The Fox

by Sherwood Smith

  The boy worked his lips then blasted the commands. The notes were not true, but they were loud, and Evred watched Senelayec’s men react to their signal. No more than quick shufflings to reform ranks, and then they ran in tight formation to the aid of the dragoons, meeting the mob of pirates head on in an enormous clash of weapons, shields, and shouts.

  Senelayec roared a command, the ridings broke into threes and carved their way into the mob, which melted before their onslaught.

  Too long! He had watched too long, and jerked his head to the other side so fast he staggered. Two groups running: pirates. Going back to the boats—

  In the streets silhouettes surged back and forth. Fires blazed, obscuring the battle on the south shore. Furious yells rang up the palisades: someone had smashed the bottoms of the boats! Locals? “Good thinking,” Evred said, realizing he ought to have thought ahead to those boats, as the desperate pirates turned for a last stand.

  Fighting on the fish docks. Fighting on the high road—

  A screeching rabble chased pirates down toward the new houses, flinging torches at them, catching some on fire.

  Evred gazed, desperate, his heartbeat echoing in his ears, the scene changing everywhere he looked. Chaos! No, the battle had broken into running, chasing, turns, stands, surroundings. ..

  "Behind us.” Sindan.

  Evred whirled, his head pounding sickeningly. The intensity of battle had not abated; he scanned the skirmishes— there, holding. There, holding. There, chasing the pirates down to the sea. East falling back—which captains could he send—wait. He didn’t need individual signals!

  “Reinforce eastern flank,” he croaked.

  This time the bugler was ready, notes clear and strong.

  Disengaged captains looked about, blowing their own signals. Four, five ridings swarmed over the rocky hill. The pirates in the center fought with desperation. Many on the edges slipped away, or tried to, but someone was on the watch for that, too, and dragoons harried the stragglers and brought them down.

  To the west and the city now. Those fights seemed to be over. Knots of locals ran from group to group looting bodies, killing wounded. Most of the beached boats were on fire. From the other side of the fishing dock one managed to launch, the oarsmen sparse.

  Out in the sea the big ships rode ghostlike, without any visible reaction.

  A smear hurt Evred’s vision, and he rubbed his eyes with a gloved finger. The smear remained. He looked up, discovered the glow of dawn in the east.

  Somber blue light lifted darkness, forming shadows behind dark-soaked mounds. Women moved from group to group, muttering the Disappearance Spell. Sometimes they exclaimed when a still figure did not vanish: one woman silently brought out a knife and finished off a wounded pirate.

  “The street! To the water, the street!” someone cried in Olaran.

  Evred turned his head. Small fires had joined into a big conflagration: the new buildings along the main street shimmered in a wall of flame.

  Chapter Twelve

  IT was noon when Evred wearily made his way toward the tents. He threw back his head, trying not to breathe in the stink of smoke and drying blood, and staggered to a stop, distracted by a flock of gulls diving, swooping, arrowing out and then back. Is that what the morvende call “the cloud-weaving of gulls”? How do people who have lived underground for three thousand years know anything about birds? he wondered. His eyes burned, hazed with exhaustion, and though twice he’d drunk water brought by Runners, his mouth was parched.

  I never saw Dallo, he thought as he limped toward the tents. And, with a faint return of anger born of humiliation, If he comes at me I’ll kill him.

  Crunch: memory of the sound of a sword striking the cartilage of some unknown man’s neck. Man? Barely his own age, if even that. He heard his mother’s voice, every man is someone’s son, and grimaced.

  Memory brought an intense image of the pleasure he’d had from Dallo, and he did not see the wind-worn stone road as he forced one foot in front of the other. Dallo had given him a good time, had given him a good lesson, and— inadvertently—a good idea. Since the short-lived affair, Evred had used that anonymous gray Rider coat in his pack whenever he wanted the freedom of anonymity. Few Idayagans knew him by sight. When the Marlovans rode in formation people saw the infamous Marlovan riding coats, the weapons, horses, shields, lances, banners, and not individual faces. “Thank you, Dallo.” He laughed softly.

  There was his crimson and gold pennon before a tent. He pulled off his sweaty gloves and threw them down on a rock. The flap opened, and Flash emerged, filthy, smelling of smoke and sweat. “Sponge? Did you say something?”

  “I wish I had a bath,” Evred said.

  “I put in an ensorcelled bucket, since all the Runners are running.” He chuckled hoarsely. “The harbormaster told me to tell you that the bath house down at what remains of Revel Row said they’d hold places for any of our captains, no charge, once they get the place cleaned up.”

  “Maybe later,” Evred said. “For now I’ll make do with the wash bucket.”

  Flash flicked his fingers to his chest and loped back in the direction of the command center, his horsetail swinging.

  The bucket was inside. Full of water, cold. Clean smelling. Evred dipped a cup into it and drank, then shut his eyes as he sorted thought and memory. He’d have to meet with his commanders and discuss the battle. Messages would have to be composed for the Runners to take to the king. Those were just the official ones—the Runners would make their own reports. His father would require specifics on the battle and its aftermath, so he had to order the jumble of images, actions, and reactions.

  Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir had been wild during the battle, always at the head of the First Wing, his ridings shouting out the counts of those they had killed. But his wildness was that of battle, not that of lack of discipline. He’d responded promptly to the bugle signals. And as the morning light strengthened, he had been diligent in reining in his men. The other captains followed his lead, forcing the fight-crazed warriors to expend their bloodlust on firefighting. And after that the familiar, steadying tasks such as seeing to the horses, counting the wounded and dead in each riding (few Marlovans dead, many locals), and on bearing the severely wounded to where the healers set up a station. Others were sent to gather abandoned weapons and pick up spent arrows.

  While some locals were already drunk, running hither and yon with little apparent purpose—everyone talking at once, here looking at fire damage, there parading loot taken off dead pirates—the Marlovans had been orderly enough under the hard eyes of their captains, who also watched Hawkeye, and in turn Hawkeye watched Evred.

  Captain Sindan—still armed and ready for combat— walked silently, a disciplined and tireless shadow at the prince’s left shoulder while Evred forced himself to pace the battle site, west to east, then north to south.

  On his leaving for his tent, the exhausted Hawkeye and Captain Sindan took up station at the new command center, which was a central spot relatively free of smoke or blood where all Runners could see the crimson and gold banner. Those with light wounds already bandaged had been put to sorting the scavenged weapons, while others were sent to make sweeps for stragglers; the wounded were cared for, and the cook tents sent smoke drifting in wavering plumes to the gray-piled sky.

  Order. Or as much as you could have after unnumbered people had been busy killing one another.

  Kill.

  Chunk. Sword into neck—

  The young pirate again. Evred dipped his chain mail into the water, and then laid it aside to be dried and oiled. But what he saw was that face again as his sword half-severed the pirate’s neck.

  A cramp of nausea at the image of those wide brown eyes, the horrible gasp as his sword struck. What if it had been Inda?

  He cut off an exclamation of disgust. Why this needless self-torture? Of course it couldn’t be Inda.

  But what if he was there?

  Impossible.

  Yet
there was that report about him being a pirate. Evred could not believe Inda would ride against his homeland, but then he thought, Why not? We betrayed him. I betrayed him. Evred remembered holding eleven-year-old Inda the night before he vanished, Evred himself just thirteen. Inda had been sick and shivering, shock and misery in his face. I promised justice, promising what I couldn’t grant.

  Damnation. I’m too tired, that must be it. He stripped down to his drawers, unclasped his hair, feeling that welcome instant of release on his scalp, the prickly feeling of his hair falling loose. He rubbed his fingers vigorously over his head, then plunged it into the bucket. Magic buzzed over his skin and teeth and tongue like thousands of insect feet, flicking away the grit and sweat; he yanked up his head, flinging back his hair so it smacked against his back, cold and clean.

  A short while later he was as clean as he could manage, and so he pulled on trousers and a shirt, then stood with his hair dripping, staring at his bedroll with longing. So much to do . . .

  “Evred-Varlaef.”

  The voice was so soft he thought he’d imagined it.

  “Evred-Varlaef.”

  He paused, hands halfway to his shirt-laces, which swung free, tangling in the snake-waves of his hair.

  A shadow crossed before the tent. He reached for a weapon, then yanked the flap open—and found him himself almost nose to nose with a familiar face, pale hair— Vedrid, his brother’s Runner!

  Vedrid, who murdered the last two living assassins of Tanrid Algara-Vayir.

  Evred tried to get his tired mind to act.

  Vedrid cast a glance over his shoulder, then saluted and whispered, “May I enter?”

  They looked at one another, the Runner filthy from hard travel and fighting, armed with sword, knives in each boot as well as at his side, but no weapon in hand; Evred dressed only in trousers and shirt, his feet bare. He held a naked knife in his hand, every line of his body evocative of threat.

  Vedrid’s face was marked with exhaustion under the dirt and smoke grime. His eyes were desperate, his attitude one of pleading, right hand flat against his heart, left empty.

  Evred breathed out, his hand with the knife dropping to his side.

  Vedrid, studying the younger prince’s face, so different from his brother’s, said in a tone of amazement, “You do know.”

  Evred gestured with the knife, a flick that thrust Vedrid’s question aside. “What are you doing here?”

  “Buck—that is, Aldren-Laef Marlo-Vayir—sent me.”

  Buck? Cherry-Stripe’s older brother? Evred pursed his lips. Now it was his turn to be amazed. “Sit down,” he said abruptly.

  Vedrid knelt. Evred looked out in both directions. Runners and warriors moved back and forth, all of them with the frowning focus of those who desperately needed rest. In the distance Captain Sindan spoke to a couple of captains.

  He shut the flap and dropped down onto his camp bed, arms on his knees, the knife hanging loose from his fingers. “When did you arrive? Does anyone know you are here?”

  “Chased you up the coast, arrived here right after you. Then I had to wait to find you alone.”

  “So you were here for the attack?”

  “I joined some of the locals. We set some boats on fire, then ranged the lower streets for looters breaking away from the battle on the hill,” Vedrid said. “There were more than you’d believe. And not all pirates.”

  “Looters.” How his head ached! “Talk,” Evred said, gesturing with the knife.

  Vedrid glanced at the weapon, his hands on his knees. Evred slid the knife back into its sheath and strapped it onto his forearm, listening as Vedrid talked in a quick, low voice; they were both practiced at tent speech.

  As Vedrid told the story of his orders from the Sierlaef, and his ride, the night at the castle, his execution of the supposed brigands, and what happened with the Marlo-Vayir brothers, Evred finished lacing up his shirt and binding up his hair. He never interrupted the report, which was orderly and succinct.

  And lethally clear.

  Just as clear was the inescapable fact that almost any question he asked might lead directly to a parade in the Great Square, and a long, drawn-out execution for treason—of the wrong people.

  “. . . and so Cherry—ah, Landred-Dal—he said I ought to offer myself to you as sworn man. Which I so do.” The color came and went in Vedrid’s face.

  Evred rubbed his jaw, wishing he could send the man away until he was rested. But no one must find Vedrid here. “I can’t,” he said. “I do need a Runner I can trust, but it cannot be you.”

  Vedrid’s cheeks blanched, but he bowed his head.

  Evred sighed. “Don’t you see? If I take on my brother’s man, everyone will want to know why.”

  Vedrid looked up, his eyes narrowing.

  Evred said, “I cannot accuse my brother of murder without proof. The wording of his orders to you would be understood to prevent a death, not to cause one. Everything else could be seen as happenstance. If one so desires.”

  “One”: the Harskialdna. He would demand incontrovertible proof; the king would as well: it was his own son, the future king, who would stand accused. But the only proof was safely dead.

  Evred said, with even more care, “It was good of the Marlo-Vayir brothers to want to see to your safety.” More than that he could not say: they had circumvented a direct order from the heir to the kingdom. None of them seemed to see what that meant.

  Evred had assumed the Harskialdna was behind Tanrid’s death, but the more he thought about it, the less sense it made. Tanrid was too good and obeyed orders. He was just the sort of captain the Harskialdna would value. Most convincing was the fact that the Harskialdna’s Runners had been too persistent with their questions afterward.

  Yet more people than he were now suspicious about that death, as evidenced by the Marlo-Vayirs’ decision regarding Vedrid. A single act, so far. Made because they were loyal to the kingdom, to what was right, and not to the Sierlaef: yet their action, as his own, could result in their being flogged to death at the post for misprision.

  Evred pressed his fingers to his forehead as a new thought struck him: how many people were beginning to see a separation between the Sierlaef’s interests and the kingdom’s? No possible good could come of that.

  So what to do?

  If wrong person overheard the wrong words, rumor would engulf the entire kingdom in civil war. It had happened before. War against outsiders was terrible enough, but no one was more vicious than Marlovan fighting Marlovan.

  “I will take your oath, but for now, at least, you will no longer be a Runner in blue. You will have to take another guise. With a mission,” Evred added, thinking rapidly, as he observed the pain in Vedrid’s face. A loyal man, his life ruined. Maybe not, maybe not. “An important one. Desperately so. But it must remain a secret, for the present.”

  Vedrid looked up, wary.

  “No more killing,” Evred said, realizing what his brother’s secret missions had come to. “I want information only. For justice, but . . . well, one step at a time. Vedrid, if you wish to serve me, I want you to go east, along every harbor, all the way to Chwahirsland, if you must. Go until you find recent news of Indevan-Dal Algara-Vayir, who might be using the name Inda Elgar. And bring it, do not send it, to me. Only to me.”

  Justice. He’d said the word. And Vedrid remembered that summer. He saluted, fist to heart.

  Evred sighed, exhaustion gripping him again. His thoughts turned back to the breathtaking white towers, glistening like fantastic carvings of blue ice, in the city of Ala Larkadhe—city of enchantment—nestled at the base of the Ghaeldraeth Mountains. He’d managed to stay there twice, but not once had he gotten a chance to explore those ancient towers.

  “I will winter in Ala Larkadhe, the old Sartoran city just inland of Lindeth. Do you know where it is?”

  Vedrid thought, But Chwahirsland is at least six months away, with winter travel involved, and then he realized what Evred Varlaef meant. He
was planning to stay here in the north for at least a year.

  Vedrid struck fist to heart again, not trusting his voice. Justice. Trust. He had begun to wonder if they really existed.

  “Then I will take your oath,” Evred said, and dug through his gear for coins to equip Vedrid for his mission.

  And there, in low voices meant not to be overheard, they swore the words of allegiance.

  “The prince has vanished,” Dallo said two days later.

  “What?” Mardric exclaimed.

  “I told you. He’s gone. Someone thinks he rode south to Ala Larkadhe, others think he’s gone up the Pass.”

  Mardric cursed under his breath. “But we didn’t see any entourage, there were no trumpets or any of that.”

  Dallo waited.

  Mardric looked up, not seeing the smoke-blackened wood, the people moving slowly as they began the monumental task of cleanup and rebuilding.

  “The pirates won’t be back,” he said finally. “So neither will he. I will ride to Lindeth. And watch from there.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  REFLECTION from the pond below their windows sent light rippling up the pale peach wall. Thog and Jeje lay in their beds at Lark Ascendant watching the light patterns. Jeje wished she was in a hammock swinging in a breeze, and then her mind caught up with what her body knew: winter was over at last.

  The air was almost warm, smelling of fresh-turned soil, of the sea, not of ice. The cold blue light of winter had given way to an inviting pale gold. She knew, without any message, that Inda Elgar moved below, rousting everyone, telling them to pack their dunnage and get it aboard Cocodu. The similarities between the name of the smelly marsh weed cucudu, and Coco du, “Coco gone” in Dock Talk, had been too funny to resist when Inda changed the name of the ship they’d taken from Gaffer Walic.

  Their ship.

  In, what, six? Five? Say five years, they’d gone from ship rats on a lowly merch to independents with a fast pirate ship with enough gold on it so that Inda could pay the fee to join Freedom Islands’ confederation of privateers and independents.