Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks (20 page)

Everyone but me.

Krattack was the last addition to the crew. "This ship is much safer," he said as he came aboard.

"I didn't realize you went on raiding parties."

"I don't. This is war."

"My search for my children is a war? A tiny fleet of ships against the Therans is a war?"

"You're thinking about it all wrong." Now, more than ever, Krattack looked like he might be a sage. A gray-gray sage, with deep lines cutting into his flesh, his huge mouth home to massive yellow teeth. "You're thinking of war as it is when it's underway. Or even more precisely, what it's thought of when it's recorded in the history books, when the perspective is closed and everyone can comfortably say, 'Well, this was a war.' And of course such an image doesn't match what is happening here today. It would be almost preposterous to think these events would lead to a war."

"But they will?"

"Oh, yes. Just remember, if we knew how things would turn out when we started them, there'd be no reason to bother with the beginning and the middle. We could just be happy ever after with the results. But the actions we begin invariably turn into something else."

"You seem rather certain."

“I am. But only because I'm certain I'll be surprised before it's all done."

I looked around for J'role, suddenly worried. He was nowhere to be seen. Everyone was working. Some of the crew kept an eye on the sail, keeping it tight to the wind. Some watched the compass and manned the wheel. And the rest were below, rowing. J'role was probably with them. Working.

Then I saw him, on the mast, hanging from the yard arm. He'd hooked his ankles over the pole and was hanging upside down, out over the edge of the ship. He laughed and laughed and laughed.

24

Another letter from your father, another request to come see me. I haven't even had time to make up my mind about the first request.

But something extraordinary came with the letter. A long manuscript introduced by a dragon named Mountainshadow. Or so it claims. It might be some elaborate hoax on your father's part.

It purports to tell of J'role's past.

I have to decide if I want to know that past now.

The more I write of this story, the more I simply want to leave him completely behind. I have a few years left. Couldn't I spend them without J'role crawling around in my thoughts?

PART THREE

Scars and Blood

1

Though Krattack had made me the Prophet of Patience, impatience clawed at my flesh from the inside out. I wanted to fight the Therans; I wanted to rescue my children. All this time I wasn't even sure whether you two were still alive, but I forced the question from my mind. I knew if I thought that way I would lose all resolve. Or become a mindless fury driven by blood lust. I did not want that. Despite all my growing thirst for combat, I did not want to become a crystal raider.

We sailed for more than a week, spotting Theran ships and floating castles in the distance, but never finding a single ship that would serve our purposes. We also saw the drakkars of several other crystal raider clans flying the skies. There seemed to be an uneasy peace among the airborne trolls. As long as they could freely raid the lowlands, they stayed away from one another. But Krattack assured me that if a crystal raider clan found itself desperate for goods and treasures, they would not hesitate to raid another clan.

The rains came and went, though not with any of the ferocity that had forced us to land on Twilight Peaks two months earlier. Below, the jungles glistened sharp green. Buried beneath the leafy roof were dozens of villages and towns. I sometimes spotted farmlands exposed to the life giving light of the sun. The world seemed calmer from the perspective of the ship. Everything in miniature. When I spotted people down below, they were so small I couldn't make out their faces, saw only little figures going about their business.

Hidden from me was their pain and jealousy, their anger and their fears.

Being captain of the ship filled me with a sensation wholly unexpected. As I stood on the bow of the boat, watching the land beneath me roll by, watching the clouds around us, pink mountains drifting lazily, I felt a tremendous rush enter my spirit. It was like the sensation of a dream where one flies — except that it was real.

The unexpected part was that I suddenly found myself in a position of responsibility, and it wasn't bad at all. When I had imagined stowing away on one of the Stoneclaw drakkars a month earlier, part of the fantasy had been to be utterly free of responsibilities. To leave everyone behind and not care anymore. Yet here I was making decisions about the crew shifts for rowing, the distribution of food, doing the best I could to learn the rudimentary techniques of air sailing, and I didn't mind at all. It was fun, in fact. For with the responsibility came the sense that it was mine. I wasn't stuck in some horrible life, though I'd ended up as captain by a perverse twist of fate. Instead of seeing my quest for the two of you as some task forced on me by the Therans, I saw it as a choice I brought to myself.

I saw my giving birth to you in the same way. And it was how I saw falling in love with J'role.

For so much of my life I'd viewed everyone who'd wanted something from me as people who charged into my life with demands they had no right to make. Now I saw myself as part of the process. I had given in to those requests, and was an accomplice, not a victim.

It was my choice as to how to proceed. I could float through life one way or another. The winds would buffet me around, of course. And I might not reach my destination. But the course I strove for was mine to set.

I was searching for you not because you were helpless. Not because the Therans had stolen you. Not because J'role hadn't been around to help protect you. Those were the circumstances. I was searching for the two of you because I chose to.

One morning, at dawn, Wia roused me from sleep. “We've spotted two Theran ships. No others about."

Pink light filled the cabin through the portholes, turning the walls the color of a dream.

An excitement coursed through me, my breathing quickened. I remember now that I gave no thought to the possibility of death — either my own or that of members of my crew. It seemed as if nothing could be easier than attacking two Theran airships.

"Wake all hands," I said to Wia, and she left quickly. I slipped into my armor — furs provided by the trolls — and walked up to the deck. The sun had just crested the horizon behind us. Ahead of us and to the north floated mountain ranges of clouds illuminated fiery gold. It seemed as if one could really sail to them, land, and discover a new world of pure beauty.

Our ship cast a shadow forward through the mist of the high altitude, and like a dark beacon, it pointed toward the two Theran mining ships. The sunlight turned their hulls fiery gold.

There are moments in life where you are suddenly lifted out of the daily concerns, and you find yourself part of something larger — a thread in the fabric of the universe that connects you to something bigger than you could ever have imagined. In that moment I knew I was suddenly part of the history of my land. Krattack's war would take place, and I would be a part of it.

To either side of the Stone Rainbow — the name I'd given my ship, after the multicolored crystals that ran along the hull — floated the nine remaining Stoneclaw drakkars. All of our ships flew at different heights, and at least five hundred yards apart from each other.

The trolls usually communicated by shouting or, when too far apart for that, a simple series of signals sent with red cloth. From Vrograth's ship I could just make out blurs of red. This signal was read by a ship closer to Vrograth's, and they passed it on to another ship and so on until a troll on board my ship could read it clearly. Though the trolls had explained the codes, I had decided to always let a clan member read the signals for me, for fear of making a small error with horribly dire consequences.

As the troll stared off at the twisting flags, he translated. "We attack now." Then he squinted, as if he could not understand the flags, and said, "Now, now, now." Smiling at me he added, "Vrograth very hungry for blood."

I was, too, the desire for it rested on my tongue, and I welcomed it. My fights in previous years had all been with mindless monsters or the cruelly intelligent Horrors. Or with those who had threatened me first, to which I immediately responded with violence.

Never before had I hunted out a battle in this way. My breathing quickened. I felt my flesh become warm against the cool, high air. I touched the dagger on my belt. A dagger I'd found on the corpse of a Theran sailor.

2

"Prepare for battle!" I shouted. The cry echoed throughout the ship as my crew passed it along.

From below the trolls at the oars began a rhythmic war chant. Their voices, deep and rumbling, traveled up through my bones, and I thought back to long ago when I was a little girl and my father used to sing me to sleep. Till today I'd thought it was the gentleness of his voice that had made me sleep so peacefully, but now I realized that what had comforted me was its strength.

The ships picked up pace, and the wind rushed faster over my skin. I called for J'role, and we headed for the fire cannon mounted on the ship's bow. The trolls were unfamiliar with the weapon, but J'role and I had been around fire cannons during our journeys on the t'skrang riverboats. Although we lacked training, we had seen them used, and had practiced firing our cannons while we patched up the Stone Rainbow.

At the base of the cannon rested a stack of golden orichalcum boxes containing elemental fire. J'role flipped open the back of the fire cannon as I lifted the lid of one of the boxes.

Heat immediately rushed out, the fiery glare of the coal blinding me, even in the bright morning sky.

I closed my eyes and perceived the world not with my flesh, but with my astral senses.

Before me glowed the elemental fire, taken at some time by Theran miners from a crack between our world and the elemental plane of fire. Seen in astral space, it burned white hot and shrieked off white sparks like shooting stars.

I scooped up the coal, using my knowledge of magic to buffer me from the heat, and placed it in the cannon's coal chamber. I then reached into the sack on my hip and removed some elemental air — also pilfered from the ship's storeroom — and twisted it into the shape of a fuse. This I carefully shoved down the small tube that led into the fire coal's chamber.

When I finished I pointed the cannon toward the closer of the two Theran ships. During our practice sessions back on Twilight Peaks, we had tried to hit the side of a mountain, just to see if we could get the cannon to fire properly. Now, looking down the length of the cannon, lining up a shot on a ship that appeared no bigger than a cart, I was overcome with despair. There was no way I would hit the ship. I did the best I could, however, and moved the cannon a bit to the left, and then a bit to the right.

"Hurry," J'role said. "If we wait any longer the trolls will block our shot."

I looked over the rail of the ship. He was right. The other ships were closing quickly on the Therans.

"I told them ...," I began.

"No difference. We've got the shot now. Take it."

I looked down the cannon one more time, setting its tip on the Theran ship, then remembered just at the last moment to pull it up a bit. A t'skrang sailor had once explained to me that the further the target, the higher one had to aim above it. The fireball, like any object, would fall down as it flew forward.

"Now."

Although he could not see the fuse of elemental air, J'role placed the lit torch near the back of the cannon.

The flames from the torch rushed toward the fuse, like fire pulled up a chimney on a winter night. A strange sight, for in mid-air a tiny flame slowly snaked its way closer to the cannon. Finally the flame reached the tube leading down into the cannon.

A moment of silence. I steadied my shot.

Then a tremendous roar as the elemental air inside the small coal chamber burst into flame and made the elemental fire even hotter. The cannon roared as it spewed forth a fireball.

I stood, tense. The fireball spewed flames and sparks as it went. Within seconds it became a small dot. Fireball and sunlit ship melded into one, and then the fireball smashed into the ship's deck.

Cheers shot up from the trolls, and their voices carried through the air like distant echoes.

"Let's get off another one before they get too close," I said.

"They're already ...," J'role began.

"Too bad. Let's do it."

He didn't say another word, and we loaded, aimed, and fired again. Experienced sailors could have done the job faster, but we did well enough. This time the fireball smashed into the ship's castle. Again the fire washed over the ship, like a raindrop of blood. I saw shadows move quickly around on the deck, and then a sailor, his clothes on fire, fell off the ship and plummeted toward the ground. His arms and legs moved frantically, as if they hoped somehow to find purchase against his fall.

The sight stunned me. I understood clearly now how Vrograth had lost so many of his people and drakkars. In fact, I wondered that so many had returned safely. The sight might have made me turn from the thought of continuing the fight, but instead it made me cold inside. Another part of me took over — a part whose existence I was aware of but did not like — sealing my compassion away. I could do anything now, with no thought of the implications until it was all over.

The drakkars had all closed. A fireball shot forward from each of the Theran ships. Ones crashed into a drakkar, sending flames along the thin wooden hull. Some of the trolls jumped up and began beating down the flames with their cloaks. The other shot — from the ship I'd hit twice — went wide past Vrograth's vessel and plunged earthward.

Then Theran sailors, much more practiced at firing the cannons, got off two more shots almost instantly. Two balls of fire raced toward us. "Down!" I shouted. "Everybody down!" Then I dropped to the deck and rolled until I had tucked myself against the corner of the ship's bow.