After three weeks, he'd reached land.
At first he felt he could use another three weeks of lying here quietly to rest and recover. Then his judgment got the better of his aching muscles and joints and pulled him to his feet. He staggered forward until he was above high-tide mark, then saw that beyond the beach was a forest of scrubby, windblown trees. He kept moving until he was safely inside the trees, able to look along the beach in both directions but nearly invisible himself.
There was no sign of his comrades, but there was plenty of evidence that other ships had come to grief in the storm.
There was a dark fringe of wreckage along the shore at the water's edge, including dead fish and whales, every possible piece of a ship's gear, and here and there a drowned sailor. The spectacle was sufficiently depressing so that Blade stared at it blankly for several minutes before he noticed that one of the «drowned» sailors was standing up. A moment later the sailor bent and picked up another, then came lurching up the beach toward the trees.
Blade hurried out to meet Khraishamo as he carried a limp Rhodina in his arms toward shelter. The pirate was staggering from exhaustion and also from carrying Rhodina's considerable weight, and his face was once again a demon's grim mask. When he saw Blade approaching, he stopped and lowered Rhodina to the sand.
«She's dead, Blade.» If Sarumi warriors ever wept, Khraishamo would have been weeping. «She went under once too often. She's not breathing.»
«How long-?»
«Don't know.» Khraishamo knelt on the sand beside Rhodina and bowed his head. Blade also knelt, but he took her wrist and felt for the pulse. It was faint and irregular, but it was still there.
Not wanting to get Khraishamo's hopes up, Blade said nothing. He might not get her breathing again at all. Even if he did, there might be brain damage from lack of oxygen. Ignoring Khraishamo, Blade bent over Rhodina, squeezed her nostrils shut, and started mouth-to-mouth respiration. It was some time before the grief-stricken Khraishamo noticed what was happening, then he shouted angrily: «Heh! Leave her alone, you-!»
Blade looked up. «This sometimes saves drowned people in England. Don't hope for too much, but don't interrupt me.» That shut the pirate's mouth, and Blade went back to work.
Breathe-breathe-breathe-in an endless rhythm. Blade didn't know how long he'd been at work, and didn't want to guess. Then as he pulled his mouth away from hers, he felt a warm breath on his cheek. He didn't stop the rhythm until he'd felt her breathe four more times, and he didn't stand up until Rhodina's eyes flickered open. At that point Khraishamo let out a wild cry and gripped Rhodina in his arms so fiercely that Blade was afraid he'd stop her breath again.
Blade turned his back and walked a few yards away. He was now quite sure that Sarumi warriors could weep, and his own eyes weren't entirely dry. It was Rhodina's voice that brought him back to her side.
«If you two do all this when I come to life, I won't dare die.»
«No, beloved, you don't,» said Khraishamo, his voice steady for the first time since he'd carried her out of the water. He stood up. «Let's get her into shelter, Blade. Somebody might come along.»
Nobody came along while they were carrying Rhodina into the trees, and after that they didn't know or care. It was enough to be out of the wind, nearly beyond the roar of the waves, with the smell of growing things around them and grass and damp leaves underfoot. After three weeks in a small boat, Blade found that something solid and motionless underfoot felt vaguely unnatural.
After a while, he stretched and said, «Well, we're as close to Mythor as we're going to get by sea. The rest of the trip we do on foot. Rhodina, are there any rebels we can trust this far north of Mythor?»
She nodded. «Not here along the shore, though. Not north of the city. Merchantmen, galleys, they stop here too often, with too many soldiers and too many eyes to watch. In there-«-she pointed eastward through the trees-«yes, several.»
«How far?»
«Three, four days, if we go fast.»
«I don't think we're going to go fast without food and clothes,» said Blade. «In fact, I don't think we're going to go anywhere at all until we've begged a meal and some shoes.»
Khraishamo nodded. «That's good sense. But how are we going to find someone who won't run away screaming or call the soldiers when they see us?»
Khraishamo had a point. He himself was easily recognizable as Sarumi, and he was also stark naked. Blade wore only a pair of trousers, split to mid-thigh along one leg. Rhodina's costume might have made her a fortune in London as a topless dancer, but here it would only attract unwanted attention.
«I'll beg for the three of us,» said Blade. «I can say I'm a shipwrecked sailor-«
«The gods know that's true enough,» said Rhodina, laughing.
«Yes. And you two can explore along the shore, to see if you can get clothes and weapons from any of the bodies. I think there are going to be a lot of those.» Both the others nodded grimly.
Chapter 19
Blade found it easy to pass himself off as a shipwrecked sailor, half-starved and nearly out of his wits from hardship and the loss of his mates. In fact, his main problem was not in getting sympathy and help but in refusing offers to put him to bed and nurse him back to health and sanity.
The women were particularly generous. Half of them seemed to already know they'd lost husbands, brothers, or sons in the storm. The other half were sick with fear that a man of theirs caught out in the storm might not be returning. Blade found it easy to carry away more food than he suspected even his half-starved comrades would be able to eat.
He was wrong. Khraishamo and Rhodina emptied the basket Blade set before them down to the last crumb, scrap, and drop of cider. Then the pirate chief belched happily and put his arm around Rhodina. For the first time in many days he looked happy.
«Now I think the next thing we do is sleep.»
Blade nodded. He wouldn't have bet a penny on his staying awake another ten minutes. There was no shelter overhead except the branches of the trees, but as long as they were on land and out of the wind Blade didn't care. He also didn't see much point in anyone keeping watch. It would be many hours, perhaps days, before the storm blew out and let normal traffic along the shore start again.
Blade lay down on the opposite side of a thick tree from Khraishamo and Rhodina, and heard them both snoring just before he fell asleep himself.
They awoke in a drenching rain, as soaked as if they'd just staggered out of the sea again. They started off in a drenching rain, begged their breakfast in the rain, ate it in the rain. This went on for every hour of the first two days of their march inland.
Blade knew he shouldn't have been surprised. Storms like this hitting land frequently turned into downpours. That didn't make it any more pleasant to be continuously soaked to the skin, unable to build a fire or even keep food dry for ten minutes, blinded and deafened by lightning and thunder, occasionally menaced by falling trees, chilled to the bone, and always unsure of where he was and which way he was going.
The only consolation was that they didn't have to hide by day, but could march boldly along as fast as the sodden ground would let them. Along the shore there'd been shipwrecked sailors. Inland there were even more people driven from their homes by the storm and the floods it brought. Blade, Rhodina, and Khraishamo were just three more refugees from disaster.