Shallows of Night - 02 by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online Page A

leaden despite the strength of the wind, and there was a slight pressure in his ears. He took special care, moving along the rocking deck, remembering his slip the first night and, peering into the wind, he spied the purple and black thunderheads massed just above the horizon on the northwest quadrant that heralded the coming storm.
    A shout twisted his head aft, but he could see nothing amiss. He made his way toward Borros, who was already pointing northward.
    “What is it?” Ronin asked, coming up to him.
    “A ship.” Borros clutched at the wheel. “Following us.”
    Ronin peered aft but could still discern nothing on the expanse of the ice sea.
    “Obscured now by the mist.”
    “Borros, are you certain—”
    “This ship’s sister,” the Magic Man hissed. “Yes, Chill take it! I did see it.”
    Ronin turned away, twisted Borros with him. He stared hard into the old man’s face and tried to ignore the terror squirming like a serpent there.
    “Forget it,” he said reasonably. “You are still fatigued. You saw what your imagination wished for you to see. You have been through so much but it is over now. Freidal cannot threaten you now. You are free.”
    Borros glanced briefly sternward, into the building mist.
    “Let us pray so.”
    All the day the wind strengthened, a gale now whose great gusts shifted from one quarter to another, hurling them southward at ever increasing speed. It seemed to Ronin, as he worked the rigging, that their runners barely touched the ice, so swiftly did they fly across the frozen wastes. From time to time he caught Borros gazing aft, but he said nothing, keeping his thoughts to himself.
    He marveled at the workmanship of the craft. He watched the small storm sail which they had unfurled when they came on deck at first light. Buffeted by the strong winds, stretched to its limit, it yet would not tear. It was constructed of a different fabric than the woven canvas of the main, lighter, more supple.
    For much of the time the pair did not speak. It was essential that the wheel and the sail be manned at all times now because of the sudden unpredictability of the winds. Ronin worked the sail because that took more strength. He spent most of the time hauling on the rigging and staring ahead, one arm about the wooden mast, feeling it tremble, listening to the rhythmic creaking of the fittings, the soughing of the runners against the ice, the desolate call of the wind.
    He thought then of nothing; the future would be as it would be. But a peculiar warmth stole over him in those solitary moments against the varnished wood, counterbalancing the pull of the ropes, and he absorbed the transmission of their quivering strength, their pliancy the key to survival upon the ice sea. A bond was slowly forming of which he was not yet perhaps fully aware, as it had inevitably with many men, throughout many ages, on seas too numerous to count. It was an instinct rooted perhaps in some ancestral memories, if such things indeed existed on that world and in that time. It was what allowed him to feel the changing of the wind on his face and pull or slacken the rope immediately so that they continually maintained their course. It was what caused him to pick up a thousand different subtleties of sailing in so short a time.
    Just past midday the winds ceased their gusting and steadied enough for the pair to decide to lash wheel and storm sail long enough to go below for food and rest.
    While they ate, he told Borros the details of the events which had transpired in the City of Ten Thousand Paths. When he recounted the creature’s attack, the Magic Man exclaimed, the sound exploding through his lips. He coughed and swallowed convulsively. Then he had Ronin describe the creature again as best he could.
    “The Makkon,” he said then, his face drained of color and looking more than ever like a skull. “The creatures that are not animal, the four Reavers of The Dolman.” He quivered involuntarily. “If that is