Olan Thorensen - Cast Under an Alien Sun

Musfar turned to the grizzled man at his side, a veteran of many years and innumerable raids and a trusted clan member. “Memur, get two good men and find something here on the aftcastle they can appear to be doing.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, as he translated the meaning of Musfar’s words.

The three Narthani officers watched the action ashore with a lesser telescope and reacted when the raiding party started back to the beach. The leader, followed by the other two, stormed across the deck and climbed to where Musfar pretended to observe the shore.

“What’s the meaning of this!” raged the Narthani. “Your men are coming back without taking the abbey!”

“I can only assume the raid didn’t go as planned and the commander on shore decided to abort and return to the ships.”

“There’s still time to take the abbey as planned. You must go ashore yourself and order your men back!”

“I don’t ‘must’ have to do anything. We’re here to carry out raids that are supposed to be easy with the information you provide us. Mostly, it has worked well; this time it didn’t. I’m not in this to lose more men than the return justifies. You should be happy that this is only the second raid that has not gone well.” Memur returned with two crewmembers, and they busied themselves with redoing knots on ropes tied to the gunwale.

The Narthani leader turned red, gritted his teeth, and moved near Musfar so that he smelled the other’s breath. “You will do as you are told, or you will answer to General Akuyun when we return.”

Actually, Musfar knew Akuyun was smart and rational, not like this idiot. Who did he think he was to make such threats, with only three of them on a ship of Musfar’s men?

“My pardon, now that you’ve shown me the necessary action, I will carry it out immediately.” In one quick motion, Musfar pulled his dirk and drove it into the Narthani’s diaphragm. The man’s face registered shock. Musfar jerked the dirk back out and grabbed the man’s hair, turned his head, and slit his throat.

Before the other two Narthani reacted, one’s head was crushed under a belaying pin, and the other Narthani took another dirk into a kidney. The third wasn’t quite dead when all three were unceremoniously dumped overboard.

“Thank you,” Musfar complimented his men. He always believed in making sure efficient actions were appreciated. By this time, several of the ship’s crew had seen what happened and came running with weapons drawn. Musfar held up a hand to indicate all was well.

“What was that all about?” asked one sword wielder.

“It seems the raid today did not go well, and Abel is bringing the men back. Our Narthani employers thought we should continue the raid until taking the abbey, evidently no matter the cost. I respectfully disagreed.”

One officer spit over the side to indicate his opinion of the Narthani. “I assume this means we’ll not be staying in these waters?”

“No,” said Musfar with a humorless smile. “After due consideration, I think it’s time we returned home.”

Fifteen minutes later, the first longboat rowed alongside, and Abel Adalan climbed to where Musfar waited on deck.

“Cursed Benhoudi got suckered into charging the open gate, instead of following the plan,” he reported. “It was a trap. Most of them were killed. It was such a total disaster, I decided that either there were more islanders than the Narthani had told us about, or the islanders somehow knew we were coming. Either way, I decided the risk to our men too great to continue.” Abel stopped his brief report and looked at his commander and cousin for signs of approval or reproach.

“What of our illustrious Benhoudi? How many of them are left? And is Abulli among them?”

“Maybe thirty. Unfortunately, no Abulli.”

“Unfortunate, indeed. I would have liked to hang him in front of his men for disobeying orders. Oh, well, one can’t have everything.”

Abel glanced around. “Am I missing something, or is there an absence of our Narthani friends?”

“They were so dismayed at today’s events that they decided to swim back to Preddi City. I hope they’ll arrive in due fashion. However, we won’t be able to confirm this, since as soon as all the men are aboard, we’ll go directly to our base camp at Rocklyn, pick up our other ship, load the remaining booty from previous raids and the provisions we set aside for just this eventuality, and set sail for Buldor.”

The Battle of St. Sidryn’s was over.

The courtyard fighting lasted minutes, and surprisingly, given the ferocity, there were few Keelan casualties: eleven dead and twenty-three seriously wounded.

“Well,” mused Yozef aloud, as his eyes followed the last wounded being taken inside the hospital, “at least this is the place to be wounded, if it has to happen to you. God. Imagine if the wounded were hours or even days away from the medicants.”

While many of the wounds were not immediately life threatening, gruesome results from musket and blade battles were inevitable. Ether was used to quiet victims, while gashes and stab wounds were cleaned, debrided, and sewn closed, and limbs too damaged, amputated. Yozef later learned the medicants used ether to end the suffering of three victims with terminal wounds.

He felt numb as he helped clean up the courtyard. Wagons were brought to the front gate and bodies of the Buldorians stacked onto wagon beds after being stripped of weapons and any useful armor. Yozef couldn’t bring himself to help with the bodies but tried to help gather equipment being saved. This effort lasted until he picked up a sword and found the handle coated with half-dried blood, presumably the owner’s, since the blade was unmarred. He dropped the sword and stared at reddish brownish globs and stains on his hand. His gorge rose, as he staggered to the water trough, then furiously shook his hand in the water and rubbed it against the trough wood, not wanting to touch it with his other hand. When he couldn’t see any more of the raider’s blood, he bolted from the courtyard and lurched out a side gate toward his house. Instead of following the worn and winding path, he aimed straight for home, cutting through brush and trees. Halfway there, his legs gave out, and he sat on a bed of dead leaves under the trees, gasping for breath and shaking.

The sun was up, the morning mist gone, and under the forest canopy he could feel the usual breeze off the ocean. The filtered sunlight made dancing spots on the dry leaves, as their living brethren quivered above. Time passed, while he calmed himself and processed the events. Now what should he do? The planned tasks of the day seemed so trivial. Go home? For what? And the people? What of the people here he knew? Were any of them among the casualties? Carnigan was okay. He saw Filtin helping the wounded. What about Cadwulf? Going down the list brought up the image of Yonkel. Yozef’s eyes watered, but this time he felt mad. Mad at whoever had so savagely taken the boy’s life, mad at the raider’s people, mad at the Caedelli for not protecting the weak, mad at the Watchers for putting him here, mad at the universe, and so mad at a rock he sat next to, he picked it up and hurled it into the brush.

He was unaware of time passing. Finally, he rose, walked back to the abbey complex, and reentered through the same side gate he’d used to flee the carnage site. Would anyone notice he’d left? Would anyone care? People scurried about, attending to various tasks. In the courtyard, the last of the bodies were still being gathered, the stacks of raider weapons and armor piled to one side, and Caedelli working to dismantle the barricade. Many horsemen milled outside the main gate, and a cluster of men huddled near the center of the courtyard. He recognized the abbot, Denes, and a man he thought was Longnor Vorwich, boyerman of this district.