Fires of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #29] Read online

  Of the twenty-five, fifteen were apim and ten were diffs.

  Smells of cooking made all our mouths water, and everybody went off to their various quarters to eat. The aft staterooms were partitioned off so that, as Pompino said, we could indulge in privacy when we wished. My cabin was small, clean, smelling of sweet ibroi, and would serve admirably. I own I craved for the evening to arrive and the tide, and then we would be off. A tug, a low many-oared vessel, came to haul us out past the boom. I remarked on this extravagance.

  “Yes,” said Pompino. “It is a waste of gold pieces when you have stout arms and backs in your crew. But it keeps the harbor master happy—he is a distant cousin of my wife's—and the crew feel I intend to look after them."

  With the feel of the ship under me, the sky darkening above and scintillating with the myriad stars of Kregen, I felt a tremendous liberating gust of spiritual well-being. We were off. Off to start the Jikai against the Leem Lovers.

  There were many other undertakings I might be about in Kregen right now; but this was a task set to my hands. Apart from Delia and my family and friends, it seemed to me I did not do wrong in thus setting my face toward this adventure.

  * * *

  Chapter ten

  Decision at the Mermaid's Ankle

  No compunction troubled me in allowing Pompino the Iarvin to outfit me in style. We were kregoinye. When it came to push of pike we shared our possessions, and made the best of it. At the moment, Pompino held the money and goods; ergo, he outfitted me.

  I wore a decent blue tunic, and grey trousers cut to the knee. I went barefoot. I had a red scarf tied around my head. I swung a thraxter from a broad leather belt. If we got into a fight I would have the choice of Pompino's armory to arm and armor myself.

  The days passed sailing along the coast. We sighted a few other vessels, and all was well.

  Tuscurs Maiden rolled along, breasting the swell with a deal of white smother from her forefoot. The breezes blew and the weather remained fine. To keep from idleness was not difficult.

  Pompino himself supervised the handling of the mercenaries, the marine component of the ship's complement.

  Captain Linson, the master, kept his seamen well in order. They were a bright bunch, and the sails went out and came in in a handy fashion.

  The Ship-Hikdar, the first officer, knew his duties and played a mean game of Jikaida. He did not drink. He had a tongue that could cut, in a figurative sense, as well as the Whip of any Sister of the Rose. The Ship-Deldar, the Bosun, an enormous man with an enormous red beard and enormous belly, rejoiced under the name of Chandarlie the Gut. The Ship-Hikdar, Naghan Pelamoin, ran a taut ship, and the Ship-Deldar used his rattan rarely. Tuscurs Maiden was, I judged, as happy a ship as one might expect to find, given the misery of much sailing ship life.

  More rather than less of the coastlines of Kregen are festooned with myriads of islands. Here lurked danger. We sailed well out into the offing, and Captain Linson knew these waters. We were stopped by a swordship off the town of Hanmensmot where we were due to offload some cargo. Everyone crowded to the bulwarks to stare across the water as the swordship closed.

  Pompino chased his Relt stylor to have the papers and passes ready for inspection. The swordship, long and low in the water, hauled her oars into a smothering wash of foam and lost way. A boat lowered and started across for us.

  Studying the swordship, I became aware of Pompino at my side. He nodded across the suns-glinting water.

  “A prickly lot, the citizens of Hanmensmot. But I suppose they have every right to be. Pirates are active."

  “They cannot imagine we are renders in Tuscurs Maiden!"

  “Perhaps they can. Towns have been sacked by renders pretending to be honest seafaring merchants."

  The boat bobbed closer. She flew a huge blue and green flag in some exotic design. The swordship was smothered in flags. Her oars rested, quiescent. Her thole pins were arranged in groups of three, very close together. There were nineteen banks, giving the ship a total of a hundred fourteen oars. She was, thus, propelled on the old system of alla sensile. Sometimes it is rendered as zenzile.

  Pompino sniffed. “Not like my swordships. I admit that Whitefang is old; but she rows on the modern system."

  By this I knew his swordship Whitefang employed the style known as al scaloccio, that is, more than one man to an oar. Less than three men on an oar is a system not as efficient as three oars each with one man; four or five or more men to an oar yields much greater rewards in propulsive effort. I use Terrestrial terminology here, not Kregish, for the sake of simplicity.

  I said: “If we are to sail up to the Koroles, and those islands, I understand, are infested by pirates, we might do well to have Whitefang with us."

  “Do you think me a ninny? My other four argenters sail in company with fleets of my associates. Whitefang must serve her duty with them as guardship.” By his way of talking I knew he held back a secret. Guessing that was easy enough.

  “So your other—and your wonderful new modern slap-up-to-date swordship—waits for us farther on?"

  He growled. “Of course, fambly."

  We discharged our cargo and took on water and so weighed and set off eastwards once more.

  Where there are islands and where the governments are weak or divided, then pirates tend to flourish. At the next port along, Febranden, a large and sprawling city up a sizable river, we joined a convoy bound for the east. We all felt easier in our minds as we set off, one among a press of sail. Counting ships, I made the convoy to be twenty-three argenters, ten of the small coasting type vessels, a few oddments of ships—boats, really—tagging along for protection and no less than ten swordships and risslacters spreading out around us. This was impressive.

  Also, it was alarming.

  “If they provide this many warships, Jak, it must mean they anticipate trouble."

  “Aye. You had no news in the marketplace?"

  “Only the normal scares, price fluctuations, scandals. Maybe this is standard practice for a passage through the Koroles."

  I lifted one eyebrow.

  “Well!” he flared out. “As I am kept so busy for the Everoinye I do not often have the opportunity of sailing in my own ships. Much as I would like to."

  We consulted Captain Linson.

  He was affable in his piercing way, aware of his responsibilities and position. “I have known a convoy of this size to warrant five swordships, or eight or so risslacters. But not, I must admit, six swordships and four risslacters."

  “Your conclusion, Captain?"

  “We are headed for trouble."

  “Nothing more specific?"

  The air of devilment Linson carried, with his hooked nose and clean-shaven darkness, sparkled strongly now.

  “Yes. I picked up a scrap of gossip in the masters’ saloon ashore. They were talking of a render called Quendur the Ripper. The topic was one not popular. But his is active at this time. They said he had put together a squadron of pirate vessels. This is the answer to honest sailormen."

  Pompino looked across the gunwale. Across two argenters, bluffly bursting the sea asunder as they wallowed on, the sleek shape of a swordship showed, almost lost under the sea as she cut her way through. His arrogant Khibil head lifted.

  “Over there is my new Blackfang. Let this Quendur the Ripper taste her steel!"

  “A fine craft,” agreed Linson. “And captain Murkizon is a fine skipper. As for his crew—"

  Pompino rounded on the master.

  “Well?"

  Linson spread his hands in a tiny gesture.

  “They are not what I would like to see. I would not tolerate them in Tuscurs Maiden."

  Pompino bristled up his whiskers. His foxy face looked fierce, and then shrewd, and then alarmed.

  “D'you know how much I paid for that ship? And what I gave Captain Murkizon to sign on a top-class crew?” Pompino breathed heavily. “By Horato the Potent! If he has played me false—"

  “N
o, no, horter!” Linson, in his turn, looked alarmed at the damage his words had wrought. “Captain Murkizon is a fine officer. Just that he did not have the best opportunities for picking up a good crew, and the ship is not yet run in. Give him time, and plenty of rope's end, and he'll have them all shipshape and Vallian fashion."

  This expression was not new to me—it was much of a muchness with “all shipshape and Bristol fashion"—but it did indicate what the sailors of Kregen's outer oceans thought of the splendid galleons of Vallia.

  “I hope so, by the Merciful Pandrite, I hope so."

  I walked away across the quarterdeck to take a better look at Blackfang. As the days progressed in convoy I was able to size her up, her and her sisters in the escort. She was indeed a superior swordship. Her hull was painted an entire jet black. Her flags were the blue and yellow of Pompino's sailing house. She pulled twenty-nine oars a side, and Pompino told me that six men hauled on each loom. More could be assigned in moments of emergency to haul on ropes fastened to the looms. Her upper deck bristled with artillery—varters and catapults. Her end castles were not overlarge, and her beakhead lifted long and slender. Her ram cut the water ferociously, and Kregan sailors have the knack of using both ram and beak. Perhaps, although superior, she was not the absolute best of her kind, but she was a fine well-found vessel and one I'd joy in the command.

  Very soon now we would call in at Mattamlad, a town situated at the mouth of the River of Bloody Jaws.

  Over that river, going northwards, Seg and I had flown in pursuit of a voller carrying adherents of Spikatur Hunting Sword. We had not heard the last of that little lot yet, I felt sure. It seemed to me that after I had been snatched away from Seg on that jungle path by the lake and the great carven rock face, he and the party would backtrack. Eventually, they'd arrive here, at the mouth of the river. The Kazzchun River was a place where one did not go swimming. Everyone was extraordinarily careful getting into or out of boats. We went ashore as soon as we arrived, and I made inquiries.

  No. No, horter. Our apologies. We have not had a party—or a man—as you describe through here. I started at the customs office and went to the local government bureau for foreigners and then from various taverns to various inns along the waterfront. No one had heard of Seg or the party.

  So, I was in a quandary.

  If I just went charging up the river and hoped to run across them I could easily miss them. Then we would just go on and draw farther apart. If I stayed here I'd miss the adventure with Pompino. If I went with my kregoinye comrade I might be leaving Seg in the lurch. So—a conundrum.

  A fellow with one ear and a hang dog expression followed me out of the Mermaid's Ankle, accosting me with a leer and a sniff. I looked at him stony-faced. Oh—and the tavern's name merely gave expression to that warped Kregan sense of humor. The story was simple; the mermaid was no mermaid but a shishi dressed up in a skin of scales, which had rotted through and exposed one shapely foot. Where the ankle and its gold bangle came in follows on—but I will not repeat that.

  “Your pardon, horter. If you want to go upriver I'm your man."

  He wore skins, his hair was a stringy mess, and he carried a long knife—in his belt.

  “I am not sure,” I said.

  “I have a canoe and ten willing paddlers. I whip them only to keep them happy. You will not regret hiring me, horter. By the Bloody Jaws of the Brown River Herself!"

  The offer was tempting. A few gold pieces—croxes they were called hereabouts—would hire him. If he tried treachery his knife would avail him nothing. And I did want to know what had happened to Seg...

  And then common sense prevailed. “Sink me!” I burst out. “Seg can take care of himself!"

  “Do what, horter?"

  “Nothing. Here.” I handed over a single gold piece. “Thank you for your concern. Have a wet on me."

  I walked off, feeling that I had behaved like a fool. Seg was probably the toughest orneriest critter in this part of South Pandahem. He'd shaft anyone who tried to harm him or the lady Milsi.

  Going back to the ship I met a fellow who looked to be wider than he was tall, an optical illusion enhanced by the vast leather carapace he wore. His face appeared to have been cut ruggedly from the side of a barn. Brick red, bewhiskered, sharply blue of eye, that face bore the marks of a man accustomed to throwing his weight about.

  “Hai!” he called, rolling up to me. “Horter Jak! We've been looking everywhere for you. I've looked in all the sleaziest stews this side of Hamal!"

  I stopped. “Llahal, Captain. You are?"

  “Why, Lahal, Horter Jak! I'm Cap'n Murkizon of Blackfang. Who else, by the Black Moustache of the Divine Lady of Belschutz!"

  “I do not have the honor of the lady's acquaintance, Captain. But thank you for looking for me. I am on my way back to the ship."

  “Aye! To that Cap'n Linson's sea-scow!"

  Any ideas I might have entertained of going aboard Blackfang were quashed by Pompino. As I went up onto the quarterdeck, observing the fantamyrrh as I did so, Pompino hurried forward.

  “Jak! We were all worried. Thank you, Captain Murkizon. I shall want to see you later. Now, Jak, listen—"

  “It might be amusing if I shipped in Blackfang—"

  He looked stricken. He drew me aside. “What, Jak, have you lost your senses? I lead our partnership. Do you think I intend to endure the miseries of a swordship when I can sail in comfort in this splendid argenter? And we must stick together. You know that."

  In the end I acquiesced. Thereby hang the threads of our fates.

  The smell of mud permeated this place. Mattamlad slumbered under the suns. The heat rotted everything. Sweat was copiously shed. The quicker we were away the better. At last, joined by seven ships from the port, we weighed and let loose our sails and picked up a breeze and so set forth to confront the pirates in their lair.

  * * *

  Chapter eleven

  Cap'n Murkizon mentions his Divine Lady of Belschutz

  “What do you make of her, Captain?"

  Captain Linson did not for the moment reply to Pompino's question. He balanced easily, staring at the speck infuriatingly rising and falling on the horizon. The fleet sailed around us, and every glass would be trained on that distant dot of mystery. Linson lowered his telescope.

  “Impossible to say. But a single ship would not sail these waters voluntarily if she was crewed by honest men."

  “Ah!” said Pompino, and brushed up his whiskers.

  I looked around at the fleet. The crowding ships presented a marvelous spectacle, a sea filled with sails. Around our flanks patrolled the swordships and risslacters, long and low and lean, their oars driving them half the time through the water, it seemed, the other half over it. Their rams snouted hungrily. The commodore in charge of the convoy was reputed to know these waters thoroughly, and had given guarantees to the owners that he would get their ships through. Certainly, we had sighted nothing suspicious, and had penetrated a goodly distance into the Koroles, maintaining a course through deep water and avoiding too close proximity to any island.

  All the same, that vessel hovering on the horizon was clearly a spy, sent out to keep observation on our progress. The charts we had of the area were sketchy, and Linson explained this in the old and timelessly frustrating way.

  “The local people feel their waters should be charted by them. It is difficult to come by reliable charts of these waters."

  So now we would have to wait to be attacked. Sooner or later, and no matter how well the commodore guided us, we would have to pass near to one or other of the islands. When we did, then we could be pounced upon and devoured piecemeal.

  We now sailed the Sea of Chem, although strictly speaking we had left that sea to enter what Vallians called the Southern Ocean. To me, a fellow accustomed to dealings with the southern continent of Havilfar, the idea of the Southern Ocean being north of Havilfar remained as a reminder of the strong parochial natures even of great peoples of Kregen.
The people hereabouts, including the commodore, called the stretch of waters the Pandakor Sea. It would make no difference what the name of the water happened to be if it closed over our sinking hulls.

  Pompino in his affronted way, said: “Why doesn't the commodore despatch a swordship to sink or drive off this pestiferous fellow?"

  I left it to Captain Linson to explain something of the arcana of the sea to Pompino who was, to be sure, a landlubber who happened to own a fleet of ships.

  “She hovers away there upwind of us, Horter Pompino. She has the weather gage. She can control how far down to us she runs before beating away. And a swordship would never catch her—"

  “Why not? A swordship has oars, does she not?"

  “Against the wind, the oarsmen would be destroyed in the amount of time required to pull that distance. And when the swordship reached that spot, the shadower would be long gone."

  “It is not,” Pompino delivered himself of the opinion with considerable force, “like riding a zorca."

  Low down and to the northeast appeared a wide dark smear across the horizon.

  Pompino borrowed Linson's glass and studied that dark streak. He braced his shoulders back.

  “If we are to sail this close to an island, we must prepare."

  Forgetting all about my cunning scheme to pretend ignorance of nautical ways, I was jolted into saying: “That's no island, Pompino. That's foul weather."

  Captain Linson pivoted to regard me. His sharp face with that damned great hooked nose tautened. “Without a glass, horter Jak? You are so confident?"

  So, of course, I had to say, “Well, out in the desert that's what bad weather looks like sometimes."

  The lame explanation passed, and I contumed myself for so petty a deception. Truth to tell, despite the companionship and keeping myself busy, I fretted. The Leem Lovers waited, and I wanted to get about this private venture for the Star Lords.

  The gods and spirits of the oceans evidently decided to balk me a little further. The gale was due. Judging by the extent of that ominous bar of blackness across the horizon, she was going to be a big blow.