"I sure as hell don't. How many of the bounty hunters did we kill?"
Ahira shrugged. "Three for certain; another four wounded and pushed into the water. The rest dove and disappeared."
"And Ganness. How is he taking all of this?"
With a weak smile, Ahira picked up his battleaxe from where it lay on the floor. "I talked to him for a while, and he stopped squawking." He lowered the axe and sighed. "But he got away, dammit."
"He? Who?"
"You didn't notice who was leading that group?"
Karl snorted. "I was sort of busy. What's the mystery?"
"The leader looked to be about eighteen. Dark hair, dark eyes, slim nose. Good with a sword; it took him half a second to spear Fialt through the chest and return to the on-guard position. Had one hell of a familiar-looking and very cruel smile. And that voice . . ." The dwarf shuddered. "Didn't he sound like someone we know?"
Karl tried to remember the voice. No, he had been in too much pain to pay attention. But that description—except for the age, that sounded just like— "Ohlmin? But he's dead." I cut his head off, and held it in my hands. There were times that violence bothered Karl, but killing that bastard had been a distinct pleasure.
Ahira nodded. "But maybe he has either a son or a younger brother who isn't."
Karl elbowed the dwarf aside as he pushed himself to his feet. His legs were wobbly, but they would support him. "How would you feel about fixing that?"
"At our first opportunity. In the meantime . . ."
"We bury our dead."
* * *
Karl stood at the rail, Rahff and Aeia next to him.
In front of him, Fialt's body lay shrouded on a plank; the plank was supported at one end by the starboard rail, supported at the other by Tennetty, Chak, and Ahira.
Karl laid his hand on the rail. "I never knew Fialt as well as I would have liked to," he said. "Guess it's because I never took enough time. But he wasn't an easy man to get to know. Quiet, most of the time. A private person, our Fialt was.
"I never really understood why he came along. He didn't seem to have the . . . fire in him that Ahira, Tennetty, and I do. And it wasn't a matter of practicing his profession, as it is for Chak. Or of learning through doing, as it is for Rahff.
"But that doesn't tell us much about him. What do we really know about this quiet man? We know that he was awkward with a sword, and none too good with his hands. Although he was learning, and no one ever tried harder. We know that he was a Salke, and a sailor, and a farmer, and a slave. And, finally, a free man. But that was about all.
"About all . . ." Karl gripped the rail, his knuckles whitening.
"There were only two times that I had even a peek through the wall he put up between himself and the rest of the world. It seems to me that Fialt wouldn't mind my talking about those two times. And I hope he'll forgive me being frank.
"The first was during a lesson. He had done something well, for once—damned if I can remember what, right now—and I'd said something like, 'We'll make a warrior of you, if you keep this up.'
"He turned to me and shook his head. 'Just a man who can protect himself, his friends, and his own. That's all I ask. That's all I ask. . . . '
"The other time was last night. Fialt must have known that he wasn't good enough to take on a swordsman by himself; he should have waited for a signal from Ahira.
"But he didn't wait. It didn't make sense, dammit." Karl gripped the body's stiff, cold shoulder. "You should have waited, Fialt, you should have. . . ." Karl's eyes misted over; his voice started to crack. He took a deep breath and forced his body back under control.
"I . . . guess that tells us something important about our friend. Both virtue and flaw. I will miss that virtue, that flaw, and Fialt, whose body we now surrender to the Cirric." He patted the shoulder and stepped back.
Their faces grim, Tennetty, Chak, and Ahira raised their end of the plank. The body slipped from the plank and splashed into the blue water below, falling behind as it sank.
Chak drew his falchion and raised it to his forehead in salute. Ahira unstrapped his battleaxe, mirroring Chak.
Tennetty stared at the ripples, her eyes red, her face blank.
Karl drew his own sword and balanced it on his palms. "I promise you this, Fialt: You will be avenged." He slipped the sword back in its scabbard.
"Maybe I'm wrong, but I like to think you'd want it just that way."
Chapter Twelve
The Guardians of the Sword
I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell; I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Karl stood at the Warthog's bow, holding tight to the railing as the ketch lumbered slowly across the gently rolling sea toward the small inlet and the lagoon beyond. Overhead, the jib luffed merrily in the wind; below, water foamed, splashed, and whispered against the hull.
Gentle waves lapped against the sandy shore. High above, a slim-winged tern circled in the royal blue sky, then stooped to pluck a small fish from the blue water, bearing its wriggling prey away.
Karl rubbed at his belly, once more enjoying the taut feel of a full stomach. It had taken him time to adapt to being at sea, but his body had made the adjustment. And in less time than it had taken before.
Only six days of feeding the fish this time. Hmm. If this goes on, in a few years I'll only be vomiting for the first few seconds I'm at sea.
A vision of himself stepping on board, immediately vomiting, then smiling and feeling fine rose up unbidden. He laughed out loud.
Aeia looked up at him, raising one eyebrow just the way Andy-Andy did.
"It's nothing," he said. He reached into his pouch and drew out a half-dried orange, peeling it with his thumbnail. Popping a section into his mouth, he waved a hand at the shoreline. "Look familiar?"
"Yesss . . ." First she nodded, then she shook her head. "But I don't see my house."
Little one, as I understand it, Melawei stretches out across about two hundred miles of shoreline, with scads of inlets, beaches, islands, and lagoons. We're not going to bump into your hut. "Don't worry. It may take a few days, but we'll find it."
Her forehead creased. "Are you sure?"
Standing next to her, Rahff gently elbowed the girl in the shoulder. "Karl promised, didn't he?" With a derisive snort, Rahff elbowed Aeia again.
That had to be stopped, nipped in the bud. Not that the boy had done anything terrible, but the point had to be made. "Rahff."
"Yes, Karl?"
"We don't hit the people we're supposed to protect."
Aeia looked up at him. "He didn't hurt me, Karl."
"Doesn't matter. A man whose profession is violence must not commit violence on his own family, or on his friends. You and I are supposed to watch out for Aeia, protect her, not hit her, or bully her."
Rahff thought it over for a moment. "How about you and Ahira? You and he threaten to hit each other all the time."
"Think it through, Rahff. We play at threatening each other; we don't actually hit each other. See the difference?"
"Yes." The boy cocked his head. "But how about practice? We've all gotten bruises from you." He rubbed at his side.
"Good point. That's instruction, not violence. Anyone can back out of practice at any time. That includes you, apprentice. No more training or no more hitting. Understood?"
"Understood. I'll stay with the training." Rahff turned back to the rail.
Karl smiled his approval. A good kid; Rahff took criticism and instruction as a lesson, not as a blow to his ego.
At Ganness' shouted command, the helmsman brought the ship about again, maneuvering it between two out-reaching sandspits. The hull rasped against a sandbar; the ship shuddered free, and swung into the placid water of the lagoon.
Karl shook his head. No wonder the hull was as watertight as a sieve, if this was the way Ganness treated it. Even given Ganne
ss' explanation that the Mel would deal with a ship only after it had grounded itself, there had to be a simpler way than bouncing the boat across sandbars until it got stuck at low tide in the lagoon.
Still, Ganness' seamanship and his confidence in it was noteworthy; on This Side, there was no moon, and the weaker solar tides made for only a slight difference between high and low water. It took guts for Ganness to dare a deliberate grounding; breaking free would be tricky.
Karl turned to Ahira, noting that the dwarf's one-handed grip on a cleat on the forward mast wasn't quite as casual as Ahira tried to make it seem. A casual grip didn't leave the knuckles white. "Any problem?"
Ahira didn't turn around. "No."
Karl switched to English. "Hey, it's me, remember? James, are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I just don't like it when the boat jerks around."
Another bump swung Karl around, sent his hands flying back toward the railing as the ship rocked once, then fell still, grounded. Aeia and Rahff exchanged indulgent smiles over Karl's poor sense of balance.
Look, kids, when you've got a couple hundred pounds of mass to carry around, it isn't as easy to keep upright as it is for you.
But never mind. Let them have a few private chuckles. He scanned the shore, trying to see if there was anyone or anything in the dense greenery. Nothing. Ganness had said that the locals would meet them, but—
"Karl?" Ahira's voice held a hint of amusement.
"Yes?"
"Don't turn around for a second. I've got a question for you."
Karl shrugged. "Sure."
"This shoreline looks like Hawaii, no?"
"I was thinking Polynesia."
"Hawaii's part of Polynesia, Karl. And this is the same thing. Not Diamond Head; it looks more like Lahaina. Palm trees, sandy beaches, almost no rocks, warm, blue water, even though it's fresh and not salt."
"Right." Karl started to turn.
"Hold it a moment," the dwarf snapped. He chuckled. "Now, given all that, when the natives show up, you wouldn't be surprised if they were paddling dugout canoes—outrigger types—would you?"
"It wouldn't surprise me at all."
A similar environment would tend to produce similar artifacts. The simplest, most convenient road—and hunting ground, for that matter—would be the sea. If the Mel didn't have the resources to build large sailing ships, they would build canoes. And if they didn't have animal skins or birch bark to build the canoes with, they'd have to make dugouts. Dugout canoes were inherently more unstable than other sorts—therefore, outriggers. All logical.
"Is that what this is? The natives have dugouts?"
"It makes sense to you, right?"
"Right."
"Then turn around and tell me why their canoes look like miniature versions of Viking longboats."
Karl turned.
Three canoes floated in the lagoon's mouth, each five or six yards long, with an outrigger mounted on the port side, each manned by oarsmen.
And each with a wooden carving of a dragon's head rising from the prow.
* * *
After checking on Carrot and Pirate in the hold, Karl climbed back on deck. He gathered Ahira, Aeia, Chak, Rahff, and Tennetty around him, keeping the group well away from Ganness and the three sarong-clad Mel, who were busy at the bow, haggling over the price of Melawei copra and Endell steel.
The locals spoke Erendra with a curiously lilting accent, far different from the flat half-drawl of Metreyll or the clipped speech of Pandathaway. A familiar accent . . .
"Hey, Karl?" Ahira looked up at him.
"You hear it, too?"
"I sure do. You got any explanation of why these folks talk like the Swedish Chef?"
Chak frowned. "It might help," he said, scowling, "if you would either teach me this English of yours, or just keep your conversation in Erendra. At least when I'm around."
"Good idea." The dwarf nodded. "I'll give it a try."
Karl gestured an apology. "We were talking about the accent these Mel have. It sounds familiar. Like something from home."
"Home?" Rahff shook his head. "Not my—"
"Our home." Karl waved his hand aimlessly. "The Other Side. A region called Scandinavia." That was very strange. Differences between here and home were to be expected; he had grown used to them. On the other hand . . . coupled with the dragon-headed canoes, the familiarity of the local accent was vaguely frightening. It had to mean something.
But what?
It couldn't be just a transplanting, as had happened with their group. After all, the Mel didn't look like Scandinavians, not at all: Their hair was black and straight, their skin dark; they had slight epicanthic folds around their eyes.
Chak shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. I thought you were the only ones to cross over."
"That's what I thought, too."
The largest of the Mel, a deeply tanned, broad-shouldered man in a purple sarong, walked over. His lined face was grim as he stopped in front of Karl, planting the butt of his leaf-bladed spear on the deck in front of him.
"Are you from Arta Myrdhyn?" he asked, his accent still sending chills up and down Karl's spine. "Has he sent for the sword?"
Karl shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand."
The Mel gave a slight shrug, as though that was the answer he had expected, but it had disappointed him nonetheless. "Avair Ganness," he said, "says that you are a man from a land strange to him. He says that your name is Karl Cullinane, and that you are someone for whom the slavers have offered a large reward. Is this true?"
I'm not sure whether it's the slavers or the whole Guilds' Council that's offering it, but you're close enough. Karl nodded, gesturing to Chak to take his hand off the hilt of his sword. This didn't sound like a prelude to an attack. And even if it was, the Mel still in the boats were too far away; Karl, Tennetty, Chak, and Ahira could easily handle the three spearmen on board. "Yes. It's true."
"And why do they hunt you?" The Mel's face was flat, unreadable.
"Three reasons. First: I freed a dragon that Pandathaway kept in chains. Second: I killed slavers and a wizard who hunted me for doing that. Third: It is my . . . profession to kill slavers, and free slaves." And there's a fourth reason, it seems. One—at least one—of the slavers has made it a personal matter.
He laid a hand on Aeia's shoulder. "This is Aeia; one of your people. We have brought her here. Home."
"I see. And if slavers were to raid Melawei while you are here?"
Before Karl could answer, Chak snickered, drawing his thumb across his throat, sucking air wetly through his teeth.
Karl nodded.
The Mel's face became even grimmer as he slowly rotated his spear, planting the point deeply in the wood of the deck until the spear stood by itself. Placing his calloused hands on Karl's shoulders, he drew himself up straight. "I am Seigar Wohtansen, wizard and warleader of Clan Wohtan. Will you and your friends do me the honor of guesting with Clan Wohtan while you are in Melawei?"
Karl looked past Seigar Wohtansen's shoulder to Ganness, who stood openmouthed in amazement. And down to Aeia, whose eyes grew wide. Clearly, this wasn't the standard way to greet visitors from other countries.
Back when he was minoring in anthro, Karl had learned something of the vast range of acceptable behavior, and the way it varied from society to society. But the notion of host and guest was close to universal. Except for the Yanamamo, of course, the only culture known by the anthropologists who studied them as "those bastards." The Mel didn't seem like a This Side version of Yanamamo.
Wohtansen stood silently, waiting for Karl's answer.
"I am honored," Karl said. "And we accept."
Wohtansen dropped his hands and ran to the railing, calling down to the men in the dugouts. "There are guests of the clan here, who require help with their animals and baggage. Why do you just sit there?"
Aeia let out a deep breath.
"What is it?" Karl asked. "Glad to be home?"
; She shook her head. "No, it's not that."
"Why? Afraid I'd turn him down and hurt his feelings?"
The girl shook her head. "If you'd turned him down, he would have had to try to kill you."
Ahira cleared his throat. "I think we'd all better be careful with our pleases and thank-yous. No?"
* * *
Sitting down his wooden mug on the grass-strewn floor, Seigar Wohtansen sat back on his grass mat, leaned on his elbows, and shook his head. He sighed deeply. "An acceptable meal, guests of my clan?"
"Not acceptable." Karl smiled. "Excellent." The others echoed him as they reclined on their mats.
The guesthouse of Clan Wohtan was the largest of the seventeen huts in the village, and the most luxurious. It was a long, low structure, somewhat like a bamboo version of a quonset hut, the wrist-thick poles that formed the framework bent overhead, rising to about six feet at the center. Long, flat leaves were woven among the closely spaced poles. The light wind dryly whistled through them.
There was no fireplace in the hut; the slightest spark could easily set it aflame. Their dinner of grilled flatfish and deep-fried balls of coconut milk had been cooked over the firepit twenty yards in front of the open end of the guesthouse, the food brought in on plantain leaves.
The cook—and a good one, at that—had been Estalli, the younger of Seigar Wohtansen's wives; she was a slim, attractive girl who looked to be about sixteen. Now, she knelt attentively beside Wohtansen, the hem of her sarong tucked chastely under her knees while her naked breasts bobbled above, refilling his mug from a clay jug of fermented coconut juice while Wohtansen's seven sons and daughters served Karl and the rest.
Wohtansen's other wife, Olyla, a hugely pregnant woman in her late thirties, presided over the tail end of the meal from the single piece of furniture in the hut, a cane armchair.
Illumination was provided by seven head-size glowing stones, each suspended in an individual net bag hung from the centerpole that ran lengthwise down the roof of the hut. The light from three of the stones had begun to fade; Wohtansen had spent much of the meal reassuring Olyla that his promise to refresh the spell still stood, and that he would do so tomorrow. Her knowing smirk said that this wasn't the first time he had made that promise.
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