Quauh stood at the prow, one foot up on the railing. She needed to be up here, where the deck was relatively empty, for the carrack had taken on scores of warriors for transport, including mundunugu cavalry and their fierce cuetzpali, and the main deck and the hold were thick with soldiers and the huge lizards, and while the lizards didn’t smell, their waste certainly did, filling the hold with the stench of rotted fish.
She held tight to the rope rising up from the bowsprit for support as the Uey’Lapialli bounced and rolled through rough seas. They were long out of Freeport—First Mate Quauh’s first chance to look upon the independent haven. She hadn’t been much impressed. She never left the Uey, as few Xoconai officers or warriors rarely set foot on Freeport Island, let alone within the town of Freeport, where the carrack had docked. Still, from the deck, she could see enough to let her know that the place was not for her.
Drunks wobbled along the docks and slept in the shade beneath them. Whores, male and female alike, exhibited their wares, flaunting them, even, to coax sailors from their ships.
To Quauh’s horror, she saw more than one Xoconai visiting with them, walking off with them. Even commissioned sailors of the Tonoloya Armada.
She didn’t understand it, any of it, and didn’t much enjoy the spectacle, too disgusted to be even the least bit intrigued.
The question did nag at her, however: If the sidhe were subhuman, evil creatures, goblins in human clothing, then why would a Xoconai stoop to engage in such carnal indecency with them?
None of it made any sense to her, and on that morning docked in Freeport, she had wished, and not for the first time, that she had stayed in Tonoloya with her family and Lahtli Ayot.
But now she was out on the sea again, the sails full of wind, the spray flying up with every jolt to splash against her and fill her nostrils with that wonderful smell of brine. And so the doubts flew away and she just enjoyed the moment, the wind, the spray, the smell, and the graceful movements of the schooner to port and the one to starboard of the Uey. Escort ships.
Warships.
A reminder that the carrack was carrying something valuable, and mysterious. A few coffin-sized crates that had been loaded and placed in the safest section of the cargo hold. None aboard were allowed to even discuss them and even Quauh, the first mate, had no idea of the contents. She honestly wondered if even Captain Mahuiz knew what the crates contained.
The air was growing warmer now as the Uey moved farther south. But whatever the heat or cold, the winds here surely did not remind her of home, for they carried with them a stickiness and sultriness that seemed to suck the energy right out of her body. Her long yellow hair hung flat and straight back home, but out here, it flared and curled, even, and seemed twice the volume. The lighter linen clothing she had been given for this journey stuck to her even when it was not wetted by the ocean spray.
And the air was only going to get stickier and much hotter, she had been warned. They were sailing for the jungle land of Durubazzi, with no stops intended. And they were taking a roundabout course, far out to sea, avoiding possible problems with any ships sailing under the flag of Behren. The more roundabout journey would be much longer than the typical month, and more so because they had to keep dropping sail so that the mundunugu could take their lizards to sea, riding them about to properly exercise the creatures, and also to catch the fish that would feed the mounts and the crews of the three ships alike.
At least there was some benefit to the pauses, with the fish being a welcome break from the salted, spoiling mutton, which had to be picked clean of rat turds, and the hard biscuits that had to be pounded against a plank to eject the weevils and the maggots. Quauh snorted a little bit with amusement as she considered those rituals, weighing them against her continued love of sailing. Minor inconveniences, she thought.
But still, the fresh fish were a most satisfying luxury.
Also, she admired the bravery of the mundunugu warriors for riding those mounts into the sea, for she and all the others had witnessed a more remarkable and terrible incident on only the fourth day out of Freeport. Quauh had seen many sharks in her life, both in Tonoloya and in her two years sailing these waters. She had once been caught in the middle of an enormous school of hammerheads, many of them twice her size, while diving to salvage a shipwreck in the west. But never had she seen a creature as powerful as the huge white shark that had come up under one of the mundunugu lizards on that day, perhaps twenty feet of the killer behemoth coming clear of the water after rising right beneath its prey. The mundunugu had been thrown far and wide, fortunately, but the poor lizard had seemed a tiny thing in the maw of that shark, and it was bitten in half before any of them, shark, rider, or lizard, splashed back down into the Mirianic.
But still, the riders went out every day, though now the three ships closed ranks about them, circling while they exercised their mounts and tried to bring in a bit of fresh meat for dinner.
She lived in interesting times, and in a surprisingly interesting place, full of challenges to many concepts she’d thought of as “truths.” She liked being challenged mentally more than physically, but even so, nothing was more pleasing to Quauh than standing close enough to the prow of a ship to feel the mist as it cut through ocean waters, the bright sun on her face being mitigated by both water and wind.
The smell and the sparkles of little whitecaps, the whales and dolphins and even the giant sharks.
And the roll of the water beneath the ship—yes, that most of all, for that feeling conveyed so much information to her about the currents and crosscurrents. It was as Lahtli Ayot had told her: she had a gift. Every sensation about her told her something, like pieces of a puzzle, and she could put those pieces together better than anyone she had ever known.
Chimeg swung back toward the mainmast, but instead of manipulating the magic to send her swinging in a different direction this time, she reversed the energy with a thought and let the lodestones pull themselves together, and pull her right to the mast. She grabbed onto it and steadied herself, then bent her attached leg and dropped her free foot down to stand on the yard. Just a quick pause to collect her thoughts, check her wounds, and consider.
Her cheek burned most of all, but there was no arrow there, at least. She had one sticking through her left shoulder, and another stabbed through her bent left leg.
She knew she was in trouble.
Looking down at the deck, though, she knew the Swordfish would soon be dead.
Another barrage of arrows swept the deck. First Mate Calloway was down and writhing. Captain Jocasta held a bow and tried to respond, but she was staggering too badly to make any effective shots.
No more than five of the remaining crew were up, and all but one had thrown down their bows and swords.
Chimeg looked to the Cipac, fast-closing and with boarding planks readied. She saw a goldfish splendidly dressed and was certain it was Captain Aketz, and beside him an augur dressed in the finest robes of all.
She could get two arrows off. She had a chance here to strike a mighty blow against the goldfish.
She knew she’d be soon dead if she did it, though. She looked to the crew again, to her friends, all doomed, whatever she might try.
With a sigh of failure, Chimeg hooked her composite bow on a peg on the mainmast, then took up the pail of blood. She held the magic strong, binding her ankle to the strap on the mast, but held on to nothing else, and let herself tumble over to hang head-down over the yard, trying to make it appear as if she had become tangled in death to the rigging. She subtly pulled the edge of the rubber seal of the pail, and felt the warm and sticky blood pouring down over her chest, rolling along her neck and chin, matting her hair.
Arms outstretched below her, she let the bumps and rolls of the ship control her swaying. She closed her eyes when the ships came together, hearing the cries and the rush of the Xoconai boarding Swordfish. The sounds faded and the darkness of her closed eyes deepened as her consciousness flitted away.
Only briefly, though, but even when she became aware of her surroundings, she hung there for a long while, eyes closed, playing dead.
She peeked down only occasionally, to see Jocasta being interrogated by the man she thought to be Aketz. Finishing the interrogation, she knew, when he slapped her hard across the face and spun away.
“Prow her!” he yelled, and Chimeg tried not to react and told herself repeatedly that such was of course to be expected.
She knew well the stories and understood the way Captain Aketz played this game.
No one came up to get her. Why would they, since she was showing herself as a perfect trophy to any buccaneers who might see the defeated Swordfish? What better warning than a bloody, dead lookout hanging upside down from the highest yard?
The ship had little of value, but its water and food and whatever else the goldfish could find were quickly shuffled aboard the Cipac, while the few surviving crew were held sitting in a circle about the mast below Chimeg, javelins and bows aimed their way.
While some goldfish warriors tied Swordfish to Cipac, others prow-tied Jocasta, arms and legs out wide, bound to the forecastle with her back tight against Swordfish’s prow, her feet just above the waterline.
“Prowed,” as the saying went among the sailors.
“I am a generous man, and so give you a seaman’s chance,” Captain Aketz explained to the other captives. “Perhaps some god of luck will look upon you this day and get you to the beach.”
He paused and laughed at them, a hissing, wicked sound.
“Whether that god is good luck or bad… well, you will have to discover that for yourselves.”
With his boarding party beside him, all of them laughing, Aketz left the doomed Swordfish.
Once again, Chimeg considered the possibility of righting herself, grabbing her bow, and taking a shot at the vile goldfish.
And once again, faced with a certain moment of death, the To-gai-ru archer could not bring herself to do it.
She was likely doomed anyway, but Chimeg stubbornly held on to a strand of hope.
“I will one day avenge you, my friend Jocasta. Sleep well,” she whispered to herself.
“Next seaman who asks me gets fed to the sharks,” Captain Mahuiz quietly told Quauh, joining her by the deck galley, where she was waiting for her portion of the fish that had been prepared for lunch.
Quauh didn’t have to ask what question was being asked, and understood that she should take great care in even responding at all. So she just smiled at the man. She was quite fond of him, and not just because of his considerable abilities in handling ship and crew. He reminded her of Ayot, though he was likely twenty years younger than her lahtli. The sun and the sea, the wind and the spray, had taken a physical toll, though, and he looked much older than his years. He walked with stiff hips, and his shoulders never settled evenly, for his back was crooked. His eyes had the same gray as Ayot’s, and like Ayot, his facial colors were fast dimming. His nose appeared more pink than red, and the blue at its base was hardly more noticeable than the blue of the veins in his gnarled old hands.
With the captain’s inviting nod, she took her plate and moved beside Mahuiz toward his door at the quarterdeck, carrying her meal, which was composed of some whitefish she did not know, chopped into bite-sized morsels.
“Weeks at sea can bore many,” she did remark as they neared Mahuiz’s cabin. “Secrets are exciting, perhaps.”
“Even to hold them,” the captain admitted with a grin. “Go about the deck and seek out the whisperers—even speculation could prove disastrous. The seas have ears, Quauh.”
Quauh nodded. “And those devilish barrelboats are often bobbing unnoticed nearby,” she agreed.
“Powries,” Mahuiz said with a chuckle. “Formidable little beasties, and aye, always listening, trying to find an advantage.”
“Or a reason to take on a ship as formidable as Uey’Lapialli.”
“I think our flanking vessels might have a word with them if they tried, as well,” Mahuiz said. “See what you can learn.”
Quauh started to respond, but a call from the warships to starboard rang out loud and clear. “Sails! Forty to starboard!”
The captain and the first mate turned reflexively.
“Sails to starboard!” confirmed their own lookout high above. “Fifty to us!”
Quauh ran for the forecastle, the captain close behind. Up on the higher deck, she pulled out her spyglass and pointed it toward the indicated area.
“Two ships: a three-masted frigate and a sloop behind,” she told Captain Mahuiz when he shuffled up behind her. “A sloop with lowered sails.”
She stepped aside and handed him the spyglass, indicating the general direction.
He began nodding almost as soon as he lifted the glass to his eye.
“Back one’s flying the red ’n’ black,” he said. “Red sailfish, or might be a swordfish, on a black field.”
“Buccaneers,” Quauh remarked. “But with a three-masted—”
“Cipac,” the captain interrupted, leaning forward as he continued to peer through the spyglass. “That is Cipac, for sure. Captain Aketz has caught another one!”
He stepped back and handed the spyglass to Quauh, motioning for her to take a closer look, and while she did just that, Captain Mahuiz went to the rail overlooking the main deck. “Captain Aketz, the Crocodile of the Mirianic, has rid us of another foul pirate!” he yelled down to the crew, and the cheering began, joining that of the two warships.
Quauh studied the distant ships more carefully, noting the huge flag trailing the sloop. Yes, a swordfish, she thought.
“Why is he letting them fly the red ’n’ black?” she asked quietly, not expecting an answer.
“To let everyone who views the spectacle of the death sail know that another pirate is destroyed, or soon will be,” Captain Mahuiz answered. “He is towing that sloop to her doom.”
“The death sail?” Quauh had never heard the expression. She turned to the captain.
Mahuiz was looking back, then to the west, then up at the sun. Gauging their position, she thought. Finally, he nodded.
“He will tow them to the north side of Serpent Isle, likely, and there, cut her free,” the captain explained.
“Free?”
Mahuiz chuckled. “Free of him, but not of the tide. They’ve no sails to raise.”
“Serpent Isle?” Quauh remarked. She had heard the name before but could not place it.
“Comes by its name honestly, not to doubt,” said Mahuiz. “But no matter for those pirates aboard the captured sloop, for they’ll not likely get anywhere near the dry land.”
He patted Quauh on the arm and started away. “If I am not back on deck at eighteen bells, come and wake me,” he said. “I wish to view the stars tonight.”
Quauh nodded, then turned back with the spyglass to regard the distant ships. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of Mahuiz’s cryptic references, but she was glad indeed that another of the infamous buccaneers would trouble the Xoconai ships no more.