Return of the Exile

1 At Sea

Across the warm waters of the northern Courrain Ocean the storm rolled with fire in its teeth and a wind that howled like the damned. A vanguard of the changing seasons, the storm churned over the waters, rolling south and east along the prevailing currents toward the continent of Ansalon. It was monstrous and powerful, armored in dense, gray clouds and clothed in driving curtains of rain that obscured the sky. Its gale-force winds drove huge waves before it that clawed at the horizon and seemed to drown the world in water.

It was, Linsha thought, an appropriate backdrop to her mood, turbulent, angry, and frightened. She yanked her cloak off—for what little good it had done—and tossed it behind her. Taking a tighter grip on the safety line, she leaned forward over the prow of the ship into the teeth of the storm. The wind tore at her hair. The flying spray stung her face. Behind her, the ship groaned in the strain of fighting wind and water. The one sail left rigged for some control snapped in the gale like breaking bones. Voices shouted in Tarmakian, but Linsha ignored them.

The ship crested a large wave and plunged down the far side into the furrow. A green wall of water crashed over the bow. The weight and momentum of the water swept around Linsha’s legs and struggled to break her hold on the rope.

It would be so easy, a perverse little thought whispered in the darkness behind her eyes. All she had to do was let go. Take one more step. Release ten fingers and she could put an end to the pain. The rope burned into her hand. It would be so easy—one small movement, then into the water and peace.

The wave swept by her as the ship began its difficult climb up the next comber. Linsha shook the stinging salt water out of her eyes and spread her feet. She took a step forward closer to the high prow and looked at the oncoming wave. It was a particularly large one crowned with spume and streaked with silver foam.

Her clear green eyes swooped down to see the slope of the water that fell away at her feet. The ship’s prow sliced through the crest of the wave. She stared down, mesmerized by the massive power of the sea around her, unaware that her hands tightened around the ropes. Why not? she thought. What was left for her? Why couldn’t she just let go now?

The ship dropped away beneath her, and water crashed over her. Her feet slipped on the wet deck and were washed out from under her by torrents of rushing seawater. Linsha was aware that her body was being buffeted by the cold, rushing wave, but the one thing that stood out with painful clarity was the feeling of the thick wet rope digging into her hands. Her muscles ached, her shoulders hurt, and the rough hemp tore the skin from her fingers and palms, yet she could not force her hands to let go.

The water subsided, draining away over the timbers of the ship. Aching and drenched, Linsha climbed to her feet on the tilting deck and waited while the ship climbed laboriously up the next wave. She sensed movement behind her and tensed, wishing for the thousandth time that she had a weapon. A sword, a dagger—even an eating knife would be welcome.

Arms came around her and hands clutched the rope beside hers so she was penned in the circle of his arms. His body pressed against her back as if he felt she needed his steadying influence.

“Haven’t you had enough of this?” A strong masculine voice yelled in her ear. He had to shout over the roar of groaning timbers, howling wind, and thunder.

Animosity crushed any other thought or emotion in her mind. She would have given almost anything to slam an elbow beneath his ribs and kick his traitorous carcass into the storm-tossed waters. But she had not become a Solamnic Knight and worked for years to attain the highest rank of Knight of the Rose to lose her temper and kill the only chance she had left to regain her honor. Her honor and a small clutch of brass dragon eggs were all she had left, and because of a vow she made to the dragon overlord Iyesta, the two were inextricably tied together.

With every scrap of self-control she had left, Linsha twisted her lips into something resembling a smile and yelled back, “I like storms.”

“You are the only one,” Lanther replied. “All the other women are seasick below decks.” He seemed as unshaken by the storm as she. “Why are you standing out here on the bow? Are you trying to drown yourself?”

“Why not?” she replied with icy sarcasm. She had lost many good friends, seen an entire Solamnic circle and most of a Legion cell die. Lanther had taken away her companion, Varia, and driven away the one best friend she had ever found. Her life had become nothing but defeat, dishonor, and misery, and she saw nothing but defeat and slavery in her future. She smiled a brittle sneer. “Why shouldn’t I let go and die here before things get worse?”

Lanther laughed, a genuine guffaw of caustic amusement.

“Because you are too stubborn. And I still have your precious eggs locked away in a safe room in Missing City. If you want them to survive, so must you.”

At that moment the ship dropped under their feet and began its rush down the backside of another huge green comber. Linsha took a deep breath and held it. Water slammed over her head. It poured around her, over her, a gray-green monster that roared in her head and filled her ears and nose with salty water. She kept her feet this time, hugging the high prow with both arms. It would be too much to ask, she thought, that Lanther get washed overboard.

The ship wallowed in the heavy water, then slowly righted itself in time to meet the next wave.

Linsha exhaled and shook the water out of her eyes. She had to admit this vessel was well-built. It was a version of a trireme, a sleek, oceangoing warship built by the Tarmaks from a design that borrowed heavily from the minotaurs’ shipcraft. It was tough, fast, and maneuverable. Even so, she decided she’d had enough of her negative thoughts, enough drenching, and enough of the man standing behind her.

She angled her body against the solid wood of the prow and was about to push away from the man when she heard a wild voice cry from the crow’s nest on the mast. She could not see anything in the driving rain, but apparently the lookout did, and the crew accepted it. The shouting and activity below deck grew louder. More Tarmaks came up on the main deck while others took their places at the oars.

Lanther’s arms tightened around her and his dripping face split into a grin. “Don’t leave now. We’re almost there. The seas will grow calmer as we sail around the point. Stay and see the Orchemenarc.”

Linsha’s heart sank. Almost there. The words banged in her head like a sentence of doom. For over fourteen days she had survived on this crowded ship with one hundred fifty Tarmak warriors, twenty female prisoners, trunks and chests full of stolen treasure, one coffin, and barely enough food and water to last the journey. As uncomfortable and miserable as it was, as long as they were still at sea, she could ignore the passage of miles and the increasing distance between herself and her home. Now she could no longer avoid the truth that she had been taken from her homeland and borne into the distant reaches of a far sea, away from home and family and the aid of anyone who might have stirred to help her. She felt the painful sensation tighten her throat still further, and heat rushed into her face. Tears would be next, she knew, and she swore she would never cry in Lanther’s presence.

Another wave came. It surged around her and cooled her skin. She fought back the grief and self-pity, fought back the tears. She was a knight, a Majere, the child of Heroes, and the sole protector of a clutch of dragon eggs. She could not, nay would not, give in now.

Soaked and seething, she stayed where she was and thought no more of letting go. She still could not see any indication of land, but it seemed, as she watched the roll and pitch of the waves, that the storm was lessening. The wind had dropped somewhat, and the waves were not as rough. The change must have been noticeable enough for the captain, for he suddenly bellowed orders to his crew. Tarmak seamen, as tall and muscular as the warriors, swarmed up the two masts and released more sail.

Linsha watched with mingled respect and frustration as the tough fabric unfurled, snapping and dancing in the wind. Swiftly the sailors tied down the sails and dropped back to the deck. A drum boomed once on the rowers’ deck below, Linsha heard a shout, and in one smooth movement the ship’s oars dropped into the water and bit into the waves. The drumbeat set the rhythm, and the oars began their steady lift and pull. The ship leaped forward.

“We are moving into the lee of a large peninsula,” Lanther told her. “When Lord Ariakan came here, his ship landed to the north on the western edge of the continent. He did not come to Sarczatha until later.”

Linsha shuddered at the mention of that man, the Dark Knight who first found the land of Ithin’carthia many years ago before the Chaos War. He should have drowned on the voyage there, or back, or just left well enough alone and allowed the Tarmaks to continue killing each other in peace. But no. He had seen potential armies in the Tarmak warriors and brought thousands of them back to Ansalon to fight in his legions. The Brutes, as they were known, were responsible for thousands of deaths all over Ansalon. They fought not just in the service of the Dark Knights but for their own motives as well, and now they had their eyes set on the Plains of Dust as a new extension of their conquests.

Another wave crashed over Linsha and her companion, leaving them breathless and drenched, and that was the last of the large storm waves. Pushed on by the oars and the wind in the square sails, the ship sped out of the teeth of the storm into the shelter of the large land mass.

Linsha blinked in the rain and saw it at last—a dark, indistinct line on the horizon. All too soon the blurred shadows became high hills, rain-soaked grasslands, and tall bluffs of gray stone.

“There!” Lanther said. His finger indicated a promontory that jutted out of the peninsula. At its tip sat a great, hulking mass of walls and forbidding towers. A single light burned in the highest tower, a light so bright it sheered through the stormy gloom as a brilliant beacon. “There is Orchemenarc,” he told her proudly. “My father helped build it. It marks the entrance to the harbor.”

Linsha remembered his father had been a Knight of Takhisis stationed with the Tarmaks as a liaison. She bit back the rude comment that came to mind and merely watched as the ship sailed closer. She wasn’t surprised to hear a Dark Knight helped construct a thing like that. It exuded a grim power and vigilance that made her skin crawl.

The waves had settled from large combers to mere rollers that smacked the sides of the ship and splashed its occupants with flying spray. The pitch and roll of the vessel eased to a more comfortable rise and fall. Overhead, rain still poured down, but the lightning had faded away and the wind had dropped to a stiff breeze. The gray afternoon light dimmed toward a stormy evening.

Linsha heard the captain bellow another command and the drumbeat below deck boomed faster. The oarsmen leaned into their oars. Driven by sail and oar, the Tarmak ship charged by the dark walls of the fortress and aimed its bow into a large natural harbor carved like a half-moon into the limestone hills.

For the first time Linsha saw the mouth of a river and the high hills that lifted on either side. To the east of the river she saw stone buildings and edifices rising level after level from the sand beaches of the harbor to the grass-crowned foothills that vanished into the mist and rain. This was the Tarmak capital city of Sarczatha. Five hills it covered with busy streets, large buildings, temples, and teeming markets. On a high bluff farther to the east, she noticed another sprawling complex of stone buildings. They were barely visible in the failing light.

It wasn’t the size of the city or the beauty of its colorful architecture that took her breath away. It was the sight of the vast fleet tied at anchor in the harbor that made her blood run cold. Row after row of the sleek, deadly war vessels rocked at their moorings, crowding the smaller pleasure craft, fishing boats, and cargo ships. She shot a look at Lanther and saw with growing alarm an expression of grim satisfaction on his rugged features. After he had revealed his real identity and assumed the leadership of the Tarmak as the Akkad-Dar, he had allowed his facial hair to grow into a trim beard in the manner of many of the Tarmaks. In the gray light of the fading day, his bearded expression looked forbidding, hardened by the purposeful intensity of a zealot.

He saw her look and the arrogant grin returned. “There lie the instruments of our final subjugation of the Plains. From those ships we will launch an invasion that will carry the Tarmaks as far west as the Kharolis Mountains and as far north as the New Sea. We will go deep into the Silvanesti Forest.” His hand swept out to encompass the entire fleet. “We will sweep the Plains clean of the tribes and clans, rid the forest of those pitiful refugee elves, and destroy the last vestiges of resistance. Even Sable in her lair will think twice before invading our empire.”

Linsha, who had met the monstrous black dragon face to face, said, “Oh, she may think twice. But she won’t let second thoughts stop her.”

His grin spread even wider. “Then perhaps we’ll have to add her blood to the Abyssal Lance.”

Linsha stopped listening. She did not want to hear any more of his boasting and certainly no more of the dreadful Abyssal Lance. That cruel weapon had killed Iyesta and badly wounded Crucible. She still didn’t know if the bronze was dead or alive. She wondered briefly if the lance was on this ship or if Lanther had left it in the Missing City. Given the opportunity, she’d toss it into the ocean.

She turned her attention back to the harbor and the fleet of warships ahead. From the highest tower of the Orchemenarc a horn sounded a welcome that rang through the harbor. It was taken up by signal horns on almost every ship until the wet afternoon rang with music. Figures appeared on the decks and on the distant docks of the city’s waterfront. Shouts of welcome and loud cheers could be heard even over the rhythmic boom and splash of the oars.

With the eye of a spy, Linsha counted the ships as they sailed through an open passage toward the central wharf.

There were fifty-two at least, some with double rows of oars, some with triple, and all with the small swiveling catapults on the ships’ bridges, the reinforced prows, and the capacity to carry one hundred fifty to two hundred highly trained Tarmaks. Worst of all, they were poised and ready to swoop down on the Plains of Dust, whose defenders were already depleted and demoralized.

Behind her, Lanther put his hands on her shoulders and forced her around to face him. He kissed her hard, his lips and tongue salty against hers. Then he laughed with pleasure and left her alone while he returned to the ship’s bridge. Linsha spat on the deck where he had stood and shook her head as if to rid her nose of a foul smell. She had agreed to marry the traitor, to be his wife. But being with him now, unmarried and unescorted, took all of her resolve. How was she going to bear their time alone as husband and wife? Thank Kiri-Jolith that was in the future, because at the moment she could not conceive of it. At one time she had considered him a friend, and if he had pursued more than a friendship with her, perhaps she would have considered it. But that friendship was dead, drowned in the blood of too many friends and forever replaced in her heart by terrible memories and unending grief. The only feelings she had for him now were murderous.

Drawing a deep breath, she pushed her salt-drenched hair out of her eyes and trudged back to the hatch below decks.

The only ally she had now was time.