Deathlands - Dectra Chain Part 23

"Nothing. But the whale was bearing this way. When the fogs..."

"I have seen nothing."

The words were cold and flat. Dismissive.

"The two of us, together... We could quarter the sea and find my brothers."

"We could, but we will not. I am here to hunt the whales. Not to scour the waves

for dimwit orphans who know not their trade. Good day to thee, Captain Delano."

Now the sterns of the two vessels were level, the two skippers scant feet apart, gazing into each other's eyes.

"Turn and let us talk longer, Captain Quadde. I beg thee, in the name of thy savior."

"These are my waters, but he is not my savior, Preaching Biddy. Get to thy search."

"One day? But give up one day's hunt. I'll pay thee for thy time."

"Fare thee well!" Pyra Quadde shouted across the widening gap. She turned to her crew. "I can find work for any idle hand I see skylarking out here. Mr. Ogg! Set them to it."

"Aye, ma'am."

Ryan joined the others, scurrying away belowdecks to lend a hand at the noisome task of boiling down the chunks of blubber.

He heard the last, fading words of Captain Delano of the Bartleby, torn away by the wind.

"May thy stone soul sink thee to h.e.l.l, Pyra Quadde. And may any man who sails with thee join thee in everlasting torment!"

The next time Ryan Cawdor came out on deck, the other s.h.i.+p was a tiny black speck, hull down, on the horizon.

For the next two days they pressed on, sailing deeper into the whaling grounds, but without a single sighting of their prey. And with each hour that pa.s.sed, Pyra Quadde became more and more ill-tempered, with a curse and blow for any man who came within her reach, "She's getting hungry again," Johnny Flynn whispered, mumbling through his toothless gums, as he and Ryan worked together on splicing a length of rope.

"Hungry for what?"

Jehu was also busy nearby and he heard the muttered conversation.

"Hungry for meat, s.h.i.+pmates. The meat that grows from the loins of a man. The meat that grows and shrinks and rises and falls. That's the fine red meat for our captain's tastes."

THE BARTLEBY WAS homeward bound, her voyage ended prematurely by the loss of Captain Delano's two brothers. Her search across the vastness had been a fruitless one, and she was headed back to Claggartville to mourn her dead. She pa.s.sed by the Phoenix, close-hauled on a starboard reach, and the captains were able to pa.s.s on their hurried news.

Krysty and Jak stood by Captain Deacon, to make sure he resisted the temptation to reveal his plight. But he kept silent about his unwelcome quintet of pa.s.sengers.

The men of the Bartleby gazed with naked curiosity at the white-haired boy and the fire-haired young woman. But there was no time for questions. Just the one vital question, answered by the wild-eyed Delano, shaking a fist toward the heavens.

"Less than a hundred leagues ahead. On the southern edge of the whaling banks. If ye seek her for some vengeance, go with my blessing. If to aid her, then may ye sink with my curse."

Then the whaler plunged astern of them, vanis.h.i.+ng swiftly. Deacon turned to Krysty, tapping at his teeth with a forefinger. "Closing. The Salvation is not the swiftest vessel from the ville. With a good wind we can claw a couple of knots from her. More if Pyra Quadde is quartering the Lantic for the whales. Delano has seen few in a week or more. We could come within sight of her in another couple of days or less. Maybe less."

"Be good," J.B. said, joining them.

Deacon looked at the Armorer, unsmiling. "Yeah mister. It'd be good. Good to see the backs of ye outland chillers, and get on with our job."

"When we get our friends safe, you won't see us for dust. Or for spray," Krysty replied.

Deacon, hands locked in the small of his back, walked away from them to the other side of the deck.

ANOTHER DAY on the Salvation without the sighting of a whale. Toward evening Captain Quadde beckoned Ryan to where she stood on the main deck.

"Figured I'd tell thee that I'm set on having thee, Outlander Cawdor. Soon. Settle the score 'twixt us. Well set-up man like thee." Her long tongue peeked out between the filed ivory teeth and licked her chapped lips. In an attractive woman it would have been a stimulating and coquettish gesture. In Pyra Quadde it was simply frightening. And disgusting.

That night, while the rest of the crew slept around them in the forecastle, Ryan told Donfil about the threat from Pyra Quadde.

Coiled uncomfortably in his too short bunk, the shaman asked him what he intended to do.

"Got no choice. I'll do a lot to stay alive. Trader used to say a man who died of pride was a fool. A corpse can't get any revenge. But her idea of f.u.c.king ends in death. We know that."

"You'll chill her first?"

In the rolling darkness, Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Guess so. If I can do it right. Then see if we can take out enough of the crew to win the s.h.i.+p. Not much of a hope, I guess."

"I got nothing better. Maybe we'll catch some whales tomorrow. Take her mind off...off other things."

"Yeah. Maybe."

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

FOLLOWING A HUNTER'S instinct, Pyra Quadde set her course back toward land, moving northerly, hoping to pick up one of the mighty schools of whales that broached and sunned themselves off the deserted coves.

The sun shone brightly, and the last of the blubber was finally rendered in the ovens and stored in sealed barrels below the main deck. The whaleboats were cleaned, lowered and raised again, the men on the davits chanting an old whaling capstan song to lighten the ch.o.r.e.

Though the sun shone brilliantly, Ryan noticed that dark clouds were building up, far away ahead of them, thunderheads that rolled and bubbled, filled with venomous lightning, streaked with white splashes across the violet sky.

"Yeah," said one of the other sailors, when he mentioned it to him. "Over the land, that is. Wind rips it apart and pushes it our way. Could be bad from the height of them chem clouds."

"How come the sea's so flat?" Donfil asked.

It was true. The waves had flattened out and disappeared, and even the long ocean swell had almost gone. The s.h.i.+p sailed gently on, as if it were a child's toy, placed upon a painted, mirrored sea. The sails flapped idly on the yards and the helmsman spun the wheel, looking for a breath of a breeze to help them on their way.

Captain Quadde had a canvas chair brought out and placed on the quarterdeck, where she sat and watched her crew with a baleful eye. It was warm, and she'd changed out of her heavy sweaters.

Now she wore a white blouse, with torn, dirty lace at collar and cuffs. One sleeve was ripped from elbow to wrist. The material was thin, and it was possible to see that the woman wore nothing beneath it. The dark circles of her nipples pushed at the tight blouse.

Her skirt was cotton, pale blue, covered with food and drink stains down the front. It was too tight for her around the waist, and she'd tried to pin it shut. But it revealed a gap of rolling fat. Her wide belt carried the belaying pin on one side and the .44 on the other. Her legs and feet were bare, the toenails crooked and jagged.

She had a bottle of the usquebaugh at her side, as well as a chipped tankard of clouded gla.s.s. By late afternoon she was visibly, and audibly, drunk.

"No fugging whales in the whole fugging sea. She was only a fishmonger's daughter, but she knew how to lie on the fragging slab and say fill it! Fillet! Where's the pigging whales gone? Must be the outlander with his one f.u.c.king eye and all bad luck. Like whistling on deck. Brings lucking bad f.u.c.k, it does. Yeah, it does."

Around noon the lookout from the masthead had called down that he could see the top spars of another s.h.i.+p. Shadowing them, so he said. But he couldn't make out enough of the cut of the jib to be certain that it was still the Bartleby, searching for her missing children.

"Course it's them," Quadde shouted. "Preaching Biddy Delano! May his b.a.l.l.s rot and his c.o.c.k wither and his a.s.s leak his brains all over his clean frogging decks."

Each change of lookout reported the same sight. Just on the edge of seeing, only the top spars visible, keeping her distance, beating in toward the stormy land at the same speed as the Salvation. Maybe just a knot or two faster.

"Don't keep telling me the same, or I'll have thee bunking 'stead of th'outlander."

So, after that, none of the crew mentioned to their captain that the whaling s.h.i.+p on the horizon was steadily creeping in closer. Cyrus Ogg ventured to mention to Second Mate Walsh that in his humble opinion the other vessel wasn't necessarily the Bartleby under Captain Delano. He certainly wasn't about to hazard his lay on whose s.h.i.+p it was. But the set of the mizzenmast reminded him very much of the Phoenix, Captain Deacon in command.

DUSK WAS BEGINNING to ease itself across the mirrored sea. The wind had just begun to freshen again, bringing the threat of the storm clouds even closer. Now, from the crow's nest, it was possible to make out a gray smudge away to the north, beneath the dancing daggers of the lightning.

"Sh.o.r.e, right enough," Johnny Flynn confirmed, sitting behind the tryworks, exercising the joints of his broken finger.

"How far off?" Ryan asked.

"Good many sea miles, yet, cully," the sailor replied.

"The chem storm looks closer."

Flynn spit over the side of the s.h.i.+p, nodding his agreement. "Aye, outlander, it is that. Me da's da spoke of the years after the long winters and the red fires. Said they had storms then as a man would die in. Off the sea it'd rain purest acid and strip the flesh off of thy bones faster than a pack of mutie sharks. Lightning spears so thick and fast a man couldn't hope to dodge 'em. But... we still get good blows now and again. Best beat away from 'em."

The wind was freshening, growing stronger with every minute that pa.s.sed. Already the sea was patterned with lacy cat's-paws, and the sails were straining at the yards.

Pyra Quadde got up from her comfortable chair and vanished below, reappearing a minute later in her more familiar garb of seaboots, sweater and longer skirt. But the gun and the belaying pin were still at her belt.

"Be all hands to reef soon enough," Flynn muttered.

But the voice, cracking with excitement from the masthead, altered that.

"They blow! Three... five... a dozen or more! A great school of right whales."

"Where away?" the captain shouted, squinting aloft, as was most of the crew.

"Port bow, ma'am. Large a school as ever I seen! There!" An outstretched arm,

like a hunting dog, pointed to the whales.

"Helm over!" she yelled to the helmsman in his shelter. "Mr. Ogg! Mr. Wals.h.!.+ Boats' crews at the ready. Hands to the davits! We've struck lucky at last." Ryan was one of the men nearest to Pyra Quadde. Cyrus Ogg was standing right by him, and he walked up to his captain. His face was worried, mouth working nervously as he peered out over the bow, toward the maelstrom of spray where the whales were broaching, visible now from the deck.

In the direction of the looming menace of the storm.

"Captain," he began.

"What is it, Mr. Mate?"

"There's a bad squall yonder."

"I see it."

"We lower and hunt, then the whaleboats will be in peril."

"Aye, Mr. Ogg. What of it?" Ryan noticed her right hand was creeping down to touch the s.h.i.+ning wood of the heavy belaying pin. But her face was solid, betraying no emotion.

"Dost thou not think it a danger, Captain?"

"Aye. Our lives are danger, Cyrus Ogg. Who knows when infinity will strike us down and pluck us to the bosom of Abraham?"

"Truly. But I think it would be safer and better to haul off for three hours or so. The whales will not move far."

"Ah, thou dost think, dost thou? It would be safer and better! I think not."

The mate didn't move, balanced against the increased rocking of the s.h.i.+p, hands at his side, licking his lips. Jehu stood next to Ryan, and he began to patter a kind of a prayer beneath his breath.

"Save him, brave him, grave him. Shut up his mouth and seal his eyes and fill his mouth with oysters and tell him lies, lies, lies."

"Thou still dost stands to argue with me, Cyrus Ogg? Dost thou?"

"The storm will take the dories under."

"That storm?" She pointed with her left hand, ahead of the s.h.i.+p. The mate followed her finger, staring toward the silver-slashed murk.

And Pyra Quadde hit him.

The belaying pin was more than a foot long, tapering down from the thickness of a child's wrist, and was made of ironwood. She smashed the heavy end into Ogg's mouth, knocking him clean off his feet. There was the unmistakable sound of teeth splintering. Blood poured from the crushed lips, and the man rolled over, struggling to rise, spitting out shards of crimsoned bone, shaking his head like a steer under the poleax.

Captain Quadde stood and looked down at him. "Get blood on my boots, Mr. Ogg, and thou shalt lick it off. Go forrard and obey my orders. Now!"

The last word cracked like a bullwhip. With a great effort the first mate managed to stand, eyes glazed with shock. He tugged a dark blue kerchief from his pocket and stuffed it against his smashed mouth.

At that moment Second Mate Walsh came running aft, pausing as he saw the tableau. And the spreading pool of blood.

"What's been... ?" he began, words faltering and dying.