Pirates Of Gohar

Chapter 18

In the chronicles of Gohar, it was called the Storm of Thrayket's Passing, because it started blowing on the day of the temple rites in his memory. It had various other names among the other peoples around the Sea. None of them ignored it.

None of the sailors caught at Sea could ignore it either, but many of them didn't live long enough to give the storm a name. They could only go down into the Sea, cursing the gods as salt water filled their mouths for the last time.

The Goharans, the Mythorans, and the other cities and kingdoms who had ships on the Sea lost ninety merchantmen and fifteen galleys. More fishing boats went down than anyone could ever count. Even the Sarumi lost some fishing craft and a few war vessels, swamped at sea or driven onto the rocky north coast of Sarumland. They also had crops washed out, huts blown down, and food spoiled by the ton.

On the other hand, the rivers between them and the plains horsemen swelled to raging torrents. Three thousand horsemen gathered to raid the Sarumi were caught by a flash flood, and the bodies of men and horses were strewn along the river banks all the way to the Sea. The Sarumi suddenly found themselves free of enemies on land, their enemies at Sea weakened, and their own fleet intact.

As the Sarumi realized this, the storm blew itself out. After five days of wind, gray skies, and waves the size of houses, there was blue sky and soft breezes. Only the surf still roared in on the eastern shore, carrying with it planks, beams, masts, oars, barrels, and bodies.

On the third day of the storm, Blade began to wonder if Khraishamo was right. Perhaps they were going to die from too much water instead of too little. The wind blew nearly a full gale every hour of the day and night. All around them the Sea rose into waves twenty feet high, and overhead gray clouds raced madly past. The nights were an experience Blade wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, with the waves turned into ghostly monsters, always threatening to swamp or overturn the boat.

Blade's muscles were stretched and twisted to the limit, his eyes became salt-reddened pits, his clothes rotted on his back, his brain screamed for sleep. Khraishamo and Rhodina were no better off, and several times the woman seemed about to collapse. Somehow she always managed to find a little more strength and keep going.

Fortunately the boat was just the right size for the three of them to handle, superbly well-built, with a high freeboard made higher because she was lightly loaded. She rode up and over nine waves out of ten, and while the continuous rising and falling made Rhodina deathly seasick, it also kept them from being swamped. There were no leaks worth mentioning, in spite of the worst the waves could do, and they could easily bail out what came aboard in spray and rain.

Meanwhile, the mast and sail not only held but drove the boat along at six and sometimes eight knots, faster than Blue Swallow, as fast as a war galley rowing in to ram. Where they were going Blade wasn't entirely sure, but they were going toward it fast. Fortunately Khraishamo knew just about everything anyone could know about handling boats, Blade wasn't far behind the pirate, and Rhodina soon became a valuable hand on the ropes. When she wasn't flat on her back or bent over the side with seasickness, she was in good health and spirits. There was plenty of water, they were too busy to eat even if they'd had any food, and the storm didn't frighten her nearly as much as the prospect of a slow, agonizing death from thirst.

By the evening of the fourth day, Khraishamo's very rough dead reckoning had them closing the shore rapidly. They shifted their course more to the southward, in order to keep offshore during the night. Running at high speed onto an unknown coast in the darkness would be an unnecessarily complicated way of committing suicide. The wind rose, though, and they found they had to make more headway to the east than they wanted to avoid broaching to and being rolled over by the waves.

None of them tried to sleep that night. They pulled on all their wearable clothing; belted on their knives, and sat while the boat plunged on through the roaring darkness.

Dawn came, showing them a high black cliff looming dead ahead. «The Black Head of Ryga,» said Khraishamo grimly. «Not the worst shipbreaker on the coast, but bad enough to do for us.» The surf beating against the foot of the cliff was throwing spray fifty feet into the air. For a few minutes the only question in Blade's mind was whether he was going to drown or be smashed to pieces on the rocks.

Then Khraishamo noted that the current along the shore seemed to be setting them ever so slightly to the south. «Not much, but the Black Head's not wide. We make a little southing, and there's a good beach. Come on and haul.»

Khraishamo steered, while Blade and Rhodina hauled away with a will. A few more minutes, and Blade saw that the Black Head was no longer looming closer and closer each time he looked. They were still near enough to be drenched by the spray thrown up at the base. In a few minutes there was six inches of water in the bottom of the boat from the spray, and Rhodina started bailing furiously.

Gradually the deadly cliffs slipped away astern, while Rhodina struggled with the bailing pots, Khraishamo gripped the tiller, and Blade kept both eyes on the sails and both hands ready to trim them. A little while longer, and there was open water to port, with a low, hilly shoreline just visible over the wave crests and through the spray and mist.

It was then that the mast let go. With a rifle-shot crack it snapped off about a foot above the base. The pressure of the wind in the sail turned the mast into a club, flailing about wildly before the sail tore loose from the yard and flew off on the wind like a seagull. The yard whipped around, catching Rhodina in the back as she emptied a pot over the side. With a wild shriek she overbalanced and fell into the water.

Khraishamo let out a roar which drowned out the wind. There was rage, pain, and grief in the cry. Blade scrambled aft to grab the tiller as Khraishamo stood up in the stern-sheets. The pirate let out another roar as a wave lifted Rhodina's head into sight and showed her swimming desperately. Blade was just reaching for the tiller when a larger wave than usual swept in. The boat heeled sharply, as Khraishamo's standing weight affected its stability. Blade shouted: «Sit down, you fool!»

He was a breath too late. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the boat which had carried them safely so many miles across the Sea rolled over to port. Blade flung himself clear as it capsized completely, just in time to avoid being caught underneath. His foot struck hard against the boat's upturned bottom, then it was gone, sunk or swept away.

Once he was clear of the boat, Blade didn't fight the Sea. He knew that a good swimmer can make the water support him rather than swallow him, simply by not exhausting himself. He hoped Khraishamo and Rhodina knew this, but also knew there was nothing he could do for them except stay alive himself.

The current which had saved them from the Black Head still flowed, and it carried Blade southward as the waves pushed him toward shore. The combination of current, wind, waves, and shoaling water made for a choppy, steep Sea. Several times waves breaking over Blade swallowed him up or drove him deep under. Once he was sucked so far under that he began expecting every moment to hit bottom. That time he had to fight his way to the surface and reached it with the last breath in his lungs.

The fight cost him a good deal of strength, and he began to realize that the long open-boat voyage without proper food had taken more out of him than he'd thought. Getting sucked under again this way could be the end, and so could having to battle the waves for more than another few minutes.

Gradually, Blade saw the hills along the shore-grow clearer each time he rose on a wave, and the water around him turned brown with sand churned up from the bottom. He saw chunks of wood, clots of weed, a dead body that wasn't Khraishamo or Rhodina. At last he slid down into the trough of a wave and struck bottom painfully hard, then rose, struck again, somehow managed to keep his footing, and plunged forward until his legs gave under him and he fell face-down on the damp sand.

After three weeks, he'd reached land.

At first he felt he could use another three weeks of lying here quietly to rest and recover. Then his judgment got the better of his aching muscles and joints and pulled him to his feet. He staggered forward until he was above high-tide mark, then saw that beyond the beach was a forest of scrubby, windblown trees. He kept moving until he was safely inside the trees, able to look along the beach in both directions but nearly invisible himself.

There was no sign of his comrades, but there was plenty of evidence that other ships had come to grief in the storm.

There was a dark fringe of wreckage along the shore at the water's edge, including dead fish and whales, every possible piece of a ship's gear, and here and there a drowned sailor. The spectacle was sufficiently depressing so that Blade stared at it blankly for several minutes before he noticed that one of the «drowned» sailors was standing up. A moment later the sailor bent and picked up another, then came lurching up the beach toward the trees.

Blade hurried out to meet Khraishamo as he carried a limp Rhodina in his arms toward shelter. The pirate was staggering from exhaustion and also from carrying Rhodina's considerable weight, and his face was once again a demon's grim mask. When he saw Blade approaching, he stopped and lowered Rhodina to the sand.

«She's dead, Blade.» If Sarumi warriors ever wept, Khraishamo would have been weeping. «She went under once too often. She's not breathing.»

«How long-?»

«Don't know.» Khraishamo knelt on the sand beside Rhodina and bowed his head. Blade also knelt, but he took her wrist and felt for the pulse. It was faint and irregular, but it was still there.

Not wanting to get Khraishamo's hopes up, Blade said nothing. He might not get her breathing again at all. Even if he did, there might be brain damage from lack of oxygen. Ignoring Khraishamo, Blade bent over Rhodina, squeezed her nostrils shut, and started mouth-to-mouth respiration. It was some time before the grief-stricken Khraishamo noticed what was happening, then he shouted angrily: «Heh! Leave her alone, you-!»

Blade looked up. «This sometimes saves drowned people in England. Don't hope for too much, but don't interrupt me.» That shut the pirate's mouth, and Blade went back to work.

Breathe-breathe-breathe-in an endless rhythm. Blade didn't know how long he'd been at work, and didn't want to guess. Then as he pulled his mouth away from hers, he felt a warm breath on his cheek. He didn't stop the rhythm until he'd felt her breathe four more times, and he didn't stand up until Rhodina's eyes flickered open. At that point Khraishamo let out a wild cry and gripped Rhodina in his arms so fiercely that Blade was afraid he'd stop her breath again.

Blade turned his back and walked a few yards away. He was now quite sure that Sarumi warriors could weep, and his own eyes weren't entirely dry. It was Rhodina's voice that brought him back to her side.

«If you two do all this when I come to life, I won't dare die.»

«No, beloved, you don't,» said Khraishamo, his voice steady for the first time since he'd carried her out of the water. He stood up. «Let's get her into shelter, Blade. Somebody might come along.»

Nobody came along while they were carrying Rhodina into the trees, and after that they didn't know or care. It was enough to be out of the wind, nearly beyond the roar of the waves, with the smell of growing things around them and grass and damp leaves underfoot. After three weeks in a small boat, Blade found that something solid and motionless underfoot felt vaguely unnatural.

After a while, he stretched and said, «Well, we're as close to Mythor as we're going to get by sea. The rest of the trip we do on foot. Rhodina, are there any rebels we can trust this far north of Mythor?»

She nodded. «Not here along the shore, though. Not north of the city. Merchantmen, galleys, they stop here too often, with too many soldiers and too many eyes to watch. In there-«-she pointed eastward through the trees-«yes, several.»

«How far?»

«Three, four days, if we go fast.»

«I don't think we're going to go fast without food and clothes,» said Blade. «In fact, I don't think we're going to go anywhere at all until we've begged a meal and some shoes.»

Khraishamo nodded. «That's good sense. But how are we going to find someone who won't run away screaming or call the soldiers when they see us?»

Khraishamo had a point. He himself was easily recognizable as Sarumi, and he was also stark naked. Blade wore only a pair of trousers, split to mid-thigh along one leg. Rhodina's costume might have made her a fortune in London as a topless dancer, but here it would only attract unwanted attention.

«I'll beg for the three of us,» said Blade. «I can say I'm a shipwrecked sailor-«

«The gods know that's true enough,» said Rhodina, laughing.

«Yes. And you two can explore along the shore, to see if you can get clothes and weapons from any of the bodies. I think there are going to be a lot of those.» Both the others nodded grimly.