No one moved, and Packer knew why. They waited for him to speak. “Talon,” he said softly, “was the daughter of Senslar Zendoda. She carried in her womb the child of two Hezzans of Drammun, and the grandchild of a great Swordmaster of Nearing Vast.”
Delaney stood with eyes wide open, staring at the wrapped body, as the others filed out. Father Mooring paused, put his hand on the Delaney’s elbow. “You couldn’t have known,” the priest said gently. “She told no one, no one but Packer.”
“You knew,” he said, a trace of accusation in his voice.
“Only that she was with child, and only because she cried out after…you wounded her.”
He searched the priest, looking for hope, for understanding. Father Mooring saw the depth of anguish there. “You saved Packer Throme.”
“But dear God,” Delaney said, “I didn’t mean to kill no child.”
Father Mooring nodded, but could say nothing. Delaney had been bent on death, and had shown not the least bit of compassion. The priest watched now as the sailor crumbled all within. Delaney turned back to the body, then dropped to his knees in front of the bunk. His shoulders began to quake.
“I didn’t mean to kill no child,” he whispered. And then he hunched over, his face in his hands. “Not no little baby, Lord…”
Father Mooring heard the sobs as he stepped silently just outside the captain’s quarters. There he waited patiently for the sailor to find the dark bottom of his own soul, and there to find forgiveness, yet again.
Not all the crew could fit into the boats. Shuttles began, taking those who preferred it to the Marchessa. Nervousness about the Achawuk gave way as the warriors did, and a suddenly gentle people calmly parted, grave but hospitable, as these strangers went about their business. Stitch went with the first group. He would find more work aboard the Marchessa than he cared to think about.
Packer left for shore aboard the jolly. “They can’t tread water here forever,” he said, looking at the Achawuk. They were expert swimmers, and they seemed in no distress, floating easily. Their blocks of cork supported them, at least somewhat. But these facts did not lessen Packer’s concern. “I don’t know how to tell them to go back home.”
And as he suspected would happen, they all swam after him.
He sat silently at the prow of the jolly while Delaney and the others hoisted the small boat’s sail. He faced astern, watching the Trophy Chase’s last moments in the sun. The water was now mere feet from her port rails. She listed badly. She would be gone within minutes.
He remembered the first time he had seen this ship, from high above, from atop the Hangman’s Cliffs. He had wanted more than anything to be aboard. And God had granted that wish, in abundance. He’d sailed aboard her from Hangman’s Cliffs to the Achawuk islands, from those islands back to Mann, from Mann to Hezarow Kyne, and then back here. As he watched, he understood now for the first time why captains went down with their ships. He felt the loss keenly, as though he were abandoning a friend in time of need. But Talon was there, and she was her captain. He hoped that she had finally found peace.
And then suddenly the sails of the great cat dropped full. The sun caught them, and the breeze popped the canvas. Men cheered. Packer stood, his heart leaping up. Would the Trophy Chase live after all? Could she outrun even her own demise? But no, no, the men had climbed up into her rigging one last time, to unfurl every sail.
Full sail. That was the Trophy Chase. That was how she had roamed the seas, and that was how she would go down. He loved his men for knowing this, for this final honor given her, directly from their hearts. He put his hand over his own. And then he stood erect and he saluted her. None of his men saw the gesture. They were watching their great ship, their hearts as full as his.
Packer sat again, then turned away and watched the shore approach. He had seen her final, glorious moment. He wouldn’t watch her sink into the sea. He wiped at his eyes.
All the Firefish ran, but they could not outrun the poison. It was everywhere.
The paths out to the deep seas were thick with it, blocked; more in the narrows than anywhere else. But the great beasts ran anyway, blind, sick, dying. Many found their way out. Many more succumbed, and sank slowly to the ocean floor.
One beast, however, slowed, and then turned back. It had run, just as the others had, away from the poison. It found waters that were clear enough to breathe, if only for a moment. There it stopped. It circled, as others swam past it, gouged and bleeding, terrified and sick, seeking in desperation any passage to deeper waters.
It waited. Deep Fin was still behind. The Presence was there. It had stayed with Deep Fin. The Presence and the Deep Fin were within the poison.
The other Firefish fled, and finally no more came. But Deep Fin did not come. The beast waited yet, the poison growing stronger. It raised its head into the emptiness. It looked around. And then it saw. It knew. The Deep Fin would not come. It was dying. It could not survive the poison either, being Firefish.
The Firefish waited, needing to leave, not wanting to leave.
It did not want to be alone again.
It did not want to go back to the cold and dark and deep, where the Presence was not. And so it circled once, and then once again, and then something within its brain, within its heart, clicked…an instinct, perhaps, but not an instinct for survival. A deeper pull. A decision that opened up its heart to the joy, the light of the Presence.
Yes. It would follow Deep Fin.
And so it flew back to the poison waters, back, back, at any cost, whatever cost.
Its eyes were blinded. Its head was filled with sickness. The stench was overwhelming. Still it swam.
And it found the Deep Fin, dying. It heard the creaks, the groans. It circled in the poisoned water, all but blind in pain and sickness, as the Deep Fin sank beneath the surface, and then floated down, and down. The beast swam among its wings, now swaying softly, gently in the waters. It swam around its outer skin. It felt the Deep Fin’s scales against its own. It sank down, down with Deep Fin.
It searched for the Presence.
But the Presence could not be found. Deep Fin was dark, and cold. The poison settled down with Deep Fin on the ocean floor, and the Firefish settled with it. It wrapped itself around Deep Fin, wound itself all through its wings, its arms. And there it rested. It put its head on Deep Fin’s head, where the tiny creature’s face had been, where the Presence had lived and shone. Here it would wait. It would stay with the Deep Fin, in the dark, the cold, and it would await the Presence.
CHAPTER 22
Triumph
If victory in battle were always judged by the strength of the surviving forces, then Nearing Vast finished a distant second in the Battle of Mayak-Aloh. The Drammune clearly took the worst of it, suffering heavy casualties in pure numbers, but even more when those numbers were calculated as a percentage of their forces. Every Drammune warship had been sunk but one, and most all had been overrun by the Achawuk first.
The Vast fared only slightly better. The toll on their forces was almost as heavy in numbers, but when the last shot was fired and the last spear thrown and the last Firefish claimed its final victim, they had their flagship’s entire crew intact, save only the fatal stabbing of a captain by a crewman—a captain, as it would be argued later in many pubs in Mann, who ought to be counted among the Drammune dead anyway. They had the Marchessa and almost half her crew alive, including Captain Moore Davies. They had outlasted their counterparts on the Kaza Fahn because they were not caught quite so off guard, and because they had a mission to fulfill, and a tradition to uphold. The Vast had never lost to the Achawuk. And as would became obvious to all soon enough, the Vast had one more ship yet, completely free of injury, suffering no loss or damage whatsoever.
Only when the battle was over did the rearmost ship in his majesty’s intrepid Fleet manage to accomplish the extraordinary nautical feat of sailing between the jutting points of two adjacent islands. Having twice tried unsuccessfully to ma
nage the strait, once misjudging the approach too far to port, and once too far to starboard, the careful captain of the Blunderbuss ordered that a third pass be undertaken much farther to the east, at the next entry point, which he hoped might provide a slightly wider passageway. It did, but by the time the slowest ship, perhaps the slowest ever built in Nearing Vast, entered the mayak-aloh, the Achawuk were swimming hell-bent for the Trophy Chase, all martial motives laid aside as they prepared their hearts and minds for the new age that had dawned among them.
Thus the Blunderbuss survived unscathed, once again.
The Achawuk, while suffering the heaviest death toll, also suffered the smallest percentage of dead and wounded. They certainly had overwhelming numbers still, as was evident to all when the survivors of the battle gathered on the shores of the mayak-aloh, beneath the rock outcropping that still bore their sick and dazed rek-tahk-ent.
But the numbers did not tell the story. As Dayton Throme knew, seated on his blanket-covered chaise, sweating and shivering, watching as the Vast ship’s jolly approached the shore, the Vast had won the day. A small sailboat, more like a rowboat with a sail, made for the shore carrying the leaders of the victorious navy. Following it were several others, from the same sinking ship. And the Achawuk followed, too. Of course they followed, as thick on the water as lily pads on a shaded pond. The boat carried the Tannan-thoh-ah. The end of the world might not have actually come, but this man, whoever he was, certainly had. The Achawuk had witnessed the cataclysm. They had seen him bring glory to the beast. All had gone according to the prophecy except…except of course, that all these still lived. And what would they do with this inconvenient little fact? Would they think this man a god?
And who was he, really? What damage might he do, some Vast captain or admiral raised in a world where money ruled, trained to give orders, to take advantage of every situation, when faced with such an opportunity as a whole nation prepared to follow him anywhere?
Dayton saw a single boat now leave the lone remaining Drammune warship, following behind, as though not wanting to be left out on the waters. Dayton shook his head. Somehow now the Drammune would have to make their peace with the combined Achawuk and Vast.
Dayton felt tired, as tired as he ever remembered feeling. His strength drained away, as he thought of all that must now happen. It was as though he had been propped up from within, as though he’d forced himself to be awake and alert, holding sickness and fatigue at bay while the end of the world unfolded. And now, those props were gone. He sat back, put his head back on the rough blankets, pulled others up around him. And he shivered.
He could not get warm. But soon he was oblivious, sound asleep.
Packer left the boat and walked with his handful of Vast sailors, crunching up the beach to a rocky outcropping surrounded by sand on four sides, and there determined he would await some sort of council with the Achawuk. The jolly, too big to beach and too small to anchor offshore, was left with its prow in the sand and its stern in the waves, a bowline tied to a small tree. The men brought their duffels and small arms to the rocky camp, leaving the rations and water and ammunition behind in the boat.
The Achawuk came out of the water. They were not nearly so exhausted as the Vast might have expected. They saw the high ground the Tannan-thoh-ah had chosen, and gathered around the rocks, sitting one next to another in the sand.
And they kept gathering. They gathered, and gathered, and gathered until the sands were filled and the shoreline was obscured, providing the Vast with the rather discomfiting sensation that the waters had risen and now lapped around them, and the Achawuk swam in them yet.
When he arrived, Zhintah-Hoak was dripping wet but not even out of breath, as though expending energy in murderous mayhem and treading water for as much as an hour was not unusual for him. He walked through his people slowly, up onto the rocks, and directly to Packer. The Achawuk throng was deadly still. Standing two feet from Packer and looking him in the eye, he said with great gravity, in the slowest cadence any of the Vast had ever heard, “Taha tannan-thoh-ah.” Then he stared, waiting.
Delaney bristled. “I don’t like his tone,” he said in a low growl.
Packer held up a calming hand to Delaney. And he waited.
“Taha rek-owa,” Zhintah-Hoak said eventually, in the same even tone and slow cadence. But now he looked at Packer, his hair, his clothes. He reached out and put a hand on Packer’s shoulder.
Delaney stepped forward. “He better keep his hands off of ye,” Delaney said. “You tell him that.”
Packer did not take his eyes from the warrior’s face. He felt that would be disrespectful. But he said aloud, “Delaney, I don’t speak Achawuk.”
Delaney shot a hard glance at Mutter.
Cabe cleared his throat. “I do. A little,” he said. “Long as they talk slow.”
“Don’t seem like that’ll be a problem,” Delaney offered.
“Ask him, ‘Ahara?’ ” Cabe said.
“Ahara?” Packer’s question was to Mutter, but the warrior answered Packer.
“Tannan-thoh-ah ahb rek-tahk-ent.” He said it in a deep, rich, patient voice.
Packer looked to Mutter, who just scowled. Then he shook his head.
“You want him to say it slower?” Delaney asked.
“I know the words. Jus’ don’t make no sense.”
“What’s the words, then?”
Mutter sniffed. “He said, the end of the world meets the one who comes before.”
“Comes before what?” Delaney asked.
“Before the end of the world,” Mutter said. “I guess. It’s that word what they all been sayin’. Tannan-thoh-ah. It’s Achawuk.”
“No kiddin’.”
The warrior nodded at Packer, patted the king’s shoulder. “Tannan-thoh-ah.”
“Well, that explains that.” Mutter grimaced, then raised his eyebrows. “Seems you’re it, sir,” he told Packer. “You’re the end of the world.”
Zhintah-Hoak kept his eyes on Tannan-thoh-ah. He did not like to look at the other Vast men. They seemed to him like small, scurrying creatures, moving with quick, frantic eyes and flashing hands. They chattered, their voices were scratchy and squeaking. They were chipmunks. But this man, the Tannan-thoh-ah, he was different. He carried purpose. There was fire in his soul. The spirit that moved the world moved in him. The Firefish knew. Zhintah-Hoak knew. “We have been waiting for you.”
Packer was stunned. The man spoke Vast.
“Rek-tahk-ent…also Vast,” Zhintah said.
Delaney whistled once. Andrew Haas and Father Mooring exchanged glances.
“He says the one who comes before is also Vast,” Mutter offered.
“Got that, thanks,” Delaney offered. “Sometimes, Mutter, I swear, you’re duller’n a stonecutter’s axe.”
“Praise be,” Bran Mooring offered. “I wonder if it’s someone we know.”
Packer’s heart leaped, though he didn’t know why. “I will go where you ask me to go,” Packer told him.
Zhintah-Hoak waited a moment, unsure what all the conversation had been about. Then he turned and pointed upward, toward the stone shelf high above them. “Rek-tahk-ent ahb.” It was hard to judge the distance, perhaps a thousand feet up, and a quarter of a mile away. Above the ledge, the mountain rose another thousand feet or more. Above that, a slate-gray sky with rows of low clouds, waves across an inverted sea, promised both rain that had yet to fall and the return of a sun that had shone only once or twice today. It might deliver either.
The Drammune boat from the Kaza Fahn now rowed to shore behind the throng of Achawuk warriors, crunching its prow into the sand a hundred yards from Packer. Several Drammune warriors leaped out, splashing through the waves, pulling their craft onto the beach and pushing their way, with little ceremony or concern for the Achawuk, toward the rocks where Packer and Zhintah-Hoak held their council.
All stopped and watched them approach.
Now a Drammune officer elbowed Zhintah-Hoa
k out of the way, positioned himself in front of Packer, and spoke gruffly. “Hezz Huk Tuth vare hezzan Vastcha tai taa,” he said, gesturing toward his boat. He wore the insignia of a low-grade officer, and was in fact one of Tuth’s lieutenants.
“Now, this one, I’m sure I don’t like his tone,” Delaney growled again.
Zhintah’s eyes narrowed. These men were worse than squirrels. This one who pushed his way here, he posed like a strutting bird. He was a small, scared man who hid his fear behind aggressive action, like a child pretending to be grown. Any man carrying such behaviors deep into his grown days was dangerous.
All Vast eyes turned to Father Mooring, awaiting his translation. “Well. It seems Supreme Commander Huk Tuth wants to speak with Packer Throme rather urgently.”
Zhintah now saw the priest for the first time. This man was no squirrel. He carried the spirit of the earth, the sea, the air within him. Zhintah’s eyes danced as he watched the priest.
“I’ll speak with him,” Packer said. “Tell him he may approach.”
“The nature of the request, sir…” the priest squinted, “was actually a demand that you go to him.”
Delaney’s eyes sparked, but he said nothing.
Packer sensed the resentment in Delaney, Cabe, and even Andrew Haas. “Ask him, Father, why the commander can’t come here.”
The priest did, then translated the response. “He’s badly injured, Your Highness.”
Packer nodded. The others relaxed. “I’ll come speak to him.”
“Packer,” Father Mooring said. The tone of his voice caused all the men to look at him. His beaming face was gentle. “Before you speak with Commander Tuth, you should know the last words of his Hezzan.”
The Trophy Chase Saga Page 121
