Ravian's Quest

by Jerry Carpenter

  All through that night, they rowed – shift on and shift off. The following dawn was a repeat of the previous – no land, no wind and no escape from the merciless sun save the protection of the sunshade and the stifling spaces beneath forecastle and quarterdeck. As the crew stood down, exhausted from their night’s rowing, Lefia once more joined Ravian at the quarterdeck rail.

  ‘How much longer do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ he replied. ‘That storm certainly set us well south of the Western Portal – but how far we might be from land also depends on what sort of currents there are in this part of the ocean. For all I know, we could be drifting west at a greater speed than we are rowing east – there is simply no way to tell.’

  ‘But the wind will come again, surely?’

  ‘One thing is absolutely certain,’ he said, ‘and that is that the wind will blow again. We have no control over when it will choose to do so, though. I have heard tales of vessels being becalmed like this for weeks at a time. If that is to be the case here...well, we had just better keep on rowing.’

  ‘Are we in serious danger then?’ she asked, and Ravian saw concern in her eyes.

  ‘There is some risk, yes,’ he replied, ‘but there is no reason to be too concerned at the moment. We could sight land tomorrow – or we could get a useful sailing breeze, which would be just as good. The main thing is to keep everybody’s spirits up – there’s no return on an investment in panic.’

  ‘I’d better get some sleep then,’ she said. ‘It looks as though we may have a lot more rowing ahead of us.’

  They rowed all that night – and the following one. They had just run out the oars on the sixth evening of the calm when Ravian saw that for which he had been hoping. In the twilight, a flurry of disturbed water was advancing towards them from the eastern horizon.

  ‘Captain Godart!’ he bellowed, ‘Get those oars in and that sunshade unrigged. We have a breeze coming! Prepare to make sail!’

  With a relieved cheer, the men turned to their tasks with a will, the main and foresail hoisted to the masthead well before the catspaws reached Sea Eagle.

  The wind was light and fine on the bow, barely enough to fill the sails, but Godart put Sea Eagle onto a port reach and they steadily began to make way to the northeast. It was slow sailing though – no faster than the speed they had been making under oars – and, after barely two hours, the wind died away entirely and they were once more becalmed.

  ‘Should we run out the oars again, Your Highness?’ a downcast Godart asked.

  ‘No,’ Ravian replied. ‘Let everybody have a rest. I could smell land in that breeze and I believe that we will have a light wind from astern by mid-morning tomorrow. We should make our landfall by tomorrow evening.’

  Godart, Lectus, Lefia and the helmsman looked at Ravian as though he had lost his mind.

  ‘Um…I’m sorry, Your Highness,’ said Lectus, ‘but did you say that you could smell land?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ravian replied, meeting the challenge in all their eyes.

  ‘Ah…very well, Your Highness,’ Lectus replied and, with a sidelong glance at the prince, he left the quarterdeck in company with Godart and the helmsman.

  ‘That’s probably the bravest thing I’ve heard you say since you asked me to come away with you,’ Lefia said. ‘Do you really expect land tomorrow?’

  ‘If not tomorrow, then the day after,’ replied Ravian. ‘Certainly, I expect to have a useful breeze.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Ravian, winking at her. ‘I can smell land.’

  Lefia grinned broadly at him.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Ravian returned the smile.

  ‘Ah, Lefia, you are going to have to learn to trust me. Perhaps the sight of land will convince you?’

  ‘Perhaps it will,’ she said and, with a bemused grin, she went below.

  The following day dawned as the preceding days had – a clear sky, a calm sea, and no wind.

  Sea Eagle’s sails hung limply as the crew breakfasted and awaited the fulfilment of Ravian’ astonishing prophecy, many of them as much concerned for their beloved admiral’s sanity as they were for their own salvation. The object of their disquiet leaned casually on the stern rail and waited for the wind to arrive, aware that everyone was giving him a wide berth.

  Everyone except Lefia – who joined him as he stared astern at the flat, blue western horizon.

  ‘You know there’s a breeze coming, don’t you?’

  Ravian said nothing, but smiled confidently.

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked. ‘Is there some sort of sign that the rest of us can’t divine?’

  ‘Lefia, please, can’t you just let me be a prophet?’

  She chuckled.

  ‘Oh, you’re a prophet then? Do you have any other prophecies?’

  He turned and looked directly at her.

  ‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,’ he told her. ‘I foresee that, just as we will have wind today and land soon, you and I will have a loving marriage and wonderful children.’

  Her jaw dropped at these words – then her smile returned.

  ‘Well, we’ll just see if the wind comes first, shall we?’ she said sweetly, and returned below.

  Ravian remained at the rail as time crawled past. Then, four hours after sunrise, he felt the slight movement of air against his face that he had been hoping for and, shortly afterwards, a westerly breeze began to ruffle the waters astern of the swordship. As his crew gasped and muttered in awe behind him, the wind increased enough to fill the sails and, soon, they were running eastward at a speed at least three times that which they had been making under oars.

  Finally, Ravian turned around from the rail, noticing that many of his crew avoided his eyes, and that even Godart and Lectus looked slightly awe-struck. Only Lefia, standing with them on the quarterdeck, was smiling.

  ‘Um…a remarkable forecast, Your Highness,’ Godart said. ‘I don’t know whether to be overjoyed at being under sail again or terrified at your closeness to the gods.’

  Ravian said nothing, but allowed himself a superior smile.

  ‘Oh, come on Ravian!’ Lefia burst out. ‘Tell us how you did it!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ravian said, lifting his eyes theatrically skyward, ‘but to explain my powers to mere mortals is to risk losing them – and might impact on my other prophecies for the future.’

  As he said these last words, he looked meaningfully at Lefia. Her reply was to smile back impishly, and then leave the quarterdeck with an exaggerated sway of her hips.

  ‘Let’s see if we can find some land, Godart,’ Ravian said to the captain, ‘and then I’ll let you into my little secret.’

  Godart looked immensely relieved.

  ‘Oh, thank Delikas – there is a trick!’ he said. ‘You were scaring the life out of me and the rest of the crew, Your Highness!’

  ‘Well,’ said Ravian, ‘what I have to tell you will be for your ears only. It won’t hurt for this bunch of rogues to have a little more respect for their admiral.’

  Towards evening, as suddenly as it had begun, the wind died. At the same time however, the lookout hailed that he could see land on the darkening horizon ahead. There was a mighty cheer from the crew, although it was accompanied by even more superstitious glances at their admiral.

  ‘Do we row, sir?’ Godart asked.

  ‘No, Captain,’ Ravian said, in a voice loud enough to carry forward of the quarterdeck. ‘There will be a light easterly in an hour or two – just like last night. I suggest that you wait for that and use it to stand in to a few miles off the coast. Then, if the breeze lasts long enough, try to make a bit of distance to the north. I expect more westerlies by mid-morning tomorrow and we’ll look at making landfall then.’

  An hour later, as the promised easterly began to ruffle the sea, Godart set Sea Eagle once more on a north-easterly course and then sidled discreetly up to his admiral.
/>   ‘Please, Your Highness, I must know this wondrous secret.’

  Ravian paused. He was tempted to keep the trick to himself – but it was important that a captain such as Godart should know everything he possibly could that might keep his ship safe.

  ‘Have you ever spent much time around Sanja or Beldona?’ Ravian asked, naming the principle harbours on the Sapphire Sea’s southern shore.

  ‘Not since I was under training,’ Godart replied.

  ‘Well,’ said Ravian, ‘there is an interesting phenomenon on that coast that is particularly evident in times of calm. As you know, there is a vast, hot continent inland and, for reasons that I can’t explain, every day from about mid-morning it is as if the land begins to take in a long, slow breath, creating a consistent sea breeze anywhere within a day’s sail of the shore – the residents of the coast are so used to it that they don’t even think about it. Then, in the evenings, it is as if the land lets its breath out again in a smaller sigh, hence the offshore breeze that we are presently sailing in.’

  ‘Ah, I see!’ exclaimed Godart. ‘So when we had that breeze last night, you realised that the same phenomenon existed on the western coast of this continent?’

  ‘Well, I certainly hoped so,’ Ravian replied. ‘The way the breeze arrived when it did, and then died off after a couple of hours, gave me some certainty. However, I also have to say that the same anomaly would indicate that we have been set a long way down the west coast of Saravene – possibly, to a latitude even further south than that of Sanja. I think that we’ll find that these sea breezes will become less pronounced as we sail north.’

  ‘Well, thank you for the lesson, Your Highness,’ Godart said. ‘I won’t forget it. I must say, I’m just pleased to be in sight of land and under sail again.’

  They moved in closer to shore with the following morning’s breeze and, as they did so, the colour of the sea began to change from the deep blue they been used to, to a paler tone. The land was low-lying, fronted by a wall of palm trees and a white sand beach that seemed to run unbroken to the horizon in both directions. The swordship was still over a mile from shore however, when the lookout hailed that he could see a reef between the ship and the land and, so, they edged closer to the barely submerged barrier with great care, marvelling at the vivid turquoise colour of the water to landward of it.

  ‘It must be high tide,’ Ravian said to Godart, ‘and that reef, if I’m not mistaken, would be the living rock they talk about in the Eastern Sea. Keep well away – it isn’t any softer than that rock we struck off Grenwain.’

  As they ran north, the tide began to fall and the pale pink teeth of the reef showed more clearly. The reef wasn’t very wide but the only gaps they encountered in it were so small that the ship’s boat would barely have squeezed through. Occasionally, the lookout also warned of isolated coral heads ahead of them and, as the swordship passed close by one of these, they saw hundreds of colourful fish clustered about its flanks in the crystal-clear water.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ Lefia exclaimed, her eyes shining.

  Ravian was about to agree with her, when a larger, darker shape suddenly charged into the midst of a school of bright blue fish. A bronze-coloured fin briefly slashed the surface of the water and then both it and the school were gone.

  ‘Aye,’ Ravian agreed, ‘and dangerous, it would seem.’

  Despite the potential hazard of the reef, Sea Eagle stayed close to the coast all day, as though the travel-weary Tarcuns, having been blown so far out into the Western Sea, wanted to hold close to the land that they thought that they might never see again. It would have been folly to sail such dangerous waters at night, so Godart anchored the swordship at sunset, the deep water outside the wall of living rock taking almost all their anchor line.

  ‘I hope we find a way inside the reef soon,’ the young captain confided to Ravian, as they sought refreshment in the moist, balmy breeze that had begun to whisper off the land. ‘We are very low on water and, quite frankly, I would very much like to feel solid earth beneath my feet again.’

  ‘King Beneen has told me something of his travels on coasts where the living rock forms such barriers,’ Ravian said, ‘and it would seem that fresh water is the fatal to it. If we can find a big enough passage in the reef to take the ship through, the chances are that it is associated with a sizeable river – find one and we find the other.’

  They had only sailed a further two hours north the following day, before Ravian was, again, proven correct.

  A promising gap appeared in the in the line of palm trees ahead and, as they ghosted along the outside of the reef, they came to an entrance that looked easily wide enough to take Sea Eagle. From there, the Tarcuns could see a wide expanse of water, flanked by thick jungle, which ran inland beyond the palm trees.

  It was halfway into a falling tide, and a strong current was boiling against the edges of the reef as it poured into the lagoon beyond, so Godart prudently furled the sails and anchored while he waited for the flow to ease. After two hours, when he judged it safe for the swordship to enter the lagoon at a prudent speed, he posted extra lookouts in the bow, set the men to their oars and raised the anchor. Then the young captain joined the lookout in the crow’s nest and proceeded to bellow orders from the top of the mast.

  ‘Come two points to starboard!’

  ‘Back water port!’

  ‘Steady as she goes!’

  As Sea Eagle eased into the lagoon and crept towards the river mouth at the speed of a slow walk, the swordship’s crew heard the first strange sounds from the jungle that crowded the edge of the dark, still waters ahead.

  ‘We wouldn’t want to drink any of this!’ Ravian called up to Godart as they entered the odorous black water between the trees. ‘Take her easy up the river if you can – we’ll look for a fresher tributary that we can fill our casks from!’

  They rounded a bend and discovered that the river quickly narrowed, the towering forest giants almost meeting overhead. As the swordship slipped beneath their shade, a heavy, damp, heat enveloped the Tarcuns, the roars and shrieks from the thick, green walls on either side of the river became almost deafening, and a cloud of mosquitoes formed about their heads.

  ‘Look at the beautiful birds!’ Lefia exclaimed, seemingly immune from the discomfort of the mosquito attacks.

  Ravian looked where she pointed and watched as several brightly coloured parrots, disturbed by the appearance of the swordship, took wing from an overhanging branch. In their turn, the parrots disturbed a troupe of small, black monkeys who bounded away through airborne pathways among the treetops, chattering and scolding.

  ‘What fascinating creatures,’ sighed Lefia.

  ‘Yes, fascinating,’ Ravian agreed, staring down at a large, floating log that suddenly grew baleful eyes and disappeared beneath the surface with a slash of its tail.

  Despite the careful pace at which they were rowing, Ravian saw that his men were dripping with sweat and continuously waving their hands to fend off the mosquitos. He could tell from their wide eyes and anxious expressions that none of them felt any more comfortable in this place than he did.

  ‘Oh! Look at that!’ Lefia exclaimed.

  On a tree branch adjacent to their vessel, a spotted cat the size of a small man regarded them with baleful eyes. Then, realising that it had been seen, the creature leaped to its feet and snarled at them, before bounding away into the shadows.

  Ravian had seen enough.

  ‘Captain Godart, put the ship about if you please! I think we’ll try our luck further up the coast!’

  ‘Thank Delikas!’ declared Lectus. ‘I think I preferred those revolting rocks north of Grenwain.’

  Returning to the quarterdeck, Godart carefully turned Sea Eagle around and then the men put their full weight on the oars, the sooner to escape the discomfort of the jungle. As they rounded the last, broad bend before the lagoon however, they met a sight that caused the young captain to order his crew to back water until the swo
rdship had been brought to a halt.

  Chapter Ten

  A line of ten sailing vessels was strung out across the river mouth, each only a little smaller than the Tarcun swordship, and each packed with men. Ravian remembered the warnings about the pirates of the west coast of Saravene and, with a sinking heart, he knew that the rag-tag navy before them served no master except to its own greed.

  ‘Your orders, Your Highness?’ Godart asked.

  The situation could not be worse, Ravian realised.

  They were too close in to the coast for any wind to sail by and, even had they time to reverse course and row back up the river, there was no telling how far they might get before they were trapped. Had only half a dozen vessels barred their way, he thought, he might have been tempted to fight his way through – even knowing that their casualties would be savage. Outnumbered ten to one as they were though, he knew that such an act would be their last.

  Ravian looked sideways at Lefia, who was staring defiantly ahead with her sword already in her hand.

  Had he brought her this far just for them both to die, he wondered?

  A vessel at the centre of the pirate formation detached itself and began rowing slowly towards them.

  ‘Stand the men to battle stations, Captain,’ Ravian ordered, ‘but let no man loose an arrow before my word – let’s see if we can talk our way out of this.’

  ‘Ahoy, Tarcuns!’ a giant figure in the bow called across the water in heavily-accented Chesa. ‘Who dares invade the territory of Tikuran – Drinker of Blood, Eater of Hearts and Admiral of this Fleet?’

  Ravian nodded to Godart.

  ‘Ravian, Prince of Tarcus,’ the swordship captain hailed back.

  The pirate ship was close now and Ravian saw that the man who had challenged them was a huge, powerful-looking individual whose teeth flashed whitely in his black bear. From the superior quality of his armour, and the confident way that he stood apart from his fellows, there was no doubt in the prince’s mind that he was the pirates’ leader.