by NS Dolkart
Next, she tried the marketplace and the temple square. They were likely enough places to find someone who’d recently disembarked from a long voyage, but if Phaedra had ever stopped there, she wasn’t there anymore.
For the next few hours, Dessa checked every inn and hostel in the city, from the fanciest ambassador-worthy places to the least reputable sailors’ hostels. At the former she was lucky to get a polite “no” before some private guard escorted her to the door; at the latter she only got the usual propositions. She feared – but rejected – the possibility that Phaedra had already left the city. If she had stopped to speak with the Atunaean High Council upon her arrival, she couldn’t possibly have moved on already. Yet here it was growing dark, and nobody knew where she had gone. The woman had completely disappeared.
Dessa cursed that sailor for not having told her about Phaedra sooner. Maybe if she had left a few minutes earlier the trail would have been warmer and this search wouldn’t be so fruitless. She doubted it, but it did help to be angry at someone, and the sailor was a convenient target. She hoped his wife spat out her wine.
She hated the way people stared at her while she roamed around the twilit city, as if looking unkempt and frustrated made her less human. She had half a mind to bring out her claws and give them something to really stare at, but there was no sense endangering herself over a few nasty looks. A dirty madwoman was distasteful; a dirty madwoman with claws was a public menace.
She couldn’t let the stares go unanswered though, so instead of going back to the hostel, she spent some of her savings from the storehouse robbery – the one she’d lost her big friend to – and stayed at one of the nicer inns she could afford. The food was better, and they had baths.
It was the best night’s sleep she’d had in ages. She dreamt that her mother was welcoming her home with tears and kisses, and that Father was thanking her profusely for what she had done. Vella was there too, saying how proud she was and calling Dessa her sister. She awoke with a smile on her face, enjoying the sunshine from her window, hanging onto the last remnants of her dream before she had to go back to her womanhunt. It wouldn’t hurt to spend a few extra moments in bed – after all, rushing hadn’t helped her yesterday. She’d probably do better if she spent less time running and more time thinking. Plus, she’d miraculously escaped a hangover, so the sleep was definitely worth it.
Her clothes were still a bit damp when she put them on – she had washed them in the bath the night before, after she had finished bathing. The wet cloth was rough against her skin, but it would dry in the sun, and at least her clothes were clean. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed them. If she did find Phaedra today, she wanted to make a good impression. She ate a satisfying meal that was more lunch than breakfast, parting with some of her last Atunaean coins. When she finally left the inn, it was well past noon.
Her plan was to go back to the council building and see if Phaedra had returned, but that proved unnecessary. It was hard to miss the sheer bulk of armament being carried toward the docks, and when Dessa asked for an explanation, she was told that the Tarphaean witch was leading a fleet to rid her homeland of pirates.
Dessa raced for the docks, hoping to find some excuse for boarding the same ship as Phaedra. She didn’t have any skills that would be useful on a ship – she had never sailed; never fought in a battle; couldn’t even cook well. Could she just lie about that? She didn’t think so. They’d know she was no sailor within seconds.
She reached the docks still with no plan, so she began by asking which ship Phaedra was on. Atun’s Favor was the biggest warship in the Atunaean navy, too large to be anchored at the quay except when loading or unloading. Naturally it was fully manned already, waiting out in the harbor for the rest of the fleet. Dessa could almost have screamed. It felt like God Most High was throwing obstacles in her way on purpose. Why was He doing this to her?
Some of the smaller ships were still loading up for the expedition – she could try her luck with those. Dessa ran over to the place where a few armed citizens were boarding a dinghy. They wore no armor, so they must have been volunteers.
“Please,” she begged the man who was directing them onto the boat, “take me too.”
The man shook his head. He was tall and handsome, with a gold ring in the left side of his nose. “Boat’s full, but I’ll be back. The Glimmering Sea’s not a ferry, though. If you can’t fight or sail, we don’t need you.”
“I can fight,” Dessa lied. Determination or no, everyone else had a weapon and she didn’t.
“No, you can’t. Get out of here.”
They shoved off, and Dessa watched them row to the ship. Time to try a different boat. But at each one, the reaction was the same. They were not taking unarmed women with no sailing experience. The fleet would leave without her.
She could wait until they returned, but knowing her luck Phaedra would come to shore in the middle of the night and be off before Dessa could even learn of her arrival. On the other hand, that dinghy was coming back for one more trip. Anything that got her onto it would be well worth the risk.
“You again,” the man on the dinghy said when he looked up from his rowing and saw her waiting. “I thought I told you, we’ve got no room for useless passengers.”
Dessa could feel the stares of the people around her. “I’m not useless,” she said. “I could be very helpful.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m Dragon Touched.”
Slowly, she let herself transform. Her hands and feet turned into claws, losing their extra digits. She had spent so long in hiding, she’d almost forgotten how much more comfortable it was this way, when she wasn’t stretching her hands to make that last little finger or forcing her scales down below the skin. She had always preferred it this way, but had learned the risks of being openly Dragon Touched outside her people’s territory. She hoped this time she’d get a more favorable reaction.
The sailor only recoiled slightly, which was better than it might have been. The others waiting to get on his boat backed away to give her more room, their fear and distaste palpable.
“What good is that?” the sailor asked. “We don’t need you gouging our planks.”
“I won’t gouge your planks,” Dessa said, trying to keep the desperation from her voice. “You said I’d be no good against the pirates, but I can surprise them. I can breathe fire too, when I need to.”
“That’s dangerous on a ship, I don’t want you–”
“I can control it,” she snapped. “I haven’t breathed fire on you yet, have I? But I could do it at the pirates’ ships.”
Well, he didn’t look dismissive, so that was something. He didn’t look enthusiastic either, though. “I can ask the captain…”
“If you take her, I’m staying here.”
Dessa turned to glare at the man who had spoken. He wasn’t anything impressive to look at, and the weapon he carried was just a board with some nails in it. She could hardly wait for the sailor to ask, “Who cares?”
But he didn’t. Instead he just turned back to her and said, “Sorry, it’s an interesting idea and all, but we can’t have people saying they want to go back to shore because of you. It’s not worth the trouble.”
Dessa stood, her mouth agape, not knowing what to say. The other people boarded the dinghy, and all she could do was to choke out, “Wait, please wait,” as they rowed it away. A few minutes later, the ships began to leave the harbor. What remained were only the usual fishing boats and merchantmen, going about their business as if nothing had happened, as if nobody’s dreams had been dashed after getting so tantalizingly close to fulfillment.
Dessa sat on the dock and cried.
11
Phaedra
The Atunaean flagship was enormous, with three masts and two banks of oars, showcasing the latest and best in naval technology. There were giant crossbows built on the Parakese model except on a much grander scale, with cables attached to the
ir projectiles for retrieval or for towing their unlucky targets. The sails could be raised and lowered using an ingenious system of pulleys, saving time and probably lives too, since it reduced the duration sailors spent climbing the rigging. The biggest problem was that the Atun’s Favor had too deep a draft to reach the docks at smaller seaports. The harbor at Karsanye, the former capital of Phaedra’s homeland, was good and deep, but she couldn’t remember if the pirates had rebuilt the piers far enough into it. She thought so, but her memory wasn’t perfect. Hunter would have known.
The admiral of the Atunaean navy was a curt, frankly unpleasant man named Sett, who had been appointed after the execution of his predecessor. In the fifty years since the overthrow of Atuna’s monarchy, four of its admirals had already been executed for being too popular with their men. Atuna’s standing navy was its greatest power, but that made it especially dangerous to the High Council, which feared the rise of a new king. The rise of Magerion in Ardis, which had swept aside the Ardisian Council of Generals, had prompted them to be especially cautious. Given Atunaean supremacy over the seas, a popular admiral was considered a far greater threat than an incompetent one.
Sett was a good combination, from what Phaedra had heard: neither incompetent nor particularly well-liked. He had a tendency to do the Council’s work for them, rooting out his most popular captains and forcing them to retire. It did not win him any accolades, but it had kept him in his position. He had earned his post seven years ago, and there were no indications that he would be replaced anytime soon.
He did not look with favor upon Phaedra. She got the sense that he tolerated her existence only insofar as she had a job to do and he expected her to do it. To be fair, that seemed to be his attitude toward everyone. It was no wonder he had remained safely unpopular.
There was no doubt that Phaedra did have a job to do, and she was already doing it. While the sailors hurried about their work and the soldiers readied themselves for battle, Phaedra borrowed a sailor’s knife and moved about the ship, scratching wards into the wood. She had done the same already with the other ships in the fleet, but had saved the flagship for last since she knew she would have more time there than elsewhere.
She wanted to be thorough since this was her last chance to prepare before the Atunaean fleet came up against Mura and his patron Goddess. Phaedra and the Atunaeans had the element of surprise on their side, but of course that would not be enough. Karassa was a Sea Goddess, after all, and it was easier to sink a ship than to preserve one.
There were obvious wards to use – keeping water away from the hatches, lightning away from the masts, fire away from the sails – but having used them already on nearly a dozen other ships, Phaedra began to doubt their effectiveness. They were so standard, so obvious, that a Goddess like Karassa would cast them aside with ease. Maybe Psander’s magic was strong enough to stand against the Gods, but these wards of Phaedra’s? No, she was starting to think she would need something stronger.
At one time, Phaedra might have carved prayers to God Most High into the ship’s hull, but that was before Psander had stressed to her the risks of demanding a God’s attention, especially after the Gods had sought to exterminate academic wizardry. Mura used prayer magic exclusively, and apparently it hadn’t killed him yet, but he was also Karassa’s only finger this far west. God Most High had a city now, and a great temple full of priests. Phaedra was expendible.
No, it was wiser to take Psander’s approach and to try to mask her ship instead, to make it harder for Karassa to see. Phaedra hadn’t ever studied Psander’s wards specifically, but she thought she might be able to reverse-engineer them at least to some degree. Invisibility was too much to hope for – she would have to settle for misdirection. So while the Atunaean fleet sped toward her homeland, she carved sigils into the planks beneath her, identifying the Atun’s Favor as driftwood. She started near the central mast, choosing it as the poetic heart of the ship, and moved outward from there, standing after each sigil to let the rolling of the waves direct her movements. To move in a more orderly manner would be very un-driftwood-like and might well cancel her spell’s effect.
She could have sworn she felt the air tingle as she etched the first symbols into the boards. She suspected it was a sign of Godly attention, but she couldn’t have said which God it came from. She hoped it wasn’t Atun expressing His anger with her: whatever her intentions, it was undoubtedly an insult to suggest that a ship called the Atun’s Favor was mere driftwood. She had preferred that to the alternative, letting Karassa get a clear view of Her enemies’ forces, but of course Atun wasn’t obligated to care about Phaedra’s calculations.
When she finally rose to survey her handiwork, well after the island of Tarphae had come into sight, she allowed herself a sigh of satisfaction. She thought Psander would have been proud of her. Still, she wished she had thought to do the same for the other ships before they left port. Instinct and experience told her there was no substitute for completing another full spell on each ship, but she did what she could and hastily carved an addendum to her spell naming the entire armada “flotsam.” That the Atun’s Favor was the flagship did suggest the possibility that magic performed on it might extend to the whole fleet. In any case, it was the best she could do at this point. She cursed the oversight that had led her to such half-measures. It was not enough; it could not be enough. How many men would die?
Twelve ships had left Atuna on this mission. The Atun’s Favor was the largest and least maneuverable, so despite its impressive speed Admiral Sett had chosen to slow its approach as they neared the island to let some of the smaller ships pass it. They approached the harbor of Karsanye in two rows of six, an arrangement that obscured Phaedra’s vision as she made her way toward the prow, and made her fail to notice the enemy until the ship in front of hers, the Glimmering Sea, came about.
The harbor mouth was full of boats. Not ships, but dinghies and longboats and other small vessels, clogging up the path to the docks. The men aboard were rowing them toward the Atunaean fleet, making slow progress against the tide. Phaedra rushed to the admiral’s side, wanting the chance to advise him but also plainly curious about how he would respond. He gave her one irritated glance and ordered all the boats sunk.
“They’re probably full of slaves,” Phaedra said. “Mura captured sailors too, not just ships. He had us reclaiming a farm last time I was here. These boats are a distraction – he must have dozens of ships by now.”
The admiral sneered at her. “You think he’s sending these boats at us while his ships hide on the other side of the island. Me too. I’m not an idiot. But you never know what the enemy’s thinking – maybe it’s the ships that are the distraction, and all the pirates are on the boats. I don’t honestly care. While the enemy’s on just one flank, destroy him. You go to war with me, you don’t get to keep your baubles.”
Phaedra held her tongue. Admiral Sett wouldn’t have listened anyway, so it didn’t matter how much she wanted to yell at him that those boats were full of people, not baubles. His reasoning was tactically sound, whatever his morals: it would be reckless to let this fleet of boats anywhere near boarding range. Just because Phaedra thought they were mostly slaves and not pirates didn’t mean she was right.
So she stood silently and watched as Sett’s fleet drove toward the armada of little boats, loosing round after round of arrows until all the rowers were dead. She looked over the side of the Atun’s Favor as the great ship neared one of the doomed longboats and saw all she needed to see: the rowers’ ankles had been shackled to the hull. Along the boat’s prow, someone had painted a message in blood: Karassa, accept our sacrifice.
Phaedra’s stomach clenched.
“Sails!” cried the lookout. “Ships to starboard!”
“Turn to face them,” Admiral Sett commanded. “Oars!”
The captain repeated Sett’s message and the sailors sprang into action once more, furling the sails and lowering the oars into the water. There were two row
s of them, one on the upper deck and one on the lower, strong enough to power through even the worst headwinds. They’d be needed today: the southerly wind was an advantage to the pirates, who were rounding the Southern Crags and speeding toward the Atunaean fleet. Phaedra counted five ships, then seven, eight, ten… she lost count sometime after the fourteenth ship slipped past the crags and into view.
But the Atun’s Favor wasn’t turning.
“Oars!” the admiral cried again, rushing back to yell at the rowers himself. “Come about! What’s taking so long?”
“Something’s caught them, admiral!” one of the rowers answered. “They’re not moving!”
Admiral Sett turned his wrath on Phaedra. “Witchery,” he said. “Fix it.”
Phaedra leaned over the side of the ship and looked back toward the oars. The water was full of round translucent shapes bobbing on the waves. Jellyfish. Karassa’s sacred animal. As Phaedra watched, a few rows of oarsmen managed to lift their oars out of the water. They were covered in thick knots of seaweed and clusters of heavy starfish, and even a few of the jellies had managed to end up atop the flats of the oars, their tentacles drooping on either side down to the sea.
“Witch!” the admiral cried. “You were supposed to protect us from this!”
“I’m on it,” Phaedra answered, glad that this was one of the contingencies she had prepared for. She climbed down to the main deck and made her way toward one of the oversized crossbows, pulling an ink bottle from the pocket she had tied around her neck and cutting the wax seal with her knife. Out came the quill pen and soon she was drawing symbols on the huge loaded bolt, marking it as the centerpiece of Atun’s forces, the pride of the Atunaean navy.
“Loose this thing,” she told the men who had watched her work. “Send it into the sea.”
They untied the end of the bolt from its towing cable and did as she said. Phaedra watched it fly out across the waves in a glorious arc, slicing into the water easily a hundred yards away.