Inda (62 page)

Kodl appeared at the top of the rise and exchanged looks with Scalis and Dun. “There are a couple of contests,” Kodl said, “we ought to enter.”

“Like?” Tau crossed his arms, the brisk morning air bringing magnificent color out along his cheekbones, his fine-cut lips curled sardonically. Jeje glanced away, down into the harbor, ignoring Zimd’s knowing snicker.

“The weapons competitions?” Inda said, looking doubtful. “But the prize is so small, and if any of us get hurt—I’ve heard how they cheat—then we have to wait for recovery.”

“Time,” Kodl said, “to measure ourselves against others.”

Niz growled. “Cheat fightin’ is part o’ war on the seas.”

Kodl lifted his hands outward, fingers spread. “Let’s enter a band for the gold bag run.”

They had all heard about this—it was one of the popular entertainments of Freeport Harbor. The biggest ship at anchor was always chosen, or as near the biggest as was willing to trade the trouble of a messy deck for the best anchorage Freeport offered, directly out from the boardwalk. A bag of gold was suspended from the tallest mast; bands of sailors launched in boats from the dock, and the first one to get to the ship, board it, and reach the bag of gold got to keep it. People lined the King’s Saunter, the nearest docks, and the windows of the shops on the other side of the Saunter, laying sizable bets, laughing and hooting and cheering as the boat bands attacked each other on the water, and then as they tried to board, and finally when they reached the decks—those who even made it that far. Real weapons were allowed, though there were supposed to be no fights to the death; about the only rule was you couldn’t use fire. Damage to the contestants was expected, but no one wanted damage to a ship.

Inda said, “But from what I’ve heard they don’t fight so much as cheat. Throwing pepper. Soaping ropes. Twice I’ve heard about people killed, just for a stupid bag of gold.”

Dun hoped the others didn’t hear the aristocrat in Inda’s “stupid bag of gold” remark, the boy who’d come from royal rank who never had to think about money.

“It’s also a hiring test,” Niz said, looking from Kodl to Inda and back again.

Scalis was rubbing his lined cheeks. He added, “We’d be up against some of the toughest privateers. Maybe even that big privateer brigantine down at the south end, if they put up a team.”

Everyone paused to consider that. They’d discovered that some privateers were little more than pirates with a scrap of paper claiming legitimacy—a scrap of paper they couldn’t always prove was genuine. But these were always escorted in by the harbormaster’s ever-watchful fleet, and their captains had to undergo a sweatbox of questions, so gossip along the Saunter said. If permitted to land they were enjoined to obey the rules of Freeport. They had to know that not just Freedom Island’s defense—which used to be a royal navy—but everyone in the harbor would go after them if they didn’t.

Kodl said, “We’d be watched. And also we need that gold. Testhy says we’ve about a week left in our pool. Five days, if we drink anything tonight.”

Several of the men gasped, two or three looking guilty as everyone looked Testhy’s way, and on his nod, back again.

Dun spoke up. “Think of it as a kind of war game.”

Kodl said, “And if we win, we might just be able to use it to get us our first hire.”

Inda said, “But we’re not ready! Not for real warriors.”

“No one’s ready for war except those makin’ it. What we need is experience,” Scalis said, making a spitting motion.

Dun watched Inda, sensing the inner debate: the scrambling drills on the hillside and aboard the hulk would take years to match what Inda remembered of Marlovan standards. Meanwhile, Inda was still a boy. Did he not understand the real issue here?

Niz said to Inda, “Us can’t win against ’em, you mean?”

Inda’s expression hardened, eyes narrow, jaw jutting out, a look Anderle-Harskialdna would have recognized from the morning he tried to persuade Inda to submit to public dishonor for something he had not done and that Fassun saw on the first Restday when he threw the stupid scrub out of his bunk just for laughs and ended up flat on his back, a finger’s breadth from death. Dun had never seen that look before, and once more he wondered what exactly had happened three years ago, on the far side of the world.

“That’s a different question,” Inda said. “We can win against anyone here. Whether we are good enough yet to win against pirates out on the sea is . . .” He opened his hands. “Moreso as we don’t really know exactly how pirates fight.”

Niz just cackled. “Maybe time for practice, yez? No learning like practice, is what us Delfs sez.”

Jeje looked troubled; Tau laughed.

Kodl glanced about with a peculiar air, a familiar air, that brought to Inda’s mind his first glimpse of Captain Beagar walking his ship on Restday. “Let’s make up our band.”

And Inda remembered that he was not in command.

Chapter Eighteen

K
ODL stood on the boardwalk, looking over the competition ship once more, a long, narrow, flush-decked trysail, the bag of gold tied to the top of the mainmast. The ship had been stripped clean fore and aft, and had been anchored at both ends, sails stashed below. It lay alone, stern on toward the boardwalk, which had been built out over the water between two rocky fingers of land, forming a small inner bay.

The competing teams waited along the wall, fingering weapons, some talking and laughing, others exchanging insults, some, like Kodl, studying the ship.

About the only rule the harbormaster’s people insisted on was that the launch boats of each team be the same size, or as close as could be managed, oars only, no stepping of masts. Teams could be as large or as small as competitors wished.

Someone blew a horn, and a man on the balcony outside of the harbormaster’s office roared, “To the dock!”

The teams scrambled toward the pair of stairs leading to the floating dock directly below, where all the launches had been tied up. As the teams ran, the spectators crowded in behind them, lining the boardwalk, elbowing and shoving as enthusiastically for a good view as the competitors did for position on the stairs. As Kodl fought his way down the dock to their launch, the noise rose behind him, spectators howling, cheering, jeering, shouting advice and insults.

Kodl shut them out and flung himself into their launch. The positions had been assigned by drawn lot; they were slightly downwind of the best launch spot, the current against them, but a mild current, near the height of flood tide.

The next boat up had only six people, but all six were huge, brawny, tough-looking privateers bristling with weapons, including suspicious-looking bags and ropes, probably pepper to fling in faces, or soap, or honey.

Well, Kodl thought, turning his gaze away, his band had their own pepper, Scalis had one or two suspicious bags of his own, and they had Kodl’s bag of weapons at the bottom of the launch, which he was now uncovering and laying at the ready: one long staff, assorted knives, grappling hooks, and rope.

The launch on the other side was crowded with an equally rough-looking gang of over a dozen, its rail just barely clearing the water. Their strategy was obvious; to overwhelm the competition by numbers.

Kodl looked at his band as they set their oars and lifted them, Scalis, Niz, Wumma, and Hav leaning forward to get that heartbeat’s extra time. “Remember,” he murmured in Iascan, meeting each pair of eyes. In the other launches, others were also talking, except for the crowded one, where half the crew seemed to be drunk, shouting insults and laughing at their own wit. “Stay with your team, don’t get separated. You older hands be shields for the mids. Watch me for navigation.”

“And you take good care o’ my gear, you,” Scalis growled, pointing at the grappling hooks and coiled rope at Kodl’s feet.

They all agreed, including Inda, who had taken his usual place at bow oar. He had accepted Kodl’s commands without a word of opposition, despite half a year’s command, despite Kodl following his orders for that half year. Inda had never shown any ambition whatsoever aboard the
Pim Ryala
. He had accepted promotion with the same blank-faced sobriety he had accepted everything aboard the ship, never talking about the future or the past. The night after the foiled mutiny Kodl had lain in the captain’s cabin staring at the swinging lamp and thinking back through memory for anything Inda had ever said about his past. Hitherto it had been a subject of no interest; Kodl had noted but not pursued the fact that of all the crew, Inda alone never spoke about his home or previous experiences. Even Yan had let things slip—it was clear he’d been a runaway from the Chwahirsland coast—but as far as Kodl could remember, the single inadvertent revelation Inda had made was their very first winter, when they stepped ashore in Sartor, and Inda had gazed at the signs, exclaiming,
Oh! It’s the modern script!
He’d then shut up and wouldn’t say anything more.

How many knew that Sartor had had another alphabet, utterly different, more than three thousand years ago? Kodl hadn’t. Yet apparently Inda not only knew about it, he could
read
it. What kind of background trained for that? Niz said mage, when they discussed it after the mutiny attempt, but they all shook their heads. Inda had never made the smallest spell outside of the everyday magic they all used.

Kodl looked at Inda sitting at the bow oar, bending slightly to listen to Tau. No ambition—but then he was only fourteen.

The horn signaled the start, and Kodl yelled, “Pull!”

He was echoed by voices from the other boats and from the spectators along the boardwalk, whose roar sent the few seabirds perched along the roof poles of the harbormaster’s buildings flapping skyward, scoldings unheard.

The big launch promptly tried to ram them.

Scalis howled, “
Pull
hard!
Ho,
yah!
Ho,
yah!”

Their arms and backs straining, Kodl’s marines matched rhythm. The launch shot well past not just the big one (followed by drunken insults and invitations for the cowards to return) but past the three launches on their north side.

They matched speed with two others, one of them a narrow, low-riding skiff, captained by a tough-looking, gray-haired woman who kept up a running stream of comments in a language Kodl did not know; as the launches converged on the stern of the ship, he heard her change her tone, and her crew whirled their oars in a well-drilled move. She yanked hard on the tiller, and Kodl saw that they were using their speed to ram them.

Kodl tried to think of a command—he had not planned for attacks before they reached the ship. But then he saw Inda prod Tau, who rose, grabbing up Scalis’ staff from the bottom of the launch. He balanced perfectly, left foot on the rail, right arm cocked back with the staff held like a throwing spear. It
was
a throwing spear, Kodl realized, seeing the long, wicked blade affixed to it.

Tau’s pose, the wind fingering his long golden hair in its four-strand sailor’s queue, the tight pull of his plain sailor’s clothing against what had always been a slim, graceful body and now, after six months of drilling day and night, was as muscular as one of the figures on one of those tapestries found in really rich nobles’ palaces.

“Get ’em Goldenlocks!” The shout, in high, shrill female voices, rose above the clamor on the Saunter.

“Commere, Sweetlips!” crooned the gray-haired captain from the threatening launch. “Come ’n’ wave your stick at me. Tickle my ribs, and I’ll tickle
yours
.”

“Ooh, I’m so scared!” a man cried in a high voice.

“Come closer, let’s see if your prick is as pretty as the one yer holding—” Another man yelled, amid raucous laughter.

Tau made no move for two, three breaths, and then with a single, powerful thrust he drove the spear not into any of the taunting crew, but straight into their launch, just below the water line. Grinning, he jerked it one way, then the other, and yanked it free. The crew on that side instinctively lunged forward, and the laden boat dipped, water surging over the side as the captain screamed, “Backwater!”

Wallowing dangerously, they fell behind. Two tried to stop the hole first with weapons and then their shirts, the others either paddling or bailing as their captain screamed abuse at them, at Tau, and again at her crew. On the Saunter, above the roar of laughter, a woman shrilled, “Go at ’em, Goldenlocks!”

Bump!
They reached the stern of the competition ship just as the other launches did, one on either side. Somewhere behind they heard a roar, a mighty splash, and another shout of laughter echoing off the buildings from the boardwalk watchers as a boat capsized.

Scalis whirled grappling hooks and tossed them up, one, two, three; Kodl sent one fast glance at the other launch to see them doing the same as Inda and the others swarmed up the rope. Kodl was last. Two more boats smashed into their hired launch. Competitors scrambled over it, fighting to get to Scalis’ ropes just as Kodl gripped one.

“Climb, climb!” Niz shouted.

Fingers gripped at Kodl’s ankles. He kicked free, and a surge of strength sent him fast, hand over hand, up the rope. Then Scalis and Niz pulled sharp boarding blades from their waists and cut the ropes, sending the team swarming behind them howling down to smash into the boats or splash into the sea.

Kodl straightened up.
Have to see, have to see, where is everyone, must see
—and pain sent lightning across his vision. Pain, then blood. He half fell, heard an indrawn breath behind him. Someone was raising a weapon again, and this time his well-drilled muscles took over and he whirled, slamming upward with his short staff, not even remembering when he’d pulled it from its sling at his side. The staff broke the descending stroke and angled right past the weapon to clip his attacker on the side of the jaw, the move automatic, the stroke powerful after all that drill.