The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  And now, they said, Packer Throme had become their king. Prince Mather had sacrificed himself, and a peasant stood at the pinnacle of power and prestige. If that were true, then they all now lived in a world in which anything could happen. Anything was possible. Anything at all.

  The couple lay together in the tiny farmhouse, fully clothed, under a thin blanket. They had talked deep into the night, unable to sleep, unable to rest. The candle had long burned away, its wax melted and running over the brass cup that was its base. The pale light of morning peeked through dingy windows. Packer was content now just to listen to Panna breathe. His wife’s breaths were soft and sweet, like a soloist’s intake just before a first, pure note.

  He could hear, too, the woods around them awakening. Soprano melodies of songbirds replaced the baritone of night owls. Bass bleats of bullfrogs rose, supporting the tenor hiss of insects. But there was another sound too—a distant-sounding hum that Packer didn’t quite recognize—something familiar, not quite katydid, not quite cicada, a low rumbling tone from somewhere outside the farmhouse that came in waves, soothing, then growing urgent and tense, then fading away again.

  Panna’s breaths shortened as she came fully awake.

  Her thoughts were her own for a long time as she remembered the conclusions she had drawn during the night. Now, with the world coming alive, she felt a great sense of confidence surge through her.

  “Packer?” she finally whispered.

  “Yes,” he answered gently.

  “We can do this.”

  Packer turned to look at her. As determined as she was, her face looked delicate in the pale light. She was lovely, all shadow and light, a strand of dark hair lying across her cheek, her dark eyes sharp and purposeful. He shook his head. “I don’t know how to be a king.”

  “But God wants it.” She sat up, leaning on her right elbow, facing him. “ ‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,’ ” she quoted, “ ‘and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.’ ”

  He said nothing, but looked up at the dark ceiling above him. It had been his father’s favorite verse. Dayton Throme had been thought a fool for his devotion to Firefish. It had always seemed a bit sad to Packer that his father had found so much comfort in the sentiment of that passage. And yet it was Dayton Throme’s foolishness that had led Packer to the feeding waters of the beasts, deep in the Achawuk territory. And there they had discovered enough Firefish to control the destiny of the world.

  Packer closed his eyes. His heart sank like a stone, drifting down to a sandy floor in shimmering waters. His choices had all gone awry, and had led to bloodshed and war and then, somehow, to a throne. It made no sense. The stone that was his heart came to rest on an ocean floor, light from above dancing on the rippled sand around him. He could not succeed. But it seemed he was called to try anyway. And somehow, that was a peaceful thought. And then he remembered.

  “You’re smiling,” Panna said, relieved to see it.

  He studied her. She was still propped up on one elbow, the angle of her shoulders acute against her neck, her dark hair drifting down. She was so beautiful. So certain. “I was remembering Senslar Zendoda,” he told her, “and his turtle.”

  “The one that hatches on dry land and then crawls to the sea?”

  “It doesn’t know where it’s going or why. It just has to go there.”

  “And you feel like that turtle.”

  “Oh, I am that turtle.”

  She felt a flood of warmth for her husband, for the way he suffered under so great an honor. She took his hand, looked at the hardened, callus-like burns on his palm, the round white circle at the base. She ran her fingers over them gently. Then she turned his hand over and looked at the royal signet on his forefinger, the blue gem set within the Vast crest, the intertwining N and V pierced by a sword. Suddenly she laughed.

  “What?”

  “Packer Throme, King of the Vast.” She put a hand to her mouth.

  He shook his head. “Well, if I’m the king, you’re the queen.”

  Panna blanched. That fact sobered her considerably.

  Packer again heard the hum from somewhere outside. Closer now. Perhaps right in front of the farmhouse itself. He rose from the bed, Panna following.

  And as he opened the door Packer understood the source of that rising, falling hum. It was definitely not cicadas, definitely not katydids.

  There, in front of the house, a large crowd had gathered and had been talking quietly among themselves, hoping for this very moment.

  “It’s the king!” someone called.

  “The king and queen!” came from several others.

  The crowd, released now from its strained effort to keep quiet, erupted. Amid the cheers a small band, a single fiddle and three drums, struck up “Long Life to King and Kingdom,” immediately drowned by voices singing as loudly and as passionately as they could, tune and tone not primary concerns.

  Panna’s hand slipped into Packer’s once again. They glanced at one another in wonder. Then they waved.

  Word had, most definitely, gotten out.

  The falcon flew from Talon’s leather-gloved hand up into the morning sun, under a perfect blue sky. The flap of wings grew fainter with each beat as the bird rose, circled once to get her bearings, then bore its handwritten burden eastward over the Vast sea.

  “They will think your message a grave mistake.”

  Talon, now overlord of all Drammun, turned to face her chief minister, Sool Kron, who stood behind her in the roof gardens high atop her palace. His long, thin beard was perfectly groomed, his new blood-and-gold robes glimmered in the sunlight. Talon narrowed her eyes. “You fear a roomful of Drammune politicians? You have never seen the Firefish.”

  “True, I have not. But I have seen the Quarto. They lead the Zealots, who in turn lead all who oppose you. I fear we have made a deal with the devil.” He used the Vast word for the archenemy of God.

  “I thought you might believe it is they who have made that bargain.”

  “I do not doubt your abilities, Your Worthiness. You were masterful in swaying them to our cause. But even so, you have ushered bears to a beehive. They will be harder to shoo away once they’ve tasted the honey.”

  “Even a bear must learn to respect the hunter.” She snapped her head around, drilling into Kron’s eyes. “Or it will die with its greedy paws buried in the honeycomb.” Kron swallowed hard. He had made the same bargain, and for the same reason, and she did not want him to forget it. “I will show the Court of Twelve what power is,” she said at last. “I will teach the ministers to fear.”

  “It is always prudent to remind subordinates where they rank…”

  “Yes. Submission becomes underlings.” She continued to stare at him.

  He dropped to a knee, and then lowered his forehead to the paving stones.

  She watched him a moment, trusting him not at all. “Call the Twelve together,” she said. Then she turned and walked away.

  Prince Ward had arrived at the small farmhouse along with the eggs and bacon and coffee he’d ordered sent over for the royal couple. But he needn’t have bothered. Well-wishers from the crowd had placed baskets on the porch, packages full of freshly baked breads and biscuits, butter and jam, sausages, quarts of buttermilk, all for the king and queen and all prepared, amazingly, without benefit of campfires.

  “This is way more than we need,” Panna said, alarmed. She and Packer had made it back into the farmhouse after much shaking of hands and waving and calling out greetings. Now they stared at the table weighted down with this bounty. “This should be feeding the army.”

  “Ah, but they’re a ferocious lot, and will not be deterred.” Prince Ward said it with his usual easy good humor. Outside the window parcels were now being checked by guards along the picket fence, twenty yards from the already crowded front porch. Ward’s coffee cup steamed under his chin as he watched. For himself, he had little stomach
for food this morning, feeling stretched and wan after a long and restless night without his accustomed liquid sustenance. He wrapped himself around his coffee mug as though it held salvation.

  “Couldn’t we…” Packer began, now looking out the window as well. A woman in a red-checked apron pressed some baked goods on a familiar huge dragoon. “Couldn’t we ask them to stop bringing all that?”

  Ward shrugged. “Not me. You’re the king.”

  “How would we…how would I do that?”

  Ward rubbed his neck. “Well, I’m not much at public speaking myself. But if it were me, I’d step out onto the porch and raise my hand, and then say something like, ‘Good people of Nearing Vast, thank you for your kindness. We have more than enough. Please take this nourishment for yourselves, and for our troops.’ ”

  Packer pondered. Seemed simple enough. He put out his hand to Panna, who took it. With a sense of crossing a new threshold, they stepped together outside the farmhouse, onto the porch. Packer raised his right hand in preparation for his first pronouncement.

  Fully five minutes passed before the crowd allowed themselves to be waved to silence. Even the guards along the picket fence faced Panna and cheered along. But only once did Stave Deroy crane his neck around to see his king and queen. Panna recognized him and waved, then pointed him out to Packer. The big dragoon waved his fingers, turned red, then turned back to his duties and redoubled his efforts.

  “Good morning!” Packer said at last.

  “Good morning!” the crowd thundered back in unison.

  Packer felt keenly uncomfortable in the pause that followed. “Thank you for your kindness, but please, feed yourselves!” Their silence was a large rock poised on a precipice. Packer felt panic. They wanted something more, but he had no idea what. So he concluded with, “We want all of you strong and healthy. We have a war to win!”

  The crowd exploded, the rock falling into the ocean with a satisfying ka-thunk. The cheering continued as Packer and Panna re-entered the house and sat back down to a considerably colder breakfast.

  Packer looked to Ward in amazement. “Is it always like that?”

  “I think you should expect that level of enthusiasm for a while,” Ward told him.

  “No, I mean, do they always know just what they want? When I spoke to them, it wasn’t like I was leading them. It was like…they were waiting for me to say just the right thing, and they weren’t going to be happy until I did.”

  Now Ward nodded. “They do have certain expectations of the Crown.”

  Packer looked to Panna. “But sometimes people need to hear things,” he said to her, “that they don’t want to hear.” He was thinking about Mather, and how he had deceived the people about the destruction of the Fleet. He was thinking it might be a lot harder to tell the truth than he had supposed.

  Just then, the crowd outside launched into a familiar Vast anthem.

  Long life to King and Kingdom!

  Our fathers’ land and ours!

  From regal throne

  God’s will be done

  In honor and…in power!

  Ward sighed. “The House of Sennett seems a distant memory to them already.”

  “What of Mather?” Panna asked. “When will he be buried?”

  “Already done. We had a small honor guard. An unmarked grave.”

  “That’s not right,” Panna shot back. “He was the king if only for a day.”

  Ward waved a hand dismissively. “Contingencies of war. We can see to proper ceremonies at a less anxious moment. For now I thought it prudent to focus on General Millian’s plan of attack.”

  “Attack?” Packer’s pulse rose.

  Panna saw the fires flare up. Packer had said he put away his sword forever, and she was sure he’d meant it. But that didn’t change his nature.

  Ward lowered his coffee cup. He spoke with an unaccustomed authority. “Right now your people will tear down the Rampart walls with their bare hands to get at the Drammune. They will follow you, Packer, to the grave and beyond. You are considered by them to be invincible. The Firefish, the Achawuk, the Drammune at sea, all have been beaten by you.”

  Packer looked down as Ward’s gaze grew intense. Panna was poised like a hawk ready to pounce on any sign the prince might be trying to manipulate her husband. Packer watched the floor, noting that the leather of his left boot was coming loose from the sole, just inside the big toe.

  “A prince died for you,” Ward continued. Now Packer looked him in the eye. “Do you think these people would do less? I would recommend, as your generals surely will, that you strike now and with the greatest possible force, while we may still surprise the enemy.” Here Ward’s voice softened, and he sounded more like himself. “And, I might add, without first bringing to our people’s attention small, inconvenient items like the demise of the Fleet, or the loss of the king’s gold. What will such trifles matter if we take back the city, and drive the Drammune into the sea? And then again, what will they matter if we risk all and are defeated?”

  Panna stared, unblinking. “The king’s gold?”

  Ward tugged at an ear. “Well, yes. The bank has been…overdrawn. By the Drammune. Bad news, I’m afraid.”

  “You mean there’s no money? At all?” Panna asked, dumbfounded.

  “Well, there is money. It just happens to be in the possession of the Drammune. At the moment.”

  “But how?” she asked. “Weren’t plans made to protect it? Hide it? Carry it away?”

  “Yes, but those plans were made by my dear brother. He may have repented in his last moments, but I’m afraid he could not undo damage he’d already done.”

  “He gave the king’s gold to the Drammune,” Packer stated flatly.

  “How will we pay the troops?” Panna asked. “How will we feed them?”

  “We hope to get it back,” Ward answered. “You might say our battle plan doubles as our financial plan.”

  Packer rose and walked slowly to the door. He walked out onto the porch as the crowd began the fourth verse of their hymn to the Crown of Nearing Vast. Their vigor was not lessened by a noticeable lack of agreement on the words, these lyrics coming so deep into the stanzas:

  Hail to the population

  The great people of this land

  Who shine and glow

  And in good works grow

  From meek to great to grand

  Drawn by their exuberance, Packer walked down from the porch, out to the crowd, reaching out to those who reached out to him. At first he was uncomfortable with all the attention. Then he realized that these soldiers, these citizens, wanted something greater than he had to give, and his embarrassment ebbed away. Yes, of course they wanted more than he could give. They wanted the same things he did. They wanted hope. They wanted the setting right of wrongs, the return to peace, to pride, to prosperity. They wanted to be part of something larger than themselves, and to know that it was good, and that it would last.

  Packer then determined that every hand he shook would be a promise, every eye he met an affirmation of his intent, that with whatever power God would give him he would work to set whatever wrongs he could to rights.

  Panna watched from the porch. She knew how badly every grip of his damaged hand must hurt him. But he seemed to welcome the pain. That wound, somehow, Panna now thought, that circular scar and the hardened skin of his palm…she couldn’t quite get her mind around it, but it was as though…as though he had lived all his life with that same wound, invisible and internal, until it had finally worked its way out in life. Now his damaged body mirrored his torn, rent spirit.

  The crush around Packer grew until he couldn’t be seen at all. Panna felt alarm, and straightened. Then suddenly there he was, his head popping up from the sea of faces, slightly dazed but seeming in one piece, and she realized he was now riding on Stave Deroy’s shoulders. The big dragoon pushed his way through the mob toward the farmhouse with the mob following. Chunk, who was not so nicknamed without reason, at last reached
the porch and deposited the king at the foot of the steps. Panna saw anger on Chunk’s face, and felt the wild, raucous glee of the unruly crowd.

  Packer stepped up onto the porch, turned back, and waved. Panna did her best to smile and wave, and the two ducked into the farmhouse. The door closed behind them; they looked at each other with eyes wide. Then they noticed Ward Sennett, who leaned casually against the side table and stirred his coffee, passive, distant, but utterly aware. “Like I say,” he offered, blowing on the coffee to cool it, “they’re a ferocious lot, and will not be deterred.” He sipped once, found the drink still unsatisfactory, and blew on it again.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Opposition

  The beast had not eaten for days.

  It had tasted no meat since it had feasted on the fat ship storm creature, obeying the command of the Deep Fin. Then it had been sated, delighted, and it had followed the Fin all the way to the seashore, following from behind and below, as the Deep Fin outran the enormous pack of storm creatures that held it in pursuit.

  The beast had been joyous, alive with a fire that knew no bounds. But the great and sleek storm creature went all the way to the shores and left the beast behind. Deep Fin slid into the high shallows, way up among the rocks, venturing into those thin, warm waters, sheer and invisible, where small fish teem and flow like darts of light. Here the beast could not follow.

  And so it waited, circling slowly. And an empty place grew within it. And then…the great pack of storm creatures arrived. The beast fled farther. The pack stayed along the seashore, hunting and waiting. The Firefish circled, deep below. It waited, too. It watched.

  But Deep Fin was gone. And the empty place grew, and grew, and became cavernous. And then, the darkest of thoughts worked into its murky mind…Deep Fin had forgotten.

  The beast turned away from the shore, from the high shallows. It swam down. It swam far. The empty place inside now burned like lightning that never stopped, hot in its brain, in its empty belly. The memory of Deep Fin bit deep, and deeper. A great and mournful loss.