Wolf Captured (86 page)

At first their only light had been a dark lantern, but when the
Islander
was well away from shore, Waln permitted a bow lantern as well. The moon had waned to a sliver, but as their eyes adjusted to the available light, the lantern was quite enough for Rahniseeta to easily view the expressions of her captors.

Waln looked so completely relaxed and in control that Rahniseeta was startled until she recalled that the role of ship’s captain, if not this particular venture, must be like a homecoming to him after the uncertainties of the past year or more. In contrast, Shivadtmon, the aridisdu from the Temple of Sea Beasts, looked edgy, almost sick. No matter what excuses he had made to Waln, Rahniseeta was willing to bet Shivadtmon was far from certain about the religious rightness of this venture.

Barnet Lobster looked tense and concerned, but he took Waln’s commands right along with the other sailors, so readily, in fact, that Rahniseeta was finding it hard to believe that this was the same man with whom she had traded stories and songs. Once again, he seemed alien and unpredictable.

In time she noted that two of the sailors pulled line far less than the others. Instead, Rarby and Shelby stood amidships on opposite sides of the vessel. As Rahniseeta’s night vision improved she realized the blocky items near them that she had taken for some part of the sailboat were in fact an array of weapons.

Did Waln then fear a mutiny? Or were Rarby and Shelby alert to some other danger, and did that alertness explain some of Shivadtmon’s unhappiness?

Rahniseeta would have liked to work through these possibilities and arrive at some conclusion that would help her plan some practical course of action, but over and over again her aching head kept returning to the very real danger of her situation. She was the prisoner of men who thought nothing of sacrilege and piracy if such would advance their desires. For now she had a value as a potential hostage, but if she caused too much trouble, they might well decide that prospective value was not reason enough for keeping her alive. After all, their initial plans had not included a hostage.

So she huddled where she’d been placed so that whoever was manning the wheel could keep an eye on her. So motionless and meek was she that she was spared the indignity of having her hands bound or indeed of any other form of restraint. As the hours passed, Rahniseeta rather came to despise herself for offering so little threat. Lady Blysse would not have been given such freedom.

Rahniseeta thought of the wolf-woman as last she had seen her, crouching alongside the strangely maddened jaguar, and wondered, as she might have about a story she’d heard told long ago, how that had resolved. Her memories of Derian, of the dinner she’d eaten not all that long ago in the Temple of the Cold Bloods, of the documents she had been copying, all seemed distant and unreal. The only thing that mattered was the rise and fall of the boat’s deck, and the increasing frequency with which Shelby made excuses to stroll near her and brush against her as he passed.

In this strangely focused state, Rahniseeta was very aware when the feeling of the water beneath the hull altered, becoming smoother and less choppy. The movement of the air was less vigorous as well, and the salt scent of the open water was now mitigated with that of damp vegetation and dead fish.

Land smells,
she thought.
Misheemnekuru? The thunderstorm must have hit here as well. Harder than on the mainland.

Waln, who had not spoken for a long time except to order a sail hauled in or a line loosened, now spoke.

“This is far enough for now. We’d be fools to try and land in the dark. We’ll drop anchors bow and stern, and keep to the middle of the channel until we have light. Rarby, you, Nolan, Wiatt, and Elwyn get some sleep. The rest, stand by to fend off shore if we’ve misjudged.”

But his voice held confidence that they would not have misjudged, and it dropped to a conversational level as Waln turned to Shivadtmon.

“You can sleep if you wish, Aridisdu, but maybe you’d like to luxuriate in being where none of your people have dared go for well over a hundred years,”

Shivadtmon did not look as if this honor pleased him; nonetheless, he did not move to where the off watch were rolling out blankets and making themselves comfortable with the ease of long practice.

“I will remain awake,” the aridisdu said. “I am not in the least weary. If you wish to rest …”

“I’m fine,” Wain said. “Done longer watches than this since I was a boy.”

Rahniseeta thought they might talk more, but silence fell. She drifted off just a little, but never so much that she wasn’t aware of the quiet circuit of the sailors about the deck. She woke to full knowledge of herself and her surroundings when she felt a hand on her shoulder, a hand that slid to her breast and squeezed once, then twice, in a confidently familiar manner.

“Wake up, sweetheart,” Shelby said softly into her ear. “I’ve brought you some water.”

Indeed, he pressed a cool leather bottle into her hand, but he didn’t remove the hand that was casually exploring her curves, now dropping from her waist to caress her hip, then down to squeeze one buttock.

“Nice,” he said, and he might have been talking about the water.

Footsteps on the deck announced Waln’s return to his post by the wheel. He looked down at the tableau, but made no effort to interfere.

“How’s she doing, Shelby?”

“Nice,” the sailor said. “Real nice.”

“Sitting up here on deck can’t be too comfortable,” Wain began. “Why don’t you take her below and make her …”

What he was about to suggest was interrupted by a thumping from below the waterline.

“Have we swung and hit a rock?” Shelby asked, leaping to his feet and forgetting Rahniseeta in an instant.

“Doesn’t sound quite like …” Wain said. “Wrong feel. Grab a lantern and look over starboard. Tedgewinn, do the same over port.”

He was obeyed without delay or question.

“Movement down there,” Shelby reported almost immediately. “In the water. Do they have sea monsters here?”

“Looks like animals of some sort,” Tedgewinn corrected. “Seals, I think.”

“Shivadtmon,” Waln ordered, “take a look. Tedgewinn, show him what you’ve spotted. Shelby, wake Rarby. Get someone to take over watch on your side.”

“Aye, sir.”

Rahniseeta came fully awake as the sailors sprang into action. She rose and went to look over the rail, but made no move to jump.

She had come to respect Wain Endbrook too well to think that he might have forgotten her. In any case, even if he did, what could she do? If she went over the side and swam for land, would the yarimaimalom know her from any other human? And what if those weren’t seals down in the water? What if there were sharks?

Rahniseeta wondered if the seals Tedgewinn thought he had seen were yarimaimalom, if this was some sort of warning that the boat had strayed into forbidden waters. In a moment, Shivadtmon confirmed her guess.

“Seals, definitely,” he said, “and from the size I’d guess Wise Seals. They’re not trying to upset the boat, but they definitely want our attention.”

“I’ll give them attention,” Rarby growled, lifting what Rahniseeta now realized was a nasty-looking harpoon.

Shivadtmon was shocked.

“No!” he said. “They’re not attacking.”

Rarby looked at Waln.

“Do we have to wait for them to stave in a couple of planks before we hit? It’s gonna be hard to get back with a busted boat.”

“Wait,” Wain said, “and if they try to damage the boat, then by all means use your harpoon. Dawn isn’t long away. Once we’re on shore, and pull the boat into more shallow waters, the seals—if they’re wise—are going to think twice about attacking us.”

He laughed at his pun, and Lucky Elwyn laughed shrilly with him. Rahniseeta felt sick, and thought she saw a similar nausea in Shivadtmon’s eyes.

“We won’t have to deal with seals ashore,” Barnet said, his voice too even. “Just wolves, wildcats, and who knows what else.”

“They,” Wain replied confidently, “can’t do anything to the boat. We’ve come with enough quarrels to make their mothers think they’ve turned into porcupines. You have any problem with that?”

He looked at Barnet as he spoke, but Rahniseeta had a feeling that the statement was made for Shivadtmon. Neither man said anything, and Wain went on with the same raw confidence filling his words.

“We’ll explain really careful to these yarimaimalom what we’re about. They don’t want what we want to take—that’s sure enough. We’ll explain. When they know we’re going to leave as soon as we’ve done a little digging, why I don’t think they’ll risk their pretty hides.”

“And if they do,” said Wiatt the cook, a man Rahniseeta had always thought more gentle than not, “we’ll take them with us. Can you imagine the crowds that would come to see the hide of a giant wolf or jaguar? It would make a tavern back home, it would.”

“Maybe so,” Wain said equably. “Shivadtmon, maybe it wouldn’t hurt if you started the explaining right now. Just lean over the edge and talk. Explain to the beasties that we’re here and we’re going as soon as we get what we came for. They can be good hosts and let us visit, or be rude and get what we’ve got for them. Pretty it up any way you like, but make clear we’re not bluffing.”

“I’ll show’em,” Rarby said, obviously itching to use his harpoon on one of the shining backs that surfaced from time to time as the seals rose to breathe.

“Patience,” Wain advised. “Patience. Save your harpoon for those that deserve it. Unless these animals are a lot wiser than I think, someone’s going to have to test if we’re serious.”

Rahniseeta heard his words with horror, not so much that Waln spoke so of killing the yarimaimalom, but because from the manner in which he spoke it was evident that—unlike Wiatt, who still seemed to think of them just as merely giant animals—Waln Endbrook thought of the yarimaimalom as people. They weren’t even people he particularly disliked, but they were people he wouldn’t hesitate to kill if they got between him and his goals.

Rahniseeta listened to the urgent note in Shivadtmon’s voice as he spoke over the rail to the splashing pod of seals, and knew that he, too, had awakened to the viciousness of his allies. Dantarahma and his associates might contemplate offering a life to the deities, but that sacrifice in itself was a twisted way of expressing respect for life.

Wain had no such respect, and he had put weapons into the hands of those of his men he knew for certain shared that lack of respect.

For the first time, Rahniseeta faced her own fate squarely. As long as she was useful as a hostage, she would live, but in the end, she would die. She might be used to reward Shelby and some of the others, but in the end Wain would make sure she would die. She had seen too much, could give lie to whatever excuses and justification he thought he could make.

She was doomed and Shivadtmon was doomed. The only difference between them was that she knew, while from the desperation in his voice, Rahniseeta could tell that the aridisdu still twisted after the cruel lure of hope.

XXXVI

DESPITE FIREKEEPER’S BEST efforts to get the humans moving, dawn was pinking the horizon to the east by the time Harjeedian loosed the sailboat from its moorings and set course for Misheemnekuru.

Although the wolf-woman would not admit it lest the humans be given further excuse for dallying, the time spent preparing for the venture had not been completely wasted. A few owls and other night birds had methodically surveyed the various inlets throughout Misheemnekuru and located where the
Islander
was anchored.

Staying as high as was practical, an osprey now circled overhead, keeping watch over the ship and the humans aboard her, ready to relay through others of her kind any significant developments.

When Truth told Firekeeper that one of the islands near to where the
Islander
was anchored was the one upon which resided the maimalodalum, Firekeeper was deeply troubled. Although humans might believe otherwise, on most of the islands the yarimaimalom would simply flee if humans violated their territory. There would be time enough after careful reconnaissance to decide how to deal with them with the least risk of injury to the yarimaimalom.

But, for all their animal characteristics, the maimalodalum were very human in their attachment to the towers in which they dwelt.

“They will not leave them—and least not to permit them to be looted,” Truth said with certainty. “Not only are the maimalodalum as territorial as nesting birds, in the towers are stored record of the days before Divine Retribution drove the Old Country rulers from our land. The maimalodalum have guarded these for generations, and will not likely relinquish that trust now.”

Firekeeper thought there were other things the maimalodalum would be reluctant to give up. She remembered the softly glowing panels of light, so superior to any lantern or candle. She wondered, too, what other little comforts the maimalodalum retained from the days before the practice of more complex magics had all but vanished from the New World. She did not think the maimalodalum would surrender these lightly.