Cast Under an Alien Sun (Destiny's Crucible)

by Olan Thorensen

  “Oh, just in a good mood tonight. Who else would I want to share my good humor with, except Carnigan Puvey?”

  Carnigan’s response was a grunt and a renewed focus on the half-full beer stein. He picked it up and downed it in one long draught. By magic, a woman appeared with two new full steins. Yozef was about to thank her for anticipating his order when she said, “Ev’ning, Ser Kolsko. Will yuh be hav’ y’r usual?”

  “Ah . . . yes, thank you,” he answered. Yozef’s mood shifted to concern. Carnigan was a prodigious drinker, but usually a few beers put him into as openly a good mood as he was likely to get.

  He kept a watchful eye on Carnigan, until the woman returned with a third stein for their table. He then sipped. Sipped again. Again. Then jumped in.

  “Carnigan,” he ventured, “is there some problem? You seem . . . troubled tonight.”

  Carnigan was quiet at first, then took a smaller quaff from one of his steins.

  “Sometimes our lives go in directions we never dreamed of. One thinks he knows his place in the world and what’s in the future . . . then everything changes, and everything he expected is gone.” Carnigan looked up from his beer at Yozef, a melancholy expression on his ruddy face. “Does that ever occur to you, Yozef?”

  Yozef was thunderstruck by the question.

  Carnigan saw the expression on Yozef’s face and slammed a giant fist on the table. “God’s curse on me, Yozef! If there’s anyone on Caedellium who’s been jerked from his life path, it must be you! My apologies for wallowing.”

  “Nonsense, Carnigan,” reassured Yozef. “All of us have this feeling from time to time. Granted, some more than others, and I guess I’m one of those others. What about you, though? What is it?”

  Yozef could see the hand holding the metal stein tighten, and he half held his breath, wondering if Carnigan was going to crush the vessel without realizing it. Then the hand relaxed, and the owner sat back against the wall. “It’s the day.”

  “The day? Something happened today?”

  “No. The date,” he whispered. “This date every year. It was on this date that my life changed. On this date, I realized I wasn’t a good person.”

  “Could you tell me what happened?”

  “No,” Carnigan replied in the soft tone, signaling it was time to end this discussion thread.

  Yozef decided to try another tactic to maybe improve Carnigan’s mood. He’d let Carnigan rib him about the brief affair with Buna.

  Whoops, Yozef thought. Wait a minute. Carnigan isn’t married. He lives in the abbey, and I’ve never seen or heard of him in relation to a woman. That’s unusual among the Caedelli, what with their attitudes toward sex and the shortage of men.

  Granted, Carnigan wasn’t the most personable of men. Still—something involving women? Or a woman? Best to avoid the topic.

  Yozef spent the next half hour rambling about progress on his various projects, news and rumors about the Narthani, the weather, and anything else he could think of, trawling for any topic that might bring up a spark of interest from Carnigan. He was about to give it up when he hit pay dirt.

  “Filtin tells me he had another run-in with his mother-in-law. Or, as Filtin refers to her, ‘the old witch.’” Yozef’s attention spiked when he thought he saw a hint of Carnigan’s mouth turning up at the corner. The referenced older woman was notorious throughout Abersford for making caustic remarks at the slightest perceived provocation. However, Filtin insisted she needed no provocation, and it was her nature that anything coming out of her mouth was required to be nasty. Her looks were a good match to her personality. She had straggly gray hair, seldom washed, and had bad teeth. Her rheumy eyes reminded one alternately of a snake or a wolverine, and her breath could melt metal. All in all, a charming person. Anyone would have questioned the wisdom of Filtin not having serious reservations about marrying a daughter of this harridan, yet to the surprise of all, the daughter was nothing like the mother. Nerlin Fuller was, from all accounts, mild-mannered, was liked by all, adored Filtin, and was a conscientious mother. Filtin half-jokingly speculated one evening that Nerlin had the perfect model of whom not to be.

  Encouraged by Carnigan’s reaction, Yozef attempted humor. “That reminds me of a joke about a woman, possibly someone like Filtin’s mother-in-law. It seems she was one of three old women who died and arrived in the afterlife at the same time. When they get there, God says, ‘We only have one rule here: don't step on the ducks!’

  “The three women agree, though they don’t understand why ducks are so important, and they enter Heaven. Sure enough, there are ducks all over the place. It is virtually impossible not to step on a duck, and although they do their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.

  “Well, along comes God with the most unpleasant man the first woman has ever seen. God chains them together and says, ‘Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this man!’

  “The next day, the second woman accidentally steps on a duck, and along comes God again with an extremely unpleasant-looking man. He chains them together with the same admonition as for the first woman.

  “The third woman has watched all of this and is determined not to be chained for all eternity to an unpleasant man like the other two women, so she steps extraordinarily carefully wherever she goes. She manages to go months without stepping on any ducks. Then one day, God comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on—tall, dark hair, and muscular. God chains them together without saying a word and walks away.

  “The happy woman says to her dream man, ‘I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?’

  “‘I don't know about you,’ the man says, ‘but I stepped on a duck!’”

  There was no reaction for some seconds, then the first cracks appeared in granite, like an avalanche that started slowly and then accelerated as an irresistible force. Fortunately, unlike the first time Yozef had cribbed a joke from Earth and told it as a novel one on Anyar, Carnigan didn’t have a mouthful of beer. Yozef was spared an evening shower. And he was fortunate that he had moved his chair back slightly in anticipation at the first signs of motion and thus wasn’t bounced by the edge of the heavy table when both of Carnigan’s fists pounded the defenseless wood.

  Other patrons stopped their own activities, as heads rotated toward the volcanic outburst. Then, recognizing Yozef, people spread the word that one of Yozef’s story sessions might be in the offering. The evening’s sparse distribution of patrons flowed around Yozef and Carnigan’s table, forming a U-shape against the wall.

  If Carnigan at first noticed the gathering, he gave no sign until his laughter subsided. Then he looked around with his usual angry expression and sighed. “Can’t a man be left in peace with his dark moods anymore?”

  “What are friends for, if not to save friends from themselves?” Yozef assured him. “Which reminds me of a story . . . ” and he was off and running with more plagiarized jokes from Earth, many of which fell on deaf ears, since the context was lost, but enough of which hit universal themes and references to maintain his reputation as a major wit.

  The pub was nearly empty when the Yozef decided it was past time to head home. The problem with that intent was that once he stood, moving in a straight line proved troublesome. Still, considering the amount of strong beer he’d consumed, his brain idly wondered why he was even standing. Carnigan, evidently possessing an infinite capacity for beer, steadied Yozef and walked him the mile to his house.

  It had been a good evening. As he dozed off in his bed, Yozef thought that everything considered, it wasn’t a bad life. He had friends. The affair with Bronwyn had ended, though with good memories and no real regrets. The affair with Buna had ended, which was the important fact. He was making a difference. He was well-known and respected, and he thought he had a plan to focus his life. All in all, it could be a lot worse.

  Chapter 30: The Raid

  Buldorian Ship, War
rior’s Pride

  Musfar Adalan was a contented man. From the aftcastle of his flagship, he could see all five of his ships. Granted, they weren’t real warships, with heavy cannon and three- to four-foot bulwarks, but their 15-pounder cannon would subdue any lumbering merchant ship, and they were agile and fast enough to outrun anything they couldn’t outgun. He’d brought seven ships with him to Caedellium. Two ships had sailed home laden with spoils: gold, silver, jewelry, fine rugs and cloth, slaves, and whatever goods and trinkets caught his men’s fancy and for which there was room in the ship’s holds. The Scourge from Buldor left three months ago and returned the day before the rest of his ships left for the current raid. He would have liked to have the sixth ship along, but rudder problems and other repairs would have delayed the raid by several days, something neither he nor the Narthani desired. The seventh ship, the Bravado, had left for Buldor ten days ago, also stuffed high with booty, but with orders not to return. Adalan trusted his sixth sense, and it told him their time in these waters ran short.

  Adalan didn’t think of himself as a pirate by trade but as more of an “opportunist,” ready to take advantage of opportunities. Sometimes those involved pirating, but, depending on circumstances, he and his men dabbled in the slave trade, smuggling, raids, and mercenary work when the remuneration was appealing. It was a version of the latter two activities that engaged them on this day and had for the last several months, raiding the Caedellium coast under the patronage of the Narthani. Dealing with the Narthani was dangerous, yet he accepted the risks for the spoils he and his men had amassed.

  While Adalan was not privy to the exact reasons the Narthani had come to him, instead of using their own formidable navy, it would have taken someone far less sagacious in the ways of the world not to assume it was because the Narthani wanted a plausible of degree deniability. Adalan knew the current arrangement would end whenever it suited the Narthani, but that would be in the future, and Adalan dealt with the now.

  This would be their fourteenth raid. For Adalan, the results had assuaged his initial caution. The Narthani gathered intelligence and picked rich, vulnerable targets with meticulous efficiency. Twelve of the first thirteen were successful, with minimal losses. In two cases, Abel Adalan, Musfar’s cousin and second-in-command, had withdrawn before a complete sack, due to indications of reinforcements arriving or where the final holdout positions were judged too strong to be overcome for the expected return. Only one of the thirteen earlier raids was aborted on discovering the Stent Province abbey defended by two hundred Stentese men fortuitously gathered for a muster drill unanticipated by the Narthani. The accompanying Narthani liaison excoriated them in all three cases, but General Akuyun, the Narthani commander, accepted Musfar’s explanations as reasonable.

  To Adalan’s thinking, there were two downsides to the arrangement. One was that he knew the time would come when the Narthani no longer needed deniability. Before that day, Adalan planned that he and his men should slip away, in case the Narthani severed their relationship on other than friendly terms.

  The second downside was that several Narthani officers always accompanied the raids. They didn’t go ashore, only observed and offered advice, which Adalan neither needed nor wanted. On the first raids, the lead Narthani was tolerable. No such luck on this raid. The three new Narthani stood on the forecastle, the leader using a telescope to examine the shoreline and talking to the other two, one of whom took notes.

  The Narthani leader was an older, blocky man whose main skill was to confirm the worst stereotypes of the Narthani—arrogant, condescending, and eyes like a Drilmarian zernik, the goat-sized omnivore renowned for being stupid, prolific, vicious, and making parts of the Drilmar continent essentially uninhabitable. Musfar hoped someday that someone would exterminate both the zerniks and the Narthani.

  “Look at those asses, Musfar,” said Abel Adalan. “Strutting around and acting like they have any idea how to sail a ship or carry out a raid.”

  Musfar turned to his cousin and second-in-command. “Now, now, Abel, you mustn’t show such disrespect for our benefactors. They have made all of us exceedingly rich the last few months. When we return home, both we and our clan will be among the greats of Buldor.”

  “They’re still asses.”

  Musfar sighed. “Yes, Abel, they are asses, but they’re our asses for now.”

  The two cousins laughed loud enough to draw disapproving looks from the three Narthani on the other end of the vessel. Musfar gave them a respectful bow and waved. “I will bow and scrape before even these asses for the loot we’ve already accumulated, but my cousin, I feel it may be time for our sails to catch the westerly winds in this part of Anyar.”

  “My thoughts as well. As our illustrious grandfather has said to us many times, ‘It’s good to be greedy, just not too greedy.’”

  Musfar looked at the other ships in line behind Warrior’s Pride. All five vessels were abuzz with activity, as crews unsheathed and prepared to lower longboats to be filled with the armed men waiting on and below deck. The normal ships’ crew complements were around 350 men for the five ships. However, for shore raids, more men were needed, and months earlier Adalan had sent back to Buldor for another 100 clansmen and 170 men from another clan of Buldor. Though Musfar’s clan considered the Benhoudi to be little better than dogs, they were available, since the poorer clans always looked to hire out their men to supplement their own activities.

  The raid this day involved 400 men ashore, 250 of Musfar’s Benkarsta clansmen, and the 150 Benhoudi, leaving skeleton Benkarsta crews on the ships. Although it wasn’t spoken openly, all, including the Benhoudi, knew that the Benhoudi would get the more dangerous assignments on raids. Still, the potential for loot was so great, and their clan so poor, the Benhoudi leader considered the risks acceptable. So far, this calculation had proven profitable for all, even for the Benhoudi, who would return home among their clan’s wealthiest members, having so far lost only 20 of their original 170.

  Abel Adalan, as Musfar’s second-in-command, would lead the raiding party. The two men went into the command cabin, where a map of Abersford and the abbey area was pinned to a wall.

  “I’ve looked over your plan for the raid, Abel, and I see no obvious changes to make.”

  Abel traced lines of planned movements with a forefinger. “You’ll get us within about two hundred yards of shore, assuming the information from the Narthani agent is accurate, and the bottom is as deep as they say,” he commented, indicating the same beach Yozef had been found.

  “We’ll anchor offshore and immediately lower all shipboard longboats, while we pull in those we’re towing.” The Buldorian vessels didn’t have room on deck for enough longboats to contain all of the men heading to shore, and hawsers connected more boats to the ships. On earlier raids, they put the men ashore several miles from the target, believing it gave better chances to approach undetected. Since then, they had changed their approach tactic and at first light drove the ships as close to shore as they could, then rushed ashore before the locals had time to react.

  Abel’s finger rested on the abbey, as he continued his review. “Four hundred men, two hundred and fifty of ours and the hundred and fifty Benhoudi. As usual, I’ll try to keep the Benhoudi in the forefront, if there’s major resistance. I’ll be with the main group of three hundred hitting the abbey, since that’s where the major resistance should concentrate and where the Narthani information tells us the best booty is located. It’s also where large numbers of the villagers will go for safety, so there should be many women and children inside.

  “The other hundred of our men will sweep through the village, making quick plunder of cartable valuables and potential slaves—the sweep to be finished within thirty minutes and all booty returned to the ships. The remaining men of that group are then to reinforce the abbey looting if necessary.

  “The main body of three hundred men will move on the abbey, as soon as ashore and organized. Speed and coordination are esse
ntial. The information from the Narthani and a look with our telescope confirm the wall around the abbey is only seven to eight feet tall. Assuming the other information is correct, most of the fighting men will be absent, partly due to our feints on the other villages down the coast two days ago and partly from Narthani assurances that another portion of the fighting men will be absent.

  “It bothers me, as it always does, that we’re proceeding based on information we didn’t gather or confirm ourselves. So far, though, I have to give reluctant credit to the reliability of the Narthani intelligence,” grumbled a resigned Abel. “Assuming, once again, the information is accurate, the locals shouldn’t be able to stop a simultaneous assault at multiple points on the wall.” Abel pointed to three ‘X’s on the map. “We’ll attack the abbey complex wall at these three points in hundred man groups. First, two groups, each of seventy-five Benhoudi and twenty-five of our men, will attack about halfway between the main gate and the two corners—we assume the gate will be closed and barred. Either or both groups should be able to get over the wall and engage the locals. The wall next to the gate, and the gate itself are twelve feet tall, so ignoring the gate area and going directly over the eight-foot wall is easier. Once we’re inside, we should be able to overwhelm the defenders. It’s getting over the wall where most of our losses will happen.

  “The third group of one hundred of our own men will wait for the first two groups to launch their attacks, then hit the western wall of the abbey complex. Most defenders should be involved with the first two group, so the third group might get inside the walls untouched or might not even be needed, but just in case . . . ”