Part IV
Corsairs
The albatross was caught between the ropes at the joist of the mainmast and the upper yardarm. It had been caught in a sudden gust and blown into the rigging and now was stuck there, weeping piteously. On the deck, the crew of the Sword stared at it dubiously.
"Someone should go up there," said one, an olive-skinned, dark-eyed lad from the vales of Gondor.
"I'd like to see you try it," said another, blond and bearded, a Northman.
"It's just a climb to the crow's nest," said a third, with slant eyes and straight black hair.
"And then what? Shimmy on up the yard and let it loose?" said the second one sarcastically. "Easier to bring down the yard."
"We can't. Our prey will escape." They had spotted another merchant vessel, laden with treasure, earlier that morning, and Neimor had declared pursuit.
"Ah, to Old Stormy's Bones with you," said an old pirate with a swarthy face and a long grey beard that was braided like a dwarf's. "It's bad enough luck we caught this here windwalker, now you all want to go up there and touch it? I'd like to see you try it. Bring the wrath of Old Stormy right down on us all." Old Stormy was his euphemism for Ossë.
An exasperated snort came from behind them, and then in a flash a small, slim, curly-locked figure began climbing the shrouds with a knife in his teeth.
The pirates shook their heads.
"Razar," said the slant-eyed one.
"Told you he's crazy," said the dark-eyed boy admiringly.
"He's not crazy. He's a Took." The pirates turned their heads. Neimor walked to them, a smile on his lips, watching the halfling on the rigging. Behind him stood his first mate, all seven feet and ebony skin of him.
"Captain, sir?" asked the boy. "Are all pheriannath like that?"
Neimor shook his head. "Absolutely not, Davy." He turned to his first mate. "Admirable, is he not, Asouk?"
The man called Asouk glanced upward as if in weariness. The halfling, the wind billowing through his jumper, was shimmying up the top of the yardarm, making some sort of conversation with the albatross, whose wings were wider than the halfling was tall. A rumble came from Asouk's chest.
"Incorrigible," said Asouk. "Sir."
Neimor laughed. He looked around at his men. "And you all wanted me to kill him! I tell you truly: there is great virtue in the Shirefolk. Especially in one of this family."
"And who exactly is he, and who's his family, these Tooks?" said the Northerner. "Come on, Neimor. Tell us the truth about the holbytla. Who is he, truly?"
Neimor turned a dark glance upon the speaker. "He is my guest, Orren," he said evenly. "And as your captain's guest, I continue to expect him to be treated with courtesy worthy of the Sword."
Orren grumbled but touched an imaginary hat. "As you say, captain sir."
Asouk gave the Northman a cursory glance as Orren walked away. "Trouble," he said under his breath to his captain.
"Orren has always been trouble," said Neimor. "But he wields a great bow and is a good raider."
"It's not his skill with the bow I speak of, but with the knife in the back."
Neimor nodded. "I know. Ever has he been restive about our chosen quarry." He glanced up at his first mate. "Does he have support?"
"Some," said Asouk. "It's what comes from not choosing more born Corsairs for your crew. This rag-tag of adventurers and wanderers from all corners of the Bay …"
"Such as yourself, my friend?" asked Neimor with a twinkle in his long and somber face. "Ah, if I wanted all born Corsairs for a crew, I would not be a renegade, would I? And my name would be toasted in Umbar, instead of spit into the wind. I fear our recent targets have only worsened our reputation in the city." He glanced up at a sudden movement. "By the Valar," he breathed. "I believe he's freed it!"
They all looked up, for with a startled squawk, the albatross flapped its wings. It shrieked, squirmed, and tried to take flight. "Now, now, there's no call for that," came a bright and lilting voice from above, and then the albatross found wind and flew.
Neimor smiled. "Incorrigible indeed," he murmured.
Asouk watched without comment, and saw the danger before anyone else did.
"Razar!" he shouted. "The rope!"
The cut rope had made a large loop around the yard next to the halfling's leg. As he moved, he tugged at it unexpectedly, and it unbalanced him. With a little yelp he fell.
"Pippin!" cried Neimor.
But instead of plummeting to the death, the halfling grabbed a halyard and cut it loose, rappelling safely down, Asouk waiting for him. The tall black man caught him. He was shaking from surprise, but his eyes were bright with exhilaration.
"Well!" said Pippin. "That was fun!" He looked up at Asouk and beamed. The big man rumbled impassively and deposited him onto the deck.
It had been a month since Pippin had been captured by Neimor and his pirates, and he wasn't quite sure when he had stopped being a prisoner and started to be the captain's "guest", but it had happened. He was not allowed to enter the armory or the hold; during raids, two of which had taken place since he came on board, he was locked in his quarters, also known as the captain's library-closet; most distressing of all, he was not allowed to leave the ship. And he had not been returned Trollsbane. These were the conditions of his stay that reminded him he was not completely free.
On the other hand, he ate with whomever he wished, usually Neimor and Asouk, and otherwise had the run of the ship. The pirates had resented his presence, at first, but Pippin was nothing if not persistent in his belief he could win over anyone with enough effort. After all, he had failed only with his wife. By now, he was at least tolerated by most, and was fast befriending several.
Two of these were Davy, the Gondorin boy, and Bangshar the Easterling. He helped both with their duties on board ship, and Davy, who was young yet to go boarding, would keep Pippin company, talking with him through the closet door, reporting on what was going on. Davy was such a Hobbit-like nickname, Pippin asked him what his real name was; he was told it was Davirin. Davy often asked, "When are you going to join us, Pippin? You'd fit in on this ship! It's the greatest ship in the sea, and we do what we want!"
Pippin observed that he had killed about five of the crew during the taking of the Seafoam.
Davy shrugged. "The fight was fair. I hold no grudge. A Corsair should not."
Bangshar was skilled with languages and was teaching Pippin the speech of Near Harad, full of gutturals and sibilants, as well as his own speech. Bangshar said he came from east of the Sea of Rhun, where he lived with his family in a tent made of beaten felt and raised herds of horses. Pippin's only qualm about Bangshar was that he had a taste for the black cakes of poppy that Neimor took from the ships he plundered. Pippin had tried some, at Bangshar's urging, and had been quite sick, flinging the tip of the pipe from his mouth. "I think I'll stick to pipeweed," he said. Neimor disapproved of the cakes, but not as much as he hated the clear elixir.
Pippin wondered about that. He wondered much about his host, the tall, well-spoken Dunadan. He could not have been younger than forty, blood of Westernesse notwithstanding, and if he came from the Rangers of Arnor that meant he not only knew Aragorn, but had also counted him as his captain and chieftain of his people. He had such skill at navigation and seamanship that he could not be new to the sea; not even the twelve years since the War of the Ring could explain that. He asked Neimor about it a few times, but Neimor would not answer.
Davy had one story of Neimor. How he came on board.
"I come from Blackroot Vale," said Davy. "My father was a farmer and hunter in the hills of the White Mountains. When I was five years old, I awoke to a great commotion, shouting and gasps. I ran out of our house, and saw all the grown-ups were pointing at the hills between our vale and the mountains. I looked, and saw them lit, the seven beacons of the south. I was afraid, and ran to my father, but he was afraid too. 'The beacons,' he said, 'the beacons are lit.' I did not know what that meant, but the next day, Derufin son of the lord Duinhir came to our village, and my father and brother packed their bows and went away with him and many of the men. The women wept.
"They went to Minas Tirith, to heed the Steward's call to service: five hundred archers from Morthond, with Duinhir and his sons, Duilin and Derufin, and my father and brother. And none came back from the Pelennor."
After a pause, the boy spoke again. "My mother wed again several years ago, but my stepfather was cruel to me. I ran away, but did not know where to go or how to make my way in the world. I ended … I was in a shameful life in Pelargir." Pippin understood and his eyes filled with sympathy, looking at Davy's downy cheek. "Once, this man I … he was … I felt he was going to kill me. I ran from him and he followed me.
"Then out of the shadows came this tall man with a long black sword. He stepped between my assailant, and me and asked what was going on. The man, he … he said I belonged to him," Davy spat, "and I could not deny it. But Neimor, for the captain it was, he said he'd seen dogs better treated by their masters, and begone or he'd set his steel in him. They fought. The captain won.
"I didn't know what he wanted. I assumed he wanted …" Davy gulped and his cheeks colored. "I had fallen far. But, Pippin, he didn't! He took me to his ship, this ship, and I became a sailor, and a pirate, and a free Corsair! And I am a proud Corsair. I will die for him."
Bangshar did not know Davy's entire story, but he had one of his own.
"The Variags are a scourge to all the free Men of the East, Razar," he told Pippin. "They hunt men for slavery, for ransom, for sport. I was in the high meadow by our summer encampment with my sister when the Variags came. They stole us from our tents and our herds and threw us in their stinking wains." He took a puff of smoke. His eyes unfocused and he wandered in his memories. "For the Dark Lord, they said, for the Great Eye. A soldier for his armies, and a flower for his generals. Long was the journey, far from the steppes. I was eleven, my sister fourteen. She tried to comfort me, told me to be brave and never give up hope. I tried for a long time." He sighed. "But my sister was taken from me upon the borders of the Black Land and I was taken to a fort to become a soldier for the Eye's wars with the West.
"Years I lived in that place, learning only to hate and kill, to make others suffer as I suffered. I was taught to hate the West and its peoples, and to kill them and destroy their works whenever I could. I was subject to the Eye, and I saw the Eye in my mind, and after the training I saw only through the Eye.
"You know what happened. A king returned to Gondor; the hand of the gods overthrew the Dark Tower; all I had lived for and fought for was cast into ruin. I fled the battle and ran; I don't know how long, nor why I was not hunted down by the Westerners."
Pippin was stunned. "You were at the Black Gate?" He didn't dare say he was there as well, on the other side.
Bangshar nodded. "We outnumbered the Westerners twenty to one," he said dazedly, "and yet they triumphed. The gods were with them; they sent a savior into the Black Land, who defeated the Dark Lord and threw down the Tower. Or so it was said. I found myself free of the Eye, with my own sight again, to do as I willed; I chose to run."
He put down the mouthpiece of his pipe and rubbed his eyes. "Enough," he said. He looked at Pippin, his eyes beginning to focus. "I found my way to Umbar. I sought work as an assassin and knife-for-hire. I truly wished to find a way to die, but had not the courage to end my life myself, so I sought the most dangerous places, picked fights with the most dangerous people. So one night, drunk and mad on this"—he held up his smoking pipe—"I picked a fight with a tall man with a black sword."
"The captain," Pippin guessed.
Bangshar smiled. "'Mercy,' he said. He called it mercy. For a while, I called it torture. But then I discovered I had a place here, and a leader who would not torment his followers, only expect their best. I found a place to use the ways of death taught me in Mordor in the service of my captain. I have collected enough treasure in Neimor's service to be able to retire one of these years. I will find my sister, or her grave. And then I shall buy a stallion and a mare of Rohan and go home."
"You know," said Pippin to Neimor as they had one of their dinners, "I've been hearing a lot about you from your crew."
"Have you," said Neimor.
"Davy and Bangshar."
"Ah. Good men. Anyone else? Orren, perhaps?"
"Orren dislikes me, and I him."
"Indeed. I can't say I blame you." Neimor took a sip of wine. "What do they say about me?"
"You're not such a scoundrel."
Neimor smiled. "Aren't I?"
Pippin shook his head. "Under all that swagger and ice, under those black clothes and ruthless raids, under that funny little beard," he said, and Neimor glared, "you're still a Ranger, aren't you."
Neimor's lips curled into a tiny smile. He pulled another small piece of meat onto his plate and cut it with his knife. "Whatever entertains you, Peregrin," he replied. "For what it is worth, let me tell you something: I am a scoundrel indeed. I have slain in cold blood without a thought. I raid and pillage and steal for my own wealth and for the satisfaction of the hunt. I am a pirate, not a hero. You must know the difference."
Pippin picked up a fat biscuit, his fifth of the night. "Yes," he said. "I also know every ship you've struck since I've been here, you've relieved of another shipment of narcotics." He stuffed the biscuit into his mouth whole. "I can tell a hero when I see one."
"So can I," murmured the captain later, glancing at the sleeping hobbit sprawled on the hammock in a corner of his library.
2.
The Sword stalked her prey, a fat, slow merchantman laden with spices and goods from the Grey Mountains of the South, bound for Anfalas. Neimor had gazed at her through his glass, standing athwart the spars of the bowsprit, Asouk behind him, wordless and still. Other pirates sharpened their flambards and swords, their stilettos and cutlasses. Bangshar practiced with his scimitar. Orren strung his bow. "I once heard a man brought down a dragon with a bow like this," he boasted. Davy held himself over the water from the shrouds of the mainsail, his face dark with anticipation.
"I am to be part of the boarding party tonight, Pippin," he explained eagerly as he escorted Pippin to the library-closet, which would be his cell once more for the night of the raid. "It is my first time."
"I'm happy for you," Pippin said in resignation. "But, Davy …"
The lad paused at the doorjamb.
"If you can," Pippin asked, "let them live, hey?"
Solemnly Davy nodded. "I will try to avoid outright murder," he said. Then he smiled. "But I am a Corsair, and won't be anything other."
Pippin smiled as the door shut and locked.
"Fine," he said.
Neimor strode out of his quarters, robed in his black cloak and the sword for which his ship was named strapped to his belt.
He climbed up a step. "Corsairs of the Sword!" he cried. "We seek treasure tonight!"
"Aye!" shouted the pirates of the boarding party, a hundred strong.
"There she is, my lads!" said Neimor, pointing at the lights of the merchantman. "Heavy with cinnamon and cardamom for the tables of Gondor; and some of those medicines I've been feeding the fish," he added with a wink. "It shall be ours!"
"Aye!"
Neimor raised his voice. "For whom do you sail?"
"No one!"
"For whom do you plunder?"
"No one!"
"What tower claims your allegiance?"
"No one!"
A dark smile twisted Orren's lips.
Neimor drew his sword and it was black in the night.
"Who is your captain?" he exulted.
"Neimor!"
"Master Asouk!" Neimor shouted. He pointed his sword to the light on the sea.
"Set a course for interception," he said, wrapping the black silk scarf around his face, obscuring his fell smile.
Pippin listened and shook his head.
"I get myself into the most unusual situations for a hobbit," he observed. "I wonder if I've passed old Bilbo for adventuring by now? Not that the war counts. No; I'll never count that as a mere adventure." He sat on a bench, his hands fidgeting. He realized it, and stared at them for a while. Had he not sworn to avenge the crew of the Seafoam? Had they all faded so from his mind? He had spent a week on the fat, simple ship. He had lived with the pirates for a month.
But Cellas …
He heard shouts, now; the Sword was closing in on the merchantman. Pippin remembered what she looked like: her lean lines cutting out of the darkness like a ghost, her black sails stark against the night, pennants streaming, a flurry of deadly arrows from her bowmen raking the unfortunate's hull, killing or wounding all on her deck for the first of the boarding party to swing on.
Pippin groaned through his teeth. He could sit still no longer! He wanted to be out there, fighting!
On whose side?
He looked around. "So what shall it be tonight, then?" he asked himself. Something to read, he decided, before trying to sleep. Pippin had been dreaming again, sometimes of Diamond, sometimes of another girl entirely, a woman of Men; sometimes they were the same individual, and this vision rode upon Swallow through a desert, towards a light like a star …
He climbed up on a chair and brought down the second volume in the work on circumnavigation he had begun. Apparently the world was round.
He had just settled into the book when he realized all had gone silent. The sounds of boarding had ended, and now there was nothing but silence to hear through the walls of the cabin.
Disturbed, Pippin closed the book and went to the window, to see what he could see. The Sword held the merchantman, hull to hull. The boarding planks straddled the gunwales. The ships were bound together by grapples. Apart from that, he could see little else.
Then he heard what seemed like Neimor's voice, clear and cold, answered by another voice, from within the merchant ship. Pippin examined the merchant ship more closely. It was much bigger than the Seafoam had been, as long as the Sword, and broader, and deeper; it must have housed vast spaces, comparatively, in its cabins and holds. It was so close Pippin could actually make out faces and movement through the windows of the other ship. Many faces. Too many faces. Who are those …?
Pippin's eyes grew wide. Corsair marines.
He had to warn Neimor. He tried to open the window, clawing at it, twisting its latch, then finally grabbing a chair and swinging at the glass as hard as he could. It broke, and with the heavy books he knocked it open.
The captain was on deck, with the bewildered boarding party, speaking to someone on the quarterdeck of the merchantman.
"Neimor!" Pippin cried. "It's a trap!"
Neimor looked his way, and then the hidden Corsairs charged.
An arrow struck the sill of the porthole, missing Pippin by hairs. Pippin looked up, for the arrow had come from above. He saw a flash of a grizzled face and yellow beard. Orren!
Pippin ducked back inside. He grabbed the chair again and swung it against the door. It chipped. He swung it again, and it chipped some more. He grunted and let out a cry and flung the chair with all his might against the door, and a great crack appeared in the wood. Pippin stepped back and then went to throw his shoulder against it, when it opened. He crashed into a hard, dark body.
"Asouk!" Pippin gasped. "The captain! He's in danger!"
"I know," said Asouk. For a moment Pippin's heart misgave him.
Then a bundle was thrust into his arms. "Your sword and cloak," said Asouk, and Pippin indeed held Trollsbane in its scabbard and belt, wrapped in his old elven cloak. Pippin gaped, his eyes wide.
"Come!" said Asouk, and Pippin's sharp face became grim. He buckled his belt and drew his sword and followed Asouk into the fray, donning the cloak so that he seemed one with the shadows beyond the firelight.
A force equal to the Sword's crew had lurked hidden in the merchantman, comprised of marines and raiders from Umbar itself, come to take the renegade ship. The Umbar raiders and Neimor's pirates clashed swords upon the deck of the merchantman, the battle beginning to spill over to the Sword.
Then the rest of the trap unfolded: a good portion of the remainder of the Sword crew, and some of the raiders with Neimor, switched sides. The mutinous Corsairs joined their Umbar compatriots and soon Neimor and his faithful men were outnumbered.
Pippin ran down the Sword, hacking at attackers who came forth. It was difficult at first to recognize friend from foe, but he guessed that "friends" were Neimor and those of his crew now gathering around him upon the merchantman's deck. Pippin needed to join them.
He leapt up onto the twelve-man boat lashed upon the deck between the main and fore masts, to get a better view. He saw, upon the Sword, some of the faithful crew fighting with a great mass of those who had stayed behind. Asouk towered among them, his shaven head and mighty shoulders above the fray like a mountain rising from the sea. The man of Far Harad swung a great halberd, cleaving through a mass of mutineers, bellowing. On the merchantman, Pippin saw Neimor's black blade flashing through the torchlight and lamplight. He saw Bangshar among a dozen other of the captain's defenders, spinning and striking like a wind made flesh. But where was Davy?
There—he glimpsed the boy's face, fighting to get back to his captain.
An arrow whistled past his face. Pippin dropped into the boat for cover. Orren. He could hear the bass thrum of the Northman's bow. The mutineer stood upon the poop deck, his back to the mizzen, raining ruin where he could with a quiver full of arrows.
A sudden heat pulsed from somewhere in Pippin's gut through his chest and into his eyes. He felt himself smile, but there was nothing funny about what was going on.
Pippin jumped out of the boat back onto the deck. He sheathed Trollsbane and pulled out his dagger. He made for the starboard halyards that he had spliced that afternoon, and grabbed it with his left hand, wrapping it around his fist. With his dagger, he cut the rope, above the splice he had made, and flew to the top of the mainmast as the mainsail unfurled.
"Whooooooooooooooooah …!"
At the maintop he kicked on the crow's nest, then swung for the mizzen and the man with the bow.
He let go and crashed into the astounded Orren, staggering the man and kicking the bow out of his hands. Pippin landed awkwardly on his side. "Humph!" He heard heavy footsteps coming at him, and pulled out his sword in time to parry the blow of Orren's cutlass.
Orren roared and lunged again, his blow landing on the planking as Pippin rolled aside and got to his feet. Pippin stood with Trollsbane at his side, daring Orren to attack again.
Orren grinned, baring his teeth. "Pest of a holbytla! You pick the wrong friends. The Ranger is done. He and his high-minded buccaneering don't have a place on this ship!" He was trying to close in on Pippin, but Pippin kept his eyes on him, and matched him step for step. "The lords of Umbar paid me well to bring down the Black Sword, but they need have not! I would have done it for the ship alone! Now I, Orren, who they said did not deserve a place in the meanest hall of Laketown, I shall be a captain of the—"
"Oh I don't care." Pippin swung at him.
Orren parried, and lunged down at Pippin, but he had no schooling in swords. For all Orren's superior size, he had little idea of doing anything other than hack and stab, and Pippin took advantage.
Orren pulled back and made to run. Pippin chased him. Orren climbed up the shrouds of the mizzen, but Pippin easily overtook him, and they fought one-handed, blades clashing, along the third of the Sword's mighty sails. The tip of Orren's cutlass caught Pippin across the left forearm, slicing skin but not flesh. The man laughed.
Pippin scowled, and then with a stroke cut the shrouds. Orren roared as he fell to the deck.
He was slow to pick himself up. Pippin climbed down, glancing at the rest of the affray. Neimor and his faithful were somehow winning back, at least to the Sword, but they were still pinned between the forces of Umbar and the mutineers. Pippin saw Bangshar, Davy, and Asouk still up, and holding their own. Good.
Neimor had leapt up onto a capstan and was rallying his people to him. "Have at them, lads!" he shouted, almost laughing. Seeing him, the mutineers on the Sword boarded the merchantman in droves.
A dull blow caught Pippin on the right shoulder and he fell, dropping Trollsbane. Orren stood above him with a cudgel. He dodged the second blow and lunged for his sword with his left hand. But Orren smashed downward on his hand. Pippin heard something pop and he couldn't stifle a cry of agony.
"Pippin!" he heard, far down the ship, Davy's voice.
Orren heard it too. He stood over Pippin, straddling him. "I think the punk is sweet on you," he sneered. "Just like that sailor boy I offed the day we took you on board—which is what Neimor should have done with you!"
"You?" gasped Pippin. "You killed Cellas?"
Orren laughed and swung his cudgel in reply.
Pippin abruptly pulled his legs up between the pirate's legs and kicked with all his might.
Orren howled in torment. Pippin snatched up Trollsbane and scrambled to his feet. He turned on the traitor, who was bent over and raving, wrapped his injured hand on Trollsbane's hilt, and dropped its edge upon the mutinous pirate's neck.
Orren's body crumpled. His head rolled a few feet away.
Pippin swallowed. He was not going to be sick. Forgetting to wipe his sword, he ran back to the main deck.
Pippin fought his way to the other ship and to Neimor's side.
"I see Master Asouk came for you," noted Neimor at the sight of him.
"Orren too," Pippin said to the captain. "Unfortunately, he led the mutineers."
"I assumed as much," Neimor said. "But he surprised me with the speed of his plan. Where is he know?"
"Dead," Pippin said. Neimor beheld Trollsbane in Pippin's hands, still streaked with blood. He nodded.
"We must drive as many of our mutineers upon the merchantman," said the captain. "But you, Pippin, go back to the ship and make ready to sail! We must be ready to push off at my word!"
"What's going on?"
"We found barrels of blasting powder in their hold," explained Neimor. "Bangshar's rigging it now."
"Blasting powder?"
"Designed in Isengard, perfected in Umbar."
Pippin's eyes widened.
"Go, Peregrin!" urged Neimor. "Davy!" he shouted to the boy, standing amidst the fallen bodies of his enemies. "Go with Pippin!"
"Aye, sir!"
Davy and Pippin pushed through the battle, fighting as they went, back onto the clearing deck of the Sword. "Neimor says to make ready to sail at once!" Pippin cried, hurrying to the mainmast.
"Aye!" They went from mast to mast, setting the sails, tugging the yards, working through the injuries suffered by the ship and its parts during the battle—and their own injuries, for already Pippin's left hand was swelling. Sooner than it seemed to take, they were as ready as they could be.
Davy gasped as he saw Orren's beheaded body by the mizzen.
Pippin hurried past him. "My fault."
Davy nodded. "Good riddance."
Neimor appeared upon the other ship. "Shove off!" he thundered. His faithful men hurried onto the Sword, slaying those mutineers and attackers still on board, remove the boarding planks and cutting the grappling lines. Above them all sang Neimor's orders. "Shove off I say!"
Bangshar leapt over, coming to Pippin and Davy. "It's done," he said. "And I made sure the oil and grease would catch."
"You set it on fire?" asked Pippin.
The Easterling grinned. "You'll see!"
Asouk led the strongest of Neimor's men in pushing off from the other vessel. "Captain!"
Neimor sheathed his sword. With a flying leap, he vaulted over the sea and onto the deck of his ship.
"Make sail! Man the oars!" he ordered. "Get us as far away from that ship as possible!" He ran to the wheel, Pippin at his heels, Davy and Bangshar following.
Black oars sprouted from the sides of the Sword. Neimor turned the rudder. The wind began to fill the sails. Pippin watched as the Sword started to slip away from the merchantman and its crowded deck.
Arrows continued to fly between the ships. "Pippin!" cried Davy, pushing Pippin aside.
"Davy!" Pippin saw the shaft of the arrow protruding from his friend. No, no, not again! "Davy!"
Davy sat up, wincing. "I … I'm all right," he said uncertainly.
Bangshar knelt and then with a firm tug pulled the arrow out of Davy's back. He felt the wound. "Ricochet," he said. "Against the shoulder blade. You'll live."
"How far do we have to get?" Pippin demanded, pressing against Davy's wound with his healthy hand.
Neimor looked at Bangshar.
"Two ships' length," the Easterling said.
Pippin saw they were near that now. "And when will—"
The other ship exploded. Fire roiled from its hold, sundering its deck and starboard side, collapsing its mainmast and incinerating all in its path. The sea rushed into the wound in the ship's hull, and steam howled through its spaces. The falling mast crumpled down, crashing upon the deck and catching flame. All the sails were aflame as, crippled, the ship began to list and capsize.
A cheer came from the survivors on the Sword.
"Enough," said Neimor. "The battle is over, but the chase is begun. Our friends in the Black Fleet are now hunting us. Repair the ship as quickly as you can, and the masts and sails first of all!"
He looked down. "Pippin," he said. "You are injured." He motioned for Bangshar to take the helm.
Then Pippin saw a pirate, a mutineer, sneaking from the stair, a spike ready to be thrown at Neimor. "Look out!" he shouted, and threw himself in the mutineer's path. The man stumbled and fell, and Asouk ran him through into the deck with the spike on the tip of his halberd.
Neimor and Bangshar pulled the body off Pippin. "You saved my life," said Neimor.
Pippin winced and sat up. Everything was sore now. His hand was killing him. He loathed to imagine how he'd feel tomorrow.
"That makes us even, then," said Pippin. "You spare my life, I save yours. We're square."
Neimor nodded.
Pippin winced. He pressed his hand to his stomach and groaned. They gathered around him, concerned.
He looked up in distress. "I missed supper."
3.
Three ships of the Black Fleet sailed in pursuit of the renegade and his surviving crew. Their masters, enraged by Neimor's killing of Sartanukil, had set out a formal charge against him. Three hundred were lost in the destruction of the decoy ship. The fleetest ships of Umbar sailed against the Sword.
Neimor dared them to follow. He set his course for the open sea, where the swift raiders of the Corsairs dared not follow. His compass set west south-west, he sailed into Belegaer, into the stormswept waters of the Sundering Sea.
Pippin, his left hand bandaged tight, his left forearm itchy from the stitches, and his right hand grasping a leg of fowl, visited the captain in his room.
"I hear we're running from danger into danger," he said.
"That is accurate," said Neimor. "We make for the isle of Meneltarma."
"Meneltarma?" Pippin repeated, thinking. "Wasn't that the name of the mountain of Númenor?"
"It is the same," said Neimor. "The last tip of the foundered land to rise above the waves."
"Is that wise?" asked Pippin in surprise.
Neimor sighed. "They dare not follow us so far, five hundred leagues across open sea."
"But the books say the wrath of the Valar still haunts that sea," Pippin pointed out.
Neimor eyed him. "How much lore of travel do you keep in that little head?"
"Perhaps I spend too much time locked in libraries."
"I shall have Asouk find you a hammock. Were you always so studious?"
"Not at all. I was a carefree and thoughtless youngster. Now I'm just thoughtless, or so folk say."
"And what so altered you?"
"What else? The war." Pippin's mood darkened. "Hasn't it everyone? Davy lost his father and brother, and his simple life in the hills. Sauron filled Bangshar's head with hate, and when Sauron fell, his life lost purpose. He thinks my cousin was a … savior, sent by the Valar to fight Sauron."
"Was he not?"
"Frodo was a silly old hobbit," Pippin snapped. "He liked to daydream, and watch the sky, and take long walks by himself. He told me bedtime stories, and stole councilor pudding with me, and climbed after me when I went looking for bird's nests and couldn't get back down. I know he had his dreams of adventure, but instead he seemed content for long and quiet life as a confirmed bachelor, helping his spoiled and irresponsible little cousins survive into the respectable roles prepared for them. Peace and quiet with his books and his home and his faithful friend.
"Instead … he's gone. He walked into darkness and death, and we followed him as far as we could, and for all Merry and I went through, for all Sam went through, it was Frodo, my silly old cousin Frodo, who had to pay the price. He's gone, and I miss him. He was no savior. He was a sacrifice." He felt tears threatening, but he blinked them back, and in defiance tore off another mouthful of cold chicken.
Neimor spoke. "I served long under the son of Arathorn," he said, "and though I care not now for his guise as the King Elessar, I remember well the fearless Ranger Men called Strider. I know he pledged to protect your cousin, and regardless of what he has become—for a king so great should be named an emperor, and empire is ever the ill of the West—the captain I knew, knew honor when he saw it. Your cousin chose the burden and submitted as the sacrifice. That makes him savior enough for me. Your cousin bears no blame for the wounds of war that still scar the hearts of Men," he said. His grey eyes met Pippin's. "Or hobbits."
He stood, and held up a chart. "We keep our course, come rain or heavy sea," he said. "Cheer up, Peregrin. In two weeks' time, you will be the first hobbit to set foot upon the last remnant of Númenor."
Pippin ate. "Bully for me."