Chapter 9 | Part 2

The oars caught again. Drusniel hauled until the handles creaked, gaining almost nothing.

He could not keep this up.

He would try twenty strokes, then a short burst of air. Rest between workings. Enough distance might put him beyond the creature, if his body lasted.

He pulled through the first three strokes without looking down.

At seventeen, the left oar sank into resistance like tar.

At eighteen, both oars moved as if through mist.

At nineteen, the boat slid sideways.

Twenty.

He waited for a current.

A weak flow crossed the stern.

Drusniel caught it, narrowed it, and drove it backward.

The boat surged.

Cold spread from the Null into his chest. His breath caught before he had sent the boat half as far as he intended.

Below, the presence shifted closer.

Drusniel released the air.

Row again.

He began the next count.

One.

Two.

Three.

Five.

Five again.

Then four.

He stopped speaking.

He could still hear himself saying five.

He tried rhythm instead.

Pull. Release.

Pull. Release.

That lasted until one stroke took half the effort of the next, then twice the effort, then none. The sea refused a stable cadence.

Water sloshed around his boots. He set an oar across his lap and bailed with the empty provision tin, watching the shadow under the hull.

He would have to save the air workings for when the oars could do nothing. His next attempt to lift the tin sent a tremor up his arm.

A shadow passed beneath him.

The hull shivered.

Drusniel froze.

Something touched the underside once, lightly enough to feel like a knock on a door.

He almost reached for it through the water.

He crushed the impulse.

The boat drifted.

The presence remained directly below.

Drusniel waited until a faint current brushed his cheek.

He could use it.

He should not.

The boat had almost stopped.

He caught the current and drove it back along the stern. Pain buckled him over the oar in his lap.

The stern kicked forward.

The response beneath him was immediate.

The hull rose an inch as something followed.

Drusniel released the working.

Too late.

A long shape moved under the boat, too deep for detail, too large for scale.

He rowed.

His hands had started bleeding at the base of the fingers. He adjusted his grip around the torn skin and kept pulling.

He searched for shore until his eyes watered. The grey horizon gave him nothing to steer toward.

He tried one more calculation.

His last burst had barely moved the boat. He might have strength for two more, if the next did not finish him.

The Null pulsed.

The thing below brushed the hull again.

Harder this time.

Drusniel looked at the oars.

“Fine,” he told the sea.

He rowed without counting.

End of Chapter 9.2 —> 9.3: The Nightmare Sea: The Silence