Scimitar Sun

by Chris A. Jackson

  A glance out to sea confirmed that Orin’s Pride was heading toward the cut into Scimitar Bay. She had to reach her goal before they arrived. She dashed up the beach to the trail over the hill, leaving bloody footprints in the sand.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Flight of the Manta

  “How much time do you expect to spend here, Count?” Camilla spooned sugar into her tea and stirred. The silver spoon tinkled around inside the cup.

  “If my negotiations with Mistress Flaxal go well and the merfolk do not prove difficult, I will probably be no more than a week. A fortnight at the longest.” He smiled and lifted his cup to her, sipping the strong tea. “I suppose it would be unseemly to hope for difficulties, but I cannot in good conscience delay. The emperor awaits my report.”

  “Well, having heard enough from Cynthia on the subject, let me assure you that the mer are always difficult.” She smiled up at the pale dawn light tinting the sky a pinkish hue beyond the balcony. Inside, Tim slept deeply on the comfortable divan. “Perhaps they will be so kind as to delay you for a whole month.”

  “Perhaps.” He lowered his cup and sighed. “Though there is the decision about Timothy. I would take him back to Tsing with me, but he’s grown so accustomed to this place. He’s so…”

  “Happy?” she said with a grin. “You know he would be welcome here, though I can understand you wanting him with you, after so long apart.”

  “I think we should be together, but I know he will miss his life here.” He finished his tea and set the cup down. “And I must admit that I will miss it here as well.” He looked at her pointedly. “There is much to miss.”

  “Perhaps you could prepare your report and send it with — ”

  Three rising notes of a trumpet sounded in the clear morning air.

  “That’s the call to general quarters!” the count said, surging to his feet.

  “General what?” she asked.

  “Battle stations, Camilla. The warships are calling the alarm to battle!”

  Their eyes met and they both reached the same conclusion at the same time.

  ≈

  Sam heard shouts and rustling from the foliage ahead of her and ducked off the trail. Flinging herself into the undergrowth, she kept her face down and her hand on the hilt of her cutlass. Mere steps away from her hiding place, a crowd of people rushed past her, toward the beach she had just come from. She recognized the nonsensical gibberish of the native folk, and realized that they must be going to see what had happened, undoubtedly drawn by the pyre of the flagship’s death.

  She smiled grimly; if they didn’t catch her — and if they were too distracted to notice her bloody footprints before their trampling feet obscured them — this would work to her advantage.

  Sam waited until the last of the running feet had passed, then lunged to her feet and dashed down the trail, ignoring the stabbing pain in her leg. She rounded the last bend and stopped, grinning down at the chaos that reigned below in Scimitar Bay. Shouts rang out, and people were running in confusion. A crowd milled about on the main pier next to the big three-masted schooner. Several of the natives’ dugout outriggers paddled madly toward the mouth of Scimitar Bay, where Orin’s Pride was just nosing out from behind the giant mangroves that lined the channel. As the ship emerged into the open bay, Sam took grim satisfaction in the damage it had taken. She didn’t see the captain on deck; if she was lucky, he had been killed. The small fleet of dugouts swarmed around the ship like a school of remoras.

  Perfect! She scurried toward the deserted shipyard dock where the Manta was tied. Sam dashed down the dock and leapt aboard, throwing herself down into the cockpit to avoid curious eyes. No one shouted an alarm. After a moment, she peeked out. All attention was still on Orin’s Pride, coming up to the pier across from Peggy’s Dream. The crowd was raucous, shouting questions while they caught the dock lines and secured them to the pilings. Sam could have blown a horn over on the shipyard dock and no one would have heard her.

  So far, so good. She scuttled around the deck, staying low, readying the ship’s jib and mainsail. The Manta was fully rigged and ready for sea, and Sam blessed the day that Dura had assigned her to work on the ship. As a result of it, Sam knew every line, fitting and system. Her only worry was for stores; she had no idea what, if anything, had been brought aboard for the initial sea trial. She would have to trust her luck, and hope that they’d at least filled the water barrels.

  Finally, she was ready. With all attention still focused on the docked schooner, Sam stood and drew her cutlass. She hacked through the dock lines on the bow and amidships unchallenged, leaving the stern line tied to the pier. Skipping to the cockpit, she pulled the jib halyard through its ingeniously mounted block system to a large bronze winch. She wrapped the line around the winch drum, ignoring the blood from her lacerated hands that smeared the line, and cranked the drum’s handle until the sail was aloft and the line taut. Then she grabbed the flapping sheet and hauled on it until the sail snapped, cracked, and filled with the breeze. Manta’s bow swung around as the ship strained against the stern dock line.

  “Hey! You there! What the bloody hell are ye…”

  Sam recognized the voice, but didn’t look up. Working as rapidly as she dared, she tied off the sheet, drew her cutlass and slashed at the restraining dock line. The vessel surged forward, the gap between her starboard transom and the dock widening quickly. Feet pounded down the wooden planks and Dura’s bellow of alarm rang out.

  “You bloody thief! Who the…Billy, what the hell are ye…Get back here, you thief!”

  Sam looked into the livid dwarf’s face and laughed at her. “Thanks for the fine ship, Dura, but the name’s Sam, not Billy.” She sketched a mocking bow and sheathed her cutlass. “My compliments to Master Ghelfan in the name of Captain Bloodwind!” She spun the wheel to turn the ship into the wind, and dashed forward to loop the mainsail halyard around its winch and crank madly. The great gaff rose ponderously and the mainsail flapped in the breeze. Sam chuckled at the sound of Dura’s shouts and curses ringing through the morning air, then tied off the halyard and turned the ship downwind.

  Manta leapt forward as her mainsail filled, and Sam fought the wheel for a moment to keep her on course. The ship responded with the speed of a catboat, her double rudders biting hard, snapping her bows around in a heartbeat. The ship was already making an easy five knots, and was still accelerating.

  “Gotta give that sea witch credit,” she muttered, grinning as she passed the stone pier and the two schooners, “she knows how to design a ship!”

  More shouts rang out from the pier, echoing Dura’s. She couldn’t resist waving a bloody hand at the amassed crowd. “Thanks for the ship!”

  “Sam!” a high voice screamed, and she saw him. Tim shoved through the crowd to the fore, waving frantically. “Sam, it’s me! Come back! Father’s here!”

  She nearly lost her grip on the wheel when she saw the tall figure in the dark blue dress jacket behind her brother. His face, stature and dress hit her mind like a hammer blow, dredging up memories from her past; from Samantha’s past. But she was not Samantha anymore, she was Sam, and that past was no longer hers.

  She drew her cutlass and stood on the cockpit gunwale, steering with one foot on a spoke of the wheel as she raised her sword and screamed at them, “I have no father! And you’re no brother of mine, you traitor! My father is dead! My father was Captain Bloodwind!”

  She saw the shock on their faces and laughed, brandished her cutlass once more and steered Manta for the channel and open sea.

  ≈

  In the chaos that raged on the pier, Tim and Emil Norris stood and stared as Manta sailed out the channel and vanished from view, Sam’s laughter ringing in their ears. Emil had no doubt that the girl was Samantha, but what had happened to her?

  “Samantha?” His mind didn’t accept what he’d seen; the words that she’d screamed at them. “I don’t understand! Why is she…Who…?”

&n
bsp; “She’s a pirate, Father,” Tim said, turning to him with a tear-streaked face. “She’s still a pirate. She’ll never come back, now. She’ll never be Samantha again.”

  “I don’t understand!” The count struggled to maintain his composure, his sanity, in front of his son. “What happened to her?”

  “Bloodwind,” Camilla said. “She never came back from what he made her, Emil. Not like Tim did. She’s still one of them.”

  “I don’t accept that! She’s my daughter! If I could just talk to her, she would — ”

  “I dunno ‘bout no talkin’, but I bloody well won’t be lettin’ her take dat ship!” Chula interrupted, his huge dark hand resting on Camilla’s shoulder. “Wi’ your permission, Miss Cammy, wi’ Mistress Cynthia not ‘ere, I’ll be takin’ Peggy’s Dream after de Manta.”

  A murmur spread through the crowd like fire. The natives, sailors and marines all loudly expressed their agreement with Chula and moved toward the schooner, but Camilla raised her voice above the clamor.

  “But where is Cynthia?” She shouldered her way through the crowd to where Orin’s Pride’s gangplank had been secured to the pier. “Horace! Where are Cynthia and Feldrin?”

  “That’s what I was tryin’ to tell you, Miss Cammy, when all these other shades o’ hell broke loose! The mer were attackin’ that smaller warship, the Fire Drake, and Mistress Flaxal went over the side to try to stop ‘em. Then the Clairissa was bearin’ down on us, and the captain thought we’d best get the hell out of the way, so we jibed, but that girl,” he pointed to where Manta had sailed out the channel, “she must have stowed away, and she fired the catapult. Don’t know what the hells she was thinkin’, or even who she was, but right after she done that, she dove over the side.”

  “She dove into the water? With all the mer around?” Emil Norris couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His little Samantha had always been a bit on the fearful side, never one to take chances.

  “Aye, sir, she did, and I don’t know how she managed to get ashore. We were a little busy. The Clairissa put a broadside into us, and the captain was hit.”

  “Killed?” Camilla asked, her voice tight.

  “No, ma’am, but close enough. He’s below, wi’ his leg near tore off.” Another murmur rippled through the crowd, but Horace cut through it. “When the Clairissa was comin’ ‘round for another barrage, that was when that kid, Edan, went ‘round the bend. He torched their ship like it was made of paper!”

  They had watched the Clairissa burn from the highest balcony of the stronghold. Norris had been torn between watching the flames and her tear-streaked face. “Gods, no…Edan, please no,” she had whispered. He shuddered.

  “And Cynthia?”

  “She ne’er came back aboard, Miss Cammy. We don’t know what happened to her.”

  Camilla stood as if stunned, but Emil Norris had no such impediment. He stepped forward to take Chula by the arm. “If you intend to take this ship after that…after my daughter, I beg you to take me along. I might be able to talk to her.”

  “I’ll go,” Chula said, nodding to Camilla. “If she says so.”

  Camilla looked at them: at the count’s imploring features, at Tim’s tear-streaked face, and at Chula’s determined one. She nodded, and said, “Very well, Chula, but mind the mer. I would not lose you all to their wrath as well.”

  “We’ll be ready, Miss Cammy, and we’ll be lookin’ for Mistress Cynthia, too.” His voice rose in a shout, a single word that solidified the natives into a single purpose. They surged aboard Peggy’s Dream, calling for weapons, supplies and more volunteers.

  Norris turned to Lieutenant Garris. “I would suggest, Lieutenant, that you accompany us as well, since my daughter is quite likely responsible for the loss of his majesty’s flagship.”

  “Yes, milord Count!” The officer barked a command to his men, and they trundled aboard the schooner, the sailors taking station to help with lines, though they were unfamiliar with the ship.

  He turned to Camilla, and said, “Thank you. I’m sorry for all the misunderstandings that have caused this, but I must try to get my daughter back.”

  “Just remember,” she said, “if you do manage to capture her, have a care. She’s not who she was when you knew her. Tim will tell you. And…be careful, Emil.”

  He opened his mouth to answer her, but Camilla was already turning back to Horace. He boarded the ship with his son, and in astoundingly short order they shoved off the stone pier, topsails backfilling to pull her away.

  Peggy’s Dream fell off the wind and jibed, her great mainsail sweeping the afterdeck, lines burning through the blocks as natives and sailors hauled even more canvas aloft. She raged out the channel under full sail, her bow throwing foam, a complement of two hundred fifty crowding her decks.

  “Lookout!” Chula bellowed, squinting aloft. “Where away be de Manta?”

  “Away south, Captain!” an imperial sailor called down from the foretop, pointing. “She’s raising more sail!”

  “Paska! Rig for a close port reach! Shift weight and stores to level her out and be raisin’ ever’ sail you can!” His dark eyes raked the deck. “Any man not haulin’, reefin’ or steerin’ on de port rail!”

  Peggy’s Dream turned hard to port as she cleared the reef, the flotsam of two dead warships rattling against her bow as she tore after Manta under a full spread of sail.

  ≈

  The smell of blood hit Camilla the moment she entered the aft cabin of Orin’s Pride. Feldrin lay on his bunk, sheets and blankets soaked under his leg. His eyes were closed and he lay panting, sweat streaking his brow. On his shoulder sat Mouse, fanning the Morrgrey’s face with his wings. The seasprite greeted Camilla with a subdued “Meeep,” and kept fanning.

  “Good gods!” she whispered, examining Feldrin’s mutilated knee. The ballista bolt had shattered the bone both above and below the joint, and nothing but tattered and bloody meat connected the lower leg to the upper. The only thing that had kept him from bleeding to death was the belt still cinched around his leg. There was a healer in the village but he had only simple skills, and Camilla doubted there was a priest among the surviving imperial crew.

  “Horace!” she shouted over her shoulder.

  “Yes, Miss Cammy!” The big man shouldered into the cabin with her and grimaced at the wound. “Bloody hells and high water, what a mess!”

  “Yes, it is. Without a priest here, I’m afraid that he’ll lose the leg. You wouldn’t have a store of curative potions aboard, would you?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said with a sigh. “Many’s the time we cursed the lack, but they’re hard to come by and the cost…well, mayhap now we might afford a few, but there was none to be had in Southaven.”

  “No, I don’t suppose there would be.” She gritted her teeth and made yet another decision that could cost a life. “Send someone to the native village and find Jimijo. He’s as much of a healer as we have. Oh, and Dura! She’s got steady hands. Bring boiling water, the finest thread and needle you can find, and the sharpest small knives the cook has. And heat an iron rod in the galley stove. We’ll need something to cauterize the wound with. Be quick, Horace. He doesn’t have much blood left to lose, and taking his leg is bound to cost a bit.”

  “Takin’ his…” Horace blanched, staring at the ruined knee. He swallowed hard and said, “Yes, ma’am!”

  He turned and started yelling orders, even as Camilla dried the sweat from Feldrin’s pale brow with the edge of a blanket.

  “Hang on, Feldrin,” she whispered. Silently she offered a prayer to Odea, including Cynthia’s name in it as well.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lost Sons and Daughters

  Once she had sea room, Sam brought Manta’s bows into the wind and set the foresail, forestaysail and outer jib. It was a dangerous process, dashing from the wheel to the foredeck and back on her bad leg, but when the ship finally bore off the wind, Manta flew like a bird across the waves.

  “Unholy Hel
ls, this thing sails!” she said, fighting the wheel and bracing herself as she adjusted the sheets and headed southeast along the island chain.

  Manta stood on a close reach, her twin bows slamming through the chop as if the ship intended to beat the sea into submission. The design was like nothing Sam had ever heard of, and it sailed differently than any ship she’d ever been aboard. The deck stayed level, except for the infrequent instances when a gust lifted one hull clear out of the water. The first time that happened, Sam hung onto the wheel for dear life, gasping for breath and sure that the ship would capsize, but it righted without incident, and she sailed on. Also, the ride was incredibly stiff; with no heel and little roll to absorb the shock, the hulls pounded through the waves and gusts, each impact shaking the entire vessel. Spray flew from the windward hull at every crashing impact, and she could feel the wood shudder through the soles of her feet.

  One glance over her shoulder and she knew that Peggy’s Dream would never catch her. She would be over the horizon by nightfall, and could duck behind any one of a dozen islands to hide. She let a low chuckle bubble up her throat at the thought of it; she’d stolen one of the sea witch’s own ships, and wreaked havoc with the emperor’s armada. The emperor would not take kindly to losing his flagship, and would have no one to blame but Cynthia Flaxal.

  “You would have been proud, Captain Bloodwind,” Sam said to the wind, laughing at her pursuers.

  With some minor adjustments to the sails, the ship balanced beautifully. She tied off the wheel and went down into one of the hulls, searching for anything she could find to bandage her leg or ease her thirst. She found only sailcloth, cordage, some carpenter’s tools, a bucket, a few half-empty pots of resin, a cask of nails and an empty barrel. The other hull yielded even less.

  Glancing behind, satisfied that she was still pulling away from her pursuit, she settled down in the cockpit and stripped off her salt-crusted and blood-sodden clothes. She tied a bit of line around the handle of the bucket and dipped water from the sea, soaking her shirt, trousers and the long strip of cloth that she’d used to bind her breasts as part of her disguise. Then she scrubbed herself as best she could with her seawater-soaked shirt. The salt stung in her cuts; a few of them were deep enough to require stitching, if only she had a needle and thread. She only dabbed at the ugly wound in her leg, not wanting to make it bleed again.