Stormwarden Read Free Page A

touched her shoulder. Reluctantly she looked up.
    "Taen, listen carefully. Go on deck and loose the feather on the wind."
    The girl nodded. "On the wind," she repeated, and started at the sudden tramp of feet beyond the door. Fast as a rat, she scuttled into the shadow of the chart table. The Constable snored on above her head, oblivious.
    Men entered; the captain and both sorcerers. Blood-streaked hands seized Anskiere and hauled him upright, leaving Taen with a view of his feet.
    "Where is it?" The red sorcerer's voice was shrill. Anskiere's reply held arctic calm. "Be specific, Hearvia." Somebody slapped him.
    The black sorcerer advanced. His robe left smears on the deck. "You have a stormfalcon among your collection, yes? It was not in the satchel."
    "You'll not find her."
    "Won't we?" The black sorcerer laughed. Taen shivered with gooseflesh at the sound, and gripped the feather tightly against her chest.
    "Search him."
    Cloth tore and Anskiere staggered. Taen cowered against the Constable's boots as the sorcerers ripped Anskiere's cloak and robe to rags. Near the table's edge, mangled wool fell to the deck, marked across with bloody fingerprints.
    "It isn't on him," said the captain anxiously. "What shall I tell the crew?"
    The red sorcerer whirled crossly. "Tell them nothing, fool!" Taen heard a squeal Of hinges as he yanked open the chart room door. "Confine the Stormwarden under guard, and keep him from the boy."
    The stamp of feet dwindled down the passage, underscored by the glassy clink of Anskiere's fetters. Taen shivered with the aftermath of terror, and against her, the Constable twitched like a dog in his sleep. The smell of sweat and spilled wine, and the impact of all she had witnessed, suddenly wrung Taen with dizziness. She left the shelter of the table and bolted through the open door. With the feather clamped in whitened fingers, she turned starboard, clumsily dragging her twisted foot up the companionway which led to the quarterdeck.
    A sailor lounged topside, one elbow hooked over the binnacle. Taen saw his silhouette against the spoked curve of the wheel, and dodged just as the sailor spotted her.
    "You!" He dove and missed. His knuckles barked against hatchboards. Taen skinned past and ran for the taffrail.
    "Fires!" the sailor cursed. At her heels Taen heard a scuffle of movement as he untangled himself from the binnacle.
    Torches moved amidships. At the edge of her vision, Taen saw the black outline of a foot lancer's helm above the companionway stair. Driven and desperate, she flung herself upward against the beaded wood of the rail. Hard hands caught her, yanked her back. She flailed wildly, balance lost, and the sea breeze snatched the feather from her fingers. It skimmed upward out of reach.
    Taen felt herself shaken till her teeth rattled. Through blurred eyes she watched Anskiere's feather whirl away on the wind. It shimmered, exploded with a snap into a tawny falcon marked with black. Violet and blue against the stars, a heavy triple halo of light circled its outstretched wings. Taen smelled lightning on the air. The man above her swore, and below, a crowd began to gather in the ship's waist.
    "Stormfalcon!" a sailor cried. His companions shouted maledictions, threaded through with Anskiere's name, as the bird overhead took flight. Wind gusted, screaming, through the rigging. Half quenched by spray blown off the reef, the torches streamed ragged tails of smoke.
    Smothered by the cloth of her captor's sleeve, Taen heard someone yell for a bow. But the falcon vanished into the night long before one could be brought. The sergeant rounded angrily on the girl held pinioned by the deckhand.
    "Is that the brat the boy came looking for? I'll whip the blazes out of her. She's caused us a skinful of trouble!"
    But the voice of the black sorcerer cut like a whip through the confusion. "Leave the child be."
    Startled stillness fell; the wind had died, leaving the mournful rush of the swells etched