“Broadside catapult-captains, fire on the Korean’s stern as you bear!” Feldman’s voice cracked out. “Reload will be with solid bolt!”
There was an eightfold chorus of TUNG-WHACK, earsplitting loud, and then another two even louder as the eighteen-pounder chasers at bow and stern cut loose. The firebolts arced out over the three hundred yards, seeming to slow as they approached the target. Three missed, ending in puffs of steam as they struck the surface and the warheads ignited their thermite filling. Seven struck the Korean, from the waterline alongside the broken rudder to the quarterdeck, and two disappeared through the sterncastle windows.
Instantly white-hot bursts of incandescence lit, and then the yellow flame and black smoke of burning wood. Captain Feldman had gotten the less useful firebolt . . .
Less useful against an insane aquatic behemoth! Some distant rational part of John’s brain gibbered.
. . . out of the catapults, replaced it with solid bolts that might retain sufficient force through several feet of water, and made sure the Korean wouldn’t be a problem if they survived the monster. It was an impressive display of quick thought under pressure, or perhaps of lunatic optimism.
Nobody on the Korean warship seemed to be paying attention to damage control, either. Firebolts had to be cut out and quenched in the crucial moments after impact, before it was too late.
The Queen’s crews didn’t even pause to cheer as they flung themselves into the rhythm of reloading, though the Nihonjin managed a breathless Tennō Heika Banzai!
Extra sailors leapt to grab on to the pump-handles that powered the hydraulic jacks and bent the throwing arms back against the massive coil springs. The chunk of the mechanisms locking was overridden by the metallic clatter of the four-foot bolts of forged, finned steel being slapped into the troughs.
“Here it comes!” Radavindraban shouted. “Boarding party to me, pikes, pikes!”
A score of crewmen, those whose battle station was repelling boarders or swarming onto another vessel, ran along the deck to the First Mate’s side. He snatched one of the half-pikes from the rack beside him, not trying to take enough time to fit the bottom section into the metal sleeve; that left him with seven foot of Montivallan mountain ash and a foot of heavy double-edged steel blade. He poised it, leaning over and ready to thrust downward.
John could see from his face that he was just as terrified as he’d been at the first glimpse of the massive creature, and realized the First Mate wasn’t the sort of man who lost himself in the heat of battle and the rush of adrenaline in the blood so that reflex took over and spared mind and heart. He was doing this cold, purely as an act of disciplined will, and even at that moment the prince dipped his head in a little gesture of acknowledgment, fixing it in his memory as the image of an act of chosen, deliberate courage. If John lived to make the song, unlikely as that seemed at the moment, at least Radavindraban’s name would survive. Perhaps someday his kin might hear it and know he had died with honor.
A long ripple in the water, across the swell. Something was breaking the surface and leaving a narrow frothing wake; the broken stub of a catapult bolt lodged in that mass of hide armor and bone and gristle. It didn’t seem to be slowing the creature down.
“You will be aiming at that wake, catapult fellows!” Radavindraban called, his voice high but tightly contained with the liquid singsong accent much stronger. “As you bear, fire!”
The catapults went off one after another, in a close-spaced ripple but not all at once. It was a testament to the Queen’s picked crew that each catapult-captain waited until his best shot despite what was bearing down on them. At this close range—less than a hundred yards now, down to twenty before the bow-chaser loosed last of all—the bolts were only flashes, flattened streaks through the air. Each pitched into the water close to the onrushing streak with its black core, but it was impossible to see of any hit.
Then they were out of time. The Tarshish Queen slammed backward in the water and John would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed a line; several did fall, skidding on their backs across the deck. The king crocodile burst out of the water again, throwing a storm-surge of water at them that battered and stung. The Korean catapult bolt stood out of one shoulder, and another from the Queen had sunk half its length in the monster’s flank, but the pain had put it in a fimbul-cold rage. The pink gape of the mouth came at them, shreds of flesh hanging from the great curved daggers of its teeth. It bellowed as it came, a huge guttural sound in a wind that stank like old wet death.
Radavindraban shouted: “Adi kollu!”
And lunged, aiming the knife-edged steel at the hinge of the thing’s jaw. The head of the beast alone looked longer than the half-pike, and gaped impossibly broad. The spear seemed no bigger than a twig, but it flexed without breaking in Radavindraban’s grip as the crocodile tossed its head and threw him high into the air. At the top of the arc the steel slid free of the joint in a spray of blood-drops red against the white frothing water. Radavindraban struck the surface and disappeared; so did the crocodile. An instant later the ship shuddered again, more faintly this time, as something massive brushed against the keel.
“Plenty of slack, and be ready on the winch!” John shouted to the Bosun, who seemed to be one of the few not transfixed and frozen.
That was what he was shouting aloud; some distant portion of him was silently screaming nononononono! Several of his companions were shouting at him too as they realized what he was about to do, but there was no time to stop him.
He vaulted to the rail, grabbed the shark-fishing line just behind the heavy steel hook—more steel wire was wound around the wrist-thick cable for a yard above—and hit the water in a creditable dive, given his burdens.
Salt stung his eyes, and the light upper waters faded quickly to a darker blue; John was conscious of two more bodies hitting the water seconds after his, but he had no time to spare for more than the hope neither of them was Evrouin, since the man couldn’t swim well at all. He spotted Radavindraban’s limp form sinking rapidly, still clutching the half-pike in a death grip; the brightness of the steel was really what caught his eye. He dove, kicking powerfully in the stroke his parents had taught him, and caught the sailor around the waist. Deor and Thora were suddenly with him; they helped him slip the hook through a loop on the man’s belt and tug strongly on the cable to signal the deck-crew to spin the windlass.
Something brought him around as they did, something that made him ignore the burning in his lungs. He could see the hull of the Queen above them, slowly passing. And from beneath it a shape, sculling its tail sideways and back like an oar, driving at them like an arrow. Despite the growing absolute need for air the three of them hung motionless for an instant, until they realized in the same moment and all together that the creature was going for the moving target, for Radavindraban’s limp body shooting upward with the speed the high-geared winch made possible.
John kicked out strongly. Thora was beside him, her knife in her teeth. What she thought that was going to accomplish only her Gods knew, but if the crocodile had gulped her whole she’d probably have stabbed it on the way down. Deor was an eel-swift form on his other side. They reached the side of the ship just in time to seize ropes and see the crocodile rise half its impossible length out of the sea with its jaws agape beneath the dangling form of First Mate Radavindraban.
They slammed shut, and just as they did the half-pike fell from his hands. Fell with malignant precision into the beast’s maw, and jaws that could crush teak drove it through its own lower mandible. The beast bellowed again, even louder, and on a different note.
It was about time they had a stroke of luck.
A dozen crewmen were thrusting their long pikes at the white, softer skin of its throat and chest, and Fayard gave a crisp order and his men volleyed. Ruan was shooting his longbow in a steady ripple, bodkin-heads designed to punch through steel armor, and the Japanese lea
ned recklessly over the rail to thrust with their naginatas, screaming their warcry:
“Banzai! Banzai!”
Another bellow and the monster crashed backward into the water . . . and vanished, diving deep, even as the wave of its passage thumped the three of them heavily against the sheet-metal covering of the ship’s hull.
John clung; his mind felt like an eye that had stared too long at the sun. But he had seen what he had seen: a metal armband around the thing’s forelimb. And graven on it a sigil, a three-armed thing like writhing, curving tentacles, in yellow gold on the black surface of the band.
Thora’s hand slapped on his bare shoulder, painful enough to jar him back to the world of common day.
“On deck before the sharks arrive, lover,” she said; he was aware of himself enough to recognize the look in her eyes, and be warmed by it. “You’re either very brave or very crazy.”
“Or both,” Deor added with a slightly crazed grin. “Well, you’re a maker of songs, so it’s probably both.”
Many hands pulling made climbing back on deck easy enough. John slumped down, letting Evrouin pour a slug of rum down his throat and begin to rub at him with a towel, perhaps a little harder than necessary to express an anger he couldn’t put in words. Several experts were pressing the liquid from Radavindraban’s lungs and breathing into his mouth with his nose pinched shut. He coughed seawater, retched more and began to revive.
Everyone else kept their eyes on the water around them; the first Korean warship had vanished, and the second was a smear of smoke several miles away. Azure silence broken by the creak of wood and cordage reigned, until Feldman’s voice came sharp, giving the helm directions and setting the deck crew to the ropes and rigging. The motion of the ship picked up as more sail sheeted home and caught at what wind there was; he was vaguely aware of Ruan scolding Deor, and of Thora sitting quietly by his feet with her arms around her knees looking at him and smiling.
John came fully out of his shivering stupor when he saw Feldman’s seaboots standing beside him. He looked up at the bearded face; the Captain had his thumbs hooked in his belt again.
“That was . . . interesting,” the merchant skipper said. “Thank you for saving Mr. Radavindraban; he’s the best First Mate I’ve ever had. We’re going to need him on the repairs, too.”
“Where are we headed?” John asked.
“The closest dry land we can find. The leak’s much worse; that thing rammed us as hard as a ship could have done. I appreciate irony as much as the next man, but just sinking and getting eaten by ordinary common sharks after all that would be . . . excessive.”
John managed a small chuckle, then sank back again and closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth. He felt bone-chilled as he hadn’t since a memorable bear-hunt in County Dawson by the Peace River February last. And a weariness as deep as a day spent fighting in armor might have brought. He waved aside the flask of rum.
Still and all, I’d rather be here than back home in Orrey’s shoes, explaining to Mother why I’m not there.
Behind his eyelids, the yellow sigil turned.
I should mention it, he thought as thought slipped away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BARONY HARFANG
COUNTY OF CAMPSCAPELL
(FORMERLY EASTERN WASHINGTON STATE)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
SEPTEMBER 16TH
CHANGE YEAR 46/2044 AD
The Great Hall of the manor held most of the central arm of the building’s E-shaped layout. Archways on either side were filled with French doors now open to the cooling evening breeze and the musky scent of roses and the lemony tang of verbena, and wet stone from the fountains. A gallery ran all around it at second-floor level, shadowy now but lively in the winter months.
Órlaith looked up at it and grinned for a moment; on one memorable occasion she and Herry had hidden up there and eavesdropped on their elders discussing matters of weight . . . including whether one Heuradys d’Ath should be allowed to take the first steps on the path of knighthood. The smile died quickly; John had been along on that visit, a four-year-old running about with a gap-toothed smile that could melt even a sister’s heart.
Above that were the great man-thick ponderosa-pine timbers of the hammer-beam ceiling, whence hung wrought-metal chandeliers on long chains and captured banners stirring among shadows that obscured the rips and narrow holes and faded crusty red-brown stains. The yellow-and-red sunburst of the CUT was prominent among them, trophies of the great charge that broke the Prophet’s guardsmen at the Horse Heaven Hills.
Heuradys’ eyes were on the banners too, and apparently her thoughts followed the same track.
“I’ve been told that after the charge Mom Two found a bunch of the Prophet’s men eyeing her, when everything was mixed up and she and her menie were between them and the way out,” the knight said, love and pride in her voice. “She drew her sword and looked at them and then said: I am Grand Constable Tiphaine d’Ath. And you are in my way.”
It was a multipurpose room, in many ways the heart of the estate; the Court Baron met here, and it was where dances and masques happened when they weren’t out in the gardens, where ceremonies were held and public announcements made. This evening it was put to the most common use, though. This was where everyone who slept under the manor roof from nobles to garden-boys and laundresses would take the main evening meal, save only the actual kitchen-staff; that was old Association custom, with the ceremonial golden saltcellar marking the transition from the gentry on the dais at the upper table before the hearth to the commons at the trestle tables below. With the Baroness and her Châtelaine on their other estate in the West and her heir Diomede and his lady and their principal fighting tail and personal attendants all gone, even the guests didn’t make it look fully occupied. Not even including the extra dozen who’d just arrived.
Alan Thurston was waiting in a circle of space, since nobody quite knew what to make of him, leaning one shoulder against the wall and reading a small book bound in sandy-buff-colored leather. He looked up and smiled as Órlaith and her knight came through the doors at the base of the Hall, closing the book and slipping it into a pocket in his jacket. She caught part of the title as he did: -rial Dynasty of America—
That didn’t make much of an impact, because Alan Thurston was possibly the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, discounting her father. Enough that looking at him made her feel a little winded for a moment. He was just a hair above her own height, perhaps six feet, broad in the shoulders but tapering to lean hips and long trimly muscular legs shown off by the tight blue linen jeans and the tooled riding boots that were de rigueur for a Boisean rancher. The hair that curled past his ears was a shade of dark honey-brown sun-streaked with something on the verge of gold, and his eyes were large and a sage green rimmed with a darker color, seeming to flicker with some secret jest. His features were very regular but not aquiline, nose straight and slightly flared, high cheekbones tapering down to a square chin with a cleft, full lips smiling and showing very white, even teeth.
His father had probably looked a lot like Sir Droyn—his uncle Frederick Thurston certainly did, with thirty years added—but Alan evidently favored his mother, and his complexion had a creamy olive tint just on the pale side of very light brown, a little darker with sun on his face than on his neck where a neatly folded silk bandana rested. His short blue jacket had copper studs and worked silver buttons and was open to reveal how his shirt of imported cotton clung to the lean sculpted muscle of chest and stomach. There was a plain gold ring in his left earlobe.
There was someone at home there, too, you could see that. Thought flickered in his eyes, and a feeling that laughter did too.
Beside her, Heuradys made a small quiet wordless oooooh sound, which Órlaith understood perfectly.
And he moves well. Graceful, and trained
to the sword. Sure, and he probably dances well too. And he doesn’t wear that ugly short crop most Boisean men do; I do like a man with nice hair. The sort that feels like living silk when you run your fingers . . . stop that!
“Your Highness,” he said, his voice holding a slight eastern twang under an educated man’s diction. “Such a pleasure, and pardon the imposition. My lady Heuradys, my thanks and that of my men for your hospitality.”
“Though it isn’t actually the first time we’ve met, Your Highness,” he said, following her lead towards the dais.
Órlaith lost half a step as she racked the Sword in the stand behind the chairs on the dais. That was true . . . or at least the man believed it.
“It isn’t?” she said.
“So my mother tells me. You were about a year old at the time, and your mother Her Majesty was carrying you in her arms, and my mother the same with me. It was during the tail-end of the war, of course. Just before she and my brother, ah, retired to Hali Lake Ranch. As a matter of fact, that was when she got the name for our land-grant; from some things she found in the libraries at Todenangst. She said your grandmother . . . the Lady Regent Sandra, the Queen Mother . . . was quite a collector.”
“That she was, to be sure,” Órlaith said.
“She and my mother corresponded occasionally, and the Queen Mother loaned her books.”
The which must have been a comfort in that remote place, Órlaith thought; Juliet Thurston had grown up in Boise, a major city with an active cultural life. But it’s more compassion than I’d have expected from Nonni.
Her grandmother Sandra had shocked her once by remarking that pity was how suffering became a communicable disease, quoting some ancient philosopher she’d liked.
She put him on her right at the high table, with Heuradys cheerfully moving a seat farther away; he was royalty, of a sort, if of a fallen line. As they sat her liege knight caught her eye behind the man’s back, cocked an eyebrow and made a gesture with thumb and forefinger, as if flipping a coin to decide who got a prize. Órlaith answered with a gesture of her own, involving the middle finger, and they grinned at each other for an instant before gravely assuming their seats.
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