The Protectors war

The silvery figure raised the weapon, and a long thin stream of amber liquid poured out of it, down onto one of the corsair galleys. With a pop the stream caught fire, then went up with a rush of orange flame and black smoke, playing back and forward along the hundred-foot length of the pirate craft. Wood and canvas and human flesh burned; men turned into torches that danced and leapt into the water shrieking, but the sticky, clinging flame floated there too. Beyond, the sea was thick with high triangular black fins:

Hordle's fighting snarl turned to a broad grin as his great red-ru

Half the pirates bolted for their pirogues, dropping their weapons and ru

The other half knew themselves dead men and charged, shrieking. Hordle shifted to a one-handed grip on the long hilt of his sword and drew his dagger with his left hand:

Nigel Loring coughed to clear his throat; it was hoarse with shouting, and he labored to draw air into lungs gone dry as mummy dust, air wet and hot and foul with the stink of blood and less-pleasant bodily fluids. He pushed up his visor with the back of his sword hand, heedless of the smear that left on his face, and peered at the blurred images.

The clash of metal had stopped for an instant, one of those odd pauses that happened spontaneously in hand-to-hand warfare as men stopped to breathe and shake the sweat out of their eyes. The last of the pirates grouped around a kneeling figure on the foredeck, a thin white-bearded man with a green-dyed turban. He bent in prayer, a small book done in delicate Arabic calligraphy open before him, a string of beads in his left hand, a small carpet unrolled beneath him. When he rose again, his eyes met Nigel Loring's, calm and unafraid.

Curse it, what's the word for "surrender"? the Englishman thought. My Arabic's completely gone: "ren-dez," that's the French, would he understand that?

Then the moment of calm shattered as a crossbow bolt struck one of the men around the marabout. There was a last rush, surging past Nigel to be in at the kill; he saw Hordle's great blade swinging in a blurred horizontal arc, and the old man's head went bouncing to the rail and over; the body knelt upright for a moment, blood fountaining from the neck, then collapsed in an ungraceful tangle. The last corsairs died around it a second later, hacked into gobbets of flesh and organ and raw pink bone by dozens of blades swung with hysterical strength.

Nigel grimaced and slammed his sword point-down into the deck. An armored hand came into his field of view, holding a British-issue military canteen; he took it with a croak of thanks and splashed some onto his face before taking a deep draft. When he turned to return it, he saw that the man he'd taken it from was armored as he was, also with the visor raised. A young face, fair, blue-eyed and handsome-much like his own son, and nearly as familiar.

"Prince William!" he said, shocked. "What on earth are you doing here, Your Highness?"

The younger man smiled. "Getting my life saved by you, Colonel Loring-again, it seems."

Their eyes met, in a flash of perfect mutual understanding. So the queen has already started putting the heirs in harm's way. And the prince was unafraid-not young man's bravado, but coldly so. Sent south on this deathtrap of a ship:

Loring smiled. "I see I trained you well, Your Highness."

"You have, Sir Nigel. I suppose that technically I should arrest you-"

They both looked about. The deck of the Cutty Sark was far closer to the water now; barrels bobbed and floated against the underside of the gratings that covered the hatchways, a bonging, rubbing sound like water-filled drums beating in the halls of sunken Ys. Alleyne had organized working parties, dragging the British and Tasman-ian wounded from the piles, carrying them over to where the ships' medics and their helpers were bandaging and sewing at the long ghastly wounds made by scimitar and shovel-headed spear. The Pride of St. Helens edged closer, and so did her longboats.

"-except that I have no choice but to beg your assistance, if we're not all to drown."

"It's my pleasure to serve, Your Highness. There's a village not far up the coast that will accommodate you all, and your wounded, until a cutter can reach Rabat and send a navy ship down to fetch you."

"You realize this is going to make: certain parties at court look complete fools," the prince said.

"All the better, Your Highness."

"Sir Nigel: " The younger man stepped forward and grasped his forearm. "Sir Nigel, if you could come back-"

"That would mean open rebellion," Nigel said softly.

"Are you willing to go that far? Do you want me to set you on the throne with the sword's point?"

"Well: no," the prince replied.

"I didn't think you would, somehow," the baronet said, smiling grimly. "And I don't think you need to, if you keep your wits about you. Build on this. Tony Knolles will help, and Oliver Buttesthorn. They're both good men."

"I'll remember that, Sir Nigel," the prince said. "But where will you go?"

Nigel shrugged, and looked westward, blinking a little as he saw the sun was already setting. It made a path of blood and fire across the water, stretching clouds like hot gold and molten copper along the horizon.

"There, Your Highness. This part of the Lorings' story is over, and we've pulled up our roots. Somewhere there's new earth waiting for them."

He looked down at the sword that stood quivering in the wood, and his steel glove fell on its pommel. Good-bye, Maude, old girl, he thought. I wish you were here. Aloud he went on as he tapped the sword hilt: "Tilled with this, I fear."

Behind him, his son also looked out over the long slow swell of the sea. "Dawns like thunder" he murmured.

John Hordle ran the swatch of raw fleece down his sword, swearing mildly as that revealed where the steel had taken a knick cutting through bone.

"Sort of traditional," he said. The younger Loring looked at him, and Hordle hefted his blade meaningfully. "Well, it's how we got England in the first place, i

Chapter Nine

Dun Fairfax, Willamette Valley, Oregon

March 21st, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"Where's it to, Larry?" Aylward said.

"Over this way, by the road."

The Dun Fairfax party rose out of the mist like waders from water as they went up the low rise in the center of the pasture, then sank again as they walked down towards the fenceline, the vapor rising up shin and thigh and torso like an impalpable gray sea. Aylward waited for an instant before he descended into it, straining his eyes against the gathering dark, but there was nothing to see. The spear-points of those ahead of him were last to disappear, right after the spray of raven feathers at the clasp of a man's Scots Bo

"Around here," the shepherd said as they slowed and the fence loomed out of the fog like a darker shadow in the gray-black.

"Just a bit of light, then," Aylward said.

Then as the shutter of the bull's-eye stayed open too wide and too long, glowing through the mist: "I said just a bit, Larry!"

"Sorry, Sam."

"You can close the shutter now."

Aylward went to one knee, leaning on his ashwood spear, and touched the bloodstain. The tacky, slightly lumpy feel was unmistakable when he put his fingertips to the wet ground and rubbed thumb over forefingers; so was the smell when he brought them to his nose. When the moon broke free of a cloud the ground had the black glistening look that blood-crimson took on in low light.