“Yes, I have,” he ventured cautiously.
“I still have influence, and I know a vast number of people. Whenever a cell of loyalists got together to hatch a plot, my own followers would hunt them down and kill them. When spies were sent over from the island palace, my people would catch them. When assassins sought shelter in loyalist safe houses, well you can bet your very life that at least one of my people would be there to discreetly betray them to your people or strike them down. It was difficult, dangerous work. Few people have survived long in my service.”
Forteron stared at her for a moment, very surprised and genuinely impressed. He was not to know that in reality there had been no such resistance, led by Sairet or anyone else. The truth was that business had been so good under Forteron that the merchants, nobles, and freemen of Diomeda had turned most loyalist agents over to the new authorities on their own initiative. Who was to know that, however? Certainly not Forteron.
Forteron bowed low to Sairet.
“My lady and protector,” he said with grace, and no hint of sarcasm.
Sairet set the bowl down on the marble railing of the balcony, then held her hand out to Forteron. Puzzled, he nevertheless took her hand in his. Her skin was refreshingly warm and dry in the cool, dank air that now enshrouded Diomeda.
“I can also provide you with fifty thousand warriors,” Sairet said in a silky contralto.
The criers were on the streets within ten minutes, warning that an attack was imminent, and that the crown prince was alive. The criers also announced the crown prince had added the last of his men to the Alliance army, and had vowed to slaughter every man, woman, and child in Diomeda for not showing any sign of resistance during Forteron’s occupation. The fact Forteron had already admitted that the prince was alive gave the lie instant credibility. The criers concluded with the news that Forteron had offered to cram as many women and children onto his surviving ships as would fit. They were to stand out in the harbor, and if Prince Selva and his allies breached the walls, they would flee to Scalticar.
An hour later came another announcement, one that had an impact hardly less dramatic than the fire-circle that had destroyed the island palace. Sairet, the former queen, was to marry Forteron. Forteron was to restore her as queen. Sairet had not been mad after all. Together, Forteron and Sairet would defend Diomeda. The wedding would take place on the balcony above the main doors of the temporary palace.
Rumors began to spread. Warsovran had destroyed Torea. That was not a difficult line to sell. The really stunning news was that Forteron had mutinied and stolen Warsovran’s war fleet and marines to depose the Diomedan usurper and restore Sairet to the throne. Forteron had rebelled against Warsovran to come to her aid. Warsovran had only escaped the fire-circles because he had been on the way to capture and execute Forteron, and take back his fleet. With Torea destroyed, however, Warsovran had been forced to forgive Forteron and pretend the whole exercise had been his own idea. Forteron had done it all for the love of Sairet. Right across Diomeda, people forgot about fire-circles, giant waves, invaders, war, floods, and torrential rain. A passionate, heroic, and epic royal romance had been exposed. The gods of the moonworlds had smiled upon Forteron’s act of chivalry, and so allowed him to escape the fire-circles. Now Warsovran was dead and Forteron had killed the madman Feran. He had also smashed Silverdeath. Forteron was a prince, and a strong, protective prince.
Another rumor was that Sairet had been forced to stay apart from Forteron while she bravely led the resistance against the loyalist agents. Within about forty minutes, Sairet’s network of two dozen stall holders, harlots, spies, and informers had grown to ten thousand citizens and slaves, all claiming to be members of her underground. By the ninth hour of the morning there were thousands of citizens gathered before the villa that had been Warsovran’s palace. Forteron and Sairet were to be married immediately. It was the ultimate free public spectacle—a royal wedding! Surely Diomeda was again in Fortune’s favor.
While a priest of the Diomedan harvest god officiated, Forteron and Sairet exchanged vows in the pouring rain, then gongs rang out all around the city. The royal couple flung handfuls of silver coins to the thousands of spectators who were standing knee-deep in muddy water and cheering themselves hoarse. Wensomer then led a troupe of dancers in a space cleared by an arc of marines on the plaza below, while musicians played beneath umbrellas. As Forteron and Sairet stood waving, one of those chance happenings took place, something that meant little but could be construed to be quite a lot more. The rain trailed off, then stopped. This was instantly taken as a sign of divine blessing of the wedding. The crowd went wild.
“The Alliance will attack within the hour,” Forteron warned his bride.
“Tens of thousands of newly recruited Diomedan militiamen are said to be flocking to the ramparts,” Sairet replied.
“And no rain means that my marine archers will be able to keep their bowstrings dry,” added Forteron.
The Diomedan crown prince had by now skirted Diomeda and reached the command tents of the besieging army. He swore that Silverdeath had been destroyed, and was no longer a danger. Word had already been brought to the Alliance nobles and kings that a large part of the Torean fleet had sailed away, and that Forteron’s remaining ships were being loaded with people. The invaders were preparing to flee. Clearly this was a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. They were on the eve of a great and glorious victory, but now they were not going to have the satisfaction of crushing the enemy. Any pillage of Diomeda could not be allowed to be too excessive, for the crown prince did not relish the thought of having a ruined capital—especially since his entire kingdom was Diomeda, the Leir River, a few towns, and a very, very large expanse of desert.
When the rain suddenly stopped, it seemed to be a sign from the gods of the moonworlds. It was their way of asking the Alliance what they were waiting for.
The attack began with the wine barges crammed with warriors being rowed with the current from the islands of the Alliance camp toward the embankments. Away from the river the current was sluggish, although the water was now over six feet deep in most places. The ramparts loomed, topped by what looked like irregulars.
Without warning it began to rain arrows. The barges were not roofed, and the men aboard were very tightly packed. Worse, they were a mixture of pikemen, archers, and warriors armed with axes and shields. The rowers in the lead barges tried to turn back, but the crush of barges from behind prevented this. Pikemen desperately tried to shelter under shields and dead bodies. The archers fired back, but their opponents on the ramparts were more thinly dispersed, and each had a shieldman from the city to shelter him. The first of the barges landed, and Diomedan militiamen fell upon the survivors. Even so, there was a great number of Alliance warriors uninjured, and they were seasoned campaigners.
The rain began to fall again. The Alliance nobles tended to be in gigboats at the rear, rather than the barges. This was so they could get a better view of the overall battle, and so they would be safe from stray arrows. After all, they reasoned, a noble was worth ten or more commoners, yet arrows made no distinctions in matters of class. Thus they were the first to see Forteron’s five dash galleys emerging from the river channel and turning into the flooded farmlands of the inner delta. The row up from the main channel had been slow and exhausting, but now Forteron’s ships were like wolves among chickens. Two of them cut across to harass the rear line of the barges, while the other three made for the islands of the camp. These dash galleys were crammed with marines. The islands were thought to be well out of reach of the Diomedans, and defended by cooks, grooms, packmen, camp followers, and some of the more timid nobles.
With nowhere to go but Diomeda, those on the barges renewed their attack on the ramparts all the more. In several places they actually broke through and swarmed into the city. The city was flooded, however, and the high ground—the houses—was occupied by Diomedan militiamen and irregulars. Everything was soaked, so no attempt to se
t any building alight was successful. Back at the ramparts the dash galleys rammed the rearmost of the barges, while Forteron’s own gigboats rounded up the nobility as they tried to row to safety. The warriors remaining on the barges swarmed back to attack the two dash galleys, and soon they were covered in desperately fighting men—robbing the Alliance of extra men to storm the outskirts of Diomeda.
Diomedans on the roofs pelted their supposed liberators with bricks and beams of timber. With their bowstrings soaked in the rain, the Alliance archers could not shoot back. Alliance warriors chopped holes in the two dash galleys, but they only sank only a few feet before they grounded in mud, leaving the decks above water. Having secured the Alliance camps, leaders, horses, camels, supplies, and servants, the three remaining dash galleys bore down on the ramparts, manned only by the rowers. Even the sight of the approaching warships was too much for the Alliance warriors. Some surrendered, some took to the water and swam, some flung down their weapons and pretended to be Diomedans, and others managed to push their barges clear and rowed into the main channel of the river. At the mouth of the river were two dozen becalmed deepwater traders crowded with women and children and crewed only by a few Toreans—but they were armed with catapults and heavy ballistas. Five barges were sunk before the others surrendered.
By the time the light began to fade from the sky, Forteron was the undisputed victor, and at the price of surprisingly few Diomedan lives. Early in the evening the rain stopped again and the cloud cover began to break up. Miral was visible in the east, rising huge and luridly bright in the rain-washed air.
There had been no fire-circle at Helion. Roval was very agitated as he paced the decks. Finally, when the designated hour had passed and the garrison had not been obliterated, he ordered the crewmen to raise and lock the masts.
“The patrol gig will notice next time they come past,” warned Norrieav.
“Boatmaster, the patrol gig has one inspector, and two marines to row. Besides, by the time they notice, we shall be under way, with a stiff wind.”
“But Miral’s up and the sky is clear. The patrol galley Kygar will be on to us faster than Hazlok with a willing whore.”
“The galley is on the other side of Helion, we’ll have a good start.”
“You want to race the Shadowmoon against the Kygar? Learned Roval, I’ve crawled out of taverns faster than this thing can sail.”
“We shall escape, Boatmaster. I have what Laron would call a bold, daring, and devastatingly stupid plan.”
“So, as stupid as that?”
“There is no more to do here, and Wensomer may be awaiting execution. I must try to reach Diomeda and help her. Besides, there may be another chance to snatch Silverdeath. What else is there to do?”
Norrieav sighed. “What do we have to do?”
“Firstly, get at least five miles from Helion before the Kygar, catches us.”
“There is an easterly wind—yes, we can do it. And after that?”
“We put on a very credible act.”
Boatmaster Norrieav struck the little gong by the steering pole with the back of his hand, and the four others of the ship’s company quickly gathered.
“Listen carefully,” Roval began. “We are going to make a break from Helion, and sail for Diomeda. Now. It will be dangerous, but we have a chance.”
“As expedition leader I now give full command to Boatmaster Norrieav,” sighed Terikel.
Roval stood back, and Norrieav scanned the harbor and nearby waters before turning to speak to them.
“I declare battle conditions until further notice,” said Norrieav quietly but firmly. “Terikel, take the steering pole, notch it to fifth octen and stand by. Hazlok, D’Arto, and Lisgar, raise the mainsail then stand by to man the sweeps. Roval, you can tell me about the rest of your plan as we raise the anchors.”
The Shadowmoon was under full sail and sweeps before the harbor inspector noticed the schooner was leaving the harbor. Within two minutes he was ashore and waving two torches to signal the lookout at the lip of Mount Helion’s crater. Moments later another signaler was sending the message to the patrol galley. Immediately the galleymaster changed course, cutting close to the island to set after the tiny schooner. He also gave the order to ram. That was up to his discretion, but patrolling Helion had become boring, and this was an excuse to paint another broken ship on the galley’s bow.
Aboard the Shadowmoon, Roval was at the masthead, and was first to catch sight of the distant galley’s running torches. He came scrambling down to the deck.
“The Kygar is under way, sir,” he reported. “Like us, sail and oars.”
“Secure sweeps!” Norrieav shouted. “Terikel, strap the steering pole at zero octen, the rest of you drop and tie the sails. Hazlok, not you. Empty that jar of olive oil over the quarterdeck while I light a torch.”
“Light a torch, sir? Wi’ all that oil about to catch afire?”
“Well, I’ll not wait till it dries. Hurry!”
Galleymaster Mandalock saw the distant schooner suddenly blaze up, as if soaked in lamp oil. As his officers cried out in surprise, the fire began to diminish as the schooner sank, then the ocean was dark and clear again.
“It caught fire, then sank,” said the Commander of Marines.
“Never seen the like,” said the galleymaster. “Never so quick, anyway.”
“We should slow—there may be survivors in the waves.”
“Damn survivors, I want a ninth ramming to paint on my bow! Nine is my lucky number.”
“But it sank.”
“The hull may be just below the surface. Have the initiates do brilliance-castings. Search for it.”
Not far below, the Shadowmoon, was sinking rapidly. Normally that did not matter, for the boatmaster chose to submerge in shallow water. This, however, was a long way out from shore. The five crew of the Shadowmoon were huddled under the gigboat on their knees, with dark water swirling around their waists and the timbers squealing under the increasing pressure.
“Light—someone do a casting!” ordered Norrieav.
Terikel spoke a casting into her hand and held it up. Norrieav took her wrist and held it near a glass tube with evenly spaced marks and figures painted on it. The level of water was just above thirty.
“Thirty feet,” Hazlok read.
“But we’re still going down,” cried Roval as he watched the meniscus moving in the pressure glass.
“Well, it was your idea to sink in deep water,” retorted Terikel.
“We had to look to be on fire, then sink,” said Roval.
“Fifty feet,” read Hazlok.
“Well, we’re certainly sinking!”
“I’m open to constructive suggestions.”
“Sixty feet,” read Hazlok.
“Unclamp the gigboat,” cried Terikel.
“No, the gigboat will right itself and spill all the air as soon as the clamps are—”
“Silence!” shouted Norrieav. “I am boatmaster, and you are all to remember it. Nobody is to speak except as part of their duties.”
There was silence, except for the creaking of wood and an ominous gurgling.
“Seventy feet, descent slowing,” said Hazlok.
“In tethered tests before we left the Megazoid, this craft reached ninety feet before its buoyancy stopped it. Is that not so, D’Arto?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Seventy-five feet, still slowing,” reported Hazlok.
“We should stop at eighty; the new airtight lockers and empty lamp-oil jars in the ballast will help the gigboat balance us.”
“Eighty feet, still slowing,” said Hazlok. “Eighty-two, eighty-three … balancing … stopped.”
Terikel breathed out gustily and Roval slumped deeper into the water. An echoing boom shook the Shadowmoon.
“A locker collapsed, sir!” shouted D’Arto amid the cries from the others.
Another boom shuddered through them.
“Eighty-five feet,” read Hazlok.
“We need to cut away two anchor stones,” said Norrieav. “Roval, speak casting bands onto your wrists for light. D’Arto, feel around for the gig’s tow rope and tie it around his waist.”
As his tether was secured, Roval fashioned glowing bracelets of ether with bright points beneath his wrists. He took three deep breaths.
“Whatever you see, note it,” said Norrieav. “I want good status reports.”
“Yes, sir.”
Roval ducked beneath the water and climbed out just behind the foremast. It took only seconds to find the port deadweight and another half minute to hack through its rope. Turning to starboard, he began cutting through the rope of the starboard deadweight as the slipstream of dark water flowed past him. His lungs were in some discomfort by the time the second rope gave way, but as he tried to return to the gigboat he found his tether was tangled in the foremast’s mounting. More precious seconds were needed to cut himself free, but as he scrambled for the gigboat again, something large and pale glided past nearby.
Roval’s head burst into the tiny refuge of air, and he gasped desperately for some moments.
“One hundred and twenty feet, slowing, but still descending,” said Hazlok.
The timbers of the gigboat squealed and creaked almost continuously.
“Both forward deadweights gone, sir,” panted Roval. “Decks cluttered, had to cut my tether. Saw things. Alive. Big, pale.”
“Sharks?” exclaimed Norrieav. “There have been none since the fire-circle.”
“One hundred and twenty-five,” said Hazlok. “The scale ends there.”
“Not sharks, but plenty of teeth. My lights, they drew attention.”
“Things that don’t go near the surface, but know that a sinking ship has tasty bodies to eat.”
“You must write a paper when we get home,” said Terikel.
“We’re still sinking, but slower,” said Hazlok.
“Should I go out again, sir?” asked Roval, already tying another tether to himself.
Voyage of the Shadowmoon Page 54