Страница 123 из 186
"Right," Giernas nodded. "You three cover me. I'm going to get to the base of the mainmast and see about shifting our friend up there."
"Hey, why do you get all the fun?" Eddie said.
The other three looked at him for a second. "I'm a better shot," Giernas pointed out; which was true. Not that Eddie wasn't very good. "Get ready."
His testicles tried to crawl back up inside him for protection, and he gri
"Go!"
Crack!
Jaddi's gun, blasting into the rolled hammocks around the maintop. Giernas rose as he saw her finger squeeze, his soft moccasins thumping on the quarterdeck as he drove himself forward. A malignant red eye winked at him from the top, and splinters flew from the idol of Arucuttag of the Sea that stood by the bi
Crack! Crack! Sue and Eddie fired.
Over the quarterdeck railing, vaulting on his left hand. Crack! Jaditwara firing again, and there was a hoarse cry from above. His moccasins thumped down on the main deck; it was a six-foot drop, and he took it on flexed knees and then dived for the base of the mast, sliding the last six feet over the smooth deck planks as if he was sliding for home plate. His feet touched the raised collar around the mast, and he brought the rifle up with a smooth searching motion. The floor of the maintop was a latticework. The figures moving on it were outlined against moonlight and starlight. His finger stroked the trigger, feeling a familiar light, crisp resistance.
Crack! The recoil was worse than usual, with his shoulder pi
Someone screamed. A rifle fell over the edge of the fighting platform, pinwheeling down through the lamplight and into the dark with a splash. Peter raised his legs high, flicked himself back to his feet, and sprang to the rail and the ratlines. Eddie whooped and sprang down from the quarterdeck, bounding to the other side of the ship and swarming up faster than the bigger man. Sue and Jaditwara came to one knee, covering them. Giernas reached down and drew his bowie as he climbed, then put it between his teeth-climbing was about the only situation where that actually made sense. The thick back fillet of the heavy blade filled his mouth with its unpleasant, bitter taste of oiled steel. Any second now someone would lean over the tattered hammocks around the fighting top and blow the top of his head off at point-blank range…
Nothing happened, except that the sound of wheezing grew stronger. The triangular basket of the fighting top was occupied by two figures. One was a man in his thirties-from the elaborate decoration on his tunic, probably the captain of the ship. He'd been wounded in one arm and patched it up with a cloth; the second bullet hole was through the upper part of his chest, just where the breastbone gave way to the neck. Blood ran out in a flood, slowing as he watched. The other was much younger, scarcely more than a boy; even in the starlight he could see the resemblance in the faces. Blood spread black in the moonlight across his torso as he struggled to lift the rifle across his lap. It wobbled, and then the muzzle sank. The boy's head slumped forward as well, and he gave a long sigh and stopped struggling for breath.
Giernas opened his mouth, catching the hilt of the bowie as it dropped and sliding it back into the sheath on his right leg.
"Hey, looks like they're both dead," Eddie Vergeraxsson said.
"Yeah," Giernas replied heavily. "They are."
Spring Indigo Giernas woke in the darkness. She knew at once that it was very late; the moon was down, and the woods by the river were quiet, the air cool and full of a deep stillness. The baby in his rabbitskin blanket was still, she could hear his breathing slow and even. It was a tickle against the soles of her feet that woke her; Perks raised his head from where he lay curled at the opening of the tent.
"Qesh'Perks'huo?" she mumbled, hoping it wasn't just the howl of some coyote. Perks was an excellent watcher and far better trained than any hound of her parents' people, but his ideas of what was important enough to wake up for weren't always the same as a man's.
She could see the outline of the wolf-dog against the lesser darkness of the tent's open flap. First his head, ears pricked; then he came to his feet and crouched, with a sound half whine and half growl. The other dogs were stirring now, too. Spring Indigo felt a cold chill at the base of her belly. A fire smoldered under its own ash outside the tent, with a low earth mound at its back to throw the heat inward; she fought down an impulse to poke it up and throw on lightwood. Instead she scrambled into her clothes-the leather kept warm and supple by lying under the blanket with her. That took an instant; snatching up the saddlebags, throwing them over a shoulder, sticking the pistols through her belt, taking up her crossbow in her right hand and her child in her left arm, scarcely longer.
A deep-chested rumble of a snarl from Perks. "Quiet!" she hissed.
He obeyed and so did his son and daughter, but suddenly there was barking from other dogs-those in the camp of the people of the land near here. Fires were prodded to life there, and sparks flew up among the big trees. Then a voice shouted- another screamed-and there was the flat unmusical crack of a gunshot.
The baby stirred in drowsy protest. She paused to give him the breast for a moment; it was worth the time, to keep him sleepy and content. I am not as afraid as I thought I would be, she thought as she ducked out the flap of the tent and moved northward toward the horse lines, crouching.
Yes, her mouth was dry, and her heart beat like a Summoner's drum in her ears. But it was not as bad as the fear of the Dog People, in that last hopeless flight before Peter and the other Islanders came.
I am older, she thought. I have learned much. I will save my son, and greet my husband once more.
Perks and Saule and Ausra-the names meant Thunder and Moon and Dawn, in a language, that was not English-came close behind her heels as she headed through the dew-wet grass. The two horses on the picket line were stirring, throwing up their heads against the reins that bound bridles to the hide rope stretched between two trees. Their hooves spurned the cut grass heaped for them to eat, sending wisps of it floating toward her. The others whickered and milled in the crude brush corral. Closer, quick and quiet, and…
If I were raiding this camp, I would-
Shadow-figures stood by the corral wall. Starlight let her see just enough of them to make out the distinctive outlines of men raising rifles to their shoulders, and she went to the ground with her body curled over her son. Perks froze for an instant. Then he charged with his belly to the ground, silent as death, a dark-gray streak in the darkness. Saule and Ausra attacked with a good deal more noise, bounding to keep their heads above the tall grass.
Crack. Crack. The muzzle flashes blinked like red eyes in the night. A howl was broken by a yelping moan of pain, and then a roaring snarl and a man's scream. Spring Indigo forced herself to come upright on her knees-Jared was crying and struggling against the rabbitskin wrapper that held him, but she had to see what was coming.
A Tartessian, swearing and limping. He was looking about for another man, something on a level with his eyes, and didn't see her until almost the moment she raised the heavy flintlock pistol and fired both barrels at him from less than ten feet away.
Even with her eyes slitted, the double red flash nearly blinded her. The weapon bucked in hands smaller than it was designed for, the hammers nearly gouging her forehead as it recoiled. The Tartessian spun and fell, screaming and thrashing. She tossed the weapon aside and pulled the other, scooping up the solid weight of the toddler as she went. On, past the limp body of a dog, and to the picket line itself. There two figures rolled and snarled, man hardly to be distinguished from beast. Teeth flashed in the starlight, and the bright gleam of a steel knife blade. Spring Indigo ran over and thrust the pistol barrels into the body of the man lying beneath Perks and pulled the trigger; the sound of the shot was muffled, but blood and matter blew back across her, and this time the pistol was wrenched out of her grip.