The weatherdeck was the most dangerous place for him to be, and Ash crouched low as he finally made his way onto it, checking the positions of the sailors on night-duty to fore and aft. He sucked down a lungful of air and almost groaned aloud from the freshness of it. Clouds blocked most of the stars overhead, but a dim light glimmered off the masts and the furled sails.
He looked about him, blinking at the lights of a cityport that shone through the masts of the fleet. When he turned to seaward, his eyes widened to take in the awesome arch that stood with feet on either side of the harbour opening, and the clouds of barely visible mist at play beneath it.
The Oreos, Ash instantly recognized, and knew they were in Chir, in Lagos, island of the dead.
It was Khos, then. There was no other reason for the invasion fleet to be this far west, not unless they planned to wage a reckless war against the Alhazii and risk losing their supplies of blackpow-der. No, they were stopping here for supplies or men, before continuing onwards to Nico’s homeland; the boy’s mother and his people.
Ash hung his head, and for a long time he didn’t move.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Old Country
The ship was pitching through heavy weather again.
Bilge water swamped his legs as it washed from one side to the other, causing the rats to scurry over him as the hull creaked and banged in distress.
Ash lay in the darkness beyond time and place. In his mind, words formed as though they were being spoken aloud.
He was having a conversation with his dead apprentice.
I don’t understand, Nico insisted. You told me once how the R shun don’t believe in personal revenge. That it goes against their code.
Yes Nico. I did.
Yet here you are.
Yet here I am.
So you are no longer R shun then?
He shied away from answering. He hardly wished to dwell on it just then.
You can’t bring me back, you know, said Nico. Even if you kill her, I’ll still be gone.
‘I know that, boy,’ Ash replied aloud to the black echoing space, scattering the rats from him.
Nico fell silent for a time. Ash rocked with the violent motions of the ship, bracing himself with his hands and feet, trying to calm himself.
Tell me, master Ash, came Nico’s voice again. What was it that you did before you became R shun?
What I did?
Yes.
I was a soldier. A revolutionary.
You never wanted to follow a different path? A farmer, perhaps? A drunken owner of a country inn?
Of course, Ash replied.
Which one?
I am tired, Nico. You ask many too questions.
Only because I know so little about you.
A sudden sharp tilt of the ship pressed Ash against the hull, though he barely noticed it. He spat brine, wiped his face dry, glared back into the darkness.
Before I was a soldier I raised hunting dogs for a time. We lived in our cot tage, my wife and son. I tried to be a good husband, a good father, that is all.
And were you?
Ash snorted. Hardly. I made a better soldier than I ever did a husband and father. I was good at killing. And getting others killed .’
You’re too hard on yourself. I knew you to be much more than a killer. Your heart is kind.
‘You do not know me, boy,’ snapped Ash. ‘You cannot say such things to me, not now, not ever.’
The freezing water washed over his head once again, shocking him into the present. Ash floundered for a moment, puffing his cheeks in and out as he fought for a breath. He clutched the ledge he lay upon and heard the rats squealing in terror. Moments passed as he lay there panting.
He wondered if Nico was still with him.
‘Boy,’ he croaked.
In the blackness, the sound of the handpumps could be heard drawing water from the bilge up to the decks above. It was hard to talk above the noise.
‘Nico!’ he shouted.
I’m here, I’m here.
‘Tell me something. Anything. Take my mind from these things.’
What would you like to know?
‘Anything. Tell me what you wished to be before you became my apprentice.’
Me? I suppose a soldier, like my father. Though I had a dream of being an actor for a while. Travelling the islands, performing for my living.
Ash sat up, tried to wedge himself tighter against the tilting hull. ‘I did not know that,’ he confessed.
No. You never asked me.
The bilge water was crashing around as waves now. The rats squealed ever louder.
‘You should have left, Nico, back in Q’os,’ Ash shouted as he shook the water from his face. ‘When you returned that evening and told me of your doubts. You should have left me!’
I know, said Nico. But I couldn’t.
‘Why not?’
A thoughtful silence followed, then a quiet voice that he clearly heard amidst the noise.
Because you needed me.
It was a storm, and a bad one. The hull banged with the violent impacts of crashing water, and creaked and groaned as its prow lifted free from the crests of waves then dropped shuddering into the deepening troughs. Stinging seawater poured into the bilge from gaps in the planking above his head. His boots and clothing were drenched through. His cloak was belted tight around his waist, along with his sword.
His ears hurt from the noise of the storm. Through it all, Ash could hear men running and shouting in panic overhead.
He tried to cling to the side of the hull but it was hopeless. Soon he was swirling about with the struggling rats in bilge water that had now risen up to his stomach.
Ash realized how desperate the situation was when he heard the rats pattering up the walls to escape the bilge entirely. Perhaps he should have followed their example, but he wasn’t a rat, and he could hardly go unnoticed. Instead he clung to the sides when he could, and washed about when he could not, and vomited from the awful motion of it all and the saltwater he couldn’t help but swallow. Like a nightmare, he felt the level of water creeping gradually up to his chest. At last he could stand it no longer. He began to fight his way towards the steps.
It ended more violently than he had expected.
The ship shuddered violently as though it had struck something, throwing him off his feet as he fell engulfed in shifting water.
Ash floundered, righting himself, and then from overhead came the heart-stopping sound of wood being torn asunder, and a thunderous noise like a waterfall roaring towards him, shaking him to the core and terrifying him in that first instant of approach – and then the hatch exploded open and the sea was flooding through it, and Ash was swept up by the boiling surge all the way to the very back of the bilge.
He smashed against the hull, spluttering for air. His arms flailed out, his feet scrabbled for purchase. Ash managed to right himself, and he tried to push his way back towards the steps. It was hopeless, though. The full weight of the sea pressed him back, squeezing him flat against the hull with such force that it was all he could do to gasp for a dry breath of air.
The timbers of the ship began to groan with a different pitch. The ship tilted nose-first, rolled onto her side at the same time.
She was going down.
Ash drew a breath in the last few feet of air between the churning surface and the planks rushing towards his head. The water was freezing, leeching the strength from his muscles. Despite himself, he began to hyperventilate, so that he swallowed air and water.
Ash allowed the brief moment of panic to flood his body with vitality, and then he pinched it off with a practised command of will.
His head struck the planking above. Still the rush of water felt like a slab of rock pressing against him. He would have to wait for the ship to flood before he could swim out through the hatch.