Master of Whitestorm

I

THE GALLEYS OF MHURGA

JOSTLED FROM
sleep by the bang of a fist against the beechwood oar which pillowed his head, Haldeth started upright, muscles tensed reflexively. But the command he expected never came; no guttural shout followed to transform the night into a misery of hardship, rowing against endless ranks of sea swells. By the dim fall of moonlight through the aft oarports, Haldeth surveyed the lower deck of the galley
Nallga.
Every slave remained hunched and still over his loom, but one. The blow which roused him had not arisen from his Mhurgai masters, but from his own benchmate, in a useless fit of rage.

Annoyed himself, Haldeth forgot tact. “Mind your temper!” he whispered urgently.

The man at his side looked up. Confronted by gray eyes and a face which held no trace of laughter or compassion, Haldeth felt his breath catch in his throat. Gooseflesh chilled his skin. Although the air was tropical and mild, he shivered and glanced aside, reminded of the first night his benchmate had been dragged on board. As a battered, soot-streaked captive not yet past his seventeenth summer, that savage look had been with him then, graven upon young features by the atrocities of the Mhurgai who routinely pillaged and burned towns on the shores of Illantyr. But who he was, and what family he had owned before he was chained for the oar, Haldeth never knew. The boy had grown to manhood in stony silence.

The Mhurgai called him
Darjir,
sullen one, for the flat, unflinching glare he returned when anyone addressed him. No man heard him speak, even through three years of abuse on
Nallga’
s
lower deck. Haldeth believed him insane.

The cruelty of the Mhurgai could drive the strongest mind to madness, Haldeth well knew. Soured by bitter memories, he shifted a foot cramped by the bite of the galley’s floorboards. Even now, he suffered nightmares of his wife and two daughters; they had been butchered before his eyes the day his own freedom was lost. Daily he cursed the smith’s constitution which bound him to life and health, for other than hair turned prematurely white, seven years as a galley slave had changed him little. Haldeth envied Darjir’s witlessness. Better to feel nothing than to endure the ache of grief and hatred, helplessly chained.

Sleep alone afforded respite. Determined to take full advantage of the hours
Nallga
would remain at anchor, Haldeth leaned once more across the oar and settled his head on crossed wrists. Darjir’s eyes followed him restlessly, luminous as coins in the moonlight.

“Neth Everlasting!” Haldeth lifted a resentful fist to emphasize his meaning since words were wasted effort on a man never heard to utter an intelligent sound. “Bother somebody else, will you?
I’ve had enough.”

Darjir flexed callused fingers against the oar. Then he lifted his head and spoke with sudden, startling clarity. “I’m going to get off this hulk.” His tone cut like the wind’s edge in winter.

Haldeth gasped. Shocked, he took a moment to react.
No man escaped the bench of a Mhurgai galley alive.
Attempts earned agonizing punishment, and since by custom the fate of the offender would be shared by the slaves surrounding him, a man dared not trust his fellows. Through three centuries of marauding, the Mhurgai held no record of slave mutiny;
Nallga
made an unlikely choice for exception. Caught by an involuntary shudder, Haldeth shook his head. “Be still!”

Darjir moved his ankle. A dissonant rattle of chain destroyed the night silence.
“I’ve
had enough.”

“Quiet, fool!” Haldeth felt fear, cold as the touch of bare steel against his neck. “The forward oarsman will kick in your ribs if he wakes and hears you.”

“I was named Korendir. And I’m getting off.” The words left no chink for argument.

Haldeth abandoned the attempt. Nervously, he surveyed the forms of the surrounding slaves for any trace of movement. But the lower deck remained peacefully undisturbed, quiet but for the lap of water against the hull. Prompted by reckless impulse, Haldeth met Korendir’s gaze.

“I’m with you.” The steadiness of his voice amazed him. “I’d prefer the knife found me guilty.”

Korendir’s bearded features split into a slow, ill-practiced smile which left the flint in his eyes unsoftened. “I thought you might.”

Haldeth bent once more over his oar, but sleep would not come. Years of suffering had inured him to his fate; he knew in his heart that Korendir’s proposition was nothing but desperate folly. Sweat sprang along his naked back. No mercy would be shown should their plot be discovered; and even if they managed to escape their chains, the Mhurgai collared their slaves with iron. The sea made an infallible warden. Reminded by the ceaseless slap of waves against the hull, Haldeth hoped the water would claim his life. The knives of a Mhurga seaman never killed. They crippled.

* * *

“Bhaka! Bhaka!” Nallga’
s
mate shouted the call to rise from the companionway ladder.

Haldeth roused from an unpleasant dream and knuckled gummed eyelids. Dawn purpled the calm of the harbor beyond the oarport; in the half-light of the lower deck, the unkempt complement of
Nallga’
s
slaves stirred and stretched. The mate strode aft, thick hands striking the back of any man slow to lift his head. Swarthy, round-shouldered, and short, the officer wore no shirt. Scarlet pantaloons were bound at his waist with gemstudded, woven gold; a whip and a cutlass hung in shoulder scabbards from crossbelts on his chest, companioned by a brace of throwing knives and a chased dagger.

Haldeth shifted uneasily. Mhurgai sported weapons like women wore jewelry, even to the four-inch skewers which decorated their earlobes. Conscious of damp palms and a hollow stomach, the ex-smith cursed his impetuous pact with Korendir the night before. Surely as steel would rust, the plan could only lead to grief.

The mate strutted like a fighting cock down the gangway and glowered over the double rows of captives. “Out oars!”

Haldeth moved at his order, one with a hundred men who unshipped fifty oars counterweighted with lead and held them poised over the sea. A deep rumble sounded overhead, and shadow striped the oarports as the upperdeck slaves followed suit.

“Forward, stroke!”

With a drumbeat to set the speed the shafts dipped, shearing
Nallga
ahead against the tide. Chain rattled in the hawse as the deck crew raised anchor, but whether the galley left port for plunder or commerce, Haldeth could not guess. He bent his back to the oar, flawlessly coordinated with the man at his side. Korendir’s face remained as expressionless as ever beneath his tangled bronze hair. Except for the memory of his given name, the plot and the promise exchanged in the night might have been hallucination caused by too many years of confinement.

* * *

By noon the air below decks became humid and close. Sweat traced the bodies of the rowers, and the waterboy made rounds with bucket, mug, and a sack of dry biscuit. Haldeth chewed his portion, resentfully watching the mate dine on salt pork, beer, fresh bread, and grapes, provisioned at
Nallga’
s
last port. Though the man’s eyelids drooped, his ear remained tuned to the oar stroke; not even the lethargy of a full stomach would lighten his whiphand if he caught a lagging slave.

Korendir paid the mate little mind. He pulled his end of the oar one-handed and flicked weevils from his biscuit with a cracked thumbnail. Though bugs invariably infested the entire lump of hardtack, he never overlooked one. Haldeth endured the extra weight of the loom without complaint. Bored to the edge of contempt by Korendir’s fussy habit, he nearly missed the discrepancy even as it happened: his benchmate passed up an obvious cluster of insects and raised the biscuit to his mouth.

Korendir tasted the mistake the moment he bit down. He choked, and with a swift, thoughtless gesture, thrust his face through the oarport to spit over the gunwale.

Haldeth tightened his grip on the loom. Should a wave dislodge the oar from its rowlock, Korendir risked his neck and head to a hundred and twenty pounds of leaded beech shoved by water with an eight-yard mechanical advantage. Haldeth cursed and leaned anxiously into the next stroke. More than once he had seen slaves killed by such carelessness.

Korendir ignored the danger. He emptied his mouth with unhurried calm, then executed a pitched imitation of the captain’s gruff voice. “Alhar!” Deflected by water, the shout seemed to issue from above decks. “Get topside, thou son of a lice-ridden camel tender!”

The mate flinched. His sallow features suffused with rage, and weapons, mustache, and tasseled pigtail quivered as he sprang to his feet and stamped the length of the gangway. Haldeth felt his heart pound within his breast. But the mate passed without glancing aside, even as Korendir withdrew from the oarport, stupidly intent upon his biscuit.

“Great Neth,” murmured Haldeth. Perspiration threaded his temples. The Mhurgai language was not a tongue readily mastered by foreigners; Korendir’s ruse indicated painstaking forethought. Yet however well planned his intentions, Haldeth perceived no advantage to be gained through a trick upon the mate. The man was notoriously bad tempered; his unpleasant mood would shortly be vented upon the hapless backs of the slaves.

Korendir finished his meal. He licked his fingers and returned his hand to the oar, apparently unruffled by the raised voices abovedecks. Between strokes, Haldeth caught fragments of the mate’s protest, clipped short by a bitten phrase of denial; the captain had summoned no one on deck, far less attached insult to such an order. He dismissed the mate amid startled laughter from the crew. Since gossip thrived on shipboard as nowhere else, the unfortunate officer immediately became the butt of spirited chaffing. Haldeth knew even the waterboy would smile at the mate’s idiocy before the incident was forgotten.

Shortly, the red-faced and furious mate stamped down the companionway. Braced for trouble, Haldeth glanced at his benchmate. Korendir never flicked a muscle. His mouth described as grim a line as ever in the past, even when the mate ordered double speed from the rowers with vengeful disregard for the heat.

The drumbeat quickened.
Nallga’
s
oars slashed into the water. Waves creamed into spray beneath her dragon figurehead as the full complement of her two hundred slaves bent to increase stroke. Faster paces were normally maintained only to keep the slaves in battle trim; today, the drill extended unreasonably long. Soon the most seasoned palms split, blistered and raw, and each stroke became a separate labor of endurance. Blood pounded in Haldeth’s ears, cut periodically by the crack of the lash as the mate laid his whip across some unfortunate laggard’s back. With lungs aching and eyes stung blind with sweat, he reflected that Korendir’s fellow captives would pound the life from his body should they discover him responsible for the mate’s ugly mood. Yet the man himself bore the agonies of exertion with impassive lack of regret.

The mate’s fury did not abate until the waterboy arrived with evening rations. Sensible enough to recall that unfed slaves made slow passage, the officer restored his whip to his belt and at last slackened the pace. Beaten with exhaustion, Haldeth dropped his head on crossed wrists. Since the evening meal was more lavish than that served at midday, the slaves ate in shifts, permitted use of both hands. But like Haldeth, most of the men were far too winded to eat. Still irritable, the mate paced the gangway, urging them to haste with his whipstock until the night officer reported for duty. Soon after he called the order for rest, heavy sleep claimed the entire lower deck.

Nallga
held course under reduced speed, driven by her upper oars. Midnight would bring a reversal, the lower oarsmen resuming work while the slaves above slept until dawn. The wind blew steadily off the starboard quarter, and the galley’s single, square sail curved against a zenith bright with tropical constellations. Mhurga’s fleet plied south in winter, to avoid the cold, storm-ridden waters of their native latitude. In expectation of mild seas and fair sky, the captain retired below, which left the quartermaster the only officer awake on deck. Phosphorescence plumed like smoke beneath the galley’s keel. The lisp of her wake astern described a rare interval of peace between the frailty of wood and sinew, and the ruthless demands of the ocean.

“Bhaka!
Out oars! Reverse stroke!” The shout disrupted the night like a warcry, its bitten, authoritative tones unmistakably the mate’s.

The lower deck oars ran out with a rumble. Dry blades lapped into water, muscled by a hundred rudely wakened slaves. Entrenched in the long established rhythm of forward stroke, the exhausted upperdeck rowers adapted sluggishly to the change. Chaos resulted.

Slammed by the conflicting thrust of her oars,
Nallga
slewed. Crewmen crashed like puppets against bulkhead and rail. The sail backwinded with a bang which tore through boltrope and sheet. Canvas thundered untamed aloft while the oars crossed and snarled, slapped aside by the swell. Leaded beech punched the ribcages of some rowers with bone-snapping force, and a barrage of agonized screams arose from the benches.