The Knight

“I’ve been trying to keep quiet, like you said, but what good is it? The captain’s made his plans. I’ve got to stop him from following through. I want my bow, as soon as you can get it. The bow and the bowstring—the string’s very important.

My quiver too, and all the arrows you can find, if you can find some.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

I opened the door of the cable tier. “Gylf!” I made it loud, but it had not been loud enough. “Gylf! Here, Gylf!”

“Sir? Who’s-?”

“My dog. He really is my dog, Pouk, until his old owner wants him back. I didn’t want him because I was afraid of him. I tried to get rid of him before we forded the Irring. I made him go and told him never to come near me.” I took a deep breath. It hurt bad, but I took it. “GYLF! Come here, Gylf!”

I think Pouk would have run if I had not grabbed him. “I thought I’d shaken him when you and I got on this ship.”

I stopped to whistle.

“It’s night now, isn’t it? That’s why it’s so dark in here—no sunlight leaking in.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I’ll talk to the captain tomorrow, after he’s had his breakfast. I owe him that much. You can tell him, if you want to.”

I heard the scrabble of dull claws out in the hold, and I opened the pan

Pouk had brought and put it on the floor for Gylf.

―――

I knew that cabin, and I knew there was no way to lock the door if you were not inside. If the captain had eaten in there, I was going to go in when Hordsvin’s helper came in to clear away the dishes; but it did not happen like that. He ate on the roof of the sterncastle, which was what I had been expecting, and Gylf and I just came up out of the hold and walked into the cabin like we belonged there. Which we did.

By the time he came in, I had found the foreign mace I had gotten in Irringsmouth and strapped it on. He opened the door and saw us, yelled for Kerl, and then (I guess because I was sitting down and had not pulled out my mace) shut the door and barred it. His sword was under his mattress, like before. I had found it already and left it there. I could have stopped him from getting it, no problem, but I did not.

When he had it I said, “Don’t you trust Kerl?”

The captain just looked at me, not saying anything. I told Gylf to let him see him then, and he did. He had been lying in a corner where it was dark and he came up out of there like brown smoke but all solid and snarling. “I can kill you if I want to,” I told the captain. “I beat you before, and I can beat you again. Gylf could kill you, too, and you won’t stand the ghost of a chance against both of us. Do you own this ship? Some of the crew told me you did.”

“Half.”

“Fine. I don’t want it. I never did. I don’t want to kill you, either.” I stood up and held out my hand. “Put that sword away. I don’t think we can ever be friends, but we don’t have to be enemies either.”

He stood there looking at us for maybe half a minute. Then he laid the sword down on his bed and sat down beside it. “You don’t object to my sitting in my own cabin?”

“It’s my cabin,” I told him, “but only until I get off at Forcetti.”

“I’m sitting, so you can sit down again. Go ahead. Your wound can’t have healed already.”

I did. “I want my bow and I want my money. Somebody told me you had them, but he was too scared of you to come in here and get them for me. So I’m here to get them myself. You’ve got that sword, which is yours, and you’ll have some money of your own. Go get it, and give me mine. All I want is what belongs to me. Give it to me, with my bow, the case, and my quiver, and you can go away without fighting.”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t think you would. All right, here’s my last offer. Gylf and I will go out on deck. Before the next watch, you clear out of this cabin, leaving all my stuff—money, bowcase, armor, and so forth—where I can find it. Twenty-two gold ceptres, most of them new and all real gold, plus my other stuff. Will you do that?”

He stood up and Gylf growled. I was afraid he was going to grow into the black thing that had killed the outlaws, and I told him not to.

“You’ll return my ship and its cargo to me when we reach port?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I don’t want them in the first place. I don’t—” He was grabbing his sword. I got the mace out just in time to block the cut.

It sounded like a big hammer hitting an anvil. The next cut would have lopped off my head, but I blocked it too. I never had stood up. I was on one knee in front of the chair. The third cut came very fast and broke his sword blade. That was when I decided to call my mace Sword Breaker. Gylf jumped on the captain as soon as his sword broke and pulled him down, and I hit him with Sword