David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"It's a ruin!" King Carus said, the thought despairing and out of keeping for a spirit to whom wrath and laughter were common but sadness almost never. "Oh, lad, Idid this with my haste and my anger. Would I'd never been king so I wouldn't have to see this!."

As Carus spoke, Garric saw the harbor through his ancient ancestor's eyes. The harbor should've been thronging with merchant ships from every port in the Isles; instead there were less than fifty "Thirty-nine," snapped Carus. He had a warrior's eye for numbers and location.

– vessels above the size of a rowboat. Half of what had been harbor was now a marsh, silted in where the Olang River entered the bay from the north; it hadn't been dredged in a thousand years.

And why should it have been? Even constricted, the harbor had room to anchor many times the present traffic. The sheds that had sheltered half a thousand triremes, the fleet that had scoured pirates and usurpers from the Inner Sea, were half fallen; not one retained its roof of red tiles.

The city beyond, rising in terraced steps up the hills surrounding the harbor, was a half-populated wasteland to eyes that remembered Carcosa when it ruled the Isles. This Carcosa looked as though it had been sacked by an enemy… and so it had, Garric knew from Gostain and Wylert and the other historians of the Dark Age that had succeeded the Old Kingdom. The city had been sacked a score of times, but the worst of the damage that'd thrown Carus into despair was caused by time, not human enemies: a thousand years, overpowering the hand and will of men.

"We'll build it again," Garric whispered under his breath. "Or our grandchildren will."

"Garric?" Sharina asked, not so much concerned as… interested. She knew Garric shared his mind with his ancestor, though he doubted she understood how complete the intertwining of soul with soul was.

"I was just thinking about how much work we have before Carcosa's back to what it once was," he said, telling the truth if not quite the whole truth.

Count Lascarg and the chief folk-the most richly dressed, at any rate-of Carcosa stood six feet above the level of the docks which lowlier residents thronged. "Did they build a reviewing stand?" Sharina asked, her eyes narrowing.

Garric viewed the scene superimposed with Carus' memories. "No," he said. "That was the base for the statues of the Twelve Nymphs who guided King Car to the place the Lady had blessed for his new colony."

He smiled without humor. "The statues were bronze," he added. "I suppose after the Collapse, some warlord or another decided he needed coinage more than he needed art-or the Lady's blessing either one."

TheShepherd slowed as the sailing master and his petty officers snarled orders to the crew. Only one bank of oars was still moving and even those stroked slowly, just to keep steerage way. The rest of the squadron held station; the nearest ships were so close that Garric found it hard to tell who was shouting what.

"Are they all so angry?" Sharina said. She'd wrapped her arms around her torso, hugging herself unconsciously. "They sound as if they were."

Garric put an arm around his sister's shoulders. The gesture'd probably raise eyebrows among the spectators used to the formality of court etiquette. Nobody'd say anything to Garric-and if they did, they'd find themselves swimming in the harbor faster than they might think possible.

"They care about their duties," he said. "The officers, I mean, though the men do too. They're nervous that things'll go wrong, and the Shepherd knows how much there is to go wrong maneuvering like this."

Sharina reached up to squeeze his hand, then relaxed. They eased apart. "They're pretending to be angry because they're frightened?" she said with a grin. "Well, I guess that's a good choice for soldiers. Fighting men."

Blood Eagles from the trireme which'd entered the harbor ahead of the rest of the fleet had cleared the quay below where Lascarg's party waited. The black-armored guards stood facing the crowd with their shields locked. Gilded wooded balls turned their spearheads into batons for the occasion, but when the monster attacked Garric had seen how quickly how quickly the blunts could come off.

"Hold up there!" a man bellowed from the water. "Don't let this ship dock till you've taken me aboard! Do you hear me?"

The petty officer conning the quinquereme from the bowsprit looked down, spat, and said, "Keep clear of Prince Garric's ship, pretty boy, or you'll swim back to land where you belong."

Sharina understood at the same time Garric did. "That's-" she said.

"Right!" said Garric, squeezing between two sailors and the stanchions bracing the butt of the bowsprit. He grabbed a rope coiled from the railing and bent over the side. Lord Attaper, the Blood Eagles' commander, stood in a skiff which two paddlers-armored infantrymen like himself-were trying desperately to balance.

Garric snubbed his end of the rope and tossed the coil. Attaper caught it, then dragged himself and the skiff six feet across open water to the quinquereme's bow. As he started to climb the ship's side, the lead oar swung forward and swatted his legs away; he dangled like a toy on a string, pulling himself up hand over hand.

Two of the guards on theShepherd hauled their commander aboard; Attaper was cursing with a fury Garric wouldn't have expected in the man. Planting himself on the deck before Garric, Attaper said, "What happened here? I heard there was an attack! I knew I shouldn't have gone ashore! Didn't I tell you that?"

Lord Attaper was a stocky man in his forties, taller than most, and extremely fit for someone whose duties were largely administrative. All the Blood Eagle officers were nobles, generally younger sons from minor houses, but they and the men they commanded were also veterans who'd been promoted to the royal bodyguard as a reward for exceptional service in the regular regiments.

Garric sometimes wondered how much of a reward it really was. The Blood Eagles got higher pay, fancy armor, and the right to swagger in any military company… but their casualty rate was several times that of the other regiments, especially now that they had to guard a prince who was determined to lead from the front. There was no lack of recruits to fill vacancies, though.

"And after all, boy," whispered the image of Carus in his mind, "you're no more the man to tell them they're fools to go where it's hottest than I was. Good soldiers like to serve with a leader they can respect, and these are some of the best."

"Good morning, Lord Attaper," Garric said. He kept his tone mild-he wanted to shout back, a natural reaction like the snarling anger of the ship's nervous officers-but he knew this was a time to quietly remind Attaper who was the prince and who was the servant. "We went fishing on our way into harbor; Master Chalcus is following with the catch. Now I have business with local dignitaries, so-"

"It's too dangerous for you to go ashore here if there's already been one attack!" Attaper said. "We'll-"

"Lord Attaper!" Garric said. "My duties as prince require me to greet local dignitaries. Hold your tongue now, or you'll find your duties will involve running the Valles city administration five hundred miles from here."

Attaper paused, his face blank. Then he gave Garric a grim smile and an officer's salute, crossing his right forearm over his chest with the fist clenched. A regular soldier would clash his spear against his shield face instead. "I understand, your majesty," he said.

TheShepherd of the Isles bumped against the dock. The starboard rowers had shipped their oars to keep from breaking the shafts, and the deck crew had hung straw-stuffed leather fenders between the outrigger and the stonework. Despite the crew's skill, Garric heard the ship's timbers complain. Lightly-built warships weren't intended to be tied up against stone quays; every extra ounce had been pared from theShepherd 's hull to increase her speed and the endurance of her oarsmen during battle.