Talons of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  Pompino laughed and threw his gnawed chicken bone into a silver waste dish.

  “Why, Jak! He will roar and rage. But the temples will be burned!”

  “Humph,” I said, taking refuge in that silly sailorman’s noise when he has nothing to add that makes sense.

  So, after an interesting space in which Pompino fussed over selecting a wine that pleased him — a light Tardalvoh, of all things — I had to say: “Yes. Pando is determined to take the girl, this Vadni Dafni Harlstam, to wife. This will not only increase his estates, for her vadvarate marches with his kovnate to the south, it will infuriate his cousin Murgon—”

  “It may destroy him!”

  “You think so? He struck me as dark and dangerous—”

  “Oh, aye, he is. But I read him as a man to be broken rather than bend.”

  “With all the delays that have bedeviled us it’s a racing chance Murgon will reach Bormark before we do. As for races, I wouldn’t care to wager on which cousin will get there first.”

  Thinking of Pando and his mother, Tilda, I was of a mind that Murgon could bend or break so long as he failed in his dark designs. In this I was woefully adrift, as you shall hear.

  I could not tell Pompino that over the years I’d had agents in Pandahem to keep an eye on Pando and Tilda, and that they had failed me. The reason for their failure, at the time, was easy to understand, what with the turmoil of the Wars and the struggles against poor mad Empress Thyllis of Hamal and the devil wizard, Phu-Si-Yantong, known as the Hyr Notor. In those dread days men’s and women’s lives were cheap. We were clawing back to the light of the Suns, now, and life was resuming something of order and civilization; we still had a long way to go.

  So — this meant I was not in possession of the full facts. Ahead all was murk and uncertainty.

  Patting my lips with a yellow cloth, I stood up.

  “I’m for a spell on the quarterdeck. I need the breeze in my face for a time. You’ll join me?”

  “Later. If we are to avoid the Stromnate of Polontia and head straight for Bormark there are arrangements in the bills of lading and the accounts I must make.” He cocked a bright eye up, mocking and yet serious. “We great shipping magnates have our work, as well as these tarry sailors.”

  “Hah!” I said, not particularly convincingly, and went up on deck.

  A great deal had to be thought about, and much of what I had to contend with was, of course, completely unknown to my kregoinye comrade Pompino. We headed straight across the Bay of Panderk in the days following, shipboard routine continued, the breeze blew, the Suns of Scorpio shed their mingled lights across the waves, and if a fellow had had no other thoughts in his head he might well have enjoyed an idyllic period. We sighted no other sail until a morning of crimson and jade and hurling wind, with Tuscurs Maiden bowling along under all plain sail, hard braced, heeling on the starboard tack, racing along — well, racing along for a stumpy argenter.

  “You’ll get no damned renders in this weather,” exclaimed Cap’n Murkizon, bristling, grasping a ratline. He stared off across the tumbled sea. “Up by the Hoboling Islands you’ll find ’em creeping about, pirating honest sailormen.”

  “You’ve experience of the Hobolings, Cap’n?”

  “By reputation. I heard that once they sent a fleet to fill the oceans down to Tomboram. That was a time ago, now. They’ve not repeated that kind of raid, to the glory of Pandrite the credit.”

  That was a most serious statement from our Murkizon.

  Carefully, I said: “I heard a chief pirate was Viridia the Render. Does the name mean aught to you?”

  “Only as a render leader. She fought better than a man, I am told.” Before he or I could continue this hazy conversation, the lookout bellowed. For want of anything better to do and the desire to know, I scampered up to the cross-trees and wedged myself and stared at the distant speck bobbing on the horizon rim.

  The breeze blustered past and the ship gyrated as any ship will on almost any board and the old sailorman’s trick of holding the glass steady enabled me to center the sighting.

  She was no pirate. She was a Galleon of Vallia.

  Satisfying myself that she was on an interception course, I shinned down the backstay and found Pompino on the quarterdeck with Captain Linson. Both looked grave.

  “A Vallian?” Linson rubbed his chin. “We cannot outsail her, then.”

  Pompino huffed up; but he had to accept that when it came to sailing ships, the Galleons of Vallia were the finest sailing these seas — apart always from the damned Leem-Loving Shanks from over the curve of the world, blast their eyes.

  “The days of enmity between Pandahem and Vallia are over,” I said. “By Chusto! Those days are dead and gone!”

  Both men swiveled to regard me. I realized I had spoken with some warmth. The subject was close to my heart, as you know, and I was wrapped up in schemes for the future when Pandahem, Vallia and the other land masses of Paz must cooperate against the Shanks.

  “I picked up rumors in the Captains’ Saloons, here and there,” remarked Linson. “Not all Vallians share the friendship for Pandahem proclaimed by their new emperor.”

  I said: “There has for many seasons been friendship between Vallia and Tomboram.”

  We spoke lightly of Pandahem, which is an island cut up into kingdoms and kovnates, when each nation was an entity unto itself. Just how much truth there was in my last observation I still was not sure; maybe that was just a pious hope.

  “Well, Vallian galleons have pirated ships of Tomboram, along with all the other nations of Pandahem. I think,” said Linson in his hard way. “I shall prepare for any eventuality.”

  “Of course.”

  No captain was going to risk his ship through lack of preparation.

  “You think, Jak,” said Pompino, “we should run up the flag of Tomboram? Of Bormark? This will safeguard us from the Vallian?”

  “It should.”

  I could hear that infuriating quaver of doubt in my voice as I spoke. By Vox! Hadn’t these idiots grasped essentials yet? My idiots of Vallia? Pirating each other, which is what it came down to, how did that help us against the greater foe?

  As though further to emphasize the difference between a Vallian galleon and an argenter of any other seafaring nation, the breeze slackened, backing, and Tuscurs Maiden although sailing well lost a deal of her speed. Not so the Vallian. He came on at a great rate, and it was now transparently plain that he was, indeed, steering an intercept course.

  Linson eyed the other craft meanly.

  “If he means to fight, then we can accommodate him.”

  This idea dismayed me. Of course, from the first moments I’d realized that as a member, supernumerary, of the ship’s crew, I would expect to fight her enemies. Those enemies were seamen of my own nation. Before I believed that, I had to cling to the belief that seamen of Vallia no longer preyed on the seamen of Pandahem. But — some still did. I knew that. It was no good blinking at facts. If that galleon over there, foaming along with the bone in her teeth spuming white, all her canvas drawing, was in truth a pirate — why then I, Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia, had better keep that fact very quiet. Very quiet indeed. A gang of cutthroat renders would as lief string up the emperor as spit at him — they’d more than likely spit on his corpse. My Delia had experienced something of this dilemma in her brush with the Sisters of the Whip, when to be acknowledged Empress of Vallia would have brought not instant obedience and protection but chains, the whip and a death in torment.

  The crew took up the positions they occupied at action stations without the usual rush and scurry. The drums did not beat, the trumpet remained mute. Quietly, fingering their weapons, the men and women of Tuscurs Maiden stood to.Up on the forward platform our varterists waited around their ballistae. The forward boarding party, the prijikers, kept close, waiting for orders. Weapons were held down, inconspicuously out of sight of the Vallian. Captain Linson nodded as Pompino finished speaking to him, and iss
ued orders.

  Very shortly thereafter, the blue flag charged with the golden zhantil rose above our decks. We sailed under the flag of Bormark of Tomboram. How would the Vallian react to that?

  Itching with impatience to know the outcome of the puzzle I took a glass up to the crosstrees again. The galleon neared. She was a splendid craft, one of the new construction we had put in hand after the Times of Troubles. She would be able to range Tuscurs Maiden, outsail her, riddle her. As to her crew, well, the Vallian sailorman is a fearsome foe upon the sea, as I knew and joyed in. If it came to a fight, the Pandaheem were on a losing wicket.

  The circle of the spyglass roved across the approaching vessel. She was splendid! Soon I could discern the features of the men upon her quarterdeck. I did not recognize any — but at this range I could easily be mistaken.

  I thought one man looked remarkably like Ortyg Fondal, and another like Nath Cwophorlin, both capable ship-officers of the old emperor’s navy; but I could not be sure.

  The glass carried my gaze forrard and picked out the superior gros-varters of Vallia arranged on the forecastle. I stared. One man leaped into focus. His lean body was bare to the waist and his buff breeches were cut off at the knee. He wore a close-fitting leather cap, and there were not one but three red feathers sporting there. I could visualize the thin streak of black chin beard under his jaws, the lean eager look of him, the broken nose. Well, Wersting Rogahan had served me well and fought for Vallia; but he would just as easily fight to line his own pocket with pickings from a Pandaheem as not. I had to hope. Wersting Rogahan would listen to me if I spoke, that was certain.

  I switched the glass back to the quarterdeck.

  A man climbed up out of the aft cabin, and stretched, and looked across at us.

  I felt a suffusing tide of relief. Upright, strongly built, lithe, the figure of the captain of the Vallian moved purposefully to the bulwark. He stared at us, and an outstretched hand was instantly filled by a telescope. He raised the glass to his eye. I felt like waving, and did not. I kept still and small, for Insur ti Fotor, with whom I had fought the Shanks, would recognize me wearing my old Dray Prescot face. He wore a trim naval officer’s uniform, with a little gold lace, just to let folk know he was the captain. For since my Delia had had him promoted to ord-Hikdar, he had climbed past the ninth and tenth grades of Hikdar, and was now a ley-Jiktar, into the fourth grade of Jiktar. He ran a taut ship; a single glance showed, unmistakably, all the marks of a vessel and crew on the top line, thrumming with energy and spirit. I counted Insur ti Fotor as a friend, and so I breathed again. Tuscurs Maiden would not be attacked and sunk by Vallian renders.

  Trade was reopening between the two islands, and Insur must be here with his fine ship as protection for Vallians against pirates of any nation. That was why he sailed down on us, to reassure himself that we were honest merchants.

  That could be left to Pompino and Linson. I could make myself scarce. The relief was intense. The thought of having to fight Vallians had been unpleasant for a variety of reasons. I decided to stay in my perch aloft as the formalities were observed.

  At Captain Insur ti Fotor’s side a fellow lifted a speaking trumpet to his lips. He was a Womox, and his own horns were nearly as large as the horn used to fashion the trumpet. He bellowed, his words rolling out flat and booming, magnified across the water.

  “You are a prisoner of war! Heave to!”

  Wersting Rogahan’s forrard varter let fly and a rock hummed fearsomely across our forecastle.

  “Heave to or I’ll sink you!”

  Chapter four

  The instructive history of a zan-talen

  A second rock hurtled dangerously low over our deck. Wersting Rogahan was a remarkable shot with a varter, and could split the Chunkrah’s Eye at tremendous distances. A horrific thought occurred to me in the chaos of the moment — how would a shoot-out between Wersting and our two varterists, Wilma the Shot and Alwim the Eye, turn out? Impossible! I could not let that happen!

  Captain Linson bellowed furiously.

  “Prisoner of war? Prisoner of war! The Vallian is mad!”

  People scurried about the decks, confusion held them all, and the sudden powerful smell of the sea reached up to me in the cross-trees, blowing all the aromas of the ship away.

  “You said we could not outsail him!” screeched Pompino. The breeze blew words about like gulls over a cliff. Wilma and Alwim looked aft, ready for the signal to loose.

  The Womox bellowed again.

  “Heave to! Strike your colors!”

  “Never!” raged Pompino. He had drawn his sword and he waved it — somewhat foolishly — about his head.

  Over on the Vallian’s forecastle, low enough in the sleek galleon build, Wersting’s crew was hard at it rewinding the gros-varter. The next rock would not skim harmlessly above our heads. The next shot would crunch sickeningly in, to gout a fountain of splinters into bodies, to smash and rend, perhaps to bring down a mast.

  It seemed to me in the midst of this madness there remained but the one thing left to do.

  In that old foretop-hailing voice that had cut through more than one gale in Biscay I yelled down to Pompino.

  “Heave to, Pompino! Buy some time!”

  “You wouldn’t surrender, Jak!”

  “No. But we must find the explanation—”

  “We can pulp that damned varterist on their forecastle!” shrilled Wilma the Shot.

  “Belay that, Wilma!” If Linson refused to obey the order to heave to, if Pompino’s proud Khibil blood got the better of him, we’d all be pulped. “Just heave to!”

  Fiery whiskers flaring, Pompino glared up. He stuck his hands on his hips. His chin jutted.

  “You’re up to some deviltry, Jak!” he howled.

  “Aye. Fighting won’t save our necks now.”

  The two vessels eased close alongside running sweetly, and the galleon shortened sail to reduce her way and so pace the argenter. She creamed along, handled superbly, and the snouts of her varters and the arms of her catapults bore upon us. Her flags were of Vallia — the new Vallian Union of the yellow cross and saltire upon the red field — and the crimson and pale blue of Ovvend. The symbol of the kovnate of Ovvend down on the southwest coast of Vallia is a galleon. That is fitting.

  For what seemed to me a damned long time the ships sailed together and the canvas all about me drew strongly. With a rat-tat of the drum and a shrill of calls accompanied, by the slap of bare feet upon planking, thankfully, Tuscurs Maiden responded and lost way, her canvas fluttering as she first backed her main tops’l and then gathered her canvas in. No doubt Linson had performed the evolution in this manner as a sign to the hostile ship’s captain that he did so under pressure.

  Whatever the reason, the argenter lost way and soon we rolled sluggishly as the galleon, matching us, paced alongside.

  Men clustered at the falls of a longboat over on the galleon’s spar deck. A boarding party would come fully armed and ready for trouble. Now, it was all down to me...

  The water looked a long way down.

  That was the quickest route.

  Once, I had dived into the Eye of the World, the inner sea of Turismond. That had been a longer dive, far longer; I took a breath, readied, and dived.

  The water came up like a brick wall.

  Deeply under, with the water thick about me, turning palms upward and so planing around and rising, rising... The blueness turning from indigo through the lightening colors until the silver sky above my head broke into a bursting dazzlement. My head popped up. I felt fine, strangely enough. Instantly, suspecting the worst, I drew a breath and dived again, twisting as I went down.

  I’d been right.

  A vicious scaled form flicked for me, tail thrashing. Jaws opened and rows of needle-teeth gaped.

  The old sailor knife, well-greased, slid from the sheath over my right hip.

  If this Opaz-forsaken Styrorynth thought he was going to gulp me for his lunch he would have to be
persuaded of the error of his belief. He was infernally quick and lethal in his own element. Accounted a superb swimmer and diver though I may be, I’d only have the one chance against him.

  He swooshed in, mouth wide, needle-teeth ready to clench upon this tasty tidbit. Sliding down and under him, foaming in his pressure wave, I managed to avoid that rat-trap mouth. The knife scored along his underside and the water fouled. Without waiting to hang around I kicked hard — not for the surface but in a direct line for the dark shimmering hardness ahead that was the galleon’s keel.

  The Styrorynth rolled away aft and no doubt those little fishes upon whom he preyed would swarm up to feast. Swimming strongly, feet churning, I went clean under the galleon’s keel. Before I surfaced I checked — as far as was possible — to see no other predators of the deep waited to seize me in their jaws.

  For the distance I could see underwater with that shimmering silver sky dancing above my head there appeared to be no further danger. No danger, at least, from that direction. When I broke the surface and looked up not a single face peered over the bulwarks upon me. The galleon rolled gently. Well, they had no doubt seen a man fall from the argenter and vanish into the sea. They knew what manner of beasties lurked below the surface. They might cast a cursory look down; they would hardly expect to see the self-same man surface on the other side of their ship.

  I hollered.

  Three times I sucked a deep breath and dived, knife in fist, warily watching, and three times, seeing nothing, I surfaced and shouted.

  On the last time a shock of hair showed over the bulwark above me and thick voice said: “Whey-ey! Where’d you come from, dom?”

  “Throw down a rope and I’ll tell you.”

  “Oh, a rope — oh, aye.”

  Moments later a coil hit the water by my head and I seized the end and was hauled up over the side, streaming water. I had the sense to stuff the old sailor knife away. It was clean enough from the sea water.