There was a long, bloody scratch on the old-timer’s arm, clearly left by the nails of the dwarf girl who sat on his left. Without a word, a matronly dwarf on his right ripped a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress and bandaged the wound.
When Bradok reached Kellik, the burly smith cradled his son in his lap. “It’s broken,” he said glumly in answer to Bradok’s unasked question.
“Then we’ll need to set it,” said Tal, who had followed Bradok closely.
The boy’s pale face went absolutely white. Tal put his hand on the lad’s shoulder and looked into his brown eyes.
He unslung his heavy pack and dropped it at Bradok’s feet, pulling it open almost before it hit the boards of the barrel’s bottom. His hand emerged a moment later with a small, round case, painted blue with tarnished brass hardware. Tal opened the case, revealing a rare white glowstone that was held before a reflector in the device’s lid. The resulting light shone out in a bright beam and illuminated the contents of the backpack.
“Now then,” he said easily, pulling out a bottle of red glass. “What’s your name, son?”
“Hemmish,” the boy said.
“My youngest,” Kellik said, still cradling the boy. “But he’s a brave one and strong as they come too.”
“I’m sure he is,” Tal said with a genuine, reassuring smile. “Now you just rest easy, Hemmish, and we’ll get you taken care of.” He unstoppered the red bottle and pressed it to the boy’s lips. “Take a swig of this,” he said.
As Hemmish drank, Tal turned to Bradok. “See if you can find me a splint. Any piece of wood will do, so long as it’s small and stout.”
Bradok turned and retrieved a scrap piece of dowel, about an inch in diameter, which they had used to make pegs when building the ship.
“Anyone got a hand axe?” he asked the group. Several hands went up, and a grizzled dwarf with an unkempt beard and a glass eye passed Bradok a short axe from his amply laden belt.
Bradok stood the dowel on its end, and after a few taps, the metal blade bit into the dowel. Then he raised axe and dowel together and brought them down on the planks of the bottom of the boat. The axe bit right through the dowel, splitting it into two thin strips of wood about the length of Hemmish’s arm. Bradok passed both the strips to Tal.
“Those will do fine,” he said, giving them a quick once-over.
Hemmish had drunk from the red bottle, and the boy’s cheeks were rosy and his eyes were moving unsteadily in his head.
“Papa,” he said in a dreamy voice. “Where’s Mama? Why isn’t she here with us?”
A look of pain crossed Kellik’s face. It looked so out of place on the strong man that if Bradok hadn’t been looking right at the bulbous-nosed mountain of a dwarf, he’d have sworn an oath that such an expression never had darkened Kellik’s face before.
“She’s gone, lad,” he said in a gentle voice. “Gone to a better place, I reckon. We’ll be with her again one day, but not for a long time.”
“That’s too bad,” Hemmish said drowsily. “I miss her.”
“Me too,” Kellik said in a voice too soft for Hemmish to hear.
While Hemmish had been rambling, Tal laid out several strips of cloth and the splints Bradok had cut.
“We’re going to set the bone. I’ll tie it up good and tight,” he said. “Hold him.”
Kellik tightened his grip on Hemmish as Bradok grabbed the boy’s feet. Tal took hold of Hemmish’s arm and, after carefully aligning it, jerked it into place. Hemmish cried out in pain, but his face quickly resumed its happy, oblivious look. Tal swiftly and expertly tied up the arm and splinted it. Within minutes, the doctor had slipped the broken arm into a sling made from two handkerchiefs tied together.
“That should do just fine,” he said, smiling at Kellik. “We’ll check it in a few days.”
“That’s assuming we’re still alive in a few days,” Chisul’s voice sounded behind them, echoing through the semidarkness. Silas’s son stood, leaning against the rounded side of the ship.
“Why wouldn’t we be alive?” Rose said from the far side with deliberate loud cheerfulness. “Reorx didn’t inspire your father to build this magnificent craft to be our coffin,” she added, rubbing her hand reverently along the wooden side of the ship.
“You still don’t get it.” Chisul laughed. “Reorx had nothing to do with the design of this boat.” He waved his arm around. “This is a barrel without one side,” he said. “One-half of a barrel, just like hundreds of others that he made during his life. It’s just bigger. The biggest barrel that he ever made.”
Bradok frowned.
“You don’t think it’s just a tiny bit convenient that we’re here in this ship, being swept away from Ironroot at the very moment it was destroyed?” returned Rose. “If that wasn’t Reorx who opened the passage in front of us, then who was it?”
A murmur of assent ran through the barrel’s passengers.
“I don’t know how we ended up here,” Chisul retorted. “And neither do you. What I do know is that we’re lost, cut off from civilization with precious few supplies, and with no idea where we’re going. Don’t you see,” he added. “This giant half-barrel boat isn’t saving us; it’s taking us further away from help every minute.”
“What do you propose we do about that?” a squat, dull-faced dwarf in the front asked.
“Yes,” Lyra said sulkily. “It’s not like we can get out and walk.”
“That’s exactly what we should do,” Chisul said, moving to the side. “We need to beach this craft and get our bearings.”
They all stared out over the water. The boat was floating along easily in some kind of current. Across the water on either side they couldn’t see much-misty shapes maybe, more water definitely.
“That’s insane,” a barrel-chested hill dwarf who was peering over the side said. “We don’t know if there’s any land out there.”
“Besides,” Rose pointed out, “how are we supposed to steer this boat?”
Bradok might have got around to adding a rudder to Silas’s design, but there hadn’t been time. He suspected he knew why Silas had left off the rudder. He had trusted in Reorx. Without a rudder, there would be no way to take control of the ship. And it would have to go wherever it floated or drifted.
“She’s got a point,” Much said, narrowing his eyes at Bradok as though it were all his fault.
“Uh, guys,” Lyra said, pointing. “You might want to see this.”
Bradok edged to the front of the ship, where the railings were short enough to look over the side. Chisul, Rose, and Kellik all clambered up next to him to see. Bradok jumped up, catching hold of the side rail and pulling himself up to where he could swing his leg over the rail and perch there. In the dim glow of the lantern, he could spy black water about six feet below him, which disappeared in the darkness beyond the light.
“I don’t see-” Bradok began; then he gasped. Something had moved in the inky water. It was long and thick and seemed to have tentacles that trailed along after it. Bradok could see it clearly because its body gave off a bright yellow light.
The creature rolled over, a black eye gazing up at Bradok, before it dived and vanished.
“What was that?” he whispered, resisting the urge to flee to the back of the boat.
“You mean what are
Bradok turned and spotted dozens of the yellow creatures swimming up in front of them. They seemed to rise and dive in manic bursts of energy, flashing their lights as they went.
“Over there too,” Rose said.
Bradok craned his neck around and saw more of them swimming around off in the distance.
“This must be some kind of underground lake or ocean,” Rose offered. “It’s huge.”
“What do you think they eat?” Much asked.
Bradok wondered the same thing.
“Does anyone have a spear?” Chisul asked. “These things might be edible.”
Everyone nodded and scurried for suitable weapons.
Bradok stared over the side. The creature that had first swum close to appraise him seemed to have returned. Its body pulsed, slowly getting brighter then dimmer. In the changing light, Bradok could see paddlelike flippers attached to the front end of its body that waved up and down as it moved.
Then something else caught his eye.
