Call For The Dead Read online

  He watched the black bird for several seconds. "How patient are they, Bowman? We had our chances in life. We had them in limbo, while we harried the coasts. And we didn't even recognize them."

  "And maybe we couldn't. This ship.... We forget things. We stop thinking. We get like Lank Tor, who can't remember yesterday. Remember Student and Whaleboats?"

  They had been friends of ours. They had disappeared during a terrible storm shortly before the sorcerer had caught us. "Uhm."

  We had never talked about it, but the suspicion could not be denied. There was a chance that Student and Whaleboats had found redemption. There was a connection between righteous deeds and disappearances from Dragon.

  It had to be more than coincidence, Our memories were reliable only back to the time Kid had come aboard, but since then several men had vanished. Each had been guilty of doing something truly good shortly before. How Colgrave had screamed and cussed at Student and Whaleboats for not setting fire to that shipload of women....

  "Student claimed there was a way out. Fat Poppo told me he figured it out too. I think there is. I think they found it. And I think I know what it is too, now." Mica did not say anything for at least a minute. Then, "Did you die in that place, Bowman?"

  "What?" For some reason I did not want to tell him. "What place?"

  "The foggy sea, dummy. Where we met ourselves and lost the battle."

  Colgrave's habit was to destroy every vessel we encountered. We had entered that quiet place out of a deep fog, with a sorcerer's grim promise still ringing in our ears. Black birds had roosted in our tops and another ship had been headed our way. Colgrave, mad Colgrave, had ordered the attack. And when we had come to grips with the caravel, who had we found manning her but doppelgangers of ourselves....?

  "Were you aware the whole time?"

  "Yeah." The grunt like to choked me getting out. "Every damned second. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't even go crazy."

  He raised an eyebrow.

  "All right. Crazier than I already am."

  Mica grinned. "Sometimes, Bow-man, I wonder if we're not just a little less wicked than we think. Or maybe it's pretend. We're great pretenders, the crew of the Vengeful D."

  "Mica, you ain't no philosopher."

  "How do you know what I am? I don't. I don't remember. But what I'm saying, man, is I think we all knew what was going on. Every minute. Even the Old Man."

  "What's the point?"

  "The sun rose and set a lot of times, Bowman. I didn't sleep either. That's a lot of time to think. And maybe change."

  I turned my back to the rail. The crew were about ship's work. They were quieter than I remembered. Thoughtful. They moved less jerkily now.

  How long had it been? Years?

  "We don't look any different." Colgrave was the same old specter of terror there on the poop. He had changed clothing. He was clad in regal finery now. Clothes were his compensation for his deformity.

  When he dressed this well, and kept the poop instead of lurking in his cabin, he meant to spill blood.

  "I mean different inside." He considered Colgrave too. "Maybe some of us can't change. Maybe there's nothing else in there."

  "Or maybe we just don't understand." I suffered an insight. "The Old Man's scared."

  "He should be. These are Itaskian waters. Look what they did already."

  "Not just afraid of what they'll do if they catch us. We had that hanging over us before. It didn't bother anybody. Won't now. I mean scared like Barley. Of everything and nothing."

  Old Barley was our resident coward. He was also the meanest fighter on the Vengeful D. His fear drove him to prodigies in battle.

  "Maybe. And maybe he's changed too."

  "I haven't. Not that I can see."

  "Look at your right hand."

  I did. It was my hand, fore and middle fingers calloused from drawing bowstrings. "So?"

  "Every guy here can tell you two things about your hands. If there's a ship in sight, your left will be holding a bow. And so it is. And your right, when Colgrave lets you, will be hanging on to a cup of rum like it was your firstborn child."

  I looked at Mica. He smiled. I looked at my hand. It was naked. I looked down at the maindeck, that I had crossed without thinking of rum. Barley was almost finished issuing the grog ration.

  The craving hit me hard. I must have staggered. Mica caught my arm. "Try to let it go, Bowman. Just this once."

  I waved at Barley. "Just to see if you can do it." Why didn't he mind his own business? Gods, I needed a drink.

  Then Priest caught my eye. Priest, the king of us alkies. The man who peddled salvation to the rest of us and remained incapable of saving himself. Priest did not have a tin cup either. He leaned over the starboard rail. His expression said that his guts were tearing him apart. His need for a drink was devouring him. But he was not drinking. His back was to Barley.

  "Look at Priest," I murmured.

  "I see him, Bowman. And I see you."

  The cramps started then. They pissed me off. I whirled and planted myself

  against the rail, mimicking Priest, overlooking the bowsprit. I tried to shut out the world.

  "No way that pervert is going to outlast me," I declared.

  Our bow began rising and falling gently. The water was assuming the character of a normal sea. Our resurrection was about finished.

  I did not look forward to its completion. I could get seasick in a rowboat on a lake on a breezy day.

  The other vessel was hull up on the horizon and headed our way fast.

  I reexamined my bow and arrows. Just in case.

  VI

  Had we changed? The gods witness, we had. The two-master came in alongside, gently, and we did not swarm over her. We did not cast her screaming crew to the sharks. We did not set her aflame. We did not do any thing but hold our weapons ready and wait. Colgrave did not ask us to do anything more.

  Mica and I surveyed our shipmates. I'm sure he saw as much wonder in my face as I saw in his.

  We watched Colgrave almost constantly. The Old Man would determine the smaller vessel's fate. Like it or not, if he gave the order, we would attack.

  "We're a pack of war dogs," I told: Mica. "We might as well be slaves." He nodded.

  Never a word escaped our mad captain's mouth. That astonished him more than the rest of us, I think.

  The ship lay bumping against Dragon for fifteen minutes. Her strangely clad, silent crewmen studied us. We studied them. Not a one would meet my eye. They knew who and what we were. We could smell the fear in them.

  Yet they had come to us, and they stayed. And that was reason for us to fear.

  The vessel had a small deckhouse amidships. Its door finally opened. Two more strangers stepped out, stationed themselves to either side. They studied us with startled, frightened eyes.

  A person in red came forth, looked up.

  "A woman!" Mica swore.

  We did not have a reputation for being gallant.

  "I don't think so...." But I could not be sure. I had never seen a bald woman. "But.... Call it an it."

  Its incredible blue eyes stared in slight bewilderment. Unlike its shipmates, it did not fear us. It was confident.

  I got the impression that we had been a disappointment. Because we had not conformed to our vicious reputation.

  The urge to let an arrow fly was as strong in me as the need for a drink. I did not bend my bow.

  One glance into those weird eyes was all I could handle. Incredible Power sparked them. They proclaimed their possessor a sorcerer greater than he who had banished us to fogs and leaden seas.

  The creature also had that aura of command that animated Colgrave.

  "This's the one who called us back," I whispered.

  Mica nodded.

  I had myself in control. I tested the draw of my bow.

  Black birds wheeled overhead, screeching their consternation. One dove at the figure in red.

  The figure raised a palm. It spoke a sing
le word.

  Feathers exploded. They spun down toward ships and sea, smoldering as they fell. The stench of burnt feathers assailed the air.

  The naked albatross smashed into Dragon's side. It broke its, neck. It thrashed in the water briefly, then changed form. In seconds it became a thing like a snake of night. The thing wriggled away through water and air with lightning speed.

  Its companions screeched once, then remained silent. They did not cease their endless patrol. They clearly prefered avoiding their comrade's liberation.

  The figure in red said something.

  Someone shouted orders in a strange language. Sailors threw grappling hooks over Dragon's rail.

  I looked at Colgrave. An arrow lay across my bow.

  He made a slight negative head gesture.

  "He has changed," I told Mica. "He says let them come." I looked again. Colgrave was instructing Toke and Lank Tor. They descended to the maindeck.

  They disposed the men in such fashion that they could attack the boarders from all sides. We waited.

  One of the smaller ship's officers came up. He looked round, saw the lay of things. He was not happy. He glanced at me. I half drew my bow. He cringed.

  I laughed. Old Barley giggled. The crew took it up.

  We were not kind people. We enjoyed tormenting our captives.

  Again Colgrave gave me that little headshake. A nasty grin smeared his face too. He liked my joke.

  More of them came. And more, and more.

  "Mica, they're all coming over." "Looks like."

  They stood on the maindeck, nervously watched Colgrave.

  "Slide back and tell the Old Man we can sneak down and knock a hole in their bottom when they're all up here. If he wants."

  Mica grinned. "Yeah." It was his kind of dirty trick. He liked sneaking. I expect his sins involved some fancy sneakiness. He wasn't chicken, mind. Just the kind of guy who sees the advantages of backstabbing. A low-risk type guy. He could handle himself face-to-face, when the stakes were high. He shoved through the strangers. They twisted away from him like he was a plague carrier.

  I watched a grin spread across Colgrave's battered face. It was as lopsided as the altars of Hell. The muscles only worked on one side.

  He liked it. My suggestion did not violate his inexplicable armistice with the creature in red.

  Mica almost danced back to the forecastle.

  The sorcerer boarded last. Its crew surrounded it. It disappeared among them. They were all bigger.

  I laughed, catching the creature's attention. I again half drew my bow.

  It looked at me with no apparent fear, but I knew better. I knew I could take the sorcerer if just one instant's gap opened through those bodyguards. We had not been stripped of our defenses. I could get an arrow from here to there quicker than the creature could blink.

  It knew too. That was why it had brought its whole crew. In the time it would take us to kill them, it could perform the sorceries needed to save itself.

  It, too, concentrated on Colgrave. The Old Man's eye flicked my way just once, for a tenth of a second.

  Mica and I rolled over the rail into the ratlines, transferred to the other vessel's stays, got down to her deck in seconds.

  "Bowman, you see about sinking her. I'll go through the cabin."

  "Good thinking. But look for something besides loose gold."

  He gave me a look.

  I looked back. Gold was Mica's weakness. Whenever we took a ship, he spent most of the victory celebration scrounging gold and silver. He brought it back, and we took it down and put it in ballast, never knowing what we would ever do with it.

  That was one tough little ship. It took me twenty minutes to chop a decent hole through her thin planking. By the time I finished I knew she would not sink before the strangers could get back aboard.

  I chuckled. That made the joke richer.

  I hustled back topside. We were taking too long. "Mica!" I called softly. "Come on. We haven't got all day."

  He poked his head out the deckhouse door. "Here. Take some of this crap."

  He had gotten some gold, of course. But not much. The rest seemed to be books, papers, and the thing-gobbies sorcerers have to have to be comfortable doing their nasties.

  VII

  I rolled over Dragon's rail expecting all eyes to be looking my way.

  None were. None did. The strangers were crowded against the base of the poop. Colgrave stood above them, a mocking smile on half his face. Everybody stared at him like he was some demon god.

  Sometimes I thought he was myself. The men were impatient. The strangers felt it. Their fear was about to become panic. Only the will of the creature in red kept them from running.

  Mica handed up our plunder. I concealed it beneath a spritsail lying on the forecastle deck. Mica rolled over the rail.

  Colgrave's glance flicked our way. His smile stretched. He terminated the audience with a shrug and a turned back.

  The creature in red started back to its vessel. Its followers surged around it, eager to be gone.

  I half drew my bow for the third time.

  The creature in red smiled at me.

  That made me mad. I would have let fly had Colgrave not shook his head.

  Nobody mocked the Bowman....

  Then they were gone, their vessel turning away and heading back whence it had come. They stood around watching us, as if to make sure we did not change our minds about letting them go.

  Their ship was a foot lower in the water already. Soon they would realize that she was not responding properly. They would discover the hole....

  I had cut it too big for them to keep afloat by pumping. And I doubted that they would be able to get a good patch on it. I slapped Mica's back. "Let's take the stuff to the Old Man."

  It was not a chore that pleased me. Though it was unavoidable, I plain did not like being anywhere near Colgrave. But with Student gone, he was the only reader left aboard.

  Anyway, he needed to know what we had. If anything.

  He stirred through the pile. Mica's personal plunder he pushed to one side. Mica took it below. The rest Colgrave sorted into three piles. A half-dozen items he just flipped over his shoulder, over the rail, into the sea. Then he examined the piles again. He deep-sixed several more items.

  Toke, Tor, and I watched in silence. Colgrave kept dithering, poking. I don't think he knew what he had. But Colgrave was not the type to admit ignorance.

  Finally, I could stand no more. "What did they want?" I demanded.

  "The usual," Colgrave replied without looking up. "A little murder. A little terror. With his enemies on the bull's-eye, of course. Not ours." "His?"

  "I think it was a he. You cut a big hole, Bowman?"

  "Big enough. It'll stop them." He seemed so damned blase after what had been done to us. Was he still trusting in divine protection? After the Itaskian sorcerer? If so, he was a fool. That was one thing that had never been pinned on Colgrave.

  "Tor, go to the masthead. Let us know when they go dead in the water. Toke, make sail for Freyland. I think she'll respond now."

  I watched while Colgrave examined several books. He seemed awfully undignified, sitting on the deck with his legs crossed. Finally, "Captain, what're we going to do?"

  He peered at me with that one evil eye till I thought he was going to have me thrown to the sharks. One did not address Colgrave. Colgrave called one to the presence.

  He finally replied, "It would be a raid to belittle anything we've ever tried. Portsmouth itself. Burn the docks. Burn the town. Kill everybody we can." "Why?"

  "I didn't ask, Bowman." His voice was cold and hard. He was tired of my questions. Yet I remained where I was. He had changed. He was more open than ever I had seen. "He ordered us. We haven't yet tested the limits of his control. We may not be able to do otherwise."

  "And we do have our grievances." "Yes. We have scores to settle with Portsmouth."

  Dragon shifted her heading to north-northeast. We
were on course for the island kingdoms.

  "The little sailmaker must have overlooked something," Colgrave said. "There's nothing here we can use. All we can do is deny this stuff to him."

  "She's taking in sail, Captain," Tor called down. A vast amusement filled his voice.

  The story had passed through the crew, spread by Mica. There was a lot of laughter.

  I looked north. I could barely make out the other vessel.

  Damn, did that Tor have eyes.

  Excellent eyes. "Sail ho!" he called a moment later. "She's a big one. War galleon, by her look."

  His arm thrust aft. Colgrave and I turned.

  We could just make out her main tops. I looked at Colgrave.

  I could see the torment in him. The need... He had to have bloodshed the way I had to have rum, had to use my bow.

  "She's an Itaskian," Tor called a few minutes later. The bloodlust filled his voice. He, too, needed the killing.

  Nervousness and uncertainty washed the maindeck. The men no longer had the absolute confidence that had impelled them before our capture.

  Dragon had changed indeed. And was changing still.

  "Maintain your heading, First Officer," Colgrave finally croaked.

  It tore him up to say it. But he did.

  A breeze came up. It took us on our port quarter, setting us to landward. The more we turned to seaward, the harder it blew.

  The smell of wizardry tainted it.

  Colgrave gathered Mica's plunder, took it to his cabin, then returned to

  the poop. He said nothing more. The stubborn Colgrave of old, he kept Dragon's course inalterably fixed on Freyland.

  We passed within three hundred yards of the sorcerer's ship. Its crew were too busy keeping from drowning to pay attention. Several called for help. We sailed on.

  Colgrave laughed at them. I'm sure his voice carried that far.

  The breeze died soon afterward, as the other ship began going under. I guess the wizard needed to concentrate on surviving.

  One round for us.

  We took orders from nobody. Not even those who pretended to be our saviors.

  That is what Tor said the thing in red had claimed when it had spoken to Colgrave. It had wanted to bargain.