Dangerous Waters (19 page)

They crossed that first ridge on hands and knees to avoid being sky-lined. The far slope dropped steeply down, bare earth corded with roots. Kusint jumped from the last crumbling ledge to land beside a green-furred puddle. Yellow-veined leaves sprouted in clumps beside another stagnant slick.

Corrain saw movement through a cluster of red canes further along the gully. He was surprised to feel dull relief. They were caught. Hosh would know he hadn’t been abandoned.

If Khusro Rina’s men didn’t kill them on the spot. They’d seen that straying slaves suffered no worse than a beating for breaking the bounds of a trading beach. No wonder. Kill a visiting ship’s rowers and a warlord would have to recompense the vessel’s master. They’d been relying on that, as they planned to test the Khusro guards’ vigilance. But there could be no mistaking them for anything but runaway slaves if they were caught so far from the shore.

Corrain heard an odd barking sound. Dogs, after all?

‘What are those?’ Kusint moved for a better look, mystified.

Corrain could only shake his head. ‘I have no idea.’ The island harbouring the corsairs was a small one and he’d only ever seen goats among the trees. Starving slaves had long since trapped and eaten everything else.

Black-furred creatures were lapping from a bigger pond beyond the canes. About the size of a lurcher, they had dog-like muzzles but as one sat up on its haunches, it showed rat-like forepaws, long-fingered and sharply clawed. The largest stood upright, bow-legged and lashing a tail as long and lithe as a cat’s. It barked again, inky lips drawn back to show formidable teeth. Corrain didn’t take his eyes off the creature, lest it suddenly spring.

‘No one’s hunting us here,’ Kusint said with satisfaction, ‘or they wouldn’t be drinking.’ But as he spoke, the lithe creatures darted away, scurrying up trees to vanish among the leaves.

Corrain didn’t wait to see if their arrival had startled the beasts or the creatures’ large furry ears had heard Khusro Rina’s men. Kusint was already running. They didn’t pause until they put another tree clad ridge between themselves and the shore.

‘Wait.’ Corrain slowed. ‘I need those.’ He pointed at tight clusters of fleshy leaves in a patch of dappled sunlight. ‘Leatherspear, the corsairs call them.’ So Hosh had said, Corrain recalled with a bitter pang. ‘Good for burns.’

Careful of the spiny tip, Corrain twisted a leaf free and tore it lengthways. He offered one half to Kusint, belatedly noticing that his antics with the flaming cloth had scorched his hands as well. ‘Lay it pulp side down.’

He breathed slowly as the cool juice soothed his burns. These injuries should scab cleanly, as long as he could find more of these plants over the next few days. That was a relief because after all this travail, Corrain was not prepared to die from such trifling wounds. Not after losing Hosh. He breathed a savage prayer to Poldrion, hoping that the silent man died screaming after days of festering agony.

Twisting another leaf free, he used his teeth to split its tough base, spitting out the bitterness. This would be so much easier with a knife.

Kusint waited until he’d treated the burns on both his forearms. ‘Let’s go.’

By the time that the yellowing sunlight heralded the Archipelago’s swift dusk, Corrain had wished for a knife a hundred times over, to strike back at the vicious leaves or to cut through knots of creepers. Hunger gnawed at his belly. With something to cut the thinnest, wiry vines, they could have rigged a snare, maybe caught one of the lapdog sized deer they saw or even a forest hog rooting with its odd spiral tusks. He was hungry enough to risk eating one raw.

Kusint interrupted his fruitless musing, his lean face taut with exhaustion. ‘Let’s get to higher ground before dark. Talagrin only knows what will come down to drink.’

They were following yet another narrow defile carved by a stream through the rumpled landscape. The Forest lad was right. Corrain looked for a route up the steep valley side and then at the streambed strewn with sharp-edged rocks, plenty of them large enough to snap a falling man’s spine.

‘We have to free our hands.’ He looked around for a boulder to serve as an anvil. ‘Spread your fists. Keep the chain taut.’

The first hammer stone he tried split clean in half. Cursing, he tried another. It held but so did the chain. Worse, every crashing strike echoed back from the ravine’s sides.

Corrain’s throat tightened with apprehension lest the noise drew some hunter’s attention, man or beast. The stubborn metal finally yielded.

‘My thanks for that.’ Kusint stretched his long arms wide with a fervent groan of appreciation.

‘My turn.’ Corrain had no time to waste.

The shadows were thickening ominously before the second chain finally fractured. Night had truly fallen by the time they reached the top of the slope, grazed and dirty from heart-stopping slips as the plants that seemingly offered handholds proved perilously shallow rooted.

‘Which way?’ Corrain looked up. Precious little light was finding its way through the trees. There’d be little enough out in the open. The Greater Moon was dark with the Lesser only at her half. That’s how they’d known this was a trading voyage, without the highest tides ahead to carry the corsairs onto the mainland and a raid.

‘We had better sit tight till dawn,’ Kusint said reluctantly. ‘I don’t fancy stumbling into some abyss.’

‘True enough.’ Corrain yielded to his exhaustion. ‘They can’t hunt us in the dark.’

‘I wish we had a fire,’ Kusint muttered some while later.

They were sitting back to back in the shelter of a bushy tree. Not too close to the trunk, for fear of snakes in the branches, on bare earth they had cautiously swept clear, for fear of scorpions amid the leaf litter.

The black night was alive with insects churring and chittering, hovering close before darting in to bite their sweaty flesh. Unable to see their tormenters, unable to see their own hands in front of their faces, neither man could swat the bloodsuckers.

Corrain grunted. ‘I didn’t see those rocks strike a single spark from our chains.’

They sat in silence through the interminable night. Small creatures squeaked and rustled through the undergrowth. Some larger beast passed slowly by, ponderous and ominous. They heard its heavy breathing, flanks brushing the leaves along one of the deer trails. Predator or prey? Corrain didn’t want to find out.

Finally the first hint of day filtered through the leaves. His hunger reawoke, clawing at his belly.

‘Let’s find something to eat.’ Kusint looked gaunt in the half-light.

But picking a cautious path through the grey jungle, they found precious little that Corrain knew to be wholesome.

‘I’d settle for some water.’ Kusint wiped sweat from his brow. ‘We should find a stream heading for the sea anyway. Let’s get our bearings.’

Before Corrain could ask what he meant, the Forest lad was climbing a tree, lithe as any squirrel. As he vanished, Corrain scowled at the thick green leaves. Fall and break a bone and Kusint might as well break his neck. Corrain had no hope of stealing a boat with an injured man—

Kusint dropped back down and grinned through his weariness. ‘I can see the sea and a stream heading that way.’

‘Any smoke?’ Corrain demanded. Fires meant people and even if word of fleeing slaves hadn’t reached these remote thickets, they were clearly fugitives, shaggy-haired and unwashed.

Was anybody hunting them? Had they beaten the plan out of Hosh? Not that the lad could betray which way they had gone. Corrain had no idea where they’d wandered by now. But would the whip master believe that before he’d flogged Hosh to death? Would they kill the fool boy just to warn the other slaves off planning such boldness?

Kusint shook his head. ‘No smoke. No roofs. No noise.’

‘Lead on.’ As Corrain gestured, the last of the withered leatherspear fell from his arm. He kept his eyes open for more of the plants as Kusint forced a path toward the stream he’d seen. They were both bleeding from plenty of fresh scratches by the time they reached it.

The going was easier after that. Following the deepening rivulet, they emerged into the mid-morning sun above a narrow creek. Before Corrain could stop him, with a whoop that shook a flock of emerald birds from the trees, Kusint jumped feet first in the water.

Corrain hastily searched the banks for any sign of people. None to be seen. That was both good and bad news. They needed to find people to find a boat, unless they planned on paddling out to sea on a floating log.

He contemplated the darkly swirling water. Much as he longed to scrub off some grime and cool his itching insect bites, he decided not to risk some corruption from the mud on his burns.

‘This way to the sea.’

As Kusint swam, Corrain followed on the bank. Reaching the mouth of the creek, they found waves breaking noisily on black shingle. Kusint clambered out of the water and Corrain found a path of sorts tracing along the coast. As noon approached, he was beginning to despair. The rocky cliffs were rising ever steeper, plunging sheer into waters deep enough to drown a man inside a heartbeat. They toiled through the vicious tangle of another tree-choked headland.

‘Trimon be thanked.’ Hoarse with thirst, Kusint pointed to a cove lying below them. Boats hung with nets were hauled up on the beach. Huts straggled beneath a line of nut palms well beyond the high water mark.

Corrain gripped his arm. ‘Can you sail those?’

Kusint nodded. ‘If we can steal one.’

Corrain gauged the sun overhead. This was the hottest stretch of the day. If the customs of the corsair anchorage were any guide, whoever lived in this fishing hamlet would be enjoying whatever shade they could find. With luck, the fishermen were sleeping off their night’s labours. Women wouldn’t emerge to cook or send their children foraging among the trees until it grew a little cooler.

He resisted the temptation to scramble down and rush across the sand to the boats. ‘We need water.’

They found a meagre streamlet in a crevice shaded by an opportune tree. They each drank their fill and, once again, Corrain wished for a knife. With a blade he could have fashioned something to carry water for their voyage.

This was madness. They couldn’t hope to make the crossing so hopelessly ill-supplied. Three weeks without food, three days without water. That’s what his old sergeant-at-arms had told him a man could survive. Three days, that had always been the rowing time from the Khusro domain to their first glimpse of Cape Attar, southernmost tip of the mainland.

He looked down at the sandy beach. How could they steal a boat and be safely away in it before those fishermen saw them and chased them down?

What choice did they have? There was no going back. Give up and they might as well jump to their deaths on the black rocks as die slowly lost in the forest. Give up and whatever Hosh was suffering for his sake would be for nothing. Whatever the lad was suffering for the sake of their oath to Halferan and the vengeance they sought on Minelas.

Corrain couldn’t stomach that. He wiped stray drops from his chin. ‘Come on.’

As they ran across the sand towards the boats, Corrain’s mouth was as dry as leather. How was that possible with all the cold water sloshing in his belly?

‘That one.’ Kusint headed for the closest mooring post.

Lazy ripples of foam cooled his aching feet as Corrain fumbled at the rope with numb fingers.

‘Let me.’ Forest thief or not, Kusint was good with knots. He loosened the hawser inside a few breaths.

‘Is it sound?’ Corrain tried to see if the hull showed any damage, if the ropes were rotting, or the sail. This boat could kill them both out on the ocean. But if they didn’t take it, death would surely find them on this island.

‘It’ll do,’ Kusint assured him. ‘Quickly, before we’re seen!’

Together they dragged the boat hissing down the sand. As the eager sea nudged it, Corrain clambered aboard. Kusint had already found an oar to shove them off into these unknown waters. Corrain looked back towards the hamlet, but no one appeared among the huts and nut palms before the cove disappeared behind the headland.

‘We did it!’ He surprised himself by laughing out loud.

‘Not yet.’ Kusint wasn’t amused. ‘Help me raise the sail. Hold that. Now pull!’

Thanks be to all the gods that Corrain no longer believed in, Kusint hadn’t been idly boasting when he’d said he could manage a boat.

The Forest youth guided the tiller and hauled on the ropes, shouting whenever he needed Corrain’s hands or his dead weight hanging perilously over the boat’s side. Corrain did as he was told. It saved him from having to think. It saved him from fearing that every sail they saw, every hull on the distant horizon, was going to bear down to recapture them.

As soon as they left the sheltering bulk of Khusro Rina’s island, they were at the mercy of the winds. The fishing boat skipped across the waves like a nutshell tossed by a child. After a year as a galley slave, Corrain would have wagered a barony’s gold that he was inured to seasickness. He would have lost his bet before sunset.

Endlessly trying to vomit on an empty stomach was so vile that he even forgot to fear being washed overboard or being knocked senseless by the triangular sail’s erratically swinging spar.

Surviving that first night without the boat turning turtle and drowning them was victory enough. The next day was another ordeal of fear, hunger and thirst as they fought yet more violent winds and waves. After a second night of battering, another day that felt like half an eternity and a third night of exhausted terror, the rising sun finally showed them the mainland coast.

Salvation still lay far out of reach. The currents rounding Cape Attar were fierce and rightly feared. The most that Kusint could do was to keep their frail boat on an even keel as they were swept helplessly along below the towering cliffs.

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