The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Styophan struck him again. “We are not yet done, My Prince!”

  A third time he struck, and Nikandr vaguely tasted something warm and slick in his mouth.

  Blood, he realized.

  He shook his head, which did nothing, and fell to his knees.

  But then he heard something else. Something new.

  The sound of cannon fire coming off the windward bow.

  He dragged himself to his feet and looked, able to stave off some small amount of the clutching weariness. The way ahead was still cloaked in fog, but it seemed not so thick as it once was. The sound of a cannon came again, accompanied by a brief flash.

  “Ready cannons, men,” Nikandr called as he resumed his position at the mainmast. “And prepare the muskets.”

  “The coast is near,” Anahid said. “I can feel it.”

  Nikandr could as well, but not in the same way. The air smelled different. It smelled of earth, of the cold loamy scent of a forest in winter. And now that he put his mind to it he could hear gulls far below, off the landward side of the ship.

  As they approached, the cannon fire intensified. And then it was mixed with musket fire.

  “Follow the cliff line,” Nikandr ordered, speaking only loud enough for the master to hear, “but stay above land.”

  Orders were passed about the ship. The keels were reengaged by the pilot. The land mass would provide them ley lines to work against once more. They would not be as strong as those that ran among the islands, but they would be strong enough in this meager wind.

  As Anahid lowered the ship, the pilot brought them in line with the cliff so that it was only a few hundred yards off their landward side. The fighting intensified, men shouting orders or crying out in pain.

  And then they saw it. A dozen ships, all of them moored to the cliff. Their landward masts had been disengaged, and spread apart until they were positioned like three-legged stools against the cliff face. It was not ideal, but all ships made for fighting were constructed so in case the ship couldn’t reach the safety of an eyrie.

  Nikandr could already tell that they were the ships Konstantin had sent. He didn’t at first understand why they would be moored, but the reason came clear when he noticed that the nearest three ships had been gutted. They’d stopped here for repairs, perhaps after a battle with Yrstanlan ships that had been sent to intercept them, or even because of damage sustained during the crossing of the Sea of Khurkhan.

  Further west, stationed at a gentle curve of the snow-covered cliff, were a dozen janissaries wearing white uniforms and rounded turbans with tall, colorful plumes, but there were also several dozen ghazi with them, the militia of the Empire’s outlands that heeded the call of the Kamarisi when it came. While the ghazi fired muskets, the janissaries manned three cannons, which had been maneuvered behind a low rock formation that provided them protection against return fire from the Grand Duchy’s ships. But they were completely open to attack from the rear, and so far, thank the ancients, they hadn’t spotted the Yarost approaching through the fog.

  “Lower the ship even more,” Nikandr ordered Styophan. “Reload the cannons with grape, and have no one fire until I do.”

  Styophan went quickly about the ship, passing orders, while Anahid used her bonded dhoshahezhan to gradually increase the heft of the ship and bring them closer to the level of the cliff ahead.

  As the musket fire continued and the three Yrstanlan cannons belched black smoke one more time, Nikandr moved to the bow and took a musket from the ship’s master, Vlanek. Eight others stationed themselves along the landward gunwales, each man loading his weapon smartly.

  Nikandr’s exhaustion began to lift as he loaded his musket. No sooner had he finished and laid the musket against the gunwale when one of the janissaries turned and began shouting to his men. Nikandr waited for one of the men to pick up on the danger and to begin issuing orders.

  It came a moment later. A tall janissary wearing a large red turban. They were close enough that Nikandr could see the black, iridescent feathers pinned to the front of the officer’s turban with a large jeweled medallion.

  He aimed his musket for this man as the first scattered fire came in from the rag-tag ghazi. Several shots bit into the hull. Others flew high, punching through canvas.

  Nikandr released his breath and pulled the trigger.

  The musket kicked.

  Through the puff of smoke he saw a spot of blood appear on the chest of the man with the feathered turban, just above his heart. The tall man tipped backward, eyes wide, trying to catch himself with flailing arms, and then he was lost among his men and the rocks and snow at their feet.

  The rest of Nikandr’s men fired in tight sequence, followed by the forward cannon.

  At the cliff, all six men stationed at the two nearest cannons were thrown to the ground in a mass of red. More fire came in from Grigory’s ships, dropping some that had risen to face the threat bearing down from their rear.

  The ghazi were not well organized, but they did manage to maneuver themselves to have decent cover against both the Yarost and the ships lashed to the cliff. Nikandr and the others reloaded quickly, firing upon any that took to the cannons, but then the Yarost flew past, and the ghazi were able to hide behind their rocks once more.

  “Take her up,” Nikandr called, “and circle back.”

  The fighting continued as the Yarost swung out to sea and arced westward, but by now two of Grigory’s ships had freed themselves from the cliff. They were heading up, and it was clear to everyone that the men of Yrstanla had long lost their advantage. They began to retreat, taking ponies that were tied a few dozen yards from the cliff.

  Still, the Yarost and the other two ships harried them until the two dozen that remained had ridden northward into the fog.

  Nikandr stepped off the skiff and onto the deck of the Drakha. Grigory stood on deck, flanked by three of his kapitans. By now Grigory could no longer be surprised that Nikandr had found his way here on the shores of Yrstanla, and yet as he studied Nikandr—glancing occasionally up to the Yarost, which was now lashed to the cliff above them—he looked more surprised than if Nikandr had stepped onto deck wearing the Grand Duke’s mantle.

  Breaking from custom, Grigory did not welcome Nikandr onto his ship. He merely stared, waiting for Nikandr to state his business.

  For Nikandr’s part, he was surprised at how quickly and vividly the memory of Grigory firing a shot into the chest of his man, Ervan, came to him, and more than this, his actions on the shores of Duzol… He’d left Atiana for dead after she’d caught a stray bullet in the struggles on Uyadensk.

  He had tried to prepare himself for standing face-to-face with Grigory—he’d been imagining the scene ever since learning of Konstantin’s wish for Nikandr to find him—but now that he was here he found it difficult not to reach for the pistol hanging from his belt.

  “Your brother has sent me,” Nikandr said at last.

  “Has he now…” Grigory looked doubtful, as if he was sure, even before Nikandr presented evidence, that this was all some lie on Nikandr’s part to deceive him.

  From the inside of his cherkesska, Nikandr pulled out the folded paper that had been waiting for him in the kapitan’s desk. It had Grigory’s name written upon it in Konstantin’s hand, and it had a red wax seal of Bolgravya holding it closed. After taking one deliberate step forward, he held it out for Grigory.

  Grigory was too far away to accept it, and there was a clear note of reluctance on his face to meet Nikandr halfway, but his curiosity seemed to overcome any revulsion he still harbored for Nikandr, and he stepped forward and took it. He examined the seal carefully—more than was needed—and then cracked it open. He unfolded the note and read it twice before raising his gaze and staring at Nikandr. His face had already flushed, but now it was positively red.

  He remained this way, his eyes boring into Nikandr, and then he turned his head and stared up at the cliff and the ships that were lashed to it.

  When h
e turned back to Nikandr, something cold and hard had settled within him. Gone was the emotion. Gone was the redness of his skin. They had been replaced with a cold calculation that made Nikandr nervous.

  “Take him and the others belowdecks,” Grigory said as he tucked the letter into his long black cherkesska and began walking toward the stern of the ship, “and place them in chains.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  When Nikandr woke in the hold of the Drakha, he had no idea how much time had passed. It had been near sunset when he’d been taken down and—as Grigory had ordered—placed in chains in the holding cell. He could see little outside the barred window set into the door, but he could see some light.

  He vaguely recalled his own order to Styophan that he and the rest of his men comply with Grigory’s demands—there was no need for the duchies to be warring, not when they needed one another so desperately—but it all seemed so distant, so dreamlike, that he wondered if it had happened at all. Yet here he was in a cell, his legs manacled, the chain between them running through a stout ring set into the angled hull that acted as one of the cell’s four walls.

  Despite the chains, despite lying on the floor, he’d fallen asleep nearly instantly once the streltsi had left him alone. He was still drowsy now, even though he was sure that he’d been asleep for over a day.

  It was clear that they weren’t flying. The ship was too stable for that, though there was a creaking as the wind rocked the ship against the three landward masts. They couldn’t remain long, however. The janissaries would return. Had they been near a city of any size, they already would have, but they were at the eastern edges of the Empire, a region that hadn’t seen real war since the War of Seven Seas. It was a place that would have been drained of its fighting men long ago, leaving only the untrained and undisciplined ghazi in place with a handful of janissaries to command them when the need arose.

  Much to the Grand Duchy’s advantage, as it turned out.

  Nikandr wondered where his men were. Most likely they’d been spread among the rest of Grigory’s ships so that no resistance could be formed.

  Nikandr took his soulstone in his hand and gripped it. He could not sense his havahezhan, but as tired as he was, as far as he had pushed it, he refused to do more than simply search for it. Surely if Grigory had known of his abilities he would have taken the stone from him. Even without this, he was surprised Grigory hadn’t taken it as he had years ago. Perhaps after doing so he had thought better of it. Or perhaps he didn’t care. They both knew they were far from the reach of the Matri.

  In a few hours, the sun went down, and darkness reigned. He heard men coming and going, working on the ship in preparation of launching, most likely in the morning. Nikandr wondered when Grigory would come to see him, but then he thought that perhaps Grigory had decided not to. He had already ignored his brother Konstantin’s orders, and though he hadn’t apparently been able to bring himself to kill Nikandr outright, he’d decided to leave him where he would raise the fewest number of questions.

  With that realization, and his continued feelings of exhaustion, Nikandr laid back on the floor and fell asleep.

  When he woke again, he was not alone.

  Grigory sat on a stool near the door. Light was coming in through the window. By the ancients, he’d slept through the entire night.

  In his lap Grigory held a clay mug. When Nikandr had pulled himself up and propped himself against the hull, he leaned forward and set the mug near Nikandr’s feet. Nikandr could smell Grigory’s unwashed scent, even from this distance. It was the smell of a man who refused even so much as washing himself down with a wet rag as a proper windsman should.

  As Grigory returned unsteadily to his stool, Nikandr noticed the pistol at his belt. His first thought was that it was only for show, that it was unloaded, but the more he thought about it, the more he doubted this. A sober Grigory might come with an empty pistol in an attempt to cow Nikandr. A drunk Grigory would bring a loaded one.

  When Grigory fell onto the stool, Nikandr took the mug and drank the water within it quickly. After he’d set it down with a heavy thud against the deck, he met Grigory’s haunted eyes.

  “How long have you been here?” Nikandr asked.

  Grigory didn’t answer. He merely stared into Nikandr’s eyes as if trying to find the answers to the questions he dearly wished to ask but couldn’t ask of Nikandr.

  “If you don’t wish to speak, leave. I can’t suffer to be in the room with a traitor to his own brother.”

  “Why would he send you?” Grigory asked. His words were not slurred, but they were slow in coming.

  “Did the letter not say?”

  “Would I be asking if it did?”

  “He sent me because no one else would come.”

  “Because they didn’t believe you.”

  Nikandr pulled himself higher. “Would you have?”

  Grigory paused, his hand moving momentarily to the handle of the pistol before returning to rest on his thigh. The gesture was so casual Nikandr wasn’t even sure Grigory knew he’d done it. “The kapitan you found on Elykstava… Was he telling the truth?”

  Nikandr nearly sighed, but he had to tread carefully with Grigory. He could not act dismissive or brash, but neither could he allow Grigory to bully him. “I pushed him hard, Grigory. If he were lying, I would have known.”

  “But the Spar,” Grigory said. “If it were destroyed, would it… Do you think it would make a difference in the war?”

  “Da,” Nikandr said. “I think it would.”

  Grigory’s eyes closed, and for long moments Nikandr thought he was falling asleep, but then they snapped open and focused on Nikandr once more. “Are you so great a kapitan that you could lead us there? Are you so great that you could destroy it with only a handful of ships?”

  “I only know I must try.”

  “Ah. Nikandr Iaroslov… Ever the comrade.”

  “Grigory, you’re drunk.”

  Grigory stared down at Nikandr, his face suddenly angry. He stood, his hand moving to the butt of his pistol. “Do you think I cannot do the same?” And then he drew it, pointing the barrel at Nikandr’s chest. “Do you think you’re the only one who can command a ship?”

  “Of course not. Grigory, put the pistol away.”

  He pulled the hammer back to full cock. “You can’t even keep your bride.”

  “That was five years ago.”

  “It was yesterday! I remember it! Zhabyn Vostroma remembers it!” He pointed eastward with the pistol. “My brother, the good Duke, certainly remembers it!”

  Nikandr didn’t dare open his mouth. Grigory’s face was red. Spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke. One wrong move and Grigory would pull the trigger and be done with it, the son of a duke or not.

  “Where did the kapitan say to attack the Spar?”

  “What?”

  Grigory shook the pistol inches from Nikandr’s face. Despite himself, Nikandr cringed and turned his head away from the gaping maw of the pistol.

  Grigory shouted, “Where did he say it would be weakest?”

  “In the center, where the keystones have only just been laid into place.”

  Grigory stood there, half crouched over Nikandr, the pistol unwavering, and then he brought himself to a stand. He did not adjust the pistol’s aim, however, and a smile came over him. “I’ll take these ships, Khalakovo. I’ll take the Yarost as well. It’s Bolgravyan, after all. You and your men, however, will remain here. You will guard the remainders of the ships.”

  “Those husks? They’re useless, Grigory.”

  “They are ships of the Grand Duchy, and you will guard them with your life.”

  “The janissaries will return.”

  Grigory turned to the door and turned the handle. “Then best you get to your preparations.”

  “You’re a coward.”

  Grigory turned and aimed. Pulled the trigger.

  The pistol roared in the small space. Wood bit deeply into Nikandr’
s cheek.

  The shot had gone wide, just next to Nikandr’s head and into the hull.

  Grigory stared at Nikandr, then the hole where the musket ball had struck, and Nikandr was not at all sure he’d meant to miss. He appeared unsure of himself, perhaps sensing through the haze of liquor that he’d gone too far, but then it was gone, and he stormed out of the room.

  Shortly after, Nikandr was taken by the Bolgravyan streltsi to the worst of the ships. Styophan and Vlanek and Jonis were all there. Everyone but Anahid.

  The nine windworthy ships, plus the Yarost, departed soon after, leaving Nikandr and his men standing on the deck of a ship that had been stripped of everything valuable. Grigory had given them each a musket, and granted them twenty rounds of ammunition apiece. The rest they had taken.

  As the ships flew off into the morning air, Nikandr stared up the cliff, wondering when the men of Yrstanla would return.

  Nikandr glanced at Styophan, then to the men beyond him. Nikandr was glad that Grigory hadn’t in his rage decided to have any of them killed—or worse, killed them himself—but he’d left Nikandr alone on the shores of Yrstanla with no real hope of returning to Galahesh or Anuskaya.

  “Take stock,” Nikandr said. “Search the ships and find if there’s any way we can make them windworthy.” Even as he spoke, Nikandr was shaking his head. Their ship, a six-masted brigantine, was the smallest of the three ships. He had hoped to find enough canvas to sail her, but he was nearly as worried as not that he would find the canvas. The ships were nearly worthless; it was a wonder that any one of them still held their loft. “Send Jonis and Mahrik to the top of the cliff. Have them prepare defenses.”

  Nikandr paused, for Styophan was looking over his shoulder to the cliffs behind him. Nikandr turned and saw a large black bird sitting on a small outcropping near the ship’s stern.

  “Go,” he said to Styophan without turning his head.

  Styophan snapped his heels and left.

  Nikandr walked along the deck slowly, keeping his eyes on the bird.