Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) by Juliet E. McKenna Read Free Book Online Page A

superstition condemned any mageborn to being skinned alive, so Hosh had heard. Only their spilled blood could wash away their taint.
    So Halferan must be safe at last and every other village along the Caladhrian coast who had suffered the corsairs’ raids this past handful of years.
    Sweet as that consolation might be, Hosh couldn’t set aside his bitter self-castigation. If only he’d kept his wits about him, when Corrain had provoked such chaos on that Archipelagan trading beach, starting a brawl along with that Forest man, Kusint. If he’d only been that bit quicker on his feet, maybe Hosh could have reached home too.
    Then he’d be celebrating the turn of this season with his beloved mother. It would be the two of them as it had been for so long but there’d be roast pork and foaming ale on their humble table at For-Autumn’s sunset. The turn of each season had its special meal. Sweetcakes and flower cordial with the For-Spring sunrise. Bread fresh from the oven and creamy cheese at For-Summer’s noon. Though Hosh had never been too keen on salt beef and pickles at midnight, he always welcomed the token of Maewelin’s pledge to see prudent households through For-Winter’s hunger.
    If today really was the turn of the season, Hosh guessed his mother would be praying to the Winter Hag, even if For-Autumn was rightly sacred to Dastennin— and that was a good question, wasn’t it? What did the god of sea and storms make of that impossible wave?
    But Maewelin was the goddess of mothers and of widows and Hosh’s father had died so long ago that he barely recalled him.
    His throat ached with the threat of tears. He couldn’t set aside his fears and doubts. His mother would be praying for him only as long as she still lived. If the Halferan barony hadn’t been utterly laid waste by the vile corsairs who’d murdered their lord in the For-Spring of the year before, who had enslaved the few guardsmen who survived that slaughter.
    Hosh gazed desperately at that wave. Had Corrain truly managed to escape and steal a boat, as he had sworn he would? Or had some other twist of fortune brought a wizard here while Corrain and Kusint’s bones lay mingled on the seabed, to be stripped bare by fish and crab claws and washed this way and that by the swell of the waves above? How long did it take for a drowned man’s mortal remains to crumble into sand? To release his shade from the torments of Poldrion’s demons, preying on all those unable to pass through Saedrin’s door?
    His stomach growled. He heaved a heavy sigh, the breath rattling through his broken nose. If he could do nothing about anything else, at least he could do something about his hunger. While there was life, there was always something to thank at least one god or goddess for. That’s what his old mum always said.
    He climbed warily up the steps leading to the terrace surrounding the pavilion. With the swift dusk of the islands deepening, he could hope he wouldn’t be seen. Better yet, he could see the tell-tale glow of magelight that showed him the wizard was safely ensconced in the furthest pavilion over towards the far shore of the thrusting headland. But he needed to be quick, before the impenetrable darkness made foraging impossible without a lamp that could so fatally betray him.
    On this face of the building, the door of slatted wood opened into the kitchen. He crossed the room, careful where he put his feet since the tiled floor was littered with broken pots which the panic-stricken Archipelagan slaves had let fall as they fled.
    The building was a hollow square with a garden at its heart and the jealously guarded well for sweet water. Hosh looked through the shutters. Sufficient daylight lingered to show him a few birds idly pecking at weeds sprouting in the gravelled paths before fluttering up to the shrubs growing ragged for lack of tending. After the islands’ brutal dry season, plants flourished astonishingly once the rains returned.
    So he was