“Odin is out there somewhere,” said one of the former peasants who was lounging next to Alistair. He smiled, showing three holes where front teeth were supposed to be. “We’re all divided into separate groups, and Odin will join one at the last minute. No one knows which.” The man nodded knowingly, then added, “On account of the assassins.” He spoke English like one long comfortable with it, but with a touch of a non-native accent. His countenance was comprised of the morphed features descending from all or at least most of the original continents, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, and his skin was the typical light brown of such people.
Alistair did not reply for fear more than words would come pouring out. He instead tucked his head between his knees and waited for his stomach to lose patience and get it over with.
When the length of the shadows of the sand dunes was twice the height of the shifting hills and the brightness of the day lost its edge, a powerful bass note rumbled across the land, coming from the west. Another sounded a short time later, as if in response, this one also from the west but closer than the first. The deep, grumbling notes caused an abrupt change in the encampment. Men moved, several of them converging on a spot of sand to dig, uncovering a large object, easily the length of a man, wrapped in a tarp. Coming to his feet to observe the proceedings, Alistair saw the object being dragged up the side of a sand dune whereupon it was unwrapped and revealed to be a horn. Two men held it upright while a third stepped up to the narrow end, placed his mouth on it and blew with such intensity Alistair half expected to see his ears bleed. The same note was produced and held for as long as the blower had breath to give it.
The horn was then dropped and the sojourners dug into the dunes surrounding them. Alistair and his group moved to lend their help to the endeavor, and soon objects of many sizes and shapes were uncovered and the dunes were steadily wiped away. Boxes with tools were opened while sections of wooden construction were unwrapped. By degrees the work switched from uncovering to dragging the pieces nearer the sea, and finally to assembling. Over the course of a few hours the assembled pieces came to resemble a ship. All of the parts and equipment it required, painstakingly manufactured and buried, finally reached their culmination, so that a population of many thousands, hiding from the other forces of the realm, could disappear across the sea with almost no warning.
“If you don’t know what you’re doing, have the decency to stay out of the way!” clamored Duke as he moved in and out of different work groups, lending a hand here or a kick in the butt there.
Alistair, having been nudged and bumped and spun about by bodies with a definite purpose, felt like a beach ball on a busy highway. When the simple task of dragging the sections and equipment to the water’s edge was complete, the young Aldran found his usefulness was exhausted and decided to extricate himself from the center of the storm, withdrawing to the edge with a small group of similarly ineffectual folk. There they waited with the discomfort of those who want to contribute but are aware that any such contribution will be more hindrance than help. Miklos, having stretched himself out on a soft pile of sand remaining from the now vanished dunes, seemed perfectly content, but the rest kept vigil on the outskirts of the laborers, the moral support their presence lent the endeavor being the extent of their involvement.
The process went as smoothly as could be imagined, and Alistair marveled at the discipline of it. One could turn to make a comment or two to a friend, and in turning back a minute later the ship was noticeably closer to completion. When night eroded the sky until the last sliver of light, clinging to the horizon, finally dissolved and Srillium took its turn over the land, the vessel was completed. It was practical in design, bereft of any ornament, comfort, or feature not necessary in a boat whose only purpose was to travel twenty miles with a crew of six or seven score.
The boat was assembled on top of a long row of logs, former tree trunks stripped of bark and smoothed down. When Duke gave his approval to the completed vessel, a series of levers were placed under the ribs of the frame and over the shoulders of the larger men. Alistair and the others, inactive for a couple hours, quickly volunteered to help. The six score or so labored against gravity and friction and inertia and finally tugged and pushed and levered the boat into a sea that the tide by then had brought much closer to them. Finally, Alistair’s own moccasined feet stepped into the cool water of the ocean, and he felt the spray of broken waves on his face and chest, cooling his heated skin which protested at the twisting and rubbing it was made to endure. The spray charged him with an exhilarating freshness and he strained even harder against his lever until finally, with the water now up to his waist, the boat was floating free.
“Man the decks!” cried Duke from the foredeck, and he and the few with him already on the ship unrolled rope ladders over the side.
Most clambered up these but a few, including Alistair and Wellesley, remained in the water, pushing at the ship until it reached their chins and then they too scaled the sides and gained the safety of the craft, arriving in time to kneel down with the others and catch the end of the prayer the Druid was intoning. The Beseecher, placid of expression, was taken to the aft deck and his rug was laid there. He resumed his position of meditation while the oars were put in place and men propelled the boat. Alistair found himself next to Taribo, hands on the same oar, forcing it through the water below.
Taribo fixed a childlike grin on Alistair. “With you and I on this side we will be constantly turning right!” he said and laughed.
Alistair permitted himself a soft smile. Srillium was higher now in the east, its glow shimmering on the black ocean’s waves. In the west a handful of stars could be seen in the clear sky. Picking up speed, the boat withdrew from the beach, heading south towards the dark and deeper waters of the channel.
When the shoreline was sufficiently distant, sense of movement diminished. Oar stroke after oar stroke swished through the black waters, but only a faith in physics gave any confidence of forward progress. The prow of the boat dipped in and out of the salty water with that slurp boats make, and occasionally a wave in their proximity would crest and tumble over itself with an accompanying swish, but little else did they hear. The rhythm of their strokes, at first inconsistent with desultory cracks of oars striking, eventually settled into a stable pattern.
Duke, standing on the foredeck and peering at the stars, occasionally muttered something to a man Alistair took to be a lieutenant, and every so often one side of the boat was ordered to skip a stroke to correct the trajectory. Alistair had little confidence in the corrections, for Duke did not convey the relaxed mien of an expert but rather the nervous agitation of an amateur. He checked and rechecked stars with jerks of the head, as if the twinkling points of light might play a prank and reorganize themselves when he wasn’t looking. He constantly changed the position and attitude of his hands, and he paced back and forth, often pausing at the gunwale to grip it with whitening knuckles. Had the island not been the size it was, and only as distant as a few leagues, Alistair doubted they would have found it at all.
There were no breaks, for there was no one to relieve them. The ship was large enough that most of the occupants were seated at the benches with their hands on the oars. Almost everyone not rowing was a woman, none of whom was explicitly prohibited from touching the oars but, conditioned as they were by custom, they left the hard labor to the men. These women and perhaps a half dozen men sat in the middle of the boat, a narrow strip of a walkway elevated a couple feet above the rowers but a few feet below the fore and aft decks, to which access was gained by a short flight of steps from the walkway. The animals in their possession were kept on the decks. The spaces beneath them were stuffed with the supplies they were bringing: foodstuffs, seeds, tools and other things packed away in crates and wrapped up in tarps tied together. What supplies could not fit under the decks were distributed among the men and women on the central walkway.
By degrees Alistair grew somber and withdrawn. The tender
skin of his arms and shoulders was on fire, and a raging headache beat at his temples and forehead. He said not a word, instead focusing on a point on the wooden floor near his feet as he repeated his oar strokes, passing into an almost hypnotic state. He thought of his parents and his siblings as he rowed in that Srillium night on that Srillium sea. He thought of Oliver and Henry. He thought of Kaldis and many dozens of things so far away.
Taribo, not knowing Alistair well enough to recognize the set of his jaw and squint of his eyes, directed an offhand comment to him but got no response. The African, with a concerned glance, said nothing more. Finally, Alistair emerged from his near catatonic state with an eruption of vomit splattering the water between his feet. Coughing afterwards, he wiped his mouth with his forearm, and spit several times, looking around in embarrassment but only a couple men noticed, sparing him nothing more than a fleeting and indifferent glance between oar strokes. Taribo gave him a sympathetic half smile that he returned with a grim nod, taking hold once more of the oar and putting his strength behind it. He felt a good deal better already.
The vomit, its pungent smell piercing the stench of bodies, made Alistair a bit queasy, but it was diluted by the salt water in the floor of the boat. When this leakage rose to an inch in height men began to mutter uneasily; an occasional splash was heard beneath the groaning of the oars when someone shifted his feet. Duke came down to inspect things but assured his men it posed no real threat. The boat only had to last a short trip, and, he assured them, it undoubtedly would.
Odin’s tribe built fifty boats in all, and if everyone followed the plan, all four dozen plus were on the water, drawing nearer to one another as they converged on the island’s northern shore. Since it was too dark to see the other boats, it was sound that first indicated this growing proximity, but not a sound any of them was glad to hear. It was at first a great splash, like a large body rising out of the water, but so faint only Alistair and maybe one or two others heard it over the sound of their rowing. It was followed by the unmistakable sound of yelling and screaming. Then came a crash, as of wood being crushed.
Alistair perked up at the sound of the splash, but when the sound of a ship being broken followed, the entire crew, as one, ceased their rowing, startled like a man in a dark room who realizes he is not alone. Straining their ears, leaning towards the sound as if cutting the distance by a few inches would improve their detection, the men listened to the yelling and screaming. There was the sound of a load groan, like some material under great stress, followed by a snap and the flurry of voices became more frenzied. The horror of the unseen menace pressed down on them, and more than a few shivered in the warm air. Another splash was followed by more screams, only faintly reaching their ears from the distance but gaining in terror what it lost in decibels.
“Keep to your rowing, men!” shouted Duke, coming out of a stupor. “There’s nothing listening will do for them. Or us.”
His bark, so near at hand, was like an electrocution and the men were instantly plying at the oars, redoubling their efforts.
“That’s the next ship over,” muttered a man in Mandarin. He was one row removed from Taribo and Alistair. “If it turns our way we’re next.”
“What if Odin’s in that boat?” asked another.
“If you’re talking,” shouted Duke, bending over the foredeck and peering into the mass of men at the bottom, “you’re not putting enough energy into rowing! Now row!”
The horrifying destruction of the other boat continued unabated. The cracking of wooden beams, the splashing and cries all suggested a terrible scene that each pictured in his head. Those not occupied with rowing were now on either of the two decks, trying to catch a glimpse of the wreckage. Alistair caught sight of Gregory and Layla, kneeling precariously at the top of the pile of supplies on the aft deck, Gregory securing the young woman’s waist with his arm. Feeling a real fear take hold of him, almost like a hand trying to crumple his chest, Alistair heaved on his oar. The thought of being in the water, defenseless, while death from the unfathomable depths rose up to devour him, or drag him down to be drowned, was unlike any fear he had ever experienced. The resultant burst of adrenaline was unequaled by any he had ever felt.
The smashing of wood eventually ceased, leaving the desperate cries of men at the mercy of a lethal predator from the deep, and gradually, as the voices were reduced in number, the distant cacophony diminished. Finally there was silence more terrible than any sound that reached their ears. It was interrupted once, then twice, by a scream from a swimmer who had been conserving his energy rather than express his terror to the world, but the scream was short and ended abruptly, as if the vocal tract were flooded with salt water. After the second such scream there were no more interruptions.
A few of the men whimpered, like sympathetic echoes of the carnage just heard. Two lost their composure and were replaced at their oars. On the foredeck above, Duke no longer paced, instead grasping at the gunwale and facing the direction of the attack, straining to catch a glimpse of something in the water, as if his eyes might peel away a layer of darkness if he looked intently enough, as if a forewarning might somehow soften the blow. On Alistair’s hands a blister formed and popped, leaving exposed skin to be rubbed raw by the rowing, but he was insensible to this minor ache, so consumed were his thoughts with the silent expanse of water between their ship and the floating debris to the east. Between the wreckage and the negligible protection of their vessel, a large creature, a spawn of the ocean, might be swimming, hurtling towards them with nefarious intent. Or it might be headed away, towards a different ship; either way they had no say in the matter, wretches in the unfeeling hands of fate.
In the dark, over water, there was no way to know, upon hearing a sound, how far away was its origin; nor could they know how fast the invisible menace could swim or if there were others of its kind out there somewhere, waiting to happen upon them. Thus there was no point they could declare themselves safe short of reaching the shores of the island. Every moment of the way they took their fear with them, but there is a difference between acute fright and chronic dread, and men react differently to them. The acute fright they felt when the monster attacked charged them with a powerful burst of energy, but the chronic dread of the ensuing silence lost itself in the monotony, retreated to the subconscious. It was never forgotten, but it did not impart the same frantic urgency to each heave on the oars, did not command such full attention to itself. Alistair noticed the popped blister on his left palm, felt the trembles in his arms which remained when the adrenaline was exhausted. His efforts began to flag.
His slighter companions withstood less than he. Intermittent exhortations from Duke, equal parts encouragement and remonstrance, elicited small responses, miniature replications of the colossal effort provoked by the attack, each one smaller than the previous until Duke could educe nothing more. His pleas lost effect; coordination lapsed; oars once again cracked against each other; limbs trembled; men rested in their efforts, leaving their hands on the oars, but when enough men on the same oar did likewise it became obvious. Rhythm was lost and the boat advanced sporadically.
Duke, with a grimace and a curse, finally called a halt, ordering his men to rest for a few minutes and get their strength back. He assured them the island was only a short distance away now. It was a quick rest before the last bit of the journey, he informed them, but then he looked anxiously over the side of the boat, tapping his left foot and gnawing at his lower lip.
“Sunrise!” called a female voice from the aft deck.
Looking up, Alistair realized it was Layla, still perched on top of the cargo in the back, Gregory at her side. She was pointing behind the ship, which should have been the north.
“We’ve gotten turned around,” muttered Duke and a nervous grumble arose among the rowers. “Just a bit,” he assured them. “A couple strokes of the oar and we’re back on course. Let’s have the… starboard?… let’s have the starboard side… come on now, men. Just a coupl
e strokes and we’re back on course.”
The men on the right side of the ship managed two weary strokes. Duke, peering out at the horizon which showed the faintest signs of illumination, got a few more strokes out of them and the sunrise swiveled around until it was on the port side of the ship and they were facing south again.
“How far off course are we?” demanded a voice from the rowers and more grumbles ensued.
“I see the island!” yelled out one of the lieutenants from the foredeck. “It’s directly ahead of us!”
“There it is!” said another in confirmation. “Close at hand now!”
Duke, with rapid but tight, controlled gestures and emphatic cries, spurred the men on, but he need not have bothered, for the discovery of the island was quite enough to get them rowing again. Their arms were still sore but no longer tired, and their hearts furiously beat but for a different reason. Their leader was in the foremost point of the ship, leaning into the gunwale as if his weight could help them slide over the water. He shouted encouragement, turning to pump a fist or wave them on, and by the crescendo of his voice the men in the bottom of the boat could feel themselves drawing near to the island and away from the danger lurking in the sea. The water in the bottom of the boat was reaching their calves, but it was no longer a concern. As the light in the sky spread out slowly and the stars faded, they expected with each stroke of the oars to feel the boat hit solid ground.
And then finally it did.
Chapter 57
The first indication they were near the shore was when the tips of the oars clipped across the ocean floor. Then there was the rough sound of scraping as the hull of the boat hit rocks rising above the sandy bottom. Finally, the ship plowed into the shallow sand and the crew’s momentum pitched them forward; a couple men even fell from their benches. A spontaneous cheer arose and men scrambled over each other to reach the gunwale above and have a look. By the light of the murky early morning, they saw they had not made the beach; their boat ran aground about a hundred yards out.
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