“My last tailors in Tanimura had numerous patterns and styles to choose from, countless grades of fabric, endless cuts.” Nathan heaved a sigh. “But they weren’t nearly as pretty or as kind as you.”
Jann giggled. “You should thank my husband. That shirt was supposed to be for Phillip.” A broad-shouldered older man sat next to her. Nearly as tall as Nathan, he had tightly curled dark hair and a rugged face. When Nathan asked him about the scar across his nose, he explained that a fishhook had once cut him down to the cartilage when a line had snapped.
“I have plenty of shirts, and you obviously need that one more than I,” said Phillip. “And now I can boast that the ambassador for Lord Rahl wears clothes made by my wife.” His big callused hand clasped Jann’s much more delicate hand. He savored another bite of redfin. “It’s good to feast on fish I didn’t have to bring in myself. Those days are over for me.”
Jann explained, “Phillip is a successful fisherman, but he prefers to be a boat builder. We’ve just set up a new dry dock, and he’ll be repairing fishing vessels and building a new one to sell.”
Phillip smiled proudly. “A new one that I plan to name the Lady Jann.”
“That is sure to increase the asking price,” said Nathan.
Town leader Holden stood up in the middle of the meal, and the dinner chatter died down. “We welcome our visitors from far-off lands. We give what we can and hope that the Sea Mother remembers our kindness to strangers.”
While the villagers cheered and toasted, Nicci heard some of the villagers muttering, as if they thought the Sea Mother had let them down many times in the past. She realized that Renda Bay had no armed guards, no strong military presence, no defenses whatsoever. Nicci knew that if one relied on ethereal deities to solve problems, then those problems usually remained unsolved.
Suddenly, several villagers stood up from the plank tables, gesturing toward the dark harbor. A bright warning fire sprang from the watchtower on the southern point of the breakwater. Someone threw a torch into a pile of dry wood, which swelled into a blazing beacon. When Holden saw the fire, his face fell into an expression of dread.
Looking out into the harbor, Nicci could see the ominous silhouettes of four large, dark ships that closed in on the bay with unnatural speed.
Holden looked at Nicci with a sick expression. “Where is your Lord Rahl’s protection now?”
Nicci straightened. “I’m here.”
CHAPTER 23
Villagers bolted in panic from the outside festival area. Some ran to their homes to seize knives, clubs, bows, and anything else they could use as a weapon. Nathan and Bannon both drew their swords and stood together next to the plank feasting tables, although the young man’s expression was far different from what Nicci had seen on his face when he fought the selka. This time, he looked disgusted as well as terrified.
The massive dark ships slid forward swiftly even though the night was without breezes. Each vessel had one mast with a single broad sail dyed a deep blue, so as to be invisible at night.
Nicci heard splashing sounds and the gruff shouts of men. Peering intensely into the night, she enhanced her vision with an obscure distance spell, which let her see that the four invading ships were propelled by long lines of oars. The oars cut into the water like axe blades and swept back to push the vessel forward, then lifted into the air dripping moonlight, and stabbed the water again.
Bannon’s voice cracked. “Norukai slavers!”
“Norukai slavers,” Holden echoed, then added his own shout. “Prepare to defend yourselves! It’s another raid.”
“What is it, my boy?” Nathan asked. “Who are they?”
“Nightmares.”
The slaver ships came in fast, crushing a small fishing boat as they ground up against the Renda Bay piers. A chorus of guttural, challenging shouts came from the longboats. With a chill, Nicci saw that each of the four curved prows sported the monstrous carving of a sea serpent, and she recognized the design from the crumbling wreck they had found in the sheltered cove on their first night ashore.
The four raider ships careened like rampaging bulls into the harbor. Bright orange streaks soared into the sky from the longboat decks, arced downward, and scattered upon the village, striking streets, rooftops, and unfortunate townspeople. Several fire arrows stuck into the lapped roofs of the houses and set the buildings on fire.
Water crews raced with buckets to stop the conflagration from spreading, while the rest of the defenders converged toward the docks, carrying whatever weapons they had. But even at a glance, Nicci could see that the villagers could never drive off such an aggressive raid. By her guess, the four Norukai ships held nearly three hundred warriors. She turned to Nathan. “It is up to us to fight them.”
He raised his sword. “My thoughts exactly, Sorceress.”
Releasing magic, Nicci ignited a bright fireball in her hand and tossed it into the air, where it expanded, growing more diffuse until it exploded high overhead like a wash of chain lightning. The glow illuminated the big serpent ships and the raiders boiling off the decks. The nearest two vessels crashed against the piers and fastened with iron hooks and heavy planks, while the raiders from the outer two vessels dropped smaller boats into the water and rowed toward the shore.
Jann and her husband Phillip accompanied Nathan as they braced themselves for the attack. Jann cried, “Spirits save us!”
“I will save you,” Nicci said.
The wizard turned to the retired fisherman. “Are your people at war with the Norukai? Why do they attack Renda Bay?”
“We are prey to them,” said Phillip, his face haggard. “Normally, they dart in with a single boat, snatch five to ten victims, and flee into the night. But this … this is a full invasion.”
“Then we arrived just in time,” Nicci said.
Norukai warriors thundered across the docks, rushing to the village, while others jumped out of landing boats and sloshed up from the shallow water to shore, carrying clubs, ropes, and nets.
The sorcerous illumination dissipated overhead, but Nicci’s magic swelled. She stretched her mind in one direction, tapping into Additive Magic and the energy there, while she also drew upon Subtractive Magic. Combining both, she conjured jagged lashes of black lightning, which she whipped against the first three invaders who reached the end of the docks. Her lightning ripped their broad chests into smoking wreckage, and the burly men collapsed into a heap of bones.
Despite this unexpected attack, the slavers showed no hint of fear or even caution. They charged forward, sneering at her lightning, arrogant in their invincibility. A team of four left their landing boats and waded to the beach.
Nicci killed the next wave of them as well.
The Norukai were squat men with disproportionately broad shoulders, shaved heads, and bare arms, and they wore vests of scaled armor made of some
reptile skin. Most horrific, their cheeks had been slit from the corners of their lips back to the hinge of the jaw, then sewn up again, as if to widen their mouths like a snake’s. Now, as they roared their fearsome battle call, their jaws opened wide, as if they were vipers about to strike. Only a few Norukai carried swords or spears, while the rest obviously expected to subdue and capture their victims, not to kill. They meant to harvest the people of Renda Bay.
A second rain of flaming arrows launched from the deck of a Norukai ship, pelting the village. By now several healthy fires were spreading among the wooden buildings, and when Nicci saw a blaze jump from one rooftop to the next, she flung out her hand and summoned her control of air and wind. Her directed blast swept the flames away, and as she pulled it back, she sucked away all the oxygen and extinguished the fire.
Nathan looked at her and groaned. “I can no longer help you in that way,” he said, gripping his sword. “But I will do my part, even without magic.” He ran beside Bannon, both of them holding their blades high as the muscular slavers charged ashore. As he prepared to fight, the young man had a strange look in his eyes—though not of fear. He seemed obsessed.
The villagers of Renda Bay had their own swords and spears, but did not seem skilled in their use. Holden shouted orders and ran bravely to meet the surge of attackers, although he had no tactical plan.
Nicci watched the fourth raider ship grind up against another dock, splintering wood as the invaders shouted. She did not intend to let them make it to shore. No longer crippled by poison, her command of magic was at its peak strength, and she could do more than summon wind or lightning.
She called forth a large roiling ball of wizard’s fire, a molten sphere that she hurled at the prow of the ship just as the Norukai lashed up against the damaged pier. The magical blaze incinerated the carved serpent figurehead and billowed back over the bow. Flames spilled across the deck and ignited fifteen of the armored slavers. They shrieked as the skin boiled off their bones, and their ugly, slitted mouths yawned open in a scream so wide their jaws cracked.