The Brink by Austin Bunn

Author:Austin Bunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2015-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

At dawn, the crew mounted a torch to the prow of the longboat and cinched the long fathom line to an oarlock. The line would run from the longboat to the Elena, to keep it tethered. When the preparations were done, Diego and Ginés lowered the captain into the boat and set him in the bow. In his hand, he held the queen’s letters of introduction. At stern, Pinzón pleaded upwards. He’d spent the night writing letters to his wife. At dawn, he burned them all and wrote one to his mistress in Madrid, a letter he sealed with wax and swore me to deliver.

The sun rose as they set out, their oars slapping into a waveless ocean. The hemp line unspooled in lazy jerks. The captain peered out from the bow, his eyes fixed on the approaching ledge. Diego rowed and rowed, never looking up at me though I yearned for some last contact. On the Elena, no one spoke as the longboat shrank into the distance. When the second knot on the line passed over the gunwale, Alfredo called out, “Two fathoms gone!”

We never heard their cries. In an instant, the line unwound ferociously and the longboat vanished. The crew jumped on the rope and found themselves nearly propelled over. I grabbed the final length of line and tied it to the base of the main mast. When it uncoiled completely, the rope, three-fingers thick, sprang taut, and the mast groaned. The crew scrambled forward to regain a hold but could not pull the line back. We were strung tight; the fathom line ran from the Elena, through the air and over the ledge.

A monstrous pull tilted the ship sidelong and dragged her toward the drop. Everything on deck slid to one side.

Alfredo drew his knife and began to cut the line. But I couldn’t let him release Diego and the others to their death. If there is only this life—and nothing after—then it must be defended.

I met him at the rope, his blade already biting in, the line opening like tendon.

“You’ll kill them,” I said.

“They’re lost already,” he said. “We’ll go with them!”

I wrestled the knife from his hand and tossed it into the sea. Alfredo looked at me as if I were mad. Before I could move, I felt another blade across my throat.

“Cut it,” the English conscript called out from behind me.

Armando came to his brother’s side and continued the sawing with his own knife. But then my eye caught something out at the ledge: Diego, pulling himself along the rope, hand over hand, back to the Elena.

“Look!” Alfredo cried.

Armando stopped. The crew gathered at the line and hove. And this time, the line yielded, and we managed to reclaim it, until it was clear that we were pulling a weight far greater than just Diego. With a final heave, the tension on the line dropped and then we could see the longboat itself crest back through the spume and come to rest on the ocean surface.

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