The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  The ship’s captains remained the same, even the skipper of the Blunderbuss, a man now honored for his wisdom in the skirmish against the Drammune. All the captains, though they sailed in no particular formation now, had lookouts assigned with standing orders: watch the Marchessa, mark every signal, and call it out. When such signals were commands, these sadder, wiser, but much quicker captains now obeyed. Immediately, and without question.

  The men aboard who had sailed against the Drammune were eager to prove themselves in an arena in which they were far more confident—the commerce in which Nearing Vast now led the world. Their mood was light, but focused. They had a difficult job to do, and though it might not be so glorious as winning wars, still, the bringing home of acres of impenetrable Firefish hide was a great and patriotic duty, and would contribute mightily to the glory of Nearing Vast. They were proud to do it.

  But not all the crew were the same men who had sailed to defeat in war. Not all were men. Not all were even sailors. Fully one-third of the souls who manned the processing ships were women, skilled in the ways of fishing and of whaling, tough as gristle, and just as eager to prove the worth of Nearing Vast as any man or any sailor.

  But now there was smoke ahead…that was never good. The mood aboard the ships grew grim as they sailed closer and closer to these storied islands and wondered what tales would be told of them, once their work here was done, for good or ill.

  The elders stood in a semicircle around Dayton Throme, their stricken rek-tahk-ent. The smoke from the fires below filled the air and the sky. They looked not at Dayton, but strained to see through the haze, out to sea. Then one of them pointed silently. The others peered through squinted eyes, until a gust of wind cleared a path, and they all saw: white sails on the horizon, surrounded by red ones.

  “Shehab-ba denho-kah,” Zhintah-Hoak said. Douse the flames.

  Immediately, two of the younger men ran down the steep hill, the rugged mountain path and its switchbacks, through the trees, and toward the water.

  “Now that’s right odd,” Delaney said, watching the smoke. “Ever see a forest fire just go out? All by itself?”

  “No,” Mutter said. The two were still clinging to the rigging high above the Chase, doing little but watching the islands approach. The thick black smoke had ceased rising now, and the air was clearing. Gray smoke still hung close to the water. “That was no forest fire.”

  Then from just above them, the lookout bellowed, “Firefish!”

  Delaney and Cabe turned in unison to see the sailor pointing over their heads. “Firefish, dead ahead!”

  Their necks swiveled, along with every other neck aboard, and they squinted into the sun, shaded their eyes, scanning the whitecaps ahead of them. And then the lookout added, “And she’s runnin’!”

  Delaney pointed. “There, see it?” Its head was underwater, but its dorsals churned the surface, creating a series of waves that might easily be mistaken for more whitecaps, except that they were so narrow and so evenly spaced.

  “And it begins,” Mutter Cabe said. There was no time left to puzzle on it anymore. Both men were in motion even before the bosun could call out orders. They knew what was coming. They had been holding the great cat back in deference to their Drammune escorts, but those tubs didn’t matter now. They had come here to chase the Firefish, and now it was time for the cat to roar, and to leap, and to pounce.

  “All hands!” the bosun cried. The ship’s bell clattered below. “All hands a’ deck! Drop the main full! Maintop, full! Fore, full! Mizzen, full! All others, steady as she goes! Hull speed, boys, hull speed for the Trophy Chase, and all stand back in awe!”

  And then, as the men until now off duty poured up from their bunks in the forecastle, the bosun called again, “Starboard watch, to battle stations! Achawuk islands, dead ahead!” and the ship’s bell clamored out a warning.

  Any man aboard whose heart wasn’t already in his throat found it there now. The armory was unlocked, muskets and pistols were distributed, cannons were primed and loaded with grapeshot.

  They were hunting the Firefish, and would follow where it led. And right now it led straight into and among the Achawuk islands.

  Huk Tuth stood on the quarterdeck of the Kaza Fahn, watching the great ship pull away from him. His own sails had been hauled, her sheets tied to maximize the draft and billow from the wind. But he’d done all he could. Anything more and he risked laying his ship over on its beam ends, and capsizing. The Chase would be caught only when she wanted to be caught. He had felt angry and powerless this entire voyage, but now he felt simply diminished, left behind as though he didn’t matter.

  He watched in silence, hating Talon as only a vengeful man can hate. He ran his hand through the scraggly hair that hung from his helmet. He felt the cut ends at his right ear, as though that lock were a limb he’d lost. He tasted again the bitterness of the hair she’d stuffed into his mouth while he was unaware.

  “I want round shot in all cannon,” he murmured, a rumble barely audible, to his first mate. “I want grappling hooks on deck. Signal the Hezza Charn to do the same.”

  “Aye, sir,” replied the mate, and he went to make it so.

  Dayton Throme sat up, his eyes clearing as the haze drifted away. He felt better; his fever had broken. He looked around, and realized he was alone. The elders had finally let him be. They had felt his forehead, surely, seen his peaceful breathing, and understood he was getting well again.

  He stood, wobbly at first, feeling his heart pound in his chest and in his head. But he could stand. Where was he? On the side of the highest craggy hill, a mountain that overlooked the blue-on-blue mayak-aloh, and beyond it, the endless sea. He had never been to this spot, but he had seen it from below, a jutting perch among the crags. He felt dizzy for a moment, and his vision blurred. He looked around the calm blue waters below. The fires were dying out. Smoke still drifted on the waters. But the great, black plumes were gone. That was good. Surely the Achawuk had decided that Dayton’s illness was not the sign of the cataclysm. Perhaps they all went back to their business.

  But as his vision cleared, he looked more closely, and his spirits sank. All around the water, the beaches were filled with people. Jammed. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Not just men, but women and children, old and young. Their faces were all painted, and all carried spears. And not just on this island, but every island, every shore below him that ringed the mayak-aloh.

  And they were busy preparing something. They passed torches among themselves. They damped the fires, and they piled up the ashes. They brought canoes out to the water’s edge. The entire Achawuk nation lined the shores ringing the mayak-aloh, preparing. They gathered as though readying for the start of some great hunt, some great battle, some great event. But what?

  Dayton looked out to sea, under the clouded sky. Now he saw the ships. His head swam and pounded again, and he sat down. The illness was not through with him yet after all, and his stomach threatened to come up again. After a moment, he looked back out. There it was, the white sail of a Vast vessel, being chased by the red sails of a score of Drammune ships. The Vast ship was fleeing for safety. He closed his eyes and offered up a desolate prayer. Drammune behind, and Achawuk ahead. That ship didn’t have a chance.

  And then he scanned the seas, and saw to his right, to the west of these ships, more ships. These were all Vast. His heart pounded. How many? He counted them…there were thirteen. Fourteen Vast ships against…seventeen Drammune. They could help. But they were so far away. He looked back to the single white-sailed vessel, leading the red Drammune ships. She kept running. How could she escape?

  And only now did it dawn on him—she would flee into the mayak-aloh, and she would lead the rest in here as well.

  Dayton looked again at the Achawuk lining the shores below. The spears, the canoes…how many Achawuk were needed to destroy one ship? A thousand warriors? How many Achawuk were there in all…a hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand? How many ships were there
? Thirty-one, all told. The math favored the Achawuk. As it always did.

  He put his head back as a chill ran through him once again. He pulled the blankets over him. Not only would he not be rescued, but the coming battle would be thirty times worse than anything he had yet seen. Casualties would be horrendous. Women without their mates, children without fathers. Even a victory would be catastrophic.

  It would be a cataclysm.

  It would be the tannan-thoh-ah.

  CHAPTER 18

  Smoke

  “Amazing creature,” the priest said, delighted with the sight. “Just amazing.” Packer and Talon had joined Father Mooring again, who stood in his usual spot, staring out at the sea, absorbing his first real look at the beast. “And very large.”

  Talon cut her eyes to Packer. “There it is.” Her tone suggested that her next statement would be Command it! But she said nothing more.

  Packer said nothing at all, but watched the thing swim, now about four hundred yards in front of the ship. He saw the dorsal fins cut through the water as it undulated, like a series of dark gray paddle-wheels all but submerged, one in front of the other.

  The day had turned overcast, but it was not raining. The humidity could be felt on the skin, the smell of rain in it. The sun was obscure overhead, yet somehow threatened to peer down through the clouds at any moment. Ahead, the Achawuk islands filled the horizon, the nearest ones less than two miles away. A haze hung over these, cloud or fog or smoke, it was hard to tell. This Firefish was headed straight into the midst of them, heading for a gap between them.

  A dark sense of misgiving enfolded Packer as he looked at the islands ahead, remembering the terrors of this territory. “Talon. We can’t follow. The feeding waters are in there somewhere, and so are the Achawuk.”

  She looked at him blankly. “And yet you have been here before. With but a single ship. This ship. And you prevailed.”

  “I didn’t prevail, Talon. I presumed. I never should have brought us here then, and I never should have brought us here now.”

  She laughed. “But you did not bring us here. I did. Look behind. This is a Drammune expedition. You are captive.” She watched him wrestle with his role, then she said, “These doubts play across your heart like the shadows of clouds over the sea. Yet look, the sea is unchanged. Where is your God, Packer Throme? Has He changed? Does not He shine down regardless of your doubts?”

  Packer closed his eyes. She was teaching him now?

  “We gain on the beast,” she said.

  Packer looked, and saw it was true. The Firefish was a little more than three hundred yards away. Seagulls careened above it, as though it would provide them scraps of something they could eat. The Chase should not be able to outrun a Firefish. Was it slowing? If so, why?

  Talon watched Packer’s eyes, saw his turmoil.

  She watched him. “You fear the Achawuk,” she said, as though this were a revelation.

  “I’ve fought them.”

  “And won.”

  It was useless. “Talon, God will do what He wants. And I don’t know what He wants here.”

  She shrugged. “And what do you want?”

  The question stunned him. It was the right question, the one he needed to have answered. Did he want to fight? Or to have God fight? “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

  “Then ask Him for the power to command the beasts.” And she walked away, back toward the quarterdeck, where a captain belonged.

  “Amazing creature,” Father Mooring said again.

  Packer looked hard at him, afraid for a moment he was speaking of Talon. But he stared dead ahead. The monster was less than three hundred yards away. Packer looked up, behind him. The rigging was full of sailors, all looking down at him. Watching. Their faces were blank. He felt judgment in every stare, even Delaney’s. Especially Delaney’s. And he realized they all wanted him to lead, to do something heroic. They wanted him to be king. To command the Firefish. He looked back out to sea. The beast kept churning, and the Chase kept gaining.

  “I don’t know what to do, Father,” Packer confessed.

  “I will tell you your heart’s desire,” the priest said easily.

  This snapped Packer’s head around. Not even Senslar Zendoda had been able to do that.

  But Bran Mooring spoke as though it were the simplest thing in the world, as he watched the Firefish dance through the waves. “I’ve seen it in you since I’ve known you, Packer Throme. Since you were a student sketching Firefish instead of listening to my lectures. And I still see it.” Now the priest turned his head and looked at Packer. “You want all things to be right, and good. You want things to work out for the best, for all men. All women. All the world.”

  Packer felt his chest heave with a single pain. “I do want that. But doesn’t everyone?”

  Father Mooring continued. “You wanted things to work out for your father. That’s why you followed the Firefish. You did it for him, so he would be remembered for the man you knew him to be. You wanted to make it all work out for Panna. And for the fishing villages.”

  “I’m not that unselfish.”

  “Of course not. You have dark motives, too, as do we all. There are monsters inside us, as well as in the world. Most often, we run from them, and believe they don’t exist. If we have courage, we fight them, to conquer them. If not, sometimes we are destroyed by them. But God uses them. If we go to Him, He tames them where we can’t. ‘When I am weak, then am I strong.’ Those monsters, the ones out there, the ones in here,” he tapped his chest, “they all serve His purpose.”

  “To make it right.”

  “Yes. Packer, you are weak. And you are a fool. And I mean that in the very best sense.”

  But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and…the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. “Thank you, Father. That’s exactly what I needed. Thank you.”

  The priest shrugged, and turned back to watch the Firefish. “It’s what I do.”

  Packer took a deep breath, smelled the ocean air, the salt spray, for the first time this trip. It filled his lungs, it opened his mind. He felt the wind in his hair. He looked out over the sea, and now he saw the beast submerge. The Firefish was gone. Packer leaped up onto the bowsprit for a better view. Suddenly, cheers filled the ship. He looked up above him and behind, and then he laughed. All those faces, a moment ago looking down in judgment, or so he felt, were now filled with energy, excitement, and amazement.

  “Packer at the prow!” they called. “Packer at the prow!”

  “Packer Throme!” and “Lookee there, the king!”

  “Cheers for the king!” and then, “For the king, the Chase, and Nearing Vast!”

  And the crew, ever ready to find a chant-worthy phrase and wring every last ounce of life from it, shouting it until they were hoarse and the syllables had no meaning, now picked up this one line and ran off the gangway with it.

  “For the king! The Chase! And Near-ing Vast! For the KING! The CHASE! And NEAR-ING VAST!”

  And now Packer felt it.

  He felt it well up from deep within, and then he felt it overflow. He felt joy flow through him, as though the sun had been covered by rain clouds for years, decades, ages, and now it burned through with a sudden glory, so brightly that it illuminated every man, woman, and child on earth, every bone, every muscle, every tissue, every rock and tree and speck of sand. He was riding the Trophy Chase, pushed by the hand of God into…whatever God had in store.

  Talon saw Packer on the bowsprit now. Yes, she thought. She could feel it, too. Here was the power she had sought. Packer stood, one foot before the other, his arms up, his hands clenching the guy lines for support. That was him, the young man who had dropped his sword and spread his arms, overpowering her with nothing but the fire of God within him. And that’s what had overpowered her. That was what had given her the Hezzan, and then his child, and then his throne, and now would bring her power even greater. Packer coul
d do this because he believed. There were many other explanations in the world, many other beliefs besides the Vast and their One True God. But Packer believed this way and he could find the power, and channel it, because of what he believed. She would own this power, if she could. If not, it would undo her. And she would undo all else.

  “Ships!” the lookout called. “West sou’west! Port astern!” He was high atop the Trophy Chase as he called out the words, but they were lost, drowned in the chanting that still echoed up from the decks and down from the masts and spars and fled across the seas.

  “Vast ships!” he tried again. Delaney heard him this time, peered astern, saw sails on the horizon. “Shut yer yaps, ye blowhards!” he screamed to the crew. “We got ships!” He pointed.

  His tone more than his words finally drew some attention. The cheering slowly died away, and a buzz began. Vast ships? Did someone say Vast ships?

  The lookout shouted the message again, and silence reigned. All eyes scanned the seas to the southwest.

  The sailor in the crow’s nest peered long and hard through the scope. Talon stood at the quarterdeck beside Andrew Haas, assessing this new threat.

  “A dozen ships at least!” the lookout called. A long pause ensued, as all eyes strained to count the dots on the far horizon.

  “It’s the Marchessa in the lead!” the lookout shouted at last. He had waited until he was absolutely sure. Cheers erupted again. The Marchessa! Many of these men had sailed with that ship and with the Camadan for years. This was one of the Chase’s storied escorts. And now their old friend had appeared out of nowhere, and just in time, with a fleet of help in tow. The Marchessa was a Firefish ship if ever there was one. These events could only bode well.

  Talon stewed, pondering her best move. These Vast had come to hunt the Firefish. Her Firefish. She looked astern, to the south. The Drammune ships followed the Chase yet. Though they had lost much ground, they were still closer than the Vast by a half a league. But the Vast had a better heading in this wind. They would move faster across it than the Drammune, who sailed with it.