A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,246

couldn’t tell what rank; I am unfamiliar with such customs anyway, and he might simply have liked crisp blue and white clothing. He appeared to be in some kind of distress: his expression was strained, and his clenched fists shook. He was staring out at the bay, and the Raelechs were staring at him; none of them saw us approaching. I turned my head to follow their gaze and saw that the waters were behaving strangely. They were receding from the shore quite rapidly. I pointed it out to Ponder and shouted through the wind, “Look at the bay! That’s not normal, is it?”

He stared. “No. That’s unnatural. Where is it going—oh! He must be a tidal mariner!”

“Why? What do you—oh, sweet kraken tits.” Ponder’s eyes were better than mine, and I was a bit slow in discerning that the waters were receding only to form a wave able to crush the entire city underneath its weight, dumping a large portion of the bay right over the walls and obliterating the entire occupying force of Eculans in a matter of seconds. It crashed through the wall facing the sea, and eventually the water returned there, taking the bodies of the Eculans and the Brynts with it.

My mouth ran dry with fear despite the fact that we were looking down upon so much water.

Ponder spun us around and held us aloft in a juddering plume of air. “Think of the power that would require!” he said, ignoring that he was already doing what only a handful of people could do with their kenning.

I thought of my brother, already aged near to death, who had died transporting us to this continent. The tidal mariner had not been nearly so old, but the power he must have summoned to do that—to wipe out an entire city with a single wave, for that is what he just did—would surely bring him near to death if not kill him outright.

Tearing my gaze away from the city to peer at the tower, I saw that there were only two figures on top of it now: the Raelechs, one of them on her knees. Where was the Brynt man? Had he fallen off the tower? As I watched, the other Raelech moved to comfort the one on her knees. Had she loved the Brynt man?

“Ponder! Can you take us to the tower?” I called.

He glanced over at me briefly and then returned his gaze to the ruined city, perhaps determined to fix the sight in his mind. But he nodded, and moments later the wind shifted and carried us toward the tower.

“Do you speak Raelech?” I asked Ponder.

“No.”

“All right. I will try to summarize as needed.”

“If that tidal mariner is still alive, I’ll be surprised,” Ponder said as we began our descent. “That kenning probably finished him.”

Both of the Raelech women were on their feet now, looking at Göfyrd, but as we neared, one of them spotted us and pointed. I waved to let them know we were friendly, and they braced themselves as the first gusts of Ponder’s wind reached them. Then they flattened themselves to the top of the tower to reduce their profiles and avoid being blown over the side.

They rose and slapped dirt off their clothes once we landed, and I saw by their Jereh bands that one of them was a stonecutter and the other was one of the Triune’s couriers. Meara and Tuala were their names. Meara looked as if she’d been crying recently. The Brynt man’s uniform lay crumpled and drenched between us, but there was no sign of his body.

“I’m Gondel Vedd, and this is Ponder Tann,” I said in the Raelech tongue. “We serve Mistral Kira of Kauria, here to witness and report, and we have witnessed something truly remarkable. Where is the tidal mariner?”

My question caused the stonecutter to sob openly. She covered her eyes with her hands and turned away.

“He’s dead,” Tuala replied, gesturing at the uniform. “He just melted. Dissolved—whatever. The kenning drank him up, liquefied even his bones. And it was so strange because it was like he wanted to die.”

“Who was he?”

“His name was Culland du Raffert.” She waggled a small leather journal in her hand. “He gave me this, said it was the last of him.”

“May I take a look at it? For scholarly purposes.”

“You can read Brynt?”

“I am fluent in all the languages, as you are.”

“Why did the mistral send you up here with a tempest?” she asked, but handed the