by Holly Lisle
How we were going to deal with our enemy when we arrived, none of us could say. I could see nothing useful in the way of battle plans in my forays into the future. That time still lay too far ahead for even vague details to emerge. I could only see that in some futures we went and we conquered, and in most we went and were destroyed to the last man.
Tuua came to sit beside me after the children were gone. I’d promised them I would find them again if I could. I knew as I said the words it was a promise I was unlikely to survive long enough to keep.
“You seem worried,” Tuua said.
“The future is not a place I enjoy spending much time in right now,” I told him. “It’s an ugly place.”
“We made it past the slavers and out of the Dragon Sea; we’ll get through this as well.”
“I could tell you all the different ways that we don’t, if you’d like. And the ends to which we will most likely come, individually or as a group.”
He laughed. “I think I’d rather you didn’t do that. I’d rather hear all the many ways we’ll win, and how we sail home with the Diplomat Kafrij’s head dangling from the teeth of our figurehead.”
“The carved horse head at the front of the ship?”
“Yes. That’s why they’re carved with their mouths open, and why they have hooks in their bottom jaws. For a long time, sailing home with the heads of enemy chieftains hanging from the figureheads was a proud Tonk tradition. I think in this case it’s one we should renew.”
I liked the thought of that.
“If I can see that in our futures, I’ll be sure to tell Aaran how we can follow that stream instead of all the others.”
He rested a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t see much good for us, though, do you?”
I considered my words carefully, but in the end my choices were to either lie or tell the truth. I was not, and had never been, a liar. “We don’t have much chance of winning,” I told him. “The strongest branches of the stream lead to our death and to the destruction of the Tonk, though the manner in which that comes has changed drastically.”
He said, “Has it?”
“It has. Before your … our … people knew about the involvement of the Feegash, the Tonks were weakened by raids from Sinali ships, but destroyed at last by betrayal from within. The Reform Mindans carefully worked their way into positions of power, then permitted an influx of foreigners—”
“Moriiad,” Tuua told me.
I corrected myself. “They permitted an influx of moriiad to assume positions of importance within Tonk institutions. And the moriiad eventually assumed power and made being Tonk illegal, in little bits and pieces. It would have taken about a hundred years until the last Tonk died.”
“And now?”
“The biggest streams now lead to war, with all the Tonk from all their many homes banding together against the weight of nations. In these futures, the last Tonk dies in about fifty years.”
“That’s not an improvement.”
I considered. “You wouldn’t think so, would you? But in a funny way, it is. The waters of time had carved a deep, fast channel leading to the demise of the Tonk. There were almost no streams that led to any other future. Now that we have shifted the river from its bed by letting the Tonk know what they face, about half our futures lead to our destruction. The other half lead to hope. To a world where Tonk are still Tonk at the end of this.”
He sat for a long time considering that. “Certain gradual, silent extinction over a hundred years, or a fifty percent chance of keeping our freedom, and a fifty percent chance of dying while fighting for it. You’re right. This is better. It gives us something to do even if we lose.”
I laughed. That was such a purely Tonk perspective—something I was gradually learning, but had not yet managed to fully embrace.
And then we were ready to see the transport ship off toward Hyre. And to get underway ourselves, with the first battle we would face moving closer with every racing instant.
I listened to the girls aboard the other ship shouting their good-byes and wishing us luck. Then, as they drew away, the sounds of the ocean, wind, and lapping water erased their voices.
I let the rhythms of the ship soothe me; men’s voices shouting, the snap of sails as they filled with wind, the singing of the lines, the creak of wood, the rush of water. This time we were part of a fleet. Not so vulnerable. Not carrying traitors anymore. Everyone aboard the ship wanted to see us win—even those of our crew who were not Tonk, but who had heard of the magnificent wealth of the Feegash, and their endless strongholds lined with gold, and who wanted at least a chance to see if all they’d heard was truth.
Aaran joined me at the prow on the private captain’s watch-deck after we were underway.
“Having second thoughts?”
“And third. And fourth,” I admitted.
“You could have gone with most of your people. We know who the enemy is now. We’ll find a way to root the bastards out.”
“You’ll have a better chance with me along,” I told him. I did not let him know that he would have had no chance without me. That somehow, though I could not yet see how, I would prove critical in any possible success. I did not let him know the many ways that I could see either of the two of us die, either, or my own futures in which my only wish was death. He knew we did not face good odds. All the men knew. I found them admirable. They knew as well as I did that we would be outnumbered, and most likely that we would not win—and yet they had all come.
I felt pride, then. These were my people. I’d never truly felt that kinship before. I’d had no connection with the Tonk, save prayers morning and night—and those do nothing to tell the measure of a man, or a culture. It’s how he acts when he thinks his god isn’t listening that will tell you a person’s worth.
These were strong, brave people.
I was grateful to be one of them; I was slowly discovering how much that meant.
31
Aaran
They sailed for a week and a day, making each point, picking up those ships that waited there. Never as many as they had hoped, but always more than they’d had before. And when they stood off a dot of an island—a mere pinnacle of rock in the center of the deep sea that the Tonk called Jostfar’s Icepick—they acquired the last ships that would be sailing with them.
Communicators passed messages from ship to ship, trying to set up the organization of the fleet, but at last it was agreed that all the captains needed to meet in person, and that Hawkspar, who had discovered the information that had brought them all together, needed to meet with them.
With a certain amount of confusion, then, those called to the meeting began to make their way to the chosen meeting place—the private officers’ attable of the enormous, new-built Ker Nagile, named after the famous Tand warhorse and sire of warhorses from the ancient War of Stones and Snow. Hawkspar was nervous about presenting what she knew, so they left early. She insisted, saying the Eyes told her it was what they needed to do to win the captains to the tasks ahead.
The Ker was a gorgeously appointed ship, and one that Makkor and his sons had finished not long before Aaran had come ashore in Port Midrid. It had a sleek horsehead prow, four masts, a deep arrowhead hull, and more speed than any of the other ships in the makeshift fleet could hope to match. It boasted catapults and boarding arms and massive winching crossbows and huge stores of Greton fire, and berthed a crew of a hundred-forty sailors, twenty-four officers, and a hundred-sixty marines. It sailed smoother and steadier than any ship Aaran had set foot on, and he almost lusted for it. Almost.
It was not his, and—for all that he still more than half-believed it was cursed—he had come to love both the graces and the quirks of the Taag. But the Ker was what all wolf-ships would someday be. Lean and quick and stable. And big.
He followed one of the Ker’s runners to the officers’ attable, where he stopped and stared. The attable was enormous, high-ceilinged, and well appointed. In all his life, Aaran ha
d never seen such a vast amount of space set aside just for the officers. It had three dropwaiters. It had beer on tap. The benches were padded. It was magnificent. And, as nearly the first to arrive, he got to stare around it to his heart’s content.
“Lovely, ain’t it?” one of the two men seated at table asked, watching Aaran’s face with evident amusement.
“As fair a ship as ever I’ve seen.”
“The Ker’s captain had a fine ship. The story is that he saw this one as it was gliding out of dry dock, and all but ran over the builder to be first in line to buy it. And with his deep pockets, he was last in line as well.”
“Lucky man,” Aaran said. “Wouldn’t hurt to be rich, I suppose.”
“It wouldn’t,” the man agreed. “You captain one of the ships from the Rovintaak wolf-pack, don’t you? I thought I saw you come over on one of the Rovintaak longboats just behind me.”
Aaran shook his head. “I’m Aaran av Savissha,” he raised his left palm, presenting his clan mark. “We’ve been sailing with the Rovintaakers, but the Taag av Sookyn is my ship.”
Both captains fixed their attention on Aaran. “The … Taag? Av Sookyn? You’re the Madman?” one asked.
That nickname hadn’t gone away in the past weeks, then. “So I’ve been called,” he said.
“And you’re still alive? You’re all the talk around the Path of Stars. Story was that you sailed into the Dragon Sea and wizards ripped you apart. We all thought sure you were dead days after you left Port Midrid.”
That was one of the interesting effects of maintaining secrecy while using the communicators, Aaran thought. He’d passed the codes that proved he was Tonk, and proved his ship was a wolf-ship in good standing and with papers in order, but to keep anyone from betraying him, his identity and the name of his ship had remained secret from all save the registrar—the man who controlled the codes for the wolf-ships. So no one knew precisely where Aaran had found his information, or who he was, or who his ship was. They had been able to verify his first batch of information—regarding the treachery of the Mindan Reformists—themselves, which was why they had come when ship Wolf-808-Solo said if they did not act quickly, the Tonks would fall under the Feegash plot to destroy them.
The captain raised his left palm and said, “I’m Dyur av Derstaag, captain of the Vinik Han. Delighted to meet you. Good of you to join in this fight—probably a happier place to be than chasing ghosties in the Fallen Suns, eh?”
Aaran squelched a grin. “Actually, I’m the captain who called everyone here.”
The other captain was staring from his companion to Aaran and back. His head bobbed like a marionette’s. “You’re the man who found out about the shit-swilling Feegash and their treachery?”
“No. But I’m the man who rescued the woman, Hawkspar, who did.” Aaran glanced toward the door. “She’ll be along shortly. She found a lad who wanted to show her around the ship, and since she was enchanted by it, she took the boy up on his offer.”
And Dyur laughed. “You rescued her, eh? Well, the little beauties do get their tails into some interesting fixes, don’t they? Hawkspar … that almost sounds like an Eastil name. I still don’t trust that lot, but their women have as good ears as any women do, I suppose.” Apparently he was assuming Hawkspar had gotten her information via pillow talk.
“She’s Tonk. The name is a title.” Aaran smiled. He didn’t feel any need to warn the men that the woman who was coming was not some delicate little flower, some wench who made her way from bed to bed and gossip to gossip. It would be, he thought, a great deal more fun to watch as the truth dawned on them.
On the companionway stairs outside the door, a thunder started, the heels of many boots descending at once. Aaran and both the other captains turned toward the open door, and through it streamed a veritable tide of ships’ captains, all of them silent, and most of them looking shocked.
“There are women aboard this ship,” one of the men said. He sounded scandalized. “Stone-eyed, monstrous women.”
And then a chatter of voices all at once.
“They’re acting as if they own this place. They were … rude when we suggested this was no place for women.”
And, “They parade about the decks as if they were thinking of taking lease.”
And, “What fool brought them, and why them?”
Aaran wondered if Hawkspar had refused to come down into the officers’ attable with him because she had known in advance that this would be their reaction. He shouted, “Attend! Attend me!” but captains were better at giving orders than taking them, and he had to step onto a bench and shout at the top of his lungs before the other men silenced themselves and turned to face him.
He introduced himself once again, but did not give time for the greeting exchange that would have been polite under most circumstances.
“I am the man who called you here,” he said. “The one who voyaged into the Fallen Suns and rescued more than a hundred slaves, many of them Tonk, from the Ossalene Citadel. The women on this ship right now will be joining us shortly, and the Oracle Hawkspar will address you.”
“Women, man!” someone shouted. “What were you thinking?”
“Hawkspar is the reason we know the truth about the Feegash. She is the Oracle of the Hawkspar Eyes of War, and for her ability to see clearly into the past, the present, and the future, kings have offered gold and lands and slaves and even marriage. She does not offer her visions to everyone. She pays a terrible price each time she seeks the future. But she helps us without charge and without obligation.”
“Why?” Captain av Derstaag asked. “Why are we the beneficiaries of this help of dubious worth?”
“Because she’s Tonk,” Aaran said stiffly. “As is the Seru Obsidian who guards her. Both of them, and most of the Ossalenes who remain on my ship, were stolen away by slavers as small children, and sold to the Order.” His mouth twisted with anger. “All of you know the story; most of you know it personally. We share this pain. And so does she. She took on the Eyes she wears because the previous Eyes of War, also Tonk, discovered that we were at war with an enemy that chose not to declare itself. That oracle was too old to travel with warriors to do what had to be done; she died in a manner that makes me think it was by choice, and Hawkspar accepted the mutilation she has suffered so that she could offer herself for the survival of our people. Give her the respect that she has earned for her sacrifice.”
They stood around him, faces disbelieving, chastened, or marked with pain.
And then a voice Aaran had not expected to hear again rang through the hall.
From the top of a table on the opposite side of the attable, Captain Haakvar said, “So. The Madman erupts from the Fallen Suns with a wild tale of rescuing women who can see the future, and calls us across the seas to fight a battle these so-called oracles claim will save us. Had I known it was you who had brought us here, neither I nor my fleet would have come.” He glared at Aaran. “You’re barely a captain, tracker, and only because you took a ship on credit and named yourself one.” Haakvar pointed at the other assembled captains and said, “I cannot speak for many of you, but I can speak for those of you who sail my ships. We will not stay for this … joke.”
Into that silence, Hawkspar and Redbird swept, led by a handful of awed-looking junior officers.
Hawkspar’s sheer presence cleared a spontaneous path, and she joined Aaran on the table. She went a step farther, standing on the tabletop itself. It wasn’t a thing either of them could have done in his ship—but in this magnificent new warship, some decks enjoyed ceilings as high as homes, or nearly so.
Hawkspar turned to face the majority of the men in the room and raised her left hand. The gasp that followed marked their introduction to the fact that she was Eskuu—the first Eskuu anyone in the known Tonk territories had seen in time out of mind.
She said, “Captain Haakvar, you will sail with us, as will your other ships, because if you do not, then the Tonk cause is lost. And as you
are neither a traitor nor a coward, the survival of your people means more to you than your own life.”
She turned her face from one side of the room to the other, and Aaran could see that the men who were watching her shuddered. “I know my presence on this ship and with this fleet disturbs you,” she said bluntly. “I know this is not the way of things, and under better circumstances and in better times, we would have not the need of it. But we have the need of it now. I am the Oracle Hawkspar Eyes of War, raised from the time of my capture and enslavement to be an Ossalene. I had a name once, but I do not know it anymore—you may, therefore, call me Hawkspar. You will have noticed my Eyes.”
This she said in a haughty, deadpan tone that made Aaran wish he dared turn to stare at her. He wanted to see if the corners of her mouth were twitching, the way they did when she found something funny.
“They are stone,” she continued, “enchanted artifacts made by a fool of a wizard back at the dawn of history. They are ugly, and they hurt, but they permit me to step into the waters of time and follow them where they flow, both forward and back. I can see what was, but I can also see all the many ways that things might be, and catch them as they change.”
“I doubt that,” Haakvar said.
And Hawkspar said, “I know you do. So let me tell you something that will convince you. When you were a young man, you stood before a woman you hoped to marry, and promised that you would take Minda as your saint, and be the shopkeeper she and her parents hoped you would be. You went so far as to walk with your beloved to the temple to put Ethebet aside in favor of Minda, but when you were there, you stood before the shrine of Ethebet, and in the Meditations of Saint Ethebet written on the wall, found something that convinced you to turn to the woman beside you and tell her that you would not—could not—marry her.”
