Sasharia En Garde Read Online Free PDF Page A

short-legged table set with
ink, quills, and more paper in little message squares of various sizes. Elva
put the glowglobe next to the inkstand.
    “ Flipping Squid ?”
I looked up at her, trying not to laugh.
    Elva gave me a twisted grin. “Well, I didn’t pick that
name.”
    The pirate lounged down onto the pillows with an easy swing
that suggested courtyard fights were nothing new. “Ships tend to change hands
rather often, off our shores. It’s traditional.”
    Elva muttered, not quite under her breath, “So says a
pirate.”
    “Privateer,” he corrected.
    “But you have no letter of marque,” Elva retorted.
    “Of course not,” he answered, amicably enough. “How can I
get one from the real king when he’s missing? And I don’t think I’d like to
apply to the current king since it’s his ships, along with various other
enemies, who are my prey.”
    Elva sniffed. “Talk about stupid names.” She turned to me,
with a dismissive back-of-hand toward the privateer. “Ask his name.”
    “ Zathdar is the
name of my flagship.” He smiled. “It works well enough for us both.”
    Elva glared. “So why don’t you tell us your real name?”
    “Zathdar,” I repeated, wanting out of that argument before
it started. My head hurt too much. I gave him a mock frown. “There wouldn’t be
any apostrophes in it, would there?”
    “Apostrophes?” He pronounced the word in English. It hadn’t
translated out in Khani.
    Seeing that Elva had stopped glaring and was curious, I
reached for the smallest square of paper, dipped a quill into the ink and wrote Z’ath’d’ar in English.
    “Flyspecks.” The pirate turned the paper this way and that.
“The letters seem clear, but the purpose of the flyspecks?”
    “Well, in magic stories at home, heroes or villains have
names that begin with Z,” I said. “And a lot of apostrophes. Just checking. You
know, if you’re a hero—or a villain.”
    Zathdar compressed his lips into a firm line, as if he was
trying hard not to laugh. “Perhaps the absence of flyspecks will serve as my
proof that I am neither. Just an ordinary fellow—”
    “—wearing a red vest with a lime green sash—” I interjected,
and he laughed.
    “—going about my ordinary business.”
    Elva snorted so loudly her sinuses probably buzzed.
    Before she could shoot an insult pirate-ward, I gabbled on.
“‘Dar’ I recall means ‘spring’ in Sartoran, at least as a suffix.” I paused,
remembering my father’s patient voice as he tutored me in tents while rain
poured down, on the deck of a smuggling ship, in an old castle tower. His
graceful hands, as he sketched out the Sartoran letters, which Khani had
adopted. “‘Zath’ is storm—”
    Elva crossed her arms, sitting bolt upright on her cushion.
“It means hurricane. Who but a villain calls himself Hurricane?”
    “The spring storms that come down on the other side of the
continent are the fall storms up north,” the privateer Zathdar said. “They come
fast and are hard to fight out at sea. It’s a great name for a privateer. So it
works for me, too.”
    I turned to him. “Do you have another name?”
    Blue eyes gazed back at me, their expression friendly but
observant. “Jervaes is my family name.” His features were even. I couldn’t see
his hair, or even if he had any, because of the bandana.
    “Jervaes. Sounds familiar. I think.” I turned to Elva.
“Anything wrong with it?”
    She shrugged. “A common enough Sartoran name.”
    Devli reappeared, smiling with triumph as he held out a
heavy ceramic mug to me. He dropped down next to his sister.
    The smell was so refreshing it alone almost banished my
headache. It also awoke emotions from my childhood, making my eyes sting. I
slurped tea to hide my reaction, breathing in the aroma of a field of
rain-washed and sun-drenched herbs waving in a gentle wind. The taste was fresh
and herbal. I drank the tea down and immediately felt better.
    Zathdar the hurricane privateer said,