Swords and Ice Magic - By Fritz Leiber Page 0,28
out on a thin line.
* * * *
Three days short of three moons later, the Mouser was thoroughly disgusted, bone weary, and very cold. His feet and toes were very, very cold inside fine, fur-lined boots, which slowly rose and fell under his soles as the frosty deck lifted and sank with the long, low swell. He stood by the short mainmast, from the long yard of which (longer than the boom) the loosely furled mainsail hung in frozen festoons. Beyond dimly discerned low prow and stern and mainyard top, vision was utterly blotted out by a fog of tiniest ice crystals, like cirrus cloud come down from Stardock heights, through which the light of an unseen gibbous moon, still almost full swollen, seeped out dark pearl gray. The windlessness and general stillness, contrary to all experience, seemed to make the cold bite deeper.
Yet the silence was not absolute. There was the faint wash and drip ― perhaps even tiniest crackling of thinnest ice film ― as the hull yielded to the swell. There were the resultant small creakings of the timbers and rigging of Flotsam. And beneath or beyond these, still fainter sounds lurked in the fringes of the inaudible. A part of the Mouser's mind that worked without being paid attention strained ceaselessly to hear those last. He was of no mind to be surprised by a Mingol flotilla, or single craft even. Flotsam was transport, not warship, he repeatedly warned himself. Very strange some of those last real or fancied sounds were that came out of the frigid fog-shatterings of massive ice leagues away, the thump and splash of mighty oars even farther off, distant doleful shriekings, still more distant deep minatory growlings, and a laughter as of fiends beyond the rim of Nehwon. He thought of the invisible fliers that had troubled the snowy air halfway up Stardock when Fafhrd and he had climbed her, Nehwon's loftiest peak.
The cold snapped that thought chain. The Mouser longed to stamp his feet, flail his hands cross-front against his sides, or ― best! ― warm himself with a great burst of anger, but he perversely held off, perhaps so ultimate relief would be greater, and set to analyze his disgusted weariness.
First off, there'd been the work of finding, winning, and mastering twelve fighter-thieves ― a rare breed to begin with. And training 'em! ― half of 'em had to be taught the art of the sling, and two (Mog help him!) swordsmanship. And the choosing of the likeliest two for corporals ― Pshawri and Mikkidu, who were now sleeping snug below with the double squad, damn their hides!
Concurrent with that, there'd been the searching out of Old Ourph and gathering of his Mingol crew of four. A calculated risk, that. Would Mingol mariners fight fiercely 'gainst their own in the pinch? Mingols were ever deemed treacherous. Yet 'twas always good to have some of the enemy on your side, the better to understand 'em. And from them he might even get wider insight into the motives behind the present Mingol excursions naval.
Concurrent with that, the selection, hire, patching, and provisioning of Flotsam for its voyage.
And then the study needed! Beginning with poring over ancient charts filched from the library of the Lankhmar Starsmen and Navigators Guild, the refreshing of his knowledge of wind, waves, and celestial bodies. And the responsibility!!for no fewer than seventeen men, with no Fafhrd to share it and spell him while he slept ― to lick 'em into shape, doctor their scurvies, probe underwater for 'em with boathook when they tumbled overboard (he'd almost lost thumb-footed Mikkidu that way the first day out), keep 'em in good spirits but in their places too, discipline 'em as required. (Come to think of it, that last was sometimes delight as well as duty. How quaintly Pshawri squealed when shrewedly thwacked with Cat's Claw's scabbard! ― and soon would again, by Mog!)
Lastly, the near moon-long perilous voyage itself!!!Northwest from Lankhmar across the Inner Sea. Through a treacherous gap in the Curtain Wall (where Fafhrd had once sought sequined sea-queens) into the Outer Sea. Then a swift, broad reach north with the wind on their loadside until they sighted the black ramparts of No-Ombrulsk, which shared the latitude of sunken Simorgya. There he had nosed Flotsam due west, away from all land and almost into the teeth of the west wind, which blew a little on their steerside. After four days of that weary, close reach, they had arrived