The River of Shadows

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “Pathkendle?” said Fiffengurt.

  Pazel shook his head. “Sorry, sir, I can’t hear a thing.”

  Fiffengurt turned to the midshipman. “Get some steerage passengers up here on the run, Mr. Bravun—some who ain’t been deafened by cannon fire.” He twisted, pointing his good eye up at the Chathrand’s pennants. “Wind’s on the port beam. We’d have to tack a sight closer to those gentlefolk before we could turn and run.”

  “We’ve no cause to run anywhere, till we decide a course,” said Alyash.

  “Drogues bow and stern, Mr. Coote, if you please,” said Fiffengurt. “We’re close enough without this drift.”

  Coote set men running, and in short order Pazel saw an umbrella-like drogue tossed from the forecastle on its chain. In calm waters the drogues would keep the Chathrand almost at a standstill, but unlike the anchors they could be jettisoned, and built anew from wood and canvas.

  Midshipman Bravun returned with three steerage passengers: a bearded Simjan man, the apple-cheeked Altymiran woman who had lately become Mr. Teggatz’s galley assistant, and an older, white-haired woman whose husband had perished on the Ruling Sea. Fiffengurt silenced the chatter again. “Cup your ears and face forward, everybody,” he said. “Let ’em see we’re listening.”

  The signal worked: once again the dlömic crier shouted his imperative command. The steerage passengers whispered together, debating what they’d heard. It was clever of Fiffengurt to call on them, Pazel thought: locked in their compartment below the waterline for most of the voyage, the steerage passengers had been buffered from the noise of both battle and typhoon. It was about the only good luck they’d had since stepping aboard the Great Ship.

  “We ain’t sure, Mr. Fiffengurt,” said the bearded Simjan, “but he might be talking about a putative.”

  Fiffengurt frowned. “Come again?”

  “ ‘Chin of the putative,’ ” said the Altymiran woman. “That’s what he said, sir.”

  “Madam,” said Fiffengurt, “putative ain’t a thing, and don’t take an article.”

  “Does that mean it can’t have a chin?”

  The white-haired woman merely clung to the rail and stared. When Pazel’s turn with the scope came again, he held it up for Ensyl. The ixchel woman steadied it with both hands. “Focus, Pazel, good. That’s strange: the leader is taking off his boots.”

  “Most of them are barefoot already,” said Thasha. “They don’t seem to care much for shoes.”

  The white-haired woman took a frightened step backward. “I think we should go,” she said.

  “They’re shuffling equipment, too,” said Ensyl. “Collecting shields, and some of the weapons. But they’re strapping other things across their backs. Lighter weapons, maybe, and—”

  “Hush!” said Alyash. “He’s calling again!”

  The ship held its breath. No use, thought Pazel: he could hear only the tone of anger in the distant voice. It was a bit disturbing to think that the Chathrand had stolen part of his hearing forever.

  “I really think we should be leaving,” begged the old woman, pressing a frail hand to her mouth.

  The Altymiran woman smiled. “Not chin. It’s give he’s shouting. Give of the putative—that’s the first bit, and then stubborn, stubborn—”

  “Stubborn the consciousness,” said the Simjan, looking at Mr. Fiffengurt for approval. Then his face turned pensive. “Actually, that doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “Get rid of these fools,” said Alyash with an irate gesture. “Where’s our dear Brother Bolutu? He should be helping us sort out this gibberish.”

  All at once there was turmoil at the village gate. More dlömic warriors were spilling out onto the road. But this time they were bringing villagers with them, at sword-point.

  “There’s Mr. Isul,” said Thasha. “By the Tree, they’re taking hostages! But what do they blary want?”

  Belowdecks, Refeg and Rer gave a final, satisfied roar. The capstans fell silent: the ship was floating free.

  “Captain Fiffengurt,” said the white-haired woman.

  “I’m not the captain, my dear lady—”

  “Give up the fugitive. That’s what the creature said. Give him up or suffer the consequences.”

  Sailors and passengers gaped at her. Then Alyash snapped his fingers. “The sfvantskors! Those lying bastards tangled with the dlömu before you ever laid eyes on ’em, Fiffengurt! They must have killed a few.”

  “Nonsense!” said Pazel. “They told us their whole story, from the moment we sank the Jistrolloq. The only dlömu they’ve seen were dead ones, on a shipwreck.”

  “And you believe them Black Rags?” said the midshipman.

  Alyash turned and struck the man backhanded across the jaw. “That’s for your swinish nicknames,” he said. “I’d give it to you harder, Bravun, but you have a point. A sfvantskor will say anything to gain an advantage over a nonbeliever.”3

  “But their words rang true,” Pazel insisted.

  “Especially your sister’s, eh?” said Alyash.

  Pazel glared at him. Double agent, he thought. Or triple? How can anyone, even Ott, really know which side he’s on?

  Fiffengurt rapped his knuckles on the wall of the forecastle house. “That Jalantri fellow’s trapped in here now. But there’s no harm in putting the other two on display. Get ’em up here! Let’s see who knows their faces.”

  Messengers were dispatched to the Turachs. In sight of the dlömic warriors, Fiffengurt raised both hands, palms outward: Patience. A few minutes later a great mob of Turachs climbed the ladderway, escorting Neda and Cayer Vispek, who were chained hand and foot. At the rear came Sergeant Haddismal, dragging Ibjen roughly by the arm.

  “We caught this one squeezing through a hawse-hole,” he said, “like he was about to shimmy down the cable into the gulf.”

  “Then he’s the fugitive,” said Midshipman Bravun.

  “Fugitive?” cried Ibjen. “Fugitive from whom? I just want to get back to my father!”

  Ensyl glanced at the distant shore. “Are you a champion swimmer?” she asked.

  “Champion? Of course not! Let me go!”

  “Pazel,” said Neda suddenly, in Ormali, “have you seen Jalantri? Do you know why he’s been kept apart from us in this way?”

  She was hiding her anxiety—but not well enough to fool a brother. “It’s complicated, Neda,” he said.

  Her eyes grew suddenly wide. “Did they kill him? They did, didn’t they? Tell me the truth!”

  Pazel was about to assure her that Jalantri was safe when Fiffengurt stepped forward, waving his arms. “Quiet, Pathkendle! Listen up, Mr. Ibjen, and you sfvantskors as well: I’m not handing you over to anybody without a reason. But you might just give me that reason if I find out you’re telling lies.”

  “Now you insult us,” said Cayer Vispek. “We surrendered to you in good faith.”

  “We’ll see,” said Fiffengurt. At his gesture, the sfvantskor prisoners and the dlömic boy were dragged to the rail, and stood facing the dlömu host. Once again the two sides fell silent, applying themselves to their telescopes.

  “Their leader’s waving them off,” said Fulbreech. “He’s not interested in them, that’s plain.” He looked the sfvantskors over carefully. “I suppose they were telling the truth.”

  “Of course we were,” said Vispek, angrier than ever. “What have we to do with them? Yes, we took some necessities from a ship full of those creatures. But the ship was abandoned, and the crew already dead.” He raised his shackled arms. “Mr. Fiffengurt, where is your shame? You have no reason to treat us like criminals.”

  “Reasons, Cayer?” said Neda with quiet bitterness. “Who needs reasons? Excuses are good enough for Arqualis”—she glanced bitterly at Pazel—“and their pets.”

  Pazel could not believe his ears. “How can you say that, Neda? How can you think that?”

  “Wait!” cried Thasha suddenly. “The big man’s moving. Ah, look: he’s reaching for the shell. Maybe he�
��ll give it a try himself.”

  With his naked eye Pazel could just make out the orange shell, as the mighty leader took it from his aide. But rather than shout into the device he tossed it contemptuously to the ground.

  Humans and dlömu grew deathly still. Pazel heard the creak of timbers, the piping of shorebirds about the rocky islets, the bumping of a wheelblock against the foremast. And then came a sudden, desperate banging at the window, and Captain Rose’s furious, gale-surmounting roar:

  “RUN! RUN HER SOUTH! WARE THE SHIP AND BLARY RUN!”

  As that very instant the dlömic warriors gave a terrible cry and began sprinting out along the jetty in their hundreds.

  “Ware the ship!” howled Fiffengurt. “Bindhammer, Fegin, aloft your yardmen! Bend them topsails now!”

  “Gods of death,” said Haddismal, pointing.

  The first dlömu were nearing the end of the jetty, some two miles from the Chathrand. But they did not stop: they dived with the grace of dolphins into the sea. One after another they dived, in a long coordinated maneuver. Dozens, then hundreds: the battalion was taking to the waves.

  “Madness!” said Fulbreech. “Swimmers can’t catch a ship! And even if they could, what then? We’re sixty feet above the waterline!”

  Pazel looked at Thasha: her eyes were wild, darting. All about them swarmed the men of the First Watch, freeing braces, racing up the shrouds, bellowing from the jungle of ropes overhead: “Let fall! Sheet home! Man the weather halyards!” Already the fore topsail was billowing out the spars. The main topsail followed, and the two vast, cream-colored rectangles filled and pulled. A tightening energy filled the ship, and slowly her bow swung away from the island.

  The dlömu had become a haze of black dots, appearing and disappearing in the waves. Some of the sailors regarded the spectacle with astonished grins; it was as if a herd of cattle had decided to burrow into the earth. But Pazel did not grin. He thought of how Bolutu and Ibjen had brought the wounded Turach so easily ashore. He snatched the telescope from Fulbreech. The warriors’ strokes were amazingly fast, and their legs frothed the water behind them. He turned to Ibjen, shouted over the din: “Will they catch us?”

  “How in Hell’s Mouth should I know?” Ibjen shot back.

  “Could you catch us?”

  His senses told him the question was ludicrous: the dlömu were swimming; the ship was setting sail. Ibjen hesitated, looking across the water at the black, swimming shapes. “No,” he said finally, and dropped his eyes.

  It should have set Pazel’s mind at ease, but it had the opposite effect. Ibjen’s reply had been laced with shame.

  Rose went on bellowing through the window: “Let go the topgallant clews! More sheetmen to windward! Brace that foremast or lose it, you creeping slugs!”

  Pazel looked up at the windsock fluttering on the jiggermast yard: enough of a breeze for headway, but not for speed. Doesn’t matter, he told himself. For how fast could they possibly swim? Three knots, four? Fulbreech was right: it was madness. But the dlömu came on, swift and arrow-straight, and the Chathrand was still turning about.

  “Lapwing!” howled Rose suddenly. “Cut loose those Rinforsaken drogues! Her bow’s fighting the turn, can’t you feel it?”

  He was right, Pazel knew at once: the canvas drogues were pulling against the turn like stubborn mules. Pazel shook his head. “Rose guessed the whole tactical situation from in there,” he said to Ensyl, “and he couldn’t even see what was happening ashore.”

  “He saw us seeing it,” Ensyl replied.

  A decisive chop from the forecastle: Lapwing was taking an axe to the drogue cable. On the third blow the cable parted, and the Chathrand leaned into the turn, gaining speed. Now her bowsprit pointed at the red tower (its lock had been broken, its doors flung apart), now at the empty dunes, now at the corner of the village wall.

  Fiffengurt twisted aft. A glance and a nod, and the teams at the mainmast began hauling with a will. A sudden thought brought his telescope snapping up: yes, the aft drogue was clear as well. Then up went his gaze, and both arms, and, “Topgallants, bow to stern!” he thundered, and one after another the higher sails were loosed. They filled faster than the canvas below: more wind at that height. They were turning with a will, now, the ship canting leeward in her eagerness to come about. Fiffengurt put both hands on the rail and heaved a sigh.

  “Now we’ll be just fine, boys,” he said to no one in particular.

  He slid down the forecastle ladder like a younger man and turned to face the captain. Rose’s bellows had given way to coughs (the smoky forecastle house was affecting all the prisoners) but he gave Fiffengurt a nod of affirmation. Fiffengurt touched his cap, turned smartly about (chest out, chin high) and then the lookout screamed from the fighting top:

  “Sand! Sandbar at half a mile, three points off the starboard bow! No depth! No depth! Sandbar right across our way!”

  They had not started their run, and no speed endangered them. But the ridge of submerged sand was disastrously placed. It began at the eastern edge of the island and meandered shoreward for nearly a mile. Fiffengurt howled a course correction. Hundreds of men at the ropes scurried and swore. They could only tack north, right at the village gate, until the sandbar ended.

  No one smiled now. The swimmers had gained a tremendous advantage: indeed the Chathrand’s new course was actually bringing it closer to them. Worse still, they could not attain anything like the speed of a straight downwind run. All at once the race looked very tight.

  Pazel and Thasha climbed the jiggermast shrouds, just high enough to see the sandbar. “But it’s huge,” cried Pazel. “How did we miss it before?” For they had rounded the little island from the east, right through these waters. “It must be a lot deeper than it looks, some trick of the light. We sailed right over it.”

  “Yes,” Thasha agreed. But even as she spoke he saw her reconsider. “Pazel, maybe it wasn’t there.”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “Look where it begins.” Thasha pointed to the island’s eastern tip, a confusion of jagged rocks. “The serpent. That’s where it was smashing about, trying to break free of its bridle. What if it dragged the thing along the seafloor, too?”

  “And plowed up all that?”

  “You think your explanation’s more likely?”

  Pazel shrugged. “No,” he admitted. Then he actually laughed. “Thasha, this mucking world wants us dead.”

  She didn’t laugh, but she smiled at him with black mirth, and that was almost better. It was a look of private understanding. Not one she could share with Greysan Fulbreech.

  Warmed, Pazel turned his gaze on the swimmers again: less than a mile off, and closing. They moved as a single body, like a school of dark fish. He shaded his eyes, and felt his dread surge to life again, redoubled.

  “Rin’s eyes, Thasha—they’re swimming with objects on their backs.”

  “Weapons,” said a voice beneath them. “Light and curious weapons, but weapons nonetheless. And why, pray, are you without your own?”

  It was Hercól, dressed for battle, which in this case meant that he wore little more than breeches, boots and a small steel arm-guard. His longbow was in his hand; his ancient, enchanted sword Ildraquin was strapped sidelong across his back; and on his belt hung the white knife of his old master, Sandor Ott. Pazel had last seen that knife in Thasha’s hands, during the battle with the rats. He wished now that she had thrown the cruel thing away. Wearing it, even Hercól looked sinister.

  “Fetch your swords,” said the Tholjassan.

  Pazel sought his eye. “This is some sort of crazy bluff, isn’t it? They were trying to drive us onto the sandbar, maybe, or—”

  “Fetch them.”

  Thasha swung down to the deck. “Stay with Fiffengurt, Pazel, he needs you. I’ll bring yours from the stateroom.”

  She was gone, and Hercól sped forward, shouting to Haddismal, and Pazel was swept into the martial frenzy of a ship preparing for violence. The cargo ha
tches were sealed with oilskins, the lower gunports were closed (too near the water, Fiffengurt had decided); the wheels of the deck cannon were greased; damp sawdust was flung down for traction; the firing crews assembled and rehearsed their cues. Arqual! rang a furious cry from the main deck, as ninety Turachs raised a clatter with sword and shield. Corporal Metharon, the Turach sharpshooter, led his archers to the stern.

  The sun began to set. Fiffengurt hobbled for the quarterdeck, bellowing down ladderways, firing orders up the masts. Tarboys streamed up the Holy Stair, lugging cannonballs and buckets of powder; gunners darted about with match-pots like small, fiery lunch pails. Ixchel were everywhere: racing up the shrouds ahead of sailors to warn them of broken ratlines, adjusting the chafing fleece where ropes abraded, diving into guns to scrape the rust out of fuse-holes, retying sailors’ bandannas before they could slip. Humanity was their science: not a task existed on the Great Ship that they had not watched in secret.

  As they ran north the sandbar grew taller, closer to the surface. The waves broke over it, choppy and low. Ship and swimmers were converging on the same point: that deeper blue where the bar finally ended, where the ship could jackknife east and run with the wind at her back, every inch of squaresail thrusting her faster. Lookouts scanned the gulf: no boats, no place to hide them. Whatever the attackers were doing, they were doing alone.

  Off the starboard bow the water grew shallower yet, the waves collapsing into foam. “Ease away windward, helmsmen,” shouted Fiffengurt. “If we shave that bar the game’s up. Steady on.”

  Pazel arrived just as Fiffengurt was starting up the quarterdeck ladder. He could see that the man was in pain—a rat’s jaws had savaged his left foot, and the wound had not yet healed. Pazel tried to steady him from behind, but Fiffengurt shook him off with a twitch.

  “Pathkendle, I want you right there”—he pointed at the tip of the mizzenmast yard, twenty feet higher than the quarterdeck and about as many out over the gulf—“with a great blary Turach shield. We’ll have to judge depth by eyeball, see? Look straight down from out there. When that point clears the sandbar, you shout, ‘Mark!’ Not a second before—and not a second later, lad.”