Gathmor lifted the battle-ax from Vurjuk’s unresisting hand and swung it against the back of Kalkor’s knees. The thane leaped straight up, so it passed below him and thudded into the side of the ship between Rap’s legs. Momentarily released from that choking grip, Rap toppled himself over the rail in a back somersault and plummeted into the sea. Vurjuk reached both hands for his prisoner and was doubled up by a punch that would have felled an oak. Gathmor vaulted over the side, following Rap.
Blood Wave surged away seaward, out of danger.
2
Swimming in the calm of Durthing Bay was no preparation for what happened when a man fell into a riptide crossing a reef. Nothing in Rap’s past had ever prepared him for the experience; nothing he could do now made the slightest difference. His farsight was warning him of jagged teeth in all directions; seaweed streaming in the water like hair in a wind; sand swirling in clouds along the bottom; strange marine growths and slippery things writhing all around him. And he, stirred in some giant’s silent soup pot, rolled over and over, going down and up and down again, was all the time being rushed helpless between those terribly sharp-looking rocks, coated with abrasive barnacles. Fish fled from this improbable terrestrial monster invading their realm.
Then calm! He fought his way to the surface, to the world of air and life and sound. Gasp! He was into the lagoon—dazed and shaken but unhurt . . . almost so, for he had lost some skin on his shoulders and knees. But alive!
His first thought was to head ashore and warn the villagers, but that was already impossible. He was long past the huts, being borne northward parallel to the coast, and moreover he had left the beach behind also, and there was nothing to landward except rocks and a cliff. So he concentrated on saving his strength, keeping his head up, and searching for Blood Wave. He found her at the limit of his range, far out from shore, northward bound like himself.
Then he could relax a little. With wind and current behind him, Kalkor would not turn back to loot a humble handful of hovels, else he would exhaust his rowers to small purpose. Rather he would search for better pickings up ahead. The immediate danger was past.
But soon Rap found himself being forced inexorably shoreward, to where the surf broke upon monstrous boulders that would love to break him also. He had never swum in real waves, honest waves, and he was appalled at how little his efforts seemed to matter. The sea moved him as it moved the weeds, and if it chose to shatter him and color the spray a momentary red, then that would be his lot.
Try as he might, he moved ever closer to the fury and madness of the breakers, the white thunderclap explosions, the myriad rocky claws stretching out to rend him. Cross-currents spun him around in mockery, so at times he was swimming toward his destruction. At last one careless eddy slid him into the lee of an especially large boulder. He flailed water with hands and feet, resisting the drag of the water, fighting for his life. For one desperate minute he held his position, then he began to drift away. His fingers touched trailing weed. He grabbed, pulled, and slid easily to the rock, a land animal rooted again.
Once he had his breath back, he scrambled up to safety. So far so good! The tidal flow seemed to be easing already, meaning he would not be washed off his rocky perch, but the surf still lay between him and the shore, the sun had gone, and so had every stitch of his clothing. He could hope to swim the few yards to shore when the current slackened in a couple of hours, or he might have to wait for low tide and wade, but he could certainly reach the land in time, and then hope to walk back to the village. On bare feet? Oh, well—at the moment he was king of his own island.
Which was certainly better than being Kalkor’s prisoner.
On the other hand, this deserted land was neither Kith nor Sysannasso nor Pithmot, and thus it must indeed be Dragon Reach, the eastern shore of the Dragon Sea. Things were certainly beginning to shape up like the first of the magic casement’s prophecies. One of the three men in the vision had been Rap, one Sagorn, and the other a jotunn sailor. The first time Rap had met Gathmor, on the dock at Milflor, there had been something oddly familiar about him.
For the thousandth time Rap wondered how those three dread visions should be interpreted. Were they alternatives, with him fated to die in one of those ways? Kalkor had gone, Little Chicken was dead, the dragon was perhaps not far off. Or were they a sequence—would he survive the dragon and at some future date survive Kalkor? And in that case, where was the goblin?
What a choice!
Either the pounding of the surf or the nerve-racking strain of the last week had exhausted him. He wanted to stretch out and sleep, but the rock was not flat enough. In any case, he must not miss the tide. How far to Zark from here? He huddled himself small, shivering in the clammy sea wind and the cold touch of spray.
So he had escaped from the raiders. He wondered if his occult genius included more than just farsight and mastery over animals. Could there be such a thing as a talent for escaping from awkward situations?
Mainland! Apart from a few yards of turbulent water; he was within reach of Zark. A long walk, maybe, but possible. Inos might be in Hub, of course, or back in Krasnegar, or anywhere; but he’d told her he was coming, and that meant following her to Zark, and if he couldn’t find her there, then he’d try the other places afterward. Now he could begin, and that was very satisfying—He had failed to destroy Kalkor, but by all the Gods he had tried! Tried his damndest. He felt even more satisfied when he looked back at that effort. Maybe, just maybe, he could take a little pride in that honest failure. He must no longer think of himself as a stableboy. He was a man now. He hadn’t been one long enough to really get to know himself. Oh, he was accustomed to his size; he knew how his ugly face looked, and the amusement on other people’s faces when they registered it and tried to place him, and he had accepted his absurdly furry faun legs. But the stranger behind his eyes—he was still an untested quantity. Now he could begin to hope that the man in there was not one to be ashamed of. Nice try, lad, nice try! Not bad at all, faun.
So? Maybe it was time to start asserting himself. Maybe he, too, had a destiny to find.
Dragons, huh?
He was unsurprised, an hour or so later, to sense a boat coming from the south, riding the last curl of the tide. It was a cumbersome craft, hollowed from a single great log, being paddled by a burly, naked savage. Even in the dark, farsight said that his hair and mustache and stubbly beard were jotunnish silver.
“Shipmate ahoy!” Rap called.
The boat turned in his direction and a familiar voice came on the wind: ”How much will you pay for supper?”
“All the money I’ve got.”
The tidal race was slackening now, and the wind dying. Rap shouted directions, and in a few minutes the sturdy craft thumped against his rock. He grabbed hold of one side.
“Here, take the painter,” said Gathmor. “There’s nothing to tie it to. “
“Tie it round your neck! Tide’s turning, so we’ll get a free ride back. You never heard of the tides in the Dragon Sea? Stir it like soup.” He was grinning in the dark.
Rap looped the rope round his leg. “The villagers let you borrow this? ”
“The villagers had the sense to be long gone. They must know a raider when they see one. I helped myself, but I expect they won’t mind when we explain. If they do, I’ll kick their heads in. “
Gathmor, apparently, was restored to his old self. “We’re in Dragon Reach?”
“Right. “
“I thought no one lived here?”
Gathmor shrugged, and passed up a basket. “Help yourself—you can see better than I can. No, there are people here. It must be like living on the rim of a volcano. Escaped convicts, I expect. Shipwrecked jotnar, merfolk . . . runaway slaves, of course. They’ll be a rag-bag lot, but probably quite friendly. So I’ve heard.”
“But dragons?”
“I said. Like living on a volcano, and people do that. But remember that it’s metal that attracts dragons. Gold, of course, or silver, but any metal to some extent. There wasn’t as much as a nail in that hamlet that I could see. Stone axes, stone knives. If they can get by without metal, the dragons may not bother them much. “