Oh, Gods!
He forgot about Gismak, whose open mouth went by unwetted. Seadragon was drawing ahead, half a length alreadyBlood Wave was going to be cut off! They were almost under that beetling Killer’s Head and the surf was very near. With Seadragon’s blades on one side and leaping froth on the other, there was just not going to be room. Positively not. How could this be? Gath had not foreseen this!
For a moment he wanted to shout at the world to correct the mistake. Nothing could happen that he had not foreseen! Nothing must be allowed to. He was accustomed to having life unroll itself in predictable fashion. He depended on it! Now, suddenly, the future was changing itself? His vision of Blood Wave riding up on the shingle had vanished; he could barely recall what Gark itself looked like. Had looked like. Would have . . . had been going to look like. Unless Vork jostled a rower, Blood Wave was going to win-had been going to win-but that was apparently no longer true. What sort of sorcery was going on here? Variable future?
“Awrk!” croaked Gismak as another stroke went by and the waterboy still stood like a dead tree, neglecting his duties. Gath spasmed into action, but between squirts he continued to sneak looks at Seadragon, relentlessly edging ahead to larboard, and the pounding fury on the reef to starboard. If the two ships fouled oars, then Seadragon might escape, but Blood Wave would be out of control long enough for the current to throw her on the rocks. Positively! This was suicide, plain suicide. As he gave Gismak his final douse he glanced back at Drakkor, grim as death, holding the helm.
The thane beckoned him. Gath had not foreseen that, either, but he moved, fast, hurrying along between the two lines of oars, still being careful, stepping warily over bundles, not jostling. The thane did not like to be kept waiting. The thane would like it even less if a dolt waterboy lost the race for him. It seemed lost already to Gath. One thing Drakkor certainly could not do was ,increase the stroke.
Even as Gath thought that, the thane said something, and the coxswain blew a double pip, indicating a coming increase in stroke. God of Mercy! Their hearts would burst!
A moment later, Seadragon matched the new pace. Panting, Gath reached coxswain and helmsman.
Drakkor was not especially tall, twenty-three years old, looking about fourteen; but he was thick, with arms and shoulders noteworthy even on a jotunn sailor. He rowed a watch every day to keep them so. His baby face was clean-shaven and he bore no tattoos—reputedly in imitation of his father, Kalkor. His ash-blond hair hung to his shoulders. His eyes were as brilliant a blue as eyes could be, and as cold. He had killed six thanes in reckonings; how many lesser men he might have slain was never thought worth mention. At the moment he wore only the customary sailor breeches and an expression of implacable fury.
He was studying the opposition. Then he turned that boyish face with its blood-freezing blue gaze on Gath and snapped, “Watch the rocks, lad!”
Gath said, “Aye, sir,” automatically and looked at the rocks, close off the starboard bow now. He could see Seadragon at the same time, and she was frighteningly close, closing in so there was less than an oar’s length between the two ships’ blades. He did not ask why he was supposed to watch the rocks. He had been taught not to ask questions on this ship. If he had to stand there until he died of old age he would not ask. He muttered a prayer. He was sweating like the rowers. Gods, Gods! Images of catastrophe began to grow clearer and clearer.
They were going to hit! His hands started to shake despite all he could do to stop them. Blood Wave was going to hit the rocks! Her oars would foul, the current would spin her around, and then the strakes would buckle in near the bows . . . He could see the surf blasting up pink, see seaweed, see bodies being pounded on shell-coated rocks that would rip them to shreds in seconds. Gods! He knew it! He knew he was about to die. His prescience left no doubt. Terror won over discipline. “Sir!” he screamed, and looked around.
Drakkor smiled grimly. “Keep watching!”
Oh! Gath watched again. The image of destruction faded suddenly. Then it returned. “Too far!” he yelled, wiping his streaming face.
Again the threat diminished as the thane eased the steering oar back. Bastard! Filthy, barnacled bastard! He was using Gath’s prescience! He’d deliberately set course closer and closer until Gath had told him
“Say when, boy!”
“Clear now, sir,” Gath said hoarsely. “Larboard-too far! A little more . . .”
Suddenly Blood Wave was within rocks. Foam rushed past, its edges barely beyond the tips of the oars on either hand. The longship swayed uneasily, but her draft was so shallow that the currents hardly moved her. Death reached out, and then withdrew—and reached again.
“Starboard now!” Gath screamed.
Then the danger was past. Blood Wave hurtled through the reefs and came around the headland. Safe! . . . for now. Gath felt as if he’d been washed and hung out to dry, wet and limp. He was shaking like a cook’s flour sieve. The nerve of the man! The first day, the thane had personally taken a rope’s end to Gath’s hide just for mentioning that he had prescience—and now he’d used that prescience to win a race! Drakkor had cheated in a race with another thane! Well, perhaps that was not too surprising, but why hadn’t Gath foreseen that sneaky little piece of deception?
Then he saw the reason for the insanity. Seadragon was still crowding, but Blood Wave had gained ground with that suicidal shortcut. Neck and neck the two longships raced toward a massive seastack, its top leaning over as if to touch the cliff, almost an arch. Side by side they bore down on the channel between. Just maybe it was just barely wide enough for one, but it certainly would not take two abreast. Now it was Blood Wave that was crowding out Seadragon, hurtled straight for that tiny gap. The enemy had the rocks this time. At the last possible moment, Seadragon backed water, her crew’s roars of fury quite audible. Drakkor bellowed. His men shipped oars, the swell caught the longship and lifted her. She surged forward like a startled horse, out of the sunlight into cold, windy shadow, rank with the tang of seaweed. Rocky walls rushed past on either hand, with blue sky high above and white birds circling. The sailors howled in simultaneous triumph, raising echoes, cheering their thane for that superlative piece of seamanship—and for almost killing the lot of them.
Gath had not foreseen any of this. He grinned weakly at Vork, who was in the bows, leaping up and down in his excitement, almost as red as Red.
A moment later the tide vomited Blood Wave out into the calm of a wide bay, enclosed by steep green hills. On shore lay the thorp of Gark itself. Seadragon would be delayed by having to detour around the seastack and the rocks beyond, or double back and make another run at the gauntlet . . . she went around, Gath foresaw. She’d take it easy, too, in tribute to the winner, so that Thane Drakkor could be home to welcome his visitors.
Gath’s prescience had returned. Obviously there was a shielding on that headland, just like the castle at home in Krasnegar. He couldn’t foresee what happened inside shieldings; he hadn’t foreseen the seastack or Drakkor’s devious ploy. Once inside, he hadn’t been able to foresee events outside. Why would a sorcerer put a shielding on a cliff? To discourage visitors coming by night, of course, or in fog. If their pilot had more than mundane vision, he would not be able to use it to find that shortcut.
The rowers ran out their oars again and picked up the stroke, which was fast but not murderous. Gath found the water skin and went back to where he’d finished before. But now he could relax a little and contemplate the immediate future—the thane’s tumultuous welcome from his subjects, and his own walk up through the village to . . .
OOPS!
There was shielding in Gark, also. The future ended before he reached the end of that walk.
2
Gark was not much of a place, even compared to Krasnegar. It might be better living than Dwanish, though. The surrounding hills were grass and rock, bereft of trees. The houses had low walls of stone and roofs of sod, so that from the bay the thorp hardly showed up at all, just chimneys growing out of grass. Gath decided that either Nordlanders walked around on their knees indoors or their dwellings lay half underground For warmth in winter, maybe? There were goats cropping those shaggy roofs, although they weren’t visible from the sea, either. The only large building stood on a slight rise, and it was a timbered hall with a roof of copper, a paler green than the sod. That would be the thane’s palace.