Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 (8 page)

 
          
“In
feet, not much tired at all,” he whispered throatily, mouth against her neck.

 
          
Wynett
shuddered deliciously and turned her face down to meet his exploring lips.
“Nor,” she gasped, “
am
I.”

 
          
Derwen
Pars had been a fisherman all his life, as had his father and his before him.
His earliest memory of the Idre was of lying on a warm blanket nested in a coil
of rope, the smell of fish about him, and his father lifting him out over the
prow of the boat to dangle above the blue water, gurgling as wavelets splashed
his bare feet. More clearly he could recall the first time he had taken active
part in his father’s venture, nervous that he might fail and delighted when
Verran Pars declared him a fisherman bom, as they hauled in the net filled with
the small silvery blue fish called
pardes.
He had not yet reached his tenth year then, but thereafter he accompanied
Verran each day and, once he was deemed old enough, each night the little boat
put out.

 
          
In
thirty years Derwen Pars had come to know the Idre and her bounty as well as
any of his calling. He knew her calm and when she was storm-whipped; knew her
currents and her moods; when and where the shoals of parde would run, and where
to cast a line for the great dark red
savve.
He had seen his father drown when their boat turned turtle in a spring
floodtide and refused to let that tragedy deter him from pursuing the only life
he knew, or wanted to know. He had taken his father’s place then, refurbishing
the damaged craft and ignoring his mother’s pleas that he
seek
some safer occupation. Instead, he had become the finest fisherman in Drisse,
purchasing a fine, stone-built house large enough to contain both his mother
and his new wife, later the three children, none of whom—to his carefully
hidden disappointment—showed any aptitude for the watery life. He had taken
each one out on the river and finally agreed to their becoming something other
than fisherfolk, which pleased their grandmother, whose tolerance of the river
had turned to distinct antipathy after Verran’s drowning, and was not
altogether to his wife’s dislike, for while she loved her husband she did not
share his regard for the great waterway, and prayed regularly in the little
chapel at the center of the small town that the Lady guard him while he plied
his trade.

 
          
So
far it seemed her prayers were heard, for Derwen was a wealthy man, so
successful that he now owned two boats, both new, and employed two hired men to
man the larger
Volalle
while he
preferred to work alone in the
Verr ana
that he had named for his father.

 
          
On
this night, with the half-full moon bright enough in a clear sky, the Idre
shining silver as his mother’s hair and the
pocheta
running north in shoals large as any he had seen, he had both boats out, the
largest of his nets strung between diem to catch the succulent fish. Gille
Oman
and Festyn Lewal
crewed
the
Volalle,
drifting her on a sheet
anchor as Derwen manuevered the
Verrana
into position with a single stem sweep, spreading the skein wide to enmesh the
northbound acquatics. He watched the master line cautiously, shipping his oar
and tossing out his own anchor as the heavy cable reached the correct tension,
settling on the stem boards as he waited for the fish to come to him. Farther
out, and both up-and downriver, he could see the hunt outlines of other craft
as they positioned their nets, dark bulks against the argent filigree of the
water. It would, he calculated, be a profitable night for all of Drisse’s
rivermen, but he was most confident of his own catch, for he was certain he had
picked the best spot—and laid his claim before the rest—to enmesh the heart of
the shoal.

 
          
Now
he could rest for a while, letting the net fill before he sculled the
Verrana
round to meet the
Volalle
and the hard labor of hauling in
began. Tomorrow, he thought, after the catch was gutted, he would divide it and
take
the larger boat over to the Keshi bank, where the
horsemen would pay handsomely for such a delicacy. The prospect pleased him and
he thought that with the proceeds he would buy his wife the cabinet she admired
in Lari Suttoth’s workshop. He
stretched,
flexing
muscles only a little wearied by the long row out, and looked up at the moon.
Soon; soon they would come to him: it was merely a question of waiting
patiently for the Idre to yield up her bounty.

 
          
He
reached between his outspread legs with one eye still on the bobbing corks of
the net and found the waterproof sack that lay there, deftly working the cord
loose from the neck and bringing out a slab of pale goat’s milk cheese. The big
knife he wore sliced a chunk from the slab with the skill of habit, his hand
lifting it to his mouth without his eyes moving from the net, and he began to
chew, savoring the pungent taste. He cut a second slice and sheathed the knife,
replacing the cheese and tugging the drawstrings of the sack tight. He
swallowed and drank a mouthful of the thick, dark ale his village brewed,
then
began to chew on the second morsel of cheese.

 
          
Then,
abruptly, he choked it down, leaning forward with his eyes fixed disbelievingly
on the corks. They no longer bobbed on the gentle wash of die Idre, but
stretched in a taut line, shaping a vee that pointed, not north as it should
when the pocheta struck, but south. He cursed softly, thinking that some
drifting piece of debris had snagged his net, though he could see nothing that
suggested flotsam, and moved amidships to set a hand on the master line. His
curse became a grunt of surprise as he felt the line vibrate beneath his
fingers, then a cry of amazement as the corks disappeared beneath the surface
and the line coiled beneath the thwart ran out with a speed that no shoal of
pocheta could produce. Nor any fish he knew of was his final thought before the
cable snapped tight against its fastening and he felt the
Verrana
tilt under the pressure, the planks beneath his feet no
longer secure footing, but a dangerously angled platform.

 
          
Water
splashed inboard and Derwen Pars shouted as he felt his craft spilled from
under him, the Idre enfolding him in a cold, wet embrace. For an instant panic
gripped
him
and he sucked water into his lungs, icy
needles probing his throat and nasal passages as he fought for breath. Then
instinct overcame the panic and he was striking for the surface, head plunging
into moonlit air, his eyes blinking clear in time to see the
Volalle
spun about and turtled just as
his father’s boat had gone down so long ago. Save now there was no floodtide to
explain the capsizement. With the time-stretched clarity that danger brings he
saw Gille
Oman
and Festyn Lewal leap from the turning boat into the river and heard
through their frightened shouting the twanging snap of the net cable, like some
gigantic harp string breaking.

 
          
And
then raw terror gripped him, freezing him so that his legs ceased their
paddling and he was suddenly sunk,
the
shock of
submergement reactivating his body and bringing him back to the surface in time
for his eyes to confirm what had so terrified him.

 
          
A
great dark hulk rose from the water, blacker than the night, a neck thick as a
flit man’s waist supporting a triangular head on which eyes glowed with an
awful fire above a mouth that was all serrated, angular teeth, surrounded by
wavering tendrils that seemed possessed of their own life. It rose up and up,
the net trailing like a shroud, until it hung above the foundered
Volalle,
seeming for a moment to be
suspended in the air, then crashing down to shatter the craft with its bulk.

 
          
Water
swirled, a whirlpool forming as the thing submerged, then the head appeared
again and Festyn Lewal screamed once as the cruel teeth fastened about his
waist and he went under. Derwen felt his stomach chum as half the man bobbed
back to the surface,
then
was gone into the ghastly
maw. He began to swim in the direction of Drisse, but saw that the monster lay
between him and the shore and turned his course just as the creature’s head
swung round, the weirdly glowing eyes fixing on Gille
Oman
, seeming to bathe the unfortunate man in
rubescent light.
Oman
held a knife in his right hand, and he raised it against the thing as
the great head descended. He might as well have struck a pin against a rock,
for the jaws gaped and took him in whole, the fangs grinding against his
yielding flesh, shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat. The bile that had risen
in Derwen’s stomach found its way to his mouth as he saw his friend swallowed
and he flailed helplessly in the water, choking and spitting.

 
          
The
leviathan snaked its serpentine neck in his direction and the massive bulk
flowed effortlessly beneath the churning waves, the wedge of the skull building
a foam crest that cut arrow-straight toward Derwen. Briefly he saw the silver
of that crest incarnadined, the blood of his crew darkening the Idre’s surface.
Then all he saw were the rows of teeth and the pulsing pink throat behind them,
the tendrils that stretched out, slimy and gray as putrescent flesh, and the
glowing, awful eyes.

 
          
The
teeth closed and Derwen Pars was gone, the
Verrana
smashed to matchwood as the monster carried the man down, leaving behind
only wreckage and oily slicks of blood that drifted south, wavering memories of
three lives.

 
          
All
about was confusion, Derwen’s fellow fishermen sculling their craft in close to
see what had happened. None were sure, for none had been
near,
their attention caught only by the screaming, and by the time they arrived
there was only floating timber left. Their own catches went forgotten as they
quartered the river, lanterns lit and voices hailing the survivors they never
found. Finally, as dawn paled the sky and the eastern horizon grew pink, they
gave up the search and turned back to Drisse, congregating in their usual
waterside tavern to debate
who
should carry word to
the missing men’s widows. When that was decided, and all had compared their
stories, delegations went to each household with the tragic news. After that
they went to the chapel to seek enlightenment of the Sisters there, but as all
they were able to tell the Sisters was that they had heard screams and found
the wreckage of two boats, no men either live or drowned, the Sisters could
shed little light on the strange incident. They recorded it, as was their wont,
and prayed for the souls of the dead, but in Drisse it remained a mystery.

 
          
Brannoc
turned back the sleeve of his leaf green shirt with
a!
dramatic
flourish and shook the dice in
the cup of his dark- skinned hand. They rolled across the polished oak of the
table and stuttered to a halt with threes showing on both cubes. White teeth
flashed as the dark man grinned, reaching to scoop up the small pile of coins
that lay beside a pewter flagon of pale yellow wine.

 
          
Tepshen
Lahl’s face remained enigmatic as he took the dice and threw five, reaching
into the pouch on his belt to extract another coin that he tossed toward his
companion. Brannoc caught it in midair, his grin becoming wider still, until it
seemed it must split his face.

 
          
“Enough?”
he enquired mildly. “Or do you remain bent on rendering yourself destitute?”

 
          
Tepshen
grunted and took the flagon, tilting it above his cup to spill the wine brimful
into the container. He lifted the cup, not a drop falling from the rim, and
drank, his eyes calm on Brannoc’s face.

 
          
“The
best of three,” he challenged as he set the cup down.

 
          
“And the stakes?”
Brannoc emptied his own cup and filled it
afresh.

 
          
Tepshen
shrugged, dropping coins. Brannoc studied them a moment, then nodded.
“Very well.”

 
          
He
shook the dice and tossed a seven. Tepshen threw nine, though his expression
did not change as the former
wolf’s
- head snorted and
scooped up the ivory cubes. A three followed and Brannoc laughed, then stopped
as the easterner matched it. He threw six and began to chuckle again. Then
stopped again as Tepshen rolled two sixes and reached across the table to
retrieve what he had bet, his jet eyes glinting as he faced Brannoc and said,
“And what you owe me, barbarian.”