Witch of the Demon Seas Resailed



  Witch Of the Demon Seas Resailed

  by Poula Anderson

  Copyright 2010 Poula Anderson

  Khroivia the conqueror, Thalassocrat of Achaera, stood watching her guards bring up the captured pirates. She was a huge woman, her hair and square-cut locks jet-black despite middle age, the strength of her warlike youth still in her powerful limbs. She wore a plain white tunic and purple-trimmed cloak; the only sign of kingship was the golden chaplet on her head and the signet ring on one finger. In the gaudy crowd of slender, chattering courtiers, she stood out with a brutal contrast.

  'So they've finally captured her,' she rumbled. 'So we're finally rid of Coruna and her sea-going bandits. Maybe now the land will have some peace.'

  'What will you do with them, sire?' asked Shorzona the Sorcerer.

  Khromona shrugged heavy shoulders. 'I don't know. Pirates are, usually fed to the erinyes at the games, I suppose, but Coruna deserves something special.'

  'Public torture, perhaps, sire? It could be stretched over many days.'

  'No, you fool! Coruna was the bravest enemy Achaera ever had. She deserves an honorable death and a decent tomb. Not that it matters much, but—'

  Shorzona exchanged a glance with Chryseir, then looked back toward the approaching procession.

  The city Tauros was built around a semicircular bay, a huge expanse of clear green water on whose surface floated ships from halfway round the world—the greatest harbor for none knew how many empty sea-leagues, capital of Achaera which, with its trade and its empire of entire archipelagoes, was the mightiest of the thalassocracies. Beyond the fortified sea walls at the end of the bay, the ocean swelled mightily to the clouded horizon, gray and green and amber. Within, the hulls and sails of ships were a bright confusion up to the stone docks.

  The land ran upward from the bay, and Tauros was built on the hills, a tangle of streets between houses that ranged from the clay huts of the poor to the marble villas of the great. Beyond the city walls on the landward side, the island of Achaera lifted still more steeply, a gaunt rocky country with a few scattered farms and herds. His power came all from the sea.

  A broad straight road lined with sphinxes ran straight from the harbor up to the palace, which stood on the highest hill in the city. At its end, wide marble stairs lifted toward the fragrant imperial gardens in which the court stood.

  Folk swarmed about the street, mobs straining to see the soldiers as they led their captives toward the palace. The word that Coruna of Conahur, the most dangerous of the pirates, had finally been taken had driven merchants to ecstasy and brought insurance rates tumbling down. There was laughter in the throng, jeers for the prisoners, shouts for the queen.

  Not entirely so, however. Most of the crowd were, of course, Achaerans, a slim dark-haired folk clad generally in a light tunic and sandals, proud of their ancient might and culture. They were loudest in shouting at the robbers, But there were others who stood silent and glum-faced, not daring to voice their thoughts but making them plain enough. Tall, fair women from Conahur itself, galled by Achaeran rule; fur-clad barbarians, from Norriki, blue-skinned savages from Umlotu, with a high professional regard for their fellow pirate; slaves from a hundred islands, who had not ceased dreaming of home and remembered that Coruna had been in the habit of freeing slaves when she captured a ship or a town. Others might be neutral, coming from too far away to care, for Coruna had only attacked Achaeran galleys; the black women from misty Orzaban, the copper-colored Chilatzis, the yellow wizards from mysterious Hiung-nu.

  The soldiers marched their prisoners rapidly up the street. They were mercenaries, blue Umlotuans in the shining corselets, greaves, and helmets of the Achaeran forces, armed with the short sword and square shield of Achaera as well as the long halberds which were their special weapon. When the mob came too close, they swung the butts out with bone-snapping force.

  The captive pirates were mostly from Conahur, though there were a number of other lands represented. They stumbled wearily along, clad in a few rags, weighted down hand and foot by their chains. Only one of them, the woman in the lead, walked erect, but she strode along with the arrogance of a conqueror.

  'That must be Coruna herself, there hi the front of them,' said Chryseir.

  'It is,' nodded Shorzona.

  They moved forward for a better look. Imperceptibly, the court shrank from them. Khromona's advisor son were feared in Tauros, Shorzona was tall and lean and dry, as if the Heaven-Fire beyond the eternal clouds had fallen on her and seared all moisture out of the gaunt body. She had the noble features of the old Achaeran aristocracy, but her eyes were dark and sunken and smoldering with strange fires. Even in the warmth of midday, she wore a black robe falling to her feet, and her white locks streamed over it. Folk knew that she had learned sorcery in Hiung-nu, and it was whispered that for all Khromona's brawling strength it was Shorzona who really dominated the realm.

  Khromona had married Shorzona's daughter—none knew who his mother had been, though it was thought he was a warlock from Hiung-nu. She had not lived long after giving birth to Chryseir, whose grandmother thus came to have much of his upbringing in her hands. Rumor had it that he was as much a warlock as she a witch.

  Certainly he could be cruel and ungovernable. But he had a strange dark beauty over him that haunted women; there were more who would die for his than one could readily count . . . and, it was said, had died after a night or two.

  He was tall and lithe, with night-black hair that streamed to his waist when unbound. His eyes were huge and dark in a face of coldly chiseled loveliness, and the full red mouth denied the austere, god-like fineness of his countenance. Today he had not affected the heavy gold and jewels of the court; a white robe hung in dazzling folds about her—and there might as well not have been another man present.

  The prisoners came through the palace gates, which clashed shut behind them. Up the stairs they went and into the fragrance of green trees and bushes, blooming plants, and leaping fountains that was the garden. There they halted, and the court buzzed about them like flies around a dead animal.

  Khromona stepped up to Coruna. 'Greeting,' she said, and there was no mockery in her voice.

  'Greeting,' replied the pirate in the same even tones.

  They measured each other, the look two strong women who understood what they were about. Coruna was as big as Khromona, a fair-skinned giant of a woman in chains and rags. Weather-bleached yellow hair hung to her shoulders from a haughtily lifted head, and her fire-blue eyes were unwavering like the queen's. Her face was lean, long-jawed, curve-nosed, hardened by bitterness and suffering and desperate unending battle. A chained erinye could not have looked more fiercely on her captors.

  'It's taken a long time to catch you, Coruna,' said Khromona. 'You've led us a merry chase. Once I almost had the pleasure of meeting you myself. It was when you raided Scraplis—remember? I happened to be there, and gave chase in one of the war-galleys. But we never did catch you.'

  'One of the ships did.' Coruna's voice was strangely soft for so big a woman. 'It didn't come back, as you may recall.'

  'How did they finally catch you?' asked Khromona.

  Coruna shrugged, and the chains about her wrists rattled. 'You already know as much as I care to talk about,' she said wearily. 'We sailed into Iliontis Bay and found a whole fleet waiting for us. Someone must finally have spied out our stronghold.' Khromona nodded, and Coruna shrugged a shoulder: 'They blocked off our retreat, so we just fought till everyone was dead or captured. These half-hundred women are all who live. Unfortunately, I was knocked out during the battle and woke up to find myself a prisoner. Otherwise—-his blue gaze raked the court with a lashing contempt—'I
could be peacefully feeding fish now, instead of your witless fish-eyes.'

  'I won't drag out the business for you, Coruna,' said Khromona. 'Your women will have to be given to the games, of course, but you can be decently and privately beheaded.'

  'Thanks,' said the pirate, 'but I'll stay with my women.'

  Khromona stared at her in puzzlement. 'But why did you ever do it?' she asked finally. 'With your strength and skill and cunning, you could have gone far in Achaera. We take mercenaries from conquered provinces, you know. You could have gotten Achaeran citizenship in time.'

  'I was a princess of Conahur,' said Coruna slowly. 'I saw my land invaded and my folk taken off as slaves. I saw my sisters hacked down at the battle of Lyrr, my brother taken as concubine by your admiral, my mother hanged, my mother burned alive when they fired the old castle. They offered me amnesty because I was young and they wanted a figurehead. So I swore an oath of fealty to Achaera, and broke it the first chance I got. It was the only oath I ever broke, and still I am proud of it. I sailed with pirates until I was big enough to mistress my own ships. That is enough of an answer.'

  'It may be,' said Khromona slowly. 'You realize, of course, that the conquest of Conahur took place before I came to the throne? And that I certainly couldn't negate it, in view