Operation Arcana - eARC

by John Joseph Adams

  Another arrow hissed past her shoulder and sped straight and true to the bottom. That was impos—

  Fucking mages! Kytlin flattened against the ship. A clearwater spell of some kind on the first arrow to remove any cover the water provided and something directly applied to the arrows as well so that they moved through the water like they moved through the air. It seemed the Navreen mages were more useful.

  Then Harrin was out of the water and running for the trees, bare legs flashing white through the smoke, the ninth bowl in one hand, a hammer in the other.

  “Fyona! Mykal! Keep the archer’s attention on the river. Shuard, forget the yard; burn the boats!”

  Euan would burn with them, his ashes returned to the water.

  Boots pounded against planks, men and women shouted orders, the shipyard’s defenders held back by the smoke. The smoke that shielded them from any archers on the ground but not the tower. As long as that tower stood . . .

  The tower began to fall.

  Instead of diving straight into the river, Harrin ran back toward the boats. Smoke swirling around him, he became a target the archers on the ground could hit.

  He stumbled as the arrow slammed through his leg. Staggered on, coughing. The second arrow creased his forehead and he froze, blinded by the blood pouring into his eyes.

  Kytlin was half up on the shore when Fyona raced past her, grabbed Harrin’s arm, and all but threw him into the water as a crate exploded and her body jerked back and forth, splintered pieces of wood tearing her apart until she collapsed, half in-half out of the river, her blood absorbed by the clearwater spell as it fell.

  Her sealskin slid off her shoulder, into the water, and dissolved. Dead, then.

  Shuard surged up, broke the surface and roared. Kytlin changed and dove deep. With Mykal already at Harrin’s side, the four of them raced downriver.

  The clearwater ended just before the blades. Had the blades not been down . . .

  Eoin wasn’t happy when they reached him, but, against all odds, he was still alive. He groaned and bled slugglishly as they got him back to deep water. Then, with his back resting on hers and Shuard’s—his belly to the sky—three sets of rear flippers churned the water. It wasn’t stealth, but it worked; her right front flipper and Shuard’s left kept them on course. Mykal and Harrin took point.

  A wolf pack waited by the first net. Fortunately, they were wolves not archers; hitting a moving target on a moving river needed both luck and skill, even in daylight. Even when their targets slowed to pass the injured through the hole in the net. They’d have been better off using the net as a weapon, but they were army, not navy, so what did they know.

  Between the nets, they met the storm that had chased them off the schooner. The sleet kept the wolves pacing them in fur and destroyed their aim when they changed to shoot.

  They’d caught the current and, even at the surface, were moving fast. Mykal and Harrin went deep and moved faster.

  She’d lost track of how long it had been since she’d seen them rise to breathe when she tasted salt.

  There were blades at the mouth of the river. By the time they reached them, Mykal had them laid flat.

  As they spilled out into the estuary, a wolf pack howled by the black scorch on the northern shore.

  Kytlin pointed her nose toward the ocean and barked to pull Harrin into formation. They’d destroyed the ships, burned them to the waterline, but if the shipyard was protected by the Most Wise, well, that had nothing to do with them. She had five out of twelve to get home, a long way still to go, and there was bugger all glory in dying.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tanya Huff has a degree in Radio and Television Arts and spent the late ’70s in the Canadian Naval Reserve. She has been translated into eleven languages and won the Constellation Award for her work on Blood Ties, the television series based on her five Vicki Nelson novels, and the Aurora Award for her novel The Silvered. Her recent titles include the mass market edition of The Silvered, DAW Books, November 2013, her next will be The Future Falls—a third Emporium book—out in hardcover from DAW in November of 2014. She’s currently writing a new military space opera in the ’verse of the five-book Valor series which is under option at Breakthrough Productions.

  SEALSKIN

  Carrie Vaughn

  Richard’s hand was shaking. The noise, the closed space, the lack of easy access to the door were all getting to him. He pressed the hand flat on the polished, slightly sticky surface of the bar. The webbing between his fingers, mutant stretches of skin reaching to the middle joints, stood out. The hand closed into a fist.

  Doug noticed him staring at his own hand. “Ready for another one?”

  “No, I think I’m done.” Richard pushed away the tumbler that had held Jack and Coke.

  “This is supposed to be a celebration. I’m supposed to be congratulating you.”

  “I’m thinking of getting out.” He hadn’t said the words out loud before now.

  Richard appreciated that Doug didn’t immediately start arguing and cajoling.

  “Can I ask why?” Doug finally asked.

  He offered a fake grin. “Well, my knees aren’t going to last forever.”

  “Fuck that. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t deserve the promotion.”

  “Richey, that’s exactly why you deserve it. Nothing’s worse than an entitled asshole in command.”

  It was nice of him to say so, but Doug had been on that last mission; he knew what had happened. Richard stared at the empty tumbler, trying to figure out what to say to make his friend understand.

  Doug kept talking. “You didn’t screw up. It could have happened to anyone. Besides, what’ll you do if you get out? You have some kind of plan?”

  He didn’t. His skill sets were highly developed, but highly specialized. He could spend ten minutes underwater on one breath. He could infiltrate and escape any country on Earth undetected. He could snipe a Somali pirate on a life raft from a hundred yards on rough seas.

  He said, “Private sector? Make a fortune while the joints still work, then find a beach somewhere to retire to?”

  Doug gave him that “bullshit” look again. “Sounds like a waste of meat to me. Maybe you can buy an ice-cream stand.” He smiled, indicating he’d meant to tell a joke. But he kept studying Richard. “That last trip out really spooked you.”

  His team was on call to mobilize for rescue operations. The four weeks of boredom and two days of terror routine. This time they’d been tasked with rescuing hostages from pirates in the Arabian Sea. The target he’d shot had been fifteen years old. At the time, all Richard cared about was that the guy had an AK-47 pointed at a boatful of civilians.

  The people he was killing were younger and younger, while he was feeling older and older. He didn’t know where it ended. When it was his turn, he supposed. So what was the point? Just do as much good as he could until then. By shooting teenagers.

  Yeah, it had probably spooked him.

  Doug’s phone rang. “I have to take this. My sister’s been in labor all day, and Mom said she’d call with news. I’m going to be an uncle.” He grinned big as a sunrise.

  “Congratulations,” Richard said as Doug trotted out the door. Richard was happy for Doug, and Doug’s sister, the whole family. But that left him sitting alone, staring at the rows of bottles on the back wall.

  “Can I get you something else?” The bartender was an older woman—Richard couldn’t guess her age, either a worn fifty or a youthful sixty-something. Not the usual young and hip type of bartender. She might have been doing this her whole life.

  He gestured with the empty tumbler. “Naw, I’m good.”

  “Looks like you got left.”

  “He had a phone call. He’ll be back.”

  He must have looked like he was in need of conversation, because she kept going. “You stationed out at Coronado?”

  “That obvious?” he said.

  “We get a lot of you boys out here. Y
ou have the look.”

  “What look is that?”

  “Let’s just say we don’t get a lot of trouble here, when you and your friends are around.”

  It wasn’t his build, because he wasn’t that big. It was the attitude. You spotted guys like him not by the way they looked, but by the way they walked into a room. Surveyed the place, pegged everyone there, and didn’t have anything to prove.

  Doug came back in and called out to the room, “It’s a girl! Seven pounds eight ounces!” Everyone cheered, and he ducked back out with his phone to his ear.

  “Well, isn’t that nice?” the bartender said.

  “I wouldn’t know.” It just slipped out.

  “No siblings? No kids in the family?”

  “No family,” he said. “Mom died last year. I never knew my dad.”

  “Well, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s just how it is.” He shrugged, still staring at his empty glass, trying to decide if he needed another. Probably not.

  “Then you’re all alone in the world. The soldier seeking his fortune.”

  Is that what it looked like? He smiled. “I know that story. You’re supposed to give me some kind of advice, aren’t you? Some magical doodad? Here’s an invisible cloak, and don’t drink what the dancing princesses give you. Or a sack that’ll trap anything, including death.” He’d have a use for a sack like that.

  “Got nothing for you but another Jack and Coke, hon. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll tip big anyway.”

  “You change your mind about the drink?”

  “Sure, I’ll take one more.”

  Doug came back in then. Richard expected him to start handing out cigars, but he just slapped his shoulder.

  “I’m an uncle! I’m going to head up to L.A. this weekend to see them. Can’t wait. I have no idea what to bring—what do you give baby girls?”

  “Blankets and onesies,” the bartender said. “You can never have too many blankets and onesies.”

  “What’s a onesie?”

  Richard raised his fresh drink in a toast. “Congratulations, brother.”

  “You know what you should do?” Doug said, and Richard got a sinking feeling. “You should come with me. You’re going on leave—get the hell out of San Diego, come to L.A. with me.”

  “I am not going to hang around while you visit a baby.” He couldn’t borrow someone else’s family.

  “You have to do something,” he said. “You can’t just stay around here. You’ll go crazy. More crazy.”

  A soldier seeking his fortune. He didn’t even know where to start. He didn’t want to look at his hands.

  “You think I’m crazy?”

  “I’d be lying if I said we weren’t worried about you.”

  God, it was the whole team then. “Right, okay, I’ll find a place to go on vacation. Do something normal.”

  “Good.”

  Normal. As if it could be that easy.

  He didn’t remember learning to swim—he always knew. He did remember the day he noticed that none of the other kids at the pool had webbed feet and hands. He counted it a stroke of profound good luck that he never got teased about it. But everyone wanted him to hold his hands up, to look at them, to touch his fingers, poke at the membranes of skin, thin enough that light showed through, highlighting blood vessels. He loved to swim, and for a long time didn’t notice how sad his mother looked whenever he asked to go to the pool of their low-end apartment complex.

  They didn’t have much money growing up, and he joined the military because it seemed like a good way out, a good way up to better things. He was smart. ROTC, active duty, advanced training, special forces—it all came easily to him, and he thrived. He was one of those masochistic clowns who loved SEAL school. They trained underwater—escape and survival. One time, their hands were tied behind their backs; they were blindfolded, weighted, and dumped into the pool. They had to free themselves and get to their scuba gear. Terrifying, a test of calm under pressure as much as skill. Richard had loved it. He’d gotten loose and just sat there on the bottom of the pool for a long minute, listening to the ambient noise of everyone else thrashing, taking in the weight and slowness of being submerged. He’d been the last one out, but he’d been smiling, and his pulse wasn’t any faster when he finished than it had been when he started.

  “He’s half fish,” the trainer had declared, holding up Richard’s hand. “Your feet like that too, Fishhead?” They were. He’d graduated top of his class. His teammates still called him Fishhead.

  Richard got on a discount travel website and searched under “Last Minute Deals.” Belize—intriguing, but sounded too hot and too much like the equatorial places he’d been to recently for professional reasons. San Diego, ironically. Las Vegas, not on a dare. Ireland—ten days, rock-bottom airfare and rental car.

  Cool, green, quiet. He could have sworn he heard his dead mother whisper, “Do it. Go.”

  Luck had gotten him back into the country in time to be at her bedside when the cancer finally took her. That was enough to make him believe in miracles. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine her spirit pushing him on. He booked the trip and wondered why doing so made his heart race.

  His mother only ever said two things about his father: he was Irish, and he was like something out of a fairy tale. Richard had figured this was a metaphor, that she’d had a wild fling in Dublin or Galway with some silver-tongued Celt who’d looked like a prince or a Tolkienesque elf. Gotten knocked up and came home. When Richard was young, he’d urged her to go look for him, to try to find him. He’d desperately wanted to meet this fairy-tale father. When his mother said it was impossible, he’d taken that mean to the man was dead.

  Ireland, then. Not because he thought he could find his father or get sentimental at some gravesite, or even because he wanted to. But because his mother must have been there, once upon a time.

  It would be going back to where he started.

  What he loved most about Ireland: how green this country was, and how close the sea was, no matter where he went.

  Dublin was a city like any city, big and cosmopolitan, though he found himself having to adjust his thinking—a hundred years was not old here. History dripped from every corner. He didn’t stay long, ticking off the tourist boxes and feeling restless. He picked up the rental car and headed down the coast on his third day.

  Ireland was having a heat wave. He rolled down the windows, let the smell of the ocean in, and arrived in Cork. Found a B&B at the edge of town, quiet. Went for a walk—these towns were set up for walking in a way few American towns were, a central square and streets twisting off it, all clustered together. Cork was a tourist town, shop fronts painted in bright colors, signs in Gaelic in gold lettering, just like in all the pictures. He still somehow found himself at a bar. Pub, he supposed. The patrons here were older. Locals, not tourists. No TV screens in sight. Low conversation was the only background noise. He ordered a Guinness, because everything he’d read had been right about that: Guinness was better in Ireland.

  “You American?” the barman asked. Two stooped, grizzled men who must have been in their seventies were sitting at the bar nearby and looked over with interest.

  Richard chuckled. Everyone had been able to spot him before he even opened his mouth. Maybe it was his jeans or his haircut or something. “Yeah.”

  “You looking for your roots? Family? Americans always seem to show up looking for their ancestors. Every single American has an Irish great-uncle, seems like.”

  “I’m just on vacation,” he said. “Enjoying the scenery.”

  One of the old men said, “What’s your name, son? Your family name?”

  “My mother’s name was Green.”

  “Huh. English. Could be from anywhere. Your father?”

  “I don’t know.” He gave a goodhumored shrug. “He was supposed to be Irish. But I don’t know his name.”

  The barman snorted. “Most folk looking for family at least have a na
me to go on.”

  “Sorry. Mom liked being mysterious.”

  “Hey,” the second grizzled old man said. “Hold up your hand there, son.”

  He got a sudden thudding feeling in his heart. The back of his neck tingled, the sort of thing that would normally have him reaching for his sidearm and checking on his teammates. But it was just him and the curiosity of some old men.

  He lifted a hand, spreading his fingers to show the webbing.

  The room fell quiet. Richard squeezed his hand shut and took a long drink of beer.

  “Son,” the second old man said, his voice gone somber. “You’re in the right place.”

  “The right place for what?” Richard muttered.

  “You know the stories, don’t you?” A couple had come over to the bar, the same age as the two men, their eyes alight; the woman had spoken. “The stories about hands like yours?”

  “It’s a genetic mutation.”

  The woman, short white hair pressed close to her head, shook her head. “It’s the stories.”

  “Can I get you another?” the barman said. He’d finished his drink.

  “No, it’s okay. I think I’d better get going—”

  The first old man put a hand on his arm. Richard went still. He felt trapped, but he couldn’t exactly shove the guy off. The man said, “Go south from here, past Clon and out to Glandore Harbour. That’s where you start.”

  “But what’s there—”

  “It’s very pretty,” the woman said.

  Nobody would say more than that.

  He knew the stories. He got a degree in English with his ROTC scholarship, he’d taken classes in folklore and mythology. Maybe looking for that fairy-tale father.

  It was a genetic mutation.

  Irish back roads were harrowing in ways Richard thoroughly enjoyed. Barely enough room for cars to pass, no markings, curving right up against hedgerows or stone walls, or to the edge of cliffs, promising a rolling plunge down if he missed the turn. Never a dull moment.

  The landscape was searing green, and the sea beyond was a roiling, foam-capped gray. He kept having to draw his gaze back to the road ahead.