Perilous Seas by Dave Duncan

beat.
    Glory!
It soared, it floated in the warm sky like a flight of rainbows. It lifted the
heart or wrung it as he chose. Murderous brutes those jotnar certainly were,
but at times Rap could see tears in their eyes, while he himself was tormented
by thoughts of Inos and could not help but weep. Then Jalon would switch to
some rousing warrior song. Rap’s heart would pound, his spirit surge, and
he was ready to storm Zark single-handed. At those times the jotnar were
roaring, waving battle-axes and eager to waste the entire Impire.
    “God
of Madness!” Gathmor whispered during a brief pause. “Who is he and
where did he come from and how does he do that?” But then the mystery
came again, and everyone hushed to listen. Kalkor kept Jalon at it for hours,
while Blood Wave rushed over the ever-rolling waves in search of land.
    As
each song ended, harsh jotunn voices called out the names of others, and there
were very few that Jalon did not know or could not sing; his repertoire was
enormous. But even he had his limits, and eventually his voice began to falter.
To say that
    Kalkor
took pity on him would have been an absurdity, but at last he acknowledged
human frailty and sent the minstrel off with Vurjuk to eat and drink and rest.
The other jotnar began to talk fiercely among themselves, discussing what they
had just heard.
    Gathmor
was asleep. Rap was hungry, but the sailors were eating and he felt it wiser to
wait awhile than dare to interrupt. Instead he gave some more thought to his
own troubles and prospects.
    To
start with, where exactly was the ship? The storm could have moved it an
immense distance; he had no experience to guess how far. Direction he always
knew fairly well, a talent that seemed to be part of his farsight, and in any
case he could always read the helmsman’s binnacle. After his first two or
three days aboard, though, his attention had been distracted by weakness and
pain and he had stopped caring. The wind had first carried Blood Wave
southward, then northeast, but she had not piled up against the coasts of
either Kith or Sysanasso. One or other likely lay ahead, then, for the helmsman
was holding the most northerly course he could manage in a southwesterly, and
although she, too, bore only a single square sail, this was a much more
weatherly vessel than the top-heavy Stormdancer.
    And
if Blood Wave had not gone westward, then Gathmor was in terrible danger,
because he was no longer needed as a pilot for the Nogids. Kalkor could find
another of those anytime.
    All
Pandemia lay somewhere to the north. If Blood Wave passed west of Sysanasso,
she would enter the Dragon Sea, rife with commerce and good pickings for a
merciless raider. Alternatively, east of the big island lay Ilrane and elves or
Kerith and merfolk, areas Rap had never studied. Farther east still was Zark,
although one storm could not possibly move a ship that far.
    Which
brought his thoughts back again to Inos.
    How
ironic that a callous killer and rapist like Kalkor should have seen what Rap
himself had never before realized. He was in love with his queen! How blind
could a man be?
    Or
how crazy? A stableboy falling in love with a princessthe very idea had been
stupid beyond dreams, too stupid even to contemplate. It still was.
    And
so what? She still deserved his loyalty as a subject. That loyalty should be
even stronger if he loved her.
    She
did not return his love. How could she? A very lowly factor’s clerk ...
not even that now, only a vagabond with a knack for horses and a smattering of
sailoring skills. On that mad night when her father died, Inos had been
courteous and kindly to her childhood friend, as she would always be. She had
thanked him for his help. She had not flinched before his occult abilities,
because she was a sophisticated, educated lady, not one of the ignorant,
superstitious rustics of Krasnegar. Like him.
    And
if by some miracle he could ever find her, she would certainly by then be
married into some noble