by Ian Irvine
“They’ll try to shoot me,” said Holm, as if he had heard her thoughts. He had lashed the wheel and was standing in the cabin doorway.
“Wouldn’t that send the boat out of control?”
He shook his head. “Wind’s steady behind us. We could sail on for a good while.”
“Have you got a plan?”
“Get among the icebergs before they catch us.”
“How will that help?”
“It’s tricky sailing in there. The winds are constantly shifting and there’ll be broken ice in the water, barely visible. If a shell racer hits a chunk of ice at speed, it goes straight to the bottom.”
“So will we,” said Tali.
“I built this boat. It can take a hell of a lot more than their cockle-shell racers can. And we’re a lot higher in the water. We can see what’s ahead.”
But they’re far more manoeuvrable, she thought. And they can go upwind.
The shell racers were only a few hundred yards behind now, the icebergs about the same distance ahead.
“What are you going to do once we get among them?” said Tali.
“Take advantage of what comes up.”
Frustrating man! “What do you think will come up?”
“How would I know? I didn’t expect this.”
“What did you expect?”
“That we’d sail merrily north, out to sea where the pursuit would never find us, sipping our afternoon tea and reciting odes to the creeping ice.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“Me?” He grinned.
He went inside. Tali watched the shell racers, her heart beating erratically, now racing, now creeping. Two of the racers were heading out to the left, another two to the right, while the fifth continued directly behind them.
“Looks like they’re planning to close around us and attack together,” she said over her shoulder.
“That’s how I’d do it,” said Holm, adjusting the sail and putting up another, smaller one.
It gained them a little more speed, but not enough. Something went whirr-click. She looked around and he was holding a small crossbow.
“Don’t suppose you’ve fired one of these?”
“Oddly enough, the enemy don’t hand them out to their slaves,” said Tali.
“Making jokes now,” said Holm. “You have improved.” He handed her the weapon. “Unlike an ordinary bow, any fool can shoot straight with a crossbow.”
“Any fool?”
“No insult intended, but it takes hundreds of hours of practice to be any good with a true bow.”
He showed her how to work the crank, load the quarrels and use the sights, and made her practise until she could load and crank back the bow in thirty seconds.
“Don’t try anything fancy. Just aim for the middle of the man’s chest.”
“Just like that?”
“It’s him or you, Tali, so yes, just like that. But no further than thirty yards away — if you shoot, you have to hit.”
Clearly, Holm wasn’t planning to sell her to the chancellor, but who he was and what he really wanted was no clearer. Tali sighted on the leading man in the racer behind them, felt an inner squirm, and lowered the crossbow. Could she shoot a man dead, just like that?
Remembering her mother’s murder, and that sickening reliving of her great-great-grandmother’s death, she knew there was no choice. If they caught her, the chancellor would do the same to her. He might do it reluctantly, and perhaps with regret, but nothing would stop him from taking the master pearl that could win the war. Or lose Hightspall forever, if Lyf got it.
The racers were only a hundred yards away when she felt a chilly blast of wind. They were flashing past a white mountain, a cracked and cratered iceberg towering as high as the twisted spire on top of Rix’s tower in Palace Ricinus.
The boat heeled so violently that Tali was thrown off her feet and went sliding towards the side, the cocked crossbow spinning ahead of her. If it went off…
Snap, thud, crash!
“What the hell are you doing?” roared Holm, who was fighting the wheel.
Tali struck the side, whacking her head on a timber rib. Holm raced out but did not look her way; he was heaving on the lines, adjusting the sails. He ran in, spun the wheel, then called over his shoulder, “You all right?”
She got up, rubbing her head, picked up the crossbow and lurched across the deck. Ahead was a maze of icebergs, hundreds of them, ranging from monsters the size of a small town down to berglets no bigger than a house, and pancake floes that only stood a few inches out of the water. How was Holm going to manoeuvre through all that?
Tali went into the cabin. “What happened?”
He indicated a gouge in the brass wheel. “Your bolt glanced off the wheel and struck the porridge pot amidships. I’m afraid it’s gone down with all hands.”
The saucepan, which Tali had left on the bench, was crumpled on the side facing her and had a neat hole through it.
“Sorry. Was thrown off my feet. Why did the boat heel over that way?”
“Sudden wind shift,” said Holm. “Among the bergs, the wind can come from any direction, and there’s no predicting it. Reload your bow. You’re going to need it.”
She did so, hastily.
“This time, hang on,” said Holm.
They shot through a narrow gap between two icebergs. The sides matched so well that Tali wondered if they had been one iceberg that had split in half.
“Only three racers are following us,” said Tali. “Do you think we’ve lost the others?”
“Not a chance. They’ll have gone out wide, hoping to find a quicker way through the ice to cut us off.”
“I suppose they’ll be a lot quicker in here.”
“You suppose right. Manoeuvrability is everything when you’re in the ice. And with their shallow keels they can cut through places I don’t dare. Brace yourself — and don’t point that thing anywhere near me.”
Tali clamped onto the rail and lowered the crossbow. They headed out into open water.
“Or yourself!” yelled Holm.
Tali realised it was aimed at her left foot. She directed it away and clung on as the boat heeled again.
“Look out!” roared Holm, and spun the wheel hard. Something struck the starboard side of the boat a glancing blow, driving it sideways, then they shot past. A little ice floe, awash and almost invisible in the water.
She looked up and there, directly ahead, were the other two shell racers.
“They’re planning to board us from either side,” said Holm. “Shoot!”
She aimed at the middle of the leading rower, a barrel-chested fellow wearing a red, tasselled hat, but as she fired, Holm spun the wheel the other way. The bolt went wide as the boat veered off to starboard.
The two racers turned in their own length and raced ahead to cut them off. The three behind were only forty yards away. The enemy’s plan had gone perfectly. In a minute or two they would be surrounded.
“Shoot!” yelled Holm.
Which target? The racer following in their wake was the closest. Tali inserted another bolt, aimed at the leading man, but as she was about to fire the bow dropped. She could not shoot him in cold blood, just like that.
She fired. He let out a yelp as the bolt passed between his shins and slammed into the floor of the boat.
“If you can’t kill him, at least disable the bastard,” said Holm.
Tali took aim at the side of the man’s chest but, before she could fire, the shell racer slowed sharply. It was noticeably bow-down now, and the leading rower was groping in water that must have been flooding in through a hole in the bottom.
“Your bolt smashed through a plank,” said Holm. “Hull must be thin as an egg.”
The leading man dropped his oar and bent over, pushing down as though trying to block the hole with his fist, but it wasn’t working. The racer was filling fast, the waves already lapping at its low sides.
“One wav
e and they’re gone,” whispered Tali.
As she spoke, a little wave curled over the side and the long, low craft sank beneath the rowers, leaving them struggling in the water.
“Help!” they cried, waving frantically to their fellows.
Their pleas were ignored and, one by one, the cold got to them and they sank.
“The others are greedy for the prize,” said Holm, shaking his head.
Tali did not reply. She was too shocked. She stared at the grey water, imagining that she was thrashing uselessly in the cold sea, about to drown.
“Hang on!” Holm yelled.
He heeled the boat over so sharply that she was flung against the side once more. This time she took the blow on shoulder and hip, managing to keep her grip on the crossbow. She looked up and gasped. Holm was hurtling towards a tiny gap, only twenty feet wide, between two icebergs. It was a clever strategy, if it worked, for the shell racers could not attack from the sides and would have to follow. But if the boat struck hard enough, it would go straight to the bottom.
They hurtled down the gap, driven by a strong wind funnelled between the two icebergs. Tali could not bear to look ahead. Not far behind, the leading two shell racers were flying after them into the gap.
“We’ve got you now,” a yellow-haired giant in the first craft roared.
Then suddenly they were hauling on their oars, churning the water to foam as they frantically tried to row backwards out of the gap. But, outside, the wind was gusting one way, then the other, and their sail was driving them forwards. The third rower yanked down the sail, the oars dug deep and the craft shot backwards, colliding with the second craft, whose sail had jammed on the mast, and snapping its two front oars.
“Why are they going backwards?” said Tali. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve raced those craft, and the oars span twenty-four feet,” Holm said smugly. “Unless they ship them, they won’t fit through the gap.”
The leading craft kept going, driving past the second shell racer and back out to safety. The other craft wasn’t so lucky. In the confusion after its front oars were broken the wind drove it into the gap between the icebergs, snapping the remaining oars. Now it was driven sideways. The bow struck one iceberg, the stern another, and the wind blowing into the sail turned the shell racer upside-down.
None of its crew came to the surface.
“They should have shipped their oars and gone through on the wind,” said Holm. “It’s wild outside, but good and steady in here. But it’s not easy to do the right thing in an emergency.”
“Like the emergency of our gap closing?” said Tali, who was looking ahead.
Holm cursed, wiggled the wheel to glide them past a projection of the right-hand berg, then back the other way to escape an outjutting ledge of the iceberg on the left. Deep down, wood groaned as it scraped past a submerged obstacle.
Holm looked grave. “That didn’t sound good. I hope it hasn’t sprung the planking.”
Tali didn’t ask what that meant. “Three racers left. Can the one behind catch us?”
“Depends. It’s the other two I’m worried about. I’ve no idea where they went.”
“But these icebergs must be shifting all the time. They can’t know where we’ll end up.”
“They can’t,” Holm agreed. “Passages that are open one hour are gone the next. But if they’re sound judges of wind and current they might guess where we’ll appear.”
Ahead, the gap opened out to fifty feet, then closed again to less than twenty, and the boat was hurtling. There was no room for error and no leeway to manoeuvre.
“At least the wind is steady in here,” said Holm.
“More like a gale,” Tali muttered.
“The ice sheet creates its own wind, and the gaps between the bergs funnel it. Ah, I see the end.”
They shot out of the gap, the boat heeled under a crosswind, and Holm checked all around. Ahead were more icebergs, as far as she could see.
“I believe we’ve lost them,” said Holm.
“No, we haven’t.”
CHAPTER 26
The missing two shell racers had been hiding behind a house-sized iceberg. As Holm’s boat went past they burst out and closed in from either side.
Tali fired at the biggest man in the leading racer and struck him in the shoulder. He lost his stroke and clutched at the wound, baring his teeth.
The ferret-faced man behind him yelled, “Row, dammit!
The injured man took hold of the oar with a bloody hand and resumed his beat. She snatched another bolt, laid it in the groove of the crossbow and gave the crank a furious turn. Too furious — the bolt slipped sideways, jammed, and before she could free it the racer was alongside. The injured man and the fellow at the bow held it steady while the other two began to scramble up onto Holm’s boat.
She dropped the crossbow, picked up a length of anchor chain and swung it like a flail, striking the ferret-faced boarder around the head. He fell back into the racer, which rocked wildly. The rower at the bow lost his grip but the injured man did not, and now the second man was aboard and coming right for her.
She swung the chain again. He caught it, tore it out of her hands and tossed it aside. He wore a sword but did not draw it — clearly, he wanted her alive and unharmed. Tali backpedalled around the deck, looking for something she could use to hold him off. There, under the rail, was a boathook used for hauling in lines. She grabbed it and moved it back and forth in front of her. It was a poor weapon because the hook was U-shaped, the point facing her.
The man she had shot in the shoulder was holding the shell racer against the side of the boat. His sleeve was drenched in blood and he was white-faced, swaying in his seat. She did not think she had to worry about him. The fellow she had knocked back into his own position in the racer had recovered. He began to haul himself aboard, blood dribbling from his ear, a gash on his right cheek and a deadly expression on his ferret face.
Now the second craft was only yards away. With eight against two there was no hope. Where was Holm? The boat was drifting. She could not see him anywhere.
“Holm?” she yelled. “Holm, where are you?”
It came out as a screech. Her opponent grinned — he didn’t think much of her. She struck at him with the boathook, missed. Struck again, and this time the curving brass hook slammed into his knuckles. He tried to snatch it out of her hands but she managed to tear it free, gashing his arm.
Tali swung the boathook wildly. It caught in one of the sail lines. She freed it and backed away, but she was up against the side with nowhere to go.
“Holm, they’re aboard! Get out here.”
He burst up from a hatch at the bow, carrying a metal canister the size of the porridge pot, with a lid on. Tali’s opponent drew his sword and went for Holm. Holm bent, did something with the canister then, almost casually, tossed it at the approaching shell racer. It smacked into the water near the bow, sank, and went off like a small Cythonian bombast.
The bow of the racer was lifted fifteen feet into the air. The stern remained where it was. The bow kept going up, up, up until it was vertical, tumbling the rowers back onto the lowest man, then the craft sliced down through the water, carrying the four rowers with it, and disappeared.
The boat heeled violently under the water-blast but Tali, who had her back to the rail, kept her feet. The ferret-faced man had fallen to one knee. She sprang across the deck and dealt him a monumental blow to the head with the boathook, right where she had hit him with the chain. It felled him but did not knock him out. He struggled to his hands and knees, collapsed and struggled up again, fumbling out a knife.
If it’s you or me, thought Tali, it’s not going to be me. She whacked him again and this time he did not get up.
Where were the others? She looked around. The man who had gone for Holm lay unconscious — no, surely dead with that great wound in his neck. Holm was pursuing another man around the deck with the weapon that had done the damage — a
harpoon. The fellow turned and struck at Holm with a curved sword like a scimitar.
He ran backwards, raising the harpoon. “Surrender or die.”
The man lunged at him and Holm put the harpoon through his breastbone.
Holm wrenched it out, went to the side and said to the injured man holding the boat, “I’ll give you the same choice.”
The man looked at the bloody harpoon, and then at Holm, and said, “I’m going.”
“Take him with you.”
Holm dragged the semi-conscious ferret-faced man to the side, heaved him onto it, then dropped him into the shell racer, head-first. The injured man rowed awkwardly away.
“Give us a hand with these, will you?” said Holm.
He took the man with the neck wound under the arms. Tali lifted his feet and they heaved him over. The harpooned man was much bigger. It took three goes before they could get him up onto the side and by then Tali was seeing double. She held the man there; Holm rolled him into the sea.
They watched the little shell racer limp out of sight. “Do you think they’ll get back to tell the story?” she said, swaying on her feet.
“With that injury, I’ll be surprised if he gets a mile. Better sit down before you fall down.”
Tali slumped down with her back to the mast. “What about the other racer? The fifth one?”
“I’d say we’ve lost it. But keep an eye out, just in case.”
Holm sighed, collected water in a bucket on a rope and scrubbed the blood off the deck. Tali crawled across to the crossbow, cleared the jammed bolt and put it away, trying not to think about the violence and her part in all those men’s deaths.
“How did you make that canister go off like that?”
“Got the idea from some of the enemy’s weapons,” said Holm. “I used to dabble in alchymie when I was young — ”
“Is there anything you haven’t done?”
“Not much, but now isn’t the time for it. You’re shaking. Come inside, I’ll make you a cup of tea?”