Scimitar Sun (48 page)

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In the chaos that raged on the pier, Tim and Emil Norris stood and stared as
Manta
sailed out the channel and vanished from view, Sam’s laughter ringing in their ears. Emil had no doubt that the girl was Samantha, but what had happened to her?

“Samantha?” His mind didn’t accept what he’d seen; the words that she’d screamed at them. “I don’t understand! Why is she…Who…?”

“She’s a pirate, Father,” Tim said, turning to him with a tear-streaked face. “She’s still a pirate. She’ll never come back, now. She’ll never be Samantha again.”

“I don’t understand!” The count struggled to maintain his composure, his sanity, in front of his son. “What happened to her?”

“Bloodwind,” Camilla said. “She never came back from what he made her, Emil. Not like Tim did. She’s still one of them.”

“I don’t accept that! She’s my daughter! If I could just talk to her, she would — ”

“I dunno ‘bout no talkin’, but I bloody well won’t be lettin’ her take dat ship!” Chula interrupted, his huge dark hand resting on Camilla’s shoulder. “Wi’ your permission, Miss Cammy, wi’ Mistress Cynthia not ‘ere, I’ll be takin’
Peggy’s Dream
after de
Manta
.”

A murmur spread through the crowd like fire. The natives, sailors and marines all loudly expressed their agreement with Chula and moved toward the schooner, but Camilla raised her voice above the clamor.

“But where
is
Cynthia?” She shouldered her way through the crowd to where
Orin’s Pride’s
gangplank had been secured to the pier. “Horace! Where are Cynthia and Feldrin?”

“That’s what I was tryin’ to tell you, Miss Cammy, when all these other shades o’ hell broke loose! The mer were attackin’ that smaller warship, the
Fire Drake
, and Mistress Flaxal went over the side to try to stop ‘em. Then the
Clairissa
was bearin’ down on us, and the captain thought we’d best get the hell out of the way, so we jibed, but that girl,” he pointed to where
Manta
had sailed out the channel, “she must have stowed away, and she fired the catapult. Don’t know what the hells she was thinkin’, or even who she was, but right after she done that, she dove over the side.”

“She dove into the water? With all the mer around?” Emil Norris couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His little Samantha had always been a bit on the fearful side, never one to take chances.

“Aye, sir, she did, and I don’t know how she managed to get ashore. We were a little busy. The
Clairissa
put a broadside into us, and the captain was hit.”

“Killed?” Camilla asked, her voice tight.

“No, ma’am, but close enough. He’s below, wi’ his leg near tore off.” Another murmur rippled through the crowd, but Horace cut through it. “When the
Clairissa
was comin’ ‘round for another barrage, that was when that kid, Edan, went ‘round the bend. He torched their ship like it was made of paper!”

They had watched the
Clairissa
burn from the highest balcony of the stronghold. Norris had been torn between watching the flames and her tear-streaked face. “Gods, no…Edan, please no,” she had whispered. He shuddered.

“And Cynthia?”

“She ne’er came back aboard, Miss Cammy. We don’t know what happened to her.”

Camilla stood as if stunned, but Emil Norris had no such impediment. He stepped forward to take Chula by the arm. “If you intend to take this ship after that…after my daughter, I beg you to take me along. I might be able to talk to her.”

“I’ll go,” Chula said, nodding to Camilla. “If she says so.”

Camilla looked at them: at the count’s imploring features, at Tim’s tear-streaked face, and at Chula’s determined one. She nodded, and said, “Very well, Chula, but mind the mer. I would not lose you all to their wrath as well.”

“We’ll be ready, Miss Cammy, and we’ll be lookin’ for Mistress Cynthia, too.” His voice rose in a shout, a single word that solidified the natives into a single purpose. They surged aboard
Peggy’s Dream
, calling for weapons, supplies and more volunteers.

Norris turned to Lieutenant Garris. “I would suggest, Lieutenant, that you accompany us as well, since my daughter is quite likely responsible for the loss of his majesty’s flagship.”

“Yes, milord Count!” The officer barked a command to his men, and they trundled aboard the schooner, the sailors taking station to help with lines, though they were unfamiliar with the ship.

He turned to Camilla, and said, “Thank you. I’m sorry for all the misunderstandings that have caused this, but I must try to get my daughter back.”

“Just remember,” she said, “if you do manage to capture her, have a care. She’s not who she was when you knew her. Tim will tell you. And…be careful, Emil.”

He opened his mouth to answer her, but Camilla was already turning back to Horace. He boarded the ship with his son, and in astoundingly short order they shoved off the stone pier, topsails backfilling to pull her away.

Peggy’s Dream
fell off the wind and jibed, her great mainsail sweeping the afterdeck, lines burning through the blocks as natives and sailors hauled even more canvas aloft. She raged out the channel under full sail, her bow throwing foam, a complement of two hundred fifty crowding her decks.

“Lookout!” Chula bellowed, squinting aloft. “Where away be de
Manta
?”

“Away south, Captain!” an imperial sailor called down from the foretop, pointing. “She’s raising more sail!”

“Paska! Rig for a close port reach! Shift weight and stores to level her out and be raisin’ ever’ sail you can!” His dark eyes raked the deck. “Any man not haulin’, reefin’ or steerin’ on de port rail!”

Peggy’s Dream
turned hard to port as she cleared the reef, the flotsam of two dead warships rattling against her bow as she tore after 
Manta
under a full spread of sail.

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The smell of blood hit Camilla the moment she entered the aft cabin of
Orin’s Pride
. Feldrin lay on his bunk, sheets and blankets soaked under his leg. His eyes were closed and he lay panting, sweat streaking his brow. On his shoulder sat Mouse, fanning the Morrgrey’s face with his wings. The seasprite greeted Camilla with a subdued “Meeep,” and kept fanning.

“Good gods!” she whispered, examining Feldrin’s mutilated knee. The ballista bolt had shattered the bone both above and below the joint, and nothing but tattered and bloody meat connected the lower leg to the upper. The only thing that had kept him from bleeding to death was the belt still cinched around his leg. There was a healer in the village but he had only simple skills, and Camilla doubted there was a priest among the surviving imperial crew.

“Horace!” she shouted over her shoulder.

“Yes, Miss Cammy!” The big man shouldered into the cabin with her and grimaced at the wound. “Bloody hells and high water, what a mess!”

“Yes, it is. Without a priest here, I’m afraid that he’ll lose the leg. You wouldn’t have a store of curative potions aboard, would you?”

“No, ma’am,” he said with a sigh. “Many’s the time we cursed the lack, but they’re hard to come by and the cost…well, mayhap now we might afford a few, but there was none to be had in Southaven.”

“No, I don’t suppose there would be.” She gritted her teeth and made yet another decision that could cost a life. “Send someone to the native village and find Jimijo. He’s as much of a healer as we have. Oh, and Dura! She’s got steady hands. Bring boiling water, the finest thread and needle you can find, and the sharpest small knives the cook has. And heat an iron rod in the galley stove. We’ll need something to cauterize the wound with. Be quick, Horace. He doesn’t have much blood left to lose, and taking his leg is bound to cost a bit.”

“Takin’ his…” Horace blanched, staring at the ruined knee. He swallowed hard and said, “Yes, ma’am!”

He turned and started yelling orders, even as Camilla dried the sweat from Feldrin’s pale brow with the edge of a blanket.

“Hang on, Feldrin,” she whispered. Silently she offered a prayer to Odea, including Cynthia’s name in it as well.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Lost Sons and Daughters

Once she had sea room, Sam brought
Manta’s
bows into the wind and set the foresail, forestaysail and outer jib. It was a dangerous process, dashing from the wheel to the foredeck and back on her bad leg, but when the ship finally bore off the wind,
Manta
flew like a bird across the waves.

“Unholy Hells, this thing sails!” she said, fighting the wheel and bracing herself as she adjusted the sheets and headed southeast along the island chain.

Manta
stood on a close reach, her twin bows slamming through the chop as if the ship intended to beat the sea into submission. The design was like nothing Sam had ever heard of, and it sailed differently than any ship she’d ever been aboard. The deck stayed level, except for the infrequent instances when a gust lifted one hull clear out of the water. The first time that happened, Sam hung onto the wheel for dear life, gasping for breath and sure that the ship would capsize, but it righted without incident, and she sailed on. Also, the ride was incredibly stiff; with no heel and little roll to absorb the shock, the hulls pounded through the waves and gusts, each impact shaking the entire vessel. Spray flew from the windward hull at every crashing impact, and she could feel the wood shudder through the soles of her feet.

One glance over her shoulder and she knew that
Peggy’s Dream
would never catch her. She would be over the horizon by nightfall, and could duck behind any one of a dozen islands to hide. She let a low chuckle bubble up her throat at the thought of it; she’d stolen one of the sea witch’s own ships, and wreaked havoc with the emperor’s armada. The emperor would not take kindly to losing his flagship, and would have no one to blame but Cynthia Flaxal.

“You would have been proud, Captain Bloodwind,” Sam said to the wind, laughing at her pursuers.

With some minor adjustments to the sails, the ship balanced beautifully. She tied off the wheel and went down into one of the hulls, searching for anything she could find to bandage her leg or ease her thirst. She found only sailcloth, cordage, some carpenter’s tools, a bucket, a few half-empty pots of resin, a cask of nails and an empty barrel. The other hull yielded even less.

Glancing behind, satisfied that she was still pulling away from her pursuit, she settled down in the cockpit and stripped off her salt-crusted and blood-sodden clothes. She tied a bit of line around the handle of the bucket and dipped water from the sea, soaking her shirt, trousers and the long strip of cloth that she’d used to bind her breasts as part of her disguise. Then she scrubbed herself as best she could with her seawater-soaked shirt. The salt stung in her cuts; a few of them were deep enough to require stitching, if only she had a needle and thread. She only dabbed at the ugly wound in her leg, not wanting to make it bleed again.

Shivering as the wind blew over her damp skin, but certainly cleaner, she sat down with a pot of resin and an old brush that was crusty with dried resin and paint. She opened the pot and used a wood chisel to peel off the dried skin atop the resin, then dipped the brush and, gritting her teeth, she painted over her shallow cuts. The stuff stung like fire, but it would stop them from bleeding and she thought it might help keep them from going septic. The wound that worried her was the ragged puncture through her calf. It had bled freely for a while, which might save her, but she didn’t want to bet her life on it. The problem was, she had no way to clean it properly without it bleeding again, and she’d already lost quite a bit of blood. If she passed out, she was done for. She dabbed resin on the entry and exit wounds and wrapped her leg with a pad of sailcloth and more strips from her bedraggled shirt. She would have to find someplace to go ashore; she needed food, water and a fire if she was going to live to see her pirate family again.

Now dry and with her wounds tended as best she could, she rested for a bit and studied the ship’s rig, amazed at the
Manta’s
sailing abilities. Once the sails were balanced she barely had to touch the wheel, save for when a gust blew her off course. The stiff, jerky ride was something she’d have to get used to, though. Another glance confirmed that she was leaving
Peggy’s Dream
behind, and she grinned at the thought of outrunning a schooner.

“You’ll make a fine corsair,
Manta
,” she said, patting the wheel affectionately. She leaned back and let her eyes sag shut, resting while she could. She would need all her strength if she was going to live to see another day.

≈

“Can’t we go any faster?” Norris asked. He stared at
Manta’s
receding sail, squeezing the port-side rail until his hands blanched white.

“I be sorry, sir Count, but we’re doin’ all we can.” Chula looked up at the full spread of canvas, really too much for this wind, and gauged the trim of the sails. All cargo and the entire crew had been crowded to the port side to decrease the ship’s heel; a few of the topmen even hung out to windward from the shroud deadeyes, spray lashing at their legs.
Peggy’s Dream
was throwing up an impressive bow wave and was probably making a solid fifteen knots, but still the two-hulled craft was pulling away.

“Dunno where she t’inks she be goin’,” Paska said, joining her husband near the count. “Dere ain’t not’in’ down dis way unless she gonna visit Vulture Isle.”

“She’ll try to give us de slip in de dark.” Chula squinted at the angle of the sun and gauging their speed. “At dat speed, she’ll be out of sight a’fore de sun go down, and near the Fathomless Reaches by daylight. She’ll maybe double back in de night or put in somewhere.”

“Will we be able to find her?” Norris asked, his stomach sinking.

“I won’t be lyin’ to ya, sir Count,” he said, his dark face grim. “It don’t look good.”

“We can try, can’t we?” Tim asked, looking up at Chula hopefully. “I mean we won’t give up, will we?”