They regarded one another, Fox tired from too many nights of wakefulness. He was momentarily distracted by Pilvig moving past the open door as she put her boarder-repel team through a rigorous drill in spite of the weather; her crimson trousers and long yellow kerchief were distractions in themselves, especially on a crew member who had always dressed to be unobtrusive.
Then he wiped a loose strand of his wet hair impatiently off his brow as he tried to recall the long chain of reasoning he’d put together while handling the tricky navigation himself as the
Death
threaded through the line.
He gave up trying to find a last, compelling bit of reasoning, and said, “Inda, I hate this plan.”
Inda turned out his hands. “There’s precedent for it, I figured that out. Signi mentioned some custom the Venn have. Hel—hal—”
“
Halmgac.
The duel on the far shore.” Fox flipped up the back of his hand in the direction of the Venn. “I should be fighting such a thing. Not you. That arm of yours is . . .” He made a violent warding gesture. “Doesn’t matter. That soul-sucker Erkric will be damned certain you won’t ever get the chance to come at him with sword or knife, Inda.”
“Surprise is still on my side,” Inda said, thinking:
And if I lose, everyone’s in the right place, you heading the fleet, Tau to make peace after
. But he knew better than to give Fox orders. Fox knew what Evred wanted. “Let Barend strike first, right?”
“I’ll hold our line back until he says they’re engaged.” Fox brandished the scroll-case, speaking the obvious because of the tension in Inda’s face, the near hopelessness of his plan. Of all their positions.
Inda rocked back and forth, shoulders tight. “If Durasnir thinks that the Delfs are the main line—since they have to know we’re short, compared to them—If he gets them turned south, and then you hit—”
“Then in the confusion, you’ve got your best chance.” Fox pointed toward the mirror chart, did the spell, and waved. The Venn advanced in their arrowhead, everyone beautifully on station. That would change to a line as soon as the enemy spotted Inda’s allies hull down on the horizon. “Remember, they’ll cluster tightest around the commander. That’s been consistent. So that’s where you will find Rajnir and the Dag. At least you’ve got Jeje navigating.”
Inda snapped the map into a roll and slid it into its covers. “If anybody can get me in and out, it’s Jeje.”
He tucked the map into his waiting gear, then he made a slow tour around the deck, and once full dark had fallen, while Fox conducted an unnecessary drill aft, he got his bag and slipped over the forecastle rail to where the
Vixen
had slipped under
Death
’s lee.
Jeje waited for him to appear. She was silent, grim. She’d refused to say farewell to Tau, because it felt too final. Now she regretted her decision with a sick conviction that they would never see one another again.
Inda went straight below. Jeje could feel in the minute jerks and thumps of the deck under her bare feet Inda’s movements as he set up the mirror chart where the old chart used to be.
On deck, Nugget stood poised at the jib, her silhouette stark against
Cocodu
’s enormous, faintly glowing mainsail as
Vixen
and
Death
drew apart. Her head gradually turned as
Cocodu
dwindled behind
Death
.
Jeje did not have to reach for her glass to know that Mutt was over there on the captain’s deck trying to make out
Vixen
—and Nugget.
Too many farewells, or what should have been farewells. We didn’t have that problem in the old days
, she thought, and then cursed as she swung the tiller.
The
Vixen
headed straight out to sea. When Inda could not find any running lights anywhere on the horizon, he came up on deck. He and Jeje squinted up at the stars, and Jeje brought her chin down in a short nod: there were enough to guide by, along with the distant rough line of the Chwahir coast far to the south. They began beating up into the wind.
“We’ll be riding in on Barend’s flank,” Inda said. “Let Loos take the tiller. I want you to watch this chart. See how the dots move. You’d better get a sense of it, because you’ll be guiding us when things get hot.”
“Right,” said Jeje.
Something to do. Then I won’t be thinking of all the things I didn’t do
. “Right.” She poked Inda in the chest. “Your eyes are redder than a couple of berries. Go get some sleep.”
“I’m not—” He was taken by a sudden, violent yawn, then grinned. “Well. Maybe we should all swap off, watch by watch.”
“Great idea,” Jeje said. “You first.”
Inda shucked his clothes and crawled into her bunk, kicking aside the quilt and pulling the sheet over him. The air was too warm for quilts. He was ordering in his mind the things to do during the midnight watch when he fell straight down into sleep.
And did not waken until light teased his eyelids, reddish sparkles from sun striking the waves outside the stern window.
Sun. He opened his eyes. Jeje crouched over the map almost in arm’s reach. Her profile was absorbed—narrow jaw, dark eyes under heavy, expressive brows. Inda lay looking up at her. Strange, how Jeje had seemed unchanged since they were ship rats aboard the
Ryala Pim,
but he could see tiny shadows at the corners of her eyes, her mouth. Not yet lines, but they would be. What was she, almost thirty?
She’d ripped the sleeves off her old shirt, which was soft from years of washings. Jeje was the only person Inda knew who had less interest in clothing than he. Her brown arms were bare, the skin smooth, muscles sleek as a mountain cat’s. A rush of emotion warmed him, partly erotic as he lay in this bunk with Jeje’s scent on sheets and pillow. But far stronger was the hollowing of tenderness, intensified by his heartbeat—steady, just a little fast—in his ears. A fight was nigh.
Jeje looked up, her dark brows quirked.
“You were supposed to wake me,” Inda said.
“You were snoring away so nice, it seemed a shame to yank you out of your dreams.”
“Jeje, you need to be rested as much as I do.”
“What are you going to do, kick me out of the battle?” she retorted. “I’ve been in more ship fights than you, Inda. I know when I need rest, which isn’t now.” She grinned and pointed. “Or you got something else in mind?”
Inda’s face heated. “That’s me in the morning.”
Jeje chuckled. “I love the way men are made.”
Inda was too embarrassed to say how much he liked the way women were made, so he busied himself disentangling from the bedding.
Jeje laughed again, more softly. She’d never had any attraction to Inda. He’d always been too young, and by the time he’d finally reached the age of awareness, he’d slid firmly into “brother” in her mind. But loyalty was strong, and so she said, “If you want to, what with the battle, well, here I am.”
He blushed even more. “Naw.”
“Then finish getting those clothes on and come look at this thing, there’s something odd going on. The lights smear, kind of.”
“Are we running out of magic?” Inda fastened the shank on his trousers and thrashed impatiently into his shirt, ignoring the smell of stale sweat as he bent his attention to the mirror chart.
A small spur of relief eased the vise gripping the back of his neck when he saw that the magic was as bright as ever. But when Jeje made the wave twice, there was an odd effect.
“Do it again.”
A blurring of the dots radiated out in a complication of rings, a little like the intersecting of raindrops early on in a storm, when the smooth face of water was patterned by ringing ripples.
“They’re tinging often,” Inda said, as the raindrop pattern shifted into meaning. “Maybe ten times each turn of the glass. They must do that just before battle.”
Jeje brought her chin down, a decisive gesture. “There’s something else I’m seeing.”
“What?”
She narrowed her eyes, chewed her lower lip, then said, “I’m not going to yap. Not yet. Because I’m not sure I’m right. But I’m going to keep watching. Why don’t you go up on deck and do whatever you were going to do? Loos spotted the Delfs, by the by, just after dawn. They should even be hull up by now.”
Inda grabbed the dipper from the ensorcelled bucket and took a drink, mostly so the water would clean the inside of his mouth. As he left the tiny cabin Viac Fisher said, “Inda. Eat this,” and thrust a biscuit stuffed with greens and cheese into his hand.
Inda gulped down the food as he climbed up the hatch to the deck. He’d do some warm-ups soon as he scanned sea, sky, wind.
“Inda look at that!” Nugget held out her spyglass. “ ’bout four points off.” She kicked up a foot just larboard of the direction of the bow and wiggled her toes.
She was at the mainsail, so Inda went forward, laughing at the ugly old moss-splotched, patched sail that Jeje had saved from the old days. Nets and barrels sat about on the deck—they’d taken on the guise of a worn old fisher.
Inda propped his bare foot on the rail and leaned his elbow on his knee to steady his hand. When the glass encountered Ramis’
Knife,
he gasped.
It was an extraordinarily beautiful ship—a three master rigged for square sail. Black sails, a pure black that seemed to swallow light, but Inda only glanced at them. Drawing his attention was the prow, seen before as the anonymous upward curve of Venn
drakans
. But now the ship wore its dragon-head prow. Even at this distance, the carving was fantastic, as if a dragon had flown out of ancient days and frozen there, horns extended at an aggressive angle from a lean open-jawed skull.
“Where’d he get that dragon head? I don’t remember that,” Inda said.
Loos sidled a look around—as if Venn spies had sneaked through the water and were listening in. “My granddam used to tell us our ancestors put the heads on before a big battle. Taking years to carve ’em, they didn’t sail with ’em everyday, like. They don’t even have the dragon heads anymore.” He laughed, deep in his throat, almost a growl, then spat over the side. “That thing’ll make ’em piss their pants.”
Inda noticed a twinkling abaft the dragon-prow: someone waving something red. He put glass to eye. “Heh. There’s Barend. Pull us under their lee.”
In these light airs, with the
Vixen
fighting up into the wind, it would take a while, so Inda went below again, the dragon-head clear in mind.
Why didn’t you warn me about Wafri, Ramis?
he thought. Three most dangerous enemies, Ramis had told him once: Durasnir, Rajnir, and Erkric.
Because Wafri wasn’t a danger until my stupid decision to go ashore myself
.
So here he was, choosing to go after Erkric, Rajnir,
and
Durasnir, all by himself. Another stupid decision? Or had Ramis somehow known it would happen and sent his
drakan
-ship, complete to the thousand-year-old war prow?
How would he
know
?
Probably the same way Ramis could make a line between sky and sea and shove six ships through. It all seemed to come back to Norsunder, and Erkric’s willingness to use Norsundrian magic. Inda felt itchy and restless thinking about it. Too many questions unresolved.
He dropped down onto the bunk, and the locket shifted under his shirt.
Evred. That reminded Inda of the series of bad dreams he’d had just before dawn, inchoate images of home, the Jarls shouting
Inda-Harskialdna Sigun
as blood dripped down the walls from a row of the heads of enemies Inda had cut down . . . He jerked up again, his head pounding. He dug out pen and paper, used his wrist knife to cut a thin slip of the paper, then sat back, trying to find the right words.
He would rather have not thought about the aftermath of battle. He might not be there to see it. But if he was . . . if he was . . .
He sighed. Busy as he’d been, he never saw Captain Deliyeth’s wary, suspicious face without remembering her accusation. Then there was the request for a treaty letter that Princess Kliessin of Bren was expecting. It sounded reasonable . . . except Evred was right.
Inda remembered the harbors during his boyhood, the shrugs people gave to widespread corruption, the harsh consequences to the sudden change of kingship in Khanerenth, and he knew Evred was right about that.
Inda had seen Idayago during his winter visit, and Cama proudly pointed out how the place had improved since his arrival. People had waved at him, stopped to talk to him—not all the Idayagans hated the Marlovans. So Evred had been right there, too.
And finally, Evred had given him orders at Convocation. If all the Jarls felt it was right to extend Marlovan law down the strait, well, then, it had to be right.
So why did he have bad dreams? Oh, he knew why. He had only to think of Deliyeth, and her scorn for his pirate throne.
Pirate empire.
He reached for his paper and ink.
Evred: Battle soon. If I am here after, Everon and Ymar don’t want us. They think I’m going to create an empire and crown myself Inda the First.
On the other side of the continent, the midnight watch was two turns of the glass away.
Evred felt the tap of the locket. He forced his hands to stay still, and his body to relax, as the guests at his banquet table chattered on. He tried to subdue his irritation, but he wondered when this banquet would ever end. It was far too hot to be sitting in the heavy wine fumes over the remains of a meal he had not wanted to eat.
Fareas-Iofre turned his way. “When did it begin?”
“Did what?” he was forced to ask, after a quick search of his mind for echoes of conversation. There were none—he’d been shutting them all out.
Fareas-Iofre’s brows rose, but her expression was concerned, understanding. She extended her hand toward Tdor. “That knife-throwing contest between the best of your big boys and the best of the girls. I know we did not do that in my day. Though I must say, I enjoyed it very much.”