The Mark of Ran (34 page)

They ambled away from the dockside toward the busy wharves beyond and the blinding white arches of the sea gates. Men nodded at Artimion as he passed, without speaking. Rol saw respect in their eyes but not a great deal of affection; a far cry from their reception of Gallico, who was universally loved.

Artimion seemed to have read his mind. “Without the support of Gallico you would not have had a single pair of hands at work on that hulk.”

“I know. I’ve always been lucky in my friends.”

“I do not wish to be your enemy.”

“There’s no reason why you should be.”

Artimion smiled. “You put two dogs in the same kennel and one is always going to try to piss higher than the other. You are strutting about Ganesh Ka like some form of royalty, and it sways the weaker minds among us. Were you delicately brought up?”

Rol laughed heartily. “I have been educated in the finer things in life, it’s true.”

“Do not try to jump too high too fast, Cortishane.”

“All I’m trying to do,” Rol said quietly, “is rebuild a good ship.”

“And that you cannot do without my goodwill.”

Rol stopped, and they stared at each other. Again, that momentary contest of wills in the contact of their eyes. Again it was put off, postponed. But it would not be so forever.

“All right, so I’ve been like a bull at a gate about it,” Rol conceded. “But if I know anything, it’s that your little fiefdom here has rough weather ahead of it. The Bionari are sniffing up and down the coast, and have been for months from what I hear. They will find this place eventually.”

“They’ve been looking for it for nigh on a quarter of a century to no avail. Why should they chance across it now?”

“Because you’ve thrown in your lot along with the rebels. You are part of their politics now, and they cannot ignore that.”

“We have always been part of their politics. It was Bar Hethrun himself founded this place, before leaving for his death at the hands of betrayers. And now the woman who purports to be his daughter wants you delivered to her—so you are not above politics either, it seems.”

Rol stared in surprise at Artimion, and finally managed a strangled laugh. “By Ran’s beard, you have no idea.”

“What brought you to the coast of Ganesh?”

“The wind, what else?”

Artimion stared at Rol thoughtfully. “There is a shadow hanging over you, Cortishane. I have heard it said that when one with the Mark of Ran upon him comes to Ganesh Ka it shall be the harbinger of doom for our city. An old sailor’s tale, no more, but even old tales may have the lick of truth about them. I think it best you do not stay here.”

“Are you going to throw me out?”

“I owe you for saving Gallico’s life, if nothing else. No, I will let you stay until you have your hulk made seaworthy in some fashion or other, and then I would have you leave us. You are bad luck.”

“Maybe I am,” Rol said soberly. “But you’ll help me get this ship to sea?”

“I will. You may have the labor of any carpenter or blacksmith you desire, and the run of the storehouses—so long as it does not interfere with the provisioning of our regular vessels.”

“I suppose you cannot say fairer than that.” Rol held out a hand and Artimion shook it, unsmiling.

He was as good as his word. Two good ship’s carpenters, Jon Lorriby and Kier Eiserne, were released to work on Rol’s hulk, and with the news that Artimion himself had blessed its rebuilding, more veteran mariners came trickling to the dry dock to offer their services, for Ganesh Ka had experienced sailors by the hundred, and not enough ships to employ them all. Rol set Gallico and Creed to weeding out the chaff from the real professionals and within a fortnight he had sixty good, thorough-paced seamen on his muster-list and a portable forge had been set up on the dockside to turn out ringbolts, chain, and new rudder-pintles and gudgeons. The carpenters built oak carriages for the sakers, and these were trundled up to the magazine, and the guns bolted upon them. Then the whole contraption was trundled back down again, the wooden wheels squealing with the protest of new wood. But the most delicate business was the getting in of the lower masts. These were massive pylons of heavy timber, the best the Ganesh highlands could provide, the mainmast almost a yard across at its base. Sheerlegs were set up on the dockside and it took eighty men all told to haul on the tackles that lifted these massive yards into place. One false move and the masts would have dropped through the hulk’s bottom like spears, and it took a sweating, cursing, shouting three days to get them in. Once they and the bowsprit were in place, however, she began to look like a ship again. Another two days saw the shrouds, forestays, and backstays in place, and the sluice gates of the dry dock were opened. The ship’s company (for such they had become) stood in a crowd and cheered as the hulk’s keel lifted from the stone and the baulks that supported her hull were knocked away one by one by Gallico, half drowned in foam and rushing water. She was afloat; she was alive again. A ship of black wood, long and graceful as a thoroughbred, and larger than any other in Ganesh Ka. A Man of War.

“Have you thought what you might call her?” Elias asked Rol as they stood in the midst of that cheering throng and watched Gallico haul himself up the ship’s side, his grotesque face all agrin.

“I have.” Rol looked back at the skeletal warrior in his stained armor who had watched over their labors. “We brought her back from the dead with the dead’s blessing, so it’s only fitting that she should be named the
Revenant.
”

Seven weeks after Rol had first clapped eyes on her, the
Revenant
was near ready for sea. Her topmasts were in, a new ship’s wheel had been rigged up to her rudder, and two small cutters were made fast to the booms across her waist. They warped her out of the flooded dry dock to the wharves of the ship-cavern, and over a thousand people gathered there to see her topgallantmasts hauled up and lowered into place with tackles to the crosstrees. She had glass in her stern windows, a good bower and two kedge anchors, and a full load of ballast: piles of rock from some of the more ruinous galleries in the tunnels of Ganesh Ka. Rol, Gallico, and Creed had begged, borrowed, and in not a few cases stolen whatever they needed to fit her out, but they were still critically short on essentials. Sailcloth for one; they had enough for a full sail-plan, but not much in the way of reserves, and what stuff had been bent to the yards was a trifle worn for Rol’s liking. Cordage, also, was in short supply, and there was a lot of twice-laid stuff in the rigging which a full-hearted gale would play havoc with. But the worst deficiency was in gunpowder. Here Artimion’s indulgence had failed. They were allotted six small barrels, no more; enough for one moderate engagement.

“We need a shakedown cruise,” Gallico said, “a week or two at sea, preferably with a bit of a blow to see how the men shape up. And gunnery practice. They’ve all fired ship-guns before, but the gun-teams are new to one another and to the ship—and those sakers are nine feet long and weigh a ton and a half apiece, heavier metal than most will be used to, unless they’ve had a spell on a man-of-war.”

“We’re still thirty men short of complement,” Rol told him. “We could barely man a broadside and sail the ship at the same time.”

“Who said anything about broadsides? Ran’s teeth, Rol, we’re not looking for a fight—we just prowl up the coast a way and take her due east into the Reach, deepwater sailing. We’ve enough food and water on board for a fortnight at least.”

“If we run into a blow, it’ll go hard with us; the running rigging is a hand-me-down cat’s cradle, and I could piss through some of the topgallantsails.”

The halftroll grinned. “Creed is right—you are an old woman.”

They were seated in the captain’s cabin, a beautiful space of white-painted, curving wood with the noise of the wharves rattling in the open stern windows. Several of these had cracked glass, which had been sized to the frames with a liberal amount of putty. One good following sea would burst them through and have the stern cabin flooded. They would have to ship deadlights in anything but the mildest wind.

A cot and a lantern, both hanging by ropes from the deck-head, swayed minutely with the restless movement of the water beneath the keel, for the tide in the bay beyond the cavern was on the ebb, flowing back out to sea. Rol and Gallico felt that small motion through their feet and smiled at each other. There was living water under them again.

“It’s been a long time since I had a deck move below me,” Gallico said.

Rol was about to agree when Creed swung open the cabin door. “Something’s going on along the wharves. Looks like Artimion’s making some kind of speech, and the ships’ companies have all been mustered.”

They went on deck, where their own crew were gathered in a body forward. Rol hailed his carpenter. “Kier, what’s afoot?”

“Bad news, skipper. The Bionari are here.”

Twenty-one

MEN OF WAR

THEY WERE STILL GATHERING BY THE HUNDRED ON THE
wharves. Artimion had piled up a couple of crates and was standing atop them. About his feet stood Miriam and a few of her musketeers. All work had ceased, and the yards of the ships in dock were black with sailors, listening.

“They’re troopships, no more, and their escort is only a pair of brigs,” Artimion was saying, his baritone echoing in the eerie silence of the ship-cavern. “But if they manage to land Bionese regulars onshore, then we are lost. We must meet and destroy them at sea.”

“Two Bionese men-of-war?
Swallow
and
Albatross
and
Prosper
cannot take them alone,” someone shouted, and there was a general murmur.

“You damned fool, how do you think we had word of them? Timian and Gan are out there in their own ships, shadowing this flotilla. The
Osprey
and the
Skua
carry nine-pounders. With their help we’ll take the brigs and sink the transports.”

“How many soldiers in these transports?”

“There are eight troopships in the convoy, so bank on a full regiment, sixteen hundred men.” Another murmur, disquieted and more widespread. Some women began sobbing. Artimion held up his hands.

“They’re still thirty miles out at sea, so if we’re quick we can meet them a good distance from the Ka. There is no reason to believe they know where we are, not yet.”

“Then why embark a marine regiment?” a burly mariner called out. “They’re not on board those troopships for their health.”

Artimion’s face grew grim and closed. “We must sink them all; drown every one of the bastards in the Reach. Not one must get back to Bionar, not one. We do that, and Ganesh Ka’s secret is safe.”

A general growl of approval met this.

“But we must plan for the worst also. We’re clearing the decks and holds of every fishing boat and launch in the Ka, and I want all those not in a ship’s company to prepare to leave the city.”

A roar went up; fear and anger in the wordless chorus of a thousand voices. Once again Artimion raised his hands amid the upcry, and the levelheaded about him began shouting for silence and cursing their more histrionic neighbors.

“Those who cannot or will not find a berth in the boats must take what they can inland, into the hills. When this fleet has been destroyed we will make contact with you as soon as we can. You shall return to your homes, I swear it. I will sink these enemies of ours in the Reach, down to the last man, or I will die in the attempt.”

A stillness fell over all that serried host of men and women. Some were nodding determinedly, others seemed sunk in resignation. A child cried out and was silenced by its mother.

“That is all. We are getting under way now, the men of the ships. May Ran be kind to us, and may Ussa of the Swells watch over us.”

Artimion jumped down from his box and the crowds began to part reluctantly. There was no panic, only a purposeful current of movement. The mariners began filing to their ships, and the decks of the
Prosper,
the
Swallow,
and the
Albatross
were at once crowded with busy men. Rol, Gallico, and Creed looked at one another, and then as one they left the
Revenant
and began forging through the milling throng to Artimion’s brigantine. They caught up with Ganesh Ka’s de facto ruler just before he boarded the gangplank.

“Where do you want us?” Rol asked.

Artimion turned round, eyes bright in his black face. “You are free to leave the Ka without obligation, as we agreed. I do not hold you to its defense.”

“The hell you don’t, Artimion,” Gallico began.

“Ask your captain, Gallico. You are his man now, not mine.”

“We’ll take our place in the line of battle with the rest of you,” Elias said hotly.

“No. I do not want you in it.”

“Why not?” Rol asked. “Surely this is no time to allow personal animosity to sway judgment.”

“My judgment is sound,” Artimion flashed. “Your ship has not even undergone sea trials. You are short in your complement, and your men have not yet worked together under your command—you would be more of a liability than an asset. This is not your fight, Cortishane. Stay out of it.”