An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

  The creature also had that aura of command that animated Colgrave.

  "This's the one who called us back," I whispered.

  Mica nodded.

  I had myself in control. I tested the draw of my bow.

  Black birds wheeled overhead, screeching their consternation. One dove at the figure in red.

  The figure raised a palm. It spoke a single word.

  Feathers exploded. They spun down toward ships and sea, smoldering as they fell. The stench of burnt feathers assailed the air.

  The naked albatross smashed into Dragon's side. It broke its neck. It thrashed in the water briefly, then changed form. In seconds it became a thing like a snake of night. The thing wriggled away through water and air with lightning speed.

  Its companions screeched once, then remained silent. They did not cease their endless patrol. They clearly preferred avoiding their comrade's liberation.

  The figure in red said something.

  Someone shouted orders in a strange language. Sailors threw grappling hooks over Dragon's rail.

  I looked at Colgrave. An arrow lay across my bow.

  He made a slight negative head gesture.

  "He has changed," I told Mica. "He says let them come." I looked again. Colgrave was instructing Toke and Lank Tor. They descended to the main deck.

  They disposed the men in such fashion that they could attack the boarders from all sides.

  We waited.

  One of the smaller ship's officers came up. He looked round, saw the lay of things. He was not happy. He glanced at me. I half drew my bow. He cringed.

  I laughed. Old Barley giggled. The crew took it up.

  We were not kind people. We enjoyed tormenting our captives.

  Again Colgrave gave me that little headshake. A nasty grin smeared his face too. He liked my joke.

  More of them came. And more, and more.

  "Mica, they're all coming over."

  "Looks like."

  They stood on the main deck, nervously watched Colgrave.

  "Slide back and tell the Old Man we can sneak down and knock a hole in their bottom when they're all up here. If he wants."

  Mica grinned. "Yeah." It was his kind of dirty trick. He liked sneaking.

  I expect his sins involved some fancy sneakiness. He wasn't chicken, mind. Just the kind of guy who sees the advantages of back-stabbing. A low-risk type guy. He could handle himself face-to-face, when the stakes were high. He shoved through the strangers. They twisted away from him like he was a plague carrier.

  I watched a grin spread across Colgrave's battered face. It was as lopsided as the altars of Hell. The muscles only worked on one side.

  He liked it. My suggestion did not violate his inexplicable armistice with the creature in red.

  Mica almost danced back to the forecastle.

  The sorcerer boarded last. Its crew surrounded it. It disappeared among them. They were all bigger.

  I laughed, catching the creature's attention. I again half drew my bow.

  It looked at me with no apparent fear, but I knew better. I knew I could take the sorcerer if just one instant's gap opened through those bodyguards.

  We had not been stripped of our defenses. I could get an arrow from here to there quicker than the creature could blink.

  It knew too. That was why it had brought its whole crew. In the time it would take us to kill them, it could perform the sorceries needed to save itself.

  It, too, concentrated on Colgrave.

  The Old Man's eye flicked my way just once, for a tenth of a second.

  Mica and I rolled over the rail into the ratlines, transferred to the other vessel's stays, got down to her deck in seconds.

  "Bowman, you see about sinking her. I'll go through the cabin."

  "Good thinking. But look for something besides loose gold."

  He gave me a look.

  I looked back. Gold was Mica's weakness. Whenever we took a ship, he spent most of the celebration scrounging gold and silver. He brought it back, and we took it down and put it in ballast, never knowing what we would ever do with it.

  That was one tough little ship. It took me twenty minutes to chop a decent hole through her thin planking. By the time I finished I knew she would not sink before the strangers could get back aboard.

  I chuckled. That made the joke richer.

  I hustled back topside. We were taking too long. "Mica!" I called softly. "Come on. We haven't got all day."

  He poked his head out the deckhouse door. "Here. Take some of this crap."

  He had gotten some gold, of course. But not much. The rest seemed to be books, papers, and the thing-gobbies sorcerers have to have to be comfortable doing their nasties.

  VII

  I rolled over Dragon's rail expecting all eyes to be looking my way.

  None were. None did. The strangers were crowded against the base of the poop. Colgrave stood above them, a mocking smile on half his face. Everybody stared at him like he was some demon god.

  Sometimes I thought he was myself.

  The men were impatient. The strangers felt it. Their fear was about to become panic. Only the will of the creature in red kept them from running.

  Mica handed up our plunder. I concealed it beneath a spritsail lying on the forecastle deck. Mica rolled over the rail.

  Colgrave's glance flicked our way. His smile stretched. He terminated the audience with a shrug and a turned back.

  The creature in red started back to its vessel. Its followers surged around it, eager to be gone.

  I half drew my bow for the third time.

  The creature in red smiled at me.

  That made me mad. I would have let fly had Colgrave not shook his head.

  Nobody mocked the Bowman . . . .

  Then they were gone, their vessel turning away and heading back whence it had come. They stood around watching us, as if to make sure we did not change our minds about letting them go.

  Their ship was a foot lower in the water already. Soon they would realize that she was not responding properly. They would discover the hole . . . .

  I had cut it too big for them to keep afloat by pumping. And I doubted that they would be able to get a good patch on it. I slapped Mica's back. "Let's take the stuff to the Old Man."

  It was not a chore that pleased me. Though it was unavoidable, I plain did not like being anywhere near Colgrave. But with Student gone, he was the only reader left aboard.

  Anyway, he needed to know what we had. If anything.

  He stirred through the pile. Mica's personal plunder he pushed to one side. Mica took it below. The rest Colgrave sorted into three piles. A half-dozen items he just flipped over his shoulder, over the rail, into the sea. Then he examined the piles again. He deep-sixed several more items.

  Toke, Tor, and I watched in silence. Colgrave kept dithering, poking. I don't think he knew what he had. But Colgrave was not the kind to admit ignorance.

  Finally, I could stand no more. "What did they want?" I demanded.

  "The usual," Colgrave replied without looking up. "A little murder. A little terror. With his enemies on the bull's-eye, of course. Not ours."

  "His?"

  "I think it was a he. You cut a big hole, Bowman?"

  "Big enough. It'll stop them." He seemed so damned blasé after what had been done to us. Was he still trusting in divine protection? After the Itaskian sorcerer? If so, he was a fool.

  That was one thing that had never been pinned on Colgrave.

  "Tor, go to the masthead. Let us know when they go dead in the water. Toke, make sail for Freyland. I think she'll respond now."

  I watched while Colgrave examined several books. He seemed awfully undignified, sitting on the deck with his legs crossed. Finally, "Captain, what're we going to do?"

  He peered at me with that one evil eye till I thought he was going to have me thrown to the sharks. One did not address Colgrave. Colgrave called one to the presence.

  He finally replied, "It woul
d be a raid to belittle anything we've ever tried. Portsmouth itself. Burn the docks. Burn the town. Kill everybody we can."

  "Why?"

  "I didn't ask, Bowman." His voice was cold and hard. He was tired of my questions. Yet I remained where I was. He had changed. He was more open than ever I had seen. "He ordered us. We haven't yet tested the limits of his control. We may not be able to do otherwise."

  "And we do have our grievances."

  "Yes. We have scores to settle with Portsmouth."

  Dragon shifted her heading to north-northeast. We were on course for the island kingdoms.

  "The little sail maker must have missed something," Colgrave said. "There's nothing here we can use. All we can do is deny this stuff to him."

  "She's taking in sail, Captain," Tor called down. A vast amusement filled his voice.

  The story had passed through the crew, spread by Mica. There was a lot of laughter.

  I looked north. I could barely make out the other vessel.

  Damn, did that Tor have eyes.

  Excellent eyes. "Sail ho!" he called a moment later. "She's a big one. War galleon, by her look."

  His arm thrust aft. Colgrave and I turned.

  We could just make out her maintops. I looked at Colgrave.

  I could see the torment in him. The need . . . . He had to have bloodshed the way I had to have rum, had to use my bow.

  "She's an Itaskian," Tor called a few minutes later. The bloodlust filled his voice. He, too, needed the killing.

  Nervousness and uncertainty washed the main deck. The men no longer had the absolute confidence that had impelled them before our capture.

  Dragon had changed indeed. And was changing still.

  "Maintain your heading, First Officer," Colgrave finally croaked.

  It tore him up to say it, but he did.

  A breeze came up. It took us on our port quarter, setting us to landward. The more we turned to seaward, the harder it blew.

  The smell of wizardry tainted it.

  Colgrave gathered Mica's plunder, took it to his cabin, then returned to the poop. He said nothing more. The stubborn Colgrave of old, he kept Dragon's course inalterably fixed on Freyland.

  We passed within three hundred yards of the sorcerer's ship. Its crew were too busy keeping from drowning to pay attention. Several called for help. We sailed on.

  Colgrave laughed at them. I'm sure his voice carried that far.

  The breeze died soon afterward, as the other ship began going under. I guess the wizard needed to concentrate on surviving.

  One round for us.

  We took orders from nobody. Not even those who pretended to be our saviors.

  That is what Tor said the thing in red claimed when it had spoken to Colgrave. It had wanted to bargain.

  To bargain? I thought. Then its hold on us could not be as strong as it would like.

  I smiled. And stood on the forecastle looking forward to the coasts of Freyland. It had been a long time since we had sailed them.

  The black birds circled overhead. After a time, one by one, they settled into our tops. They seemed less outraged than they had been.

  VIII

  Spring had only recently conquered the western shores of Freyland. The cove where we anchored was surrounded by low, forested hills blushing green. The afternoons were warm and lazy.

  There was nothing to do. For the first time since I had come aboard. Dragon was in perfect repair. Half the ship's work being done was stuff Toke and Lank Tor conjured up because they did not have anything to do either. For several days we just plain loafed.

  But in the background lurked the nagging questions, the aching doubts. What would Colgrave decide? Would it be the right thing?

  "Right thing?" Mica demanded. Pure amazement animated his features. "What the hell kind of question is that, Bowman?"

  He and I and Priest had rigged us a couch of folded sail and were lying back staring at cloud castles while dangling fishing lines over the side. Fishing was something I had not done since boyhood.

  I could not remember that far back. I just knew that I had liked to fish.

  "It's a valid question," Priest insisted. "We have come to the crossroads of righteousness, Sailmaker. We stand at the forking of the way . . . ."

  "Oh, knock it off, Priest," I grumbled. "Don't you ever give up?"

  "I think I got a bite," he replied.

  "Take it easy, Bowman," Mica said. "He's getting better."

  That he was, I had to admit. I used to loathe Priest because he insisted on being our conscience while remaining one of the worst sinners himself.

  Priest dragged a small fish over the side. "I'll be damned."

  "Doubtless. We're all damned. We have been for ages."

  "That's debatable. I meant the fish."

  It was a little speckled sand shark about sixteen inches long. Not exactly what we were after. I started to smash its head with my heel.

  "Why don't you just throw it back?" Mica asked. "It ain't hurting nothing."

  Trouble was, the shark did not want to go. Not with our help. Its little jaws kept going chompity-chomp. Its skin sandpapered the hide off my fingers when I tried to hold it so Priest could get his hook back.

  It died before we could save it.

  "You was talking about doing the right thing," Mica told me. "What made you say that? I've never heard the Bowman talk that way before."

  I gave him a look.

  Priest took his side. "He's right. Colgrave's the only man here meaner than the Bowman."

  I did not agree. At least, I had never thought of it that way. I rated Priest and Old Barley meaner than me any day.

  The Kid came up and joined us. He had been keeping a low profile lately. He seemed to be completely tied up inside himself. Ordinarily, he was our number-one showoff, our number-one mouth man.

  I was at the end of the sail couch. He sat down beside me.

  Amazing.

  I kind of liked the Kid. Really. He reminded me of myself when I was younger. But he had no use for me. I never understood, unless it was true that I looked like somebody he had hated before coming aboard.

  "Hey, Bowman. What do you think?" he asked.

  "Hunh? About what, Kid?" Why was he asking me? Anything.

  "About this. About us coming back." He sat up, started making himself a fishing line of his own. He fumbled around. It was obvious that he had never fished in his life. I helped him get it right.

  And I asked him why he was asking me.

  "Because you're the smart guy now that Student's gone. Toke. Lank Tor. They're just zombies. And the Old Man wouldn't give me the time of day if I begged."

  "Kid. Kid. I . . . ." I let it drift off unsaid.

  "What?"

  I forced it. "I never much cared about anybody. But it hurts me to see you here, so young."

  He looked at me strangely, then smiled. That smile was worth a ton of gold. "I earned it, Bowman."

  "Didn't we all?" Mica mused.

  "That we did," Priest declared. "The sins on our souls . . . ." He shut himself off, said instead, "The question is, are we going to go right on deserving it?"

  Mica got a bite. He hauled in another goddamned shark. This one was more cooperative. Or we had gotten better at handling them.

  "Kid, I don't know what to think. That's the gospel. I'm lost. I go half crazy worrying about it sometimes."

  A body plopped down the other side of Kid. I glanced over. It was the Trolledyngjan, the final addition to our mad crew. We had picked him up off an Itaskian warship we had taken in our next-to-last battle. He had been confined to her brig.

  He had a name, Torfin something, but nobody ever used it. He was one long drink of silence. I don't think he had spoken twenty words the whole time he had been aboard. He did not say anything now. He just looked at me and Mica.

  We had tried to kill him once. Before he had become part of our crew. Back when we were raiders. We had attacked his ship. He had tried boarding us. Me and M
ica had dumped him into the drink.

  And then he had turned up aboard the Itaskian, and Colgrave had decided he ought to replace Student or Whaleboats.

  A treaty of forgiveness passed between us without words being spoken.

  The Trolledyngjan said, "There be tales told in the Fatherland of the Oskorei. The Wild Hunt. They be souls of the damned who ride Hell's stallions through the high range hunting the living."

  The Kid passed him a hook and some line. He started fiddling with it.

  "What're you driving at?" I asked.

  "We be the oskoreien of the sea." He baited his hook and flipped it over the side. We waited. Finally, he continued. "They tell of the Wild Hunt that they be hating none so much as they be hating one another."

  We waited some more. But that was all he had to say.

  It was enough. It made me think.

  He had stated a truth and posed a question in a characteristically oblique Trolledyngjan manner.

  Hatred had always been the one shared, unifying emotion aboard Dragon. And we hated each other more than any outsiders.

  Only, we were getting along now. More or less.

  The others saw it too. Even the Kid. "What's it mean, Bowman?" the boy asked.

  "I don't know."

  The changes were progressing. I no longer knew myself. If ever I had.

  Fat Poppo laboriously clambered to the forecastle deck. His appearance was another declaration of how the crew regarded me.

  "Welcome to the philosophy klatch, Poppo," I said. "What brings you dragging your ass all the way up off the main deck?" He seldom moved if he did not have to, so fat and lazy was he.

  He dropped to his knees behind me, whispered, "In the trees across the cove. Under the big dead one you guys been calling the hanging tree."

  I looked. And I saw what he meant.

  There were four of them, and they wore livery. Soldiers.

  The honeymoon was over. "Mica, slide down and dig up the Old Man. Tell him to take a gander at what we've got under the hanging tree. Try to keep it casual."

  Colgrave had been holed up in his cabin since we had dropped anchor. He was studying the wizard's things. He would not appreciate being disturbed.