Heritage of Fire Read online

  “They’ve made me Captain,” he said.

  “Wise choice,” said Gerd, watching him, pack slung over one shoulder. “I knew they would.”

  “Don’t be daft. It should be you. Who do you think was giving the orders, down there?”

  “I seem to remember a man with a whistle who looked just like you.”

  Sankey looked up then, and his face was hard. “Whistle, nothing. I wouldn’t have had a clue. It was you telling me what to do.”

  “Don’t be daft yourself, Captain. With all due respect. You've been in the Company longer than I've been alive. And there’s more. While I was staring at that wind-worm like a great useless gowk, you got the Company formed up, ready to face it. That was you. You did that. Nobody else.”

  Sankey shrugged, staring at his helmet again. “That’s the easy part. Form line, facing, spacing. Drill. I’m not sure I can manage all the rest. Archers, for instance. And ships of our own. We're going to need them. We have to actually protect folk now, not just collect from them and buy pirates off with part of it. I don't know...”

  “You don’t have to know all of it, and you know most of it already.” Gerd turned his head to nod at the Charter, still hanging on the wall at the head of his pallet behind him. “In fact, you mustn’t even try to run it all yourself. Says so right there.”

  Sankey shifted his eyes to it. He stood and put his helmet on, and then crossed the gangway and looked more closely.

  “Hang it on the Company office wall, maybe,” said Sankey, after a minute, scratching his chin.

  “I would. And I'd have copies made, so nobody will ever forget about it again.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now I’ve got to go. That Wizard’s Isler will sail with the tide.”

  They shook hands. Gerd walked down to the gatehouse, Sankey with him. There was no fanfare, no guard of honour. But men looked up from their make and mend, and a squad of new recruits, drilling on the square, just happened to be facing him as they went through the salutes. There had been a number of new recruits recently.

  Gerd looked around, heard the waves on the beach calling him, and walked on, down to the wharf, where the ship was ready to take him westward, to the Wizard’s Isle. Him and Alissa. He wondered how much of his decision was made because of that one fact.

  III

  16

  Gerd had thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, that seasickness was like the measles. If you'd had it once, it stood to reason that you couldn't get it again.

  He leaned over the lee rail and heaved once more. It was amazing how much a stomach could hold, he thought afterwards, staring dully at the yield as it went astern in the ship's wake. During the moments when he was actually spewing, he couldn't think of anything at all, of course. The misery was far too intense for thought.

  He waited for the next qualm, dreading it, but almost urging it to come. The sooner he was empty, the sooner the cure could begin.

  Some adventurer, me. I failed to become a Western Knight, so here I am, sailing for the Wizard's Isle, puking my heart up. Towed behind...

  Somehow it made it worse that Alissa wasn't sick. He didn't want her to be sick, of course. On the other hand, he could wish that she were not quite so ... oppressively well.

  The deck heaved again, and so did his stomach. Two Brothers was a Walse trader, longer and leaner than the Nihona, the cog that had brought him to Loriso. This ship had an aftermast taller than the one in front, and she carried a strange-looking sail on it, sort of off-square in shape and set fore-and-aft, hung from a spar Alissa had called a gaff. That sail, logically enough, was called a gaff-mainsail. This ship also leaned further over than the cog, to Gerd's dismay, sailing almost on her side, sending sheets of spray tingling aft. The sea wasn't overly rough, just a long even succession of green swells that the ship rode easily, putting her bows into each one, rising, dipping.

  In a day or so, I'll start to enjoy this, he thought. It seemed like a futile sort of thing to think. Two days of this? An eternity. The true qualm arrived, and he leaned further over the lee rail.

  When the worst of it subsided, he could straighten up. His belly muscles were cramping from the hard usage they were getting. If he stared at the horizon, things were better.

  It was even possible to think during the spaces between qualms. Necessary, in fact. If his guts ran true to form, he'd be feeling better in a day or two, and that would leave a week or more of voyage to go. The Wizard's Isle was nine days' sail, if the wind was like this one, blowing fairly strong. This wind served, the sailing master had said. In fact, it was only a point or so away from being a real soldier's wind. He had said that yesterday, Gerd thought. Sometime before the puking had begun in earnest, anyway.

  Soldier's wind. Apparently that meant a wind that blew steady from a favourable quarter, so that you could set sail on a course direct for your destination and never touch a rope after that. This one wasn't quite that good. It blew from a little east of north, so that it was a little before the ship's beam, and it was what they called a fresh breeze. Apparently the ship could sail somewhat into the breeze, though Gerd didn't understand how that worked. The steersman and the sailing master said they were running almost a point free, though, and seemed to think that was a great thing. Gerd had been a soldier, but he didn't think a soldier's wind would suit him any better. He leaned over the rail again.

  As he straightened up, wiping his mouth, he realised that someone was shouting. He looked about the deck, but everyone was craning their necks, looking up. Gerd followed their eyes, up to where the foresail yard crossed the mast .

  A sailor was standing on the yard, one arm circling the mast. The other arm was pointing to the right of the bows, almost into the wind. Gerd caught a little of what he was shouting.

  "... helms down and come before the wind."

  The sailing master reacted immediately. "Hands to the braces! Wear ship! Lay her on the starboard tack."

  There was an instant rush of feet. Gerd was all but knocked into the scuppers. Seamen hauled at the ropes controlling the yard as the ship's bows turned away from the wind, swinging right around. The big aftersail boomed over. Now the ship's head was pointed in almost the opposite direction - and away from her true course. Still she turned, until the wind was blowing on her port side instead of her starboard. Her mainsail filled again with a crack of canvas and she leaned over the opposite way. Gerd crossed the deck, to be on the lee side for when he had to puke.

  He stood there, bewildered. The captain came running up on deck and heard half a dozen words from the sailing master. A single word in reply sent the latter up the mainmast shrouds, high into the rigging.

  The captain's face was upturned, ignoring the spray. Then the sailing master's shout came from the masthead: "Three of 'em. Now they're two points windward of our wake. Setting their topsails and staysails."

  The captain grunted. He cupped a hand around his mouth. "Hands make sail! Shake out the reefs!" And to the steersman, "Bring her up. Full and bye."

  Men ran up the ratlines and out on to the yards. The gaff was hauled higher up the mast as the brails puckering the sail were released and the sail was let out to its fullest extent. The ship leaned further over, digging her bows more sharply into the next wave. White water came crashing over the weather bow. The whine of the wind in the rigging lifted half a tone in pitch.

  "What is it? What's going on?"

  Gerd turned, holding on to the foremast shroud. It was Alissa. She had come up on deck from the booth she occupied below, and was leaning easily into the wind, her hair whipping around her face.

  "How should I know?" he asked. The wind made it necessary to shout. "They've seen something, down that way." He gestured towards the ship's wake.

  Alissa had been brought up on an island where everyone lived in sight of the sea. "We've worn around," she said. She glanced at the sun. It was early morning, and the bows were pointing not far away from the summer sunrise. "We've heading nor'east, m
aybe north-nor'east, high as she'll point on the starboard tack. Walse is almost due west, and the wind would serve for it, just about." She swung around and stared past the stern. "So we're running away from something. Something that was across our course. Waiting on the right sun-height for trade heading west for Walse. Just our luck they were to weather of us as the sun came up." She looked at his face. "With the wind blowing from them to us, I mean."

  Gerd straighted up. His hand had been on his belly. Now it dropped to his sword-hilt. "Raiders?" he asked.

  She nodded. "For sure. Can't see their topsails from the deck yet." She considered the sea and the force of the wind. "On the other hand, probably we never will. There's no way a Kihree longship could catch us on a bowline. We must be weathering on them by a good point and a half true, maybe more."

  "What does that mean?"

  Alissa almost sighed. "We make less leeway. The wind is pushing us down to leeward less than them. Longships are shallow-draught - fine for running up on to beaches and getting into small coves, and it helps them to fly before the wind - but shallow draught gives them less grip on the water. That's why we've come full and bye - pointing up into the wind. To intercept us on this course, they've got to bring the wind abeam of themselves. So now the wind's on their sides, and with their leeway they're being blown down past us. They can't point up much higher, either, with their square sails and shallow hulls, and if they do, they'll just lose speed. Once we get to windward of them, we'll tack, most likely, and then we'll just walk away from them, upwind. When we've sunk their sails below the horizon, we'll go back to our original course, only by then we'll be far to windward of them, and they'll never claw their way back. We'll have sailed around them, sort of."

  She seemed confident, but Alissa was wrong, for all her sea-lore. A half-hour later, one, then two, then three beads of white broke the rim of the sea, one after another.

  "I thought you said they couldn't catch us," called Gerd.

  Alissa glanced down at him. She had climbed the windward shrouds, and Gerd himself had been asked to come to the windward side of the deck. Apparently it helped to have as much weight on the windward side as possible. At least the seasickness had subsided. Having something else to think about was the trick.

  And there was something else to think about, for certain. Alissa's face showed only puzzlement. "I don't know how they're doing it. Topsails cut very shallow, and square rig, except for a single staysail. Those are longships, all right. But the wind's wrong."

  Gerd squinted up. "What do you mean, wrong?"

  "The wind they've got isn't the same as the wind we've got. It's different by a whole point, at least. More. It's forward of our weather beam, for us. For them, it should be full on their sides, as I said, but it's still on their quarters, so they're still coming downwind, their best point of sailing. They're making far better speed, and holding their course to intercept."

  Gerd worked the figure out in his mind. Alissa was saying that the wind was blowing in two different directions at once. "That isn't possible."

  She jumped down. "They could be bringing up a change in the breeze. Sailing in a flaw." She looked around at the deck. The whole crew were standing by the braces, waiting to haul up when the change arrived. But the wind blew steady, as it had done all along, a little east of north. Alissa shook her head.

  "You don't think so, though."

  "I've never heard of a wind doing that. Not this sort of wind. A fluky, gusting sort of breeze, maybe. Not like this." She stared at the Kihreean topsails, now visible from the deck. Every now and then both pursued and pursuers lifted to a wave, and their large square mainsails would show for a moment. Even Gerd could tell that they were set at a different angle from their own. "It's uncanny," Alissa added, after a moment. "It's as if they've got a wind made to their order. And it's no use coming before the wind ourselves. Downwind, they're faster than we are."

  Gerd frowned. "So they're catching us."

  Alissa looked over the stern rail, to the sails lifting ominously over the rim of the world. It was possible now to see the red tiger-stripes on them, and the long curling drakka banners at the mastheads. "Yes," she said.

  Gerd turned without a word. He went below, roused out his mail shirt and helmet, and put them on. He strapped his sword and dagger on over them. He was missing a shield - but that, as Mannon had told him long before, was Company stores.

  When he came on deck again, the Kihreean sails were closer. Now the long low hulls could be seen on the lift of the waves. A twinkle of metal reflected back. The sun was well up now.

  Alissa glanced at him. "That armour'll only drag you under, if it comes to that."

  Gerd shrugged. "We're three days' sail from land," he said, simply. "I can't swim, anyway." He looked around at the crew.

  Some of them had weapons, at least. The captain and the sailing master wore short swords, and the seamen carried dirks or hatchets and small round shields. Some even had bows, but the Kihree would be four to one, at least, and ...

  Bows. "Have you got your... device?" asked Gerd, suddenly.

  "Below," said Alissa.

  "Get it."

  She shrugged. Clearly she thought it irrelevant. She has reason, thought Gerd. It's so slow to load. She might pick off one or two, but it's never going to stop them. Still she stepped back from the rail and dived down the hatchway. A few moments later she was back, the bow and case in hand.

  "You sure you want to annoy them worse?" she asked, getting out the winding-tackle.

  Gerd heard again the words of Corporal Sankey... the crews were butchered like sheep. "I want them as annoyed as possible." He looked around. At least the Wizard's Isle seamen were in no doubt that it would make little difference whether they resisted or not. They were bringing ballast stones up on deck, and heaving some in a net to the masthead, to fling down into the longships as they came alongside.

  And the Kihreeans were closer, still carrying that uncanny wind, the wind that favoured them alone. Gerd watched with foreboding as they closed. A few more minutes, and he could actually see the jut and twinkle of weapons on their decks. They were crowded with men.

  He shaded his eyes. Crowded, yes - but only for three-quarters of their length. Aft of that...

  "Look there," he said to Alissa. "That's not how I remember the longships I've seen. Look at the back end of them."

  Alissa winced at the expression, but she squinted. "They've got a sort of sterncastle. Well, a piece of upper decking, aft. That's unusual, yes, for a longship. It'd make its leeway even worse than usual. Might even make it unstable on a reach, with the wind abeam. I wonder why."

  "How are your eyes? It looks to me like there's only one person standing on it."

  She stared. Then her head cocked, puzzled. "Yes. That's odd. The crew are all crowded forward. That must be the captain, I suppose. Got a whole piece of deck to himself... but why? The tiller must be below. Protected, maybe, but that's very awkward. How does the steersman see the sails? And there's nobody to tend the braces, aft. If the wind shifts..."

  "They're certain that the wind isn't going to shift." Gerd's voice came out flat and sure. "And that isn't the captain." He stared again. "Did you ever see seamen carrying on like that? And dressed like that?"

  The nearest longship was close enough now to make out details. The figure on the afterdeck was standing, arms outstretched, back arched, as if about to take flight. The others ... yes, they were the same. All three were wearing long robes, sky-blue, hooded. Then they all moved at the same moment, almost as if dancing. They curled into a dramatic crouch, then extended again. A puff of ... smoke, powder, something... was flung up from their outstretched hands, and carried away on the stiff breeze. In the wrong direction.

  Something Gerd had heard once floated up to the surface of his brain. Lorisoans, weather-mages all.

  Well, Lorisoans weren't. They knew the patterns of the weather, the lift and scend of the sea, the doings of the winds. He glanced again at Alissa.
She had her bow wound up and was placing a bolt on the slide. Nothing magical about that, thought Gerd. Not about the bow, nor about the weather-lore of the islanders.

  But just because they weren't weather-mages... did that mean that nobody was?

  He stared across the narrowing water at the nearest longship, at the afterdeck and its occupant. He could hear nothing, for it was still several hundred paces off, but he saw the large gestures, the puffs of coloured powders being flung into the wind, the dramatic swirl of the cloak.

  "Come on," he snapped, and Alissa found herself following him to the weather side of the stern rail.

  Here stood the captain and the steersman, staring upwind, despair and incomprehension on their faces. They hardly moved as Gerd pushed past them, and he made a space for himself and Alissa by the rail.