I flipped the blade over and saw a change, but initially missed its significance. On one side the two squares had single dots in the middle, but on the other they had six pips a piece. This puzzled me, because the only things I knew to look like that were dice. That knowledge did not help me identify the Sword I held.
Despair washed over me as I realized how heartily the gods had conspired with Fabio to mock me. They launched me on a heroic quest and gave me a heroic weapon, yet neither I nor the blade was suited to the task at hand. I knew, I just knew, the story of my fool’s question would go down in history. The only consolation I could draw from the situation was that I’d not live to suffer my own mortification.
I stood and slid the blade into my scabbard. Settling its weight snugly at my left hip, I felt my mouth twist into the sort of grin I imagined on the faces of countless heroes facing hopeless odds. While I found it utterly uncharacteristic for myself, I let it remain. “I may not be a hero, and I may be about to die, but that doesn’t mean I have to be afraid. That’s the one shred of dignity I won’t let Fabio tear away from me.
In keeping with my newfound bravado, I slid the Sword from the scabbard and let it hang easily from my right hand. A meter long, the blade had a balance that settled in right at the hilt. I made a little cut and heard the blade whistle as it clove the air. My wrist came around in a practice parry, and the Sword moved with me instead of lagging like a dead lump of metal. The blade’s weight was not excessive, and the balance made the parry feel effortless. My mind filled with various diagrams of fencing styles about which I had read, and I knew this blade would slip through each technique with an elan that could make even me seem competent.
I slowly nodded. “I always wanted to be a legend, and now I hold a legend in my hand. I don’t know why some god hated you so to consign you to die with me on the edge of Shieldbreaker. But I’m happy to have so fine a companion in my misfortune.”
I wasn’t expecting a reply, and getting none only disappointed me in that I had briefly hoped the blade could tell me its name. For a moment it struck me that the Sword might be too embarrassed to identify itself, given present company, but I dismissed that idea instantly. I flipped the blade through a complex Aurochian parry, and smiled. “I’d rather you speak with actions than words.”
From the deck I heard Marlin yell, “Admiral, island ho!” I resheathed my anonymous companion before striding through the hatch and out to the deck. My mind filled with the images of countless nautical heroes of legend, and I determined to strike a pose worthy of any of them. Might inspire the men.
They could have used it. Marlin, if my eye did not betray me, was senior in age and experience, not only in my crew but in my fleet. Actually, I decided, the boats themselves were older than any of the boys crewing them. The Barhead Shark by far looked the most seaworthy, while the other two ships wallowed in the troughs like flotsam and jetsam that had not yet broken apart.
The boys in my crew, being Marlin, his two brothers, and three other boys who looked like their cousins, had all armed themselves, and I regretted their being fishermen. Had they been farmers I would at least have had men armed with flails and mattocks, pitchforks, axes, and scythes. As fishermen all they carried were gaffing hooks and filleting knives, no doubt fearsome weapons to a fish, but less than terrifying to the kind of pirates lining the gunwales of the frigate heading out of Pirate Isle’s harbor.
If the sight of the big ship were not enough to daunt me, Pirate Isle would have admirably served. A white stone castle had been built there, all towers and turrets, atop a massive outcropping of rock. It reminded me of coral trees I’d seen for sale in Newgrave Town, for it sprouted towers at unusual places and they all rose to differing heights. Had it not been the stronghold of an enemy who bore a weapon that made him invincible, I would have thought it a grand place.
But stronghold it was, and hostile as well. I could see people moving around and watched ballistae mounted on walls and in towers being readied for use, as if the castle’s defenders thought my fleet could somehow defeat the ship bearing down on us beneath full sails. “Just hoping they’ll be lucky enough to have us for target practice in the harbor,” I sighed as the frigate sliced through the swells and came round the breakwater. “I’d consider it right good luck if they got their chance.”
Marlin appeared at my side, gaffing hook in hand. “The Devourer will be slow to beat back up wind, Admiral. We can cut across her bows and come around for a run at the harbor.”
He pointed as he explained, and I grasped what he intended. It seemed a suitably heroic thing to do. “You read my mind, lad. Do it.”
As small as our boats were, they came smartly about and managed to force their way through the waves at right angles to the pirates’ course. I saw seamen on the frigate mount the rigging and start shifting sails, but we were across her bows before she could cut us off. Marlin bellowed orders at his brothers, and the Barhead Shark came about to shoot into the harbor, with the Leviathan and Swordfish abeam on either side.
I looked back at the Devourer, knowing she would be coming about to cork the harbor and keep us in, but then I never expected to get back out, so that did not concern me overmuch. As we cleared the breakwater I saw her bow again pointed in our direction, but an oddity appeared toward the stern. The frigate appeared to be trailing smoke, and as I watched, the cloud grew thicker, and black as a raven’s wing. “Marlin, what’s happening to the Devourer?”
The lad turned and squinted, then smiled. “They came about too fast! The cookstove in the galley must have gone over.”
Pandemonium broke out on the frigate. Men started rushing back and forth over the deck. I saw canvas hoses unfurled as men started to work pumps to pull water up to quench the fire. The ship heeled leeward, dipping down toward the breakwater, and the bow swung around as the man at the tiller abandoned his post, escaping the flames nibbling at the quarterdeck. I saw a great spray of water gush out of the hoses on deck, then nothing, as the ship rocked back and forth in the wave troughs, pulling first one hose, then another from the ocean.
“She’s going aground!” Marlin pointed back at the Devourer as a large wave picked the ship up and dashed her down on the breakwater. The wall of stone stove in the bottom of the ship and snapped the keel in half. It dumped the stem bubbling and steaming into the Isle’s harbor. The crewmen still on board leaped free before the bow slid back out toward the sea. The waves seduced the ship into them, then collapsed its wooden walls, as the ocean jammed it against the sea wall again. Planks splintered and masts snapped, shrouding the ship in canvas as the sea used it to batter the breakwater repeatedly.
That threat fortuitously removed, my fleet bore in through the harbor. I moved to the prow and drew my Sword in an effort to make myself appear as heroic as possible. I laughed aloud, my drunken headache serendipitously banished. While the frigate’s destruction did not tempt me even to dream of possible success, it did raise the hope that my death might not be as ignominious as I had feared.
The other large ship at anchor-the Sea Slayer-remained in place, though pirates did line the deck. I knew at once they were not going to weigh anchor, because the first of the castle’s trebuchets splashed a stone off our port bow. Water geysered up and wet me, but I swept thin, wet hair from my face and hooted back at the defenders. I opened my arms wide and invited them to aim for me.