mates nearby. Samir returned his attention to the prow and tightened his grip on the rope.
“All hands prepare!”
There was a long moment of ominous silence, made all the more uncanny by the mist that was now beginning to envelop the prow of the ship. Samir listened desperately and kept his eyes peeled. He could now see only twenty yards in front of him and, as he quickly turned his head, at most a third of the length of the deck stretching out behind him before it became lost in the wispy grey.
He whispered a quick prayer to the luck goddess and peered ahead once more.
“Bring to!” the cry went up from the stern. Commands were relayed in short order around the ship, but Samir was already hauling on the rope and beginning to furl the sail before he was told.
As the rope tightened, he found himself drawing close to one of the men he didn’t know, who was busy doing something arcane with a rope on the other side of the mast. Samir smiled at the man, but was ignored as he continued about whatever the task was.
He continued to haul on his rope and turned briefly to look out over the prow. The ship was slowing to a halt now as the sails, already deprived of wind in this still environment, were furled. The twenty or so rowers who had been sent to their seats ten minutes ago were rowing gently against the direction of travel, bringing the whole ship to a halt.
Samir dropped the rope in an instant, the cord burning his hand as it ran through his palm until he caught it again.
“Back!” he bellowed as loud as he could.
The man nearby looked up in surprise and then followed Samir’s gaze and dropped his own rope, cupping his hands round his mouth.
“Abaft! Take her abaft!”
The man rushed over to Samir, who stood, gripping the rope, mesmerised with fear at the jagged, black, glistening rock that drifted toward them with slow and deliberate momentum. Behind them, desperate orders were bellowed out.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…”
He looked around at the voice and realised the man next to him was making signs to ward off evil.
“Gods won’t help now”, Samir said quietly and grasped the tip of one of the half dozen spare oars that were sheathed beneath the rail down the side of the ship near the front. Hauling on it, he heaved it over the rail, surprising himself with the strength he appeared to find from nowhere.
Gritting his teeth, he jammed the oar in a dip between the rails and aimed for the rock that was now almost upon them. Throwing all his weight behind the oar. With a worrying cracking and crunching noise, the oar struck home on the rock. For a horrifying second Samir was convinced it had broken at the end of the blade and they would run afoul of the hazard. Then the full, solid wood of the oar shaft hit the rock and Samir was physically lifted from the deck by the blow and hurled several yards back against the mast.
As he picked himself up, he realised the other man had gripped the oar and was desperately fending off the rock. The now desperate rowing and careful manoeuvring, combined with the push of the oar, turned the ship slightly and the rock came alongside, drifting along the side of the hull like a menacing sea beast. The man let go of the oar and the item dropped into the water and bobbed away. Slowly, once again, the ship came to a halt.
The man was saying something to Samir, but his attention was otherwise engaged. The young man stared out from his position at the rail into the mist.
This was no solitary rock. The reefs were here and as dangerous as imaginable. Glistening obsidian points rose from the turbulent waters, white froth dancing around them and fading, only to be replaced by more as the next wave hit. The rocks were everywhere. Ahead of them and beside them, behind them somehow and, he turned to confirm this… yes, at the other side too. How in the name of the seven faces of Ha’Rish had they got here, right amid the rocks?
His mind reeled. It was, he supposed, theoretically possible for a ship to fit in some of these narrow gaps between the pointed hazards, but the Empress was not a small ship and it would be difficult under even the best circumstances. In the mist? Never.
But the reefs, regardless of their danger, were only rocks.
Samir’s gaze only took them in in passing.
Figures stood on the shards. All around them. Figures in dark, wet, drab clothes. Many appeared to be wearing grey robes like those of a priest, but duller and darker. And wetter. And infinitely more frightening. The silent figures watched the Dark Empress as she sat, motionless, among the rocks and the mist.
Toward the rear of the ship someone was shouting orders. Sounded like the first officer. The commands were very precise; how many degrees the wheel needed turning; how many rowers should begin and in which seats; how many strokes a minute the man at the drum should beat out.
None of the commands would affect Samir in his role here, not that he would be listening even if they did. His attention was riveted on the figures staring at the ship; staring, he felt, directly at him, or into his soul. He shivered.
The nearest figure he hadn’t noticed at first and let him to question his eyes. A girl of perhaps seven years of age sat in her ragged clothing on the very rock that had almost fouled them. Her arms reached up, outstretched; beseeching? Inviting? He shuddered once again as he realised he could just make out the reflection of his silhouette at the boat rail in the girl’s glassy, black eyes, sunk deep in her grey face.
This was clearly impossible. Not only could he not imagine the ship managing to get into this strangely cramped position, but the girl had not been there when he’d pushed the oar at the rock. Somehow this whole thing must be some kind of illusion.
Frowning, he picked up a spare belaying pin and cast it at the rock, smiling as he realised how simply he had seen through this trickery.
The wooden pin bounced from the glistening rock with a noisy ‘crack’ and disappeared into the water with a plop. Samir sagged slightly. Impossible, yet definitely real.
The man nearby thumped him lightly on the shoulder.
“Don’t throw things at them. You hit one and you’ll have some bloody bad luck…“ he looked around nervously. “Maybe we’ll all have some bloody bad luck!”
Samir blinked.
He’d been looking forward to seeing this mythical place and suddenly now, while he was this close, something was making the hair stand up on the back of his neck and he would just as rather be almost anywhere else. It felt like he would never be warm or see the sun again, such was the damp cold of the mist that stuck his shirt to his chest and the dismal grey all about them.
“Fucking captain!”
Samir blinked and turned to look at the man that had just smacked him on the shoulder.
“What?”
“Captain Khmun! Came in too fast. Should know better.”
Samir bridled, though he wasn’t sure why.
“Someone with an ounce of sense ought to knock him down and take over. Someone who actually knows how to sail!”
Opportunity knocks so rarely that sometimes you miss it. Samir had seen opportunities slip past him several times in his life, unaware at the time that they were important. The events of the last year, however, had taught him the value of luck and opportunity, and he had been actively waiting for a moment like this for weeks of agonising beatings. Luck presents opportunities, but you still have to grasp them.
“Shut up!” he said, vehemently, and louder than he’d intended.
Without waiting for a reply from the surprised man, he turned, the other belaying pin he’d been grasping on the rail now gripped tightly in his hand. He spun with no warning, his arm swinging out with its heavy timber weapon. His aim was true; his aim was always true.
The narrow end of the foot-long, heavy wooden pin smashed with force into the man’s face. There were two instantaneous cracks. Samir was agonisingly aware that one of them was his finger, caught between the man’s cheekbones and the timber. The other, judging from the explosion of blood that showered his own face, was the man’s nose shattering beyond repair.
Samir straightened and watched as his victim, unconscious instantly from the blow, toppled backwards onto
