The Complete Ice Schooner

  Arflane himself would be glad when they reached the other side of the pass. He felt dwarfed by the mountains. He decided that the pass was wide enough to permit him to increase the ship’s speed without too much danger.

  ‘All plain sail, Mr Rorchenof!’ he called suddenly.

  Rorchenof accepted the order with some surprise, but did not query it.

  Sails set, the Ice Spirit leaped forward between the twin walls of the canyon, passing strange ice formations carved by the wind. The formations shone with dark colours; everywhere the ice was like menacing black glass.

  Towards evening, the ship was shaken by a series of jolts; her motions became erratic.

  ‘It’s the runners, sir!’ Rorchenof called to Arflane. ‘They must have been damaged more than we thought.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about, bosun,’ Arflane said calmly, staring ahead. It was getting colder, and the wind was rising; the sooner they were through the pass, the better.

  ‘We could easily skid, sir, and crash into one of the cliffs. We could bring the whole thing down on top of us.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of our danger, bosun.’

  The trio beside him on the bridge looked at him curiously but said nothing.

  Rorchenof scratched his head, spread his arms, and moved back forward.

  The ship was wobbling badly as the sky darkened and the great cliffs seemed to close in on them, but still Arflane made no attempt to slow her and still she moved under full sail.

  Just before nightfall Rorchenof came along the deck with a score of sailors at his back.

  ‘Captain Arflane!’

  Konrad Arflane looked down nearly serenely. The ship was shuddering constantly now in a series of short, rapid bumps, and the helmsmen were having difficulty in getting sufficiently fast response from the forward runners.

  ‘What is it, bosun?’

  ‘Can we throw out anchor lines, sir, and repair the runners? At this rate we’ll all be killed.’

  ‘There’s no fear of that, bosun.’

  ‘We feel there is, sir!’ It was a new voice; one of the sailors speaking. From around him came a chorus of agreement.

  ‘Return to your posts,’ Arflane said evenly. ‘You have still to understand the nature of this voyage.’

  ‘We understand when our lives are threatened, sir,’ cried another sailor.

  ‘You’ll be safe,’ Arflane assured him.

  As the moon rose, the wind howled louder, stretching the sails taut and pushing the ship to even greater speed. They jolted and shuddered along the smooth ice of the canyon floor, racing past white, gleaming cliffs whose peaks were lost from sight in the darkness.

  Rorchenof looked about him wildly as a precipice loomed close and the ship veered away from it, runners thumping erratically. ‘This is insanity!’ he shouted. ‘Give us the boats! You can take the ship where you like - we’ll get off!’

  Urquart brandished his harpoon. ‘I’ll give this to you unless you return to your posts. The Ice Mother protects us - have faith!’

  ‘Ice Mother!’ Rorchenof spat. ‘All four of you are mad. We want to turn back!’

  ‘We cannot turn back!’ Urquart shouted, and he began to laugh wildly. ‘There’s no room in this pass to turn, bosun!’

  The redheaded bosun shook his fist at the harpooner. ‘Then drop the heavy anchors. Stop the ship and give us the boats and we’ll make our own way home. You can go on.’

  ‘We need you to sail the craft,’ Arflane told him reasonably.

  ‘You have gone made - all of you!’ Rorchenof shouted in increasing desperation. ‘What’s happened to this ship?’

  Manfred Rorsefne leaned forwards on the rail. ‘Your nerve has cracked, bosun, that’s all. We’re not mad - you are merely hysterical.’

  ‘But the runners - they need attention.’

  ‘I say not,’ Arflane called, and grinned at Urquart, slipping his arm around Ulrica’s shoulders, steadying her as the ship shook beneath them.

  Now the wind was howling along the canyon, stretching the sails till it seemed they would rip from their moorings. The Ice Spirit careened from side to side of the gorge, narrowly missing the vast ragged walls of the cliffs.

  Rorchenof turned silently, leading his men below.

  Rorsefne frowned. ‘We haven’t heard the last of them, Captain Arflane.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Arflane clung to the rail as the helmsman barely managed to turn the ship away from the cliffs to port. He looked towards the wheelhouse and shouted encouragement to the struggling men at the wheel. They stared back at him in fear.

  Moments later Rorchenof emerged on deck again. He and his men were brandishing cutlasses and harpoons.

  ‘You fools,’ Arflane shouted at them. ‘This is no time for mutiny. The ship has to be sailed.’

  Rorchenof called up to the men in the shrouds: ‘Take in the sail, lads!’

  Then he screamed and staggered backwards with Urquart’s massive harpoon in his chest; he fell to the deck and for a moment the others paused, staring in horror at their dying leader.

  ‘Enough of this,’ Arflane began. ‘Go back to your posts!’

  The ship swerved again and a rattling sound came from below as the steering chains failed momentarily to grip the runner platform. The ice cliffs surged forward and retreated as the helmsmen forced the Ice Spirit away.

  The sailors roared and rushed towards the bridge. Arflane grabbed Ulrica and hurried her into the wheel-house, closed the door and turned to see that Urquart and Rorsefne had abandoned the bridge, vaulting the rail and running below.

  Feeling betrayed, Arflane prepared to meet the mutineers. He was unarmed.

  The ship seemed now completely at the mercy of the shrieking wind. Streamers of snow whipped through the rigging, and the schooner swayed on her faulty runners. Arflane stood alone on the bridge as the leading sailors began to climb cautiously towards him up the companion-way. He waited until the first man was almost upon him, then kicked him in the face, wrestling the cutlass from his grasp and smashing the hilt into his skull.

  A sheet of snow sliced across the bridge, stinging the men’s eyes. Arflane bellowed at them, hacking and thrusting. Then, as men fell back with bloody faces and mangled limbs, Urquart and Rorsefne re-emerged behind them.

  Urquart had recovered his harpoon and Rorsefne was armed with a bow and cutlass. He began, coolly, to shoot arrows into the backs of the mutineers. They turned, confused.

  The ship rocked. Rorsefne was flung sideways; Urquart barely managed to grasp at a ratline for support. Most of the sailors were flung in all directions and Arflane slipped down the companionway, clinging to the rail and dropping his cutlass.

  Once again the ship was racked by a rapid series of jerks. Arflane struggled up, his jacket torn open by the wind, his beard streaming. With one hand he held the rail; with the other he gesticulated at the sailors.

  ‘Rorchenof deceived you,’ he shouted. ‘Now you can see why we must get through this pass as fast as we can. If we don’t, the ship’s finished!’

  A sailor’s face craned forward, his eyes as wild as Arflane’s own. ‘Why? Why, skipper?’

  ‘The snow! Once caught in the main blizzard, we are blind and helpless! Loose ice will fall from the cliffs to block the pass. Snow will gather in drifts and make movement impossible. If we’re not crushed we’ll be snowbound and stranded!’

  Above his head a sail broke loose from its eyebolts and began to flap thunderously against the mast. The howl of the wind increased; the ship was flung sideways towards the cliff, seemed to scrape the wall before it slid into the centre of the gorge again.

  ‘But if we sail on we’ll smash into a cliff and be killed!’ another sailor cried. ‘What have we to gain?’

  Arflane grinned and spread his arms, coat swirling out behind him, eyes gleaming. ‘A fast death instead of a slow one if our luck’s really bad. If our luck holds - and you know me to be lucky - then we’ll be through by dawn and New York only a few days’ sail away!
’

  ‘You were lucky, skipper,’ the sailor called. ‘But they say you’re not the Ice Mother’s chosen any more - that you’ve gone against her will. The woman . . .’

  Arflane laughed harshly. ‘You’ll have to trust my luck -it’s all you have. Lower your weapons, lads.’

  ‘Let the wind carry us through. It’s our only chance.’ The voice was Urquart’s.

  The men began to lower their cutlasses, still not entirely convinced.

  ‘You’d be better employed if you got into the shrouds and looked to your sails.’ Manfred Rorsefne shouted above the moan of the wind.

  ‘But the runners. . .’ a sailor began.

  ‘We’ll concern ourselves with those,’ Arflane said.

  ‘Back to work, lads. There’ll be no vengeance taken on you when we’re through the pass, I promise. We must work together - or die together!’

  The sailors began to disperse, their faces still full of fear and doubt.

  Ulrica struggled through the wheelhouse door and struggled along the dangerously swaying deck to clutch Arflane’s arm. The wind whipped her clothes and the snow stung her face. ‘Are you sure the men are wrong?’ she asked. ‘Wouldn’t it be best . . . ?’

  He grinned and shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter, Ulrica. Go below and rest if you can. I’ll join you later.’ Again the ship listed and he slid along the deck, fighting his way back to her and helping her towards the bridge.

  When she was safely below he began to make his way forward, leaning into the wind, the snow stinging his face and half blinding him. He reached the bow and tried to peer ahead, catching only glimpses of the cliffs on both sides as the ship rocked and swerved on its faulty runners. He got to the bowsprit and stretched his body along it, supporting himself by one hand curled in a staysail line; with the other he stroked the great skulls of the whales, pressing his fingers against the contours of the cranium, eye sockets, and grinning jaws as if they could somehow transmit to him the strength they had once possessed.

  As the snow eased slightly ahead he saw the black outlines of the ice cliffs in front of him. They seemed to be closing in, as if shifting on their bases, crowding to trap the ship. It was merely a trick of the eyes, but it disturbed him.

  Then he realized what was actually happening. The gorge really did narrow here. Perhaps the cliffs had shifted, for the opening between them was becoming little more than a crack.

  The Ice Spirit would not be able to get through.

  He swung himself desperately along the bowsprit, conscious only of the careening, speeding ship, gasped and staggered across the deck till he reached the great gland of the steering pin and seized the heavy mallet that was secured beside it, and began swinging at the emergency bolt. Urquart swayed towards him; he turned his head, bellowing across the deck.

  ‘Drop the anchors! For the Ice Mother’s sake, man - drop the anchors!’

  Urquart raced back along the deck, finding men and ordering them to the stanchions to knock out the pegs that kept the twin blades of the heavy anchors clear of the ice.

  Arflane looked up, his heart sinking. They were nearly into the bottleneck; there was hardly a chance now of saving the ship.

  The bolt was shifting. Driving his arms back and forth, he swung the mallet again and again.

  Suddenly the thing flew free. There was a high-pitched squealing as the runners turned inward, plough-share fashion; the ship began to roll and shudder violently.

  Arflane raced back along the deck. He had done all he could; now his concern was for Ulrica’s safety.

  He reached the cabin as the ship leaped as if in some monstrous orgasm. Ulrica was there, and her husband beside her.

  ‘I released him,’ she said.

  Arflane grunted. ‘Come - get on deck. There’s little chance of any of us surviving this.’

  There was a final violent crash; the ship’s shuddering movement subsided, dying away as the heavy anchors gripped the ice and brought her to a halt.

  Clambering out on deck, Arflane saw in astonishment that they were barely ten yards from the point where the ship would have been dashed against the walls of the cliffs or crushed between them.

  But Ice Spirit’s motion had not ceased.

  Now the great schooner began to topple as her port runners gave out completely under the strain, snapping with sharp cracks. With a terrifying groan the vessel collapsed on to her side, turning as the wind caught the sails, flinging her crew in a heap against the port rail.

  Arflane grabbed Ulrica and curled his hand around a trailing rope.

  His one concern now was to abandon the ship and save them both. He slid down the line and leaped clear on to the hard ice, dragging the woman with him away from the ship and against the wind.

  Through the blizzard he could see little of either the cliffs or the bulk of the schooner.

  He heard her crash into the side of the gorge and then made out another sound from above as pieces of ice, shaken free, began to slide downward.

  Eventually he managed to find the comparative shelter of an overhang by the far wall of the gorge. He paused, panting and looking back at the broken ship. There was no way of telling if any of the others had managed to jump free; he saw an occasional figure framed near the rail as the curtain of snow parted and swirled back. Once he heard a voice above the wind. It sounded like Ulsenn’s.

  ‘He wanted this wreck! He wanted it!’

  It was like the meaningless cry of a bird. Then the wind roared louder, drowning it, as a great avalanche of ice began to fall on the ship.

  The two huddled together under the overhang, watching Ice Spirit as she was crushed by the huge collapsing slabs, jerking like a dying creature, her hull breaking, her masts cracking and splintering, disintegrating faster than Arflane could ever have believed; breaking up in a cloud of ice splinters and swirling snow against the towering, jagged walls of the ice mountains.

  Arflane wept as he watched; it was as if the destruction of the ship signified the end of all hope. He pulled Ulrica to him, wrapping his arms around her, more to comfort himself than for any thought for her.

  22 The Trek

  In the morning the snow had stopped falling but the skies were heavy and grey above the dark peaks of the glaciers. The storm had subsided almost as soon as the Ice Spirit had been smashed, as if destroying the ship had been its sole purpose.

  Moving across the irregular masses of snow and ice towards the place where the gorge narrowed and where the main bulk of the wreck had come to rest, Arflane and Ulrica were joined by Rorsefne and Ulsenn. Neither man was badly hurt, but their furs were torn and they were exhausted. A few sailors stood by the pile of broken fibreglass and metal as if they hoped that the ship might magically restore itself. Urquart was actually in the wreck, moving about like a carrion bird.

  It was a cold, bleak day; they shivered, their breath hanging white and heavy on the air. They looked about them and saw mangled bodies everywhere; most of the sailors had been killed and the seven who remained looked sourly at Arflane, blaming his recklessness for the disaster.

  Ulsenn’s attitude to Arflane and Ulrica was remote and neutral. He nodded to them as they walked together to the wreck. Rorsefne was smiling and humming a tune to himself as if enjoying a private joke.

  Arflane turned to him, pointing at the narrow gap between the cliffs. ‘It was not on the chart, was it?’ He spoke loudly, defensively, as much for the benefit of the listening sailors as anyone.

  ‘There was no mention of it,’ Rorsefne agreed, smiling like an actor amused by his lines. ‘The cliffs must have moved closer together. I’ve heard of such things happening. What do we do now, captain? There isn’t a boat left. How do we get home?’

  Arflane glanced at him grimly. ‘Home?’

  ‘You mean to carry on, then?’ Ulsenn said tonelessly.

  ‘That’s the most sensible thing to do,’ Arflane told him. ‘We’re only some fifty miles or so from New York and we’re several thousand from home . . .’


  Urquart held up some large slivers of ivory that had evidently come from broken hatch covers. ‘Skis,’ he said. ‘We could reach New York in a week or less.’

  Rorsefne laughed. ‘Indefatigable! I’m with you, captain.’

  The others said nothing; there was nothing left to say.

  Within two days the party had traversed the pass and begun to move across the wide iceplain beyond the glacier range. The weather was still poor, with snow falling sporadically, and the cold was in their bones. They had salvaged harpoons and slivers of ivory to act as poles and skis; on their backs they carried packs of provisions.

  They were utterly weary and rarely spoke, even when they camped. They were following a course plotted from a small compass which Manfred Rorsefne had found among the things spilled from his shattered travelling chest.

  To Arflane, space had become nothing but an eternal white plain and time no longer seemed to exist at all. His face, hands, and feet were frostbitten, his beard was encrusted with particles of ice, his eyes were red and pouched. Mechanically he drove himself on his skis, followed by the others, who moved, as he did, like automata. Thought meant simply remembering to eat and protect oneself from the cold as best one could; speech was a matter of monosyllabic communications if one decided to stop or change direction.

  From habit he and Ulrica stayed together, but neither any longer felt any emotion for the other.

  In this condition it would have been possible for the party to have moved on, never finding New York, until one by one they died; even death would have seemed merely a gradual change from one state to another, for the cold was so bitter that pain could not be felt. Two of the sailors did die; the rest of the party left them where they fell. The only one who did not seem affected by exhaustion was Urquart. When the sailors died he made the sign of the Ice Mother before passing on.

  None of them realized that the compass was erratic and that they were moving across the great white plain in a wide curve away from the supposed location of New York.

  The barbarians were similar in general appearance to the ones who had attacked them after the whale killing. They were dressed all in white fur and rode white, bearlike creatures. They held swords and javelins ready as they reined in to block the little party’s progress.