Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

Far out on the ice ocean, five battered rafts hove to a halt. Thunder, natural this time, sounded to the northwest and the captains of the five rafts knew they would have a difficult time making headway homeward if the storm did not skirt ’round them.

Furthermore, not only were their crews depleted, but of those who remained many were wounded too badly to work the sails.

A small group of sailors and officers had gathered on the stern of one raft. A single figure stood in the center of the circle they formed.

“You cannot put me off here,” the Landgrave of Arsudun insisted, frightened for the first time since they’d escaped Moulokin. He looked over the side, at the ice now lit an eerie blue-white by the twin moons of Tran-ky-ky. “Not without food and weapons.”

“We have carried you far enough, Ro-Vijar of Arsudun.” Rakossa fingered the fresh scar running down his sword arm. “Mayhap you can make it back to Moulokin and your offworld friends.”

“They are not my friends! You know that.” Fear lent force to Ro-Vijar’s protests. “Did I not help kill three of them with you, among whom was one partly my friend?”

“Ah. Then you may throw yourself on the mercy of the compassionate people of Moulokin.” There were unfriendly laughs from the circle of sailors, few of whom wore no bandages. One of them jabbed viciously at Ro-Vijar, his spearpoint piercing the Landgrave’s vest and starting a trickle of blood.

Ro-Vijar clutched at the puncture. Looking now like a terrified cub instead of the leader of a powerful island state, he scrambled over the railing and onto the single pika-pina boarding ladder there.

“I beseech you, Rakossa, do not do this thing to one who befriended you! I ask mercy.”

“We are being merciful,” said Rakossa nastily, “by not killing you slowly this moment.” He spat at the dangling Ro-Vijar. “Because of you we have lost most of our fleet, all of our best fighting men and women. When we return home, we will be pressed because of this disaster merely to retain our rightful throne.

“But worst of all, worst of all, that woman is safe!” He was quivering with rage, his fur bristling from ears to feet. “Safe among offworlders, whose ‘irresistible’ weapon you had us put our trust in.”

“Who could foresee the magic they would use to bury us beneath the canyon tops?”

“We tire of your excuses, Landgrave-no-more.” Several sailors moved threateningly toward the rail. Ro-Vijar hurriedly slid down the ladder. As it was drawn back aboard he stood shaking on the ice, staring up at the equally cold faces lining the railing.

“You cannot leave me thus, you cannot! Give me a weapon. A spear… even a knife!”

“You fought well with words, Ro-Vijar of Arsudun. Do battle with them now.”

“Offspring of a k’nith!” wailed Ro-Vijar. “Your mother mated with a root! I will follow you all the way to Poyolavomaar and thence travel on to Arsudun, where I will mount a fleet to raze your unspeakable city! You will die a death more horrible than you can imagine!”

Rakossa made a gesture of disgust. “There is no death we cannot imagine.” He turned to the squire standing next to him. “We would not inflict this vexsome babble upon the creatures of the ocean.” He put a paw on the squire’s lance. “Best to kill him now and spare the roamers of the ice.” He tugged. The squire did not let go of the lance.

Rakossa regarded the wounded soldier with a stare of disbelief. “We will gift you with another spear, sub-officer, unless you wish to kill the thing on the ice yourself.” When the squire did not reply, Rakossa tugged again, harder. Still the Tran didn’t let loose of his weapon.

“You wish to join him?” Rakossa’s voice was touched with incredulity. “Give us your lance, squire, or we will—”

“You will do nothing,” a tight voice said. Rakossa spun, confronting the speaker of the unbelievable words. Surely he recognized the young officer. It was one who had not cheered as loudly as others when Rakossa had first announced their intention to pursue the escaped offworlders from Poyolavomaar. And had he not seen this one in council since that time…?

“I hight T’hosjer, son of T’hos of Four Winds, of a line who have served Poyolavomaar many generations.” The moonlight gave his youthful features a sinister cast, shone on the slim sword the officer held to the Landgrave’s chest.

“Be that so, T’hosjer, you are an officer no longer.” His voice rose. “You are not even a squire; you are nothing!” He reached up a paw to shove the point of the sword aside. T’hosjer leaned forward, penetrating the other’s chest just above the sternum. Rakossa froze.

Looking around the circle he saw the fixed expressions on the faces of sailors and officers, wounded and spared. No one spoke.

“What is this? Have you all gone mad?”

“No, Rakossa of Poyolavomaar. We have gone sane.” T’hosjer gestured with his free paw toward the slight, silhouetted figure of Ro-Vijar down on the ice. “You blame all that has happened on that one. ’Tis not his fault. We of Poyolavomaar always prided ourselves on making trade or war on our own, without the help or interference of others.

“You have sought the aid of those who are not even Tran, have taken the advice of one not of the Seven Peaks. Because of that my brother T’sunjer and many friends of my cubhood lie dead on the step of a strange city that meant us no harm, their hearts pierced by arrow or sword, their bodies broken by rocks.”

“You fought as fiercely as any other,” said Rokassa accusingly.

“I fought for the city of the Seven Peaks, for Poyolavomaar my home and for my friends and companions. I fought because the alternative was to run. An officer of Poyolavomaar does not run and leave his friends to fight and die without him. There will linger on us no disgrace from this defeat, for we fought blind.” A mutter of agreement came from the surrounding soldiers.

“We were blinded by your words and the position you inherited. We partook of your madness. This, and not the defeat in battle, is the shame we will carry with us to our own passing. It has been long said that you were mad, Rakossa of Poyolavomaar. Those who disagreed or argued too strongly with you disappeared too often these years past.”

“We are your Landgrave,” said Rakossa angrily. “We stand before you as rightful ruler and liege!”

“You are no longer ruler or liege. From this point,” and he mimicked Rakossa’s own words of a moment ago, “you are nothing.”

Rakossa studied the circle of glowering soldiers, male and female. “A thousand metal pled to the soldier who kills this traitor!” No one moved. “Two thousand!” Then, “I will mate and make my coruler the woman who kills this one!”

That produced the first sounds from the group—mewling laughs from several of the female soldiers. One said, “To live the life of horror you visited upon your concubine Teeliam Hoh? I believed not the rumors that came of what you did to her. Now I think they mayhap were understated.”

Rakossa still could not comprehend what was happening. “Officers, prepare to set sail. Soldier-sailors, to your posts.”

“Over the side.” T’hosjer jabbed a little harder with his sword. Blood trickled faster through gray fur. “Join your ally and friend.”

Dazed, Rakossa crawled over the railing. “We will follow. We will see all of you spitted over hot fires in the kitchens. We will have your mates and cubs disemboweled before you!”

T’hosjer leaned over the side of the raft, made certain the no-longer Landgrave of Poyolavomaar dropped to the ice. Then he turned, exhausted, to the mate who had become captain of the raft and spoke a single word.