At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (24 page)

The cadence halted briefly,
Tavi
’s twenty working oars poised creaking and dripping until the other twenty-six were run out and ready. Kta gave the count himself, a moderate pace.
Edrif
gained steadily, her sixty oars beating the sea. Figures were now discernible on her deck.

Kurt made a quick descent to seize a blade from a rack in the companionway, and on second thought exchanged it for a short-handled ax, such as was properly designed for freeing shattered rigging, not for combat. He did not estimate that his lessons with Kta had made him a fencer equal to a nemet who had handled the
ypan
all his life, and he did not trust that all Sufaki shunned the
ypan
in favor of the bow and the knife.

He delayed long enough to dress too, to slip on a
pel
beneath the
ctan
and belt it, for the wind was bitter, and the prospect of entering a fight all but naked did not appeal to him.

When he had returned to the deck, even after so brief a time,
Edrif
had closed the gap further, so that her green dragon figurehead was clear to be seen above the water that boiled about her metal-shod ram. A stripe-robed officer stood at her bow, shouting back orders, but the wind carried his voice away.

“Prepare to turn full about,” Kta shouted to his own crew. “Quick turn, starboard bank—stand by—Turn! Hard about,—
hard!
”

Tavi
changed course with speed that made her timbers groan, oars and helm bringing her about three-quarters to the wind, and Kta was already shouting an order to Pan.

The dark blue sail with the lightning emblem of Elas billowed down from the yard and filled, deck crew hauling to sheet it home.
Tavi
came alive in the water, suddenly bearing down on
Edrif
with the driving power of the wind and her forty-six oars.

Frenzied activity erupted on the other deck.
Edrif
began to turn, full broadside for a moment, continuing until she was nearly stern on. Her dark green sail spread, but she could not turn with graceful
Tavi
’s speed, and her crew hesitated, taken by surprise.
Tavi
had the wind in her own sail, stealing it from theirs.

“Portside oars!” Kta roared over the thunder of the rowing. “Stand by to ship oars portside!—
Hya,
Val!”

“Aye!” Val shouted back. “Understood, my lord!”

A shout of panic went up from
Edrif
as
Tavi
closed, and Kta shouted to the portside bank as they headed for collision.
Tavi
’s two banks lifted from the water, and with frantic haste the men portside shipped oars while the starboard rowers held their poised level.

With the final force of wind and gathered speed,
Tavi
brushed the side of
Edrif,
the Sufak vessel’s starboard oars splintering as shouts of pain and panic came from her pits. Sufaki rowers deserted their benches and scrambled for very life, their officers cursing at them in vain.

“Take in sail!” Kta shouted, and
Tavi
’s blue sail began to come in. Quickly she lost the force of the wind and glided under momentum.

“Helm!” Kta shouted. “Starboard oars—in water—and
pull!
”

Tavi
was already beginning to turn about under her helm, and the one-sided bite of her oars took her hard about again, timbers groaning. There was a crack like a shot and a scream: one of the long sweeps had snapped under the strain and tumbled a man bleeding into the next bench—the next man leaned to let him fall, but kept the pace, and one of the deck crew ran to aid him, dragging him from the pit. Arrows hissed across the deck—Sufaki archers.

“Portside oars!” Kta shouted, as those men, well-drilled, had already run out their oars to be ready. “All hold! In water—and pull!”

Forty-five oars hit the water together, muscles rippled across glistening backs—stroke—and stroke—and stroke, and
Edrif
astern and helpless with half her oarage hanging in ruin and her deck littered with splinter-wounded men. The arrows fell short now, impotent. The breathing of
Tavi
’s men was in unison and loud, like the ship drawing wind, as if all the crew and the ship they sailed had become one living entity as she drove herself northward, widening the distance.

“First shift,” Kta shouted. “Up oars!”

With a single clash of wood the oars came up and held level, dipping and rising slightly with the give of the sea and the oars-men’s panting bodies.

“Ship oars and secure. Second shift,—hold for new pace. Take your beat—Now—two—three—”

They accepted the more leisurely pace, and Kta let go a great sigh and looked down at his men. The first shift still leaned over the wooden shafts, heaving with the effort to breathe. Some coughed rackingly, striving with clumsy hands to pull their discarded cloaks up over their drenched shoulders.

“Well done, my friends,” said Kta. “It was very well done.”

Lun and several others lifted a hand and signaled a wordless salute, without breath to speak.

“
Hya,
Pan,—you men. It was as fine a job as I have seen.—Get coverings for all those men in the pits. A sip of water too. Kurt, help there, will you?”

Kurt moved, glad at last to find himself useful, and took a pitcher of water to the side of the pit. Two of the men were overcome with exhaustion and had to be lifted out and laid on the deck beside the man whose splintered oar had gashed his belly. It proved an ugly wound, but the belly cavity was not pierced. The man was vowing he would be fit for duty in a day, but Kta ordered otherwise.

Edrif
was far astern now, a mere speck, not attempting to follow them. Val gave the helm to Pan and walked forward to join Kta and Kurt.

“The hull took it well,” Val reported. “Chal just came up from checking it. But
Edrif
will be a while mending.”

“Shan t’Tefur has a mighty hate for us,” said Kta, “not lessened by this humiliation. As soon as they can bind up their wounds and fit new oars, they will follow.”

“It was bloody chaos on her deck,” said Val with satisfaction. “I had a clear view of it. Shan t’Tefur has reason to chase us, but those Sufaki seamen may decide they have had enough. They ought to know we could have sunk them if we had wished.”

“The thought may occur to them, but I doubt it will win us their gratitude. We will win as much time as we can.” He scanned the pits. “I have not pulled an oar in several years, but it will do me no harm. And you, friend Kurt, you are due gentler care after what you have endured, but we need you.”

Kurt shrugged cheerfully enough. “I will learn.”

“Go bandage your hands,” said Kta. “You have little whole skin left. You are due to lose what remains.”

17

The clouds had gone by morning and Phan shed his light over a dead calm sea.
Tavi
rolled with a lazy motion, all but dead in the water, her crew lying over the deck where they could find space, wrapped in their cloaks.

Kurt walked to the stern, rubbing his eyes to keep awake. His companion on watch, Pan, stood at the helm. The youth’s eyes were closed. He swayed on his feet.

“Pan,” said Kurt gently, and Pan came awake with a jerk, his face flushing with consternation.

“Forgive me, Kurt-ifhan.”

“I saw you nod,” Kurt said, “only an instant ago. Go lie down and I will stand by the helm. In such a sea, it needs no skill.”

“I ought not, my lord, I—”

The youth’s eyes suddenly fixed on the sky in hope, and Kurt felt it too, the first effects of a gentle southern breeze. It stirred their hair and their cloaks, touched their faces lightly and ruffled the placid waters.

“
Hya!
” Pan shrieked, and all across the deck men sat up. “The wind, the south wind!”

Men were on their feet, and Kta appeared in the doorway of the cabin and waved his hand in signal to Val, who shouted an order for the men to get moving and set the sail.

In a moment the night-blue sail billowed out full.
Tavi
came to run before the wind. A cheer went up from the crew as they felt it.

“
Ei,
my friends,” Kta grinned, “full rations this morning, and permission to indulge,—but moderately. I want no headaches. That wind will bear
Edrif
along too, so keep a sharp eye on all quarters, you men on watch. You rowers, enjoy yourselves.”

The wind continued fair and the battered men of
Tavi
were utterly content to sleep in the sun, to massage heated oil into aching limbs and blistered hands, to lie still and talk, employing their hands as they did so with many small tasks that kept
Tavi
in running order.

Toward evening Kta ordered a course change and
Tavi
bore abruptly northwest, coming in toward the Isles. A ship was on the western horizon at sunset, creating momentary alarm, but the sail soon identified her as a merchant vessel of the house of Ilev, the white bird emblem of that house shining like a thing alive on the black sail before the sun.

The merchantman passed astern and faded into the shadowing east, which did not worry them. Ilev was a friend.

Soon there were visible the evening lights on the shores of a little island. Now the men ran out the oars with a will and bent to them as
Tavi
drew toward that light-jeweled strand: Acturi, home port of Hnes, a powerful Isles-based family of the Indras-descended.

“Gan t’Hnes,” said Kta as
Tavi
slipped into the harbor of Acturi, “will not be moved by threats of the Sufaki. We will be safe here for the night.”

A bell began to toll on shore, men with torches running to the landing as
Tavi
glided in and ran in her oars.

“
Hya!
” a voice ashore hailed them. “What ship are you?”

“
Tavi,
out of Nephane. Tell Gan t’Hnes that Elas asks his hospitality.”

“Make fast,
Tavi,
make fast and come ashore. We are friends here. No need to ask.”

“Are you sure of them?” Kurt wondered quietly, as the mooring lines were cast out and made secure. “What if some ship of the Methi made it in first?” He nervously scanned the other ships down the little wharf, sails furled and anonymous in the dark. “Hnes might be forced—”

“No, if Gan t’Hnes will not honor house-friendship, then the sun will rise in the west tomorrow dawn. I have known this man since I was a boy at his feet, and Hnes and Elas have been friends for a thousand years—well, at least for nine hundred, which is as far as Hnes can count.”

“And if that was not t’Hnes’ word you were just given?”

“Peace, suspicious human, peace. If Acturi had been taken from Hnes’ control, the shock would have been felt from shore to shore of the Ome Sin.—
Hya,
Val, run out the gangplank and Kurt and I will go ashore. Stay with the ship and hold the men until I have Gan’s leave to bring our crew in.”

Gan t’Hnes was a venerable old man and, looking at him, Kurt found reason that Kta should trust him. He was solidly Indras, this patriarch of Acturi’s trading empire. His house on the hill was wealthy and proper, the hearthfire tended by lady Na t’Ilev e Ben sh’Kma, wife to the eldest of Gan’s three sons, who himself was well into years. Lord Gan was a widower,—the oldest nemet Kurt had seen, and to consider that nemet lived long and very scarcely showed age, he must be ancient.

Of course formalities preceded any discussion of business, all the nemet rituals. There was a young woman, granddaughter to the
chan
of Hnes. She made the tea and served it—and seeing her from the back, her graceful carriage and the lustrous darkness of her hair, Kurt thought of Mim: she even looked a little like her in the face, and when she knelt down and offered him a cup of tea he stared, and felt a pain that brought tears to his eyes.

The girl bowed her head, cheeks flushing at being gazed at by a man, and Kurt took the cup, and looked down and drank his tea, thoughts returning in the quiet and peace of this Indras home that had not touched him since that night in Nephane. It was like coming home, for he had never expected to set foot in a friendly house again; and yet home was Elas, and Mim, and both were gone.

Hnes was a large family, ruled of course by Gan, and by Kma, his eldest, and lady Na; and there were others of the house too, one son being away at sea. There was the aged
chan,
Dek, his two daughters and several grandchildren; Gan’s second son Lel and his wife Pym and concubine Tekje h’Hnes; Lel’s daughter Imue, a charming child of about twelve, who might be the daughter of either of his two wives: she had Tekje’s Sufak-tilted eyes, but sat beside Pym and treated both her mothers with respectful affection; and there were two small boys, both sons of Lel.

The first round of tea was passed with quiet conversation. The nemet were curious about Kurt, the children actually frightened; but the elders smoothed matters over with courtesy.

Then came the second round, and the ladies left with the children, all but lady Na, the first lady of Hnes, whose opinion was of equal weight with that of the elder men.

“Kta,” began the lord of Hnes cautiously, “how long are you out from Nephane?”

“Nigh to fifteen days.”

“Then,” said the old man, “you were there to be part of the sad tale which has reached us.”

“Elas no longer exists in Nephane, my lord, and I am exiled. My parents and the
chan
are dead.”

“You are in the house of friends,” said Gan t’Hnes. “
Ai,
that I should have lived to see such a day. I loved your father as my great friend, Kta, and I love you as if you were one of my own. Name the ones to blame for this.”

“The names are too high to curse, my lord.”

“No one is beyond the reach of heaven.”

“I would not have all Nephane cursed for my sake. The ones responsible are the Methi Djan and her Sufaki lover Shan t’Tefur u Tlekef. I have sworn undying enmity between Elas and the Chosen of Heaven, and a bloodfeud between Elas and the house of Tefur, but I chose exile. If I had intended war, I could have raised war that night in the streets of Nephane. So might my father, and chose to die rather than that. I honor his self-restraint.”