Grand Vizier of Krar

by W. John Tucker

  “They are in great danger!” Arnapa cried. “Black Knight is here. He has two dragon boats still searching the river, and two quimals not far offshore. We must follow Telko and Blan straight away! Draw all the canoes back into the water. Make sure that everything we need is loaded, especially the weapons and bombs.”

  “We had better take these also!” one of Telko’s officers called. He removed some vines to reveal twenty panels of skyhull that Blan had brought from the sky ship. Arnapa guessed what they were; Blan had described the material to her before they set off from Sirsette Manor.

  As Arnapa issued orders for the panels to be loaded into the canoes she spotted something else. It was Blan’s roll of skysheet and her axehead of skyhull. She picked them up and placed them in her own canoe.

  As the last members of Arnapa’s team arrived at the camp they found their canoes already in the water, held ready for departure. Arnapa and Zeep had already set off downstream, the others following as soon as they were ready.

  It was not long before they came across the two canoeists returning with news that Blan and Telko had been captured. The men turned their canoe around as soon as they saw Arnapa and let her catch up to them so they could deliver their report without delaying the pursuit.

  Arnapa called behind her. There were already several canoe crews within earshot.

  “Full speed ahead and have your outriggers ready when we reach the sea. Be ready to fight at any moment. Pass the order back!”

  The flotilla of four dozen canoes sped downstream, powered by all the strength that their crews could muster and by the river’s strong current. They found Telko’s canoe caught in vines by the side of the river, his bow, arrows and knife lying unused inside. One crew split up so they could bring the abandoned canoe with them. None of the team yet knew of the events even then, playing out aboard Black Knight’s quimal, yet all were filled with foreboding.

  31

  Gardolinya’s lookout paddled back across Equa River as soon as Arnapa left to return to Zeep at the jungle’s edge. He lost no time finding Gardolinya in Austra Town. The old man was holding a meeting in the civic hall of all places. Ten Kraran soldiers lay bound and gagged in the corner while the room seethed with local people.

  “That is the trigger we need, my friend,” Gardolinya said to the lookout when he had heard his report. “We have not heard from Nightsight yet. However, we must risk everything now or we may be too late. We must be ready to march on Austra Castle as soon as we hear from him. The town and country militias along Equa River are arming as we speak and will be arriving here through the night. Now is the time for you to go to Sirsette Manor and bring your Akrinan comrades to join us.”

  They borrowed a fast horse from a sympathetic townsman, the same man who had lent them the canoe and fishing rods. He seemed to be one of the few able-bodied men of military age not to have been drafted into Black Knight’s expeditionary force or into the slave labour force. This was largely because he was the town treasurer and nobody else had admitted to being able to do the job. Black Knight intended to replace all local officials in his conquered lands with those he knew to be loyal to himself alone, but he was wise enough to know that making his intention known would cause unnecessary disruption. Many local officials, like the Austra Town treasurer, consequently remained in office until a suitable excuse could be found to remove them, or a plausible accident could be arranged for them. Black Knight was sensible enough to know that there was a limit to how far brute force could be used; propaganda and deception were often more effective and resilient tools for a ruler.

  The lookout rode off in haste for Sirsette Manor. He sped past two bemused enemy patrols without slowing. As he rode past each he shouted in the Kraran language that they were to ‘make way for a herald on urgent business for the Great One’. By dawn the Akrinans from Sirsette Manor were riding their mountain horses down the highway toward Austra Castle. It was an uncomfortable journey for so many riders together, more than eight leagues on a road with deep ruts and wide enough only for passing carts, made easier only by the fact that it sloped down almost all the way.

  Fully armed and ninety-six in number, their reaction to meeting enemy patrols was robust. They collected and bound three dozen prisoners on their way. They also recruited another thirty soldiers who turned out to be from lands not far from Akrin where the people were just as reluctant as the Akrinans to follow Black Knight.

  Meanwhile, Gardolinya and the two Akrinan women rallied the folk from Austra Town. They were joined through the night by thousands arriving by boat, horse and wagon from the towns and farms further up the river where Gardolinya had already sent early recruits. After the brutal Royal Certificates Massacre of a few weeks ago the locals needed little persuasion to back an insurrection against Black Knight, especially upriver where the farmers had been most affected by the massacre. They surprised and captured the enemy officials and guards stationed in the towns and along the river. Then this spontaneous militia headed for the castle with all the weapons they could find. Those with horses rode along the riverside and those with boats took all the passengers they could fit. Others mounted patrols along the jungle tracks to intercept and capture enemy soldiers still there looking for Arnapa.

  As morning came and the militias were setting off toward Austra Castle, the lookout that Gardolinya had stationed near the harbour entrance was jolted out of his reverie by the sound of paddles splashing. He peered through the morning mist, saw a canoe rapidly approaching him, and breathed out loudly with relief when he saw who was in it.

  “Well met!” Nightsight said in greeting, also relieved to recognise the man as one of Telko’s older mariners. Nightsight’s self-confidence had still not been fully restored after his mistake at Unnamed Fjord. He should have recognised the five ships as those of pirates from Langardam Island and not as enemy ships. He had seen Langardam ships before. His embarrassment had been far outstripped, however, by his joy upon seeing Crowmar, Pencar, Olette and Penna waving to him from the pirate flagship. Pencar’s great-aunt, Captain Penntrafa, had spent the last two weeks looking for lone quimals that had ventured far enough from their squadrons to present suitable targets. Her five ships would stalk their prey like a pride of lions that lie in wait to bring down an isolated member of a herd of buffalo. In due course they had sailed right around the south of Slave Island, out of sight of the enemy blockade, and based themselves in Unnamed Fjord to prey on passing enemy supply ships.

  The lookout reeled off a summary of what Arnapa and Gardolinya were planning.

  “And Blan?” Nightsight asked.

  “No news yet.”

  “That worries me.” All of a sudden Nightsight had a bad feeling about it. “Tell Gardolinya that the five pirate ships that will attack from the other end of the harbour are our allies from Langardam. Gardolinya can fashion his plans accordingly. My team will attack across the harbour from Port Island.”

  “Gardolinya will be very relieved to hear of your arrival and your news. He has already given the order for the local militias to advance on Austra Castle.” With that the man jumped up, waved back to Nightsight and ran toward the town, very sprightly for a man of six decades or more. Nightsight and his partner then set out across the harbour to check that the team had successfully carried their canoes across Port Island and were ready to launch the attack.

  32

  Nightsight stood on the shore opposite Austra Castle and surveyed the harbour. He saw the two quimals less than a league away. With his far sight, the events on the deck of Black Knight’s quimal played out before him like a tragedy performed in an amphitheatre. He saw Telko and Blan being hauled out of a dragon boat and placed before the massive figure of Black Knight.

  “We must head for Panners Stream without delay,” he cried down to his partner in the canoe. “The Akrinan prince’s life teeters on the brink of disaster.” He climbed in and they paddled with all their strength; his Proequan partner needing no further urging. The waves, small as
they were, seemed determined to resist their progress, yet they persevered without thought for their aching muscles or parched mouths.

  Nightsight hoped that the pirate ships would surround Black Knight but he soon saw that it would not be so. Black Knight’s quimal had started to make way as soon as Blan and Telko had been brought aboard. It would escape before the pirates could catch it, and they had another quimal to fight in the meantime.

  Nightsight saw Telko fall overboard, seemingly lifeless and unresisting. His foreboding turned to dread. On the precipice of despair, he shouted furiously into the wind, “Never give up! Never give up hope!” He shouted these mantras many more times as he strove forward.

  Black Knight’s quimal was approaching Austra Castle and had just reached the mouth of Equa River when Nightsight saw Blan dive overboard. He gasped in horror. The harbour was full of sharks, perhaps not big ones that might be a serious threat to a two-man canoe with outrigger and weapons, yet a serious threat to a lone swimmer.

  As the enemy warship slid past, Nightsight powered his paddles and came alongside Blan’s floating body. She made no attempt to reach for the canoe, so he hauled her in. Then he saw her face. He could not remember seeing such anguish.

  “Let me go to him,” Blan pleaded. Then Nightsight understood the hints that Arnapa had made before they had left Nantport. The events he had just witnessed on the deck of the quimal fell into place in his mind. Blan loved Telko, and Telko had just been murdered by Black Knight. Tears of sympathy came to his eyes as he gently stroked the young woman’s forehead.

  “Take us to the docks,” Nightsight told his partner. He wrapped his arms firmly around Blan, as much to stop her from letting herself drop overboard as to comfort her.

  Both the mission teams were now converging on Austra Castle. The remaining enemy forces were either besieged in the castle or roaming the jungle vainly looking for a rebel ambush party. The soldiers guarding the dragon boats near the castle had been quickly overcome and the dragon boat crews were themselves caught in the castle. Thousands of local militia, mostly old folk and children who had been overlooked as a threat to the enemy but were now all armed to the teeth, had poured onto the docks and around the castle. Under Gardolinya’s leadership they now controlled the whole area outside the castle itself.

  33

  Blan was inconsolable. Arnapa and Zeep tried to comfort her but they could see that her pain was still too raw. When they saw blood start to drip from her hands, they became alarmed. Arnapa gently took Blan’s hands and arms and wiped away the blood with a cloth soaked in rum. It must have stung; she had nasty cuts across her wrists and palms and on the insides of her fingers, yet she did not seem to feel the alcohol at all.

  “From holding something sharp, perhaps broken glass or a rough cable,” Arnapa suggested as she looked up at Zeep with relief in her face. “Wounds sustained trying to escape, I would guess.” That did not entirely settle her concern for Blan’s state of mind, but it was better than what she had feared when she had heard Nightsight’s report of how Blan had been when he drew her out of the harbour.

  Arnapa cleaned Blan’s hands and arms, treated the wounds with honeycomb and bound them with clean bandages. She wondered if she should mention that a contingent of Akrinans had gone to search for Telko’s body.

  “The Akrinans will want to bury Telko,” Blan spluttered through her tears as though she had read Arnapa’s thoughts. “Are they searching for him?”

  “I’m going to join the search party. Would you like to come with me?” This was Nightsight who had just come back from a meeting with Camb, Pyran and Admiral Wayhooay who was now standing in for Telko.

  “I must see him again,” Blan insisted as she struggled to stand. It momentarily passed through her mind that she was badly bruised and utterly exhausted, but she did not care a whit. The impulse to leap into the water and join Telko had now transformed into a yearning to see his face again. She refused to believe that he could be forever lost to the sea. She hoped that somehow he would be found, and maybe she could just touch his face, as the last meaningful act of her life.

  Nightsight took Blan in his canoe to where Telko had fallen overboard, not far from the mouth of Panners Stream. There were already many of Telko’s people there, inspecting the beach or diving to the bottom. Some were testing the current and directing others to search further afield. They worked deep into the night and again in the morning, but they found no trace of Telko.

  When the Akrinans reluctantly called an end to the search, Blan and Nightsight were sitting on the narrow beach by the mouth of Panners Stream. The sand had been disturbed by large animals moving between the water and the undergrowth beneath the forest of palm trees.

  Blan remembered how she had come to this place, or at least to the other side of the river, newly escaped from Austra Castle and pushing Praalis in a small boat. Then, despite all the danger and fear, she had a world of hope ahead of her. Now, less than a month later, she faced only sorrow and despair. As her mind drifted into sleep, she saw Telko’s purple eyes beseeching her in that last tragic moment. She saw his yearning for their life and their love.

  She woke to the sound of a voice.

  34

  Austra Castle – 2nd October

  “Where do we stand now, Admiral?” Arnapa asked Wayhooay.

  “A thousand enemy soldiers are holed up in the castle, not very comfortably and very demoralized I would say. We have them surrounded by nearly five thousand of Gardolinya’s local militia, a hundred Akrinans and three hundred Pelfans who changed sides. The other hundred Akrinans will join the siege when the search for our prince is concluded.”

  “Can the Pelfans be trusted?”

  “I trust them. The Pelfans come from the land immediately north of Akrin. They have always been our allies and were conscripted by Black Knight on the same basis as we were, a treaty made in the days of the Grand Viziers. They too suffered from the Massacre of the Nobles eighty-six years ago and needed little persuasion to switch sides when they learnt that Telko had committed Akrin to the Free Alliance.”

  “How about our sea defences?” Arnapa asked.

  “Nightsight, Camb and Pyran are handling that with Captain Penntrafa. However, Black Knight might not have realised that his other quimal, the one captured by Penntrafa, was crewed almost wholly by Pelfans. Only the captain and a few senior officers were Krarans. They have now been replaced by Akrinans and five hundred Pelfan sailors have sworn allegiance to the Free Alliance. Of course, we also have Penntrafa’s five ships and crews and, with local fishermen supporting the teams we brought from Proequa, we can keep a hundred and fifty canoes and thirty captured dragon boats on patrol around Port Island and Sand Island day and night.”

  “Do you think we can repel an attack should Black Knight return in the next day or so?”

  “That all depends on how soon we take the castle,” the admiral replied. “We can assemble three large catapults at the southern entrance by tomorrow. That should hold up any attempt by quimals to enter that way, for a while anyway. The pirate ships and captured quimal can defend the entrances on either side of Sand Island; one of those is impassable by quimals and the other is tricky to navigate. Quimals can’t sail between the islands but dragon boats, of course, can. However, Nightsight’s team found the parts for many large catapults on the other side of Port Island. If we can take the castle and get the locals to move them, we could set up a fearsome array of catapults at all three harbour entrances and along the coastal docks beyond Austra Town. All our ships and boats would then be free to support the local militia in resisting any attempt by the enemy to land troops.”

  “We should also install defences in the water such as the ones the pirates use,” Arnapa suggested.

  “Indeed. Our shipwrights are already making plans with useful suggestions from Captain Penntrafa and Crowmar. A number of local barges and a few cargo ships can be brought from the river ports to transport workers and materials. Given enough time we can m
ake the harbour almost impregnable.”

  “All the more reason to fear that Black Knight will try to return as soon as he can,” Arnapa murmured.

  “It all hinges on taking the castle quickly,” the admiral advised. “Once we take it we release our people for defensive projects and we acquire a strong point of defence.”

  Arnapa looked up at the castle. It seemed impregnable. She had been in it many times and she knew its strong walls and defences, not works of Black Knight but of ancient industry far more meticulous. Kem’s sticky fire bombs would not dent the walls and she had never seen a catapult large enough to propel anything that would.

  “Blan’s plan!” she exclaimed.

  “I beg your pardon?” Wayhooay queried.

  She explained to him what Blan had suggested when the matter had been discussed back at Sirsette Manor. Arnapa had not been so sure then, but now she thought Blan’s plan was worth trying. The alternative would be a long siege to starve out the castle’s defenders and Black Knight would not afford her the time for that.

  The admiral had not been one of those who had seen the sky ship with Blan and Telko, but he had helped to bring the panels of skyhull from Panners Island. He sent orders to call in all his shipwrights and set them to work with Arnapa. For her part, she felt confident that she understood the plan well enough not to bother Blan with it unless the need was urgent.

  Fortunately, Blan’s roll of skysheet and the twenty panels of skyhull, each covered with skysheet, had already been unloaded from the canoes and piled on the dock. In the dark of night they were carefully set up opposite the castle’s massive gate according to Blan’s plan. Precise measurements and calculations were made. The trickiest part of the plan would be to get the strip of skysheet inserted into the narrow crack between the castle wall and its iron gate.