The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  “Their entire army, it would seem. We must move into position now. We must fight now, or be crushed here. The king must be told.”

  Panna’s eyes went wide.

  Huk Tuth squeezed the flagstaff in his hand. He looked one more time up and down the valley. All was ready. He drew up his arm.

  But wait—one of the pennants in the fore, right at the edge of Varlotsville, dove. One of the leading companies was not ready. Tuth quickly lowered his flag. It had risen only to the top of his horse’s ears. He waited.

  Packer looked down quizzically at Panna. He looked to General Millian, who stood stock still, staring up at him, his sword still in his hand. “Your Highness, we must—”

  “No,” Panna said, interuppting the general.

  “A sign!” the priest called out. He looked up to the heavens. He pointed upward, behind Packer.

  Packer turned and looked up. A thick plume of dark smoke could be seen to the northwest, the direction from which they had come this morning. The Hollow Forest was burning. Packer turned back to face his troops. “Choose now!” he repeated.

  Mack Millian turned to Ward Sennett for help. “The king must be told now,” the general said to the prince. “He will move the troops into position if he knows.”

  Ward blew out his cheeks, the mountain now rising before him once again, in the shape of a ladder leaning against a wall just at the edge of a storefront. Of course, they needed to fight. That was obvious to any idiot. Of course, this king was not just any idiot. Ward looked up at Packer, considered calling out to him. But the crowd would hear him. He would then become the voice of the people, countering the king, taking up a mantle he had laid down. No. He raised a corner of his mouth and said darkly, “And so God laughs.”

  “The Drammune!” someone called out. The crowd swayed as the news spread, ripples of wind through ripe fields of wheat. Packer looked out over them, saw the movement, sensed the fear in it. The rumor swept through the crowd, and the troops were suddenly on the verge of panic. He turned around, looked toward the hills behind him. He could see the glint of the cannon, the crimson flecks in motion there on the hillside. He could not see the Drammune troops in the field, but he could see their battle flags raised high. He knew instantly what his own troops were whispering about. The enemies of Nearing Vast had gathered in force to attack.

  “The Drammune are upon us!” someone shouted.

  “There is no more time!” Packer demanded. “Choose now! Draw your sword and fight against God, or kneel and surrender to Him!”

  Packer knelt, his eyes closed tightly. But he could not pray. His heart boomed within his chest like a bass drum; his pulse crashed in his ears like cymbals. What was happening? He knew last night as he prayed that God had led him to offer this choice, and it had seemed so simple and clean then. Fight the Drammune or surrender to God, and in surrendering, let God fight. But now he was asking his troops to bow their heads, to fall to their knees just as the Drammune were poised to attack. God seemed distant, but slaughter was near. Had he just sentenced all these people to death? Was he willing to sacrifice them for his own faith? He could sacrifice himself, but could he sacrifice a nation to God? That did not seem fair at all. It felt…arrogant. Presumptuous. Wrong.

  He tried to throw himself on the mercy of God, to let God choose the outcome, to find the protection he had known that long ago day when he had stowed away in a barrel to board the Trophy Chase, or find the calm resignation he had known in his walk to the gallows on the Green. But he felt nothing, sensed nothing, heard nothing. Certainly not the voice of God.

  Huk Tuth waited impatiently. The pennant at the fore rose again. His companies were ready. He gripped the flagstaff, and raised it slowly. In the silence, a bird cried out a chilling call.

  Packer kept his eyes closed and did not dare to look. But he heard the bird, heard the movement of his troops, the rustle of clothing, the whispers, the shifting of balance, the shuffling of feet. He hoped that what he heard was the movement of God in the hearts of men. But it sounded to him like an army, departing.

  Then there was silence. In that silence a bird cried out, a lone falcon or a hawk, releasing a long series of short calls that sounded like cruel laughter, or desolate sobbing. And then, feeling the heaviness of the weight of the world, Packer raised his head. His eyelids were leaden. He forced them open.

  Below him on the square, in the streets of the village of Varlotsville at the edge of Mann, at the verge of the Hollow Forest, where civilization met wilderness, at the very brink of both, he saw his troops, the Army of Nearing Vast.

  They were kneeling, every one of them.

  Their heads were bowed, their swords sheathed or laid before them in the dust. Hats and helmets were held over hearts.

  They had not fallen as one. Prince Ward had watched them. So had Panna. A few had simply followed Packer’s lead, kneeling when the king did, because the king did. Then the priests knelt. Then the more devout officers, with a solemn sense of the consequences. Their charges followed suit. And then the decision seemed made, and all knelt, even the most reluctant, simply, to get it done and get on with it. The meekest had been first, the strongest, last.

  Huk Tuth raised the flagstaff only to the level of his horse’s head, and paused again. He cocked his head to one side, watching the falcon.

  Father Mooring had not been looking at the smoke in the sky. The sign he had seen was something else entirely. It was this bird, a great predator that circled high overhead. Many eyes—both Drammune and Vast—were drawn to it.

  Huk Tuth squinted. That falcon’s call was familiar to him. It took him a moment longer to be sure. But yes, this was his own falcon, the one he had sent to Drammun with a message for the Hezzan. How could the bird have found him here? Even if she had made her way back to the great capital, Hezarow Kyne, and even if by some chance the Hezzan was now returning a message to him, this bird would have sought out his ship. Not him.

  Mux pulled a leather glove on his right hand and held it up. He leaned the flagstaff against his saddle, but it fell to the ground.

  Movement, by the trees! The falcon turned her head, and her sharp eyes locked onto the source. And then she saw him…He beckoned. Could it be? He held up his claw, covered with the familiar skin of long-ago prey. She circled once more to be sure. Yes…yes! Somehow, here he was! Her heart soared high as her body descended on rushing wings, fleet to the hand of her master.

  At the back of the Drammune forces a sailor from the Kaza Fahn cursed his fate. He held in his hands an open cage, and he scoured the skies for the missing bird. Take the falcon to Huk Tuth. That was the mission. It was a simple thing; row the bird to shore and find the supreme commander and hand him the cage, with the bird in it, with the message still tied to her foot. How hard was that? But he had dropped the cage, and it had sprung open, and now the winged thing was gone, lost against the smoke that filled the sky to the west, down to the western horizon. He shook his head, wondering why he ever left a ship for shore, and why everything he ever did on land always turned into disaster.

  Tuth watched her as she glided down and landed on his outstretched fist. The commander stroked the bird, clucked to her, spoke to her, told her how impressed he was with her. Then he held her low as a lieutenant rushed up and untied the scroll from her leg. Tuth took the opened parchment as it was handed up and read it silently, still holding his falcon on his right hand.

  His face twisted as he read. He crushed the parchment in his left fist, and looked up in wrath at the miserable army holed up in this tiny town across the field. The Hezzan could not have known when these orders were penned that the nation of Nearing Vast would be one command away from total ruin. One command. Huk Tuth’s command.

  Packer Throme watched the falcon, saw her light. He saw the cannon spaced across the hilltop, aimed at his army. But he watched only the horseman atop the bluff. Even from this distance he recognized the crimson color. This was a Drammune commander, no doubt, overseeing his troops,
preparing to attack.

  Packer waited for what seemed like ages, watching that commander, expecting he knew not what, the answer to his prayers or the proof of his presumption. And then, finally, he saw the flag go up, on the end of a flagstaff held in the hand of the enemy commander.

  Huk Tuth raised the gray Drammune flag of parley.

  Packer walked briskly through the field of Drammune soldiers. He did not look at them, but kept his eyes forward, focused on the man on horseback ahead. The Drammune warriors, however, watched Packer very closely. They moved out of his way, turning in unison as he went by.

  The Drammune were not the talebearers that the Vast were; they did not start rumors that built into legends within hours. But they all knew by now who this beardless man with the yellow hair was, a young man barely more than a boy. This was the one who had defeated Fen Abbaka Mux not once, but twice. This was the one who had called forth the Firefish to destroy their ship, the Nochto Vare. This was the one who had been granted the Ixthano on the gallows, and had thus become both the King of the Vast and at the same time a Drammune citizen. This was the one who had led peasants to victory at the gallows, and then caused them all to vanish from the city, reappear in the wood, and then vanish again and reappear here.

  This unlikely king was dressed as a peasant, but his bearing was altogether regal in their eyes. Their own commander wanted parley—and that was as sure a sign of his stature as any they could imagine. As he walked by, they saw his eyes, blue as the sea, burning now with fire. He was a true king, and more than one warrior fought back the impulse to bow. This was a moment they would each remember, they knew…the time when the King of Nearing Vast passed so close they could have touched him, spoken to him. Or killed him.

  Twenty yards behind him trudged one of their huge, blue warriors, pushing aside the Drammune who had closed in behind the king. He was one of their dragoons, they knew, the ones who could fight, and he wore a fierce scowl on his face. He met eye after eye, and looked as though he would be quite content to ram his pike through any who gave him the slightest opportunity. Behind him was a tall, angular man of some obvious importance, trying to act as though he wasn’t terrified. Behind him was a stubby priest wearing an idiotically blissful expression.

  Whatever positive impression they gained of the Vast through the regal qualities of their king quickly dissolved at the sight of his court.

  The Vast quartermaster sat up and peeked over his barrels of ale, silently surveying the Drammune from within the shadows of his wagon. They had grown restless. Something was happening. Then he saw Packer Throme and his heartbeat quickened. It was a parley! There was a chance he might see sundown after all.

  And then he felt a sudden, sinking feeling. What if there was a pact, and the king ordered him to feed all these Drammune as well as his own troops? That would be just his luck. Major Harmey spit once more, then clamped his mouth shut in a successful effort to silence the torrent of oaths that welled up within him.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Alliance

  As Packer topped the hill, Huk Tuth dismounted. The boy seemed even less a threat now than he had been on the Green, when manacled for hanging. Then, at least, he had seemed dangerous, a criminal who if let loose might turn violent. Here, unarmed, wearing the commonest of Vast clothing, he seemed all out of place to lead even a single platoon. Much less an army. Much less a nation.

  Packer was taken aback by his first encounter with Huk Tuth. In spite of his small stature, the Drammune commander seemed somehow to be a very big man. He was short but thick; his white hair was long and thin, straggling down to slumped shoulders that at one time surely had been broad, and that still tapered into long, thick arms. His brow below his helmet was heavy, his nose flat and broken and hooked, his skin creased and leathery. He had no beard, which was unusual for the Drammune. His dark eyes were hard and distant, eyes that had seen things that would turn most men to stone. To Packer, the bent old commander seemed like something from another age, hard and weathered, as inscrutable as he was foreign. The two stood face-to-face and worlds apart, both silent.

  Then Tuth’s face grew bitter with disgust. He was repulsed by the measure of the man before him, and by the message he must now convey. No Devilfish would fear this man. Any Drammune intelligence officer could wring out his secrets, given an hour and a cheap whip. This Vast king wouldn’t make it through the first day of military training in Drammun; he’d die in the Opening Mayhem. And yet Tuth must deliver a message of peace to him, as though he were to be feared?

  But that was his duty. “Do you speak Drammune?” Tuth asked in his native tongue.

  Packer grimaced. “Do you speak Vast?” he asked hopefully, not aware that he asked the mirror-image question.

  “Little,” Tuth answered.

  “I’ll translate,” Prince Ward offered cheerfully, now topping the rise, and relieved to have made it across the field alive. Packer turned, surprise in his eyes. Chunk and Father Mooring flanked the prince. Packer did not realize until now that he’d been followed.

  “Father Mooring could provide the same service,” Ward explained, “but Vast priests are not held in high regard by the Drammune military.” The priest nodded his contentment with this arrangement, and the prince repeated his offer in Drammune for Tuth’s benefit.

  Tuth had his own translator in one of the officers standing nearby, but he did not reveal that fact. Instead, he wasted no time launching into his terms, speaking directly to the tall, skinny Vast native who spoke Drammune, ignoring the king.

  Packer listened, uncomprehending, to the Drammune commander and his own prince. Tuth’s tone was argumentative, and sullen. Prince Ward was patient, furrowing his brow as he listened, holding up a hand once or twice to ask clarifying questions. Ward surprised Packer by making some sort of demand, and then Tuth showed him the wrinkled piece of parchment, pointing toward the bottom of it. Packer could see the axe-and-skull insignia at the bottom, the official seal of the Hezzan of the Drammune, but the rest just looked like scratch marks. Ward studied the document for a moment, Father Mooring peeking at it from behind. Ward asked a few more questions. Finally both the prince and the Drammune commander went silent. Huk Tuth crossed his arms and looked away as though wholly uninterested.

  Ward turned to Packer, who by now was anything but uninterested. “Well,” Ward said, trying to pull all this together. “My Drammune isn’t perfect, but I think the gist is that the Hezzan has, by way of that falcon we heard screeching overhead, sent this message…” it was still in his hand, and he tapped it with the back of his fingers, “one that may have saved us all a whole lot of trouble. It contains terms for peace.”

  Packer was dumbfounded. He looked at Father Mooring, who nodded, beaming again. The priest had certainly gotten the gist of it. “Terms…how? Why?”

  “Well,” Ward continued, “as you might imagine, I had the same questions. But it seems that our happy little commander here,” and Ward jerked his head in Tuth’s direction, “witnessed your performance with the Firefish at sea, you and the Trophy Chase. He immediately thereafter sent a report to the Hezzan about it. By falcon. How they’ve trained falcons to carry messages is a question the commander does not seem anxious to answer, by the way. Regardless, the return message dropped from the heavens at just the opportune moment.”

  Ward glanced back and forth between the priest and the king. There would be no stopping these two now. They had their miracle. “The result being that this war is over, and we are now fast friends with the Drammune, who apparently are not willing to have their Armada destroyed by Firefish, which as we all know by now, attack at the beck and call of the Vast. Your beck and call in particular.” He said it with wry humor. Now he handed Packer the sheaf. “So…if you’ll comply with a few demands, they’ll simply pack up and go home.”

  Packer’s mind reeled. He looked, uncomprehending, at the parchment. “The war is over…” He looked up into the sky. He looked down at Father Mooring. He looked over at
Chunk. He shook his head in astonishment. Then he looked back to Ward. His heart was in his throat. “What are the demands?”

  “There are three.”

  “Which are…?” Packer was suddenly impatient to get this done.

  “First, we must immediately dispatch an emissary to write a formal pact. Send a diplomat, a plenipotentiary with full powers to treat with the Drammune on behalf of the king.”

  “Done!”

  Ward glanced quickly at Huk Tuth, then stepped closer to Packer. “If you don’t mind, I will wait until you have heard all three conditions before I convey any of your answers to our delightful new friend here. The others are not quite so simple.”

  Packer nodded.

  “The second is that you send your emissary to Hezarow Kyne immediately, aboard the Trophy Chase.”

  Packer frowned. “The Chase? Why?”

  “No particular reason given. But I see you’re beginning to get the bigger picture here. The third condition, the revealing one, is that you must also send the leaders of the Vast Firefish trade on the same voyage.”

  Packer’s brow furrowed further.

  “Yes.” Ward nodded. “This will be the sign of our goodwill toward our new allies. We will teach them our trade secrets regarding the Firefish, and they in turn will teach us all their trade secrets regarding their more mundane, but still highly lucrative, fishing industry.”

  Packer brightened a bit. “They’ll teach us their harvesting techniques?”

  “Yes, they’ll even send us a boat, brimful of the leaders of their own fishing industry.”

  Packer looked at the glowering Huk Tuth, then back to the prince. “Hard to refuse.”

  “I’m sure that was the plan. But there is one other small item.”

  Packer felt a chill at the back of his neck. He had seen this act too many times before, from Ward and from his brother. Now would come the bad news. “Let’s hear it.”

  “The message names names, those leaders of the Firefish industry who must sail aboard the Trophy Chase in order to meet these terms. I demanded to read it myself.” He pointed to the wrinkled parchment in Packer’s hand. “Sandeman Wilkins, also known as Scatter. John Hand. Lund Lander…and Packer Throme.”