Son of Fortune Read Online Free

right there between their legs, entrails swirling around Aiden’s ankles. Aiden grabbed hold of the rope, flung it over the oarlock and whacked it with one stroke of the little hatchet.
    “Push it out!” Aiden yelled, groping at the carcass. His hand sank into the pulpy flesh. Then the shark rushed in again, mouth peeled back, showing a thousand savage teeth. As if tired of their nonsense, it clamped hard on both the seal and the boat. Aiden felt the boards splinter beneath him. Without thinking, he kicked at the monstrous head and felt the crunch of a tooth breaking beneath his boot sole. Then he raised the hatchet and slammed it onto the shark’s head. The shark merely twisted away and vanished into the depths with half the seal in its mouth, the hatchet still stuck in its skull. A trail of blood swirled up like ink from an artist’s brush dipped in water after painting sunsets. Aiden wiped the stinging salt water from his eyes. The sea was eerily calm.
    “Where’s Fish?” Aiden shouted.
    The side of the dinghy had been ripped open and water was rushing in fast. Aiden’s palm tingled from the impact of the hatchet. His brain felt dull as moss. For some reason, he couldn’t hear anything but a roaring sound. Then one of the Swedes pointed a trembling hand. Aiden saw Fish flailing at the surface about twenty feet away. It wasn’t far to swim, but it was clear that Fish could not swim. Then sound returned. Aiden heard a strangled cry and saw Fish’s head sink, his heavy clothing dragging him down. The sun broke through the fog and dappled the water. The clang of the ship’s bell rang out again and the men turned hopefully. They could see the ship steaming toward them, but it still looked miles away. It hadn’t been five minutes, Aiden realized, since Fish had first whistled for pickup. The man was now floating motionless, just beneath the surface. How long before he sank completely? How long until the shark finished its meal and returned for more?
    Aiden pulled off his jacket, wrenched off his boots and dove into the water. Although he had already been soaked through, the cold of total immersion was shocking. He gasped for breath. It felt like a giant icicle had been driven up through his chest and into the center of his brain. Aiden reached the drowning man in half a minute, but his limbs were already so numb he could barely grab hold of him. He managed to turn Fish over and get his face above the water, but Fish did not gasp at the sudden air. His head just flopped to the side. Aiden tried to tow him by the jacket, but his fingers would not hold. The freezing water made his hand little more than a club, unable to grasp. Well, he thought with an odd tranquillity, I’ve learned another stupid thing not to do in life. Desperately, he managed to thrust his arm down the back of Fish’s jacket, hooking it with his elbow. Aiden kicked and pulled with his free arm, but it was like towing a log. His heart was made of leather. He stopped trying to swim and focused on simply keeping both their heads above water. He had almost drowned once before, but he felt none of that panic now, only a sense of awe at the power of cold that now owned him. It was strangely peaceful. Then, just before he surrendered completely to the peace, he felt something hard bump against his back.

iden woke gasping for breath, hot and crushed. In his brain fog, he was certain there was a polar bear lying on top of him, but when he shoved against the suffocating weight, he found that it slipped off easily, spilling only a pile of blankets. He leaned up on his elbows and cautiously tested reality. Dim gray light came in through a small, round window, casting shadows on strange cupboards and foreign boots. He was in a narrow bed in a tiny cabin. On a boat. He sat up all the way. Sense and memory flashed like lightning through his brain, tumbling the dramas of the past few days together. He raked his fingers through his greasy hair. Slow facts began