Corsair (32 page)

“Are both of you ready?”

Cosyra, rapier in her hand, nodded.

“Ready-ready,” Shenshi said. “More’n ready.”

Cosyra was in a half crouch, moving, careful steps, to Shenshi’s offside. The big man’s blade came up, and he slashed at her, going low. Cosyra jumped back, almost to the rope’s edge, then jump-lunged.

Her blade flicked out once, twice, a third time.

Shenshi yelped, then looked down at his chest, as blood oozed out. There was another wound lower down, just below the first, below his lungs, and a third in the biceps of his sword arm.

Shenshi’s eyes widened, his mouth fell open, and the cutlass clattered down.

“I … she …” and he stumbled forward and fell to the deck, facedown.

There was utter silence on the deck.

Gareth looked at Cosyra, who managed a weak smile. He suddenly and strangely thought he’d never loved her more than at that moment.

The bearded man walked to Shenshi’s sprawled body, looked down at the twin wounds in his back, he knelt, then stood.

“He’s still breathing,” the man announced. “Mayhap he’ll live. Perhaps, magician, you’ll tend to him? He’s not the brightest man we have aboard, but he’ll do in a melee.”

Labala tossed the belaying pin aside, came down the ladder, bent over Shenshi.

The bearded man inclined his head to Cosyra.

“Congratulations, milady. That was as pretty a piece of work as I’ve seen in years.”

He turned, looked up at Gareth.

“Captain, I think we’ve added another corsair to the Company. Perhaps you’ll have her sign the Articles?”

And so Lady Cosyra of the Mount became a pirate.

The paradise of Freebooter’s Island was shattered. The twin forts guarding the channel were blackened ruins, and sunk in the lagoon were half a dozen ships the pirates had left behind on their massive raid. The houses looked as if a giant had trampled them in a rage.

Gareth thought he could smell smoke, but that wasn’t possible. The Linyati had come and gone time past.

“They must’ve used their wizards to track where we sailed from,” N’b’ry said. His expression was stricken, and Gareth remembered what he’d said about the small woman with the boldest eye.

Without waiting for orders the pirates had manned the guns, and the lookouts were scanning the land, looking for attackers, or just a sign of life.

But there was none, until a parrot burst, squawking, from a tree, and everyone jumped.

“Nomios,” Gareth said. “Two boats with a landing party.”

“Sir.”

“And signal to the others to stand by, without entering the passage. Have their guns manned and run out.”

“Sir.”

“Labala,” Gareth said. “I want you with us as well, smelling for any magic.”

The big man nodded.

The plash of the oars was very loud as the boats moved toward shore. The water was still crystalline, the wind still soft, the sands gleaming white.

But the island was dead.

Gareth jumped into the shallows, waded ashore, hand near a pistol in his sling.

Nothing moved except tattered vegetation in the cool breeze.

Here, where the pirate’s market had been, was nothing but waste, the buildings ripped apart or fired. Even the handful of stone buildings above it had been smashed by cannon fire … or magic.

“Hallooo,” Gareth shouted. “We’re friends.”

Echoes came back without reply.

Gareth called again.

“Knoll … Thom … search around the settlement in the bush. Maybe someone’s still alive, still here, and too frightened to come out.”

Tehidy and N’b’ry pointed to men they wanted. Other pirates got out of the boats, pulled them higher on the sand, their keels scraping loudly.

The search parties were about to start up what had been the main “avenue” when an amused laugh came, seeming from nowhere, from everywhere.

Gareth found he was having trouble breathing; he had his pistol cocked and his sword was in his hand.

The laugh grew louder, and the wizard Dafflemere came from behind a tumbled wall of coconut logs.

He was barefoot, and wore tattered pants and, incongruously, an iron breastplate with no shirt under it. He had a cutlass thrust through a rope belt, and, hanging from it, a hunting knife. His beard was longer than ever, but now was a dirty white, boiling in ignored tangles over the armor plate to his belly.

He had an easy smile on his face.

“Greetings, Gareth Radnor.”

“Uh … good day to you, Dafflemere.”

Gareth shot a quick glance at Labala, who was looking troubled.

“No, I’m hardly a ghost,” Dafflemere said. “In the flesh, though it’s been hard keeping it together the last year, or month, or however long it’s been since the bastards took the
Thruster
and put me to the torture.”

“The last we saw of you,” Gareth said, “was hard off the coast of Kashi, sore assailed.”

“Sore, indeed,” Dafflemere said, still sounding amused. “It took three of them to clear our decks, and every one of us was wounded.

“But in the end, they took us.

“And that night, after they’d sailed about, finishing off any of our ships that were still afloat, picking up those of us who weren’t smart enough to breathe water and go to an untroubled doom, then they gave themselves pleasure.

“They rafted their ships, and then vied to see who could give their prisoners the slowest death. They started with the boys, then the men, then the officers.

“It was then I saw the horror that rules them.” Dafflemere shuddered. “Like lizards scuttling about, but huge, reeking of musk and evil.

“They loved, even more than the men or half-men they rule, seeing our pain and death.”

“I saw them, too,” Gareth said.

“One of the Linyati wizards — at least that’s what I suppose he was — bent over me,” Dafflemere went on, “as I lay in chains, and said he knew that I organized the sally against their treasure fleet.

“Myself and you. They wanted to know what I knew of you, and where you were, and I answered honestly nothing, that I’d been busy with my own troubles when the battle was joined.

“But they didn’t believe me, and so they heated their pinchers and prods, and made sure they had their heaviest ropes ready.

“But I fooled them.”

Again, Dafflemere’s laughter rang.

“I escaped.”

“How?”

Dafflemere’s smile vanished, and he looked troubled.

“I do not know. I tell you true, I do not know. All that grows dim, as if I’m viewing myself through a mist, a seafog.

“Someone … something … must have saved me. I don’t know what, or who.

“But when I recollect clear, I was back here, on this island. Time must have passed, for the Slavers had come and gone, taking all who didn’t fight to the death with them.

“I gathered bodies, burned them here on the beach. There was food, and game to be hunted, and all I had to do was wait, for I knew someone, and I guessed it would be you, would return.

“Or else another generation of freebooters would come, for as long as kings and noblemen keep men in chains, there’ll be men to run to sea to find freedom and revenge, and I would help them, as I propose to help you, for my powers are even greater than they were.”

“How did they grow?” Labala said.

“Again, that is something I don’t know. But I can feel the strength within me, biding its time for the moment to strike, in terrible ways the Linyati cannot dream of.”

“I scent you,” Labala said. “But I smell no evil. If you are a demon now, or a spirit in thrall with the Linyati, I think I would be able to sense that.”

“You would,” Dafflemere agreed. “For you’ve always had power, even though it was latent, half-buried; power enough to scent if I was a puppet.”

“But who took you from the decks of that Linyati ship?” Gareth persisted. “Who rescued you?”

“As I said, I do not know,” Dafflemere said, untroubled by Gareth’s prodding. “Perhaps one of my friends?”

He waved a hand at the lagoon, and, suddenly, tentacles came up, thrashing the calm water into white foam and as rapidly vanished.

“Oh yes. I still have my friends,” he said. “And my magic, as I said.

“Now, I would appreciate some food such as I’ve not had for months, food I thought I’d never long for. I want ship’s biscuit, salt beef, wine or beer. Preserved fruit of the north, if there is any.

“I think that was all that kept me from going mad while I waited, dreaming of what I did not have.

“Or perhaps it didn’t stop me from madness. But that doesn’t matter, so long as I am allowed to sail with you, sail with you against the Linyati.

“Perhaps they have stolen my soul, for I sense something lacking within me.

“Or perhaps not.

“Perhaps I am simply mad, and perhaps the Slavers let me live, brought me here and left me marooned, thinking that amusing.

“Perhaps, perhaps.

“But may I sail with you, Gareth Radnor? You owe me a promised favor from times past.

“I can provide my magic … and those creatures I showed you before.”

Dafflemere smiled, but his smile was harsh, showing teeth that might have been those of a shark.

“Yes, Dafflemere,” Gareth said, ignoring the alarmed looks from N’b’ry and Tehidy, as Labala nodded in approval.

“You can sail with us … against the Slavers.”

Somewhat damned impressive,” Knoll N’b’ry whispered, although the Linyati fort was at least a third of a league distant. “I doubt if any of our cannon can elevate enough to reach the fort, let alone break through those walls. What we need is a damned great bombard, which I somehow forgot to pack in my seabag.”

Gareth squashed a mosquito, nodded.

“A master wizard — which I’m not … yet — would have to come up with a bogglin’ spell to break those walls down,” Labala agreed.

Gareth didn’t respond. Making a task seem harder wasn’t a very good way to find a solution.

“Could we just sail into Noorat down the middle of the passage?” N’b’ry said. “Maybe their cannon can’t reach to midchannel.”

“Care to bet our ship … or anyone’s … on that?”

“No.”

The city of Noorat had been built at the midpoint of a great, rocky C in mid-jungle. The land rose to promontories at either side, and on these, stone forts, with thick walls about forty feet high, had been built.

Gareth had begun by spying out the fort on the west side of the bay, now this one.

“How the hells did they get those stone blocks up here? Slave power?” Tehidy wondered.

“Magic,” Labala suggested. “And then haulin’ those big damned guns up after them — what are they, anyway?”

“I’d guess big culverin, which’ll give them range, and maybe some perrier, lobbing high over the bay,” Tehidy said.

Gareth noted, however, that the only direction those cannon were facing was to sea.

The city inside the bay beckoned to Gareth, with warmth, civilization, and, most of all, gold. Gold now, more gold for the taking when this year’s treasure fleet arrived.

“Mmph,” he said at length. “Let’s go.”

“Did you come up with something?” N’b’ry asked, as they slithered back down the knoll and started downhill to where their boat waited.

“I did,” Gareth said. “All I had to do was discard the impossible, and what was left over was what we’ll attempt.”

“Which is only …” Labala asked.

“Preposterous,” Gareth said.

• • •

“I think,” Tehidy said, studying the map, “I’m most glad to be a sailor, instead of an infantryman.”

“My deepest sympathies,” Gareth said sorrowfully. “I deeply regret having to tell you every man not required to keep the ships afloat suddenly shines with soldierly virtues. Or hadn’t you noticed that our bills of lading included packs, canteens, slings, weapons belts, and great clonking boots for all of us, not just the soldiers?”

“Including me, I hope?” Cosyra said. “I’m starting to feel, no offense, like you’re keeping me in cotton batting.”

Gareth hesitated. He was in fact wanting to keep her from harm’s way. Which he’d better not continue, he realized.

“You’ll be marching right in front of me,” Gareth said.

Tehidy studied the crude map again.

“I’m too fat to be doing this kind of thing,” he complained.

“Who isn’t?” Gareth said. “I’ll want you here, on the eastern side. You and Froln will be in command of that landing force, with mates from the other ships to back you up.”

“And you’ll be over here on the west?” Tehidy asked.

“Yes.”

“Having all the fun, while we dance around, diverting the Slavers — and probably getting our asses shot off.”

“I hope so.”

• • •

The pirates had made their approach cunningly, steering well east of Noorat, almost to Batan, then holding close to the coast while sailing along the isthmus. Dafflemere and Labala had cast the most powerful weather spells they could devise; powerful yet subtle, so the wizards of Noorat hopefully wouldn’t scent them out.

Labala swore he’d done no good, but the weather had been ideal for their purposes — hazy and squally, with visibility no more than two or three leagues. Gareth felt a little proud that he’d thought to have the fleet’s sails dyed gray, even though most of the ships’ bosuns had muttered, wanting to at least sail out in perfectly tidy form.

Then he fell into his usual moroseness, going over his intentions, and how the Linyati would inevitably destroy him, again and again. Cosyra noted his moroseness, asked if he was always this moody before action.

“Probably,” he said, remembering other times, other glooms. “I guess it’s my way of praying for luck. If I don’t believe in gods, then not believing in luck would be one way of praying, wouldn’t it?”

“You, sir, are a loon,” Cosyra announced.

Once Gareth had a plan, and it was a little too complex to make him happy, he brought his captains together. The fleet was hidden behind an island, about half a day’s sail away from Noorat.

The ships’ officers muttered for a while after Gareth had finished, feeling they were liable to take far too many casualties in the assault, and that no one who knew anything of battle ever split his forces. But no one could come up with a better way to seize Noorat.