Great Chief

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Gardening is women’s work.”

  He refused to be offended by the statement he’d heard hundreds of times in his life. “You’re a woman, I believe. It should be perfect.”

  Despite his effort not to sound offended, his tone must have been stiff.

  After scrutinizing him for a few seconds, she said, “I’m sorry, Yanko.”

  “It’s all right.” He waved in dismissal, though he was pleased she cared enough to make the effort. Maybe he should have apologized for offending her.

  “Do you use magic in your gardening?”

  Nobody had ever asked him about his hobby so he almost swooned. “I sometimes do, yes. That’s actually how my family first learned that I had an aptitude for it. Without quite realizing what I was doing, I made a pumpkin grow extremely large. I was only six, you see. We entered it into the valley’s biggest-pumpkin contest in the fall, but one of the judges was a retired earth mage, and she recognized that it had been magically enhanced. My grandmother almost got in trouble until everyone realized I had been in charge of the family pumpkin patch that year.”

  Jhali gazed at him. The sun was sinking lower on the horizon, bathing her face with reddish-gold light. Yanko had the urge to ask her to show him her anklet—and calf—again, but he couldn’t tell from her scrutiny if she thought he was delightfully quirky after hearing that story or unpleasantly strange for using magic on pumpkins.

  He shrugged. “I know. I’m odd.”

  “You are odd,” she said, as if just coming to the realization. “I’m beginning to grasp that it’s who you really are. You aren’t pretending to be wholesome. You just are.”

  “Wholesome? I feel like I should be insulted.”

  “It’s just surprising that someone with your power cares about plants.”

  “What, mages can’t have hobbies?”

  “Hobbies that trample on the poor and mundane and show the world how superior they are, certainly. That town I mentioned? There was a wizard that ruled over it, and while everyone else lived in little huts and cabins and nobody had great wealth, he forced people to build him a hundred-foot-tall tower, so he could look down at his minions from up high.”

  “Well…” Yanko didn’t quite know what to say to that. There hadn’t been anyone like that in his village. “My father wouldn’t even let me build a tree fort, much less a tower. Not unless I used carpentry tools instead of magic. He said it was unseemly for mages to use their power to bend branches. But if I used tools, I would have had to nail holes in the tree and saw off limbs. With magic, I could have done it without impeding its growth in any way.”

  Jhali gazed at him as the sun finished slipping below the horizon, dimming the deck of the yacht a few shades. She lifted her hands to either side of his face, fingers gently brushing his cheeks, then rose onto her tiptoes to kiss him.

  He wasn’t completely startled this time, and he rested his hands on her waist and returned the kiss eagerly, wanting her to know that he appreciated it. He felt the hilts of knives and the bumps of throwing stars through the fabric of her wrap, but that only made him grin against her lips, reminded that she’d been walking at his side all week, willing to protect him if someone attacked while he focused on his magic.

  Jhali seemed surprised by his response. Because she hadn’t expected him to want to kiss her back? Or because he’d stood like a stupid post the last time she’d kissed him? Probably that. He thought about reminding her that he’d offered her a head and foot rub, but that would have required telepathy, and he wasn’t sure she would appreciate that now. And he definitely wasn’t taking his mouth away from hers to talk. Her lips were so—

  “Yanko!”

  Yanko jerked away from Jhali at Lakeo’s startled cry, afraid some pirate with a dagger was about to spring at his back.

  “What are you doing?” Lakeo stomped up to them and thrust an accusing finger at Jhali’s chest. “She could stick a dagger between your ribs at any time while you’re standing there all slack and stupid.”

  “Oh.” At first, Yanko was relieved there wasn’t a true threat, but then he was annoyed that Lakeo had interrupted them. Granted the deck of the yacht wasn’t the most private place for a moment alone, but—

  “Oh?” Lakeo threw up her hands. “Do what you want, Yanko. Just don’t expect me to stick around and march in Zirabo’s army if you’re floating on the waves with a dagger thrust into your heart.” She strode away, shaking her head and heading down the steps.

  Jhali stepped back from Yanko.

  “Wait,” he blurted, not wanting her to leave. He’d been enjoying her liking his oddness. “I’m sorry. She doesn’t know—”

  “No,” Jhali said. “She’s right. I’ve tried to kill you. You would be unwise to trust me. Besides, you’re destined for a great station in life. I’m just a mage hunter. And now, with my sect gone, I’m not even that anymore.” She dropped her chin to her chest and walked away.

  “You can be whatever you want,” Yanko called after her. “It’s never too late to try gardening.”

  She disappeared down the steps without looking back.

  Yanko frowned and thumped his hand on the railing. What had that even meant?

  “Idiot.”

  14

  Yanko felt a little better by the time the Nurian coastline came into sight. Better and bemused. The fifteen-ship fleet of Kendorian privateers—or pirates, as everyone insisted on calling them—sailed behind Tynlee’s yacht. He didn’t know what Xara had said to the pirate captains, but they had all trailed his group out of the bay and crossed the ocean with them.

  They were still a day or two from Yellow Delta, and Yanko watched for signs of battle inland as they sailed north, a couple of miles off the coast. Kei perched on his shoulder, occasionally plucking strands of hair out of his topknot. The parrot thought that a delightful hobby.

  Yanko swished the orangish-pink concoction in his cup, willing himself to finish the rest of it. His brain was clearer, and he’d stopped coughing, but he wasn’t back to full strength. He tired easily, and the day before, he and Dak had both broken out in a sweat after two minutes of sparring. Neither had said how much trouble they would be in if they were expected to do a lot of fighting during this march to take the capital, but they both must have been thinking it.

  Not that anybody would expect Dak to march into a battle in Nuria. His superiors would likely think him daft if he did. Yanko on the other hand…

  His guts twisted as he tried to guess what Zirabo would expect him to do to help turn the tide. Destroy more soul constructs? He hoped his magical stamina wasn’t as quick to fatigue as his physical stamina. He hadn’t yet tested it and was worried about what he would find when he did.

  Yanko drank deeply from the cup.

  “Tastes like piss,” Kei announced.

  Yanko sputtered. “Who said that?”

  “Everyone,” Lakeo said, walking up to stand beside him. “Speaking of that, is your pee pink?”

  “No, is yours?”

  She hesitated. “Of course not. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. I guess I’m feeling better though.”

  “That’s good.”

  Yanko didn’t know what else to say to her. They hadn’t spoken much since she’d interrupted his first real kiss with Jhali, at least the first one where he’d realized he could kiss her back. Yanko hadn’t seen Jhali since then. He’d stood outside her door and almost knocked a few times, but her parting words had him worried that she would build a wall between them now.

  As if he was truly destined for some great station. If things somehow all turned out the way he hoped they would, he might be able to ask for and be granted the governorship of that continent, at least whatever portion of it the Nurians managed to negotiate for. Then he could guide its development. In a few centuries, that might be a prestigious position, but now, he doubted anyone would want to settle there aside from the handful of pirates he’d bribed. It would be full of criminals and Turgonians. Governing that
would hardly qualify as a great station.

  “It looks more peaceful than I expected.” Lakeo waved at the coastline.

  “We’re between cities. I doubt anyone’s warring for trees and beaches.”

  “You would. If the land was fertile.”

  He smiled. “Maybe.”

  “We’re meeting Zirabo at Yellow Delta?”

  “That’s the plan, yes.”

  “I’m sick of that city.”

  “We won’t stay long. He’s collected some military leaders and is ready to march on the capital. I’ll ask the pirates to sail their ships into the harbor of the Great City to support him, or pretend to support him.”

  “I know this is your thing that you feel honor bound to do, but I don’t want to fight in this war, Yanko. And die because of some civil war that I don’t care anything about.” Lakeo looked warily at him.

  Did she fear he would judge her for that? He knew she didn’t feel much loyalty to Nuria, and he’d known that for a long time. Sometimes, he was surprised she’d stuck with him this long.

  “You could stay on the yacht and wait until the land battles are resolved. I doubt Tynlee will order the captain to take her diplomatic vessel with its one ancient cannon to war.”

  She chewed thoughtfully on her lip. “I’d feel guilty leaving you to get yourself killed.”

  “I’m sure I can find someone to act as a bodyguard for me if I need to use my magic in a fight.” Yanko didn’t know if Dak was coming, and he kept himself from mentioning Jhali.

  Lakeo squinted at him.

  “You know that gold we got?” Yanko asked to change the subject. “I want to give most of it to Zirabo, so he can use it to sway people, but I could give you one of the bars for tuition. It should be enough even for the high-priced Kyattese Polytechnic. And maybe you could convince Tynlee to drop you off there on her way back to Turgonia.”

  “You never did say where you got that gold.” Lakeo arched her eyebrows. “From the Turgonian mining camp?”

  “In the tunnels up there.”

  She spat over the railing. “I tried to sneak into the command tent in the base camp and take some of the ore the Turgonians had dug up, but the soldiers spotted me and emptied my pockets. But I guess mages just find gold lying around.”

  “Technically, it was in stone walls.” He didn’t mention the pile of ore the lieutenant had been gathering by the lake, since they had left that all there. “We—uhm, I used magic to melt it from its vein and form it into bars.”

  She caught that slip and made a sour face.

  Yanko took a deep breath, afraid he would have to address his relationship with Jhali and clear things up with Lakeo.

  “I still don’t want to take your money, Yanko.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the same as that day back on Minark’s ship. It wouldn’t feel right to accept charity.”

  He scratched his head, almost jostling Kei before he remembered the parrot was there. “But stealing gold from the Turgonians would have been fine?”

  She shrugged. “I’d be getting it on my own, not having someone hand it to me. And it’s not like they have any right to that continent and its gold. They’re not the ones who raised it off the bottom of the ocean.”

  Yanko didn’t know what to say. She didn’t find anything faulty with her logic. How could he debate her?

  The captain stopped a few paces away and cleared his throat. “Honored Mage?”

  If the man hadn’t been looking straight at him, Yanko might have pointed at his chest and asked if that was him.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Someone wishes to speak with you on my communications orb.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  Yanko patted Lakeo—they would have to finish their conversation later—and took a last swig from his cup, with Kei once again opining that it, “Tastes like piss.”

  He convinced the bird to find another perch and headed for the steps. He assumed that Zirabo was the one waiting to speak with him, and he didn’t want Kei’s comments in the background.

  In the captain’s cabin, when Yanko slid onto the bunk in front of the orb, he almost fell right off again. It wasn’t Zirabo.

  “Good afternoon, Honored Mother,” he said when he recovered from his surprise.

  Her eyebrows arched. “That’s the first time you’ve called me that.”

  It was, he realized. He had thought of her by name in their previous interactions. This had slipped out. She was still a notorious criminal, so he shouldn’t refer to her as honored anything. Oh, well. It was too late to rescind it.

  “It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” he said. “I forgot to be chary with you.”

  She snorted.

  “Is Arayevo doing all right?” It suddenly occurred to Yanko that his mother might be calling him to report the death of his friend.

  Pey Lu flicked her fingers in dismissal. “She’s fine. She’s taken to the job—and one of my officers. Hopefully, that doesn’t bother you.”

  Yanko didn’t like the idea of Arayevo with some pirate—or being a pirate herself—but he shook his head and found it was an honest head shake. He’d come to accept that her choices were hers and that he didn’t have the power to sway her.

  “I thought not. You seemed interested in her once, but now you have that viper at your side.”

  Viper? “Jhali?”

  “Is that her name?” Pey Lu asked. “Just hope she’s loyal. Mage hunters are trained from birth to loathe anyone with the ability to cast magic.”

  “I know.” Yanko did not want to discuss his love life, if he could call it such at this incipient stage, with his long-estranged mother.

  “They’re all bitter, brainwashed badgers,” Pey Lu added and touched her neck, the gesture just visible at the edge of the orb’s display.

  Yanko reminded himself that his mother had a very good reason not to like Jhali, but that couldn’t be why she had contacted him.

  “What is it that you wish, Honored Mother?” He’d used the title once before. He might as well go on doing so. Maybe she appreciated the show of respect.

  Pey Lu lowered her hand. “You have a fleet of Kendorian pirate ships following you.”

  “Yes, I do.” Yanko expected her to say that she considered them mortal enemies and insist that he part ways with them, else she would swoop in and attack.

  “Because you promised them land on your new continent.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Has something happened that would give you the ability to fulfill that promise?”

  He couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or was genuinely curious. Probably sarcastic. She knew where he’d been lately, and unless something had happened in the last few days, such as Zirabo claiming the dais, she knew he didn’t have any right to divvy up land on the continent.

  “I made the promise based on a few assumptions of how future events will go,” he said.

  “Then you are planning on capturing the dais for yourself.”

  “What? No!” What had he said that would make her think that?

  “I know about the gold and how you ousted the Turgonians with talk of plague,” she said dryly.

  “Not plague.” He grimaced and ran his tongue over his lips, tasting the lingering remains of the chalky pink stuff.

  “Yes, yes, a deadly plant that only you can eradicate. Close enough. Maybe that’s what caused the so-called plague all those centuries ago.”

  Yanko didn’t want to go into what had truly happened out there with the plant, especially since his mother didn’t sound that interested.

  “Pirates are a gossipy bunch,” Pey Lu said. “I’ve heard much, as have some of my crew. You offered large chunks of land and a pardon to those agreeing to sail into battle at your back.”

  “Something like that,” he murmured.

  Pirates might like to gossip, but it seemed they didn’t care much about getting the facts right. He wondered how many people’s lips the words ha
d passed through before they found their way to his mother.

  “Why does it matter to you?” Yanko couldn’t imagine her wanting to settle down on some remote continent—or anywhere.

  She rolled her eyes and made a scoffing noise. No, she wasn’t interested, but maybe some of her people were? They might be sick of perennially roaming the seas and want a safe place to come home to.

  “Some of your people are interested?” he guessed.

  “Gramon,” she said dryly. “And others, yes. For the others, I would tell them to simply leave and find their own way into your entourage if that’s what they wish. But Gramon has served me well over the years. We’ve had a few altercations, but I’ve recently come to realize…” She shrugged. “He means something to me. If he wants to retire on an ugly lump of land and open up a smithy, then I won’t stop him.”

  A smithy? Yanko had no trouble imagining the muscled Turgonian wielding a huge metalworking hammer, but it was strange to think that a pirate might have such simple dreams for retirement. He’d always assumed they all wanted great wealth so they could buy their own private islands. Maybe they did when they got started, but time tempered expectations, and in the end, they realized they would have been better off if they’d never become pirates. Was that why his offer had proved more effective than he’d expected?

  “And—” Pey Lu leaned closer to the orb, “—if you intend to take the dais, I already told you that I would help.”

  Yanko glanced toward the door, afraid his comrades would overhear her words. She was going to get him in trouble if she kept bringing this up and they started to believe he truly wished the position. But the door was shut. Whatever he said ought to stay between them.