CHAPTER VI
REUTH KEPT A wary eye out when Tulan ordered the Lady’s Luck in to land a party to search for water and provisions. This northern coast had proved singularly unpromising; long stretches of black gravel beaches, hillsides of low brush and bare smooth stone highlands. But provisions and water were low, and so Tulan dropped anchor in a bay and lowered a launch carrying a landing party under Storval.
That was four days ago. Four days since the party was last seen walking inland to be lost behind the lazy curve of a coastal rise. Short trees – large bushes, really – provided the main greenery of this coast. That and lichens and moss. Far inland, on the clearest of days, a distant range of gleaming mountain tops could just be seen. From his research Reuth alone knew their names: the Salt range, east and west. Or, on some charts: the Blood Mountains. Their destination.
Why then did he dread the sight of them?
On the morning of the fifth day – the last day Tulan said he would wait for them – the crewman atop the mast called out a sighting. Reuth ran to the side. Two figures came shambling into sight. Limping, running, helping each other along. They heaved the launch out and struggled over its side as it rose and fell in the surge.
‘Only two,’ Reuth breathed and Tulan shot him an angry glare. Reuth realized, belatedly, that everyone had seen this but that only he had been foolish enough to say it aloud. It was as Tulan said: too long in the dusty halls bent over manuscripts and not enough time spent among sailors. Well, after this voyage, he would have spent more than enough time at sea.
That is, should they ever get home.
The two managed to ready the oars and steady the nose of the launch to point it out to the bay. Reuth glanced away to scan the beaches of rolled gravel for signs of pursuit, but saw none. Where were the attackers? Surely these two couldn’t have outrun them. Yet no followers betrayed themselves amid the ash-hued naked rock.
Then movement on the nearest hilltop caught his attention. Figures came walking out into the open to stand atop the domed rock. Tall and slim, wearing tanned hide jerkins and trousers. They carried long spears, or javelins. Long brownish hair blew unbound in the winds.
Crewmen spotted them and shouted, pointing.
Tulan just grunted and muttered something about ‘damned natives’.
The launch reached them. Lines were thrown, attached to it. The two climbed up a rope ladder. It was Storval and Galip. Both carried flesh wounds, cuts and slashes.
‘The others?’ Tulan demanded.
Storval just shook his head, still winded, breathing heavily. He dropped two fat skins of water to the deck.
‘This wouldn’t have happened if you’d had Kyle with you,’ Reuth told Storval.
The first mate turned on him, his face flushed, enraged, his hand going to the dirk at his side. Tulan slapped the man’s hand aside, grasped Reuth’s arm and dragged him off. ‘You’re supposed to be a smart lad,’ he hissed. ‘So think before you open your damned hole.’
Reuth peered past his uncle to the first mate. ‘Well … it’s true.’ And he walked away.
He leaned on his elbows over the side while Tulan bellowed to get the crew moving for departure. Sailors readied the running rigging. Arms crossed on the railing, he eyed the figures on the shore, who still had not moved. Seeing us off. The Barren Shore, he knew, was one name for this stretch of the northern coast. Fitting. Another name was the Plain of Ghosts.
He decided he did not want to discover whether or not that appellation was accurate.
Some charts he’d studied had included an inlet in the northern coast that led to rivers and a settlement. A fortress named Taken. But on this coast, on these lands of Assail, Reuth decided not to lead the ship to a fortress with the name of Taken. No, not in these lands. He hoped instead that they would find water before then; some unnamed stream or trickle – anything.
Again, while he daydreamed, his thoughts went to Kyle, as they often did. He must have made it to shore – he’d seemed completely confident that he could. And ashore, he must have headed north. If anyone could make it, he could. Perhaps of all of them he would be the only one to succeed.
Wouldn’t that be an irony? And the probable truth, too, given how the gods seemed to relish irony, reversals, and fitting unanticipated rewards for deeds both good and evil. And on that account, Reuth believed they had earned what they had so far received – the very real possibility of an ugly anonymous death on some desolate shore like this.
It had been wrong of them to turn on Whiteblade like that. His uncle should have thought further ahead. Given the dangers, they would have been so much more secure with him among their crew. Reuth did not think much of their chances now. And that was fitting. For he too had known it was wrong, yet he’d shrunk from drawing a blade and standing with his friend.
He was a coward, and he deserved whatever shameful death the gods had set astride the path of his life.
He heard Tulan come stomping up behind him. ‘Are there no rivers marked on this shore?’ he demanded.
Reuth turned round and peered calmly up at his uncle. ‘We’re bound to come across a stream eventually,’ he assured him.
Tulan cocked an eye beneath his tangled bushy brows, as if troubled by the answer in some vague manner that he could not pin down. Then he snorted and lumbered off, muttering darkly beneath his breath.
Reuth returned to contemplating the iron-grey waters. Yes, eventually they would find water. Or they would not. It did not matter. Eventually, just as certainly, they would meet their end.
And there was nothing any of them could do about it.