together. Like wolves, his mother had said. Like wolves.
Shadoath is ahead of us, Fallion realized. And Asgaroth came out of the west, chasing me toward the edge of the world-into Shadoath’s path.
Stalker was right to mistrust the course ahead. His plan sounded good- sail around the islands, keep as much distance as he could.
For his part, Stalker looked at Fallion and realized that he could not turn the boy over, no matter what the reward. Stalker had grown too close to Fallion in the past few weeks. He was a good lad-smart, capable. He had become like one of the sons that he should have had.
I’ll die before I let her have him, Stalker told himself. Besides, the crew sees him as one of us, now. They’d probably mutiny if I sold him off.
Fallion peered at the map, eyeing it distrustfully. Stalker’s plan gave him some comfort. Yet Fallion felt a strange certainty in his gut. It was his destiny to meet Shadoath.
The ends of the Earth are not far enough.
Fallion went to his cabin and spent the morning honing his blade.
The winds didn’t hold. Stalker sailed north, trying to bypass the Mariners, but for the next two weeks the sails were slack, and it would take a good storm to drive the ship past the islands.
It was late in the hurricane season, and Stalker had dared hope that he’d not see one this year.
But the sails went slack altogether one morning, and the sea ape Unkannunk began to roar and slam his huge club against the deck, pounding and pounding in a fit of madness. Stalker came out of his cabin and found himself staring at a sunrise that struck fear into his belly.
The sky on the horizon was the blue-green of a bruise, and the air was as heavy as a wet blanket. You could feel the lightning in the air, little pinpricks crawling over the back of your neck.
“Drop the sails,” Stalker ordered. “Batten the ’atches, and strap yourselves down.”
There was no port to make for. They were fifty miles north of the nearest island, at the very least. Navigating on the open water like this was always part guesswork, and Stalker only had a general idea of where he was.
Myrrima felt it, too. She woke in the morning in solemn terror and didn’t take time to eat or clothe her children. She spent the morning on a rope ladder, drawing runes of protection on the ship, runes of strength to hold it together, runes of way-finding to guide the steersman’s course.
Then it came. The clouds gathered over the heavens, sealing off the sunlight, and the thunder could be heard in the distance. Then the explosive bursts of light came, high in the clouds.
The seas began to pitch and the storm rolled in lightly, the wind singing through the rigging. When the first patters of rain started, Myrrima brought the children down into the hold, into the dark, where only a single lantern swaying on a hook gave any light.
Captain Stalker stayed above decks and watched the hurricane come in, three men lashed to the wheel, trying to guide the ship.
There are no words that can describe the terror of a storm at sea, winds of ninety miles an hour shrieking through the masts, waves crashing down over the bow so that the boat shudders under your feet as if it will tear apart, that moment when the boat climbs and climbs and climbs up an eighty-foot wave, only to reach the top, and then come crashing down into the wallow with a bone-crushing jar.
Down in the hold, the children wept and moaned. Seasoned crewmen who never got seasick grew ill and lay in their own vomit, wishing for death, wishing with each moment that on the next wave, the ship would tear asunder and yet also fearing to the core of their being that on the next wave the ship would founder.
Lightning took the mainmast. A bolt of it struck the masthead and sent a line of fire running down the beam, almost to the deck.
Stalker didn’t worry about the fire. The rain was driving so hard that you couldn’t open your mouth without getting a drink, and mountains of water crashed over the railing.
The fire would sputter for a few minutes, then die.
Amid the high winds, the weakened mast gave a tattletale cracking sound, and the ropes in the rigging began to snap.
Before Stalker could shout a warning, it toppled, falling backward into the mizzenmast, snapping spars, so that both masts fell in a tangle of rope.
The ship twisted beneath their feet, listing to starboard.
The heavy masts tangled in the rigging. As the masts fell, the ship lost balance and canted precariously.
If the men didn’t cut the masts free, a wave would take them broadside and capsize the ship.
Suddenly a dozen sailors rushed up from below decks, swords and axes in hands, chopping at the tie lines and rigging, trying to cut the fallen masts free. Stalker and the steersmen grabbed the wheel, tried to aim the ship’s prow into the waves, but it felt as if the rudder were gripped by a giant hand, and three men together could not budge it. The fallen mast gave too much drag.
Stalker abandoned the wheel and rushed to help cut the damned masts free.
The waves caught the ship broadside, and he lost his footing, went down beneath a wall of water that came cascading over the railing.
Three crewmen went flying overboard, into the white surf, their mouths working uselessly, their cries for help stolen in the roar of the wind, the pounding of the sea.
And then there was a crack, and a line snapped, the rope slapping Stalker’s face like a bullwhip, and the mainmast went sliding into the sea.
He himself followed, gravity pulling him downward. He tried to catch himself with his feet, bracing them to take all of his weight as he slid down the slick decks toward the railing.
It didn’t work. He hit the rail and his legs gave way beneath him. He found himself toppling overboard. Only years at sea kept his mind steady enough so that he twisted in the air and grabbed onto the railing with both hands, clinging for dear life.
The ship rolled over a smaller wave, and now suddenly the boat lifted and turned. Stalker clung to the railing as the ship seemed to rise beneath him like a mountain. He was suddenly plastered against the outside of the hull, his weight sustained by it, and peering down across the deck to the trough of the next wave.
Inwardly, he prayed that the ship would hold together.
27
Children always imagine that evil resides somewhere far away, perhaps in a mysterious land far beyond their borders. But every man knows where it can be found. It is as near as your own heart.
When the storm finally cleared, Captain Stalker found that he’d lost seven members of the crew, including Endo.
The last that he had seen of the man, Endo was treading water in incredibly rough seas, trying to keep his head above the whitecaps. His faithful sea ape, Unkannunk, howled in dismay and leapt into the wash to save him, but a huge breaker crashed over the two, and by the time the water cleared, both of them were lost to view.
The only thing that saved Stalker himself was dumb luck.
The ship was a wreck. The mainmast and mizzenmast were gone completely, and much of the upper deck was broken and in a shambles.
The storm had blown them far off course to the east and north-that much Stalker could tell just by the water: it was deeper green than it should have been, from too much algae, and its surfaces were all hard angles. That only came from cold water funneling down from the arctic currents.
In their current condition, it would take a couple of weeks just to limp to some island among the Mariners.
