The Chaoswar Saga: A Kingdom Besieged, A Crown Imperilled, Magician’s End

But this captain was no ordinary seaman; rather, as Lord Henry had observed, he was something of a madman. Considered the finest captain in the King’s Western Fleet, he was always the first to be sent after pirates and on dangerous missions.

‘It must be something important to make Reinman chance coming in tonight!’ shouted Martin from behind his father.

‘The fool!’ replied Robert. ‘He’ll crash into the docks!’

In the rain and gloom, the ship raced past the lighthouse like an eerie shadow, a skeleton thing of grey and black lit by the yellow-and-white reflections of torches along the breakwater leading out to the lighthouse. As the vessel entered the harbour every door and window of every shop along the wharf was thrown open despite the rain, as onlookers gaped in wonder at the mad captain who drove his ship to destruction.

Suddenly, a bloom of light appeared around the ship, expanding bubble-like into a sphere of almost daylight brilliance. Within the dome of brilliance they could easily see the ship’s crew frantically chopping at the rigging with hand axes so the sails quickly fell away.

‘Damn!’ said the Duke quietly.

• CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_d82d6cea-e85a-52fa-801f-5f0b20321d82) •

Warning (#ulink_d82d6cea-e85a-52fa-801f-5f0b20321d82)

THE WIND HOWLED.

Captain Jason Reinman bellowed to be heard above the noise. ‘Cut ’em loose, damn ya!’

The crew had been ordered aloft during the mad dash toward the harbour of Crydee in preparation for this desperate act.

‘Hard to starboard!’ he shouted and two men wrestling with the long handle on the rudder shoved with all their strength towards the left, to bring the balky ship around in the opposite direction.

The Royal Messenger’s timbers groaned in protest as the ship fought against stresses she was not designed to withstand. Turning to the man seated on the deck next to him, Captain Reinman shouted, ‘Hold! Just a few more minutes!’

The man squatted on the decks, his eyes closed and his face a mask of concentration as he fought to stay upright on the tossing deck. Reinman’s sunburned face turned upward, and he saw with satisfaction that the sails had all been cut loose and were now littering the decks. He’d refit in Crydee and what sail he’d lost the Duke could replace for him. The ropes would be mended and should any of his men have been overly zealous with the axes, the spars would be repaired.

The sound of the storm died away: the bubble of light was a tiny pool of calm in the middle of the storm-tossed harbour. ‘Don’t you fail me, you magic-wielding sot! You’re not allowed to pass out until we are at the docks!’ If the man at whom Reinman was shouting heard him he gave no indication, seemingly intent on keeping himself sitting upright.

The ship came about in the relative calm of the bubble of magic, and Reinman shouted, ‘Get the fenders over the side! As soon as this shell is down, the gale will slam us into the docks. I don’t want to sail home on a pile of kindling!’ To the men aloft, he said, ‘Grab hold and hang on, it’s going to be rough!’

As the large padded fenders went over the side to protect the ship from the dock wall, the magic bubble collapsed, and as the captain had predicted, the sudden gale slammed the hull against the pilings. But the fenders did their work and although there was the sound of wood cracking, both the dock and the ship held intact.

Then the ship rolled and the grinding sound of wood on wood was almost painfully loud, and the three masts came down towards the cobbles of the harbourside road at alarming speed. Men aloft held on for their lives, shouting in alarm.

But just as it seemed the ship would roll on its side and smash the yards into the ground, the movement stopped. For a pregnant moment the spars hovered mere feet above the stones, then they started to travel back the way they came. Men’s voices rose again in alarm as they realized they might be suddenly pitched off in the other direction.

‘Hang on!’ shouted the captain as he gripped the railing that had almost been overhead a moment before. Glancing around, he noticed that his companion on the poop deck was nowhere to be seen. ‘Drunken fool!’ he shouted at the spot recently vacated and then returned his attention to not being flung over the side of his ship.

As the ship rolled back, more creaking signalled the continuation of the elements’ assault on the vessel he loved dearly. He silently damned the need for such reckless behaviour and vowed that should the ship be rendered salvage, he would see to it that Lord James Dasher Jamison paid for a new one out of his own pocket. Thought having secret access to the King’s treasury, he would barely miss the sum.

The ship was upright for a moment, then continued on its recoil, but the force of the wind and sea kept it from rolling very far. Captain Reinman let go of the railing and shouted, ‘Make fast! Any man not already dead get this ship securely lashed secure. Any man dead will answer to me!’

He hurried to the fore railing and looked around. The ship was in better shape than he had any right to expect, but not as pretty as he would have liked. But it did not seem that the main timbers had been compromised, so he thought a few days of carpentry and paint would make her as good as new.

He took a brief moment to congratulate himself on the insane entrance into Crydee Harbour and then shouted, ‘Anyone seen that drunken magician?’

One of the deck hands shouted, ‘Oh, was that what that was, sir? I think he went over the side when we heeled back.’ Suddenly realizing what he said, the sailor shouted, ‘Man overboard!’

Half a dozen sailors hurried to the rail and one pointed, ‘There!’

Two men went over the sides despite the dangerous chop in the water and the risk of being swept into the side of the ship, or worse, under the docks in what had to be a clutter of debris.

The object of their search, a slender man with a usually unruly thatch of black hair which was now plastered to his skull, sputtered and coughed as one sailor dragged him to the surface and held his head above water. The second sailor helped pull him to the side of the ship where two other sailors clung tightly to ropes despite the slashing winds.

Drenched, miserable, and wretched, the man in the soaked robes looked at the captain and said, ‘We there?’

‘More or less,’ said Reinman with a grin. ‘Mr Williams!’

The first mate appeared in front of his captain. ‘Aye, sir.’

‘Get below and see how much work needs to be done. I didn’t hear anything to make me believe we have any serious damage. Don’t tell me I’m wrong, if you please.’

The first mate saluted and turned away. Like the captain, the first mate knew the ship as well as he knew the face of his wife and children. He suspected that the groaning of wood and snapping of lines would mean repair, but nothing major. He’d heard the sound of a keelson cracking in a storm, and it was a sound he’d never forget.

Captain Reinman ordered, ‘Run out the gangway!’

The crew nearest to the docks hurried to obey. Unlike passenger ships with their fancy gangways with steps and rails, this was a merely a wide board of hardwood that managed to reach the docks without bowing so much it wouldn’t support a man carrying cargo.

No sooner had it touched the dock than Reinman was down it, his leather boots sliding along the plank as much as walking it. As he expected, by the time he stood on the dock, a company of horsemen was riding to meet him.

Duke Henry, Earl Robert, and half a dozen men-at-arms reined in.

‘Miserable night for a ride, your grace,’ said the captain with a grin, ignoring the pelting rain. Standing in the storm, water coursing off his head and shoulders, the red-headed seaman looked as if he was almost enjoying the experience.

‘Hell of a landing,’ said Duke Henry. ‘It must be something urgent to make you pull a stunt like that.’

‘You could say,’ he glanced around, ‘though it will keep for another few minutes until we can be alone. Strict instructions: for your ears only.’

The Duke nodded. He motioned to one of his escorts. ‘Give the captain your horse and follow on foot.’

The soldier did as ordered and handed the reins to Reinman. The captain mounted a little clumsily, as riding was not his first occupation, but once in the saddle he seemed comfortable enough.

‘To the keep!’ said the Duke over the wind’s howl and they turned back and started up the main street of Crydee Town, the boulevard that would take them to shelter and a roaring fire.

Still dripping wet, Captain Reinman accepted a heavy towel and began mopping his face, but waved away a servant bearing a change of clothes. ‘In a minute,’ he said, then to the Duke. ‘A word, my lord.’

They stood in the entrance to the keep with the Duchess, Countess and the three children waiting for an explanation for the mad display they had just witnessed. Both Martin and Brendan had started to speak at once, but the captain’s words cut them short.

Somewhat surprised by Reinman’s more than usually abrupt manner, the Duke nodded to the others to return to the great hall, indicating that he and the captain would join them. The two men moved to a corner of the entry hall and the Duke said, ‘Now, what is so important you’ll risk wrecking the King’s fastest ship to tell me a day early?’

‘Orders from the Crown, my lord. You’re to begin muster.’

The Duke’s face remained impassive, but the skin around his eyes tightened. ‘It’s war, then?’

‘Not yet, but soon, perhaps. Lord Sutherland and the Duke of Ran both say the frontier is quiet, but rumours have it Kesh is moving in the South and you’re to be ready to support Yabon or even Krondor if the need arises.’

Henry considered. War along the Far Coast had occurred only twice in the history of the Kingdom: the original conquest when the land was wrested from Kesh, and then the Tsurani invasion. The people of the Far Coast had known peace for a century and had almost nothing to do with Kesh, save for the occasional trader looking for a market hungry for exotic goods.