The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  “I cannot tell you. That is why I asked.”

  Packer fought back disappointment. Senslar Zendoda knew no more than Packer did.

  The priest also saw his daughter’s stricken look and decided not to press further. He would leave it to Panna to question Packer on his intentions. Will Seline stood. “Well, then. God bless you.” The words were somehow harder to say than he ever remembered. Then he turned and left the young man with his only child.

  As he climbed the stairway, he could make his heart feel nothing but a great sorrow. His wife dead and gone these past eight years, his parishioners falling into poverty, and the one great joy God had left him—his Panna—wilting, it seemed, even as she bloomed. Knowing as the pastor did the depth of his daughter’s love, her devotion to this reckless young man, the future seemed bleak, at best.

  But Will Seline believed in God. He believed God cared deeply. And so he would continue to pray. His heart would cry out to God. And God would hear; He always heard. And eventually, He would answer.

  The dark-haired young woman, her heart aching, stood and walked around the table. She snuffed the oil lamp on the way, so that only a single candle on the table lit the room. She sat close to the young man she loved, close beside him on the wooden bench.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said simply. What he heard, what he saw, was far more complex.

  “I often think how things might have been different.” Her voice was liquid silver, flowing like a stream. “How we could have had a cottage, and a child—maybe two by now—running to the door to welcome their father home each night.”

  Packer couldn’t look at her. She should be scolding him, forcing him to answer hard questions about where he’d been, why he hadn’t returned home, what he really felt about her. These were questions he dreaded, but they were questions he expected.

  This was unfair. She touched his face, turned it toward her. Her beauty was overwhelming. Completely unfair. He was self-conscious for only a moment, knowing his face to be marred, like his heart. But he forgot that quickly, lost himself in her eyes.

  She was infinitely beautiful. He saw again those things in Panna he always remembered when her face came to his mind. The small shelf of her cheekbone just under her eyes. The roundness of her forehead as it swept back to her hairline. The tiny, intricate lines creasing her full lips. He loved all these things. But mostly he loved her eyes, loved the light that shone from them. And here they were right now, deep, dark, soft as evening, drawing him in, more pleasant and powerful than he could have remembered or dreamed. There was gentle urgency in her. A delicate, powerful passion.

  She spoke. “You know that I love…that faraway place inside you.” Her voice was a stream over stones, clear and perfect. Exactly as he remembered it, but even more so. “I love that place,” she told him, “the one you’re always trying to find. I always have. Even though I can’t ever seem to go there with you.”

  You are that place, he thought.

  “If you were to settle here in this town and fish while that place still beckoned you, or become a priest, I’m afraid it might mean that place would one day be gone.”

  Packer didn’t understand what she was saying. She moved her body closer to his. She put a fingertip to her lips, and then touched it to his. This he understood. He felt inadequate, clumsy…and powerfully, inescapably drawn. His pulse raced as his defenses crumbled.

  “You will do great things,” she was saying. “And I don’t ever want you to settle for anything less. I just want to be with you, where you are. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  Looking into her eyes, he couldn’t avoid one great, simple truth. He knew now why he had come up this street. He knew why he was here. So he said it.

  “I love you, Panna.”

  She smiled sadly and said, “But you’re leaving again…aren’t you?”

  He was so glad she believed his admission of love. But he was crushed by her sadness. He couldn’t answer.

  “When?”

  He shook his head, not wanting to say the one word that was the only truthful answer, knowing what it would do. But he had to say it. “Tonight.”

  Her face fell, and she sat back. She looked away. “When will you be back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Packer least expected Panna’s next response. She placed her hands on either side of his face and turned him to her. “Take me with you, Packer. Anywhere.” Her hands were firm, and warm. Her brown eyes were intense. Her face was everything of value in this world, and most of the next—searching, and caring, and hopeful.

  “I can’t,” he said, as though from a great distance. “Panna—I’m going to sea on the Trophy Chase.”

  Her eyes widened. She dropped her hands. “Scatter Wilkins’ ship?”

  He nodded. “Look, Panna, I shouldn’t tell you this—you can’t tell anyone, even after I’m gone. Not your father, not anyone. It could be dangerous for me and…others…if it gets out.”

  She was still searching. “Of course it’s dangerous. Packer, he’s a pirate.” She sat back and looked hard at him.

  “He’s not now. At least, not like he was. He’s turned to fishing…and…a lot more.” He had to tell her everything. He took a deep breath. “Panna, he’s going after the Firefish. And I can help him.”

  Her face was blank. “The Firefish? But they don’t exist.”

  “They do, Panna. I’m sure of it.”

  She knew the stories, of course—everyone did. But they were only stories…of the great sea monsters large enough to take down a whole ship with a single lunge. This was Leviathan, from the book of Job. This was legend.

  “If they exist, why aren’t they seen more often?”

  “Panna, how many ships simply disappear, fishing boats that never return? It happens every year.” The unspoken memory of Packer’s father’s fate in just such a way hung between them.

  “Packer. Even if there is such a beast, what net could hold it?”

  Packer looked intently at her. “The Trophy Chase is fast, a fighting craft. I think they aren’t fishing. It’s more like whaling. They’re…hunting them.”

  “Them? But how many Firefish are there?”

  “I don’t know. But more than one. Many, I suspect.”

  She thought a moment. “What makes you believe all this?”

  “I’ve pieced it together, Panna. Talking to a lot of sailors, even a few sea captains. The Chase is always at sea, and one of her escorts, the Camadan, is a regular at merchant ports all over the kingdom, and the rumors have it that Scat—”

  “Rumors? You’re risking your life on rumors?”

  “More than rumors, Panna.” He looked at her hesitation, took a deep breath. “Panna, my father believed the Firefish could be taken. He believed the meat has some kind of extraordinary power. And whatever Scat’s doing, I think it’s something local fishermen can learn to do. My father believed it. It’s in his diary. He found their feeding waters, or at least thought he did. If I can help Scat Wilkins find them, it will change everything. For everyone.”

  “But—they’re pirates, Packer. They’re dangerous people. Bad men.”

  He felt exasperated. “Panna, I can take care of myself.”

  “By the sword, I suppose?”

  “I’ve thought it all through. I’ve planned this for a long time. I’ll be safe. Panna, I have to find out. If for no other reason than for my father’s memory.”

  She sighed. True or not, she could see why he couldn’t resist it. This was so much like Packer.

  He took her hands. “Panna, I’ll come back for you. If you still want me then, we’ll get married.”

  Her eyes widened, but this time in fear. “Don’t say that, Packer.” These were words she longed to hear, but not this way—words said to make her feel better as he left her.

  “I promise you—”

  She put a finger to his lips. “I love you, Packer. But listen to me. I’m not holding you to a promise you may not be able to keep. You�
��ve only now come to see me, and I’m not sure you were meaning to come see me at all.”

  Packer lowered his eyes. Yes, he had planned to avoid her…and now he was pledging his future to her. But this was right. This was true. He looked back up at her. She was a part of him in so many ways. “I will come back, Panna.”

  He pulled her gently toward him and kissed her.

  And then, from somewhere far away, a sound reached him. The clatter and clop of a cart pulled by a single horse on a cobblestone street. It took a moment longer for an image to form in his mind: sailors from the ship Trophy Chase in search of supplies.

  Panna knew that the moment, somehow, was over. “Packer?”

  “Shh!” He sat straight up, listening. He couldn’t let this happen—couldn’t miss this chance. “It’s them. Panna, I have to go.”

  “Packer…”

  “I have to, Panna. I have to go. Now.”

  And he was gone before she could say more.

  The single candle lit only the drab, familiar dining room. Was that the last look she would have of him? She held the image in her mind: his pain and joy and excitement fully commingled. There was love there. It was a worthy look, worthy of him, worth holding forever.

  Forever? Packer was gone. He might never come back for her. Panna slumped to the floor and wept.

  Upstairs, Will Seline heard the door close, then heard the sobs of his daughter. He prayed for Panna. And he prayed for the grace not to hate Packer Throme.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Stowaway

  Cap Hillis had no sooner shut up the storeroom than he heard a knock on his tavern door.

  “We’re closed!” Cap called out as cheerily as he could manage. He was sweating, quite sure he wouldn’t remember the details he was supposed to be able to recite with confidence.

  “Well then, open!” came the gruff answer back. “We’ve got gold coin and we need drink, and plenty of it. We’ll pay top price.”

  Cap walked closer to the door. “Who are you?” he asked, trying to sound appropriately suspicious.

  “Cash customers. Two gold coins for each barrel of ale. Are you interested, or do we go elsewhere?”

  “That’s a good price,” Cap told them, genuine surprise in his voice. He started to open the door, but then didn’t want to seem too eager. He leaned into it, hand still on the knob. “Why don’t you come in daylight?”

  The voice was irritated. “Just open the door.”

  Cap opened, as he correctly assumed all other businesses in the village either had or would.

  Two men in leather forester’s clothing entered. They didn’t look like sailors. They were followed by a woman, a foreigner, also in leather jacket and leggings, though hers were dark, a dull black. She had shiny, jet-black hair pulled into a braid that went from her left ear to her shoulder in the customary way of Drammune women, thick by her high cheekbone and deep-set eyes. The braid paralleled the slash of a deep scar that stretched from the corner of her left eye down to her jaw and reappeared on her neck. A warrior’s scar, made by a blade. She held a drawn rapier; a black-powder pistol was tucked into her belt beside the sheath of a long knife. Her eyes scanned the room with the cold vigilance of a hawk.

  “Where’s your storeroom?” the first man demanded. He wasn’t tall, but he was built like a block, square from shoulders to hips, with beefy arms and big paws for hands. This cubic torso was held up by thick legs that seemed too short for him. He had almost no neck; his sullen face started with a round chin at his chest and rose up to a thick, bony brow.

  He was called Ox.

  Cap pointed. Ox opened the storeroom door, and the other man went in quickly. This one was bowlegged, taller than Ox but spindly. An old head injury left his right eye half closed and the right side of his mouth carved into a permanent smile, a winking mockery of a carefree disposition. Everyone called him Monkey. The two animals, Ox and Monkey, rolled out both of Cap’s untapped barrels on a wooden hand truck, neither speaking another word.

  The woman kept an eye on the innkeeper between glances out the window. Cap Hillis had never heard of a swordswoman, but he had no doubt he was looking at one now. She was the smallest of the three, but struck Cap as the most dangerous. And though she said little, he got the distinct impression she was in charge.

  “Two barrels. Four coins.” Ox dropped the coins on the bar. “We need more,” he grumbled. “How much is left in that one?” He pointed to the barrel lying on its side, on a pedestal behind the bar, already tapped.

  “Not much. Check for yourself.”

  Ox jostled it easily with one hand. “Is there another tavern in town?”

  Cap shook his head as he picked up the coins, hefting them in his hand.

  “Ask him if he’s hiding anything,” Monkey suggested in a nasal voice, as though Cap couldn’t hear him. “They always try to hide something.”

  Ox squinted at the barkeeper suspiciously. “Do you have any more ale somewhere?”

  As Cap shrugged, the woman walked over to him and looked him directly in the eye. He was terrified by the dark promise he saw in her, the threat implicit in her look. This was as cold a pair of eyes as he’d ever seen. He could see death there; he could feel it. He glanced sideways at the storeroom. There were two empty barrels, and one covered one, back in the corner.

  “Fools,” the woman said, pointing her sword. “There’s a barrel under the blanket.” The woman spoke in a thick accent, with hard, rolling R’s.

  “Oh, that,” Cap said quickly. “That’s not something I thought sailors would want.”

  “Who said we were sailors?” The woman’s eyes pierced him again.

  Cap shook his head, afraid to speak, then glanced at the two men for help. Cap grinned painfully at Monkey—a reflex before realizing that Monkey’s disarming expression was frozen on half his face while the other half frowned. The barkeeper’s smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Who told you we were sailors?” she repeated.

  Cap flushed. “No one said it, ma’am. I just…there were rumors, and well, I don’t…” Cap completely foundered, and put a sharp laugh where the rest of his sentence should have been.

  “Rumors.” The woman eyed him menacingly, but could see no danger in him. She jerked her head in silent command, and the two animals went for the last barrel.

  Suddenly, Cap very much did not want Packer to go through with this. It was wrong; it was dangerous. Cap was foolish to have agreed to help. He felt panic, not knowing how to get himself, and Packer, out of this jam without putting them both in greater jeopardy yet. “Wait, wait!” Cap tried, but Ox and Monkey were already rolling the barrel out the door to the waiting cart.

  Inside the barrel, Packer fought back his own surge of panic. He pressed his knees tightly against the staves, pushing with his shoulders, pulling on his wedged sword to steady him, praying that nothing would rattle or knock from within. He was sweating; he felt completely out of control. After all his careful planning, he had rushed everything, running here from Panna’s house, leaving his knapsack behind. He had drilled Cap with instructions as the barkeeper gathered up the few items he would need. And now it was going badly; how then could it not end badly?

  “It doesn’t feel full,” Monkey offered after they had hefted it into the back of the cart.

  “One coin,” Ox said flatly to the innkeeper, who had followed them nervously out into the moonlight.

  Cap was impressed with Packer’s plan in spite of himself. The boy knew they’d want everything, and holding out on them would only make them want this barrel more. He now remembered his instructions, to ask a high price for this “special ale.” But he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want them to take it. “You’re right,” Cap said. “Something wrong with it, no doubt. You should probably just leave it.”

  Packer had trouble hearing the words clearly, but he was quite sure the words “wrong with it” and “leave it” had been uttered by the barkeeper. He held his breath.

 
; Cap’s words had an equally alarming effect on the trio of pirates. They looked at him, then at one another. Then Ox narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What’s in here? Why isn’t it full?”

  “Nothing. Nothing in there but ale. It’s just bad ale. Probably.”

  Cap was a terrible liar, and they all knew he was lying, and he knew they knew. His chin started to tremble.

  “It’s a new barrel. Ask him how could it go bad,” Monkey said to Ox. “Ask him what he has in there.” Monkey rapped on the barrel with a knuckle.

  “Tap it,” the woman ordered, and her disgusted tone suggested she had resisted adding the phrase “you idiots.” Her voice was deep, angular, impatient.

  “No, wait!” Cap said, almost shrieking.

  “Tap it,” she repeated. “Then we’ll know.”

  Before Cap could think of any reason to stop them, Monkey tipped the barrel so it lay on its side and then left it to find a hammer and spigot. As soon as the sailor looked away, the barrel rolled a quarter turn across the back of the buckboard all by itself, as its contents found a center of gravity. Cap’s eyes widened, but no one else seemed to have noticed. Monkey rummaged in a leather sack behind the wagon’s seat, produced the needed items, and went to the barrel.

  Cap was in a state of near panic as the man started pounding the point into the cork of the bung. Cap’s heart fell. There was only one thing to be done now. He walked back into the tavern, toward the bar, where his sword had been replaced after the goings-on earlier in the evening. He wasn’t much of a swordsman, in fact he wasn’t a swordsman at all, but maybe he could distract them long enough for Packer to get out of the barrel and fight. How had Packer talked him into this? A nice mug of ale and a few stories, that’s all he’d wanted from Packer. Not pirates and swords and lies and bloodshed.

  The spigot bit into the wood of the cask, deeper and deeper. Cap’s hand shook noticeably as he reached across the bar and found the steel blade. As his hand closed around the cold rusted metal, he looked back at the door. The hawklike woman was staring at him, her own blade poised casually in her hand. He froze.