The Poison of Woedenwoud Read online

  “The Brisians can speak with any animal, though they bond most closely only with a particular species. This is their lemfreu,” Drake said.

  “Lemfreu?” Ling asked.

  “Oh, Ling,” Drake said, shaking her head at her. “Do they really teach so little of the rest of the world in Meuse?” She paused, as if expecting an answer, and then continued. “The Brisians’ bond with the animals in their care is strong. It’s strong because their magic allows them to communicate with them. I don’t understand it, or know how they do it, but while they can communicate, in a way, with any animal, they develop an affinity for a particular species. This is their lemfreu—in your language it means fire family, but to a Brisian it means love forged in the fire of magic. It’s a bond as strong as parent to child.”

  Lemfreu. Ling tried the word silently, and she thought back to what she’d read in the grimoire earlier that day about Treantos and those little reptiles he had brought aboard the Courser. She had seen those reptilian creatures one other time, when she and Fern had been creeping back to Fariss’s fortress. She had not written anything about a yellow glow to their eyes either time, but she was certain they must be his lemfreu.

  “But Brisians are different from the Tovendieren in that they cannot control their companion animal, or any animal. To a Brisian, that relationship is a partnership among equals; they cannot compel,” Drake continued, her voice taking on a teacherly tone.

  “To compel is deeply offensive to all Brisians,” Celene spoke as she entered the room, pushing Amalya in front of her. Dreskin followed them in and closed the door behind him. “To compel a lemfreu, an animal companion, is seen much the same as the rest of us view rape or torture. It simply is not done.”

  “Compelling lemfreu is seen similarly by most Tovendieren as well. Though their skills make such a thing possible, most consider it far too foul to do. But not all,” Drake corrected.

  Celene’s eyes narrowed slightly as she nodded. “There are some among the Brisians who side with Fariss and his ilk, and take power in any form.”

  “How many? Do they gather in particular areas? How might we avoid them? A Tovendieren-enthralled creature gives itself away with a golden glow in its eyes, but how can we tell if an animal is only bonded, or even just an animal?” Drake peppered Celene with questions.

  “I have nothing that will help you, Drake; I wish I did. The bond the Brisians form is a natural extension of what they are—it’s as natural to them as breathing, as a heartbeat. Their bond-mates give no indication of the bond, nothing like the glowing yellow eyes of an animal in thrall to a Tovendieren. And while most folk disapprove of those that attempt to compel animals, very few are aware of the breach, of the slow drain of magic and the dangers it poses. It is not as if there is some political undercurrent here that you can tap. It will be impossible to know who might tell others once they’ve seen you.”

  Drake studied her for several long moments, chewing on her lower lip as she thought. Dreskin tucked an errant strand of hair behind an ear, then thought better of it and ran a hand through his hair twice, leaving it twice as mussed as it had been before.

  “Ok, we must proceed with the assumption they got word of us off the ship,” Drake said. “We sail fast, and we sail as if we are a fishing vessel. There is a tangle of nets down below. Get them untangled and in the water. And dirty the deck up. Dreskin, get the boatsmyn fishing until we can get those nets in the water, and get them gutting right on the deck. I want plenty of blood and offal up here. It’s dangerous, but we can empty some of the crates down below and pile them around on deck to give the appearance we’re processing and storing. We’ve no barrels and no salt, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”

  Drake looked at them for a moment, considering. “Fern, Ling, the two of you need to stay out of sight at all times. Our only option is to hide in the open, but they will be watching for the two of you specifically. We can’t risk you being out on deck. Dreskin, you take the captaincy. No doubt I’m a target as well now. Fariss knows me well, but he doesn’t know you.”

  Dreskin nodded at her words, picking up the thread. “We need to roughen up the crew as well. Get them dirty. Remind them to be careful with those globes down below. I don’t know what most of it is, but I’m certain it wouldn’t be healthy if we spilled it or broke it. Besides, we need to keep hold of them. Who knows what’s coming our way? The better armed we are the better.”

  And just like that, Dreskin was the captain of a wallow-bellied fishing boat. Ling went below deck to get the netting untangled for use. She tried to focus on the work in front of her and not the slowly growing pile of the multi-hued globes of potions the boatsmyn were stacking on the far side of the hold. Haphazardly, in Ling’s opinion.

  The rope of the tangled netting was rough and smelled viciously of old fish, but it was the one thing she could do while hiding out of sight. Besides, she was good at it. Her father, Evelyn’s father, was a trader, but there were plenty of folk in Meuse who plied the waters of the Lisse and Arnhem rivers for fish. She knew her way around a net as well as any boatsmyn.

  She listened to the steady thudding of feet running about above her head as she worked, and she imagined what chaos it must be up there. She could hear Dreskin shouting, his voice coarse as burlap and his language even coarser, haranguing the crew as they worked to make this ship look like a fishing vessel once again.

  Hours later, she hauled the netting up on deck and handed it over to a passing boatsmyn. The boatsmyn snagged it from her without comment and vanished into the fading sunlight. Ling lingered by the door and was surprised at the changes she saw. The crew had caught a surprising quantity of fish considering the lack of netting. They had no barrels and no salt aboard, but that hadn’t stopped them. A man and a woman stooped over a narrow table with piles of gut and gullet at their feet, and stacks of fish-filled crates beside them. Behind them, she could see a handful of kittiwakes and petrels riding the air, diving and swirling in the wake of the ship, waiting for their chance at the offal the crew would soon shovel over the side. Ling shuddered to think how those fish would smell by morning without being preserved in salt.

  The crew had hacked their pants off at the knee. All ran barefoot, and most bare chested as well, in the warmth of the setting sun. The deck was as crowded as they could make it with their limited supplies, and it was awash with fish blood, guts, and bits of tail and skin. They’d had almost nothing to work with, but Ling was impressed at the transformation nevertheless.

  She watched, sitting back from the door, well out of sight of any prying eyes, as the world passed through her small-framed view of it. As full dark came on, the smell of herring stew and fresh baked bread wafted through the ship. The processing equipment was cleaned and stowed. The cries of gulls vanished with the light, and finally Ling was able to leave the hold. She hurried to the galley, planning to grab a handful of food and get to the captain’s cabin once again.

  Because the galley was so small, the crew would take their meals standing or sitting on the open deck. Celene was there with Amalya, huddled in a narrow corner, scooping thick stew and chunks of fresh fish into their mouths using hand-torn portions of fresh bread. Ling ignored them. She had nothing to say to either of them, had nothing she could say. How did someone apologize for what she had done? She would just do her best to keep her distance, waiting until they both left the ship, or until her journey took her outside of their sight. She grabbed several bowls of the stew, stacking a chunk of bread atop each of them, and made for the captain’s quarters.

  Fern and Drake were there already, Fern perched on the side of the narrow bed, Drake leaning against one wall with arms tight across her chest. Drake took the offered bowl and bread with a smile and thanks, but Fern turned her nose up at it.

  It was clear Fern had gained weight since waking, but to Ling’s eyes it was not nearly enough. They’d had a store of grubs and roots for her aboard the Courser, but there was nothing like that on this tub. With
a pang, Ling wondered if Fern would eventually eat what the rest of them ate, or if she would starve herself to death before they ever made landfall.

  The door slammed open, and Dreskin walked in. He saw the bowl of steaming soup Fern had refused and claimed it for himself, scooping bread and fish into his mouth with surprising speed. He’d made an effort at cleaning himself up, but he smelled of fish guts all the same. Ling sighed, wondering if she’d ever be able to scrub that smell out of her nose.

  “The birds are dangerous,” Drake said.

  “I know,” Dreskin replied around a mouthful of stew. “But you know no fishing vessel sails without them. We have little enough to work with as it is; we’ve got to risk it if we have even the smallest hope of passing even the most casual scrutiny.” He scooped a last chunk of bread into his mouth and settled himself on the floor, elbows resting against his bent knees. “They mostly seem normal as far as I can tell, but there is one that has me worried. It didn’t go after the fish, even after we’d shoveled it all overboard. It hovered too high to see its eyes, and lingered until it was too dark to see by.”

  “Of course they’ll have the birds out. It’s exactly what I would do were I in their shoes,” Drake agreed. “We just need to give every indication we are nothing more than a fishing vessel, if, perhaps, a poor one. They’ll watch, but if we do our jobs well, they’ll have no reason to suspect anything more.”

  “What if they send people to investigate us as well?” Fern asked. “What we’ve done here might pass from a distance, but it’ll never hold up to close scrutiny. We are wasting time with this farce. If we turn around now, they’ll have no idea where we are. They’ll never expect us to go back to Marique. Not now.”

  She was right about their disguise not holding up to close inspection. They all knew that. Dreskin leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. Drake shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Neither responded to Fern’s comment. The only answer they had was that they were not going back, and both knew those words would just cause another argument. Ling could see it in their eyes.

  No, their only option was to continue forward, and to do that they had to put on a convincing show. It was a two-week sail to get to Nantes. During that time, they had to lie low, to give no reason for anyone to suspect they were anything other than a fishing boat. This tub would never outrun a normal ship, even one without warlock magic pushing it forward. If there were even the slightest suspicion, their journey would end before it ever really got off the ground.

  And so the days passed. Fern and Drake stuck to the narrow captain’s cabin, but Ling couldn’t stand being that close to Fern. She huddled below decks instead with the off-duty crew, as far away from them as she could get. The fresh, salty smell of the fish slowly faded to less fresh, then to downright rancid, but they stored it anyway. Day by day their load grew, and the ship settled more and more in the water. The smell churned her stomach, but she welcomed it. Each new pile of fish made the ship a bit more convincing to any casual observer and made it more likely they’d reach their destination without difficulty.

  The conflict she felt about Celene only added to the acid churning in her guts. But despite Ling’s avoidance and tendency to outright ignore her, Celene was never anything but kind. Confused, perhaps. Ling was certain Celene had no idea why she’d acted toward her and Amalya as she had. But she was kind regardless. Whenever Ling saw her now she couldn’t help thinking about how it had felt to poke her hand into Fraser’s stomach, to watch the muscles twitching and the spasms of pain flashing across his face as she pushed his broken and bleeding guts around inside his gaping belly. She’d done the same to Amalya in a way, poking at and touching her in the darkness when she knew it would be intolerable to the girl. The accounts in the grimoire were graphic and detailed, and Ling felt as though she had no option but to look away and leave as quickly as possible any time Celene came near.

  Each night they would meet up in the tiny cabin and discuss their plans. The plans never changed, but they rehashed them every night nevertheless. They were to pick up horses from the chevalmyn in Nantes, ride across the horn to Caen, take a small coastal runner to Lille, and then vanish into the country of Brielle, riding the Woedenwoud boundary as they made their way to Noorlend and then west to the White Mountains. They discussed the same what-ifs, dissected the same assumptions, and avoided discussing what would happen should the warlocks find them before they made it to Nantes. They never varied their routine, their plan, even when each evening Dreskin reported more and more kittiwakes that shadowed the boat from dusk to dawn and seemed more interested in watching than eating.

  Chapter Ten

  “It’s smoke. There’s no doubt about it: Nantes is burning. I just can’t tell how much of it.”

  Ling stared unwaveringly at Dreskin as he spoke. It would have been cramped in the small cabin with just Drake, Fern, and Dreskin in there, but Dreskin had once again asked Celene and Amalya to join them. Ling had to admit Celene knew a lot about the Brisians, but being so close was ever uncomfortable for her.

  “How can you tell? The rain—”

  “Drake, it’s smoke. Believe me. I’ve been watching it for hours; there’s no question. The city is burning.”

  Dreskin had called them all together earlier than normal. He had been subdued, an odd tightness around his eyes, when he’d come looking for her in the hold. He’d handed her a cloak to drape over her head as she sprinted to the cabin through the heavy rain. They’d pulled the nets in against the rough weather, and the on-duty crew huddled wherever they could find shelter on the deck. It was crowded below decks too, but Ling preferred the relative anonymity of the hold to being in such tight proximity with Celene and Amalya.

  With his words the reason for his grim look became clear. Nantes was on fire.

  “I’ve been watching too, Drake.” Celene’s soft voice. “It’s difficult to make out in the heavy rain, but we’ve had several breaks in the weather, and it’s been the same every time. Dreskin is right.”

  “Burning. Burning. Burning. Burning. Burning.” Amalya had picked up one of the last words she heard and repeated it over and over again. She crouched at her mother’s feet, the ever-present charred stick in her hands, working hard at darkening a single line of black on the floor of the cabin. The muscles of Ling’s back tightened against the sound.

  “What of the birds?” Drake asked. She studied the bed as if the rumpled pile of blankets there held a map or some secret that would help them out of what felt like a closing noose.

  “There are many. No sign of pursuit yet, but I am certain it is only a matter of time,” Dreskin answered.

  “How many?” Drake pulled her eyes up from the bed and looked at Dreskin.

  “Dozens.”

  Over the weeks the ship had grown a shadow that had nothing to do with the direction of the sun. This shadow was made entirely of birds, riding the wind above the ship from dawn to dusk every day. Kittiwakes and gulls were common around fishing boats, but these birds behaved very differently from those. They hovered silently; they ignored the food; and their beady eyes seemed to stare intently, as if they were watching.

  “Has anyone seen their eyes?”

  Ling peeled her gaze from Dreskin to look over at Drake.

  “They keep their distance, but we don’t need to see the yellow glow of their eyes to know Tovendieren watch from them,” Dreskin answered. “Their behavior is answer enough.”

  “Great. That’s just great.” Fern’s eyes burned feverishly in her still pale face. “They know where we are, and they’re probably the reason Nantes is burning too. No matter where we go, death awaits us. We never should have come here. I told you we should have gone back, but you refused to listen. Now we’re all going to die, and Fariss will have his way with what’s left of the magic.” Fern spat the words at the others gathered in the room.

  “We have no way of knowing the cause of the fires, Fern, and even if you are right, it changes nothing. This
is still our best path out of this mess.” Drake’s voice was harsh, and Ling suspected she was quite tired of Fern’s constant anger and doubt about the path they’d chosen. Fern clamped her mouth shut but glared viciously at Drake.

  “Burning, burning, burning, burning.” Amalya continued her chant, seemingly oblivious to the tension around her.

  “Fires happen, especially in harbors. It might be nothing,” Celene said quietly, resting her hand on her daughter’s head. “It’s impossible to see through the storm and smoke to determine how much of the city is affected. No doubt the Brisians will have it out by the time we get there.”

  Drake nodded. “We should have killed that first damned bird.”

  “That would have been a sure giveaway, Drake,” Dreskin said.

  “I know, I know it,” Drake said, waving Dreskin down. “Hitting that port before they get to us is the only option we have.” She took a deep breath and hissed it out between her teeth. “They are always one step ahead of us, no matter how we plan or how unpredictable we try to be. How are they always one step ahead?”

  Ling could see the muscles in Dreskin’s cheeks clenching and unclenching in frustration, but he said nothing. No one answered Drake’s question. There was no answer. No one knew how the warlocks were always two steps ahead. Ling thought it must be Tovendieren magic, but how they did it so consistently was a mystery.

  “Why don’t they disable us?” Ling asked, shifting to an entirely different train of thought. “They left our sails in tatters when we fled toward the Darkling Sea. But here they simply watch. Why?” The only answer was that they must have warlocks waiting in Nantes already. Maybe Fern was right; maybe they were headed straight into a trap.