NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3 - I’m not your lord,
"My lord?" Jariu's voice came from the other side of the door. I glanced around the small room and dragged myself back to my feet. I was knackered. I'd been up late. After Gawlo had come round and confirmed the efficacy of my 'treatments', a steady stream of women had been presented to me. Soon enough, they were coming from other, nearby houses of ill repute, and then their clients began to ask to be treated.
I was a one-man STD clinic. And I had knocked out and treated dozens of people by the time I stopped for the night. Anyone who had been treated became extremely respectful towards me when they woke up, and as the evening wore on, Jariu had become ever more obsequious in my presence.
Using my magic to simply heal these poor bastards had been strangely refreshing. I could see myself settling down with Fay, leaving the wars behind, and working as a healer. It would be peaceful and pleasant to pass my life in that kind of fashion, but it was not something I could see happening.
I moved over and removed the wedge I'd driven under the door to prevent anyone from sneaking in while I slept, and swung the door open. Jariu was wearing a long dress that clung to her body beneath her toga-like affair, and her hair looked to have been freshly oiled and styled.
"Your breakfast is ready, my lord." She nodded her head to me in an almost-bow, then spun and led me downstairs to the front room. A hearty meal of fresh bread and butter, a large bowl filled with some kind of porridge, and a platter of fruit was laid out in the alcove where I had met Jasper last night. There was also a flagon that I found was filled with a sweet wine.
Whatever else the tribes might think of them, the shit-sitters knew how to do breakfast! I sat down and tucked in, finding the food tasted as good as it smelled. The first customers staggered downstairs and glared at me as they received much simpler fare than I did when they ordered.
"Ah, the mighty Mond, friend of kings. How good to see you again!" Bargip slid into the booth opposite me and helped himself to some bread, smearing a thick layer of golden butter over it before biting off a large chunk. He spoke in the tribal language but I still glanced around to check who overheard.
"Is he bothering you, blessed one?" asked a heavy-set gentleman who arrived at our table a moment later. He spoke in a barely intelligible version of the argot of the steppes, but I took his meaning. The Gilded Vessel employed them as muscle to deal with difficult customers.
"It's fine." Bargip would see what I thought of men who beat women when we were at sea. "I'm not blessed or my lord to you. Just Mond."
"They all had the… dreams?" He paused and barked something unrecognizable at Jariu, who answered in the same tongue from behind the counter. "Yes. Dreams is the word in your language." He glared at Bargip, who smiled uneasily, then went back to the bar to speak with Jariu.
"Dreamers don't share dreams. Were you throwing about dream-spice? That's a risky trick, not something the southerners are familiar with. If the gods don't answer, you are fucked!" he chuckled quietly.
"Mine usually answers. I just hope the prick didn't tell them anything he shouldn't have done." Bargip's eyes went wide at the blasphemy, and he glanced about nervously. "I take it you're joining me for the voyage then?" I continued.
"Of course! My goods are being watched over by one of the taverna's boys just outside. We should get a move on; the tide will turn shortly."
I ate my breakfast and returned to the counter. Jariu nodded deeply at me again.
"Wargod's chosen. Is there anything at all I can do for you?" she asked.
"Take these." I had received a number of gifts and payments in gratitude last night. Mostly bags of salt and copper coins that weren't of any use to me. "Use them to hire doctors when they inevitably get sick again." She looked at the modest pile of wealth on the counter, then back up to stare into my eyes.
"Thank you, lord."
"I'm not your lord, dammit."
"You're beloved by Aresk. He spoke to everyone you healed in their dreams," she replied. Bloody gods sticking their big divine noses in when they weren't needed.
"Do you know where the Windspite is?" I decided to change the subject.
"It is the trireme with the bowsprite shaped like an angry zephyr tied up on the western pontoon. Jasper will return shortly, though."
"I'd like to make my own way. You take care, Jariu." I returned to my table and collected Bargip. Jariu followed behind me.
"Lord. Could you consider taking my boy with you?" she asked as we reached the door. I paused, hand extended to push it open.
"Your son?"
"Yes. Whatever happens between to Dead King and the Warlord, one of them will be turning their gaze on us soon. I have a sister in Helipokyn, she'll take the boy in."
"No, Jariu. I won't be going all the way to that city. But I had a dream last night. Your city will be safe, Aresk is looking elsewhere." I rested a hand gently on her shoulder and tried to smile reassuringly before turning away. My forces had orders to prepare for the east, and Morty's troops were dead or scattered. There must be some Soulbound we'd missed, people he'd empowered to serve as his satraps in conquered territories, for instance. Would they lose their powers when the one who Bound them died?
Glimpse, can you find the ship?
I am currently perched at the top of its mast, Raymond. It is perhaps not in the best of condition, but should hold together.
I looked out through the bird's eyes. The ship looked solid to me. The paint was perhaps a little flakier than would be ideal, but aesthetics were not my primary concern. I reached out with the alien sense of Hunter's Gaze and found my target was still heading southwest at a steady pace. I needed the ship to get me close enough to Amir's base of operations that a short flight in storage would get me to where I needed to be. Then the fun would begin.
The oars were shipped, and the top row, the one where the oarslaves were on the open deck, was pointed up vertically. The lower decks had been pulled back into the body of the vessel, so only the flats of the blades still poked out. The boom was down, the red sail furled around it.
As I approached, the mix of languages from the crew washed over me, and I only caught the occasional word here and there. They were a rough-looking lot, lugging casks and sacks onto the ship and disappearing into an open hatch that led down into the bowels of the hull. They moved like a colony of ants bringing food back to the nest.
Jasper appeared from a cabin built into the raised structure at the rear of the ship and looked around with grim satisfaction. Glimpse hopped lower and settled on the rigging a few metres below his original perch and cocked his head to one side as he tried to listen.
The captain paced forward and started barking orders at the sailors he could see. The men looked up and nodded their heads, and through some subconscious refinement of Brownian motion, the loading of the vessel became more efficient. Casks disappeared into the ship faster. Dockworkers and Jasper's minions emerged more quickly from the depths of the ship.
He has a presence, Glimpse sent.
He does. Natural leadership? Nah. It's trained, but he started with talent. Wonder what kind of life he had as a kid.
It is unlikely to have been a happy one, Raymond.
We arrived at the foot of one of the gangplanks and stood to one side. Bargip wanted to just walk up onto the ship, but I held him back with one hand. On Earth, you usually had to be invited onto a ship. I wasn't sure the same tradition would apply here, but I was willing to be respectful. I had grown used to simply saying what I wanted to happen and hordes of warriors and Huskar leaping to obey. I wasn't the Barefoot Emperor here.
I wasn't sure I could even claim that title. I'd left the running of my kingdom or empire in the hands of my wife and a borderline-insane old Dreamer. I smiled fondly; they'd be able to handle it. Bringing the tribes back together and preparing for whatever was going to come from the east was well within their capabilities, and if I could deal with the soldier fish-tits exiled from Earth with me, our southern flank would be secure.
Despite the thickness of their walls, this city was a plum waiting to be picked by an army led by a Shikrakyn. Their guards, their army, their nation meant nothing; they were defenceless to someone like me. Was this what it meant to be semi-divine? To see mortals as inconsequential?
I wouldn't even have to fight if I wanted to play the long game. I could start dishing out magic heals, even with the masquerade of using the dream-spice to knock people out so they didn't see the green glow of Life magic, I had still left an impression on the locals I helped. It seemed I'd started a cult at the Gilded Vessel without even trying. If I were to create a cabal of Soulbound servants from among the wealthy and powerful people, I would essentially enslave the noble class and be able to take control of a city covertly.
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Jesus. Mortimer probably pulled off something like that as soon as he gained the ability to make Soulbound. What the hell would the soldier, the scholar, and influencer have done to secure their power?
"What's wrong with you?" I asked Bargip, who was nervously hopping from one foot to the other at my side.
"None of my goods will float, you ever seen a shipwreck?"
"You make trinkets out of stone. Every beach on Urth is a supply shop to you." I looked down at him, and he fidgeted under my gaze.
"There's good stone and bad, friend Mond. Selinsa only has bad. I've some pieces I can work on during the voyage, assuming the sea is gentle adn i get time away from the oars, but I won't be able to build inventory unless we stop for water on a lucky island."
"You there! Get your arses onboard! Need to get you settled in and show you the ropes." Jasper's voice was harsh with the bark of a man in element. He was glaring down at us from a railing some three metres above our heads. Bargip hefted his chest up in front of him and staggered towards the plank as I followed behind.
He muttered something in a foreign tongue as he inserted himself into the flow of men going up one plank and down the other, earning grumbles and what sounded like snide jokes from the sailors. I joined the stream without issue, watching the man wobble up to the deck where he dropped his chest with a sigh. He was immediately shoved to one side by the man behind him, who stepped over the chest with a guttural exclamation.
"I'll show you to your accommodation, milords." Jasper led us to the stern and waved at an open space on the deck. "Make yourselves at home. Talon will be along shortly to show you your stations." The captain spun and began screaming at someone who wasn't moving fast enough, was moving in the wrong direction, or was simply breathing in a way the master and commander didn't like. It was hard to tell what the young man had done to cause offence.
He was just a kid, barely able to grow a beard, and so skinny I found it impressive that his arms weren't bending from the weight of the crate he held in front of him. The boy blinked owlishly, gabbled something at Jasper, and hurried on into the hold.
We were left to make ourselves at 'home'. I sat down and leaned my back against the wooden hut built at the back end of the boat. Was it a boat or a ship? The back was the stern, and the front was the prow, I knew that much at least, but it was more or less the end of my nautical knowledge. Bargip shoved his chest into a corner next to a set of narrow stairs and sat on it looking forlorn.
"What's the problem? You'll be in Heliopkyn in a week."
"Captain Fush Fucker said the ship was fast, Mond, but unless he suckled at Poseidon's left teat, it will be three weeks at least. A week to Selinsa, a few days at port, then at least a week and a half to Helipokyn."
We lapsed into silence, and I watched as the planks were pulled up and the ropes tying the Windspite to the pontoon were hauled back aboard.
"Gentlemen, the good Captain has commanded that I show you your duties." The voice was deep and mellifluous, coming from the stairs above Bargip's head. He spoke perfect Sykareskyn but with an accent that made him sound cultured in a way my savages definitely weren't.
"You're Talon?" I asked as he hopped down the stairs with a fluid grace that matched his jet black skin, giving him the air of a predator. There was a feline feel to the man as he settled on the balls of his feet. He was thick-set and muscled, wore only a pair of simple shorts with a thick cloth belt, from which hung a sheath containing a short, curved sword.
"It is my pleasure to be known by that name in this part of the world. If you will follow me?" He turned and led us past the line of slaves being brought up from the hold below. They were dirty and half-starved, blinking as they emerged into the sunlight and were dragged along, chains linking them together, until they were seated on rough benches. The poor bastards eyed their oars like they hated the things; many of them were squeezing their fists together and then stretching them out, or rubbing their hands in their armpits.
Talon led us to the foremost benches, currently unoccupied.
"These will be your posts during the day. You'll also be expected to work the bilge pump for at least an hour of an evening, but I'll show you those later. I understand neither of you has experience of being at sea?"
"No," I rumbled. At least I'd be out in the sun rather than in one of the cramped holds below.
"I've travelled a little," Bargip offered. He was constantly glancing back at his chest of precious rocks until Talon moved like a snake and struck him in the side of his head hard enough to stun him.
"You're goods are safe, dear nomad. No thieves on 'spite, unless the captain gives the order, and he hasn't."
"You fucking–" Bargip recovered himself and lunged at Talon, who stepped to the side and tangled Bargip's legs with a foot before spinning around him and punching him in the spine.
"Bloody savage doesn't know his place!" Talon called out cheerfully as he punched Bargip in the kidneys, then yelled something over his shoulder in another language. One of the overseers, a rough-looking man with a thick, brown beard, spat and sauntered over with an extra set of crude iron chains. Talon held Bargip in place until a thick rope had been pulled tight around my companion's neck and the metal connected to it was attached to a ring set into the outer hull.
"Now I'm sure you'll get the hang of the rhythm, but when Namo strikes the drum, you pull. As you are little more than baggage on this voyage, as long as you don't tangle the other oars and do your share of work, we shall get along famously. Now, for yourself, sir, will you be needing to be restrained?"
"I'd like to see you try." It came out low and threatening, but I was already settling onto the splintery bench I was soon to become painfully familiar with. Talon grinned broadly, white teeth flashing in the sun, but nodded politely.
"Pelip, this one shall be treated with courtesy." He waved a hand at me. "This one, however, can be beaten for a missed pull." Bad luck, Bargip.
"Bak." The man said. I cocked my head to one side, and Talon smiled happily once more.
"It means 'yes' in Juntian. 'Tan' means no. 'Keth' is pull and 'Heth' is hold. I don't think you'll need much more than that, will you?" This smiling, dangerous man was getting under my skin. Too smug, too confident.
He headed off into the ship with a cheery wave in my direction, leaving Pelip standing watch over Bargip. I was left to my own devices, so I reached out to watch from Glimpse, who was once again perched at the top of the mast. A longboat with a dozen oars down one side was maneuvering into position alongside two similar vessels. Once they were aligned off to the side of the ship, the rowers went into action, heaving with almost perfectly synchronized pulls.
Slowly, the tugs pulled the prow of the vessel away from the pier. The tide was making the longboats' job a lot easier, but I could see the sweat beading on the tanned brows of the men hauling on the oars. Sailors scurried about in the rigging and on the walkway that sat over the oarsmen in the middle of the ship, after some barked orders and hauling on ropes, the boom was lifted to the top of the mast and the sail dropped down to catch the wind.
By that point we were almost past the stone fingers that reached out into the sea to partially enclose the harbour, and a rattle on the drums rang out. The galley slaves groaned in unison. Bargip hefted his oar and lowered it into the slot in the hull designed for that purpose. I followed suit and found the oar that had strained the other nomad felt light as a feather in my hands.
A babble of alien words rang out from behind me, and I tensed as the other oarsmen positioned themselves, leaning forward with their oars held slightly out of the water behind them.
A thud rang out, and as one, we dipped the blades into the water and heaved. Well, almost as one. I was half a beat behind the rest, and I pulled too hard to try and catch up. The oar snapped a few feet below the head. I lifted what was left out and looked at the broken end a couple of metres above me.
"Umm, sorry?" I offered as Pelip glared at me. He rattled something in a foreign language, and I shrugged apologetically. Orders were yelled out, and another oar was exchanged for the ruined one. Pelip picked at the wood where the oar had snapped and glowered at me. I set to, trying to insert my movements into the rhythm of the vessel and restrain my strength.
The captain had been right. The ship was a single organism, and the people aboard were just organs that made up a greater whole. Periodically, a man with a bucket of fresh water would pass down each side and offer a ladle of water to each man. With the sun shining down and repetitive, albeit unstrenuous work, my mind wandered throughout the rest of the day.
Thoughts of Fay and my friends passed through my mind. The sea air was pleasant enough, but I missed the steppe, even the arid barrenness of Urkash filled me with nostalgia. That dry place at least felt directly connected to the steppes I now thought of as home. As the coast first fell behind, then disappeared completely, I felt almost as alone as I had when I first arrived on Urth. Not because I was alone, the back of the man in front of me was barely two feet away, and Bargip was only a few metres to one side, but in my mind, my friends and family were suddenly removed from my world.
How far are we from land? I sent to Glimpse.
Only a short flight. I will sleep in the rigging tonight, and I am ill-suited for fishing. The pointed reminder was well made.
No eyeballs to eat here, I chuckled mentally as I worked the oars. I'd found the rhythm now, and on each pound of the drum I heaved back in unison with my newfound colleagues. Bargip was not having as much luck and had been briefly whipped three times thus far. I suspected he would receive harsher punishment in the future, and that wasn't counting what I planned to do to a man who beat up his whores.
There is an abundance of eyeballs, Raymond. The only pair I cannot take is your own. But it would be rude and could cause trouble for you.
It probably would, crow.
Towards the end of the day, we steered back into sight of land, and a sea anchor was dropped once the sail was brought down. Pelip grunted and unhooked Bargip' chain, tugging on it like a man leading a dog as we followed him into the bowels of the ship.
The first two floors, barely five feet high, forced me to crouch uncomfortably. They were open down almost the whole length of the ship. Goods were stacked neatly and tied down along the centre, the sides occupied by benches for the oarslaves, the rest of whom were not being permitted to leave their positions.
The next floor had enclosed spaces at either end and more goods down the middle. The bottom floor was all enclosed rooms, simple doors held shut with loops of rope. The crew quarters. I made note of the layout as I anticipated having to fight through a ship or two at some point. But not this one. Probably.
Pelip pulled up a hatch at the stern of the bottom level and pointed into the fetid darkness below. He mimed hopping down and then pumped his arms up and down. Our final task for the day. An hour down in the gloom, working the simple mechanical pump, made of copper or bronze, it was hard to tell in the dim light from the hatch that Pelip kindly left open, was the worst part of the day. The fetid gloom and cramped conditions left me feeling soiled and annoyed.
A bowl of gruel was shoved into our hands when the pair of us emerged into the early twilight, once we were done. Pelip pointed at our nook by the stairs and grunted something that Bargip acknowledged with a tired smirk.
We ate in silence, and then Bargip pulled out a set of sleeping furs. I really ought to have bought a pack and put some of my more mundane items in it. Pulling a bed, which I had in storage, out and setting it up on the deck would not be a subtle move. I lay back on the polished planks and put my arms behind my head. I closed my eyes and, via Glimpse, I watched the quiet movements of the watch as they patrolled the ship. Soon enough, I nodded off and fell into a blessedly dreamless sleep.
Raymond!
The mental shriek snapped open my eyes, and I reacted instinctively to the threat.