The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) Read online

  Busy as she’d been and tired as she was, Sable stared at the ceiling long after the lights were out. Why was there this small part of her that wanted to believe him? Was she that much of a romantic? Fabled narratives had an accepted cultural value, but they made for an invalid base for either scholars or rulers…

  What if there was more than life to duty, an irrational part of her pleaded, and what if there was love that wasn’t silly sentiment…but so profound that it could change your life?

  She turned over impatiently, determined to sleep, shutting out that irritating phrase that wouldn’t stop drifting through her head like some misplaced ghost…

  …for love of Il...

  CHAPTER 9

  If there was anything finer than being out to sea on a midsummer day, Ari didn’t know what it could be. He stood at the rail, watching the blues and greens and greys of the ocean seething happily as far as the eye could see. The occasional gull still circled overhead. They were out of sight of land, but he’d overheard a Fleetman say they’d never be more than a few leagues from shore the whole trip. The sun was warm, the ship moved eagerly, alive, under his spread feet, and he felt the same yawning, yearning expectation that he’d had in the High Wilds.

  Loren groaned softly next to him, but managed a stoic smile when Ari glanced over. His stomach wasn’t real impressed with the new surroundings. A sail snapped sharply, and for the dozenth time, Ari turned around to look at the ship, torn between the endless activity on board and the almost mystical draw of the horizon. The Fleetmen glided purposefully across the decks, climbing the rigging like monkeys, bare feet padding as surely on the booms dozens of feet above them as they did on the deckboards. Sails were let out and taken in, booms swung and swung again as the ship tacked and toyed with the stiff breeze. The bear-like Sailmaster called out orders and was cheerfully answered in bellowed, hearty, unintelligible ship jargon.

  On either side of the Mermaidon, somehow holding their exact position despite the tugging playfulness of the wind and waves, rode two other Fleet Sloops, one on either side of the white wake gushing out from below him. Dancing over that froth from its post at the stern, the big, forked banner of the Mermaidon snapped, pale sea-foam green with a rampant silver lion gleaming in its middle.

  Up at the bow, Commodore Kraemoor had apparently finished talking with the six new Seawolves; they followed the Master-at-arms below. Jaegor glanced over at them as they stood at the rail, skin tightening around his eyes, but Rodge had stayed below when they were taken down and given a tour. The Wolves passed through the hatch…and in their wake, came Selah.

  She spotted them and walked easily over, the sea breeze tugging at her baggy clothes so that for once her lissome figure was beautifully outlined. Ari sighed contentedly. She had lovely curves, all of them coming quite purposefully right to him.

  “Loren,” she said in her low voice, “I brought you this packet of herbs. They always keep me from getting seasick. I thought you’d like a bit of it for, er, prevention.”

  “You’re wonderful,” he breathed, wasting no time in wobbling across to the hatch with them and down.

  Ari and Selah grinned at each other, and he studied her face surreptitiously as she settled comfortably against the rail next to him. Her hair was growing out already, curling around the column of her neck in thick waves of the richest, darkest brown he’d ever seen. Her complexion had cleared up a little, a pink and white freshness for the huge, expressive eyes to sit in. But, she’d refused every effort of Cerise’s to wear anything even approaching fashion, finally hushing that dominatrix with the observation that it was above her station. The plain, rough cotton tunic was belted with nothing but a braided rope.

  He was brought out of his reverie by her saying dreamily, “I love the sea.”

  “You’ve sailed before?”

  “I’ve had a busy life,” she admitted wryly.

  “How did you come to…that is…how are you…?” To his relief, rather than listen to him chew on the foot in his mouth, she answered:

  “I was orphaned young.”

  For a moment, the earth, the waves, the sun, the rocking ship all ceased to exist. “Me, too,” he said. Slowly, they smiled at each other. Her dark eyes were a thing of wonder when she smiled. He cleared his throat.

  “So, you just went off adventuring?” He couldn’t deny the whispers of excitement coursing through him—he, who had nothing to offer any normal girl, who could never dare be interested in any of them.

  “Circumstances rather conspired that way,” she said in her dry voice, obviously laughing at herself. She was the most unaffected girl he’d ever met.

  “Where are you from?” he got up the courage to ask her.

  “From the North. I just took an Addahite name because it’s my favorite place to be.” They smiled at each other again, in perfect sympathy.

  “You’re not scared of traveling alone?”

  “That’s why I go in disguise.”

  “But you’re not intimidated by anything…” He didn’t care if he sounded frankly admiring. He was frankly admiring.

  She shrugged, looking contemplative. “I guess I’ve just seen a lot. I’ve worked in royal courts where self-interest and deceit were the paths to power. I’ve been given food by starving beggars. Once, I lived with an old couple who spent their whole lives scrimping and saving and sacrificing their happiness for their measly plot of land, only to see it all swept away in one bad storm. Random cruelty, unnecessary kindness…” She shook her head with an ironic smile. “The world seems to swirl around capriciously, bestowing either or both…undeserved or well-earned, there doesn’t seem to be a pattern. It makes sense only from the Path of Il.”

  He stared at her. That was the longest speech she’d ever made. And it had ended with Il.

  “How?” he asked quickly, almost pouncing on his chance. “How does Il explain it?”

  “You see life for what it is: nothing but a short, grim, drear fight, sprinkled here and there with unexpected happiness. The light, the joy, the reward—it’s all outside this world…and after it.”

  They talked all through the dancing, breezy morning, the Mermaidon tossing them thrillingly through the ocean, the gulls crying mournfully above them. They laughed and teased each other. They explored the ship in whispered, companionable excitement. They agreed in horror to skip the tasteless hardtack and powerfully pickled meat laid out for lunch, sneaking apples out of the galley and taking them to eat down with the horses. It had to be one of the best days of Ari’s life.

  Everyone was starved for dinner and the galley was full. Banion, Melkin, and Kai were dining in the Commodore’s cabin, and whether Cerise was offended she hadn’t been invited, was seasick, or just found the company too inferior to be tolerated, she and Selah didn’t show.

  There was plenty of entertainment without her…in fact, she probably would have put a severe damper on the goings on, the Northern Face of Disapproval being so impossible to ignore. Small talk and the rough jibing of men who know way too much about each other was far better accompaniment to the overflowing tables of steak and potatoes, warm chunks of fresh brown bread, and vats of fresh peas and beans.

  The great red-headed giant across from Ari and Loren gave them a bread-graced grin when they caught his eye. “Good, eh?” he demanded. “Benefits of sailing the flagship. ‘Course,” he added, teeth disappearing behind a saddened mouth, “that means more shedder-work.” His neighbors signaled agreement in a varying range of grunts.

  Both boys looked at him blankly, chewing industriously. “Shedder?” Loren said, grabbing another piece of steak with his knife, Merranic style.

  The sailor grunted. “Fire-shedder. You know, keeps fire from eating the wood—which, unfortunately, is what this big tub is made of, bow to stern, top to bottom.”

  “And every splinter’s got to be slathered with the stuff,” his neighbor on his right added, pointing a forked potato in their direction for emphasis. Though they’d gotten used to i
t after a couple days in Alene, the boys could definitely smell that sharp reek around the ship…especially in enclosed, warm places like the galley.

  “Can you use it on humans?” Loren asked, pausing in his shoveling.

  This brought grins and short jets of laughter and wry exclamations from all over the cramped, low-ceilinged room, gently rocking in the play of the ocean.

  “Nay, lad,” the red-head answered blithely, “THOUGH, me Da tells a tale about his Da…”

  A warm background noise of approval swelled through the big room, made small by the numbers of enormous men packed into it. The Fleetmen sat back expectantly, grabbing their mugs and picking their teeth over their empty plates.

  “Well,” the red-head said, obviously feeling the waves of encouragement and leaning back to take a swallow of beer. “My Grandda had been spreading shedder. And, as sometimes happens, he ended up in the bucket himself, up to the elbows, thanks to a bit of buck from the ship.” Empathetic laughter circled around. “So, there he is, standing there dripping the slimey stuff, when the lookout shouts, ‘Fireship!’” For some reason, this was funny. Shouts of appreciation and more laughter punctuated the close air.

  The red-head was holding his hands up in the air, looking around wildly. “So, my Grandda, he’s trying to wipe the stuff off on everything in sight—his bloomers, the deck, the rigging, his mates’ clothes, the cow.” The entire room was laughing now, probably as much at their comrade’s acting as the story itself.

  “They told him later they’d thought he’d been possessed by the Snake-Dancers,” he winked at Ari and Loren, pausing while the room quieted enough to continue.

  “Well, he tried about three times to get up to his station, but couldn’t get but about a foot off the deck before he’d slide right off the rigging. Men were running all around him, over him, up the side of him…” You could hardly hear now. Fleetmen were pounding the tables, roaring.

  “Then, a fireball hits! My grandda, he looks at the pieces of fireball, looks at his hands, looks at the fireball, then runs over to it, picks it up, and starts throwing it back!”

  The room was convulsed in thundering laughter, bouncing off the ceiling, booming off their ears—Ari and Loren had only understood about half of what he was saying, and less of what he was implying, but it was impossible not to laugh just from the hilarity of the Merranics.

  Finally, the noise died down a little and the neighbor just down the table suggested, “We should start leaving buckets of it out for boarding! Death by shedder beats death by spit-and-grill!” This brought renewed gusts of laughter, macabre as it sounded to the boys, and seeing their blank faces, their tablemate wiped his eyes and hastened, hospitably, to explain.

  “Everyone knows the Enemy loves their fire,” he confided. “Well, if they board you, they’ll knock you out if they can, kill you only if they must. Then they’ll string you up by your own rigging and get their fun out of you for as long as you can stand the flames!” He grinned and winked at them. “I advise, if we get boarded, you jump overboard. They won’t follow you. Can’t burn anything in the water!” And he was off again, along with everyone who’d heard, lost in roaring appreciation of his own cleverness.

  The boys carefully concealed how deeply disturbing THAT little tidbit had been, looking around and laughing as if wasn’t this, indeed, the essence of comedy. But that night, Ari tossed fitfully in his hammock. The snoring men a few inches away on either side and the creaks and groans of the ship were only partially responsible. His dozing dreams were full of a world in flames, complete with cackling gremlins and burning sails.

  He and Loren and Selah were standing blearily at the rail the next morning with a chatty Fleetman, reliving last night’s enlightening conversation and nursing mugs of steaming coffee, when the Commodore came on board. They’d been watching his boat row over from the Sapphire Crown, the other ship having disappeared sometime in the night watches.

  The Fleetman, who’d been saying, “Soulless they are. Will skin you just to see your fat sizzle—” about the Enemy, decided abruptly he had more healthy places to be and scampered up some nearby rigging. The Commodore, big and resplendent with his glimmering bits of silver flashing in the frolic of the sun, paused for a second as he stepped on board, then walked right toward them all in the stern. He strode past the chickens clucking in their wooden crates and by a couple of the Seawolves checking over the two small rowboats lashed to the deck close by, and right up to them.

  The boys watched nervously as he approached, several large men trailing in his wake. How did one talk to a Commodore? Selah, with her thick repertoire of experiences, handled it nicely for them, sinking into a graceful curtsy and murmuring, “Good morning, Sir.” They left out the curtsy, but dipped their heads respectfully and murmured something in mimicry.

  He didn’t seem overly concerned with protocol, to their relief. “Good morning,” he greeted them casually. “I trust you got a wink or two of sleep last night. I’ve heard you’re getting along well with the men, which is a compliment, if you don’t know it.” Closing one dark-lashed eye in a wink, he said conspiratorially, “They don’t usually take much to Northerners.”

  They grinned, as much at his unaffected camaraderie as his words. In a perfectly normal voice, he said, “I’ve no doubt you got a good sampling of their tall tales…I wonder if you’d like to see what they’re really famous for?”

  They looked their puzzlement as he turned to stare magisterially out to sea. Around him, the small army of his coterie closed in expectantly. Tension mounted in the still air.

  “Captain Kilchern,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, Sir,” a shorter (everyone except Banion was shorter) Merranic said promptly. He, too, was wearing a beard, short and brown and so neatly trimmed it looked like it was etched onto his face. A seafoam-green sash encircled his waist, and his broadsword, less ornate than the Commodore’s, hung underneath it.

  “Beat to quarters,” the Commodore said.

  The captain quietly repeated this to a man with a drum strapped to his torso, sticks held poised and ready over its stretched hide. Instantly, deep, booming drumbeats reverberated through the morning. Gulls flew up, startled, from the booms and jars overhead, men leaped into action on deck and suddenly the sound of pounding feet and shouts were everywhere. Fleetmen poured out of the hatches, some wiping sleep out of their eyes, some with breakfast protruding from their mouths. Jaegor sprung out of the closest hatch like he’d been released from a spring, eyes wide and intent.

  They’d seen him briefly last night at dinner. He’d eaten six steaks and a loaf of bread and retired with the other Seawolves. Now, he was dressed in the Fleetman’s uniform of billowing blue trousers and every hair on his head was gone.

  “FIRESHIP!” the lookout cried from far overhead, screaming it like a tomcat was climbing up his bloomers.

  Loren jumped, spilling his coffee. He and Ari shared a look of startled terror before Selah shouted laughingly over the commotion, “It’s a drill!”

  The captain was bellowing out a steady stream of gibberish that had Fleetmen tearing up the rigging and shimmying back down in a dizzying wave. The booms crawled with sprinting men, ship rocking thirty yards below them as they unloosed acres of sail. The Mermaidon leapt forward as every piece of canvas on the ship seemed to catch air, the deck suddenly composed of leagues of billowing white sheeting and skirling men.

  “Watch your head,” the Commodore yelled calmly, expertly ducking the big aft sail boom as it floated by. That would have decapitated us, Ari thought with admirable clarity, and then his attention was caught by another shouting, pounding rush of men.

  “Come along?” the Commodore invited them, as if they were strolling through a particularly interesting bit of rose garden. Ari noticed that even in the frantic, yelling chaos, men moved almost unconsciously out of his way.

  At the bow rail, several of the senior crew were pointing to the source of all the excitement. The ‘fireship’ had been si
ghted. It was the Seamoon, of course; Ari could see the light blue banner floating from her stern. The uproar on the Mermaidon swelled like a living thing, men’s voices raised in outcry, feet doubling their pounding all over the ship.

  Then, the drums started again, deep and strangely ominous, thundering bassly under the shouting crew. There was a roar from the stern that could be heard over all the other noise, and then one of the officers shouted, “Wolves in the sea, Captain!”

  Ari, leaning over the rail with everyone else not otherwise occupied, spotted one of the two little boats that had been in the stern. It was coming up alongside, and fast as the Mermaidon was going, the little rowboat was lunging past her. The drums were beating briskly now, an even, quick tempo, and amazingly, the oarstrokes in the little boat were keeping time to it. As it passed beneath him, he could see the huge shoulder muscles of the rowers bunching and jumping as they strained to keep pace.

  Ahead of them, the ‘Enemy’ ship had pulled to a course straight on to them. They were close enough that Ari could see an enormous slab of wood being lowered over each side, held out from the ship by an ingenious system of bars and pulleys.

  The little boats from the Mermaidon were angling now, adjusting their course to come at the fireship’s sides. Another moment and it all came together. The rowboats turned and swept right at the lowered planks of thick wood. At some point, metal prows had been attached to the rowboats—you could see them clearly as they made the turn—and now they hurled right at the Enemy ship, aiming for the faux sides.

  Impossibly, the decibel level on the Mermaidon had climbed, men shouting out things like, “Git ‘em, Wolves!” and “Torchin’ punch her through!” and other unprintable expressions of encouragement. Abruptly, there was contact, the Wolves gathering themselves for one tremendous last burst of speed and plunging their deadly steel right into the planks. The Mermaidon crew went wild, exploding with thunderous shouts and screams and roars, and Ari laughed just for the pure adrenaline rush.