Corsair Princess Read online

  Corsair Princess

  Part Four of Native Silver

  Blake Hausladen

  Edited by

  Deanna Sjolander

  Published 2018 by Rook Creek Books, an imprint of Rook Creek LLC

  Copyright © 2018 by Blake Hausladen

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  * * *

  Edited by Deanna Sjolander

  Cartography by Author

  Contents

  Also by Blake Hausladen

  Map of The East

  52. Crown Prince Evand Yentif

  53. Arilas Barok Yentif

  54. Crown Prince Evand Yentif

  55. Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  56. Crown Prince Evand Yentif

  57. Madam Dia Yentif

  58. Arilas Barok Yentif

  59. Crown Prince Evand Yentif

  60. Geart Goib

  61. Madam Dia Yentif

  62. Crown Prince Evand Yentif

  63. Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  64. Arilas Barok Yentif

  The Kogan Valley of Trace

  65. Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  66. Crown Prince Evand Yentif

  67. Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  68. Arilas Barok Yentif

  69. Madam Dia Yentif

  About the Author

  Glossary

  Also by Blake Hausladen

  Ghosts in the Yew - Vesteal Series Volume One

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Beyond the Edge

  Part 2 - Opposing Oaths

  Part 3 - Reckless Borders

  Part 4 - Bayen’s Women

  Part 5 - Falling Tides

  Native Silver - Vesteal Series Volume Two

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Sutler’s Road

  Part 2 - Forgotten Stairs

  Part 3 - Thrall’s Wine

  Part 4 - Corsair Princess

  Part 5 - Tanayon Born

  The Vastness - Vesteal Series Volume Three

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Silent Rebellion

  Part 2 - The River War

  Part 3 - The Blinded

  Part 4 - Crimson Valley

  Part 5 - Singer’s Reward

  52

  Crown Prince Evand Yentif

  The 38th of Spring, 1196

  Alsonbrey had changed. The slow uncluttered slopes around the short, vast butte on which it stood were thronged with camps of all size and sort. The once unmotivated streets hummed as parishioners and purveyors bought and sold the requirements of the long overland voyage. The once slumbering tithe towers had lit their sconces with fragrant oils, and the crowds beneath them jostled to hear the sermons of the priests or buy a blessing for the road. Noblemen from the Kaaryon, Thanin, and even Eril populated whatever plaza or abandoned plot they could find, each calling for men fit to serve them in Bayen’s time of need. Criers announced the accolades of the troupes vying to entertain the eager crowds with performances of the latest plays and dramas. The market near the fortress of the 5th was a great colorful mash of goods from all points west: arms, food, clothes, spices, wine, and slaves.

  The selection and spectacle of the slavers of Aderan and Eril outstripped all else: a boy for pouring wine, twin girls to sing you to sleep, or ninety rough-shouldered men to haul your gear—whatever gold could buy. The slaves provided by Havish and Yudyith had been withdrawn with the rest of their trade goods, giving every other seller of quality stock the opportunity to deliver to a rich and wanting market.

  What most affected me, though, was how the very nature of the place seemed altered. Alsonbrey was where the Kaaryon housed its failures: those with wealth whose name had been darkened by a crime, noblemen who had offended those more noble than they, officers who drank too much, and offspring who were not wanted. Since the time of the Ataouk, that was what Alsonbrey represented to those in power. But here stood these broken and discarded beasts—including myself, I must suppose—riding high atop an awakened empire. Alsonbrey had become the center of the world.

  Our arrival in the city proved a bit more of a parade than I preferred, but I let the men enjoy the adoration of the crowds. It was a welcome change after so many days surrounded by sour-faced swamp folk. I kept us moving up to the keep and garrison of the 5th.

  Okel was close at hand as always, but had been very quiet that morning.

  “Are you finding all the changes as unwelcome as I am?” I asked.

  “Hmm? Makes little difference to me. I wonder what General Platon will have to say. I wouldn’t be so sure that the 5th is ready to ride out of here just yet. I expect our reception this afternoon will be a chilly one. See … there.”

  I followed the jerk of his chin to a colonel from the 5th getting out of a carriage with an Erilion nobleman and a trio of women. He wore a parade uniform and no sword. He was a man on holiday.

  “It doesn’t matter, whatever the case,” I said. “Platon will have trouble arguing against the order my father sent me. I outrank him while it stands. He’ll just have to learn to like me.”

  “Just remember who he is and why he ended up here.” To my discredit, I could not. Okel acquiesced to my prompting. “His grandfather made his fortune in Bermish slaves, and his father drank most of it away. Platon is a poor and bitter man. He’ll have no interest in your father’s war.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Yes. Be careful with him.”

  We rode through the old oak gates and onto the broad expanse of the practice field that the fortress enclosed. Its back third was occupied by the cookfires and barracks of the division. The officers’ quarters looked deserted. No train of provisions was in attendance, nor were the men preparing kit for the road. They lounged upon the green grass with their boots off and their armor stowed. It was how the rest of the 5th behaved, but it never ceased to offend me.

  I left my brigade there and released my junior officers to make the necessary greetings to their counterparts in the other brigades. I moved up to the keep with Okel and my captains to do the same with their like marks. The assembly room was dark, as were the dining halls and the general’s office.

  Okel was forced to ask a guardsman after the whereabouts of the general and his staff.

  “They are to the theater,” Okel reported. “Won’t be back until the morning, the way it sounds.”

  “That son of a something-or-other,” Grano spat. He said, “Let me get some men together and roust them from their cozy seats.”

  “Easy, lad,” Okel said, and they looked to me.

  “Well enough, then. We’ll leave without them.”

  None of them seemed to take me seriously. “Chief, bring the division’s quartermaster and the stablemaster to General Platon’s office, quick as you can.”

  I led my captains into the familiar room. I’d suffered too many times his endless staff meetings and the arrangement of dinner plans. He knew more about seating arrangements than he did how to kit a company. I opened the shutters, sat behind the general’s desk, and began writing a letter to him. When I was finished, I retrieved a case from a high shelf.

  Okel proved quick. He had the pair by their arms as he entered the room. Both saluted me properly.

  Either man could stymie my plans. Both were men I respected.

  I
returned the salute, handed them my father’s call to arms, and asked, “Have either of you ever mustered out?”

  They read it and looked back at me with the steely eyes of veterans. Neither responded. The rest of the 5th had never left Alsonbrey.

  I said to the stablemaster, “You are unique, sir. The 5th is the only Hemari division made entirely of horsemen, and you are responsible for more Akal-Tak than any other man in Zoviya. I wonder, though, if you have done your duty all these years.”

  “Sir, explain this insult,” he bristled.

  “You must be ready every day for every man of the division to move. Can it?”

  He folded his arms, and his anger bled away. “Its men may not be, but do you doubt my stables are in order?”

  “No, sir. I needed only to hear it from your mouth. And you, quartermaster, could the 5th muster out with full kit today?”

  “On my honor, sir, I beg pardon. There has not been a day since the 5th was founded that it could not. That it never has, is a weakness of other men. I demand an apology.”

  “Stow it,” the stablemaster said and pointed at the case I had set on top of the letter. “Our young lord and master here is about to give us all battlefield promotions.”

  The rest all swore out loud. Okel laughed hoarsely.

  The quartermaster asked his counterpart, “Can he?”

  “Shut up and watch him.”

  I said, “I am taking command of the 5th, as general and commander. I intend to move east as ordered by our Exaltier with all speed. Stand for your commissions or withdraw.”

  They came to attention, and I walked to each and replaced the captain’s marks upon their shoulders with the long black bars of colonels. To Okel, the quartermaster, and stablemaster, I added the silver emblem of a Yentif envoy.

  “Congratulations, gentlemen. Colonels, you will each take command of a brigade and make it ready to move at once, full kit. You may each promote men from your own commands as you see fit. Chief, prepare the stockade for the receipt of a few prisoners. Masters, you will make this division ready to muster.”

  Okel asked, “Are you expecting trouble?”

  “Only from those we do not want along. No slack here, gentlemen. You may, with my authority, lock away any man who refuses you. Strip a few of their coats and swords if it comes to it. I’ll be watching from the top of the field. If any man thinks he has a cause that trumps my father’s, send him to me directly.”

  They were men born for such moments. They each grabbed a handful of captain’s bars and lieutenant’s pins and trotted back out, their throats and mouths already warm and ready to spit thunder.

  The guardsmen rank and file of the 5th had expected us to walk away from the fortress insulted. They were not prepared for Feseq, Grano, Ivinta, and the rest. Their colonels and their general were not there to hide behind.

  I had the gates closed, and the 5th learned the ways of its new commander. The quartermaster ransacked the keep for arms and supplies to bolster what I had brought, the stablemaster reported 4,200 horses ready to ride, and ninety-six men who should never have been given a bluecoat were left in the stockade. Feseq took coat and arms from three men who refused his orders and put them into the street naked. The rest of the poorly seasoned men of the 5th were kicked and shouted into shape. Some of them made kit for the first time that warm afternoon. Colonel Grano had the men of his regiment make the rounds and showed the rest what they were missing and what they did not need.

  I called them to horses when all was ready, and we were moving out before the city had sat down for dinner. The muster was not altogether unwelcome. The 5th was sedentary, but its men were all horsemen. You could not climb day after day atop an Akal-Tak and not be altogether converted to the way of the horse. We drew great crowds, and from all points I heard the cry of the faithful.

  “We are with you!”

  I did not want to draw behind me the great mass of devotees, but they were too numerous to ignore. So was their eagerness. As we made the turn northeast and started out of the city, it was clear that a great many were pulling up stakes and were intent upon following us.

  I could not understand their enthusiasm. It bordered on the unnatural.

  Okel caught up to me as we were exiting the city. He was smiling. “Rather like a good visit to a nobleman’s wife,” he joked.

  “What?” I laughed and finished the joke for him, “In and out and gone?”

  He laughed and coughed and laughed. I’d not seen him so pleased before. “You saved me from my in-laws. My wife won’t be speaking to me for a while, but I’ll take that in trade. You managed to save yourself from quite a few dinner parties as well.”

  “The invitations stacked up fast, did they? Anyone interesting?”

  “The typical throng of nobles and royals. There was a gift from your brother that I found humorous. He’s gone completely mad.”

  “Yarik?”

  “No, lord, sorry. From your brother Barok.”

  “Let me see it,” I said, and Okel rooted through a plain satchel he carried and withdrew one of the letters it contained. The letter was not what I expected.

  Crown Prince Evand,

  I write with the most urgent and dire news of the Hessier. They are not what they seem. These men are made with magic and darkness. They are dead men bound in their own bodies and cannot be killed unless their skulls are opened.

  * * *

  They are enemies of Zoviya and the living.

  * * *

  We must not let them continue to shape our fates or the course of our divine empire. They must be removed. You can know them by a chill in the air and in your guts. You can uncover them with their blood. The Hessier bleed cold gray blood that smells of worms and decay. Check the men in your trust, check those you meet. Only men who bleed red are to be trusted.

  * * *

  Regards,

  Prince Barok Yentif, Arilas of Enhedu

  General Erd Oklas, Regent-Arilas of Trace

  Arilas Lukan Vlek of Heneur

  “Did you read this?” I asked.

  “I did. I like the gift it came with,” he said and handed across a heavy war hammer he’d hung from his saddle.

  I could only laugh. “Can you believe it? What trouble he means to cause with this fiction. Masterful, truly.”

  “You think so? Read like a bunch of nonsense to me. What are the three of them playing at?”

  “What, indeed,” I said, and we rode on for a time. My mind drifted forward of the city and my army, and I wondered what Sahin had waiting for us.

  A thought went though me like a sword, and I squeezed the reins so hard that Marrow protested. I relaxed and cursed, instead. My thoughts ran clear. Barok, Sahin, Hessier, Dagoda, and Liv. I arrived at a conclusion I should have drawn that very first day.

  Sahin wasn’t from the East.

  No bandit of the East would have left sleeping bluecoats live or fired only upon the Urdu. No men of the East could pose as bluecoats—could perform as well as them and have the same love of horses.

  Sahin belonged to Barok. He was a captain of his greencoats. Barok had sent them to Bessradi to kill the Hessier and steal the church’s gold. Sahin had failed to escape north after their attack, and Liv was just a girl who had survived. Sahin healed what he could of her wounds, and together they had plotted their escape.

  And then I laughed, long and tearfully. Okel asked why.

  “A theory. Something I need to test,” I said and reread Barok’s letter.

  It was no fiction.

  53

  Arilas Barok Yentif

  Fana and I sat down in the great hall. My skin was still warm from the funeral pyre we’d lit in secret beneath a starry sky. Some were gathering at the Chaukai camp to tell tales of our fallen general. Dia had gone up to our apartment with her maids. She could not stop crying. I hoped to find a cure for the hurt with work.

  Food went uneaten. Fana’s notes from the interrogation sat untouched. Urnedi left us with ou
r thoughts.

  “We should read Selt’s letter, at least,” Fana said.

  It sat upon the table with the rest. I handed it to her. After a time, she read it aloud. She started slowly, but by the end couldn’t do it without Selt’s Bessradi attitude leaking though.

  The 36th Day of Spring, in the Year of Our Lord 1196

  * * *

  Lord Barok,

  At the risk of insulting our good Regent-Arilas, Almidi is a pit. Its people are uneducated and unwashed, needy, and flea-bitten. The notion of a bank continues to elude most. In my first fifteen days here I have succeeded in signing only seven small loans. I am perhaps being too tight in my practice but cannot bring myself yet to risk your capital with men who come looking for what they view as charity.

  * * *

  I have on my authority dismissed every Pormes man who has crossed my path, but they continue to permeate Almidi like deep-rooted weeds. I am demanding, also, from the regent that all public works done in the province embrace your notes as tender.

  * * *

  I have one idea yet for how to soak this poor town in prosperity, though it might drown from the vigor of my attempt. I am meeting in the morning with the men who run Almidi’s darker half. The racket they have in place for pledging men of no means is quite pervasive. There are several of their number who have the entrepreneurial fire of our master craftsmen, enough, perhaps, to balance out their less seemly qualities.