Sword of Flames

22 The River Runs

Since Benziorn had cut off Vannor’s hand, the days had passed for the merchant in an inescapable labyrinth of agony and anguish. The worst of it was that he could feel the hand as though it still existed, even though he could see the bound and ugly stump that lay on top of the covers. If he closed his eyes, or looked away, he could feel his fingers clenching and unclenching. And for something that wasn’t there, it hurt like perdition, despite the concoctions Benziorn gave him, that were meant to dull the pain.

Though he knew full well that the physical injury would heal, given time, Vannor’s mind was shattered by the loss. Gone were his days as leader of the rebels. What use could he be to anyone now, crippled and maimed as he was? How could he continue to fight against the Magefolk when he couldn’t even use a sword?

Why me? was the litany that kept repeating itself over and over again in his mind. Why did this have to happen to me? Why couldn’t it have happened to a cutthroat or one of those thieving human dregs from the waterfront—or to those evil Mages themselves?

Vannor could bear to see no one—not even his beloved Zanna, though she insisted on coming anyway. The hurt in her eyes when he railed against her pierced his heart, yet he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want anyone, and especially his beloved daughter, to see him like this. He could no longer see a future for himself—only darkness. His only surcease was sleep now, but sleep was slow in coming despite the soporifics that Benziorn gave him. If Vannor were honest with himself, what he really wanted was to die—but the core of stubbornness that was so much a part of his nature would not permit him to seek death.

So here he lay, on another day much like the rest; drowning in the depths of self-pity: lying awake with the agony of his hand and the greater agony of his thoughts, and wondering if there would ever be a way out of this torment. For a long time now, the merchant had been dimly aware of the soft murmur of talk in the kitchen below his room, but suddenly, as the voices were raised in furious argument, they intruded on his notice and he began to make out what they were saying.

“Leave the city?” Zanna shouted. “You can’t possibly be serious! My dad is in no fit state to make such a journey!”

Benziorn sighed patiently. “I’m his physician, lass—do you think I don’t know that? Moving him now is not what I would choose, but we’re no longer safe here. Do you want your father to be captured again by the Magefolk?”

“Damn you!” Zanna snapped. “You’re not being fair. I can have no possible answer to that—and well you know it. Look,” she begged. “It’s scarcely three weeks since you performed the amputation. He still needs rest, and time… How the blazes do you expect him to clamber around in the sewers with only one hand?”

“Why, the little lass is right,” came Hebba’s querulous tones. “The poor master, bless him, is still sick abed! How can you think of sending him down them dirty, stinking drains?”

Vannor half smiled to himself—the first time he had smiled in days. Clearly, the others had told the cook she must come with them for the sake of her own safety—and there was no way in the world that the timid, nervous woman would take kindly to a journey through the sewers.

“We’ll help him,” Yanis volunteered. “Don’t worry, Hebba—he’ll manage. We all will. Why, even though my own arm is only just healing—”

“So how can you help someone else, you idiot?” cried Zanna in exasperation. “You’ve barely recovered from that fever!”

“It’ll be all right, Zanna—you’ll see.” It was Tarnal’s voice. Vannor could imagine the serious, solicitous young man putting a comforting hand on his daughter’s arm. “I will help him,” the smuggler said softly. “We both will. If we meet with any difficulties on the way, you and I can help Vannor, and Benziorn will assist Yanis. But Benziorn is right. We can’t risk remaining in Nexis any longer. You and your father are fugitives, and with every day that passes, Miathan’s net is tightening. Already the soldiers are searching houses on any excuse, and we know that there’s a reward out on your head. Hebba’s neighbors must have realized by now that she’s no longer living alone here. How long do you think it will be before the gossip begins to spread and folk start putting two and two together?”

“But what about infection?” Zanna pleaded. “In the sewers—”

“Zanna, let’s not pretend any longer.” Benziorn’s voice was soft with concern. “Admit it—it’s not Vannor’s body you’re worried about, it’s his mind. Though we’ll help him in every way we can, to a certain extent he’ll have to cooperate, and at the moment he’s so lost in his self-pity—”

His words were broken off by the sharp impact of flesh on flesh. “How dare you say that about my dad!” Zanna yelled. “Why, he’s the bravest man I know! No one else could have undertaken that journey through the catacombs and sewers the way he did, wounded as he was, and made it through! He’ll be fine—you’ll see—he just needs time…”

The words trailed off, swallowed in a sob. A door slammed sharply, and there was a thunder of feet on the stairs, and then Vannor heard the sound of brokenhearted weeping in the adjacent room. Suddenly, the merchant was deeply ashamed. Why, in all this time, he had been thinking about himself, and had never considered how deeply he must have been worrying Zanna! Poor lass—her mother already dead, and her dad worse than useless to her…

Then, like a thunderbolt, it struck him. He was not useless, after all! Someone still needed him, still depended on him to be brave and strong—and still believed, with utter faith, that he could do just that. “Get up, you bloody selfish old fool,” Vannor muttered wrathfully to himself. “This is no time to be lying in bed feeling sorry for yourself and whining about the harshness of the world. Your daughter needs you…”

But despite his brave notions and newfound determination, getting out of bed was far more difficult to accomplish than the merchant could ever have imagined. The grueling underground journey to escape the Mages was as nothing compared to the problem of simply hauling himself upright on legs that had turned, it seemed, to two limp strings, while the room spun dizzily around him. Inwardly, Vannor railed against his weakness—and found that the anger helped, not only to impel him toward his goal, but to scour away so many of the all-consuming doubts and fears that had so unmanned him in these last few dreadful days.

Vannor clung with his one hand to the post at the foot of the bed and cursed vilely, wondering how he was ever going to manage to let go without falling over. How the bloody blazes could he make it all the way to the next room? He managed to shuffle as far as he could reach while still holding on to the bed—and suddenly the door did not seem so very far away. Taking a deep breath, he let go and lurched across the room, only his staggering momentum keeping him from falling flat on his face. He reached the door only just in time and leaned against the blessed, solid wood, hanging on to the handle like a drowning man and breathing heavily as sweat trickled down his forehead.

The merchant paused for a moment, collecting himself and gathering his strength for that one last, gargantuan effort that would take him to his daughter’s chamber. Why, by all the gods—he was more than halfway there already! He had only to get across the tiny landing…

Suddenly, Vannor realized that, for the time being at least, his phantom hand was no longer there. His own troubles had become insignificant when compared to the distress of his daughter. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, the merchant managed a wry smile. Zanna, even without knowing it, had rescued him again.

In the darkness of the cramped little bedroom, Zanna lay on the bed, muffling the sound of her weeping into the pillow. She had reached the end of her endurance—she had been brave for so long now, for her dad’s sake, but it seemed that she just couldn’t hold up her courage any longer. What will we do now? she thought despairingly. Oh, if only there was some way I could help him! Suddenly, she heard the door open behind her. “Go away,” she snapped, without lifting her face from the pillow. “Leave me alone, can’t you?”

She felt a weight settle on the edge of the bed, and then a gentle, familiar hand ruffled her tangled hair. “It’s me, love. Don’t cry anymore.”

“Dad!” Zanna shot upright and flung her arms around him.

One-handed, Vannor hugged her. “Everything’s going to be all right, lass—don’t you worry. Just give me a day or so to get my legs back under me again, and then we’ll be on our way.”

Getting out of Nexis was not going to be easy. The patrols of guards in the streets had been markedly increased since Vannor’s escape, particularly at night, and Zanna’s description had been circulated all around the city—with a large enough reward to ensure that folk would be looking twice at every girl her age. To that problem, at least, it was Yanis—of all people—who found tne solution. “Then why does she have to be a girl?” he said. “Why can’t she go disguised as a lad?”

“What?” exclaimed Hebba, scandalized. “And cut off her lovely hair, and all! Why, the very idea!”

“Well,” said Benziorn, with an apologetic smile in Zanna’s direction. “It does seem to be the only solution…”

“Don’t worry, Hebba,” Zanna said stoutly. “I can always grow it again.”

But later, when her thick mane of shorn curls was lying on the kitchen floor and she looked at herself in Hebba’s tiny mirror, she felt far less brave about the scheme—in fact, she was utterly aghast. Dear gods! she thought. That can’t be me! I look like a scarecrow! With the defensiveness of a young girl who had always known that she wasn’t pretty, she had long ago stopped worrying about her appearance, but now that her hair had been hacked off—badly—by Hebba, the plainness of Zanna’s features seemed more pronounced than ever. What would Yanis, so handsome himself, think of her now, compared to the girl Emmie whom he had called for in his sleep? He’d said that the stranger was beautiful…

And Hebba was no help. Even now, she was fluttering around Zanna, clucking with dismay. “Poor little lass, what have we done to you? All your lovely hair—what a dreadful thing to happen, and at your age. Why, what young man would look at you now—you look just like a lad yourself, and no mistake! How the master could have allowed it… I told him, I did. Oh, if only he had listened to me!”

Zanna could bear it no longer. “Shut up, you stupid old woman! It was necessary! Better this than being recaptured by the Magefolk.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I’m sure,” snapped Hebba. “Still, you’re bound to be upset, I expect.” She flounced out of the kitchen in a huff, banging the door behind her.

The hated reflection in the mirror suddenly blurred as Zanna felt her throat grow tight with tears. She swallowed hard, not wanting to betray herself to the menfolk when they came back into the kitchen. You fool! She told herself angrily. What you told Hebba was right—it was necessary. Fancy getting so upset over such a little thing, after all you’ve been through these last few weeks! If your face isn’t good enough for the so-called leader of the Nightrunners, then that’s his loss. But even common sense was little comfort, and she dreaded what she would see in the faces of the others when they returned.

Vannor was the first to enter, and from the cautious way he put his head around the door, Zanna knew that Hebba had been telling tales. The very notion made her seethe. “Well?” she snapped. “Go on. Have a good laugh, and get it over with!”

Gravely, Vannor shook his head. “I don’t see anything to laugh at. I never could understand this notion of yours that you aren’t pretty—there’s more to beauty than looking spectacular, like your sister and Sara…” A slight frown crossed his face at the memory of his lost young wife. “Anyway,” he went on, “don’t let Hebba upset you. She’s all heart and no brains, as Dulsina used to say. You look just fine, love—and if it really bothers you, remember that your hair is something you can grow back in no time…”

As his voice tailed away, Zanna’s eyes went guiltily to the bandaged stump of his hand. Though he tried to hide it from her, she knew he was still suffering a good deal of pain from the injury. Her own resolution hardened—which was just as well, because she needed it when she saw Yanis’s mouth twitch in ill-suppressed amusement. Tarnal, however, cheered her a little. “Why, I never noticed, under all that hair, what lovely eyes you have,” he exclaimed.

Zanna could have kissed him.

The escape from Nexis was set for the following day, and the fugitives sat up late that night around the kitchen fire, making plans. Hebba, with Zanna in her lad’s disguise, and Tarnal—who had insisted on accompanying the women in case of trouble—would leave early in the morning, when folk were out in search of food and the streets were at their busiest, in the hope that they could lose themselves in the crowds. Tarnal was to convey them safely to the fulling mill and leave them hidden in the sewers, to wait there until nightfall, when Benziorn would come down with Yanis and Vannor. In the meantime, Tarnal would make his way out of the city via the sewers to the few outlying merchant mansions that had been built too far out of Nexis to be enclosed by Miathan’s great wall. Once there, he would scout their little riverside boat-houses in search of a pleasure-craft to steal.

“And let’s hope he does find one,” Vannor put in at this point, “otherwise it’ll be a bloody long walk all the way to Wyvernesse.” He had reluctantly allowed the others to talk him into heading for the smugglers’ hideout rather than the rebel camp, because it could be reached by water, sparing him the hardships of the long trek across the moors. It was the only workable solution—but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Not only did he want to be back with his own folk, but the thought of what could happen to a small boat on the open sea, even hugging the coastline, made his blood run cold.

Zanna made no reply. She was far too busy worrying about Tarnal. His would be by far the most dangerous role in their escape, having to creep through the grounds of the well-guarded mansions—especially in broad daylight. When all the details of the plan had finally been settled, and Zanna crept gratefully into bed, she was so weary that she could barely think—yet for a long, long time she found herself tossing and turning restlessly, as her concern for the young Nightrunner made it impossible for her to sleep.

The following morning, when Vannor shook her awake in the dimness before dawn, Zanna was far too tired to worry about anything. Shivering and reluctant, she climbed into the mismatched selection of lad’s clothing that Hebba had been able to scrounge together for her. It felt strange, not having skirts to swirl around her legs—very free, yet at the same time oddly constricting. It was lucky, she thought ruefully, as she fastened a band of fabric tightly across her breasts and pulled on a loose, ragged tunic to hide the evidence, that she didn’t have much there to conceal.

When she left the cramped litle room she had shared with the cook and came downstairs, the others were already in the kitchen, huddled round the fire drinking taillin and speaking in subdued voices. Hebba, who was bustling around trying to get breakfast, kept dissolving into tears at the thought of leaving her beloved home. On that score, however, Vannor had been very firm. If the Magefolk should ever find out that she had harbored the fugitives, her life would instantly be forfeit. Whether she liked it or not, he was determined to have her safe.

When he saw his daughter, Vannor’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “By the gods, lass—I never would have recognized you!” He pulled her roughly into a hug. “Do you know,” he said softly, for her ears alone, “when you and your sister were born, I was young and daft enough in those days to wish for a son. Well, I want to tell you now that you’re far braver and more clever, and more precious to me, than any son could be. I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

Zanna held his words in her heart, and they helped boost her courage when, for the first time in three weeks, she stepped over Hebba’s threshold and into the perilous and hostile streets. Suddenly she felt utterly naked—and it wasn’t just the unaccustomed clothing. She felt as though her very thoughts must be transparent to the eyes of every passerby. Then Tarnal winked at her. “You’re a lad, remember—just keep thinking of that. And a very convincing one you are, too—though I like you much better as a girl.”

Zanna grinned back at him, and concentrated on her role as they threaded their way down through the city streets. She was a lad, she told herself firmly—and she was out with her… her brother, she supposed Tarnal would be. They were helping their granny get safely to the market… Solicitously, she took Hebba’s heavy basket, and hooked her hand through the old cook’s arm. Beneath her cloak Hebba was trembling, and Zanna was suddenly very glad of the shawl that draped the woman’s head, concealing her face in shadow. They had made her wear it to hide her eyes, which had been red from weeping at the thought of leaving her home—though the gods only knew, grieving widows were a common enough sight in the streets of Nexis after the hardships of the unnatual winter. Nonetheless, Vannor’s daughter realized that her dad had been wise to insist on Hebba wearing the shawl. Not only did it conceal her bloodshot eyes, but it also would hide the look of terror that was doubtless on her face at this very minute.

Zanna was so lost in her thoughts that at first she didn’t hear the tramp of booted feet until Tarnal’s elbow poked her sharply in the ribs. “Soldiers!” he hissed at her. “Act normal. Remember, the lad has nothing to fear.”

She was glad of the timely warning—it gave her time to compose her features into what she hoped was an expression of amiable stupidity. Zanna gaped at the patrol in admiration as they marched past, wishing, as would any lad her age, that he could be a soldier, and wear a shiny sword.

By the time they were safely past, she wished that she was wearing skirts, so that she could let her knees knock, as they were trying to do, without anyone seeing. Tarnal gave her a heartening grin. “Well done,” he whispered. “They didn’t suspect a thing!”

They passed two more patrols before they reached the waterside, and by that time Zanna, elated with the success of her disguise, was very, very glad indeed that she had not let vanity prevent her from cutting her hair. But when they reached the fulling mill and Tarnal lifted the grating to let them descend into the noisome, dripping, slime-coated drains, her elation vanished abruptly at the thought of descending into the sewers again. The memory of that last nightmare journey, dragging her wounded dad through the cramped and stinking tunnels, was still too recent. In coping with Hebba’s fears and hesitations, however, she forgot her own. Somehow, between them, she and Tarnal managed to get the rotund old cook down into the tunnel—with Hebba weeping, wailing and protesting every inch of the way until Zanna wanted to slap her.

Then, all too quickly, it was time for the young Nightrunner to leave them. Zanna walked with him as far as the dim light that filtered through the grating would reach, and when it was time for him to leave her, Zanna’s fears for him returned to her in an overwhelming rush. Impulsively, she flung her arms around him and hugged him hard. “You be careful,” she told him fiercely.

Tarnal grinned and hugged her back. “Don’t worry, I will. I’ll see you tonight.” Then he was gone, leaving a kiss upon her brow. Absently touching the place on her forehead where she could still feel the imprint of his lips, Zanna watched his light until it disappeared around the next bend in the tunnel, then went back with reluctant, dragging steps to comfort Hebba.

Taking thankful gulps of blessed fresh air, Tarnal emerged at last from the outlet of the drain, a short distance downstream from tie great barred arch of the river gate in Miathan’s newly constructed city wall. He slithered as quickly as he could down the steep bank of the river’s edge and vanished into the dappled shadow beneath the willows that dipped into the water. From there he made his way swiftly downriver, pausing only long enough to wash the slime from his boots.

Though he was worried about his companions, especially Zanna, and grimly aware of the dangers that awaited him, Tarnal felt an unaccountable lightness of heart to be free of the city at last: to be free of the grime and smoke and crowds, to see the sunlit sparkle of the water, to hear the sound of birdsong, and the cheerful lapping song of the river. It might not be the open sea, which he’d been missing so badly he even dreamed about it, but at least it was moving water—and that was something!

Tarnal crept on cautiously, not allowing the pleasures of the open air to distract him from his task. Once he was round the first bend of the river, and safely out of sight of the guarded gate, he slipped out of his clothes and boots, and stuffed them, together with his sword, into a bag of oiled canvas that he had made at Hebba’s house. Twisting the neck of the sack tightly, he tied a piece of thin rope around it and, holding the free ends firmly between his teeth, waded carefully into the river, testing the bottom and the current as he went. The water was icy cold against his shrinking skin, the current tugged at him strongly, and the heavy bag dragged at his aching jaws and threatened constantly to pull him down. Tarnal, however, had lived all his life beside the sea and was a powerful swimmer, well accustomed to cold water. He swam across the river on a slanting course, letting the current help him rather than fighting it, and reached the tree-lined southern bank without mishap. Hauling himself out of the water with the help of a low-hanging bough, the Nightrunner scrambled up the steep slope until he found a sheltered, level spot. Pulling his clothes, only slightly damp, from the canvas bag, he dressed again and buckled on his sword. After a few minutes to rest his aching limbs, he got to his feet once more and headed downriver toward the outlying dwellings of the merchants.

So far, everything had gone according to plan, but as the hours went by and the sun dipped past noon, Tarnal became more and more disheartened. The first boathouse he encountered was open to the river but proved to be empty. When Tarnal peered cautiously over the low stone wall that bordered the grounds of the second mansion, he saw a gardener working close by the boathouse, trimming the ornamental hedges in a desultory fashion. From the scant progress the idler had already made, he looked as if he’d be mere all day. Ducking down behind the wall and keeping low, the Nightrunner sneaked past the man and continued what seemed to be turning into an endless trek—especially when the third boathouse—which he’d climbed an almost unscalable wall to reach and then spent a nerve-racking hour trying to break into—proved also to be empty.

Keeping well within the cover of the trees that thronged the waterside, Tarnal made his way downriver, trying to ignore his sinking heart and his growling belly, until he caught a glimpse, through the bushes at the top of the bank, of a high brick wall mounted with iron spikes, which guarded the last of the outlying mansions from his thieving kind. Despite his weariness and hunger, the Nightrunner grinned. He would see about that. Such elaborate precautions were a good omen—they usually indicated that there was something within worth stealing. He ran along the bank, skirting the wall until, as he had expected, it turned in his path, down toward the river itself, where it gave way to high black iron railings that guarded shallow steps down to a little wooden jetty, on the far side of which was an ostentatiously constructed boathouse—built, no doubt, of the same stone as the house and with scrolled iron water gates to match the railing.

Damn! The blasted thing would have to be on the far side of the jetty, necessitating a hazardous trip across an open space. Tarnal sighed. Well, nobody had said that this was going to be easy. Divesting himself once again of his cloak and then the rest of his clothing, including his boots and sword, he rolled them into a bundle and thrust them safely between the roots of a tree, high up the bank where the earth was dry. Shivering a little in the cool spring wind, he looked doubtfully again at the stretch of open space along the railing, and wished he could have waited until after dark. But Vannor had warned him that many of the merchants kept huge and savage dogs, which were let loose when dusk closed in, to roam the grounds by night. No—risky though it was, the boat would have to be stolen during the daylight hours, or not at all.

Silent and stealthy as an otter, the Nightrunner slipped from the bank and into the river, clad only in a loincloth and a slender lock pick that he carried fastened to a thong about his neck. Swimming underwater, he let the current take him down along the iron-fenced bank until he saw the shadowy wooden piles of the jetty through the murky water. There he surfaced, gasping but safely sheltered from hostile eyes, to take a few deep breaths before diving down again to complete his swim toward the boathouse.

Due to the unexpected swiftness of the current, Tarnal all but overshot his mark. At the very last minute, he spotted the iron bars of the water gates, and shot out a hand to grab one, practically drowning himself in the process. Finally he managed to get his other hand to the bars and hauled himself up until his head was out of the water. Clinging to the gate for dear life, he hung there choking, spitting out water, and trying desperately to muffle the noise of his coughing and spluttering. At last he got his breath back, and rubbed his head against his arm to push the dripping hair out of his eyes.

Peering through the bars into the gloom within the boat-house, Tarnal spat out a vicious and heartfelt curse. After all his efforts, this blasted place was empty too! Groaning, he sank back into the water to the full reach of his aching arms. Now he would have to swim all the way back again, and return damp and weary to the sewer in the chill of evening. And how could he break the news to the others—especially Zanna—that he had failed them? Worse still, how would they manage to get Vannor and Hebba all the way to Wyvernesse now?

For a long, hopeless moment, Tarnal simply hung there, resting his head on his arms and lacking the heart to go on, though the freezing water was rapidly sucking the last of the energy from his body. The sun was sinking toward evening now, slanting low through the trees and turning the river into a rippling path of beaten copper. His spirit darkened with defeat, the Nightrunner was oblivious to the lambent beauty of the evening, but common sense finally triumphed over his black mood, and told him he’d better get out of the water—and fast. As he raised his head, he noticed that the sunlight on the water was now striking a dappled reflection right into the boathouse. Tarnal blinked, incredulous, simply unable to believe the evidence of his eyes. There, on the walkway at the very back of the building, was a rowing boat laid upside down on trestles, freshly caulked and painted while it had been taken out of the water for winter, and waiting to be launched.

“Thank you, gods—oh, thank you!” the Nightrunner whispered aloud. Almost weeping with relief, he reached up to pick the sturdy padlock that held the chained gates shut. More than once he had cause to be thankful that his burglar’s tool was fastened to the thong, as it slipped again and again from his numb fingers until he was swearing with frustration. Eventually, however, his perseverance was rewarded. The chain and lock fell with a soft splash into the water, and the gates swung open on oiled and soundless hinges.

Single-handed, it was a struggle to get the boat into the water, but Tarnal worked with desperate haste. Dusk was falling now, and the dogs would be out at any minute. Even though they could not get into the boathouse from the land side, they would certainly know that he was there. Once he had the little craft afloat, with its oars inside it, he looked around and found a coil of rope and an old tarpaulin, both of which would come in handy. Perhaps, using one of the oars, they could even jury-rig a little sail when they reached the open sea…

His weariness forgotten in the surge of hope renewed, Tarnal sculled quietly out of the boathouse in the gathering twilight. Once he reached the concealing shelter of the trees on the other side of the jetty, he ran the boat aground and moored it securely before scrambling up the bank to grope for his clothes. Getting into the warm, dry garments was a luxury akin to ecstasy. It gave him the final reserve of strength he needed to row back upriver to await his friends.

For Zanna, cold and uncomfortable on the slippery walkway of the damp and stinking sewer, the hours stretched on and on in an endless agony of waiting. Though after a time she was both thirsty and hungry, and Hebba had plenty of food packed in her basket, the mere idea of eating in this foul and filthy place was enough to make her gorge rise. Frantic as she was with worry over the dangers of her father’s journey through the perilous night streets, and the risks that Tarnal was running trying to steal a boat in broad daylight, Hebba’s doom-laden whining soon drove her to distraction. Eventually, she decided that the only way to shut the wretched woman up was to pretend to go to sleep.

“Hebba—I’m sorry, but I can’t keep my eyes open any longer,” she interrupted the older woman’s complaints. “You should try to get some rest, too—we’ve a long night ahead of us.” Yawning hugely for the benefit of the cook, she snuggled as best she could into her cloak, and pillowed her head on her arms. Almost as soon as she closed her eyes, her late night and early rising had turned pretense into reality.

Zanna was jerked awake by the clutch of Hebba’s fingers, digging bruisingly into her arm in the darkness. Gods, she thought fuzzily. How long have I slept?

“Listen,” Hebba hissed. Zanna could feel her trembling violently. “There’s someone coming!”

Now that she was properly awake, the girl could hear the sound of dragging footsteps coming from above. “It’ll only be Dad and the others—I hope,” she tried to reassure herself—but nevertheless, she drew the knife that Tarnal had left with her, glad that the darkness masked her actions from Hebba. The woman was scared enough already. Farther down the tunnel, she heard the tortured scrape of the grating being shifted. “Zanna—it’s us!” a hoarse voice whispered—and suddenly she felt unutterably foolish for letting herself become infected by Hebba’s fears. “Dad,” she whispered joyfully, “we’re just along the walkway.”

“Light the lantern, love, will you? We daren’t risk a light up here, and we can’t see a bloody thing—especially not the ladder! It’s blacker than Miathan’s heart inside these blasted tunnels, and I can’t climb down one-handed in the dark.”

Even with the aid of the light, and the assistance of Benziorn below him and Yanis above, Vannor still had a difficult time getting down the ladder. In the end he gave it up and dropped the last few feet, cursing as the impact jolted the bound stump of his arm. Zanna noticed that he was wearing the leather gauntlets that they had prepared for him, the right one bound securely in place and stuffed to the fingertips with rags. They had been Benziorn’s idea—to help protect Vannor’s injury from the infections that proliferated in the sewers, and to disguise from any prying eyes the fact that he lacked a hand. If word of such a man should get back to the Magefolk, the consequences would be dire indeed.

“Stand clear!” Yanis called softly from above, breaking into Zanna’s train of thought. She barely had time to step back quickly, before two heavy packs (much to his indignation, Zanna, discovered, they had refused to let Vannor carry one) came hurtling down from above to be caught by Benziorn. The Nightrunner leader followed, easing the grating back into place before scrambling swiftly down the ladder.

“Done it!” he said cheerfully. “It wasn’t so bad after all, getting here—though I must admit that my heart was in my mouth when that patrol came by and you pretended to be drunk, Vannor, and we made out that we were carrying you home.” As Yanis spoke, Zanna caught the flash of his smile in the lamplight, and was consumed by a surge of irritation. How could the idiot be so complacent? They still had to get through the sewers yet—and in the meantime what about poor Tarnal, who’d been risking his life out in the open? What if he hadn’t been able to find a boat? What if he was lying out there somewhere in the darkness, hurt—or even dead? With a shudder, Zanna turned her mind away from such appalling thoughts. He’d be all right, she told herself firmly. Tarnal, at least, had sense.

Wearied as Vannor was from his long journey through the city streets, he had no desire to linger in the sewers a minute longer than he had to. So on they went, with Zanna lending a supporting arm to Hebba and carrying her basket while Benziorn helped the merchant. Yanis, who was most familiar with the route, took both of the packs and went ahead with the lantern down the dank and dripping tunnel.

How Zanna hated those sewers! Though her second long journey beneath the city was proving less difficult than the first, she still had to deal with the stench, the slime, and the scuttling, squeaking rats—not to mention Hebba’s hysterics on account of the latter, which nearly plunged the pair of them, more than once, from the slippery walkway into the slurry-filled channel. Since they were already at the level of the river, there was no climbing to be done, though there were some tricky places to negotiate where the walkway narrowed at the junctions of tunnels. Nonetheless, their progress seemed painfully slow to Zanna, for Vannor was reaching the end of his endurance and had to stop and rest more and more frequently as time went on.

Just as she was beginning to give up hope of ever seeing daylight again, she caught a waft of fresher air, fragrant with the pungent mixture of wet grass and wild garlic. Zanna’s tired heart lifted within her. At last, they were coming to the end of this dreadful place! Within moments they had reached the sewer outlet, and she had time for one deep breath and a rapid glimpse of jeweled stars caught in a black net of tree-tops before Yanis pulled her quickly down the bank and into the shelter of the willows. In the darkness beneath the trees she could hear her father cursing softly, with a desperate edge of worry to his voice. Immediately, Zanna realized what had happened, and her blood turned to ice within her veins. Tarnal was not there to meet them!

By the time she turned her attention back to her surroundings, Yanis was speaking. “Well, it’s no good us waiting here, this close to the city walls. Trust Tarnal to go and mess things up! I should have gone myself. Vannor, can you carry on a little farther tonight? Maybe if we can somehow make it down to Norberth in easy stages, we can steal a boat from the port…”

Already his voice was fading as he led the way along the slippery bank in the darkness, the others close behind him. Even Hebba was trailing obediently after him, too tired by far now to complain. Zanna gritted her teeth and followed, quietly seething. How could Yanis be so bloody heartless? In her own distress, she had missed the anxiety in his voice, which he’d masked with anger. It’s a good thing the beast is so far ahead, she fumed. Why, for two pins, I’d push him in the river!

Lost in her angry thoughts, she followed blindly. The going was difficult, with tussocks and roots to trip over in the darkness, and patches of slippery mud. Before too long, Zanna’s knees were scraped and bruised from falling over so many times, her hands wore dripping gauntlets of black mud, and both her feet were soaked from straying too near the river’s edge. She didn’t care about any of it—she was too frantic over Tarnal’s fate to worry about such trifles.

Then, from the darkness ahead, she heard a low, delighted cry from Yanis. “By all the gods—there’s a boat here under the trees!”

By now the moon was rising, and as Zanna hurried forward, she saw the Nightrunner leader silhouetted against the silvery water as he reached out to pull on the rope that moored the little boat. Suddenly a dark shape rose up in the bows, causing Yanis to drop the rope with a cry of alarm and reach for his sword.

“Yanis? Is that you?” The sleepy voice made Zanna’s heart leap for joy, for it belonged to Tarnal.

A minute later, a happy reunion was taking place on the riverbank—or, at least, Zanna was happy. “What do you mean, you fell asleep?” Yanis was demanding indignantly of his friend. “What kind of a stupid trick is that? Here’s us trailing all this way in the dark while you lie there snoring like a pig… And is this little washtub all that you could get? I didn’t expect to row all the way to Wyvernesse.”

Tarnal’s gray eyes flashed dangerously in the moonlight. Without saying a word, he grasped Yanis by the shirtfront and hurled him bodily into the river. “Swim, then, you ungrateful bastard,” he told his spluttering leader as the dripping Yanis scrambled, cursing, out of the shallows. Zanna had to stuff her cloak into her mouth to muffle the sound of her laughter.

After that, things went more easily, though they had a struggle to lift their craft down the narrow portageway that bypassed the weir. “I’ll wager you’re glad I didn’t get a bigger boat now,” Tarnal goaded the panting Yanis as they staggered beneath the boat’s ungainly weight. They managed to sneak through the port of Norberth before the sun rose, and laid up through the hours of daylight in one of the little coves along the coast. Though they were hungry and damp, they dared not risk a fire, but they were all far too weary to pay much heed to such hardships. Besides, the weather seemed unseasonably warm. Rolled in their blankets in a hollow of the sheltering dunes, they slept most of the day, trading watches, before setting out again on a still and stifling evening in the fading light of a lurid, purple sunset.

Luckily the coastal current had been with them, and so far the sea had stayed calm enough not to swamp the little boat, though Hebba had remained rigid with terror throughout the entire trip. Now, however, just before they were due to set out once more from the sandy cove, Zanna noticed Yanis and Tarnal looking at the sea and frowning before going off into a huddle to talk in low, worried voices. “What’s wrong?” she asked them, looking at the ocean with a puzzled frown. It seemed fine to her—there was barely a ripple to disturb the sluggish, oily swell. “Surely it’s calm enough?”

“Aye—for now,” Yanis muttered. “But it’s setting itself to blow up into the mother of all storms before this night’s out. The question is, do we risk going now, and pray we can get there before the storm front reaches us—or do we stay here and wait until it’s over? By the look of sea and sky, it’s going to be a bad blow; and even when it’s over, it could take days for the sea to calm itself again.”

Zanna could have wept. Not now—not when they were so close! At that moment Vannor joined them. “Do my eyes deceive me, or does that sky have a particularly ominous look to it?”

Yanis nodded. “There’ll be a storm, all right—but what shall we do? Stay here, or risk it and go on?”

“You and Tarnal are the seamen.” Vannor shrugged. “We’ll abide by your decision. But if we stay here, we’ll have no food and no shelter. I’d say it might be best to set off now and try to make it to Wyvernesse before the storm hits. After all, we can always put in farther up the coast if things get too dangerous—and we’ll be all the closer to our destination.”

Quickly, they got into the boat and set off again, doing their best to hide their worry from Hebba. To get on faster, the able-bodied divided themselves into pairs, taking an oar each: Yanis with Benziorn, and Zanna, who had become at home in boats during her stay with the Nightrunners, rowing with Tarnal. Zanna felt a surge of pity for her father, who remained at the tiller. She could tell from his glowering, abstracted expression that his inability to help the rowers only reminded him that he was crippled now. Though it made her back and arms ache, and she was sweating and gasping for breath in the heavy, stifling air, she was glad when it was her turn to row. That way, she did not have to look at the ominous mass of heavy, bruised-looking clouds that were filling the sky to the west and blotting out the stars.

The first sign of change came with a freshening of the wind. Though it was more comfortable to row now, Zanna felt a shiver of dread race down her spine. Soon the sea was becoming increasingly choppy, and the little craft began to rock and pitch in the heaving swell, making it difficult to handle the oars. Waves began to slap against the bows, splashing spray over the sides of the boat. All of them now, except for Tarnal and Yanis, the two experienced sailors, were beginning to feel queasy. The two of them took over the rowing, for they knew better than the landsman and woman how to handle the pitching craft. Hebba began to moan and whimper in fear. Zanna handed her the bailer, and soon the old woman was far too busy scooping water out of the bottom of the boat to complain.

The wind was increasing with every moment now. It was so dark that they could barely see each other, for the clouds had spread from horizon to horizon, blotting out the stars. In the distance they heard the first low grumble of thunder. Vannor tugged at Yanis’s arm. “Don’t you think we had better put in?”

Yanis shook his head. “We’ve left it too long. It’s all reefs along here—there’s nowhere to land.” He took a brief glance over his shoulder. “That’s the last headland, up ahead—see the standing stone?” he panted. “If we can only make it round there, we’ll be all right.”

“Vannor, you’d better give Zanna the tiller now,” Tarnal added, his voice jerky with the exertion of rowing. “She’s more experienced than you, and she’s sailed these waters before. She knows the way in through the rocks. Put your hand over hers—that’s right. She’ll need your strength to steer.”

Zanna blessed him for the last suggestion. She had heard her dad’s sharp, hurt intake of breath when Tarnal had suggested he give up the tiller, and knew he would be feeling more of a burden than ever. But even in their extremity the Nightrunner had been considerate of Vannor’s pride.

They made it round the headland before the full force of the storm hit them, though they foundered for a terrifying moment in the crashing seas that hammered the rocky point. Zanna clung desperately to the tiller as the small boat crested the side of a mountainous breaker, and braced herself against her father, grateful for his strength to help her keep the craft on its heading. Hebba’s shriek drowned the whistling of the wind as they dropped down the other side, hitting the water with a gigantic splash. Yanis and Tarnal, their faces taut and crimson with strain, pulled desperately on the oars to keep themselves from the jagged rocks as another, and yet another great wave lifted and hurled the frail shell that was all that stood between them and the hungry seas.

And then, with shocking suddenness, they were around the point and into calmer water that had subsided to a rolling swell. Zanna knuckled the stinging seawater from her eyes and steered as she had never steered before through the treacherous maze of rocks that sheltered and concealed the entrance to the secret cavern of the Nightrunners, straining her mind to recall the positions of the rocks before the cavern, and her eyes to catch the white flashes of foam that marked the locations of those rocks in the darkness. Once she cursed as she heard the keel grate on stone—and then, when they were almost safely through, the boat leapt to a shuddering halt that threw all of them into a heap in the bottom of the boat. There was the sharp, brutal splintering sound of a cracking plank, and even as she picked herself up, Zanna felt the icy swirl of water round her feet.

“Keep steering,” Tarnal yelled, as he pushed the boat off the rock with his oar. “We’re almost there. She’ll make it yet!”

And so it proved. As the weary voyagers paddled their foundering craft into the cavern, the entire smuggler community, with Remana weeping tears of joy at the safe return of her son, turned out to meet them on the curving, silvery beach within the vast and echoing cave. Willing arms reached out to pull the wallowing, leaking boat to the shore and welcome back the wanderers.

Yanis had his eyes fixed on the beautiful, flaxen-haired stranger who stood with Remana on the beach, a huge white dog by her side—but Zanna didn’t notice. She was looking at Tarnal. “You did bloody well to get us through,” he told her.

“In darkness, and a sea like that, I couldn’t have steered better myself. Now you can truly call yourself a Nightrunner!” Zanna grinned happily, her heart swelling with pride. “It’s good to be home,” she said softly. Smiling, Tarnal extended a hand to help her to the shore.