The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [133]
The bites continue, and it is clear that she is lost. She is no Matra of five decades; she is a child, and she will not be able to pull herself from this no matter what she tries.
CHAPTER 39
When the sun rose on Nikandr’s fifth day on the wind, he saw near the horizon—as he had on the four previous mornings—the telltale sign of Ashan’s skiff. He had come to understand that Ashan was allowing himself to be followed. Three times on the first day Jahalan had summoned all the winds he dared in an attempt to catch up to the skiff, but every time they closed in, the winds would push them away. They had tried again the following day, hoping Ashan was tiring, but the same thing happened, and by this time Jahalan was nearing exhaustion. Nikandr thought they would lose the skiff, but it always stayed just on the edge of sight, a dark speck on the cloudy white horizon.
“Are we to make another go, My Lord?”
This came from Viggen, a spry old sailor taking a turn at the helm. Nikandr had flown with him several times. He was an able sailor. More than able. Nikandr counted himself lucky that he’d been among those helping on the eyrie, but he hadn’t counted on how superstitious the man would be. Sailors were a superstitious lot to begin with, but Viggen was worse than most. He hadn’t taken the attack by the Maharraht lightly, and he considered it unlucky to take sail with so many having just died and the ship still steaming from the fire that had only just been put out.
Viggen and the crew grumbled about how bad it was the entire next day—never to Nikandr directly, but amongst themselves and within earshot. Their fears, it seemed, were confirmed near sundown. A twinkling along the eastern horizon had drawn Udra’s attention.
“That is a ship,” she said simply, “or I am an old gray gull.”
A chill went down Nikandr’s frame as Viggen and the five other men who weren’t sleeping belowdecks spit downwind over the gunwale. Somehow, despite their precautions and the relative darkness, they had been spotted leaving the island. Nikandr looked up to the Gorovna’s starward mainmast. Its sails had been burned beyond repair. Even with them gone they might have foiled the pursuit, but they were chasing Ashan, and he had kept a steady course, west by southwest. There was really no choice in direction, and the trailing ship would know this by now.
So the chase continued.
“We’ll make another go,” Nikandr said to Viggen, “though I doubt the outcome will be any different.”
Viggen lowered his voice so that only Nikandr could hear. “Begging your pardon, My Lord Prince, but do you still think it’s worth it?”
“There are grand things at work,” Nikandr said just as softly, “things neither of us understand.”
“As you say, My Lord.”
Nikandr glanced toward the bow with purpose and waited until Viggen did the same. “That boy is at the center of them.” Nikandr coughed. “Better if we find the storm before it descends upon us unannounced.”
He started to cough, hoping to stem the tide that would surely follow, but just as it had at random times over the past three days, the cough devolved into a fit that gripped his chest tightly until he felt like he could give no more. Only then did it recede, leaving him exhausted for hours on end, and just when he thought he had recovered, it would happen again.
Udra did him a favor without knowing it. She said it was because of the fire, that it would soon pass, and Viggen agreed. “My brother was caught in a fire like that when he was a child. He coughed every day of his life until he died at fourteen.”
Nikandr thanked him not to repeat the story. He knew, of course, that it was the wasting, but it had grown markedly worse since leaving Khalakovo. Shortly before the coughing began he would feel a constriction upon his heart. It would skip a beat, perhaps two, and the coughing would begin. As the fit progressed, he could feel the noose tightening around his heart until finally it was released. Soon after the coughing would cease.
He pulled out his soulstone and