Braddon Torcreek remained a mostly still and silent figure, eating only when Skaggerhill pressed him to it and then partaking of a scant few mouthfuls at a time. Hilemore couldn’t help but be reminded of the man they had found frozen to death in the tunnels at Kraghurst Station. Tends to happen when a fella loses all hope of deliverance, Scrimshine had said. Braddon, Hilemore knew, could find no deliverance from his guilt.
They drifted for three full days, Hilemore diligently plotting their course with the sextant and estimating they had covered a distance of twenty-three miles from the spire. “Only another hundred or so to the pole then,” Scrimshine observed. “We got a flag to plant?”
“Sadly, I was remiss in not bringing one,” Hilemore replied, finding he truly did regret the oversight. It would have been good to leave some monument to the most southerly journey human beings had ever undertaken, albeit inadvertently.
“We could make one,” Scrimshine suggested. “Break up the sleds to fashion a flag-pole, sew some tarps together for the pennant. Something to do at least, Skipper.”
Hilemore saw wisdom in his reasoning. After their initial enthusiasm the party’s exercise regimen had slackened off considerably, most sitting lethargic and preoccupied by their impending fate. He was about to start rousing them to the task when an unexpected someone called his name. Preacher hadn’t said a word since they climbed Mount Reygnar, and precious little before then, so it took a second to recognise his voice. The tall cleric stood on the south-facing edge of the berg, pointing at something in the maze of bergs covering the horizon.
“See something?” Hilemore asked, moving to Preacher’s side.
“A ship,” the marksman said, still pointing.
“Can’t be,” Scrimshine said. “Probably just a trick of the light. No offence,” he added quickly when Preacher turned his impassive gaze on him.
Hilemore saw the smuggler’s point; no vessel could have sailed this far south through so many bergs, not in the few days since the sheet broke up. However, recalling that it was thanks to Preacher’s eyes that they found the spire, Hilemore retrieved his spy-glass from the folds of his furs and raised it to his eye. It took some seconds of focusing the lens before he found it, a low dark shape just visible through a gap between two bergs, and rising from it the unmistakable sight of three masts.
“It seems,” Hilemore said, lowering the glass, “the ice has one more wonder to show us, Mr. Scrimshine.”
? ? ?
It transpired that they had to break up the sleds after all, but to build a boat rather than a flag-pole. Although the drift of their berg had brought them to within a few hundred yards of the mysterious ship, it had become clear that its course was unlikely to bring them any closer. Steelfine did most of the work, putting Island-born skills to use. Within the space of two hours he had crafted a bowl-shaped frame from the pliable struts, which was duly covered by a skin of hastily-sewn-together tarps. Hilemore forbade the Islander from taking charge of the craft, knowing this duty fell to him.
“I can’t guarantee she’ll make it all the way, sir,” Steelfine cautioned. They had lowered the boat over the edge where it bobbed in the current, a small pool of water already sloshing in the bottom.
“I have every confidence in your skills, Lieutenant.” Hilemore nodded towards the ship and the hump of an upturned life-boat visible on its upper deck. “She only has to last a few minutes.”
He was obliged to use a rifle as an oar and it proved a clumsy implement, barely capable of ploughing a course through the swirling currents. Several times the tiny craft was spun about by an eddy before Hilemore managed to reassert control. They had fixed a line to the edge of the boat’s hull, insurance against the life-boat on the ship proving to be unsailable. The men played out the line as Hilemore made his often-wayward progress towards the ship. It took an hour of arduous labour before he drew close enough to get a clear view of her hull. He was pleased to find it intact, the lower planks clad in iron and lacking any obvious damage or even overt signs of age, though this vessel was undoubtedly of antique construction. She lacked any stacks or paddles, the three masts telling of a ship built in the pre–Blood Age.
Hilemore was obliged to navigate a gap between two towering bergs, finding the current even more violent and difficult to traverse. By the time he made it through and the ship’s hull towered above him, the once-shallow pool of water in the bottom of his makeshift boat had swollen to ankle depth. Hilemore unslung a rope from around his chest, taking hold of the grapple and preparing to throw, then pausing as his eyes caught sight of the ship’s name-plate. The word had lost its paint long ago. Now he was close enough to read it clearly, he could make out a name set in Mandinorian letters rich in archaic flourishes: Dreadfire.
CHAPTER 31
Clay
The lake turned out to be more of a sea and the bridge more of a road. The crystals faded twice before they caught sight of another land-mass, an island even smaller than the one now home to the ruins of Kriz’s home. So far their erstwhile captor and subsequent saviour hadn’t provided any further information on her origins or explanation for the island’s destruction.
She kept on striding along the algae-covered road, resting for short intervals and only stopping completely when the light of the three suns faded. She ate several of the sea-biscuits Clay offered her, but bunched her face in disdain when he proffered a strip of dried beef. After that she sat in silence, offering only vague shakes of her head to his repeated questions as she maintained a careful vigil over the surrounding waters. The reason for her caution soon became clear. Almost as soon as the darkness closed in the surface of the water was broken by a series of bright splashes. One flared only a few yards shy of the road’s edge, Clay catching sight of gleaming scales and a long snake-like form before another splash erupted and it was gone.
“Stands to reason there had to be more Blues,” he told an alarmed Loriabeth, now crouched to one knee, cocked pistol fanning back and forth across the water. “Seem to be just as titchy as the ones back at the shore.”
He turned to Kriz, who seemed much less alarmed by the Blue’s appearance than he might have expected. “Guess they just grow smaller here, huh?” he asked, elaborating by making a shrinking gesture with his hands. Kriz merely gave him a blank look before returning her gaze to the waters, the small brass-and-steel weapon clutched tight in her hand.
Their brief sharing of minds had increased the understanding between them so he found it increasingly easy to discern meaning in some of her infrequent words. He also suspected that she comprehended more of his conversations with Loriabeth and Sigoral than she let on. However, when he suggested, via some inexpert miming, that they trance again, she refused with a firm shake of her head.