Many Roads Home Read Online Free Page B

away. The passengers and crew would have to climb down into the boats, though they smashed against the ship with every wave. Women and children were loaded first, three crewmen in the boat below to help, Yveni and Gerd behind, doing their best to help the mothers with their youngsters. Yveni gripped the ladder with one hand, and held tight to the belt of the woman below him. His arm and neck muscles complained bitterly at the weight, but desperation gave him strength.
    But then the woman he held suddenly screamed, and Yveni, straining to see beyond her and through the rain and the spray, realised why—her child had fallen into the heaving ocean, his head bobbing into view briefly before being swallowed up by the waves. Still screaming piteously, she reached out, clearly intended to follow the boy.
    “No! You’ll fall!” Yveni tightened his grasp, but she let go of the ladder, and he suddenly had her full weight. He struggled to keep his one-handed grip on the ladder, his arm nearly torn out of the socket. For long seconds they dangled there, before the ocean intervened, throwing a huge wall of water over the lifeboat and against the ship, knocking Yveni clean off the ladder. He and the woman fell into the churning seas together.
    Though the impact and the numbing cold thumped the breath out of him, still he tried to keep hold of her belt. He gasped as his head cleared the water, then yelled as he felt her break away from him. “Wait!”
    But the wind tore his voice away and the waves buffeted him, disorienting him and blocking his view of the woman. He panicked as he realised he could no longer see the ship, or the lifeboat, or hear any of the sailors.
    What had Gerd said? The whistle! His frozen hands fumbled under the preserver and inside his jacket and shirt to find the little chain, but even with the life preserver, it was a struggle to keep his face out of the water long enough to blow. But blow he did, though he shook so hard from the cold that his breath was scanty, and to his ears, the shrill sound barely rose above the howling wind and the crunching of timber on rocks. Gods, someone help me. Father, help your son, I beg you.
    The icy water sapped his strength, though it could have only been a minute or so since he fell. His body was going numb, and refused to obey his attempts to swim. The waves drove him back and forth without his being able to resist. Every breath he took was shallower than the last.
    A hand grabbed his collar. “Got you!”
    “Gerd…”
    Yveni tried to help, but could do little but let Gerd’s strong arms and legs pull them back to safety. It felt like hours before he saw the weedy light of the boat lamps. Then other arms and hands seized him, dragging him painfully over the edge of the lifeboat. It rocked and tipped, and he fell across two people as the boat whacked hard against the side of the ship.
    “Gerd!”
    He turned and to his relief, saw sailors pulling Gerd over the side. His friend fell into the boat in a limp heap, but he opened his eyes and gave Yveni a crooked grin. “Not getting away…from me…that easy, boy.” He was out of breath, but then they both were.
    Yveni hugged him with strengthless arms and they fell together down among the other passengers. The sailors shouted that they were going, and began to row hard against the wild surf. The passengers clung together and prayed they’d survive this night.
    The sailors only rowed clear of the sinking ship. Efforts turned to keeping the boat bailed clear of water while the storm swept over them. After an hour of misery, of gales and rain and waves throwing them about like corks in a child’s bathtub, the winds dropped, and the motion eased. The rain too, became showers, then nothing. Amazingly, the moons and the stars appeared above them, the clouds gone as if they’d never been.
    “Where are we?” Yveni asked one of the sailors slumped shivering in his seat. Hiljn, that was his name. He had the Vision, just as Gil