The Caldera Read online

  The expressions of dislike changed once more to interest. The idea of fighting pirates and rescuing a hostage appealed to their sense of adventure. It was the sort of thing they had done on more than one occasion. Hal’s next words increased the interest level.

  “The boy is the son of the Empress of Byzantos. Olaf was the head of the Empress’s personal guard and he’s been tasked with rescuing him.” He didn’t elaborate on Olaf’s being blamed for the boy’s loss and threatened with dire consequences if he was not rescued from the pirates. But the reference to the Empress and the fabled city-state of Byzantos added an exotic touch to their task, one that stimulated the crew’s imaginations.

  “We’re heading for the Dan, and we’ll sail down it to the Constant Sea.” He grinned. “So that’s what we’re up to. And that’s why we had to leave port in such secrecy. Olaf isn’t too popular with a lot of people in Hallasholm.” He noted the way the crew looked at Olaf again, the expressions of enmity back on their faces. “I’ll give you more details as I have them, but for now, everyone back to their stations.”

  As they turned away, he felt a hand on his arm and turned to see that Olaf had approached him. The burly warrior leaned closer to speak to him.

  “I wonder if I could say a few words to the crew?” he said. “I’d like to thank them for helping me.”

  Hal raised an eyebrow and looked again at his brotherband as they made their way back to their stations.

  “Not a good idea,” he said shortly.

  Olaf sighed at the rebuff. He guessed he was going to have to get used to that sort of thing.

  • • • • •

  As they sailed into the night, the crew laid out straw-filled mattresses in the rowing spaces. Hal, as skirl, had a small enclosed space to himself under the rear deck. He handed the tiller to Thorn and beckoned to Olaf, leading the way to the hatch that led to the cramped space.

  “You may as well take my sleeping space,” he said. “I’ll bunk down on deck. I don’t like to get too far from the tiller when we’re at sea.”

  Olaf shrugged. “I could always bunk down with the crew,” he suggested.

  But Hal shook his head. He thought it was best to keep Olaf separate from the crew. He wasn’t a popular addition to their number, and there could be unpleasantness if they were in close contact during the trip.

  “No. Better this way,” Hal said.

  Olaf raised his eyebrows, guessing the reasoning behind Hal’s choice. He regretted it. He’d always enjoyed the close camaraderie of a ship’s crew. Right up until I robbed one, he thought somberly, and nodded acceptance.

  Kloof, seeing Hal move from the tiller, had ambled aft and pushed her nose toward him, her heavy tail swinging. She knew better than to distract him when he was steering. Absently, he fondled her big head and scratched her ears.

  Olaf essayed a smile. “That’s not a dog. It’s a bear,” he said.

  Hal regarded him for a few seconds. Like any big dog owner, he had heard all the witticisms that people would come up with, each one thinking they were the first to say it. That’s not a dog. It’s a bear. Have you got a saddle for him? He’s so big he could pull a cart.

  “No,” he said without a trace of humor. “She’s a dog.”

  Olaf, rebuked, pushed out his bottom lip, then held his hand out, knuckles upward, for Kloof to sniff.

  “Good dog,” he said. “Come and have a scratch.”

  Kloof, sensing the somewhat strained atmosphere between her master and this stranger, sniffed perfunctorily at his hand, then turned away. She went a few paces for’ard and let her front legs slide out from under her, settling on the deck with a soft thud and a deep sigh. Then she curled her tail around her and went to sleep.

  “Even your dog doesn’t like me,” Olaf remarked.

  Hal relented a little. It must be hard, he thought, being confined on a small ship surrounded by people who disliked you and treated you with disdain.

  “You just have to win her trust,” he said, then added, “Same as the rest of us.”

  PART TWO

  THE DAN

  chaptereleven

  On the fourth day of sailing, late in the afternoon, Jesper, who was perched on the crosstree on the bow post, keeping a lookout, gestured toward the water several hundred meters ahead of them.

  “Brown water,” he called.

  Hal craned down to peer under the curved foot of the sail. He could make out the tumbling mass of brown water ahead of them where the tidal flow from the Dan River met the crosswind and waves of the Stormwhite Sea and created a seething, troubled mass. At the moment, the tide was running out, staining the sea brown and muddy for several kilometers offshore.

  At the same time, he could sense a new smell in the air. The fresh salt smell was overlaid with the odor of mud and earth. It was only slight at the moment, but it was there. As yet, there was no sign of land.

  Heron butted into the outflowing tide. There was no susceptible change in her speed through the water, but Hal knew the tidal flow would be reducing their actual speed by several knots. He had consulted the tide charts the previous evening, memorizing the times for the ebb and flow of the tide. When the tide shifted, they would ride the ingoing flow upriver for the seven or eight kilometers that the tide’s effect reached, letting it boost their speed. For now, he knew, they had another hour to wait before the tide changed.

  “Sheet home,” he called to the twins, and they tightened the sheets, bringing the sail harder onto the wind and increasing the power in the sail. From time to time, a dull thud would reverberate through the fabric of the ship as she struck larger pieces of timber being carried in the current.

  “Keep an eye out for tree trunks!” Hal called to Jesper, who raised a hand in acknowledgment. His eyes scanned from side to side, looking for larger pieces that might damage the hull.

  “Really no need to tell him that,” he said in an aside to Olaf. “He knows his job.”

  “They all do,” Olaf said. He had been impressed by the smooth, unhurried teamwork of the Herons. They were obviously highly skilled and well trained. They went about their various tasks without too much prodding from Hal, often anticipating his orders as they kept the ship sailing smoothly to the south. They might be young, he thought, but they’re an excellent crew.

  Hal’s reply mirrored his thoughts. “Yes,” he said. “They’re a good crew.”

  “They have a good skirl,” Olaf ventured. Hal looked at him sidelong, one eyebrow raised over the gratuitous compliment. He said nothing, then looked back to the direction in which he was steering.

  Olaf frowned to himself. That was clumsy, he thought. It made him appear that he was trying to ingratiate himself with this young man. Ruefully, he realized that that had been exactly what he was trying to do. It came from spending too much time with the sycophants and hangers-on of the Byzantian court, with their unctuous compliments and easy flattery. Skandians were more prosaic in their approach and didn’t give themselves to false praise. He had forgotten that in the years he had been away from home. “Land ahead!” Jesper called from the lookout perch.

  And slowly, a green-and-brown line began to spread itself across the ocean ahead of them. They had reached the mouth of the Dan.

  • • • • •

  They rode the inflowing tide when it turned, speeding inland under the combined thrust of the tide and the big triangular sail.

  The river was wide and deep, and at this point ran in a south–north direction. With the prevailing wind out of the east, they could maintain a series of easy reaches as they sailed inland. The banks were heavily forested, with many small tributary streams leading off to either side. Olaf noticed a sense of heightened awareness among the crew. “Heads up, everyone!” Hal called from the steering platform. “Krall should be around the next turn!”

  Krall was the prosperous river town that charged
a toll for ships passing through. Its administrators had been known in the past to be in a loose alliance with the pirates who infested the river. They didn’t actively help them, but they did little to discourage them. When Heron had first passed through the town, the authorities attempted to charge them with a murder. Hal and his men defeated that trumped-up accusation, but it cost them a serious delay in chasing Zavac and his black ship.

  It left a bad taste in their mouths, and on subsequent trips down the Dan, they had avoided Krall. The port authorities here charged a hefty toll on ships passing through, but since Heron didn’t plan to stop at the town, there was little they could do to make her pay.

  There was always the chance, of course, that guard boats might be on the river, barring their passage. It was unlikely, but it was a possibility, which was why Hal had alerted his crew.

  They rounded the bend and there was the township on the western bank, a sprawling mass of houses and warehouses, with a harbor full of ships and river craft.

  The toll wharf was prominent along the waterfront, marked by its sign—a gold circle with two black bars through it. As Heron sailed past, several men came out onto the wharf by the toll office and waved at her. They weren’t friendly greetings. They were peremptory demands for the little ship to come alongside the wharf and be assessed for a toll.

  “Keep waving,” Hal said as he maintained his course, staying well out in the center of the river.

  Jesper, leaning on the bow post, made a rude gesture toward the shore. The men on the wharf reacted angrily. Fists were shaken and their voices carried faintly across the water as they demanded the Heron pull in to shore.

  Most of the crew had their eyes on the angry figures. But Lydia was not one to be distracted from the main task in hand. She had maintained a watch over the river before them.

  “There’s a guard boat,” she warned, pointing to starboard. Hal followed her pointing arm and saw a large rowing boat, pulling eight oars and crowded with armed men, shooting out from the eastern bank. His eyes narrowed as he measured her speed and marked a spot where she would intercept Heron if he maintained his current course.

  “Stand by to tack starboard,” he called softly. Ulf and Wulf sat upright on their benches, ready to act on his command, hands on the sheets and halyards.

  “Come about!” he called, putting the helm over. Heron began swinging to starboard as the twins hauled down the port sail and began hoisting the starboard yardarm. Heron came smoothly about, racing for a spot behind the guard boat’s stern. For a moment, there was confusion among the men on board the large open boat. As Hal had suspected, her crew weren’t particularly skillful or well drilled. Belatedly, her helmsman shouted orders, and the port-side oars backed while the starboard-side pulled ahead. The big rowing boat lurched in the water and began to pivot, heading back to cut Heron off. But the maneuver was clumsy and poorly executed. Hal waited as the guard boat steadied on her new course, then called more orders.

  “Down starboard. Up port!”

  He swung the tiller back to port again as the twins answered his command, scuttling across the deck to the sheets that controlled the port sail. The sail filled and the ship leapt forward once more, speeding back behind the stern of the guard boat, leaving it no time or room to reverse course. The helmsman tried, but the result was a dismal failure and the boat wallowed in confusion, losing forward way as Heron shot past her. In the bow, Jesper and Stefan laughed aloud and shouted insults at the rowing boat’s crew.

  “Quiet,” ordered Hal, and they fell silent immediately. On the longboat, they could see one of the crew fumbling with a short recurve bow, trying to nock an arrow to the string while his companions floundered around him. Lydia’s hand dropped to the quiver of bolts hanging from her belt and she withdrew one, fitting the notched end into the handle of her atlatl.

  “If he looks like shooting, let him have it,” Hal told her.

  She nodded, saying nothing. Her eyes were riveted on the bowman, waiting to see if he could manage a steady position in the wildly rocking boat.

  Luckily for him—for Lydia rarely missed at such a short range—as he was about to raise the bow, one of his companions lurched and fell against him, knocking him off his thwart and sending the bow clattering into the bottom of the boat.

  “We’re clear,” Lydia said quietly, unclipping the dart and returning it to her quiver. Hal glanced once behind him and nodded, satisfied. It always galled him to pay a toll for the simple act of sailing past a town. The people of Krall didn’t own the river, he thought. There was no reason he should pay them to travel on it.

  Stig was grinning, admiring the neat way his skirl had sidestepped the guard boat.

  “They’ll be expecting us when we come back,” he said.

  Hal shrugged. “They can expect all they like. I’m not paying them.”

  chaptertwelve

  It was a different matter a day later when they reached the town of Bayrath. It was a major town on the river, much larger than Krall. And it was sited where the riverbanks came closer together, leaving a gap of barely one hundred meters between them.

  Seeing an opportunity for profit, the town council had built a heavy boom across the river—a series of large logs lying nine-tenths submerged and held together by heavy chains. Two boom vessels were moored, one at either end, with windlasses and cables to pull the two halves of the boom aside, allowing ships to pass through.

  Needless to say, this didn’t happen until each ship had paid a substantial toll.

  Stig watched his father leaning idly on the rail, studying the town as they approached it.

  The young first mate felt somewhat conflicted about his father. Stig had spent most of his life wanting to know what it was like to have a father on hand to guide and advise him, to share his triumphs and adversities. He knew other members of the brotherband had this sort of relationship with their fathers and he envied them.

  At the same time, he had grown up resenting this unknown figure, who had now suddenly reappeared in his life. Olaf had deserted him and his mother, and left them to bear the shame of his theft and his betrayal of his own crew. When Olaf reappeared, Stig hoped he might provide some reason for his actions, or at least show some sort of repentance. Yet when Olaf referred to the past, he showed no real sign of regret for what he had done. He mentioned it in more or less casual terms—After I left here years ago. He hadn’t acknowledged the wrong he had done, to his shipmates and to his wife and young son. He hadn’t apologized or shown any sign of remorse. He had alluded to the fact that his life on the run had been difficult, but the overall feeling was that this had been more the fault of others than due to any of his own actions.

  Stig’s expectation that he might finally get to know his father had been denied. Olaf showed no special interest in his son, other than to say he needed help and had nowhere else to turn. Since they had left Hallasholm Stig had waited, hoping that sooner or later Olaf might draw him aside and apologize for his desertion, that he might provide some compelling reason for having left Stig and Hannah behind. But such a moment hadn’t happened. They’d had a few brief conversations during the trip so far but, overall, they had been inconclusive.

  Now it occurred to Stig that perhaps his father was ashamed, and couldn’t find a way to show it. Maybe it was up to Stig to make the first approach. Maybe then the floodgates would open. As it was, with each of them staying aloof and not offering any opportunity for a more open dialog, things would remain awkward and unresolved. So maybe the first approach was up to him.

  Coming to a decision, he strolled over to the railing, trying to keep his manner casual. Olaf looked up from his perusal of the river and nodded a greeting.

  “That’s Bayrath,” Stig said, nodding his head toward the sprawling buildings on the river bank. He forced a smile. “We had a lively time here the first time we came upriver.”

  Olaf looked only mild
ly interested. “Oh?”

  Stig continued. “Zavac, the pirate we were chasing, had bribed the Gatmeister here to detain us. He was a nasty piece of work called Doutro—as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, he was. He impounded the ship and had us all arrested.”

  Olaf raised an eyebrow. “That was careless of you all. Didn’t Hal foresee that something like that might happen?”

  Stig shook his head. “How could he? This sort of thing was new to us. We were pretty young and inexperienced. Maybe we were a little naive, in hindsight.”

  Olaf snorted. “A little? A lot, it sounds like. How did you get out of his jail?”

  Stig’s smile became more genuine now and he glanced down the length of the ship to where Lydia was sitting cross-legged on the central deck, setting new vanes on her atlatl darts.

  “That was Lydia’s doing. She was terrific.”

  “Really?” Olaf seemed determined not to be impressed by any of this. “I suppose she used her feminine wiles to get you out.” He regarded the dark-haired girl for several seconds. “Not that she seems to have too many of them,” he added. “She dresses like a boy.”

  Stig straightened up, offended. Lydia was a good friend, and a member of the brotherband who had proven her worth on more than one occasion. He resented Olaf’s sneering reference to her.

  “Do you expect her to wear dresses and petticoats on board ship?” he asked. “She can look very pretty when she’s dressed up. Very feminine,” he added, feeling the inadequacy of the words.

  Olaf laughed dismissively, holding his hands up as if to ward off Stig’s anger. “Steady on!” he said. “I didn’t mean to criticize!”

  But he had, Stig realized. His father seemed to be unimpressed by anyone other than himself, and Stig felt obliged to make him understand just what Lydia had done in Bayrath.

  “Sounded as if you did,” he said, then went on. “But what she did was overpower her guard, escape through a third-story window, climb over the roof and jump across an alley to an adjoining building. Then she made her way to ground level, got on board the ship without being seen and fetched Jesper’s lockpicking tools. Without her, we never would have got out of that jail.”