Caolle’s gaze never wavered despite the pounding the ship’s motion dealt the reopened wounds in his flesh. He knew his limits, and had sounded hers: he expected she dared raise no outcry.
“I don’t envy the death my order will mete out for your acts of coercion and murder.” Scuffed dusky red with the marks of his handling, Lirenda arose with a glacial sangfroid and a fury beyond all forgiveness.
Caolle’s brows met in a frown of contempt. “I’ll shrug off their sting, you bloodsucking spider. Nothing else matters but that my prince should escape from your unclean web.” He flicked the chain. Her crystal shivered a bare fraction above the rim of the bucket; close enough to make her heart shrink and skip, he well knew. The quartz would not escape sure destruction if she tried the least hostile move with the knife.
“So, die with me, bitch,” the clansman invited. “Lacking your guidance, I very much doubt an untried fleet of three can take on Prince Arithon and survive.”
His frank male regard became statement enough he was content to rest on that judgment. Lirenda snatched the folded silk from under her feet. She reclothed herself in graceless, clipped jerks, then spun on her heel to depart.
“Ah, no,” Caolle snapped. “That knife stays with me. And remember, the oil in this lamp won’t outlast a quarter of an hour.”
That was the paltry allotment of time he gave to complete his demands. “You’ll shut yourself into your cabin after that.” The quartz flashed and spun its unequivocal, dire warning. “One step wrong, raise one whisper of alarm, and your doom at my hand is a certainty.”
Lirenda quashed back her overwhelming blind rage. She had no recourse. Perform as he asked, and Caolle might keep his word and set her ashore to go free. Guarantees were all forfeit. His perilous ploy must be launched and forced through before his promise could be put to the test. Nor was Lirenda’s own risk of exposure assured a felicitous outcome. She could shrink a man’s bollocks out of fear for her rank, but sham could not survive direct challenge. Deprived of her quartz link to empower her drawn sigils, she had no sure means to conceal the betrayal this fell bargain would level against the brig’s unsuspecting crew. With her crystal under the threat of annihilation, she could fashion no spells. Even the petty illusions devised by the least tutored hedge witch lay outside the reach of her talent.
The predicament galled her to singular bitterness. Brought under coercion, and alone on the sea, she could blame no one else for her downfall. By her own headstrong miscalculation, the end play to Morriel Prime’s grand conjury might fall to an inexcusable reversal.
The latch to the mate’s cabin clicked shut after the First Senior Lirenda’s departure. Caolle slumped back against the bulkhead of the hanging locker, his large frame shaking head to foot from the pain in response to unwise exertion. He dared not acknowledge the grisly remains in the hammock. His nerves would revolt. The bucket would become an immediate catch basin for the rejected contents of his stomach. The minutes crept past, while he sweated. Ath knew, he set small store by prayer. Nor would he yield to his hypocrite fears, and beg the creator’s indulgence.
The plan set afoot rode now on the strength of First Senior Lirenda’s stung pride. For Arithon s’Ffalenn, everything hinged upon her counting ambition above her own life as a bargaining chip.
Caolle braved another shuddering wave of discomfort. Well seasoned to danger, plagued by agonized doubts, he flicked the small chip of quartz crystal through the lantern flame like a talisman. While the light sparked in demonic patterns from the facets, he reviewed all the small things which could spin awry. One single upset would create a cascade, calling down risks like rowed dominoes.
The witch could stop him, and die. Or she could pitch her wits against his word of honor, and hope for a mistake to spin the odds back in her favor. Few men aboard ship would gainsay the will of the Koriani First Senior. Not without reason. Her orders would not raise immediate questions; nor would anyone think to deny her a visit to the convicts in the hold.
The brig pitched through a trough. Caolle locked back the groan which threatened to rip free as the jostling speared fresh torment through his flank. His vigil over the crystal and chain must not flag, though his vision blurred, and reeling spells of dizziness leached at his will to stay conscious. On deck, he thought he heard the watch call the hour. No shouting started, nor did he pick up any other small sign of anything gone amiss.
The sails creaked to the bearing pressure of the winds, and the foam slammed and lisped through the rudder.
Caolle clung to the reassurance of each sound. He endured the grim seconds one after the next in tight-breathing, bulldog tenacity. Inside a few minutes the lamp would burn dry By then, the last of Arithon’s collaborators must be set free from their chains. Either their little hired captain, a foul-tongued West Shandian, would arrive bringing confirmation, along with the keys for the leg irons and also the brig’s forward arms locker; or Dharkaron damn the consequences, Lirenda’s quartz focus would be dropped in salt water to shatter.
No loophole existed, outside total failure. Whatever the outcome, Caolle understood the harsh stakes. He might buy his prince one last chance for reprieve. In the unlikely event he survived abused wounds, and won this wild gamble against fate, for himself, the days he had left must be numbered. For his cold-blooded murder of the healer, if not for balking Lirenda, he was now a man marked apart for Koriani vengeance.
Second Upset
Spring 5653
Night advanced. In the open waters of Mainmere Bay, the turn of spring stars crossed through the zenith to the complaint of raw winds, chasing their freight of fretted wavecrests. The sea heaved black and molten, web silver beneath cloudless skies. Across a tableau like spilled indigo, the three Alliance brigs sailed in convoy. In the main crosstrees of the second vessel in line, the lookout hailed the watch on the quarterdeck.
“Trouble’s here. Lance o’ Justice looks to be listing to starboard.”
Minutes later, the fitful flash of a signal lantern confirmed that the flagship was taking on water. The mate himself climbed the ratlines to the crow’s nest to translate the lines of blinked code.
“Deck there!” he called. “She plans to heave to! We’re asked to round up alongside and take on most of her cargo of prisoners.”
The surly first mate snapped closed the ship’s glass, considering, while the air plucked moist fingers at his cloak, and the dark rim of the horizon swung like a plate. By the time he completed his descent from the rigging and conferred on deck with his captain, their ship’s compliance was settled. The exchange made plausible sense. Many of the criminals packed onboard the Lance were craftsmen trained as skilled shipwrights.
“Can’t be a blighted loose timber in her hull their sort can’t be press-ganged to fix.” To those crewmen who were wont to dodge sail drill to eavesdrop, he snapped, “It’s the other wretches who are deadweight we’ll pick up. Sailhands set in chains for conspiracy with the Master o’ Shadow. Their carcasses litter the decking in the hold. Dharkaron’s black arse, that’s all got to be pulled to see which faulty seam the Lance has sprung in her bilges.”
Return signals were sent, then sails and course altered to draw the two vessels side by side. The swell was running too high to grapple. Boats were swayed out to a melee of shouted orders and uncertain flickering lanternlight.
Then, through moonless dark, the longboats rowed back, trailed by others put off by the Lance. Each craft breasted and slogged down the waves, made unwieldy by their protesting burden of prisoners. The first boats reached the brig, to redoubled confusion, since convicts in irons could not climb the side battens. One by one, they had to be hoisted aboard like landlubbers in a bosun’s chair. The clumsy maneuver raised a running, obscene commentary from those among them who were seamen. The most ribald and ruthlessly damning remarks were volunteered by a swarthy West Shandian captain who proved vitriolically loyal to Prince Arithon.
The brig’s snappish mate peered down his nose at the turmo
il fanned over heaving, jet waters. “Pitiful waste, that leg irons do naught to crimp shut the yap on that wretch.”
For no mark proved exempt: the prisoner possessed a deadly sharp eye for slack seamanship, and a tongue to scale rust from black iron. Worse yet, his railing came poisoned with wit to crack the most dour man’s ribs. The oarsmen who ferried him across in the longboat lost their timed stroke, unraveled into helpless laughter. They arrived, doubled over their banked oars, shut eyes leaking tears, while wind and drift fetched them headlong against their mother ship’s side strakes.
The sea rose and dipped; varnished gunwales raked new planking to a roaring scrape of gouged wood.
Screams from the outraged officer topside collided with the Shandian’s peal of ridicule. “Ath, you blind ninnies! It’s a wonder you all managed to get yourselves born, if you’ll row for a coxswain who rams a brig broadside with his eyes open.”
The victimized oarsman shot from the stern seat to defend his maligned competence. In calamitous mistiming, the shove which fended the longboat off the ship rocked into the rising lift of a swell. The coxswain windmilled his arms and sat down with a smacking splash in the ocean.
“Dharkaron’s arse, lookit you!” cried the Shandian in amazement. To rounds of explosive chuckles from the other boat’s crews, and against jeers from the gallery of idle hands just arrived to crowd the brig’s rail, he ranted, “I’d have to give my one-legged grand auntie the better odds to stay upright! Not only can Lysaer’s brave seamen not row! By Ath, cold sober, they can’t even keep their bungling butts dry in a longboat! If this is the measure of an Alliance royal ship, then for mercy strike my chains. I swear, I’ll drown sooner if I’m forced to ply my fortune under the same breed o’ captain.”
“Silence that upstart!” the brig’s master called down from the quarterdeck.
His command passed unheard. An oar splashed to a murderous yell from the swimmer.
“Toss the poor wretch a rope!” cried an onlooker.
“Better not,” quipped the Shandian. “He’ll just get it looped round his neck.”
His bent of hilarity turned from harmless to obstructive as derisive suggestions flurried down from those sailors on deck who were still safe and dry, to the oarsmen who manned the indecorous longboat. Each remark proffered a more outrageous solution to fish their soaked coxswain from the water.
“Why bother?” The Shandian laughed in withering disgust. “Sharks don’t care beans if they eat stupid meat.”
“I said, shut that wretch up!” Flushed with ill temper from being ignored, the brig’s captain stormed from the quarterdeck.
He plied elbows like rams and laid a path through the pack of shirkers amidships. Forced to stumble over clusters of chained prisoners, he shoved aside the last gawkers. But his new vantage at the rail gained him small satisfaction. Below him, wild splashes and a steady round of oaths issued from beyond a rocking circle of lamplight. To his left, some inveterate pest was taking odds down for wagers, as though anyone on shipboard could reliably sort out the roistering mayhem ongoing under cover of darkness. Scribbled reflections thrown off murky swells defeated the most determined attempt to sort out the salient details. Nor could a captain enforce his chain of command without correct names to assign to the faces of the miscreants.
Left no sure target for reprimand, he locked horns at last with his mate. “Are we running a shambles?”
“Well, ding me dead!” whooped the Shandian in renewed delight. “We’re getting the old man himself, come to teach us lowlifes the obvious.”
The captain lost his temper. “You oarsmen! Let that oaf in the water shift for himself. I want every Sithaer-forsaken one of these prisoners clapped in the hold straightaway! We make sail in an hour. By then, the last boat will be stowed in smart form. If I hear any laggard’s still bumbling at the oar, he’ll be cast off as flotsam for the sharks!”
“Oh, smart thinking,” cried the Shandian in whetted, bright sarcasm. “Leave the shirkers adrift. I wouldn’t want to strike topsail yards, either, underneath of some louts who can’t hoist their fleabitten bones up a side batten.”
“Gag that prisoner, or kill him,” snapped the captain to the mate, who still chuckled at his shoulder. “Whatever it takes, bring our men back in line. I don’t care if you have to break heads, just show me a diligent crew!”
Far from cowing the sailhands back to order, his enraged threat of violence only seeded a frenetic, new snarl of confusion. Sailhands jostled and yelled oaths from behind. They pressed their captain’s stance, apparently possessed by a brainless urge to start brawling. More shouting erupted from the oared boats port and starboard. Then both lanterns were doused in unison. Darkness clapped down, an oddity which meant the brig’s deck lamps had also extinguished. Screams ripped through the laughter before anyone realized: the boats alongside were not friendly.
The prisoners themselves were escaped from their chains and bearing arms in a battering attack.
“Ath preserve, we’re being boarded!” The brig’s captain shouldered past his first mate and fell flat, still yelling. Other men went down with him, raining blood from slit throats. More onlookers skidded and crashed from missteps in warm puddles as the enemy’s murdering steel chewed through their disorganized resistance.
“Daelion save us all, it’s the Shadow Master’s treachery!”
For the crews who brought in the longboats from the Lance were not the same ones who had manned the oars at the launching.
In belated distress, the brig’s captain screamed for his quartermaster to ring the alarm. “Sound warning to the third vessel! Let them hear that we’re under assault! The Lance, save her, must be already fallen to the enemy.”
“Can’t, sir!” His officer’s explanation filtered back, harried, through the percussion of steel striking steel, and live flesh and bone in maiming thuds. “Some whoreson has cut down the ship’s bell!”
“Sithaer, this can’t happen.” The captain locked his teeth, fought his way upright, and ducked a bloody sword. He plowed through the chaos and grabbed his first mate by the scruff. “Get below! Now! Roust out that useless Etarran fighting company! We need them to kill as they’re paid for.”
But the bad news returned, that the royal men-at-arms were not sleeping or deaf, but confined. Some fiend had battened the hatches.
“They’ll come out disarmed, or be poisoned with smoke,” said a stranger with soot-blackened features who must have crept aboard through the thrashing display put on by the posturing coxswain. “Since we don’t rightly care if the poor bastards suffocate, you might want to declare them our captives.”
“You won’t get away with this.” The captain stiffened to the prod of a sword at his spine, then flinched, as beside him, his arguing mate was cut down by a stroke that gutted him to the navel.
Then, the insufferable last straw, the Shandian captain swarmed up the strakes and leaped the rail in swaggering insolence. “Strike your colors and surrender this vessel.” His grin came and went, all uncivil, sharp teeth. “Or die valiant while we run up the leopard of Rathain. It’s all one to me. This brig’s already befouled to her scuppers. We’re going to have to find pails and swab up your mate’s liver, anyway. Refuse, and you’ll just make that unsavory task the more grisly.”
Reckoning
Spring 5653
The meeting took place just past dawn in the Lance’s overcrowded chart room, the aftermath of hard action reshaped to crisp order by the Master of Shadow’s freed henchmen. Fate and Caolle’s courageous ingenuity had bought them a stunning reprieve. Theirs now to decide, the new course of action for the Alliance’s two suborned vessels. In addition, they held the Koriani First Senior and fifty smoke-sickened men from the Etarran fighting company, kept alive for use as hostages. The latter had been imprisoned in the hold where, lately, their ebullient captors had escaped the selfsame misfortune.
The vessel still listed, albeit suspiciously. No hands could be heard manning pumps. The defeated
captain rowed across from the other prize cursed in hindsight, now aware the flagship’s ballast must have been shifted to lend her the appearance of leaks and sprung planking. On deck, in the pale flood of daybreak, he had deciphered the sequence of signal flags being strung up on a halyard. In due time, the third brig still sailing in legitimate crown loyalty would receive placid word that the Lance of Justice intended to retire to Tideport. Her course change made plausible sense; once in sheltered waters, the convict shipwrights she carried could ostensibly mend her stressed timbers.
The two other brigs, in tandem, would sail east for Mainmere Narrows to effect the blockade intended to trap Arithon s’Ffalenn. No break in procedure hinted of problems. With appearances maintained, the assumption followed suit that the flag captain’s sealed orders had been transferred to a sister ship with sound seams. The third vessel would have no reason to suspect her command ship was now manned by armed enemies. Undisturbed, still serene, she remained unaware of the past night’s nefarious piracy.
Tired to the bone, his breeches and shirt splashed with dried blood from his murdered first mate, the brig’s deposed captain currently languished in the same chains lately struck off his Shandian counterpart. The ignominy left him indisposed at sea for the first time since he was a ship’s boy set free of his tearful mother’s apron strings. His shame was not eased by the damning sharp seamanship displayed by a band of rank criminals.
Behind the chart desk, bound in plain rope, sat his fellow officer in misfortune. The dispossessed captain of the flag vessel. Lance, appeared disheartened and pale, unmarked by signs of rough handling. His clothing was still uncreased and clean, and his face showed no worse than the wear of taut nerves and lost sleep.