Lightning flares showed him the curve of Delagoa Bay and the wretched little settlement he’d first seen seven weeks previously. The current swept him past it, inexorably southward. By the time he’d recovered enough to move his arms and legs against the current, Kynan estimated he’d been swept several miles south of the settlement on the wide bay-which meant Margo and Koot were trapped north of it, on the wrong side of the bay to reach the gate.
Kynan struck out for shore, wincing slightly at pulled muscles in his shoulder, and finally groped his way onto a rocky beach. He pulled himself on hands and knees above the line of crashing breakers, then collapsed to catch his breath. Rain pelted his back. He hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days, felt dizzy and weak from hunger and his struggle with the sea.
Am I going to die here? And where am I, really? he wondered bleakly. Africa, Margo had said, but Kynan had only the haziest idea where Africa was-somewhere far south of Wales-and he hadn’t known how to interpret the glowing chart she’d shown him on her “computer.” He knew the men in the bay settlement were Portuguese. Kynan shivered. No love was lost between Welshmen and Portuguese.
The other men who lived here … The pictures Margo had shown him were difficult to credit. Black men in strange garments, carrying long, wicked spears he wouldn’t have wanted to face one-on-one, not even on his best day. Which this clearly wasn’t. Slowly Kynan sat up, squinting into the rain and dark wind. Lightning flares revealed the sea, lashing furiously at the coast.