The Wizard_s Fate e-2

by Paul B. Thompson

  The Blue Gull was a tubby vessel, only slightly longer from stem to stern than it was broad in the beam. The roundship rode in the water like a great boot, high at the stern and low at the bow. It had a single flush deck, with timber hoardings built over each end-sterncastle and forecastle. Darpo noted the ship’s rig, although well worn, was in good repair and the crew seemed to know their vessel well.

  Captain Torwalder proved to be a young man, with a neatly trimmed, pointed blond beard and very heavy eyebrows. In a resonant voice, he ordered a boom rigged out to lift the horses on board. One by the one the animals were hoisted from the waves. Most rolled their eyes in alarm at the unfamiliar form of transportation. Miya’s Pitch neighed shrilly and kicked his slender legs, and even Shadow balked at first.

  The horses were soon safe in the hold, but the ship could not yet weigh anchor. Blue Gull was empty save for Tol and his party; the smugglers needed to take on more cargo.

  They lingered offshore the rest of the day but no more goods arrived, and Tol pressed the captain to depart. When the tide turned before sundown, Torwalder finally agreed. His men fell to the capstan, winching the anchor up from the shallow water.

  The great buff-colored sail unfurled and Blue Gull wallowed out to sea. Once clear of the surf, the ungainly vessel came into its own and rode the sea with dignity, if not speed.

  “Slow passage,” Darpo remarked. He scanned a sky painted scarlet by the sunset. “Fair weather, though. If the wind holds, we should make Thorngoth in two days.”

  “Barring pirates, storms, or the whims of the Blue Phoenix,” Frez muttered. He was not a good sailor and clutched the windward rail, his face the color of chalk.

  The Dom-shu sisters, on the other hand, were delighted with their first taste of the sea. They went from port rail to starboard, talking excitedly about everything they saw. Kiya was enchanted by the ship and its working, while Miya raved about the sea. When a section of water roiled just off the starboard bow, she cornered a busy sailor and demanded to know what caused the disturbance.

  “Dolphins,” said the fellow dismissively.

  He’d seen such sights thousands of times, but Miya crowed gleefully. She hung over the railing, watching the capering creatures.

  As dusk closed in, Torwalder hung a hooded lantern on the binnacle for the steersman to see by. Kiya asked why the lantern was so small.

  Torwalder rested his hands on the buckle of his sword belt. “Light carries far over the ocean at night,” he replied. “It don’t pay to be seen too well too far.”

  “Pirates?”

  The captain let the word hang in the air, answering by not answering.

  They ate bread, and shellfish soup served from a common iron pot below deck. Whether it was the rocking motion of the ship, the hearty fare, or the busy time they’d had with various bandit groups, the entire party was ready for sleep soon after supper. As the ’tween decks was stuffy and smelled strongly of tar and fish oil, they opted to sleep on deck.

  They spread their bedrolls on the sterncastle, out of the way of the working sailors, and settled down. Since none of them had passed a full night in sleep since leaving the camp at Tarsis, Tol decided not to bother posting a watch. Torwalder’s men seemed to have things well in hand.

  Tol unbuckled his sword belt and lay down between Miya and Kiya. Number Six, Mundur’s wonderful blade, curved neatly up against him. By starlight he noticed a single glyph engraved unobtrusively on the sword’s brass pommel. He couldn’t read Dwarvish, but knew the symbols for numbers; the glyph was the numeral six.

  Overhead, the rigging seemed to rake the starry sky, creaking and groaning with every roll of the beamy hull. Only two days to Thorngoth, Tol thought, as slumber settled over him like a thick quilt. The journey upriver to Daltigoth would seem a pleasure jaunt after what they’d been through already.

  He dreamed once more of Felryn. This time he kept his nerve and did not accost the shade or let it disturb his rest, and the shadow of the slain priest of Mishas stood by Blue Gull’s steersman all through the night.

  Chapter 6

  The King of the Sea

  Bare feet thumped loudly on the plank deck. Kiya rolled over and awakened Tol.

  “Something’s happening,” she whispered, and sat up. He followed suit, sheathed saber in his hand.

  Torwalder’s crew was scrambling up the rigging while the master of the Blue Gull bellowed orders. Normally the roundship had a single thick mast, stepped in the belly of the ship. This morning a light pole mast had been erected on the forecastle, and a triangular sail billowed out from it. Men aloft on the main yard were lashing spars in place. Soon winglike trysails blossomed from the spars. All this new canvas sent Blue Gull galloping hard through the waves, an inelegant pace that threw up huge gouts of water from the blunt bow.

  Tol went to the rail and called to Torwalder in the ship’s waist. “Captain! What’s wrong?” The young seafarer pointed astern. Beyond Blue Gull’s foaming wake were four vessels, two galleys and two lesser, oared ships known as galleots. All four had gray-green hulls, making them hard to distinguish from the sea or the dull, predawn western horizon behind them. The Tarsan Navy was still held impotently in the bay before their fallen city. Legitimate traders did not sail in galleys. These could only be pirates.

  Miya, Frez, and Darpo had awakened and were staring aft as well. Quickly, the entire party buckled on their weapons.

  Tol hurried down the ladder and approached Torwalder.

  The captain waved him away, but Tol would not be put off.

  “When did we pick them up?” he asked.

  “When the stars set. Been on our stern ever since, keeping the same station.”

  A line pulled free and the port trysail flapped uselessly in the wind. Torwalder bawled curses at the foolish sailor whose knots had failed, and the fellow scrambled to make them fast again. Tol returned to his comrades and shared the captain’s news.

  “Can we outrun them?” Kiya wanted to know.

  Darpo shook his head, looking grave. “A lean lugger in a morning gale might, but this tub will never outspeed that pair of quinquiremes. Ships that size have crews of forty not counting rowers. The galleots’ll have a dozen each.” Including Torwalder’s crew, there were only seventeen souls on the Blue Gull.

  When the galleys were first spotted, Captain Torwalder had turned Blue Gull away from her northwest course; he was now running before the wind north by east. The gulf narrowed ahead. They could see tantalizing hints of land off the port side. By the time the sun rose out of the eastern sea, the coast of Ergoth was plainly visible, though still leagues away.

  “Why don’t we just run for shore?” asked Miya, eyeing the distant coast wistfully.

  “The pirates would overtake us long before we reached it,” Darpo said. “They’d box us in, cut off our room to maneuver, and have us in their hands like a ripe plum!”

  Torwalder had no intention of being trapped. The cunning young captain steered for shallow water. His lightly laden roundship drew far less than the heavy galleys. The galleots could pursue them in even shallower waters, but the odds for Blue Gull would be much improved if she could shed the two powerful quinquiremes.

  The sea chase settled into a protracted affair. Whenever the pirates crowded Torwalder, he zigzagged toward shore; the deep-draft galleys fell back, and Torwalder would dash out to sea again. After a time, the Dom-shu sisters grew frustrated with the tiresome chase.

  “Let’s have at them!” Miya declared loudly. “Enough running away!”

  Torwalder had climbed the ladder to the sterncastle to see their pursuers more clearly. Her words carried easily to him, as they were meant to.

  “You don’t want to fight them,” he said, once he was back on the deck again. “Them they don’t kill outright end up chained to an oar, where you row until you die. You womenfolk they might sell ashore as slaves-after they tired of you.”

  Pulling his curly brimmed hat down to shade his eyes, Torwalder studied
the pirate squadron. “Can’t make out the ensign at this distance,” he grunted. “Don’t know who they are.”

  Among the numerous freebooters haunting the gulf, some were especially notorious. These included Morojin, a vicious, one-eyed pirate; Xanka, self-styled King of the Sea; the brothers Hagy and Drom, known as the Firebrands from their habit of burning captured vessels-usually with the hapless crews still on board; the female pirate, Hexylle, who commanded an all-woman crew; and Hagbor, the fearsome sea ogre, who was said to eat his prisoners.

  Around noon, the wind died. Blue Gull, which had been churning along at a decent rate, slowed to crawl. They were on the outward leg of one of Torwalder’s zigzags, in deep water near the center of the gulf. At the captain’s command, sailors dragged buckets of seawater up the masts and drenched the limp sails.

  “Painting the sails,” Darpo told his comrades. Wet canvas caught even the tiniest breath of breeze.

  It didn’t help. Slowly the two gray galleys closed in. The galleots dashed ahead of their bigger brothers, steering on either side of the roundship. Torwalder ordered his men to arms. Pikes and cutlasses were distributed. Four sailors armed with bows took to the rigging.

  “Where would you like us?” Tol asked.

  “Choose your own ground,” the captain replied stonily. “One part of the deck is as good as another to die on.”

  Tol chose to defend the sterncastle. Frez and Darpo pried loose the ladders leading up from the lower deck and hauled them up. Blue Gull sat much higher in the water than the galleots, so at least the defenders would have the advantage of height.

  “Two points port,” Torwalder cried. The man on the steering board bent to his task. A freshening breeze caught the sails, and the roundship surged ahead, bearing hard for the galleot on their left. The captain of the pirate craft either misread Torwalder’s intentions or simply failed to grasp his desperate purpose. The pirate ship held to its straight course. When the other captain finally woke to Torwalder’s plan, it Was too late.

  “He means to ram!” Frez shouted.

  Tol barked, “Hold on!”

  In the last moment the galleot tried to sheer off, pivoting on its own length to elude the roundship. Sails swelling, Blue Gull drove on, snapping the pirate’s starboard oars like kindling. The oaken cutwater hit the galleot’s light planking. Although braced for the impact, Tol and his people were thrown to the deck. A deafening cracking sound filled the air.

  Torwalder roared orders even as Blue Gull ground the enemy under its prow. The port side of the galleot rolled out of the water, oars flailing helplessly in the air. Screams rang out. With irresistible momentum, the roundship tore the pirate vessel in two.

  Kiya got to her knees and crawled to the rail in time to see the stern half of the galleot rise high in the air before it sank. The slave rowers, chained to their benches, shrieked for help as the water rose around them. Heavily armed pirates scrambled over the side, but they were in little better shape. They couldn’t swim long or far weighed down by armor.

  “The slaves are dying!” Kiya cried, seizing Tol’s arm.

  “There’s nothing we can do!” he shouted over the grinding crunch of shattering wood.

  Blue Gull tore free of the galleot. Torwalder turned his ship smartly on a reverse tack and sped away. Sailors lined the rails, jeering their drowning foes.

  Tol and his people crowded the rail as well, mesmerized by the spectacle. The rear half of the galleot slipped beneath the waves, and they saw only a few heads still bobbing on the surface. Blue Gull’s archers sniped at the survivors from the rigging.

  Torwalder had no time to enjoy his success. The other galleot had turned away to avoid the fate of its sister, but the big quinquiremes had put on speed and were bearing down on Blue Gull. Pennants fluttered from pole masts. Largest of these flags was a forked banner in red and white.

  “The flag of Xanka,” said Torwalder grimly. Their pursuer was the so-called King of the Sea.

  White water curled from the heavy bronze ram on the snout of each quinquireme. Just as Blue Gull had smashed the galleot, so too could the pirates’ rams pierce the roundship.

  The galleys drew apart, coming up on either side of Torwalder’s ship. Pirates were massed on the foredecks. Sunlight glittered off their naked blades. The ships were close enough that Tol could see the leers on the pirates’ faces as they caught sight of Miya and Kiya.

  Torwalder commanded his men to erect a boom from the mainmast as they had when the horses were hauled aboard. A spare anchor was winched up from this yard. When a pirate ship came alongside, Torwalder would swing the boom over their deck and drop the anchor. It might not smash all the way through the galley’s hull, but the weighty hook was bound to wreak havoc among the pirates crowded together on deck.

  The battle-god Corij and the Blue Phoenix, god of the sea, favored them. The wind improved, and Blue Gull crept ahead. On the leeward side, quinquireme pirates were manhandling a catapult forward to the bow. Tol told Kiya to aim her arrows at the catapult’s crew when the time came. The Dom-shu woman swore that any who approached the machine would die.

  The chase continued for half the afternoon. Even Torwalder became anxious. Why didn’t Xanka close in? The galleys could overtake them any time they chose, but they seemed content merely to stalk the roundship. Once the sun began sinking in the west, the truth became clear.

  A lookout on Blue Gull’s masthead sang out. “Ships off the starboard bow!” A heartbeat later he added, “More ships to port!”

  From horizon to horizon, a vast arc of ships spread across the gray sea. Oars foamed the water at their sides. Every ship bore the red and white pennant of Xanka.

  Sailors abandoned their posts and swarmed around Captain Torwalder, all shouting at once. Threats were made.

  Blows were exchanged. The young master of the Blue Gull struck down a man with the pommel of his cutlass.

  Tol led his people to the main deck. They cleaved through the rebellious sailors, making their way to Torwalder. Cries of “We’re done for!” and “Time to abandon ship!” rang out all around them.

  “No one leaves my ship!” the captain thundered. “This is mutiny!”

  “We’ll be slaughtered or slaved if we stay!” roared a sailor behind Torwalder as he raised a hatchet high.

  Tol caught the weapon with his saber and turned it aside. Torwalder whirled and ran the man through with his cutlass. The mutineer was dead when he hit the deck.

  That was enough for the crew. Throwing down their weapons, they ran to the rail. Torwalder chased them, slashing the nearest with his sword and bellowing commands. They paid him no heed, scrambling madly over the rail. In moments, the deck was empty save for Tol’s party, and the furious captain.

  “My regrets you have to die on my ship!” Torwalder growled.

  “We’re not dead yet,” Tol said staunchly, but neither he nor his people looked very confident.

  Without steady hands on the steering board or trimming the sails, Blue Gull soon lost its way, luffing and turning beam-on to the following sea. The rhythmic thump of massed oarlocks grew louder as the skulking galleys closed in.

  Grapnels whistled through the air, biting into Blue Gull’s port bulwark. Darpo stepped up to hack off the connecting lines, but Tol stopped him.

  “This is one predicament we can’t fight our way out of,” Tol said evenly. “Put down your weapons and stand by.”

  More grapnels snagged Blue Gull, and the ship was hauled in tight against the long hull of one of the biggest ships any of them had ever seen. Torwalder identified it as Xanka’s flagship, Thunderer, an “elevener”-so called because each oar was manned by eleven rowers.

  Two boarding bridges crashed down to the roundship’s deck. A swarm of heavily armed pirates rushed across and quickly surrounded those remaining on Blue Gull.

  Swords and other weapons were stripped away, hands shackled roughly behind their backs. The buccaneers struck their legs from behind, forcing them to their knees
.

  Across the gangplank came an enormous, broadchested man wearing fancy damascened armor inlaid with gold and silver, and a sword on each hip. Five daggers were visible, poked here and there in his wide red leather belt. On his head was a high, crested helm, likewise intricately damascened, which hid all of his face except his heavy, curled brown beard.

  Once this gaudy apparition stood firmly on Blue Gull’s deck, he removed his helmet and tossed it to a nearby pirate. His face was deeply browned by the sun, his brown eyes wide-set, and his nose crisscrossed by broken veins.

  “Who commands this vessel?” he demanded in a rough, nasal voice.

  No one answered, so the pirate chief nodded at one of his men. The fellow hit the captive nearest him in the center of his back. Frez pitched onto his face, bloodying his nose.

  The pirate chief ignored the snickering of his men. He eyed Torwalder up and down, taking in his obviously nautical attire. “You,” he said. “Are you this ship’s master?” Denial seemed pointless, so Torwalder grunted an affirmative.

  With no further preamble, the pirate chief drew a sword with his left hand and severed Torwalder’s head from his body, all in a single motion. The pirates laughed and kicked the captain’s head around the deck until their master’s rumbling voice called them to order again.

  Torwalder’s body was tossed over the side. His head was saved to grace the bowsprit of the Thunderer.

  All the Ergothians, though battle veterans, were shocked by the suddenness of the captain’s demise. Face set in a grim mask, body tensed to defend Miya and Kiya, Tol waited to see who the pirate chief would approach next.

  “Landlubbers,” the chief said, regarding them thoughtfully. He sheathed his sword. “Well, you look sturdy enough, and I need good rowers on my ship. You are now the property of Xanka, King of the Sea!”

  The pirates set up a loud cheer and fell to looting the luckless Blue Gull. Cursing, trying to resist, Tol, Frez, and Darpo were dragged aboard the galley. Kiya and Miya were held back under Xanka’s pitiless gaze. Miya’s face was pale but calm; Kiya’s showed only contempt for her captor.