Lauren Haney - The Right Hand of Amon

"You didn't see anyone?" Bak demanded, eyeing the sailor who had rescued the vessel.

"No, sir." The short, muscular man, clad in an ill-fitting loincloth, scratched his unkempt head. "I was alone on the cargo ship, sitting in the shade of the forecastle, fishing, dozing. It was nice there, breezy, not too hot. Maybe I heard something, something that woke me. I don't know. When I noticed your skiff-half underwater, it was-I bellowed like a bullock trapped in a marsh. They came running." He nodded toward two local farmers who had hurried to his aid. "We dived in and between the three of us dragged it out just in time."

"When I find the man who did this…" Bak let the threat hang in the air, allowing those around him to imagine any number of worthy retributions.

Huy knelt beside the spearman and probed the hole with his fingers. "I know a carpenter, one who's built several small boats, who might be able to fix it, but not before nightfall."

"Send for him."

With a nod as curt as Bak's voice had been, Huy strode up the slope. He spoke a few quiet words to the spearman, who dismissed the audience with a sharp command and a display of spear and shield. As soon as the last man had vanished from sight, he hastened away on the troop captain's errand.

Bak stood, hands on hips, glaring at the hole. He was angry, but more than anything he was puzzled. This was simple destruction, not a threat to his life, so what was its purpose? His thoughts darted hither and yon, searching for an answer. He could find none.

The sun was sinking toward the western desert by the time the two officers sailed out of the harbor. Huy's skiff was older than Bak's and needed a fresh coat of paint, but it was serviceable, the officer explained, for the short journeys he often made to the islands south of Iken.

Bak, seated in the prow, watched with approval while Huy raised the sail and searched out an erratic breeze, letting the wind shove them out of the harbor. As soon as they were midstream in the channel, he spilled the air from the sail, took up the oars, and let the current carry them north toward the long island. Bak recalled Huy saying he could not swim and Inyotef describing the officer as terrified of the water. In his experience, few men so afraid could-or Would-make themselves into accomplished sailors. "You handle the vessel with admirable skill. It's hard to believe you fear the water."

Huy gave him an ironic glance. "You've heard my worst-kept secret, I see."

Bak laughed. "Each of us has a weak spot. The trick is to overcome it, as you obviously have."

"As long as my feet are dry, I'm fine." Huy, keeping a wary eye on a shaggy tamarisk branch floating along beside them, rowed with strong, sure strokes across the current. "I realized when first I traveled as a soldier that I must control my fear or look the fool. As I hadn't the will to learn to swim, the next best way was to learn to sail."

"Inyotef said the two of you and Amon-Psaro sailed through the rapids on a warship." Bak eyed a cluster of rocks to their right and the churning waters racing through a gap between an island and a low-lying segment of land slowly being engulfed by the river. "That must've been an experience never to forget."

"An understatement if ever I heard one." Huy's laugh held not a speck of humor. "Did he tell you he came close to drowning me that day?"

Startled, Bak's head snapped around. "With what intent?"

"Oh, he meant no harm." The same humorless laugh. "As we neared Kor, he pushed me overboard, thinking necessity would force me to swim. Instead I panicked, gulped in water, and sank like a stone. Inyotef stood paralyzed, too surprised and distraught to act. It was Amon-Psaro, then only a child, who saved me from certain death." He adjusted the rudder, turning the skiff eastward to pass the upstream end of the long island. The vessel nudged the tamarisk branch. "Inyotef was filled with remorse. He begged my forgiveness, and I forgave him. But if ever I had the will to learn to swim, I lost it then."

Bak was jolted by the tale and annoyed with Inyotef's silence. He could understand the shame the pilot might feel, but he was too irked to sympathize. If he had known of the incident earlier, he would have saved many steps on the long path to discovering who might wish Amon-Psaro dead. Huy owed his life to the Kushite king. The likelihood that he would wish to slay him was close to nil.

Something cool tickled his foot, jerking his thoughts from speculation to reality. He glanced at the hull where his sandals rested. An elongated puddle was sloshing back and forth along the keelboard, its source a thin stream of water pouring through a crack between two boards higher up the hull. He cursed softly to himself, suddenly very much aware of Huy's fear, acutely conscious of the officer's potential to panic.

The branch still clung to the skiff, he noticed, close to the seam that was leaking, as if a cluster of leaves was caught on a rough spot below the waterline. Yet the outer surface of the hull should have been smooth the length of the vessel. Working hard to keep his face expressionless, his motions unhurried lest Huy notice, he reached into the water and explored the hull with his fingers. The branch broke free. Where it had been, he felt a ragged edge of broken wood and, probing deeper, a rounded hole that paralleled the surface of the hull instead of breaking through the wood. For an instant he was puzzled as to its purpose, but the answer was not long coming: the hole should have contained the dowel that pinned the two boards together.

With a growing sense of urgency, he leaned farther out, reached deeper, and ran his hand over the wood. He soon found a second hole, one seam lower than the missing dowel and triangular. His stomach lurched. A butterflyshaped wooden cramp had been knocked out of the opposite edge of the board from which the dowel was missing. At the first hint of pressure, that section of board would pop away from its mates, leaving a hole in the hull as big as his lower arm.

He glanced around, searching for a safe haven. They had passed the upstream end of the long island and Huy was leaning into tTie rudder, swinging the craft across the current that would carry them downstream to the landing of the island fortress. Bak doubted the skiff would stay afloat that distance.

Opening to their right was the channel that formed the back side of the island where the fortress stood, its course split at first by two small islands, rocky outcrops too low and craggy to support more than a few scraggly bushes. Beyond the larger of the two flowed a single channel, its waters boiling and angry, tumbling over and through and down a fresh set of rapids.

"Swing us in close to those islands." Bak kept his voice cool and calm, soothing he hoped.

"Is something wrong?" Huy demanded. "We've a small leak. I'd like to…"

A sharp crack of breaking wood cut him short. The stanchion holding the rudder collapsed. The rudder twisted in Huy's hand, breaking the notch holding it against the stern. The boat took on a life of its own, swinging sideways is the channel, out of control. Huy stared appalled at the useless rudder, the color draining from his face.

Staving off his own terror, Bak tore the oars from the officer's hands and dipped them in the water, trying to right the vessel before the added strain on the hull tore the damaged joints apart. He was too late. With an eerie groan, the loosened board pulled away from its mates and water flooded into the skiff. Bak lunged toward Huy, offering him the oars, thinking they might help keep him buoyant.

"No!" Huy screamed, flailing out with his arms.

The vessel dropped away from their feet, spilling them into the river. Bak glimpsed Huy, mouth open, eyes wide with terror, sinking beneath the surface. The tamarisk branch entangled an oar, and at the same time the current caught Bak's body and swept him downstream. An instant later, his head went under.