Part 14 (1/2)
The open corridor wound its way around the sunken sh.o.r.e. In one place the earth was so warm that the ice turned to black water nearby but the sailors refused to wade through it. Ethan and September had to use precious energy to cut a dry path upward through the ice, then down to the corridor again. They proceeded carefully. It wouldn't do to lose contact with solid land and start cutting their way out into the enormous ice sheet which covered the ocean.
They rested, some of the Tran feeling confident enough to express a desire for food. Hours later, Wil-liams said cautiously, ”Here.” He raised his left hand, pointed upslope at a modest angle. ”Cut here.
If we melt our way upward at forty-five degrees we should come out beneath the s.h.i.+p.”
”How sure are you, Milliken?”
The teacher looked glumly at Ethan. ”Not very.”
”An honest answer. I'll start the cut, feller-me-lad.” September adjusted his beamer. After several tries he located the setting which best combined a fairly wide beam with enough power to melt the white ceiling overhead rapidly. Water ran beneath their feet, un-comfortable to Tran and human alike, if for different reasons.
Following immediately behind September, Ethan discovered his heart pounding harder than the climb demanded. His breathing was quick and heavy, his eyes darting around the circular tunnel. He found that shutting them relaxed his breathing and the hammering in his chest. Williams touched his booted foot and he jerked.
”Claustrophobic?” Ethan, looking back without opening his eyes, nodded vigorously. ”Try not to think about it. Don't think about anything. Think music to yourself.”
Ethan did so, dredging up a lilting popular tune from his adolescence. His heartbeat fell to near-normal and he discovered he could breathe without effort. Concentrate, he told himself. Concentrate on Merriw.i.l.l.ya night a burning, aburning, Merriw.i.l.l.ya ayearning. Not on the tons and tons and tons of ice over your head, below your hands and knees, pressing in on your sides, pressing, pressing-.
He couldn't take his turn at cutting. He didn't freeze or faint, but the sight of solid ice in front of him while knowing there were hundreds of anxious Tran blocking any retreat was too much to handle. They showed Hunnar how to use the beamer and he took Ethan's place, saying nothing as he crawled past the half-paralyzed salesman.
Fortunately, the tunnel lengthened as fast as they could climb. Intense energy kept the little stream flow-ing steadily around ankles and knees.
The time came when September turned off his beamer, started to trade places with Williams, and then paused to glance upward. ”Light above? there's light coming through the ice!”
Joyful shouts rang deafeningly through the tunnel, until the knights and s.h.i.+p's officers thought to quiet their men. September looked sympathetically at Ethan.
”It'd be better, feller-me-lad, if we break surface after the sun's well down. If you can't take it, we can-.”
Ethan settled his back against the tunnel wall, hands clasping knees, his head resting between them. ”I can wait,” he said curtly. September merely nodded.
The information was pa.s.sed back down the tunnel. Sailors settled themselves for fast sleep in awkward positions, while others worked overlong on cleaning claws and chiv, the only weapons they had.
Hunnar was talking in low tones with Elfa and be-low her, with Teeliam Hoh. Ethan, catching an occa-sional word, decided they were talking about what had transpired back in the castle. He turned his attention away from them, having no desire to learn the metho-dology of certain barbarisms. It was enough to have seen the scars and bruises on Elfa's face and body, to have listened to the mental scarring of the royal con-sort. Bad dreams enough plagued him already.
When darkness above was a.s.sured, the sleepers were shaken awake. All torches were extinguished.
”Let me.” September looked appraisingly at him, then exchanged places.
”Keep your beam short and low, feller-me-lad.”
”I'm not completely helpless, you know.” Ethan turned to the ice above, began melting with barely a suggestion of blue issuing from the lens of the beamer. September did not reply, in doing so saying much.
A kind of petrified illumination showed ahead. Ethan turned off his beamer, raised both gloved hands, and pushed hard. Splinters fell past his face mask as he broke through the surface.
Cautiously, he raised his head out. Like a vacation-ing friend now returning, ever-present wind buffeted the back of his skull.
A low wooden wall lay ten meters or so to his right, lining the sh.o.r.e of Poyolavomaar. He twisted around. Piers lay ahead and behind him. A couple of small ice rafts were tied up to each. There was no movement, and lights on only one. With the tempera-ture already a brisk minus thirty C. and falling, sailors and merchants alike would seek refuge in warmer taverns and cabins.
Huddled together in the distance above the sh.o.r.e wall, the lights of the town flickered brightly. An occa-sional shout rose above the wind.
Ethan looked back, ducked down into the tunnel. Anxious faces, masked or furred, stared back up at him expectantly. ”We're in the harbor, between the ends of two piers. But I don't recognize anything, and I don't see the s.h.i.+p.”
”Let me through.” With much squirming and wig-gling, Hunnar slipped past Ethan. Elfa, Teeliam, Tersund and another sailor followed him, their musk strong in the confined corridor. Hunnar looked back down at Ethan.
”My strangely clothed friends, you must remain here. Both you and your wondrous weapons are too conspicuous.” Then Hunnar spread his dan, hunched over, and let the wind take him away.
Minutes became hours of worry. What if they were captured? Worse, what if some wandering Poyo sol-dier discovered the hole in the ice? These and a dozen other deleterious scenarios played on the stage of Ethan's mind before Hunnar's voice whispered above him.
”We've found the s.h.i.+p. 'Tis two piers over. There are but a few sentries aboard her and they sleep the dreams of the bored and ordered-about. Some sleep sounder than that. Come.”
Remaining silent, but obviously glad to be back on the surface again, the crew of the _Slanderscree_ emerged from the tunnel. Ethan knew that the sentries who were ”sleeping sounder than that” were the ones who had unwittingly provided Hunnar and his com-panions with the swords and lances they now carried.
The prisoners a.s.sembled beneath the low underside of a thirty-five-meter merchant raft. It was broad enough of beam to conceal the entire crew.
”We could do no better than to chivan as fast as possible for the s.h.i.+p and raise sail before the city pa-trols can react.” Hunnar hefted his sword. ”We have weapons enough.”
” 'Tis so!” growled a sailor nearby, flexing furry fin-gers armed with sharp, stubby claws.
”This meets your approval, my friends?” Hunnar looked at the three humans.
September nodded. ”I'm not much for subtle strat-egies either. Let's do it.”
All three readied their beamers again, hoping they wouldn't have to employ the revealing energy weap-ons. Hunnar moved out into the moonlight, and then in groups of five the crew raced silently across the ice toward the waiting icerigger.
With their skates lockered aboard, the three humans used the simplest method of making the dash across the slippery surface. Sitting down, each extended his arms back over his head. A. sailor grabbed a wrist in one hand, a second the other. Spreading their dan, they took off across the open stretch of harbor.
Ethan could only lament his undignified position and pray the tough material of the survival suit held. It did so, but even the friction generated by such a short journey raised a portion of the suit's tempera-ture above what its compensators considered comfortable.
All boarding ladders were still draped invitingly over the railings. Spreading out beneath the vast underbody of the icerigger, her crew commenced a half hysteri-cal climb upward, utilizing every available ladder.
There wasn't a soul on board. ”Apparently,” September murmured, ”they decided freezing out in the night a bad choice with so many inviting taverns nearby. But wouldn't they wonder at their companions whom you dispatched, Hunnar?”
”I imagine,” the knight said with a wolfish grin, ”that they left for warmth and drink because they as-sumed their absent fellows had already done so.”
”The Landgrave has great confidence in his dun-geons.” Ethan relaxed gratefully. There would be no fighting here.
”Why should he not?” said Teeliam, looking around for someone to kill and evidently disappointed at find-ing no one. ”None have ever escaped from them in memory.”
”No one has ever traveled through h.e.l.l before, either.” Elfa spoke in a way that indicated she was re-ferring to more than just their journey through ice and ocean.
”Quick now!” Tahoding gave rapid orders to his crew. ”Up sail and quiet about it!”
With the prospect of imminent freedom to energize them, the sparmen a.s.saulted the rigging like birds.
Sails began to unfurl, filling silently.
Spreading his dan, which in the light night breeze were barely adequate to carry his porcine body up the iceramp, the captain chivaned his way to the helmdeck. From there he shouted in low tones to the sail-ors astern to hurry in with the ice anchors. Other crewmembers were at work on the pier, quietly and with feverish efficiency slipping pikapina cables from cleat and capstan.