by Amy Raby
On my way back, said the ferret cheerfully.
I told you it wasn’t worth killing over!
I bit him in the neck. He won’t die.
As the fog of sleep cleared from his mind, he could sense his familiar’s movements. Sashi was scampering along the upper deck. Janto’s eyes went to the far wall just in time to see his ferret drop through a hole to the bottom level. Sashi bounded across the ship’s bottom, leaping over pools of bilge water. Chittering in triumph, he dropped the bronze alligator into Janto’s palm.
It wasn’t necessary, said Janto. But thank you.
The trapdoor to the lower hold flew open, and three men stormed down the ladder. Sashi, invisible, scampered for his nest.
One of the sailors pointed at Janto. “There he is!” They ran toward him.
One man picked up Janto’s wrists, still manacled, and followed the chains back to the wall. “He’s chained. He couldn’t have done it.”
“Look!” cried another sailor. “The alligator. It’s in his hand!”
The men looked at it, gasped, and backed away.
“H-how’d you get that?” stammered one of them.
“I don’t know,” said Janto. “I woke up, and it was in my hand.”
Their faces paled. “Fucking gods-cursed Dori,” said one of the sailors. They retreated toward the ladder as if afraid to turn their backs on him, then climbed, casting frightened looks in his direction as they disappeared onto the upper deck.
That’s not all I got for you during the night, said Sashi.
Janto turned toward him. What else?
Sashi bounded from his nest and looked up at Janto proudly. Clutched between his teeth was a ring of keys.
• • •
For the second night in a row, Janto awoke from a fitful sleep to screams. The ship was heeling frightfully. What’d you do this time? he asked Sashi.
Wasn’t me. I think something hit the ship.
Oh gods, were they under attack? Janto scrambled into a sitting position. On the decks over his head, men shouted above the roar of wind-filled sails and the creaks of stressed wood, but he could not make out the words. Through the cacophony came the whine of a cannonball. Janto clutched his knees and ducked his head, taking cover as best he could. The arc ended in a splash. Another cannonball whined, and he ducked his head again, waiting.
An explosion rocked the ship.
Janto slid to the full length of his chains, yelling as the floor tilted. Something struck him—a wooden crate. It ricocheted off him and slid to the other end of the ship. Sashi, get over here!
His bag of supplies, which he’d wedged against the side of the hull, began to slide. He grabbed it. The supplies weren’t too important, but the keys Sashi had found for him were hidden in the bag. The floor was tilted too much for easy walking. To get some slack into his chains and reach the wall, where he’d have something to hang on to or at least brace himself against, he grabbed the chains and climbed up them.
Cold droplets spattered his face, and he looked up. Water gushed through a hole in the side of the ship. As he stared, the ship began to list to the other side. The crate that had smacked into him began to slide again, in the opposite direction.
Sashi was close. Clinging to his chains with one hand and pressing himself against the wall, Janto grabbed his familiar with the other hand and stuffed him into his shirt. We’re getting out of here. He reached into the bag and searched for the ring of keys.
The hatch opened above him, and a crowd of sailors hurried down the ladder.
“Who’s attacking us?” Janto called to them.
They ran past as if they hadn’t heard, struggling through the bilge water toward the hole with hammers and canvas and a ship bung. Some of them began rigging the pump.
Janto wrapped the chains several times around his wrists so he wouldn’t slide around, extracted the proper key, and snapped his manacles free. Ready? he called to Sashi.
The ferret trembled inside Janto’s shirt. Ready.
He let go of the chains and staggered toward the ladder.
There was another terrible impact—a great lurch and the sound of splintering wood. The sailors shouted. Janto’s feet slipped out from under him, and he splashed into the water. His hand found the base of the ladder, and he hauled himself up.
All right? he asked his familiar. Sashi was sodden and gasping against his chest, too stunned and terrified to answer. Weighed down by his dripping clothes, Janto struggled up the ladder to the upper deck and from there to the quarterdeck.
He emerged into the night air, which smelled of blood and gunpowder. Another splintering crash brought down the foremast, spilling ropes, sails, and men into the water. The deck beneath his feet was a horror, slippery with gore and seawater, littered with ropes and pulleys and shards of wood. An enormous warship loomed on their port side while another rode at their stern. Strangely, both seemed to be of Kjallan make. Beyond them were many more vessels, an entire fleet bearing Mosari and Sardossian flags.
“Why haven’t we struck our colors?” cried Janto, searching for the captain or anyone with authority. His eyes went to the flag mast. The ship had struck. The Kjallan flag had been lowered and replaced with the Sage, but the enemies seemed not to be accepting their surrender.
An authoritative voice boomed nearby. “Clear away the after bowlines! Up helm!”
Janto turned and ran toward the man issuing the orders. “Why aren’t they accepting our surrender?”
“Don’t fucking know. Get to work.” The captain shoved him away, looked into the tops, and cried out, “Clear away the head bowlines! No, not there, can’t you see it’s been shot through? Use the ratlines!”
“Sir, I’m your Mosari prisoner. I’m an important man among the Mosari. If we signal to those Mosari ships out there and tell them who I am, they may help us.”
The captain turned and looked at Janto as if he hadn’t really noticed him before. He called, “Signaler!”
A pale adolescent boy ran up. There was a splinter, thick as a man’s thumb, embedded in the boy’s arm. Janto gaped at it. “Yes, sir?” said the boy.
“Signal whatever this man tells you,” said the captain. He turned back to his crew. “Lay the headyards square! Shift over the headsheets!”
The boy looked at Janto expectantly.
“Signal Jan-Torres,” said Janto. “Spell it out. J-A-N-T-O-R-R-E-S. That should work in any language. If you have a signal for valuable information, add that.”
The boy summoned an enormous magelight ball and began to signal letter by letter. When he reached the N, the nearest ship’s cannons blazed orange. Janto and the others dropped belly-first into the wreckage on the deck. Debris rained down on them from above.
They staggered back to their feet. “Finish,” commanded Janto. The signaler continued.
When the signal was complete, he and the boy watched, trembling in anticipation.
One of the Mosari warships threw up a signal. It was no poor man’s magelight signal, but a blast of colors and shapes of the sort that only a pyrotechnic could produce. The signal was repeated down the line from ship to ship, a rolling wave of fireworks that lit up the black sky. Answering signals rapidly followed. They rolled their way back through the fleet, finally reaching the two attacking ships.
The cannons stopped firing.
28
The small boat plunged down the crest of a wave, splashing everyone within. Janto wiped the spray from his face and looked up at the rapidly nearing Mosari ship he’d insisted the Kjallans deliver him to as a condition of their ship being spared.
“All right?” one of the rowers called to him.
“Quite all right,” said Janto. Was it obvious he wasn’t a sailor? His stomach, which had calmed considerably since the start of the voyage, was voicing its displeasure at the rolling waves. He hoped
it didn’t show. This was a bad time to display weakness.
Soon the Sparrowhawk, Janto’s brother Kal-Torres’s flagship, loomed above them. Sashi wriggled out of Janto’s shirt and perched on his shoulder, virtually proclaiming Janto to be a shroud mage. Janto had finally allowed his ferret to become visible, and the rowers took turns gawking at the creature. Sashi eyed the ship as they approached it. The hackles rose along his neck and shoulders. This task will fall to me, he said.
What do you mean? asked Janto.
But his familiar was quiet, as if preoccupied.
The rowers turned the boat neatly until it thumped against the hull. Kal’s men dropped a rope ladder down the side, and Janto climbed up. Not wanting to make a poor first impression on these countrymen he hadn’t seen in months, over whom he intended to rule, he mustered his strength to spring over the rails at the top.
Kal-Torres stood before him with his familiar, the seabird Gishi, perched on his shoulder. He’d matured astonishingly since Janto had last seen him, more than nine months ago when the war with Kjall had begun. He’d be twenty-two years old now, to Janto’s twenty-five.The soft lines of his once-boyish face had hardened, becoming angular and masculine, while the sun had bronzed his skin to a deep copper and lightened his blond hair. Still the lady-killer, thought Janto, but in a different way. Faint lines on his brother’s face suggested stress and worry.
Flanking Kal were his zo officers and their menagerie of familiars. Behind them stood the ordinary sailors, men who did not belong to the ruling zo caste and did not possess magic.
After a moment’s awkward hesitation, Kal stepped forward and embraced him. “Brother. We feared you were lost to us forever.”
Janto returned the hug, thumping him warmly on the back. “It’s good to see you again, Kal.”
They separated, and Kal studied him from arm’s length. “You’ve seen rough treatment, kali. Sapo!”
A Healer stepped forward from the line of officers. “Yes, sire?”
Janto started at the title. Sire?
Of course. In Janto’s absence, Kal-Torres had crowned himself king. He wasn’t wearing the royal carcanet, but only because that symbol of kingship was back on Mosar, if it had survived the war at all. Would Kal renounce the title now that Janto had returned? Janto studied his brother. Kal’s expression was friendly and his manner easy, but the set of his jaw and the intensity of his gaze suggested more complicated feelings. When they’d last parted, the war had been everyone’s foremost concern, but Kal’s jealousy still simmered beneath the surface, awaiting only an opportunity to boil over.
“See to his injuries,” Kal ordered the Healer.
Janto held up a hand to stay the man. “He called you sire. But Mosar already has a king.”
The crew fell silent, leaving no sound but the wash of the waves and the creak of the rigging.
“You were away,” said Kal. “Unable to take on the responsibility. So of course—”
Janto nodded. “You held the title during my absence. Now that I’ve returned, I reclaim it.”
There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence. Kal placed an arm on Janto’s shoulder as if to guide him belowdecks. “You are ill, Brother. Let Sapo tend to you. Get your strength back, and we’ll discuss this when you are well.”
Janto took a step back, plucking the hand off his shoulder. “There is nothing to discuss. I am Jan-Torres, your king. To treat me as anything else would be treason.”
Kal’s cheeks flushed with anger. “I rescued you from that ship. A Kjallan ship. You would have died, else. And these men.” He indicated the officers at his flank and the enlisted men behind them. “Do you think they will follow a stranger over the leader they know?”
Janto’s gaze darted over the crowd. The sailors dropped their eyes. They knew he was the rightful king. Yet there was no doubt they would stand behind Kal if forced to choose.
Do not back down, said Sashi. You are king. He is not.
“You are not the king of Mosar, Kal-Torres,” said Janto. “To pretend otherwise violates our country’s tradition of peaceful succession. It insults the memory of our mother and father.”
Kal straightened, emphasizing his slight advantage in height. “You’re not fit to rule. At Silverside, your error in judgment cost us a dozen mages—”
“Ridiculous,” Janto snapped. “You’ve always envied my crown. If our father wanted to replace me as his heir after that incident, he would have. But he didn’t. Do you question his judgment? While you sat out the war, repairing your damaged ships after fleeing in the very first battle, I fought on the front lines in Mosar, and when the tide turned against us, I went into the heart of enemy territory, seeking intelligence that might help—”
“You left Mosar to get out of harm’s way,” snarled Kal. “You probably spent the whole time on Kjall cowering under your invisibility shroud—”
Kill! Sashi launched himself from Janto’s shoulder with a chitter of rage and smacked into Kal’s seabird. The familiars tumbled to the ship’s deck in a ball of fur and feathers and flapping wings.
Kal’s mouth fell open. “What the . . . Stop him, Janto!”
A chill ran up Janto’s spine. He did not stop his familiar. He knew, at least from stories, the Mosari tradition of quanrok. Loosely translated from the old tongue, it meant “gods decide.” More practically, it meant settling a dispute between two zo by allowing their familiars, the gifts and occasional mouthpieces of the gods, to fight for supremacy. Had Sashi invoked the old tradition? He took a step back, giving the creatures room.
Sashi had broken Gishi’s wing with his initial leap, grounding the bird. The two of them grappled viciously on the ship deck, hissing and spitting and biting. Though injured, the bird was large and powerful. Neither animal had an obvious advantage.
Sailors and officers leapt out of the creatures’ way as the familiars chased each other around the deck, the seabird thrusting powerfully with its beak and buffeting with its good wing. Sashi’s lithe body flowed like water as he ducked in and out, skittering sideways to avoid blows and leaping in for a quick bite with needle teeth. The bird’s blows were heavy, knocking Sashi across the deck when they connected, but the ferret shook himself off and reentered the fray as lively and fierce as before, while the bird grew slower. Gishi was weakening. The seabird reeled, unbalanced, and Sashi leapt like a striking snake, bowling him over and pinning him with a bite to the neck.
Make Kal-Torres yield, said Sashi, or his familiar dies.
“Get him off!” cried Kal. “Your ferret’s killing Gishi!”
“Do you yield?” asked Janto.
“Do I yield?” Kal sputtered. “What are you talking about?”
“Quanrok. The gods have chosen. Do you acknowledge me as king of Mosar?”
Kal’s eyes blazed fury. Slowly, as if it caused him physical pain, he folded his body and knelt on the deck. “Men, honor your king.”
Sashi released the wounded seabird. All around Janto, the sailors lowered themselves to their knees.
• • •
An hour later, Janto watched a Sardossian boat row toward the Sparrowhawk as it rose and fell with the waves. He leaned on the rail to conserve his strength.
Kal, who’d been overseeing some detail of sail trim, walked up and leaned on the rail next to him. “Well, sire, perhaps you could tell me your plans for the fleet.”
“Answer some questions for me.” Janto pointed toward the distant lights that had to be land. “That’s Rhaylet, is it not?”
“It is,” said Kal.
“Here’s what I think you’ve been up to. First, Kjall attacked Rhaylet and captured it with six light ships. Sardos sent a fleet to recapture the port, going the long way, south around Dori, since they cannot use the Neruna Strait. The Kjallan ships made no attempt to defend the port but fled the moment the Sardossians arrived.”
; Kal’s eyebrows rose. “How did you know?”
“The time I spent on Kjall was not wasted. The Kjallan ships planned escape into the Neruna Strait, but then you arrived. You pinned the Kjallans between yourself and the Sardossians and destroyed their small fleet. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“It was an excellent maneuver, worthy of the Vagabond himself,” said Janto. “You may have saved Mosar with it. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Those two ships there.” He pointed to the pair that had attacked the Lynx. “They are obviously of Kjallan make, so I take them to be prizes. But why do they fly a flag that is neither Mosari nor Sardossian?”
Kal grinned. “That’s my favorite part. When we attacked the Kjallans, only four ships fought back in earnest. The other two fired sporadically, often at nothing at all. We gathered that their crews were in mutiny and left them alone. By the time we’d dealt with the other four, the two mutinous ships had raised the Sage in surrender. It turned out both ships had been manned with Riorcan slaves, who rose up against their Kjallan officers in the chaos of battle and tossed them overboard. They had to plead our assistance after the battle—they were under the influence of death spells that would kill them if a Healer did not take them off, and the Kjallan Healers were among those they’d flung over. So we removed those spells with our own Healers, who also tended to them, and they’ve joined the fleet for the time being. Those flags they’re flying are makeshift Riorcan flags.”
Janto looked out at the two ships with new respect. How long had it been since a ship had flown a Riorcan flag? Decades. History was being made.
“Just so you know, they’re rather bloodthirsty,” added Kal.
“I noticed. They wouldn’t accept the Lynx’s surrender.”
“Their hatred of Kjall runs deep,” said Kal. “I think all they really want is to kill Kjallans, as many as possible. Because of that, they may be willing to help us retake Mosar.”
“I’m not sure I want their help. They sound like savages who won’t take orders. Do they have a command structure?”