Ahead of the ship, the relatively calm seas were washing against slate grey rocks that rose seven or eight feet up out of the waters. There were perhaps two dozen of them, any one of them large enough to smash open the Slives hull like the lid of an ale keg should the ship collide with them.
"Captain!" Tavi bellowed. "Rocks ahead! Captain Demos, rocks ahead!"
Some of the crew took up the call, relaying it back along the length of the ship. Seconds later, Demos hurried down the deck, crouching low the way Tavi had done it, though the ship's captain moved far more swiftly and confidently than Tavi had.
"Demos!" Tavi called. "Rocks!"
The captain frowned and moved forward, rising to look.
"Scipio?" shouted Ehren's voice from somewhere at the ship's stern. "Where are you?"
"The bow!" Tavi called. "Get up here and…" Tavi broke off as Demos's calloused hand clamped suddenly over his mouth.
"Quiet," said the captain, his voice and face unreadable. He let out a pair of sharp, single whistles, and the sounds of sailors talking and calling out to one another abruptly stopped.
Tavi pushed Demos's hand away, staring at him, and lowered his voice. "Why?"
"Because those aren't rocks," Demos said calmly. "They're leviathans."
Chapter 26
"Oh dear," Isana breathed. Demos, like Tavi, was capable of concealing his emotions-or perhaps he simply didn't feel them with any particular intensity. Either way, Isana had been able to discern very little about the mans state of mind at any point during their voyage.
Right now, Demos was radiating a cold, carefully restrained fear.
He stared ahead for a few seconds more, then waved his arm in some kind of signal. The timbers of the Slive creaked, and the ship changed course slightly.
"Will we get by them?" Isana heard Tavi ask.
"We might, if we're quiet. This time of the day, they come up to the warm waters at the surface to bask. Provided people don't start shouting"-he gave Tavi a deliberate look-"and that we don't actually bump into one of them and wake him up, the witchmen should let us tiptoe past."
Tavi narrowed his eyes, his brow furrowing. "What if we didn't have the witchmen?"
Demos shrugged. "We'd wish we did. Briefly."
Tavi nodded, his eyes flicking around. Isana watched as a sudden, wolfish grin appeared on his face, accompanied by a surge of excitement.
Kitai, who had been facing away from Tavi, peeking at the enemy vessel and the leviathans in turn, suddenly turned around, and Isana was startled by her expression-a grin that matched Tavi's as perfectly as the green of her eyes.
"I like that, Aleran," Kitai said. "Do it."
Tavi nodded and turned to Isana. "I'm going to need your help."
Isana frowned at Tavi, and then nodded once. "To do what?"
Her son glanced aside at the Mactis, his eyes narrowed. "Change the rules."
Demos finished securing the straps of a heavy canvas harness around Isana's waist. "Too tight?" he asked.
"I have no idea," Isana replied.
Demos grunted. "As long as you can breathe, it should be fine." He held up a line knotted to a metal clip. He showed it to her, then slapped the clip against a metal ring on the harness and gave it a firm tug. "In these waters, you can only see about ten feet. Remember that the Mactis is moving forward, so you aren't just moving toward her. You've got to aim ahead of her on an angle."
Isana nodded. 'Til be able to find the ship. I'm not worried about that." She leaned out around the corner of the cabin and peeked at the enemy ship, now less than two hundred yards away.
He attached a second line to another ring. "Make sure you're at least ten feet down when you do," Demos warned her. "If that archer sees you coming, you'll get to experience bow-fishing from the soggy end. Go beneath the ship to the far side before you come up. Believe me, they'll have all their attention focused on us."
"Why does it seem like you've been involved in this sort of thing before, Captain?"
"While it has never actually happened, of course, I have made a number of plans in the event that I should ever work with a customer who wished his cargo to be loaded or off-loaded without troubling a customs inspector or harbormaster." He tested the knots on the lines. "It is in that spirit of preparedness that I had these made for my witchmen. Though I admit, they usually tow crates, not people."
The cabin door opened, and Tavi, Kitai, Araris, and Ehren came hurrying around the corner. Araris's sword was in his hand, and as he came, it flashed in the lowering sun and shattered yet another arrow. The enemy archer had not slackened her pace, and her shafts only became more accurate as the distance closed. A dozen sailors now lay wounded or dead.
"Can't someone else do this?" Ehren asked.
"We need a woodcrafter, Ehren," Tavi said. "You're it."
"This will be just like the time you helped us escape that warehouse," Kitai said.
"Except for the leviathans!" Ehren sputtered.
"Quiet!" hissed several people.
"Actually, your real worry is the sharks," Demos murmured, his tone practical. "There are always dozens of sharks around leviathans, and we're about to start passing through them."
Ehren's face turned white.
"Come on, Ehren," Kitai said. She stripped out of her tunic and kicked off her shoes without a trace of self-consciousness. "Be a man."
Ehren blinked, and spots of color appeared on his cheeks as he turned his head away and coughed. "Oh, bloody crows." He glowered at Tavi, and demanded, "Why do I keep on following you into this kind of thing?"
"You must enjoy it," Tavi said.
"I must be an idiot," Ehren responded. But he, along with Tavi and Araris, also began stripping down. "Let me get this straight. We hold on to the ropes. The Steadholder drags us over there underwater. I open up a hole in the hull, and we eliminate their witchmen. Then we run back here and sail away while the leviathans eat them."
"Yes," Tavi said.
"How long are we going to be under?" Araris asked quietly.
"I've never done this before," Isana said. "If I was alone, it might take me half a minute to move the distance. Perhaps a little more."
"Double it," Demos said, glancing away from Kitai. "At least." He lowered a rope carefully over the side. "Are you not going to strip down, lady? That dress is going to drag quite a bit in the water."
Isana arched an eyebrow at him. "I assure you, Captain, it won't slow me."
"Ah," he said, nodding. "Try not to splash when you go in."
Isana went to the rail and looked down at the sea beneath them. She had never actually gone swimming in it, much less engaged in watercrafting using salt water as a medium. She had heard that there were almost no practical differences in working with freshwater or salt water. Almost hardly seemed a comforting word, given that her watercraft was the only thing standing between them and a number of extremely violent, unpleasant forms of death.
For a moment, Isana felt her hands start shaking. What in the world was she thinking? She was no Knight, nor soldier, nor mercenary, to go hurling herself into the deadly sea for the express purpose of murdering two men whom she had never met, nor who had ever done her harm. She was a Steadholder, used to running a farm-and half the time she'd had that position, she had been traveling around the Realm for one reason or another. What could possibly make her think that she was capable of doing something like this?
Isana caught herself before all the anxiety and rising apprehension around her overwhelmed her thoughts. She took a deep breath, called to Rill, and lowered herself into the sea, parting the water beneath her so that she entered with hardly a ripple, much less a splash.