'It's the rudder!'
'Drop sail! Drop sail!'
Druffle was wrestling with the sickness-prone boy, who looked ready to hurl himself over the bow. Pazel and Neeps were the only calm figures on the ship. As such no one paid them the least attention.
They moved aft. Pazel dropped the old coat upon the deck. 'Remember what the Flikkers said,' Neeps whispered, grinning. ''Don't breathe! Don't breathe!''
They dived from the stern rail, wearing just their breeches, and swam as fast and far as they could. The water was cold but not icy, and the current proved gentle. Surfacing forty feet closer to shore, Pazel realized at once how visible they would be if anyone bothered to look. As the first wave lifted him he ducked underwater again. He tried to wait for the next trough, to keep a swell between him and the Rupin. But you couldn't make progress if you were studying the waves. He gave it up and made for shore with all possible speed, rising to breathe whenever he needed to.
No arrows flew from the Rupin, no shout of alarm. Off to his left, Neeps caught his eye and grinned again.
They don't really care, Pazel thought. They still have eight boys.
It was easy. It remained easy. Before they knew it they were halfway to shore.
Pazel risked a backward glance-and was so alarmed he swallowed seawater.
All four lifeboats were in the water, crammed with Volpeks pulling for shore with all their might. Where had so many come from? There must have been dozens hidden on the lower decks! Behind the lifeboats, the Prince Rupin was listing at a most unseaworthy angle. Pazel caught a glimpse of her sailors, leaping and waving, throwing themselves into the sea.
They were abandoning ship.
One lifeboat was ahead of the others, and it was coming right for them. Druffle himself was at its bow. He was pointing. He had seen them.
Where Pazel found the strength to swim faster he couldn't say. Beside him Neeps churned the sea with equal desperation. They could hear the breakers now. But the swimming was growing harder, too: an undertow was trying to snatch them down.
'I'll skewer you alive, my Chereste hearts!'
The voice was a stone's throw behind. Pazel kicked for all he was worth. There was foam on the waves, a land-taste to the water in his mouth. He spat air, breathed bubbles. A big wave lifted him, and through the shallows beneath it he saw the sea's pebbly floor.
'Nab 'em! Nab 'em or shoot 'em dead! No, NO-'
There came a sucking noise from behind, and Pazel whirled just in time to see Druffle's boat swamped by a giant roller. The Volpeks pinwheeled into the surf; Druffle was simply gone. Then the wave caught Pazel in the chest. It raised him, spun him like a cork, scraped him along the bottom, buried him in swirling grit. Then it withdrew with a hiss, leaving him flat on his stomach, ashore.
Sand was in his mouth and nose and eyes. He raised his head. The world was still spinning. He realized he had vomited into the sea.
To his left Neeps lay on his side, retching.
Pazel struggled to his feet, looking down at his friend.
'Broken bones?'
'Fah,' said Neeps.
'Then get up, mate.'
'I rather like it here.'
Fifty yards up the beach, half a dozen Volpeks were dragging a lifeboat from the waves. Pazel yanked Neeps sharply by the arm.
'Now!'
They staggered away from shore, trying to break into a run. The dunes rose before them, and they were much taller and steeper than they had looked from the Rupin. Their seaward slopes, hollowed by wind, leaned over the boys.
'After them! Move, you fat farina-guts!'
The voice was Druffle's. Pazel caught a glimpse of his bony figure rising from the surf like a skinny Old Man of the Sea, but armed with a cutlass.
'Stop where you are, lads!' he shouted. 'Don't make us use arrows!'
'Go kiss a squid!' Neeps yelled.
Arrows followed. Their black shafts fell around them, vanishing to their quills in the sand. The boys reached the dunes and began to scrabble up. Neeps climbed like a monkey, but Pazel found himself floundering. The sand gave way wherever he stepped; it was like fighting the waves again. Behind him the Volpeks laughed. Then somehow Pazel's limbs sank deep enough for traction, and he shot up the dune in a matter of seconds.
His one thought was to hurl himself down the far slope, putting a wall between him and the archers. But when he saw what lay ahead he froze.
The Crab Fens.
They sprawled before him, all but licking the feet of the dunes: a gray-green morass of stunted trees and spiky brush, of moss and vine and stagnant water, draped in white fog that oozed about in clots. Endless they seemed, and dark. There was a great stench of rot and brine.
'Don't stand there, you fool!'
Neeps tackled him, and together they slid down the inside of the dune. 'We've got to go in,' said Neeps. 'They'll never find us if we lose 'em now.'
Pazel said nothing. The Fens hummed like some vast machine, and he realized with dread that he was hearing insect wings.
But in they plunged. There was no hint of a trail; indeed, there was no solid ground on which a trail could run. Sand turned to clay, and clay to black muck. The low trees closed over them like gnarled hands.
Druffle's voice boomed from the dune-top, urging his men down into the swamp. Why does he care? thought Pazel. Why not let two of us get away?
It was a terrible place to be barefoot. At each step the mud took hold like a sucking creature, and jagged sticks rose spear-like from the depths. They could see no more than ten yards through the brush, and as they left the dunes farther behind, the strange clots of fog settled around them. Here and there the sun broke through, but the bright shafts dazzled more than they illuminated. Sounds were distorted, too. Pazel could hear the Volpeks cursing and splashing, but were they to his left or his right? A hundred paces away or ten? Was it safe even to catch their breath?
'… stinking insubordinate pigfaced louts!' came Druffle's voice, quite near. 'You'll disappoint the Customer!'
The horrors mounted. Pazel slid into a slippery hole under the roots of a tree and nearly drowned in the mud that gushed in after him. A fat blue wasp stung Neeps' arm: he howled and smashed it dead-and the Volpeks rallied toward them. They stepped into a swarm of green muketch crabs, the source of Pazel's nickname, and leaped for safety with the fierce little beasts still attached to their ankles. They swam across a lagoon, scattering puffy-jawed snakes.
'Come sundown, I'll bet these 'skeeters will drink our blood dry, Pazel.'
'Unless we step on a marsh ray first. They can kill you.'
'Look at that blary spider.'
'Look how the water boils with worms.'
With such talk they managed to lower each other's spirits considerably-so much indeed that they barely noticed good fortune when it came. The Volpek voices were fading. They had shaken the pursuit.
'A leech! A stinking, bloodsucking leech!'
'Hush, Neeps! We've done it! We've lost them!'
Neeps ripped the slimy creature from his leg. 'I guess we have,' he said. 'But all I want now is a modestly dry log, or a tree we can climb.'
Pazel rubbed his eyes, turned in a circle. 'There's your tree,' he said, pointing across the Fens to a solitary oak. 'I'll bet we could scramble up her in a pinch.'
