The Return of Kavin (18 page)

Abruptly, Kavin laughed, and his big hand clapped down on Hugon’s shoulder; he stood, grinning down at him.

“Easily enough, cousin,” he said.
“Most easily.
Because I’ve a gift to keep my face straight, you think I have no fear? I fear now, as much… no, more, than ever. I’ve never fought yet that I didn’t feel a fear’s frostbite tooth in my gut, and I think it grows worse with age.” He glanced out, toward the sea. “And what do I know of death, more than you? I slept. I saw nothing.”

“The wise say we live again,” Hugon said in a low voice. “Life after life… now, could I be sure of that…”

“If you were sure, you’d live a fool’s life, and die a fool’s death,” Kavin said, bluntly. His deep eyes burned into Hugon’s. “I have been initiated; I know the Mysteries. But even so, I do not know all. I believe we live, always… but I do not know.”

“You are
initiate
?” Hugon said, staring. “I have the Third Grade, myself… but that is nothing, of course, as you know. There are few nowadays who go to higher grades… to the Mystery itself.”

He made a certain sign with his left hand; Kavin, nodding, answered it.

“I promise you, cousin,” Kavin said, quietly, “when we come to the end of this, I shall, myself, enter you in the Mystery. Not because you are of my blood, but because I think you are an honest man. I give you my word on that.”

He turned and walked toward the cabin door, leaving Hugon staring after him. Hugon scratched Fraak’s head softly, and spoke.

“I have been half around the world, and seen no prince I would follow with all my soul… till now.”

Fraak crooned softly. He was still in a complete shock from the gruesome notion that anyone would eat a dragon.

“I smell breakfast,” Hugon said, and went down toward the midships house.

The sun rose higher, and toward noon, the wind began to slacken appreciably. From time to time, a man would glance at the limp sails and mutter under his breath. The sea was growing smoother, with an oily look.

The galley appeared, soon enough; first a speck of something far aft, then a growing shape. She had every rag of canvas on, but also, Hugon saw, a tiny flashing whiteness that meant oars out. He thought grimly of those men, straining below, lashed on by whips; dying, as they drove the galley on, their hearts bursting with that effort… and there was every chance he’d join them, soon enough, unless he died.

Zamor, beside him, voiced the same ill thought.

“I will not be taken alive,” the big black man said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’ve drawn oar for the last time. Though this magic belt might make the labor easier, it wouldn’t make slaves’ bread taste otherwise.”

“Look yonder,” Hugon said. “We’re competed for. Makes a man feel quaintly, to have two shiploads of armed wolves come from either side.”

Zamor peered across the sea, and saw the two dark shapes growing in the distance ahead.

Fraak lifted his wings and squalled defiance, staring out.

“Ah, Garph, a feat of navigation to be admired!”
Hugon called out, as Garph emerged. Others of the crew gathered round, taking axes and swords as he served them out; he wore an old and rusty corselet now. One aged crewman sat, fiddling gloomily with a greasy skin bag from which pipes protruded; a strange strangled squall came from his work, and he laid the bag down with a black look at it.

“Why,
may
the demons fry me, but it’s a warpipe!” Hugon said, and went toward the man, grinning broadly.

“Here, man, let me try… I had some skill, once.”

He gathered up the pipes and fiddled with them for a moment; put them to his lips, and blew, mightily. A wild shriek came out, and Fraak leaped into the air, circling Hugon’s head and the mast, and piping wildly in counterpoint. Hugon stalked solemnly along the deck, the wailing pipe crying out a Dalesman’s warsong; a weird and dissonant thing, but with the eerie dignity of a skeleton dancing a saraband, stately and terrifying. Fraak’s aid made it a stronger dose; he seemed able to join the pipe’s drones with three separate notes at once, and his wings drummed in time.

“AAAAAhoo!”
Zamor cried out, his eyes white and wide; the four-foot axe sang around his head, in whistling circles, as he stood spread-legged, watching the ships draw closer. Kavin had drawn his long straight sword, and held it now, loosely and lightly. Thuramon, Hugon saw, was nowhere about; wise of him, Hugon thought grimly. He drew breath again, and the pipes blared out once more.

A firepot arched through the air and thudded into a sail; it did not break, but slid down, to thump into a coil of rope, and roll across the deck, a trail of sullen fire following it. Hugon found it squarely in his path as he strode forward, piping; he did not break his pace, but kicked, hard. The thing flew up, trailing fire as it arched over the side; before it struck the water, it burst with a dull boom.

Hugon marched straight on, across the fire line, and turned; a crewman hurled a water bucket at it, and the blaze died slowly.

But Garph had been at the steering platform all the while; craftily, he waited, and now he swung the ship, hard over. The Turtle heeled; as she came across the wind, the sails that bore a red dragon, the oncoming Thulin, went slack, barred from the slight air by the patched canvas of the Turtle. The Thulin pirate came about, but too slowly; the Mazainian war galley arrowed past its intended prey, like a hawk missing its stoop. And a moment later, a rending crash rolled across the sea, as the galley’s metal-shod ram drove deep into the Thulin’s black side.

The noise was tremendous; above decks, Mazainians and pirates roared, full throated as a hundred packs of mastiffs in hunt; and from the galley’s lower deck, a monstrous wail of terror and agony erupted, as though the Pit itself was opened. The splintering oars flew upward and outward, and in those decks men died dreadfully.

The Turtle was lumbering slowly off, away from the grim scene; and Hugon, lowering the pipe, stared back with sickened heart. The galley could not withdraw; the black pirate, broken-backed, was canted far over and sinking swiftly, and drawing its killer down with it. Across their decks, a mass of men hacked and screamed and died, back and forth in the slime of blood under their feet, tripping in the tangle of cordage as they fought.

The pirate’s other ship will aid her, Hugon thought, and in the meantime we’ll be off.

But the second black ship slid swiftly past the tangled pair, with a roaring jeer rising from its decks, and an answering roar of rage from their abandoned comrades. They came on, straight for the Turtle’s stern blood hungry.

Hugon put the pipes to his lips again and blew a wild call that stopped just as the pirate’s sides scraped hard against the Turtle’s hull. He dropped the pipes then, and sprang toward the rail, whirling his sword around his head; and heard himself crying out the ancient yowling battle cry of his folk.

Beside him, Zamor bellowed and the great axe swung, flashing; a bearded head that had just appeared at the rail sprang off, bodiless, and arched across the deck in a spray of blood.

The crewmen had gone mad, it seemed; the power of that pipe had stirred their old blood, and brought antique blood lust to warm their old bodies once more. They stabbed and chopped, cackling and squalling, as the pirates came aboard.

Kavin moved down the rail’s length, the long sword circling and swinging up and down like the pendulum of death’s clock. The pirates spread away and back, dodging that terrible blade, but meeting other blades among the crewmen as they did so.

But there were too many of them; they swarmed up, more and more, fresh swords to replace those who fell. Captain Garph fell backward, clutching at his belly, as Hugon bent to stab upward at the man who had killed Garph.

The pirate squealed; but Hugon’s sword jammed tightly somewhere in the corsair’s gut, and the man’s writhing nearly yanked the blade from Hugon’s grip. Behind the dying pirate, a gigantic spade-bearded man rose, and stabbed downward at Hugon; his blade sliced along Hugon’s bicep, with agonizing fire in its wake.

Then the giant shrieked, as Fraak’s claws found his face and tore; Hugon, rolling free, saw the dragonet swoop, clawing, and rise again, to dive and claw and burn.

Hugon clutched at his sword, the pain of his wound knifing into his arm, and hastily changed the blade to his other hand in time to parry another downward cut.

There were few crew members left, he saw now; and there were still at least a score of the pirates alive on the deck. But no more came over the rail. He grinned fiercely and moved forward, Zamor and Kavin on either side, a grim circle of crewmen with them. The pirates were caught against the rail now, pressed back. They fought hard; not a man surrendered. Then, one man sprang backward, to splash in the sea below; Kavin’s longsword brought down another, and the great axe in Zamor’s grip slashed down a third. Others began to jump; as Hugon lunged forward to miss one such, he saw there were others, below, in the black ship. They cut at the lines that held their grappling hooks to the Turtle, as anxious to be free as they had been to come aboard.

A stray pirate dodging rabbitwise as men cut at him, ran head-on into Zamor’s open arms, and was grasped and held high in the air. Zamor, painted with red gore from neck to heel, roared a gigantic laugh, the wriggling pirate clutching vainly as he swung outward. Then, the pirate’s hands clasped Zamor’s belt, that broad, ancient belt which was the gift of the Dragon folk. The man was screaming in terror; he clawed, trying to drag himself free by the grasp upon the buckle.

Only Hugon saw it clearly; standing as he was, a scant yard away. The man had clutched the jewel stud as Zamor lifted him higher; Zamor laughed again, and leaned far over the bulwark.

“Here’s the last of your men, Thulin scum!” Zamor bellowed. “Take him back, with our best compliments!” And he hurled the man, straight downward toward the open hull below.

There was a sickening sound, as of a giant melon cracking; a shriek of broken timber, and a howl of insane terror from the remaining pirates below. Then Hugon peered over, and saw the unbelievable.

The hapless pirate had been driven like a missile, clear through the stout planks and timbers of the pirate’s ship; water sprayed upward, red tinted, but there was nothing left of the man’s body at all. But the others had seen, and wished to see no more; though their ship sank beneath them, they would not stay near the black giant of terror. The ship veered away, listing as it went; and now, lying half under water, it moved still farther.

“Get a man to that helm,” Kavin called out, calmly enough, though his breath came in panting rasps.

The Turtle was still under way; a man staggered aft, and seized the staff. Others drew at the lines, bringing the sail around, still obedient though the Captain lay dead under their feet. Hugon clutched his shoulder, the pain growing now; and looked around.

There were no more than eight or nine crewmen left, he saw. Kavin, and Zamor… and where
was that ancient devil, Thuramon,
he thought for a moment.
Now that we could use his wizardry…
And
myself
, Hugon thought; well, I’ve still an arm, though it’s my left one.

And there, by the God of Thieves and Luck, comes the Imperial galley, Hugon thought, staring aft. And that’s the end of the lot of us, he added to himself; and balanced the sword clumsily in his left hand. He pulled a fragment of torn cloth tightly around the shoulder with his teeth. The red stain came through swiftly, but the pressure seemed to slow the agony.

The galley forged closer; most of the oars were smashed and useless, but some still beat steadily. Below, the timesman’s gong clanged steadily, one, two, one,
two
…

A company of marines stood on the galley’s foredeck, ranked stiffly as though on parade, in shining plates and scarlet cloaks; each pike slanted forward at the same angle, a fence of death. Behind, officers stood, grimly silent; there were bowmen in the tops, as well, but not an arrow was loosed. There was only the dull clang of the timesman, as the oars drove closer.

Fraak, weary at last, clutched Hugon’s shoulder, and was silent, except for harsh panting.

They’ll be for revenge, Hugon thought, watching those grim faces come closer still.
Not to
burn the old Turtle under us, with firepots… nor even to take her as a prize. They’ve gotten their prickles up, over their first scorching…
it’s
proud hard men they are, as I know well enough.

So, they’ll take us, if they can, for the oars. But not me, damn
them
, Hugon thought. And glancing at Zamor’s stone face, he knew. Not Zamor either.
Nor Kavin there.
He turned his head to Fraak.

“Fraak, little friend, listen,” he said, low-voiced. “Do this, for me. Do it, if you love me, Fraak! Fly, fly free. The mainland’s that way; you can gain it, easily. Go on, GO!” he hissed fiercely.

Fraak’s claws set tightly, and the golden eyes glowed wide and fiery into Hugon’s.

“NO!” Fraak said.

“They’ll cage you again…”

“They must kill Fraak first,” Fraak said. He uttered a low brassy note. “I kill many, first,
then
they kill me. I will not fly away. You are my friend.”

The galley’s high prow slid over the Turtle’s bulwark; a hooked bridge clanged down, hooking firmly on. From the galley, trumpets blared suddenly, and the rank of marines moved forward, like a single man, across the bridge.

Kavin, Zamor, and Hugon took
a step forward, blades
up, to meet the rank.
And then Thuramon’s voice came, clear and high.
“Na” aamara, effa n’yaaam!”

The old man stood just outside the cabin door; he wore a shabby dark robe, and the wind blew his white hair and beard. His arms were spread widely, and his head flung back; his eyes seemed weirdly empty as he stared skyward.

The advancing men paid only a second’s glance to the man who stood up there, if they thought
anything,
they thought him merely a harmless madman. They had business to attend to. The lances lowered; Kavin’s long blade met one iron point, with a clang, as Zamor’s axe swung up.