This Forsaken Earth

by Paul Kearney

“I’m going to write out orders for Thef. Miriam, what other ships are in or close by?”

  “Jan Timian’s Skua, and Marveyus Gan’s Osprey. That’s all.”

  “I’ll write orders for them, too, then. We must get as many aboard as possible. If this is Canker’s doing, this fleet, then he will have embarked an army with it. I know him. He’ll send regiments ashore and scour every inch of this coast.”

  “What’s he doing it for?” Miriam asked. Her face was white as sailcloth.

  “He’s looking for me, Miriam. I am half brother to the last legitimate ruler of Bionar; a tenuous connection, but it’s there all the same. He’ll sleep better at night with me dead and Ganesh Ka destroyed.”

  “The people must make for the hills at once,” Miriam said, shocked.

  The little group stood silent for a while, staring into the fire-pit before them.

  “This is the end, then,” Elias Creed said at last. “The Ka is finished. We cannot fight a fleet.”

  “This place has been here a long time,” Rol told them. “Even if they bombarded it for a month, they’d barely make a dent in the stone. No, the city itself will endure, but our tenure of it is over. We must look for someplace else to lay our heads.”

  “And where will that be?” Miriam asked.

  “I will find a place,” Rol said calmly. He scratched the itching palm of his left hand, where Ran’s Mark burned in folds of flesh. He knew now why it had been set there. To lead them to a new beginning.

  Twenty

  THE BLACK SHIP

  THE BREEZE HAD VEERED ROUND TO EAST-SOUTHEAST and was still freshening, kicking up whitecaps on the waves, a half-fathom swell that set the heavy cutter to pitching like a playful cart-horse. They had hoisted the lugsail, stowed the oars, and were now making a good seven knots or so with the wind on the starboard quarter. Rol sat at the tiller, drenched and grinning, whilst Elias Creed stood by the single mast, clinging to a halliard and peering north. In the bottom of the boat, Giffon was bailing with a wooden pail, his face as green as the translucent swells around them. He was always sick when first he went back to sea after an absence.

  Gallico bent to peer at the brass compass between his feet. “Nor’-nor’west by south,” he said. “That’ll do just fine. Gods in heaven, but it’s good to be back in a boat!”

  “It’s like coming back from the dead,” Elias Creed said. And then: “Sail ho! I see the Revenant, or her twin. She’s under topsails and jib, one point off the larboard bow. Look at that bow wave! Artimion is giving her the wind.”

  Cold sea-spray came aboard, lit up by the westering sun into a shower of yellow sparks. Rol wiped his face, feeling the new angles upon it, the scars that had not been there before. His youth was gone now. There was no trace left of the fresh-faced boy who had one night knocked on the door of Psellos’s Tower in Ascari. But he still had no idea what that boy had become.

  “Rol,” Creed said, and his voice was quite changed. “Look north.”

  Rol gave over the tiller to Gallico and made his way forward, ducking under the drum-taut sail. The horizon was a ragged line of white and dark, waves coursing along it like the teeth of a saw, their heads whipped to white foam by the brisk wind. The Revenant was less than a league away now, but more distant, to larboard, there was a line of white nicks on the horizon that were not waves. Rol counted over two dozen of them, though one could not be accurate at this distance and in this sea. The sun was sinking rapidly, and the western horizon was a clear, blushed arc of color, dark as wine, with a dying light brimming over the topmost peaks of the mountains. Rol wiped salt-spray from his face. “Big vessels. I can see their courses on the rise. Ship-rigged too. Those are men-of-war, Elias.”

  They had all expected it, but deep down some irrational part of them had hoped it might yet be a merchant convoy.

  “Canker has been busy,” Elias said, eyes dark as the shadowed flanks of the mountains in the west.

  “Yes. He is a resourceful man.”

  They had to wave and halloo like fools before the Revenant noticed them and backed topsails to let the cutter clunk alongside. By that time, the ship’s company had recognized them, and were cheering up and down her decks. They were shouting Gallico’s name, and Creed’s, and a few yelled “The skipper!” too.

  Rol hauled himself up his ship’s side, aided by the manropes they sent down for him. When he stood on the Revenant’s deck his head was swimming slightly, and his biceps burned. He was a long way from hale; the mark the mountains had set upon him would take time to erase. John Imbro, Fell Amertaz, little rat-faced Kier the carpenter, and two dozen others; they left their posts and came crowding around as Gallico, Creed, and Giffon climbed up from the cutter in turn, leaving the pitching craft made fast fore and aft to the Revenant’s side. As they came aboard, the grinning seamen slapped and manhandled them as if to make sure they were real. Rol looked aft, and saw Artimion standing at the quarterdeck rail. If he was surprised at this visitation, he concealed it, and he stood as impassive as a ship’s captain should, looking down on the little pantomime below. Rol made his way through the cloud of laughing mariners and climbed the steep steps aft. He had to pause at their top, breathing hard. He offered Artimion his hand, and after a brief moment the black man shook it, then bent his head to peer at the mutilated limb he held.

  “You’ve been through the wars,” he said.

  “That I have.”

  “Come below. We can talk there.”

  The familiar cabin, one of the most beautiful spaces Rol had ever inhabited. Artimion had changed very little. He took the captain’s chair, his back to the stern windows so that his face was hid by shadow, and Rol had the light of the sunset in his eyes.

  “You want your ship back,” Artimion said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Fine; it’s yours. It was only a loan, after all.” Artimion’s face was impossible to read.

  “The sea air has done you good,” Rol told him. “I can’t hear your lungs wheezing anymore.”

  Artimion inclined his head. “You, on the other hand, look more dead than alive. Perhaps you could tell me what you’ve been up to, and if it is connected with the doom of Ganesh Ka, which is beating up into the wind as we speak.”

  He was coldly angry, Rol realized. He blames me.

  “The rebel Queen, Rowen, is dead, her armies broken and destroyed. I killed Bar Asfal with my own hands, which, as it happens, was the final thing your old friend Canker needed to hatch out his plans. He is now King of Bionar, and it is he who has sent out this fleet to destroy us.” Looking at Artimion’s face, Rol added, “Yes, it came as quite a surprise to us too.”

  “How did you get back to the Ka?”

  “Over the Myconians.”

  “How long—”

  “Canker has had a little under two months. Ample time to collect up a fleet and send it south.”

  Artimion leaned back in his chair and stared at the deck-head above. “We must abandon the Ka,” he said, his voice a choked whisper.

  “Miriam has it in hand. Now tell me of this fleet. What do you know?”

  Artimion collected himself with a visible effort. “They fly the saffron and black of Bionar in the main, but some of them have Mercanter pennants also.”

  “Merchantmen, in a fighting fleet?”

  The black man leaned forward. “No. They are all warships. It would seem the Mercanters have got themselves a navy, and are in league with our old friend Canker.”

  Rol digested this. His turn to be shocked. “We must stop trying to outdo each other with our surprises,” he said to Artimion. The black man smiled.

  “You know what it means, Cortishane?” He rose, and from the gimballed jug slung from one bulkhead he poured them clay cups of wine. Rol sipped without replying.

  “It means we’re finished, all the inhabitants of the Ka. If the Mercanters have outfitted warships against us then there is truly no place left to run, for there is not a kingdom in the world that would defy them t
o harbor us. Ganesh Ka was the last sanctuary.” Artimion tossed back his wine. “We are floating dead men.”

  Rol watched him. Canker’s treachery had hit him hard. “It would seem there is less honor among thieves than we thought,” he said.

  “I never thought Canker to be some paragon of honesty, but I misread the scale of his ambition.”

  “So did I,” Rol admitted. “So did everyone.”

  “With a new regime in Bionar as our ally, we would have been secure, Rol. I did what I thought was best for us all.”

  Rol nodded. “I know you did. I know that now.”

  Artimion raised his glass in salute, eyes glinting. “You may have brought our doom upon us, Cortishane, but it was I who sent you out looking for it.”

  “Yes. Between us, we did quite a job of it.”

  They watched each other a moment, as if registering the face of a stranger. Then Artimion drained his wine.

  “I am needed ashore,” he said. “You must bring in the Revenant, take on as many as you can, and get them out of here. I don’t know where, or how, but you must fill up every boat that will float and get them away. This wind is going to start backing soon, I can feel it. By morning, that fleet will have it on the beam, and lee shore or no, they will be able to creep south and land their marines. The Ka has one more day, two at most. Then it will be sacked.”

  “Artimion, there are thousands in the city. If the ships can take off seven or eight hundred, we’ll be lucky. What of the rest?”

  “I will lead them across the hills into the Goliad,” Artimion said. He peered into his empty cup, and nodded as though reassuring himself.

  “Across the Gorthor Flats? That’s madness.”

  “Have you other suggestions, Cortishane?”

  They looked at each other. Artimion’s question was genuine.

  “No, I suppose I haven’t. But they’ll die there, Artimion; I know.”

  “Some will make it. The hardiest. Many will die. But if they stay where they are, all will die. Simple choices, Rol, make for simple decisions.”

  “That much is true. What if I told you that I may know of another place, a sanctuary where we can all be safe?”

  “I would say, lead me to it—what do you think? We’ve no time for rhetoric.” Artimion raised his voice. “Generro! Pass the word for the bosun!”

  Young Generro, he of the pretty face and long arms, put his head in at the door, said, “Aye, sir,” grinned at Rol, and then withdrew. A minute later Fell Amertaz’s sinister, competent face took his place. “Sir?”

  “Set course for the Ka, all plain sail. Drop anchor outside the seawall and then set down all boats.”

  Amertaz hesitated, looked at Rol, then nodded. “Aye aye, sir, course for Ganesh Ka, set down boats.”

  “My last order as the Revenant’s captain, I promise you,” Artimion said with a battered smile.

  “It’s all right. I’m not as precious as I once was.”

  “You spoke of a sanctuary. Was that wishful thinking, a play with words, or is there something to it? We don’t have the time to—”

  Rol raised his left hand, palm toward Artimion’s face. “What do you see?”

  “A scar, a mark. Some call it the Mark of Ran. Superstition.”

  “It is a map.”

  “I see no map.”

  “I do. This is a sea-course, based on the stars. I see Quintillion there, as plain as I see your face. Artimion, I believe this mark was made on me for a purpose. I intend to follow it with this ship, and any other ship that’ll come with me.”

  Artimion grasped Rol’s hand in his own blunt fingers and stared intently at the lines and whorls that were etched thereon. “I see nothing,” he said.

  “Trust me, it’s there.”

  “What in hell are you, Cortishane? What are you doing among us?”

  “I’m going to try and save these people.”

  “There was a time when you didn’t give a damn about these people.”

  Rol nodded. “That was true, once. But no longer. As I said, you will have to trust me.”

  Artimion dropped Rol’s hand. “It was bad, in Bionar. I can see it on your face, and not just in the scars.”

  “It was bad. It was war, as it is fought by great nations, without pity or honor. Great wheels rolling, and the little people crushed beneath them. Canker can keep his kingdom. I will never go back.”

  “How did this rebel Queen meet her end—your sister?”

  “Half sister,” Rol corrected quickly. Orders were being shouted up on deck, and within the stern cabin the light moved round as the ship fell off before the wind, prior to coming round. Shadow grew in the space about them, and beyond the stern-windows the sunset was red on the surface of the sea.

  “I did not see her die. Gallico, he watched. He saw it.” Rol’s face burned at the memory.

  “Canker was right,” Artimion said. “You did love her.”

  “I loved an idea, a memory.” Rol was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “When it came to it, I was glad enough just to get away from her alive.”

  Artimion gestured to the scarred hand he had scrutinized a moment before. “Perhaps you are being saved for greater things.”

  “I hope not, Artimion.” Then Rol turned on his heel and left the cabin. He stumbled along the dark companionway to the waist of the ship, wiping his eyes in angry bafflement.

  The Revenant took the wind on the larboard beam. Rol assumed his accustomed place by the ship’s wheel. Old Morcam, the quartermaster, was steering, along with one of his mates. His eyes gave Rol a rare flicker of goodwill.

  “Nice to have you back, skipper,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, and tilted the spokes a tad, keeping the sharply braced yards just this side of shivering.

  “It’s good to be back, Morcam,” Rol said.

  A ship’s gun fired, faint in the teeth of the wind. Rol stared aft.

  “Signal gun,” Morcam said. “They do it every time they change tack. Not bad sailing, for a Bionese bunch of bastards.”

  Rol wondered what Morcam would make of the Bionese bastards he had brought over the mountains. He intended to have them board this very ship. They were his responsibility, after all.

  The quarterdeck became somewhat crowded as Gallico, Creed, and Giffon joined him about the wheel. Artimion came on deck as they were preparing to anchor two cables from the tawny seawalls of Ganesh Ka. He bore a canvas seabag, and had buckled a rapier at his waist. It was almost dark by then, and a heavy blueness had settled over the water, broken by the flash of foam on the wave crests. They dropped anchor in fifteen fathoms. The Revenant slowed and her stern began to come around as the wind worked on her, but the anchor held. Rol looked up at the yards. All sails had been furled in the bunt, and the topmen were clambering down the shrouds, more subdued than he had ever seen them.

  “All hands,” he called. “Prepare to lower boats from the yardarms. Gallico, take command.” He turned to Artimion. “I’ll come ashore with you in the cutter.”

  The inner harbor of the Ka was crowded with small-craft. Fishing smacks, longboats, open-decked cutters and launches—every vessel, great and humble, that could float. Skiffs and rowboats were ferrying folk out to them, so overcrowded there was barely space to man the oars. As night swooped down on them from the mountains, torches flared and flickered in the boats, their light shattered in the choppy water of the harbor.

  Creed was at the tiller of the cutter, eight good men at the oars. In the darkness his face was unreadable. “Elias,” Rol said. “Once we dock, take a couple of the crew and start loading the folk from Myconn on the Revenant. Then the slaves we took out of the Astraros, as many as you can track down. Pile them in. We’ll worry about provisioning later.”

  “We may as well grab some provisions while we’re at it,” Creed said. “Look at the stuff on those vessels; they’ve broken open the foodstores.”

  “Bad news travels fast.”

  Inside the ship-cavern the
re was a roaring chaos. Crowds milled about the wharves by torchlight, pleading for spaces on the boats, fighting for a place at an oar, scrambling for casks of provisions. Many were already drunk. The crew of the cutter had to physically beat people from the gunwales of their craft. Splashes as people were pushed into the water. Women screaming.

  “Issue pistols,” Rol said.

  The cutter thumped against the stone of the wharf, and Artimion leaped over the side onto the docks. He punched a man flat, and his roar echoed off the roof of the cavern.

  “Back away there, you miserable bastards!” His eyes gleamed bright as glass beads, reminding Rol that in Artimion, too, there was some of the Blood. Men retreated from his face, angry and ashamed and afraid.

  “It’s every man for himself now!” a wild-eyed fellow shrieked.

  Artimion drew his rapier and ran the man through, then raised the bloody blade and brandished it at the crowd. “Get back from the wharves, or by Ussa’s mane, I’ll start killing you. We will have order here, by the gods!”

  Creed spat over the stern of the cutter. “That spell at sea really did him a power of good,” he said to Rol.

  “Two men stay in the boat, Elias, pistols cocked. Don’t moor her; stay a few yards off the wharf. They’re to shoot anyone who tries to swim aboard.”

  “It’s like that, is it?” Creed asked.

  “It’s like that.” Rol gripped Creed’s shoulder and looked back at the sea gates. “The rest of the ship’s boats will be arriving soon. Same goes for them.”

  “Poor bastards,” Elias said, surveying the mob at the seafront. Artimion had cleared them away from the water and was haranguing their ranks in a voice of brass. The blood had slid down the blade of his sword to stripe the back of his hand. He had them cowed; they were listening to him with desperate eagerness now, trying to squeeze any mote of hope they could out of his words. From their midst stepped a half dozen of Miriam’s musketeers, faces white with fear.

  Rol took his master-at-arms, Quirion, and four other sailors ashore, all armed with pistols and cutlasses and capable of intimidating their way through the most truculent of crowds. Creed took two more with him. They nodded at each other, and then forged uphill, ignoring the questions and accusations that were flung at them. Rol drew Fleam, and the cold light of the scimitar’s blade was enough to clear a path for him, though his withered muscles were barely able to raise the weapon. He peered back once and saw that by some miracle Artimion had dispersed the crowds somewhat. The looting of the storehouses went on at the back of the ship-cavern, though, and it was galling to see all that precious gear strewn upon the quays and trampled underfoot. He hoped Miriam had put a strong guard on the powder-arsenal, or else Canker’s fleet might find its job done for it before it arrived.