Free Fox's Bride by A.E. Marling

dropped his club anyway, perhaps from the shock of seeing himself hit with a red greatsword. The man threw himself to the deck in surrender. Chandur let him lie.
    Men flung the rope down and scattered, and the sail unfurled with a snap of fabric. Far too close, riders whooped and cursed, and camels roared through their noses.
    The sun's glare slid across the sail. The wind shifted on Chandur's damp brow. They're turning the ship.
    Chandur bellowed his frustration. “Who’re you to fight fate?”
    He bolted toward the helm, swept a man with two daggers off his feet, and knocked down the man at the wheel. The jasper sword he jabbed downward, wedging it upright in the deck before he seized the spinning wheel.
    Wood bit into his palms. Muscles strained in his arms, back, and calves. Sweat dribbled between the links of his circlet.
    As he struggled to turn the ship away from the charging camels, a sailor scrambled up and gripped the jasper sword. The man grunted, eyes popping as he tried to lift it. The stone blade slid from the planking and tipped onto the sailor. He cried out. The sword pinned him to the deck.
    Chandur steered the ship back toward the empty horizon in time to see a second vessel breezing across the dunes to cut them off. He braced himself to be rammed, expecting the hull to explode in splinters. Instead, the over-Lightened ship grazed off them like a leaf sliding over a wall. Timbers still crunched, men still lost their feet, and sailors from the other ship jumped onto the deck.
    The second vessel rolled over, mast breaking.
    Camels loosed battle cries nearby in deafening groans, and grapnels swung up from the guards to bite into the railing. Sand churned behind the ship. Its speed dragged. The captain had crawled to the second anchor and shoved it over.
    While hefting the greatsword and kicking a man back to the deck, Chandur began to worry for Hiresha. He did not see how he could keep the craft moving by himself. Unless, we're not to leave on the ship after all. Could shove a few men off their camels, ride away with her.
    It might work. Or the ships might outrace them once their camels tired. He grew confused about where fate wished to lead him. He needed direction, but Hiresha had still not appeared from below decks.
    The five boarders advanced with daggers and fish-hook flails. Chandur was looking for a sign, for guidance. Distracted, he did not back up fast enough, and a sharpened edge struck his sleeve, parting the purple fabric but sliding off the enchanted scale beneath. The next dagger cut toward his head. The ruby on his circlet shone once, and the bronze razor was Burdened and crushed against the deck. He felt the painful relief of knowing that fate had worked through the enchantress to save him.
    Chandur concentrated on his form. His jasper sword knocked two men off the ship, and they thudded into the sand. The other three were more cautious of his reach. Meanwhile, ten grapnels bit into the ship, then a score.
    One man spat. “God thief!”
    The spellsword had no time to consider what he meant by that.
    City guards shimmied up from the camels. They carried bows slung over their shoulders, and Chandur dashed toward them in a sweep of red stone. He could not give them time to draw. He would have to kill them, and he hated the thought. One of the men he recognized, Djom, by his missing front teeth and pudgy, dimpled face.
    As the spellsword rushed in, Djom's gap-toothed mouth opened in horror. “Fos!”
    And from behind, Hiresha cried out. “Chandur, stop.”
    Fosapam Chandur Lightened his weapon and yanked it back. Five guards pulled their bowstrings to a draw and aimed.
    “Everyone, discontinue,” Hiresha said. “We surrender. Chandur, drop your sword. We're not murderers.”
    He did as he was told. The jasper weapon crashed onto the planks, and he felt his insides lurch. He lost all sense of his fate. What way to victory now?
    Three men tackled Chandur. Djom was screaming at him. “Shit,