Tylan Hallaw
A shout. Tylan’s eyes snapped open. Good that they had; he was beginning to feel his skin baking beneath the beating of the sun. He unfolded his arms from behind his head and sat up, in his hammock of ropes and riggings. He looked down, bewildered, at the wooden expanse of deck, now crawling with men shouting. How long had he slept? And why was the city’s battleship alive with people? The ship was almost never touched; it was a convenient place to lie as a cat does in the sun, and nap away the hours after noon. Tylan grasped the thick cord overhead, and pulled himself to his feet. From where the ship sat anchored, he could see a ripple running through the market, consciousness combing through their ranks that something was amiss.
Tylan’s eyes perused the waters, one hand shielding his gaze from the sun’s glare. He craned his neck, and froze. It was a picture of a dance shared between Frin and Wyrim. A ship that had caught aflame was a torch upon the sea, rolling with the waves and steadily falling apart. The mast had been burnt – to a matchstick, it seemed, from this distance. “It will never see land,” Tylan said, wondering if the clouds of ash that cascaded around the ship were people abandoning ship and hope. He heard his words echoed below him, and he peered down at two men below him who had not noticed his presence.
“Aye,” one of them said to the other, their eyes never leaving the sea and its gravity. “But that one just might.”
Tylan startled at the appearance of a second ship in the sea, its ram pointed straight for the shoreline. It bore no name, waved no sign of friend of foe. Yet a foreboding chord was struck as it streaked straight for the city. “This is the royal guard.” Tylan said in dawning realisation, seeing the knights and soldiers that had poured forth from the crowd of leather and patched cloth, in their telling armour and mail. “They’ve assembled for battle.”
Squires presented honoured fighters with their swords, gleaming from the whetstone. Soldiers squirmed in their chain. Tylan scanned their faces all. There wasn’t a half-decent shipmaster among them, not even the scarred, spotty man stationed at the wheel. For a port city, their pirate population behaved arguably well, and the knights preferred to look the other way where treasure was looted without casualty. Many were unseasoned on the waves. “They’ll dash themselves on the rocks once they leave port,” he whispered as boys who had yet to draw blood on the field slammed their helmets onto each other’s heads. “They’ll rock on the sea and lose their feet beneath them.” The city didn’t need heavy knights in armour who would drown at the first leak protecting their waters. This was madness. Folly.
“Oi!” Tylan had been discovered, and thank the gods. He was not keen to stay aboard this ship riding for disaster. He looked down at a squire, freckled and pasty, and thought perhaps there hadn't been a face quite as welcome as his. “What are you doing up there?”
Knights and soldiers looked over at the shout. Tylan gave a grin, and hopped expertly from rope to rope, swinging himself until he was on deck. “A mistake, you see,” he said to the squire, passing him by, fully intent on jumping ship before the chance was whisked away. To stay would be to die. He was stopped abruptly however by his own startled reflection in a chest-plate that gleamed in the sun. His eyes skittered upwards, to find the head connected to the broad shoulders in lobstered steel. “Ser Bareon!” he exclaimed familiarly. The knight was a well-known face from the market: stern, old, but honourable. “As you see, there’s been a complication, one that shan’t happen again. On my word. Allow me to wish you the best of luck as you ride to battle, before I depart.” He waved to the onlooking soldiers surrounding him. “May Wyrim watch over you all!” Tylan turned back to Ser Bareon. “I’ll be on my way now.”
A gloved hand caught his shoulder. “Stay, Tylan. You are one-and-twenty, no? You are not too young to see a battle, and tales of your prowess on the ship are not unknown.”
Tylan hid a grimace as Ser Bareon removed his hand. Of course the man would choose now to acknowledge any prowess, before the eyes of men who surrendered their attention easily. Their gazes pinned Tylan to the accursed deck. “Really, now, Ser Bareon. All this fair talk will make a man blush – ”
“Bareon, you jest!” Another man came swaggering suddenly from the milling crowd. “This boy?”
“I do not jest,” Ser Bareon said evenly to the knight. “Ser Gerard, you do not know Tylan Hallaw from the Annals. He is the best sailor in these ports, and the time we waste counts direly against us. We ride out now, with Tylan.” Tylan started. Had Ser Bareon decided the matter? For him?
“Now hold – ” Tylan tried to protest, but Ser Gerard had his own words to add. “This boy’s a menace!" he sputtered, indignance colouring his cheeks. "A peasant boy from the market! You’d welcome him to our ranks of honour?” Tylan threw the man a burning glare. He had no desire to linger on the deck, but that was simply uncalled for. But Ser Gerard only sneered at him.
“I’d invite him to save our lives and fight beside us,” Ser Bareon corrected, firmness seeping into his tone and giving each word backbone. “Kern doesn’t know starboard from port.” He nodded gruffly to the scarred man behind the wheel. “Would you have him steer us into battle?”
“I would rather him, or anyone else, than this whoreson!” Ser Gerard roared. “The Order has standards!”
“I’m not suggesting we knight him and bestow him the title of lord of the bloody Nightfort on the morrow,” Ser Bareon growled back, his patience wearing thin. “This is not a discussion, Ser Gerard. I have made my decision, and I’m leading this battle. Tylan stays onboard, and serves with us. Now to your stations!”
Everyone scrambled to obey as Ser Bareon walked away, save Ser Gerard, who scowled down at Tylan, clearly finding him lacking. “You look like you should be scrubbing decks instead,” he barked with course laughter. “You’re a scrawny thing.”
“I couldn’t think of anything more tasteless than serving on the same deck as you, ser, scrubbed or not,” Tylan said, his head high, not missing the knight’s narrowed squint. Ser Gerard had pointed him in the direction of the shore, and he would be damned if he ran the same way. “But I believe we were ordered to our stations, so if you would excuse me...”
He stepped around the knight, and began to walk away. But Tylan had walked on decks as long as he had on land, and he knew intimately the way it felt beneath the soles of his feet. Tylan could tell Ser Gerard had pursued him even before he felt the hand clap him on his shoulder to spin him around. “See here, boy...” he heard, but Tylan never learnt what he was meant to see.
Tylan grabbed the wooden rod that had been leaning against the mast beside him and knocked Ser Gerard aside the head with it. The knight stumbled backwards, and blinked at Tylan, focusing belatedly on him. His brow furrowed dangerously at Tylan, reminding Tylan of the piglet he had seen in the market, staring balefully at his butcher seconds before its head had rolled in a spray of blood and guts. “Please keep your distance, ser. We will both be happier for it.” Ser Gerard reached for him again, and Tylan knocked his outstretched wrist away with an admonishing look. “Do I have to repeat myself, ser?”
With a bestial snarl, Gerard lunged for Tylan, diving for his midriff. But Tylan dodged the tackle, and rapped the knight sharply over the head for that. As the man skidded on the deck, Tylan thwacked him smartly on the small of the back, and drove the end of the rod between his shoulder blades for emphasis. Satisfied, Tylan loped away, whistling and twirling the pole on his fingertips with the eyes of knights and soldiers on him as he made his way to his post. He stood himself behind the wheel, felt his fingers curl around the curved ridge of wood, and breathed in the salt in the air. He could stay a while, he supposed.
Musoka
