Born Of Darkness (Book 7) Read Free

enough to carry out the threat. He was a Siderean nobleman and King Aemon was his liege lord.
    Kormak sighed. “I suppose we had best get dressed.”
    ***
    Kormak’s muscles ached. He could not remember when he had last felt this weary, but the sight of the harbour cheered him. The daylight was golden.
    Steep hills surrounded the bay on three sides. Row upon row of white-painted blue-shuttered houses rose to their crests. Atop a flat mountain in the city centre the Palace Imperial loomed. In the daylight, its walls gleamed white and blue. Thousands of panes of glass caught the Holy Sun’s light and reflected them back like mirrors.
    Scores of ocean-going ships lay anchored in the harbour. Hundreds of smaller boats moved between them, shifting crews and goods and officials. In the distance lay the huge galleons of the trans-oceanic treasure fleet. Tribute from Terra Nova, a thousand leagues away across the World Ocean, filled them.
    Kormak clambered down the side-netting into the ship’s boat. Rhiana joined did the same and then Frater Jonas, who had finally emerged from his cabin below decks. The small priest showed no signs of being any the worse for last night’s horrors. He looked like he had slept through them. His face had its usual olive colour. His beard and hair were neatly clipped. His yellow robes looked immaculate. His elder sign glittered gold in the sun’s light.
    “Sir Kormak, I heard what you and Captain Rhiana did and now I am doubly grateful to you,” he said.
    “Think nothing of it,” Kormak said. “We would have gone down with the ship if we hadn’t.”
    “Nonetheless, not many men could have done what you did. Not many ladies either.” The words were ambiguous. Jonas had been an inquisitor once and he must have his suspicions about how Rhiana had guided the ship into harbour.
    Zamara looked uncomfortable, as if the words had been a direct criticism of him. “Let us be off. We have been summoned to the presence of the King-Emperor,” he said. The words rolled off his tongue as if he relished them.
    ***
    In daylight the Wizard’s Isle looked even more like a castle rising out of the sea. Not a trace of beach or natural rock was visible. There were only walls and windows, doors and a single desolate pier, jutting out into the harbour. The small ships did their best to avoid it.
    Ahead of them and to the right, a huge wall ran along a section of the harbour front. Soldiers watched them from towers at either end. Enormous gates led to large slipways that ran right down into the water.
    “The Imperial Shipyards,” said Zamara. “Most of our warships are built there. They are the greatest and most advanced in the world. King Aemon’s father ensured that it was so.” He spoke as if he had some stake in the armament works. Perhaps as a distant cousin of the King, he did.
    Huge warehouses lined the water’s edge near the piers.
    “Impressive town,” said Rhiana.
    Frater Jonas gave a small shrug. “All the more so when you consider that less than a hundred years ago this was just a fishing village and a collection of First Empire ruins. Then the King-Emperor’s great grandfather made this place his capital. “
    Rhiana said, “Port Blood is a great harbour but this makes it look like a village.”
    Frater Jonas nodded and then said, “I would not mention your knowledge of Port Blood too often in this city, milady. There are those here who think the only good citizen of that place is a dead one.”
    “Understood,” Rhiana said.
    Tenements rose up the hillsides around the warehouses. Those were where the labourers dwelled. Most of the wealthy lived in the palaces and mansions that surrounded the base of the Palace Rock.
    A gold-trimmed carriage waited for them at the docks. It showed the star and sea dragon emblem of Siderea on its side. A troop of tall cavalrymen in steel breastplates lined up to the front and rear of it. Their captain saluted Frater Jonas, then threw a less respectful