Dangerous Waters (4 page)

The man chained beside him on the inboard side of their shared oar sat up straighter. So did most of the rest of the rowers as the whip master’s trusted slaves began walking alongside the benches.

The one with the basket was dipping torn hunks of what passed for bread in these nightmare islands into the flagon. The rowers were passing the dripping sops along to those sat by the bulwark pierced with oar ports, the chains fettering their feet jingling.

It was some while before the slaves handing out the soaked bread reached Corrain’s bench, twelfth of the twenty five on this side of the galley. He was the middle of the five men forced to sit there, their feet shackled together and secured by a heavier chain running through the loop between each man’s ankles, secured at both ends with formidable locks.

As the slaves with the basket and flagon reached them, Corrain held out his hand. His stomach growled with desperate anticipation. The man sat on his bulwark side laughed. Corrain paused before handing him the first sop, meeting his eyes with a warning stare.

He couldn’t guess where this man had come from, paler of skin than the islanders though darker than the captured Caladhrians. Was that the touch of the sun or a natural burnish in his blood? Corrain had tried asking but if they shared some common tongue, the man was keeping that to himself. He didn’t talk to anyone, not that Corrain had seen.

One of the trusted slaves said something and the man shrugged. He passed the sodden bread on to the youth sitting at the outermost end of their oar. Hosh stuffed it into his mouth, whimpering with gratitude.

Corrain breathed a little more easily. While he reckoned he was stronger than the silent man, he didn’t relish the thought of fighting in the cramped space between the benches some dark night, in order to teach the silent man that Hosh was under his protection.

He passed the silent man the next sop and then ate his own. He nearly choked. The bread had been dipped in wine harsh enough to clean old pots and liberally mixed with white brandy.

But Corrain had always heard that the Aldabreshi scorned strong drink. That was what everyone said. They didn’t have the head for it, so Caladhria’s tavern warriors insisted with scornful amusement. So much for that homespun wisdom.

The two slaves on his inboard hand exchanged a few words as the whip master’s lackeys moved on. Both were Archipelagans or of mixed blood, dark of hair and eye. Corrain couldn’t understand a word they spoke and they knew nothing of his own Caladhrian dialect or of formal Tormalin, used right across the mainland by merchants and traders, legacy of that long vanished Empire’s hegemony.

Regardless, Corrain treated the inboard rowers with wary respect. It was self-evident that the strongest men were set to hauling the innermost ends of the oars. When the heavy chain at their feet was unlocked, releasing them from the oar to sleep, they were the ones who enjoyed the comparative comfort of the bench padded with flock-stuffed sackcloth and crudely cured goat hide.

Corrain swallowed his pride and slept as best he could down on the planks with the others. That way he could keep an eye on Hosh. The stronger slaves would prey on the weakest, given half a chance.

‘Corrain,’ Hosh quavered. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Shut up and eat your bread,’ Corrain growled.

He looked to make sure that Hosh was eating his sop. The lad needed every scrap of food to sustain him, to maintain the pace which the whip master’s flute player demanded. Corrain had earned his muscles through years of sword play whereas Hosh had only joined Lord Halferan’s guard at the turn of the New Year gone. Corrain had served nineteen years and risen to a captaincy before his own folly saw him thrust back down the ladder to serve as a trooper and be grateful for that leniency.

Corrain’s heart pounded painfully in his chest. Of all those enslaved when that foul mage betrayed Lord Halferan, only Hosh remained of the handful purchased by this galley master.

Greff’s leg had been accidentally gashed when they had first been fettered. The wound had ulcerated in the moist heat, leaving Greff weak and feverish. As it festered, the whip master had sent one of his two underlings to unchain him. Were they going to tend him? Corrain hadn’t shared Hosh’s hope. He had been right. Greff was stabbed in the back of the neck and his corpse thrown to the sharks that constantly shadowed the ship.

Someone had strangled Orlon quietly one night, his body discovered the following morning. Hauled up onto the walkway, one by one his bench-mates were tied to the upthrust stern post. None would say what had happened, despite being brutally flogged by the overseers.

As for Kessle and Lamath? Corrain only knew that replies no longer came from the far benches, unseen beyond the walkway dividing the deck, when he risked shouting their names in the darkness.

‘Corrain?’ Hosh begged for reassurance.

The whip master’s overseers had hauled a rower up from an oar some way ahead. His bound hands were tied to the stern post and the crack of the whip sent a shiver through the rowers from stern to prow. Somewhere behind, some corsair raider laughed callously.

‘You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve nothing to fear.’ Corrain only hoped that was true. A flogging would most likely be the death of either of them.

Beaten senseless, violent or recalcitrant slaves might be briefly revived by the agony of having vinegar and salt rubbed into their wounds to keep the flies away. Then they were thrown down the stern hatch into the hold, into the narrow space between the galley master’s cabin at the rear and the locked compartments for looted cargo.

By Corrain’s count, fewer than one man in five emerged. The rest were hauled out lifeless, already gnawed by rats, and tossed overboard to delight the sharks. Corrain had taken his turn at that grisly task, as had Hosh. Corrain reckoned the whip master wanted the new slaves to see what fate awaited anyone contemplating disobedience.

How long could Hosh endure this torment? A sword pommel clubbing him into submission when they had been captured had left a visible dent beside the boy’s broken nose. While his bruises had faded, he was now plagued with a constantly weeping eye and an oozing nostril.

‘Remember your oath, boy. Our allegiance to Halferan holds.’ Corrain had made the lad swear to return and see that treacherous wizard hanged. If Hosh died—

No, he wouldn’t contemplate that possibility. They had come this far together. They would get back home. They would have their vengeance. The sour wine and liquor warmed his blood and limbs.

The overseer finished flogging the man. To Corrain’s surprise, he was returned to his oar, still conscious albeit with blood coursing down his back. The other overseer shouted a warning, the tone unmistakeable even if the words were meaningless. The inboard rowers on their oar exchanged a cowed look.

Corrain hastily swallowed the last of the sodden bread as the whip master blew his silver whistle. The flute-player replied with a piercing note. Like everyone else, the five of them hastily readied their oar before either overseer cracked a lash over some laggard’s head.

The whip master set the pace, swift and merciless. The flute-player took up the rhythm and the oars dug deep into the waves. The galley surged forward.

If he couldn’t see where they were headed, Corrain strove to see what was going on aboard the galley. Raiders were hurrying back and forth from prow to stern and back again. Leather-wrapped bundles were being hauled up from the hold below. Armour and weapons, he soon realised. They didn’t have to row all the way to the mainland to find themselves going into battle.

As his hauling arms slackened at the thought, the others were taken unawares. Their oar briefly faltered. An overseer’s warning was backed up with a lick of his whip to raise a welt on their innermost rower’s shoulder. The man beside Corrain growled a fierce rebuke.

‘Sorry,’ Corrain muttered. He concentrated on keeping a steady rhythm, using all the might in his shoulders, his back, his belly and legs, bare feet wedged against the board that jutted up from the deck.

He had seen enough. Those Archipelagan raiders, nearly as numerous as the rowers, were armouring themselves in stiff leather cuirasses. Some carried swords, others shouldered quivers with short bows in hand.

The whip master’s whistle mercilessly increased the pace. The strongest rowers strained to keep up with the piper. A couple of armoured Aldabreshi ran along the top of the narrow bulwark on the outboard side of the ship. A single slip and they would fall to a brutal death among the scything oars.

The Aldabreshi didn’t fall. Instead they hauled on ropes to spread out a great expanse of cloth. It was suspended somehow from the galley’s single mast which Corrain had begun to think was only there for hanging signal flags.

Was the awning to shield the rowers from the punishing sun? As Corrain looked up, he saw the cloth twitch. Dark silhouettes of arrows lay snagged overhead. An excruciating itch burned between his shoulder blades. If some lucky shaft tore a hole, an arrow could bury itself in his back and he wouldn’t even see it coming.

A taste of smoke drove that fear away with worse. Corrain snatched a desperate glance over his shoulder to see if something had set the awning alight. If the galley caught fire, chained as they were to their oars, they would sit there burning alive until the waves overwhelmed the sinking vessel to drown any who’d survived that long.

‘Corrain? Are we dead men?’

As the silent man’s mocking laugh drowned out Hosh’s terrified plea, Corrain caught a glimpse of what was happening up on the crowded prow. He shouted what little reassurance he could.

‘It’s only charcoal, Hosh. They’ve lit a brazier.’

As he wondered why, as Hosh appealed for more answers, Corrain saw two Archipelagans hauling a barrel up from the hold and dragging it towards the prow. He risked twisting around a second time, ignoring the inboard man’s furious snarl.

An Archipelagan reached into the barrel and took out something roughly the size and shape of a pomegranate. He reached for a wooden-handled copper spike thrust deep into the bright heart of the charcoal. Touching the glowing metal to a thick thread trailing from the pomegranate, he waited a moment to be sure it was alight. Then he hurled the thing high and hard, right over the galley’s prow towards whatever lay ahead of them.

Sticky fire. Corrain had heard of that Archipelagan abomination, though he’d never seen it for himself.

Before he could speculate further, the overseers’ screaming reached a new frenzy. The whip master blew rapid trills on his whistle. Before Corrain could guess what any of this meant, he was struck hard in the chest by their own oar.

The galley had come to a complete stop amid a horrendous cacophony of splintering wood and screaming voices. The armoured men waiting in the stern charged up the walkway. From the sounds of clashing swords and agonised yells, those who’d been in the prow had already joined battle.

Were he and Hosh unwilling partners in a corsair attack on some Caladhrian trading vessel? Even with the raiders prowling the sea lanes, trade between the mainland and Archipelago was too lucrative and too widespread to be significantly interrupted.

Were they attacking some other Aldabreshin ship? Everyone said that southern barbarians fought each other like packs of wild dogs. If it was an Archipelagan ship, did it carry better swordsmen than their own?

If it did, Corrain could hope that their own galley master, the whip master and his overseers would find themselves captured and burdened with chains, some token of natural justice. But if the rowers were sold on again like brute beasts brought to market, there was no knowing where he and Hosh might end up. Worse, they might be separated.

Corrain closed his eyes amid the incomprehensible shouting. He was still alive. Hosh was still alive. As long as they were alive, they could hold fast to their oath. They could cling to the hope of one day seeing Minelas punished for his treachery.

Wherever the wizard had gone, whatever he had done in the meantime, once he got back to the mainland, Corrain promised himself that he would hack the bastard’s head from his shoulders and piss down the bleeding stump of his neck.

Aye, and he’d tell everyone from the eastern ocean to the western forests, from the southern shore to the northern mountains, why he’d done it. Those wizards of Hadrumal had been so virtuous and upright, swearing on the sanctity of their precious edict.

Corrain would see them all shamed for the perfidious liars that they were.

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