Read Online Shallows of Night - 02 by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online Page B

he knew what it was before he turned his head aft; had known from the moment he had been in the process of swinging back aboard during the gale and had seen it high up on the hull. Too high for any ice, he thought. We did not hit a protrusion. Something hit us. He turned his head and then saw it.
    Borros cried out again. Both of them stared sternward. In their wake, in the clearing weather, in the silvered light of the sleeping sun, reflected off the ice, was silhouetted the unmistakable shape of a lateen sail.
    “You see!”
    Limned for a moment, before it winked out with the wisps of light, it appeared to have a sinister cast.
    “I told you!”
    No time for that now. It was indeed a sister ship to their felucca, now perhaps half a kilometer behind them and closing. Could they have lightened the craft somehow? thought Ronin. And how did they find us in all of the vast ice sea? True, they knew our exact starting point; knew that we would head due south. Yet still it disturbed him. He gazed at the spot where last the sail had been. The storm, he mused. The storm should have made this impossible. It blew us about; it blew them about surely. How could they now be so close; what were the chances…? He shrugged resignedly and gave it up. No matter the reason, they are just behind us now.
    The Magic Man was clever. Whatever other reading he had done, he had somehow managed to learn a good deal about sailing. That knowledge stood him in good stead now. With the sister ship giving chase, he steered them with the wind so that, with Ronin using his muscle to keep the yard at the proper angle, they caught each gust, using it to its fullest advantage, making top speed. It was all they could do. Here on the limitless expanse of the ice sea, with not even a hint of land on the horizon, evasive maneuvers were useless. But that we do not seem to be doing, thought Ronin as he ran the line through its block so that the yard swung several centimeters to starboard.
    “We can outrun them,” Borros called from his position aft at the wheel.
    Ronin thought not. How is Freidal managing to sail that ship? he asked himself. Even with his daggam; they have no knowledge of ships? But it was merely another question that had no answer. In any case, he thought savagely, I do not believe I wish to outrun them; I have a score to settle with Freidal. I care not for what Borros said.
    “It is not death so much,” said Borros, “that I fear. It is all that shall come before it.” The fear haunted his eyes, making them appear bulged and glassy. “You are but one Bladesman; they will cut you down and make you live through it as I have. And I,” he said heavily, “will have to endure it once again.” His thin lips quivered. “I cannot, I cannot.”
    Unwilling, Borros went below. The night was but half gone but he had almost fallen to the deck and he had no choice, his body betraying him despite the overwhelming fear in his mind.
    “Go to sleep,” Ronin had urged him as he helped him to the cabin’s companionway. “You are safe.”
    The Magic Man looked at him sardonically.
    “You are like all your kind,” he said sharply. “Every Bladesman thinks himself invincible, until he feels the life streaming out of him.”
    Now in the silence of the night, Ronin stood against the trembling mast, oblivious to the delicate shhhing of the runners against the ice, the tiny sounds of the fittings. He stared ahead into the darkness, deep as obsidian, black as basalt, his mind a theater.
    Freidal, you madman, you defend death. The Freehold is no more. The Saardin scheme for greater power, a power as hollow as this vessel. The lower Levels are in chaos, the workers mad and destitute. And you are pledged to uphold the laws of this place.
    Freidal, you slayer, you destroyed Stahlig, slowly, joyously crushing the life from him, the terror mounting until the laboring heart burst. You have destroyed Borros too; he still lives but he is not the same man; he lives in