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slack into the sea.
Corley dropped the severed rope and swore. With barely a break in motion, he
threw off his sword belt and began to strip his person of weapons. He intended
to swim for the boy, Taen saw.
She caught his elbow as the first of his knives clattered to the deck. "No!
You must not follow him!"
Corley jerked free, a dagger in each hand and a murderous frown on his face.
"Why not?"
The Dreamweaver raised her voice over the flapping din of canvas as the
brigantine rounded to weather.
"Jaric's pushed to the edge already, can't you see? And aboard
Callinde he'll be safe if demons strike at
Moonless."
Corley cursed, on the brink of diving overboard.
Taen shouted. "Not even the Stormwarden dared force Jaric to the Cycle of
Fire! Would you break his mind trying?" And she braced herself to protect with
her Vaere-trained powers as enchantress.
Rain slashed across wood and oilskin and the flogging yards of canvas
overhead. Finally Corley jammed one knife, then the other, into the sheaths at
his wrists. "Kor's eternal Fires, girl. If I could lay hands on that boy's
hide, I'd flay him quick. Will he ever learn not to jump ship without his
weapons?"
Shivering, her hair fallen wet around the delicate lines of her collarbone,
Taen stared after the vanishing shape of
Callinde.
And shocked back to reason by the stricken expression on her face, Corley
caught her close.
"Jaric's tough, you know that, girl. However hard he's pushed, I never yet saw
him run." A gust caught the spanker even as he spoke, recalling Corley to his
neglected command. Belatedly he remembered he must chart a new course for
Moonless, away from the southerly heading Shadowfane's compact would expect
him to hold for the Isle of the Vaere.
Taen sensed his thought. Suddenly she longed for the village of her birth, a
harbor so remote that
Anskiere himself had chosen the site as a refuge after the disaster which
destroyed Tierl Enneth. Imrill Kand as a haven made sound sense. Warned and
alert to her peril, she would never again let her defenses slip; and if demons
did trace
Moonless, a northwesterly course might provide a foil for Jaric and
Callinde.
"Put me down," she demanded of Corley. "Then sail me home. Please. Put about
and go east to Imrill
Kand."
The captain regarded her with the level attention he usually granted to
equals. "You're sure? Luck won't forgive if your judgment's sour, and to sail
that course will be in defiance of the Kielmark's orders."
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Taen tilted her head with a shaky ghost of a smile. "The same tired argument?
I thought we wore that one out on the night of your master's victory party."
Corley sucked air through his teeth; irritation and laughter warred on his
rain-drenched face as he released the Dreamweaver abruptly. "Don't ever count
on that one, girl." After an interval trading glares, his humor finally won
out. "The day I give over my command to a cheeky, wet snip of a girl, those
dogs in the forecastle will be sewing my carcass into sailcloth. Now that
fact's understood, will you go get dry? You've given
Moonless's healer and my steward enough gray hair without adding pneumonia to
their troubles."
Hunted
Dawn broke between squalls. Sunrise peeped through the last, low-flying clouds
and scattered an arching magnificence of rainbows, but Jaric regarded their
loveliness with little joy.
Moonless and Tierl Enneth had long since vanished over the horizon. Alone upon
the sea, the boy huddled in
Callinde's stern with both hands clenched to the steering oar. West winds
drove his boat on a broad reach. Once he cleared the archipelago beyond the
point of Tierl Enneth, he would turn south to Land-fast and every indulgence a
port city could provide. Until then, during a fortnight-and-a-half passage
through mild summer weather, Jaric had solitude and too much time to reflect.
He sailed
Callinde and tried desperately to keep thoughts of Taen from his mind.
The night fell calm and star-studded. Jaric hove his boat to and ate a meager
meal from his stores. Rocked upon the face of the sea, he slept only to waken
screaming in horror of the Cycle of Fire. Later he tried tending the steering
oar from sunset to dawn; but fatigue inevitably betrayed him. Against his will
his eyes closed, and nightmares caught him at the helm.
Callinde bore off her course; time and again the rattling crash of jibed sails
battered Jaric back to wakefulness. In despair he buried his face in his hands
and wished for stormy weather. The present, changeless blue of water and sky
reminded him endlessly of Taen's eyes.
Conditions remained fair, though the wind rounded to a southwest heading.
Forced to tack, Jaric revised his course and beached on a wild spit of land
west of Islamere. There he trapped game, foraged tubers for the food locker,
and refilled his water casks. Since
Callinde sailed poorly to weather, he camped four days until the winds blew
easterly, then crossed the final leagues to Landfast under gathering sheets of
cloud.
Lightning laced the sky and thunder crashed when at length he rounded the
islet of Little Dagley.
Torrents of rain dimmed the light beacons on the jetties to weak haloes. Worn
to exhaustion, and harassed by the pound of the squall against the sails,
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