The Fox

  “We’ll have to feel our way, this first time,” Inda said. “But there are supposed to be steps hewn into the rock.”

  And there were—broad, uneven, slippery, but unmistakable steps hewn by human hands centuries ago.

  Down they trod until they reached a rocky cavern hollowed out by water millennia before, smelling of brine and mossy stone. Overhead the rock had been scoured by water, layer by layer, so that it curved in uneven bands all the way down to where the surf surged in under a rocky lip. Light glanced in as the tide slowly began to ebb, but they could hear the treacherous roar and crash of water splashing over jagged rocks outside this great cave before it foamed in under the lip, tidal height sending rills of water across the cave floor in a surge that clinked and chinged softly as it was sucked back out under the stone lip.

  The light was wavering, greenish, but strong enough to pick out in cold gleams and glitters the man-sized piles of gold, gems, kingly objects made of rare metals, that heaped and spilled in horse-sized mounds over the rocky floor, scattered by the unending flow of water. Here and there lay the whitish-green bones of the dead, all of them lying in attitudes that suggested an end not by supernatural means but by the usual human violence. Tau stared, feeling oppressed by the hot, pungent air, the greenish light, by the miasma of greed and betrayal and murder that seemed to permeate the cave.

  Jeje stared down at the pebbly ground between surges, where the splintered wrecks of small boats tangled with yet more skeletal remains. In a world where bodies were usually Disappeared after death, these silent remains of old pirate feuds appeared especially sinister. Maybe these were the supposed ghosts, Jeje thought, seeing the old bones pitch back and forth with the current underneath the surface waters. The theory made sense, it was eminently practical. But she had to admit to herself that she wasn’t convinced enough to speak.

  “Brotherhood,” she whispered, and echoes hissed back at her. “Probably attacked one another over this stuff.”

  Dasta straightened up, his hawk nose lifted as he sniffed around. “Either that or the captains who had the treasure brought in killed those who did the carrying. Secret stays with one person.”

  Jeje nodded. “And that would explain why they left the bodies here. Because you cannot Disappear the person you murder.”

  “Or they were left as warnings.” It was the second time Fox had spoken.

  Dasta stared at the treasure, then swung his head toward Inda, his brow furrowed, brown eyes concerned. Inda never did anything without reason.

  Fox said, “Well?”

  Inda lifted his hands. “Here it is. No one else seems to know about it. Marshig and his favorite captains are gone, and so is the Brotherhood’s single map. Ramis burned it yesterday. So, it appears, the entire wealth of the Brotherhood of Blood is now ours.”

  Fox propped a boot on a rock, leaned his elbow on his knee, and stared down at Inda.

  Inda jumped off the last stair and splashed to the first mound. He kicked at a small pile of gold, sending six- and twelve-sided coins tinkling unmusically down the pile before they plink-plunked into the shallow water.

  Then he looked up at each of them: Tau, Dasta, Jeje. Fox. “And so we either use some of it for my plans and leave the rest to the future, whatever that may bring, or you turf me and take it. You all know how to get here, and all four of you are armed. I’m not. If you don’t want to follow me, go ahead and kill me now—I don’t want to be watching my back forever. Not against any of you.”

  Tau saw it first. Everything—the journey, the gold, Inda’s peculiar orders that it be only the five of them, in secret, and that they were to go armed—had all been made just for Fox. Dasta was astonished, Jeje affronted.

  Inda wasn’t paying any attention to her. He watched Fox—as did the others, one by one.

  Fox lounged above, halfway down the stair—in command of the only really defensible position in that cave full of treasure. The single ray of slanting light caught ruddy highlights in his red hair, and illuminated one sharp cheekbone. Otherwise he was nearly invisible against the dark rock.

  Inda said, “Ramis said that Venn warships are on the way.”

  No one argued.

  “I want to launch tomorrow if I can, the next day if necessary. East into the strait while the weather holds. I want to get to Bren by midsummer. The Guild Fleet has its headquarters there. My plan is to take command of them, if they are willing, and build a fleet to clear the strait—and the southern seas—of the Venn.”

  Fox moved his hands, but not to grasp his knives. He straightened up and clapped slowly, derisively. “A very pretty speech. And now, it seems, your loyal mates are waiting for me to betray you. Is that it, loyal mates?”

  Jeje flushed, crossing her arms. Dasta looked down. Only Tau returned his gaze, a mirror of his own mockery.

  “I want to know if you are with me or not.” Inda turned from Fox to the others, opening both hands toward the piles of treasure. “Here’s the wherewithal for your plans. All you have to do is turf me out first. I’m not even armed.” He put his hands on his hips. “If it’s going to happen, I’d rather it be now.”

  Fox gazed down at Inda, or rather beyond Inda. Plans? What plans? He’d made some wild statements, fueled by drink, about a pirate empire, but surely Inda did not—

  Empire—

  Fox drew a slow breath. His head ached; he wished he could breathe. He did not believe anything without material form was any threat. And yet he seemed to hear a whispering, a soughing of voices just audible above the hiss and surge of the sea, and Inda’s form blurred curiously, as if he were doubled—either that, or some non-physical presence stood behind his left shoulder.

  Mere trick of vision. From hunger, thirst, the thick, hot air. He knew that. Yet he swallowed—twice—as he faced the fact that, once again, Inda had been ahead of him.

  Empire. Not a pirate empire at all. A treasure that the son of displaced kings could use to hire and field an army to retake a kingdom taken by treachery, now grown into an empire.

  His skull rang as if he had put his head inside a great bell.

  “Pirate empires,” he drawled—relieved his voice sounded normal—“are for you to make. I’m far too lazy.”

  Trying to hide his relief, Dasta squatted down to poke at a golden pitcher that was carved all around with firebirds.

  Tau thought: Inda, you really are an innocent. You have changed nothing. But he did not speak.

  Inda looked up, then away, then up again.

  “We’ll spend the rest of the day loading the Vixen. That should give us enough to buy us a kingdom-sized fleet, in addition to whatever the Guild decides to give us.”

  Then Dasta said, “But loading all this gold’d take days. I take it you aren’t planning to tote the whole stash.”

  “No.”

  “So,” Dasta said, “did you want to just leave it here?”

  Inda waved a hand. “It’s been safe enough until now.” And with a wry look that did not single out anyone in particular, “According to all the histories, gold—this much gold—tends to take care of itself.”

  He started back up the stone stairs.

  The rest of the day was long, hot labor broken by stops for drinks from the waterfall or another of the pure, sweet streams trickling down toward the sea, and brief, breathless exchanges.

  The others all seemed to want private converse with Inda.

  Tau included. But he knew how to bide his time.

  He stitched together a new set of bags for the sackloads of treasure they’d brought down the trail, his fingers nimble from years of sewing. He could even sew without having to watch what he was doing, the better to covertly observe Inda and Fox talking low-voiced under the shade of the last tree before the blinding white sand of the beach. The tendons on Fox’s hands stood up as he gestured violently, his stance tense. Inda shook his head from side to side and repeated something over and over.

  Fox said something sharp in Marlovan.

 
Jeje came up behind Tau. “Harskialdna. What’s that mean?”

  On her other side, Dasta flipped his palms skyward before returning to stacking loaded bags.

  Tau said, “It means Royal Shield Arm.”

  Jeje frowned. “I hate it when they talk in Marlovan. I don’t know why—I never mind other lingos I don’t know.”

  Fox flung himself away, hesitated, then dashed up the trail for another load. Tau stitched, Jeje packed little bags with gold, Dasta tied off and stacked the bags. No one spoke as Inda joined them.

  Dasta caught up with Inda on his fourth trip back. “You have a plan?” He looked around, then added, “I’m with you, no mistake about that. But the Venn. You know they’re far bigger than the Brotherhood ever was. They’re, well, an empire. Up there in the north.” He swept his hand outward to take in the entire northern hemisphere.

  Inda grinned. “Bigger. Drilled. Equipped. We can’t go to war against them with pirates, we’ll need a military force this time, or as near as we can get.”

  Dasta heard the hesitation in his voice. “But?”

  Inda ran his sleeve over his forehead. “But first we need something better than those sun-trackers, which don’t allow for wind or current. To meet the Venn and expect to win we must find out how they navigate in deep waters. We will have to capture one of their sea dags. That’s their name for mages that navigate their ships in deep water.”

  Dasta whistled. “So we won’t need gold, nice as it is; we’ll need magic?”

  Inda said, “Short of a dag coming forward to volunteer, which I don’t see happening, we’ll have to find one any way we can.”

  Jeje’s conversation with Inda was even shorter.

  It was late in the day, which Jeje had spent rowing back and forth with a skiff full of bags of gold and jewels. She’d loaded them into the hold of the Vixen herself, stowing them to keep the vessel in just the right trim. The sky was now full of tiny marching lambkin clouds, presaging one of the sudden storms that boiled up out of nowhere in this part of the world. She followed Inda down into the skiff, where they set their last load at their feet.

  As she took up oars, she eyed him with her straight black brows meeting over her nose, and said abruptly, “We heard Fox. That is, we heard Marlovan, and I thought ‘Harskialdna’ was cursing, but Tau says it means Royal Shield Arm. I’d feel better if I know what a Marlovan’s idea of a Shield Arm is, royal or not.”

  Inda leaned into the oars. “It isn’t a ‘royal’ Shield Arm, it’s a war king’s Shield Arm.”

  “A war king?” Jeje snorted. “That does sound just like Marlovans.”

  “Go ahead and regard it as a curse, if you like,” Inda said, giving her a brief, sardonic grin—a rare expression for him. “He was using it scornfully, if that helps.”

  “No,” she said stolidly, but Inda only smiled and put his back into rowing.

  Jeje repressed a sigh. Inda wasn’t going to say anything more. He never talked about his past. Despite whatever had forced him away from his home all those years ago, he still thought like a Marlovan.

  She bit down hard on her lip. While she didn’t regret that sting at the Marlovans, she regretted saying it to Inda.

  They rowed six, ten strokes, sending the boat skimming over the pure blue water of the lagoon, and then Inda gave her an apologetic smile. “Take it this way. Fox is haunted by worse ghosts than any on this island. They are all his ancestors.”

  Jeje opened her mouth to say that that wasn’t any answer at all, that it left her with more questions than she’d had before. Then she thought the better of it.

  Tau’s conversation was last, and shortest of all. They had just set sail as the sun dove toward a fast-moving line of clouds on the western sea, the sky over the island behind them deepening to indigo, lit by stars more brilliant in color than any of the gemstones they had left behind. Fox was below, Jeje at the tiller, Dasta tending the sail.

  Tau joined Inda, who stood alone at the bow of the dangerously laden scout craft, looking across the deep blue water toward the distant twinkling lights of the main island’s harbor.

  Tau said, “You can’t think your offer back in the cave resolved the question of ambition and greed once and for all?”

  Inda’s eyes narrowed. “You mean Fox.”

  Tau opened his hands.

  Inda flicked a grin. “Course not. But I think saying it straight out like that—well, if Fox does change his mind, he’ll tell me.” He tipped his head. “Probably argue.”

  And so I underestimated you. Or Fox. “Is Ramis going to come after us?” His forefinger slashed between sky and sea.

  Inda leaned his bare forearms on the rail. “Ramis told me that he expected to be gone within the year. The way he said it cost me a lot of thought last night. We don’t, after all, really know what life and death even mean in Norsunder. But I’m sure of this, he spoke the truth to me, and he and I will never see one another again.”

  Tau said, “Right. Then in that case, let us get this hoard of yours aboard the Death before the weather swamps us and saves the Venn any effort.”

  Chapter Five

  LONG, low, rake-masted, and black-hulled, the Death rode in the midst of Inda’s small fleet out in Halfmoon Harbor, the raffee Cocodu on one side, the two schooners on the other, the sketch crews battening down against the coming storm.

  Gillor checked forward and aft to see that everything was bowsed down and furled except for the storm sail on the foremast, ready for the blow swiftly devouring the northwestern sky.

  “Sail hai!” called someone from the foremast.

  Gillor peered toward the harbor. The clouds seemed to touch the top of the hills; at least the wind would not drive them into land, she reflected, but safely seaward. “Bearing where?”

  “Direct astern. Vixen.”

  Gillor leaped to the shrouds, impatiently raking back the black curls that had escaped from her queue. Her scalp and her neck were sticky from the breathless heat. She’d wanted to signal for more crew, but Inda had been definite last night when he put her in charge of the ship. Pick a crew you can trust, the fewer the better, and hold the Death until the Vixen returns, he had said.

  Vixen—usually as swift and graceful as a reed skimmer— wallowed up on the lee, so low the choppy seas kicking up ahead of the storm winds were washing down the deck.

  The Vixen hove to, its sails brailed swiftly by the captains who’d taken it away.

  Inda vaulted over the side a moment later, his face gold-lit, then shadowed by the light of the swinging binnacle lantern. “Dismiss the rest of your watch below. Ride out the storm,” he ordered. “Let’s get relieving tackle to the helm before the wind rises. We have some fast unloading to do.”

  The small crew, on watch since the night before, did not question—they seemed glad to vanish below, leaving the storm for the new watch to deal with.

  Curiosity spiked yet again at the promising chink of metal in the little bags that Jeje, Tau, Fox, Dasta, and Inda brought aboard as swiftly as they could, staggering with the heavy weight while waves dashed against the railing, kicking high surges of water that the wind then poured, hissing white, down the deck. The wind shrieked on a higher and higher note through the rigging.

  But the heavy little bags came on, until Gillor, her jaw locked with tension, feared that the Vixen would smash against the Death. But she said nothing, only stood at the helm, hands gripped tight, her body set against the groaning, shuddering wood.

  Inda judged his mysterious unloading to a nicety.

  Just as Gillor was ready to despair, Jeje’s regular crew were brought out of Death’s wardroom and dispatched to help Jeje sail Vixen around to the lee of Cocodu to drop Dasta there, Tau going with them. Fox brought up two more of the crew to take station at the foremast.

  The lightened Vixen raced over the waves, vanishing in the silver-gleaming spears of rain that momentarily flattened the sea, lit by blue-white lightning.

  Gillor was soaked to the skin within about
three breaths. Inda joined her at the helm, tested the tension of the relieving tackle with one palm, and took up station on the weather side, Gillor shifting gladly to the lee. Together they fought to keep the ship pointed up into the wind, bracing themselves, tired as they were, for an all-night fight; summer squalls frequently lasted that long in the southern waters. Here on the belt of the world they were usually short, coming in waves; though one wouldn’t last long, you wouldn’t know if another squall, and even a third, was following rapidly after.

  The storm passed swiftly after dropping showers so thick and warm they’d had to turn their faces leeward so they could breathe, and they could not see Fox and his hands at the foremast.

  At least this storm was alone. Rumbles and flashes moved southeast, leaving a pure, rain-washed sky filled with the jeweled gleam of multicolored stars and a thin sliver of moon rising, and they’d only made a little headway.

  “West wind,” Inda said, his voice husky with tiredness. “Spring is really here, and we have the wind right where we want it. If it stays steady we could reach the middle of the strait by midsummer. Two months at the outside.”

  Gillor said, “We’re leaving?”

  Inda said, “Soon as we can. Listen, Gillor. I ask that you keep to yourself what you saw and heard.”

  She realized then that she’d been the only one he’d trusted to see that unloading. She swallowed. Even after all this time, she wasn’t used to trust, did not know how to respond to it.

  But Inda went right on, as if he didn’t expect her to speak—or swear an oath. “We’re going to find the Guild Fleet. I’ll give everyone a choice, whether or not they want to fight the Venn.” And when she hesitated, he smiled. “You don’t have to decide now. We’ve got until summer before we reach Bren. Meanwhile, I’ll send Tau to pay our shots and see to last supplies.”

  Gillor laughed. “That one, he could talk Norsunder into peace and plenty.”

  The swinging lamp made it difficult to see Inda’s expression before he turned away, stopped, then turned back. “When did you sleep last?”