Now was the moment for Mark. He fired one barrel of the shotgun, then turned a few degrees and fired the second barrel. The range was short, so the two cones of shot didn’t spread, but the Narthani charge staggered, as the careening bodies of men hit or tripped the followers.
Mark had set one pistol in front of him after cocking both hammers. He picked it up and Boom! Boom! He shot the first two Narthani who leaped over the tangle of bodies. He tossed the pistol over his shoulder and picked up the second one.
The Narthani wave recovered and had almost reached the Dancer’s crew. Boom! Boom! One more boarder fell. The other shot from the last double-barreled pistol somehow managed to pass through the mass of Narthani without hitting anyone. Then the two sides fought blade to blade.
Mark tossed aside the second pistol and picked up the rusty shield just in time to deflect a sword. The wielder of the sword didn’t live to try again. Mark’s mace hit the point of the Narthani’s skull and drove bone fragments deep into his brain.
The next minutes were a blur of yells, screams, slashes, stabs, bodies colliding, bodies falling to the deck, and blood. Blood everywhere.
From his position on the right end of the defending line, Mark was protected on his right side by the bulwark and on his left by Gulgit and the shield.
A Narthani with a ship’s short ax saw what happened to the swordsman and tried to stop his own momentum but was pushed forward by the press of men behind him. The man ducked his head away from Mark’s mace, but his left shoulder broke. The man collapsed from shock, further impeding the next Narthani.
Mark had a split second to glance to his left. The short barricade was no longer a factor, as crewman and Narthani intermingled over more bodies, some writhing, some still. He didn’t see Gulgit or Partinel.
Mark raised the mace for another blow, but he had no immediate target. No more Narthani were coming aboard, which told him they’d faced the entire boarding party. The Narthani who had been coming his way had seen the fate of the first two men he’d encountered. Instinctively, they had diverted to follow their comrades into the center of the melee. It was an understandable reaction to the large man causing such havoc with a weapon like they had never encountered. Yet it was a tactical mistake.
With no Narthani directly to his front, Mark turned 45 degrees to where a crewman battled a Narthani ax-bearer. The man never knew what killed him, as the mace hit behind his left ear.
Mark didn’t have time to withdraw for another overhand blow, as the next Narthani turned to him. Mark’s backhand mace swing missed the Narthani but brought the shield into position in time to block the man’s sword. Before the swordsman could recover, the mace stove in his chest, breaking the chest bone and shattering the cartilage connecting to six ribs.
Mark’s flanking attack relieved pressure on the adjacent crewmen. They began to roll up the flank of the Narthani attack. A Narthani officer saw what was happening. A bugle sounded.
The Narthani still standing immediately disengaged and fled back over the abutting gunwales. Grappling-hook ropes slackened, as someone on the cutter sliced them. The last Narthani had to leap across the growing gap between ships.
“Full sails!” came a cry. Mark recognized Partinel’s voice. The captain had survived.
“Aloft quick while they’re recovering on their side,” he yelled. “We need to get underway so I can maneuver.”
Mark raced to midship and jumped down the hatch near the main mast. Were Maghen and Alys all right? His eyes were adjusted to the sunlight, and he squinted to look down the passageway toward their small cabin.
“Mark?” came a voice in the dim light.
“Maghen,” he called out and ran, almost tripping over a body.
“Are you all right?” he cried out, grabbing her in a tight hug.
“Mmmmum . . . ,” was all he heard. Her face was buried against his chest. He relaxed enough for her to pull her head back.”
“I . . . I think I’m all right,” she stuttered. “They jumped down the hatch . . . I couldn’t be sure who it was . . . one of them yelled something that didn’t sound like Suvalu or the crew’s language . . . another one fought with Zandle, and I don’t know if he’s dead . . . I shot at the one running down the passageway . . . I was afraid for Alys . . . I hope he wasn’t one of the crew . . . all the fighting on deck, I didn’t know what was happening—”
“Hush, hush. Everything is all right, Maghen,” he said to stop her rambling. “The Narthani went back to their ship, and Partinel is raising sails and trying to get away before they recover. Hush, hush.”
Her swallow was more a gulp, and her breath came slower.
“Oh, Mark, the men I shot—they were Narthani, weren’t they?”
“Men?”
He looked back down the passageway. His eyes had adjusted enough that he could now make out two unmoving bodies—the one he’d tripped over and another he’d missed was lying against a wall. Both were Narthani, judging by their clothing and lack of beards.
“I fired the shotgun at the first one. Both barrels. I didn’t hold tight enough, and the barrel hit me in the head. I may have blacked out for a moment, then was awake again and saw the other man finish fighting Zandle and come at me. I missed him with the first two pistols but hit him with the third one. I only had one pistol left.”
He stroked her face. “You were marvelous, dear. They were Narthani. Now I need to go back on deck to find out what’s happening. You check on Alys, and I’ll be back when I know more.”
He hefted the first body in a fireman’s carry and climbed the ladder to the deck. He looked astern after tossing the body overboard. The cutter sat more than two hundred yards away, sails still furled.
Some of the Dancer’s crew worked the rigging, while others helped the wounded. Mark approached Partinel, who was watching the cutter. The captain seemed unscratched. Not so with Gulgit, also watching as he leaned against the rear gunwale, blood soaking one leg and splashed on his face.
“Is that it?” Mark asked. “Are they giving up?”
“Looks like it,” replied Gulgit. He shifted his body without putting more weight on his bloody leg and turned back to look at the Narthani ship.
“In that case, you need to sit or lie down and get that leg looked at,” Mark said.
“Others are more seriously injured,” said Gulgit, then he addressed Partinel.
“Well, Captain, are we getting away?”
“We’ll know for sure in the next ten to fifteen minutes.” He pointed to his crewmen struggling aloft with a canvas being whipped by the wind. “It looks like weather is moving in. I just wish the hell it had happened an hour ago.”
Mark looked around at the horizon. Sure enough, to their west was a bank of clouds, the forerunners of which were only a few miles away.
“Once we get under full sail, they’ll have the Evil One’s time catching us before dark. The one advantage they still have is that most of their wounded were aboard the Dancer, so they don’t have to divert attention from getting the ship underway. The fact that they show no signs of raising sail tells me their captain decided against a return engagement. Probably.”
Mark hadn’t noticed, but after Partinel’s words, he became aware that there were no Narthani bodies on the deck—dead or wounded. Gulgit watched the cutter but guessed Mark’s thoughts.
“Yeah, they’re over the side, both dead and wounded. We won’t spend time—”
He cut off the comment and pointed at the sea.
“There! That has to confirm it. They’ll not be after us.”
Mark and Partinel followed Gulgit’s finger. Another longboat was being lowered from the Narthani ship.
“The wounded,” said Partinel. “They must have spotted one or more still alive and are going to pick them up. They’ll also go back to retrieve the longboat we fired at. About half of its crew were alive.” The captain turned and rushed away, shouting commands. Gulgit translated.
“He’s ordering some of the cr
ew down from the rigging to help with the wounded. Now that it seems certain the Narthani aren’t going to follow us, more attention can go to those who need medical care.”
“I’ll get Maghen. She and I can help. There’s also one last Narthani body. It’s below deck. I’ll bring it when I come back.”
Partinel gave six dead crewmen a brief ceremony with words in Rumpasian. Then the bodies, sealed in canvas with weights, slid into the sea.
The two Kaldwels assisted until all the Dancer’s crew had been treated, as much as could be done without a surgeon. Maghen was more experienced in treating injuries than Mark. Her mother had served as a medic equivalent where the family lived. Some of the crew’s wounds were gruesome. Stitching to close blade wounds was the most common treatment, and Mark helped hold down two men while the sewing was done. One of the men already sported a score or more significant scars, testaments to past fights.
It’s a good thing the indigenous microorganisms don’t fare well in terrestrial bodies, Mark thought. Hal said I wouldn’t get sick, but I assumed he meant from local diseases. I wonder if Hal’s creators knew humans and animals could be resistant to many of Anyar’s pathogens?
He’d noticed that horses and cattle seemed to rarely get infections—as confirmed by questions to local citizens. However, he’d seen a few cases of indigenous animals that weren’t resistant.
For the next two hours, Mark went between checking on Alys and helping out where he could. The first time he checked on her, the child was playing with Milo, a cloth-stuffed merkel toy of a mammal common on Drilmar. After that, he found her sleeping in one of the hammocks. When Maghen couldn’t help anymore with the wounded, she took over with their daughter. Mark sought out Partinel and found him checking on the wounded.
“Captain, I’m not familiar with sailing, but you’re short-crewed, and I’m willing to help where I can.”
Which is true, Mark thought. My one short cruise during an academy summer hardly qualifies me for this vessel, and tours on a destroyer and a carrier are even less useful.
“Anything can help,” said Partinel. “The men are doing their best, but there are limits. Come with me. Maybe Duligor can find things for you to do.”
The second-in-command was a dour, grizzled man with a burn scar on half of his face. They found him helping with a halyard in hoisting another sail. Mark didn’t need instructions to figure out what was needed. He was taller than the three men already on the rope, so he stepped in front of them, reached high, and joined in the cadence called out by Duligor. When the other men finished securing the halyard, Partinel told Duligor to find jobs for Mark.
“Big and strong as you obviously are, there’ll be plenty you can help with,” said Duligor, “though you’ll have to follow along with a crewman. For now, come with me. Later I might pass you off on someone else.”
For the next four hours, Mark provided muscle as needed to move, pull, or hold in place whatever was necessary and helped string safety ropes when they passed through a series of squalls and high seas. Twice, he climbed the rigging to help adjust sails, and he carried one more body to the deck. One of the wounded had died and was committed to the sea after another brief ceremony.
When Duligor told him to go eat and rest, Mark just sat in place on the deck. He was in good condition, but using muscles in unfamiliar motions and the residual effects of the battle suddenly hit him. He sat for several minutes, then stumbled to his feet, and climbed down the ladder. He made his way down the passageway to their cabin and fell asleep in his hammock without a word to Maghen.
***
A cloaked drone deployed by the AI in orbit passed over two sailing ships locked together at sea and with men engaged in combat. The drone had finished a gridded survey of the nearby continent and was headed for the next major landmass to the east in the planet’s lower hemisphere. The low-level AI of the drone considered whether the fight warranted more fly-bys and quickly decided against the diversion. Its current mission was to return to the next continent for a repeated survey of a portion of the landmass of particular interest to the supervisory AI to whom it fed data. Once finished, it would return to a speck of land to the far west of the planet’s land forms—an island over which it spent more than half of its time. On the last visit to the island, it had recorded a steam engine explosion from a small paddlewheel boat.
CHAPTER 33
WHAT NEXT?
Three days later, the Dancer tied off at an Orano pier. The moderate-size port lay on the southeastern coast of Rustal on the Ganolar continent. Farther west were the major realm of Sulako and the smaller ones of Buldor and Ilskin at the western tip of the continent.
Mark watched warily from the deck as Partinel met on the pier with a uniformed Narthani officer, accompanied by four musket-carrying soldiers. Gulgit noticed Mark’s nervous fingering of one of the double-barreled pistols in his belt.
“Relax. Partinel recognizes this particular Narthani. Some coin will change hands, and we’ll be cleared to unload our cargo. We’ll do it after dark to avoid other, less corrupt eyes.”
Mark let his hand move to the rail, just as a small bag passed surreptitiously from Partinel to the Narthani.
“There it goes,” said Gulgit. “I suggest you stay on board until the unloading in about five or six hours. There’s always a chance the Narthani spread word of you widely enough that someone will recognize you. In the meantime, Mark, I have something to ask. You don’t have to answer. I’ve never believed your story of why you had to leave Frangel—not that it matters now. But still, just for my own curiosity, why are you running from the Narthani?”
Mark had been waiting for the question. When they left Heliom, he was firm in his reasons to keep quiet. Now, after the voyage, the fight against the Narthani cutter, and his and Maghen’s aid with the wounded and manning the ship, he hoped he had an opening to get help for the next stage of their trek. He was in a foreign land of whose language and customs he was ignorant. Did Gulgit feel any obligation to him that might assist his family?
“I don’t know exactly,” he said. “I came originally from a land called ‘Amerika.’ How and why I got to Frangel is a mystery. It must have been by ship, but all I know is that I woke up on a beach in Frangel. I couldn’t find a way home, so I made a life there. Then, some months ago, I was attacked by men paid by the Narthani. The reason had to do with my knowledge of Amerika. The one man I questioned only knew that it had something to do with the island of Caedellium and a man there named Yozef Kolsko.”
“Kolsko!” exclaimed Gulgit. “What’s your connection to Yozef Kolsko?”
“You know this man?” Mark asked.
“Only small pieces of news and rumors floating around ports and pubs. Supposedly, the Narthani invaded Caedellium, and a man named Yozef Kolsko led the people there to inflict a major defeat on the Narthani. Again, I have no details, but if there are connections among Caedellium, Kolsko, Amerika, and you, then I can see why the Narthani might be interested. This part of Rustal is fairly remote from what’s happening elsewhere, but I wouldn’t tell anyone else about this.”
“I don’t plan to, but when I fled Frangel, I did it with the intention of reaching this Caedellium and finding out if Caedellium and Kolsko can somehow get me home again.”
Gulgit shook his head. “That’s a mighty long trip with a wife and child and across so many lands and seas. If I’d have been there when you made that decision, I’d have advised hiding somewhere in Frangel until the Narthani quit looking for you. However, obviously there’s no option to go back now.”
The arms smuggler stroked his beard as he eyed Mark with a raised eyebrow. “For whatever reason, the Narthani think you’re tied somehow to Caedellium. If the rumors are true and the Narthani were defeated there, that may be part of the reason the Narthani presence in Rustal has eased the last few months. Although they defeated us quickly when they invaded, I don’t believe it’s proved as valuable a conquest as they imagined it would be. Rustal has never
been that rich a land, and our people can be stubborn and tough.
“One rumor is that the Narthani thought to use Rustal to invade Sulako to our west. That would have put them directly across the western part of the Throat and able to threaten the Iraquiniks. However, they might have found the Gongalor Mountains separating Rustal from Sulako too difficult to push through against the Sulakoan defenders. Maybe now they are content with hanging onto a foothold in Rustal for the foreseeable future. Although Narthon and Sulako are not formal antagonists, the relationship is frosty, especially after Sulako had prepared to enter the fight against Narthon’s takeover of Rustal. The plan was cut short when Rustal capitulated so quickly.
“The Rustal army surrendered, but the common people never accepted defeat. At first, the Narthani used widespread reprisals for rebellion, but a steady picking at isolated Narthani stations and units has continued. The Narthani have slowly pulled back into larger cities and the coasts. They’ve kept fewer men at garrisons on the Rustal interior, particularly the farther south you go. We’ve been gathering weapons for the day we think the Narthani forces in Rustal are reduced enough for a widespread uprising.”
Gulgit stopped stroking his beard and placed a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “I don’t know how your getting to Caedellium will help our cause, but we’ll be taking the arms to a secure location in central Rustal, well beyond where any Narthani patrols ventured the last year. You and your family are welcome to come with us. That will at least get you halfway to Sulako. I might have ideas on how you should proceed from there. Maybe one of our people from western Rustal could be persuaded to guide you to the border.”
It was as good an offer as Mark could have hoped for. At least, they would have a viable plan for the next stage in their journey.
“Oh, and Captain Partinel wants to speak with you.”
“About?”
Gulgit shrugged. “Didn’t say.”
Mark spotted Partinel on the pier, talking with two men. Mark went down the gangway and waited twenty feet away from the three men. When the two strangers walked away, the Dancer’s captain waved him closer.
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