The River of Shadows cv-3

by Robert V. S. Redick

  No one seconded the motion. Big Skip raised his bushy eyebrows. “It’s a city,” he insisted. “They’ll feed us, just as these good village folk gave us water. What about it, mates? Thirty miles to the butcher’s shop, says I.”

  But Bolutu shook his head. “The Masalym of my day would have been a good choice,” he said. “It was a trading city, and so used to visitors-either by sea, or out of the strange mountains of the Efaroc Peninsula at its back. Yet if Masalym today is ruled by the same power that launched those ships, then I for one would rather keep my distance from the butcher’s shop.”

  “Ha!” blurted Uskins. “The butcher’s shop!”

  His laugh was jarring, almost a scream, and nearly everyone looked at him in anger. Uskins flinched, as though expecting a blow. Whether or not his fear was justified Pazel never learned, however, for at that moment the ship’s drums erupted in pandemonium.

  “Beat to quarters! Beat to quarters!” Already the cries resounded through the ship.

  “Damnation, we’re still at anchor!” shouted Fiffengurt. “Alyash, get to the starboard battery! Sunderling, on deck! Set Fegin and his men to bracing that foremast! Go!”

  “Are we under attack?” Taliktrum shouted. “Fiffengurt, how can this be?”

  “It can’t!” snapped Fiffengurt. “There’s no way in Alifros a ship’s crept up on us! But who knows, who knows, in this mad country?” He turned wildly about. “Pathkendle! Wake the anchor-lifters! We can’t afford to leave more iron on the seafloor! Run, by the Sweet Tree, run!”

  A Hasty Departure

  22 Ilbrin 941

  Pazel sprinted from the manger. He heard Thasha shouting his name but did not look back. Foreign-born, mutinous, expelled from the service, sentenced to death-amazing how it all disappeared. In emergencies he was simply a tarboy.

  Refeg and Rer, the anchor-lifters, slept in a kind of stall behind the portside cable tiers. They almost never moved quickly. Pazel flew across the orlop with all the speed he dared, leaping the broken floor planks, flinging open doors.

  He heard their breath, deep organ wheezes, before his eyes discerned their shapes. The brothers slept side by side, curled in beds of straw, their six-foot-long arms folded against their mammoth chests. Their skin was yellow-brown and rough as rhino hide, and festooned here and there with clumps of fur, green-black, like moss on stone. They were augrongs, survivors of a race that had all but disappeared from Alifros, dwellers in an Etherhorde slum when not serving on some Arquali ship. They spent nearly all their time asleep, harboring their titanic strength, rising for just one meal a week or to perform some labor that would have required scores of men. Their language was so rich in metaphor it seemed almost the language of dreams, and Pazel was the only person aboard who spoke it.

  Left to themselves, augrongs could take a quarter hour to wake, and another quarter hour to get to their feet. Shouting, pleading, beating on cans did nothing to speed the process, and no one in their right mind would nudge them with pole or pitchfork. But a faster method had occurred to Pazel. Bending close (but not too close) to their sleeping heads, he summoned his memory of the Augronga tongue and boomed in an inhuman voice: “Music in the forest: tomorrow calls me, I answer with my feet.”

  Two pairs of fist-sized yellow eyes snapped open. The creatures surged upright, grunting like startled elephants. Pazel smiled. It worked every time: he had recited a phrase reserved for the saddest farewells. Each augrong thought that he was hearing the other’s voice, and after countless years cut off from their people, the brothers’ deepest fear was separation.

  When they caught sight of Pazel they heaved irritated sighs. “Always the same one, the babbler, the noisy goose,” rumbled Rer, his huge eyelids drooping like batwings.

  “Noisy till he’s plucked,” said Refeg, making a halfhearted swipe at Pazel.

  Pazel jumped backward. “Emergency, emergency!” he cried, stripping the finesse from his Augronga. “Beat to quarters! Hear the drums!”

  With impressive haste (for augrongs) the brothers stumbled out of their bedding and made for the No. 3 ladderway. They knew where they were wanted: at the main capstan, where each could do the work of fifty men in the arduous job of lifting anchor. Pazel slipped around them carefully, watching those vast flat hands. The augrongs had never hurt him; in fact he thought they appreciated his occasional service as a translator. But despite his grasp of their language, their minds remained a mystery. And Pazel could never forget that they had helped Arunis extract the Nilstone from the Red Wolf. From that day forward Pazel wondered just what kind of power Arunis had gained over the creatures, and if he could count on it still. But any mention of the sorcerer brought warning growls from the augrongs.

  Pazel sprinted ahead, and in short order he was climbing the No. 3 ladderway. Five steep flights of stairs, each more crowded than the last, and the drums still sounding overhead. When he burst onto the topdeck at last he found himself in a crowd of men and tarboys, soldiers and steerage passengers, all making for the starboard rail. It was late afternoon; the sun was low and orange in the west. Pazel ran toward the bow. He could see Mr. Fiffengurt ahead, hobble-running, with an ixchel riding his shoulder.

  When Pazel caught up with Fiffengurt he found that the ixchel was Ensyl. She was a wispy, earnest young woman with eyes that darted restlessly, until they suddenly fixed on you, and drilled. Catching sight of Pazel, she leaped from Fiffengurt’s shoulder to his own, landing lightly as a bird.

  “Have you seen them?” she demanded.

  “No,” gasped Pazel, still winded from the stairs. “Who are they? I can’t see any ship.”

  “There’s no ship,” said Fiffengurt. “That’s why we were caught off-guard. Damnation, if those villagers betrayed us-”

  They reached the tonnage hatch. As he had done many times, Pazel set a foot on the rail and leaped up to catch a mainmast forestay. With one hand on the wire-taut rope he leaned out over the yawning shaft, Ensyl clinging fiercely to his shirt. Now at last he could see over the crowd.

  “But I still don’t-”

  His words died in his throat. He saw them: dlomu, hundreds strong, lining the shore road from the village to the Tower of Narybir. They were still coming, pouring through the gatehouse, leaping down from the wall, even passing over the dunes about the tower’s foot. Were they forming ranks, carrying weapons? The land was too distant for him to be sure.

  “They look like Mr. Bolutu,” said Ensyl. “Is it true what they’re saying in the clan, Pazel-that those beings rule all the South, that there’s no one else here at all?”

  Pazel leaped to the deck again. He struggled to answer her as he raced to catch up with Fiffengurt, who had almost reached the forecastle. In normal times the commander gave his orders from the quarterdeck, but Fiffengurt was showing great deference to Captain Rose, who could still communicate by shouting through the window of the forecastle house.

  Pazel went straight to that window himself. Alyash and a Besq midshipman were already standing before the dirty glass, yelling to the prisoners within. Framed between them, Captain Rose’s huge, choleric, red-bearded form glared out at the deck. “Stand aside, Pathkendle!” he bellowed, his voice rattling the glass.

  Pazel jumped back. On the captain’s right stood Sandor Ott, a short man with the most savage face the tarboy had ever beheld. The spymaster’s eyes moved ravenously, devouring information. One hand, mottled with age spots and knife-scars, the fingernails mangled decades ago by torture, lay flat upon the glass. Behind the two men the other hostages crowded, struggling for a glimpse of the deck.

  There was Neeps! The Sollochi boy lit up at the sight of Pazel, and he flashed a tarboy signal (two fingers pinched to the thumb: Standing by to assist you) with an ironic grin that Pazel found almost miraculous. I’d be going mad in there. How’s he managing to keep up his spirits?

  There was no sign of Marila, and an instant later Neeps himself was shouldered aside. As he had many times before Pazel felt the ache of guilt. He had
promised to get them out of there, weeks ago, but had made no progress at all.

  The lookouts in the crosstrees were flinging down reports. “Warriors, Mr. Fiffengurt! Fish-eyes, every one, and armed to the teeth!”

  Fiffengurt snapped open his telescope. “Conveyance!” he bellowed. “Where’s their blary boat?”

  “Not a boat to be seen, sir!” came the answer from the lookouts. “Not a launch, not a dinghy! They must have walked into that town!”

  Over the shouting Pazel caught Thasha’s voice. She was there at the rail-with Fulbreech, to Pazel’s undying irritation. They stood shoulder to shoulder, heads inches apart, taking turns with her father’s telescope. Suddenly, as if he could feel Pazel’s gaze, Fulbreech glanced over his shoulder. “Come and see, Pathkendle! Make room there, Thashula-”

  He nudged Thasha over with a familiarity that almost drove Pazel mad. Thashula? It was her childhood nickname, but Pazel had thought she hated it; she’d certainly never encouraged him “Well, come on, man,” said Fulbreech.

  Pazel lurched forward and took the telescope, his face shouting Fool! in a banner of scarlet.

  No question about it: the dlomu were warriors. They were tall and muscular, though slender like those in the village. All carried weapons-swords, hatchets, flails, glaives, crossbows, clubs-and a variety of other implements, from coiled rope to hammers and picks. They wore no armor, no shirts even, but many sported a kind of dark, round, tight-fitting cap. Some held standards aloft, a white bird against a field of deepest blue. A number of dlomu were inspecting the tower door.

  “How did they get there?” Thasha asked suddenly. “Do they have a camp in the woods? If so they stayed blary quiet yesterday.”

  “They could have come from the north side,” said Pazel.

  “From the Nelluroq?” said Fulbreech, incredulous. “How? We sailed for five days along that string of dunes. There’s no harbor, no other inlet-just beach after beach, pounded night and day by those lethal waves.”

  “They look blary lethal themselves,” mused Fiffengurt. “However they got there, I’m glad there’s three miles of water between us.”

  “Under three from the end of that jetty, sir,” put in Mr. Fegin.

  Pazel glanced at the long, smooth seawall jutting out into the gulf from one end of the village. A number of dlomu stood near its base. Like the others they were examining the Chathrand with the keenest interest.

  “That bunch by the gate must be the officers,” said Thasha. “Look-they’re sending messengers up and down the ranks. And they’re pointing telescopes at us as well.”

  “Then they know this is a human ship,” said Ensyl. “That would explain their curiosity.”

  “It’s one explanation,” said Fiffengurt. “Mr. Brule, update the captain. Ah, listen! Your friends Refeg and Rer are on the job, Pathkendle.”

  A deep, slow click… click, like a reluctant grandfather clock: it was the turning of the capstan, as the anchors rose heavily from the seabed. They were harrow anchors, Pazel knew: far lighter than the mammoth mains; still the men would be glad of the augrongs’ help before the task was done.

  “Good thinking,” said Alyash. “They might wheel guns out of that village. Just as well we’re through with it.”

  Thasha turned to him accusingly. “Ibjen lives in that village,” she said. “His father’s waiting for him.”

  “Ibjen should’ve mentioned the army camped out in the bush,” countered Alyash.

  “Ten seconds between clicks,” said Fiffengurt, “and we’re at fourteen fathoms. Quickly, now: who’s got the calculus for me?”

  No tarboy had to ask what the calculus meant. Pazel focused instantly: Ten seconds a click. Six clicks a minute. Four cable-feet per click. Cable length twice the vertical depth. “That’s about… about-”

  “Seven minutes,” said Thasha, “before we could get under way. If we needed to.”

  “Admiral’s daughter!” said Fulbreech with an approving grin. Absently he passed the telescope to Pazel again, but his eyes remained on Thasha. “Doesn’t she amaze you, Pathkendle?”

  Pazel snatched the telescope, calculating the time it would take Fulbreech to strike the water once Pazel pushed him over the rail. Two seconds, maybe. Then a faint voice reached them from the shore.

  “Silence on deck!” shouted Fiffengurt.

  The voice came from somewhere near the village gate. Pazel squinted and saw a man bellowing into an enormous, funnel-shaped shell, which he held before his face like a voice-trumpet. Try as he might, Pazel could not catch a word.

  Then the soldiers parted, and a new figure walked out upon the quay.

  He was a massive dlomu, broad in neck and shoulder, and his walk was somehow cruel. The others did not approach him. Something about the man brought the armada itself to mind-something vile, Pazel thought. But whatever it was refused to surface in his memory. The man gestured at the crier, and the latter screamed into the shell-device once again.

  “Pathkendle?” said Fiffengurt.

  Pazel shook his head. “Sorry, sir, I can’t hear a thing.”

  Fiffengurt turned to the midshipman. “Get some steerage passengers up here on the run, Mr. Bravun-some who ain’t been deafened by cannon fire.” He twisted, pointing his good eye up at the Chathrand’s pennants. “Wind’s on the port beam. We’d have to tack a sight closer to those gentlefolk before we could turn and run.”

  “We’ve no cause to run anywhere, till we decide a course,” said Alyash.

  “Drogues bow and stern, Mr. Coote, if you please,” said Fiffengurt. “We’re close enough without this drift.”

  Coote set men running, and in short order Pazel saw an umbrella-like drogue tossed from the forecastle on its chain. In calm waters the drogues would keep the Chathrand almost at a standstill, but unlike the anchors they could be jettisoned, and built anew from wood and canvas.

  Midshipman Bravun returned with three steerage passengers: a bearded Simjan man, the apple-cheeked Altymiran woman who had lately become Mr. Teggatz’s galley assistant, and an older, white-haired woman whose husband had perished on the Ruling Sea. Fiffengurt silenced the chatter again. “Cup your ears and face forward, everybody,” he said. “Let ’em see we’re listening.”

  The signal worked: once again the dlomic crier shouted his imperative command. The steerage passengers whispered together, debating what they’d heard. It was clever of Fiffengurt to call on them, Pazel thought: locked in their compartment below the waterline for most of the voyage, the steerage passengers had been buffered from the noise of both battle and typhoon. It was about the only good luck they’d had since stepping aboard the Great Ship.

  “We ain’t sure, Mr. Fiffengurt,” said the bearded Simjan, “but he might be talking about a putative.”

  Fiffengurt frowned. “Come again?”

  “ ‘Chin of the putative,’ ” said the Altymiran woman. “That’s what he said, sir.”

  “Madam,” said Fiffengurt, “putative ain’t a thing, and don’t take an article.”

  “Does that mean it can’t have a chin?”

  The white-haired woman merely clung to the rail and stared. When Pazel’s turn with the scope came again, he held it up for Ensyl. The ixchel woman steadied it with both hands. “Focus, Pazel, good. That’s strange: the leader is taking off his boots.”

  “Most of them are barefoot already,” said Thasha. “They don’t seem to care much for shoes.”

  The white-haired woman took a frightened step backward. “I think we should go,” she said.

  “They’re shuffling equipment, too,” said Ensyl. “Collecting shields, and some of the weapons. But they’re strapping other things across their backs. Lighter weapons, maybe, and-”

  “Hush!” said Alyash. “He’s calling again!”

  The ship held its breath. No use, thought Pazel: he could hear only the tone of anger in the distant voice. It was a bit disturbing to think that the Chathrand had stolen part of his hearing forever.

  “I rea
lly think we should be leaving,” begged the old woman, pressing a frail hand to her mouth.

  The Altymiran woman smiled. “Not chin. It’s give he’s shouting. Give of the putative-that’s the first bit, and then stubborn, stubborn-”

  “Stubborn the consciousness,” said the Simjan, looking at Mr. Fiffengurt for approval. Then his face turned pensive. “Actually, that doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “Get rid of these fools,” said Alyash with an irate gesture. “Where’s our dear Brother Bolutu? He should be helping us sort out this gibberish.”

  All at once there was turmoil at the village gate. More dlomic warriors were spilling out onto the road. But this time they were bringing villagers with them, at sword-point.

  “There’s Mr. Isul,” said Thasha. “By the Tree, they’re taking hostages! But what do they blary want?”

  Belowdecks, Refeg and Rer gave a final, satisfied roar. The capstans fell silent: the ship was floating free.

  “Captain Fiffengurt,” said the white-haired woman.

  “I’m not the captain, my dear lady-”

  “Give up the fugitive. That’s what the creature said. Give him up or suffer the consequences.”

  Sailors and passengers gaped at her. Then Alyash snapped his fingers. “The sfvantskors! Those lying bastards tangled with the dlomu before you ever laid eyes on ’em, Fiffengurt! They must have killed a few.”

  “Nonsense!” said Pazel. “They told us their whole story, from the moment we sank the Jistrolloq. The only dlomu they’ve seen were dead ones, on a shipwreck.”

  “And you believe them Black Rags?” said the midshipman.

  Alyash turned and struck the man backhanded across the jaw. “That’s for your swinish nicknames,” he said. “I’d give it to you harder, Bravun, but you have a point. A sfvantskor will say anything to gain an advantage over a nonbeliever.”^ 3

  “But their words rang true,” Pazel insisted.

  “Especially your sister’s, eh?” said Alyash.

  Pazel glared at him. Double agent, he thought. Or triple? How can anyone, even Ott, really know which side he’s on?