Landfall

by Victor Serrano

That merchant ship was just behind them, following along under a prize crew, though most of its cargo had been transferred to Bekhar’s ship. It had been a brief fight, the pirates only losing a couple men. Before the merchant captain had bled out, he had spoken of strange ships to the north, bigger and taller than any he had ever seen in these waters. Bekhar had found the stories interesting, but the captain had been scant on the details. He had sailed south to avoid trouble with them… and had found trouble instead with Black Bekhar’s band of pirates.

  Bekhar squinted at the ship again. It was still some distance away, but it clearly wasn’t one of the ships the merchant captain had spoken of. It looked like just another local trading ship, likely laden with an assortment of linens or spices. A voice from the deck below broke Bekhar’s trance.

  “How’s it looking, Captain?”

  Bekhar looked down at the deck, half-filled with curious pirates, coiled rope, and several crates from yesterday’s capture.

  “It’s looking like a day of plunder, boys!”

  Bekhar scrambled down the mast, smiling as he heard cheering break out. The mast was stout wood, slippery from sea breeze, but this was as much a home to Bekhar as anywhere else and he shimmied down without a single misplaced foothold. Yet when he reached the bottom, he saw that several men were arguing, and more than a few pirates looked reluctant, faces puckered like they had bitten into something foul.

  “What’s the matter, boys?” Bekhar asked. “Got no fire in you?”

  One squat older pirate weaved his way through the crowd. He stuck his pugnacious face in front of Bekhar’s, bent nose and broken teeth and all. The ugly man was Ganasa, and he had tangled with Bekhar before on more than one occasion.

  “We need a vote,” Ganasa said.

  He turned around to face the crowd, his arms spread wide. Bekhar snorted behind him as he clasped a hand on the glaive he had left laying on the deck. It bore a crude resemblance to the halberds some Three Clans soldiers bore, though the edge was jagged and scored by a dozen marks. The weapon was a weighty hunk of curved metal fastened to a sturdy pole, and had been with Bekhar for years.

  “Fellow crewmen!” Ganasa said. “We need to decide whether to continue on back to port or dither around chasing another ship.”

  There was an assortment of grumbles and calls of assent about this, and discussion broke out all along the deck. Bekhar frowned. As far as he could tell the only dithering about was coming from Ganasa. But Bekhar knew the old man spoke for much of the crew, and it was better to bring dissent out into the open so it could be pummeled down for all to see.

  “A vote, then!” Bekhar barked out. “Let’s be about it.”

  There was a flurry of activity along the deck now, men running to inform others stationed along the deck.

  Ganasa turned to Bekhar, his eyebrow raised. “Shall we bring the prize crew over to vote?”

  Bekhar shook his head. “We don’t have the time for it,” he said harshly. A fighting bunch, they would likely support Bekhar’s view, but it would take too long to ferry them over.

  Ganasa shrugged. “I have no objection.”

  Bekhar scowled at the man. Ganasa was too attached to the egalitarian traditions of the South Sea pirates. That had been all well and good when Bekhar was earning a reputation over the years, but ever since he had been elected captain Ganasa had been a thorn in his side. Still, Bekhar could swallow his anger as long as the debate and discussion was brief and the vote in his favor. The bulk of the pirate force was now assembled and Ganasa was holding forth, making his way through the throngs of raggedly dressed corsairs.

  “We have just taken a ship and cargo and are near to port! Our holds are full to bursting and prosperity awaits just days away. Why delay the debauchery?”

  “Hear hear!” several men shouted in agreement. Bekhar cracked his knuckles and took a few steps forward, drawing the attention of the pirate crew.

  “Aye, we’re near to port, so there’s even more reason to take another ship. We-” he paused as cheering broke out, his constituents hearkening to his words.

  Ganasa shook his head in hearty disapproval, his tangled gray hair waving around wildly. He sighed deeply for dramatic effect, as if at a wayward child, and the surrounding men hushed to hear his next words.

  “We cannot hope to take all the vessel’s cargo. In a ship that size, there’s bound to be guards, and that means good men dying.” Ganasa paused to take a breath. “And some of us will die as well,” he added to chortles.

  He turned, gesturing dramatically as his hair flew around in a whirl.

  “And besides, when was the last time you saw a woman? We’ve caught ourselves a big catch already, but every fisherman knows when his net is full.”

  Bekhar guffawed, slapping his fist against a nearby crate.

  “Are we fishermen or are we pirates? We take the ship, we take the cargo, we take the victory and we take it all to port! Ah, to the depths with you if you don’t want to fight!”

  Bekhar spat onto the deck as men around him hollered and pounded their feet on the ground. Some stood silent and grim, but Bekhar reckoned most of the men were with him.

  “Sick for a woman? For all you know the nearest woman might be aboard that,” he said, with a nod at the distant sails of the merchant vessel. Several nearby dissenters paused to consider this new line of argument.

  “Let’s have it out then!” Bekhar snarled. “To a vote and be done with it!”

  Ganasa stood still for some time, basking in the attention as the crew rumbled and grumbled and hissed like a pot about to boil over. Just as it began rising to a tumult Ganasa gave a firm nod.

  “To a vote then!”

  Bekhar climbed on a crate and whirled his scowling face from side to side, staring into the eyes of the rabble that littered the open deck.

  “Lily-livered cowards who want to piss off back to port say aye!”

  Ganasa glared and shouted something, but it was lost in the ensuing roar. A good chunk of the crew shouted and banged their feet, much more than Bekhar expected. After a minute a sort of silence fell, a lowering of grumbles and curses into a steady ship-wide muttering, which was the best anyone could hope for when it came to voting.

  Bekhar snorted in exaggerated contempt. “And for you right-thinking lads who want to take the ship, say aye!”

  The crew made a thunderous noise, Bekhar chief among them, yelling as he banged the haft of his glaive on the deck. They finally fell silent, Bekhar grinning, knowing he had more supporters than opponents. Ganasa grimaced, as usual dragging out the moment. Finally he nodded to Bekhar, admitting that Bekhar’s side had the votes. The crew was not particularly fond of counting unless it came down to treasure but most of them still had both their ears.

  “Take us in,” Bekhar snapped to the helmsman. “Everyone else, ready your gear. Same as always, we get in close and board. You kill a man, you get his gear. Everything else gets split once we take it.”

  Around him men had left to grab their various patchwork pieces of armor. Metal armor was a rarity among pirates, most men in a mesmerizing mix of boiled leather and tattered cloth which from a distance made them look like scuttling crabs.

  Bekhar looked over at Ganasa, still looking sour as ever. “You with me, you old sea dog?”

  The man grunted, made as if to spit, but coughed instead. “Of course,” he said finally. “You won’t see me shirking.”

  “You’ll be front and center then?” Bekhar asked with a grin.

  “Well…” the man trailed off, but Bekhar had already moved on, slapping backs and encouraging the nearby men. Bekhar nodded at a pirate with a rusty falchion, motioning for the man to lean close.

  “I’ve a mind to make you captain of the prize crew,” Bekhar whispered in the man’s ear, a tattered leathery thing with three jangling golden rings pierced through. The man beamed back at Bekhar.

  “You have to earn it, though,” Bekhar added. He pointed at the man’s sweat-stained tunic. “I want that
red when you’re done.”

  The man nodded eagerly. “I won’t let you down, Captain.” He wet his lips. “And the bonus? When the ship sells?”

  “Of course, of course,” Bekhar said vaguely as he moved on. The man pushed his way forward to the front rank as the pirate ship steadily closed in. Bekhar looked around in paternalistic approval at the mass of pirates readying themselves to board. Despite their initial reservations the crew seemed eager now.

  “Captain!” the lookout cried out from above, interrupting Bekhar’s thoughts. Bekhar looked up, spat on his hands, and within half a minute had scrambled back up the mast. The man pointed out at the merchant vessel. “It’s a ship, sir,” he whispered.

  Bekhar stared at the man for a moment, wondering if the man had lost his wits. “Of course it’s a ship, you idiot.”

  “No, Captain. Behind the merchant vessel.”

  Bekhar looked back.

  “Wait for the waves to raise it up,” the lookout said, low and quiet.

  Bekhar watched as the merchant vessel slowly bobbed up and down on the rising tide. There was a sudden gleam of reflected metal behind the ship, and as Bekhar squinted, he made out a squat dark outline on the far side. After a moment the merchant vessel’s sails obscured the second ship once more.

  “Should we tell them?” the lookout asked. Bekhar thought for a moment of what the second ship would mean. He hadn’t seen anything quite like that but it was clearly a small vessel, not even the size of most barges. Perhaps it was meant for ferrying supplies. Bekhar scratched his scraggly beard for a moment, but his decision had already been made. If the merchant crew hadn’t heard the hooting and hollering, they certainly must have spotted them by now. Bekhar sniffed. And with the wind behind their sails, they definitely must have noticed the ripe smell of a pirate crew.

  “Best if you don’t mention it,” he said finally, grinning at the lookout. “You did well to let me know first. The men, they won’t all realize what a great boon another ship will be,” he explained.

  The lookout smiled, bowing his head slightly.

  “Pilot!” Bekhar shouted, making the lookout wince at the sudden noise. “Take us in close, nice and fast!”

  “Aye, sir!” the man shouted back. Bekhar noticed a commotion on the deck below, and he leaned out precariously to observe his pirates from above.

  “Ho there, it’s another ship!” one of the pirates yelled, leaning up against the prow.

  Bekhar swung around the lookout nest, looking toward the almost-abandoned aft deck, where his first mate and a few trusted others stood in wait.

  “Lajos! Unfurl the black flag!”

  The man nodded, and along with the crew around him began changing their neutral merchant markings for the black flag of piracy. Bekhar usually waited until his ship was closer, but he would make an exception in this instance. He didn’t want any vote-loving bastards agitating for a second referendum.

  The shouting below him increased, Ganasa bellowing something about the second ship. Bekhar leaned over to look at his crew below.

  “Two prizes for one fight!” He yelled out triumphantly. “Prepare for boarding!”

  It was then that the firing began.

  Chapter Eight

  Landfall

  The ferrywoman carefully sliced the carp open and extracted the guts with practiced movements. Her weathered fingers ripped apart the outer meat and deposited strips of the fresh carp in her pot of diced chili, coriander, and sesame seeds. After cleaning the meat around the skeleton, she noisily slurped up the fish’s eyeballs and leaned back in contentment. In a moment she would start a fire to boil her soup, but for now she would relax and watch the dragonflies buzz around the ferry’s dock. It was a nice day – a bit hot, she allowed – but all told a rather nice day.

  She watched a pair of dragonflies skitter along the riverbank and disappear behind the hanging catkins of a willow stand. It seemed like there were more dragonflies this year, the ferrywoman mused, considering whether or not it meant anything. Drought, possibly? Were there more dragonflies the year of the last drought? She pursed her lips, remembering, but was rudely interrupted by the nearby sound of thunder.

  Cursing in surprise, she sat back up, mouth agape. Did dragonflies mean a rainstorm? In the dry season? She looked up at the hot sun and then stared back at the sea in confusion. The weather was still, warm with a slight westerly breeze from the ocean. She sniffed. There was a strange smell in the air, like a whiff of rotten eggs caught by the wind. She heard another rushing thunderclap even though the sky remained clear. After pondering for a moment, she set her pot down on the jetty and gathered up her robes, determined to see what was going on.

  The ferrywoman took her customary noontide break as most travelers moving back and forth from the mainland crossed in the early morning and evening. The ferrywoman, along with most of her family and several dozen other families, lived on a small island off the western coast of Tamani, a bustling Hangyul shipping town. On a clear day, which this was, the ferrywoman could even see Tamani’s docks in the distance, although even when she was younger she could never make out individual shapes from the island’s shore. However, the noise came from the ocean to the west, and the ferrywoman hobbled determinedly to a hill at the midway point to see what was going on. She strained for several minutes through the thrushes, not even pausing to admire a meadowlark preening to himself. There were three more thunderclaps before she reached the top of the hill. When she reached the summit, her breath was taken away, and not just from the climb.

  At first they looked like black islands with tall white trees, but then she was able to see that these were huge ships of a type she had never seen before. The ferrywoman had seen two pirate raids over the years but these ships were much bigger. A faint memory from over sixty years ago pulled at her. Are these… Jutland traders? She noticed the close formation of at least a dozen vessels, then realized there was something floating above. Great big white flying dots grew larger, as her mouth fell open again, and she clearly saw a puff of black smoke surround the decks of the ships, followed by a rush of air, the snapping of a tree branch not ten spans away from her, and the crash of thunder. A fisherman ran up beside her, almost unnoticed. He must have had the same idea, to observe from the hill.

  The ferrywoman turned to the fisherman, Dao, a good man with a family on the island. “Young man, you must hurry to Tamani!” He stared at her. “Grab your family if you can, but you must get away! They will be landing here!” His face paled, and he turned to go, but then stopped and looked back.

  “And you, Grandmother Liu?”

  A nice man, but there was no helping her. “Don’t you worry about me, young man, just get away from here.” He nodded, mumbling something apologetically, and left at a run for his house.

  The ferrywoman stared back at the ships, a good distance closer already, but still… probably she could make it. If she hurried immediately to the docks and didn’t gather her things. There was no time to collect what family still remained on the island, and anyway they lived far to the interior in the southwest. Probably she should go to them and wait this storm out in her grandson’s home. But she was too curious for that. She stretched out her hand, looking at the scuffed knuckles and worn, arthritic fingers. That hand had been young once and had born the ring of a Farensi believer. The Farensi had all been massacred sixty years ago, and nobody still believed any of that nonsense, or even remembered them. But she had been Farensi once. Long ago, when the Jutland traders had made this island their home, before the Three Clans united to expel the missionaries and stamp out the heresy.

  She looked at the ships, wondering. Are they Farensi too? Can I truly still be Farensi? She hadn’t really thought about it in ages even though she knew every day could be her last. Old people were supposed to think about these things. But there weren’t many old people left on the island, and most of them weren’t even born when the Jutlanders were around. Her children never even knew that she had been Farensi,
once, even though they all practiced Farensi customs like the ritualized face-cleansing and the Four Direction Graces at mealtimes. They thought they were just old-fashioned customs of the island, and most of the other families here unthinkingly practiced them as well.

  Sixty years ago they might have been slaughtered for that, and the young islanders here never even knew they practiced barbarian heresy. The ferrywoman had never bothered to explain to her children, and her husband had never cared for any religion, and had been dead for sixteen years. Back then it was too dangerous, and now it was considered irrelevant island eccentricities. But now… she stared at the ships, now at anchor and lowering rafts. Are they Farensi too?

  Straightening her back, the ferrywoman tried to shake out of her repose. Imagine, falling asleep on the day the barbarians invade! She half-chuckled, then looked around at the nearby farmers who had gathered unnoticed on the hill, staring at the ships with some concern and muttering prayers, half of them to the Emperor and half of them bastardized Farensi blessings. The ferrywoman almost chuckled at this, then stopped and spoke to the villagers.

  “Listen, you should gather up your families and stay in your homes.”

  The concerned farmers listened to her respectfully, valuing her opinion as the eldest member of the island.

  “Those of you who are thinking of making for Tamani, you are too late now. And even if you make it, I think these barbarians intend to take that city as well.”

  A few nodded in grim acceptance. They must have realized this.

  “I do not think these are pirates… nor do I think these are traders. If we stay in our homes and do not fight, we will come out alright in the end.” I hope. “Do not try to resist them. They are probably after money, and we have very little. They will probably just move on to Tamani.”

  Most of the farmers nodded. It wasn’t very encouraging, and she might be wrong, but there wasn’t much a few surprised farmers could do against this new force. Another thunderclap crashed, the wind kicking overhead, and she could see that the cannons were targeting the docks of Tamani. Most of the farmers on the hill took that as a sign to leave, and began careening down the sides, yelling the names of any children who might be in the fields or at play.