An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat (38 page)

The third
Vengeful Dragon
story, published here for the first time.

A cold steel sea rolled in, poised, hurled itself against lead-colored rocks, exploded in a wall of silver froth, geysered toward a pewter sky. Chill mists raced inland, dampening ruins. A bitter wind tumbled ragged leaves around fallen buildings, sometimes humming like a giant unable to carry a tune. Here, there, scattering the dust of ages, it uncovered a fragment of mirror. Such shards freckled the dead city with points of light. At the heart of the ruin it gnawed a mound of sand supporting a heap of fallen masonry. In time, that heap collapsed.

Gray shadows moved through the gray city, beside the gray sea, under the cold gray sky. Where a fragment of mirror flickered, shadows gathered. Where the mound had fallen the revealed glass stood like a window into which shadows peered at another world.

The mirror reflected a city full of intercourse and commerce. The people there were not human. Their skins were a sallow, fish-belly color, tinged with olive-green. Their heads were vaguely snakelike.

The sun continued its westward course. Gray deepened into darkness.

The cold black sea rolled in, poised, hurled itself against rock like polished jet, exploded in a wall of luminescent froth, geysered toward the ink dark sky. The bitter wind scattered the mist, now so cold it formed films of ice. Mirror fragments glowed more dully. Behind the groan and hum of the wind a sound rose like that of a bell ringing. No, like a hammer striking an anvil, slowly, steadily, louder and louder.

A bell rang.

How long? Days? Half of eternity? Light and darkness alternated, approximating days. I did not keep track. I stood on the ship's poop, leaning on my bow, an everlasting statue.
Vengeful Dragon
drifted in lazy circles inside a changeless dome of fog.

The bell rang again.

Fifty-eight stone-still bodies lay scattered across the decks of the weathered caravel. She had been here long enough for moss and seaweed to cover her sides, climb her lines, and blanket the obsidian sea surrounding her.

Why was I noticing? I should be in mental limbo, staring fixedly across
Dragon
's decks at nothing. Time should have no meaning. We were immune. We had paid time's price already, condemned by savage gods.

A bell rang once more, faintly and far away.

Something had changed. Something had wakened me. Something had shaken the hourglass and gotten the sands moving. Ah, no. Not again.

A clump of darkness lurked by the mainmast, no fatter than two fists held together. It had been there for as long as I could remember. And
Vengeful Dragon
was an old, old evil, having sailed the western sea, pirating, captained by mad Colgrave, for how long? Centuries, possibly. Till a great sorcerer banished us to this limbo in mist.

One last featherweight hint of the song of a bell.

Once, something recalled us. Rather than be used, we destroyed it. We lost crew, including the grand old madman himself. Colgrave passed command to me. I took
Dragon
to sea . . . . And . . . . Lightning struck. And we came back here. To the mist.

In those days I thought that lump of shadow served the creature who called us up. But that monster was extinct. And the shadow remained.

Now it spun like a pinwheel, tossing off dark sparks. Its center opened. Nothing shown through. Neither darkness nor light, color nor its absence.
Nothing.
The opening grew.

Nothing
hung, sensed more than seen. Fear rattled me. I couldn't move, not so much as an eye.

Could they not let us be? Could they not learn? The world was a better place with us imprisoned. We were great devils, so wicked that the gods themselves had bound us to this ship for all time, in a vain pursuit of redemption.

Dragon
shuddered. She rocked. Her bows turned. She was trying to get under way, I shrieked in the asylum of my mind. She shuddered again, trying to break the grip of motionless water thicker than cold molasses. A violent surge toppled me.

I could hear. I did not like what I heard. Boots with iron heels, down on the main deck. I heard them click on hard planking. My crew knew better than to scar the decks.

How did somebody get aboard? We were far from the world, halfway between Heaven and Hell.

A breeze fluttered the sails. Not good.
Dragon
could tear herself apart if she hit winds without a crew to tend her.

Crew. I assumed the men were as aware as I. Which meant they saw what was afoot down there. What did they feel? Fear? Hope? Rage? Most likely that.
Dragon
was always moved by rage and hatred. We were filled with those emotions in life.

I strained with all my will, trying to move. Nothing happened. Rage shook me. I hated the cloud that had quickened me, wanted to destroy the thing that had come onto my ship without my invitation.

A foot settled on my shoulder, pushed. Sprawled me on my belly. Someone took my bow. I raged. My bow meant everything. She was heart and soul of me,
was
me . . . . Hands dipped under my armpits, hoisted me, carried me to the rail, dumped me against it, upright.

Now I could see.

This sorcerer was less human than the last. It looked like a man in a fake fish skin, baggy and ill-tailored, wearing a snake's head mask.

Nothing like this existed in my world. Not even in myth or legend.

The wind in the rigging hummed. The sails snapped angrily. We might lose them. They had been up however long we'd been imprisoned in the fog.
Dragon
's bows began to rise and fall. She was entering a living sea. I became queasy. I am one of those sailors who never gets used to the roll of the deep.

The mist thinned. I could do nothing but stare ahead. Fish moved in and out of sight as he took weapons from the men. A sudden, sharp pain suggested his motive. We were recovering.

The fool! All sorcerers are fools. Why would he feel secure if he took our weapons? This is
Vengeful D.
He must not have done his research.

Right then I would have tortured him cheerfully, just to hear him scream. I wanted somebody to hurt more than I did.

The sky ahead showed no hint of color. I caught glimpses of the water. The seas were running tall enough to wear white feathers in their hair. They were gray and cold. The wind, too, was chilly. I had that much sensation. I began to shiver. Straining, I forced my eyes shut. I opened them again, then concentrated on wiggling my fingers.

Fish was on the forecastle deck, collecting Little Mica's toys. Mica was looking my way, awareness in his eyes. I blinked. He replied with a blink of his own.

I used the roll of the ship to help me topple onto my belly. I closed my eyes and sought that reservoir of stubborn determination Colgrave had been able to tap at will. I brought one hand forward, then the other, shifted each leg. I pushed off the deck, stared at Fish.

He stared back, startled. I grinned demonically.

Inch by inch, I moved to the taffrail, lifted one hand slowly, grabbed. I dragged myself up. My left hand drew a boot knife the creature had overlooked. He had not bothered to search me.

Not smart. I flopped on my belly, over the rail. Fish did not understand how dangerous we were. He would be taught.

Somebody groaned down on the main deck. Lank Tor, the ship's boatswain. Heaven couldn't help Fish if he got close to Tor. Tor existed to kill. And had not fed his need for an age.

Fish started to climb down from the forecastle. Behind, Mica pulled himself upright. He produced a throwing knife missed by the intruder.

Standing, I could see most of the men. They were stirring, eyes wide and white, features twisted. Fish's chances looked slim. Eyes tracked him, smoldering. Somebody would make a move soon.

Fish came up the poop ladder in a hurry. He asked something in a language I did not understand. I grinned again, thinking about the doom gathering behind him.

He moved to the rail where I would look at him. He spoke again in that unfamiliar tongue. I sneered. He shifted to badly accented Itaskian. "You are Bowman?"

I did not respond.

His features twisted. His expressions were not human. This would be anger or frustration. He pointed a finger with too many joints. Darkness crackled around his hand.

Pain slammed through me. I staggered, groaned.

"You will answer. Are you Bowman?"

"Yes." Softly. And flicked my gaze to one side, betraying a hint of a smile.

Startled, he turned.

I stuck a knife in a kidney. Or where a kidney would be in a man.

Fish squealed. He jumped two yards, spun to face me. He reached back, withdrew the knife, stared at it momentarily, looked at me, faced forward.

Men were headed for the poop. The Kid and Lank Tor were on the ladders already. Kid had a knife between his teeth. Tor's was in his belt. The rest all had steel ready to do death.

Fighting pain, Fish flipped my knife overboard. He gobbled in that weird tongue.

So I got out another knife. I would rush him when Kid and Tor reached the heads of their ladders. Fish bit his last few words like they were enemy flesh. My knife began to hum. It got hot. I held on and started toward him.

A turnbuckle on the mainmast gave way. Rigging pulled loose. A yard came free and fell, tearing lines as it dropped.

The fool sorcerer wanted to disarm us using a spell that impacted iron. Iron and magic do not mix well. The ship had begun to fall apart around him. I laughed. "Standoff. Unless you don't care if you go down with us." He might
be
a fish.

He glared, hating. That was mutual. More so than should have been even with such as we, who hated all existence. Who wanted to rest in the surcease of our foggy limbo. He looked, then leapt over the rail, dropped to the main deck, hastened forward to the forecastle as Mica descended the other ladder. From the forecastle deck he planted a boot in Mica's face.

The crew surged after him. Knives flashed through the air, did no harm. The men failed to climb the ladders. Fish was more agile than they. He bounced from one ladder to the other while trying to find a spell to control us.

I was amused.

The weather worsened. I gathered Tor and Toke, my First Officer, at the base of the stern castle. "We have to mend that rigging. And get a proper spread of canvas on. We don't want to lose our sheets and the rest of the rigging."

Grumbling, they went to work. They were good sailors. We all are. We've had ages of practice.

A dozen men formed a skirmish line facing Fish. The rest worked ship. Our visitor was determined to interfere.

Mica reached the poop. "Take the helm," I said, before he told me what was on his mind. My stomach gnawed at me. A seasick captain. That's something.

After half an hour
Dragon
was riding the seas well enough, considering. Mica asked, "What're we gonna do?"

"About what?"

"Everything."

"Repair the rigging. Get rid of that thing up forward."

"And then what?"

"I don't know then what. Not yet."

"Consider the fact that he's not in this all alone."

"What?"

"Stands to reason, don't it? If he was good enough to get here on his own, and wake us up, on his own, then he ought to be good enough to keep us in line. He isn't. So somebody sent him."

I looked at the creature, there on the forecastle, watching us watching him. He seemed diminished, though not yet frightened. Mica was right.

The seas were running higher. I decided we would put out a sea anchor, reef back, and run with the wind. No point doing much else till dark came and the sky cleared enough to take star sights. I had to know where we were before I could make big choices.

I called the Kid. "Kid, you see what he did with our weapons when he took them?" I figured it was a good bet he hadn't disposed of them. Nobody would call us up without having a use for us. And we were useful only one way. To deal death and destruction. For that we needed arms.

The Kid shook his head. "I was facing the wrong way."

"Take Maggot and Hengis and Sharkey and search the ship. I want my bow."

The Kid grinned, glanced at our visitor, grinned even more. That little bastard was nasty. "Just wing him, eh? We could have some fun, then."

Mica and I exchanged glances.

The Kid found the weapons. I chose not to bend my bow. The seas were running taller. Day was fading. Chill spray made the weather decks misery incarnate. For Fish it was worse.

As the temperature fell he became sluggish. I recalled snakes and lizards from my life on land. All slow in the cold. I gave orders to stand easy and wait on nature.

We moved at midnight. Our vitality was almost wholly restored. Even so, he handed out bruises enough to go around. He tried spells that threatened to rip
Dragon
apart. Each failed because somebody broke his concentration by pounding him.

We tied and gagged him and threw him down on the main deck. Tor went down to the galley for coals and an iron rod. Got to have proper tools to do a proper job. Toke got the men working up forward, making repairs and adjusting sail.

The seas were running no higher. We were not in the trouble I had feared. Still, they kept me seasick. My temper was short.

Toke drew me aside. "We've got a problem, Captain."

"Such as?"

"She won't answer the helm."

"Eh? But Mica's been . . . ."

"Steering a course somebody wants steered. Running with a wind taking us somewhere. I tried to bring her around, to see how she'd handle. I couldn't force her more than a point off the wind."

I scowled. Though it was dark, I could tell by the way
Dragon
rode that the seas were shifting to our portside, so that she yawed and rolled as well as pitched. Which would be why Toke wanted to turn off the wind. To keep our bows into the seas. "Do the best you can. Maybe we can convince our friend to help."