The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  Captain John Hand reached out and shook Packer’s hand. “Well done, Packer Throme.” He turned to men gathered on the decks. “He unfurled the sails!”

  “Packer!” Delaney called out, rushing up the stairs to the quarterdeck, sword high.

  “Packer!” the others echoed, many of them speaking the boy’s name for the first time. Their bloody swords saluted him.

  “Well, say something, stowaway,” John Hand said with a great grin across his face.

  “God bless the stowaway!” another sailor yelled, and they all cheered again. It was an odd cheer, though, from this group, full of light and thankfulness, as though they knew it was a miracle. Packer was amazed by it.

  It had all started so quickly, and ended so quickly. He had been prepared to die, he had gone face to face with an Achawuk, unarmed, and God had chosen that he not die. Why? Certainly not out of merit. And now he was being cheered for it. God had blown wind into these sails and saved them all. They quieted, and waited again. Packer spoke up, thoughtful and obviously humbled. “God sent the wind. I just…helped it make a difference.”

  “God bless the difference!” someone yelled, and the others laughed.

  “Packer!” Delaney cried again.

  “Packer!” they roared again in unison. And then they began swiping their swords together, clanging them in celebration high above their heads.

  Scat watched this scene with a growing sense of outrage, his chest still heaving. “Why are they cheering the boy?” he growled.

  Jonas Deal shrugged. Mutter Cabe, standing on the other side of Scat, grew dark. “Not a drop of blood on him, Captain,” Mutter said softly.

  Scat’s guts knotted up. Cabe was right. The stowaway hadn’t even fought! Scat looked down at the Achawuk bodies that lay at his feet. He saw the blood that covered him, his hands, his arms. Deal and Cabe were spattered, soaked.

  So why in thunder were they cheering Packer Throme?

  There was blood in the water.

  The recognition was instant, and the scent was overwhelming. As the beast followed, the scent grew stronger still. And within seconds the enormous, ancient predator was swimming at full speed, its mouth open, its whole being on fire with the craving for soft, fresh meat.

  It was quickly joined by another.

  And then another.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Feeding Waters

  The women in the foyer stood and sat, talked and laughed, flirted with the men, as though unaware they were in varying states of undress. Panna blinked a few times, trying not to stare. Some of them were entirely in their underclothes. She realized her mouth was hanging open only when Talon put a finger under her chin and closed it for her. Panna was startled, but Talon just turned away to speak to the man at the desk. The music came from a room off the foyer; raucous, even dissonant music. The room was dark inside, and Panna couldn’t see what was happening in there.

  Talon handed the deskman Panna’s two gold coins, and accepted no change. Then she took Panna by the elbow and walked her up the stairs. Halfway up, Panna realized they were looking at her. Odd smiles, raised eyebrows, whispering, nodding. She looked a mess, she knew, and tried to straighten her hair. Or maybe it was Talon they watched. Or both of them together. She blushed, and lowered her head.

  Panna Seline did not like this place.

  Scat Wilkins’ blood-soaked boots stumped slowly up the creaking stairs to the quarterdeck, toward John Hand and Packer Throme. The crew watched in amazement, their celebration dying away before the specter he presented. He was breathing heavily, and made a chilling, bloody contrast to the unstained hero he approached. He reached the quarterdeck and stopped. He looked hard at Packer, then at John Hand. Delaney shrank away and disappeared down the stairs.

  Hand could see the lack of comprehension, the fires of rage and death still burning deep within. “We shook ’em off us,” he explained quietly. “Packer’s idea, and a good one.”

  The Captain looked up at the sails. They were golden in the dim near the lamplight, ghostly blue in the moonlight above. Then he looked down at the bloody deck and the men, those fallen and those left standing, waiting. He rubbed his beard, felt the stickiness, looked at his hand. It shook. He wiped it on his shirt absently, without effect. “Shook ’em off us,” he repeated, his breaths finally easing some. “Well. How ’bout that.” His voice was quiet enough that the men below couldn’t hear him, but Packer and Hand both felt its ragged, violent edge. “I gave orders…to fight.”

  Scat turned on Packer, eyes black and empty. He pointed his dripping blade, bared his teeth. “Where was that sword of yours, boy?”

  Packer’s words caught in his throat. “I…”

  Hand spoke evenly. “He was cutting the yard ties with it, Captain. And you’re lucky he was. Without the wind we’d have been overrun.”

  Overrun? Scat turned his look toward Hand. The very thought was mutinous. Scat’s blade went up reflexively. The battle had been long and grisly, and the Captain’s mind had been wholly immersed in death and dismemberment. Pride and anger moved him; fatigue clouded his judgment. His spirit had been running full speed before a gale and, unlike his ship, he was not capable of pivoting in an instant. So he raised his sword to John Hand, and as he did images cascaded before him unsolicited. They were images of his blade coming down, hacking across the neck and chest, images of the Captain of the Camadan falling to the ground.

  “Scat!”

  The pirate blinked, then swallowed. John Hand stood before him, alive, angry and intent, his wild shock of hair blowing in the breeze. Scat’s eyes grew wide. He looked at his own sword, raised in his hand. What was he doing?

  “Salute the men,” Hand suggested in a hiss. “And then go get some rest.”

  The Captain lowered his sword, and turned. His men stood below him, questioning, uneasy, sweaty and bloody in the flickering light, each a mirror of Scat himself. The canvas snapped and the masts creaked above them. They hadn’t heard his words, but they had seen the sword, and the anger. And they didn’t understand it.

  Scat’s eyes labored in turning back to Hand. The pirate looked weary to the bone, small and vulnerable, and John Hand felt compassion for his old friend. “To victory,” Hand whispered with a wink. Then he jerked his head toward the crewmen.

  Scat raised his sword again, and turned to the men on deck. “Victory!” he bellowed. The men echoed a heartfelt cheer, though much of what their hearts felt was relief. After a moment, Scat dropped his sword onto the planking. “The quarterdeck is yours,” he said quietly to Hand, and he descended the stairs. The men gave him a wide berth, but there was respect in their eyes, mixed with concern.

  Scat nodded at a few of them as he made his way to his quarters. They had won, that was the main thing. The Chase was whole. She had been tried, and boarded, and had not been found wanting. All this was good. Scat entered his saloon. He needed a nap, a bath, a drink. And not in that order.

  The bedroom was huge, as large as the entire downstairs of Panna’s house. It was elegantly furnished, the centerpiece being a canopied cherrywood bed with burl cherry headboard and footboard, with matching side tables and an enormous armoire. A velvet-covered couch and chair stood just inside the door, against the wall. The ceiling was molded, the rugs plush, the walls papered with pink and gold flowers. But most appealing to Panna was the large metal bathtub that sat in the middle of the floor, on an ornate oriental rug. “Gracious,” Panna said quietly as she looked around. “We’re staying here?”

  Talon shook her head. “Not we. You. Tonight you rest, and tomorrow we prepare. The next day, we travel by coach to the City of Mann.”

  “By coach?” Panna was surprised. “Why?”

  “In the city, we will go unnoticed if you are a well-dressed and well-groomed young lady, accompanied by a servant.” She paused, then curtsied.

  Panna laughed. “I can’t do that.”

  Talon was not amused. “You will do that, and more.”

  Panna nodded,
feeling embarrassed. She had sworn. She just had not anticipated that the orders she would obey would be anything like this.

  “Tonight you will bathe, eat, and sleep. Tomorrow you will wear what I tell you to wear, learn what I teach you, and the next day we will travel together as I have described. You will behave as though you are accustomed to privilege. I will guide you. There is nothing for you to decide. Do you understand?”

  Panna felt her pulse quicken. She had made the bargain, but even had she not, this woman’s commanding presence was impossible to refuse. Tallanna was as frightening now as she had been last night in the howling gale amidst the slaps and curses. “Yes. Yes, ma’am.”

  There was a knock on the door. Talon said curtly, “Now we begin. From this moment, whenever eyes are upon us, you treat me as your servant.” Her voice and demeanor softened, like ice melting in the sun. “Now, if you would step behind the dressing screen, miss?” Panna couldn’t help but feel relief, even though she knew this was a feigned sweetness. She obeyed.

  Two women, both middle-aged and tired-looking, entered the room carrying four buckets of steaming water, one in each hand. The first was tall and distant, the second short and present. Each wore an apron and carried a thick white towel over a shoulder. They poured the buckets into the lukewarm water waiting in the tub.

  “Time for your bath, miss,” Talon said in the same sweet voice. “Are you ready?”

  “Not quite,” Panna said with a tremor. She had not begun to undress. She knew she looked and sounded scared. Serving this servant would be no easy thing to master.

  She began unbuttoning Mr. Molander’s damp shirt. Her knuckles were bruised, and still swollen. The women were not leaving. Panna did not know how this was supposed to work…were they to stay? To assist somehow?

  “You can dismiss the servants,” Panna said finally, a quaver in her voice.

  There was a pause. “M’lady wishes to bathe alone,” Talon told them without a trace of disappointment, as though accustomed to taking orders from her.

  “Very well,” the tall one said, taking a small handbell from her apron. “Ring if you need anything at all; more water, towels, whatever.” She sounded as tired as she looked.

  “Here are some soaps, both bar and cream,” said the shorter one, more sweetly. “This one’s especially good for hair.” She took the items from her apron and set them on the dresser.

  “Thank you,” Talon said as she ushered them out.

  She appeared around the dressing screen, an angry scowl on her face. “You were born to privilege. You should not dismiss servants who are sent to help you.”

  Panna fought back fear, resisted the urge to swallow. She held out her hands, darkened knuckles out. “I didn’t know how to explain this. I was afraid they might ask.”

  Talon’s look softened. She nodded. “There is no explanation for that, not in a young lady of your position. You did well. I will get you gloves tomorrow, and you will not be seen without them.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Panna’s eyes widened. “I mean…”

  Talon raised one eyebrow. “We’ll practice tomorrow. Bathe. You will find bedclothes in the armoire. I will have dinner sent up. Then sleep.”

  Only when Talon was gone and the door was locked could Panna begin to relax at all. The soaps were scented with lilac and were smoother than anything she had ever used before. The cream soap, just for hair, lathered wildly. The water in the tub had a smooth, almost oily texture, and smelled of honeysuckle.

  When Panna did finally relax, she enjoyed the most wonderful bath she had ever taken in her life.

  “Tie those sheets!” Hand called out when Scat was gone, as though nothing were amiss. And in fact, in his mind, nothing was. The incident was over and done. Scat Wilkins was a warrior, among the most skilled he’d ever known, and the blood frenzy in battle was his trademark. John Hand understood this warrior well enough to give him a wide berth. He would hold no grudge.

  “Starboard watch, clear the decks of the Achawuk, count ’em as they go over. Line up our own by the starboard rail. Port watch, swab the decks.”

  The crewmen were now feeling the effects of their exertion; the powerful energy of victory was fading, particularly as they began to consider the tasks ahead of them. They moved slowly across the lamp-lit decks. They had lost track of time, and with the darkness around them and the weariness within them, it seemed far deeper into the night than it was. They longed for their hammocks. But they knew that with their numbers diminished now, rest of any sort would be scarce until they could make port again. And sunrise would be a long time coming.

  Captain Hand watched them, their heaviness now and again evaporating as they squabbled over an Achawuk spear. An instrument to be avoided at all costs only moments before, each now was a souvenir highly prized. “There’s plenty more of those stuck in the hull, boys,” Captain Hand told them. “Let’s get to work.”

  John Hand picked Scat’s blade off the decking where he had dropped it. He wondered if the savages would be squabbling over it at this moment, had the battle gone otherwise. Probably not. They’d have burned the Chase, and that would be it. It had all changed because the stowaway was in the rigging instead of on deck fighting. A man hardly more than a boy, now mopping up blood like nothing had happened.

  “No, a circular motion, like this,” Delaney instructed. Packer tried to imitate the technique, but his mind and his heart were elsewhere.

  John Hand watched him, saw the sagging shoulders, the set jaw. He had defended the boy’s actions to Scat, and with good reason. But the boy was a swordsman. Why wasn’t he on deck swinging his blade? It was he, after all, who had led them all here. Then it occurred to Hand that the boy might actually feel such a weight of responsibility keenly. He had almost forgotten what conscience looked like.

  “Packer!” Captain Hand called to him from the quarterdeck. “Can you cipher, son?”

  Packer’s eyes looked up, but he seemed far away. “Aye, sir.”

  “Haas!” Hand called to the bosun, who was preparing to help Jonas Deal flip an unseeing Achawuk warrior over the port rail. They had picked a spot where grapeshot from the cannon had obliterated much of the woodwork, to make the job easier. “Let Packer write the roll of the dead.”

  Haas nodded another “Aye, sir,” and the two levered the corpse overboard with a grunt. Then Haas snatched up a warrior’s spear he had claimed for himself. He stopped, thinking hard. “Delaney!”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Go get the Captain’s log. And take him this as a gift.”

  “Me, sir?” Delaney looked about as quizzical as a grown man can look.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, sir.” Delaney’s questions turned to trepidation as he climbed the stairs. He had never been in the Captain’s quarters before, had never been asked to go in, had never thought he would be asked.

  Hand turned Scat’s bloody sword around, looking at it. Then he looked at Packer with an odd gleam in his eye. “Shook ’em off us!” he called out, leaning over the rail. “What made you think of it?”

  Packer stopped in mid-swab, straightened up. “Well, I wasn’t thinking of it. I was coming down from the rigging.” He recalled the moment clearly, seeing it again in his mind. “And the wind kicked up. I saw a few warriors go under. I saw what might be, and asked God if it could be.”

  “And so it was.”

  “Aye, sir. He—”

  “Two captains and seventy crewmen, all seasoned sailors, all charged with sailing this ship,” Hand interrupted with a smile. He wasn’t interested in that line of discussion. “But the only one doing any sailing was the stowaway.”

  “I didn’t think of it as disobeying orders.”

  Hand waved the thought away. “You didn’t disobey anything. And even if you did, we can all thank God for it.”

  “Yes, sir. The Captain doesn’t seem to feel that way, though.”

  “Forget that. You saved the Trophy Chase, my young friend. He’ll thin
k better of it when he’s had a rest. He won’t apologize, of course, but he’ll think better of it.” Hand laughed, swinging the sword through the air a couple of times. He was in good spirits, remarkably so considering the scythe of death that had just passed over, harvesting hundreds of souls around him.

  Packer wondered how anyone could grow accustomed to such mayhem.

  Captain Wilkins sat on the edge of his bunk in the darkness, with a mug of ale in his trembling hand, his head throbbing. His body was wrung and aching. His chest felt as tight as a drum. Nausea threatened to overtake him. He had the horrible sensation that he had breathed in too much blood, and it was still down there in his lungs.

  He was getting old, he knew, far too old for what he’d just done. He’d pushed himself too far. The image he’d had, the hallucination—that told him so if nothing else did. What if he had swung the sword at Captain Hand? And the boy, the boy had done something well, which had shortened the battle. Shook ’em off us. Scat coughed, and wiped blood from his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He needed rest.

  If Talon were here, she would know what to do. He cursed himself for trusting her as the ship’s surgeon as well as its security officer. She didn’t have assistants, either, except for Ox and Monkey, who occasionally held her patients down while she administered some painful curative. And they were gone too. He had no one left aboard to tend to the sick and wounded.

  Where was Pimm? He had run off to get hot water, water to bathe off this red goo, now caking into chunks all over his skin. What was taking him so long?

  Delaney knocked softly, entered humbly. “Beggin’ your pardon, Cap’n Wilkins, but Cap’n Hand wanted the log to write the roll of the dead, if that’s acceptable to you.”

  “On the table.”

  “Aye, sir.” Delaney hesitated. The Captain hadn’t washed up yet. His skin was still caked in blood, and his hair was matted with it. He looked terrible. “This is for you, sir, if you’d like it.” He offered the spear, holding the shaft just under the tip. “Compliments of Mr. Haas.”