Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  “Put them under hatches and sail on,” she said darkly, “if it comes to that, Lethgro. But it won't come to that. We've sailed too far already to turn back.”

  The Warden clamped his mouth shut, so as to say nothing. This was what he had most feared to hear her admit; but, supposing it to be true (and he believed it very surely), he saw no good to any of them in quarreling over what was too late to change. He moved a heap of charts to make room for himself (for the Captain's bunk was the only seat in the cabin, and served sometimes to eke out her chart table as well) and sat down heavily, and Broz laid his gray muzzle on his knee. “Well,” the Warden said.

  And she answered, “I've never seen this kind of weather at this time of year any more than you have—but I didn't expect the middle of the Soll to be the same as the Coast. And if Windfall comes before the Rains out here—well, we have the Current.” She saw the look in the Warden's eyes, and laughed. “I'm not a fool, Lethgro, though you may think otherwise. If the Current had ever slacked, I would have turned back then and there, and struck land somewhere far upcoast from the Sollet, where we might have a chance of landing unseen. But it hasn't slacked. It's stronger watch by watch and hour by hour; and that means we're coming to the Outlet.”

  “Where?” the Warden asked skeptically, and gestured toward the cabin window, where the Soll showed unbroken as the sky, without change or end.

  “We're not there yet,” the Captain said testily; “I grant that.”

  “And what good will it be to come there,” added Lethgro, “if it's as starved skeletons we come?”

  “We won't starve—not with the fish we've been catching,” Repnomar began. But just here a shout was raised on deck, and she leaped up, with her face flushing, and cried out, “You hear that, Lethgro? A sail to leeward! It can't be from the Coast—good or bad, it's from the far side of the Soll!”

  4

  Meeting

  Downwind of them it was, but running into the wind, slantwise across their course. “See that,” said the Captain to the Warden, where they stood watching in the Mouse's bow. “The Current must veer to starboard here, for if it ran straight they'd be cutting across it now, and it would be setting them back; but see how they come on.”

  “I see,” answered the Warden, “all too well. I hope you've weapons on board.”

  “We've no cause to think—” began the Captain, and broke off, for the lookout cried out then for another sail, to starboard. “Held back for a little by the Current,” said the Captain, nodding calmly; but she gave orders to run up the red flag, which all along the Coast was the signal of distress, and in the meantime to break out pikes and swords and what bows and arrows they had.

  “I suppose,” said the Warden, “you have your reasons for not turning out of harm's way.”

  “Sooner or later we have to meet the people of these waters,” Repnomar said reasonably. “We've still no cause to think it's anything worse than curiosity that drives them on so fast—it can't be every day they see a sail coming over the Soll from this direction—but if we run from them at the first sight, what can they think but that we're an enemy? Besides, they know these winds and waters, Lethgro, and I don't.”

  “Well, give me a bow, then,” said the Warden with a sigh. “For I don't suppose you've many expert archers in your crew.”

  “Young Flitten is good enough,” said Repnomar, but she looked somewhat grim, and had the best bow brought quickly to the Warden, to try the feel of.

  Now the Mouse ran straight on—as if, the Warden thought, into a pair of open jaws; for the first sail was tacking back toward their port side, and presently, as Repnomar had predicted, the Current bore to the right, carrying them toward the second sail, that turned to meet them. The wind, at that critical time, had lapsed into a veering and gusty breeze, and the Captain gave order to shorten sail, letting the Current carry them. Lethgro said nothing, but he finished bending his bow and began studying his arrows, sorting them by the straightness of their shafts and the evenness of their feathering.

  “There!” Repnomar cried out suddenly. “There's the land!” Lethgro peered, and the Exile beside him, and all the crew took their eyes off the sails closing in on them to follow the Captain's pointing arm. Just when the Warden was ready to confess he saw nothing, it came to him that he had been seeing it for some time past—a line of heavier color where the pale clouds ahead met the glistening Soll. “Low. Very low,” the Captain said, almost in awe; for the Coast she had sailed up and down all these years past was high and rocky, with dark pinnacles and bright cliffs that stood out clear to ships far offshore. “If it comes to that,” she said presently, “we'll run straight to land there, where there's a kind of point. But I want to stick with the Current as long as we can.” And she gave command for the oars to be got ready, since the wind was no longer to be relied on.

  All this time the Exile had stood silent, except for the rasp of his breath, his quick eyes going from Lethgro to Repnomar, from sail to sail, and from the dim land to the red flag at the masthead. Now he plucked the Warden's sleeve and began to ask the meaning of these things, and the Warden explained as best he could.

  “And the red flag,” put in the Captain impatiently, to finish the story, “is to tell them we mean them no harm, and need their help.” And the sail to starboard being almost within bowshot, she set one foot on the rail and sprang up, holding by a rope that throbbed at that moment in a gust of wind. She waved her right arm and hailed them loudly, hallooing in every language she knew a word of, for who could say what outlandish tongue might be spoken on the far side of the Soll? Then she jumped down, saying to the Warden, “Do you see that? See how their sail slacked? That was no trick of the wind, though it's tricky enough here. They've cut into the Current, trusting to have enough way on them to hold against it till we come up with them. Look! Look at that sail!” And for all the hazard they stood in, she laughed with pure delight, for these alien ships were rigged in a way she had never seen or heard of, and schooned against the gusts like gulls.

  Here the Exile asked leave to carry a pike; and the Captain and the Warden, after one glance exchanged, both nodded, and the pike was brought to him, though indeed it was hard to see how he would manage it, the weapon being twice as long as he was tall.

  Now the Captain gave order to slack the ropes so that the Mouse's sail no longer caught the wind, but fluttered uselessly, swinging one way or another with every gust; and the Current bore them steadily down on the near ship, that stood almost motionless on the water. Gaudy scraps of color napped on a pole or mast in the bow, and beside it on a raised perch a figure waved other banners, green and orange, with both hands—signals, plainly, but what they signified none knew on board the Mouse. All stood tense and waiting now, for they were well within bowshot, and drawing nearer and nearer they gazed steadily into dark faces that gazed steadily back, and tried to make out there some trace of promise or threat. The Warden held an arrow nocked to the bowstring, but with the bow lowered at his side, and the archers of the crew did likewise. No weapons showed on board the strange ship, but there were many people on deck, all watching and waiting—many more, Lethgro thought grimly, than would be needed to sail such a vessel. For though this ship was longer than the Mouse, it was narrower and lower, and so in all perhaps not quite as large. No one moved on either ship, except one sailor twitching a paddle on the far side of the stranger vessel. They were so close now that the two crews might have reached across the gap and touched each other's hands, if this had been the time for handclasps. The Exile gripped his pike stoutly with both hands, and stood back from the side to give himself room. Repnomar had taken up a short sword, and Broz beside her growled low in his throat, as one well acquainted with the ways of pirates. Now all the Mouse's crew commended themselves to one god or another, and reflected briefly on the unwisdom of shipping with a godless captain, though in most times Repnomar's luck was good. There was a light jolt and a long scrape, and the two ships were floating side to side.
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  At the first touch, all had come alive on both decks. Like a breaking wave, the strangers flung themselves at the Mouse's side. Lethgro jerked up his bow and let fly his arrow point-blank, but there was no room for archery here, and though some of the crew had a little more time, being farther from the onslaught, none had leisure for a second arrow. Those who were able dropped their bows and snatched up swords or pikes; the rest fought with their knives and their hands. Broz leaped to it like a devil, and the first cry was a scream from the man he struck. Repnomar's face was like iron, and she swung her short sword with a long arm. But the Exile, rushing forward, had planted his pike point in the Mouse's deck and vaulted over the side into the stranger ship.

  Lethgro, much occupied with three men who were trying to bear him down, nevertheless heard Repnomar shouting something about the sail; and managing a glance in that direction, he saw one of the crew laboring to haul it round into the wind, that for the moment held strong toward shore. This seemed to him something more pleasant in itself than fighting hand to hand, and perhaps more profitable. With a giant effort he got free, heaving one stranger bodily overboard and disposing of the others he did not well know how, and strode across the deck through the hubbub to join the sailor on the rope. Another, with a two-handed sword, was holding back the strangers who might have put a stop to the business. So they got the sail well into the wind and made fast there, and the Mouse began to swing away from the other ship and shudder along its side.

  Now was a strange time on board the Mouse. Three of her crew lay helpless (whether dead or wounded none had time to inquire); with the Captain and the Warden, and without the Exile, that left six able to work or fight, and there were more than twice that many strangers already on board, and more climbing the gunwales, and the second ship bearing down on them fast from the other side. Nevertheless these six felt their hearts leap when the sail caught the wind, as if all were well now. Repnomar with a pike reversed was shoving the Mouse away from the stranger ship, and between shoves beating at various hands that clung to the gunwales; and as the Mouse floated clear she gave a whoop of joy, and two or three of the crew picked up the cry and redoubled it. Lethgro, who was not quite in a mood for whooping, yet smiled as he made havoc behind the mast with a swung pike, tumbling down with the same stroke pirates and empty kegs that had not yet received their cargo when the Mouse left Beng so hastily.

  But Broz should be counted the seventh of the Mouse's fighters, for he alone had cornered four pirates against the taffrail, and held them there with a great racket of barking. Repnomar, her face shining now with triumph, sprang onto a crate behind her dog and shouted to them to jump into the Soll and leave her ship, pointing to the water and making jabbing motions with the pike to help them understand. Indeed they understood so well that first one and then all four crawled or vaulted or dived over the rail and struck out for their own ship. And as Broz turned in a fury of snarls to look for others, they began to drop off from the Mouse like ripe fruit from a wind-tossed tree, the crew and Lethgro helping them with a good will.

  Now they ran out the oars, two on each side, and the Captain herself let out more sail, and the Mouse began to pick up headway fast. The stranger ship would be forced to trim sail and veer a full half-circle before it could follow, aside from the matter of picking up its people from the water. But it was still close enough for shooting, and now a hail of arrows struck the Mouse. The second ship, too, had closed the gap so well that a few arrows came from that direction, but still fell short. The Captain hurried to her tiller, crying out to the crew not to shoot back but to look to their work and their wounds. Indeed, they and their arrows were too few to do more than exasperate the pirates—"If,” as Repnomar put it to herself, “pirates is the right word for them.” She steered with the wind across the Current, heading for that point of flat gray land; not that she had much hope of safety there, but that she had no hope at all of outsailing these strange ships on the long haul. And in spite of their momentary triumph, it was clear that they would have no chance in a pitched battle.

  Now, however, peering through the screen of matting that a sailor had set up to shield her from arrows, the Captain caught her breath and swore in wonderment. The ship that had grappled them, barely underway in pursuit, had luffed its sail and turned away from them again. She could see the signaler furiously waving multicolored banners. And the other ship, that had been not quite within bowshot, answered with flags of green and dropped farther behind.

  So it was observed but unpursued that they came to land. Captain Repnomar's luck held good, for the wind did not die till they were almost out of the Current, and after that the rowing was easy. One of the stranger ships hung steadily offshore—following a little, as wanting to keep them well in sight but stay otherwise as far off as possible—while the other flitted away up the low coast, contrary to the direction the Current had taken. This last pleased the Captain. “For,” she said, “we'll move down the coast till we find the Outlet. But first we'll land and let them think we're going ashore.”

  The Warden, who had been lending a hand at one of the oars, wiped his face and squinted in the blazing light, trying to make out features on that low smudge of land. “And wait till the other ship's brought more pirates to take us?” he said.

  “Wait till this one has left us too, I hope,” said Repnomar. “They could have taken us already, Lethgro, if they had their hearts in it—you know that. Why they didn't, it may be we can find out from these passengers.” For they had three wounded pirates still on board, the Warden having said that they were too much hurt to throw overboard, and the Captain that they could be useful. Two of the Mouse's crew were badly lamed with wounds, and one (it was that young Flitten the Captain had praised as an archer) dying of a knife thrust, though for the most part the pirates had fought bare-handed, a curious thing enough, so that between tending the wounded and handling the ship there was work for all hands able to do it.

  When they had rowed close inshore the Captain loosed her crows, for the place was not welcoming to look at. The point of land they had aimed for was not a ridge of solid rock, as such points were likely to be on the Coast they had come from, with shelter on one side or both and grassy uplands at its back; it was no more than a jutting sandbar, puddled with slimy pools, and all the coast to left and right of it dunes and pools, all blurred and humming with swarms of gnats or midges. So they moved slowly downcoast, rowing and making what use they could of the light and shifting breezes, in the direction that the Captain said would lead them to the Soll's outlet (which the Warden was now more inclined to believe in, having seen that the Soll had at least another side). And the pirate ship, hanging farther offshore, seemed to follow.

  “It has a bad look to it,” the Captain said soberly, studying the shore. “There are no birds.”

  The crows seemed to be of her opinion, for they flew left and right, inland and back, and one by one returned to the Mouse's rigging and sat sullen there, having seen nothing to their liking. Only one circled and circled, and then came cawing over the Mouse's bow and circled back again; and the Captain, with her eyes squeezed almost shut against the glare of light on sand and water, had the last scrap of sail taken in and followed her crow gingerly through a maze of sandbars into the mouth of a creek where they could anchor conveniently and the midges were fewer. “And we'll have a clear way out,” the Captain said a little later, “behind that long bar with the bit of scrub on it. So we could be in a worse fix, Lethgro.”

  They had paced the dunes in a sad drizzle of rain, seeing little but sand and water. They had rigged a lean-to of matting and built a fire to keep away the midges, considering that they were already watched and had no need to hide themselves. They had stowed Flitten's body under a thick layer of sand, to keep the midges off it, and shared out his belongings among the crew. The wounded were sleeping under mats on the Mouse's deck, for below-hatches the heat was too great for sleeping. They had posted lookouts, and they waited, gazing at each other ruef
ully across the embers; and at last the Warden shook his head and laughed and said, “Well, Rep,” and the Captain shook her head and laughed (though grimly, for her mind was on Flitten in the sand) and said nothing. “We might have done better,” Lethgro added, “if we'd set the Exile on a plank, with a bag of nuts for provision, and pushed him out of Beng harbor into the Current.” But Repnomar would not allow this, and said they had done well because they had crossed the Soll. “And much glory it will get us,” said Lethgro. And so in time they slept, not yet understanding why the people who knew this coast saw fit to shun it.

  5

  Curiosities of the Low Coast

  There were no birds, except the Mouse's crows; and these, in the way of shipcrows, preferred their boxes against the cabin side and their perches in the rigging to anything the land could offer. There were no birds, and in the creek where they were anchored few fish or other water creatures, and the land itself so bare that they must bring fuel from the ship to build their fire. Left and right, and as far inland as they could see, there was only the barren sand and the scummy pools and the swarms of midges, little soft flying things like the fluff of blooming trees, that seemed never to bite or sting but got into the nostrils and the eyes and the mouth. “I think,” said the Warden, stirring up the embers to make them smoke, “they've smelled us out.”