Immediately the auton toppled sideways, then lashed out in panic. She had never controlled a real body, and the use of muscles was foreign to her. Laron tried to calm her.
“Don’t try to move, Ninth. Don’t move at all. Just lie there.”
Ninth lay still, and gradually her breathing slowed. After some encouragement she was able to make a fist, then move an arm. After some intensive coaching she could sit up, but speech came only with difficulty. The effect of Ninth speaking with Druskarl’s voice was more unsettling than amusing. More minutes passed. The auton girl’s control of Druskarl’s body improved.
“How … long?” she managed laboriously.
“Only a few minutes more. Your host is drugged, and when he wakes, you will be forced from his body.”
“Hisss … body?” she exclaimed, with all the alarm that slow, slurred speech would allow.
“Well, more or less. He is a eunuch. It is the best I could do in the circumstances.”
Ninth moved Druskarl’s limbs experimentally, then looked slowly about. A light wind was driving them east, and the sea was choppy. The sky was clear but faintly green, and Miral loomed huge on the eastern horizon. Laron held out a dried fig, and Ninth accepted it.
“Tassste … good,” she reported. “Chewy … but … sssucculent.”
“Like some of the people I have dined upon.”
She stood up slowly, with Laron helping. She managed two steps, then had to sit down again.
“We can do this again, practice until you are confident.”
“You … ssso ... young.”
“You mean you were expecting someone taller,” laughed Laron. “Well, my body is but fourteen, and Druskarl is a head taller than most of us.”
An awkward silence followed.
“What do you think of the Shadowmoon?” asked Laron.
“Neat, compact … . Feel faint … .”
“Druskarl is waking. Quickly! Sit down, lie back.”
“Laron …”
Laron applied another casting, and the frame came free of Druskarl’s scalp as he stirred. At a touch from Laron the claws released the violet sphere. Laron had everything packed away as Druskarl opened his eyes. The big eunuch immediately felt his throat.
“Such suspicion,” said Laron, shaking his head. “I feel hurt.”
“As long as I don’t feel any hurt I am not concerned. Did your test work?”
“Yes, it did. In fact, the prospects for more advanced exercises along the same lines are very good.”
Laron had a lot to think about after that. The auton could be taken for a girl with slow wits, but now what? She would need a large amount of coaching before she could be trusted to fend for herself.
The ruins of Gironal were utterly still as the Shadowmoon approached the entrance to its harbor. Scouts in the corrak reported that a two-masted Vidarian oared trader was already there, lying at anchor. It was heavily armed, with two ballistas mounted on the foredeck and maindeck, and boarding dropways drawn up beside the foremast. Feran gave the order to lower the Shadowmoon’s masts as they waited for evening.
“We must sink to just below the surface, then come in with the tide,” said Feran as they sealed and secured everything that was not proofed against water. “We should be swept past the trader and near to the river mouth. After that we must rely on oars.”
“Underwater?” asked Velander.
“It’s hard and slow, but we have done it before,” the deckswain assured her. “You twist them for a thin profile on the reach stroke, then twist them broad for the pull stroke. Of course, you only do a couple of strokes before returning to the gigboat for breath, so progress tends to be slow.”
“When we reach the river mouth we shall be out of sight of the trader, so we can surface and bail,” Feran concluded. “By morning we should be far enough inland that their scouting parties will not see us.”
“There is an easier way,” Laron suggested.
“That being?” asked Feran.
“I must retire to my cabin now, but be patient and lie at anchor for a couple of days. All of us shall profit.”
The sailors of the morning watch on the Oakheart were not reluctant to go on duty. The ship was at anchor in a dead port, and there were some very special benefits to guard duty in this particular place. As they came on deck they were not surprised to find just a single man on the quarterdeck.
“All quiet, Hallas?” the officer called.
“Aye. The others of the night watch are ashore, guarding the city.”
Those who had been ashore had found the usual splashes of silver and gold where purses had been dropped by Gironal’s citizens, dead before they fell, while the gutters were choked with roofing lead that had flowed like rainwater then solidified. The heat had shattered, cracked, powdered, and melted the stonework, and every tiled roof in the city had fallen in after the timber beams had flashed into ashes. Across the water, the city moaned softly as the wind blew through the burned-out shells of the buildings. Some of the crewmen thought the sounds were those of ghosts, elementals, and demons warning them to stay away, but that did not stop anybody going ashore to literally pick up gold in the streets.
“Aren’t they due back?” asked the officer.
“Aye, we want to guard the city as well,” added one of his men.
They were interrupted by a trumpet’s echoing notes from across the water. One long note, three shorter.
“That’s for death!” gasped the officer.
When the boat finally reached the shore, the survivor was found perched at the top of a broken column, with discarded bags of gold at the base. After being persuaded to come down, he guided them to where two others were lying dead. Their throats had been torn out and their eyes bulged with terror.
“Just found ’em like that,” babbled the survivor. “I was only twenty yards away, behind that ruined wall, yet I heard nothing.”
The officer examined both bodies.
“Both cold. They’re long dead.”
The following morning a pair on watch aboard the Oakbeart were found dead, both lying at their posts. As before, their throats had been savaged.
“It’s followed us out here,” said the officer. “That spirit-thing from the ruins.”
“Issue weapons from the locker, then search the ship,” ordered the shipmaster.
The search was thorough, beginning at the bow and ending at the aft railing of the quarterdeck. Nothing was found, but one more man was found to be missing as the crew reported in. Another search found his body in the bilgewater.
“I’m beginning to worry about Laron,” said Velander. “Two days, yet there’s no sign of him.”
“More to the point is the two days lost,” said Feran. “We can’t live off the land, and there’s probably not even fish in the rivers.”
He was interrupted by a signal from the lookout on the shore. He reported that the Oakheart was under way and sailing with the tide. They waited another hour, during which time the tide turned. Laron swam out and climbed aboard as they were raising the anchor.
“Just what did you do?” asked Feran.
“I had dinner with them.”
“Dinner? You never even have dinner with us. What did you really do?”
“I shocked them with my table manners. Now, be quick and get moving.”
By the next morning the Shadowmoon had ventured twenty miles up the broad Dioran River, with the aid of a strong easterly wind. The current was sluggish, so it was not hard to make headway at first. After another two days the wind died away, and the current strengthened as the river narrowed. Soon the Shadowmoon could no longer make good headway with sweeps. They tied up beside a stone bridge that had survived the fire-circles, although it was hung with icicles of melted stone. It linked the northern and southern ruins of a city that straddled the river. The gigboat was unclamped and launched. Feran, Velander, Druskarl, and Laron prepared to set off for Larmentel as Miral rose like a vast bow and arrow, about an hour bef
ore the dawn.
“What are your orders?” asked the deckswain as Feran prepared to cast off.
“Keep guard, forage for anything useful, and don’t eat too much.”
Five hundred miles north, at the mouth of the Temellier River, the town of Port Banzalo had swelled to two thousand souls by the time the regent had arrived to be crowned emperor. Masons had fashioned stone dwellings, and gardens of silt and seaweed compost had been planted with the first tomatoes, beans, and onions. Sea lettuce and veriden was being dried on racks, alongside fish caught offshore. Little had been done to mine the nearby ruins for gold, because there was no need for money yet.
Emperor Banzalo was crowned in the town plaza, which was smaller in area than the deck of his flagship. He then left for Gironal with his fleet. The tiny capital settled back into the routine of building, dredging silt, and planting crops. The chickens were flourishing on a diet of fish scraps and veriden, and newly hatched chicks were learning to scratch.
Prosus Hayport had become a landowner in return for serving in the town militia. He and his brother Crasfi took watches together to ensure that looters did not land to plunder the new emperor’s gold, and to prevent the settlers from escalating petty squabbles into fights with axes.
“Cold night,” said Prosus.
“Dawn soon,” Crasfi replied.
“In ten years we could have quite a crowd, Crasfi,” Prosus speculated.
“Got a crowd now,” said his dour, terse brother.
“But in ten years we’ll have a big town to feed, and a lot of scraps from the carters. I’ve ordered goats from Helion, two breedin’ pairs. They’ll change scraps into goat wool, milk, cheese, an’ butter.”
“Chickens,” responded Crasfi. “Faster return.”
“Can’t wear feathers, brother, least I can’t. Now—”
Prosus stopped in midsentence, staring hard out to sea and putting a hand on Crasfi’s arm for silence.
“Thought I heard splashin’,” he explained. “D’ye hear splashin’?”
“Hear a lot of that wi’ oceans. Waves cause it.”
“Could be a ship.”
“Miral’s up, we’d see a ship.”
“Gigboats, then, from a raider,” said Prosus, reaching for a brass handbell. “There! See the low shadows? Three gigboats, no, six—ten. No, no, maybe—Dragonshit! There’s dozens!”
Prosus began ringing the handbell, still not believing what was before his eyes. All at once other raiders that had approached overland from a nearby cove charged. The two watchmen were wearing leather and band-plate, but their helmets were somewhere in the shadows and out of reach. Crasfi lunged at one charging shadow with his spear, skewering the man, but another engaged him as he tried to pull the spear free, chopping into his skull and dropping him where he stood. Prosus thrust out with his spear, catching a raider in the thigh, then he dropped his spear and drew his grandfather’s campaign ax. He swung at shadows, hit armor and cut flesh. For an instant a head was silhouetted against the stars. Prosus chopped down and cut deep into the neck, then a mace smashed into his upper back, crushing his spine.
Other settlers burst from their new stone houses to find the enemy already swarming over the low drystone walls at the perimeter. The militiamen had been expecting to deal with undisciplined shiploads of looters, but this was a tactically well-planned attack by battle-hardened marines. Screams mingled with cries of pain as women and children tried to flee, only to be cut down without mercy. To their credit a few Vidarian settlers rallied and formed a line behind a drystone wall, but now screams and cries burst out behind them as the seaborne raiders struck from the beach at the enclave of stone houses. Some militiamen broke and ran for their families, others held firm at the wall.
“Helmets, they all wear helmets!” shouted a settler.
“Kill those with helmets—” another shouted before being cut down.
All the fighting was by the dim light of Lupan and Belvia, and the raiders were distinguished only by their plumed helmets and glimmering chain-mail. Their experience, discipline, and coordination overwhelmed the Vidarian defenders as much as their sheer numbers, and they showed neither mercy nor chivalry to the defeated and defenseless.
Prosus awoke, his legs paralyzed, his ax still in his hand. The sky was lightening with dawn. There were screams and entreaties all around him from women who had been kept alive for the amusement of the victors, and the crunch, crunch, crunch of boots walking nearby.
“This one’s alive.”
Thunk.
“Now ’e’s not.”
“Better get along, or there’ll be no fluff alive for us.”
Crunch, crunch, crunch, the boots came closer. Hands scrabbled for a hold on Prosus’ leather and band armor.
“Hoy, nice ax—”
Prosus stabbed blindly for the figure towering over him, and the fore-point of his ax glided between chain-mail and trews, through a tunic, into an abdomen, sliced through a heart, and jammed into a shoulder joint. A mace thudded down, crushing his skull. The second, third, fourth, and fifth blows were quite unnecessary, but in view of what had happened to his companion in the darkness, the raider was taking no chances. Between them, Prosus and Crasfi had killed three raiders, a quarter of all the losses among Warsovran’s marines.
Two days later the deepwater trader Greenfoam dropped anchor offshore and a gigboat was lowered to the water. From the window of the master cabin the shipmaster and Heldey watched the rowers pulling at their oars from the comfort of the bunk.
“We should get dressed,” she suggested. “Prosus be as jealous as he be loyal.”
“Ach, he can’t get out to the ship without my say-so.” He ran his hand along her leg, smiling into her face all the while. “I slowed our voyage to get a couple days more with you, but it was worth it. Heldey, you’re too good for a shitraker like him.”
“Ho, shitrakers like him will be great lords in ten years.”
“And their wives will look like they’ve raked shit for ten years. Look at me. I’m clean, rich, and pleasing to be abed with—and my bed is comfortable.”
“You have a wife in Palion.”
“Aye, and another on Racital. So? You’re shapely, even after two children, and look how fine your hair and skin have become after a few weeks of care on the Greenfoam. Stay.”
“I love my children.”
“Pah, their balls have dropped, they’re practically men. Look, I used to spend much time ashore with my wives, but with all the trade and wealth that Torea’s fall has spawned … I cannot afford not to be at sea, taking opportunities as they present. Heldey, you’re beautiful, yet strong, a rare woman who can live happily on a ship yet be very pleasing to the eye. I am in my thirty-eighth year, Heldey, and I have maybe twenty years at sea ahead of me, the prime of my life. I want to live as a man for those years, not a monk.”
Heldey turned away from him, looking wistfully to the shore.
“Such a ragged little ruin,” she said. “Not even smoke.”
“Pah, they have too little wood to burn, they light fires only to cook. Do you really fancy eating raw fish and onions with bread made from rough-ground corn?”
The shipmaster gave her an affectionate slap on the rump and rolled off the bunk to get dressed. The boat had reached the shore by now, but nobody had come out to meet them. This seemed odd to Heldey. The ship had fresh supplies, families, and … Where was Prosus? Prosus was very sentimental about his family; he doted on his sons. Those from the boat were walking to the township.
“Someone is waving flags!” exclaimed Heldey.
The half-dressed shipmaster stepped over to the bunk and looked out of the window with his arm around Heldey’s neck and his hand on her left breast.
“This is standard code, it says, ‘CATASTROPHE—ALL—DEAD.’ O gods of the moonworlds!”
The shipmaster dashed out of his cabin in only his kilt and seaboots, shouting for the crew to make ready to sail in an instant. Word trickled back fr
om the distant signalman. The town had been laid to waste, and every man, woman, and child was either dead or missing. The dead had been left to lie where they had fallen. The gardens had been stripped and trampled, the chickens were gone, the timber stores had been burned, and all the stone walls and buildings demolished.
“We counted eight hundred dead, all Vidarian men, women, and children,” the oar sergeant reported to the Greenfoam’s shipmaster as they came aboard again. “I estimate there were about a thousand raiders wearing studnail boots of a common pattern, and their tracks showed good discipline and tactical work.”
“But who were they, and why were they here?” demanded the shipmaster.
“They were from some army, and they were here to annihilate the place. Whatever could not be carried off was smashed or spoiled. Even the timber racks were burned. They were thorough and disciplined. Privateers are not like that.”
“They even burned the timber? Timber is worth more than gold on Torea. It is useful to everyone, whether looters, settlers, or …”
“Warsovran’s marines,” said the oar sergeant, holding up an ornate Darmarian knife that he had found embedded in one of the bodies.
There was a clamor from down on the maindeck, and after a few moments Heldey came clattering up the steps shouting colorful abuse at the sailors who had tried to restrain her. Her sons were behind her, and she came up to the shipmaster with an arm around each boy. The shipmaster spread his arms helplessly.
“Nobody ashore is alive,” he said gently.
“But—”
“Warsovran’s raiders. Had I not liked your company, and so chosen a slower current to dawdle on our journey here … we might have arrived a couple of days earlier. My thanks to you, Heldey. You saved us all.”
Voyage of the Shadowmoon Page 19