Previous Chapter

The Benthic held a strange place in the tales of the old salts. They appeared in countless stories but their appearance, goals and natures varied wildly from one account to the next. In one tale a solitary Benthic the size of a whale capsized a ship. In another a tribe of human sized Benthic would swarm a shipwreck, killing survivors and stealing plunder. There were really only two things the tales about the Benthic agreed upon. They did not care for human beings and they were not born with Gifts. Everything else changed with the story. Even so, the Benthic proved to be nothing like what Cassian had expected.

They encountered the Benthic at night, almost a full day after Adalai nearly got eaten by a giant crab. The morning crossing was fairly uneventful. Other than the usual splashing and slipping across the lowest parts of the path nothing particularly noteworthy had taken place. However the evening crossing immediately felt different. Cassian checked the quicksilver and confirmed that the weather was changing. Before breaking camp he made sure everyone had their oilskins at the ready.

Well, everyone but Verina, who assured him the Linnorm would keep her dry. Given how little he knew about the Slavs and their spirits he had little choice but to take her word for it. So they set out prepared for the damp.

Unfortunately rain along the Gulf was not a peaceful affair and their progress was badly hampered by wind and rain slicked rock. It felt as if Lum himself had seen them and set out to drown them with the rest of old Nerona. They pushed as far as they could but when the path dwindled to little more than a low sandy strip of ground with waves constantly driven over it by the winds Cassian was forced to call for a halt. They had just crossed a large island ringed by dunes and covered by grassy scrub. Not the best place to wait out a squall but it was all they had at hand. They were slogging up towards the dunes and the interior of the island when Adalai put his hand on Cassian’s shoulder and pointed towards a hunched figure climbing up a dune further along the beach.

At first glance Cassian mistook it for a castaway of some sort. In the poor light and driving rain it looked a lot like the creature was draped in rags and wearing some kind of tattered hat on it’s head. Only the odd gleam to it’s head and arms gave Cassian pause.

They hunkered down by the nearest dune and did their best to watch the thing unobserved.

“Do you think it’s some kind of shipwreck survivor?” Marta asked.

“Not likely,” Cassian replied. “Ships don’t sail near the Drownway, it’s too risky. If someone jumped off a sinking ship they’d have to go far out of their way to wind up here rather than somewhere closer to civilization. It’s not impossible but it is very hard to imagine.”

“More of our friends from a couple of days ago?” Adalai suggested.

“Seems the most likely to me,” Cassian said.

“What is he wearing?” Verina rubbed absently at the side of her face. “It looks like chainmail in this light but it also looks like he covered his face with it. I’ve never seen a helmet like that before.”

“They exist.” Adalai tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I can’t remember where it was from but I saw a helmet that covered the face with chainmail once. Looks more like he’s got a tricorn than a helmet, though.”

Cassian spared the strange foriegn man a curious look. Carpathea seemed to know an awful lot of trivial details about fashion yet showed little understanding of how to apply the science to himself. “Whatever it is we should have a closer look at him. It’s likely that we’re going to be spending the night on the same island as him so I’d like to know who he is. Adalai, go up the dunes and flank him. I’ll come along the shoreline and we’ll trap him between us.”

There were some stories of the Benthic that described them as scaled like a fish so, when he finally got a good look at the figure, Cassian felt like kicking himself. The dull reflections Verina had taken for mail turned out to be the creature’s skin. Adalai had guessed that the Benthic were involved in his brother’s disappearance yet somehow the possibility they would encounter one of the deep dwellers that night hadn’t occured to him. But when a flash of distant lightning illuminated the creature it was instantly clear what it was.
Blue-orange frills stuck out of its scaled head, creating the hat-like silhouette, and dark green scales covered it’s entire body. Or at least what was visible under the layers of seaweed that covered its body. A strange, grayish pustule stood out in the middle of the creature’s forehead slightly above its two enormous violet eyes. The sudden flash of light faded and any other details Cassian might have gathered were lost.

The creature stopped climbing the dune and started towards him. Cassian froze and held up his hands, empty. “Greetings, dweller of the darkest oceans,” he called, nearly yelling to be heard over the pounding rain. “What brings you to the airy lands of Nerona?”

The creature gave no answer, just continued towards him, it’s enormous eyes seeming to glow in the dark. Cassian slowly backed away from it. Given the creature’s eyes he suspected it could see him much better than the reverse. Add to that how few stories of the Benthic didn’t involve violence and he wasn’t liking his odds.

The Benthic burbled something at him and raised its arms, one bizarrely human finger pointing at Cassian, and the rain stopped. The Ironhand cursed and drew his weapons with a wave of his hand. The Benthic didn’t recieve Gifts like humans but they all had the ability to control water to some extent. From the way the rain gathered in front of the creature’s fingerrather than falling to the ground Cassian was willing to bet this one was very good at water manipulation.

Before Cassian could shout a warning to the others the ball of liquid blasted at him in a torrent the size of a man’s arm. He leaped out of the way, using his Gift to pull on his armor and move himself a bit further than he could normally jump. It worked but had the unfortunate side effect of yanking his armor up and out of place. He threw his daggers at the Benthic with the wave of a hand then used the distraction to pull his armor back down into it’s proper place. The straps on his breastplate weren’t meant to deal with that kind of torque.

Adalai was coming over the dune at a full run but the sand was clearly slowing him down. The Benthic waved a hand and a huge wave surged out of the ocean and surged up the beach towards Cassian. He braced himself for the incoming wave but it proved unnecessary.

For the first time since they set foot on the Drownway the Great Linnorm showed itself in full, slamming it’s long, serpentine body into the wave and blasting it away into a curtain of steam. The Benthic’s eyes widened even further and then it raised both hands to grab for the rain once more. A huge globe of water began to take shape over the creature’s head and the Linnorm’s heads responded by unleashing an earsplitting roar. Then Adalai’s sword burst through the Benthic’s chest and the creature spasmed and grabbed at the three inches of steel that had appeared there. The gathering rain burst out of the globe the Benthic had kept it in, drenching Adalai and washing the creature’s corpse halfway down the beach.

“Zalt,” Cassian muttered. “I was hoping we could take it alive.”

“You think we could keep something like that prisoner?” Marta asked, coming up beside him. “Not even remotely possible, not with all this water around. Hessex has a coastline too, you know. Even we know better than to keep a Tide Turner prisoner on a boat or along the shoreline.”

Cassian growled in frustration. “They may have known something about the caravan.”

“Well even if they did how were we going to figure it out?” Adalai asked, trudging down to the Benthic corpse. He placed one foot in the creature’s back and pulled on his sword until it came free. “I don’t speak Benthic. Do you?”

“No,” Cassian admitted, feeling a bit deflated. He looked over at the ocean where the Linnorm remained, also looking out to sea. Steam rose off its body in sheets. “Better put that thing away, Verina. It might attract more of them.”

“I think it’s too late for that,” the yaga replied with a worried tone. “He says there’s something out there, in the waves.”

“What? What exactly is it talking about? More Benthic?”

Marta tapped him on the shoulder and pointed back the way they came. More of the creatures were pulling themselves out of the ocean onto the sandy pathway they’d turned away from just a few moments ago. In the dark and the rain it was impossible to get a count. But that wasn’t the really worrying part.

Verina pointed out at the ocean where the water had begun to churn and boil. The Linnorm watched that stretch of ocean with great interest. That interest was quickly rewarded when an enormous, eel shaped head rose out of the water, a huge, misshapen pearl in its forehead pulsing with ugly, grayish light.

“Lovely,” Cassian whispered. “A sea dragon.”

Previous Chapter

Cassian frowned as he watched Adalai take his blanket over to Verina. “You shouldn’t have meddled there,” he grumbled to Marta. “This isn’t the time for long, intimate discussions on the beach.”

“No?” The Hexton maiden gave him an amused look. “You don’t think this is a situation where having trust in your fellow travelers may be the difference between life and death?”

“Getting enough sleep can make that difference just as well,” Cassian replied. “And it will distract him less tomorrow.”

Her eyes narrowed in mock suspicion. “Are you truly a man of Nerona? I thought you were all hot blooded romantics, lovers of poetry, women and music with no end to your appetite for any of them.”

“Don’t believe the tales of troubadors, signorina, they’re exaggerated beyond all recognition.” Cassian watched as Adalai draped his blanket around Verina’s shoulders. He suppressed a wince when she very deliberately pulled it off and set it in her lap. The man hadn’t figured out what happened yet.

“She needs to be less extreme in her reactions,” Marta whispered. “The poor man doesn’t know how to make heads or tails out of them.”

A flash of annoyance shot through Cassian. He pushed Marta away from the pair, growling, “Go to bed. At least a few of us need to be well rested tomorrow.”

“But I’m supposed to be on watch!”

“Not any more. I’ll handle the last watch so you go sleep. And believe me, making sure you do sleep is one of the things I’ll be watching for.”

With a huff she set off toward her sleeping roll on the other side of the outcropping. Cassian watched her for a few moments to make sure she was really ready to sit things out for the rest of the night before taking a seat near the high tide mark. It was as good a place as any to keep watch for the remainder of the night.

The sound of the waves drown out any sound that might carry from Adalai and Verina as well. That was a conversation best kept private. He still couldn’t work out what the source of Adalai’s deep discomfort with the Slavic woman was. Unless whatever far flung part of the world he hailed from had issues with the Slavs it didn’t make a lot of sense. They’d have to work it out on their own.

Cassian wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and waited for dawn to come.

Verina sat with his blanket in her lap, stubbornly refusing to meet Adalai’s gaze. He wasn’t sure what had provoked the complete reversal in her attitude. The first day she barely looked away from him for ten seconds at a time but now she seemed to sincerely loathe looking at him. It didn’t make a lot of sense.

Since coming to Nerona Adalai had devised a strategy for dealing with things that didn’t make sense. He ignored them and moved on to what he could make sense of. “Does your shoulder still bother you?”

One pale hand reached up and rubbed absently at the angry red skin still flecked with bits of glassy stone. “It just itches,” Verina said, her fidgeting suggesting she wasn’t being entirely truthful. “Don’t worry, I’m used to this kind of thing.”

“Can I ask exactly what kind of thing this is supposed to be?”

She offered a shrug with her good shoulder. “Being a yaga. Dealing with the Great Linnorm day in and day out. He’s a creature of the burning mountains, you know, a creature of flaming mud and ashen clouds. His touch has always been hot.”

Adalai tensed up. “Wait, the Linnorm burns you when you call on it? Did Cassian know -“

She waved her hands frantically to cut him off. “No, no! The Great Ones cannot hurt their yagas once we are bound to them. But that is only true of the yaga themselves.”

Things clicked into place. The burnt blankets and melted sand stuck to her shoulder must have been a result of the Linnorm manifesting while she was lying down. In fact, if the creature burned anything around it other than Verina it might even explain her unorthodox appearance. Why keep your hair long or wear sleeves if they were just going to burn up whenever the Linnorm showed itself?

It had to make life very difficult. Then he’d gone and gotten himself dragged off by an oversized crustacean while she was sleeping and made things even worse. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” She asked, eyebrows knitting together.

“That you got hurt protecting me.”

He caught the ghost of a smile on her lips. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To look after each other? The Great Linnorm is my Gift, passed down from the yagas since the loss of the Rus. What would I be if I didn’t use it?”

It was his turn to furrow his brow. Something that had stood out to him in the years since he was sent to Nerona was how deeply Gifts were rooted in peoples’ identities. Yet ever then, Verina struck him as extreme. “Surely there’s more to your Gift than the Linnorm. You’re an Invoker. All the spirits of nature that can hear you should answer when you call.”

The glimmer of amusement vanished. “No. That is the way of Invokers, yes, but once I was chosen to become a yaga I had to decide whether I was willing to give that up.” She brushed her fingers along the tattoo on her other hand. “The Artificers who mark us do more than bind a spirit from the Rus to us for the rest of our lives. They must also cut us off from all other spirits as well or the binding will fail.”

“Why would you agree to such a thing?”

Verina’s eyes unfocused, staring into the middle distance. “Have you ever been lost, signore?”

Adalai closed his eyes and took a moment to steady his breathing. “As lost as a man can be.”

“The spirits of the Rus are lost, signore.” She held out her hands, palms upwards, and one of the Linnorm’s heads appeared over them looking down at her with what Adalai could only describe as a wistful expression. “Him What Walks has taken the land from us. The people can find new homes but what are the spirits to do? The hills and plains, the steppes and mountains they called home are gone. There is no place for them now. No place save with their yagas.”

“I see.” In truth there was a lot there that Adalai didn’t understand in the least. He’d heard of the Slavs before. He knew they were a wandering people with no land to call their own but Verina made it sound like their old land was lost in a very literal sense. As if it had been physically moved or possibly even destroyed. The Linnorm’s continued existence suggested the land had to be out there somewhere but he wasn’t an Invoker. Nature spirits were not his forte and he couldn’t be sure. “Well, it sounds as if the Great Linnorm is very fortunate. That’s one thing he and I have in common – we’re both lucky to have a woman as generous as yourself looking out for us.”

Verion blushed and fidgeted with the blanket in her lap. “I don’t know as I would go that far. It’s the duty of the yagas to look after the spirits after all.”

“It’s your duty to look after the Linnorm. It’s your duty to look after the rest of us. Who is looking after you?”

“The Linnorm himself, of course.”

Adalai nodded. “Of course. That will have to be another thing the two of us have in common.”

The Linnorm gave him an approving look before vanishing from sight. “He likes you, I think.” Verina sighed and pulled the blanket out of her lap and draped it over her front, struggling to keep it in place without covering her tattoos. “Whatever it is, he sees you differently than other people. It’s strange. He could somehow tell you were involved as far back as when Cassian came to recruit my brother.”

“Is that why you snuck out to meet us on the beach? Because the Linnorm wanted to?”

“He was quite insistent on it.”

Adalai chuckled, feeling a little chagrin at how he’d assumed Verina’s close attention to him was on his account. In point of fact she was just responding to the dragon on her back. “Have you figured out what it is he’s so interested in?”

She flicked a glance at him through her eyelashes. “No. I don’t think I’ll ever have a good understanding of how the Great Linnorm thinks. But I might have found a clue or two.”

“Well, if you figure it out in full I would be interested to know.” He got to his feet and dusted himself off. “In the mean time, tell me if you need someone to look out for you. That’s what I’m here for, after all.”

He wandered back to his pack, wrapped himself in his cloak and laid down to sleep. It was a little chilly but he still found it more restful than it had been when he’d had his blanket.

The next morning Cassian tromped down from the atoll’s outcropping, his vial of mercury in hand, and came to a stop next to Marta. She was watching the other two members of their band. She’d put a small kettle of water on one of the flanks of the Linnorm and brought it to a boil. Adalai was talking softly to her as he stirred something into it.

Cassian scowled and muttered, “That’s your fault, you know.”

“I’ll take the credit,” she replied with a half smile. “It doesn’t mean much, given the circumstances, but it’s better that they’re getting along again, isn’t it?”

He leveled the vial at her in an accusatory fashion. “Listen here. This isn’t one of your Hexton caravans where everyone is one big family, understand? Bravos exist to do the most dangerous, least appreciated jobs in all Nerona. That’s not to say they don’t like romance or family. It just means that if we let those things cloud our judgement when we’re doing our job out here it could very well get us killed.”

She chuckled. “I’ve been wondering if I would ever see any of the famous Neronan passion from you. I have to admit this is not how I expected it.”

A humorless smile twisted his lips. “Oh, I’m exactly what you’d expect of a Neronan man most of the time, Dame Marta, though I admit these circumstances are unique. But I love a good bottle of wine most evenings and I’ve charmed a woman a time or two. I know the signs.”

Marta spared him a scornful look. “Do you?”

“Of course. I see them on your face whenever Sir Braxton comes up.” A blank expression slammed over her face like a portcullis and she turned away immediately. Cassian moved to one side of her and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Now I don’t know anything about Clan Towers or how a Baron is likely to think of one of their daughters. I don’t really care, either. What raises my ire is that we are all of us now deeply compromised as bravos and that is very, very dangerous.”

“You gathered us to help you rescue your brother,” she responded in an equally quiet tone. “You were compromised to begin with.”

“Yes,” Cassian hissed. “How foolish of me to think that I might find some companions who would make up for that weakness.”

He stormed away across the beach, pulling out his map and wishing that at least one thing would go right that day. So naturally that was the day they first encountered the Benthic.

Previous Chapter

In theory low tide gave them just as much time to cross the Drownway at night as it did during the day. In practice things were much different. The day’s second low tide came after sunset and, although the moon was waxing full and the skies relatively clear, it was still difficult to move safely over the slick rocks and gravelly shoreline of the tidal path. Progress was slow.

For Adalai it was made worse by the constant glare Verina had fixed on the back of his head. Cassian was right about how personally she’d taken his ignoring her. However that didn’t make the six eyes boring holes through him any easier to deal with. He hadn’t been kidding when he told Cassian earlier that the thing which really bothered him wasn’t Verina and her obvious regard but rather the scrutiny of the Linnorm that was hidden behind it.

The Invoker’s Gift was one Adalai was fairly familiar with. Invokers found spirits of nature and caused them to manifest to defend the Invoker or answer questions. Or do whatever else the Invoker had in mind. The catch was the Invoker had to find a local nature spirit to Invoke. Adalai didn’t know much about what local nature spirits actually did but he was pretty sure they had to stay with the local nature to do it. Dragging one all over Nerona had to be bad somehow.

Yet neither Verina or her dragon seemed to recognize that what they were doing was incredibly unnatural. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. The fact that both of them – or all three if the two heads thought independently – had some kind of fascination with him didn’t help matters.

On top of all of that, whenever the “Great” Linnorm showed itself he got a creepy feeling. That was the best way he could describe it. Creepy. Something about the yaga and her dragon rubbed him the wrong way and he didn’t like it. Yet the two – or three – of them wouldn’t leave him alone.

So Adalai resolved to ignore them more than ever as they picked their way through tidepools, waterlogged slopes and wet, squishy sand. At least there was no windy tightrope to walk that time. It would have been more than he could take in the dark of night with an invisible dragon watching. In point of fact the journey was pretty unremarkable.

How long a given stretch of coast would stay above the waves varied but at a guess Adalai figured they had about two hours of usable travel time per low tide. All things considered it wasn’t a lot. Combined with the added difficulties of nighttime navigation and he estimated they covered half the distance they had that morning. They came to a halt on a low, sandy atoll that stood just a few feet above the high tide marks. The only shelter against the Gulf winds was a low stone outcropping that hung over a deep tidal pool. They hunkered down there to pass the rest of the night and early morning.

At first Adalai thought it was a good moment for some fishing. The tide pool was presumably a closed environment and he expected the fish would be unwary. After an hour of trying he gave up. In truth, dangling bits of food into a tide pool of unknown depth that might be connected to the ocean somehow was a bad idea. He didn’t appreciate how bad at the time.

He found out three hours later when a crab the size of a horse grabbed him out of his sleeping roll and dragged him into the tide pool. This happened just as he began to doze off. His body was adjusting slowly to the diurnal schedule they were keeping so he’d taken first watch and turned in once Marta relieved him. It was just past the witching hour when the creature struck.

Adalai was jolted awake when something yanked on his arm hard enough to cause pain. The subsequent dunking in sea water added to his confusion. If he had been alone that might very well have been the end of him. However, before the enormous crustacean could get a solid grip and drag him further down into the water the Linnorm took an interest in the proceeding.

To Adalai, half awake and flailing under the water, it looked as if a brilliant green light suddenly appeared and slammed into a shadowy mass of twigs. The grip on his arm loosened and he twisted around in the water until his head broke the surface. He had just enough time to suck in a lungful of air before going under again. Outside of getting a better look at one of the Linnorm’s heads chomping on the crab’s armored body there wasn’t much to see.

Given the events of the day so far Adalai went to sleep that night with his dagger still on his waist. Even though he was groggy from sudden waking he managed to get it unsheathed in a few seconds. He rammed it’s point into the joints of the claw holding him a couple of times and it let go. Adalai braced himself against the crustacean’s body and shoved away from it. His head banged on the wall of the tide pool.

Dazed, Adalai drifted for a moment, spots swimming in front of his eyes. His limbs were going limp. No matter how certain he was about his need for air a sinister lethargy had fallen on him like wet clothes, making any attempt to claw his way to the surface incredibly difficult. Worse, with his vision swimming, he couldn’t be sure which way was up. He ultimately had to spend more precious air to blow some bubbles that he could follow to the surface.

Once his head was above water again Adalai turned over on his back and gasped for air. A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and, confused, he flailed against it before he realized it was Marta dragging him back towards the shore. The crab got hold of his leg and for a brief moment Adalai saw himself getting torn in half. Then the Linnorm got a solid grip on the crustacean’s body and shook it.

The tidepool frothed like a babbling lunatic as the spirit’s head churned through the water and the crab let go of Adalai a second time. This time Marta got him all the way out of the water. The enormous crab was still locked in its deathmatch with a Linnorm head but by this point it had lost a leg and one of its claws. Blue-gray blood was sizzling off the dragon’s scales and splattered on the ground. Adalai was reaching for his sword, which he’d taken from the bandits and left on the ground beside his bedroll before sleep, when he heard Cassian call out, “Zalt! There’s another one over here!”

In point of fact it turned out there were two more of the enormous crustaceans coming up out of the sea. Cassian was already fighting one, his sword and daggers jabbing ineffectively at the massive creature’s armored carapace. A glance at the Linnorm assured Adalai that Verina and her spirit had the tidepool situation well in hand. Adalai scooped up his own sword and motioned Marta towards the new threats.

Unlike their encounter with the bandits, Adalai didn’t have the luxury of letting Marta get in front of him. The new crabs were too close and too dangerous if they flanked Cassian. In his heavy plate armor the man was a goner if they managed to pull him into the water. So Adalai charged the closer crustacean, doing his best to leap over its claws and legs so that he could reach its long, waving eye stalks.

Unfortunately leaping was not something he was naturally gifted at, in the general sense or the more specific, Neronan meaning. His attempt to jump over the crab’s flailing limbs didn’t work and it’s foremost leg got tangled with his. He went dawn in a heap. At least the creature’s body was within reach. Adalai stabbed at the joint where the leg met the main body, drawing a squirt of foul smelling bluish blood.

The creature pivoted and tried to snatch him in its claws but Marta’s glowing shield popped into place long enough to deflect the blow. Adalai scrambled to his feet as the crustacean recovered, getting close enough to slash at an eye stalk as he’d originally intended. The blow missed as the crab backed away from it. The creature had apparently decided discretion was the better part of valor. It withdrew from the shore, letting its bulk sink back down into the waves with a speed that belied it’s enormity.

Marta apparently decided the creature was not coming back. There was no other conclusion to draw from the way she shifted her attention to the creature Cassian was fighting, charging headlong into its flank, striking at its churning legs. Given that the heavy striking head of her mace was designed to break armor Adalai expected great results. He found himself disappointed.

The heavy shell of the crab was more flexible than steel armor and, although the mace left it bruised and discolored, the shell did not shatter. However the creature did not care for that kind of hit one bit. It immediately snatched at the mace with its oversized claw, grabbing the weapon and beginning an almost comical tug of war with Marta over it.

Between Marta on the right and Cassian on the left the crab’s attention was fully occupied. Adalai took the opportunity to scramble up to the creature’s flank. The joints where the creature’s legs met its body were larger than any of the others. He grabbed hold of one of it’s middle legs and threw his whole body’s weight forward, forcing the leg to extend at an unnatural angle and expose the joint. Then he placed the point of his sword there and pushed.

The crab released a strange, high pitched screeching sound and thrashed aimlessly. It released Marta’s weapon and she used it to smash the very claw that had held it over and over. Cassian’s daggers plunged into the writhing creature’s eye stalks. Adalai braced both hands on his sword’s hilt and wrenched around in a circular motion, twisting the blade in the creature’s guts. The crustacean was beginning to back away when Cassian flicked his wrist and sent his long sword flying into the creature’s mouth all the way up to the hilts.

The creature twitched and staggered a moment longer then lay still. With a groan Adalai pulled his weapon out of the corpse, watching with some envy as Cassian’s weapons effortlessly pulled themselves free from the body and flew back to him. As they backed away from the crab, warily watching to make sure it was dead, the gnawed body of the first crustacean flew overhead. It crashed into the other corpse and carried both into the surf.

Cassian sheathed his weapons with the wave of a hand and watched the waves lapping over the bodies. “Not bad work, although it will make things tricky. Everyone keep your eyes out for any hungry creatures the fresh meat attracts. Do you have anything dry to wear on hand, Carpathea?”

“I brought a spare doublet. And fortunately I took my cloak off before bed.” Adalai turned to point towards his bedding but stopped when he realized Verina was laying on the ground, breathing heavily through gritted teeth. Concerned, he put his weapon away and hurried over. “What happened? I thought the Linnorm was between you and the crab.”

“It was,” she hissed through her teeth.

The situation was even harder to explain now that he had a closer look at her. It seemed like she hadn’t even gotten out of her blankets. They lay strewn about her in charred tatters. The outer layer of her skirts showed similar scorching but most strange of all was the layer of shiny, almost glass-like sand that was stuck to her left shoulder beside her tattoos. Adalai reached out to brush it off but Verina jerked herself away.

“Don’t touch,” she growled. Then she pulled herself upright, twisted around until her back was to him and began rummaging through her bag. Adalai shifted from foot to foot, wondering if he should help. He was about to offer to clean up the burnt blankets when Marta gently pulled him away.

“No one wants to be seen when they feel pathetic, Sir,” Marta whispered. “Leave her be for a moment.”

“Pathetic?” He matched the woman’s tone. “She just saved my life! That’s hardly what I’d call pathetic. And she got hurt in the process, don’t you think that’s something that concerns me?”

“Of course, Adalai, but trust me, she’s not quite ready for your concern yet. Change your clothes. Dry off a bit. Then try to talk to her. She should be ready then.”

A quick glance told him Verina was in the process of applying some kind of salve to her skin. She was also pointedly ignoring the two of them. Adalai turned his scrutiny back to Marta. The Hessex woman wouldn’t quite meet his gaze, her pale blue eyes skittering this way and that like pebbles in a moving cart. “You know something about this, don’t you.”

“Hessex was near the Rus. Lots of Slavs came there after it disappeared. I… have some ideas about yagas but I’ve never heard anything of certainty. It’s not my place to talk about it. If you want to know, you should ask her.”

“Fine.”

As Adalai got changed he debated the question. He had good reason to avoid building long term relationships in Nerona. He’d been promised a chance to go home one day. But to do that he had to survive the current day first and having some idea what was motivating Verina seemed more and more like a necessity to survival. So, once he was in mostly dry clothes and she had finished with her salve he made up his mind.

Folding his blanket over one arm he went over to try talking to her again.

I appeared on the Iron Age Knights podcast to talk about my recent book release, Roy Harper and the world of the Columbian West. Give it a look if you’re interested!

Previous Chapter

Screaming and blood – much more blood than he had expected. Then the empty, staring eyes as he rounded the corner to retrieve his weapons. He’d done something wrong, hadn’t he? The first bolt to fly around a blind angle had shocked him even though the basic idea was quite sensible from the other side’s perspective. Then Cassian had sent his own daggers around the corner, blindly slamming into something there.

Screaming and blood – that was the result. Usually it was a bad one. Cassian absently reached down and ran a thumb along his belt. He realized with a start he was missing his daggers.

“I grabbed them on my way back.”

Cassian started as the unexpected voice broke into his thoughts. He’d lost track of where he was for a moment. They’d moved to a little sheltered area of the island while they waited for the evening tide to roll out. The small, walled nook the others had chosen offered shelter from the wind and good sightlines on most of the island’s interior. Adalai had made a large pile of assorted gear and was sorting through it.

Cassian shook himself, trying to get away from the sound ringing in his ears. “What’s that?”

“Your daggers,” Adalai replied, still on whatever thing he’d been talking about before. “I grabbed them on my way back here.” To prove his point he set down the crankbow he’d been examining, pulled two knives out of his belt and offered them to Cassian.

He swallowed hard, staring at the daggers, a nagging feeling as the back of his mind. “Those aren’t mine.”

“Yes, they are. I just cleaned the blood off of them.”

“Oh, I see.” Cassian gingerly took the weapons back, a slight shudder passing through him as he touched the hilts. “What are you doing?”

“Looking over the bandit’s weapons. Did anything about them strike you as strange?”

“Well I’ve never been attacked by bandits before but, other than that, I can’t say the experience was unusual per se.” He glanced over the crankbow once. “That doesn’t look like an unusual bow, either. Were any of their weapons Artifacts or something similar?”

“No, they were all normal, mundane weapons. The problem I’ve run into is that they’re practically identical, the crankbows in particular.” Adalai set all three of the projectile weapons on the ground at his feet. “Look at them. The gears on the primary lever assemily in particular. These were all made at the same place.”

Cassian frowned, not sure what, exactly, he should be looking for. “I’ll take your word for it, Signore Arminger. If that’s so then what does it tell us?”

“Unfortunately it doesn’t say much for certain. That’s the problem with situations like these, where all we have are hints and suggestions. But consider the nature of the men as well.” Adalai ticked things off on his fingers. “First we encountered a Leaper, someone with a gift that makes scouting, particularly over water, much easier. Then there’s a Bladebearer, someone uniquely deadly at close range. Finally, a man with the Gift of Impulse, which is one of the ideal gifts for attacking at a long distance. Now what does that suggest to you?”

Cassian shrugged helplessly. “They were intelligent? Tactically speaking that sounds like the ideal composition for a three man group. None of those gifts are rare, though Bladebearers are not exactly commonplace. If we had such a group I would be perfectly happy with it.”

“Your analysis seems flawless to me.” Then Adalai held up one of the swords the bandits had carried. It’s blade shone like a mirror in the early afternoon light. “Now let me ask you this. You meet three men, with the perfect set of skills for skirmishing, carrying identical weapons with little to no wear and tear on them. They were camped between two large, wealthy cities. However they were not on the route large caravans or wealthy merchants would take but on a route favored by couriers and spies, or anyone else with a need to move quickly. Does that sound like bandits to you?”

Cassian began to see what Adalai was getting at. “No, bandits don’t have weapons this nice or enough people to make such a perfect scouting group. They’d send whatever people they have with whatever weapons are on hand. This looks more like an army group, or at least scouts for a large mercenary group.”

“That was my guess as well.” Adalai set the sword down and sighed. “Unfortunately they hadn’t owned their gear for very long, there wasn’t any kind of useable impressions to read from it. Verina mentioned you worked in a smithy. Do you recognize anything about this stuff?”

“No, I can’t say that I do. If the smith who forged it had some kind of maker’s mark it was filed off or otherwise removed after it was bought. But not everyone has something like that. I know I don’t.” Cassian picked up one of the crankbows and looked at the mechanism Adalai had pointed out earlier. “I’m not a machinist though. There may be some hint in these gears that I don’t have the know how to pick up on.”

“Does it matter?” Marta asked. “Forgive my ignorance but in Hessex they say every man in Nerona is out to find some advantage for themselves. If those weren’t bandits we fought, so what? Some mercenary or minor lord was lying in wait on some business of their own and wound up ambushing us by mistake. Is it that important who they were or why they were here? We already survived their attack.”

“True,” Adalai said. “But it would be nice to at least know if there will be more of them to come or if we made an enemy by killing them.”

“The latter is almost certainly true,” Verina said. “If their group was more than we saw here the rest will resent us for killing them. That is the way of the world.”

A brief sense of dread washed over Cassian at Verina’s words. Almost as soon as it rose it was swallowed up by anger that he had any sympathy for people who attacked him in the first place. It took only a few seconds for the warring emotions to settle. In spite of the brevity of his introspection Cassian caught Adalai watching it with a strangely approving look on his face.

“I suppose the question of whether there will be more of them is worth thinking about,” Marta said, the silent aside lost on her. “Perhaps we can outpace them? If we can get ahead of their faction we can easily avoid further conflict.”

“It’s not clear they’re from Fionni,” Adalai said. “They had enough provisions missing from their bags they could have come from Renicie and camped here for a few days. There were no seals or heraldry with them so it’s impossible to tell where they came from.”

“They certainly were trying hard to stay a mystery.” Verina casually sat down next to Adalai, studying the sword he was holding by leaning in close to him.

“Clearly,” Cassian said, voice flat, “We are dealing with someone of great subtlety.”

“A master of the craft,” Marta agreed, sounding much more amused than he was.

Adalai resheathed the weapon, seemingly oblivious to Verina’s antics. “Can we change routes?”

“Unfortunately we can’t, not if we want to move quickly.” Cassian unfolded his map and pointed to three lines through the Drownway. “These are the paths known to the man who sold me this map. As you can see none of them are terribly direct.” Cassian tapped the southern line. “This is the path we’re on right now. There’s no way to switch from here to one of the other routes without charting a new path on our own, which could take days. Picking out our own route the whole way would be worse.”

“And you are in a hurry,” Marta murmured.

“I am.”

“Then there’s nothing we can do but press on,” Verina said with a sigh. “The tides don’t go out again for another eight hours. I’ll take first watch. The rest of you should get some rest.”

She got up and paced along the rock wall until she reached the corner and perched herself on it. The air around her began to shimmer slightly. Cassian idly wondered whether it was her or the Linnorm that would do most of the watching. Marta snorted and started unpacking her bedroll.

“Something wrong?” Adalai asked.

“From push to pull,” Marta replied, “a masterful display.”

Cassian shook his head and got up to stretch his legs, pacing away from the campsite down to the shoreline. For a few moments he just stared out at the ocean, enjoying the sound of the waves and studying the islands in their temporary archipelago. He’d always known a large chunk of the Drownway were ruins of old Nerona. As a youth that had seemed grand and mysterious. Now that he was there it just felt melancholy.

“Are you feeling more clearheaded?”

Cassian looked up to find Adalai coming down the slope to him. “How so?”

“You killed your first man today, didn’t you? It has an effect.”

A hot flush crept up Cassian’s neck. “You could tell?”

“Certainly. I wasn’t that different from you the first time I took a life.”

“I never heard about it from my brother.”

“It’s not something people like to talk about, doubly so to someone who hasn’t lived through the thing themselves.” Adalai joined him at the waterline and stared at the waves as well. “Look, I’m no expert. I had to live through it. I’ve watched one other person live through it as well. Based on that extensive group of people I’d say you’re handling things rather well. Although it’s probably a wise choice not to try and sleep this afternoon.”

Cassian grimmaced. “I figured as much. I can’t go this entire trip without sleeping, though.”

“No, no, just don’t try it right now. Maybe you can break down the weapons we picked up and do something with them? I’ve heard Ironhands don’t need a forge to work metal.”

“Well you’ve been listening to fairy tales, then,” Cassian said with a laugh. “There may have been one or two Ironhands capable of something like that in history but I’m not one of them. I don’t think there’s one living in all Nerona, Isenlund or Hessex with that kind of power.”

“My mistake.” Adalai shrugged and said, “In that case you can park yourself between me and the yaga once she’s done on watch.”

“I was beginning to think you weren’t interested in women, my friend,” Cassian said with a laugh. “She was clearly inviting you to pay her a visit just now. Instead you came to talk to me! I’m not sure the Highplains honor can take the slight.”

“It’s not the Highplains that bothers me,” Adalai said. “It’s the Linnorm.”

“You’ve never seen an Invoker with a nature spirit before?”

“I have.” Adalai’s gaze focused on something in the far distance. Beyond even the windswept horizon. “But that dragon reminds me of something I’d rather keep as far away as possible. It’s nothing personal.”

Cassian grunted. “My friend, when it comes to a woman it cannot be anything but personal.”

Previous Chapter

“What’s the situation?”

Adalai drew his weapons for the second time that day as he listened to Cassian’s reply. “There’s three of them with crankbows and possibly swords but it’s hard to see clearly,” he whispered. “They’re spreading out to scout the area.”

“What’s our move?”

“We have numbers, might as well keep together and make the most of them.” His tin sheet flew back into his belt pouch. Then, with a flick of his fingers, Cassian sent three daggers and his arming sword floating up out of his belt. “I’ll watch the rear and make sure they don’t get the jump on us. Verina, can the Linnorm watch two ways at once?”

“It can.”

“Then you will watch the flanks. But carefully,” he admonished, wagging a finger in her direction. “That creature can topple a building on us as easily as that lot can kill us.”

“You aren’t in a smithy any more, Signore, we have a little more room here than that.”

Cassian ignored her. “Marta, to the front. Keep that shield at the ready and Adalai will handle the rest.”

“I will?”

“You can’t?”

“I just expected you to want to handle it yourself.” Adalai moved towards the smoke rising in the distance, his senses straining to catch any sign of the approaching men. Marta stuck beside him, her shield already lit with a dim golden glow.

While he didn’t know much about the Shieldbearer’s gift he did know that Gifts with “bearer” in their name somehow enhanced the function of a named item. So presumably Marta’s shield was somehow superior to the norm. At least so he hoped. While Adalai had advocated they bring her along he really didn’t want to see the woman get hurt.

Before he could follow that trail of thought any further his ears caught the quiet scrape of leather boots on gravel. He pointed Marta towards the sound with his dagger and leveled his arming sword in a low guard. A moment later a head popped out from around a pile of rubble and disappeared just as quickly.

“Zalt,” he whispered and darted forward. A split second later the man who had just peeked around the rubble Leapt into the air a good twenty feet, loosing the bolt from his crankbow. The shot was remarkably good, rushing towards Adalai as if drawn by a string.

A pulse of light came out from Marta’s shield, forming a dome around them. The bolt struck the dome and shattered. A few steps later Adalai slammed into the dome as well.

“Sorry!” Marta called, the dome vanishing.

Adalai didn’t bother with a reply, instead dashing forward to intercept the Leaper, hoping to catch him before he could recover from his jump. It was not to be. The Leaper was nimble enough to draw his blade midair and kept his feet under him on landing. By the time Adalai reached him the man was already on guard. He assumed a low, forward leaning stance common in sword methods that emphasized the point like were common in Renicie. Adalai assumed the stance favored by duelists that fought with sword and dagger. Body upright, both weapons in front of his torso.

Judging by eye Adalai guessed the other man’s sword was a good two to four inches longer than his own which, on top of the man’s stance, gave him a significant advantage in reach. He was going to have to end the duel as quickly as possible. Sliding his front foot forward a half step he stretched his sword out in a probing motion, trying to provoke a response. The other man refused to rise to the bait, just circling his point about slowly, waiting. Keenly aware that there were other crankbows moving to take their shots somewhere in the ruins Adalai realized he was going to have to force the matter.

He opened with a low thrust, dagger guarding high. His opponent parried and struck in riposte, aiming for Adalai’s face – the natural target on a man who might have armor under his doublet. Turning that blow with his poinard, Adalai stepped in, trying to keep his measure. But the man had the advantage over Adalai and he knew it. He gave ground, feet passing each other, to try and keep himself just out of reach. For a split second it seemed the strange impass would hold, the one giving ground and the other pursuing, until they both wandered into the ocean.

Then the glowing dome popped into place again and the bandit crashed into it. Adalai swooped in, slashing his sword at the man’s throat. The bandit parried but Adalai’s follow-up dagger thrust landed solidly in the man’s ribs, drawing a grunt but failing to burst any rings in the mail under the bandit’s doublet. Then the dome vanised again and both men collapsed in a heap on the ground.

They wrestled for a moment, four hands suddenly grasping for a single dagger, the only weapon of use at such close quarters. Then, just as the bandit was pushing away from Adalai, it was over. Marta’s mace slammed into the man’s head and he fell limp. Adalai scrambled to his feet in time to see another bolt flying towards them from the Gulf side of the island. Fortunately the bandit in that direction was not as good a shot as his comrade and the bolt flew by far overhead.

A head of the Linnorm appeard above them, its nose pointed towards a mostly intact building thirty yards away. Marta raised her shield and charged towards it, Adalai just behind her. The building had an open doorway but no windows, just small gaps in the walls where some stones had come loose. It was from one of those gaps where the second shot came. Once again Marta snapped a glowing barrier in place to stop it, though now Adalai could clearly see it was taking a growing toll on her. It vanished as soon as the bolt glanced off of it. Her shoulders slumped, her pace slowed and Adalai began to overtake her. For a moment he considered slowing to match her pace but he wasn’t sure she could use that trick again. So instead he turned up his speed and prayed.

He dove into the building and spun, thrusting blindly in the direction the bolt had come from. A gleaming golden sword sliced through his own blade effortlessly. A Bladebearer. Lovely.

Adalai instantly threw the useless remains of his sword at his opponent and charged, taking advantage of the other man’s flinching to close distance and ram his dagger into the man’s sword hand. The dangerous tool clattered to the ground and Adalai slammed into the bandit, stabbing upwards with his dagger. Blood gushed from the wound under the man’s jaw and he collapsed in a heap. Adalai shook himself off and backed away, scooping up the bandit’s fallen sword and using it to put the man out of his misery.

Marta met him at the entrance to the building, looked him over to make sure the blood wasn’t his, and said, “One more.”

The Great Linnorm’s reptilian head once again pointed them in the right direction, this time appearing over top of a low hill of loose stone. It waved back and forth in a lazy fashion, which Adalai took as a beckoning gesture. The two of them started in that direction, still on guard, but as they rounded the hill they discovered Cassian sitting there, two of his daggers sitting at his feet, covered in blood. Verina stood a short distance off, watching their nominal employer with some curiosity. Adalai allowed himself to relax just a bit. “You got the third, then?”

Cassian just nodded. Breaking into a wide grin Adalai reached down and hauled him to his feet. “No need to skulk about, then! That went just as well as we could hope. Excellent strategem, Maestro Ironhand!”

It was only as Cassian was staggering to find his balance that Adalai caught a faint wiff of vomit. The Ironhand was white as a sheet. “Thank you,” the other man managed, “I’m glad you and Marta aren’t hurt.”

Frowning, Adalai looked him over again, asking, “What was your bandit’s Gift?”

“Mine?”

“The bandit you fought.”

“Oh, Impulse, he had the gift of Impulse.”

Adalai’s frown grew deeper but he kept his thoughts to himself. There was a more pressing matter to look after. In the years since the Kings at the Corners sent him to Nerona he’d grown used to thinking of the people there as far more used to violence than he had ever been before. But Verina had mentioned a smithy. Just one of many places that could very well keep a man far from lethal violence their entire lives.

Killing the first time was never easy. Though Cassian’s cause was good and the men had attacked first Adalai couldn’t blame the man for reacting the way he had. That still left them with plenty that needed doing.

“Marta, take Cassian and Verina and go look for a place to camp until the tides go out again. Have the Linnorm pop his head up every five minutes or so until I get back to you. He can watch for trouble while he’s at it.”

The Hexton woman nodded. “Should we just use their camp?”

Cassian visibly flinched at that suggestion and Adalai shook his head. “No, probably best we didn’t. They were camped near the center of the island anyway. Get as close to the next stage in the path as you comfortably can.” He gave Cassian a gentle shake. “Where did you leave him, Maestro?”

Wordlessly, Cassian raised an arm and pointed towards the ocean’s side of the island.

“What will you be doing?” Verina’s question was more idle curiosity than demand.

“I think I should have a look at our dearly departed friends.”

With nothing more than a pointed finger to go by locating the bandit Cassian had killed took longer than he would have liked. Eventually he found the third corpse at a blind corner, a crankbow at his feet. Around the corner some distance on were several bolts. If he had the Gift of Impulse he could have been firing them and using it to steer them around the corner, effectively attacking Cassian blindly. The bandit had numerous stab wounds on his face, arms and neck, as well as numerous gashes in his doublet that had exposed the mail beneath.

It was an amateurish kill but it had worked. Adalai found himself wondering if Cassian had used his Gift to deliver all the slashes or if he had landed the deathblow himself. There wasn’t much besides the weapons and a small pouch of coins on the dead man. Adalai took them and moved on. The trip back to the other two bodies felt much longer than it had a moment ago, when the press of battle was hot upon him. As he walked through the quiet stones of a forgotten town Adalai found himself wondering what the Kings he’d met said to the bandits when they collected their souls. Did everyone get the full song and dance routine he had? Or was that a special case?

Did they know he’d been involved in another death? Did they care? His life in Nerona hadn’t been peaceful by any stretch of the imagination. Hopefully if he was on the wrong track they’d let him know.

Then again, they hadn’t told him he was on the right track until it had basically killed him.

Such joyful thoughts filled his mind as he trudged through the island, prodding at corpses and ransacking the campsite. The dead men had shown the foresight to leave a pail of sand by their campfire and Adalai thought it wise to use it. Most of the island was stone but it never hurt to be careful. There were several empty water skins in the camp, along with three full ones that he took. There were quite a lot of provisions, too. Planks and sticks of driftwood lay against a few large rocks, drying in preparation for the fire. The men had been there for a fair bit it seemed.

Once he was sure he’d taken anything that might be useful Adalai left the dead men’s camp and tracked down the others. They’d set up at the corner of two intersecting walls, too run down to determine if they’d once been a building or just some property boundary. The water was less than forty yards away but the partial shelter of the walls broke the wind and was really rather snug. He joined them there and began to sort through what he’d found.

Previous Chapter

“Who is that?” Cassian demanded.

“My name is Marta Towers, of Hessex, and I am what you in Nerona would call a shieldbearer.” The woman hefted her shield in one hand. “My clan serves the King directly. Sir Adalai has paid my debts and I wish to go with him as he crosses the Drownway.”

Cassian turned his wrathful glare to Adalai. “Is that a fact?”

He did his best not to wilt under the other man’s icy stare. “You said you were still looking for bravos to go with you and Marta has her own reasons to make the trip so I figured it was a natural match.”

“Clearly you haven’t spent much time among Nerona’s bravos.” Cassian spared a glance at Marta. His annoyance relented just a bit, as if he did find some sympathy for her in his heart. “It may be different where you are from. It certainly is among the Hextons, where the families do everything from traveling to fighting as a unit.”

Adalai shot Marta a glance out of the corner of his eyes. That must have been what Bellini meant when he said she was part of a traveling clan. “Are you saying you don’t want more people?”

“I don’t want bad luck. The chances that my brother is still alive are bad enough as it is, mixing women and bravos won’t make them any better and may even make the odds we get to him worse.” Cassian folded his arms in thought for a moment. Then he shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, Adalai, it was not a bad thought to sign for a bondservant to fill out the expedition but I cannot justify it. Even if the stakes were not so high there is the question of the lady’s life. What kind of monsters would we be if we deprived a family of their daughter while struggling to retrieve a few carts of goods for a handful of lira?”

“Respectfully, sir, that would not be why misfortune befalls me should I travel with you.” Marta glanced around the tavern common room, mostly empty in the early morning, and lowered her voice. “I told you my clan was – is in service to the King of Hessex.”

“All the more reason you should not risk your life needlessly, signorina.”

“I am trying to explain it is not needless, sir.” Marta took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearly struggling with annoyance. Adalai couldn’t really blame her for it. “Nearly one year ago a cousin of the King, the Baron Braxton, traveled here on his own on a task of some secrecy. His last letter said he planned to try to cross the bay from Fionni to Renicie. No one has heard from him since.”

“The bay?” Cassian raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never heard someone call the Gulf of Lum a bay before.”

Adalai rolled his eyes. “The point is that she is interested in doing the same thing you are, finding someone who went missing while crossing the Drownway. That’s why I brought her along. I was hoping you might have a little sympathy for her situation given the similarities of your circumstances. The two of you are in much the same spot.”

Cassian rested his elbow on the table between them, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumbs. “Wanting similar things is a far cry from the same circumstances, signore, but I take your point.”

In the twenty hours or so since he’d met Marta Adalai had found the woman to be quite stoic. She’d explained the task her clan was given quite dispassionately and accepted Adalai’s decisions about lodging without question. Frankly it bothered him. Other than insisting she needed to follow him across the Drownway she’d been mostly passive since they’d met. Now there were cracks forming in that persona.

“Please, sir, it is very important. Water is no danger to Braxton but there were forces in Nerona itself that were threatening him else he would not have chosen such a desperate route to escape. My clan was charged to find him and bring him home. When I met Sir Adalai and heard his intentions I knew the meeting was kismet.”

Cassian’s head came up out if his hands. “Kismet?”

“Inevitable. Predestined. Something which comes about because it is the only suitable result of the circumstances.” Marta picked up her shield and showed Cassian the design there. “The Towers clan once lived on a mountain where we studied the stars until the lord of the clan predicted the mountain would shake and the towers fall. So we abandoned them and became vassals of the King. The next year the King ordered the Towers clan to fight in the Battle of Eboncourts, when Hessex turned back the army of the Dragonrider, and our lord slew his General of Arrows. That was kismet. This is no different and, were I to ignore it, I would be as foolish as those who stayed in the towers while the earth shook.”

Cassian spared a disbelieving look for Adalai. So Adalai drove the knife in. “Don’t the people of Nerona believe the Kings at the Corners of Eternity send omens warning of the day of their deaths? How is kismet any different?”

“Omens are warnings, not inevitabilities. Don’t you believe in the Kings at the Corners?”

Adalai shrugged. “They’re real enough, I’d say, but omens and kismet? I’ll believe they’re real when I see them pay off with my own eyes. Even if they are real, I’d say such things fall outside the purview of the Four Kings. Some other creature handles such matters.”

“Well, you are the one who studied with the Heralds I suppose.” Cassian got to his feet before Adalai could protest. “I suppose if it’s inevitable there’s nothing I can do about it. Are you provisioned? It’s typically five days to cross the Drownway on foot, I’m bringing provisions for ten.”

“We have a week of food each,” Adalai replied. “I’ve fished in the Gulf on a regular basis to good effect and there will be plenty of time for it between low tides.”

“Very well, then. Low tide is in two and a half hours, we should head towards Verune Bay now. I’ll join you there once I gather my gear.” Cassian took his hat off the back of his chair, sketched a slight bow towards Marta and departed.

Adalai sighed. That proved harder than expected. He’d expected a slight pushback like Bellini had given but Cassian approached the question from a very different angle that was just as strange. More proof that he still hasn’t figured Neronan culture out yet.

“I hope I haven’t damaged your friendship with Sir Cassian,” Marta said.

“We just met yesterday. I’m not sure we’re even acquainted yet. I’ve spent more time with you than him at this point.”

She glanced down for a moment then gathered her things and got to her feet. “I am grateful regardless. I will repay you for what you’ve done one day, Sir Adalai.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just make sure you get to the bay on time.”

The bay was a sheltered stretch of coast just over a mile outside of Fionni’s walls. A narrow path ran down through a limestone bluff to a sandy beach a few hundred feet wide that looked out into the Gulf to the north and the Adriatic to the south. By the time Adalai and Marta got there the water had receded to the point where the land stretching east was mostly visible.

Lumps of black and brown stone poked out of the water. The dark shadow of the submerged path was clearly visible as well, though Adalai suspected the wave action would wash away most people who tried to cross before the tide reached is lowest point.

Marta walked down to a point just above where the waves were cresting and studied the passage. “How long is this place above water? An hour? Two? Can you really make the crossing in five days?”

Cassian looked up from the glass container full of a shimmering liquid he was holding in one hand. “Parts of the Drownway remain above water all the time. Those are where we will camp. There are several miles of the path we can cross outside of low tide. That said, there are two low tides every day and we will have to travel during both of them to cross in five days. I hope you’re ready for late nights.”

“How is the weather looking?” Adalai asked, gesturing to the other man’s instrument.

“The air is steady and the time of year isn’t right for sudden storms. Still, nothing is certain. Did you bring an oilcloth for the rain?”

Adalai patted his pack. “I am well prepared.”

Cassian studied him critically. “Are you? Forgive me for prying but I am an Ironhand and I don’t sense the presence of armor on you. This isn’t a safe route by any means.”

Cassian himself had suited his actions to words. In the time since Adalai had last seen him he’d added a breastplate under his doublet, visible under the collar, and a pair of gauntlets. Marta also wore a chain shirt in addition to her shield. It made sense that Cassian would conclude he was the weakest link.

“Not to worry, signore.” Adalai unwound the neckerchief from around his collar to reveal the heavy, reddish leather jerkin under his own doublet. “Salamander leather. Not as strong as mail but much lighter and more comfortable in the heat. Well suited to the journey we are going on, don’t you think?”

Cassian nodded in assent then pulled a folded parchment and a polished piece of tin out of a pouch on his belt. The parchment he handed to Adalai. “That is an copy of my map to the known part of the Drownway. I thought there should be at least two or them on hand in case something were to happen to one. But try not to lose it. The man I borrowed it from will not be happy if it is lost.”

“I understand.” Adalai gestured to the tin sheet. “Is that to keep water and damp from it?”

Cassian grinned. “No, this is to help us see what is ahead of us.”

He balanced the tin sheet on his own palm and then it levitated into the air under the influence of Cassian’s Gift. Adalai did not have the broad knowledge of Gifts that the average Neronan did, ye hadn’t grown up around them after all. But even he knew about Ironhands. The power to move metal without the need to touch it was really impressive and in high demand in most parts of Neronan society. Adalai had never considered using it in this way, however.

The mirrored sheet flew up and forward, shifting angles to show them the waves and gradually appearing islands of the Drownway from above. Adalai found himself grinning as well. “Impressive.”

Marta pointed up at one corner of the reflective sheet whet a vaguely humanoid shadow sat on the Gulf side of one of the rock outcroppings. “Is that a person? Was someone else waiting for you, Sir Cassian?”

Before Cassian could answer there was a sudden crash of water from ahead, salt spray spouting up from the largest visible piece of stone. Two massive shapes reared up, water cascading down around them in sheets. Adalai drew steel faster than thought, shocked that their trip through the Drownway could have met with violence so quickly. Marta brought her shield forward, its painted surface disappearing under a layer of golden light. Cassian’s tin sheet zipped down into his hand.

The two objects turned towards them and Adalai realized he could make out eyes staring at them. They were the heads of some kind of sea serpents.

“Zalt,” Adalai murmured. “What is that?”

To his surprise Cassian answered, with a deep, long suffering sigh, “That’s kismet.”

Previous Chapter

“The Ironhand is here, Fyodor.” The huge Slavic man gestured to Cassian with a deferential tilt of the head. “He says he wishes to discuss a matter of business.”

Fyodor Highplains stopped oiling his tack and saddle for a moment, studying Cassian with his good eye. “Rare for you to be out of your forge so late, Cassian. Is the need for steel work so little that you have to drum up business on your own?”

“Hardly,” Cassian said with a laugh. “The need is as great as ever. To tell you the truth the forgemaster nearly turned purple when I told him I was leaving his shop. The business I want to discuss involves me hiring you this time.”

Fyodor slowly folded his oil cloth and set it aside then dismissed the man who had escorted Cassian to the stable yard with the wave of a hand. “Is that so? Can I ask what the commission would be?”

“I need two or three other people willing to go on a retrieval mission along the Drownway with me.”

“What would we be retrieving?”

“A caravan with three wagons worth of cargo, plus any survivors from the merchants and guards.” Cassian hesitated for a moment, debating whether he should mention Cazador being among the caravan or not. Ultimately he figured candor was the best policy. After all, Carpathea had figured it out easily enough. Hopefully the Arminger would be along for the ride as well in which case even if there was a good reason to hide the fact it was unlikely to work for very long. “My older brother is also one of the guards.”

“Ah.” Fyodor looked upset when he heard that. “I had wondered. You never expressed interest in the life of a bravo or condottieri before but men will do such things for family. Unfortunately I cannot help you.”

“There is a sizeable reward if we can retrieve the cargo.”

Fyodor sighed and grabbed his oil cloth and started in on the saddle again, scowling into the gleaming leather rather than meeting Cassian’s eyes. “The new Prince of Torrence has demanded the Marquis de Fionni come to Torrence. No one knows why. The Marquis has refused, because he has dreams of sitting on the throne in Lome himself. So the Prince is raising an army to drag the Marquis to Torrence whether he wishes to go or not. In short, it is war.”

This was all news to Cassian. But then again he’d been frantically trying to discover Cazador’s fate for the last ten days. He was out of touch with the news. For the Highplains clan it was a good chance to earn some coin and it explained why he’d seen so many of them scrambling to get their mounts and barding ready. “I only need two or three -“

“The Marquis has demanded a levy. The Slav quarter must furnish five hundred men or face the Reckoners.”

Cassian sucked in a breath. Five hundred men was the number of troops a Count was expected to furnish. He wasn’t sure there were even two thousand Slavs in all Fionni, much less five hundred of fighting age. “Will there be enough to meet the demand?”

“The Highplains Company are a hundred strong,” Fyodor said. “We will take as many as we can find in the Quarter then empty our coffers to hire the rest. My kin are not rich but we can afford a few score men if we must.”

The Marquis was getting a steal, then. Not only were the Highplains the best mounted troops for hire in Nerona but they were likely to bring in another mercenary company at their own expense. For Nerona’s Slavic population the options were service or expulsion. With no homeland of their own to return to and a reputation of betraying Neronan hospitality so established they were unlikely to find another territory willing to take them in if they were exiled from Fionni. Thus they had no choice but to serve when called upon. “I see. I hadn’t realized your position was so difficult, my friend, or I would have turned elsewhere for help.”

“How could you know? The Marquis only called for levies yesterday and you have other things on your mind.” Fyodor sighed and threw his cloth down in disgust. “But I regret there is nothing I can do to help you. Just as your worries are for your family; so are mine for my people.”

Cassian nodded. “I understand, my friend, and I’ll trouble you about it no more. I have one promising lead. I’m just sorry I won’t be able to help you get ready.”

The hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Fyodor’s mouth. “We will miss your skill with metal, Cassian, but the decrees of fate show no partiality. If it is for you to find your brother you will.”

“He did have the scent of inevitability about him.” The voice was deep yet feminine and uncomfortably close to his right ear.

Cassian frowned and turned his head a few degrees, catching the speaker in the corner of his eye. “Your pardon, signorina, I do not take your meaning. You are?”

Fyodor’s expression matched Cassian’s. “This is my sister, Verina.” He set his saddle aside and got to his feet. “Rina, what brings you here?”

“Your friend.” She leaned in closer to Cassian and breathed deeply. “The Great Linnorm says he is touched by fate. Has he come to help us?”

The woman’s proximity was obnoxious. Cassian took two deliberate steps away from her, debating whether he should address her or her brother, but stopped short of speaking when a flicker of movement caught the edge of his perception. There was nothing there when he turned to look.

“He sought our help, sister,” Fyodor said, his frown deepening. “His business is his own. I hope Great Linnorm does not demand his aid; it is not my place to ask for it.”

“No, brother. It is something of the opposite.” Verina took a single step around in front of Cassian, studying him intently. Now that she was more in view Cassian had a opportunity to return the favor.

The first thing he noticed was her size. She was only an inch or two shorter than his own six foot height, well formed and lively. The second thing that stood out was her light brown hair, which was chopped savagely short in the back. It wasn’t very fashionable by Neronan standards. However it did reveal the very graceful line of the woman’s neck. Verina’s strangest feature by far was the black tattoos running down her arms and ending in a strange arrowhead shape on each hand.

Whatever she saw as she studied him she kept to herself. “What is your name, signore?”

“Cassian Ironhand.”

“Have you seen an omen from a Herald recently, Cassian Ironhand?”

He blinked at what felt like a very abrupt change in topic. “No. Well, not as such, although I did pay a visit to a man who’s connected to them somehow…” Cassian considered the question a bit more. Everyone knew Adalai Carpathea was connected to the Heralds of Eternity but none of the stories agreed on the nature of their connection. “Is that important?”

She sighed and turned to her brother, revealing an odd, winglike design on her back connecting the two lines that ran down her arms. “He had a touch of the inevitable on him, brother. Someone has to help him.”

He scowled and set his saddle aside with an emphatic thump. “Who, sister? I have no one to spare!”

“Yet the Great Linnorm demands the Slavs not abandoned this man.” Verina spun around, staring at Cassian with her unsettling blue eyes. “The price we pay for abandoning him will be far greater than what it costs to aid him.”

“Sorry, what price would that be?” Cassian asked. That was almost the last thing on his mind but he wasn’t sure what exactly the two of them were talking about so he figured he should just start asking questions and work things out as he got answers.

“Who can say?” She prodded a finger at his doublet, testing the mail hidden underneath. “Perhaps we’d lose the only blacksmith who doesn’t charge us a premium simply because we are Slavs. Perhaps it would be much worse. Most people do not see the ends of their own actions. Or inactions.”

“Call it action or inaction,” Fyodor growled, “but I have no men to spare to help him. If the Great Linnorm wishes to help him he must do so himself.”

Verina smiled. “I agree, brother.”

From the horrified look on Fyodor’s face Cassian got the feeling something had just gone over his head. “Fyodor, I don’t know anything about this Linnorm fellow but I don’t want you or him putting your people out for me. There are other fair minded smiths in the city. Tell him I can find some way to sort this out on my own.”

He caught another flicker of motion in the corner of his eye but this time, as he turned his attention back to the matter at hand he caught Verina looking towards the same spot. Then, to his surprise, she raised both hands to chest height, palms up. Her tattoos flickered with a dull green light. Then, as if conjured out of the air itself, two enormous reptilian heads appeared, staring at him with their narrow pupils.

Cassian had never seen a dragon head before but he knew, with supernatural certainty, that he was looking at two of them now. Each had a pair of graceful, curving horns poking out of its skull just over its eyes. The body of the creature glowed faintly but Cassian could still make out scales and wrinkles in the creature’s skin and the outline of the stable walls through it’s partly transparent body.

“We do not make decisions for the Great Linnorm,” Verina said, her voice deep and melodious. “He is one of the benefactors of the Slavic people, without whom we would no longer exist. The spirits of the land defended us from calamity once. If we do not have the strength to fend off misfortune now they will intervene for us again, whether we will it or not.”

“No, sister,” Fyodor said. “I will not allow you to undertake this task with Cassian. He is an honorable man and worthy of help, no doubt, but you cannot put yourself in danger like that. You are the only Yaga in Fionni, perhaps the only one in Nerona capable of hosting the Great Linnorm. This says nothing of the disgrace of allowing you to travel alone with a man not of your kin!”

The Linnorm’s heads swung about to glare at him, the malice clear in spite of the creature’s alien features. Once again Verina spoke on their behalf. “Are you suggesting that a Yaga, blessed by the Great Linnorm, is ever alone, brother?”

Fyodor visibly flinched, although Cassian couldn’t tell if that was because the Linnorm’s scrutiny frightened him or because of his sister’s question. “Verina. It is a question of your honor.”

“How can a Yaga ignore their spirit and still claim to have honor? Are we not Slavs?”

“I’m not,” Cassian put in. Four heads swiveled to stare at him. Something about the way the two Linnorm heads moved set his nerves on edge. It was deeply unnatural. The siblings were less synchronized but the added scrutiny didn’t help. “With due respect to you and your sister, Fyodor, and to the Great Linnorm, I’m a Neronan man. Your people and their traditions have no bearing on me. I’ve heard that Yagas are like our Heralds, messengers who speak on behalf of Eternity to warn you of things to come, but their power is rooted in your homeland, correct?”

“It’s as you say,” Verina answered. “But the fact that the roots are in one place doesn’t mean the branches don’t reach here.”

Cassian flicked a glance up to the two heads of the Linnorm. “Clearly. But their power is for the Slavs, not the Neronans, nor is there any proof that the spirit’s insight is as clear about me as it would be for a Slav. Does the Great Linnorm know in what way fate rests upon me? Will I die if nothing is done? Will I merely fail my task? Or is there some other, greater doom that I will not understand if no child of the Slavic people travels with me?”

For a long moment Verina and the Linnorm sat in silent congress. The heads of the dragon looked between each other while Verina stared straightforward, her eyes focused in the middle distance. Finally she said, “He doesn’t know.”

“Then let me tell you what I know. When a bravo mixes their work with the ways of men and women it is an ill omen. Always, signorina, regardless of nation or spirit.” Cassian offered them a bow from the waist. “You honor me by seeking to aid me in my cause and, believe me, I am grateful for it. But if the only aid you can offer me is to send one of your Yagas with me then I must decline. It will make your position worse and it’s likely to bring bad fortune to me.”

As he straightened up he caught a look of relief and gratitude on Fyodor’s face. Clearly he was happy to have someone else deal with his sister for once. Verina just looked surprised. The Linnorm’s heads were as unreadable as always, one head watching Cassian and the other focusing on the siblings. Then the head pointed at Cassian twitched towards the exit to the stable yard. It was enough of a dismissal for him.

“I hope we’ll see each other again when our tasks are done,” he said before pivoting on his heel and making a swift retreat. Hopefully Carpathea would be able to free himself from his own entanglements. Two people was not a lot to cross the Drownway but Cassian would prefer that to trying to deal with Verina and the Linnorm the whole way…