The Savage War Read online

  A slight smile flickered on his face as Arnacin admitted, as if it were simply a fact, “The best.”

  Those dark eyes again met the lord’s, this time with a sad or scared glimmer Carpason could not discern. “The ship I came in is my own, though—and it’s lying off the coast… of wherever I was last night… if it was last night.”

  For another minute, the lord was stunned speechless. Then he muttered, “Captain of your own ship!”

  “Not really.” Arnacin smiled. “Not in those terms, just sailor of my own ship—but you’re not likely to understand unless you see it.”

  “Still, Arnacin, son of…”

  “Bozzic, of Enchantress Island.”

  Carpason nodded his gratitude, finishing, “Son of Bozzic the shepherd. You are the most unfathomable boy I think I have ever met. Shepherd boy, sailor, captain and not captain, and whatever else. I have the feeling I’ve only broken the surface.”

  Blushing slightly, Arnacin mentioned, “My sister would instantly add ‘fool’ to that list.”

  “Well, she’s wrong then,” Carpason mused and Arnacin glanced away.

  Silence fell for a minute, while the lord continued to regard the boy thoughtfully. Then he pulled his short sword from his belt, offering the weapon. “Here, this may help you.”

  Glancing at the gift, its gold-covered sheath patterned with a canopy under which the long-necked bird of Mira stretched its wings, the boy shook his head. “You should know from earlier that I cannot use one.”

  “On the contrary…” Carpason started before, grinning, he compromised. “More or less. But to my knowledge, shepherds don’t protect their flocks with their bare hands.”

  “My family is comprised of archers.”

  “Quite skilled ones, I'd guess.”

  “Well, my sister and I pride ourselves as such, if that is any answer from people who think too highly of themselves.”

  Unsure if the boy was joking or not, Carpason laughed uncertainly. “Trouble is the day a girl counts herself good—”

  “Deadly, sir,” the boy swiftly corrected, a sudden coldness in his eyes and tone. “Her skill is not to be taken lightly.”

  Again regarding the boy, Carpason nodded. “As you wish, Arnacin, son of Bozzic. Perhaps I can see your view.” Indeed, looking at the boy, a deadly sister did not seem all too unlikely. “I’ll bring some water and then you should go back to sleep. When we reach the capital, I’ll see that someone retrieves the remains of your ship.”

  Chapter 2

  Valoretta

  ARNACIN SHIVERED, FEELING SOMETHING COLD blow across him. As a stronger gust whipped his hair into his face, he jerked awake, sitting up and looking around. He sat in a bed, larger than any he had ever seen, covered by soft, thick blankets. The room itself was fairly sparse, as though no one had ever claimed it. Outside an open window, storm clouds twirled about the sky, darkening the unfamiliar room. That was the source of the frigid air—storm wind.

  Slowly, he slid his legs out from under the covers. The cold floor met his bare feet and he shivered. Just as he did so, the door swung open and an older man, stooped and careworn, bustled in.

  “Well,” the man wheezed, catching sight of the boy. “You seem stronger. The drugs don’t seem to knock you out completely anymore at any rate.”

  At Arnacin’s wary stare, he laughed throatily. “No harm was intended, dear boy. I simply wanted you to rest while you needed it. King Miro has generously offered you housing while your—” He broke off, laughing, before controlling himself and forcing the next words out between a grin that seemed near to cracking. “Your ship is in need of repair. In another day, I’ll allow you to leave my care—if that agrees with you.”

  “What if that doesn’t agree with me?” Arnacin wondered, knowing the answer before the man spoke.

  Smiling as he placed his tray on a nearby table, the man said, “I would suggest you agree. I will simply be forced to drop my thoughtfulness if you don’t, lest my honor as healer be tarnished.”

  To that simple reply, Arnacin had no response.

  Finding his ship was not as straightforward as Arnacin had first imagined. Although he could see the harbor and his broken ship from many of the windows he passed, he could not locate an exit from the castle itself. He dared not tread where the windows disappeared, since they alone guided him. Yet no stairs opened on the corridors he traversed.

  Beaten into practicality, he took a preparatory breath and, with one last look at his destination through the nearest window, he headed down the corridor before him. This gallery only led to a circular sitting room at the end, with benches running along the walls and a large, circular mosaic filling the center. After examining the floor art for a minute, the boy turned down the only other passage he had seen off the hallway.

  Stubbornness and a touch of timidity kept him from asking any of the people he passed for help. Yet a spiral staircase, sixteen corridors, and countless corners later, Arnacin began to wonder, as he glimpsed another alcove that looked exactly like every other one, if he was now traveling in circles.

  With that concern, he turned around, yet could not recall from which passage he had entered the current one. He passed six that seemed to stir his memory, yet in choosing one, he found himself eventually at a tall mirror he knew he had not seen previously.

  Feeling just a tiny bit of desperation, he once again turned around and attempted to retrace his steps. Instead of returning to his starting point, however, he found himself staring up at another staircase, wondering if he could return to his original level by using it. Forcing his doubts away, he started the ascent. As it turned into a circular staircase, continuing to climb ever higher, now with thin window slits spaced above his head every five steps, he paused.

  “Oy, what are you doing?” someone barked from behind him. He whirled to see an aging man panting up the stairs. “This is my staircase, or don’t you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” Arnacin refuted. The man halted abruptly, his expression turning quizzical.

  “What are you?” This was said while the man took another step forward, his groping hand extended toward the boy. It was only then that Arnacin noticed the cloudiness of the man’s eyes.

  All the same, as that hand reached up to his face, he slapped it away. “A human, or don’t you know?”

  “Ah ha,” the man barked, “but not from around here. I’ve never heard an accent the like of yours, nor the impudence.” Almost mumbling to himself, he continued, “Impudence, impudence… Ha! Not in words… The late king. Oh, the late king.”

  “What about him?” Arnacin wondered.

  “Mira used to know how to treat those of prophecy,” the man snapped. “We held the seats of councilors, barons, princes.”

  With each word said, he grew more hysterical.

  “Yet does Miro remember me or ever ask my opinion? Never! The most he does is give me a tower all my own to rot in. Ha! And then he sends impudent youths to bother my stairs.” He paused for a second and then inquired as if realizing something, “Or are you, in fact, lost?”

  “Lost?” Arnacin repeated, sliding past the man with all the dignity he could muster while those sightless eyes followed him. “I wouldn’t answer that if I was lost.”

  And with those words, he dashed back down the stairs to relative safety from hysterical madmen. Any king had a right to disregard that fellow.

  Half an hour later, he was wishing he had admitted he was lost. Insane directions were likely better than none at all.

  Asking the next person to cross his path—a middle-aged woman in green silk—Arnacin received directions to the harbor. Those took him through a garden courtyard, springing forth in new bloom, briefly into the castle again to the main keep’s doors, and then he was in the inner bailey.

  Walls entirely surrounded it. The only entrance was underneath the archway with both its own portcullis and wooden doors beyond that. Both were currently open. Horses walked through with their handlers
. Ladies followed with baskets of produce. There was a wheelbarrow full of barrels already in the cobbled bailey where men trailed back and forth carrying the kegs into a side door.

  Everywhere the islander glanced, people were busy, chattering happily, as if everything he remembered of the woods were merely a dream. Yet he let that thought slide, hurrying down the steps, across the large cobbles, and into the outer bailey.

  This one was grass-filled, though walls encircled it too. It was also quieter despite the same trickle of people coming through the outer gates and entering the inner bailey. Arnacin merely passed them, yet many of their gazes followed him and some even stopped to stare. He yanked his hood up.

  Finally, he stood on the pier staring at the remains of his ship, which someone had kindly towed through the open sea walls into harbor while he lay sick.

  Looking at it, he hardly knew where to start and, for some time, he simply stood there, holding his cloak closed against the cool air. The ship’s mast was cracked and missing, part of the cabin’s side had been smashed through, and ropes dangled off everything. Sitting next to the harbor’s more elegant occupants, the ship simply looked like a scrapheap.

  “I know,” someone stated from beside him, laughter in his voice. “That thing is the picture of pathetic. What a graveyard it must’ve been hauled out of.”

  Glaring at the sailor, Arnacin snapped, “It wasn’t in a graveyard. It is in fact mine, and it has been quite seaworthy for some time.”

  “Yours?” the sailor repeated, peering beneath the boy’s hood. “Everyone—” He broke off, seeming to see something. “Ah, but you are not from this territory, are you?”

  “No,” the islander whispered, looking again at his ship. Without another word, he leapt from the pier through the hole in his cabin’s wall, where the floor was level with the dock. He began opening the remains of his drawers, finding what had been ruined by saltwater and what could be saved. Although the medicine remained in place, water had destroyed everything, from the pastes to the alcohol. Sighing, he placed the damaged items on the stripped bed and moved to the next drawer.

  Since he had made the upright chest part of the wall itself and always locked the drawers during storms, all were still intact, yet their contents were beyond repair. Sadly, he pulled out his journal, carefully turning the crumbling, ink-run pages. No longer were there intelligible words or shapes.

  Laughter made him look up from the book to see that an audience had gathered on the dock. Sailors stood there, slapping their companions’ backs and shaking their heads. Although no words were discernible, the boy knew they were poking fun at him for even trying to save anything off what they considered something only fit to be burned.

  Exhaling, Arnacin ignored them and resumed his work. Once all the drawers were empty, he moved to the closed hatch beneath the bed. It was a slight, cheering discovery to find that his bow and arrows were mostly unharmed except for the replaceable bowstring.

  Dragging the bow out, he fingered the stained wood. Not since the island had he touched it and his eyes found again, as if they were new, the engraved designs along the tips. Only an islander would recognize those marks for something close to an emblem, their enchantress’s name in her native writing. Little would she know, if she even still existed, that most of the islanders, when fiddling with lines or strokes, would find themselves creating her name.

  Removing the salt-eaten string, he replaced the bow beneath the bed, just as a shadow fell over him. He jumped to his feet, facing the sailor who stood there. Like the Mirans, he was blond-haired, yet unlike them, his eyes were brown, and he only came to the islander’s shoulder despite the thickness of his build.

  “What may I do to help?” Pity filled the sailor’s tone.

  “I didn’t ask for help. Nor do I think I need it yet, and not at all from the likes of you.” Arnacin nodded to the group on the pier.

  “This is quite a job for one person. If you are to make her fit to sail again, she needs some estimating, as well as cleaning. I and my friend, Belo, know how to tally those things up, if you’ll allow us.”

  Although Arnacin wished to say that he could do it himself, he knew it to be a falsehood. Something in the design had failed its builders, he guessed, and he had no idea how to find the flaw or change it.

  Smiling slightly, Arnacin nodded. “Thank you, sir. I could use someone’s greater knowledge.”

  Blushing at the title, the sailor shrugged, “It’s just Samundro.”

  Hours later, in the red light of the late sun, everything had been cleared, swept and scrubbed down in order to better see what they were looking at.

  “You’ll likely have to rip up the deck entirely,” Samundro commented as the threesome stared at the splintered stalk of what had been the mast, rising out of the floor. “That’s always the best thing to do when replacing a mast. Usually, only portions of the deck are removed, but this flotsam doesn’t have enough wood.”

  Arnacin ignored the insult to the ship, and the sailor continued, “If you remove the planks carefully, they can be reused if they’re still good. Your biggest problem that I see is your flat hull.”

  “Meaning?” the islander wondered.

  “Boy, listen to reason. No one builds a flat-bottomed hull. It tips right over in the first storm.”

  “Is there no way around that?”

  Sighing, Samundro pushed his cap farther back on his head while he and his companion shared raised eyebrows. Biting his tongue, Arnacin waited for them to answer.

  “Not likely,” Samundro said. “As far as I know, every ship with a flat bottom is uncontrollable, floats aimlessly, and then sinks. End of story. Smarter people never take flat-bottomed ships anywhere. Therefore, your largest task is the redesigning of your entire hull.”

  Arnacin felt like he had been hit. Something of what he was feeling must have shown, as the sailor clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry to upset you. I have one suggestion. Find some sort of plan for a properly built ship.”

  Exasperatedly, the islander watched them leave before swinging a kick at the remains of the mast.

  Arnacin’s room was located in what the servants called the “elevated corridor.” The cooks told him the main hallways were designated for servants, nobility not directly related to the royal family, and then the elevated, or in other words, the knights.

  These rooms were located before the servants’ corridor and after the nobles’, since they were neither one nor the other some said. Unlike the rooms belonging to the servants, the elevated rooms were spacious, if unadorned—their furnishings sparse, yet fine.

  In answer to why he was placed there, they said, “That’s where the physicians want all charity cases receiving our hospitality. Your only difference is we can’t send you home in a week or two.”

  This information came from the kitchens, located deep beneath the southwestern tower. There, smoke and steam vented through undetectable holes in the high vaulted ceiling—the reason for the pleasant aromas and constant haze to the south of the capital.

  Having received permission long before Arnacin found the kitchens, the head cook insisted that he try everything. Every time she passed, she placed a new morsel before him, pronouncing him the best-mannered boy she had ever met because of his soft thanks, questions and, undoubtedly, his honest compliments of her cooking.

  Beaming, she would tell him of all the places their food and recipes originated, since they were such a large trade center. It made Mira’s banquets the finest and most varied in the world.

  Arnacin only smiled. Though he could not argue with the varied part, he remembered the excellent feasts back home, including the fisherman’s seaweed cakes that routinely took the villagers by surprise. That thought would always feed his restlessness while he struggled to find something to help with his ship repairs.

  Therefore, sitting in one corridor’s window, Arnacin strove to salvage as much as he could of his journal’s useful tidbits. Hearing footsteps nearing, he hastily stuff
ed his charcoal stick and journal out of sight. Laughter told him the movement had not gone unnoticed and he looked up to see Lord Carpason’s broad grin.

  “Well, well… Secrets, is it?” the noble chuckled. “Perhaps we should worry about spies.”

  “Spies?” Arnacin repeated, innocently. “Where would I be finding my information?”

  “The kitchens, perhaps,” Carpason commented, resting his foot on the window’s sloped sill and leaning against his knee. “The right question is: what do you have to hide if you are as much a nothing from nowhere as you claim?”

  Meeting that gaze—now only inches from him—Arnacin said, “I am a no one, and I prefer to stay that way. My home is afraid of foreigners knowing about them.”

  Studying him, the lord wondered, “Is that title serious, by any chance?”

  “What title?”

  “Enchantress Island?”

  Quickly looking down, Arnacin bit his lip. Carpason, however, did not seem to be fooled. In the silence that stretched between them, the islander looked back up nervously to realize that the lord was appraising him warily.

  “Your sister, a girl, is deadly, you say,” Carpason finally mused aloud. “And you know nothing of the sea, yet you sail. Still, you’re all shepherds. Are you magical, Arnacin son of Bozzic?”

  Smiling in amusement, Arnacin jerked his head slightly. “No.”

  “Are you ruled by a sorcerer, then?”

  “Not anymore,” the islander admitted, his words just as soft as the noble’s question.

  “Anymore? What happened?”

  “They perished in an earthquake.”

  “They?” Carpason’s tone was one of shock. “Yet your kind survived?”

  “It wasn’t a normal earthquake,” Arnacin added, shifting now in discomfort.

  “I should say not. Who conjured that miracle?”

  “As far as anyone knows, they did. I wasn’t born then.” True as this was, it was a lame attempt to escape the questioning, but the lord did not press further.

  It seemed hours before Carpason shook his head, sighing, “You’re more mythical than I first imagined, Arnacin. Perhaps I can understand your secrecy. Most would put you in the place of a god or kill you for dealing in sorcery.”