Sorgi’s ships were standing at anchor some few yards off the beach by now, and the plans they had all drawn up the night before proceeded smoothly.
There was one thing, however, which their planning had not taken into account. Khalad had ridden to the edge of the cliff to look to the north, and he rode back with a slightly worried frown.
‘Well?’ Sparhawk asked him.
‘There’s a pier north of the wall, right enough,’ Khalad replied, dismounting, ‘but we’ve got a problem coming up from the south. Bhelliom’s warm current is arriving.’
‘Why is that a problem?’
‘I think Bhelliom got a little carried away. It looks as if the leading edge of that current is boiling.’
‘So?’
‘What do you get when you pour boiling water on ice, Sparhawk?’
‘Steam, I suppose.’
‘Right. Bhelliom’s melting the ice out there, right enough, but it’s raising a lot of steam in the process. What’s another word for steam, my Lord?’
‘Please don’t do that, Khalad. It’s very offensive. Just how big is this fog-bank?’
‘I couldn’t see the end of it, my Lord.’
‘Thick?’
‘You could probably walk on it.’
‘Could we possibly stay ahead of it?’
Khalad pointed out to sea. ‘I sort of doubt it, my Lord. I’d say it’s already here.’
The fog was rolling across the water in a thick gray blanket, its leading edge a solid wall obscuring everything in its path.
Sparhawk started to swear.
‘You seem melancholy, my Queen,’ Alean said when the ladies were alone.
Ehlana sighed. ‘I don’t like being separated from Sparhawk,’ she said. ‘There were too many years of that when he was in exile.’
‘You’ve loved him for a long time, haven’t you, your Majesty?’
‘I was born loving Sparhawk. It’s really more convenient that way. You don’t have to waste time thinking about other possible husbands. You can concentrate all your attention on the one you’re going to marry and make sure you’ve closed all his escape routes.’
There was a knock on the door, and Mirtai rose, put her hand on her sword-hilt, and went to answer it.
Stragen entered. He was wearing rough clothes.
‘What on earth have you been up to, Milord?’ Melidere asked him.
‘Pushing a wheelbarrow, Baroness.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure that it accomplishes all that much to disguise myself this way, but it’s good to maintain proper work habits. I’ve been posing as an employee of the Ministry of Public Works. We’ve been repairing the street outside the Cynesgan embassy. Caalador and I rolled dice, and he won the right to sit on a roof-top to keep watch. I get to trundle wheelbarrow-loads of cobblestones to the pavers.’
‘I gather that something’s happening at the embassy?’ Ehlana guessed.
‘Yes, my Queen. Unfortunately, we can’t quite figure out what. All the chimneys are spouting smoke that doesn’t look like wood smoke. I think they’re burning documents. That’s usually a sign of incipient flight.’
‘Don’t they know that they haven’t a chance of getting out of town?’ Mirtai asked him.
‘It appears that they’re going to make a try anyway. It’s just a guess, but I’d say they’re planning something that’s going to seriously offend the authorities, and then they’re going to try to make a run for it.’ He looked at Ehlana. ‘I think we’d better tighten our security arrangements, your Majesty. All these preparations hint at something serious, and we don’t want to be caught off-guard.’
‘I’ll have a talk with Sarabian,’ Ehlana decided. ‘It was useful to have that embassy functioning as long as Xanetia was here to eavesdrop. Now that she’s off with Sparhawk and the others, the embassy’s just an irritation. I think it might be time to send in some Atans to nullify it.’
‘It’s an embassy, your Majesty,’ Melidere objected. ‘We can’t just go in and round everybody up. That’s against all the rules of civilized behavior.’
‘So?’
‘We don’t have much choice, Master Cluff,’ Sorgi said gravely. ‘When you’re out in deep water and this kind of fog comes up, all you can do is put out your seaanchor and hope you don’t run aground on some island. You’d never be able to pick your way around the end of that reef with those rafts, and I’d rip the bottoms out of half the ships in the fleet if I tried to slip through the channel between the reef and the ice. We’re going to have to wait until this lifts – or thins out at least.’
‘And how long will that be?’ Sparhawk asked.
‘There’s no way to tell.’
‘The air’s colder than the water, Sparhawk,’ Khalad explained. ‘That’s what’s causing the fog. I don’t think it’s going to lift until the air warms up. We won’t be ready to leave here until tomorrow anyway. We’re going to have to do something to raise those rafts up out of the water a bit before we load men and horses on them. If we try to use them the way they are, we’ll be trying to move them half submerged.’
‘Why don’t you get started on that, Khalad?’ Vanion suggested. ‘Sparhawk and I’ll go have a talk with Sephrenia and Aphrael. We might just need a bit of divine intervention here. Coming, Sparhawk?’
The two of them went back on down the beach to the fire Kalten had built for the ladies.
‘Well?’ Sephrenia asked. She was seated on a driftwood log with her sister in her lap.
‘The fog’s creating some problems,’ Vanion replied. ‘We can’t get around the end of the reef until it lifts, and we’re a little crowded for time. We’d like to reach Tzada before the Trolls start to march. Any ideas?’
‘A few,’ Aphrael replied, ‘but I’ll need to talk with Bhelliom first. There are certain proprieties and courtesies involved, you understand.’
‘No,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘I don’t, really, but that doesn’t matter all that much. I’ll take your word for it.’
‘Oh, thank you, Sparhawk!’ she said with a certain false ingenuousness. ‘I think Bhelliom and I should discuss this in private. Open the box and give it to me.’
‘Whatever you say.’ He took out the cask and touched it with his ring. ‘Open,’ he told it. Then he handed the box to the Child Goddess.
She slid down off Sephrenia’s lap and went down the beach a little way. Then she stood looking out at the fog-enveloped sea. So far as Sparhawk could tell, she was not speaking aloud to the Sapphire Rose.
It was about ten minutes later when she returned. She handed the box back to Sparhawk. ‘It’s all taken care of,’ she told him in an offhand way. ‘When do you want to leave?’
‘Tomorrow morning?’ Sparhawk asked Vanion.
Vanion nodded. ‘That should give Khalad time to modify the rafts, and we can get the knights and their horses on board Sorgi’s ships and ready to go by then.’
‘All right,’ Aphrael said. ‘Tomorrow, then. Now why don’t you go find Ulath and ask him whose turn it is to do the cooking? I’m absolutely famished.’
It was not much of a breeze, and it did not entirely dissipate the fog, but they could at least see where they were going, and the tattered remnants of mist would provide them with some cover after they rounded the tip of the reef.
Khalad had decided that the quickest way to modify the rafts was simply to double them, pulling one raft on top of another so that the added buoyancy would provide a reasonable freeboard. This made the rafts very cumbersome, of course. They were heavy and hard to steer, and so their progress out along the reef was painfully slow.
The skiff leading the way, however, cut through the water ahead of the flotilla and faded into the remnants of the fog-bank. Khalad and Berit had not really asked, but had simply announced that they would scout on ahead.
After about an hour, the skiff returned. ‘We marked the channel,’ Khalad told them. ‘That boiling water really cut the ice away, so there’ll be plenty of room to get the rafts round the tip of the reef.’
‘We saw Captain Sorgi’s ships go by,’ Berit reported. ‘Apparently he didn’t entirely trust the sails. This breeze is a little erratic…’ He hesitated. ‘You don’t have to tell Aphrael I said that, of course. Anyway, Sorgi’s put the knights to work rowing. They’ll get to the beach north of the pier quite some time before we make it to shore.’
‘Are those trees sticking up out of the water going to cause us any problems?’ Kalten asked.
‘Not if we stick close to the face of the cliff, Sir Kalten,’ Khalad replied. ‘The landslides Bhelliom’s earthquake set off knocked down all the trees for about a hundred yards out from the wall. The trees farther out will give us some additional cover. When you add them to what’s left of the fog, I don’t think anybody on shore will see us coming.’
‘It’s working out fairly well, then,’ Ulath said, grunting as he pushed his twenty-foot-long pole against the sea-bottom, ‘except for this part, of course.’
‘We could always swim,’ Tynian suggested.
‘No, that’s all right, Tynian,’ Ulath replied. ‘I don’t mind poling all that much.’
When they reached the tip of the reef, the flotilla of rafts split up into two separate fleets. Queen Betuana and Engessa took the Atans and made their way along the outer edge of the half-submerged forest toward the pier that thrust out from shore, while Sparhawk and his friends took the Peloi and the knights for whom there had not been room aboard Sorgi’s ships along the cliffface with Khalad and Berit scouting ahead in the skiff. Since even Sorgi’s hundred ships and the large number of rafts were not enough to carry all their forces, they had been obliged to leave a sizeable portion of their army on the south beach along with Sephrenia, Talen, Flute and Xanetia.
‘It’s shoaling,’ Ulath said after about another half-hour. ‘I think we’re getting closer to shore.’
‘More of the trees are sticking up out of the water as well,’ Kalten added. ‘I’ll definitely be glad to get off this raft. It’s a nice enough raft, I suppose, but pushing it through the water with a twenty-foot pole is sort of like trying to tip over a house.’
The skiff came ghosting back out of the fog. ‘You’d better start keeping your voices down, my Lords,’ Khalad said in a hoarse whisper. ‘We’re getting closer.’ He reached out with one hand to steady the skiff. ‘We’re in luck, though. There used to be a road running along parallel to the beach – at least I think it was a road. Anyway, the road or whatever it was gives us an open channel through the trees, and the trees between us and the beach will keep the workmen from seeing us.’
‘And probably keep us from getting ashore as well,’ Tynian added.
‘No, Sir Tynian,’ Berit replied. ‘There was a meadow out there a mile or so from where the cliff is now, and that’s where the pier is. All we have to do is follow that road and it’ll bring us out almost on top of the work-gangs.’
‘Could you hear them at all?’ Vanion asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Khalad replied, ‘almost as if they were standing about ten feet away – and you’ll start hearing their axes in just a few minutes.’ He and Berit climbed aboard the raft.
‘Could you make out their accents? Were they more of those Edomishmen we came up against on the south pier?’
‘No, my Lord. The men up here are Astels. We couldn’t see the beach, but I’d guess that the people giving the orders came from Ayachin’s army instead of Incetes’ people.’
‘Let’s push on, then,’ Kalten said, hefting his pole. ‘Figuratively speaking, of course,’ he added.
‘Are we all ready?’ Sparhawk asked, looking up and down the line of rafts strung out to either side.
‘What is there to get ready for, Sparhawk?’ Kalten asked. ‘If anything, Astellian serfs are going to be even more timid than those Edomish peasants were. Ulath could probably chase them all back into the trees by just standing out here in what’s left of the fog blowing on his Ogre-horn.’
‘All right, then,’ Sparhawk said.—Aphrael—he threw the thought out—are you listening?—
—Well, of course I’m listening, Sparhawk—
He decided to try a different approach. He cast his request in formal Styric this time—An it please thee, Divine Aphrael, I do beseech thine aid—
—Aren’t you feeling well?—Her tone was suspicious.
—I but sought to demonstrate mine unutterable regard and respect for thee, Divine One—
—Are you making fun of me?—
—No, of course not. I just realized that I haven’t been all that respectful lately. We’re in position now. We’re going to start moving the rafts slowly toward shore. As soon as we can make out the people on the beach, Ulath’s going to give the signal for the general attack. I’d appreciate a nice strong gust of wind at that point, if it’s not too much trouble—
—Well, I’ll think about it—
—Will you be able to hear Ulath’s horn? Or would you rather have me tell you when we need the wind?—
—Sparhawk, I can hear a spider walking across the ceiling of a house ten miles away. I’ll blow as soon as Ulath does—
—That’s a novel way to put it—
—Get moving, Sparhawk, or you’ll run out of daylight—
—Yes, ma’am – He looked around at the others. ‘Let’s get started,’ he told them. ‘The Divine One is drawing in deep breaths. I think she plans to blow the fog all the way to the pole.’
The rafts inched forward, concentrating on staying in a straight line so that none of them emerged from the fog before the others.
They could clearly hear the voices speaking in Elenic from the shore now, and the faint lapping of wavelets sloshing over the protruding roots of the trees off to the left.
‘Six feet,’ Kalten reported in a loud whisper as he lifted his pole out of the water. ‘We can make a mounted charge when it shoals down to four.’
‘If the fog holds out that long,’ Bevier amended.
They crept on with the water shoaling under their rafts inch by inch as they eased closer to shore.