There would be witnesses other than the pirates and Dateonese. A modest-size merchant showing unfamiliar colors was scooting past to seaward, headed east. Another vessel with sails taken in lay ahead and to landward. Hecht asked, “Would that be the pirate flagship?”
“Possibly. These aren’t ordinary pirates. They look like Praman privateers.”
“Run up the Righteous banner and my personal ensign.” He did not think there would be much fighting. Ghebulli Resteino had turned even before her master received permission to attack. The pirates were disengaging already.
Hourli nodded to Hecht. This piracy was what she had come to report. Hecht said, “Help the captain so we don’t lose much time.”
Hourli smiled. It was a wicked slash, anticipating. “Oh, yes. Let me talk to the girls.”
“The girls” had gathered on the foredeck, Fastthal and Sprenghul shimmering black.
Hecht called out, “Pella. Where are you?”
The boy hustled up. “Breaking out some grenados, Dad.”
“Good idea. Take them to my friends. Show them how they work.”
“Dad?” Disappointment filled the boy’s face.
“If we get close enough to throw those ourselves we’ll be close enough for them to shoot us back.”
Pella muttered but, moments later, he and two staffers were lugging a case of grenados toward the Shining Ones. Below, oarsmen prepared to take Ghebulli Resteino from sail to muscle power. The rowers were neither slaves nor criminals, as was the case on most warships. Only free men worked the ships of Aparion.
“Oh, hell,” Hecht grumbled halfheartedly. The Chooser sisters had made no effort to hide their nature while flashing toward the pirate flagship. Hourli pounded her own forehead with the heel of her right hand.
Flashes appeared aboard the flagship. It took some time for the noise to arrive. Shouting soon followed. Then the Choosers returned for more explosives.
Now they went after the Dateonese vessel’s attackers. Those smaller craft were having limited luck breaking away.
Hecht wondered why the Choosers bothered with the bombs. He went forward to ask.
“Because they like the smoke and bangs,” Pella said, before Hourli could answer.
The boy would understand. Hecht asked Hourli, “How do we cover this up? I mean, Fastthal and Sprenghul.”
“I’ll do what I can. It won’t be enough. We can’t undo what’s been seen. I’ll twist it so people who hear about it from people who heard about it from people who might have been here will assume that it’s mostly exaggeration.”
“Keep the suspicion of deviltry out of it.”
“Not possible in the prevailing religious climate.”
“Uh?”
“God doesn’t manifest. Anything supernatural that does manifest must be an agent of the Adversary. You know that.”
Hecht sighed. Of course.
He looked to the masthead. The banners of the Righteous and Commander of the Righteous were up for all to see.
Hourli said, “There is one way to manage the story exactly, one hundred percent.”
“Why do I think I’m not going to like this?”
“Because you won’t. It’s not your way.”
“And?”
“Leave no witnesses.”
Hecht trembled. He felt weak for a moment. No witnesses. These allies could make that happen. A few score pirates, some Dateonese, whoever was on that wallowing coaster from out west, hustling to get away from the action, the crew of Ghebulli Resteino, any Righteous who could not be counted on to keep quiet … Maybe seven hundred people? That was manageable.
But Hourli was right. He would not do that.
The ship’s master began to close with the pirate flagship.
* * *
Ghebulli Resteino arrived off Envi, a small port twenty-two miles up the coast from Shartelle, in company with four pirate vessels taken in prize. The crews had been consigned to the fishes. Freed Chaldarean prisoners were helping work the captured ships. The rescued Dateonese Consiglieri Reversi Ono continued on southward, destination Kagure.
Ghebulli Resteino anchored out with her prizes. The sun dropped below the western horizon. Hecht had a boat put over. He went ashore with a dozen men and the Shining Ones, the latter trembling in anticipation.
They would feast at the Well of Peace before morning. Their excitement was contagious. Lord Arnmigal felt the lure himself, some.
The Well of Peace might be feeble and misnamed but it was a well of power and it was within reach.
Campfires burned like shoals of stars across the hills south of Envi. Lord Arnmigal had overtaken his host.
* * *
The main fortifications of Shartelle surmounted a headland rising sixty feet above the White Sea. The foundations of the wall, standing thirty feet tall to seaward and as high as one hundred twenty feet to landward, were rooted in the stone of the headland. Entrance was through a massive double barbican behind a dry moat thirty feet deep. The rubble from the moat had been used to fill a curtain wall twenty feet high a hundred yards in advance of the main wall. That lay behind a ditch twelve feet deep. A further wall lay another hundred yards in front of that. All the walls had towers offering enfilading fires.
The harbors that made Shartelle such a prize lay below the headland, to either hand, behind formidable walls of their own. Those stretched out to sea atop breakwaters. There were towers at their ends capable of laying heavy fires on enemy ships. They could hoist chains that would keep ships out of the harbors. Shartelle’s own fleet was substantial. It could bring in supplies sufficient to keep the city going indefinitely. A siege centuries earlier had persisted thirteen years with no success.
Lord Arnmigal considered the situation. “Our friends from Dateon and Aparion are too optimistic. We can’t take that by storm. Our falcons won’t help. They aren’t heavy enough to break those walls.”
“So we’ll use trickery,” Titus Consent said.
“Or ferocity.”
Hecht glanced at Hourli. He was uncomfortable with her now, and not just because she was so much more potent a presence after having visited the Well of Peace. She was always close by, now. Nearer than the Choosers, usually-and it seemed he needed her to be. He was more confident and decisive when she was.
He suspected that her interest was, in fact, more than personal, serving the cause of the Shining Ones.
He said, “Suppose we go with the historical option and just bypass Shartelle? Keep it closed up on the land side while we deal with easier targets?”
Consent said, “Maybe not the best choice psychologically.”
Hourli agreed. “The Commander of the Righteous has a reputation. He shouldn’t dodge his first tough challenge.”
Hecht grunted. Too true. Events at Shartelle would shape his future in the Holy Lands. Taking the city would guarantee less resistance elsewhere, later.
“There is a problem. I promised Heris not to butcher the population.”
Hourli said, “There must be people who didn’t treat her right.”
“They got theirs already. Grade Drocker was ferocious.”
Hourli said, “I’ll consult Heris. You study the situation here. You’ll find a way, you being you.”
“What was that?” Titus asked after Hourli walked away.
“I don’t know. She’s changed. She acts like I’m one of them instead of the Godslayer.”
“You aren’t even that, anymore. Heris has taken that. And she wants to keep it.”
Titus was right. Heris was at war with the Night.
“Let’s walk the ground again. We could overtop that first curtain wall with an old-fashioned ramp.” But he was eying the northern harbor. If he could run a causeway to the mole and escalade that wall …
Titus said, “We have the Instrumentalities. Like it or not, people think we have supernatural allies. Why not go ahead and use them?”