Free Stormwarden by Janny Wurts Page B

the boy's wrist. "Idiot! Are you mad?"
    He jerked Emien back. The boy stumbled clumsily. Hearvin yanked him around, and the lantern lit the shining streaks of tears on a face unnaturally fixed in tranquillity. The sorcerer understood the cause. Anskiere had engaged the power he had recovered, and tried to form a geas to summon the children. Hearvin's fingers knotted savagely in the boy's sleeve. The girl was still missing, but apparently the attempt had found the boy susceptible; Tathagres was going to be distinctly displeased.
    "Kor's Fires!" Hearvin slung the lantern on a peg and traced his hands swiftly before the boy's eyes. A symbol glowed in the air where it passed. The sorcerer muttered a counterspell; the glyph flashed scarlet and faded. Emien blinked. He shuddered, and his peaceful expression crumpled into horror as the illusion which called him dissolved into a nightmare of storm-tossed darkness. He drew breath and cried out.
    Hearvin shook him. "Forget Imrill Kand! Forget your family! Your loyalty belongs to Tathagres, and she has summoned you."
    Wind screeched above his words. Crow heaved awkwardly, dragged into another roll by the swirling gallons which flooded her hold. Emien staggered and shrugged free of Hearvin's grip. The deck tilted. Steel rattled and clanged overhead as terrified rowers struggled to tear free of their chains. Their panic might prevent the seamen from sealing the oar-ports, Emien thought dully. Crow was in peril of sinking. Strangely, he did not care.
    Hearvin caught the lantern from its hook, and the hold fell into darkness, loud with the enclosed splash of the bilge. "I forbade you to come down here." He started up the ladder. "Why did you?"
    Emien followed, sullenly silent. Just before he reached the hatch, he glanced back, but could not recall what had drawn him to leave his berth in the forecastle. Hearvin noted the boy's confusion with satisfaction. The spell of binding he had crafted was sufficient; Anskiere's meddling would trouble Emien no further.
    The sorcerer did not perceive the tern which perched on the rim of a certain brandy cask in the depths of the hold. The binding he had used to secure Emien had also blinded the boy to its presence, since the shimmer of the bird's aura was invisible to hostile eyes. The one child Anskiere's ward still guarded would not be sought until she was delivered to safety.
    * * *
    Caught by a rising wave, Crow pitched, and the wheel clattered with a rattle like old bones as her helmsman strove to hold her bow to windward. Although Tathagres was land bred, she braved the quarterdeck on braced feet, white hair lashed into tangles by the gale. The cling of sodden velvet shamelessly accentuated her femininity; but the captain who confronted her had little appetite, no matter how alluring her curves. His gesture of protest withered under her scornful regard, and his mouth gaped speechlessly open.
    Tathagres laughed. The oath she uttered belied her delicacy, as did the command which followed. "Slaughter them, then, but get those oar-ports closed." Her violet eyes narrowed angrily. "They're only slaves. If they drown, they'll be just as dead. So will we all, if you don't act quickly."
    A gust slammed into the spanker, which men still labored to furl. The captain lost his balance. Testily, he grabbed a stay, and barely missed jostling Tathagres. He began a plea for temperance. "Lady-"
    The woman returned no threats. Yet the captain felt a quiver in his knees. "I'll see it done," he said quickly, though he had intended different words. Reduced to subservience on his own vessel, he hastened toward the companionway and almost collided with Hearvin, who had just arrived topside with the boy.
    Tathagres transferred her displeasure to the sorcerer. "By the Great Fall," she exclaimed fiercely. "You owe me an explanation, Hearvin. Anskiere's possessions were scuttled, you said. How in Kor's Name could that stormfalcon get a homing fix on us?''
    A wave smacked Crow