‘Garec?’
‘I’m getting impatient, Captain.’
‘Pel?’
No response.
‘Pel!’ Captain Ford shouted, ‘Where are you?’
‘Haven’t seen him, sir,’ Garec said quietly.
‘All right, all right, gods rut us all. We’ll do it alone.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You two.’ He took another step. The quarterdeck was only two paces away now. ‘Prepare to come about, wear hard to starboard. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Garec and Brexan answered in unison.
‘Pel?’ he tried again, but no one answered. They were out of time. He had to retake the helm. He didn’t want to risk having Garec shoot and possibly kill his first mate, but he also didn’t believe that wounding Marrin would do them any good. Marrin looked as though he could be struck senseless by a lightning bolt and would still never release his grip.
‘All right you two… get ready.’
When a hand reached up to grip the stern rail behind Marrin, Captain Ford gasped. For a moment he thought it was another tanbak, come to avenge the one Steven had dealt with, but when he saw the frayed tunic sleeves, the skinny wrists and the pale skin, Ford knew he had found Pel Wandrell.
Gods keep him a thousand Twinmoons, he thought. The crazy bastard climbed out my cabin window. Good thinking, Pel! Top marks!
Pel looked terrified, but he never hesitated. He slipped silently over the rail, making eye contact with his captain: he needed a distraction.
Captain Ford understood, and started at Marrin, saying, ‘You know we’ll never make this tack, not with only three of us hauling these lines, we’ll never wear in time, not coming about in this wind.’
Pel sneaked behind Marrin, staying low, and as the captain continued to address the first mate, he leaped on Marrin’s back, wrapping one slim arm around his friend’s throat while grabbing at the dagger with the other. He was tiny in comparison to the muscular first mate, and for a moment he looked like a child getting a piggy-back from an older brother. He hung on grimly as the captain ran up, his filleting knife already drawn, but Marrin managed to shrug Pel off his shoulders and free his dagger hand. He raised the short blade to stab his shipmate ‘No!’ Ford cried, too late. He took two running steps towards the helm, then dived, but he was in midair when what he was seeing finally registered. The first arrow passed clean through Marrin’s wrist, and the dagger had clanked to the deck, useless, just as Pel, expecting to feel the cold blade slicing through his flesh, released his death grip about Marrin’s throat and fell backwards towards the stern rail. A second shaft, fired at an impossibly short interval behind the first, passed through Marrin’s opposite hand, tearing it from the helm, and the possessed or delusional first mate fell back against the ropes holding him up.
Captain Ford pushed himself to his feet and sliced the ropes, then brought the rudder chain as far as he could to starboard, screaming, ‘Come about, my darling, come about, old girl!’
Marrin, transfixed by the arrow through his hand, tumbled down beside Pel as Garec and Brexan followed the captain’s orders, hauling in slack lines as fast as they could. Slowly, painstakingly, the Morning Star began to turn.
‘Pel,’ Ford shouted, ‘Pel, gods love you, son, but you did it! You did it!’
The boy rolled from Marrin’s bloody body and sprang to his feet. Mumbling incoherently, and visibly trembling, the young seaman hugged himself as if to be sure he was still intact.
‘Pel,’ Ford ordered, wanting to stop shock setting in, ‘get over here and keep us hard to starboard. We’ll miss the trawler, thank all the gods of the Northern Forest, but we’re still in trouble with that mud reef. You see those breakers, Pel? Pel!’
‘Captain?’ Pel whispered, still not quite sure what had happened.
‘Pel! To me!’ he ordered again.
‘What-? Right, yes, sorry, Captain…’ His voice trailed off.
Captain Ford wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders, pulled him close, steadying him for a moment, then, calmly, he said, ‘All I need you to do, Pel, is keep us on this tack. Just take the helm. I’ve got to haul in the foresheets, or we’re rutting screwed. You understand me?’
‘Aye, aye, Captain. I won’t let you down, sir. I can-’
The spider-beetle crawled up Pel’s cloak and scampered across Captain Ford’s wrist.
‘Great whoring rutters, Pel, look out! Get back, son! Get back!’ He shoved the sailor, too hard, sending him tumbling across the quarterdeck until he rolled to a stop against a rain barrel lashed to the port gunwale.
Letting go the helm, Ford shook his arm frantically, trying to shake the bug loose before it bit him and left him as senseless as Steven. He wasn’t a sorcerer; maybe even one puncture would kill him. He stumbled and tripped over Marrin’s legs, landing hard on his back.
‘Where is the gods-rutting thing?’ He was vulnerable, flat on his back like this. ‘Get up,’ he growled, ‘don’t wait for it.’ He yanked off his cloak and pulled his tunic off over his head, then got up on his knees, scanning the deck for the tan-bak’s persistent little sentry. He brushed his hands down his leggings again, then, in a panic, ran his hands through his hair until it was a tousled mess.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Garec shouted. ‘Can’t you feel the keel is righting? Take the rutting helm!’
He was oblivious to Garec’s warning, concentrating on the deadly little spider-beetle. There it was, skittering across the planks, heading for Pel.
‘Watch out!’ Captain Ford cried, leaped towards the insect, stomped down hard, missed and stomped again, until he had to catch his breath. As he stood still, doubled over and panting, he realised what Garec had been screaming, and ran back to the helm.
‘What was that?’ Pel was beginning to think his captain had been infected by whatever had taken Marrin. All that for a spider, sir?’ His voice wavered a little still.
Captain Ford tried to ignore the fact that he was navigating half-naked – in the winter Twinmoon – and less than an aven from Pellia. He peered across the bow, ignoring the shouts and jeers of the Malakasian fisherman – too close – off the port rail and searched for the mud reef. It was impossible for them to clear, not without a miracle wind from the southwest.
‘A wind?’ he muttered to himself, then, ‘Pel!’
The frightened sailor steadied himself on the rail. ‘I know, Captain, haul in the foresheets and make it qui-’
‘No, forget them; get below and get Gilmour, tell him to get up here right now, and I do mean right this very moment. The survival of this ship – and us – depends up on it. Do you understand?’
‘Aye, aye, Captain.’ Pel rushed for the main hatch.
‘We need a gale,’ Ford muttered. He looked over at Marrin, who sprawled on the deck, looking deathly pale. His wrist was still bleeding, and Garec’s second arrow still protruded from his left hand. A tiny trickle of blood seeped from his left ear.
The trawler crew were screaming curses at him. Ford, naked from the waist up and looking like a madman, waved and blew a kiss to the furious Malakasians. ‘Don’t you see I have other problems right now?’ he shouted. ‘I’d love to stay and talk, but I really have to go. I’m running my ship aground, and then I have to get to my hanging; I’d hate to be late. It was lovely to see you, though!’
‘He’s going to be screaming about us all the way back to Pellia,’ Garec pointed out. He looped a length of rope around a pin. It was a tangled mess, but it held.
‘There’s nothing we can do about it now.’
‘I can take them,’ Garec said. ‘I’d rather not, but I can do it. We can’t have them telling the whole city how a rogue sloop nearly sent them to the bottom.’
‘We’ll worry about it if we’re still afloat in the next half-aven, but for now, get forward – that foremain is doing us no good. You need to shorten the line and tie it off tight.’
‘But there’s no wind-’
‘And this bloody wind is running us aground! Don’t argue, Garec, just do it!’
Gilmour appeared from below, looked at Marrin, still in a heap, bleeding, and asked, ‘What happened up here?’