by Holly Lisle
Eban wasn’t some random Ba’afeegash kid. He was the kid of the brother of the first diplomat of Ba’afeegash. He might not have been a kid that anyone liked very much, but just having him aboard—if his presence were discovered by the Ba’afeegash—would be perfect justification for a major Feegash incident.
If the diplomat bastards hadn’t used some of their magic to get him aboard.
He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples.
The kid was scarred all to hell. Imagine for a moment that the Ba’afee-gash decided to claim that those scars had been inflicted by the Tonk. Or decided to kill the kid, and present his scarred body to the world as proof of Tonk atrocities.
There were Tonk deep healers who could remove all the kid’s scars, grow him up a little and put some muscle on him, maybe change the color of his eyes or his hair. None of them—and there were only five that Aaran knew of in the whole of Hyre—were on his ship. The deep healers were all military, all of them with highest trust status—and all of them personally trained by the woman who had brought Hagedwar magic to the Tonks.
Talyn Wyran av Tiirsha dryn Straad. One of the two heroes of the last battle against the Feegash, which had been both a small battle and, conversely, the winning of the war.
Every Tonk knew her story. A lot of Tonks knew it from inside her eyes, and wished they didn’t. She’d come through unthinkable pain and suffering to bring her people out of slavery, and had given them a remarkable gift at the same time: the enemy’s magic, done better than even the enemy could do it.
It was because she had unraveled the secrets of the Hagedwar that ships could have trackers. Individual communicators. Windmen. It was because of her that every ship could have its own healer, and not just a medic whose only real option in emergencies was to amputate. Her gift of magic had meant Tonks born to magic no longer risked their lives in the View, twenty at a time; no longer fell into the seductive places between life and afterlife, to leave their bodies behind forever.
She’d made it possible for people who were not born to magic to still do magic, and had increased the size of the Tonk magical defense in the process.
She had changed the face of peace and the face of war for her people.
There were more than a few who whispered that she could have changed it more, had she wanted to. That when she taught the Hagedwar, she didn’t teach all of it.
The presence of five Tonk master healers who could perform absolute miracles—and their high military clearance—lent some credence to those rumors.
He wondered how to make the Hagedwar do more. He wondered if he could figure it out. He’d been a quick student, and he was better than average in using the thing. He only knew a part of what it could do, of course. He’d watched the windmen work and sat with them from time to time. In an absolute emergency, if there were no qualified windmen aboard, he might be able to manage something without killing everyone aboard. He sat in on communicator sessions and had practiced with the communicators on emergency signals and a few other basics. Healing—well, he knew nothing at all about that. It was too far outside his area. He wouldn’t even know which interstices in the Hagedwar to use.
But cross-pollinating seemed to have worked well with Tonk magic and the Hagedwar. Aaran was a better tracker than most because he had the Tonk magic in him, too.
He found himself wondering if the Seru Moonstone, who already had their own brand of healing, could be taught the Hagedwar, and could figure out a way to use it to do the same sorts of magic the master healers could do.
He went to talk to the communicators, to have them send in secret for a ship to take the children to safety, and to beg help from any Tonk wolf-ship—to announce that he had found the enemies of the Tonk, and that only an armada would hope to prevail against them.
He would talk to Hawkspar about teaching her Moonstones the Hagedwar later. And perhaps her, as well.
He would not let himself think about loving her and losing her. He would not think about her claim that her destiny was to die. He refused to accept that the future would not offer the two of them a chance together. For the first time in sixteen years, he knew, at least generally, where Aashka was. He was going to rescue her.
And he would not believe that the woman who had found Aashka when he could not had no chance at a brighter future than war and an early death.
He would not let that happen.
30
Hawkspar
I lay in Aaran’s bed, and as soon as he was gone from the room, I clutched my head and cried. I could not chase the pictures of his sister and her fate from my head. I could not stop hearing and feeling what the Feegash diplomats did to her. I could not stop hurting for her.
The river of time ran through me, cold and bitter, and I could not escape the images it still poured at me.
Aaran and Aashka’s father had killed the brother of the man who came eventually to lead the Feegash. But even before he assumed the top position, Diplomat Kafrij Son of Fanbjan and his brother Hirsem had both held tremendous power. When she fell into his possession, Kafrij had made very sure that Aashka understood why he and his associates were doing what they were doing to her. He’d been careful to justify his every action, to declare himself as doing nothing more than carrying out justice for the Feegash who had been so badly treated by the inhabitants of Hyre, and especially by the Tonks.
She had just been a little girl. She could not understand.
I’d flowed past as many years as I could without letting the horrors brush against me. But I had to understand the why of the nightmare that flowed around me.
My life had been marked by these people—these Feegash—too. They’d been paying the Sinalis for years to hunt down Tonk children and enslave them. I had not understood this before, but the Feegash had always considered the nomadic, independent, world-spanning Tonk a threat to their plans to create the world of their vision. The Feegash needed a world filled with sheep, and the Tonk were wolves. So, long before their invasion of Hyre under pretense, they were paying the Sinalis and other peoples who permitted slavery to specialize in acquiring Tonk slaves. They paid a little premium on each one. They only accepted authentic clan marks for their bonuses—which was why the slavers slaughtered all children younger than two. They were too much trouble to keep, and they didn’t bear the necessary clan marks.
I’d been gathered under their systematic eradication program. The Feegash truly didn’t care whether the children lived or died, so long as they were no longer Tonk. Scattered and shorn of their beliefs and their heritage, the Feegash believed Tonk children posed no threat. The Feegash allies killed all adults. Some saved left hands to collect bounties.
I’d not understood before the nature of my enemy. I’d not seen what the Feegash were.
Now I knew.
All peoples have among their number the good and the bad. It is the nature of humanity, and cannot be changed. But some cultures are by their nature evil; this I had not understood. I had seen evil men. I had never before been forced to confront a culture that trained its men to be evil, and rewarded them for their evil as if it were good.
I did not fully understand the Tonk culture or my own people. I was still struggling to make sense of where I’d come from and what that meant. But I understood that I had become a player in a war that mattered; in a fight between a way of life that was at its heart profoundly evil, and one that I believed to be mostly good.
I understood at last why my mentor had fought so hard to win me to her cause when she discovered what the Feegash were doing. She had been too old and too physically weak to do what the Eyes of War would have to do. By being the Eyes of War, I had already helped the Tonk cause by bringing Feegash involvement and Feegash treachery to light. But in the days to come, more would be demanded of me. I could already see how the river ran, and in its branches where the Tonk survived, I stood centered in the stream with Aaran at my side.
I could see my own death in every future, even in those where the Tonk eventua
lly won out. I could see pain and heartbreak for myself along the way. I could see points of sacrifice, though I could not see the events that caused them.
I lay there, wrapped in blankets, knowing what would be asked of me and knowing the price I would have to pay to give it, and I was terrified. I wanted to give the Eyes to someone else. I yearned to be a slave again, with no responsibility for lives other than my own—and not even a real responsibility for that.
But every time my mind shied away from my own future, it landed squarely on Aashka’s present. And on the Sinali ships out in the oceans and seas of countries I’d never heard of, looking for unsuspecting Tonk clans that had been marked for slaughter.
I could not hide from my future, no matter how much I wanted to. I could not leave other children to Aashka’s fate, or even to mine. I’d taken on this duty, and no matter how much I hadn’t wanted to then, and how much less I wanted to after finding out what vile creatures I had to face if the future would be better, no one else could do what I had to do.
Acceptance of my duty, I was coming to understand, was part of what it meant to be Tonk—to belong to this far-flung family I was only beginning to know.
Aaran
Aaran quickly heard back from his plea for help. The Rovintaak wolf-pack had been hunting not far from where Aaran and the Taag av Sookyn escaped the last of the islands of the Fallen Suns. They were breaking off their hunt to join up with the Taag.
Through the communicator codes and secret channels, other wolf-packs scattered through the Kervish Ocean, the Copper Seas, and the Formiter-ranean Sea, confirmed that they were on their way, and designated meet-up points. In addition, another lone wolf like Aaran’s had agreed to step in and ferry the captives back to safety.
Aaran sat in his quarters with his communicators, marking points and times, charting their course, feeling more confident as he put together a fleet that, if every ship arrived, would number more than sixty ships. Enough to wage a war even on Ba’afeegash, he thought.
One of his marine guards banged on his door. “Cap’n,” he yelled. “Tracker calls an emergency.”
Aaran, with half a crew and with the holes filled for the moment by girls and young women, had no illusions about his readiness for another emergency. He leapt to his feet and ran to the steersman’s castle, Potyr at his heels. There, the tracker knelt before a charting page, his eyes closed, his hands drawing the lines and angles of troughs and peaks beneath the sea that would act as navigation markers.
“What have you found?” Aaran asked Otaam, who was finally healed enough to have resumed his duties.
“The Sinali warships,” Otaam said. “We didn’t lose them in the storm, and they’ve been using the favorable winds and currents since to catch up with us. They were running a parallel course when I spotted them, but just moments ago they split off from each other. It looks like they’re going to try to trap us.”
Aaran swore steadily. And then, looking at the placement of the three ships, he started to grin.
He cast his own track, and drew in the positions of the six ships in the Rovintaak wolf-pack. “The Sinalis don’t know they’re out there,” he said to Otaam.
Otaam looked at the positions the three Sinali ships were taking, and the placement of the pack. And he said, “Cap’n, we’re placed to bury the lot of them.”
“We are, indeed,” Aaran said. “If we can get a bit of space between us, anyway.” He turned to Potyr. “Get all the communicators in here, fast as they can move,” he said.
The boy took off like a mad hare.
When the communicators arrived, Aaran had them transmit an offer for shared hunting and spoils—which the Rovintaakers readily accepted. He then dragged Faryn out and set him to the sails, channeling as much wind as he could in a direction that made clear to the slavers that they’d been spotted, and that the Taag was attempting to evade.
They were heading almost due west, where a scattering of little islands formed the easternmost edge of the Fallen Suns. The Sinalis should think that the Taag was hoping to take cover in the islands in order to lose its pursuers.
With luck, they’d speed up their pursuit, abandon all pretense of stealth, and fall into a nice, tight line. Aaran would then attempt to lead them into the trap the Rovintaakers would set.
He sent word to Hawkspar, and she joined him in the steersman’s castle.
She looked thin and pale. In the two days since she’d located Aaran’s sister, Aaran had seen the color go out of her face, and had noticed the Obsidian, Redbird, start hovering around her like a shadow, becoming increasingly worried and protective.
When he managed to talk privately to Redbird, she told him that Hawkspar had hardly eaten anything since she had located his sister.
“You need me?” Hawkspar asked.
And Aaran thought, Always. He said, “We did not lose the Sinali warships that were sent to destroy us. They’re close behind us now, and though we are drawing away from them at the moment, we will not be maintaining that speed. We’re going to turn and fight.” He took a deep breath. He’d thought to ask her to look into time and tell him how he might make sure the battle went well, but when she was right there in front of him, he could not. He feared for her; she should not ever look so fragile.
She didn’t wait for him to ask her, though. She said, “Give me a moment,” and took a seat next to Otaam on his bench. Her eyes closed, her hands lay flat across the chart Otaam had been working on. “Avoid the black-sailed ship,” she said. “Do not engage it under any circumstances.”
She opened her eyes again. “We may do well in this,” she told him. She got to her feet, and started to leave. Her knees sagged, and she looked like she might topple forward, but quick as Aaran was to get to his feet, he was not as quick as Redbird, who caught Hawkspar, and put an arm around her waist, and draped one of Hawkspar’s arms around her own shoulder. “You have to eat something, Mouse,” Redbird said, and half-walked, half-carried Hawkspar away from him.
He could not even afford to pursue her. He had a battle to plan.
It came not long after dawn the next morning. The Taag, having slowed over the course of the night to make sure the Sinalis kept up, ducked around the point of the third island it passed. The wolf-pack waited, hidden just behind the mass of that tiny island and two others.
When the Taag passed the hidden ships, Aaran turned her to one side, and with the careful use of anchors, mimicked foundering on a sandbar.
The Sinalis, sensing the opportunity for a kill, came racing in.
And the wolves descended on them.
Aaran turned the Taag around, and—having passed Hawkspar’s warning to the wolves to avoid direct engagement with the one black-sailed ship—brought his crew, with marines augmented by the Obsidians, to bear against the next-largest of the warships.
These were no slavers, and the fights were fierce. Both sides had Greton fire, both had catapults and archers, and in the end, the battle was decided not by skill, for all represented themselves well, but by who had the sailors quickest at getting sand on burning wood or cutting away burning sheets—and who had the most weapons in their holds. Simple numbers won the day.
The Tonk wolf-pack watched the Sinali ships until they burned to the waterline. Then they spent two days engaged in repairs of their own ships.
They had no treasure to show for their battle, and they’d lost men. But three Sinali warships and every warrior aboard them were destroyed. That was worth some celebration.
Hawkspar
We reached the first of the meeting points Aaran and the captains of the various wolf-packs had plotted out. We maintained a steady course while the Tonk fleet pulled alongside us. One ship, the Seevyn Aragga (or Beautiful Dancer), cut itself out from the line of wolf-ships that would be accompanying us, and tied on to us. We transported all the children and young girls who had been penitents and acolytes, and a few Ossalenes as guardians for them.
We had debated sending off our moriiad crewmen a
nd trying to replace all of them with Tonk crew, but in the end, Aaran trusted the results of my search forward in time; I insisted that none of the moriiad who had fought with us and survived to that point would betray us. So we would be the lone ship in the growing pack that would carry moriiad.
Aaran and the marines gave shares to each of the seru, and to each departing girl who had worked as crew. None of the shares was large, but they were something. And none of the girls had ever owned anything before. The remaining crew then slogged our current salvage and treasure into one hold, to keep it separate from anything new we might get.
After that was done, we took on desperately needed replacements from both the Seevyn and the other ships in the pack. We got another windman, a dozen marines, as many sailors, and a new qualified steersman. We didn’t get any new officers, though we needed them. And we didn’t get a new runner, though not because none was offered. Both Aaran and Potyr agreed that they would not replace Neeran.
All the new crew were Tonk—and none were Mindan, Reform or otherwise—and all signed agreements that would make them party only to shares of loot collected after they joined. They brought their own shares with them, and we had to catalog and separately store these new shares where they would not get mixed in with the Taag’s treasure.
To me, it felt like delay and more delay. But Aaran had assured me that the best way to keep a crew loyal through hard times was to make sure to take care of that crew’s future. Which meant guarding the sanctity of the shares.
Our course would take us to three more meet points in quick succession. We would, at these points, add in new ships to the secret armada. Those ships that reached us in time would sail with us—those who did not make the meet points could attempt to catch up later, or simply return to their hunting. We were going to run down to Greton as planned. Resupply there at a handful of different ports so that no one would notice our numbers. Then regroup and sail north up the coast of Tandinapalis, to the mountainous Askag Bay, which Aaran said would be our closest connection to the mountain-walled city-state of Ba’afeegash. We would resupply in Danaskataak, the northernmost taak in Tandinapalis. Our ships would harbor there, and the Obsidians, our marines, and as many of our sailors as could be spared would go overland to Ba’afeegash, which in all its centuries of existence had never fallen to outside attack.
