by Martin Dukes
Henry did not flinch, not visibly, although an inconvenient tremor had begun in his left knee and his throat had closed up alarmingly.
“Looks like you got the drop on me,” he managed to say. “I mean, it seems that you have the advantage of me. I daresay you will defeat me matched thus.” He held out his hands. “See, I am unarmed, but perhaps that’s how you prefer to do things.”
“I shall defeat you under any circumstances,” snarled Shazad.
“Friend, the others are escaping,” warned Tariq, one of his confederates.
“Shut up!” snapped Shazad, oblivious to any consideration but the salvation of his honour. “Give him your sword!”
With a shrug, Tariq drew out his own sword and handed it, hilt first to Henry. Henry took the weapon, weighed it in his hand and then made an experimental swish. He nodded, smiled and took guard. The others stepped back to allow the combatants space to manoeuvre.
“Okay, big nose, bring it on,” said Henry, provoking a furious swipe from Shazad that would have cut him in half had it connected. Henry, watchful, balanced, detected the move in its earliest stage and stepped out of reach, making a probing thrust of his own that his opponent easily swept aside.
“You can do better than that,” spat Shazad.
“I intend to,” said Henry, keeping a close eye on his opponent’s front foot – the inevitable precursor of any move. The foot slid suddenly forward, preceding a high backhand cut, a rapid thrust to the throat and a low forehand cut, dodged, parried and riposted respectively. He was quick as a snake, Henry was forced to admit. He licked his lips, moved his weight on to his right foot and stepped towards the cliff face to forestall Shazad’s attempt to outflank him. He tried two darting feints and then a purposeful thrust of his own, turned aside and returned with a vicious flick that came within a millimetre of his nose.
“You’ve done this before,” he said.
“Indeed, and I’ve spilt the guts of bigger men than you,” said his opponent, making a couple of showy swishes for emphasis.
“That’s right,” Henry told himself. “Keep Mr Conky talking.”
“Oh yeah?” he said out loud. “And when would that have been?”
Behind Alex, Amjad was darting anxious glances over his shoulder, watching as the rest of their party made it down to the beach, crunching across the gravel to the launch in the shallows.
“Where’s Henry?” asked Kelly suddenly, having helped Alex over the gunwale and into the boat. Tanya was already in there, soaked to the waist. Will was wading thigh deep to reach the outstretched hand of one of the sailors.
“He’s delaying our pursuers,” said Jemail grimly with a nod back at the path as it skirted the cliff.
“Haroon,” he barked to the steersman. “Can you take us under yonder point?”
“Oh my god!” said Kelly, her eye drawn now to the cluster of dark figures beneath the cliff, the distant clash of steel on steel carried faintly to her ear. “Henry! He’s going to get himself killed.”
“Just get in the boat,” snapped Jemail, grabbing her by the waist and heaving her upwards. The boat swayed crazily, but strong hands pulled her in and in a moment she was sprawled amongst ropes between the rowers’ benches. Time seemed to slow down, chaos prevailed and multiple sensations pressed themselves upon her consciousness: shouting, lurching, curses as men found their places, oars were swung out and the launch slipped shuddering out into deeper water.
“I saw a fish,” said Alex thoughtfully, pushed into a place at the steersman’s feet.
“Bully for you,” said Will, patience momentarily wearing thin as an oarsman’s elbow made sharp contact with the back of his head.
Shazad was better than Henry, better by a fair margin; this much Henry was soon obliged to concede. And the consequences of being less good were terrifying to contemplate. Henry felt a growing tide of panic as he parried and dodged a flurry of blows. With each desperate parry it seemed his margin for error ebbed away until, at last, the inevitable happened, a darting lunge from Shazad, which Henry was an instant late in defending. His guard was breeched. A searing pain transfixed him. His mind reeled in sudden horror, as, glancing down, he saw blood welling from his side, just above his left hip.
“Hah!” said Shazad, triumphantly. “First blood, but not the last, I think.”
Henry grimaced, faced the grinning Shazad and raised his guard once more, the end of his sword trembling despite his best efforts to keep it steady.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he heard himself ask with apparent nonchalance.
“Oh, I think I have more than you can take,” said the grinning Shazad, coming at him again.
“Go, Henry!” shouted Amjad from behind, their pre-arranged signal.
“Yes,” grunted Henry, parrying a vicious thrust to the throat. “But you aren’t takin’ it anywhere!”
So saying, he hurled his sword at Shazad’s face, stepped back, twisted and threw himself off the ledge. Under normal circumstances the thought of plunging thirty feet into water of uncertain depth might have caused him some trepidation, but these were not normal circumstances. A wild exultation surged in his breast even as his stomach came lurching up into his throat. The chill impact of the sea and the shocked, open mouths of Shazad and his retinue blazed across his mental synapses as he plunged down, down and then reached, lungs aching, kicking, clawing for the light rippled surface above. Gasping, blinking, his head broke that surface. He laughed, swallowed salt water, choked, laughed some more and turned to look up at his frustrated pursuers. Amjad was treading water beside him, laughing too. The launch was approaching through a choppy sea, oars rising and falling rhythmically.
“Damn you, white worm!” he heard Shazad shout furiously. “My blade will open your throat yet, I swear it!”
Henry strove to think of some witty riposte to this, but stones began to splash into the water around him as some of Shazad’s followers overcame their initial shock. There were two pistol shots too, but the bullets went astray and it would be several minutes before the weapons could be reloaded. Henry contented himself with a cheery wave and struck out for the launch, swimming strongly despite the dull ache in his side.
Chapter Sixteen
“He’s back,” said Kelly, looking back over her shoulder to where Will and Tanya were sitting.
“What do you mean, ‘he’s back’?” asked Alex, scratching his head and glancing around him. “What’s going on?” He was on board a ship– that much was clear–and his friends clustered close by, hair blown around faces by a brisk sea breeze.
“You really haven’t got a clue, have you?” asked Henry, balancing himself carefully on the lurching deck and coming over to where Alex was propped up against a pile of sacks.
“What’s the last thing you can remember?”
Alex looked up to see taut white sails against a leaden grey sky. A nut-brown sailor dressed only in a pair of ragged breeches stepped over his outstretched legs, calling out to a man perched high up in what he supposed might be termed a ‘crow’s nest’.
“We were in the Sultan’s jail!” he said, memories leaching back into his brain. “Oh my God! How did we get here?”
Kelly gave Alex a very brief account of the last few hours, with various interjections from Will, Henry and Tanya. Jemail and Amjad came across to make their own contributions. Alex carefully explored his brow with his fingertips as Kelly described the mysterious headband that had apparently been the cause of his malaise.
“We thought you’d had it, mate,” said Henry with a grin. “You were like a deadweight, getting you down that wall. It’s a wonder you didn’t get your brains dashed out.”
“What was going on there, anyway?” asked Kelly, brow furrowed. “Did it, like, do something to you inside your head?”
Alex did a little self-assessment, casting a mental eye over himself. His eyes widened.
“What?” asked Kelly.
“I don’t know. I can’t explain. It’s like... bigger.”
“What d’you mean, ‘bigger’?” asked Henry, holding onto a shroud as the ship pitched on a choppy sea.
“Well,” began Alex cautiously. “You know you’ve got your mental space, where you kind of live in and have all your thoughts and stuff, yeah? Well, it got bigger. That’s how it feels. I mean there’re whole areas I can...” He placed his head in his hands. “Yeughhh! I can’t explain it.”
“But you feel okay?” asked Will as a dense spray of seawater came in over the bow.
“Yeah, I feel fine up here,” said Alex tapping his forehead. “It’s the rest of me I’m worried about. There’s hardly a part of me that doesn’t ache.”
This brought on an episode in which each of them rolled up sleeves or trouser legs to reveal a variety of impressive cuts, abrasions and contusions.
“Henry’s got the best,” said Tanya. “Show him, Henry.”
Henry lifted his shirt to show Alex a large dressing, held in place with a bandage that passed all the way around his middle.
“Zoroaster bandaged it,” he said. “Hurts like hell.”
“Zoroaster?” asked Alex.
“He’s up there with Rakesh and the skipper,” said Will with a nod to the raised stern of the ship. “He’s coming with us to Zanjd.”
“Henry fought a duel with Shazad,” said Tanya as Alex continued to stare at Henry’s midriff.
“I take it you won,” he said, looking up to meet Henry’s eye.
“I wouldn’t be here if I...”
“He lost,” interrupted Amjad. “But he jumped into the sea before Shazad could kill him.”
“We’re calling it a draw,” said Henry stubbornly.
“He was very brave,” said Tanya admiringly. “He held them all off whilst we got into this ship.”
“Yeah, well,” said Henry, blushing modestly. “I think it’s been a good effort all round.”
“Wow!” said Alex, continuing to rub various bruised parts of his limbs. “And where are we now? I mean, are we far from Zanjd?”
“We’ve been at sea all night,” said Will. “We’re heading somewhere up north of Canopus, where Rakesh has got a bigger ship waiting to take us up to Punt. We should be safe there.”
“We should be there soon,” said Tanya. “I heard the captain telling Zoroaster. The captain doesn’t like the sea, though. He thinks there’s something funny with it.”
Will explained about the coming eclipse, the disturbances to the wind and the weather that had already begun to occur. One of the sailors brought them hard bread and a little cheese, which they gnawed at hungrily whilst Will told his tale of doom.
“You see, he’s quite convinced of it,” said Henry, tapping his forehead when Will had finished.
“You should all be convinced of it,” said Zoroaster grimly, appearing suddenly at their side. “Because it is actually going to occur.”
There was a thoughtful silence, broken only by the creak of cordage and the occasional taught snap of canvas as each of them digested this proclamation.
“See!” said Will triumphantly. “They wouldn’t believe me. Ha!”
“Then they are fools,” scoffed Zoroaster, his beard and hair streaming out in the wind as the deck pitched alarmingly beneath them. “The worm wind is coming and it is coming soon. Everything in its path will be destroyed.”
As Will had predicted, Zoroaster’s opinion carried greater weight than his own. Even the sailors had stopped to listen, until a stream of curses from their skipper set them in motion once more. It was hard to feel cheerful or optimistic after this news. Henry sat gloomily on an upturned barrel and gently explored with fingertips the aching area around his wound. Alex was lost in his own thoughts, continuing to probe the strange additional space that had opened up within his mind. It was like walking into a darkened building. What did it mean? He was cautious. Once, when he took a step too far, a curious rushing sensation came close to overwhelming him and he stepped back quickly, teetering on some unseen brink. It was not that the sensation was unpleasant, or indeed pleasant; it was simply that it was entirely unexpected, entirely alien to his experience.
Will talked softly to Zoroaster about the form the coming catastrophe might take, which towns or villages might stand in the path of the storm and whether Pemba or even Zanzibar might be spared. Tanya tried to make friends with the ship’s cat, pursuing it from one end of the vessel to the other, but without success. The cat was a disdainful creature with a crooked tail. It took refuge behind a barrel and a pile of rope.
Kelly crossed to the other side of the ship, where Jemail was leaning over the rail, apparently watching the foam on the great green and glassy flanks of the waves as they hurried past. She placed her hand on his elbow and he turned to her, brown eyes glinting with an emotion she could not at once recognise. He smiled and then this gradually faded to a frown. He put a finger on her swollen lip.
“Such cruel indignities you have suffered,” he said.
“Not as cruel as the ones that might have been coming our way if you hadn’t shown up when you did,” she said, squeezing his arm. “It could have been a lot worse. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I think you exaggerate my contribution,” he said. “We all of us played a part.”
He nodded at Tanya, who was trying to entice the cat with a frayed piece of twine.
“She has the heart of a lion, that one.”
Kelly grinned. “She’s a good ‘un. But anyway, you could have got yourselves killed; you, Rakesh, Amjad and the others. We’re all in this together, us Outlanders, but you guys are part of Zanzibar. You didn’t need to stick your necks out for us.”
“I think you know my motivation,” said Jemail, swallowing hard and turning back to his contemplation of the sea.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” said Kelly, standing beside him and regarding his smooth, handsome face in profile.
“It changed nothing, that which you said to me,” he sighed, biting his lip. “You know… about us. Not for me. I may not resist the direction of my heart, whatever my head may say.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said with an affectation of cheerfulness, giving him a playful nudge.
He turned his face to her, forced a wan smile and she kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Thanks,” she said. “I mean that.”
He had lightly brushed his fingertips against the place where she had kissed him and opened his mouth to speak, when there was a sudden shout from the mast top and commotion on deck.
“There’s a ship,” said Jemail, his eyes suddenly wide.
“Where away?” demanded the skipper.
“Sou’, sou’ east,” came the bawled reply from the mast top. “Three miles and closing. A foreign rig, square sails.”
“Is that the Sultan after us?” asked Tanya, hurrying to Kelly’s side.
“Not the Sultan,” said Alex, jolted from his reverie and climbing stiffly to his feet. “There’s only one square rigged ship in these waters…”
“And that belongs to Garek,” supplied Henry.
“Damn him,” said Alex with feeling. “Why can’t he just leave me alone?”
He had given a great deal of thought to Garek in the last hour or so. Garek had risked much to save Alex from summary execution at the hands of the Sultan only a few hours previously. How desperate he must be to get his hands on Alex. And how anxious should Alex be at that prospect? It was a prospect that now seemed all too likely to come to pass.
“She’s closing on us,” said the skipper while spitting gloomily over the side. “She carries more sail than us and she’s more weatherly.”
“She’s a barque,” said one of the sailors who had travelled in northern waters. “I seen bigger but she’s a barque alright. Been in the harbour these last few weeks. Mizzen mast carries fore and aft rig, see. Sails damn close to the wind for a northerner. Running afore the wind, we have no chance.”
“Got ya,” said Henry nodding sa
gely, as though he had any idea of what the man was talking about.
“How far are we from landfall now?” asked Zoroaster, coming up at the skipper’s side.
“Too far,” said the skipper grimly. He was a small, wizened man, brown as a nut and with a face well suited to expressing disgust. It did this now. “She’ll be onto us within the hour.”
Rakesh peered south-eastwards towards where the topmost sails of their pursuer were occasionally to be seen across the peaks and troughs of the waves. It began to rain, a light drizzle flung into the faces of the crew as they looked to their master for direction. Rakesh, standing by the helmsman at the stern, turned to Jemail.
“It’s not the Sultan’s,” he said. “Should we be concerned?”
“Alex should,” Henry shouted up to him. “They’re after his head.”
“Really? Is this so? You seem to have a talent for making enemies,” called Rakesh, stroking his chin. He turned to the skipper. “Empty the hold. I want everything over the side that isn’t essential for keeping this tub afloat.”
“’Your funeral, boss,” muttered the skipper, but he barked the necessary commands and soon the crew were scurrying up and down the ladder to the hold, bringing up sacks and casks, heaving them over the side. There was a perceptible increase in their speed through the water as the ship, thus lightened, responded like a living thing, heeling alarmingly to port.
“I must ask you to stand to starboard,” said the skipper to his passengers, watching the set of the sails with grim satisfaction. “If the ballast shifts beneath deck we shall certainly be scuppered.”
“She’s still gaining on us,” said Jemail shading his eyes.
It was true. Now the glimpses of distant white had become a towering mass of glinting sail, the dark hull of the vessel intermittently visible beneath.
“She’ll be trying a ranging shot before long,” said the skipper, glancing sidelong at Rakesh. “What do you want to do?”
It was abundantly clear that the skipper favoured an early surrender.
