The Desert and the Blade

by S. M. Stirling

  Moments later the ship was traveling along its previous course, more slowly but stern-first; they’d be nearly vertical to the second pirate as they passed.

  The catapult crews ran, leapt and dodged over to the opposite rail. Behind the wheel the heavier stern-chaser rumbled along the steel tracks laid set flush into the deck over the fantail.

  “Fire as you bear!”

  The stern-chaser let loose, an ear-hurting sound like steel planks slapped together right next to your ear, the crew cheering as the heavy ball cracked into the second orca’s rudder. The four solid shot from the broadside hammered the stern transom, and then the napalm shells hit. One burst in midair just after it left the trough, spraying the shattered wood of the pirate’s stern with cupfuls of sticky acid-yellow fire. The other three broke up inside the stern cabin, which just meant that this orca would burn from its rear forward.

  They were just close enough for Feldman to see the figure of the Stormrider’s captain by her helm, in the blue coat and trousers and the rather silly fore-and-aft cocked hat that the late Queen Mother had dragged out of some pre-Change book she liked and talked her daughter and son-in-law into making part of the RMN uniform when the service was first founded. It was too far for expressions without a telescope, but Moishe Feldman would bet on flabbergasted surprise this time.

  The Newport skipper grinned in his beard as he whipped off his own practical billed hat and waved it genially, bowing as he did. The prow of his own ship came around, slowing again as it passed the eye of the wind and then still more. The schooner rocked in the low swell as it lay almost at right angles to the frigate with its bowsprit pointing due west and its bare masts making circles against the sky.

  “Make sail, make sail!” Feldman roared. “Hands to winches, hands to heads’l sheets!”

  The gaffs rose as the winches spun and whined, and the triangular staysails between the foremast and the bowsprit rose up the lines. They caught the wind and started to push the bow around faster; then the ship heeled as the mainsails cracked full and the hull began to gather way in a smooth, accelerating rush. The sluggish movement of the deck beneath his feet turned purposeful once more, and the wheel came live as the rudder had moving water to bite.

  “Hands aloft to loose tops’ls! On the fore, on the main, lively, lively now, look alive!”

  The rigging thrummed as parties ran up the ratlines to free and drop the square topsails, and others bent to the ropes on deck. In moments they were gaining speed on a southwesterly course that would take her past the old Richmond bridge by a spot he knew—just passable now that the tide had made a bit—and out into San Francisco Bay proper, ready to run the Golden Gate . . . which he could do much faster than the frigate, not to mention the time it would take them to send another maincourse spar up and rig it, heavy crew or no.

  “Signals!” Feldman went on, alerting the crewman whose responsibility it was. Who had survived, fortunately.

  “Ready, Cap’n,” the ferret-faced sailor known as “Rat” McGuire said, throwing open the chest and poising to seize the coiled flags that conveyed coded messages.

  “Run up: Glad to help the Navy and The Princess and the Prince send their regards!”

  To himself, as the colorful pennants were made fast and went aloft to break out from the mizzen:

  “And that little maneuver will open your eyes, I think, O exalted Naval captain.”

  Radavindraban was grinning as he glanced up at the flags while he climbed the short ladder to the poop deck.

  “That will have him gnashing his teeth and coming after us . . . eventually, yes indeed,” he chuckled. “Hotfoot and swearing, oh yes. We have the bow patched for now, Cap’n—slow leak, six planks cracked and a rib sprung—but we will certainly need to heave to and work on it for a few hours. Jacks to get the rib in alignment, then scarfing work and a sheet-metal patch. That will hold her until we get her back in the yard, or at a pinch beach her and come at it that way.”

  Feldman turned and raised his spyglass. The warship had managed to cut loose from the two burning pirates, and had enough way on her to put some distance between them. Though the damage-control officers were doubtless going frantic, he could see sailors on the yards wetting down the sails with spray hoses and hand-pumps. Pirates were jumping overboard from their flaming ships and swimming for it while the Protector’s Guard crossbowmen methodically shot them down.

  And usually I would—very slightly—pity the ones who made it to shore, Feldman thought. But now . . . perhaps not so much.

  The other enemy vessel . . .

  “If he’s got the time to swear at us . . . yes. There, Stormrider’s on the Korean’s stern and raking them now.”

  As he’d just demonstrated, the most devastating position for bombarding another ship was to lie astern of it with your flank making the bar of a T. That way you were shooting right down the length of her with your whole broadside. And the frigate’s fourteen weapons threw heavy shot, and threw it very hard.

  “A broadside every forty-five seconds, very good practice,” he said with satisfaction.

  As he spoke the Korean’s mainmast lurched, twisted and fell across her forecastle trailing burning sails. Then the other two masts toppled, covering the whole length with flaming canvas.

  “It is very good to see our taxes getting some uses,” Radavindraban said.

  “Ah, they’re signaling heave to immediately,” Feldman added. “That’s immediately repeat immediately.”

  “Directed at us, I am supposing.”

  Feldman shrugged expressively. “Or at the seagulls and the seals.” He turned to McGuire. “Signals, run up Sorry cannot read your hoist and Princess bids you farewell.”

  More soberly, the First Mate added: “We have two dead, Cap’n, and six wounded.”

  Feldman blew out a soundless whistle. “Better than it could have been, worse than it should,” he said. “I’ll go take a look. You have the deck, Mr. Mate.”

  “Aye aye, Cap’n.”

  The schooner had an excellent ship’s surgeon, a cousin of Feldman’s in fact, and Corvallis-trained at OSU’s teaching hospital, but it was something he should do.

  I wonder what the actual Princess is doing? he thought as he headed down the companionway. As opposed to the ghost I just encouraged our naval friend to see here on board?

  Then: The Lord knows, and I will find out in His good time.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CÍRBANN RÓMENADRIM

  (FORMERLY CHINA CAMP)

  CROWN PROVINCE OF WESTRIA

  (FORMERLY CALIFORNIA)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  JULY/FUMIZUKI/CERWETH 14TH

  CHANGE YEAR 46/FIFTH AGE 46/SHOHEI 1/2044 AD

  “Reiko!” Órlaith called as her men-at-arms fell into their ranks on the wharf.

  Reiko had her bow in her hand, and the broad helmet on her head, with the thick soft silk cords that held it tied around her chin in a knot that looked both complex, elegant and extremely practical.

  “Those barrels are full of boat soap,” Órlaith said.

  Once again her Sword-granted knowledge of the language surprised her; the phrase that came to her lips was actually a bit more specific than the English term for that mixture of turpentine and boiled flaxseed-oil and tar.

  “Roll ten along this front part of the wharf and break them open. Then leave the last two on their sides, in the center of the wharf. Knock out the heads facing us.”

  Reiko looked blank for a very brief moment, then began to smile; it was a remarkably carnivorous expression for a face usually suffused with a gentle melancholy; a nation of seafarers would know the stuff well. Egawa’s expression was harder to see because as well as his helmet with its new-moon-shaped crest he wore a happuri mask, a face-protecting armor that covered the forehead and cheeks, but
his show of teeth was frankly shark-like. Reiko made a sharp horizontal gesture with the tessen in her right hand, speaking not a word. The Nihonjin set to their task at a run. Some of them were laughing outright; Órlaith thought she caught a couple of samurai giving her approving glances out of the corners of their immovable eyes.

  The deck rumbled and swayed again beneath the barrels as two men rolled each. After that it was the work of seconds to rip the casks apart with wrenching and kicks and blows from the steel-shod butts of the naginata. The men skipped back to keep the dark thick pungent liquid from flowing over their feet; the enemy could see it . . . though the limit of their chemical knowledge was using mud to keep off flies.

  But a few arrows with soot-blackened fletching were falling close now. She turned her head to check that the unarmored sailors had fallen back, and found that the Protector’s Guard priest-physician had them assembling the knock-down stretchers that some of the men carried, obviously intending to use them as bearers to carry wounded. And there would be wounded.

  Good thinking!

  Running even a small fight would be impossibly complex unless your subordinates knew what to do, and did it. She turned her head to the two Dúnedain again.

  “You have some fire-arrows, my kinsmen?” she asked; though the Sindarin term actually just meant kinsfolk.

  Rangers usually did have firebolt shafts, along with an odd assortment of specialist gear. She glanced back and forth; the long side of the wharf was about long enough for seventy-five of the naked enemy to crowd into if they packed tight.

  “Two incendiaries each,” Morfind said, unconsciously touching the scar that marked the left side of her face.

  “Good,” she said. “You fire the last barrels on my word, and then the ends of the dock north and south. Then use your horses—”

  Their mounts were tethered where the pier met the shore with a saddled remount each. All of them also had several bundles of spare arrows slung over the saddlebags at the rear.

  “—to harry around the edges, lead some off if you can. You don’t have to stay for a last stand, if that’s what happens.”

  Faramir grinned. That made him look less melancholy and as young as his actual age, short of nineteen: his teeth and eyes and hair were bright against the dusty tan of his face.

  “The smoke will bring the reinforcements faster,” he said. “Both parties. And our folk from Eryn Muir, as well, and the ones from the northern Staths who’ve come in since the spring.”

  Órlaith made her voice not squeak with an effort; that did change matters.

  “Reinforcements? Both parties?”

  “On their way right now—long story. Susie took off to guide the clansfolk, they got in day before yesterday. And the Hraefnbeorg men are heading straight here as fast as their horses can carry them, six score of them, all Lord Godric could collect of his fyrd right away.”

  “Mist Hills men? You’re sure?” Órlaith asked, with a single blink of astonishment.

  Mist Hills was a little over a hundred miles away and tucked into a valley in the Coast Range, which along with luck and inspired leadership was why the little enclave had survived the Change. They must have started while the Tarshish Queen was still cruising down the coast. Why would they have mustered their fyrd and hotfooted it here?

  Morfind answered her silent astonishment. “We were in Hraefnbeorg ourselves on orders on the seventh, couldn’t get out of it. Then the Baron’s younger brother . . . Deor the Widefaring, just back from traveling, well, everywhere . . . burst in and said we had to get going right away because the Princess and her brother were in danger. Started chanting like an epic and pretty soon he had them all roaring and grabbing for weapons.”

  Deor? The bard? Órlaith thought. By Anwyn’s hounds, what’s going on . . .

  Faramir’s face looked a little uneasy. “He’s a runemaster as well as a bard . . . scop, they say. They, ummm, took him seriously.”

  Morfind shrugged. “We came back with them but pushed on this morning; I don’t know Deor from Fëanor, not really, but . . . he looked as if he knew something. They should be here within, well, soon.”

  There was no time for explanations, but others needed to know the essentials. She spoke in English before she repeated it in Nihongo:

  “We’ve got reinforcements on the way, my cousins tell me, arriving quite soon. We’ll have to hold out until then.”

  If we can, she thought grimly.

  Some of the sailors, the Montivallans and Nihonjin ones alike, showed relief. The professional warriors were more reserved, since veterans or not they were more conscious of the difference between reinforcements who were on the way and those that were or were not here right now. She could feel their determination shift—from a grim resolve to show no fear, die with honor and take as many of the enemy with them as they could to . . .

  I think that now they’re thinking: I’m going to fight like a mad bastard and come out of this a hero with a tale to tell, she thought.

  She didn’t intend to die right now either.

  But then, people never do. Mother said once that the last expression you saw over the edge of your sword was usually a terrible surprise. That time she’d drunk more wine on Twelfth Night than she usually did, and she started crying afterwards and Da hugged her . . .

  “Luanne,” she said, and the young Bearkiller woman looked up from unlatching the cover from her quiver. “Take one of the Rangers’ spare horses, we can use another mounted archer as flank guard. Now!”

  Deep down she could feel the endless conversations she’d endured virtually from her cradle welling up and turning into decisions. There had been times when listening to the veterans rehashing had made her want to scream with boredom. But it had all sunk deep, soaking into her skin like scented oil under the fingers of a masseur. There was more to being High King or Queen than leading in war, much more, but it most certainly included that.

  The sharp medicinal scent of the tar and turpentine distilled from pinewood mixed with the rich, almost meaty scent of the flax oil until it was overwhelming; hundreds of gallons flowed over the boards of the wharf about as quickly as cream skimmed from a milk bucket would have. The last of the five-foot-high barrels were pushed over with a thud that echoed through beam and plank and into the soles of her boots.

  Egawa poised, pivoted, and kicked out twice. His heel punched into the boards that sealed the heads of the containers. They splintered and began to let out a steady stream of dark fluid, but it would take minutes to drain.

  “Kanpai!” he shouted, bowing with ironic ceremony towards the approaching enemy and ignoring the occasional arrow.

  Kanpai meant literally dry cup. Bottoms up was a close English equivalent.

  Then: “We’re going to make the sake nice and hot for you, jinnikukaburi! We’re pouring it out like good hosts, so our guests should drink deep! We insist!”

  The samurai didn’t laugh aloud, or even move, but she could feel that they appreciated the bravura gesture; Sir Aleaume slapped his gauntlet against his steel-clad thigh and Droyn grinned when she translated, and it went down the Montivallan rank in a ripple of whispers.

  Reiko nodded again to her Guard commander and put an arrow to her bow. The process always looked more than a little odd to Montivallan eyes; this was even longer than a Mackenzie longbow, and the grip wasn’t in the middle but about a third of the way up from the bottom end. And a Nihonjin archer started with the bow held up over her head, drawing as it was brought down—precisely the opposite of the method she’d learned from her father and Edain. But as Edain the Archer had said to her when he first saw the outlanders shoot, at seventh and last it was what the arrow did that counted.

  Reiko loosed, and the bamboo arrow shrilled as it rose into the sky and descended in a long arc. An Eater looked up at the last instant, probably a reflex at the slight hiss of cloven air. As the canoe went ov
er the other Japanese archers gave a barking cheer and began to shoot. Reiko brought the bow down in a motion somehow calm and fluid as well as swift, and set the next shaft to the string without looking ahead, her movements as formal as a dance or a temple ritual.

  Her dark narrow eyes met Órlaith’s for an instant, and there was an inhuman detachment to them, like grass rippling in a slow breeze. As if the archery was a form of prayer, or meditation.

  The Montivallan princess pulled her own longbow out of the loops beside the quiver, twitched a broadhead free and set it through the cutout in the riser of the weapon, a present from Edain’s own workshop when he’d judged her able to use a ninety-pound draw without getting tired too quickly. Even the swatch of fur on the arrow-rest was from a wolf’s tail, not the usual rabbit—Father Wolf was the totem animal of his sept.

  She picked her target and bent to the task, exhaling slowly to still her mind and prepare her body for the sudden explosive effort—fast shooting was rather like snatching up a heavy weight over and over again. About a hundred yards now to the foremost paddlers thrashing the water as they strained, mouths gaping wide to suck in air and sweat sheening. She was only a fair–middling archer by Mackenzie standards; the sword-in-hand was her weapon of choice, and with that she was very good.

  She drew past the angle of her jaw and released instantly without taking aim, letting the string roll off her fingers. Only beginners aimed; after that you just thought where you wanted the arrow to go and there it went. The surge of recoil, the flat snap of the string, and then the clothyard shaft was a long sweet arch through the air, and the wind was nicely steady . . .

  The beat of the great drum stopped in mid-stroke as the broadhead punched into the back of the drummer just between the shoulderblades. He collapsed forward, scrabbled at the instrument and then rolled over the side of his boat.

  A few seconds later another of the primitives took up the thighbones and began to beat the surface again—she thought she knew what the leather of the drumhead was, and didn’t like it. The new beat was faster and lighter, an attack tempo. Still, the men behind her cheered as she shot and shot again. Arrows coming in the other direction were falling more thickly now; one thunked into the planks at her feet.