“No!” the captive shouted. “Ingeborg, how could you?”
She caught him by the forelock, drew his countenance down
to hers in spite of his withstanding, and whispered. They saw him grow taut, they saw how he kindled. “What’d you say?” Ranild demanded.
“Keep me alive and I might tell you,” Ingeborg answered merrily. She and Niels mocked the last rites as best they were able, while the sailors yelped laughter.
“Pax vobiscum,” she said finally, who had known clerics. “Dominus vobiscum.” She signed the kneeling youth. It gave her a chance to murmur to him: “God forgive us this, and forgive me that He is not the lord on whom I called. Niels, if we ever see each other beyond today, fare you well.”
“And you, Ingeborg.” He rose to his feet. “I am ready,” he said.
Ranild, puzzled, more than a bit uneasy, came toward him carrying the noose.
And suddenly Ingeborg shrieked. “Ya-a-a-a-ah!” Her nails raked at Lave’s eyes. He lurched. “What the Devil?” he choked. Ingeborg clung to him, clawing, biting, yelling. Tyge dashed to help. Niels lowered his head, charged, and butted Ranild in the stomach. The captain went down on his arse. Niels kicked him in the ribs. Torben and Palle sprang from the bulwarks to grab the boy. Sivard gaped from above.
The dolphins had been swimming in their ring for so many hours in order that the crew might come to think no trouble was to be expected from the water and stop watching for it. Too late, the man in the crow’s nest cried warning.
Out from under the poopdeck burst Eyjan. Her knife flared in her grasp.
Up from the sea came Tauno. He had emptied his lungs while he clung to the barnacled hull, hidden by the forecastle bulge. Now a dolphin rose beneath him. With fingers and toes, Tauno gripped the backfin, and the leap carried him halfway from water to gunwale. He caught the rail and vaulted inboard.
Palle started to turn around. The merman’s son snatched the pikeshaft lefthanded; his right hand slid dagger into Palle, who fell on the deck screaming and pumping blood like any slaughtered hog. Tauno rammed the butt of the pike into Torben’s midriff. The sailor staggered back.
Tauno slashed the rope on Niels’ wrists. He drew the second of the knives he carried. “Here,” he said. “This was Kennin’s.” Niels uttered a single yell of thanks to the Lord God of Hosts, and bounded after Torben.
Lave was having trouble yet with Ingeborg. Eyjan came from behind and drove her own blade in at the base of the skull. Before she could free the steel, Tyge jabbed his pike at her. With scornful ease, she ducked the thrust, got in beneath his guard and to him. What happened next does not bear telling. The merfolk did not make war, but they knew how to take an enemy apart.
At the masthead Sivard befouled himself and wailed for mercy.
Stunned though Torben was, Niels failed to dispatch him at
once, making several passes before he could sink knife in gut; and then Torben did not die, he threshed bleeding and howling until Eyjan got around to cutting his throat; and Niels was sick. Mean-while Ranild had regained his feet. His sword flew free; the cold light ran along it. He and Tauno moved about, searching for an opening.
“Whatever you do,” Tauno said to him, “you are a dead man.”
“If I die in the flesh,” Ranild gibed, “I will live without end
while you’re naught but dung.”
Tauno stopped and raked fingers through his hair. “I don’t understand why that should be so,” he said. “Maybe your kind has more need of eternity.”
Ranild thought he saw a chance. He rushed in. Thus he took Tauno’s lure. He stabbed. The halfling was not there, had simply swayed aside from the point. Tauno chopped down on Ranild’s wrist with the edge of his left hand. The sword clattered loose. Tauno’s right hand struck home the knife. Ranild fell to the deck.
The sun rose and all blood shone an impossibly bright red. Ranild’s wound was not mortal. He stared at Tauno above him and gasped, “Let me. . . confess to God. . .let me escape Hell.”