Love and War

baggage. Soren stood aside, one hand on the pommel of his sword. Sturm stayed by him, taking in the busy spectacle of a ship being readied for sea.

'Will it be a long voyage, Sergeant?' asked the boy.

'Depends on the sea and the wind, young lord. And the skill of the mariners.'

'Couldn't we wait a while longer? For news from Father?' asked Sturm.

Soren did not reply. He stared at the housetops of the town, waiting for the pink sky beyond them to blaze yellow, then blue. Vapor steamed from his nostrils in the chill air.

'Sergeant, I shall board now,' Lady Ilys said. Soren offered his arm. 'Come along, Sturm,' she said. The boy responded with a sigh. He dragged his feet up the worn plank, looking back often to the barren hills east of town.

Lines fell from the ship to the water. Gangs of sailors manned two broad sweeps and rowed Skelter out of Thel harbor. Open pilot boats guided them past the bar into the Inland Sea. Sturm watched them turn back as Skelter's single sail was raised.

Captain Graff rigged a screen of hides below the sterncastle for Lady Ilys and Carin. Barrels and crates of trade goods were pushed aside to create a space for the women under the castle platform. A smoky oil lamp was lit, and Mistress Carin set to making pallets for her lady and Sturm.

The ship rolled with a steady motion to which Sturm quickly adapted. He wanted to go on deck and watch the sailors at their work, but Lady Ilys forbade him. The strain of recent days was bearing on her hard, and she wanted most of all to rest.

'Stay by me, Sturm,' she said. 'I need a strong man at my side while I rest. I won't feel safe otherwise.'

She took off her fur cape and lay down, pulling the soft wrap around her as a blanket. Sturm lay down, his back to hers, vigilant as a knight and wary as a Brightblade — for all of ten minutes. Then he, too, lapsed into heavy slumber.

He sensed a change. The ship's motion had lessened. The air in the hide enclosure was close and hot. Sturm rolled to his feet, tightened the drawstring of his pants, and went out on deck.

A cold, thick, white fog had settled on the warmer sea. The Skelter glided under a feeble following wind. They were far out in the midst of the Inland Sea. No land was visible; indeed, nothing could be seen ten paces beyond the ship's rail.

Sturm prowled the waist of the ship, scampering out of the way of the sailors as they tightened the mainsail tackle. The big square of canvas hung limply in the misty air, flopping only rarely when a stray gust struck it.

Soren was on the poop. The steersman leaned on one leg behind the sergeant, shifting the thick black staff of the rudder with practiced ease. Timbers and rigging creaked as Skelter eased across the flat, languid water.

The weather was no fairer the second day at sea, Captain Graff and his first mate — a squat, dwarvish fellow with yellow eyes — put their heads together by the mast. Naturally, Sturm was on hand to listen.

'Do ye think it's for the wind cord?' asked the mate. Sturm was fascinated by the brass tooth in the front of the man's mouth.

'Nay, 'tis not the time. This cursed mist may rise soon, and the natural wind will spring up,' said Graff.

Sturm asked Soren what the mate meant by 'wind cord.'

'Magic,' he said. 'Mariners often buy wind from seaside warlocks. They keep the wind bound in knots of magical cord. When the ship's master needs a breeze, he unknots as much of a blow as he dares.'

'Is there much magic on the sea?' Sturm asked, wide eyed.

Soren wiped mist from his helmet brim before it could drip off. 'Far too much to suit me, young lord. This fog seems too clinging to be nature's work.'

Midday was no brighter than dawn. The sea flattened out like the puddled wax around Sturm's study candle in Castle Brightblade. The lapping waves fell silent, and the sail stayed slack against the mast. Captain Graff emerged from below deck with a length of rawhide two spans long. Sturm peered through the sterncastle rail as the captain crossed the waist and mounted the steps to the poop.

'Sargo,' he said to the helmsman. 'I'm loosing a knot.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Graff put one end of the cord in his teeth. There were a dozen knots along its length. The idea of a magic cord intrigued and repelled Sturm at the same time. Such power was forbidden to the knightly orders.

Graff picked at the first knot with his blunt fingernails. In the stagnant air, each of his mutters was clear.

'Come loose, you son of a snake,' he said.

Soren moved suddenly off the rail to the sternpost. He gazed into the fog. 'Captain Graff,' he said calmly. The master of the SKELTER cursed some more at the tough loopin the cord. 'Captain!' Soren barked, using the parade ground voice that Sturm had heard so often from the training yard. The old seaman looked up.

'Don't bother me, lad; I'm engaged,' he said.

'There's a ship out there,' Soren said. 'It's coming toward us.'

'What? Eh? Do ye have the second sight?'

'No, just two good ears. Listen!'

Graff put a hand to his ear. Sturm came up on Soren's left and listened, too.

There… a faint knocking sound… like two blocks of wood slapping together.

'By the gods, yer right!' Graff said. 'Those are oars beating, or I'm a thieving kender!'

Idle sailors collected in the stern to hear the approaching ship. Soren backed out of the press, drawing Sturm with him.

'You must go and tell your mother what is happening,' he said.

'What IS happening, Soren?'

'A galley, a ship rowed by many men, is close upon us. I fear they mean us mischief.'

'Pirates?' asked the boy, half-fearful, half-delighted.

'Mayhap, or rogues of a darker stripe. Run to your mother and tell her this.'

Sturm slipped down a stayrope, as he'd often seen the sailors do, and dropped to the deck outside his mother's enclosure. He pulled back the flap. It was dim and smoky inside, but he spied Mistress Carin tending a small fire in a copper pan.

'Mother! Mother!' he called.

'What is it?' Lady Ilys said from the shadows.

'Sergeant Soren says a rowing ship is coming for us. It may be pirates!'

Mistress Carin gasped. Lady Ilys's face appeared out of the darkness. She was very pale, and her expression was grim.

'Why would pirates bother so small a ship as this?' she asked.

'It's so foggy, my lady, Paladine wouldn't know us for who we are,' Carin said.

'Sturm, fetch the sergeant to me. I want a soldier's view of the matter.' The boy bowed hastily to his mother and ran out to find Soren.

The thump and swish of oars was clearer now, even to Sturm's young ears. The fog swallowed the sound, dispersing it, making it hard to tell from what quarter the galley approached. Definitely astern; that was certain.

'Sergeant! Sergeant!' Sturm shouted. He found the guardsman on the poop deck, whetting the blade of his broadsword. The Skelter's crew of lean, raffish seamen nervously shifted hatchets and cutlasses from hand to hand. Only Captain Graff and Sargo, the aged helmsman, were calm.

'Sergeant, my mother wishes to speak to you,' Sturm said.

'I honor your noble mother, but I regret I cannot leave the deck just now,' Soren said. 'The enemy, it enemy they be, is near.'

'Where? Where?'

'Treading on our heels.'

Sturm strained to see. The oars pounded ceaselessly…

'Ship on the port stem!' sang out a man in the rigging. Out of the white murk came a massive object wrought in bronze. To Sturm it looked like the head of a mace.