Ryan bent again to the oar, hearing a deep, sonorous roaring, which seemed as if it were vibrating the very marrow of his bones, shaking the core of his being.
"She blows, she blows!" the Apache repeated. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan could see that his companion had taken up one of the long harpoons and was hefting it in his right hand, just as he'd done on the quayside of Claggartville, aeons ago.
But now his target was not a daub of white paint upon an old door. It was Behemoth itself, the lord over all deep waters.
"Hold oars," the first mate called, raising his voice for the first time, forced to raise it over the caldron of boiling foam and spray that seethed around them. "Now, Master Ten-from-Ten! Here be thy chance. Strike!"
Ryan was able, now they had no further need of rowing, to glance over his shoulder once more and witness the next — and most dramatic act — of the murderous play.
The towering bastion of living flesh had hardly moved. Its skin was dappled with small shellfish and crusted with strange cancerlike growths. Near the crest of the blunt head Ryan could see the tiny eye — not dead like that of the great shark that had attacked them on their raft. This eye twinkled with life and with curiosity. The jaws were only just ajar, the sea swilling in and out between the fronds of its teeth. They were nearly close enough to touch it.
"In with the lance, outlander!" one of the rowers yelled.
"Aye," called another, voice cracking with tension. "Before he sinks us with his fucking tail!"
"Thanks for the meeting!" Donfil cried, casting the harpoon with all of his power, driving it deep into the whale, by the great hump of muscle behind the head.
"Clear of the line, lads," Ogg ordered, keeping one hand on the tiller, using the other to fill a metal dipper with seawater.
The thin rope that was attached to the harpoon ran through a notch in the bow of the whaleboat, under the seats of the oarsmen and around the stubby wooden post, called the loggerhead, between the feet of the first mate. The line was controllable there, running back into one of the two kegs of coiled rope. Hundreds of feet in all, ready to be linked together if the whale should run and run. And in the bow, clipped to a bracket, was a small honed ax. The other task of Donfil was to cut the line if the wounded monster should suddenly decide to dive deep. The ocean thereabouts was of a depth that could lose a thousand whales.
Walsh's harpooneer also managed to strike his iron from the other side. Provoked by the stinging pain, the whale exhaled in a gust of noisome air and mist. It began to move, towing the two dories behind it. The third whaleboat hadn't managed to pull in close enough and was soon left behind.
"Ship your oars, or they'll go over the side," Ogg ordered. "Quick, Master Deadman, and hold on tight for the devil's surf ride."
The rope ran out unchecked for the first hundred feet, to give a safer distance between boat and whale. It hissed along, whining as it smoked around the loggerhead, so that Ogg had to cool it with a pan of water.
The vast tail of the creature waved in the air, darkening the day, coming down with a cracking sound that hurt the ears, casting a welter of green water over the pursuing boats.
Ryan laughed aloud for the sheer animal pleasure and exhilaration of the chase. The whale was gathering speed, and the Salvationwas disappearing fast behind them. Spray danced, and the sun dazzled through it in a burst of prismed colors.
"How far will he run?" he shouted to Ogg.
"How's that, Master Deadman? How far will the beast pull us?"
"Yeah. What if dark comes before it tires?"
"We will have it afore night come, outlander. But I have known a chase with a truly big whale to take a day and a night and half of the following day. But there was many a barrel of fine oil in that one, I tell thee."
"It dives!" Donfil yelled,
"Ready to cut. Not until my order or I'll have thy cock and balls for clock chimes."
As the whale plunged beneath the surface, the day was instantly silent. The rushing, roaring noise of their mad progress was stopped, and the two whaleboats floated serenely, only a few yards away from each other, while gulls cried out above their heads.
"How deep, Mr. Ogg?" the second mate called, standing in the stern, watching the line as it continued to race out over the bow.
"Our iron went deep and true, Mr. Walsh. How went thine?"
"Deep and true."
"Then I think we shall see him again shortly as he tries to rid himself of the pesty barbs that hold him to us."
Cyrus Ogg poured more water over the smoldering line as it continued to race out around the loggerhead and beneath the sea.
"He's diving more shallow," Donfil called, leaning far out, shading his eyes against the reflection of the sun on the water.
"Shows he'd tiring fast. Ready to haul in the line, lads, soon as he broaches again. Outlander, thou must coil it as it comes, to keep all neat and unclogged in the keg there."
"Aye," Ryan said.
"Quiet and silent. Soundless it is. No sound. No noise. Still as death. Still as snow. Still as sleep and still as dark."
"Still as Jehu," Cyrus Ogg warned the gibbering crazie, "or you can swim back to the ship."
"Here he comes..." said Walsh. "The birds know it."
"Haul in," the First Mate ordered, voice betraying the excitement. "Where away, Ten-from-Ten? Tell me that."
"Close," Donfil said. "The rope's gone slack, but I can't... Ysun! It's right..."
The world exploded.
Ryan was hanging on to the side of the boat and the whale surfaced so near that its skin grazed his knuckles. It erupted clear into the air, hanging for an unbelievable, impossible moment of frozen time. Then it crashed down, its tail catching the other whaleboat a glancing blow as it dived again. The frail little craft was overturned, spilling men and oars and line into the sea.
"Cut thy line and save the boat, Walsh!" Ogg shouted.
Once again they were off in a flurry of white spray. But this time Ryan could detect a slowing in the exertions of the great creature. Then their forward motion stopped once more, and Donfil again peered over the bow.
"Going back beneath us!" he yelled.
"Out oars and spin her on a nailhead," Ogg snapped. "Quick for our lives."
Ryan grabbed at his oar, fumbling it into position and obeying the order to back water while the men on the other side tugged with all their strength. The tiller went hard over and the cockleshell darted around like a mayfly. Once they were facing in the right direction, Ogg ordered them to ship oars again, and pull in the slack line, so that they would be close in to the whale when next it surfaced.
"Heading for the men in the water!" Ogg muttered.
The rolling mountain of the beast's hump broke the surface about fifty feet in front of them, jerking them onward. As the first mate had said, the whale was making for the other boat. Walsh and two other crewmen had clambered back into it and were now bailing it empty. But the other five men were still floundering some distance away.
The sun was bright, showing the streams of crimson blood that flowed down the sides of the whale, spouting from the two irons in its flanks.
And the Salvation, all sail crowded on, was bearing down on them.
Ryan watched as the beast came closer, picking Jacob Lusk, one of the fattest members of the crew, building up more speed. Its jaws were open, funneling the Lantic between the rows of teeth. Above the sound of the rushing waters, Ryan and the others heard with an awful clarity the last scream of despair from the sailor as he vanished into the gaping suction of the jaws.
"Widowed wife and fatherless children," Ogg said quietly.