Beluga Fay (Dragon Bone Hill) (2 page)

 “Maybe, but we’ll have to be...” He stopped and stared hard at the stern of the vessel. “Is there someone in that dinghy?” Even as he spoke, the boat was loosed from its moorings. Thranig smiled. “Barter.”

“Food.” Boru answered.

“How do you know they’ve food?”

“I don’t.”

“But...” an imprecise look took Qinkop’s face. “You can’t mean?”

Dortmund smiled low and unhealthily.

“But you were just saying ‘bout the Hill.”

“We’re not on the Hill; don’t have the tattoo; don’t have the brand. Who’s to know? We get them salted away and who’s to know.”

Qinkop wanted to protest, knew he should protest, but it had been days since their last real meal, and that hadn’t been much of a one. He gave Boru a nod, and the pair faded back into the shadow of the stairs and watched. The lights began to go on over the other ships, and spotlights were turned on the burning freighter. But because the dinghy was blocked by the freighter, none saw it making for the wharf.

“What the fuck was that?” he wondered. “There was nothing in the hold that should have gone like that.” The dinghy rocked back and forth in the bay’s chop. Looking back to the shore, he knew there’d not be a lot of time—lights were already going on all along the shoreline though not yet on the dock. That blast should have woken the entire city, and they’d be calling coastal patrols. Whatever, he couldn’t be called to answer questions about what had just happened; couldn’t answer questions about anything—not now. As he turned back to rowing and watched the fire rising up out of the freighter, there was a sound from the approaching dock. Turning to this, he could hear shouts of men on the ship. The rower did not turn back to this; whatever was on the shore was now going to be more important to him.

While concerned with the shadows along the shoreline, a figure broke from the other sailors and dashed for the bow. Jumping for the anchor line, they slipped down about halfway to the bay and then dropped into the water. As they did so, there was a shattering explosion that briefly lit up the whole dockside in a red-orange glow. Snapping back to the vessel, the man in the dinghy had missed the escapee. What he did see were others dropping into the water on fire. This was followed by another explosion, and the freighter began to sink—fast. In less than a minute, the man in the boat had stopped rowing and was watching. The freighter was gone, and the light of search lamps snapped back and forth over the bay. There was no sign of survivors. At least he’d be spared answering any questions they might have raised.

Even so, there were others questions—his. What had happened in the hold—and who was
he
? Turning back to the shore, no one had made it to the dock yet. If he was quick, he could disappear before anyone had time to notice he was from the ship. Pulling, the man cleared his mind and tried not to think about what had just happened to all those men, and what had happened down in the hold. Whatever it was and whoever he was, the danger had passed. Still, not entirely convinced, he scanned the water hoping this was the case.

Excepting flotsam, there was nothing—only the occasional body. One or two of these appeared to twitch, but there didn’t seem to be anyone attempting to swim ashore—or towards any of the vessels farther out. Nothing. The boatman was not a small man. The time on the ship had, however, turned what had been soft hands and an average frame into something much harder. The hands were now thick with calluses, and his arms would take a lot more effort to tire.

Brown hair, a little long but not yet shaggy—not as shaggy as the story he’d have to tell to get over the rough patches his appearance would provoke—hung down over his eyes. The man’s face was clean-shaven and angular. Sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin emerged from the longish, dirty-brown hair. The eyes were a soft, almost milk chocolate brown. As he pulled on the oars, his chest opened on the moonlight. It was broad but not unnaturally deep. The man in the boat was stronger than he’d been when he boarded, but other than this, he could not say much had changed other than geography.

Having left the North behind, there was a certainty that he’d slipped into the subtropics. Which of the islands of the archipelago he was on now was not entirely clear, but from the length of the docks and the number of lights that twinkled, still, in the city, it had to be one of the major ones. Now he wished he’d spent more time listening to what the others were saying about the islands and what had gone wrong. Everyone knew, in the North, that something had gone very wrong in the collective archipelagos of the middle sea and this was creeping slowly eastward to the mainland. It was for this reason that the eastern continent had put together a loose multinational task force to blockade the whole chain. All that was allowed through were human aid vessels, such as his. These carried medical supplies and food.

Smiling, he tapped the side of his backpack with a foot. Whatever was waiting on shore, he had a fighting chance if he turned the pack to use. First, he had to get ashore and off the docks without being caught, or seen. Looking back over his shoulder, there was no one on the dock, yet—neither was any light snapping on.

After several more strokes, he picked up the oars and dumped them into the dinghy with a clatter of wood on metal. The sound echoed beneath the upper dock and amongst the pylons as the prow of the boat gently bumped and glided along the slimy, sodden, and foul smelling wharf. As the prow pushed away from a pylon sunk into the muddy bed of the shore, the man reached out and grabbed the wharf and pulled himself back against it. Scanning the gloom of the landing, there was nothing to be seen, and all he could smell was the miasma of decaying refuse—he suppose this garbage, but it could have been bodies as well. The stories of the archipelagos had been common childhood fare—which was just one more reason he’d signed on. No one would think to look for him here, though
here
wasn’t where he’d meant to end up.

He pulled his thoughts away from the past. There was no good dwelling on what couldn’t be changed. Here he was, and here the man would start to reinvent himself free and clear of all that had gone wrong back home. He’d not been the first to make the trip, and he doubted he’d be the last—not if his boyhood reading had been anything to go by.

Reaching down for the bag, a grunt of pain escaped the dinghy, and he reached to his back on the lower right side. Pulling away a hand, there was some blood. It wasn’t a lot, and it wasn’t too dark. Whether the color mattered, he was not certain; nonetheless, he was going to have to do something about that, and soon. Bracing against the expected pain, he leaned back into the boat and picked up the backpack, this time with both hands, and tossed it on the landing. Another grunt escaped him, but the man didn’t pause to wait for the pain to pass. Standing, the skiff rocked, lightly, from side to side; then he was on the dock and kicking the boat into the bay. The tide was in, so he didn’t expect it to go far before drifting back onto the shore. He’d hoped the skiff would be a little farther up or down the dock so no one thought someone had landed here and would send out a search party.

For a moment, he watched the dinghy sail out into the bay where there were now more small craft from the other freighters as they searched for survivors—none seemed to have found any and scudded desultorily back and forth in the ring of searchlights. Occasionally one of these would move over the shoreline but quickly, perfunctorily. The crews, obviously, weren’t expecting survivors. Even if one or two had made it to shore, they’d be here to stay—if he was where he thought he was. Perhaps he might have rowed to one of the other vessels, but how would he prove he wasn’t from the shore. Even if he managed to convince them he was from the Beluga Fay, how would he explain what had happened when he wasn’t certain himself. Then there was the knife wound—that wouldn’t help him at all.

Over and above this sketchy bit of business, there would be the issue of who he was. His papers would not stand up to any serious interrogation. Once these collapsed, he’d be looking guilty. If they ever found out who he was, then it would be back home—there were even more questions that would need answering there from both authorities and family. No, there was no choice but to come ashore and take his chances—as bad as those would be. With another searchlight sweeping in his direction, the man stepped behind a large pylon, angling himself sideways. Not overly tall, for the North, he was still almost one-hundred eighty-six centimeters. In the South, this was going to make him standout, and his fair complexion would make him noteworthy amongst the otherwise tan and dark-skinned islanders. Yet, there were supposed to be a number of northerners down here. That would help.

With the light gone, he picked up the pack, gingerly, and slung it over his shoulder. Turning, he caught the first steps of the stairs up to the main dock, and there was a shifting of shadow and sound behind him. Turning, his upper right bicep caught a glancing blow from Boru’s metal pipe, and he stumbled back, falling on the stairs. As Boru righted himself, after overextending the blow, the man kicked out a foot and caught the derelict hard in the groin. This must have caught him right because there was a winded scream and the man crumpled to the stairs, clutching the offended area. The pipe clattered onto the steps; grabbing this up, he turned and fumbled his way up the stairs. There was an animalized scream behind him—he wasn’t sure but it sounded like
food
.

Turning on this, Thranig was tottering out of the shadows with his hands extended. As these almost closed over his throat, the pipe came down on Qinkop’s head with a hard ring of metal and a thunking crunch of skull. Thranig toppled forward onto the man. Tossing him to the side there followed a splash. By this time, Boru had picked himself up from the stairs, though still holding his balls, and stepped back unsteadily. The new owner of the pipe took another step forward, and Dortmund’s courage collapsed and he turned and disappeared into the lower dock. More or less satisfied the threat had passed, the man turned and dashed unevenly, because of the heavy pack, up the stairs, then along the dock to disappear into a maze of heavy, abandoned machinery.

The bay swarmed with rescue craft from other freighters, and gunboats from the blockade. The latter tore over the inner part of the bay searchlights, panning not over the wreckage but along the docks and shoreline, looking for any that might hope to use the chaos to slip by them. There was no movement from the city or in the water; from beneath the landing he could see that much. Every now and then, because of the heavy chop being created from the wake of the boats, he had to spit out a foul mouthful of water. The taste was of decay—organic decay. That was, he assumed, to be expected, what with what was happening in the city and the archipelago, but if he wasn’t careful, the consequences were going to be frightening.

However, before boarding the freighter during its last continental landfall, he’d been supplied with a broad assortment of designer antibiotics, which should take care of anything he might come into contact with here, or anywhere in the southern archipelagos. Even then, it had been certain where the target had been heading. How this was known didn’t matter to him. All he needed to be worried about was how to get the job done, and his first pass had been a miserable failure—but that had been luck; though trained not to believe in it, that had not stopped him from confronting this again and again over the years. But that never moved the trainers and theorists—they’d their algorithms and this was the only place they were going to put what faith they had. Apparently, all he’d experienced was a variable in the equation.

At least they were together, and neither of them were going anywhere for some time. He was uncertain of the equation that would account for this variable, but undoubtedly there would be one. The dinghy pulled alongside the landing, and spitting another mouthful of water, the swimmer pushed deep beneath it. Above him, he could hear Boru’s moan.

“They broken?” Thranig asked.

“No.” Voice near a whimper.

“Let’s get after him.”

“You said food.”