Ison of the Isles

by Ives Gilman, Carolyn

  Harg felt a grim satisfaction at that. Once again, his captains had proved how good they were. “They deserve a better commander than me,” he said bitterly. He knew it was all over for him. He was finished—a beaten, mutilated wreck.

  “What more could you have done?”

  “I led them into an ambush, Gill!”

  Gill was silent a few seconds. “Well, you know what everyone is saying about that. We were betrayed. Talley must have been warned.”

  It was tempting to believe it, to think this was all the doing of some shadowy traitor. But Harg knew who the real traitor was—himself. He hadn’t been smart enough, or careful enough. Talley had proved the superiority of Inning tactics.

  *

  When Harg woke a few hours later the boat was pitching wildly. He was parched and unbelievably sore. He sat up in the swaying berth and saw with disgust that the sheets he had been lying on and the shirt he was wearing were both soaked with blood, now drying black around the edges. He stripped off the shirt; though the cabin was frigid, his body felt like a furnace. When he found a canteen of water he drank, then wetted the tail of his shirt and mopped the crusty blood from his neck and shoulder.

  The aft window of the cabin had been blown apart; glass littered the floor, crunching under his boots when he rose. Someone had tacked an oilcloth over the hole; it now sucked in and out with a cracking sound, strained by the wind. He nearly lost his balance searching for another shirt; only by hanging onto a beam did he make it safely back to the bed. There, he shrugged on his uniform coat against the chill.

  When he came into the wardroom, the sole person there was Lieutenant Barret, who sprang up looking like he saw a ghost. Harg made his way, weaving a little, to where a barrel of water was strapped to a beam. He turned the spigot, letting it run into his mouth. It tasted marvellously good.

  “Go fetch me some weather gear,” he ordered Barret. He wanted to prove that he wasn’t finished yet.

  It took a grim effort to climb the companionway ladder. When he emerged onto the open deck he stood for a few moments, clutching the lintel for support, the wind pressing against him. Around him lay a grey, windswept terrain of rugged waves. The Windemon was hove to with only staysails on. As he watched, a mountain of water as high as the yard-arm bore down on the ship. She climbed it; the bow disappeared under the breaking wave-top, and a shower of windblown spray stung Harg’s face.

  He mounted to the quarterdeck in search of Katri. She was standing by the wheel, looking as though she relished the weather. Fit and vigorous. Harg tried not to flinch at her gaze. He felt maimed and hideous.

  “I didn’t expect to see you walking for a week, after what they told me,” Katri said.

  “I hear you did better without me than with,” he said. He was acutely aware that he had left the battle at the crucial moment.

  “That’s right,” Katri nodded. These pirates were so sensitive. He scanned around for a sign of the other ships, but could see nothing.

  “Where are we?”

  “Somewhere south and east of Vill,” Katri said.

  “And the Innings? Our fleet?”

  Katri shrugged. “There’s no one in charge now but the Mundua and Ashwin. The Innings were hard behind us down the coast of Vill. We were going to try to head east through the channel when this storm hit. That was the end of any thought of fighting.”

  “Is the fleet scattered, then?” Harg asked.

  “Who knows? At least whatever happened to us, happened to the Innings as well.”

  So Katri had done all there was to do. There was nothing for Harg to do but return below and wait. Wait, and try to imagine where the pieces might fall.

  “Harg,” she said. He turned back. “Too bad about your eye,” she said.

  “Yes,” he answered dully. He was about to turn away when he noticed she was looking him up and down with a frank appraisal.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “There’s plenty of you left. As far as I’m concerned, at any rate. If you’re ever interested.”

  It was crude, it was insubordinate, but it was just what he needed to hear.

  The pieces fell more quickly than he had expected. It was late afternoon, and he was drifting in and out of a drowsy stupor, when Gill came in to let him know that the storm was breaking.

  He had already decided what they were to do. First, search for as many other ships as they could assemble. Then, head back to Vill to look for Barko and the land party. When he said this, Gill looked as if he had expected as much. No one needed to mention how risky it would be.

  Harg had to force himself to make his way up on deck to gauge the weather. It felt like someone was pressing a burning coal into his eye socket, and under the uniform coat his shirt was soaked with sweat. It took all his concentration to get up the companionway without giving in to vertigo.

  The fresh air momentarily revived him. The clouds were torn and ragged, scudding past overhead. The wind and waves were still strong. To the west a silver band on the sea showed where the sun was breaking through.

  “Ship ho!” cried the lookout.

  “Where away?” Katri called.

  “Off our port bow.”

  Harg joined Katri, who was peering through her spyglass. “Can you tell whose ship?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “She’s an Inning Navy ship, but so are we. There’s something wrong with her rigging.” She handed him the spyglass. He automatically raised it to the wrong eye, then corrected self-consciously. Katri was right; the ship’s foremast was down amid a tangle of rigging. Weakened by battle, perhaps, and snapped by the storm.

  “We’d better come to her aid,” he said.

  “Top yards up!” Katri called. “Man the braces!”

  There was a quick reaction when the other ship spied the Windemon under sail. Watching through the spyglass, Harg realized they were trying to put up a combination of sails that would get the ship under control without the lost foresails.

  There was an excited shout from the lookout. “It’s an Inning ship, captain! I can see their flags now.”

  “Flags?” Harg called, wondering at the plural.

  “Yes, they’ve got a blue pennant on the mainmast.”

  A shock of excitement went through Harg’s body; for an instant he forgot every ache he had. “It’s their flagship!” he said. “By the root, Katri, the gods have sent us a gift. Corbin Talley’s on that ship, and it’s crippled, and it’s ours!”

  He felt alive again. The humiliation, the defeat, were all gone. Everything was reversed by this one wild chance. Windemon alone could lop off the head of the Inning invasion.

  He gave Katri an incandescent grin. “You know what to do?”

  She smiled back crookedly. “Just watch me.”

  Quickly she shouted out the orders for the Windemon to change course in order to come down on the Innings’ stern. Soon the deck was swarming with gunners again. Loading and running out the guns was tough and tricky work with the deck pitching. One moment they would be hauling on the tackle up a steep slope; the next, the cannons would be flung forward, straining at their ropes. But word had spread about who they were attacking, and the crews worked in high spirits.

  Katri wasted no time making her intentions clear. Passing diagonally across the Innings’ stern, the Windemon let loose a blistering broadside. “Come about!” Katri called; the sailors sprang to the braces and Windemon wore round to cross the Innings’ wake again, this time with the starboard battery ablaze. In their crippled condition, the Innings could do nothing to manoeuvre away or bring their guns to bear. Windemon could keep sailing zigzag behind the bigger ship until her guns had made kindling of it.

  The Innings were desperately firing their two little stern-chasers. They made a brittle pop! pop! against the thunder of the Windemon’s broadsides. Katri’s gunne
rs were laughing with malicious glee at the sport of it. “It’s like shooting at a turtle,” Harg said to Gill, then roared furiously at the nearest gun captain, “Stop wasting your shot, man! Watch the waves. Fire on the upswing.”

  They were getting the rhythm of it, and each broadside caused more damage. “They’ve got to surrender,” Gill said.

  There was a glimpse of white on the Inning ship’s poop deck. “Is it a flag?” Harg asked.

  “No,” said Gill, peering through his spyglass. “Look, Harg: this is strange.”

  An Inning officer in a blue uniform and white waistcoat was pushing another figure before him, toward the battered stern of the ship. For a moment all Harg’s attention was on the Inning, but it was not Corbin Talley. Then his gaze turned to the prisoner. Tall but stooping, grey-skinned—there was no question he was Lashnura. He was naked except for a loincloth, his hands tied before him. The cold wind blew his white hair back from his face. There was something desperately familiar about him.

  For a minute Harg lost sight of the pair as the Windemon came about to bear back down on the Innings. When he had crossed the deck and could see again, the two were standing at the taffrail, directly in the line of fire; they couldn’t help but be hit. Harg’s mouth was dry and papery; he wanted to raise his spyglass to see the Lashnura prisoner, but didn’t dare.

  “Harg!” Gill said at his side. “It’s Goth! It’s the Heir of Gilgen.”

  The words travelled down the side of the ship as if driven by the wind. Katri called, “Hold your fire!” Harg felt like his head was in a vise; he wanted to look away, and couldn’t. The Inning was fastening Goth’s bound hands to a line hanging from the spanker gaff above them; at his signal a sailor heaved on the line, lifting the old man till he dangled from his wrists, toes barely brushing the deck, twisting in the wind. His ribcage stood out clearly as he struggled to breathe.

  Something inside Harg was screaming. It sounded like an anguished child. Somehow, Corbin Talley had found this oldest, deepest wound in him. He had found the one person on earth Harg loved more than victory. Goth, who had brought him to life and then discarded him. Harg had spent half a lifetime trying to touch that man. And now fate had put him here, helpless, as if to say, He is yours. Kill him and win, spare him and give your homeland over to all you hate.

  Windemon passed across the Inning stern without a shot fired. The Innings would know now the consternation they had thrown into the rebels. Most of them would think it was blind superstition protecting them; they wouldn’t know. Harg thought of the swift victory that had been his minutes ago. He couldn’t take his eyes from the form dangling at the Innings’ stern. It was part of him there, strung up like a side of beef, helpless and humiliated. He wrenched his gaze away and said, “Katri, come about. Get ready to resume fire.”

  Katri stood staring at him, the wind blowing strands of dark hair into her face. “We’ll kill him if we do.”

  “I know that!” Harg said. There was a fist inside his chest, squeezing. He concentrated on not feeling it, not listening. He had to act for all the Isles now. Not for himself. It was a test.

  “Do as I say!” he said. A look crossed her face that told him she thought he had a plan; she trusted him. She didn’t know this was one of those either-or moments, when a decision had to be made, black or white.

  Windemon settled on her new course. It seemed like she was travelling down a tunnel; all reality had closed in to trap Harg, to cut off the alternatives. He was clutching the quarterdeck rail desperately. “Fire when you’re in range,” he said. His voice sounded far away.

  “Hold your fire!” Katri’s voice cut across his.

  He turned on her. Anger flared up white-hot in him. “Are you countermanding my order?”

  She said, “That’s the Heir of Gilgen, Harg. We can’t fire on him. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Have you forgotten which of us is in command here?” he said. The rage was blinding him, swirling dizzily through his head. “Now carry out my orders!”

  She hesitated a moment, puzzlement and distress at war in her face. Then she said, “No. Your orders are against mora.”

  “You’re relieved of your command,” he said. He looked around, saw two soldiers watching, aghast. “You two, take her below.”

  Windemon was abreast the Inning ship, and every face on board was staring at him, frozen. “Look to your guns, rot you!” he shouted. “Fire!”

  The tableau broke; they turned back to their guns. Too hesitantly, too slowly. The ships parted; not a gun went off.

  “Come about!” Harg ordered. The sailors obeyed slowly; he felt it was only his will forcing them forward.

  Gill was at his side. “Harg, stop and think a second.”

  “Be quiet or I’ll arrest you, too,” Harg said.

  Far to the west, the setting sun had broken free of the clouds and now it flooded the scene with a vivid red light. There were gasps from the crew, for the light had turned the water crimson. It looked like they were sailing across a sea of blood.

  Harg saw it all with hallucinatory vividness. There was blood everywhere; it was dripping from the sails, it had soaked the deck. He felt it swimming like tears in his ruined eye, dripping from his chin. All the blood he had ever spilled, come back to drown him. Nature itself had mutinied against him.

  Ahead on the Inning stern, Goth’s body glowed in the gory light. The Inning stood beside him, gesturing them to back off, to withdraw. There was a long, ugly knife in his hand. The threat was unmistakable.

  Harg wanted to blast that scene from his mind, to burn it away forever. “Fire!” he shouted at the gunners. But they were afraid of something larger than him now. Harg seized a smouldering match from the hands of the gunner nearest him and pushed the man away, intending to fire the gun himself.

  Then hands were pulling him back. The blood was choking him, darkness was closing in. It was too late; the nightmare had won.

  7

  Mark of the Munda

  There was a smell of rotting flesh. They had put him in the morgue with the corpses, Harg thought. Why had no one given him a decent burial? Did he have to tell them everything?

  Goth was bending over him. There was a crow on his shoulder. There had been crows on the spars, he thought—why had he not noticed them? The bird’s eyes glittered with malicious intelligence. I can have you, it seemed to say.

  “Will you let me cure you?” Goth said, reaching out a cool grey hand to touch Harg’s flaming face. But it wasn’t Goth; it was a strange dhotamar, his face suffused with longing. He wanted to enter Harg’s soul and possess him, to gently bend him to the Lashnura will.

  “Get away!” Harg said. His voice was a hoarse croak, like a crow’s. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Let me help you,” the Grey Man pleaded. “I can take away the pain.”

  The thought made Harg want to weep in longing. Over the long days, the pain had ground him down to a nub. He had no strength left to bear it. But he knew the dhotamar would take away more than that. To be free of pain, Harg would have to surrender all the scar tissue that made him what he was. He wouldn’t be the same person afterwards. “Go blow smoke,” he said through clenched teeth.

  The Grey Man drew back, his eyes filling with tears. “I can’t do anything unless he is willing. He must help to cure himself. It’s how dhota works.”

  “Now will you listen to me?” another voice broke in. It was Joffrey’s. Harg knew he was hallucinating again.

  “All right,” Gill said. “We’ll do it your way, then.”

  *

  An Inning bent over him, peering into his face.

  “That eye will have to go,” the Inning said. “It’s poisoning his system.”

  Panic brought Harg awake. Couldn’t they see? He only had one eye now; if they took it, he would be blind. He struggled to sit up.


  “What’s going on?” he demanded. As he said it, he realized he had been asking that question for days now, and people had been answering it, and he couldn’t remember a word they had said.

  Gill came forward. “We’ve got to get you well, Harg. The surgeon wants to operate.”

  The thought gave Harg a horrible, queasy feeling. “An Inning?” he said. What were they trying to do to him?

  “Listen, Harg,” Gill said in a low voice. “Try to understand this time. The surgeon is one of the Inning prisoners from Pont. We’ve offered him his freedom if he cures you. He’s already done you some good; your fever is way down. Joffrey says their doctors are bound by some sort of rules where they can’t harm patients, even their enemies. Maybe it’s one of their laws.”

  Harg didn’t dare say a word, but there was a clammy terror in his guts at the thought of a surgeon’s knife cutting away his dead eye. All the bravery he had ever learned had been leached away; now he was down to a shivering core of cowardice.

  As if he could see it all, Gill said, “Don’t worry, Harg. The surgeon’s got drugs; he says you’ll never feel a thing.”

  Harg was almost ashamed of the relief he felt.

  The surgeon had an air of dispassionate, military efficiency. Feeling faint-headed, Harg watched him set out an array of ghoulish instruments on white linen. Then the Inning produced a bottle of small, milky slivers. “Your arm, please,” he said.

  Joffrey looked in the door just as the doctor pushed one of the slivers under Harg’s skin. Harg’s last clear thought was how indecipherable Joffrey’s expression was.

  *

  There were flashes of lucidity in his memory, like a trail of crumbs leading back. He tried to follow them. There had been sunlight, and another boat, and birds on the yard-arms. Flocks of birds gathered, watching him. There was an oil lamp swinging above him; he had watched it for hours, hypnotized. Then he had held a perfectly sensible conversation with someone he didn’t recognize, but who seemed to recognize him. And the guns were going off—no, the guns weren’t going off, and that was the problem. All the time there was a feeling of urgency that he get back in control. Things were out of control.