Shallows of night, p.6
Shallows of Night, page 6
Ronin thought for a time. At length he said, “Borros, tell me something. If we hit a protrusion of the ice’s surface, it would scrape us low on the hull, correct?”
The Magic Man looked puzzled. “Well, yes, I suppose so. It is hardly likely that the weather would allow any high ice formations to develop. Why?”
“No reason,” said Ronin, turning away. “No reason at all.”
It was dusk when it came. They had been so long with the background static of the storm that at first they thought that they were going deaf and it was not until the white noise filled their ears completely that they realized what it was. The gale had spent itself, leaving only the uncertain silence of the ice sea.
Ronin helped Borros don his foil suit and together they went on deck. To the east, banks of dark cloud gravid with moisture and lightning scudded against the sky and overhead rolled remnants of thunderheads, the last flutterings of torn banners; but to the west the air was clear, the long horizon virtually unbroken, colored by a sliver of sun, lowering like a swollen ember in a banked fire. The sky was the color of cold ash, tinged magenta and pink about the sun’s arc. And then it was gone, night stealing over them so swiftly that it seemed as if the sun had never been there at all. Ronin held the image of the sunset in his memory, his heart lightened after so many days of seamless gray and claustrophobic white.
They set about clearing the deck of the debris of the storm. But Borros was still weak and he was forced to stop, moving aft to see to the wheel and their course. While he did this, Ronin stowed the storm sail and set about erecting the larger mainsail to block and tackle along the yard and mast. When he unfurled it, it immediately caught the stiff breeze, billowing out. They shot forward as if fired from a bow. Blue ice flew at the bow.
“Ronin!”
A cry of desperation.
And he knew what it was before he turned his head aft; had known from the moment he had been in the process of swinging back aboard during the gale and had seen it high up on the hull. Too high for any ice, he thought. We did not hit a protrusion. Something hit us. He turned his head and then saw it.
Borros cried out again. Both of them stared sternward. In their wake, in the clearing weather, in the silvered light of the sleeping sun, reflected off the ice, was silhouetted the unmistakable shape of a lateen sail.
“You see!”
Limned for a moment, before it winked out with the wisps of light, it appeared to have a sinister cast.
“I told you!”
No time for that now. It was indeed a sister ship to their felucca, now perhaps half a kilometer behind them and closing. Could they have lightened the craft somehow? thought Ronin. And how did they find us in all of the vast ice sea? True, they knew our exact starting point; knew that we would head due south. Yet still it disturbed him. He gazed at the spot where last the sail had been. The storm, he mused. The storm should have made this impossible. It blew us about; it blew them about surely. How could they now be so close; what were the chances…? He shrugged resignedly and gave it up. No matter the reason, they are just behind us now.
The Magic Man was clever. Whatever other reading he had done, he had somehow managed to learn a good deal about sailing. That knowledge stood him in good stead now. With the sister ship giving chase, he steered them with the wind so that, with Ronin using his muscle to keep the yard at the proper angle, they caught each gust, using it to its fullest advantage, making top speed. It was all they could do. Here on the limitless expanse of the ice sea, with not even a hint of land on the horizon, evasive maneuvers were useless. But that we do not seem to be doing, thought Ronin as he ran the line through its block so that the yard swung several centimeters to starboard.
“We can outrun them,” Borros called from his position aft at the wheel.
Ronin thought not. How is Freidal managing to sail that ship? he asked himself. Even with his daggam; they have no knowledge of ships? But it was merely another question that had no answer. In any case, he thought savagely, I do not believe I wish to outrun them; I have a score to settle with Freidal. I care not for what Borros said.
“It is not death so much,” said Borros, “that I fear. It is all that shall come before it.” The fear haunted his eyes, making them appear bulged and glassy. “You are but one Bladesman; they will cut you down and make you live through it as I have. And I,” he said heavily, “will have to endure it once again.” His thin lips quivered. “I cannot, I cannot.”
Unwilling, Borros went below. The night was but half gone but he had almost fallen to the deck and he had no choice, his body betraying him despite the overwhelming fear in his mind.
“Go to sleep,” Ronin had urged him as he helped him to the cabin’s companionway. “You are safe.”
The Magic Man looked at him sardonically.
“You are like all your kind,” he said sharply. “Every Bladesman thinks himself invincible, until he feels the life streaming out of him.”
Now in the silence of the night, Ronin stood against the trembling mast, oblivious to the delicate shhhing of the runners against the ice, the tiny sounds of the fittings. He stared ahead into the darkness, deep as obsidian, black as basalt, his mind a theater.
Freidal, you madman, you defend death. The Freehold is no more. The Saardin scheme for greater power, a power as hollow as this vessel. The lower Levels are in chaos, the workers mad and destitute. And you are pledged to uphold the laws of this place.
Freidal, you slayer, you destroyed Stahlig, slowly, joyously crushing the life from him, the terror mounting until the laboring heart burst. You have destroyed Borros too; he still lives but he is not the same man; he lives in total fear of your retribution. And you wanted to destroy me; I saw it in your face, etched as clearly as a stylus shapes warm wax, when you captured me after my return from the City of Ten Thousand Paths. You had already sent your minions after me: on the Stairwell with K’reen, my beloved, my sister; in the Square of Combat with Marcsh. Now you come for us again. Well. I will not run, for it is time we met, you and I, in Combat.
In the pale wash of first light, the sky a feathered shell of mother-of-pearl, Ronin leaned hard on the wheel.
Sunrise flew to starboard as the bow swung round, describing the beginning of its long arc, and shortly it pointed directly at the sail of their sister ship.
Prepare yourself now, Ronin called silently to Freidal. Time has almost run down.
They closed with terrifying swiftness, Ronin guiding his craft from out of the southeast quarter. The contours of the other ship bloomed abruptly from harmless toy size in the strengthening light. The day was overcast, with layers of stratified cloud, white in the sunrise. A strange light fell across the scene, oblique and somehow harsh as the sun crept over the horizon, so that every edge had a sword-blade shadow and all shapes turned angular.
He could discern now dark figures on the deck of the sister ship, dark robes fluttering thickly, white faces staring intently at him. Then there was the briefest flash of cold light, thin as a bolt, and his gaze swung to the tall slender figure at the bow. He knew even without the coalescence of features that it was Freidal. The Security Saardin’s false eye had caught the light of the rising sun as it broke momentarily from the gray cloud cover, reflecting it back at him.
Ronin swung farther into the quarter, turning, feeling the adrenaline rising in him now that he was sure that it was Freidal who pursued them, turning until he ran parallel to the other felucca. They sped now across the ice sea linked together more surely than if they were physically one vessel.
Ronin watched, outwardly impassive, as Freidal went slowly aft until he was near midship. The right eye, the real eye glared at him.
“Of course you were behind this,” Freidal called across the frozen expanse as the ships drifted closer. “I have come for you, sir; you and the Magic Man. He willfully escaped my custody.” Ronin’s eyes roved the other ship. How many? “You were taken from me but I still have many questions to ask you.” Certainly two daggam. Were there more below? “The Surface is forbidden to all of the Freehold. I am charged with your return.” They will be the best Bladesmen under his command; he will not underestimate me now. “The Saardin wish to question you.” Discount the scribe, writing tablet strapped to his wrist, stylus scratching across its face, recording for Freidal. “Unfortunately, neither of you shall survive the journey back. I am no longer concerned with where you were or what you were doing.” His good eye blinked and burned. “My daggam are sacrosanct; no one attacks them without being charged with the consequences. You broke Marcsh’s back. Now you will pay. Death without honor awaits you, sir!”
Ronin heard a shout aboard ship, saw Borros’ head and shoulders emerging from the cabin’s hatch.
“Oh, Frost, they have caught us!”
Ronin was fed up. “Get below,” he yelled. “And stay there until I come for you!”
The Magic Man stared at the tall figure of the Security Saardin, so close now over the narrowing slice of ice, transfixed with terror at the glowering visage.
“You shall die now, sir!” Freidal called.
“Get below!” Ronin shouted once more and the figure disappeared. The hatch slammed shut.
The twin ships raced on before the wind, and now Freidal motioned to the daggam and they lifted cables with black metal hooks, swung them over their heads, hurled them toward him. They hit the deck and they hauled on the cables, the hooks scraping across the deck until they bit into the wood of the sheer-strake and held.
Now the feluccas were fairly touching and, securing the cables, the daggam leapt to the gunwales. Ronin lashed the wheel in place as they came aboard. Freidal stood silently, his false eye a milky round; the scribe was immobile, stylus poised.
They were tall, with wide shoulders and long arms. They had brutal faces, feral but not unintelligent; one narrow and hatchetlike, the other with a nose wide across the flat planes of his cheeks. Triple brass-hilted daggers were scabbarded in oblique rows across their chests; long swords hung at their hips.
For Ronin it was a moment of delicious hunger, these last still instants before Combat, when the power surged like a flood within him, controlled and channeled. He licked his lips and drew his blade. They advanced upon him. Now the waiting was at an end.
Over the ice they fled, the white spray of their swift passage rainbowed the light, the ships rocking, locked together in an embrace only death could now sunder.
They were a team. They swung at him from different angles, but at the same instant, seeking to confuse him. The blades caught the rising sunlight and, because he was watching their descent, he was blinded momentarily, his eyes watering, and it was instinct that guided his parry, the sword up and twisting broadside on. He got one but missed the other and it sheared into his shoulder, no help for it now. The nerves numbed themselves and the blood began to flow. The daggam grinned and came on.
Everything, said the Salamander, every thing that occurs during Combat may be used to your own advantage if you but know how. A strong arm but holds the sword; the mind is the force which guides it. They were more confident now, seeing how easily he was cut, and they swung at him in tandem, with co-ordinated precision, chopping and slashing, moving him backward in an attempt to cut off the number of angles through which he could attack them. They passed the bulk of the cabin as they moved forward along the ship. Let your opponent make the first moves if you are unsure of his skills; in his actions will you find victory.
And so they battered him as he catalogued their offensive strategies, attacking occasionally to gauge their defenses. They were excellent Bladesmen, with unorthodox styles, and he lacked the space to effectively attack them together.
At midship, he split them, using the yard as a barrier. It was done most swiftly, for they were not stupid and they would counter almost immediately. Almost. He had one chance only and he went in fast at hatchet-face, slashing a two-handed stroke that slit the daggam’s midsection just under the ribs. His innards glistened wetly as they poured upon the deck. The mouth opened in silent protest, so quick had been the blow, and the tongue protruded, quivering. The eyes bulged as the body collapsed, hot blood pumping, congealing on the frigid deck.
But now the second daggam hurled himself under the temporary barrier of the yard, furious at being separated from his partner. Ronin parried his first attack, moving away from the center of the ship, toward the gunwale across which the hooks had been thrown. The second daggam had glanced briefly at his fallen companion and, noting this, Ronin kept his blows low so that the flat-faced daggam would assume that he was attacking the same spot now. Their blades hammered at each other, sparks flying as they scraped together, then snapped apart, only to clash again in mid-air. Ronin parried again and then, instead of the oblique strike he had been attacking with, swung his blade in a horizontal arc. Too late the daggam brought his own sword up and the flat-faced head, severed now at the neck, flew from the jerking body and landed not a meter from where Freidal stood on the other ship. Ronin heaved at the corpse with its curtaining fount of blood, sent it overboard as he sprinted, gaining his ship’s gunwale. He leaped, landing with his soles firmly on the deck of Freidal’s vessel.
The rigging vibrated, singing dolefully in the breeze as the Security Saardin turned to face him, the tight cap of his blue-black hair gleaming, his long lean face swiveling like that of a predator’s. His hand at his chest; a blur, and if Ronin had had to look, he would have been dead. But he was already turning as the blur came at him, whispering past where he had just stood. And he was off across the deck, sword up, knees bent, searching with his peripheral vision for other daggam. He passed the scribe, solitary and unmoving, stylus poised until words rather than weapons filled the air. His cloak flapped sullenly in the wind; otherwise he could have been carved from rock.
“Ah, sir, you have come to me at last.” Stylus in motion, then he was off, circling in a shallow arc so that he could see the entire length of the ship. “The corps are unleashed first.” The voice emotionless. “A basic rule of warfare.” Past the creaking mast, the straining sail. “Soften the enemy with a preliminary attack.” Mind the yard, swinging. “Deplete his energy with the soldiers.” Past coils of rope, lashed kegs, the spare mast as on his own craft fixed to the port sheer-strake. “Then come the elite.” Slick patches of ice near the starboard gunwale. “To finish the task.” Shhhhhhh, the runners peeling the ice below. “An admirable plan, sir, do you not agree?”
The face closer than expected, white, the thin-lipped mouth, long and cruel, pulled back into a sneer. “Not too much trouble to kill a traitor!” The two remaining daggers caught the light as they lay nakedly strapped to his chest. Freidal, Saardin and Chondrin in one man. “The Freehold cannot tolerate your kind. You are a disease that must be cleansed. You see, I cannot allow you to return to the Freehold.” At last he drew his great sword. “Now I will crush you; with great care and equal skill, paying attention to the finer points. He twisted sideways until just his right shoulder was presented, leaving Ronin the smallest target to attack. “Of pain.” He advanced obliquely. “And fear.”
The first was a downward thrust twisting at the last moment; the second a horizontal slash of enormous power coming from the opposite direction. Ronin parried them both and then Freidal had a dagger in his left hand, holding it before him, point tilted upward.
The scribe observed them impassively as they moved slowly along the deck in a strange and deadly dance. They were just forward of midship when Ronin’s booted foot hit something on the deck and he stumbled. At that moment, his eyes still on Freidal’s face, he saw the barest flicker of the Saardin’s good eye and instead of struggling to regain his footing he relaxed his body and fell to the deck. He heard the angry whine as the dagger buried itself in the wood of the sheer-strake above his head.
Now there was but one, yet it would be enough, and he had to close immediately before Freidal got to it and he sprang at the tall figure looming over him. The ship shuddered in a heavy gust of wind and the Saardin, shifting to compensate, avoided the full brunt of the blow of Ronin’s gauntleted fist. It scraped along his cheek, missing the bone which it would have otherwise shattered, dragging shards of skin as it flayed the flesh, split the corner of his mouth at the end of the arc. His head snapped back, recoiling as Ronin flew by, momentum carrying him into the port gunwale, striking him in the ribs, forcing the breath out of him. He gasped and tried not to double over. Freidal swiped at the blood whipping from his torn face in long droplets and swung a two-handed blow. A haze had descended over Ronin and with only his hearing now, not even fully comprehending what was occurring, he threw up his mailed fist, the scaled hide of the monstrous Makkon his only defense now. The blade hit the gauntlet and its hard peculiar surface rippled with movement. It absorbed much of the force of the blow and the sword slid against the scales as if they were oiled, glanced off, the killing blow turned aside, and it sliced into Ronin’s already wounded shoulder. The pain woke him and he pivoted off the gunwale, blood whirling like a crimson scarf about him and, renewing his grip upon the hilt of his sword, staggered away from the sheer-strake while Freidal stared in disbelief at the dull hide of the gauntlet.
His bloody face twisted in fury and he came in low and fast and their blades rang like angry thunder as they met. Ronin kept close to him and now the Saardin attempted to retreat as if he was being forced to give way under Ronin’s attack. But Ronin knew it for a ruse, knew that he wished only for room to throw the last dagger. Ronin drove into him, crowding him back against the mast. Freidal gripped the gleaming hilt of the dagger and Ronin’s gauntlet closed over it. Their blades locked, scraping edge against edge down their long lengths. Freidal shook himself, twisting lithely, and tore free of Ronin’s grasp to withdraw the dagger. They moved at once, as if provoked by the same impulse. The dagger’s bright blade came at him and it could not be avoided because Freidal was not throwing it as Ronin had assumed he would, but slashing, and Ronin’s momentum took him toward it. Freidal had aimed for the neck and missed, the point hitting Ronin’s collarbone, abrading the flesh. And then Ronin was past him, a dark blur, his sword held now in a reverse grip so that the blade trailed behind him. Plant the feet, breathe in with a long suck, swing the mass of his frame, pushing from his ankles, the sword like living lightning striking backward at the Saardin, who was just turning to face Ronin, the point ramming into his mouth. A bubbling scream choked off. A twist of the blade and Ronin was pivoting, his sword raised above his head for another blow. It was white in the light, darkened near the tip by red rivulets.
