Daughter of the Serpentine

by E. E. Knight

  Where were those militia? They should be out.

  Her mind couldn’t have been clearer, continually sorting and re-sorting things to do as if she were a busy housewife with a long list of errands in the village. She felt oddly divided from herself, watching with amusement this odd collection of limbs in riding leggings steering a horse, badly, into the chaos of a pirate raid.

  She found their militia dinner partners at the stables, saddling their own horses.

  “Militia!” Ileth shouted, riding up. “I’m a dragoneer,” she said, hoping to put enough authority in her voice to stretch the truth, tapping the bit of dragon scale she’d put on.

  “You two.” She pointed at two already on their horses. If she’d learned one thing supervising the littles in the Lodge, it was that you had to be clear about who was to do what or nothing would be done. “Ride as fast as you can to the Headlands, the Old Post. As soon as you find anyone with authority, tell them the Rari have attacked the ships at Yalmouth.”

  That was in case Gandy fell or failed. She told the rider with the biggest horse—that counted for something, didn’t it?—to ride the long road to Stavanzer and spread the alarm at every village and crossroads. Governor Raal and whatever Vale Republic forces were there would need to know as well. She supposed it was as good a way as any for the north to learn that a war had started.

  “There have to be soldiers, not militia, real soldiers about somewhere. Do you know where they are?” Ileth asked. “They were to go on the decoy ships.”

  The remaining two glanced at each other, wondering how this stuttering girl knew so much.

  “I know what you’ve been hinting at dinner. If you know where they are, go to them. They have to be near the harbor. My guess is they’re at Cross Landing, they could take boats all the way to the ships from there, but you may know better.”

  They spurred their horses for the hills, in the direction of Cross Landing. So she’d guessed right. Ileth smiled, thinking of all the times she’d been called an idiot because of her stutter.

  She had time to enjoy the sensation for two breaths before Yalmouth fell into chaos.

  Dogs barking, screams and crashing, and in a sudden swirl of heads and legs a gang of Rari appeared in the street, blocking the main road leading up into the Headlands, six or so with some stragglers behind. One already had a screaming child under his arm; another had a basket full of silver and plate.

  They saw Ileth, or perhaps the horse, or perhaps both. They loped toward her in a bandy-legged charge.

  Ileth was not enough of a horsewoman to trick-ride through this gang. She wheeled the horse in the opposite direction and broke into a trot as she slipped her boots out of the stirrups. The trot led to the wharf and more Rari, equally interested in her and her horse.

  She sacrificed the Aftorns’ saddle horse and jumped off, running into an alley, listening to the bare feet of the Rari behind. Her heels sounded like a carpenter’s hammer in the alley as she ran—they could follow her through the dark by sound alone.

  But she knew the town and they didn’t. She’d played in these alleys and back rows and gardens all her life. She knew where there was space between a chicken coop and a wall to hide, or who had a wooden panel you could remove to get under the back steps, or where there was room under a fence to crawl.

  Perhaps most importantly, that shelf on the spear-fisherman’s chimney that let you access his roof. A few frantic dodges, ducks, twists, and turns and she was on the roof, with the Rari calling to each other from backyards. Ileth slithered over to the darker side of the roof.

  * * *

  —

  From the rooftop, lying on her belly, Ileth peered down at the street she’d just made a confused loop to come upon again. There was another party of Rari moving down the road toward the harbor, six herding a throng of captives.

  The Rari wore their wealth. She’d never seen so much gold, silver, and gemwork on anyone, man or woman. They wore it in rings for finger and ear, in twisted silver snakes about their necks, set into thick girdles, on bracers and bracelets, and every weapon hilt gleamed with precious metal and gems, some now slick with blood. Instead of art hung up in their homes, they carried it about on their own skin, for wherever there wasn’t clothing there were intricate blue designs, or bonelike icons, perhaps letters or a code.

  She watched a Rari, with a fistful of chains and shackles dangling, raise it and flail the painted design of a door three or four times, apparently out of pure spite, scarring the paintwork.

  Ileth groped around on the roof for something to hurl but came up empty. Oh, for her old sling and a few good stones. She searched the peak, maybe there was a loose brick atop the chimney—

  She realized she had an excellent view of the bay, the docks, and the waiting ships, the small boats the Rari had used to row into the harbor all about the ships like ants attacking a beetle. Patches of mist drifted across the bay like spirits. Was Astler on one of those ships, bleeding on a deck, or herded below with other captives? She searched the bay as though she could spot him by force of will alone. But in that moment’s searching clarity she spotted lights leading out of the harbor, widely spaced—the most distant one disappeared even now as new mist blew in.

  The Rari had planted channel markers so they could sail the ships right out in darkness. Clever. Very clever.

  She slipped off the roof and, stepping carefully and shifting in and out of yards and alleys, made for the waterfront, stopping to listen at every corner and alley.

  She crept about in the shadows in an unlit wharf filled with fishing traps and nets hung to dry. She hunted until she discovered what she wanted, a little service craft that could be rowed by a single person pulling at the oars. It was tied so you couldn’t see it from the main harbor area.

  Checking and listening, she hurried out onto the dock and dropped into it.

  The boat was a small, flat-bottomed thing, very much like the one the Captain had sent her and the twins out to Dragonback Reef on so long ago. It was probably towed behind a larger fishing boat and used to row about and check traps or open and close nets. It had a pair of big buckets in it, empty now but probably meant to hold lobsters or crabs.

  “Hssst!” A hissing voice startled her. “Whaty’re doing? That’s my boat.”

  She saw three men shivering in the water under the dock. “Get in here, miss. Chill’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

  One seemed intent on continuing the argument she interrupted: “We should try and sneak up the coast in the water a bit. They might occupy the town. They’re after people. Look, there’s another lot being taken on to the ship.”

  He was right, a boat full of captives was being rowed out to one of the captured ships at anchor even now.

  The biggest of the three, a powerful-looking man with a short beard, said: “No. They’ll fill those ships and go.”

  “I want to get out on the bay . . .” She pointed to the first of the signal poles used as channel markers. At first she was just thinking of dousing a lantern or two. With the help of these men she could cause much more confusion to the Rari.

  “Are you mad, miss?” a man with wide, watery eyes said. The sorting and cataloging part of her mind noted they’d been calling her “miss” rather than “girl.” Probably the doing of her good riding clothes and high collar. “The Rari boats are everywhere, pulling in with captives.”

  “We’ll be out beyond them.” Ileth looked around, then untied a line. “I’m game. You afraid to get them back for this?”

  Watery Eyes shook his head. “Not worth the risk. There’s bound to be boats of them, rowing back with loot.”

  The biggest sucked in his cheeks as he thought. “Best you can do is delay them, miss. They can nose their way out, towing with boats.”

  “That’s all we need. Delay. The dragons will be on them.”

  “Dragons?”
the big man asked.

  It wouldn’t hurt to tell them; even if all of them were taken, the Rari would find out soon enough.

  “The Headlands are full of them.”

  “Someone said they had a couple at the Chalk Cuts. Burning swamp,” said the man who wanted to move up the coast.

  “She’s barmy,” Watery Eyes said.

  “No,” the big man said, as though a key had turned in his mental lock. “They’re there. I heard Klinker sold his whole flock of two years off and I said, ‘To who,’ and he said, ‘I don’t know, Governor’s agent wouldn’t say,’ and I’ve seen pigs driven to the Headlands so I believe the girl. I’ll row you out to those poles, miss.”

  “Do you know how to sound?” the man in the back asked.

  “Not really,” Ileth said. It wasn’t quite a lie, she hadn’t done it since she was eleven or so.

  “Then you’ll need help.” He moved to join them.

  “Well, Royf, afraid to do what the girl’s not?” the big one asked Watery Eyes.

  “Seems to me you’re taking as big a risk with dragons as you are with Rari. I’m staying dark and wet.”

  Her volunteers climbed into the boat. She took the tiller. The big man took off his wet boat cloak and draped it over the buckets. He took the oars in a confident grip. Ileth cast off and sat down.

  He pulled hard. At a distance they might be mistaken for another Rari boat, quick to make a getaway with valuables.

  “To love and havoc,” she whispered to herself, the old dragoneer toast.

  “M’name’s Drod, not that I’m likely to keep it beyond tonight if we meet a Rari launch,” the bulky fellow at the oars said.

  “Ileth.”

  “Ileth? Galantine name. The Old Captain had—” Another key unlocked a memory. “You’re the one that ran off and joined the dragoneers!”

  Ileth tried not to smile on this grim night.

  The boat pulled past a long pole, such as a boatman would use to move a punt along in shallows, with a keg tied to it so the keg floated upright. A lantern stood fixed to the weighted keg. It was a brilliant arrangement; the keg would rise and sink on the loops with the tide, the light atop it rising and falling like a mobile lighthouse.

  “Aren’t you gonna move it?” Drod asked.

  “This one’s in sight from the ships.”

  The men exchanged shrugs. The wind was fresher out on the water now, blowing sheets of mist about like laundry loose on the breeze.

  The men muttered words about the depth. “Yeah, we’re in the channel.”

  Ileth knew the fluky channels at the southern end of the bay, sand shifting with the seasons. As much as a dragon-length or two would ground the boats on a sandbar, or leave them hopelessly lost at night.

  They heard oars ahead. Drod hissed at everyone to hush.

  The Rari hadn’t left the chain of lights unguarded. It was a small boat, just a rowboat, really, with two Rari rowing watch on the signals, probably making sure none had gone out.

  It occurred to her that in the dark, from a distance, the hogsheads in the boat would look like people. She rearranged them and the wet boat cloak to look like a huddle of people.

  “Cry. Sob. You’re slaves,” Ileth said. “Help, oh help,” she sobbed loudly by way of encouragement. “Help us!” she called to the Rari boat, in her thickest northern Montangyan.

  The man at the pole hunched down and let out a halfhearted moan.

  “That’s not loud enough,” Drod said.

  “I’m not acting, that’s my back. Rheumatism. I haven’t been on a sounding pole in years.”

  The Rari boat didn’t challenge them, didn’t even change course. It kept rowing for the ships. Maybe it wasn’t a watch, maybe it was a Rari captain wondering what was taking so long.

  They reached the next marker. This one she tried to pull up. It was weighted, but with the help of Drod she got it into the boat.

  “Which way?” Drod asked.

  “East, toward the rock ridge,” Ileth suggested.

  “The Captain did his job teaching you these waters,” Drod said. “It shoals fast there.”

  They pulled hard. Ileth found comfort that they were headed toward the shore.

  “Drop it here,” the man in the bow advised, leaning tiredly on the pole. “I can barely see the next.”

  They repeated the process with the next, moving it from west to east. This time, they found a muddy bank.

  “Told you, rock ridge,” Drod said, though Ileth had been the one to suggest it.

  She figured out how to get the pole out of the weight and they dropped it into the mud. Then she jumped out of the boat, dragging the poled lantern.

  “I’ll line it up with the other,” she told them. “If you hear oars, just pull for shore.”

  Even without the weight, the marker was heavy thanks to the pole and lantern. Ileth dragged it along the sandbar about sixty paces and then splashed out into the shallow water. It was chilly enough to start her breathing hard. She planted the signal pole, digging it deep into the soft mud, and hurried back to the bar.

  Leaking water from her boots, she sloshed back to the edge of the bar. The boat was gone. She thought she heard the creak of an oarlock, but it might have been her imagination.

  “Hey!” she said into the night air in a ridiculous sort of breathy cry. She nerved herself. “Drod!” she called.

  At any moment now one of the captured ships might be run aground and the sandbar could be filled with very confused and angry Rari. There was nothing to do but swim for it. She ripped the tear in the overdress farther to give her legs more room, then tied her muddy boots together and put them around her neck. She waded out into the water.

  The danger was losing her direction. She’d swum out to sandbars more times in her youth than she could think of. The Freesand had a lot of shifting mud flats, but no ripping currents or whirlpools or sharks. About all you risked was a pinch from a disturbed crab.

  As it turned out, wading was good enough for what felt like a considerable distance. Using the first of her false pole-lights as a guide, she struck out, breathing deep in the cold water. Every forty strokes or so she tested the depth with her feet, treading water and resting.

  Lights again, lanterns on ship masts. The Rari were taking their captures out. Full-rigged ships, even empty, would be as valuable as the cargo. She treaded water again, watching one approach the marker, hearing orders carried over the water in the Rari tongue. They were probing the channel with a line to be sure.

  They passed her false light and she heard a Rari astride the bowsprit say something over his shoulder. She didn’t understand the tongue but he spoke again, more urgently. Someone else pointed to her next light, the one near the bar, and the ship stayed on course.

  Another followed behind, she could now see, guided by the mast-lights of the first. It was not exactly on the same course, perhaps a boat length or two off to give plenty of room to veer if the first ran aground. One couldn’t fault the Rari for their seamanship.

  The first struck, hard enough so the stern rose and the lanterns in the masts swung like pendulums. Even Ileth heard the thumps and shouts. The ship’s bell rang a warning, and the vessel following behind turned. The Rari of the second boat, though proceeding slowly, took in sail and turned and still shuddered to a halt in the same muddy reach.

  Ileth searched for the third. Perhaps the Rari were satisfied with just two.

  The two grounded ships settled into quiet. Ileth didn’t know if the tide was rising or falling. She hadn’t examined the sandbar that closely but she suspected it was on the rise; the Rari weren’t so stupid as to try to take out ships in the dark on a falling tide.

  “We call it the Freesand for a reason,” she whispered. She swam gently on her back away from the ships.

  Her hands brushed into sea grasses and she
was able to stand again. She waded toward a hummock of muddy weeds; it couldn’t be the Freesand Coast as there was water beyond, so another sandbar, a more permanent one, it appeared. She squatted in the grass and watched events. The Rari put their crew into boats and started working the ships off, dropping anchors and using the power of capstans to drag the ships off the muddy bottoms. She knew it was tough work; a ship well stuck in mud would be held on as though gripped. More and more details of the ships stood out; the wind had shifted and the fog was clearing.

  As the mist cleared Ileth saw the lights of the Freesand harbor and the third ship still at its moorings. The sails looked odd and the spars hung at a strange angle, as though damaged in battle. Had the soldiers arrived in time to retake it?

  Ileth heard a rustle overhead and then there was a dragon, flying low and fast enough that its wingtips splashed in the bay. It didn’t use its flame—it dragged its tail through the water, struck one of the ships’ boats at work with the anchor line, and staved in the side. The bow flew into the air, turning over like a pan-flipped egg. Ileth saw Rari sailors thrown into the chilly waters.

  Another dragon dived, white or silver, she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps Catherix. The dragon went at the ship’s masts from the bow, grabbing the bowsprit cable and dragging its tail through the rigging. Ileth heard wood crack and lines twang and pop as they parted. The bowsprit was completely snapped and the mainmast sagged sideways in a mass of tangled lines and a crashing sound like a treefall.

  She couldn’t help but stand up and cheer for all she was worth as chaos erupted all around. She didn’t care if every Rari in the Freesand heard her.

  Something did. She heard a hard flap, felt a gust of wind, and the next thing she knew she was redoused as a green dragon splashed down six paces out into the water.

  “Hullo, Ileth,” Dath Amrits said from his saddle. Etiennersea displayed her teeth in a draconic grin. “Would you care for a ride, or do you wish to swim back to the Headlands?”