The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  “Our own Worthiness put us in power.”

  The elder fell to the ground, his own knife now clattering to the floor. The peevish one picked it up and, as the elder struggled for his final breaths, drove the blade point through his ribs.

  He ceased struggling. A pall of death lay over the room.

  The three remaining Quarto members returned to their seats. “The Kar Ixthano is granted,” said the peevish one to Talon, with all the emotion of a government official issuing a license to fish. “The Quarto has granted you the dominion of the Hezzan.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Prayer

  John Hand was prepared to fight again, but he did not want to fight again. The difference this time was that he now had the Drammune Supreme Commander in his keep, and a box full of Drammune battle plans in his cabin. He also had his best fighter, his leader, his hero, pining away in his cabin in a fit of religious mercy, unwilling to fight, or lead, or otherwise be the least bit helpful. Getting back to Mann was now a priority that exceeded any other.

  Hand kept the Drammune ships in sight on the western horizon, watched them spread across the sea, and guessed their strategy. The ships were sailing away from him, toward Mann, apparently ignoring him. But they were not sailing in alignment. They alternated front and back, so anywhere the Chase tried to make a run between two of them, she would be headed straight for a third. When she turned to avoid the third, one of the first two would be there to gain her from behind.

  Their commander had seen the Chase at full gallop, knew her top speed, and had done an admirable job spacing his ships. It was possible to run them, John Hand figured, but a slight miscalculation and those grappling lines would be pulling on his sails once again. But if he chose not to go through them, he would need to sail behind the Drammune line for a good long while, perhaps days, spread out as they now were. It was an elegant trap, well-laid.

  John Hand needed to deliver his winnings and associated warnings to the prince, and he needed to do it days ahead of the Drammune if the city’s defenses were to be adjusted to counter the enemy’s plan of attack. It seemed unlikely he could succeed; the whole Armada was but days from Mann. So it was a race to Mann, and a fight only if the Trophy Chase tried to win the race. The new Drammune commander, whoever he was, had the Vast admiral’s respect. The set of this battle was against him.

  Hand needed a new plan, a surprise, some way to take advantage of his assets. And what were his assets? Speed, obviously. Mystery, certainly, thanks to the unexpected appearance of the Firefish, apparently on the side of the Vast. Fear, maybe. The Drammune sailors, if not their masters, would certainly feel a healthy dose of terror at the prospect of facing down the Trophy Chase and the Firefish. These were not insignificant assets, with or without Packer Throme.

  After a few more minutes’ consideration, and then several notations in the ship’s log, the admiral called his first mate to his cabin. “I need your crews to work in tight rhythm tonight,” he told Andrew Haas. “If we can make this work, we may scoot through without a fight. But it all depends on the men knowing their orders, and following them precisely on command. Not a moment too soon, or too late.”

  “Aye, sir,” Haas answered, a bit hurt. “They always have obeyed, haven’t they?”

  “I promise you, they have never been asked to follow orders quite like these.”

  Packer worked the Drammune headgear through his fingers absently, deep in thought, as though some of its protective power might rub off onto his hands. He had already scraped the crimson paint from it as best he could, using the edge of his sword. Now its gray metallic sheen nearly matched the hulls of the Trophy Chase.

  It was near dawn. It had to be, Packer thought, though he hadn’t heard the ship’s bell in hours. He had to speak to the admiral. He had been pondering this all night, and he couldn’t ponder it any more. Packer remembered with great clarity the elation he’d felt at the prow of the Chase, riding a moment into history. Whom would God favor? That was the question then, and was still the question now. But behind it was now another question, the one that kept him awake. What kind of nation did he serve? Who was John Hand? He had seen this admiral serve the greed of Scat Wilkins. He knew the man to be essentially amoral, committed to no particular ethics, no stated principles, just to riding out the tides of history. He would use Scripture, use Packer, use God, as he himself had admitted, to work his ends. Had Hand sold armor to the enemies of the Crown? Scat certainly had. And if Scat had, then John Hand had. If John Hand had, what of Prince Mather?

  Packer stood. He clenched the Firefish cap in his right fist. He looked at his sword, where it lay sheathed on the floor at the end of his hammock. It would stay there. He looked at his own book of Scriptures, where it now lay on top of his footlocker, open to the passage from Corinthians. Ye are bought with a price. It would stay there as well. Then he walked unarmed out his door, in search of the admiral, and in violation of his direct orders.

  The ship was deathly still, and dark. For a moment, Packer was disoriented—this was the Camadan, as he roamed the darkness in search of Talon. But no, it was the Chase, heeled to starboard, her rails down, sails full, at hull speed. Packer stood in the shadows outside the companionway that led to the main deck. He could see men in the rigging, but they were motionless. He could hear the prow slice the waves, hear the slap of water against the hull. Masts creaked, but not a single canvas popped or flapped. All held full. It was as though this moment were hung in time, not frozen, but caught while in motion, as though they would sail like this endlessly under a pale sliver of a silver moon.

  Packer felt that the Chase was fully poised at the edge of something immense. He climbed the stairway to the quarterdeck. John Hand stood still, his telescope to his eye, straining to see ahead into the darkness. Beside him was Andrew Haas, grim as death, staring forward. The helmsman matched them both, in silence and in focused determination. Not one of them turned, not one acknowledged his presence in any way.

  Packer looked out ahead. A Drammune warship sailed less than two points off the port bow, less than a thousand yards away. Another sailed the same distance off the starboard bow. Both were on the same heading as the Chase. A third ship could be seen dead ahead, but farther off, maybe fifteen hundred yards away.

  “They’re starting to squeeze us,” Admiral Hand said. “We are known to them now. Are your men ready?”

  “Aye, sir. Ready as they’ll ever be.”

  Packer waited, but nothing happened. “Sir,” he said aloud.

  John Hand jerked his head toward Packer as though he were an apparition. He stared hard a moment, then his face relaxed. He looked through his telescope again. “Feeling better, are we?”

  “Aye, sir. I need to speak to you.”

  “As you may have noticed, now is not a particularly good time for a conversation. If you’re well, your place is at the prow. If you are not well, you may return to your cabin.”

  “Admiral, I—”

  “Those are my orders!” he barked, without bothering to look again at his confused and wayward ensign.

  Andrew Haas looked at Packer quizzically, but then looked quickly away, back toward the enemy ships.

  Packer watched the Drammune ships ahead for just a moment. Then he pulled the hat onto his head and descended the stairway to the main deck, toward the foredeck and the forecastle.

  He was still on the main deck when the admiral gave his orders. “Now, Mr. Haas.”

  “Light ’em, ye blaggards!” Andrew Haas boomed.

  Packer heard flint wheels scrape, matches scratch, and he saw sparks fall from above. Flames followed, and yellow light glowed. Packer craned his neck. Every lamp the Trophy Chase carried, it seemed, was up in the rigging, held by a sailor. Within seconds all were lit, and every bit of arched canvas glowed yellow, each sail illumined like the sunrise had caught it with a single ray.

  “Feeding time!” Haas called.

  On the main deck a small team of sailors started throwing Dram
mune corpses, still piled by the shattered rails, overboard.

  “NochTAH VastCHA!” John Hand started. “Knock-TAH Vast-CHAH!” the crew began to chant, the chorus growing steadily.

  Lightning flashed in the sea just behind the Chase. Packer ran to the port rail, saw the brilliant yellow streak of the Firefish below the surface.

  “Not so fast!” Hand called to the men rolling the Drammune overboard. “One at a time boys! Make ’em last!”

  Then the admiral looked at Packer, pointed at him, and swept a finger toward the forecastle. “To the prow, son,” he said evenly.

  Packer couldn’t hear the words, but read the meaning easily. He obeyed, unthinking, wanting to see from that particular vantage point what reaction the Drammune might have to this strange show. As he walked, as sailors saw him, they started whooping. Amid the chants could be heard, “Packer!” and “Look, Packer Throme!” And the chanting grew more intense. It took on an air of eerie joy.

  Packer climbed up on the base of the bowsprit, holding the guy wires for support. The Drammune ships were not five hundred yards away; the Chase was gaining on them like they were standing still. They were turning now, not toward the Chase, to pinch her and cut off her path forward, but away from her, to give her room. To let her pass.

  “They’re runnin’ scared now!” shouted a sailor in the rigging.

  Packer turned backward, craning his neck to look at the spectacle that was now the Chase. It was an impressive, almost fearful sight to him—the sails on fire above, the sea on fire below. If it scared him, what must it be doing to the Drammune?

  Huk Tuth was no Abbaka Mux. Where Mux was sturdy, strong, a passionate leader in his prime, Tuth was bent, gnarled, and old. No one in his command remembered the last time Commander Tuth had shown the least trace of an emotion, any emotion. But he betrayed one now.

  There, coming up behind the Kaza Fahn, was the Trophy Chase, illumined like the royal palace during the Feast of Fire. Her sails glowed in both moonlight and lamplight, billow upon billow. The great cat was heeled at an angle that would capsize any ship in his Armada, but she seemed in no danger at all. Rather, she was flying like a ball from the muzzle of a gun.

  And that was not nearly all. Below the surface of the water, lightning flashed. A yellow flash, then another, and then darkness. And then, rising to the surface, a glowing yellow streak. That beast again, the Devilfish, traveling alongside the Chase, still traveling with that ship, snaking through the water like an eel! Like an escort. Like some protecting demon.

  Huk Tuth felt the cold breath of terror. His knees wobbled; his mouth dropped open. What could create such an apparition? Surely it was a dream. Surely it was not real. But then, as the glowing ship approached at impossible speed, he heard the chant. He recognized the cadence, the nasal attempt at the Drammune tongue, well before he could distinguish the words. “NochTA VastCHA!”

  Tuth grimaced, as though in pain. “Enahai!” he called out. His men’s heads turned toward him as though they were guns and he was their target. Retreat? But how could they retreat? To where would they run? They were making the best time they could already.

  Tuth realized his mistake. “Enka! Enkato charnak!” Load! Load and prepare to fire!

  But the helmsman had heard the first command and had already obeyed. The ship began turning away from the Chase. The captain of the Karda Zolt, opposite them, saw the maneuver and followed suit, giving the Vast ship way.

  The warriors of the Kaza Fahn moved quickly into position, but every hand shook and every nerve danced.

  Who were these people?

  What was this ship?

  And what was that Devilfish with them?

  The men aboard the Trophy Chase were drunk on their own emotion. None of them had slept more than an hour or two, but none of them felt anything but the ecstasy of the moment. All any man needed to do was to look around to gain a full measure of courage and inspiration.

  John Hand was in command on the quarterdeck. Just looking at him, no man could doubt he was the most courageous, confident, brilliant commander ever to sail a ship to war. Packer Throme was at the prow. He held no sword, no weapon at all. He simply watched, calm as a freshwater spring, as the nightmare beast rose from the sea. He removed his hat, held it up to the beast in salute. He was totally vulnerable. His shirt billowed in the breeze, his hair wild behind him. Any man who did not take courage from such a sight had no heart beating behind his ribs.

  On deck behind Packer now massed the fighting men of the Chase, sailors who had fought Drammune and prevailed, and would do it again. Behind them were seven handpicked Vast sailors—one Delaney, another Marcus Pile, three of them pirates from the Seventh Seal, and two others—all wearing the full armor of the Drammune, the hauberk and the helmet, but each with a blue bandana tied around his neck to mark him. Each carried a sword in one hand and a long knife in the other. These were the “Packers.” These men would ensure victory.

  And the Firefish! That Packer Throme had some otherworldly connection to them, that he could call them, that they would obey him…no one could deny it now. No one.

  John Hand’s plan worked. It worked even better than John Hand had planned it. Not only did the Drammune believe that the Chase was an apparition, impossible to fight, much less to defeat, not only were they letting her pass without firing a shot, but a good portion of the Chase’s own crew now believed it as well.

  Below the waves, the Firefish was as energized as any man above. It had filled its belly on the slow one, then followed Deep Fin, elated, sated, anxious for nothing. Deep Fin was great and terrible, wondrous, supreme above all creatures. The Firefish circled far below all day as Deep Fin roamed the surface. The beast understood this; Deep Fin was eyeing the edge of the pack, watching, waiting for a straggler, waiting for a moment to pounce on some poor prey. As Deep Fin hunted, the beast followed, all night, its hunger and its appreciation both growing. Deep Fin was as patient a predator as any Firefish.

  And then, before the great light broke forth above the waves, Deep Fin attacked. It ran not for the closest prey, but for one far off. This was troubling to the beast. Two slow, fat ones closed in on it. How could even Deep Fin kill three storm creatures?

  But then, something astounding! Deep Fin began to glow. Yes, yes, the familiar glow, the Firefish glow, the glow of a creature that was Firefish, and yet not Firefish. A creature that was Firefish, and yet more than Firefish. Deep Fin burned in the air as a Firefish burned in the sea. And the fat ones ran! They turned away, fearful, recognizing a predator that would kill, and eat.

  The Firefish swam alongside Deep Fin, its scales ablaze, and then…a meaty morsel! Dropped from the side of Deep Fin! The Firefish had no explanation for this, but gobbled the morsel greedily, thankfully, trusting Deep Fin wholly. The great storm creature swam on at high speed. The Firefish ate, then ate again, its jaws engulfing one morsel after another, sending each to its gullet as its lightning flashed through the sea.

  These morsels were not fresh meat…they were cold. And then it knew…it knew. The beast understood that this was the flesh of the slow one! Somehow, after Deep Fin had done battle, after it had taken the slow one’s flesh, it had held it—it had not eaten but instead had held these morsels. And now it released them to the sea. And not just to the sea…to the beast below the sea.

  Deep Fin fed these morsels to the Firefish.

  For a wild creature to be fed by the hand of man and not to distrust, something must turn it, something must soften it. And something did. Something remote and distant, something from beyond history, from the creation of earth itself, found its way into the beast’s brain. An ancient door opened on a primal pathway to a time, a place long, long ago, when the world was new, before the world was cursed, when beasts obeyed, happily obeyed the greatness of the Great Creatures, whose fearsome, powerful love was that of the Great Creator Himself.

  The lone predator, having found in Deep Fin a greater being, now also found in that being a link to th
at time in those ages past. The spirit of Deep Fin was the spirit of Mankind, and in the spirit of Mankind was the Spirit of the Creator. The love, the attention that Deep Fin now showed for such a vicious, scarred, and scattered beast, the love Deep Fin showered freely by offering these morsels—this was a renewal, a rebirth of that most ancient kinship. Deep Fin gave its own food, its own hard-won meat.

  And that spirit made the Firefish dance.

  It raced through the waters, looking for more morsels, excited and energized, a wild and playful wolf pup, and those morsels came raining down!

  The wolf had turned. For this moment, for this time, by the hand of man, by the hand of God, the beast was the tamed animal, the trained lion. Deep Fin was the Master! And the Firefish loved the Master.

  And so it leaped.

  Its leap was a great, circling arc across the prow, high over Packer Throme’s head, over his upraised arms. The glistening yellow scales caught the lamplight; the sea spray flew like liquid fire.

  Coming up out of the water from Packer’s right, the beast’s jaw dropped open, revealing its mass of jagged teeth. Its eyes were glued on Packer as its head loomed above him, as the long cylinder of its huge body snaked up through the air until it was a soundless, mesmerizing, dazzling, perfect half circle of power and might and miracle, streaming overhead, flowing, ringing the Chase’s prow like a halo, like an archway into eternity.

  The Kaza Fahn and all its men cowered. No signals went out from the Drammune lead ship to its cohorts. Their captains and crews loaded weapons and waited, wanting and not wanting to see what this shining light, this spirit from out of the darkness would do to them all.

  Admiral John Hand laughed merrily, and steered a course straight for the third ship. “We have to survive this, boys,” he said aloud to no one in particular. “The world needs to know about this!”

  The captain of the Nochto Vare, a name which could be roughly translated as Sudden Death, could not move his ship. His stern was to the devil ship, and he was calling out orders to turn, turn, turn, but he was standing moveless on the afterdeck with his helmsman and the rest of his crew while the ship’s wheel was abandoned. He could no more take his eyes off the blazing thing that drove at him than his crew could.