An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

  Fish was on the forecastle deck, collecting Little Mica's toys. Mica was looking my way, awareness in his eyes. I blinked. He replied with a blink of his own.

  I used the roll of the ship to help me topple onto my belly. I closed my eyes and sought that reservoir of stubborn determination Colgrave had been able to tap at will. I brought one hand forward, then the other, shifted each leg. I pushed off the deck, stared at Fish.

  He stared back, startled. I grinned demonically.

  Inch by inch, I moved to the taffrail, lifted one hand slowly, grabbed. I dragged myself up. My left hand drew a boot knife the creature had overlooked. He had not bothered to search me.

  Not smart. I flopped on my belly, over the rail. Fish did not understand how dangerous we were. He would be taught.

  Somebody groaned down on the main deck. Lank Tor, the ship's boatswain. Heaven couldn't help Fish if he got close to Tor. Tor existed to kill. And had not fed his need for an age.

  Fish started to climb down from the forecastle. Behind, Mica pulled himself upright. He produced a throwing knife missed by the intruder.

  Standing, I could see most of the men. They were stirring, eyes wide and white, features twisted. Fish's chances looked slim. Eyes tracked him, smoldering. Somebody would make a move soon.

  Fish came up the poop ladder in a hurry. He asked something in a language I did not understand. I grinned again, thinking about the doom gathering behind him.

  He moved to the rail where I would look at him. He spoke again in that unfamiliar tongue. I sneered. He shifted to badly accented Itaskian. "You are Bowman?"

  I did not respond.

  His features twisted. His expressions were not human. This would be anger or frustration. He pointed a finger with too many joints. Darkness crackled around his hand.

  Pain slammed through me. I staggered, groaned.

  "You will answer. Are you Bowman?"

  "Yes." Softly. And flicked my gaze to one side, betraying a hint of a smile.

  Startled, he turned.

  I stuck a knife in a kidney. Or where a kidney would be in a man.

  IV

  Fish squealed. He jumped two yards, spun to face me. He reached back, withdrew the knife, stared at it momentarily, looked at me, faced forward.

  Men were headed for the poop. The Kid and Lank Tor were on the ladders already. Kid had a knife between his teeth. Tor's was in his belt. The rest all had steel ready to do death.

  Fighting pain, Fish flipped my knife overboard. He gobbled in that weird tongue.

  So I got out another knife. I would rush him when Kid and Tor reached the heads of their ladders. Fish bit his last few words like they were enemy flesh. My knife began to hum. It got hot. I held on and started toward him.

  A turnbuckle on the mainmast gave way. Rigging pulled loose. A yard came free and fell, tearing lines as it dropped.

  The fool sorcerer wanted to disarm us using a spell that impacted iron. Iron and magic do not mix well. The ship had begun to fall apart around him. I laughed. "Standoff. Unless you don't care if you go down with us." He might be a fish.

  He glared, hating. That was mutual. More so than should have been even with such as we, who hated all existence. Who wanted to rest in the surcease of our foggy limbo. He looked, then leapt over the rail, dropped to the main deck, hastened forward to the forecastle as Mica descended the other ladder. From the forecastle deck he planted a boot in Mica's face.

  The crew surged after him. Knives flashed through the air, did no harm. The men failed to climb the ladders. Fish was more agile than they. He bounced from one ladder to the other while trying to find a spell to control us.

  I was amused.

  The weather worsened. I gathered Tor and Toke, my First Officer, at the base of the stern castle. "We have to mend that rigging. And get a proper spread of canvas on. We don't want to lose our sheets and the rest of the rigging."

  Grumbling, they went to work. They were good sailors. We all are. We've had ages of practice.

  A dozen men formed a skirmish line facing Fish. The rest worked ship. Our visitor was determined to interfere.

  Mica reached the poop. "Take the helm," I said, before he told me what was on his mind. My stomach gnawed at me. A seasick captain. That's something.

  After half an hour Dragon was riding the seas well enough, considering. Mica asked, "What're we gonna do?"

  "About what?"

  "Everything."

  "Repair the rigging. Get rid of that thing up forward."

  "And then what?"

  "I don't know then what. Not yet."

  "Consider the fact that he's not in this all alone."

  "What?"

  "Stands to reason, don't it? If he was good enough to get here on his own, and wake us up, on his own, then he ought to be good enough to keep us in line. He isn't. So somebody sent him."

  I looked at the creature, there on the forecastle, watching us watching him. He seemed diminished, though not yet frightened. Mica was right.

  The seas were running higher. I decided we would put out a sea anchor, reef back, and run with the wind. No point doing much else till dark came and the sky cleared enough to take star sights. I had to know where we were before I could make big choices.

  I called the Kid. "Kid, you see what he did with our weapons when he took them?" I figured it was a good bet he hadn't disposed of them. Nobody would call us up without having a use for us. And we were useful only one way. To deal death and destruction. For that we needed arms.

  The Kid shook his head. "I was facing the wrong way."

  "Take Maggot and Hengis and Sharkey and search the ship. I want my bow."

  The Kid grinned, glanced at our visitor, grinned even more. That little bastard was nasty. "Just wing him, eh? We could have some fun, then."

  Mica and I exchanged glances.

  V

  The Kid found the weapons. I chose not to bend my bow. The seas were running taller. Day was fading. Chill spray made the weather decks misery incarnate. For Fish it was worse.

  As the temperature fell he became sluggish. I recalled snakes and lizards from my life on land. All slow in the cold. I gave orders to stand easy and wait on nature.

  We moved at midnight. Our vitality was almost wholly restored. Even so, he handed out bruises enough to go around. He tried spells that threatened to rip Dragon apart. Each failed because somebody broke his concentration by pounding him.

  We tied and gagged him and threw him down on the main deck. Tor went down to the galley for coals and an iron rod. Got to have proper tools to do a proper job. Toke got the men working up forward, making repairs and adjusting sail.

  The seas were running no higher. We were not in the trouble I had feared. Still, they kept me seasick. My temper was short.

  Toke drew me aside. "We've got a problem, Captain."

  "Such as?"

  "She won't answer the helm."

  "Eh? But Mica's been . . . ."

  "Steering a course somebody wants steered. Running with a wind taking us somewhere. I tried to bring her around, to see how she'd handle. I couldn't force her more than a point off the wind."

  I scowled. Though it was dark, I could tell by the way Dragon rode that the seas were shifting to our portside, so that she yawed and rolled as well as pitched. Which would be why Toke wanted to turn off the wind. To keep our bows into the seas. "Do the best you can. Maybe we can convince our friend to help."

  What did the shifting direction of the seas mean? My guess was, we were in shallow water. Or near land. Or both.

  "Tor. Post lookouts." I left the poop to Mica, went down to examine our prisoner. "Ugly bastard, ain't he?"

  "What is he?" Buckets wanted to know.

  "I got no idea. We're going to ask. Get him strapped down. Let's see what's under those togs." He wore doublet and hose like they do in Hellin Daimiel, but with a definite alien turn.

  He had no visible sex organs, and no hair. Naked, he was more lizard-like than ever. His skin even had
a scaly texture. His back was darker and rougher than his front.

  Tor returned from posting the lookouts. He drew his iron from his charcoal, spat upon it. The spittle hissed. "Need to let it cook a little more," he said. "Got to do these things right." He patted our prisoner's shoulder.

  "Captain," Mica called. "Come here a minute."

  "What for?"

  "I think I hear something."

  A moment later, as I strode toward the stern castle, a lookout called, "Break in the clouds ahead, Skipper. Looks like moonlight coming through."

  He was right. I made a quick side trip, collected the sextant and navigational tables. I joined Mica. He asked, "Much for me to do?" He was our sail maker.

  "Yes. One sheet is ripped all to hell. Two others need minor repairs. What did you want me to hear?"

  "Be real quiet. Hold your breath. Listen."

  I did. I heard wind and sea. Then, as Dragon crested a swell, I heard it. A single remote sound that might have been a bell.

  "What direction?"

  Mica pointed. Directly along the course we would have been making had we kept running with the wind instead of taking the point off it that we could steal.

  Land? A warning to ships? I squinted. I could see nothing. But the bell notion seemed somehow familiar. I thought I'd heard the sound before but could not remember where or when.

  VI

  "Keep a sharp lookout," I told the watch. "And use your ears. We're coming up on something." I placed my sextant and book of tables in the rack provided, went back down to the main deck. "How's your rod, Tor? Ready?"

  "Any time, Captain."

  "Let's get started, then. Couple of you men keep him from flopping around." I leaned forward, so Fish could see me clearly. "Who are you?"

  He looked back with blank eyes. He meant to play rough. I removed the gag. "It won't work. Eventually we'll give you more than you can handle. Save yourself the trouble."

  He rolled his head slightly, plainly unaccustomed to that sort of communication.

  "Name."

  Headshake.

  "Tor."

  Again a response more powerful than any human would have managed.

  We repeated the cycle four times. The bell kept getting closer. Only now it sounded like somebody hammering out horseshoes. Slowly.

  "Lookouts. You see anything?"

  "No, sir."

  I checked the clear patch of sky. We were close. It was moving our way as we approached it. I glimpsed a full moon. A full moon but not the moon. Not unless we had been away so long the moon had grown larger and developed different acne.

  Raw fear. A different moon? Impossible. I rushed to the poop and the sextant.

  The men realized that the moon was not the one they knew.

  We entered the break.

  The constellations were all askew. A few stars looked like ones I'd used for taking sights but they were not in the right places in the sky.

  I put the sextant aside. And as I did, I wondered, for half a second, how come I knew how to use it. I'd never picked one up before.

  My curiosity slipped away as the distant blacksmith gave his anvil sudden hell. All I could see was a deeper darkness on the horizon, though it was hard to tell where the horizon ought to be.

  A lookout called, "Think I see land, Captain."

  "Keep a sharp watch, then. Doing any good, Tor?" I asked.

  "Negative. He's stubborn."

  "Toke, haul back on the canvas. We may be coming up on land." I returned to the interrogation.

  The creature was in pain but pain had not broken him. His hate-filled eyes told me he had reserves left. "This isn't working. Any suggestions, Tor?"

  "Not without knowing what it is."

  I'd thought not. "Keep plugging." I went forward, to the forecastle deck, where I leaned against the rail, watched the horizon rise and fall. Something lay ahead. Besides the obvious ringing.

  Once the forecastle had been my domain. When Colgrave was captain. I'd stood my station there when we attacked. I was the Bowman, feared all down the western coast. A coast that did not exist here, perhaps.

  The strange stars began to disappear behind thickening clouds.

  VII

  Tor got a name. Nobody could pronounce it. Fish's translation went: Assistant-to-the-Great-Master-of-the-Hope-of-Callidor-Beside-the-Sea.

  "Now we're getting somewhere," Tor observed with unwonted sarcasm.

  The sky began to lighten, from black to shades of lead. There was land ahead. A low promontory jutted into the gray sea to starboard. We would have run aground there had we let the spell control our course. Great breakers smashed upon that shore, hurling mountains of foam at the sky. "Tor, put your toys away. I want everybody working. We've got to dodge that headland."

  The banging of the anvil was so loud it hurt.

  We passed the promontory, which sank slowly into the sea, becoming a rocky reef. Foam swirled around rocks that never quite broke water, fifty yards off our starboard beam. There were furiously treacherous currents, too.

  We entered calmer water. The diminished seas were on our beam, now. Vengeful D. rode those poorly.

  Hengis was on the helm. Little Mica was mending sails. Hengis called, "She won't respond to port, Captain."

  Up I went, demanding more information.

  "If I turn to starboard, she answers. But if I want to swing port, no dice."

  I tried the helm. He was right. I could not muscle the rudder past midships. I had Tor check it. He could find nothing physically wrong. Still, I sent Toke below to rig the emergency steering arm. I doubted there would be time to use it.

  Tor has the best eyes aboard. He spotted the ruins first. He pointed. I looked. "What?"

  "Looks like a ruined city."

  We moved closer. The rudder would permit nothing else. The ruins became more obvious. "You're right." I could see where streets had run, where buildings had stood.

  The heavy-handed smith picked up the beat.

  Dragon turned directly toward shore.

  Nothing helped. Not even taking in all sail. We had one spot of luck. I managed to run aground on deep, fine sand. Dragon rode up the beach, canted over, halted.

  In moments Toke and Tor had working parties over the side, belaying lines, getting Vengeful Dragon secured, lest unknown tides sweep her away or drive her onto the rocks above the beach. The Kid and our better fighters ranged inland a hundred yards, making sure no trouble surprised us while we worked.

  I stood on the canted forecastle, bow in hand. Mica held my arrows. The old fever was in me. I wanted to kill somebody.

  That had been with me since my dimly recollected time as a soldier. A fire in my soul both cruel and self-destructive. Once I hadn't noticed, hadn't cared, hadn't been aware. Now I was. But the fever remained, dark and deadly.

  She was a good weapon, my bow. Crafted by the best boyer, accompanied by arrows from the hands of the best fletcher and best arrowsmith. Masterpieces of murder, all.

  "What's up?" Mica asked softly.

  "Eh?"

  "I haven't seen your eyes so hot since the time we caught those two Trolledyngjan longships."

  I fought the urge to lie. We are all liars aboard Vengeful D. Every man jack blames his situation on externals. "It's the devil inside. The beast that got me here. It's slavering eager to get loose."

  "I thought so. Control it. We're riding the edge."

  "What?"

  "We're here. Again. Another chance." He glanced at the sky. The clouds moved oddly, their bellies boiling. If I turned my imagination loose I had no trouble seeing faces up there. Off north a few knife-slit gaps appeared in the overcast. Spears of sunlight stabbed through and struck what looked like distant fields of ice. "Would they let us be wakened otherwise?"

  Little Mica was not religious. But he had developed a mystical quality, as though he was a nonbeliever chosen spokesman for the powers that shape the world.

  His sins were as black as mine, else he would not be aboard
Vengeful Dragon. But I counted on him to nurture what conscience I retained. "Maybe. And maybe we're somewhere where old debts don't matter."

  "Huh?"

  "This isn't the world where we died, Mica. But it's not Heaven or Hell, either. I don't know what it is."

  "Scared?"

  I battled the instant rage his suggestion stirred. "A little." Odd. Fear was a stranger. I'd never had anything to lose, nor had I entertained doubts about my own invulnerability. We sailed for generations without fear, till we fell foul of the sorcerer who first consigned us to the place where Fish had wakened us.

  I stared at the dead city, the alien city. It was barely a ghost of a memory in stone. Whatever hand Fate held, it would be played out there.

  The men finished making fast, awaited direction. "Muster on the beach," I said. "Tor, drag the prisoner down there."

  VIII

  They were not kind, getting Fish ashore. But he did not protest. Of course, somebody had replaced his gag, just in case he developed an itch to cast a vengeful spell.

  "Turn him loose," I said. "Somebody wants us here, Fish can lead us to them."

  Toke and Tor seemed reluctant to walk into something blind. Amazing. In times gone by they were fiery eager to jump into anything where they could cut somebody up.

  The clouds still rolled weirdly overhead. The knife slits through which light fell were approaching the ruins. Seeing those hints of faces up there inspired me. "Aid us, O Great Ones, in this our hour of peril. Aid us, O Great Ones, in fulfilling the destiny you have set us." I'm not much at prayer.

  The men gave me weird looks. Several snickered. For a moment I feared I'd made a wrong move. Colgrave had set the standard for leadership aboard Vengeful Dragon: be the meanest, scariest sonofabitch aboard. Then several others sent up clumsy prayers of their own. The slow change was continuing.

  The clouds opened and dropped a beam of light on us briefly. Coincidence? Whatever, it buoyed morale dramatically.

  The hammering in the ruins had diminished to a spine-tickling nuisance once Dragon beached herself. It waxed stronger now, demanding, firing my bloodthirsty mood. I do not like to be pressed.