The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  Efforts to appease them were useless; Scat knew that. They cared nothing for money. Unless the Captain went back for more men and arms first, he’d need to attempt the trip from the reef in one night, hoping to remain unseen by the natives in the darkness.

  Of course, he wouldn’t need to hunt the beasts. If he could see them—more than one of them, anyway—he could run, regroup, and return for a bigger score. He’d need a good wind, and some luck. But for a million in gold…

  “You look like a rat’s last meal,” Scat said to Packer, as though just now noticing. “Get some sleep.” And with that, he took the lantern and left.

  Packer doubted he would ever live to see village fishermen taking Firefish. If there were no Firefish at the location he’d just given to Scat, Packer would be killed. If there were Firefish there three-hundred-and-sixty-four days a year, but they weren’t there the one day that Scat and the Trophy Chase arrived, Packer would be killed. If there were a thousand Firefish there that day, Packer might be killed anyway, no longer being needed. Or they could all be killed by the Achawuk. Or they could all be killed by the Firefish. Many possibilities, one common result.

  Well, God would choose the outcome. That phrase came back to him, but with a very different sense now. It wasn’t hope, but resignation. There was some strange faith in it, a kind that lived on just the other side of despair. He had been useless, hopeless, emptied, and yet God had stepped in and bargained for the villages. God had chosen the outcome.

  “Resist not evil.” The words fluttered around in his brain like birds in an empty house. Is that what he’d just done? In fact, it was. He had not resisted, though he’d wanted to, had tried to. Undoubtedly, what he’d done was not at all what Jesus meant. Jesus did not want all His followers to go find an evil person, a Talon, and submit. But perhaps somehow, some way, when evil is there, when an evil person is ready to kill, to destroy, when evil is overpowering and inevitable, when the choice is to flee or to fight, perhaps there is a third path, one that Packer hadn’t taken but that he might have, a path of submission to God that is also, somehow, submission to the will of the evil one.

  Isn’t that what Jesus did on the cross? Packer marveled at the thought. Didn’t Jesus submit to the will of the evil one, who very much wanted him humiliated, tortured, and dead? And if such passivity were practiced in obedience to God, as Jesus had done, without ever folding, as Packer had done, then certainly God would take over. Wouldn’t He?

  Ox’s palms were sweating. He had to strike first, that he knew. That would be the only way to beat her. Her head was down, bobbing with the movement of the boat. He was sure she was at least half asleep. This killing seemed to him more than justified. This would be a completely upright act; he would be commended for it. Many would applaud him. And since the Captain had banished her, as Ox now believed, and they were therefore doomed to die, only a coward would stay his hand. And Ox was no coward. He was a strong, brave man.

  Talon was deep in thought, but she was not asleep. She sensed, before she heard it, that something was amiss. The oar came up out of the water awkwardly, Ox shifted in his seat oddly, just enough to set off an alarm within her. Then she heard the soft clink of the oar’s pin coming up out of the socket, and she knew. She heard, as she ducked her head, the whoosh of the air around the oar.

  Idiot! she thought. It was Talon’s feel for the sea that saved her. Her ability to sense changes and keep her bearings, even in a tiny pod skittering on a massive ocean, was something Ox couldn’t fathom. It was what led him to believe she was careless with their lives, and what led him to be careless with his own. The wooden beam passed over her harmlessly.

  But in the half second it took Ox to recover his balance and to stop the oar before it struck Monkey, Talon had pulled her knife from her belt and lunged, swinging her blade backhanded. For a moment, Ox just looked at her where she crouched, coiled now for an inevitable second attack. His eyes were wide, afraid of what might have just happened, afraid of what might yet happen. And then, as the blood began to pour from his neck, he dropped the oar and pawed at his throat with both hands. As he felt the damage done, he began to understand what she already knew. She sprang again, sinking the knife deep into his belly, up under his ribs. Using it like a baling hook, she took him by the collar with her left hand and, with a short, quick thrust of her body, dropped him over the side of the boat.

  She had pierced his heart, and he was dead before he hit the water. He sank like a stone. And so, not five seconds from the moment he’d swung the oar, he was gone, swallowed by the sea.

  Monkey stared, slack-jawed, at the dark spot in the water where his partner of seventeen years had simply disappeared. Talon quickly lashed the rudder true, then sat down next to Monkey. She put the oar back into its place. She stirred her knife through the water a few times, and wiped it dry on the black leather of her pant leg. She looked at Monkey as she returned the knife to its sheath.

  “Row,” she said quietly.

  Monkey obeyed.

  The two rowed for shore with a renewed sense of purpose. Monkey was unable to stop shaking, unable to hide from the images of what he’d just witnessed, as they played again and again in his mind.

  Talon didn’t give it another thought. She was already planning her approach to the inn, and the methodology she would employ with the innkeeper to learn more about this boy swordsman, and his betrothed. She now wished she had probed Packer further about this Panna. But Talon knew her, without knowing her. She was some pretty thing with no ambition and a strong back.

  Talon would relish wringing Panna of information and then taking vengeance on her. And a greater pleasure still would be that through her, she would find her way to the Traitor. Talon smiled. This was the course for her now. Their God had spared Packer Throme? Fine, let them believe that. But because of that, and only because of that, Packer would be the death of his own true love, and then of his swordmaster, Senslar Zendoda.

  Panna’s knapsack included some food and a few extra articles of clothing. She wished, as she made her way up the darkened street, heading for the wagon path that led over the hills toward the docks, that she had a man’s clothing. She wished she had a weapon, any weapon, and some skill at using it. She wished she had spent more time listening to her father’s talk about his own travels, his seminary days, and his various adventures.

  She was a woman, alone on a darkened street heading out of town, her peasant dress billowing in the breeze under clear, moonlit skies, signaling to all who might happen to look that here she was, female, vulnerable, and traveling alone. She had taken her father’s floppy fishing hat, which he seldom wore, and had tied her hair up under it. But that did little good without some similar disguise for the rest of her.

  She had been foolish, she now knew, to keep to woman’s work and woman’s ways, to the exclusion of even the most rudimentary survival skills that might be needed in the greater world. She could mend shirts and serve supper, even sing solos for the church choir. But how did she choose an inn in a strange city? How much did room and board cost? How would she know who to trust?

  What had she thought—that having long hair and lovely eyes, a soft voice and a way with a washtub, would win her man? That all it would take would be one kiss, and he would melt, swear undying love, and stay with her forever? Yes, she supposed, that was exactly what she had thought.

  Well, he hadn’t. Instead, he’d cared more for his pirate adventures, dropping her like a wrung rag at the sound of the outlaws’ cart on the cobblestones, leaving her to stay behind in helpless agony or follow in hopeless pursuit.

  What was she good for, without him? Washing her father’s undershirts, scrubbing floors, and listening to endless women’s prattle about husbands and children and all their shortcomings—or settling for some other suitor who’d soon turn her into yet another prattling wife, a full partaker in all those numbing daydreams of patterned porcelain plates.

  She had been utterly without backbone. Her father, a go
od and kind man who loved her dearly, had not helped. He was as much to blame as anyone for her predicament; he had not schooled her in anything but what would be useful in marriage. She could see that now. He meant well, of course. But he was a passive man, nothing like Packer. Even his sermons were full of “wait upon the Lord,” and “humble yourself before Him,” and “Let God fight your battles.”

  All that seemed terribly inadequate now. What battles would God fight for you if you never went to war? A life of dreams and prayers and waiting was fine for him; porcelain plates were fine for all the hens of Nearing Vast. No, she would do whatever it took to find Packer, or she would die trying. This was the right thing to do; she felt it deep in her soul. It was what Packer chose, what he valued.

  And besides, Packer needed her. Why else would God send her such a dream? Packer needed help, and no one else cared, no one else knew. If she didn’t try to help, who would? Why would God put all this into her heart and her head if He didn’t want her to take the step of faith it took to go after Packer, to trust Him in the midst of all that was out there, all the unknowns of the world?

  She was energized by these thoughts as she paused by the last house at the edge of town. She turned behind her. The soft, flickering light from the two streetlamps gave the little village a warm glow, a sense of safety she could almost touch. But it was an illusion. It was a trap.

  An owl hooted in the trees, startling her. She looked up. The great bird’s wings flapped as it rose slowly from the wooded grove, a silhouette against the sky. When she looked back down, she saw something else flapping in the wind. Hanging on a clothesline not four full steps from her, across no fence or border whatever, was Mrs. Molander’s wash.

  Mr. Molander was a cobbler, a man whose most important characteristics at this moment were that he was just about Panna’s height and weight. His pants, his shirts, his socks, they were all there, waving in the wind. She smiled. He had other clothes. It was doubtful he’d miss these. Mrs. Molander, forgetful enough to leave them out all night, might not even miss them for a day or two.

  Panna looked at the cottage. It was dark. She looked at the street. It was empty. She looked at the road through the trees toward the hills. It beckoned.

  Five minutes later, a figure under a floppy hat, wearing a cobbler’s clothes, plodded up over the hill and down toward the docks. A peasant dress lay hurriedly buried under rocks and twigs in the woods. And a young woman with a purpose born of passion walked quietly into a world she did not know, which she had only begun to dream about.

  Scat Wilkins stood on the quarterdeck and scanned the night sky above the dark, white-capped ocean. Beside him the helmsman kept the great ship’s course. Above him, the sails were sheeted to port, the ship being on a starboard tack, and thousands of square feet of white canvas billowed firm. The mainsail and the mizzen had just been reefed another six points, the wind having freshened a knot or two, and crewmen were descending the ratlines, their task completed to the bosun’s satisfaction. The captain nodded his approval to Mr. Haas.

  Sailing was a great joy to the Captain. A clear night on deck with a good wind was as close to heaven as he figured he’d ever get. He was a demanding captain in most ways, but particularly in the precision of sailing, of adjusting the square footage of canvas to exactly match the wind’s velocity, and the angle of the sails to match its direction. After all his years at sea, all he’d seen and done, he had never tired of this, never tired of demanding such perfection, and getting it, from his crew. He could feel the wind and the water as though he were part of the ship, as though the hull and sails were his own skin. The waves against the bow, the wind pressing, heeling the ship, the sheets hauled just so, now forty degrees, now forty-five, creating precisely the maximum efficiency, as the ship plunged and rose, cutting the ocean like a keen blade through tender steak. There was nothing like it on earth.

  And Scat Wilkins loved the Trophy Chase like he loved nothing else on earth, human or otherwise. He loved her not for her superior accoutrements, the iron-capped planks in her decks, the mahogany furnishings, but for her perfect, powerful movement through the water. She was so solid and so tight that no energy seemed lost between sail and keel. Running with the wind or sailing across it, she moved like a cat pouncing, jumping forward, it seemed, each time a sheet was hauled to better a sail’s angle.

  But sailing into the wind, as she was now, she was nothing short of spectacular. She used the laws of nature as though they had been invented just for her. All sailing ships labor greatly as they beat to windward, their great square rigged sails losing draft as they are trimmed closer on the wind. If their destination was directly into the wind, as it was now, ships like the Marchessa and the Camadan needed to tack through a full eighty degrees. This meant the best they could do was to set a heading forty degrees to starboard of their target, run as far as they dared, then turn into the wind, powerless until they were on a heading forty degrees to port of their goal. During that turn they were in irons, losing speed.

  But the Trophy Chase was different. She needed to tack through only fifty degrees. She could remain under full sail at speed when on a heading only twenty-five degrees from her appointed goal. And her turns were so quick that she lost almost no speed even in irons, giving her the edge on any pursuers. Or any prey. She could chase the Firefish at hull speed through two-hundred-and-ninety-degrees of seas.

  The Chase changed the game. Her designers, John Hand and Lund Lander, made her longer, narrower, and deeper in proportion than any ship ever built. Her sleek hull and deep, long keel simply refused to allow her any significant sideways drift. Her masts were also taller and nimbler than those on any other ship, giving her more canvas to catch the wind, and more opportunity to take advantage of every change in its direction or speed.

  The combination of these design features, handled skillfully, made it such that any wind that could fill her sails could force her forward with amazing speed. With the wind pressing from the bow, only twenty-five degrees from head-on, and with her sails close-hauled and her lee rail down, she was a sight to see. Tonight, in twenty knots of breeze, she was doing twelve knots to windward under reefed main and mizzen. The sensation was extraordinary, even for a lifelong seaman like Scat Wilkins. She shot through the water like a grape seed squeezed between the finger of the wind and the thumb of the sea.

  The Captain looked astern. Behind the Chase, off the port side, was the Camadan, and off the starboard, the Marchessa. They were both good ships, steady and strong, faster than all but a handful of Vast ships. But in comparison to the Chase, they were aging, plodding bulwarks.

  “They’re struggling now!” the Captain announced, clearly pleased to see his flagship putting distance between herself and her escorts, despite the severe angle at which both ships were heeled, sails full, fighting, not to catch up, since that was impossible, but just not to lose ground so quickly that they would risk Scat Wilkins’ ire.

  “As usual, Captain,” Andrew Haas responded, smiling. Captain Wilkins would rather fly ahead and turn back, running literal circles around them at full gallop, than slow his course in order to keep ranks. “A ship is made to sail, boys,” he liked to say, “and the wind is free.”

  The Marchessa carried most of the huntsmen—slayers of Firefish—and all the longboats except the one assigned to the Chase. The Camadan, though fast, was an illusion, a well-equipped and well-disguised packing plant, a whaler in which Firefish were processed for sale. But the Chase was the standard-bearer, the point, and the enforcer, with every sailor a swordsman, a marksman, and a cannoneer.

  The Captain looked up through the darkness. High above the sails, in the crows’ nest, was the lookout. His job was to scan for Firefish, first and foremost, and for any possible threat second. Scat saw him now, telescope jutting, examining the horizon. Here was the second point on which the Captain was excessively demanding. Vigilance. If a ship or a shore were ever spotted by an officer or crewman on deck before the warning came from the c
row’s nest, the officer was rewarded and the offender flogged.

  If the crew were vigilant and the sailing precise, then the ship had a good chance at fame and fortune, two results which, when combined together in large doses, equaled glory. Vigilance, Precision, Glory. This triune motto was inscribed around the carved and painted image of the pouncing lioness mounted below the bowsprit, claws out, mouth agape, head cocked to one side as though some invisible prey were already in her grasp. Together, the bold words and the bolder image stated unequivocally the identity of the Trophy Chase.

  The Captain had changed headings after his visit with Packer Throme. No one had questioned it. Why would they, after years of wandering the seas aimlessly? But still, the Captain wondered, would the crews of his escort ships go willingly into the Achawuk waters? Would his own? Soon it would be obvious to the navigators and officers of all three ships that the Achawuk lay dead ahead, and then he would find out. Morale was low, as it always was when revenues were down, and many on board the Camadan, and most on the Marchessa, were not experienced in warfare.

  The Chase could outrun anything afloat, Achawuk canoes no exception. If, that is, she had any wind. And if the Achawuk didn’t simply appear from nowhere, surrounding her as they had the Macomb all those years back.

  The Macomb had been a fast ship, too. But the Achawuk warriors, armed only with spears and torches, had materialized in legions of canoes, filling the sea. Cannons, pistols, swords—nothing was enough to deal with the sheer numbers. The Captain let the image play out in his mind, looking for some advantage, or some defensive action not taken by the Macomb. He found none.

  The Captain’s thoughts turned to the source of his present mission. What if the boy was a spy after all? What if he led them into a trap? Wilkins had heard of suicide missions. Perhaps Throme was on one. Achawuk on the left, Firefish on the right. What had Talon said? “Trust him at your gravest peril.” And rightly so. He didn’t yet trust the boy, but here he was anyway, sailing his ships, and all his hopes, into the two gravest perils he knew.