The Chernagor Pirates

his father. And how many people are unshakably loyal to me? Lanius wondered. Is anyone?) That had enormous advantages for the other king. But sometimes an arch- hallow who did more than fill space would have been useful. Lanius almost wished Bucco still led services in the cathedral, and Bucco would have married him off to King Dagipert of Thervingia’s daughter if he’d had his way.

Now, Lanius asked himself, what to do with Cathartes’ letter? At first, he wanted to put it in some prominent place. Instead, he ended up using its bits of sealing wax to reattach it to the report on sheep in the Granicus valley to which it had clung for so long. Sometimes obscurity was best.

Only after Lanius had left the archives did he wonder whether that applied to him as well as to what King Cathartes had written all those years ago. Little by little, he’d realized he didn’t much want to challenge Grus for the sole rule of Avornis, so maybe it did. And if he didn’t, he might get along with—and work with—his father-in- law better than he ever had before.

Down the Granicus toward the Azanian Sea sailed the fleet of river galleys Grus commanded. Other flotillas and contingents of soldiers were, he hoped, clearing more of the Nine Rivers and their valleys of the Chernagor pirates.

He’d had to fight again, at Calydon. The Chernagors there weren’t plundering the town. They were holding it, and hadn’t intended to give it back to any mere Avornans. Grus used the same ploy he’d succeeded with against Baron Lev at the fortress of Varazdin. He made an ostentatious attack against the waterfront from the river. When he judged most of the pirates had rushed to that part of Calydon, he sent soldiers against the land wall. They got inside the city before the Chernagors realized they were in trouble. After that, Calydon fell in short order. His biggest trouble then was keeping the inhabitants from massacring the Chernagors he’d taken prisoner.

When he heard some of the stories about what the Chernagors did while holding Calydon, he was more than halfway sorry he hadn’t let the people do what they wanted. By then, he’d sent the captured pirates back into the countryside under guard. He didn’t know just what he would do with them—put them to work in the mines, maybe, or exchange them for Avornans their countrymen had taken. And if I don’t do either of those, he thought, I can always give them back to the people of Calydon.

As his river galleys and soldiers headed east again, he asked Hirundo, “Did you expect anything like what we saw there?”

“Not me, your Majesty.” Hirundo shook his head, then looked as though he wished he hadn’t; any motion might be enough to make him queasy while he paced the deck of a river galley. After a gulp, he went on, “They fought us clean enough in their own country last year. Hard, yes, but clean enough. Not like… that.”

“No, not like that,” Grus agreed. “They might as well have been Menteshe, slaughtering the wounded and killing men who tried to yield. And what they did to the people in Calydon was ten times worse.” Over by the rail, Pterocles stirred. The king waved to the wizard. “You have something to say?”

“I’m… not sure, Your Majesty,” Pterocles replied. Grus hoped he hid his frown. Pterocles wasn’t sure of much of anything these days. To be fair, he also wasn’t the best of sailors, though he was better than Hirundo. Like the general, he paused to gather himself before continuing, “I’m not as surprised as you are, I don’t think.”

“Oh? Why not?” Grus asked.

The wizard looked not north, not east, but to the south. In the hollow tones that had become usual since his double overthrow in the land of the Chernagors, he said, “Why not? Because they’ve had a year longer now to listen to the Banished One, to let him into their hearts.”

“Oh,” Grus said again, this time on a falling note. Pterocles made more sense than the king wished he did. The wizard didn’t seem to care whether he made sense or not. Somehow, that made him seem more convincing, not less.

Grus hoped the fleet was still outrunning the news of its coming. If he could get to the sea before the Chernagors along the coast heard he was there, he would have a better chance against them. On the Granicus and, he believed, the rest of the Nine Rivers, his galleys had the advantage over the Chernagors’ sailing ships. They were both faster and more agile. Whether that would hold true on the wide waters of the sea was liable to be a different question.

The Granicus, a clear, swift-flowing stream, carried little silt and had no delta to speak of. One moment, or so it seemed to Grus, the river flowed along as it always had. The next, the horizon ahead widened out to infinity. The Azanian Sea awed him even more than the Northern Sea had. That probably had nothing to do with the sea itself. In the Chernagor country, the weather had been cloudy and hazy, which limited the seascape. Here, he really felt as though he could see forever.

But seeing forever didn’t really matter. On the north bank of the Granicus, the town of Dodona sat by the edge of the sea. It lay in Chernagor hands. The fresh smoke stains darkening the wall around the town said the corsairs had burned it when they took it.

Several Chernagor ships were tied up at the wharves. The pirates didn’t seem to expect trouble. Grus could tell exactly when they spied his fleet. Suddenly, Dodona began stirring like an aroused anthill. Too late, he thought, and gave his orders. “We’ll hit ’em hard and fast,” he declared. “It doesn’t look like it’ll be even as tough as Calydon. If it is, we’ll try the same trick we used there—feint at the harbor and then go in on the land side. But whatever we do, we have to keep those ships from getting away and warning the rest of the Chernagors.”

Almost everything went the way he’d hoped. Some of the pirates fought bravely as individuals. He’d seen in the north and here in Avornis that they were no cowards. But in Dodona they had no time to mount a coordinated defense. Like ice when warm water hits it, they broke up into fragments and were swept away.

Several of their ships burned by the piers. Avornan marines and soldiers swarmed onto others. But the Chernagors got a crew into one, hoisted sail, and fled northward propelled by a strong breeze from out of the south. That was when Grus really saw what the great spread of canvas they used could do. He sent two river galleys after the Chernagor ship. The men rowed their hearts out, but the pirate ship still pulled away. Grus cursed when it escaped. The Granicus might be cleared of Chernagors, but now all the men from the north would know he was hunting them.

“No, thank you,” Lanius said. “I don’t feel like hunting today.”

Arch-Hallow Anser looked surprised and disappointed. “But didn’t you enjoy yourself the last time we went out?” he asked plaintively.

“I enjoyed the company—I always enjoy your company,” Lanius said. “And I liked the venison. The hunt itself? I’m very sorry, but…” He shook his head. “Not to my taste.”

“We should have flushed a boar, or a bear,” Anser said. “Then you’d have seen some real excitement.”

“I don’t much care for excitement.” Lanius marveled at how the arch-hallow had so completely misunderstood him. “I just don’t see the fun of tramping through the woods looking for animals to slaughter. If you do, go right ahead.”

“I do. I will. I’m sorry you don’t, Your Majesty.” Hurt still on his face, Anser strode down the palace hallway.

Oh, dear, Lanius thought. He almost called after Anser, telling him he’d come along after all. He was willing to pay nearly any price to keep Anser happy with him. But the key word there was nearly. Going hunting again flew over the limit.

Instead, he went to the moncats’ room, where he had an easel set up. He’d discovered a certain small talent for painting the last few years, and he knew more about moncats than anyone else in Avornis. Than anyone who doesn’t live on the islands they come from, he thought, and wondered how many people lived on those islands out in the Northern Sea. That was something he’d never know.

What he did know was that Petrosus, Grus’ treasury minister, was slow and stingy with the silver he doled out. No doubt that was partly at Grus’ order, to help keep Lanius from accumulating power to threaten the other king. But Petrosus, whatever his reasons, enjoyed what he did. Lanius had sold several of the pictures of moncats he’d painted. As far as he knew, no King of Avornis had ever done anything like that before. He felt a modest pride