An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

by Glen Cook

  But they gave me no opportunity to employ her.

  Two fat galleons moved in on our sides. We killed and killed and killed, till the sea itself turned scarlet and frothed with the surging to and fro of maddened sharks. They cut us up one by one till, like Fat Poppo, we could do nothing but squat in our own gore and watch the destruction of our shipmates.

  The first pair of vessels eventually pulled away so another pair could put their marines aboard. And so on. And so on. Such determination. That Freylander must have been far more important than we had thought.

  There came a time when I was alone on the forecastle, Colgrave was alone on the poop, and the Kid was alone in the rigging. Then even we had been cut down.

  The Itaskians cleared their countless dead while, unable to interfere, we lay in our own blood. Would they fire us, as we had done to so many victims? No. Gangs of sailors came over and took up the repair work we had started.

  I supposed they were planning to take us into Portsmouth. Our trials and executions would make a huge spectacle.

  It would be the events of the decade.

  X

  The Itaskians worked a day and a night. Dawn proved my pain-fogged speculations unfounded.

  The messenger ship then drew alongside. Just one man came aboard. He wore the regalia of a master sorcerer of the Brotherhood.

  This was the man we had feared so long, the one against whom we had no defense. His was the mind, no doubt, which had engineered our destruction. He had been subtle. Not till now had we suspected the presence of a magical hand. Knowing he was there, Colgrave might have gone another way.

  He surveyed Dragon with a pleased look, then went aft to begin a closer inspection. He started with the Old Man.

  One by one, working his way forward, he paused over each man. Finally, he climbed the forecastle ladder and bent over me.

  "So, Archer," he murmured. I clutched the banded arrow beneath my broken leg and wished I had the strength to drive her into his chest. I had not felt so much rage, so much hatred, since the night that I had killed my wife. "Your long journey is almost done. You're almost there. In just a few hours you'll have your heart's desire. You'll meet your ghost ship after all."

  He must have said the same thing to the others. Dragon fairly quivered with anger and hatred. Mine was so strong I half sat up before I collapsed from pain and the weight of the spells he had spun about us.

  "Farewell, then," he chuckled. "Farewell all!" A minute later he was aboard his sloop. Her crew cast off. By then the galleons had fled beyond the southern horizon.

  I could still hear his voice, singing, as the sloop pulled away. At first I thought it imagination. But it was not. He was chanting up some new sorcery. The old began to relax.

  My anger broke that enchantment's limits. I rolled. I found my bow. Ignoring nerves shrieking with the pain in my leg, I surged upward.

  Three hundred yards. He had his back to me, his arms raised in an appeal to the sky. "This's the flight for which you were made." I kissed the banded lady good-by.

  I fell as she left the bow, cursing because I would be unable to follow her final flight.

  She was faithful to the last.

  The skull-pounding chant became an endless tortured scream.

  All the thunders of the universe descended at once.

  I had let fly seconds too late.

  The first thing I noticed was the gentle whisper of the ship moving slowly through quiet seas. Then the damp fog. I rolled onto my back. The mist was so dense I could barely make out the albatross perched on the fore truck. I sat up.

  There was no pain. Not even the ache of muscles tormented by the exertions of combat. I rubbed my leg. It was whole. But I had not imagined the break. There was a lump, no longer tender, at the fracture site. My cuts, scrapes, and bruises had all healed, their only memorial a few new scars.

  It takes months for bones to knit, I thought.

  I stood, tottered to the rail overlooking the main deck. The bone held.

  My shipmates, as puzzled as I, were patting themselves, looking around, and murmuring questions. Fat Poppo kept lifting his shirt, fingering the line across his belly, then flipping his shirt down and glancing around in embarrassed disbelief. Lank Tor stared upward, mouthing a silent "How?" over and over.

  The sails were aloft and pregnant with wind.

  I turned slowly, surveying the miracle. Maybe we were beloved of the gods, I thought.

  The fog seemed less dense ahead. Light filtered through.

  The Old Man sensed it too. He began clumping round the poop in suspicious curiosity, leaning on the rails, the stern sheets, trying to garner some hint of what had happened.

  He paused, stared past me.

  In a voice that was but a ghost of his usual thunder, he called Toke and Lank Tor, conferred. In minutes, quietly, they were about their work. He called to me to keep a sharp lookout.

  The boatswain and First Officer took in sail.

  XI

  And now we drift, barely making steerage. Every man remains self-involved in the mystery of our survival.

  The fog is thinning. I can see the water now, like polished jade, an algae-rich soup in which the only ripples are those made by Dragon's cutwater.

  Yet there is a breeze up top. Curious.

  A dozen birds are perched in the tops, silently watching us, moving only when the Kid or another topman pushes by. Spooky.

  The Old Man is as much at a loss as anyone. He is ready for anything, expects nothing good. He sends one of Tor's mates round to make sure we are all fully armed.

  The fog gradually breaks into patchlets. But the low sky remains solidly overcast. It is no more than two hundred feet up. It is so thick, the light is so diffuse, that there is no telling exactly where the sun stands. Sometimes the cloud dips down, and the maintop ploughs through, swirling it like a spoon does cream in a cup of tea.

  I check my arrows, mourn my banded lady. She was a truer love than any I have ever known, was faithful to the end. Not like this blue and white. She is as fickle as that bitch I killed in Itaskia.

  Heart's desire. The dead sorcerer promised. Then what am I doing here, sailing to a rendezvous with the ghost ship? A queasiness not of wind or wave stampedes through my stomach. I will face a grim opponent, if the wizard did not lie. And without my deadly lady. The bowman there, they say, is at least as good as I.

  This is my desire? Then I have fooled myself more thoroughly than anyone else.

  I wish I could talk to Colgrave, to make sure there aren't any last-minute changes in plan.

  Like a chess opening thoroughly planned beforehand, our initial moves will go by rote. We have discussed them a hundred times. We have taken a score of vessels in dress rehearsal.

  I am the Old Man's key piece, his queen. He relies on me heavily. Perhaps too heavily.

  I am supposed to take out that legendary bowman first. Before he can get me. Then I take the dead captain, the helmsman, anyone taking their places, and, as we go hand to hand, their deadliest fighters.

  Dragon's prow slices through a final cloud.

  I see her! A caravel emerging from a fog bank directly ahead, bearing down on us. I wave to Colgrave.

  It's Her. The One. The Phantom. I can smell it, taste it. Its taste is fear. The sorcerer did not lie. Even from here I can see the bowman on her forecastle deck, glaring our way.

  The butterflies grow larger

  Colgrave shifts our heading a bit to starboard. The reaver immediately does the same. We have barely got steerage way, but it seems we are rushing toward one another at the breakneck speed of tilting knights. I glance at Colgrave. He shrugs. How and when I act is up to me.

  I take my second-best arrow and lay it across my bow. "Now, if you ever aspired to greatness, is the time to fly true," I whisper. My hands are cold, moist, shaky.

  We proceed in near silence, each man awed by what we are about to attempt. The ghost makes not a sound as she bears down, evidently intending a firing pass
similar to our own. Even the birds, usually so raucous, are still. Colgrave stands tall and stiff, refusing to make himself a difficult target. He has complete confidence in my skill and the protection of the gods.

  He is positively aglow. This is the end to which he has dedicated his life.

  Momentarily, I wonder what we will really do if by some chance we are the victors in this encounter. Will we beach the Vengeful D. and haul our treasures ashore as we have always said? But where? We must be known and wanted in every kingdom and city-state fronting the western ocean.

  Four hundred yards. The phantom seems a little hazy, a little undefined. For a moment I suspect my eyes. But, no. It's true. There is an aura of the enchanted about her.

  There would be, wouldn't there?

  Three fifty. Three hundred yards. I could let fly now, but it does not feel right.

  There is something strange about the reaver, something I cannot put my finger on.

  Two-fifty. The crew are getting nervous. All eyes are on me now. Two hundred. I cannot wait any longer. He won't

  I loose.

  As does he, at virtually the same instant.

  His shaft moans past my ear, nicking it, drawing a drop of blood. I stoop for another, cursing. I missed too.

  The butterflies have grown as big as falcons. I send a second arrow, and so does he. And we both miss, by a wider margin.

  Does he have the shakes too? He is supposed to be above that, is supposed to be far better than he has shown. The Phantom has never met a foe she needed fear.

  But she has never met us. Perhaps fear is why we have never been able to track her down. Perhaps she has heard how terrible her stalkers can be.

  One-fifty. I miss twice more. Now it has become a matter of pride. He can miss forever, so far as I'm concerned, but I've got a reputation to uphold and a nervous crew to reassure.

  Another miss. And another. Damned! What is wrong with me?

  Student's mocking grin comes haunting. I frown. Why now?

  One hundred yards. Toe-to-toe. And I'm down to just one arrow. Might as well kiss it all good-by. We have lost. This feckless blue and white will miss by a mile.

  But a dead calm comes over me. Disregarding my opponent, who, I suppose, has been toying with me, I ready the shot with tournament care.

  It goes.

  A thunderbolt strikes me in the chest. The bow slides from my fingers. The crew moan. I clutch the arrow . . . .

  A blue and white arrow.

  I can hear Student laughing now. And, with blood dribbling from the corners of my mouth, I grin back. So that's his secret.

  It's a good one. A cosmic joke. The sort that sets the gods laughing till their bellies ache and then, ever after, when they remember, is good for a snicker.

  My opponent falls as I fall. I wind up seated with my back against the rail, watching as the grapnels fly, as the ships come together, as the faces of the men portray a Hell's gallery of reactions.

  I suppose we'll drift at the heart of this circular mile forever, tied to ourselves, to our sins.

  It's too late for redemption now.

  Filed Teeth

  This story is a collateral sequel to the novel All Darkness Met. It appeared in the anthology Dragons of Darkness, edited by Orson Scott Card, a companion volume to Dragons of Light. Michael Whelan produced an absolutely stunning cover painting based upon "Filed Teeth"—which ended up on Dragons of Light because the artist doing that cover did not deliver his work on time. Whelan also did a fine interior illo of Lord Hammer, which has appeared on magazine and book covers around the world. And which resides proudly in my library now.

  I

  Our first glimpse of the plain was one of Heaven. The snow and treacherous passes had claimed two men and five animals.

  Two days later we all wished we were back in the mountains.

  The ice storm came by night. An inch covered the ground. And still it came down, stinging my face, frosting the heads and shoulders of my companions. The footing was impossible. We had to finish two broken-legged mules before noon.

  Lord Hammer remained unperturbed, unvanquishable. He remained stiffly upright on that red-eyed stallion, implacably drawing us northeastward. Ice clung to his cowl, shoulders, and the tail of his robe where it lay across his beast's rump. Seldom did even Nature break the total blackness of his apparel.

  The wind hurtled against us, biting and clawing like a million mocking imps. It burned sliding into the lungs.

  The inalterable, horizon-to-horizon bleakness of the world gnawed the roots of our souls. Even Fetch and irrepressible Chenyth dogged Lord Hammer in a desperate silence.

  "We're becoming an army of ghosts," I muttered at my brother. "Hammer is rubbing off on us. How're the Harish taking this?" I didn't glance back. My concentration was devoted to taking each next step forward.

  Chenyth muttered something I didn't hear. The kid was starting to understand that adventures were more fun when you were looking back and telling tall tales.

  A mule slipped. She went down kicking and braying. She caught old Toamas a couple of good ones. He skittered across the ice and down an embankment into a shallow pool not yet frozen.

  Lord Hammer stopped. He didn't look back, but he knew exactly what had happened. Fetch fluttered round him nervously. Then she scooted toward Toamas.

  "Better help, Will," Chenyth muttered.

  I was after him already.

  Why Toamas joined Lord Hammer's expedition I don't know. He was over sixty. Men his age are supposed to spend winter telling the grandkids lies about the El Murid, Civil, and Great Eastern Wars. But Toamas was telling us his stories and trying to prove something to himself.

  He was a tough buzzard. He had taken the Dragon's Teeth more easily than most, and those are the roughest mountains the gods ever raised.

  "Toamas. You okay?" I asked. Chenyth hunkered down beside me. Fetch scooted up, laid a hand on each of our shoulders. Brandy and Russ and the other Kaveliners came over, too. Our little army clumped itself into national groups.

  "Think it's my ribs, Will. She got me in the ribs." He spoke in little gasps. I checked his mouth.

  "No blood. Good. Lungs should be okay."

  "You clowns going to talk about it all week?" Fetch snapped. "Help the man, Will."

  "You got such a sweet-talking way, Fetch. We should get married. Let's get him up, Chenyth. Maybe he's just winded."

  "It's my ribs, Will. They're broke for sure."

  "Maybe. Come on, you old woods-runner. Let's try."

  "Lord Hammer says carry him if you have to. We've still got to cover eight miles today. More, if the circle isn't alive." Fetch's voice went squeaky and dull, like an old iron hinge that hadn't been oiled for a lifetime. She scurried back to her master.

  "I think I'm in love," Chenyth chirped.

  "Eight miles," Brandy grumbled. "What the hell? Bastard's trying to kill us."

  Chenyth laughed. It was a ghost of his normal tinkle. "You didn't have to sign up, Brandy. He warned us it would be tough."

  Brandy wandered away.

  "Go easy, Chenyth. He's the kind of guy you got to worry when he stops bitching."

  "Wish he'd give it a rest, Will. I haven't heard him say one good word since we met him."

  "You meet all kinds in this business. Okay, Toamas?" I asked. We had the old man on his feet. Chenyth brushed water off him. It froze on his hand.

  "I'll manage. We got to get moving. I'll freeze." He stumbled toward the column. Chenyth stayed close, ready to catch him if he fell.

  The non-Kaveliners watched apathetically. Not that they didn't care. Toamas was a favorite, a confidant, adviser, and teacher to most. They were just too tired to move except when they had to. Men and animals looked vague and slumped through the ice rain.

  Brandy gave Toamas a spear to lean on. We lined up. Fetch took her place at Lord Hammer's left stirrup. Our ragged little army of thirty-eight homeless bits of war-flotsam started moving again.

  II

>   Lord Hammer was a little spooky . . . . What am I saying? He scared hell out of us. He was damned near seven feet tall. His stallion was a monster. He never spoke. He had Fetch do all his talking.

  The stallion was jet. Even its hooves were black. Lord Hammer dressed to match. His hands remained gloved all the time. None of us ever saw an inch of skin. He wore no trinkets. His very colorlessness inspired dread.

  Even his face he kept concealed. Or, perhaps, especially his face . . . .

  He always rode point, staring ahead. Opportunities to peek into his cowl were scant. All you would see, anyway, was a blackened iron mask resembling a handsome man with strong features. For all we knew, there was no one inside. The mask had almost imperceptible eye, nose, and mouth slits. You couldn't see a thing through them.

  Sometimes the mask broke the colorless boredom of Lord Hammer. Some mornings, before leaving his tent, he or Fetch decorated it. The few designs I saw were never repeated.

  Lord Hammer was a mystery. We knew nothing of his origins and were ignorant of his goals. He wouldn't talk, and Fetch wouldn't say. But he paid well, and a lot up front. He took care of us. Our real bitch was the time of year chosen for his journey.

  Fetch said winter was the best time. She wouldn't expand.

  She claimed Lord Hammer was a mighty, famous sorcerer.

  So why hadn't any of us heard of him?

  Fetch was a curiosity herself. She was small, cranky, long-haired, homely. She walked more mannish than any man. She was totally devoted to Hammer despite being inclined to curse him constantly. Guessing her age was impossible. For all I could tell, she could have been anywhere between twenty and two hundred.

  She wouldn't mess with the men.

  By then that little gnome was looking good.

  Sigurd Ormson, our half-tame Trolledyngjan, was the only guy who had had nerve enough to really go after her. The rest of us followed his suit with a mixture of shame and hope.