Fires of Scorpio (12 page)

“I am not sure,” I said.

“I have a canoe and ten willing paddlers. I whip them only to keep them happy. You will not regret hiring me, horter. By the Bloody Jaws of the Brown River Herself!”

The offer was tempting. A few gold pieces — croxes they were called hereabouts — would hire him. If he tried treachery his knife would avail him nothing. And I did want to know what had happened to Seg...

And then common sense prevailed. “Sink me!” I burst out. “Seg can take care of himself!”

“Do what, horter?”

“Nothing. Here.” I handed over a single gold piece. “Thank you for your concern. Have a wet on me.”

I walked off, feeling that I had behaved like a fool. Seg was probably the toughest orneriest critter in this part of South Pandahem. He’d shaft anyone who tried to harm him or the lady Milsi.

Going back to the ship I met a fellow who looked to be wider than he was tall, an optical illusion enhanced by the vast leather carapace he wore. His face appeared to have been cut ruggedly from the side of a barn. Brick red, bewhiskered, sharply blue of eye, that face bore the marks of a man accustomed to throwing his weight about.

“Hai!” he called, rolling up to me. “Horter Jak! We’ve been looking everywhere for you. I’ve looked in all the sleaziest stews this side of Hamal!”

I stopped. “Llahal, Captain. You are?”

“Why, Lahal, Horter Jak! I’m Cap’n Murkizon of
Blackfang
. Who else, by the Black Moustache of the Divine Lady of Belschutz!”

“I do not have the honor of the lady’s acquaintance, Captain. But thank you for looking for me. I am on my way back to the ship.”

“Aye! To that Cap’n Linson’s sea-scow!”

Any ideas I might have entertained of going aboard
Blackfang
were quashed by Pompino. As I went up onto the quarterdeck, observing the fantamyrrh as I did so, Pompino hurried forward.

“Jak! We were all worried. Thank you, Captain Murkizon. I shall want to see you later. Now, Jak, listen—”

“It might be amusing if I shipped in
Blackfang
—”

He looked stricken. He drew me aside. “What, Jak, have you lost your senses? I lead our partnership. Do you think I intend to endure the miseries of a swordship when I can sail in comfort in this splendid argenter? And we must stick together. You know that.”

In the end I acquiesced. Thereby hang the threads of our fates.

The smell of mud permeated this place. Mattamlad slumbered under the suns. The heat rotted everything. Sweat was copiously shed. The quicker we were away the better. At last, joined by seven ships from the port, we weighed and let loose our sails and picked up a breeze and so set forth to confront the pirates in their lair.

Chapter eleven

Cap’n Murkizon mentions his Divine Lady of Belschutz

“What do you make of her, Captain?”

Captain Linson did not for the moment reply to Pompino’s question. He balanced easily, staring at the speck infuriatingly rising and falling on the horizon. The fleet sailed around us, and every glass would be trained on that distant dot of mystery. Linson lowered his telescope.

“Impossible to say. But a single ship would not sail these waters voluntarily if she was crewed by honest men.”

“Ah!” said Pompino, and brushed up his whiskers.

I looked around at the fleet. The crowding ships presented a marvelous spectacle, a sea filled with sails. Around our flanks patrolled the swordships and risslacters, long and low and lean, their oars driving them half the time through the water, it seemed, the other half over it. Their rams snouted hungrily. The commodore in charge of the convoy was reputed to know these waters thoroughly, and had given guarantees to the owners that he would get their ships through. Certainly, we had sighted nothing suspicious, and had penetrated a goodly distance into the Koroles, maintaining a course through deep water and avoiding too close proximity to any island.

All the same, that vessel hovering on the horizon was clearly a spy, sent out to keep observation on our progress. The charts we had of the area were sketchy, and Linson explained this in the old and timelessly frustrating way.

“The local people feel their waters should be charted by them. It is difficult to come by reliable charts of these waters.”

So now we would have to wait to be attacked. Sooner or later, and no matter how well the commodore guided us, we would have to pass near to one or other of the islands. When we did, then we could be pounced upon and devoured piecemeal.

We now sailed the Sea of Chem, although strictly speaking we had left that sea to enter what Vallians called the Southern Ocean. To me, a fellow accustomed to dealings with the southern continent of Havilfar, the idea of the Southern Ocean being north of Havilfar remained as a reminder of the strong parochial natures even of great peoples of Kregen. The people hereabouts, including the commodore, called the stretch of waters the Pandakor Sea. It would make no difference what the name of the water happened to be if it closed over our sinking hulls.

Pompino in his affronted way, said: “Why doesn’t the commodore despatch a swordship to sink or drive off this pestiferous fellow?”

I left it to Captain Linson to explain something of the arcana of the sea to Pompino who was, to be sure, a landlubber who happened to own a fleet of ships.

“She hovers away there upwind of us, Horter Pompino. She has the weather gage. She can control how far down to us she runs before beating away. And a swordship would never catch her—”

“Why not? A swordship has oars, does she not?”

“Against the wind, the oarsmen would be destroyed in the amount of time required to pull that distance. And when the swordship reached that spot, the shadower would be long gone.”

“It is not,” Pompino delivered himself of the opinion with considerable force, “like riding a zorca.”

Low down and to the northeast appeared a wide dark smear across the horizon.

Pompino borrowed Linson’s glass and studied that dark streak. He braced his shoulders back.

“If we are to sail this close to an island, we must prepare.”

Forgetting all about my cunning scheme to pretend ignorance of nautical ways, I was jolted into saying: “That’s no island, Pompino. That’s foul weather.”

Captain Linson pivoted to regard me. His sharp face with that damned great hooked nose tautened. “Without a glass, horter Jak? You are so confident?”

So, of course, I had to say, “Well, out in the desert that’s what bad weather looks like sometimes.”

The lame explanation passed, and I contumed myself for so petty a deception. Truth to tell, despite the companionship and keeping myself busy, I fretted. The Leem Lovers waited, and I wanted to get about this private venture for the Star Lords.

The gods and spirits of the oceans evidently decided to balk me a little further. The gale was due. Judging by the extent of that ominous bar of blackness across the horizon, she was going to be a big blow.

Swordships are cranky and wet and uncomfortable craft. Something like a galleass of Earth, a swordship pulls her oars as her main propulsive element; but she has masts and canvas and can sail reasonably handily. Not so a risslacter. A risslacter is closer to the galley of Earth, even lower, even leaner — and far wetter and more uncomfortable. They’d have to run for shelter if the blow steepled the waves to overtop their freeboard. That would not take much of a wind.

Linson shared that view.

“The commodore is signaling.” Bunting broke across the flagship’s rigging; this brought back the memories. Perhaps I was taking this whole naval excursion too matter-of-factly. I had simply drunk in the naval atmosphere, feeling back at home, and had taken for granted the romantic and dangerous elements inseparable from sea voyages on Kregen.

The signals brought a change of course. I judged the commodore had no thought of avoiding the storm; he must be heading to gain the lee of an island. I scanned the horizon to larboard. No sign of land broke that shining surface. And the blackness of the gale reached higher and higher into the glowing sky.

Presently the outriders of the storm arrived. The sea got up. The sky darkened.
Tuscurs Maiden
began to respond to the sea and her motion increased. The warships pulled ahead, angling their yards, trying to make a run for it. We watched them go, and lumbered along after.

Thunder and lightning pelted down. The sky grew black. The sea writhed, and still no rain came sizzling down. Safety lines were rigged. The hatches were inspected. The canvas was reefed until we ran under a storm jib and a scrap aft. I would have preferred to have taken the canvas off the yards altogether; but Linson was the master.

Pompino went below. The Relt stylor, Rasnoli, who to his surprise had been included in our expedition, took a bucket below. He, too, did not look too happy about the feathers. Poor Pompino.

The gale, when at last it struck full force, was not as bad as I had expected. We managed to creep into the lee of an island and so rode out the worst. The darkness persisted. We heard a tremendous crash and the following yells and shrieks, and guessed two ships had collided. Linson looked calm and confident; but he strode his quarterdeck at a more rapid pace, trying to be everywhere at once.

The gale lasted the rest of the day and most of the night. Linson handled his ship well. We kept up against the sea, only running away at the moment when to do anything else would have seen us dismasted and swamped. Toward morning the motion of the sea appreciably abated. A few stars pricked out above. We had lost no one overboard. The mercenaries were packed away below and no doubt were as green faced as poor Pompino.

As the dawn broke luridly across the horizon and the sea, churned into long deep green rollers, bore on away ahead of us,
Tuscurs Maiden
began to resume her status as a sea-conquering vessel and not a mere half-drowned scrap of driftwood.

A man climbed up onto the deck and, crossing to the side, looked over. He was apim, a paktun — he wore the silver mortilhead — and an archer. He wore a green tunic and gray trousers, and he looked useful. He saw me watching him.

“Good morning, horter.”

“Morning, Larghos.” His name was Larghos the Hatch, not a talkative man, and hired at the top going rate for a mercenary bowman who was not a Bowman of Loh.

He pointed over the side. “I think he is done for.”

I joined him and looked where his finger pointed.

A man floated in the water. He clung to a splintered spar, and the sea spumed over him as though he were a submerged rock.

“I do not think so. If he has been afloat all night—”

“Then,” quoth Larghos the Flatch, stripping off his tunic, “he may be saved.” With that, he jumped over the side.

The lookout was already yelling. Everything must be done nip and tuck, or we would lose Larghos. I could not fault his conduct; but Linson would probably rave.

The air struck sweet and crisp after the gale. The Suns of Scorpio rose in their blaze of splendor. The sea opened out — empty of ships. We sailed alone upon that hostile sea in the dawning light.

Linson and Naghan Pelamoin, his Ship-Hikdar, proved themselves fine seamen as they took way off the ship and rounded her to in the swell. A rope’s end was chucked down and Larghos the Flatch was hauled inboard. With him was pulled up a cursing, sodden, raving barrel of a man who shed water all over the deck and glared balefully about.

“Welcome aboard, Captain,” said Linson. He spoke with great urbanity, but the transparency of his enjoyment was lost on no one.

The fellow sputtered, spraying water. His hair hung plastered to his scalp. He looked obsessed with fury. Brick-red his face, ferocious his whiskers, brilliantly blue his eyes. He stamped and water squelched.

“Aye, Cap’n Linson! You may laugh, by the Cross Eyes of the Divine Lady of Belschutz!”

Pompino, looking gaunt, hurried on deck. He stared, appalled.

“Captain Murkizon!
Blackfang!
Where is my beautiful
Blackfang
?”

“Do not upset yourself, Horter Pompino!
Blackfang
still sails, Pandrite rot ’em! Sailed off and left me when the damned sea washed me overboard. I’ll have ’em all, I’ll trice ’em all up and strip their skins off jikaider — so help me!”

“Fell overboard, did you, Captain?” said Linson. He radiated enjoyment.

“Not
fell
overboard, you — you—” Murkizon dragged in a great breath of air and swung his arms. “
Washed
overboard!”

I said casually, “Better get below, Captain, and dry off. Although you may have trouble finding dry clothes to fit you.”

He swung to regard me, must have recognized me, must have practically decided what to reply, when the masthead lookout sang out, high and clear.

“Swordship! Swordship!”

“Thank Pandrite,” said Pompino, rushing to the rail. “It must be my lovely
Blackfang
.”

We all stared, but of course we would not see the swordship for a space yet. The suns shone, Linson set the hands to their duty with a few dryly cutting words, and Murkizon took himself off to the galley to dry out. I perked up. Life was undoubtedly going to be more entertaining from now on.

I was right in that. But the entertainment was far different from what I was expecting.

The lookout called down information on the estimated course and speed of the swordship. He could not distinguish her colors at the distance, even with a balanced telescope, and her build meant she was low in the water and much like any other swordship — not all. I fancied that if some men I had known in my career were in command of
Tuscurs Maiden
they’d be up the ratlines like monkeys to take a damned good look at the fellow for themselves. Old Abe would, for a certainty.

The breeze veered and backed uncertainly. Towards the hour of mid it settled down to a stiff westerly breeze. I sniffed the air. This amount of wind would be just about the maximum a swordship would tolerate. Here an interesting feature of the ships of Earth and of Kregen came into play, for ships and their rigging are designed in different ways on different coasts where the prevailing winds dictate what is the best sail plan. The argenters of North Pandahem usually carried a crossjack on their mizzen mast. Whilst the lateen was not unknown on Kregen, down south, instead of a pure lateen they used a kind of standing lug on the mizzen. The effect was to enable the argenter to sail a little more stiffly and keep her head more up into the wind. We were thus able to steer a good northerly course, resuming our onward progress.