Foxmask by Juliet Marillier Page A

themselves for the next impossible surge of water, and the next, and the one after, being ready for the sheeting, freezing rain when it came, somehow forcing the hands to fasten and unfasten the lines, shifting position to balance the
Sea Dove
and in between, praying with clenched teeth and narrowed eyes, straining to see some change in the elements, some small hint of mercy.
    The boat on which Somerled had made this journey was a tiny curragh like the ones Tadhg and his brothers sometimes rowed across to the mainland. Beside the
Sea Dove
, such a vessel would be like a duckling to an albatross. The imagination could scarcely encompass how it would be to travel thus. A terrible truth crept into Thorvald’s mind.
Somerled could not have survived
. Following that thought, another, starker still:
We’re going to die, all three of us
. Oh, for a faith like that of Brother Tadhg, simple and sure, the unshakeable belief in your god’s eternal mercy. Had not the brothers, too, come this way, guarded by the hand of that selfsame god? Somerled had had no such faith; how could an evil man expect the favor of any deity? If Somerled had completed this journey, it was something else that had given him the will to do it. Hatred? Pride? Ambition? Yet he had never returned; never come home to confront the friend who had sent him into this nightmare.
    Sam was maintaining his vise-like grip on the steering oar, the muscles of his arms bulging with effort. His face was white in the faint predawn light. He was shouting something, but Thorvald could not hear the words in the howl of the wind. Creidhe’s hair streamed in the gale like a flag of gold; she clung, tight-knuckled, to a rib.
The sail
, Sam seemed to be telling him.
Lower the sail
. For the mast was flexing dangerously, the pressure too great, and they must give up any effort to control their path lest they lose their rigging entirely and render the boat unable to make a course for land even in calmer weather. Thorvald lurched forward, his sodden boots like lead weights, his fingers numb with cold as he fought to unfasten one rope, then another from the iron hooks that held them. The
Sea Dove
shuddered; a mountain of dark water arose before them.
    â€œHold on!” someone screamed, and an instant later the wave crashed over them. Thorvald’s nose and mouth, his eyes and ears were full of water; the sea lifted him in a fierce, chill embrace and he felt pain scythe through his arms as he strained to keep his grip on the rope, clutching as a terrified child clutches its mother in the face of the fearful unknown. Long moments passed; he held his breath until his chest was fit to burst, until the agony could surely be borne no longer, until he knew he was as close to death as he had ever been, and then with a sound like the groan of a wounded animal the
Sea Dove
righted herself again, and there was blessed air to breathe, and as the light of a new day crept cautiously into the stormy sky Thorvald dared open his eyes once more.
    The mast was snapped to a splintery stump, the sail gone. Creidhe lay sprawled on the deck, gasping and choking, a tangle of rope across her bedraggled form. Between the falling timber and the rush of the water, it wasa miracle she had survived. Sam. Where was Sam? The boat rocked violently, her erratic course no more than the ocean’s whim; the steering oar swung uncontrolled. Thorvald’s heart went cold.
Not this
, he prayed, though he had never set much store in gods.
This is not right, maybe I wanted a challenge, but not this, please
. . .
    â€œSam!” Creidhe shrieked, leaping to her feet and lurching across the hold toward the stern. The
Sea Dove
pitched; Creidhe fell to her knees and scrambled up again, clambering to the aft deck. Now she was crouching down; the steering oar jerked and shuddered, swinging free not far from her head. “Don’t just stand there!” she yelled over her shoulder. “He’s out