01 - The Burning Shore (8 page)

The knots of Bretonnians, Kislevites and sailors that had by now surrounded
the fighting deck like an amphitheatre of unwashed flesh, returned his greeting
impatiently. Rumour and counter-rumour had swept through the ship’s company,
each new conjecture fuelling a dozen more. By now so much money was riding on
the outcome of this duel that Jacques and Florin weren’t the only ones who had
learned to dread the warmth of this new day.

They looked at each other now, the light of the growing sun already painting
them both blood-red. Despite their bravado both men saw their own fear reflected
in the other’s eyes, and both men respected it.

For a moment they stood almost as comrades in the face of the danger into
which they were both headed. The arrogance and the anger which had brought them
here had gone now, washed away by a night of phantoms and anxious reflection.
All that remained, all that held them on this collision course, was pride.

As the sun cleared the distant horizon and began its long track over a world
still full of promise, that hardly seemed enough.

Jacques considered apologising. More used to action and insults than
diplomacy he struggled to find the words, some way of taking back the
meaningless insult of the day before without losing face with his comrades.

But it was too late. Before he could find such words Lorenzo, his voice
booming with all the professionalism of the world’s ugliest ringmaster, pushed
his way into the centre of the deck to address the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, sparking a torrent of catcalls and raucous
laughter, “we are here this morning to settle a matter of honour between two of
our gentlemen colleagues.”

He waited for the nervous jeering to die down before carrying on.

“The duel is to be fought between Captain Sir Florin d’Artaud, late of
Bordeleaux, and Jacques Ribbon who, according to his second, is from ‘nowhere in
particular’. A fine town, I’m sure.”

“I think it’s in Kislev,” one of the sailors shouted from the safety of the
rigging, provoking a dozen bloodcurdling threats from below.

“And now the sun has risen,” Lorenzo pressed on, “and the appointed time has
come. It remains only for me to remind the more simple-minded among you of the
rules. Only the participants may fight, and only with their chosen weapons:
gutting knives.”

Lorenzo paused to see if the crowd would respond to the jibe, but now, with
the promise of blood drawing so near, they were no longer really listening. Instead they were busy jostling for position,
leaning hungrily forward like wolves over a fresh kill.

“The duellists will fight until death or surrender,” Lorenzo concluded. “Now
if you gentlemen will shake hands and return to your starting posts we can
begin.”

Florin, who had stripped to the waist in defiance of the dawn chill, weighed
his knife carefully in his left hand and stepped forward, right hand
outstretched. Jacques did the same and they briefly clasped hands. Their cold
sweat mingled as their frightened eyes met. Stripped of his friends and his
arrogance Florin realised for the first time how young his opponent was.

And how nervous.

“If you gentlemen will stay in your corners until I count down to zero,”
Lorenzo said, no longer having to raise his voice. The catcalls and cheers had
died away. Now there was nothing to rival his voice except for the eerie song of
the wind in the rigging.

“Five,” he began, and watched Florin rolling his shoulders, muscles clenching
and unclenching beneath the rough marble of his goose pimpled skin.

“Four.”

Jacques took a long, drawn out breath, and twitched his knife from side to
side in nervous anticipation.

“Three.”

A Kislevite called out drunkenly, and was quickly silenced by his mates.

“Two.”

Lorenzo, his pulse racing, was seized by a sudden and irrational reluctance
to continue.

“One,” he whined, and swallowed the lump in his throat.

He glanced to one side to notice that Jacques had become still, his breathing
had calmed, his stance had relaxed. A real professional.

Damn, thought Lorenzo, and said, “Zero.”

Nothing happened.

Florin and his opponent both stood and watched one another, seemingly more
relaxed than any of the breathless crowd that surrounded them. In the silence
the wind blew, and the planking creaked, and the sails snapped and bulged
greedily.

And then Jacques attacked.

With a sudden, wild yell he hurled himself forward. His spindly frame
pirouetted across the deck with a surprising grace, and the crowd erupted into a
roar of excitement as he closed on Florin.

The sickle-shaped blur of his knife whipped through the air towards his
opponent’s throat and Florin side stepped, dipping out of the way as the blade
flickered over his head.

But as he ducked, Jacques’ fist rocketed out to catch him on the chin. The
punch connected with a dull thump that sent Florin flying back against the
gunwale, stars floating through his field of vision and the taste of blood sharp
on his tongue.

He barely had time to spit before Jacques was on him again, yellowed teeth
bared in a snarl as he flicked the razored hook of his knife towards his
captain’s eyes.

This time Florin jumped forward, trying to get inside the blow, but Jacques
saw the movement in time and leapt to one side. He let Florin rocket past him.
Then he reversed his grip on the knife and struck, slashing the gutting knife
across the muscles of Florin’s back with a wide, easy swing.

A spray of blood, ruby bright in the morning sunlight, burst through the air.
The crowd howled out in a storm of appreciation.

Florin, his face deathly pale, turned to face Jacques. He tried to ignore the
deep burning pain and the terrifying flow of blood that pulsed down his spine.
Instead he concentrated on his enemy.

He couldn’t believe how agile the mercenary was, how quick. For the first
time, he realised that he was facing an opponent who was much, much better than
he was.

Deep within his stomach the first hint of panic twisted and stretched, like
some slowly awakening beast.

Think, Florin told himself. Think.

Jacques circled around, taking his time now that his enemy was bleeding. He
watched him raise the unfamiliar blade of his knife uncertainly and take a step
forward. Then another. And then he stumbled, staggering back to his feet.

The crowd howled at the scent of exhaustion, their faces contorted into masks
of greed satiated or denied.

Jacques watched his opponent shaking his head like a bull in the ring as he
retreated across the deck, leaving a trail of bloody droplets behind him. He
realised that he must have opened an artery as, weak from blood loss, Florin
dropped his unused razor onto the hard planking of the deck and sank to his
knees.

The cacophony of the crowd grew deafening as he cautiously approached his
dying officer, grabbed a fist full of his hair and lifted his head. The
vulnerable flesh beneath Florin’s chin was pale and untanned, and for a second Jacques found himself hesitating. Then he
steeled himself and brought the razor down.

But he was too late.

Before he could administer the coup de grace he felt his ankles gripped and
his feet leaving the floor. With a shout of surprise he fell backwards, arms
flying out instinctively to break his fall. Florin, yelling through a mouthful
of bloodied teeth, leapt to his feet and spun his opponent around so that he hit
the deck nose first.

There was the crunch of breaking cartilage, followed by a gout of blood, but
before the mercenary had a chance to feel the pain of his broken nose Florin had
pulled his ankles as wide apart as the handles of a wheel barrow and kicked him
between the legs.

Jacques’ scream rose even higher than the roar of the crowd as Florin, eyes
wild with desperation, drew back his foot and kicked again. Jacques, his mind
blank of everything but for the incredible pain that had exploded in his groin,
dropped his razor and reached down to protect himself.

As he did so, Florin flipped him onto his back, lifted his foot, and stamped
down. Through the prism of his tears Jacques saw the descending horse shoe of
his captain’s heel as it snapped down onto his upturned chin.

And then it was all over.

“Stitch that!” Lorenzo, suddenly a much richer man, howled with glee.

“Well done,” said Lundorf, relieved if a little uncertain of his friend’s
technique.

But the last thing that Florin heard before he collapsed was the voice of the
crowd, roaring like some great monster as he fell backwards into the warmth of
unconsciousness and a pool of his own blood.

The wind had been merciful. It had waited until the ship’s surgeon had
finished sewing up the ruin of Florin’s back before it began to play.

It started gently enough: merely rippling patterns into the rolling surface
of the water and scattering the light of the setting sun. Then, gradually, it
became bolder, rushing across the water in sudden charges that sprayed ruffs of
white water up from the top of the swells. The foam shone ice-white as it
flecked the air, the chill brightness belied by the warmth of the breeze.

The sea soon joined in with the fun. It rolled its waves higher and sharpened
their ridges, so that instead of just little flecks the wind could rip great
white sprays from their heads. Trailing these crests back like plumes from a
warrior’s helmet the wind, caught up in the excitement of the game, blew harder.

The sea wasn’t to be outdone. It reared up in response, carving valleys and
mountains from its surface in shapes designed to challenge the wind’s
imagination.

Overhead the sky became jealous. Its scowl became greyer as the game below
grew rougher, and the light bled out of the world. Soon it began to growl with
anger, bitter at the fun that its brothers were having, but the wind and the sea
were too enthralled to notice.

It wasn’t until the sky began to spit with frustration, the first crackling
flames of its rage flashing down to hiss across the cloud shadowed water, that
things began to turn nasty. Suddenly this was no longer a game.

Suddenly this was war.

Yet had an eagle been watching the
Destrier
and her two sisters as
they rode through the battle it would have seen little amiss. Bobbing this way
and that, the ships seemed happy enough amongst the thrashing of the sea. They
moved as effortlessly as motes of dust on a summer’s breeze, now racing up to
new heights on heaving swells, now plunging suddenly down into the green shadowy
depths below. It seemed all the same to the little flotilla, even when their
formation was broken and they were scattered across the ocean’s boiling surface
like matchsticks in a millrace.

But amongst the ships’ passengers, the voyage was rapidly collapsing into a
nightmare. The mocking whine of the wind was interspersed with the blunt impact
of the sea against fragile walls. The terrifying groan of tortured timbers split
the air, blending with the cries of men sure their world was about to end.

Only the sailors remained silent. Their faces grim and white beneath a sheen
of salt spray they worked swiftly but calmly, bound by a discipline forged from
fear and confidence in equal measure. Swinging around their ropes and hanging
from winch handles like acrobats they dragged the sails down, fighting the
howling wind for possession of the cloth.

Their captain watched them, silent for the most part. His men knew what they
were doing. He wouldn’t burden them with unnecessary orders.

Only when danger loomed ahead did he step in. Once a loose boom, snapping
free of its restraining cord, brought him racing down to the stern, a hastily
assembled gang of men at his heels.

Later a coil of rope rolled across the deck, the tangled hemp as dangerous as
a snare on the pitching ship. He and the first mate battled their way down to
clear it away, and then he worked his way up to the stern to find out why the
foresail still remained unfurled.

Above him the clouds ripened into a heavy black mass and then, suddenly,
burst apart into a torrent of rain.

An hour later the storm proper began.

Lorenzo sat and shivered. He cursed, low and loud, muttering the profanities
with the sort of quiet intensity that other men reserve for prayer. The fact that he was kneeling on the floor, leaning over a bucket as
other, more spiritual men, might lean over a reliquary, just added to the
illusion.

Every now and again he’d crawl to his feet, being sure to keep at least one
handhold clamped onto the interior of the pitching cabin, and would look down on
Florin. In the days, or perhaps weeks, since the storm had begun his master had
sunk into a deep, burning fever.

“Gods rot the bollocks off that cursed surgeon,” Lorenzo repeated for the
hundredth time as he rolled Florin onto his side and checked the brown stained
mass of his bandages. Reluctantly he peeled them back, revealing the jagged rail
of the poorly stitched wound that followed the bumps of his spine.