Twelve: Sea-Harm
THERE was no rain, just wind as heavy as torrents, and clouds which sealed the Sea in a glower of twilight from horizon to horizon, and keen spray boiling off the crests of the waves like steam to sting like hail. The blast struck the Giant-ship at an angle, canting it to one side.
Linden gasped for breath. As she fought her vision clear of spume, she was astonished to see Giants in the rigging.
She did not know how they could hold. Impossible that they should be working up there, in the full blow of the storm!
Yet they were working. Starfare's Gem needed enough sail to give it headway. But if the spars carried too much canvas, any sudden shift or increase in the wind might topple the dromond or simply drive it under. The crewmembers were furling the upper sails. They looked small and inconceivable against the hard dark might of the storm. But slowly, tortuously, they fought the writhing canvas under control.
High up on the foremast, a Giant lost his hold, had to release the clew-lines in order to save himself. Dawngreeter was instantly torn away. Flapping wildly, like a stricken albatross, it fluttered along the wind and out of sight.
The other Giants had better success. By degrees, Starfare's Gem improved its stance.
But towering seas still heaved at the vessel. Plunging across the trough of a wave, it crashed sideward up the next ragged and vicious slope, then dove again as if it meant to bury its prow in the bottom. Linden clutched the stairs to keep herself from being kicked overboard.
She could not remain there, She feared that Starfare's Gem was in danger for its life—that any increase in the storm might break the ship apart. And the storm was going to increase. She felt its fury concatenating in the distance. The dromond rode the fringes of the blast: its heart was drawing closer. This course would carry the Giantship into the worst of the violence.
She had to warn Honninscrave.
She tried to creep up onto the stairs; but the wind flung her hair against her face like a flail, sucked the air from her lungs, threatened to rend her away. An instant of panic flamed through her.
Cail's arm caught her waist like a band of stone. His mouth came to her ear. “Seek shelter!” The wind ripped the words to pieces, making his shout barely audible.
She shook her head urgently, tried to drive her voice through the blow. “Take me to the wheeldeck!”
He hesitated for a moment while he cast a look about him, estimating the dangers. Then he swung her up the stairs.
She felt like a ragdoll in his grasp. If he had been any ordinary man, they would both have been slashed overboard. But he was an Haruchai. Surging across the weight of the wind, he bore her to the wheeldeck.
Only three Giants were there: Honninscrave, Galewrath, and the First. The Storesmaster stood at the great wheel, embracing it with both arms. Her muscles were knotted under the strain; her feet were widely planted to brace herself. She
looked like a granite monolith, capable of standing there and mastering Shipsheartthew until the sea and time broke Starfare's Gem into rubble.
Anchored by her weight and strength, the First remained still. The Search was out of her hands. Under these conditions, it belonged to the storm—and to Starfare's Gem. And the dromond belonged to Honninscrave.
He stood near Galewrath; but all his attention was focused forward like a beacon, burning for the safety of his ship. The bony mass of his brows seemed to protect his sight. He bore himself as if he could see everything. His trenchant bellow pierced the wind. And the Giants responded like a manifestation of his will. Step by arduous step, they fought sheets and shrouds and canvas, tuned Starfare's Gem to endure the peril.
Linden tried to shout; but the wind struck her in the teeth, stuffed her voice back down her throat. With a fervid gesture, she directed Cail toward the Master.
“Honninscrave!” She had to scream to make herself heard. “Change course! We're running right into the storm!”
The import of her words snatched at his attention. Bending over her, he shouted, “That cannot be! This storm rises from the south! Riding as we do, we shall remain on its verge and be driven only scantly from our path!”
The south? She gaped at him, disbelieving that he could be wrong about such a thing. When she forced her vision in that direction, she saw he was not wrong. Her senses plainly discerned a cusp of violence there, though it was several leagues distant. Honninscrave's present course would carry Starfare's Gem around the fierce core of that storm.
But a look toward the northwest verified what she had seen earlier. A hurricane crouched there, titanic and monstrous. The two storms were crowding together, with Starfare's Gem between them. Every heave and crash of the dromond's keel angled it closer to the savagery of the stronger blast.
With a cry that seemed to tear her throat, she told Honninscrave what she saw.
Her news staggered him. He had never had a chance to see the hurricane. The first storm had taken hold of the Giantship before it entered the range of the second. Disaster loomed along the heading he had chosen. But he recovered swiftly. He was the Master of Starfare's Gem in every nerve and sinew. He sounded ready for any peril or mischance as he shouted, “What is your counsel?”
Gritting herself, she tried to think—gauge the intersecting paths of the storms, estimate the effect they would have on each other. She was not adept at such visualizations. She was trained to map the insidious cunning of diseases, not the candid fury of gales. But she read them as best she could.
“If we keep on this way!” Her chest ached at the strain of yelling. “We might be able to pass the one in the south! Or the worst of it! Before we get too far into the other one!”
Honninscrave nodded his approval. The abutment of his forehead seemed proof against any storm.
“But the other one!” She concluded as if she were screaming. “It's terrible! If you have to choose, go south!”
“I hear you!” His shout was flayed into spray and tatters. He had already turned to hurl his orders across the wind.
His commands sounded as mad as the gale. Linden felt the hurricane ravening closer, always closer. Surely no vessel—especially one as heavy as the dromond—could withstand that kind of fury. The wind was a shriek in the ratlines. She could see the masts swaying. The yards appeared to waver like outstretched arms groping for balance. The deck kicked and lurched. If Galewrath did not weaken, the rudder might snap, leaving Starfare's Gem at the mercy of the hungry seas. While Linden hesitated, the last sail left on the aftermast sprang suddenly into shreds and was gone, torn thread from thread. Its gear lashed the air. Instinctively, she ducked her head, pressed herself against Cail's support.
Yelling like ecstasy, Honninscrave sent Giants to replace the lost canvas.
Linden pulled her face to the side of Cail's head, shouted, “Take me forward! I've got an idea!”
He nodded his understanding and at once began to haul her toward a stairway, choosing the windward side rather than the lee to keep as much of the tilted deck as possible between her and the seething rush of the sea.
As they reached the stairs, she saw several Giants—Pitchwife and others—hastening across the afterdeck, accompanied by Ceer and Hergrom. They were stringing lifelines. When she and Cail gained the foot of the stairs, Pitchwife and Ceer came slogging to join them. Blinking the spray from his eyes, Pitchwife gave her a grin. With a gesture toward the wheel-deck, he shouted like a laugh, “Our Honninscrave is in his element, think you not?” Then he ascended the stairs to join Ws wife and the Master.
Linden's clothes were soaked. Her shirt stuck to her skin. Every gobbet of water the seas hurled at her seemed to slap into her bones. She had already begun to shiver. But the cold felt detached, impersonal, as if she were no longer fully inhabiting her body; and she ignored it.
Then rain gushed out of the clouds. It filled the air as if every wavecap had become foam, boiling up to put teeth into the wind. The ocean appeared to shrink around Starfare's Gem, blinding all the horizons. Linden could barely see as far as Foodfendhall. She spat curses, but the loud rain deafened her to her own voice. With so little visibility, how would Honninscrave know when to turn from the approaching hurricane?
She struggled to the nearest lifeline, locked her fingers around it, then started to pull her way forward.
She had an idea. But it might have been sane or mad. The gale rent away all distinctions.
The afterdeck seemed as long as a battlefield. Spray and rain sent sheets of water pouring against her ankles, nearly sweeping her down the deck. At every plunge of the Giant-ship, she shivered like an echo of the tremors which ran along the dromond's keel. The lifeline felt raw with cold, abrading her palms. Yet she strove forward. She had failed at everything else. She could not bear to think that this simple task might prove beyond her strength.
Ceer went ahead to open the door of the housing. Riding an eddy of the storm, she pitched over the sill, stumbled to the floor. The two Haruchai slammed the door; and at once the air tensed as if pressure were building toward an explosion in Foodfendhall, aggravated by the yammer and crash outside. For a moment of panic, she thought she heard pieces of the ship breaking away. But as she regained her breath, she realised that she was hearing the protestations of the midmast.
In the lantern-light, the shaft of the mast was plain before her, marked by engravings she had never studied. Perhaps they revealed the story of Starfare's Gem's making, or of its journeys. She did not know. As she worked forward, the groans and creaks rose into a sharp keening. The spars high above her had begun to sing.
She nearly fell again when Ceer opened the door, letting the howl strike at her like a condor. But Cail braced her, helped her back out into the blast. At once, the rain crashed down like thunder. She chose a lifeline anchored to the foremast.
With the cable clamped under one arm so that it upheld her, she lowered her head and went on against the wind.
A Giant loomed ahead of her, following the lifeline aft. As they reached each other, she recognized Sevinhand. He paused to let her pass, then shouted like an act of comradeship, “Such a storm! Were I less certain of our charting, I would believe that we had blundered unwitting into the Soulbiter!”
She had no time to reply. Her hands burned with friction and cold. The cable wore at her side like a gall. She had to reach Findail. He alone on Starfare's Gem had the power to avert the disaster of the advancing hurricane.
At the foremast she rested briefly, standing so that the wind pressed her to the stone. In that position, the torment of the mast thrummed acutely into her. The granite's vitality was being stressed mercilessly. For a moment, the sensation filled her with dread. But when she thrust her percipience into the mast, she was reassured. Like Honninscrave, the dromond was equal to this need. Starfare's Gem might tilt and keen, but it was not about to break.
Yet the heart of the hurricane was towering toward her like a mountain come to life, a dire colossus striding to stamp the Giantship down to its doom. Clinching a cable which ran in the direction of the prow, she went on.
As she squinted through sheets of water as binding as cerements, she caught sight of Vain. The Demondim-spawn stood midway between the foremast and the prow, facing forward as if to keep watch on Findail. And he was as rigid as if the heaving surface under him were a stationary platform. Even the wind had no effect upon him. He might have been rooted to the stone.
Findail became visible for a moment, then disappeared as the Giantship crashed into the trough of the seas and slammed its prow against the next wave. A deluge cut Linden's legs from under her. She barely kept her grip on the lifeline. Now she could only advance between waves. When Starfare's Gem lifted its head, she wrestled forward a few steps. When the prow hit the next wave as if the dromond were being snatched into the deeps, she clung where she was and prayed that her grip and the cable would hold.
But she moved by stages and at last reached the railing. From there, she had only a short way to go.
The last part was the hardest. She was already quivering with cold and exhaustion; and the Giantship's giddy motion, throwing her toward and then yanking her away from the sea, left her hoarse with involuntary curses. At every downward crash, the force of the vessel's struggle hit her. The sheer effort of holding her breath for each inundation threatened to finish her. Several times, she was only saved by the support of Cail's shoulder.
Then she gained Findail's side. He glanced at her between plunges; and the sight of him stunned her. He was not wet. The wind did not ruffle his hair; the rain did not touch him. He emerged from every smash into the waves with dry raiment and clear eyes, as if he had tuned his flesh to a pitch beyond the reach of any violence of weather or sea.
But his unscathed aspect confirmed her determination. He was a being of pure Earthpower, capable of sparing himself the merest contact with wind and spray. And what was any storm, if not Earthpower in another form—unbridled and savage, but still acting in accordance with the Law of its nature?
At the impact of the next wave, she ducked her head. The water pounded her, covered her face with her hair. When the dromond lifted again, she loosed one hand from the rail to thrust the sodden strands aside. Then she drove her voice at Findail.
“Do something! Save us!”
His pain-lined expression did not alter. He made no attempt to shout; but his words reached her as clearly as if the storm had been stricken dumb.
“The Elohim do not tamper with the life of the Earth. There is no life without structure. We respect the workings of that structure in every guise.”
Structure, Linden thought. Law. They are who they are. Their might is matched by their limitations. Starfare's Gem dove. She clung to the rail for her life. Chaos was death. Energy could not exist without constriction. If the Lawless power of the Sunbane grew too strong, it might unbind the very foundations of the Earth.
As the deluge swept past her, she tried again.
“Then tell Honninscrave what to do! Guide him!”
The Elohim seemed faintly surprised, “Guide—?” But then he shrugged. “Had he inquired, the question would have searched me. In such a case, where would my ethic lie? But it boots nothing now.” The Giantship plunged again; yet Linden could hear him through the tumult of the water and the shrill wind. “The time for such questions is lost.”
When the prow surfaced, she fought her sight clear and saw what he meant.
From out of the heart of the hurricane came rushing a wall of water as high as the first spars of the Giantship.
It was driven by wind—a wind so savage and tremendous that it dwarfed everything else; a wind which turned every upreaching sea to steam, sheared off the crest of every wave, so that the ocean under it mounted and ran like a flow of dark magma.
Starfare's Gem lay almost directly athwart the wall.
Linden stared at it in a seizure of dread. In the last pause before the onslaught, she heard Honninscrave roaring faintly, “Ward!” Then his shout was effaced by the wild stentorian rage of the wind, howling like the combined anguish and ferocity of all the damned.
As the wall hit, she lunged at Findail, trying to gain his help—or take him with her, she did not know which. The impact of the great wave ended all differences. But her hands seemed to pass through him. She got one last clear look at his face. His eyes were yellow with grief.
Then the starboard side of the Giantship rose like an orogenic upthrust, and she fell toward the sea.
She thought that surely she would strike the port rail. She flailed her arms to catch hold of it. But she was pitched past it into the water.
The sea slammed at her with such force that she did not feel the blow, did not feel the waters close over her.
At the same moment, something hard snagged her wrist, wrenched her back to the surface. She was already ten or fifteen feet from the ship. Its port edge was submerged; the entire foredeck loomed over her. It stood almost vertically in the water, poised to fall on her, crush her between stone and sea.
But it did not fall. Somehow, Starfare's Gem remained balanced on its side, with nearly half of its port decks underwater. And Cail did not let her go.
His right hand held her wrist at the farthest stretch of his arm. His ankles were grasped by Ceer, also fully outstretched.
Vain anchored the Haruchai. He still stood as if he were rooted to the deck, with his body at right angles to the stone, nearly parallel to the sea. But he had moved down the deck, positioned himself almost at the waterline. At the end of his reach, he held Ceer's ankles.
He did not trouble to raise his head to find out if Linden were safe.
Heaving against the rush of water, Ceer hauled Cail closer to the deck; and Cail dragged Linden after him. Together, the Haruchai contracted their chain until Cail could grip Vain's wrist with his free hand. The Demondim-spawn did nothing to ease their task; but when both Cail and Ceer were clinched to him, holding Linden between them, he released Ceer's ankles. Then the Haruchai bore her up Vain's back to the deck.
Braced against his rigid ankles, they gave her a chance to draw breath.
She had swallowed too much water; she was gagging on salt. A spasm of coughing knotted her guts. But when it loosened, she found that she could breathe more easily than before the great wave struck. Lying on its side, Starfare's Gem formed a lee against the wind. The turbulence of the blast's passage pounded the sea beyond the ship, so that the surface frothed and danced frenetically; but the decks themselves lay in a weird calm.
As she caught her breath, the dromond's plight struck her like a hand of the gale.
On every level of her senses, the granite vessel burned with strain. It radiated pain like a wracked animal caught in the unanswerable snare of the blast. From stem to stern, mast-top to keel, all the stone was shrill with stress, tortured by pressures which its makers could not have conceived. Starfare's Gem had fallen so far onto its side that the tips of its spars nearly touched the water. It lay squarely across the wind; and the wild storm swept it over the ocean with terrifying speed.
If there had been any waves, the dromond would certainly have foundered; but in that, at least, the vessel was fortunate, for the titanic gale crushed everything into one long flat and seething rush. Yet the Giantship hung only inches from capsizing. Had the great weight of its masts and yards not been counterbalanced by its enormous keel, it would already have plunged to its death.
In a way, the sheer force of the wind had saved the ship. It had instantly stripped the remaining canvas to ribbons, thus weakening the thrust of its turbulence against the masts. But still the vessel's poised survival was as fragile as an old bone. Any shift of the dromond's position in the wind, any rise of the gale or surge of the sea, would be enough to snap that balance. And every increase in the amount of water Starfare's Gem shipped threatened to drag it down.
Giants must have been at the pumps; but Linden did not know how they could possibly keep pace with the torrents that poured in through the hatches and ports, the broken doors of Foodfendhall. The wind's fury howled at the hull as if it meant to chew through the stone to get at her. And that sound, the incisive ululation and shriek of air blasting past the moire-granite, ripped across the grain of her mind like the teeth of a saw. She did not realize that she was grinding her own teeth until the pain began to feel like a wedge driven between the bones of her skull.
For a terrible moment, the ship's peril blanked everything else out of her. But then her heart seemed to come alive with a wrench, and implications of panic shot through her. Grabbing at Cail, she cried over the ferocious background of the wind, “Covenant!” His cabin was to port below the wheel-deck. It must be underwater. He would not be able to save himself from the sea as it rushed in through riven hatches, ruptured portholes, doors burst from their moorings. He would sit there, helpless and empty, while he drowned.
But Cail replied, “Brinn was forewarned! The ur-Lord is safe!”
Safe! Good Christ! Clinging to that hope, she shouted, “Take me to him!”
Ceer, turned, called a hail up the deck. A moment later, a Giant near the foremast threw down the end of a rope. The two Haruchai caught it, knotted it around Linden's waist, then gripped it themselves as the Giant drew them all up the steep stone.
Vain remained where he was as if he were content to watch the sea speeding within arm's reach of his face. For the present, at least, he had satisfied his purpose. The black rigor of his back said plainly that he cared for nothing else.
When the Giant had pulled Linden and the Haruchai up to him, he snatched her into a fervid hug. He was Mistweave; and the fear he had felt for her trembled in his thews. Over her shoulder, he shouted praise and thanks to the Haruchai.
His Giantish embrace tasted impossibly secure in the gale. But she could not bear to be delayed. The dromond hung on the verge of destruction. “Where's Covenant?” she yelled.
Carefully, Mistweave set her down, then pointed away aft. “The Master gathers the crew above the aftermast! Covenant Giantfriend is there! I go to assist at the pumps!”
The Haruchai nodded their comprehension. Mistweave tore himself away, scrambled to a hatch which gave access to the underdecks, and disappeared.
Holding Linden between them, Cail and Ceer began to move toward Foodfendhall.
Cautiously navigating the lifelines, they brought her to the upper door. Within the housing, they found that the Giants had strung more cables, enabling them to cross the wreckage to the afterdeck. One lantern still hung at a crazy angle from the midmast, and its wan light revealed the broken litter of tables and benches which lay half-submerged in the lower part of the hall. The destruction seemed like a blow struck at the very heart of the Giants—at their love of communal gathering.
But the Haruchai did not delay to grieve over the damage. Firmly, they bore Linden out to the afterdeck.
Most of her other shipmates were there, perched in various attitudes along the starboard rail above the mast. Through the clenched twilight, she could see more than a score of Giants, including Pitchwife, the First, Seadreamer, and Honninscrave. Pitchwife shouted a relieved welcome to her; but she hardly heard him. She was hunting for a glimpse of Covenant.
After a moment, she located the Unbeliever. He was partially hidden by Seadreamer's protective bulk. Brinn and Hergrom were braced on either side of him; and he hung slack between them as if all his bones had been broken.
Ceer and Cail took Linden up a lifeline to one of the cables which ran the length of the afterdeck eight or ten paces below the railing, lashed there to permit movement back and forth, and to catch anyone who might fall. In the arrangement of the lines, she recognized Honninscrave's meticulous concern for his crew, the life of his ship. He was busy directing the placement of more cables so that his people would be enclosed in a network of supports.
As she was brought near Covenant, his presence gave her a false energy. She took hold of the arm Seadreamer extended toward her, moved like braciation from him to Brinn and the railing. Then she huddled beside Covenant and at once began to explore him for injuries or deterioration.
He was nearly as wet as she, and automatic shivers ran through him like an ague in the marrow of his bones. But in other ways he was as well as the Elohim had left him. His eyes stared as if they had lost the capability of focus; his mouth hung open; water bedraggled his beard. When she examined him, he repeated his warning almost inaudibly against the background of the wind. But the words meant nothing to him.
Weakened by relief and pain, she sagged at his side.
The First and Pitchwife were nearby, watching for her verdict on Covenant's state. Linden shook her head; and Pitchwife winced. But the First said nothing. She held herself as if the absence of any bearable foe cramped her muscles. She was a trained warrior; but the Giantship's survival depended on sea-craft, not swords. Linden met the First's gaze and nodded. She knew how the Swordmain felt.
Looking around the dromond, she was appalled to see that Galewrath still stood at Shipsheartthew. Locked between the stone spokes of the wheel and the deck, the Storesmaster held her place with the stolid intransigence of a statue. At first, Linden did not understand why Galewrath stayed in a place of such exposure and strain—or why the Master allowed anyone to remain there. But then her thinking clarified. The dromond still needed its rudder to maintain its precarious balance. In addition, if the wind shifted forward Galewrath might be able to turn Starfare's Gem perpendicular to the blast again; for the Giantship would surely sink if any change sent its prow even slightly into the wind. And if the gale shifted aft, she might have a chance to turn away. With the storm at its back, Starfare's Gem might be able to rise and run.
Linden did not know how even a Giant's thews could stand the strain Galewrath endured. But the blunt woman clung like hard hope to her task and did not let go.
At last, Honninscrave finished setting his lifelines. Swarming from cable to cable, he climbed to join the First and Pitchwife near Linden. As he moved, he shouted encouragements and jests to the hunched shapes of his crew. Pitchwife had described him accurately: he was in his element. His oaken shoulders bore the dromond's plight as if the burden were light to him.
Reaching Linden's proximity, he called, “Be not daunted, Chosen! Starfare's Gem will yet redeem us from this storm!”
She was no match for him. His fortitude only underscored her apprehension. Her voice nearly broke as she returned, “How many have we lost?”
“Lost?” His reply pierced the blind ferocity of the hurricane. “None! Your forewarning prepared us! All are here! Those you see not I have sent to the pumps!” As he spoke, Linden became aware that bursts of water were slashing away from the side of the ship above her, boiling into mist and darkness as the wind tore them from the pumpholes. “Those to port we cannot employ. But those to starboard we have linked across the holds. Sevinhand, who commands below, reports that his crew keeps pace. We endure, Chosen! We will survive!”
She groped for a share of his faith and could not find it. “Maybe we should abandon ship!”
He gaped at her. She heard the folly of her words before he responded, “Do you wish to chance this sea in a longboat?”
Helplessly, she asked, “What're you going to do?”
“Naught!” he returned in a shout like a challenge. "While this gale holds, we are too precarious. But when the change comes, as come it must—Then perhaps you will see that the Giants are sailors—and Starfare's Gem, a ship—to make the heart proud!
“Until that time, hold faith! Stone and Sea, do you not comprehend that we are alive?”
But she was no longer listening to him. The imponderable screech and yowl of the blast seemed to strike straight at Covenant. He was shivering with cold. His need was poignant to her; but she did not know how to touch him. Her hands were useless, so deeply chilled that she could hardly curl them into fists. Slow blood oozed from several abrasions on her palms, formed in viscid drops between her fingers. She paid no attention to it.
Later, large bowls of diamondraught were passed among the companions. The Giantish liquor reduced her weakness somewhat, enabling her to go on clinging for her life. But still she did not raise her head. She could not think why Vain had saved her. The force of the storm felt like an act of malice. Surely if the Demondim-spawn had not saved her the blast would have been appeased.
Her health-sense insisted that the hurricane was a natural one, not a manifestation of deliberate evil. But she was so badly battered by the wind's violence and the cold, so eroded by her fear, that she no longer knew the difference.
They were all going to die, and she had not yet found a way to give Covenant back his mind.
Later still, night effaced the last illumination. The gale did not abate; it appeared to have blown out the stars. Nothing but a few weak lanterns—one near Galewrath, the rest scattered along the upper edge of the afterdeck—reduced the blackness. The wind went on reaping across the sea with a sound as shrill as a scythe. Through the stone came the groaning of the masts as they protested against their moorings, the repetitive thud and pound of the pumps. All the crewmembers took turns below, but their best efforts were barely enough to keep pace with the water. They could not lessen the great salt weight which held Starfare's Gem on its side. More diamondraught was passed around. The day had seemed interminable. Linden did not know how she could face the night and stay sane.
By degrees, her companions sank into themselves as she did. Dismay covered them like the night, soaked into them like the cold. If the wind shifted now, Galewrath would have no forewarning. In the distant light of her lantern, she looked as immobile as stone, no longer capable of the reactions upon which the dromond might depend. Yet Honninscrave sent no one to relieve her: any brief uncertainty while Shipsheartthew changed hands might cause the vessel to founder. And so the Giants who were not at the pumps had no other way to fight for their lives except to cling and shiver. Eventually, even the Master's chaffering could not rouse them to hope or spirit. They crouched against the rail, with the black sea running almost directly below them, and waited like men and women who had been sentenced to death.
But Honninscrave did not leave them alone. When his guyings and jollyings became ineffective, he shouted unexpectedly, “Ho, Pitchwife! The somnolence of these Giants abashes me! In days to come, they will hang their heads to hear such a tale told of them! Grant us a song to lift our hearts, that we may remember who we are!”
From a place near her, Linden heard the First mutter mordantly, “Aye, Pitchwife. Grant them a song. When those who are whole falter, those who are halt must bear them up.”
But Pitchwife did not appear to hear her. “Master!” he replied to Honninscrave with a frantic laugh, “I have been meditating such a song! It may not be kept silent, for it swells in my heart, becoming too great for any breast to contain! Behold!” With a lugubrious stagger, he let himself fall down the deck. When he hit the first lifeline, it thrummed under his weight, but held. Half-reclining against the line, he faced upward. “It will boon me to sing this song for you!”
Shadows cast by the lanterns made his misshapen face into a grimace. But his grin was unmistakable; and as he continued his humour became less forced.
“I will sing the song which Bahgoon sang, in the aftermath of his taming by his spouse and harridan, that many-legended odalisque Thelma Twofist!”
The power of his personal mirth drew a scattering of wan cheers and ripostes from the despondent Giants.
Striking a pose of exaggerated melancholy, he began. He did not actually sing; he could not make a singing voice audible. But he delivered his verses in a pitched rhythmic shout which affected his listeners like music.
"My love has eyes which do not glow
Her loveliness is somewhat formed askew,
With blemishes which number not a few,
And pouting lips o'er teeth not in a row.
"Her limbs are doughtier than mine,
And what I do not please to give she takes.
Her hair were better kempt with hoes and rakes.
Her kiss tastes less of diamondraught than brine.
"Her odorescence gives me ill:
Her converse is by wit or grace unlit:
Her raiment would become her if it fit.
So think of me with rue: I love her still."
It was a lengthy song; but after a moment Linden was distracted from it. Faintly, she heard the First murmuring to herself, clearly unaware that anyone could hear her.
“Therefore do I love you, Pitchwife,” she said into the wind and the night. “In sooth, this is a gift to lift the heart. Husband, it shames me that I do not equal your grace.”
In a beneficial way, the deformed Giant seemed to shame all the crew. To answer his example, they stirred from their disconsolation, responded to each other as if they were coming back to life. Some of them were laughing; others straightened their backs, tightened their grips on the railing, as if by so doing they could better hear the song.
Instinctively, Linden roused herself with them. Their quickening emanations urged her to shrug off some of her numbness.
But when she did so, her percipience began to shout at her. Behind the restoration of the Giants rose a sense of peril. Something was approaching the Giantship— something malefic and fatal.
It had nothing to do with the storm. The storm was not evil. This was.
“Chosen?” Cail asked.
Distinctly, Covenant said, “Don't touch me.”
She tried to rise to her feet. Only Cail's swift intervention kept her from tumbling toward Pitchwife.
“Jesus!” She hardly heard herself. The darkness and the gale deafened her. “It's going to attack us here!”
The First swung toward her. “Attack us?”
As Linden cried out, “That Raver!” the assault began.
Scores of long dark shapes seethed out of the water below the aftermast. They broke through the reflections of the lanterns, started to wriggle up the steep stone.
As they squirmed upward, they took light. The air seemed to ignite them in fiery red.
Burning with crimson internal heat like fire-serpents, they attacked the deck, swarming toward Covenant and Linden.
Eels!
Immense numbers of them.
They were not on fire, shed no flame. Rather, they radiated a hot red malice from their snakelike forms. Driven by the lust of the Raver in them, they shone like incandescent blood as they climbed. They were as large as Linden's arm. Their gaping teeth flashed light as incisive as razors.
The First yelled a warning that fled without echo into the wind.
The leading eels reached the level of the mast; but Linden could not move. The sheer force of the Raver's presence held her. Memories of Gibbon and Marid burned in her guts; and a black yearning answered, jumping within her like wild glee. Power! The part of her that desired possession and Ravers, lusted for the sovereign strength of death, lashed against her conscious loathing, her vulnerable and deliberate rejection of evil; and the contradiction locked her into immobility. She had been like this in the woods behind Haven Farm, when Lord Foul had looked out of the fire at her and she had let Covenant go down alone to his doom.
Yet that threat to him had finally broken her fear, sent her running to his rescue. And the eels were coming for him now, while he was entirely unable to defend himself. Stung by his peril, her mind seemed to step back, fleeing from panic into her old professional detachment.
Why had Foul chosen to attack now, when the Elohim had already done Covenant such harm? Had the Elohim acted for reasons of their own, without the Despiser's knowledge or prompting? Had she been wrong in her judgment of them? If Lord Foul did not know about Covenant's condition—
Hergrom, Ceer, and the First had already started downward to meet the attack; but Pitchwife was closer to it than anyone else. Quickly, he slipped below his lifeline to the next cable. Bracing himself there, he bent and scooped up an eel to crush it.
As his hand closed, a discharge of red power shot through him. The blast etched him, distinct and crimson, against the dark sea. With a scream in his chest, he tumbled down the deck, struck heavily against the base of the mast. Sprawled precariously there, he lay motionless, barely breathing.
More eels crawled over his legs. But since he was still, they did not unleash their fire into him.
Hergrom slid in a long dive down to the stricken Giant. At once, he kicked three eels away from Pitchwife's legs. The creatures fell writhing back into the sea; but their power detonated on Hergrom's foot, sent him into convulsions. Only the brevity of the blast saved his life. He retained scarcely enough control over his muscles to knot one fist in the back of Pitchwife's sark, the other on a cleat of the mast. Twitching and jerking like a wildman, he still contrived to keep himself and Pitchwife from sliding farther.
Every spasm threatened to bring either him or the Giant into contact with more of the creatures.
Then the First reached the level of the assault. With her feet planted on the deck, a lifeline across her belly, she poised her broadsword in both fists. Her back and shoulders bunched like a shout of fear and rage for Pitchwife.
The First's jeopardy snatched Linden back from her detachment. Desperately, she howled, 'No!"
She was too late. The First scythed her blade at the eels closest to her feet.
Power shot along the iron, erupted from her hands into her chest. Fire formed a corona around her. Red static sprang from her hair. Her sword fell. Plunging in a shower of sparks, it struck the water with a sharp hiss and disappeared.
She made no effort to catch it. Her stunned body toppled over the lifeline. Below her, the water seethed with malice as more eels squirmed up the deck into air and fire.
Ceer barely caught her. Reading the situation with celerity bordering on prescience, he had taken an instant to knot a rope around his waist. As the First fell, he threw the rope to the nearest crewmember and sprang after her.
He snagged her by the shoulder. Then the Giant pulled on the rope, halting Ceer and the First just above the waterline.
“Don't move them!” Linden shouted instantly. “She can't take any more!”
The First lay still. Ceer held himself motionless. The eels crawled over them as if they were a part of the deck.
With a fierce effort, Hergrom fought himself under command. He steadied his limbs, stopped jerking Pitchwife, a heartbeat before more eels began slithering over the two of them.
Linden could hardly think. Her friends were in danger. Memories of Revelstone and Gibbon pounded at her. The presence of the Raver hurt her senses, appalled every inch of her flesh. In Revelstone, the conflict of her reactions to that ill power had driven her deep into a catatonia of horror. But now she let the taste of evil pour through her and fought to concentrate on the creatures themselves. She needed a way to combat them.
Seadreamer's reflexes were swifter. Tearing Covenant from Brinn's grasp, he leaped down to the first cable, then began hauling himself toward Foodfendhall.
Brinn went after him as if to retrieve the ur-Lord from a Giant who had gone mad.
But almost immediately Seadreamer's purpose became clear. As the Giant conveyed Covenant forward, the eels turned in that direction, writhing to catch up with their prey. The whole thrust of the attack shifted forward.
Soon Ceer and the First were left behind. And a moment later Pitchwife and Hergrom were out of danger.
At once, the Giant holding Ceer's rope heaved the Haruchai and the First upward. Honninscrave skidded under the lifelines to the mast, took Pitchwife from Hergrom's damaged grasp.
But the eels still came, Raver-driven to hurl themselves at Covenant. Shortly, Seadreamer had traversed the cable to its mooring near the rail at the edge of Foodfendhall. There he hesitated, looked back at the pursuit. But he had no choice. He had committed himself, was cornered now between the housing and the rail. The nearest creatures were scant moments from his feet.
As Brinn caught up with him, Seadreamer grabbed the Haruchai by the arm, pulled him off his feet in a deft arc up to the canted roof. He landed just within the ship's lee below the mad gale. Almost in the same motion, Seadreamer planted one foot atop the railing and leaped after Brinn.
For an instant, the wind caught him, tried to hurl him out to sea. But his weight and momentum bore him back down to the roof. Beyond the edge of Foodfendhall, he dropped out of Linden's view. Then he appeared again as he stretched out along the midmast. He held Covenant draped over his shoulder.
In spite of the fearsome risks he took, Linden's courage lifted. Perhaps the wall of the housing would block the eels.
But the creatures had not been daunted by the steep slope of the deck; and now they began to squirm up the side of Foodfendhall, clinging to the flat stone with their bellies. As their fire rose, it came between her and the darkness at the mast, effacing Seadreamer and Covenant from her sight.
At Honninscrave's command, several Giants moved to engage the eels. They fought by using lengths of hawser as whips—and had some success, Discharges of power expended themselves by incinerating the ropes, did not reach the hands of the Giants. Many eels were killed by the force of the blows.
But the creatures were too numerous; and the Giants were slowed by their constant need for more rope. They could not clear their way to the wall, could not prevent scores of fire-serpents from scaling upward. And more eels came surging incessantly out of the sea. Soon Seadreamer would be trapped. Already, creatures were wriggling onto the roof.
Urgency and instinct impelled Linden into motion. In a flash of memory, she saw Covenant standing, valiant and desirable, within the caamora he had created for the Dead of The Grieve —protected from the bonfire by wild magic. Fire against fire. Bracing herself on Cail, she snatched at the lantern hanging from the rail above her head. Though she was weak with cold and off-balance, she turned, hurled the lantern toward Foodfendhall.
It fell short of the red-bright wall. But when it hit the deck, it broke; and oil spattered over the nearest eels. Instantly, they burst into flame. Their own power became a conflagration which consumed them. Convulsed in their death throes, they fell back to the water and hissed their dying away into the dark.
Linden tried to shout; but Honninscrave was quicker. “Oil!” he roared. “Bring more oil!”
In response, Ceer and two of the Giants hurtled toward a nearby hatchway.
Other crewmembers grabbed for the remaining lanterns. Honninscrave stopped them. “We will need the light!”
Seadreamer, Covenant, and Brinn were visible now in the advancing glare of the eels. Seadreamer stood on the mast, with Covenant over his shoulder. As the eels hastened toward him, he retreated up the mast. It was a treacherous place to walk—curved, festooned with cables, marked with belaying-cleats. But he picked his way up the slope, his eyes fixed on the eels. His gaze echoed mad determination to their fire. In the garish illumination, he looked heavy and fatal, as if his weight alone would be enough to topple Starfare's Gem.
Between him and the attack stood Brinn. The Haruchai followed Seadreamer, facing the danger like the last guardian of Covenant's life. Linden could not read his face at that distance; but he must have known that the first blow he struck would also be the last. Yet he did not falter.
Ceer and the two Giants had not returned. Measuring the time by her ragged breathing, Linden believed that they were already too late. Too many eels had gained the roof. And still more continued to rise out of the sea as if their numbers were as endless as the malevolence which drove them.
Abruptly, Seadreamer stumbled into the turbulence beyond the lee of the ship. The gale buffeted him from his feet, almost knocked him off the mast. But he dropped down to straddle the stone with his legs, and his massive thighs held him against the blast. Light reflected from the scar under his eyes as if his visage were afire. Covenant dangled limp and insensate from his shoulder. The creatures were halfway up the mast to him. Between him and death stood one weaponless Haruchai.
Raging with urgency, Honninscrave shouted at his brother.
Seadreamer heard, understood. He shifted the Unbeliever so that Covenant lay cradled in his thighs. Then he began to unbind the shrouds around him.
When he could not reach the knots, or not untie them swiftly enough, he snapped the lines like string. And as he worked or broke them free, he passed the pieces to Brinn.
Thus armed, the Haruchai advanced to meet the eels.
Impossibly poised between caution and extravagance, he struck at the creatures, flailing them with his rough-made quirts. Some of the pieces were too short to completely spare him from hot harm; but somehow he retained his control and fought on. When he had exhausted his supply of weapons, he bounded back to Seadreamer to take the ones the Giant had ready for him.
From Linden's distance, Covenant's defenders looked heroic and doomed. The mast's surface limited the number of eels which could approach simultaneously. But Brinn's supply of quirts was also limited by the amount of line within Seadreamer's reach. That resource was dwindling rapidly. And no help could reach them.
Frantically, Linden gathered herself to shout at Honninscrave, tell him to throw more rope to Seadreamer. But at that moment, Ceer returned. Gripping a large pouch like a wineskin under his arm, he dashed out from under the wheeldeck, sprang to the nearest lifeline. With all his Haruchai alacrity, he sped forward.
Behind him came the two Giants. They moved more slowly because they each carried two pouches, but they made all the haste they could.
Honninscrave sent his crew scrambling out of Ceer's path. As he rushed forward past the aftermast, Ceer unstopped his pouch. Squeezing it under his arm, he spouted a dark stream of oil to the stone below him. Oil slicked the deck, spread its sheen downward.
When the oil met the eels, the deck became a sheet of flame.
Fire spread, burning so rapidly that it followed Ceer's spout like hunger. It ignited the eels, cast them onto each other to multiply the ignition. In moments, all the deck below him blazed. The Raver's creatures were wiped away by their own conflagration.
But hundreds of them had already gained the wall and roof of the housing; and now the crew's access to Foodfendhall was blocked. Fire alone would not have stopped the Giants. But the oil made the deck too slippery to be traversed. Until it burned away, no help could try to reach Seadreamer and Brinn except along the cable Ceer used.
They had only scant moments left. No more line lay within Seadreamer's reach. He tried to slide himself toward the first spar, where the shrouds were plentiful; but the effort took him farther into the direct turbulence of the gale. Before he had covered half the distance, the blast became too strong for him. He had to hunch over Covenant, cling to the stone with all his limbs, in order to keep the two of them from being torn away into the night.
Ceer's pouch was emptied before he gained Foodfendhall. He was forced to stop. No one could reach the housing.
Honninscrave barked commands. At once, the nearer oil-laden Giant stopped, secured her footing, then threw her pouches forward, one after the other. The first flew to the Master as he positioned himself immediately behind Ceer. The second arced over them to hit and burst against the edge of the roof. Oil splashed down the wall. Flames cleared away the eels. Rapidly, the surviving remnant of the attack was erased from the afterdeck.
Honninscrave snapped instructions at Ceer. Ceer ducked around behind the Giant, climbed his back like a tree while Honninscrave crossed the last distance to the wall. From the Master's shoulders, Ceer leaped to the roof, then turned to catch the pouch Honninscrave tossed upward.
Flames leaped as Ceer began spewing oil at the eels.
With a lunge, Honninscrave caught at the edge of the roof. In spite of the oil, his fingers held, defying failure as he flipped himself over the eaves. Giants threw the last two pouches up to him. Clutching one by the throat in each hand, he crouched under the gale and followed Ceer.
Linden could not see what was happening. Foodfendhall blocked the base of the mast from her view. But the red flaring across Brinn's fiat visage as he retreated was the crimson of eel-light, not the orange-and-yellow of flames.
A moment later, his retreat carried him into the grasp of the wind.
He tottered. With all his strength and balance, he resisted; but the hurricane had him, and its savagery was heightened by the way it came boiling past the lee of the roof. He could not save himself from falling.
He lashed out at the eels as he dropped. Simultaneously, he pitched himself back toward Seadreamer. His blow struck an attacker away. Its power outlined him against the night like a lightning-burst of pain.
Then a pouch flashed into view, cast from Ceer or Honninscrave to Seadreamer. Fighting the wind, Seadreamer managed to raise his arms, catch the oilskin. Pumping the pouch under his elbow, he squeezed a gush of oil down the mast.
The eel-light turned to fire. Flames immersed the mast, fell in burning gouts of oil and blazing creatures toward the sea.
Linden heard a scream that made no sound. Yowling in frustration, the Raver fled. Its malefic presence burst and vanished, freeing her like an escape from suffocation.
The illumination of eels and oil revealed Brinn. He hung from one of Seadreamer's ankles, twitching and capering helplessly. But in spite of seizures and wind which tossed him from side to side like a puppet, his grip held.
The oil burned away rapidly. Already, the afterdeck had relapsed into the darkness of the storm-night assuaged only by a few faint lanterns. Ceer and Honninscrave were soon able to ascend the mast.
Moored by a rope to Honninscrave, Ceer hung below the mast and swung himself outward until he could reach Brinn. Hugging his kinsman, he let Honninscrave haul the two of them back to relative safety. Then the Master went to aid his brother.
With Covenant supported between them, a link more intimate and binding than birth, Honninscrave and Seadreamer crept down out of the wind.
Linden could hardly believe that they had survived, that the Raver had been defeated. She felt at once faint with relief and exhaustion, fervid to have Covenant near her again, to see if he had been harmed.
He and his rescuers were out of sight beyond the edge of Foodfendhall. She could not bear to wait. But she had to wait. Struggling for self-possession, she went to examine Pitchwife, the First, and Hergrom.
They were recovering well. The two stricken Giants appeared to have suffered no lingering damage. The First was already strong enough to curse the loss of her sword; and Pitchwife was muttering as if he were bemused by the fool-hardiness with which he had charged the eels. Their Giantish immunity to burns had protected them.
Beside them, Hergrom seemed both less and more severely hurt. He had not lost consciousness; his mind had remained clear. But the twitching of his muscles was slow to depart. Apparently, his resistance to the eel-blast had prolonged its effect upon him. His limbs were steady for the most part, but the corners of his face continued to wince and tick like an exaggerated display of trepidation.
Perhaps, Linden thought as if his grimacing were an augury, perhaps the Raver had not been defeated. Perhaps it had simply learned enough about the condition of Covenant and the quest and had gone to inform Lord Foul.
Then she turned to meet the return of Ceer and Bruin, Honninscrave and Seadreamer. With the Unbeliever.
They came carefully along the lifelines. Like Hergrom, Brinn suffered from erratic muscular spasms. But they were receding. Seadreamer was sorely weary after his struggles; but his solid form showed no other hurt.
Honninscrave carried Covenant. At the sight, Linden's eyes filled with tears. She had never been able to control the way her orbs misted and ran at any provocation; and now she did not try. Covenant was unchanged—as empty of mind or will as an abandoned crypt. But he was safe. Safe. When the Master set him down, she went to him at once. Though she was unacquainted with such gestures, perhaps had no right to them, she put her arms around him and did not care who saw the fervour of her embrace.
But the night was long and cold, and the storm still raved like all fury incarnate. Starfare's Gem skidded in a mad rush along the seas, tenuously poised between life and death. There was nothing anybody could do except clinch survival and hope. In the bone-deep shivers which wracked her, the weariness which enervated her limbs so thoroughly that even diamondraught scarcely palliated it, Linden was surprised to find that she was as capable of hope as the Giants,
Their spirit seemed to express its essence in Honninscrave, who bore the command of the ship as if Starfare's Gem itself were indomitable. At Shipsheartthew, Galewrath no longer appeared too frozen by duty to meet the strain. Rather, her great arms gripped the spokes as if she were more indefeasible than the very storm. Brinn and Hergrom had recovered their characteristic imperviousness. The dromond lived. Hope was possible.
Yet when dawn came at last, Linden had fallen so far into bare knotted endurance that the sun took her by surprise. Stupefied by exhaustion, she did not know which astonished her more—the simple return of day, unlooked—for after the interminable battery of that night, or the fact that the sky was free of clouds.
She could hardly credit her eyes. Covered by the vessel's lee, she had not noticed that the rain had stopped sometime during the night. Now the heavens macerated from purple to blue as the sun appeared almost directly behind the Giant-ship's stern. The clouds were gone as if they had been worn away by the incessant tearing of the wind. And yet the gale continued to blow, unabated and unappeased.
Blinking weakly, she scanned her companions. They looked unnaturally distinct in the clear air, like men and women who had been whetted by stress to a keener edge, a sharper existence. Their apparel was rimed and crusted with salt: it marked their faces like the desiccated masks of their mortality, drifted in powder from the opening and closing of hands, the bending of arms, the shifting of positions. Yet they moved. They spoke hoarsely to each other, flexed the cramps out of their muscles, cast raw and gauging glances at the sea. They were alive.
Linden took an inventory of the survivors to assure herself that no one had been lost. The stubborn thudding of the pumps gave her an estimate of the Giants who were below; and that number completed her count. Swallowing at the bitter salt in her throat, she asked Cail if anyone had seen Vain or Findail.
He replied that Hergrom had gone forward some time ago to see if the Demondim-spawn and the Elohim were still safe. He had found them as she had last seen them: Findail riding the prow like a figurehead; Vain standing with his face to the deep as if he could read the secrets of the Earth in that dark rush.
Linden nodded. She had not expected anything else. Vain and Findail deserved each other: they were both as secretive and unpredictable as sea, as unreachable as stone. When Cail offered her a bowl of diamondraught, she took a sparing sip, then passed it to the Giant nearest her. Squinting against the unfamiliar light, she turned to study the flat seethe of the ocean.
But the sea was no longer flat. Faint undulations ran along the wind. She felt no lessening of the gale; but it must have declined somewhat. Its force no longer completely effaced the waves.
With a sting of apprehension, she snatched her gaze to the waterline below her.
That line dipped and rose slightly. And every rise took hold of another slight fraction of the deck as the waves lifted more water into the Giantship. The creaking of the masts had become louder. The pumps defenseed to a febrile pitch.
By slow degrees, Starfare's Gem was falling into its last crisis.
Linden searched the deck for Honninscrave, shouted his name. But when he turned to answer her hail, she stopped. His eyes were dark with recognition and grief.
“I have seen, Chosen.” His voice carried a note of bereavement. “We are fortunate in this light. Had gloom still shrouded us—” He trailed into a sad silence.
“Honninscrave.” The First spoke sharply, as though his rue angered her. “It must be done.”
“Aye,” he echoed in a wan tone. “It must be done.”
She did not relent. “It must be done now.”
“Aye,” he sighed again. “Now.” Misery twisted his visage. But a moment later he recaptured his strength of decision, and his back straightened. “Since it must be done, I will do it.”
Abruptly, he indicated four of his crewmembers, beckoned for them to follow him, and turned aft, Over his shoulder, he said, “Sevinhand I will send to this command.”
The First called after him like an acknowledgment or apology, “Which will you select?”
Without turning, he replied with the Giantish name for the midmast, uttering the word grimly, like the appellation of a
lost love. “Starfare's Gem must not be unbalanced to fore or aft.”
With his four Giants behind him, he went below.
Linden groped her way in trepidation to the First's side. “What's he going to do?”
The First swung a gaze as hard as a slap on Linden. “Chosen,” she said dourly, “you have done much—and will do more. Let this matter rest with the Master.”
Linden winced at the rebuff, started to retort. But then her hearing clarified, and she caught herself. The First's tone had been one of grief and frustration, not affront. She shared Honninscrave's emotions. And she was helpless. The dromond's survival was in his hands, not hers. In addition, the loss of her sword seemed to take some vital confidence out of her, making her bitter with uncertainty.
Linden understood. But she had no comfort to offer. Returning to Covenant, she took hold of his arm as if even that one-sided contact were a reassurance and focused her attention on the waterline.
The faint dip and rise of the waves had increased, multiplying by increments the sea's hold on the Giantship. She was sure now that the angle of the deck had become steeper. The tips of the spars hung fatally close to the undulating water. Her senses throbbed to the strain of the ship's balance. She perceived as vividly as vision that if those tips touched the sea Starfare's Gem would be dragged down.
Moments later, Sevinhand came hurrying from the under-decks. His lean old face was taut with determination. Though he had spent the whole night and most of the previous day commanding the pumps, sweating at them himself, he moved as if Starfare's Gem's need transcended everything which might have made him weak. As he went forward, he called several Giants after him. When they responded, he led them into Foodfendhall and out of sight.
Linden dug her fingers into Covenant's arm and fought to keep from trembling. Every dip of the waves consumed more of the Giantship, drew it another fraction farther onto its side.
Then Honninscrave's bellow of inquiry echoed from the underdecks. It seemed to come from the vicinity of the holds under the midmast.
In a raw shout, Sevinhand answered that he was ready.
At once, a fierce pounding vibrated through the stone. It dwarfed the exertion of the pumps, pierced the long howl of the wind. For a mad instant, Linden thought that Honninscrave and his crew must be attacking the underdecks with sledgehammers, trying to wreck the dromond from within, as if in that way they could make it valueless to the storm, not worth sinking. But the Giants around her tensed expectantly; and the First barked, “Hold ready! We must be prepared to defense for our lives!”
The intensity of the pounding—fury desperate as bereavement—led Linden's attention to the midmast. The stone had begun to scream like a tortured man. The yards trembled at every blow. Then she understood. Honninscrave was attacking the butt of the mast. He wanted to break it free, drop it overboard, in order to shift the balance of the dromond. Every blow strove to break the moorings which held the mast.
Linden bruised Covenant's arm with her apprehension. The Master could not succeed. He did not have enough time. Under her, the Giantship leaned palpably toward its death. That fall was only heartbeats away.
But Honninscrave and his Giants struck and struck as if they were repudiating an unbearable doom. Another shriek sprang from the stone—a cry of protest louder than the gale.
With a hideous screech of rent and splintered granite, the mast started to topple.
It sounded like the death throes of a mountain as it rove its moorings. Below it, the roof of the housing crumpled. The falling mast crashed through the side of the Giantship. Shatterings staggered the dromond to its keel, sent massive tremors kicking through the vessel from prow to stern. Shared agony yammered in Linden's bones. She thought that she was screaming, but could not hear herself.
Then the cacophony of breakage dropped below the level of the wind. The mast struck the sea like a pantomime of ruin, and the splash wet all the decks and the watchers soundlessly, as if they were deaf with sorrow.
From the shattered depths of the dromond, Honninscrave's outcry rose over the water that poured thunderously through the breach left by the mast.
And like his cry Starfare's Gem lifted.
The immense weight of the keel pulled against the inrushing sea. Slowly, ponderously, the Giantship began to right itself.
Even then, it might have died. It had shipped far more water than the pumps could handle; and the gap in its side gaped like an open wound, admitting more water at every moment.
But Sevinhand and Galewrath were ready. The Anchor-master instantly sent his Giants up the foremast to unfurl the lowest sail. And as the wind clawed at the canvas, tried to tear it away or use it to thrust the vessel down again, Galewrath spun Shipsheartthew, digging the rudder into the furious sea.
There Starfare's Gem was saved. That one sail and the rudder were enough: they turned the dromond's stern to the wind. Running before the blast, the Giantship was able to stand upright, lifting its breached side out of the water.
For a time, the vessel was barely manageable, too heavily freighted with water. At every moment, its one sail was in danger of being shredded. But Sevinhand protected that sail with all the cunning of his sea-craft, all the valour of his crew. And the Giants at the pumps worked like titans. Their efforts kept the ship afloat until Honninscrave had cleared access to the port pumps. Then their progress improved. As the dromond was lightened, the strain on its canvas eased; and Sevinhand was able to raise another sail. Alive in spite of its wounds, Starfare's Gem limped before the gale into the clear south.