"Oh?"
"I used to know an Avair Ganness, captain of the Warthog. He used to talk at some length about how dangerous it is to get involved with Cullinane. I don't mind taking risks, but I won't do it for a few silvers. Nor will I do it without you all swearing on your blades that my ship and I will be released unharmed, and that you won't stop me running in the face of a fight." He gestured around. "I'm no warrior; this is not a warship."
"You'll be free to go. If you don't betray us. Or try to," Tennetty said.
"Agreed. Have we a bargain?"
"Yes, you have a bargain," Bren Adahan said.
"No. Not you." Thivar Anjer turned to Jason. "Young Cullinane, have we a bargain?"
"We do."
"Cullinanes don't break their word, do they?"
"No, we don't," Jason said.
* * *
Jason couldn't sleep. The hold was dank and musty, redolent of rotting fish, decaying wood and a distant, acrid stench that Jason couldn't quite identify. The smells, combined with the constant, albeit gentle rocking of the boat, had him vaguely nauseated.
He dressed and climbed the ladder, clearing his throat as he did so that Kethol would know it was him and not be surprised. That was one of the many things Valeran had taught him: never surprise a guard accidentally.
Bothan Ver was half asleep next to the bound tiller, only occasionally coming half awake to take a quick glance at the sky and water, perhaps make a slight, drowsy adjustment to tiller and sheets, and then stretching out again in his steersman's chair.
The night was chilly. Kethol crouched next to the cooking box, warming his hands over the banked coals. Straightening, he handed a waterskin to Jason, who took a quick swig for politeness, then handed it back.
Klimos lay ahead, somewhere off the bow. Just another of the Shattered Islands, a cluster of dirt-poor islands in the Cirric, where the people supported themselves by fishing and farming in good years, by selling off their children in bad years. They'd evolved a complex set of rules as to when and why some children were saleable and others weren't, but it still sucked.
Tennetty, sleeping lightly in her bag belowdecks, had been born on one of these islands, sold into slavery by her parents.
Jason shook his head.
Some problems didn't admit of easy solutions; Home raiders didn't often travel into the Shattered Islands. Being caught at sea by a slaver ship was always a possibility; like the Pandathaway-based Slavers' Guild, the Home raiders hadn't established themselves in the Outer Kingdoms, on the other side of the Cirric.
Besides, what could you do? Kill all parents who would sell a child? And what then? Pull food and money from the air?
He knew what Tennetty's answer was to that. Killing was her answer to everything. But Jason didn't know what his was. Not yet.
"At least I didn't get left behind this time," Kethol said. He knit his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.
"Eh?"
"Your father left the three of us in Ehvenor. The three of us who survived. The trip cost us some good men, sir."
And the trip wouldn't have been necessary if Jason hadn't panicked the first time he'd been around shots fired in anger. He wanted to lash out, but the rebuke was justified.
Kethol looked at him, then shook his head. "Not what I meant. Not what I meant at all. Would have happened eventually. You keep juggling knives, you're going to get cut. We all juggle knives."
Kethol had another swallow of water, and the two of them were silent for a while, watching the dark sky and the sea.
Far off, toward the horizon, a ring of perhaps a dozen faerie lights pulsed excitedly in sequence, blue chasing red around and around, the blue becoming brighter as it closed in on the red, fading when the red took on a tinge of orange and speeded up. And then, without warning, the lights stopped cooperating and spread across the sky, their pulsing color changes becoming random, lethargic.
"Do you think he's alive, Kethol?"
The lanky warrior took a long time answering. "Yes. And no. And maybe it doesn't matter, young sir." Kethol shook his head slowly, blunt fingers toying with his beard. "Yes, because he's what he was. Fastest man with a weapon I ever did see. Didn't matter what weapon—sword, staff, bare hands, anything. There maybe was a better swordsman here or there, and maybe somebody as good with a staff, but your father was a . . . wizard with everything.
"So: yes, he's alive, because of what he was, and because the Empire needs to be held together by somebody who knows what he's doing, and I'm not sure you do, not yet." The way he looked at Jason wasn't either friendly or hostile, just appraising. "No, that's not true. I'm sure that you don't, yet. You don't know when to be hard and when to be soft—which your father did. I don't think you know when to be direct and when to be subtle—which your father didn't. Doubt you've got the strength of will and the strength of body to carry off being direct all the time. Which he had.
"So yes, he's alive. We need him." Kethol leaned forward on his elbows and sighed. "But, no, I don't think he's alive, because nobody could have lived through that explosion that you and Tennetty described. Perhaps it doesn't matter, because perhaps it's all for nothing anyway."
He chuckled, a thin laugh that rattled in his throat like small, dry bones. "Only one thing I'm sure of, young emperor-to-be, and that's that you'd better decide who you are. If you're going to be just one of the fellows, then you'd best not expect us to follow you blindly into combat. If you want to be above us, keep yourself apart."
"And if I don't?"
"Well, then you'd better hope that your father is alive. In either case, you'd best not spend the night asking a simple soldier what we'll find at the end of the trail.
"Go to sleep, Jason."
CHAPTER 19
Klimos
A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.
—Jean Paul Richter
Slovotsky's Law Number Thirty-One: Get scared right away; avoid the rush.
—Walter Slovotsky
Elleport to Elevos, and there were nothing but rumors; the markets were full of them. The Warrior had just struck at Menelet, but he'd been killed there. Or was it on Millipos?
Or he hadn't been killed. And it wasn't Millipos. It was Bursos. Besides, did you see that thing that flew overhead last tenday? It looked like a dragon, perhaps, and what are dragons doing in the Eren regions?
The trade in dragonbane was brisk.
The Warrior? Who cared about the Warrior when something, some thing had struck on Heshtos, leaving half the village dead, before it slipped into the sea? The village wizard? He was among the dead. The surviving villagers had sold two dozen children to the Slavers' Guild for the hire of a Pandathaway wizard, promising lavish treatment, anything, if he would only live among them and protect them.
The Warrior? No, not Heshtos. No, he and his dozen companions had raided Millipos, or was it Deddebos? It couldn't have been Filaket; perhaps it was Salket? No, it wasn't Salket, or Salkos, but maybe it was Bursos, and it was a hundred companions. No, two—another human, and a dwarf. A dwarf at sea? Don't be ridiculous. Dwarves don't sail; if they were to fall overboard they would sink like stones. Idiot.
* * *
There was a guild factor in residence in the only village on that tiny island, but they kept Tennetty on the Gazelle, and Kethol, Bren Adahan and Durine maintained a disguise as bounty hunters, seeking the Warrior, and they let the slaver's man live.
* * *
Elevos to Millipos, and as night fell Bothan Ver's sharp eyes saw something in the sky, something large and black, flying. But it was flying west and they were sailing north, the sun was setting and they couldn't quite make out what it was.
It wasn't Ellegon, that's all that Jason was sure of. It wasn't Ellegon.
Landfall at Millipos, and there were nothing but rumors. Yes, the Warrior had struck at Klimos, but he had disappeared. There were too many hunters on his trail; he had vanished int
o the air. No, he hadn't vanished into the air: he had attacked the slaver factor there, but had been driven off.
There was a tavern in Millipos that catered mainly to sailors, some drinking up their pay between trips, others looking for work. Kethol and Bren Adahan bought drinks, and listened.
Nothing since Klimos. But did you hear about . . . ?
* * *
They passed up the first rendezvous; they were a good three days' sail from Pefret, and there was no reason to hit Pefret. Next rendezvous, they hoped.
But now it was Millipos to Filaket, and there were nothing but rumors.
Try Klimos. He was there, and there hasn't been any rumor of him since. But he's still around; he kills slavers in their sleep, and he has two—no, twelve, no, a score of companions.
Slavers, here? With the Warrior about to step out of the night and skin anything resembling a slaver? Are you mad? Well, yes, we had a factor here, but look at the rice in the granaries—we don't have to sell anybody. What kind of monsters do you think us, that we would sell our children when we don't have to?
* * *
The smudge of smoke on the horizon grew as they approached Klimos, the Gazelle pointed high, running close to the wind, heeled over hard.
As he stood by the rail, there was a coldness, a tightness in Jason's belly, as though the bread and cheese he'd eaten earlier had changed into stone.
"Okay, people," Tennetty said, clapping her hands together for attention, "enough looking around. I want all guns loaded, all pans primed, all hammers on the half-cock. Bren Adahan and Durine, load your crossbows; Kethol, get your longbow strung."
Bren Adahan shook his head. "We are at least—"
"Shut your mouth and do as you're told," she said. "I've got more experience in running a raiding squad than anybody else here. So that puts me in charge of everything and everyone, which includes you, Baron Adahan "
Jason found all of them looking at him.
It's not fair, he thought. I shouldn't have to make this kind of decision just because I'm my father's son.
And why not? Why was Tennetty making a fuss when they were easily an hour from the island? The smoke indicated some possible danger, sure—but why bring things to a head now?
He thought about that for a quick moment, and decided that if there had to be an argument over who was in charge, now was the time for it. Maybe Tennetty wasn't quite as crazy as everybody thought.
Everybody was still looking at him.
What would his father have done? That was easy: Karl Cullinane would have trusted Tennetty. But Karl Cullinane could have relied on Tennetty. Jason didn't know any such thing.
He'd pretend that he did. He tried to keep his voice level. "You're in charge, Tennetty. Everybody load up, prime and half-cock."
"Oil patches, everyone," she added. "Save your spit. And, Durine," she said, "use a slug load in the big smoothbore."
"Mind if I overload it a bit?" the big man asked, as he carefully tied his short-barreled shotgun to the railing, then reached for the smoothbore.
"It's your face it'll blow up in."
"It's not much of a face, anyway." Durine tipped a heavily-rounded measure of powder down the muzzle of his big shotgun, pushed a hunk of wadding after it, then took a greasy bullet almost the size of his thumb out of his pouch and shoved it down into the barrel.
Jason belted his second holster tightly around his waist, then got his other revolver out of his bedroll gear, checked to see that it was loaded and that the empty chamber was under the hammer, and strapped it tightly into the shoulder holster.
He slipped the lacing out of his tunic front, leaving it open to his waist, tying the leather thong around his forehead partly just to put it someplace, partly to see that he didn't get any stray hair in his eyes. He was beginning to need a haircut, but this wasn't the time to do anything about that. He took out his kit and started working on his rifle, pleased to see that his fingers were faster at it than Bren Adahan's. At least there was something he could do better than the baron.
"This is not a warship," Thivar Anjer said, considering the smoke. "That appears to be trouble ahead."
Bren Adahan had finished priming his pan, and snapped the frizzen down into place with a sharp snick. "You've been here before," he said to Thivar Anjer.
"Yes, yes, of course I have, but—"
"Where does it look to you like the fire's coming from?"
"It's damn clear where the fire's coming from—it's Lehot's Village, over on the lee side of the island, and it's burning. It looks like your Karl Cullinane has been here again."
Tennetty snorted. "Everything that goes wrong anywhere in the Eren region is Karl's fault? Besides, we knew that he was here, that he killed some slavers here some tendays ago—you think he'd be stupid enough to come back?"
Jane opened her mouth, then closed it. Jason squatted next to her.
"What is it?" he asked. As they talked, his hands kept working at his rifle: wrap the bullet in an oil patch, seat the patch firmly with the short-starter from his pouch, slip the short-starter into his belt while he trimmed the patch with his beltknife, put the knife back in the scabbard, take the short-starter back in hand and seat the bullet firmly, replace the short-starter in his belt, slip the ramrod out from underneath the barrel to ram the bullet solidly home, replace the ramrod, take the vial of fine priming powder out of his pouch, tip a measure into the pan, snap the frizzen down.
She shook her head. "Tennetty's right, but for the wrong reason," she whispered. "I don't know that your father might not think it was tricky to double back and hit the same location twice. But my father's too clever for that. The slavers will have to worry about the possibility, anyway. That means that they'll have to watch out at places that the three of them have already hit—and Dad isn't going to let your dad hit them where they're watching."
"So?"
"So if the reports are right that the three of them hit the slavers here, then whatever this is, it isn't them. I say we get out of here," she said. "I don't like it."
Bren Adahan gestured at the smoke. "If you bring us around to the windward side, come around the island, and then cut across the path of the smoke, can we make a fast escape if we have to?"
Thivar Anjer shook his head, his mouth creased into a contemplative frown. "Better to sail straight in, in any event; I should be able to sail two, three points closer to the wind than a warship, if we have to run. But I am not willing to bet my ship and my life on that."
Bothan Ver studiously pulled in the mainsheet, as though a thumbs' breadth more or less slack was an important difference.
Bren Adahan licked his lips. "We have to investigate. This is our best clue to Karl Cullinane."
"Ah, a clue," Thivar Anjer snorted. "What will you have to suggest should the clue consist of a three-masted slaver raiding ship?"
"Don't worry about it," Jason said. "We can outrun a warship if they've taken some sail damage. Jane, would you dig up a couple of the signal rockets and the launching rod?"
"Sure." She smiled. "You're thinking like a Slovotsky, and I like it." In a few moments she was back on deck with two of the slim, short-finned cylinders and the launching rod.
"This is supposed to be set in the ground to launch a signal rocket," she said, "but we can tie it to the railing, pointing backwards, and fire it off at any ship chasing us. If we can hit their sails—and if you can steer your ship, I can hit their sails—they'll be too busy dealing with their burning ship to give us any difficulties."
Durine rested his hand on the captain's shoulder. "Besides," he said, "it would make Tennetty very unhappy if we ran away from no threat at all."
The captain frowned. "Your logic has persuaded me."
* * *
All the preparations for fight-or-flight seemed unnecessary when they pulled around the island. There were no ships to fight or flee from, just a dozen or so small boats, none more than two-thirds the length of the Gazelle—fishing boats, suitable too for traveli
ng to close islands, not really big enough to travel out in the Cirric.
But something had happened.
Two of the boats had been capsized; another lay on the sand with its mast splintered. What had been houses and sheds up at the edge of the sand were now just smoking ruin; pilings like blackened matchsticks stood where the dock had been. Black smoke still hung over the trees, almost obscuring the path up from the water.
Thivar Anjer spoke up. "It would seem sensible to leave. Whatever has done this is dangerous."
"You've got another lead to Karl Cullinane?" Jane Slovotsky asked gently.
"Does that mean you think we ought to check it out?" Jason said. "I thought you were for skipping this island."
"Any law against changing my mind?" She shrugged. "Either check it out real quickly, or not at all. I wouldn't want to wait in the dark for whatever did that."
"The dock is gone," the captain protested. "I will not ground my boat."
"There's a rowboat over there, still looks whole," Tennetty said, not taking her eyes off the water as she stripped down to her bare skin, belted her bowie around her naked waist, then tied her hair tightly behind her.
There was nothing even vaguely lewd about her naked body; it was all muscle, skin and scars. "I'll get it. Jason, keep me covered." She vaulted over the side, splashing feet-first into the water, then swam for the rowboat with swift, sure strokes.
He ought to say something constructive. "Durine, if you see anything in the water near her, shoot it." He could almost hear Ellegon in his head, saying something like, *Sure, sure. He would have, like, yelled boo otherwise.*
But there had to be something else to have them do. He reached up to his shoulder holster and drew his pistol. It had a faster rate of fire than anything—but Kethol's longbow would be a good second. "Kethol, use your bow."
"A good idea, young sir." Kethol smiled as he set aside his rifle, lashing the barrel to the railing with a practiced slipknot. "I've done some bowfishing, too. Remember, you've got to aim long. Things under water seem closer than they are."
Guardians of the Flame - Legacy Page 42
