The Jaguar Knights by Dave Duncan

Author:Dave Duncan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf

Chance smiled on him. Another southwester brought another ship into Mauxville. Papillon was bound for the Sauelas, which were halfway to the Hence Lands. The master was worried about Baelish pirates and Distlish coastguards, the bosun spoke some Chivian, and a healthy deckhand with a Blade’s famed skills was a good buy for them. Hermione spoke up for him, so Lynx was hired and Papillon sailed two days later. By then people were staring at his ears.

The weather turned sour again. He discovered he was proof against seasickness, even when lifelong salts were draped on the rail like laundry, but the changes in him were becoming obvious. His thumbs were shrinking and the fur replacing his beard was spreading ever closer to his eyes. He especially had to remember to keep his mouth closed. The pains were growing worse, too. As soon as the storm ended and the crew viewed their swordsman in sunlight again, they would certainly throw him overboard to see if he could grow gills as well. Sailors were a superstitious lot.

He was likely to drown anyway. The storm grew terrible. It ripped the tiny rag of a sail they were carrying, so they had to throw out a sea anchor. Papillon was somewhere off a lee shore, but nobody knew how far. She rolled and pitched, starting to leak as her seams were sprung. When they were not fighting for their lives on deck, the men crouched belowdecks in darkness in a stinking, rolling, pitching coffin, working the pumps or just listening to her ribs creak and wondering how long she could stay afloat, wondering if every roll would be her last. The oldest man aboard had never known such weather in those parts.

On what Lynx was convinced must be his last night on earth, something hit the deck right above his head. It could have been the start of Papillon breaking up. It could never be boarders in those seas, but the plaque seemed extra hot over his heart, so he buckled on his sword and went up to investigate.

The night was as dark as a cellar. He knew he was on deck only because the wind was howling past him, more salt water than air. He had not known waves could stand so high, looming black walls of water, while the spume blown from their tops enclosed the ship in a fog. Every rope and board groaned. The master and bosun were bent over Marcel, who had been one of the best hands and was now a heap on the deck, very dead, a pile of oilskins leaking dark fluid into the scuppers.

“What happened?” Lynx yelled.

“Screamed,” the bosun said. “Yelling? Then fell.”

Lynx looked up. It was a night as wild as they come, but Marcel must have been aloft a million or two times in his li1fe. Why had he been screaming? What could he have seen in this murk?

“You,” said the bosun, “go up to see!”

Lynx hesitated. Even Blade eyes would be useless in that murk, and if he saw breakers directly downwind, Papillon could do nothing about it.

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