The Starfollowers of Coramonde (29 page)

Acre-Fin grew
smaller in the distance. For a long time it bore onward through the Strait of
the Dancing Spar. The rain began to let up, the clouds to dissipate. Acre-Fin
stopped, mystified that it had overhauled no antagonist. Gil tensed, knowing
this was Wavewatcher’s moment. It was too far away to see clearly but he
thought he caught a black sparkle, as if Dirge had reflected the scant light.
The ocean grew still.

There was a
fountain of exploding seawater and white froth. A stupendous shape half-cleared
the water, twisting monumentally, awesome in size and the proportions of its
fury. It came down; waves and concussion sped from it in all directions. Then
the monster thrashed in agonized circles, bent in upon its own pain. It seemed
doubtful that the harpooner and the chantey-man could outlive their enemy’s
throes. Gil had no idea how much damage the vindictive magic in Yardiff Bey’s
sword would do, but sensed that the Children of the Wind-Roads would not be
pursued.

The thing
stirred in a final fit of torment, then cut through the water to the east. Its
stroke was uneven, conveying grave injury. He followed it until it disappeared,
toward the Isle of Keys. For a time he kept surveillance, but saw no sign of
the two partners, nor even a fragment of their boat. His vision had become
blurry and his head ached, functions of that rap on the head below decks.
Concussion was just one more worry, less immediate than his others; he
dismissed it.

Leaving the
rail, drained, he dragged himself amidships, where wavelets lapped at his
half-finished raft. He noticed dazedly that
Osprey
had drifted nearer
the shore of Veganá. Perhaps he wouldn’t need the raft after all; he sat down
listlessly, watching the shore with arms clamped around knees, to wait and see.
The barque didn’t seem to be taking on any more water. Minute after minute the
current dragged her closer to the Crescent Lands.

A roaring
penetrated his fog. He knew he’d heard it before. With electric fear, he
recalled where. Looking up suddenly, he fell to the deck.
Cloud Ruler
was speeding toward
Osprey
on pillars of demon-fire. Insight came;
Acre-Fin had in fact returned to the man who’d called it up. Yardiff Bey had
seen the creature was wounded by his own sword, Dirge. He’d known who was out
here on the ocean. He’d come.

Gil charged
across the deck to the hatch cover. Slight hope, it was better than the
unfinished raft. He heaved the edge up, got a shoulder under, and crouched
beneath.
Cloud Ruler
circled in; he felt its scorching heat even at this
distance, bringing steam off the water.

He lunged,
biting his lip, lifting. His vision darkened with the exertion, the pounding
lump on his head threatening blindness. In an effort of animal survival, he got
the hatch cover up and overboard.

He was seen.
The demon-ship swept through a snapping turn, the ocean boiling beneath it. Gil
flung himself back, one arm to his face to ward off superheated vapor.
Coughing, eyes tearing, he lurched at the opposite rail, to swim or die. Bey’s
craft came around, blocking that route too with fire and steam. He pushed
himself away, tripping backward on the slick deck. The demon-ship hovered,
unavoidable.

From a bay on
its underbelly, weighted nets fell, covering
Osprey’s
small remaining
deck. He clapped his hand to Dunstan’s sword, but they hit first, carrying him
to his knees, enmeshing him. He started sawing strands with his knife.

Vibrations
traveled down the netting. Shapes rapelled quickly down landing ropes carrying
swords, clubs and catch-poles. He had two strands cut when the first
Southwastelander touched down on
Osprey.

A tall, burly
Occhlon, the man pounced on him. Three others hit the deck and did the same.
More came after. He thrust with knife; his wrist was caught and wrenched
around. There was no room to get out Dunstan’s sword. Nightmare fight, its
single mercy was brevity. Battered, disarmed, immobilized, he came into the
dire captivity of the Hand of Shardishku-Salamá.

My soul, the seas are rough, and
thou a stranger…

Francis Quarles

Emblems

SAILS clewed up, the masts of the
anchored fleet rested untenanted, fewer now, with
Osprey
and
Stormy
Petrel
consigned to the uncaring ocean. In the distant southeast, the Isle
of Keys was sunlit by a break in the clouds, as if blessed.

Landlorn had
transferred his flag to
Wind Gatherer,
a three-masted square-rigger,
precursor to
Osprey.
He’d already envisioned his next vessel, a lean,
swift clipper, all a sailing ship should be. His drawing table was stacked with
preliminary plans, where frame lines, waterlines and buttocks curved and
intersected sweetly. Now they lay aside, until a time of peace.

The Prince
Who Sails Forever returned his attention to matters in question. Seated in his
cabin were allies who were to help conquer the Isle of Keys. The Trustee of Glyffa
and her son Andre were there, with Lord Blacktarget of Veganá and Angorman, of
the Order of the Axe. Swan, the Glyffan Constable, attended too, as did
Landlorn’s wife Serene, who’d nearly recovered from the injury to her back
taken when Acre-Fin had struck.

The tents of
an armed camp covered the hills above the shore of Veganá. Hundreds of banners
and war pennants had been set side by side along the beach, to let the
Southwastelanders on the Isle know that the fighting wasn’t done yet.
Galvanized by the Trailing-sword, the allied armies had fought their way to the
end of the Crescent Lands, breaking their enemies’ last stand within view of
the sea.

Ready to go
on to the Isle, the Crescent Landers had found no boat, not even a cockle
shell, along the entire shore. Landlorn’s forces had been there weeks before,
destroying every craft they could find to deny Southwastelanders the sea. With
no way to negotiate the turbulent Strait, the allies had sat for days weighing
various plans. More than half their strength was, by then, of commoners, free
vassals and yeomen.

“We know
Yardiff Bey is on the Isle,” the Trustee was saying, gnarled fingers holding
the Crook of her office. “We did not see the summoning of Acre-Fin. I sensed
sorcery, but could not interfere at such a distance. The thing returned to Bey,
and I could perceive only that it was wounded or dying. It no longer swims
these waters, though I cannot say whether or not it survived. I doubt the
sorcerer shall ever bend Acre-Fin to his will again; it will shun him, after
this.

“We saw
Cloud
Ruler
go forth, and later return. Would that he had tried to fly over
Glyffa! How are your two crewmen, who speared the sea monster?”

Acre-Fin’s throes
had smashed their boat to wooden chips, leaving Wavewatcher unconscious and
Skewerskean swimming for them both. Fortunately, they’d gone unmenaced by
sharks or other predators; in the proximity of Acre-Fin, no fish dared linger
or hunt. The harpooner had roused at last, and together they’d managed to
struggle ashore. There, they’d been met by the northerners. Landlorn had
concluded that something had deterred the monster, and sent elements of his
fleet for cautious inquiry. Attracted by the northerners’ signal fires, they’d
found Wavewatcher, Skewerskean and an army of allies.

“They are in
the fo’c’sle now,” the Prince answered, “as royally inebriate as when you so
kindly returned them to us. I shall have to reward them, apparently; I could
hardly swear a charge of disobedience against them, after all.”

“And Gil
MacDonald?” Andre prodded. Swan, who’d foreborn asking, waited noncommittally.

Landlorn
gestured helplessly.
“Osprey
had long since sunk, of course. Skewerskean
saw
Cloud Ruler
pass overhead, but whether the young man was taken or
drowned, I cannot say.”

“Dead is more
to be expected,” Angorman pronounced. “I do not deem him one to go alive into
the grasp of Yardiff Bey.”

“Unfortunate,”
Lord Blacktarget remarked perfunctorily, “but less to be concerned with than
that which lies before us. How shall we whelm the Isle of Keys?”

“An arduous
undertaking,” the Prince admitted. “It is defended well, if not so well as our
Citadel. They are stranded, and cannot withdraw. Every ship and boat was being
used to sustain their war in the Crescent Lands when we caught them in open
waters. Oh, no doubt some few craft escaped, but those are negligible.”

Andre
countered, “Time is Yardiff Bey’s dearest commodity, not men. His design is
twofold, to win the secret of Rydolomo’s book and hinder us from following the
Trailingsword to Salamá. In the first, at least, he has been successful, in
part because he has been prodigal with manpower. So, I would be surprised if
the desert men didn’t stand and fight, ships or no. It may be that the sorcerer
will do the same. His arts will be more effective there, away from the
influences of the Bright Lady, and if the Five have enriched him with their
favor, he will wax confident.”

“Of that we
shall discover,” Lord Blacktarget declared loftily, hand at the hilt of
Blazetongue. “We do not despair of it; the Mariners have but to take us to the
Isle; we will deal with things from there.”

No one chose
to point out his arrogance, though Swan shifted in her seat. Nowadays,
Blacktarget insisted that his banner go always in the van, and often took a
high-handed tone with the others, even the Trustee. The Trustee permitted it,
and enjoined the rest to do so. Breaking the schemes of the Five justified
almost any expedient.

“But there is
still the question of entrance to the harbor,” the old woman reminded.

“The Mariners
will accomplish that,” Landlorn told her, “then bring you in, one and all. The
task will be yours from there.”

“And relished
will it be,” Swan finished softly, staring past the quarter-gallery railing at
the Isle of Keys.

The Prince
had a captured southern vessel brought up early the next morning. Allied
soldiers were crowding aboard his other ships, many of which had been hastily
converted to bear horses, and others to be packed with troops. Loading had gone
on throughout the night.

The
Southwastelander bottom, a big galleass with a high, creneled fighting castle
in her bow and one in the poop, along with storming bridges, had been readied
for Landlorn’s plan. Mariners, not chained slaves, sat her rowing benches; her
bow and forward tower were loaded with casks of the burning fluid the seafarers
used, with more lashed near her iron beak.

The fleet
formed behind the galleass and stood out into the Strait of the Dancing Spar.
Closer to the Isle, the Prince ordered the casks of fluid covered with
water-soaked tarps. The decks, sail and fighting tower were doused for a second
time by bucket brigades of sailors.

The Isle had
been filed fine by eons of the rip-currents of the Strait. Any approach except
that for the sea-gates was guarded by rocks and shoals. Landlorn handed his
narwhale staff to his wife and ordered all hands away, except two.

That pair was
Wavewatcher and Skewerskean, who’d named, as reward for laying for Acre-Fin,
accompaniment of their Prince today. When the boats were away like so many
water striders, he ordered, “Look sharp you two, and attend my every command.”

“As we do
always,” intoned Skewerskean humbly.

“As you do
when it bloody suits you, brazen man!” The pair exchanged wounded glances.
Landlorn laughed. “Nay, take no hurt; you did serve Gale-Baiter well, and thus
me. But it was ever rashly. So, enjoy this last frolic, lads; if we come
through, I mean to teach you responsibility.”

That put
doubt in their faces. At his direction, they pulled ropes to open all mainsail
clews. The broad lateen was set, stiffened in the wind. Landlorn had positioned
the vessel so she’d bear in straight for the gates, before the wind. Cleaving
steeplechasing swells, she held every eye in the fleet and on the sea walls.

Fire arrows
and missiles lofted from the defenders even before the galleass was in range.
Wavewatcher, at the tiller, surrounded by braced pavise-shields, stretched his
muscles to hold course when the ship’s roll or caprices of current tried to
take her off it. Empty but for the casks, she moved lightly, but somewhat
skittishly; it took all the harpooner’s sinew to curb her in the restless
waters.

Arrows began
to thud into the deck at extreme distance, but the wetting kept them from
spreading flame. Fireballs flung by the wall engines, unstable in flight,
missed the galleass, which was still too far out for accuracy. But a huge
ballista bolt drove its iron head completely through the deck, doing no other
damage.

The mast and deck
grew thick with a porcupine’s coat of shafts; there were dozens of holes in the
sail. Another fireball arced, thrown high because range was closing. Landlorn
saw, and warned Wavewatcher. Setting his foot against the binnacle, the big
harpooner threw his head back and bunched his muscles, dragging at the tiller.
The galleass shifted for a moment, and the fireball exploded on the water in
sparks and spray. The redbeard threw everything he had against the tiller, to
bring the ship back on course.

The lateen
mainsail took fire at last, but had been soaked well, so that the flames ate
their way only slowly. On her way to her death, the galleass paid no heed to
the minor hurts of stones and shafts. Gradually, the distance was eaten up, as
Southwastelanders readied long poles to push back the scaling ladders they
still expected to repel.

The three men
crouched under showers of arrows, javelins and toss-darts, barely able to peer
around their shields. A stone from a mangonel, bouncing from the armored
fighting castle at the bow, slammed through the deck and hull, opening the
galleass to the sea as she came within a dozen lengths of the gates. The
Occhlon, having received no counterfire, saw now that the fighting castles and
storming bridges were unmanned. Then someone marked the casks in the bow, and a
cry went up; the southerners withheld their own fire-fluid, fearing the
conflagration it would start.