by James Axler
It was no contest.
* * *
Krysty had explained it very simply and very quickly, so there wouldn't be any misunderstandings between them.
"Pyra Quadde's lifted a friend of mine. Two friends. You heard?"
"I heard. One-eyed outlander and the Indian harpooneer as scored ten from ten, casting the iron. Yeah, I heard about it. And I heard about ye five."
"We're taking you and your ship, and we're going after Ryan and Donfil. And we'll get them and chill the woman. You get the ship back after you bring us safe to land here."
"If I don't?" the skipper drawled.
J.B. shook his head and came close to half smiling. "I wasn't raised to waste time on peoplepretendingto be stupid, Captain Deacon," he said. "You know what happens. Everyone knows."
Jak spelled it out for the listening crew. "Too few us to fuck 'round. We chill captain. Next man refuses, we chill him. Keep chilling until someone says 'Yeah'. Won't take long."
Doc stepped closer, his trusty Le Mat .36 in his gnarled fist, its scattergun barrel yawning like a war wag's exhaust. "I trust you will believe me, Captain Deacon, when I tell you that we truly wish you no harm at all. But our dear friend, Ryan, and the Apache wise man, have fallen into the hands of the wicked woman of the seven seas. We wish to rescue them and ensure that she does not live to stain the good name of womanhood for another day. If you assist us in this, then there will be no trouble and no man harmed. If you do not..." Doc shrugged his shoulders expressively.
"Can ye promise to chill the witch queen of the Lantic?"
"Yes," Krysty said.
"Sure an' certain? If I help ye and Pyra Quadde wins out, then I'm dead meat. I'll be walking around, but I'll be deader'n a sharkskin hat."
Krysty didn't dare to look back. It could only be a matter of minutes before someone found the corpses of Rodriguez and the two sec men. Then the hue and cry would begin, and it wouldn't take long for the hunt to lead to the docks.
It would be a bloody firefight.
J.B. was thinking the same. "You got ten seconds, Captain. Set sails and go after the woman now. Or I chill you. Now."
The captain sniffed, glancing at the sky. Stars peeked through the ragged curtain of cold, salt mist. "Never liked the bitch, anyways."
"Loose lines, Mr. Mate! Bow line and hold one stern line. Set t'gallants. Main sails when we reach the channel. Let go forward and aft on my command! Lively, now!"
So the whaling ship Phoenixmoved slowly away from the quay of Claggartville, into the dark waters of the Lantic Ocean — hunting not her usual prey, but going after something far more deadly.
Krysty and the others took over the captain's quarters, making sure that they kept it secure with their blasters. But Deacon didn't seem concerned about the way they had hijacked his vessel, going about his business with a calm, unflustered efficiency.
And the crew took their lead from him.
The weather was kind, and Deacon knew from experience where Pyra Quadde was likely to have gone.
It wasn't many days out from port before they heard the shout from the lookout in the crow's nest, high above the deck. "Sail ho! Sail on the port beam! A ship!"
Chapter Twenty-Six
"Canst thou make her?" Captain Quadde shouted, standing with legs spread against the pitching of the short westerly sea.
"No, ma'am. Dark hull. Can't make her ensign at this distance."
She bellowed him down, glancing around, her eyes falling on Ryan. Her face lightened, her smile showing the hideous false teeth, which were worse than any plas-dents he'd ever seen.
"Outlander Cawdor. Thou hast more seeing in thy one good glim than these offal with their brace. Take the spyglass and get aloft. Tell me what thou seest there."
Ryan slipped off his seaboots, taking the telescope with a muttered word of assent. The ship was rolling in the swell, with an uncomfortable, chopping motion. But he knew well enough what a refusal would mean. As he had no desire to be tied naked to the mast for the woman to use for her pleasure, he climbed as nimbly as he could into the spidery rigging. He drew a deep breath of relief as he reached the relative safety of the crosstrees, swinging across to the narrow barrel of the crow's nest.
"Quickly or I'll have thee flogged for it. What ship is she? What flag does she fly, outlander? I can't hear thee!"
The shout rose almost to a scream. Ryan had heard the crew say that other captains from the region took good care to steer well wide of Pyra Quadde. One or two that didn't had been found floating belly-down among the fish guts of Claggartville harbor. So another ship coming close to them meant something out of the ordinary.
He steadied the glass on the flag that fluttered from the masthead of the approaching ship, trying to make it out, fumbling with the brass focusing screw.
"Fireblast! Can't... Ah, there it is."
From the earliest days, every ship out of New England had her own pennant, so that she could easily be recognized at a distance by any of her fellows. Even now, in the heart of the Deathlands, a hundred years after the skydark, the practice was maintained by everyone.
Even by Pyra Quadde.
Her flag cracked and snapped in the wind, only a few feet from Ryan's head.
It was a circle of crimson upon a rectangle of plain white. But as the wind tugged at the ensign it distorted the circle, elongating the bottom half, so that it sometimes resembled a bloody skull.
The oncoming vessel sported a flag of blue, with two horizontal white stripes on it. Ryan hallooed that information down to the woman on the deck, cupping his hands against the wind.
"Two slant whites on blue, thou sayest?" came the reply.
"Aye, ma'am."
"That be the Bartlebyunder Delano. Old Preaching Biddy hisself. Does she show any signal?"
Ryan could hardly hear the woman's words, but he leaned half out of the iron-hooped barrel and managed to catch them.
"No signal. But she's heading straight for us, ma'am."
Captain Quadde beckoned him back from the masthead, sending up another member of the crew to replace him as lookout. Ryan sat on the deck and gratefully pulled on his seaboots again. Though he had a good enough head for heights, the rolling crow's nest wasn't the best place in the world to be.
The whole of the crew came out to watch the approaching vessel. Ryan recalled again that such an encounter was very rare, particularly as most of the skippers along the New England coast knew Quadde's reputation and kept plenty of sea room between themselves and the ill-starred Salvation,
Slowly, tacking her way against the breeze, the Bartlebydrew closer. As she did, the wind fell away to a mild zephyr, barely breathing enough air to enable the two whaling ships to maintain their forward momentum through the flattened waves.
Captain Quadde took her place at the port side of her ship. Ryan noticed that she had buckled on the Spanish Astra short-muzzle .44 and wondered whether she was anticipating trouble.
The ships would pass port side to port side. The crew of the Bartlebywas also lined up along the rail, staring in silence at the Salvationand her crew. A short, skinny man in a bottle-green tailcoat stood alone near the stem. He had a mane of white hair that made him look like pictures of Old Testament prophets that Ryan had seen in some of the many Bibles that still survived in the Deathlands. It was an odd fact that around half of the books he'd ever seen in his life had been Bibles from before the long winters. Yet he'd never read anything to confirm that the old United States had been such a profoundly religious country.
"Captain Quadde!" the man hailed, using a battered tin megaphone.
"Good day to thee, Captain Delano. What bringest thee to my waters?"
"The waters are not thine, Captain Quadde, and it be blasphemous to claim them."
"When the Almighty comes sailing and whaling across these banks with a brace of big fish hauled tight to his flanks, then I shall allow him to share of mywaters, Captain."
"Thou art...!" The man controlled himself with wh
at was an obvious effort of will. The ships were still nearly a hundred paces apart, their courses meaning they'd pass within about ten feet of each other on their parallel ways.
"Make thy speech quickly, Preaching Biddy!" Quadde shouted, beaming at the ripple of laughter from her own crew.
"If I did not..." Delano began. "I will not quarrel with thee or damn thee, Pyra Quadde. The savior sees all, and he will judge at the ending of thy life. I seek thine aid."
The request sounded as though it had been torn from the man's soul with white-hot pincers.
"What aid, man? Wouldst thou know where the great whales sport? I slew one within the day, and he be the first of a bounteous harvest in rich lays for my lads here."
"I have hunted well. Too well," Delano replied. Now the ships were closer, the figureheads barely thirty yards apart.
"Then what?.."
"Both my brothers are lost, Captain Quadde. Dearest to my heart."
"Lost? Both?"
"Aye." The man was on the verge of tears, and Ryan could see the whiteness of his knuckles gripping the carved rail.
"To lose one brother is unfortunate, Captain Delano. To lose both seems like foolishness."
"Thou flint-heart! One was tillerman and one the harpooneer in the lead whaleboat. They had struck a massive right whale, bonnet calked thick with barnacles. We had lost a sail from a broken halliard jammed in a block. A sudden fog came down, as it often does upon these waters..."
Now the ships were fully alongside, the crews staring curiously at one another. Ryan found it odd that all these seamen came from the same ville, yet not a word was exchanged. Captain Delano was leaning out over the rail, hands reaching imploringly toward the impassive figure of Captain Quadde.
"And thou hast seen nothing since?"
"Nothing. But the whale was bearing this way. When the fogs..."
"I have seen nothing."
The words were cold and flat. Dismissive.
"The two of us, together... We could quarter the sea and find my brothers."
"We could, but we will not. I am here to hunt the whales. Not to scour the waves for dimwit orphans who know not their trade. Good day to thee, Captain Delano."
Now the sterns of the two vessels were level, the two skippers scant feet apart, gazing into each other's eyes.
"Turn and let us talk longer, Captain Quadde. I beg thee, in the name of thy savior."
"These are my waters, but he is not my savior, Preaching Biddy. Get to thy search."
"One day? But give up one day's hunt. I'll pay thee for thy time."
"Fare thee well!" Pyra Quadde shouted across the widening gap. She turned to her crew. "I can find work for any idle hand I see skylarking out here. Mr. Ogg! Set them to it."
"Aye, ma'am."
Ryan joined the others, scurrying away belowdecks to lend a hand at the noisome task of boiling down the chunks of blubber.
He heard the last, fading words of Captain Delano of the Bartleby, torn away by the wind.
"May thy stone soul sink thee to hell, Pyra Quadde. And may any man who sails with thee join thee in everlasting torment!"
The next time Ryan Cawdor came out on deck, the other ship was a tiny black speck, hull down, on the horizon.
For the next two days they pressed on, sailing deeper into the whaling grounds, but without a single sighting of their prey. And with each hour that passed, Pyra Quadde became more and more ill-tempered, with a curse and blow for any man who came within her reach.
"She's getting hungry again," Johnny Flynn whispered, mumbling through his toothless gums, as he and Ryan worked together on splicing a length of rope.
"Hungry for what?"
Jehu was also busy nearby and he heard the muttered conversation.
"Hungry for meat, shipmates. The meat that grows from the loins of a man. The meat that grows and shrinks and rises and falls. That's the fine red meat for our captain's tastes."
* * *
The Bartlebywas homeward bound, her voyage ended prematurely by the loss of Captain Delano's two brothers. Her search across the vastness had been a fruitless one, and she was headed back to Claggartville to mourn her dead. She passed by the Phoenix, close-hauled on a starboard reach, and the captains were able to pass on their hurried news.
Krysty and Jak stood by Captain Deacon, to make sure he resisted the temptation to reveal his plight. But he kept silent about his unwelcome quintet of passengers.
The men of the Bartlebygazed with naked curiosity at the white-haired boy and the fire-haired young woman. But there was no time for questions. Just the one vital question, answered by the wild-eyed Delano, shaking a fist toward the heavens.
"Less than a hundred leagues ahead. On the southern edge of the whaling banks. If ye seek her for some vengeance, go with my blessing. If to aid her, then may ye sink with my curse."
Then the whaler plunged astern of them, vanishing swiftly. Deacon turned to Krysty, tapping at his teeth with a forefinger. "Closing. The Salvationis not the swiftest vessel from the ville. With a good wind we can claw a couple of knots from her. More if Pyra Quadde is quartering the Lantic for the whales. Delano has seen few in a week or more. We could come within sight of her in another couple of days or less. Maybe less."
"Be good," J.B. said, joining them.
Deacon looked at the Armorer, unsmiling. "Yeah mister. It'd be good. Good to see the backs of ye outland chillers, and get on with our job."
"When we get our friends safe, you won't see us for dust. Or for spray," Krysty replied.
Deacon, hands locked in the small of his back, walked away from them to the other side of the deck.
* * *
Another day on the Salvationwithout the sighting of a whale. Toward evening Captain Quadde beckoned Ryan to where she stood on the main deck.
"Figured I'd tell thee that I'm set on having thee, Outlander Cawdor. Soon. Settle the score 'twixt us. Well set-up man like thee." Her long tongue peeked out between the filed ivory teeth and licked her chapped lips. In an attractive woman it would have been a stimulating and coquettish gesture. In Pyra Quadde it was simply frightening. And disgusting.
That night, while the rest of the crew slept around them in the forecastle, Ryan told Donfil about the threat from Pyra Quadde.
Coiled uncomfortably in his too short bunk, the shaman asked him what he intended to do.
"Got no choice. I'll do a lot to stay alive. Trader used to say a man who died of pride was a fool. A corpse can't get any revenge. But her idea of fucking ends in death. We know that."
"You'll chill her first?"
In the rolling darkness, Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Guess so. If I can do it right. Then see if we can take out enough of the crew to win the ship. Not much of a hope, I guess."
"I got nothing better. Maybe we'll catch some whales tomorrow. Take her mind off... off other things."
"Yeah. Maybe."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Following a hunter's instinct, Pyra Quadde set her course back toward land, moving northerly, hoping to pick up one of the mighty schools of whales that broached and sunned themselves off the deserted coves.
The sun shone brightly, and the last of the blubber was finally rendered in the ovens and stored in sealed barrels below the main deck. The whaleboats were cleaned, lowered and raised again, the men on the davits chanting an old whaling capstan song to lighten the chore.
Though the sun shone brilliantly, Ryan noticed that dark clouds were building up, far away ahead of them, thunderheads that rolled and bubbled, filled with venomous lightning, streaked with white splashes across the violet sky.
"Yeah," said one of the other sailors, when he mentioned it to him. "Over the land, that is. Wind rips it apart and pushes it our way. Could be bad from the height of them chem clouds."
"How come the sea's so flat?" Donfil asked.
It was true. The waves had flattened out and disappeared, and even the long ocean swell had almost gone. The ship sailed gently on, as if it were a child's
toy, placed upon a painted, mirrored sea. The sails flapped idly on the yards and the helmsman spun the wheel, looking for a breath of a breeze to help them on their way.
Captain Quadde had a canvas chair brought out and placed on the quarterdeck, where she sat and watched her crew with a baleful eye. It was warm, and she'd changed out of her heavy sweaters.
Now she wore a white blouse, with torn, dirty lace at collar and cuffs. One sleeve was ripped from elbow to wrist. The material was thin, and it was possible to see that the woman wore nothing beneath it. The dark circles of her nipples pushed at the tight blouse.
Her skirt was cotton, pale blue, covered with food and drink stains down the front. It was too tight for her around the waist, and she'd tried to pin it shut. But it revealed a gap of rolling fat. Her wide belt carried the belaying pin on one side and the .44 on the other. Her legs and feet were bare, the toenails crooked and jagged.
She had a bottle of the usquebaugh at her side, as well as a chipped tankard of clouded glass. By late afternoon she was visibly, and audibly, drunk.
"No fugging whales in the whole fugging sea. She was only a fishmonger's daughter, but she knew how to lie on the fragging slab and say fill it! Fillet! Where's the pigging whales gone? Must be the outlander with his one fucking eye and all bad luck. Like whistling on deck. Brings lucking bad fuck, it does. Yeah, it does."
Around noon the lookout from the masthead had called down that he could see the top spars of another ship. Shadowing them, so he said. But he couldn't make out enough of the cut of the jib to be certain that it was still the Bartleby, searching for her missing children.
"Course it's them," Quadde shouted. "Preaching Biddy Delano! May his balls rot and his cock wither and his ass leak his brains all over his clean frogging decks."
Each change of lookout reported the same sight. Just on the edge of seeing, only the top spars visible, keeping her distance, beating in toward the stormy land at the same speed as the Salvation. Maybe just a knot or two faster.