The Rose Sea

by S. M. Stirling

  Karah and Amourgin faced off. Both held their weapons in the two-handed grip for fighting on foot. Karah kept hers directly in front of her, the tip up and steady. Amourgin moved the tip of his weapon in the loops favored by city-schooled swordsmen. Karah had seen a man fight that way before, but hadn't been able to discern a benefit to the technique. She waited and relaxed, circling. Amourgin did not so much move with her as change poses. His fighting style looked artificial and silly, and Karah began to doubt that he would last a minute against an attack.

  She saw a straightforward opening, and jumped at it. Immediately, she found the purpose of Amourgin's fancy poses. He slipped out of her way, stepped to one side, and caught her solidly across the ass.

  The circle of recruits laughed, and Karah felt heat rushing to her face. Damn, she thought. I should have seen that coming and parried it. That was a sucker move, not something he'd use in a real fight.

  She realized she'd fallen for a school trick because she hadn't learned her bladework in a school. He'd studied her style of fighting, and figured out she wouldn't recognize the setup—and he'd done it to make himself look good. Karah faced off against him, keeping her anger under control. She was willing to bet there were things she knew that he didn't—if she could just figure out what they were.

  They resumed their duel. Amourgin cut and cut and thrust, and Karah parried, stepped, parried, turning the blade into the path of his with quick flexes from the wrists. He tried to lure her into his trap again, but she didn't fall for it. She waited, focusing on him so intently the sounds and smells and sensations of the world around her ceased to exist. This time the fight went on and on, while the two of them tested each other, moved in, and quickly retreated. Finally Karah saw the briefest of smiles flicker across her opponent's face. He evidently thought he'd seen something. He stepped toward her, his sword low for a gutting slash. She moved quickly aside, parried the blow, and kicked the back of his knee so that he sat abruptly in the dirt. She completed her circle to finish behind him and lay her practice weapon along his throat. She said softly, "You're dead."

  The sounds came back in a rush—the laughter and the mocking calls of the recruits, of "Ho, law-speaker!" and "There's 'un fer the city boy!"

  "I would note," Amourgin said stiffly, "that a kick to the back of the knee is hardly one of the Nine Cuts and Four Thrusts. I would have expected better swordplay of you than what I would have gotten from a common streetfighter."

  "One," Karah said, holding up a finger, "we weren't playing, and two," she held up another, "if I'd been a common streetfighter, you'd been dead instead of dustin' your ass in a practice ring."

  Amourgin looked to the First Captain, who shrugged. "She cheated, but she won. We aren't comparing styles for points. We're trying to win a war."

  The law-speaker stood and brushed himself off . "I see. Very well. I shall try to remember that."

  "Nonetheless," the First Captain said, "I'm pleased to see you know which end of a sword to cut with. I'd feared we were going to have to tie you to a stake and use you as bait in the field."

  Karah thought it would be impolitic to laugh. She laughed anyway. Amourgin glared at her, and she could see in his eyes a determination to trounce her the next time they fought. She wasn't worried. She knew how to fight him—and he would never get another chance to smack her with a practice sword.

  The afternoon wore on. She stood outside the circle and watched the other recruits thrash away at each other. From time to time the First Captain called her in, and she beat one of them. Among her fellow recruits, none matched her with the practice sword. The only one who came close was Amourgin, and she had proved from the beginning she could beat him. She felt, she thought, justifiably smug.

  The recruits sat once for a meal. The First Captain continued his tests, taking notes and watching, often having a recruit do something again so he could compare them against the little marks on his note sheet. Late afternoon became early evening, and the air grew cooler and once again bearable.

  Karah looked down the hill at the camp. Musketeers led a line of horses out of the stables and up the dirt path toward her.

  The First Captain watched, too. "I have you ranked by foot skills so far. Anybody can use a pike or a musket with a little practice. I've been asked to create a unit of mounted scouts. Those of you with good riding skills will be considered for the scout unit, but that means being able to ride, use a sword, and shoot. Double pay and an allowance for your horses." He looked from Karah to Amourgin, and Karah saw his eyes narrow. "Those of you inclined to view everything as a competition may consider this to be one as well."

  Karah looked at Amourgin and smiled sweetly. She'd beat the pants off him at swords. She would humiliate him at horses.

  Amourgin raised an eyebrowin her direction, then shrugged and watched the horses being led into what had been the fighting ring. First Captain Morkaarin cleared his throat "All recruits who do not wish to compete for scout positions are hereby excused to take mess."

  Half the recruits wandered down toward the mess tent immediately. Karah was not surprised. Nor, for the most part, was she surprised by those who remained. Eowlie was there, and Amourgin, and the ox-like Tseldene whore. The traders, none of whom had fancied the pike or the crawling through dirt, had all stayed around. Some of the pack peddlers might even make it; they'd be used to horses, and they went into some rough areas. Zeemos, the pimp, was going to try to win a place in the scouts.

  Loud-mouthed evil lard-bellied fiend, she thought. Eowlie had been filling her in on the doings of Zeemos. There were a few others, all unlikely-looking.

  The First Captain evidently thought so, too. He picked the two least likely, and walked them into the ring. "First round—" he said to them, "you'll go once around the ring—walk, trot and canter. Then once over each of the jumps. Then stop in the center. Don't fall off."

  The men and women around the ring chuckled. Those in it did not. The First Captain walked along the line, then picked out a horse from those the musketeers presented. He led one of the horses forward, and Karah recognized him. "Hey!" she shouted. "Glorylad is mine!"

  The First Captain turned to her wearing a cold expression, and she added "Sir."

  He nodded stiffly. "I'm aware of that, recruit. If you want to ride him, you'll have to win your place. In the meantime, I want horses I can trust not to balk at the jumps."

  The other horse he chose was Amourgin's Broucher. Karah recognized the horse as definitely the Broucher. She glanced over at Amourgin, who looked as unhappy as she felt. Her second mount, Windrush, was in the line as well.

  Karah gritted her teeth and glared at the First Captain.

  Eowlie came up beside her and nodded toward the First Captain. "Raw or cooked?" she whispered.

  "Raw," Karah snarled "Definitely raw."

  "I thought so."

  They stood, watching the first two riders mount. Both of them looked terrible.

  "Do you suffose they've ever seen horses vefore?" Eowlie asked in a conversational tone.

  "You certainly wouldn't think it to look at them, would you?" Karah answered loudly. "Why, I've seen dogs climb trees as well as they mounted."

  Both riders frowned in her direction before starting around the track as the First Captain directed. The man on Broucher didn't look too terrible at the outset. The one up on Glorylad, however, rode as if he thought he were sitting on the back of a plow horse, with one rein gripped firmly in each hand. He sawed away at Glorylad's mouth until Karah couldn't stand it anymore.

  She ran forward and grabbed Morkaarin's arm. "By all the gods' sakes, First Captain sir, he'll ruin the horse's mouth doin' that," she wailed "He's no farm horse. He took the bit 'cause he's a gentleman, but I don't even use one on him."

  The First Captain studied her. "You're out of line, Grenlaarin, but I'll let it pass this time. This time. I'm starting to think I could have saved time throwing the whole bunch of you in the stockade."

  Karah started to argu
e, then caught herself. She looked after her horse mournfully.

  The First Captain watched her an instant longer, then nodded as if satisfied by something. "Very good," he said. He looked to Glorylad's rider. "You—Gowdsooki—that's not how you ride a horse. Get down and head for the mess. You're out."

  The ungraceful Gowdsooki scrambled down from Glorylad's back and stomped out of the ring. He paused long enough to mutter to Karah, "I'll remember you."

  The captain overheard.

  "Best not to," he said softly. "You wouldn't like army justice."

  The man scowled and walked away. Morkaarin looked at Karah, a strange half-smile on his face. But he said nothing, and Karah didn't ask what the smile was for.

  She stalked back to Eowlie's side and tried not to see the procession of idiots who rode her horses. The captain alternated beasts so they didn't tire. Windrush stood several turns, too, some of them with hopelessly inept riders.

  Finally, though, the truly awful were weeded out and the better riders got their chance.

  Eowlie did well. She moved like a part of the animal—Karah wondered if it was because she was part animal herself. She would be in. Zeemos rode better than Karah would have guessed. Surprisingly, so did the short, overmuscled Tseldene woman. The Shillraki could stay on and steer the beast, at least.

  Karah and Amourgin went last. Karah strode out to the ring beside him, smiling. "Perhaps," she said softly, "we should each ride the others horse. Then the question becomes one of general skill, and not one of practice with an individual animal."

  Amourgin nodded, his face impassive. "They're both horses. Ride whichever one you want."

  Karah smiled and vaulted into Broucher's saddle. She was a trifle disconcerted with Amourgin's graceful mount, but reminded herself that he was tall. Tall people always had a slight advantage getting up and down. She tied the reins together and draped them along Broucher's neck. He snorted and looked over his shoulder at her resentfully, then quieted as he felt cues that told him she knew what she was about. Grenkarin horses despised bad riders.

  "Sorry about that, Broucher," she said softly. "It won't happen again."

  Then, with her hands in the pockets of her pants, she cued the horse to a walk. She looked over at Amourgin, intending to give him a smug smile, and found he had imitated her, even to the detail of riding without the reins, and was shadowing her without apparent difficulty.

  She cued Broucher to a trot. Glorylad and the law-speaker also moved smoothly into a trot. Karah frowned, and urged Broucher into a canter. She thought surely that would dislodge the law-speaker—few people cared to ride a horse at a canter without holding the reins for security. But the law-speaker continued to mimic her every move.

  She swore softly. The law-speaker was a fraud—he knew horses, the miserable bastard. He'd feigned ignorance. She should have known her uncle would never let someone who didn't know horses have his beloved Broucher.

  Which still didn't mean he was as good a rider as she was. More than ever, she wanted to rub him into the ground. She wanted to humiliate him so badly he would never dare cross her again.

  She clenched the muscles in her jaw and frowned with concentration. Still cantering, and still with her hands in her pockets, she took the law-speaker's horse over the first of the jumps. Broucher moved over it like the gem he was. The law-speaker and Glorylad sailed flawlessly in her wake.

  She took the round of jumps, and so did Amourgin.

  Angrily, Karah brought Broucher to a four-squared show-stop in the center of the ring. Amourgin, his hands still casually in his pockets, did the same.

  He smiled at her cheerfully. "You know, it isn't all that hard if you just see it done once."

  Isn't it? Karah thought. She took her left hand out of her pocket, and smiled tightly at him. She refused to let him see that he'd impressed her with his skill. "Perhaps not—but two simple loops around a ring doesn't make a horseman." She untied the reins and balanced them lightly between the fingers of one hand. Beneath her, Broucher tensed for her next cue. She cued him into a standing pace, segued into a standing show rack, and finished with an aerial, where all four of Broucher's feet left the ground at once.

  Amourgin raised a single eyebrow and said thoughtfully, "Yes. Yes, I think I see how that was done." He and Glorylad danced through the same steps.

  "I know your game, you swine," Karah snarled.

  "Tsk, tsk. Such temper is unseemly in one who would lead." He allowed himself a slight smile.

  "Try this," she snapped. She walked Broucher over to the perimeter of the ring, and indicated the single line of square-cut logs that lay on the ground around it. She pointed to them. "Once around," she said.

  She urged Broucher up onto the rail, and gave him his head. He catwalked along the top of the line of logs, balancing cautiously on the square-cut surface, his steps slow but precise. It was the hardest stunt to train into a horse—and only the finest rider could give even the best horse the confidence to try it. Broucher was a fine horse—and Karah a superb rider.

  But a third of the way around the circle, Karah looked back and found Amourgin and Glorylad, again in her wake, pacing out the circle. He was her equal, then—at riding, at least, though perhaps not at training. And far her superior at subterfuge. When she reached the halfway mark, she snarled with exasperation and urged Broucher back to the center of the ring.

  She dismounted by two-handed vault and crossed her arms and glared as Amourgin, on her horse, trotted up to her. He matched her, even to the vault, then stood beside Glorylad, smiling.

  Outside the ring, the onlooking recruits applauded—and even Bren looked impressed.

  "I still like my big brown horsey," the law-speaker said. "But you have a nice horsey, too."

  "You only have two ancestors, and your children will have two heads," Karah hissed.

  Amourgin chuckled. "At least the boys," he agreed. "By the way—sometime when it's just the two of us, you might want to try a rematch with the practice blades."

  "I'd rather use real ones."

  "For shame, for shame." Amourgin dropped Glorylad's reins to the ground and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I wouldn't. I'd hate to be hung for killing a fellow recruit" He paced casually away.

  So would I, Karah thought. Though I'd be tempted to make an exception for you.

  CHAPTER IV

  Amourgin woke from exhausted sleep, and dreams of swords and horses and execrable first captains, to the crack of thunder and pounding rain. Wind shrieked and water blew between the bars in irregular sprays. Back in the stockade, he thought. Can't seem to get used to the fact that I'm here.

  The stockade was black as coal tar, except when lightning outside the barred window cast dancing shapes on the far wall.

  Every muscle in his body ached, and he yearned to return to the oblivion of sleep. But his pulse raced, and his skin tingled, and dread seeped into his mind and overwhelmed him. He stared around the room with the next lightning flash; the illumination showed it empty except for Eowlie, who now slept in the opposite bunk, unbothered by the storm. He could see no reason to fear, and yet he was afraid.

  Flee! his nerves screamed. Run! Hide! Something is coming! He felt the irrational urge to turn his face to the wall, or to burrow under his thin blanket. He resisted, and waited, while the storm outside grew worse, and the lightning nearer, and the wind harder. A heaviness settled in his chest, and his stomach churned and roiled.

  Suddenly he knew the source of his dread—whatever it was—had arrived. Lightning stabbed steadily just outside the barred window; thunder rolled in endless terrible riot; sheets of icy water blew over him and soaked him clear to the skin.

  Across the room, Eowlie slept on, oblivious.

  Then it stopped—thunder, lightning, and torrential rain. The instant hush after the storm was more terrible than the storm had been; an enveloping lightless void. The unnatural silence went on and horribly on, stretching out to impossible lengths, until Amourgin feared the sto
rm had rendered him both blind and deaf. Then, from outside the camp a deathbird sang, and Amourgin heard footsteps coming toward him. Freezing wind blew in gusts around him, reeking of rotting flesh. Chill bumps rose on his skin; his hair stood on end.

  When a spot of light grew on the wall next to the window, and shimmered like a spreading sheet of water turned endup, he tried to crawl out of the bed to hide underneath it. He discovered he was pinned in place.

  Out of the sheet of light, a man walked—his eyes white and glowing his skin faintly luminous, waxy. He pointed one clawed finger at Amourgin and smiled a ghastly smile.

  "Wait," he whispered, and his voice dripped ice down Amourgin's spine. "They come."

  Amourgin heard creaking, sibilant whispers, soft moans, squelching footsteps which grew louder, closer, closer, and through the shimmer-ported wall stepped dead men, flesh hanging tattershawled, bones gleaming with their own pale light. Seaweed draped from skulls and arms, wove in and out of bare, gleaming ribs like weavework, and the men reeked of death and the sea, and nothingness stared out of the places where their eyes should have been. They surrounded Amourgin, and reached out their rotted hands, and they whispered, "Come."

  Amourgin shrank back, praying wordless agnostic prayers for rescue, and the dead men lifted him up and carried him out through the wall, and Amourgin believed he was surely dead.

  They were on the sea, he and the dead men. In weird procession, they walked across the water, while black clouds ate the string of moons, and the storm returned. Thundercrack and fire in the sky whipped the sea to madness. Waves rose up like mountains and crashed over the hapless law-speaker. Saltwater filled his mouth, his nose; it burned in his lungs and he clawed upward, up toward sweet, distant air; up, while bony hands held him back and the dead men marched inexorably.

  The waves fell away, and a drowned city rose before his eyes. Its bells dirged, tolled long across the water, chased back the storm. The dead men wailed, and the corpses of women and children rose from the submerged streets and pointed accusing fingers at Amourgin. In their empty eyesockets, pale, soft-bodied things curled, giving them expressions of appalling madness. "You live!" they bubbled.