The Dhulyn and Parno Novels: Volume Two

The Dhulyn and Parno Novels: Volume Two

THE STORM WITCH

One

Parno Lionsmane pulled the hood of his cloak down over his forehead and hunched his shoulders against the rain. Here it was, practically high summer, what his Partner Dhulyn Wolfshead would call the Grass Moon, and the rain was coming down as though it was already well past Harvest Moon. He caught Dhulyn’s eye as they sidestepped the flow of water running down the center of the narrow cobbled lane. She was frowning, and he knew that more than the weather troubled her.

“Cheer up,” he told her. “A few more days at most, and the whole misunderstanding will be cleared up.”

His Partner nodded, but almost as if she wasn’t listening. Dhulyn was Senior to him—though she was younger, she had been longer in the Mercenary Brotherhood, having come to it as a child—and that was part of the problem.

“It’s only the Tarkin of Hellik’s court they are sending to,” he added, “not all the way to Imrion.”

This time Dhulyn looked at him as she nodded, and Parno smiled to himself. “I would not have thought it so difficult to find a Brother Senior to me in a city as large as Lesonika,” she said. “I thought this would all be over by now.”

Both looked up as thunder rumbled.

“A good thing we left the horses, after all,” Dhulyn said. She dodged a fountain of water pouring from a greatly overworked overhead gutter. They’d come down from the port of Broduk on the Catseye, the typical wide-beamed, single-masted ship of the Midland Sea, with both their warhorses and their packhorse in makeshift stalls on the deck. Just now Dhulyn had decided that all the beasts would be happier in the warm, dry stable provided by the Mercenary House. And the crew of the Catseye would be happier as well. Captain Huelra didn’t often ship horses—in fact, Parno was fairly certain Dhulyn Wolfshead was the only person Huelra would trust with horses aboard his ship.

“It could be worse,” Parno said now.

“How?”

“It could be snowing.”

Parno didn’t like the way Dhulyn shook her head without even a token smile. He knew her well enough to make a good guess at her thoughts. If there could be such rain—with thunder—in the Grass Moon, why not snow? As it was, the hay was flattened in the fields, and oats and young barley would be washed out or stunted if the weather didn’t improve soon. Which meant a poor harvest, which meant trouble. Parno brightened. Which generally meant work for the Brotherhood.

The streets inclined more sharply as they approached the harbor where the Catseye was moored, but even so the water was over their ankles more than once before they reached the comparatively dryer docks. Here, at least, the volume of water had somewhere to go—into the sea. Lesonika had a deep harbor, and in addition to half a score of the smaller Midland Sea vessels like the Catseye, one of the tall, three-masted, ocean-faring ships was also moored there.

Dhulyn slowed almost to a halt, turning her head to stare at the tall ship as they passed it, her normally bright cavalry cloak hanging in sodden folds and darkened to a dull red by the rain. Parno’s own cloak, just as good a mix of inglera fleece and wool, slapped wetly around his calves as the wind took it.

“I thought so,” she called out to him as he reached her side, her rough silk voice just audible over the pelting rain. “Those were Long Ocean Traders at the Mercenary House. Did you see them?”

“The ones in the scaly vests?” he said. “What could they want with our Brothers?”

“Delivering fressian drugs, perhaps.”

Parno pursed his lips in a silent whistle, taking a longer look. If his Partner was right, and the ship was carrying even a few casks of fresa, fresnoyn, or fresnant, he was looking at more money than he’d seen in many a moon.

There were sailors out even in this weather, seeing to the mooring lines. The tide was beginning to ebb, Parno saw, and the amount of water flowing from the town into the boat basin—enormous as it was to the city dwellers—would make no difference to the sea level; lines still had to be adjusted, anchors checked. Everywhere there were bare masts, but the usual harbor sounds of creaking stays, shrouds, and halyards could not be heard over the drumming of the water and the rising noise of the wind.

“Demons and perverts,” Parno cursed as a spray of water caught him fully in the face. Dhulyn’s laughter did not help. They ran the final few paces to the Catseye and pounded up the gangplank. The usual sentry was missing, but given the rain and the wind, Parno was not surprised.

There was no glow of light from around the door of Captain Huelra’s tiny cabin, and Dhulyn turned immediately toward the entrance to the hold. Their own sleeping quarters were below, their hammocks strung up along with those of the sailors, and Parno hesitated only a moment before following her. A cup of the captain’s brandy would have been welcome, but the dry clothing in their packs below beckoned even more strongly. And if it came to that, Parno thought grinning, there was a newly purchased flask of Berdanan brandy hanging at his own hip. 

Not that someone else’s brandy didn’t always taste better.

Dhulyn heaved back the hatch and dropped straight into the hold, ignoring the ladder placed to one side. She moved immediately to the right, leaving Parno a clear space to follow her. He rolled his eyes—even here, Dhulyn would follow the Brotherhood’s Common Rule and enter the room as though staging an attack—but he followed her precisely, landing lightly, knees slightly bent, blinking in the lantern light, his right hand on the hilt of his sword, his left on his knife.

And froze.

“Carefully, Paledyn. No sudden moves, if you please.” The thickly accented voice came from a dark-haired, heavily mustached man holding the spiked end of a garwon to Captain Huelra’s head. Huelra sat, wrists and ankles bound, on an upturned cask of the cook’s milled flour. Two candle lanterns, one on the floor and one hanging from a hook on the mast, cast double shadows over the scene. Parno gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to look at Dhulyn. He hadn’t seen a garwon since his Schooling. Long, thin, and fiercely sharp, it was used by divers as an underwater hand weapon. The point actually rested on the skin of Huelra’s temple, and could be through the comparatively thin bone and into the man’s brain before either Parno or Dhulyn could move. And that did not take into account the young woman with her arbalest already cranked back and pointed at Dhulyn Wolfshead, or the half-dozen others, armed and standing farther back in the shifting shadows.

Parno noted automatically that both the mustached man and the woman were bareheaded, though both wore the oddly patterned scaly vests that he’d seen at the Mercenary House. Long Ocean Traders. He couldn’t be sure about the others, though he thought at least one more also wore mail. Parno smiled. As usual, Dhulyn had been right to take precautions—better careful than cursing, that’s what she always said. Anyone else would have come down the ladder the normal way, and been caught with their backs to the enemy.

He leaned against the ladder behind him and lifted his hands away from his weapons, knowing without looking that Dhulyn had already done the same. By no means were they out of options, but with that garwon at Huelra’s temple, a straightforward attack was low on their list.

“You are Paledyn? What is called here the Mercenary Brotherhood?” The same man spoke again.

“We are.” Without moving her hands, Dhulyn tossed her head and the hood of her wet cloak fell back to reveal her Mercenary badge, the blue and green of the tattoo across her temples and above her ears bright even in this light. Parno still was not used to seeing her with her hair so short, just a damp cloud the color of old blood around her face. Parno shook his own hood off.

“I am Dhulyn Wolfshead,” his Partner said. “Called the Scholar. I was Schooled by Dorian the Black Traveler. I have fought at Sadron, Arcosa, and Bhexyllia.” And Limona, thought Parno, though perhaps she was right not to mention that particular battle until the Mercenary House here in Lesonika had ruled on the consequences of it. “I fight with my Partner, Parno Lionsmane,” Dhulyn concluded.

“And I am that Parno Lionsmane with whom she fights,” Parno added. “Called the Chanter and Schooled by Nerysa Warhammer of Tourin.”

There was a moment—just a moment—when the eyes of the arbalest woman had shifted, glancing at Dhulyn’s badge, but the man holding the garwon on Huelra never moved.

“Come with us,” the garwon holder said. “Now. If not, we kill your friend.”

“Or,” Dhulyn answered in her most reasonable tone. “We can wait until your wrist gets tired and then kill you.”

The skeptical snort that sounded from the shadows came from the third man on the left. Parno automatically calculated distance and angle. Dhulyn did not take her eyes from the garwon.

“Crew of the Catseye are aboard our ship,” the man continued in the same even tone. “You don’t come, or we don’t return,” he shrugged. “They’ll be killed.”

Parno had to admit he was impressed. The mustached man spoke as though he was commenting on the weather. There weren’t many who could be threatened by a Mercenary Brother and not even change color—no matter how many armed men stood in the shadows behind them.

“Huelra, is this true?”

“Wolfshead, it is. You’d been gone a few hours—and half my crew on shore leave after you—when these came on board under a trading flag, may their ship have plank worm. Why should I doubt them?” Huelra looked as though he’d like to spit, but couldn’t turn his head. “They took us handily, curse their keel, and they took my crew away. That much I saw before they hauled me down here.”

Parno could see that under Huelra’s fear and rage was a measure of embarrassment at being so easily caught. He’d probably been flattered that the Long Ocean Traders had approached him at all.

Dhulyn smiled her wolf’s smile, her lip turning back from the small scar that marked it. “If we didn’t care about Huelra,” she said to the trader, “we’d hardly care about his crew.” This time the man blinked, and Parno stifled a smile of his own.

“It isn’t necessary to hold people hostage to hire us,” she added. “You might simply offer us money.”

The man slowly shook his head, without moving his eyes from Dhulyn’s face.

Demons and perverts, Parno thought. This was taking too long. “I’m going to take my cloak off,” he said. “It’s wet, and it’s cold. I’ve brandy here in this flask, and I see no reason I shouldn’t drink some. We understand that if we don’t cooperate you’ll kill Huelra’s people. Tell us why we should stop you.”

Now the man was round-eyed with surprise—though still not afraid. He turned his head, almost enough to look at the young women holding the arbalest. “You’re Paledyn,” he said finally. “Mercenary Brothers. People won’t die when you can save them.”

Interesting. Not untrue, in and of itself, just interesting the man should say so.

“Dhulyn Wolfshead is Senior Brother,” Parno said. “Here and now, it is she who will decide who lives and who dies. So we might as well relax, while she’s listening to your request.” Parno moved his hands to the clasp of his cloak and let the sodden garment fall to the floor, where he kicked it to one side. Dhulyn was already tossing hers toward the spot where their packs were tied securely against sliding should the ship roll. This time the man did glance quickly at the woman behind him, as he lowered his garwon. The woman herself relaxed, but Parno noticed that she did not release the crank on the arbalest.

“Come,” Dhulyn said, the merest edge of impatience in her voice. “Tell us what you require of us.” Parno opened the flask of brandy, took a swallow, and tossed it to Dhulyn. She caught it neatly in her left hand, but held it without taking a drink. That made three times they had moved without anyone using a weapon. If they could keep this up, this could finish with them all drinking together.