The Starfollowers of Coramonde (24 page)

The boarder
abruptly began to edge sideways, catching Gil by surprise, to move away from
him before trying the rail. The American followed, listening to the grunted,
labored breathing, unsure what he’d do when he faced the man.

The boarder
sprang the last few feet, screaming Yardiff Bey’s name. He had an arm and a leg
over the rail when the other, galvanized by the hated name, got to him. Gil
brought his heavy bastard blade around in a flat arc. The boarder could only
spare one hand to raise his scimitar; the broadsword carried it backward and
knocked the boarder off balance. Gil took a more resolute swing. The blade bit
through the woven gorget and into the neck. Dropping away, the desert man’s
face was awful in its disregard of his own death.

A shouted
warning from Skewerskean made him spin. Another boarder, a shorter man, had
dropped to the deck, ready to fight. Mariners and their foes staggered across
the deck, locked in death duels. Wavewatcher had a cutlass in either hand now,
the ringlets on his chest holding drops of enemy blood suspended among them.

Gil crossed
swords with his new opponent, whose style relied on his edge. Yells from the
Mariners told of more of the assault party making it to the deck. Seafarers
raced to meet them, their bare feet slapping alarm on the planks.

Gil engaged
the second man in a high line, putting down his own panic. They exchanged
hair-raising strokes, edges laying back and forth. The man had a long, strong
arm, but his footwork was conservative. The American pressed against that
possibility as blood pounded at his temples. All sounds faded but the swords’
clanging and his own heartbeat. He kept control of their fencing distance,
coming into range and getting out again to his own advantage. A shout
penetrated his concentration; the tinkling of bells proclaimed Skewerskean in
combat.

Gil’s
opponent was slow responding to a croise, backing up against the head ledge of
a hatch, and swaying. For a moment his defense was open, though the American
could not ordinarily have exploited it. But something in him drove his point in
under the vulnerable throat. The boarder fell back with a flopping of limbs and
that same expression of loathing. Gil paused to catch his breath, hearing
Wavewatcher call, “Ho, aloft! Prepare to fill-all on my—dammit!—on my order.”

The
interruption had been another antagonist. The harpooner was busy both with the
battle and monitoring the
Gal’s
progress downriver. With both topsails
filled, the ship began to draw ahead at the wider mouth of the Wheywater. The
harpooner called on the embattled men at the tiller to keep her off a little,
to increase headway through the water.

There was a
scraping at the ship’s side. The dory had come with a second wave of attackers.
Snatching up a carpenter’s hatchet from a weapons rack, Gil ran farther toward
the bow, to keep them from getting a line onto the
Gal.

He was too
late. Two boarders swarmed onto the deck together. With hatchet and sword he
launched himself at them, swinging wildly. The world swam at him, begging
combat through a red mist.

Berserkergang
filled him; he coursed with a killing joy. His attack left one dead, the hatchet
buried in his chest, the deck-roll playing with pooling blood. The second
boarder joined Gil at the death-duel. The American felt exultation in the Rage.
Dunstan’s sword seemed familiar now, sending strength and cunning up his arm.
Always heavy before, the weapon hefted light as a fishing rod.

Berserker
blade screamed against desert scimitar. Gil’s lips were drawn back, teeth
locked, ears flattened to his skull in animal fury. He was hyperaware of time,
distance and possibilities of slaughter. He disowned fencing to hack and hew
without letup. The Occhlon was the bigger man, with a thick black mustache and
angry brows. His attack was powerful and confident. But Gil, enfolded by savage
depersonalization, met it, swinging Dunstan’s sword with a terrible vitality.

The
Southwastelander gave ground to a flurry of wild slashes, then reversed field
and came on again. Both hammered with swords held two-handed, notching and
blunting them. Wavewatcher’s voice, bull-horning for the hoisting of jib and
flying jib, trimming them by the wind, went unnoticed.

The
Southwastelander’s exertions left him off balance. Gil pounced on the moment’s
invitation, bashing the other’s guard aside, thrusting with Dunstan’s sword.
Standing over the dying Occhlon, he knew a split second’s contentment, then
whirled to find more slaughter.

Battle had
passed; Mariners were clearing the deck of their enemies’ bodies and seeing to
their wounded, but the Berserkergang didn’t recognize that. Gil moved
suspiciously down the deck as seafarers drew back, watching him uneasily,
seeing that something wasn’t right with him. Blood that had run down the
fullers of his uplifted sword dribbled off his knuckles. He approached a pair
of Mariners, seeing no reason why he shouldn’t attack them too.

His ankles
were seized from behind with a tinkling of bells, his feet yanked from under
him. He sprawled flat on the deck, cracking his chin, dashing breath from his
lungs. A weight like all the Dark Rampart landed on him. In a moment the
Mariners had wrested his sword from him, and pinned his arms. He fought and
writhed like a salmon, but this was only the second time the Rage had come to
him; it couldn’t vet drive him to the superhuman extremes that it had Dunstan.
Eventually, the murderous fit dispersed, to be replaced, curiously, by nothing
more than fatigue and calm.

“Better now?”
piped Skewerskean, from where the little man held one of Gil’s legs. Gil,
gasping, said he was.

Wavewatcher,
sitting patiently on the American’s back, warned, “Whatever baresark malice you
called upon, save it for the enemy. Enough is enough, agreed? Let him up,
lads.” Gil felt as if he’d been through a wringer.

One of the
men aloft yelled, sighting a sail. The big-bellied harpooner hauled Gil to his
feet effortlessly, setting him against the rail among Mariners straining for a
view. The
Gal
was standing clear of the Wheywater and out to sea.
Another ship had rounded the point, appearing from behind Death’s Hold. A big
sailing barque, she had on her foresail and mainsail the device of a golden sea
horse on a red field. Spying the
Gal,
the barque had come about, wearing
ship briskly. She had a brown-and-white bird painted on her bows.

Gil
speculated dizzily whether he was up to an escape in one of the
Gal’s
boats, or swimming if he must. Then a triumphant cheer went up from the brig’s
crew. When Wavewatcher called for sail on the starboard tack, men jumped
readily for the ratlines. Some broke out flags, to hoist the signal that there
were wounded aboard. More vessels were appearing from behind the stronghold. A
smile had parted the harpooner’s dense beard. He thumped the American on the
back; Gil almost lost his hold on the rail. Wavewatcher laughed. “When you tell
this tale, say you no sooner came to the sea than you encountered its very overlord.”
He saw no understanding on the other’s face. “That four-master is his flagship;
no less than our monarch, the Prince Who Sails Forever.”

Many waves cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it.

The Song of Songs, which is
Solomon’s

THERE’D been no disabling wounds
among the
Gal’s
crew, nor anyone slain except Gale-Baiter. Replacements
were put aboard the brig and her own personnel, Gil included, transferred to
the four-masted barque, the
Osprey.
The Prince Who Sails Forever had
questions for all of them.

Wavewatcher
and Skewerskean appointed themselves the American’s unofficial custodians. They
helped him up the boarding ladder and hustled him below decks, out of the way
of busy crewmen. The forecastle was crowded, the ship having manned for war,
but the two partners found Gil room to stow his gear and rig a hammock
alongside theirs in a converted storeroom.

Osprey
and her half-score escorts, smaller two- and three-masted vessels, were working
toward the Outer Hub, scouring the coast, insuring that no enemy had eluded
them. The fleet had been late for its rendezvous with the
Long-Dock Gal,
apparently arriving shortly after the Hand of Salamá had fled south. The Prince
had sent a party ashore at the opposite side of the delta, to assure that
Death’s Hold had been completely gutted. The party, spying the
Gal’s
predicament as she neared the Wheywater’s mouth, had rushed to tell their
Liege. Swift ships were being sent after Yardiff Bey’s even as Gil boarded
Osprey.

Wavewatcher
and Skewerskean had to make their full report to the Prince, explaining that
the Lord of Sailors was eager for any news off the wind-roads.

“What are
wind-roads?” Gil wanted to know.

The harpooner
was shocked by his ignorance. “Why, the breezes of the air, which are
thoroughfares of the oceans. In that wise, we Mariners call ourselves Children
of the Wind-Roads.”

“Never heard
it before. How long till we get to this Isle of Keys?”

“Scuttlebutt
aboard of here says this flagship will soon join the rest of the fleet at the
Outer Hub. But the seas are ours once more, and many Mariners would rather put
aside further enmities with landlubbers. Um, nothing personal.”

“No offense.”

“Most feel,
though, as does the Prince, that no trace of Salamá should be tolerated,
especially on the strategic Isle of Keys.”

“What will
the Prince do?”

“Put his
recommendation before a gathering of masts, as when we voted for war after the
Inner Hub was razed.”

Gil made a
sour face.

“Bey got what
he wanted in Glyffa. Salamá is ahead of the game.”

The partners
frowned at one another. “The Prince will want to hear this,” Wavewatcher
concluded. Both got up to go. Gil stripped off his blood-spattered byrnie and
reclined in his hammock.

The storeroom
was dim, filled with the smell of
Osprey’s
wood and odors of a thousand
cargoes and sailors, smoke of lamps, and the bite of incense. Two Mariners, off
watch, were throwing dice for lOUs. They noted the stained byrnie, nodded to
the American’s casual greeting, and left it at that.

Osprey
was making way now, her bow rising and falling on the open sea. Gil thought for
awhile that he might grow seasick from the hammock’s sway, but depleted by the
Rage, he fell asleep instead. Skewerskean shook him awake, saying the Prince
wanted to speak with him. The American rose unsteadily, having no sea legs, and
followed the two through narrow passageways and ladderwells.

He emerged at
last, to take his first good look around the barque. High overhead, cirrus
clouds were torn and shredded by the winds, in shapes of stress and speed. Down
at sea level though, there was only a light breeze to carry the sails. Low
swells rolled, the color of blue ink, and
Osprey’s
bow sliced the water
at a leisurely five knots.

By Crescent
Lands standards, the barque was a giant, a quantum leap in marine design. She
had four tall masts, rigged with what looked to Gil like ten square miles of
canvas and duck. It risked vertigo for him to peer up the six courses of sail
on the mainmast, to the ship’s summit. The mazework of creaking rigging held
the eye, bewildering it, as wheeling seabirds called out over the sheering of
the barque’s bow wave.

Men were
scrubbing down the deck, coiling line and doing other work, but there were racks
of javelins, cutlasses, pikes and shields close to hand. He made his way aft
and stopped when Wavewatcher did, the harpooner calling for permission to mount
the quarterdeck. An officer in trim blue silk granted it. The two partners
waited behind, as Gil clambered up the ladder.

Under the
curved spanker sail an awning had been set, shading cushions and a
sturdy-legged table burdened with food. A man waited there, a short, erect
figure with a crisp white goatee and the bluest eyes Gil had ever seen, in a crinkled
brown face. He wore a uniform of white linen and held a staff almost as tall as
himself, an osseous twist of narwhale horn capped with a golden sea horse. Over
his heart was pinned a golden broach shaped for his ship’s namesake, an osprey.
The Prince Who Sails Forever.

“It is
gracious of you to come,” he began, “for I know you have been through much. I
am Landlorn, captain of the
Osprey
and of the Mariners too, it may be
admitted. Will you sit and take your ease with me?”

When Gil was
seated, the Prince of the Waves continued. “Gilbert MacDonald, I believe you
are named? And they call you Gil? May I? Thank you. I should be much in your
debt if you would relate more of the events current in this war being fought
inland.”

“Oh, sure,
your Grace. It—”

“Ah, please!
Friends call me Landlorn; will you not do me that honor?”

Gil took to
the Prince from the start, to the scrupulous courtesy extended to everyone. He
was sure that anyone who led the rowdy Mariners could be a hard-case boss when
he had to. Soon, he was telling Landlorn his story, of the Two-Bard Commission
and of Yardiff Bey, Cynosure and Blazetongue and the Occhlon, and of
Arrivals
Macabre.

In the end,
the Prince said, “You shall come into your chance to see the Isle of Keys, if
the Mariners second my will of it; dislodging southerners from their sea-keep
is work for the Children of the Wind-Roads, and therein lies tragedy, for I
would rather they could stay out of it, unparticipant.” His expression showed
private sadness, then he roused himself. “I trust you’ve been made
comfortable?”

“Thank you,
yes. But it’s all a bit strange for me; I’m a dry-land type.”