Explorer of the Endless Sea

by Jack Campbell

  “No, I guess I haven’t. Join the rest of the crew for the vote.”

  “Vote?” Shin asked.

  “You’ll figure it out while the crew discusses it.”

  Jules stood on the front of the quarterdeck, looking out across the deck and the lower spars where the crew of the Sun Queen had gathered to listen. Occupying the only area free of sailors was the chart, unrolled, the corners held down with the weight of belaying pins and cutlasses.

  She looked out at the crew, knowing this would be the first time she’d had to try to convince them to do something out of the ordinary without Mak backing her up. If her still somewhat vague plans for the future were to come to pass, it wouldn’t be the last time she’d have to do that. Which made doing it right the first time all the more important. Fortunately, she’d heard Mak talk to the crew on such occasions, and knew what had worked for him.

  “We have an opportunity,” Jules began. “An opportunity for reward that no other pirates have ever had. There’s some danger in it, but we’ll have some important advantages as well.”

  She outlined the plan, pointing to the chart and emphasizing that three other ships would be joining them in the effort. The crew stayed mostly silent, leaving her only their expressions to judge their reactions, and those didn’t offer any clear picture.

  Finishing, Jules put her hands to her hips, trying to look confident and strong. “I call a vote. Should the Sun Queen have a part in doing what no one else has ever done?”

  “Before we vote,” Gord called, “I need some questions answered.”

  “Speak up then,” Jules said.

  “Are we doing this for the Mechanics?” His tone of voice made it clear how little Gord thought of that idea.

  “The Mechanics,” Jules said, “think we’ll be doing it for them. Because they think we’ll only do what they want. That’s why they’re backing us against the Empire. But you all know how to play the Great Guilds, how to seem like you’re being all obedient when you’re really doing things your way. That’s what we’re doing here. Wouldn’t you like a fine port far from the Empire where we can relax? Where families could settle? Where we could have families if we wanted? Yes, this’ll gain us good short-term profit. But in the long run, it’ll give us something even better that we’ve lacked. That’s why we’re doing it. I swear before all of you that I wouldn’t have agreed to do what the Mechanics want if I hadn’t seen the advantages it would bring us.”

  “Why did the Mechanics agree to it then?” Kyle asked.

  “They don’t realize we can think that far ahead. They’re too smug, too sure of their superiority, to understand that we might not be doing this for them.”

  “Can we trust the Star Seeker?” Marta called.

  Jules nodded. “They want a piece of this, and their crew owes me a debt.”

  “What about that new captain of theirs?”

  “I’ve spoken with him. He’s someone we can work with.”

  Liv looked across the waves toward the Storm Queen. “Why’d the second Mechanic weapon go to that ship instead of ours?”

  “It’s the Storm Queen,” Kyle said. “They’ve helped us before. Some of her crew came from here.”

  “The Storm Runner has helped us as well,” Ang said. “Captain Erin isn’t my favorite person, but she keeps her word.”

  “Are you comfortable with this?” Liv asked Ang. “It’d be us luring out that Imperial warship and keeping it chasing us.”

  “We can out-sail any Imperial warship,” Ang said with certainty. “Cori can stand in for Cap’n Jules. She’s about the same size and her hair matches.”

  “Hey,” Cori said, looking alarmed. “No one said I’d be the decoy!”

  “All you have to do is stand on the quarterdeck and look important,” Gord said.

  “Says you! What if there’re more Mages about?”

  “Maybe you’ll get a special tattoo like Captain Jules did,” Marta told her.

  “The Mages don’t know anything about this,” Jules said. “By the time they know there’s a town at that spot, the Sun Queen and all of us will be well away in search of a good place to spend our earnings.”

  “If there are any Mages there,” Liv said, turning a stern look on Jules, “they won’t be on the Imperial warship. They’ll be in the town, where you’re going.”

  “If they are,” Jules said. “I’ll deal with them.” She brought out the Mechanic revolver, raising it above her head. The drama of the gesture bothered her, but it was what the crew needed to see and they cheered it.

  “That coast hasn’t been charted,” Kurt pointed out. The oldest sailor aboard since Ferd had died, he had the caution of someone who’d seen too many others die from not thinking things through.

  “The Imperials have seen enough of it to call it safe,” Jules said. “It’s north of Altis, so it’s not farther west than any place that’s already been sailed.”

  Kurt nodded, frowning. “What if there are more legionaries than we can handle? Even with two Mechanic weapons?”

  “There’re fifty legionaries there,” Jules said. “We’ll hit them by surprise and knock their numbers down before they can put on armor and grab their swords.”

  “But, still, if those fifty can prepare…”

  She understood his worry. Fifty legionaries forming a shield wall would make a force that even a large group of pirates would have a lot of trouble defeating. “If it comes to that, our ships will be near the harbor. We’ll fall back to them and sail off. Legionaries can’t march on water.”

  “I’ve met some centurions who thought they could,” Marta called, raising some laughter from the others.

  “May I speak?” Shin asked.

  “You’re crew,” Ang said. “Say what you wish.”

  “I served in the Emperor’s legions for more than a decade. I’m sure that the legionaries in that town will have a first obligation of defending it and making certain the laborers don’t cause trouble. They won’t chase us if we run, especially at night, because that might be a diversion to lure them out. That’s how they’ll think.”

  “That’s right,” Jules said. “You all know I was in Imperial officer training when…things happened. They beat that into us. Don’t think, just follow orders.”

  Some more questions were raised and answered, but Jules felt the crew shifting to her side of the proposal. She felt confident when the vote was finally held, and wasn’t surprised when the great majority of the crew raised their hands in favor. “Raise our flag to the top of the mast,” she told Liv.

  “How do the other ships look?” Jules called up to the lookout.

  “Storm Runner and Star Seeker have already raised their flags,” the lookout shouted down. “Storm Queen…hold on. There it is. All three other ships have raised their flags.”

  Jules felt a moment of exhilaration that faded into a sense of overreach, as if she’d stretched herself across a chasm to seize a prize and now found herself staring into the peril below.

  Ang, standing beside her, inadvertently spoke to her fears. “You have a fleet, Cap’n. This must be the first time in history that a common not in the Imperial service has commanded a fleet.”

  “Yeah,” Jules said, gripping the quarterdeck railing. She’d broken this cage, and even she was a bit scared of what that meant, of the responsibility she now had.

  “Are you all right, Cap’n?”

  “Yes,” she insisted as much to herself as to him. “I just wish…that Mak was in command.”

  “Mak believed that you would make a good captain,” Ang said. “And I know you always seek to do what you think he would. In a way, Mak is still here to offer advice.”

  That only reassured her for a moment. “Liv’s right, though. At some point I have to be making decisions on my own.”

  “There’s no reason you can’t keep listening to Mak,” Ang said. “Listen to what he tells you, but you decide what to do.”

  She looked at him, finally smiling. “Thanks.�
�� Looking back over the water, she saw the other three ships drifting like the Sun Queen, their sails still furled. “What are they waiting for?”

  “Your orders, Cap’n.”

  “Right.” Taking a deep breath, she called out across the deck. “All hands make sail! We’re putting our mark on history, sirs and ladies!”

  * * *

  It took a week for the four ships to tack their way west against the winds. By then, the western flanks of the mountains known as the Northern Ramparts were well behind them. Unlike on their eastern side, where the Ramparts reared up like a wall of living stone from the northern plains, on the west the Ramparts had descended more gradually, stepping down to lower heights before becoming hills that merged into a flat expanse of grass.

  The crews of the four ships had kept pausing in their work to gaze at that land to their north, where the wild green fields seemed to roll on forever. The coast wasn’t entirely welcoming, with stretches where waves dashed against off-shore rocks, but there were also clear areas with beaches that seemed to offer easy access to the land from the sea. Flocks of birds could be seen soaring over the land, and during the late afternoon of the first day after sailing past the Ramparts shouts of excitement rose from the sailors as they sighted a big herd of wild cattle ambling along a little ways inland. The skies above were pristine blue, unmarred by the smoke and dust of human activity.

  “This isn’t a wasteland,” Keli the healer had said to Jules. “It’s nothing like what the maps show. I wonder what things are like farther west?”

  “Would you like to find out?” Jules asked, grinning.

  “Are you serious?” He hesitated, looking again at the fields off the starboard side of the Sun Queen. “Maybe. Maybe.”

  The only difficulties encountered during those days were the winds. Winds always enjoyed making sudden, unpredictable changes, but they could be counted on to have general tendencies in certain areas at certain times of the year. Surely the winds in this region of the Sea of Bakre were the same, but none of the sailors knew the tendencies of the winds here. They could count on an on-shore breeze during the heat of the day when they were close to land, and at night sure enough the winds near the coast came out from the land. In that much, this part of the world followed the same rules sailors had learned elsewhere. But beyond that there seemed to be stronger prevailing winds coming out of the north, though occasionally shifting erratically. The four ships had felt their way through the strange winds, adjusting their sails and their courses as often as necessary to proceed up the coast.

  As the sun neared noon on the eighth day since they began heading west, Jules watched worriedly for signs of the Imperial settlement. The Mechanics had said it should be around here, but where? Her crew was already getting nervous to be heading this far west, partly comforted by the pleasant coast but increasingly worried about the deadly reefs which legend and charts said filled the waters of the western sea.

  Just before noon the lookout called down to report a sighting of a grayish haze in the sky that told of human fires being used for heating, cooking, and smith work somewhere just beyond the horizon. There could be only one source of such a haze this far beyond the Northern Ramparts.

  The Sun Queen, the Storm Runner, and the Storm Queen moved close to the coast to put most of their crews ashore, while the Star Seeker sailed on to the west to lay the groundwork for luring the Imperial sloop away from the town it was supposed to protect.

  It wasn’t until the three ships put their boats in the water and rowed them ashore that any of the sailors set foot on this new land. In the rush ashore through the surf no one had noted who was the first to place their feet on the grass, but no one cared. The Empire could already claim discovery of this land, and had already set people here.

  Captain Erin squinted at the sun. “Here’s a problem. We need to get close enough to be able to reach the town around the middle watch of the night, but not so close that we’re seen.”

  “We’ll send scouts ahead,” Jules said. “Three or four sailors who can keep their heads down and their eyes open. When they see the town or any people they can fall back and signal us.”

  “Three,” Lars said. “One from each ship.” He wore the second Mechanic revolver in its holster at his belt, and walked with exaggerated care as if fearing a misstep would cause it to kill him or someone else nearby.

  Jules had no trouble choosing who to send from her crew. She beckoned to Shin, then waited for the scouts from the Storm Queen and the Storm Runner to show up. “Everyone keep it down!” she called to the sailors, who were laughing and playing around in the tall grass like kids granted an unexpected recess. “Do you want the Emperor’s ears to hear you?”

  She knew only the basics of scouting from her training in Imperial service, so Jules began with a question. “Shin, do you have experience as a scout?”

  He nodded, solemn and serious now that they were engaged in the approach to the town. “Yes, Captain.” Facing the other two selected sailors, Shin spoke with calm certainty. “I will take the center. You two spread out a bit to either side, but not so far you lose sight of me. We need to stay far enough ahead of the main body that they can see just see us if we give warning. But your attention must be aimed ahead of you. Watch for any signs of buildings, watch for sentries, watch for patrols, watch for anybody or anything. Even animals. If we spook some birds or cattle it could tip off sentries watching for trouble that someone might be coming. The moment you see someone or something, stop and signal to me, and I will signal to everyone behind us.”

  Shin pointed up to the sun. “We will be walking west. As the afternoon wears on, the sun will be in our eyes. That means being extra careful you don’t miss anything in the sun’s glare, and being careful not to stand up so tall in the grass that you get lit up by the sun like a torch standing high, and so easily seen.”

  The sailor from Erin’s ship nodded, her expression serious. “Just like if we were on a ship heading west as the sun was falling in the sky. Except here we’ve got grass to hide in.”

  “Yes. Just like that.”

  “Should we carry crossbows?” the sailor from the Storm Queen asked.

  Shin looked to Jules. “I don’t think we should. Not as scouts.”

  “Why not?” Lars asked him.

  “If legionaries…my pardon to all present…if scouts carry a distance weapon, they are a little less careful, a little more careless, thinking they can deal with anything they see. Also, the weight and bulk of the crossbow hinders quiet movement. It’s best that scouts only have daggers for a close-in fight. That reduces the chance of them trying anything too risky.”

  Lars nodded. “I get it. Scared sailors are careful sailors. No cutlasses, though?”

  “They weigh down the scout, Sir Pirate.”

  Lars grinned at Shin’s use of that title. “Captain Lars is all right. You know your business.”

  “Are there other questions?” Shin asked the two sailors.

  “One for Captain Jules,” the sailor from the Storm Runner said. “Is there any chance of us running into any Mechanic devices? I heard Mechanics can use some of their devices to see people from a long ways off.”

  “And kill ‘em from a long ways off, too,” the sailor from the Storm Queen said.

  Jules shook her head. “The Mechanics are staying well away from here to maintain the pretense they have no direct involvement in what we’re doing. There won’t be any Mechanics there, and that means no Mechanic devices.”

  “Except the ones we’ve got,” Lars said.

  “Right,” Jules said. “Except the weapons Captain Lars and I have. Go ahead and get a head start on us. We’ll start off behind you when you’re almost out of sight.”

  The question did make Jules wonder, though. If the Mechanics kept giving even a few weapons to commons in order to accomplish Guild goals, how long would it be before she might encounter another common person with a weapon like the one given to her? It was something else to worry
about for the future.

  But not this day. Jules watched as Shin and the two sailors trudged off through the tall, wild grass that sometimes came as high as their shoulders, then turned to look out to sea.

  The Sun Queen, Storm Runner, and Storm Queen had all put on just enough sail to hold themselves off the coast while waiting for the afternoon to get late. The masts of the Star Seeker were barely visible as that ship headed toward the new Imperial town.

  “If Hachi betrays us,” Erin said, “and the worst happens to you, I promise I’ll track him down and kill him for both of us.”

  “Same,” Jules said.

  “In that case, he’d better pray you’re the one who dies. I’ve heard how you handle traitors.” Erin turned an amused gaze on Lars. “He’s more afraid of that Mechanic weapon than the legionaries will be. Can he use it, do you think?”

  “He’ll be right beside me,” Jules said. “Nothing strengthens a man’s resolve more than the desire to look good in front of a woman. And we need to ensure that if any of the legionaries form a line they’ll know they’re facing two Mechanic weapons.” She sighed as two sailors ran past playing an impromptu game of tag. “Blazes. Let’s get them walking so they burn off some of their energy.”

  “And start complaining about the walk,” Erin said. “I bet they’ll be grumbling before the sun gets there in the sky,” she added, pointing.

  “I’ll take a little longer,” Jules said, pointing lower. “How about you, Lars?”

  “I’m doubling down with Erin,” he said. “Hey! Storm Queen! Get your tails over here! There’s work to be done!”

  “Storm Runner!” Erin called. “To me! Let’s get to business!”

  “Sun Queen!” Jules said. Since her ship would be luring the Imperial warship away, she’d had to leave more sailors aboard to handle the sails, so the Sun Queen’s contingent was smaller than that of the other two ships. “Follow me.”

  They set off in three columns that spread out behind their captains to merge into a wide group, trudging through the grass. All told, they were about eighty strong. Far too few to go up against fifty legionaries under normal circumstances. But the two Mechanic weapons, the advantage of surprise, however many sentries they could take out before an alert was sounded, and the sailors from the Star Seeker in the harbor, would all hopefully add up to enough to do the job.