Krozair of Kregen

And he swung off along the gangway. I glared after him. I knew practically nothing about the way he would act. He was a headstrong and violent youth, suffering under a sense of shame and outrage, carrying a heavy burden of hatred that ate at his pride. But as the fight developed and we smashed into the argenter and the beakhead went down and we roared across her decks, I had to understand that I could not do as I had unthinkingly sought to do. I had acted, I conceived, as any father would act. I did not want my son to go off fighting. But I could not hold him back. His own instincts, his pride, his youthful folly, all impelled him to rush headlong into the thickest of the fight. Can any father thus shield his son from reality and expect to produce a man?

Sometimes the burdens of fatherhood are too heavy for a simple man to bear. Sometimes, I think, nature should have invented some easier way to carry on the generations. I did not enjoy that fight. I drew the great Krozair longsword and I went up the gangway after Vax, and I bellowed back to Fazhan to conn the ship, and I plunged into the fray like the madman I am, striking viciously left and right, thrusting and hacking, carving a bloody path through those poor devils from Menaham. We took the argenter all right. I had known we would take her. Everyone knew we would take her. It seemed idiotic to me that my son should imperil himself in so obvious a way over so obvious a fight. But he did.

He was my son.

He was just as big a fool as I am.

When it was over and the flag came fluttering down in a blaze of blue and green and the shouts of “Hai!”

rose, I saw that Vax, although splashed with blood, was unharmed. He had fought magnificently. I had been near him and there had been no single time when I had had to intervene. He could handle himself in a fight, that was plain. I knew he had been under training with the Krozairs of Zy. Their wonderful Disciplines had molded him well. He must, I guessed, have been very near to the time when he would have been accepted into the Order as a full member and have been allowed to prefix that proud Pur to his name.

But, all the same, despite his prowess, I was mighty glad when the fighting ceased. Vax it was who spotted the danger to Pearl, ahead of us. He sprang onto the forecastle of the argenter and waved his sword.

“Pearl! Pur Naghan’s in trouble!”

The swifter had wallowed around and broken a number of her starboard oars. The fighting on her decks looked confused. Men were spilling over into the water. There was no time to be lost. We pulled up and launched ourselves afresh into the fray, battling up with Pearl’s men to take the Menaheem by surprise and so overpower their last resistance.

“Thank Zair you appeared, Dak!” panted Pur Naghan. His mail had been ripped and blood showed on his shoulder. “They fight well, these Menaham sailors.”

“Bloody Menahem,” said Vax. “I owe them.”

“You owe a lot of people, it seems, Vax,” I said.

He scowled at me, his brown eyes bright, his face flushed.

“Do you mock me, Dak?”

“Mock? Now, why should you think that?”

“If you do-”

Duhrra appeared, immense, his idiot-seeming face creased.

“You do — uh — seem to poke fun, master.”

I knew that Duhrra regarded Vax as an oar-comrade, and this gladdened me. I realized I had gone far enough.

I glanced over the side.

“And while we prattle Rukker has boarded the last argenter.”

The cunning Kataki had taken the first ship, and then pulled out and dropped down to the last. Now he had two prizes.

Pur Naghan said, “We will share this one, Dak, of course.”

Vax favored me with a scowl and took himself off. I bellowed the necessary orders and we took possession of our prizes. There were only three. Rukker’s first impetuous attack with the ram had so holed the argenter that she was visibly sinking. A great deal of hustle took place as the goods were brought up and whipped across to the swifter. Chests and boxes, for they contained treasure, were favored over merchandise.

Soon the three swifters and the three argenters began the voyage back to the island of Wabinosk. We called in at our usual island stopovers and met with no untoward incidents. We pulled with a fine reserve of manpower.

The argenters were sailed by scratch crews and we held fair winds almost all the way, only having to tow the sailing vessels twice in calms.

At the island hideout we inspected our spoils. The ship taken by Pearl and ourselves contained mostly sacks of dried mergem, whereat I felt greatly amused. This seemed to indicate Thyllis was in want of food for her people. Our ship contained a quantity of the fine tooled and worked leather for which Magdag is famous. As well there were sacks of chipalines and also, to my surprise, many wicker baskets loaded with crossbow bolts. These were uniformly of fine quality. I guessed they had been manufactured by the slaves and workers of the warrens, those people who, downtrodden and accursed, I had attempted to free, only in the moment of victory to be whisked away by the Star Lords and to leave them to defeat and continued enslavement. I picked up one of the iron quarrels and turned it over in my fingers. Yes, this was a fine artifact, and it should by rights be driven from a crossbow to lodge in the black heart of an overlord of Magdag. Had we not intercepted it, the bolt might well have battered its way into the heart of a Vallian.

Of the cargo carried in the ship Rukker had taken we were concerned only with the treasure. It seemed fitting to me that all gold and silver and precious gems should be heaped into a great and glittering pile and then be shared out equally, portion by portion according to the Articles. Maybe I was naive in this belief. Rukker’s ship had carried the majority of the treasure paid by King Genod for the Hamalese fliers and flyers. The saddle-birds and vollers had fetched extraordinarily high prices. I lifted a heap of golden oars and let them trickle through my fingers back to the glittering mass within the iron-bound lenken chest. This was what Thyllis needed. Her treasury must have been sorely used by the war and now, twenty-odd years after, she was busily building up her reserves so as once again to send sky-spanning fleets against Pandahem and Vallia.

With these thoughts in my mind I went to the meeting with Rukker and the others of our people in positions of authority and found myself not one whit surprised that the Kataki claimed all the treasure he had taken for himself. I was not prepared to argue. I wanted to place my son Vax in safety and then see again King Genod. Only after that could I begin to think again about what to do to free myself from the prison of the inner sea.

“You may keep what you claim, Rukker. If you can maintain your hold on it. For I do not renounce either my claim or the rightful claim of my people.”

He did not sneer at me; but his look, brooding and dark, held calculation. “I take note of your words, Dak the Proud. But I think you will be hard pressed to take what you claim.”

Vax bristled and shook off Duhrra’s hand and barged forward.

“I do not renounce-” he began.

“Keep quiet, Vax,” I said.

“By what right do you-” he blustered.

I looked at him.

Duhrra said, “The master speaks sooth, Vax.” And then the old devil added, “I think you needed a father to teach you the ways of life — duh! You will get yourself spitted if you go on like this.”

“Should I care, Duhrra?”

When my son said those words I felt the hand of ice clench around my heart. Rukker broke the awkwardness, booming out in his coarse Kataki way, “You sail for Zandikar. Well and good, for, by Takroti, I am sick of all this quibbling.” He glared around, yet he was in a high good humor. “I will sail with you and from thence back to the Sea of Onyx. With this treasure I can alter certain events at home.”

So it was settled. The local Renders were only too pleased to see us go, for not only had we beaten off their attacks on us, after the first flush of welcome, in our operations we had shown them up almost humiliatingly. The four swifters and the three argenters made a nice little squadron, sailing east, cutting through the blue waters of the Eye of the World, sailing for Zandikar.