“No.” The word snapped from behind them. Pagaloth cringed at the voice, saw the men part to make way, lowering their heads and falling silent. The priest fluttered forward in his fiery red robes, slashed in crimson and ruby and amber. He wore a kind smile beneath cold, empty eyes. “Do not fear, Sir Pagaloth,” he said. “It is warm in the Father’s embrace.”

Pagaloth’s lips tore open to snarl a reply, but a hand came down to silence him. He bit out at the flesh, felt his teeth sink through meat and muscle. The man yelped and yanked, but he clung on like a dog, feral and wild. Several more figures rushed in to prise him off, and a fist closed to slam into his jaw. His head snapped to one side, mouth full of flesh and blood, bared teeth glistening red. The priest smiled at him all the while. “Do not be too rough with our friend,” he said to the men. “He will be one of us… soon enough.”

Pagaloth spat out a glob of meat. “No…I’ll never…”

“Never? Never ever?” The fire priest laughed and stepped in, cupping his chin firmly, lifting his head. When Pagaloth looked up he saw eyes of molten flame staring down at him, swimming with chaos. “I disagree, young one. All join the path eventually.”

“Not all.”

The voice was new. It rumbled deeply from behind the throng. Pagaloth raised his eyes to search beyond them. The dragonknights and spearmen were all turning to look. Several drew back a step at what they saw. A few more drew their blades. One even went down to a knee and bowed his head.

The fire priest swung about, hissing. “You,” he said. “You have turned from the way?”

“I walk my own way.” Lord Ulrik Marak reached to his hip and pulled the Fireblade from its sheath. Flame leapt from its edge, a glow of warm amber light spreading through the glade. “Step away from him,” he said.

Pagaloth blinked in shock. More men were drawing steel. The fire priest gave a cackle. “Fool,” he said, in that ringing whisper. “Even you cannot fight the will of Agarath, Marak.”

Ulrik Marak’s face was stone. His eyes moved across the host, one by one. Scales in red and black wreathed his hulking frame; the Body of Karagar, son of the Dread. But the dragonlord’s eyes were clear. “Lay down your weapons. I will not give you another chance.”

“Do no such thing!” The priest’s voice snapped out, shattering through the cold night air. His face twisted in manic glee. “Take him!” he called. “The Fire Father demands it! Take him! Take him! Take him!”

The men obeyed like the slaves they were.

They died like the slaves they were.

46

“Whales,” Bloodhound Burton said.

“Where?” Robbert scanned across the rough, choppy waters, but he couldn’t see them. No shadows, no fins, no spouts. Nothing.

“Yonder.” The captain threw out a hand, away to the east. “They’re far, but closing. Might have caught our scent. Or not. I’ll keep my nostrils open for them, princeling. Be a shame to founder now, wouldn’t it?”

Yes, Robbert thought. They had almost five hundred men aboard, and some special guests as well. Being sunk by a pod of grumpy greatwhales was not on his agenda. “Tell me if they come too close,” he said, “I ought to report to the princess.”

“The princess, aye.” Burton had a twinkle in his eye. “Pretty girl, isn’t she?”

Beautiful, Robbert thought. Pretty didn’t do her justice by half. “She is comely, yes.”

“And young. Not far off your own age, lad. You’d make a fine pairing, wouldn’t you say?”

Robbert did not want to engage in this discussion. He would only say something to implicate himself, and Bloodhound’s nose wasn’t the only good sense he had. He knows, he thought. He’s probably seen me looking at her. Gazing might be a better word, though he would hope he stopped short of ogling. That would not be particularly princely of him.

“Well, just a thought,” the Seaborn said. “Might be the world could do with healing when all this is done, and you being royalty…”

“Yes, Bloodhound, thank you.” Robbert didn’t need a lesson on marriage pacts to form alliances if that’s what the old sailor was getting at. His own mother and father had been wed for that reason, and their union had always been loveless. “In any case, I’m given to understand that she is rather fond of another prince. Elyon Daecar,” Robbert said, in case Burton wasn’t aware. “She stayed with him in his tent during the siege of Harrowmoor. She was a spy back then.”

“And a slave before it,” Burton said, with a whistle. “Interesting life she’s led, this girl. And that blade she has at her hip. The dagger, not the sword. Those glyphs and symbols…well, I could swear I’ve seen it before. Reminds me of one King Lorin used to wear, way back when I was just a tot. Not the same one, of course…couldn’t be…but similar.” He scratched at a stubbly jowl. “I did tell you about Lorin, didn’t I? How I sailed with him? Those fine words he said to me.”

The man was being facetious and rather silly, Robbert knew. There was no subject he liked to drone on about more than his days sailing with King Lorin in his youth. The day Lorin fell to that kraken, Ash Burton, nought but a boy of eight or nine back then, had come down with a fever. But for that sickness, he might have been aboard the doomed vessel, he claimed, and ever since then he’d dedicated his life to hunting the monsters of the deep…and krakens in particular. “Yes, Bloodhound,” Robbert said dryly. “I am aware.”

The captain grinned knowingly. “Well now…I’m sure there’s an anecdote or two I haven’t told you. But I’ll save those for later. You’d best be off to your princess, and I’d best keep my nose open for them whales. When there are whales about, krakens aren’t far behind. And if I get a whiff of one of them slimy devils…”

“You’ll race away from it,” Robbert said. “No heroics, Captain. We’ve precious cargo aboard.”

The prince spun away, pacing down the stairs from the quarterdeck. The men teemed about him, working the sails and rigging, and down belowdecks they were crammed in even tighter. They’d best get used to it, Robbert thought. He still had some fourteen hundred men waiting for him beneath the cliffs, and his three remaining ships - Bloodbear, Blackthorn, and Wild Raven - were not so big as Hammer was. We’ll make do, he told himself. Huffort gave us no choice in that when he left with half my ships and men.

Robbert had given Saska his own cabin for the voyage back to his fleet, to be shared with Leshie and Del and whomever else she cared to invite inside. Outside the door she had posted the Butcher and another of her sellswords, a furious little woman called Savage who’d been one of the Surgeon’s killers. Robb remembered her from the warcamp outside Aram. Her hair was long and black and braided on one side and shaven and tattooed on the other. “Pretty prince,” the Butcher said. “Here to see the pretty princess?”

It struck him as odd that he was being barred from his own cabin. I made that bed, though, he thought. And now Saska was the one sleeping in it. The thought made him swallow. “Yes,” he only managed. “Is she decent?

When the Butcher grinned, the scars in his face deepened and glistened redly. “She is a very decent lady, yes. So I would not be getting any ideas, pretty prince…pretty as you are.”

“And what ideas do you suppose those are?”

“Ideas that will not please Coldheart.”

“The King’s Wall?” Robbert was no stranger to nicknames, though these…he could barely keep up. Many of them had been bestowed by Leshie, he did not doubt.

“He is always watching,” the Butcher said. “So be careful, pretty prince. His wrath is a fearsome thing.”

I know. Bernie and Lank can attest to that. “Whatever you’re implying would be none of his business. Now step aside. And less of the ‘pretty’ if you would. I’d prefer you call me handsome.”

He smiled and brushed past them, the little woman Savage sneering at him as he went. That one seemed very odd. Through the door he found Saska, Leshie, and Del all sitting cross-legged on the floor in a wide circle playing some sort of game involving a small tin cup and piles of pebbles. He paused at the sight of them. They looked like a band of common youths, all sitting there like that without their armour, and in a fashion they were. Del was no more than a farmhand, Leshie a serving maid, and Saska, well…she’d grown up in a dozen guises, never knowing her true identity. Joy sat with her, curled into a great black ball. It made him smile. “What are you playing?”

“Pebbles,” Del said, grinning up at him. His tangled black hair fell in random strands about his forehead. Del had a rather horsey face to fit his gangly build, but his skills with the bow were improving daily, Robb had heard. “You throw pebbles in the pot. First one to get all their stones in sits out. He’s the winner.”

“Or she,” corrected Leshie.

“Or she,” agreed Del. “Then we play on until there’s only one left with stones, and they have to do a forfeit for losing.”

It was not a complex game, though the addition of the forfeit rather spiced it up. The prince did not miss that the slim youth Jaito was here as well, sitting aside in a chair. He stood as soon as Robbert laid eyes on him, and inclined himself in a bow. “Your Highness.”

“Hello, Jaito. Were you playing the game as well?’ Robbert liked the archer’s good sense of courtesy.

“I was, my lord. I won. So I am sitting out.”

That did not surprise him. “You ought to be good in games of accuracy,” he said. “Fine archer as you are.”

“I am capable, my lord,” the youth said, smiling. He had angular features, large brown eyes and a strong inner confidence, Robbert decided. He and Del had shared a tent during their journey from Aram, and had become fast friends along the way. So much so that Jaito had volunteered to join them on their journey north when the rest of Saska’s Aramatian escort were relieved of their duties and left behind.

Robbert ran his eyes over the remaining pebbles. “What sort of forfeits do you do?” he asked.

“Depends,” Del said. “The others decide.” His face went red. “I lost the last game, and they made me quack like a duck. I had to go down the corridor flapping my arms.” He glared at Leshie. “Everyone laughed at me.”

“Yes, because you looked stupid.” Leshie was laughing now; obviously it had been her doing. “I want Savage to play with us, so she’ll lose, and I can make her look stupid too. I hate that woman.”