Страница 35 из 96
On the other hand, for all he knew, Feersh was well aware of what was going on. She'd set up a trap; she was watching them from the dark cabin. Those within were awake and pretending to snore.
He looked down through the shaft. Here came the first climber, Sloosh. He bore on his back the collapsed vessel and Aejip, tied to him. The cat was scared, but she wouldn't make any noise.
At that moment, he heard a cough. Down on his hands and knees, he turned around. He could see no one. That meant that either someone had coughed in the central cabin or that he or she had come out of its door. This faced the bow, and he was behind the cabin.
He rose with the blowgun in his hand. Softly, he walked to the cabin and along its side. The cough was not repeated. There was no one in front of the cabin, but its door was open. Someone was out on the deck. But where?
He quietly shut the door and went to the other side of the cabin. The cougher was walking toward the bow, which was pointed downwind. Deyv looked back toward the windlasses. He could see them from the cabin plainly enough. The man hadn't noticed that the rope-ladder windlass drum was almost bare.
He couldn't escape noticing it on the way back, not if he was more fully awake.
There was only one thing to do. Deyv walked toward the man, who by now was standing near the bow, getting ready to relieve himself. He was very intent on his business when Deyv's tomahawk struck him in the back of the head. He went over the low railing of wood glued to the deck and disappeared without an outcry.
19
DEYV whirled, tense, hoping nobody had heard the crack of weapon against bone. Sometime later the faint splop of a body smashing into earth reached him.
Deyv went back to the hole quietly, pausing to listen at a cabin window. There wasn't a sound. Sloosh came up shortly after, breathing heavily through his chest-mouth. Deyv helped him up, unloaded the cube, and untied Aejip. The cat bounded onto the deck, grimacing soundlessly. Deyv patted and stroked her to soothe her and whispered that she should stay there until Vana came. It had been agreed beforehand that the woman would be Aejip's partner during the attack.
The Yawtl came next, toiling upward with Jum bound to his back. Deyv also petted and quieted him.
Vana boarded close behind Hoozisst. Deyv told them what he'd observed and that he'd killed a man.
"I thought I saw something falling through the dark," the Yawtl said. "I was afraid it was you. But when
I heard no alarm, I knew that it must have been one of them. If he came from that cabin, he was one of
Feersh's sons. I hope it wasn't Skibroziy. I want him to suffer much before he dies."
Hoozisst had described in detail the layout of the rooms and corridors of the ship-creatures. Feersh slept in a chamber on the lower deck. Sometimes, she was alone; sometimes, with a male slave. Jowanarr spent her sleep-time in the aft cabin with two or three slaves, male and female. Seelgee was in the cabin nearest the bow. Kiyt was in a cabin near his mother's. Jeydee and Skibroziy were usually in the middle cabin, either by themselves or with a couple of male or female slaves. Hoozisst had also described the sons and daughters so that they wouldn't be confused with the slaves.
The only way to get belowdecks was to go through the cabins—unless you were a khratikl. The plan was to seize Feersh as a hostage. Hoozisst had said that he believed they would be safe as long as they had her in their power. The others would do what she said—he hoped. Of course, there was the possibility that Jowanarr, who no doubt was impatient to be the chief, might let her mother be killed.
The raiders went behind the central cabin, where Vana passed around torches she'd brought up on her back. Using the cabin and a fiber sheet, found on the deck, as protection from the wind, they lit the torches. First, they poured out from a gourd some fish-oil they'd prepared. Then the Yawtl used his iron and flint to rain sparks on the oil. After a few failures, it finally lit. He poured more oil on the blaze, and they took turns dipping the ends of their fish-oil-soaked torches in the fire.
Just as the third torch was set to burning, they heard a scream to their right. They spun toward the sound but could see nothing. A moment later, a furious shrieking khratikl swept at them from the darkness. Its leathery wings beat at Deyv, and its claws ripped into his face. Shouting with pain, he dropped his torch and grabbed the stinking loathsome thing and threw it on the deck. Before it could rise, it was tomahawked by the Yawtl.
It was too late to carry out their original plan. They'd intended to split up the party so all three cabins could be invaded at once. Now they had to get inside the central cabin at once. Somewhere something metallic was being struck, its deep bongs vibrating through the air. And from the tharakorm housing the khratikl came many screams of rage.
Hoozisst, holding his torch in one hand, opened the door to the central cabin with the other. He snatched his tomahawk from his belt and, yelling, charged inside. Vana followed, the now roaring cat close behind her. Deyv picked his torch up, felt the blood streaming down his face, grimaced at the pain, and, sword in hand, bounded after the others. The dog, growling, leaped after him. The plant-man, the slowest, had been chosen to form the rearguard.
The cabin was made of a heavy wood stained a brown-reddish color and painted with horizontal bands of yellow and green. Spears, blowguns, tomahawks, war clubs, and one of the ancient metal swords hung on the walls. Two corners held beds, wide, mattressed, and covered with some beautiful cloth
Deyv had never seen before. There was a chest of drawers and two stands with washbowls, and soap, towels, and bottles of some dark-green substance.
In the middle of the room was a table of glossy hardwood which held a base on which was a large ball of quartz. It pulsed with a fierce orange glow that made the torches u
A man, a well-built slave with dark-brown skin and wavy hair dyed green and yellow, lay face down on the floor. Blood spread out from under him. On the bed by him sat a naked woman, Jowanarr. Her hands were clutching her chest and under her dark skin was a paleness. She was long-legged and slim but had huge breasts and a long narrow face, a long hooked nose, and dark eyes great with terror.
On the other bed sprawled another male slave, Vana's short spear sticking out of his throat.
Jowanarr, seeing Deyv's bloody face, started to stand up. Aejip and Jum snarled at her, and she sat back down.
Deyv went past the table with the glowing, quartz sphere and removed a square trap, door by its metal ring. The opening revealed a dark well from which descended a flight of wooden steps that had been placed over the steep ramp grown by the tharakorm.
He looked up. Vana was pulling on the spear caught in the slave's windpipe.
"Forget that!" he said. "Take that sword off the wall!"
The Yawtl beat her to it. Swinging the blade around over his head, he whooped.
Deyv had no time to be disgusted with Hoozisst's greediness. He could handle the sword better than
Vana anyway, being the stronger. She shot out her tongue at him, an expression of contempt in her tribe, and turned around to withdraw the spear.
Sloosh had closed the door behind him. A good thing, too, for immediately thereafter paws pounded on it, claws scratched, and screeching filled the cabin. Ratlike faces looked through the windows, followed shortly by bodies. Aejip flew along the walls, raking the faces with her claws. Jum leaped up and bit down on others. Vana thrust her spear into a dripping mouth.