Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [139]
By noon a pattering of rain had begun to fall, and the waves that beat against the hull more than once sent a spray of saltwater up over the prow. It occurred to Damien that he probably should have tied down the loose items on deck, or at least brought them down into the cabin for protection, and that there was probably some special way the sails were supposed to be tied up in a storm—but when you were one man alone and the sea had turned against you, such distractions were luxuries you couldn’t afford. He did dare to leave the wheel once more, long enough to make sure that there was enough fuel burning to keep him in steam for a while, and by the time he came back, the sheer force of wind and current had brought the boat about into the trough of a wave. It took everything he had to keep it from going over, and when he had at last forced it back into position, his hands were shaking and a cold sweat had broken out across his brow. He felt a sudden sympathy for the captains of legend who tied themselves to their wheels when a storm closed in on them. No doubt (he mused) they had the intelligence to supply themselves with rope before the storm really got going; God knows you couldn’t go back for it later.
He tried not to remember that those men had crews, as he struggled to maintain the bearing Tarrant had chosen. He tried not to think about the fact that if those men wound up in the water, all they had to worry about was drowning. If this boat went under with the Hunter inside it, unable to save himself while any hint of daylight remained—
Not much danger in that, he thought grimly, as the sky overhead went from pearl gray to ash gray to a steamy charcoal. A film of rain enveloped the horizon, and Damien could only pray that he was still where he belonged, in the middle of the Serpent, and not north or south where the rocky shores lay hidden in the mist. Soon it would be dark enough that even the Hunter could come out ... and Damien wouldn’t have complained if he did.
“Tell me again how this is less dangerous than being on land,” he muttered, as he fought the wheel into a new and hopefully more promising position. Damn the man for going below without doing something to control this storm! It was little consolation that without it their enemies in Seth would surely have overtaken them by now. Damien would trade this cold, rainy Hell for a hand-to-hand conflict any day.
At last, after what seemed like an eternity, the wind began to abate. Numbly, Damien noted that they were still afloat. It seemed nothing short of a miracle, for which he gave thanks as he tried to unclench his hands from the wheel, to force life back into his strained and frozen flesh. There was a pain in his shoulder blades that felt like a spear had gouged into his flesh there, and his feet were soaked and aching from the cold ... but he was alive. That was worth a few deep breaths, surely. He watched foam-topped waves break against the prow with considerably less fury than before, and muttered a quick prayer under his breath. Please, God, let that be the worst of it.
It was.
At sunset Tarrant rose up from his hiding place within the cargo hold, and came to where Damien stood, shivering and exhausted. Without a word he took hold of the wheel and nodded for the ex-priest to withdraw. It took Damien a minute to get his flesh to respond, so frozen was he in that attitude. At last, stiffly, he started back to where the turbine still churned, meaning to feed it more fuel. “I’ve already taken