"Bail! Bail for your lives!" cried Brandon, though nearly everyone aboard the ship was already doing just that.
The only exceptions were the Prince of Gnarhelm himself, who scanned the heaving water between the cyclones, looking for the safest passage, and Knaff the Elder, who clung to the rudder with a strength that belied his age. He may as well have been a part of the longship, feet nailed in place and wooden arms locked around the shaft with bands of steel sinew.
The High Queen lay still on a makeshift litter near the transom, her arms calmly crossed on her chest, as if she took no notice of the maelstrom around them. Her cheeks were pale and hollow, her breathing slow and deep.
"Starboard!" snarled the captain, and Knaff leaned on the rudder. The Princess of Moonshae scored a clean arc around the base of one of the monstrous spouts, racing like a diving bird, the force of the turn rocking the vessel far to the side.
"Now port-hard, man!" Brandon leaned to the left, as if his own weight would help the longship obey his command. Again Knaff anticipated the order, pressing hard in the opposite direction and hauling the vessel through the reverse of her previous turn.
They advanced with reckless speed, surrounded by vast whirlpools, water that spumed and swirled with the unleashed energy of the mighty sea. The waterspouts in the distance seemed as inanimate as stone-faced mountains or landscapes. Nearby, however, the cyclones seethed and sprayed like living, flowing things.
Frantic sailors seized every bucket and cup, everything that could conceivably be used to scoop water. Arms churning, the crew bailed like madmen and madwomen. The water level in the ship remained just barely constant, as the Princess of Moonshae glided around the cyclones with lumbering grace.
Abruptly the longship hit a great wave, a swell that rose as a. monstrous barrier in their path. Wind filled the sail, pressing forward and up, but the sleek vessel's momentum inevitably slowed. Brand clenched his teeth, looking at the crest that foamed and frothed above the figurehead. Then the Princess of Moonshae heeled away from the height, and for a sickening, drawn-out moment, the ship slid sideways on her keel, slipping down the wave and teetering, on the verge of capsizing. Only Knaff's skilled use of the rudder-Brandon didn't even try to command him at this perilous juncture-and the longship's superb construction and wide beam saved them from total disaster.
The helmsman guided the ship through a mad plunge down the flowing slope, through a dip between four pillars, and up a lower slope that blocked their path to the north. The vessel's speed carried them over this ridge, and for a moment, she perched on the brink of two swells.
Gasping from the strain of bailing, Alicia paused for a moment and looked ahead, awestruck.
The foaming pillars extended as far as she could see in all directions, intermixed by perilous whirlpools, all of it angry seawater, eager to chew up the longship and spit forth pieces of driftwood.
The only benefit-and it could not be overlooked-was that all sign of the pursuing rafts had been lost. Indeed, the crew took some heart from the fact that they had witnessed one of them destroyed. But now rows of pillars extended to the north and south for a dozen miles. The view to east and west was more restricted-columns of water stood directly before them in many places, and a second row of pillars blocked the view through the gaps.
Still, there seemed to be a rhythm to the churning mess between the spouts. The water rose into a whitewater crest, almost like a ridge of land, where each pair of pillars came relatively close together-as a rule, the narrower the gap, the higher the swell.
Conversely, the areas centered between three or four pillars tended to dip, with water flowing down into these shallow bowls from all sides. Knaff displayed breathtaking skill in guiding the Princess of Moonshae down these slopes, while Brandon studied the two or three gaps leading out of the bowl. Selecting the one offering the easiest passage, he commanded the steersman to turn, and the sleek longship shot upward like an arrow, propelled by the momentum of her downward run.
Spray filled the air, and often they sailed through blinding mist, but the two northmen looked upward, locating the columns that reached to the sky. Somehow, even with such scant navigational aid, Brandon and Knaff kept the longship afloat. A dozen times, a hundred times they avoided disaster only by the instantaneous press of Knaff's steady hand on the tiller, or by Brandon's keen eye spotting the one course allowing them a minimal chance of survival.
"Look!" cried Brigit from the bow, her voice thrilling with hope.
Alicia scrambled to her side, moving unsteadily from handhold to handhold through the lurching hull. "What?" she gasped, wiping the spray from her eyes.
"There! I see blue sky!"
"Yes!" It was true! A pair of wide, trunklike waterspouts stood before them, and beyond yawned an expanse of azure. They couldn't see the water below the pillars, for between the waterspouts loomed the largest ridge of heaving sea they had yet encountered. It looked like a precipitous mountain pass perched between two lofty, unassailable summits. Yet there was no choice-to the right and left, virtually converging columns of water formed sheer waterfalls, impossible to traverse.
"Dead ahead!" shouted Brandon as the Princess raced down the chute leading to the rise. Bobbing and twisting like a canoe in a torrential rapids, the craft plunged dizzily, seemingly out of control. Careening wildly, the longship keeled over, burying the port gunwale in spray. A tiny adjustment by Knaff and she heeled back, dipping the starboard rail toward the surface before bobbing upright.
Then the heaving slope lay before them, and the Princess of Moonshae raced into the water, climbing steadily but quickly losing the speed she had picked up on the descent. The sail spread wide, bulging with a following wind, but it wouldn't be enough.
For a sickening, paralyzing moment, the ship teetered on the brink of disaster, a downward slip that would inevitably turn her beam to the slope and capsize the sturdy craft. Alicia's heart pounded. Oddly, she felt fear only that they would end the mission before it had had a chance to begin.
"Father…" she whispered, staring into the churning froth, terrified it would be the last thing she said to him.
"By the goddess, give me breath!" shouted Robyn. Unnoticed, the queen had pushed herself up from her litter until she stood at the stern, leaning weakly against the transom. The Princess of Moonshae sank backward, and water surged into the hull, nearly sweeping Robyn off her feet. "Blow, wind!" she cried, raising both her hands.
The longship tipped sickeningly, and then a surge of wind exploded, billowing out the sail, creaking the mast as if it would tear the proud pole from the keel. Groaning from the strain, the vessel reeled at the edge of doom, the weight of the ship and all the water in her hull dragging her downward, but the miraculous wind, the power of the goddess herself, filling the sail steadily.
Slowly the longship broke from equilibrium, inching through the spray, plowing ever so slowly to the crest of the watery ridge. Then the bow passed the summit, plowing upward into open air. The Princess of Moonshae stood poised, bow pointed toward the sky, stern buried in white water. The Great Druid of the isles stood by the sheer force of will, commanding the power of nature to push the vessel the last few inches to safety. But still the longship teetered. .
And then Robyn groaned. Her face drained of blood and she dropped like a felled tree, slamming roughly into the deck. Disaster loomed as the ship slipped back toward the slope, but one more gust of wind kicked up, whether from nature or goddess did not matter. It filled the sail and pushed, and the sleek vessel at long last tipped forward, bow dropping and stern climbing.