Moonrise

by Mitchell Smith

  "... I have work to do. What's your business?"

  A man — undoubtedly the caller of "You"— said "Good evening," and smiled at him, a smile that made Captain Pruitt no easier. This was a young man, scarred and weary, perhaps also injured in the Boston fighting. He wore rich furs, and — hinted gleaming at his throat — apparently fine chain-mail under them. Wore those and a wicked rapier, also a long-blade knife.

  Bad enough, but his company was worse. Some sort of Moon-riser girl — likely a little fox or coyote in there — also armed. Still grimmer, a Person the size of a small berg, with an ax to match, and six... seven Shrike tribesmen grinning, file-toothed.

  Bad weather.

  "I have to attend my work, so say what you have to say."

  "You are the captain, the owner of that boat?" A nod to Priestess.

  It occurred to Pruitt to lie to this young man — and he might have, but there was a look in those dark and slightly slanted eyes that said, "Don't trouble. I know command, and you were giving orders to that crew."

  "Yes, I own her. And so what?" A fine little WT phrase.

  "The boat seems sound...."

  "Is sound," Pruitt said. "The best." Then uneasily regretted the boast.

  The young man nodded. "People told us so at Bay Dock.... We are ordered out of Boston, and wish to leave this coast."

  "Then hire a vessel to skate you down to Map-Carolina, and do not trouble me."

  "We wish to own, not hire, Captain. We've been shown what's to buy along these piers, and were told to come see this boat — smart, just stocked for weeks of fishing — and it does suit us."

  Pruitt was so startled, he was silent for a moment." 'Suits you' for what?"

  "For crossing the Ocean Atlantic. For going to Atlas-Ire and England, then perhaps the supposed Europe."

  It seemed a speech in a dream, and took Captain Pruitt a moment to accept. "... Well, not in my boat. Not in my Priestess in any way at all! Our people fish or hunt the ice, and always have — and any gone past the Banks are never heard from after. But not in my boat in any case."

  The big Moonriser — some bear in there for certain — muttered something, and the young man looked at Pruitt in a concerned, almost a sad sort of way. It was not reassuring. "Captain," he said, "we will buy your boat."

  "No, you will not."

  The Shrikes appeared to grow restless, shifted so like a pack of wolves that it was striking.

  "Forgive me for insisting," the young man said, bowed as if out of a story-book, then held out a heavy jingling pouch. "Here is part of our very generous pay from Sylvia Wolf-General, the same who orders us gone. Thirty-seven Boston golds." He held the pouch out — and when Pruitt didn't take it, let it fall to the dock planking.

  "You fucking seal-pup." Pruitt kicked the pouch a little way — but not out onto the ice. "I sell no boat to you at all!"

  The young man shook his head. "Think again, sir." The sea wind blew his breath in frost. "I believe that pouch would buy you the building of even a better. And I do know boats; know them well. I've sailed and skated for years on Kingdom River."

  "Then build your own." Captain Pruitt wished — oh, how he wished — that Priestess lay at Bay, or East Dock, where seamen, captains, and salters came and went, weighing fish and selling fish. There would be more than a hundred hard-handers there to see these people gone.... Here, at Pier Point, there was no one else seen through the last, light, sun-filtering snow. Only his crew — and only one or two fighters among them. "... I sell you nothing."

  The girl — fox-bits in there for sure — lisped in the young man's ear. He sighed like someone older, and said, "We haven't time for this, and allow Sylvia to change her mind to execution. Not the time, Captain — nor, frankly, the patience. Take this as the last unfairness of a war... and not that unfair after all." Another of those damned smiles. "Considering we might simply butcher you, leave you lying, then go send your crew ashore.... I'll make a crew of my friends."

  "And I say fuck you! I do not sell my —" Pruitt would have continued, but the Fox-girl had drawn a nasty curved sword.

  "You are troubling my Baj," she said, "— who has had enough trouble." The girl's odd yellow eyes as disturbing as her blade.

  Captain Pruitt noticed one of the Shrikes, apparently amused, smiling at him. The Shrike raised his javelin a little, so the steel head glinted.

  "Well, Salt-Jesus drown you all...." Pruitt's heart was thumping. "You are pirates, and will have sinking luck on the ice and off it!" He went and stooped for the pouch of gold. "You come back to this harbor," he counted minted coins into a trembling palm, "and I'll gather men to stake you out for the crabs!"

  "We won't be back," the young man said. "We skate and sail across the sea."

  "And will never reach what's there — if there's anything at all." Pruitt finished his count.

  "Build a lucky new boat, Captain," the young man said, hoisted his bundle, and led his odd company away down the dock to Priestess... then up her gangway.

  Soon enough, her crew of seven came down confused, and over the dock to Pruitt with questions.

  "Don't fucking ask me! Don't ask me about a robbery — which is what this is. I've been robbed here by armed trash from Boston's fighting, that paid me poorly for the best sloop on the coast!" Though he had good copybook English, Pruitt — now they were needed — could recall no sufficient ancient curses.

  "Do we fight 'em, Cap'n?" This from a line-hauler who barely knew a hake from a cod.

  "Why, yes, Freddy — we certainly fight a bad man, two bad Persons, and seven worse Shrikes. And you go first, you fool!"

  And damned if the man didn't start, and had to be collared.

  "Oh... stand still, all of you," Pruitt said, "and wish those thieves the worst of luck."

  He and his fishers stayed put, and watched the lubbers — such a fine old word — wrestle lines free .. . then slowly pole Priestess out from the dock, shoving her sliding clear, skates scraping. None of that done as true sailors would have. All very unsteady.

  Came time to raise her big mainsail for the wind — a little past time. Walter-bosun, seal-blooded, said "Slow..."

  Sail shaking out, now. Better late than never. Setting the canvas... and, to Pruitt's satisfaction, clumsy getting it hauled taut. Moonrisers and tribesmen, just the seamanship you'd expect. A fine southern linen sail — and almost new! — gone. I'm a robbed man, and the gold makes no difference in it. They've taken my Priestess!

  And though he hadn't meant to, Captain Pruitt ran to the dock edge and shouted after, shaking his fist. "Don't you wreck her, you young son of a bitch!"

  "Poor Cap'n," Freddy said.

  ... Out in the offing under a gray-ribbed evening sky — mainsail slatting in offshore gusts, then firming as her jib came rising — Priestess swung hissing on her skates to a sea heading, a single gull gliding in company. Her starboard steering-blade raised a plume of powdered ice as she steadied, jolting a little over pressure creases where the frozen harbor had cracked and mended.

  Then, going faster, she sailed away sweetly... running east by east, chasing her sunset shadow out onto the frozen ocean.

  THE END