The River of Shadows cv-3

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Fiffengurt rapped his knuckles on the wall of the forecastle house. “That Jalantri fellow’s trapped in here now. But there’s no harm in putting the other two on display. Get ’em up here! Let’s see who knows their faces.”

  Messengers were dispatched to the Turachs. In sight of the dlomic warriors, Fiffengurt raised both hands, palms outward: Patience. A few minutes later a great mob of Turachs climbed the ladderway, escorting Neda and Cayer Vispek, who were chained hand and foot. At the rear came Sergeant Haddismal, dragging Ibjen roughly by the arm.

  “We caught this one squeezing through a hawse-hole,” he said, “like he was about to shimmy down the cable into the gulf.”

  “Then he’s the fugitive,” said Midshipman Bravun.

  “Fugitive?” cried Ibjen. “Fugitive from whom? I just want to get back to my father!”

  Ensyl glanced at the distant shore. “Are you a champion swimmer?” she asked.

  “Champion? Of course not! Let me go!”

  “Pazel,” said Neda suddenly, in Ormali, “have you seen Jalantri? Do you know why he’s been kept apart from us in this way?”

  She was hiding her anxiety-but not well enough to fool a brother. “It’s complicated, Neda,” he said.

  Her eyes grew suddenly wide. “Did they kill him? They did, didn’t they? Tell me the truth!”

  Pazel was about to assure her that Jalantri was safe when Fiffengurt stepped forward, waving his arms. “Quiet, Pathkendle! Listen up, Mr. Ibjen, and you sfvantskors as well: I’m not handing you over to anybody without a reason. But you might just give me that reason if I find out you’re telling lies.”

  “Now you insult us,” said Cayer Vispek. “We surrendered to you in good faith.”

  “We’ll see,” said Fiffengurt. At his gesture, the sfvantskor prisoners and the dlomic boy were dragged to the rail, and stood facing the dlomu host. Once again the two sides fell silent, applying themselves to their telescopes.

  “Their leader’s waving them off,” said Fulbreech. “He’s not interested in them, that’s plain.” He looked the sfvantskors over carefully. “I suppose they were telling the truth.”

  “Of course we were,” said Vispek, angrier than ever. “What have we to do with them? Yes, we took some necessities from a ship full of those creatures. But the ship was abandoned, and the crew already dead.” He raised his shackled arms. “Mr. Fiffengurt, where is your shame? You have no reason to treat us like criminals.”

  “Reasons, Cayer?” said Neda with quiet bitterness. “Who needs reasons? Excuses are good enough for Arqualis”-she glanced bitterly at Pazel-“and their pets.”

  Pazel could not believe his ears. “How can you say that, Neda? How can you think that?”

  “Wait!” cried Thasha suddenly. “The big man’s moving. Ah, look: he’s reaching for the shell. Maybe he’ll give it a try himself.”

  With his naked eye Pazel could just make out the orange shell, as the mighty leader took it from his aide. But rather than shout into the device he tossed it contemptuously to the ground.

  Humans and dlomu grew deathly still. Pazel heard the creak of timbers, the piping of shorebirds about the rocky islets, the bumping of a wheelblock against the foremast. And then came a sudden, desperate banging at the window, and Captain Rose’s furious, gale-surmounting roar:

  “Run! Run her south! Ware the ship and blary run!”

  As that very instant the dlomic warriors gave a terrible cry and began sprinting out along the jetty in their hundreds.

  “Ware the ship!” howled Fiffengurt. “Bindhammer, Fegin, aloft your yardmen! Bend them topsails now!”

  “Gods of death,” said Haddismal, pointing.

  The first dlomu were nearing the end of the jetty, some two miles from the Chathrand. But they did not stop: they dived with the grace of dolphins into the sea. One after another they dived, in a long coordinated maneuver. Dozens, then hundreds: the battalion was taking to the waves.

  “Madness!” said Fulbreech. “Swimmers can’t catch a ship! And even if they could, what then? We’re sixty feet above the waterline!”

  Pazel looked at Thasha: her eyes were wild, darting. All about them swarmed the men of the First Watch, freeing braces, racing up the shrouds, bellowing from the jungle of ropes overhead: “Let fall! Sheet home! Man the weather halyards!” Already the fore topsail was billowing out the spars. The main topsail followed, and the two vast, cream-colored rectangles filled and pulled. A tightening energy filled the ship, and slowly her bow swung away from the island.

  The dlomu had become a haze of black dots, appearing and disappearing in the waves. Some of the sailors regarded the spectacle with astonished grins; it was as if a herd of cattle had decided to burrow into the earth. But Pazel did not grin. He thought of how Bolutu and Ibjen had brought the wounded Turach so easily ashore. He snatched the telescope from Fulbreech. The warriors’ strokes were amazingly fast, and their legs frothed the water behind them. He turned to Ibjen, shouted over the din: “Will they catch us?”

  “How in Hell’s Mouth should I know?” Ibjen shot back.

  “Could you catch us?”

  His senses told him the question was ludicrous: the dlomu were swimming; the ship was setting sail. Ibjen hesitated, looking across the water at the black, swimming shapes. “No,” he said finally, and dropped his eyes.

  It should have set Pazel’s mind at ease, but it had the opposite effect. Ibjen’s reply had been laced with shame.

  Rose went on bellowing through the window: “Let go the topgallant clews! More sheetmen to windward! Brace that foremast or lose it, you creeping slugs!”

  Pazel looked up at the windsock fluttering on the jiggermast yard: enough of a breeze for headway, but not for speed. Doesn’t matter, he told himself. For how fast could they possibly swim? Three knots, four? Fulbreech was right: it was madness. But the dlomu came on, swift and arrow-straight, and the Chathrand was still turning about.

  “Lapwing!” howled Rose suddenly. “Cut loose those Rinforsaken drogues! Her bow’s fighting the turn, can’t you feel it?”

  He was right, Pazel knew at once: the canvas drogues were pulling against the turn like stubborn mules. Pazel shook his head. “Rose guessed the whole tactical situation from in there,” he said to Ensyl, “and he couldn’t even see what was happening ashore.”

  “He saw us seeing it,” Ensyl replied.

  A decisive chop from the forecastle: Lapwing was taking an axe to the drogue cable. On the third blow the cable parted, and the Chathrand leaned into the turn, gaining speed. Now her bowsprit pointed at the red tower (its lock had been broken, its doors flung apart), now at the empty dunes, now at the corner of the village wall.

  Fiffengurt twisted aft. A glance and a nod, and the teams at the mainmast began hauling with a will. A sudden thought brought his telescope snapping up: yes, the aft drogue was clear as well. Then up went his gaze, and both arms, and, “Topgallants, bow to stern!” he thundered, and one after another the higher sails were loosed. They filled faster than the canvas below: more wind at that height. They were turning with a will, now, the ship canting leeward in her eagerness to come about. Fiffengurt put both hands on the rail and heaved a sigh.

  “Now we’ll be just fine, boys,” he said to no one in particular.

  He slid down the forecastle ladder like a younger man and turned to face the captain. Rose’s bellows had given way to coughs (the smoky forecastle house was affecting all the prisoners) but he gave Fiffengurt a nod of affirmation. Fiffengurt touched his cap, turned smartly about (chest out, chin high) and then the lookout screamed from the fighting top:

  “Sand! Sandbar at half a mile, three points off the starboard bow! No depth! No depth! Sandbar right across our way!”

  They had not started their run, and no speed endangered them. But the ridge of submerged sand was disastrously placed. It began at the eastern edge of the island and meandered shoreward for nearly a mile. Fiffengurt howled a course correction. Hundreds of men at the ropes scurried and s
wore. They could only tack north, right at the village gate, until the sandbar ended.

  No one smiled now. The swimmers had gained a tremendous advantage: indeed the Chathrand’s new course was actually bringing it closer to them. Worse still, they could not attain anything like the speed of a straight downwind run. All at once the race looked very tight.

  Pazel and Thasha climbed the jiggermast shrouds, just high enough to see the sandbar. “But it’s huge,” cried Pazel. “How did we miss it before?” For they had rounded the little island from the east, right through these waters. “It must be a lot deeper than it looks, some trick of the light. We sailed right over it.”

  “Yes,” Thasha agreed. But even as she spoke he saw her reconsider. “Pazel, maybe it wasn’t there.”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “Look where it begins.” Thasha pointed to the island’s eastern tip, a confusion of jagged rocks. “The serpent. That’s where it was smashing about, trying to break free of its bridle. What if it dragged the thing along the seafloor, too?”

  “And plowed up all that?”

  “You think your explanation’s more likely?”

  Pazel shrugged. “No,” he admitted. Then he actually laughed. “Thasha, this mucking world wants us dead.”

  She didn’t laugh, but she smiled at him with black mirth, and that was almost better. It was a look of private understanding. Not one she could share with Greysan Fulbreech.

  Warmed, Pazel turned his gaze on the swimmers again: less than a mile off, and closing. They moved as a single body, like a school of dark fish. He shaded his eyes, and felt his dread surge to life again, redoubled.

  “Rin’s eyes, Thasha-they’re swimming with objects on their backs.”

  “Weapons,” said a voice beneath them. “Light and curious weapons, but weapons nonetheless. And why, pray, are you without your own?”

  It was Hercol, dressed for battle, which in this case meant that he wore little more than breeches, boots and a small steel arm-guard. His longbow was in his hand; his ancient, enchanted sword Ildraquin was strapped sidelong across his back; and on his belt hung the white knife of his old master, Sandor Ott. Pazel had last seen that knife in Thasha’s hands, during the battle with the rats. He wished now that she had thrown the cruel thing away. Wearing it, even Hercol looked sinister.

  “Fetch your swords,” said the Tholjassan.

  Pazel sought his eye. “This is some sort of crazy bluff, isn’t it? They were trying to drive us onto the sandbar, maybe, or-”

  “Fetch them.”

  Thasha swung down to the deck. “Stay with Fiffengurt, Pazel, he needs you. I’ll bring yours from the stateroom.”

  She was gone, and Hercol sped forward, shouting to Haddismal, and Pazel was swept into the martial frenzy of a ship preparing for violence. The cargo hatches were sealed with oilskins, the lower gunports were closed (too near the water, Fiffengurt had decided); the wheels of the deck cannon were greased; damp sawdust was flung down for traction; the firing crews assembled and rehearsed their cues. Arqual! rang a furious cry from the main deck, as ninety Turachs raised a clatter with sword and shield. Corporal Metharon, the Turach sharpshooter, led his archers to the stern.

  The sun began to set. Fiffengurt hobbled for the quarterdeck, bellowing down ladderways, firing orders up the masts. Tarboys streamed up the Holy Stair, lugging cannonballs and buckets of powder; gunners darted about with match-pots like small, fiery lunch pails. Ixchel were everywhere: racing up the shrouds ahead of sailors to warn them of broken ratlines, adjusting the chafing fleece where ropes abraded, diving into guns to scrape the rust out of fuse-holes, retying sailors’ bandannas before they could slip. Humanity was their science: not a task existed on the Great Ship that they had not watched in secret.

  As they ran north the sandbar grew taller, closer to the surface. The waves broke over it, choppy and low. Ship and swimmers were converging on the same point: that deeper blue where the bar finally ended, where the ship could jackknife east and run with the wind at her back, every inch of squaresail thrusting her faster. Lookouts scanned the gulf: no boats, no place to hide them. Whatever the attackers were doing, they were doing alone.

  Off the starboard bow the water grew shallower yet, the waves collapsing into foam. “Ease away windward, helmsmen,” shouted Fiffengurt. “If we shave that bar the game’s up. Steady on.”

  Pazel arrived just as Fiffengurt was starting up the quarterdeck ladder. He could see that the man was in pain-a rat’s jaws had savaged his left foot, and the wound had not yet healed. Pazel tried to steady him from behind, but Fiffengurt shook him off with a twitch.

  “Pathkendle, I want you right there”-he pointed at the tip of the mizzenmast yard, twenty feet higher than the quarterdeck and about as many out over the gulf-“with a great blary Turach shield. We’ll have to judge depth by eyeball, see? Look straight down from out there. When that point clears the sandbar, you shout, ‘Mark!’ Not a second before-and not a second later, lad.”

  “Oppo, sir. But our practice shields would be better up there. Hard to handle all that Turach steel.”

  Fiffengurt waved consent. “Just don’t fall in the blessed sea.”

  Warning cries from the stern: the dlomu force had split in two. One mass of men continued straight at the Chathrand; the other broke east, toward the sandbar. Moments later the shouts were renewed, this time mixed with shock: the splinter group was wading. Thigh-deep, knee-deep, and then they were running in mere inches of foam, sprinting along the sandbar’s crest. The fastest were drawing level with the Chathrand. Pazel stared, transfixed. Their belts jangled with strange hooks and daggers and coiled ropes. Their silver eyes looked the ship up and down.

  Boom.

  The first carronade shook the timbers under Pazel’s feet. Through the smoke Pazel saw the huge ball’s impact, the white spray, and two black figures crushed into the sand as if by a giant stake. The others did not flinch; indeed they put on a burst of speed. Then Pazel heard Metharon’s cry, and the shrill twanging of longbows. Six or eight more dlomu fell.

  “Pathkendle!” raged Fiffengurt.

  Pazel’s trance shattered; he swung out to the mizzenmast shrouds. Even as he climbed he felt tiny hands on his shirt, a tiny foot on his shoulder. “Get down, Ensyl!” he cried. “You won’t be safe out there! I don’t need help, I’m just a spotter!”

  “Two can spot better than one,” she said.

  Pazel argued no further: to judge by that grip, he wouldn’t lose her unless he lost his hair.

  Four more blasts-and hideous carnage among the runners. The ship had opened up with grapeshot guns from the stern windows. The spray of flying metal ripped bodies to pieces. Yet those behind came on undeterred, through the pink foam, leaping the fallen and the maimed. Pazel felt his body clench with nausea. The gunners reloaded, visibly shocked at their handiwork. Ensyl was retching. Pazel forced himself on.

  More arrows now, more death. What are they doing, what do they want? Pazel stepped onto the footropes, eased out along the mizzenmast yard. Beneath him, Hercol and Metharon fired their bows with deadly accuracy, bringing down one soldier after another.

  In the waning light, Pazel could just make out the end of the sandbar, sixty or eighty yards ahead. He caught Fiffengurt’s eye and nodded, laying a finger beside his eye: I’m watching. Then someone among the dlomu gave a short, clipped command, and in perfect synchrony the runners dived back into the waves.

  There were ragged cheers: some of the men thought the attackers were retreating. But who could tell? The dlomu had dived deep; Pazel could see no more than shadows in the depths. The archers hesitated; all their targets were gone. For a moment no one was shouting. They had fifty yards to go.

  It was Uskins who broke the silence. “Oil, pour the oil!” he screamed suddenly. Pazel hadn’t noticed the first mate until now, and neither, it seemed, had Mr. Fiffengurt, who whirled on him in a rage. “Belay that order! Stukey-”

  “Do it! Pour the oil!” shrieked Uskin
s, more desperate than before.

  “Belay!” roared Fiffengurt again. “Stukey, you guano-eating worm! I ordered you to clear off the quarterdeck!”

  For an instant Uskins’ eyes flashed with rebellion. He had been cowed after nearly destroying the ship in the Vortex, but his hatred of the quartermaster was stronger than his shame. Livid, he advanced toward Fiffengurt. “Ordered me? You’re not the Gods-damned-”

  “Captain Fiffengurt!” howled a topman. “They’re boarding! They’re boarding portside aft!”

  All eyes turned to port. At that moment a sailor at the gunwale screamed and twisted. A light, barbed grappling hook had just arced over the rail and snapped back, pinning him by the hand. Other grapples followed.

  “Damn it, we can’t see anything here,” said Pazel.

  “Yes we can,” said Ensyl, pointing down at their wake.

  Pazel gasped. Half a dozen dlomu were clinging to the rudder. No, not just clinging-scaling it. They were swinging those scythe-shaped hooks, embedding them in the wood of the rudder stem, hauling themselves like ice-climbers up toward the deck.

  Pazel howled a warning-and the climbers heard. Silver eyes snapped onto him: the only person on the Chathrand from whom they were not hidden by the ship itself. Two of the dlomu put their hands into small, tight shoulder pouches, tugging something loose. Then the hands flicked violently. Fierce insect whines sounded around Pazel, and near his left hand something struck the yardarm with a tok! It was a star of razor-sharp steel.

  “Oh credek.”

  Pazel yanked in his legs and clung sidelong to the spar, hiding as much of himself as he could. He saw Turachs leaning out from the taffrail. They had seen the dlomu on the rudder at last, but could still not get off a decent shot. The dlomu could certainly take shots at Pazel, however, and did: once again he heard the whines, and the t-t-tok! of steel striking wood.

  “Don’t move!” said Ensyl. “I’ll watch the sandbar, you keep us alive.” She had curled herself into a ball, her feet on his neck, holding tight to his shirt and hair as she leaned out over the gulf, staring straight down. Even in that moment he was stunned by her fearlessness. This is why Dri wanted her for a disciple.