Winds of the Wild Sea

by Jeff Mariotte

  He held her close, and would have been willing to go on holding her as long as he could. Even if she had meant it, he wouldn’t have cared, as long as he got to embrace her.

  CAPTAIN FERRIN PACED back and forth on the beach. The storm had finally blown over. Late-afternoon sunlight slanted beneath the retreating clouds. He could see the Restless Heart offshore, run aground on the same reef that had first torn a hole in her. She listed to port, but hadn’t sunk or broken up. Which meant, he guessed, that the damage had not been as bad as he had feared.

  Both boats had made it to shore, and a head count revealed that only seven had been lost swimming. Four had been mercenaries, three his own crew. The Pict who had waited with him had made it to the beach several minutes before him.

  So, all things considered, things were not as bad as they might have been. It was even possible that the ship could be repaired. There were a few trees around, tall, skinny palms, that they could use for wood if need be. In the grasslands there were probably rabbits, maybe even deer, on which they could survive while they worked on her. And there were always fish, of course.

  All he had to do was make the decision. Strike out overland, on foot, in which case they could be in Argos within a week, probably, two at the outside? Or stay put and try to fix the ship—knowing that if he judged wrong, and she was beyond repair, he would only have delayed the inevitable overland trek?

  If they retreated to Argos, he knew his passengers would demand their fares back. And he would have lost his cargo—much of which was no doubt already waterlogged and ruined. In the end, it was the financial considerations that made his mind up for him.

  “We’re fixing her!” he shouted to his companions.

  “Fixing the Restless Heart?” his first mate, an Ophirean named Allatin, asked.

  “Aye,” Ferrin replied. He stood with hands on his hips, grinning madly. “She’s still seaworthy, I warrant. Look at her there, even now.”

  Gorian, the man who had arranged passage for the mercenaries, approached Ferrin, scowling darkly. “Can it be done quickly, Captain?” he asked quietly. “Our business is urgent, and we can brook no delays.”

  “We are delayed already, man,” Ferrin answered. “It will take what it takes, no more or less. We’ll get to work as fast as we can—it is too late for today, but on the morrow. If your men will pitch in, the work will go that much faster.”

  “These are fighting men, not shipwrights,” Gorian said. “But they will pitch in where they can.”

  “Good,” Ferrin said. “The more hands, the better. Don’t worry, I will tell them what to do.”

  “You tell me,” Gorian said. “I tell them. They take no orders from you, or any other.”

  “As you like,” Ferrin replied, in no mood to argue the point. More workers were better than fewer, even if he had to work through another man.

  At least Gorian wasn’t asking for his gold coins back yet. Maybe, thought Ferrin, he knew the gold was still on the ship.

  ALANYA SAT WITH her back leaning against one of the palm trees that flanked the beach and her feet in the sand, enjoying the warm glow of the morning sun. The afternoon before, the sun had dried her off, and just in time, for it had sunk rapidly, and the night had been cool. She, Kral, and Donial had dug a furrow in the sand and curled up in it, with her in the middle, for warmth. She had been glad that the men would be making a trip out to the ship in the morning, hoping that in addition to examining the damage, they would bring back more dry clothes, and blankets, with them.

  Now that it was morning, Kral had gone scouting and come back with freshwater contained in a skin that had washed ashore. She had known she was thirsty, but hadn’t realized just how much she was craving water. She drank deeply, then he and Donial and some of the other men went back to the stream he had found to fetch more. They returned carrying it in hats, cups, clothing, and anything else they could.

  Captain Ferrin drank his fill, then stalked the beach watching the rest. “We’re wasting time,” he barked. “Those of us who are going out, get to the boats!”

  “I should go with them,” Kral said quietly.

  “No, stay here,” Alanya pleaded. She had been afraid of losing him the day before and didn’t want him out of her sight. “There are plenty of them.”

  “They will need as many men as they can get,” Kral insisted.

  “You know nothing about boats” she said. “Stay.”

  “Alanya, I need to go.”

  “Umm . . . Alanya . . .” Donial interrupted. “Kral. Who do you suppose that is?”

  Alanya stood and looked off to the east, the direction in which her brother was staring and pointing.

  In the far distance, across miles and miles of empty grasslands, she could see a line of people, looking tiny and antlike from there. They were too far away to make out any detail at all, but it was obvious that they were humans.

  The other thing that was obvious, from the swath they cut through the grass, was that they were headed right for the survivors of the Restless Heart!

  13

  “CAPTAIN FERRIN!” KRAL called, after staring at the line of men for a few moments. “Look!”

  The captain rushed up the beach to their vantage point among the palms, followed by a few of his men. “What is it?” he demanded, sounding angry that his immediate goal had been delayed.

  “I do not know,” Kral said truthfully. “But they come this way.”

  “He’s right, Captain,” said Allatin, the first mate. “Look at ’em all.”

  “Who do you think they are?” another sailor asked.

  “A Shemish trading caravan, no doubt,” Captain Ferrin said, after a brief hesitation. “Riding camels, I expect. They probably think we have goods to trade with them.”

  “If we could unload some of our cargo here . . .” Allatin mused. He was a wiry man, with lean, chiseled muscles and a long blond beard.

  “We won’t get a decent price from this lot,” Ferrin argued. “Not under these conditions. If it will make them happy—especially if we can acquire any tools or materials to help us fix the Restless Heart—then we can part with a few barrels of wine, some silks, even some skins, if they have interest in those. But my customers in Stygia are expecting this shipment, and I’ll deliver it to them on my back before I let these Shemites trade me their copper baubles for it.”

  “Maybe we could swap some of your Corinthian wine for their Kyros wine,” one of the mercenaries suggested. “I’ve had but a single cup of it in my time, but I remember it as the sweetest I’ve ever tasted.”

  “You will note that the Corinthian wine is in the cargo hold,” Ferrin reminded him. Kral observed that the lanky captain’s hand had strayed, almost casually, to the hilt of his cutlass. “And that you are served mead, not wine, at your meals. My cargo is not for crew or passengers to consume.”

  The mercenary grumbled and spat into the sand, but he didn’t press the issue. Maybe they thought the shipwreck would change things, Kral guessed. But Ferrin was still the captain, on dry land or at sea, and no man seemed interested in challenging that authority.

  Kral drifted back to where Alanya and Donial stood, watching the caravan’s progress. The black line came on, slowly but steadily. Kral’s keen eyesight picked out more detail as they approached. “It looks to be about eighty men,” he said quietly. “Walking, not mounted.”

  “Captain Ferrin said they would be on camels,” Alanya commented.

  “That makes no sense,” Donial put in. “In the deserts of eastern Shem, sure. As in Stygia, it’s all sand there, I understand. But in grass like this, I would expect horses, not camels.”

  “Me, too,” Kral agreed. “But traders on foot? How would they carry their goods?”

  “Maybe they are not traders, then,” Alanya suggested.

  “If not traders, who?” That, Kral knew, was the real question that needed to be answered. Whoever they were, they outnumbered the survivors of the Restless Heart, and most of the crew and mercenar
ies had left their weapons behind when they abandoned the ship. He felt more naked without his knife than without a loincloth, so he had brought his along. But Donial and Alanya were unarmed, as were many of the others. If those approaching had sinister designs, it would be a hard fight to win.

  Leaving his friends again, he went to Captain Ferrin and explained his concerns. The captain listened thoughtfully, peering across the distance at the oncoming force. He had done much to earn Kral’s respect, and he didn’t disappoint now. “Right you are, lad,” he said when Kral had finished. “I don’t think they are Shemish soldiers—they would be as likely to be mounted as traders, right? But now you mention it, if they were traders, they would have wagons to haul their goods, as well as mounts. This lot has none of that.” He turned and sought out his first mate. “Allatin!” he called, seeing the fellow down by the beach.

  When the mate had run to the captain’s side, Ferrin said, “Get one of the boats and ferry a few men out to the Heart. Fast but quiet. Get on board, and fetch as many weapons as you can. Bows, arrows, a few spears wouldn’t be a bad idea, but mostly close combat ones: swords, knives, axes. Some of those mercenaries carried pikes, bills, and maces—bring those as well. I know not who those men are or what they want, but I do not want us standing here with nothing in our hands but sand and palm fronds when they arrive.”

  “Aye,” Allatin acknowledged. With brisk efficiency, he dashed down the beach and gathered half a dozen able seamen, and together they ran the lifeboat out into the surf.

  “Good thinking, lad,” Ferrin said, with a gracious smile for Kral. “If the love of the sea ever strikes you like it does other men, there will always be a place for you on my crew.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Kral replied. “I think I am happiest on solid ground, though.” He glanced around at the flat, grassy meadow that extended away from there, as far as the eye could see. “With more trees around than this.”

  “Each to his own,” Ferrin said. “But the offer stands.”

  Kral returned to Donial and Alanya. “He has sent men to the ship to gather weapons,” he told them.

  “Weapons?” Alanya asked. “Wouldn’t we be better off with food? And maybe a few barrels of water?”

  “There is food and water here,” Kral countered. “But empty-handed, we may not live long enough to need it.”

  Without pausing or diverging from their course, the line of men continued to cut a swath through the grass, straight toward them. Gradually, they came close enough for Kral to see individuals with more clarity. Kral had never seen a Shemite, as far as he knew, but from what Alanya and Donial told him, the men who approached didn’t look like them. Western Shemites, he was told, were big men with dark hair that shone almost blue in the midday sun. They would be wearing shirts of mail and would have conical steel helmets on their heads, and they would carry powerful bows with which they were as comfortable as with their own hands.

  These men were nothing like Shemites. Kral saw a few with wide-brimmed hats like the one Captain Ferrin had lost, and others—like some of the sailors from the Restless Heart—with bandannas tied around their scalps. He saw gold glinting at their ears, around their necks, and at their wrists. He saw open shirts, wide belts, pantaloons tucked into knee-high, cuffed boots. And in their hands or at their sides, he saw cutlasses, and some crossbows. Weapons such as could be used on the decks of a ship, without entangling the lines.

  “They’re seamen!” he shouted when all this was clear to him. He knew that his vision was sharper than that of his more civilized companions. “Those are no meadow-dwellers or desert traders!”

  Captain Ferrin heard him and rushed to his side. “If only I had not left my glass on the ship,” he said. “But I will trust your barbaric eyesight over my own. Sailors, eh?”

  “Yes, Captain, I am sure of it. They could be your crew, except that most of them are shorter and heavier than your men. Not a one of them is as tall as Allatin, much less your height.”

  “Short, you say.” Kral noted an edge to the captain’s voice that hadn’t been there before. He swiveled around and looked toward the ship, which the men on the lifeboat had just reached. “Hurry, you lot,” he said under his breath.

  “Who do you think they are?” Kral asked.

  “Well, they are not Shemites. From your description, I would guess maybe Argosseans. Which, to be on the safe side, we have to assume means Argossean pirates.”

  “Pirates?” Alanya echoed.

  “The Baracha Islands are infested with them, like rats swarming a ship’s hold,” Ferrin explained. “They ply the coast between there and Kush, looking for easy prey. I’ve run up against them a time or two, but always escaped with my skin.”

  “Why would they be on land, in Shem?” Alanya asked.

  “Same as we are, most likely,” Kral answered. “We have no idea how long that storm had been raging, or where it was before it hit us. But it might have driven their ship aground, somewhere up ahead of us. If they were shipwrecked, they might be trying to reach Argos on foot.”

  “Aye, and we happen to be between them and their goal,” Ferrin added. “With a ship that’s still seaworthy, given a few repairs.” He glanced at the Restless Heart again. The men were just then clambering aboard.

  The next few minutes dragged out excruciatingly slowly for Kral. The group of men coming toward them compressed, so that instead of a spread-out line, they were almost in a phalanx formation. Having done so, they advanced more rapidly. Soon Kral could make out individual facial characteristics and expressions. The man at the front of the pack, for example, had a sneer on his face, a fresh gash across his left eyebrow and cheek, and his deep chest moved heavily beneath a shirt that had been torn almost to ribbons. Behind him were a number of men who all looked as though they’d fought to the gates of hell and back again.

  At the ship, Kral saw the men who had been sent after weapons emerge from belowdecks, carrying arm-loads of them toward the lifeboat. One of them must have noticed how close the Argosseans had drawn, because he shouted out something to his fellows, and they all began to run with their loads.

  Turning back to the Argosseans, Kral saw that they were now running, too. “To arms!” Captain Ferrin shouted—redundantly, as every sailor and mercenary who had a weapon had long since drawn it.

  Which still left more than half of them empty-handed.

  Kral could hear their voices raised in throaty war cries, the thunder of boots on the dirt, the clink of steel on steel. He wished that he was painted for battle, but there was nothing to paint with, not even good rich mud. He would just have to do without.

  “Get behind me,” he said to Alanya and Donial.

  “Just get me a sword!” Donial complained. “I can fight.”

  “The swords will not be here in time,” Kral replied. “Stay back!”

  “Come, Donial,” Alanya urged. She tugged him back behind the first line of defenders.

  Kral was glad for the company of the mercenaries. There weren’t enough of them, and most had been so quick to abandon the sinking ship that they had left their weapons behind. But at least they were used to fighting on land. The young Pict worried that the sailors’ main battle experience was on ships, which doubtless required different skills.

  The mercenaries—even those who were bare-handed, who had at least scooped up stones they could throw—joined the armed sailors in making a defensive arc around the rest of the group. The sailors on the lifeboat were rowing like mad for the shore, and one even stood up with a crossbow in his hands. But they were too far away to help.

  Because the Argosseans were upon them. A series of crossbow bolts flew into the defenders’ ranks, taking down two of them before the hand-to-hand fighting even started. Others snatched up the weapons of the fallen, closing ranks around their bodies.

  The attackers charged in, swords flashing. Captain Ferrin was the first to meet a foe in combat, his cutlass clashing against that of one of the buccaneers so hard that sparks
flew. Then Kral paid attention only to his own survival—a short, round barrel of a man, gap-toothed mouth open in a silent scream, came right for him, swinging a sinister curved sword. Kral ducked underneath that first swipe and jabbed up with his knife. But the man had a second blade, a short dagger, in his left hand, and he blocked Kral’s attack with it. At the same moment he brought the cutlass whistling around toward Kral’s neck and shoulder. Kral dodged to his left and the man’s blade slammed into the earth. Rising from his crouch, Kral kicked the side of the blade so hard it wrenched the sword from the man’s grip. His face took on a panicked expression as Kral moved into him, chest to chest, using his right hand to hold the other’s left wrist and with his left, driving the knife into the man’s meaty gut.

  Kral released him with a shove backward, to keep him out of the line of defense. The man fell, choking and clawing at his own belly. A quick assessment told Kral that the line had held, so far. He couldn’t see Captain Ferrin, but most of the other mercenaries and sailors still stood, and more of them were armed now, having taken weapons from their fallen foes—or from those of their comrades who had already died.

  But the Argosseans kept coming, in such numbers that they were beginning to circle around the defensive arc. Kral knew that when they had to watch their backs as well as their fronts, the fight would end quickly. He snatched up the fallen pirate’s cutlass and—noting Donial’s anxious glare—tossed it instead to the nearest unarmed mercenary. The man gave a shout of thanks and hurried to the near end of the arc.

  “Kral!” Alanya shouted urgently. He turned back to face the pirates, and two of them rushed at him with slashing swords and wicked grins on their faces. He wished for a moment that he’d kept the cutlass, but then he had no more time for wishing.

  14

  ALANYA WATCHED IN horror as Kral turned to face two attacking buccaneers. He let out a guttural cry and twisted his body so that one of the swords passed completely by him. The other one raked across his chest, though. Alanya saw blood fly in the air. She screamed.