The Deep Gods (11 page)

And just as he fell, the galley tilted still farther and vanished into a welter of breaking timbers and boiling surf.

Chapter VI

There were eight of the big canoes, each with thirty sweating paddlers, and an equal number of warriors. They drove swiftly north in the track of the galleys, cutting white wakes across the sea. As a man tired, another would move into his place, taking up the steady stroke, and the canoes sped onward.

The River People were afraid of the open sea, and seldom ventured out into it as they now did. But they were driven by fury at the raiders, and also by a new sense of confidence. Until now, the raiders had come with their long iron swords and strong bows, their armor and their great galleys, and each time they had beaten the River People with ease. They had driven the slaves aboard their ships, burned the villages and departed with hardly a casualty. But this time it had been different. The stone-throwers had broken their ships, the grenades had set fire to them, and the new bows had cut them down by the dozens. Now, the river folk warriors yearned for more of their oppressors to kill.

Also, there was the matter of their guests, the strange wise folk who had given them all the weapons with which they had defended themselves. To have those guests snatched out of the land in such a manner was unbearable outrage.

Even so, many of the canoes had proven unseaworthy, and had beached before the pursuit had been begun. The eight canoes left at last were all stout
craft,
and those aboard were the boldest of the tribesmen. But even these had grown afraid as night came on and the sea rose; they had drawn ashore and waited till dawn.

They were feeling very guilty about that; especially those unlucky enough to be in the lead canoe, where Lali, the woman of Galta, sat in the prow. She had a quiver of arrows and a bow, but those were not her sharpest weapons. As she stared ahead, her black hair tied round her head, the spray shone on her face, which was set in grim anger. She had ceased, for the moment, talking about the cowardice and general weakness of the warriors of the river folk, and their lack of all manly qualities. But they feared she was only resting, and paddled harder than ever.

Her eyes narrowed and she rose to see 
better
. For a moment she continued to stare hard, 
then
 she cried out. “There, ahead!”

A single galley, dismasted, rolled and yawed far ahead. As they drew closer they saw moving forms in the water around the galley, and men on her deck. Then, swift dark shapes slid past the canoes, circling them; dolphins, many of them, but none spoke.

As the canoes came up, a voice came from the galley, hailing them; Lali stood up with a wild cry of delight. “Daniel!”

He was leaning over, staring.

“Where’s Ammi?” he shouted. 
“The other galley… ashore, over there!”
 He pointed to the distant shore. “Didn’t you find her?”

Lali could not see Galta among the sullen men huddling on the deck behind Daniel, and her face went white.

“Put some of your men aboard this ship,” Daniel called again. “You can take it back to the river, repair it! Use it.” He was flinging down a rope as he spoke, and now he scrambled down into a canoe.

Lali, unmindful of the danger of upsetting the craft, thrust her way to Daniel, her eyes wild with terror.

“Galta!” she cried. “Was he there, on that other ship?”

Daniel nodded, sitting down on a bench. The other canoes were against the galley’s sides now, and warriors were climbing up into the ship. As they herded the remaining Esmare men to the oarbenches, the river men shouted with vengeful glee, prodding the others along.

Lali saw that Daniel had a long sword belted to his waist, and had donned one of the leather cuirasses that the Esmare men had worn. The canoe moved away, and oars were moving on the galley now in a ragged rhythm. All the canoes but two were empty, lashed to the galley as it moved off.

“That way,” Daniel barked, indicating the shore. “And hurry!”

The paddlers began and the canoe picked up speed; the other canoe came around, following.

“The sea folk were sent to take the galleys,” Daniel explained, watching the distant shore as he spoke. His face was set in a grim look. “They attacked one, that one. Killed many…”

“Good!” Lali said. “Why did they spare any of them?”

“Because I asked them to,” Daniel 
said,
 his voice harsh. “Enough were killed as it was. There was no need. The prisoners were on the other ship, anyway. I don’t know what happened, but it went straight for the shore, those rocks… you’ll see, if you look there.”

Lali looked, and saw the shark-toothed shoreline, closer now. She gasped and then went paler still. The broken ribs of the other ship were visible now, beating back and forth in the surf.

Daniel saw it too, and groaned aloud. He thrust a man from a paddler’s seat, grasped the blade, and thrust furiously at the water.

The swell was rougher now, responding to the shallower depth as they came closer. Now the canoe rose, driving forward on a combing wave, and the paddlers shouted, bending hard. The wave rose higher, breaking; the canoe nearly flew, slashing through the breakers, past the wreck. Under a new wave that broke over them, the canoe grounded on the black gravel of the beach, and men spilled from it, yelling. Close behind, the second canoe was coming as Daniel waded toward the beach.

There were dead men, grotesquely sprawling in the sea pools and on the black beach. Beams and planks lay scattered along a wide 
stretch,
 and floating in the tide but there was no sign of anyone alive.

Daniel moved from one corpse to another, Lali following. Once she cried out and turned a man over; she stared down at him, wide-eyed, and shook her head. It was not Galta.

The warriors had spread out across the beach and the canoes were drawn well up above the tide line. Now, they began to move up toward the scrubby pines and bushes that edged the shore. They moved cautiously, javelins ready and bows taut; there was no telling what might lie in wait.

Daniel moved up ahead, sword in hand; he went in among the trees, scanning the ground for any signs. Ahead, the forest was thicker, and beyond it he could see low hills. But there was still no sign of any survivor. The thought came to him with sickening force: no more than half the number on that galley now lay on the beach. Many must have been drawn out, into the sea… and Ammi among them, perhaps. She was a strong 
swimmer,
 he told himself fiercely, she need not have drowned. And then he remembered that the men on the galley might have killed their captives, at the last.

And then, out of the trees, a figure came, running and shouting.

“Banar!”
 Daniel cried out. Behind him, Lali shrieked Galta’s name as he came out behind Banar, more slowly. He supported a third man, who walked with difficulty, Shorr-emak.

“We were hiding in the forest,” Banar panted as he came up. “Daniel, there are nine or ten of them… and their chief, a man called Ulff…” He stopped, gasping for breath. Galta came with the injured river man, who sat down on the ground with a grunt of pain. Lali flung herself on Galta, weeping noisily with joy, and he patted her shoulders.

“They have Ammi!” Shorr-emak said from his sitting position. His mouth was tight with pain, but he struggled to rise. “She saved my life, there on the galley. Aie, but my leg’s snapped, and I cannot… Lord Daniel, go after them, quickly!”

“It’s true,” Galta said grimly. “I curse myself… but we had no weapons and they are all armed. We hid, planning to follow. With 
luck,
 and a stout club… but you have weapons. 
Hurry!”

He pointed at a gap to the forest. “They seemed to know this land, and from their talk, they fear it… I don’t know why. They went toward the hills, nearly running. But it wasn’t long ago, Daniel. They did not start till dawn; they’re afraid of darkness, here.”

Within minutes the party of warriors was trotting at a swift steady pace, the leading men bending low as they ran to watch for signs of the trail. Five of them remained behind with the canoes, and Shorr-emak, who lay cursing his broken leg. But forty of the best fighters of all the river tribes now ran on the Esmarians track—men who could keep their pace from dawn to sunset, without tiring.

The sun rose higher as they trotted, but oddly red in a misty sky. It was a curious kind of mist, Daniel thought as he went. The pine forest seemed dry, as though little rain fell, yet the mist hung across the sky and did not burn away as the sun rose higher. With such a mist, it should be warmer, too, Daniel thought; but it was not.

The trees grew sparsely and the ground was thickly carpeted with pine needles that hid the tracks of their quarry. But there was much underbrush, broken by the recent passage of men’s bodies, and sometimes other signs.

Now the pines began to give place to a heavy growth of some sort of huge tree-fern; the pursuers were forced to a slower pace. But the signs of the trail were also clearer here. Their quarry was clearly heading for the low hills, in the direction of a pass that was visible far ahead.

Daniel threw back his head and sniffed thoughtfully. Behind him, one of the river men sniffed too, and grunted.

“There is fire, somewhere,” he said, puzzled. “But… Lord Daniel, it smells like one of your fireballs.”

It was true, Daniel realized; the smell was sulphurous.

He slowed to study the misty sky ahead. There was a definitely orange glow at the rim of the highland on one side of their course. It seemed to flicker, and rise and fall regularly, like a fire. But there was none of the smoke that would come from a forest blaze… and the smell was stronger.

“A volcano, I think,” Daniel said. At the river men’s puzzled look, he added, “Earth fires.”

“Like those in Alvanir,” Lali said. She shrugged. “What does it matter? We must find Ammi.” She broke into a steady trot again and the rest followed.

The Esmare men were very frightened and very tired; even Ulff was grey-faced with weariness. Ammi was also exhausted, but she had made up her mind to show it as little as possible, and 
her
 will succeeded to some extent. The men would overtire themselves, she reasoned, if they saw that she did not weaken; they would drive themselves all the harder, out of jealousy. Then they would sleep, she thought. But she would not. There was a knife in Ulff’s belt, for one thing, and if she could not reach that… well, there were fine hand-size stones here and there.

The pleasant thought of cracking Ulff’s skull as he slept kept Ammi preternaturally cheerful, and her cheerfulness infuriated Ulff. As they moved single-file up the narrow hill-path, he was close behind her, his red-rimmed eyes fixed on her back. From time to time he licked his dry, cracked lips, silently.

“Why hurry so fast?” Ammi asked, glancing back at Ulff with an infuriatingly calm look. “You look very tired, slave-catcher.”

“I am not tired,” Ulff snapped. “We of Esmare are not landsmen, we dislike walking. But it is a long way to the border country.”

“How long?”
 Ammi asked interestedly.

“Oh, five or six days, if we make haste,” Ulff grunted. He grinned evilly. “Morig Thun, on Esmare’s own sea… and there will be boats there. We may be in Asabog, the King’s town, in two more days after that. Then we shall wait till your man hears that we hold you, and comes to us… or perhaps you will tell us how to find him, once we’ve time to ask properly.”

She laughed and turned her head forward, away from him.

“Lord Ulff,” a man said, behind him. “It grows darker.”

He glared back at the fellow, but only grunted, and kept on. After a minute, he said, “We will reach the hilltop, yonder, in a little while. We camp there.”

They toiled on upward through thinner growth, pushing through the fern forest. The hilltop was nearly bare, covered with mossy rock; below, northward, the forest stretched to the horizon. But Ulff could see the dim blue forms of the next range, where the people called Nochim roved. Hunters and woodsrunners, most of them, but their chiefs gave some allegiance to the King of Esmare, and valued the weapons he sent them. They would help, bringing the party to the border fort of Morig Thun.

Ulff flung himself down on the moss with a great groan. He saw a man begin to scratch his flint over a pile of twigs, and Ulff called out a sharp word.

“No fire, you witless fool!” Ulff sat up painfully. “Eat your rations cold. And keep one man on watch, you understand?”

Damn it, he thought, if Rorin had not vanished in the surf back there… a man with wit enough to do what must be done, not like these clods who must be guided in everything. Though Rorin was also a treacherous dog, Ulff reflected. He’d have lied to the King’s Council, blamed it all on Ulff, yes. 
Paid by those Iskarth people, probably.
 
Allies, ha.
 
Worse than enemies, sometimes.

He took a long drink from his waterskin and rubbed his wet hand across his mouth. The girl sat, still as calm-faced as a damned statue, opposite him, looking at the horizon.

Looks like that ivory statue of the moon-goddess, Apra, in the temple at Iskarth town, Ulff thought, licking his lips.
 I’ve always had this taste for pale ones, be thought 
It
 would be fine to futter this one, and he resolved to do it, sooner or later. But not just now, he thought. I’m almost too weary to do my best, and the wench has a nasty way of pointing out a man’s weaknesses, I’ve noticed already. Then, the warriors would insist on a share, too; and there’d be the chance of damaging the bitch. 
No, Ulff thought, not now.

He extended the waterskin. The girl took it and drank, handed it back without a word.

“You needn’t think of escape, girl,” Ulff told her. “These are dangerous lands, hereabouts.”

She looked at him. “I noticed how you seem to fear something, here,” she said. “But I see nothing to fear, except 
yourselves
.”

Ulff chuckled. “There’s danger. Believe me.” He sat up. “They call this the Land of Fires, because of the volcanoes.”