“Huegoths?” Shamus asked.
Aran Toomes couldn’t find the will to answer.
“What are they doing so far to the south and east?” Shamus asked rhetorically.
“We don’t know that they’re Huegoths!” Aran Toomes yelled at him.
Shamus went numb and silent, staring at Toomes. The captain, who could laugh at a dorsal whale, seemed truly unnerved by the thought that this approaching vessel might be a Huegoth longship.
“Huegoths be the only ones who run so swift with oars,” remarked another of the crew. The long line was forgotten now.
Aran Toomes chewed at his bottom lip, trying to find some answer.
“She runs with beauty,” Shamus remarked, his gaze fixed on the longship. It was true enough; the design of the ships of Huegoth barbarians was nothing short of beautiful, finer than anything else on the northern seas. The graceful longships, seventy feet in length, were both solid and swift and cut the swells with hardly a ripple.
“Empty the hold,” Aran Toomes decided.
The expressions of the other seven ranged from eager to incredulous. For several of the crewmen, this command seemed impossible, ridiculous. They had risked much in coming out this far to the southwest, so long from port, and those risks had been accepted precisely for the prize of fish in the hold. Now the captain wanted to throw away their catch?
But the other four men, including Shamus McConroy, who had dealt with savage Huegoths before, agreed wholeheartedly with the call. Laden with several tons of fish, The Skipper could not outrun the longship; even empty, they could only hope to keep ahead of the Huegoths long enough for the oarsmen to tire. Even then, the Huegoths could put up a sail.
“Empty it clear!” roared Aran, and the crew went to work.
Toomes studied the wind more carefully. It was generally from the south, not a good thing considering that the Huegoths, who did not depend on the wind, were coming down from the north. If he tried to turn The Skipper about, he’d be running into headwinds, practically standing still on the water.
“Let’s see how good you can turn,” the captain muttered, and he angled back to the north. He’d go in close, cut right by the Huegoths. If The Skipper could survive that single pass, and avoid the underwater ram that no doubt stuck out from the front of the barbarian ship, Toomes would have the wind at his back while the longship turned about.
A few hundred yards separated the vessels. Toomes could see the activity on the barbarians’ top deck, huge men running to and fro. He could see the tall, curving forecastle, carved into the likeness of a wolf.
Then he saw the smoke, rising up suddenly from the longship’s center. For an instant, the captain thought the longship had somehow caught fire, thought that perhaps one of the galley slaves had sabotaged the Huegoth raiders. But Toomes quickly realized the truth, and knew that his dear ship was in worse trouble still.
“Get you behind a wall!” the captain yelled to his crew when the ships were less than a hundred yards apart, when he could make out individual Huegoths leaning over the rail, their expressions bloodthirsty.
Shamus ran forward with a huge shield that he kept in the hold. He placed it to cover as much of the captain at the wheel as possible, then crouched low beside Toomes.
Toomes had meant to go much closer, to practically dance with the Huegoth boat before executing his sharp turn, to port or to starboard, whichever way seemed to give the most light between the jockeying vessels. He had to commit sooner, though. He knew that now, with the black smoke billowing high.
He turned right, starboard, and when the longship’s left bank began to drag in the water, pulling her to port, Toomes cut back to port harder than he had ever tried to turn The Skipper. The good ship seemed to hesitate, seemed to stand right up in the water, beams creaking, mast groaning. But turn she did, and her sails dipped for just an instant, then swelled with wind, racing her off in the new direction, which by comforting coincidence put The Skipper straight in line with Bae Colthwyn.
A barrage of flaming arrows soared out from the longship, a score of fiery bolts trailing black lines of smoke. Many fell short, most missed widely, but one did catch on the prow of The Skipper, and another found the starboard edge of the mast and sail.
Shamus McConroy was there in an instant, batting at the flames. Two other crewmen came right in with buckets, dousing the fires before they could do any real damage.
At the wheel, eyes locked on his adversary, Aran Toomes wasn’t comforted. Now the longship’s left bank pulled hard, while the right bank hit the water in reverse, pivoting the seventy-foot vessel like a giant capstan.
“Too fast,” old Aran muttered when he saw the incredible turn, when he realized that The Skipper would have a difficult time getting past that devastating ram. Still, Aran was committed to his course now; he could not cut any harder, or try to pull back to starboard.
It was a straight run, wind in the sails of The Skipper, oars pounding the waters to either side of the longship. The little fishing boat got past the longship’s prow and started to distance herself from the still-turning Huegoths. For an instant, it seemed as though the daring move might actually succeed.
But then came the second volley of flaming arrows, crossing barely thirty feet of water, more than half of them diving into the vulnerable sails. Shamus, still working to repair the minor damage from the first volley, took one right in the back, just under his shoulder blade. He stumbled forward while another man swatted his back furiously, trying to douse the stubborn flames.
That fire was the least of Shamus McConroy’s problems. He reached the wheel, verily fell over it, leaning heavily and looking close into Aran Toomes’s grim face.
“I think it got me in the heart,” Shamus said with obvious surprise, and then he died.
Aran cradled the man down to the deck. He looked back just once, to see The Skipper’s sails consumed by the flames, to see the longship, straightened now and in full row, banks churning the water on both sides, closing in fast.
He looked back to Shamus, poor Shamus, and then he was lurching wildly, flying out of control, as the devastating ram splintered The Skipper’s rudder and smashed hard against her hull.
Sometime later—it seemed like only seconds—a barely conscious Aran Toomes felt himself dragged across the deck and hauled over to the Huegoth ship. He managed to open his eyes, looking out just as The Skipper, prow high in the air, stern already beneath the dark canopy, slipped silently under the waves, taking with it the bodies of Shamus and Greasy Solarny, an old seadog who had sailed with Aran for twenty years.
As he let go of that terrible sight, focused again on the situation at hand, Aran heard the cries for his death, and for the death of the five other remaining crewmen.
But then another voice, not as gruff and deep, overrode the excited Huegoths, calming them little by little.
“These men are not of Avon,” said the man, “but of Eriador. Good and strong stock, and too valuable to kill.”
“To the galley!” roared one Huegoth, a cry quickly taken up by all the others.
As he was lifted from the deck, Aran got a look at the man who had saved him. He wasn’t a small man, but certainly not of giant Huegoth stock, well-toned and strong, with striking cinnamon-colored eyes.
The man was Eriadoran!
Aran wanted to say something, but hadn’t the breath or the chance.
Or the clarity. His life and the lives of his remaining crewmen had been spared, but Aran Toomes had lived a long, long time and had heard tales of the horrors of life as a Huegoth galley slave. He didn’t know whether to thank this fellow Eriadoran, or to spit in the man’s face.
DIPLOMACY
Get out of that bed, Oliver!” came the yell, followed by a resounding pound. “Awaken, you half-sized mischiefmaker!”
Siobhan slammed her open palm against the closed door again, then clenched her fists in frustration and half-growled, half-screamed as loudly as she could. “Why didn’t you just go wi
th Luthien?” she demanded, and pounded the door again. Then the energy seemed to drain from the slender and beautiful half-elf. She turned about and fell back against the door, brushed her long wheat-colored hair from her face, and took a deep breath to calm herself. It was mid-morning already; Siobhan had been up for several hours, had bathed and eaten breakfast, had seen to the arrangements in the audience hall, had discussed their strategy with King Brind’Amour, had even met secretly with Shuglin the dwarf to see what unexpected obstacles might be thrown in their path.
And Oliver, who had remained in Caer MacDonald to help Siobhan with all of these preparations, hadn’t even crawled out of his fluffy bed yet!
“I really hate to do this,” Siobhan remarked, and then she shook her head as she realized that a few short days with Oliver already had her talking to herself on a fairly regular basis. She rolled about to face the door and slipped down to one knee, drawing out a slender pick and a flat piece of metal. Siobhan was a member of the Cutters, a band of thieving elves and half-elves who had terrorized the merchants of Caer MacDonald when the city had been under the control of Greensparrow’s lackey, Duke Morkney. Siobhan often boasted that no lock could defeat her, and so she proved it again now, deftly working the pick until her keen elven ears heard the tumblers of Oliver’s door click open.
Now came the dangerous part, the half-elf realized. Oliver, too, had no small reputation as a thief, and the foppish halfling often warned people about uninvited entry to his private room. Slowly and gently, Siobhan cracked the door, barely an inch, then began sliding the metal tab about its edge. She closed her green eyes and let her sensitive fingers relay all the information she needed, and sure enough, halfway across the top of the door, she found something unusual.
The half-elf rose to her tiptoes, smiling as she came to understand the nature of the trap. It was a simple tab, wedged between door and jamb and no doubt supporting a pole or other item that was propping the edge of a hung bucket—probably filled with water.
Cold water—that was Oliver’s style.
Carefully the graceful half-elf pushed the door a bit further, and then some more, until she exposed one edge of the supporting tab. Then she used her piece of flattened metal to extend the tab, and gently, so gently, she pushed the door a bit more. Now came the tricky part, as Siobhan had to slip into the room, contorting and sucking in her breath to avoid the doorknob. She barely fit, and had to push the door still more, nearly dislodging both tabs and sending the bucket—for she could now see that it was indeed a large bucket, suspended from the ceiling—into a spin that would soak her fine dress.
She paused for a moment and considered her predicament, resolving that if Oliver’s little game ruined her outfit, the finest clothes she possessed, she would steal his treasured rapier blade, take it to a smithy friend, and have it tied into a knot!
The door creaked; Siobhan held her breath and slowly swiveled her hips into the room.
Her dress caught on the doorknob.
With a profound sigh, and a lament at how impractical this fashion statement truly was, Siobhan simply unstrapped the bulky garment and slid right out of it, leaving it on the knob as she wriggled around the door. She pulled the dress in behind her and gently closed the door, then turned about to a sight that opened wide her shining green eyes.
The door made a tinkling sound as it closed, drawing her attention. There, on the inside knob, hung Oliver’s golden-brocade shoulder belt and baldric, lined with tiny bells. On the floor directly before the entrance was a green stocking, topped in silk. Further in lay a pair of green gauntlets, one on top of the halfling’s signature purple velvet cape. Beyond the cape were a pair of shiny black shoes, impeccably polished. The line of strewn clothing continued with a sleeveless blue doublet, the second stocking, and a white silken undertunic, crumpled against the foot of a huge, four-posted bed. Oliver’s wide-brimmed hat, one side pinned up tight and plumed with a huge orange feather, hung atop one of the corner posts—how the diminutive halfling ever got the thing up the seven feet to the top of it, Siobhan could only guess.
Siobhan let her eyes linger on the hat a moment, considering the feather, drooping as though it, too, had spent too many hours of the previous night in high partying.
With a sigh of resignation, Siobhan folded her dress carefully over her arm and crept closer. She covered her eyes and snickered when she spotted the halfling, facedown atop the oversized down comforter, arms and legs out wide to the sides and straddling a pillow that was larger than he. He was wearing his breeches (purple velvet, to match the cape), at least, but they were wrapped about his head and not where they belonged. The half-elf moved around the mounting stairs, a set of five for the little halfling, and right up to the side of the bed.
How might she wake the little one? she mused, and snickered again when Oliver let out a great snore.
Siobhan reached over and flicked a finger against Oliver’s shining, naked buttock.
Oliver snored again.
Siobhan tickled him under the arm. The halfling started to roll over, but Siobhan, with a frightened squeal, put a hand on his shoulder and held him in place.
“Ah, my little buttercup,” Oliver said, startling the half-elf. “Your bosom does so warm my body.”
Siobhan couldn’t tell for certain, but it sounded as if Oliver was kissing the pillow under the breeches-wrap.
Enough of that, Siobhan decided, and this time she reached over and gave the halfling a stinging slap.
Up popped his head, one pant-leg flopping over his face. Oliver blew a couple of times, but the material was too heavy to be moved that way. Finally the halfling reached up and slowly pushed the obstacle out of his eyes.
How those brown and severely bloodshot eyes widened when he saw Siobhan standing beside his bed in her petticoats, her dress over her arm! Oliver slowly shifted his gaze, to consider his own naked form, then snapped his gaze back to Siobhan.
“Buttercup?” the dazed halfling asked, and a smile widened over his face, his dimples shining through.
“Do not even think it,” Siobhan replied evenly.
Oliver ran a hand over his neatly trimmed goatee, then through his long and curly brown locks, taking the pants off as he went, as he tried to piece together the events of the previous night. Most of it was a blur, but he remembered a certain maid-servant . . .
The halfling’s eyes nearly fell from their sockets when he realized then that Siobhan wasn’t in his room for any amorous reason, that she had come in to wake him and nothing more, and that he was . . .
“Oh!” Oliver wailed, spinning about to a sitting position. “Oh, you unabashed . . .” He stammered, choking with embarrassment. “Oh, where is my sword?” he howled.
Siobhan’s eyes roamed down the halfling’s chest and lower, and she gave a mischievous smile and a slight shrug of her shoulders.
“My rapier blade!” the flustered halfling corrected. “Oh, you . . .” Oliver fumed and leaped from the bed, fumbling with his breeches and nearly tripping over them as he struggled to put them over his moving feet. “In Gascony, we have a name for a woman such as you!” he said, spinning to face the half-elf.
Siobhan’s fair features tightened into a threatening scowl.
“Dangerous,” she said, a pointed reminder to the halfling.
Oliver froze, considering the word and considering this most beautiful of females. Finally, he gave up and shrugged. Dangerous was a good word for her, Oliver decided, in more ways than one.
“You could have knocked before entering my private room,” said the halfling, in controlled tones once more.
“I nearly beat your door down,” Siobhan retorted. “You have, perhaps, forgotten our meeting with King Bellick dan Burso of DunDarrow?”
“Forgotten it?” Oliver balked. He scooped up his silken undertunic and pulled it over his shoulders. “Why, I have spent all the night in preparation. Why do you think you have found me so weary?”
“The pillow was demanding?” Sio
bhan replied, looking to the disheveled bed.
Oliver growled and let it pass. He dropped suddenly to one knee, slapped aside the edge of the comforter to reveal the hilt of his rapier, then drew the blade out from between the mattresses. “I do not take lightly my so-important position,” he said. “Halflings are more attu-ned . . .”
“A-too-ned?” Siobhan interrupted, mocking Oliver’s Gascon accent, which seemed to extend every syllable of every word.
“Attu-ned!” Oliver gruffly answered. “Halflings are more attu-ned to the ways and likes of dwarfs than are peoples, and elfy-types!”
“Elfy-types?” Siobhan whispered under her breath, but she didn’t bother to interrupt openly, for Oliver had hit his verbal stride. On he rambled about the value of halfling diplomats, of how they had stopped this war or that, of how they had talked “stupid human king-types” right out of their “jew-wels,” family and otherwise. As he spoke, the halfling looked all around, then finally up, to see his hat atop the post. Not missing a syllable, Oliver flipped the rapier to catch it by the blade and threw it straight up, hilt first. It clipped the hat, lifting it from the post, and down both came.
Oliver caught the blade by the hilt above his head and moved it incredibly smoothly to poke the floor beside his bare, hair-topped foot, striking a gallant pose.
“So there,” finished the halfling, who had regained his dignity, and on cue his hat fell perfectly atop his head.
“You have style,” Siobhan had to admit. Then she added with a snicker, “And you are cute without your clothes.”
Oliver’s heroic pose disintegrated. “Oh!” he wailed, lifting the rapier and poking it down harder—and this time nicking the side of his foot.
Trying to hold to his fast-falling dignity, the halfling spun and ambled away, scooping his doublet, stockings, shoes, and gauntlets as he went. “I will find my revenge for this!” Oliver promised.