Irona 700 (28 page)

“Did Kao see him there?”

“He hasn't mentioned it. I didn't ask.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I should know better by now than to take his word on anything.” If Kao had seen, then the worm could bite back now; the childhood victim could report his former tormentor for perjury and sacrilege and watch Podakan go to the sea death, and Irona with him, likely. “I don't know where I went wrong with Podakan. I suppose I neglected my son to serve the goddess. His grandmother tried to fill the gap, but she died when he was still small, and the women I hired kept leaving. He drove them away.”

“The damage probably happened before all that, ma'am.”

“Meaning?”

“He was born at Vult.”

“I can't blame Vult for all of it.”

“That place destroyed some men faster than others.” Daun pulled a face at the memories. “The worst of them just disappeared. I had a couple of friends who … withered. It didn't change you at all, ma'am, not so far as I could see.”

“Nor you. That was the first thing I noticed about you, that you didn't have the dead look your companions did.”

“I was determined to survive and come back to Kanaga. I think her love saved me.”

“And I had my duty, and my child.” Vly had succumbed faster than anyone, because Irona would not have had to endure the ordeal of Vulk had he not asked her for a child. His sense of guilt had driven him crazy.

“It was better after I got the trogs out,” she said.

“It was better,” Daun agreed.

But that had been too late to save Vly. Was a child of rape contaminated from conception? That seemed like a sleazy excuse for bad parenting.

“How long do you imagine he'll last rowing?”

“Until he's told to stop,” Daun said confidently.

“But he hasn't got an oar puller's hands.” She was more worried by the pain of the bruises she mustn't mention. That beating had been a terrible mistake, of course. Podakan had taken his punishment without a murmur—with his smock on—and had then had the nerve to tell her the sex had been worth it.

“But he won't stop. All respect, ma'am, he gets that from you. You never admit defeat, nor will he. Once, after he hurt Kao real bad, I took my belt to him. I knew I shouldn't, but I just couldn't stand it any longer. I hit him as often as I dared. He was only about five, but he didn't make a sound. Did he tell you about that?”

“No. I suppose he took it out on Kao later?”

Daun nodded glumly.

The commodore was coming aboard again. The bosun was ordering the men back to their benches.

“I may lie about his age myself,” Irona said. “I'm not going to rest easy until he's been sworn in as a marine. Maybe the Republic can tame him better than I ever have.”

The flagship upped anchor eventually. Oars dipped and swayed, oarlocks creaked. Irona watched Podakan work and sweat. His minder, Sturge, sat beside him, waiting to take over when he gave up, and no doubt expecting that to be soon. But Daun had predicted he would never stop, and Daun knew Pod well. Not for the first time, Irona wondered whether her son did not feel pain as other people did, or felt it and enjoyed it, as Veer believed. No other form of discipline worked any better on him.

One by one the other galleys followed in line—ten of them in all, almost two thousand men going to war. Her vice admiral, Dilivost 678, would bring up the rear. Dilivost was more than twenty years her senior and had more experience of action, although even he had not seen much real fighting, for the Empire had long been at peace. Age had not reduced his pomposity or increased his chin, but when his name was mentioned for the command, he had shown enough sense to refuse, claiming that he was too old. Unfortunately, he had not refused to serve as her deputy. He would not have been her choice. Dilivost was competent and hardworking, but seriously lacking in imagination—a good adjutant but a poor chief. If anything happened to Irona, anything might happen under Dilivost.

The bay was full of sailboats as people came to watch the fleet depart. Benign had not sent out such a force of its own troops in thirty years, and never under a woman's command. Others would join them before they reached Achelone: tribute forces, perhaps fifteen thousand in all. The Empire was going off to war again.

Execution Bridge on one hand, Brackish on the other, and ahead the long swell of the sea.
Foam Racer
was leaving the bay. Predictably, Commodore Furnas was standing close, watching the other ships line up before he formally asked for orders.

Irona smiled teasingly. “What does the wine shop scuttlebutt say about our objective?”

“Says we're going south, Y'r Honor, going after the Three Kingdoms. Teach them a lesson, pick up some loot and slaves.”

If only it were that simple! Any marine who turned a slave over to the dealers in good condition was instantly rich. But who would want to buy a Gren?

“I'm happy to hear that for once they've got it wrong. Set course for Achelone, if you please, Commodore.”

“Aye, aye, ma'am.” He need do nothing more than hold his easterly course and let the rest of the ships follow. In an hour or so, he would veer to the northeast. But he glanced back at the great fleet still emerging from the bay and pursed his lips.

“Yes,” Irona said, speaking softly so that the coxswain and steersman would not hear. “It's more than Gren raiding this time. It's a full-fledged invasion. The latest news was that Sakar Semeru was hung up by his heels and skinned alive. And that was before the enemy even got there.”

“Ah!” said Mandalagan Furnas. “They do say there's a pearl in every oyster if you look long enough. Overnight at Shellong, ma'am?”

“I leave that to your judgment. I'll address the troops when we beach.”

The galley was starting to pitch in the swell, which made the rowing harder. Sturge took a grip of the oar and said something to Podakan, who nodded impatiently. After a few strokes, he got the knack and Sturge left him on his own again.

At the first watering break, the commodore inspected his volunteer help and allowed him to continue. At the second rest, he took one look at Podakan's bloody hands and ordered him aft. The boy obeyed as meekly as any veteran marine, as he never did for his mother. She noticed that the rest of the crew didn't jeer him for quitting. They didn't cheer him either, but their silence sounded like respect.

Shellong was a rock barely worth the name of island, about a third of the way to the mainland, a convenient place for a ship to make its first landfall and scratch its first-day itches: find misplaced gear, grease squeaky oarlocks, caulk minor leaks, rearrange shifting cargo. Shellong lacked water or arable land, but it had a long shingle beach on the leeward side. There the fleet pulled up for the night to pitch camp. And there Irona made a speech.

She had done this many times now, and her initial terror had long since been overcome and forgotten. She stood on a rock with her back to the breeze, well away from the noisy waves. Her captains stood close around her with their bosuns behind them, looking over their shoulders. The rest of the two thousand jammed in tight, older men in front, youngsters with sharper ears on the outskirts.

“We sail for the Bight and the Huequi River. I hear your moans! But it is Midsummer and the current should not be too strong. And before the river is Sodore. Some of you were there with me before. Good food, I know, and good beer, and from the stories I heard of the girls, they were even better.”

She waited for the cheering to end. “Achelone is an ally of Benign. They are friends of Benign, part of the Empire. One of us. We have never been at war with Achelone. It asked to join the Empire almost a hundred years ago and the Seventy voted to admit it.”

She wondered how big the bribes had been, and if Sakar Semeru's great-grandfather had been as murderous as he.

“Those oars you pulled today came from Achelone. The planks of the ships you rowed today came from Achelone. The wood of the benches you sat on came from Achelone. Your homes are built of Achelonian timber. Achelonians are our friends and partners! A few years ago, they were attacked without warning. Attacked by the lizard men of Grensdalur, which is a desert land to the east. The Achelonian senate asked for imperial help. I was sent with a small force. I met with Hayklopevi, their warlord.”

She paused a moment.

“The Gren are not human. Hayklopevi is not human! He—it—is taller than anyone here, its skin is gray, and it has six fingers on each hand. The Gren ride on the backs of lizards, and the Achelonians believe that they breed with them, too.”

Irona did not say that their hides were sword-proof. Instead she told them of the atrocities: pregnant women disemboweled, babies impaled, men flayed, towns sacked, prisoners massacred. Those tales—and sometimes truths—were as much a part of warfare as blisters and belly fever. She also mentioned another possibility, a horror unique to the Gren, a liking for raw meat. Specifically there were tales of people being eaten alive by a dinner party of Gren, even babies snatched from their mothers' breasts and passed around as snacks.

“There was a garrison of Empire troops there. At least a hundred of them were native-born Benesh, like you. Your brothers. So far as we know, they are all dead now. The honor of Benign is at stake, and it is up to us to save it!”

At the end she swore retribution, and they cheered her. It was a good cheer, although she had known better. She turned to dismount from her rock and two oversized, bandaged hands gripped her and lifted her. She was about to explode at this disrespect when she realized they belonged to her son. He swung her down easily.

And then he grabbed her tight and hugged her. He had not done that since he was an infant.

“Great speech, Dam,” he muttered. The lads had cheered his mother! Had he only just realized how special she was, or was he merely flattering her?

“Thank you. And a good hug. I enjoyed that more than the cheers.”

Podakan spun around and walked away.

Later, when the meals had been eaten and tired rowers were spreading their bedrolls, she called the captains and bosuns to a conference around a fire. On land, these men would be her warriors. If she gave them a fair chance, they could win the war for her. If they lost, it would be her fault. She had Dilivost beside her, of course, plus Sazen, Daun, and a darkly suspicious Podakan. Overhead the stars were starting to appear.

She worked her way around the group, naming when she could, asking when she couldn't. She knew about a quarter of them, and they were pleased to be remembered.

“It's worse than I told the troops,” she told them. “Five years ago, when the Gren first emerged from the desert, they said they wanted to trade. We had one exchange of goods and then they disappeared. This year they have come again, not in bands as before, but in hundreds. They have leveled villages, burned crops, wasted the land. Maleficence is back and we go to battle monsters, as our ancestors did.”

She was asked how that could have happened.

“We don't know. We do not know the interior. Because our goddess rules the sea, not the land, we never venture there. What happens to the Rampart Range farther inland? It is possible that Maleficence bypassed the range on the east and found its way into Grensdalur.”

“You mean the Gren were spawned in the Dread Lands?” asked a voice with a Brackish accent.

“It is possible. We must beat them and drive the survivors back where they came from, wherever that is. We must discuss tactics while we travel and study how our ancestors fought Maleficence.” She might have some clues after Sazen finished working through the sacks of historical tablets he had brought along.

The questions died away. They all had hard days ahead, for most captains and bosuns rowed at least half watches on a long journey. She asked Dilivost if he wanted to speak and 678 loyally said she had said it all much better than he could have done.

“Then, finally,” Irona said, “please note my son. Stand up, Podakan. This is Podakan Lavice, my son. Despite his size, he is not yet a citizen, so he will not be fighting. I hope you all understand that very clearly: Podakan will
not
be fighting! If you see him with a weapon, take it away from him instantly. He can row if he wants, although why he thinks he needs any more muscles than he already has, I can't imagine. I will employ him as a runner, so he will have to learn all your names. Excuse him if he comes up to you and asks you who you are.”

She held her breath for a moment, wondering how he would react. Just as Veer could recall exactly what he saw. Podakan never seemed to forget what he heard. She did not doubt that he could already reel off all those twenty names correctly, all the way around the circle.

But he didn't. He just sat down. Perhaps he doubted that real men would be impressed by a party trick. Or perhaps he would rather do his own showing off than be spoon-fed by his mother.

Two nights later they beached at a small fishing village on the mainland and were met by even worse rumors of disaster. Achelone had been overrun, the survivors were streaming south and west, the Gren were heading south, toward Kasuga.

The mood of the fleet grew grimmer, but no one deserted yet. By the time it reached Purace, second-largest city in the Empire and guardian of the mouth of the Bight, Podakan was rowing a full day's watch—and eating as much as all the rest of the crew put together, according to the bosun.

At Purace the expedition was due to be reinforced by eight more galleys. The governor passed along the locals' excuses for not being ready yet. Irona told him not to worry, she wasn't leaving until dawn, so they had plenty of time to get organized. And if the full levy of eight ships and seven hundred men was not ready by then, the governor and all his council were going to be going along to feed the Gren.

Some other allied contingents ought to have reached Purace already, but none had. Irona did not wait for them. She anchored offshore that night and made the crews stay aboard, but half a dozen good swimmers disappeared into the dark. At Purace she spoke with Achelonian refugees, who talked of monsters—deadly, but never clearly seen. The Gren fought only at night. That report agreed with the descriptions of the Shapeless on the cracked and faded wooden tablets Sazen had found in the Benesh archives.