The Sword of the South: Chapter Six

A Sailor’s Lot

 

   In addition to all his other manifold talents, Bahzell Bahnakson was an accurate weather prophet.

    The fluky winds he’d warned of had shown themselves — or their absence — over the last three days, and Kenhodan was heartily sick of it. Now Wave Mistress moved unhappily as another slow wave heaved sullenly under her hull. She was bred to speed, and motionlessness made her uneasy . . . especially this sort of motionlessness. For the first two days of dead calm the sea had been a breathless mirror, unusual for this time of year but hardly unheard of. That had changed earlier this morning, however, and the weather-wise among her crew didn’t like what they were seeing. Whatever drove the swell was far away, for not a breeze stirred her silent canvas and the brisk chill had become a cold dampness that coated a man’s skin like oil, but those swells had grown steadily steeper since dawn. It was as if something was creeping up on them.

    Kenhodan sat on the deck, leaning against the foremast, plucking at the harp Brandark had given him, and watched Bahzell and Captain Forstan fence with blunted weapons for the edification — and distraction — of guards and crew. The dull sounds of their blows and parries struck his ear distantly, for his mind was far away as he tuned a discordant string and thought.

    His skill at the harp was far more than merely satisfying, even if he had no memory of acquiring it. Nor did he remember learning any of the melodies which bubbled up on their own from the shadow of his lost past if he simply let them. He couldn’t force them, but they came anyway, as if called by something outside him, and while they lasted, he was whole once more . . . until they released him and he returned to the world about him. It was eerie, he supposed, but it was an eeriness he welcomed and one he’d learned to accept as he accepted Wencit and Bahzell.

    He considered his strangely maturing relationship with the wizard. Brandark’s tales of Bahzell’s doings had put a final seal on Kenhodan’s acceptance, for if a champion of Tomanak — one who’d managed to achieve even a tenth of Bahzell’s accomplishments — not only trusted the wizard but accepted him as a close personal friend, how could Kenhodan distrust him? Besides, if Wencit of Rum couldn’t be trusted, no man could. All the tales agreed on that. But that didn’t end the tension between them, for Kenhodan had discovered that his willful, imperious streak bitterly resented his inability to control his own life. He didn’t know if that willfulness was the product of his amnesia or if it had always been a part of him, but he knew it was there, and so did Wencit.

    The wizard was painfully careful to share everything he could, and both he and Bahzell sought Kenhodan’s opinions as if he actually had enough memory to make them worth hearing. Kenhodan suspected it was out of kindness, which was yet one more reason he was attracted to Brandark. When the shipmaster asked a question, it was to get an answer, not because he was being kind.

    He straightened and moved his feet out of the way as the port and starboard watches thundered past to race one another up the ratlines. They’d been carrying out a lot of competitions like that over the last couple of days. To lie becalmed could try the patience of a saint, and there were precious few saints in Brandark’s crew. The captain believed in keeping idle hands too busy for mischief, especially on a day with weather as strange as this one’s.

    Kenhodan agreed, for Wave Mistress carried as mixed a crew as ever there was. Men with . . . problematical pasts had always found the sea a convenient hiding place, and Kenhodan was confident that was true for at least some of Brandark’s men. Certainly every Race of Man was represented, including some who were virtually never found at sea, in a blending that defied an orderly imagination. The officers were taut professionals, yet the racial prejudices of so heterogenous crew could have been fertile soil for trouble if not for their respect for and fierce (if unadmitted) devotion to their captain. Yet not even that strong cement could fully overcome their internal tensions.

    The coxswain, for example, was a Marfang Island halfling. Although he sprang from a sorcery spawned race many distrusted, he was a pleasant sort, with more experience than any other three crewmen. But he was also less than four feet tall and touchy about his size. He was fast with a dagger hilt, too; even the largest seaman avoided him when he was in an ugly mood. Besides, it was said he felt wind changes in his ivory horns, which earned him the respect due any prophet of Chemalka.

    The rest were an inextricable mass. There were humans (including a surly ex-officer from Emperor Soldan’s army who captained the main top), two dozen hradani (who regarded themselves as Brandark’s elite corps, though he was prone to crack heads if they became too vocal about it), a round dozen dwarves (who’d clearly found it expedient to be elsewhere in a hurry and loudly missed their mountain tunnels), and even one elf — Hornos, who served as first officer and never mentioned his past.

    “Ho, Kenhodan!” The lookout’s hail broke into his reverie, shaking him back into the present.

    “Ho, yourself!” he shouted back up at the man perched at the topmast crosstrees while the mastheads traced slow, uneasy circles against the sky.

    “If you must pluck that thing, at least give us a tune!”

    “What would you like to hear?”

    “D’you know ‘Torloss Troubled Heart’?”

    Kenhodan let his hands lie limp on the strings, waiting to see if this was one of the tunes which lurked in the reefs of his memory like ships’ bones on the Fradonian Banks, ready to bob to the surface on a passing current when tickled by their names or hummed melodies. A handful of seconds passed, and then his fingers moved suddenly and a rollicking ditty sprang from the harp, laughing over the decks. After a moment, his voice began the song of the sailor, the barmaid, and Hirahim Lightfoot, the laughing god. He’d just reached the verse in which Torloss discovered that his rival for the maid’s favors was none other than the god of seductions himself, when a hail from above broke his concentration.

    “Sail hooooooo!” the same lookout called. “Three sail — no, four, by the Trident! Two points off the starboard quarter, and closing like the wrath of Phrobus!”

    “What?!” Brandark had joined the crowd enjoying Kenhodan’s song. Now he wheeled, staring astern towards the sails invisible from deck level, and his mobile ears were half-flattened.

    “What’s wrong?” Kenhodan stilled the strings with his hand. Brandark’s alarm clearly stemmed from more than the mere number of strangers.

    “Maybe nothing.” Brandark tugged his shortened ear and peered up at the lookout. “But there’s no telling who you’ll meet out here, and I don’t like it that they’re closing — not if they’re under canvas.”

    His fingers flicked at Wave Mistress’ lifeless sails.

    “I see your point.”

    Kenhodan reached for the harp case and began fitting the instrument into it, conscious of the sword that wasn’t at his side at the moment.

    Bahzell scampered up the ratlines with ape-like speed, and Brandark propped his fists on his hips and stared upward as the other hradani carefully peered along the line of the lookout’s pointing hand, exchanging observations with the seaman. Then Bahzell gave an emphatic nod, clapped the man on the shoulder, and reached for a stay. He wrapped his legs around it and plunged down to thump heavily on deck, then wiped his stinging palms on his breeches and clumped to Brandark’s side.

    “You’ve a good man up there, Brandark,” he said quietly. “I’m thinking he spotted them as they broke the horizon, but they’ll be up to us soon. They’re after coming with the whips of Fiendark behind them, and no mistake. Corsairs. Black sails.”

    “No quarter, then,” Brandark muttered. He stroked his chin with callused fingers. “And they’re moving under sail, not oars?”

    “They are, Captain.” Heads turned as Wencit emerged from the maindeck hatch, eyes flaming. “But not on the winds of this world.”

    “Sorcery!” Brandark spat. “May all the wizards of the world cut each others’ throats! Except yours, of course!” he added hastily.

    “I applaud your sentiments, but we have more pressing problems.”

    “Aye.” Bahzell was thoughtful. “Boarders or sorcery, are you thinking?”

    “Both. There are at least two wizards over there, and there’s something more than a wizard wind with them. It won’t be shadows this time – too much light — but it’s something evil, and strong enough I may be hard-pressed to counter it. And since I can’t use the art if I have to fight at the same time, they’ll send boarders to break my concentration.”

    “My thought, as well,” Brandark said grimly. “I’ve good lads, Wencit — not many you’d take home to your mother, maybe, but good lads in a fight. Unfortunately, I don’t have as many as I’d like against four ships, even with the Axe Brothers.”

    “When you’re surrounded, you’ve more targets,” Bahzell said philosophically. His hard, calculating eyes belied his light tone. “At least they’ll not try to sink or burn us — not if those are after being real corsairs. I’m thinking they’ve come for your bullion, Brandark, and it won’t buy a pot of poor ale on the seabed.”

    “Well, I don’t have any such compunctions where they’re concerned!” Brandark grunted, and the scholar was buried deep in the elemental hradani. “Black sails, is it? If that’s what they want, I’ll stretch myself to give it to them!” He raised his voice. “Hornos! Captain Forstan!”

    His lieutenant and the imperial commander arrived together. Hornos’ habitual expression of gentle melancholy was unchanged, but his sword was at his side, an extra dagger had materialized on his belt, and he wore a scale mail hauberk. The Axe Brothers’ captain looked more anxious than the elf as he tightened his breastplate over the black and gold tunic of the Empire’s crack heavy infantry. Kenhodan wasn’t surprised; ultimate responsibility for the treasure was his.

    “Those gentlemen mean to relieve us of your cargo, Captain,” Brandark said levelly, “and they may have the strength to do it. I’d be obliged if your men would muster on the starboard side.”

    “At once.”

    Forstan nodded and wheeled away, bellowing orders as boots stamped and armor clanged. Most seamen eschewed armor, for its weight would drag a swimmer swiftly under, but the Axe Brothers were no sailors. They wore plate and carried the double-bitted great axes of the King Emperor’s elite, and Kenhodan smiled grimly at the surprise awaiting the corsairs if their allies hadn’t warned them what to expect.

    “The crew will take the port rail,” Brandark went on, laying out his plans for Hornos. “Clear away and load with banefire — but for Korthrala’s sake, don’t fire the loads before I tell you! The last thing we need is flaming rigging around our ears when we’re outnumbered four-to-one!”

    “Aye, Sir!”

    “Seldwyn,” Brandark turned to his archery captain. “Load the dart throwers, but save them till they close. There’s no way to dance and run with them when they’ve got a wind and we don’t, so wait till they’re right on top of us, then sweep their quarter decks. If there’s a wizard on deck, that’s where he’ll be, and if we put a javelin in his belly, so much the better.”

    “Aye, Sir!” Seldwyn turned away, but Brandark caught his jerkin.

    “Wait a minute. Put the archers on the quarterdeck; they won’t try coming over the bow — their bulwarks are too low and the foredeck’s taper favors us too much — so they’ll run alongside to keep us busy, then try to break into the quarter galleys and come over the stern. Don’t wait there – start hitting them the moment they’re in range.”

    “Aye, Sir!” Seldwyn repeated, and this time Brandark let him go.

    Kenhodan watched the crew come alive with purposeful fury. Outnumbered they might be, and more than a bit unhappy at the odds, yet they appeared to be dominated by anger, not fear. Indeed, they seemed almost to welcome the appearance of enemies they could deal with instead of the bizarre weather they’d been unable to understand . . . until now. Hornos’ tenor voice lacked the volume of Brandark’s bellow, but it was clear, cutting through the tumult like a trumpet, and the crew’s bare feet added a pattering urgency to the din, counterpointing the soldiers’ boots and the crash of opening arms chests. He watched a dwarf test an axe edge with grim delight while a brawny topman made a cutlass whistle.

    “Bahzell,” Brandark ignored the rush as he continued to plan his defense, “Captain Forstan can see to the starboard side. I’d like you with me and the crew on the other bulwark. Hornos will command the ballistae, and he can lead the artillerists wherever they’re needed once the bastards close with us. Seldwyn will command the archers and the afterguard.”

    “Good enough,” Bahzell replied. “Best I go find my gear, I’m thinking.”

    He nodded sharply to the captain and headed below just as one of Brandark’s younger seaman ran up to him with a daggered axe on a baldric. It wasn’t the traditional great axe of Bahzell’s people, for it had only a single blade, but the back of its head ended in a wicked spike, suitable for piercing armor, and the entire weapon had a lean, lethal book. Brandark took it with a nod of thanks, looped the baldric over his head, and settled the axe on his back.

    “Where do you want me?” Kenhodan demanded.

    “You draw a heavy bow,” Brandark replied. “Join the archers, if you please. But make it your special duty to look after Wencit. He’ll be on deck to counter whatever deviltry’s brewing over there, and you can bet whatever you own they’ll try to mark him down early to stop him.”

    “Fine.”

    Kenhodan darted down the main hatch to his cabin. He had to dodge the last few crewmen as they boiled up, but he made good time despite the obstacles. He took time to stow the precious harp carefully before he buckled his sword belt, settled the sword and Gwynna’s dagger at his side, and slid his quiver over his shoulder. Then he bent the bow stave with a quick motion, seating the resined string in its grooves, and plucked it gently. It hummed as musically as his harp, and he raced for the quarterdeck.

    He was one of the last to arrive, and he scanned the deck carefully, fixing the defenders’ positions in his mind. The corsairs were well above the horizon now, storming across the water at an unbelievable speed, and twenty other bowmen stood with him, watching them sweep closer. Black sails groaned on their yards, hard-bellied with angry wind, but still no breeze stirred over Wave Mistress.

    Kenhodan sneezed on noxious fumes as Hornos bent over the after ballista, speaking quietly to his men. The heavy weapon crouched on its turntable like a vast crossbow, loaded with a long, vaned shaft. Its yard-long, hollow iron head was already loaded with deadly banefire — now Hornos stood ready to ignite the evil mixture of pitch, sulfur, naphtha, turpentine, and quicklime. Bahzell stood well forward, abreast the foremast with one foot on the bulwark, and the sun winked on the crossed sword and mace of his surcoat as he studied the enemy. Two halflings crouched over a dart thrower beside him, laying the five-foot javelins into the grooved firing tray. The heavy spring steel firing bar would drive all eight shafts at the jerk of a lanyard, and while the weapon was slow firing, at close range its missiles would pierce ten inches of seasoned oak.

    Kenhodan searched for his special charge and saw Wencit leaning against the mainmast. He’d drawn his sword, but his expression was blank with intensity and his multihued eyes gazed sightlessly at nothing as mind and will sought for the telltale tendrils of sorcery directed against the ship.

    Once certain of Wencit’s exact position, Kenhodan turned back to starboard and nocked an arrow. They’d enter longbow range soon, and —

    His thoughts broke off and he blinked, almost staggering as a hammer struck his brain and sudden fury exploded within him. He shook his head drunkenly, fighting the shock of rage. It was the same anger he’d felt in the taproom, only stronger even than it had been then, and it was neither fear nor the zest Bahzell seemed to feel. It was a personal hatred, a loathing, as if the corsairs represented some hideous disease, and it was so much stronger than the hate of Brandark’s crew that his bones burned like ice. It lent him a frightening strength — strength all the more frightening because he didn’t understand it. Yet he saw its danger, as well, for this fury was blind. It could destroy him as easily as any blade . . . unless he could use it rather than be used by it. Berserkers made deadly foes, but they also expended themselves like unthinking weapons, and the thought of dying in a mad frenzy of butchery was almost as terrifying as it was seductive.

    He knew that, sensed his capacity for destruction and a deep, almost ecstatic need to embrace his own destruction, and saw the maelstrom spinning its vortex of bloodshed and thunder at his very core. Its power appalled him, and he made himself breathe deeply, fighting for control.

    He won — barely. His pulse slowed and the pounding in his temples slipped back towards normal. He took his hands from his bow one at a time and dried his palms carefully on his trousers, and the bloodlust bubbling in his brain had been chained to his purpose. It flickered like fire walled in ice, uneasy, unwilling to yield, yet it was his now, and he was no longer its. He still felt the crawling need to kill or be killed, but he commanded himself once more.

    And just in time.

    His lips drew back in a snarl as the corsairs swept closer. Little more than half Wave Mistress’ length, they were low, lean, and wicked, and spray burst over their raked stems in green and cream as they leaned to the breath of their private tempest. Despite their smaller size, each carried almost as many men as Wave Mistress, even counting Forstan’s Axe Brothers, for their crews greatly outnumbered those of any honest vessel their size, and Kenhodan studied their sleek lines — lines that ruthlessly subordinated cargo space to speed. After all, he thought grimly, pirates sought small bulk, high-value prizes; they could afford the sharp ferocity of those speed-hungry hulls.

    “Ready your bows!” Seldwyn ripped out the words and raised his hand, his feet spread wide for balance while his eyes measured the range, the pitch of the hulls, and the priority he should assign each target.

    “The lead ship!” he shouted harshly. “Gut me those archers!”

    Kenhodan felt the sun’s kiss, distant through the cold air, as his bow rose with the others. Salt, pitch, and hemp hung in his nostrils. One corsair had strayed four full lengths before her consorts, a temerity which marked her as the first target for Wave Mistress’ wrath.

    “Loooooose!”

    Kenhodan sighted, drew, and released. The string whacked his leather arm guard, and his bow lifted as a cloud of arrows snarled up, fletching howling, and hissed above the sea. They sheeted down on the foremost corsair, barbed heads hungry for blood, and Kenhodan grinned fiercely, rage snarling in his brain as he followed their lethal flight. Then black figures tumbled aside under the beat of the arrow storm, and his nerves quivered ecstatically at the sight.

    The return fire was late and short as their bitter points drove into the corsairs’ faces. Dozens of out-ranged shafts plunged into the sea in flashes of white, far short of Wave Mistress’ deck. To rate archer under Brandark Brandarkson, a bowman must be skilled with a longbow, rather than the short bow or crossbow most seamen favored, and his lieutenants were chosen as much for battle skill as sea craft. Seldwyn’s keen eye had gauged the range more accurately than his corsair counterpart’s, and his bowmen fell into the deadly rhythm of the Vonderland archer: twelve aimed shafts in a minute. Arrows slashed across the corsair like spume, sweeping the packed deck, heaping it with dead and writhing bodies and spattering it with blood.

    The corsair archers were no match for that fire. They were cut down before they could reply effectively, but their consorts hastened to their aid. They began to find the range, and arrows whined and licked among the crew. Kenhodan heard them shriek in baffled rage from the Axe Brothers’ armor, but too many sank into flesh with dull, meaty thuds, and gasps and screams erupted as men fell about him. He saw and heard it through the fury in his brain, but it was distant, far away and happening somewhere else as he concentrated on the strength of his arm, the keenness of his eye, and the limber strength of his magnificent, killing Vonderland bow.

    Two corsairs bored straight for the starboard side. A third circled, storming up to port, while the fourth — hull lined with pike-waving pirates — lunged straight for the stern, exactly as Brandark had predicted.

    “Now, Hornos! Now!”

    Brandark’s bellow split his crew’s snarl as they sighted the corsairs’ bare steel. The halfling coxswain’s hands slashed, and the spring engines thudded. Their long, slim missiles howled through shield and pirate alike, and Seldwyn’s remaining archers pivoted, hurling their arrows over the rail into the teeth of the boarding pirates.

    But it was Hornos who unleashed the most devastating blow. Corsair arrows hissed among his men like feeding sharks, but they waited grimly as Hornos and the boatswain pressed torches to the banefire and leapt aside. Fire geysered and the artillery thudded far more loudly than the dart throwers had. The long missiles soared, trailing stinking smoke and flame in a smudgy line above the sea, and the gunners snatched up swords and boarding pikes and formed behind Hornos as their missiles streaked for their foes.

    The boatswain’s shot slammed into the portside pirate’s bulwark. It smashed clean through the thick planking in a shower of splinters and porpoised across the deck, but the head failed to shatter. Liquid fire dribbled from it, but a howling corsair — mad with battle lust or supremely courageous — levered it over the side. The terrible substance ignited his clothing, clinging like death, and his flaming figure hurtled overboard behind the banefire even as his ship lunged across the final few dozen yards to Wave Mistress. His screaming body was crushed between the grinding hulls, yet his sacrifice saved his ship, and his mates surged up the side, pikeheads shining in the smoke.

    And smoke there was, for Hornos’ shot had crashed into the oardeck of the lead ship to starboard, and crewmen scattered wildly as the projectile shattered into fiery fragments. Water was less than useless against the quicklime-charged banefire, and it spread too quickly for sand buckets to quench. Smoke billowed and fire licked up the masts. Sails and tarred rigging burst into towers of flame, and screams told their own tale as the pirate ship bucked out of control, showering the sea with charred flecks of canvas and burning paint.

    The corsair sheared away, wrapped in destruction, and the wizard wind became a two-edged weapon, blowing her to her doom. Wind bellied the untouched sails and fanned the flames to furnace fury. Bitter heat drove the helmsmen from their stations, unable to control their hurtling vessel, and desperate figures flung themselves overboard, only to be smashed back against the hull and battered beneath the waves by their ship’s speed.

    An ugly cheer rumbled from Brandark’s crew as the three survivors struck home. Grapnels whipped up to sink iron teeth in Wave Mistress’ timbers. Hulls groaned in protest, surging together in a thunder of oaken planking, and corsairs sprang up onto their lower bulwarks, thrusting at the defenders. Pikes crashed on armor as the pirates to starboard met the unexpected, plated axemen, but the other two ships disgorged hordes of howling warriors that frothed up too thick and fast to be stopped.

    A wave of boarders broke into the cabins through the stern windows and boiled over the after rail. They were too close for bow work, and Kenhodan fired his last shaft into an officer’s mouth before he whipped out his blade. He backed quickly towards Wencit, desperate to protect the wizard from the steel fanging the press of fighting men, and the wizard’s voice rose behind him. His words were unintelligible, but the power crackling at their core prickled the nape of Kenhodan’s neck

    Wencit’s chant rose, yet for all its potency, the power in its words was hidden, pale beside the visible menace pluming up from two of the corsair ships. Twin darknesses loomed — fist-like, merging into one vast, tentacled mass of midnight-dark murder, pregnant with destruction and groping for prey like a living enemy, and the corsairs howled triumphantly at the evidence of their arcane allies.

    They were protected from its touch; Wave Mistress’ crew was not.

    A black tendril reached the ship, stretching out before its fellows, and brushed one of Brandark’s seamen as he buried his cutlass in a pirate’s chest. The black caress transfixed him. For a moment he stood, a rock of stillness in the whirling melee, and then he dropped his weapon at his hands fastened on his own throat.

    He screamed in agonized terror as his own fingers throttled away his life.

    Kenhodan looked away sickly, and the defenders wavered. Clean death was one thing; this abomination was more than mere courage could withstand. Yet they didn’t break, for a voice rose like sea thunder from somewhere forward.

    “Tomanak! Tomanak!”

    Bahzell Bahnakson’s bull-throated challenge roared upward, and a brilliant azure glow reached out from Wave Mistress’ planking. The tendrils of sorcery hissed, recoiling, disintegrating into smoke at its touch, and the crew’s resistance stiffened. Yet the spell was only baffled; it wasn’t dismissed, and it gathered its strength anew. The many serpents of darkness withdrew, merged, combined into a single mighty column . . . and then smashed into the protective blue radiance like a battering ram of steel.

    The shield cracked. It didn’t fail, but, the battering ram slammed silently into it, and Kenhodan felt the hatred, fell purpose, and power radiating from it like the breath of a Dwarvenhame blast furnace. It opened a crack — a tiny thing, no bigger than a man’s hand — and the corsairs bellowed in fresh triumph as the blackness poured through the tiny breach, spilling onto the deck like oil, spreading like poison.

 

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    A lance of white light thrust suddenly into the darkness from the steel of Wencit’s sword — steel writhing with a crawling arabesque of red and gold runes. It ignored the blackness spilling across the deck; instead, the beam pierced the column which drove that blackness onward. It struck like a flaming arrow and tore through it, seeking its heart, and Kenhodan’s head throbbed to the sound of an animal scream of rage. It came, he knew, from Wencit’s sorcery, and it terrified him.

    Madness raged as light and blackness met, and the cloud recoiled, hissing. The white light ripped deeper, flaming against the darkness, and Kenhodan stared in fascination as sorcery fought sorcery. The ebon poison on the deck dissipated, drawing back into the battering ram behind it, and that battering ram drifted away from the ship as Wencit’s voice rose higher. It was as if the light were a pole with which the wizard thrust danger away from the ship, but the blackness was only baffled. It was not yet defeated, and the balance wavered precariously back and forth.

    The defenders gripped their weapons with renewed hope. As long as Bahzell and Wencit stood, they shielded Wave Mistress from the darkness, and as long as it was a matter of blood and blades, Brandark’s crew knew itself equal to any threat. But the corsairs knew who’d thwarted their allies, and they hurled themselves forward to reach and kill them both.

    “Tomanak!”

    Bahzell’s voice roared out above the tumult as he met the rush sweeping up Wave Mistress’ port side forward of the mainmast. His enormous sword flashed, wielded one-handed despite its size and weight, and heads flew. His hook knife was in his other hand and it struck like a steel serpent as one of Brandark’s human crewmen went down beside him and a corsair leapt into the gap. His concentration never wavered, the blue glow around Wave Mistress grew stronger, and it made no difference at all to the lethality of his swordplay. His ears were flat, his brown eyes glittered, and blood flew in crimson spray as he reaped the gory harvest of a champion of Tomanak at war.

    Many of the corsairs gave ground as they realized what — and who — they faced, but others swarmed forward. Say what one might about the Shith Kiri Corsairs, there were few cowards among them, and desperation made them bold. They flung themselves at Bahzell, swarming over the crewmen about him, and those crewmen gave ground, driven back by sheer force of numbers.

    “Tomanak!”

    There was no hesitation, no compromise, in that thunderous warcry, and bodies and bits of bodies flew from the vortex of destruction called Bahzell Bahnakson. Blood coated Wave Mistress’ planking as he built a breastwork of dead men, yet still the corsairs pressed forward.

    A whine warned Kenhodan, and he ducked under a blade as the quarterdeck defenders went down in a tide of red steel. He thrust through a throat, recovered with a clean, deft flourish, and stood alone in the center of the deck, facing the stern rail, between it and Wencit. His opponents crowded one another, hampering themselves, giving him a precious edge, yet he was only one man. The corsairs knew who they had to kill . . . and that no one man could hold so many for long.

    They poured forward like the tide.

    Captain Forstan saw Kenhodan’s peril and curled the after end of his Axe Brothers inward, covering half the deck with a wall of armor. The Axe Brothers smashed their enemies aside, but the unarmored seamen to port were unequal to the task. They strove to reach Kenhodan, but they were cut down or driven back by the howling corsairs.

    Hornos hurtled aft at the head of his artillerists, his sword carving a path for the men behind him, but the surge of pirates was too thick. Each corsair he cut down only gave sword room to two more, and the seamen were unarmored. Hornos’ men were cut off behind him as he slashed a way through his foes, and Brandark’s bleeding men gave ground — slowly, sullenly, cutting down their enemies as they went — but with chilling inevitability.

    The corsair captains knew Wencit’s death would give them Wave Mistress even more surely than Bahzell’s would. They funneled their men to the attack with ruthless disregard for losses, willing to spend as many lives as necessary to thrust the foot of steel through the wizard, and only Kenhodan barred their way.

    The redhaired man stood no chance. He knew it as well as the corsairs did . . . and he didn’t care. He reached down inside himself and deliberately freed his inner rage, yet even now it was no berserker’s fury. He couldn’t understand what he was doing — or how — even as he did it, and it didn’t matter. It was as if something within him watched an inner gauge, measuring that terrible anger as it pulsed through him, allowing just enough of it to fill his brain, pour into his muscles and blaze in the secret places of his soul.

    He changed. His enemies saw his green eyes freeze into emerald ice, his lips drew back in a direcat’s fierce, hungry snarl, and his sword was a blood-spattering scythe. He watched the seamen to his right to go down, and then the corsairs poured through the breach at the port bulwark like a breaker, its crest edged with steel, not foam. He saw them come . . . and launched himself into them, laughing, for how could he kill them unless they came within his reach?

    A bright pikehead gleamed, ignoring him to dart at Wencit, and Kenhodan thrust the pike wide with his left arm while his sword sliced across a throat like fire. The pikehead fell, and Kenhodan slid into the path of the dead man’s companions like a machine of wire and steel . . . and vengeance.

    “Tomanak! Tomanak!”

    Kenhodan heard the thunder of Bahzell’s deep-throated warcry, but it scarcely registered as a pirate came at him from the right. The corsair lunged with desperate speed, and yet he moved so slowly, like a man in the dream. Kenhodan dodged the thrust with a simple twist of his torso, tripped his man, and smashed his spine as he fell. The wounded man crawled on his arms, screaming, sliming the deck with his blood, and his agony scarcely touched the surface of Kenhodan’s exalted fury.

    The defending line to port crumbled into knots of cursing, striking fighters, and chaos reigned on Wave Mistress’ deck. The battle degenerated into a savage dogfight, a frothing madness of bloodshed and death, and the skilled were as much at risk as the clumsy, for no man could guard in all directions at once.

    Hornos cut his way to Kenhodan’s side, trying to guard the wizard’s flank. The lieutenant lopped off a corsair’s sword hand and dropped another with a straight head cut. His recovery ripped the throat from a third, and a straight thrust killed a fourth. Red spray fanned from his blade, but the detached melancholy in his eyes never changed — not even as the fifth corsair rammed a pike through his hauberk to still his ancient heart forever. He fell without a sound, and Kenhodan roared with fury as he split the killer’s head.

    Hornos’ death removed his last support, and he staggered — off-balance — as yet another corsair came at him with a grin. Red steel surged towards him, and he writhed aside, barely in time. The corsair cursed and shortened his weapon for another thrust, but Brandark appeared from nowhere and smashed the pikeman to the deck. His axe hummed, flaring with blue light that mirrored the shield around his ship. Its glaring nimbus lit his face, and the savage glitter in his eyes reflected that hungry flame. A corsair officer leapt at Wave Mistress’ master and fell back, cloven cleanly in two, dead mouth open in surprise.

    Kenhodan dodged a swordsman, kicked him in the belly, and crushed his skull with his hilt. Sweat stung his eyes, he bled from a dozen shallow cuts, and he was bloody to the elbow, and he didn’t care. More blades reached for him from every side, yet his unchained fury bore him up, and behind him the remote voice of the wizard still rose.

    Kenhodan dared not look to see what might threaten Wencit’s other flank. His full attention was focused on the enemies before him, and to look away was to die, yet the fierce shriek of Wencit’s magic clawed at his blood. It boiled in his marrow with his rage, and his enemies died screaming.

    A shout announced that the starboard attacker had cut her lines and veered off. The Axe Brothers had been too much for her unarmored men, and the water alongside was scarlet with the flotsam of their bodies. Some of the Axemen were down, but not many, and harsh commands rang out as Forstan mustered his sections and brought them avalanching aft by squads.

    Kenhodan’s blade jammed in a corsair’s ribs, and the dead man’s companion came at him desperately. He flinched out of the path of the first stroke, but the pirate recovered with an animal snarl. His sword hissed back around, slicing towards Kenhodan’s neck, and Kenhodan’s hand flashed to his belt. His fingers found the hilt of Gwynna’s dagger, and he buried it in his enemy’s belly as he dodged the blow. The pirate shrieked and fell, intestines spilling, and a fresh pike licked over his falling body.

    A thunderbolt of gory steel flashed, and the pikeman’s head exploded. Bahzell kicked the body aside and moved in on Kenhodan’s left.

    They stood together: Bahzell, Kenhodan, and Brandark. Forstan’s men closed in from the sides, cutting off the corsairs’ retreat, but no one could come to their aid. Wencit stood against the mast behind them, distant as the stars, his voice their only weapon against far worse than sword or axe, and their own weapons flashed before them.

    It was a simple choice for the pirates within the net of the Axe Brothers. If Bahzell and the wizard lived, they died, whatever the fate of the ship; if the wizard or the champion died, sorcery would save them from their foes.

    They attacked in a wave of steel.

    Kenhodan swept the legs from one man and brought his blade shrieking back to claim another’s head. He daggered a third while Bahzell dropped two men with one blow, smashing them into ruin to gain elbow room to throw his hook knife into a pirate charging Brandark’s back. Brandark’s axe crunched through the ribs of a pike-armed pirate chieftain as the man tried to use his weapon to vault over the heads of Wencit’s defenders, and the corsair fell shrieking.

    Kenhodan sucked in air. Hot blood sprayed his face. Not even he and his companions could stand against so many, and they gave back a step in unison, as if it were a drill field maneuver. And then, impossibly, they stopped once more, throwing the corsairs aside in steaming blood and shattered limbs.

    Forstan’s men crunched into the melee, axes flashing. Their voices rose in the terrible song of the Brothers of the Axe at war, and pirates tumbled back in bloody wreckage from the precise axe work of their advancing wedge.

    The pressure eased. The three companions gained back the space they’d yielded, and Brandark dropped behind to deal with whatever might slip past Bahzell and Kenhodan. Seldwyn, blood streaming from a cut forehead, rallied his surviving archers and charged across the bloody deck, and the corsairs were suddenly hemmed into a tiny pocket, growing smaller as death harvested to their numbers.

    And then Kenhodan leaned on his sword, gasping as soldiers and seamen met in the center of the deck. The boarders had offered no quarter; they were given none.

    Wencit’s chant peaked suddenly and died, and Kenhodan wiped bloody sweat from his eyes and stared in hypnotized horror as the blackness split once more and one cloud was driven back on the ship which had spawned it. Screams rose from her deck as fire and darkness consumed her. Her back broke with a crunch of timbers, and the outraged sea rose, a vortex raging about the broken ship like Korthrala’s own wrath to suck her screaming crew and shattered planking deep.

    Whoever controlled the other ship’s sorcery took heed of his consort’s fate, and the blackness vanished suddenly as he dispelled his own attack before it could be turned against him. White light streaked unopposed over his vessel, and the clash of wizardry ended in a twanging chorus of riven lines as the remaining corsairs slashed their own grapnels free.

    The two survivors wheeled away, carrying the tattered rags of the wizard wind with them. Near silence fell on Brandark’s card ship, broken only by the moans of the wounded, and Kenhodan stared about, abruptly appalled by the carnage. His muscles slackened as the rage flowed away as swiftly and suddenly as it had invaded him, taking with it the exultation and leaving only sorrow — and horrified revulsion as he realized his sorrow arose not from the loss of life, but from the fact that any of the corsairs had eluded him.

    He stared at the bloody deck in anguish and gripped his sword white-knuckled. What was he? In the names of all the gods, what kind of blood-mad killer was he?!

 

---

 

    Splashes roused him as the crew tumbled their enemies to Korthrala’s mercy. He watched the bodies slide over the side, and his hands trembled as he mechanically cleaned his weapons on a fallen pirate’s tunic and sheathed them. He frowned down at his fingers, filled with an ageless weariness that gnawed the vitals of his soul. Then he clenched them into fists to still their quiver and leaned against the bulwark. He watched flames eat to the waterline of the ship Hornos had burned, and the horror of what he was was like a mortal wound.

    Bahzell’s heavy hand gripped his shoulder, dragging him up out of the icy wastes of his soul. He drew strength and warmth from the touch, and the hradani’s elemental vitality seemed to burn through him like a cleansing fire. It wasn’t enough to erase his fear of himself, but it gave him control once more. He sighed, surveying the slaughterhouse deck from Bahzell’s side, and felt life return unwillingly to his battered mind. He would have to face his demon again, come to grips with it somehow, but this wasn’t the time. Instead, he looked up at Bahzell and actually managed a smile.

    “You were right, you know,” he said, and his voice was almost normal.

    “Was I, now? And what would it happen as I was being right about?” The hradani raised an eyebrow above an eye that still smoldered with the cinders of battle.

    “What you said that first day.”

    Kenhodan watched Brandark’s surgeon and his assistants bending over the wounded, and his throat ached. They were sorting out the most badly injured, carrying them towards Bahzell, and Kenhodan recalled the healing gift granted by Tomanak to his champions. He could feel Bahzell putting aside the fury of battle, reaching for that far more joyous gift, but the hradani’s gaze was still on him, the eyebrow still raised, the ears still cocked, and he smiled sadly.

    “What you said that first day,” he repeated. “A sailor’s lot is hard.”

 

---

 

    Tolgrim of the Shith Kiri wore a grim expression, directed in sidelong glances at the wizard by the rail. Sea Scimitar quivered to the wizard wind, and only that kept his dagger from Harlich of Torfo’s back.

    “I don’t recall your mentioning those imperial troops, Wizard! Or that bastard Bahzell, for that matter!”

    “No,” Harlich said smoothly. “I didn’t know about them, Captain. I suppose the bullion should have led us all to anticipate the Axe Brothers, at least. But trust me, if I’d known Bahzell Bloody Hand was anywhere about, I’d never have gone anywhere near this entire business!”

    “Pretty words!” Tolgrim snarled. “Pretty words indeed that cost me half my ships and three quarters of my men!”

    “I can only apologize, Captain. It was my companion’s task to obtain information. Apparently his spies were less thorough than he thought.”

    “Aye?” Tolgrim spat over the side, scowling back at the vanishing Wave Mistress. “Your scummy friend’s cost the Islands dear this day! And I daresay you won’t be any too popular back home yourself.” He grinned sourly, obviously pleased by the thought.

    “No, I don’t suppose so. But when you condemn poor Thardon, recall that he shared the fate of your men. His mistake cost him as dearly as it did them.”

    “May the fish lick his bones!”

    Tolgrim hissed the traditional curse savagely and took a jerky turn about his quarterdeck to regain control. Harlich stood motionless, his attention seemingly on the swelling sails. His life hung on a thread, for his art couldn’t protect him from the baffled rage of Tolgrim’s survivors if they turned on him, yet nothing in his face or manner betrayed any awareness of his danger.

    “Well, Wizard,” Tolgrim said at last, “it seems we’ve both failed. At least I can tell the Council of Captains my precious allies let me down — but what will you tell your bitch mistress, hey?”

    “An excellent question.” Harlich took care to conceal his relief at Tolgrim’s implication that he still had a future in which to report.

    “Aye, she won’t be any too pleased, I’ll wager.” Tolgrim seemed to find grim satisfaction in the thought. “Well, we’ll set you ashore near Belhadan as we promised, and it’s glad I’ll be to see the back of you!”

    “Thank you, Captain,” Harlich said carefully, “but I feel we’ve let you down badly. I’d rather see you all safely home with the wizard wind, lest more difficulties befall you. After all, your captains and the Baroness have been good friends for many years. I’d like to do what I can to preserve that friendship.”

    “You would, would you?” Tolgrim’s eyes gleamed. “I’m not so sure that would be wise. The Council might not be so understanding as I am. They might be almost as dangerous as yonder wizard.”

    His thumb jerked at their wake.

    “Of course the Council will need an explanation. That’s why it might be to your advantage to take me along. My word that you were misled — by mistake, of course! — and that you did all any man could do to save the day, might bolster your own position, I should think.”

    “Might it now? And in return?”

    “You might extend hospitality to a poor weary wizard for the next . . . shall we say four months?”

    “Four months, is it?” Tolgrim tugged his beard. “So you reckon it’ll all be over by then, do you?”

    “Over?” Harlich looked blank. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

    “Of course not. Of course not.”

    Tolgrim tucked his thumbs into his sword belt and rocked on his heels, studying the wizard. He still didn’t care for this Harlich above half, but it was true another’s words might stand him in good stead before the Council.

    “All right, Wizard,” he said abruptly. “I’ll take you, and if I keep my head and you keep yours, I’ll put you up for four months. But not a day longer! And may Phrobus take me if ever I have dealings with you again!”

    “Thank you, Captain.”

    Tolgrim stumped off to pass among his remaining men, and Harlich watched him exchange hand clasps with them, speak to the wounded, and generally set about shoring up his damaged prestige. He’d be busy at that throughout the voyage, for corsair captains depended upon their men’s acceptance for survival. If they lost the power of their reputations, they never commanded at sea again . . . if they were fortunate enough to reach home alive at all.

    And Harlich’s survival?

    He looked out over the sea. Wave Mistress had vanished, for which he was profoundly grateful. He still felt the terrible power of Wencit’s will, and it was nothing he ever wanted to feel again. Counterspells were one thing, but Wencit had shown him a new dimension of the art. It was impossible to invade another’s spell and seize control of it — every wizard knew that — yet Wencit had done it anyway. Harlich shivered in memory, for the wild wizard had done even more. Whatever had destroyed the Shark had been more than the madwind alone, and Harlich had no desire to face Wencit again, whatever Wulfra wanted.

    The Corsair Isles were far from Torfo — far enough to be safe from Wulfra’s vengeance. There was always the bothersome matter of her sponsor, of course, but Harlich suspected that he — whoever “he” was — wouldn’t bother to destroy one of Wulfra’s straying minions. After all, Harlich might prove useful to him one day . . . perhaps one day soon, if Wulfra was unfortunate enough to meet Wencit in arcane combat.

    Of course, Wulfra would feel he’d deserted her, but he could live with that. She wasn’t that much more powerful than he. Even if she managed to come within striking range, he had a better than even chance of surviving whatever she cared to attempt.

    And that, after all, was the point: survival. Harlich recalled Thardon’s eagerness and shook his head. Let Thardon and those like him believe the objective was power; Harlich knew better now. Power was secondary, useless unless a man survived to wield it.

    Three times Wulfra’s servants had clashed with Wencit, and Alwith and Thardon were dead. Harlich had no wish to offer Wencit a clean sweep. Oh, no! If Wulfra wanted the wild wizard dead, let her kill him. Harlich had had enough, and if Wulfra wanted to punish him for that, she could always look them up in the future.

    After four months, say . . . if she was still alive to do it.