Servant of the Dragon

by David Drake

  Ilna looked over the island with the experience of someone who'd travelled more than she cared to and who had a good eye for details. The islet rose a dozen feet above the sea though the tide was scarcely past full. It had no large trees, but beach plums and holly covered everything down to the surf. When the sea withdrew between sweeps of curling foam, Ilna saw rocks rather than sand or even coarse shingle like that on the shore of Barca's Hamlet.

  Still, if they could get ashore it looked like a solid place to overnight. There was no sign of permanent habitation, which probably meant there was no drinkable water save what pooled after rainstorms.

  "Yes, all right," Neyral said abruptly. "Yes, this is probably best. Bring the ship up on the beach. And--"

  He glanced toward the second trireme. It was drifting closer to theirs on wind pressure, though the slow oarstrokes kept it headed into the current.

  "--signal Captain Perra to land also."

  "Rather than beach the ships, milord...," the sailing master said quickly. Vonculo had trembled with relief when Neyral gave in; his tone now was feverishly cheerful instead of sneering. "We'll hold them against the shore on oars until the passengers have landed, then back off a cable's length and anchor. The beach is too rocky to bring the ships up it. Besides, so steep a slope would break their spines."

  "What?" Neyral said in surprise. Lord Tadai stopped and turned; he'd started forward when it looked as though the matter was decided. "Come now, Vonculo, if it's not safe to land here, then surely we must find a better place."

  Ilna smiled faintly as she saw how matters were tending. Being marooned on this islet was a survivable way out of the impasse caused by a mutinous crew and commanders whose response to difficulty was to wish it wasn't happening. They were in a well-travelled region. She'd seen several vessels close enough to hail on each day of the voyage, so it shouldn't be long before she and the rest of the passengers were rescued.

  Ilna had only duty before her in Erdin; Merota had less than that to draw her. They could afford to spend a few days drinking brackish water and eating clams.

  "It's quite safe, milord," Vonculo said. His voice had the quivering brightness of gnats circling in a shaft of sunlight. "We'll leave half the crew aboard as an anchor watch. None of the other islands within the distance we could sail before dark are high enough for our passengers."

  "The men can sleep on board?" Neyral said in mild surprise. "Well, if you say so, Vonculo."

  Neyral turned away from the sailing master, muttering as he did so, "I'll be thankful to see Erdin and have a proper roof over my head, that I can tell you!"

  Vonculo cupped his hands to bellow directions to the Ravager. Mastyn was already ordering the Terror's crew into action.

  Chalcus, the scarred sailor who'd watched with Ilna as the bosun preached mutiny, sat at the stroke oar on the starboard side. When he saw Ilna looking in his direction, he tapped the side of his nose with his index finger and grinned broadly.

  Ilna glared back. That one is far too full of his own cleverness!

  "Ilna?" Merota said in a small voice. "Is everything going to be all right?"

  Ilna put her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Yes," she said, speaking quietly but not whispering; if the mutineers heard her, they could think what they would. "Your uncle's plans are about to change, and I suppose we'll be spending a few days on this island; but it's probably better this way."

  Ilna checked the silken noose she wore around her waist, then the hank of short cords she carried in her left sleeve, and almost as an afterthought the sharp, bone-cased paring knife stuck through her sash. "We'll be fine," she said to the girl.

  Ten of the bow oarsmen began a slow stroke. The piper seated cross-legged beside Vonculo set the rhythm, blowing a stopped note for the pull and lifting his finger for a higher tone when the oars were to come out of the water. The trireme crunched slowly into the beach.

  Mistress Kaline lay in the trireme's bow like a bundle of black rags. Merota's tutor didn't have enough status to claim a place under the awning amidships, and she'd been unwilling--or afraid--to come near Ilna since their first meeting.

  Lord Tadai and many of his suite were bad sailors. Mistress Kaline was no sailor at all. She hadn't been able to eat since the ships left Valles, but she still lifted herself to the railing to retch every time a swell made the vessel pitch.

  Ilna smiled harshly. At least the woman had learned to huddle by the lee rail after her first experience.

  Under Mastyn's snarling direction, the ship's dozen deck crewmen hopped from the prow into the low surf. The bosun swung them the line of the light anchor he'd used to hold the vessel while Lord Neyral made up his mind to land here. The sailors ran well up the slope with it before hooking the flukes in the crevice of a weathered outcrop.

  Oarsmen got up from their benches and unpinned a length of the extra decking that covered what had been the inner rows of benches on the port side. It had been fashioned to fit into mortises in the starboard bow, forming a gangplank for dignitaries who couldn't be expected to swarm down the sides of a warship.

  Mistress Kaline had to move for the men to do their jobs. When she was slow getting to her feet, two sailors grabbed her like a roll of old sail and slung her onto the feet of the folk standing near the vessel's centerline.

  Sailors on shore staked the gangplank's foot into the rocky soil. Foam washed the boards, but by now occasional waves had combed the vessel's deck often enough to soak the footgear of Lord Tadai and all his aides. A warship might be the surest method of travelling from one island to another, but no one would call it a comfortable one.

  The first down the gangplank were servants, Mistress Kaline among them. The vessel shuddered side to side, but rowers kept it upright by thrusting the blades of their oars into the land.

  Tadai's party moved forward behind a pair of Blood Eagles. The guards were armed with shields, helmets and body armor, and their spears were poised to thrust or throw. They were ready for any enemy who lurked among the twisted stems of the vegetation.

  Ilna smiled; or sneered, it probably depended on the state of mind of whoever might be watching. "Let's go," she said to Merota, slinging her own modest bindle of effects. "The sooner this is over with, the sooner we can get on with our real business."

  Empty and bleak though that prospect seemed for both of them. Well, Ilna hadn't designed the pattern into which the world had chosen to weave her.

  Shepherding the girl carefully ahead of her, Ilna walked to the trireme's bow. A sailor more intent on his work than his surroundings blocked them. Merota shied away; Ilna cleared the human obstruction with a crisp, "Watch yourself!"

  She didn't voice the rest of the sentence, "Or it'll be the worse for you!" but her tone commanded obedience.

  She smiled. Perhaps she was wrong to believe the implied threat had anything to do with it: all these sailors might be decent fellows who leaped with embarrassment when reminded of their manners.

  "Did you say something, Ilna?" Merota asked nervously.

  "I was thinking," Ilna said truthfully, "that perhaps pigs would fly. But not, I think, in my lifetime."

  They'd reached the gangplank. The trireme was lively, now. With so many of the passengers and crew ashore, the vessel was fully afloat except for the long bronze-sheathed ram driven hard into the slope. If the ship was being drawn on shore for the night, it would have had its curving sternpost to the land.

  Chalcus, braced against his oarloom, grinned as Ilna and the girl passed him. "May your stay be a fortunate one, mistress," he said, forcing a lilt into his voice despite the obvious strain of fighting gravity to hold the warship steady.

  The bosun glared at them both. Mastyn moved with stiff-limbed tension like a cat preparing for a fight. Ilna glanced coldly at him as she followed Merota onto the gangplank. She didn't bother to acknowledge Chalcus in any way.

  Merota wore a sensible tunic and cape instead of the ridiculous outfit in which she'd been draped at the start of the voyage.
Mistress Kaline was too sick to badger her charge into foolishness, and Tadai had other things on his mind. Ilna wished the child had sturdier footgear than the velvet slippers she was wearing, but there wasn't time to worry about that now.

  Merota gasped when she stepped onto the rocky ground. She tried to walk on the balls of her feet, hopping stiff-legged like a stilt-walker. Ilna caught the girl by the shoulders and half-carried her up the beach to where the soil hadn't been washed away by every tide.

  Ilna herself was barefoot, but she'd gone barefoot eight months of the year in Barca's Hamlet. Her calluses might have softened some on the soft turf of the palace grounds in Valles, but they were still thick enough to help Merota over the worst of these rocks.

  "Be careful or you'll sprain your ankle," Ilna said tartly. "That's all we need."

  "Lady Merota!" Mistress Kaline called in peevish anxiety. "Where are you--there you are, my lady! Come here at once."

  Sharina had once told Ilna of a monster of legend--'legend' meant it wasn't really true, though Ilna had never understood why folk would tell stories that weren't true and even write them in books--who took his strength from the ground. Mistress Kaline seemed to be of the same race: the tutor had recovered as soon as she stepped onto more-or-less dry land. She was her old unpleasant self again.

  Merota looked at Ilna questioningly. "Yes, go on," Ilna said, patting the girl on the shoulder.

  Merota trotted off, calling, "Mistress Kaline? Do you have my box? The one with my parents' things?"

  Ilna sighed and surveyed the island. Most of the vegetation ws no taller than her shoulder, but the land rose from where she was standing near the shore. She started toward higher ground, not that she expected to find anything of great interest. It seemed a good idea to explore territory that she'd be spending days or possibly longer in.

  "Mistress?" called an unfamiliar voice from behind Ilna. She ignored it until it continued at a higher note, "Mistress Ilna os-Kenset?"

  Ilna turned. The speaker was some minor functionary of Tadai's suite who travelled on the other vessel. She hadn't bothered to learn his name. "Yes?" she said, with no pretense of wanting to waste time in the fellow's company.

  "Mistress," he said, "I'm Under-Steward Mizo or-Doson, in charge of Lord Tadai's commissary for the voyage. You've been issued food and drink as though you were a member of Lord Tadai's suite, but in fact you're a private citizen. You shouldn't--"

  His eyes met Ilna's; the flow of self-important nonsense stopped. An additional gurgle or two dribbled from Mizo's throat.

  Ilna was of two minds about how to deal with this business. She'd considered three, really, but the third was no proper use for her powers. She reached for a silver piece to fling to the ground, sufficient pay and more for the simple fare she'd taken from the servant's store. She caught herself, though, not because she didn't have the money to spend but because she wasn't going to be imposed on by a worm like Mizo.

  "Very well," Ilna said in syllables chipped from a glacier. "You will render me an account for the food and water--not drink, mind you, because I haven't touched your wine and I wouldn't use what passes for ale on this vessel to wash my floor with. I will pay the amount to you in the presence of Lord Tadai. Do you under--"

  A trumpet blew harshly from the Terror. Sailors who'd come ashore stopped whatever they were doing and scrambled back aboard the triremes.

  Lord Tadai glanced over his shoulder and returned to a discussion of the night's dinner with his cook, but Lord Neyral shouted angrily at the men who were nominally under his command. He'd been personally directing the party that would clear brush to erect his tent and that of the ambassador.

  Ilna smiled faintly. "As I was saying--" she resumed. Merota screamed.

  Ilna turned with a terrible lack of expression. The girl should be perfectly safe with Mistress Kaline, but--

  The sailors had thrown down the gangplanks--cast them loose from the railing instead of pulling the stakes up from the rocky shore. Merota, the red silk lining of her cape flaring, struggled in the arms of a man in the Terrors' bow. She clutched a casket made of blackwood and mother-of-pearl.

  The girl had asked about "my parents' things," as she joined her tutor. Ilna suddenly realized that Merota would have very little by which to remember her parents and the childhood which had perished in flame with them. Mistress Kaline had been in no condition to bring the casket of mementos or anything else as she'd staggered from the ship.

  So Merota had gone back to get them.

  Ilna started toward the vessel. Lieutenant Roubos and the handful of Blood Eagles closest to him rushed into the water, bellowing with their their shields held high. Other soldiers formed a loose knot around Lord Tadai.

  Most of the crewmen had moved toward the trireme's stern. Some rowed, while the rest used their weight to lower the stern and lift the bow. A dozen sailors under Mastyn had taken cutlasses and pikes from the arms chest. They waited in the bow to confront the oncoming Blood Eagles.

  "Come back here!" Lord Neyral shouted. "What are you doing? Vonculo! What are you doing?"

  Exactly what I told you they were going to do, you titled fool, Ilna thought as she waded into the sea. She snatched up the hem of her tunic and tucked it under the sash so that it wouldn't drag in the salt water. She was already up to her mid-thighs; she couldn't swim, and she didn't know how quickly the beach dropped off.

  The trireme backed very slowly, but it had cleared its ram and the rest of the oarsmen were seating themselves at their benches. The Blood Eagles splashed out after the vessel, though Ilna couldn't imagine what they thought they were going to achieve. A sailor thrust with his pike. Roubos blocked the point with his shield. The sailor leaned his weight onto the shaft, pushing Roubos over in the water. Sailors cheered and cat-called at the soldiers floundering below them.

  The flautist blew time. Oarblades poised, then threshed forward in unison. Ilna judged the rhythm. She caught the nearest blade with both arms and pulled herself up the shaft.

  The oarsman blatted in surprise at the unexpected burden. Ilna squirmed to avoid being scissored as the next oar sternward clacked into the one she was climbing. She clamped her knees on the shaft and twitched her noose free with one hand. The fibers were damp, but they'd run freely nonetheless.

  The rower looked over the railing to see what was binding his oar. Ilna tossed the noose over his neck.

  The sailor squawked once as the cord pulled tight. Ilna climbed the rest of the way aboard, using her victim's weight to anchor her. His limbs flailed and his tongue protruded stiffly from his lips.

  The Terror floated freely, sliding seaward in a curve now because Ilna's appearance had disrupted the stroke of the rowers in the starboard bow. They sat too far inboard to see what was happening close by the hull. They shouted when Ilna coming over the side as if she was some monster of myth. She'd approached from the side of the ship unnoticed while Mastyn and his henchmen concentrated on the soldiers rushing straight at the prow.

  Ilna's face was a mask of cold anger. They'll find me worse than any lying myth could be!

  She dropped the noose. The strangling sailor's fellows pulled him away, loosening the cord that hadn't quite killed him. He lay in his friends' arms, wheezing and gasping obliviously as they stared at the sea-dripping woman who'd throttled him.

  Ilna slipped cords out of her sleeve; her fingers knotted several lengths together. The pattern hidden by her palms was as complex as a dragonfly's darting flight above a pond in summer.

  Vonculo was in the stern, shouting as he tried to see what was happening farther forward. Some men were still at their oars, but others had risen to their feet and blocked the sailing master's view.

  Shouts behind them turned the armed sailors under Mastyn in the bow; they'd been gibing as the Blood Eagles sloshed back to dry ground. Roubos leaned on the arm of a subordinate, coughing and spluttering. His weak leg and the weight of his armor had kept him underwater for a dangerously long time when the pikeman
tipped him over.

  "Let go of the child!" Ilna said to the man holding Merota.

  "Easy, mistress," the fellow said. It was Chalcus! He took his left arm from about Merota's waist and sent the girl down the deck toward Ilna with a pat. "I was only keeping her safe till you arrived."

  Chalcus was grinning. His right hand held a single-edged sword whose tip bent downward in an inward curve that would put more weight behind a stroke. It wasn't one of the cheap weapons from the ship's store: the blade had gold chasing near the hilt and was as sharp as vain regret.

  "I'm safe now!" Merota said, burying her face against Ilna's side. "They won't hurt me!"

  "Throw them in the sea!" Mastyn said. "Prick the bitch with your pikes if you don't want to touch her!"

  In the confusion the oarsmen had stopped rowing, but the trireme continued to wallow outward on a combination of momentum and the mild current. The bow was a hundred feet from the shore, and the water under the keel was too deep for Ilna to see the bottom when she glanced down.

  The Ravager had backed off the island at the same time and was under proper control. Its helmsman--the sailing master was on shore with the abandoned passengers--shouted, "What's going on there?" across the water to Vonculo.

  None of the armed sailors moved toward Ilna. Mastyn tried to push one forward; the fellow shrugged away from the pressure.

  "May sea demons drown every one of you pack of cowards!" Mastyn cried. He strode toward Ilna with his cutlass raised. Chalcus cocked an eyebrow in query to Ilna, then stepped out of the bosun's way.

  Ilna spun her pattern of cords toward Mastyn. He screamed and slashed wildly at something no one else could see. Chalcus dropped flat on the deck; the cutlass smacked wetly into the shoulder of pikeman beside him.

  Mastyn snatched his cutlass free among screams and a welter of blood, then chopped downward. Chips of pine decking and three of the bosun's own toes flew up at the thunk! of the blade.

  A sailor grabbed Mastyn from behind. The madman twisted free and cut downward again, lopping off his left foot above the ankle.