Olan Thorensen - Cast Under an Alien Sun

Musfar Adalan was a contented man. From the aftcastle of his flagship, he could see all five of his ships. Granted, they weren’t real warships, with heavy cannon and three- to four-foot bulwarks, but their 15-pounder cannon would subdue any lumbering merchant ship, and they were agile and fast enough to outrun anything they couldn’t outgun. He’d brought seven ships with him to Caedellium. Two ships had sailed home laden with spoils: gold, silver, jewelry, fine rugs and cloth, slaves, and whatever goods and trinkets caught his men’s fancy and for which there was room in the ship’s holds. The Scourge from Buldor left three months ago and returned the day before the rest of his ships left for the current raid. He would have liked to have the sixth ship along, but rudder problems and other repairs would have delayed the raid by several days, something neither he nor the Narthani desired. The seventh ship, the Bravado , had left for Buldor ten days ago, also stuffed high with booty, but with orders not to return. Adalan trusted his sixth sense, and it told him their time in these waters ran short.

Adalan didn’t think of himself as a pirate by trade but as more of an “opportunist,” ready to take advantage of opportunities . Sometimes those involved pirating, but, depending on circumstances, he and his men dabbled in the slave trade, smuggling, raids, and mercenary work when the remuneration was appealing. It was a version of the latter two activities that engaged them on this day and had for the last several months, raiding the Caedellium coast under the patronage of the Narthani. Dealing with the Narthani was dangerous, yet he accepted the risks for the spoils he and his men had amassed.

While Adalan was not privy to the exact reasons the Narthani had come to him, instead of using their own formidable navy, it would have taken someone far less sagacious in the ways of the world not to assume it was because the Narthani wanted a plausible of degree deniability. Adalan knew the current arrangement would end whenever it suited the Narthani, but that would be in the future, and Adalan dealt with the now .

This would be their fourteenth raid. For Adalan, the results had assuaged his initial caution. The Narthani gathered intelligence and picked rich, vulnerable targets with meticulous efficiency. Twelve of the first thirteen were successful, with minimal losses. In two cases, Abel Adalan, Musfar’s cousin and second-in-command, had withdrawn before a complete sack, due to indications of reinforcements arriving or where the final holdout positions were judged too strong to be overcome for the expected return. Only one of the thirteen earlier raids was aborted on discovering the Stent Province abbey defended by two hundred Stentese men fortuitously gathered for a muster drill unanticipated by the Narthani. The accompanying Narthani liaison excoriated them in all three cases, but General Akuyun, the Narthani commander, accepted Musfar’s explanations as reasonable.

To Adalan’s thinking, there were two downsides to the arrangement. One was that he knew the time would come when the Narthani no longer needed deniability. Before that day, Adalan planned that he and his men should slip away, in case the Narthani severed their relationship on other than friendly terms.

The second downside was that several Narthani officers always accompanied the raids. They didn’t go ashore, only observed and offered advice, which Adalan neither needed nor wanted. On the first raids, the lead Narthani was tolerable. No such luck on this raid. The three new Narthani stood on the forecastle, the leader using a telescope to examine the shoreline and talking to the other two, one of whom took notes.

The Narthani leader was an older, blocky man whose main skill was to confirm the worst stereotypes of the Narthani—arrogant, condescending, and eyes like a Drilmarian zernik, the goat-sized omnivore renowned for being stupid, prolific, vicious, and making parts of the Drilmar continent essentially uninhabitable. Musfar hoped someday that someone would exterminate both the zerniks and the Narthani.

“Look at those asses, Musfar,” said Abel Adalan. “Strutting around and acting like they have any idea how to sail a ship or carry out a raid.”

Musfar turned to his cousin and second-in-command. “Now, now, Abel, you mustn’t show such disrespect for our benefactors. They have made all of us exceedingly rich the last few months. When we return home, both we and our clan will be among the greats of Buldor.”

“They’re still asses.”

Musfar sighed. “Yes, Abel, they are asses, but they’re our asses for now.”

The two cousins laughed loud enough to draw disapproving looks from the three Narthani on the other end of the vessel. Musfar gave them a respectful bow and waved. “I will bow and scrape before even these asses for the loot we’ve already accumulated, but my cousin, I feel it may be time for our sails to catch the westerly winds in this part of Anyar.”

“My thoughts as well. As our illustrious grandfather has said to us many times, ‘It’s good to be greedy, just not too greedy.’”

Musfar looked at the other ships in line behind Warrior’s Pride . All five vessels were abuzz with activity, as crews unsheathed and prepared to lower longboats to be filled with the armed men waiting on and below deck. The normal ships’ crew complements were around 350 men for the five ships. However, for shore raids, more men were needed, and months earlier Adalan had sent back to Buldor for another 100 clansmen and 170 men from another clan of Buldor. Though Musfar’s clan considered the Benhoudi to be little better than dogs, they were available, since the poorer clans always looked to hire out their men to supplement their own activities.

The raid this day involved 400 men ashore, 250 of Musfar’s Benkarsta clansmen, and the 150 Benhoudi, leaving skeleton Benkarsta crews on the ships. Although it wasn’t spoken openly, all, including the Benhoudi, knew that the Benhoudi would get the more dangerous assignments on raids. Still, the potential for loot was so great, and their clan so poor, the Benhoudi leader considered the risks acceptable. So far, this calculation had proven profitable for all, even for the Benhoudi, who would return home among their clan’s wealthiest members, having so far lost only 20 of their original 170.

Abel Adalan, as Musfar’s second-in-command, would lead the raiding party. The two men went into the command cabin, where a map of Abersford and the abbey area was pinned to a wall.

“I’ve looked over your plan for the raid, Abel, and I see no obvious changes to make.”

Abel traced lines of planned movements with a forefinger. “You’ll get us within about two hundred yards of shore, assuming the information from the Narthani agent is accurate, and the bottom is as deep as they say,” he commented, indicating the same beach Yozef had been found.

“We’ll anchor offshore and immediately lower all shipboard longboats, while we pull in those we’re towing.” The Buldorian vessels didn’t have room on deck for enough longboats to contain all of the men heading to shore, and hawsers connected more boats to the ships. On earlier raids, they put the men ashore several miles from the target, believing it gave better chances to approach undetected. Since then, they had changed their approach tactic and at first light drove the ships as close to shore as they could, then rushed ashore before the locals had time to react.

Abel’s finger rested on the abbey, as he continued his review. “Four hundred men, two hundred and fifty of ours and the hundred and fifty Benhoudi. As usual, I’ll try to keep the Benhoudi in the forefront, if there’s major resistance. I’ll be with the main group of three hundred hitting the abbey, since that’s where the major resistance should concentrate and where the Narthani information tells us the best booty is located. It’s also where large numbers of the villagers will go for safety, so there should be many women and children inside.