To Your Scattered Bodies Go

Esther screamed, and Burton spun. The warcanoe had come out from behind the schooner and was a few feet in front of The Hadji’s bow. There was no way to avoid a collision. The two men on the platform were diving off the side, and the paddlers were standing up or trying to stand up so they could get overboard. Then the Hadji smashed into its port near the bow, cracking it open, turning it over, and spilling its crew into The River. Those on the Hadji were thrown forward, and de Greystock went into the water. Burton slid on his face and chest and knees, burning off the skin.

Esther had been torn from the tiller and rolled across the deck until she thumped against the edge of the fo’c’sle coaming. She lay there without moving.

Burton looked upward. The sail was blazing away beyond hope of being saved. Loghu was gone, so she must have been hurled off at the moment of impact. Then, getting up, he saw her and de Greystock swimming back to The Hadji. The water around them was boiling with the splashing of the dispossessed canoemen, many of whom, judging by their cries, could not swim. — Burton called to the men to help the two aboard while he inspected the damage. Both prows of the very thin twin hulls had been smashed open by the crash. Water was pouring inside. And the smoke from the burning sail and mast was curling around them, causing Alice and Gwenafra to cough.

Another warcanoe was approaching swiftly from the north; the two schooners were sailing close-hauled toward them.

They could fight and draw some blood from their enemies, who would be holding themselves back to keep from killing them or they could swim for it. Either way, they would be captured. Loghu and de Greystock were pulled aboard. Frigate reported that Esther could not be brought back to consciousness. Ruach felt her pulse and opened her eyes and then walked back to Burton.

"She’s not dead, but she’s totally out" Burton said, "You women know what will happen to you. It’s up to you, of course, but I suggest you swim down as deeply as you can and draw in a good breath of water. You’ll wake up tomorrow, good as new."

Gwenafra had come out from the fo’c’sle. She wrapped her arms round his waist and looked up, dry-eyed but scared. He hugged her with one arm and then said, "Alice! Take her with you!’

"Where?" Alice said. She looked at the canoe and back at him. She coughed again as more smoke wrapped around her and then she moved forward, upwind.

"When you go down." He gestured at The River.’

"I can’t do that," she said.

"You wouldn’t want those men to get her, too. She’s only a little girl but they’ll not stop for that"

Alice looked as if her face was going to crumple and wash away with tears. But she did not weep. She said, "Very well. It’s no sin now, killing yourself. I just hope…"

He said, "Yes." He did not drawl the word; there was no time to drawl anything out. The canoe was within forty feet of them.

"The next place might be just as bad or worse than this one," Alice said. "And Gwenafra will wake up ail alone. You know that the chances of us being resurrected at the same place are slight."

"That can’t be helped," he said.

She clamped her lips, then opened them and said, "I’ll fight until the last moment. Then. .’

"It may be too late," he said. He picked up his bow and drew an arrow from his quiver. De Greystock had lost his bow, so he took Kazz’s. The Neanderthal placed a stone in a sling and began whirling it. Lev picked up his sling and chose a stone for its pocket. Monat used Esther’s bow, since he had lost his, also.

The captain of the canoe shouted in German, "Lay down your arms! You won’t be harmed!" He fell off the platform onto a paddler a second later as Alice’s arrow went through his chest. Another arrow, probably de Greystock’s, spun the second man off the platform and into the water. A stone hit a paddler in the shoulder, and he collapsed with a cry. Another stone struck glancingly off another paddler’s head, and he lost his paddle.

The canoe kept on coming. The two men on the aft platform urged the crew to continue driving toward The Hadji. Then they fell with arrows in them. Burton looked behind him. The two schooners were letting their sails drop now. Evidently they would slide on up to The Hadji where the sailors would throw their grappling hooks into it. But if they got too close, the flames might spread to them.