Jennifer Roberson: Sword Born

"Unfortunately, as you’ve pointed out, there isn’t any ground to stand on. "

I spat hair out of my mouth again. "Well, I’d rather decide when there’s to be a sword-dance than let the other man choose it," I reminded her. "There’s merit to a good offense."

"Let me go," she suggested. "He’s not much impressed by you. Me, he’s impressed by; he comes up on deck to watch every morning when I loosen up."

"So do I, bascha — but watching you has nothing to do with fighting!" Well, I suppose it did; but so far no one had challenged me. Even if I did crack my head on timber and trip over nets and ropes. "And maybe it’s time I loosened up, too, out on deck where everyone can see me."

"Why?" Her voice was deceptively guileless. "Do you want men to watch you?"

I slanted her a sour glance. "I just meant it might be best if they don’t assume I’m a pushover."

"A fall -over, maybe." Del smiled sunnily. "Well?"

I flapped a hand. "Go. Maybe you can find out who our friends are, and what they want."

Del left, was gone briefly, returned. She wore an odd expression. "They aren’t friends."

"Well, no."

"They are, he says, renegadas."

"What the hoolies is that?"

"I believe he means borjuni. Of the sea."

That I understood. "What have we got that they want?"

"The captain did not trouble himself to tell me."

"Did you smile at him?" That earned me a scorching glance. "Well, no, I suppose not, not you — why smile at a man when a knife in his gut will work? — but did he at least trouble himself to say what we can expect once they get here?"

Matter-of-factly she explained, "They catch the ship, board it, steal everything on board. Or steal the ship itself."

" Herself. They call the ship ’she.’ And what about the crew and the passengers?" All two of the latter; this ship generally carried goods, not people. We’d been lucky to claim some room. Although just at this moment, luck did not appear to be an applicable word.

Del shrugged. "They’ll do what borjuni usually do."

I grunted. "Figures." Although not all borjuni and Border raiders killed their victims. Some of them were just after whatever they perceived as wealth, be it coin, trade goods, or livestock. (Or, in the occasional circumstance, people, such as Del and her brother.) Still, it was enough to make you skittish about leaving such things to chance.

Del frowned thoughtfully, marking how swiftly the other ship sailed. It didn’t wallow like ours but sleeked across the water like a cat through shadows. "He wasn’t much impressed when I said we could help them fight them. In fact, he said they wouldn’t fight them at all."

"Did you offer to fight for him?" I asked. "For a fee, of course. Passage, at the very least."

"He says if they catch us, we’ll all die anyway, so why should they bother to fight?"

"Did you explain we hadn’t died yet?"

"At that point he told me he had no use for a woman except in bed," Del explained. "I decided I’d better come back here with you before I invited him into a circle."

"Well, we know there’s no point in trying to change any man’s mind about that," I agreed. "We’re contrary beasts."

"Among other things." Del, with a sword in her hand and action in the offing, was uncannily content. "But I did manage to change your mind. Eventually."

I begged to differ. "I beg to differ," I said. "I just learned to shut up about it. I still think the best place for a woman is in bed." I paused. "Especially after a good, nasty, nose-smashing, lip-splitting, teeth-cracking fight in which she shows all the foolish men she’s every bit as good as they are with a sword. Or any other weapon, for that matter — including her knee."

"Kind of you," she observed. "Generous, even."

"Merely honest, bascha."

She smiled into the wind. "Among other things."

"And now that we’ve settled the way of the world again as we know it, what do you propose we do when those — those —"

"Renegadas."

"— reach us?" I finished.

Del hitched a shoulder. "Not enough room to carve a circle in the deck. A dance wouldn’t be particularly effective."

"Nope," I agreed. "Let’s just kill ’em."

Unfortunately we never got a chance to kill anyone. Because it became quite plain very early on that the renegadas in their blue-sailed ship weren’t interested in engaging us. Working us, yes; they drove us like a dog on sheep. But they didn’t come close enough to board, which certainly wasn’t close enough for us to stick a sword in anyone.

At least, not immediately.

First they drove us, then fell back as if to contemplate further nefarious designs upon our ship. From a distance. They lurked out there smugly, having shown us they could easily catch us. And yet did nothing.

After all, why waste your efforts on forcibly stealing booty when the booty rather foolishly destroys itself?

Not being much accustomed to ships or oceans, I knew nothing about tides. Nothing about how a ship’s draft mattered. Nothing about how things could be lurking beneath the water that could do the renegadas’ work for them.

It didn’t take long to figure it out. About the time the captain and his crew grasped the plan, it was too late. And I found out firsthand about tides and drafts and things lurking beneath the water.

I have to give him credit: the captain tried to rectify his error. Running for an island to escape the enemy is not a bad idea. Except he either didn’t know about the reefs, which seems unlikely, or thought he knew the channels through the reefs well enough to use them. Because I found out what happens when an ocean-going vessel with a deep draft sails into a series of reefs that, at high tide, wouldn’t matter in the least.

At low tide, they did.

Maybe he thought the renegada ship was as deep-drafted and would run aground. It wasn’t, and it didn’t. They just chased us onto the reefs, where, even as our captain frantically ordered his crew to come about, our boat promptly began to break up into hunks and chunks.

Trees float, yes. But they also do a good job of splintering, cracking, bashing, smashing, crushing, and otherwise impaling human flesh.

I did everything I could not to be bashed, smashed, crushed or otherwise impaled. This involved using both hands, which meant the sword had to go — even with renegadas lurking outside of the reefs. Del and I both took to ducking, rolling, leaping, sliding, cursing, scrambling and grabbing as we snatched at ropes and timbers. About the time Del reminded me that I couldn’t swim, which I knew already, and announced she could, which I also knew already, I realized there was someone else in our party who was unlikely to be particularly entertained by having a ship break up beneath his feet. Even if he did have four of them.

Del was in the middle of shouting something about tying myself to a big hunk of timber when I turned away and began to make my way toward one of the big hatches. This resulted in her asking me, loudly and in a significant degree of alarm, what in hoolies was I doing, to which I replied with silence; my mouth was full of blood from a newly pierced cheek. I plucked out and tossed aside the big splinter as best I could, and reached to grab the hatch next to my feet.

"Tiger!"

I spat blood and bits of wood, dragged open the hatch. If I could get down to that first deck, I could unlatch the big hatch in the side of the ship, the one above the water-line which, when opened, dropped down onto land to form a ramp. Which is how we’d gotten the stud on board in the first place. Cloth over his head had made him a bit more amenable, and I’d managed to lead him up the ramp and into the ship’s upper cargo hold. Ropes had formed a fragile "pen," layers of straw bedded him down. A cask of water was tied to a timber, and I personally doled out the stores of grass and grain. After two weeks he’d actually gotten pretty good about only kicking and biting occasionally.