'You get more luck than you deserve!' I shook my head at Ryshad.
'Dastennin favours me, what can I do?' he asked, wide-eyed.
'You can keep praying and keep on his good side.' Shiv ran his hands along the sides of the boat and it began to move rapidly through the water. 'We've got half a stuffing ocean to cross before we're anywhere near safety.'
Bremilayne Docks, 3rd of For-Winter
Casuel stamped across the quay, his face clouded with a sufficiently forbidding scowl so that even the idling dockers gave him room to pass. He clutched the wax-paper packets of herbs and dried fruit with impotent anger. He was a wizard, he fumed; he was due more respect than this. It was all very well for Esquire Camarl, he had grown up used to ordering menials around and doubtless he didn't mean anything by it, but Casuel was not a footman and Camarl really shouldn't be sending him out on errands like this. Why wasn't Darni running up and down the steep streets, collecting pointless packages like a maidservant? He looked across to the far side of the harbour and the distant ship riding gently at the quayside, a tall-masted, rangy vessel with steep sides and a questing prow, the tiny figures of Darni and Camarl busy with the crew as they prepared to sail.
A ragged skein of crab-trapper boats rounded the long arm of the sea-wall. They bobbed over the gleaming waters of the harbour and began to tie up. People with baskets on their arms started to gather on the dockside, eager for first pick of the catch. Casuel's mood lifted a little at the prospect of fresh lobster: they were so much better on the ocean coast. The food at the guest-house had been a pleasant surprise, if the accommodations were a little old-fashioned and sparse. He pushed his cloak back over one shoulder and tucked the parcels under his arm. At least it wasn't raining today; the sky was a freshly washed blue and a gentle breeze was bowling fluffy clouds overhead. He wasn't exactly looking forward to risking the open ocean but hopefully their voyage wouldn't be too rough, not with Otrick to control the winds.
'Casuel, we meet again!'
Casuel halted and turned, astonished to be greeted like this. A short, blond man stepped out from behind a rack of drying nets, all smiles.
'You have the advantage, sir.' Casuel tried to look uncon-rerned but his mind was racing. This was the enemy! How could he summon help? Darni? Camarl?
'We met in Hanchet, don't you recall?' The fair-haired man smiled cheerfully. 'You were most helpful; spite and envy make a mind so very easy to read.'
Casuel gaped and turned to run but the man gripped his arm with fingers of iron and steel flashed in his other hand. A shocking pain lit through Casuel's head and his eyes were held, frozen, helpless in that icy green gaze. A disdainful touch scoured the surface of his mind, rough and superficial.
'So that's the ship and those are your allies; thank you, that's all I wanted to know.' The enemy glanced at the purchases in the crook of Casuel's elbow with a brief, contemptuous smile and then stabbed him abruptly above the belt buckle. Casuel folded around the hammer blow of the knife stroke and was pushed with one swift movement into the tangle of nets. He clasped frantic hands around the hilt, whimpering as an ominous thread of blood welled from his guts, gasping for breath. The blond man looked down for a moment then vanished in the gathering throng.
'Help,' he croaked. 'Help me!'
Casuel managed to get himself to a sitting position, half hanging in the nets, muscles cramping brutally in a vain effort to do something about the red-hot agony spreading from his midriff. Warm blood on his fingers was sticky and slippery at the same time. Yelping like a kicked dog, Casuel managed to shuffle forward on his buttocks, biting clean through his lip as the pain seared him. He rested, panting, his boots clear of the nets, blood trickling through the cobbles to pool around the scuffed leather, glistening drops scarlet on the wrappings of his little parcels.
Steps rang on the stones and Casuel looked up with relief. 'Help me, I've been—'
He stared, uncomprehending, as the fisherman stepped over his feet and went on his way regardless. 'You bastard,' he croaked despairingly.
The knife was a white-hot rod running from his stomach to his spine, an iron bar of scorching agony, his torn body melting around it. The rest of him was growing colder by the breath, clammy sweat freezing on his brow.
Casuel screamed in fresh anguish as someone stepped on his ankle, wrenching his leg and sending new torment to his abdomen.
'Watch where you're stepping!' the fishwife said cheerfully to her companion as their skirts swished past Casuel's disbelieving eyes. They could not see him! They did not realise he was there! How could that be? There was no magic worked round him! He leaned against the post, eyes blank with fear. He was going to die here!
Movement on the dockside caught his eye; the boats were unloading baskets of sluggishly moving crustaceans and the fishwives and townsfolk were stepping forward to argue the prices. A whimper of fresh despair escaped him, nothing to do with the agonies in his belly. Pushing through the throng, Casuel saw several blond heads heading for the distant berth of the pirate ship. He reached for the earth, a futile effort, the iron in his stomach twisting and dispersing the magic. He clutched at the wound in hollow terror; it felt as if his whole stomach was tearing apart inside him.
'Casuel!' Allin's white face peered through the netting, her expression one of horror. 'Halcarion help me!'
'The enemy, here!' Casuel struggled for more words, lightheaded, shuddering as every sense in his body screamed in confusion over the wound.
Allin moved round to kneel in front of him, dumping her basket and ripping at her petticoats.
'Hold still,' she commanded, as she folded a pad of linen. A faint scent of lavender floated to Casuel's nostrils, rising above the charnel smell of blood like a ghost of summer.
'Here.' She pressed the linen against the wound and Casuel gasped. After a moment, he grasped the hilt of the dagger but Allin gripped his fingers tight, heedless of the blood.
'No, not until we've got you to a surgeon.' She removed his hand with absolute authority and looked around, her round face pale and set.
'Look!' Casuel pointed to the ship, arm jerky and uncoordinated, desperation in his faint voice.
There was trouble aboard the pirate vessel. Allin stared as one of the great booms came crashing down, sails tearing with a sound like thunder, the screams of a crushed man mingling with the shrieks of the gulls. A sweep of torn canvas landed on two men to become an active, smothering thing, their muffled struggles increasingly frantic as they grappled with it, ragged edges rippling with malice as it wrapped itself tighter and tighter. A body fell from the highest mast, ropes coiling after it like snakes. A second man fell but was caught up before he reached the deck, a killing noose looping around his neck; he hung in the shrouds like a broken-necked bird. A little crab-boat at the next berth bobbed against the jetty, its crew oblivious as they haggled cheerfully with a knot of eager customers.
'Get Planir,' Casuel gasped but Allin was already tying the rough dressing tight to his wound with her sash.
'Don't move and for Saedrin's sake, don't touch the knife,' she commanded and ran full-pelt across the quay, heedless of the surprised glances of the populace calmly going about their business.
Casuel leaned against the net-post, sucking in feeble breaths, eyes wide with dread and despair as he watched the chaos on their vessel. He could see Darni now, unmistakable in his red cloak and dark hair. The cheerful sunlight danced on Darni's sword as he flailed at some invisible enemy, swinging this way and that at another unseen foe. Wheeling swiftly round, he lunged, lashing out and felling some hapless seaman, heedless of his unintended victim as he pursued the phantoms only he could see. Swaying and jumping, his sword swung, all his attention on the empty air before him. He lunged but less smoothly this time, his moves becoming more and more ragged, panic threatening as he looked round, assailed now on two sides, three and more.