Treason's Shore

by Sherwood Smith

  Eflis left the thought unfinished. As soon as she caught sight of the starboard side of the Venn flagship she spun the wheel. “Helm down,” she yelled, easing the wheel.

  Her sail crew, practiced after years of tight maneuvers, eased off the jib sails as the spanker boom hauled amidships.

  “Helm’s a-lee!” Eflis cried, loving this moment when the ship was poised in the turn, a desperate situation even without an enemy aiming straight for the hull.

  Foresails thrown aback, yards braced up sharp.

  “Haul taut!” Yard arms swung. Sails thrummed and bucketed, fighting the line of crew using their entire bodies to get the sails snugged up tight. The little speed Sable had lost was made up in surges as each sail filled, held. Now they were running along the outside of the Venn, the wind on the forward beam, spars rigid.

  Eflis laughed for joy. “Fire away!”

  Already the intense whiff of rotten fish oil whipped past from the Vixen ahead; streamers of blue-tinged dark smoke drifted toward the ships forming the tip of the Venn arrowhead.

  Along the lee rail Eflis’ crew touched their glowing torches to the shallow pans of fish oil, and blue flame rippled and roiled, sending fingers of smoke that increased rapidly into a stinking billow that drifted toward the Venn, obscuring them from sight.

  Eflis’ fleet followed her in a snake trail, bow to stern, as barrels of oil, hoarded all winter, began to burn.

  As the smoke increased, so did the stink, and Eflis turned her nose into her armpit, laughing despite stinging eyes.

  “Allies weather-beam. But not very fast,” Sparrow said.

  Eflis faced eastward into the wind, where—at last—the allies appeared, black nicks in the gray cloud, still hull down.

  A faint, weird blatting of horns carried down the wind.

  “Here they come!” the lookout shouted.

  Eflis didn’t have to peer into the smoke to know that the Venn had sicced their fastest raiders on them. It was time to walk the deck. Eflis flicked a smile at her ship master, a solid old smuggler she’d met when she first took ship. He stationed himself at the wheel. Eflis grabbed up her cutlass, swinging it to loosen her arms as she leaped down to the deck.

  Sparrow followed; she often fought shield beside Eflis. If Eflis died, she had privately vowed that it would be because Sparrow herself had fallen first.

  “I’m wanting an anchor against time,” Sparrow said, as tiny flickers of fire appeared out of the reek.

  “What?” Eflis stuck her fists on her hips, grinning. “Sparrow! Have you been at the wine barrel?”

  “If I die.” Sparrow’s lips tightened. “You’ll get all I have. If you die then I will go with you.”

  Eflis cupped the back of Sparrow’s neck, the chiming little braids sliding past her fingers to tinkle against Sparrow’s collarbone. She gazed into Sparrow’s wide, unblinking dark eyes, the tension shaping those eyes, then kissed her. “So we gotta live.”

  A weird whirtling sound, like the ululation of coyotes, from high above: a screamer arrow from Vixen signaling attackers.

  “Defenders to the rails! Fire teams, more smoke! Torch the barrels!” Eflis thumped the helm. “Give us a stagger!”

  The first Venn loomed out of the smoke, indistinct and dangerous: a steady stream of arrows zapped across, most fouling on the net, but not all. A short cry and a member of the bow teams above fell dead to the deck. The water teams sprang to drag dead and wounded away as bow teams shot with disciplined speed.

  The ship yawed into a stagger and pulled away from the powerful Venn raiders who fought against the wind.

  “Smoke!” Sable’s defenders lit more pans, sending foul-smelling billows of smoke over the Venn.

  Crack! A raider emerged from the murk and rammed the stern. The crew staggered, many fell but scrambled up into defensive lines, weapons gripped tightly. Horn-helmed Drenga swarmed over the stern, roaring; the pair of girls at the bow kicked over their barrel of oil just as the Venn reached it, which sent the enemy skidding and sliding just before Sable’s defense team smashed into them.

  The Venn were big and strong and well-trained, but they were human: they also hated chain mail at sea and could be hacked up like anyone else. Sable’s crew, drilled relentlessly by Fox, fought with vicious pirate tactics. The fight surged back and forth, both sides slipping in the slick, fetid oil; with merciless precision the Venn bow teams picked off defenders in the tops, but the defenders shot with unerring accuracy the moment a shield slipped.

  The Venn hacked apart four of Eflis’ old shipmates, two more dropped from arrows, the defense line wavered, some looking to their captain—what next? what do we do? Eflis vaulted over the capstan to hit the Venn leader feet first. Then she clenched her cutlass in both hands and swung in attack, her fury rallying her defense line.

  Venn and defenders pressed in, writhing with effort, blood-splattered as they hacked and stabbed. The Venn’s superior mass gradually gained footing. They were poised to break through and run down the deck, but a large shape slid up on the weather side, stealing Sable’s wind. It was Cocodu come to the rescue. Fifty figures swung over and dropped onto the deck, Dasta at the lead.

  “Hullo, Eflis! Smell the pickle juice?”

  He dashed by, his fighters shrieking as they attacked. The Venn began to fall in rapid numbers under that murderous, howling onslaught. When all were dead, Cocodu took station behind Sable and it, too, began to send blankets of malodorous smoke across the water, obscuring the Venn.

  Eflis sat abruptly on an upended bucket. The moment her sword arm dropped the nicks and cuts she’d taken began to sting and throb. She waved old, braid-bearded Collza, her healer, off. “Crew first . . .”

  And then she saw Sparrow lying on the deck, her chime-woven braids fanning around her head. Her right arm was held close, her clothes dark-soaked with gore.

  Waves of glitter and dark danced in Eflis’ eyes as Collza and his aides bent over her.

  The lookout screamed, “Here they come, straight off the bow!”

  Eflis lurched to her feet, swept up her weapon, shoved one of the aides out of the way.

  Collza looked up irritably, then his face changed when he saw the death wish in his captain. “ ’S all right.” His voice was a dry croak, but he strained to be heard. “She’s alive. Bad cut along the ribs. Knot behind her ear. Alive, cap’n!”

  Eflis spun away, dizzy with relief. Someone held out the dipper from an ensorcelled bucket. She gulped down water.

  Two, three steps forward and a pair of Venn scouts sailed down either side.

  Before the first one could close with Sable, the pirate trysail Wind’s Kiss loomed out of the murk and rammed straight into the scout, sending splinters tumbling through the air.

  Then Tcholan roared an order from the trysail’s captain’s deck, and Sable’s helmsman spun the wheel, sail crews hauling yardarms around before the two ships could collide. That left the other Venn scout sailing between the schooner and the trysail—right into a hailstorm of fire arrows.

  “More a’coming!”

  Eflis ran forward, waving her cutlass overhead. “Boarder repel team, to me!” Over her shoulder, “Signal for backup!”

  The flags jerked up to the foremast, but Jeje had already seen the Sable’s situation and sent up the signal flags, drawing anyone in the Fox Banner Fleet who was near and not already in a death duel themselves.

  As was Cocodu. They all saw Dasta go down defended by his crew. Jeje turned fiercely burning eyes aft to meet the angry gazes of Mutt and Nugget.

  “Go!” she yelled.

  They’d already prepared. The ship rats were left to tend the foul smoke as Nugget expertly whirled a hooked rope, sending it high into Cocodu’s rigging. She whirled up, knife out, and began swinging about, slashing down at Venn from above.

  Mutt lunged from the rail and scrambled up Cocodu’s side, then Vixen was past, sailing across Cocodu’s bow so Jeje could see in the other direction . . . and find Death.

 
On the Death, Fox smacked the glass to his eye, cursing steadily at the dark, the smoke, the lack of—

  A wash of rain and the glow of fires cleared briefly, and—was that a gap to the west? But one could hear whirtlers with the fleet spread out in a line, obscured by smoke and attackers.

  Here was Vixen racing under his lee.

  Fox remembered Inda saying, You look around for Jeje and she’s always right there. Sometimes I think she knows my plans before I do.

  Jeje peered up. Were those tear tracks on her face or sweat? “Chwahir aren’t far,” she shouted, her hoarse voice carrying over the noise. “If they tack north of west, they could squeeze the Venn through that gap.”

  “Go tell them.” Fox waved a hand, revealing a rip over the back of his arm and the ruby gleam of blood.

  Jeje knew him well enough by now not to mistake that drawl for indifference. He only drawled when he was in a white fury.

  “Loos! Make sail for the Chwahir flagship.”

  The Venn were outnumbered by a magnitude of three, but that knowledge just increased their ferocity.

  A detachment chased the slower Chwahir. Fox led a line to the rescue, watching impatiently through his glass as the Venn drakans closed in pairs on either side of the Chwahir, using their cut booms to sweep the rigging. The weakened shrouds inevitably caused masts to topple and fall, leaving the ships helpless against the Venn raiders following on, crowded with crews of Drenga poised to board fore and aft.

  Fox motioned his bigger ships to surround the Venn raiders before their Drenga could board the Chwahir.

  Though most of the allies were smaller than the drakan warships, they were also faster or the Venn might have finally driven them off. The cost would have been even higher than both sides paid had not the Venn commander sent a message by scroll-case to Oneli Southern Fleet Commander Durasnir. He woke to the news that the reinforcement was vastly outnumbered. Were they to fight to the last man?

  Durasnir had no intention of losing any more of his Oneli or Drenga to futile efforts. “Send an order at once to disengage and to withdraw all the way back to Nathur, at the west end of Drael. Await orders.”

  The wind remained steady in the east, which enabled the Fox Banner Fleet’s oily smoke to so befoul the Venn they could only find one another via their navigators. Fox’s allies then began systematically surrounding the Venn and setting them on fire.

  Blurp, blurp, muhoooooghhh! From across the water the Venn signal horns sounded like bulls in pain.

  The signal caused a shift: longboats lowered over the sides of the burning Venn ships, and men dropped in. Abandoning ship!

  Fox sent a whirtler up to cease fighting, but only his fleet obeyed. Some of the allies harried Venn until they nearly smashed on the rocks, the Chwahir tried to set fire to the retreating longboats, and when those were too fast, sent arrows into the men crowding them.

  When the last of the Venn vanished into the smoky darkness, the allies began to form up in a ragged line behind the mass of burning ships. Aboard the Chwahir ships and the Fox Banner Fleet, discipline was temporarily gone as the noise of triumph spread throughout all the allies. They’d won! They’d beaten the Venn!

  As Jeje carried Fox from ship to ship on inspection, he watched his allies silhouetted against the fiery glow of smoldering war, small figures dancing about.

  When Fox returned from his tour of the Fox Banner Fleet, he found the Death’s crew was busy cleaning up damage under the narrowed eyes of Barend, who walked back and forth.

  “Report?” Barend asked.

  Fox surveyed the Death from deck to masts before he spoke. “Swift needs a tow. Bad damage, and there’s maybe a quarter of his crew still on their feet. Swift himself is unconscious, not sure if he’ll live to morning. Leg smashed when he led a team warding a Venn cut boom. Four of Fangras’ followers sank. Fangras died just after I climbed on board, crew mostly dead, but I sent over the boats of survivors from Catspaw and Wolf Wind.” He paused, hand tight on the rail. “Fibi the Delf died, along with her repel boarders, but they held just long enough for Silverdog to get there. Dasta’s still alive. Barely.” His voice dropped, for he liked Dasta. “If he makes it to morning, he might survive. Though I don’t know if he’d want to.” He lifted his voice again, aware of all the listening ears. “Prepare for sail.” He vanished into the cabin to tend his own wounds and change his clothes.

  When the decks were clear, the ship steady under a goose-winged mizzen and a reefed topsail, Barend dismissed the off-duty watch to sleep or celebrate. Several of the younger members began dancing on the capstan as others banged wooden mugs on the deck, the rail, the longboats in time to raucous singing in two or three languages.

  Barend walked to the captain’s deck, rubbing his neck. Evred’s locket had vanished during one of the fights, leaving a gash where the metal chain had ripped his skin. When he saw blood dripping down his hand, he twisted his sash around his palm. The sash was ruined anyway.

  Fox emerged from the cabin, looking about with faint approval at the gradual reappearance of order. “Well?”

  Barend moved to the stern rail, sweeping his glass in a circle.

  Fox turned his way. “There’s only one reason the Venn would retreat like that.”

  “I suppose you aren’t going to say ‘Because they were beaten.’ ” In the golden glow of the distant fires, Barend’s smoke-smeared face was wry.

  Fox lifted his chin. “Custom maintains they fight to the death except when ordered to retreat and regroup. That means they intend to come back for another fight.”

  Barend’s eyes widened, reflecting the many fires spread over the sea. “Tonight? Tomorrow? Half their fleet is in flames.”

  “I don’t know when.” Fox tipped his head back toward their own fleet. Not a single ship had escaped damage. “I want to think it through. Let’s set sail for Freedom Island before Deliyeth and her good citizens get the bright idea of ridding themselves of pirates next.”

  Barend leaned on the rail, fingering his neck. “Not arguing. I’m all for Freedom Island. We can repair and rebuild. Yes, and train. But what are you going to think out? You know what the Venn will do next?”

  “No idea. Except that they’re sure to have a defense against smoke ships next time. Have to think out how Ramis has been right about everything. So far.” He’d told Barend a little of what Ramis had said, when he showed him the Knife, waiting in a secluded cove.

  Barend’s thin brows shot up. “He can see into the future?”

  “No. Said he can’t. I believe him. It’s more that he knew where the pieces in the game would move.”

  “So?” Barend winced and rubbed his neck. “What? You want to figure out the next move?”

  “I’m going to figure out the game.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  A BYARN Erkric’s teeth ached. When the ache built to little licks of flame through the backs of his eyes, he consciously unclenched his teeth and loosened his jaw.

  Below, silken ribbons described sinuous patterns in the air as the black-clad hel dancers tumbled with eerie grace, lithe figures shrouded to be genderless as they were supposed to be invisible. The symbols they twirled and fluttered and flashed signified place, time, mountains, water, wings, castles. Ships. Above them, the rich, sonorous voice of the unseen skalt intoned the long verses that the audience saw enacted below.

  The king sailed out a-viking, crossing world to world . . .

  Erkric checked the king, in whose unblinking eyes tiny reflections leaped and twirled. Erkric had sat through “Drakan Cross Worlds” more times than he could count, but it was safe. And it made sense for Rajnir to request this recital. Kings liked it, everyone knew that: it supported kingship, order. What could be more steadying than the origins of Venn glory? he thought as a group of the black dancers leaped through the air behind the captain of the drakan fleet, tiny streamers in their hands indicating the Golden Path across worlds.

  There must be no repeat of the Loc disaster. His teeth
clenched again when he thought of that recital, presented the month after Rajnir’s coronation. A ruinously costly performance in verse and dance, wild with thunderstorms and deluges, dragons descending out of the mountains, the words rife with fire and steel: the spectators had been struck into amazement at the time. And when it was over, scarcely had they left Loc Hall, their hoods over their faces, than they began whispering about Rainorec.

  He could not blame Loc House. You could not suborn the hel dancers or their skalts. If you asked for a new recital, they gave you a new recital. You paid for it, but could not dictate anything beyond the cost. Loc House had spent ten years’ income to celebrate the new king; they had not intended trouble, not after their Hyarl flew his blood eagle on Sinnaborc the summer before the southern fleet’s return. After which they all submitted to having their hair cut off, and iron collars fitted round their throats while they waited for Rajnir to be crowned king. Their only desire was to do the new king honor. Every one of them had abased him-or herself most abjectly before the throne, wearing their iron collars and coarse shit-brown thrall tunics, begging for pardon.

  Rajnir had to show mercy, or the rest of the Houses would have whispered even more. It was traditional: the new king was offered a great entertainment by those restored to their former glory. Heeding tradition was comforting, it signaled strays returned to the fold, the establishment of proper hierarchy and order.

  But the spiderwebs revealed the truth, whispered in halls and behind hands: The hel skalts and dancers harbingered Rainorec for the new reign.

  Three months a king and already there was trouble. Ever since that damn woman escaped . . .

  Pain shot through Erkric’s jaw again when he remembered Biddan’s bloody corpse. Erkric had been desperate enough to risk making contact with Norsunder, a terrible risk and an even more terrible cost, in case they had taken Biddan’s soul, identity, memories. Had Jazsha Signi Sofar talked before she killed Biddan? Why had the torturer let her loose? Was it part of the methods that Erkric had never wanted to hear any details of?