by David Mason
“One thing we can do, come dawn,” Hugon said. “If we need to see beyond the horizons, to find those galleys… why, here’s our eyes.” He patted Fraak’s head. “Unless he eats himself to such a weight that he cannot fly at all,” Hugon added. “By the gods, he seems to be getting fatter, at that. Are you growing, Fraak?” Fraak chuckled sleepily.
“I’ve seen others like him not much larger,” Zamor said. He swung the axe thoughtfully, staring into the darkness. “He has his full growth, I’d say. But that’s a grand notion, sending him aloft to see what’s afoot.”
The night grew deeper, and the Turtle went on, mile after mile, farther and farther past the point at which they should have turned toward the southern shores of the Empire. All night the wind held, for which the Captain voiced his thanks, as the dawn began to gray the eastern sky. Hugon, who had not slept well, found Garph on his hands and knees in the prow, bumping his forehead repeatedly on the planks of the deck. A small brass image of the Sea God, green with age, stood in a cavity under the jib boom, and Garph addressed him. He was making a number of unlikely promises as Hugon listened.
“Ah, Captain…” Hugon said, clearing his throat. Fraak sat on his shoulder, watching with bright-eyed curiosity as the Captain rose, his ancient knees creaking.
“Our friend Fraak will go up and scout the sea, now,” Hugon said. “And let’s hope the Sea God believes those grand offers you’ve been making. Fly now, Fraak, and come back swiftly, when you’ve seen all.” Hugon aided the dragonet’s takeoff with an outthrust arm; the creature went up and up, higher and higher till he was only a distant point in the brightening sky.
As they waited, Kavin emerged from the cabin and waited, silently. Zamor, a man who liked his sleep, would arise only when he sniffed breakfast.
Time passed. The Captain paced nervously; Kavin stood against a rail, immobile. Hugon occupied himself with a new string on his lute, which he tested with enormous care.
Finally, they saw the tiny speck growing larger, and then the wide-winged flight, as the dragonet arrowed down for his usual flamboyant landing. He was piping nervously as he came to a stop on Hugon’s shoulder, and his tail lashed.
“Ship!” he cried. “The ship I fired yesterday, the same!”
“Easy, small friend,” Hugon said, soothingly. “Not so excited… the same ship, you think?”
“Yes, yes!” Fraak piped. “Sail all burnt; they have patched sail, now, and men make new ropes. I sailed close, and they saw, tried to shoot arrows at me! They are wicked, and they are very angry, I think!”
“That seems likely,” Hugon said. “No captain likes such handling as you gave them. They follow us, then?”
“Oars, rowing hard,” Fraak said. “Soon they will have sail again, but with the oars, they go very fast. But there, is only one, now,” he added, puffing smoke. “Only one, that way. The others, the new ones, are there.” He lifted a claw and pointed ahead and to starboard.
“Only the one, then…” Hugon began, and checked himself. “Others? Ahead? What ships are they, Fraak? What did they look like?”
“Two, small and black, but with tall sails,” Fraak said, and then uttered a rather pleased noise. “One of them has my picture on his sail, all red.”
“A sail, with a red dragon?” Garph had been listening, and now his leathery face turned a faint green-gray color. “It is a Thulin, a pirate. They carry such images on their sails… they have a god who is a dragon.”
“That’s nice!” Fraak said, in a delighted voice. “I must meet him!”
“He’s a god,” Hugon said. “Which means that he’ll never be there when he’s wanted, only when he’s not. No, Fraak, I’m afraid those are bad men too.”
“But they like dragons,” Fraak said, practically.
“They eat dragons,” Garph told him. “When they can catch one. Small ones, like yourself.”
Fraak uttered a horrified croak, and blew a ball of black smoke. He sat on Hugon’s shoulder, his golden eyes round with fear and anger, shocked into unaccustomed silence.
“Well, now,” Kavin said. “It would seem that we’ll pass between the two, with luck. Maybe they’ll meet each other, and we’ll be rid of both.”
“It’s possible,” Garph said. He called out to the steersman, “Bear another point westward, there, and keep to that.”
“Aye,” the steersman said.
“Thus, we’ll be exactly midway,” Garph explained. “It gives the galley a small advantage on us, but we’d never escape it in the end.” He scowled thoughtfully. “Though, should the Thulin pirates and that Mazain galley meet, there’d be a fine set to, indeed, and we might well begone, meantime.”
“Like the mouse between two cats,” Hugon said.
“Look you, young fellow,” Garph said, “I’ve done what I had to, to save my men’s lives and this ship… which is my own living, remember.” His face was hard, now. “But if we’re trapped, then we’ll fight, all of us, old men that most of them be, and we’ll cut many a younger man’s life short before we go.”
“Now, that’s what I like to hear, Captain,” Hugon said. “A little showing of teeth…” He glanced at the Captain, and added, “With my apologies, noticing you’ve got no more than three or four of ‘em… I’m sure you’ll bite hard enough when the time comes.”
The Captain grunted, and stumped off. Kavin looked at Hugon, and shook his head, with a chuckle.
“You’ve a tongue in your head, cousin,” Kavin said. “But you over use it.”
Hugon stared at Kavin, silently; then, “Shall I tell you something, my princely ancestor?”
“Tell.”
“I am as full of fright as… well, I was about to say a virgin on her bridal night,” Hugon said, in a low voice. “But the comparing’s wrong… she knows well enough what to expect, and that pain’s usually followed by pleasure. No, I’m simply craven fearful, prince; fearful of the pains of death, blind feared of the time after it… or worse, that there may be no time after it.” He stared at Kavin. “I am no hero, and they’ll make no ballads out of me, as they’ve done you. A man like you, all iron and gall and not a quaver in your soul… though you’ve had the small advantage of having tried death once, I hear. But myself… I’m but a disinherited son with a taste for poem-making and thievery, no hero at all… and fearful, down to my very toes, Prince!” He stared at the deck, shaking his head. “Now, how in the Nine’s name could a coward come of your line, can you tell me that, Prince Kavin?”
Abruptly, Kavin laughed, and his big hand clapped down on Hugon’s shoulder; he stood, grinning down at him.
“Easily enough, cousin,” he said. “Most easily. Because I’ve a gift to keep my face straight, you think I have no fear? I fear now, as much… no, more, than ever. I’ve never fought yet that I didn’t feel a fear’s frostbite tooth in my gut, and I think it grows worse with age.” He glanced out, toward the sea. “And what do I know of death, more than you? I slept. I saw nothing.”
“The wise say we live again,” Hugon said in a low voice. “Life after life… now, could I be sure of that…”
“If you were sure, you’d live a fool’s life, and die a fool’s death,” Kavin said, bluntly. His deep eyes burned into Hugon’s. “I have been initiated; I know the Mysteries. But even so, I do not know all. I believe we live, always… but I do not know.”
“You are initiate?” Hugon said, staring. “I have the Third Grade, myself… but that is nothing, of course, as you know. There are few nowadays who go to higher grades… to the Mystery itself.”
He made a certain sign with his left hand; Kavin, nodding, answered it.
“I promise you, cousin,” Kavin said, quietly, “when we come to the end of this, I shall, myself, enter you in the Mystery. Not because you are of my blood, but because I think you are an honest man. I give you my word on that.”
He turned and walked toward the cabin door, leaving Hugon staring after him. Hugon scratched Fraak’s head softly, and spoke.
&nbs
p; “I have been half around the world, and seen no prince I would follow with all my soul… till now.”
Fraak crooned softly. He was still in a complete shock from the gruesome notion that anyone would eat a dragon.
“I smell breakfast,” Hugon said, and went down toward the midships house.
The sun rose higher, and toward noon, the wind began to slacken appreciably. From time to time, a man would glance at the limp sails and mutter under his breath. The sea was growing smoother, with an oily look.
The galley appeared, soon enough; first a speck of something far aft, then a growing shape. She had every rag of canvas on, but also, Hugon saw, a tiny flashing whiteness that meant oars out. He thought grimly of those men, straining below, lashed on by whips; dying, as they drove the galley on, their hearts bursting with that effort… and there was every chance he’d join them, soon enough, unless he died.
Zamor, beside him, voiced the same ill thought.
“I will not be taken alive,” the big black man said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’ve drawn oar for the last time. Though this magic belt might make the labor easier, it wouldn’t make slaves’ bread taste otherwise.”
“Look yonder,” Hugon said. “We’re competed for. Makes a man feel quaintly, to have two shiploads of armed wolves come from either side.”
Zamor peered across the sea, and saw the two dark shapes growing in the distance ahead.
Fraak lifted his wings and squalled defiance, staring out.
“Ah, Garph, a feat of navigation to be admired!” Hugon called out, as Garph emerged. Others of the crew gathered round, taking axes and swords as he served them out; he wore an old and rusty corselet now. One aged crewman sat, fiddling gloomily with a greasy skin bag from which pipes protruded; a strange strangled squall came from his work, and he laid the bag down with a black look at it.
“Why, may the demons fry me, but it’s a warpipe!” Hugon said, and went toward the man, grinning broadly.
“Here, man, let me try… I had some skill, once.”
He gathered up the pipes and fiddled with them for a moment; put them to his lips, and blew, mightily. A wild shriek came out, and Fraak leaped into the air, circling Hugon’s head and the mast, and piping wildly in counterpoint. Hugon stalked solemnly along the deck, the wailing pipe crying out a Dalesman’s warsong; a weird and dissonant thing, but with the eerie dignity of a skeleton dancing a saraband, stately and terrifying. Fraak’s aid made it a stronger dose; he seemed able to join the pipe’s drones with three separate notes at once, and his wings drummed in time.
“AAAAAhoo!” Zamor cried out, his eyes white and wide; the four-foot axe sang around his head, in whistling circles, as he stood spread-legged, watching the ships draw closer. Kavin had drawn his long straight sword, and held it now, loosely and lightly. Thuramon, Hugon saw, was nowhere about; wise of him, Hugon thought grimly. He drew breath again, and the pipes blared out once more.
A firepot arched through the air and thudded into a sail; it did not break, but slid down, to thump into a coil of rope, and roll across the deck, a trail of sullen fire following it. Hugon found it squarely in his path as he strode forward, piping; he did not break his pace, but kicked, hard. The thing flew up, trailing fire as it arched over the side; before it struck the water, it burst with a dull boom.
Hugon marched straight on, across the fire line, and turned; a crewman hurled a water bucket at it, and the blaze died slowly.
But Garph had been at the steering platform all the while; craftily, he waited, and now he swung the ship, hard over. The Turtle heeled; as she came across the wind, the sails that bore a red dragon, the oncoming Thulin, went slack, barred from the slight air by the patched canvas of the Turtle. The Thulin pirate came about, but too slowly; the Mazainian war galley arrowed past its intended prey, like a hawk missing its stoop. And a moment later, a rending crash rolled across the sea, as the galley’s metal-shod ram drove deep into the Thulin’s black side.
The noise was tremendous; above decks, Mazainians and pirates roared, full throated as a hundred packs of mastiffs in hunt; and from the galley’s lower deck, a monstrous wail of terror and agony erupted, as though the Pit itself was opened. The splintering oars flew upward and outward, and in those decks men died dreadfully.
The Turtle was lumbering slowly off, away from the grim scene; and Hugon, lowering the pipe, stared back with sickened heart. The galley could not withdraw; the black pirate, broken-backed, was canted far over and sinking swiftly, and drawing its killer down with it. Across their decks, a mass of men hacked and screamed and died, back and forth in the slime of blood under their feet, tripping in the tangle of cordage as they fought.
The pirate’s other ship will aid her, Hugon thought, and in the meantime we’ll be off.
But the second black ship slid swiftly past the tangled pair, with a roaring jeer rising from its decks, and an answering roar of rage from their abandoned comrades. They came on, straight for the Turtle’s stern blood hungry.
Hugon put the pipes to his lips again and blew a wild call that stopped just as the pirate’s sides scraped hard against the Turtle’s hull. He dropped the pipes then, and sprang toward the rail, whirling his sword around his head; and heard himself crying out the ancient yowling battle cry of his folk.
Beside him, Zamor bellowed and the great axe swung, flashing; a bearded head that had just appeared at the rail sprang off, bodiless, and arched across the deck in a spray of blood.
The crewmen had gone mad, it seemed; the power of that pipe had stirred their old blood, and brought antique blood lust to warm their old bodies once more. They stabbed and chopped, cackling and squalling, as the pirates came aboard.
Kavin moved down the rail’s length, the long sword circling and swinging up and down like the pendulum of death’s clock. The pirates spread away and back, dodging that terrible blade, but meeting other blades among the crewmen as they did so.
But there were too many of them; they swarmed up, more and more, fresh swords to replace those who fell. Captain Garph fell backward, clutching at his belly, as Hugon bent to stab upward at the man who had killed Garph.
The pirate squealed; but Hugon’s sword jammed tightly somewhere in the corsair’s gut, and the man’s writhing nearly yanked the blade from Hugon’s grip. Behind the dying pirate, a gigantic spade-bearded man rose, and stabbed downward at Hugon; his blade sliced along Hugon’s bicep, with agonizing fire in its wake.
Then the giant shrieked, as Fraak’s claws found his face and tore; Hugon, rolling free, saw the dragonet swoop, clawing, and rise again, to dive and claw and burn.
Hugon clutched at his sword, the pain of his wound knifing into his arm, and hastily changed the blade to his other hand in time to parry another downward cut.
There were few crew members left, he saw now; and there were still at least a score of the pirates alive on the deck. But no more came over the rail. He grinned fiercely and moved forward, Zamor and Kavin on either side, a grim circle of crewmen with them. The pirates were caught against the rail now, pressed back. They fought hard; not a man surrendered. Then, one man sprang backward, to splash in the sea below; Kavin’s longsword brought down another, and the great axe in Zamor’s grip slashed down a third. Others began to jump; as Hugon lunged forward to miss one such, he saw there were others, below, in the black ship. They cut at the lines that held their grappling hooks to the Turtle, as anxious to be free as they had been to come aboard.
A stray pirate dodging rabbitwise as men cut at him, ran head-on into Zamor’s open arms, and was grasped and held high in the air. Zamor, painted with red gore from neck to heel, roared a gigantic laugh, the wriggling pirate clutching vainly as he swung outward. Then, the pirate’s hands clasped Zamor’s belt, that broad, ancient belt which was the gift of the Dragon folk. The man was screaming in terror; he clawed, trying to drag himself free by the grasp upon the buckle.
Only Hugon saw it clearly; standing as he was, a scant yard away. The man had clutched the j
ewel stud as Zamor lifted him higher; Zamor laughed again, and leaned far over the bulwark.
“Here’s the last of your men, Thulin scum!” Zamor bellowed. “Take him back, with our best compliments!” And he hurled the man, straight downward toward the open hull below.
There was a sickening sound, as of a giant melon cracking; a shriek of broken timber, and a howl of insane terror from the remaining pirates below. Then Hugon peered over, and saw the unbelievable.
The hapless pirate had been driven like a missile, clear through the stout planks and timbers of the pirate’s ship; water sprayed upward, red tinted, but there was nothing left of the man’s body at all. But the others had seen, and wished to see no more; though their ship sank beneath them, they would not stay near the black giant of terror. The ship veered away, listing as it went; and now, lying half under water, it moved still farther.
“Get a man to that helm,” Kavin called out, calmly enough, though his breath came in panting rasps.
The Turtle was still under way; a man staggered aft, and seized the staff. Others drew at the lines, bringing the sail around, still obedient though the Captain lay dead under their feet. Hugon clutched his shoulder, the pain growing now; and looked around.
There were no more than eight or nine crewmen left, he saw. Kavin, and Zamor… and where was that ancient devil, Thuramon, he thought for a moment. Now that we could use his wizardry… And myself, Hugon thought; well, I’ve still an arm, though it’s my left one.
And there, by the God of Thieves and Luck, comes the Imperial galley, Hugon thought, staring aft. And that’s the end of the lot of us, he added to himself; and balanced the sword clumsily in his left hand. He pulled a fragment of torn cloth tightly around the shoulder with his teeth. The red stain came through swiftly, but the pressure seemed to slow the agony.
The galley forged closer; most of the oars were smashed and useless, but some still beat steadily. Below, the timesman’s gong clanged steadily, one, two, one, two…