A cracking sound silenced Risala's frantic screams. The little boat shuddered as the soft tentacles suddenly stuck fast to the solid wood. They pulled and cracks appeared between Dev's feet. Sea water flooded the narrow hull, trails of slime floating free.
'Give me your hand!' As Dev reached for Risala, the tentacles quivered and ripped the boat to splinters with a mighty convulsion. He fell into the water, struggling to keep his head out of the spume and slime, lashing out at the loathsome touch of the grey tendrils on his arms and legs. Risala's despairing sob ended in a gurgle as something pulled her below the waves.
Dev kicked out madly at the smooth slipperiness curling around his feet, pushing in all directions to keep from being entangled. Taking a breath as best he could, he dived down, fighting his way through the water. The treacherous tendrils slid away before curling back to try winding around his arms. His fist hit something solid. He grabbed for it. Not wood, nor sea monster, it was firm yet flesh. It had to be Risala. Inheld breath burning in his chest, Dev looked upwards and turned every inborn instinct of magic within him to the sky.
They hit the deck of the Amigal with a thud that left him gasping. Risala sprawled beside him, her face invisible beneath the clinging mass of her sodden hair. Dev dragged himself to his knees and rolled the girl over on to her front, scraping the hair away.
'Breathe, curse you,' he rasped. Seizing her around the waist, he raised her hips. A spasm of coughing racked her and she began vomiting water and slime. Dev used one of the mast ropes to haul himself upright. This was no time for subtlety. He scattered the branches that had hidden the little ship with sweeps of sapphire magic, all the while hurrying to rig the sail.
'Help me,' he snarled at Risala. 'Otherwise we're both dead. Get the anchors aboard.'
Dragging herself to her feet, she half climbed, half fell over the rail, ashen-faced and her wide eyes bloodshot. She stumbled along the muddy bank, dragging the anchors with the last of her strength. Dev set the sail flapping loosely around the mast. The wind that had brought them to this inlet blew steadily onshore.
'Take the tiller,' Dev ordered, scooping up the anchors with a flurry of azure light.
Risala shied away from it with a fearful inarticulate cry.
'Get aboard and steer the cursed boat.' He glared at her.
Risala stood, frozen for an endless moment before scrambling over the rail, whimpering with terror as she gripped the tiller as if that alone could save her.
Dev turned his attention to filling the sail with a breeze strong enough to drive the Amigal out of its hiding place. He reached for the water beneath the hull but it slipped away from him, cold and unresponsive. Water magic was entirely beyond him, antithetical to the elemental fire where his inborn affinity lay.
The Amigal lurched and shuddered her way out into open water. Risala hauled this way and that on the tiller, staring panic-stricken in all directions.
Dev sank to the deck, back against the mast, legs outstretched in front of him, face to the prow. He realised with distant surprise that his feet and ankles were ringed with sucker marks. 'I'll get us as far as I can,' he said, not looking back. 'Then it'll be up to you. Try and get us to the Daish domain at very least. I'll have to sleep.' Exhaustion so deep his very bones ached threatened to overwhelm him. He fought it, looking up into the billows of the sail, concentrating on summoning the wind to carry them forward against the natural currents of the air.
'What did you do?' choked Risala from the stern.
'Translocation,' he answered hoarsely. A particularly draining spell, granted, but even allowing for the other magic he'd been working, it shouldn't have left him this enfeebled.
'You're a wizard as well.' Risala's voice shook with loathing.
'You want me to throw you back to wrestle that monster?' snarled Dev.
'I won't sail with a wizard.' The girl's voice was harsh with fright.
'Suit yourself.' Dev knotted his fingers tight together, welcoming the pain as it quelled the trembling in his hands. 'Don't think of betraying me to anyone though. Any warlord looking to skin me will want me to talk first. I'll happily oblige if it means your death along with mine. Enough people have seen you with me this last run of the moons. I'll say you're my apprentice, that you sought me out to learn all the magic you could. You'll be hunted from one end of the Archipelago to the other.' Speaking was such an effort he abandoned it, turning what little vigour remained to him to the enchanted breeze, to carrying them away from that murderous wizard in his dragon-hide cloak.
'It was all lies, wasn't it? I asked you and you lied to me. The way you claimed to know all the currents, all the wind patterns, all your boasts about the secrets of sailing south into the face of the rains? It was just magic, wasn't it? What else have you done?' Risala's questions came in ragged gasps. 'What other magic have you worked to taint innocent people and places? What are you seeking in these reaches? Are you working for some barbarian king or has some warlord betrayed his birthright to turn your evil to his advantage?'
Dev ignored her. As the Amigal escaped the windward shore, Risala steered desperately to catch the natural breezes. The full-bellied sail pushed the little ship faster through the water. Dev realised belatedly it had stopped raining.
'I suppose I should thank you for saving me.' Risala forced the words out eventually.
'That wasn't about saving you.' There was an edge of hysteria in Dev's mockery. 'That was not letting him win.'
When he woke, he was lying in darkness on the floor of the aft cabin, the canvas of his hammock loosely draped over him. After a moment of stiff shock, he relaxed, propping himself up one elbow. The ship rocked with the gentle motion of a sheltered anchorage and he realised he could feel the sea streaming slowly along the hull with his usual wizard senses. He had recovered that much magic.
'Risala?' There was no reply. Reaching out with his inborn talent for fire, he lit the lamp hanging from the beam above him. Tossing the canvas aside, Dev got slowly and painfully to his feet. They were still sore where the obscene tentacles had fastened around them, the marks livid and puffy.
'Risala?' He realised her pathetic belongings were gone. Taking the lantern from its hook, he hobbled into the main hold and along the fore cabin. Everything was as it should be. At least the bitch hadn't robbed him, though the loss of the sack he'd taken ashore was a heavy blow to bear, he thought sourly.
Climbing the ladder and throwing open the hatch took more effort than Dev liked, but once on deck he breathed more easily. The Amigal was securely anchored by one of the Daish domain's lesser trading islets, deserted now as it had been on their voyage south.
Dev nodded with grudging admiration. He wouldn't have thought Risala had it in her to find the way back to the place. He looked at the empty white sand, gilded with the last gleam of sunset, and wondered where the girl had gone.
Chapter Sixteen
'Suis, at last, what news?' Kheda looked up as the shipmaster entered the cramped cabin the trireme's carpenter had grudgingly surrendered to him. The only reason Kheda was sitting on his roll of bedding was there was no room to pace. Two strides from his neat leather bag of modest possessions by the sternposts would have brought his nose up against the door.