One Tree (31 page)

For a terrible moment, the ship’s peril blanked everything else out of her. But then her heart seemed to come alive with a wrench, and implications of panic shot through her. Grabbing at Cail, she cried over the ferocious background of the wind, “Covenant!” His cabin was to port below the wheeldeck. It must be underwater. He would not be able to save himself from the sea as it rushed in through riven hatches, ruptured portholes, doors burst from their moorings. He would sit there, helpless and empty, while he drowned.

But Cail replied, “Brinn was forewarned! The ur-Lord is safe!”

Safe! Good Christ! Clinging to that hope, she shouted, “Take me to him!”

Ceer turned, called a hail up the deck. A moment later, a Giant near the foremast threw down the end of a rope. The two
Haruchai
caught it, knotted it around Linden’s waist, then gripped it themselves as the Giant drew them all up the steep stone.

Vain remained where he was as if he were content to watch the sea speeding within arm’s reach of his face. For the present, at least, he had satisfied his purpose. The black rigor of his back said plainly that he cared for nothing else.

When the Giant had pulled Linden and the
Haruchai
up to him, he snatched her into a fervid hug. He was Mistweave; and the fear he had felt for her trembled in his thews. Over her shoulder, he shouted praise and thanks to the
Haruchai
.

His Giantish embrace tasted impossibly secure in the gale. But she could not bear to be delayed. The
dromond
hung on the verge of destruction. “Where’s Covenant?” she yelled.

Carefully Mistweave set her down, then pointed away aft. “The Master gathers the crew above the aftermast! Covenant Giantfriend is there! I go to assist at the pumps!”

The
Haruchai
nodded their comprehension. Mistweave tore himself away, scrambled to a hatch which gave access to the underdecks, and disappeared.

Holding Linden between them, Cail and Ceer began to move toward Foodfendhall.

Cautiously navigating the lifelines, they brought her to the upper door. Within the housing, they found that the Giants had strung more cables, enabling them to cross the wreckage to the afterdeck. One lantern still hung at a crazy angle from the midmast, and its wan light revealed the broken litter of tables and benches which lay half-submerged in the lower part of the hall. The destruction seemed like a blow struck at the very heart of the Giants—at their love of communal gathering.

But the
Haruchai
did not delay to grieve over the damage. Firmly they bore Linden out to the afterdeck.

Most of her other shipmates were there, perched in various attitudes along the starboard rail above the mast. Through the clenched twilight, she could see more than a score of Giants, including Pitchwife, the First, Seadreamer, and Honninscrave. Pitchwife shouted a relieved welcome to her; but she hardly heard him. She was hunting for a glimpse of Covenant.

After a moment, she located the Unbeliever. He was partially hidden by Seadreamer’s protective bulk. Brinn and Hergrom were braced on either side of him; and he hung slack between them as if all his bones had been broken.

Ceer and Cail took Linden up a lifeline to one of the cables which ran the length of the afterdeck eight or ten paces below the railing, lashed there to permit movement back and forth, and to catch anyone who might fall. In the arrangement of the lines, she recognized Honninscrave’s meticulous concern for his crew, the life of his ship. He was busy directing the placement of more cables so that his people would be enclosed in a network of supports.

As she was brought near Covenant, his presence gave her a false energy. She took hold of the arm Seadreamer extended toward her, moved like brachiation from him to Brinn and the railing. Then she huddled beside Covenant and at once began to explore him for injuries or deterioration.

He was nearly as wet as she, and automatic shivers ran through him like an ague in the marrow of his bones. But in other ways he was as well as the
Elohim
had left him. His eyes stared as if they had lost the capability of focus; his mouth hung open; water bedraggled his beard. When she examined him, he repeated his warning almost inaudibly against the background of the wind. But the words meant nothing to him.

Weakened by relief and pain, she sagged at his side.

The First and Pitchwife were nearby, watching for her verdict on Covenant’s state. Linden shook her head; and Pitchwife winced. But the First said nothing. She held herself as if the absence of any bearable foe cramped her muscles. She was a trained warrior; but the Giantship’s survival depended on sea-craft, not swords. Linden met the First’s gaze and nodded. She knew how the Swordmain felt.

Looking around the
dromond
, she was appalled to see that Galewrath still stood at Shipsheartthew. Locked between the stone spokes of the wheel and the deck, the Storesmaster held her place with the stolid intransigence of a statue. At first, Linden did not understand why Galewrath stayed in a place of such exposure and strain—or why the Master allowed anyone to remain there. But then her thinking clarified. The
dromond
still needed its rudder to maintain its precarious balance. In addition, if the wind shifted forward Galewrath might be able to turn Starfare’s Gem perpendicular to the blast again; for the Giantship would surely sink if any change sent its prow even slightly into the wind. And if the gale shifted aft, she might have a chance to turn away. With the storm at its back, Starfare’s Gem might be able to rise and run.

Linden did not know how even a Giant’s thews could stand the strain Galewrath endured. But the blunt woman clung like hard hope to her task and did not let go.

At last, Honninscrave finished setting his lifelines. Swarming from cable to cable, he climbed to join the First and Pitchwife near Linden. As he moved, he shouted encouragements and jests to the hunched shapes of his crew. Pitchwife had described him accurately: he was in his element. His oaken shoulders bore the
dromond
’s plight as if the burden were light to him.

Reaching Linden’s proximity, he called, “Be not daunted, Chosen! Starfare’s Gem will yet redeem us from this storm!”

She was no match for him. His fortitude only underscored her apprehension. Her voice nearly broke as she returned, “How many have we lost?”

“Lost?” His reply pierced the blind ferocity of the hurricane. “None! Your forewarning prepared us! All are here! Those you see not I have sent to the pumps!” As he spoke, Linden became aware that bursts of water were slashing away from the side of the ship above her, boiling into mist and darkness as the wind tore them from the
pumpholes. “Those to port we cannot employ. But those to starboard we have linked across the holds. Sevinhand, who commands below, reports that his crew keeps pace. We endure, Chosen! We will survive!”

She groped for a share of his faith and could not find it. “Maybe we should abandon ship!”

He gaped at her. She heard the folly of her words before he responded, “Do you wish to chance this sea in a longboat?”

Helplessly she asked, “What’re you going to do?”

“Naught!” he returned in a shout like a challenge. “While this gale holds, we are too precarious. But when the change comes, as come it must—Then perhaps you will see that the Giants are sailors—and Starfare’s Gem, a ship—to make the heart proud!

“Until that time, hold faith! Stone and Sea, do you not comprehend that we are alive?”

But she was no longer listening to him. The imponderable screech and yowl of the blast seemed to strike straight at Covenant. He was shivering with cold. His need was poignant to her; but she did not know how to touch him. Her hands were useless, so deeply chilled that she could hardly curl them into fists. Slow blood oozed from several abrasions on her palms, formed in viscid drops between her fingers. She paid no attention to it.

Later, large bowls of
diamondraught
were passed among the companions. The Giantish liquor reduced her weakness somewhat, enabling her to go on clinging for her life. But still she did not raise her head. She could not think why Vain had saved her. The force of the storm felt like an act of malice. Surely if the Demondim-spawn had not saved her the blast would have been appeased.

Her health-sense insisted that the hurricane was a natural one, not a manifestation of deliberate evil. But she was so badly battered by the wind’s violence and the cold, so eroded by her fear, that she no longer knew the difference.

They were all going to die, and she had not yet found a way to give Covenant back his mind.

Later still, night effaced the last illumination. The gale did not abate; it appeared to have blown out the stars. Nothing but a few weak lanterns—one near Galewrath, the rest scattered along the upper edge of the afterdeck—reduced the blackness. The wind went on reaping across the sea with a sound as shrill as a scythe. Through the stone came the groaning of the masts as they protested against their moorings, the repetitive thud and pound of the pumps. All the crewmembers took turns below, but their best efforts were barely enough to keep pace with the water. They could not lessen the great salt weight which held Starfare’s Gem on its side. More
diamondraught
was passed around. The day had seemed interminable. Linden did not know how she could face the night and stay sane.

By degrees, her companions sank into themselves as she did. Dismay covered them like the night, soaked into them like the cold. If the wind shifted now, Galewrath would have no forewarning. In the distant light of her lantern, she looked as immobile as stone, no longer capable of the reactions upon which the
dromond
might depend. Yet Honninscrave sent no one to relieve her: any brief uncertainty while Shipsheartthew changed hands might cause the vessel to founder. And so the Giants who were not at the pumps had no other way to fight for their lives except to cling and shiver. Eventually even the Master’s chaffering could not rouse them to hope or spirit. They crouched
against the rail, with the black sea running almost directly below them, and waited like men and women who had been sentenced to death.

But Honninscrave did not leave them alone. When his guyings and jollyings became ineffective, he shouted unexpectedly, “Ho, Pitchwife! The somnolence of these Giants abashes me! In days to come, they will hang their heads to hear such a tale told of them! Grant us a song to lift our hearts, that we may remember who we are!”

From a place near her, Linden heard the First mutter mordantly, “Aye, Pitchwife. Grant them a song. When those who are whole falter, those who are halt must bear them up.”

But Pitchwife did not appear to hear her. “Master!” he replied to Honninscrave with a frantic laugh, “I have been meditating such a song! It may not be kept silent, for it swells in my heart, becoming too great for any breast to contain! Behold!” With a lugubrious stagger, he let himself fall down the deck. When he hit the first lifeline, it thrummed under his weight, but held. Half-reclining against the line, he faced upward. “It will boon me to sing this song for you!”

Shadows cast by the lanterns made his misshapen face into a grimace. But his grin was unmistakable; and as he continued his humor became less forced.

“I will sing the song which Bahgoon sang, in the aftermath of his taming by his spouse and harridan, that many-legended odalisque Thelma Twofist!”

The power of his personal mirth drew a scattering of wan cheers and ripostes from the despondent Giants.

Striking a pose of exaggerated melancholy, he began. He did not actually sing; he could not make a singing voice audible. But he delivered his verses in a pitched rhythmic shout which affected his listeners like music.

It was a lengthy song; but after a moment Linden was distracted from it. Faintly she heard the First murmuring to herself, clearly unaware that anyone could hear her.

“Therefore do I love you, Pitchwife,” she said into the wind and the night. “In sooth, this is a gift to lift the heart. Husband, it shames me that I do not equal your grace.”

In a beneficial way, the deformed Giant seemed to shame all the crew. To answer his example, they stirred from their disconsolation, responded to each other as if they were coming back to life. Some of them were laughing; others straightened their backs, tightened their grips on the railing, as if by so doing they could better hear the song.

Instinctively Linden roused herself with them. Their quickening emanations urged her to shrug off some of her numbness.

But when she did so, her percipience began to shout at her. Behind the restoration of the Giants rose a sense of peril. Something was approaching the Giantship—something malefic and fatal.

It had nothing to do with the storm. The storm was not evil. This was.

“Chosen?” Cail asked.

Distinctly Covenant said, “Don’t touch me.”

She tried to rise to her feet. Only Cail’s swift intervention kept her from tumbling toward Pitchwife.

“Jesus!” She hardly heard herself. The darkness and the gale deafened her. “It’s going to attack us
here
!”

The First swung toward her. “Attack us?”

As Linden cried out, “That Raver!” the assault began.

Scores of long dark shapes seethed out of the water below the aftermast. They broke through the reflections of the lanterns, started to wriggle up the steep stone.

As they squirmed upward, they took light. The air seemed to ignite them in fiery red.

Burning with crimson internal heat like fire-serpents, they attacked the deck, swarming toward Covenant and Linden.