Half the World (Shattered Sea #2)(41)
“Well don’t just hit ’em, you lazy bastards!” he shouted in a broken voice. “Pull ’em!”
The crew laughed as they set to their oars, and the South Wind pulled smoothly off into the swift Denied, rowing with the current at last, leaving the oxen and their drivers to wait on the bank for a new burden.
STRANGE TIMES
The forest gave way to the open steppe. Terribly open. Ruthlessly flat. Mile upon mile of lush, green, waving grass.
To Thorn, brought up among the hills and mountains and cliffs of Gettland, there was something crushing in all that emptiness, all that space, stretching off under a bottomless sky to the far, far horizon.
“Why does no one farm it?” asked Koll, straddling the downed mast with the wind whipping the shavings from under his knife.
“The Horse People graze it,” said Dosduvoi. “And don’t like finding other folk out here.”
Odda snorted. “They like it so little they skin ’em alive, indeed.”
“A practice the Prince of Kalyiv taught them.”
“Who learned it in the First of Cities,” said Fror, wiping his misshapen eye with a fingertip.
“Though I understand it was taken there by travellers from Sagenmark,” said Rulf.
“Who were taught it when Bail the Builder first raided them,” said Yarvi.
“So are the skinners skinned,” mused Skifr, watching the wind sweep patterns in the grass, “and the bloody lessons turn in circles.”
“Well enough.” Rulf scanned the river ahead, and behind, and the flat land around with eyes more fiercely narrowed than ever. “Long as we take no instruction.”
“Why are you so worried?” asked Thorn. “We haven’t seen a ship for days.”
“Exactly. Where are they?”
“Here are two,” said Father Yarvi, pointing downriver.
He had sharp eyes. It wasn’t until they came much closer that, straining over her shoulder, Thorn could see what the black heaps on the river’s bank were. The charred skeletons of a pair of small ships in a wide patch of trampled grass. The blackened circle of a spent fire. A fire just like the one they warmed their hands at every night.
“It doesn’t look good for the crews,” muttered Brand, with a knack for saying what everyone could already see.
“Dead,” said Skifr brightly. “Perhaps some lucky ones are enslaved. Or unlucky ones. The Horse People are not known as gentle masters.”
Odda frowned out across the expanse of flat grass. “You think we’ll make their acquaintance?”
“Knowing my luck,” murmured Dosduvoi.
“From now on we look for high ground to camp on!” bellowed Rulf. “And we double the guard! Eight men awake at all times!”
So it was with everyone nervous, frowning out across the steppe and startling at every sound, that they caught sight of a ship rowing upriver.
She was of a size with the South Wind, sixteen oars a side or so. Her prow-beast was a black wolf, so Thorn guessed her crew to be Throvenlanders, and by the scars on the shields at the rail, men ready for a fight. Maybe even hungry for one.
“Keep your weapons close!” called Rulf, his horn bow already in his hand.
Safrit watched nervously as men struggled to manage oar-blades and war-blades at once. “Shouldn’t we smooth the path for Father Peace?”
“Of course.” Father Yarvi loosened his own sword in its sheath. “But the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter. Well met!” he called across the water.
A mailed and bearded figure stood tall at the prow of the other ship. “And to you, friends!” It would have sounded more peaceable if he hadn’t had men with drawn bows on either side of him. “Our ship is the Black Dog, come up the Denied from the First of Cities!”
“The South Wind, come down the Divine from Roystock!” Yarvi shouted back.
“How were the tall hauls?”
“Thirsty work for those who did the lifting.” Yarvi held up his crippled hand. “But I got through it.”
The other captain laughed. “A leader should share his men’s work, but take a fair share and they’ll lose all respect for him! May we draw close?”
“You may, but know we are well armed.”
“In these parts it’s the unarmed men who cause suspicion.” The captain signalled to his crew, a weathered-looking group, all scars, beards and bright ring-money, who skilfully drew the Black Dog into the middle of the current and alongside the South Wind, prow to stern.
Their captain burst out in disbelieving laughter. “Who’s that old bastard you have at the helm there? Bad Rulf or I’m a side of ham! I was sure you were dead and had lost no sleep over it!”
Rulf barked out a laugh of his own. “A side of ham and a rotten one at that, Blue Jenner! I was sure you were dead and had tapped a keg in celebration!”
“Bad Rulf?” muttered Thorn.
“Long time ago.” The old helmsman waved it away as he set his bow down. “Folk generally get less bad with age.”
The crew of the Black Dog tossed their prow-rope across the water and, in spite of some cursing at their tangling oars, the crews dragged the two ships together. Blue Jenner leaned across and clasped Rulf’s arm, both men beaming.