Hiero Desteen: 01 - Hiero's Journey (34 page)

He felt for the steersman of the pirate, for such he now knew it to be without any question. The man's name, he learned, was Horg, and his life had been evil, his mind a reeking cesspool.
Turn the wheel, Horg, my boy; edge off now, that's it, away a few points, now quick! Yaw; the ship's in great danger! Hurry!

An exclamation from Captain Gimp made him open his eyes. Astern of them, the square-rigger had come up into the wind, her sails all flapping, the ship in irons. Hiero shut his eyes and simultaneously felt Horg's mind die, as the life went out of the man. The enemy wasted no time, though they had lost a quarter of a mile.

But as the big ship came around and back on course, a groan went up from the
Foam Girl's
idle sailors, who had been watching in fascination. A torrent of oaths from the square little skipper drove them back to their work and cleared the poop again, save for the helmsman, the arrow engine crew, Aldo, Luchare, and Hiero.

Once again, the priest probed for the helmsman. But whoever was the master of the great ship was a quick thinker. One of the four shielded minds now steered the ship. Undaunted, Hiero found a nearby sailor. His name was Gimmer, and his mind, if possible, was more repellent than that of the dead Horg.

The helmsman is your deadly enemy. He hates you. He is taking you into danger. He will kill you. You must kill him first! Quickly! Now!
Coldly and ruthlessly, Hiero drove the craven will to the assault. Ordinarily a sensitive and kindly man, he had no compunction about slaying creatures such as these sealice. Wasting false sentiment over the truly wicked was no part of an Abbey warrior-priest's training. The world was harsh enough on decent folk without coddling vermin.

But this time he was frustrated. The mind he had overpowered was not allowed to consummate its fell purpose. As (watching through Gimmer's eyes) he crept upon the helmsman, a sudden pain in the captive chest, a blazing weakness of the controlled limbs, halted him in his, or rather Gimmer's, tracks. Then, as Gimmer, too, died. Hiero saw the arrow protruding from the
sailor's chest.

Again he opened his eyes to the world as seen from his own body. He felt drained of energy. "It's no good," he shouted to Brother Aldo over the noise of the rising rain, "They had good archers stationed about the ship in key positions. Unless I can get one of
them
under control, I'm licked. They must have orders to shoot down anyone who even looks suspicious. And it's tiring me out. I can't keep taking these people over in this rough and ready way, forcing totally unknown minds to do whatever I want. It's drawing too much nervous energy out of my own body. I'll try again, but it really doesn't get easier, just the reverse."

Actually, although he didn't want to admit the fact, Hiero was a bit ashamed. He had been sure he could do a lot more than he was able to do in fact. He had felt that taking over a whole ship all at once would be easy. And now, in mere moments, he was half-exhausted and seemingly frustrated as well.

Captain Gimp chose this moment to try a maneuver of his own. He bawled an order, and the two big lateen sails slatted as the wheel spun and
Foam Girl
came up into the wind, pointing as high as she was able to. Instantly the ship's motion changed into a steep up-and-down chop as she began to attack the waves instead of riding with them, as she had done on the previous reach. She now was heading almost due west, seeming to charge the gray clouds racing down from the northwest.

"Square-rigger's no good at pointing," Gimp shouted to his passengers as they clung to the heaving rail. "Maybe we can get above him." He was seeking the protection of the wind itself, trying to move
Foam Girl
closer to the wind than the enemy vessel. The wind would provide an invisible barrier if the trick could be worked.

It could not. The great, lean hull of their pursuer came around beautifully in line with their stern. The square yards, tiny figures scrambling along the yardarms, lay almost fiat, and the trysails and stunsails set fore and aft between the mast now showed as they took the weight of the wind. With the help of these sails and a huge gaff spanker on the mizzenmast, the big stranger began to overtake them even more easily than before, for her hull's length and height out of the water made far less of the steep wave action than the little
Foam Girl.

"She's really unprintably lovely," Captain Gimp shouted in admiration. The squat sailor instinctively responded to the beauty of the other vessel's design, even though it might mean his own destruction. He bawled another order and
Foam Girl
paid off, back on her old course to the southeast, with the wind in her quarter. At least this way she did not have to fight the seas as well, but could ride them. Behind her, close enough to see her black hull lift and the white bow wave, the pursuer came back too. She was less than half a mile away. A white figurehead, looking like a woman's body, glistened with wetness.

Can you do anything?
the Metz asked Brother Aldo, once again mind-to-mind.

I am seeking what large water creatures are found here,
was the old man's answer.
So far, I have found nothing. But I sense motion not far away. However, it is uncertain, and I need a little
time. Can you reach one of the archers you spoke of, or are you too tired? Any delay will help.

"I thought so!" Gimp shouted. His one-eyed mate had come and whispered something to him before slinking back to his control of the lower deck.

"Bald Roke is the man we have to deal with," the captain continued. "We can't be taken alive. His crew are cannibals and worse." Luchare wondered to herself how you got "worse" but said nothing. "That ship's
The Ravished Bride,
and she's manned by men, and other things, worse than any afloat. Bald Roke would skin his own sister alive for two coppers and a belly laugh. A good sailor, though, rot his dirty bowels, and that ship's a bloody marvel."

Hiero only half-heard him. Once again he was seeking the unguarded minds of the enemy. He passed two non-human minds, one a Howler's, the other something new to him, and then found what he was seeking. In a lower crosstree crouched an archer armed with a crossbow, his gaze sweeping the deck as he watched for any sign of mutiny or other dangerous behavior. Hiero did not seek his name or anything else. With the utmost of mental strength he had left, he simply went after the man's own nerve endings, using the captive forebrain like a pair of pliers. The archer screamed in horror as his weapon rose to aim at the
Bride's
helmsman despite his passionate attempt to force it down.

Once again, Hiero failed, though not by much. The bow went off and the quarrel sped on its way to bury itself in human flesh. But not the helmsman's. Instead, the bolt drove into the brain of a man standing nearby. At the same time, the archer himself died as three arrows and a thrown spear struck him in turn. Hiero clearly saw the captain of the enemy, who gave the order, through the archer's fading sight, even as the man pitched from his lofty seat into the heaving sea. Tall, gaunt to emaciation, dressed in fantastic orange velvet, covered with jewels, his brown skull gleaming in the half-light, Bald Roke was a strange and repellent figure. His thin, clean-shaven face was disfigured by a scar running across it at the bridge of his nose, a crooked weal marking some past scuffle. Hiero felt him staring even as the priest withdrew from the dying body of his unwilling ally. Something else he saw too. Around the enemy leader's neck was a heavy chain of familiar bluish metal, and from it hung a massive, square pendant of the same, almost a shallow box. This was the source of the other's protection, the priest knew, a mechanical mind shield. He felt even wearier as he opened his own eyes again. Was there no weapon he could command against the hidden skills of the Unclean adepts?

But he was, mercifully, given no time to waste on self-pity.

"In the name of Blessed Saint Francis the Ecologist, they come!" Brother Aldo shouted. "Behold the children of the great waters!"

As he spoke, Captain Gimp ordered
Foam Girl
again into the wind and simultaneously had the sails lowered. They came down with a crash, and ail ran to the starboard rail to gaze at the new arrivals.

Protruding from the water between the two vessels, for
The Ravished Bride
now also came up into the wind and brailed her sails also, were two great heads. For a moment Hiero did not
realize what he was seeing, and then he gasped, for they were birds, although of monstrous size. The sleek, giant bodies were almost invisible under the tossing waters, but each was at least two-thirds the length of the
Foam Girl
herself. The beautiful heads and thick necks were not, apparently, feathered, but almost scaled and a lovely, soft green. The titanic beaks were straight, rounded javelins, each at least twelve feet long. The great, bright eyes darted nervously about from one ship to the other, but the enormous invisible paddles kept the two avian monsters in place, responsive to the old Elevener's will,

"I won't have them attack if we can scare the other ship off," Brother A
l
do said to the priest. "Even the Lowan are not invulnerable, and that ship is full of weapons,"

For a moment the two vessels hung, bowsprits to the wind, while the crews simply stared at one another and the birds, each seeming to wait for the other to take some action. Then a human voice, speaking
batwah,
rose above the wind and carried easily over the two hundred feet of foaming water.

"Ahoy, there, is that you, Gimp, you little tub of rat puke? Speak up, lardguts, if you're not afraid to."

Bald Roke, his orange suit glittering even in the gray light of the cloudy sky, hung rakishly from one of his ratlines, leering across at the
Foam Girl.
As he shouted, his crew exploded in a storm of laughter and obscene jeers, glad to have a relief from the strain of watching the great birds, whose appearance seemed sheer magic to them.

"I'm here, Roke, you dirty corpse-eater!" Gimp yelled in reply. "Better get your carrion barge out of here before we turn our little friends loose on it!"

"Will you indeed?" Roke said, smiling" gently. He seemed to ignore the giant birds, and Hiero silently gave him credit for possessing his share of nerve, Roke went on.

"Tell you what, fatty, I think whoever runs these two pretty chickens would have turned 'em loose already, that is, if he dared. What do you think of that, now?" Again his crew screamed in delight, and a sea of edged weapons was brandished as they did. Moke waved one skinny hand and they quieted instantly.

"We could take you, birdies and all, you little blubber bag, but it might cost me some paint," the pirate continued, staring hard at the silent group on the poop of
Foam Girl.
"So, being inclined for fun, I'll make you an offer, a generous one. Give us the dirty-looking rat with the paint
on his nose and the whiskers, and the girl. In return, you're free to depart. What say you, short pizz
l
e?"

Gimp answered instantly, but not before spitting into the sea. "Go fry your crew of man-eaters in human grease, Roke. You'll get nought from us. But you brag, don't you, about how tough you are, skinhead? I dare you to fight
me
for a free passage, under Inland Seas Truce, man against man, hand weapons of choice. What do you say to that, you bony bag of slave girl's gauds?" This time it was the
Foam Girl's
crew who shouted and brandished weapons, while the
Bride's
crew were silenced. The wonderful birds still held their place, as if they were mere ducks on some farm pond, Hiero thought absently.

After a brief colloquy with two of his subordinates, Roke swung back into the rigging, a vicious look on his face, the smile gone.

"All right, you little blot of slime weed, I take you. Anchor, and so will I. But not us two alone, see. Me and one of my mates will meet you and that brown-skinned savage with the painted face. Otherwise no go, and I gives the order to attack. What do you say now, turdhead?"

"They're determined on you, Master Desteen," Captain Gimp said in a low voice. "They want you somehow, and what's more, Roke'll risk his whole ship and crew to get you. Can you fight? Are you game?"

"Try me," Hiero said, slapping him on the back. In truth, he was tired, but he saw no way out of this. "Will these dirty rogues keep such a bargain if they lose?"

"Oh, yes!" Gimp was shocked. "Even the worst sea scum will honor a Seas Truce for single combat. Oh, yes, have no fear. But Roke is a notable fighter. And who knows whom he'll bring with him? We'd better get ready." Captain Gimp turned and waved assent to Roke, who left the rigging at once.

Hiero now saw a ship's boat launched from
The Ravished Bride;
and while Gimp armed himself, he explained that the challenging vessel was always the scene of the combat.

"We have nought to lose," he went on. "All of the others will be slaves if we two are killed. But at least not killed and eaten. And if we win, we get their cargo or a good part of it; all we can carry, at any rate."

Luchare helped Hiero strip to his pants and soft boots. Daughter of soldier-kings, she said nothing and did not need to, but he could feel her body trembling through her hands. He knew she would not survive him by a minute, should he fall. Brother Aldo simply patted his hand and then turned away, back to his control of the birds.