“My Lord!” the captain protested.
“Get that tiller!” Garion shouted. “Turn starboard! Turn! Turn! Turn!” He pointed at the deadly reefs foaming directly in their path.
The captain gaped at the huge knife-edged rocks standing in his vessel’s course. Then he whirled and tore the tiller from the hands of his frozen steersman. Instinctively, he swung the tiller hard over for a turn to port.
“Starboard!” Garion shouted. “Turn to starboard!”
“No, my Lord,” the captain disagreed. “We have to turn to port—to the left.”
“We’re going backward, you jackass! Turn right!”
“Starboard,” the captain corrected absently, still wrestling with an idea he was not yet fully prepared to grasp— all the while still firmly holding the tiller locked into the fatal course he had originally set.
Garion began to clamber over the still-floundering sailors desperately trying to reach the bemused captain, but there came a sudden tearing sound from below the waterline and a lurching jolt as their ship crashed stern-first into the reef Timbers shrieked and snapped as the sharp rocks knifed into the vessel’s bottom. Then they hung there, impaled on the rocks, while the waves began the deadly pounding that would soon break the ship to pieces.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Garion struggled to his feet, shaking his head to clear it of the ringing sound and to chase the dancing sparks from before his eyes. The sudden jolt of the ship’s striking the reef had tumbled him headlong into the aft rail, and there was a great, stinging welt across the top of his scalp. The air around him was filled with sounds. There were shouts from the deck and cries for help coming from the water. The ship groaned and shook as she hung on the reef, and the surging waves pounded her splintered bottom on the unseen rocks beneath her keel. Wincing, Garion shook his head again and began to slip and slide his way across the heaving aft deck toward the companionway door. As he reached it, however, Belgarath and Durnik came crashing out. “What’s happened?” the old man demanded.
“We hit a reef,” Garion said. “Is anybody down there hurt?”
“They’re all right—a little tumbled about is all.”
Garion touched the welt on top of his head, wincing at the sharp sting. Then he looked at his fingers, noting that there didn’t seem to be any blood.
“What’s the matter?” Belgarath asked.
“I hit my head.”
“I thought we all decided that you weren’t going to do that any more.”
A deadly, jarring boom came from under their feet and with it the sound of splintering timbers.
“Belgarath,” Durnik said with alarm, “we’re caught on the reef. This surf is going to pound the ship to pieces.”
Belgarath looked around quickly. “Where’s the captain?” he demanded.
Garion turned to look aft. “He was right there at the tiller, Grandfather,” he said. He clambered up the short incline to the aft deck and caught hold of the steersman, who was stumbling forward. “Where’s the captain?” he shouted.
“Lost. He was thrown over the aft rail when we hit the reef.” The steersman’s eyes were filled with shock and fright. “We’re all doomed!” he cried, clinging to Garion.
“Oh, stop that!” Garion snapped. “The captain’s gone, Grandfather,” he shouted over the noise of the storm and the confusion on deck. “He fell over the side.”
Belgarath and Durnik came quickly up the three steps to the aft deck. “We’ll have to take care of it ourselves, then,” the old man said. “How much time do you think we’ve got, Durnik?”
“Not much. There are a lot of timbers breaking down in the hold, and you can hear water pouring in.”
“We have to get her off this reef, then—before the rocks break any more holes in her bottom.”
“The reef’s the only thing that’s keeping us up right now, Belgarath,” the smith objected. “If we lift her off, she’ll sink in minutes.”
“Then we’ll have to beach her. Come along, both of you.” He led them aft and took hold of the tiller bar. He jiggled it back and forth a couple times and then swore. “The rudder’s gone.” He drew in a deep breath to calm himself and then turned to Garion and Durnik. “We’ll do this all at one time and all together,” he told them. “If we start heaving and hauling and bouncing her around, we’ll just tear her up all the more.” He wiped the rain and spray out of his face and peered toward the shore, perhaps a mile distant. He pointed at the up-thrusting headland with the white bluff on one side dropping straight down into the thundering surf. “There’s a beach just to the left of that bluff,” he said. “We’ll try for that. It’s not too well sheltered, and there are a lot of rocks sticking up out of the sand, but it’s the closest.”
Durnik leaned far out over the aft rail and peered down. “She’s been badly broached, Belgarath,” he reported gravely. He squinted across the intervening water toward the beach. “Our only hope is speed. Once she’s clear of the reef, she’ll start to go down. We’re going to have to push her toward the beach as fast as we can—and without a rudder, it’s going to be very hard to control our direction.”
“Do we have any other options?” Belgarath asked him. “Not that I can think of, no.”
“Let’s do it then.” The old man looked at them. “Are we ready?”
Garion and Durnik both nodded, then straightened, concentrating hard as each of them drew in and focused his will. Garion began to tingle all over and clenched himself tightly, holding in the pent-up force. “Now!” Belgarath barked. “Lift!” the three of them said in unison. The battered stern of the ship came sluggishly up out of the churning waves with her shattered timbers shrieking as the hull pulled free of the jagged reef.
“There!” Belgarath snapped, pointing at the half-obscured beach.
Garion thrust, bracing his will astern at the boiling reef. The ship settled sickeningly as she came free, going down rapidly by the stern; then, slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed, she surged forward. Even over the sound of the howling wind, he could hear the rushing wash of water along her sides as she raced toward the safety of the beach.
When they hit the currents in the main channel, however, the rudderless ship began to veer and yaw, threatening to swing broadside. “Keep her straight!” Belgarath shouted. The veins were standing out in his forehead, and his jaws were tightly clenched.
Garion labored at it. As long as their broken ship moved fast enough, they could keep the water from pouring in through the shattered stern, but if she went broadside to the waves, the loss of momentum would be fatal. The sea would inexorably drag her under. Garion gripped the bow with the force of his will, holding the ship rigidly on course, even as he continued to drive toward the beach with all his strength.
Three hundred more yards. Sweating and straining, Gar-ion could see the foaming surf seething on the sandy, boulder-strewn beach.
Two hundred yards. He could hear the thunder of the waves.
One hundred yards. He could feel the ponderous, upward-heaving swell of the great wave that rose beneath them and rushed them toward the safety only scant yards away.
And then, even as the prow touched the froth-covered sand, the great swell that had driven them up onto the beach subsided, and there was a dreadful, shocking crash from amidships as they came down onto a submerged boulder lurking beneath the surf. Again Garion was thrown face down on the deck and half stunned by the impact.
The surf still boomed about them, and the snapping and splintering of timbers amidships was deafening, but they were safe. The prow of the stricken vessel was firmly embedded in the wet sand of the beach. As Garion painfully hauled himself to his feet, he felt drained and weak from his efforts. Then the deck beneath his feet gave a peculiar, sickening lurch, and there were more cracking and splintering noises coming from amidships.
“I think we broke the keel when we hit that rock,” Durnik said shakily. His face was gray with exhaustion, and he was shaking visibly. “We’d better get everybody off the ship and onto the beach.”
Belgarath rose from the scuppers. There was a ruddy contusion on his cheek, rain and spray streaming down his face, and a vast anger in his eyes. He was swearing sulfurously. Then his rage suddenly vanished. “The horses!” he exclaimed. “They’re down in the hold! Durnik!”
But the smith was already running forward toward the sprung hatchway amidships. “Get Toth to come and help me!” he shouted back over his shoulder. “We have to get those horses out!”
“Garion!” Belgarath barked. “Let’s get-everybody out of the cabins and onto dry land. I don’t think we’ve got a lot of time before this wreck starts to break apart.”