Deadhouse Landing

Tampoor had a hand pressed to his neck, bright blood flowing between his fingers and down his forearm to drip from his elbow. He was slowing, every breath a gurgle. Grace stalked him, switching her blade from hand to hand as she closed, backing him into a corner. Trapped, his back up against a wall, he snarled a wet ‘Damn you!’ and lunged. Grace blocked his weak slash and thrust her blade home in his chest. He fell and she bent over him.

Lars stepped up behind Grace and, two-handed, slammed his long-knife into her back. She sagged on to Tampoor.

The stranger was cleaning his blade on Bower’s clothes. Lars fell to his hands and knees and set to snatching up the gems. Wounded corsairs clutched at him for help but he slapped their weak efforts aside.

‘With what vessel do you serve, sailor?’ the stranger asked.

Lars thought quickly. ‘With none at this time, lord. But I will negotiate with any of your choosing for passage. Which do you wish?’

‘The most seaworthy.’

Lars rolled Torreth over to get at the gems beneath him. The man grasped at him with bloodied hands, but he pushed him aside. ‘Ah, that would be the Tempest, lord.’

‘Very good. You will secure passage for me.’

‘At once.’

The fellow’s armoured boots stamped the floorboards as he headed to the door. Lars scrambled round the bar, stepped over the dying Funal, and snatched up his cashbox. ‘Coming, lord!’ he called. Running, he caught up with the stranger and gestured ahead. ‘This way.’

‘I know the way,’ the man answered, sounding amused.

Strangely, as they walked, Lars noted that the track of the fellow’s incoming footsteps did not trace a route up from the waterfront as he had assumed. Rather, the distinctive trail led down from the island heights, which was strange as the only things up there were the ruins for which the island was named. There, so legend had it, had lain the capital and cenotaph of the ancient warlord who had terrorized all south Genabackis centuries ago. This island had been his fortress stronghold, and the ferocious cataclysms of those wars had given birth to the much-storied martial orders of Elingarth.

Far below, down the switchback trail that climbed the shore cliffs, lay the three corsair vessels anchored in the deep blue waters of the sheltered natural harbour.

‘And where are you headed, great lord?’ Lars asked, thinking of the astounding wealth now nestled down his shirt, hard and now warmed against his stomach. ‘Elingarth? Darujhistan?’

The man lifted his lean, knife-sharp profile to the sky and frowned even harder behind his iron-grey moustache and long ragged beard. ‘West,’ he judged, eyeing that direction. ‘Something happened in the west.’

Lars scampered along behind the man. ‘Ah, yes, m’lord. And … your name?’

The fellow glanced back and stood still for some time, making Lars extremely uncomfortable with his eerie dead-eyed stare. Finally, he ground out, ‘My name is Kallor. Does this mean anything to you?’

Lars shook his head. ‘No, m’lord. Should it?’

The man slowly turned his head away and continued onward down the narrow rocky path. After a while, Lars heard him mutter, as if to himself, ‘Time is the most merciless destroyer of all.’

Part Two

Chapter 8

The ringing clash of a hammer against metal that was the mine’s alarm woke Dancer. He opened his eyes to harsh golden sunlight and lay for a time, already exhausted, his body aching, but eventually he had to rise as the heat of the coming day had already plastered his shirt to his chest. He swung his legs down from the stone ledge and checked on Kellanved.

The mage still slept, or lay insensate or lost in a coma; which of these, he wasn’t certain. For days now no movement had stirred the lad’s limbs, though his chest did rise and fall, if only as faintly as a bird’s flutter. Dancer occasionally made an effort to remember him as someone of his own age, but this was becoming nearly impossible as even now the mage’s seemingly permanent illusion of decrepitude remained. Everyone in the mine thought of him as a weakened ancient, and thus expected him to die; but Dancer knew otherwise and counted on the resiliency of youth to pull him through.

He took a gourd from the wall, unstoppered it, and gently poured a few drops of the precious water on to the lad’s lips. The moisture disappeared, but was it even worth it? He was not allowed to draw an extra ration for Kellanved as the mage had done no work as yet. Dancer stoppered the gourd and pushed aside the ragged hanging of their alcove; the smothering promise of the day’s heat almost drove him to his knees, yet he held on to the hacked stone, steadying himself. He glanced back to his insensate partner. How long could he possibly maintain this?

Yet if their positions were reversed, how long would he wish Kellanved to hope and to try?

For as long as was humanly possible. And infuriating as Kellanved was, he had to grudgingly admit, with some surprise, that he was the best friend he had ever had. Perhaps the only, barring Illara.