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Something that was down below? He smacked a clenched fist into the palm of his
other hand, all the while Pyra Quadde's gaze never moving from Ryan's face.
The wind seemed to be easing, and the storm was blowing away toward the west.
The chem clouds were shifting and breaking, and the spray no longer blew
across the deck. A few stray beams of fiery sunlight, low on the horizon, were
breaking through. The first day at sea was nearly over. As Ogg finished
speaking to his captain, Ryan wondered whether it would also be his last day
at sea.
The first mate resumed his position in the front row of men, and Pyra Quadde
stood still a moment, tapping her cane pensively on the deck. Finally she
nodded to herself as if she'd reached a decision.
"I'm told hard news," she grated. "News that is sad for one man of this crew."
She took three steps forward, which brought her close to Ryan. "To one man,"
she repeated, cane darting out and pointing.
"Outlander Cawdor," she said, smiling.
Chapter Twenty
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RYAN DIDN'T MOVE. There was nothing he could do, nowhere he could go. He felt
the short hairs lift at the back of his neck at the chilling malevolence in
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the woman's crooked smile. The spears of crimson sun struck her face, making
it seem as if the filed bone teeth were painted with fresh-spilled blood.
The tip of the stick pointed unwaveringly between his eyes.
"Outlander Cawdor," she repeated, "I have an order for thee."
"I'm listening, ma'am," he eventually managed to say, though his tongue was
reluctant to free itself from the roof of his mouth.
"Good, good, cully. First mate here, Mr. Ogg, has been telling me of a step
across the line. A man doing that which he should not do. And not doing that
which he should do."
"And there is no health in us!" Jehu yelled. "Amen. Ah, women. Ah, there she
blows. Hallelujah and praise the blessed Pyra Quadde!"
Nobody moved or spoke. Ryan could feel a trickle of sweat down the small of
his back, though he was stone cold.
"Where is Kenny Hill?" the captain asked in a voice as cold as a flooded
grave.
Everyone turned and looked along the lines. Ryan and Donfil didn't bother.
Since they didn't know who Kenny Hill was or what he looked like, they
wouldn't know if he was there or not.
"He is not here," she continued. "Mr. Ogg tells me that the sniveling coward
hides in the fo'c'sle. Scared to take his place and work with us. A man might
die so that
Hill can live. I will not have this."
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Ryan sensed a murmuring of approval among the crew, and having been aloft in a
storm he realized how one man's desertion could cause the death of another
among the singing spars and rigging.
"Bring him here, Outlander Cawdor," she ordered, the half smile back in place.
Ryan sensed both her power and her evil. She had deliberately tried to
frighten him, and she had succeeded, knowing he would imagine that the warrant
for death was his own. His hatred for her grew even stronger at that moment.
"Quickly, man, or it'll be the worse for thee."
"Aye, ma'am."
He walked quickly to the companionway leading to their living quarters,
already finding it easy to balance automatically against the rolling of the
vessel. The second mate, Walsh, called after him. "Take a knife, outlander.
Kenny Hill's quick with a blade."
Ryan ignored him, ducking, boots clattering on the worn threads. The whole
ship, though it was trim and clean, was extremely old, and exuded a sense of
frailty.
Ryan guessed that parts of it certainly dated from well before the long
winters.
Behind him, Ryan heard the splintering voice of Captain Quadde. "Thou hast
just two minutes, outlander. Then I come down and ye're both done."
The low-ceilinged forecastle was cluttered with bedding and discarded clothes.
A
single oil lamp turned on gimbals in the middle of the room, and at first
glance
Ryan couldn't see anyone.
"Hill?"
No answer. Ryan took his feet off the bottom step and looked more carefully.
If the sailor had really taken refuge down here, then there weren't many
places for
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him to be hiding.
"Don't fuck me around, Hill. She'll use this to chill us both."
"Don't wanna die."
"Nobody does." Now that he'd heard the voice, he'd also spotted where the man
was lurking in the corner behind one of the tables. Ryan wasn't sure, but he
thought he detected the gold gleam of light off the steel of a knife.
"She'll kill me. I was frightened. Been aloft too many times too many storms.
Wanted to jump ship this time, but she wouldn't let me. Had me down there,
chained, all the time in Claggartville. Help me. Thou art an outlander. She
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