The Starfollowers of Coramonde (28 page)

Hinge screws
gave. Two more kicks had it hanging from its hasp. He squirmed past, dug
through his gear and snatched up the two wrapped swords.
Osprey
heeled,
coming hard starboard; there was no time to burrow after his empty handguns. He
heard the loud crack of the catapult’s throwing arm on
Stormy Petrel,
stopped against its check. The shooting sent him struggling back around the
door in panic, the longswords becoming lodged in the gap. He fought to
extricate them, but just as they sprang free, a roar of water came to his ears.

Osprey
lifted beneath his feet, listing sharply to starboard. He fell across the deck,
losing the swords, to crash against the door opposite his own. It gave; he
curled up automatically. In the blackness his head slammed something; lights
erupted in his eyes. His right shoulder hit the bulkhead.

Osprey
heaved back to port as stunning weights and stifling cloth cascaded down on
him. There was a world-rattling collision, the rending of timbers. Held fast
and smothered in his thrashing, he was borne down. His side throbbed in
torment, his head in agony. A malign density settled over his brain. In time,
he stopped resisting.

Water, cold,
salt-stinging, brought him out of aimless drifting. He came to know that he’d
been buried in the bos’n’s-stores locker across from his quarters. He could
feel spare blocks and deadeyes on him, and lengths of rope holding him, with
stretches of canvas oddments over all, intertangled by the ship’s gyrations.
His first thought was to control his breathing, determined not to go
lightheaded again from hyperventilating his scant air supply. He tried two
shouts for help; when they produced no result, he stopped, saving air for other
things.

Probing, he
found one foot unimpeded and began worming down in that direction, bridging
with his back, fending carefully with his arms. The life jacket dragged, and a
length of line had caught around his thigh. It took several anxious tries and
forced patience to work his knife from its sheath and sever himself loose.
Inching, twisting, he got a second foot free and rested, wondering if help
would show. Another shout produced none, so he presumed the Mariners were busy
with other problems. At least the water that had awakened him, dripping down
from the deck above, had stopped. Perhaps one of the rail-dragging swells had
broken over an open hatch.

A victory;
his other foot was out from under. He dug in, pulling more efficiently now,
drawing with his legs, heels scraping the deck. His right hand emerged, and
with it, he extracted the left, and the knife. There was more cutting, some
hawser to unwrap. Then he was through.

He gulped
air, sitting on a deck that was wet, but not awash. It was tilted though, as if
Osprey
were taking water in the bow and rocking in the swells. Dirge and
Dunstan’s sword lay near where they’d fallen. He got them and fumbled his way
back as fast as he could.

But on
Osprey’s
deck there was only soaked wreckage. The Mariners had abandoned ship.

Hie, Acre-Fin!

Foam-canyon carver!

May skewed courses spare me

thy dreaded acquaintance!

from “The Fish that is an Island,”

a Mariner long-haul chantey

GIL dropped both swords and stumbled
to the side, where a boardingnet hung. The fleet was drawing off to the west
under full sail. To the southwest,
Stormy Petrel
was nearly gone, the
swells crossing her decks.
Osprey’s
bow dipped too, the ocean now and
again breaking over it. She rode safely enough for the moment, but must be in
grievous danger for Landlorn to desert her so cavalierly. There were no boats
left.

He waved to
the retreating ships, impossibly far off to hail. Teetering on the rail,
clinging to a shroud, he gathered all his breath and screamed to the departing
Mariners anyhow.

A voice
drifted up from the water, “Who calls there?” He thought it had come from
astern, and swarmed up the quarterdeck ladder, its pitch steepened by
Osprey’s
low-riding bow. Holding on to the spanker boom, he leaned out over the
taffrail. A small boat bobbed into view, rowed by Wavewatcher, with Skewerskean
in its bow.

He laughed
with relief. “I thought I was alone, with one helluva wet stroll home. Come to
the side; I’ll climb down.”

The two friends
exchanged looks. “Nay, stay there,” Skewerskean replied. “We will come aboard.”

Puzzled, Gil
returned amidships. When they’d come up the net, he resisted the impulse to
babble. There was something wrong beyond the immediate predicament.

“What is it?”

Skewerskean
confessed, “We cannot take you after the fleet. We are not going with them.”

Gil’s
forehead hurt. Rubbing it, he found a lump the size of a half-dollar, souvenir
of his fall. He massaged it carefully, trying to comprehend what they were
telling him. “Are you
both
crazy?”

Wavewatcher
bridled. “Acre-Fin struck.
Osprey
and
Stormy Petrel
had to be
evacuated immediately, for Acre-Fin will be back.”

“Hold the
phone now. Give it to me a piece at a time.”

“The monster
dove, astern. Lookouts in both ships thought they saw it; both helmsmen were
confused. They steered closer to each other. Acre-Fin came up under
Osprey’s
port bow, lifting her into the air. She slewed down onto
Stormy Petrel;
fortunate are you not to have seen it. Men fell shrieking from the flagship’s
masts and decks, while the
Petrel
lacked even the time to put her boats
out. Many died.”

Gil looked
back toward
Stormy Petrel.
Only her masts showed, and they were
disappearing quickly. “What about the whatsit, Acre-Fin?”

“It took no
more notice of us. It swam eastward, with all speed, for the Isle of Keys.”

And
Yardiff Bey,
Gil said to himself. Skewerskean put in, “It will go to Him
who called it up. It will come back to savage the fleet. ’Twas bad luck, that
we lay in its course, or maybe the monster attacks whatsoever it encounters on
the ocean. But one thing is certain, that it moved toward the Isle with
purpose. We think Bey will send it back this way.”

“So, let’s
haul ass outta here!”

The
chanteyman shook his head. “The fleet must find shallow water safety if it can.
The Prince will need time. So, when they abandoned ship, Wavewatcher and I
caught the small boat and hid behind
Osprey.
What with all the
confusion, we were overlooked, much as you were. We will delay Acre-Fin, if
possible. It must be essayed; the beast will destroy the fleet, else.”

Gil’s jaw
sagged. “I didn’t see that thing, but it must be the size of goddam Pike’s
Peak. Catapults and archers didn’t stop it, so you won’t either. Now, let’s cut
the chatter and shove off.”

“I have my
whalecraft with me,” Wavewatcher maintained, “and three hundred fathoms of line
coiled in the tubs and poison of the Inner Islanders. I shall coat my lances
and harpoon with that. With luck we can divert the monster, at the minimum. In
any case, there is nothing else to do. We cannot overtake the fleet now.”

The American
snarled, kicking a bulwark stanchion. “That coxswain, that bastard, I told him
I’d be right back.”

“Many had been
wounded,” the harpooner reproved, “even the Prince’s wife, Serene. All was
chaos, and you’d been accounted present at your boat station. And the coxswain
was among those lost.”

Gil was
rubbing the lump on his head again. His vision seemed to have blurred. “Okay,
you two do what you want.”
Osprey
was drifting westward, back through
the Strait of the Dancing Spar. “I’m gonna throw me a raft together.”

“It might be
wiser to come with us,” cautioned the harpooner. “If we fail to stop Acre-Fin,
we may yet avoid death, but in all likelihood the beast will finish
Osprey
before doing aught else.”

Skewerskean
shook his friend’s shoulder. “This is futile. Come, let us tack upwind, where
we may yet stop Acre-Fin from reaching him.”

Gil hashed
that over. He wasn’t about to go out in the suicide boat, but neither did he
wish to die if Acre-Fin made it past the two. “Wait a second, you guys.” They
paused, straddling the rail. He brought Dirge to them, holding the long black
blade up.

“Listen, this
is Bey’s. This stuff on the blade, it’s all death runes, annihilation spells.
Maybe it’d stop Acre-Fin.”

“’Twould fit
a lance’s socket,” Wavewatcher allowed, reaching to take it.

“Hey,
careful. Any cut it makes’ll bleed until it kills you.” He relinquished it.

Wavewatcher,
holding the sword cautiously, eased himself over the side. “Best begin that
raft, Gil-O. A sail would be wise, but take a paddle.” He went down the
boarding net handily.

Skewerskean
gripped Gil’s forearm. “Truly, if we cannot stop Acre-Fin or turn it, this will
be no safe place.” He followed his partner. They cast off, set their little lug
sail and began tacking eastward. Skewerskean took the tiller. Wavewatcher
waved.

“Hey,” Gil
called, “what happens when I hit the beach? Is there someplace we can hook up
again?”

The harpooner
smiled, teeth flashing in red tangles. “Should we fail to ride this one out,
look for us beside that springlet in your song, what was its name?”

“Huh?
Fiddler’s Green?”

“Aye. There
will we await you.”

If those
two don’t stop that big sucker, that’s just where I’m headed, too.
He
scanned the deck for materials. There was plenty of wood, pieces of spars and
mast, rail and deck planks, and miles of rope. He thought about dragging one of
the smaller hatch covers off and using it, but had misgivings about how well
one would serve in rough seas.

He tried to
work out a usable design. He’d never done this sort of thing before; no
combination of wood and lashings struck him as stable and buoyant enough for
the trip to shore. The knot on his head and the ache in his shoulder were
worse. He roped two lengths of spar together and decided they weren’t wide
enough. Finding an axe in the ship’s carpenter’s locker, he chopped loose a
hunk of fallen fore topmast and found it too short when he tried to fit it in.

A scrap of
cloth blew along the deck, and he heard tatters of sail fluttering. A breeze
had come up, from the east. The sea was roughening,
Osprey’s
bow now
plunging beneath the swells. He went aft, and saw that the barque had drifted
farther westward. In the distance he could make out the two Mariners, who’d
lowered their sail to wait. Clouds closed in, the winds heralding Acre-Fin.

He was
astounded, not having thought even a monster like that could swim to the Isle
of Keys and back so quickly. No wonder the two Mariners had despaired for their
fleet; the ships had no chance of eluding Acre-Fin unaided.

Turbulence
moved the water in the distant east. Gil knew he had no time to finish up his
raft. His life jacket, he remembered too late, was back among the junk in the
bos’n’s-stores locker, likely under water by now.

A fish broke
the water, then another. In a moment the ocean teemed with creatures fleeing
the monster, some of them flopping onto the deck in rainbow spasms. When they’d
passed, rain hit, pocking the swells. Shreds of canvas flapped, and the barque
wallowed from crest to trough. White froth showed Acre-Fin making straight for
the flagship.

He saw
Skewerskean and Wavewatcher hoist their sail. The two weren’t quite on
Acre-Fin’s course. Knifing along, wind bellying their canvas, they cut for a
point of interception. The rhythm of the monster’s strokes sent combers
tumbling from the alpine ridge of its gleaming back. Gil could make out the tip
of a gigantic dorsal fin and part of the ponderous tail, swaying through beats
of incredible power. This was no mammal, but a deep-water fish. Would it stay
close enough to the surface for the harpooner to strike?

The Mariners
paralleled it riding just ahead to keep out of its crest, but it closed the
distance quickly. The boat heeled sharply. There was a twinkle of light from
whetted iron. The smooth pattern of the colossal tail fell off for an instant.

Then Acre-Fin
bolted straight for
Osprey,
swimming furiously, pricked by the
toggle-iron head of Wavewatcher’s harpoon, burned by its poison. It bore down
on the derelict like an express train. With a surge, its head broke the
surface.

Gil looked on
in horror. Acre-Fin’s head reared. Its eyes, white-glowing circles wider than
cartwheels, were without lens or pupil. Cavernous jaws gaped, and the sea broke
in waves over and around spiky rows of monolithic teeth. Its underside was
encrusted with barnacles and other sessile growth acquired in eons spent
brooding in the sea, as if Acre-Fin itself were part fossilized. The ocean,
falling back from it, nearly capsized the tiny boat pulled by the harpoon line.

Gil was up on
the taffrail now, judging which way to dive. He could see water blown in
banners of foam from the tips of the monster’s teeth, and the spasms, deep
beyond, of the twilight gullet. The wind, sucked down that abyss, made a
moaning. Great lateral fins broke the surface, and it seemed they were, in
truth, an acre in size.

The American
decided to dive toward Veganá. But pausing for a last look, he saw the beast
turn in that direction. He checked himself; Acre-Fin was coming around to see
what had brought it pain. The Mariners’ boat bashed along through the pinnacles
of the waves behind it, the two men clinging to their mast, as line-tubs, spare
whalecraft and anything else not tied down was bounced into the water.

Wavewatcher
had his lance, awaiting the opportunity to use it, but the creature wouldn’t
give him the chance. It came about, never noticing the tiny boat, bearing
eastward in search of whatever had hurt it. It returned to where it had been
pricked, found nothing, and went on. The harpooner’s poison would have slain
anything else alive, but only burned Acre-Fin. The beast knew no enemy had come
against it, and so continued the way it had come, assuming it was pursuing its
assailant, unaware of the boat jouncing along behind. Gil let himself down off
the rail, trembling, waiting for the next crest of water, or the next, to
batter the Mariners’ boat to splinters.