lad’s lack of animosity, his pallid and chilled features betraying a strange impression of acceptance, as if nearly perishing at the whim of the Tower Lord were some form of honour.
“Your lessons are hard,” Alum observed to Vaelin as they ate together at the far end of the table.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And yet still kinder than those I was taught at a far younger age.”
“You were one of the blue-cloaked beasts, were you not? Tell me”—he leaned closer, voice dropping a little—“is it true they kill in order to sate the shades of the dead with blood?”
Vaelin started to laugh, then saw the seriousness on the Moreska’s face. “Is that what you were told?”
“The Empress’s agents tell many stories these days. And often they concern the Hopekiller and his vile brethren.”
Vaelin recalled his last encounter with the woman who had since been named Empress Emeren, the Trust of the Alpiran People. Your apology is as empty as your heart, Northman. And my hatred is undimmed. He remembered the hard gleam of utter sincerity in her eyes as she faced him on the quayside in the Meldenean capital. In that moment the blood-song had made it clear her lust for vengeance was far from over, but its tune failed to reveal that she would one day hold sway over an entire empire.
“No,” he told Alum. “The Sixth Order does not kill to sate the shades of the dead. They fight in service to the Faith and the Realm and, on occasion, have done good in so doing.”
“But you no longer serve them,” Alum said. “Why?”
Vaelin reached for a tankard and sipped some watered-down wine as he pondered his answer. “It’s often said that doubt is the enemy of faith. But I have found the real enemy of faith is truth. I left the Order because I had heard and seen too many truths to stay.”
“So you have no gods? No . . . faith?”
“I’ve yet to be convinced that any god is more than a fable. As for faith, I still have it. In myself, in those I’m privileged to call friends.” He glanced over at Nortah, who sat at the opposite end of the table, head bowed and face blank as he ate. “And in my family, what remains of it.”
Alum’s brow creased in puzzlement, as if the notion of navigating life without recourse to gods was an imponderable notion. He began to voice another question but the words died as the urgent tolling of a bell sounded through the deck boards above.
“Stand to arms!” came the muffled cry of the first mate. “Pirate vessel approaching!”
“Fetch your weapons,” Vaelin told Ellese and Sehmon, rising and hefting his sword.
He found Captain Veiser at the stern, spyglass trained on the northern horizon. The seas were heavy today, painted slate grey by an overcast sky, the waves whipped high by a stiff easterly wind. Vaelin could make out the dim shape of a sail in the swirling haze, but not much more.
“How many ships?” he enquired, coming to the captain’s side.
“Just one, my lord. But she’s about our size and therefore I’d wager she’ll be a sight slower, but she does have the wind in her favour.”
“No chance of outrunning them?”
Veiser shook his head, eye still pressed to the spyglass. “Can’t make out the flag at this distance. If she’s one of the affiliated clan ships, we might be able to buy them off. If not . . .” He trailed off with a meaningful shrug.
“If you can’t see the flag, how do you know she’s a pirate?”
“Three red lines on the mainsail. Lets us know they mean to board us. That might be a good sign, suggests they’re not spoiling for a fight.”
Vaelin looked back at the deck, watching those sailors with bows climb the rigging whilst the first mate and the bosun marshalled the others into two companies, positioned fore and aft. Vaelin gained a quick impression of a marked lack of expertise from the way most of the sailors held the swords and billhooks they had been given. “Has this crew been in battle before?” he asked Veiser.
“Only the handful I sailed with in the war. Must say, my lord, at this juncture I’m sorely glad to have you aboard.”
Vaelin watched the approaching sail grow in size, the darker shadow of the hull beneath resolving into view as the minutes passed. A large black flag flew from her mainmast emblazoned with a white motif showing a shield shot through by