The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  One of Lund’s engineers burst into the cabin. “Beggin’ pardon, sir, but the witch is gone!”

  “What?” Lund asked, startled.

  The engineer nodded. “The Captain’s put Talon off the ship.”

  “What?” Stedman asked, incredulous.

  “She’s been put off the ship and is being rowed to shore by her two goons.”

  Stedman smiled at Lund. Lund smiled back. If the witch was gone, many things could change. Suddenly, they were partners, brothers in arms.

  Talon sat hunched in the shallop as Ox and Monkey pulled rhythmically at the oars. The small craft moved slowly along, an eerie image as it made its way down the glimmering silver path that was the moon’s reflection.

  Talon knew what the talk would be among the crew. The Captain would explain her departure as a necessary mission to learn how the boy got aboard, but the crew would read it the way they wanted to read it. She was being punished. Banished. They would all rejoice.

  Well, let them. She would never return.

  The vast silence of the ocean seemed to swallow the tiny shallop. Ox and Monkey had both long ago grown accustomed to Talon’s demeanor; they knew that she was cold as winter. But now she was colder than ever. What had happened? They had been told nothing. It wasn’t hard to guess that they were headed back to Hangman’s Cliffs, to get their money back. And then some.

  But trouble ashore was generally left ashore until the next port of call. Putting Talon off the ship was highly unusual. And Ox and Monkey were simply supply hands. If she were going on a manhunt, a security mission, why not take a swordsman or a musketeer instead? These thoughts played in their heads, shared thoughts left unspoken.

  Monkey tried to think of something else, something more pleasant. But Ox let the possibilities play out in his mind. Maybe Talon had been stripped of her commission. That was a terrifying thought. If Talon were free of the Captain’s orders, then she might do anything. Maybe she planned to kill them as soon as they reached shore. And once that thought lodged in Ox’s brain, he had trouble plucking it out. It stayed there and festered.

  So this is where it all leads, the Ox thought. This is what comes of taking orders from a foreigner, and a female at that. For endless hours he and Monkey would row in pain, not even knowing why, and for endless hours she would sit there, silently. Endless hours on a huge, featureless ocean, days perhaps, far from the reach of captains, or first mates, or the law, or God.

  In the thick, tangled growth of Ox’s brain, images began rising like mists, images he couldn’t fend off and had little desire to try. He could see Talon slumping over, collapsing from a pistol shot to the head. He saw her cloak-draped body splashing over the stern of the boat. He had no pistol, of course, but that didn’t stop his imagination. Somewhere, in one of those hours, would be a moment, a second or two is all it would take, and he could rid the world of her forever.

  Talon turned suddenly and looked into his eyes. Ox quickly looked up at the moon, then down at his hands as he pulled on the oar. She saw nothing, he told himself. No one can see a man’s thoughts.

  But she did see.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Bargain

  Packer blinked in the darkness, squinting. Someone was there. The scratch of a match turned the darkness bright, and lit the face of Captain Wilkins as he puffed a cigar-tip red. Smoke swirled. He put the match to a lantern, and set the lantern on a crate beside him.

  How long had it been since Talon had left? Packer didn’t know, but he’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for what seemed like days.

  The Captain was in no hurry. Packer watched him through empty, half-shut eyes. Scat smoked, considering the boy carefully. Packer’s belly had quit bleeding. The cut below his ear was starting to scab. The dried blood was still visible on Packer’s forehead in the shape of a cross, a particularly creative touch on Talon’s part, the Captain thought. He sighed. “You’re not easy to kill.”

  Packer understood the words and could sense that the Captain meant them, but he could not grasp their meaning. He was infinitely weak, in body and in spirit. He had been crushed, killed, resurrected, crushed again, inside and out. He was sick, hurt, damaged, in pain, hungry and thirsty, and drained of both the will to live and the desire to die. None of it had been in his power, none of it in his hands. The idea that he was hard to kill had no meaning.

  He tried to speak, to ask the Captain to explain, but he could not. His mouth and throat were like parchment. He was desperately thirsty. He tried to clear his throat, but only managed to gag, and bring a pounding pain to his head. He closed his eyes.

  Scat picked a piece of tobacco from his tongue, examined it, flicked it away. “It’s not every day we keelhaul a stowaway.”

  Packer tried again to speak, to ask for water, but his tongue wouldn’t work. It seemed stuck to his teeth. Scat watched, chuckled. “Cat got your tongue, I see. Well, she’ll do that.” He looked at Packer a while longer, then picked up a wooden bucket that had been sitting at his feet. He stood and splashed about half the contents, cool, clean water, into Packer’s face. It felt like mercy itself; Packer was able to wet his tongue and mouth, and even swallow a little.

  Scat sat back down, surrounded by the soft blue haze he had created around himself. “We’ve seen none of the big Fish.”

  Now Packer nodded. Scat had come to hear his information. Well, fine. Packer would tell him everything. “Feeding waters,” he croaked.

  Scat sat silent, waiting for his pulse to slow. He did not want to seem eager. “Do you know where they are?”

  Packer shrugged. He didn’t know if his information was accurate or not. He was finished with this voyage. He was finished with everything.

  “Tell me,” Scat commanded evenly.

  Packer nodded and closed his eyes, ready to give up the one hope he’d had of surviving. But nothing came to him.

  He couldn’t remember. His brain wasn’t working. He tried to recall his father’s diary, tried to remember all the times he’d thought about the location of the feeding waters. But his mind was completely blank…every path that led to that piece of information blocked. His brain seemed as empty as his heart. The whole reason he was here, the reason he dared attempt this mission. And he couldn’t remember it.

  This was his final humiliation, he thought. The Captain would think him mad, an imbecile, the village idiot who hid in a barrel and found himself in chains. A jack-in-the-box.

  And then this absurd situation suddenly struck him as humorous. Packer let out a laugh, surprising himself as much as Scat. It wasn’t much of a laugh, more like a half a smile and a partial grunt, but it felt good. It was more refreshing even than the cool water.

  Scat’s eyebrows went up. Then he nodded. The boy was smart, he thought. He wouldn’t give up his information cheaply. It didn’t occur to Scat that the boy would simply be unable to remember. Scat’s lust for a million in gold did not allow for such mundane possibilities. He read his own desires into Packer, saw his own reflection, and respected what he saw. “So tell me what you want in exchange for this information.”

  Packer was confused. “What I want?”

  “How much,” Scat answered. “Name your price.”

  Packer closed his eyes, understanding now that Scat thought he was driving a bargain. He did not want the Captain to misunderstand. The truth, Packer thought. No matter now. Just the truth. “It’s not that.” He worked to summon more moisture into his mouth so he could explain.

  Scat took a deep pull on his cigar, blew out a great swath of smoke. He was in no hurry. He remembered what Packer said under Talon’s interrogation, decided to prod. “You came to learn how to hunt Firefish.”

  Packer nodded.

  “Is that what you want in exchange?” Scat was hopeful.

  Packer closed his eyes. He wanted nothing in exchange.

  Now it was Scat’s turn to laugh. The boy had come up with something bigger than Scat had even imagined. It was, in fact, precisely what
the Captain had been trying to avoid by refusing to put fishermen on crew, or dock in busy ports. The boy wanted to take away Scat’s monopoly. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  Packer opened his eyes. He wasn’t asking anything.

  “And why would you risk all this for a ragged lot of fishermen? What good would Firefish do them?”

  Packer thought for a moment, quite sure he really didn’t know. “They’re poor,” he said at last.

  He said it with such simple honesty that it drew Scat’s respect. Scat had been poor as a young boy. He knew what it was like to be hungry, to steal to eat, to grow tired of being poor. Now the boy’s mission made sense to him. One of the poor fishermen learns a little swordsmanship, and so they send him on a dangerous mission, hoping to bring back a whole new economy. Not a bad plan. Desperate, foolhardy, and without half a chance to succeed. But not bad. “Feeding the poor.” Scat smiled. “Maybe you are a missionary after all.”

  This statement struck Packer like a slap. If only it were true.

  “How do you know your father’s information is accurate?”

  “I don’t.”

  Scat frowned. Then he smiled. He respected honesty. “Where did he learn it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Scat sighed. This was not good. Likely there were no feeding waters. So whatever he gave up to the boy, it probably wouldn’t matter. But he had to play it out. “You’ve asked a hard thing. But I’ll do it.”

  Packer looked confused. He did not understand that he had asked anything at all. “Do what?”

  “I’ll teach you to take the Firefish, and you can take that knowledge where you like.”

  Packer then understood. Scat still thought he was bargaining. “No. I don’t remember.”

  Now Scat was alarmed. “You don’t remember what?”

  “The location. The feeding waters.” Packer saw a flash of anger cross Scat’s face. It came and went, and was replaced again with the blank look.

  “I’ve given you my word. I want the information, son.”

  Packer closed his eyes, helpless. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell Scat once again that he truly couldn’t remember. That was the truth, and he needed to say it again, make him believe it regardless of the consequences. But Packer’s mouth had dried up again, and he couldn’t get his tongue to work. Scat snorted, but picked up the bucket of water and eased a mouthful into the boy.

  As the cool water went down his throat, the image of his father’s diary came back to him. He was reading the page again, as easily as if it hung before his eyes. A sense of joy grew in him. It was as if God had given it to him, now that He had completed the bargain. God had done this. For the villages.

  “Thank you.” Packer closed his eyes. “Sail to the Freeman Reef.”

  Scat looked disappointed. He sat still, puffed his cigar again, and then chewed it rather severely. “I know it well. There’s no school of Fish there.”

  Packer shook his head. “Sail north-northeast thirty-nine leagues from the reef.”

  Scat blinked. “That’s well inside Achawuk Territory.”

  Packer nodded.

  The Achawuk. Scat had no desire to sail in among their islands. “I’ve found Firefish in deep water all across the sea.”

  Packer nodded again. He had said all he knew.

  Achawuk. The Captain’s thoughts went dark.

  From below, in the dark, the bottom of the lumbering rowboat looked like the underbelly of a great, fat, slow fish. The oars dipping below the surface were skinny little fins, comically inadequate for any evasive movement.

  But it had seen this before, and remembered. Years had passed, but the memory was vivid and timeless, visceral and tactile…crunching through a hollow shell that burned and crushed easily, but that splintered painfully and tasted of dry land and bottom weeds. There had been a small, meaty morsel within it, which would have been quite tasty by itself. The memory of disappointment roiled through the brain of the great predator, this prehistoric cousin of shark and eel, giving it pause. This prey was surely a shellfish.

  So rather than simply attack, it moved off in search of more satisfying prey. Anything that was soft and meaty and easily caught, easily devoured. Like a whale, or a shark.

  The Ox and the Monkey were unarmed. This made Ox’s designs on Talon more difficult, but not impossible. He had a goodly piece of oak in his hands, tooled into the shape of an oar, and he harbored a deadly hatred. His hands were blistering, his back was raw, and he had grave doubts they would survive this trip, doubts that grew with each passing hour.

  Talon’s apparent lack of interest played upon Ox’s misgivings. Four hours gone, and she had yet to produce a compass. She had barely glanced around her, and had scanned the skies only once that he had seen. And he had been watching. A rowboat, he knew, was notoriously easy to turn, and it would be a simple thing for them to row in large circles for days on end. He didn’t know what provisions she had brought, but her duffel wasn’t big enough to be very promising.

  Once, Ox had purposefully begun pulling harder on his oar than Monkey did; not enough to notice, he thought, but enough to steer the ship away from him, to starboard. He watched Talon’s hand on the tiller, looking for some course change to counter him. He saw none. And that clinched it. Believing she cared nothing about living, and they therefore would die anyway, he very much wanted to see her die first. And the sooner the better, while he was still strong enough for a fight, and perhaps a lucky row to shore.

  Talon, for her part, was far more at home on the sea than Ox or Monkey could have guessed, neither one being a sailor. She knew the stars by sight and would need a glance at a compass only once or twice during the night, and then only for confirmation. The shoreline of Nearing Vast was not far off, and she wasn’t concerned about landing anywhere in particular. She could hardly make a mistake so long as they headed west.

  She also knew the feel of a boat on the water and could tell which way the boat was headed, pull by pull. It was a skill learned during her years navigating the slave galleys of her homeland. When Ox began his test, she felt it, and compensated with each pull. When he tired of it, she felt that, too, and compensated back. Ox’s inconsistencies, and the reasons for them, didn’t concern her. Her mind was occupied with Packer Throme.

  She should have killed the boy, she knew. She should have ignored the knock, pretended not to hear it, and run her sword up to its hilt into his soft flesh. The Captain would have been displeased, angry even, but he would have gotten over it. Why hadn’t she done it? What had stopped her? She didn’t know. Perhaps she was growing soft too.

  No, no…it was Senslar Zendoda. It was the Traitor in Packer. The boy’s clear blue eyes pleading up to her, filled with tears, as though he was just a child, scared and hurt. That was a mind trick, she now knew, a trick he’d undoubtedly learned from the Traitor. Yes, it was Zendoda who had stopped her. On some level she had fallen for his tricks, even before she heard the Captain’s knock. She cursed herself, remembering how she had been disappointed that Packer had broken so easily. But perhaps he hadn’t broken. Perhaps he had beaten her. She gnawed on that thought for a while.

  Then she grew determined. Ultimately, she would triumph. Packer would die. Zendoda would die. Such mind tricks came from their religion, she knew, from this God of theirs who supposedly allowed himself to be tortured and killed. She understood, even respected, the deceit in it.

  What had really happened to this man they called the Son of God, whom they crucified, was that he had been brought back to life by someone who knew the healing arts as she did. Their Son of God was no more special than Packer Throme, who had also been to the Dead Lands and returned. The power of the lie was that this Jesus claimed God had done it, that therefore all he did and said was directly from God, and could not be questioned.

  So therefore, all people must humble themselves before him, worship him, and…here was the great deceit…become weak like him. His return from the dead was someho
w proof that such weakness was actually strength, they said, that God was strong within them. The leaders of this religion could preach that people should be meek, should follow like lambs. And thereby, the leaders could amass all the power.

  It was an obvious lie, once it was exposed, but a powerful and seductive lie when it was not. Packer Throme’s pleading eyes, his sobs, his show of weakness were all a part of that lie. Whether he had truly broken or simply pretended to be broken didn’t matter. There was no God who would protect such sheep, who would step in to help such weaklings. No God would usher them into some glorious realm as a reward for their humiliation. She could have killed him with a thrust. No God had stopped her. Scat Wilkins had not stopped her. It was her own weakness that had stopped her blade. Never again.

  She spent the hours, as Ox imagined a world rid of Talon, imagining a world rid of Senslar the Traitor. She would relish his destruction, of course. But then what? She was finished with the Trophy Chase and its gold-blind captain. She let her mind wander out into the future. For a Drammune native to kill the Swordmaster of Nearing Vast, to assassinate him, could be considered an act of war, if it was done properly. If it was done by a Drammune warrior, a spy. She smiled.

  She could return to her home, to the Kingdom of Drammun. She could find a way to help her homeland destroy the entire Kingdom of Nearing Vast, and its crucified God. That was a goal worthy of her abilities.

  Scat took the cigar out of his mouth and chewed the inside of his lip. He was silent for only a few seconds, but during that time a flurry of thoughts led him to a single conclusion, which was in fact foregone, driven by the power of a million gold coins. He would go. Of course he would go. He would brave the Achawuk.

  Among Scat’s thoughts were some truly discouraging realities. Scat didn’t have nearly the firepower to handle the Achawuk. He’d hidden in their territory twice, and had once watched from a cove while they attacked, boarded, and destroyed the ship that was pursuing him. It had been a gruesome, ugly sight, etched deeply into a memory scarred by a lifetime of ugly sights. The warriors had been oblivious to his presence, or he wouldn’t have escaped either.