Deborah Hale by The Destined Queen Page A

westernhorizon, it was still possible to make out what was happening to the Hanish ships. Galleys and cutters alike, they floundered as if each were caught in its own private squall. The wind blew no harder than it had all day, yet some invisible tempest churned up giant breakers that tossed the huge, heavy-laden vessels about like wood chips.
    Only the ship that had been chasing the Phantom seemed not to be ensnared…yet. Seeing the rest of the fleet in trouble must have made its crew veer away so suddenly. Now they furled sails and slowed.
    “I have heard of the warding waters.” Gull shook his head in wonder. “But never thought to see them at work with my own eyes.” He pointed toward the cutter. “The Han cannot decide whether to go to the aid of the others, or hang back so they will not be caught in whatever this is.”
    Whatever this is. Those words set a chill gnawing deep in Rath’s bones—his old wariness of magic. During his travels with Maura that fear had eased as he’d come to understand how she channeled the special power of living things for modest feats of healing and defense. But he’d never seen Maura unleash anything like this. Rath hoped he never would.
    Gull appeared to have no such reservations. “The whole Ore Fleet! And to think my little Phantom lured them into it. Why this will be talked and sung of on the Dusk Coast for a hundred years!”
    Rath did not point out that last night’s storm had likely played a part, as well. No harm in letting Gull savor his triumph. If the Han had not been so distracted by the Umbrian vessel sailing in their midst, they might have noticed the first of their own ships running into trouble while they still had time to avoid it themselves. The little madfern missiles might have played a part, too.
    One by one the sea began to swallow the floundering Hanish vessels. What would the loss of the Ore Fleet mean for the Han and for Umbria? Rath wondered. A growing shortage of weapons for the garrisons, perhaps? A whisper of crippling uncertainty among the Han that rust was beginning to erode the iron grip in which they had long held his country?
    “What will we do now?” he asked Gull.
    The captain chuckled and took the tiller from Rath. “Quit gloating, I reckon, and head for harbor before whatever’s left of the Ore Fleet tries to come after us.”
    He called out to his crew, “Trim those sails one last time, lads, then we’ll sleep and feast tonight in Margyle!”
    The crew seemed to fancy that idea, for they scrambled to obey Gull’s orders. Soon the Phantom sailed west in a wide arc that kept plenty of distance between it and the ravenous stretch of water that had engulfed the Ore Fleet.
    Rath headed off to find Maura. She might need his help tending those wounded men. He was also anxious to tell her what he had just witnessed and what he thought it might mean.
    He found her holding a mug to the lips of the man who’d been struck down by his fallen comrade. She had strapped his right arm close to his body with long strips of linen and bound his left leg to what looked like the handle of a mop.
    She glanced up when she heard Rath on the ladder, smiling when she saw it was him. “I hope all that cheering means we are out of danger at last.”
    Rath nodded as he sank down beside her. “Gull says we’ll sleep and feast on Margyle tonight.”
    He did not tell her about their close brush with the Hanish cutter. He would save that for later, when they had firm, dry ground beneath their feet and deadly warding waters between them and any Han who might wish them harm.
    “You should have seen what happened to the Ore Fleet.” He began to describe it. “For once, they met a force even more merciless than themselves, rot them!”
    The man with the arrow in his shoulder stirred and moaned, though his eyes did not open.
    Maura cast an anxious glance his way. “I hope the poor fellow will not waken until we’ve reached Margyle. They musthave more skilled