City of Jade: A Novel of Mithgar

by Dennis McKiernan

  “Three, no, four crimson sails,” cried the lookout, “two-masted dhows all. And a white-sailed ship running ahead, three masts—a barque, I think. They’re after her, Tom.”

  “Wi’ y’r permission, Cap’n,” said Long Tom, “Oi’ll arm th’ crew. Them fools o’ Rovers moight tiak it in’t’ their heads t’ try t’ board th’ Eroean.”

  Aravan smiled and nodded his approval but said, “More likely we’ll be boarding them, Tom, yet we’ll need falchions, no matter which.”

  “I be the one to see it done, Kapitan,” said Nikolai, and down the ladder he bounded.

  Nikolai rounded up a handful of sailors to disappear below and emerge moments later with their arms full of falchions, the heavy and relatively short-bladed swords ideal for close-quarter, hand-to-hand fighting.

  And as Nikolai and the sailors passed among the seamen and handed out cold steel, Dwarves, already armed, stood ready at the ballistas—two of the arbalests in the bow, two in the stern, and three down each side—yet they did not cock the weapons nor load any missiles.

  And on hove the Eroean . . .

  . . . and the sun sank toward the sea.

  Like the silent long shadows streaming from the masts and sails and cast far to the aft of the Elvenship by the lowering sun in the west, quietly the Eroean drew nearer and nearer to the Rovers, and still the ready Dwarves waited.

  And all aboard the Eroean seemed to stand stock-still with bated breath, and the only sounds aboard the ship came from the prow cutting through the indigo sea and the shssh of the wake astern as well as the creak of Elven ropes straining against pins and yards and blocks.

  And as azure sails drew on toward those of crimson, Aravan softly said to the bosun, “James, very soon, when I give the command, pipe the sails for a larboard beam reach against the two aft raiders. We’ll cross their sterns and rake the decks.”

  Intent on their prey ahead, the Rovers had no idea that the hunters were hunted themselves.

  Word as to Aravan’s plan went whispering the length of the ship. And the Dwarves to the starboard growled in their beards at being left out of the fight, while those to the larboard at last cocked their weapons and laded on fireballs.

  And the Eroean slipped unnoticed up behind the foe.

  “Now!” hissed Aravan, and James piped the command.

  Even as sailors hauled the yards about and slipped the sheets of the stays, of a sudden the crews aboard the two Rover ships glanced ’round and began gesticulating and scurrying, their shouts loud over the water, as the Kistanian crews, their faces stark with fear, had finally realized the peril they were in.

  Hard over the Rovers hauled the long lateen spars, yet it was entirely too late, and fire sailed o’er the span between the Elvenship and the deck of the first raider, flaming balls to explode across the decks and splash upon rigging and masts and sails and set all ablaze. Swiftly, the larboard ballistas were again cocked and, as the Elvenship crossed the heel of the second raider, five more fireballs were flung. And then the Eroean was past this pair and Aravan ordered the sails piped about to run down the other two dhows.

  And as the bow veered close to the wind, a single fireball from one of the Rovers flew across the distance to fall short and sink with nought but a splash and the sputter of a fuse extinguished.

  And leaving the two Rovers battling against blaze—their masts, sails, and decks afire—the Eroean now sped toward the remaining Rovers, whose prey fled just beyond.

  And the sun lipped the horizon and began sinking into the sea.

  On sped the Elvenship, closing the distance between. Yet, given the hullabaloo aft, the Rover captains had spotted the Eroean. And they shouted orders, and Rover crews haled on the lines of the lateen-rigged ships, and they heeled over to flee away southward toward the haven of Kistan, for few captains of the island nation dared take on Aravan’s ship.

  “Shall I pipe the sails, Captain?” asked James.

  “Nay, bosun,” said Aravan. “We’ll let these two take flight with their rudders tucked under their keels.”

  Long Tom sighed, but said nought, while Nikolai snorted and headed to the decks to gather a crew to take up the no-longer-needed falchions. He passed Brekk as the Dwarf came storming up to the afterdeck. “Captain, you are my commander, but are we just going to let them run? If so, I mislike it a deal.”

  Aravan looked at his Dwarven warband leader. “Armsmaster, wouldst thou hie after a snake were it fleeing into the dark?”

  Brekk shook his head. “Nay, I would not. Yet if it were an Ükh, I would run it to earth and slay it.”

  “This is no Rûpt, Brekk.”

  “Nay, it is not, Captain, but the difference is mere, like one chip of bad stone to another.”

  “Yet thou dost know, Brekk, stones come in many kinds and forms—whereas some can be shaped, others crumble at a touch.”

  “You, an Elf, try to teach a Châk about stone?”

  “Nay, Brekk, for I know thy kind are masters of such.”

  “Then what is your point, Captain?”

  “Just this, Armsmaster: whereas Rûtcha were made in the spirit of Gyphon, hence are incapable of change, Humans are malleable and can alter their behavior—for good or ill, I admit. Yet, heed: mayhap yon Rovers, though now like unto fleeing snakes, perhaps are frightened enough to give up their vile ways, for unlike vipers and Spaunen, Humans can indeed change. Yet, Brekk, I promise thee this: I have marked them well, and should either of those same ships be plying these lanes when we return, then will we hunt them down, day or night, and slay them to the last man.”

  The armsmaster growled and glared at the crimson sails of the fleeing pair of ships. “Mayhap were it a lethal viper, I would slay it on the spot to prevent it from even the possibility of striking an innocent victim. I think these poisonous Rovers deserve the same fate, for unlike the snakes of which you speak, the brigands seek out the blameless to do them harm.”

  Aravan nodded. “There is much to what thou dost say, Brekk. Mayhap I have made a mistake after all. Yet there is a ship to the fore that needs our help to gain the ocean beyond.”

  Brekk grunted and gave a single sharp nod, for at last did he see Aravan’s true aim, and on plied the Eroean westerly as crimson-sailed Rovers fled southward.

  Swiftly, the Elvenship overtook the three-masted barque as twilight overtook the world. As the Eroean eased up sails and hove alongside that ship, Aravan called out to the captain opposite, “We’ll run ahead and clear the channel.”

  “Captain Aravan, is it, of the Eroean?” called the merchant commander in reply.

  Noddy snorted and muttered, “J’st who bloody else moight we be?”

  “Aye, I be Aravan.”

  “Well I thank ye, Captain Aravan. I be Captain Allson of the Gray Petrel out of Gelen. Though an escort we would take gratefully, we were headed east for Arbalin when we spotted the brigands.”

  “Then come about, Captain Allson. The northern channel was clear when we sailed through. And I suspect you won’t be bothered by those particular Rovers again. As for us, we’re sailing west, and won’t be back for many a day.”

  “Very well, Captain Aravan,” called Allson. “The channel west was also clear when we came through. And, Captain, if you are ever in Lindor, I’ll stand you and all of your crew to a fine meal and a drink.”

  “We’ll take you up on that, Captain,” replied Aravan; then he signaled James, and the bosun piped the orders to tighten up sails again, and the Eroean drew away from the Petrel, as that ship came about to head east once more.

  And, as the nighttide drew down over the world and stars began to appear one by one in the darkening skies above, west sailed the Elvenship, while aft sailed the barque toward the glimmering light of two burning ships that would never ply the seas again.

  21

  Voyages

  ELVENSHIP

  LATE AUTUMN, 6E1,

  THROUGH MID SPRING, 6E7

  No foe did they see as they sailed the remainde
r of the way through the Kistanian Straits and into the Weston Ocean. And even as they emerged, Aravan, standing at the starboard rail with Aylis, said, “Here is where I first saw thee, Chieran, as thou didst clamber over the rail, and I fell in love in that instant.”

  Aylis smiled, again recalling that fateful day in her first year at the College of Mages in Kairn, the City of Bells, that she had cast a spell upon a silver mirror, and that was when she had first seen who her truelove would be. Yet those days were long past, and the City of Kairn no more, for it had gone into the sea when the Island of Rwn vanished below the waves.

  She looked into Aravan’s sapphire blue gaze and said, “And I loved you long before we ever met.”

  “Cap’n.” Long Tom’s voice broke into their reminiscences.

  “Aye?”

  “What be our course?”

  “West-southwest, Tom. We’ll ride the trades and the coastal current as far as we can, and hope they carry us across the doldrums of the midline.”

  “Aye, Cap’n, west-sou’west she be.”

  As Long Tom turned away, Aylis asked, “Are we taking the same route that we took once before, back when we headed for the Crystal Cavern?”

  “Nearly the same,” said Aravan. “After we cross the doldrums, we’ll run a long tack southwest to the line of the goat, where, Rualla willing, we’ll not find irons there. Then swing southeast and run for the Cape of Storms, down through the roaring forties and the polar westerlies. Once past the cape, we’ll head northeasterly on nigh a straight run for the Ten Thousand Isles of Mordain.”

  “Rualla willing, of course,” said Aylis.

  Aravan laughed. “Indeed, for the Mistress of the Winds, fickle though she is, has command o’er the Eroean, e’en above me.”

  When they came upon the waters of the midline, the winds were light and shifty, and the crew was hard-pressed to make the best of the erratic air.

  “Did I not say Rualla was fickle?” asked Aravan.

  “Capricious, I would say,” answered Aylis. “Playful.”

  “Y’r laidy, Cap’n, she’s roight t’call ’er that,” said Long Tom, looking about as if expecting that at any moment Rualla would manifest Herself upon the decks of the Elvenship. “Oi mean, laidies don’ loik t’be called ‘fickle,’ naow, do they? Oi mean, capricious is more loike a nicer word, it is, a more nicer word at that. Oi think Rualla would loike that word ever so much better, Oi do, Oi think, Oi do.”

  Aravan laughed and nodded. “Indeed, Long Tom. Capricious and playful it is.”

  And on they sailed in the whimsical wind, erratic and difficult to sail as it was.

  But then once past the Midline Doldrums, they ran swift and true to the Calms of the Goat, and there the ship found itself in irons. They broke out the gigs, and for three full days both Dwarves and men rowed southerly, and the hot sun beat down upon them, sweat runnelling from brow and pits and crotch. But on early morn of the fourth day, a slight puff of air bellied the sails and, ere the noontide, again the Eroean ran full in a brisk wind.

  Steadily the winds increased the farther south she fared, and though it was verging upon the warm season south, the shortening nights grew cold and colder, and chill grew the lengthening days as well. The speed of the ship increased, and she ran sixteen and seventeen knots at times, logging more than three hundred fifty miles a day on two days running. And the weather became foul, rain and sleet off and on lashing against the ship, while large breaking waves raced o’er the southern lats of the Weston Ocean, the Eroean cleaving through the waters, her decks awash in the cold brine.

  In the swaying light of the salon’s lanterns, Aravan looked across the table at Long Tom and at Nikolai, third in command. Spread out before them were Aravan’s precious charts, marking winds and currents throughout the oceans of the world. Back in the shadows stood Noddy. A knock sounded on the aft quarters door, and Noddy sprang down the short passageway to open it, and in through wind and spray came Fat Jim and Brekk, followed closely by James, bosun of the Eroean, all three wearing their weather gear, boots and slickers and cowls.

  Noddy took the dripping slickers and hung them on wall pegs in a corner. And everyone, including the cabin boy, gathered round the chart table.

  Aravan’s finger stabbed down onto the map. “In a day or three we will reach the waters of the cape, and I would have ye all remind the crew what it is we face.”

  “Storms,” breathed Noddy. “Storms fierce and wild and cruel.”

  Aravan smiled at the lad. “Aye, Noddy, storms indeed. Autumn storms at that, though not as cruel as those in the cold season south.”

  Brekk growled. “Stupid southern seasons. Just backwards! Here, winter in the north is the warm season south, and summer north is opposite as well.”

  Long Tom laughed. “Hoy, Brekk, back’ard or no, th’ polar realm be always frigid, though th’ sun may roide the sky throughout a day as nice and peaceful as y’ please.”

  Nikolai nodded, adding, “A bad place, this cape, by damn. Hard on crew no matter season. Snow, ice, freeze rain fall, weigh down both sail and rope. In autumn, there be snow or sleet or freeze rain or anyt’ing, and same be true of spring. Even in heart of warm part of year it be not very different; ha! much time sleet hammer on ship. But in autumn season, like now, storm always seem bear freeze rain and ice, and wave run tall—greybeard all—Diabolos! hundred feet from crest to trough.”

  “E’en so, Nikolai,” said Fat Jim, “it ain’t like the winter season, when things be double-worse.”

  Aylis, standing off to one side, nodded, for she had sailed these waters millennia agone when seeking Jinnarin’s mate, Farrix.

  Aravan gazed down at the chart. “It is ever so in these polar realms that raging Father Winter seldom looses his grasp, no matter the southern season.”

  Noddy, too, stared at the map. “And the winds, Cap’n, wot about the winds? Will they be the same as wot we came through afore, back when you ’n’ Bair ’n’ the rest o’ us went to the Grait Swirl?”

  “Aye, ’tis the very same air—westerlies, and constantly running at gale force, or nearly so. Seldom do those winds rest, and the Eroean will be faring with the blow.” Aravan looked up at the faces about him. “And I would have ye all remind the crew just what it is that we likely face: thundering wind, ice, freezing rain, long days and short nights fighting our way through. Each of us will have to take utmost care to not be washed over the rails, for like as not, should anyone go into the water he will be lost. Remind them again that tether ropes are to be hooked at all times aloft . . . and, Tom, Nikolai, rig the extra deck lifelines, for surely they will be needed. As for Lissa and Vex, they’ll have to remain belowdecks, else she and the fox will be blown into the sea.”

  “I’ll warn her,” said Aylis, “and make it my job to see she remains down here with me.”

  As Aravan nodded, “The sails, Captain,” said James, his dark eyes glittering in the lantern light, “is there something special you would have me render?”

  “The studs are already down,” replied Aravan. “Likely we will furl the starscrapers and moonrakers as soon as we round the shoulder of the cape . . . the gallants and royals as well. I deem that we’ll make our run on stays, jibs, tops, and mains, though likely we’ll reef them down somewhat. Long ago I ran with all sails full up—not here but in the Silver Straits—and I lost two of the masts in one fell swoop. I’ll not risk that again.”