Ships from the West Read Online Free PDF Page B

be a shifter. He was Golophin’s friend, and brightest pupil. Now he is Aruan’s creature, body and soul. And Aruan is the greatest of the three, for all that he has the lesser rank in the eyes of the world.’
    ‘They say that Aruan is an immortal, the last survivor of an ancient race of men who arose in the west, but who destroyed themselves in ages past with dabbling in black sorcery,’ Mirren whispered.
    ‘They
say a great deal, but for once there is a nubbin of truth under all the tall tales. This Aruan came out of nowhere scarcely six years ago now, landing at Alsten Island with a few followers in strange-looking ships. Himerius at once recognised him as some kind of messianic prodigy and admitted him to the highest circles of power. He claims to be some form of harbinger of a better age of the world. He is immensely old, that we know, but as for the lost race of conjurors - well, that’s a myth, I’m sure. In any case, he has the armies of Perigraine and Almark and half a dozen other principalities to call upon, as well as the Orders of the Knights Militant and the mysterious Hounds. The Second Empire, as this unholy combine is known, is a fact of our waking world—’
    ‘The Fimbrians,’ Mirren interrupted. ‘What will they do?’
    ‘Ah, there’s the rub. Which way will the Electorates jump? They’ve been hankering after a rekindling of their hegemony ever since the fall of Aekir, but this new thearchy has stymied them. I’m not sure. We will be fighting for the self-determination of all the Ramusian kingdoms, and that is not something the Fimbrians would particularly like to see. On the other hand, they do not want to watch the Himerians become invincible, either. I reckon they’ll wait it out until we and Charibon have exhausted ourselves, and then step in like hyenas to pick over the bones.’
    ‘I’ve never known a war,’ Mirren said with uncharacteristic timidity. She stroked the marmoset which perched on her shoulder. ‘What is it like, Father?’
    Corfe stared out over the barren swells of the upland moors. Sixteen years ago, this quiet emptiness had been the epicentre of a roaring holocaust. If he tried, he was sure he would hear the thunder of the cannon echoing still, as it echoed always in the dark, hungry spaces of his mind.
    ‘War is a step over the threshold of hell,’ he said at last. ‘I pray you never experience it first hand.’
    ‘But you were a great general - you commanded armies -you were a conqueror.’
    Corfe looked down at her coldly. ‘I was fighting for survival. There’s a difference.’
    She was undaunted. ‘And this next war - it also is about survival, is it not?’
    ‘Yes. Yes, it is. We have not sought this battle; it has been thrust upon us - remember that.’ His voice was sombre as that of a mourner.
    But the hunger and the darkness within him were crowing and cackling with glee.
    Three
     
     
    ‘The birds,’ said Abeleyn. ‘They follow the ships.’
    Over the fleet hung a cloud of raucous gulls, thousands of them. They wheeled and swooped madly and their unending shrieks hurt the air, carrying over even the creak of timber, the smash of keel striking water, the groan of rope and yard.
    ‘Scavengers,’ Admiral Rovero called out from the quarterdeck below. ‘But it’s strange, is it not, to see them so far out from land.’
    ‘I have never seen it before. The odd one, yes, but not flocks like these,’ Hawkwood told him.
    All down the four levels of the spar deck - forecastle, waist, quarterdeck, poop - soldiers and sailors were staring upwards, past the cracking, bellied sails, the straining yards, the bewildering complexities of the rigging. The gulls circled tirelessly, screaming.
    Below them the flagship shouldered aside the swell with a beautiful easy motion. The
Pontifidad
was a tall man-of-war of twelve hundred tons with seven hundred men on board, and eighty long guns which were now bowsed up tight against the closed portlids like captured