Yes, there was something there, uncertainly visible through the dark and fog, something pale and glimmering, drifting slowly downstream toward Sapphire's bow as she lay at anchor.
By the time Wallie had established that fact, Tomiyano had the tarpaulin off the starboard dinghy, and his orders were crackling through the night. The wine fumes had vanished and a well-trained crew was leaping to stations. Swords and boat hooks . . . the four adult male sailors would row, Tomiyano steer . . . the two swordsmen . . .
"No Thana!" the captain snapped.
"Yes, Thana!" Nnanji said firmly. There was a moment's pause. Then Tomiyano nodded and carried on; she was Nnanji's wife now, and he would decide. The boat went down with a rush to the water as Wallie vaguely registered Nnanji's thinking . . . Thana was as good a swordsman as any, and families were not divided on the River, for the Goddess could be fickle. Had Wallie not been there, Sapphire's crew would probably not even have gone to investigate. They might have done so, for She would not penalize an act of mercy, but he wished he had Jja with him.
Then the four men were pulling the dinghy through the inky River with long, sure strokes, rowlocks squeaking, water hissing by in surges. Thana sat by her brother at the tiller. Wallie and Nnanji crouched in the bow—their amateurish efforts would only hinder if they tried to help with the rowing.
Stroke. Stroke. Silver flecks flew from the oars in the chill air. The Dream God was a road of shining mist through the dark sky, his light blurred and ineffective.
Stroke. Stroke. Metal clanged again in the darkness ahead, less faintly now. A cold cramp of fear knotted Wallie's gut—he thought he could guess who was out there. He took a deep breath and cupped his hands.
"What vessel?" he bellowed.
No reply. Stroke.
"In the name of the Goddess, lower your blades. I am a Seventh . . . "
Then, very faintly: "Help?"
A woman? A child's voice?
"What vessel?" Wallie yelled once more.
Stroke. Stroke. More clashing of blades, louder now.
"Sunflower!" came a male reply. "Stay clear!"
Stroke.
It was coming clearly into sight, the fog darkening and congealing into the shape of a small ship, barely more than a fishing boat, with fore-and-aft rigging. Her sails were raised, but there was something wrong with the foresail. She was listing slightly, drifting sideways.
Stroke.
"I am a swordsman of the Seventh! Put down your swords."
Stroke.
"Lord Shonsu." Again that high voice. Wallie was certain of it now, an adolescent voice made shrill by stress.
More strokes of the oars, more clattering of blades, and then a male voice, hard and breathless: "Polini, my lord!"
"Stay clear!" shouted another.
Stroke. Silver flew from the oars.
The fear had expanded. It filled Wallie with ice. He clenched his fists so hard that they hurt. He peered through the cold night air at that pale blur slowly growing. So slowly! He was going to be too late. The swords were ringing faster, and there was shouting and cursing. The victims would be murdered and dropped overboard before he could arrive. The piranha would dispose of the evidence.
"Polini! Hang on!" he roared. "We're coming!" He wanted to weep and scream with frustration. He drummed fists on the gunwale.
The fighting had stopped. Oh, Goddess! Help them!
Stroke, Stroke. Someone cried out—high, shrill, full of pain. Then the hull loomed suddenly close. Tomiyano swung the tiller and yelled to ship oars, barked a warning not to stand up yet. The dinghy veered and struck hard alongside; rocked. Swords glinted above them, faces showed as lighter blurs. Nnanji caught the rail with a boat hook. Holiyi stood and swung an oar. Wallie ducked under the stroke and caught the rail with his left hand as he drew the seventh sword with his right. Then he was up on the gunwale, parrying a blade. Nnanji was there, also. Metal rang in the night.
But they knew they were too late.
* * *
Swordsmen must not weep.
Polini was dead, killed in that last desperate attack. Young Arganari was going to die very soon. He had been run through, and there was nothing that all the healers in the World could do for him now. He lay on the black-stained deck, with Wallie kneeling at one side of him and Nnanji at the other. Fortunately the light was so poor that nothing was very distinct.
Amidships lay Polini's body, and two others. Three live men were penned at the stern, hemmed in by a line of dragons' teeth—swords held by Sapphire's crew, angry and silent and waiting.
The anchor had been dropped and the sails lowered.
"Water . . . my lord," Arganari whispered again.
Wallie raised his head and Nnanji gave him another drink.
"Thank you," he said, his voice quavering. Then he turned his face and vomited a rush of blood, black in the night. Swordsmen must not weep.
"What happened?" Wallie demanded, but he had already guessed. Of course the victims still wore their expensive boots and kilts and harnesses, their silver hairclips. Polini had not taken Wallie's advice, as Wallie had known he would not. The World was a place of poverty. Murder could be committed for much less than fancy clothes. Now the fancy clothes were all soaked with blood.
"They took our silver," the prince said. "We paid them." Even his whispering had a singsong strangeness to it. "They came for us last night." He gasped with sudden pain, and Nnanji took hold of his hand. "Master Polini held them off."
All night and all through the day? Stalemate—the big swordsman had made his stand in the bow, holding back five men, defending his ward. One against five. The boy would have been no use.
Polini had cut the forestay, causing the foresail to collapse. That would have made the boat unmanageable. Perhaps he had hoped, too, that it would attract attention and bring help. All night and all through the day until, when he had been weakened by exhaustion, by lack of food and water, they had come for him again.
And the Goddess had moved the boat.
But not soon enough!
Wallie's teeth ground like millstones. His fists trembled.
"I think I wounded one, adept," Arganari was ignoring Wallie now. Nnanji was his hero, the young Fourth who had killed sorcerers at Ov. Perhaps only three years lay between them, Wallie thought with sudden wonder, five at the most.
"You've done very well," Nnanji said. His voice was always soft, and now it was even softer, calm and level. "We'll get a healer to you shortly." He sounded totally under control. Wallie was beyond speech, his throat and eyes aching fiercely.
"Adept?"
"Yes, novice?" Nnanji said.
"You will take my hairclip."
"Yes, all right," Nnanji said. "I'll take it and wear it against the sorcerers. I'll wear it to Vul and when I get there, I'll tell them that you sent me. 'Novice Arganari sent me,' I'll say. 'I come in the name of Arganari.'"
There was no point in trying to move the boy. It would not be long. He gagged and then threw up more blood.
"Adept? Tell me about Ov."
So Nnanji related the battle of Ov, his tones quiet and matter-of-fact. The anchor chain creaked slightly and there was a low mutter of voices from the stern.
Then Arganari interrupted. Probably he had not been understanding very much. He was obviously in agony, trying not to whimper. "Nnanji. It hurts. I'm going to die?"
"Yes, I think so," Nnanji said. "Here, put your hand on your sword hilt. You promised to die holding it, remember?"
"I wish it was my other sword."
"I'll tell the minstrels at Casr," Nnanji said. "In the saga of the Tryst of Casr, your name and Master Polini's will be first among the glorious."
The boy seemed to smile. "I was trying to go home."
After a few minutes he said, "Nnanji. Return me?"
"If you wish," Nnanji replied calmly.
"I think . . . I do. It hurts."
"Should I use the seventh sword?" Nnanji asked.
There was no reply, but Nnanji rose and held out his hand to Wallie. Wallie stood also, passed over his sword, and turned away quickly. He could not do what Nnanji was now doing—not even if the boy was unconscious, not in a thousand centuries. Yet it would have been his swordsman obligation. Fervently he thanked the Goddess that it had been Nnanji who had been asked.
He stared into the dark and tried not to listen. He heard nothing. Swordsmen must not weep.
"No point in wiping it yet, is there?" Nnanji said.
Wallie turned round and accepted his sword back again, not looking down, not looking near his feet. "No. Not yet," he said, and the two of them headed aft, side by side along the obscurity of the deck, until they stood behind the line of sailors fencing the captives.
"Do it!" Wallie snapped at Nnanji.
Now even Nnanji's voice took on a harshness. "Lord Shonsu, I denounce these men for killing swordsmen."
"Have you any defense?" Wallie asked. He was the judge and a witness and he would be executioner.
A trio of voices began shouting indignantly. They all sounded quite young, but they all wore breechclouts and so were legally adults.
Then one voice drowned out the other two. "They took our ship at swordpoint, my lord! There were four of them. We got the others . . . "
Wallie let them rave on in the night for a while with their lies and slanders.
Then he shouted, "Quiet! I find you guilty."
Then there was silence, except that one of the three was sobbing.
Wallie was about to move, but Nnanji put a hand on his shoulder. "Let me do it, brother?"
"No! This will be my pleasure!"
Perhaps Nnanji thought Wallie did not want to do it, or was not capable, but he was shaking with rage, gripping his sword with every ounce of strength, his limbs quivering as if with eagerness. Shonsu's manic temper raged within him. Wallie Smith was just as insanely furious. He was brimming with hatred and contempt, and nausea also. He wanted to take these murderers by the throat, or tear them apart with his fingers.
No, Nnanji was begging. "Please, brother? As a wedding present?"
"Stand aside!" Wallie barked. He pushed between Tomiyano and Holiyi, stepped forward, and began to slash at three unarmed youths. They screamed a lot and tried to parry the seventh sword with bare hands. He could not see properly, so he hacked them to pieces to make sure. It was no pleasure, but he had no regrets.
* * *
He was senior. He spoke the words of farewell for Polini. At the end his voice cracked, and he asked Nnanji to perform the office for Arganari. As he listened his eyes began pouring tears, he trembled, he struggled desperately not to let the sounds of his sobbing escape into the night.
He watched the River boil and hiss as piranha consumed the bodies in instantaneous frenzy.
They said no words over the assassins, but the River boiled as hard for them as it had for honest men.
Then Wallie clawed back to self-control, "What will you do with the boat?" he asked Tomiyano.
"Leave it. Someone will find it."
That seemed out of character, but Wallie knew that a sailing ship could not tow another vessel, and to put a prize crew on her would divide the family. So Sunflower would be left for the Goddess.
Wallie climbed miserably into the dinghy for the return. A foggy spark of light showed where Sapphire waited.
The sailors rowed in silence, and slowly.
Wallie sat with his face in his hands and let the tears flow again.
It was all his fault.
He had not heard the message . . . No, he could not have stopped Polini leaving. He could not have kept the Fifth on board Sapphire without a challenge and almost certainly a fight. Polini would not have made obeisance. He would have accepted an impossible match against a Seventh, would perhaps have refused to yield even after Wallie had wounded him. Then Wallie would have had no choice but to kill him.
He could not have stopped Polini leaving.
But he could perhaps have changed the man's mulish, pigheaded mind about something else, had he insisted.
Then the deaths would not have been necessary.
He had not seen why that meeting had been ordained. He had failed. Six men and a boy had died, so that Nnanji could have a hairclip.
Why, O merciful Goddess—why?
A hairclip?