The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,96

gap’s in a hundred!”

“Whale ta port!” someone shouted below.

And so it was.

Like some kind of damned sheepdog loping easily alongside them, the whale was boxing them in, holding them tight to the reef. The open sea out beyond it was no option now.

“Cap’n!” the mate Pansy shouted. “We gotta swing wide!”

“No!” Gunner shouted, not even looking up as he cranked The Compelling Argument low to port.

“We’ll not make that tight of a turn!” Pansy shouted.

“No!”

Orholam’s balls. Gunner was gonna shoot the whale. Why was he going to shoot the whale?

As the big gun finished coming around, Gunner hopped up on its barrel.

“You’re right!” he shouted to the whale as if they’d been conversing. “Fine! Damned if you ain’t right!”

Swinging the boat wide was the only way they could make the right-angle turn to shoot the narrow gap in the reef. But the great black beast wasn’t allowing that.

Gunner shouted, “Eight points port, on my mark, then full starboard on my mark. Got it, mate?!”

“Aye, Cap’n! Eight points port on mark, then full starboard on mark.”

But Gunner had already disappeared below, bellowing orders to his gun crews.

Gavin threw a curse at the whale. This great, stupid fish might as well have been Andross Guile, hemming them in, denying them any real choice, making it look to any observer like they’d willfully rammed their own ship into the reef.

“Gap in seventy paces, Captain!” Gavin shouted. “Two sea demons at two hundred! Coming full speed in!”

The damned whale had disappeared.

Thanks, buddy. Stayed just long enough to get us killed, didn’t ya?

But the water here wasn’t deep enough for it to dive out of sight, and Gavin found it again quickly, veering out toward open sea.

Even as he threw one last mental curse to it, it veered back, straight toward the gap in the reef itself.

No, not at the gap, but on an intercepting course with the two remaining sea demons, who were flying like twin arrows at the Golden Mean—the interception point just happened to be right at the mouth of the gap.

The gap in the coral between the open sea and the protected lagoon inside was wide enough for the ship to pass through in ordinary circumstances: approached dead-on, with sails stowed, maneuvering by oar and with polemen on the decks. Normally, even in this light midafternoon chop, with care it would be perilous but possible.

But cutting a right-angle turn, under full sail and full speed? A single wave, a single untimely gust of wind could blow them into the teeth of the coral on either side.

There was nothing else for Gavin to say. Gunner could see it all for himself now. He was standing again on the barrel of his big cannon, dancing from one bare foot to the other because of the barrel’s heat. But there was nothing comical in the utter concentration on his face, looking at that gap, and the oncoming sea demons, and the whale streaking in from the side. He’d readied the orders.

Now it was just a matter of timing, and Gunner was the best in the world at that.

“First mate . . . mark!”

“Mark!” she shouted, her hands spinning the wheel and then stopping it precisely.

The ship began to angle wide—but not wide enough!—and bleeding off speed—too much!

Gavin tried to calculate. The whale was maybe going to reach the sea demons just before they reached the ship, but where would the collision take them? Would the whale intercept both of the sea demons, or only one? What waves would crash into the boat?

Out only another hundred paces, the other sea demons had doubled back. Even if the whale took out both of the first two of them, if Gunner didn’t get the ship through the gap in the first attempt, those others were going to demolish them.

Sailors on deck were praying, muttering, waiting with their hands on lines for their orders. Orholam had now stripped off all his clothes as if preparing for a swim. He saluted Gavin with a flagon of brandy and drank a deep draught. Crazy old bastard.

On the sterncastle, the first mate’s forehead glistened with sweat, stance wide, knuckles tight on the wheel. She had all the look of a grizzled veteran who was terrified despite being a grizzled veteran.

Gavin looked up. The gap yawned before them, but there was no way they could make the turn.

“Reef the main now!” Gunner shouted. “First mate, now! Starboard oars, stop! Port oars, double-time, now, now! Second mate, on my—mark! Mark! Now!”

In quick succession,