War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  “Ah, you are awake!” Jarlben exclaimed when he saw Levin’s hand moving. “Good. We have something to speak of.”

  “Yes, Jarlben? What is it?”

  “Listen, Levin, and hear me well.” The Thimenian began. “When we came to watch your sport with the ghouls, we did so for fun, you see?”

  Levin nodded patiently.

  “So, you had your fun, you gained something to boast of, and we took you away from there. That was all for fun times and jolly making, and no debts lie between us.” The Thimenian punctuated each of his declarations with a nod, as if agreeing with himself.

  “Now, that having been said, we have a fight before us this day. The Brizaki ship we have been chasing, it lies close by, and we mean to make war against her.”

  Levin nodded again.

  “Being as you owe us nothing, and we owe you nothing, you may choose to leave us now. We are close by the Mortentian shore, although you cannot see it in this sheepfucking fog. It is barely a stone’s throw that way.” He gestured in the mist. “We can put you ashore now, and you can tell tavern wenches stories about how Jarlben the Mighty rescued you from ghouls until you are old and your prick stops working. Otherwise, you can come and fight with us. You do passing well with the sword, although I still would not put you in the shield wall, and you might get a chance to kill some of my enemies. It is your choice.”

  Levin surprised himself by not giving the choice a second thought. “I’d say I owe you my life, Jarlben, and if you have a fight today, I want to be in it.”

  “Good!” Jarlben exclaimed, pausing long enough to translate what Levin had said into Thimenian for the benefit of the others sitting near. Several of them grunted in satisfaction, and Ohtar son of Ohtar the Left Handed slapped him painfully on the back. “Then sharpen your sword, Levin Ghoulslayer. Also, shut your mouth now please. We are sneaking, and we will have Brizaki to kill before this fog lifts!”

  Despite his words, however, no Brizaki materialized. Brito stood in the prow of the longship as before, with his nose in the wind, moving his hands this way and that to indicate the direction of his quarry. Brito had a thick black moustache, although he had no beard, and Levin wondered how he could smell anything. With each gesture the experienced Thimenian rowers turned the ship slightly, grimly moving in unison and without command. The sail had been furled and lay lashed tightly to the mast. There was a very slight noise as they pulled their huge round shields down from the ship’s rails and placed them at their knees. Levin was handed a small hide buckler, a small shield that he strapped on to his left forearm. The buckler and his own longsword completed his array for battle, and he envied the Thimenians their chainmail and helmets.

  “Close now.” Whispered Jarlben, and at a whispered command the men pulled small bags of sand from beneath the benches and set them at their feet. This was how they managed the Brizaki fire, Levin reasoned.

  A dim shape materialized out of the fog ahead, a ship’s outline in a boxy shape of a type Levin had never before seen. It was as if three large cubes of wood had been placed atop an ordinary ship’s keel, the middle box lower than the ones at front and rear, and the Brizaki vessel was side on to the much lower Thimenian ship. Jarlben hissed a single word command to the Thimenians, and they began rowing in earnest, huge muscles straining under chainmail hauberks, splitting the waves and hurling the longship directly toward the port side of the Brizaki vessel.

  A few seconds before impact most of the Thimenians let go of the oars and stood, grabbing weapons or ropes with hooks attached. A high pitched shout came from the deck of the Brizaki ship, but nothing stopped the longship from her course as she slammed into the larger ship, a ram affixed below the waterline crashing into and holing the vessel. Half a dozen men hurled ropes with grappling hooks onto the Brizaki’s rails, and the Thimenians began climbing up them like squirrels up the side of an elm.

  A dozen or so oarsmen remained on the longship, backing water now to pull out the ram and prevent her from sinking with the stricken Brizaki, but most of the Thimenians were already clambering forward for a chance to get up the ropes and among their enemies. Levin joined a line of men at the bow, waiting for his chance. He could hear shouts, screams and the din of battle above him on the Brizaki ship’s decks.

  Levin wondered why no one on the Brizaki vessel had thrown down the hooks and ropes, but when it came his turn to climb them, the reason became apparent. Six of the largest Thimenians, including Ohtar the Orange, had formed a shield wall on the deck of the Brizaki ship, and crouched behind it, preventing any enemy from approaching the rail where the ropes were secured. Several crossbow bolts were sticking into each of their shields, and one of the Thimenians appeared to have been hit in the upper arm, but he held on anyway, grinning wickedly.

  As he came across the rails onto the middle deck of the Brizaki ship, which was the lowest, Levin saw that the Thimenians had managed to catch the Brizaki completely by surprise. Already they were climbing onto the rear and forward decks, while eight or nine of them stood about the open hatchway looking down into the hold, waiting for any Brizaki who might come up from below.

  No quarter was asked or given, and Brizaki were shouting commands in their weird voices and emerging in tight formations onto both the aft and forward decks, but they were falling to Thimenian swords and axes almost before they could get their shields up. The Thimenians were roaring at them, battering down their kite shaped shields and swatting aside their long, curved swords as if children held them.

  Indeed, compared to the huge Thimenians, the Brizaki did appear almost childlike. The largest of them was half a head shorter than Levin, and they were lithe and willowy. Even those who managed to don their armor before emerging into the battle seemed no more than half the size of the reavers.

  This was Levin’s first taste of battle, and he found himself both terrified and exhilarated. The battle fever of the Thimenians was infectious, and like them, he found himself eagerly awaiting the chance to face an enemy.

  Levin followed another Thimenian up the ladder leading to the aft decks, where a knot of resistance seemed to have formed around a doorway. Here a U-shaped second deck rose above the aft deck, and in it were two round doors. The starboard door was open and half a dozen fully armored Brizaki had formed a semicircle in front of it. More Brizaki were coming up behind them from below decks, carrying crossbows. A gigantic Thimenian spearman slammed bodily into the Brizaki shield wall and broke it, but it had served its purpose briefly, allowing crossbowmen to get clean shots behind it. Already two of the reavers were down with quarrels in their chests, and armor clad Brizaki were issuing forth from the open door with swords and daggers. As the reavers and the Brizaki crashed into each other all formation broke down, and the scene on the rear deck became a series of individual battles.

  Levin found himself squared off against an armored opponent, a silver-haired youth carrying a kite shaped shield and skillfully swinging a curved longsword. The youth sprang forward, and Levin barely parried, noticing that his opponent had strange golden eyes, slitted like a cat’s. He moved with the grace of a skilled swordsman.

  Hours spent fencing with a wooden practice sword against his father paid off handsomely now that Levin had the work-hardened muscle to put his lessons to practical use. His opponent’s style was different than Hambar D’root’s, for the Brizaki favored the thrust and downward slash more suited to battle than individual combat. Levin found that his own counterstrikes, horizontal slashes and thrusts that took advantage of his blade’s straight style were hard for the Brizaki to manage, and despite that one’s armor, Levin scored four times in a row. In desperation, the Brizaki tried to skewer Levin, leaping forward with remarkable speed, but Levin swept his blow aside and countered with a close in slash that nearly decapitated his opponent. Arterial blood sprayed about Levin in a fine mist. It was the same color as blood everywhere.

  Seconds later Levin found himself locked in combat with another Brizaki, this one more heavily mus
cled and sporting twin black braids that came down past his shoulders. His armor was elaborately decorated and he wielded his sword two-handed, a much larger blade than his first opponent’s. He was remarkably good with the strangely curved broadsword, and he struck rapidly and with tremendous force, slashing downward and from the left and right, but always aiming the strokes at Levin’s head. He was shouting commands at others as he fought, and Levin surmised that he must be the ship’s captain.

  The downward strokes of the blade called to mind another lesson his father had taught him, for the common mistake would have been to meet each powerful stroke with one of his own. Instead, Levin moved his body and sword together, using just enough force in his parries to deflect the sword away from him. Sure enough, his opponent over reached and left himself exposed, and the tip of Levin’s blade found the gap in his armor under his arm. The sword went in deep, and the Brizaki went down screaming and did not again rise.

  Fully a score of the cat-eyed warriors attempted to retake the aft upper deck, and by the time Levin finished with his second they were all down, along with four Thimenians. Where Levin had used finesse and skill, the reavers had mainly used brute force, hammering shields aside and crowding into the Brizaki, thrusting swords and axes through armor.

  Once they cleared the decks of living opponents, the Thimenians charged straight into the interior chambers of the ship, seeking out any enemy too timid to come forth and fight them under the open sky. Levin did not follow them, but stood gasping on the aft deck, feeling the heat rise from his body like steam, his side aching from the unhealed wound from the day before.

  The aft deck looked like nothing so much as the floor of a butcher’s slaughter room. Thimenians had a habit of hacking the limbs off their enemies while fighting, and copious amounts of blood and body parts lay strewn across the whole of the Brizaki ship. The bodies of at least thirty of the cat-eyed warriors lay mingled among perhaps ten wounded and six dead Thimenians. Fatally holed by the Thimenian ram, the ship was taking on water, and the aft deck was already noticeably lower than it had been, and beginning to slope toward the sea.

  Over the din of battle Levin heard a girl’s voice screaming in Mortentian. “Please, you have to help me!” The voice was coming from the central hold, and Levin quickly climbed down from the aft deck to stand beside it, looking down into the shadowy center of the Brizaki ship, which was already ankle deep in water. Small wooden barrels and casks floated freely in the hold. A naked girl, nearly as skinny as a boy, stood chained to the mast, and she was screaming at the Thimenians who stood looking down at her impassively. Next to the girl was a massive cage of iron bars and wood, and an enormous feathered shape moved heavily about within its shadows.

  “Who are you, girl?” Levin called down to her.

  “I’m a prisoner.” She replied. “Are you Mortentian? This is Sentinel, a king’s eagle! We have to save him!”

  She was very thin, this girl, barely a woman at all, and even as the water rose to her knees, she appeared to give no thought to her own safety or modesty. Instead she stood there imploringly, her arms bound together in iron chains fastened to a ring at the base of the mast, nodding toward the large cage. “He’ll drown if we can’t get him out! Please!”

  A low railing surrounded the hold, and two Thimenians stood impassively watching her. Levin borrowed an axe from one and descended a ladder. He waded through waist high water to reach her. Sharp eyes in a massive beaked head covered in silver feathers regarded him warily from behind the bars of the cage.

  “Let me get you free first, girl.” Levin said, directing her to move her arms away from the mast and stretch out the chain binding her to it. The second stroke of the axe snapped one of the iron links, and she fell away from the mast, splashing and flailing her arms. Levin looked at the cage and saw that it had a simple door, but half submerged.

  “How’d you come to be in here, girl?”

  “They took me, captured me in the forest.”

  “Come and help me.” He said, and together they wrenched the door half open. Levin was knocked backward by the eagle’s massive head and wing as it forced itself through the opening, scattering flotsam and the girl alike as it pushed the door all the way open. Several ropes tied around its neck held it half in the cage, and when Levin approached to cut them, the gigantic eagle screeched at him in warning. He backed away, his heart pounding. “Lio’s blood!”

  “Do you have a knife?” The girl demanded, and Levin handed her his dagger. Fearlessly she clambered over the collection of flotsam and began sawing at the ropes that bound the great bird. Levin could only back away out of reach of that gigantic sharp beak and watch her work. He saw that she had the recent marks of a lash on her back, long angry red stripes decorated with torn flesh and dried blood.

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “I’m Levin Askelyne. You?”

  “Lanae.” She grunted as she worked. “Lanae Brookhouse.” The water continued to rise, and it had reached the level of his waist before she finally had the bird free.

  “You’re a king’s eye.” Levin replied stupidly, recognizing the name.

  “Yes. And thank you, Levin, for your help.” She lithely climbed onto the eagle’s back, holding the ends of the rope that had tied it. “Your pardon, Levin, but I’m afraid I can’t stay.”

  With a tremendous leap that sprayed water across the hold and left Levin fighting to keep his feet, the eagle cleared the hold and burst into the sky above, leaving feathers strewn across the deck and the startled Thimenians. In moments, she was gone.

  “I thought you were going to keep her. She was already naked and you let the wench get away!” Laughed a blood spattered Jarlben, who suddenly appeared at the rail looking down at Levin in the hold. “Maybe you aren’t ready for a Thimenian wife, Levin!”

  “I guess not.” Levin replied, thinking that finding a king’s eye in the hold of a Brizaki ship was about the last thing he’d expected. “She was a bit young for me anyway.”

  The water in the hold was over his waist now, and he was holding onto the ship’s ladder for balance.

  “Well, stop standing around, Mortentian. We’ve taken this bloody bastard and it’s time to loot her. Start handing up those barrels. You lose half a share for letting the wench escape. Too young indeed. Old enough to bleed is old enough to breed, by Sheo.” His tone was only half joking.

  From the shore, skillfully concealed in the high grass beneath a thick canopy of birch and sycamore, Jahaksi watched the Thimenians plunder his means of getting home. “Shouldn’t we do something?” Tathaga asked him from his own place of concealment.

  “There are at least four score of them.” The voice of Jhumar Ghaz came out of the forest behind them, although the scout was invisible. “They would have us for breakfast.”

  “Jhumar is correct.” Jahaksi observed. “They know what they are doing.”

  “But the ship … How are we going to get home?” Tathaga’s voice sounded childlike and lost.

  “We will find a way.” Jahaksi replied soothingly, although inwardly he doubted they would ever leave this accursed land alive.

  When the Thimenians had come screaming out of the fog and rammed the Brizaki ship, Jahaksi and four of his men had been in the forest. They had released the horses and were in the process of burying the last of their gear before burning the wagon wheels and their garbage. It had been their intention to erase any trace of their incursion into Mortentia, but now they were stuck here. Had they not been taking care of this last task, they doubtless would all be lying dead on the deck of the Dragon’s Glory, like the rest of the Brizaki.

  “Accursed Thimenians.” Akarn Jav declared woodenly. It was a common enough declaration that it elicited no response.

  With no boat of their own, the shore party had been forced to watch from concealment as the Thimenians sacked the ship and slaughtered their comrades, and the inability to help had left them feeling helpless and infuriated.

  Still, it wa
s not without some satisfaction that Jahaksi watched the Dragon’s Glory take water and begin sinking. Her captain had been an arrogant bastard.

  The ship had come to anchor alongside the ruin of an ancient stone pier, one of several spots the Brizaki had scouted months ago as a likely rendezvous. When Jahaksi had stepped out onto the rocky slab that was to serve as a loading platform, the captain, one Kartash by name, had immediately begun issuing orders to Jahaksi and his men as if they were in the lowest circle of his crew. He was big for a Brizaki, and like Jahaksi he wore his black hair in twin braids down his back. When Jahaksi explained that the girl was needed to properly care for the eagle, Kartash laughed at him, then ordered two of his men to search her. They had found a small belt knife, and for punishment stripped her, whipped her, and chained her like a dog before carrying her, weeping, into the hold.

  “She will provide the men with some amusement on the way back to Selden Kharn Chihizak.” Kartash had sneered. “If she lives, she may fetch a few silver on the block.”

  Despite the fact that this fate was exactly what Jahaksi had told the girl she should expect, it shamed him as a Brizaki to see his prediction borne out. It also was to his shame that she had managed to conceal a knife all this time. Kartash had merely laughed at him.

  “You’re grown soft, Jahaksi. You’ve spent so much time among these animals you start to forget their place. After a month with the men, she won’t look so pretty, I promise you that.”

  His mission was complete with the delivery of the eagle to the Dragon’s Glory, and he no longer had any authority to defy the captain. The very efficient crew of the ship had placed a hook in the top of the eagle’s cage, then simply removed the wheels and loaded it into the hold, using a cargo spar and block and tackle attached to the mainmast.

  Although he thought it a useless order, Jahaksi was glad Kartash had then ordered him and a few of his men to remove all traces of their presence in Mortentia before departing. Indeed, the order, doubtless issued for the sole purpose of humiliating Jahaksi before his men and leaving no doubt that Kartash was in charge, had saved the lives of Jahaksi, Jhumar Gaz, Tathaga, Akarn Jav and Baklam. They had been three hundred or more paces inland when they heard the Thimenian reavers strike from the fog, and too far to help in the defense of the ship. By the time they reached this place of concealment it had been clear that there was little they could to do help their fellows, and to rush the pier suicidal.