The King's Buccaneer by Raymond E. Feist
Nicholas and Harry saw their first signs of life as they passed through the remains of the town’s main market. A small child sat in stunned silence next to the body of his mother. His eyes were round with mute terror and his face was caked with dried blood.
Nakor scooped up the child, who seemed not to notice. “Scalp wound.” He clucked at the boy, who reacted by gripping Nakor’s ragged blue robe with both hands. “Not bad. Looks worse. Probably saved his life: they thought he was already dead.” The child, who could not have been more than four, kept his eyes fixed upon Nakor, who at last placed his free hand upon the child’s face a moment. When he removed it, the child’s eyes closed and he slumped against the Isalani’s chest. “He’ll sleep. It’s better for him. He’s too young for such horror.”
Harry choked out, “We’re all too young for this, Nakor.”
Carrying the still child, the little man continued toward the keep. Sounds alerted them to other survivors, some weeping loudly, others groaning.
Reaching the main gate of the keep, Nicholas and the others halted. In a scene from the lower depths of hell, the central keep was a blackened skeleton of stone, lit from within by still-furious flames. In the central courtyard before it, the wounded lay wherever there was space, while the few remaining survivors able to move attempted to provide what comfort they could.
Nicholas and Harry picked their way through the tableau of injured and dying humanity and caught sight of Martin, Marcus, and Calis. Martin knelt above a figure who lay upon the ground.
Hurrying to where they were gathered, Nicholas found Swordmaster Charles lying upon the ground, his nightshirt stiff with his dried blood. The former Tsurani soldier’s face was drenched in perspiration and almost devoid of color from pain and injury. Nicholas didn’t have to be told he was dying. The lifeless twist of his legs below the nightshirt and the still-crimson stain in the center of his shirt told the young man that the Swordmaster of Crydee had taken a killing wound to the stomach.
Martin’s face was a stone mask, yet his eyes betrayed his pain. He leaned over Charles and said, “What else?”
Charles swallowed and in a ragged whisper said, “Some of the raiders…were Tsurani.”
Marcus said, “Renegades from LaMut?”
“No, not soldiers from the war. Brimanu Tong.” He coughed, then gasped. “Assassins. Hired murderers. They…are without honor….” His eyes closed a moment and then he opened them again. “This was…not honorable…combat. This was…slaughter.” He groaned and his eyes closed and his breathing became shallow.
Anthony came into view, limping, his left arm in a sling. In his right hand he carried a water bucket. Harry hurried over and took the bucket from him. The magician knelt painfully next to Charles and examined him. After a moment he looked at Martin and shook his head. “He will not awaken.”
Martin stood slowly, his eyes not leaving his Swordmaster. Then he said, “Faxon?”
Anthony said, “Died in the stable with some of the soldiers; they were trying to hold the stable while Rulf and his sons got the horses out. They died as well, fighting with blacksmiths’ hammers and pitchforks.”
“Samuel?”
“I haven’t seen him.” Anthony looked around and for a moment Nicholas thought he was about to break down, but the young magician swallowed hard and continued. “I was asleep. I heard sounds of fighting. I couldn’t tell if they came from in the keep or outside. I hurried to the window and looked out.” He glanced around at the carnage. “Then someone broke into my room and threw something at me…an ax, I think.” He frowned as he tried to remember. “I fell out the window. I landed on…someone.” He seemed almost embarrassed as he added, “He was dead. I didn’t break anything, but I was senseless for a time. I remember reviving and feeling this terrible heat. I dragged myself away from it. I don’t remember much after that.”
Nicholas said, “Marcus, your family?”
His cousin said in flat tones, “My mother is still in there.” He pointed to the raging fire that had been the family keep the day before.
Grief was quickly followed by anger, then alarm. “Margaret! Abigail?”
Anthony said, “Someone said the girls were carried off. Some of the young men, too, I think.” He closed his eyes as if suddenly pained, then added, “From the town, as well; girls and boys were dragged away.”
A nearby soldier, leaning on a broken spear, said, “I saw them leading some of the captives away, Your Grace.” He indicated the wall and said, “I was on duty there. I heard someone in the courtyard and looked, then was struck from behind. When I revived, I was hanging halfway out of one of the crenels—someone tried to throw me off the wall, I guess. I got cut some, but I pulled myself back.” He said, “There were a couple of dead men nearby, and the castle was already in flames. I looked out at the town and I saw men herding boys and girls toward the harbor.”
Ghuda said, “Did you see who they were?”
“It was lit up like day; more than half the town was fired by then. There were maybe four or six of them; big men, they wore these harnesses, kilts, and masks of black leather and they all had whips.”
Ghuda said, “Durbin Slavers’ Guild.”
Martin said, “We’ll sort this out later, but now we’ve injured to look after.”
Nicholas and Harry nodded and moved off, and in minutes they were hurrying with buckets of water. As the day dragged on, they helped aid those who could move to shelter in the eleven buildings that had escaped damage at the south end of town. Others were carried to the fishing village a mile farther down the coast.
Slowly the shocked and shattered population of Crydee that remained began the torturous task of reviving. More people died and they were carried to a pyre that was being erected in the town marketplace.
Nicholas helped a soldier with a bandaged head lift another corpse atop the mass of dead, piled on some wood that had been dragged in from the forest, and noticed that somehow it had become night. Another soldier stood nearby with a torch and said, “That’s the last of it. We’ll probably find more of them tomorrow, but it’s time to quit.”
Nicholas nodded mutely and stumbled away as the torch was applied to the wood. As the flames rose up to consume the dead, he plodded to the far end of Crydee, to the welcoming lights and the sound of voices. He thought the reservoir of anguish had dried, but as he dragged himself through the burned-out remains of a once thriving town he found himself choking back tears. His mind had rejected the grotesque images, the partially burned bodies that had to be carried to the pyre, the children that had been hacked to death, dogs and cats with arrows in them for no reason. The bitter comment that one soldier had made that the raiders had saved them from a lot of work, for half the population had been cremated already, hit Nicholas as he stood alone in the middle of an empty patch of earth, a small market square. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, and began to shiver, though the night was only cool. Trembling to the point where his teeth began to chatter, the boy sucked in a bitter lungful of smoky air and gave a low, angry groan. Forcing his right foot ahead, he pulled himself erect and commanded his body to move forward. He had a feeling that if he stopped again before reaching the place where Martin and the others waited, he might never move again.
He plodded along until he reached the largest building still standing. It was to have been a new inn once construction was finished. The walls rose up into the darkness, and the second floor—covering only half of the common room—had been raised, but the roof was still missing, so part of the commons was exposed to the sky. A score of townspeople huddled under the second-floor overhang, while Martin and his companions ate quietly under the stars, around a small fire pot that burned brightly. Some of the fishing folk had provided a hot fish stew and bread from their meager resources.
Nicholas stumbled over to where Harry sat at Marcus’s side, and shook his head when offered a bowl of stew. He had no stomach and thought he’d never get the smell of smoke out of his nose.
Martin said, “Send them out again. I want as much game caught and brought in as they can manage in the next week. We have almost no food, and in less than two days we’ll have a great many hungry people. The fishermen can catch only so much with most of the boats gone.”
Garret nodded. “Some of the soldiers could help in the hunt.”
Martin shook his head. “I have fewer than twenty able men left in the garrison.”
Marcus said, “We had over a thousand men-at-arms here, Father.”
Martin nodded. “Most died in the barracks. The raiders killed nearly everyone on the wall, opened the gate, barred the barracks doors at both ends, and fired the roof. Then they threw earthen jars of naphtha through the windows. It was an inferno inside before most of the soldiers were awake. A few managed to get out the windows, and they were cut down by bowmen. Others in the keep were killed in the room-to-room fighting. We’ve another hundred walking wounded, and when a few of those are mended we can spare some to hunt. Fall is fast upon us, and the game is moving south. We’ll need to depend on Carse and Tulan to get through the winter.” Martin chewed a mouthful of bread and said, “Another hundred or so lie near death. I don’t know how many will survive. Anthony said those most badly burned will surely die, so by the first snowfall we may have a hundred and fifty men-at-arms left.”
Marcus said, “There are the two hundred men at Barran.”
Martin nodded. “I may call them back. But let’s see what Bellamy can send us before then.”
Harry handed Nicholas a torn chunk of bread, thick with butter and honey, and without thought Nicholas began eating it. Suddenly he was ravenous, and he motioned to the woman passing out the stew that he would take a bowl after all.
Nicholas said nothing as he ate, listening to the grim surmises as to what happened the night before. During the day someone had mentioned that the Duchess had killed as many as a half-dozen raiders before she was at last overwhelmed, cut down trying to rescue her daughter and the other young girls. A wounded soldier had seen her lying dead before Margaret’s room as he had escaped the fire in the keep. The flames had been too hot and he had been too injured to bring the Duchess out of the conflagration.
Nicholas waited for mention of the girls’ fate, but Martin and the others spoke only of immediate concerns. As people came to report and left again, a picture of the destruction formed in Nicholas’s mind. Of a prosperous town with nearly ten thousand citizens, fewer than two thousand lived, and many of those would not survive another week because of their injuries. Of a thousand soldiers, one man in five might live to serve the Kingdom again. Every building from Longpoint Lighthouse to the south end of the old town was destroyed, and half the new buildings were gone. No business survived intact. Of the assorted Craftmasters, only one blacksmith, two carpenters, and a miller lived. A half-dozen journeymen and a score of apprentices would be able to help rebuild. Most of those who had survived were fishermen and farmers. They would be pressed into service where needed, but for the foreseeable future, Crydee was reduced to a rude village, a primitive enclave on the Far Coast of the Kingdom.
Nicholas heard Martin saying, “And we’ll have to ask Bellamy and Tolburt down in Tulan to send us craftsmen. We need to start rebuilding the castle at once.”
Nicholas couldn’t stand it any longer. Softly he asked, “What about the girls?”
All talk halted, and every eye in the circle turned to look at him. With ill-hidden bitterness, Marcus said, “What do you propose we do?”
Nicholas could say nothing.
Marcus said, “They burned every ship in the harbor. They burned most of the boats. Shall we take a fishing skiff and row to Durbin?”
Nicholas shook his head. “Send word—”
“To your father?” asked Marcus bitterly. “He’s halfway across the Kingdom! Is there a carrier pigeon alive? Is there a horse fit to ride to Carse? No!” His pain and anger at his loss were turned on the only target available, Nicholas.
Martin put a restraining hand on his son’s shoulder, and Marcus fell silent. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
Nicholas didn’t ask permission to leave, he just stood and moved away from the warmth of the small fire. He found a relatively sheltered place beneath the stairs leading up to the second floor and huddled there. After a few minutes, he was struck by the need to be home, with his own mother and father and his sister and brothers, his teachers, and those who had always protected and loved him. For the first time in years he felt like a very small boy again, afraid of those boys who taunted him and mocked him when his protectors were absent. Feeling sick and ashamed, Nicholas turned his face to the wall and wept.
7
CHOICES
The storm struck.
Nicholas was awakened by wetness on his face. His sleep had been deep and dreamless; he awoke stiff and still exhausted. There had been a brief moment of disorientation as he had come awake, then all too quickly he knew exactly where he was and what had happened.
Despair struck him as rain came pounding through the opening above the common room. Those who slept along the wall or under the stars quickly moved in with those huddled under the second-floor overhang. The wet chill was accompanied by a deeper, more profound chill as the memories of the previous day’s horrors returned.
Nicholas saw that it was growing light, despite the rain, and knew it must be past sunrise. Harry picked his way carefully among those who tried to keep dry, his hair already matted to his head. “Come on, we have work to do.”
Nicholas nodded and awkwardly stood up. His foot hurt and he limped as he forced himself to walk into the downpour. Within seconds he was soaked to the skin. The only relief in the storm was that the burning stink of the night before was diminished.
Reaching the open door of the inn, the boys walked outside to where Martin stood. His only concession to the rain was an oilskin cover that protected his longbow and another on his quiver of arrows. “We need to find as much useful wood as we can, Squire,” he said to Nicholas.
Nicholas nodded and turned to where three men huddled under a small overhang, offering only the illusion of protection against the weather. “You three,” Nicholas shouted over the tattoo of the rain, “are you injured?”
The three men shook their heads, and one said, “But we’re wet, Squire.”
Nicholas waved for them to join him. “You’re not going to get any wetter for working. I need you.”
One of the men glanced at Martin, who nodded once, and the three men got to their feet and followed after Nicholas.
For the rest of the day they picked their way through the wreckage of Crydee, finding a timber here, a few planks of wood there, carrying the manageable items back to the inn. The location of the larger pieces was noted for future use.
By midday the storm had lessened. Nicholas and his three companions—a farmer whose house on the far edge of town had been burned, and two brothers who had worked in the mill—had managed to find a half-dozen barrels of nails, some undamaged carpentry tools, and enough wood to erect a dozen rude shelters. The carpenter who had survived the raid had inspected the tools and announced that should lumber be found and cut, he could finish the roof on the inn within a week with the help of three able men. Martin said they would see if enough cutting equipment had survived to fell trees.
One fact presented itself to Nicholas through this day: the ancient tradition of having each boy in the keep practice a variety of crafts before finally being selected at the Choosing for his trade was proving a boon. While these men were not carpenters or masons, they did know the fundamentals of those trades, and showed amazing retention of the things learned while boys.
By nightfall, Nicholas was again exhausted and starving. Food was going to be a problem soon, but for the second night the fishing village provided enough for all to eat. A soldier, limping as
Harry came over to sit by his friend, and he dug into the bowl of hot stew. Between spoonfuls, he said, “I never knew fish stew could taste so good.”
Nicholas said, “You’re hungry.”
Bitterly, Harry said, “No, really?”
Nicholas said, “I’m in no mood for this either, but don’t take your nasty temper out on me, Harry, and I won’t take mine out on you.”
Harry nodded and said, “Sorry.”
Nicholas stared off into space for a moment. He said, “Do you think we’ll ever see them again?”
Harry sighed. He didn’t have to ask whom Nicholas meant. “I heard Martin and Marcus earlier today. They say if Bellamy can get word to Krondor fast enough, our fleet can blockade Durbin before the raiders return there. They think your father can force the Governor of Durbin to turn over all the captives.”
Nicholas sighed. “I wish Amos was back. He knows about this sort of thing. He was a Durbin captain once.”
Harry said, “I wish he was here, too. A lot of this doesn’t make any sense. Why would they kill so many and burn down everything?”
Glancing around the miserable company in the inn, Nicholas was forced to agree. Then something struck him. “Where’s Calis? I haven’t seen him since Charles died.”
“He went back to Elvandar,” answered Harry. “He had to tell his mother what happened, he said.”
Alarm struck Nicholas. “Gods. What about his grandparents?” Nicholas hadn’t seen Magya or Megar among the survivors.
“I think I saw Megar down at the other end of the fishing village earlier today. It looked like him. He was supervising the cooking of this food for everyone.”