Then Threnond, together with the mercenary, the latter sinking, to rise blowing and puffing, to sink again as his sore shoulder hampered his progress.
Beside him, something broke the water.
"Earl!" Dilys was beside him, her fingers digging into his arm. "That thing!"
A long, narrow shape, which glided like an oiled dart toward the struggling man. One with a long, needlelike jaw which gaped to reveal the flash of pointed teeth. The mercenary saw it, threshed, yelled as it swung in and away. Blood rose to stain the water with a carmine flood.
"Charl!" Threnond yelled from the safety of a casket. "Charl!"
He shouted at the wind.
"My God!" Gale lifted a trembling hand to her lips as she stared at where the mercenary had vanished. "What happened to him?"
"He's dead." Bochner was coldly dispassionate. "That predator must have got his leg. Those jaws could have severed the limb, and if they did, it would account for the amount of blood. Only ripped arteries could have produced so much so fast."
Dilys shuddered.
"But we are left with a problem," continued the hunter. "The blood will have attracted others and we have still to leave the ship." He glanced to where the caskets bobbed, together now in the form of a crude raft. "And our means of escape is moving further away."
Too far. Driven by the wind, the distance was increasing and those aboard had no way to return.
"We need a line." Dumarest turned, found an end of wire hanging from a conduit and ripped it from its housing. Lashing one end around his waist, he threw the other at Bochner. "Hold this. Give me slack. When it's fast to the raft, pull!"
"Earl!" Dilys stepped toward him, hands outstretched to hold him back. "No! You can't!"
She was too late. Even as she spoke he dived, hitting the water cleanly, vanishing to reappear swimming strongly through the waves. He had covered half the distance to the raft when the shape appeared.
The predator returned, or another just like it. A creature hungry for the kill.
Dumarest heard Bochner's warning shout and dived as it closed in, reaching for his boot, his knife. Steel glimmered in the water as he turned, eyes searching the gloom, seeing the long, slender body lance toward him, the jaws gaping, the expanse of the mottled belly as the creature closed in. A kick, and he moved aside just in time, the lower jaw rasping against his hip as, twisting, he plunged the blade into the exposed stomach, dragging back the steel in a long, deep cut which spilled blood and intestines in a fuming cloud.
The blade clamped between his teeth, Dumarest kicked himself to the surface and covered the rest of the distance to the caskets. Egulus reached down and hauled him to safety as water threshed and jaws snapped at the water where he had been.
"The line." Dumarest handed it to the captain. "Fasten it and pull. Hurry!"
It tightened, humming like a bowstring as the distance lessened between the ship and the crude raft. They touched as the Entil rolled, settled deeper as they watched, rolled again with a slow, deliberate movement.
"Jump!" Dumarest reached out to the open port as it swung down toward the waves. "Jump, damn you!"
Gale landed beside him, slipped and almost fell back into the water, steadied as his hands closed about her arms. Bochner thrust Dilys forward and she landed with surprising lightness for her size. The hunter followed, standing poised as the wind carried them away from the foundering vessel, watching as it tilted, the nose lifting, lowering, bubbles rising around it as, with sudden abruptness, it sank beneath the surface.
"Close." Egulus looked at the ring of spreading froth. "The hull must have given way after I'd left."
"It did." Bochner drew air deep into his lungs. His face was wet with spray and the wind turned his hair into a living crest. "Another few minutes and we'd have been food for the fish. Well, Earl, what now?"
"We lash everything tight, set up a sail and run before the wind. Dumarest looked at the sky, the seething spume rising from the waves, the clouds massed low on the horizon. The sun was a smeared copper ball, ringed with a lambent corona and blotched with ebon markings. The air held an acrid metallic taint and, low on the horizon, he could see the dancing flicker of lightning. "And we'd better do it before the storm breaks.
Chapter Nine
The weather peaked at dusk, a hammer of wind racing over the ocean, lifting waves, filling the air with a screaming fury as lightning danced a jagged saraband. Filigrees of eye-searing brilliance reached from water to sky, the roar of thunder a savage accompaniment to the voice of the wind.
Lying huddled in her casket, Dilys Edhessa imagined herself to be dead and in hell.
It was ridiculous even to hope that anything could live through such a storm, and so the fact that she could breathe and hear and feel was nothing but an illusion-a part of the punishment meted out to those who had strayed from the path, or so the Elder had so often told her when she had attended the Place of Contemplation when a child.
A long time ago now, but she had never forgotten and now it was all present in sharp clarity; the old, musty building, the smell of hay and manure, the dampness, the hard benches, the cold impact of the floor against her knees. The dimness. The enigmatic shapes. The monotonous drone of the Elder, who stood fiercely proud of his power and authority and urged them all to be humble and obedient and true servants of the Revealed Truth. A bad time, and one she remembered only in nightmares. But she was dead and not asleep, so why should she be dreaming of the harsh time of childhood?
"Dilys!"
She felt the touch and stirred and looked up into Dumarest's face. And that, too, seemed a dream because he was leaning over her, head thrust into a narrow opening, water running down his hair and face and, behind him, the night blazed with unrestrained violence.
"Dilys!" His hand reached out to slap her cheek. "Wake up, girl! Wake up!"
"Earl?" Water gushed through the opening and she gasped in sudden shock. Abruptly awake, she became aware of the heaving of her chest, the pounding of her heart. "I was asleep, I think. Dreaming. I-"
"You were dying." His voice was harsh with anger. "You kept the lid sealed too long and were breathing your own carbon dioxide."
A mistake both Egulus and Threnond had made as they shared a casket, but which Bochner had not. He had helped to check the lashings and adjust the tattered fabric used as a sail. He had even laughed into the fury of the storm.
"An experience to remember, my friend. At least, the weather is keeping the predators below. Now, if we can remain afloat-"
If the caskets held and the lashing kept them together. If the lightning missed and no rocks waited to rip them open with jagged teeth. If they could run before the wind and not drown or suffocate in their containers then, possibly, they might survive to drift in calm waters. But not yet.
Dilys gasped as Dumarest eased himself into the casket beside her. His clothing was glistening with water and his hands bore thin, ugly welts from the stranded wire used to lash the caskets together. When they were settled close, she said, "Is everything all right?"
"So far, yes."
"You were out there a long time."
Almost too long. He remembered her pallor, the waxen appearance of her face which had given her the likeness of a corpse. A big woman, she needed a lot of oxygen to maintain the fires of her body. He had warned her to keep the lid cracked so as to admit air but she had forgotten, or had been already numbed by inhaling the waste product of her lungs.
Now, shivering, she said, "The water's cold, Earl. So very cold."
"It'll be warm soon."
"I was dreaming," she said, "of when I was young. I came from a stern culture, Earl. Did I tell you that? A farming community which tried to follow the Revealed Truth. We used no machinery of any kind. Nothing but natural fertilizers. No energy other than that provided by natural means-muscles and the use of ropes and levers. Of pulleys and wheels."