Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“Fugitive?” cried Ibjen. “Fugitive from whom? I just want to get back to my father!”

Ensyl glanced at the distant shore. “Are you a champion swimmer?” she asked.

“Champion? Of course not! Let me go!”

“Pazel,” said Neda suddenly, in Ormali, “have you seen Jalantri? Do you know why he’s been kept apart from us in this way?”

She was hiding her anxiety-but not well enough to fool a brother. “It’s complicated, Neda,” he said.

Her eyes grew suddenly wide. “Did they kill him? They did, didn’t they? Tell me the truth!”

Pazel was about to assure her that Jalantri was safe when Fiffengurt stepped forward, waving his arms. “Quiet, Pathkendle! Listen up, Mr. Ibjen, and you sfvantskors as well: I’m not handing you over to anybody without a reason. But you might just give me that reason if I find out you’re telling lies.”

“Now you insult us,” said Cayer Vispek. “We surrendered to you in good faith.”

“We’ll see,” said Fiffengurt. At his gesture, the sfvantskor prisoners and the dlomic boy were dragged to the rail, and stood facing the dlomu host. Once again the two sides fell silent, applying themselves to their telescopes.

“Their leader’s waving them off,” said Fulbreech. “He’s not interested in them, that’s plain.” He looked the sfvantskors over carefully. “I suppose they were telling the truth.”

“Of course we were,” said Vispek, angrier than ever. “What have we to do with them? Yes, we took some necessities from a ship full of those creatures. But the ship was abandoned, and the crew already dead.” He raised his shackled arms. “Mr. Fiffengurt, where is your shame? You have no reason to treat us like criminals.”

“Reasons, Cayer?” said Neda with quiet bitterness. “Who needs reasons? Excuses are good enough for Arqualis”-she glanced bitterly at Pazel-“and their pets.”

Pazel could not believe his ears. “How can you say that, Neda? How can you think that?”

“Wait!” cried Thasha suddenly. “The big man’s moving. Ah, look: he’s reaching for the shell. Maybe he’ll give it a try himself.”

With his naked eye Pazel could just make out the orange shell, as the mighty leader took it from his aide. But rather than shout into the device he tossed it contemptuously to the ground.

Humans and dlomu grew deathly still. Pazel heard the creak of timbers, the piping of shorebirds about the rocky islets, the bumping of a wheelblock against the foremast. And then came a sudden, desperate banging at the window, and Captain Rose’s furious, gale-surmounting roar:

“Run! Run her south! Ware the ship and blary run!”

As that very instant the dlomic warriors gave a terrible cry and began sprinting out along the jetty in their hundreds.

“Ware the ship!” howled Fiffengurt. “Bindhammer, Fegin, aloft your yardmen! Bend them topsails now!”

“Gods of death,” said Haddismal, pointing.

The first dlomu were nearing the end of the jetty, some two miles from the Chathrand. But they did not stop: they dived with the grace of dolphins into the sea. One after another they dived, in a long coordinated maneuver. Dozens, then hundreds: the battalion was taking to the waves.

“Madness!” said Fulbreech. “Swimmers can’t catch a ship! And even if they could, what then? We’re sixty feet above the waterline!”

Pazel looked at Thasha: her eyes were wild, darting. All about them swarmed the men of the First Watch, freeing braces, racing up the shrouds, bellowing from the jungle of ropes overhead: “Let fall! Sheet home! Man the weather halyards!” Already the fore topsail was billowing out the spars. The main topsail followed, and the two vast, cream-colored rectangles filled and pulled. A tightening energy filled the ship, and slowly her bow swung away from the island.

The dlomu had become a haze of black dots, appearing and disappearing in the waves. Some of the sailors regarded the spectacle with astonished grins; it was as if a herd of cattle had decided to burrow into the earth. But Pazel did not grin. He thought of how Bolutu and Ibjen had brought the wounded Turach so easily ashore. He snatched the telescope from Fulbreech. The warriors’ strokes were amazingly fast, and their legs frothed the water behind them. He turned to Ibjen, shouted over the din: “Will they catch us?”

“How in Hell’s Mouth should I know?” Ibjen shot back.

“Could you catch us?”

His senses told him the question was ludicrous: the dlomu were swimming; the ship was setting sail. Ibjen hesitated, looking across the water at the black, swimming shapes. “No,” he said finally, and dropped his eyes.

It should have set Pazel’s mind at ease, but it had the opposite effect. Ibjen’s reply had been laced with shame.

Rose went on bellowing through the window: “Let go the topgallant clews! More sheetmen to windward! Brace that foremast or lose it, you creeping slugs!”

Pazel looked up at the windsock fluttering on the jiggermast yard: enough of a breeze for headway, but not for speed. Doesn’t matter, he told himself. For how fast could they possibly swim? Three knots, four? Fulbreech was right: it was madness. But the dlomu came on, swift and arrow-straight, and the Chathrand was still turning about.

“Lapwing!” howled Rose suddenly. “Cut loose those Rinforsaken drogues! Her bow’s fighting the turn, can’t you feel it?”

He was right, Pazel knew at once: the canvas drogues were pulling against the turn like stubborn mules. Pazel shook his head. “Rose guessed the whole tactical situation from in there,” he said to Ensyl, “and he couldn’t even see what was happening ashore.”

“He saw us seeing it,” Ensyl replied.

A decisive chop from the forecastle: Lapwing was taking an axe to the drogue cable. On the third blow the cable parted, and the Chathrand leaned into the turn, gaining speed. Now her bowsprit pointed at the red tower (its lock had been broken, its doors flung apart), now at the empty dunes, now at the corner of the village wall.

Fiffengurt twisted aft. A glance and a nod, and the teams at the mainmast began hauling with a will. A sudden thought brought his telescope snapping up: yes, the aft drogue was clear as well. Then up went his gaze, and both arms, and, “Topgallants, bow to stern!” he thundered, and one after another the higher sails were loosed. They filled faster than the canvas below: more wind at that height. They were turning with a will, now, the ship canting leeward in her eagerness to come about. Fiffengurt put both hands on the rail and heaved a sigh.

“Now we’ll be just fine, boys,” he said to no one in particular.

He slid down the forecastle ladder like a younger man and turned to face the captain. Rose’s bellows had given way to coughs (the smoky forecastle house was affecting all the prisoners) but he gave Fiffengurt a nod of affirmation. Fiffengurt touched his cap, turned smartly about (chest out, chin high) and then the lookout screamed from the fighting top:

“Sand! Sandbar at half a mile, three points off the starboard bow! No depth! No depth! Sandbar right across our way!”

They had not started their run, and no speed endangered them. But the ridge of submerged sand was disastrously placed. It began at the eastern edge of the island and meandered shoreward for nearly a mile. Fiffengurt howled a course correction. Hundreds of men at the ropes scurried and swore. They could only tack north, right at the village gate, until the sandbar ended.

No one smiled now. The swimmers had gained a tremendous advantage: indeed the Chathrand’s new course was actually bringing it closer to them. Worse still, they could not attain anything like the speed of a straight downwind run. All at once the race looked very tight.