The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  “Good. Now let us talk about what you can do for me.”

  Panna waited. Talon nodded and continued. “I need to find a person of rank in the City of Mann who will help me. I know of one Drammune native who will understand. You will take me to him. It will not be easy. He is, I believe, the Swordmaster of Nearing Vast.”

  Panna’s eyes lit up. “Senslar Zendoda!”

  “You know of him?”

  “Yes! He taught Packer the sword! I’m sure I can help you find him.”

  Talon smiled. “There. You see. We can help one another. Now, let us go to the inn together.”

  Panna was trembling, but Talon took her by the hand. “Do as I say, and you will not be in danger. You will see.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Achawuk

  Darkness had settled on the water as the Trophy Chase turned for home. There were no Firefish. None had been seen all day. The extra league had changed precisely nothing. The wind was now out of the south, so the shortest distance out of the Achawuk territory was to the southeast, their current heading. Dead ahead, if they did not change course once they left the territory, was the Kingdom of Drammun. But Scat did not fear the Drammune nearly so much as he did the Achawuk.

  “Sorry about the Fish, Cap’n,” John Hand said to Scat Wilkins as they stood on the quarterdeck, looking out over the black water.

  “A lot of bluster,” Scat replied sullenly. No Firefish, no Achawuk, nothing but a tired crew ready to head home.

  “What’ll you do with the boy?” Hand asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?” That didn’t sound like Scatter Wilkins.

  Scat shook his head. “Nothing for now.” He glanced at Hand, saw the disbelief, looked back over the waters. “I promised Talon she could have him. And so she’ll have him.”

  “Ah.” Hand’s smile was a sad one. “He’d have been better off staying dead.”

  The ship sailed on, past many small islands that Scat continued to keep as far away as possible. The lookout was alert, vigilant as usual, but had seen no signs of life all day. Now darkness and cloud cover lessened their visibility considerably. Gradually, Scat had needed to decrease speed in order to navigate the islands, which tended to pop up at frighteningly close range. But they were just about clear of the territory, and all aboard knew that the Achawuk attacked with fire. The day’s work was done, and done without a fight. By morning, they’d be in charted waters again, where the most dangerous threat to any and all was the Trophy Chase herself.

  The crew looked forward to it.

  A league away from the Chase, on the opposite side of a small island, three hundred canoes paddled silently through the waves toward the beach. Each canoe carried four warriors. Each warrior carried a spear. Each spear had a sharp, toothlike head on one end and a large loop of leather or crude twine on the other. Every sun-bronzed face was painted midnight blue, forest green, or deep crimson.

  The birch-bark canoes never touched the beach. Before a prow could run aground on the sand, the warriors within it had stowed their paddles and splashed lightly into the surf, heaving the boat onto their shoulders without losing any speed, seamlessly portaging their canoes across the beach inland.

  This nameless island was heavily wooded, but less than two hundred yards across. Twelve hundred warriors left their canoes in the underbrush and passed through the thick, tangled growth like floodwaters, emerging in a silent human wave on the other side. From that beach could be seen the lanterns of the intruder, the great ship, as it approached. Without hesitation, without a word or a gesture, they waded lightly into the waves. They had effectively passed through the island unchecked, the woods filtering out their boats and pouring armed warriors into the sea. With spears slung across their backs by means of the loops, twelve hundred warriors swam out to sea, out to meet their prey.

  Only three remained behind. Gray-headed and regal, these watched from the beach. One, in crimson paint, standing between the other two, wore the tattered waistcoat that had belonged to the captain of the Macomb.

  The dark shapes bobbed silently in the dark water. They spread out in a long, thin line, perhaps a hundred feet wide and a thousand feet long. They judged the speed of the ship perfectly. Once it reached them, it would run through their ranks for a great distance, unable to stop or turn quickly enough to avoid meeting virtually every one of them. The warriors waited as the great ship approached.

  The two lookouts positioned high above the mainmast were scanning the seas for canoes. For torches. For Firefish. For other ships. Other islands. For anything familiar. But dark, bobbing shapes, the very colors of the ocean at night, were far outside their experience, and almost impossible to see even if they had been told what to look for. With the sun gone and night fallen, the Achawuk were invisible, black spots on a black background. But they were there, and they were waiting.

  Scat Wilkins was still on the quarterdeck, and the starboard watch was in the rigging. Officially, all hands were on deck, at battle stations. But with the gravest danger now past, Scat had decided the need for precision outweighed the need for vigilance, and had sent half of the port watch, including Packer Throme and Delaney, up the ratlines to curry favor with the wind. He had less than half the ship’s sails unfurled in a steady wind. Gusts were few now, but Scat wanted to adjust his canvas instantly, taking advantage of every breeze. He wished he could run faster, but among islands at night it simply was not wise. There was no need to risk it now.

  Packer worked the mizzen. He had gained a little confidence in his footwork, enough so that even in the dim light from the lanterns and torches on the deck below him he could concentrate on the work rather than the danger. Delaney noticed it, and left him to it with the words, “I’ll work the main.”

  Packer was glad to be off the deck, away from the Captain, relieved not to have faced instant punishment, and now, even thankful they had found nothing and were leaving these waters. He was learning more with every command from the deck, every shift of the wind. The triangular mizzen at the stern of the ship, he noted, mirrored the foresail at the bow. Hauling the mizzen sheets in careful concert with the fore, and especially with the spritsail in front of it, would turn this ship instantly—almost pivoting it in the middle. Packer felt a deep urge to be part of a few quick maneuvers, to help the Chase through her paces.

  Then came the knocking, sounds like sticks hitting hollow trees, or hammers striking empty wooden barrels…many hammers, all at once. The sailors in the rigging stopped their work and looked to the deck below, but saw nothing. Crewmen stood frozen on deck, eyeing one another, afraid of what the sounds might mean.

  But Scat knew. The memory rose instantly in his mind—Achawuk spears striking the sides of the Macomb, warriors climbing them like ladders.

  “Stand and fight, men!” Scat bellowed. “The enemy is upon us!” He pulled his pistol and ran to the lee railing, cursing, baffled as to how they could have evaded his watchmen. There, below him in the dark, were the Achawuk. They climbed their own spears up the side of the Trophy Chase, grim and determined. Their faces were darkened, their expressions darker. The nearest one was ten feet below the railing, his spear raised, about to be driven into the hull. Scat put a musket ball through his forehead. The warrior fell but was immediately replaced by another. Those around the warrior showed no emotion, no reaction. They simply filled ranks.

  Sailors flew across the decks and down the ratlines, gathering at every rail. Shocked into action, following their captain’s lead as well as his orders, they unleashed a volley of musket and pistol fire, dropping about forty more warriors, splashing them back into the dark sea. Through the pungent powder and choking smoke the sailors watched as these forty were instantly replaced by sixty.

  Packer stayed in the rigging. He moved as quickly as he could out the footline to the end of the mizzen yard. Hanging out over the ocean, he pulled his pistol from his belt. From this vantage point on the port side of the ship, he could see the warriors like
barnacles, thick on the hull—and like seaweed, thick on the black water ahead of the Chase. If the first volley had felled any, he couldn’t tell by looking. There were hundreds, hundreds of them, just as Delaney had promised, and the first of them were almost aboard. It would soon be swords against spears. Packer aimed and fired. He was unsure what, if anything, he had hit. Or what difference one musket ball could possibly make.

  The sight was mesmerizing. What on earth drove these warriors to attack like this, he couldn’t help but wonder. He could see even from here, in the yellow lamplight of the decks, faces of stone, actions measured and controlled. It was all business to them.

  “Reload! Reload!” The sailors were already reloading their weapons when Scat screamed the order. They had at best half a minute to prepare another volley, Scat figured, and then the Achawuk would be over the rails in force. “Pull the cannon back!” he ordered. “Fire when they come over the rail!” The command was odd, and Scat got blank looks instead of action. He stepped to the nearest cannon, ordered those manning it, “You three! Pull it back to here, now!” He pointed at a spot on the deck ten feet behind the cannon’s base plate. The men obeyed, lugging the heavy iron weaponry to the appointed spot. “You got grapeshot, men! Fire when you can take out half a dozen at once!” The sailor with the torch held it near the touchhole, a small vent in the breech of the cannon where the charge could be ignited. The other cannoneers looked, understood, and began pulling their weapons back.

  Scat didn’t reload his own pistol. He ran to the quarterdeck, pulling out his sword and his dagger. John Hand stood there with a loaded musket in his hands, prepared to aim at the first warriors over the rail. “Where the red blazes did they come from?” Scat asked him.

  Captain Hand had been working on the same question. “No canoes and no fire. They just swam out to us.”

  “Hang them in hell for ignorant savages,” Scat said through gritted teeth. But John Hand smiled wryly; the Achawuk had outwitted them. He knew there was deep respect in Scat’s dark heart.

  Scat squinted out, looking over the waters. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see them. More than a thousand, no doubt. Like lily pads covering a marsh. Even the speed of the Chase was no help now. He had sailed her into the midst of the enemy, and the enemy would be aboard before he could sail her out again.

  Nothing to do but fight, and Scat knew how to do that. He pulled his sword and waved it over his head. “Come on up, ye monsters! Try the Trophy Chase! We’ll send you back to the devil to learn some manners!”

  The sailors heard the Captain’s oath, and the fear in them caught fire. Scat Wilkins possessed that rare military gift, the ability to ignite men to fight without fear. Back to the devil to learn some manners! The words crossed the boundaries between laughter and tears, life and death, right and wrong, heaven and hell. Every man who heard them was filled with a dark glee, and a deep love for their Captain. A fight it would be, then—and if so, Scat was the man to follow.

  A cry arose from the ship, deep and powerful and unvarnished, as each man let loose from within him the anger and excitement and fear that would carry him to kill, or to die, or most likely, both. It was the roar of the great cat. It sent a shiver down Packer’s spine more powerful than any he had felt before. He knew its energy, but he did not join in.

  The sailors’ second volley felled more warriors than did the first. But the result was the same. The slain warriors were replaced immediately by others, ranks closing quickly with little effect on the whole.

  The first Achawuk to reach the railings were unarmed, having left their spears in the ship’s hull. This surprised the crewmen, stopped some of them with their swords raised. Here they were, face-to-face with the dreaded warriors they had heard so much about, eye-to-eye with painted, savage, legendary killers, who were tall and strong and muscular and fearless. And who had no weapons.

  “Fire the cannon!” Scat screamed.

  The first cannon boomed, a blinding flash, loosing its grapeshot as five warriors disappeared, limbs and torsos folding backward like paper dolls in a hurricane. Then the other cannon followed suit, twelve in rapid succession, some simultaneous, each cutting down four or five or six of the enemy at once, blasting away huge chunks of the Chase’s railings at the same time. The sweet, acrid smoke was so thick, the flashes in the darkness so bright, that no one on deck could see for a moment, and no one could hear for the ear-ringing aftereffects of the cannonade. And then the breeze took away the blue fog, gently clearing it from the deck, revealing more Achawuk yet, pouring up from the darkness, up over the rails. Still the warriors had no weapons. But each warrior who topped the railing alive reached for the nearest sailor, throttling him barehanded.

  Scat saw his men pause, saw their uneasiness about attacking weaponless men, and knew the danger. Every alarm within him sounded; his men could not pause, not even for an instant. He cursed the brilliance of the Achawuk silently and ran to the gunwale himself, bringing his sword across the neck of the first Achawuk warrior he could reach. “Fight, every mother’s son of you! The Chase is boarded!”

  Another guttural cry rose from the sailors as now they waded into their attackers. Every crewman knew there would be no pause again until he lay down among the dead in defeat, or stood over the dead in victory.

  But the crewmen found that killing even an unarmed Achawuk was not an easy task. These were strong men bent on destruction, their spirits unwilling to depart their accustomed dwellings without considerable application of force. It took several blows to fell one of them, and they kept fighting, killing armed sailors by strangling them, or by throwing them over the rails to the human piranha below. The effect on the sailors was profound: If the Achawuk were this hard to kill defenseless, imagine them armed with spears.

  And very quickly, no imagination was necessary. Their ladder complete, they came each with a spear. Hundreds of hardwood shafts that blocked sword blows, and sharp white spearheads that penetrated flesh.

  John Hand didn’t leave the quarterdeck. He had fired his pistol once and his musket twice, and was reloading the musket for a third shot. His swordplay was suspect, he knew, and he didn’t have the stamina of Scat or of the younger men on deck. He figured this was the best application of his limited fighting skills. But he could only shake his head as the Achawuk continued to pour onto the lamp-lit decks, rising from the darkness…and curse Scat’s greed and Packer’s information.

  Wooden shafts and razor-sharp spearheads clashed and clanked against the sailors’ swords, but the grim silence of the warriors as they fought cast an eerie pall over the battle. The great cat’s roar was silenced now. The only constant sounds were blows and counterblows, grunts, cries of pain, bodies thudding to wooden decks. The Achawuk men fought and died soundlessly.

  John Hand pulled the ramrod from his musket barrel. At least the Camadan was safe, he told himself. That was his first duty. Likely his last as well. He scanned the deck again, looking for the most strategic need. He saw Lund Lander swinging a blade near the shot rack at the port railing, saw a warrior moving in behind him, spear poised. Hand leveled his musket and fired, dropping the warrior to the deck. He reloaded.

  The Toymaker didn’t notice, didn’t pause. He had dispatched half a dozen warriors already, and had fallen into his own rhythm. But he was tiring. They were all tiring. Lund knew that the best-trained man could sustain this level of exertion for six or seven minutes at the most. And they had been at it for at least three already. Good men were falling all around him; the decks were growing slippery with blood, making it harder to stand and fight. Each new Achawuk warrior over the rail was fresh and strong. The sailors were better armed, and were better fighters, but they simply couldn’t keep up the pace necessary to deal with the numbers.

  The numbers. That was the problem. Lund’s brain couldn’t help but do the tally. They had seventy men, not counting Deeter, who was hiding somewhere below decks. Each sailor fighting for six minutes on average…averaging two warriors k
illed per minute, as Lund had done…adding up to eight-hundred-forty warriors killed, at the very most. And as sailors died, the curve grew steeper and steeper for those left fighting. Lund, like Scat, had estimated there were over a thousand of them; he had never heard of the Achawuk attacking with less. The numbers told him this was a losing battle. Numbers never lied.

  Scat Wilkins calculated nothing. His face was set like a flint, his teeth were clenched, his eyes unseeing. In one hand was his sword, in the other his dagger. He stood still, dispatching foe after foe, dealing out death with the cold precision and lightning speed of a pit boss dealing blackjack. He was considerably better at the art of killing a man quickly than was Lund, better than anyone now aboard, with Jonas Deal running a distant second.

  Scat could kill with such efficiency not just because his destructive skills were honed to a razor’s edge, not just because he knew the exact placement of a knife or a sword that would inflict the most lethal wounds with the least energy, but because his skills were plied in the service of only one purpose, more emotion than thought, more lust than emotion. Put into words, which are invariably too precise for such a root and carnal drive, it might come out, Die, you sons of Lucifer! Die!

  If Lund had made his calculations by Scatter Wilkins’ tallies, if the average swordsman aboard the Chase could have destroyed six, or seven, or eight enemies per minute as Scat did, the crew could have fended off three times a thousand warriors inside six minutes. But they could not.

  Packer stared down at the carnage, desolate. His momentary spark of energy had been drained before he could descend the ratlines, and now the carnage below him was gruesome beyond anything he had ever imagined. In minutes, the Achawuk would overwhelm the resistance on deck. He could see that. They were still thick on the hull, still thick in the water for a hundred yards ahead. They had actually slowed the ship, creating a force of drag that was never figured into her design. And now they were thick on the deck as well, closing in and overwhelming pockets of sailors standing back to back, fighting for their lives. Those pockets were being squeezed down, then snuffed out like candles. Packer knew that his duty was to climb down into that horde, to kill and die with his shipmates. He was the only one left in the rigging. The thought occurred to him that he was being a coward, but it didn’t stick. It didn’t matter. Whatever he did now couldn’t possibly matter. The outcome was not in doubt.