Scimitar Sun

by Chris A. Jackson

  “Fire and water don’t mix too well, they say,” Brolan said, raising a glass to her.

  “Love and sorrow…” Cynthia muttered, sampling a bit of the spicy roast pork. Her stomach did a flip-flop at the strong flavor; she swallowed forcefully, disguising her distress with a sip of water.

  “I’d say, do what you got to do, but you best be careful with this fire-wizard apprentice.” Brolan watched her and smiled. “Just don’t bite off more’n you can chew.” He pushed the basket of biscuits and the crock of butter over to her with a knowing smile.

  “Thank you, Brolan.” She buttered a biscuit and nibbled it, smiling in bliss as her tumultuous stomach settled. “And don’t worry; I’m always careful when there’s fire involved.”

  ≈

  “Captain Brelak, I beg you to reconsider,” Sultan Mojani said. The three of them — Brelak, Mojani and Mieshala — strolled onto the broad balcony of the sultan’s palace. The lights of the city of Terokesh spread out below them like seed pearls strewn on a bed of black silk, the gilded domes of the temples glowing like topaz among them. “I offer you much. More than I have offered any man since I have become sultan. Do not hold such an offer in contempt, my friend, for it may serve you ill.”

  “I do not hold your offer in contempt, Sultan Mojani,” Feldrin said, his voice even. He hated these games of words; why couldn’t people just say what they meant? “And your offer…” he cast a sidelong glance at the Princess Mieshala, “is more than generous. But I’ve got a wife, and a baby on the way. I’ve got to get back if I want to keep ‘em.”

  If the truth were told, Feldrin had been more than mildly tempted by the sultan’s offer; and if he had any aspirations to power, he probably would have jumped at it. But he was not a man to turn his back on someone he loved — even if she refused to take him formally as her husband — and leave a son or daughter to grow up without knowing their father. That he would never do, not for the promise of an admiralship, a fleet of schooners outfitted for war, or even a princess and the title of prince for his own. It exasperated him that the young sultan would not take “no” for an answer.

  “Bah! One wife? I have thirty! I offer you any of them! Any ten of them!” The sultan made a dismissive gesture. “Keeping them all happy is exhausting me anyway.”

  “No, thank you, Sultan. One’s more’n enough for me most days.”

  A servant appeared with a beautifully engraved silver blackbrew service. The sultan poured the blackbrew, as dark as a moonless night, into their cups. The serving of blackbrew by the sovereign’s own hand was ceremonial, and Feldrin knew better than to decline the cup, but he also knew how they brewed the stuff down here. He didn’t particularly care for it so hot that it would melt a silver spoon, and so strong it would peel paint if spilled. He eagerly accepted a dollop of honey, and stirred it thoroughly to cool the scalding liquid.

  “Surely this wife of yours would not complain about the title of Princess, or sharing her duties as your wife,” Mieshala said, sipping with a smile behind her gauzy veil.

  “I’m afraid Cynthia has enough on her hands with the titles of ‘Seamage of the Shattered Isles’ and ‘Mistress of Ships,’ Princess.” He sipped his blackbrew and stifled a grimace.

  Their eyebrows raised at his admission of Cynthia’s titles, and he could see that they had heard of her. Realization dawned on the sultan’s features, and he inclined his head slightly in recognition.

  “That explains a great deal about you, Captain Brelak,” he said, his eyes narrowing speculatively. “I should have realized that the stories of the fall of the pirate lord Bloodwind and your ship, Orin’s Pride, were linked. Yes, it explains a great deal indeed. You are the captain who rescued the seamage and was gifted a ship that could sail faster than the wind. The one who burned the pirate lord’s fleet, and commanded the army of cannibals who slaughtered and devoured the pirate crews.”

  “The story’s grown a bit in the tellin’, Sultan,” Feldrin said, withdrawing a silver flask from a pocket and unscrewing the cap. “Nobody devoured anybody, and Cynthia pretty much rescued herself, but burnin’ the pirate fleet, yeah, that was me.” He topped up his cup with a measure of spiced rum from his flask and offered some to his host and the princess. They declined. He shrugged and put the flask away, then sipped his brew contentedly.

  “This explains why you are not lured by promises of wealth or power,” the princess said, watching him with a new glint in her eye, one that Feldrin could not easily interpret.

  “Is there nothing I can offer you, then, Captain, to induce you to stay in Terokesh?” The sultan drained his cup and replaced it on the silver tray, then picked up a tiny bell.

  “Nothing I can think of, Your Majesty,” he admitted, watching the sultan carefully. Was there something new in the sovereign’s eyes — a hint of trepidation, perhaps?

  “A pity.” The sultan rang the bell and a dozen royal guards appeared as if by magic. Unless Feldrin managed to grow wings, all egress from the balcony was now blocked. “Does that include your freedom, and the lives of your crew, Captain Brelak?”

  Feldrin Brelak sipped his blackbrew and sighed, priding himself on the fact that he had not flinched when the guards appeared. He eyed them professionally; they were the absolute best this nation could muster, the sultan’s private bodyguards. Each wore a bronze buckler and a sheathed scimitar, and was garbed in a finely worked bronze breastplate and underlying hauberk of close-linked mail, with matching vambraces and greaves. They stood less than three strides away, but the sultan and his sister were within arm’s reach. He could reach either of them before the guards ran him through, but doubted that a human shield would save his life.

  “You’re puttin’ me in a hard spot, Sultan,” he said, finishing his spiked blackbrew and placing the cup on the tray. The servant bearing the silver tray retreated, his fear plain. Feldrin fixed his dark eyes on the sultan’s, a full head lower than his own, and was impressed that the young sovereign’s gaze did not waver. The man knew Feldrin was an experienced fighter, yet he stood firm and met his stare.

  Both men knew that violence could erupt in a heartbeat, yet both remained calm, the sultan confident in his guards’ ability to save his life, and Feldrin confident in his ability to resolve the conflict without a physical confrontation.

  “I’ve spent the last four months riskin’ my life on your behalf, Majesty. Your flag flies from my mizzen. I sail as your ship, to help you secure your shores, to bring your warships back as undamaged as I could manage, and bring the blackguards who took ‘em to justice.” The sultan opened his mouth to speak, but Feldrin forestalled him with two raised hands, empty and peaceful. “I admit I’ve profited, but I have also put my ship, my life and the lives of my crew under the sword, and you’ve profited from it even more than I.” He sighed again, and shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “You shame me, Captain Brelak,” the young sultan said, spreading his hands and bowing his head, surprising Feldrin with the gesture and the sincerity in his voice. “You have performed a great service for my country, and I am grateful.” He straightened and met Feldrin’s eyes again. “I am sorry it has come to this, but when the day is done, I must put the good of my people before my own honor as a man. I debase myself before you, but I must insist that you consider my final offer: if you hand over your ship peacefully, you and your crew will be free to go anywhere you wish, with all the wealth you have amassed in my service.” He stopped, and his dark eyes became as hard as twin chips of obsidian. “If you refuse, I will take Orin’s Pride by force, you will be arrested for treason, and your crew will die in a hail of blades and arrows.”

  “My crew’s no stranger to blades and arrows, Sultan Mojani, just as they’re well acquainted with fire.” He smiled tightly, gesturing out over the balcony’s rail at the city spread out before them, peaceful and beautiful. “The stories of burnin’ an entire pirate fleet weren’t exaggerated, Majesty. You haven’t seen the weapon that Orin’s Pride can wie
ld, but I’m sure that you’ve heard of it from the survivors of the two ships we destroyed with it these last months. You risk much in this — your whole city — and stand to gain nothin’ but a burned out hulk restin’ at the bottom of your harbor.”

  “You threaten to use such a weapon against Terokesh?” Anger flushed the sultan’s dark features, and his hand gripped the jeweled dagger at his belt. The princess took a step back.

  “Yer pardon, Majesty, but I’m not threatenin’ nothin’.” Feldrin fought to keep his tone mild; though he truly wanted to slap some sense into the young idiot, he knew that would get him nowhere. “I’m just tellin’ you what will happen if Marathian soldiers attack a Marathian-flagged ship right here in the supposed safety of a Marathian harbor. My crew has orders, just as I have orders from the Seamage of the Shattered Isles, that Orin’s Pride will not be taken. No matter who tries to take her, the ship, and her crew, are quite capable of makin’ sure that doesn’t happen.”

  The two men stared at one another, neither wavering. Feldrin could do no more; he had warned the man, now events would play out for good or ill, peacefully or in a hail of fire and blood.

  Deliverance came from an unexpected quarter.

  “Perhaps, my brother, Captain Brelak should be allowed to leave in peace,” Princess Mieshala said, resting one graceful hand on the sultan’s arm. “There will be other ships like this one passing our shores, and other captains who are not quite so…steadfast.”

  Sultan Mojani’s jaw muscles writhed under his teak-brown skin, his hard gaze shifting to his sister’s softer one for a moment, then back to Feldrin’s unyielding stare. It might have gone badly, even with the princess’ recommendation for caution, but Feldrin finally broke his silence.

  “Please, Mojani,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “You’ve done so much fer yer people in the past two years! You’ve delivered ‘em from yer uncle’s self-serving reign, and given ‘em hope. Please, don’t make this mistake…”

  The Sultan of Marathia stared into Feldrin Brelak’s eyes a moment longer. Then his mien shifted, though not, as Feldrin had hoped, to one of acquiescence.

  “You will leave Terokesh on tomorrow morning’s ebbing tide, Captain Brelak,” he began, his words clipped, as if strained. “You will not land again in any Marathian port, ever, and you will not fly the Marathian flag. Payment for your services and your cargo will arrive at your ship at dawn tomorrow.” His brows furrowed, and his head inclined ever so slightly. “Understand that you are no longer welcome in Our presence. I regret that this must be so.”

  Mojani, Sultan of Marathia, turned on his heel and departed, trailed by his royal guard.

  Feldrin stood for a moment in silence, surprised speechless at the sultan’s decree. He started when the princess gently placed her hand on his arm.

  “I am sorry,” she said, and Feldrin could hear in her voice that she meant it. “I am sorry for my brother’s words, and I am sorry that he was forced into saying them, but please understand, Feldrin, his actions are for Marathia, not for himself.”

  “I understand, Princess,” he said, patting her hand on his arm, then, very carefully, removing it. “I think it would be best if I got back to my ship.”

  “Of course, Captain,” she said. For an instant her eyes flashed the same hard light as her brother’s, then softened again. But the instant was enough for Feldrin to glimpse the tempered steel below her silky manners. “My sedan is at your disposal.” Then she, too, turned and walked away, leaving him alone on the balcony.

  “Well, that went just about like I’d expected,” he said to himself. He fished the flask of spiced rum from his pocket and took a draught, then went off in search of his weapons and the poor lads who would carry him back to Orin’s Pride.

  Chapter Nine

  Homeward

  “Double reef in the main until we’re out of the harbor, Horace, then shake it out and set the forestays’l. Course wes’-nor’west, broad reach straight for Southaven.” Feldrin shaded his eyes against the rising sun and looked back at the pier and the contingent of Marathian hoplites around Princess Mieshala’s sedan chair. The two large wagons carrying the captured trade goods, which they had exchanged for an embarrassing amount of gold, had already pulled away, but the sedan chair stayed. He raised a hand in farewell, wondering if she was watching.

  “Aye, Capt’n,” Horace replied, relaying the orders to Johansen. Canvas cracked as they jibed for the harbor mouth, and blocks creaked as the mainsail filled. Orin’s Pride surged forward, a thoroughbred straining at her harness for the open sea. “She’s drawin’ well, sir. We’ll have a bit of heel without proper ballast, but we’ll make better time.”

  “Understood.” He turned his gaze from the receding pier to the two towers guarding the harbor mouth. There were no cheering troops this time, only grim faces and the flapping Marathian flags. “Fly Tsing colors, Horace, and run up the pennant as well. We’re our own ship now.”

  “Aye, sir!” He gave the orders, and the broad blue and gold swath of Tsing’s flag flew up the mainsail leech, while a crewman swarmed up the ratlines to unfurl the long blue and white pennant of the Flaxal shipping line.

  “Feels good to be under our own colors again, sir,” Horace said as the ship passed the towers.

  “Feels good to be alive, Horace, and free to sail anywhere we choose.” Feldrin strode to the wheel and nudged the helmsman. “I’ll take her out, Rhaf. Been too long since I had a hand at the helm.”

  “Aye, sir.” The helmsman stepped aside and Feldrin took the wheel.

  A horrendous screech and flap of wings, followed by a yelp of alarm, told him that Rhaf had ventured too close to the osprey tethered to an improvised perch near the helm station.

  “Bloody bird!” the helmsman snapped, a hand coming away smeared crimson from his ear where the bird had nipped him. “I thought you said this thing was tame, Captain!”

  “No, I said it was well-trained,” he chuckled as he relinquished the helm and drew on a thick leather glove. “At least, that’s what the princess told me.”

  Although he had expected someone from the sultan’s household to accompany his payment to the docks, he’d been surprised to see Mieshala herself, especially after last night. He’d been equally surprised, and genuinely touched, when she gifted him with the huge bird of prey, though he didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do with it. He unwrapped the bird’s tethers — jesses, she had called them — and held out his arm as she had shown him. The two-foot raptor hopped obediently over.

  “Care for her well, Captain Brelak,” she had said. “It is rare for an osprey to consent to training, for their instincts for freedom are strong. Do not let her feed on her catch, but only from your hand, else she will become wild.”

  He had thanked her, and asked her why she had chosen to present him with this particular gift.

  “I thought it appropriate,” was all she had said, reaching up to touch his cheek with the back of one bejeweled hand, before retreating to her sedan chair and drawing the gauzy shade about her like a shield. He had thought it an odd gesture of farewell.

  “Sorry about yer ear, Rhaf,” he said, stepping to the taffrail before the bird could injure anyone else. He stood for a while, acquainting himself with its weight on his arm and the way it adjusted the grip of its talons in the leather to keep its balance, and watched the towers of Marathia dwindle in their wake.

  As Horace shouted his orders, crewmen scrambled aloft to set the topsails and Orin’s Pride strained forward, gaining speed and heeling under the thrust of the wind. The osprey on Feldrin’s wrist let out a piercing cry and half-spread its wings, its eyes fixed on something in the distance.

  On impulse, Feldrin released its jesses and flung it aloft, smiling openly at its cry as the bird’s great wings bit into the air. It climbed and banked, circling the ship once before steadying and flying apace, cocking its head as it scanned the water for fish. At times it flapped its wings, but mostly it
soared, using the power of the wind to keep it aloft even as a sailing ship uses that power to press forward.

  Perhaps, he thought as he marveled at its beauty and grace, it was an appropriate gift.

  A fairly inappropriate thought flashed through his mind as he recalled Mieshala’s last smoldering look, and his brows furrowed. But he withdrew a small silver locket from a pocket of his trousers and thumbed open the latch, and his features relaxed into a smile. Inside, a finely rendered likeness of Cynthia Flaxal gazed back at him, her sea-blue eyes spearing his heart like a lance, as they had the first day he’d seen them.

  “I’m comin’ home, love…I’m comin’ home,” he murmured, just as he heard a cry from above. The osprey stooped sharply toward the ocean, talons open for the kill.

  ≈

  “Lookout! Any sails on the horizon?” Seoril called, squinting aloft at the man upon the topsail yard.

  “None, sir! All clear!”

  “Best bloody news I’ve heard in a week!” he muttered, then said to his boatswain, “Set tops’ls, and run up the jib. Get the boats aboard and set the main as soon as we’re clear of the reef.”

  “All topmen aloft!” the boatswain barked, and sailors clambered up the rigging. “Set tops’ls. Deck crew, man the braces!”

  Seoril looked aloft and smiled as the canvas unfurled, drawing the King Gull forward, then looked back to the deck and frowned.

  “Lend a hand, there, Sam! No laggards aboard this ship!”

  She looked over her shoulder at him with surprise, then turned and leapt up the steps to the quarterdeck, and sketched a salute.

  “I’m sorry, Captain, but I can’t lend a hand. Captain Parek’s orders.”

  “What? Why in all the Nine Hells can’t you? Farin’s workin’, why not you? I won’t have you just lazin’ about while everyone else works. It ain’t good for morale!”

  “I’ve got to look like a regular city lady by the time we reach Tsing, sir.” She held up her calloused hands and shrugged. “I’ve got to get rid of these sailor’s hands, and stay outta the sun. Farin’s workin’ the waterfront pubs, so he can look as he does, but I’m workin’ uptown. If I walk into a fine inn lookin’ like a sailor, there ain’t a single person who’ll believe a word out of my mouth. But don’t worry, Captain, I won’t be lazin’ about. I’ve got half a dozen dresses to cut and sew to fit me.”