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It struck the ship with every bit of force it could muster. The immense head landed on the afterdeck with a solid smack, like a giant hand upon a table. The bow of the ship leaped up in response and Althea was nearly thrown clear of the rigging. She clung there, voicing her terror in a yell that more than one echoed. She heard the frantic twanging of arrows loosed. Later, she would hear how the hunters sprung fearlessly forward, to thrust their spears into the creature over and over. But their actions were unneeded. It had been dying even as it charged up on them. It lay lifeless on the deck, wide eyes staring, maw dribbling a milky fluid that smoked where it fell on the wooden deck. Gradually the weight of its immense body drew its head back and down, to vanish back into the dark waters from whence it had sprung. Half the after-rail went with it. It left a trough of scarred wood smoking in its wake. Hoarsely, the captain ordered the decks doused with sea water.
“That wasn't just an animal,” a voice she recognized as Brashen's said. There was both awe and fear in his voice. “It wanted revenge before it died. And it damn near got it. ”
“Let's get ourselves out of here,” the mate suggested.
All over the ship, men sprang to with a will as the grudging sun slowly reached toward them over the sea.
He came to the foredeck in the dead of night on the fourth day of their stay in Jamaillia. Vivacia was aware of him there, but she was aware of him anywhere on board her. “What is it?” she whispered. The rest of the ship was still. The single sailor on anchor watch was at the stern, humming an old love song as he gazed at the city's scattered lights. A stone's throw away, a slaver rocked at anchor. The peace of the scene was spoiled only by the stench of the slaveship and the low mutter of misery from the chained cargo within it.
“I'm going,” he said quietly. “I wanted to say good-bye. ”
She heard and felt his words, but they made no sense to her. He could not mean what the words seemed to say. Panicky, she reached for him, to grope inside him for understanding, but somehow he held that back from her. Separate.
“You know I love you,” he said. “More important, perhaps, you know I like you, too. I think we would have been friends even if we had not been who we are, even if you had been a real person, or I just another deckhand-”
“You are wrong!” she cried out in a low voice. Even now, when she sensed his decision to abandon her hovering in the air, she could not bring herself to betray him. It was not, could not be real. There was no sense in crying an alarm and involving Kyle in this. She would keep it private, between the two of them. She kept her words soft. “Wintrow. Yes, in any form we would be friends, though it cuts me to the quick when you seem to say I am not a real person. But what is between us, ship and man, oh, that could never be with any other! Do not deceive yourself that it could. Don't salve your conscience that if you leave me I can simply start chatting with Mild or share my opinions with Gantry. They are good men, but they are not you. I need you, Wintrow. Wintrow? Wintrow?”
She had twisted about to watch him, but he stood just out of her eye-shot. When he stepped up to her, he was stripped to his underwear. He had a very small bundle, something wadded up inside an oilskin and tied tight. Probably his priest's robe, she thought angrily to herself.
“You're right,” he said quietly. “That's what I'm taking, and nothing else. The only thing of mine I ever brought aboard with me. Vivacia. I don't know what else I can say to you. I have to go, I must, before I cannot leave you. Before my father has changed me so greatly I won't know myself at all. ”
She struggled to be rational, to sway him with logic. “But where will you go? What will you do? Your monastery is far from here. You have no money, no friends. Wintrow, this is insanity. If you must do this, plan it. Wait until we are closer to Marrow, lull them into thinking you've given up and then . . . ”
“I think if I don't do this now, I will never do it at all. ” His voice was quietly determined.
“I can stop you right now,” she warned him in a hoarse whisper. “All I have to do is sound the alarm. One shout from me and I can have every man aboard this vessel after you. Don't you know that?”
“I know that. ” He shut his eyes for a moment and then reached out to touch her. His fingertips brushed a lock of her hair. “But I don't think you will. I don't think you would do that to me. ”
That brief touch and then he straightened up. He tied his bundle to his waist with a long string. Then he clambered awkwardly over the side and down the anchor chain.