The Honorable Barbarian Read Online Free PDF Page A

the pier. Ashore, Garic and his comrades shouted:
    "Coward! Eunuch! Come back and fight! Horse turd!" Getting back his breath, Kerin asked: "How didst come to be armed so timely?"
    Huvraka replied: "We are seeing fireworks on pier, with you and that hedge wizard. So, thinking we might have use for them, I am telling Mota to fetch our tulwars. Now, about your fare—"
    "I'll pay as soon as I get this thing off," grunted Kerin, wrestling with his bag. "Fifty-one marks, right?"
    "Ah, no, good sir. Since you are evidently dangerous cargo, pursued by enemies, I must be asking five marks more for the risk. That makes fifty-six."
    "What? That's a swindle! We had an agreement—"
    Huvraka shrugged. "If you are not liking, I am putting you back on pier.''
    Kerin sighed; circumstances conspired against him. As he fumbled with his purse, Huvraka said: "You should not be sad, young sir. Look, since you are only passenger, will you do me the honor of messing in my cabin tonight?"
    Kerin frowned in puzzlement, then said: "Oh, you mean to eat dinner with you?"
    "Yea, sir. That is what I am meaning."
    "Thankee; I shall be glad to."

    When Kerin had stowed his gear in one of the Dragonet 's two passenger cabins and emerged from his compartment in the deckhouse, he found the ship well away from shore. Eight sailors heaved on four sweeps to row the Dragonet out into the harbor. Others shinnied monkeylike along the yards, which lay in crutches rising from the deck, to untie the brails that retained the sails. Captain Huvraka shouted in Mulvani; sailors heaved on cranks, and the yards arose by little jerks. Other crewmen manned the sheets to give the yards the desired slant.
    With popping sounds, the crimson-and-white-striped sails ballooned before the gentle westerly breeze, and the ship heeled slightly and picked up speed. The men at the sweeps shipped their oversized oars and stowed them. Other ships, anchored in the bay, drifted past: undecked Shvenish single-masters like magnified canoes; local coasters and fishermen, rigged like the Dragonet on a smaller scale; beamy deep-sea square-riggers; and long, low, lethal galleys of war.
    As they reached open water, the Dragonet began to pitch and roll with a corkscrew motion. Kerin had been warned of seasickness and apprehensively awaited its manifestations.
    Activity on the fantail drew his attention. A knee-high apparatus of copper struts had been set up, and behind it a brown-skinned woman sat cross-legged. She was plump, past her youth, and clad in foreign fashion. She wore a length of fabric, wound round and round her middle to make a short skirt, leaving her upper torso bare. Her smooth, flattish face suggested the Far East.
    The apparatus included a bowl of water a span across, suspended from the apex of the tripod. Beneath it, a smaller dish hung by slender chains. In this dish, a little fire gave out ruby, golden, and emerald smokes, which the sea breeze snatched away. Edging closer, Kerin saw that the bowl was two-thirds full of water. The bowl and the dish beneath it pendulated as the vessel rocked.
    As Kerin watched, the woman placed on the bowl a short straw with one end painted crimson. Captain Huvraka also watched. Trying his rudimentary Mulvani, Kerin pointed, saying:
    "What is that?"
    "Shh!" hissed the captain. "Magic."
    The woman chanted in a tongue unknown to Kerin. As she sang, the floating straw rotated slowly until the scarlet end pointed to port. After it had wobbled about this direction and finally settled down, Huvraka shouted to the sailor at the tiller. Kerin caught the Mulvani word for "right-hand," and the Dragonet swung to starboard.
    Huvraka grinned through his sable bush. "Now you see magic, Master Kerin. Janji is calling on her bir—you are saying her familiar spirit—to make straw point north. We go southeast by east. She my navigator is. Member of Salimorese Navigators' Guild." He glanced at the fading yellow-green afterglow in the western sky. "Time for dinner