Shadow of a Dark Queen (30 page)

He moved down the ladder, walked over to where the six prisoners were waiting, and motioned for
them to gather around. “I'm only going to tell you this once. Ruthia must love you, because the Lady of Luck has seen fit to keep you alive a little longer. I was given two weeks to judge if you're fit to live, and as things were going, you were all heading back to the gallows.” He glanced from face to face. “But I convinced Calis that I could hang you from the yardarms as easily as I could from the gallows in Krondor, so you've only gained time.

“The next three months are going to be harsh. You'll work a full watch like every man on this ship, and another watch will be given over to some training you haven't had and those others have.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder to the men at the other end of the hold.

Biggo spoke, to everyone's surprise. “Are we to learn why?”

“Why what?” asked de Loungville.

“Why this great galloping charade, Robert de Loungville, Sergeant darling sir. You don't spend the Prince's gold and dragoon soldiers from all parts of the Kingdom, then go through all this to save murderers and thieves from fair justice. You want something from us and you're prepared to give us back our lives in exchange. Fair enough, and no questions asked, but men more stupid than me would know that it's better for us to know what's ahead and rest certain in that knowledge than to let imagination stir up horrors that might make us do something rash and foolish. If we get ourselves killed, we're not happy and you're not happy.”

De Loungville studied Biggo's face for a moment; then his face split into a grin. “I liked you better when you were stupid, Biggo.” He turned and
as he left, he said, “Stay alive long enough, and I promise you you'll find out more than you want to know.” As he reached the companionway, he turned again to add, “But for the time being, the trick is to stay alive.”

He climbed the stairs, Foster, as ever, behind him, and as the hatchway closed, Biggo said, “Well, that's not really what I wanted to hear.”

Luis said, “What do you think? Is he trying to scare us?”

Sho Pi said, “No, I think the problem is he's trying very hard not to scare us.”

Erik returned to his bunk, and with a cold feeling inside, he knew that Sho Pi was right.

Days passed. The first day they had been allowed up on deck, Erik saw another ship traveling a short distance away. A sailor had told him that it was the
Freeport Ranger,
another ship under Calis's command. Erik said he had thought all Kingdom ships were called
Royal
this or that, and the sailor merely nodded, then went back to work.

Erik didn't care much for the work, but it was outside and the weather was clement, despite its being early fall. Roo hated being a sailor, having some trouble with the heights, but he had the agility to get around in the yards that Biggo and Erik lacked. Luis and Billy were steady hands, and Sho Pi took to the tasks put before him with the same easy grace he had shown in the camp.

After two weeks, Erik had gotten his sea legs and calluses on his feet; he had put his riding boots away, because they were dangerous on a ship and the salt water was bad for the leather. Only officers wore
boots, for they never had to climb the rigging. Erik and the other men below went barefoot like the sailors and were learning the sailor's craft in a hurry.

A landlubber of the worst sort, he was no longer confused by such terms as “running out a sheet,” or “securing a yard.” As in the camp, the hard work was accompanied by good food, a fact remarked upon by more than one sailor. That they were eating better than was the norm was not lost on Erik, and he joked that they were being treated like prize horses being readied for a competition among nobles. He decided not to mention that such competitions frequently ended with an animal down with a broken leg, or a rider thrown to serious injury or death.

Even Roo, adverse to hard work his entire young life, was showing the effects of the hard regime and good food. There was wiry muscle on his scrawny frame, and he moved with a self-assurance Erik had never seen before. Roo had always laughed as a child, but there was a mean, dangerous edge to him, and his humor had often been cruel. Now he seemed more involved with the moment, as if it was slowly dawning on him what life was, as opposed to the mind-numbing fear that death was only a moment away. Erik sensed something had changed in Roo, but he couldn't rightly say what that change was.

Sho Pi observed that whatever awaited them, de Loungville wanted them fit and ready. Each day was an equal mix of hard work and battle training.

The second day out, Sho Pi had gone up on deck during his off watch, to practice a series of controlled movements that looked like nothing as much as a dance to Erik. Graceful and flowing, they still held a sense of menace, as if to quicken the action would
turn graceful motions into killing blows. After he finished and returned belowdecks, Luis said, “What was that you were doing up there, Keshian?”

“Isalani,” corrected Sho Pi, then as he swung into his bunk, he said, “It is called
kata,
and it is the heart of the arts I practice. It is a sense of movement and it taps the power around you, to give you balance and ease at the moment you need to draw upon that power.”

Erik sat up in his own bunk. “Is that the trick you used to disarm the soldier?”

“It is, sad to admit, the same, but it is not a trick. It is an ancient art form, and it can be used to harmonize the self with the universe, as well as for self-defense.”

Biggo said, “If you could show me how to kick de Loungville around the way you did, I'd be interested in learning.”

“That would be an abuse of the art,” said Sho Pi. “But should you wish to practice with me, you are welcome. Kata will relax you, calm you, and refresh you.”

Billy said, “Sure. You looked so relaxed and calm when you kicked de Loungville.”

Luis grinned. “Ah, but it was refreshing!”

They all laughed. Suddenly Erik was visited with an unexpected and extraordinary affection for these men. Murderers all, the dregs of Kingdom society—yet in each he sensed something that made him feel kinship. He had never experienced such a feeling before and it troubled him as much as it felt natural. Lying back on his bunk, he pondered this odd turmoil.

By the end of the next week, Erik and the others had joined Luis in taking lessons in kata from Sho Pi. For an hour after their watch, the six would stand in a relatively clear area of the deck, between the main hatch and the foremast, and follow his lead.

Erik found the admonitions to think of a spot of light, or a soft breeze, or some other relaxing image while he moved vigorously through a long series of classic Isalani movements silly at first. After a time, he sensed the calm that would come with accepting Sho Pi's advice. Despite the long, hard hours of work, the additional exercise didn't tire, it refreshed, and Erik had never slept better in his life.

A sailor, a LaMutian, whose father had been a Tsurani warrior, asked to join as well. He claimed that much of what Sho Pi taught was similar to what his father had shown him as a child, part of the heritage of the Tsurani “way of the warrior.”

After the group had been practicing for a week, the large man whom Sho Pi had humbled came over to watch. After a few minutes he said, “Can you show me how to do that thing with the thumb?”

Sho Pi said, “It is but a part of this. You will learn many things.”

The man nodded and stood next to Erik. Sho Pi nodded to Erik, who said, “Put your feet like so.” He showed him. “Now balance your weight so it is neither too far forward nor too far back, but just in the middle, even on both feet.”

The man nodded. “My name is Jerome Handy,” he said.

“Erik von Darkmoor.”

Sho Pi demonstrated the four moves they would practice, and slowly led the men through the series.
Then, instructing them to try it again, he moved quickly among them, correcting position and balance.

From the quarterdeck, Foster and de Loungville stood watching. Foster said, “What do you make of that?”

De Loungville shrugged. “Hard to say, Charlie. It could be something just to kill the time. Or it could be something that saves some lives. That Keshian could just as easily have killed me as embarrassed me with those kicks. He pulled them, despite the fact he was mad at me.” He was silent for a while, then said, “Let it be known that I won't mind if the others follow Handy's lead. It's about time our last six birds joined the rest of our flock.”

Slowly, over the next few days, more and more of the other thirty men joined the group, until at the end of the third week all were practicing kata under Sho Pi's supervision.

“You're all prisoners?” asked Luis, incredulity on his face.

“Ya, man,” said an ebony-skinned man from the Vale of Dreams named Jadow Shati. “Each man here took the fall in Bobby de Loungville's little drama. Each of us looked the Death Goddess in the eye, or at least thought we were going to.” He grinned and Erik found himself smiling in return. The man's smile had that impact, as if all the sunlight and happiness reflected off teeth made brilliant white by the contrast with his dark skin, the blackest Erik had ever seen. In the short time he had known Jadow, Erik had discovered he had the ability to find some humor in almost any situation. He also had a way of
putting things so that Erik almost always ended up laughing.

Roo threw up his hands. “Then why were you such a bloody bunch of bastards when we first came to camp?”

They were all sitting around in the hold barracks. Over the last few days, after practicing with Sho Pi, the men had begun speaking with one another and the barrier between the six men Erik had come to think of as “us” and the other thirty he thought of as “them” had started to weaken.

Jadow spoke with the patois common to the Vale, a no-man'sland claimed at various times by the Empire of Great Kesh and the Kingdom, where languages, blood, and loyalties tended to be mixed. It was a musical sound, softer than the harsher King's Tongue, but not as guttural as High Keshian. “Man, that was the drill, don't you know? Each time a new group came, we were to give them bloody hell! Bobby's orders. Not until he knew he wasn't going to have to hang us did he treat us better than dirt on the sole of his boot, don't you see? Then we got to take off the damn ropes, man. Then we began to think we might live a bit longer.”

Jerome Handy sat across from Erik, the biggest man in the group after Biggo and broader across the shoulders. “Jadow and me were among the first six. Four of our mates died. Two tried to go over the walls, and those Pathfinders picked them off with their long bows like quails on the wing.” He made a flying motion with his two hands, as if throwing shadow puppets on the wall, and made a funny flapping sound with his mouth. Then suddenly he turned his hands over and made a sign of a wounded bird
falling. Erik had delighted in discovering that as rough and intimidating as Handy could be, he also could be very amusing given anything remotely like an audience. “One lost his temper and died in a sword drill. The other . . .” He glanced at Jadow.

“Ah, that was bad, man. Roger was his name,” supplied the Valeman.

“Right. Roger. He was hung when he killed a guard, trying to escape.”

“How long ago was that?” asked Erik.

“More than a year, man,” said Jadow. He ran a hand over his bald pate, which he kept free of hair by dry-shaving with a blade every morning. While most of it was naturally hairless, the little fringe around the ears was persistent enough that Erik winced each time he saw the man give himself a trim.

“A year!” asked Billy Goodwin. “You've been at that camp a year?”

Jadow grinned. “Man, consider the alternative, don't you see?” He laughed, a deep-throated version of a child's delight. “The food was sumptuous, and the company”—he cast a mock-baleful look at Jerome—“diverting, if nothing else. And the longer we were there . . .”

“What?” asked Roo.

It was Biggo who answered. “The longer they weren't headed toward wherever it is de Loungville and the Eagle are taking us.”

“Exactly.”

“You've been playing soldier for a year, then?” asked Luis.

“More, and I don't call it playing when men die,” said a man named Peter Bly.

Jerome nodded. “We thirty are what's left of seventy-eight
who were put through the false hanging over the last year and a bit.”

Sho Pi said, “Then this would explain why Corporal Foster and . . . what is Robert de Loungville's real rank—when first I saw him, I took him for a noble-does anyone know?”

Jerome shook his head. “Sergeant is all I've ever heard. But I've seen him give orders to a Knight-Captain of the King's own. He's the second in command, after the elf.”

“Elf?” said Erik.

Luis said, “What some of the older guards call the Eagle. It's no joke. They call him that, but there's no disrespect in it. But they say he's not human.”

“He does look a little odd,” said Roo.

Jerome laughed, and Jadow said, “Look whose talking about looking odd!”

All the gathered men laughed and Roo flushed with embarrassment, waving off the remark. “I mean, he doesn't look like the rest of us.”

“No one looks like the rest of us,” said Sho Pi.

“We know what you mean,” said another man whose name Erik didn't know.

Jadow said, “I've never been to the west, though my father fought there against the Tsurani in the Riftwar. Man, that was some fighting, to hear the old man talk. He saw some elves at the battle in the valley in the Grey Towers, when the elves and dwarves betrayed the treaty. He said the elves are tall and fair, though their hair and eyes are much like yours, from brown to yellow, don't you know? Yet he said there is something uncommon about them, and they carry themselves with a different grace—as if dancing while the rest of us walk, is what he said to me.”