by J. S. Bangs
“A coracle paddled with a seashell is faster than us right now,” Patara said.
Idhaji rose from where she had been sitting at the edge of the hold. “Dear Captain, shall I look as well?”
Patara glanced over his shoulder at the approaching ship. “Can you do anything for us other than watch?”
“I could,” she said, bowing her head. “But last time—”
“No, stay where you are. Perhaps they’re friendly.”
Another moment passed. “They’re not friendly,” Khinda called out.
“What?” Patara said, and he dropped the steering oar to look behind him. “What do you see?”
“The man in the prow. He’s not Amuran.”
Patara’s blood began to thunder in his ears. “It could be nothing. Lots of traders have Kaleksha crews.”
“Yes,” Khinda said. “But most of them fly the eagle of Davrakhanda on their masts. These, however…”
The boat was nearly on top of them, running straight up their wake. In a few more breaths they’d be close enough to shout.
“I know that man,” Thikritu said. “From the guesthouse in Bhurnas.”
Patara swore. “Trim the sail, boys. Damn the mast and take all the wind you can.”
Jauda was holding the spar, and he nodded and adjusted the angle of the sail until it bulged with the full force of the breeze. The mast creaked. The boat surged forward.
Patara’s knuckles were white on the oar. He knifed it into the water. Head to shore. There was a chance, he told himself. They were small, and if they could ride over the reef…
“Still gaining,” Khinda said.
Patara glanced over his shoulder. The prow of the approaching boat ate the last yards between the pirates and Patara’s dhow.
He cursed again, his hope broken. “Get ready!”
The first grapples flew through the air a moment later.
The hooks clattered into the hold and were reeled back by the approaching corsairs. Thikritu and Jauda leapt forward and began hacking at the ropes. One cut, the other loosed to splash harmlessly into the water. More came. The corsairs were alongside them now, less than ten feet away. They hurled insults and abuse alongside the hooks. Ashturma and the others fell upon the lines, prying the hooks from where they had caught against the decking or the rails, splicing through the ropes with their knives. The boat heaved. The side of the pirate vessel drew closer.
“Stop!” Patara shouted. “Too late! Defend yourselves!”
And with a violent scrape of wood against wood and the crunch of the rails, Patara’s boat slammed into the side of the pirate ship.
The men of the dhow staggered with the blow. Patara drew his knife and scrambled to the rail near the pirates. By Ashti, he would stop them there. Behind him, knives and cudgels waited in the hands of his sailors.
A Kaleksha man with a blond beard and small eyes staggered up to their rail, a little crowd of armed pirates behind him. Short swords and daggers glinted in their hands. The Kaleksha captain glowered at them. His eyes settled finally on Idhaji, sitting calmly in the midst of the huddled sailors. He pointed.
“That one.” His voice grated with the clipped Kaleksha consonants and the grinding of a throat made hoarse by sea salt. “Give her to us.”
“No,” Patara said. “I’m the captain, and she’s my passenger. Take the cargo. Leave the woman.”
The Kaleksha man grinned, showing blackened teeth. “The lady’s worth ten times your cargo. Keep your tin. The Red Men want the woman.”
“Father, don’t,” Ashturma said quietly.
“Of course I won’t,” Patara said. “The man’s right. She’s worth much more to me than the cargo.”
“Dear Captain,” Idhaji said, “would you like me to intervene? Since I’m so valuable to you.”
Patara gritted his teeth. “One more moment.” He faced the Kaleksha with a snarl of hatred and contempt. “Can I ransom her from you?”
“No!” the man roared. “Not for less than ten silver talents.”
“And if I have it?”
The Kaleksha man looked suddenly unsure. He stepped back from the rail. “Let me see it.”
Patara shook his head. “You’ll just kill us, then take the woman and the money. Unhook the boat and we may negotiate.”
“You’ll sail off.’
“Why would I do that? You caught us easily enough the first time.”
“No, I’ll just take her.” The pirate captain drew a knife from his belt. “Men!”
“Idhaji!” Patara shouted.
The thikratta spoke a word. There was a sudden roar of wind, as if a squall had broken over their heads while none were looking—but there was a voice in it. Idhaji’s voice. The boat heaved.
Waves leapt up on each side of them, pulling the dhow down into the trough between them. For a moment, the pirate ship hung above them on the lip of a precipitous wave, tied to them by its grapples, ready to tumble down the watery slope and crash into them. The water tilted, and a jet of sea foam surged up between the two boats. With a snap and a hiss the ropes broke. Patara’s dhow raced down the face of the wave like a stone tumbling down a hill, the prow cutting a fierce white spray through the water. Idhaji shouted. The wave moved, and the pirates disappeared from view on the other side of the swell.
“Look out!” Khinda said. “Brace yourselves!”
Patara grabbed the rail. They hurtled into the trough of the wave. For a heartbeat, the crest of the swell cast its shadow over them. Then the wave crashed over the deck.
Patara tasted seawater and saw only a churn of gray water and white spray. Air returned a moment later. His eyes cleared: the boat was swamped, water filling the hold to the decking. But the men survived, clinging to the rails while the seawater spilled over each side.
Patara leapt into the hold. “Bail!” he shouted.
In an instant the hold was full of bodies. They grabbed at bailing buckets and heaved water over the rails. Water sloshed over the sides of the boat and returned to the sea with urgent speed. Another swell picked up the boat and tipped them forward, spilling half the water in the hold back into the sea, and for a moment Patara grabbed desperately at the mast, afraid that the dhow would capsize. But they rode over the crest of the wave and fell into the trough at the other side without harm.
“Bail!” Patara shouted again. For a few moments the only sounds that Patara heard were the slap of bailing buckets in the water, and the panting of the men as they heaved seawater overboard. Patara’s lungs heaved and his muscles burned.
But they didn’t sink.
He stopped when the water in the hold had fallen to the level of his shins. He called a halt, then climbed up to the deck and collapsed against the rail panting with exhaustion. Ashturma climbed up next to him, lay down on the boards, and let his arm dangle over the side of the deck.
“Dear Captain,” Idhaji said quietly. Patara looked over at her, sitting calmly on the decking with her legs crossed and a serene expression on her face. “I don’t know how much I’ve helped. The corsairs’ boat is still less than a mile away. I could have done more, but…”
“No,” Patara said. “What you did was enough. The boat wouldn’t take much more.”
“But the pirates are coming around again.” She pointed past their stern. “I have let the sea rest, but without the waves to carry you away, I fear we won’t get much further.”
Patara pulled himself back to the aft deck and put a hand on the steering oar. He had barely the energy to lift the thing, but he managed to get their prow pointed to shore. “Find the wind,” he ordered. “We’ll at least try to stay away from them.”
With groans the crew rose and took their places around the sail. The wind caught the sail and pushed them forward.
“More wind,” Patara said. “Catch as much of it as you can.”
“Captain,” Khinda said, “I don’t know that the mast will take it.”
“Damn the mast,” Patara said. “Full sail.”
Khinda nodded and turned the sail to catch the wind full-on. The mast bent and creaked with the extra strain, but it did not break. The black shoreline was about three miles off. If they could cross the reef and find a bay, they could hide until the pirates gave up. It was a small chance, but it was all they had.
Idhaji still sat at the edge of the boat. She dangled her hands over the rail, reaching towards the waters. Her lips moved with unheard words.
“What are you doing?” Patara asked in alarm. “No more waves.”
“I’m preparing,” Idhaji said. She glanced at Ashturma holding the tackle. Ashturma gave her a grim nod. A gust of wind pulled against the sail, and the mast bent forward even further. The shore neared.
“The pirates are gaining again, Captain,” Khinda said from his post near the sail.
Patara acknowledged the warning with an angry nod. He did not need the warning. The shore was still a mile away. Patara could just make out the line of foam which marked the reef. He swore. No gap that he could see.
An arrow hissed past Patara’s ear and landed with a thunk in the fore rail. The sailors cried out.
Patara looked back. The corsairs were a hundred yards behind them, but they had slackened their sail and didn’t seem to be trying to gain. Instead, a quartet of men with bows had gathered on their foredeck and pelted them with arrows. Splashes on either side of the boat announced missed shots. An arrow pierced the sail.
“Any more sail, Khinda?” Patara asked. “I’ll take any speed we can get.”
“None,” Khinda said. “We’re full-on. And the mast can barely take it as it is.” As if to underscore Khinda’s words, an ominous groan sounded from the green wood.
The reef was a hundred yards to their right now. Patara steered into it. They rode shallower than the pirates; if they sailed close to the reef, maybe the pirates would be forced to hang back.
“Father,” Ashturma cried out. Then he shouted. “Father! Look!” He pointed straight ahead of them.
Two miles ahead, just coming around a headland, another pair of sails appeared.
Relief and fear mingled in Patara’s blood. “Who is it?” he asked. “What banners do they bear?”
Jauda crawled onto the prow and peered ahead. He ducked as arrows flew past him. Patara glanced back at the pirates shooting. Did it matter who was ahead?
An anguished cry cut short his thoughts. Ashturma…
Ashturma lay in the bottom of the hold, staining the water red and howling with pain. An arrow sprouted from his thigh.
“Ashturma!” Patara shouted and nearly leapt into the hold himself. He restrained himself to hold the steering oar. Khinda clambered across the baskets of tin and reached the injured boy. Ashturma howled.
More arrows whizzed over Patara’s shoulder and landed in the hold. Patara looked behind him. The pirates had closed to thirty yards, the archers picking their targets with lazy precision. Arrows planted themselves in the mast. Shots tore the sail.
“Captain,” Jauda shouted. An arrow landed in the decking next to him, and he jerked with fear. “I see the banners. Red, with the spear of Am.”
“The Red Men?” Patara said. Then he shouted. “The Red Men! Sailors, we make for the Emperor’s galleys!
An arrow flew past him, and this time Thikritu screamed and fell. Vaija leapt to help him, leaving the sail unattended. Patara looked ahead. The galleys were still two miles off, and they weren’t sailing with any alacrity. Then a new sound: metallic scraping across the decking. Another grapple.
A vision of the future rose unbidden in Patara’s mind: the Kaleksha would board and kill them before the Red Men arrived, leaving only Idhaji alive. They would trade the thikratta for a bounty and the freedom to sail away. And Patara’s ship and crew would lie at the bottom of the ocean.
He looked down at Khinda and Ashturma in the belly of the hold. Khinda had lifted Ashturma and laid him across several half-empty sacks of tin, just barely out of the water, and he pressed a piece of rag against Ashturma’s thigh. The water around Khinda’s shins was red. He glanced up at Patara with desperation.
“Idhaji,” Patara said.
The woman still sat serenely at the edge of the boat. Arrows hissed around her. “Yes, dear Captain?”
“Call up the waves.”
“This close to the reef?”
“Yes!” An arrow thudded into the deck. “Now!”
Idhaji spoke, and the sea roared.
Patara had no time to brace himself. A wave like a storm leviathan picked up the dhow and tipped it forward. Patara tumbled into the hold. He tangled with the limbs of Vaija and Khinda, toppling over sacks of tin, spinning with the mad rocking of the dhow. He fell facing up. Above them was a tower of water with the corsair ship like a coconut shell on its face. Their white wake streamed up the face of the waters towards the boiling crest. The roar of the waves. The howls of injured men.
Everything crashed around him.
Boards splintered. Bodies flailed. Water flushed him out of the dhow. White foam and screaming winds. His legs beat against stones. A swell of the ocean picked him up, then the water hurled him against the reef. Coral battered his knees. He scrambled, grabbed at anything. Fingernails tore against slime-covered stone. A handhold. The water drained away, and he caught a breath of air. Another wave. He held. He pulled himself forward and found a place for his feet. Rough coral and sharp stones. But he could stand.
Atop the reef, the water came only to his knees. A wave nearly knocked him over.
Where was Ashturma?
All around him floated the jetsam of the dhow. Ten yards down, Thikritu clung to a rock despite the arrow wound in his shoulder, while Vaija climbed up next to him. The remnants of the hull lay beyond them, crushed against the reef. Jauda lay in a fragment of the prow, clinging to the rail with desperation.
He couldn’t see Ashturma.
There was a splash to Patara’s left. Khinda climbed out of the water much as Patara had done, grabbing at whatever edges he could find in the anemone-covered reef. His hands and feet were bloody. Patara glanced down and saw that his own were as well. A hundred yards away, Patara saw that the Kaleksha ship had run aground against the reef, its hull splintered. Men were thrashing and flailing in the foamy water.
Where was Idhaji? Where was his son?
A swirl of red in the water alerted him. Not his own blood. He dove into the sea, eyes open, and chased its source.
The sun was bright, and the water was clear save a little silt stirred near the sea floor. In the blurry, silent, underwater world he spotted Ashturma at once: a brown shape falling slowly towards the black base of the reef. A ribbon of blood drifted away from his wounded thigh.
Patara’s lungs burned. He surfaced, gulped a mouthful of air, and dove. Straight down, like the pearl divers of the islands. The water pressure pounded his ears. Long gray shapes moved in the water around him. He found his son’s arm, closed a hand around the wrist, and kicked towards the surface. The half-floating body came up as easily as a piece of driftwood. He took another moment to wrap both of his arms around his son’s chest and pushed off from the base of the reef.
The sun was a splintered halo of light overhead. His legs kicked frantically. His lungs begged for breath. He swam. His foot brushed against rough skin. Light and air beckoned above him.
And, with a sudden rush, sound and air returned. He gasped air. He heard the crashing of waves; the cries of the men on the reef; the screaming of gulls overhead. He moved onto his back and heaved Ashturma’s head out of the water.
“Help us!” he cried out. “He lives!”
Shouts and warnings were all around him, but no words that he could understand. Ashturma’s face was in the air—was he breathing? His feet brushed again against something moving.
Ashturma’s body jerked out of his hands and disappeared into the water.
The water filled with dark blood, and a gray fin broke the surface. Patara screamed. He splashed forward and found his son’s
hand. The water around them writhed with the movement of sharks. He kicked towards the reef. His head slipped under the water for a moment. Legs and arms were clutching at waves. Gray fins were on every side. His son’s body floated before him. He stretched an arm towards the reef.
Ashturma’s body jerked in his arms again. Patara’s face slipped below the surface, and he kicked in panic to get his nose above the water. With a violent thrash of the sharks’ tails Ashturma disappeared beneath the water.
“Ashturma!” Patara cried. He swam forward and reached into the bloody eddies following his son.
A shape darted through the murk. Pain lanced through his hand, and a violent jerking pulled him beneath the waves. The water swallowed his screams and his thoughts.
Beneath the surface was silence and peace. The water was scarlet and beautiful. The sun danced through the wave-stirred surface. The beautiful gray lines of the sharks moved through the water with the grace of dancers. The pain receded in Patara’s mind, replaced by a dazzling weariness. He needed to swim, but his muscles disobeyed his command. He drifted.
Above him, the glowing white sun shattered as a body dove into the ocean.
He felt the command like a shiver in the water. The sharks twitched. A second word stirred the sea. He could not understand what it said, but the sharks did, and they fled. A hand closed around his wrist and pulled him to the surface.
The first mouthful of air re-awakened his mind to panic. A voice commanded him, “Swim.” His right arm was shredded above the wrist, little strips of flesh drifting off into the water; his hand hanging limply. He gaped at it, feeling no pain, numbness spreading from his hands to his shoulder.
“Swim!” came the command again. He was sure that he had no energy or will left to swim, yet his arms and legs moved. He inched closer to the reef.
Khinda’s hand found his uninjured wrist. His knees scraped against coral, and his toenails tore against stones. A moment later he stood on the reef, coughing madly, his torn arm held against his chest.
Idhaji emerged from the water onto the reef a moment later. She stood to her feet, wiped her hair from her eyes, and looked at Patara.
“Dear Captain,” she said. Her mirth was gone, her face crumbling with pity. She walked towards him, placing her feet carefully on the sharp stones. “I was too late. I’m sorry.”