THE RAID ON DELTA
AS REED sailed his dinghy eastward, taking Seven’s story to Thistle and beyond, summer came maddeningly upon the islands. Three long days Seven’s troops sweated in the hot sun, and three cloudless nights the moon waxed in a clear sky. Foam and Shale fished in the mornings, and foraged in the afternoons. They even pitched in to help the Deltans finish their barracks; apparently they didn’t have building parties on Delta. “This is wonderful!” Foam gasped, fitting a foundation stone into place. “Apart from Brace, these people make me look halfway toolwise.”
“Oh, you’ve always known how to do everything,” Shale said briskly, running Brace’s plane over what would become a rafter. “You were just lazy.”
“So were you! How many times did you wriggle out of minding the kids!”
“True. But I learned early to make others mark what I did well. You made them mark what you didn’t do at all.”
“Mm. More fool I.”
The barracks were finished in three days. At last they had a roof above their heads in case it rained. Now everyone prayed for rain.
At first Foam and Shale felt daunted by the Deltans, who seemed rather aloof, but Foam made friends quickly, and in a camp full of hungry city-dwellers, Shale’s foraging skills made her instantly popular. She also struck up a friendship with Seven’s fiancée. There was a line of steel in Pond that surprised Shale; she respected the way the Deltan could stay quiet and unruffled and yet mistress of a moment. For her part, Pond admired Shale’s boldness. Pond also wanted to become one of Delta’s Witnesses; she was impressed to learn that Shale was a Witness’s daughter.
Along with Keel, the one Deltan fisherman in their camp, Foam and Shale each took a boat out in the early morning and again at nightfall to fish. The morale of Seven’s troops was markedly the better for it.
Soon Foam and Shale were important people in the rebel camp, and their opinions were sought on many questions. “And why?” Foam said to Shale as they were going to bed one night. “Because we’re backward barbarians, that’s why.”
“Lucky us.”
When a fourth day dawned without cloud, Seven decided they could wait no longer. Their three swift four-man sloops sailed from the harbor at twilight, hoping to reach Spearpoint before the moon rose. Catching the landward breeze, they spread white wings and banked, graceful as gulls, heading for Delta.
Sunset drained like blood from the sky and dusk fell over the ocean. At the tiller of the Arrow, Brine glanced nervously from his sails to the horizon to the big jars of oil between his passengers’ knees. “Be careful with your flints!”
On the thwarts Nest and Perch, old racing companions, laughed softly; but Rose’s young face was drawn, and she did not smile.
Seven laid his sword in the bottom of the Dolphin. Belted at his side, it would get caught under the thwarts; sheathed on his back, it would snag when he tried to duck under the boom, an embarrassing lesson he had learned years before. “We are making good time.”
“I have never raced the moon before,” Shoal remarked, letting out his sheet a fraction. “She has the advantage of knowing the course.”
“True enough,” Seven replied, “but she does not know she is in a race.”
Shoal shrugged. “Let us hope Hazel Twist, too, is feeling complacent.”
“Pfaah!” Keel spat over the thwarts, looking at the oil pot between his knees with disgust. “This stuff stinks. We’ll be dead from the smell before we get to Delta.”
“Could be worse. We could have Sere on our tails,” Foam remarked.
“Mm?”
“We were caught out in the Mist, see, up beyond Clouds End, and . . .” He paused to look at Keel and Bramble. “Nah. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Even I don’t believe that story,” Shale said. “And I was there.”
“Will they remember about the Middle Beach shoal?”
Rose’s fine features were tense and there was a knot in her belly like at the start of a race, only far worse. “We will be lost if they forget about Middle Beach. If they ground, the noise will wake—”
“Tighten that sheet,” Brine whispered. “We are too far ahead of the others. I hope the moon is kind enough to wait for them.” His plump white hand rested on the tiller, light as a puff of Cottonwood down. “They will remember.”
Waves hissed and curled beneath his bow. For the sake of quieting his wash, Brine would have to slow down when he got to the lagoon, though every nerve would be screaming for speed.
They ran on into a lengthening darkness. Brine could no longer make out the hump of Spearpoint. But he had sailed these waters a hundred nights before. If he held the prow still, aiming for the Ship’s stern lantern, the dark world would slide by him on every side until Delta’s lagoon rushed around their flanks.
“And what about the Dagger? Will they remember the Dagger? And the Saw. Remember when we hit the Saw?”
“Rose!”
Waves slapped against the hull like children’s hands. She wasn’t looking at him. “What if they forget?” she whispered.
* * *
“The Mist churns into sea, the sea hardens into stone, then islands, then land. The land leaps into mountains and the mountains fade into clouds and Mist; for change is the way of the world.
“This is a story of the Mist-time, where all things have their truest shape and nothing is what it seems. It is a story of Clouds End, for I had it from my uncle, who had it from his father, who had it from one of the first settlers, who had it from the Singer one autumn night when the Mist rolled over Crabspit Bay.
“This story is a Round Turn and Two Half-Hitches, which is a good story for tying up your boat, or maybe fastening your dinner to your dreams.”
“Scared?” Seven said. “Of course. But fear tells me that I am still alive. You will learn more about yourself tonight, I promise you, than you would in years on Delta. Everything has its own reward, even danger. Remember the story of Stonefinger’s Thumbtip!”
“The stranger smiles, all friendly, and stamps her feet. She’s got no braid, and her straight black hair hangs around her bony face, fluttering like rags of shadow in the breeze. Her eyes are deep as the night sky, and the hand she holds out to Clam is clear and cold as starshine.
“ ‘You got some sort of lie coming to pass the night away?’
“And the stranger looks at Clam, very serious, and says, ‘There’s no lie so big as the truth.’ Then she looks back into the fire, and she whispers, ‘There’s no lie half so big as the truth.’ Finally she mutters, ‘Neighbor, there’s no lie that can even see over the truth’s kneecaps: that’s how big it is.’ And all this time there’s a cloud of Mist bumbling around Clam’s house like a big wad of cotton from a cottonwood tree, and the boards are warping, and the stove’s turned yellow, and there are fish swimming in the chimney. The unwelcome visitor leans forward and she pins Clam against the back wall just with her eyeballs and says, ‘I’ll tell you a true story, neighbor, ’cause I can’t tell any other kind. It was like this—’ ”
“But the Gull Warrior was as agile as Stonefinger was strong,” Seven was saying. “He slid below the hollow rock and held his breath until his lungs were bursting, swimming through lightless caverns that only the sea had seen before.”
“If they go right of the Foot, they must keep close to the Spearpoint bank, or they will ground on the shallows. And the current, don’t forget the current. You can still feel the Vein there . . .”
“Ever-crafty, always watching, the Warrior is never twice the same. He feels each breath of wind, each tremor in the earth, each ripple in the sea. He knows that in change lies his strength, and that doom lies in becoming a man of stone.”
“Spit.” Shale swore suddenly in the gloom.
“Something wrong?”
“There was a better way to do this. We should have swung wide around the outside edges of Delta’s islands, then crept into the lagoon from the bottom, using the Vein to push us. That way we could have kept the sails furled until after the rafts were lit.”
“Right you are,” Foam murmured. “But we didn’t. We had better take down the jibs before we enter the lagoon. We’ll lose speed, but we can’t risk them luffing.”
“If we abandon ship, that means swimming. I say we doff boots now on the chance we have to dive.”
“Good idea. Noses upwind, crew, and boots off.”
“Dagger, Saw, Middle Beach . . .”
“Shut her up, Brine!”
“And there’s the moon. She’s going to make a race of it. Hear that? Brine is taking in his jib. Wait just long enough to catch up with him, and then do the same. Whisper time, my friends.”
The moon was one third clear of the horizon when the Arrow ghosted through the wide strait between Spearpoint and the Sock. She was running slower without her jib, and slower still as Brine tightened his sheet to keep her quiet. He gave the Saw a wide berth and risked a quick glance behind. Seven’s boat was bending nicely into line; Foam was hidden in the dark. So far, so good. Rose leaned back from the middle thwart, fingers like antennae on the sheet.
The Dolphin came even with the cluster of lights that marked Red Alley on the Sock. Seven edged to port, giving the Dagger extra room, to kill any chance of Foam running aground. The moon was mostly hidden behind Spearpoint now; all light came from torches and stars. A thousand pairs of eyes were watching them: hungry red stares from Delta, dispassionate white-blue scrutiny from the sky.
And, no surprise, the Deltans sailing an enormous circle around the Middle Beach shoal. “Looking out for us babies,” Foam muttered. Tension was building in him like summer lightning.
They were almost at the docks. Shale lashed their sail and stood peering into the gloom ahead, holding the boom so the gooseneck wouldn’t squeak against the mast.
Every eye was on the docks, searching for the fleet of rafts. It was surprisingly dark; the wall Twist had built around Delta blocked much of the city’s torchlight.
Ah—the Dolphin had found a raft. Foam watched as Seven washed silently alongside. Someone leaned out, and Foam imagined the stealthy dribble of oil.
His own boat rocked, surprising a splash from the waves. He bit back a curse as Shale, still holding the boom, bent down and murmured something in Keel’s ear.
Keel shook his head.
Foam let his boat peel softly back into the night. Dread clogged his lungs and he forced himself to take a deep breath.
Shale whispered again, fiercely.
Suddenly Keel nodded. He lowered his jar of oil gently overboard. His mate started to do the same.
The night groaned with the rending noise of wood grinding against wood, horribly loud. A voice called, and then another. Shouts hurried back from the dock.
Foam wrenched his prow to the Dolphin’s stern; when Shale thought the moment right, she would let out the sail and they could follow Seven out of the lagoon. Not yet, though; Seven’s crew were desperately splashing oil on a second raft, no longer trying to be silent.
A gong began beating above the docks. A flint clicked once, twice. A torch caught in Seven’s boat and was hurled onto the nearest raft.
“Idiot!” Shale swore.
The huge grinding noises continued to port, where Brine’s ship had vanished in the darkness. What had happened? Had he somehow smashed into the dock?
Oh. Oh, no.
“The ships,” Foam breathed. “Fathom! The scuttled ships. They left them in the water.”
Brine’s crew grunted hysterically, trying to push clear of the wreckage, sobbing, no point in silence now, as the gong tolled and Foam could see as clearly as if he were there, the Arrow’s keel trapped on the railing of some sunken Deltan yacht.
A glowing ball of fire arced from the shore and smashed into flames just ahead of Seven’s mast. For one eternal moment he watched Shoal topple overboard, coated in resinous fire. Answering fire burst from the remaining oil jar. The man holding it shrieked, disappearing behind a shroud of roaring white flame.
A heavy rumble thundered from three places at once. It was loudest ahead and to starboard, but the tumbling, crashing sound rolled from the other side of the Foot, and, faintly, from behind them.
Seven’s second oiler saved himself by jumping for the bow; a curtain of flame danced between him and his captain. “Sheet!” Seven roared, praying he could make the strait before he had to abandon ship. Another ball of fire came crackling overhead, and flames swept over an oiled raft. The heat was devouring. Seven pressed himself against his transom.
The rolling thunder ended in a series of terrific splashes.
The gong still hammered. A river of torches streamed down the hillside to the docks.
Shale let out their sail. Before her, Seven’s blazing boat was now adrift. Streamers of flame ate away the Dolphin’s mainsail and licked up her mast.
Fire fountained from the docks and splashed into the Arrow just as she swung free of her obstruction.
Foam was gaining fast on Seven’s burning boat; it had stopped dead in the water. Couldn’t be the current, Foam thought, panicking. Too sudden.
The night was full of torches and the sound of running feet.
Hidden in darkness behind Seven and Brine, Foam had escaped the woodlanders’ notice. But now the Dolphin was a blazing pyre. Foam yanked his tiller to the side as he saw Seven’s boat jerk to a stop. Seconds later a ball of burning pitch ploughed into the water where their bow had been.
“Logjam!” Shale screamed. “They’ve jammed the channel! Swim for it!”
The inferno’s roar deafened Seven; its heat lashed his face and hands. Sudden understanding broke over him. The woodlanders had rolled hundreds of logs into the channels to block their escape. The Vein’s current was pushing the jam into the islander boats.
The Arrow was lost. The Dolphin’s crew was dead, or dying.
Hazel Twist had been waiting for him.
He vaulted backwards over the transom. Cold water blessed his burning face. He kicked down as light exploded above him and a globe of boiling pitch plunged into the sea. The knife strapped to the inside of his left arm wobbled, threatening to slide loose.
Shale hit the water first; Keel and Foam followed. The other oiler hesitated. Someone shouted, “Surrender! You will not be harmed!” and he cowered in the drifting ship, hating himself.
* * *
In the blackness beneath the waves Shale tried to use the Vein’s current as a guide. A few more strokes underwater yet. She did not dare to be seen.
Light flared ahead of her and to the left; another fireball. She thought she saw a leg kicking away and turned to follow.
Just a few . . .
Her lungs screamed and her chest bucked, desperate for air. Without it her limbs turned to wood, then iron. She had been underwater forever.
Just a few more strokes.
Seven surfaced quietly. Two gulping breaths, then under again. His ship was wrapped in a shroud of flame. He was still too close, and the Spearpoint shore looked very far away. He angled toward it, away from the Foot. Pushed by the Vein’s current, logs bobbed and ground ever closer, coming after him.
The swim was a long, dreamlike torture for Foam. Time after time he dove into the black water, and time after time he surfaced, gasping for breath, into a storm of sound: roaring flames, calls and orders, the beating gong. Away to the left, an endless scream. The Spearpoint shore seemed no closer. He thought he saw Shale once, her head bobbing up sleek as an otter’s just as he was diving. And one time he saw Keel, eyes wide with fear, weirdly visible in the firelight. He had gotten off course and surfaced next to the burning hulk of Seven’s ship. The first logs bumped slowly around him.
At last Seven felt the sea’s floor rise beneath his feet.
Luck was against him. There were soldiers on Spearpoint too, though many fewer than on the Foot. He could see one, patrolling this strip of beach. Seven drifted tiredly, wondering how he could get out of the water fast enough to silence the sentry before he could raise the alarm. Wondering if Hazel Twist had thought of everything.
Heavy wooden gongbeats thudded through the night air. The guard turned and began to walk back along the beach, peering out at the water. He did not carry a torch. Seven cursed silently. His master, Switch, had had eyes like an owl in the dark; probably a woodlander trait. Besides, Twist was smart. He would have told his men to avoid night blindness, and trust to their ears.
There was the throwing knife strapped to Seven’s left arm. He was good with it, but only at short range. He would have to get close.
The sentinel was very near now. Seven dipped his head underwater. He was still too far out to risk anything. He counted slowly to ten, then let his head rise into the air. The guard was now fifteen paces to his left, almost at the promontory which marked the edge of this stretch of beach. Seven faded into shore, crouching double to keep his shoulders below the water line.
There was a ripple in the water to his right, and a faint gasp. Seven tensed.
The guard heard it too.
Seven crouched even lower, his knees against his chest, spreading his legs apart to resist the tide pushing him into shore. He slipped the knife from its sheath.
The sentry came forward, every step a lesson in caution. His feet ground small noises from the seashells and coarse sand.
Seven closed his eyes lest the torchlight from the buildings on the bluff spark a telltale reflection.
His nerves crawled as the footsteps approached, then hesitated. One step farther to the right. Then another.
Seven opened his eyes. The soldier was staring fixedly out at the dark sea. There was a soft plop, like something slipping below the surface. It might have been a fish.
Seven reminded himself that his arm would drip if he paused in his throw. He took a long, silent breath, then lifted his arm clear as he began to exhale, bringing the knife back to his ear. A line of drops pattered from his elbow. His arm lashed like a whip.
The guard turned at the sound of dripping water and caught the knife in his throat. His eyes bulged and he tried to scream. Air bubbled through the blood around the blade. He fell forward with his face at the water line, feet scrabbling against the shells. Gasping for air, he jerked the knife out. A fountain of blood followed his hands like a conjurer’s scarf, and he lost consciousness.
Seven rose from the black water and waded into shore, listening for approaching guards. Quickly he searched his victim’s body, trying not to look at his face.
“Seven?”
“Shale?”
She rose unsteadily from the water. “That swim was longer than I—”
He held up his hand.
Footsteps approached quickly from their left. A soft voice called, “Bone. Come here. I think someone is trying to land.” The steps faded away again.
Seven met Shale’s eyes, then slid Bone’s sword from its scabbard. With discreet, confident steps he walked to their left: a friend coming to investigate.
Shale waited, tense as a hawser in a gale. She cleaned Seven’s throwing knife on Bone’s shirt and then walked around the promontory.
Seven was helping Foam out of the water. The corpse of another sentry lay leaking on the strand. Shale joined them. Wordlessly she held out Seven’s knife. He nodded and strapped it back under his left arm.
At least he knew where they were. There was a path nearby; he had used it hundreds of times before, when this stretch of beach had been one of his early practice areas. He willed away exhaustion and led the others up the hill.
“Keel?” Foam breathed.
Shale shook her head.
Back on the Foot a gong still tolled. Buffeted by logs and current, three islander ships drifted on the black water, blazing furiously, floating pyres for their dead.
* * *
Hazel Twist woke to the sound of the gong. He was just pulling on his boots when Spear knocked on his bedroom door.
“Enter.”
His subaltern strode in and bowed. “You are a genius, sir.”
Hazel Twist coughed and sat slowly upright. “I’m a tired, middle-aged man, Lieutenant. Little more. They came?”
“They came and we caught them. It was magic.”
Hazel Twist snorted. “I cannot share your wonder at the inevitable. Tell me as we go.” Twist stood and patted his pockets absently, looking for his pipe. Misplaced. Oh, well. He would see to it later.
Ash Spear bowed him out the door. “They came in three ships, sir, though at first the men saw only two. Quiet as the wind. They are unearthly good sailors, I’ll give them that.”
“They would choose their best.”
“Of course, sir. Happily, good sailing is no match for good generalship.” Spear’s jubilant voice billowed in the old warehouse. A couple of half-dressed sentries stopped chatting and snapped to attention as Twist walked by. “Rowan Cricket thought he saw something, but he wasn’t sure. Then one of their boats started making a noise like a tree cracking in a storm. We figure he must have run over one of the ships they sank.”
“That was lucky.”
“We would have had them, anyway. We had two of them pinned right away. They were going for the rafts, just as you said they would. We got a direct hit on one with our first shot. By the time we cut the logs, both ships were burning badly.”
“And the third?” They stepped out into the moonlight. The gong had ceased to sound.
“Abandoned, except for one man. Couldn’t nerve himself to jump, so we offered quarter.”
Twist nodded. “Good. How about the others?”
“We have patrols on all the beaches, sir. If they don’t drown we’ll have them by morning. From where they jumped it is not likely they could make it to any shore but the Foot, and we had men all over.”
Twist grunted, unconvinced. “Do not count the bodies yet, Spear. These islanders can swim like otters when they have to. Seven will be among them, Switch’s famous islander pupil. How many prisoners so far?”
“Several of them drowned or burned. At the moment, we have four alive and in custody. We would have had a fifth, but we were unlucky. He was standing on the front of a burning ship and appeared ready to surrender, but when the other survivor dove off the back, the rock of the boat threw him overboard.”
“And?”
“They were at the logs by then. He was knocked about pretty badly, and then rolled underwater.”
Twist nodded. “So that leaves the one who did surrender, and . . . ?”
“Three others. They were in the boat that got hung up. They are badly burned. I told the surgeon to give them as much poppy as he deemed advisable.”
Twist patted Spear on the shoulder. “You have done well. I was beginning to wonder if they would show up.”
“I never doubted, sir.”
Twist smiled. “Of course not.”
Twist had seen badly burned people before, but the sight still sickened him. One islander twitched and gibbered, staring wildly up at the uncaring stars. The second was unconscious.
The third was a young woman in charred pathetic finery. A girl almost. She mumbled ceaselessly through cracked lips: “Dagger . . . swing wide . . . and . . . shoals. Shoals! On the Saw; new boat! Stay by the starboard bank,” she whispered. “Stay close to Spearpoint!”
Twist looked to the surgeon. He shrugged and shook his head. Her clothes had been cut away, and the doctor sponged her crackled skin very lightly with cold water. She yelped as the sponge came up black with soot that had once been skin. “The Saw! The Dagger! Stay wide! Stay wide!”
Twist’s eyes narrowed. He backed away and whispered briefly with his subordinates.
* * *
Red dawn bled into the eastern sky. Twist squatted on the sandy beach where the girl’s cot had been placed, holding her unburnt hand. Nobody within sight was wearing woodlander clothes. “Rose?” he said quietly. He had asked the islander who surrendered for her name, so her parents could be notified.
“And a new hull! Remember?”
“Rose?”
She paused. “. . . right . . . right over the Middle Beach shoal.”
“Rose, can you hear me?”
“New hull . . . Yes.”
“Rose, we need your help. We need to move the base, but we’re afraid of wrecking the boats. We don’t want to run them aground. Do you understand me?”
“Watch out for the Dagger!” she cried.
Twist massaged her hand. Her skin was soft on top, rough on the palms from holding ship’s line. “Can we get to Mona? Are there any shoals?” It was unlikely they would have made their camp on the island nearest to Delta.
Rose frowned, her mind wandering through a poppy haze. “Only the Comb Rocks,” she whispered, frowning. “Is that right? Ask Brine. Brine will know. I’m so . . .” Her eyes wandered, losing focus.
Twist took his time. He knew she would die. The pain would fade, and her body would begin to heal. But then infection would set in, spreading like smoke under her fired skin. How barbaric the islanders were, to send their children to war. How tragic.
“Rose? What about the mainland? Are there any good harbors there?”
“Wh—?” She shifted restlessly, frowning.
“The mainland, Rose. Are there any good harbors nearby?”
“. . . Pie Bay. Pie bay, piebay piebay.” She slurred the words together like a child’s song. Suddenly her eyes opened wide and looked beseechingly into his. “Where is Brine?”
“He is sick,” Twist said. “He will be fine, but we cannot talk to him now. That is why we need your help.”
She stared at Twist desperately, as if trying to remember who he was. He rubbed her palm gently with his thumb.
Her eyes blurred. She shook her head. “Watch out for the Tack, of course. Brine. I feel very strange.”
Twist pictured the charts he had studied so often over the last weeks. The nearest good harbor would be Pie Bay; that put them on the south side of the gulf, and not far into the archipelago. So. They had opted to stay within striking distance of Delta. Reasonable. He closed his eyes until he could picture Comb Rock on the map. What was near the Tack, and had Comb Rock between it and Mona Island?
Thumbtip.
“Good,” he whispered. “Very good. We needed your help, Rose. We will not forget.” His throat tightened. His eyes were hot and ached. “You should get some sleep.” His eldest daughter would be only three or four years younger than this woman. “Just sleep.”
* * *
“ ‘Cave,’ didn’t you say, Seven? ‘A cave where we can hide.’ I would have called this a crack between two rocks.”
“Shoal, Nest, Brine, Rose . . . Keel. Keel.”
Shale curled into a rocky corner of Seven’s hideout. She had never felt so exhausted. The swim to the Spearpoint shore had drained her utterly. She had always prided herself on her strength, but now her chest was hollow and she felt like crying from sheer rage at her own frailty.
“It will be a long day without water.”
Foam looked up, shocked by her ragged voice. “If you think you hate it now, just wait until high tide.”
Nobody laughed. The tiny cave was filled with the murmur of the sea and the cold hard smells of rock and water.
“Perch. Bluff. Nest. Shoal.” The skin on Seven’s face and hands felt stiff as cracked leather. Pain licked up his fingers as if they cupped a flame. “Keel. Perch.”
“Shut up!” Shale told him roughly. “Do you think that helps?”
“It is owed.” Seven’s voice was heavy as stone. “They are dead and I might as well have killed them. I let Twist kill them.”
“Then stop mewling and learn from him! Take Twist as your master. And get people who think like Twist to help you. Listen to Foam.”
“Spare me,” Foam said weakly.
“He has a toolish, slanted mind. Fathom knows it is not usually an advantage, but you must learn to be slanted, if you want to match wits with Hazel Twist.”
Seven nodded slowly. “Very well. I shall learn.” His iron voice brought Shale up short. She had lectured him as if he were a stupid younger brother, but now she caught a glimpse of the man who had driven himself for year after weary year, undeterred by pain or ridicule, toward a goal which earned him only scorn. “With luck, Twist will think I drowned. My father’s house is on this island. We will go there when dark falls again.”
“Why?”
“Food, for one thing. And a boat.”
“A boat? I thought you scuttled all the boats.”
“Around my house, there are always boats.” Seven glanced down at his scorched eelskin vest and pants. “Did you ever wonder what Deltan child had parents so rich he could do anything he wanted? Even hire an exiled woodlander to teach him a skill the sea people despise?”
Foam shrugged. “We guessed your father was a big trader, or your mother was Delta’s Witness.”
“Would she had been. Then Pond would have been sure to be chosen for the profession. But it is not so. In Delta my father is far more important than any trader. He is the great craftsman of his time: he builds the best ships in the world.”
“Wouldn’t Stone love to talk to you,” Shale said.
Foam looked around the shallow limestone crevice without enthusiasm. Water hissed and bubbled in a crack between his legs. “One question, Shale. Why did you get Keel to throw the oil overboard? What did you see that we didn’t?”
Shale answered without looking at him, too tired to turn her head. “Not enough rafts. Two, three, four. If Twist was going to come across, he needed far more than that. So either he was not thinking of jumping from Delta, or the rest of the rafts were somewhere else, and these were the stragglers. Practice ones, probably. Either way, burning them wasn’t going to make any difference. Lighting a torch only showed the woodlanders where we were.”
“Which I did,” Seven said.
Foam shook his head. “We had to do something. And we all missed things. I should have remembered those scuttled ships would be in the harbor. That was bad luck. If it hadn’t been low tide, Brine might have gone right over the wreckage.”
Seven hid his face between his burned hands. “It wouldn’t have mattered. You were right. They were watching for us. As soon as the first torch was lit they would have pinned us down with their fire and their logs.”
“That jam was clever,” Shale said. “I didn’t expect that. Probably all the timber left over from making the rafts. Any log too fat, or too skinny, or too warped.”
The gritty smell of rock and water pressed against them, but heavier still was the knowledge that Hazel Twist had outsmarted them, and nine comrades had paid for it with their lives.
“We are going to get very thirsty,” Foam said.
* * *
Craft turned restlessly on his soft mattress, wishing the nights would cool down. Between the gong and the raid and the fires burning he had barely slept. Something was squeezing his chest like the giant vise he used to bend ships’ beams into shape.
He heard one of the guards downstairs cough, or perhaps sneeze. The leaf-eaters wouldn’t keep quiet at night no matter how many times he complained. Not, he thought sourly, that prisoners often got their wishes.
It had been a long day, and the apprentices Commander Twist had sent along had been as stupid as always, and more inattentive than ever. The “walls” of the city had started coming down before dawn, to be loaded on to dollies and wheeled to the water’s edge. Raft platforms, of course. He had guessed that from the start. Why else would you build a palisade wall in sections, and each section with a tiny little daggerboard slot, neat as neat?
Today, like most days, he’d had the bitter satisfaction of being right. The rafts were rolled into the water, pushed into formation, and roped together to make a giant floating quilt. They had stepped masts in them, and steered the whole contraption by big commands: all the sails on the left stay up, all the ones on the right stay down. That sort of thing. Clever, in its own way.
Not, of course, the same as a boat.
They were off by noon, headed out into the reach somewhere. It took little wit to guess who they were hunting. Not to judge by the extra guards downstairs.
As if summoned by the thought, his son’s voice slid out of the gloom. “Father?”
The old man jumped.
His son stepped forward, a shadow pulling away from the darkness at the room’s edge. “I need your help.”
The old man belted his nightgown more tightly around his waist. “This is news? What about the guards?”
“I killed them. Listen, I need a boat.”
“You killed . . .” The old man stumbled through the dark room, threw his arms (still very strong) around Seven, and then glared at him. “Well, boats, I can tell you, are not something we have in great stock right now. Someone knocked holes in them all.”
There were two pale faces behind Seven, listening and pretending not to.
“I had to keep Twist from using them, did I not?”
“Twist? Use a six-yard sloop? With what crew?”
“Can we fight about it later? Right now I need a boat.”
“There is one boat in the shed. I was building it for Commander Twist.”
“For Twist!”
“Do you want the boat or don’t you?”
Seven looked away. Nodded. “And we have to take you with us.”
“Me! My whole life is in this yard! Don’t talk such madness.”
“There are four dead guards downstairs. Twist will know I have been here. He will know you helped me. There is no choice.”
“Don’t you tell me what I can and cannot do!” Craft remembered snapping at Beech Knot after lunch, slapping his clumsy fingers. Now stilled forever by his son. “However, I choose to go.”
“Good choice.”
“There is one other problem.” Craft scratched at his greying beard. “I was building this boat for Commander Twist, you see. So I tacked the boards over-under, instead of under-over.”
Seven sighed.
Craft glanced at Foam and Shale. “You see, a good boat is built so that when it gets wet, the planks swell up to make a tighter seam. Only, in this case, instead of swelling closer together, they are going to pull farther apart.”
“Which means,” Seven said, “wherever we are going, we had better get there fast.”