Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [141]
He stopped then, unwilling or unable to say more, but Damien could see the muscles along his face and neck tense as he remembered. What had the Unnamed done to him, there in his custom-designed Hell? Damien didn’t want to ask.
“So what now?” he said quietly.
Tarrant exhaled softly, accepting the reprieve. “Calesta will no doubt expect us to put into Hade or Asmody, and continue northward from there.”
“Which means he’s probably prepared a reception for us in both places.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Damn.” It was hard enough avoiding pursuit on open land, where you could go in nearly any direction. How did you do it pulling into a harbor, where one man with a farseer could spot you in time to raise a regiment? “Any idea how he’s controlling these people?”
The Hunter shrugged stiffly. “Dreams, perhaps. Visions. Or perhaps even direct control, using those few men who have bonded with him. Does it matter? The result is deadly for us, no matter what the technique.”
“So what do we do?” he demanded. “Sail east past Hade, and hope we can make the next port by morning? Hope that he hasn’t fortified that one as well?”
For a moment Tarrant didn’t answer. Then, without a word, he pointed toward the dark mass before them.
Damien drew in a sharp breath. “You’re crazy.”
“Prima’s full overhead, and Domina’s half should rise soon. That should give us good enough light.”
“For what? To see ourselves get killed?”
“I hope something less dramatic than that.” He glanced to the left slightly, as if measuring their direction against the Forest’s chill glow. All Damien could see was water. “We can’t just sail into port. Surely you realize that. Which leaves only one way to land—”
“They built a port on every hospitable mile of this coast,” Damien reminded him. “Which means, by definition, that any place without a port is going to be nasty.”
“So it is,” he agreed. “How fortunate that we both know how to swim.” The pale eyes fixed on Damien. “You do know how to swim, don’t you?”
“I can swim,” he growled.
“It’ll take us about an hour to get into position. The horses should be brought out by then, in case I miscalculate. As for supplies—”
“What chance is there of that?”
“What?”
“That you’ll miscalculate.”
It seemed to him that a fleeting smile flitted across the man’s face. God damn him if he finds thisamusing. “I can get some sense of the ground beneath us by the light of the earth-fae, but that won’t come into clear focus until we’re very close. And there is, as you say, no truly hospitable shore. Nevertheless ...” He adjusted the wheel again, ever so slightly; it seemed to Damien that the shadow ahead was noticeably larger. “Even such risk is preferable to marching right into Calesta’s hands, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” he growled. “Only ... oh, hell.” He drew in a deep breath and counted to ten. Exhaled it slowly. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Just tell me when to jump.”
Now the Hunter’s amusement was clear. Damn him to hell for it.
“I will,” he promised.
Damien had been on a freighter once that had gotten caught up in a tsunami. It had been a simple flood wave that brought them in, not a bore, but that made it no less frightening. The wave had borne them into the harbor amidst a sea of wreckage and then withdrawn beneath them, dashing them down upon the very pier it had deluged mere moments ago. He still remembered the sound of the hull smashing as mooring piles stabbed into it from beneath, the screams of men and women as the deck canted wildly, spilling the less fortunate into the madly churning harbor. It was a scene that still haunted his dreams, that had driven him to choose land over sea whenever possible, that had developed in him an almost pathological hatred of the sea and all its arts.
Compared to such a landing, he had to admit, this one wasn’t the worst he had experienced.
But it came damned close.
Tarrant brought them in as close as he dared, then paralleled