Ship of Magic

Page 108

Kennit felt distant and detached as he watched their hapless victim roped in and secured. As dawn ventured over the water, Sorcor and his raiders leaped or swung across the small distance between the two vessels, whooping and screeching their bloodlust. Kennit himself lifted his cuff to his nose and breathed through his sleeve to keep from inhaling the stench of the slaver. He remained aboard the Marietta with a skeleton crew. Those who remained with him were plainly frustrated to be cheated of the slaughter, yet someone had to man the Marietta and be ready either to repel boarders or cast loose the grappling lines if things went against them.

Kennit was a spectator to the slaughter of the slaver's crew. They had little expected to be attacked by pirates. Their cargo was not usually to a pirate's taste. Most pirates, like Kennit, preferred valuable, non-perishable goods, preferably easily transportable. The chained slaves below decks were the only cargo this ship carried. Even if the pirates had had the will to make the tedious voyage to Chalced to sell them, the transport of such cargo demanded a watchful eye and a strong stomach. Such livestock needed to be guarded as well as fed, watered and provided with rudimentary sanitation. The ship itself would have some value, Kennit supposed, though the current stench it gave off was enough to turn his stomach.

The crew of the slaver had such weapons as they carried to keep their cargo in order and little more than that. They did not, Kennit reflected, seem to have much idea of how to fight an armed and healthy man; he supposed that one became accustomed to beating or kicking men in chains and forgot what it was like to deal with any other type of opponent.

He had earlier tried to persuade Sorcor that the crew and vessel might have some ransom value, even if divested of their cargo. Sorcor had been adamantly opposed. “We kill the crew, free the cargo and sell the ship. But not back to other slavers,” he had loftily stipulated.

Kennit was beginning to regret letting the man think he regarded him as an equal. He was becoming entirely too demanding, and seemed unaware of how odious Kennit found such behavior. Kennit narrowed his eyes as he considered that the crew seemed overly pleased with Sorcor's idealistic ranting. He doubted it was that they shared his lofty goals of suppressing slavery. More like that they relished the thought of unreined carnage. As he watched two of his worthy seamen together loft a still-living man over the side and into the waiting maw of a serpent, Kennit nodded his head slowly to himself. This bestial bloodshed was what they craved. Perhaps he had been keeping too tight a rein on the men for the sake of the ransom that live captives bought. He tucked that thought away for later consideration. He could learn from anyone, even Sorcor. All dogs needed to be let off their leashes now and then. He mustn't let the crew believe that only Sorcor could provide such treats.

He quickly wearied of watching the final slaughter. The slaver's crew was no match for his. There was no organization to their ship's defense, merely a band of men trying not to die. They failed at that. The mass of men that had met the pirate's boarding party rapidly diminished to knots of defenders surrounded by implacable foe. The ending was predictable; there was no suspense at all to this conquest. Kennit turned away from it. There was a sameness to men dying that bored more than disgusted him. The shrieks, the blood that gushed or leaked, the final frantic struggles, the useless pleas; he had seen it all before. It was far more enlightening to watch the two serpents.

He wondered if they had not escorted this ship for some time; perhaps they even regarded it companionably, as a sort of provider of easy feeding. They had withdrawn when the Marietta initially attacked, seemingly spooked by the flurry of activity. But when the sounds of battle and the shrieks of the dying began, they came swiftly back. They circled the locked ships like dogs begging at a table, vying with one another for the choicest positions. Never before had Kennit had the opportunity to observe a serpent for so long and at such close quarters. These two seemed fearless. The larger one was a scintillating crimson mottled with orange. When he reared his head and neck from the water and opened his maw, a ruff of barbs stood out around his throat and head like a lion's mane. They were fleshy, waving appendages, reminding Kennit of the stinging arms on an anemone or jellyfish. He would have been much surprised to discover they were not tipped with some sort of paralyzing poison. Certainly when the smaller turquoise worm vied with the larger one, he avoided the touch of the other's ruff.

What the smaller serpent lacked in size it made up for in aggression. It dared to come much closer to the ship's side, and when it lifted its head to the height of the slaveship's rail, it opened its maw as well, baring row upon row of pointed teeth. It hissed when it did so, sending forth a fine cloud of venomous spittle. The cloud engulfed two struggling men. Both of them immediately left off their own fight and fell gasping to the deck, writhing in a useless struggle to pull air into their lungs. They soon grew still while the frustrated serpent lashed the sea beside the ship into foam, furious that its prey remained safe aboard the ship. Kennit guessed that it was young and inexperienced.