What came along with this as baggage was the carousing. The late nights, gambling and drinking were changing his habits and he had become more or less nocturnal, having to allow at least two hours of an afternoon to clean himself up and let the thumping hangover fade before looking to his daily tasks. He had sought to infiltrate the criminal classes in M’Dahz. Half a year later, however, he had become the criminal class of the town. Ghassan would never have recognised his brother now.
And yet, with all his late night forays and sessions, last evening was unquestionably the worst he had yet suffered. He couldn’t even remember leaving the last place. There had been a fight over a purse of coins. He remembered that and felt his upper lip, wincing as he found the bloody cut and the missing tooth. That explained some of the throbbing. Even wincing made his head hurt. His entire body ached as though he had been attacked with branches, which was distinctly possible given the events of the night that he could remember and the length of time as yet unaccounted for. He tried to smile to himself, but the pain this brought in his gums, lip and head made a smile beyond hope.
He was obviously still somewhere close to the port from the briny smell. At least the gulls were being silent, which was a blessing. The usual morning squawking of a thousand gulls might just have killed him this morning.
Samir shuddered and, very slowly and with great care, pried open his eyes, trying to ignore the fresh waves of pain and nausea that light and colour brought with them.
“He’s awake.”
Samir blinked. A face several feet away from him grinned a malicious grin, showing several missing teeth. The pain in his mouth, face, head and screaming muscles forgotten in an instant, Samir’s reactions took over. Scrambling from his side onto all fours, he backed away and felt himself bump into a wooden structure. What in the name of the great mother was going on?
His eyes became accustomed to the low light, and he focused on the face before him as the other figure came up from floor level into a crouch. The lad was younger than him, though probably bigger regardless. He had clearly seen the losing side of several fights by the marks and old wounds evident on his face and arms. He wore a cloth wrapped around his forehead and a leather waistcoat that allowed him to display the several gold chains hanging round his neck and the bronze armlets and bracers he wore.
“Who are you?”
The boy ignored him and grinned again.
“Awake and conscious.”
“Good” replied a voice from the shadows behind the boy. Samir squinted and tried to make out the shapes in the shadows. There were more than one. Perhaps a dozen people.
“Who are you and where am I?”
There was a chorus of laughter.
“This is not as funny as you think” Samir barked. “I’m an important man. There are some very dangerous people who will miss me and be extremely unhappy with you.”
The laugher moved up a notch and for the first time in many months Samir’s confidence foundered. He licked his lips nervously and winced as his tongue touched the fresh cut.
Slowly, the other figures moved forward out of the shadows. In other circumstances, Samir might have laughed, they were such an assorted bunch. He had once seen a carnival when the great religious festival had been celebrated to mark the millennium of Imperial foundation. His father had called it the ‘freak show’ and this reminded him so closely of it that he found it impossible to avoid smiling. Tall, fat, short, thin; some missing limbs, some with one eye, some with misshapen body parts. Not a one of them older than fifteen at a guess.
Samir sighed.
“I am tired and hung over. I have a lot to do and no time to play. If you intend to rob me, do so now. I have nothing on me of value, barring a few coins left over from the evening. If you’re just wanting to pick on me, then let’s get this over with so I can get to my work.
The laughter from the second boy who had spoken was deep and rich and disturbed Samir further. There was something about this he didn’t like at all. He had dealt with bullies many times. This was somehow different. This other speaker was clearly the leader. Older than most and taller than all, he was bulky and lighter skinned than the rest, almost like the foreign merchants from the north. One side of his face had been tattooed with intricate designs and whorls. Something about the boy suggested he was not one to be taken lightly.
“Show him, Afad” the leader said without taking his eyes from Samir.
Samir kept this tall boy in his sight while trying to follow the movements of the one who had watched him awake. This ‘Afad’ made his way across to a wall in the shadows. There was a bang and a creak and suddenly a square hatchway opened in the wooden wall. Light poured in, illuminating the face of the smiling boy and picking out sharply the shape of the others.
Samir shrugged.
“So? You’re all very pretty, I’m sure.”
The leader laughed.
“You misunderstand. Go and look.”
Trying hard to keep his eyes on the rest of them, Samir, backed away along the ribbed wooden structure behind him, toward that small square of white light and the grinning boy next to it. As he approached, he made motions for the other to move away and, with a shrug, Afad shuffled back toward his companions.
Samir closed on the light, feeling around his belt as he did so. No surprise there. His knife had gone, as had his purse.
And then he reached the hole and, quickly, so as not to grant too much opportunity to the potential attackers, he peered through the hole.
As his world shattered and the shards fled from him, the gathered children in the dark almost entirely forgotten, Samir blinked at the foamy water and the wake flowing past the wooden hull.
“Shit!”
Once again a chorus of uproarious laughter burst out in the shadows.
“Shit!”
“You may have been important in M’Dahz, little one, but here you’re just fresh meat.”
Samir’s heart raced. He was good under pressure and he knew it, but this was so far beyond his territory he really had no idea how to react. He swallowed. The important thing was to stay in control of himself. That way he had a hope of gaining control of the situation as time progressed.
Setting his jaw stubbornly, he turned to the assembled crowd, fighting down the panic and compacting it in his gut into a hard resolve.
“Very well. We’re obviously some distance from M’Dahz now. You’re clearly not a Pelasian vessel and the Empire won’t be sending ships here these days. The militia have gone and merchants are not in the habit of pressing unconscious drunks into service.”
He smiled a smile that he hoped was as irritating and condescending as it felt.
“I assume therefore that this is a pirate vessel and I am now, whether I like it or not, in fact, a pirate.”
Though no one replied, there was a chorus of vaguely affirmative noises from the other occupants of this dark space. Irritating, because now Samir was going to have to build up the respect of his peers from scratch once again and learn the ropes of this place. Clearly, short of a suicidal escape attempt to swim dozens of miles of open sea, he was stuck here for now and would have to make the most of it.
He smiled to himself. Perhaps this was actually a blessing in disguise. While he had entered his new life at M’Dahz with great plans of using the criminal classes of the town to foment rebellion against the Pelasians, he had to admit how easily he’d let himself slide into the simplicity of a life of few morals and lost sight of his original purpose.
Pirates! Pirates could be a great deal more use than a few smugglers and thieves.
His smile widened. All the more reason to push this as far as it would go. If you needed respect, the first thing to do was to test your limits. Once you knew how far you were allowed to go, you knew what you had to continually exceed to gain respect, or at least fear.
“I’ve met pirates several times. Saw a captain behead a merchant in M’Dahz once. And since pirates are, in my experience, grown men w
ith brains and cunning, I can only assume that you are either captives or that perhaps you clean the shitters, yes?”
Several growls greeted this comment. Samir began to relax. Some crowds were so predictable it was almost a shame to play them.
“Well? Any of you young ladies got enough of a voice to tell me what ship this is.”
The leader at the back folded his arms and sat back on a crate.
“You are either exceptionally brave or monumentally stupid, boy. My lads will tear you to pieces for that.”
Samir shrugged.
“Bring it to me. I have gutted Pelasian captains, learned to fight well from a desert warrior and dirtily from the docks of M’Dahz. And I am not remotely afraid of any of your catamites, my friend.”
The figures, barring the leader who remained seated on his crate, began to step slowly and purposefully forward from the shadows. Samir nodded to himself. This was going to hurt, but it was the first step to gaining a level of control.
With a smile, he scanned around and found a rib-shaped piece of timber perhaps two feet long and slightly curved; part of a broken barrel, probably. He hefted it for a moment and turned to face the advancing crowd.
“Alright. Who’s first?”
The white horses of possibility rushed along the side of the ship as they danced from crest to crest, keeping pace with the beatings just audible from within the hull of the great dark vessel.
On the raised rear section of the deck, beneath the large building-like canopy, captain Khmun shifted his gaze from the wide horizon ahead to the two sails which billowed.
“We’re losing the wind, Sharimi. Break out the oars.”
He cupped his hand round his ear and grinned.
“And you’d best go break up the fight. The boys need to take their seats.”
The first officer returned the sly grin and bowed. As he ran off shouting commands, Khmum rubbed his bristly chin and stared off ahead into the distance, focusing on the island that would not be visible for days yet.
The ‘Dark Empress’ was heading home.
In which a journey is completed and one begun
Ghassan stared up in wonder. Although his whole life he had heard the merchants in M’Dahz talk of the glorious city of Calphoris as though it made his home town look like a desert hovel, he’d not been truly prepared for what he saw now.
It had been so long since he had set off in the dark moonless night from the walls of M’Dahz with visions of a quick run and then a five day ride along the coast to the capital of the province that he had lost count of the sunrises and sunsets he had seen.
What had begun easily had soon been complicated beyond belief. He had run through the night and had hoped to come early the next morning to the trade station where he would buy a horse or possibly a camel for his ongoing journey.
The light had gradually grown with that first dawn and he had approached the trade post with some caution. Even though the chances were that, even if the rope had been found, the Pelasian military would hardly expend men on a manhunt unless someone important was found to be missing, there was no reason to tempt the lady of fate.
The station had been quiet and, as he’d approached, he had realised just how quiet. No trading post was that silent, let alone one that specialised in animals. Obviously the place was still used, since the smell of dung had been fresh and pungent enough to assail him as he reached even a hundred yards’ distance. Perhaps, now that there were so few traders on the roads, this place was only maintained by nomads who would need to stay there occasionally.
Biting his lip, he had approached slowly and in a crouched, tense manner. Somehow he hadn’t believed his rationalisations. Something had been wrong with the place and, as he’d reached the boundary wall that formed part of the horse corral, he had spotted the first signs of trouble. A broken blade lay partially covered by the sand. Once again he had found himself thanking the Gods for the gift of sharp eyes.
Ten minutes he had waited, obscured by that wall, listening for any sign of movement, before he had ventured within the post. Formed of three buildings and two tents with four separate corrals and an enclosing wall, the trade station had clearly been occupied continuously by a number of men and a great many animals of different sorts, up to a matter of days or even hours before. Equally clearly, the peaceful occupation of this mercantile centre had ended quickly and violently.
Not a single animal was to be found at the site and no bodies had been in evidence, though Ghassan had found a number of ripped fragments of garments and shards of metal belonging to weapons and armour.
Most disturbing had been the gobbets of fresh blood on the floor of the main building, clearly where the fighting or, more likely, the executions had taken place.
Despite the lack of corroborating evidence, he had become convinced almost immediately that this was the work of the Pelasian invaders, probably in some form of revenge for the attempted coup in the town.
Whatever the reason, he had now been faced with several weeks’ walk to the city of Calphoris, a walk along the coast, down near the shore and away from the road where patrols might find him.
Sighing, Ghassan had set off and headed east once again.
Later that afternoon, he had almost walked to his own demise.
A whole day of repetitive terrain and the quiet lapping of waves on the sand had become like a mantra, driving the young man into a stupor as he plodded ever on. It was almost soporific and he had his head lowered and his thumbs tucked into his belt as he’d rounded that headland. As he thought back on it now, he became certain that he’d even been whistling a childhood ditty as he went.
And there, on the beach beyond the headland, had been a patrol of black-clad Pelasian light cavalry, cooking freshly-caught fish for their lunch. He had been so surprised, shocked out of his mental haze, that he’d stood there like some sort of practice target, silhouetted against the sapphire sky, as the first rider had spotted him.
Ghassan was far from a stupid young man and years of having to keep up with the mercurial thought processes of his clever brother had honed his instincts. Shaking his head slightly, he had turned and run up the slope toward the road inland, making sure he moved far enough back west as he went so that he’d disappeared from their view.
As soon as he’d done so, he had then ducked back the way he came and dropped to the ground to peer over the headland. Sure enough, the riders had clambered onto their horses and ridden towards the road. With a smile, Ghassan had then run down onto the gravelly shore. Briefly he’d considered stealing the fragrant baked fish, but quickly rid himself of such dangerous ideas. Keeping his eyes darting around the periphery for warnings of the scouts coming back this way, he had carefully run across the beach to the opposite headland, making sure to keep to the hard, stony part of the shoreline and stay off the sand that would betray signs of his passing.
After that incident, he had travelled much more slowly and very carefully. It would take the best part of a month at that rate for him to reach the city, but he would be more likely to arrive unharmed. Besides, he could catch and cook fish as he went, which would prevent him from starving, and fresh water could be supplied using an arrangement of three pots to boil sea water and then collect the dripping steam, a trick any desert-coast dweller quickly learned.
Many times over the next three weeks of travel, he had considered alternative routes. The road would have been so much quicker but, several times, he had spotted Pelasian scouts or patrols, so the idea had been quickly shelved. The only other possibility had been deeper into the southern desert but, while he was almost guaranteed to see no Pelasians there, the desert held its own perils.
He knew where the oases were supposed to be and, in principal at least, knew how to extract water from succulents he might find. But it was very easy to lose your way in the desert and the chances were that he’d be walking to his death. Besides, if you were not a native of the dunes, there was every chance the sand devils would catch you,
and Ghassan had no intention, at this pivotal point in his life, of being eaten and left a stripped carcass in the deep sands.
And so the days had dragged on and on. He had begun by keeping a rough track of the time but, towards the end of the first week, he had given up such meaningless ideas and merely settled for whether it was morning, afternoon or night. By the end of the second week he’d given up trying to remember what day it was and had vowed that, when he finally reached his destination, whether he became a soldier or a mercenary, whether he was rich or poor or somewhere in between, he would make sure that he never ate another chunk of baked bream or boiled seaweed again as long as he lived.
And now here he was. With a sigh of relief, Ghassan let his pack fall to the floor beside his leg. His legs ached a little, but the constant daily exercise had built up his muscles enough that he hardly noticed it any more.
And he was finally safe from Pelasian patrols, standing before the great white marble gates of Calphoris. The massive arch rose up above him, to a height of perhaps a hundred feet. The sides of the gatehouse had once been great cylindrical white towers, though in more troubled times some governor had given them a great dark, square, buttressed stone casing that covered the lower half.
The top of the gate, resplendent in its white marble battlements, was surmounted by five great golden figures. As he examined them, it occurred to Ghassan’s jaded mind that the chances of them being anything but highly-burnished bronze was tiny. No amount of guards in the world would stop a good thief from taking pieces off the statues if they were really gold.
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