Andalon Awakens

by T B Phillips

  “Your brother killed him.” Hester dug her nails into his arm and screamed, “Don’t you ever say otherwise, or you’ll lose your kingdom while he still lives!”

  Skander pulled away from her touch, blood oozing from several places on his arm. “Your nagging killed him, you witch!” Seeing the blood, he raised his arm to strike her with the backside of his hand. Before he could level the blow, she slid swiftly closer and he felt cold steel touch his belly through his furs. He pulled back his hand and looked down at the drawn dagger pressed against him.

  “Hit me. Hit me and I’ll tell the kingdom the truth of your father’s untimely passing. I’m pretty sure Braen would drop everything to come out of hiding and take your place by my side.”

  Skander growled as he stepped back from her blade. He calmed himself, drew a breath, and changed the subject. “Speaking of my dear estranged brother. I received word from Marcus Esterling that he’s been found. He’s been living as a sanctioned pirate for the better part of a year.”

  “And?”

  “He has a plan to capture him and bring him to me.” Skander walked to the window and looked out at the snow.

  “When did an imperial messenger arrive?”

  “That’s the oddity. It arrived this morning. That little shit of a prince was kidnapped by pirates in Eskera three weeks ago.”

  “A message from Eskera takes four weeks to reach Fjorik by Imperial ship.”

  “Exactly.” He held up another message. “A message from Eskera takes three weeks to reach Fjorik by one of our ships. This is the message informing me of his kidnaping. Also delivered this morning, by one of our information gatherers.” He again held up the first message. “He sent this to us exactly one week to the day before he was taken.” Skander turned to look at his wife and handed her a letter he had produced from his belt.

  “He knew that he’d be kidnapped?” Hester snatched the parchment from her husband’s hands.

  Skander nodded. “Or he orchestrated it.”

  She read the note quickly, then asked, “Do you think we can trust him? What does that whelp of a spoiled brat really want?”

  “He wants a kingdom most likely, but he’s only asking for gold for now. Lots and lots of gold.”

  “If he was kidnapped a week after he sent this, then he may have arranged for his own capture. He has a plan.”

  “Exactly. I’ll meet with him where he wants. I think he’s a spoiled brat, but we need an ally in the Empire. His ruthless mother and idiot for a brother are out of our reach.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Braen stood on deck watching Sa’mond order the crewmembers atop She Wolf. They tossed lines and made preparations to sail with unmatched precision. He marveled that the crew worked with the same eerie quiet as their mistress. Whereas his crew would have been singing chanties or laughing as they worked, Eusari’s crew responded to the eunuch’s orders with rhythmic strokes as if a silent bass drum beat in their chests. The spectacle ran chills up the Northman’s arms.

  He continued to watch as Eusari walked across the brow. She is so beautiful and so dangerous, he thought. She walked by two crewmen without saying a word, seemingly ignoring them. They reacted with quiet fear, both backing up to give her room. Or was that disdain? He kept watching and realized that all orders continued to come from Sa’Mond, despite that their captain walked the deck. His eyes followed Eusari, marking that she hadn’t even spoken to Sa’Mond, before retiring below decks.

  Sippen stood beside Braen, arguing against his orders to stay behind. The impish man begged to get underway. “I pruh…promise that I would sur…serve you better underway!”

  “Not this time, Sippen. I need you to stay here and keep watch. I don’t trust Kernigan and I feel that a mutiny is stirring up. Be my eyes and ears in Pirate’s Cove. We only have a ten-day sail via She Wolf, so I will be back in three weeks, depending on weather.”

  “Ice Prince could make it all in a week,” the small man reminded.

  “Yes. But this is Eusari’s mission, and stealth is her cover whereas speed is mine.” Both men stood in silence for a moment as three deckhands removed the doubled line from the bits. After the sailors moved on to a different line station, Braen added, “Keep to the shadows in The Cove. Find out just what the hell is going on.” Turning, he added, “And Sippen, watch Kernigan. If something goes wrong, it will be because of him.”

  “What if Kuh…Kernigan is right, and we cannot trust Nevra? Wuh…what if we can’t trust Artema?”

  “If we can’t trust Artema Horn then we have bigger problems, my friend.”

  Sippen and Braen embraced in a brotherly hug, then the little man scurried off the deck. A few minutes later the brow was hoisted, and the crew heaved in the lines. An hour later She Wolf was clearing the channel toward open sea. Several men climbed the main sail when Sa’Mond yelled, “Make ready!” The sails unfurled on his next command. Not long after, they squared away for full speed. Only then, as The Cove disappeared behind the stern, did Braen lay below decks.

  His small stateroom lay directly aft of Eusari’s. He went inside and readied his gear for the transaction. If there were trouble during the exchange, he wanted to stand ready. A standard and boring looking cutlass hung from his left hip, readied for a cross draw. Braen had adopted the shorter, slightly curved blade not long after leaving his home in the north. Liking its feel, it quickly became his daily carry and most trusted fighting tool. As a youth he was trained in the traditional way with a broadsword, but shipboard fighting differed greatly than open battlefield. Tight spaces, overhead rigging, and cramped quarters rendered a long blade useless.

  In the small of his back he wore a short blade sheathed horizontally on a riser from his belt. The long knife was more of backup weapon, but could be drawn by his left hand, giving him a quick thrust following a parry with the cutlass. Like the cutlass, the knife was basic in appearance. Leather wrapped the handle which swelled to steady his grip when fighting while coated in blood, sweat, rain, and sea water. The blade itself was cast in folded steel with dark swirling patterns. He trusted the knife for its strength and often wielded it to deflect against full swings from larger swords.

  On his right hip hung a small axe. The blade was of the same steel as the knife, and held a dangerously sharp edge, even after battering doors and cutting down riggings during ship to ship battles. Although Braen could throw an axe with accuracy in a contest, he had only thrown in a battle one single time. That decision had ruined his life and was a moment that he regretted every night since, when he had lain awake staring at oak ceiling boards. Suffice to know that Braen Braston had once carried a matching set of axes.

  He knelt before his footlocker and pulled out a long sword wrapped in rolled leather with rawhide ties. He laid it on the stretched canvas of his hammock and untied the straps. He drew a deep breath and held it in briefly while unrolling his father’s broadsword. The “Guardian of Fjorik” was majestically folded steel with a deep blue sapphire on the pommel. The hilt was intricately carved with the crest of his family, a winter cat tearing apart a wolf with long sabre teeth. Braen remembered to exhale and let out long cold mist from his lungs. The sword frosted slightly as his breath brushed the steel.

  A soft knock on the stateroom door jarred him from his trance. He quickly rolled the blade back into leather, then replaced it to the footlocker without bothering with the ties.

  “Enter!” He called toward the door, shutting the lid with a sweeping motion.

  Eusari glided in with confidence, then drew her furs closer around her shoulders. “Why are your quarters so cold? These rooms are usually the warmest.” Braen had not noticed and shrugged. She Wolf’s captain glanced at the footlocker and then back up at him.

  “Thank you for the quarters. They’re fine.” Braen was not usually this uncomfortable around women, but the captain of She Wolf unnerved him. He found her stunningly be
autiful with her pale complexion, dark hair and green eyes, but he could not help but notice the anger she carried in those orbs.

  “Captain Braston, I…”

  “Braen, please. And may I call you, Eusari?”

  “You may. Braen. I want to apologize for being so rude on our first meeting.” Her words seemed forced, as if she were not accustomed to exchanges of pleasantries.

  Braen watched her soften. Maybe the rumors are wrong and she’s only an introvert, he thought. She doesn’t act like a maneater. “It isn’t a problem, really.”

  “I resented Artema forcing me to bring you along.”

  “I took no offense, Eusari. I understood.”

  “Regardless, I would like to start over. I want your journey to be pleasant aboard my ship. But I warn you the crew is wary. We rarely take on outsiders. Our visitors are usually kept in the hold and wear shackles instead of steel blades. Please understand that they don’t mean offense if they’re not friendly.”

  “I understand completely. They’re highly efficient and quite remarkable by the way.” Braen had been watching her closely as she spoke. She stood in complete control of her body language, small and contained within her furs. Eusari appeared to have no movement at all, gloved hands near her knives and legs positioned as a dancer ready to leap into movement. She could best be described as a cat wound tightly before pouncing.

  “I’ll pass along your compliments to Sa’Mond.” She shifted her weight before adding, “Captain Braston…er, Braen, I’d like it if you’d dine with me in my quarters.”

  “Of course. I look forward to that.”

  Eusari nodded, and then turned to leave. She opened the door and paused, looking back over her shoulder. “Are you really the son of Krist Braston?”

  “Yes. Will that be a problem in the way of our friendship?”

  “Perhaps. I’m originally from Loganshire.” Eusari stepped out of the room and the door slammed into place. The chill in the room returned immediately as Braen drew in a sharp breath. When he finally let it out, another chilling cloud of frost formed.

  Loganshire was the historic enemy of his family until they fell under the protection of the Empire. He and his family had raided their fertile farms on occasion as marked on their crest. The wolf in the teeth of the snow cat depicted the dominance of his people over hers. For the first time in his life, Braen Braston felt queasy at sea.

  Sippen watched from the pier as the She Wolf dropped her sails and caught the wind. Samani Kernigan strode slowly up to the small man, much as a predator would stalk its prey except that his hands were harmlessly clasped behind his back, masking his danger. “He’s your friend, is he not?”

  “He is muh… my best friend in thuh… the world.” Sippen was not sure if he fully trusted the lord, but he could not ignore some underlying respect for the man. He did disagree with Braen, who categorically distrusted anyone in The Cove except for Artema Horn. Interestingly, Sippen hated the king.

  “I’ve noticed that you don’t always stutter. Does it come and go?”

  “It is anz… anxiety. I literally choke on the words.”

  “I see. I hope that you can relax around me. I wanted to ask about your projects, Sippen. I was told you are more than his friend and steward, and that you’re a keen engineer with a knack for invention.”

  “I dabble.”

  “That’s total bullshit, and you know it.”

  “How duh… do you know?”

  “You did not stutter, my good man.” Samani slapped him on the shoulder like he had told a joke, and Sippen was forced to smile. “I would like to play you in poker, someday. I think that I may have finally found someone whom I can out bluff.”

  “Thu… That sounds like fu… fun. Yuh… you shuh… should teach me to play.” Sippen smiled, remembering the game the night before and his piles of gold.

  “I’d love to. Now, please show me what you’ve created. I want to see your genius.”

  Sippen nodded, and the two men turned to make the walk through the town. As they talked, four soldiers passed in formation. The men looked like the typical brutish city guards who watched over The Cove.

  Kernigan watched the men cross the street, then remarked, “You can take the pirate off of the ship, but you can’t take the pirate out of the pirate. Each of them looks like trouble.”

  “There have been muh… more guards, of late. What is Ah… Artema planning?”

  “The tensions with the Empire have been wound up tight since Artema thought it would be a good idea to kidnap Marcus Esterling. Nevra placed some extra guns and soldiers on the walls in case they try to enter the harbor.”

  “Thuh… they never have buh… before. Why would they truh… try, now?”

  “Exactly. They have the numbers, but they would lose an entire armada if they raided the Cove. I think that it’s a show of power by Artema. He’s the Pirate King and likes to remind us. It’s almost like Artema has his own agenda, other than officiating the guild.” He glanced over his shoulder as Wench’s Daughter shoved off the pier adjacent to the one from which She Wolf had recently departed. “Like that, for instance. Why the hell is he leaving on his flagship? We’ll need him here.”

  Sippen frowned, “Aren’t you loyal to Horn?”

  Kernigan stopped walking and his smile disappeared. “Sippen, I’m loyal to The Cove and to the Guild. Artema’s the elected king, but I believe in Social Contract theory. He commissions our letters of marque to raid as pirates, and we in turn prey upon the Empire, the Southern Continent, and the Northmen of Fjorik. He taxes our acquisitions and commerce of the town, and provides the army that you see here. He also provides for infrastructure so that the town can thrive. When a contract is violated, either side may demand recourse. He presides over our judicial system and can punish the citizenry and any rogue pirates acting without a marque. But it’s a two-way street, and we should be able to remove him if he fails to uphold his side of the contract.”

  “Then why haven’t we been ruh… raided by the kingdoms? Together, they have greater numbers.”

  “Two reasons. First, we’re surrounded by a system of reefs, and only one ship can enter or exit at a time. It’s folly to send an amphibious assault, and a blockade is impossible, due to the spacing that they would have to maintain. Also, they don’t have access to the secrets of the reef. Only the Inner Sanctum are entrusted with that passage. They can’t keep us in or fight us as we come and go as we please. The unified Empire is our only threat. The Cove pays a ‘tax’ each year to the Esterling family to keep the heat off. They know that if we wanted, we could completely disrupt their entire global enterprise and could tear apart their tenuous hold on the empire itself. So, they usually turn a blind eye to our malfeasance and take our bribes.”

  “Won’t that change, now that one of their sons has been kidnapped?”

  “I honestly do not know, Sippen. That move was unexpected and may signify lack of prudence on the part of Artema.”

  “Thuh… this is our apartment.” The men arrived at a small two-story building in the merchant quarter. Sippen unlocked the door, and they entered. The downstairs was outfitted as a smith shop with small kilns and furnaces but were unlike any that Kernigan had ever seen.

  “Why are they shaped like that?”

  Without stuttering, the little man proudly explained, “I can get the impurities out of the iron, better than traditional methods. My steel is stronger and cleaner than most.”

  “I see. Can you make these bigger? Can you mass produce?”

  “That was the plan when I designed them, but then we fled Fjorik and I have been using them simply to resource my puh… pet projects.”

  “What’s this?” Kernigan picked up what appeared to be a small cannon with a wooden grip fashioned to hold the barrel away from the person wielding it.

  “I call it a huh… hand cuh… cannon. B
ut I cannot get the ruh… right steel hardness to contain a buh… big enough explosion. I keep cuh… cracking the barrels. I think that I also need hotter buh… burning powder. Right now, the projectile is only effective at tuh… ten paces. I would like to make it more accurate and uh… able to enter a pig cuh… carcass at twenty paces, before I trust it with my luh…life. I hate swords and I luh… love cannons.”

  Samani stared blankly at Sippen. Finally, he spoke, “You’re a genius. If you can get this worked out, then you’ll have single handedly changed warfare. How fast do you think these will take to load?”

  The impish man smiled at the flattery. “Fuh… faster than a real cuh… cannon, but sluh… slower than a sword. I need to fuh… find a way to defend against muh… more than two ah… attackers during a minute’s luh… loading. That depends, of course, on how I will carry the puh… powder to keep it dry.”

  “Can you make it into a longer-range weapon? Something that could pick off lines of men from range on the battlefield?”

  Sippen looked thoughtful and then nodded. “If I can get the steel right, then yes. The luh… longer barrel would be more accurate, but more likely to spuh… split due to how thin it would have to be. If it isn’t thin enough, then not muh… many men could carry it into battle.

  “Amazing…” Kernigan’s next words were cut off by cannons exploding in report.

  Both men ran upstairs and Sippen threw open the door to the master balcony. From their vantage point on the harbor, they could see that Wench’s Daughter had been fired upon by both Northern batteries. The ship’s main mast ripped free and fell with a crash into the deck. The batteries fired another salvo, directly impacting the main body of the wounded ship and crew. Artema Horn’s flagship imploded from both sides, splintering into pieces. A third salvo fired, and the magazine exploded in the entrance to the harbor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Braen left his stateroom and approached the oak door leading to Eusari’s cabin. He knocked and she swung it open, motioning for him to enter. She wore a gown of flowing black silk, with very little underneath. He could make out the small shape of her nipples as they lightly pressed against the cloth, reaching up to touch the cold night. On her hands she wore black silk gloves. Always gloved, he thought to himself, painfully keeping his eyes on hers. Although she was pleasing and he was a man, this woman was not his Hester. He finally averted his eyes from her to take in the room.