Catling's Bane (The Rose Shield Book 1) Read online

  Few of the riverfolk lingered long enough to hear more than a smattering of the sermon’s words. Whitt rubbed some warmth into his nose, wondering if the Cull Tarr fostered revolution or urged compliance. The preacher couldn’t seem to decide. Why did the people of the Cull Sea care about what the Ellegeans believed anyway?

  Distracted, the missionary paused in his rambling description of the Cull Tarr’s method of electing its rulers, an account hardly seeming plausible. His focus honed in on whatever lay beyond Whitt’s shoulder, and Whitt swiveled for a glimpse.

  In gray trousers and deep green cloaks, a company of men from Guardian strode down the dock toward the southern piers. Near the front marched a tall man with graying hair and clipped whiskers, shoulders broad enough to rival a Farlander. The gold clasp on his cloak glimmered and the frown carving his face was darker than the weather. Whitt pushed off the piling and watched them pass.

  “The commander,” Raker said behind him. “Time to continue your journey.”

  Whitt shook his head. “The swamp ruined my letter a long time ago.”

  “Since when does a man need a letter?” Raker slung his purchases to the raft and climbed down.

  “But…” Whitt turned his gaze to Jafe. The rafter grinned back as if Raker had just proposed another trial. He was no help at all. “But…”

  “The swamp will still be here.” Raker glanced up, wet hair whipping across his face. He tossed something into the air.

  “But…” Whitt caught it—a carved waterdragon. Questions about Catling floated through his head. Raker’s lip twitched.

  “I will never understand your kind,” Jafe said, a dare in his slanted eyes. “No time for thinking, Ellegean.”

  Whitt’s hands shook as he dug the silver from his pocket and slid the wood waterdragon in. He thrust all but a single coin at Jafe and sprinted down the dock after the group from Guardian. His lungs burning with the cold, he spun onto the pier and nearly trampled two children who toddled from behind a stack of cargo. He leapt sideways, bounced off a piling that saved him from a frigid swim, and halted before a crowded ferry. A green pennant snapped in the wind from a single stout mast.

  Crates consumed the deck’s center. The men from Guardian and a boy with a stubborn lip attempted to stay out of the crew’s way. Rivermen loaded the balance of the cargo and lashed it to metal cleats. The commander stood near the mast and stared balefully at the captain who described the weather with dramatic flair.

  His sights on the commander, Whitt jumped down to the deck. He hadn’t advanced more than three halting steps when a hand gripped his shoulder. “Ho, hey, where do you think you’re headed?”

  The hand belonged to a guardian with a tanned face, hawk nose, and pate bald as an egg. Whitt bowed. “My respects.”

  “That wasn’t what I asked,” the man said.

  “I need to speak with the commander.”

  “He’s busy. What for?”

  “I’m Whitt from Mur-Vallis. I’m supposed to go to Guardian. I had a letter of introduction to the commander.”

  “Suppose you’re the son of some high ward.” The man chuckled and hustled him out of a crewman’s way. “Where’s this letter?”

  “I lost it in the swamp,” Whitt explained. “It was from doyen Vianne-Ava.”

  The guardian narrowed his eyes. “Wait here.”

  On the pier’s other side, two barges battling the current collided. One listed, losing cargo while the crews shouted obscenities. Whitt gave the uproar no more than a wince and waited while the guardian relayed his message. The commander glanced his way with a stony frown yet to leave his face. The captain’s waving arms added nothing hopeful to the discussion. With a nod, the guardian returned.

  “My regrets, boy. The commander knows nothing of this letter, and the ferry’s over-weighted as it is.”

  “Vianne said—“

  “Commander Jagur says he hasn’t spoken to Vianne in years.” The man looked down his beaked nose in warning. “And the ferry’s full. You said your piece. Time to go.”

  Whitt’s shoulders sagged. He wanted to speak directly to the commander and argue his case, but there seemed little point. Vianne had overestimated her power, and the ferry rode low in the water. The captain’s warning hadn’t been wrong. He climbed to the pier and watched the ferry cast off.

  The crew pulled on the oars, grunting in unison with each stroke. Backs and shoulders strained as they fought to break free of the pier. At the bow, three rivermasters stood with coiled ropes, prepared to harness the waterdragons that reared in the ribboning luminescence.

  On the pier’s opposite side, the havoc between the barges increased in rancor. The larger of the two cast off in an attempt to reach the open water. Behind it, the craft that had lost a portion of its cargo swung into the gap, the edge of its deck ramming the pier. The current sucked a corner under the planking. Crates slid sideways, breaking through the rail, and water climbed the deck. As men scrambled to safety, the river shoved the hull farther under the pier.

  At the last of the pilings, the barge that had escaped the fray suddenly ceased its forward momentum. A thick line popped from the water, taut between the two crafts. Cursing, the oarsmen strained while the captain leapt toward the line and sawed it with a clip-point knife. The line snapped but too late as the craft swung with the current into the guardians’ ferry.

  The ferry juddered, tossing three souls to the water. It hit the pier’s end and spun. A bank of oars rattled and snapped against a piling. The red-faced captain bellowed orders. “Poles on the port. Clear the piers!” He climbed onto the crates. “Clear the piers, mates! We’ll drift downriver. Lassoes ready.”

  His focus on the turmoil, Whitt ran up the planking to the circular dock. Shouting riverfolk gathered at the ends of the next three piers with long poles ready to shove the ferry off if it came too near. Two guardians, those pitched from the ferry, clambered aboard a tethered skiff, shivering from the cold.

  Whitt darted up the downriver pier, searching for the third cast-off. Ahead to his right, he spied the flailing boy, face terrified as the current swept him out from under one pier, across the open water, and under the next. Whitt ran ahead and jumped off a downriver pier, intending to intercept the boy in the gap.

  The icy water punched him in the chest, and he surfaced with a gasp. The floodwaters swept him into a piling and pinned him there. If he broke free, the water would drag him under the planking. The boy appeared from beneath the opposite pier, floating toward him, head submerged. Whitt shouted for help. He pushed from the piling, grabbed the boy, and kicked as they disappeared into the cold darkness.

  Whitt’s head slammed into something hard, knocking him dizzy and tearing the boy from his grip. He inhaled a lungful of water. The current swept him into the gray light of the next open lane. Coughing and gasping, he fumbled for the nearby body, missed, and seized the boy’s head by the hair. With his free hand, he reached up and grasped the edge of pier’s deck. The rushing water pulled his legs into the shadows and sucked off his boots.

  “Help!” He coughed, his arms aching. “We’re here. Help!”

  An iron grip closed on his wrist and pulled. “Give me your other hand,” a voice shouted.

  “I can’t,” Whitt wheezed.

  The grasp on his wrist held as someone grabbed his clothing and a hand shot under his arm. They hauled him out from the water.

  “Founders be damned,” one of his rescuers murmured. “He’s got a dead boy by the hair.”

  ***

  From the wide Slipsilver, the ferry veered upstream past Se-Vien into the South River, a faster, slighter tributary whirling through the foothills. The Fangwold Mountains jutted on the horizon, wreathed in clouds and snow-blue in the thick of winter. Somewhere ahead in a gap cleaving the serrated peaks lay Guardian, the single Ellegean city constructed not by the Founders but by the hands of men.

  Nearer the mountains, the riverbanks rose into rock walls. Snow blew in diagonal sheets, the iron
clouds so low Whitt couldn’t see but fifty paces ahead. The river opened into a mirror lake before the walls towered into black cliffs. Water sluiced from above in an ice-fringed fall, veiling the air in frozen mist.

  On the tarn’s shores lay the only waystation for travelers between Guardian and the northern tier cities. Watercrafts bobbed in the thin, crackling ice, and smoke blew from the chimneys of stone shelters. The commander’s ferry tied up near a lodge on the eastern bank. Harnesses freed, the waterdragons swirled and disappeared downriver in a silver wake.

  After a night’s rest, the guardians packed supplies on sturdy-legged mules and tarped wagons. Whitt lugged sacks of salt and grain until his arms turned to lead and knees to rope. “How far to Guardian?” he asked Tavor. The hawk-nosed sergeant had seen to his kit and blankets and bought him boots for the trip south.

  “Two days if the weather obliges.” Tavor slid a weighty cask of camgras oil to the wagon as if it were stuffed with hay. He eyed Whitt. “You’ll be riding beside the commander.”

  “Why not with you?” Whitt grunted as he hefted the sack. The commander hadn’t spoken to him once during their five days on the river, and Whitt could do without the ornery silence.

  “If I knew, I’d be lying.” The man hoisted another barrel. “Though I’ll wager he plans to fill you in on your duties.”

  The suggestion sounded reasonable. Whitt had earned a position as the commander’s page. Not because the previous page had drowned, but because Whitt had tried to save him. “What’s the commander like?”

  Tavor rubbed his shiny head. “He fought in the Far Wolds War. The king claimed the territory for some reason only the crowned are privy to. Guardian argued it, but the council sided with the king, a wise choice if they fancied their necks in one piece. Rumor says Jagur drank, whored, and fought like an immortal.”

  “Was he the commander then?” Whitt stalked back to the ferry for another load of salt, Tavor ambling along at his side.

  “The dead wish he was.” Tavor shook his head. “He saved a lot of Ellegean lives, regardless. Got himself promoted, sobered up, and shipped back to Guardian, the war mostly won. His men respect him for his smarts, but he’s also fair-minded and can be trusted to do the right thing. Add to that, he hates politics. Makes him the perfect leader for the Warriors’ Guild.”

  “Why?”

  Tavor halted, a barrel balanced on his shoulder. “Because, Whitt, we’re guardians sworn to fight and maybe hand up our lives for the realm. The commander makes sure when that happens it’s a true and honorable deed and not for some crown’s flaws or fancy.”

  ***

  By mid-morning, the caravan of mules and wagons ascended from the lake on a roughhewn road. Above the waterfall, the mist cleared. Clouds graced an azure sky, and the sun warmed despite a brisk wind scudding down from the peaks.

  Whitt dropped back his hood, his feet and fingers thawing. He sat astride a good natured pony with no complaints about its size or temperament. The commander rode a black terran horse and puffed on a curved pipe. The smoke breezed by Whitt with the scent of burning leaves and sweet nuts.

  “How old are you?” the commander asked.

  “Thirteen summers.” Whitt heeled his pony forward to keep pace with the larger horse.

  “You’re a bit old to begin the duties of a page.” The commander eyed him. “What can you do?”

  “Learn.”

  The commander raised an eyebrow, removed his pipe, and barked a laugh. “Brave and clever, a respectable start. Can you read and write?”

  Wenna had forced some schooling on him, but he hadn’t retained much beyond a stumbling pronunciation of the written word and an illegible copy of his letters. “No,” he replied, choosing to err on the side of caution.

  Jagur’s cheeks puffed, and he blew out a long breath. “In the mornings, you’ll be schooling with boys younger than you until you catch up. In addition to letters, numbers, and histories, you’ll be learning the basics of combat and care of weapons. I imagine you know something of how to fight.”

  “I spent a year in the Mur-Vallis warrens and two years in the swamps.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” The commander sucked in a cloud of smoke and let it escape from the side of his mouth. “I don’t need any assistance dressing, and I prefer to tend to my own weapons. However, in the afternoons you’ll run messages and errands. You’ll attend appointments with me and keep me honest with your unguarded opinion. Do you understand what that means?”

  “I’ll tell you the truth.”

  “Exactly,” Jagur nodded with approval. “If there’s one thing I won’t tolerate from anyone, it’s Founders-be-damned toadies and liars. If I want you to lie, I’ll tell you to.”

  “I suppose you don’t like influencers.” Whitt gave his pony another prod with his heels.

  The commander grunted. “The whole business is deceitful.”

  “Are there influencers in Guardian?”

  “Only as a matter of necessity. If visiting dignitaries bring a few, I flaunt mine. It evens out the risk, and we can usually eliminate their presence altogether. I refuse to use them on my men, even those who shove a hot poker up my ass on a daily basis.”

  Whitt blinked at the description.

  The commander smiled. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  “You mean honestly?”

  “I assume you paid attention to everything I said.

  Whitt thought about it. “Vianne-Ava really did give me a letter for you.”

  Jagur nodded and dragged on his pipe. “Any idea what it said?”

  “No, I couldn’t read it.” He heeled the pony and flicked his reins. “She said it was about a place in Guardian for me.”

  The man nodded. “Anything else I should know?”

  Whitt hesitated. His recollections reached across the white landscape, north beyond Mur-Vallis, to Catling and her secret, his murdered family and the reason for their deaths. He rode into the Fangwold’s stark and beautiful winter to Guardian, as a member of the Warriors’ Guild. On the mountains’ other side were the Farlander clans and the Ellegean settlements of Tor, Falcyn, and Outlier. He would join men charged with protecting Ellegeance’s claims on land not theirs to claim.

  When Whitt looked up at the commander, he found the man waiting for a reply. “Commander, I think you should know that a family of Farlanders visited my home every year at the end of Summertide, the week before Brightest Night. They traded with us and drank tipple with my father. They played music and we danced.”

  “Your friends?” the commander asked as Whitt’s face flushed with emotion.

  Whitt nodded. “Until the high ward hung them all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Catling slit the fish along the dorsal fin, sawed through the spine, and peeled the skin back, taking the guts with it. Qeyon grimaced, and she laughed at his squeamishness. Task completed, she flung the refuse from the pier. The river bubbled as razorgills fought for the carcass. She trimmed away the thin rib bones, tossed the fish into a bucket with her earlier catch, and washed her hands in the rippling luminescence.

  “My jacket?”

  Qeyon handed her the wine-red garment.

  She slipped it on, buckled the wide belt, and brushed the layers into place. “Presentable?”

  “Growing up.” He smiled.

  “Fifteen come Summertide.” She scooped up the bucket for the climb to the second tier and the lift to the heights. Vianne had initially disapproved of their weekly fishing forays, but Qeyon had convinced her that studies could occur in a broad array of settings, including the docks. Vianne insisted on results, and Catling earned her outings.

  “Are you prepared for tomorrow?” Qeyon asked as they crossed the promenade.

  “As well as one can be.” She flicked a glossy scale from her sleeve. “I’m eager for a visit to Elan-Sia and the sea, but I don’t care for the other doyen. Vianne is difficult enough, and the prospect of five days trapped on a ferry with the lot
of them… Are you certain you won’t join us?”

  “I must fill Vianne’s chair here.”

  Catling spied a split copper hidden between two potted star-lilies. She plucked it up and held it in her open palm. Mur-Vallis and Keela lay in a hazy past, the history of another girl she scarcely recognized. At the same time, no matter the seasons passing, her longing for Whitt and the stead burned bright in her heart. Someday she would return home. A distant morning would dawn when she’d done enough, and she’d depart Ava-Grea. She slipped the coin into her pocket and strolled to the lift.

  Unless they killed her first.

  ***

  Around Ava-Grea, the Slipsilver broadened, leached into bracken swamplands, and stagnated in ever-changing channels. Despite its placid sheen, beneath the tier city, it was still a river with currents flowing steadily north.

  Catling perched at the bow of an ample ferry, the breeze in her face. At the end of their first day, the swamps tapered again into a wide river, bordered by reedy banks and copses of fan-leafed trees. She’d managed to avoid the doyen with needless tasks and a convincingly avid desire to forge ahead in her studies. A musty tome lay across her knees, unopened.

  “Catling?”

  She twisted to find Vianne smiling behind her, auburn hair swept up in shell clasps, ivory jacket buttoned despite the day’s increasing heat. “We would appreciate a service of cool tea.” Vianne canted her head toward the salon, picked up the thick book from Catling’ lap and glided away to join Dalcoran by the door.

  At the topside galley, Catling crushed greenleaf and doused it with lukewarm water from a barrel, the ferry’s version of “cool.” She delivered the pitcher to the salon and poured five goblets, one for herself. The activity afforded her a moment to test her senses for influence. The invasive touch of Piergren’s pleasure made her blush while it spoiled her stomach.