Corsair

by Chris Bunch

  No one fled, no one hid. By now, there were no cowards left among the corsairs.

  A Kashi woman, arm half severed, used a Slaver’s pike to impale a Linyati in robes, then twisted and fell herself.

  Two Slavers attacked Gareth. He knocked one’s thrust away, slashed at his legs, then pain burnt across his chest as the other Linyati’s thrust almost went home. Gareth spun inside the Slaver’s guard, smashed his face in with the pommel of his sword, kicked him into his fellow. As they stumbled back, his blade flicked once, twice, and they both were down.

  The night exploded and Slavers, Kashi, pirates were cut apart as Linyati cannon fired into the throng, not caring who they killed.

  Gareth saw Tehidy pushing a cannon from behind a hut, flanking the Linyati guns, and ran toward him.

  Cosyra was shouting for a rally, and a Runner saw her, leapt over two Slavers, dropping one of his swords, and grabbed at her. Cosyra back-rolled, came up under the monster, and drove her sword straight up, through the Runner’s chin into where a brain should be.

  Another Runner darted at her, and Kuldja swung at him from the side with a ramrod that was somehow afire. The Runner staggered, and then the fire touched him and he burned as if he were made of tar.

  Kuldja whooped joy, and Cosyra grinned at him. A Linyati cannon banged, and Kuldja was ripped like a cloth doll.

  Cosyra, untouched by the shot, found a loaded musket in the dirt, had it up, aimed, and killed a Linyati gunner.

  Gareth pushed the second gun into line beside Tehidy, and Knoll N’b’ry was beside him, helping.

  N’b’ry grunted oddly, stood up, and blood poured from a small hole above his ear. Eyes wide, he fell limply, and Gareth didn’t need to look to see if he was still alive.

  Blood rage surged, and Gareth pulled a slow match from a gunner’s hand, bent over the cannon. It bore, and he held the match to the touchhole and the cannon fired, Tehidy’s an instant later.

  Grapeshot swathed through the Linyati gunners, and the survivors fell back from their guns for a moment.

  Gareth, screaming rage, ran into their midst, knowing nothing but a killing frenzy, seeing men’s faces come up, go away, seeing Linyati, thrusting at them, again, killing another, and there were men beside him, fighting, killing, some white, some brown.

  Labala was shouting a spell from somewhere, and Gareth saw dropped weapons stir, lift, and thrust at Linyati, with no human hand to control them. A Slaver wizard was calling a counterspell, and a brush knife spun through the air and took most of his head away.

  The Slavers broke, tried to flee.

  But there was no safety, no mercy, and the pirates and the Sa’ib slaughtered them as they ran.

  There was nothing but blood and death for Gareth, and then he recovered, kneeling beside N’b’ry’s body.

  He remembered Knoll’s japery, friendship, the ships he wanted to build, and now there was nothing but death on a nameless jungle town’s dirt street.

  He thought of telling Suel, the woman Knoll had companioned, far away in Saros, of N’b’ry’s bravery, tasted ashes and knew courage was meaningless compared to the vast emptiness he felt.

  Gareth got up, staggered, but paid no attention to his wound. Cosyra, Tehidy, Riet, Dihr, Froln, others were before him. He saw Kuldja’s unrecognizable body lying nearby, other bodies of pirates, soldiers, Kashi.

  “This was a beginning,” he said, voice calm. “We have destroyed those who pursued us. Now, we shall journey downriver, to Cimmar.

  “That means you, Riet, and other men of Kashi. We shall recruit as we travel. It is time for the Kashi to stand and take back what is their own.

  “Our plans have changed. No longer are we going to be content with just stealing the Linyati ships at the river’s mouth.

  “We are going to sack Cimmar, take its treasure, burn it to the ground, kill everyone within its walls, and the Mozaffar shall belong to the Kashi.

  “Death to the Slavers!”

  Twenty-six

  The long, slender canoes slid into the water silently. Kashi paddlers at bow and stern took the stroke and steered the dozen boats toward the lights of Cimmar, less than half a league distant.

  The other men in the canoes were Gareth’s most skilled gunners. They were heading toward four dark bulks, Linyati ships sitting at anchor.

  Their faces and clothes were darkened with charcoal; they were barefoot, armed with daggers and swords. Gareth, in the lead canoe, wished he had greater trust in men — and, for that matter, machines — to have allowed the pistols in their waistbands to be loaded.

  But one accidental discharge could ruin their carefully laid plans.

  After the desperate fight in the jungle town, the pirates had built rafts and, with native canoes, moved downriver. The Sa’ib had provided twenty recruits, Riet at their head.

  At every river village they stopped, waited for the panic-stricken Kashi to realize these white men weren’t Slavers and come back from their hiding places in the jungle, and asked for volunteers.

  “Only five men is all I’m asking for from your town, just as I’m asking the same from every village we come to,” Gareth cajoled. “Less than you lose a year when the Slavers come through. We’ll train you how to stand, how to soldier. Now is the time to fight back!”

  But his words were less effective than the arguments offered by Dihr, other ex-slaves, and the Sa’ib, for the men of Kashi could see the examples, and didn’t have to worry about the words.

  By the time they closed on Cimmar, they had six hundred men of Kashi with them.

  The battle in Riet’s town had cost the pirates dearly. There were less than two hundred left, and many of those were wounded. But Labala’s spells and the Sa’ib herbalists were rapidly curing the injured.

  Each night, when the motley convoy of rafts and canoes pulled ashore, Iset and the other soldiers would train the Kashi in drills and mock battles, making sure that the natives did better and better each day. Confidence grew, and the men began boasting of how they would destroy the Linyati and bring long-lost pride back to the people of the jungle.

  “Right you are,” the warrants would cynically agree. “Pride an’ honor it is, lads, as long as you don’t give ‘em time to recover. Keep movin’, keep killin’, and we’ll all be heroes. Live heroes.”

  Gareth and Cosyra had something else to ponder: Labala’s spell determining the Slavers had been after Cosyra had been accurate, considering the Runner that had tried to take her alive during the battle. But no matter how they considered, neither had any explanation whatsoever.

  Labala sensed Slaver magic the closer they came to the river mouth, spells intended to detect anyone hostile. He cast subtle counterspells to make the wizards careless, confident that no one would dare approach them.

  They’d made a final camp half a day above Cimmar, and Gareth and his officers moved close to the city, planning the attack.

  Cimmar was about the size of Noorat, on the eastern bank of the Mozaffar, built close to the waterfront, with walls keeping back the jungle’s dangers.

  When they first arrived, there had been only one ship anchored in the roadstead, barely enough for the men, let alone the gold they stubbornly carried and the loot they hoped to take.

  But a day later, three more of the great treasure ships sailed in, and Gareth wondered if the fleet was assembling for its annual passage down coast to Linyati.

  He liked the plan they eventually came up with. It was very simple: the pirates would seize the ships offshore, while Iset, his soldiers, and the remaining Kashi would attack the city from the north, the river-mouth side. Gareth thought the Linyati would least expect an attack from that direction.

  The force was moved into final attack position and took up hides on the final day.

  “Let’s not do anything stupid,” Cosyra said.

  “I’m never guilty of that.”

  “I mean, like getting killed.”

  “Not in the plan at all,” Gareth said.

&nbs
p; Cosyra chose her words carefully. “So don’t get angry when the fighting starts.”

  Gareth started to do just that, remembering the debt he still owed for the deaths of his parents, his village, Knoll N’b’ry, others, then realized what she meant.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll be cuke as a coolcumber.”

  Cosyra grinned and kissed him. “Stay calm, and let them lose their heads,” she said.

  “My romantic lover,” Gareth said, and kissed her back.

  At dusk, the soldiers moved out, around the city walls, and at full dark the gunners put out in their boats.

  The pirates kept looking worriedly at the city walls as they closed. But Gareth had learned from Iset that men looking out from a well-lit place into darkness weren’t likely to spot much, especially not craft as small as those the pirates rode.

  Gareth’s canoe closed on the first ship, the rowers never making a splash, and the bow oarsman grabbed the anchor chain. Gareth slipped past him and, dagger between his teeth, went up the rusting, slimy links. He stopped at the top, his head below the ship’s railing. Slowly he peered over, saw no one on the foredeck, and slid over the rail, Cosyra behind him.

  Other pirates followed, boarding soundlessly. Then, knives ready, they spread down across the ship’s deck.

  There were two men on watch on the quarterdeck. Knives thudded home in their backs, and they gasped, their dead forms eased to the deck.

  Gareth loaded his pistol in case there was a Runner aboard, went through a hatch into the officers’ quarters, the rest of his murderers behind him.

  But there was no monster, only sleeping men, who never woke. Next were the crewmen, asleep in their hammocks along the lower gundeck. The pirates sheathed their knives, went in with cutlasses. Three men woke, hearing their mates gurgle into death, then joined them. There’d been only one outcry, and that muffled, before the ship was theirs.

  Tehidy and Gareth made a quick investigation of the guns. There was nothing unusual about them, nor about the powder, fuses, and shot in the magazines. Tehidy made the interesting discovery that the Linyati ship carried explosive shot. He grinned at Gareth.

  “This’ll help out when the excitement starts.”

  Gareth nodded. “First broadside, though, should be solid,” he said.

  “Don’t tell a farmer which end of a seed goes down,” Tehidy sneered, and gunners began loading the cannon.

  Other sailors, helped by the Kashi in the boats, were lowering the ship’s second, emergency anchor off the stern.

  A dozen men were left aboard this ship, commanded by Froln, and the raiders moved on to the second, which was also taken in silent blood, as was the third. On them as well, the guns were loaded and run out and a second anchor dropped off the ships’ sterns. Dihr was put in command of the second ship, Galf the third.

  Someone got careless, or was becoming sick of the butchery, and missed the anchor watch aboard the last ship. He cried out, seeing steel glint against the thin moon, and went down. But his outcry was enough to alert a Slaver on the quarterdeck. He had a musket aimed and fired it at the first pirate up the ladder.

  The shot brought the ship’s officers alert. It was too late for them, but the sailors aboard had time to roll out of their hammocks and grab weapons.

  The pirates were outnumbered about two to one, and belowdecks was a slashing, shouting brawl before the last Slaver went down, weltering in his blood.

  Gareth saw a hooded lantern ashore flickering a question at their ship.

  “Load the guns,” he shouted, as the men tossed the bodies of the Slavers overboard.

  Again, the lantern flashed.

  “I can hit it with two shots,” Nomios shouted from the main deck.

  “Stand by, then,” Gareth shouted, turned to Cosyra. “Signal the others. We’re ready.”

  Cosyra unwrapped a torch, whispered the spell Labala had taught her, and the torch seared into life.

  “Damn! There went my eyebrows,” she said, and began waving the torch back and forth.

  Gareth jumped as a gun on the deck below him barked, then the others volleyed.

  The other ships fired, and Gareth saw cannonballs slam into the buildings on the shore.

  Men on the capstans set to work, wearing the ships about, until the guns on the other side bore, and these, too, sent a broadside into the city.

  Next they loaded with explosive shells, the master gunner lighting the fuse on each ball before it was gingerly rammed down the barrel.

  It was easy to mark these shots when they hit — smoke and fire boiled up, and often the fire took hold.

  Gareth could hear screams and shouts from Cimmar, and then they grew suddenly louder. This could only mean Iset had attacked the eastern wall.

  Moments later, he saw a cloud of fire lift over the wall — more of Labala’s fire magic, carried by the wind.

  Cimmar was alive, the streets swarming with Linyati as the soldiers swept through. Now it was harder to find an open target, as fire built and smoke boiled high.

  “All right,” Gareth called. “Cease firing!”

  There was a final bang, then silence.

  “Men of the watch, take your posts,” Gareth called. “The rest of us, back in the boats and ashore!”

  • • •

  There were two dozen or more dead Linyati on the rocky beach, sprawled around boats. They’d been launching an attack on Gareth’s ships, which he’d not seen, and some keen-eyed or lucky gunner had cut them down.

  Cimmar was chaos. Linyati ran here, there, sometimes attacked when they saw a pirate, sometimes ran away, sometimes dashed past, as if they hadn’t noticed.

  Even Runners were taken by the hysteria, charging any human they saw, whether one or ten.

  Somewhere in the night’s bloodiness, Gareth found Labala, who told him the attack on the wall had been expensive. Iset had been killed, as had almost half of his soldiery. The Kashi had fought well, but, as always with new troops, suffered heavy casualties. Riet of the Sa’ib was among them.

  But Cimmar was crumbling, as the fires tore at it from one side and the pirates from the other.

  • • •

  The treasure room was huge, and the high-piled gold and jewels winked and beckoned to the pirates standing in the open door.

  But that wasn’t what held Gareth and the others’ attention.

  One entire wall was taken up with a great relief map of what must be the entire world, including lands completely unknown to any Sarosian. Gareth looked at lands he knew and realized the map was far more accurate, even in its small scale, than any chart he had.

  The base material used for the map’s land was gold, the oceans were what looked like sheets cut from an enormous aquamarine. But that gem was always tiny, Gareth knew; he couldn’t imagine one huge enough to be shaved for this enormous map.

  Other gems were set here and there for other cities.

  Gareth looked at Saros, saw Ticao, and Lyrawise across the Narrow Seas. Over there, on the peninsula connecting the continents of Linyati and Kashi, was a gleam for the treasure city of Noorat that they’d sacked.

  But that wasn’t what caught and held his and the other mariners’ attention.

  The map was alive.

  An unknown island to the south-southeast of Linyati glowed with red light. Then the red flashed in three places on Linyati’s south coast and spread around the continent’s shores, a fever-blotch. It spread until all of Linyati glowed, spread through Kashi.

  This was the Linyati’s chart of their conquests, terrifying in the speed of its spread.

  Even more horrible were the splotches that touched on other, unknown continents — even a bit of red in Juterbog.

  Here was where the Linyati must have come to dream and boast, and think of the days when all the world would be red.

  Gareth wondered on those first three marks where the Linyati must have appeared. Appeared, he realized, was the most appropriate word, not were born. But where had they come from? Ano
ther world like the one they’d come to? The haunts of demons? Or is this where the gods or devils had brought them to life?

  He shook his head.

  All he knew for sure was this chart showed clearly the intent of the Linyati. They intended to occupy the entire world, and Gareth sensed there would be no place for man once they did, not even as slaves. The Runners would merely create more and more Linyati to mindlessly do their bidding.

  In that smouldering ruin he knew to the bottom of his guts:

  It must be either Man or Linyati.

  Blind rage came, and he seized a gold statue in one hand: a statue of a monster he had never seen, hoped existed only in Linyati fever dreams.

  He threw it with all his strength against the chart, destroying its prediction, and the map shattered, golden fragments coming down with spinning gems and bits of aquamarine.

  The weariness fell away, and Gareth was ready to go out into the flaming streets, ready to kill on, denying the Linyati menace.

  He walked out of the palace as the pirates shouted to form a loading party before they lost the gold to the fires.

  Cosyra was waiting. She started to say something, saw his expression, remained silent.

  Gareth felt heat sear him as the flames from the fired city roared closer, knew the building would be engulfed before long. He glanced at the flames, brighter than the rising sun.

  “I think,” he said to Cosyra, “that perhaps, this night, we’ve struck a match that will shine all the way to Saros and the king’s throne.”

  “There,” she agreed, “and to Linyati.”

  “Let it bring them awake,” Gareth said fiercely. “Let them know us for their desperate enemies and sharpen their swords and magic. Because when they come, we’ll be ready.”

  Twenty-seven

  There were three coastal guard ships driving down on the wallowing treasure ships.

  Gareth watched them through his glass, grinning at their obvious confusion: Ships, obviously Linyati in design, but flying Sarosian colors. Not quite Sarosian, but with a skull and crossed cutlasses below the device.