"What's thy business, mister?" the captain growled, caressing the long, blunt club. She frowned down at it, then picked away a jagged piece of one of Ogg's front teeth from the tough wood.

"I was-"

"Thou hast not come to tell me that the sea is rough and the skies dark, or some other milksop toss-water whining, hast thou?"

"No. I was..." Words failed him and he stood, miserably, head down.

"Next man crosses me takes the place of Outlander Cawdor tonight," she said, grinning wolfishly at Ryan. "Think on that. Mr. Walsh, I think thou had come to tell me thy boat should be first into the water for the chase. Didst thou not?"

"No." He was shocked at her words.

"What?" She lifted the club to her shoulder, making the man step hurriedly away from her. "Wouldst thou kiss the bottom of this ship from side to side and stern to stern, Mr. Walsh?"

"No, ma'am. I mean that I wanted to get thee to allow my whaleboat to be first to the water."

She smiled at that, her little eyes glinting with a perverse pleasure at the range of her powers over the crew. "Then thou shalt. And Outlander Cawdor's place tonight to pleasure with me is still snug and safe."

The crew was sent to reef. Flynn explained to Ryan that the greatest danger to a sailer was to get caught by such a storm on a lee coast, trapped there without enough sea room to work her way clear. The sighting of the school of whales had been less than a half mile from the rocky sh.o.r.e, near the heart of the raging chem squall.

"I swear it will be a close-run thing," he said. "The clouds stoop and kiss the waves. They race upon us. It was always said that Pyra Quadde would chase a right whale into the very jaws of Satan himself. Now she will prove that. And take every man of the Salvation with her."

"Why not stop her?" Donfil suggested, blinking spray from his deep-set eyes.

Flynn grinned. "Why not place thy pagan head between the jaws of a great white and bid it to be gentle with thee?"

The lookout reported that the great school of whales had vanished in the shifting murk of the chem storm, but that news did nothing to check the woman in her wild l.u.s.t to hunt and to butcher. Whatever the cost.

Groping claws of blackness stretched clear across the sky, with a few shreds of vivid cobalt-blue trapped and shrinking between them.

"Man the davits. Mr. Walsh to lower away first!" the captain yelled, her voice fading under the eldritch cry of the storm.

Ryan stood, hands on the ropes, ready to begin the launching of the whaleboat. Each wave snarled higher, white-topped. He glanced around, but his horizon was limited by the waves of the raging ocean, a gray-green, obliterating the land, hiding the tumbling whales ahead of them, hiding the masts of the ship that had been shadowing them. That ship had been completely forgotten in the thrill of the gale and the excitement of the chase to come.

Ogg-kerchief still held to his bleeding mouth-was at Ryan's side, ready to give the orders. Walsh, face pale as a winding-sheet, was already at the tiller, his crew climbing slowly and fearfully to their places.

"I fear it will mean good sailors going to a chilling," Ogg said very quietly.

The wind tore at Ryan's clothes, and the salt spray soaked him clear to the skin. The ocean boiled with the fury of the storm. Yet so great was the fear of Pyra Quadde, that not a single man raised a voice against her orders to launch the frail whaleboat into the howling inferno.

"We'll be on the lee sh.o.r.e in minutes at this rate," Flynn screamed, mouth inches from Ryan's ears.

Ryan had rarely seen such a ferocious chem storm. Up in the Darks there were winds that would tear through the steep valleys and rip the land away from the bedrock. Some of the hot spots in the West and Southwest of the Deathlands were the birthing places for dreadful hurricanes, whipping up nuke-fire from the missile pits, bringing the bone-sick death to anyone unlucky enough to be caught out in them. He'd been locked safe in a ma.s.sive war wag and felt it rock and vibrate with the force of winds, had found its painted metal wiped clear by the shredding sands.

But he'd never faced such a storm with only a single layer of fragile wood between him and a plunging death.

"Lower!" Pyra Quadde yelled.

THE PHOENIX HAD LAID off from the sh.o.r.e, avoiding the worst of the storm. But even on the fringes it was a terrifying experience. Jak was hanging onto the shrouds, throwing up over the side. His other hand clutched the b.u.t.t of his heavy Magnum pistol.

Captain Deacon had taken the wheel himself, with Doc standing in the steering cabin with him. There were two lookouts in the crosstrees, lashed there for safety, and two extra men in the eyes of the ship, peering through the murk.

"She is crazed," the skipper said, teeth gritted. "They say she goes after the school of whales we sighted. They were within a league or less of the rocks, and she goes grinning to perdition. I fear thy friends are likely doomed, Dr. Tanner."

The old man clung to the rail around the shelter, as though his life and his reason depended upon it. His voice was cracked and low. "And the second of the angels poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man. And every living soul died in the sea."

"Book of the Revelations, Doctor. Know it right well."

"It spoke truly of the day of judgement," Doc said. "Day of sky dark and long winter. The Good Book talks about that. A mighty earthquake and the sun became as black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became blood. The stars of heaven fell to earth. The great men, the captains, the kings, the rich, the successful, the military, the powerful and the poor... all of them departed. That was a great cleansing, Captain Deacon. A great cleansing."

The whaling skipper said nothing, concentrating on holding his course, keeping sea room. Away from the eye of the storm where he knew the Salvation had vanished.

THE ROPE STRAINED in the blocks as the crew lowered the first of the whaleboats to the sea. Normally each crew would lower for itself, but the water was far too rough for that. Long before they actually reached the end of the rope, the tops of the waves were snarling around the flanks of the dory.

"Faster, ye c.o.c.kless sc.u.m!" Pyra Quadde yelled.

The davits squeaked as the boat was dropped in a rush. The moment it splashed down, it was swamped by a huge wave, tearing it from the mother ship, snapping the retaining ropes like thin cotton. Every man aboard was immediately tipped out into the turbulent ocean.

Walsh and one other member of the boat's crew were saved. The rest vanished utterly into the raging waves and were never seen again.

The Salvation was less than two hundred paces from the surf pounding on the jagged boulders of the sh.o.r.e.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

THE SHIP WAs. .h.i.t HARD by the chem squall, suffering damage to both foremast and mizzenmast, as well as to much of her canvas and rigging. Planks had been started around the bow where she'd plowed into the b.u.t.ting rollers, and fifteen feet of rail had been torn away. It was a grudging tribute to Pyra Quadde that the ship didn't founder, or carry upon the rocks of the bleak sh.o.r.e.

As it was, it took all of her skill, culminating in her bludgeoning the helmsman to the deck with her belaying pin and taking the wheel herself, battling the head of the ship around, toward open water. None of the crew stayed below; they huddled together behind the tryworks, while the waves broke over them.

Ryan had made his plans. Though he thought death was nearly inevitable, he would never lie back and give in to the dark-masked creature with the glittering scythe. He had found some rope and decided to bind himself to any drifting wood, when the vessel eventually shuddered upon the headland that loomed over them.

The noise of the waves on the sh.o.r.e was deafening, the banshee wail often thousand drowned sailors.

Captain Quadde laid out a trailing anchor to keep the bow of the ship turned toward the wind, running under bare spars.

Chem storms obey no natural order. They can come howling from a clear sky; they can vanish as swiftly as a traitor's smile.

A scant hour after five men had gulped their last desperate breaths, the waves flattened and the clouds scudded away to the northeast. For a few brief minutes the day brightened, the sun managing to break through. But its light was sullen, like fouled bra.s.s, and it gave little warmth to the soaked seamen.

In less than an hour, the fog appeared.

Pyra Quadde hadn't had time to get a thorough damage report from the first mate. The sea anchor still trailed out, line limp, across the expanse of painted ocean. Tatters of canvas hung from the spars, and the splintered wood of damaged bulwarks was unmoved. Whatever happened, the Salvation wasn't in any fit shape to hunt whales for several hours.

And by then it would be night.

"Mist off the sh.o.r.e, Captain!" shouted mad Jehu, who was the lookout. "Land's vanished clear away. Coming out from east and west, like the horns of a bull, Captain."

She waved a hand to acknowledge the weather warning, calling back to ask if he could see any sign of the whales.

"Gone to the bosom of the deep, where they be hunted by bold Olaf, Sammy, Diego and George. Eyes rotted, finger bones holding the oars, they pitch and toss in the canyons of the deepest waters. Irons fast in the spirit whales. Their lay a seat in paradise, Captain!"

"Shut thy noise, madman!"

"They smell land where there be none. Taste blood where there be none. See light where there be none. Breathe in the good air... where there be... where there be none!"

"No more, thou double-crazy stupe b.a.s.t.a.r.d, or I'll puddle thy brains on the deck."

"Shall I not tell thee of the ship I spy a'sailing by on Chrissimus Day in the morning? Shall I not tell thee, ma'am?"

"Rot thy blabbering lips, Jehu! I know of that sainted imbecile Delano and his endless quest for his f.u.c.king brothers. Less of the Delano! Let them sail the seas for eternity and a day for all I care."

Only a few miles away from the Salvation, J.B. Dix perched uncomfortably in the crosstrees of the Phoenix, binoculars steadied on the distant whaler, noting the obvious signs of storm damage to her masts, spars and sails. Noting, too, the fog that was creeping silently across the water from the visible sh.o.r.e.

"DROP ANCHOR. What's the deep here?"

Johnny Flynn took the loop of line, marked at intervals with knots of colored canvas and cord, to mark off the readings. He steadied himself on the protruding cathead, just to starboard of the bowsprit, and swung the lead in a humming circle, dropping it forty yards ahead of the stationary ship. He called out the readings as the line slipped through his fingers. "No bottom at ten fathoms, ma'am! None at twenty. And five. Thirty and five. No bottom at forty fathoms."

"Haul in the sea anchor, Mr. Ogg. Work her in and keep Flynn on the lead. Drop anchor when it reaches twenty fathoms. In this triple-s.h.i.t fog we must take care not to run her aground. The Seven Virgins guard one of the bays near here. They'd tear the keel out of the ship before a lookout could see his hand in front of his face."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

"Is Walsh dried out? Then I want him on his duty. No skulkers on this ship."

Cyrus Ogg knuckled his forehead and walked off, pa.s.sing Ryan.

"Let's go below," Donfil suggested.

"Storm not put your mind off the idea of becoming an ironsman, brother?" Ryan grinned.

"No. We float safe. It was only her madness that drowned those poor dogs. There is a risk, but there is always a risk, brother. For them it was a good day to die."

"Not for you?"

"Who knows?"

Flynn joined them on the deck, near the top of the companionway that led down into their quarters.

"Pyra's fit to p.i.s.s steam, friends. Keep well clear of her in this mood. It bodes ill for some poor devil that she-"

The voice interrupted him.

"This has been the worst of days, Outlander Cawdor. Truly the worst. I have lost time. Lost a school of whales. Lost one of my boats that will cost more jack than I can spare." She hesitated. "And five men gone to the long swimming on a single day. Now the Salvation is damaged. She will take time to put to rights." The voice continued calm, but she was inching closer to Ryan, her boots shuffling along the scrubbed deck toward him. Her eyes glittered and her tongue danced out to moisten her lips. The woman's hand tightened and loosened convulsively on the belaying pin, whitening the skin at her knuckles. Her other hand hovered by the b.u.t.t of the Astra pistol.

"Permission to go below, ma'am?" Johnny Flynn asked, trying to break the woman's mood.

"Go, double-stupe. Go on, thou toothless piece of hulk meat."

"Come on, outlander," the little man urged, tugging at Ryan's wet sleeve.

"I said thou couldst go, Flynn. Not the outlander."

"Leave it lie, Johnny," Ryan said quietly. He sensed that the woman's mood was on the far edge of sanity and wanted to avoid pushing her to the last, crumbling step.

"Aye, sailor," Quadde agreed. "This bad, bad day can yet be saved. This cursed fog that blinds us about means no hunting until the morrow. Every man has work to do, readying us for the Lantic once more. But I can rest this night. Rest and take myself some pleasure."

The last word was hissed between clenched teeth, stretched out, finally fading into a frighteningly gentle stillness.

"But..." Flynn persisted.

"Leave it," Ryan warned. "No point."

"No point," the woman repeated, slowly drawing the .44 and leveling it at Johnny Flynn's chest. "No point. Thou dost get the point, Flynn. Outlander here gets the point. I"ll get the point. And plenty more. Come here, right close, Cawdor. Hear what I plan for thee. And if thou playest thy part as a man... aye, manfully. Thou might live."

Ryan had lived long enough on the razor cut of violence to know what that meant. Whatever happened, Pyra Quadde was going to have him chilled. During the night. Either during or after she'd compelled him to ease her savage temper.

He moved in closer, wondering whether to chop her across the throat now and break her neck. The fog had come around them so thick that he could hardly see from one side of the deck to the other. Very faintly he could hear the sound of surf on rocks, which meant that the sh.o.r.e wasn't that far off.

Ryan wasn't the strongest swimmer in the Deathlands, but he reckoned he could hold his own with most men. The sea was velvet flat. The only threat was the creatures in the water. Compared with Pyra Quadde, they were probably kinder.

Now he could smell her sweat. She was breathing faster, her oilskin jacket thrown open to show the cotton shirt.

"Let me tell thee what we shall do, Outlander Cawdor," she whispered.

Using techniques taught to him by Krysty Wroth, he tried to blank out his hearing and his mind, so that the sweet, bubbling threnody of obscenities dribbled by him.

It worked.

Partly worked.

But it didn't shut out the fingers that crabbed at the front of his breeches, spidering inside and reaching him, fondling him as she breathed her sick desires to him. The muzzle of the Astra was pressed like a small, cold mouth against the side of his neck, holding him still.

Eternities gathered on his brain, layering it in dust. Eventually the voice stopped, and he blinked himself awake.

She laughed throatily. "I know what thou thinkest, outlander. But thy body dost betray thee, does it not?" The muzzle of the blaster was removed from his throat. Without meeting her glance, Ryan reached down and zipped up his pants.

"Leave him be, you b.i.t.c.h!"

Johnny Flynn lost control, pushing Ryan aside to face Pyra Quadde, his fingers knotted into angry fists.

"Fool," she said calmly, clubbing him across the side of the head with her pistol.

She dragged him to her by the hair and crushed her knee into his groin, sending him to his knees. She gave him a coldly savage beating, never hitting him hard enough to bring the relief of unconsciousness.

Knowing that a move would bring a .44 slug in the guts, Ryan stepped away, breathing long and slow to keep his own self-control. He knew that if he was going to plunge into the ocean and swim for his life, he would first butcher this b.l.o.o.d.y-eyed s.l.u.t.