Brotherband: The Hunters

Hal and his brotherband crew are hot on the trail of the pirate Zavac and they have one thing only on their minds: Stopping the bloodthirsty thief before he can do more damage. The chase leads down mighty rivers, terrifying rapids, to the lawless fortress of Ragusa. If Hal is to succeed, he will need to go beyond his brotherband training. He will need to challenge the pirate one-on-one, knowing only one of them will survive.

The epic series from Ranger’s Apprentice author John Flanagan continues, delivering pulse-pounding adventure and fun.

John Flanagan is the award-winning author of the Ranger’s Apprentice series. He lives in the beachside Sydney suburb of Manly.

In memory of my mum,
Kathleen Frances Flanagan.
I wish she’d been around to see all this.

BECAUSE THIS BOOK involves sailing ships, I thought it might be useful to explain a few of the nautical terms that are to be found in the story.

Be reassured that I haven’t gone overboard (to keep up the nautical allusion) with technical details in the book, and even if you’re not familiar with sailing, I’m sure you’ll understand what’s going on. But a certain amount of sailing terminology is necessary for the story to feel realistic.

Bow: The front of the ship, also called the prow.

Stern: The rear of the ship.

Port and starboard: The left and right sides of the ship, as you’re facing the bow. In fact, I’m probably incorrect in using the term ‘port’. The early term for port was ‘larboard’, but I thought we’d all get confused if I used that.
     Starboard was a corruption of ‘steering board’ (or steering side). The steering oar was always placed on the right-hand side of the ship.
     Consequently, when a ship came into port it would moor with the left side against the jetty, to avoid damage to the steering oar. One theory says the word derived from the ship’s being in port – left side to the jetty. I suspect, however, that it might have come from the fact that the entry port, by which crew and passengers boarded, was also always on the left side.
     How do you remember which side is which? Easy. Port and left both have four letters.

Forward: Towards the bow.

Aft: Towards the stern.

Fore and aft rig: A sail plan where the sail is in line with the hull of the ship.

Hull: The body of the ship.

Keel: The spine of the ship.

Steering oar: The blade used to control the ship’s direction, mounted on the starboard side of the ship, at the stern.

Tiller: The handle for the steering oar.

Beam: The side of the ship. If the wind is abeam, it is coming from the side, at a right angle to the ship’s keel.

Yardarm or yard: A spar (wooden pole) that is hoisted up the mast, carrying the sail.

Masthead: The top of the mast.

Bulwark: The part of the ship’s side above the deck.

Gunwale: The upper part of the ship’s rail.

Belaying pins: Wooden pins used to fasten rope.

Oarlock or rowlock: The pegs that hold the oar in place.

Telltale: A pennant that indicates the wind’s direction.

Tacking: To tack is to change direction from one side to the other, passing through the eye of the wind.
If the wind is from the north and you want to sail north-east, you would perform one tack so that you were heading north-east, and you could continue to sail on that tack for as long as you needed to.
However, if the wind is from the north and you want to sail due north, you would have to do so in a series of short tacks, going back and forth on a zigzag course, crossing through the wind each time, and slowly making ground to the north. This is a process known as beating into the wind.

Wearing: When a ship tacks, it turns into the wind to change direction. When it wears, it turns away from the wind, travelling in a much larger arc, with the wind in the sail, driving the ship around throughout the manoeuvre. This was a safer way of changing direction for wolfships.

Reach or reaching: When the wind is from the side of the ship, the ship is sailing on a reach, or reaching.

Running: When the wind is from the stern, the ship is running. So would you if the wind was strong enough.

Reef: To gather in part of the sail and bundle it against the yardarm to reduce the sail area. This is done in high winds to protect the sail and mast.

Trim: To adjust the sail to the most efficient angle.

Halyard: A rope used to haul the yard up the mast (haul-yard, get it?).

Stay: A heavy rope that supports the mast. The backstay and forestay are heavy ropes running from the top of the mast to the stern and bow (it’s pretty obvious which is which).

Sheets and shrouds: A lot of people think these are sails, which is a logical assumption. But in fact, they’re ropes. Shrouds are thick ropes that run from the top of the mast to the side of the ship, supporting the mast. Sheets are the ropes used to control or trim the sail – to haul it in and out according to the wind strength and direction. In an emergency, the order might be given to ‘let fly the sheets!’. The sheets would be released, letting the sail loose and bringing the ship to a halt. (If you were to let fly the sheets, you’d probably fall out of bed.)

Way: The motion of the ship. If a ship is under way, it is moving. If it is making leeway, the wind is blowing it downwind so it loses ground.

Back water: To row a reverse stroke.

So, now you know all you need to know about sailing terms, welcome aboard the world of Brotherband!

There was a buzz of interest from the crew as they surged forward to get a sight of the coast – at this stage, no more than a distant, hazy line on the horizon.

Hal heaved a silent sigh of relief. They had been out of sight of land for four days, cutting diagonally across from the eastern coast of the Stormwhite Sea to head for the southern coastline. After days without any reference points or landmarks, with nothing but the waves to see, niggling fears had begun to gnaw at his confidence. What if he had misread his sun compass? What if Stig had let the ship stray off course while Hal was sleeping? What if Hal himself had made some simple, fundamental error that had led them off on the wrong path?

When you sailed out of sight of land, he thought, there was always the worry that you might never sail back into sight of it.

He shook his head, realising how groundless his fears had been. Four days, after all, was a relatively short ocean trip. He knew of Skandian seafarers who had sailed for weeks with no sight of land. He had done so himself, on ships commanded by other people. But this was his first time in command.

Thorn came aft from his favoured spot by the keel box. His rolling gait easily matched the movement of the ship and he smiled at his young friend. He’d spent many years at sea but he knew all too well what must have been going through Hal’s mind.

Hal gave him a quick smile. ‘Thanks,’ he said, trying to look nonchalant. Then he couldn’t keep up the pretence any longer. ‘Must admit, I had a few sleepless moments.’

‘Two, actually. One lasted for the first two days. The other for the next two. Apart from that, I was fine.’

The fact that the young skirl could admit to his concerns was a sign of his growing maturity and confidence in his own ability. He was growing up fast, Thorn thought. But then, command of a ship had that effect on a person. They either grew into the responsibility or it crushed them.

In the bow, Stig had climbed onto the bulwark alongside Stefan, but on the other side of the bowpost. He shaded his eyes, then turned and called back down the length of the ship.

‘I can see three hills,’ he shouted. ‘Two big, one small. The small one is in the middle. They’re a little off to port.’

Thorn saw the look of pleasure that came over Hal’s face. He nodded his admiration.

‘Sounds like Dwarf Hill Cape,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t that where you were aiming?’ It was a near-perfect landfall – an impressive achievement for a neophyte skirl. Thorn was an expert sailor, but the intricacies of navigation had always proved too much for him.

‘Should have been dead ahead,’ he muttered, but then the smile broke through again. ‘But that’s pretty good, isn’t it?’

Thorn clapped him on the shoulder. ‘It’s very good. For an old coast crawler like me, it’s beyond comprehension.’

Hal nodded forward. ‘Looks as if our prisoner is finally taking an interest in things.’

Rikard, the Magyaran pirate Thorn had broken out of the Limmat jail, was standing up to peer towards the land. For the past few days he had remained huddled by the mast, restrained by a heavy chain that secured him to the thick spar.

‘He knows he’s near home,’ Thorn said. ‘The entrance to the Schuyt River is only a few kilometres up the coast, and that leads to the Magyaran capital.’

Thorn shook his head. ‘Not until we know he’s telling us the truth about Zavac’s destination. If he is, we should be able to find someone who’s seen the Raven when we head down the Dan River. He’s just going to have to wait till then.’

After they had left the port of Limmat behind, Rikard had made good on his promise to tell them where Zavac was heading. Zavac was the pirate captain who had earlier stolen the Andomal, Skandia’s most prized artefact. He had stolen it while Hal and his crew had been charged with its protection, so they had a personal interest in regaining it from him.

With that in mind, they had pursued Zavac down the length of the Stormwhite, always one step behind the elusive Magyaran ship, a large black craft named the Raven. They caught up with Zavac and the Raven at Limmat, a harbour town on the east coast. Zavac, in company with two other ships, had led an attack on the town and occupied it. The crew of the Heron had been instrumental in defeating the invaders and driving them out. Many of the pirates had been either killed or captured in the ensuing battle, but Zavac and his crew had escaped in the closing stages, ramming and nearly sinking the Skandian ship Wolfwind in the process.

According to Rikard, Zavac and his crew were heading for the Dan River, a mighty waterway that ran all the way from the north of the continental mass, on the Stormwhite’s coast, to the south, close by the Constant Sea. At the southern end of the Dan was a fortified citadel called Raguza, a pirate haven governed by a council of pirates and thieves. Raiders from the Stormwhite and the Constant Sea sought refuge there, knowing they would be protected from pursuit and revenge. Ships harbouring in Raguza paid a tribute to the city’s governing body. Usually, this was a tenth share of any booty they had on board. It was expensive, but it was worth it to enjoy the security and freedom from pursuit that Raguza offered.

Zavac, of course, was carrying a large supply of emeralds plundered from the secret mine at Limmat. Some of those emeralds should have gone to the men who had assisted in the invasion and occupation of the town. But they had been defeated and killed or imprisoned, and he had absconded with their share. With such a rich haul, he had no further need to raid during the current season and had obviously decided to relax and regroup in the citadel.

Now, as the Heron moved closer to the coastline, Rikard seemed to sense their attention on him. He turned to look at them, then beckoned to Thorn, who walked forward to speak to him.

‘Are you going to set me free?’ he said, pointing at the approaching coastline.

Thorn shook his head. ‘I think we need the distinct pleasure of your company a little longer.’

‘I’ve kept my part of the bargain! You promised you’d set me free,’ Rikard protested.

‘No. I promised I’d set you free once we’re sure you’ve kept your part of the bargain. I also promised that if you haven’t I’ll throw you overboard.’

‘Well, is there any need to keep me chained up like this?’ Rikard angrily rattled the chain that secured him to the mast. ‘After all, there’s nowhere I can escape to.’

Thorn smiled at him. ‘That’s in case you decide to do me out of the pleasure of throwing you overboard. Wouldn’t want you taking matters into your own hands.’

Rikard scowled at him and slumped down to the deck once more. He could see there was no point in arguing any further. In the few days he had been onboard, he had learned that Thorn was not a man to change his mind easily.

‘I know you can’t wait to get back to Magyara and join another pirate crew,’ Thorn said. ‘But you’ll just have to put up with us for a while yet.’ He turned and walked back to the steering position, where Lydia and Stig had joined Hal.

‘Are you planning on putting ashore?’ Lydia asked, as Thorn came within earshot. Hal pursed his lips, then shook his head.

‘We’ll run along the coast for another day. That’ll bring us to the mouth of the Dan. We can go ashore there. We need to find out if anyone’s sighted the Raven.’

He had a constant, nagging worry that Zavac may have headed off in another direction entirely and they had spent the past four days on a wild goose chase.

The Heron wasn’t the most comfortable place for sleeping. The crew could bed down on the planks between the rowing benches. But the constant need to adjust to the ship’s pitching and rolling, and the frequent showers of spray that broke over her, made it difficult to get deep, uninterrupted rest.

‘Or you. Sorry. We’ll all have to wait. The sooner we find out we’re on the right track, the happier I’ll be.’

Lydia nodded. Hal’s point was a valid one and she realised that he had probably had the least sleep of anyone on board. He and Stig shared the responsibility of steering the ship and Hal tended to take on the lion’s share of that.

‘Not worth checking in any of the coastal towns here?’ Stig asked, but Hal shook his head.

‘If she’s been sighted here, that doesn’t tell us she’s gone down the river. She could have continued heading west along the coast.’

Stig sighed good-naturedly. ‘Oh well, I guess that means another night of sleeping on those hard planks. Why did you design this ship with so many ribs? There always seems to be one digging into my ribs.’

Hal grinned at his friend. ‘I’ll bear it in mind next time I build a ship,’ he said. Then, as so often happens when someone raises the matter of sleep, he found he couldn’t suppress a huge yawn.

Thorn eyed him thoughtfully. ‘You look as if you could use a good night’s rest yourself.’

Hal shrugged, blinking his eyes rapidly to clear them. Now that Thorn mentioned it, he was aware how dry and scratchy they were.

‘I’ve been thinking, you should have someone else trained to take over the tiller,’ he said.

Stig made a big show of clearing his throat. ‘Um . . . have we noticed that I am here? Or am I just a piece of chopped halibut?’ he asked. ‘I seem to recall taking over the helm several times in the past few days.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Thorn said patiently. ‘I mean you should have a third person ready to take over.’

Thorn looked at her. ‘I could. But if we get into a sea battle, Stig and I are the logical choices to lead a boarding party. We’re the two best fighting men on the ship. And Hal has to be free to operate the Mangler.’

The Mangler was the name they had given to the giant crossbow mounted in the bow of the ship.

‘Did you have anyone specific in mind?’ Hal asked. Thorn’s reasoning made sense, and a third helmsman would lessen the strain on him and Stig in what looked to be a long and hard journey ahead.

‘I was thinking Edvin,’ Thorn said. ‘Stefan and Jesper are working well together raising and lowering the sails, and Ulf and Wulf have a natural affinity for sail trimming. Edvin is a bit of a loose end at the moment.’

Hal smiled. ‘It might be more tactful to say he’s an unrealised potential asset,’ he said. ‘But yes, that’s a good idea. Plus he’s smart and he listens. He’ll get the hang of it quickly enough. Let’s go talk to him.’ He nodded to Stig, who took over the helm. Then he and Thorn made their way forward, to where Edvin was sitting beside the supine form of Ingvar, who had been wounded in the attack on the watch towers at Limmat.

Edvin was concentrating on something, his head bent over as he worked two long thin sticks back and forth, setting up a rapid click-clicking sound. A ball of thick yarn lay on the deck between his feet.

Edvin looked up at them and smiled. ‘I’m knitting,’ he said. ‘I’m knitting myself a warm, woolly watch cap.’

‘KNITTING, YOU SAY?’ Jesper frowned at the thought of it, but Stefan nodded in confirmation.

‘Knitting. He had a big ball of yarn and two needles and he was . . . knitting.’

They looked aft to where Hal was introducing Edvin to the finer points of steering the ship. Stig and Thorn stood to one side, watching. While Edvin had begun his instruction, Lydia had taken his place tending Ingvar. The Heron was on a long reach, with the wind from the starboard side, and there was little for the sail crew to do. Jesper and Stefan, whose task was to raise and lower the yardarms, had moved aft to sit and talk with the twins, Ulf and Wulf, at the sail trimming sheets.

‘I’m not sure that I want someone steering the ship if he spends his spare time knitting,’ Stefan said. It was a ridiculous non sequitur but the others seemed to agree with the sentiment. They all looked at Edvin once more.

Ulf hesitated. He’d seen his mother, aunt and grandmother doing it and it seemed easy enough. They could knit without looking at what they were doing – and they could carry on a conversation about the weather or the price of salt cod while they did it. So it stood to reason that it was easy. Particularly if his aunt could do it.

He realised that the other three were all looking at him, waiting for him to answer. He waved a vague hand in the air.

‘Knitting needles?’ Stefan asked and Ulf frowned at him, not appreciating the interruption.

‘Of course knitting needles!’ he said with some heat. ‘Did you think you’d use darning needles for knitting?’

Ulf gave him an annoyed look. It seemed that everyone was bent on interrupting him this morning.

‘’Cause that’s what you say when you stick the needle in your finger,’ Wulf suggested and the three of them laughed. Ulf maintained his dignity, and directed a pained look at his brother.

‘That’s quite good, Ulf,’ Jesper said to Wulf. Ulf rolled his eyes to heaven. This was getting to be too much, he thought.

‘Are you sure?’ Stefan asked, a ghost of a smile hovering at the corner of his mouth. ‘He looks like Ulf to me.’

‘You know,’ said Wulf thoughtfully, seeing a way to annoy his brother, ‘I could be Ulf. When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t completely sure who I was. I thought, maybe they’ve woken the wrong person.’

‘That’s what our mother said the day you were born,’ Ulf countered. ‘She looked at you and said, Oh no! That’s the wrong one. That ugly baby couldn’t be mine!’

Wulf drew himself up a little straighter and faced his brother, his body language confronting. ‘And you’d know that, would you?’

‘Yes. I would. Because I was born before you. I remember waiting around for ages for you to arrive. And what a big disappointment that was for everyone,’ he added triumphantly. He was on a roll. The fact that he was the firstborn gave him a certain moral ascendancy over his brother in these arguments.

Wulf’s face was beginning to redden. ‘Do you seriously expect us to believe that . . .?’ he began, but Lydia, a few metres away, interrupted in a low, warning tone.

They looked at her and she jerked her head towards the stern of the boat, and the small group clustered round the tiller. Wulf’s mouth twisted into an uncertain line. Hal had banned any bickering between the twins while the ship was at sea. Up until now they had managed to control their natural inclination, but the previous four days had been uneventful and they were becoming bored.

‘I don’t think he heard us,’ he said quietly, and was disconcerted when Thorn answered, without looking at them:

Ulf and Wulf exchanged a startled look. In actual fact, Hal had been too busy instructing Edvin to pay any attention to them. But they weren’t to know that.

His brother glared at him. He’d assumed that they’d moved on from the discussion about knitting. But Wulf wasn’t letting him off the hook as easily as that. Ulf took a deep breath.

‘Well . . . you need needles – knitting needles,’ he added quickly. ‘And you need a ball of yar–’

‘Two,’ Ulf said, a warning tone in his voice. ‘Two knitting needles, one ball of yarn.’

‘If you used four needles, couldn’t you knit twice as fast?’ Stefan asked, with an air of innocence that was all too obviously faked. Ulf turned a withering look on him, then resumed his discourse.

‘Then you wrap the yarn around the needles and sort of push them in and out and you . . . well, you knit.’ He made an expansive gesture in the air as if that explained it completely. The others eyed him sceptically.

A few metres away, Ingvar’s eyes flicked open as Lydia placed a damp cloth on his forehead.

‘What are they blathering on about?’ he said. His voice was weak, which worried her. He should have been recovering a lot more quickly. She smiled at him now. It wouldn’t do to show him that she was concerned.

He tried to nod but it was a feeble movement. He muttered something she didn’t catch and she bent closer.

‘Knitwits,’ he said, more clearly. ‘They’re knitwits.’ He laughed at his own joke, but the movement seemed to cause him pain and he stopped. She took his hand and squeezed it gently, wishing there was more she could do for him.

Jesper was unsatisfied with Ulf’s explanation. Now that the subject of knitting had come up, his curiosity was piqued and he wanted to know more about it. Truth be told, he was bored, and any subject could have claimed his interest at the moment. He turned to Lydia, who had begun sponging Ingvar’s neck and face with a wet cloth once more.

‘Lydia, how difficult is knitting?’ he asked. She paused in what she was doing, then looked up at him.

He shrugged. ‘Well, you’re a girl, and it’s kind of a girly thing, so I thought . . .’

His voice trailed off as he realised that Lydia was holding his gaze very steadily. She let the silence between them drag on for some time, watching him grow more and more uncomfortable. Finally, she answered him.

‘Oh,’ he said, relieved that the awkward moment seemed to have passed. You never knew with Lydia, he thought. She wasn’t like most girls and that long dirk she wore was very sharp.

‘But I can sew,’ she said and he looked at her quickly. Something in her tone told him she had more to say on the matter. He swallowed nervously as her eyes bored into his, daring him to look away. Some response seemed to be indicated.

‘I can. And if you ever ask me a stupid male question like that again, I’ll sew your bottom lip to your ear.’

He nodded several times. ‘Right. Right. Lip to ear. Point taken. Understood. Let’s talk about something else, shall we?’ he suggested to the group in general.

‘What else do you want to talk about?’ Wulf asked. Jesper darted a nervous glance at Lydia, who seemed to have lost interest in him and had gone back to tending Ingvar.

On the steering platform, Edvin was beginning to get the hang of things. He glanced quickly astern at the ship’s wake. It was a respectable straight line – not arrow straight the way Hal could keep it, but not too bad at all.

‘We’ll make a helmsman of you yet, young Edvin,’ said Thorn and the boy’s face flushed with pleasure. He took the ship off course by a few degrees, then practised bringing her back on course, easing the tiller just before she got there.

The slim girl had come aft to the steering platform and seemed to be waiting to catch his attention. She nodded at Edvin.

‘Edvin, actually, if you can spare him. Edvin, can you come and look at Ingvar? I don’t think he’s doing so well.’

‘I THOUGHT HE was getting better,’ Hal said as he followed Edvin and Lydia to where Ingvar was lying on his improvised bed in the waist of the ship. The huge boy had been wounded by an arrow during the attack on Limmat.

Edvin pursed his lips. He looked worried. ‘I thought so too. But he took a turn for the worse yesterday and he seemed to deteriorate during the night. I was hoping it was only temporary. But now . . .’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

Ingvar was asleep – if you could call it sleep. It was more accurate to say that he was unconscious. His eyes were screwed tight shut and his head tossed back and forth on the pillow. His cheeks were sunken and his skin looked waxy and pale. There were dark circles under his eyes. Edvin knelt beside the huge form and gently placed his hand on Ingvar’s forehead. His worried expression deepened and he gestured for Hal to feel Ingvar’s forehead.

‘He’s burning!’ he said. Ingvar’s skin was fiercely hot and dry to the touch.

Edvin nodded unhappily. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I actually thought he’d be better off to be at sea. That infirmary in Limmat was a dark, stuffy place, full of fevers and sickness. Orlog knows what you could catch in an unhealthy atmosphere like that. I thought the fresh sea air would be better for him, and the surgeon agreed. As I say, he seemed to be recovering.’

‘He’s very weak and he hasn’t slept well. That means he can’t build up strength to fight the sickness. I think there’s an infection started up in the wound again. That’s what’s making him so feverish.’

‘What can you do?’ Hal asked Edvin. The quietly spoken boy had been trained during the brotherband period as the Heron’s medical orderly, but it had been a perfunctory training only.

He shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know, Hal. All I can suggest is that I clean the wound again, then do what I can to keep him cool and hope the fever breaks. If we can get him through the fever, and let him rest properly, he should begin to recover again. At least, I think so.’

Edvin hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Not really. We’re pitching and rolling too much.’

Hal nodded. It was a reasonable assessment. He had a brief, horrified vision of what could happen if the ship lurched suddenly while Edvin was probing the wound.

‘But once you’ve done that, we can put to sea again?’ he asked. Edvin’s unhappy expression told him the answer before he spoke.

‘He can’t rest properly with the deck pitching and heaving like this. You know how it is, Hal. Your body tenses and prepares for the movement. You brace yourself against the roll when you sense it’s coming. Ingvar needs solid sleep. That’s the best healer for him. And he can’t get it while we’re at sea. In fact, that constant tensing and bracing might well have aggravated the wound in the first place.’

Edvin shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe one night. Maybe two. If he can rest properly and I can keep him cooled down, he should improve. We’ll need to keep bathing him with damp cloths to bring his temperature down.’

‘If the fever doesn’t break, he could die,’ Edvin said. Lydia looked at him in alarm.

Hal looked away, cursing silently. Each time he got close to Zavac, something intervened. Outside Limmat, he had had to choose between going after the pirates and leaving Svengal and the crew of Wolfwind to drown. Now he was faced with another choice, with Ingvar’s life in the balance.

And there was another, practical consideration, in addition to his concern for his friend. Lydia voiced it.

The huge crossbow would be their main weapon in the event of a fight with the Raven. Only Ingvar had the strength necessary to cock and load it. Ulf and Wulf could do it together, of course. But in a sea fight, they would be kept busy adjusting the trim of the sails as the ship manoeuvred. That was the problem. Everyone on the ship had an assigned role and everyone was needed in that role. Particularly Ingvar.

Once Hal had that thought, it was easier to come to a decision. He rose, and looked at the coastline running past them, shading his eyes with his hand.

They ran on for several kilometres before he found a suitable landing place. The coastline was, for the most part, open beach. And it was swept by the north-east wind that was blowing. If the wind got up any further, they could find themselves in trouble in such an exposed position.

Eventually, he spotted what he was looking for. The land rose and the long, unbroken beach gave way to rocky, low cliffs. There was a narrow opening that led to a cove. He lowered the sail and proceeded further inshore under oars to inspect it. It turned out to be exactly what they needed. There was a sandy beach on the eastern side of the cove, and the headland would provide shelter from the wind.

The crew lay resting on the oars for several minutes while he inspected it, looking for broken, swirling water that might indicate rocks hidden just below the surface, studying the action of the waves to make sure there was no concealed reef across the mouth of the cove. Finally, he nodded to himself.

‘Stig,’ he called, and his first mate gave the order for the rowers to begin pulling once more.

Hal steered the little ship into the cove. Stefan had resumed his position by the bowpost, searching the water’s surface for any signs of danger. But there were none and the Heron cruised smoothly to a small strip of sand Hal had marked out.

‘In oars,’ he called, when they were less than twenty metres from the sand. The oars clattered in the rowlocks as the crew brought them inboard, then clattered once more as they were stowed along the line of the ship.

‘Bring the fin up, Thorn,’ Hal ordered, and Thorn heaved the heavy fin up from its lowered position in the keel box. As he did so, Hal felt the now-familiar drift as the ship lost the steadying lateral force of the keel. Then there was a gentle grating sound as the bow ran up onto the coarse sand, finally canting over slightly to one side. Without needing to be told, Stefan dropped over the bow onto dry land, carrying the beach anchor inland and driving it deep into the sand.

As ever, Hal felt the strange silence that came with the lack of movement from the ship. The constant background chorus of small noises – the slap of ripples along the hull, the muted groaning of the rigging and masts – had ceased and his voice seemed unnaturally loud as he spoke.

The Herons moved to the task quickly. They were well practised now in making camp. They used a large tarpaulin draped over a central ridgepole to create a long A-shaped tent. Edvin and Stefan busied themselves building a smaller shelter for Ingvar.

Hal considered the question, then shook his head. Rikard was securely chained to the mast and there was little chance he could escape. But Hal was reluctant to leave him unattended on board the ship. He knew Rikard was bitter at not being released and he feared he might damage the Heron in some way.

‘Bring him ashore. Chain him to a tree and throw a blanket over him,’ he said. He glanced up. There were a few clouds sliding gently across the blue sky, but no dark masses that might indicate rain. A blanket should be sufficient cover.

Ulf and Wulf unchained Rikard and led him to a stout pine tree at the edge of the beach, some twenty metres from the main tent. They fastened the chain round the bole of the tree, tested that it was still firmly attached to the hard leather cuffs padlocked around Rikard’s wrists, then handed him a blanket.

‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Ulf said. Rikard grunted at them and scowled as they smiled back. Then they turned and headed back to the camp site.

‘That’s because I’m older than you. I’ve been waiting longer for my dinner.’

Rikard waited as their voices faded away, then looked down to study his bonds. The leather cuffs were stiff and inflexible. They were padlocked in place and would be impossible to loosen with his bare hands.

But Rikard had more than his bare hands. He pulled the blanket over himself and reached down inside his knee-high boot. A long, razor-sharp blade was concealed in a specially fashioned sheath, running down the inside of the boot and hidden by a flap of soft leather. On board, under constant scrutiny and with crew members always close by, he’d had no opportunity to access it.

HAL STOOPED TO enter the small tent where Edvin was caring for Ingvar. The wounded boy was lying on his back, on a soft bed of pine boughs overlaid with a thick blanket. Another blanket covered him but, as Hal watched, the big boy muttered and tried to toss it to one side.

Edvin was kneeling beside the prone figure, with a basin of cool water and several wet towels. He took hold of Ingvar’s arm and stopped him tossing the blanket aside. He was worried by the fact that he could this do so easily. Ingvar’s strength had become legendary among them, but now . . .

Sensing Hal’s presence, Edvin looked up. ‘He’s as weak as a kitten,’ he said.

Hal nodded and knelt on the opposite side of the bed. He reached out and laid his palm on Ingvar’s forehead. The heat coming from the big boy’s skin was frightening.

‘He seems to be worse,’ he said sadly. ‘Am I imagining it, or has the fever grown stronger?’

Edvin shrugged. Then he dipped one of the towels in the water basin and began sponging Ingvar’s forehead, face and neck.

‘I’ve no real way of measuring it,’ he said, ‘but I think you’re right. He definitely seems to be reaching a crisis point.’

Hal looked at the new bandage on Ingvar’s side, above the hip. ‘You’ve re-dressed the wound?’

Edvin glanced at it and nodded. ‘Cleaned it and re-bandaged it. That’s all I can do.’

Ingvar’s skin had dried again. The fleeting comfort of the water was gone and he tried to move restlessly on the bed. Gently, Edvin restrained him.

He took a fresh towel from the basin. Once again, the relief was almost instantaneous and Ingvar quieted under the cooling touch.

Hal studied Edvin as he tended to Ingvar. He was small in stature and, like all of the Herons, he’d been something of a social outcast as he grew up in Hallasholm. But he was studious and highly intelligent, Hal knew, and when he took on a task, he stuck to it.

As he had that thought, he realised that Edvin was close to exhaustion, with the emotional strain of his concern for Ingvar and the physical effort of his nonstop ministering to his shipmate. He reached out and took the damp towel from Edvin’s hand.

‘I’ll take a turn for a while,’ he said and, when Edvin looked up to remonstrate with him, he added firmly, ‘There’s nothing here that I can’t do. You need to rest. You need a break. Go and get something to eat. The others have had dinner but I told them to save some for you.’

Edvin pulled a face. ‘Stig cooked?’ Among his various tasks, Edvin was the official crew cook and he had misgivings about the other boys’ abilities. When they’d first set out from Hallasholm, each of them had cooked in a roster, and the efforts of most of the others had been decidedly unpalatable. Edvin had finally taken on the role of cook, declaring that he had no wish to be poisoned.

‘He’s improved a great deal.’ Hal grinned. ‘Either that or he was foxing in the first place and didn’t want the job. In any event, he caught some nice snapper in the bay and he made a fish stew. Lydia found some wild onions in the forest, and he rummaged through your stock of spices and flavourings.’

‘In that case, I’d better try it.’ He rose from his kneeling position beside Ingvar, watching as Hal continued to bathe the wounded boy with cold water.

Hal nodded. ‘I will. Tell Lydia to come and take over from me in two hours. And get some sleep yourself.’

He wet the towel in the basin, wrung it out again and continued to bathe Ingvar. It was frightening to see how quickly the thin film of water seemed to dry on his overheated skin. Satisfied that Ingvar was in good hands, Edvin turned and left. Hal heard his soft groan of relief as he straightened up once he was outside.

It was just before dawn. Hal became aware of the birdsong in the trees lining the beach as the birds sensed the coming sunrise and began their daily chorus. He’d resumed caring for Ingvar, taking over from Lydia sometime after midnight.

He’d nodded off several times as he watched over the big boy. Each time, he had been roused by Ingvar’s muttering as the waves of fever ran over him. He continued the seemingly hopeless task of cooling his friend’s body with the towels. The water bucket was almost empty, he realised. He’d have to refill it.

Ingvar seemed to improve at one stage. His calm periods lasted longer between the bouts of muttering and tossing. For a while, Hal felt a ray of hope, thinking that he might have turned the corner and begun to recover. Then he deteriorated once more, so that the water barely eased his discomfort. The fever was bad enough in itself, Hal thought. But it was also draining Ingvar’s strength. His body couldn’t relax as it fought off the floods of burning heat that raced through it. And as his strength became further and further depleted, he had fewer reserves to fight the sickness and it took a firmer hold on him. It was a vicious cycle.

The old sea wolf studied his young friend, seeing his red-rimmed eyes and haggard expression.

Hal shook his head uncertainly. The daylight outside the tent was growing stronger.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. His voice was thick with fatigue. ‘A few hours, I guess.’

‘You’re not going to do him any good if you end up collapsing yourself,’ he said.

Hal turned an unhappy look on him. ‘I’m not doing him any good anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s hopeless, Thorn. We’re losing him.’

Ingvar stirred, muttering and moaning softly. Thorn wet the towel and applied it to his forehead.

‘Nothing’s ever hopeless,’ he said firmly. ‘And he’s not lost yet. We keep going and we keep trying as long as we can. That’s what being in a brotherband is about. We don’t give up on our brothers. We give them every possible chance.’

‘And it’ll seem that way right up to the point where the fever breaks,’ Thorn told him. ‘But we’ve got to stay positive. We’ve got to give Ingvar all the time and care he needs to recover.’

It tore Thorn’s heart to see his young friend so despondent. He knew Hal was feeling responsible for Ingvar’s condition and he knew he was too young to cope with that sort of guilt.

‘If he doesn’t,’ he said firmly, ‘then at least we’ll know we did everything we could. Everything,’ he repeated. He watched carefully, seeing the boy’s shoulders begin to rise again as he took a deep breath and regained control of himself.

‘I’ll look after him for a while,’ he said. ‘You go get some sleep. You look worse than he does.’

Hal gave him a tired smile and rose from his kneeling position beside Ingvar. He walked in a crouch to the doorway, stood upright in the open air outside, and rubbed the stiffness out of the small of his back with both hands. He yawned and stretched. Then he glanced across the camp site and was instantly awake. There was a crumpled blanket lying beside the pine tree.

ALL THOUGHTS OF fatigue left Hal as he pounded across the clearing, shouting to alert the others. Thorn was the first to react, erupting from the small tent and following the young skirl to where the blanket and chain lay discarded beside the pine tree.

Ulf was on sentry duty and he was the next to arrive. His axe was thrust through a loop on his belt and it banged awkwardly against his hip as he ran from the beach to join them. Lydia wasn’t far behind him.

‘He must have had a knife hidden somewhere,’ Hal said bitterly. He looked up at Thorn, who was scanning the trees, looking for some sign of the missing prisoner. ‘Did anyone bother to search him?’

Thorn met his gaze and shook his head. ‘I took him out of the town jail, remember? It didn’t occur to me that he might be armed. I assumed they would have searched him.’

There was no note of apology in his voice. Perhaps he had made a mistake, but it was an understandable one. And there was no sense in beating his breast about it now. Rikard had been carrying a knife. He had cut through his bonds. And now he was gone. Instead of bemoaning the fact, Thorn was determined to get him back.

‘Where do you think he’s got to?’ Ulf said. He started towards the treeline but a curt order from Lydia stopped him before he had gone two paces.

‘Don’t go there!’ she snapped. When he looked at her, eyebrows raised, she continued in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Sorry, Ulf. I had to stop you before you went blundering in there. I don’t want you covering up any tracks he may have left.’

‘I don’t blunder, I’ll have you know,’ Ulf said, with some dignity. ‘I’m a very light treader.’

‘I stand corrected,’ Lydia said. ‘In that case, don’t go treading lightly in there, if you don’t mind.’

Honour satisfied, Ulf nodded agreement. ‘Well, if you put it that way . . .’

‘What’s happened?’ Jesper asked. The answer was obvious. But it was a perfectly natural reaction, Hal thought.

‘Rikard escaped during the night,’ Lydia told him. Jesper drew breath for another question but Thorn forestalled him.

‘That would have taken a while,’ Stig said. ‘Those cuffs were boiled, toughened leather – they were nearly as hard as wood.’

‘He had all night to do it,’ Hal told him. He knelt down and picked up the cuffs, examining them. One had been severed in a series of short, jagged cuts. The other was cut in a much cleaner, straighter line.

‘He must have done this one first,’ he said, pointing to the ragged edge. ‘It would have been more awkward with his hands fastened. He wouldn’t have been able to get a comfortable position or much purchase.’ He mimed the awkward movements of a man with his hands bound together, trying to work on an imaginary cuff. ‘He must have been at it for hours.’

‘He was still here when you relieved me, Hal,’ Lydia said thoughtfully. ‘I remember noticing him just before I waved to Jesper.’ She turned to the former thief. ‘Do you remember seeing him when you went off watch?’ she asked.

Jesper frowned, thinking. ‘I’m pretty sure I did,’ he said. ‘Yes. He was here then, I’m sure of it.’

Then he hesitated. ‘At least, I think so. Maybe he was still here then.’ He frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I wasn’t really looking for him.’

‘If we know when he got away, it’ll give us an idea of how far he might have gone,’ she said and he nodded, appreciating the point.

Stig was about to say something when they were distracted by a feeble cry from the small tent. Edvin looked around the group gathered by the discarded chains. Only Stefan and Wulf were absent and they were notoriously heavy sleepers.

‘Is anyone with Ingvar?’ he asked and they all exchanged guilty looks. In the confusion following the discovery that Rikard had escaped, they had all forgotten their wounded friend.

‘Sorry, Edvin . . .’ Hal began, but Edvin was already running towards the tent.

‘It’s all right. It’s my job, after all,’ he called back to them. There was an awkward pause, then Thorn called their attention back to the matter at hand.

‘All right, so we can assume he was here until at least an hour after midnight. Then Stig took over from Jesper. My guess is that he would wait another hour for Stig to get tired and bored.’

Stig drew himself upright. ‘I don’t get tired and bored when I’m on sentry-go,’ he protested.

Thorn met his gaze unwaveringly. ‘Everybody gets tired and bored on sentry-go.’

Stig subsided. ‘Yeah. I guess so. Maybe I got a little tired – and even a little bored.’

Thorn glanced at the eastern horizon, gauging the time. There was a grey light flooding the sky but the sun was yet to appear.

Thorn shrugged. ‘On me, then,’ he said, correcting himself. ‘I’m going after him.’

‘And just where are you planning to look?’ Lydia asked him. He paused, then raised an eyebrow at her.

She looked at the trees, then back at him. ‘It’s a big forest. Which direction were you planning on looking? Bear in mind, he could have gone any way but north.’

‘Do you know how to track?’ she continued. ‘How to look for signs and follow them?’