The Ruling Sea

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Taliktrum’s reaction was just as she hoped: the young man expected an outright attack, and sought to put distance between them lest she press her advantage. When Dri spun in the opposite direction there was suddenly a yard between them—all the room in the world for a battle-dancer.

  Her second leap brought her between the Pachet and his granddaughter. Myett was quick as a spider: she had her knife out and slashed the air before her, and Dri felt the wind of the blade as she twisted under the blow. No time to parry: she struck the Pachet as gently as she could with her elbow, seized the swallow-pipes and rolled out of range of the girl’s next stab.

  She came out of the roll with her feet planted, saw the flash of the descending knife and struck out with a blocking-blow almost hard enough to shatter Myett’s forearm. The knife flew from the girl’s hand; for an instant she seemed frozen with pain. In that instant Dri seized her by the arm and the belt and hurled her bodily at Steldak, who was sidling toward her.

  A shadow. Dri threw herself sideways, and Taliktrum’s sword bit the earth where she had stood a moment before. Gods above, he’s drawn his sword against his family!

  The shock of having nearly died at the hands of one she had held as an infant—and one adorned in the ancient feather-coat, like a soothsayer of old—nearly cost Dri her life. Taliktrum was in deadly earnest: he wrenched the blade from the ground straight into an upward thrust. Dri avoided the blow with room to spare, but she was off-balance now, and when the blade came down a third time it missed her chest by an inch. Her third dodge had left her so spread-eagled that Taliktrum was able to kick her right foot out from under her, throwing her backward over his blade.

  She knew as well as any fighter alive how to turn a setback into an advantage. But once more she hesitated: this time on the point of a crippling kick to her nephew’s face. She knew the sound of a snapped neck, and could not live with the sound of his inside her, the knowledge that she had dealt the killing blow. Then Taliktrum wrenched his sword from beneath her, and as he did so the blade’s edge tore a diagonal gash across her back.

  What Dri did next she could not afterward remember. She only knew (in thought too quick for words) that she must be faster than her spilling blood. She did not see her own attack, or how it felled Taliktrum in an instant; only the pain in one foot and one fist told her what she had used to bring him down. She was standing; he lay twisting in the leaves, stunned but not mortally wounded, the sword that had drawn her blood still clenched in his hand.

  She turned and ran, straight out along the edge of the cliff, pulling on the swallow-suit as she went. Behind her Steldak was howling: “Lord Taliktrum! Murder! Regicide!” And Myett was giving chase. Dri ran so close to the precipice that earth and leaves sheered off with every footfall. How her back bled! The ancient coat would be defiled forever, and how would their descendants speak of the one whose blood stained the garment? Heroine, traitor, fool?

  She stumbled. Her shoulder met the cliff’s edge, and then she was falling, spinning, the boiling waves rushing toward her. She closed her eyes and extended her arms, thrust her hands into the wingbone gauntlets—

  And soared.

  “What do you mean, refuses?” said Neeps.

  “I mean he refuses—he flat-out won’t come near her,” said Fiffengurt with a significant look at Thasha’s cabin. She had retreated there well before sunrise, with Felthrup and her dogs, and had only responded to their knocking with irritated grunts. Felthrup’s muffled voice went on and on, however, as if the rat were delivering an endless speech.

  The quartermaster entered the stateroom and closed the door behind him. He looked worried and morose. “As a matter of fact, Pathkendle doesn’t want to see any of you. He’s asked for his hammock to be brought to the midship compartment on the berth deck. He says he’ll be as safe there as he would in the stateroom, because there’s always hundreds of sailors around. And of course no woman may set foot there. I don’t think he’s in his right mind, Undrabust, if you want the truth. He says Alyash is a Mzithrini! And he says he watched Drellarek get eaten.”

  “Did Pazel get bumped on the head, maybe?” asked Marila sensibly.

  Fiffengurt shook his head. “He looks like he’s been wrestling snakes in the bottom of the Pits. And there’s more, by Rin.” He lowered his voice, although they were quite alone. “Pathkendle says Rose has got a wolf burned into his forearm. How d’ye like that development, lad? Rose carries the same mark as you and Pathkendle and Thasha and Mr. Hercól. Does that mean what I think, now—that the captain’s going to help us?”

  Neeps’ eyes widened in disbelief. “Pazel must be wrong,” he said. “He saw some other scar on Rose’s arm, and got carried away.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Undrabust,” said Fiffengurt uneasily.

  “Hang that fool, he’s impossible!” Neeps exploded. “Gone for three days of Rin-knows-what on Bramian, and he can’t even bring himself to say, Hello, I survived?”

  “Obviously not,” said Marila.

  Neeps glared at her. “Anything else obvious to you?”

  Marila nodded firmly. She began to count on her fingers.

  “Pazel won’t actually be safe on the berth deck, because it’s full of violent men. And all that chatter from Felthrup—it’s just like the night before last. He’s reading to her from the Polylex, Neeps. And Thasha must have asked him to, because who could put up with it otherwise? And Rose hasn’t imprisoned you yet because he thinks you’ll be useful to him, just like Pazel must have been on Bramian.”

  “Finished?” Neeps demanded.

  “No,” said Marila. “It’s also obvious that you and Pazel had a fight before he left—you get angry whenever he’s mentioned. And one more thing: since Ramachni left we haven’t won any battles, unless you count what happened on Dhola’s Rib. Mostly we’ve been fighting just to stay alive. We’re … lost, and our enemies are stronger than ever.”

  Fiffengurt sighed and worried his beard. “That last part’s certain,” he said. “But they did take one hit on Bramian: Sergeant Drellarek met his death, in some horrid way no one wants to explain.”

  Thasha’s door creaked open. There she stood, bedraggled and wild-eyed between her dogs.

  “Where is Pazel?”

  Awkward silence. Neeps and Fiffengurt glanced sidelong at each other, as if each was hoping the other would speak first.

  Marila came to their rescue. “He’s annoyed with us—with the two of you, anyway. He and Neeps got into a fight—”

  “What?” cried Thasha.

  “—and Pazel’s mad at you for kissing Fulbreech—”

  “What?” shouted Neeps. “Thasha, you kissed that snake-tongued stooge? That palace bootlick?”

  Thasha looked ready to smack him. “You don’t know a thing about Greysan. He’s no more a bootlick than you, he’s worked for what he’s got—”

  “Aye,” laughed Neeps acidly. “I’ve no doubt he earns his wages. Just didn’t imagine you’d be paying ’em.”

  “You pig!” Thasha took a step toward Neeps. “Did you try to strangle Pazel too?”

  “Are you both touched in the head?” cried Fiffengurt, stepping between them. “I’ve never seen such a pair of beasts! Enough, enough, or by the Night Gods you can have done with any help from this old man!”

  His rage shamed them all to silence. Fiffengurt took a deep breath. “That’s much better. Now then—”

  A terrified squeal cut him off. It was Felthrup, still in Thasha’s cabin. They rushed into the chamber and saw the rat upon her bed, eyes riveted on the single porthole, which stood ajar. Collapsed on the sash was what they first took for an injured bird. But then the bird rose on shaky human legs.

  “It’s Diadrelu!” cried Thasha, leaping to her side. “She’s been stabbed!”

  She lifted the ixchel woman gently from the sill. “The coat, don’t harm the coat!” Diadrelu gasped.

  “Devil take the coat!” said Felthrup. “Where is your wound, Diadrelu?”

&n
bsp; “Lord Rin!” said Fiffengurt. “That thing’s a crawly!”

  Dri looked up at him, copper eyes sharp.

  “Put it down, Thasha!” cried Fiffengurt. “They’re worse than scorpions! Trust me, I know!”

  “Will he talk?” said Diadrelu quietly.

  “Will I talk?” cried Fiffengurt. “You can bet your ship-sinking blood I’ll talk!”

  “No you won’t!” shouted Neeps and Thasha together.

  Fiffengurt looked from one to the other, like a man being circled by strangers in an alley. “You don’t understand,” he whispered. “That’s a crawly.”

  “We’ve no time for this,” husked Diadrelu.

  “It’s your back that’s cut, isn’t it?” said Neeps, trying to peel the coat away from the bloody spot. Dri dug her nails into his thumb.

  “You’re under attack,” she said.

  The warning spilled from her, even as her blood soaked Thasha’s arm: the old priest on the island, Sathek’s Scepter, the Jistrolloq tearing east with a full spread of sail. The humans stood gaping. Once more Thasha was the first to reach a decision.

  “Take her, Marila.”

  Gingerly she passed Diadrelu to the Tholjassan girl. “What are you doing, Thasha?” Felthrup asked.

  “Alerting Rose,” she said. “It has to be me, don’t you understand?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she flew from the stateroom. They heard her shouting from the passage: “Turachs! Rose wanted me captured, right? Here I am, take me! I surrender!”

  Neeps started to run after her, but a glance at Fiffengurt’s tortured expression stopped him dead.

  “Listen,” he said, “we owe our lives to this crawly. She saved me and Pazel in the Crab Fens. And she was the one who guessed the right moment to turn the Shaggat to stone.”

  “Then she’s using you, Undrabust—exploiting your good nature.”

  “Oh come on,” said Neeps. “My what?”

  Marila had put Diadrelu on the bed and was easing her out of the feather-coat. “We’ll need a doctor,” she said.

  “No!” said Diadrelu. “I told you, the wound is not deep. Give me your knife, Mr. Fiffengurt.”

  “You know who I am!”

  Diadrelu sighed. “I also know that the Jistrolloq will make short work of this vessel, if her other officers move half as slowly as you do. Come then, do it yourself—cut this shirt from me.”

  No room for modesty in her manner: she was a soldier in need of aid. “Do it!” shrilled Felthrup, pawing at the quartermaster’s leg. Stunned, Fiffengurt drew his skipper’s knife. He slid it under the blood-soaked shirt, and cut it with a quick upward slash.

  Like any sailor worthy of the name, Fiffengurt kept his blade very sharp. The cloth parted neatly, and Diadrelu stood bare to the waist. The quartermaster blinked and dropped his eyes. He had never seen a more beautiful woman—not a woman, a crawly, damn it all. She twisted to examine herself: her back was crimson. A long diagonal gash crossed her shoulder.

  “Brüch,” she swore, “I can’t fly like this. Hear me, I beg you. We have just two swallow-suits, and my nephew is wearing the other. He and three of our people are on Sandplume. They cannot escape the isle except by relaying both suits back and forth—carrying an empty suit back to the isle after each trip, you understand?—and this must happen before the Chathrand escapes the harbor. We cannot fly more than half a mile without rest. Someone from my clan must take this suit back to Sandplume, immediately.”

  “How can we make that happen?” said Neeps.

  “Leave it to me!” said Felthrup, jumping. “I know where they are! And the Turachs will never catch this rat, even if they bother to try! Leave it to me!”

  And he too was gone.

  Diadrelu hissed: Marila had dipped a handkerchief in brandy and was swabbing her wound. Fiffengurt would not let himself look at her again—or just once, just to confirm a suspicion. There it was, by Rin, he hadn’t dreamed it: the wolf-scar, the same shape the others carried, burned into that astonishing—

  “They will need you aloft, Quartermaster,” said the crawly woman, looking at him over her shoulder.

  He wrenched his eyes away, blushing. “Never could I have dreamed that I would see such a day,” he mumbled.

  The crawly woman laughed, though tears of pain streaked her face. “Stay alive long enough and you’ll see it all.”

  Thasha found the captain in the chart room, checking figures in a logbook with Elkstem, a great map of the Outer Isles spooling over the table’s edges and draping to the floor. His steward blocked her way, but she shouted past him. “Captain Rose! Captain Rose! We’re under attack!”

  He looked up at her, threatening. Then he lumbered to the door, waving the steward aside.

  “How dare you,” he snarled, leaning over her.

  “It’s true,” she said, meeting his wolfish eyes. “The Jistrolloq is running straight for us, Captain, on the other side of Sandplume. She’s probably less than ten miles off.”

  Rose’s eyes blazed down at her. “The Jistrolloq. You are hysterical, girl. Steward, have the guard escort—”

  “No!” said Thasha, seizing his coat. “It’s here, it’s followed us! Captain, for Rin’s sake—”

  “Be silent, you little fool!”

  Thasha said nothing, but a look passed between them. He had called her that before: in the Straits of Simja, when the fleshancs were storming the Chathrand, leaving dead men around them in heaps. Rose’s face paled slightly, and she knew that he remembered which of them had been in the right.

  “How do you know this?” he whispered.

  “Does it matter?” she said. “Look at me, Captain. I know.”

  Their faces were inches apart. One moment longer Rose crouched, stock-still, only his eyes whirling here and there like bats, and Thasha had the odd impression that he was listening to voices other than her own. Then he shoved her aside and charged from the room like a marauding bull.

  “BEAT TO QUARTERS! EVERY LAST MAN TO QUARTERS! THE BLACK RAGS ARE MINUTES FROM OUR BOWS!”

  28

  The Hunt

  24 Freala 941

  For the first time in his life, Felthrup crossed a deck in broad daylight without fear of men. The only danger they posed now was trampling; rats were the last thing on their mind. After what had happened in Thasha’s cabin, moreover, Felthrup felt a strange, intoxicating liberty coursing through him. When two sailors locked in an argument over battle protocol jammed the ladderway, he shrilled, “One side, one side!”—making them leap from his path. I scared them, thought Felthrup. I might have been a bear, the way they jumped! Although in fact they could kill me with one blow. Reckless, that is the word. I am a reckless woken rat!

  But also a rat with a mission. And once he had bounded down into the gloom of the mercy deck, Felthrup realized just how perilous his mission was. The normally abandoned deck was caught up in a frenzy such as he had never seen. Hurricane lamps whirled through the half-light. Sailors were running, striking at one another, bellowing for greater speed. Every voice was raised, and still they could scarcely be heard above the thunder of feet on the boards above. Don’t stop, darling Felthrup, run now or you’ll never run at all.

  So Felthrup ran, straight through that frightened stampede, with men slamming and shouldering crates and hogsheads about as fast as they possibly could, securing everything that might slide or topple when the Great Ship fled. This I do for Dri. For the lady who saw me as I truly am.

  In their cargo-crate fortress the ixchel huddled, hearing the madness of the giants spread, feeling the tremors as cargo-restraining boards were slapped down and nailed to the deck within a few yards of them. Young ixchel warriors stood armed and tensed; their elders sighed with remembered massacres; parents clutched children tight to their sides. Not one in six hundred made a sound, not even the youngest: ixchel learn not to cry in their first month of life, and never do so again except in silence.

  When they heard the rat’s voice, octaves above that
of the giants, they did not know what to do. It did not sound like the normal witless rat-prattle. Indeed it could not be: there was too much of truth about it. You can hear me, cousins, I know you can. Your lady is wounded; the rest remain on Sandplume. Be fearless now or lose them forever. Send me one—no more. Just one brave soul prepared to fly.

  He struggled to shout over the humans—most bellowing orders, a few exclaiming about a woken rat, and a growing number declaring that miraculous or not, they would stomp the rodent dead if it didn’t shut up.

  Thasha followed the captain up the No. 5 ladderway, squeezed by the men rushing headlong in both directions. It had taken Rose nearly a full minute to believe her, she mused, but the crew of the Chathrand had taken his word without a second thought.

  They stepped out on the topdeck and she paused, overwhelmed. She thought she knew what an active ship looked like, but past emergencies paled before this whirlwind. At every hatch the watch-captains punished their kettledrums. Sailors by the hundreds were leaping for the halyards, and between them Turachs were falling in with crossbows, longbows, and vascthas that flung discs of sharpened steel. The rigging boiled with men, laying aloft, running out the spars, freeing the clews on sail after sail. Tarboys raced down both sides of the ship, emptying sacks of sawdust for footing. The windscoops were capped, the running-lights struck down, the few passengers in sight were driven below, the tonnage hatch was sealed with oilskin, and great rolls of netting were stretched between the shrouds, to guard the men on deck from falling mastwood.

  Captain Rose marched toward the waist of the ship. “Odd mains, Mr. Alyash,” he cried, with that tireless trumpet-blast voice he could keep up for hours. “Mr. Frix, cut us free. Uskins, turn out Byrd’s crew to the carronades, Tanner’s to portside forward, and get Drellarek’s replacement to the quarterdeck as soon as his men are in hand. Mr. Jonhelm, see that the galley fire’s put out. Lady Oggosk, I beg you to stay indoors.”

  “Soon enough, Nilus. I want a look at her first.”