Perilous Seas (13 page)

Twenty
strokes should do it. Swiftly, swiftly to destruction. Eighteen.

Sixteen.

“You’re
sure of this, are you, Master Rap?” Kalkor murmured.

“Aye,
sir. Quite sure. Steady as she goes, helmsman. “ Fourteen.

Twelve.

Then
Kalkor raised his trumpet and roared orders-helm hard over, port watch backwater.
Blood Wave seemed to stand on her stern as she came about, her bow swinging
seaward, away from the waiting race.

The
thane’s rugged hand grabbed Rap by the throat, thrusting him back against
the gunwale, bending him over it until his feet left the deck, flailing
helplessly, and he was sure he was about to crack. Through a choking black mist
he saw blue eyes blaze above him in a killer rage. “Sink my ship, would
you, faun scum?”

Gathmor
lifted the battle-ax from Vurjuk’s unresisting hand and swung it against
the back of Kalkor’s knees. The thane leaped straight up, so it passed
below him and thudded into the side of the ship between Rap’s legs.
Momentarily released from that choking grip, Rap toppled himself over the rail
in a back somersault and plummeted into the sea. Vurjuk reached both hands for
his prisoner and was doubled up by a punch that would have felled an oak.
Gathmor vaulted over the side, following Rap.

Blood
Wave surged away seaward, out of danger.

Swimming
in the calm of Durthing Bay was no preparation for what happened when a man
fell into a riptide crossing a reef. Nothing in Rap’s past had ever
prepared him for the experience; nothing he could do now made the slightest
difference. His farsight was warning him of jagged teeth in all directions;
seaweed streaming in the water like hair in a wind; sand swirling in clouds
along the bottom; strange marine growths and slippery things writhing all
around him. And he, stirred in some giant’s silent soup pot, rolled over
and over, going down and up and down again, was all the time being rushed
helpless between those terribly sharp-looking rocks, coated with abrasive
barnacles. Fish fled from this improbable terrestrial monster invading their
realm.

Then
calm! He fought his way to the surface, to the world of air and life and sound.
Gasp! He was into the lagoon-dazed and shaken but unhurt ... almost so, for he
had lost some skin on his shoulders and knees. But alive!

His
first thought was to head ashore and warn the villagers, but that was already
impossible. He was long past the huts, being borne northward parallel to the
coast, and moreover he had left the beach behind also, and there was nothing to
landward except rocks and a cliff. So he concentrated on saving his strength,
keeping his head up, and searching for Blood Wave. He found her at the limit of
his range, far out from shore, northward bound like himself.

Then
he could relax a little. With wind and current behind him, Kalkor would not
turn back to loot a humble handful of hovels, else he would exhaust his rowers
to small purpose. Rather he would search for better pickings up ahead. The
immediate danger was past.

But
soon Rap found himself being forced inexorably shoreward, to where the surf
broke upon monstrous boulders that would love to break him also. He had never
swum in real waves, honest waves, and he was appalled at how little his efforts
seemed to matter. The sea moved him as it moved the weeds, and if it chose to
shatter him and color the spray a momentary red, then that would be his lot.

Try
as he might, he moved ever closer to the fury and madness of the breakers, the
white thunderclap explosions, the myriad rocky claws stretching out to rend
him. Cross-currents spun him around in mockery, so at times he was swimming
toward his destruction. At last one careless eddy slid him into the lee of an
especially large boulder. He flailed water with hands and feet, resisting the
drag of the water, fighting for his life. For one desperate minute he held his
position, then he began to drift away. His fingers touched trailing weed. He
grabbed, pulled, and slid easily to the rock, a land animal rooted again.

Once
he had his breath back, he scrambled up to safety. So far so good! The tidal
flow seemed to be easing already, meaning he would not be washed off his rocky
perch, but the surf still lay between him and the shore, the sun had gone, and
so had every stitch of his clothing. He could hope to swim the few yards to
shore when the current slackened in a couple of hours, or he might have to wait
for low tide and wade, but he could certainly reach the land in time, and then
hope to walk back to the village. On bare feet? Oh, well-at the moment he was
king of his own island.

Which
was certainly better than being Kalkor’s prisoner.

On
the other hand, this deserted land was neither Kith nor Sysannasso nor Pithmot,
and thus it must indeed be Dragon Reach, the eastern shore of the Dragon Sea.
Things were certainly beginning to shape up like the first of the magic
casement’s prophecies. One of the three men in the vision had been Rap,
one Sagorn, and the other a jotunn sailor. The first time Rap had met Gathmor,
on the dock at Milflor, there had been something oddly familiar about him.

For
the thousandth time Rap wondered how those three dread visions should be
interpreted. Were they alternatives, with him fated to die in one of those
ways? Kalkor had gone, Little Chicken was dead, the dragon was perhaps not far
off. Or were they a sequence-would he survive the dragon and at some future
date survive Kalkor? And in that case, where was the goblin?

What
a choice!

Either
the pounding of the surf or the nerve-racking strain of the last week had
exhausted him. He wanted to stretch out and sleep, but the rock was not flat
enough. In any case, he must not miss the tide. How far to Zark from here? He
huddled himself small, shivering in the clammy sea wind and the cold touch of
spray.

So
he had escaped from the raiders. He wondered if his occult genius included more
than just farsight and mastery over animals. Could there be such a thing as a
talent for escaping from awkward situations?

Mainland!
Apart from a few yards of turbulent water; he was within reach of Zark. A long
walk, maybe, but possible. Inos might be in Hub, of course, or back in
Krasnegar, or anywhere; but he’d told her he was coming, and that meant
following her to Zark, and if he couldn’t find her there, then he’d
try the other places afterward. Now he could begin, and that was very
satisfying-He had failed to destroy Kalkor, but by all the Gods he had tried!
Tried his damndest. He felt even more satisfied when he looked back at that
effort. Maybe, just maybe, he could take a little pride in that honest failure.
He must no longer think of himself as a stableboy. He was a man now. He hadn’t
been one long enough to really get to know himself. Oh, he was accustomed to
his size; he knew how his ugly face looked, and the amusement on other people’s
faces when they registered it and tried to place him, and he had accepted his
absurdly furry faun legs. But the stranger behind his eyes-he was still an
untested quantity. Now he could begin to hope that the man in there was not one
to be ashamed of. Nice try, lad, nice try! Not bad at all, faun.

So?
Maybe it was time to start asserting himself. Maybe he, too, had a destiny to
find.

Dragons,
huh?

He
was unsurprised, an hour or so later, to sense a boat coming from the south,
riding the last curl of the tide. It was a cumbersome craft, hollowed from a
single great log, being paddled by a burly, naked savage. Even in the dark,
farsight said that his hair and mustache and stubbly beard were jotunnish
silver.

“Shipmate
ahoy!” Rap called.

The
boat turned in his direction and a familiar voice came on the wind: “How
much will you pay for supper?”

“All
the money I’ve got.”

The
tidal race was slackening now, and the wind dying. Rap shouted directions, and
in a few minutes the sturdy craft thumped against his rock. He grabbed hold of
one side.

“Here,
take the painter,” said Gathmor. “There’s nothing to tie it
to. “

“Tie
it round your neck! Tide’s turning, so we’ll get a free ride back.
You never heard of the tides in the Dragon Sea? Stir it like soup.” He
was grinning in the dark.

Rap
looped the rope round his leg. “The villagers let you borrow this? “

“The
villagers had the sense to be long gone. They must know a raider when they see
one. I helped myself, but I expect they won’t mind when we explain. If
they do, I’ll kick their heads in. “

Gathmor,
apparently, was restored to his old self. “We’re in Dragon Reach?”

“Right.
“

“I
thought no one lived here?”

Gathmor
shrugged, and passed up a basket. “Help yourselfyou can see better than I
can. No, there are people here. It must be like living on the rim of a volcano.
Escaped convicts, I expect. Shipwrecked jotnar, merfolk ... runaway slaves, of
course. They’ll be a rag-bag lot, but probably quite friendly. So I’ve
heard.”

“But
dragons?”

“I
said. Like living on a volcano, and people do that. But remember that it’s
metal that attracts dragons. Gold, of course, or silver, but any metal to some
extent. There wasn’t as much as a nail in that hamlet that I could see.
Stone axes, stone knives. If they can get by without metal, the dragons may not
bother them much. “

“You
warned them?” Gathmor was an infinitely more powerful swimmer than Rap.

“I
told you, lad--they’d already gone. But I would have done. They might
have thumped me first, of course, seeing as how I’m a jotunn, but I
figured if you’d survived you’d be along here somewhere. So I
thought I d come and look for you. “

“Thanks.”
Then Rap added cautiously, “I think there’s another somewhere. “

“Who?”

“The
minstrel, maybe. “ If it was Darad or Andor, Rap would be happy to let
him die of starvation and exposure. Jalon or Thinal would be worth saving.
Sagorn it would never be, not yet. Having laid a selection of fruits and crusts
beside him on the rock, Rap passed the basket back down to the canoe. “Did
he jump, too?”

“I
didn’t see him, but. . .”Rap considered trying to explain, and
weariness settled over him like a blanket of snow. “I think maybe he did.
“

Gathmor
grunted, his mouth full of black bread. “You really tried to sink the
longship?”

“Yes.”

“Nice
try! Good man!” The jotunn chewed for a while. “Wish I d felled the
bastard with that ax, though! Never saw a man jump like that.”

“He
has farsight, too,” Rap said sadly.

“Stow
that!” Gathmor would never discuss the occult, nor let it be discussed in
his presence. Sailors believed such talk was unlucky.

But
obviously Kalkor had seen the battle-ax coming. When he had wanted a harp for
his minstrel, he had gone straight to the correct sack among a boatful of loot.
The test with the razor had been a lot less dangerous than it seemed, for he
had been watching all Rap’s muscles, as Rap had been watching his. He had
known the dangers of the reef and understood them perfectly, waiting until the
last minute just to be certain of Rap’s ill intent. Kalkor had never
needed a seer; he was one.

“What’re
you going to do next?” Rap asked, nibbling at a thickskinned fruit he did
not recognize. It was sickly and bitter at the same time, and the juice ran
down into his stubble.

The
jotunn paused in his chewing and bared his teeth. “Find an Imperial post
and warn them of Kalkor. If we can get word to the navy soon enough, they might
bottle him up here.”

“How
far?”

“Let’s
see ... We passed Flame Cape two days ago-”

“We
did?”

“We
did. Clouds. Birds. Wave patterns. Those northerners don’t know these
waters. I wasn’t certain it was Flame, of course, but I knew we were
close to land. So two days northeast of that . . .” He pondered for a
moment, screwing up his face. “We must be close to Pithmot. Dragon Neck,
they call the bit next the mainland. Not far to Puldarn, but it might still
take us days. The devil may be long gone by then. Not much chance of cathing
him, really.” He fell to brooding, chewing as impassively as an ox,
rocking to and fro as waves flowed under him. The painter tugged stubbornly at
Rap’s ankle.

“Then,”
Gathmor said at last, “from Puldam we head home to Durthing. The other
crews’ll be in now, or very soon. Expect they’re organizing
something.”

“Hunt
him down?” How could anyone ever hope to comer a single raider on the
immensity of the four oceans?

“Course
not. We’ll go to Gark. Return the complimentbum his steadings, carry off
the young women.”

Rap
shuddered. He could see where the manpower would come from, and the galleys
could be adapted readily enough, but. . . “Where do you get the weapons?”

“The
praetor. Impire’s always willing to support an outing like that. “

Of
course. It would never end. Moreover, Gathmor was obviously assuming that he
still had the right to give Rap orders and have them obeyed. That was a matter
that would have to be settled soon, but this was neither the time nor the
place. It would mean a fight. “You’re feeling better, anyway.”

Gathmor
bristled. “And what does that mean?”

“Just
that I’m glad! “ Rap said hastily. Yet the sailor had made a
miraculous recovery from the paralysis that had seized him aboard Blood Wave.
That withdrawal could have been genuinely due to weakness and shock, but it had
more likely been faked. While a faun could cower and beg for food, another
jotunn doing so might provoke a lethal contempt. His strange lethargy could
very well have saved Gathmor from cold-blooded execution, but he would never
admit that he had stooped to using deceit.

So
change the subject quickly.