Oathen (16 page)

Rhona tipped her head. “I’m not sure I can
take the word of a landlocked girl about what was or was not
labeled on a Kazhbor captain’s charts.”

“Rhona,” Geret began, a hint of irritation in
his voice.

“Aye, poppet?” she asked, her sugary voice at
odds with the daggers in her eyes.

He frowned at her. “Sanych doesn’t forget
anything. Just because she’s not Clan doesn’t make her memory
faulty when it comes to charts.”

Rhona lowered her brows at him.

“I’m not arguing with you,” Sanych said,
opening her arms in a harmless gesture, “I’m just saying what the
islands were labeled on his chart. What’s the fuss?”

“Captain!” a sailor burst in, tension in the
lines of his face. Everyone looked to him.

“Report,” Rhona barked.

“Three ships ambushed our scouts. They were
lurking behind the nearest islands ahead. They’re driving our ships
to deeper water.”

“Gods’ folly,” Rhona swore. After a dark look
at Sanych, she hurried out of her cabin, the sailor following in
her wake.

“‘
Gods’ folly’?” Sanych repeated
quietly.

Geret grinned. “I think I’m rubbing off on
her.”

Sanych blushed bright pink.

“Um. That’s not…um.” Geret looked to Meena,
who gazed back at him from Rhona’s bed.

“Yes, princeling? You lose your smallclothes
under the bed last night? Or am I on your half of the
mattress?”

“I’m not—I didn’t—Folly,” Geret cursed,
huffing out his breath. He headed out after Rhona. Meena sat up
with a giggle at the prince’s embarrassed exit.

Sanych’s hands made fists for a moment, then
she sighed through her teeth. “Why did you tease him like
that?”

The Shanallar looked at her as if she were
dense. “Didn’t his reaction tell you what you wanted to
know?”

Sanych blinked.
I suppose it
did.

“Nadoth vri Fron
is Old Kroilen,” Meena
continued, as if on the same topic. “The language of a millennium
ago, before the Sea Clans had even taken to the sea.”

“I…never thought about where they came from,”
the girl said, recovering her poise. “I suppose they had to live on
land at some point.”

“They were a coastal country at war with the
Kazhbor people, and their enemies pushed them into the sea. As a
seafaring culture, they had plenty of ships, especially in time of
war. But they never regained their homeland. Now they live at sea,
and have scattered to nearly every part of the map, though as far
as I know, all Clans still retain their matriarchal
structure.”

Meena stood and came to the table, leaving the
bed frame to sway gently on its ropes. “Rhona was right about the
translation, even if she doesn’t know its significance. ‘Foothold’
isn’t the name of the islands. It’s a description of their purpose.
The term is a pun used by the Jade Sea Clans: little toes, little
islands. It refers to a place that is sympathetic to them. A
foothold is a fringe settlement, filled with runaway slaves,
debtors, opportunists, and regular pirates.”

“A place where they don’t have to fight for
what they want?”

“That too. It also gives them a handy spot—”
Meena indicated the wavy outlines of the islands, “—to lie in
wait.”

Sanych’s eyes widened. “Swordfish!”

Meena nodded. And stood there.

“Shouldn’t we—” Sanych began.

“By all means,” Meena said, flapping fingers
at her, “go, save everyone with your mysterious powers of
deduction. Me, I haven’t got the
garrim
’s tusks pointy
enough yet,” she said. At Sanych’s blank stare, she held up her
scrimshaw carving.

It was a four-inch replica of the Deep One
that had consumed the giant cephalopod which had eaten Meena on the
deck of the Sea God
Kazhak
. Sanych gulped, then hurried out
of cabin.

~~~

Sanych came up on deck and spied Rhona up on
the aft castle. The young captain had her spyglass out and was
gazing through it, still as a post. All around her, sailors were in
motion, and anticipatory shouts filled the air. Sanych made her way
through the din to the aft staircase.

Kemsil, already atop the castle, moved to
Rhona’s side. “It appears you’ll need me soon,” he said.

Rhona watched the chase off the port bow for
another minute, and then replied. “No, I don’t think
so.”

Kemsil jerked his eyes to hers. “You’re not
going after them?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “Even with their
sails peppered with shot, they’re nearly outrunning their pursuers.
They’ll lead them on a merry chase, and we’ll get a clear shot past
their ambush site. No one will ever know we were here.”

“You’re abandoning two of your ships and all
the sailors on board?” Sanych asked, pausing on the castle
stairs.

Rhona sighed and collapsed her spyglass,
tucking it into a pouch on her belt. She fixed Sanych with a direct
stare from her height atop upper deck. “We’re invisible to the
enemy. Why should we risk death and damage to these crews and
ships? If my captains overcome or outrun their attackers, they’ll
catch up to us later. If not, we sail to Shanal with five.” She
turned and asked loudly, “Any of you scabrous goat-swivers have a
problem with that?”

A chorus of “Nay, captain” came back at
her.

“Looks like the only one with a problem is
you,” she said to the Archivist.

Geret looked away, jaw tensing. Kemsil studied
the deck boards.

But Sanych was done being intimidated. She
swallowed and said, “It’s not fair to abandon them. They had no
choice in following you out here. They’re your
responsibility.”

“And they’re mine to use as I see fit,” Rhona
countered, putting her hands on her hips. “If I think they’ll best
serve my task of delivering the Seamother to Shanal by dying as a
distraction, then by Scattersea’s shiny golden pearls, I’ll let
them do it.”

“Losing two of seven ships is an acceptable
loss to you, on a mission of this magnitude?” Sanych
retorted.

Rhona met Sanych’s eyes. “Aye.”

Sanych bit back her angry denials, drew
herself up to her full height and swallowed the lump in her throat
before saying, “I disagree with your tactics, Captain m’Kora.
However, it’s your ship and your command, and I do respect that. I
came up to advise you that these islands are a stronghold for Clan
Swordfish; as Kemsil can tell you, they’re rather aggressive.
Please excuse me, however, as I don’t feel like idly watching while
you abandon dozens of your own people.” She backed down the steps
and turned away.

“Sanych,” Salvor greeted her, coming up on
deck with Ruel at that moment. She shot him a hurt look and brushed
past, descending to the lower deck with a clatter of boot
soles.

~~~

Salvor frowned after her for a moment, then
looked to the aft castle, where Rhona held a spyglass to her eye
and gazed off the port bow. He and Ruel jogged up the steps to join
her, Geret and Kemsil.

“Is there any chance they get away?” Geret was
asking.

“There’s always a chance, as long as they
don’t take a heavy ball below the water line,” Rhona replied. “And
the locals will only use those if they decide to sink their targets
instead of raiding them.” She murmured a greeting to her cousin,
who rubbed the sleep from his eyes and drank a dipperful of water
from a nearby bucket.

“You mean,” Salvor interjected, looking ahead
to the seaborne chase, “like if they find out they’re rival Clan
ships from another sea, encroaching on their territory?”

Rhona slapped the spyglass against her palm.
“Sanych doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Those ships aren’t
Clan; they’re common pirates. No sigil on their prow.”

“Then our captains could outmaneuver them in
their sleep,” Ruel commented, wiping water from his chin with his
sleeve. “Not even worth breaking out the case shot.” Just then, his
eyes caught movement a few points off the starboard bow. “Rhona,
someone else wants to play.” He pointed, and she sighted along his
arm with the spyglass.

Just as quickly, she lowered it, eyes wide.
“Gods’ folly,” she swore. “A swordfish on every prow.”

Salvor turned and squinted into the bright
distance. Six massive galleons shot out at full sail from among the
small, rocky islands. In two columns of three they came, their
sails bellied, their gun ports open. Bronze cannon mouths yawned in
the sun. Their pursuit of the common pirates encroaching on their
territory and prizes put them on a collision course with the
invisible
Princeling
and his companion ships.

“Look lively, you dankish whoreson dogs; we’re
about to be run through! Hard to port! Let down and haul to run
free!” she cried. “Kemsil—”

“Wait!” Geret grabbed her arm. He gave the
Jualan a knowing smile, then looked at Rhona. “I have an
idea.”

Rhona shifted her gaze to the oncoming
vessels. “Belay that,” she called to her flaggers. To Geret:
“Quickly.”

He spoke his plan in a few short sentences,
and Rhona’s eyes widened.

“Well, are you Clan or not?” he
asked.

She barked a laugh. She slipped from his
grasp, hollering orders as she leaned over the fore rail of the
castle. Her crew scrambled, flagging messages to the other ships,
adjusting the sails, loading and manning cannons on both decks and
retrieving missile weapons from the ship’s armory. She strode back
and took the wheel from her cousin.

“Ready?” Geret asked Kemsil.

The Jualan’s face was tense, but he nodded,
fingers poised over the symbols on the Circuit. “And I thought the
Agonbloom school of thought was mad.”

Geret gave him a broad grin.

As one, the five Agonbloom vessels heeled
sharply to starboard, falling into a single line and drawing
dangerously close to one another. Crews constantly adjusted the
sails on each ship as their captains bellowed orders.

“I hope to Wisdom this works,” Salvor said,
gripping nearby rigging for balance as the
Princeling
plowed
through the sea in third place among the five vessels. The crossbow
in his other hand was cocked and ready to fire.

Meena came up on deck, the finished
garrim
in her hand, as the ships came parallel to the
oncoming Swordfish vessels. “Stars and darkness,” she said as she
joined the others on the castle. “Are you starting a
war?”

“Aye, Seamother, but not the one you think,”
Ruel replied from the port rail, holding his crossbow at the ready.
He briefly explained the situation.

“Child,” Meena said to Rhona, “this is a
wicked idea. You should be keel hauled for your audacity.” The
small smile at the corner of her mouth belied the seriousness of
her words.

Rhona grinned. “Only if it doesn’t work. And
if that happens, I’m not the one you should keel haul.”

Meena raised her eyebrows.

The captain tipped her head toward
Geret.

Meena looked at the trickster prince. “I
should have known.”

“What?” he asked. “All of my plans work. More
or less.”

Kemsil brought the Circuit’s barrier in
tightly, looking overhead to make sure he didn’t expose the ships’
rigging through its orange border.

Moments later, the brigantine at the front of
their line flew at full sail between the two oncoming lines of
Swordfish ships. The galleon behind it followed in its wake,
wavering slightly in its course as the wind filling its sails was
stolen by those of the upwind Swordfish galleon.

“This is going to be tight,” Ruel called, over
the rush of wind above and the coursing swirl of the sea
below.

Rhona gritted her teeth and inched her wheel
to starboard a hair as her caravel zipped between the two larger
galleons on either side. The two lines of Swordfish galleons were
separated by a distance narrower than the
Princeling
’s
length from bow to stern. But she’d chosen her captains well; they
slipped their ships, large and small, past the enemy
unnoticed.

Kemsil began to sweat with the effort of
holding the Circuit’s barrier in such a long, slender shape. He
braced himself on the rail, brows drawn together. Meena put a
comforting hand on his shoulder, and he nodded his thanks, feeling
her healing touch flow through him.

Each heartbeat seemed an hour. The rush of the
salty wind, the foaming crash of sea between the ships, and the
smells of fish and tar all cemented themselves in Salvor’s mind. He
had already died once. Back in that Ha’Lakkon alley, he hadn’t
taken the time to memorize the scenery, but it seemed his mind was
making up for it now, in case he died again shortly.
One never
feels more alive than when one is threatened with
death.

“Fire, fire, fire all! Fire at will, fire at
will!” Rhona shouted, whirling her arm high in the air. Signals
flagged fore and aft, and the air was shattered by dozens of
cannons firing in rapid succession. The iron beasts on Rhona’s top
deck leaped back against their moorings as they hurled balls of
destruction toward the galleons on both sides of them.