The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  Father Mooring stood up, hands bloodied from his work on Talon. He beamed up at Packer. He walked close, looked up at Packer’s neck, pointed a red-stained finger. “You’ve found healing, there in the water.”

  Packer touched his own neck. The wound was there, he could trace it with his finger, but it was closed. It was not bleeding. As he stroked the fatal wound that was no longer, he realized his right hand moved freely, easily. He looked at it, opened and closed it quickly. The hard mass of scars across his palm had softened, and was now almost invisible. He could feel the inside of his fingers. The round, white circle at the base of his hand remained, the only visible scar.

  “The Firefish,” he said aloud. “The fire in its scales…” He trailed off as the full wonder of the beast overtook him. Meat, hide, teeth…these were relics of its life, artifacts of death that had great value to men in war. But alive…the power of the beasts alive was so much more, so much greater. The power to heal.

  Packer looked at Talon now, still on her back, the surgeon hovering over her again. Packer leaped down from the bowsprit. He felt the deck solid on his feet, felt the slap of it through his soles. He was strong, but already the warmth was leaving him, that feeling of easy power and fluid calm. “She’s alive, then,” he said. Talon was breathing with difficulty.

  Stitch looked up. He blinked at Packer. “Aye, so far at least. But I never saw anyone ripped up this bad who made it.”

  Packer knelt by her side. He put a hand on her forehead, and her breathing eased.

  Delaney grimaced, shook his head. “Best let her die as God intended.”

  “Has she spoken?” Packer asked.

  Father Mooring looked at him as though that were the oddest question. “Yes, in fact. We’ve had a bit of conversation in Drammune.”

  Packer wanted to speak to her himself. Instead he asked the priest, “Father, what do the words ‘anochter nem omas’ mean?”

  Father Mooring stared hard at Packer. Something was very different about him. He looked healthy, remarkably so, and calm as a woodland lake. But it wasn’t that. It was his eyes. They seemed to see into things, as though he looked deeper, somehow, than the priest remembered. “It means ‘one death, once, for all.’ ”

  Packer nodded.

  Now Delaney put a hand on Packer’s shoulder from behind. “Well, ye’re all soakin’ wet, so I guess ye ain’t a ghost this time, neither.”

  “No, not this time, either,” Packer told him, gently.

  He stood, looked at Delaney for a moment, then watched the water rise behind the ship, foam and flesh in the beasts’ wild, terrible battle. But though the carnage was very real and very present, it seemed distant to him. He looked out over the port rail toward the Kaza Fahn. He watched the Achawuk still swimming toward him and the Trophy Chase. They came from all sides now. The seas were filled and crowded. He could see them leaving the shores, too, canoes with torches, women, children, old and young. Many had already gathered in the water around the ship, but though they treaded water far from shore, not one tried to climb the spears. The ladder up was empty. They just waited, watching. A multitude, expecting a miracle.

  And now he noticed that the canoes they paddled from the shore were loaded with something, weighted down, riding low in the water. There were hundreds of these, rowing out toward him, toward the center of the mayak-aloh. They came from every shore. And as he watched, the canoes begin to sink. As each one reached a certain point, as though predetermined, hands reached out and pulled it under, its contents blackening the waters. Packer pondered this.

  Then he walked astern. Delaney followed. As the men saw him, they made way, tapping others on the shoulders, until every eye watched the king. He climbed to the afterdeck, and walked to the stern rail. He looked regal, but the fiery glow was gone now. Any shock the men felt now at seeing him alive after they thought they’d lost him, dissipated quickly. It was right that he was here. Talon had tried to cut his throat, and then he’d fallen into the sea. Sure. But this was Packer, Packer Throme, King of the Vast. He had returned alive and well. That was as it should be.

  He said nothing now, but looked out over the sea. This was a spectacle more hideous than the one he’d seen in these waters once before. There were more of the beasts here, more by far. And it was a furious attack, counterattack, with each Firefish gouging, being gouged, turning and gouging, biting, huge jaws clamping down, razor teeth slicing into meat and tail and bone and fin, scale and skull, any part of any other Firefish that any jaw could reach.

  The water had turned to foam, and now to pink froth. The melee rose ten, twenty feet above the surface, a hill of reddish whitewater, five hundred feet across, pushing the Chase, the Kaza Fahn, and the Marchessa away. Beyond this battleground was the wreckage of a score of ships. Men swimming for shore.

  It saddened him. The scale of death and destruction in this place was enormous, hellish, like a judgment of God in the Book of Revelation. And yet, even those much greater scenes of violence and death were foreordained. Packer remembered Marcus Pile’s prayer as though the young man spoke the words aloud. I figure Thou couldst care less about whose heart is still beatin’ in his chest, but Thou carest a whole lot more about whose soul comes to life. This devastation, this reaping of so many lives, was heartrending. And yet, who was Packer to question it? Talon contended with God. Packer and Panna and Father Mooring and Will Seline fought against such powers, against principalities. To hope there would be no casualties in such a war seemed naïve.

  Delaney shook his head in wonder. “The fight’s gone from men now,” he said in a tone of benediction Packer had heard him use only once before. “Now it’s in the hearts of beasts.”

  Packer looked around, and saw that it was true. Achawuk no longer attacked, Drammune were beaten and quiet, the Vast watched silently. Only the Firefish now preyed on one another. It seemed that all the dark forces of the world had been pulled back, death and destruction had fled the hearts of men and had run to the Firefish, concentrating their fury here. Demons cast from men to beasts.

  “I think that God is doin’ somethin’ here,” Delaney noted.

  Packer smiled, for the first time in what seemed forever. “Yes. I think so.”

  “But we hardly ever do know what, do we?”

  And Packer nodded.

  “So…now we pray?” Delaney asked. He was thinking of Marcus; it’s what Marcus would have done.

  Packer nodded. “Now we pray.” The two friends knelt at the rail. They bowed their heads together. One by one, the rest of the crew dropped to a knee, many to pray, many others simply content to follow their leader, now that he was once again leading.

  And the melee subsided. Before a word of prayer was said aloud, more quickly than it started, it was over. The mound of frothing water settled, and was gone. The sea before them went dead calm. The soft slap of water against the hull, the creak of a mast, a line going taut, a distant seagull, suddenly these were the only sounds.

  Delaney looked at Packer with eyes as wide as saucers.

  The poison came. It came in power, and it would not stop. A wave of horror, sickness, driving all other thoughts away. The burning, the stench…It stung the eyes and filled the head. And so the Firefish swam, blindly away, away, as far and fast as they could.

  The poison from the canoes, soot and ash, stopped the melee in an instant. Every beast turned toward the open sea and fled, searching for pure water, water it could breathe.

  Talon struggled in the dreamy darkness, fighting the currents and the cold. She bobbed to the surface, desperate for air, and when she did, there was the priest. He was gentle and warm as the sun, and she found some rest from her struggle.

  He spoke to her. He spoke in Drammune, as he had before. But now she could not follow the words. They made no sense. He spoke of forgiveness and redemption, things that had no meaning for her. But she took comfort in him. His voice, his strength. It was calm and yet powerful. And her child, she thought, was safe here, in the light, wit
h him. She wanted to give this strange man her child to hold for just a while. He could protect it while she fought. He would keep the baby safe, and she could fight this darkness that pulled her under.

  And then the light faded and she entered the clammy darkness once more. Deep beneath the surface, swords were drawn. Her sword flashed, and sang. A hundred stood against her, then a thousand, then ten thousand. They came at her all at once. She fought. She would fight until they died or they surrendered. But they surrounded her, suffocating her. They were a single dark mass of swordsmen, and she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. And then one stabbed her through the middle, and then another, and another, a hundred blades, a thousand, and in a panic she rose into the light, to the surface, out of the darkness. And she heard the voice again, the priest’s calm, gentle voice.

  She opened her eyes. There he was again, the little man. So kind, as though she were the child. He held her hand. He touched her forehead. He spoke comforting words. He wanted good for her. He cared. But why? She search his eyes, and asked him.

  He spoke of mercy.

  Mercy…humility…weakness, these were a path to power with the Vast God. This was logical. Give up your own power, and absorb the power of the universe. But she had never shown mercy, not once that she could remember. And so why should she be granted it?

  “ ‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done,’ ” the little priest spoke from amid the light, “ ‘but according to his mercy he saved us.’ ”

  She opened her eyes again. “But He cannot save my child.” Pain shot through her abdomen.

  “Yes, of course He can,” the priest assured her.

  “She will be abandoned.” She felt as she said the words a great tearing, a rending of herself, so deep it was neither anger nor sorrow, but some rending of the soul underneath both, underneath all, in that place where a husband abandoned her, a father abandoned her, a mother sent her away. She did not want the same for her own child. She would not abandon this baby, not even to God.

  “He will save the child,” the priest said. “Perhaps, not in this world. But in a better one.”

  She struggled to comprehend this, but she couldn’t. He was sure of it though. Perhaps that was enough. But no, no—she would die, and then her child would die. She would die a hundred times, a thousand deaths, the cruelest of all deaths, just to save her only child. Why didn’t God understand that? Why did He crucify His only child?

  But then she knew. It came to her like a single shaft of light shining down from parted clouds. God Himself had died for all His children. He would die a thousand deaths to save them. The cruelest death. Just as she would gladly sacrifice herself to save her child. As the Hezzan had died for her.

  Now she asked for mercy, not for herself, but for her child. If she could not be lifted up into the light, perhaps God in His mercy would take her child. And so she offered, finally, her child, and with her child all her hopes, to God.

  Talon knew now that her own life was over. When she went below again, she would not surface. She had nothing more to fight for. She would have liked another chance to understand this mercy, this prize that one could never be worthy to receive. But she knew it would not come. She’d been given another chance. She had made her choices. She had few moments, mere seconds now, as the darkness rose and her will to fight, ebbed away. But she had one more thing she must give up.

  “I have a message for Packer Throme,” she said. “You must tell him.”

  “He’s here. I’ll get him.”

  “No. You must tell him. After I am dead.”

  Father Mooring felt a great stab of sorrow. She was an earnest woman, and so fearless. He held her hand tightly, so she’d know that he was there.

  “Tell him…” She closed her eyes as pain shot through her once again, this time searing, tearing her away, ripping her from the world. She fought back one more time, struggled to the surface, opened her eyes. Her lips trembled. She must say it; she wanted to say it. “Tell him…” and here she faltered. Then she said, “I know who shall rule.”

  The darkness swept over her like a torrent, and she went under.

  And then her eyes stared out into daylight, at the sun, the ship, the sky, but they would see no more on earth forever.

  “Your Highness,” the voice said from behind Packer. “Excuse me.”

  Still kneeling, Packer turned away from the suddenly calm sea. The crowd of kneeling sailors looked at the first mate, Andrew Haas. He stood before the king now, on the afterdeck, holding a dripping cap in his hands. Pain etched his face. His clothes were soaking wet and filthy, his hair matted, grime all in the pores of his skin.

  Packer stood. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t mean to interrupt your prayers, sir. But I have news. Sorrowful news.”

  “Speak it.”

  “We tried to stop it, sir. We used brace timbers…jacks. Did all we could.” His voice cracked.

  Packer waited, not comprehending. He looked beyond him, saw a similarly bedraggled troop below on the quarterdeck. Ten, fifteen hands, as wet and morose as Andrew Haas, all watching him. He looked at the decks, and noticed now their angle. He looked up at the sails. There was no wind, no sails were filled. He looked out at the Achawuk, gathered below. They seemed nearer now, as though the ship was lower in the water. Packer looked back at the ship’s first mate and searched his eyes. “Say it plainly, Mr. Haas.”

  “That Firefish, the one that bumped us? Snapped the hull planks. Broke timbers. Amidships, just above the keel, port side. And…well, sir…there’s nothin’ more to be done.” He swallowed hard, knowing he had not yet spoken plainly. But he couldn’t say the words.

  “You mean we’re sinkin’,” Delaney said, his voice not much more than a gasp.

  Haas nodded at Delaney. He wiped at his eyes. Then to Packer he finally said the words. “Sir, the Trophy Chase is goin’ down.”

  Packer turned away, a sharp stab to his heart. It was just a ship. He fought against it as though it couldn’t be true. He wanted to order them all back down, to try again. But they wouldn’t be here now if there were any hope.

  And then Packer remembered the vision…and a cauldron, and the small ship within it, spinning in the maelstrom. It had disappeared. While his own hand had poured the blood of men, the ship was there. But when his hand was gone, so was the ship. The ship had been the ladle. The ship had stirred the pot. To turn the oceans clear, he realized, to cleanse them, to calm them, this must be. And Packer longed more than anything to see the oceans cleansed and calmed.

  He turned back to Andrew Haas. “How much time do we have?”

  Haas looked around, at the decks. “Ten minutes. Fifteen at most.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Haas. You did all you could.” He walked to the rail, spoke to all the men now gathered, the whole crew, many still kneeling, many more standing. They waited for some word that might make this right.

  “Thank you all,” Packer said to the men. “You’ve been a worthy crew for a great, great ship. You have served her with dedication, and with passion. No men on earth could have done better. Your country and your king are deeply grateful, and will remember your service always.” He paused, looked around him. Then he said, “The story of the Trophy Chase ends today, but she will never be forgotten.”

  They gazed at him, and at the sails, then at the decks in shock. A few wiped at the corners of their eyes. But they did not move from where they stood, where they knelt.

  So Packer said, “You have one last duty. I trust you will do it as well as you have every other duty. Lower the boats.” He took a deep breath. “Abandon ship.”

  The men moved slowly, but with purpose. They carried out their final orders with a sense of ceremony, preparing the jolly, the shallop, the longboats. They gathered up gear, they loaded up guns and ammunition, food and water. Ale and rum. And as they worked they touched the Trophy Chase, her rails, her masts, her lines. Not one in ten of them would have known what to say, or how to act,
had they been at a funeral for any man or any woman. But here, at the passing of their ship, they were at peace with one another, knowing precisely what needed doing, what needed saying, and how to say it.

  They spoke their goodbyes as they worked, a phrase here, a word there, a rare full sentence. But strung together, their plain words provided a simple eulogy that expressed the very spirit of the Chase. And these men were her spirit, speaking as they departed her, never to return.

  “She’s a great, great ship.”

  “Best there ever was.”

  “Or ever will be.”

  “Aye to that.”

  “She bested ’em all, one way or another.”

  “Achawuk, Drammune…”

  “Pirates.”

  Quiet laughter.

  “Scatter himself couldn’t sink her.”

  “No, no man could.”

  “Only the Firefish.”

  “She killed a passel of ’em, though, afore one got ’er.”

  “Tamed ’em, too.”

  “Just a tap, is all it was.”

  “Like it was her time.”

  “A knock on the door.”

  “Time to go home.”

  “Aye. Like a knock on a door.”

  “We’ll miss her.”

  Silence.

  “Aye. She’ll be sorely missed.”

  “There never will be another like her.”

  “She’ll never be forgotten.”

  “Never.”

  “Never.”

  “Aye to that, lads. Aye to that.”

  There were no dead aboard the Trophy Chase, no casualties at all, save for the great cat’s final captain. While the men loaded the boats, Packer, Delaney, Father Mooring, and Andrew Haas carried Talon’s body, wrapped now in sailcloth, to the captain’s quarters. They laid her on the bunk built for Scat Wilkins.

  “Should we put her sword in her hand, sir?” Andrew Haas asked solemnly.

  Packer shook his head. “She’s laid aside her sword forever now.”

  Delaney sniffed.

  Packer bowed his head and said a prayer. “Take her, dear Lord. And in Thy mercy, have mercy on her soul…and take her unborn child quickly and painlessly, we pray. Unite that child with its grandfather.” He paused. “Unite all those whom You have loved, and who have loved You. Thy mercy is deeper than the sea, higher than the sky. We don’t understand it, Lord. But have mercy, we pray. Lord, have mercy on us all. Amen.”