The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  Still Packer watched. Scat Wilkins was cornered near the stairway to the quarterdeck. To his left was Jonas Deal, to his right was Mutter Cabe. They were holding off all comers, and a significant cluster of corpses surrounded them. Scat seemed to move faster and with more purpose than anyone else. He moved like a dervish, a killing machine. But even these three couldn’t last; there were simply too many Achawuk.

  Packer’s heart felt like it was made of wood. He could feel his hands loosening their grip on the ratlines, but he seemed detached from that fact. What did it matter? He would die like those below would die. And if he survived, he would have to live as a survivor of this horror. What kind of life would that be? He felt as though he’d been sucked down into a whirlpool, as though the inevitable end of all he’d done, all his effort, his dreams, his mission, was this. It was not where he wanted to go, but where he must go, where he could not help but go. He had let the boulder loose, and it would smash what it would smash. It had been the destiny he couldn’t see and couldn’t escape, the deep darkness at the heart of it all, giving the lie to all his dreams.

  But that was a selfish view, wasn’t it? Delaney had chastised him for thinking it was all and only about Packer. No, it was bigger than Packer. This was not just his destiny. Death and destruction were the destiny of every man below, every sailor, every Achawuk warrior. None of them evaded it, and all of them played their part.

  And then it struck him that this was in fact the destiny of men, across the entire world. Across history. He felt suddenly that he was looking at the world in miniature, a history told in wars and conflict and blood, playing out now on this one small stage. Here was the world’s history, and its future. All dreams of glory—not just his, but all dreams—ultimately led here. Hoard gold? Change the world? Make a name for yourself? Gain honor, save your nation, your people, avenge your God? Every insatiable, noble, and heroic drive leads but one place, and this is it: Men killing other men with every ounce of strength they have.

  It all leads nowhere else, it could lead nowhere else, because every mother’s son on earth is a mutineer, every last soul is Adam in the garden, or Packer in the hold, raising a sword rather than submitting to God. Unwilling to die, we are therefore doomed to kill. And doomed to die killing. No one is spared this fate.

  Why did Scat and his men kill? Because they were attacked. Why were they attacked? Because they had invaded the Achawuk territory. Why had they done that? Because they wanted gold.

  The Achawuk were no different, no worse, no better. Why did they kill? Certainly there was some glorious reason. They had been invaded. It was pride, it was glory, it was honor, it was religion, it was something. They could no more turn the other cheek than Scat’s pirates could. They wouldn’t sacrifice themselves; no one would. Everyone had to stand and fight. That was the human way.

  Packer had chosen not to die back in the hold. So now he would die on deck. He could have died turning the other cheek…when it would have mattered to God, when it would have been a righteous act, solitary and humble, where God alone would know and Packer’s reward would have been eternal. But Packer chose to raise his sword. And now he would die where men would see and God would hide His face, he would die a brother in arms, as millions of men had died before him, and millions would die after, killing other men in a fight over a dream, a right, a principle, a lust, a passion, a truth, a hope.

  Packer felt small, and infinitely unworthy, before a great and holy God who looked down on them all, who looked deep into Packer’s heart and saw all the evil, all the sin of the whole world. And yet, Packer marveled, that same God, knowing all the ways of man, which from the beginning have been the same since Cain killed Abel, that same God sacrificed Himself. There was, after all, one Man who could do it. The thought gave Packer a shred of hope.

  There was one Man who could turn the other cheek, who would “resist not evil,” who could and would lay down His life rather than pick up His sword. That Man had come down from the rigging of heaven and joined the bloody fray on deck, but He hadn’t fought. He became one of the ragged lot of cutthroats, but He didn’t bloody His hands. He didn’t defend Himself, or His land, or His dreams, or His country, or His gold, or His honor, or even His God. He allowed Himself, and all the things most valuable to men on earth, to be sacrificed. And to what end? So that people could learn a different way, could learn to lay down their swords, rejecting the ways of earth and taking up the ways of heaven.

  Packer felt thankfulness well up within him. He looked up to heaven and asked God why, why He would care at all for such a horde of villains. The answer that came back was clear. It was not a question of men’s worthiness, but of God’s very being. The God Who is Love could do no other.

  Humbled further, Packer found grace to ask God for mercy, not just for himself, but for his fellow mutineers as well. “Do not wipe us off the face of the earth,” he pled. “Let us live, so that we can understand some shred of that love, and have a glimpse of the way it works in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

  Packer began the descent down the ratlines, sword at his hip. He did not know what he would do when he got to the deck, but he did not plan to draw his sword. Christ had descended to the melee, God as man, armed with a power He chose not to use. Packer knew he was not worthy of the comparison, but he was honored to walk in those footsteps anyway. He could die this way. He was following the path of his God at last.

  Packer was a few feet from the deck when his eyes met those of an Achawuk warrior coming up over the port rail. Is this the man who will kill me? The warrior had his spear in his hand. He looked up at Packer without anger or pity or remorse, but with a very distinct purpose. Packer wanted to ask him why, why he killed, why he died. But the warrior’s spear came up, its bone-white tip aimed at Packer. Packer put his hand to his sword reflexively, but he didn’t draw it.

  He put his foot on the rail. As he did, the great ship rocked. For a brief moment, Packer thought he had caused it, that his weight had jarred the ship. But the canvas overhead had popped at the same time; a great gust of wind had caught the mizzen and had then sustained its energy long enough to heel the ship to port. Packer had to grip the ratline tightly to keep from being thrown down into the water. The warrior in front of him had no line to hold; he lost his footing on the slippery deck and toppled back over the railing, into the ocean.

  Packer looked after him: A great number of the Achawuk climbing up the hull, those nearest the waterline, were submerged. As the wind died away and the ship righted itself, he could see that many of the warriors had been swept away. Others grabbed the vacant spears and began climbing.

  The wind and the sea had created a break in their lines. The sight gave Packer a small spark of hope that the sailors on deck would at least have a moment’s rest from their fighting. But the Achawuk closed the lines quickly, and once again the hull was a single mass of climbing warriors.

  As Packer stood on the rail and watched, another gust hit the sails, and more Achawuk were submerged below him. He saw several of them slip, giving the advantage to their adversaries. And then, suddenly, Packer knew.

  Like cellar doors ripped away above him, sunlight shone into his soul. Packer could do nothing to change this outcome; he could do nothing but die. But God could do anything. If God would grant them wind…He looked up into the dark sky, asking God if He would grant them more gusts of wind. Patchy clouds scudded across the moon.

  Energy arced through him like lightning. He looked around, saw Delaney’s blade flicking red through the air. “Delaney!” he called, hands and feet already moving back up the ratlines. “Delaney!” The sailor looked up. “Full sail! Full sail! The wind!”

  Delaney was puzzled. He glanced around him, and to his surprise few Achawuk were near at the moment. He looked back up at Packer.

  Packer stopped, locked onto Delaney. “I need you!” he yelled. And then he grinned. “The wind!”

  Delaney didn’t understand the plan, but he understood the hope. He understood
the man. He found himself climbing up the rigging before he could think it through.

  “Full sail!” Packer yelled, reaching the mizzen yard. He raced along the footlines, hacking every tie-rope he passed, unfurling the mizzen sail completely.

  John Hand heard Packer’s call. He glanced up at Packer and Delaney as they scrambled around the ratlines, sails dropping in great unruly swaths behind them. It was a curious sight. But he ignored it. He looked back to the deck, saw Mutter Cabe waving his sword in the air, two warriors in front of him. Hand squeezed the trigger; a loud crack and a sharp plume of fire and smoke evened the odds. He looked back up as he reloaded.

  Delaney was much faster in the rigging than Packer, and had unfurled the main and then moved above it, to the maintopgallant. Just then another gust hit, this time jarring the great cat significantly, poking it with a much bigger stick. More Achawuk slipped on deck. Full sail, Hand thought. He forced himself to pay attention to the wind and sea again, to the ship’s heading and the cut of the sails. Then it dawned. Yes, yes! “Hard to port!” he cried out, only then realizing no one was manning the wheel.

  Delaney had by now figured out what Packer had in mind, and when he heard John Hand’s command he quickly understood what the two measures would mean combined, if only the wind picked up. He redoubled his efforts.

  John Hand pulled the ramrod from his rifle, took aim at a warrior who was pulling his spear from a fallen crewman, a man the Captain recognized as Cane Dewar. Hand cursed softly, and apologized silently to Cane as he squeezed off his shot. Three seconds earlier and he’d have saved him; now he avenged him.

  Hand turned his back to the fray and crossed to the wheel, kicking out the lock timber that held it steady. With great effort he spun the wheel counter-clockwise, trying to get the Chase heading east-southeast, at right angles to the wind. Adjusting the sheets was not an option; he was adjusting the course instead so that the sails would fill to their maximum. It wouldn’t be precise, but it would have to do.

  “Trim the main, I’ll get the fore!” Delaney yelled to Packer as he descended toward the deck at the front of the Chase. “She’ll pivot like she’s caught in a maelstrom!”

  Packer didn’t say a word, but descended as quickly as he could. When he reached the quarterdeck, he quickly untied the main sheets and pulled the yardarm about so that the sail’s angle was ninety degrees to the wind, then retied them. Delaney was doing the same on the forecastle deck with the foresail.

  No sooner had Delaney tied off his sheet than another gust hit. It was no greater than the previous two, but because all the sails were now unfurled and angled more precisely, they now snapped with great drama. And the Trophy Chase, solid and tight as she was, the great cat that leapt with every small variation of sail, now exploded with fury. She rocked as though hit broadside by a dozen cannons, as though run aground sideways. At the same time, she turned hard. And Delaney was right; it felt more like a spin than a turn, the foresail and the mizzen working like the points of a pinwheel.

  On deck, these efforts had exactly the desired effect. Every Achawuk engaged in combat lost his footing, and nearly every one of them fell, unaccustomed as they were to great ships such as this. And almost every sailor kept his balance, even on the slippery decks, fully accustomed as each man was to the Trophy Chase and her nimble ways. By the time the gust blew itself out, the ship’s deck was angled at almost thirty-five degrees.

  As the ship gathered way, she gradually righted herself to a less drastic heel and smoothed into about twelve knots of speed. By this time, the standing sailors were eagerly dispatching the fallen warriors. Moments later, the crew looked at one another, in wonder. Where was the enemy? The jolt had momentarily stopped the Achawuk who still climbed the spears on the hull, and had tumbled not a few of them back into the sea.

  On the starboard side, the ship’s hull had suddenly doubled in height, with the lowest spears well out of reach of those warriors left in the water. And the turning of the ship frustrated those trying to get new spears into the freshly exposed wood. On the port side, the warriors suddenly found themselves submerged, with a wooden hull above them and hundreds of spears, plus dozens of other warriors, blocking their path upward toward the air.

  On deck, the crewmen panted hard and looked at one another. It was miraculous. The enemy had fallen. Chests heaving, blood and sweat dripping from them, they looked above them into the sails. They were unfurled. It was an awesome sight. Ghosts, white spirits, they seemed, billowing above them in the lantern glow with no mortal explanation.

  At that moment, another gust hit the ship broadside, and the great cat rolled even more dramatically, listing now as though she would go down, with the deck pitched well past a thirty-five degree angle. And this time, the gust was followed by a sustained, powerful wind.

  More warriors were rocked off the spears and into the sea. Others, who had managed to hold on, came up over the starboard rail, which was now high above the port rail. But then they tumbled down across the blood-slick deck. But most of the sailors kept their balance yet, even while sliding down the deck to the port rail. They hacked at the warriors as they went, or as they piled into other Achawuk now coming up from the water. But even these were not prepared to fight; they came up spluttering, hanging onto the port railing for dear life rather than climbing over it.

  Then the sound came. It started low, with a few inarticulate grunts that were somewhere between deep laughs and vengeful growls. But it quickly grew. The tide had turned. The sailors felt it in their bones. Victory would be theirs. How could it be otherwise? Growls turned to whoops, and a few crewmen sang out in pure exultation. The sea, the wind, the sails, the deck, the Trophy Chase herself, all their most powerful, their most beloved allies had come to their aid. Allies summoned by God knew who, perhaps by God Himself, and welcomed down to their souls. And these reserve troops were now literally throwing their enemies down at their feet. The sound grew until the entire crew was cheering, shouting, howling, and singing at once, from their hearts and from their guts. It was a sound of pure joy of body and of spirit, pure internal, animal fire. The cat roared, the roar of a lion in victory. It continued to roar as it dispatched the last of its enemies. The crewmen’s strength was renewed. They would not be defeated on this night.

  John Hand turned to Packer Throme, saw eyes brilliant with intensity. “It broke their ranks, Captain,” Packer explained breathlessly, and needlessly. “Coming up the hull.”

  Hand nodded. “Aye, that it did, and drowned ’em like rats on the other side.” He clapped a hand on Packer’s shoulder. He turned to the decks and bellowed, “Haul those sheets to starboard, anyone with an arm and a leg left! Let’s sail!” A dozen men who suddenly had no enemy left to fight obeyed, and the Chase leapt away from the remaining Achawuk, leaving them to drift away in the ship’s wake.

  Scat Wilkins did not hear the command. His mind had been working on a level deeper and more visceral than those around him, further from consciousness, more focused, like a great athlete in a long race with the finish line in sight. He had heard the cheers, but couldn’t expend the energy to wonder about them. He knew the deck had pitched, and he had used this to full advantage. But he didn’t hear, or didn’t comprehend, the orders coming from the quarterdeck above him. His focus was unaltered. He waded through the bodies, looking for any sign of life among the Achawuk and removing it. Finally, there was nothing left to fight. There were no enemy left to kill. He breathed heavily through clenched teeth as he looked around him, his eyes still wild, hands and arms drenched in blood to the elbows, boots wet to the knee, face, beard, and clothing bespattered.

  Lund Lander had heard Captain Hand’s message clearly and understood it immediately. The Toymaker stood dumbfounded, confronted with an amazing fact. There were no more Achawuk. The remaining number was zero. He peered over the rail. Spears stuck out of the hull like the quills of a porcupine. But they were empty. Achawuk floated away in the dark water behind them. They can’t reach us anym
ore, he thought. He could hear a few thumps, as a few hardy Achawuk still attempted what was now a hopeless task. But most were now safely behind, thanks to the turning of the ship.

  Lund’s spirits soared. They were done. He didn’t know how or why. They never should have escaped. The numbers never should have worked. But they did work. Something had changed the balance—in favor of the Chase and her men.

  John Hand called out commands as he spun the wheel, angling for all the wind he could muster. The renewed strength of the crewmen turned from fighting for their lives back to the precision of sailing. They were already out of reach of those warriors left in the water. Now they would fly from these lands, at a speed no Achawuk would match.

  It was over. The Chase and her crew had fought the Achawuk, and the Chase and her crew had won.

  Finally, Scat’s battle-scarred and blood-soaked brain understood that it was finished. He stood panting hard, blood and spittle flying from his mouth and nostrils with every breath, fire in his eyes. He looked around at his men, expecting to see the admiration, the worship, that was due him. Certainly no one had done more to win this battle, no one had killed more Achawuk than he. He had lived up to his legend once more, had once again proven worthy of his name. His enemies lay scattered at his feet. Instead, he saw all eyes on the quarterdeck—and the smiles, and the looks, the awe, were all aimed elsewhere.