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“Nice work, Cas!” I dropped the rope and hurried along the quay, sca
A gangplank was hastily thrown out from the ship’s rail but a flare of golden radiance sent the dockers reaching for it recoiling in surprise. I turned to see Casuel gesturing at the hovering wood, face pinched with pique. A path instantly cleared between the mage and the ship and the crowd around Casuel thi
Temar ignored the last remnants of magelight fading from the gangplank as he hurried down to me. “Ryshad!”
“I thought we were going to be fishing you out of the rock pools.” I gripped his forearm in the archaic clasp he offered, noting that his fingers were no longer the smooth white of the idle noble but almost as weathered and calloused as my own.
His grip on my own arm tightened involuntarily and I felt the pressure of muscles hardened by work. “When that last wave hit, I did wonder if we would surface on some shore of the Otherworld. Daste
“Daste
“Casuel Devoir, Temar D’Alse
“Esquire.” Casuel swept a bow worthy of an Emperor’s salon. “Your captain was relying on his own seafaring skills? I thought it was clearly understood an ocean crossing can only be safely managed with magical assistance.”
“Quite so.” Temar bowed in turn with a deference to the wizard nicely combined with hauteur. “And one of your colleagues was performing admirably until he took a fall that broke both his legs.” Fleeting disdain in Temar’s ice blue eyes gave the lie to the measured politeness of his words. He indicated a figure being carried down the gangplank by two burly sailors, injuries solidly splinted with spars and canvas.
“I’m sorry?” Casuel spared his injured colleague a scant glance. “Please speak more slowly.”
I decided to turn the conversation to less contentious matters. “When did you cut your hair?”
Temar ran a hand over the short crop that replaced the long queue I’d last seen him with, hair as black as my own but straight as a well rope. “Practicality is now the watchword of Kel Ar’Ayen. Fashion is a luxury we ca
“We’d better get this lot under lock and key, Temar, over yonder.” I pointed to the warehouse I’d bespoken when we first arrived in Bremilayne. Sodden sacks and battered casks were being swung on to the dock in capacious slings, stacked anyhow as everyone hurried to lighten the stricken vessel. I caught an avid expression on more than one onlooker’s face.
“I will direct the men aboard ship.” Temar returned to the gangplank without further ado.
“I’d better see to whoever that mage is,“ Casuel said hastily as he watched the injured man being lifted on to a litter.
“Absolutely.” Casuel could deal with wizardly concerns and I’d see to my own responsibilities. Noticing D’Olbriot insignia on the cloak of a thickset new arrival by the lofty warehouse, I hurried over and ushered the man inside the shelter of the echoing building, speaking without preamble.
“This arrival’s going to be the talk of the taverns, so who do we have to secure the place if the wharf rats come sniffing around?” I ran fingers through my hair to shed the worst of the rain, damp curls clinging tight to my fingers.
“I’ve a double handful of newly recognised and four sworn and loyal.” The man’s grizzled and wiry hair ran unbroken into a full beard framing a prominent nose and bulbous eyes, leaving him looking like an owl peering out of an ivy bush. “Sorry we’re so behind hand. We’d have been here day before yesterday if a horse hadn’t gone lame.”
“It’s Gla
The man’s face creased into a ready grin. “You’ve the advantage of me. I recall you came up when we had that trouble in the shearing sheds but I can’t put a name to you.”
“Ryshad.” I returned his smile. “Ryshad Tathel.”
“Done well by the House, I hear,’ Gla
“No more than staying true to my oath.” I kept my tone easy. Gla
Gla
“Good.” I turned my head as the great doors swung open to let a row of wet and laden dockers enter. I curbed an impulse to shed my cloak and make myself useful; getting my hands dirty wouldn’t have been appropriate to my shiny new rank or to Gla
I watched the well-muscled youths set to with a will. I’d sworn that same ancient oath with fervent loyalty and believed in it with all my heart until the events of the last year and a half had shaken my faith to its roots. I had come within a whisker of handing back my oath fee and abandoning my allegiance to the Name, believing the House had abandoned me. Then reward had been offered, the rank of chosen man as recompense for my anguish, and I had taken it, more than a little uncertain but not sure enough of my other choices to abandon what I’d known for so long. But I had taken other obligations on myself as well, where once my oath had left no room for other loyalties.
Gla
“Ryshad Tathel, this is Velindre Ychane, mage of Hadrumal.” Casuel looked as if he were sucking a lemon. “Her affinity is with the air, as you’ve no doubt guessed. It was her on the other ship.”