Voyage of the Fox Rider (46 page)

Tolak glanced over at Captain Barad who had remained silent throughout. “Well, Barad, what say you?”

Barad glanced over at Aravan, then back to Tolak. “I have but one thing to ask, DelfLord, and it is this: when do we leave?”

Jinnarin looked up at Kelek. “And that’s it? That’s the way that Dwarves became involved with the
Eroean
and the sea?”

Kelek nodded. “Aye. And a grand adventure it was. It took more than two hundred years to gather together those things needed for her making. And then we were another twelve years fashioning her.”

“And Dwarves did it all?”

“Nay. The Elves made her silks and her rigging. Some Men aided in her final construction. But Captain Aravan and the Châkka did all of the rest.”

“Men? Men helped, too?”

Kelek nodded, then smiled. “When she was finished, one of the Men looked at her in awe. ‘She will last for a thousand years,’ he said. We laughed, did the Châkka. And when he asked why, we said, ‘A thousand years? Nay, Man, not a mere ten centuries, but more, much more.’”

“Tell me, Kelek,” appealed Jinnarin, “just how do you know this?”

“Because, Lady Jinnarin,” answered Kelek, “Gate Captain Barad of the Red Hills was my ancestor.”

Jinnarin mouthed an
O
, but then asked, “Even so, that was long past…for a Dwarf, that is. What I
mean is, it seems to me that the tale would be lost in three millennia…or at least distorted.”

Kelek shook his head. “No, Lady Jinnarin, it remains true. It is a fact that has been passed from sire to son as each of us in turn sailed with Captain Aravan. Rarely does he take on someone whose ancestor he did not sail with long past. And as we grow old and he does not, we at last take to land while he sails on, our sons and the sons of other old hands taking our places aboard the Elvenship.”

Jinnarin’s face fell. “Only sons? No daughters? He takes on no daughters?”

Kelek bristled. “It would be unthinkable, unforgivable for him to take on a Châkian!”

“Well then, if not a female of your Race, what about females of other Folk?”

Kelek pondered a moment, then his face lit up. “I seem to recall that he has taken on at least one female. A Waeran, I believe. Yes, a Waeran. They name themselves Warrows, in the Common Tongue. A small Folk”—Kelek held his hand a yard or so above the floor—“though not as tiny as you, Lady Jinnarin.”

Jinnarin sighed. “One daughter…and all the others sons.”

“Sons, and sons of sons, and sons of sons of sons, and so it goes, down through the descendants of those who served him before. He follows a proven line.”

Jinnarin shook her head, then nodded, then turned up a hand, and said, “Loyalty.”

“To the death,” Kelek responded.

West sailed the
Eroean
throughout the short days and long nights, beating into the prevailing westerlies, hauling and tacking along the straight course, zigzagging across the wind. At times the blast was brutal, hurtling snow and ice before it and driving huge waves ahead. At other times, though, it was less harsh, though always blustery and frigid. Ice formed on the rigging and coated the sails, and the crew was hard-pressed to keep the
Eroean
smoothly underway, weighted down as she was and glazed over, her blocks and pulleys jammed, her lines made stiff as iron rods. Even so, on a typical day she covered some hundred
and forty miles along the straight course, though veering back and forth in the teeth of the blow she sailed half again as far.

In the gelid nights whenever the aurora shone, Jinnarin and Aylis and Alamar stood ward on the ice-rimed decks and watched as the ghostly lights writhed in the sky above. But as of yet they had seen no plumes flaring down to the sea below.

Some fifteen days after heading westerly they sighted land to the fore starboard, a headland coming into view. They had arrived at the marge of the western continent, and as yet had seen no sign of either plume or ship nor any sign of a Black Mage.

“Lookouts aloft,” ordered Aravan, and Rico knelled the bell a coded ring and parka-clad Men scrambled up from below, clambering up the ratlines and to the crow’s nests above.

Onward they sailed, the headland rolling up over the rim of the world. Aravan stepped to the starboard rail, where he was joined by Aylis and Jinnarin, Alamar coming after, and then Jatu. Aylis bent down and lifted Jinnarin up to see and held her in the crook of an arm. Steadily the land drew nearer.

“Keep a sharp eye!” called Jatu to the lookouts aloft. “Ship, sails, movement on land or water—sing out!”

Now the shoreline could be seen in the distance.

“Ready to fall off and run downwind, Jatu,” said Aravan.

“Aye, Captain,” replied the Man, turning and calling to Rico and repeating the command.

Bokar came to stand beside them.

Aravan’s gaze swept across the bleak headland, seeing nought but a barren stone shore lashed by waves, with winter dressed trees above. “Lookouts report, Jatu,” he said.

Nought!
all three called down.

“Kruk!” growled Bokar.

Jinnarin sighed. “What now, Aravan?”

Aravan looked at the Pysk. “Now we turn and run the track opposite.”

“To where, Aravan? I mean, we’ve run most of the
track and have seen nothing of plumes or Durlok. So I ask, where now?”

Aravan gestured easterly. “Back along the track, Jinnarin. All the way to Thol if necessary.”

Bokar gripped the railing, his gloves taut. “And if we do not find this Black Mage, Captain, then what?”

Aravan took a breath and let it out. “Then Bokar, we need take another tack, but what it might be…I cannot say.”

The Elf turned to Jatu. “Fall off, Jatu. Run her due east before the wind.”

“Aye, Captain,” responded Jatu. He cupped his hands and called up, “Lookouts down!” then turned toward the wheelhouse. “Wear her eastward, Rico!”

As Rico piped the crew, Jatu and Aravan stepped to the wheelhouse and Bokar headed below decks.

Aylis set Jinnarin down, and the Pysk and Alamar began walking aft. “You coming, Daughter?” asked the Mage.

“In a moment, Father.”

“Loosen the mizzen stays! Ready to fall away!” called Jatu, Rico piping the orders, and the triangular sails were set to flapping, while all the crossjack and mizzen- and mainsails were clewed up and the braces were coiled down for running. “Up helm, furl the spanker, and square the mizzen- and mainyards!” called Jatu, the Men swiftly obeying. With the rudder over and no silk aft, the jibs and foresails began bringing the Elvenship ‘round as she fell off before the starboard draught. Larboard turned the vessel to come directly downwind. “Center the wheel, Boder,” said Jatu, then called out, “Square the fores and reset the stays and jibs!” And as Rico piped, some of the Men hauled the yards about and clewed them down, while others reeled in the sheets and set the staysails and spanker. And with her silks belling to the full in the following wind, easterly ran the
Eroean
, picking up speed.

Jatu turned to Rico. “All right, Rico, trim her out to make the most.”

“Aye, Meestar Jatu,” answered Rico, and again he signalled with his pipe, but this time he stepped forward
to personally oversee the final adjustments of the sails.

And all the while the ship fell off before the wind, Aylis stood in deep thought, saying nothing, paying no heed to the bustling activity all ‘round, and as the ship came about and squared away and put her shoulder to the sea, Aylis at last looked up and squared her own shoulders and strode purposefully aft, the glint in her eyes resolute.

Dark Choices

Winter, 1E9574–75

[The Present]

D
ay and night the
Eroean
ran before the cruel winter wind, ice and rime lading her flanks and decks, and her masts, rigging, and sails as easterly she clove through the frigid waves of the Northern Sea. Toward the Realm of Thol she fared, that chill realm of bleak castles and high moors and windswept, craggy tors, of sod-roofed longhouses and scattered fishing villages along the shingled shores, and of immense reaches of deep woods dark, stretching far inland. Thol was peopled by hunters and crofters and fishers and traders and raiders, as was Jute to the south and Fjordland to the east, and her longships were much the same. But the folk of Thol and their manner of living were not on the minds of the crew of the Elvenship. Instead they sought someone else, someone perhaps at sea in a galley ship, someone vastly more dangerous. And so the
Eroean
sailed easterly through the Northern Sea—or rather along the uncertain marge between it and the waters of the Weston Ocean—on the track of a Black Mage…or so they deemed.

One hundred and fifty miles a day she fared, more or less, sailing from station to station—fifty leagues or so, depending upon the wind, the cold winter blow strong at times and falling off at others. In the frigid days lookout after lookout scrambled aloft, relieving each other often, for none could withstand the terrible cold overlong. And they watched the seas for signs of ships, though none came into their view.

Dusk to dawn was spent on station awaiting the boreal lights. And some nights the aurora twisted and coiled above, while some nights it did not; and on yet other nights it was hidden, for thick snow filled the air. When the boreal lights could not be seen, the
Eroean
remained at that station all the following day, not wanting to run too far along the route and inadvertently pass beyond Durlok in the night and fare such a distance as to miss a subsequent plume aft. Yet when the boreal lights could be seen, easterly they ran the next day to take up station fifty leagues away.

In this time of eastward sailing, of running before the wind, Jinnarin’s nightmare came but thrice, her dream yet sporadic.

They sighted land some twenty-four hundred miles and twenty-two days after setting out from the verge of the western continent, and in all that time it was as if they had sailed the seas alone. No sign of Durlok did they see: no ship, no plume, no ghastly sacrifice, nor any other mark of the Black Mage.

And as they came into the coastal waters of Thol in the early afternoon—“Smoke ashore!” cried the foremast lookout. “Smoke ashore larboard fore!”

Bokar stared long and hard. High on a headland a stone turret could be made out. From the turret smoke coiled up and over, driven inland by the wind. “This may be the work of Durlok,” he growled, then called out, “Rico, pipe the warband!”

The bo’s’n rang the bell and piped the pipe, and Aravan stepped to Bokar’s side. As the ship drew nearer, he said, “It is the tower of Gudwyn the Fair, or so it was called long past. Below is Havnstad, a town of commerce—of fisherfolk, traders, merchants, artisans.”

’Midst the scramble of Dwarves pouring onto the deck, Jinnarin and Aylis came forward, Alamar shuffling after. Jinnarin clambered up onto the stem block and gazed at the smoking tower and at the harbor town below. After a moment she asked, “If this is Durlok’s work, then where is his ship?”

“Good question, Jinnarin,” murmured Aylis. “All I see are fishing vessels and a few traders riding at anchor, none at the jetties. Certainly there is no galley at the quay.”

“Perhaps it is disguised by a casting of Durlok’s,” suggested Jinnarin.

“Visus,”
whispered Aylis, then after a moment she shook her head. “Nay, Jinnarin, none is other than what it seems.”

Aravan nodded. “The ships ride at anchor because they are laid up for the winter. This is not the whole of their fleet, for many have been haled ashore for refurbishing…such as their Dragonships being refitted for the spring raids.” Even as he spoke, Aravan’s gaze swept from turret to town to ship to shoreline, gauging, warding, wary.

Alamar peered long at the smoldering tower. Finally he said, “This is not Durlok’s work, for the turret is not destroyed, it merely burns.”

Bokar’s eyes widened. “The Black Mage has the power to destroy a stone tower?”

Alamar nodded, adding, “He did when last I knew him. He may be even more powerful now.”

“Hmph,” grunted Bokar. “He would have to be if it were Châkka built.”

“Rico!” called Aravan. “Sail nigh the harbor and luff her up, but be ready to get underway at an instant.”