deck. The bandits’ bodies were gone; Gaelin guessed Viensen had committed them to the river with little ceremony. Madislav grinned widely as he saw Gaelin emerge from the cabin. “Gaelin!