Isles of the Forsaken Read Free Page B

string of firecrackers. Jory tensed, eyes wide and panicky, thinking they were under attack.
    “Don’t worry, you’re safe,” Harg said. Then, to distract him, “Think you’ll be ready to leave soon?”
    “Leave? For where?”
    “Home. Remember, I’m taking you back to Yora.”
    “You keep saying that.”
    “Well, I mean it. I’m on my way to get my discharge right now. Then, whenever you’re well enough, I’ll book passage for us both, back to the islands.”
    Jory had little reaction. “I thought you would stay in the navy. You’re so good at it.”
    This was an understatement; Harg was brilliant. Three years ago, he had taken command of the frigate
Wolverine
when its captain and lieutenant had both died of the fever, and he had not brought it back till he had obliterated a Rothur cruiser. After that, unrestrained by age-old precepts about how to conduct war at sea, he and a core of other islanders had used pirate tactics, seamanship, subterfuge, and insanely vicious attacks to more than equalize the size difference between the Native Navy’s sloops and the Rothur warships. It was an open secret that the Native Navy, not the lumbering and hidebound Inning Navy, had turned the course of the war.
    And now he was giving it all up, the only thing he had ever been successful at. He gave a slight, cynical laugh. “I’m tired of all this
civilization
.” He gave the word a flick of contempt. “It’s all false, like theatre—an Adaina playing a Torna playing an Inning. It’s best to get back to the South Chain, where things are genuine.”
    “What will you do there?”
    This was an excellent question; Jory sometimes surprised Harg with simple insights. “I don’t know,” he laughed. Mine peat? Fish? What did aimless war heroes do?
    He checked his watch again; he was late now. Well, what could they do, discharge him? But out of long habit he rose and said, “I’ve got to get going. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
    “Take care, Harg,” Jory said, his face wan.
    Harg always felt guilty leaving, and slunk out faster than he had come in. But when he came to the gate he felt a burden lifted; he had met his obligation for the day.
    The Navy Office building was bustling when he arrived, though it was nearly evening and all the clerks were working by lamplight. To the young Torna adjutant who looked up from his desk when Harg entered Commodore Buckrush’s antechamber, he said, “Don’t you ever get to leave?”
    “As long as the Admiral’s in the building, so is everyone else,” the adjutant said dourly. It should have seemed odd for Admiral Talley, the hero of the hour, to be still at work with all the celebrations pending in his honour, but the man had the reputation of a fearsome taskmaster. He had burned through any number of subordinates by failing to understand that real humans required more than three hours of sleep at night. Harg had never seen him; officers of the Native Navy had little to do with the Inning hierarchy not assigned to them.
    Commodore Buckrush was in charge of the Native Navy. He was a grizzled veteran on the verge of retirement who had been given the undesirable appointment to oversee what was supposed to be a second-class squadron for guarding the coasts and escorting merchant vessels. And yet, under him the Native Navy had metamorphosed into a lethal striking force that had done the ungentlemanly work of actually beating the enemy. It was to this Inning that Harg owed his promotion; and yet, he had never been able to bring himself to like the man. There was something too old-school and patronizing about him. Harg had never been able to square the rule-breaking creativity of his orders with his bluff, conventional demeanour.
    When the adjutant showed Harg into the inner office, the Commodore was trying to button the bright scarlet and blue coat of his dress uniform over his ample paunch, doubtless in preparation for some party. “Ah, Ismol,” he said. “At last.”
    Harg saluted