The Ghostfaces

by John Flanagan

  “Four on one side, three on the other,” Hal corrected him. He wasn’t offended by the older man’s comments. He’d heard them all before when he first built Heron. “When Ingvar’s rowing, he counts as two oarsmen.”

  Orvik looked doubtful. “Seven rowers. Eight if you count Ingvar as two. Is that enough to row upwind?”

  Thorn smiled. “We don’t row upwind. We sail.”

  Orvik regarded him with disbelief. “You can’t sail upwind,” he said.

  Thorn inclined his head. “This ship can. She was designed by a genius.”

  “Oh, and who would that be?” Orvik wanted to know.

  Thorn jerked a thumb at Hal. “That would be Hal. He came up with a sail plan that will run rings round a square-rigged wolfship.” He could see the skepticism in Orvik’s eyes and he gestured for Hal to explain the advantages of the Heron’s fore and aft sail rig.

  They moved for’ard and Hal demonstrated how the twin yardarms could raise a triangular sail on either side and how, with their rigid leading edges, they could point into the wind.

  “Of course,” he said, “she won’t sail dead upwind. But we can tack back and forth and zigzag our way.”

  Mohegas, listening keenly, didn’t understand much that was said. But he could see Orvik’s growing acceptance of what he was being told and realized that this ship, and its young designer, were something very special. He gestured to a large shape in the bow, covered in a canvas shroud.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  Hal smiled. He was enjoying showing off his successful inventions. He reflected ruefully that there had been more than one unsuccessful invention over the years, and he’d borne the brunt of ridicule when they’d failed to measure up to expectations. So when one worked, he felt he owed it to himself to boast a little.

  “This is what we call the Mangler,” he told the Mawag elder. He had repaired the thongs he had cut during the fight with the bear. He loosened them now and stripped the cover away, revealing the massive crossbow, which seemed to crouch malevolently on its mounting. He demonstrated the salient features of the weapon, showing how it traversed through an arc of forty-five degrees to either side of the bow, and how the massive arms were cocked.

  “Ingvar takes care of that,” he said, grinning. “He’s the only one strong enough to haul the cord back.”

  Next, he opened the locker behind the weapon and showed them a selection of the heavy projectiles that the bow could shoot. Mohegas weighed one in his hand.

  “This is what you used to kill the bear?” he said.

  Hal nodded. “Exactly.”

  Orvik looked at the weapon with great interest. “I’ve never seen a ship carrying a weapon like this before,” he said.

  Thorn nodded, slapping his hand on the smooth wood of the Mangler.

  “Hal designed this as well,” he said. “We used it to defeat Zavac a couple of years ago.”

  Orvik shook his head, frowning. “Zavac? Who’s he when he’s at home?”

  Thorn smiled, but without humor. “He’s not at home anymore,” he said. “He was a pirate and he raided Hallasholm and stole the Andomal.”

  Orvik’s eyebrows shot up. The Andomal was the Skandian nation’s most precious artifact. Before he could ask the obvious question, Thorn continued.

  “We chased him across half the world. Finally cornered him and fought him. His ship was the size of a wolfship,” he explained. “But Hal outmaneuvered him and shot him and his crew to pieces with the Mangler here, and got it back.”

  As ever, when he boasted about Hal’s achievements, Thorn didn’t think it necessary to explain that his young friend had allowed the Andomal to be stolen in the first place. That was a minor detail, he thought.

  Orvik regarded the young skirl with new respect.

  Hal shrugged diffidently. He enjoyed showing off his inventions, but he was less eager to boast about his achievements.

  “Let’s get back to the camp,” he said, and led the way to the boarding plank that connected the ship to the bank.

  He glanced back as he reached the shore. Mohegas was still standing in the bow, regarding the massive crossbow with a thoughtful expression. Then, realizing he had been left behind, he hastily followed them to the bank.

  chapter twenty-seven

  As they emerged from the trees onto the beach once more, Hal became aware of an angry voice, coming from close by the campsite. A young Mawag warrior was standing by the access ladder, shouting in his own language and obviously demanding entrance. An imperturbable Ingvar stood at the fence, barring access with his voulge. The sun glinted on the razor-sharp steel head of the weapon, and the young Mawag viewed it warily.

  Well he might, Hal thought. Ingvar and the long-handled, heavy weapon were not a combination to be taken lightly. The young skirl quickened his pace as the Mawag began shouting again.

  Ingvar said nothing. His face was impassive. His eyes were concealed behind the dark circles of his spectacles. As the young tribesman took a pace toward the foot of the access ladder, Ingvar lowered the voulge so that it was pointing directly at the Mawag’s chest. If the tribesman kept moving forward, he would impale himself on the point.

  “We’d better get up there,” Hal said.

  Behind him, he heard Orvik say quietly, “It’s young Simsinnet. I was afraid something like this might happen.”

  Hal glanced quickly back at him, an annoyed expression touching his face. If Orvik had foreseen there might be trouble, it would have been a good idea to have mentioned it, he thought.

  As they came within speaking range, Mohegas called out in his own tongue and the young man looked around, a little shamefaced, and took a pace back from the ladder. Now that Hal had time to take stock of him, he could see he was around eighteen years old. He was stocky and muscular.

  “What’s going on here, Ingvar?” Hal demanded.

  The big youth glanced at Hal, then indicated the Mawag with the point of his voulge. “This character turned up a few minutes ago and started yelling for Stig. I told him Stig wasn’t in the camp but he didn’t seem to believe me. He started yelling in Mawag and tried to climb the ladder. I wasn’t having that, so I asked him to stop.”

  Hal couldn’t repress a smile. “With your voulge?”

  Ingvar hesitated, then nodded. “It seemed like the most compelling argument.”

  Hal turned to Mohegas. “What’s the problem?” he asked. “Why is he so angry?”

  The tribal elder made a dismissive gesture, glaring at the young man named Simsinnet. “Simsinnet is a fool. He is being discourteous. It is nothing. I will deal with him.”

  But Hal wasn’t prepared to leave it at that. It obviously wasn’t nothing, as Mohegas claimed. If he or one of his men had done something to offend the young Mawag, he wanted to know about it. Mohegas might be embarrassed by Simsinnet’s behavior, but Hal wasn’t going to let him brush it aside. He turned to the old Skandian castaway a few paces behind him.

  “Orvik, you speak their language. What’s this fellow so angry about?”

  His tone conveyed his annoyance that Orvik might have seen trouble brewing and failed to alert him to it. The older Skandian hesitated, then reluctantly came clean.

  “He’s angry at Stig about the girl. He’s been courting Tecumsa for the past six months—not that she’s returned his interest. But he seems to think he has some kind of claim on her, and Stig has come along and got in the way.”

  “Does he? Does he have any claim on her?” Hal asked. It would be incredibly awkward if Stig had come between a betrothed couple.

  Orvik shook his head. “No. As I said, she hasn’t returned his interest. But he’s understandably miffed that a stranger seems to have won her heart. You know how young men can be,” he added.

  Hal nodded, although in fact, he had no idea how young men could be, being a young man himself, and with
out any real experience in matters of the heart.

  Mohegas began shouting at Simsinnet again, making angry, dismissive gestures and obviously telling him to go back to the Mawag village. Hal put a hand on his arm to stop him. It wouldn’t do any good to simply send the young man away with his anger festering. This situation needed to be resolved, he thought. He looked at Ingvar.

  “Where is Stig?” he asked. He felt a rush of anger at his first mate. Couldn’t he simply have stayed away from the Mawag girl until it was time for them to head home? Why did he have to jeopardize their position by alienating this young Mawag? For although Mohegas was intent on stopping this affair, he had no doubt that Simsinnet would have friends among the younger Mawags who would take his side, and a tide of resentment could well rise up against the Skandians, driving a wedge between them and the Mawagansett tribe.

  “He went for a walk down the beach a while back,” Ingvar told him. Then added, “He was with the Mawag girl.”

  Simsinnet obviously understood him, but was more at home expressing his anger in his own language. He began shouting angrily again. Mohegas shouted back and the younger man eventually fell silent, although there was a dangerously sulky look to his face.

  “This isn’t good,” Orvik said quietly.

  Hal rounded on him. “Isn’t it? I hadn’t noticed,” he said sarcastically. “And if you saw this coming, why didn’t you give me a heads-up?”

  Orvik opened his mouth to say something, couldn’t think of a worthwhile reply and closed it again. Thorn saved him.

  “Here they come now,” he said and all eyes turned to follow the direction he was pointing with his hook. Stig and Tecumsa were strolling hand in hand at the water’s edge, making their way back to the campsite. As the group watched, Stig said something and the girl laughed and touched his shoulder with an intimate gesture.

  “Oh, Orlog’s horns!” Hal muttered.

  Thorn was grinning. He’d seen this sort of thing many times before in his youth. Young men and young women, they couldn’t help but stir things up, he thought.

  “Does Orlog have horns?” he asked mildly. “I’d only ever heard of his teeth and claws.”

  Hal glared at him. It was all very well for Thorn to joke, he thought. “Orlog has horns if I want him to have horns,” he said shortly. “And a big scaly backside as well, if I say.”

  Simsinnet had started to move toward the young couple approaching along the beach, but a sharp command from Mohegas stopped him.

  Hal addressed Orvik again. “So what’s likely to happen here?”

  Orvik shrugged. “From what I know, he’ll want to fight Stig for the right to court the girl,” he replied. “But I could be wrong. Maybe he’ll just give him an earful and forget it.”

  Hal studied the young Mawag. He was fit and hard muscled and he didn’t look like the type who would be content to “just give Stig an earful,” he thought.

  “Fight?” he asked Orvik. “You mean Stig will have to kill him?” It never occurred to him that Stig would lose a fight. He had seen his friend in battle too many times to doubt his skill and ability. But if he was forced to kill Simsinnet, it could drive a serious wedge between the two groups—and the Herons were outnumbered about eight to one, he thought. But thankfully, he saw Orvik shaking his head.

  “No. It won’t be a fight to the death. No weapons. They’ll fight hand to hand.”

  That was something to be thankful for, Hal thought.

  By this time, Stig and Tecumsa had come within easy speaking distance. Stig looked amused and puzzled by the group of people around the access ladder to the compound. Tecumsa, Hal noticed, took one look at Simsinnet and looked a lot less than amused.

  “What’s the trouble?” Stig said good-naturedly. Then a storm of angry dissent broke over him. Simsinnet pointed an accusing finger at him and Tecumsa and started shouting. She shouted back, and Mohegas joined in as well, shouting louder than the two of them. They spoke in the Mawag tongue. Hal glanced angrily at Orvik, who attempted to translate.

  “He’s saying she’s his girl. She says she’s not and how dare he assume she is. Mohegas is telling them both to behave. Simsinnet says he and Tecumsa have had ‘an understanding’ for the past six months. She says he might have understood that but nobody told her—”

  “All right. I get the general gist,” Hal muttered. But now events took a turn for the worse as Simsinnet aimed a long, angry outburst at Tecumsa. He took a pace toward her and that was enough for Stig. He stepped between them, raising a hand to stop the angry warrior.

  “That’s enough of that!” he said warningly. “Just back off, feathertop!”

  The last word was a reference to the two eagle feathers Simsinnet wore in a deer-hide headband. Simsinnet may have missed the meaning of the word, but the tone of derision was all too obvious. He stooped and grabbed a handful of beach sand.

  “Oh no . . . ,” Orvik began, and Mohegas shouted a warning.

  Too late. Simsinnet hurled the sand in an arc at Stig, so that it sprayed across his chest. The young Skandian flushed with anger and took a pace forward, his fist raised. Hal, sensing from Orvik’s and Mohegas’s reactions that there was more to Simsinnet’s gesture than simply throwing sand, shouted an order.

  “Stig! Hold it right there!”

  There was a time when Stig’s notorious temper would have flared out of control and he would have launched himself in a fury at the Mawag. But since those days, Stig had learned discipline—and he’d learned that when Hal gave an order, he expected it to be obeyed. He stopped, looking angrily at his skirl.

  “It’s a challenge,” Hal told him, guessing that that was what the gesture meant.

  Orvik confirmed it for him. “It’s a formal challenge to fight,” he said. “If you accept, you have to throw a handful of sand back at him.”

  “Well, fine,” Stig said, stooping, gathering a handful and throwing it at Simsinnet in one motion. “Let’s get to it. I’ll fetch my ax and shield.”

  Simsinnet smiled in satisfaction. “No weapons,” he said, reverting for the first time to the common tongue. “We fight man to man. Bare hands.”

  “Suits me,” Stig replied, realizing that this was to be a formal, organized contest, and not a simple brawl on the beach. “Name the time and place.”

  • • • • •

  The time was an hour after noon and the place was the open ground in front of the village, between the huts and the fire circle. Stig sat on a low stool while Hal bound his hands with deer-hide strips to protect them, leaving the fingers free to grip but padding the knuckles. Orvik knelt beside them.

  “Is there any way we can stop this?” Hal asked. “This can only cause bad blood between us and them.”

  But surprisingly, Orvik shook his head. “Not really. In fact, it might clear the air. Nobody will blame Stig for reacting to the challenge. They’ll respect him for it. Simsinnet is regarded as a great fighter.”

  Hal sighed, shook his head and went back to fastening the bindings on Stig’s fists.

  “How will he fight?” Stig asked. “Is there anything I should look for?”

  “He’ll try to grapple you,” Orvik told him. “He’ll go for a choke hold or an arm or leg lock. Anything to disable you or force you to submit. He’s a wrestler and he’s good at it. He can throw you flat on your back in a second.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Stig said. “Will he box? Will he throw punches?”

  Orvik shook his head. “They don’t know anything about boxing.”

  Stig looked at him for a few seconds. “They’re about to learn,” he said grimly.

  A horn blast sounded from across the open space. Romanut, the Mawagansett battle leader, a man considerably younger than Mohegas, called for the combatants to take their places.

  Stig rose and a chorus of encouragement came from the small group of Herons g
athered around him. He stripped off his shirt and handed it to Hal. No sense in giving Simsinnet anything to grab hold of. Dressed in a knee-length pair of breeches and flanked by Orvik, Thorn and Hal, he made his way to the circle in the sand where the fight would take place. As they approached, Simsinnet emerged from one of the huts, accompanied by three retainers. The rest of the tribe gathered around the fighting ring. Some, but not all, cheered on their man. Hal noticed that Mohegas’s lips were a tight, angry line. Tecumsa and several of the tribe’s young women also stood silently, watching with keen interest.

  Simsinnet was dressed only in a loincloth. His muscular body glistened with oil.

  “Not very sporting of him,” Stig muttered to Hal.

  A hush fell as the two combatants faced each other, each standing at the edge of the circle.

  Knowing that the rules, which were basic, had been explained to both youths, Romanut raised the horn to his lips again and sounded a long blast. When the horn ceased, it was the signal for the fight to begin.

  The long, pealing note stopped abruptly. The sudden silence was almost shocking. Stig stepped forward a pace, left leg advanced slightly, fists raised in the classic boxer’s pose. Simsinnet, who had never seen this before, hesitated a second, then, screaming a war cry, he leapt high in the air and charged across the sand, his arms curved into a wrestler’s grappling pose.

  Stig could see the fury on his face and, in a brief moment of recollection, he remembered how Thorn had taught him never to fight angry.

  As the onrushing Simsinnet came close, Stig stepped toward him, inside the grappling arms, and shot out a straight right. It hit Simsinnet flush on the jaw, with all the force of Stig’s upper body and shoulder behind it, augmented by Simsinnet’s own hard-charging momentum. Simsinnet straightened up instantly, his eyes glazing, his arms suddenly dropping to hang slackly by his sides. Stig saw the light of awareness go out in his eyes, saw his knees begin to buckle under him. Quickly, the tall Skandian stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Simsinnet’s upper body and lowering him to the sand, to forestall any further injury. Then he straightened and took a pace back, glancing around the suddenly silent onlookers.