Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

  And in the wheelhouse, Aravan called out to be heard above the roar, “Set her course for east-southeast, Jatu.”

  “But, Captain, that will take us to the polar cap, and should we get caught in the ice…we’ll be crushed.”

  “Nevertheless, Jatu, it is the shortest route to the straits. ‘Tis a great circle we run on this globe and not some flat-world path, so point her stem to east-southeast.”

  “Aye, Captain,” replied Jatu, relaying the order to Boder, with Rico piping the sails to trim her up in the hurling wind.

  “Twenty-nine knots, Captain,” bellowed Jatu over his shoulder, awe in his voice as he and Artus entered the dimly lit wheelhouse and struggled to shut the door against the brumal blow. “By Adon, but I can barely believe it—do you realize that in the last three days we’ve not been below twenty knots? Adon and Elwydd, in but three days we have run nearly two thousand miles! No other ship has ever before done so.”

  “No other ship has e’er before been driven by such a thundering wind,” replied Aravan.

  “Jatu,” called out Jinnarin, she and Farrix standing on the sill of the forward window, “don’t you remember you once told me that had we a polar blow abaft we could sail entire oceans in but a week or so.”

  “Yes, tiny one. But never did I think to see the day.”

  “At least it’s stopped snowing.” said Farrix as he squinted out into the polar night. Of a sudden he pressed his face to the window and cupped his hands about his eyes to shield out the light from the hooded lantern behind. “I say, Aravan, is that a white mountain ahead?”

  Aravan whirled about and peered through the glass. “Lantern out!” he barked, and Geff leaped to comply and slammed the shutter to. As the wheelhouse was plunged into near darkness—pinpricks of light leaking through the closed shield—“Yes,” cried Farrix, “either a white mountain or a wall of ice, and I know which I’d wager it is!”

  “Where away?” snapped Aravan, peering into the long polar night, moonless and starless beneath the racing black overcast above.

  “In the distance ahead. To the right, the starboard.” Farrix pointed. “We are going to come very close, maybe even graze it. Don’t you see it?”

  “Nay, I do not! Hegen, larboard two points! Put the wind on our aft quarter! Reydeau, pipe the sails! Take care, ye both, for she’ll founder if we put her broadside to these waves!”

  Driven before the shrieking blow, the Eroean plunged ahead, curving in a long, long arc as she answered the helm—swiftly for a ship of her size, slowly given the hazard. Hurriedly the standby crew scrambled onto the deck, swinging the halyards about, as well as trimming the jibs and stays. And the Elvenship curved through the towering rage to swing alongside and then away from a vertical wall of ice looming some eight hundred yards to the starboard.

  Above the squall and boom, Jinnarin called out to Aravan, “I told you Farrix’s eyes were keen.”

  Aravan nodded. “Keen indeed is thine eyesight, Farrix, Pysk of Darda Glain, for thou didst see the floe by dark of night some two or so miles away. In this polar darkness without stars or Moon, mine own eyes see a mile or less.”

  “At the speed we are travelling, Captain,” rumbled Jatu, “nearly thirty knots, should we encounter something directly in our line less than a mile away, we will collide with it in under a hundred heartbeats.”

  Hegen cleared his throat in the dark of the wheelhouse. “With your permission, Captain, I think we need such a lookout as Master Farrix here to steer us through this cursed everlasting night. I hear tell that the Silver Cape, well, she be named ‘silver’ because of the ice which lies in the straits summer and winter all ‘round, though worse at this time of year. And, well, the throat of the pinch can not be more than two days ahead, given the rate we run.”

  “I’d be glad to stand watch, Aravan,” declared Farrix. “Burn me, but there’s little else to do. And though she doesn’t think so, Jinnarin’s eyes are as keen as mine.”

  Jatu rumbled, “Even given a Pysk warning of two miles or three, still I doubt that we could miss something large in our path if we continue running at this speed. Our chances of doing so would be slim at best.”

  “Nevertheless, Jatu,” replied Aravan, “a slim chance is better than none. I deem Hegen has the right of it—we should have Pysk eyes at watch.”

  “What about Alamar and Aylis?” asked Jinnarin. “I mean, they have magesight. Perhaps they can stand watch as well.”

  “With your permission again, Captain,” said Hegen, “Lady Jinnarin is right. We can use all the eyes we can get…though Mage Alamar, well, I’m wondering if he has the strength in him, what with him now being so old and all. I mean, he was old before he went into the Great Swirl, but now he looks to be on his very last legs.”

  Farrix turned and looked at Aravan. “Captain, let him stand watch with me. He desperately needs something to do.”

  Pondering, Aravan stroked his jaw. At last he said, “If Lady Aylis says that he can afford to cast the spell, can withstand the drain of astral fire, then, aye, he can stand watch with thee.”

  The next day the skies cleared and austral stars shone down and on this day a waxing half Moon would rise in the southeast and circle low to the horizon up ‘round the north and down again to set in the southwest. And though it was clear, still the thundering wind continued its savage blast, and great greybeards towered over the seas. And still the Eroean raced across the icy brine, cutting up through mountainous crests to slam hard into the water and ride down through abyssal troughs, the ship now running east-northeast on a great circle leading to the straits of the Silver Cape.

  As she had done every day, Aylis cast a spell to locate Durlok, the lexicon a seer’s lodestar to the Black Mage. “There,” she murmured, pointing, “three hundred fifty miles or so.”

  Aravan noted the direction, and plotted a point on the map. “He yet fares toward the straits, some seventy leagues before him, some two hundred leagues from us.”

  “Captain,” rumbled Jatu after a swift calculation, “can we continue to run at this pace, tomorrow we will be in the straits nigh mid of night.”

  Bokar looked at the darkness showing through the portholes. “Ha! In an everlasting night, when does mid of night come?”

  In the swaying lantern light, Aravan glanced up from the map. “Tomorrow comes the summer solstice—Year’s Long Day in the north, Year’s Long Night down here.”

  As the wind howled and the ship rode up to crests and plunged down into troughs and the sea boomed against the hull, Jinnarin braced herself against the roll and looked down at the map. “Will we catch Durlok at the straits?”

  Spanning between the marks which registered Durlok’s daily positions, Aravan used thumb and forefinger to gauge when the Black Mage would enter the straits. Then he looked at Jinnarin and said, “Aye, if the wind holds, ‘tis likely that we will catch him up somewhere nigh.”

  Jinnarin suddenly shivered. “Ooo, I just remembered: the last time we met Durlok on a Year’s Long Night, he nearly sank us.”

  Braced by Aravan, Aylis stood in the wheelhouse, her eyes closed, the lexicon in one hand, her other outstretched to the fore. “Twenty miles, there.”

  “A point larboard, Boder,” hissed Aravan. “Rico, trim her up. At his rate and ours, we will be on him in less than an hour.”

  Bokar gritted, “The ballistas are ready, Captain. Warriors stand by below the hatches waiting my signal.”

  Farrix peered out into the starlight, Jinnarin at his side. In a tall chair fastened to the deck sat Alamar, the elder peering out as well. The Eroean raced toward the throat of the strait, massive bergs and floes to left and right and fore, monstrous waves smashing against mountains of ice. And should the starlight fail, Aravan would depend on the Mage and Pysks to guide the ship safely through. But now the starlight shown down, and Aravan needed nothing other than his own keen Elven sight.

  Whoom! Again the hull crashed down into the brine, and Alamar groaned, “If I have a brain o
r guts or a kidney left when all this is done, I’ll light a candle to Elwydd! Lor! No wonder sailors are half-daft!”

  In that moment the door opened and wind and howl and spray raged inward. Battling the blow and wash, Jatu stepped into the wheelhouse and slammed the door to, shutting out the yowl and drench. “Captain, a storm comes abaft.”

  “Nigh?”

  “Aye, Captain. It flies on the wind.”

  Again howl and spray raved through the wheelhouse as Aravan stepped out the door and peered aft. Moments later he stepped back in. “Vash!” he spat, “it will be on us in less than an hour.”

  “Damnation!” quavered Alamar, “if the storm is anything like the one before, Durlok will lose us in a blizzard.”

  “Father, I have his lexicon. He cannot lose us forever.”

  Jinnarin turned, her face grim. “But he can ram us in the storm, when we are blind to him, as he did in the Northern Sea. But should he ram us here, in these seas we will not survive.”

  “Damn and blast!” gnarled Alamar.

  Once more Aravan stepped out and peered aft through the blow, and the hull of the Eroean slammed down. Moments later Aravan reentered. “Rico, pipe the full crew and rig the gallants and up.”

  “But Kapitan,” protested the bo’s’n, “this wind! By damn, all sail will break mast!”

  “Rico,” snapped Jatu. “you heard the Captain. Full crew. Rig all sails but the studs. And caution the Men to clip up.”

  Like a monstrous harp the rigging howled in the brutal wind, the masts groaning in mortal agony, and racing across the South Polar Sea plunged the Eroean, riding up curling crest after curling crest to slam down and plummet into the churning depths beyond.

  “Adon!” cried Farrix. “The black galley! There it is!”

  As the Eroean rode up the next crest and over, all eyes peered where the Pysk pointed. Through the snow flurries forerunning the storm, the top of lateen sails could just be seen ere they disappeared down, the black galley plunging into a trough. The Elvenship, too, slid down the roiling face of a wave and into a deep hollow beyond.

  “A mile I would say,” muttered Alamar, Aravan agreeing.

  “Armsmaster, signal thy warriors. We will be on him within two hundred heartbeats.”

  “Aye, Captain!” cried Bokar. And he threw open the trapdoor and slid down the ladder to the deck below, and all could hear the sound of his horn as Bokar ran forward. Out on the decks, hatches flew open and Dwarven warriors swarmed up and out. They hooked their safety harnesses to specially rigged lines and made their way across the pounding, plunging ship to the loaded ballistas, where they cast loose the stays.

  “Eh, I should be out there to guide their fireballs,” Alamar grunted as the ship whelmed down into the icy brine.

  “Father, it is all you can do now to take this pounding, much less stand on the deck in this sea.”

  “Damn, Daughter, don’t you think I know that?”

  “Oh Hèl!” shouted Farrix in frustration as suddenly the ship was enveloped in blinding snow. “The storm! The bloody storm!”

  “Can you see the black galley?” cried Jinnarin. “I’ve completely lost it!”

  No! cried Farrix and Alamar simultaneously, rage filling each voice.

  “Stay the course, Boder,” snapped Aravan. “‘Tis likely we will pass close enough for Bokar’s warband to sight it and cast fire.”

  Onward plunged the Eroean, her rigging shrieking, her masts groaning, her timbers moaning, the hull booming down into the polar brine beyond each curling crest. Monstrous waves rose up and smashed down and the storm-strengthened wind thundered past. Of a sudden through the hurtling snow, fire flared at the forward ballista and a streak of flame shot larboard, another flying forth immediately after. A heartbeat later the midship ballista loosed fire, too.

  “Did ye see aught?” snapped Aravan.

  “A dark shape larboard,” replied Farrix. “Yes,” concurred Jinnarin. “Nothing!” spat Alamar. Aylis shook her head, No.

  “But I don’t know if Bokar’s fireballs struck home,” added Farrix.

  “By now we have overrun the galley,” muttered Aravan, as the hull thundered down, “and we cannot come about in these seas, else we’ll founder broadsides.”

  “We might slow and let him run past,” suggested Rico.

  “Oh no, Rico,” protested Jinnarin, “I think he would ram us instead.”

  “If he can find us,” muttered Alamar, peering out into the wall of white shrieking past as the ship pitched up to a crest and cut through to smash down beyond.

  Cursing, Bokar came climbing up through the hatch. “We may have set a sail on fire, but if we did it was by sheer fortune.”

  “See,” querulously snapped Alamar. “I told you I should have been there to guide Bokar’s fireballs.”

  “Alamar,” cried Jinnarin, “that’s old ground already gone over. Besides, you did not even see the galley.”

  “Well, had I been on deck, I might have! —Hèl, if a Dwarf saw it, I would have!”

  “Regardless, Father,” said Aylis, “we can always come at him again. After all, we have this.” She held up Durlok’s lexicon, and in that very moment, it burst into furious flame.

  Suddenly, Alamar howled, fire flaring forth from his robes. And a pocket in Bokar’s parka blazed up.

  Jinnarin screamed as Aylis dropped the lexicon to the deck, and Aravan stamped on it to put out the fire. Bokar ripped off his jacket and threw it down. Alamar shouted, “Abi!” and forth from his robes flew a burning page, even then turning to ash. “Exstinguete ex omni parte!” he called, and all fire was quenched.

  And as the Eroean thundered into the waves, “What is it?” cried Jinnarin.

  “Durlok!” spat Alamar. “The fireballs alerted him that we are on his trail, and he seeks to destroy that which we use to trace him.”

  Aylis looked at the scatter of ashes on the deck where the lexicon had fallen. “I deem he has succeeded, Father, for I fear all is burned.”

  “Oh, Adon!” cried Jinnarin. “Our pages are in our under-bunk cabin with Rux!”

  As Jinnarin and Farrix leapt down from the shelf to head for the door, following after Jatu—for his page had been in his cabin as well—above the roar of the wind, from the deck there came a great creaking groan, and suddenly the mizzenmast shattered, silks and halyards and yardarms thundering down, crashing into the mainmast, and that great timber, too, burst and hurled forward to the deck slain; and along with her silks the mizzen took with it the spanker and gaff and two staysails, while the main shattered down carrying her own sails and hurtled into the foremast and ripped through the fore lower topsail and the foremain as well.

  And then in the blinding storm, as monstrous waves roared across the deck, the hull crashed against a mountain of ice.

  CHAPTER 37

  Deliverance

  Summer, 1E9575

  [The Present]

  A don!” cried Farrix, pulling Jinnarin behind him as the masts and silks and yardarms and halyards thundered down. And then a great judder jolted the ship, hurling Jatu and Artus and Rico to their knees and slamming Aravan and Aylis and Bokar to the wall. Both Jinnarin and Farrix kept their feet as they managed to grasp one of Alamar’s anchored chair legs. Boder, too, remained standing, for he held onto the wheel.

  “Oh bloody Hèl!” cursed Alamar as he sighted a monstrous white wall looming to starboard, the ship scraping and grinding alongside.

  “Ice!” shouted Jatu, gaining his footing, but of a sudden the Eroean was past, the wall gone, the grinding no more.

  “We are free of it,” gritted Aravan, as the hull rose up then slammed down into the brine.

  Jinnarin stepped past Farrix, her words coming in a rush: “Love, I will make certain that Rux is all right. And if our quarters are aflame, I’ll get help. You remain here, for your eyes will be needed if the wretched snow ever abates.” Without waiting for a reply, Jinnarin darted from the wheelhouse.

  As she vanished into the co
rridor leading to the aft quarters, Jatu barked, “Artus, see after her. Too, in a metal box in my sea chest is one of the pages. Make certain that no fire burns.”

  As Artus turned to go, Aravan snapped, “Artus, in the log on my desk is another lexicon page. See to it as well.”

  “Aye, Captain,” replied the young Man, and he ran after Jinnarin.

  “I’ll go, too,” said Aylis, and she followed Artus into the passage.

  Again the Eroean thundered down into the waves.

  By this time, Farrix had regained the window ledge and he braced himself and peered outward. The blizzard yet raged and the Pysk could but barely see past the wreckage of masts, his vision not quite reaching to the bow of the ship. As Aravan stepped to his side, Farrix said, “Blast, Aravan, I cannot tell what lies before us, but this I do know—we are dismasted.”

  Boom! down hammered the hull, water thundering across the decks, bearing downed spars and silks and halyard to slam into rails and ladders and cabin walls.

  Bokar took up his jacket and briefly inspected it; the pocket where the page had been was no longer burning. As he shrugged into it, he said, “Captain, I’m going to see if any of the Châkka were injured then do something about the ruin.”

  The armsmaster opened the trapdoor, and in that moment up popped Tivir, the lad dressed in his arctic gear. “Cap’n, Oi’m t’ tell y’ wot Frizian said: ‘e’s got a party t’gether, ’n’ they’re goin’ up ’n’ out t’ gauge th’ damage ’n’ secure th’ wreckage.”

  “Well and good, Tivir. Tell him I need a report and swift, for the Black Mage is yet somewhere nigh.”