Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  “You’d best put that on, kid. Wouldn’t want any nasty surprises when we get moving.” At the corner of vision Tolrep saw Boyce in the same distress, huddled within a blue blanket like a toddler. The privateer wondered if the attachment meant Boyce to be the more resilient or more burdened by the next hour. They aren’t pawns, and this is no game.

  A small squad was waiting for him at the town gates. “It’s a mess down there, Captain. It would take weeks to bury them properly.”

  “Is Nim in the village?”

  “Yes sir. He was the first one in. Said he’d be waiting for you in the town square.”

  The privateer paused. The four pirates were new to their posts and to massacre. They kept fidgeting from foot to foot, and their eyes, finding everywhere the destruction they were unprepared for, darted furiously in denial. “Once Boyce and Jacob arrive with the rest of the escort, go back to the ship. There are other matters to attend to.”

  The squadron burbled well-larded thanks. They would ride the oars all the way back to civilization if the alternative was walking through slaughter. Again, the pampered fools came into his periphery. This better work, DeLuca.

  He did not have to go far to find Nim. The physician, hunchbacked to begin with, resembled a coiled spring when crouching. He was crouching now, the ropes of muscle laced with jagged veins of fat, poised over the corpse. “You need not hesitate, Mathias. This one’s long since passed any danger.”

  How does everyone outwit me? One-day Tolrep would find out, even if he had to thump every one of his command to do it. “You know the plan?”

  “My dear boy, I invented the plan.” A slight nod and a smile told Tolrep of the oncoming charges. This is where the fun begins.

  “You have no right to manhandle us like that.” Boyce had regained some of his composure, though he kept his eyes off the blood and guts that now polished his boots. “Our fathers...” His words trailed off suddenly upon a glance at the corpse and immediately turned six different shades of green.

  “Still your tongue, fool.” Jacob wrinkled his nose in disgust at being paired with what was obviously a weaker-willed noble. Still, Tolrep repressed a grin at Jacob’s obvious attempt to keep his vision centered on everything save for the ground that squished and slurped at his boots.

  “Mathias. If you would help me, please?” Together the men hoisted the face-down corpse and flipped him over. The specimen looked to be in the prime of health, save for the short-sword in his chest. With utmost care Nim wrapped his moleskin-gloved fingers and twisted the weapon free. Whatever the course the blade took to end up in the man’s demise, it was not a smooth one. The blade ended at the first foot, the end ripped asunder in a myriad of jagged points. Blood stained the blade an impossible red, and dotted here and there were fragments of intestines.

  “Well, I would guess the manner of death is obvious.” Tolrep was amazed his voice was so calm. He was no stranger to death, but he was just getting used to meet it face-to-face like this.

  “Slaughter is rarely what it seems.” Nim’s voice was as flat as his pocked face, as though he was talking without realizing it. From somewhere in that endless cloak Nim pulled a bung-hammer whose weight would have felled a man in his prime; yet the old man held it easily. “Tally-ho.”

  The hammer smashed the dead center of the corpse’s chest. The clavicle cracked. Next came both sides of the sternum, crack and crack. From out of nowhere a pair of serrated blades appeared in the doctor’s hands, slipping underneath the bone like a dagger under chain mail. With a butcher’s precision, the sternum lifted free of their moorings.

  Tolrep nearly gagged. It was not a pretty picture to behold. Everything was red and pink and oh so slimy. With a few deft cuts, Nim liberated the heart from its moorings and plopped it into Jacob’s hands. Boyce was busy retching, and Jacob looked well on his way to doing the same. “How does it feel?”

  “Wh-what?”

  “The heart.” Tolrep let his words gain fire. “You’re holding a human heart there. How does it feel?”

  “Disgusting.” His own words were flat, distant like a ghost.

  “What about you, young man?” Nim had taken to Boyce’s side and guided him back to the slaughter. “How do you feel?”

  “I...” Behind his eyes the privateer saw Boyce’s mind at war; his world of wealth and pleasure, the foundations of his personal invincibility, crumbling against the consequences of destruction. Neither of them was prepared for it. They had never even given thought of it; if they had it would be a dismissal, a joke, a game.

  “The human heart is a resilient organ.” Nim’s words, soft as they were, pulled the young nobles into a trance. “It weighs two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty grams. You see these little values? Well, the physician community at large still regards the operation of the heart as mystical. However, there have been studies that report the right half of the heart filters the humors in the blood, while the left half pumps it out to the rest of the body. It’s called the aorta. It’s quite a fascinating tale of how that part of the heart was named. I think it was –”

  “Nim.” Tolrep rolled his eyes. “Not now.”

  “Oh. Yes. Forgive me. Well, the point is that aside from size, each heart is the same as to the one you’re holding.” Somehow Nim edged closer without seeming to move. “It’s the same as your mother’s heart, your sister’s heart.” Gently Nim passed the organ to Boyce’s hands. “Even your heart.” Just like that, privateer and physician glided away like ghosts.

  “I don’t like this.” Tolrep shuddered from the cold. “We’re exposing a lot on those two.”

  “It will be good for them,” Nim reassured. “They need to see the world outside their estates.”

  “Perhaps. On the other hand, they might scurry even further into isolation.”

  “They might. But we must risk it. There’s too little time for anything else.”

  “Help! This one’s alive!”

  Tolrep crossed the distance in three strides. Jacob cradled a young girl in his arms, bloody as sin and unbearably cold. And then Nim was there, pushing his way to his patient. In moments, his expert eye completed his inspection and gave Tolrep a shake of the head. No. Tolrep felt a vice closing on his heart. No. Not again.

  “What are you doing? Help her! Do something!”

  “My boy, she’s too far gone. I’m sorry.”

  “Brother? Brother is that you?”

  A moment of horrifying shock. The corpse was not a corpse, but it was fast on its way towards being so. Jacob’s already wide eyes became all the wider, desperate for help, fear from playing the farce alone. His fingers shivered and buckled because they didn’t know what else to do.

  “Brother? Is that you? It’s so dark.”

  Lost, horrified, Jacob’s voice was flat and distant. “It’s night, sister. It’s just night-time.”

  “Oh, Mother’s going to be so mad. It’s too dangerous at night.” A wet cough that rattled her whole body. “Brother, I’m so cold.”

  “Don’t think about that. We’ll go home and drink some hot cocoa. That’ll heat you right up.”

  “Mother’s not going to be in a mood to make cocoa. She’ll be too busy tanning our hides.”

  “I’ll say it was my fault. You won’t be tanned. I promise.”

  “Thank you, brother. I feel...”

  Her head slipped sideways, and she was gone.

  “It’s okay lad. There’s nothing you can do.” With infinite care Nim freed the girl from Jacob’s cold, clammy fingers. The youth didn’t move, didn’t even blink. He looked at his curled arms as though he still cradled the dead girl, his blank eyes focused on something only he could see.
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  “Mathias. I think it best if we give this poor girl a decent burial.”

  It wouldn’t end at one burial. Guilt would force the whole town to be buried, and that was time sorely needed. The privateer knew it, and from the sheen in his eyes Nim knew it too. “Fine. Take the other one. I’m staying a little bit longer.”

  “As you wish. You boy. Follow me.” Nim hefted the girl as though she weighed no more than a few feathers and began the long, cold walk all physicians ultimately faced.

  Tolrep remained a statute at Jacob’s side, watching the paralysis shudder into ripping, wheezing gasps and then, finally, into the sterile silence of mourning the loss of something not known to be had in the first place.

  Tolrep sighed. The further he got involved in this damnable war, the less he wanted to be a part of it. I’m not going to let this place be where Jelina grows up. That, he figured, was the least he could do. “Come on, Jacob. We have a lot of work ahead.”

  The boy responded woodenly, and acted as such during the burial. He was an automaton, digging without pause. Food and thirst was abandoned. Once he pushed too hard and his shovel snapped halfway. Jacob didn’t even blink. He just walked across the yard to get another one, and when he was told there were no more shovels, he resumed digging with his fingernails.

  Tolrep thought about stopping the lad once or twice. The privateer knew a good deal of grief, though. Better the boy works the pain from his system than to let it build. And besides, his example was spurring the rest of the crew into action. Within two hours each corpse had a new home under a roof of stones and a prayer candle. The ceremony was brief; there were simply no words to speak of when the departed were lost in war. Within the hour the crew was climbing back into their ship.

  Tolrep stood on the deck, trying and failing to be a captain. The crew was just a little too easy cinching the ropes and pulleys, releasing the constraints on the sails. The privateer could not blame them. They wanted to be anywhere but here. The stench of death was simply too strong.

  “Captain!” The voice of the crow’s nest. “Captain! I see something!”

  Of course you do. Why wouldn’t you see something just as we’re about to leave? He scaled the wooden pillar as though born to it, grunting as he stood to the sailor’s side. The crow’s nest was naturally built with only one person in mind, and this one had Tolrep’s shoulders butting into the other’s face. “Where?”

  The sailor raised a trembling finger to the horizon, and then yelped as he realized his spyglass still rounded his neck. Apologies burbled from the seaman as he fumbled the spyglass to the privateer’s hands. Given the irritation the day had built, Tolrep almost hoped that danger did loom.

  No sooner did the thought form did the privateer grunt a curse against it. The air was a frosty mist, and the glare of the snow did much to hinder a man’s sight. Tolrep looked at the sluggish river rather than the air. The eddies that slurped and spun away could only be churned from a slave’s oar. Pirates, then.

  He was about to order stealth when the first glimmers of the sail peeked from the mist and cursed instead. The merchant’s scales shined on sails of pearly essence. Silver scales. The mark of Coicro. Tolrep knew not if it was chance or clear intent that they crossed paths; in the end, it mattered little. A battle loomed over them. Tolrep just hoped they would survive it.

  LXV

  “Load the cannons! Double time!”

  The Tennant groaned as the sea groaned. Cannonballs came from everywhere, chewing through wood and flesh alike. Geysers were so thick and white and fierce that it was impossible to tell sea from sky. Mathias Tolrep was at the center of it all, knuckles white on the pirate’s ring and striving mightily not to die.

  “Loose the arrows!”

  The air thrummed and crackled as a thousand fire-headed arrows blotted the dark sky. Tolrep grabbed his spyglass and smiled. Like a monkey the fire climbed the wooden length of the enemy ship. Furthermore, the captain was gripped in the same paranoia as his crew, if not double. He would offer his own mother if it meant his continued survival. Tolrep flashed an order to the flanking ships to pursue and watch other such captains and thus dismissed them from his mind. It was taking everything he had to keep the boat above water.

  A cry caught his ears, and against all wits Tolrep craned to look. Boyce was manning a cannon, roaring at the sea as ball after ball flew into the harsh wind. A pair of gory piles marked that had once been flesh and bone, and yet the young fop’s face showed not even the slightest trace of green.

  The Tennant skimmed across the water as though gliding upon it, cutting foaming waves impossible for a ship that size. Tolrep touched the ship with his shiisaa; giving it little hops of speed here and there to escape enemy fire. Spell-boosted cannonballs left gaping holes through the enemy hulls. Within moments the Coicro ships succumbed to the sea’s ravishing hunger, its men like ants caught up in foam. Tolrep turned a blind eye to the enemy sailors. This was war, and in war kindness was the deadliest weakness.

  The opposing fleet wasn’t going to let a single ship sag their offensive. Out of the mists came a trio of ships, each one carrying a catapult on the deck. A sharp whistle buffeted the sky, followed seconds later by geysers blazing thick columns of foam. The Tennant wove a serpentine path towards the ships as wave after wave of grimy sea slammed into their backs. Human screams punctured the chaos as man after man was caught up and blown away like sticks. Tolrep ignored them all. Mourning was for later. Now was simply a struggle to live.

  The first cog was unprepared for the Tennant’s supernatural speed. Men scrambled away as the catapults, forgotten, snapped against the ship’s beak and spun away into the unforgiving cold. Over a half of the unlucky few were caught in the pillar’s path. The others succumbed to the hail of wooden splinters that pinned them like rats onto their own ship. For a moment, there was just enough space to see the second catapult-ship and its men. Tolrep looked the skinny, rat-faced captain and the latter looked at him. Within moments the crew decided their chances were better in the sea. The third ship. Where was it?

  The click of steel scarring wood blared like a trumpet and Tolrep had his answer. The paddled hooks were followed by oaths and the pirates that voiced them, greasy faces glowing with rapture and the thrill of an easy victory. Tolrep couldn’t help but chuckle as his own crew appeared to engage the enemy.

  The familiar clashes of swordplay blistered the air, but the privateer took no note of it. All his strength was locked in keeping the pitching deck steady. He blocked out the occasional screams, even from voices he knew...until too late he heard the war cry of the enemy descend upon him. The pirate’s wheel wrenched his forearms almost out of the sockets, there wasn’t enough time...and Tolrep gaped as three feet of steel erupted from the assassin’s chest in a blossom of blood. The privateer’s eyes followed the blade and up the arm that held it. Boyce. The skinny green-faced fop. Only his face wasn’t green now, and the terrors of a man’s first kill were nowhere to be seen. “I will repay the debt.” Boyce only matched his look before dissolving back into the melee.

  The wheel wrenched his wrists as a reminder of the here and now. Don’t die on me now, he told the ship. Just hold on a little bit longer. Even as he wished it another group of ships plunged from the mist. Dammit.

  These ships were new, great big behemoths of ships with ramming heads twice as they were tall, limping through the waves. Twin waves of slender ships broke to either side of the main ram. They sped across the water with such fluidity Tolrep wondered if they were spell-augmented. But no. Distance lessened revealed three men lining both sides of the hull, paddling as though mad. So intrigued was the privateer that he craned his head forward for a closer look. Yes. The hands were monstrous, more oblong than fingers had a right to be. Saltfolk. Distant cousins from Weirwynd spawn
. So they are real. Tolrep thought it a fairy tale, even against his father’s urging.

  Then Tolrep saw the glint of metal on the sea, and old fantasies were forgotten. He ducked behind the coiled ropes as thunder suddenly blazed over his head. Even now there was the familiar gold fire of spitting bullets, going on and on, swallowing all other sound, until finally whimpering its end. One glance Tolrep took over the bow, and he saw a long barrel with six holes arranged in a circle, familiar and foreign at the same time. “Now!”

  The air was alive with the hum of a dozen bowstrings released. The arrows sought the heads of those serpent-quick ships, and many a gunner simply fell off the boat with nary a splash to mark their grave. For a moment, all was silent.

  Tolrep knew better. The Tennant was already gliding away when the big behemoth charged from the mist. Two score of children’s fireworks floated across the dark watery gap between the two ships. They exploded at the peak of their arc, scattering smoke and dazzling light into the eyes of the enemy gunners. Most of their cries were cut in half as Tolrep’s crew fired arrow after arrow into the portholes. Within a heartbeat the quivers were empty and forgotten as padded hooks clicked softly on the enemy bow...

  Then Tolrep blinked. Tsukasa was among those climbing the hook-chains. Soonafter a second chorus of grunts was lost in the dark night, but Tolrep was beyond caring. There was just one more element to complete the battle, one little, insignificant thing that would decide the fates of the men on both boats. Come on come on come on!

  There. A tiny little flame amidst the sea, there and gone in an instant. Ashnoi. A second light flickered in the corner of his eye. Blueface and his men.

  Time to turn the tables.

  Tolrep closed his eyes and let the world dwindle to a small silver light. The Tennant. He saw the world through the metallic layers binding the ship’s belly, extending outward through the metal compounds of the enemy ships, and finally to the smaller bomb-ketch ships planting small silver orbs under the cannons. There was a slight click as the spelled explosives molded themselves to the enemy ship. Tolrep waited the necessary seconds for Blueface and Ashnoi to escape and smiled. Here’s the really fun part.