Luck of the Draw

by Michael A. Stackpole

As far back as I could remember, I’d never had a hangover this bad. Of course, with my brain pounding as if Vulcan himself were cold hammering it into a fit for my skull, my memory was decidedly unreliable. I did feel certain, however, that the heaving motion and the shrieking creaking of my bones were so remarkable that I would recall having been in such a sorry state before.

Knowing I was placing myself at risk for greater pain, I opened my eyes. The agonizing lightspikes I expected to pin my eyes to the back of my skull didn’t come. I considered that a minor victory because I’d not been a willing participant in the drinking that left me so sorely used and addle-brained. It struck me as right and just that I not suffer as much as I might have, had I been the one pouring liquor down my throat.

The pallet on which I’d been laid out felt as if it were rising, and I decided to let it impel me into a sitting position. As I came upright, my forehead slammed into something above me in the dark. Sinking back on the pallet, I saw stars explode, each one shimmering away. into a legion of aches. Then the hurt from the hit started to pulse through me. Served me right, I supposed, since I had willingly participated in sitting upright. Something rustled above me, and I idly wondered if I should speak or just feign death-which was not much of a reach for me at that point.

The thing from above me landed solidly on the floor and unshuttered a lantern. I even faintly recollected having seen that dirty face before. I would have been certain, but he kept bobbing up and down and swaying ever so slightly from side to side.

“Where in the seven hells am I?” I croaked at him.

“M’lord, you are on your flagship.”

“Flagship?”

“Aye, m’lord. She were the Starfish, but at the duke’s order we renamed her the Barhead Shark to give her the proper aspect to frighten the pirates.” The man barely that by the curly wisp of beard at his jaws and the unseamed flesh of his face-smiled the proud smile of patriotic fervor. “We’ve got the Leviathan and the Swordfish in our wake, sir, and we’re stealing up on the Pirate Isle same as the sun steals up on dawn. Just as planned, m’lord.”

“As planned by the duke?” I looked at the boy imploringly.

“Aye, sir. I’m Marlin, m’lord.” He smiled. “Me brothers Hal and Doc are topside tending sails and tiller. The duke entrusted you to our care, and we’ll die before we let your mission fail.”

I wanted to ask how many men my fleet had, but something deep down inside told me I really didn’t want to know the answer. “Very good, Marlin.”

“Count Callisto of Fishkylle will find his men stouthearted and brave, m’lord.”

“Yes, lad, I mean aye. He, I mean I, I mean we have no doubt of your loyalty.” I tried to think of some more nautical words to spew at him, but pain forked through my brain. “Now, how about your just turning this, ah, Barhead Shark around and head back to Fishkylle?”

Marlin grinned. “Good, m’lord, you’re playing your part proper like, just as the duke said. I’ll be refusing that order, sir, so it will look like you were kidnapped, as per the plan, sir.”

“Marlin, that is an order from the Count of Fishkylle.” I tried to put an imperious tone in my voice, but it just started my head aching horribly, so I gave up. I could not tell from the foolish grin on the man’s face if he really understood the sort of danger into which we were sailing, or if he somehow thought-encouraged by Fabio, no doubt-that I would somehow keep him and his kin safe when we reached Pirate Isle. “Please. I, we, implore you. Put the ship about.”

“Thank you for making it official, m’lord. Don’t you go worrying about your men, m’lord, we’ll not be causing you any trouble, nor will we get in your way.” Marlin smiled as he headed for the cabin door. “You know, of course, we are doing this out of love for you, and not the reward his Duke-ness offered us. I’ll go tell the men we’re to hold steady on our course to Pirate Isle.”

“Do your duty, lad.” I shielded my eyes as he opened the-I gather hatch is the right word-and beyond his skinny outline I could see the first blue traces of dawn on the horizon. The hatch closed behind him, leaving me in the lantern-lit cabin. In the dim light I came upright, but ducked my head so I’d not again bash it on the bunk above mine.

Then again, mayhap I should have done just that, as cracking my head open would likely be less painful and just as fatal as the encounter toward which we sailed. “Duke Fabio actually got one up on you this time, Cal. Antonia will look wonderful in mourning gowns, and the duke will get the money he wants to build his fleet.” I started to shake my head, but the drunken woozies warned me off.

I levered myself to my feet and noticed two things immediately, though they warred between themselves for supremacy in my spirit-steeped brain. The winner was the thought that the queasy disequilibrium I felt came more from the pitching and rolling of the ship than it did from my hangover. Though equally as unpleasant as being hung over, I found being seasick somehow more dignified despite the fact it made me wish I was dead.

The second thought, which probably conceded victory to the first out of sheer perversity, was that I would likely have my wish come true. Fabio had taken great delight in laying out his plot for ridding himself of me, and had crowed about my sister’s approval of same. I knew he tossed that in to hurt me, but I also knew Antonia had the sort of intellect that made each new dawn a wondrous experience, largely because she’d forgotten the previous one. Not terribly bright, my sister, but kind, loving, rich, and our father’s heir by virtue of her birth coming four minutes before mine.

I took a staggered step forward, keeping my head ducked. The fact that I kept my head down was more a commentary on the cosy closeness of the cabin than on my size. Indeed, had the cabin been in scale to the rest of the world, I would have been a giant and would never have found myself in this predicament.

Alas, I am not a physical giant, and therefore I found myself on a moaning fisher boat bobbing my way to a confrontation with pirates who plied the coast and demanded tribute from the Duchy of Newgrave. All my life some sort of pirates had raided in the area, but these corsairs had become a substantial threat to Newgrave commerce roughly around the time my father died and Antonia’s husband Fabio became Duke-Regent.

Fabio is a giant-at least physically-and the sort of son my father wishes I had been. My sister had been given the size, charm, and beauty to make her a perfect match for Fabio. On the day they wed my father commissioned a portrait of the wedding party, featuring the happy couple standing tall, blond, and unblemished in the center, and the rest of us gathered around them.

You can see me back behind the dogs, peeking out from a display of orchids.

I’m not ugly-I don’t make most children cry when they see me-but I’m just not artistic. And, I will concede, I’m not terribly coordinated, nor am I skillful at arms. I’ve studied all manner of martial skills-my appetite for books is voracious-but have for little time to practice or practically apply what I have learned. Fabio brought this shortcoming to my attention when he used a butter knife to disarm and best me in a sword fight.

The defeat proved problematic for me in more than the obvious way. What little vanity I have-and my broomstick limbs and thinning hair allow me very little of it indeed-comes from my dignity. I hate being made to play the fool, especially by a man who showed more skill with the knife in our fight than he ever had at a dinner table. The infant dreams I had about somehow, one day, being seen as an epic hero died right there-and only my sister’s heartfelt commiseration over their deaths made the incident bearable.

I was not so much interested in being a hero for the glory of it all-my studies had showed glory to be, if not fleeting, certainly grossly malleable. I had become unforgivably enamored of folklore and the way things passed into legend. I imagined my grand adventure as being a fantastic experiment because I would know what the truth had been and I could see how it changed and warped with retellings and dissemination. My defeat at Fabio’s hands would likely become a thing of legend; one I could monitor, but one that I had no real desire to follow.

Reaching out, I steadied myself against a ceiling beam and took a step toward the hatch. I knew, ultimately, my current predicament had been my fault because I had avenged myself on Fabio. While he was regent and able to administer the duchy, the matter of taxation had been left in my sister’s hands. Fabio approached her numerous times with plans to raise an army for this reason or that, each of them requiring a special levy. Having my sister’s ear, I managed to convince her that a tax at this time would be crippling, but maybe next month or the one after it would be permissible.

If I felt any twinge of regret in thwarting him, it came when he hit upon a plan to build a fleet to destroy the pirate Red Rinaldo. The pirate had managed to consolidate a number of corsair groups by slaying their leaders and accepting the other pirates’ vows of fealty to him. Other leaders had tried the same thing in the past, without success.

Rinaldo had an edge. He had one of the Swords. He bore Shieldbreaker.

I knew something of the legend of the Swords, but my information was far from complete-largely because Newgrave is really something of a backwater. Of the reported dozen I could name eight, and Shieldbreaker had to be the most famous. The most fearsome and feared of all, it was supposed to make its owner invincible. The verse concerning it was explicit enough to justify the blade’s reputation.

I shatter Swords and splinter spears:

None stands to Shieldbreaker.

My point’s the fount of orphans’ tears

My edge the widowmaker.

I had hoped-though it would have pained my sister-that Rinaldo might make a run at Fabio at some point. Pabio likely feared the same, and he astutely noted that if Newgrave had a fleet, it would be possible to sink Rinaldo’s ship, Sea Slayer, before Rinaldo got a chance to use the Sword in combat. This struck me as an inventive solution to the situation-making me wonder who gave it to Fabio and solved the puzzle of how so powerful a Sword could be parted from the person wielding it. There were other solutions to that puzzle, were I to take rumors of rumors to be fact-but one and all they struck me as suicidal, especially for someone like me who is more likely to injure himself by fighting unarmed than he is with a weapon in hand.

I convinced my sister that directly opposing Rinaldo could lead to a slaughter of Newgraveans, if the effort failed, and that some sort of negotiation should be tried first. No one at court was fool enough to volunteer for that sort of diplomatic duty-Rinaldo had a reputation for being something of a sociopath-so Fabio’s brilliant plan ended up in the grave along with my heroic dreams. Satisfied, I considered us even, and therein made a terrible error.

The thought of having underestimated Fabio combined with the roiling ocean ride to make me nauseous. I dropped to my knees and vomited into a bucket, then pulled myself around to the bulkhead and pressed my back to it. I closed my eyes, then pulled the bucket in between my knees and spit until my mouth lost its sour taste.

Fabio had convinced my sister that I wanted to be the one to approach Rinaldo. After all, I had suggested the mission. Antonia knew of my dreams about adventure, and Fabio suggested I had been too modest to put myself forward. He had admitted to me that he had deceived Antonia into thinking I had come to him with a plan, begging him not to reveal it to her. He told her that because of his love for her and his knowledge that she would worry about me, he could not keep my plan confidential, and she covertly granted him permission to help me face down Red Rinaldo.

As they had shoved the funnel in my mouth and started pouring juniper juice into me-a precaution against my thinking of a way out of this before I was at sea-he had laughed and noted that Antonia would obviously give him his fleet to avenge my death at the hands of Red Rinaldo. Not only had he won, but my death would lead to the vindication of his plan. To make matters worse, he had taken volunteers from the fishing village of Fishkylle-a people whose loyalty to me stemmed from the belief that I looked a bit like a mullet-and pressed them into service to convey me to Rinaldo and my death. Adding injury to insult, he took my rapier from me-noting Rinaldo was not known for his skill with a butter knife-and left me with a flaccid scabbard belted around my waist.

With my elbows resting on the insides of my knees, I ground the heels of my hands into my eye-sockets. Alone, sick, and sent on a mission to a homicidal maniac with a magic Sword. I decided things could not possibly get worse.

Then the ship listed badly.

A sword banged me on the knee.

Swearing, I opened my eyes and snatched at the hilt. I wanted to toss the sword across the cabin, but I lacked the strength or determination to do even that. I rubbed at my knee and realized that I had been less hurt than surprised by the flat of the sword hitting my leg. The blade looked substantial enough that it should have hurt more when it landed on me, and I didn’t think my light, woolen hose enough to pad the kneecap. “Just like Fabio to give me some toy, tin blade,” I thought aloud, and managed to put down to drunkenness the fact that I’d not seen the blade in the cabin before.

I turned the sword over and brought it into the lantern light. I knew instantly I had something very special in my hands. Despite drink-lees still slowing my brain, I realized the steel in the blade had been forged by someone whose abilities dwarfed those of my father’s master metalworkers. The mottling on the blade and the device worked into the flat of the blade made the weapon appear far thicker than it was.

Fabio would have puzzled over that fact for a month, but I accepted it because I was beginning to realize I held one of the Swords! On the hilt, two cubic symbols stood out in white. I knew they did not form a hammer, for that was the device borne only by Shieldbreaker. I canted my head to the right and twisted the blade to the left to figure out what the symbols were.

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 stem. 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 gey-sered 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.

That might have seemed courage to some and madness to others, but it was neither. The siege machines might have been effective against the sort of fleet Fabio had hoped to raise, a flotilla filling the harbor with wood from wharf to seawall. My fleet was too small to provide anything close to a good target. Stones and timbers, chains and rubbish, an unnatural hail whirled through the air, but the Barhead Shark passed through it all unscathed. The Leviathan lost its spinnaker to a length of chain, and a stone crushed the figurehead on the Swordfish, but both boats kept coming.

The ship at anchor lowered a boat, but even with all eight men aboard pulling hard, they could not reach the dock before the Barhead Shark. To port the Leviathan sped on despite having lost a sail, and on the starboard the Swordfish rammed the longboat and sank it. Behind me Doc and Hal furled the sails, while Marlin brought the fishing boat close in to the dock.

Too close, as it turned out. The Barhead Shark’s prow hit the dock dead on, splitting the first half-dozen planks before pilings squeezed it to a stop. I know this because the sudden cessation of our forward movement catapulted me through the air. During my first somersault I realized I had been lucky in that my course remained true and that when I hit, I would still be on the dock. During my second revolution I acknowledged a less heartening fact: my landing would bring me perilously close to the first three men running out to oppose my fleet.

While my martial training, especially that involving equestrian pursuits, had never been the sort of success my father had wished for, it had endowed me with a knowledge of how to fall and bounce to minimize injury. I curled up into a ball, holding the pommel of my Sword in both hands, with the blade extended to the side rather like a scythe, so I would not impale myself if I hit wrong.

The blade turned out to be held more like a scythe than I had hoped. I landed hard on my shoulderblades and bounced through a roll toward my feet. My Sword blade caught on something. I twisted to the left, felt my left hip bump something else, and heard a couple of yelps. Then the dock was firmly beneath my feet.

A splashing noise prompted me to open my eyes and turn slightly to the left. As I did so, I brought the bloodied Sword across in a short arc in front of my face. Chang! It blocked a thrown dagger, dropping the lesser weapon to the pier beside the unconscious form of the man whose legs I’d slashed during my roll.

Of course, I knew instantly that what I had done-which included blindly bumping the center man into the third man and sending them both into the bay-was highly improbable. Parrying the thrown dagger was nothing more than luck, and my fingers still tingled with the impact of the knife against my Sword. Still, the men now standing a dozen meters away clearly took the carnage as a result of purposeful action, and their reluctance to engage me showed.

Before they could persuade themselves, the wind shifted and the gods again intervened on my behalf. The Leviathan flashed past on my left, its speed unabated as it drove straight at the pirates’ wharf. The man at the tiller tried to bring the ship around and back out to sea, but the changeling wind shoved the ship to starboard. With a horrendous cracking and crashing, the Leviathan broadsided the dock ahead of me, tumbling me to my knees. Near the point of impact, the dock tipped up, launching a full dozen pirates into the bay.

The impact vaulted the Leviathan’s fishing nets up and over the gunnels as neatly as if cast by a master fisherman. By the time I had regained my feet, the ship had already rebounded from the collision and made headway while pulling out to port. The nets, which had draped themselves over a number of recumbent pirates, dragged their catch off with them. Hastily, I estimated that more than a third of the men facing me had succumbed to the Leviathan’s misadventure.

I drove forward, wanting to reach the rammed section of the dock before the pirates could cross it. I knew, from countless legends of epic battles, that defending the uneven territory would be far simpler than allowing my foes to stand on equal footing. It did not really occur to me until I came close enough to cross blades with the pirates that the valiant defenders upon which I had chosen to model myself usually died at the end of their fights. I also realized that defending in a situation that clearly called for offense was less than satisfactory, but attacking would have pressed my luck even further than it had been pressed so far!

A swordsman I am not, so I steeled myself against my eventual steeling by the pirates and determined to give as good as I got. By the strangest coincidence, though, their thrusts missed me by centimeters while my Blade slipped fortuitously beneath guards or over parries. As part of me tried to catalog each cut and each block for my experiment in folklore, another part identified fencing styles and suggested simple strategies that succeeded in even the most improbable situations.

As much damage as I did to them, I believe that they did more. Rinaldo’s men seemed as adept at sticking each other as they were at missing me. Pressed forward by the men behind them and tripped up by the wounded in the front, their blades spilled more pirate blood than mine, and it almost seemed as if letting them surround me would prove more devastating to their number than the advent of Fabio’s future fleet.

Bleeding and howling men fell from the dock or went staggering back through the press of their companions. Before I knew it I had crossed the treacherous length of canted dock and was actually forcing the pirates into a general retreat! It was impossible, unbelievable, but I was doing it. I looked at them saw fear in their eyes. For the barest of moments I knew what Fabio had read in my eyes during our duel, and in that burning second of shame, I faltered in my advance.

Even as I paused, my momentum lost, a giant of a man bearing a cutlass in each colossal fist pushed forward through the crowd to demand my attention. He looked like Fabio, except that he was taller, stronger, and had a wolfish intelligence in his dark eyes. Most disturbing of all, I noted as he set himself, he bore no deformities or scars. That fact told me that my time as a hero was over. When he squinted at me, then contemptuously cast aside the sword in his right hand,! got all the confirmation I needed of my impending opportunity to solve the mystery of life after death.

A gull wheeled overhead and ridiculed me mightily-or so I interpreted his raucous cry, before a splotch of white washed my enemy’s left eye away. The man pulled his left hand up to swipe at the guano in a reaction automatically reflexive. The dull edge of his cutlass smacked him squarely between the eyes, momentarily stunning him. Off balance and still half-blind, a staggering misstep sent him off the edge of the dock and into the ocean.

I assumed the gape-jawed look of surprise on the pirates’ faces mirrored the one on my own. Coincidence after coincidence had piled one on top of another high enough to have toppled over faster than the man now sputtering in water. I knew the chances of my having gotten as far as I had were slimmer than none.

There was no reasonable, no possible, explanation, except one. I glanced at the Sword I held. This has got to be Coinspinner, the Sword of Chance! It is known to move about by its own volition, entrusting itself to those who need it. I saw a brief flash of white on the hilt, and observed three and four pips on the dice respectively.

Hope exploded in my chest. I glanced sidelong, slyly, at the knot of men facing me, and gave especial attention to the heavyset one in red and yellow at the edge of the dock. “It would be very lucky for me,” I murmured, “if he were to lose his footing and fall off the dock.”

The forward movement of an impatient man behind him sent my target tottering into the ocean. I smiled, and shifted my gaze. “And if that lean weasel hit a weak spot in a board…”

The impatient man’s foot went through the dock, quickly followed by his body and most of his teeth.

My smile became generous.

I brought my sword-my very special Sword-up into a guard. “Come on, gentlemen. As luck would have it, I’m in the mood to take you all!” With the boldness of a berserker, I leaped over the missing board and stabbed out as two blades passed on either side of my body. Pulling my Sword free of one man’s shoulder, I parried the other, then slapped the flat of the blade across his ample belly. The two men fell to either side, leaving me a straight avenue to their comrades.

They broke, and I chased them with laughter. I pointed Coinspinner at one and imagined how happenstance might make him run blindly off the dock. Before he hit the water I shifted my attention to another, thinking to myself that it would be well within the vicissitudes of life for him to faint dead away in terror of me. His limp body tripped the man following close on his heels, tumbling that man into one yet further forward. They both crashed to the ground, narrowly missing the last man. It almost appeared that he would get away, but it was my lucky day, not his, so he suffered the misfortune of having his boot heel catch in the space between planks on the dock. This pitched him sideways and wrapped his middle around the upper end of the pilings that supported the dock.

Looking up as I strutted along the wharf, I saw a host of pirate reinforcements pouring out of the castle. I laughed nonchalantly and, somewhat disturbingly, much akin to the way Fabio had when I had vowed to avenge myself for the butter knife duel. These men, these luckless men were mine for the harvesting.

I watched the line of them scurrying down the narrow stairs carved into the side of the island’s stone face. I was moved to pity the fourth man in line as he took an unfortunate misstep in his haste and fell into the man in front of him. The fifth man vaulted him, but hit the second man, turning the whole front end of the procession into a roiling mass of jumbled bodies.

Dame Fortune smiled on me when another pirate caught his halberd at a narrow point in the trail, slamming running men into his back until the weapon’s haft gave way and they all spilled to the ground. Lady Luck seduced loose stones from the rocky face above to crash down among the defenders of Pirate Isle. As I advanced to the foot of the steps, I considered it the greatest of luck that the confident man picking his way down toward me suddenly suffered an anxiety attack over the lack of approval his father has shown for him as a child. Equally as fortunate, from my point of view, was that when he laid down his sword and began to weep another man slipped on the blade and bumped his way down a length of granite stairs on his tailbone.

My glee knew no bounds as I picked out one enemy after another for special treatment. One doomed fellow caught his spurs-bad luck for a pirate to be wearing them, it seems-on the tunic of a downed man and crashed head-first onto a landing. Another star-crossed corsair attracted the attention of a passing seahawk, rendering himself hors de combat as he dove for cover from its slashing talons.

“And you,” I noted as I pointed Coinspinner at an archer preparing to shoot me, “your bow will attract lightning…” I stopped because lightning struck me as too improbable and the rapid gathering of dark clouds on the horizon scared me.’ Coinspinner handled him itself when the bowstring snapped in mid-draw and the arrow tipped down to stick the man in the leg.

I mounted the steps like a conquering hero, graciously nodding in response to the whimpers for mercy rising from around my knees. “You are a Commodore now, Marlin,” I announced over my shoulder to the fisherman following me. “Into your care we commend these prisoners.” I made certain to keep my voice pleasant, yet infused it with an imperial tone in a synthesis that Fabio had never managed to produce.

“Aye, sir.”

The respect in his voice played like soft music in my ears. Never had anyone spoken to me with that hushed tone of awe. I’d heard it used many times when men and, oh, so many women spoke to or about Fabio, but until Marlin addressed me with it, I did not realize how much the veneration of Fabio had annoyed me. He, by accident of birth, by being tall and strong and handsome, was beloved by many and envied by even more.

Including me. I discovered. No more! I had earned through my deeds what he had been given by the gods. Marlin’s respect for me, the pirates’ cowering in fear, all this had been won by my actions. I deserved exaltation, and before I was through I would have accomplished enough that even Fabio would come to me on bended knee.

I slid Coinspinner home in my scabbard and stalked upward. Even with the Blade out of my hands, men pulled back away from me. Those who were still ambulatory, or at least conscious, bowed in my direction. They watched me cautiously, in case I chose to capriciously strike out at them. They knew they could not stand against me, and they wanted to provide me with no reason to demonstrate my superiority.

“Who dares assault my people so?”

Though the shout from the top of the stairs surprised me, I conquered my reaction and continued to pace up the last two steps to a landing before I looked up at him. I forced and suppressed a yawn, then folded my arms across my chest. “Your people?” I glanced about at the pirates huddling in fear below and above me. “Then you must be this scurvy sea-bandit, this wharf-rat in pantaloons who calls himself Red Rinaldo.” I echoed Fabio’s contempt for me in the tone I used to address him.

“And who is the fool who dares address me in so dismissive a manner?”

I wished I had a hat so I could doff it as part of my exaggerated bow. “I am Count Callisto of Fishkylle, Protector of the Duchy ofNewgrave.” I wanted to make up another titl& or two to throw at him, but my mind betrayed me as I looked up at Red Rinaldo. He was tall enough and thick enough of limb to be an even bet in a wrestling match with a bear. I felt a familiar jolt of fear run through me, but I overcame it and thrust my jaw as far forward as it would go. “I have been sent to end your dominion of the seas and restore peace to the coast.”

“Have you now? You bear a sword, good. I will not sully my blade by slaying an unarmed man.” Rinaldo smiled as he drew the Sword he wore. Immediately I heard a slow, dull thudding sound reverberate down the stairway between us. The men crouched there looked at me and then back at him, many moaning, more slinking down past me and a few even going up and over the wall for the drop to the wharf. “This blade is Shieldbreaker, and none may stand before it.”

I knew he meant his comment to terrify me but it did not-quite. Actually, even in my exalted state, it did make me uneasy. The rhyme did say that Shieldbreaker shattered Swords, which I wanted to take as a generic use of the word. Still, all the translations and iterations of the verse did capitalize Sword, and that could be taken as a portent of dire difficulties on the horizon. Still, I refused to let my confidence in Coinspinner flag.

“That may be, Reedy Rinaldo, but I think you will have the misfortune of falling down the stairs and cracking your skull.” I stared at his feet as he began his descent, willing him to slip, or for granite stones to crumble, but nothing happened, save for the pounding thunder of his Sword growing louder and more swift.

Down another step he came and down another, moving as inexorably as an executioner approaching a victim on the block. His eyes had darkened except for a gray glint, and I marked that as the reflection of Shieldbreaker. The hammer fall sound thudded through me, a bass counter to the staccato fluttering of my heart.

Perhaps I had somehow misconstructed my first destructive wish. “Wouldn’t it be lucky if your heart seized up and you suffered a stroke?”

He slowed not a whit, nor did the sound.

“It would be incredibly, unbelievably lucky for me if lightning would strike you.”

Nothing, not even a cloud on the horizon. Not a wisp of fog, not even a lightning bug. Nothing, nothing but his mechanical advance down the stairs. Barely a dozen steps separated us and I felt panic rip through me.

No! I forced myself to dominate my fear. I knew in an instant what I had done wrong, why the Sword refused me, and I named it hubris! I had dared claim its victories as my own. I had placed myself on the level of Fabio, and I had reveled in it. Coinspinner had chosen me because I had been an under dog in a hopeless situation. It had come to me to give me a chance at survival.

And why? Clearly it was so I could stand as an example to all who would otherwise despair and for that reason never realize their potential. Coinspinner, I imagined, wanted to give me the opportunity to overcome the sort of adversity that had beset me for all my days. Red Rinaldo obviously stood as surrogate for Fabio and all those like him who dismissed me because of my physical limitations. With the Sword of Chance in battle against Red Rinaldo and Shieldbreaker, I, we, would show humanity that the only true failure is to surrender to adversity instead of fighting it.

I took a step back as Shieldbreaker’s thunderous voice slammed through my chest. Red Rinaldo reached the landing, his long strides hungrily devouring the distance between us. I let him come on, even as he raised his right hand, elevating the Sword of Force for a blow that he doubtless believed would cleave me in twain. Unbridled confidence and battle-madness shone from his eyes-he knew he could not lose, and wanted me terrified of that fact.

I knew no fear. My left hand held Coinspinner’s scabbard rock still. I knew this battle had been predestined and the name of the victor had been written in stone since before the gods themselves were bom.

Shieldbreaker started to fall, the cacophony building until it even drowned out the pounding of my heartbeat.

My right hand yanked on the hilt of Coinspinner. I slid the blade free of the scabbard, brandishing it with a flourish. I meant Rinaldo to see it and see the design worked into it. I wanted him to know he was vulnerable to my attack. Even as his blade arced in toward my left shoulder, I knew the Sword would not fail me and nothing could stop me from defeating Rinaldo.

Nothing but the fact that Coinspinner twisted in my hand and flew from my grasp! It shot out from within my clutching fingers, the pommel brushing my fingertips as the Sword rose into the air. I watched it become a black silhouette in the heart of the sun, then saw it evaporate as soon I knew my life would.

Many chronicles have noted the elastic property of time, allowing it to stretch to infinity in times of horror. It seems the gods, while tending to ignore the most fervent entreaties for long life or happiness, take a perverse delight in granting humans more than enough time to experience the mortification and embarrassment spawned when their dreams run headlong into reality.

The hollow ludicrousness of everything I had surmised about Coinspinner and its mission for me sucked my stomach in on itself. My arrogance tasted bitter in my mouth, and the truth about my pitiful condition filled me with disgust. The whole world would mock me, for once my head bounced down the steps Red Rinaldo would strike out at Newgrave, pillaging and slaughtering innocent people in payment for my audacity. The base stupidity of my thinking about Coinspinner likewise pilloried me-the Sword had no intention of using me as a lesson for humanity. The verse had said it all, exactly, that no Sword could stand against Shieldbreaker. Had I left it in my belt, Coinspinner would have survived me. Because I drew it, because I doomed it, the Sword of Chance had fled as I would have done were my luck not all run out.

Defeated and dishonored before I died, I collapsed in on myself. In that frozen moment, it struck me as laughable that I couldn’t even die properly, for Rinaldo’s blow struck me on the left shoulder and carried on down through my body to exit at my right hip. Anyone else would have dropped into two pieces, but not me. Bisected by the most powerful of au the Swords, I felt no agony, heard no angels singing, saw no visions of a glorious afterlife. Aside from the chill sea air pouring through the gaping rent cut through my clothes by the Sword, I felt nothing to confirm my death. There was not even a drop of blood. Though the irony of the thought would not occur to me until later. I decided that the failure that defined my life culminated in my failure to die.

Angry and resentful at Rinaldo for making apparent to all that last failure, I leaped forward, weaponless, and grabbed double-handfuls of his tunic. Clinging to his chest like a mad squirrel on an oak, I pushed him with one hand and pulled with the other. Rage at my ultimate humiliation fueled me, and I wrestled him around as if I were his size and he were nothing but a doll.

The rhythm of Shieldbreaker’s thunder broke as the frenzied pulse of my heartbeat pounded in my ears.

I knew men stood behind me and was certain they were laughing at my humiliating plight. I pulled Rinaldo toward me and turned to interpose his body between them and me. As I did so, my right hip caught his left and sent him spilling. Rinaldo’s heels went up and his head went down, smacking hard on the stone. Shieldbreaker started to fall from his nerveless grip, but my right hand stripped it from him before gravity could wrestle it free.

The hammer-thud faded as Rinaldo lay limp at my feet. Without a thought to the consequences of my action, I raised Shieldbreaker and prayed against the possibility that now I might succumb to the wound he had inflicted. I half expected battle-madness to fill me, but as I looked out at the men gathered on the stairs and wharf, I did not sense a single foe among them. Supplanting the thunder I had thought I would hear, a great cry rose up from the men on the island. It took me a moment to sort it out, for I’d never heard my name shouted outside of a curse before.

“Hail Callisto, Corsair Supreme and Master of Pirate Isle!”

“What?” My voice revealed my surprise, but no one seemed to notice. “What do you mean?”

Marlin dropped to one knee before me. “It is the way of the pirates, m’lord. You have defeated their leader, and now they are sworn to your service. They know a great leader and fearsome fighter when they see one, and so do I, m’lord, I’m hoping me and my men can serve you as well.”

“Yes, yes, Marlin-Commodore Marlin, of course.” I slid Shieldbreaker home in the scabbard that had contained its brother, and I noticed a general lessening in the anxiety on the faces of the corsairs. All in all they didn’t look like a bad lot, and it struck me that I could convince my sister to raise enough of a tax from the Merchants’ Guild to let us rebuild the Devourer and turn the whole pirate company into Newgrave’s own Navy.

Then again, if we remained outlaws… I shrugged. There would be plenty of time to decide if I wanted my legend to be that of Callisto the Corsair or Count Callisto, Lord of the Sea. I had other things to do before that choice had to be made.

I forced my voice as low as I could make it and scowled fiercely. “Get up, you scurvy seadogs, and make this island ship-shape. I want everything ready for when Commodore Marlin returns from Newgrave. He’ll be bringing my sister Antonia with him, and her husband, and I want them even more impressed with Pirate Isle than they already are.”

Smiling I turned to Marlin. “Go to Newgrave and tell them exactly what-” I hesitated for a moment. “-you^aw happen. But no need to mention Shieldbreaker.”

“Aye, sir.” Marlin shot me a wink. “Anyway, m’lord, no one would believe me if I said you threw your sword away so’s you could engage Rinaldo bare-handed.”

“No, no, they probably wouldn’t, would they?” I shook my head. “Ask my sister to visit me here, and conduct her yourself.”

“My pleasure, m’lord.” Marlin bowed and started back down the steps, collecting his brothers as he went. He stopped when I called to him.

“Marlin, one more thing.”

“Yes, m’lord?”

“Extend the invitation to my brother-in-law, of course.” I dropped my left hand to Shieldbreaker’s hilt. “And see to it he brings his butter knife when he comes.”

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