The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  She put a hand to her forehead, grimacing in rage. She looked down at herself, her black leathers wet with her father’s blood. She cursed, then screamed aloud. This was not the victory, the death sting she had meant to deliver, the satisfying kill she had longed for.

  And Panna had escaped!

  CHAPTER 20

  The Palace

  Panna ran up the street, drawing stares, whispers, and attention. She was unaccustomed to being encased in such a great load of material. She felt like a huge porcelain doll. One block from the Sheriff’s office she tripped over the hem of her dress and rolled into the street. She sat up, now smeared with dirt and mud, her dress ripped at the hem and her sleeve ripped at the shoulder. She stood, or tried to stand, and fell again, the toe of her shoe caught in the fabric. A small crowd gathered around her, watching her as she angrily pulled off her delicate white shoes.

  “Can I be of some service?” an older gentleman asked.

  She looked up at him, fighting back tears of anger and frustration and fear. She shook her head.

  “Are you sure I can’t help?”

  “Do you have a wagon or a carriage?” she demanded.

  “No,” he responded.

  “Then get out of my way.” She stood, pulling at the front of her skirts to get them up off the ground.

  “I have a carriage,” a young man offered.

  “Where?” she demanded, turning on him.

  He was amazed by her demeanor, but pointed across the street at a small buggy, the seat of which might fit two people, if the two were small enough.

  Without a word, she ran across the street to it. He followed, running to keep up.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, mid-stride.

  “To the palace. Where is it?” She didn’t look back at him.

  “It’s that way,” he said, pointing the direction from which she had come.

  Panna climbed into the buggy. “I can’t go that way. How else can I get there?”

  He looked up at her, waiting for her to make room for him on the seat. She stared down, unmoving as a statue.

  “I can take you around another way,” he offered.

  She studied him just a moment. He was a pudgy thing, not much older than she was. No threat, but little help. But she needed the little help he could offer. She slid over, handing him the reins. “Let’s go. I’m in a hurry,” she said.

  “So I noticed,” he gulped.

  “The Captain wants to see you,” John Hand said to Packer Throme.

  “Me?” he asked, his hand on the helm. “The Captain?” he asked more intently, realizing what the statement implied about Scat Wilkins’ health.

  Hand smiled. “He’s not well still.” John Hand turned to the nearest sailor. “Son, take the helm. Steady as she goes.”

  The journey had been odd since they left the Achawuk waters. Bone-tired as they all were, and many wounded worse than Packer, they moved slowly from one duty to the next, but with an underlying buoyancy, a sense of, if not joy, then perhaps release. It was as if they had sailed through a nightmare and into a pleasant dream, and in the pleasant dream the nightmare was no longer real. Strangest of all, to Packer, was the behavior of the crew toward him.

  Ever since he had taken the helm to steer them home, when they had occasion to cross the main deck or come near the quarterdeck, one at a time the crewmen would stop to speak with him at the wheel; but not just to speak, he noticed, but to touch him on the arm, or to pat him on the back, or to hold his wrist and examine the bandaged hand that had fought back the Firefish. Not one of these encounters seemed odd in itself, but every last man seemed to have a need to touch him, to be sure he was alive and real. But it was almost more than that; it was as though they wanted to commune with him, to associate themselves with him, to side with him.

  Packer followed the Camadan’s captain to Scat’s quarters, through his saloon and into his private room.

  “It’s who?” the prince asked Stebbins, his valet.

  “She says her name is Panna Seline. She’s quite insistent that you’ll want to speak with her.”

  Prince Mather stroked his thin beard a moment. Wasn’t that the name of the girl Senslar had mentioned? “Does this have to do with the fishing village murders? With Packer Throme?”

  Stebbins thin eyelids blinked. “She says she has news of Master Zendoda, and she did mention a Packer someone.”

  The prince’s eyes lit up. “Yes, that’s her, then. Excellent—send her in.”

  “It’s a whole new world now.” Scat was lying on his bunk, leaning back on pillows. Small beads of sweat stood out on his pale brow. “A whole new world.” He had a cup in his hands, and he was slurring his words. He seemed a very sick, but very happy man.

  “Aye,” John Hand confirmed. “We’ll need to start over, build a fleet capable of processing these Firefish and of staving off the Achawuk at the same time.”

  “Bull we will!” Scat countered, unduly loud. “We just need better sailors. Better tactics. A few new wrinkles to our defenses. And fast, fast ships.”

  Hand and Packer exchanged glances. Scat had apparently been drinking rum for quite a while before he’d summoned Packer. Scat was always ready for aggressive action, spoiling for a fight, but never more so than when he was in his cups. Hand smiled, smacked Packer on the back. “Well, I know we’ll need more sailors like this one here,” he said.

  “Hmm, maybe,” Scat said, with less enthusiasm, eyeing Packer through dramatically narrowed eyes. “Are you a ghost, boy?”

  “Sir?”

  Scat paused only a moment, then addressed the issue as he saw it. “Mutter Cabe thinks you died and the witch replaced your soul with a demon. That true?”

  Packer laughed out loud. But he quickly realized that Scat was quite serious. “No, sir, whatever she did, she never did that. I’m me.”

  Scat eyed him carefully. “Can you prove it?”

  Packer wanted to laugh again, but he knew this was a dangerous moment. Scat waited. “Sir, I’m afraid I’m not sure how to prove or disprove something like that.”

  “Nobody can,” John Hand said, coming to Packer’s rescue. “But the boy says he prayed to God, and God gave the wind. And that’s what saved us from the Achawuk. How could a demon do that?”

  “That true?” Scat demanded.

  Which part? Packer wondered. “I did pray. And I can’t summon the wind. Only God can.”

  Scat nodded. It seemed to him a convincing argument. “They say you turned back a Firefish with your sword. How’d you do that?”

  “I’m not sure, actually. I wanted to stab it. But I think it just…missed me somehow. I only caught its lightning.” Packer held up his bandaged hand.

  “Let’s see it.”

  “The wound?”

  “Yes, yes—the wound.”

  Packer began unwinding the strip of cloth.

  “Who bandaged you?”

  “Mr. Haas.”

  “Hmm.”

  Packer couldn’t open his hand fully, but held it out cupped. The entrance wound, where the electrical charge had hit him, was a white rimmed circle the size of a gold coin on the heel of his palm; the tissue within it was raw, refusing to scab over. The rest of his palm was a mass of scabbing sores.

  “Look like a ghost to you?” Hand asked.

  Scat grimaced. “Mutter’s a muttonhead anyway.”

  Packer smiled. “He can fight.”

  “True enough. But can you?”

  “I can. Aye, sir.”

  “You chose to stay in the rigging and watch.”

  “I came down to the deck. Then the wind blew, and I went back up. I saw what might happen if—”

  “Yeah, I know, rolled ’em off our decks.”

  “Yes, sir. I came aboard to help any way I could…” He trailed off.

  Scat nodded, convinced. “Which goes to our bargain.”

  “Sir?”

  “Our bargain. As it turns out, we’re going to need more sailors. A lot mo
re. You think your fishing rabble is up to the challenge of taking Firefish?”

  Packer took a deep breath. In fact, he now hoped they were not up to it. He did not want them involved in all this. But he couldn’t speak for them, and in fact he felt quite certain they would be very willing, many or most of them, for a chance at some real money. “All we can do is ask.”

  “Ask?” Scat bellowed. Then he closed his eyes, put his head back. He was ill and in pain. It took a moment for the pain to pass, and then he took a deep drink, finishing what was in his cup. “You’ll deliver them.” He gestured for more rum, and Packer, who was sitting closest to the bottle, refilled his cup. “We have a deal, boy. I need that rabble of yours. We’ll lose a good many, I’m sure, and we’ll need a steady stream of replacements. A river of replacements.” He took another drink.

  Packer shook his head. Scat, he knew well, cared little for the life of his crewmen. Packer spoke more icily than he intended to. “If the pay is good, I’m sure you’ll have as many as you need.”

  Scat laughed a laugh that ended in a cough. “Oh, we’ll be lining your little mud streets with gold. Hangman’s Cliffs, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, sir.” Thoughts of Panna suddenly stabbed him deeply; her porch, her songs. But that village would never be the same once Scat turned his attention there. It was already changed, though how much, he shuddered to think.

  “Well, you’ll be a hero! Gold and glory, come to Hangman’s Cliffs! All on account of Packer Throme.”

  There was a time, and it seemed like ages ago now, when this moment would have been tremendously exciting to him. This was the exact end for which he’d come aboard; this was how he had defined success. But now, no amount of gold seemed worth it.

  Scat chuckled. “Aye, anyone in that town who survives the wrath of Talon is likely to get very rich. Very rich indeed.”

  Packer’s eyes widened. “Talon?”

  “Talon!” Scat said loudly, then winced, holding his chest again.

  Packer exchanged a quick glance with John Hand. He seemed disappointed in the direction of the conversation, but not surprised. “You sent her on a different mission, to the City of Mann,” Packer reminded Scat in a trembling voice. “Not back to Hangman’s Cliffs. You didn’t send her to Hangman’s Cliffs.”

  Scat stared at him quizzically, and then seemed to remember the lie he’d told. “Oh, that. No, course not. If she’s harmed a single soul, it’s her own doing. Not mine. You can believe that, boy.”

  Packer’s stomach churned. He hadn’t believed it before, though he had hoped. He certainly didn’t believe it now.

  Scat stared at him. “Don’t forget, boy, it was Talon who saved your life. Though she repented of it soon enough.” The Captain grew suddenly morose. “If you care to know, I wish I had never sent her off the ship. We’d have lost far fewer men had she been fighting. And she can heal as well as kill. By the devil, if she were tending to me, I’d be up and about by now!”

  “Or dead,” John Hand offered.

  Scat’s eyes swung over to his compatriot. Drunken thoughtfulness. “You have a point there.” He took another long gulp of rum. “Anyway, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about turning the world on its ear! On its ear! Talon can’t stop that. The Achawuk can’t stop us, though they tried. Drammune can’t stop us. King Reynard the Fat of Nearing Vast can’t stop us. Nobody can. We’ve learned the secrets of the Firefish, boys! And that’s thanks to the guts of Scat Wilkins and the brain of John Hand, and the…the spirit of Packer Throme!” He raised his cup and drank again.

  Packer couldn’t even pretend to smile. He closed his eyes, wishing he were anywhere else in the world. Then he opened them and looked hard into the face of Scat Wilkins, trying to understand what he saw.

  “What’s a matter, boy?” Scat asked, completely puzzled that anyone could be glum in such a circumstance.

  Packer couldn’t answer. What wasn’t the matter?

  “Ahh,” Scat said with a dismissive wave. “You lose people. I know; it’s hard at first. But you get used to it. I’m used to it. I’m used to everyone dying. Everyone but me!” He laughed.

  “What does it mean,” Packer asked coolly, “when the logbook says that Marcus Pile was ‘relieved of duty by Captain Wilkins’ shot’?”

  Scat sobered considerably. “What are you doing in the logbook?”

  “I wrote the roll of the dead, and I saw it there. Lund Lander wrote it. What does it mean, Sir?”

  Scat’s demeanor darkened. “What are you accusing me of, boy? Shooting my own sailor?”

  Packer nodded. “That’s what I thought it meant.”

  “Oh, grow up!” Scat sneered at him. “You know nothing about sailing. Or business. Or life. You come here like you have all the answers—‘Daddy told me this,’ ‘God did that.’ When are you going to do something yourself? You gotta take life by the horns, and you gotta wrestle it to the ground with your own two hands, by your own strength! Or what are you? Weak. Crippled. Don’t be a cripple, son. That’s my advice. You understand me?”

  “I do.”

  Scat wasn’t hard to understand. He was a pirate, blinded by gold lust, calloused by bloodlust, drunk on his deathbed.

  “You’re dismissed.”

  Packer stood. He felt drained of every emotion but sadness. He glanced at Captain Hand, who raised an eyebrow cryptically.

  As Packer left the Captain’s stateroom and walked through the saloon, his eyes fell on his own sword, still in its scabbard and leaning in a corner. Without looking back, he walked over to it, picked it up, and took it with him.

  “My dear, you do have a story to tell,” Prince Mather said, standing too close and oozing too much charm for Panna’s comfort. He eyed her torn dress, her exposed throat, the mud splotches, and the form beneath her blouse. “Come, sit down, and tell your prince what has been happening out in the hinterlands.”

  Panna had no time and no stomach for this. “Senslar Zendoda is dead,” she said evenly, without moving. “The murderer is a woman who goes by the name of Talon. I can describe her to you. She is loose in the streets of Mann as we speak.”

  Prince Mather’s affected airs showed only the slightest of fissures as he considered this woman and her news. “How do you know this?”

  “I saw her kill him, not ten minutes ago, in Bench Urmand’s office.”

  “Where was the Sheriff?”

  “I don’t know. Not there.”

  The prince nodded. “Go,” he said to his valet. “Find Bench, and make sure he checks her story. Put the palace guard on high alert.”

  “Yes, sire.” The old man disappeared. Panna felt a pang of distress about being left here alone with the prince.

  “Sit down,” Prince Mather said easily. He sat on a large sofa, patted the seat beside him. “You’ve had a rough day.” His condescension was mitigated somewhat by the stark nature of her claims, but only somewhat.

  “You’ll soon know I speak the truth.” Panna didn’t sit.

  “And this woman, who is she?”

  “She is a Drammune warrior, I think. But now I don’t believe anything she ever said.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She told me her name was Tallanna, but Mr. Zendoda called her Talon. She washed ashore, shipwrecked, and said she only wanted safe passage back to Drammun. She talked me into helping her.”

  The prince nodded. He knew of the woman named Talon, who sailed with Scat Wilkins, but he didn’t mention it. “And how did it happen that she killed Senslar Zendoda?”

  “That was her purpose all along. She deceived me so I would take her to him.”

  “She surprised him?”

  “Yes. And then they dueled.” The image of Senslar’s body spinning slowly to the ground, Talon’s sword piercing him, came back to her unsummoned, unwanted. Panna closed her eyes against it.

  “She fought him at swords?” The prince now looked slightly amused.

  She nodded.

  “Forgiv
e me, but I think you are either imagining things, or you are mistaken about one identity or the other. Senslar Zendoda is a master swordsman, the greatest in the world, and would not likely be bested by a mere woman.”

  Panna stiffened. “This was not a mere woman.”

  Mather nodded, now doubting her story utterly. “Apparently not.”

  Panna shook her head in disgust. “Believe what you want. But right now she is escaping the city.”

  “We shall see about that.” He chewed the inside of his cheek. “You do understand the seriousness of your charge, I hope. If a Drammune warrior infiltrated our shores to kill a Vast official, that is an act of war. Would you have me go to war on your word?”

  Panna blanched. She had not considered the possibility that she had witnessed, had been part of, the beginning of a war between the Kingdom of Nearing Vast and the Kingdom of Drammun.

  “I am your prince, Panna Seline, and this time I am ordering you to be seated.” He again motioned to a spot on the sofa beside him.

  Panna looked around, picked a small chair across the room, walked there, and sat.

  Mather eyed her warily, but only sighed. She was beautiful, and had spirit. Who knew they grew such a thing in fishing villages? He stood, moved gracefully across the room, and sat near her, across a small table. He leaned forward, put his hands together as if in supplication. “Now. Tell me your story. Tell me about Packer Throme.”

  She studied the richly woven carpet for a moment, then looked back up at him. “Forgive me for being impertinent, Highness.”

  He waved a hand, smiling. She was so lovely. “Think nothing of it, dear.”

  “But tell me when you are prepared to believe me. Then and only then will I tell you what I know.”

  The wind changed as night fell, blowing cold from the north. Cold rain spattered across darkening streets and buildings. Women gripped their parasols like shields against the wet pellets, men pulled collars up and dashed quickly ahead, holding doors open for their companions. In the square, a light burned in the sheriff’s office, but the door was closed. The poster of Packer Throme had been torn from the board.