Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

Ranier Mazzo shoved her with an elbow. Galena staggered to one side and fell against Lanzo, who swore at her clumsiness. Galena muttered an apology and sprinted to regain her spot next to Ranier.

“Bastard,” she hissed.

“Handsome bastard.” His dark eyes narrowed with laughter.

She struck back the only way she knew. “That’s not what my brother said.”

Ranier’s reaction was swift. He clamped onto her wrist and dug his fingers into the tendons. Galena yelped and swung out wildly with her fists. He dodged one blow; she aimed another at his throat, but a broad hand closed over her shoulder and yanked her away.

It was Spenglar, angrier than she had ever seen him, his lips pale against his seamed brown face. “You idiot,” he breathed harshly. “Stop brawling. We have an enemy to fight.”

“But he—”

“No excuses. You keep your mind on soldiering, girl. Now move. Fast. Both of you.”

Ranier had already taken off. Galena suppressed the urge to argue and raced after him. It would do no good. Spenglar was right. Soldiers who didn’t pay attention got killed. All the veterans told her that. She knew it herself just from living in a garrison city. Oh, but Ranier had such a bitter, sharp tongue. Her brother Aris had said the same thing, right before he left Osterling.

Wing and file marched in through the next market square (now deserted), down a flight of shallow steps, and into the wide empty space before the harbor towers. Soldiers were already forming into lines. Galena spotted her father, the senior officer for the morning sentry watch, conferring with Commander Adler of the city garrison and Commander Zinsar from the king’s fort. Two riders stood nearby, next to their horses.

If it were pirates, those riders would be gone. Her heart beat faster as she ran through all the possible reasons why they remained, and why Commander Adler was glaring at Commander Zinsar.

“… no evidence of attack…”

“… twenty ships sighted last week…”

“… duty is to defend the city…”

Adler’s face went stiff. She snapped out a string of curses that made even Galena’s father wince. Zinsar drew his lips back in a predatory smile. Then he said something too soft for Galena to hear, but Adler and Lucas Alighero both went still and blank. The next moment Adler was screaming for the archers to mount the walls. Lucas Alighero spoke a word to the two couriers. Within a moment they had mounted their horses and were galloping through the open lane toward the eastern and western gates—taking word to Leniz, Kostanzien, Ostia, and Klee, and from there to all points north and west along the coast.

Two entire wings were marching out the northern gates to the highway. Marelda and a squad of archers mounted ladders. They spread out along the arcs and catwalks over the harbor entrance, to the towers guarding each side, and further to the perimeter walls that encircled the city. That wasn’t all. A team of large draft horses followed their handlers into place. They were going to close the harbor gates, Galena realized with a thrill of excitement. It was serious. Not like two years ago, when pirates skimmed past the outer shoals, laughing at the soldiers on watch. No, this was more like the real pirate invasions of fifty years ago. Today, for the first time, she would be a part of those famous legends.

More jabbering between Adler and Zinsar. Then Adler made a rude gesture with both hands. Zinsar grinned again, but in triumph. So he’d won the argument.

Confirmation followed. Orders rippled from the wing commanders to the patrol captains, down to the file leaders and then the soldiers themselves.

“Formation, face left and north,” Falco barked.

His two file leaders repeated the orders as they swung around. Galena stamped in time with her file mates. She thought she heard Ranier mutter an insult but she ignored him. Ready, yes, and forward march, companions. Left and right and left. The pattern drummed into her bones since she was twelve and could copy her brother Aris, newly admitted into the wing under Captain Spenglar. As the horses swung into their harnesses, and the massive iron harbor gates groaned along the tracks, Galena marched out the southwest gates and onto the highway.

Dark blue-black smudges blurred the entire southern quadrant. Closer to shore, rain fell in sheets, illuminated by bursts of lightning. And then Galena saw them—three ships flying straight toward land, their sails filled to bursting. Her skin prickled, as though touched by the storm’s electricity.

“Where are we going?” she murmured to Lanzo. “Where are they going?”

“Western sands.”

She wanted to ask if he meant the ships or their wing, but Spenglar was barking and snapping like a wild dog. The winds blew harder. She had to shield her eyes from the whirling sand. Now they were off the hard-packed dirt and gravel highway and onto the flat lands between the lower hills and the sea. Two patrols split off and took up positions along the highway. Falco and the other two patrol leaders shouted for theirs to keep going, damn it, or the Károvín would be landing in the middle.

Károvín. But that was impossible.

Galena stopped in surprise, her gaze yanked outward to sea. The storm had leapt closer to shore, driving the ships before it. Then she hurried to catch up with her file. But she had not missed that hideous rending noise she knew too well. It took a master navigator to clear the shoals off Osterling’s shores, and these ships …

Like a bubble burst, the storm vanished. The clouds faded into gray wisps, and the towering waves rolled outward until their force died away. Beneath the roar of the surf, Galena heard three strange tones, like midnight bells.

“March, you idiots!” Falco shouted. “Faster, keep time, turn about. Halt!”

From months and years of practice, the two files in his patrol swung about as one.

“Weapons ready!”