Ghost Stalk Read online

  The messenger stayed with us, marking our slow retreat.

  The gods were not entirely with us anymore. The squall line retreated as we approached, remaining tantalizingly out of reach. Soon it broke free of Cape Blood and began drifting seaward.

  "We could try for Freyland ..." I started to say, but Mica silenced me with a gesture.

  There was a second squadron north of the Cape. Three fat galleons eager to make our acquaintance.

  "We're had. What's that?"

  Something bobbed on the waves ahead. Low, dark. Gulls squawked and flapped away as we drew nearer.

  It was a harbinger of what Itaskia's navy planned for us.

  Trolledyngjan's from wolfs head had managed to assemble a raft and start paddling for land. They had not made it. Itaskian arrows protruded from each corpse. The gulls had been at their faces and eyes.

  "Always the eyes first," said Mica. He glanced at the wheeling birds, shivered.

  "That," I said, "is the only ghost ship we're ever going to see."

  The repairs went on and on. The Old Man stood the poop as stiffly as if this were just another plundering-to-be. Not till after they had drawn the noose tight did he act. And then he merely went below to change into fresher, dandier clothing.

  Ten to one, and all of them bigger. How much can the gods help? But they took no chances. They surrounded us carefully, then slowly tightened their circle.

  When it was almost time, I paused to speak to my banded arrow. This time, I told her, we were going to have to do a deed that would re-echo for decades. It would be our only immortality.

  But they gave me no opportunity to employ her.

  Two fat galleons moved in on our sides. We killed and killed and killed, till the sea itself turned scarlet and frothed with the surging to and fro of maddened sharks. They cut us up one by one till, like Fat Poppo, we could do nothing but squat in our own gore and watch the destruction of our shipmates.

  The first pair of vessels eventually pulled away so another pair could put their marines aboard. And so on. And so on. Such determination. That Freylander must have been far more important than we had thought.

  There came a time when I was alone on the forecastle, Col grave was alone on the poop, and the Kid was alone in the rigging. Then even we had been cut down.

  The Itaskians cleared their countless dead while, unable to interfere, we lay in our own blood. Would they fire us, as we had done to so many victims? No. Gangs of sailors came over and took up the repair work we had started.

  I supposed they were planning to take us into Portsmouth. Our trials and executions would make a huge spectacle.

  It would be the event of the decade.

  X

  The Itaskians worked a day and a night. Dawn proved my pain-fogged speculations unfounded.

  The messenger ship then drew alongside. Just one man came aboard. He wore the regalia of a master sorcerer of the Brotherhood.

  This was the man we had feared so long, the one against whom we had no defense. His was the mind, no doubt, which had engineered our destruction. He had been subtle. Not till now had we suspected the presence of a magical hand. Knowing he was there, Colgrave might have gone another way.

  He surveyed Dragon with a pleased look, then went aft to begin a closer inspection. He started with the Old Man.

  One by one, working his way forward, he paused over each man. Finally, he climbed the forecastle ladder and bent over me.

  "So. Archer," he murmured. I clutched the banded arrow beneath my broken leg and wished I had the strength to drive her into his chest. I had not felt so much rage, so much hatred, since the night that I had killed my wife. "Your long journey is almost done. You're almost there. In just a few hours you'll have your heart's desire. You'll meet your ghost ship after all."

  He must have said the same thing to the others. Dragon fairly quivered with anger and hatred. Mine was so strong I half sat up before I collapsed from pain and the weight of the spells he had spun about us.

  "Farewell, then,'" he chuckled. "Farewell all!" A minute later he was aboard his sloop. Her crew cast off. By then the galleons had fled beyond the southern horizon.

  I could still hear his voice, singing, as the sloop pulled away. At first I thought it imagination. But it was not. He was chanting up some new sorcery. The old began to relax.

  My anger broke that enchantment's limits. I rolled. I found my bow. Ignoring nerves shrieking with the pain in my leg, I surged upward.

  Three hundred yards. He had his back to me, his arms raised in an appeal to the sky. "This's the flight for which you were made." I kissed the banded lady goodby.

  I fell as she left the bow, cursing because I would be unable to follow her final flight.

  She was faithful to the last.

  The skull-pounding chant became an endless tortured scream.

  All the thunders of the universe descended at once.

  I had let fly seconds too late.

  The first thing I noticed was the gentle whisper of the ship moving slowly through quiet seas. Then the damp fog. I rolled onto my back. The mist was so dense I could barely make out the albatross perched on the foretruck. I sat up.

  There was no pain. Not even the ache of muscles tormented by the exertions of combat. I rubbed my leg. It was whole. But I had not imagined the break. There was a lump, no longer tender, at the fracture site. My cuts, scrapes, and bruises had all healed, their only memorial a few new scars.

  It takes months for bones to knit, I thought.

  I stood, tottered to the rail overlooking the maindeck. The bone held.

  My shipmates, as puzzled as I, were patting themselves, looking around, and murmuring questions. Fat Poppo kept lifting his shirt, fingering the line across his belly, then flipping his shirt down and glancing around in embarrassed disbelief. Lank Tor stared upward, mouthing a silent "How?" over and over.

  The sails were aloft and pregnant with wind.

  I turned slowly, surveying the miracle. Maybe we were beloved of the gods, I thought.

  The fog seemed less dense a-head. Light filtered through.

  The Old Man sensed it too. He began clumping round the poop in suspicious curiosity, leaning on the rails, the sternsheets, trying to garner some hint of what had happened.

  He paused, stared past me.

  In a voice that was but a ghost of his usual thunder, he called Toke and Lank Tor, conferred. In a minute, quietly, they were about their work. He called to me to keep a sharp lookout.

  The boatswain and First Officer took in sail.

  XI

  And now we drift, barely making steerage way. Every man remains self-involved in the mystery of our survival.

  The fog is thinning. I can see the water now, like polished jade, an algae-rich soup in which the only ripples are those made by Dragon's cutwater.

  Yet there is a breeze up top. Curious.

  A dozen birds are perched in the tops, silently watching us, moving only when the Kid or another topman pushes by. Spooky.

  The Old Man is as much at a loss as anyone. He is ready for anything, expects nothing good. He sends one of Tor's mates round to make sure we are all fully armed.

  The fog gradually breaks into patchlets. But the low sky remains solidly overcast. It is no more than two hundred feet up. It is so thick, the light is so diffuse, that there is no telling exactly where the sun stands. Sometimes the cloud dips down, and the maintop ploughs through, swirling it like a spoon does cream in a cup of tea.

  I check my arrows, mourn my banded lady. She was a truer love than any I have ever known, was faithful to the end. Not like this blue and white. She is as fickle as that bitch I killed in Itaskia.

  Heart's desire. The dead sorcerer promised it. Then what am I doing here, sailing to a rendezvous with the ghost ship? A queasiness not of wind or wave stampedes through my stomach. I will face a grim opponent, if the wizard did not lie. And without my deadly lady. The bowman there, they say, is at least as good as I.

 
This is my desire? Then I have fooled myself more thoroughly than anyone else.

  I wish I could talk to Colgrave, to make sure there aren't any last-minute changes in plan.

  Like a chess opening thoroughly planned beforehand, our initial moves will go by rote. We have discussed them a hundred times. We have taken a score of vessels in dress rehearsal.

  I am the Old Man's key piece, his queen. He relies on me heavily. Perhaps too heavily.

  I am supposed to take out that legendary bowman first. Before he can get me. Then I take the dead captain, the helmsman, anyone taking their places, and, as we go hand to hand, their deadliest fighters.

  Dragon's prow slices through a final cloud.

  I see her! A caravel emerging from a fog bank directly ahead, bearing down on us. I wave to Colgrave.

  It's Her. The One. The Phantom. I can smell it, taste it. Its taste is fear. The sorcerer did not lie. Even from here I can see the bowman on her forecastle deck, glaring our way.

  The butterflies grow larger.

  Colgrave shifts our heading a bit to starboard. The reever immediately does the same. We have barely got steerage way, but it seems we are rushing toward one another at the breakneck speed of tilting knights. I glance at Colgrave. He shrugs. How and when I act is up to me.

  I take my second-best arrow and lay it across my bow. "Now, if you ever aspired to greatness, is the time to fly true," I whisper. My hands are cold, moist, shaky.

  We proceed in near silence, each man awed by what we are about to attempt. The ghost makes not a sound as she bears down, evidently intending a firing pass similar to our own. Even the birds, usually so raucous, are still. Colgrave stands tall and stiff, refusing to make himself a difficult target. He has complete confidence in my skill and the protection of the gods.

  He is positively aglow. This is the end to which he has dedicated his life.

  Momentarily, I wonder what we will really do if by some chance we are the victors in this encounter. Will we beach the Vengeful D. and haul our treasures ashore as we have always said? But where? We must be known and wanted in every kingdom and city-state fronting the western ocean.

  Four hundred yards. The phantom seems a little hazy, a little undefined. For a moment I suspect my eyes. But, no. It's true. There is an aura of the enchanted about her.

  There would be, wouldn't there?

  Three fifty. Three hundred yards. I could let fly now, but it does not feel right.

  There is something strange about the reever, something I cannot put my finger on.

  Two fifty. The crew are getting nervous. All eyes are on me now. Two hundred. I cannot wait any longer. He won't.

  I loose.

  As does he, at virtually the same instant.

  His shaft moans past my ear, knicking it, drawing a drop of blood. I stoop for another, cursing. I missed too.

  The butterflies have grown as big as falcons. I send a second arrow, and so does he. And we both miss, by a wider margin.

  Does he have the shakes too? He is supposed to be above that, is supposed to be far better than he has shown. The Phantom has never met a foe she needed fear.

  But she has never met us. Perhaps fear is why we have never been able to track her down. Perhaps she has heard how terrible her stalkers can be.

  One fifty. I miss twice more. Now it has become a matter of pride. He can miss forever, so far as I'm concerned, but I've got a reputation to uphold and a nervous crew to reassure.

  Another miss. And another. Damned! What is wrong with me?

  Student's mocking grin comes haunting. I frown. Why now?

  One hundred yards. Toe to toe. And I'm down to just one arrow. Might as well kiss it all good-by. We have lost. This feckless blue and white will miss by a mile.

  But a dead calm comes over me. Disregarding my opponent, who, I suppose, has been toying with me, I ready the shot with tournament care.

  It goes.

  A thunderbolt strikes me in the chest. The bow slides from my fingers. The crew moan. I clutch the arrow...

  A blue and white arrow.

  I can hear Student laughing now. And, with blood dribbling from the corners of my mouth, I grin back. So that's his secret.

  It's a good one. A cosmic joke. The sort that sets the gods laughing till their bellies ache and then, ever after, when they remember, is good for a snicker.

  My opponent falls as I fall. I wind up seated with my back against the rail, watching as the grapnels fly, as the ships come together, as the faces of the men portray a Hell's gallery of reactions.

  I suppose we'll drift at the heart of this circular mile forever, tied to ourselves, to our sins.

  It's too late for redemption now.

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