The Return of Kavin (17 page)

“That’s a Mazainian galley, man,” Zamor said, peering hard. “See that canted mast? Coming on fine, too; should be on us before dark, that one that’s so far ahead of the other two.”

“If we keep off till dark,” Captain Garph said, anxiously, “might be we can lose him, grant there’s no moonlight.” He glanced down at the waist where his motley crew were gathering, muttering and staring. “By the Nine, I can’t fight a war vessel.”

“I doubt we’ve strength to fight an angry rowboat,” Hugon said, surveying the crew. “I’ve been wondering, these past few days, Captain Garph, seeing the crew you’ve got… is it a floating home for ancient sailors, this Golden Turtle? There’s a gaffer there, calls himself mess boy, must be old enough to be my father, and he’s the youngest of the crew.”

Thuramon appeared, now; he stood and
watched,
his eyes keen under their thick white eyebrows. He seemed quite calm.

“We shall escape, I think,” he said.

“Could you essay a bit of sorcery, lord wizard?” Hugon asked.

“If necessary,” Thuramon said. “But… for reasons I know best… it would be unwise. I do not wish to call attention to our party. Attention that might be caused by… excessive use of certain forces.”

Kavin looked at Hugon, and now he smiled, hard-mouthed.

“Have no fear, cousin,” he said. “There are the three of us, armed men. We can make a fine ending of it, if we need to.”

“I’d prefer not to make an ending, if possible,” Hugon said, grinning. He twanged the crossbow string. “Not my ending, at any rate. I’ve several fine poems not yet written.”

The dragonet, Fraak, had been asleep in the ship’s galley, under the stone hearth; his favorite
spot,
warm and dry, where occasional goodies came his way as well. But now he came soaring across the deck to land on the rail, with an excited trill.

“Bad men!” he cried, and blew a tongue of fire.
“Bad men, there!
Put me in a wire cage, again!”

“Not if they don’t catch us, Fraak,” Hugon said. “If they do, we’re for a cage ourselves, but they’ll never feed us as well as they will you, pretty one.”

“Don’t LIKE cages!” Fraak said, firmly.

Now the war galley was clearly visible, a white bone of foam under its sharp prow, the tiny figures of men on its foredeck. The sun was on the horizon; it would be dark in half an hour, but the galley was gaining steadily.

“Aaah, HO!” The cry was faint, but audible, over the gray water. “Heave to, there!”

Garph stared aft, toward the galley, then up at the straining sails, clenching his fists nervously.

“We’ll never…” he began, in a low voice.

Then a loud snap was heard from the galley. An arc of blue smoke appeared; a clay firepot struck the sea a few yards behind the Turtle, and burst with an oily flame.

“Why, the devils mean to burn us!” Garph said in a shocked voice.

“Meaning they aren’t out to merely seize cargoes, it seems,” Kavin said grimly. “We might have better luck if they’d been only pirates, instead of lawful men of war.”

“I’d sooner meet pirates than honest men, myself,” Hugon said. “A man loses less, that road. Now, a few yards closer…” He had cranked the crossbow to its full tension, and laid a short iron quarrel in it. He balanced it carefully on the rail, kneeling to sight.

“Now!” he said, and squeezed. There was a sharp twang and whizzing sound.

Distantly, they heard a choked shriek, and Hugon grinned as he cranked the bow again.

“Marvelous shooting, brother!
Zamor cried, grinning. “There’s a man down, see there? Can you do that again?”

“I’ll try…” Hugon said, kneeling once more. He squeezed again, and a moment later muttered a curse. “Damn them, they’re down behind the bulwarks.”

“Well, one’s for us,” Kavin said. “Let them come closer, and we’ll take a few more.”

Another firepot arched over, this time nearly aboard.

“If they come closer, we’ll be baked like hens,” Hugon grunted. “They’ve no intention of boarding, the motherless…”

Suddenly Fraak cried out, a sound that was not like any of his normal hunting cries; pure anger flamed in the sound. He sprang into the air, wings beating, and shot upward, in a wide circle, higher and higher; his body gleamed golden in the sun’s last level rays. Then he dived, in a long slant, toward the galley.

On the galley’s deck there was distant shouting, and a black speck shot skyward toward the flying dragonet, an arrow. But he was much too fast as he swooped through the upper rigging, slanted upward, and turned to swoop again. The deepening twilight had turned the shape of the galley to a towering darkness behind the Golden Turtle; but now that darkness was suddenly broken by a yellow flower of light. There was fire in the galley’s topsail.

A second bloom of fire appeared, on the rushing galley’s foredeck; Fraak had evidently dived upon the fire-pots that lay ready beside their catapult. The galley was turning, now, as men clawed down the flaming canvas and fought the fire; it slowed and fell behind into the dark.

A moment later, Fraak sailed back down to the deck, singing a wild triumphal chord as he thudded onto the wood. He strutted, chortling, as men gathered around him, kneeling to scratch his scaly head and offer him delicious morsels from the galley. He flapped excitedly, his claws scarring the deck, and his golden eyes glowed. Fraak was a hero, and humility was not in his dragonish makeup; he loved the compliments he was hearing.

In the midst of the triumph, Captain Garph struck a discordant note.

“Yon’s but one,” he said grimly, peering into the dark. “And she may rig new sail yet. Then, there’s the other two.
And all three of them feeling damned wrathful at us, the way we’ve scorched ‘em.
Best press on fast as we can, lads.”

Far astern, a star flickered in the darkness, the light of the galley’s burning; but it was dimmer now.

The wind was rising a little; the tubby ship rolled more heavily, and seemed to be sailing a little faster. Captain Garph took a log line, and made a calculation of speed, which appeared to cheer him slightly.

“It’ll be a near thing, however,” he muttered, running the line through his hands as he coiled it. He came back toward the group who waited for him. “We’re running due north, ye know. There’s the Axe, rising ahead.” He pointed out the polar star.

“North,” Kavin said, frowning, and glanced at Thuramon, who nodded.

“No chance of turning westward to Quenda coast,” Thuramon said, questioningly. Garph shook his head.

“Nay, Master Thuramon, we cannot risk it now,” he said. “There’ll be more of those damned galleys, closer we get to the southern province. That’s where
all the
fracas is, you know that.” He shrugged. “Not to mention, the ships the rebels will doubtless have about, who’ll be as glad to pluck us as
any.
”

Thuramon glowered. “You were paid, man.”

“You may have back your gold,” Garph said, with a look of inner agony at the thought, but a firm voice. “I will not have my men slain and my ship burned.” He stared at Thuramon, his jaw set. “Master, my men have sailed with me a long time. They’re… my men.”

“Don’t press him, Thuramon,” Kavin said. “He’s in the right.”

“We’ll be as far from our goal when we land as we were before,” Hugon grunted, sitting down on the rail with a disgusted expression. “Father to his men, isn’t he? Hah.”

Fraak, returning from a foraging trip amidships, sailed to Hugon’s shoulder and sat, burping contentedly. Hugon stroked him absently; then glanced at the dragonet with a new look.

“One thing we can do, come dawn,” Hugon said. “If we need to see beyond the horizons, to find those galleys… why,
here’s our eyes
.” He patted Fraak’s head. “Unless he eats himself to such a weight that he cannot fly at all,” Hugon added. “By the gods, he seems to be getting fatter, at that. Are you growing, Fraak?” Fraak chuckled sleepily.

“I’ve seen others like him not much larger,” Zamor said. He swung the axe thoughtfully, staring into the darkness. “He has his full growth, I’d say. But that’s a grand notion, sending him aloft to see what’s afoot.”

The night grew deeper, and the Turtle went on, mile after mile, farther and farther past the point at which they should have turned toward the southern shores of the Empire. All night the wind held, for which the Captain voiced his thanks, as the dawn began to gray the eastern sky. Hugon, who had not slept well, found Garph on his hands and knees in the prow, bumping his forehead repeatedly on the planks of the deck. A small brass image of the Sea God, green with age, stood in a cavity under the jib boom, and Garph addressed him. He was making a number of unlikely promises as Hugon listened.

“Ah, Captain…” Hugon said, clearing his throat. Fraak sat on his shoulder, watching with bright-eyed curiosity as the Captain rose, his ancient knees creaking.

“Our friend Fraak will go up and scout the sea, now,” Hugon said. “And let’s hope the Sea God believes those grand offers you’ve been making. Fly now, Fraak, and come back swiftly, when you’ve seen all.” Hugon aided the dragonet’s takeoff with an outthrust arm; the creature went up and up, higher and higher till he was only a distant point in the brightening sky.

As they waited, Kavin emerged from the cabin and waited, silently. Zamor, a man who liked his sleep, would arise only when he sniffed breakfast.

Time passed. The Captain paced nervously; Kavin stood against a rail, immobile. Hugon occupied himself with a new string on his lute, which he tested with enormous care.

Finally, they saw the tiny speck growing larger, and then the wide-winged flight, as the dragonet arrowed down for his usual flamboyant landing. He was piping nervously as he came to a stop on Hugon’s shoulder, and his tail lashed.

“Ship!” he cried. “The ship I fired yesterday, the same!”

“Easy, small friend,” Hugon said, soothingly. “Not so excited… the same ship, you think?”

“Yes, yes!” Fraak piped. “Sail all burnt; they have patched sail, now, and men make new ropes. I sailed close, and they saw, tried to shoot arrows at me! They are wicked, and they are very angry, I think!”

“That seems likely,” Hugon said. “No captain likes such handling as you gave them. They follow us, then?”

“Oars, rowing hard,” Fraak said. “Soon they will have
sail
again, but with the oars, they go very fast. But there, is only one, now,” he added, puffing smoke.
“Only one, that way.
The others, the new ones, are there.” He lifted a claw and pointed ahead and to starboard.

“Only the one, then…” Hugon began, and checked himself.
“Others?
Ahead?
What ships are they, Fraak? What did they look like?”

“Two, small and black, but with tall sails,” Fraak said, and then uttered a rather pleased noise. “One of them has my picture on his sail, all red.”

“A sail, with a red dragon?”
Garph had been listening, and now his leathery face turned a faint green-gray color. “It is a Thulin, a pirate. They carry such images on their sails… they have a god who is a dragon.”

“That’s
nice!”
Fraak said, in a delighted voice. “I must meet him!”

“He’s a god,” Hugon said. “
Which means that he’ll never be there when he’s wanted, only when he’s not.
No, Fraak, I’m afraid those are bad men too.”

“But they like dragons,” Fraak said, practically.

“They eat dragons,” Garph told him.
“When they can catch one.
Small
ones,
like yourself.”

Fraak uttered a horrified croak, and blew a ball of black smoke. He sat on Hugon’s shoulder, his golden eyes round with fear and anger, shocked into unaccustomed silence.

“Well, now,” Kavin said. “It would seem that we’ll pass between the two, with luck. Maybe they’ll meet each other, and we’ll be rid of both.”

“It’s possible,” Garph said. He called out to the steersman, “Bear another point westward, there, and keep to that.”

“Aye,” the steersman said.

“Thus, we’ll be exactly midway,” Garph explained. “It gives the galley a small advantage on us, but we’d never escape it in the end.” He scowled thoughtfully. “Though, should the Thulin pirates and that Mazain galley meet, there’d be a fine set to, indeed, and we might well begone, meantime.”

“Like the mouse between two cats,” Hugon said.

“Look you, young fellow,” Garph said, “I’ve done what I had to, to save my men’s lives and this ship… which is my own living, remember.” His face was hard, now.
“But if we’re trapped, then we’ll fight, all of us, old men that most of them be, and we’ll cut many a younger man’s life short before we go.”

“Now, that’s what I like to hear, Captain,” Hugon said. “A little showing of teeth…” He glanced at the Captain, and added, “With my apologies, noticing you’ve got no more than three or four of ‘em… I’m sure you’ll bite hard enough when the time comes.”

The Captain grunted, and stumped off. Kavin looked at Hugon, and shook his head, with a chuckle.

“You’ve a tongue in your head, cousin,” Kavin said.
“But you over use it.”

Hugon stared at Kavin, silently; then, “Shall I tell you something, my princely ancestor?”

“Tell.”

“I am as full of fright as… well, I was about to say a virgin on her bridal night,” Hugon said, in a low voice. “But the comparing’s wrong… she knows well enough what to expect, and that pain’s usually followed by pleasure. No, I’m simply craven fearful, prince; fearful of the pains of death, blind feared of the time after it… or worse, that there may be no time after it.” He stared at Kavin. “I am no hero, and they’ll make no ballads out of me, as they’ve done you.
A man like
you, all iron and gall and not a quaver in your soul… though you’ve had the small advantage of having tried death once, I hear.
But myself…
I’m but a disinherited son with a taste for poem-making and thievery, no hero at all… and fearful, down to my very toes, Prince!” He stared at the deck, shaking his head. “Now, how in the Nine’s name
could
a coward come of your line, can you tell me that, Prince Kavin?”