Pirates Of Gohar rb-32, page 12
part #32 of Richard Blade Series
Rhodina frowned. She’d been pale and unusually quiet while Blade and Khraishamo talked. Now she sighed. «I have to. But-I swear, Blade, if you’re not talking true and end up turning against-«
«Rhodina! You’ve heard what he did for me? Would a man like that betray his best allies? Or are you calling me a liar?»
«No, but-oh, I’m sorry, it’s just that-«She closed her eyes, forcing herself to speak calmly. «It’s too much happening, too quick.»
«And it’s going to get worse before it gets any better,» said Khraishamo, laughing and patting her on the shoulder. «What’s more, there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.»
The pirate turned back to Blade. «You’re planning to help the rebels, Blade? What about this changing the future, doing something to England and you?»
Blade hadn’t expected to find Khraishamo raising the question of time-travel paradoxes. It increased his respect for the man. Fortunately it didn’t catch him without an answer ready.
He looked at both Khraishamo and Rhodina. «Do I have your word of honor that this will stay a secret?»
Both nodded.
«Good. This is something I haven’t cared to tell anyone else since I came here. Mythor is going to be independent. At least-«
Rhodina let out a shriek of delight.
«At least there’s about nine chances out of ten it will win, sooner or later. I’ve compared what I’ve learned about this time with what we know in England. Somewhere along the line, Mythor becomes its own master. I don’t know when, and I don’t know that it’s because of a successful rebellion. But I do know that I’m not taking a dangerous risk, helping the rebels.»
Rhodina was now crying for sheer happiness, but Khraishamo still looked skeptical. Blade went on. «Also, there’s a good chance I couldn’t do anything to myself or my England.»
«Even if Mythor won only because you helped?»
«Yes. I wouldn’t change the history that produced my England and me. I would start a whole new history, like a new branch starting on a tree. The theory goes that all the possible things that can happen have happened, and they all exist side by side, like-«
Khraishamo held up both hands. «Enough, enough. I understand. You don’t need to hurl all your Historians’ wisdom at me. You aren’t going to vanish in a puff of smoke if you help the rebels win. I hope you’re right, Blade. I’d hate to be saying death-prayers for you.»
That brought the conversation to a halt, while Blade and Rhodina laid more driftwood on the fire. When they started talking again, they talked of how to escape from Shell Island. Khraishamo was optimistic. He’d come to the island with Blade’s words firmly in mind, and kept his eyes and ears open. If he had more time to look around-
«We don’t have time,» said Rhodina firmly. «What Blade says means the faster we’re gone the better.»
Blade nodded. «None of the guards or the other prisoners know me by sight, or even that I’m on the island. That means I can disguise myself as a guard.»
Khraishamo frowned. «I don’t see how we can get a guard’s-«Then he stopped as Blade started to explain his plan. He listened in silence, then slowly nodded.
«Broogas do attack men. It’ll look all right. But so do other things. They’ll be around when we’re out on the reef, waiting for the guard boat. You think it’s worth it?» Blade nodded. «Just wanted to be sure you knew the dangers.»
«Going to be a lot more dangerous for a lot more besides us if we don’t,» said Rhodina.
Khraishamo stood up. «Blade, maybe you could keep watch for a few hours? I think we’d better start-«
«I understand.»
The pirate pulled Rhodina to her feet and put his arm around her waist. A moment later the curtain over the shelter’s entrance closed behind them. Blade laid out several pieces of fish close to the fire, so that they would smoke-dry during the night. Then he moved to where he could lean back against the sand dune and sit with a fish spear across his knees.
Even if he hadn’t promised to keep watch, he wouldn’t have got much sleep. Rhodina’s welcome home to Khraishamo was not quiet, and it went on for hours.
Chapter 16
A wave rose to Blade’s chest, then sank down and rolled on past him. He easily stayed on his feet, but the tide was definitely coming in. The water was already deep enough to let sharks in through the reef. In another hour he and Khraishamo would have to tread water. After an hour of that, they might as well swim back to shore and hope nothing caught up with them on the way. They’d be tired enough to make it too dangerous to attack a guard boat, even if one came by.
In the darkness Blade heard Khraishamo cough. He looked toward the sound but could see only a vague shape. If he hadn’t known, Blade couldn’t have told if it was alive or not, let alone whether it was human. The combination of soot and fish oil they’d smeared on themselves made good camouflage. Hopefully it would also repel hungry fish.
«If it stinks to the fish like it does to me, they won’t come near you,» Rhodina said after she finished smearing them both. Now she waited on shore, ready to load their gear aboard a captured guard boat if Blade’s plan worked.
And if it doesn’t work? They could certainly try to ambush a guard boat two or three more times before Khraishamo had to go out on his next fishing trip. Each time, the chances of their being spotted by the guards or attacked by fish increased. After that Khraishamo would have to go back to work, and Blade couldn’t lay the ambush alone even if he’d been willing to abandon the pirate chief. By the time Khraishamo returned, the secret of Blade’s presence on the island might be out. While they could try to escape without his being able to masquerade as a guard, the odds would turn against them.
Even tonight someone might come along the beach. Then if Rhodina couldn’t explain what she was doing there, she’d have to fight.
«Fight anyway, if you don’t come back,» she said to Khraishamo. «I make an end here, not go back to being thrown around, among all the men. Make an end of a few guards, too. Animals!»
Blade turned back to look along the shore and stiffened. A faint reddish-yellow glow showed in the blackness. It was the color of the lanterns carried by the guards, but for a moment Blade couldn’t tell whether it was moving along the beach or in a boat. Then he saw that it was rising and falling in a rhythm possible only if it was aboard a boat.
For some reason the guard boat was rowing its rounds inside the reef tonight, rather than just outside it. That could make the escapers’ work even easier. Khraishamo moved closer to Blade, and they whispered together briefly. Then they slipped into the water and swam silently toward shore, on a course to intercept the approaching light.
It grew steadily larger, and now they could see a second, smaller light in the stern of the boat. They could also count the guards in the boat-four of them, unfortunately. They still had to keep any from escaping to give the warning. That would be a disaster for all of them, and it wasn’t much consolation to Blade that Kloret’s wrath would probably descend on the guards who killed him. He intended to avenge the Prime Minister’s victims, not be avenged by him!
It was time. «All right,» said Blade. He gripped Khraishamo’s shoulder. «Good luck.»
«And to you.» The pirate dove out of sight, silent and hopefully invisible. With his lungs well filled beforehand, he could stay underwater a good five minutes, then surface still ready to fight.
Blade was supposed to be noisy and visible. He started thrashing wildly, churning the water into foam and shouting at the top of his lungs.
«Help! Help! Over here! Help!» He made his voice sound as panic-stricken as he could. The wind was behind him, so his words easily reached the guards. He saw the boat come around on a new course, but didn’t dare stop shouting. He wanted those guards to come straight on without thinking about possible traps, until Khraishamo could reach them.
«Help! Help! I’m bleeding! Get me out of the water, you fools!» Now he was putting not only panic but authority into his voice.
A guard stood up in the bow of the boat, holding the lantern and looking down at Blade. «How’d you get here?»
«Damned boat sprang a leak! Went into the water, and sharks got the others. Don’t know why they didn’t get me too.»
«All right, all right. Don’t have a fit.» Two of the guards hauled the sail around until it was slowing the boat down. The guard in the bow perched the lantern on a seat and knelt down.
«Hey! Haven’t seen you around here. I think-«
«Think after you get me into the boat, you idiot! Or do you want to be in the middle of a feeding frenzy?»
That got the guard into action. He didn’t want to be in the middle of a school of sharks ready to attack anything in sight, including a boat. He reached for Blade with both hands. As he did, Blade saw Khraishamo’s head suddenly appear above the opposite gunwale of the boat.
Blade shouted again, this time a war cry, and pulled hard on the hands reaching out for him. The guard went headfirst into the water, his mouth open with surprise so that he gulped in water and starting choking. Before he stopped, Blade pulled the man’s head back with one hand and stabbed him up under the chin with the knife in the other. The bone point reached the man’s brain and he went limp without a struggle.
Meanwhile Khraishamo was climbing into the boat, fishing spear in one hand and brooga spike in the other. One guard flung himself straight at the attacker and was neatly impaled on the spike. He went overboard, knocking the bow lantern with him. Blade heaved himself into the boat and joined the pirate against the other two guards.
The first one was foolish enough to attack Khraishamo with nothing but a club. The pirate blocked his wild swing, then lifted him into the air by the neck and one leg. The boat rocked wildly as Khraishamo held the guard over his head for a moment, then smashed him down on the deck with a gruesome crunch.
Khraishamo took just enough time with all this to leave himself open to the last guard’s attack. Or at least he would have been open to it, if Blade hadn’t been ready. He met the guard’s short sword with his own knife, blocking the man’s attack. Then he chopped the man hard across the side of the neck and as he went down chopped him a second time across the throat. They couldn’t afford to take prisoners, and Blade didn’t want to get any blood on the guard’s clothing. They’d already lost two of the guards overboard, and they’d really need three sets of guards’ clothing for their masquerade.
As the boat stopped rocking wildly, Blade saw that Khraishamo’s first victim was bobbing only a few yards away. Blade was swinging himself over the gunwale, ready to drop into the water and go after the body, when Khraishamo bellowed: «No, Blade!»
A moment later Blade saw the high black fin cutting the top of a wave just beyond the body. Then another fin broke water beside the boat, only a yard from Blade. He hastily rolled in over the gunwale, landing in the bottom of the boat as a mouthful of six-inch teeth snapped shut where his foot had been seconds before.
Now there were fins, tails, and snapping jaws all around them. The dark water began to turn pale with foam as torpedo-like bodies sprang ten feet clear of the water and fell back. Khraishamo hastily doused the second lantern, and Blade pulled the sail around until it caught the wind again. Slowly the boat gathered headway, and the sharks seemed willing to let it go.
Gradually the splashing and snapping died away astern. Apparently the two bodies hadn’t leaked enough blood into the water to drive the sharks into a true feeding frenzy. Khraishamo spoke for both of them when he said, «Good thing those bastards didn’t come along a couple of minutes earlier.»
Blade nodded. «We’ll have to keep watch while we’re loading the boat.»
They found Rhodina without any trouble, and she was as eager to go as they were. In fact she was about to swim out to them when Khraishamo’s desperate shouts warned her to stay on land. So she waited until the boat grounded in knee-deep water, then splashed out to them with the first armload of gear.
They loaded quickly, without lighting a lantern, then shoved off again. A few hundred yards out Blade slipped the other two bodies overboard, then set sail for the reef. The onshore wind made it a slow business beating out to open water, but it also raised the tide over the reef. They easily slipped across the mass of jagged coral heads. Long before the two bodies could have reached shore, the boat was heading on what Blade hoped was a southerly course.
They only ran for an hour before they found a sheltered patch of shallow water where they could anchor and light the lantern. Even during that hour, Blade was as alert as a cat on the prowl for the first sign of breakers ahead or the first scrape of the boat’s planks on a reef. The guard boat drew much less water than any seagoing ship, so it could find navigable channels where ships would run hard aground. On the other hand, its light hull would split at the touch of rocks and reefs a heavier ship could shrug off.
Besides the danger of rocks and shoals, there was the danger of losing their way. They had to bear south and east, across the shallows and out into the open Sea. Any other way would bring them into Goharan territory, or even worse, into land held by the horsemen of the plains.
«I’d rather cut my throat and get it over with quick than face them,» said Khraishamo. «We know them too well. They kill all strangers, and not slowly.» He was quite certain that a few men had escaped from Shell Island, only to reach the wrong shore and die horribly among the horsemen.
So they’d have to wait until daylight came, to show them clear water and let them navigate. That was the reason for the masquerade in guard’s clothing. They couldn’t hope to get clear of the waters around the island without being sighted. A guard boat crewed by three nearly naked people would certainly be suspected. A guard boat crewed by people in guards’ clothing would look perfectly normal.
Fortunately the guards of Shell Island were chosen for size. Blade found one guard’s outfit an easy fit, and Rhodina managed to get into the other. There was nothing to fit Khraishamo, but he didn’t care.
«I’m not going to pass as one of you, no matter what I wear. Best I lie down in the bottom of the boat when anyone comes in sight and you cover me up. If they don’t come close enough to see these»-he squeezed Rhodina’s breasts and she made a face at him-«she’ll make a better man than I will. If they do come that close, we’re finished anyway.»
Blade nodded. He didn’t have anything to say that would make it easier for them to get clear of the shallows, sail fifteen hundred miles in an open boat, land without being detected, and reach the rebels of Mythor.
Once they’d done that, the really hard part would begin.
Chapter 17
Dawn. The fifteenth since their escape from Shell Island. No different from the last five, as far as Blade could tell when he woke to face it.
He woke reluctantly, as soon as he realized the night hadn’t brought the rain they so desperately needed. He hadn’t reached the point of refusing to wake in the hope that sleep would turn peacefully into death.
Three more days without water would see the end of him. Rhodina wouldn’t last that long. Khraishamo could last a day or two longer than Blade, because in an emergency his body could cope with drinking salt water better than the two humans. That wouldn’t be enough to save him without rain.
A splash from over the side, and Khraishamo reappeared dripping. With the sun and the lack of drinking water, he needed to bathe in the sea two or three times a day. Fortunately he still had the strength to do it. When he lost the strength he’d die of thirst before he could die a more painful death from his skin drying out, cracking, and bleeding.
Rhodina muttered feverishly in her sleep as Khraishamo climbed into the boat, but didn’t wake up. Blade looked at her, then at the pirate chief, and they both nodded. It would be better to let her sleep as much as she could, since there wasn’t anything else they could do for her.
And the voyage from Shell Island to Mythor had started so well! It was a waste of strength to curse sheer bad luck, but Blade felt like doing it anyway.
They pulled up their anchor as soon as dawn let them tell direction, heading east and slightly north. Finding a channel through the reefs and sandbars would be a matter of luck rather than steering any particular course. Steering slightly north would keep them as far as possible from the Goharan ships bound to and from Shell Island.
In spite of this precaution, they were sighted twice. Once it was a single-masted merchant ship, which came lumbering up and hailed them.
«You our pilot?»
«He’s on his way,» replied Blade. «We’re looking for a boat with four men in it. They didn’t come back last night. Orders are to cover every channel.»
«If’n you haven’t found ‘em by now, you’re not going to find ‘em in one piece.»
«I know that,» shouted Blade. «You know that. But does the commander know that?» The sailors laughed, then went forward to lower the anchor. The captain stared at the boat so long that Blade began to suspect something was wrong, then: «Good luck.»
In an hour the merchant ship was hull down astern. In two hours it was gone and a Goharan galley was coming up rapidly to starboard. She would have been a much more formidable proposition than the merchant ship, but she passed half a mile off. The men on her deck waved, Blade and Rhodina waved back, and the galley drew quickly away.
As soon as she was safely out of sight, Blade changed their course to nearly due south. «Just in case the galley talks to the merchant captain and smells something rotten,» he said. They ran south until evening without sighting any more ships, then anchored for the night with the wind from the open Sea already blowing over them. At dawn they set sail again, and by noon they were safely away from the last of the shallows, heading southward across the Sea.
They had to gamble that the gear from the shelter and what they found in the boat would be enough. The prisoners of Shell Island were strictly forbidden to have any sort of boat gear, including water jugs, oars, and so on. There was no hope of bribing a guard for any without instantly arousing suspicion. Stealing some might be possible, but it would be risky, and almost certainly take more time than they could afford.
