But they weren't quite fast enough. Boats were already being pushed out into the bay, desperate oarsmen pulling hard, arrows fired at them sending the blue of HardShields flaring into the night. The Raven could see it all and slowed as one. Denser landed behind them and let Erienne out of his arms. Hirad, feet ankle-deep in estuary water, threw his sword down into the silt.

'What did they think we were doing, fighting for the good of our health?' he said, and directed a contemptuous gesture at the elves on the right bank.

All the boats were away now and the fugitives who hadn't made it into one were plunging into the water and swimming out after them. Only a couple of bodies could be seen floating with arrows protruding from back or neck.

'They aren't used to fighting like this,' said Ilkar. 'It isn't their way. SpellShield down.'

'No? Well they'd better learn fast if they want their precious thumb and writings back,' said Hirad.

'a.s.suming those who escaped had anything.'

'I don't care about bits of parchment,' said Ilkar. 'I just want one of those we've killed to have the thumb in some inside pocket.'

Hirad nodded. 'Me too, Ilks, me too.'

'What now?' asked Darrick.

The Raven began to walk back towards the Al-Arynaar, searching for Rebraal. Behind them, they could hear the cheers of the enemy as their boats neared their ships and safety.

'Let's see what my brother has to say,' said Ilkar.

Denser felt weary. He followed behind his friends in silence, hand in hand with Erienne. She wanted to know the cause of his anger but he ignored the questioning look on her face. All of them had to hear it together.

They found Rebraal in conversation with Auum, his fierce expression telling them all they needed to know about the results of the fight. They were standing by the bodies of the four strangers who had been running cloaked. Hooked from the swamp before the piranhas could do much damage, they'd been stripped and every st.i.tch of clothing searched and torn to shreds before being scattered on the ground around them. Ilkar asked the question before reporting back to The Raven.

'Parchment and texts only, I'm afraid,' he said. 'The thumb is on one of those ships.'

'How can we be sure?' asked Erienne. 'Any of them could have dropped it anywhere between here and the temple.'

'Pray that's not so,' said Ilkar.

'Put it this way,' said The Unknown. 'The men that escaped are the only clues we've got. Whether they have the thumb or not, we have to catch them.'

'So we need our ship very fast,' said Darrick.

Ilkar nodded. 'And the elves are coming with us. The message will be sent. Every elf with a sword or bow is going to be heading north to Balaia.'

'They're going to invade?' asked Hirad.

'What choice do they have?' Ilkar shrugged. 'They don't want to die. We don't want to die.'

'Right,' said Denser, coming to a decision. 'I'm flying back to Ysundeneth. Starting tonight. Jevin can sail round here, it'll be quicker that way.'

'Done,' said Ilkar. 'But I'm coming with you. You might just need a friendly elf.'

Denser smiled rather sadly and felt the blood pounding in his throat. 'Friendly, eh? Well here's a new test of our friendship, Ilkar. You want to know who it was attacked the temple?

'It was Xetesk.'

Chapter 33.

Jevin had confined his crew to the ship for the last three days and had paid two mages very well to travel with the Calaian Sun back to Balaia, whenever that day came. Like all elves Jevin wasn't given to rushed action but the situation overtaking Ysundeneth was quite without precedent. For eight days he'd watched as first unease, then anxiety and finally panic had engulfed the city.

At the first signs of the plague being anything more than a localised infection, he had sent his crew out to hire the mages and to provision the ship. Water, cured meat, rice, grain, biscuit and root crops were the order, as well as apples and unripe grapefruit and lemons; anything that would keep longer than a few days.

Below deck, his cargo holds had already been converted to accommodate pa.s.sengers. Conditions were cramped and public but neither Protectors nor Xeteskian mages had made any complaint. He wasn't sure exactly how many mages Ilkar expected to make the trip. Over a hundred if he could get them, and Jevin had provisioned for that number.

But as he watched the disaster unfold in Ysundeneth and heard rumours of similar events in other cities, he wondered if Ilkar and The Raven would be back at all. It was unutterably depressing having to watch helplessly as the elves of Calaius's largest port turned from calm private individuals into an angry mob in so short a time. Not altogether surprising, though.

The plague, and such it had to be, had gorged itself on the population, but at random. There were no patterns of contagion, just as there was no cure. It struck at eight members of a family and left a sole survivor with nothing but grief as a companion. No areas were immune, but in the middle of a street one house would be free, while in the next street it would be the opposite: one household annihilated, the rest untouched. The randomness inspired hope and hatred in equal measure but far more destructive to Ysundeneth society was the latter. Survivors in devastated areas had been persecuted as carriers of the plague, some beaten, some even killed for the crime of living.

But elsewhere those free of the disease pooled their eroding strength and demanded help from city authorities quite unable to provide it. Food had been looted and h.o.a.rded, rubbish had started to pile up in the streets. And so, latterly, had corpses. Businesses, inns and shops were closed and boarded up. Markets were empty.

Jevin, like all the skippers at the dockside, had moved to anchor offsh.o.r.e. It wasn't just disease that concerned him; it was the mobs roaming the docks wanting out of the city by the quickest means possible. Already Ysundeneth was empty of every non-elf. They had been the first targets of suspicion but, being primarily merchants and seamen, they had simply hauled anchor and sailed back to Balaia, not that the Northern Continent was exactly stable. But a dozen ships had no cargo and therefore no financial means to sail.

And for elves to leave would be desperate, even futile. The plague was not contagious; it did not spread through the air or in food or water. It was something far deeper than that and it attacked elves at their core. There was no escape.

At a meeting on board the Calaian Sun, the remaining twelve skippers had agreed to monitor the situation and play the waiting game for as long as they could. Eventually, someone would have to sail north and beg for help. Jevin had said that he would go, but only when The Raven reappeared. Until then, the dozen ships would remain anch.o.r.ed in a defensive formation, protect themselves from attack by boat and magic and wait for the inevitable. For if one thing was certain, it was that one day, probably very soon, they themselves would begin to die.

Jevin stood with one of the mages at the port rail, gazing out at Ysundeneth on a perfect sunlit morning with the mist dispersing and the first clouds rolling across the mountains far to the south. From where he stood, the city was a tiny interloper in the ma.s.s of lush verdancy that was the rainforest. But his keen eyes could penetrate the quiet streets and see the catastrophe that had overcome it.

'How many do you think have it now?' he asked the mage.

Vituul was a young elf of average height, his dark blue eyes set in a cla.s.sically angular face. His long black ponytail fell down the back of his light brown leather cloak. He had no family in the plague city and to be offered - with his equally poor friend, Eilaan - a good wage and a way out was a prayer answered. People were increasingly demanding that elven mages produce a miracle cure. The miracle wasn't going to happen.

'It's almost impossible to say,' he said. 'The total is probably in the region of a third of the population, but as people start to die in large numbers so the actual number of live cases, if you'll excuse the term, will decrease also.'

'But there are a hundred thousand people there,' breathed Jevin.

'Not any more,' said Vituul. 'Thirty thousand are already dying.'

'And no word on a cure,' said Jevin.

It hit him then like it hadn't before. He'd managed to ignore the ramifications of what was going on in front of his eyes but Vituul's numbers scared him to the bone. If those numbers were right, in fifty days there'd be less than twelve thousand people left alive in Ysundeneth, and four thousand of them would be dying. And with that level of mortality possibly affecting the whole continent, Jevin wasn't just witnessing a devastating plague, he was witnessing the death of the elven race. He shivered.

'How can there be a cure?' Vituul looked at him matter of factly.

'No one is going to be alive long enough to do the research. And there's no spell that can even slow its course. We don't even have a lead yet.'

'What can we do then?' Jevin felt helpless. 'There must be something. '

Vituul smiled but there was no humour in his face. 'Wait for it to pa.s.s.'

'And if it doesn't?'

'Pray that Yniss forgives whatever sin we've committed, because the way it looks now, we're all going to die, sooner rather than later.'

Jevin leant on the rail. He should be doing something. Every elf should. To his knowledge no one had survived having the plague so far, but then not many were in the final stages yet. Just one survivor could give them some hope. But what could he do? This wasn't a question of tending the sick or supplying the herbologists with raw materials. There was no battle to be won. Not yet. Elf catches plague; elf dies.

Jevin's own family lived deep in the rainforest and he preferred not to think about them. It kept his hopes alive.

'So why have none of the crews gone down yet?' asked Jevin. 'Odd, don't you think? Surely that's a lead?'

'It's a point, I suppose. No stranger catches it. No travelling elf catches it. Yet.'

'Surely it means something?'

'We are still Tual's creatures. Perhaps the curse of being away from the forest also carries a blessing. Perhaps your sin isn't as great as ours.'

Jevin had been looking for something less theological. But this mage, at least, had no answers.

'You see what I'm getting at?'

'There is no biological reason why any particular elf catches the plague,' said Vituul with a shrug. 'It must be something else. I don't believe you, I or any of the crew have greater immunity than the poor souls on sh.o.r.e.'

Jevin was considering his reply when his eye was caught by movement on the dockside. There was activity on the approach roads to the east and the odd shout echoed out across the water. The tone was of surprise, even astonishment, but not fear. People were congregating on the dock. Not a mob. Not the hundreds, even thousands, they'd seen a couple of days ago, but a slowly growing crowd.

It continued to grow over the course of most of the morning. Jevin thought at first that it was city folk gathering for a demonstration, but every time he looked up from his duties there were more of them. Just standing there like they were waiting for a ship to dock. Then Jevin realised what he was looking at. These weren't Ysundeneth elves; the city folk's clothes were so much brighter than the greens and browns he could see.

Around midday he rejoined Vituul, who had barely left the rail all morning. Despite his life taking him from the land of his birth and his G.o.ds, Jevin prided himself on having enough of the Calaian elf in him still to understand his people. But not this. Left and right, the rails of other ships were crowded with crew and it seemed a quiet had descended across the city and the sea.

'They are who I think they are, aren't they?' he asked.

Vituul nodded. 'TaiGethen,' he said, pointing vaguely, but his voice was edged with excitement. 'Al-Arynaar. And ClawBound. I see the panthers. I see them.'

It was something most elves had never expected to see in the forest, let alone on the dockside at Ysundeneth.

'What are they doing?' Jevin implored anyone who might hear and answer him.

These people never, but never, came out of the rainforest. Never stepped on the worked stone of the streets. They thought them evil. Necessary but evil. A sin Yniss allowed because civilisation had to flourish. To them a city was an alien landscape. An imbalance in the harmony of the forest, its air, magic and denizens. Yet here they were, gathered and waiting, and quite suddenly, the disaster that faced the elves became so much more real.

'What do they want?' This time the question was directed at Vituul alone.

'Whatever it is, it isn't good.'

'We should launch a boat,' said Jevin. 'Ask them.'

But answers came far more quickly than that. Up in the crow's-nest, the lookout shouted and pointed east. Two dots were flying in from the forest, low and erratic. They swept over the docks, stopped momentarily and spiralled into the sky again, before moving out to sea and the ships moored there.

Jevin followed them, half knowing who it was, seeing them change direction twice before heading straight for the Calaian Sun. One of them dipped very low, called out, rose and then fell into the water a hundred yards from the ship. The other didn't pause but flew over the deck, landed and collapsed in a flurry of limbs. When Jevin reached him, Ilkar had managed to turn onto his back and was gasping in air.

'Ilkar?'

'Jevin,' Ilkar gasped. 'Better . . . better get a boat over the side. Don't think Denser can float for too long.'

The order was given. 'Where have you come from?'

'Shorth Estuary. Flew all night.' He struggled to a sitting position. 'Explanations later.'

He stopped to gasp in more air. His hair was plastered to his skull and his face was drawn and exhausted.

'Xeteskians have desecrated Aryndeneth. They've destroyed the harmony. But we can stop them. Tell all the ships. They've got to take the elves to Balaia. A stranger is holding part of Yniss's statue. And we've got to get it back before the plague takes us all.'

'And me?'

'You're coming with us. Got some friends to pick up at the Shorth.'

Jevin nodded. Answers were before him and his desire to help was satisfied.

'Bosun!' he called. 'Signal the ships. I need to see the skippers and it has to be now.' Turning back to Ilkar, he grasped the elf's shoulder. 'Let's get your wet colleague on board safely, then you can both tell me over a goblet of wine just exactly what is going on.'

The trio of Xeteskian vessels was under full sail, moving well across a swell of six to eight feet. The wind was strong and constant beneath thin rolling cloud and the acres of canvas billowed dirty grey.

Captain Yron sat beneath the mainmast of the lead vessel on some netted crates, turning the fragment of the statue's thumb over and over. No one had dared come near him all morning. He must have looked a frightening sight with his hands and face covered in balms and bandages, but it wasn't that which kept them away.

Throughout the night he had prowled the deck, unable to sleep despite his fatigue. Healing spells had been cast on him as he moved and the bandages were only there because Erys had made him stop for long enough. After the eighth or tenth man had congratulated him on the success of the mission he had exploded with vehemence enough to wake the slumbering on all three half-empty ships. It needed saying. As if any bounty could justify this loss, let alone the pathetic collection of parchments and texts Erys had brought out.

One hundred and fifty men had journeyed into the Calaian rainforest, wreathed in mirror illusions of enormous complexity to obscure their progress from TaiGethen and ClawBound. And until they had reached the forward camp, it had worked. Now only two of those one hundred and fifty were alive to tell the tale and a further forty had perished in the defence of the estuary.

Success? He had failed. Xetesk could go hang. The Circle Seven would greet his return with broad smiles and grasping hands. He had no doubt Erys's a.s.sessment of the importance of the doc.u.ments he had retrieved was accurate.

No. It was Ben-Foran. Ben, who had trusted him so completely and believed in him utterly. And Ben who lay dead because right at the last, he, Yron, had believed they were safe and had failed to take into account how fast a panther could run.

Yron had never had a son, a family. He had never married. He was the cla.s.sic soldier, too engrossed in his career to realise the swift pa.s.sage of years. But in Ben he had seen a way to release the regret and frustration he felt. To take the boy and make him the man Yron knew he could be. To give himself something of which he could be truly proud.

But he had failed. And the boy who could have rivalled the Lysternan, Darrick, as Balaia's most talented soldier . . . all that potential would remain tragically unfulfilled. The only thing that could possibly give meaning to his death was the stolen writings. Otherwise it would all have been a waste. And Yron hated waste.

The netting shifted to his right and he looked across. Erys had sat down next to him. He sat in silence, the only companion Yron would tolerate, the only one who could possibly understand. And he waited for Yron to speak, if he wished. After a time that was exactly what Yron wished.

'It's not over, Erys. Not by a long way.'

'The guilt will pa.s.s,' said Erys.