Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3

by J. A. Sutherland

  He matched the boat’s rise, then reversed, settling the massive hauler gently but firmly against the boat’s hull and trusting its heavy construction against the lighter craft. He settled it further, tilting as both craft lowered, the boat’s engines winding up to a high pitched whine as they struggled to push against more mass than they’d ever been meant to lift.

  The pirate boat struck first, its tail and engines swung through the farmhouse’s second floor and then part of the first, sending debris in a wide arc. The starboard landing struts struck the ground at an angle and snapped, which sent the side of the craft plowing into the turf beyond.

  Hatridge righted the hauler, skimming its starboard side inches away from the ground and slamming the port against the top of the boat. That drove the boat firmly to the ground. Its port landing struts held, digging deep furrows as the boat came to a stop listing heavily to one side.

  The hauler rose quickly, moving off to a distance beyond the effective range of the pirates’ weapons.

  Denholm clenched his jaw. He knew it wasn’t over — even with their boat disabled, the pirates wouldn’t just give up. They knew what was in store for them if they surrendered and would fight to avoid it.

  Even as he thought that, he could see the boat’s ramps opening further and figures moving about. Shots and lasers crossed the space between the holding’s buildings and the boat, but Denholm thought they might have arrived at an impasse. The range and cover each side held made targeting difficult. The air around him was rich with scents of the wood walls, raw where projectiles shot it through and burned where lasers struck.

  There was movement at one of the boat’s ramps and he thought for a moment that the pirates would attempt to rush the holding’s buildings.

  Then from within the shadows the crystalline tube of a ship’s gun probed forward.

  Denholm had a bare moment’s terror — for himself, the men around him, and for Lynelle firing from the hayloft above — before the world dissolved into flame-lit darkness, smoke, and screams.

  Eighteen

  “Lynelle!”

  The holding after the battle seemed unnaturally quiet despite the shouts of men and women rushing about. Cries of joy or despair rose as the fate of loved ones and friends was discovered.

  Denholm lifted another of the barn’s burned and shattered boards and tossed it aside. There were pockets of heat where the rubble smoldered. Luckily nothing had been set afire outright.

  “Lynelle!”

  In the long minutes after the pirates’ cannon fired, Denholm hadn’t had time to think of anything beyond the moment.

  The ship’s cannon, designed to punch through a tough thermoplastic hull in the vacuum of darkspace behaved much differently in atmosphere and against the wooden walls of a building. It struck over a wider area and explosively boiled what moisture was left in the wood, causing the side of the structure to explode in charred cinders.

  Some men inside were killed outright, others fell, bleeding from splinters or burns, while the rest crouched behind what cover remained.

  With the shelter of the boat and a heavy weapon, the pirates would obliterate the holding if the settlers stayed in place. Despite the risk, they had to attack.

  Denholm had little recollection of the battle. He remembered picking himself up, shrugging off splinters and boards, and yelling something that caused others to follow. Those in the farmhouse and barracks must have had the same thought, for men and women poured out of those as well.

  The pirates managed to fire the gun once more, destroying what was left of the farmhouse, before the holders overran them. Once the boat’s ramps were secure and the remaining pirates had been taken prisoner, Denholm rushed back to the barn, which had collapsed further.

  Now he had time to think — time to worry, as he’d not seen Lynelle once in the fighting.

  “Lynelle!”

  He tossed another board aside, looking for anything that would tell him where the hayloft had been.

  “Is it thinking I’ve nae the wits to leave a burning building you’re about, love?”

  Denholm spun around. She was there — singed, sooty, and resting her weight on her rifle, but whole and safe. He rushed to her and engulfed her in his arms, noting that she was squeezing him back just as hard.

  “I thought —”

  “Nae more than I did, seeing you rush toward their guns, you daft —”

  He shut her mouth with a kiss, only stopping when someone loudly cleared his throat nearby.

  “Mister Carew, sir, could we see you t’other side o’ the boat, sir?”

  Denholm took a step back, wiping his eyes. He looked to the man who’d spoken.

  “What? Why?”

  “One o’ the pirates we took, sir, he’s asking if you’re here and to see you.”

  Denholm frowned. Why would the pirate — likely Saint, as that was the only one he’d really spoken to — want to see him specifically?

  He closed his eyes again and grasped Lynelle, inhaling her scent through the smoke and soot, then stepped back.

  “All right, lead on, then.”

  Denholm crossed the farmyard to where the surviving pirates had been lined up. Several were prone, their injuries being tended by their fellows, though given their almost certain fate he wondered at the logic of that. Others knelt, hands lashed behind them. One stood, blood streaking his face from a blow to the head and soaking his pant leg where he’d been shot.

  Saint spat to the side. “Carew, eh?”

  “Captain Saint.”

  “Well.” The pirate looked around at the destruction and grunted. “What were it? That brought you here, I mean.”

  “You went in order,” Denholm said. “Of the holdings you visited for your ‘fairs’.” He nodded toward Lynelle who had moved to the side and held her rifle not-quite pointed at Saint. “It was Lynelle that saw the pattern.”

  Saint grunted again, but nodded to Lynelle. “Mistress Carew.” He shrugged when Lynelle said nothing. “Never thought of that — what with skippin’ the larger ones and all.” He sighed. “What’s it for us, then?”

  Denholm looked around at the bodies being lined up for burial and the injured being treated before transport back to their holdings. The shouts of those looking for missing friends had died down, replaced by angry murmurs as the full butcher’s bill became known. Near the farmhouse the remaining Arthurs, Bailie’s wife, Catherine, and two children, were hunched over the still bodies.

  “Much as you’d expect, I suppose, captain.”

  “Yes, as to that …” He wiped at the blood on his face and winced, then probed his scalp as fresh blood flowed. “May be as there’s a bit of negotiationing to be done yet.”

  “I doubt that,” Denholm said. “I imagine the pleasure of seeing your neck stretched will far outweigh anything you have to offer.”

  “Oh, don’t go misbelieving me, Mister Carew.” Saint shifted his weight and winced. “I don’t suppose you’d care to sit and discuss it?” He shrugged as Denholm shook his head. “Very well, then. I asked for you specific-like, for you seemed an honest, decent sort — you and your missus. Treated us well, hosted us to dinner and such.” He spat again. “More than could be said for most.”

  “Hospitality I regret, I assure you.”

  “As may be, but you seem a decent sort, as I said. Not the sort to take treacherousness at all lightly — and there’s treacherousness more than mine about this world, Mister Carew. Such as a man like you’d have no truck with. You’ve no idea who you’ve —” He broke off and glanced past Denholm. “You —”

  Denholm jerked to the side, startled by the crack of ionizing air seemingly right next to him. Saint’s right eye disappeared and he dropped to the ground.

  Denholm looked first toward Lynelle, thinking it was her who’d shot, but the shot had been on his other side and Lynelle was looking that way as well, rifle half raised to her shoulder.

  He looked that way in time to see Rashae Coalson lower his l
aser rifle and stalk forward, a dozen of his men at his back.

  “What —”

  “Pirate scum,” Coalson muttered, walking up to Saint’s body and kicking it.

  Nineteen

  The remaining pirates were taken to Landing. The trial, such as it was, was short and to the point. Presided over by Wickam Doakes, in his role as Crown agent, the closest thing to a magistrate Dalthus would see for some time. A few of the pirates maintained that they’d been aboard the boat the entire time and had no hand in the attacks themselves, hadn’t even known Saint’s intentions when they’d come aboard his ship, but the verdicts remained the same for all.

  They were hung on hastily erected gibbets along the edge of the landing field. Rashae Coalson and some few others argued for the bodies to be tarred and left to rot in place as a warning to others, but Denholm and most of the other colonists balked at that. Instead, the bodies were taken down and buried immediately.

  Denholm watched sadly as the last of the pirates was cut down. One of these was the woodcarver who’d bought his varrenwood scraps. He wondered what had brought a man with such talent to choose piracy instead … and what he might say to the children back on the holding who’d sold the man wood and delighted in the toys he’d carved in return.

  He felt a comforting hand on his shoulder and slid his arm around Lynelle.

  The crowd began to disperse, filing off the landing field onto the one thoroughfare in Landing that could be called a street and not a cartpath. The town was growing, double in size from what it had been just after planetfall and the dispersion of settlers to their holdings, but it was still small. Past the standing buildings on that first street though, the beginnings of a plan had been laid out. Within another year the population and size would likely double again. There was talk of cobbling the main street, at least until the colony had the means of producing proper paving.

  Stakes and rope marked lots that would be sold to those looking to make a start there — either released indentures or colonists who’d sold their lands after a bad start and chose to try their hand at merchant- or craft-life in town. The crowd moved toward one of those lots now.

  It was designated as a public park in the town’s plan, but was a simple square of unmown field now. Paths were worn through the tough, native ground cover, showing where people’s travels naturally took them.

  A tall pillar had been erected at the lot’s center. One hundred forty-six names were carved into the pillar’s base — all of those who died on the three obliterated holdings and in the battle at the Arthurs’. It had been printed and erected in the midst of the trial and the ceremony to dedicate it scheduled for immediately after the last pirate hanged. If there’d been a bit of doubt about the pirates’ guilt, Denholm might have questioned the fairness of that.

  Bryson Malcomson led off the ceremony with an ancient tune played on bagpipes. The haunting sound floated over the silent crowd — most had their heads bowed, others stared at the pillar in silence.

  “Hmph.”

  Lynelle was staring at Malcomson with narrowed eyes.

  “What?” Denholm asked. “I’d have thought you’d be happy to hear those played here. It’s a long time since you’ve been home to New Edinburgh and we likely won’t ever visit there again.”

  “Happy? By a bloody Malcomson?”

  Denholm suppressed a smile that wouldn’t be appropriate for the occasion. He’d long ago given up understanding the long and complex list of feuds and familial dislikes Lynelle kept in her head.

  “Besides which,” Lynelle went on, “the pipes are nae for mourning, love. They’re for the battle.” She scowled at the player. “No true New Edinburghan would play them such.” She turned her scowl skyward. “Though I can hope the sound reaches those bastards left, wherever they may be, an’ chills their very dreams.”

  Some days after the battle at the Arthurs’ holding, a merchantman arrived in-system and reported the space around Dalthus was empty of other ships. Where the remaining pirates had sailed for, they didn’t know.

  Lynelle’s scowl deepened. “Especially that fuzzy-toothed shite, Saint’s nephew.”

  “He’s but a lad, Lynelle, perhaps this setback will set him, and the rest of them, on a different track.”

  Lynelle patted his arm.

  “You’ve a good heart, love, and a forgiving nature, but blood runs true, it does.” She sighed and rested a hand on her belly. Denholm watched that with concern. She’d been ill a number of times in the days since the battle with the pirates, but waved off his suggestions she see the doctor while they were already in Landing. “I suppose that means our son will be as forgiving and not ken a proper feud.”

  “I’m sure you’ll manage to teach him the workings of …” Denholm’s eyes widened. “Wait … what?”

  Twenty

  “Pig! Here, pig! Come on, then!”

  A gust of heavy wind from the storm struck him and Denholm slipped, going to his knees in the cold mud of the pen, made colder and wetter by the driving rains. This was one of the heavier storms they’d found crossed the plains of Dalthus once or twice a year, springing up with little warning and sometimes covering an area for days at a time, and he wanted all of the livestock inside the protection of the original domed barn. That would hold up to even one of the larger tornadoes sometimes spawned by these storms, better, at least, than the other outbuildings made from native materials would.

  He got to his feet, arms spread wide, and approached the pig, a large sow and stubborn. All of the others had been quick enough to follow the fenced corridor he’d put up to lead them toward the barn, but this one didn’t want to leave the pen, even with the storm and rain.

  Lightning flashed brightly and the sow squealed, then dashed toward him. He tried to get out of the way, but his leg, already aching from the storm, betrayed him. The sow’s shoulder clipped his leg and he went down again, this time face first and full length into the muck-and-worse that filled the pen.

  He rose to hands and knees, spitting what had got in his mouth, but unable to even wipe his face because all the rest of him was just as covered with the filth.

  “You’re bacon, damn your eyes!” He got to his feet and raised his face to the rain, letting that wash some of it away, at least. “Bacon and hams, come harvest time, you! Mark my words!”

  Eyes cleared of the muck, at least, he looked around the pen. The sow was halfway down the fenced path, snuffling at the edge of the barn door.

  “Bloody pigs.”

  He made his way after her, pulling the pen’s gate closed so that she couldn’t return to it. The sow seemed to have decided she’d had enough of the storm, though, and waited patiently for him to slide the barn’s door open just enough for her to enter and join the others.

  Denholm followed, latched the door firmly, and clambered out of the fenced off area for the pigs. The rest of the barn was divided for the other animals. Horses, cows, the various fowl that made up the farm, all crowded into very little space. What had been enough to hold all their livestock when they’d first arrived, with room left over for equipment and workspaces, was now barely enough to shelter the critical animals alone. There were still more of the pigs and cows in the native-built barns — more vulnerable, but at least the best of the breeding stock was safe here.

  “Lynelle!” Denholm called.

  She’d been getting the last of the horses in, despite Denholm’s protestations that one of the hands could help him with that and she shouldn’t be out in the storm in her condition. That had earned him a look, and, truthfully, she’d been right that the farmhands were better put to use down in the village helping the folk there prepare for the storm. What they were experiencing now was only the very edges and it would only get worse for the next several hours.

  “Lynelle! Pigs’re all in!” he called again.

  There was no answer and he wondered if she’d gone back to the house already, but that didn’t seem like her and he began to worry. He’d been doing tha
t a lot as her pregnancy progressed. Worrying that all was well, worrying that she was doing too much. Worrying most recently that with the rain and wind combined with Lynelle’s … well, size, that she’d fall and hurt herself bringing in the animals.

  He’d never say it to her face, of course, but he’d noticed in the last few weeks that Lynelle had developed an amusing tendency to waddle.

  Denholm frowned.

  The other barn doors were closed, perhaps Lynelle had gone to the house. He’d have expected her to wait for him so they could go together, but with the storm and, well, she did tend to tire more easily these days.

  A dull clang sounded from deeper in the barn.

  Denholm froze. It was only the sort of sound one would expect, a horse or cow bumping into a trough or bucket, but something about it made his blood run cold. Then it came again.

  “Lynelle?”

  He made his way deeper into the barn and the clang came again. He could tell where it was coming from now and rushed forward toward one of the horse stalls. The horse, a big, gentle carter, was wet and steaming, just brought inside and not rubbed dry.

  Denholm rushed inside the stall.

  Lynelle lay on the floor of the stall, eyes closed and breath coming in short, ragged gasps — one arm wrapped around her belly, the other raised toward the stall’s trough to rap her knuckles on the thin metal.

  He dropped to his knees beside her and clasped her hand. Her skin was cold, so cold that he could tell even with his own feeling fair to freezing from the wind and rain.

  “What?”

  Lynelle drew a deep breath, grimacing as though it pained her, and her voice was as ragged as her breathing was.

  “Best call for Mistress Henton, love.”

  Denholm lifted Lynelle from the barn floor and carried her to the house, cursing all the while that he’d sent all of the hands to help prepare for the storm in the village. If he’d had even one man remain at the farmstead to help with the stock he’d have someone to send for help.