Free Voyage of the Fox Rider by Dennis L. McKiernan Page B

away from the
Eroean
, her battened sails afire, her decking aflame.
    Aravan glanced at her but once, then looked away, for it was a ship that burned, and somehow he felt as if a wrong were being done. Even so, he would not tow her as salvage, for she would merely slow his own ship down. And he could not leave her in these waters, else she would once again be used as a raider. And so he had her burned but did not watch, feeling all the while vaguely guilty of some indeterminate unspecified crime.
    And as the
Eroean
haled about and started to surge forward—“Up anchor,” the Elf commanded.
    Rico piped the anchor aboard, and sailors in the bow cranked the windlass deosil, the great bronze grapnel breaking free of the bottom and riding the chain upward, and the Elvenship ran unfettered at last.
    Her bow quartered to the wind, a short haul they coursed and then came about and entered in among the crags jutting up from the sea, tacking along a safe channel through the sharp-toothed Dragon’s Fangs. Then they swung once more onto a larboard tack, to slip past the last of the jagged rocks. And now the water was clear before them, the strait widening out. And with her face to the breeze the
Eroean
put her shoulder to the sea, cleaving the waves, running westward, sails set and billowing, dawnlight illuminating the white wake behind.
    And far abaft beyond the rocks a ship burned, orange flames lighting the sky.

    The Elvenship cleared the Straits of Alacca ere noon of that first day, yet westerly she continued to fare, tacking west nor’west and west sou’west, close hauled to the east-running wind. She ran this way for a night and a day before turning on a sou’western course, the wind now starboard abeam and growing in strength, the
Eroean
swift-cutting through the indigo waters of the deep, wide Sindhu Sea.
    Aiming for the southern latitudes, down where the winds blow strong, sou’westerly she drove, her hull dark blue above the waterline, the color of the sea, her sails the color of the sky. And when the wind heeled her over, her silver bottom showed, a bottom no barnacle could cling to, a bottom where no weed could grow. But the wind was not strong enough to challenge her outright, and so southward she drove running upright, slicing through the waves, her colors making her all but invisible to other ships afar.
    It would be a long run to the south, faring through the shifting monsoons and then the equatorial doldrums lying just ahead, beyond which they would at last come to the southern winds, first the trades and then the polars, a set of calms between. As to whither the Elvenship was bound, ‘round the cape she was headed, down where the wild gales rage, that goal yet some five thousand miles distant as the albatross flies—longer as the ship tacks. Then back to the north she would ply through the waters of the Weston Ocean, aiming for the Avagon Sea. For it was to Arbalin Isle she was bound, bearing her precious cargo—nutmeg and cinnamon and porcelain ware—where it would fetch a premium.
    Then it was back to adventure for this crew, seeking out legend and fable. It mattered not whether the legends were true, for the seeking was the sum of the game. Had they wanted nothing but wealth, then merchants of the seas they would have become, for with but a few trips of the Elvenship they could each make their fortune many times over.
    Yet comfort and riches suited not Aravan, and neither did it satisfy his well-chosen crew. And so only occasionally did the
Eroean
bear merchandise for market, and that but to fund their quests, setting a little aside for thetimes after, when they would leave the sea and settle down to a more staid existence. But that was for later and not for now, and not for the times immediately ahead, for legend and fable yet called to this crew, sweet voices singing in their hearts, in their spirits, and luring them on. And so they hied across the sea, the Elvenship’s holds laden to the hatches.
    And