The Fox

  “So if you see his black sails, you run. I will, if I can. Now. Fire ships. No towing empty gigs. That’d give away the plan. If we do attack at night—flood tide being late this time of year, Swift says—then the crew can drop off once the course is set and Vixen or the sloops will pick them up. But our captains have to steer right into the enemy. Then light the fires. Last, escape as they can.”

  Pause. Everyone thinking of winter’s cold, and the horror of how fast icy water could take you down. Riding a fire ship into battle, jumping into water trusting to be pulled out, then sitting in a tiny scout craft, trying to dodge the second wave of attacking ships . . . that required either fanatic dedication or cold-eyed courage.

  “We’ll call for volunteers for that,” Inda stated.

  “I’ll lead one,” Barend said from the far side of the circle, his hands behind his back, his manner the same strange, remote distance he’d maintained ever since the day they’d first docked at Pirate Island, the week before.

  Now that, Tau did not understand. You listened to people, watched them, learned their language and their mannerisms; after time you thought you could predict them under any given circumstance. Then, quite suddenly, they did something unpredictable, totally out of your experience of them.

  The night of their landing at Pirate Island Jeje had privately told Dasta and Tau what Fox had discovered. The fact that Barend’s royal father had sent pirates against Inda’s father was certainly terrible, but not exactly recent news, Inda’s old sailing mates had agreed in their low-voiced conversation on the masthead. Since neither Inda nor Barend were even remotely involved with what had happened a generation before, it made no sense for them to have come back from that charthouse as if someone had died, and rarely speak to one another ever since.

  Barend spoke to no one, in fact, existing as if an invisible wall had closed him off.

  Tau was startled to hear Barend’s voice now: “I’ll lead.”

  Inda turned his way. Their eyes met, cool remote gazes, revealing nothing. Then Inda struck his fist to his chest.

  Barend ducked through the cabin door, and his quick steps diminished down the companionway of the Death.

  Tau sighed, feeling that life had slipped into a dream, and an ugly one at that. Here he was, heading straight toward the entire Brotherhood fleet waiting clustered beyond the Narrows—and beyond that lay the coast, specifically Parayid Harbor, his old home.

  “I may as well be next,” he said. No, he heard himself say. And knew it was another attempt (and it would be equally unsuccessful) to make a kind of internal restitution for that day on the deck above them when he’d cut down unarmed Boruin—and took pleasure in the act.

  Tcholan spoke up from the back of the cabin. “I’ll take the third.”

  Inda looked up, his brown eyes tired. The appraisal there was quick, and kind, and finally grateful. “Thanks, Taumad. Tcholan.” And to the others, “Barend, Tcholan, and Taumad will steer the fire ships. The rest of the week we’ll make our fire ships seaworthy. Believable from a glass. Weather permitting, we enter the Narrows eight days from now. Now, let’s go over the signal plan . . .”

  Twelve days later they sailed in a row between the huge, dark-rock palisades and sheer cliffs at the narrowest part of the passage, a grim, watchful trip that in places was almost like shooting down a river seldom touched by the sun for six months at a time. Another couple of weeks—maybe a matter of days—and the waters would be full of ice. It was dangerous enough now; they’d had two northerly squalls, with more promising to come. If the wind hauled around at last and stayed in the north, within a couple of days they’d smash to splinters on forming icebergs.

  So they sailed as fast as they dared in a long, snaking line within a cable’s length from one another. Everyone on watch tended sail with haste and solicitude, evidence of their dread of the grinding scrape of rock on the hull or the sudden thud that would give them a heartbeat’s warning that the ship was about to founder, flinging everyone into near-freezing water, rescue impossible before they turned numb and drowned.

  Fox now captained the Death. He was captain because Inda had put him there, an irony he contemplated as he walked the command deck, gazing up from time to time at the sheer cliffs walling them in on either side. Walls that forced him in only one direction, toward the battle that Inda wanted to fight.

  Dasta was now the acting captain of Cocodu. His fight team had formed around him as crew, steady independents and privateers all. They appreciated Dasta’s even-tempered steadiness, and readily adopted his unswerving loyalty to Inda.

  Faint sounds of singing came from that ship now, the rise and fall of voices in an Old Sartoran winter song, as they hauled their mainsail around tighter.

  The Death was so narrow and sharp of keel the crew seldom had to touch brace or sail. Yet they were all there on deck, sailors waiting by the halyards already laid along, mittened hands tucked in armpits or in pockets, breath clouding, as Fox continued to walk the command deck, a ceaseless, restless pacing broken only by his occasional scans of the heights through the glass.

  Inda also watched the heights for the expected signal fires as they sailed north. The sounds were the creak of wood, the hum of wind in the ropes, the racket of sail, and the continuous screeling wail of the armorers’ treadles as they worked to hone sharp the steel weapons of each ship, the noise echoing like shrieks up the cliffs. When they anchored for the night, the sounds were the roiling surge and hiss of the sea, and far away the faint hooting cry of unseen birds.

  Jeje, skimming the Vixen between two of the fire ships, hauled up on the lee of the first, and Thog and Uslar climbed down, both looking tired. The ruse crews had been working day and night—at night under weather awnings, lamps shrouded, so that spies on the heights peering down saw nothing but a row of ships under weather awnings. There was no evidence that under three of the long row of ships, straw-stuffed old fabric and worn canvas were being fashioned into the semblance of hands hiding in rigging and along the deck.

  Thog dropped to the deck, wringing her fingers, which were pricked all over with tiny blood spots. It was difficult to sew with numb fingers, but she couldn’t work with gloves. Her palms were covered.

  “Here.” Jeje pressed a cup of mulled wine into her hands.

  Thog thumped onto a hatch cover, enjoying the warmth as the weak sunlight vanished with perceptible speed. A whirtler from Inda’s flagship arced up. Time to anchor for the night.

  Jeje waved at the Fisher brothers, who set about anchoring bow and stern. From below came the delicious smells of food. Uslar, who had been learning Sartoran recipes from Lorm, had joined Nugget in fixing supper. Uslar’s breaking voice and Nugget’s high one drifted topside, happily wrangling over the best method of cooking fish fillets.

  “Will the ships be ready?” Jeje asked, when Thog had at last taken a sip, and her face looked less drawn.

  That short nod, a jab of chin toward collarbones.

  Jeje stared up at the clouds wreathing the snow-blue heights as the last of the light vanished. “So what’ll you do with your share if we win?”

  Thog glanced Jeje’s way. “If we live. You will stay with Inda, yes?”

  Jeje had posed an idle question, or at least she thought she had. Thog’s quiet question shifted the mood, exposing the real question Jeje had not asked—had not let herself think.

  But she was not a coward, and so she faced it now. “If we live. I’ll crew with Inda long’s he commands.” She considered that, and liked the sound of it. And as Thog did not agree—or disagree—she said, “I like his purpose. It’s a good purpose, fighting pirates. I thought after we sank the first one there off Freedom Islands, there are people who will see old age now, with this one gone.”

  Thog whispered, “I count them. Each time I kill a pirate, I count the lives I save.”

  The outsides of Jeje’s arms prickled. “How—how do you determine the number?”

  “By how many died in my village, killed by eac
h pirate.”

  Thog’s black eyes were huge, with no hint of humor.

  Jeje let her breath trickle out and groped for ease again. “And when we got to Pirate Island, I liked the way people looked at us. Everyone fears pirates, but no one is doing anything. Except we are. And they know it. I can see it in the way they looked at my ruby.” She flicked her ear. “And got out of my way.”

  Thog stared into her drink.

  “And you?” Jeje asked. “I take it you will not stay.” She hesitated again, but could not force the words to try to talk her into it, skilled as she was.

  Thog set her empty cup down and spread her fingers flat. Then said in a low, fervent voice, as if making a vow, “If we live, then I shall go home and find some land, make a garden, and each night when I lie down I will know that I will never again fear the dawn bringing red sails on the horizon.”

  Jeje sighed, glowering into her own cup. The truth was, she liked Thog, respected her ability, but she would never again truly trust her. Not after that terrible, deliberate fire on Boruin’s consort.

  Thog knew and accepted it.

  Two days of slow progress were broken once when a ship farther down the line, heeling too far in a sudden gust of the wind howled down the canyons, struck a jagged rock that tore a hole in the hull. It was soon plugged, with carpenters from five ships working as desperately as the ruse crews worked to finish their ghost crews aboard the fire ships.

  Inda spent the rest of the day aboard the Vixen, going from vessel to vessel to inspect and to review plans. Each ship was ready, eyes on him, tension evident in hands, faces, lips. Heartbeats pulsing in necks, temples.

  He returned at sundown to the Death and said to Fox, “We’re ready.”

  The last act was to soak those brigs with oil, something that Thog oversaw. Again it was done under a canopy the last night before the attack; under all the other canopies, people not on watch sat on deck despite the cold, doing the things that people do when sleep is impossible: talking, playing cards, singing, even dancing.

  When they anchored, a signal fire glowed, golden and sinister on the heights. Inda watched the light steadily through his glass until the light blinked once. Twice. His heartbeat quickened. They had nineteen ships all told, including the three false ones and four scout craft. If the blinking varied three times at the end of the count, they were blown. If four, perhaps their ruse was safe—

  Eleven . . . twelve . . . fifteen . . . blink-blink, blink-blink. Four blinks in a different rhythm: four for the small craft. Some of the tension gripping his neck eased.

  “. . . and listen to ’em, yowling away like that.”

  The voice was distinct in the frigid air. Inda walked aft. Ah. The singing of the Sartoran and Sarendan independents on Cocodu—this time accompanied by Tau on a stringed instrument someone had brought. Tau played a counterpoint to the complicated rise and fall of those voices, glissades of three-note chords every first and third beat. The sound drifted faintly over the black water churning by.

  He nodded to Gillor, who had the command deck watch, saw her nod back and then pull her scarf up closer to her knit hat as she paced back and forth, keeping on the move so she wouldn’t go numb.

  Inda dropped below, welcoming the warmer air. Most of the crew was gathered around the magical Fire Stick blaze in the center of the crew’s quarters, some honing weapons by lamplight, or sewing links under their coats. No one was asleep; the hammocks were rolled and stowed along the rail, the deck clear except for those sitting about.

  From the look of his flushed face and glistening green eyes, Fox had been drinking; he held out mulled wine to Inda, who took it, drank, felt the bite of distilled rye underneath the wine. Warmth spread through him. He drank again, and again. The weight of home, so close, and yet forbidden, ceased to oppress him.

  “. . . then you are a fool,” came Fox’s voice, soft, but with a cruel edge of amusement.

  “You dance at weddings?” asked Knotfist, one of the older privateers hired at Freeport Harbor. “Dancing is for women!”

  Fox turned his head. “Barend. Let’s show them.”

  Barend was there, out of the firelight. He wouldn’t dance, not when he was in private exile. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t drum.

  A sudden tapping in an old pattern, unheard for years, forced Inda’s mind back to the night Dogpiss died. Barend hadn’t a drum, of course; he thudded knife hilts against the decking.

  Ching! The shivery sound of steel being drawn from scabbards caused every head to turn, and there was Fox, holding his preferred fighting swords, two very fine sabers made in Sartor, with slightly curved tips after the fashion of the Marlovan riders.

  The blades rose high, flame reflecting redly down the cool bluish watered steel; then Fox flung them down, one pointing north and south, the other crossing east and west, and before the echo of their ring died away he lifted his head and grinned, teeth showing. “Inda.”

  War dances were usually performed in pairs. Inda set aside his wine, wondering if he even remembered the steps. Barend’s drumming increased in speed and volume, a galloping rhythm that brought everything back, including the sounds of boys’ voices and the scents of the fields, and horses, and the sharp aroma of rye bread baking.

  Inda’s heels drummed the deck in counterpoint as he and Fox stamped and spun then swept their hands down to pick up the blades, whirling and clashing them together. And Inda was a boy again, a scrub among his friends in the sweet-grass summer of childhood.

  The pirates found inspiration in their commanders’ deadly grace, the leashed power that was all the more threatening for its easy control.

  They finished and Inda’s memory vanished at the roar of approval that went up. Several of the crew promptly pulled knives and started trying to reproduce the pattern.

  “Again! Let’s have it again!” one roared.

  “I give in,” Knotfist cried. “Teach me that! I’ll dance that one at me wedding, and no mistake!”

  “No,” Fox said. “It’s a war dance. Tomorrow we go to war. After, I do a victory dance. Those’re fun, too.”

  Inda looked around, feeling ill at ease. He retreated to the cabin. It means nothing to them, he thought. I shouldn’t have done it.

  He looked down at the owl ring on his hand, plucked so many years ago from his father’s wife’s dead body, worn for the decades since then as an expensive trophy without meaning. Inda groped mentally for meaning now, but other than the vague memories of his father that rose—with or without the ring—there was no inward conviction, no seeing the ring as symbol of honor, of family. It was just a hunk of metal, and he looked up and away, feeling the impulse to yank it off and toss it into the sea.

  His gaze traveled up the rough gray sea cliff toward the bleak winter sky pressing low overhead. He knew he wanted justice, but he also knew it wouldn’t happen, not when the mystery behind his disgrace led directly back to the will of the Harskialdna, brother to the king. Justice was difficult enough to define, but honor, outside of the word trust? Maybe the concept of honor was mere pretense, as Fox insisted.

  But Barend believed in honor, and what’s more, he wanted to go home again. For his sake Inda had to go through the forms. Supposing they lived through this pirate battle, he would have to send Barend to his father and Tanrid.

  Inda sighed. His fear was that the Adaluin might insist on the old life-for-a-life ritual and tell Tanrid to slay Barend. No, Inda decided. His father would ride directly to the king—if he still lived.

  If his father still lived.

  So if Tanrid was now Adaluin . . . Inda tried to envision his brother as a grown man. His image of Tanrid was of a towering, hard-eyed figure of seventeen—which did not seem so old any more. And his last memory of Tanrid was his calloused fingers tousling his hair, like he always tousled the castle dogs’ ears. Tanrid had believed in justice, in his own way. And honor.

  And vengeance. What was it Tanrid said that one day at Daggers? Never show mercy to pirates. r />
  Inda looked down at his shaking hand. Odd. He was not aware of fear, just that endless stream of possibilities. Anticipation, and sorrow for the unrecoverable past.

  One more drink, though he knew it would not numb the memories, and then he returned to pace the deck and watch out the rest of the night. They were as ready as they ever would be, and perhaps he could sleep through the day until the tide turned, carrying them out to battle.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  KNOTFIST was the first one to die.

  Under the rapidly fading light, the Death rode the rolling green swells of the outflowing current, leading the line to the attack.

  As they emerged into open ocean, arrows arced down from the last of the high cliffs—to clatter against the shields that the crews raised.

  When the last of the rocky dragon-teeth was safely passed, there was the enemy. Two enormous half-circles of ships, all stripped to fighting sail, tacked very slowly against the wind and current, so tight nothing could slip between them and get away.

  “We’re gonna die,” someone muttered as the icy wind whistled and moaned through those last jagged rock towers, serrying the hissing hail of arrows that were not even aimed, just shot. Some with fire, some not, but just as dangerous because they were difficult to see.

  Arrows clattered on the shields overhead and at the sides. A few thunked into the hull. One skittered across the waiting barrel of newly made arrows, then clattered to the feet of Gillor, who, laughing, stood up and shot it back.

  The rest puckered the surface of the gray sea and then vanished in the swirling white-water surges and eddies caused by the rocks they had now cleared.

  Knotfist crawled out on the bowsprit with his glass to count the enemy. An arrow thunked squarely into his back from the heights behind them, and he fell without a cry, vanishing into the churning gray water.

  Inda’s crew hunkered behind the rails—trembling, fingers gripping weapons with white-knuckled intensity, tongues licking numb, dry lips—but long drills held them in readiness.