Responsibility of the Crown
Book One of The Endless Ocean
By
G. Scott Huggins
PUBLISHED BY: New Mythology Press
Copyright © 2021 G. Scott Huggins
All Rights Reserved
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Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Shattered Crucible”
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License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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Cover Design and Original Art by J Caleb Design
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For my Mother and Father, George and Linda Huggins, who read books about dragons.
And to Hannah, who wanted more stories of Responsibility.
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Acknowledgements
There are so many people to thank that it is difficult to know where to begin.
First, I would like to thank my editor, Rob Howell, who decided to let Responsibility take flight in his press, and made it a better story. Also thanks to Chris Kennedy for bringing me on board his team.
Others who have shared in the journey include William H. Horner, who bought the story "Abandoned Responsibility" back in 2006 for his Fantastical Visions anthology back when I had no idea that she would ever have another adventure. I would also like to thank the staff of Podcastle, who bought that story as a reprint and its sequel, "Responsibility Descending," as an original piece.
A special thanks to Jennie Posthumus, E. Jahn, Tan Smyth, Clorinda Madsen, Kim Helvey and Jon Miles, who read and commented on the earliest drafts, but most of all to Ralph Seibel and Ben Pittman, whose tireless encouragement went above and beyond the call of friendship, and without whom I might long ago have given up.
Another source of encouragement was editor Elizabeth Buege, who picked the first draft as her runner up for the Revise and Resub competition, and to Gerald Brandt of SFWA, who mentored me through the query/synopsis process. Also thanks to Larry Correia and Tim Powers, who provided valuable career advice in general and for supportive blurbs.
Finally, a huge role of thanks to my lovely wife, Katie, who has provided both pats on the back and boots to the rear when they were needed. This would not have been finished without you. And to my children, Tristan, Cora, and Briona, who have been happy as I have reported good news, thank you. And to all my readers who have given me a chance at their time, and shared my, stories, I am grateful.
Mt. Pleasant
2021
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Contents
Part I: Abandoned Responsibility
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II: Responsibility Descending
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part III: Grave Responsibility
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
About G. Scott Huggins
Excerpt From Book One Of The Balance Of Kerr:
Excerpt From Book One Of The Watchers Of Moniah:
Excerpt From Book One Of The Milesian Accords:
Excerpt From Book One Of Forge And Sword:
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Part I: Abandoned Responsibility
Chapter 1
“Eyes!”
The muffled shout bounced outside the trance Responsibility used while she slogged through her assigned weaving. The word searched for something to connect with while she forced her four fingers through their painful rhythm.
Then she recognized the voice. She rose, and the sailcloth fell from her fingers.
“I need eyes!” The shout was closer now. The trapdoor in the bottom of her nest rattled before it folded up to admit a small figure in a black cloak. Zhad bounded in, his hair, face, and eyes white as clouds beneath his hood. “Look out starboard, Respy,” he gasped, “and tell me what you see.”
She looked out the narrow starboard window. The ship was turned to spinward and the red-yellow-white spike of the sun glared in her face so that even her slitted eyes needed a moment to adjust. She extended a wingtip toward Zhad, who took it. She pulled him to her, until his hands were on her shoulders.
“Well, what is it?” he asked. “All I could hear was that some kind of boat was in the water, but no one was saying what. Inconsiderate lot.”
That explained the excitement. Meetings on the Endless Ocean were rare and usually cause for celebration, trading, or fighting. Responsibility picked out the cause of the uproar.
“There’s a boat. Bright yellow. It looks as if it’s…made of pillows?” She had never seen such a boat. It floated like cork, a flea next to the great, flattened curve of Ekkaia’s hull. A shape lay on it. A man in blue clothing and…red hair; hair the color of the sun where it met the cloudwall. Pirate. Only the pirates bred red-haired men.
“Pirate?” She didn’t realize she’d spoken the word aloud, but the shock on Zhad’s face told her differently.
“How many?” asked Zhad. “I didn’t hear battlestations sounded. Are you sure?”
“Just one. If he is a pirate; I’m not sure,” she lied. “Let’s take a closer look.” She pulled him toward the hatch. He came reluctantly, obviously torn between curiosity and fear.
“Are you sure you want to risk it? If Haraad catches us—”
“It might be over by then. Besides, everyone who’s on deck is looking over the side. If there’s ever a time we can get down and back up without being noticed, it’s now. If we’re lucky.”
And it had been so long since her last flight; too long.
“Of course, Respy, no one ever notices you,” Zhad said.
Responsibility flushed. “We sometimes get away with it.”
“Occasionally. When you listen to me, and we climb down. At night. And old Goff is on watch. Who sees about as well as I do.” The glare of the Endless Ocean had blinded Zhad’s weak eyes when he was three. It was not forgiving of differences, but then neither were Ekkaia’s crew.
“Are you coming or not?” she asked, a little too sharply, sitting on the rim of the trapdoor.
For answer, he scrambled behind her and threw his arms about her neck. “I really hate this part,” he muttered.
“This part” only worked because Zhad, at sixteen, was still about the size of most ten-year olds. And because she’d practiced a lot since learning she could fly. Well, glide.
She dropped.
They fell free for less than a second before her wings snapped out and the wind nearly tore her bones apart. The pain was glorious; twin rivers of fire reaching from wingtips to shoulders to ribs as they dropped into a fast spiral around Ekkaia’s naked mainmast. A hundred feet of freedom from her nest to the deck.
Usually, when she did this peop
le waited on the deck to take her by the wings and escort her back up to her nest for a week of no exercise or visitors. This time she had judged correctly. Everyone was looking over the side at the pirate.
She tried to slow her descent, to stay airborne, but Zhad’s weight on her back made her glide more of a controlled fall than usual.
Even without him, she could not have flown, and the injustice of it still tore at her. For a long time after her wings had grown, she had vowed she would learn to fly away in search of her mother and leave Ekkaia forever. Bad enough to be a freak, dusted with sapphire-emerald scales all over. Bad enough to have spider-veined wings in place of arms. Bad enough to be the only halfdragon in the whole Great Disc of the World, but to be so here and unable to even fly away? Oh, she was light enough. Her bones were hollow, or so the ship’s chirurgeons said. She could glide for minutes at a time, but, always, she sank lower and lower, eventually ending up back on the deck where her mother had set her as an infant.
But for now—nearly twenty seconds—she was free. No longer Responsibility, but Arz…Ezr…
The fragmented memory failed her. Or was she just stupid, like Jaal down in the cattle decks who kept prattling on about how his real parents were a Pirate King and Queen? She swerved. The deck of the ship tilted and a cabin slid beneath them. She hit the roof hard, driving dull bars of pain up her shins. Zhad slid off her back.
From the top of this deckhouse, she could see over the heads of the assembled complement. As word spread, more people swarmed out of the hatches to catch a glimpse of the stranger. The crowd was impossibly thick to starboard, and Responsibility wondered if it were possible to capsize a Century Ship.
She thought it unlikely. Ekkaia was nearly a mile long and a quarter that wide. She was cut from the trunk of a single Grove Tree. “I can’t see much, but they’ve got him over the side, now,” she said. “He doesn’t look good. He must have been out there a long time. The pillow boat is up, too. It looks like all the feathers got dumped out of it. He has red hair, though it’s too short for a pirate—”
“He’s a pirate all right,” said a deep voice behind them.
Responsibility jumped and whirled. Zhad never moved.
“Good afternoon, Cana,” he said. “I thought it was you.” Nothing ever surprised Zhad. This didn’t deter Cana in the least.
“Suppose it had been Haraad?” the big man with the dark brown face said, his voice rumbling. “You’d have your back as red as your eyes, Zhad. As for Responsibility…”
She felt her heart sink.
“No exercise for you for two days,” Cana said. “Be grateful I don’t make it a week. No, don’t even start. It’s not worth my family’s vegetable ration for a month to be caught helping you. Lucky for you it’s not worth it to me to miss this by escorting you back up to your nest.”
Responsibility felt the urge to scream and smile at the same time. Cana rarely spoke to her anymore, but he still made sure she received small gifts of food and clothing on Ship’s holidays. Cana was the closest thing she had to an advocate: one of a very few in favor of ending her imprisonment.
“A dragon is no fool,” he’d said. “Her mother knew the risks on a Century Ship. Let her live. Don’t stunt her growth. That might anger the dragon as much as her death.” The rest of the captains had overruled him. No one liked having a scaly, deformed sword of dragonfire hanging over their ship, and shutting her up let them forget about her.
Zhad snorted. “If you’d been Haraad, I’d have heard you the second you stepped on the ladder. Besides, you couldn’t have been, because Haraad’s over there.” He pointed. The blond first officer, his skin almost as pale as that of the red-haired pirate, moved through the crowd. Sometimes Zhad’s sense of direction was eerie.
Two sailors held the pirate as he staggered over the remains of his boat. He found his footing and took a long pull from the waterflask at his hip. Then he straightened as Haraad broke through the semicircle.
“Ah, High Captain.” The pirate bowed. His accent was crisp and strange, and the crowd hushed as they strained to listen. “I thank you for your hospitality—”
Haraad cut him off with his usual tact. “The high captain, my father, has better things to do, and we aren’t rescuing you, Pirate.”
The stranger’s odds would have been better a year ago, but the high captain was sick now and didn’t look to recover. Haraad was just enough of a sailor to see Ekkaia safely back to the Grove, and the other sub-captains were content with him in acting command. But there was no way for this man to know that.
The stranger’s face fell. “Captain, I have made no hostile move toward you, and you yourselves brought me aboard your ship. By all laws of hospitality and the Endless Ocean, I am your guest.”
Haraad spat. “You’re a pirate, or you look enough like one. But tell me truly, are you from one of those rocks that call themselves the Near Islands?”
“Well, yes,” he said calmly. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you that our, ah…situation…has changed?”
The crowd laughed, Haraad loudest of all. It was an oily, ugly sound, but even Responsibility felt the laughter well up in her for an instant. Pirates change? One might as well ask the sun to rise to darkward. Ever since the First Fleet split, the Near Islands had been rife with pirates. It did not look good for this pirate, alone on a Century Ship.
Alone. She almost felt sympathy before quashing it. Let him know how it feels before he dies.
“Yes, I’m sure this is a change for you,” Haraad said, smiling. “A change for us, too. One we’ll enjoy more than you will.”
“The change is greater than you know. You’re homeward bound, aren’t you? I have news. There are no more Free Navies. The Consortium has come.”
Now the murmur rippling through the complement was one of fear and anger. Anger, because this man had just acknowledged he was a pirate, only they referred to themselves as the Free Navies.
However, the name of the Consortium alone was enough to inspire fear. None of Ekkaia’s crew had ever encountered the Consortium. It was a rumor, a legend they had heard on their voyage. The Consortium were the best swordsmen on the Ocean, though they had little need of swords. They had ships that moved without sails; they knew sorcery that let them throw exploding cannonballs. They froze dragons into shapes of metal and rode them, so it was said.
Froze dragons. Responsibility felt her blood chill. Perhaps that was what had happened to her mother.
If the Near Islands had fallen, then the Consortium was close. Even if they had done Ekkaia’s crew a great favor by conquering the pirates, at least pirates were known.
But Haraad only grinned. “You think us fools, eh?”
Before the stranger could reply, another sailor took a long bundle wrapped in rags from the shapeless mass that had once been a boat. Haraad took it and unwound the strips of cloth.
Then he gaped.
The crowd shrank back.
“Omnisword,” Responsibility gasped and felt Zhad stiffen beside her.
The weapon’s primary blade was a yard of sharp, double-edged steel, wickedly curved at the end. Just below the curve, interrupting the blade, was a handgrip. A secondary blade protruded a foot from the end of the hilt. Even the shearing-guard’s edge was sharp: double crescents of metal extending over the two-handed grip.
No one on the ship had ever seen one before, but everyone had heard of the weapon of the Consortium.
“Who are you?” asked Haraad.
“Lieutenant Avnai Moshaiu. Consortium Navy. I said the Consortium had come.” He smiled without humor.
“Consortium.” Haraad sneered. He strode to the middle of the deck and lifted the sword over his head. With one stroke, he buried the curved point in the base of the mast. It sank deep, the blade disappearing within the deck. Haraad looked taken aback at its sharpness, but continued, “One sword doesn’t frighten me. To me you’re another lying pirate. To the Cage with him!”
There was anoth
er ugly laugh, if a bit less certain, and all eyes looked to the top of the foremast, where two sailors were already beginning their climb. Something that had once been a man sat in the tiny cage fixed to the masthead. It was quite dead. Another sailor approached and handed Moshaiu the traditional jug of water and loaf of bread. If the sentence of death fazed him, he didn’t show it and simply allowed himself to be led away. When he passed beneath their deckhouse, he looked up, and for the first time, Responsibility found herself with a close view of his face.
It was like looking in the stillest pool. A magic pool that showed a too-perfect copy of her face. It was scaleless and tanned to perfection, subtly heavier with round eyes that widened in shock as they met her slitted ones. Moshaiu stopped so abruptly that his escorts had to shove him two steps forward. Recognition. He opened his mouth, and a saber hilt felled him to the deck gasping.
Haraad looked up and saw her; his face flushed dark. “Twenty lashes to her,” he pointed. “Then get her back above, Mr. Cana!” he shouted, fingering the rod that hung at his belt. He carried it always since his father had fallen ill: “Haraad’s Rod” was a joke where he could not hear. Responsibility could not laugh.
“So, he likes old Respy.” Someone sniggered. “If Consortium women are that ugly, we might all die of fright!” There was another wave of laughter. Responsibility did not hear. She simply sat there until Cana picked her up and carried her to Haraad.
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Chapter 2
Responsibility of the Crown Page 1
