Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull (27 page)

Toward evening, Hawkmoon went to join the Captain on the bridge. Mouso looked up at him with a shifty expression.

"Good evening, sir," he said, sniffing and wiping his long nose with his sleeve. "I hope the voyage's to your satisfaction."

"Reasonably, thank you. What time have we made—good or bad?"

"Good enough, sir," replied the skipper, turning so that he did not have to look at Hawkmoon directly.

"Good enough. Shall I have the galley prepare you some supper?"

Hawkmoon nodded. "Aye."

The mate appeared from below the bridge, singing softly to himself and evidently blind drunk.

Now a sudden squall hit the ship side on, and the ship wallowed over alarmingly. Hawkmoon clung to the rail, feeling that at any moment it would crumble away in his hand. Captain Mouso seemed oblivious of any danger, and the mate was flat on his face, bottle falling from his hand as his body slid nearer and nearer to the side.

"Better help him," Hawkmoon said.

Captain Mouso laughed. "He's all right—he's got a drunkard's luck."

But now the mate's body was against the starboard rail, his head and one shoulder already through.

Hawkmoon leaped down the companionway to grab the man and haul him back to safety as the ship heaved again, this time in the other direction, and salt waves washed the deck.

Hawkmoon looked down at the man he had rescued. The mate lay on his back, eyes closed, lips moving in the words of the song he'd been singing.

Hawkmoon laughed, shaking his head, calling up to the skipper, "You're right—he has a drunkard's luck."

Then, as he turned his head to port, he thought he saw something in the water. The light was fading fast, but he was sure he had seen a vessel of some kind not too far away.

"Captain—do you see anything yonder?" he yelled, going to the rail and peering into the mass of heaving water.

"Looks like a raft of some kind," Mouso called back.

Hawkmoon was soon able too see the thing more closely as a wave swept it nearer. It was a raft, with three men clinging to it.

"Shipwrecked by the look of 'em," Mouso called casually. "Poor bastards." He shrugged, his shoulders.

"Ah, well, not our affairs ..."

"Captain, we must save them," Hawkmoon said.

"We'll never do it in this light. Besides, we're wasting time. I'm carrying no cargo save yourself on this trip and have to be in Simferopol on time to pick up my cargo before someone else does."

"We must save them," Hawkmoon said firmly. "Oladhan—a rope."

The Bulgar beastman found a coil of rope in the wheelhouse and came hurrying down with it. The raft was still in sight, its burden flat on their faces, clinging to it for dear life. Sometimes it vanished in a great trough of water, reappearing after several seconds, a fair distance from the boat. The gap between them was widening all the time, and Hawkmoon knew that there was very little time before the raft would be too far away for them to reach it. Lashing one end of the rope to the rail and looping the other about his waist, he stripped off cloak and sword and dived into the foaming ocean.

At once, Hawkmoon realized the danger he was in.

The great waves were almost impossible to swim against, and there was every chance of his being dashed against the side of the ship, stunned, and drowned.

But he struggled on through the water, fighting to keep it out of his mouth and eyes as he searched about for the raft.

There it was! And now its occupants had seen the ship and were standing up, waving and shouting. They had not seen Hawkmoon swimming toward them.

As he swam, Hawkmoon caught glimpses of the men from time to time, but he could not distinguish them clearly. Two now seemed to be struggling, while the third seemed to be sitting upright watching them.

"Hold on!" Hawkmoon called above the crash of the sea and the moan of the wind. Exerting all his strength, he swam even harder and was soon nearly upon the raft as it was tossed on a wild chaos of black and white water.

Then Hawkmoon caught the edge of the raft and saw that indeed two of the men were fighting in earnest. He saw, too, that they wore the snouted masks of the Order of the Boar. The men were warriors of Granbretan.

For an instant Hawkmoon debated leaving them to their fate. But if he did that, he reasoned, he would be no better than they. He must do his best to save them, then decide what to do with them.

He called up to the fighting pair, but they did not seem to hear him. They grunted and cursed in their struggle, and Hawkmoon wondered if they had not been demented by their ordeal.

Hawkmoon tried to heave himself onto the raft, but the water and the rope around his body dragged him down. He saw the seated figure look up and sign to him almost casually.

"Help me," Hawkmoon gasped, "or I'll not be able to help you."

The figure rose and swayed across the raft until his way was blocked by the fighting men. With a shrug he seized their necks, paused for an instant until the raft dipped in the water, then pushed them into the sea.

"Hawkmoon, my dear friend!" came a voice from within the boar mask. "How happy I am to see you. There—I've helped you. I've lightened our load . . ."

Hawkmoon made a grab at one of the drowning men who still struggled with his companion. In the heavy masks and armor, they were bound to be dragged down in seconds. But he could not reach them. He watched in fascination as, with seeming gradualness, the masks sank below the waves.

He glared up at the survivor, who was leaning down to offer him a hand. "You have murdered your friends, D'Averc! I've a good mind to let you go down with them."

"Friends? My dear Hawkmoon, they were no such thing. Servants, aye, but not friends." D'Averc braced himself as another wave tossed the raft, nearly forcing Hawkmoon to lose his grasp. "Not friends. They were loyal enough—but dreadfully boring. And they made fools of themselves. I cannot tolerate that. Come along let me help you aboard my little vessel. It is not much, but. .."

Hawkmoon allowed D'Averc to help him onto the raft, then turned and waved toward the ship, just visible through the darkness. He felt the rope tighten as Oladahn began to haul on it.

"It was fortunate that you were passing," D'Averc said coolly as slowly they were drawn toward the ship. "I had thought myself as good as drowned and all my glorious promise barely fulfilled—and then who should come by in his splendid ship but the noble Duke of Koln. Fate flings us together once again, Duke."

"Aye, but I'll readily fling you away again as you flung your friends, if you do not hold tongue and help me with this rope," growled Hawkmoon.

The raft plunged through the sea and at last bumped against Smiling Girl's halfrotten side. A rope ladder sanked down, and Hawkmoon began to climb, finally hauling himself with relief over the rail, gasping for breath.

When Oladahn saw the next man's head emerge over the side, he cursed and made to draw his sword, but Hawkmoon stopped him. "He's our prisoner, and we might as well keep him alive, for he could be a useful bargaining counter if we are in trouble later."

"How sensible!" D'Averc exclaimed admiringly, then began coughing. "Forgive me—my ordeal has desperately weakened me, I fear. A change of clothes, some hot grog, a good night's rest, and I'll be myself again."

"You'll be lucky if we let you rot in the bilges,"

Hawkmoon said. "Take him below to our cabin, Oladahn."

Huddled in the tiny cabin that was dimly lit by a small lantern hanging from the roof, Hawkmoon and Oladahn watched D'Averc strip himself of his mask, armor and sodden undergarments.

"How did you come to be on the raft, D'Averc?"

Hawkmoon asked as the Frenchman fussily dried himself. Even he was slightly nonplussed by the man's apparent coolness. He admired the quality and even wondered if he did not actually like D'Averc in some strange way. Perhaps it was D'Averc's honesty in admitting his ambition, his unwillingness to justify his actions, even if, as recently, they involved casual murder.

"A long story, my dear friend. The three of us—Ecardo, Peter, and I—left the men to deal with that blind monster you released upon us and managed to reach the safety of the hills. A little later the ornithopter we had sent to collect you arrived and began to circle, evidently puzzled by the disappearance of an entire city—as we were, I must admit; you must explain that to me later. Well, we signaled to the pilot, and he came down. We had already realized the somewhat difficult position we found ourselves in. . . ." D'Averc paused. "Is there any food to be had?"

"The skipper has ordered some supper from the galley," Oladahn said. "Continue."

"We were three men without horses in a rather barren part of the world. As well, we had failed to keep you when we had captured you, and as far as we knew, the pilot was the only living man left who knew that we had done that...."

"You killed the pilot?" Hawkmoon said.

"Just so. It was necessary. Then we boarded his machine with the intention of reaching the nearest base."

"What happened?" Hawkmoon asked. "Did you know how to control the ornithopter?"

D'Averc smiled. "You have guessed correctly. My knowledge of the things is limited. We managed to gain the air, but then the wretched thing would not be steered. Before we knew it, it was carrying us off to the Runestaff knows where. I feared for my safety, I must admit. The monster behaved increasingly erratically, until at last it began to fall. I managed to guide it so that it landed on a soft riverbank, and we were barely hurt. Ecardo and Peter had become hysterical, quarreling among themselves, becoming unbearable in their manners and most hard to control.

However, we somehow managed to build a raft with the intention of floating down the river until we came to a town...."

"That same raft?" Hawkmoon asked.

"The same, aye."

"Then how did you come to be at sea?"

"Tides, my good friend." D'Averc said with an airy wave of his hand. "Currents. I had not realized we were so close to an estuary. We were swept along at a most appalling rate, carried far beyond land. On that raft—that damnable raft—we spent the next several days, with Peter and Ecardo whining at one another, blaming one another for their predicament when they should have blamed me. Oh, I cannot tell you what an ordeal it was, Duke Dorian."

"You deserved worse," Hawkmoon said.

There came a knock on the cabin door. Oladahn answered it and admitted a scruffy cabin boy carrying a tray on which were three bowls containing some kind of gray stew.

Hawkmoon accepted the tray and handed D'Averc a bowl and a spoon. For a moment D'Averc hesitated;

then he took a mouthful. He seemed to eat with great control. He finished the dish and replaced the empty bowl on the tray. "Delicious," he said. "Quite perfect, for ship's cooking."

Hawkmoon, who had been nauseated by the mess, handed D'Averc his own bowl, and Oladahn, too preferred his.

"I thank you," said D'Averc. "I believe in moderation. Enough is as good as a feast."

Hawkmoon smiled slightly, once again admiring the Frenchman's coolness. Evidently the food had tasted as foul to him as it had to them, but his hunger had been so great that he had eaten the stuff anyway, and with panache.

Now D'Averc stretched, his rippling muscles belying his claim to invalidism. "Ah," he yawned. "If you will forgive me, gentlemen, I will sleep now. I have had a trying and tiring few days."

"Take my bed," Hawkmoon said, indicating his cramped bunk. He did not mention that earlier he had noticed what had seemed to be a whole tribe of bugs nesting in it. I'll see if the skipper has a hammock."

"I am grateful," D'Averc said, and there seemed to be a surprising seriousness about his tone that made Hawkmoon wheel away from the door.

"For what?"

D'Averc began to cough ostentatiously, then looked up and said in his old, mocking tone, "Why, my dear Duke, for saving my life, of course."

In the morning the storm had died down, and though the sea was still rough it was much calmer than the previous day.

Hawkmoon met D'Averc on deck. The man was dressed in coat and britches of green velvet but was without his armor. He bowed when he saw Hawkmoon.

"You slept well?" asked Hawkmoon.

"Excellently." D'Averc's eyes were full of humor, and Hawkmoon guessed that he had been bitten a good many times.

"Tonight we should make port," Hawkmoon told him. "You will be my prisoner—my hostage, if you like."

"Hostage? Do you think the Dark Empire cares if I live or die once I have lost my usefulness?"

"We shall see," said Hawkmoon, fingering the jewel in his skull. "If you attempt to escape, I shall certainly kill you—as coolly as you killed your men."

D'Averc coughed into the handkerchief he carried.

"I owe you my life," he said. "So it is yours to take if you would."

Hawkmoon frowned. D'Averc was far too devious for him to understand properly. He was beginning to regret his decision. The Frenchman might prove more of a liability than he had bargained for.

Oladahn came hurrying along the deck. "Duke Dorian," he panted, pointing forward. "A sail—and it's heading directly toward us."

"We're in little danger," Hawkmoon smiled. "We're no prize for a pirate."

But moments later Hawkmoon noticed signs of panic among the crew, and as the captain stumbled past, he caught his arm. "Captain Mouso—what is it?"

"Danger, sir," rasped the skipper. "Great danger. Did you not read the sail?"

Hawkmoon peered toward the horizon and saw that the ship carried a single black sail. On it was painted an emblem of some kind, but he could not make out what it was. "Surely they'll not trouble us," he said. "Why should they risk a fight for a tub like this—and you said yourself we're carrying no cargo."

"They care not what we carry or don't carry, sir. They attack anything on the ocean on sight. They're like killer whales, Duke Dorian—their pleasure is not in taking treasure but in destruction!"

"Who are they? Not a Granbretanian ship by the look of it," D'Averc said.

"Even one of those would probably not bother to attack us," stuttered Captain Mouso. "No—that is a ship crewed by those belonging to the Cult of the Mad God. They are from Muskovia and in recent months have begun to terrorize these waters."