Seizing his goad, he forced Tempestamer to give of her utmost on the final stretch towards her mooring.
Shivering in the branchways, more of the Wego attended the bragmeet than ever in history, and while the wise’uns tried to present the summer’s achievements in a flattering light, kept interrupting to ask, “What use is that to us? Can we eat it? Does it help to keep us warm?”
In vain the senior chaplain, by name Knowelkin, strove to maintain formality. The folk mocked the claims of those who had survived the unprecedented summer storms by staying close to home, like Senshower whose Riskall had belied her name by scurrying from inlet to sheltered inlet, like Conqueright who had pledged the reputation of his Catchordes on the chance of garnering vast quantities of fish only to find the schools weren’t running where they did. Almost as though they were hungry for news of doom the assembly listened in silence to Toughide and Shrewdesign, who told of icebergs sighted all season long further south than ever known before, fisherfolk driven into mid-ocean clinging to barqs unfit for any but fresh-water work, great trees torn loose by gales and set to drifting with the current, some bearing signs of habitation as though they had formed part of a house, a town or even a city. And when eventually they did make landfall, they reported, they found long tracts of coast abandoned to the dirq and fosq, the icefaw and snowbelong, whose normal range was half-a-score days’ journey poleward.
“What we brought home from our voyage,” Toughide concluded soberly, “was no better than what we’d have got had we made due north.”
The company shifted uneasily, but the chaplains preened. Now the meeting had settled down, they could remind themselves how hunger and anxiety invariably drove folk back to the faith and customs of their ancestors.
But suddenly a roar cut through the soughing of icy wind among the boughs.
“Who dared to summon a bragmeet without Skilluck? What misbudded moron told you Tempestamer would not ride out the worst of storms? Let him stand forth who called the meet before I came!”
And the furious captain stomped into the center of the gathering, healthy-tall—taller than any Wego mariner in living memory—followed by Strongrip and Sharprong and someone whom the company had difficulty in recognizing: Wellearn. But a Wellearn transformed, bigger, huskier, and infinitely more self-confident than the callow youth who had set forth in spring.
Knowelkin shrank reflexively at Skilluck’s intrusion, all the more because he and his companions were so obviously in good fettle. The captain fixed him with a glare.
“You!” he said accusingly. “You took it on yourself to say I must be given up for lost!”
“Not I!” the chaplain babbled, casting around for a way of escape, for combat-stink from Skilluck filled the air and he was weakened by fasting.
“Liar!” hurled Toughide. “You insisted on the meet being held when we captains said to wait a while! You understand the calendar—you know the normal end of summer!”
“But summer this year ended early! Surely a skilled seafarer—”
“We’ve been in latitudes where there is no winter!” Wellearn shouted.
“That’s right!” Skilluck set himself back on his pads, claws poised. “Nor any hunger, either! Look at us! Think we’re sick—weak—crazy— dreamlost? See any creshmarks on us? But I see one on you!” Reaching out quicker than Knowelkin could dodge, he nipped the chaplain’s mantle and provoked a squeal of pain.
“Thought so,” the captain said with satisfaction. “Always the way, isn’t it? When things get hard, instead of reasoning and working, you prefer to retreat into dreamness! Strongrip, make him drink a dose of creshban and see sense!”
“Best thing any briq from Ushere ever carried home,” the seaman grunted, holding aloft a Hearthomer nutshell. “A certain remedy for cresh!”
That provoked a stir of excitement among the crowd.
“But,” Strongrip continued, “do you think we should waste it on this idiot? After all, he’s been starving himself like Blestar—deliberately— and Blestar was the only one of us it didn’t save!”
“That’s a point,” said Skilluck ruminatively. “Very well, let them be the ones to go without. It’d be a fit punishment for the way they’ve insulted us.”