"That's why I'm taking them! And you know they don't work apart. It's the smallest number that'll do the job-me, the Sikhs, Kuttner."
Unspoken went: And the least loss if we don't come back. Losing three more wouldn't fatally weaken the Villains for the trek back to the living lands. He clapped his second-in-command on the shoulder and nodded back towards the wagon camp.
"Just keep it together for ten days. If we're not back by then, then break camp and head west on the eleventh day. That's an order. We've already got all the stuff the sheriffs and the bossman wanted, apart from this, and enough gold to start a mint. We'll catch you up, but you move. You hear me, trooper?"
" Si. Doesn't mean I have to like it either."
The harbor mouth hadn't silted up quite enough to catch the sailboat's keel, possibly because it was protected by the half sunken hulk of a great ship whose bow reared out of the water like a dull-red hill. There was a little lurch of contact as the four of them labored at the sweeps they'd found, and then they were over the bar and out into Nantucket Sound.
Ingolf found himself relaxing as the green-brown shoreline faded. That wasn't very logical-drowning killed you just as dead as a sharpened shovel in the brain, and if they were shipwrecked anywhere around here it was right back into the stewpot. The fresh breeze and clean salt air and bright sunlight must have something to do with it, and the fact that he was finally out of his armor; it was bound up with a couple of cork life vests, like all their gear. They had enough smoked venison and biscuit to last them for a few days, fishing line and hooks, map and compass, and their weapons.
Birds went by overhead, gulls and some sort of pigeons moving in a big flock. Not far away a whale breached; he couldn't tell what kind, except that it blew its spout forward in twin jets.
The wind was from the northwest, just off the star board quarter. He looked at the map again, at his com pass, and then up at the sun. Spray came in over the rail and flew backward, stinging his eyes with the salt, and he squinted into the brightness over the blue water and its white-topped waves.
"Should be there just before sunset, unless it moved," Ingolf said, lolling back with the tiller under his arm.
Neither Kaur nor Singh spoke, which was fairly typi cal. They were ready at the lines, with the care of people who liked to do things right but weren't entirely sure they could; their experience in boats was more limited than his, and he was no expert, just competent enough to set a straight course in not too bad weather. Kuttner didn't speak either, which wasn't like him. He usually had some order or observation or complaint. Now he was tensely silent.
Ingolf shrugged. I like him better this way, except that he looks like he's about to snap like a lift beam under too much weight. I suppose it was too much to hope he'd get seasick and call the whole thing off.
Instead he concentrated on his sailing. As they passed out of sight of land, the Sikhs' silence grew a little tense too. After an hour or so Ingolf spoke:
"Hell, you two, we don't even have to tack for a while. I've been out on Michigan in rougher weather than this."
And nearly died, he didn't add.
For all his cheerfulness-you had to show willing and look confident if you were the leader, which necessity made it easier-he also let out a whuff! of relief when a low line of beach showed on the southern horizon. The sun was only a handspan over the horizon to their right, and it was starting to cast a glitter path on the water, tinging it with red. As they came closer Ingolf began to frown.
"Singh!" he said. "Take the tiller!"
When the other man had, he moved cautiously to the bow and stood with one hand on the stay line that ran from there to the mast, peering ahead. Then he unshipped his binoculars, careful to settle the loop around his neck-they were big military grade field glasses, an heirloom from his father, irreplaceable if dropped over the side-and took another look.
A long shore, sandy beach backed by fifty-foot bluffs, interrupted here and there with lower parts. And…
"What's wrong?" Kuttner said.
"The books said Nantucket was covered with scrub and thicket, with a few trees here and there, and lots of those houses like back on the Cape," he said.
"Well?"
"It isn't. That's forest there, dense forest. Oak, I think. Maybe hickory, and some pine, but lots of oak."
"That could have grown up since."
The three Villains looked at him; surely nobody could be that ignorant?
"Not in twenty-two years it couldn't," Ingolf said. "And it's sandy there, and there's the salt wind. That's old forest. Not very tall, yeah, but it's old. Take a look."
He handed over the binoculars reluctantly and kept a hand ready to grab; as far as he knew, Kuttner had never been afloat on anything but the Mississippi before this trip.
The smaller man's lips went tight. "We must land," he said, but it was as if he had to force himself to say it.
"Yeah," Ingolf said, equally unhappily. "It's getting too close to dark to head back."
"I do not know," Kaur said. Ingolf looked at her in surprise, and she went on: "It is as if something tells me, Go away."
She shivered. "Perhaps this place is cursed."
Her brother nodded. Ingolf was surprised; usually the two of them had the steadiest nerves of anyone in the company-sometimes he suspected they really didn't care much if they lived or died.
"We don't have a choice. Let's go for it."
An opening in the straight line of the coast showed. It wasn't where the maps said it should be, but it did break the surf bound ramparts.
"And see that?" he said, pointing to a faint trickle of smoke rising there. "That means men. We'd better be cautious."
The three Villains kept the boat's head into the wind as they all put on their fighting gear; the choppy up-and down motion made it awkward, but they managed. Ingolf and the others wolfed down rabbit cooked that morning and some biscuit, grimacing at the sawdust taste of the thrice baked bread. It hadn't been very warm out on the water and it was cooling now, enough that the padding and armor didn't make you sweat much. Kuttner wore his usual odd cuirass of overlapping plates of leather boiled in wax, with metal buckles and trim, its color a russet brown contrast to the oiled gray of the others' mail shirts; his helmet was round-topped, with a spike in the center of its dome and hinged cheek guards.
Ingolf settled his shete over his shoulder, made sure that his bow was protected in its waterproof oiled can vas case by his feet-moisture could play hell with the laminations of a horn and sinew recurve-and then turned the boat into the sheltered waters.
Those were shallow; the keel gave a nasty tick that made the rigging groan and everyone lurch as they crossed in from the sea.
"What was that, Captain?" Singh said, pointing west.
"I didn't see anything," Ingolf answered, concentrat ing on avoiding the green patches as he wended his way towards the shore.
"I saw a flash of light to the west, farther up this coast. Like sun on glass, I thought."
Kaur nodded. Ingolf sighed: "There weren't supposed to be any tall glass buildings here, either. We'll see."
Ingolf had been right; the land around the low spot was mostly forest where it wasn't reed-rustling salt marsh. The trees weren't very tall, forty or fifty feet at most, but the trunks were thick and gnarled, with a dense un derstory of bushes. He recognized white and black oaks, chestnut, beech, maple, pine and hickory; the broadleaf trees predominated, lush in their summer foliage, and there were a lot of dead elms. The smell reached him, strong even compared to the sea salt and the marshes, earthy and wild, familiar from the wooded hills of home and yet a little strange.
Compared to their surroundings, the habitations looked small. Six boats were drawn up, wooden twenty footers; he got the binoculars out and looked. They were open undecked craft made of planks that looked hand sawn, with oarlocks and unstepped masts and furled gaff sails. Behind them was a little hamlet of six long rect angular houses, built low with a mud-and stick chimney coming out of the shingle roofs and earth heaped up against the sides. The chimneys were idle, and the smoke came from a central open hearth in a cleared space.