On the sixth day, with the sun high but occasionally hidden by passing clouds, Nikandr sat on deck, his back to the gunwale, biting into the hardtack biscuits that were their only provisions besides weak ale. Jahalan had been summoning the winds, coaxing them into the right direction, perhaps attempting to feel for the location of the trailing ship, which had shown itself several hours ago, closer than it had been in the morning. Nikandr realized he could no longer see Ashan’s skiff. He took the telescope from the helm and moved to the bowsprit. He scanned the horizon, but found nothing.
“Jahalan, where is he?”
Jahalan opened his eyes. He was nearly sleeping on his feet. He rushed to the bow and took the telescope from Nikandr. “I don’t know,” he said after sweeping the horizon.
They thought perhaps he was hiding among the clouds, but Ashan had never veered from his straightforward course. Had Nikandr been wrong all along? Had Ashan been toying with them in order to more easily lose them later?
Nyet. That made no sense. Ashan was arqesh; had he wanted to he could have lost them that first night.
Perhaps, then, he had changed his mind. Or perhaps he had finally realized that the Gorovna had been followed and it was too risky to lead Nikandr any further.
“Ship, ho!”
No sooner had the words come from the boatswain than the sound of a cannon broke across the stillness of the afternoon. Nikandr heard the whine of the grapeshot beneath the ship and a tight cluster of audible pops as it punctured one of the seaward sails. A moment later, the ship twisted counterclockwise, the telltale sign that the shot had ripped a sizable hole in the canvas.
Abaft and above, exiting a thick bank of white clouds, was the Vostroman ship. How it had gained on them so much Nikandr didn’t know, but they were in for it now. Their position gave the Vostroman ship many options and the Gorovna few.
Nikandr took over the helm’s controls. Udra was already sitting ahead of the controls, cross-legged, eyes closed and palms flat against the decking.
“Bring us down, Udra. Quickly. Viggen, prepare the cannon. Jahalan…”
“ Da,” Jahalan said as he moved to the mainmast. Once there, he opened his arms, and the alabaster gem on his brow glowed brighter. The winds gathered strength as another cannon shot rang out. This one crashed into the hull, a poor shot-they had most likely been told to take the Gorovna intact, along with her crew.
Nikandr tilted the ship downward. With Udra suppressing the windwood’s ability to stay afloat and Jahalan’s winds, they were already picking up considerable speed, but the trailing ship-Nikandr recognized it now as the Kavda, a swift eight-masted caravel-was already closing the distance.
Viggen and the boatswain manned the cannon at the bow. They trained it upward, and it roared to life, but even as Nikandr heard a satisfying crunch as the shot tore into their hull, two more blasts ripped into the Gorovna’s landward mainsail.
“Give them wind, Jahalan!”
“They have two havaqiram.” Jahalan’s voice was calm, but his words were clipped, the muscles along his neck straining.
The wind-heading strong two points off the bow-swirled about the ship.
“I can’t stop them!” Jahalan said, his face becoming red, his hands bunched now into tight fists.
The ship was slowing. The winds were too unpredictable to capture. Soon they would be dead in the wind, helpless to stop the Kavda as they lowered grappling hooks and took the Gorovna in for the kill.
Suddenly the air began to mist, and the temperature dropped from cool to frigid. In mere moments Nikandr was drenched.
“What are you doing?”
“It isn’t me,” Jahalan replied.
He thought at first it was the qiram aboard the Kavda, but their wind masters wouldn’t do such a thing-the effect would be too debilitating to their line of sight.
A frigid gust cut windward across the ship, and then-as suddenly as it had come-it was gone. It blew again, and vanished. Nikandr could barely see Jahalan, who stood only four paces away, but he could still see the look of confusion on his face.
“I think we are beckoned,” Nikandr said.
“Ashan?”
“Who else?”
Another cannon blast cut through the fog and tore into the decking at the stern. A man screamed, the sounds cutting through the fog like a knife.
Another shot came moments later, and Nikandr realized the Kavda was using the sound to target them.
“All quiet!” Nikandr shouted. “Viggen, shut that man up!”
“Aye, My Lord.”
The gust came again, blowing in the same direction, as a cannon shot ripped through the landward foresail.
Nikandr stared down at the levers that allowed him to guide the bearing of the ship. He knew the situation was untenable. Even with the mist, the Kavda would soon correct their speed, they would close, and it would all be over.
His breath came slowly, and he felt his fingers tingle as he realized what the wind was telling him to do. He could release the ship’s controls. The wind would carry them northward, toward uncharted territory. It was a decision that would wrest them from the jaws of the Kavda, but it was one that could ruin them just the same. If he did this, the Gorovna would slip free of the currents that ran between the islands, the currents that had been meticulously groomed and guided by the spires and by the delicate hand of the Matri over centuries. Outside of these shipping lanes, the aether swirled and eddied as unpredictably as it did at the base of the eyrie’s cliffs. Worse-the effect was often stronger, the aether swirling into unforgiving maelstroms that would rip the ship to pieces were Nikandr to engage the ship’s controls once more.
Once free of the stream that ran between the Khalakovan and Vostroman archipelagos, they would be forced to rely on the abilities of Jahalan to guide the ship like the Aramahn did in their tiny skiffs.
But really, despite his fears, there was no choice in this. If he didn’t, the Kavda would have them.
Before he could change his mind, he pushed all three levers forward until they locked into place, and the ship began to turn and drift windward.
CHAPTER 40
The Gorovna twisted in the wind, and though Nikandr had not said a word, it soon became clear to any experienced sailor what was happening.
Viggen’s voice cut through the mist from the stern of the ship. “Kapitan?”
“Silence on deck!” Nikandr shouted as loud as he dared.
Several more shots rang out from the Kavda, but they were further now and the shots went wide. A short while later, soft as a memory, Nikandr heard the order to come about. Soon the Gorovna would be out of reach, and it was doubtful the Kavda would brave the currents to chase them down. If they did, they might succeed in capturing or destroying their quarry, but more likely than not they would in the process become lost to the winds as well.
Jahalan guided them, being careful not to use too heavy a hand lest the havaqiram aboard the Kavda sense it. The mist began to recede. Nikandr could once again see the foremast clearly. The wounded crewman lay on his side at the stern, rolling his head from side to side while Viggen, kneeling over him, clamped his hand over the man’s mouth to keep him from screaming. Udra pulled a black-and-white scarf from around her neck and began binding the man’s wound. The deck around them was bloody and mangled from grapeshot.
They continued northward, a few calls from the Kavda coming to them from within the mist. The Gorovna had now completely drifted free from it, and as the distance increased, Nikandr saw how truly immense it was. It looked like a cloud the size of an island, churning as the wind pushed them onward.