By her reckoning, the Vast would meet the Drammune just about where the Chase was now. And then Huk Tuth would need to contend with the Vast, and the Vast with Huk Tuth.
And while they fought, the Chase would have the Firefish to herself.
Huk Tuth pondered his own options. They were few, and he didn’t like any of them. He saw the Vast ships before the Trophy Chase did, and he had already sent his men, every man aboard every one of his seventeen ships, to battle stations. They all now watched the white-sailed ships approach. He and Tchorga Den were in the lead, the Hezza Charn five hundred feet ahead of him off the starboard bow, the rest of the Drammune warships arrayed behind.
He looked ahead of him. The Trophy Chase had not turned, was not turning, but instead continued to pull away. And as he watched, he saw the flagman aboard the Chase send the signal. Talon was ordering him to fight. And he was itching to do just that. But she was headed for the narrows to make her escape. He would be left behind. With that ship under her, he might never see her again.
Tuth swore. He spit. Then he swore again, remembering again the bitter taste of his own hair. It was seared into his memory. And that was her purpose, that was why she did it. He hated her with an intense hatred, more even than he hated the Vast.
Every instinct was alive within him. He wanted to fight. But which enemy? The Vast, or his own Hezzan? He pondered one more minute, and then made up his mind. “Signal the Armada,” he said. “Tell them the Trophy Chase has been overthrown, and they are to ignore any orders from that ship.”
This was true enough, he believed.
Moore Davies lowered his telescope. He stood on the bridge of the Marchessa. His first mate looked at him, awaiting orders. So did the bosun. So did the helmsman.
“Is it a fight, Captain?” the first mate asked. “They’re after her, for sure.”
“They’ll never catch the Chase,” the helmsman said, putting into words what all were thinking.
“Those red ships are supposed to be our allies, ain’t they?” the bosun asked.
“Supposed to be,” Moore Davies replied. “And sailors are supposed to be in church Sunday mornings on every weekend pass. Battle stations, men.”
Talon had a vision, as she watched the Vast ships approach the Drammune vessels, as she saw the inevitable clash unfolding. It was a vision larger than this battle, bigger than two nations at war. In her vision, the old ways had returned. The ways of piracy, before the Firefish, when she and Scatter Wilkins had terrorized the seas. But this time, she was captain, and Packer was her right hand. He was her Talon. The Hezzan of the Drammune and the King of the Vast would defeat the navies of the entire world. He would send the Firefish to attack on her command. Then the Firefish, the beasts that put an end to those predatory days, would become the means to return again, and in a far fuller, far more powerful way. She would rule the seas, and the men who sat in thrones around the world would bow down to her. It could happen. It had to happen; all was moving toward it, everything she’d ever done had put her here. She would find a way to turn Packer Throme.
Unlike the rest of the crew, Packer had not turned to look at the Vast ships, nor joined in the celebration. But he had heard. He knew the Vast Fleet had arrived. He prayed, and kept on praying. He burned within, his spirit rising up, it seemed to him, like a sacrificial offering. He would not turn now, neither to the right nor to the left, until all had been accomplished. Until either his prayer had been answered or he was standing before the throne of God, asking Him why not.
Talon looked at Packer standing at the prow, head back in prayer, arms up as he clenched the guy lines, as though invoking the Almighty. Yes, she thought, pray to your God. Call on His power.
She watched from the quarterdeck, standing close to Andrew Haas. “Ignore the Vast ships,” she said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.
He was shocked by the tone, the hiss, as much as by her message. “But ma’am, the feeding waters. We need a ship like the Marchessa—”
“Pursue the Firefish. Those are my orders.”
“Full pursuit!” the bosun called out. “Back to business, men!”
The cheering died away again. The sailors looked at one another. Could they have heard him right? They weren’t going to wait for the Marchessa? They all had visions of that streaming, golden pack, that horde of Firefish under the surface pursuing the Trophy Chase. The Marchessa and ten other ships decked out to kill them…that was the whole point of a Firefish Fleet. And yet the Chase was going it alone.
“Firefish, dead ahead!” the lookout called out once again.
Packer opened his eyes and saw the beast headed toward a narrows between two jutting fingers of nearby islands, swimming into what appeared to be the open sea beyond it, though little was visible. A light gray smoke hung low on the water like a shroud of fog, obscuring what lay beyond. It was a strange gray vapor, blowing gently across the water, thick here, thinner there. It seemed to come from land out onto the sea.
The dorsals of the Firefish undulated through the narrows.
“Steady as she goes!” the bosun called, relaying Talon’s orders from the quarterdeck.
Moore Davies scanned the seas ahead, gauging speed and distance. The Vast Fleet and the Drammune flotilla sailed on a collision course. Both followed the Trophy Chase, and that ship had now disappeared between two islands, through a strait too narrow for more than one ship to pass at a time. The Drammune ship Kaza Fahn was approaching fast. It would be close, but Moore Davies believed he would arrive first.
“Stand by to fire,” Captain Davies said evenly. The bosun relayed the message, and cannon were primed with powder. Lamps were held near touchholes. Musket and pistol hammers clicked across the decks.
Huk Tuth surveyed the readiness of his ship. His men were well armed, their crimson hauberks and helmets in place. They lined the rails. They stood by the cannon, muskets loaded, pistols ready, polished swords in scabbards. And they watched the salamander ships with hunger in their eyes.
“Hold your fire, men,” said Tuth aloud, “unless one of these Vast vessels makes any move to threaten us. Signal the other ships the same.”
Talon did not take her eyes from the calm water ahead. It was almost glassy compared to the open seas they’d just left behind. The smoke was a mist on the surface, drifting steadily, as though its only purpose was to obscure all vision. It made eyes water, and caused more than one fit of coughing. But she just sniffed at it suspiciously, as though she didn’t trust it.
Moore Davies maneuvered the Marchessa into the strait just ahead of Huk Tuth’s Kaza Fahn. Both ships bristled, two hedgehogs with quills extended, each waiting for a prick from the other. Vast sailors took aim with muskets and cannon as their ship turned to port. The Marchessa showed the Drammune her stern not a hundred feet from the prow of the Fahn. They awaited orders with fingers to triggers. Tuth and his Drammune warriors aimed right back, waiting for the same.
Discipline held on both sides.
With their lead ships now sliding into the narrows, the following ships did the same, alternating Vast and Drammune, then Vast again, through the passage.
And so the Firefish Fleet of the Vast and the squadron of Drammune warships entered the Achawuk waters, pouring into the mayak-aloh.
Up on the rock ledge high above, Dayton Throme saw it all unfolding. He saw the smoke drifting from the fires on every shore, saw the breeze pull it across from the far shores, sliding it over the water like a blanket. He saw people on every shore tending fires, dousing flames with water, coaxing out smoke and steam by laying green leaves on burning piles of wood. He saw them spreading coals, piling up ashes.
Out in the middle of this enormous expanse, he watched the great ship sail. From above, he could see its sails, its lines. Even in the mist he could tell she was different, long and lean. Now the ship came out into a bit of a clearing, where the smoke was lighter; the heaviest smoke behind her. Yes, this was the same ship, the one that had escaped. He had seen
her only in darkness. But this was a stunning craft, not to be forgotten. Most ships, even the most elegant, still looked like static, upright things that the wind could topple. But this one, this ship seemed elastic somehow. Mobile, as though she were flesh and blood rather than wood and canvas. And she moved like nothing Dayton had ever seen. She didn’t seem to be sailing. She seemed to flow. Like a pebble dropped through oil, smooth and sleek. And fast.
Behind this one came another white-sailed ship, and then a red-sailed one, and then white, all angling through the narrows, following the great ship into the smoke. He understood why they followed. The great ship was a true prize, a leap forward in design, the sort of weapon over which nations go to war.
His heart felt heavy again. She had returned. No ship ever survived these waters. And none of these ships would survive. Not now, not here.
“Heave to, Mr. Haas,” Talon ordered. She could not see the shore. She could trust her own blind dead reckoning for a while, but she couldn’t trust it forever. She had to stop, or take a chance that the Chase would run aground. And the Firefish had disappeared again.
“Soundings, Captain?” Haas asked.
“No!” Talon responded harshly.
“We could cast anchor,” Haas said, baffled. “These are calm waters. Could be shallow enough here.”
“That would be deadly, Mr. Haas.”
No, he thought, that would be prudent, to prevent drift. Refusing to wait on the Marchessa, that would be deadly. Sailing blind into smoke, that would be deadly. But he said nothing. She was in her own world, seeing everything through some dark lens, making judgments only she could understand, contrary to the obvious. This was just how he remembered her. Her whole demeanor made his skin crawl.
Haas looked to the bowsprit, and there was Packer Throme. The king. Doing nothing. Looking small and pitiful, bowed down. That, he thought, is not what’s needed just now.
Talon looked toward the prow as well. Packer Throme’s head was, in fact, bowed. His arms were up, hands holding the guy lines, but his elbows and knees were bent, with one foot in front of the other. She sensed no power there. He looked like the dead and crucified Christ, the empty husk of a body, not the powerful image that had met her on the Camadan. In front of Packer, smoke drifted across the water. Something was badly amiss, she feared. The eerie quiet, the danger. Perhaps they had already sailed from the living world into the Dead Lands.
“Keep this ship hove to until I say otherwise,” she ordered. “And get me Mutter Cabe. Send him to the prow.” Then she walked forward.
When she arrived at the bowsprit, she found Packer very much alert. His head was not hung down in sorrow nor in pain nor in grief nor even in prayer. He was staring down, down deep into the waters. She looked over the rail, saw only blue water.
“What do you see?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
“What do you think you see?” she asked.
He closed his eyes.
Mutter Cabe dropped to the decking. “Ma’am?”
“Shela-hanth,” she said to him.
He blanched, then turned red. “Aye,” he answered.
“Tannan-thoh-ah?” she asked him. “Araha?” Here?
“Araha,” he answered. “This here’s what they call the mayak-aloh.”
Talon saw Packer look to the heavens. She continued. “Yes. The Achawuk believe in a spirit that moves the world, and that spirit will lead them to a great slaughter right here. The tannan-thoh-ah.”
“You’ve known this?” Father Mooring, standing alongside, asked her, eyes probing hers.
She thought of the warrior she had questioned, and from whom she had finally won the secrets of their beliefs. It was a shame he had not survived to accompany them here; he could have been quite helpful. She shrugged. “It’s not your religion.”
Father Mooring’s reaction bore all the earmarks of surprise, an expression quite unusual for him. “So you’re riding the beliefs of two different faiths to this place?”
She said nothing, but walked to the rail and peered over, down into the sea.
“And you’re hoping one of them can teach you the ways of the Firefish.”
“It is wise to have counsel when traveling to the very source of power in the world.”
Now the wind picked up. Smoke swirled. And then suddenly the haze cleared, and the clouds above parted. The sun shone down, a shaft of clear, bright light that dazzled them. Packer squinted against it, held up a hand to shade his eyes.
“Dear Lord,” Father Mooring said, looking down into the waters beside Talon. “Dear Lord, we are in a pot of worms.” Mutter came to the rail as well.
Packer heard, then stared down into the seas. The waters below were clear and calm, like a crystal lake. The sun reflected off every object, illuminating everything, right down to the seafloor. And the seafloor teemed with movement. Father Mooring had been speaking literally. There were hundreds of them, little snakes, sliding around and among one another, not much bigger than worms. But the priest had been incorrect. Packer knew what they were. And when one rose up briefly, and circled, and then settled back down, they all knew.
These were Firefish. Hundreds of Firefish, deep below them.
CHAPTER 19
The Crucible
The seminary was bright and sunny, its lawn manicured, all its cottages restored and repaired. Panna arrived in a white carriage that pulled up to the front of the library, a stone building not much bigger than the Throme cottage in Hangman’s Cliffs. She was helped down by Stave Deroy, who then, with several other dragoons, helped Hap Stanson down from the same carriage. They gave him his cane, and assisted him the few steps to the library.
Inside, the librarian, a young man with a kind but faraway look, bowed deeply, welcoming the queen and the head of his order. He stood alongside Father Usher Fell. They had both been expecting these guests. “Follow me,” the librarian said. He picked up a lantern and walked to a spiral staircase.
“I’ll stay up here,” the High Holy Reverend Father said. “I’m afraid in my condition I cannot navigate stairs well. But I will await your findings with great interest.”
Panna nodded. “Chunk, will you follow Father Fell? I will follow you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Hap watched as the four descended. Then he hobbled back outside. Two dragoons, leaning casually against the carriage, straightened up. They gripped their pikes. “You’re not to leave,” one said to the priest.
“Of course not. I just require a moment next door.” He pointed at the chapel. “I have been unable to offer my accustomed prayers. You are welcome to accompany me.”
They both shook their heads. “You’re not to leave.”
“Are you not Christian men?” he implored. “It is a chapel. I will kneel and say my prayers, that is all.”
They gripped their pikes tighter.
“Let him go,” a voice said. All three men turned to find Ward Sennett standing alongside, holding a large leather binder in his hand, full of parchments.
“All right,” the more senior dragoon agreed. “But we’re going with.” And so, flanking him, they walked into the sanctuary.
Deep below the ground floor, the library archives went on and on. Rows and rows of books, scrolls, and boxes filled the musty space. Clearly this was not simply a basement, but a part of the tunnel system beneath the Old City. The single lantern lit almost nothing. “Back here,” the young priest said. “Follow me.”
They followed him to a small brick doorway, an arch no more than two feet wide. The librarian turned sideways, slipped inside. He walked to a wooden table, on which was laid out several sheaves of paper, slightly yellowed. “Here are the records which you seek.”
He turned back to find Father Fell standing by his side, and a big dragoon struggling to force his bulk into the space. One arm and one leg were all he could manage. He pulled himself back, and looked at Panna, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I’m too big.”
�
��You’re just the right size, Chunk. The doorway’s too small. But it’s all right,” she said. “You wait here.”
“Ma’am, no…you stay here with me. Let ’em bring the stuff here to you.”
Usher Fell hesitated momentarily, then said, “Certainly,” He picked up the papers, and brought them back out. “So long as we don’t take them upstairs, we can look at them here. The ancient scrolls, however, must be handled delicately.”
Panna read the documents expecting to find the proof of Packer’s innocence she had been promised. “These hint that Packer was removed from school for more than just cheating. But they don’t say what his offenses were.”
“But they do,” Usher Fell said, standing beside her, pointing to a spot near the bottom of the second sheaf. “Right here. It says, ‘According to the records the elder Throme now quotes freely, referring to the Deeds of Mission Achawuk led by Father Dorndel Botts, it is deemed unwise to continue the younger Throme’s association with the seminary. The incident within Father Fell’s cottage provides the appropriate vehicle for his dismissal.’ ”
“But what are these ‘Deeds of Mission Achawuk’?”
“Ah. It is an ancient document. The record of that historical mission reveals that the Firefish, or something that sounds like them, were sighted, feeding, near the Achawuk lands. But those documents are not necessary. This clears him, right here. It is an official document that says his father was running around quoting church records, and that is the reason Packer needed to be expelled.”
“I don’t see that this clears his name. It doesn’t say what happened in the cottage. It simply creates a greater mystery.”
Father Fell frowned. “I’m disappointed. But…I’m not sure how to clear that up. Certainly, only Packer and the girl were there with me.”
“Where is the girl now?”
“Deceased. Very unfortunate accident.”
The Trophy Chase Saga Page 115
