Mouths dropped open and eyes scanned the seas.
“It has been with us for hours, and it has not attacked. I take this as a good omen. If we can put blood into the water, then the Drammune will taste not only the wrath of Nearing Vast, but the wrath of God, through His most fearsome creature.”
The looks on the faces before him blended astonishment with the passion of possibility. To fight with the Firefish, and not against it? It was a heady thought.
“All cannons are to be charged and primed, all fighting men are ordered to the starboard rail. We have defeated the Firefish. We have defeated the Achawuk. And now we make our mark for all time, for all history. Now, gentlemen, this day, we defeat the Drammune!” A guttural roar arose.
John Hand was satisfied.
Just after dawn in the great city of Hezarow Kyne, the Court of Twelve gathered in the Great Meeting Hall of the Hezzan once again, under the high, sharp vault of the ceiling. Again, the Hezzan’s seat was empty.
The atmosphere in the room this morning was grim. Each of the robed and regal men knew why he had been summoned. They would together deny it, of course, under Sool Kron’s leadership. They were prepared to turn their emperor’s gaze on the many enemies the woman Talon had made among the Vast. That she had been shot with Vast arrows was proof sufficient that she was a casualty of war, tit for tat, and certainly the Hezzan would see this. And more certainly yet, no matter what he might suspect, he would also know that with his nation at war, upheaval in the governing council was the last thing a leader needed. They were confident.
They were surprised, however, when General Commander Vasla Vor entered the room, bowed deeply, and then silently took his place in the visitor’s dock to the left and behind the Hezzan’s empty chair. Looks were exchanged. Why was he here? Was the Hezzan planning to arrest them all? Or was he just protecting himself? It was the first sign that things would not go as they had planned.
The second sign was less subtle. Talon entered the room.
She wore her black leather robe, hood up, and her face was inscrutable. She walked to the Hezzan’s chair and stood directly behind it.
She surveyed the faces of the Twelve silently as their mouths dropped open, their eyes darted back and forth, breaths were taken in, faces blanched and blushed, pulses quickened. But within seconds, the Twelve had composed themselves.
“What is the meaning of this?” asked the man immediately to her right, Sool Kron. He managed to lace this first question with suspicion. But his second question betrayed a deeper fear: “Where is the Hezzan?”
“He is dead,” she announced, looking from face to face. “He was assassinated last night while he was in my chambers. The result of a conspiracy among his own advisors.”
At this the composure of the Twelve disintegrated. Only Kron kept his head. Others put their heads in their hands, or leaned back in disbelief, or exchanged accusing glances.
“It is a lie,” Kron proclaimed. “You lie. What have you done with him?”
Talon turned to Vasla Vor. The General Commander stood, then walked to the heavy curtain behind him, which closed off the larger visitor’s gallery. Without a word he pulled the curtain back, revealing the third sign that the day would not go as planned for the Twelve. The body of the Hezzan lay on a table, face and hands pale, three arrows jutting from his chest.
“Here is the dark fruit of your conspiracy!” Talon hissed.
Oaths and curses erupted. Wails of anguish, cries of pain. Angry glances were exchanged, and low, urgent conversations filled the space. One man put his head on the table, his shoulders slumping as he sobbed.
“Silence!” Talon demanded. Her features were as intense, hawk-like, and predatory as any man alive or dead had ever seen them. “You are all implicated. You will all pay.” She looked Kron in the eye. Her features softened. “Except for you, of course, Minister Kron. I thank you for your services. You are free to go.”
Gasps. Then from Sool Kron, in a voice as thin as wisps of smoke from dying embers: “What are you saying?”
“I thank you for revealing the conspiracy to me. You will be rewarded with the power you seek. You are free to leave.”
“No!” Kron shouted, eyes blank as he looked around him at the hard faces, the deadly outrage around the table. “She lies! Say nothing.”
But it was too late. “It was his idea!” said Daon Dendoda, standing, pointing. “Sool Kron brought us to agreement in this! How dare you let him go!”
“Silence, you fool!” Kron seethed. But he knew it was already over, and the Warrior Wife had won.
“No, I will not be silenced!” The Minister of the People turned on Kron. “I will not allow myself to be accused of killing our emperor!” He looked at Vor. “It was this concubine, this wretched female we targeted. And it was Kron who led us!”
“But you all agreed to the plot.” Talon looked around the table. Now no one said a word. She looked at the general commander. He clapped his hands twice.
The Court’s silence was now one of dread. In that silence, making it seem greater and not less, they could hear the footsteps of hobnailed sandals coming down the corridors toward them, the drumbeat of their demise. They looked aghast at Vasla Vor, then at the walls that reverberated with this unseen army, and finally their eyes turned toward the doorway.
“Vasla, you wouldn’t dare,” Sool Kron croaked. “You have not the power.”
But he did have the power, and in seconds that power, the final evidence that the day would fall short of the hopes of the Twelve, flooded the room, swords and halberds and crossbows at the ready.
Kron pled on. “Vasla Vor, you side with this woman? You trade your nation for this witch? Hear our case first!”
Vor shook his head. “I have seen your deeds. You have all confessed them here together.”
And so the entire Court was marched through the palace, then across the palace yard, and into the prison where they would remain prisoners, Talon’s prisoners, until she had opportunity to question them.
This was a task she would undertake herself.
The men scurried about the ship, Andrew Haas ordering sailors back into the rigging while Stil Meander passed along orders to reef these sails, unfurl those. The Chase was heeled hard to starboard, and the admiral hoped to maintain full speed as she passed the Thanu.
“Packer,” John Hand said, turning to the young swordsman. “I want you at the prow. Whatever prayers you have, pray them. But I want your sword in your hand. Do you understand? You are to fight on the decks this time. The wind is steady. There will be no breath of God today.”
Packer started to protest; where else would he be? “I…I…”
John Hand looked at him sternly, then winked. “The men need to see you and your sword, leading this charge.”
“Aye, aye,” Packer concluded with a grim smile.
As he walked up to the prow of the ship, Packer felt a calm assurance he could not explain, then nor afterward. Somehow the insanity of what they were doing, what they were about to do, did not occur to him. He had no idea how such a battle might end, but when he began to pray he felt it was indeed possible that these events could become the stuff of history. Is that what God intended? Packer didn’t know. He could only play his part, as ordered, and let God decide. And he had no doubt that God would decide the outcome.
Packer had orders. This gave him a firm and final sense of his duty. “The prince,” Packer remembered from Scripture, as John Hand had quoted it, “bears not the sword in vain.” In fact, the orders given to John Hand by Prince Mather were, verbatim, “At whatever price, whatever cost, delay the Drammune Armada from its arrival on Vast shores. Buy us precious days to prepare our defenses, and to fit our ships.”
Packer wrapped his hand around his sword hilt. Pain shot through it. But the fit was perfect. He was thankful he was not his own. He was bought with a price, in blood. His soul, his body, his very life were not his to command, but God’s. There was peace in that, even in wartime
. Perhaps especially in wartime.
Packer stood at the prow as the Trophy Chase approached the Rahk Thanu. His sword was unsheathed. He could see the men aboard the enemy ship quite clearly now, warriors in helmets, moving along the rail, along its afterdeck. They, too, Packer knew, prepared their hearts in their own ways, readying for battle.
To John Hand’s disappointment, the Thanu began a quick turn to port, to gain the weather gauge. Both ships heeled the same direction in the same wind, so whichever was upwind would present the least amount of hull to be fired upon, and could fire upon more of the enemy’s exposed hull. A hole blasted in a hull might not sink the ship that owned the weather gauge, even if it penetrated at the waterline. When the ship righted, that hole would rise. But if a ship without the weather gauge received a hole in the hull at the waterline, she was sunk even as she sailed on. As soon as the wind abated or the ship turned, that hole would plunge below the surface.
John Hand reluctantly accepted the Thanu’s invitation. He steered the Chase easily to starboard as he ordered his armed men to the port rail. He had armor down to waterline on either side of his hull. But as a precaution, he ordered the sails reefed two points. He would level the ship some, lose a little speed, but expose less hull.
Now Packer saw hatches open along the stern of the enemy ship, and gun muzzles emerge. His heart raced. He felt the sweat under his arms, on his palms. More hatches opened along the stern, and now cannon protruded, three of them, all small caliber. Packer’s pulse pounded in his neck. One fired, and a ball splashed into the water twenty yards ahead. In minutes, perhaps seconds, they would have the Chase’s measure.
The floorboards beneath Packer began to level. He felt the scudding of the waves as the Chase cut through them, as seawater sprayed in rhythmic cascades on either side of the prow. Now he heard low voices, words exchanged, and looked behind him. The rails to his left were lined with men, his shipmates, muskets in hand, aiming forward and past him. They pointed to one another and picked out targets, determining who should aim where so as not to waste ammunition. They knew their business.
Then Packer saw, halfway down the foredeck rail, Delaney and Marcus Pile with their heads bowed. Marcus’s lips were moving in quiet prayer. A Marcus Pile prayer as they entered battle! Packer wished he were there to hear it, standing shoulder to shoulder, praying along with them. But he knew he was included in it, embraced by it. He closed his eyes and almost immediately felt a hard thunk, thunk, thunk through his feet. At the same time he felt a charge, a wave of excitement that was almost electric. His heart now beat like an entire drum line. Here he was, in the line of fire. On point. As exposed as any man, in as much danger as he’d ever been in his life. His mind spun, unable to settle on any one thought. He might live, and he might die, but God would play out this battle however He wished, just as He had against the Achawuk.
If I die, it is God’s will, he thought. It did not calm him. He looked up. “Your will,” he said aloud. A sharp lump grew in his throat.
And then he thought of Panna. She could easily become a widow this day. He hoped it would not be the case, hoped she would not feel that bottomless, endless ache. For her sake, he asked to live. “Your will,” he said again. But he knew that only time would give him the answer, and not much time at that.
And then it occurred to him that this battle, this moment, might determine more than Panna’s fate, or his own, or his shipmates’, or his enemies’. The Vast Fleet was sunk, and the Drammune Armada carried troops ready and able to destroy and occupy all of Nearing Vast. If the Chase went down now, if nothing could be done to slow the Drammune, then a brutal victory over his homeland seemed inevitable. But if the Chase could destroy their flagship, if somehow Admiral Hand could take out their commander, then Nearing Vast had one more chance. A slim chance, perhaps. But a chance.
These thoughts, flying through his mind, emboldened him even further. Such great changes in history were surely, surely in the hands of God. It might be hard to believe that God was intimately involved in a routine breaking of a wagon wheel on the road to the docks, or the daily price of fish. But it was not difficult to believe that if God wanted an entire nation to survive, He would move to ensure it. This moment, this hour, might well be one of those points in history that men hang dates on, and schoolchildren recite.
But whom would God favor? The Drammune were not believers, did not acknowledge any God. But Nearing Vast was a dissolute nation in many ways. The God of the Bible had allowed His people to be carted off into slavery again and again, in order to teach them obedience, to sever them from their own sins. Would He do such a thing to Nearing Vast? Why would He not? He would, if that were His will and His purpose. Did the sins of Nearing Vast require it? Packer did not know.
His hand burned him again. He was not his own.
“For Nearing Vast!” someone yelled.
He heard cheers behind him, “For Nearing Vast!”
Flashes of fire erupted on the Rahk Thanu ahead, smoke plumes following. Packer heard musket balls whistle through the air, and heard them strike wood around him. Only then did he hear the muffled report of the enemy muskets. And suddenly in answer, the black-powder muskets behind him boomed again and again, a staccato drumbeat of absolute certainty. Packer fought an urge to duck for cover.
The Trophy Chase closed in on her enemy. The Thanu’s cannon barked, their shot striking water, or bouncing off the Chase’s armor. Packer saw Drammune reloading. He kept his sword in the air, felt the wind in his hair. And he felt peace.
Later, he would describe it as feeling the power of God within him. It was as though everything up to that moment was the approach, the drawing near, and finally at that moment it arrived. Elation, all out of place, seemingly out of nowhere, overcame him. He did not know why, but he raised both hands, his sword still in his right as he looked up to the heavens. Your will! His heart sang out.
It was at that moment the most extraordinary event occurred. In years ahead, as the tale of the Trophy Chase’s attack on the Rahk Thanu was told and retold, as the details of this day were counted and recounted until they became distorted and embellished beyond all recognition, this one, singular event would stand out, difficult to exaggerate. It was the root and the foundation of the tale, the sign of victory that assured victory.
The Firefish surfaced.
The beast had circled beneath the great herd all night, watching. Stalking. Hungry. Frustrated. Once the stench of the dead storm creature had cleared, the Firefish realized it had lost track of the victor, the one that had fatted itself on the meat of the little straggler. These creatures all looked alike. And even if it had known with certainty, it would have waited. It would take something extraordinary to drive a Firefish to attack such a pack in its strength. Prey here was plentiful. There would be another straggler. The beast would feed.
Finally it heard and felt the approach of another lone creature. This one moved quickly, speedily, hungrily. The beast quickly recognized it as the deep fin. Here was the victor from the first stormy battle! This creature was still flying, still running at breathtaking speed. More than that, it exuded now a sense of power and determination that clicked in the beast’s brain and said predator, not prey. Hunter, protector, not straggler. Not victim.
Curiosity, then discomfort formed within the beast’s dark heart. The deep fin approached the pack with great speed, greater than any creature but a Firefish, and then only when on the attack. Why? Was the one hunting the many? Was the straggler attacking the pack? Such a thing could not be. Even a Firefish would not do such a thing.
But it was.
Its movement was fast and sleek as any Firefish, and it did not waver, did not change course. It ran, full speed, attacking. As the beast swam below, the great light above the waters dawned. And then the beast saw something more interesting still.
A flap of skin.
The deep fin’s scales fluttered below the water. Swimming closer, the beast smelled something very unusual. And ve
ry familiar. The sunlight as it struck this skin showed something, something that twinged the predator’s guts, made it feel uncertain. The beast watched, swimming alongside at high speed, closer and closer to the creature, wanting to understand—drawn, repulsed, and then drawn again.
It stayed near for quite some time, venturing to the very surface twice. There, it heard the creature growl: not quite a roar, but an exclamation, a voice that sounded like many voices. And the spirit of it! The sense of power in that growl, the energy of this animal was utterly unlike anything the Firefish had known. It was fearsome. And it was most certainly on the attack.
But what was it about that skin?
Finally, with a burst of speed and courage, it edged close to the creature, and nudged it. Immediately, an electrical shiver ran through it. Yes. Now it knew. This creature was…somehow…Firefish. Its scales were its own scales.
Confused, startled, hopeful, and drawn more powerfully yet, it swam with increasing excitement, an excitement that was no longer hunger, but something new to the beast, something primal and energizing, emboldening. The beast felt kinship. It felt jealousy. It wanted to be close to this creature.
The deep fin was a great creature. It brought thunder and lightning to the surface of the sea. It destroyed; it ate the meat and discarded the shells. It feared nothing, not even the Firefish. It was powerful. It was Firefish, and yet it was not Firefish. It was stronger, bolder. And with that thought, a dark, ages-hidden door opened within the beast.
It wanted to know this creature. It wanted to be known by this creature.
The Firefish glowed now with the yellow of attack. And yet it would not attack. Its skin turned to flame, and it nudged the deep fin. It nudged it again, and again, and again. Thunk, thunk, thunk… And then the thunder on the water began. Lightning and thunder, just above the surface. The Firefish wanted to turn, to dive, but the deep fin was not afraid, did not dive, did not run, but kept attacking. And so the Firefish stayed.
The Trophy Chase Saga Page 57
