Empty Horizon Read online

  Empty Horizon

  Benjamin Ashwood Book 4

  AC Cobble

  Text Copyright © 2017 AC Cobble

  All Rights Reserved

  1

  Indo

  “It’s possible we may not all survive this,” stated Ben.

  “You might not,” Corinne snorted. “I certainly intend to.”

  The huntress was squatting on her haunches, swaying with the gentle motion of the ship. She hovered over their assembled collection of weapons. They’d laid them out to take stock and make the best use of the resources they had available. She laid a finger on the rusty tines of a trident.

  “You sure you want to use this?” she asked, looking to Milo.

  The young man’s loose curls flapped in the sea-breeze as he nodded. “I have the least amount of weapons training. It makes sense that I get the worst of the lot. Besides, we don’t have any other options, do we?”

  “He’s right. We don’t have much choice,” Rhys reminded Corinne.

  She glanced around the companions, scooped up her two hand axes, then paused, as if ready to take her bow as well, but it had been lost in the escape from Hamruhg.

  “Sorry, Milo,” she offered. “Maybe you won’t need to use it.”

  None of them believed that.

  Rhys gathered his longsword. In the bright light of day, the silvery runes were muted like Rhys himself after the battle of Northport. The rogue had regained his sense of humor, but he didn’t move with the same lethal aggressiveness he had before. He’d aged a decade and a half in that fight. Not even being long-lived could bring his vigor back.

  Rhys toed the vambrace he’d taken off the dead Thin Blade in Irrefort. Ben recalled the tight burst of fireballs the device had shot at Rhys when they were ambushed on the way to the keep. Everything after that had been so crazy he’d forgotten Rhys took the weapon.

  “This thing needs a bit of mage training to operate,” advised the rogue. He looked between Amelie and Milo.

  Milo shook his head.

  Amelie knelt and grabbed the vambrace. She strapped it on her arm and grunted. “I can feel the heat.”

  “Be careful with that,” advised Rhys. “Don’t forget we’re on a ship made entirely out of wood. I’d hate to start swimming because you couldn’t wait to try out your new toy.”

  Amelie rolled her eyes at him.

  “It may not be much more useful on land,” added the rogue. “Any magic could draw Eldred right to us, and you have a history of giving yourself away with fireballs.”

  “You think I forgot?” chided Amelie.

  She picked up her rapier as well. The mage-wrought dagger she used with it had been lost in Hamruhg, buried in Eldred’s stomach. The rapier was serviceable, though, and she slid it into her sheath with confidence that she didn’t have when Ben first met her.

  Milo took the salt-stained trident they’d purchased off one of the sailors and hefted it, a slight grin lifting the corner of his lips. The only other option had been a club the cook used for braining rats. They all agreed the cook could keep his club.

  Ben picked up his longsword last. He tilted it and studied the bright sunlight reflecting along the silver blade. The cross-guard was of the same silver material, forged by a mage to be lighter and stronger than even Venmoor steel. It was shaped like a tree, the branches of the cross-guard growing out from the trunk of the blade. The branches were delicate and beautifully formed, but they were strong enough to stop any conventional blade. Ben had found ample opportunities to test that since he’d acquired the weapon.

  The wire-wrapped hilt felt comfortable in his hand, and even in the steamy humidity from the sea, he knew his grip wouldn’t slip. Holding it felt natural now, like the mage-wrought steel was an extension of his arm. On the pommel, the longsword was capped with a polished sphere of curiously striated wood. When he’d first found the blade in the Wilds, he hadn’t recognized the strange material. Now he knew, it was anima-wood.

  “That’s a fine weapon,” remarked Milo, leaning close to Ben and studying the sword.

  “Care to try it?” asked Ben.

  Milo shook his head. “I’d be liable to chop my foot off if I handled such a sharp blade. You found it in an abandoned lair of the Purple, did you say?”

  Ben shrugged. “We think so. There wasn’t much left in the place to identify the owners. There were some writings, though, the stuff Towaal mentioned back at the Hangman’s Noose. It seemed like it could have been the Purple’s. Did the Librarian tell you anything about the place, an abandoned outpost in the Wilds?”

  Milo shook his head. “If you have time this evening, I’d love to hear more about what you found. Maybe I’ll recognize something.”

  “Milo!” interrupted Towaal. She was stalking across the deck, the only one of the companions who hadn’t selected a weapon from the pile. She didn’t need one. “Show me what you can do.”

  Milo’s gaze dipped to the trident he was holding.

  “Not with that,” grumbled Towaal. “With your will.”

  Milo blushed. “I can’t really do much with that either. Certainly not combat. The little bit of light I made at the inn is the extent of it.”

  “Surely, you can do more than that,” challenged Towaal. “The Librarian was the most powerful mage I’ve ever encountered. He must have taught you something you can use. Come. We’ll go behind the galley where the sailors can’t see us.”

  The pair vanished around the corner, Towaal practically dragging the timid young man.

  “He’s not good at much, is he?” asked Amelie, looping an arm under Ben’s.

  He paused before answering, “He was an apprentice to the last living member of the Purple in Alcott. He somehow made it out of Northport in the heat of the battle with the demons, and he survived Rettor and the council in Irrefort. No one is that lucky.”

  * * *

  Ben tossed the skin of a bright green fruit into the wake of the merchant sloop and watched it disappear under the churning dark waters. It was the same fruit he’d tried for the first time in the City so long ago. It seemed like a different life then, like he was a different person.

  The moonlight sparkled across the choppy water, nature’s own fireworks show. Ben tilted the mug in his hands and looked into it. The moonlight didn’t reach the bottom of the cup, giving the liquid a sinister aspect.

  Behind them, the darkness in the cup was mirrored by a wall of black that was slowly swallowing the stars. A summer storm was quickly gaining on their vessel. Ben couldn’t help but think it was a metaphor for the last several months. The battle with the demons in Northport, the flight from Eldred. It seemed no matter what they did, the darkness was always behind them, always threatening to catch up.

  He sighed and tried to relax. According to the sailors, they were in for a rough night, but now, the sea was calm and peaceful.

  Beside him, Amelie sipped her mug and pulled a face.

  “You’re certain we need to drink this?” she asked, lips puckered at the sour liquid.

  “The sailors say we do,” replied Ben.

  He took a sip from his mug and winced at the burn. Lime and grog wasn’t much of a drink, but apparently, it kept away a certain kind of sickness that sailors were prone to. Something to do with their diet while at sea. He’d doubted them at first, but night after night, they faithfully put down a mug of the foul-tasting concoction.

  “The cook told me it gets better after the first one,” offered Ben.

  Amelie snorted. “That’s because he gets drunk after the first one.”

  She tilted up her mug and gulped it down, evidently deciding that quick and painful was better than slow and painful. She shivered, coughed, and set the mug down on the weather-beaten planks of the deck.

/>   Ben grimaced and followed her lead, quaffing the grog and trying to ignore the sting in his eyes and the burn in his throat.

  Amelie laid her head on his shoulder and scooted closer to him.

  “Just three more days until we’ll make land,” she said.

  “I’m ready,” remarked Ben. “I feel like this boat is getting smaller every day. There’s nowhere to stretch out and nowhere to be alone. In the crew quarters, there is always someone. The watch is always on deck. Even in the cargo hold, they’ve bunked the ship’s boys to make room for us.”

  “And if you had somewhere to be all alone, would you want to be?” asked Amelie, looking up at him. Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

  Ben grinned down at her. “Well, maybe not completely alone.”

  He bent to meet her lips.

  “Three more days,” she mumbled a long time later, face buried in his neck. “Just three more days, then we can be alone.”

  * * *

  The town of Indo sat peacefully in the late afternoon sun. Steep, verdant green hills spread out behind it. The town snuggled below on a wide stretch of sandy beach. A roughly constructed stone pier jutted from land into the calm waters of the South Sea.

  Ben shook and squeezed whis hands, trying to lose an incessant tingling sensation.

  Amelie, standing beside him, gripped her hands together too. “It feels like I’ve been sitting on my hands and feet for hours,” she complained.

  “Your hands have fallen asleep. That is what we called it in Farview,” said Ben.

  Amelie’s eyebrows knitted. “Because it happens when you fall asleep?”

  Ben shrugged.

  “I suppose it’s a minor inconvenience, and it should be gone within a few days,” continued Amelie. “At least, that’s what Towaal claimed. If it works, it will be worth it.”

  “Every day, every bell, every heartbeat we can steal an extra step on Eldred is worth gold,” Ben agreed. “It’s worth it.”

  He glanced at the sky above them, clear blue with a few puffy white clouds in the distance, leftovers from the storm the previous night. He couldn’t see it, but somehow, one hundred paces above them, Lady Towaal was altering the spectrum of light that reflected off their ship and the water. She assured them that to anyone far-seeing from above her barrier, it would appear they were just a stretch of empty sea.

  They hoped the light shield and the subtle alteration of their blood chemistry that Towaal had conducted during the storm would foul Eldred’s attempts to track them. It should work, in theory, but Towaal had never done it herself.

  Three weeks prior, when they’d used the thought meld to contact Jasper, he’d given Towaal advice on how to avoid detection. He’d been hiding from the Sanctuary for centuries and had developed a full bag of tricks to stay hidden. By altering their blood, Eldred wouldn’t be able to track them using any samples she’d collected in Hamruhg. Shifting the spectrum of light above them would prevent her from using far-seeing to locate them on the open sea.

  The problem had been that when they first spoke to Jasper, Eldred already knew their course. Even a novice hunter would be able to extrapolate from it. They’d been headed directly for the port of Shamiil, the largest port in Ooswam. It was the closest major port to Hamruhg and provided the best roads and most direct route to Qooten. It was a natural choice. Almost all travelers to the South Continent berthed there.

  Three days out from Shamiil, the storm had brought opportunity. As soon as Towaal saw the thunderclouds bearing down on them, she’d prepared to shift their blood. When it hit, the powerful wind had blown them nearly fifty leagues away. The black clouds and sheeting rain would have obscured any of Eldred’s attempts at far-seeing. When the rain stopped and the clouds rolled away, their blood had been chemically altered, and the light shield was in place.

  Ben looked to the mage and saw her with her eyes closed, rocking gently on the bridge of the ship, head bobbing with the motion of the vessel. She’d gone a day and a half now with no sleep, remaining vigilant to hold the light shield. Ben hoped she could make it just a few more bells. If she fell asleep, the shield would falter. If Eldred happened to be scanning the area they were in, the dark mage would be back on their trail.

  “She’ll make it,” assured Amelie.

  “She looks asleep right now,” grumbled Ben.

  Amelie grinned. “Have you met a more strong-willed person than Towaal?”

  Rhys and Corinne crossed the deck to join them, the rogue holding a hand above his eyes and studying the town of Indo.

  “What’s that on the hills?” he asked.

  “Grapes,” responded Corinne. “Can’t you tell?”

  Rhys grimaced. “I guess my eyesight is fading in my old age.”

  Ben frowned. His friend hadn’t lost his dark humor after Northport, but the wings of white that now graced his temples spoke of a deeper cost.

  Every morning, Rhys would work through the sequences of the Ohms, stretching and twisting. His unspoken concern was clear. He wasn’t as limber as he used to be.

  Each evening, the rogue spent half a bell going through the sword forms with Ben. On the rocking ship, they didn’t spar, but Ben knew his friend had lost some of his quickness. Ben guessed that if they did spar, he’d be half a step faster than Rhys. Despite that, he still wouldn’t want to face the rogue in a real fight. The man had centuries, probably millennia, of experience, and a deep well of animal cunning. Until the day he died, Ben was certain Rhys would remain deadly.

  “Grapes,” asked Ben, shaking himself out of his thoughts. “For wine making like they do north of the City?”

  His companions shrugged. Rhys, who’d been to the South Continent, told them earlier he’d merely passed through Shamiil on his way to Qooten. Much of Ooswam was as foreign to him as it was to Ben.

  “Saala would know,” remarked Amelie.

  Ben nodded. It would have been good to have the blademaster with them on this journey, but they hadn’t seen the man since before they fled the City.

  “What do you think he’s up to?” wondered Ben.

  “Last I heard,” answered Rhys, “he’d left the City for Whitehall, trying to find you two.”

  They cut the conversation short as Milo approached. Without discussing it, they all acknowledged there was something strange about the former librarian’s apprentice. The timid young man was too quiet, thought Ben. When he’d brought it up to Amelie, she’d laughed at him. Worrying a librarian was too quiet sounded silly, he knew, but it was true. The boy never spoke, and he padded about the ship as silent as a cat.

  “If he was here,” claimed Rhys, “right about now, he’d be telling us to get packed.”

  Ben smiled and looked to Indo. A bell, maybe a bell and a half, and they’d drop anchor. Their sloop had too much draft to pull closer, but the captain promised that in the calm waters off the South Continent, it’d be an easy row to the pier. Some of the crew would take them in one of the small boats they kept for fishing and shore exploration.

  “Sounds like good advice,” responded Corinne. “Come on, Amelie. Let’s go pack up our cabin. Rhys, you want to get Towaal’s gear? I don’t think the mage will be moving until they drop the anchor. Every extra moment she maintains cover is longer that Eldred can’t find us.”

  * * *

  The boat bumped against the stones of the pier, and Ben leapt across the narrow gap of water. He hauled hard on the hemp hawser he was carrying and looped it around a thick iron bollard. His companions scrambled after him.

  Ben’s knot wasn’t up to sailing standards, but the water was calm, and the boat barely moved with the gentle surf. The sailors told them that the waters off the South Continent were usually calm until a storm rolled in from the sea with lashing rain and driving wind.

  Rhys was the last off the boat. When the rogue sat foot on the pier, Ben untied the line and cast it to the sailors. They waved a quick goodbye, and oars dipped into the water, propelling them back to the merchant vessel.


  The captain had been happy to drop them at Indo when he felt the heft and clink of gold in the purse Towaal offered, but his cargo was for Shamiil. For a sailing man, time was money. He was eager to get going.

  Watching the merchant vessel, Towaal stood at the end of the rocky pier. She was anchoring the light shield. By doing so, she thought she would be able to extend it two or three leagues away from the pier. It would be less effective without constant supervision, but since she wasn’t having to move it along with the vessel, she could set it in place and leave it.

  If Eldred happened to be watching when the sloop suddenly appeared from under the shield, she’d certainly suspect what happened. The odds were in their favor that she wouldn’t be watching that small section of the sea, though, and if even she was, they hoped they’d be away long before she reached Indo. As long as they could leave minimal sign of where they went, they would be relatively safe.

  Ben hitched his pack on his shoulders and gestured to Indo. “Shall we?”

  The ladies led the way down the pier to a collection of stark white stucco houses bordered with black wood trim. It was neat and clean. Everything was in its place. Even the fishing boats pulled up on the beach looked freshly painted and fastidiously organized. The scent of the sea hung over the pier without the stomach-churning smell of rotting fish and offal that was common in other ports they’d been to.

  As they drew closer, Ben saw the people wore loose clothing, similar to what Saala wore. It wasn’t as fine or as colorful as the blademaster’s attire, but the garments made sense in the stifling heat and humidity.

  A trio of short-haired dogs burst out from behind a building and charged, barking to scare off the new arrivals. When the party drew close, the dogs turned tail and ran back behind the building.

  “They must have smelled you, Ben,” jested Rhys. “Enough to make anyone turn tail and flee.”

  Ben rolled his eyes but didn’t respond. It was true. He hadn’t bathed in the three weeks on the ship, but neither had the rogue. It wasn’t just the ladies this time who were looking forward to a hot bath.