The Starfollowers of Coramonde

by Brian Daley

  Landlorn had transferred his flag to Wind Gatherer, a three-masted square-rigger, precursor to Osprey. He’d already envisioned his next vessel, a lean, swift clipper, all a sailing ship should be. His drawing table was stacked with preliminary plans, where frame lines, waterlines and buttocks curved and intersected sweetly. Now they lay aside, until a time of peace.

  The Prince Who Sails Forever returned his attention to matters in question. Seated in his cabin were allies who were to help conquer the Isle of Keys. The Trustee of Glyffa and her son Andre were there, with Lord Blacktarget of Veganá and Angorman, of the Order of the Axe. Swan, the Glyffan Constable, attended too, as did Landlorn’s wife Serene, who’d nearly recovered from the injury to her back taken when Acre-Fin had struck.

  The tents of an armed camp covered the hills above the shore of Veganá. Hundreds of banners and war pennants had been set side by side along the beach, to let the Southwastelanders on the Isle know that the fighting wasn’t done yet. Galvanized by the Trailing-sword, the allied armies had fought their way to the end of the Crescent Lands, breaking their enemies’ last stand within view of the sea.

  Ready to go on to the Isle, the Crescent Landers had found no boat, not even a cockle shell, along the entire shore. Landlorn’s forces had been there weeks before, destroying every craft they could find to deny Southwastelanders the sea. With no way to negotiate the turbulent Strait, the allies had sat for days weighing various plans. More than half their strength was, by then, of commoners, free vassals and yeomen.

  “We know Yardiff Bey is on the Isle,” the Trustee was saying, gnarled fingers holding the Crook of her office. “We did not see the summoning of Acre-Fin. I sensed sorcery, but could not interfere at such a distance. The thing returned to Bey, and I could perceive only that it was wounded or dying. It no longer swims these waters, though I cannot say whether or not it survived. I doubt the sorcerer shall ever bend Acre-Fin to his will again; it will shun him, after this.

  “We saw Cloud Ruler go forth, and later return. Would that he had tried to fly over Glyffa! How are your two crewmen, who speared the sea monster?”

  Acre-Fin’s throes had smashed their boat to wooden chips, leaving Wavewatcher unconscious and Skewerskean swimming for them both. Fortunately, they’d gone unmenaced by sharks or other predators; in the proximity of Acre-Fin, no fish dared linger or hunt. The harpooner had roused at last, and together they’d managed to struggle ashore. There, they’d been met by the northerners. Landlorn had concluded that something had deterred the monster, and sent elements of his fleet for cautious inquiry. Attracted by the northerners’ signal fires, they’d found Wavewatcher, Skewerskean and an army of allies.

  “They are in the fo’c’sle now,” the Prince answered, “as royally inebriate as when you so kindly returned them to us. I shall have to reward them, apparently; I could hardly swear a charge of disobedience against them, after all.”

  “And Gil MacDonald?” Andre prodded. Swan, who’d foreborn asking, waited noncommittally.

  Landlorn gestured helplessly. “Osprey had long since sunk, of course. Skewerskean saw Cloud Ruler pass overhead, but whether the young man was taken or drowned, I cannot say.”

  “Dead is more to be expected,” Angorman pronounced. “I do not deem him one to go alive into the grasp of Yardiff Bey.”

  “Unfortunate,” Lord Blacktarget remarked perfunctorily, “but less to be concerned with than that which lies before us. How shall we whelm the Isle of Keys?”

  “An arduous undertaking,” the Prince admitted. “It is defended well, if not so well as our Citadel. They are stranded, and cannot withdraw. Every ship and boat was being used to sustain their war in the Crescent Lands when we caught them in open waters. Oh, no doubt some few craft escaped, but those are negligible.”

  Andre countered, “Time is Yardiff Bey’s dearest commodity, not men. His design is twofold, to win the secret of Rydolomo’s book and hinder us from following the Trailingsword to Salamá. In the first, at least, he has been successful, in part because he has been prodigal with manpower. So, I would be surprised if the desert men didn’t stand and fight, ships or no. It may be that the sorcerer will do the same. His arts will be more effective there, away from the influences of the Bright Lady, and if the Five have enriched him with their favor, he will wax confident.”

  “Of that we shall discover,” Lord Blacktarget declared loftily, hand at the hilt of Blazetongue. “We do not despair of it; the Mariners have but to take us to the Isle; we will deal with things from there.”

  No one chose to point out his arrogance, though Swan shifted in her seat. Nowadays, Blacktarget insisted that his banner go always in the van, and often took a high-handed tone with the others, even the Trustee. The Trustee permitted it, and enjoined the rest to do so. Breaking the schemes of the Five justified almost any expedient.

  “But there is still the question of entrance to the harbor,” the old woman reminded.

  “The Mariners will accomplish that,” Landlorn told her, “then bring you in, one and all. The task will be yours from there.”

  “And relished will it be,” Swan finished softly, staring past the quarter-gallery railing at the Isle of Keys.

  The Prince had a captured southern vessel brought up early the next morning. Allied soldiers were crowding aboard his other ships, many of which had been hastily converted to bear horses, and others to be packed with troops. Loading had gone on throughout the night.

  The Southwastelander bottom, a big galleass with a high, creneled fighting castle in her bow and one in the poop, along with storming bridges, had been readied for Landlorn’s plan. Mariners, not chained slaves, sat her rowing benches; her bow and forward tower were loaded with casks of the burning fluid the seafarers used, with more lashed near her iron beak.

  The fleet formed behind the galleass and stood out into the Strait of the Dancing Spar. Closer to the Isle, the Prince ordered the casks of fluid covered with water-soaked tarps. The decks, sail and fighting tower were doused for a second time by bucket brigades of sailors.

  The Isle had been filed fine by eons of the rip-currents of the Strait. Any approach except that for the sea-gates was guarded by rocks and shoals. Landlorn handed his narwhale staff to his wife and ordered all hands away, except two.

  That pair was Wavewatcher and Skewerskean, who’d named, as reward for laying for Acre-Fin, accompaniment of their Prince today. When the boats were away like so many water striders, he ordered, “Look sharp you two, and attend my every command.”

  “As we do always,” intoned Skewerskean humbly.

  “As you do when it bloody suits you, brazen man!” The pair exchanged wounded glances. Landlorn laughed. “Nay, take no hurt; you did serve Gale-Baiter well, and thus me. But it was ever rashly. So, enjoy this last frolic, lads; if we come through, I mean to teach you responsibility.”

  That put doubt in their faces. At his direction, they pulled ropes to open all mainsail clews. The broad lateen was set, stiffened in the wind. Landlorn had positioned the vessel so she’d bear in straight for the gates, before the wind. Cleaving steeplechasing swells, she held every eye in the fleet and on the sea walls.

  Fire arrows and missiles lofted from the defenders even before the galleass was in range. Wavewatcher, at the tiller, surrounded by braced pavise-shields, stretched his muscles to hold course when the ship’s roll or caprices of current tried to take her off it. Empty but for the casks, she moved lightly, but somewhat skittishly; it took all the harpooner’s sinew to curb her in the restless waters.

  Arrows began to thud into the deck at extreme distance, but the wetting kept them from spreading flame. Fireballs flung by the wall engines, unstable in flight, missed the galleass, which was still too far out for accuracy. But a huge ballista bolt drove its iron head completely through the deck, doing no other damage.

  The mast and deck grew thick with a porcupine’s coat of shafts; there were dozens of holes in the sail. Another fireball arced, thrown high because range wa
s closing. Landlorn saw, and warned Wavewatcher. Setting his foot against the binnacle, the big harpooner threw his head back and bunched his muscles, dragging at the tiller. The galleass shifted for a moment, and the fireball exploded on the water in sparks and spray. The redbeard threw everything he had against the tiller, to bring the ship back on course.

  The lateen mainsail took fire at last, but had been soaked well, so that the flames ate their way only slowly. On her way to her death, the galleass paid no heed to the minor hurts of stones and shafts. Gradually, the distance was eaten up, as Southwastelanders readied long poles to push back the scaling ladders they still expected to repel.

  The three men crouched under showers of arrows, javelins and toss-darts, barely able to peer around their shields. A stone from a mangonel, bouncing from the armored fighting castle at the bow, slammed through the deck and hull, opening the galleass to the sea as she came within a dozen lengths of the gates. The Occhlon, having received no counterfire, saw now that the fighting castles and storming bridges were unmanned. Then someone marked the casks in the bow, and a cry went up; the southerners withheld their own fire-fluid, fearing the conflagration it would start.

  The sharp iron ram bit into the timbers of the sea-gates with hungry, resounding impact. The Prince ran forward under a pavise-shield.

  Soldiers began dropping from the wall. Many missed the deck, sinking into the sea in their armor. Others were stunned by their fall and didn’t rise, but several made the drop and assembled themselves. Wavewatcher and Skewerskean took shields too, and charged after their Liege. They engaged the southerners, sounding a harsh chord of blades. The Prince snatched a lighted lamp from a locker, threw aside one corner of a tarp and dashed it against the casks. Fire caught; in moments the bow of the galleass and the sea around it were burning. The forward castle caught quickly, becoming a roaring chimney. No more Southwastelanders jumped from the wall.

  The Mariners retreated astern, driven as much by heat as swords. The Occhlon broke off the fight. Casks were exploding, flinging globs of burning jelly in all directions. The water sizzled with them, and a stench of black smoke expanded. Landlorn had arranged for the forward tower’s supports to be weakened. Now it leaned toward the bow, spilling burning fluid, coating the gates, creating an inferno.

  Hunched behind their shields, partially screened by drifting smoke, the three stripped off their armor. Casting aside cutlasses and shields, they dove. A dart took the Prince as he launched himself; his clean dive became a flaccid splash. He didn’t surface. The two partners plunged down after him. Behind them, the sea-gates stood in a curtain of flame.

  In a moment they were up again, Wavewatcher’s python of an arm clamped across his Liege’s chest. With Skewerskean’s aid, he struggled through the churning sea, racing against spreading fire. There was no sign of the southerners who’d dropped to the galleass. The larger ships had been ordered to keep distance, but a small boat put out with shields and willing oarsmen. The wall’s defenses were hidden in black clouds. Fed by the wind, held fast by her iron ram, the pyre-galleass was inextinguishable.

  From Wind Gatherer there were cheers from men in the rigging and on deck. The boat drew alongside, and the Prince of the Waves acknowledged them weakly. Caps flew and cutlasses glittered. Men clashed weapons on shields or thumped the deck, repeating the name of the Prince Who Sails Forever.

  Serene welcomed her lord back, helping staunch a wound not half so bad as she’d feared. He and the harpooner and chanteyman sat, dripping, backs against the mast, sharing a flask of rum. Serene sat by her mate, brushing away tears, the brine soaking her skirt. She mussed his hair and hugged him.

  He drew her to him and planted a salty kiss. “’Twas my last deed, I trow. Never shall I leave your side again.”

  The inferno blazed on, the gates’ hinges weakening while the attackers bided their time. The Occhlon couldn’t man their primary defenses for the heat and smoke; the galleass’ forward castle had collapsed completely. With no threat of answering fire, Mariner ships moved up to lob huge stones and other projectiles.

  Consumed, bombarded, the gates gave way in the end, peeling back their hinges. With a shrill hiss, still barred together, they were dragged down by the sinking galleass. The deep channel there left way for ships to advance over the sunken vessel and wreckage.

  The Southwastelanders, lacking ships, had made other preparations. The first craft into the harbor was pierced by sharpened wooden piles emplaced with points beneath the surface. Landlorn called a dead halt while the stricken vessel’s crew transferred to other ships. The Prince had foreseen this; scores of Mariners stripped off armor and clothing, took shipwright’s saws, and slid into the water, lithe as eels. They tackled the piles, diving deep and working feverishly. A safe route was cleared, marked by inflated bladders anchored to the sunken stumps. By late morning the advance was underway again.

  At the quayside it was combat on foot, with Lord Blacktarget in the van. The Crescent Landers didn’t have time or room to off-load horses, and the isolated Southwastelanders had slaughtered theirs for food. The first ships at the docks were those with high, fortified decks, giving the invaders equal height with the hasty breastwork thrown up by defenders. Still, two ships were overrun and set afire, hampering the rest.

  Men and women struggled and fought on the quays. The boarding pike and hooked bill, the cutlass, axe and scimitar all had their hour. Iron argument met steel rebuttal.

  Swan, first among the Glyffans to land, was confronted by a willing Occhlon with a pike, its blade already showing red. He came in a low line to cut her legs away and, ideally, follow through with a stab from his weapon’s steel-pointed butt. The High Constable pivoted away shield-side. She cut; the pike head came in parry with a return stroke for her exposed side. She backstepped, counter-parrying.

  Instead of riposting, she slid her blade down the pikestaff and lodged it at the narrow grip and vamplate, drawing the Occhlon forward off balance. She swung the edge of her shield into his face. He fell back, but clung to his weapon. She swung and scored, shearing flesh off blue-white bone. He moaned and clasped at his wound; she dispatched him. Sisters of the Line poured past her.

  Fighting spilled into side streets and alleys; neither side knew restraint. Combat went from house to house, the desert men retreated, flung back twice from new positions. The invaders kept the initiative, as cavalry began to appear from the quays.

  By late afternoon, stern men and women of the Crescent Lands stalked through the smoky streets, going from clash to new clash. Where there had been no quarter asked or given, battered and demoralized Southwastelanders now began to surrender, first in small numbers when cut off, later in outnumbered companies. By sunset, the city belonged to the northerners. Only the central Keep above it remained unconquered.

  Aboard Wind Gatherer, the Trustee turned to Landlorn. “Prince of the Waves, your share is well done. But the moment of sail and sword is past. One more enemy will be waiting, in the Keep. Time is here to test my puissance against Yardiff Bey’s.”

  Swan was dubious. Andre challenged, “Is it wise? Here, your strength is not so absolute.”

  “Granted, but it should suffice. In any case, the thing must be done. He has waited; I am expected.”

  “Then,” he let her know, “I will go at your side.”

  Landlorn bowed deeply. The Trustee reciprocated, and squeezed Serene’s hand. Swan thought there was too much of farewell in it all. Surrounded by warriors and swordswomen, the old woman made her patient way up to the summit and its Keep. They found its portals open.

  Lord Blacktarget was already there. “These doors swung wide on their own accord when you came.” The Trustee, lifting her Crook, ordained that the rest must wait while she and Andre went in. Lord Blacktarget took exception.

  “Madam, I will not linger behind. If Glyffans may go in, the Commander of Veganá will.”

  Veganáns and Glyffans muttered among themselves, eyeing one another. Blacktarget hadn’t said a
s much, but suspected he’d be deprived of spoils and prestige.

  Andre would have objected; his mother stopped him, seeing that the alliance could fall apart. “He has right, however unwise. But My Lord Blacktarget, your hardy enthusiasm for war is too fulsome for me by half. You would be well advised to be wary.”

  Red-faced, he blustered, “Madam, Blacktarget is well able to fend for himself.”

  They entered, and followed the long, unlit curve of a corridor. Behind them, the doors closed up by themselves. Then there was light from the Trustee’s Crook. There was no search, no delay. At the end of the corridor, in a high, torchlit hall, Yardiff Bey waited. Andre motioned for Lord Blacktarget to stay back, but the general, all in his pride, marched in, and they had no moment to prevent him.

  The sorcerer stood in a limestone pulpit far above the floor, his silver occular gleaming in the crimson light. He was calm and supremely self-assured. “He is Increased,” Andre discerned.

  Bey chuckled quietly. “You see aright, worm. My Masters, well pleased, rewarded their servant.”

  The Trustee spoke. “Your mission is fulfilled? Then, why are you here? Why have you not flown back to your Necropolis in the south?”

  “In due course. I knew your armies would win the Isle from those starvelings and you would deem yourself victorious and come here. Of the garrison I care not; if they cost time and sapped northern numbers they were well spent. I tarried to let you pit yourself against me.”

  “If your assignment is complete, yet you may have gained less than you think. The war goes against you.”

  The Hand of Salamá laughed, making that act ugly, his robes rippling his mirth. “Your last hope is gone. Listen: There was a final limb of the Lifetree, though its parent plant had been thrown down. Rydolomo knew whither it had been taken, and left the fact in-hidden within Arrivals Macabre. That could have threatened Shardishku-Salamá, but that limb’s fate is known to me now; it is unmade. No other thing can interfere with the schedule of my Masters, not all the arms-bearers on earth. I have seen that gulling Trailingsword; this time it only beckons you to oblivion. There is no avail for you, you will go no farther. Not even a step.”