CHAPTER SIXTEEN
W hen I managed to reach our cabin after bouncing off both sides of the passageway, because of the motion of the ship, Flier was half out of bed. One leg hung over the side, his foot on the floor, but his eyes were closed, his body limp, and he snored like a pig grunting at rutting time. The water jug had been tossed off the table despite the depression intended to keep it in place. The floor was wet, the chamber pot slid and sloshed with every tilt or twist of the ship.
After securing everything, I knocked on Kendra’s door and found the girls asleep, and everything in there in far better shape. They had braced for the storm. I timed my movements to that of the ship and staggered back to my cabin and climbed into the top bed. No sooner had I done that, when I felt the first warnings my dinner and wine were about to pass my throat—the other way.
I climbed down and groped for the chamber pot and settled for the metal water jug when my hand touched it just in time. The ship rolled to the other side and took me along with it. The jug also. The bow struck a wave, and the entire ship shuddered.
My dinner spewed into the jug. The movement of the ship told me it was not the last time I’d puke. Our cabin door flew open.
Kendra stood there, bracing herself in the doorway. She shouted over the howl of the wind, “There are four mages and two sorceresses out there.”
Questioning her powers of locating them was unthinkable—and so was most everything else in my misery. “Where?”
“Ahead of us. Clustered together in two separate places, which are probably ships.”
“We can’t do anything about it, now.” My head lolled to one side, and my eyes closed. I wanted our ship to sink to the bottom of the ocean where it couldn’t roll or tilt.
Kendra slammed the door in anger. I moaned and tried to settle my stomach. Moaning didn’t help. I cried, and that seemed to help some. I’d have screamed if it might have done anything productive. My eyes were closed, but sleep was impossible.
I tied my blanket around a corner of the bed so I couldn’t roll off in the middle of the cabin, but it did nothing to prevent me from banging into the wall—which was also the hull. The twin candles burned themselves out. I lay in darkness on the floor, wishing I had used some of the sleeping powder that Flier had taken. He managed to both sleep and stay in his bed. No doubt he was unaware of the storm.
I dozed several times, more of a dreamless sleep from exhaustion than real sleep and woke when the ship either struck a large wave head-on or rolled to either side so much it seemed in danger of turning upside down. The porthole remained dark except for the flashes of lightning. The night seemed endless. My body was tired of fighting the ship, my stomach wanted to eject more contents, but there was nothing left, and my head hurt from lack of sleep and nausea.
The porthole finally turned a few shades lighter, but the heavy storm clouds kept it dark. Adjusting to the motion, I slept in fitful snatches until the door burst open and Kendra stumbled in again as the bow raised high and crashed down again.
She took a look at Flier to see he was still sleeping from the medication, then shouted at me, “They’re still there. The mages and sorceresses.”
I moaned an unintelligible answer.
She continued, “Don’t you understand? Two groups of them ahead of us. Storms. Lightning. Rain.”
I shook my head.
“We’re not making any progress. The Gallant is at a standstill. I heard a crewman say that, but don’t know how he can tell. What I can tell is that we are no closer to the mages than we were last night.”
“The ship can’t advance against a storm like this,” I muttered. “Wait until it passes.”
“Right! Even if it is a storm made by them!”
Her accusation made me sit up and ignore my pain. No closer to the mages than last night? My tortured mind imagined three ships, two with mages aboard. They hadn’t been in Trager or the Port of Mercia. It made sense they were heading in our direction from Dagger, not from behind us. The storm should have pushed them right past us as we made no progress.
At the very least, they were waiting for us. All the mages we knew of had fled to Dagger, and possibly beyond. Now four were ahead of us. We’d encountered a similar mage-storm on the day we’d rescued the girls.
All that was true. My mind grasped at what it meant and quickly came to a single conclusion. They should have sailed right past us, helped by the storm’s winds. That was the important thing. They should have. But hadn’t. I tried to focus on that single item—as Kendra was doing.
Kendra was holding on to the side of the doorway, keeping her balance while I thought. I said, “Why didn’t they sail by us?”
“Exactly. They are in the same positions as last night.”
“Point to them,” I ordered.
She furrowed her eyebrows, then obeyed despite my rude tone. Her finger pointed to the bow of our ship, to the left about twenty degrees. She shifted her arm and pointed to the right, the same distance away from the center.
I said, “We’re right in the middle, one to the left and another to the right. Both in front of us.”
She nodded, a slight smile cracking her face as she knew she’d finally made me understand. She shouted over the shriek of the wind, “If we turn away from the land, parallel to the storm, I’ll bet they remain positioned the same. If we run with the wind, the storm will cease.”
“They know you are here,” I hissed. “The mages. It is their doing.”
She said, “How can we convince the captain to do as we wish to test this?”
“I say we tell a lie so big nobody can deny its truth.”
Kendra barked a laugh. “Try me.”
I allowed my mind to wander, then seized on the lie required. “I’m a student working for the Dire King’s Navy, small as it is. My research involves storms.”
“Do they involve ships rolling over when they take waves from the side, as they certainly will if we were foolish enough to turn to our left or right?”
“What if we turn away and run with the storm?” I asked.
She nodded. “After we are clear of it, the captain could then turn east and then south. I could determine where the mages are, and you could convince the captain that you are trying to run around the end of the storm. A few coins in his palm might make him listen to your theory.”
I waited for the roll of the ship to assist me and slid from the bed without knowing how I’d managed to climb into it during the night. The last I remembered, was being on the floor. One hand remained braced, while I attempted to stand. A dry heave convulsed me. My body fell onto the bed while my feet remained on the floor.
“I can do it,” Kendra said.
“I’ve never even seen the captain,” I moaned. She wrapped her arms around my thighs and lifted me back into the bed. I crawled gratefully under the blanket and closed my eyes before she departed.
I tried to sleep but couldn’t. Finally, I fell into another dull stupor and drifted off. Later, I woke to find the motion of the ship had changed. The bow no longer plowed into the waves but seemed to lift and wallow over them. The ship rolled and twisted as if it was not fighting to advance into the storm. The change in motion allowed my stomach to settle.
After checking on Flier, I went to Kendra’s room to find Anna and Emma sitting on the edge of the lower bed, laughing and playing. I sat with them. “Where’s Kendra?”
Emma pointed to the door.
Anna said, “Hungry. Eat.”