Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [151]
Crane drew a long breath. “We’re about to have company. Too late to get off this boat. Alder, go cast off the rear lines. Big Drum, drop the bow lines and then get yourself up on the roof and get an oar ready. You too, Alder. We’ll push out and take it down to the crook of the Elbow, instead—should give us enough of a start. Give me that spare girl.”
Reluctantly, Big Drum handed Fawn over to his leader; Crane grasped one arm with bruising pressure and turned her in front of him. The knife blade rose to her neck and pressed there, most convincingly.
“What about Little Drum?” Big Drum demanded.
“That’ll depend entirely on how quick he can run. We’ll see if she can buy him time to get here, but we’re not waiting long.” Following Big Drum, Crane shoved Fawn ahead of him out onto the front deck.
Dag’s legs jarred like hammer blows as he bounded downhill so fast it felt like falling. Fawn’s fear howled through his groundsense. He tried to make out what was happening on the Fetch through a cacophony of distress: Bo hurt bad, Hawthorn and Berry in terror, Hod distraught—Alder loose and moving. And two new grounds, both grossly knotted and distorted, the darker one half-veiled.
On the way back from wherever they’d gone, Crane and his lieutenants must have checked their lookout point and seen the inexplicably deserted boats tied up along the creek below. Crane’s Lakewalker groundsense would have found Alder on the Fetch—not happy, but for all Crane knew, still hoodwinking the boatmen. If Alder was still duping his victims, Crane might want to support him; if a prisoner, maybe free him—but in either case the first thing Crane had to do was slip aboard and reach him, between groundsense and the dank mist eluding notice by the sleepy watchmen. And then things went bad. For both sides.
By the time he’d barged through the last of the trees and the Fetch came into sight, Dag was so winded he had to stop and put his hands on his knees as black patterns swarmed in his vision. He raised his head as his eyes cleared. The big fellow with the knotty ground tossed the second of the two bow ropes over the side and retreated to the roof, unshipping a broad-oar. The man with the half-veiled ground shouldered through the front hatch, coming out onto the deck. He held Fawn. A knife blade gleamed against her neck; he wiggled it to make it wink and nibble into that soft flesh, and he looked up to lock Dag’s gaze, frozen not twenty feet away beyond the end of the gangplank. Whit came dashing up, his bow waving in one hand and an arrow in the other; with shaking hands, he tried to nock it.
“Your little friend can just drop that bow,” said the man dryly, shoving Fawn in front of him for a shield and tightening the bite of the knife. Dag thought he saw a line of red spring along its edge.
“Drop it, Whit,” said Dag, not taking his eyes off the stranger. Crane, without doubt. Whit’s lips moved in protest, but he let his bow fall to his feet. Fawn’s eyes shifted, and her feet; Dag prayed she would not try to break away. This one would slice her head off without a blink. A trio of boatmen, attracted at last by the ruckus, thumped down the creek bank toward the Fetch. Dag’s fear of no help coming gave way to terror that this help’s clumsy advance would crowd Crane into dreadful action.
Behind this tense tableau, Alder climbed to the roof and unshipped the second oar.
“Push off,” the leader called over his shoulder.
“What about Little Drum?” asked the big man.
The strange Lakewalker glanced up the hill. “Not coming.”
Alder’s oar swept backward, although the other oarsman still hesitated. The gangplank creaked as the boat began to pull away under it. Dag lurched forward.
“Ah!” Crane chided, lifting his knife under Fawn’s chin so she rose on her toes. “You really need to believe me.” He flicked open his ground to display his cold determination to Dag.
It wasn’t even a decision.
Dag raised his left arm, stretched out his ghost hand twenty feet, and ground-ripped a cross section as thick as a piece of boot leather from Crane’s spinal cord,