by Rob Scott
Marrin had lashed himself to the helm. He was armed with a battle-axe and a short dagger and waved them wildly when anyone moved towards him. He was lost in the throes of whatever madness had found him on the brig-sloop’s quarterdeck. They were closing fast on the Malakasian trawler now.
Garec hadn’t lowered his bow, though he had no wish to kill Marrin.
‘Wait, Garec, just a moment,’ Captain Ford whispered.
‘We don’t have much time, sir.’
‘You think I can’t see that?’ He reached for a pin near the base of the mainmast and braced himself as the Morning Star pitched and bumped over the swells, running into the shore. They would run aground; the water was deep enough to round the point, but if they rammed the trawler, Steven’s cloaking spell would be shattered. If they survived the impact, they’d be limping into Pellia, completely exposed.
‘Marrin,’ he tried again, ‘if you ram that ship, it’s a tag hanging for all of us. You realise that, don’t you?’
The first mate stared somewhere beyond the Malakasian shoreline, and mumbled, nothing the others could understand. It didn’t look like he even heard them.
‘Let me take him,’ Garec said. ‘I won’t kill him.’
‘Not yet. Kellin?’
‘I’m here.’ Her voice came from somewhere behind him. He didn’t turn to look.
‘Get below; see if you can help Gilmour.’ Warily he moved a few steps closer.
Marrin mumbled louder and tightened the bit of hemp holding him to the brig-sloop’s wheel.
Captain Ford stopped. They were close to the trawler; he could hear voices hailing from across the shallows. The breakwater, a few hundred paces offshore, roared a background warning. Grand, Ford thought. Even if we miss the boat, we’ll be caught on the mud. We’ll never make this tack, not now. Without taking his eyes off Marrin, he said, ‘Brexan?’
‘Right behind you.’
‘Garec?’
‘I’m getting impatient, Captain.’
‘Pel?’
No response.
‘Pel!’ Captain Ford shouted, ‘Where are you?’
‘Haven’t seen him, sir,’ Garec said quietly.
‘All right, all right, gods rut us all. We’ll do it alone.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You two.’ He took another step. The quarterdeck was only two paces away now. ‘Prepare to come about, wear hard to starboard. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Garec and Brexan answered in unison.
‘Pel?’ he tried again, but no one answered. They were out of time. He had to retake the helm. He didn’t want to risk having Garec shoot and possibly kill his first mate, but he also didn’t believe that wounding Marrin would do them any good. Marrin looked as though he could be struck senseless by a lightning bolt and would still never release his grip.
‘All right you two… get ready.’
When a hand reached up to grip the stern rail behind Marrin, Captain Ford gasped. For a moment he thought it was another tanbak, come to avenge the one Steven had dealt with, but when he saw the frayed tunic sleeves, the skinny wrists and the pale skin, Ford knew he had found Pel Wandrell.
Gods keep him a thousand Twinmoons, he thought. The crazy bastard climbed out my cabin window. Good thinking, Pel! Top marks!
Pel looked terrified, but he never hesitated. He slipped silently over the rail, making eye contact with his captain: he needed a distraction.
Captain Ford understood, and started at Marrin, saying, ‘You know we’ll never make this tack, not with only three of us hauling these lines, we’ll never wear in time, not coming about in this wind.’
Pel sneaked behind Marrin, staying low, and as the captain continued to address the first mate, he leaped on Marrin’s back, wrapping one slim arm around his friend’s throat while grabbing at the dagger with the other. He was tiny in comparison to the muscular first mate, and for a moment he looked like a child getting a piggy-back from an older brother. He hung on grimly as the captain ran up, his filleting knife already drawn, but Marrin managed to shrug Pel off his shoulders and free his dagger hand. He raised the short blade to stab his shipmate ‘No!’ Ford cried, too late. He took two running steps towards the helm, then dived, but he was in midair when what he was seeing finally registered. The first arrow passed clean through Marrin’s wrist, and the dagger had clanked to the deck, useless, just as Pel, expecting to feel the cold blade slicing through his flesh, released his death grip about Marrin’s throat and fell backwards towards the stern rail. A second shaft, fired at an impossibly short interval behind the first, passed through Marrin’s opposite hand, tearing it from the helm, and the possessed or delusional first mate fell back against the ropes holding him up.
Captain Ford pushed himself to his feet and sliced the ropes, then brought the rudder chain as far as he could to starboard, screaming, ‘Come about, my darling, come about, old girl!’
Marrin, transfixed by the arrow through his hand, tumbled down beside Pel as Garec and Brexan followed the captain’s orders, hauling in slack lines as fast as they could. Slowly, painstakingly, the Morning Star began to turn.
‘Pel,’ Ford shouted, ‘Pel, gods love you, son, but you did it! You did it!’
The boy rolled from Marrin’s bloody body and sprang to his feet. Mumbling incoherently, and visibly trembling, the young seaman hugged himself as if to be sure he was still intact.
‘Pel,’ Ford ordered, wanting to stop shock setting in, ‘get over here and keep us hard to starboard. We’ll miss the trawler, thank all the gods of the Northern Forest, but we’re still in trouble with that mud reef. You see those breakers, Pel? Pel!’
‘Captain?’ Pel whispered, still not quite sure what had happened.
‘Pel! To me!’ he ordered again.
‘What-? Right, yes, sorry, Captain…’ His voice trailed off.
Captain Ford wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders, pulled him close, steadying him for a moment, then, calmly, he said, ‘All I need you to do, Pel, is keep us on this tack. Just take the helm. I’ve got to haul in the foresheets, or we’re rutting screwed. You understand me?’
‘Aye, aye, Captain. I won’t let you down, sir. I can-’
The spider-beetle crawled up Pel’s cloak and scampered across Captain Ford’s wrist.
‘Great whoring rutters, Pel, look out! Get back, son! Get back!’ He shoved the sailor, too hard, sending him tumbling across the quarterdeck until he rolled to a stop against a rain barrel lashed to the port gunwale.
Letting go the helm, Ford shook his arm frantically, trying to shake the bug loose before it bit him and left him as senseless as Steven. He wasn’t a sorcerer; maybe even one puncture would kill him. He stumbled and tripped over Marrin’s legs, landing hard on his back.
‘Where is the gods-rutting thing?’ He was vulnerable, flat on his back like this. ‘Get up,’ he growled, ‘don’t wait for it.’ He yanked off his cloak and pulled his tunic off over his head, then got up on his knees, scanning the deck for the tan-bak’s persistent little sentry. He brushed his hands down his leggings again, then, in a panic, ran his hands through his hair until it was a tousled mess.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Garec shouted. ‘Can’t you feel the keel is righting? Take the rutting helm!’
He was oblivious to Garec’s warning, concentrating on the deadly little spider-beetle. There it was, skittering across the planks, heading for Pel.
‘Watch out!’ Captain Ford cried, leaped towards the insect, stomped down hard, missed and stomped again, until he had to catch his breath. As he stood still, doubled over and panting, he realised what Garec had been screaming, and ran back to the helm.
‘What was that?’ Pel was beginning to think his captain had been infected by whatever had taken Marrin. All that for a spider, sir?’ His voice wavered a little still.
Captain Ford tried to ignore the fact that he was navigating half-naked – in the winter Twinmoon – and less than an aven from Pellia. He peered across t
he bow, ignoring the shouts and jeers of the Malakasian fisherman – too close – off the port rail and searched for the mud reef. It was impossible for them to clear, not without a miracle wind from the southwest.
‘A wind?’ he muttered to himself, then, ‘Pel!’
The frightened sailor steadied himself on the rail. ‘I know, Captain, haul in the foresheets and make it qui-’
‘No, forget them; get below and get Gilmour, tell him to get up here right now, and I do mean right this very moment. The survival of this ship – and us – depends up on it. Do you understand?’
‘Aye, aye, Captain.’ Pel rushed for the main hatch.
‘We need a gale,’ Ford muttered. He looked over at Marrin, who sprawled on the deck, looking deathly pale. His wrist was still bleeding, and Garec’s second arrow still protruded from his left hand. A tiny trickle of blood seeped from his left ear.
The trawler crew were screaming curses at him. Ford, naked from the waist up and looking like a madman, waved and blew a kiss to the furious Malakasians. ‘Don’t you see I have other problems right now?’ he shouted. ‘I’d love to stay and talk, but I really have to go. I’m running my ship aground, and then I have to get to my hanging; I’d hate to be late. It was lovely to see you, though!’
‘He’s going to be screaming about us all the way back to Pellia,’ Garec pointed out. He looped a length of rope around a pin. It was a tangled mess, but it held.
‘There’s nothing we can do about it now.’
‘I can take them,’ Garec said. ‘I’d rather not, but I can do it. We can’t have them telling the whole city how a rogue sloop nearly sent them to the bottom.’
‘We’ll worry about it if we’re still afloat in the next half-aven, but for now, get forward – that foremain is doing us no good. You need to shorten the line and tie it off tight.’
‘But there’s no wind-’
‘And this bloody wind is running us aground! Don’t argue, Garec, just do it!’
Gilmour appeared from below, looked at Marrin, still in a heap, bleeding, and asked, ‘What happened up here?’
‘The wind,’ Captain Ford cut across him, ‘the one you used to blow that thing off Steven’s neck – can you do that again? I mean right now.’ He pointed at the sails he needed filled.
Gilmour sized up the situation and started incanting the spell, hurrying between the foremast and the main, blowing the sheets full, while Garec and Brexan manned the lines.
The Morning Star took her time coming about.
The captain leaned on the helm, his teeth clenched, and watched the sheets fill, empty and fill again as Gilmour blasted away at them. He listened to the roar of the breakwater just beneath the bow and whispered, ‘Come on, old girl, come on around. You don’t want to bite that mud; you don’t want to leave us out here. Come on, my darling girl…’
The brig-sloop struck, throwing Garec and Brexan to the deck. Gilmour kept his feet, still hurling massive gusts into the sails, determined to bring the Morning Star about…
Captain Ford cursed like a trooper, but never let go of the rudder. ‘Hit it again,’ he begged, ‘aft just a bit, hit it again, my darling, come on, now old girl…’
The Morning Star obliged, hauling her backside around and bouncing and glancing off the mud reef. The water was just deep enough for the little ship’s shallow hull to clear the bottom and make the tack, however bumpy. The captain spared a grin for Garec, for every time he tried to stand, the brig-sloop glanced off the reef, sending him rolling for the starboard rail again and again.
‘Pel, get below, see if we’re taking on water.’ He turned to the sorcerer and said, ‘Give us a few more gusts, if you can, please – I’d like to overtake that fishing trawler before he has a chance to alert the entire Malakasian navy.’
Gilmour interrupted his spell-weaving long enough to reply, ‘Aye, aye, Captain!’
‘And Gilmour, what news of Steven?’
‘He’ll live-’ Gilmour looked nervous, ‘but I’m not certain how long he’ll be out. I’ve drained a great deal of blood, so I imagine he’ll be weak and disoriented for some time when we finally get him back.’
‘Are we still…’
‘Yes, the spell should keep us well hidden, as long as Steven doesn’t die.’
Pel appeared from below and reported, ‘One futtock cracked, sir, in the bow, just above the bilge. Probably caused by the initial impact.’
‘Then forget it,’ Captain Ford said decisively. ‘We need you up here. If we make it to port alive, we’ll patch it when the tide turns, but right now we’re running empty, and I don’t care if we take on some water – it won’t slow us much more than a bit of extra ballast. We’ve nearly flown up here this Moon. Dragging our backsides will make honest sailors out of us again.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘Now, see to those foresails, on my mark…’
Between then, they got the Morning Star into position and as she caught the northerly wind – the real wind – she glided towards the inlet with ease. Content with both heading and speed, Ford handed the wheel to Pel and turned to Brexan.
‘Time to deal with Marrin,’ he said soberly.
*
Marrin lay unconscious in the captain’s cabin, breathing in shallow gasps. The spider-beetle’s venom had polluted his blood. No one knew when it had burrowed inside his ear canal – it might have been in there for days, ever since the tan-bak killed Sera and Tubbs – but the poison had travelled too far. Gilmour watched the patient and tried to make sure Marrin’s vital systems continued to function, though he had no idea what he would do were one to shut down.
The others searched the ship for more spider-beetles, but if there were more of the insect hunters on board, they were well hidden.
Now Pel, Garec, Brexan and Kellin emerged on deck; no one wanted to miss Ford navigating the Welstar River.
When they passed the trawler, the Malakasian fishermen barely gave the graceful brig-sloop a second glance. Brexan said, ‘It does look like Steven’s cloaking spell is still working.’
‘And it might save our lives.’ Captain Ford agreed. ‘It’s as if they see us but don’t realise they’re seeing us.’
‘Look, that man – the captain maybe – he’s looking straight through us.’
‘Let’s hope it works on the whole city.’
The brig-sloop came around the final point, hugging the shore, towards a rocky, windswept jetty, brushed green with a narrow strip of pine forest. Beyond, the Welstar River spread out before them, at least five times as wide as the Medera River in Orindale and looking more like a great lake.
No one spoke at first; they all worried that the slightest sound would bring the full attention of the Malakasian capital down on their little ship.
‘Well, there it is,’ Captain Ford said at last, ‘a veritable highway of bad news for us.’
‘You can do it,’ Brexan said, full of admiration for his skill that morning.
‘Hold your breath,’ he warned, ‘here we go.’
Gilmour’s estimation of Malakasian strength looked to be quite accurate. They could see several patrol boats, flanked by two heavily armoured schooners that were plying the deeper water between the city and a strip of sand on the east bank near the jetty. Two barges passed off the Morning Star’s bow, one headed north towards a big galleon moored near the main wharf and another tacking south towards the naval schooners and customs boats.
‘Well, that certainly cuts off any escape route upriver,’ Ford murmured.
‘But they don’t seem to see us,’ Brexan said.
‘Or if they do, maybe they’re mistaking us for a fishing boat, one of the locals working the shallows. There was a whole fleet of them down there this morning.’
‘As big as we are?’
‘Steven’s your friend, you tell me: is he strong enough to make us look like a fishing boat? I, for one, hope so.’
‘What about when we get downriver? And look out for those barges!’
Brexan said, ‘It looked like you were heading straight into that one – this is frightening enough without you showing off!’
‘Showing off?’ He scowled. ‘We can’t be more than half an aven from certain death, and you accuse me of showing off?’
‘Well…’
‘Well, what?’
‘Well, how often do you have attractive young women here watching your every move?’ she said teasingly, easing the tension.
‘All the rutting time,’ he shot back, ‘and let me remind you that with your Seron-crooked smile, you may not be the most attractive visitor this quarterdeck has ever seen.’ He altered their heading slightly, bearing away from the schooners.
‘Oh, really? You think so?’
‘Oh, really, yes,’ he grinned, ‘our Tubbs attracted all sorts of fine-looking women, I can assure you!’
‘Tubbs?’ Brexan burst out laughing, then covered her face when she noticed Garec and Kellin, both deadly serious, looking at her. She caught her breath and asked, ‘So what about north of us? Why aren’t there more boats down there?’
‘I don’t-’ He broke off mid-sentence and stared.
‘What is it?’
‘I think it’s the reason our Malakasian friends don’t have additional patrols working the stretch of water from the wharf to the centre of the river.’ He pointed.
‘I don’t see any… Oh.’
The shipmates instinctively moved together as they spotted the three massive frigates emerging like ghost ships over the horizon, dwarfing their escorts, a little fleet of cutters and schooners. There was no mistaking the frigates, which had obviously come through the Northeast Channel and were now making way – with haste, it appeared – towards the Pellia waterfront.
‘That’s him,’ Captain Ford said. ‘The downriver patrols have gone out with the harbourmaster. I’ll bet it’s not every day ships like that come in, let alone three at a time.’
Brexan was beaming. ‘Then we made it. We did it. We’re here ahead of him. Granted, it may only be by a few avens, but we did it.’ She hugged him, briefly but with genuine affection.
