The Riddle - Alison Croggon [8]
“Do you think you could sail straight at it?” Cadvan asked suddenly.
Owan cocked his head and thought briefly. “Aye, easily enough, if you put a breeze in the sails,” he said. “Think you that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t,” said Maerad violently. “I think it’s mad.”
“We may be able to wrest the initiative,” said Cadvan. He looked at Maerad and smiled with a sudden sweetness that illuminated and transformed his somber face. “Come, Maerad. It is far better to put away fear than to be driven by it. You know that.”
Yes, I know that, Maerad thought sardonically. But I’m tired of having to be brave when really I’m so terrified I scarce know what to do. She swallowed hard, and then stood and drew her sword.
Cadvan nodded, lifted his arms, and spoke. “Il sammachel Estarë de . . . I summon you, Wind of the West . . .” Hearing the Speech used in its full power always sent a thrill down Maerad’s spine, as if she had stepped into a fresh mountain spring from the morning of the world. For a moment she forgot their peril, feeling only the irresistible tug of Cadvan’s command, and she turned to face him. He glimmered faintly with a silvery light. The sails bulged and the White Owl creaked as she leaned into the wind, and Owan guided the boat back down her wake, toward the black thing that now made its own huge wake as it swept toward them. The speed with which they rushed toward each other was dizzying.
Cadvan turned to Maerad, his hair whipping his face. “I think this creature does not expect us to rush it,” he said. He drew his sword, Arnost, and it glimmered with a pale fire. “Perhaps we will catch it unawares. Look to your Gift, Maerad.”
Maerad held up Irigan, her own sword, and an answering light blazed up from its hilt.
“Owan, I’ll make a fastening charm so you are not thrown out if the monster hits the Owl,” Cadvan said. “Stay your course until the last moment, then turn north — sharp as you are able. Maerad and I will attempt the rest.”
Owan nodded, his face unreadable.
“You do the fastening, too, Maerad,” Cadvan continued. “Be alert. I have not encountered one of these creatures before. The eyes are vulnerable; hit there first. And it is said that under the carapace of the head there is a soft spot, just where the skull meets the neck. Watch for it! And may the Light protect us!”
Maerad nodded fiercely, clutching her blade. There was no time for fear: the monster was so close that she could see its head scything through the waves, a fearsome wedge-shaped thing, bigger than their boat, greenish black and spotted with yellow-and-green weeds and parasites, with two huge, pale, unblinking eyes and a wide lipless mouth. It stank like brackish, stagnant water. As their tiny craft neared it, the mouth opened to reveal a nightmare of fangs, rows behind rows of snaggled yellowish teeth, like a cave of knives.
Maerad thought they were going to plunge into that dark gullet, to be shredded and crushed. For a crucial moment she was too terrified to move. Beside her, Cadvan lashed forward with his sword, and a bolt of white light sprang from the blade and hit the fearsome head. Maerad saw one eye go out like a quenched lamp, suddenly clouded with black blood, and then, just as she thought they would surely be swallowed, the sail swung around and the White Owl darted past the horrific mouth, which snapped shut on nothing with a crash, drenching them with seawater.
The boat was bobbing wildly, but Cadvan leaned forward, his sword raised, and Maerad scanned the side of the monster with furious concentration. Suddenly she saw it, where the carapace of the skull left a gap, revealing darker, unscaled skin. She was filled suddenly with a passionate hatred: she remembered Enkir’s pitiless eyes, his cold voice that had condemned her to slavery. She struck out with her blade, crying aloud words that seemed to come into