by John Brown
The Shoka with the bow stood only a few paces away, his back to Talen. His bow was drawn, the arrow pointed at Legs. The boy with the short spear was moving up and to the right, probably trying to flank Legs and his imaginary friend. Legs stood a few yards from where Talen had left him, his whole torso rising above the banks of the brook bed
“Stand up!” Legs said. He flailed his arms as if Talen were hunkered down right next to him.
Talen took a careful step. Then another. He raised his bow. Took another step reaching out with his toes.
“This is your last warning!” said the Shoka. He pulled the arrow back the last few inches to his cheek.
Talen recognized him. He’d competed with him before in the Shoka practice musters. He was young, even if he did have the clan tattoo on his wrist.
“Put the bow down,” said Talen.
The Shoka startled and twisted to look at Talen.
Talen took the last step and brought the sharp tip of his iron arrow point to the young man’s neck. “No,” said Talen. “You’re not quick enough. Don’t even think about it.”
The bowman’s eyes went wide with fear. “You,” he said. Then the fear was joined by something else. A decision?
The bowman’s aim had been altered, and Talen didn’t want him to get it back. “Legs, get down.”
Legs dropped back into the bed of the brook.
“Nobody needs to get hurt,” said Talen. “Just toss your weapons.”
Neither Shoka moved.
“You know who I am,” said Talen. “I could have drilled both of you with an arrow while you were doing your sneaking. And I will if you don’t listen to me.”
“You’re going to have to kill me, half-breed,” said the bowman. He didn’t say this in defiance or anger. He said it as if resolved to his fate, and Talen gave him points for bravery.
“No,” said Legs. “We’ve got something else that will do that for us.”
The bowman’s eyes widened enough to reveal his fear.
“He can squish up both of you like rags,” said Legs.
Huh, Talen thought, that was too much squeak. It was one thing to threaten a Mokaddian. It was quite another to claim they had some Sleth monster on a leash. This mire just got deeper and deeper.
The boy tossed his short spear aside. “Don’t hurt us.”
“Put your bow down,” said Talen.
For one brief moment Talen thought he was going to have to kill the Shoka. He didn’t want to. He had nothing against him. And it would do their cause no good to add another Mokaddian death to it. Talen could see the calculation in the Shoka’s face. Then he relented. He released his draw, then dropped the bow and arrow onto the pine needles at his feet.
“Knives too,” said Talen.
Both Shoka unlooped the knives at their waists and cast them aside.
“On your bellies over there,” Talen said and pointed to a flat spot of ground.
Legs decided that was the time to step out of the brook bed. When he got to the top of the short bank, he walked, both hands in front of him, one high, one low.
“He’s the blind one,” the bowman said.
“Indeed, he is,” said Talen. “Now move.”
They didn’t have much time. The third Shoka could be returning this very moment to the road. He might have his dogs with him. Nevertheless, he waited for the two Shoka to move. By the time they were on their bellies, he stood by the Shoka’s bow.
“Legs,” he called. “Unstring this bow at my feet. We’re going to tie them up.”
Fifteen minutes later Talen and Legs were making their way toward moving water. There was at least one river and two creeks between them and the Widow’s and they’d have to use all three now that dogs might be involved.
The Shoka’s bow string hadn’t been long enough to bind both Shoka to different trees. So Legs had cut two strips off his tunic to use as rope and two more to use as gags.
“Do you think they will stay put?” asked Legs.
“Oh, I think your little eye show gave them quite a scare.” That and the fact that he’d married his freaky eye-rolling with odd gaggings and contortions. It was quite an effective method to cow the two so they didn’t try anything stupid while Legs tied them up. It had almost put Talen himself on the run.
And when the one Shoka had asked what was happening, Talen had played it up. And why not? How could the story get any worse? His family had already been caught harboring the hatchlings. They’d already been connected to the monster. And, despite the usefulness of claiming the hatchlings had enchanted them to do their bidding, there was no one else in the family who might be tempted to say such a thing. Truth be told, even he wasn’t going to give into that. Besides, they needed time. An hour’s head start might not even be enough if the dogs came.
“You know full well what he’s doing,” Talen had said.
The Shoka had taken it, as intended, for Slethery. And then the bright idea had come to Talen to say he believed Legs was calling the monster to watch them, to make sure they didn’t run.
Oh, yes. Talen was in this up to his neck.
Now the question was not if he was going to die. It was only, when? And would it include a lot of torture?
He thought of Da in Whitecliff. Surely, Uncle Argoth would protect him. Surely, Uncle Argoth would be able to convince Lord Shim. Because Talen certainly wasn’t helping him any.
Talen stopped before a clump of poison ivy. “We need to move faster.” Much faster. They needed to get to the first creek and wash their trail away. Then they needed to get to the river. Maybe float a bit.
“I can’t,” said Legs.
No, he couldn’t. His bare feet were already bloody in three places.
“Too bad you really can’t call that monster,” Talen said and unstrung his bow. He put the string in an oiled leather pouch that hung from his quiver and told Legs to hold the bow staff. “Raise your arm, brother Sleth. You’re going across my shoulders.”
Legs raised one arm.
Talen took it by the wrist, bent low, grabbed Leg’s ankle with his other hand, and stood up straight.
“Right,” he said. It was like lugging a sack of beets. That’s all this was. He adjusted Legs to more evenly distribute his weight. Then he plodded forward, around the clump of ivy, over a flat of rock, and then on to a game trail no wider than his foot.
38
TRAPS
Argoth ate at the Shark’s Tooth like a starved man. Eggs, sausage, thick cream on cherry biscuits. He stopped a serving maid as she walked by. “A bit of salted lard,” he said.
She bowed and hurried away. Lard, suet, butter, or cream-it didn’t matter. What Argoth needed was great quantities of bread and fat, for that was what softened the hunger that would come when he multiplied himself.
The sun had not yet risen, but the Skir Master wanted an early start. “Is the Captain easy at sea?” asked Uram.
“I regularly run the dreadman’s course, including the two-mile swim,” said Argoth. “And these are not tropical waters.” He bit into a juicy link of sausage.
“An admirable habit,” said Uram.
“Indeed,” said Argoth. “One can do worse than modeling the diet and activity of dreadmen like yourself.”
“But what about the captain’s stomach? Fatty foods on a rolling ship has laid low the strongest of men.”
A man spoke from behind in a dry voice. “There’s no need to worry, Zu. Lord Iron Guts will not lose his breakfast.”
Shim stood holding a mug of ale, a wide grin cracking his leather face.
Argoth considered Shim for a moment, but he saw no sign that the man had come to betray him.
“Some lords prove their stamina by drinking the hardiest of men under the table. Not Lord Porkslop, he buries them with a mountain of food.”
“Blighter,” said Argoth with a mouthful of eggs. “I didn’t see you arrive.”
“Of course, not,” said Shim. “Not with a plate of sizzling hog-tail sausages
calling you like a lover.”
Argoth grunted, then patted the stool next to him.
Shim sat with his mug. “Captain,” he said to Uram. “Have you ever seen the like?”
“He does have a prodigious appetite.”
“Prodigious? I dare say Argoth’s stomach is by itself a force of nature. It is wise to keep all fingers outside the range of his fork.”
Argoth reached over and grabbed Shim’s mug. “If you don’t mind?”
“I do.”
But Argoth slipped it away, quaffed three gulps, then set it back down in front of Shim. “Nothing like a bit of ale with your eggs, eh?”
Shim looked into his mug. “Or a bit of eggs in the ale.”
It was like it had been; this was the man he loved, and Argoth laughed. In front of Uram, they discussed the defenses of the land, who would take Argoth’s place. But when they stepped out of the Shark’s Tooth onto High Street and began to walk down the cobblestone street to the wharves, Shim turned serious.
“I received a love letter,” he said.
“Oh?” asked Argoth.
“Yes, they always want some proclamation, some proof. I daresay I don’t know whether to write a stinging rebuke or show the sender some of my family history.”
Shim reached into his coat. He retrieved an object, and then grasped Argoth’s hand and placed it in it. “My great-great-grandfather made that.”
Argoth glanced down at it and closed his hand again. It was a weave, an ancient dead thing that looked like it should hang from a necklace, but a weave nevertheless.
Shim put his arm around Argoth like a friend. “Have I proven my love?”
Shim was not a dreadman. That meant this weave was his or one loaned from another. In either case, it meant he had placed himself in grave danger because possessing such a thing was a crime punishable by death. Unless, of course, he was part of this Skir Master’s plot.
Argoth looked into his friend’s face, but found no deception. It was a risk to trust him. He hadn’t been proven properly. But then this wasn’t a proper situation either. Besides, Shim had revealed his character through years of friendship.
Argoth sucked his teeth to get the last morsels out; a cart with a load of fish passed them going up the hill. Argoth turned to see the dreadman following them and passed the weave back.
“You don’t need it?”
“No,” said Argoth. “But you will. What else did Grandfather pass down?”
“Almost nothing.”
“Then you and I are going to have a long talk when I get back.”
“You’re making me nervous,” said Shim. “The streets are choking with the Crab’s men. I don’t think we have that kind of time.”
“Such little faith,” said Argoth. “You worry about the tactics. I’ll worry about the strategy.”
Shim rolled his eyes. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Oh?”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but now’s not a time to protect your friends by keeping them in the dark.”
“Yes, it is. Especially if I don’t return.”
“Well, then let’s hope our blueberry Divine is as ineffectual as he seems.”
“Ineffectual?”
“You haven’t heard?”
Argoth shrugged.
Shim pointed at the Skir Master’s chaser. “Look.”
The chaser stood out from the other merchant ships and galleys like a doe amid a herd of goats. The Ardent was a special ship; she stretched twice as long as she was wide, fine-lined, and able to set an amazing amount of sail. Half a dozen sailors scrambled up the rigging of the two masts. And then Argoth saw it. “Why isn’t she rigged with square sails?” A Skir Master’s ship didn’t need fore and aft rigging to sail close to the wind. You didn’t tack in a skir ship. You ran on an acre of square canvas, rigged with wide studding sails on booms to both sides of each of the main sails. You ran like a dolphin in the wake of the creature’s wind.
“The old skir died on the voyage over.”
“Died?”
“That’s what’s been noising about. Took them two weeks longer than planned to get here.”
“Died,” said Argoth. That was good news indeed.
“And he couldn’t catch another,” said Shim. “Mokad has grown weak.”
They reached the bottom of the street and proceeded along the docks. Two porters rolled a fat barrel onto a loading pallet next to a merchant ship. Another tried to steady a nervous mule that powered the boom to move that pallet. In front of the next ship, an officer inspected a handcart loaded with wicker cages full of russet chickens. A whistle sounded, and a group of boys, young sailors who had been standing in a cluster on the wharf, strode to the gangplank. One of them lingered, letting a girl with dark hair tie a bright blue scarf about his neck. A gull standing on a post next to them squawked, then launched itself just over the tops of the crowds and wheeled past the Ardent.
Argoth pushed through the crowd and stood before the gangplank, the water slapping at the wood posts and the ship’s hull. The hull gleamed. It was said that the Skir Master had his slaves scrape and wax the hull between every voyage to keep her fast.
She was painted in a dull gray. There were no striped sails. A stealthy ship. The only bright colors were the blue, yellow, and red eyes painted on the prow and each of the oar paddles.
Such eyes, it was believed by sailors, helped a ship avoid shoals and sandbars. But they were also a sign of the Glory of Mokad. I can see you, those eyes said, I am with you, via my servants, even upon the waters and in far lands. To some this gave comfort. To others it was a warning.
A large crowd clustered about Argoth. Bosser, the Prime, and others stood among them.
Bosser smoothed his long mustache, watching the last of the fire lances swing aboard. “This is madness.”
“Indeed,” said Argoth. “I wish the Skir Master had come to stay. But I do what I am bid.”
“They are cutting us off,” said the Prime.
“But you have the new weaves.”
“Gah,” said Bosser. “It’s like giving a starving man one withered fig.”
They talked of business then: what manner of defense they could prepare along the rivers, and how long it would take to cast more fire lances. Then the captain had the mate call all aboard, and he bid the warlords farewell.
Argoth’s quarters lay in the stern under the aftercastle, but he did not inspect them. Instead he turned to those on the docks. A number of the men he commanded had joined the crowd. One fellow suggested that now perhaps was the time to strike a deal for one of Argoth’s daughters. Argoth shouted out that Serah would drive a much harder bargain than he. The crowd laughed, but Argoth worried, wondering if she’d left yet.
Then it all came to an end. The first mate called for the gangplank to be removed and the moorings untied. Then the oarsmen on the starboard side shoved the ship away from the dock. A twelve-man rowboat pulled them away from the dock. Then the captain called for the oars. The deck held benches for thirty oars, fifteen to a side, each with two men on them. A drummer, seated in the stern, played a short rhythm and the oarsmen in unison dipped their oars. The drummer played a different rhythm and the oarsmen set themselves. Another tap to the light drum, and the men pulled. The taps continued and the oarsmen pulled in time to them, the eyes dipping in and out of the water.
When they cleared the docks and turned the ship, the captain ordered the oars back and a number of the sails unfurled. The men climbed the rigging and dropped the canvas. It snapped in the wind, filled, then the Ardent leaned and leapt forward under his feet.
Argoth turned and looked back. The fortress standing upon the hill with the morning sun gleaming off its towers and walls, the temple on the second hill, the rows of buildings and the fine streets, the white cliffs behind-it was all beautiful. A glistening, rich land. He loved it like no other he’d ever lived in. And somewhere in those green hills and vales were his wife and children. All the Lions had left
with him. Which meant Serah could slip away unseen.
A midshipman appeared at Argoth’s side and relayed that the Divine requested his presence up on the deck of the aftercastle.
Argoth nodded, took one last glance, then joined the Divine and captain on the upper deck.
The Skir Master wore dark blue trousers, a dark shirt, and a gray, close-fitting coat. About his wrist he wore a leather band that glinted with metal. Argoth assumed those metal bits were weaves. Some were probably escrum. The Skir Master did not appear feeble. Perhaps he lost his skir simply because those creatures too were susceptible to age and death.
The Skir Master looked directly at Argoth. “Don’t waste your time. Your future lies in front of you, not behind.”
“Master?” said Argoth.
“I’m not all blind, nor deaf. I know what my visit has meant to the lords of this land.”
Argoth said nothing.
“But in the end there must be priorities.”
“Yes, Great One,” said Argoth. Then he stood there in an uncomfortable silence watching the sailors move about their tasks below. The ship sailed out of the harbor and into the wide sea. After a time, Argoth spoke. “Great One, I need to check on the seafire below. It needs to breathe. Otherwise, the vapor can build up and crack the barrels.”
That was a lie, but none on this ship would know it. Those who had worked with the seafire might wonder, but before they could question him, they’d be dead. He sighed at that thought. They were good men. Good men caught in events beyond their control. Good men who did not deserve to die.
“Be quick,” said the Skir Master. “For I shall go fishing very soon. And I will want you here to observe.”
Fishing for skir. Argoth had never seen it done before. “Yes, Great One,” said Argoth. Then he left the Skir Master. On his way he surveyed the ship’s boats. There were three of them. The two larger ones had been turned over and stacked, the medium-sized one inside the larger, forward of the oars. Ropes bound them tightly to the deck. But the third, an eighteen-footer, hung by davits off the stern. If there was to be any escape, it would be in that boat.