Authors: Christopher Rowley
"I don't want to hurt anyone, I just, I didn't know. I feel so ashamed."
"Swane boy, he stab you in self-defense this dragon is sure. He not stab you because he want to fertilize your eggs."
With a wrenching sob, Birjit acknowledged the truth, then looked away over the rail. The dragon swung his big head and gazed back at the assembled officers.
"You heard this. Boys innocent completely. This dragon will go back to quarters now."
And as they stared at him, partly in awe, partly in rage, he stepped gingerly down groaning steps to the gangway, and returned to the foredeck and the entrance to the forward hold.
"So there it is, Jak," said Relkin, leaning over the lee rail, gazing off to the land, no longer distant at all. "The end to our voyage."
"I can't wait to get back on dry land. We've been cooped up on this ship for so long."
A line of yellow cliffs topped with brilliant green marched southward, the direction they were sailing. White surf boomed on the reef offshore and a million seabirds were in flight around them. Flocks of gannets and boobies went one way, squadrons of pelicans and gulls another.
"The dark continent, we made it, eh?" said Swane coming over to join them.
"We made it." Relkin's tone carried with it the conviction that they had only just made it, and no thanks to Swane.
Manuel came climbing down from the rigging. Of late Manuel had taken up an interest in sailing and now spent quite a lot of time in the rigging learning whatever he could from the sailors aloft.
"We can see Sogosh and the entrance to the channel through the reef."
"How far?"
"Just a few miles now, we'll be there by noon if this wind keeps up."
They all looked up at the billowing white sails. The wind was light and chancy and had died several times in the past few days as they grew closer to the coast of Eigo, a maddening business for sailor and soldier alike, all eager for an end to the months at sea.
"Let's hope old Caymo is rolling his dice for us," said Manuel, who had taken to jibing Relkin for his belief in the old god's helping hand.
"Let's" was all Relkin had to say. Relkin had come away from the great battle on Sprian's Ridge with a firm belief in the intervention of Caymo in his affairs. The Great Mother might rule the heavens but somewhere, somehow, Caymo survived.
"Anyone seen Wiliger?" said Manuel.
"Not since breakfast. He went to visit the admiral, I heard," said Swane.
"Any chance Wiliger will transfer to the fleet?"
They laughed at the thought of the seasick-prone Wiliger becoming a sailor.
"That admiral, he must love Wiliger; they been meeting every day now," said Swane.
"He can smell a fortune. Everyone knows the Wiligers are stinking rich."
"More's the pity."
"Ssh," hissed Jak. "Wili's here."
It was true. The dragon leader had suddenly appeared on the foredeck and was bearing down on them.
"What now?" groaned Swane quietly.
Relkin wondered, too. Since the Watering Isle debacle, Wiliger had grown into a sour tyrant. Gone were the efforts to befriend them. Gone, indeed, was much of the obsessive inspection and exercise regime. Wiliger had spent most of the time locked away in his cabin or else in the spacious suite of the admiral, who had apparently befriended him.
All the time, though, Relkin knew that Wiliger was just waiting for them to make a mistake. The humiliation on the Isle of the Sorcerer had been terrible for Wiliger, but the overthrowing of his sentences on Relkin, Swane, and Jak after the Birjit affair had seemed to unhinge him.
"Stand easy, boys," said Wiliger, acknowledging their crisp salute with his own, much less crisp.
He stood there in front of them, looking over their heads at the yellow cliffs and the exuberant tropical vegetation. His tropical uniform was correct but unpressed, his buttons barely polished. He wore no hat in the heat, so they didn't know yet whether he'd finally abandoned the irregulationary cap badge.
"I expect you boys are all excited by the thought of getting off the ship and stretching your legs on dry land again."
They favored him with a watchful silence.
"You there, young Jak, I bet you can't wait to get your feet on the ground, eh?"
Jak mumbled something. Wiliger's eye gleamed.
"Had enough of the mariner's life, have we, Jak?"
"Something like that, sir."
"And how about Dragoneer Relkin? Looking forward to getting ashore?"
"Yes, sir," said Relkin quickly, in an automatic voice.
Wiliger's mouth worked for a moment, and he looked away again, off to the yellow cliffs of Bogon.
"Well, boys, I don't have to remind you that I will expect only your best behavior during our stay in the town of Sogosh."
Swane stifled his natural chortle of contempt. After months at sea, Wiliger expected Swane not to go hunting for a girl? Any girl?
"Needless to say if I catch any of you absent from your station without my express permission, I will order field punishment of the first class. You know what that means!"
Twenty lashes with the cat.
That put a damper on things. Swane deflated. Relkin stiffened and felt the hairs rise on his neck. Wiliger wouldn't rest until he'd put stripes on all their backs. He would never forgive them.
"Furthermore, boys, we will be joining forces with an army of Czardhan knights that has been waiting for a month. There are also forces from the Bakan states and a regiment of Kassimi cavalry called the 'Desert Panthers.' " Wiliger was clearly amused by such pretensions, but his lips barely twisted in a smile. "General Baxander and General Steenhur have given orders that we are to avoid conflicts with our allies at all costs. The Czardhans in particular are very important to us. Under no circumstances will we do harm to a Czardhan knight."
They stared back at him sullenly. No Czardhans would ever get hurt by them as long as they kept civil tongues in their heads and were reverent of the Mother.
"Is that understood!" he barked. His eyes grew dangerous and wild.
"Yes, sir," they chorused obediently.
Wiliger smiled, looked down, and fidgeted on the spot for a moment. Then he turned and vanished down the gangway.
The dragonboys returned to gazing at the cliffs.
"Phew! What a pain he is," groused Swane.
"Never met a Czardhan," said Jak.
"Horse cavalry, heavy armor, ride really huge horses. Supposed to be unstoppable on a battlefield," said Manuel.
"Ha! You've seen cavalry against dragons, that don't work," said Relkin.
"We've seen light cavalry, and they couldn't get around us because we were in forest. If we'd been out in the open, it would've been different. We'd never have touched them, and we'd be picking arrows out of the dragons all day, every day."
"So, what's that to these knights?"
"So, we haven't seen the dragons receive a heavy cavalry charge."
"But we ain't fighting the Czardhans, are we?" said Jak in mock confusion.
Swane laughed.
"No we aren't," admitted Manuel.
"We don't know what the hell we'll be fighting," said Relkin. "Nobody knows anything solid; it's all just rumor."
"Well, we'll have this heavy cavalry on our side anyway."
"Yeah, and we'll have some Kassimi horsemen, too," said Swane. "Call themselves Panthers. Ho ho."
"I seen Kassimi; there was some Kassimi sailors in Marneri once. They do a lot of trade with Kadein."
"Kassim is an ancient realm with a glorious tradition of chivalry," said Manuel, as if he was reciting a book, which he was in a way.
"Stuff the Kassimi, what about the Bogoni? They're all black."
Relkin shrugged. "So what? They'll be no different from people anywhere. Besides, there were black people in Ourdh."
"How do you know? Since when was the Quoshite there? Nobody's been there, 'cept the witches I 'spect."
"Traders come all the time, Swane."
"I guess it's on my mind because it's just going to be really different from home," Swane demurred.
"Home?" said Relkin. "Where's that? Fort Dalhousie?"
Before Swane could grapple with the problem of having no real "home," unless it was the entire Argonath, Jak piped up.
"Uh-oh, our pirate friends look like they're finally getting serious."
A cornet blew from the maintops.
Jak was pointing to seaward. They all turned to see a flotilla of fast, rakish outrigger vessels bearing down on them from windward. These were the same small piratical praus that had dogged the white fleet's progress since the previous day. More cornets could be heard throughout the fleet.
"Guess they decided it's now or never," said Swane.
Relkin nodded in agreement as a thunder of feet from below sent the
Barley's
crew into action.
The viperish pirate praus were lightly built but crammed with men. Their technique was to get close and board their prey.
The sailors had raised heavy catapults into position and removed tarpaulins that protected them from the elements. While their winches were turned by chanting groups, the weaponeers loaded the ten-foot-long arrows into the waiting slots. Each arrow carried a massive steel-tipped warhead more than a foot long.
Meanwhile heavy slings had been hauled aloft. These would be used to hurl pots filled with flaming oil into the sails and rigging of the pirates. The slings were ingeniously routed between the masts, aligned vertically, which allowed for a tremendous pull on them and therefore a long range.
Along the rail of the nearest pirate ship, they could see a mass of dark-skinned faces, white teeth gleamed alongside bright cutlasses.
Cornets were blowing throughout the fleet.
"Look!" cried Jak. The old
Potato
was under attack.
With a sound like the cracking of a pair of giant whips, two of
Potato's
catapults let fly. The arrows struck the pirate hulls with terrific force. Such fragile shells could not withstand such projectiles. Both were holed.
More catapults released and soon the leading prau was checked, holed at the waterline and sinking fast.
The second prau luffed up and after swinging by to pick up the struggling men in the water, turned and rode the wind south, leaving the white fleet behind.
Another prau had approached within firing range of
Barley
.
Captain Olinas gave the order, and ranging shots were fired with whining cracks that hurt the ears if you stood too close. The first shot went right over the prau. The second stuck fast in her mainmast. The third splashed in the water uselessly in front of the prau. A jeer went up from the packed men on the prau, and it veered in closer.
There came another command from Captain Olinas, and this time a volley of great arrows thudded home along the pirate's waterline.
The situation changed at once. The prau slowed in the water and became sluggish. More arrows struck home, holing her again and again. Soon there was just a struggling mass of men and a few elements of wreckage floating in place of the prau.
Barley
sailed on unmoved.
The boys saw the fleet's frigates,
Flute
and
Viol
turning to deal with the remaining pirate vessels. The frigates bristled with catapults as they bore down menacingly on the pirates. The black praus withdrew and were soon hull down on the horizon away in the south.
By then the white fleet was already beginning the passage of the gate to Sogosh, a mile-wide channel between the two arms of the great reef.
Ahead lay the whitewashed sprawl of Sogosh.
The white fleet arrived just after noon, the great anchors splashing down in the deeper water of the outer bay while the cornets shrilled. The town of Sogosh was quite asleep, for in the burning heat this was the only escape. Only the poor, blinded
punkahs
were at work, keeping their masters fanned as they slept.
Sogosh was an old place, a cosmopolitan city at the mouth of the river Awal that controlled the entrepot trade with the interior. Sogosh had sprawled along the margin of the sea and the river, and overflowed its walls three times over. Three and four-story white-stuccoed buildings hugged the harbor. Graceful villas of limestone and pink tile occupied the higher ground inland. There were many towers, and those that stood above the various temples were topped with brightly colored onion domes.
In the modern era, Sogosh belonged to the Og Bogon, a feudal empire of the Chumar peoples. The ruler was the Suzerain of Koubha. This was the capital of the Chumar and lay several days inland above the great scarp.
The current suzerain was Choulaput, who was young and vigorous and had already fathered one hundred and sixty children. He was known widely as the "lion heart," the "Kwa Hulo" and was much respected in Sogosh where he was wise enough to let trade alone and to keep tax collections light.
The cornets of the fleet made a wild, thrilling sound as they screamed out their salute to the town. For a few moments the echoes played off the distant shore, and then there came a sudden blaring of welcoming horns and the rumble of heavy drums.
Boats were set down at once, and envoys were rowed ashore with gifts and messages for the representative of the suzerain in Sogosh, Lord Tagut.
Slowly Sogosh staggered to wakefulness. The presence of the huge fleet of white ships seemed to overawe the town for a while. Then the more commercially minded folk took to their boats, and a swarm of small craft poured out of the inner harbor to surround the white ships, offering fruit and pigs and a thousand other things with a seller's piercing cry.
The dragonboys stared in open amazement, and some admiration, at the muscular black men and women manning the beats and canoes that swarmed about the
Barley
. They exchanged Marneri silver for bunches of bananas, pineapples, guavas, and pupaws. Figs, honey, and raisins were proffered by others. And now there were sellers of hot spicy cooked meats, jerks, and
pugfluddi
, a pungent sausage of fish and meat.