Her eyes flickered from darkness to light brown just as my sword sliced through her shoulder. With a shriek, she buckled under the blow, her magick wavering then fading as she went to the ground, blood flowing from the wound on her shoulder. Her focus lost, the undead collapsed around us, some falling into me, others tumbling down the steps into what looked to be a pit thick with random bones and skulls.

  The air was quiet save for my heated breaths and her rasping one. Now, lying under my blade, she appeared as she had when we had taken her with us. Frail, ancient, incapable of such a dire thing as dark magicks, but I had seen the proof. Necromancy was looked down upon throughout the lands of Melowynn, and for good reason. It corrupted. It led mages down dark paths. It twisted doctrine. No mere elf should have the power of life and death. The gods, whichever ones a chosen man or woman worshipped, had domain over birth and passing.

  Still, even knowing what kind of sorceress she was, I removed my blade from her shoulder with care. The blade dripped her blood onto the stained floor of the house of the resting dead. An old woman gazed up at me. Not in confusion or fear. No, her gaze was rife with disgust.

  “I see the dark mage has been felled,” Teryn said, stepping over the body of a woman lying behind me.

  “The wound was not fatal,” I said, never taking my sight from the sorceress at my feet. “That is not to say that another would not be.”

  She spat at us. Then opened her robes to bare her breast, fingers slick with her own blood.

  “Strike true, mainland scum, for once I am able, I will find you and the ambassador wherever you think to hide, and I will see you both pulled into the grasp of death.” She smiled a toothless smile as her sagging breasts lay exposed for my blade.

  Teryn, silent now, his robes hastily wrapped around his middle, enchanted earring dangling from his fingers, dropped down to a crouch. He asked her a question in Sandrayan. She laughed in his face before replying in the same tongue. I held my blade at the ready. I wished not to slay an old woman if it could be avoided.

  Teryn rose, sighed, and wrested the sword from my hand to drive it into her chest. The witch twitched, smiled, and expired without another word said. Eyes wide, I turned to stare at Teryn in dismay.

  “She said the Court of Gray Ice are cowards that seek discussion over action. The blood of the nobles must flow to ensure the people rule once more.” He handed me my sword as a sadness fell over him. “They know who we are and where we are. I fear for the children. We must ride hard and fast, Pasil, as I worry that any chance of negotiation with the Gray Ice melts with each rabid pronouncement of hate directed at those who differ.”

  “Yes, I understand.” And I did. If allowed to live, the necromancer would heal and return to her dark magicks, using the dead as puppets to further her radical beliefs. Still, it had not been easy to watch the life leave her eyes.

  “We will do what we can with those who were desecrated by her magick, then we must push on. The sooner we meet with Porgo, the better,” Teryn stated.

  He looked exhausted. I slid my blade into its scabbard. We then picked up the bodies as best we could to return them to their resting places. Even the necromancer was given a slab of stone to lie upon before we went to find our mounts. With the wind in our faces, we mounted up after Teryn dressed in new robes and insisted on wrapping my torso in my last clean shirt. He tore it into strips, cinching me tightly, the binding helping to lessen the pain of drawing a breath. After he was satisfied with his nursing work, we moved out. As we rode, the vultures began circling Saanin tal Rustam. I left the package of rosewater cookies in the sand for the jackals.

  I found that I no longer had a desire for them.

  TWO DAYS ON AN IRRITABLE QUADOTH with a broken rib was unpleasant, to say the least.

  Still, the agony was not as deep as the pain I felt when we crested an ebony dune and could look down at the port of Shar-Aab.

  “Ah, the sea,” I moaned. A weary chuckle from my lover slash companion blew to me on a hot wind. “How I missed it.”

  “Does your sarcasm indicate that you are suffering less?” he asked, the distant cry of gulls reaching me now. Razgol shifted uneasily under me, her head moving left to right as if she were working the air for a scent of some sort.

  “It indicates that I would rather ride nonstop through a desert on a beast from the depths of hell than board another boat.”

  That made him laugh. A short, tired laugh, but a laugh just the same. “We’ll visit a healer after we find the Simin Draya. We shall have your rib mended and then invest in some pearly barnacle paste for the journey to the Blood Fens.”

  “Joyous news that.” I sighed, nudging my beast on the sides. We rode down into the shantytown, not a true, vibrant port as I had been expecting, more a collection of ramshackle homes piled one atop the other beside a rather large collection of docks. As we rode out of the sands—praise Ihdos and Shamsira—into the rundown port town, the people we passed seemed far less wealthy than those back at Yaza Kee. Most glanced at us with a glimmer of bad intent.

  “The ship sits at the fourth dock,” Teryn pointed out just as my beast made a hard left without my permission. There was no stopping her. Each jarring step made my side ache like a rotted tooth.

  I nearly fell off the creature as she raced down a small alley filled with street vendors, crashing into several shoppers, until she found what which she had been seeking. A large outdoor pen filled with other quadoth. One in particular stood out from the herd. It was taller, heavier, and was expelling what looked to be two fleshy air sacs from within its mouth. A mouth that possessed mighty canines like those on a forest wolf. The male, I assumed due to its larger size, made a gurgling sound as frothy saliva ran from its mouth. A skinny man ran up to me, yelling in Sandrayan, as I took the opportunity to leap down before the male camel pushed through the measly rope fencing to romance my quadoth. Razgol went down like a stone. The quadoth breeder yelled in my face. I shrugged as the male settled behind the female and bred her, my arm pressed to my side.

  Teryn arrived after the deed was done. A long, intense discussion took place while the two furred lovers ambled over to a manger with fresh dry grass to eat. The two eventually shook hands, and Teryn came to me, his exhaustion evident on his drawn face. The quadoth seller spat at my boot before storming back to fix his rope fence.

  “We will walk to the dock,” he informed me. I quirked a brow. “He wanted the two females as payment for his broken fence.”

  “That seems an uneven trade,” I replied, eyeing the man with distrust.

  “It was, but I then explained that they were rentals. When I mentioned the name of the woman in Yaza Kee, he stopped insisting on that in repayment, as she is his wife. Instead, I paid him for the rope. We are to get our bags. The walk is not a long one. We’ll find a healer along the way. Perhaps it was serendipitous that your pretty flower was in heat, for it saved us searching for the breeder in this town.”

  “My pretty flower could have been a bit more coy,” I huffed, joining Teryn in gathering our bags from our rented beasts of burden.

  Totes on our shoulders, we made our way through the narrow, dirty streets, gazing at signs on mossy shop fronts. The lone healer in this seaport was an old dwarf with hair growing out of his large ears and appeared not to have bathed in several seasons. His shop was a small wooden box of a building that sat over a fish stall. The stench was overpowering. Whether the smell was from the barrels of dead fish below us or the grimy shaman, it was hard to say. I doubted his skills but stretched out on a squalid table. The short man with the long brown beard climbed onto a wooden box, spit into his dirty hands, and then laid them on my side. Teryn stood nearby. The first jolt of healing power startled me, for I was sure this filthy dwarf was a fraud. The pain eased slowly as he gently pushed soft yellow magick into my rib.

  “Forty coppers,” he said in mainland and then in Sandrayan, I assumed, after the session was complete.

  “Forty?!” I sat up and came face to face with a war hammer coated in dried blood and old brain matter. Ah. Right. Pay or die. This did not seem like any healer in Renedith or Celear that I had ever visited. This man—and this port—reeked of more than old fish and unwashed dwarf.

  Teryn stepped forward, dropped a pouch into the healer’s hand, and smiled. The hammer lowered from my nose. I slid off the table, grabbed my bag, and pulled the ambassador down the creaky stairs to the street in haste.

  A man ran past with a woman waving a meat cleaver over her head in hot pursuit. Gulls dipped and weaved, and ships tied to the docks moaned as wood butted into wood. The smell of the sea was nearly strong enough to flood the stink of the barrels of jelled cod on our left from my nose.

  “This town. Is it a true town?” I asked, barring Teryn from striding off.

  “Does it not look like a true town? Are there not buildings and people?” I crossed my arms over my armor. Armor that, I knew for certain, was nearly as foul-smelling as the dwarven medic. Teryn, it seemed, was too tired to be clever for any longer. “This is a port town that is not overseen by any official governmental agencies.”

  “So it is a pirate settlement.” He nodded. Several children raced past, all in worn clothes and lacking any shoes. “You are aware that pirates are high on the list of unlawful miscreants that the new navy of Celear wishes to eradicate to ensure the free flow of trade in all of Melowynn’s waters?”

  “Yes, my dear, I am aware of that. I helped the vahasi untangle the legalities of the paperwork from the queen and her naval staff.” Oh. Well, yes, he probably would know of such things. Also, he called me dear. The softness of that term eased some of my upset over our using this port to sail out of. “Sometimes, and this is not carved into stone, but sometimes a wise man turns a blind eye to the small wrongs in the world to focus on the larger ones.”

  “So you knew this was a port filled with criminals.”

  He sighed as if the weight of one of the large ships—probably a pirate vessel—moored at the docks sat on his shoulders.

  “I knew it was not a port of high call on the proposed legal ports laid out by our governments, yes. Many a good man and woman have come from this town. Not all is black and white, my handsome guard captain. Surely you know this, as you have dealt with the poor—what the nobles of the mainland would call undesirables—in your time as a guard of Renedith.”

  Yes, I knew that. I’d grown to manhood as a whelp roaming the streets looking for a quick filch of a leg of lamb or a loaf of bread.

  I heaved a mighty sigh. He had me. The man was far too gifted with words to try to outfox verbally. I gave him a slight nod. His smile returned. “Good, I am glad to hear that your time in the castle beside the Ivory King has not eradicated all of your empathy for those who struggle to survive. Now, we must find Porgo and set to sea.”

  “This trip has shown me a side of you that I would never have assumed you had.” I reached out to rub a charm dangling from a fine chain off his ear. “Someday I would like to get to know all of you.”

  “Someday you shall.” He turned his face into my hand to press a kiss to my palm.

  I followed him to the docks, unable to let my guard drop as we pushed around vendors, sailors, drunks, whores, and a few unsavory sorts. Pirates and illegals—all I was sure. The half of me that upheld the law of Celear as a sworn guard warred mightily with the dirty street urchin that stole anything not nailed down so that he and his mother would not go hungry.

  We found the Simin Draya with ease. She was the sleekest ship docked at Shar-Aab. Porgo hurried down the gangplank to greet Teryn with a hug and a bow. His gaze touched on me.

  “Huh, still alive. I’m impressed. I had ten gold wagered that a mainlander wouldn’t survive a moon passing in the desert,” the wind whisperer said before striding at Teryn’s side to pass along some vital information. I was too tired, too hungry, too thirsty, and far too dirty to try to spar with the man. In a way, I was pleased that I’d proved the bastard wrong. Costing him ten gold was a bonus. “As soon as you two are settled, we’ll set off.”

  Teryn dropped down under the awning with a huff. I sat in the middle of the ship, my back to a mast, and did my best to ignore the sway of the ship. A small burp escaped me. Gods and demons, I hated being on the water.

  “Here.” Porgo tossed me a familiar tin of paste. Praise Ihdos. I’d been too worried about having my brains bashed out by a cleric—a term I would use loosely for that dwarven healer—to ask about the sea illness paste. “We have a full day asea. I don’t need you hurling your gizzards all over my deck.”

  “Thank you,” I called to his back, for he was already walking off.

  “I think you have earned his trust and friendship. That is good, for he is a man who will always be loyal once you gain his confidence,” Teryn stated with a tender smile before he wiggled back into the pillows to fall sound asleep.

  Feeling the wind starting to rise on the back of my neck, I removed my helmet and opened the tin. The stench of pearly barnacles assaulted my nose, but I pulled a large glob from the slimy paste with my finger, eyed it, and then smeared it on my tongue. The taste made me gag, but I let it sit while the sails billowed with the salty air our captain was summoning. Once the paste had melted, I swallowed it down, capped the tin, and let my chin rest on my chest after rinsing my mouth with some tepid water from my hip flask. Funny enough, I trusted Porgo to see us safely to the Blood Fens. Seems faith grew when both sides gave it a bit of sun and water.

  During our day and night on the ocean, I washed the grime of the desert combined with the stink of quadoth from my skin. I cleaned the viscera of the undead from my armor. I sharpened my sword, and I readied myself for what might meet us when we arrived at the basalt pillars.

  Teryn had taken the time to read, sip tea, and eat small mounds of figs in honey. I rested beside him the final night, pulling a whetstone over my blade, eager for this to come to an end. My guts were sour, acidic, but the paste was aiding me in not losing the food I had taken into me. Porgo was close to buckling when we finally sailed up to an island lit by the twin moons. A small isle, it looked out over the sea to lands that to this day remained uncharted. The people of Melowynn needed a navy to explore further, and that, along with the demise of the queen’s family, had come to a halt because they were the only ones on the mainland with the skills to build ships and sail them. Now that Lady Raewyn Frostleaf, our new queen, was on the throne, seafaring was once more being given its due. Hence the need for ports and discussions with harbor masters, royal officials, and honored sea captains.

  If this mission to bring back the prince and princess failed, so too would the negotiations. That seemed to be the plan of the Court of Gray Ice as far as I could see. Kidnapping our heirs had surely gotten the king’s attention. If one of his children came home with a scratch, I feared that any peace between the elves would be wiped away like frost on a windowpane.

  “This is the end,” Porgo announced, lowering his arms with a groan. With a huff, he went to one knee, his tattoos fading as he struggled to stay conscious. The short but fast journey had done him in, his arms dangling like dead fish at his sides.

  I glanced from my sword to the sheer cliffs of the basalt pillars. The sheer white sides of the island stood out sharply under the glow of two moons. They were close, yes, but not touching yet. We would see full alignment on the following night. We had made it. Just.

  The ship bobbed on the soft waves. I rose and padded over to lower the anchor, my mouth coated with barnacle paste. I feared the taste would linger on my tongue forever. Teryn went to tend to our bone-weary captain, pushing tea and small bites of bread at him while I cranked the large wheel. A splash off the port side let me know the anchor had hit the water. A few dozen more feet wheeled off before the rope went slack. The anchor now rested on the sea floor.

  “I will rest while you parley,” Porgo was saying when I returned to where Teryn had led him to rest amid the pillows. “A few hours will do. My magicks are drained. Mahouk, you must not allow them to intimidate you with their numbers. I know this sort. I ran with rebels for many seasons, and they are as clever as a desert fox.”

  “So am I, my friend,” Teryn assured him. “We will see you shortly with the children in hand. You did see to your end of the plans for after the conclusion of this negotiation?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Porgo took a sip of red tea, his bald head reflecting the moon glow like a lantern. He was a handsome man in a rough, uneducated manner. “I know you will bring the young ones out. I have faith.” His seafoam gaze flickered to me. “Protect him with your life, mainlander.”

  “You have my vow.” I placed my fist on my breastplate and lowered my head.

  Porgo said nothing, just nodded, and we left him to rest. Teryn changed into a harrier, leaving his robes and earring behind. I picked them up and stuffed them into a small bag over my shoulder. Holding the bag aloft, he dove to pluck it from my grasp. I gazed at the Silvura with no small amount of trepidation. The sea below was calm. Flecks of white foam floated on top of the gentle crests.

  “Shall I fetch a pillow for you to rest your chest on as one does a child learning to swim?” I heard from behind me.

  Salty bastard.

  I leaped over the side, and the water swallowed me up. With a gasp, I came to the surface. The sea was warm. With a belch, I began swimming to the shore. My strokes were strong, if not graceful. Porgo would surely laugh, but I managed to keep my head above water until I could find purchase on the sandy shore. Wading out of the ocean, saltwater running from me, I took a moment to look skyward. Far above was Teryn, circling, while I stood here soaking wet with salt drying in my ears. Once more, I wished my people had not given up on our magical heritage. Flying would be much easier than climbing but climb I must.