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

still alone here. Hosh had guessed that he would be but it did no harm to be sure. Especially when all those countless folk, corsairs and their slaves alike, must surely be growing so desperately hungry wherever it was they had fled.
    Even if anyone had bothered to plant crops or properly herd the feral goats, this little island would have been hard put to support the modest fleet of corsairs lurking here when Hosh and Corrain had first been captured. Through the year and a half of their imprisonment, the corsair leader’s successes had drawn ever more ships to sail in the wake of his trireme.
    Old, grizzled, blind, the man held every ship master in thrall, apparently infallible as a soothsayer. Hosh grinned in the shadowed kitchen. The old blind bastard hadn’t foreseen this unknown wizard burning his warship to the waterline with sorcerous fire or blasting his chosen pavilion to the bare rock of its foundation with lightning ripped from a cloudless sky. Hosh relished remembering that.
    He reached up for one of the lidded pots standing up on a long shelf. It was sealed with wax so he found a knife and ran its point around the edge of the lid. Not for the first time, he considered taking the blade away with him. But no. If some desperate corsair did come searching for food, Hosh couldn’t fight off a sword with a kitchen knife. Being found with a blade would surely get his throat cut. Unarmed, he could hope to surrender.
    The pot held dark fish flesh preserved with brine and herbs. That would do well enough. Hosh opened the next jar. Some leaves, leathery and pickled. He dipped a cautious finger in the vinegar and touched it to his tongue. Sometimes the islanders spiced their food so fiercely it felt like eating a mouthful of the sticky fire their triremes flung in battle. But this proved mild enough.
    Hosh set the pots on the table and crossed to the waist-high crock in the corner. Recoiling from the reek as he lifted the cover, he didn’t bother looking inside. Mould grew as swiftly as any plant in the rainy season and whatever cloud bread had been left in there was well beyond eating.
    A small box tucked behind the crock caught his eye. He stooped to pick it up and twisted it open.
    Dream smoke. It was a handful of days since Hosh had last found some of the fine-ground herbs which the Aldabreshi scattered on hot charcoal. Breathing in the fumes soothed mental and physical pain through the solace of waking dreams. So Imais had told him, one of the slave cooks to the Reef Eagle ’s master, the galley where he and Corrain had been chained.
    Hosh had tried the smoke once in the depths of utter despair after Corrain and Kusint had escaped. But returning from that temporary surcease had only made his miseries harder to bear. Worse, the acrid fumes had seared his broken nose and inflamed the whole imperfectly healed side of his face, where his cheekbone had been smashed by the pommel of a slaver’s brutal sword.
    He missed Imais. She had saved him the pick of the ship master’s scraps in return for him scrubbing her pots clean. With her knowledge of healing herbs, she had given him leaves to chew and tisanes to drink that had reduced the intermittent swelling and perpetual pain from his injuries.
    It wasn’t her fault the dream smoke hadn’t helped him. Hosh tossed the box back into the corner, the contents scattering across the tile.
    ‘Is that not good to eat?’ A voice sounded behind him, intrigued.
    Hosh whirled around but there was no one to be seen.
    Pale light flared in the dimness. A pallid blue flame dancing on the palm of a man’s outstretched hand.
    The mage chuckled. ‘Do you think that I will kill you?’
    Hosh guessed his face must have given away his shock and dread. But he couldn’t guess what manner of accent that was, rasping deep in the stranger’s throat.
    Though he spoke the Tormalin tongue. Hosh frowned, puzzled.
    ‘You are from the same land as him,’ the mage said confidently. ‘I see it