Tarothin stood by the railing, both hands raised, one of them holding his staff. Tarothin, the healing-weakened wizard who could not swim a stroke, stood by the railing with neither rope around his waist, nor floatbelt around his torso, nor anybody at hand to catch him if he slipped.
Pirvan dropped some work he could not remember having picked up and sprinted for the ladder. The deck seemed to drop out from under him as he clutched the rungs and hauled himself upward more than climbed. A dash, a second ladder, the ship lurching wildly again, and he was a sword’s length from Tarothin.
There he stopped. To either side, the waves surged and foamed into the shallow water and over the rocks. Over a good part of the area astern, the wind seemed to have halted. Pirvan saw spray rising farther off to the north, flung toward the ship, and caught in the air to shimmer like heat rising from a fire.
He also saw one of the men working on the foremast snatch up a short spear-a boarding pike, Pirvan had heard them called-and lift it, ready to throw.
Whatever Tarothin might have in mind, he could not be meaning to sink the ship with Lady Eskaia aboard. Not unless so many people had lied to Pirvan that Golden Cup was already doomed.
His dagger came out in a heartbeat and flew through the air as the sailor brought his arm back. Before the pike left his hand, the weighted pommel of Pirvan’s dagger smashed into his shoulder. The spear went wild, more nearly hitting Pirvan than Tarothin. The thief lunged forward, kicked the sailor in the stomach, snatched up the dagger as the man crumpled, and made ready to hold the man’s comrades at bay.
“Don’t touch the staff!” someone shouted. Pirvan thought wizards couldn’t talk while working a spell, then realized that it was Grimsoar who had shouted. He stormed across the deck with a coil of rope under one arm and a hefty club in the other. He looped the rope around Tarothin’s waist several times, then tied it with just as many knots to the railing. By the time Grimsoar was finished, Tarothin was more firmly a part of the ship than much of the surviving deck gear.
By that time, too, the sailors had retreated and Pirvan had attention to spare for what Tarothin had been doing. There was a passage in the Flower Rocks from north to south, narrow and high-walled, more like a canyon than anything else but wide enough for the largest ships.
With the wind as it had been, even a landlubber like Pirvan could see that they would never have made it. But with Tarothin’s spell shifting the wind, Golden Cup was making steady progress toward the passage.
It was not steady all the way; the bowsprit came to grief halfway through, as the surge of the waves overpowered both wizard and helmsman. But in time there was open water ahead, where there had been solid rock too recently for anyone’s comfort, and orders being shouted that Pirvan knew he should obey.
“I’ll keep any witlings off him,” Grimsoar said.
“Unless they need-your strength,” Tarothin said. His voice rasped as if his throat was filled with sand.
“We need you.” Grimsoar said. “Either Grimsoar stays or you go below.”
Tarothin seemed not to hear. He gripped the railing and stared out over the waves. Even in the lee of the Flower Rocks, they had regained their wolfish aspect-and the stag had lost several prongs from one of his antlers.
The orders came from below, louder this time, and Pirvan turned and scrambled down the ladder.
* * * * *
The work the mate of the deck had called Pirvan to do was repairing the safety lines. He knew as much about ropes and knots as some of the sailors, so his hands flew, and meanwhile he listened to the sailors talk.
They weren’t out of danger yet, it seemed. If the wind backed around to the south again, they had only one anchor to keep them off the rocks. If it stayed northerly, they could still be driven south to the Finburnighu Shoals. That was another feature of the Gulf of Karthay that Pirvan had never heard of and would have been glad not to hear of now.
As he strung a safety line across a gap in the bulwarks, Pirvan saw one of those sets of bollards on a shelf in the rocks, a long bowshot away. He also saw the water boiling between the ship and the rocks, and the distance opening between it and the bollards.
“Wind’s one way, current’s another, tide’s a third,” Kurulus said. He lowered his voice. “You can ship with me any time you please, Brother Pirvan.”
Pirvan nodded silently. An idea was forming in his mind.
“Do we have a boat left?”
The mate shrugged. “All smashed, but they made a raft of barrels yesterday. If it’s in one piece-but now, you can’t steer it through that.”
“What if it was on a rope?”
“A line?”
“Whatever you call it.”
Pirvan’s patience with the fine points of the sailors’ vocabulary threatened to run out. So did every other sort of patience. He could see the gap between the ship and the bollards opening steadily, and who knew where the next set was?
“I can swim to the bollards with a line. Then the men on the raft can pull themselves ashore. Five or six men can pull a heavier line ashore. One line and the anchor should hold us.”
“Can you swim well-?”
“Well enough to reach the rocks, and then it will be more a matter of climbing. That I can do better than anyone aboard, I wager.”
“Like I said, Brother, when I have my ship-”
“I accept the offer, if we both live long enough.”
“Better if your wizard friend could throw the rope with a spell.”
“I don’t know if he knows levitation. Also, that wind block weakened him all over again.”
Kurulus and several sailors who’d gathered just within hearing looked sour. Pirvan wanted to curse. First they’d been ready to kill Tarothin for casting a spell. Now they seemed ready to kill him because he couldn’t cast the one they needed.
And who should come shouldering through the sailors but Haimya, at this moment about the last person he wanted to see. (There were a few men who’d taken his thefts as cause for blood feud, but two were dead and none of the living aboard this or any other ship.)
At least the warrior-maid might not have heard him and the mate talking-
“You’ll need two of us swimming the line ashore, Kurulus. Now, don’t argue,” Haimya added. “I swim better than Pirvan, even if he does climb better than I do.”
It did not seem like a good time to mention Haimya’s seasickness. Time was passing, the bollards were receding, the wind seemed to be rising, and possibly the prospect of action had cured Haimya’s seasickness.
And possibly the three moons might do a perfect hesitation dance that very night.
Pirvan pulled off his shirt and began looking around for a suitable length of rope.
* * * * *
The wind continued to rise as Pirvan and Haimya made their preparations. As swiftly as they worked, the first bollards were out of sight by the time they were ready. By the favor of the gods and long-dead masons, a second set was coming into sight as they stepped to the bulwarks.
Pirvan wore only his loinguard and gloves, Haimya a loinguard, a sailor’s shirt, and sharkskin buckskins. Both carried daggers, Haimya a beltful of wooden pegs, and Pirvan a small mallet. Both had ropes around their waists.
“Now, remember, nothing fancy, and are you sure you wouldn’t have float-?” the mate of the hold said. She was short and sturdy, likewise old enough to be Pirvan’s mother and right now behaving much like one.
“We’ll be doing as much climbing as swimming,” Pirvan said. “Ready, Haimya?”
“Haimya-” Lady Eskaia began. She’d come on deck even though she now looked as sick as Haimya had been. Then her voice failed her and she only hugged her guard-maid.