“A couple more days,” I said. “If this wind holds, that is.”
“They’ll be on us by then,” he said, with certainty.
I avoided the subject after that — for no other reason than that it seemed more and more likely he was right. With nothing useful to do, I passed most of those two days in sleeping, or trying to at least. Whenever I opened my eyes, the black specks on the horizon had drawn closer — and by the third morning out, they could hardly be called specks at all. They were gaining inexorably, and whatever efforts Ondeges was making to outrace them were obviously not working.
Still, I could hardly believe they would really catch up with us. How could one boat be so much quicker than another? And my disbelief only made it all the more frightening to realise that, whatever my opinion of the matter, they really were faster than us. By late afternoon of that third day, I could clearly discern details of sails and rigging, could make out figures labouring on board the nearest vessels. By the time the sun started to dip, I might have shouted to them and been heard if it weren’t for the incessant clamour of the waves.
But we were nearly home; I knew we must be. All that was left was to find that subterranean harbour, make land and get into the tunnel and there’d be no catching us. Striving to keep a tremble from my voice, I said to Malekrin, “At least we’re safe enough. They’ll never attack so long as they know you’re here.”
Malekrin turned me a look of disgust. “Is that what you think?”
Something in the way he said it sent a chill through my spine. “Don’t you?”
“You have no idea. This place we’re heading to, Altapasaeda… you said it’s about to be attacked by the King, and the fact that you were begging for help means you don’t think you can defend yourselves. Do you imagine Grandmother would let me fall into that bastard’s hands? Let him use me as a hostage and watch all her plans unravel?”
I stared at him, aghast. “You don’t really believe your grandmother would let you die here just to keep you away from Panchessa?”
But Malekrin had no time to answer — and as it turned out, I didn’t need him to. A resonant thunk made us both turn in place. And whatever sense I might have got out of him, the arrow sunk into the ship before us, not to mention the flames licking up from it, were a hundred times more eloquent than anything he could have said.
CHAPTER TEN
I’d never seen anything burn like that arrow did — nor the one that immediately followed it, nor the one after that, for in moments there was a neat and expanding line of fire etched across the boat’s stern. It blazed with a heart of brilliant blue that melted into rich yellows and then thick, oily smoke.
“This is madness!” I bawled at Malekrin. “Are you saying they won’t even try to rescue you? That your grandmother would be this quick to get rid of you?” Of course, I’d only known him for a few days and I wouldn’t have thought twice about it — but surely, even amongst barbarians, blood ties must count for something.
“You notice they’re not shooting at us,” Malekrin replied, with no great interest. “This might be Grandmother’s idea of a rescue.”
I had noticed, but I’d put it down to settling for the larger target rather than any preferential treatment. It was miraculous they were hitting anything at such a distance; I doubted they could even know that Malekrin wasn’t in the ship they were busy turning into a flaming pincushion.
“Anyway,” added Malekrin, “it isn’t just me she won’t risk losing.”
Then I saw what he was cradling in his lap, atop the pack he’d had stashed in the bows: a circle of gold shaped with consummate care, studded with stones that spat back the crackling firelight. It was an object I knew all too well, for hadn’t I once stolen it? Hadn’t I carried it with me for days? Hadn’t I gifted it to Saltlick, as a replacement for his tribe’s lost chief-stone?
I’d been right. Seamanship wasn’t Malekrin’s only talent — and he’d been busy indeed on the night of our escape. “You stole the crown,” I said. “The crown of Altapasaeda.”
He glared. “Stole? It’s mine. Mine by right. Why should my grandmother have it?”
I let that doubtful bit of logic go. “You really think she’s guessed you took it?” There was more than just a note of panic in my voice by then; the whole right side of the boat ahead was swathed in flame and the arrows were still flying, close enough that I could hear the thrum of their passage through the air.
“I told you,” Malekrin said, “perhaps this is her idea of a rescue. Grandmother’s never been one to do things easily.” His attention was still on the glinting circlet in his lap. “If not, at least I got to be a real prince for a few days. Maybe she’d even have been proud.”
When he looked at me, his eyes were ferocious — and for a moment I could picture all too well what his life must have been like, born and raised for a destiny he didn’t want, desired only for the part he’d play and not for the person he was or might be. Didn’t I know what it was like to grow up mattering to no one?
Then again, it was hardly the time for character insights, into Malekrin or myself. Ahead, the flames were building, casting garish light on the grey waves. I could hear rather than see Ondeges’s measures to defend against the fire, some sort of hastily-ordered bucket chain. Yet the boat was overloaded, the sounds more of men tripping over each other and cursing than working for a common goal — and this was no normal fire. It coated almost the entirely of the craft’s starboard side now, a rippling sheet, hissing swarms of yellow and blue sparks that at any moment were bound to catch the sail.
Small comfort, then, that our destination was finally in sight. We were close in to the cliffs by then, and as the ship swung past a buttress of stone I saw before us the low cave mouth opening, its innards thick with darkness. But what chance of reaching the docks inside? I could hardly imagine how Ondeges and his crew were keeping their craft afloat, or even be sure that they were; for the shouting from on deck had vanished, sucked into the roar of the conflagration. I thought just for a moment of Estrada, Navare and the others, of what might be happening to them — and then forced the question from my mind. They were alive or they weren’t, and there was nothing I could do to help them.
My own life, though, and Saltlick’s, maybe those I had a chance of saving. “We have to cut loose!” I cried.
What I’d failed to consider was that rope burned just as well as wood. The words were barely out of my mouth before our charred guideline flopped hissing into the sea. We had our freedom — except that freedom meant a burning ship ahead, vicious northerners behind and little say in whether we floated towards the one or the other…
Just at that moment, we broke through the periphery of the cavern, and it was as though a roof of night had descended on the last glimmers of evening. Amidst that nocturnal darkness, the fiery horror before us was like a second sun about to plunge under the waves. I shielded my eyes, and when that didn’t help, looked down instead.
Only then did I realise that, against all reason, Malekrin still sat calmly staring at the crown. When my outraged gaze didn’t draw his attention, I did the one sensible thing I could think of.
“Ow! You hit me!” He sounded more surprised than aggrieved.
“Damn right I hit you.” I pointed into the gloom. “How do we make it to that pier in one piece?”
Malekrin glanced around, as though waking from a dream. “The wind’s still more or less behind us,” he said. “I think-”
“Save the thinking. If you can do it, do it.”
Malekrin scowled as he shoved the crown back into his pack and scrambled to his feet. Yet just as before, his boat seemed the one thing he could find enthusiasm for. With my awkward help, he hauled the mast up, and snapped at me to hold it in place; that done, it took him mere seconds to hoist and rig the sail. Straight away, it whipped and billowed — for just as he’d tried to explain, the cave’s mouth was open enough that the wind could find us even there. For the first time in days, we were setting our own course.