Krozair of Kregen

Chapter Seven

On a fine Kregan morning as we pirates swaggered down to the swifters hauled up onto the beach, I said to Duhrra, “You want to talk to this young tearaway, Vax. Probe him about his father.” I saw Duhrra glance across at me. “It is not good that a young man feels this way.”

“I agree. But it is a powerful hatred he bears.”

“Talk to him.”

“Duh — master — it will be all too easy. He will deafen my ears with his anger.”

Our plans for departure had been interrupted by this capture of Neemu. There was no question of the ship being given to Vax. He was far too young and inexperienced on the Eye of the World. I did not say this. It was freely spoken of by the other Renders. Among their ranks were men who knew the inner sea, men who had fought for many years upon the sparkling blue waters, men who understood the ways of the Eye of the World. Pur Naghan ti Perzefn had not taken Pearl back. Those Zairians who wished to return home had sailed in a broad ship. Pur Naghan, Krzm, realized he could strike resounding blows for Zair in thus rending with us. As a Krozair of Zamu his vows impelled him to struggle with the Green at every opportunity. Our plans called for us to sail back together, Pearl, Neemu, Crimson Magodont, as a squadron.

No Krozair, not even an ex-Krozair, could command a swifter with Green in her name. Green Magodont was now Crimson Magodont.

Rukker, waving his bladed tail in a typical Kataki fury, had bellowed, “I spare no oar-slaves! If you wish to fill your banks you must take the rasts yourselves. And Vengeance Mortil sails with me.” He was in a right old fury.

I recall this particular day with some brisk satisfaction as demonstrating a neat double-hander in my dealings on Kregen. Occupied though I was by affairs and mysterious dealings in tie Eye of the World, I was still aware of the vaster problems awaiting me in the lands of the Outer Oceans. Out there that great and evil empress Thyllis planned to hurl all the military resources of her empire of Hamal against my island of Vallia. Out there intrigues and treachery and double-dealing blossomed like the black lotus flowers of Hodan-Set.

So, on this day, when our squadron sighted sails on the horizon, and the whip-Deldars flew about with ol’ snake licking, and bellowing, “Grak! Grak!” and the swifters flew over the waters, I found a profound joy in me as I saw those sails resolve into the typical shapes of the canvas of argenters from Menaham. Menaham with her argenter fleet was used by the empress Thyllis of Hamal to trade with the overlords of Magdag. She sold them airboats and saddle-flyers. Judging by the course of the argenters, which bore on bravely with their three masts clad in plain sail straining, I would find out what King Genod paid the empress Thyllis in return.

I pushed away disappointment. I would have preferred to have captured the argenters on their way to Magdag. Then I would have taken vollers and flyers. As it was, this blow would more directly damage Hamal. But that mad genius Genod would suffer, too. .

In any kind of breeze the swifters would never have caught the argenters. But the Eye of the World, like the Mediterranean, is a fluky place for wind. Oared vessels reign there except — and this I say with pride, for the pride is not for me — for the great race-built galleons of Vallia. We pulled in for the kill. Sails billowed and fluttered as the breeze fluked around. The argenters wallowed. We could see their people running about the decks and a pang struck through me, for I remembered when Duhrra and I had stood in an argenter and watched the Renders pulling in for us. That made me make sure that lookouts with keen eyes were aloft to spot the first hint of Green slicing toward us over the horizon.

“They scurry like ponshos before leems,” observed Vax with bloodthirsty satisfaction. We stood on the quarterdeck. I looked at my son.

“Do you so hate them, then, Vax? They are not of Magdag.”

“I have reasons for hating them. You would know nothing of my reasons. But, believe me, they are very real.”

Much though I was dismayed at my boy’s bloodthirstiness, I was cheered by his evident concern for the affairs of his own country. And, anyway, on Kregen a modicum of good honest skull-bashing is often the only antidote to poison. I deplore this; but while it remains true I prefer to have other people’s skulls bashed. The truth also is that I have done a great deal on Kregen to lessen the incidence of skull-bashing and bloodthirsty fighting in these latter days. I speak now of a time when the famous old Bells of Beng Kishi regularly rang in many and many a thick skull over the length and breadth of Kregen. Just to get Vax going a little more, I said, “And these marvelous reasons, Vax. I suppose your cramph of a father is mixed up with them — oh, but he’s dead, isn’t he?”

He shot me a murderous glance. I did not know how much he remembered of what he’d maundered on about to me; I fancied he had precious little idea of what he had said.

“My father-” He scowled and gripped his sword-hilt. “He did fight the Bloody Menahem. I will give the rast that.”

Duhrra was looking at both of us with an expression that on his gleaming idiot-face looked most comical.

“So you have something good to say about your father, then?”

“By Vox! No! I believe he fought only through others, that his friends did the fighting, while he-”

“Rukker’s going ahead!” bellowed the lookout.

I was rather glad of the interruption.

Fazhan bellowed down to Pugnarses Ob-Eye, our oar-master, who might boast only one eye but who ran a taut six oar banks.

We heard Pugnarses’ whistle blow and then his full-blown voice telling the whip-Deldars interesting facts about their physiognomy and antecedents and probable destinations in the hereafter, and the beat of the oars quickened. No one on the quarterdeck or on the forecastle thought overmuch of the pains of the oar-slaves. We knew exactly what they were going through. Exactly.

As Mangar, our drum-Deldar, increased the beat in response to the commands from Pugnarses and the oars thrashed faster, so we began to pull back the distance Rukker had surged ahead. Three swifters ravening down on four argenters. I found by chance that I would line up on the third ship from Menaham. Rukker would hit the lead ship, and Pur Naghan the second. There would be time. I said, “It’s surprising to me, Vax, that any man with a father like yours would bother to get born at all. I suppose you will spend the rest of your life hating him?”

“And if I do, it will be spent gladly.”

The first varter shots were coming in. Our varters up forward replied. Soon the bows would sing. I could not leave well alone.

“Of course, if your father died before you were born, you have only the words of others. You don’t know yourself.”

“I know enough! I know what being Apushniad means-” He checked himself there, and glared about. He wore mail and a helmet and he looked young and bold and vigorous and — and frighteningly vulnerable with his flushed face and scowling lips. He whipped out his longsword. “I fight with the prijikers today and show the world I am not as my father!”

“No!” The word was shocked from me. I could not stop it.

He glowered at me, half turned, ready to storm off to the forecastle and be among the foremost of the prijikers who would swarm along the beakhead when it thumped down onto the argenter’s deck.

“No? I am a fighting-man. I am — I was, nearly- What do you mean, Dak; no?”

I couldn’t explain. He was my son. I didn’t want him in the forefront of the most dangerous part of the attack. A prijiker, a stem-fighter, joyed in his honor and glory and danger. I reckoned they were all more mad than other sailors. They bore the most wounds; from their numbers the most men made holes in the sea.

“I want you to be at my side.”

“But why? Do you deny me the glory?”

“There’s no damned glory in getting killed in a stupid render affray!” I roared at him. “It’s only loot out there. Are you so greedy for gold you’d throw your life away?”

He drew himself up in that faintly ridiculous way a young man indicates that he is grown up in his own estimation.

“You cannot stop me from fighting with the prijikers. If I get killed that is my affair.” He swung his sword violently at the argenters. “Anyway, they are enemies of my country.”

We were closing now and the arrows were feathering into the palisade across our forecastle. The beakhead swayed with the onward plunge of the ship. Men crouched up there, ready to spring like leems onto the decks, ready to smash in red fury to victory.

“And is that your marvelous reason?”

“It will do for now!”

And he swung off along the gangway. I glared after him. I knew practically nothing about the way he would act. He was a headstrong and violent youth, suffering under a sense of shame and outrage, carrying a heavy burden of hatred that ate at his pride. But as the fight developed and we smashed into the argenter and the beakhead went down and we roared across her decks, I had to understand that I could not do as I had unthinkingly sought to do. I had acted, I conceived, as any father would act. I did not want my son to go off fighting. But I could not hold him back. His own instincts, his pride, his youthful folly, all impelled him to rush headlong into the thickest of the fight. Can any father thus shield his son from reality and expect to produce a man?

Sometimes the burdens of fatherhood are too heavy for a simple man to bear. Sometimes, I think, nature should have invented some easier way to carry on the generations. I did not enjoy that fight. I drew the great Krozair longsword and I went up the gangway after Vax, and I bellowed back to Fazhan to conn the ship, and I plunged into the fray like the madman I am, striking viciously left and right, thrusting and hacking, carving a bloody path through those poor devils from Menaham. We took the argenter all right. I had known we would take her. Everyone knew we would take her. It seemed idiotic to me that my son should imperil himself in so obvious a way over so obvious a fight. But he did.

He was my son.

He was just as big a fool as I am.

When it was over and the flag came fluttering down in a blaze of blue and green and the shouts of “Hai!”

rose, I saw that Vax, although splashed with blood, was unharmed. He had fought magnificently. I had been near him and there had been no single time when I had had to intervene. He could handle himself in a fight, that was plain. I knew he had been under training with the Krozairs of Zy. Their wonderful Disciplines had molded him well. He must, I guessed, have been very near to the time when he would have been accepted into the Order as a full member and have been allowed to prefix that proud Pur to his name.

But, all the same, despite his prowess, I was mighty glad when the fighting ceased. Vax it was who spotted the danger to Pearl, ahead of us. He sprang onto the forecastle of the argenter and waved his sword.

“Pearl! Pur Naghan’s in trouble!”

The swifter had wallowed around and broken a number of her starboard oars. The fighting on her decks looked confused. Men were spilling over into the water. There was no time to be lost. We pulled up and launched ourselves afresh into the fray, battling up with Pearl’s men to take the Menaheem by surprise and so overpower their last resistance.

“Thank Zair you appeared, Dak!” panted Pur Naghan. His mail had been ripped and blood showed on his shoulder. “They fight well, these Menaham sailors.”

“Bloody Menahem,” said Vax. “I owe them.”

“You owe a lot of people, it seems, Vax,” I said.

He scowled at me, his brown eyes bright, his face flushed.

“Do you mock me, Dak?”

“Mock? Now, why should you think that?”

“If you do-”

Duhrra appeared, immense, his idiot-seeming face creased.

“You do — uh — seem to poke fun, master.”

I knew that Duhrra regarded Vax as an oar-comrade, and this gladdened me. I realized I had gone far enough.

I glanced over the side.

“And while we prattle Rukker has boarded the last argenter.”

The cunning Kataki had taken the first ship, and then pulled out and dropped down to the last. Now he had two prizes.

Pur Naghan said, “We will share this one, Dak, of course.”

Vax favored me with a scowl and took himself off. I bellowed the necessary orders and we took possession of our prizes. There were only three. Rukker’s first impetuous attack with the ram had so holed the argenter that she was visibly sinking. A great deal of hustle took place as the goods were brought up and whipped across to the swifter. Chests and boxes, for they contained treasure, were favored over merchandise.

Soon the three swifters and the three argenters began the voyage back to the island of Wabinosk. We called in at our usual island stopovers and met with no untoward incidents. We pulled with a fine reserve of manpower.

The argenters were sailed by scratch crews and we held fair winds almost all the way, only having to tow the sailing vessels twice in calms.

At the island hideout we inspected our spoils. The ship taken by Pearl and ourselves contained mostly sacks of dried mergem, whereat I felt greatly amused. This seemed to indicate Thyllis was in want of food for her people. Our ship contained a quantity of the fine tooled and worked leather for which Magdag is famous. As well there were sacks of chipalines and also, to my surprise, many wicker baskets loaded with crossbow bolts. These were uniformly of fine quality. I guessed they had been manufactured by the slaves and workers of the warrens, those people who, downtrodden and accursed, I had attempted to free, only in the moment of victory to be whisked away by the Star Lords and to leave them to defeat and continued enslavement. I picked up one of the iron quarrels and turned it over in my fingers. Yes, this was a fine artifact, and it should by rights be driven from a crossbow to lodge in the black heart of an overlord of Magdag. Had we not intercepted it, the bolt might well have battered its way into the heart of a Vallian.

Of the cargo carried in the ship Rukker had taken we were concerned only with the treasure. It seemed fitting to me that all gold and silver and precious gems should be heaped into a great and glittering pile and then be shared out equally, portion by portion according to the Articles. Maybe I was naive in this belief. Rukker’s ship had carried the majority of the treasure paid by King Genod for the Hamalese fliers and flyers. The saddle-birds and vollers had fetched extraordinarily high prices. I lifted a heap of golden oars and let them trickle through my fingers back to the glittering mass within the iron-bound lenken chest. This was what Thyllis needed. Her treasury must have been sorely used by the war and now, twenty-odd years after, she was busily building up her reserves so as once again to send sky-spanning fleets against Pandahem and Vallia.

With these thoughts in my mind I went to the meeting with Rukker and the others of our people in positions of authority and found myself not one whit surprised that the Kataki claimed all the treasure he had taken for himself. I was not prepared to argue. I wanted to place my son Vax in safety and then see again King Genod. Only after that could I begin to think again about what to do to free myself from the prison of the inner sea.

“You may keep what you claim, Rukker. If you can maintain your hold on it. For I do not renounce either my claim or the rightful claim of my people.”

He did not sneer at me; but his look, brooding and dark, held calculation. “I take note of your words, Dak the Proud. But I think you will be hard pressed to take what you claim.”

Vax bristled and shook off Duhrra’s hand and barged forward.

“I do not renounce-” he began.

“Keep quiet, Vax,” I said.

“By what right do you-” he blustered.

I looked at him.

Duhrra said, “The master speaks sooth, Vax.” And then the old devil added, “I think you needed a father to teach you the ways of life — duh! You will get yourself spitted if you go on like this.”

“Should I care, Duhrra?”

When my son said those words I felt the hand of ice clench around my heart. Rukker broke the awkwardness, booming out in his coarse Kataki way, “You sail for Zandikar. Well and good, for, by Takroti, I am sick of all this quibbling.” He glared around, yet he was in a high good humor. “I will sail with you and from thence back to the Sea of Onyx. With this treasure I can alter certain events at home.”

So it was settled. The local Renders were only too pleased to see us go, for not only had we beaten off their attacks on us, after the first flush of welcome, in our operations we had shown them up almost humiliatingly. The four swifters and the three argenters made a nice little squadron, sailing east, cutting through the blue waters of the Eye of the World, sailing for Zandikar.