The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  Gasps.

  “Therefore…” and here the herald paused for effect.

  “Uh-oh,” Pastor Will Seline said aloud. Others looked at the big man in gray, but he clamped his mouth shut and stroked his beard. Panna’s father had no great trust for government in general, and for this government in particular. He foresaw what was written next on the herald’s scroll.

  “Therefore, we have declared that a state of open war now exists between the Kingdom of Nearing Vast and the Kingdom of Drammun!”

  Cheers erupted, full-throated, and with passion. This was an emotional release years in the making, years that this village had suffered from dropping prices and thinning catches, blaming all the while the Drammune, the foreigners who plied their harvesting techniques near Vast waters and then sold their goods through black markets in Mann. Will Seline bit his lip.

  Packer and Panna stared at the herald in wide-eyed shock. They had the same thought, the same question, at the same time. Why, with this terrible news, did the king’s herald want to see Packer Throme?

  The herald continued. “We invite, entreat, and indeed command all able-bodied men within the Kingdom of Nearing Vast to do their duty to God and to country, to stand with us against this evil enemy, and to avenge the blood of our countrymen!” The herald lowered his parchment and boomed out the question: “Will you do so?”

  “Aye!” “Yes!” “We will!” the men who gathered there all cried with a single voice, arms raised in fists of defiance. More than one wife hoped silently that the military would pay more than the market.

  The herald returned to his script. “We hereby humbly beseech and verily command all good and able men, particularly all seamen of any description, and all who own and can handle with skill any weapons, whether swords, pistols, bows, or muskets, to gather in the City of Mann within one week of the reading of this proclamation. Here you shall present yourselves, your weapons, and your ammunition at places to be clearly marked and well known within the limits of the City of Mann. May God bless you, and may God bless this kingdom. Signed, King Reynard of Nearing Vast.”

  “May God bless the king!” someone called out.

  “God bless the king!” the crowd answered in unison.

  “May God bless Nearing Vast!” another voice shouted.

  “God bless Nearing Vast!” came the roaring echo.

  Then someone else yelled, “And may God curse the Drammune!”

  An echo started, but was overcome with laughter and cheering. Excitement, anger, and determination now energized them all.

  Panna and Packer turned toward one another, Panna searching and questioning, Packer distant and reflective. She could see the resolve growing within him. She could see him leaving her again. “Packer!”

  Packer just shook his head and looked up at the sky, streaked red and orange in the fading moments of sunset. But before he could say a word, they both heard the herald ask in a loud voice, “Now where’s this Packer Throme?”

  “I’m here!” Packer called out, looking again at Panna. Then to her he said, “I have to go.”

  She grew determined. “Then let’s go.”

  He smiled, nodded. Hand in hand they walked through the crowd, which quieted and parted as if the Thromes, too, were royalty. Dog stood aside, but eyed Packer warily as he passed. Then the citizens folded back quickly, in behind the two, following them, anxious to hear what further news the herald might have just for this couple.

  The big man in the cape looked mortal again, even weary, as he stepped unsteadily from his perch. “Dangerous contraption,” he muttered. He gathered himself on solid ground again, then looked up at the couple walking toward him. His eye lingered on Panna just slightly longer than Packer appreciated, but when he cut his gaze to Packer he was all business. “Packer Throme, I presume?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mrs. Throme.” He bowed.

  She curtsied. “Sir.”

  He looked Packer in the eye. “You’re wanted for the war effort. I’m to take you with me to Mann.”

  The men in the crowd started to cheer, but were elbowed to silence by their wives, who were watching Panna.

  “What?” Packer asked, reflexively.

  The herald was impassive. “Did I mumble?”

  Packer swallowed. “When?”

  “A better question. The answer is now. I’ll have one more ale while you pack. Bring your weapons and one change of clothes.”

  “But I have none,” he said, then quickly explained himself. “I mean, I have no weapons.” The townspeople, men and women, laughed aloud. Packer turned a deep shade of red.

  The herald smiled for the second time this trip. “Well, bring whatever you do have. You’re to come with me.”

  Packer felt the command like shackles around his heart. But he would obey; he had no choice.

  It was over, then. Eden was gone. The flaming sword of war had suddenly been set at the gate, and he and Panna could not re-enter, not for a moment. And at their feet lay some new and awful path that wound through the dark, cursed lands beyond the Garden.

  CHAPTER 2

  Commandeered

  “The king, may he live forever, is an idiot.”

  Packer’s mouth dropped open. The speaker was a man he’d never seen, but recognized instantly. He was five years older than Packer, dressed in the finest silks, lace at his throat and his shirt cuffs, gold braids winding down his light blue coat. His hair was oiled, pasted almost flat to his scalp, his thin beard trimmed tight except at his jawline, where it was shaped carefully in a futile effort to enhance a receding chin. This was the Crown Prince of Nearing Vast, Mather Sennett.

  “Listening to him is what put us in this predicament,” Mather continued. Panna had described the prince as being unctuous, too slick to be trusted, but he was anything but that now. He was speaking with unvarnished anger, so far oblivious to Packer’s presence. “We listen to him, and we’ll all be on our hands and knees in front of that monster, the Hezzan Shul Dramm. And all our women will be his wives, or whatever they call that particular godless arrangement they prefer.”

  Mather’s audience was made up of two men, both seated in his chambers as he paced the floor. One of them was Captain John Hand. The other was a person Packer had met briefly but significantly at the docks upon his last arrival in port: Bench Urmand, Sheriff of Mann.

  Mather suddenly caught sight of his visitor. The valet at Packer’s left, a bent old man who had been paying no attention whatever to the content of the prince’s conversation, took the opportunity of a pause in the conversation to announce in a wheezing monotone: “Your Highness, Packer Throme.” Bench and Hand stood, both glancing at the prince and looking concerned.

  “Thank you so much, Stebbins,” the prince said a shade glumly. “Once again, you have proven your inestimable worth to the Crown.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Stebbins grunted, missing the irony entirely. He bowed deeply, teetering as though he might fall over, then straightened up quickly and shuffled off.

  “Packer Throme!” the prince oozed, recovering instantly and walking up to him with an arm out wide in welcome. He threw off a laugh. “Thanks to dear Stebbins, you caught us at an awkward moment. But never mind, I’ll explain. I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for months now!”

  Packer went to one knee, but when the prince reached him he took him by both shoulders and raised him up. “Ah no, the honor is all mine. The favorite son of Nearing Vast, hero of the fishing villages, the toast of all the kingdom.” Elegant warmth, sharp intelligence, and genuine admiration poured forth from his voice, his face, his very being. “I’m ashamed we haven’t had a banquet in your honor, renamed a street or two, declared a national holiday! Certainly you are due all these things.”

  “I…I didn’t…Thank you, sir.”

  The prince smiled for a moment. “You’re not a talker, I can see that. Few words and great deeds! Well, make yourself comfortable. You know John Hand, of course.”

 
; Packer looked up, relieved to be absorbed into the familiar, smiling face of the captain, who had followed his prince to come greet Packer. John Hand’s eyes crackled, wrinkling at the corners; his beard and shock of hair both showed more salt than Packer remembered. He seemed to have aged somehow. Or perhaps he was just tired.

  “You’ve sent us some good men, Packer. Your recruiting has helped to staff up the Firefish venture.”

  Packer nodded, shook his hand. “Thank you, Captain.” He wasn’t sure that was the right response, as he had been paid well for his efforts.

  “Admiral!” the prince announced proudly. “John Hand is now Admiral of the Fleet of the Royal Navy.”

  Packer was impressed and surprised. “Congratulations, sir.”

  Hand waved it off. “We’ve got some new business, and I need your help. The war has changed things, I’m afraid.”

  Packer could hardly disagree. John Hand in charge of the fleet? Packer understood a little better why he had been summoned, but he was at a loss as to how or why a captain serving under a pirate could gain such a lofty title. “I will do whatever I can, sir.”

  “Of course you will,” the prince said, a little too easily for Packer’s comfort. “And Bench Urmand, lately Sheriff of Mann, is soon to be announced Minister of Defense.”

  Packer struggled to find an appropriate response as he shook the sheriff’s hand, also firm and equally painful. These seemed like field promotions. Emergency measures. “My congratulations, sir,” he finally said.

  “Thank you, Packer,” Bench said. His eyes burned with zeal for his new position. His head bobbed once. His square chin and packing-crate shoulders, the oak tree of a neck that connected the two, and his powerful arms combined to make Packer feel quite small. Bench Urmand was purpose poured into a granite mold. “We were talking about you down at the office just yesterday,” Bench continued. “We’re quite sure you made the transition from wanted outlaw to national hero more quickly than any man in the history of the kingdom.”

  “And that would include Rake Mann and his brothers,” the prince added pleasantly.

  Packer shook his head, amazed to be mentioned in the same breath with Rake Mann, for whom the capital city was named, and about whom every schoolchild learned in history classes, if not on a parent’s knee. “I’m not sure I deserve to be called either.”

  “And he’s humble as well!” Mather proclaimed. “Excellent, then—shall we sit? Stebbins!” He clapped his hands loudly.

  The old man had creaked back into the room by the time the foursome had found their seats. “Sir.”

  “Bring the usual assortment.”

  Stebbins knew his business. The four men barely had time to exchange pleasantries before several servants appeared behind rolling carts covered with steaming cakes, pitchers of coffee and cream, bottles of dark purple port, hunks of cheese in just about every shape and color, sliced ripe apples, and bunches of burgundy grapes. A small plate overwhelmed by several huge cakes was put into Packer’s left hand, and a huge mug of coffee into his right. Cream poured from a white pitcher into Packer’s cup almost before he could nod to the valet that he wanted it.

  Once the foursome were settled, seated in the same area where Panna had been invited to sit almost a year ago, the prince looked hard at Packer, who was sitting opposite him. Then he turned to John Hand, on the sofa to his right. “Do you want to begin?”

  Hand nodded, swallowed, wiped crumbs from his beard, and grew serious. He leaned forward toward Packer. The prince looked grim. Bench Urmand stirred his coffee slowly. “We’re going to take you into our confidence, son. But what we say here cannot be repeated to anyone, cannot be discussed with anyone but the three men here with you now.”

  Packer nodded.

  “Not even your wife,” the prince added with a raised eyebrow.

  Packer swallowed involuntarily as John Hand continued. “The Royal Navy is no more. It’s been obliterated.”

  Packer’s brow furrowed reflexively. He looked to the prince and Bench for confirmation. He found it in both faces. “When?”

  “Actually, last autumn.”

  Packer was dumbfounded. Six months ago? “How?”

  “Ah, but let me tell it,” the prince cut in, clearly feeling the need for more of a story. “In response to the assassination of our swordmaster, my father the king, may he live forever, sent our beloved but somewhat beleaguered Navy to the coast of Drammun. It took several months for the preparations, the fleet not being quite the nimble fighting force of our storied past. Years of peace and neglect had allowed it to settle into something of a state of, shall we say charitably, decline.”

  “Very charitably,” Hand added with a grimace.

  “But eventually,” Mather continued, “sixty ships were sent to answer a single murder. A show of strength, my dear father called it. Some of us pleaded with him to send but an envoy. Two or three ships at most, on a diplomatic mission. But my father has ever harbored deep resentment for the Drammune. The fishing trade has been a thorn in our side for years. Oh, but you know about that, don’t you?”

  Packer nodded.

  “There have been other provocations—irritants, mostly—but continuous, and in the face of several formal requests to desist, the most recent one rather terse. Some would even say, threatening. So, the king considered the killing of Senslar Zendoda an act of war, which of course it was, and therefore he determined to answer it as such.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Packer blurted.

  “Excuse me?” The prince waited.

  Packer now spoke more carefully. “I’m sorry. But Scatter Wilkins sent Talon to get revenge on those who had helped me stow away. When she found out Senslar Zendoda was my swordmaster, she went…a little crazy. But the Drammune didn’t send her.”

  “Perhaps not. But it doesn’t matter,” the prince went on, waving a hand in the air. “The thing’s done. Our king made his decision with all the knowledge he had available.” Now the prince scooted to the edge of his seat and put the tips of his fingers together. “What does matter, Packer, is how we deal with the current situation. And the situation is dire. We are at war with a great naval power. And we have no Navy.”

  “But six months ago…” Packer didn’t quite know how to ask the prince what his government had been doing since the sinking of the Fleet.

  He didn’t need to. “We had no news for months. Our ships did not return. Then we sent spies, who also did not return. And then winter came and we had no choice but to wait. Finally this spring, we were able to confirm our worst fears.” The prince shrugged. “And so here we are. The Navy had left back here in Mann, what, four ships?” the prince looked at the admiral.

  John Hand shrugged. “Six warships, including a couple in dry dock that might be ready in time, if the war lasts. We’re building more, of course, but it takes a year per ship, at the fastest pace we could hope to manage it.”

  Packer’s coffee and cakes would go uneaten. He set them both on the low table in front of him. His stomach had settled somewhere down near his knees. He had thought, for months now, that the storm he had unleashed had passed, that it had left in its wake fertile, watered soil. He had thought the Firefish industry would take off, and prosperity would return to the villages. It certainly seemed to be happening. But now he knew that the consequences of his choices had never stopped rolling. The boulder had been bouncing down the mountainside unseen, picking up force, just so that it could let loose this full landslide of destruction. Rather than ending, the path of devastation was widening.

  “Bad news, I’m afraid.” The prince’s smile was a sad one.

  Packer shook his head. “The entire Navy. But the proclamation said a ‘peaceful envoy’—”

  “Proclamations are for the people, Packer. The one you heard was meant to raise a new Navy, to refit the Army, to embolden the citizenry. We do not want to send them sprinting toward the Mountains in fear for their lives.”

  Packer shook his head.

  The pr
ince just smiled. “Hard for you to imagine, I suppose, that a king’s proclamation should be anything but sterling truth, shining down from heaven to mere mortals. But imagine this,” and the prince’s voice grew dark. “Imagine your reaction, the reaction of your townspeople, had these truths been proclaimed for all to hear: ‘The king has erred in his vain old age! The Navy is sunk! Mann is defenseless, and the Drammune are coming!’ What sort of terror would that have engendered? The truth is simply not as helpful as we would like it to be at the moment, Packer. We have a duty to our people that supersedes telling the brutal truth.”

  This did not lessen Packer’s sense of dread. “Are they?” he asked, somewhat more fiercely than he intended.

  “Are who what?” the prince countered.

  “Yes, they are,” Bench answered flatly. “The Drammune are coming.”

  “Oh, almost certainly,” the prince chirped. “We believe their Armada has left the capital of Hezarow Kyne already.”

  Packer stood and turned his back. He closed his eyes. There would be war on Vast soil; there was nothing to stop a full invasion. And this was a message to be delivered over cakes and coffee? Suddenly, his hand ached, pounded. He looked at it.

  He turned back to face the three men who would run the war. “Whatever you want me to do, with God’s help, I will do it.”

  The prince nodded. That was the sort of talk he hoped to hear from the young man proclaimed as a hero throughout Nearing Vast.

  Captain Scatter Wilkins allowed the king’s maidservant to light his cigar. He then took the small, ornate lamp from the young woman’s hands and examined it, ignoring her as she walked away. It was an ingenious, self-contained thing small enough to carry in one’s pocket. Under a close-fitting cover was a flint wheel that could be turned with the thumb. “Works like a Firefish lure,” Scat said aloud. But it wasn’t brass. It was made of gold. He set it down on the table beside his chair, eyed it a moment, then leaned back. Finally, he looked at the king of Nearing Vast critically. “What do you know about the prince’s plans?”