Authors: John Flanagan

Tags: #Fantasy, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Action & Adventure, #General

The Outcasts (9 page)

BOOK: The Outcasts

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Ingvar looked up at him apologetically. The young giant’s massive arms and shoulders were putting more power into his oar than the other rowers could manage. The added thrust on the right side was causing the faint swing to the left. He reduced his effort, then glanced at Hal, blinking his shortsighted eyes.

“How’s that?” he asked.

Hal let go of the steering oar for ten to twenty seconds. The boat was now traveling in a straight line.

“That’s fine,” he said and took the steering oar again.

“It was probably Wulf’s fault,” Ulf said, from his seat in front of Ingvar. “He never pulls hard enough.”

“I’ll pull hard enough on your stuck-out ears, you bowlegged monkey,” Wulf snapped back. “How would you like that?”

Hal and Stig exchanged a puzzled grin. It amused them that the twins, identical in every aspect, would constantly abuse each other’s physical appearance.

“Try it, you ugly gnome, and I’ll wrap this oar around your thick skull,” Ulf replied willingly.

Hal smiled and took a deep breath of the salt air. The sun was shining. The sea was calm. There was a steady wind and Ulf and Wulf were bickering.

All in all, he couldn’t ask for much more.

chapter
six

T
here was a small swell running and
Heron
lifted to the first of the waves as they emerged from the mouth of the creek. Hal rode the movement easily, his feet set apart for balance. To their right, he could see the town of Hallasholm—a tidy sprawl of pine-log buildings and thatched roofs. Smoke rose from chimneys and he could smell the fresh scent of pine smoke overlaid on the salt breeze.

The mole, a protective rock wall that ran round the harbor, shielding the boats from heavy weather and winter storms, blocked the sight of the two or three dozen wolfships and smaller craft that were moored there. But Hal could see the small forest of bare poles formed by their masts.

Hal nudged the steering oar gently and swung onto a diagonal course away from the coast, heading to the left, away from the town.
Heron
rose and fell smoothly under his feet as the swell rolled under her keel. The other boys had settled into a smooth rowing rhythm—one they could maintain for hours if necessary—and he exulted in the feeling of being under way, at the helm of his own ship.

Stig glanced up at him from his rowing bench.

“How does she handle?” he asked.

Hal grinned back at him. “Like a bird.”

Gradually, the town dropped behind them, until it was little more than a blur on the horizon, appearing when the ship rose on the crest of a wave, then disappearing as she dipped into the trough. Far enough, Hal thought. He was eager to see how she handled under sail.

“Stig, Ingvar,” he said quietly. “Stand by to raise the left-hand sail.”

The boys had been awaiting the order for the past five minutes. They ran their oars inboard, stowed them along the centerline and moved forward to the short, heavy mast. Hal checked the telltale, the long pennant streaming from the high sternpost that told him the wind’s direction. It was coming from ahead, over their right-hand side at an angle of about sixty degrees.

He hesitated. This was the moment when he would discover if his idea worked. For a second or two, he was filled with uncertainty. What if the sail simply shivered in the wind and the boat wallowed without any driving force? He knew his friends wouldn’t laugh at him if this were the case. But word would get out and others would.

Then his lips formed a grim line. It would work, he told himself. The idea was sound.

“Haul away,” he ordered.

Stig and Ingvar heaved on the ropes that sent the slim yardarm rising smoothly up the mast, taking the sail with it. Instantly, the sail billowed out, flapping in the wind.

“Ulf and Wulf, trim the sail.”

The sail hardened into a smooth, swelling curve. As the wind pressed into the taut sail,
Heron
’s bow began to swing to the left, under the pressure. Now was the moment, Hal thought. He heaved on the steering oar, forcing the bow to the right, back toward the wind.

Obediently, the boat responded, swinging back until they were heading across the wind, then up into it. Then farther upwind still. Hal felt a huge surge of relief. Vaguely, he could hear the other boys cheering.

They had never seen a ship sail at such an angle to the wind before. Hal estimated that they were heading at about forty-five degrees into the wind. He shook his head in delight. A well-built wolfship couldn’t manage much more than fifteen degrees. He heaved the steering oar farther over and
Heron
responded, moving closer still to the wind.

Eventually, as the angle became too steep, the big triangular sail began to flutter and lose shape. He eased the rudder and as the bow swung back, the wind hardened the sail and began to power the boat once more.

“She’s flying!”

He hadn’t noticed Stig’s approach. He looked now into his friend’s delighted face and a huge smile broke over his own.

“No small details overlooked,” he said and Stig pounded his shoulder with delight.

“None indeed! She’s fantastic! She’ll sail rings around the best wolfship!”

Hal looked down at the other boys. They were staring up in wonder at the sail, realizing they were seeing something new. Something exciting. Something unique.

They had known that Hal had designed a new sail, but they had never really queried the details, nor realized how much more efficient it would be.

At forty degrees to the wind,
Heron
flew. The deck vibrated under Hal’s feet. It was one of the most exciting moments of his life. The wood felt alive. He eased the steering oar, letting the bow drop off once more so the wind was blowing more from their beam.

“Haul in,” he said, and Stig and Ulf jumped to the ropes. As they hauled in on the sail, tightening it, the boat accelerated. She also began to lean under the pressure of the wind, so that water ran in over the downwind rail. No sense in swamping her, Hal thought.

“Ease off,” he ordered. They loosened the ropes a little and the boat came more upright.

He let go a long whoop of delight and the other boys, startled for a moment, joined in. He couldn’t wait to tell Thorn about this. Couldn’t wait to show it to him. His only regret was, with brotherband training about to start, he would have little time to experiment and practice with the new boat.

He glanced ahead.
Heron
swooped down a wave and sliced into the trough, sending silver spray feathering back on either side of the bow, cascading over them. They barely noticed. He could see a long headland in the distance, jutting out from the coast and barring their path. They’d have to go about to clear it. He decided they might as well do it now, while they had plenty of time and sea room in hand.

“Get ready to go about,” he said, pointing to his right—the starboard side.

Stig looked at him, saw the determined set to his jaw. “You’re going to tack her?”

Hal nodded. “Why not? We’ll drop the port sail when she comes up into the eye of the wind, then raise the starboard one as she comes round. It’ll be easy.”

Stig looked doubtful. Tacking meant turning the ship into the wind, until the sail came around and filled on the opposite side of the ship. It was a maneuver that wolfship captains avoided whenever possible. Tacking a square sail put immense pressure on the mast, yard and rigging, and ships had been driven astern and even dismasted in the maneuver.

It made more sense to wear the ship—to sail it round through three-quarters of a circle, with the wind behind it, until it was facing the opposite tack. But Hal’s triangular fore-and-aft rig would come through the eye of the wind much more easily. And at no time would it present a huge square mass of sail, with all the potential risk that it entailed, to the headwind.

“Come on,” Hal told Stig, nodding toward the still distant headland. “That lump of rock isn’t getting any farther away, you know.”

As it turned out, the tack went smoothly and uneventfully. Hal let the ship gather speed for a few minutes, then swung her up into the wind. As the wind came dead ahead, the sail flapped and lost its shape. But the
Heron
’s momentum kept her turning. On Hal’s command, Stig and Ingvar began to haul down the left-hand sail. It was linked by a pulley arrangement to its partner, so as it came down, the right-hand sail slid smoothly up the mast. By the time
Heron
’s bow had crossed through the wind, the new sail had filled and the ship was powering along on its new course.

Hal grinned as Stig rejoined him. The ship had swung through a ninety-degree angle to the right and was now surging along, slicing through successive waves. She would clear the headland easily, he saw. He realized that he’d been tensed up during the tacking maneuver and he forced himself to relax, loosening the iron grip he had kept on the steering oar. He twitched it experimentally, watching the ship respond. Behind them, the wake described a series of sudden curves.

“She’s beautiful,” he breathed. And she was. Fast, agile and responsive, she was everything he had hoped she might be. His grin widened even further.

“Now let’s see how fast we can take her back to Hallasholm.”

chapter
seven

I
t was standard practice that a lookout was maintained at

Hallasholm harbor, to keep an eye out for strange ships.

A wooden tower stood at the landward end of the mole, currently manned by a junior sailor who had recently been assigned to his first wolfship. The job of lookout was a boring and often fruitless task and, as such, was usually assigned to junior crew members. As the older sailors said, there was very little for a lookout to do and most junior sailors were extremely capable of doing very little.

There was a practical side to the arrangement, of course. Younger sailors had younger eyes and were likely to see a strange ship sooner than their older comrades.

On this day, the lookout saw a very strange ship indeed.

Her hull looked like a wolfship, only smaller—perhaps slightly more than half the size of a normal wolfship. And she was coming up fast, very fast. She seemed to be skimming the sea like a low-flying seabird. He could see the regular flashes of white spray at her bow as she cut through the low waves—catching up to each one, slicing her way through, then chasing down the next in line.

But what really took his attention was the sail. He had never seen a sail like this one. It was a large, swelling triangle.

“Ship!” he called to a small group of sailors below, who were loading stores into a wolfship moored alongside the mole. They looked up at him, then looked out to sea, following the direction of his pointing arm. But they were too low to see the newcomer.

“What is she?” the first mate of the wolfship called up to him. Even from a distance, his annoyance with the lookout was obvious in his voice. Lookouts were supposed to report the type and number of ships approaching, not simply yell “Ship!” like a frightened maiden aunt finding a burglar in her parlor.

“Is it one of Arndak’s trading fleet?” the firstmate added. Each year, around this time, a small flotilla of trading ships brought back goods from Sonderland and the south coast of the Stormwhite. The ships carried wool and fleeces and cooking oil and salted meats—goods that would help the people of Hallasholm get through the winter. They had been expected now for some days.

“No. She’s not a trader. She’s a …” The lookout stopped and admitted, in a puzzled tone, “I’m not sure what she is.”

Muttering dire insults about the mental deficiencies of young sailors, the mate crossed the mole and ran nimbly up the wooden ladder to the observation platform. The tower vibrated to his heavy tread and the lookout moved to one side to make room for him as he emerged onto the platform.

The mate looked, frowned, looked harder.

“Well, I’ll be … ,” he began, then stopped. The ship was coming about. The strange sail suddenly fluttered loose and was hauled down. As it slid down, another identical sail rose up the mast on the opposite side. It bellied out for a few seconds, then as the crew—he could see now there were only a few of them—hauled in the sheets, it formed into a perfect, hardened curve. The ship, which had slowed fractionally during the maneuver, now accelerated forward.

“Well, I’ll be … ,” he began again, then realized that he had no idea what he would be. He leaned over the railing to where his crew were looking up at him. As tends to happen when a person looks upward, they had allowed their mouths to gape open.

“Stop gawking at me like hungry seagulls and someone go fetch the Oberjarl,” he yelled. Obediently, most of the mouths closed and one of the sailors headed off at a run for the Oberjarl’s hall.

“What is she, Klaud?” called one of the sailors.

The mate shrugged. “Some strange kind of ship. She has a weird-looking pointy sail,” he added.

That set them all talking. None of them had ever heard of such a sail. They weren’t even sure what he meant.

BOOK: The Outcasts

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