“And done well,” said John, putting his thoughts in and surprising Toinette as he went on, “but he does better away from them. We don’t know yet what the swords will do, or how they’ll work. Marcus is most useful in command—assuming you’re not around, of course.”
“Of course,” said Toinette.
Even more than earlier, they didn’t speak of plans very far in the future. That day they’d enchanted the swords; the next day, they’d cast the rites of protection; to know what would come after that, they’d need to talk. Nobody mentioned the talk, nor what would come of it, but they would in time.
* * *
“I’m willing to go. So are most of us, I’d think,” Marcus said, and his glance around the fire didn’t leave very much room for protest. “The thing is, Captain, I’m not sure we wouldn’t be more of a hindrance than a help.”
Naturally it was Marcus raising the issue, Erik thought. He’d have expected no less from the man. He saw too that Marcus’s face was drawn tight and his hands knotted together. TheHawk’s first mate had no love for what he was saying.
“Even with the swords?” Raoul asked. The enchanted blades lay by the side of the fire, not too close and carefully wrapped. Men’s eyes kept darting to them and away as they talked; Raoul’s lingered longer than usual.
“The swords might let you kill,” Erik said, “but you can stillbekilled much easier than I can, or Toinette. There’s little we can do about that here.”
Cathal’s wife, Sophia, had invented a compound thatwouldgive considerable protection to mortals, but it was as yet far too costly to produce in quantities and took months for a bottle. Not having anticipated needing it, Erik hadn’t bothered to ask; none of them had the skill to make it, nor did the island have the needed elements.
“Also,” said Marcus, “there’s fire. That tends to spread. If you have to use it, and you have once already, best that you not have to worry about one of us getting in the way.”
That sobered even Raoul. There were few among the men, likely, who hadn’t seen fire kill, whether from burning arrows in battle or untended hearths in winter. It was a bad death among bad deaths.
Erik stretched his own hands out toward the campfire, felt the warmth distantly, and studied his fingers in the dancing light. He’d a few marks: an English arrow, barbed and ensorcelled both, had pierced the meat of his palm just beneath his thumb; lesser wounds from fighting the elk, though mostly healed, were still red and raised. “As a matter of tactics,” he added, “ifthe force behind this all can think, it might not do badly to split its attention. It may send its lesser troops after you. With fire and magic—with plain steel, for creatures more akin to the plants than the elk—you might hold them off well enough. And I’d be saving my strength for the greater foes.”
“You?” asked John, looking from Erik to Toinette with narrowed eyes. “I’d have thought you wanted the captain along.”
“I did this to you,” Erik said with a shrug. He looked straight across the fire at them all, not letting emotion enter his voice. “All of you. I couldn’t in good conscience askanyoneelse to come with me. We don’t know what’s out there—how strong it is, or what it can do.”
“But we’ve seen some of it,” Toinette said, “and what wedoknow is we’re the ones best equipped to fight it. Think like a tactician, man, not a monk.”
He heard in her voice the echo of her less-diplomatic younger self:Don’t be a fool if you can help it. Hearts don’t do anyone any good.
Erik cleared his throat. “Tactically, then, there are three points to weigh as I see it. Will both of us stand more of a chance than one? Likely. But should one of us stay behind to defend? And what if we’re transformed?”
“Bugger,” said John, which seemed to sum things up nicely.
“The Templars’ bones were human,” said Samuel. “There was nothing twisted about them.”
“Theywerehuman,” said Sence. “At the start.”
“True,” said Toinette, her face blank, “but that could go either way too. Our blood might make us more capable of resisting. At the least, we know a bit of how bodies change.”
Erik, who’d thought he would have to make that point, was silent. They all were. Fish cooked untouched on the skewers until it started to blacken and Franz lifted it away from the frames. Nobody made any move to claim it.
Finally Marcus stood up, not to make any great pronouncement but to pace over to the cave entrance and back again. “It’s a gambler’s question, isn’t it? And I say we stake it all, for what good will we gain by holding back? If you fail, we die, and if we die more slowly than otherwise, how much of a blessing will that truly be?”
“And if we succeed,” Erik said, “but don’t come back? Breaking this spell might take blood. I’ve heard of such things. Or we and the being behind this might end as Arthur and Mordred did, killing and being killed at the same time. What, then, for you?”
“You can teach us the spell before you go,” said Samuel.
“And we can crew the ship,” Marcus added, though his face was white and he didn’t look at Toinette. “Our numbers won’t be good, but we can manage. Men have, before.”
“Honestly,” Toinette said, though she had to clear her throat before she spoke, and even then her voice was at first the groan of a rusty hinge, “I’m the least necessary of you lot. You’ve all got strong backs and good heads. Marcus can give as sound an order as I can and can read the sky and the sea just as well.” She smiled. The fire didn’t quite make it a rictus. “I had been thinking, before this, that it’d soon be time for me to leave him in command. If…well, if things go as Erik says, I’ll not even have to fake my death. Saves me a bit of effort, no?”
“Captain,” said Marcus, his eyes shining a little in the firelight, “do shut the hell up.”
Twenty-Nine
The circle of protection around the cabin was, as Erik had said, quite a bit like the warding spells he’d cast around his camp when he’d had few men in strange territory. He strengthened it by mixing in a charm against opposing sorcery and a spell to defend against wild beasts. To his senses, magical and physical alike, the process seemed to go smoothly: power came from the four magicians and settled into a swirling black and gold wall at the circle’s outer perimeter, and though the wall turned invisible when the spell ended, Erik could still feel it there.
