Voyage of the Fox Rider (78 page)

On the eighteenth of June the
Eroean
at last came full into the South Polar Sea, and a shrieking wind howled easterly, hurling snow and ice and the Elvenship before its brutal blast. Great greybeards loomed over the ocean, dwarfing the tall
Eroean
, and though her sharp bow cut through the peaks of the towering crests, her hull jarringly boomed down into the troughs beyond. The Sun no longer rose, day now as dark as night, and the screaming air was frigid beyond endurance. By Aylis’s casting and Aravan’s charting they knew that their quarry sailed eastward far ahead, some twenty-eight hundred miles in all, the black galley seemingly on a direct course for the Silver Cape, Durlok yet some twelve hundred miles from the straits, the Elvenship nearly three thousand.

“Kruk!” cursed Bokar, slamming his fist to the table. “I had hoped to catch him before the pinch of those dire narrows.”

At Bokar’s words, Aravan’s eyes lighted up and he glanced down at the map. The ship whelmed down into the brine and slid into the trough below, then began a climb up to the crest ahead. None said aught as the lantern cast swaying shadows in the rocking salon, and by its yellow light Aravan gauged the distances. At last he looked to Frizian. “What silks are we running?”

“Nought but the mains, Captain, and those goose-winged.”

“Then, Frizian, set the mains at full, all topsails, too. Fly the jibs and stays as well, yet mount not the gallants and above.”

“But, Captain,” protested Jatu. “This air. It blows. Oh how it does blow. And that much silk endangers the masts.”

Aravan turned up a hand. “Mayhap, Jatu, yet I deem she can withstand the press.” The Elven captain then glanced at the others. “Heed me, all of ye. We’re going to try to ride the Hèlbent wind and catch the Black Mage in the straits.”

“
In
the straits!” exclaimed Bokar. “Are my ears deceiving me? Did I hear you say
in
the straits?”

“Aye, Bokar. What better place to take him by surprise?”

And the hull of the
Eroean
boomed down.

In the dark thundering wind, sailors in polar gear clambered up the ratlines to unfurl the silks. Even though dressed to withstand the blast, still the Men spent as little time aloft in the savage blow as completing the task allowed; no sooner would one crew finish and come running back into shelter, than another crew would charge across the deck and up to a given yardarm to loosen ties and lashings, then scurry back down as mates on the deck haled the halyards about and set the silk to the wind. In short order the mains and tops were deployed, the jibs and stays swiftly after. And the masts groaned and ropes thrummed under the shrieking burden as great greybeards hurtled through the night across the frigid polar sea.

And in the wheelhouse, Aravan called out to be heard above the roar, “Set her course for east-southeast, Jatu.”

“But, Captain, that will take us to the polar cap, and should we get caught in the ice…we’ll be crushed.”

“Nevertheless, Jatu, it is the shortest route to the straits. ‘Tis a great circle we run on this globe and not some flat-world path, so point her stem to east-southeast.”

“Aye, Captain,” replied Jatu, relaying the order to Boder, with Rico piping the sails to trim her up in the hurling wind.

“Twenty-nine knots, Captain,” bellowed Jatu over his shoulder, awe in his voice as he and Artus entered the dimly lit wheelhouse and struggled to shut the door against the brumal blow. “By Adon, but I can barely believe it—do you realize that in the last three days we’ve not been below twenty knots? Adon and Elwydd, in but three days we have run nearly two thousand miles! No other ship has ever before done so.”

“No other ship has e’er before been driven by such a thundering wind,” replied Aravan.

“Jatu,” called out Jinnarin, she and Farrix standing on the sill of the forward window, “don’t you remember you once told me that had we a polar blow abaft we could sail entire oceans in but a week or so.”

“Yes, tiny one. But never did I think to see the day.”

“At least it’s stopped snowing.” said Farrix as he squinted out into the polar night. Of a sudden he pressed his face to the window and cupped his hands about his eyes to shield out the light from the hooded lantern behind. “I say, Aravan, is that a white mountain ahead?”

Aravan whirled about and peered through the glass. “Lantern out!” he barked, and Geff leaped to comply and slammed the shutter to. As the wheelhouse was plunged into near darkness—pinpricks of light leaking through the closed shield—“Yes,” cried Farrix, “either a white mountain or a wall of ice, and I know which I’d wager it is!”

“Where away?” snapped Aravan, peering into the long polar night, moonless and starless beneath the racing black overcast above.

“In the distance ahead. To the right, the starboard.”
Farrix pointed. “We are going to come very close, maybe even graze it. Don’t you see it?”

“Nay, I do not! Hegen, larboard two points! Put the wind on our aft quarter! Reydeau, pipe the sails! Take care, ye both, for she’ll founder if we put her broadside to these waves!”

Driven before the shrieking blow, the
Eroean
plunged ahead, curving in a long, long arc as she answered the helm—swiftly for a ship of her size, slowly given the hazard. Hurriedly the standby crew scrambled onto the deck, swinging the halyards about, as well as trimming the jibs and stays. And the Elvenship curved through the towering rage to swing alongside and then away from a vertical wall of ice looming some eight hundred yards to the starboard.

Above the squall and boom, Jinnarin called out to Aravan, “I told you Farrix’s eyes were keen.”

Aravan nodded. “Keen indeed is thine eyesight, Farrix, Pysk of Darda Glain, for thou didst see the floe by dark of night some two or so miles away. In this polar darkness without stars or Moon, mine own eyes see a mile or less.”

“At the speed we are travelling, Captain,” rumbled Jatu, “nearly thirty knots, should we encounter something directly in our line less than a mile away, we will collide with it in under a hundred heartbeats.”

Hegen cleared his throat in the dark of the wheelhouse. “With your permission, Captain, I think we need such a lookout as Master Farrix here to steer us through this cursed everlasting night. I hear tell that the Silver Cape, well, she be named ‘silver’ because of the ice which lies in the straits summer and winter all ‘round, though worse at this time of year. And, well, the throat of the pinch can not be more than two days ahead, given the rate we run.”

“I’d be glad to stand watch, Aravan,” declared Farrix. “Burn me, but there’s little else to do. And though she doesn’t think so, Jinnarin’s eyes are as keen as mine.”

Jatu rumbled, “Even given a Pysk warning of two miles or three, still I doubt that we could miss something large in our path if we continue running at this speed. Our chances of doing so would be slim at best.”

“Nevertheless, Jatu,” replied Aravan, “a slim chance
is better than none. I deem Hegen has the right of it—we should have Pysk eyes at watch.”

“What about Alamar and Aylis?” asked Jinnarin. “I mean, they have magesight. Perhaps they can stand watch as well.”

“With your permission again, Captain,” said Hegen, “Lady Jinnarin is right. We can use all the eyes we can get…though Mage Alamar, well, I’m wondering if he has the strength in him, what with him now being so old and all. I mean, he was old before he went into the Great Swirl, but now he looks to be on his very last legs.”

Farrix turned and looked at Aravan. “Captain, let him stand watch with me. He desperately needs something to do.”

Pondering, Aravan stroked his jaw. At last he said, “If Lady Aylis says that he can afford to cast the spell, can withstand the drain of astral fire, then, aye, he can stand watch with thee.”

The next day the skies cleared and austral stars shone down and on this day a waxing half Moon would rise in the southeast and circle low to the horizon up ‘round the north and down again to set in the southwest. And though it was clear, still the thundering wind continued its savage blast, and great greybeards towered over the seas. And still the
Eroean
raced across the icy brine, cutting up through mountainous crests to slam hard into the water and ride down through abyssal troughs, the ship now running east-northeast on a great circle leading to the straits of the Silver Cape.

As she had done every day, Aylis cast a spell to locate Durlok, the lexicon a seer’s lodestar to the Black Mage. “There,” she murmured, pointing, “three hundred fifty miles or so.”

Aravan noted the direction, and plotted a point on the map. “He yet fares toward the straits, some seventy leagues before him, some two hundred leagues from us.”

“Captain,” rumbled Jatu after a swift calculation, “can we continue to run at this pace, tomorrow we will be in the straits nigh mid of night.”

Bokar looked at the darkness showing through the
portholes. “Ha! In an everlasting night, when does mid of night come?”

In the swaying lantern light, Aravan glanced up from the map. “Tomorrow comes the summer solstice—Year’s Long Day in the north, Year’s Long Night down here.”

As the wind howled and the ship rode up to crests and plunged down into troughs and the sea boomed against the hull, Jinnarin braced herself against the roll and looked down at the map. “Will we catch Durlok at the straits?”

Spanning between the marks which registered Durlok’s daily positions, Aravan used thumb and forefinger to gauge when the Black Mage would enter the straits. Then he looked at Jinnarin and said, “Aye, if the wind holds, ‘tis likely that we will catch him up somewhere nigh.”

Jinnarin suddenly shivered. “Ooo, I just remembered: the last time we met Durlok on a Year’s Long Night, he nearly sank us.”

Braced by Aravan, Aylis stood in the wheelhouse, her eyes closed, the lexicon in one hand, her other outstretched to the fore. “Twenty miles,
there
.”

“A point larboard, Boder,” hissed Aravan. “Rico, trim her up. At his rate and ours, we will be on him in less than an hour.”

Bokar gritted, “The ballistas are ready, Captain. Warriors stand by below the hatches waiting my signal.”

Farrix peered out into the starlight, Jinnarin at his side. In a tall chair fastened to the deck sat Alamar, the elder peering out as well. The
Eroean
raced toward the throat of the strait, massive bergs and floes to left and right and fore, monstrous waves smashing against mountains of ice. And should the starlight fail, Aravan would depend on the Mage and Pysks to guide the ship safely through. But now the starlight shown down, and Aravan needed nothing other than his own keen Elven sight.