Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [231]
This far north, the weather was less predictable. The winds were strong and changeable. The sea grew choppy. Our progress slowed. Everyone grumbled.
I daresay there wasn't anything anyone could have done about the storm. I'd sailed on a good many ships, and Iosef was a decent captain. Not as good, mayhap, as Captain Oppius of the Aeolia, who'd dared a risky crossing to bring me home from Tiberium. We'd outlasted a fierce storm on that journey. And mayhap not as skilled as Eamonn's father, Admiral Quintilius Rousse, who had dared the ire of the old Master of the Straits more than once. But Iosef was a fair captain nonetheless.
There were other factors. His ship was smaller and less maneuverable. Despite its name, the Eastern Sea was mostly contained inland. It was more shallow, fraught with unexpected hazards. The storm struck in the small hours of the night, when no one could read the sky clearly to track its approach.
It struck with fury, sudden and abrupt, jolting me out of my restless sleep. There were neither bunks nor hammocks aboard the Vralian ship; only a narrow berth where everyone, including the captain, not serving on deck crowded and slept, the greasy odor of lanolin from the bales of wool drifting from the fore of the hold and filling our nostrils.
No lamps, either; not below deck. I awoke to pitching darkness and panic. Above us, there was thunder and the sound of running feet. Urist, next to me, grabbed my upper arm with hard fingers. I could barely make out the gleam of his eyes.
"This isn't good," he said grimly.
"No," I agreed.
Men scrambled past us, ascending the ladder. One dim figure scrambled back. I recognized Ravi's voice, babbling in Rus. Too fast for me to make it out.
"Habiru!" I shouted at him.
He said something else, then switched. "All hands! All hands to oars!”
"We're needed," I said shortly to Urist. "Let's go.”
Much of that night lingers in my memory like a sea-drenched fever-dream. Half dressed and barefoot like the others, Urist and I got ourselves above deck. There was rain, pelting down like mad. Someone pointed, shouting. I saw a man fighting with the long shaft of an oar and tried to make my way toward him. The ship plunged and crashed. A wave washed over the railing. I staggered, slipped, got to my feet. Urist was ahead of me. I shoved him toward another bench, another lone oarsman. Lightning split the sky. I caught a glimpse of a figure in the rigging, trying desperately to loosen a knot.
I managed to reach the bench and take hold of the oar shaft, slippery and soaked with seawater and rain. The Vralian beside me gasped thanks. And then we both set our back to the task of battling the waves and keeping the ship upright.
It went on for hours, each one more miserable than the last. My arms ached; my healing scars strained as they hadn't for weeks. Time and again, waves crashed over us, nearly swamping the ship. I was drenched to the bone, cold and shivering. The wind was buffeting, changing directions. There was no way to run before it. Iosef's men managed to get the sail furled. It didn't matter. The sea had its way with us, sending us leagues off course.
It saved the last of its fury for dawn. I saw it; we all saw it. An island, looming in the grey light. Outlying rocks. A gathering wave, striking us sidelong. The ship canted on its side. I was lucky, I was on the lower end, digging my nails into the sodden wood of my oar shaft. The wave hurled us against the rocks, hard. There was a loud crack as our hull was breached.
I saw men tumble and fall.
I saw Urist flung from his bench, hurtling toward the railing.
I don't remember seeing his thigh-bone snap, and I don't remember grabbing him, keeping him from going overboard. I don't remember the captain shouting for everyone to abandon the ship, which like as not I wouldn't have understood anyway. Not in that panic. All I remember is Urist's face, ashen beneath