The Fox

by Sherwood Smith

  Roses. Weeds. She knew she would take whatever proximity she could get, that her weed of a love wanted to thrive, and would stubbornly persist, with only the faintest touch of sun, the tiniest drop of water, because that was the way she was made. “I will consult the healer, and find out if gerda works faster steeped and drunk, or added to food,” she stated firmly.

  It was with some relief that Evred watched her go, though he was puzzled, and concerned by her tears. Not that he had much time for such considerations. The crushing weight of embargo, increasing debt—his responsibilities never ended, the boys chomping away in the mess below were testament to that—and the prospect of invasion kept him awake nights, making and remaking plans.

  And so, as news filtered southward of repeated sea attacks against the marauding Venn, claiming that once again the mysterious Elgar the Fox was in command, Evred sent Nightingale Toraca bearing one of the lockets. He would try one more time to contact Inda—and if that failed he would put away his old life as Inda obviously had his own.

  While Nightingale rode north through melting snow, as trees grew fuzzy with green buds and birds swooped down from the north and began to look for their old nests, in the sea north of Idayago Inda’s fleet played hide-and-seek with Durasnir’s raiders through the rough-water, befogged strait.

  There was no other shipping in the strait, so predators on both sides had the waters to themselves; both sides used small craft for scouting, difficult to see. The Venn had magical communication, but Inda’s fleet had learned to sail in a long line, each large ship hull down from the others, and thus there was never a fleet nicking the skyline for the Venn to spot.

  Winter’s steady eastern winds started shifting uneasily to the south and back again for longer times, warming over land, as the sun strengthened its course over the lower hemisphere.

  Four, five, six sea battles along Idayago’s coast Inda’s fleet fought, the winter winds at their backs shooting them at the enemy. Each time they attacked during full daylight, using their tighter maneuverability to surround the Venn raiders, firing arrows into the sails until there were too many small fires to put out, until the survivors leaped over the sides to paddle their way north. The victories did not come without cost: the Venn fought hard, in one battle sinking three of Inda’s new allies, including Halliff’s Sea-King . The Venn did not take prisoners, but put everyone on the ship they captured to death before burning it.

  Everyone else sustained vast damage to sails, masts, and yards, which had to be repaired with care as they did not know when they could next get supplies. They never landed in Idayago, not knowing what kind of reception awaited them. Inda would not permit them to fight Marlovans.

  The battles gave Inda a taste of Venn tactics. They also gave his individual commanders a chance to test their own ideas. And always Jeje in the Vixen stitched her way between them; during the most recent battle Inda realized he was no longer signaling her. She always seemed to know when he wanted to shift from ship to ship, and even where he’d want to go next.

  His prisoner remained silent on deck, looking pained when she saw the lazy smoke rising skyward from the burning ships. But she said nothing, for she always saw survivors paddling northward. He even gave her a glass so that she might always look for herself, a gesture that strengthened the light, a mere gleam, on her lonely chosen path.

  And strengthened the bloom of new emotion in her heart.

  Inda often stood on the captain’s deck, frowning as he swept the seas through his glass.

  The Venn surely knew by now that he was attacking their raiders. So why had someone not come to find Signi? Did they believe she was dead? Or was there another reason, relating to why her scout ship had been alone in the first place?

  The fact that he never again saw a raider pack separated like Signi’s had been added to his conviction that he had not made his capture by stealth and cleverness so much as by total accident—through a set of circumstances outside of his comprehension.

  And it was only through accident that she had lived. He speculated on what value she might hold to the Venn. Perhaps they changed all their spells, so that Signi no longer knew the current ones, much like sides in a conflict change codes and signals after the capture of a captain.

  He watched Signi when she walked the deck—he watched how she tried to be unobtrusive, with those quiet, smooth movements, the soundless step. But she couldn’t be. Even the way she placed her feet was compelling, almost like a dance.

  The woman did not talk, except to Fibi, and a little to Gillor. She kept her space neat, she was self-effacing, interfering with no one. They had given her the purser’s cabin, so, to the wardroom’s unspoken relief, Inda moved back into his own cabin, where his occasional nightmares and incoherent shouts—about which no one told him—no longer could startle anyone out of their sleep.

  And so they fought their way westward.

  After the last sea battle, they smelled the change of season on the wind, which no longer drove out of the east with the sting of ice. Inda and his fleet raced west, passing at last from Idayago to the peninsula of Olara, called The Prick by most sailors. Their goal was to make it to the peninsula’s tip, generally known as the Nob, before the winds swung around to the southwest in their teeth. When the summer west winds began to blow, Inda spoke of spending the season fighting raiders down the west coast. They could then pass through the Narrows after harvest time and winter at Pirate Island. They could be at Freeport Harbor by next summer, to see what Dhalshev had raised for them there.

  Fox said nothing about their proximity to Iasca Leror. He and Inda had shared an undeclared truce on the subject ever since Fox’s rescue in Ymar, when they’d talked during their long journey, Inda telling him the story of his life. It had been a relief for Inda to talk at last. Fox knew the academy’s place in a Marlovan’s life, and asked no awkward questions. His freely expressed invective—his contempt for the Sierlaef and the Harskialdna—made Inda laugh.

  It was good to hear him laugh again.

  As for the new plan, Fox did not care. One plan was as good as another. And the rest of the fleet agreed.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  DAWN.

  A storm moved out of the south under a sky streaked with spectacular layers of cloud: high, white-crystal feathers drifting out of the east; the storm layer tumbling in cold, wet, gray boulders toward the north. With first light came a brief lull in the storm.

  The lookout stared westward in shock.

  “Deck! Lights west off the bow! Venn warships!”

  Those not busy with tasks ran forward, and yes, there between bands of rain was a string of lights, in exact formation. And as everyone on deck waited, the only sounds the plap-plap of raindrops off rigging and sails and blocks, the creak of wood, the cry came, “It’s Venn—three, maybe four. Can’t see beyond that. Got pockets o’ rain out there!”

  Save for one or two covert glares of distrust in the direction of Inda’s prisoner, everyone watched Inda.

  Warships—in the west. Maybe they’d taken the Nob—

  No speculation. Inda needed facts.

  Inda said, “Signal Vixen and Rippler. I want to know how many and where they’re headed.”

  He was vaguely aware of Signi vanishing below as he dashed into his cabin and snapped out the chart of the Nob.

  Fox ran into Inda’s cabin, tousled from sleep, his eyes wide and manic in the lamplight. “Want me to go below and strangle the truth out of your dag spy?”

  “Strangle what out of her?” Tau asked, right behind him. “I don’t think she knows anything military. Though I’ve tried for days to find out. She won’t talk to me.”

  Inda smiled at Tau’s rueful expression. It was rare indeed that the candlepower of Tau’s looks could not loosen a female tongue. Inda had watched him court Signi over the past week. Or rather, he’d watched Tau try to speak to her, always with the same result: she was polite but elusive.

  Fox’s face tightened with disdain. “You
wouldn’t even know what to ask, brickhead.”

  Tau sighed. “How was I to know it mattered to you what Iascan king that poor sod Vedrid served, or who his army commander is?”

  Fox opened his mouth, but Inda raised a hand. “Peace. That was a year ago. And even if we knew who serves Aldren-Harvaldar as Harskialdna, it no longer matters. We’re not landing, and they can’t field a fleet, which is why we’re here in the first place.”

  Tau and Fox both knew that it did matter—which silenced them on the subject. Fox moved to the stern windows to glare out to sea; Tau made a gesture of apology to Inda.

  Just as lightning flared. A moment later thunder crashed, diminishing to the roar of rain on the deck over their heads. No one would be able to see an arm’s length in that—friend or foe.

  Tau faced Inda. “If you had told me more, perhaps I would have been able to find out more.”

  “I know that,” Inda said, now truly impatient. “It’s over. Past is past. We have the Nob nigh, and some sort of Venn fleet. I’ve got to know what they’re doing out there.”

  Fox said over his shoulder, “You really believe your Venn dag hasn’t been sending messages by magic?”

  Inda said, “She gave her parole.”

  There was no reply to be made to that, at least nothing of use. After a time Fox left without speaking, and Tau said, “Anything I can do?”

  “Make certain no one harasses her. I’m going to grab some sleep while I can.”

  It seemed he’d scarcely shut his eyes when a hand shook his shoulder. Pilvig shrilled in excitement, “It’s a long string of lights, Vixen reported.”

  “What? What?” Inda didn’t pause to ask, but ran up to the deck, his breath streaming away northward.

  Fox was there, his eyes marked with tiredness. He handed Inda the glass, and Inda peered into the blue darkness that was already swallowing the east under the oncoming clouds of another storm. In the west a sultry red ball sank below the horizon.

  There to the south lay the line of the Olaran peninsula, ending abruptly at the Nob; its line was already blending into the gathering darkness. Beyond it, spaced with precision across the northwest, clear in the sharp, clean air, stretched a line of twinkling lights, moving with the current. Though Inda could not see where that line ended, he had a sense that it stretched far to the west. At least nine, maybe more. They’d sailed right into a fleet maneuver.

  “They’ll have the wind by tomorrow, if not tonight,” Fox said. “Look at the clouds.”

  “They’ve spotted us!” Mutt yelled from above. “They’re hauling over—flanking us.”

  The fleet tacked in beautiful formation, towers of square sail billowing as they prepared to give chase.

  Inda knew they’d seen one another at the same time. “Helm up,” he said. “Signal for all ships to ready the lights-out ruse.”

  He stayed on deck, watching his fleet bear up and head south ahead of that vast fleet. The Venn now had studding sails extended to the sides, making formidable towers of sail; they were tacking against the wind, which his own triangular fore-and-aft sails loved.

  Inda’s fleet sailed toward the land, pushed by the shifting winds. Then, when the next band of rain hit, obscuring everything, one by one Inda’s fleet doused their lights, hauled over and sped on the wind, lightless and quiet, back to the north—using the bad weather to obscure them as they slipped between the pursuing Venn ships.

  At midnight Inda returned to his cabin to get some rest. He emerged again just before dawn, and stood at the rail of his dark ship—no lights anywhere—one hand warding rain from his face, the other pressing the glass to his eye as he watched the graceful prow of the last Venn ship plunge southward. It was maybe twenty-five ship-lengths away, though the glass brought it uncomfortably close. Lights all along the Venn ship outlined its splendid form as its crew tended the towering sails, square all save the spanker aft of the mizzenmast. Lookouts at the masthead, barely visible in the reflected light of their glowglobes, seemed to be watching eastward, from which direction Inda’s fleet had sailed the day before. There was no sign of awareness from the Venn, but Inda felt his heart thumping.

  “I tried to count them,” Fox said, a vague silhouette next to him. “Bearing up into the wind has slowed them to a crawl. They tacked and tacked all night. That and the rain made counting difficult, but I think there are more than twenty.”

  “A Battlegroup,” Inda said as rain roared abruptly, the drops splashing nearly up to knee height, and once again the Venn were obscured. “A Battlegroup protecting the raiders, maybe? Or are they going to take the Nob, despite the Marlovans holding everything below the peninsula?”

  Fox gave the back of his hand to the distant ships.

  The rain lifted for a few moments, and Inda pressed his eye to the glass, impatiently wiped at steam, then peered again. When the elegantly arched row of stern windows had dwindled to a vague shape against the distant headland of Olara, Inda dropped below to get a meal.

  He was halfway through his second biscuit with honey butter when Jug came scrambling down into the wardroom, yelling, “It’s a trap! It’s a trap!”

  Inda choked down his food, started away—then lunged back and took the rest of his bread, cramming it down as fast as he could chew as he dashed up on deck.

  The wind had gone cold again, a fretful wind from the south, but from the look of the sky, the smell of the air, it could shift east again.

  Fox held out his glass.

  “Trap?” Inda asked.

  “Maybe. But they were already out here,” Fox said. “North by west.”

  Inda gazed northward into the murky gloom and there saw the faint gleam of lights aloft on two ships, all with the distinctive curved-swan prow of the Venn. He could barely make out a third in the distance. They were all spaced closed together, like the teeth of a comb—

  A second line of ’em, coming down to press them against the Battlegroup in the south hard up against Olara! Whatever their original purpose had been, they clearly intended a trap now.

  A quiet, accented female voice: “How many be there?”

  Fox’s lazy drawl did not mask the sharp consonants of anger. “Thinking your parole is inconvenient?”

  Everyone stared at Signi standing motionless next to Inda. The woman put her palms together, then opened them, a gesture of peace. As much as he distrusted her, Fox was distracted by the way she moved—never awkward or careless, yet never with the busy artfulness intended to draw attention. She bent her head—a small move curiously dignified—and then walked away, her bare feet leaving ovals on the wet deck. Almost a dance, yet too subdued, too formal for that.

  The rustle and tapping of rain worked down the sails to the deck as a new band of clouds slid overhead.

  Inda lifted his voice above the roar, “Those cursed gold things might have a use after all! If Jeje still has hers.”

  When Fox shook his head, Inda pulled him down by his shoulder and shouted in his ear. They couldn’t use them for position or navigation but with this strong southern wind and Vixen’s unbeatable speed, how about for limited scouting?

  Fox flicked his hand open.

  Inda cupped his hands around his mouth. “Pilvig! Signal tack in succession, due west, straight out to sea. No lights.” Then he dashed down below to find the case that paired with Jeje’s and write a note. Count Venn ships.

  They watched him put it into the case, shut it, say the words that Tau had taught him so carefully. They watched Inda open it again, to see the paper gone.

  Inda’s fleet headed straight out to sea, in the direction of the Delfin Islands and the unknown lands directly beyond; the swells here were higher, undiminished by the proximity to land. But somewhere two currents came together, the southern flow meeting the waters that streamed down from the north and curved east into the strait, pushed by that southern current. If the enemy found that intersection before they did, the currents alone would carry them, no matter what direction the winds.

&nbs
p; Next morning everyone stood on deck, intent on wind, sky, and water. Rain squalls slanting in the distance obscured the horizon, but at least so far, they had evaded the two Battlegroups trying to close on them from the north and south.

  Dawn was a gray-blue smear in the east when Jug screamed from the masthead, “West by southwest—more Venn!”

  A third Battlegroup?

  The band of rain passed, revealing the oncoming line of Venn. As the great ships flashed their sails, changing direction for pursuit, Inda gave the command to tack to the southeast, in hopes of slanting past them. The oncoming ships would be fast, with the wind hitting them squarely on the beam.

  Jeje’s Vixen appeared not long after, racing ahead of the lead three Venn warships, their mighty prows lunging through the water, sending gray sprays of white to either side.

  The Vixen dashed up on the lee.

  Jeje did not wait. Inda felt the tingle of magic, opened the case. The paper was scrawled with 27 north—27 new ones in west.

  He glanced up at the sails, then slipped quietly into his cabin. As expected, he found Signi waiting. She sat at the table, hands clasped tightly. The words that galloped through his mind vanished when she said, “How many?”

  “Aside from the twenty-seven holding the south, there are the twenty-seven that came out of the north yesterday, and now a new twenty-seven racing with the wind out of the southwest.”

  She stood, pressing her hands together. “Twenty-seven constitutes a . . . what you would call a Battlegroup.” The lamp swinging back and forth flickered tiny dots of fire from left to right in her huge black pupils.

  “I know that,” Inda said. “Durasnir’s entire fleet—the warships, not the coast raiders—is out here, they’re not in the east at all! Signi, this is the invasion fleet we’re seeing, isn’t it? On maneuvers?”

  She gave a long sigh. She was dressed in her blue robe again; she had not worn it since the day she gave parole. She seemed more remote.

  He stood across from her, the table between them. His gaze met hers. They each felt the impact, physical as well as mental. She heard her own heartbeat over the sound of his breathing; she tried not to look at the neck of his shirt open, the neglected laces hanging loose, the gleam of rain on his chest, as she said, “Yes. It is to be invasion fleet.”