“She was trying to reach the Eitur,” Pratik said.
“Why?” Llyra asked.
“Maybe she was trying to rejoin us,” Rhaif offered, pain lancing through him as he imagined her struggle to return to his side.
Pratik dispelled such romanticism. “Her damage may have been too severe, draining her vigor too quickly. If so, she might have sought to stoke the fires inside her with the heat of the sun before resuming her trek.”
Llyra glowered at her broken form. “And now she is gone forever.”
“No,” Xan said, still warming her palms over the cold bronze. “She still sings, faint though it be.”
Despite Shiya’s glassy eyes and broken form, Rhaif realized Xan must be right. How else could the elder have led them here? The embers of hope inside him warmed brighter.
Xan turned to them. “We must get her into your wagon. Quickly now.”
Rhaif balked, afraid to move her.
Then a shattering boom drew their attention toward the lake. A burst of fire bloomed, bright enough to dazzle the eyes before wafting out. The concussion rattled leaves all around and blew the mists toward them, shredding the fog.
Rhaif caught a distant shine of emerald waters before the mists closed again.
Xan pointed her cane at the wagon. “We have no more time.”
Her words proved true as the clouds darkened to the west. A massive storm cloud rolled off the poisonous lake and swept high over them. The forests dimmed all around. The enormity of it felt like a great weight pressing down on them.
But it wasn’t a storm cloud that cast such a mighty shadow.
With her face craned up, Llyra identified what hung over the forest. “A warship…”
* * *
WRYTH RUSHED ACROSS the forecastle toward the wheel of the Pywll. “Stop!” he shouted to both the pilotman and the warship’s commander, a boulder-shouldered Vyrllian named Brask hy Laar.
The commander’s crimson face turned to Wryth with a deep scowl. “Why? We have orders to sweep to the end of the lake, then close our side of the noose toward Havensfayre’s mooring field.”
“Unless instructed otherwise,” Wryth reminded him firmly. “Liege General Haddan has given me leeway to pursue an artifact stolen from the kingdom, a weapon of great power.”
Brask gave an exasperated shake of his head, but he waved to the pilotman. “Do as he says. Bring us to a stop.”
With a sharp nod, the pilotman called out orders, passing the command around the forecastle. In moments, the ship’s flashburn forges roared outside, fighting their momentum forward.
Brask turned to Wryth. “How do you hope to find anything down in that misty sea?”
Wryth lifted what he held. “With this.”
In his palms, he cradled a crystal orb. Skerren had fabricated this instrument back at the Shrivenkeep, designed specifically for this journey. The globe of polished crystal was filled with heavy oil. Pinned and suspended within it was a ring of tiny lodestones, each wrapped by a coil of copper threading. He pictured a larger version of a similar construction. It enshrined the bronze bust back at the Shrivenkeep. Each lodestone was sensitive to the emanations given off by such holy artifacts.
Unfortunately, Skerren’s smaller design required it to be close to the source before its lodestones could respond. While en route here, Wryth had been using the tool like a wayglass, trying to discern any flow of energies in the area. It was only once they neared Eitur’s eastern shores that a few of the lodestones had begun to shiver in the oil, disturbed by unseen winds. As they continued along, the slivers slowly swung and settled, pointing east of the Eitur, just as Skerren’s earlier calculations had assessed.
Wryth’s grip tightened on the orb, his heart pounding.
Then, just a moment ago, something had changed. All the lodestones had unsnapped from their positions and spun dizzily in place. He showed the same to Brask. Wryth held the orb with the ring of copper-wrapped stones positioned horizontally with the ground.
“I was following a trail,” Wryth said, “when I lost the signal, but watch…”
He rolled the globe until the ring of lodestones was perpendicular to the forest. As he rotated it, the tiny slivers halted their lazy spin and snapped into position again, all the slivers pointing down. He stared across the orb at the dawning awareness in Brask’s crimson face. Even Pywll’s commander understood the implication.
“The weapon is below us,” Brask mumbled.
“It must be ours,” Wryth added. “Even if it means burning down this entire forest.”
46
RHAIF CURSED AS the shadow of the warship settled to a stop overhead. He hauled Shiya toward the waiting wagon. He gripped one of her stiff arms. The bronze was deathly cold to his touch. He could not fathom how there could be any life inside this shell.
Pratik supported her other arm, while another four tribesmen bore her legs and torso. The Chaaen’s face was pinched as he stared up toward that dark cloud of the warship. “Somehow they must know Shiya is here.”
“All the more reason to get her into the wagon,” Llyra said, dancing her mare behind them.
Pratik looked little encouraged by this plan. “If they traced us here, they could do the same with Shiya on the move.”
“We’ve no other choice,” Rhaif grunted.
He pictured a rain of firebombs blasting this area.
Still, they made it to the wagon, and with much effort, slid and hauled her stiff form aboard. Rhaif climbed in after her. As he did, he flashed back to a corpse being dragged out of an alley in Anvil. The poor man’s throat had been cut, but his limbs were rigored and held forth stiffly, as if he were still trying to ward off his attacker.
Shiya reminded him of the same, a figure frozen in death.
Xan climbed into the wagon with the help of a tribeswoman, someone named Dala. She and another three women followed Xan. Pratik was the last to clamber in. They all crowded around Shiya’s bulk.
Shouts and whistles spread through the Kethra’kai, and the entire group set off through the woods. Rhaif winced at the clatter and rattle of the wagon. He knew warships had sharp ears. He prayed that the bombing had deafened the ship above.
As if the gods heard this thought, a fresh series of booms erupted to the south, in the direction they were headed. From the sharper staccato of those blasts, it was not bombs this time.
Pratik looked across Shiya’s body. “That was cannon fire.”
It was easy to read the worry in the Chaaen’s face.
Did that bombardment herald the presence of another warship ahead?
As they fled through the woods, they tracked alongside the green glow of the nearby Eitur. They aimed toward the only destination in that direction—Havensfayre—that might offer a measure of shelter.
But not if another warship was already over there.
Rhaif called to Xan, waving east. “We should turn and make for the deeper woods.”
The elder ignored him, lifting her palms over Shiya’s face.
Pratik argued against Rhaif’s plan. “If they’ve tracked Shiya here, they’ll continue to do so through these woods. Our only hope is to make it to Havensfayre and seek a way to bury her somewhere safe, where they might not be able to discern her presence. And if we hurry, maybe they won’t know we’ve fled there.”