The Wizard's Fate

Chapter 6

Bare feet thumped loudly on the plank deck. Kiya rolled over and awakened Tol.

“Something’s happening,” she whispered, and sat up. He followed suit, sheathed saber in his hand.

Torwalder’s crew was scrambling up the rigging while the master of the Blue Gull bellowed orders. Normally the roundship had a single thick mast, stepped in the belly of the ship. This morning a light pole mast had been erected on the forecastle, and a triangular sail billowed out from it. Men aloft on the main yard were lashing spars in place. Soon winglike trysails blossomed from the spars. All this new canvas sent Blue Gull galloping hard through the waves, an inelegant pace that threw up huge gouts of water from the blunt bow.

Tol went to the rail and called to Torwalder in the ship’s waist. “Captain! What’s wrong?” The young seafarer pointed astern. Beyond Blue Gull’s foaming wake were four vessels, two galleys and two lesser, oared ships known as galleots. All four had gray-green hulls, making them hard to distinguish from the sea or the dull, predawn western horizon behind them. The Tarsan Navy was still held impotently in the bay before their fallen city. Legitimate traders did not sail in galleys. These could only be pirates.

Miya, Frez, and Darpo had awakened and were staring aft as well. Quickly, the entire party buckled on their weapons.

Tol hurried down the ladder and approached Torwalder.

The captain waved him away, but Tol would not be put off.

“When did we pick them up?” he asked.

“When the stars set. Been on our stern ever since, keeping the same station.”

A line pulled free and the port trysail flapped uselessly in the wind. Torwalder bawled curses at the foolish sailor whose knots had failed, and the fellow scrambled to make them fast again. Tol returned to his comrades and shared the captain’s news.

“Can we outrun them?” Kiya wanted to know.

Darpo shook his head, looking grave. “A lean lugger in a morning gale might, but this tub will never outspeed that pair of quinquiremes. Ships that size have crews of forty not counting rowers. The galleots’ll have a dozen each.” Including Torwalder’s crew, there were only seventeen souls on the Blue Gull.

When the galleys were first spotted, Captain Torwalder had turned Blue Gull away from her northwest course; he was now running before the wind north by east. The gulf narrowed ahead. They could see tantalizing hints of land off the port side. By the time the sun rose out of the eastern sea, the coast of Ergoth was plainly visible, though still leagues away.

“Why don’t we just run for shore?” asked Miya, eyeing the distant coast wistfully.

“The pirates would overtake us long before we reached it,” Darpo said. “They’d box us in, cut off our room to maneuver, and have us in their hands like a ripe plum!”

Torwalder had no intention of being trapped. The cunning young captain steered for shallow water. His lightly laden roundship drew far less than the heavy galleys. The galleots could pursue them in even shallower waters, but the odds for Blue Gull would be much improved if she could shed the two powerful quinquiremes.

The sea chase settled into a protracted affair. Whenever the pirates crowded Torwalder, he zigzagged toward shore; the deep-draft galleys fell back, and Torwalder would dash out to sea again. After a time, the Dom-shu sisters grew frustrated with the tiresome chase.

“Let’s have at them!” Miya declared loudly. “Enough running away!”

Torwalder had climbed the ladder to the sterncastle to see their pursuers more clearly. Her words carried easily to him, as they were meant to.

“You don’t want to fight them,” he said, once he was back on the deck again. “Them they don’t kill outright end up chained to an oar, where you row until you die. You womenfolk they might sell ashore as slaves-after they tired of you.”

Pulling his curly brimmed hat down to shade his eyes, Torwalder studied the pirate squadron. “Can’t make out the ensign at this distance,” he grunted. “Don’t know who they are.”

Among the numerous freebooters haunting the gulf, some were especially notorious. These included Morojin, a vicious, one-eyed pirate; Xanka, self-styled King of the Sea; the brothers Hagy and Drom, known as the Firebrands from their habit of burning captured vessels-usually with the hapless crews still on board; the female pirate, Hexylle, who commanded an all-woman crew; and Hagbor, the fearsome sea ogre, who was said to eat his prisoners.

Around noon, the wind died. Blue Gull, which had been churning along at a decent rate, slowed to crawl. They were on the outward leg of one of Torwalder’s zigzags, in deep water near the center of the gulf. At the captain’s command, sailors dragged buckets of seawater up the masts and drenched the limp sails.

“Painting the sails,” Darpo told his comrades. Wet canvas caught even the tiniest breath of breeze.

It didn’t help. Slowly the two gray galleys closed in. The galleots dashed ahead of their bigger brothers, steering on either side of the roundship. Torwalder ordered his men to arms. Pikes and cutlasses were distributed. Four sailors armed with bows took to the rigging.

“Where would you like us?” Tol asked.

“Choose your own ground,” the captain replied stonily. “One part of the deck is as good as another to die on.”

Tol chose to defend the sterncastle. Frez and Darpo pried loose the ladders leading up from the lower deck and hauled them up. Blue Gull sat much higher in the water than the galleots, so at least the defenders would have the advantage of height.

“Two points port,” Torwalder cried. The man on the steering board bent to his task. A freshening breeze caught the sails, and the roundship surged ahead, bearing hard for the galleot on their left. The captain of the pirate craft either misread Torwalder’s intentions or simply failed to grasp his desperate purpose. The pirate ship held to its straight course. When the other captain finally woke to Torwalder’s plan, it Was too late.

“He means to ram!” Frez shouted.

Tol barked, “Hold on!”

In the last moment the galleot tried to sheer off, pivoting on its own length to elude the roundship. Sails swelling, Blue Gull drove on, snapping the pirate’s starboard oars like kindling. The oaken cutwater hit the galleot’s light planking. Although braced for the impact, Tol and his people were thrown to the deck. A deafening cracking sound filled the air.

Torwalder roared orders even as Blue Gull ground the enemy under its prow. The port side of the galleot rolled out of the water, oars flailing helplessly in the air. Screams rang out. With irresistible momentum, the roundship tore the pirate vessel in two.

Kiya got to her knees and crawled to the rail in time to see the stern half of the galleot rise high in the air before it sank. The slave rowers, chained to their benches, shrieked for help as the water rose around them. Heavily armed pirates scrambled over the side, but they were in little better shape. They couldn’t swim long or far weighed down by armor.

“The slaves are dying!” Kiya cried, seizing Tol’s arm.

“There’s nothing we can do!” he shouted over the grinding crunch of shattering wood.

Blue Gull tore free of the galleot. Torwalder turned his ship smartly on a reverse tack and sped away. Sailors lined the rails, jeering their drowning foes.

Tol and his people crowded the rail as well, mesmerized by the spectacle. The rear half of the galleot slipped beneath the waves, and they saw only a few heads still bobbing on the surface. Blue Gull’s archers sniped at the survivors from the rigging.

Torwalder had no time to enjoy his success. The other galleot had turned away to avoid the fate of its sister, but the big quinquiremes had put on speed and were bearing down on Blue Gull. Pennants fluttered from pole masts. Largest of these flags was a forked banner in red and white.

“The flag of Xanka,” said Torwalder grimly. Their pursuer was the so-called King of the Sea.

White water curled from the heavy bronze ram on the snout of each quinquireme. Just as Blue Gull had smashed the galleot, so too could the pirates’ rams pierce the roundship.

The galleys drew apart, coming up on either side of Torwalder’s ship. Pirates were massed on the foredecks. Sunlight glittered off their naked blades. The ships were close enough that Tol could see the leers on the pirates’ faces as they caught sight of Miya and Kiya.

Torwalder commanded his men to erect a boom from the mainmast as they had when the horses were hauled aboard. A spare anchor was winched up from this yard. When a pirate ship came alongside, Torwalder would swing the boom over their deck and drop the anchor. It might not smash all the way through the galley’s hull, but the weighty hook was bound to wreak havoc among the pirates crowded together on deck.

The battle-god Corij and the Blue Phoenix, god of the sea, favored them. The wind improved, and Blue Gull crept ahead. On the leeward side, quinquireme pirates were manhandling a catapult forward to the bow. Tol told Kiya to aim her arrows at the catapult’s crew when the time came. The Dom-shu woman swore that any who approached the machine would die.

The chase continued for half the afternoon. Even Torwalder became anxious. Why didn’t Xanka close in? The galleys could overtake them any time they chose, but they seemed content merely to stalk the roundship. Once the sun began sinking in the west, the truth became clear.

A lookout on Blue Gull’s masthead sang out. “Ships off the starboard bow!” A heartbeat later he added, “More ships to port!”

From horizon to horizon, a vast arc of ships spread across the gray sea. Oars foamed the water at their sides. Every ship bore the red and white pennant of Xanka.

Sailors abandoned their posts and swarmed around Captain Torwalder, all shouting at once. Threats were made.

Blows were exchanged. The young master of the Blue Gull struck down a man with the pommel of his cutlass.

Tol led his people to the main deck. They cleaved through the rebellious sailors, making their way to Torwalder. Cries of “We’re done for!” and “Time to abandon ship!” rang out all around them.

“No one leaves my ship!” the captain thundered. “This is mutiny!”

“We’ll be slaughtered or slaved if we stay!” roared a sailor behind Torwalder as he raised a hatchet high.

Tol caught the weapon with his saber and turned it aside. Torwalder whirled and ran the man through with his cutlass. The mutineer was dead when he hit the deck.

That was enough for the crew. Throwing down their weapons, they ran to the rail. Torwalder chased them, slashing the nearest with his sword and bellowing commands. They paid him no heed, scrambling madly over the rail. In moments, the deck was empty save for Tol’s party, and the furious captain.

“My regrets you have to die on my ship!” Torwalder growled.

“We’re not dead yet,” Tol said staunchly, but neither he nor his people looked very confident.

Without steady hands on the steering board or trimming the sails, Blue Gull soon lost its way, luffing and turning beam-on to the following sea. The rhythmic thump of massed oarlocks grew louder as the skulking galleys closed in.

Grapnels whistled through the air, biting into Blue Gull’s port bulwark. Darpo stepped up to hack off the connecting lines, but Tol stopped him.

“This is one predicament we can’t fight our way out of,” Tol said evenly. “Put down your weapons and stand by.”

More grapnels snagged Blue Gull, and the ship was hauled in tight against the long hull of one of the biggest ships any of them had ever seen. Torwalder identified it as Xanka’s flagship, Thunderer, an “elevener”-so called because each oar was manned by eleven rowers.

Two boarding bridges crashed down to the roundship’s deck. A swarm of heavily armed pirates rushed across and quickly surrounded those remaining on Blue Gull.

Swords and other weapons were stripped away, hands shackled roughly behind their backs. The buccaneers struck their legs from behind, forcing them to their knees.

Across the gangplank came an enormous, broadchested man wearing fancy damascened armor inlaid with gold and silver, and a sword on each hip. Five daggers were visible, poked here and there in his wide red leather belt. On his head was a high, crested helm, likewise intricately damascened, which hid all of his face except his heavy, curled brown beard.

Once this gaudy apparition stood firmly on Blue Gull’s deck, he removed his helmet and tossed it to a nearby pirate. His face was deeply browned by the sun, his brown eyes wide-set, and his nose crisscrossed by broken veins.

“Who commands this vessel?” he demanded in a rough, nasal voice.

No one answered, so the pirate chief nodded at one of his men. The fellow hit the captive nearest him in the center of his back. Frez pitched onto his face, bloodying his nose.

The pirate chief ignored the snickering of his men. He eyed Torwalder up and down, taking in his obviously nautical attire. “You,” he said. “Are you this ship’s master?” Denial seemed pointless, so Torwalder grunted an affirmative.

With no further preamble, the pirate chief drew a sword with his left hand and severed Torwalder’s head from his body, all in a single motion. The pirates laughed and kicked the captain’s head around the deck until their master’s rumbling voice called them to order again.

Torwalder’s body was tossed over the side. His head was saved to grace the bowsprit of the Thunderer.

All the Ergothians, though battle veterans, were shocked by the suddenness of the captain’s demise. Face set in a grim mask, body tensed to defend Miya and Kiya, Tol waited to see who the pirate chief would approach next.

“Landlubbers,” the chief said, regarding them thoughtfully. He sheathed his sword. “Well, you look sturdy enough, and I need good rowers on my ship. You are now the property of Xanka, King of the Sea!”

The pirates set up a loud cheer and fell to looting the luckless Blue Gull. Cursing, trying to resist, Tol, Frez, and Darpo were dragged aboard the galley. Kiya and Miya were held back under Xanka’s pitiless gaze. Miya’s face was pale but calm; Kiya’s showed only contempt for her captor.

Halfway across the boarding ramp, Tol lashed out, butting one pirate in the back and kicking another in the stomach. The first man toppled off the ramp and sank beneath the waves. Darpo dropped on his haunches and rolled backward, bowling over three pirates. Frez put his back to Tol’s and used his heavy infantry boots to kick down a foe who tried to draw a sword on him.

Their revolt was short lived. The pirates soon had the Ergothians under control, and the men were dragged the rest of the way to Thunderer. There, they were thoroughly beaten with sword pommels and pike butts. All three were left lying on the galley’s deck, gasping and bleeding.

A prodding toe roused Tol from his stupor. Xanka loomed over him. The chief ordered him to stand. When Tol could not, he was hauled to his feet by two buccaneers.

“You have some skill,” said Xanka. “Who are you?”

“Soldiers. Warriors,” Tol grunted.

A pirate handed Xanka Tol’s saber. “This is a good blade,” the chief said, turning Number Six so it caught the orange light of the lowering sun. “Where’d you get it?”

“From a dwarf metal merchant. We saved his caravan from a band of stinking thieves-”

Xanka shucked the scabbard and put the blade’s keen edge to Tol’s throat. “How about I remove your head with this fine dwarf blade, eh?”

“Bold words from a fat coward to an unarmed man in chains!”

Pirates in earshot gasped at this insolence. Xanka pressed the blade, drawing a thin line of blood on Tol’s neck.

“You can take all day to die, lubber!” Xanka hissed. His breath stank of fish and garlic.

Tol looked him straight in the eye. As loudly as he could, he declared, “You can kill me any time, craven. If you were a warrior and not a grubby, loud-mouthed sea bandit, you’d free my hands and fight me, man to man!”

Xanka laughed, casually hitting Tol in the jaw with the sword hilt. “You’re destined for carrion. String him up, men! Let’s see if he can spew his insults without a tongue!”

Four pirates seized Tol and started dragging him backward to one of the galley’s pole masts. Enjoying every word, Xanka explained Tol would be hung head down from the mast and his tongue cut out-and that would be only the beginning.

A noose was thrown around Tol’s feet, but before they hauled him up, he tried another thrust. Not usually given to boasting, he judged this particular audience might be impressed by martial success.

“Listen to me, savage!” he growled. “I’m no ordinary soldier! I am Lord Tolandruth, Rider of the Great Horde of Ergoth and General of the Army of the North!”

Darpo and Frez were horrified he had revealed himself. Their shocked expressions only added weight to Tol’s claim, and Xanka lifted a hand to halt the proceedings. His face lost some of its gloating expression and showed curiosity.

“You’re Tolandruth of Juramona?” he asked. With great dignity, Tol affirmed this. “The one who bested the beast XimXim?”

“The same. I am the conqueror of Hylo, and I personally defeated both Spannuth Grane and Tylocost of Tarsis in single combat!”

From the crowd behind Xanka, a pirate demanded, “If you’re this great lord, why’re you traveling with just two men?”

“The old emperor has died. All warlords of the empire have been summoned to pledge fealty to the new monarch. I left Tarsis with a small band so I could move fast.”

Xanka regarded him in silence, and Tol held his breath for a frozen moment. With a shrug of his meaty shoulders, the pirate chief finally said, “Lords die same as anybody else. String him up.”

He turned away, but his men did not move to carry out his command. He repeated his order more loudly and with obscene emphasis. Still the pirates hesitated.

“What ails you?” the King of the Sea bellowed, spittle flying from his lips. “Do as I say!”

“We ain’t never disobeyed you, Captain,” said a lean, bald buccaneer, “but if he’s truly Lord Tolandruth-”

“He bleeds the same as any man, don’t he, Faerlac? His neck will snap if I twist it, won’t it?” Xanka raged. He backhanded the bald pirate, and another man within reach.

“Your men have more honor than you,” Tol said haughtily. “Give me my sword-or are you afraid to meet me in fair combat?”

Blood suffused Xanka’s face and he charged, ready to trample Tol into the wooden deck. Darpo and Frez started to move to shield Tol but found it wasn’t necessary. A wall of pirates intervened, keeping the enraged Xanka off the shackled Tol.

“Fight him, Captain!” urged Faerlac, the bald sailor. His split lip dribbled blood. “Slay him fairly, and your name will resound beyond the narrow gulf. The great Lord Tolandruth, cut down in single combat by the mighty Xanka, King of the Sea!”

The vision of future glory he painted slowly soothed his angry commander. The purple veins in Xanka’s bulging neck lost their virulence and his high color lessened. Tol first thought the appeal of fame had caught the pirate chieftain’s attention, but he suddenly realized it was something else.

Xanka was afraid.

Of Tol? Perhaps, but as Xanka’s dark eyes flickered left and right, Tol realized he feared something else even more: his own men. Pirate chiefs ruled by intimidation, and their reigns lasted only so long as they were successful. If Xanka faltered in the face of Tol’s challenge, his men might abandon him. Or worse, Xanka’s heavy body might be the one swinging from a rope tied to Thunderer’s mast.

The pirate chief broke the tense silence with loud laughter and declared he would hang Tol’s head from the bowsprit, next to Torwalder’s and the dozen other moldering specimens already there. The fleet, he said, would sail to the Turbidus Sands, a shoal near the north end of the gulf. There, he and Tol would fight to the death on Thunderer’s deck.

The pirates raised a loud and lusty cheer. Tol felt like shouting himself. His plan to buy more time had worked.

When the cheering subsided, the shackles were removed from Tol’s wrists. Darpo and Frez remained bound. Unable to do more for them, Tol asked for Kiya and Miya.

“They’re my wives,” he told Faerlac. “While I live, I will not see them abused.”

The bosun saw the simple justice in this and sent for the Dom-shu. A long time passed before they finally arrived, and the four sailors bringing them looked rather battered. The women’s arms were pinioned with cloth straps, their ankles hobbled, and gags covered their mouths.

One sailor, sporting a darkening bruise under one eye, told Faerlac that Kiya was the fiercer fighter but Miya’s sharp tongue was lethal. She had, he said, all but flayed the skin off their backs with her curses. At Tol’s request, Faerlac agreed to remove Kiya’s gag.

“Husband!” she said. “I rejoice to see you living!”

Tol quickly explained the situation. The merest ghost of a smile crossed Kiya’s lips.

“May Bran protect you, Husband. We’re in the gods’ hands now!”

The captives were herded to the mast and left under guard. Tol was unfettered, but the pirates freed the others only long enough to bind their hands before them rather than behind their backs; at least they’d be able to balance more easily. Gongs sounded, and the great galley slowly got under way. The pirate fleet sorted itself into serried squadrons, with Thunderer front and center.

Xanka had one last chore before departing. Drawing away from the rest of the fleet, Thunderer turned ponderously in a half-circle. Below, the tempo of the rowing master’s drum increased. The great elevener plowed ahead, straight for the looted roundship, which rolled in the swell, her sails down, her helm unmanned.

Foaming green water curled back from the pirate’s saw-toothed ram. Xanka mounted to the forecastle and ordered ramming speed.

Thirty-two enormous oars rose and fell in perfect rhythm, the last light of day flashing off each blade as it plunged into the sea again. Although the ship was huge, Thunderer’s three hundred fifty-two rowers gave it considerable speed. Wind whipped the captives on deck.

Blue Gull awaited its destruction blindly, like a calf poised for the butcher’s blow. The pirates had no interest in horses, so Shadow, Pitch, and the rest were still in Blue Gull’s hold. There was nothing Tol’s party could do but watch helplessly as the pirate ship drove straight at the smaller vessel.

Cornets blared, warning of the collision. Darpo grabbed onto Frez, who held onto Miya’s waist. The Dom-shu clutched Tol.

Xanka laughed uproariously. “See, lubbers, what fate awaits the enemies of the King of the Sea!”

The bronze-covered ram hit the little roundship at the waterline. With a loud crash, it burst through the heavy planking. On Thunderer’s deck, the shock was surprisingly light. Splinters flew as Blue Gull was thrown up on the galley’s downswept stem, timbers snapping like reeds. A few fragments fell on deck as Thunderer swept through the debris unhindered, turned sharply on its own length, and returned to the waiting pirate fleet.

His point made, Xanka retired below, a broad grin on his fleshy face.

When the pirates tired of guard duty, they fettered Tol’s feet and left him with his shackled comrades. The Ergothians sat in a circle, their backs against the galley’s main mast. Their supper was brackish water and biscuits so hard Kiya vowed an ogre’s tusks couldn’t gnaw through them.

Thunderer was brightly lit by night, lamps glowing every few steps along the rail. As the hold was crowded with slave rowers and whatever booty had been garnered this trip, the pirates spent most of their time on deck. Eating and drinking were pastimes with them, not just necessities, and they gamed constantly, casting dice against the forecastle bulkhead.

Behind Thunderer, the pirate fleet spread out as far as Tol could see. Yellow lanterns winked from every mast. Kiya said Xanka commanded two hundred nine ships.

“How did you get such exact information?” Tol wanted to know.

She shrugged. “I asked.”

The ships ranged from the mighty Thunderer down to light galleots such as Torwalder had destroyed. Xanka’s was just one of several pirate fleets in the gulf.

The empire had nothing fit to oppose so many crafty pirates. Egrin, Tol’s former mentor, had been sent south after the defeat of Tylocost in Hylo to organize defenses against pirate raids. A dedicated warrior, Egrin had established flying patrols along the coast, to oppose any landing the pirates made. He tried to set up a squadron of fighting ships, but Ergothians weren’t sailors and their ships were usually swiftly destroyed. A stalemate had existed for ten years. Egrin’s troops foiled the pirates’ attempts to raid the rich coastal districts, but the swarms of pirates completely choked off the Ergothians’ sea trade.

With only his four companions, Tol couldn’t hope to destroy an entire pirate fleet, but he could try to unman the pirates by defeating Xanka. Although ruthless and powerful and half again Tol’s size, Xanka seemed too far gone in the pleasures of the table and bottle to be much of an opponent. The fleshy pirate reminded Tol of Lord Odovar in his later years, changed from a vigorous, hearty warrior to an overfed martinet because peace bored him.

The captives dozed, sitting with their backs against the mast, until early in the morning, when a change in the cadence of Thunderer’s oars roused them. The ship was slowing. Men stood at the bow, sounding the depths with lead lines.

As the galley crawled through the Turbidus Sands, the leadsmen sang, “Six fathoms, an eighth!” then, “Full fathoms five!” The ship’s keel scraped. “Three fathoms, a fourth! “The oarmaster stilled his drums, raising all oars, and Thunderer slowly glided to a stop.

The sea was flat calm. They were at the extreme north tip of the Gulf of Ergoth, only two leagues from shore. Pulling himself to his feet, Tol peered over the bulwark. A fantastic scene greeted his eyes.

Many more than just Xanka’s two hundred ships were gathered here. Hundreds of vessels, most much smaller than Thunderer, crawled through narrow channels in the shoals. This was the pirates’ lair, their hideout from the potent Tarsan Navy. Only an experienced pilot, familiar with the shoals, could navigate safely through the maze of sandbars.

Faerlac appeared. Accompanying him were two sailors bearing a short pole from which hung a steaming iron pot. The pot contained nothing more exotic than white bean porridge, but Tol and his companions fell upon it hungrily.

Faerlac squatted by Tol. “We’ve come to the Sands,” he said. “Two bells after sunrise, you and Xanka will fight.”

“May I have my sword, the one taken from me?”

“When the time comes.” The bosun gestured to the congregation of vessels around them. “Most every free chieftain is here. Word will be sent round to all the flagships. You’ll have a mighty audience for your duel.”

So it proved. The day waxed hot. In the clear air, the reflection off the water was intense. Pirates smeared black grease below their eyes to cut the painful glare.

Boats arrived from other ships, bearing pirate captains of every stripe. Many were obviously petty thugs, but a few arrived with more panache. Among the early arrivals were two striking young men in identical outfits-billowing trousers, high boots, and studded leather vests-identical but for one important detail: one’s garb was all black, the other’s pure white. These were the brothers Hagy and Drom, hailed as the Firebrands for their habit of burning looted ships.

A squat, swarthy figure with a drooping mustache reaching halfway down his chest proved to be Morojin. His left eye was gone, gouged out in a fight long ago. In its place Morojin wore a carved ivory ball. Watching the pirate climb aboard with cat-like grace, Tol was grateful he wasn’t dueling Morojin.

Hagbor, the notorious ogre pirate, was not present. His squadron was cruising the Cape of Khar. However, the lone female pirate, Hexylle, did come, with her female crew. Thick-armed and stout, Hexylle had skin brown and leathery as an old boot and deeply wrinkled from years of sun and wind. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, but she was as coarse and brutal as success in her chosen trade demanded.

The chieftains took up places of honor along the sterncastle rail. Crowded behind them were assorted first and second mates, bosuns, and other officers. The long waist of the galley was kept clear, although the rigging was black with clinging crewmen. Frez, Darpo, and the Dom-shu sisters were held under guard on Thunderer’s forecastle overlooking the scene of the duel.

In the sweltering heat, Tol had stripped off his cloak, tunic, and shirt. Bare to the waist, he looked pale among the sun-baked pirates. Sailors in the rigging hooted when he appeared, led up from below by Faerlac.

Thunderer’s bosun gestured fore and aft. “Here is your battlefield. You may not leave it unless your opponent leads you away.” He bade Tol look up. “There are archers in the crow’s nest. If you try to escape, they have orders to shoot you and your friends.”

“I’ll not run,” Tol said.

Faerlac cupped a hand to his mouth and called through the open hatch. Two pirates climbed out, arms laden with weapons. They scattered daggers, pikes, swords, axes, and billhooks around. Tol’s sword and dagger were returned to him. He shoved the ornate dagger into the waist of his pants and rested the flat of Number Six’s blade on his shoulder. He was ready.

Xanka did not appear. A long interval passed. Tol and the spectators sweated under the remorseless sun.

Just as the crowd began to murmur and stir impatiently, the doors of the sterncastle cabin were flung open. Four dirty, barefoot pirates, got up in fancy stolen livery, strode out and put cornets to their lips.

Faerlac announced, “His Excellency, Xanka, master of the Thunderer and all squadrons of the Blood Fleet, the King of the Sea!”

The horns blared. The pirate lord stalked out of the cabin into the bright light, clanking as he walked. He was clad from head to toe in elaborate armor.

At some point in his career, Xanka had taken a warlord’s parade armor and altered it to fit himself. Every surface was embossed with fantastic details: panthers roared at his shoulder joints, bears and bison snarled along his arms and legs. The helm was a fantastic rampant dragon, fanged mouth gaping at the crown. Tol had never seen such bizarre decorative armor, not even on the extravagant nobles of Daltigoth.

Xanka’s men cheered as he advanced between the rows of heralds. Tol looked beyond his opponent and saw that unlike the mass of sailors, the other pirate captains were not impressed by Xanka’s show. They sat along the rail, watching impassively and drinking from heavy, stemmed goblets.

Xanka halted a few steps from Tol. He carried four swords, one on each hip and two crosswise on his back. The greaves on his legs had special sockets to hold daggers. The spiked tail of the dragon on his helm was detachable. It was a mace.

From her place on the forecastle, Miya shouted, “Not fair! He wears armor, and our husband has none!”

“Tol doesn’t need it,” her sister replied.

The pirate chief drew the swords on his hips and waved them furiously over his head. His men roared approval, but Tol had to bite back a laugh. To his practiced eye, Xanka’s display was ludicrous. He had to be sweating like a war-horse in that armor, which, for all its glitter, was nearly useless as protection. Embossing stretched metal thin, making such fancy armor less sturdy than ordinary flat plates would have been. There was a lot of brass on Xanka, too, and brass was vulnerable to an iron blade.

Faerlac held up his hands. Once the cheering quieted somewhat, he intoned, “This is a fight to the death. There are no other rules.”

Hardly were the words spoken than Xanka came slashing at Tol with both blades. Tol leaped back, dodging awkwardly. Faerlac was not so lucky. The tip of one sword raked over his thigh. The bosun went down, bleeding. The startled heralds grabbed his arms and dragged him out of the way.

Xanka bulled on. Tol contented himself with parrying the swinging cutlasses. The bulky captain was surprisingly fast, and with two full-length swords, he made quite a threshing machine. Tol circled backward, avoiding an open hatch. He drew his dagger to provide some defense on his left side.

Thunderer’s deck, which had seemed so open, now resembled a trapper’s field. Everywhere were potential hazards. Coils of rope and raised coamings waited to snag Tol’s feet. Open hatches were also perils. He had to step lively to avoid these pitfalls.

He let Xanka push him back amidships. Beneath a canopy of screaming sailors, Tol wiped sweat and long hair from his eyes and wished he’d asked for a headband. Retreating into the shadow of the mast, he continued to size up his foe…

His earlier appraisal of Xanka was being confirmed; the pirate chief was no match for him. A dozen years older and twice as heavy, Xanka had probably been a formidable fighter once. Now he was weighed down by years of over-indulgence. He had killer instincts, but his movements and reactions were predictable. A few more circles around the galley’s deck and the heat would work its will on the man in the stifling armor, so Tol let Xanka put on a show for a while.

Xanka made a wild sideways cut with his left sword. Tol sprang into the air, high enough that the blade passed under his feet. The pirate followed with a savage downward sweep of his right blade, which Tol caught on his sword’s guard. This was the first close blow he’d taken, and it surprised him. Despite everything, Xanka was strong. Backed by all his weight, the blow drove Tol to his knees. The pirates went wild.

Tol kept his composure, and Xanka did exactly what Tol thought he would: he thrust with his left sword, while bearing down on Tol with the right. Tol turned Xanka’s attack with his stout dagger then drove the jeweled pommel into the pirate’s throat. There was no plate there, just a hanging screen of scale-mail. Gagging from the blow, Xanka staggered back.

Tol got up, spun his saber around in a furious disengage, and brought the keen edge down on Xanka’s left wrist. He pulled the blow, so the dwarf blade cut through the articulated gauntlet but not the flesh and bone beneath. Brass and iron rained on the deck.

Grunting with shock, Xanka backed away. The cheering faded. Some of the sailors could see their captain’s left hand was bare, but they couldn’t fathom what had happened.

Tol swiftly attacked again. Rather than waste energy slashing at armor, he thrust at Xanka’s face and throat. The stout captain parried heavily, breath puffing with every swing of his swords. Tol caught the right sword in a binding parry and spun it out of Xanka’s grasp. The cutlass flashed through the air and stuck point-first in the deck. Xanka promptly drew one of the swords on his back, but he was shocked at being disarmed.

Confident now, Tol toyed with his foe. He easily turned aside Xanka’s cuts, taking care not to let the bigger man close in where he could use his strength and bulk to advantage. Sweat flowed down Xanka’s face like a miniature waterfall, drenching the fancy plate armor. His breath came in audible gasps.

Tol drove him back to the sterncastle and spared a glance up at the watching pirate captains. The Firebrand brothers were pounding the rail with their fists and howling for blood. Hexylle, ignoring the battle, conversed with some of her crew. Morojin watched the contest keenly.

Xanka took advantage of Tol’s brief moment of inattention. He lashed out with his foot, driving his spiked sabatons into Tol’s leg. Bleeding, Tol fell. Xanka laughed and rained vicious cuts over him.

Although his right calf was covered in blood and the five wounds stung ferociously, Tol knew they weren’t deep. He rolled away from Xanka’s wild attack, vaulted to his feet and caught both of the pirate’s blades in a stunning cross-parry. Kiya, Miya, and Tol’s men jumped to their feet, shouting, and even the pirates cheered this bold move.

Tol drew back, swiftly sheathed his dagger, and took the hilt of Number Six in both hands. He bored in, straight at the pirate’s broad chest. Xanka tried to bind Tol’s blade and spin him away, but the hard dwarf metal would not be denied. First one then the other of Xanka’s cutlasses snapped close to the hilt. The point of Tol’s sword drove into the captain’s cuirass, where the raised image of a snarling bear caught the tip. Grunting with effort, Tol drove his sword point straight through the thin plate.

The roaring crowd fell instantly silent. Tol held his position, gazing implacably at Xanka’s closed helm. Slowly, the hulking pirate reached a hand up over his shoulder and drew his last sword. Frankly amazed at the man’s stamina, Tol recovered as the new blade whistled past his nose.

Gasping like a beached whale, Xanka tore off his helm. His hair was molded to his head with sweat. Blood ran down his breastplate.

“You’ll pay for this!” he rasped.

“Come, fat man. We haven’t got all day!” Tol retorted.

Boiling with rage, Xanka threw down his sword and seized a battle-axe, one of the weapons distributed around the ship. It outreached Tol’s saber. Xanka swung the long-handled axe in a circle around his head, forcing Tol to duck.

On the next circuit, Tol held up his sword. His blade cut through the axe handle without pause. Sailors ducked frantically as the wicked head went spinning by and sailed over the rail into the sea. Xanka wasted no breath or time. He simply grabbed the nearest weapon, a billhook.

It was a fortuitous choice. Tol had no experience fighting a bill and soon found himself caught. Xanka hooked him and jerked him off his feet, the bill tearing open Tol’s right shoulder. His saber skittered away. Tol scrambled after it, but Xanka grabbed his ankle and dragged him back. Wheezing with laughter, the pirate drew a wickedly curved dagger from the sheath in his right greave.

Tol suddenly changed direction and dived between Xanka’s legs. Emerging behind the ponderous buccaneer, he snatched up a stray cutlass from the deck and swung. The crude iron blade rang harmlessly off Xanka’s armor three times.

Frustrated, Tol threw the weapon at the pirate’s head. He needed Number Six!

It lay in the scupper on the port side. Tol ran around Xanka to reach it. Pirates in the rigging thought he was trying to escape and jeered. An archer put an arrow in the deck at his feet. Over the pirates’ hoots and catcalls, he could hear Xanka pounding after him. He fingers closed around Number Six’s grip just as Xanka barreled up behind him, billhook reaching for his limbs.

Bleeding from shoulder and calf, Tol had had enough. He swung once, lopping off the head of the bill, then struck again, slicing through a section of the hardwood shaft. Reversing direction and closing both hands on the hilt, he swung a third time. Number Six punched through the fancy brass pauldron and into the thick flesh of Xanka’s right arm.

The pirate screamed. His cry of pain silenced the crowd once more. Tol freed his sword and stood back, ready to strike again.

Xanka fell to his knees. “No more!”

“This is a death match!” Tol snarled.

“No! Please! Don’t kill me!”

His enemy was a braggart and a vicious, brutal thief, but Tol hadn’t expected him to cry craven.

Blood coursed down Xanka’s arm. Number Six had cut him to the bone, leaving his right hand useless. Tears streamed from his puffy eyes.

“On your feet!” Tol shouted.

“No more!” Xanka waved his left hand feebly.

Faerlac stepped out of the crowd. Standing over his wounded captain, he said into the awesome silence, “Rise and fight, if you can!”

“I cannot!” Xanka sobbed, clutching his wound. “My arm-!”

Tol had no illusions. If their roles were reversed, the pirate chief would slay him cheerfully and boast ever afterward about besting the great Tolandruth. Frez and Darpo would rot their lives away as slave rowers, while Miya and Kiya faced even worse fates.

As a boy Tol had watched the captured Pakin rebel Vakka Zan lose his head. Ever since, he’d had a horror of executions, felt only disgust at the killing of helpless prisoners. He’d risked his life to spare Makaralonga, chief of the Dom-shu and father of Kiya and Miya, after capturing him in battle. Ergothian tradition demanded that a conquered leader forfeit his head, but Tol could not kill a man who had yielded to him honorably He and Felryn had concocted a phony execution and delivered another man’s head to the emperor as Makaralonga’s.

Tylocost he had spared, too, for no other reason than he found the elf general an intriguing opponent. By that time Tol’s prestige was so high he could ignore calls for the mercenary’s death. So Tylocost lived as a paroled prisoner in Juramona.

Hundreds of other Tarsan officers had passed through Tol’s hands as the war went on. He spared them all, for they were fellow warriors, and honorable foes.

Xanka was neither.

All this flashed through Tol’s mind in only moments, and he looked to Faerlac. The bosun was regarding his captain with contempt. Lip curling, Faerlac turned away.

Tol walked slowly around the kneeling pirate. He paused, sweaty fingers flexing around the sharkskin grip of his sword. The only sound on Thunderer was Xanka’s hoarse weeping.

Tol raised Number Six high. With a single stroke, he cut off the King of the Sea’s head.