by Dave Duncan
trade, fishing, a little whaling in the spring, and more
than a little smuggling. By day its inhabitants
bustled about in its crowded little harbor and by night
they slept unworried within its walls of
honey-colored stone.
One foggy dawn in the spring of 337, four
dragon ships floated into the mouth of the Amble
River. They advanced with muffled oars, silent as
trout in a pool, gray as ashes in the murk.
The cold watchmen in their shack at the end of the
breakwater rang no warning bell, because their
throats had been cut a few minutes earlier
by three wet, naked men who had climbed up the
stonework with knives in their teeth. The hunters
passed unchallenged into the harbor and tied up
alongside the fishing boats. Two hundred
well-trained raiders swarmed ashore without a
word.
Brawny arms hurled grapnels, and these
made some slight scraping noises as their teeth
gripped the edges of the honey-colored walls but
nothing loud enough to alert the town watch. The first men
over opened the gates for the rest.
Everyone knew about Baels. Everyone had
heard of the mindless havoc--women raped in the
streets and screaming naked berserkers slaying every
living thing. What happened in Ambleport was very
different--well-trained troops following a
plan with steely discipline. A band smashed in the
door and rushed through the house, looking for
opposition. If they found none, one or two
remained, demanding loot, while the remainder
continued to the next house. Many of the raiders
spoke fluent Chivian and the rest could parrot,
"Do not resist and you will not be hurt." If the
residents quickly handed over some jewelry, a
few gold coins, perhaps a silver candlestick, the
raiders would grin politely and depart, taking
anything else that caught their fancy--
weapons, good textiles, metal pots. Only
if they met resistance or found nothing of value
did they resort to violence, and then they could be as
nasty as the legends said.
Dealings were less civilized when youngsters were
present. Adolescents and older children were ordered
outside and herded down to the harbor for future
consideration. In much less than an hour,
Ambleport was stripped bare of valuables, and its
young people stood in a terrified huddle on the quay.
There had been almost no resistance.
Almost none. Gerard had been fast asleep in
the Green Man, blissfully dreaming of
Charlotte. He was wakened by someone kicking in the
door of the room next to his and had just enough time
to leap out of bed and snatch up his rapier. When his
own door was smashed open by a red-bearded raider,
he attacked.
He had never been in a fight in his life and
had never expected to be. But he was a
gentleman, and gentlemen sported either rapier or
short sword. To gird on a weapon one could not
use was folly, so he had taken lessons at a
very respected school in Grandon--not many
lessons, for his means were limited, but he was
nimble and accurate. Alas, in this instance, also
rash. The only crazy naked berserker in
Ambleport that morning was Gerard of Waygarth. His
victim looked more surprised than hurt when the
steel point went through his beard and up into his
brain, but he folded to his knees and collapsed
on his shield and ax in an entirely
appropriate manner.
Another Bael filled the doorway behind him--
younger, shorter, and broader. With a blood-chilling
scream he leaped over his fallen comrade. His
shield brushed Gerard's rapier aside like a
twig and slammed its owner back into the wall hard
enough to stun. The fight was over even before the raider
brought up his knee. This technique was not taught
in the gentlemen's fencing schools.
By the time Gerard had stopped retching long enough
to breathe again, the Bael had stripped his fallen
comrade, piling ax, shield, dagger, helmet, and
other equipment on the bed--even the man's
boots. He had also searched the room and found the
pouch containing Lord Candlefen's gold.
"This?" he demanded incredulously. "You killed
a man for four crowns? A thegn's
wergild is twelve hundred!"
Gerard could only moan and hope for a quick death.
To his blurred vision the monster was a vague
impression of broadsword, breeches, boots,
steel helmet, close-cropped copper beard,
and a truly murderous green stare. And a voice that
said, "Put on warm clothes. You're coming with
me."
As an added indignity, Gerard had to carry the
blanket containing the dead man's gear plus his
own rapier and document case, although he would have
walked doubled over even without that load. The inn was
put to the torch because a Bael had died in it. No
other buildings were burning, but as he staggered down
the muddy track to the harbor gate, he saw he
had not been the only would-be hero. Four or
five men had tried to defend their loved ones; their
bodies had been thrown out of windows to discourage
any further resistance.
The raid over, the raiders returned to the
waterfront to load their booty. A large part of
that booty consisted of the young people of Ambleport,
huddled into a terrorized flock within a ring of
glittering steel, but the first shock was starting to wear
off. As the horror of their plight registered, they
were growing restless and milling around, girls easing
into the center and the older boys moving to the outside.
The slavers selected one of the largest and ordered
him to lead the way aboard a ship. He refused
and was hacked down on the spot; then the rest did
not argue. The astonishing discipline still prevailed
--no raping, no wholesale arson, just clockwork
perfection.
As the sun burned off the mist, the dragon
ships spread their oars and departed on the ebb
tide. They rounded the headland and were gone. They
took Gerard with them, because he had slain one of their
own and must suffer for it.
Baels were savages inhabiting mountainous
islands a few days' sailing northwest of
Chivial. Perversely, they were also the world's
finest traders, offering infinite diversity of
riches: silk and jade, pearls and fantastic
shells, sable and ermine, spice and perfume,
ivory, precious metals, peerless weapons.
Their ships were little bothered by the pirate
scourge that made distant seas so treacherous for
other nations. That was because most of the scourging was done
by the Baels themselves, and the locals had learned not
to meddle with them.
Whatever they got up to in distant waters, they
m
arauded the coasts and sea lanes of Eurania
at will. Baelmark's closest neighbor,
Chivial, suffered more than most, seeing every year
three or four ships vanish, a town or two
raped. The Baelish King was very sorry, always;
he did try to control the pirate gangs, so if
the victims would just give him the culprits' names
and say exactly where on his wild shores they had
their lair, he would take appropriate action.
No one believed him, but reprisals against
Baelmark itself always ended in disaster. Once in a
while Euranian authorities would catch a
raider red-handed and hang the whole crew in a
line, but not often. Some governments tried to buy
safety by paying tribute, although even that did not
always work. All monarchs benefitted from excise
taxes on Baelish trade, and their courtiers
had insatiable appetites for the exotic
luxuries only Baels could provide.
Commerce and slaughter ebbed and flowed in uneasy
balance, rarely open war and yet never quite peace.
The distinction was moot to the Baels. When the
ships that had sacked Ambleport rounded the headland
and caught the wind, the crew shipped oars and
unfurled a square sail on the single mast--not
a red war sail, but an innocent brown one bearing
an emblem of a goose in flight. The
dragon's-head posts were removed from prow and
stern. Unless inspected at close range, the
ship was now a trader, and who could ever run down a
Baelish ship to inspect it?
Gerard had been put in the lead ship. He
thought it was also the largest but could not reliably
judge size in a watery world bereft of
landmarks. It was about three spans wide at its
widest part and perhaps five or six times that in
length, an open box with no covered decks. People
and booty filled it like a herring barrel, except
for a small area at the stern where the pirate chief
stood holding the steering oar, exposed to the wind and
spray as much as anyone. He ruled a crew of
about fifty and now almost as many captives, who were
all crammed together in the bow. The reason for
putting the landlubbers at the downwind end became
obvious as soon as the ship began
to roll, although most of the Ambleport youngsters were far
better sailors than Gerard proved to be. Within
minutes he was so deathly seasick that he no
longer cared what happened to him.
Far from displaying the wholesale brutality
attributed to them by the legends, the raiders were
considerate of their valuable and fragile
livestock. They slung awnings across the width
of the ship like very low tents as protection from the
weather; they passed out furs and blankets. They
themselves were well bundled up in garments of leather and
oiled cloth. Near nudity was acceptable for
warriors ashore--as an efficient garb for
fighting or a means of intimidating enemies--but
at sea they wrapped up warmly.
By evening the wind was a screaming gale, whipping
spume from the waves and churning the sea
into mountains. Sailors who could speak Chivian
assured the captives that the wind was good because it
meant a faster trip to Baelmark. The merits of
that argument depended on one's point of view.
Next day the weather was even worse and the crew
even happier.
Needless to say, the prisoners were in despair.
They all knew that Baels enchanted captives
into mindless thralls and either set them to work in the
fields or sold them in slave markets far
away. Gerard suspected they would have worse
tricks to try on people they seriously disliked.
Unlike his companions, he was not being mourned.
His parents might not notice his disappearance for
weeks or months, and the senior heralds of the
college would do no more than curse the
unreliability of gentlemen employees.
Nobody knew he had been in Ambleport that
night. Enriched by his unexpectedly generous
honorarium from Lord Candlefen, he had decided
to return to Grandon by the coast road. The
priory in Wearbridge was reputed to own some very
old manuscripts, and if he could win permission
to make copies, the college archivists would pay
well for them. Alas, he had never reached
Wearbridge and now never would.
On the third day the wind dropped, and the sea
grew calmer. The awnings were removed so the crew
could clean up and tidy the ship. The stronger,
fitter prisoners were set to bailing. Even
Gerard had accepted that life was possible in a world
made up of green-glass hills and
shadowed valleys. He had grown used to the reek
of over-crowded bodies, constant creaking from the
cables, the clink of the ever-shifting cargo, muffled
sobbing among the captives. Around noon word was
passed forward. A raider hauled him to his
feet--and held him there, else he would have
fallen. At the rear of the ship, the leader nodded.
"Sciphlaford @the gehate@th," the
pirate said. "@thu ga him."
Gerard could not speak Baelish, but he could
understand some of it. Baelmark had been discovered
by Chivian sailors and settled by Chivians, and
many of the words the crew spoke among themselves
resembled the archaic Chivian on the old charters
and documents he worked with in the college. The
sailor pronounced sciphlaford much like "ship
lord," so his meaning was obvious enough, especially
when he pointed at the helmsman with one hand and
gave Gerard a shove with the other.
Gerard set off along the ship, a course that
alternated between uphill and downhill, clambering
the whole way on hands and knees over sacks of
loot, trying not to jostle any men who were
sleeping, lest they lash out with fists like mallets.
Yet the journey was informative. He had already
seen that the sailors' garments were beautifully
made and frequently bore embroidery and
strips of beadwork. Now he noted buckles and
brooches elaborately decorated with gold and
precious stones, like the hilts of the weapons that
lay always ready to hand. The ship itself was put together
with a clockmaker's craftsmanship, its oaken
planks perfectly fitted, smoothed, and in many
places embellished with low-relief carvings of
whimsical sea monsters that served no
practical purpose. Nothing could be more
utilitarian than the chests on which the men sat
while rowing and in which they stored their personal
effects, yet even those were carved and inlaid with
ivory or mother-of-pearl, as if to defy the harshness
of the elements. That slavers might be rich was no
surprise, but he had not expected savages
to be lovers of art.
The ship lord was the blocky young man who had
/> captured him. Although he had held the steering oar
for at least two thirds of the time since leaving
Ambleport, he showed no signs of weariness. In
the worst of the storm he had needed the help of two
other men; even now, when the gale had tapered off
to a stiff breeze, steering was clearly
hard work, for he had to move the oar up and down on
its pivot as the ship rode the swell, straining
constantly against the pressure, holding her close
to the wind. That explained those shoulders.
He wore a long-sleeved, knee-length
smock of green wool, gathered at the waist by a
gold-studded belt. Below that showed cross-gartered
leggings and soft boots; over it all he had a
fur-trimmed cloak, pinned at his left shoulder
with a gold brooch whose gems might well be
emeralds and rubies. The hood of his smock was
thrown back so his copper-bright tresses could blow
out like a banner. Baels were said to regard any
baby born without red hair and green eyes as
seriously deformed, and would rush it to the nearest
octogram so it could be enchanted to acceptable
coloring. Certainly every man aboard flaunted
hair somewhere between tawny and chestnut and they all
wore it long, either loose or braided, although
none of them could outdo their leader for sheer intensity
of color.
Gerard gripped a stay to steady himself and waited
to hear his fate. The raider studied him for a moment
without expression. He had a broad, strong
face to match his chest and shoulders, certainly not
handsome, but plain rather than ugly. If he had one
distinctive feature it was that his mouth seemed too
large, giving him a deceptively jocular
expression. He looked like a man who would be the
life and soul of a party--any party, for love or
mayhem.
"I am Atheling Aeled Fyrlafing, tanist
of the ealdormann of Catterstow and
sciphlaford of Groeggos."
"Er ... Yes, sir."
The stare softened slightly. "Aeled son of
Fyrlaf. Atheling means my father was king.
Catterstow is the largest and richest shire in
Baelmark, and the tanist is heir to the
ealdormann--what you would call the earl." A
corner of the big mouth twitched in amusement as he
saw his prisoner's reaction. If he was telling
the truth, he must be one of the most powerful men in the
country. "None of which means much, but at the moment
