Ranild lifted the crossbow and shot. Kennin crashed at his feet. The quarrel had gone through breastbone, heart, and back. Blood poured across the planks.
It stabbed in Tauno: Ingeborg had warned of betrayal, but Ranild was too shrewd for her. He must have plotted with man after single man, in secret comers of the hold. The moment the swimmers went after their booty, he gave the word to seize her and Niels. And slay them? No, that might leave traces; bind them, gag them, lay them below decks, until the trusting halflings had returned.
Eyjan’s quick understanding, Kennin’s ready action had upset the plan. The onrush of sailors was shaken and slowed. There was time for Eyjan and Tauno to dive overboard.
A couple of pikes arced harmlessly after them. Ranild loomed at the rail, black across the evening. His guffaw boomed forth:
“Maybe this’ll buy your passage home from the sharks!” And down to them he cast the body of Kennin.
IX
THE dolphins gathered.
With them, after the manner of merfolk, Tauno and Eyjan left
their brother. They had closed the eyes, folded the hands, and taken the knife-steel beginning to rust-that it might go on in use as something that had known him. Now it was right that he should make the last gift which was his to give, not to the conger eels but to those who had been his friends.
The halflings withdrew a ways while the long blue-gray shapes surrounded Kennin-very quietly, very gently-and they sang across the sunset ocean that farewell which ends:
Wide shall you wander, at one with the world, Ever the all of you eagerly errant:
Spirit in sunlight and spindrift and sea-surge, Flesh in the fleetness of fish and of fowl, Back to the Bearer your bone and your blood-salt.
Beloved:
The sky take you.
The sea take you.
And we will remember you in the wind.
“But oh, Tauno, Tauno!” Eyjan wept. “He was so young!”
He held her close. The low waves rocked them. “Stark are the
Noms,” Tauno said. “He made a good departure.”
A dolphin came to them and asked in dolphin wise what more help they wished. It would not be hard to keep the ship hereabouts, as by smashing the rudder. Presently thirst would wreak justice.
Tauno glanced at the cog, becalmed on the horizon, sail furled. “No,” he said, “they hold hostages. Nevertheless, something must be done.”
“I’ll cut open Herr Ranild’s belly,” Eyjan said, “And tie the end of his gut to the mast, and chase him around the mast till he’s lashed to it.”
“I hardly think him worth that much trouble,” Tauno replied. “Dangerous is he, though. To attack the ship herself, with the dolphins or by swimming beneath and prying strake from strake, is no trick. To seize her, on the other hand, may be impossible. Yet must we try, for Yria, Ingeborg, and Niels. Come, we’d better take food—our cousins will catch us some-and rest. Our strength has been spent.”
—A while after midnight he awoke refreshed. Grief had not drained from him; however, the keenness for rescue and revenge filled most of his being.
Eyjan slept on, awash in a cloud of her hair. Strange how innocent, almost childlike her face had become, lips half parted and long lashes down over cheekbones. Around her were the guardian dolphins. Tauno kissed her in the hollow where throat met breast, and swam softly away.
It was a light night of Northern summer. Overhead, heaven stood aglow, a twilight wherein the stars looked small and tender. The waters glimmered, barely moving, a lap-lap-lap of wavelets above the deeper half-heard march of the tide. The air was hushed, cool, and damp.
Tauno came to Berning. He circled her with the stealthiness of a shark. Nobody seemed to be at the helm, but a man stood at either side of the main deck, pike agleam, and a third was in the crow’s nest. Lanthorns were left dark so as not to dazzle their eyes. That meant three below. They were standing watch and watch. Ranild was taking no chances with his foes.
Or was he? The rail amidships lay scarcely more than a fathom