[GdM] Without spoiling too much, thus far in your books you haven’t introduced much in the way of what I think of as traditional magic. Will that change in future books in the Thousand Names setting?
[DW] There's more magic as the books go along, but the magic system in the world doesn't support D&D-style fireball-throwing mages. When I was first plotting out the series, I made this a very deliberate choice; I wanted the army stuff to really matter, and in a world where demigod magic-users can turn whole legions to ash, it's hard to care very much about battles between mundane troops. So the magic of The Shadow Campaigns is powerful in a narrow context, but extremely limited and not much use on a battlefield—magic-users tend to be spies, assassins, thieves, and so on.
[GdM] When you find any time to read, which writers do you typically turn to?
[DW] I read constantly! It's a great way to get my own imagination going. I've got too many favorite writers to list, but here's a couple of recent favorites. I was lucky enough to get a copy of Anthony Ryan's new book, The Waking Fire, which is due out in July, and it's great—for my money, I'd say better than Blood Song, which I liked a lot. It's set in a sort of late 19th century world, with steam ships and artillery and gatling guns, all powered by dragon blood.
I also just read Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Blades, the sequel to City of Stairs. Both are fantastic! And later this year I'm looking forward to Four Roads Cross, the latest in Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence, another of my favorites.
[GdM] If you hadn’t caught the writing bug, what career would you like to be pursuing?
[DW] I have a degree in Computer Science, and until a few years ago I made my living as a computer programmer and tech writer. So that would probably be it! I actually planned to keep doing that, it's always a bit shocking to me that I'm able to make enough money writing to live on.
[GdM] You can knock back a few drinks with any 3 people, living or dead. Who do you choose and why?
[DW] Having just spent a con with Max Gladstone, he'd have to be on the list! From the dead contingent, I'd love to go over things with a few of history's military greats—Napoleon would be the obvious choice, and I'd like to chat with Hannibal to clear up a few things.
[GdM] Do you have any upcoming works that you would like to tell our readers about?
[DW] Lots this year! First, in April, The Palace of Glass comes out—this is book three of my middle-grade fantasy series, The Forbidden Library, about a girl who can go inside books to fight monsters and gain their powers. Then, in August, The Guns of Empire is released, that's book four of The Shadow Campaigns. I'll be writing the last volume in both series this year—exciting times![GdM]
Red Sails, Red Seas
A The Dinosaur Lords short story
Victor Milán
‘Red sails!’ rang the lookout’s cry from the mainmast. ‘Red sails off our starboard quarter.’
Standing hand in hand in the narrow prow of the Imperial dromon Melisandre as her oars drove her south through the grey waters of La Canal, Jaume Llobregat and his second in command, Mor Pere de Martorell, turned to look aft. In the middle distance, a fat cog raced toward them beneath billowing red sails.
‘Corsairs,’ said Speranza, the war-galley’s captain. Like most of the Imperial Marines under her command she wore a blue and green kilt, adding a silken band binding her breasts. ‘With the wind freshening like this, they’ll run us down inside half an hour’
Of the “freshening wind,” Jaume felt only a soft caress on his cheek, like tickling vexer down. Speranza’s short iron-grey hair began to ruffle slightly.
‘You’d hide from pirates?’ Pere demanded. ‘You Sea Dragons?’
‘What kind of vessel, lookout?’ Speranza called.
‘Cog, captain!’
She nodded. ‘She’s making a dash out of Anglaterra, overcrewed for the kill. There’ll be three times our number aboard, maybe more. The pirates’ve doubtless been watching us since we entered La Canal yesterday. The fact we’ve made a speed run, without overnighting at a base, shows we carry valuable cargo. Sea Dragons don’t serve the Empire if we throw our lives way in pointless fights—much less yours, gentlemen. So, yes. We run.’
‘It’s our way too, beloved friend,’ Jaume told Pere.
‘Best armour up,’ Speranza told Jaume, as the boatswain raised the alarm in a series of brass whistle blasts. ‘Unless you prefer to weather the storm below, Count dels Flors.’
‘Watch your tongue when you speak to the Captain-General, woman!’ Pere snapped.
Jaume laid a hand on his arm. ‘I apologize for my friend, Captain. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.’
Speranza twitched a shoulder, like a hornface shedding a fly.
‘I am ordered to deliver you safely to La Merced,’ she said. ‘I’ll do that. Even if it costs me my life. That’s all.’
* * *
‘So tomorrow we’ll be back in La Merced,’ Pere said. ‘And you shall marry your Princess Melodía, and live happily ever after.’
He was fastening the straps on Jaume’s white-enamelled breastplate. Dieter performed the same service for Luc. The four Knights-Companion of the Order of Our Lady of the Mirror stood where the narrow deck that ran between the galley’s rowing-wells widened to form a forward fighting platform, to keep out of the way of the Marines’ battle preparations. Several Sea Dragons trundled a ballista grumbling aft on its small-wheeled carriage.
‘That’s the plan,’ Jaume said, raising his arm to free his blouse-sleeve from a pinch by the armour. ‘Should the Lady Li be so kind as to see us through this fight. We’ve both waited for this for so long. But her father has a say in it, too.’
‘But you’re the Emperor’s favourite,’ Pere said. ‘You’ve always been.’
He felt his brow furrow. Am I imagining it, or is there darkness in your tone, old friend?
He was on the cusp of asking when Mor Luc del Aguadulce sang out from the port rail, ‘Captain! That Creators-damned beast is back again!’
‘Only one captain on a ship underway,’ the greybearded boatswain growled. He was already clad in full Sea Dragon segmented armour.
The nearest oarsmen and women, already armoured, laughed. The previous rowers were donning their own fighting harness in the cramped belowdecks. Jaume laughed too.
‘”Jaume” will do fine at sea, as it does anywhere and anytime,’ he said to Luc. ‘You know better than to stand on titles with me, my friend.’
La Canal looked placid enough where Luc pointed. Grey-green water surged slowly. The deep, muted greens of hills of the Francia coast rose beyond, interspersed with white cliffs.
A toothy head as long as Jaume was tall broke the surface, spewed spray from its nostrils, then dipped below again in a roll of broad grey back so dark it looked black.
‘Drawn by the coming slaughter, no doubt,’ the boatswain said.
‘How would it know?’ Jaume asked.
The Marine shrugged. ‘Maybe it heard the whistles. But the scavengers know when a feast is in the offing.’ He pointed aloft, to where small, white-bellied seabirds and pterosaurs circled against the perpetual daytime overcast.
‘Pliosaurus funkei!’ cried Mor Dieter, newest of the Companions. ‘Or—that’s what they call bocaterrible in the Book of True Names.’
Everyone turned to stare at the young Alemán knight.
‘It was my favourite book as a child,’ he said feebly.
‘Get close and personal with a terrible mouth,’ the boatswain growled, ‘and you’ll grow out of that foolishness in an Old Hell of a hurry!’
‘Why does the monster swim to shoreward of us?’ Luc asked. ‘Isn’t he afraid of running aground?’
He pointedly looked away from Dieter. He had voted with the rest of the surviving and present Companions to accept the young knight to their ranks to replace Luc’s long-time lover, Mor Jürgen, who had fallen in the last battle of the Princes’ Party rebellion—admission a
s a full Brother-Companion came only by unanimous consent. But Jaume knew that looking at Dieter reminded Luc of his loss, a wound still fresh after almost half a year.
‘Not at all.’ Captain Speranza now wore a cuirass enamelled in the Sea Dragon colours of green and blue, with blue and green plumes on her helmet to mark her rank. ‘You know how they say a matador can hide behind a single blade of grass?’
Matador was the common name for Allosaurus fragilis, Nuevaropa’s largest and most feared native predator.
She nodded at the huge shadow skimming just beneath the waves, easily keeping abreast of the galley. ‘Those bastards are like that in the water. You take a piss Channelside, a bocaterrible can swim up the stream and bite your pecker off. And they can cross land if they have to. Not that we’re as close to the shallows as it looks to a landlubber.’
Pere shivered theatrically. ‘Once we get off this wretched boat,’ he said, ‘I’m never venturing near the water again.’
Jaume knew his lifelong friend was posturing for effect, a thing he dearly loved to do; he had proven matchless courage a dozen times before helping Jaume found the Companions, and countless times after. Also, he was the only Knight-Brother aboard who had any experience asea.
‘Ship,’ Speranza corrected. But softly. She clearly knew the knight was baiting her; the two had taken an instant dislike to each other, like cats and vexers—velociraptors.
‘I hate the beastly things,’ Pere said. ‘You have stingers. Why not shoot it and be done?’
‘Because I don’t want to make it mad,’ Speranza said. ‘That’s a big one, twelve meters if he’s a handspan. He could break us in two. And he’s not our enemy.’
A hearty thunk and deep bass note from behind made Jaume look aft in time to see a yellow-glowing ember arc toward the corsair cog, now close and looking huge in comparison to the racing-shell dromon he rode. The spark was a bundle of tar- and oil-soaked rags tied around a two-meter brass bolt and launched from a stinger. It drew a black smoke trail against darkening clouds as it arced over the top and plunged down into the Channel, where it barely made a splash.
‘Mierda de nariz cornuda,’ Speranza muttered under her breath.
‘Why are the sails red?’ Dieter asked.
‘Tradition,’ Speranza said. ‘And to frighten their prey, hopefully into surrender.’
‘I thought the Islands of Anglaterra weren’t the Corsair Kingdom anymore,’ Luc said sardonically, ‘after they got forcibly incorporated into the Empire.’
‘Even after almost three centuries, not all of them have got that fact through their thick Angleses skulls,’ the boatswain growled.
‘Could they be targeting us specifically?’ asked Luc.
‘We no doubt made enemies, administering the North these past four months, in the wake of the war,’ Jaume said.
‘And before,’ Luc said with a grin. The Companions had angered many powerful grandes during their career as the Emperor’s élite strike force.
‘Don’t forget our enemies closer to home,’ Pere said. ‘His Holiness, the Pope, regrets our Charter. He’d love to see us ended.’
Jaume gave his head a slight shake to discourage further talk along those lines. ‘No doubt we’ll never know who’s behind it,’ he said. ‘Or if it’s anything but desire for plunder.’
The second ballista loosed. Like its twin it had been secured to the fighting platform in front of the tiller. This bolt struck true, square in the middle of the pursuing vessel’s foremost sail, fully bellied by the risen wind. Its special multi-pronged head hung up in the canvas—as it was designed to, to prevent it passing harmlessly through the sails strapped on all three masts—blazed up yellow with gratifying immediacy.
But almost as quickly pirates swarmed up the mast and rigging, agile as wall-lizards, to douse the flames.
‘Overcrewed,’ Speranza said. ‘As I thought.’
‘They’re that afraid of fire?’ Pere asked thoughtfully.
Speranza glanced at him sidelong as if looking for the hidden barb. ‘They’re riding in a vessel made of fuel,’ the boatswain said. ‘Like us.’
‘Won’t they shoot fireballs at us?’ Dieter asked.
The captain shook her head. ‘No. They want the ship. And what she’s carrying.’
She turned astern. ‘Stingers, load plain bolts. Crossbows, loose. The corsairs may take us, but we’ll make them pay dearly for their pleasure!’
* * *
Behind and to starboard the cog loomed like a brown cliff. The Companions gathered on the aft platform. Jaume looked up at the horde of eager faces that lined the cog’s rails. The corsairs, some naked, some dressed in rags or scraps of purloined finery, jeered and clashed weapons at their intended victims. Above them the clouds thickened and darkened.
‘We’ve faced worse odds,’ Jaume murmured to his three Companions. ‘Though as to when, I can’t quite remember.’
The others laughed. He heard no false notes. Companions were chosen for their excellence as artists or artisans as well as fighters—and for their physical beauty. Only those of proven prowess and courage were considered. Even though more Companions had been lost to incapacitation or death than the twenty-four Brothers their Church Charter allowed to serve at any given time, they never lacked for candidates, from Nuevaropa or beyond.
While the other Companions checked over their fighting-harness again, Pere whispered close to Jaume’s ear, beneath the sweep of his open-faced sallet helmet. ‘So you get your storybook ending, my love. But what about me?’
Confused, Jaume shook his head. He had to shift his balance as the bow-wave from the fast-closing corsair made the far smaller Melisandre roll to port.
‘Melodía’s known all along that you and I are lovers. Why should it bother her now? Unless all these weeks among dry-stick Northerners have you thinking she’s harbouring a jealous streak like one of them?’
Pere sighed. ‘You don’t understand.’
Jaume sighed back. ‘Help me understand.’
‘Now’s not the time.’ Pere looked away. ‘It’s never the time, is it?’
‘’Ware grapnels!’ voices cried from the fighting-deck. As heavy three-pronged hooks arced down from the cog’s rail toward their own, drawing lines behind them, dark against the sky, Jaume breathed in deeply. He savoured the salt smell of La Canal, the sky’s dark grey, the deck’s surge and heave, and the beat of the drums as the rowers pulled Melisandre through the water. Even the smell of stale sweat from his comrades and the Sea Dragons, who’d had no chance to wash properly since leaving Alemania—that too was part of savouring this world the Creators had made. Which to him, as a devotee of the Creator Li, patron of Beauty, was a religious duty as well as inclination.
‘It’s a good day to be alive,’ he said, as a black-iron hook thudded and scraped the rail right beside him.
Speranza, cradling her helmet with its blue and green reaper plumes, gave him a strange look.
A hand gripped his left shoulder. He looked back to see Luc smiling at him. Dieter took his right. Finally Pere, with his arming sword and his mao izquierda parrying dagger hanging ready from his belt, took Jaume’s left hand in his and squeezed.
‘For the Emperor and the Lady,’ Jaume said.
‘For the Emperor and Beauty!’ the Companions chorused back.
With an oddly harmonious sound, the Sea Dragons kneeling on the fighting deck triggered final heavy-crossbow shots at the pirates now clambering over the side to slide down the ropes. Screaming bodies plunged into the foaming waves between the hulls.
From the scabbard across his armoured back Jaume drew the Lady’s Mirror, his famed longsword. Luc and Dieter each raised shield and arming sword. Pere had his own arming sword and parrying dagger at the ready.
Jaume slashed through the nearby boarding-rope. Startled outcries turned to shrieks of horror as pirates sliding down toward their prey found themselves hurtling toward the water instead. Jaume thought th
ey feared being crushed between the craft—sensibly, since the lightweight dromon was now bobbing like a cork on their combined wakes. Or that they couldn’t swim.
The Melisandre rolled toward the cog. Jaume saw a pirate flailing in white froth. A pair of jaws longer than she was burst from the water to snap shut on her.
The monster disappeared. Jaume felt a pang. Corsairs or not, they were fellow creations of the Eight. And some at least would leave grieving friends and families.
But so do their victims from the Channel trade, and their raids ashore.
Compassion wouldn’t slow Jaume’s hand when the time came. It hadn’t yet. And he’d rather cut pirates down in combat than hang them—as he’d done to bandits, as a mere boy back home in County dels Flors.
Down a dozen lines, reavers flooded aboard the galley. The Sea Dragons had abandoned oars and rowing-wells to form a shield-walled rectangle on the fighting deck. The four Companions formed up, shoulder to shoulder across the stern platform, in front of the captain and tillerman.
‘So our captain leads from the rear,’ Pere told Jaume from his left. Jaume stood nearest the starboard rail and danger, as was his right.
An agonized screech shrilled behind them. Jaume turned his head just far enough to see a pirate tumble backwards over the rail clutching his belly. Speranza was pulling a bloody half-pike back behind her shield.
‘She’s guarding our backs, I think,’ he said.
The corsairs rushed the Companions, and the hot work began. Jaume was more aware of his surroundings than the actual movements of fighting; these he had practiced well on drill yard and battlefield—requiring no conscious thought, always fluid, never mechanical. The pirates fought with large fury and small skill. Which made them poor matches for well-armoured experts like the Companions.
Grimdark Magazine Issue #7 ePub Page 8
