The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  Delaney was not prepared to trust anything of the sort. All he could think was that for Packer to die here, like this, by the hand of Talon, was about the worst end imaginable. He looked around him. “All the glorious places where he coulda passed.” His voice was low once again, his heart pierced. “Hangin’s. Keelhaulin’s. Battles thick with enemies. Even bein’ et by a Firefish. Any a’ those coulda been a wonderful end. But no, he gets it here, in a kitchen, throat cut from behind like a…like he was a pig for the pot.” His chin trembled.

  Talon chose not to kill the Quarto. Nor the guards, nor Huk Tuth. Though she was tempted to execute judgment on these self-inflated fools simply because she could, and because they deserved it, she realized that her small moment of satisfaction would undoubtedly prove very messy, making it impossible for her to focus on the real issue at hand. And the real issue was power. And the real power was in the Firefish.

  So rather than kill the Quarto, she said to them, “I humbly request permission from the Quarto to present my proposal in peace, with a guarantee of my safety until such time as the Quarto rules.”

  Silence reigned as the men in question glanced at one another. They had no idea what shadow of death had just passed over them, and now they acted as though Talon were an irritant, keeping them from other, more important business.

  “We need more information,” Kank said testily. “What’s the nature of this proposal?”

  She ignored the disrespect. “I propose an exchange that will ease this transition. It involves the Vast,” and here she nodded toward Packer, “and control of the Firefish.”

  “This transition…?” Kank’s irritation evaporated. “You mean, a transition of power…from you…?”

  “To the next Hezzan.”

  The Quarto now leaned in and spoke together in whispers. Their greed for power was transparent. Talon watched instead the face of Huk Tuth. He was impatient, his eyes narrowed under his protruding brow.

  Their confabulation concluded, Pizlar Kank spoke. “The Quarto grants your request. You may speak freely.”

  “And my safety?”

  Kank’s look was sly. “After ruling on your proposal, we shall allow you to return to your current position, armed and hiding behind the king of the salamanders.”

  “And you speak in session, with one voice?” she asked.

  Kank hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes.”

  “And the King of the Vast remains under my power?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded, lowered the knife, and stepped away from Packer.

  Packer reached up and felt his neck, then looked at the blood on his fingertips.

  “May I know what’s going on here?” he asked Talon.

  “Was that Packer?” Delaney whispered, his chin trembling again, but this time with joy. They had inched out to within a few feet of the closed door outside the Great Meeting Hall. He was sure he heard Packer’s voice.

  Father Mooring nodded, putting a finger to his own lips.

  “He’s alive, then,” Delaney breathed out. He closed his eyes as relief washed over him. But now the stunning reality of Packer’s deliverance threatened to overwhelm him, so he stood and walked gingerly back into the kitchen. There he silently closed the door behind him, went into a corner, knelt down, and sobbed.

  Talon’s eyes worked deep into Packer’s. “You must be silent. I deserve not your trust, I know. But in the name of all you call holy, give me more time.” Then she turned back to the group and said in Drammune. “I have asked him to be still, but he is Vast. His tongue will wag.”

  They laughed. Packer shook his head, quite sure he was the butt of some joke. He’d never felt quite so poorly used. In the barrel he had been afraid. Under Talon’s torture he had been crushed to his spirit. Feeling her full destructive powers on the Camadan he had despaired. But now he was simply ashamed. He was a pawn in some game of chess he couldn’t understand. They maneuvered around him, because of him, castles and bishops and warriors on horseback. He couldn’t understand the language, much less the rules, much less the nuances of their strategies. He could take one step forward, only to retreat again. Everything within him told him to stand and fight, to play on the board not as a pawn, but as a knight, to face these people with honor and dignity, and with a sword in his hand. But all his choices, all his deepest beliefs, the very voice of God in his heart said, Resist not. Accept the shame. And he thought about the chessboard, and realized that the difference between a pawn and a king, between the moves those two game pieces are allowed, is slim indeed.

  Talon took a breath, held it, then said to Kank, “I propose an exchange. The King of the Vast for the crown of Drammun.” She saw nothing but puzzled looks, which was precisely what she expected. “You want my title, and my dominion. You believe you must kill me to take it. But I tell you I will give it freely. I shall serve the new Hezzan, and the Quarto, and bring you honor. I require three things in return: Packer Throme, the Trophy Chase, and the five ships that Sool Kron prepared for a mission to the Achawuk. Grant me this, and the authority to crew and sail these ships as I will, and I shall forswear my crown and pledge my loyalty.”

  “Absurd,” Huk Tuth said.

  “Commander Tuth,” Kank responded sternly. “Do you have something to say?”

  Tuth glowered at her.

  “You now have permission to speak.” Kank emphasized the word “now.”

  The craggy old man clamped his jaw. Then he said to Talon, “You are a traitor, and a coward.”

  “What do you have to say to these accusations?” Kank asked Talon.

  “I remind Supreme Commander Tuth that I now own the dominions of Senslar Zendoda and the Hezzan Shul Dramm. I am yet the Hezzan Skahl Dramm. I will not countenance accusations with no proof. Such are punishable by death.”

  “Come kill me, then,” he challenged. He showed her his teeth, in what on another man might have been interpreted as a smile.

  “Have you proofs?” Kank asked Tuth, ignoring Talon’s defiance and Tuth’s provocation.

  The scraggly supreme commander stared at her, his hatred overflowing. “I had the Vast in my hands. The entire nation was in my fist.” He held his right hand out, palm up. “All I needed do was close it, and squeeze their blood from them.” He closed his fist, and it shook. “But this…woman…stopped me. She did it through deception. She claimed to be the Hezzan Shul Dramm, whom I served.” He looked to Pizlar Kank. “She is Unworthy of any title. She is not Worthy to live.”

  Talon walked toward Tuth. “The orders I sent you were written by the Hezzan’s scribe, my scribe, and marked with the Hezzan’s seal. Do you deny that such orders should be obeyed?” She stood before him.

  Tuth said nothing.

  Kank prodded him. “Commander Tuth, do you counter her claims?”

  He glared up at her, tough as old leather, unmoving, feeling nothing but contempt.

  “You have spoken false accusations against the Hezzan,” she said. “The punishment is death.” She drew her knife in an instant, its blade singing from its sheath, and had it at his throat before he could make more than a flinching move toward his own knife. “I ask permission of the Quarto to take this traitor’s life.”

  He stared death back up at her.

  Feeling flattered in spite of himself, for the Hezzan had requested his permission before killing a man, Kank spoke. “Commander Tuth, do you retract your accusation?”

  Tuth said nothing. The members of the Twelve all shifted in their seats. They had seen Talon kill one of their own in this room before.

  “Commander, unless you retract, the Quarto must rule. And we will rule according to the Rahk-Taa.” Still Tuth said nothing. “Do not imagine that we hold your life in higher regard than adherence to the great Law of our people.”

  Tuth bared his teeth. “I retract the accusation,” he said bitterly, and then he added, “though it is true.”

  “Well then, that’s a personal matter between the two of you,” Kank said simp
ly. Talon did not move. Kank cleared his throat. “As there is no accusation on the floor, there is no reason for you to have your knife at the commander’s throat, Madam Hezzan,” he added. “Talon,” he said again, as the pair continued a dance of death with their eyes. “I believe you have a proposal for us?”

  “Yes,” she said, stepping back, pulling the knife away as though her hand, or the knife itself, was reluctant to leave Tuth’s neck. She looked at the blade. “Yes.” She sheathed it, then turned her back on Tuth.

  The instant she did, he lunged at her.

  It was no contest. She sensed him coming at her like a jaguar watches the approach of a lumbering bear. She heard him stand, heard his knife come out of its sheath. He had his jagged dagger in his right hand, held with the blade downward. She knew this without looking; she had seen it at his belt, had watched him move for it, far too slowly, when she drew her own. She turned to face him now as he reached her. She saw the knife coming down and fell backward, grabbing his right wrist with her left hand to stop the blade, and then his vest at the collar with her right hand, and she pulled him toward her. Using his own momentum, she brought him down on top of her, and as she did she planted her knee firmly into his groin. Keeping his momentum going, she rolled on her left shoulder and, still pulling on his vest, yanked his head into the polished floor. It hit with a loud thud, and his dagger skittered away. Keeping his body moving, she rolled him all the way over onto his back, and then she was seated on top of him, straddling his chest. The point of her own knife was under his chin. But he was splayed out, spread-eagled under her, limp and unconscious.

  She stood, looked around her, sheathed her knife. “So many men hear the words ‘Mortach Demal’ and think, ‘woman.’ ” She saw Tuth’s blade on the floor and picked it up. “They forget that the other word is ‘warrior.’ ” The men present shifted again in their seats, destined not to forget either word very soon. She knelt beside Tuth, and put the knife point under his bare chin. She wanted to kill him here, with his own knife, but she felt the King of the Vast looking at her. He valued mercy, and she needed him. So instead, she cut off a hunk of his white, scraggly hair. Feeling no satisfaction from this, she stuffed it into his mouth. “The taste of my mercy is bitter,” she hissed at him, too low for Packer to hear it. “Never forget it.” She sheathed his dagger for him, then lifted one of his eyelids. She stood. “His head will hurt. He may walk knock-kneed for a day or two. But he will live to play the fool again.”

  And then she walked slowly back toward Packer as she spoke, leaving the Supreme Commander of the Glorious Drammune Military to come around in his own time.

  “I propose,” she said, as though nothing much had happened, “to sail to the islands where the secrets of the Firefish are known. To the Achawuk Territory. Where the Firefish feed. I have knowledge from our Archives, which Sool Kron has presented to the Twelve. With the help of Packer Throme, who has sailed into these waters before, seen the beasts feed, and returned, I will learn their secrets. I will bring back to Drammun the knowledge that will be our means for dominating the world.”

  “Why would you do this?” Kank asked, perfectly prepared now to ignore Huk Tuth. If Talon had killed him, he would have behaved no differently. He had seen her mind work before. He had seen her kill before. He finally understood what had drawn the Hezzan Shul Dramm to her. She was a weapon well worth wielding. But he pushed these thoughts away, quite sure they were Unworthy. “Tell us why you would give up your crown to sail into this danger, and then bring your hard-won knowledge back, only to give it to your successor.”

  “I would do it to prove the Worthiness of the Drammune.”

  Huk Tuth moaned, then opened his eyes. Immediately he rolled over, pulled his knees under him, intending to stand. But he couldn’t. The pain was too great. So he stayed on his knees, head on the floor, spitting his own hair out of his mouth, fully conscious of his abject humiliation.

  “If you return with such power,” Tcha Tarvassa now asked, pulling his eyes from Tuth, “what’s to stop you from taking back the Crown by force?”

  “I sought the Hezzan’s dominion,” she answered, “and so you believed me to be greedy for power. But I requested the Ixthano not for my own sake, but for the sake of my husband’s vision. I believed I was the only one who could execute it. I claimed he was Unworthy, for the sake of that vision. But I confess to you now that I believe his vision was utterly Worthy. For this vision to come true, Drammun, not Talon, must dominate the world. I desire to prove my Worthiness.”

  Tuth finally stood. He wobbled. “She cannot be trusted,” he said through gritted gray teeth across which white hair still clung.

  “Nor can she be defeated, apparently, even when attacked from behind.” Kank said it dismissively, and the others chuckled. The fire in Tuth’s eyes flickered briefly toward Pizlar Kank. “Commander…” Kank said, and stopped himself. “No, excuse me, Chief Minister, what do you know about the Achawuk islands? She claims the Firefish feed there.”

  Tuth sat carefully. He pulled the stray hairs from his mouth, wiping his fingers on his vest. “The Vast have assembled a fleet to slay the Firefish. They intend to return to the feeding waters within the Achawuk islands.”

  “How do you know this is true?” Kank asked him.

  Tuth glared at him, insulted to be questioned. He could not decide who he hated more, Talon or this smug, self-satisfied quartet. But then he composed himself. “Prince Mather of the Vast revealed all to Fen Abbaka Mux, who told me. It is true.”

  Kank found it impossible to trust Talon. And yet, if they wanted to take the power of the Firefish from the Vast, a better plan was not likely to be found. And at any rate she would be gone, leaving the door open for Pizlar Kank.

  “Will the King of the Vast agree to help?” Tarvassa asked.

  “He lives at my whim, and dies when I decide. But he believes I am drawn to follow his God. He will help me.”

  Kank nodded, appreciating the deception. “Do you have any other terms?”

  “I have three terms, all spoken. This king is to go with me, and his great ship, which I shall captain, and the five additional ships that Sool Kron prepared. But I also have one request.”

  Kank shook his head. But he said, “Speak it.”

  “There are two salamanders listening to these words behind that door. They have followed me here. Arrest them, but do not execute them. I will need them both on my journey.”

  Delaney had finally dried his eyes and composed himself, but he took so long that by the time he returned to the corridor, it was just in time to watch Father Bran being taken into custody by two big guards. He pulled his sword, but the priest’s urgent appeals kept him from using it. “Surrender your sword, Delaney! Surrender it!” Bran’s voice was a command. “All shall be well. They have decided…we will sail with Packer Throme!”

  The overwrought sailor had no idea how that could be, or why the priest was so confident, but under the circumstances he allowed himself to be swayed.

  A few minutes later he sat by himself in a dark, cold, windowless cell with no bed, no toilet, no food, no water, and no explanation. And he regretted his decision bitterly. What was wrong with him, that he allowed his country’s enemies to lord it over him? And what was wrong with his countrymen, that they kept insisting that he do so?

  As agreed, Talon put the knife back to Packer’s throat as the Quarto discussed her proposal. They spoke in whispers, but Tcha Tarvassa was obviously adamant on several points. Finally, Kank nodded his agreement. Then he nodded at Talon. “Very well. The Quarto grants all three of your terms. You will be high commander of the mission to the Achawuk. Take the King of the Vast, the Trophy Chase, and the five ships, and crew them as you like.”

  Talon did not lower the knife. She sensed there was more.

  “But we add one term of our own. You say the Vast have prepared a fleet to hunt the Firefish among the Achawuk. We will send a dozen more warships with you. These will help protect our…investme
nt.”

  “I accept this additional term,” she said warily.

  “Among these ships,” Kank continued, “will be the Kaza Fahn, commanded by Huk Tuth.”

  Tuth shot up from his chair, wincing. “Do not ask me to serve under this woman!” He pointed at her with his weapon.

  “Be seated, Chief Minister. We have ruled. You must prove your Worthiness.”

  He did not sit; his eyes bored holes into Talon. She watched him in return, but took no satisfaction. She understood quite well the danger he would pose. She should have killed him, she thought.

  “Be seated now, or you will be found Unworthy.”

  Tuth sat, and closed his eyes. His humiliation was complete.

  “Your new chief minister knows the Vast quite well,” Kank told Talon. “And he can certainly command a score of ships. Under your guidance, of course. Now, take this ragged king of the salamanders, and go. Prepare your mission. You will have all the resources of Drammun at your disposal. Huk Tuth will see to that.”

  But she had questions yet. “You have made no ruling as to my title.”

  “You shall maintain your title,” Kank answered coolly. “You are the Hezzan Skahl Dramm.”

  She watched his eyes. “And I shall sail as such?”

  “Oh, yes,” Kank answered. “Most definitely.”

  “And I have the protection of the Quarto?”

  “Until you sail.”

  “And the King of the Vast, he is protected as well?”

  “Until you sail.”

  She nodded, finally lowering the blade from Packer’s throat. She sheathed it, thinking that sailing was becoming a more dangerous trade with every passing minute.

  “I bid you good day.”

  After Talon had left the room with Packer Throme, and Kank was sure she was far out of earshot, he turned to Huk Tuth. “We have proclaimed the woman Talon Unworthy of her title.”

  Tuth raised his head.

  Kank continued, sounding impassive. “This is not to be known outside this room.”