Amber and Iron - Margaret Weis [87]
He stood on the bench, trying to time his leap with the wildly plunging boat. The rope ladder swung near him. Rhys lunged at it in desperation. He snagged it with one hand, missed with the other, and scrabbled for purchase. He very nearly lost his grip and plunged into the sea, but the minotaur boosted him from below and Rhys was able to clamber up the ladder. Two more minotaurs grabbed him as he reached the rail and hauled him over the side and dumped him on the deck.
All seemed confusion on board, with the captain bellowing orders and sailors running every which way in response, racing across the deck and climbing into the rigging. Canvas sails unfurled, and the anchor was cranked aboard. Rhys was in everyone’s way, and he was bumped, shoved, trampled, and cursed. Finally a minotaur, on orders from the captain, picked Rhys up bodily and hauled him over to where crates containing cargo were being lashed to the deck.
The minotaur grunted something Rhys did not understand. He gathered from the jabbing finger that he was to stay here, out of the way.
Holding fast to the staff, Rhys watched the organized frenzy in a kind of daze until a familiar voice roused him.
“There you are! I was wondering where you’d got to.”
“Nightshade?” he called, looking around and not seeing him.
“Down here,” said the kender.
Rhys looked down, and there was the kender locked inside a crate. Atta, woebegone, was inside another crate. Rhys squatted down, squeezed his hand through the slats, and managed to stroke the dog on the nose.
“I’m sorry, Nightshade,” he said ruefully. “I’ll try to get us out of this.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” said Nightshade morosely, peering out at Rhys from behind the slats.
The kender and Atta had been put with the rest of the livestock. A crate containing a slumbering hog was stacked next to his.
“There’s something fishy about this, Rhys, and I don’t mean the smell. Don’t you think it’s strange?”
“Yes,” Rhys said grimly. “But then, I know so little about minotaurs …”
“I don’t mean that. For one thing,” Nightshade explained, “do you see any other prisoners? What sort of press gang goes out and only brings back two people, one of whom is a kender—though I am a kender with horns,” he added with considerable pride.
“For another, the sight of a minotaur pirate ship anchored off a city like New Port should have the people up in arms. There ought to be bells ringing the alarm, and women screaming, and soldiers soldiering, and catapults flinging stones. Instead, the minotaurs were walking the streets as if they were at home.”
“You’re right,” Rhys said, thoughtful.
“It’s as if,” Nightshade said in a hushed tone, “no one ever saw them. Except us.”
He sat back on his heels in the crate and gazed at Rhys.
The ship was underway now, sailing over the ocean in a stiffening breeze. Catching the wind, the ship sliced through the water. Black waves curled back from the sides. Foam spattered Rhys’s face.
With the strong wind to propel them, the oars were pulled inside. The drums were silent.
The ship’s speed increased. Sails bellied out, the strain drawing them taut. The wind blew harder and harder. Rhys was nearly blown off his feet, and he clung to the rail to keep himself upright. The deck heaved, nearly plunging into the waves at one point, rising up over the tops the next. Salt water washed over the deck.
Certain they were bound to sink, Rhys looked back at the minotaurs, to see how they were reacting to this fearful journey.
The captain stood at the helm, his chest puffed out like the sails. He faced into the teeth of the wind, sucking it gratefully into his lungs. The crewmen, like Rhys, were in good spirits, drinking in the wild wind.
An enormous wave reared up beneath them. The ship slid up the surface of the wave, rising higher and higher and it kept going, taking flight.
The wave broke with a thunderous crash, far below the ship’s keel. The minotaur vessel left the sea to sail the waves of night.
Atta howled in terror. Nightshade beat on the slats of the crate.
“Rhys! What’s happening? I can’t see!