One turned, stared back through a small opening in the foliage. He bore a spade-shaped shield. A griffin rampant was its device. I let fly with a waste arrow, a practice arrow. It pierced the griffin's eye.
I still had it. After however long it had been, my shafts still flew true.
The soldier's jaw dropped. I bowed mockingly.
"That wasn't smart," Priest told me.
"Couldn't help myself. I had to do it."
The black birds above cursed me in their squawky tongue. I glared my defiance.
My archery was my one skill, my one way of defying the universe and its perversity. The gesture had been important to me. It was a statement that the Bowman existed, that he was well, that his aim was still deadly. It was a graffito on the walls of time, screaming I AM!
Colgrave beckoned.
I shook in my seaboots. I was going to catch hell for defying orders....
But he did not mention my shot. Instead, he gathered Toke, Lank Tor, and myself, and told us: "The decision is at hand. Within two days the whole island will know we've returned. They'll know in Portsmouth in three days, in Itaskia in four. They won't endure us anymore. Our return will scare them so much that they'll send out every ship they have. They won't trust warlocks this time. They'll destroy us absolutely, with fire, at whatever cost we demand."
He stared at the western sea, his one good eye gazing on sights the rest of us could never see. He said again, "At whatever cost we demand."
Tor giggled. Fighting was his only love, his only joy. He did not care whether he would win or lose, only that he would be able to swing a blade in another battle. He was the same old Tor. I did not think there was anything in him capable of change. He was a hollow man.
Toke said, "There's no hope, then? We have to depart this plane memorialized by mountains of dead men and seas scattered with burning ships?"
I sighed. "There's nowhere to run, Toke. Destiny's winds have blown us into the narrow channel. We can't do anything but ride with the current."
Colgrave looked at me strangely. "That's odd talk from you, Bowman."
"I feel odd, Captain."
"There's still the sorcerer who recalled us," he said. "And we aren't forgotten of the gods. Not completely." He glanced at the black birds.
The creatures strained their necks toward us.
I surveyed my longtime home. Forward, against the base of the forecastle, I could discern a tiny, almost invisible patchlet of dark fog. I had not noticed it since the day the sorcerer had boarded us. I imagined it had always been there, unnoticed because it stayed behind the corner of my vision.
"I'll give my orders in the morning," Colgrave declared. "For today, celebrate. Our final celebration. Tor. See to the arms. Toke, tell Barley to use his keys."
My guts snapped into an agonized knot. Rum...!
"We'll sail at dawn," the Old Man told us. "Be ready. I'll tell you our destination then."
He scanned us once with that wicked eye, and it seemed that there was pain and care in his gaze. He left us there, stunned, and returned to his cabin.
Emotion? In Colgrave? It was almost too much to bear.
I returned to the forecastle and plopped my ass down between the Kid and Little Mica. I leaned back and stared at the clouds, at the green hills where four terrified soldiers were racing to unleash the hounds of doom. "Damned!" I muttered. "Damned. Damned. Damned."
The Kid was first to ask. "What did he say, Bowman?"
I glared at the hills as if my gaze could drop those Freylanders in their tracks. "We sail with the morning tide.
He hasn't decided where or why."
The Trolledyngjan hooked a sand shark. We went through the routine, dumped it back.
"Think it's the same one?" Priest asked. "It don't look any different."
"Why would it keep coming back?" Mica wanted to know.
The Kid asked me, "What do you think he'll decide. Bowman?"
"To spill blood. He's still Colgrave. He's still the dead captain. He only knows one way. The only question is who he'll go after."
"Oh."
"Give me a line." I baited my hook and flipped it over the rail. "Priest, Barley's passing out grog." I needed a drink something cruel. But I was not going to give in first.
I watched the torment in his face. And he watched it in mine as he replied, "Don't think so, Bowman. Too far to walk. Besides, I'm getting a nibble."
He got the nibble, but I caught the fish. It was the same damned shark. What was the matter with that thing? Couldn't it learn?
Dragon rocked gently on quiet swells. A breeze whispered in the trees surrounding the cove. We kept catching that sand shark and throwing it back, and not saying much, while the sun dribbled down to the horizon behind
X
Toke, Lank Tor, and I clambered up to the poop. The crew gathered on the maindeck, their eyes on the Old Man's cabin door. The sun had not yet cleared the hills to the east.
"Tide's going to turn soon," Toke observed.
"Uhm," I grunted.
Lank Tor shuffled nervously. The blood-eagerness in him seemed tempered by something else this morning. Had the changes began to reach even him?
Colgrave came forth.
The crew gasped.
Tor, Toke, and I leaned over the poop rail to see why.
He wore old, battered, plain clothing. It was the sort a merchant captain down on his luck might wear. There wasn't a bit of color or polish on him.
A new Colgrave confronted us. I was not sure I liked it. It made me uneasy, as if the man's style of dress were the root of our failures and successes.
He ignored everybody till he had reached the poop and surveyed his surroundings. Then, "Make sail, First Officer. North along the coast, two points to seaward. They're watching. Let them think we're bound for North Cape."
Toke and Tor went to get anchor and sails up. I stood beside Colgrave, searching the shore for this morning's watchers.
He said, "We'll keep this heading till we're out of sight of land. Then we'll come round and run south. We'll stay in the deep water."
I shuddered. We were not deepwater sailors. Though hardly any of us had set foot on dry land in years, we did not want to let it out of sight. Few of us had been sailors before fate shanghaied us onto this devil ship.
And deep water meant heavier seas. Seas meant seasickness. My stomach was in bad enough shape, having had no rum.
"What then?" I asked.
"Portsmouth, Bowman."
"The wizard wins? Dragon runs to his beck? We do his murders for him?"
"I don't know, Bowman. He's the crux. He's the answer. Whatever happens, it'll revolve around him. He's in Portsmouth. We'll take our questions to him."
There was uncertainty in Colgrave's voice. He, the megalithic will round which my universe turned, no longer knew what he was doing. He just knew that something had to be done.
"But Portsmouth? You're sure?"
"He's there. Somewhere. Masquerading as something else. We'll find him." There was no doubt in him now. He had selected a course. Nothing would turn him aside.
I could not fathom Colgrave's thinking. He wanted to take Dragon into the very den of our enemies? Just to confront that sorcerer again? It was pure madness.