Dave Duncan – The Living God – A Handful of Men. Book 4

This was a test, of course. Smart-aleck kids had to learn the rough side of the legend. Two uppity sons of thanes were being shown that they weren’t men yet. Even pulling together, they could not keep up with the real sailors, not for long, not for much longer. This was the price of hitching a ride on a thane’s longship.

Stroke.

The crew was watching, waiting for the mistake. Gath could feel the grins all around. The stroke was faster than usual. Trouble was, he knew what was going to happen even more surely than the crew did.

Stroke.

Prescience was a blessing and also a terrible curse. It produced invaluable warnings of trouble ahead and wonderful anticipation of pleasures in store. When it showed bad futures and especially inevitable bad futures, then it could drive a man insane.

Stroke.

A trickle of sweat ran down the bare back in front of his eyes. So the others were feeling the pace, too. They could keep it up for hours, though. High behind Blood Wave the seabirds floated in the salt air, cool and serene. Lucky birds!

Stroke.

Gath’s fingers were knotting, losing their grip on the oar. The blood was making it slippery anyway. Not long now. He and Vork were going to catch a crab. Soon!

Stroke.

Then they were going to be given a taste of the rope’s end. Sailor talk for flogging. Toughen up the gazoonies a bit evilishly painful. Only consolation was he knew he was going to keep quiet under it. Vork wasn’t, not quite.

Stroke.

This is what Vork had thought he wanted, to be a raider like his father before him, and his father, and all their forefathers since the coming of the Gods. Gath didn’t want that.

Stroke.

He just wanted to get to Nordland and tell the thanes about the usurper and the overthrow of the wardens and the new protocol Dad had invented before he died. Doing it for Dad’s memory—duty.

Stroke.

Doing it for Dad.. Here it came now—Crab!

The oar slammed into the two boys’ chests, hurling them backward. Angry yells . . .

4

A one-horse chaise, a stagecoach, a longship, and a leaky old coaster . . .

Still very much alive, Gath’s father sailed a distant, warmer ocean. At the far side of the world, Dreadnought wallowed over a mirrored sea under a sun of molten brass. The breathless wind was barely able to keep her sails full; gulls preened on the yards rather than bother flying on such a day. A hazy smudge to northward marked the island of Kith.

King Rap of Krasnegar leaned on the rail and thought dark thoughts of failure and defeat. The morning was barely half gone at that longitude, but it had already left a bloody stain on the pages of history: five legions dead, untold thousands of goblins dead.

All of this callous slaughter had apparently been committed just to demonstrate the power of the usurper. Doubtless Zinixo was even now gloating in Hub, master of the world, the self-styled Almighty. Perhaps at that very moment hundreds of free sorcerers were responding to his threats, flocking into the capital to be imprinted with unbreakable loyalty and enrolled in the Covin.

True, Warlock Olybino had proclaimed the new protocol, which was a giant step forward, but he had died doing so. Why should the frees choose to join Rap’s mythical resistance when it had failed to save its spokesman? Olybino’s sacrifice had revealed the opposition’s weakness and lack of organization.

The occult scent of dragon still tainted the ambience. The Covin seemed to be herding the worms home to Dragon Reach from their feast at Bandor. That was a relief, but Rap would not breathe easy until all those monsters were safely penned, back in their nests. Meanwhile he had not a clue as to what he should do next.

His brooding was interrupted by a jingle of human finger bones. Lithe and menacing, Tik Tok stalked across the deck to his side, grinning under the multicolored tattoos that covered his face and most of the rest of him, also. Apparently grinning did not hurt when one wore a bone through the nose, although it seemed as if it should. His teeth had been filed to sharp points. The seashells decorating the thick black bush of his hair were new; apart from them he wore only his customary apron of clattering bones.

“You grieve, my friend? You language unconsolidated?”

“I have a lot to languish about.”

Eyes twinkling, the cannibal took hold of Rap’s shoulder in an astonishingly powerful grip. He kneaded it appraisingly. “You must not pine! You will shriven up, weather away to skin and bones. We cannot permeate such a waste.” His manner implied that he had the perfect recipe in mind already.

“Cheer me up, then.”

Tik Tok waved a hand to indicate the shabby old ship. “Twenty-nine sorcerers, eight mages? If we want we can move this old tub to Hub itself in a twiddling.”

“Not without giving ourselves away to the Covin, we can’t.” The cannibal removed his hand so he could lean back with his elbows on the rail. ”But you have other plans ready?”

“Er, not finalized.”

Tik Tok pouted dangerously. “Well, we cannot wait around forever! Prognostication is the thief of time.”

He was mad because Rap had pulled him away from a fight. Despite his invariant flippancy, he was probably almost as murderous as he looked. Many of the other twenty-four anthropophagi aboard appeared even more bloodcurdling, yet they all accepted Tik Tok as leader. Just because he was a potent sorcerer did not mean he did not want to eat someone.

At that moment another hand descended on Rap’s shoulder. In this case the hand was the size of a small pillow. Staggering slightly under the load, he glanced around, annoyed that anyone as enormous as Thrugg should have approached without his noticing.

The troll opened his beard in a friendly smile, revealing enough ivory to furnish a spinet keyboard. Even more than Tik Tok, he could have moonlighted as a nightmare, although his bestial appearance hid a heart as gentle as a daisy. He was without question the most powerful sorcerer aboard, even stronger than his mother the warden. The back of his hand and the visible parts of his face were burned, but most of his great bulk was .hidden in loose clothing to keep the sun off. He was still a monster, though.

“He’s right, Rap,” Thrugg mumbled. “The past is over. What matters is to win the future.”

Obviously the whole improbable army was on the verge of mutiny. No one would openly accuse Rap of causing Olybino’s death, but his refusal to let the group become involved had been an admission of weakness, and it rankled. He had best rally his troops quickly now, before half of them began eating the other half out of sheer frustration. The entire ill-assorted crew was watching. Near-naked anthropophagi lay sprawled around the deck in twos and threes. Most of the trolls were down in the cabins or the hold, by themselves, staying out of the sun, but they were watching nonetheless. Witch Grunth had appropriated the best hideaway, the chain locker. There she had removed all her clothing for comfort and was combing her shaggy gray hair. Nudity emphasized her grotesque animal bulk, wrinkled and flabby and hideous. She, too, was waiting for Rap’s reaction.

Old Doctor Sagorn, the only mundane aboard, held the wheel, playing at being sailor to show how childishly easy that was to one of his intellectual superiority. The effect was rather spoiled by his badly shredded clothing, but he sneered his customary arrogant smile.

“What the gentlemen are implying, your Majesty,” he said, “is that the late Warlock Olybino has done your work for you. You no longer need travel the world, whispering news of your counterrevolution. All. the free sorcerers are now aware of it. You are the leader? Lead us somewhere.”

Leader! What mad whirl of the Gods’ dice had ever thrust that honor on Rap? He was about the least powerful sorcerer in Pandemia, so why him? Just because he had invented the new protocol did not mean he was the man to bring it to pass, if anyone ever could. He sensed the dragons again and shivered. He could do nothing until they were safely home in their nests. Nothing violent, that was, nothing to provoke the Covin openly and distract it from worm herding. But yes, there must be other, lesser things to be done, as Tik Tok had suggested.

“I’m greatly relieved that I don’t need to visit Sysanasso, anyway,” Rap said. “If there are any free faun sorcerers they must have heard Olybino’s message as clearly as we did. Does anyone disagree with that?”

Thrugg shook his great head. Tik Tok just wiggled the bone in his nose expectantly. Everyone in the ship was listeningexcept for a pair of trolls down in the hold who had found more exciting things to do.