Scatter looked at it a moment, then nodded and took it. The wood was smooth and straight as a gun barrel, the workmanship sturdy, but with no artistry. The twelve-inch tip was bone-white, serrated, and lighter in weight than he would have expected. He looked at it more carefully. “You know what that is?” he asked Delaney.
“No sir.”
“That’s a Firefish tooth.”
Delaney opened his eyes wide in amazement. “No!” He touched it. “Well, I’ll be.”
“The Achawuk have killed the beasts, I’ll bet my life on it.”
Delaney pondered that. “They’re strong men, sure enough.”
“Nobody’s that strong. How do they kill them without gunpowder?”
“I couldn’t guess.”
Scat didn’t say anything more, so Delaney untied the lash that kept the huge captain’s log in place, scooped it into his arms gently. “Thank you, sir,” he said as he hurried to leave, cradling the book like it was a baby.
Scat called him back. “Delaney.”
“Aye, sir?”
“The boy, Packer Throme. What did you see?”
“Sir?”
“Tell me what you saw him do during the battle.”
Delaney blinked. “I didn’t see anything, really. Just looked up when he called out to me. That was after the wind kicked us to port. He was cutting tie lines, unfurling sails. His idea completely. He did it himself, with only a little help from me.” Delaney smiled. “Rolled the Achawuk right off our decks, it did.”
Scat nodded, looking hard into the eyes of his best swordsman. “He never fought, though.”
Delaney swallowed hard. Now he understood why Haas sent him on this errand. Scat was angry with the stowaway. And when Scat was angry he wanted agreement, not facts. But Haas knew, as Delaney did, that the whole lot of them would be dead by now without Packer Throme, and Haas knew that Delaney was not the sort to drop another man into the grease who didn’t deserve it. And the Captain trusted Delaney when it came to fighting.
Delaney cleared his throat, put his chin up. “Cap’n, I saw many men fight with their steel tonight, and they fought bravely. Captain John Hand fought bravely using black powder and musket balls, though he didn’t lift a sword. Other nights, other days, I seen men fight with cannon, knives, clubs, broken bottles, blackjacks, chairs, and fists. Even saw a man fight with a potato peeler once.”
Scat snorted. “How’d he do?”
“He lost. But I believe Packer Throme is the first man I ever saw fight with nothing but God’s own breath. He fought, sir. He surely did. Licked a hundred warriors, probably more, with no more weapon than the wind.”
Scat coughed again, and then allowed himself a smile. There was logic in what the sailor said. “That’ll be all.”
“Hello, Talon.” The greeting was almost warm, if reserved. The elderly woman could not see well anymore, but the presence in her room was unmistakable. She had heard that a Drammune woman had checked into her inn, and who else would simply enter the innkeeper’s apartments unannounced? “So what brings you back home?”
Talon almost smiled. No one else would have the nerve to call this place Talon’s home. Then again, no one else knew her past quite so well. “This is not my home, as you well know. I am here on business.”
“Still serving at that pirate’s beck and call?”
The question angered Talon. She let it go. “Not all women serve men as you do, Madam Lydia.” Talon walked across plush carpet to where the old woman lay in her bed, and pulled up a chair. The woman was not so ancient as she seemed, lying bedridden and made up like a corpse. A hard life and lingering disease had taken a severe toll. Her dark eyes, once clear and sharp like a hawk’s, were clouded, all but blind.
“How is your health?” Talon asked.
“Good enough.”
“And business?”
“This business is always good. Who is it you brought me? Hank says she’s pretty.”
“She’s not for you,” Talon said flatly. “She’s in my care.”
“God help her, then.” Madam Lydia chose not to ask Talon more questions along this line. “How long will you stay?”
“Two nights.”
“And then what? Back to sea?”
“No. I am going into the city to find Senslar Zendoda.”
The woman’s mouth went tight. “Don’t do it,” she said coldly.
“It is time.”
Madam Lydia was silent a long while, her thoughts her own. She could not bring herself to ask the question that burned in her, for fear of the answer.
Finally Talon said, “I need some things. Clothes, mostly. Some attention to the girl. Some tailoring.”
“Hank will see that you get them.”
Talon studied the old woman, feeling nothing. This was good. She didn’t want to feel anything. “Be well,” Talon said.
“Talitha.”
Talon waited. She hated that name, hated that anyone knew it. It was her own, given her at birth.
“You belong in Drammun, you know,” Madam Lydia told her.
“Yes.” The bitterness of that truth never left her. “I am Drammune. After I visit Senslar the Traitor, I will go there. And I will never leave Drammune soil again.”
The woman nodded, tears forming in her clouded eyes.
Then Talon was gone.
Lydia turned her head on her pillow. She coughed. She had thought nothing could touch her anymore, that there were no more emotions that could reach her. But she was wrong. She thought back to the time she had sent her six-year-old daughter to Drammun with a wealthy merchant of that realm, a man of strong lineage, who had fierce loyalties to Talitha’s Drammune blood. She had expected, even hoped, never to see or hear from her again. She had wanted the girl to be absorbed into that foreign world, and to forget her true birthplace, forget her mother, and to forget her father.
The old madam shook her head. Some were born blessed. Some were born cursed. And there was no escaping whichever fate was pre-determined. She had lived almost sixty years on this earth, and this was all she knew.
Andrew Haas returned to the quarterdeck with the great black book, after Delaney had brought it up from the Captain’s quarters. “Give it to Throme. He’ll write the roll,” Hand instructed. Haas nodded to Packer as he handed over the dark volume with two hands, a reverential gesture.
“Thank you,” Packer said, feeling awkward about both the gesture and the assignment. It would be hard even to see using only the lamplight and the moonlight, much less to write.
“You did good, son,” Haas told him with a hard look. He didn’t want Packer doubting that point. “The Captain knows that now, I think.”
“Thank you,” Packer repeated, appreciative. Haas went back to work. Packer looked at the enormous volume in his hands.
The first Firefish to reach the battle site did not slow as it struck, but snapped its jaws on one, then another, and then another Achawuk body. The yellow flashes lit the dark sea, stunning nearby warriors who were still alive, knocking them unconscious.
Those warriors who could, and who still carried their spears, swam not away from, but toward the flashes.
The Captain’s log was written in several hands, Packer noticed. It was a duty Scat Wilkins did not keep to himself. He couldn’t identify the authors, of course, but something about the hard-edged, angular scratches of the most common one, the one that filled two of every three entries, looked familiar. The downstrokes were heavy, the upstrokes light, sometimes nonexistent. And at the bottom of each entry written in this hand was a single downstroke that looked like a dagger, a half-moon wide at the top, hooked to a point at the bottom. He guessed, correctly, that this was Talon’s signature. He also guessed that, should she still be aboard, the roll of the dead would be her duty.
A page back from the last entry was a short one: “Lost sailor Marcus Pile overboard. Clutched on main yard in gale, relieved of duty by Cpn Wkns shot.” It was signed “LL.” Packer figured the LL stood f
or Lund Lander. But what did “by Cpn Wkns shot” mean?
Packer wrote the final lost crewman’s name in the log, rubbed his tired eyes with ink-stained fingers, and handed the quill to Andrew Haas, who had been holding the book for him and dictating as Packer scratched the names down. The great sadness Packer felt went beyond these thirty-nine names, each attached to a body lined up at the rail. They had walked the length of the ship, name after name, body after body, recording with finality the score of the bloody contest.
It had been a difficult chore, more difficult with each line, each name. He had written names of men he didn’t know, true. Garfield Just and Seval Carther and Lorne Beck and Onis Trill were not friends, hardly even co-workers. But each name belonged to a man, one not much different than Packer himself. Each name represented a sailor with a home, a dream, a lifetime of years yet to be lived that would now not be lived.
Dumas Need, the bosun’s mate, wore a wedding ring. So did Ren Malley and Skile Abadden. They now lay quiet and still on the deck, eyes staring out beyond the stars, unseeing, their wives and children somewhere under that same sky, unaware of all that had changed in their world forever. Barth Denton lay beside Westley Bead, who lay beside Amos Chath. Blue Garvey wore a silk scarf around his neck, a gift from his girl, probably. He lay between Chester Barnes and Wy Note. Each had someone, somewhere. If not a wife, then a fiancée, a sweetheart, a son, a daughter, brothers, sisters, a mother, a father.
Cane Dewar, the ship’s carpenter, had the name “Sylla” tattooed on his forearm. Iggy Shupp had had “Gwenny” inscribed on his biceps, just where Dill Andrews had put “Janetta” and Big John Dell “Mother.” Drumond Anse, Skiff Mulligan, Ricks Goodfellow, and George Callew all wore the double silver-stud earring of a second-generation seaman. And each man’s father, each man’s family had yet to learn that their son, husband, father, brother, or betrothed would not return from this voyage, would never return to them again.
Sander DeMotte, Ben Tigg, Carm Hogan, Jess Dunham lay in solitude, their last embrace of a loved one now long past. Packer felt pain for all who had yet to be hurt, yet to be damaged forever by this strange battle, this gory melee that Packer Throme himself had brought into existence by joining Scat’s quest for gold. Boot Engler, Tiny Spokane, Kit Roan, Kipper Drake, Can Sethwall all carried nicknames that had worn so well their real names were lost to Andrew Haas. But they were well known to someone, somewhere.
By the time the task was half done, Packer understood that God had ordained this role for him; God had demanded he undertake these inscriptions so that he would know, deep in his soul, the price paid for his own presumption. Smithy Orr, Judd Talbot, Warn Pell, Angel Jibb, Lyle Stern. But why these? Why had these died, and the rest lived? John Hand stood on the quarterdeck and arbitrarily saved sailors by killing Achawuk warriors. Did God ordain it? Or was it random chance? Why Vern Killeen and not Andrew Haas? Why Ty Lumberton and not Smith Delaney or Stedman Due? Why did Northrup Walls take a spear while Mutter Cabe, Jonas Deal, Scat Wilkins, and Packer Throme avoided them all, only to die another day? Was Zach Franks less worthy? It was not possible. No one was less worthy of surviving this than Packer Throme, who had caused it in the first place. Does the Angel of Death work blindfolded?
No, Packer concluded as he corked the ink bottle. Not one sparrow falls from the sky without God knowing. Every hair of every head is numbered. No one can kill a man who God wants alive. No one can save a man God wants dead. Of this, Packer was now certain. But it did not mean he understood why.
These truths created in him both comfort and helplessness. They did not mean he was destined to live through the night, much less live a long and prosperous life. He could die just as easily as any man; only God knew, only God had the power. These truths did not mean Packer was not guilty in their deaths, any more than they meant a man could murder another man and not be guilty of the crime. Perhaps God had kept him alive as punishment, so he could know and see the true nature of this battle he caused, so he could be weighted with this burden. Now that he understood, perhaps God would take Packer home to Himself this very night. Packer found hope in that possibility. God would do what God wanted, and it was fine with Packer.
Thirty-nine dead, four more missing. More than half the crew. Most of those left alive were nursing wounds of some sort. And that wasn’t nearly the end of it. Did the Achawuk not also have names? Did they not also have wives and sons and daughters and parents? God had granted the Trophy Chase not victory over them, but escape. They had not beaten the Achawuk, only evaded being butchered to the last man.
And what achievement, what glory in all the world was worth this? Would Sylla Dewar rather have prosperity in Nearing Vast for a century, or Cane Dewar home again with her for one more night? He thought of Panna’s bench, and how he longed to be there. Didn’t Sylla have a bench, too?
Haas had been watching the boy’s eyes; he saw and felt the respect, the honor, the pain with which the stowaway performed this duty. “It’s a hard thing,” he said softly. Packer was surprised by the bosun’s gentleness. Haas closed the book, looked over the bodies along with Packer. “I loved ’em like brothers,” he said thoughtfully. “But they all chose this life. They wanted a fight, remember? They chose this fate, not you.” He turned to Packer, winked, patted the young man’s shoulder. “Let those who knew ’em grieve ’em.” Then he looked up at the quarterdeck. “Any words, Cap’n?”
John Hand rubbed his beard. He owned no prayer book, and was not comfortable with these duties. Scat should be doing this, he knew, but Scat wouldn’t. John Hand probably knew Scat Wilkins better than any man on earth did, and he knew that Scat hated, detested, probably even feared, the aftermath of battle. Scat’s pride was wounded, true, but that would heal quickly. What would keep Scat below were corpses. As blithe as he was in dealing out death, Scat was anything but when it came to death’s trappings, the bodies and burials and funerals. Hand believed it the warrior’s burden; having no fear whatsoever of anything known, he was doomed to fear the unknown.
Hand studied the deck. Thirty-nine crewmen lined shoulder to shoulder, heads at the port rail, hands folded neatly across chests in the sign of the cross, all eyes staring at the heavens. Twenty-seven living crewmen waited.
Hand pursed his lips. “They were all fine crewmen,” he said without emotion, and not altogether convincingly. “I wish I’d known them better. And I do wish they’d lived to know what they did here tonight.” He stopped, thoughtful. Now he had found words worth saying. “They did something, as did you all, never done before, never in the history of Nearing Vast. They defeated the Achawuk.” A grunting of agreement, mostly self-congratulatory, spread across the deck. “For that, they will always be remembered.”
They had counted one hundred and sixteen Achawuk dead. But that number included only the ones slain on deck who remained after Packer’s maneuvers, not those many who littered the decks before rolling overboard, or those who went down in the initial gun volleys. The actual count would have been much closer to three hundred. The pitching of the deck and the turning of the ship had saved the crew from facing better than eight hundred additional warriors. John Hand and Lund Lander were right. They’d have been overrun.
“We now commit their souls to God and their bodies to the sea,” Hand said flatly. “Proceed.”
Scat had been sitting on his bunk for some time, his blood-darkened boots up on blankets, when he first noticed the flicker. He looked around his stateroom, confirming that it was not coming from a lantern. The light had come from the portholes. Not another storm…
Then he saw it again, and knew it wasn’t lightning. He forgot his weariness in an instant and rushed to the stern portholes. Behind them he saw it, flash after flash. His face lit up with wonder. It couldn’t be one Firefish. It had to be more. It had to be. He watched a moment longer, then rushed out through the saloon, back to the quarterdeck.
Jonas Deal and Andrew Haas had dispensed with ceremony after the first half-dozen went o
ver the rail. They were too tired, there were too many bodies, and the burden of somberness was simply too much to bear. This was a chore, hard work for weary arms and aching backs, and not a church service after all. The last of their fallen comrades had been manhandled over or through the decimated railings, treated in death with roughly the same dignity they were afforded in life, when Scat Wilkins burst out the doorway from his cabin and ran up the stairway to the quarterdeck.
“Firefish!” he yelled. He didn’t stop at the quarterdeck, but ran up and beyond it to the afterdeck rail.
The crewmen stopped, frozen. Normally the call would have sent them scurrying to ready the longboat for the huntsmen, and the sailors who doubled as huntsmen, but they couldn’t imagine that Scat would send them after a Firefish now, at this moment. More likely, Scat was angry he had seen it first. That would mean punishment for someone. But he didn’t sound angry.
“Great Scot, look at ’em! Just look at ’em!” He was pointing behind them. “Every man to the rail!” Scat called out, refusing to look at anything but the sea. “Ha-ha!” he exulted. “Just look! Every mother’s son of you misbegotten sea dogs, come to the rail, and that’s an order!”
The crewmen obeyed their captain, drawn by his enthusiasm as much as his words.
There behind them, half a league back in their wake, at the site of their agonizing battle, they saw a sea on fire. One flash couldn’t die away before two more took its place, until the ocean glowed in teeming, liquid fire. It was as though a huge, sprawling city lay just below the water, burning, every building alight, the flames licking up through the churning surface. It was as though the sun had set into the sea and now burned beneath the waves, its rays reaching out through the white foam. The men stood in awe, dwarfed by the spectacle.
“Then it’s true,” Scat said at last. “The feeding waters.”
The Trophy Chase Saga Page 26