Miya Black, Pirate Princess I: Adventure Dawns (9 page)

"Hello, Sam!" said Miya, kneeling to roughly stroke the dog's head. "How've you been?"

Sam responded to Miya's touch with almost ecstatic joy, squirming under her hand before jumping up a little to alternately lick and play-chew on her hand as she laughed and pushed him away.

"He's such a nuisance!" she said, fondly. "Aren't you? Are you the biggest nuisance of a dog on Clover Island? I think you might be! I think you are!" Miya looked up at Lars. "What have you been doing today?"

"Ah, pottering around town, that manner of thing. Nothing spectacular." There was just a trace of wistfulness in Lars's voice.

"I know what you mean," said Miya, standing. "You didn't see Dad?"

"I haven't seen much of your father lately, he seems to be busy."

"Oh, I thought he would've talked to you about stuff—he's trying to figure out how to deal with this stupid Badger Pete thing, I would've thought you'd be the first person he talked to."

"Well, you know I'm not such a great person for tactics and decisions and so forth," said Lars. "Your father always took the lead in that manner of thing. This is why he is a king now and I am just someone who teaches wilful girls how to wave around a sword like it was not a feather duster."

"I've been squeezing rocks a lot lately, I've been worried and busy but I've still been squeezing them," said Miya. "And you know I've got Dad's sword now, I've been practicing with it—it's much heavier than my old one and the balance is different but I think I'm getting used to it. It's the same kind as yours, right?"

"Not quite, his is—"

"I know, a ROYAL Amician straight sabre, he's so funny about that. So yours isn't?"

"My sword can be
called
a royal Amician straight sabre. But only by those ignorant of the bladesmith's art, of the history of these swords. Only by those who do not treat these matters with the proper respect."

"Wow. You're worse than he is."

Lars laughed. "Some things are important, Princess."

"I know, I know—"

"Now this looks like trouble. Three of the most wilful mischief makers on Clover Island all gathered together in one place. Hello, Knives."

"I was just talking to the princess, saying it's been a while since I saw you, Boots."

Tomas walked down the path to them, stopped beside Miya, and absently leant his arm on her head.

"Dad!"

"It's just such a convenient height," he said, as Miya pulled away and Lars laughed.

"I should have had children," Lars said. "I often think, where do I lean my arm? Sam is too short for it, I know, I've tried."

"Hello, Sam," said Tomas, addressing the dog. "How are you? Still the most beautiful dog on the island? Yes, I see that you are. How about you, Lars?"

"I think probably there are some on the island more beautiful than me," said Lars. "Although perhaps you would be hard-pressed to gather a dozen of them in a room. Also I'm not a dog."

"Oh, of course not. You know me and my trouble, I never could tell if someone was a dog or not," said Tomas. "How have my beautiful yet difficult though certainly not-a-dog daughter's lessons been going?"

"You know her, a mind like stone. Very difficult to chisel anything into it, but once it is there, it is
there
."

Tomas nodded as Miya said 'hey!'.

"Focusing on defence?" he asked. "I think her guards are a little sloppy."

"I'm right here, you know," said Miya.

"I would say her guards are fine, her guards have never been a problem, I think perhaps because some other teacher—not as fine a teacher as myself, but someone that at least knew which end of the sword to hold—spent so many hours hammering certain basics into that solid brain of hers. 'Sloppy' is not the word. You insult both her and yourself by using it," said Lars, his tone half-joking, half-serious. "Her grip, however—"

"My grip's good!" Miya protested. "I squeeze rocks all the time!"

"Grip, grip, grip, you're never going to forget that one time, are you?" said Tomas, with a grin. "I don't know, losing that sword was—"

"The sword that I lost was not just a sword," said Lars. "And I seem to recall, not two months after that time, that my dedication to improving my grip was not so unappreciated, yes? Some matter of a certain person very definitely NOT breaking both legs, because another certain person was able to catch and hold him before falling. And I seem to recall something else, some small matter, so small that it seems difficult to remember exactly the details—I think it has something to do with a person who could never defeat another person. This despite some kind of special royal sword? I'm not sure, my memory is not young."

Tomas grinned again, then he looked down at his daughter. "Anyway," he said. "I've been sent out to retrieve this one."

"Ah. Your captain has spoken," said Lars. "And you have obeyed."

"What?" said Miya. "Dad, I'm fourteen now. I should be able to stay out at least until the sun's gone down."

"Your mother is in a mood, a very ... what's the word ... how do I put this ... Lars, help."

"Protective?"

"Exactly—Lars, I have no idea how, but you always do it—Miya, your mother has been in a very protective mood lately, of the island generally and of you specifically. She's worried you might get kidnapped."

"WHAT?"

"Well, there are pirates around. And they kidnapped Sola's entire village, so we know they're capable of that kind of thing."

"I think it's in really poor taste to make light of that, actually," said Miya archly.

"I agree with the princess," said Lars, mock-appalled. "As does Sam."

"And besides which," Miya continued, "they're not even close to the island yet—"

"Their main fleet isn't. But this Badger Pete's actions so far don't speak to a mindless, directionless thug, I actually think your mother has something of a point here. He might have sent scouts ahead, he might have agents working for him around this area, if he knows the archipelago then he'll know that Clover Island has the largest navy of any of the islands and so represents the biggest threat—"

"You had better go with him," Lars said to Miya. "He's beginning to make sense to me, my experience has been that this is usually a sign of something very wrong happening."

"Mine too," Miya agreed.

"Besides which," said Tomas, "what I've seen tonight also supports your mother's logic. There are some very suspicious characters skulking around the place—no offense, Sam," he said, addressing the small dog seriously, "but you do keep some rather roguish company."

"Roguish," said Lars, with a small sigh. "It has been years since I was called that. Although in truth I don't appreciate it so much when it's Boots doing the calling. I preferred the young ladies of dubious virtue."

"Yes, well, the less said about that the better, I think," said Tomas. "Don't listen, Miya."

"Huh?"

"I think she's safe for perhaps a little while longer," said Lars, smiling. He clapped his hands together once and Sam stopped snuffling at a likely patch of grass, trotting back to his place beside his master's feet. "Good to see you, Boots. Don't make the gap too wide, yes? It becomes difficult to fill."

Tomas shook his head, smiling at his old friend. "I'll try," he said. "It's funny, though, you wouldn't expect it but being a king comes with rather a lot of responsibilities."

"I think we had more fun in the old days," said Lars, with a chuckle. Tomas just smiled at this.

"Come on, Daughter," he said, tousling Miya's short hair. "Let's get back before your mother starts worrying. Take care of yourself, Sam. Tell that master of yours to stop skulking so much, it's a bad habit that'll get him into trouble one of these days."

"He doesn't know what to make of you sometimes," said Lars. "But he seems to think you are a decent sort, and I know better than to argue with a terrier. Good night, Princess. I hope you dream of great adventure."

"You too, Uncle Lars," said Miya, turning back and waving as she walked off behind her father. "See you later, Sam!"

*

Miya had gone to bed as soon as they'd returned home and risen the next morning extra early, hoping to catch her father before her mother rose. Queen Lilith was a notoriously late sleeper so this wasn't exactly difficult, and Miya found her father in the kitchen having an early breakfast.

"Dad!" she said. "Good!"

"Miya," he replied. "No."

"What?"

"No. I know you don't want to hear it, but 'no'," said her father, before taking a bite of his toast.

"I haven't even said anything yet!"

"But I know exactly what it is that you WILL say. And the answer, I'm sorry to say, is no."

"Okay then, mister 'I know everything there is to know about my daughter', what was I going to say?"

" 'Dad, I know you don't want to put me in any danger but I really want to help out and do my part to protect the kingdom, and really you know I'm a good fighter and good on a ship and I'd be a great asset to you, and you need good crew, so really there's no way you can say no, right? Right?'. Something like that."

Rats, thought Miya. "N-no, I wasn't going to say that," she said. "Hah! As if I'd say something like that. Um."

"So what were you going to say?"

"I ... was going to ask you ... about ..."

The sound of a bell from outside interrupted Miya, to her quiet relief. Her father frowned, then got up and went to answer the door, coming back a minute later with a piece of paper in his hand, frowning even deeper.

"What is it?" asked Miya, through a mouthful of stolen toast.

"Badger Pete has sacked Goodport on Triangle Island. Took everything of value, stole every seaworthy vessel and left the port burning behind him."

"Oh no."

Tomas grimaced. "Although I feel awful for saying it, in a way this is good news for us."

"What? Dad!"

"I mean that Triangle Island is not a part of the northern islands, and it's a good distance to the west. I didn't think Pete would go that far out of his way, but now it seems as though he's conducting a systematic campaign of sacking and recruitment ... and enslavement, of course. From Triangle Island it seems likely that he'd attack Blossom Island next, and then the others in that area ... again, though I hate to say it, that puts a good few islands between us and his fleet. We almost certainly have more time than I had hoped, two weeks or more, especially if he returns to the northern islands ... still, to sack Goodport so thoroughly—the message says he attacked with an overwhelming force, but gives no indication to actual numbers."

"You'd think someone would've counted," said Miya.

"You've never been in a battle," said Tomas, "it's not quite that easy. Especially if you're on the losing side."

"Huh."

"This is a third-hand report, passed from a Goodport fisherman who saw the attack to a trader to one of our fishermen ... the attack happened five days ago ..."

Tomas paused a moment, then was suddenly moving, Miya dropping the toast and following him instantly, both of them heading for his study. Once there, Tomas pulled out his map while Miya cleared a space for it on his desk, then they rolled it out, weighed down the corner with some books, and studied it together. Tomas tapped Tonfa-Tonfa with the back of a pencil.

"We know he was at Tonfa-Tonfa twelve days ago," he said. "To get from there to Triangle Island in seven days ... no, let's say six, this Pete seems like a cautious character, he'd take a day to scout out defences, prepare his attack ..."

Tomas frowned at the map for a moment, while Miya looked at him expectantly.

"What?" she blurted out after a few seconds, unable to contain herself. "What's going on?"

"I think he might have stopped at Tonfa-Tonfa—stopped attacking the northern islands, I mean. Maybe just La'asi, and then if he headed west immediately ... if he didn't ... no, not with frigates ..."

Tomas trailed off as he looked at the message again. "It just says 'warships'. Maybe it was brigs ... but even then, even with favourable winds the whole way—he's travelling slower than I had thought."

"That's great!"

"Possibly." Tomas tapped his pencil against his lip for a moment, then scribbled some numbers on a piece of paper, frowned at them, then crossed them out and wrote some slightly higher numbers in their place. He looked at these new numbers a moment, made a few quick calculations, scrabbled through a pile of books to find a small black notebook, flipped through that, ran his finger down a page filled with rows of tiny numbers, found one particular number, copied that onto the paper he was scribbling on, made a last calculation and scrawled out a final figure which he circled.

"What is it?" asked Miya, who hadn't been able to follow her father's last few actions at all. "What was that 'possibly'?"

"I'm not sure."

"Why not? Be sure!"

Tomas chuckled.

"Sorry, Coconut, but we just don't have enough information to be certain about anything."

"Since when has that ever stopped us? Just tell me what you think is happening!"

Tomas gazed at the map for a moment, then nodded.

"Battle fleets effectively travel at the speed of the slowest ship. You have your fast scouts, they go ahead or around or wherever, and you have your big slow warships trailing behind a little, but generally speaking everything has to arrive at the target site all together before you attack. Understand?"

Miya nodded.

"Add to that the greater organisation and communication required to co-ordinate a larger fleet, which always slows things down ... I would say, based on the information we have, assuming it's accurate, that Badger Pete has more ships that I had thought—perhaps a dozen, two dozen. We know he has at least one frigate, from what Sola told us, probably more." Tomas frowned again. "What Sola told us," he repeated, then looked down at the map.

"What?" asked Miya. Her father shook his head.

"It is possible ... if Pete has as many ships as I believe he does ... he may have split his fleet, to attack the islands. I guessed that he attacked Wo'osi first, then Pala-Mala, then Na'alofa and Tonfa-Tonfa. I was assuming he kept his fleet together, had not the numbers to split. But if his fleet was big enough, he could have dispatched a group of ships to take Wo'osi and Pala-Mala, while the other attacked Na'alofa and Tonfa-Tonfa—no, that doesn't work. Sola said that there were people from Pala-Mala and Na'alofa aboard the frigate he boarded, which means it was part of the attacks on those islands—"