“You may have been important in M’Dahz, little one, but here you’re just fresh meat.”
Samir’s heart raced. He was good under pressure and he knew it, but this was so far beyond his territory he really had no idea how to react. He swallowed. The important thing was to stay in control of himself. That way he had a hope of gaining control of the situation as time progressed.
Setting his jaw stubbornly, he turned to the assembled crowd, fighting down the panic and compacting it in his gut into a hard resolve.
“Very well. We’re obviously some distance from M’Dahz now. You’re clearly not a Pelasian vessel and the Empire won’t be sending ships here these days. The militia have gone and merchants are not in the habit of pressing unconscious drunks into service.”
He smiled a smile that he hoped was as irritating and condescending as it felt.
“I assume therefore that this is a pirate vessel and I am now, whether I like it or not, in fact, a pirate.”
Though no one replied, there was a chorus of vaguely affirmative noises from the other occupants of this dark space. Irritating, because now Samir was going to have to build up the respect of his peers from scratch once again and learn the ropes of this place. Clearly, short of a suicidal escape attempt to swim dozens of miles of open sea, he was stuck here for now and would have to make the most of it.
He smiled to himself. Perhaps this was actually a blessing in disguise. While he had entered his new life at M’Dahz with great plans of using the criminal classes of the town to foment rebellion against the Pelasians, he had to admit how easily he’d let himself slide into the simplicity of a life of few morals and lost sight of his original purpose.
Pirates! Pirates could be a great deal more use than a few smugglers and thieves.
His smile widened. All the more reason to push this as far as it would go. If you needed respect, the first thing to do was to test your limits. Once you knew how far you were allowed to go, you knew what you had to continually exceed to gain respect, or at least fear.
“I’ve met pirates several times. Saw a captain behead a merchant in M’Dahz once. And since pirates are, in my experience, grown men with brains and cunning, I can only assume that you are either captives or that perhaps you clean the shitters, yes?”
Several growls greeted this comment. Samir began to relax. Some crowds were so predictable it was almost a shame to play them.
“Well? Any of you young ladies got enough of a voice to tell me what ship this is.”
The leader at the back folded his arms and sat back on a crate.
“You are either exceptionally brave or monumentally stupid, boy. My lads will tear you to pieces for that.”
Samir shrugged.
“Bring it to me. I have gutted Pelasian captains, learned to fight well from a desert warrior and dirtily from the docks of M’Dahz. And I am not remotely afraid of any of your catamites, my friend.”
The figures, barring the leader who remained seated on his crate, began to step slowly and purposefully forward from the shadows. Samir nodded to himself. This was going to hurt, but it was the first step to gaining a level of control.
With a smile, he scanned around and found a rib-shaped piece of timber perhaps two feet long and slightly curved; part of a broken barrel, probably. He hefted it for a moment and turned to face the advancing crowd.
“Alright. Who’s first?”
The white horses of possibility rushed along the side of the ship as they danced from crest to crest, keeping pace with the beatings just audible from within the hull of the great dark vessel.
On the raised rear section of the deck, beneath the large building-like canopy, captain Khmun shifted his gaze from the wide horizon ahead to the two sails which billowed.
“We’re losing the wind, Sharimi. Break out the oars.”
He cupped his hand round his ear and grinned.
“And you’d best go break up the fight. The boys need to take their seats.”
The first officer returned the sly grin and bowed. As he ran off shouting commands, Khmum rubbed his bristly chin and stared off ahead into the distance, focusing on the island that would not be visible for days yet.
The ‘Dark Empress’ was heading home.
In which a journey is completed and one begun
Ghassan stared up in wonder. Although his whole life he had heard the merchants in M’Dahz talk of the glorious city of Calphoris as though it made his home town look like a desert hovel, he’d not been truly prepared for what he saw now.
It had been so long since he had set off in the dark moonless night from the walls of M’Dahz with visions of a quick run and then a five day ride along the coast to the capital of the province that he had lost count of the sunrises and sunsets he had seen.
What had begun easily had soon been complicated beyond belief. He had run through the night and had hoped to come early the next morning to the trade station where he would buy a horse or possibly a camel for his ongoing journey.
The light had gradually grown with that first dawn and he had approached the trade post with some caution. Even though the chances were that, even if the rope had been found, the Pelasian military would hardly expend men on a manhunt unless someone important was found to be missing, there was no reason to tempt the lady of fate.
The station had been quiet and, as he’d approached, he had realised just how quiet. No trading post was that silent, let alone one that specialised in animals. Obviously the place was still used, since the smell of dung had been fresh and pungent enough to assail him as he reached even a hundred yards’ distance. Perhaps, now that there were so few traders on the roads, this place was only maintained by nomads who would need to stay there occasionally.
Biting his lip, he had approached slowly and in a crouched, tense manner. Somehow he hadn’t believed his rationalisations. Something had been wrong with the place and, as he’d reached the boundary wall that formed part of the horse corral, he had spotted the first signs of trouble. A broken blade lay partially covered by the sand. Once again he had found himself thanking the Gods for the gift of sharp eyes.
Ten minutes he had waited, obscured by that wall, listening for any sign of movement, before he had ventured within the post. Formed of three buildings and two tents with four separate corrals and an enclosing wall, the trade station had clearly been occupied continuously by a number of men and a great many animals of different sorts, up to a matter of days or even hours before. Equally clearly, the peaceful occupation of this mercantile centre had ended quickly and violently.
Not a single animal was to be found at the site and no bodies had been in evidence, though Ghassan had found a number of ripped fragments of garments and shards of metal belonging to weapons and armour.
Most disturbing had been the gobbets of fresh blood on the floor of the main building, clearly where the fighting or, more likely, the executions had taken place.
Despite the lack of corroborating evidence, he had become convinced almost immediately that this was the work of the Pelasian invaders, probably in some form of revenge for the attempted coup in the town.
Whatever the reason, he had now been faced with several weeks’ walk to the city of Calphoris, a walk along the coast, down near the shore and away from the road where patrols might find him.
Sighing, Ghassan had set off and headed east once again.
Later that afternoon, he had almost walked to his own demise.
A whole day of repetitive terrain and the quiet lapping of waves on the sand had become like a mantra, driving the young man into a stupor as he plodded ever on. It was almost soporific and he had his head lowered and his thumbs tucked into his belt as he’d rounded that headland. As he thought back on it now, he became certain that he’d even been whistling a childhood ditty as he went.
And there, on the beach beyond the headland, had been a patrol of black-clad Pelasian light cavalry, cooking freshly-caught fish for their lunch. He had been so surprised, shocked out of his mental haze, that he’d stood there
