Sasharia en Garde

by Sherwood Smith

  Three big blocks dropped from above, two clonking onto the heads of warriors. One warrior was knocked out, the other staggered toward the rail, a cut over one eye. Crew members leaped to help, getting in the way of Randart’s men who tried to close in on the pirates.

  “Get out of the way!”

  “Where?”

  “Help, help, the boom is about to drop!”

  “I can’t see!”

  The first mate stood at the rail, apparently blind to the chaos as she coughed from the smoke.

  A party of five sailors chose this moment to haul up a huge sail between the pirates and the advancing guards. Gray and Tham covered Zathdar, who dropped down the hatch.

  He slashed his blade across the forehead of one fellow, nailed the elbow and hip of another, then jumped to the second hatchway. Now the search would begin. Where would they would stash a prisoner?

  Randart emerged from his cabin to discover fighting all over the deck, warriors slipping in spilled oil, smacked in the back of the head by swinging blocks of wood from the sails overhead, bumped into by groups of sailors running about, some carrying huge sails, others with long snarls of rope, everyone yelling at the tops of their voices.

  “Pirates?” Randart roared. He spotted them, three around the main hatchway. On guard, it looked like.

  Why? It couldn’t be the Eban girl they were after—

  A loud rattling sounded overhead, and a sail swooped down and dropped over him, knocking him flat.

  “We’re on fire!” someone screeched above.

  “Mizzen top down! Mizzen top down! Sail crew!” the ship captain howled, and feet trampled over Randart, squashing him flat.

  Randart shouted, “Get off me!” but the noise of the sailors bellowing arcane sail jargon at one another, the captain bawling orders, the noise of fighting, of sails flapping, of coughing and whooping caused by the smoke, drowned him out.

  Below, Zathdar began grimly on his search, waiting for the inevitable squad to descend from the deck, each intent on winning fame and fortune by some judicious pirate killing. Take every chance to its end, he’d been taught at the academy across the continent, where dying in battle was considered the best end for a warrior.

  A cough caught his attention, and he whirled, blades up.

  A man’s head popped up from the deck below, barely lit by the single swinging lantern. “She’s here.”

  It was one of Randart’s warriors.

  Expecting a trap, Zathdar hefted his weapon and dropped down to the dim, low third level, which was usually used for storage, to find himself alone with a man with a bound knee. The face was vaguely familiar.

  “He’s going to hang her.” Samdan looked at the pirate dressed in ridiculous clothes, like a traveling player. But there was nothing silly about the narrowed eyes, twin gleams from the lamp flame reflecting in his steady gaze, or the way he held those red-tipped weapons. “Did you kill anyone?”

  A shake of the fringed bandana.

  “Yes. Well, she’s there.” A point.

  A step, a kick to the wooden bar, and indeed, there she was, on her knees, arms bound. One slash and her hands dropped to her sides, her mouth moving as she chattered a stream of nonsense observations in a low, monotonous whisper.

  “You’d best thump me.” Samdan turned his back. And if you kill me, well, it’s only just.

  The pirate nodded once, and didn’t make the man wait. Tossing his knife up, he caught it by the blade, and brought the handle down behind Samdan’s ear.

  Samdan dropped to the deck, his weapon clattering out of his hands. Zathdar stared at Samdan’s knee, remembering where he’d seen the man last—lying wounded in the transfer-tower courtyard. Bending, he lightly nicked Samdan where it would hurt least but bleed most, the better to make it seem he’d put up a good fight, and cut the rest of Elva’s bonds.

  “Can’t use hands,” she murmured, in the slurry voice of someone who was under the influence of kinthus.

  “Stop talking.” The kinthus would make her obey, and thus she would also be able to halt the weird chatter.

  He slid his arm under hers and supported her up one ladder—propping her against a bulkhead to step out and look round. There was only one sailor, with the galley and the officers’ wardroom blocked off by barrels. The man looked at them, turned his back, and dropped another barrel onto its side.

  “I’m trying to get you out, but someone upset all the food stores,” he bellowed to the officers shouting and trying to batter the blocked wardroom cabin door.

  Zathdar helped Elva up the last ladder, where they found the deck in chaos, sails hanging loose or dropped altogether, fires being busily put out with water splashing everywhere. And what were these impossible tangles of ropes?

  A rush of warriors toward them turned into a mass skid as someone fell over a barrel of oil that had gotten spilled all over the deck.

  There were Gray, Tham, and Vestar, bloody but alive.

  They closed around him, Gray pressing up on Elva’s other side. Together they lifted her as they mounted to the captain’s deck, where the first mate was busy yelling at a disaster with the mizzen topsails. A web of tangle rope jerked upward, blocking off the scrambling warriors who’d managed to get past the oil.

  A boom swung out from the other direction, lifting the rest of the pursuit off their feet, to crash onto the mizzen sail still being trampled and splashed with buckets of water.

  Zathdar thought he heard Randart’s voice adding to the noise somewhere around that mizzen sail, and laughed as they passed Elva down to Gliss.

  Then they were in the boat, whooping for breath, weapons dropping from hands, minds trying to grapple with the amazing fact that they were alive after all.

  Elva struggled up, her bruised, blood-smeared face lit by the ship fires.

  They rowed out, and Gliss ran up the sail, sheeting it home.

  On the journey back through the smoky ruin in the fleet, the kinthus wore off, and with it the numbing effect of all those bruises. But Elva didn’t care. She had survived. She was alive.

  She said nothing, unsure who knew what, until they reached the Zathdar. It was the pirate himself who offered his shoulder for her to lean on. She couldn’t resist one more test, murmuring into his bandana-covered ear, “Didn’t want me talking, huh?”

  His quick look of surprise was revealing, but all he said was, “And ruin my reputation as the best-dressed prince on the east coast?” The smile Zathdar gave her was his rare, sudden one, a real smile full of fun.

  She contemplated that surprise. He thought she’d talked, but came after her anyway. And though her heart was not fashioned to respond to him, or to any man, what she did feel budding under the miasma of weariness, shock, pain, and unhoped-for reprieve was the green shoot of insight: this was what loyalty was all about. Prince Jehan had no reason to like her, he didn’t even know her, but he’d obviously found her worthy of rescue. A prince who could be loyal to people was worth allegiance.

  o0o

  Randart rubbed his throbbing forehead, but that didn’t even begin to assuage the merciless slam of his headache. The day had begun so well, emphasizing all the more strongly the catastrophic results.

  He faced the captain of the ship, and his own officers, and the mage, who all waited, eyes steady, some weary, some afraid, most of them with the closed faces of unexpressed anger.

  Nothing he could ask was going to reveal the true cause of that sullen fury he saw all around him. How was he to determine if the catastrophe was due to incompetence or to treachery? At home, on land, with the king at his side and the circumstances of well-understood military action at his back, he could probably force out the truth.

  The king. He was finally answerable to the king.

  He drew a deep breath of the stale air, for the cabin was closed tight against listening ears and the rattle and thud of cleanup. “It is very apparent to me, and I am sure it is to you as well, that this pirate attack and the rescue of the Eban girl are not c
oincidence.”

  His words were met with profound silence, except for the shifting of one officer easing a broken arm, and the captain twisting slightly as he cocked his ear upward at some incomprehensible shout up on deck.

  “Someone,” Randart enunciated clearly, “sent the pirate a message. It has to have been by magic, and it has to have been someone on this ship. Maybe in this room.”

  The captain cleared his throat. “Begging your pardon, War Commander. But there were more witnesses seeing that girl brought over than just your people. Supply boats were coming and going. Any of them would be carrying word of what they saw. It’s the way of the sea, everyone will tell you that. Even your captains, if they are honest.” He indicated the Fleet Captain, a thin, morose man sitting opposite Randart, whose ships had accidentally attacked merches, what with the smoke and noise and general chaos. That disaster had enabled the three pirates to slip between the ragged, uncontrolled line of merches and sail downwind, hidden by the smoke and the embrace of night.

  Everyone turned attention to the unhappy Fleet Captain, who lifted a hand. “It’s notoriously hard to keep ears from hearing things on a ship, yes,” he said heavily.

  Randart knew his Fleet Captain was loyal. That crash had occurred in the smoke and chaos that Randart himself had made no sense of, though he’d tried, once he got free of that cursed sail that had fallen on top of him.

  The sail, yes.

  He turned on the merchant captain. “Very well. Then the way of the sea will work for us.” Randart breathed deeply, feeling the slight ease of decision. “You will discover who betrayed us. And when that happens—only when that happens, I emphasize—you will be paid for repairs and the month’s wages. But until then, you are on your own.” Lifting a hand, he added sardonically, “Let that word get out according to the ways of the sea.”

  He rose. Thus released, the ship captain opened the cabin door and sweet, cool air rushed in as they filed out, defeat and tiredness shaping everyone’s countenance, lagging their steps.

  Randart caught the mage’s eye and raised a hand to halt her.

  When the others were gone, he said, “Prepare to transfer back with me to Ellir. We can leave whenever you are ready.”

  She nodded and left.

  He walked up onto the deck, staring at the snarl of ropes and wooden implements whose use he could only guess at, but which probably had something to do with sails. The big sail that had landed on him still lay where it had been kicked, with the jagged cut he’d made by his knife in releasing himself. Bloodstains on it where his knife had caught someone or other who, either accidentally or on purpose, had been trampling the sail while doing something or other to the upper reaches of the ship. He could not know if that had been deliberate or another consequence of the chaos of sea battles. Fleet action, he had learned to his cost, lay too far outside his realm of experience.

  Undeniably the sailors were hacked up, several, like his own warriors, with broken limbs, cuts rudely bound. When he asked, they all seemed not to know if pirates or his own men had caused the wounds. Yet the fact was, no more than four pirates had boarded the ship, made it down to the hold, released the prisoner, and retreated again.

  Samdan was yet unconscious, but Randart was not going to wait for him to waken. He probably didn’t know anything. From the look of him he’d fought his best, hampered by the bad knee and having only a single lamp to see by in the dark hold.

  None of them seemed to know anything useful, except that one of the pirates wore garish clothing like Zathdar was reputed to favor. That would mean the pirate captain himself had been here, and Randart flat on his back under a sail as heavy as a horse.

  There was no evidence of collusion, but he sensed it everywhere he looked. The sailors were too somber, too weary for the obvious signs of collusion. But the quality of the silence formed a wall between him and these mariners.

  Randart let out his breath. Defeat, on unfamiliar territory. But he’d learned something. The pirate had spies everywhere. And he had land ties. Therefore he’d inevitably return to land, and that was Randart’s territory. There would be no defeat next time.

  But first Randart had to get back, and they were at least a week, probably more, from land. It was time for magic transfer, something he not only detested but distrusted. What was to stop the mages from making him vanish conveniently? He didn’t trust Zhavic or Perran for a heartbeat. So he would force the mage to transfer with him. He would never use a magic token himself, though he kept them to expedite those under his orders.

  Magister Lorat presented herself with her bag of belongings, and he wondered if she could have been the traitor. No, that was ridiculous. She probably was reporting to Zhavic, but she’d come with a solid reputation, he’d checked that out first thing. She was a wood mage, which meant she would not be a brilliant thinker in the chaos of battle. She’d done what she was told with the stolidity of the wood she worked with.

  So he braced himself for the wrench which was no easier to endure than it ever was. He’d avoided eating dinner once he’d made his decision, so the nausea, at least, was easier to fend off if his stomach was not full.

  When he recovered, the mage was already gone. He looked about him at the comforting familiarity of stone in the Destination room of Ellir Castle. As soon as he could get his legs to carry him, he forced himself to climb up to Orthan’s tower, which was empty.

  The entire academy was pretty much empty against the war game soon to commence. Randart clapped on the glowglobe and sat down at his brother’s desk to look through the reports stacked there, some annotated in Orthan’s neat hand.

  Everything looked as it should. Randart was having trouble forcing his increasingly aching head to concentrate. That defeat rankled, the more because he knew, he knew, there was deliberate treachery behind it. So he forced himself to be thorough.

  He read one report three times without comprehension before he finally found the sense. Zathdar’s sometime ally, Tharlif, had swooped down onto his secret shipment of weapons meant for spring, and captured them all.

  Fury blinded Randart, leaving him gasping, until he remembered he’d protected himself with a double order, one overland, one by sea. He had planned for this possibility.

  His focus sharpened again. There was no report about the overland wagons being molested. All was well. All was well. He would stay on land in future.

  He forced himself to get through the rest of the reports, then set the pile down. It was time to eat. Sleep. Forget asking Magister Zhavic for news. The mage would just lie or leave out crucial details. No more magic. Randart would take the extra day or so to ride back to the king, and compose his report on the way—that and his strategy for dealing with kingdom matters as they stood.

  But that plan vanished like the sky after the sail dropped on him when he saw the neatly tied pile at the bottom of the reports, a scrap of paper on top written in his brother’s hand: Save for Dannath.

  He pulled up that pile and leafed through it. Most of these would take concentration for it seemed there were some anomalies in supply reports, people where they should not be or missing where they should be. All of that promised painstaking checking, and by trusted aides.

  But that third one down, beginning with the note in Orthan’s hand: I don’t know if this is important. Looked strange.

  Randart glanced at the heading. It was a weekly report from one of the more remote outposts along the northern river.

  He scanned rapidly down to where his brother had made a neat question mark.

  Civilian sailor strayed off the civilian road during storm, female, tall, blond, hazel eyes, name Lasva, from Tser Mearsies. Carrying only personal gear plus a letter from one inn to another, the only item of interest a silken banner in the old Zhavalieshin style.

  It could be any woman, on the most innocuous of journeys. Except why did the mind immediately leap to the missing daughter of Atanial Zhavalieshin? It was the banner. Randart was willing to swear an oath he h
ad seen it or one just like it, in Prince Mathias’s rooms during the old days when he was royal castle commander. The banner had been stitched by Math’s grandmother and her ladies for the prince’s birth: queensblossom vines around rising firebirds, all in gold and scarlet.

  He’d seen it recently, hadn’t he? If only his head did not ache so. Banner . . . and he had it. A silken banner, covered with queensblossom vines all around rising firebirds.

  It had lain over the bed on the Dolphin, the prince’s yacht. Were there two of those banners? Because if not, Jehan had had her after all. And lied? No. Randart had not told him why he was searching, or for what. The Fool could have been keeping her in order to bring her to his father himself, for badly needed prestige . . . and, being the fool he was, had lost her.

  No matter which, she was alone, on the road. And no one seemed to know who she was.

  That is, no one else seemed to know who she was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sharp voices echoed up the marble stairs from Prince Jehan’s rooms. Atanial knew from the tone that there was trouble, but she could not hear the words.

  Something had to be wrong in a big way. She sensed tension when the servants came to invite her to breakfast with the king, as had become habit.

  She was already dressed, her hair braided up with pearls to distract from the startling silver roots of her otherwise blond hair. The number of guards at the stairways had increased. Of course no one had told her anything of what was going on since her brief conversation with Jehan. She couldn’t even ask, because she knew the servants were questioned by that oily Chas every single time they came up to her tower.

  As she walked down to breakfast, she wondered if she’d find the usual scene, the prince sitting there staring out the window, Canardan wearily pleasant and sometimes wry as they verbally fenced.

  The first surprise of the day was when she found Canardan alone.

  “Sent Jehan off somewhere?” she asked as she sat down.

  Since the weather had cooled, they’d begun eating in the king’s conservatory, a room facing east, mostly windows, filled with potted plants. Atanial had expressed delight the first time she saw it, and had made the mistake of asking if it had been Ananda’s chamber. Canardan had talked right over her—pleasant, even funny—as if she hadn’t spoken. Oh. Ananda had become one of those subjects.