by Rj Barker
“A pair of four-ribbers and a two-ribber against us,” said Joron. Beneath the mask he grinned at Farys, and Farys, knowing him well enough to read the movements of his eye and the cloth across his face, grinned back.
“Seems unfair on ’em, if you ask me,” she said.
“Jennil,” shouted Joron, “get your seaguard fully armed, I went half of them up the spines with crossbows. The rest belowdeck, ready for boarding. Solemn Muffaz! Clear my ship for action! And I want…”
Before he could finish speaking the Gullaime exploded from belowdeck in a blur of bright colour, flapping robes and noise.
“Stop ship! Stop ship!” screeched at the top of its considerable voice. Behind it came Madorra, also screeching.
“Listen! Listen!”
“What do you mean, Gullaime?” roared Joron in his best storm voice. “The creature is dead, there is no danger.”
“Dead! Dead!” shouted the Gullaime, speeding down the ship toward the beak so it could look over the sea at the rapidly growing corpse. “Much danger! Much danger!”
“From what?” said Joron as the Gullaime turned and ran back up the deck.
“Poison! Poison!”
“Hiylbolts,” said Joron, “they have managed to make them at last?”
The Gullaime screamed at him, opened its beak wide showing the cave of spines within and screeched for all it was worth, before spinning round on the spot twice in frustration.
“Poison! Poison! Sea sither poison!”
“They are not poisonous, quiet yourself. I have read the books, Gullaime, and granted, death is never pleasant, especially the death of a creature so great.”
“No!” it screeched, shaking its entire body. “Stupid human. Stupid.”
“Gullaime, I—”
“Stupid! Keyshan dead. Keyshan dead. Dead keyshan bad. Poison!”
“Gullaime,” he stepping toward it. “Speak more slowly. Please, I do not understand.”
“The fire in the heart. Heart break, fire unleashed.”
“There is no fire, Gullaime,” said Farys.
The Gullaime turned slowly, first its head, then its neck, then its body. The mask that covered its eyes focused on Farys.
“Stupid human. Not see fire. Poison fire.” All around the Gullaime the women and men of Tide Child were smiling and grinning to one another at this display of strangeness and insubordination – they had come to expect such things from their gullaime. It was a creature of odd passions, given to taking against the strangest things. Then Solemn Muffaz stepped forward.
“My mother used to say ‘sooner break a keyshan’s heart’, if she were making a promise she would never break,” he said.
“I have heard such a thing,” said Joron, “may even have said it myself but…”
“Among the bonewrights,” said Colwulf, stepping forward, speaking quietly, still unsure of her position on the ship, “’tis well known the flensers never allowed a heart to stay near a town.”
“Ey,” said Cwell from behind him, “those born near a heartground seldom come out right or live long.”
And as each spoke, the Gullaime’s masked head flicked from them back to Joron.
“Listen!” it squawked. “Stupid ship man!”
Joron was about to explain to it that it was wrong, simple superstition. That they could not simply believe it and allow the bones to fall into the arms of the Hundred Isles. That to do so was to supply material for more boneships. To undo their work in weakening the Hundred Isles to bring Meas back. To make the fight for peace when she returned harder.
Something black caught his eye. Something black and strange and boneless moving across the huge corpse. He lifted the nearglass once more. A shudder ran through him. A tunir, the black-spined, three-legged killing machine he knew to fear like few other beasts. Yet it moved like no tunir he had seen, it crawled across the body, plainly struggling. Then it staggered, tripped over its own rubbery legs and fell, rolling down the sheer side of the keyshan as slack as seaweed tipped from a bucket until it splashed into the water. As he watched he realised this scene was wrong. Where were the skeers? There were no skeers flying above the corpse. Anything that died on the ocean attracted the carrion birds and yet here, the biggest creature alive in the entire archipelago had died and there were no skeers.
Tide Child flying full speed toward the corpse with all his wings out, his commander wondering why there were no skeers around the corpse.
Was he being foolish?
Something hazy above the carcass. Like heat on a summer’s day. But the air was cold.
He let the nearglass dip.
The water full of jewels.
No.
Fish.
Dead fish.
And in among the fish there were the skeers, or their corpses. Attracted by the bounty. Killed by something invisible.
“Hard to landward!” he shouted and ran to the rear rail of the ship. “Hard to landward!” he shouted at the smaller ship behind them and then Tide Child tilted, the sea rushing up to meet them, the edge of the circle of dead birds and fish that marked the radius of the poison so much closer than it had been before. “Hold on! Hold on!” he shouted. The ship came around, tilting further and further, the turn feeling impossibly tight for such a large ship. The circle of death drawing closer. Behind them the smaller ship turned in a tighter circle and he could hear the Gullaime screaming out a raucous squawk, “Poison! Poison!” The deck now heeled over so steeply Joron had to pull himself along one of the ropes, finding the gullaime.
“How far does it reach, this poison?”
“Not far?” The ship shook and creaked. “Long way? Not know! Not know!” The circle of deathly water grew nearer.
“How long does it stay?”
“Long and long, many lives.” The ship creaked and shook, the circle of deathly water still nearer.
“How quickly does it kill?”
“Weeks, hours, year. All different.” He stared into the colourful feathered mask of the Gullaime and heard a cheer as the ship began to right itself, skirting the edge of the poisonous water, the giant hill of the keyshan’s corpse moving to seaward of them. At the furthest edge of the turn, where Tide Child almost touched the deathly circle around the corpse, Joron finally felt the heat he associated with the vast beasts, yet this was different. Where before it had been warming, like lifting his face to Skearith’s Eye, this was a scorching heat, a flaying heat, like the wind after a hagspit strike, a devouring heat that set the sores on his face burning. The poison from the beast was not some ichor that leaked from it despoiling only the water, it was something on the air, some unknown element within that radiated out from it, killing all that came too close whether over or under the water. Silently, he thanked the Gullaime for warning him, if not for it they would have flown straight into the poison and all aboard would have died. He felt as sure about that as the slate beneath his feet.
“Barlay!” he shouted. “Bring us alongside the Last Light. Seakeep! Bring in the wings, slow us down.” He stared over the side at the Hundred Isles boneships, still a good way off. His mind so used to measuring time and distance and wind he did not notice the effort of the calculations even as he did them, did not consciously consider any one of these things as they had become a part of him, like breathing, like pain, like disease and like loss. Four turns of the glass away at least, even with gullaime to assist them. “Heave to! Solemn Muffaz! Bring him to a stop!”
“All stop!” shouted the giant who stood before the mainspine, “let out the seastay!” Over the side went the concertina of rope and varisk cloth that would hold the ship still and Tide Child came to rest beside the Last Light. Joron went to the rail.
“Ho the Last Light!”
“Ho the Tide Child!” came the reply and Shipwife Chiver, a tall man who wore his long hair in a thick braid that fell down his back and the sculpted trews and leather straps of the Kept, he was as pale as Joron was dark. His face thick with scars earned fighting in Joro
n’s fleet. “It seems we have found a mighty prize out here!”
“Ey, but this cup is poisoned, Shipwife,” Joron shouted back. “Look in the water around it, it brings only death.”
“So what is your plan then, Deckkeeper?” and when he said the rank, it took Joron back to the days it had been first given, when no one had respected him or thought him worthy.
“Well, there is a great jointweight of bone there in the water, Shipwife,” he said. “I plan to give those ships out there what seems a very generous gift.”
“If you are wrong about this poison, it is a costly mistake.” Chiver did not hide his scorn.
“Feel free to take your ship nearer, if you, wish, Chiver,” said Joron. All action stopped aboard Last Light. The crew looked to their shipwife, who stared at the circle of black water, full of dead creatures. Chiver also looked, for a moment. Then turned back to Joron.
“They will think it odd if the Black Pirate simply runs away, D’keeper,” He shouted over the water.
“Ey, they will. So we must bloody ourselves a little.” He saw a smile appear on Chiver’s scarred face. “But not you, I am afraid, Shipwife. Given long enough to think about it they may make the link between the old heartgrounds where all is death, and the poison around this keyshan. They must not think. I want them to take it in tow, and if they get it back to Bernshulme then it could destroy their entire fleet.”
“So what is your plan?”
“I want you to run, as if you are going for reinforcements. There will be no new scars for you today.”
“I will not pretend I am less than disappointed, D’keeper,” he shouted back, “but if we simply run they will know something is wrong – that is not the reputation the Black Pirate has cultivated. Would be stranger to run than stay and fight.”
“Ey,” Joron shouted back, “Tide Child will engage, but then break off. They will think we got a little full of ourselves then thought better of it. But your escape will have them worried that more of our ships are coming. I am sorry to deny you a fight, Chiver.”
He grinned, and waved a finger in the air.
“Well, the Hag knows the black ships, and she will scar me another day, no doubt. Fly well.”
“And you, Shipwife Chiver.” He turned away, calling out to his crew, and the ropes were pulled and the wings hoisted. He watched, always a beautiful sight to see the serrated and hooked hull of a boneship go from still to moving, the way the wings billowed then snapped tight as the wind caught them. The sound of women and men heaving on ropes and the slow, almost imperceptible first movements as he caught the wind and the ship gathered impetus. Then building up of speed until the movement seemed unstoppable, and the speed seemed limitless and Joron knew he could watch happily until the Last Light vanished over the horizon and the wake of white water faded into one with the sea, as everything must eventually. Maybe in another life he would have done just that, and spent his days on a beach somewhere, watching the boneships come and go.
But this was not that life, and he turned from Last Light and back to his own ship, saw his crew arrayed and waiting on his word, like longthresh sniffing blood, eager and ready. “Hoist the mainwing! Untruss the gallowbows! Get yourselves ready for there will be blood, and there will be suffering and there will be death!” He walked among them. “But let that be at our hand, and let the Hag hear my voice, and know we do not act in vain, for we do this for the black ships, for the Hag, and for Lucky Meas!” And the cry was returned,
“For Lucky Meas!”
And the wings went up, and Tide Child began to move, and in the distance two boneships, white as fear, grew larger and larger.
7
Blood on the Water
Tide Child gripped the wind. Cut through water. His music the rhythmic crash and hiss of the beak smashing through waves. The beat guiding the song of the crew as they pulled on the ropes, tightened wings, altered rigging. Two white ships growing larger.
Corpselights glowed above them. Too far to make out the colours yet.
He knew that across the water, the shipwives of those ships would mirror him. Stood on their rumps between their officers. Staring down the deck, between the gallowbow crews crouched around their weapons. Shot and bolt stacked. Gullaime gathered before the mainspine. Deck strewn with sand to soak up the blood. Ropes and nets through the rigging to catch falling spars and wings. Weapon racks brought up.
Ships of war.
Not long now.
Far behind them a third enemy ship now approached and Last Light made his escape, though Joron had already put Chiver’s vessel out of his mind. He had a plan, and that approaching third ship was part of it though he did not intend to fight it, and it would play no part in his current calculations for the coming battle unless something went terribly wrong.
“My crew! My proud women and men, my black pirates!” To this a cheer. “The time for blooding comes, but we will play a fancy trick. What pain they take out of us, they will suffer a thousandfold, for that keyshan we leave behind is a poison, it is death to all that approach it. Given time, a clever shipwife would notice, as we noticed, ey?”
“Ey!” And nudges and winks and looks were exchanged, for although he never called himself shipwife, the deckkeeper was a clever one all right, and how could he not be, being Lucky Meas’s son?
“So we must sell them a ruse; first we will engage. Not for long, just long enough for them to think we leave because of that third ship. And they will think that we leave to get help. So they will hurry to lash up that keyshan and tow it away. They have no loyal gullaime to warn them of the danger! So, I tell you this, the Hag may take from us today, she’ll want paid in blood, and we’ll see little from it, for I do not want those ships destroyed or crippled. I would leave them strong enough to take my little gift, maybe take it all the way back to Bernshulme to poison their water. So stand fast! Stand strong! Stand for Lucky Meas!”
And the call came back, strong and proud.
“For Lucky Meas!”
“Gullaime!” he shouted. Before him on the deck, the brightly coloured figure stood tall within a circle of white-robed acolytes. Its feathered mask turned to him. “Are you ready to bring me the wind, Gullaime?”
The Gullaime opened its curved predatory beak, lifted it to the sky, raised its wingclaws so its coloured robe became flashing wings and it screamed, and Joron felt the familiar pain in his ears, the heat across the deck as it took hold of the weather. Clouds appeared above the ship, first white then darkening and it felt as if the Gullaime’s scream never stopped, as if it reached out across the water and Joron imagined the crew of those approaching ships hearing it, wondering what it was that could make such a noise. Seeing the clouds that gathered around Tide Child, and he knew they must feel fear. Brave deckchilder, he thought, to still come on. Brave officers, to face the Black Pirate despite the noise they must hear, despite the clouds they must see, despite the savage reputation he had.
A crack of lightning. His ship writ out in stark white lines. A rumble of thunder.
“Hold there, Gullaime!” he shouted. “I’ll not have them run from us in terror.”
“Sea sither spirit,” shouted the Gullaime. “In the air. Angry.”
“Then calm it, Gullaime,” he shouted, “we want to put up a good fight and run, not blow them from the sea.”
“Foolish, smash bad humans.” The gullaime yarked to itself and those in its circle nodded their heads, all except Madorra who hissed at Joron as the storm calmed, the clouds paled and the wind fell to something more manageable.
Two ships advanced and Joron Twiner, shipwife in all but name, smiled to himself.
“Open the bowpeeks! Crew the gallowbows, we’ll fight both sides as we pass!” At those words he heard the slap of bone on bone as the bowpeeks on the underdeck were opened. Two ships, approaching fast. The two-ribber less of a threat, only ten small bows on its deck and Tide Child was far taller. The smaller ship could not sweep his decks with stone, or fire into the
bow crews. All the two-ribber’s shot would be straight into the hull and Joron knew Tide Child was sturdy enough to take it.
“Untruss the bows!” Farys, her voice cutting through the song of the wind. Gavith the bowsell nodded and the crews went to work, bringing up and over the firing arms of the heavy bows so they stood ready for their bloody work.
The four-ribber was his problem: not as big as Tide Child, unlikely to do enough damage on one sweep to stop them – though there was always the chance of a lucky shot, a spine coming down, the tiller shot away – and then it would be boarding and hand-to-hand and real hard and harsh work.
Though it would be harsh whatever.
One pass – four great bows, probably loaded with rocks, ten smaller bows loosing directly into the underdeck. He foresaw it, the slate awash with blood in the blue glow of the corpselights, the way the gentle blue made it look the deepest purple. The screaming. The agony. The endless churn of the longthresh in the water as the dead went overboard and he again saw that flash, that moment long ago that never truly left him; his father crushed between two hulls.
He felt his hands shake. Not fear, not quite. Or maybe it was but he had become so used to it he no longer recognised it, felt it as excitement, felt it as anger, felt it as a burning fury for what he believed was right. Inside, where there had once been fear, and then hate, there was now only an empty place. When he did feel fear, it was often the fear that someone would see the hollow within him, or that the lack of direction and purpose was a symptom of the rot eroding his mind. He needed Meas back.
Shaking hands behind your back. Stand straight.
Get them ready.
“Today,” he shouted, ignoring the closing ships, not thinking of the damage a bolt could do to him, “my women and men, my loyal girls and boys. We fight a quick fight, once through and we’ll be off. Put on a good show, hurt ’em bad but not too bad. We want them to feel like they’ve won their prize!” A glance forward, the ships large in his view. In his mind counting down the grains of sand in the glass before he gave the command.