Urquart began to take up his old position on the bridge beside the skipper, though the relationship between the two men was not what it had been; too much had happened to allow either to feel quite the same spirit of comradeship.
Leaving twin black scars in the snow and ice behind her, her sails bulging, her ivory-decorated hull newly polished, and her battered decks tidied and cleaned of snow, the ice schooner made her way towards the distant glaciers.
It was Urquart who first sighted the herd. It was a long way off on their starboard bow, but there was no mistaking what it was. Urquart jabbed his lance in the direction of the whales and Arflane, by shielding his eyes, could just make them out, black shapes against the light blue of the ice.
‘It’s not a breed I know,’ Arflane said, and Urquart shook his head in agreement. ‘We could do with the meat,’ the captain added.
‘Aye,’ grunted Urquart, fingering one of his bone earrings. ‘Shall I tell the helmsman to alter course, skipper?’
Arflane decided that, practical reasons aside, it would be worth stopping in order to provide a diversion for the men. He nodded to Urquart, who strode into the wheel-house to take over the great wheel from the man on duty.
Ulrica came up on deck and glanced at Arflane. He smiled down at her and signed for her to join him. She sensed Urquart’s antipathy and for that reason rarely went to the bridge; she came up a little reluctantly and hesitated when she saw that the harpooner was in the wheelhouse. She glanced aft and then approached Arflane. ‘It’s Janek, Konrad,’ she said. ‘He seems to be ill. I spoke to the guards today. They said he wasn’t eating.’
Arflane laughed. ‘Probably starving himself out of spite,’ he said. Then he noticed her expression of concern. ‘All right. I’ll see him when I get the chance.’
The ship was turning now, closing with the land-whale herd. They were of a much smaller variety than any Arflane knew, with shorter heads in relation to their bodies, and their colour was a yellow-brown. Many were leaping across the ice, propelling themselves by unusually large back flippers. They did not look dangerous, though; he could see that before long they would have fresh meat.
Urquart gave the wheel back to the helmsman and moved along the deck towards the prow, taking a coil of rope from a tackle locker and tying one end to the ring of his harpoon, winding the rest of the rope around his waist. Other sailors were gathering around him, and he pointed towards the herd. They disappeared below to get their own weapons.
Urquart crossed to the rail and carefully climbed over it, his feet gripping the tiny ridge on the outer hull below the rail. Once the ship lurched and he was almost flung off.
The strange-looking whales were beginning to scatter before the skull-decorated prow of the huge schooner as, with runners squealing, it pursued the main herd.
Urquart hung, grinning, on the outside rail, an arm wrapped around it, the other poising the harpoon. One slip, a sudden motion of the ship, and he could easily lose his grip and be plunged under the runners.
Now the ship was pacing a large bull-whale which leaped frantically along, veering off as its tiny eyes caught sight of the Ice Spirit close by. Urquart drew back his harpoon, flung the lance at an angle, caught the beast in the back of its neck. Then the ship was past the creature. The line attached to the harpoon whipped out; the beast reared, leaping on its hind flippers, rolling over and over with its mouth snapping. The whale’s teeth were much larger than Arflane had suspected.
The rope was running out rapidly and threatened to yank Urquart from his precarious position as the ship began to turn.
Other whaling hands were now hanging by one arm from the rail, drawing back their own harpoons as the ship approached the herd again. The chase continued in silence save for the noises of the ship and the thump of flippers over the ice.
Just as Arflane was certain Urquart was about to be tugged from the rail by the rope, the harpooner removed the last of the line from his waist and lashed it to the nearest stanchion. Looking back, Arflane saw the dying whale dragged, struggling, behind the ship by Urquart’s harpoon. The other harpooners were flinging their weapons out, though most lacked the uncanny accuracy of Urquart. A few whales were speared and soon there were more than a dozen being dragged along the ice in the wake of the ship, their bodies smashing and bleeding as they were bounced to death on the ice.
Now the ship turned again, slowing; hands came forward, ready to haul in the catches. Ice anchors were thrown out. The schooner lurched to a halt, the sailors descended to the ice with flenching cutlasses to slice up the catch.
Urquart went with them, borrowing a cutlass from one of the hands. Arflane and Ulrica stood by the rail, looking at the men hacking at the corpses, arms rising and falling as they butchered the catch, spilling their blood on the ice as the setting sun, red as the blood, sent long, leaping shadows of the men across the white expanse. The pungent smell of the blood drifted on the evening air, reminding them of the time when they had first embraced.
Manfred Rorsefne joined them, smiling at the working, fur-clad sailors as one might smile at children playing. There was not a man there who was not covered from hand to shoulder with the thick blood; many of them were drenched in the stuff, licking it from their mouths with relish.
Rorsefne pointed to the tall figure of Urquart as the man yanked the harpoon from his kill and made with his right hand some mysterious sign in the air.
‘Your Urquart seems in his element, Captain Arflane,’ he said. ‘And the rest of them are elated, aren’t they? We were lucky to sight the herd.’
Arflane nodded, watching as Urquart set to work flenching his whale. There was something so primitive, so elemental, about the way the harpooner slashed at the dead creature that Arflane thought once again how much Urquart resembled a demigod of the ice, an old-time member of the Ice Mother’s pantheon.
Rorsefne watched for a few minutes more before turning away with a murmured apology. Glancing at him, Arflane guessed that the young man was not enjoying the scene.
Before nightfall the meat had been sliced from the bones and the blubber and oil stored in barrels that were being swung aboard on the tips of the lower yards. Only the skeletons of the slaughtered whales remained on the stained ice, their shadows throwing strange patterns in the light from the setting sun.
As they prepared to go below, Arflane caught a movement from the corner of his eye. He stared up into the darkening scarlet sky to see a score of shapes flying towards them. They flew rapidly; they were the same green birds they had encountered several days earlier. They were like albatrosses in appearance, with large, curved beaks and long wings; they came circling in to land on the bones of the whales, their beady eyes searching the bloody ice before they hopped down to gobble the offal and scraps of meat and blubber left behind by the sailors.
Ulrica gripped Arflane’s hand tightly, evidently as unsettled by the sight as he. One of the scavengers, a piece of gut hanging from its beak, turned its head and seemed to stare knowingly at them, then spread its wings and flapped across the ice.
The birds had come from the north this time. When Arflane had first seen them they were flying from south to north. He wondered where their nests were. Perhaps in the range of glaciers ahead of them; the range they would have to sail through before they could reach New York.
Thought of the mountains depressed him; it was not going to be easy to negotiate the narrow pass inscribed on Rorsefne’s chart.
When the sun set, the green birds were still feeding, their silhouettes stalking among the bones of the whales like the figures of some conquering army inspecting the corpses of the vanquished.
21 The Wreck
There was a collision at dawn. Konrad Arflane was leaving his cabin with the intention of seeing Janek Ulsenn and deciding if the man really was ill when a great shock ran through the length of the ship and he was thrown forward on his face.
He picked himself up, blood running from his nose, and hurried back to Ulrica in his cabi
n. She was sitting up in the bunk, her face alarmed.
‘What is it, Konrad?’
‘I’m going to see.’
He ran out on deck. There were men sprawled everywhere. Some had fallen from the rigging and were obviously dead; the rest were simply dazed and already climbing to their feet.
In the pale sunlight he looked towards the prow, but could see no obstruction. He ran forward to peer over the skull-decorated bowsprit. He saw that the forward runners had been trapped in a shallow crevasse that could not be seen from above. It was no fault of the look-outs that the obstruction had not been sighted. It was perhaps ten feet wide and only a yard or so deep, but it had succeeded in nearly wrecking the ship. Arflane swung down a loose line to stand on the edge of the opening and inspect the runners.
They did not seem too badly damaged. The edge of one had been cracked and a small section had broken away and could be seen lying at the bottom of the crevasse, but it was not sufficient to impair their function.
Arflane saw that the crevasse ended only a few yards to starboard. It was simply bad luck that they had crossed at this point. The ice schooner could be hauled back, the runners turned, and she would be on her way again, hardly the worse for the collision.
Hinsen was peering over the forward rail. ‘What is it, sir?’
‘Nothing to worry about, Mr Hinsen. The men will have some hard work to do this morning though. We’ll have to haul the ship out. Get the bosun to back the courses. That’ll give them some help if we can catch enough wind.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Hinsen’s face disappeared.
As Arflane began to clamber hand over hand up the rope, Urquart came to the rail and helped him over it. The gaunt harpooner pointed silently to the northwest. Arflane looked and cursed.
There were some fifty barbarians riding towards them. They appeared to be mounted on animals very much like bears; they sat on the broad backs of the beasts, with their legs stretched in front of them, holding the reins attached to the animals’ heads. Their weapons were bone javelins and swords. They were clad in furs but otherwise seemed like ordinary men, not the creatures they had encountered earlier.
Arflane dashed to the bridge, bellowed through his megaphone for all hands to arm themselves and stand by to meet the attack.
The leading barbarians were almost upon the ship. One of them shouted in a strange accent, repeating the words over and over again. Arflane realized, eventually, what the man was shouting.
‘You killed the last whales! You killed the last whales!’
The riders spread out as they neared the ship, evidently planning an approach from all sides. Arflane caught a glimpse of thin, aquiline faces under the hoods; then the javelins began to clatter on to the deck.
The first wave of spears hurt no one. Arflane picked one of the finely carved javelins up in either hand and flung them back at the fast-riding barbarians. He in turn missed both his targets. The javelins were not designed for this kind of fighting and the barbarians were so far proving a nuisance more than a positive danger.
But soon they began to ride in closer and Arflane saw a sailor fall before he could shoot the arrow from the bow he carried.
Two more of the crew were killed by well-aimed javelins, but the more sophisticated retaliation from the decks of the ship was taking its toll of the attackers. More than half the barbarians fell from their mounts with arrow wounds before the remainder withdrew, massing for a renewed attack on the port side.
Arflane now had a bow, and he, Hinsen, and Manfred Rorsefne stood together, waiting for the next assault. A little further along the rail stood Urquart. He had half a dozen of the bone javelins ranged beside him on the rail and had temporarily abandoned his own harpoon, which was more than twice the size and weight of the barbarian weapons.
The powerful legs of the bearlike creatures began to move swiftly as, yelling wildly, the barbarians rushed at the ship. A cloud of javelins whistled upward; a cloud of arrows rushed back. Two barbarians died from Urquart’s well-aimed shafts and four more were badly wounded. Most of the others fell beneath the arrows. Arflane turned to grin at Hinsen but the man was dead, impaled by a carved bone javelin that had gone completely through his body. The first officer’s eyes were open and glazed as the grip on the rail that had kept him upright gradually relaxed and he toppled to the deck.
Rorsefne murmured in Arflane’s ear, ‘Urquart is hurt, it seems.’
Arflane glanced along the rail, expecting to see Urquart prone, but instead the harpooner was tearing a javelin from his arm and leaping over the rail, followed by a group of yelling sailors.
The barbarians were regrouping again, but only five remained unwounded. A few more hung in their saddles, several of them with half a dozen arrows sticking in them.
Urquart led his band across the ice, screaming at the few survivors. His huge harpoon was held menacingly in his right hand while his left gripped a pair of javelins. The barbarians hesitated; one drew his sword. Then they turned their strange mounts and rushed away across the ice before the triumphant figure of Urquart, shouting and gesticulating behind them.
The raid was over, with less than ten men wounded and only four, including Hinsen, dead. Arflane looked down at the older man’s body and sighed. He felt no rancour towards the barbarians. If he had heard correctly the man who had shouted, their whale hunt had destroyed the barbarians’ means of staying alive.
Arflane saw the new bosun, Rorchenof, coming along the deck and signed for him to approach. The bosun saw the corpse of Hinsen and shook his head grimly, staring at Arflane a little resentfully as if he blamed the captain for the barbarian attack. ‘He was a good sailor, sir.’
‘He was, bosun. I want you to take a party and bury the dead in the crevasse below. It should save time. Do it right away, will you?’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Arflane looked back and saw Urquart and his band hacking at the wounded barbarians with exactly the same gusto with which they had butchered the whales the evening before. He shrugged and returned to his cabin.
Ulrica was there. He told her what had happened. She looked relieved, then she said: ‘Did you speak to Janek? You were going to this morning.’
‘I’ll do it now.’ He went out of the cabin and along the gangway. There was only one guard on duty; Arflane felt it unnecessary to have more. He signed for the man to undo the padlock chaining the door to the bar. The broken door swung inward and Arflane saw Ulsenn leaning back in his bunk, pale but otherwise apparently fit.
‘You’re not eating much food, they tell me,’ he said. He did not enter the cabin but leaned over the bar to address the man.
‘I haven’t much need for food in here,’ Ulsenn said coldly. He stared unfalteringly at Arflane. ‘How is my wife?’
‘Well,’ said Arflane.
Ulsenn smiled bitterly. There was none of the weakness in his expression that Arflane had seen earlier. The man’s confinement appeared to have improved his character.
‘Is there anything you want?’ Arflane asked.
‘Indeed, captain; but I don’t think you would be ready to let me have it.’
Arflane understood the implication. He nodded curtly and drew the door close again, fixing the padlock himself.
By the time the ice schooner had been set on course again the men were exhausted. A particularly dreamlike atmosphere had settled over the ship when dawn came and Arflane ordered full sail set.
The ship began to move towards the glacier range that could now be made out in detail.
The curves and angles of the ice mountains shone in the sunlight, reflecting and transforming the colours of the sky, producing a subtle variety of shades from pale yellow and blue to rich marble greens, blacks, and purple. The pass became visible soon, a narrow opening between gigantic cliffs. According to Rorsefne’s chart, the place would take days to negotiate.
Arflane looked carefully at the sky, his expression concerned. There seemed to be bad weather on its way, though it woul
d pass without touching them. He hesitated, wondering whether to enter the gorge or wait; then shrugged. New York was almost in sight; he wanted to waste no more time. Once through the pass, their journey would be as good as over; the city was less than a hundred miles from the glacier range.
As they moved between the lower hills guarding the approach, Arflane ordered most of the canvas taken in and appointed six men to stay on watch in the bows, relaying sightings of any obstruction back to the wheelhouse and the four helmsmen on duty.
The mood of dreamlike unreality seemed to increase as the Ice Spirit drifted closer and closer to the looming cliffs of ice. The shouts of the bow look-outs now began to echo through the range until it seemed the whole world was full of ghostly, mocking voices.
Konrad Arflane stood with his legs spread on the bridge, his gloved hands gripping the rail firmly. On his right stood Ulrica Ulsenn, her face calm and remote, dressed in her best furs; beside her was Manfred Rorsefne, the only one who seemed unaffected by the experience; on Arflane’s left was Urquart, harpoon cradled in his arm, his sharp eyes eagerly searching the mountains.
The ship entered the wide gorge, sailing between towering cliffs that were less than a quarter of a mile away on either side. The floor of the gorge was smooth; the ship’s speed increased as her runners touched the worn ice. Disturbed by the sounds, a piece of ice detached itself from the side of one of the cliffs to starboard. It bounced and tumbled down to crash at the bottom in a great cloud of disintegrating fragments.
Arflane leaned forward to address Rorchenof, who stood on the quarter deck, looking on in some concern.
‘Tell the look-outs to keep their voices down as best they can, bosun, or we might find ourselves buried before we know it.’
Rorchenof nodded grimly and went forward to warn the men in the bow. He seemed disturbed.