Scavengers at His Feet

Excerpt from Chapter 21, Scavengers at His Feet

Gabe parried a deadly thrust to his midsection, the impact of his block when steel met steel nearly causing Urien to lose hold of his sword. Eyes widening in surprise, the Welshman readjusted his grip on the hilt. Gabe spun, twisting aside just in time to avoid being cloven in half by the blade that flashed past his ear and bit deep into the pine mast exactly where his head had been an instant before. The boy had morphed into something appallingly, exquisitely predatory, and the crew were speechless.

Gabe danced sideways along the gangway, parrying half a dozen slashes from Urien’s broadsword as he swerved and ducked, anticipating each new attack. His reactions were automatic, dreamlike, instinctive as breath and swift as the heartbeat of a wild animal caught in a trap. Urien let out his breath in a whistle of grudging respect. It was a shame to have to kill this boy, but if the captain wanted Urien to fight the stowaway, fight he must.

Gabe tripped over a thick coil of rope at the base of the foremast and tumbled backward over the slithering pile of cord, but he let the momentum of his fall assist him in a neat backward somersault that swiftly removed him from the immediate range of Urien’s next blow. The boy clamped the blade of his knife between his teeth and sprang straight upward, catching hold of a dangling rope and swinging himself into the web of rigging above the heads of the gaping crewmen.

Urien tossed aside his sword and clambered up into the rigging after the boy. Buffeted by the strong wind, both men struggled mightily to maneuver as they climbed higher and higher. Soon they were twenty feet above the deck. Forty. Sixty.

Gabe looked down, discovering that Urien was now nearly close enough to grab his bare feet. He took a shaky breath, threw his own sword aside, and began inching backward along one of the slender wooden spars. As Urien followed him, the craggy-faced Welshman actually looked regretful.

“You’re a brave lad,” he said, his voice almost apologetic. “Brave, but foolish. This route you took up here is, well, a dead end, so to speak.”

At that moment, a powerful wave crashed against the ship’s hull, catching it broadside, and suddenly the two men were hurtling through the air like leaves in a storm.

Miraculously, one of the sails had become partially unfurled in the fierce wind. Urien slammed into it, sliding down the flapping canvas until he was hanging from a corner of the sail. Gabe, meanwhile, had caught hold of a flailing length of rope, and he swung in wide, irregular arcs over the tossing sea. He waited, gauging the timing --

And then, at the peak of the pendulum’s swing, he let go of the rope and reached out blindly, wrapping his arms around the foremast even as he crashed into it with a with a teeth-jarring impact. A moment later, he caught sight of Urien, who still hung from a corner of the loosened sail and was thrown violently about with each new gust of wind. As Gabe watched, one of Urien’s hands was yanked free of its desperate hold on the fabric.

Gabe looked down. The crew, including the captain, gazed up at Urien with a mixture of horror and grim acceptance. He was moments away from tumbling into the waves, and Gabe knew that, ironically enough, few seamen could swim a stroke.

He met the eyes of Urien, whose one-handed grip had slipped even further, and yelled, “Hang on!”

Gabe looked around frantically for another loose length of cord, a piece of a rope ladder, anything he might throw to the man and thus help him to safety. There was nothing. Then he thought of his own unlikely escape from the deadly oscillations of the rope swing. “Wait!” he shouted to Urien. “Wait for the wind to bring you back!”

Urien looked bewildered. “What?” he cried.

 “The wind!” Gabe repeated. “It will bring you back towards me. Give me your hand!”

Before Urien could respond, the high-pitched sound of tearing reached their ears over the noise of the wind. A small rent in the canvas from which Urien dangled had begun to rip in earnest at the last fretful slap of the wind’s tantrum. Now they had only seconds left to act.

The wind lashed at the tattered sail yet again, and Urien was suddenly thrown toward Gabe – which was precisely what Gabe had been hoping for. He reached above him and gripped a spar with what remained of his strength, twined his legs around two ropes that crisscrossed behind him, and held out his hand toward Urien. Just then, he saw Urien lose his hold on the flailing canvas.

“I’ve got you!” Gabe shouted determinedly, and Urien nearly flew past him. Gabe reached for Urien’s outstretched hand, gripped it at the last possible moment, and held on.