They started forward, moving carefully on the slanting deck of the broken ship, with the wind-whipped spray and driving rain stinging their faces. They ducked into the slanting aft door and down the companionway. The narrow hall echoed and rang with the noise of cracking timbers coming from amidships.
The aft cabin was a total shambles. The shock of striking the reef and the even worse one that had broken the ship’s back had torn most of the bolted-down furniture loose. Sprung timbers flopped and clattered, and the windows across the stern had all been broken and wrenched from their casings. Spray and rain were splashing in through those gaping holes.
Ce’Nedra and Praia looked frightened as they clung to each other, Urgit held tightly to the keel-post as if expecting yet another crashing impact, and Sadi half-lay in a corner with his arms protectively wrapped around his red leather case. Polgara, however, looked dreadfully angry. She was also wet. The water pouring in through the shattered stern had drenched her clothes and her hair, and her expression was that of one who has been enormously offended. “Exactly what did you do, old man?” she demanded of Belgarath as he and Garion entered through the broken door.
“We hit a reef, Pol,” he replied. “We were taking water, so we had to beach the ship.”
She considered that for a moment, obviously trying to find something wrong with it.
“We can talk about it later,” he said. He looked around. “Is everyone all right? We’ve got to get off this wreck immediately.”
“We’re as well as can be expected, father,” she said. “What’s the problem? I thought you said we were on the beach.”
“We hit a submerged rock and broke the keel. This part of the ship’s still in the water, and about the only thing that’s holding this tub in one piece right now is the pitch in her seams. We’ve got to get forward and off the ship at once.”
She nodded. “I understand, father.” She turned to the others. “Gather up whatever you can carry,” she instructed. “We have to get ashore.”
“I’ll go help Durnik with the horses,” Garion said to Belgarath. “Toth, Eriond, come with me.” He turned toward the door, but paused a moment to look at Ce’Nedra. “Are you all right?” he asked her.
“I think so,” she replied, sounding frightened and rubbing at an ugly bruise on her knee.
“Stay with Aunt Pol,” he instructed curtly and then went out.
The scene in the ship’s hold was even worse than he had expected. Knee-deep water swirled and sloshed in the half-light coming in through the splintered hull. Boxes, bags, and bales floated everywhere, and the top of the sloshing, bilge-smelling water was littered with splinters from the broken timbers. Durnik had herded the wild-eyed horses forward, and they were bunched together in the ship’s bow where the water was the shallowest. “We lost three of them,” he reported, “two with broken necks and one that drowned.”
“Horse?” Eriond asked quickly.
“He’s all right, Eriond,” Durnik assured him. He turned back to Garion. “I’ve been trying to gather up our packs. Everything’s pretty wet, I’m afraid. The food packs were all back in the stern, though. There’s no way to get to them.”
“We can deal with that later,” Garion said. “The main thing now is to get the horses out.”
Durnik squinted at the jagged edges of the two-foot square keel grinding together as the aft end of the ship swung sluggishly in the surging waves. “Too dangerous,” he said shortly. “We’ll have to go out through the bow. I’ll get my axe.”
Garion shook his head. “If the aft end breaks loose, the bow-section’s likely to roll. We could lose another four or five horses if that happens and we might not have too much time left.”
Durnik drew in a deep breath and squared his broad shoulders. His face was not happy.
“I know,” Garion said, putting his hand on his friend’s arm. “I’m tired, too. Let’s do it up forward. There’s no point in breaking out of the hull someplace where we’ll have to jump into deep water.”
It was not quite as difficult as they had expected. The assistance of Toth made a noticeable difference. They selected a space in the ship’s side between a pair of stout ribs and went to work. As Durnik and Garion began carefully to break out the ship’s timbers between those ribs with the force of concentrated will, Toth attacked the same area with a large iron pry bar. The combination of sorcery and the mute’s enormous physical strength quickly opened a low, narrow opening in the ship’s bow.
Silk stood on the beach out of range of the splinters their efforts had sent flying. His cloak was whipping wildly in the wind, and the surf was swirling about his ankles. “Are you all right?” he shouted over the noise of the storm.
“Good enough,” Garion shouted back. “Give us a hand with the horses.”
It eventually took blindfolds. Despite the best efforts of Durnik and Eriond to calm them, the terrified horses could be moved only if they could not see the dangers in the sloshing water surging around their knees. One by one they had to be led and coaxed through the litter lying half-awash in the shattered hold and out into the foaming surf. When the last of their animals was clear and stood flinching on the sand with the driving rain lashing at his flanks, Garion turned back to the sluggishly heaving wreck. “Let’s get the packs out,” he shouted at the others. “Save what you can, but don’t take any chances.”
The Murgo sailors, after leaping from the bow of the ship to the sand, had retreated up the beach and taken dubious shelter on the leeward side of a large, up-thrusting rock. They stood clustered together, sullenly watching the unloading. Garion and the others heaped up the packs above the frothy line that marked the highest point reached by the waves.
“We lost three horses and all the food packs,” Garion reported to Belgarath and Polgara. “I think we got everything else—except what we had to leave behind in the cabins.”
Belgarath squinted upward into the rain. “We can redistribute the packs,” he said, “but we’re going to need food.”
“Is the tide going in or out?” Silk asked as he deposited the last pack on their heap of belongings.
Durnik squinted at the storm-tossed channel leading into the Gorand Sea. “I think it’s just turning.”
“We don’t really have too much of a problem, then,” the little man said. “Let’s find someplace out of the wind and wait for the tide to go out. Then we can come back and ransack the wreck at our leisure. She ought to be completely out of the water at low tide.”
“There’s just one thing wrong with your plan, Prince
Kheldar,” Sadi told him, squinting toward the upper end of the beach. “You’re forgetting those Murgo sailors. They’re stranded on a deserted coast with at least a dozen Malloreon ships cruising up and down the shore line looking for them. Malloreons enjoy killing Murgos almost as much as Alorns do, so those sailors are going to want to get far away from here. It might be wise to get these horses quite some distance away—if we want to keep them.”
“Let’s load the pack horses and get mounted,” Belgarath decided. “I think Sadi’s right. We can come back and pick over what’s left of the ship later.”
They broke down the packs and redistributed the weight to make up for the three lost animals, then began to saddle their mounts.
The sailors, led by a tall, heavy-shouldered Murgo with an evil-looking scar under his left eye, came back down the beach. “Where do you think you’re taking those horses?” he demanded.
“I can’t really see where that’s any of your business,” Sadi replied coolly.
“We’re going to make it our business, aren’t we, mates?”
There was a rumble of agreement from the rain-soaked sailors.
“The horses belong to us,” Sadi told him.
“We don’t care about that. There are enough of us so that we can take anything we want.”
“Why waste time with talk?” one of the sailors behind the scar-faced man shouted.
“Right,” the big Murgo agreed. He drew a short, rusty sword from the sheath at his hip, looked back over his shoulder as he raised it aloft, and shouted, “Follow me!” Then he fell writhing and bellowing in pain to the wet sand, clutching at his broken right arm. Toth, without any change of expression and with an almost negligent side-arm flip, had sent the iron pry bar he still held in one hand spinning through the air with a whirring flutter that ended with a sharp crack as the sword-wielding Murgo’s arm snapped.
The sailors drew back, alarmed by their leader’s sudden collapse. Then a stubble-cheeked fellow in the front rank lifted a heavy boat hook. “Rush them!” he bellowed. “We want those horses and we outnumber them.”