by Rj Barker
Ships growing.
Water rushing.
Ships growing
Rigging singing.
Ships growing.
“Wind the bows!” he yelled, Gavith shouting the same, the bowsells echoing him. Furious work on the deck, women and men winding back the cords on the gallowbows. Shouts going up of “Ready! Ready! Ready!” all along the slate as the cords locked in, the warmoan of tightly stretched cord sang out. “Load the bows!” The bolts going into the grooves.
The ships growing.
Water rushing.
Rigging singing.
He could make out the keyshan skulls on the front, so much smaller than on the creatures he had seen. For a second he wondered what it had been like, in the days of the great boneships, the skullships that must have had crews of thousands. To crew such a ship now would empty Bernshulme.
What was it all for?
“We’ll not go the Hag today!” he screamed into the air. “We shall not hear her call!” A roar from the deck.
The ships growing.
Warmoan loud in his ears.
The sound of Tide Child, hungering for blood.
“Loose as they bear!”
Into the maelstrom.
Into a storm of shot.
The bows on either side of the deck loosing. The two-ribber’s shot angled up, trying to cut Tide Child’s rigging, punching through wing and bouncing off spar and spine but not strong enough to smash through it. The four-ribber loosing its shot, sweeping the decks of Tide Child, cutting through his crew. Saw Chelvin have her legs ripped from under her. Saw Hotston lose his head in a pink spray. Saw Kitgon’s torso seem to just vanish, arms legs and head hanging there for a second. Shards of bone were smashed from the rail and the hull, piercing and bludgeoning and cutting. Blood hanging in the air as the storm moved down the deck to surround him with noise and screams and violence. And all the time, that thing that was not fear and not anger and not hate growing within him. A bolt ripped through the circle of gullaime, killing two of the white-robed windtalkers, but the rest did not waver and despite the violence the wind kept coming and the ship kept moving and that dark empty place within Joron kept growing until they had passed through the storm.
The order was there, in Joron’s mouth. Bring him round. So easy to say it – his Gullaime, his friend could work the wind like no other. Vengeance for the pain they had just suffered could be his, swing the ship round, loose into the rear of his enemy. So vulnerable now. Fire his wingbolts with hagspit. Watch them burn and die.
“We’re clear, D’keeper!”
Deep breath. Blood on the decks. Bodies to seaward and landward. The ships behind them the same, a faint haze of bonedust about them both. Swallowing air as if to fill the empty place within him, suddenly aware he had been holding his breath.
“Full wings! Gullaime, give me more wind, let’s get out of here.” He stepped forward, “Farys, I’d know the price we paid the Hag if you would.”
“Ey, D’keeper,” she said, and turned to relay the order to Solemn Muffaz, who took it gladly, even though she was half his age and third his experience, for he had taught her all he knew and was well proud of the woman she had become. And all around them the deck was cleared of the dead, and the wounded were dragged below to the hagbower.
“D’keeper? D’keeper?” He found Gavith looking up at him, holding out a rag.
“Ey, Gavith?”
“For your face, D’keeper,”
“My face?” he said.
“The blood.”
He raised a hand, touched his cheek above the scarf, found wetness, blood flowing from a cut below his eye. Recognised a cut that would need stitching, would leave another grey scar on his dark skin. Took the rag from Gavith.
“Thank you.”
“You should go to Garriya, have it stitched, D’keeper.”
A scream from down the deck as a man was lifted – Chariff, he thought, a good deckchild, his leg broken, white bone showing through flesh.
“Others need her attentions more than I right now, Gavith.” The boy nodded.
“Ey, D’keeper,” he said, bowed his head and glanced across at Farys, gave her a shy smile that she ignored. Solemn Muffaz arrived, a spray of drying blood across the light brown skin of his face.
“D’keeper,” he said, his voice as sonorous and serious as ever.
“What news from the Hag?”
“None good, D’keeper. Twelve lost to shot as we passed, another four we will lose, three we may and if we do not they will be poor deckchilder from now, on account of not having an arm or leg.” He paused, glanced down at Joron’s spur. “Although, I suppose one can learn to cope with anything, ey?”
“Indeed, Deckmother; in truth I worried it would be worse.”
“It is worse.”
“And how is that?” The big man rolled his shoulders.
“Colwulf, the bonemaster, she only says the mainspine caught a bolt.” An immediate cold shock through Joron and he stared down the deck, all too aware of the tower of wings, catching the wind and straining the central spine of the ship. “Says it ain’t about to go yet, but we should be careful.” As he finished speaking, Colwulf, a small thin woman swathed in bandages, appeared from below with three of her fellows, all carrying spars of hardened varisk.
“What goes, Colwulf?” said Joron, striding down the slate accompanied by the deckmother. “Does my ship ail?”
The woman paused in directing her helpers up the spine.
“For sure it does, as it will indeed if you insist on taking him into the range of other’s bows, and who has to fix it all with dear old Coxward gone to the Hag? Colwulf, ey. Colwulf does.” She turned away and spat on the deck, and Joron swallowed his annoyance. The bonemasters were an odd lot, afflicted with the rot, just like him, and Meas had told him to treat the good ones well and Colwulf was as good as they came, trained as she was by Coxward.
“How does he ail, Colwulf? Should I bring down the wings?” She sucked her teeth, or on what she had left of them.
“If I thought that I would not have brought up the bracing, no. Caught a glancing blow further up, took out a chunk but it seems strong still. I’ll have my women and men up there, tying on the varisk around it. I’ll leave old Chiff up there to watch for any sign of splinters.”
“Good, now—”
“While we is talking, D’keeper, the spine is weakening, so you go do your ordering them that need it about and I will do my job, ey?” Joron nodded, suddenly feeling no more a commander than the day he stepped aboard Tide Child.
“You do that, Colwulf,” he said and turned back to Solemn Muffaz. “There is something I would speak with you of, Deckmother, privately.” He walked the big man to the rail.
“How can I help, D’keeper,” said the deckmother.
“Farys,” he said, “and Gavith.” Solemn Muffaz nodded.
“I have noticed.”
“The Bernlaw, Solemn Muffaz, it is strict on such things. Lovers of the same sex only, a child must never be brought onto a ship of war.” Joron stared out over the sea. “I am only a deckkeeper, Muffaz,” he said. “If I went against the Bernlaw for my crew there are those in our own fleet who would use it against me, and many who would agree.” He turned to look at Solemn Muffaz. “You must speak to Farys and Gavith, I have no wish to find Farys with child and then be forced to pronounce sentence of death upon them. None at all, I could not stand it.”
“I will speak to them, Deckkeeper,” he said, his voice so low it was little more than a growl.
“Thank you,” said Joron, “such an order is likely to cause less resentment coming from a friend than a commander.” Solemn Muffaz nodded and turned away, to be about the clearing of Tide Child’s decks.
For a moment Joron wondered if he had made a mistake, if he had simply pushed away a task he did not wish to do onto another. But the decision was made so he took out his nearglass and stared behind them. The two ships he had fought were making good tim
e away from him, all their wings raised and full of wind as they sped toward the corpse of the arakeesian and all that had in store for them. He allowed himself a little smile at that, wondered if right at that moment they were jeering him, calling him out for a coward that he ran from them. Then the larger of the two ships moved a little and Joron saw the third ship, the one that had been on the horizon. Too big to be one of his. It also had full wings raised, a tower of billowing white and six blue corpselights glowed above it. But it was not heading toward the massive corpse, it was heading toward him. As he watched it an arrow was launched from the tops. Up and up it went, a flame burning brightly and when it reached the zenith of its climb the arrow burst into a dirty black smear against the blue, blue sky.
“A signal,” he said to himself.
“Could be ruse though, D’keeper,” said Farys, coming to join him, “to scare us away from the corpse, like?”
“Could be, Farys,” he replied, and put away thoughts of his conversation with Solemn Muffaz, “but we cannot afford to treat it as such. We must presume there are those out there watching for such a signal, and now they will be coming.”
“A chase then?” she said.
“Ey, a chase, and with the mainspine weaker than I would like we must be canny about it. Call Aelerin, have them set up the table in the great cabin. Our pursuers will know we head back to the Gaunt Islands and I would not fly straight into a trap. Let us see if we can outthink them.”
“If they pursue us,” said Farys.
“Ey, if, but no one ever died from being over-prepared, as the shipwife always said.”
“Indeed,” she said and turned away, heading toward the underdeck with the name of the courser already on her lips.
8
A Well-Observed Plan
Aelerin’s map table was constructed on two wide varisk boards. It had been made by the courser and Mevans, scavenging all they could from around Tide Child – old clothes and rags, broken bones and pins – until they had amassed a collection of objects quite as eclectic and useless-seeming as anything the Gullaime had gathered within its cabin-nest. Then they had set to work making a recreation of the Hundred Isles, or as near to one as they could – a recreation which, every time they set it up, Aelerin was quick to point out was “not to scale, and not correct in every way.” Nonetheless, Joron thought it an amazing thing, to stand within the great cabin and look down upon his world, the Hundred Isles and the Gaunt Islands, split by the black line that represented Skearith’s Spine. I did not build the Spine as it would obscure the rest of the map, and take too many materials, but I could… He mentally waved away that echo of the courser’s voice as his mind made its way around the map and through the islands, drifting across the lines where the gion was dying, down and through where it was growing, and from there along the fractious winds of the Northstorm, blown up toward the Eaststorm, grabbed and thrown toward the Weststorm and then, once more, gently drifting down to the Southstorm in the eternal circle of air currents passed around the walls of cloud that encircled the world he knew.
And for a moment, he thought of the impossible, the unmentioned, the question that was eternal but never asked. Was there something beyond the storms? Every deckchild knew someone who claimed they had travelled through them, to rich and fabled lands of comfort. And every deckchild knew them a liar, for the storms were impassable. They ripped up any ship that approached; even their edges were fierce enough to tear the wings off a ship’s spines. No, those who talked of passage through were liars and fools for they were as impenetrable as any wall.
“Deckkeeper,” said Aelerin, “my apologies for the map but…”
“It is a thing of wonder, Aelerin, no apologies are needed.”
“But I could…” He saw Mevans move forward, gently touch the courser’s arm and smile and the courser, cowled and hidden, gently nodded and took a step back. The once-silent courser had become positively loquacious since the mutiny, as much part of Joron’s command crew as any other on the ship, though Joron could not shake the feeling they were always slightly embarrassed to be speaking out.
“A boneship follows us,” he said. “We need to avoid tangling with him.”
“Unlike you to run from a fight, D’keeper,” said Mevans, “and that’ll be two in one day.” A look shared at Mevans’s gentle teasing.
“Oh, it is all I can do not to turn around and bloody our pursuer’s nose, but we took a pounding early on, and Tide Child trails a lot of weed on his bottom. We need to careen the ship and clear it off if we are to have best speed and movement.”
“We could still take him,” said Solemn Muffaz, the huge man speaking quietly as he slipped in through the door. “Nothing on the water that Tide Child cannot put under it, no matter how ill he feels or how far to landward he pulls.”
“You noticed that too,” said Joron. “I fear something struck the tiller below the water. I am thankful for your belief in the ship, Solemn Muffaz, but the time for battle is not now, and my decision is made.”
“I hear, D’keeper, and what you say, well, that will be done, for it is no doubt the right course you set.” Beneath his mask Joron smiled; it touched him, this simple belief strong women and men had in him. But at the same time something dark within him called, something that could, with just a little more persuasion, give the order to turn the ship and wreak havoc on those behind. To rend and kill and strike back at those who had taken his shipwife, his leg, his Dinyl.
A deep breath.
“Aelerin, I want to get back to Sparehaven in the Gaunt Islands as quickly as possible. We have weakened the Hundred Isles beyond anything that could be expected, and if they take that keyshan corpse back to Bernshulme it will weaken the Hundred Isles past even what Tenbern Aileen and all her Gaunt shipwives dream of.”
“Then we move against them,” said Mevans.
“Ey,” said Joron quietly, “then the Tenbern can move against them, I care naught for that, though we may have to commit ships from our fleet to help them. What interests me is the shipwife. They will take Bernshulme and I will find Meas if I have to burn the whole place to the ground and kill every woman and man there to do it.”
“Some of our crews will have family there, D’keeper,” said Solemn Muffaz, and Joron caught the warning in his tone. Nodded, for Solemn Muffaz kept his crew in line, and a large part of that was done by ensuring they had no wish to step over the line in the first place.
“We will do all we can to protect families, Solemn Muffaz, you know this, and I would have you make that known across the deck and through underdecks.” He took a deep breath, then added quietly, “But do not let them forget, Solemn Muffaz, that this will be war, and people will die. War is like the Northstorm, the Hagsbreath, it cannot be controlled.”
“True, D’keeper,” he said. “I will make sure the crews know the way the currents drift.”
“Thank you, Solemn Muffaz. Now, to the business in hand.”
“Eames’s Passage is nearest.” Aelerin, pointing at a slit in the black lines of Skearith’s Spine.
“But almost definitely patrolled,” said Mevans.
“Ey,” said Joron.
“Word among the Gaunt Islands coursers, afore we left, was a line of ships and watchtowers in the waters above the centreline.” Aelerin pulled a piece of string across the centre of the map. Then placed a small model boat, a simple piece of carved varisk, behind it. Then they placed another. “The first is us,” they said, “and we head up toward the patrolled line and calmer waters. I dream gentle winds.”
“We could slip through at night,” said Solemn Muffaz.
“That ship following would alert them, we would be swarmed.”
“Then we try and slip through Eames Passage? Or one of the lower passes?” said Mevans.
“We turn around and go south,” said Aelerin. “To here,” they touched the map, “Wilson’s Cut.”
“South?” said Joron.
“Ey, the cold times there are coming and the
Southstorm bears its teeth. And the route is longer, right enough.”
“But unlikely to be patrolled.”
“The ice,” said Solemn Muffaz, “it is as dangerous as any ship. Not like the north where it stays still, the ice in the south wanders.”
“And that is why they are not likely to follow us,” said Joron. He stared at the map, knew the danger of ice, the great floating islands that could be seen, and the low sitting ice reefs that could not. Knew the way the cold bit into the bone of a ship, made it brittle, how ropes under tension could weaken and snap, cutting an unlucky deckchild in half. How hard it was to work the ship in the freezing air, the way flesh could blacken, fingers and toes could be lost. He scratched at his shoulder where the sores on his body were at their worst.
“D’keeper.” Farys, walking into the room.
“Ey, Farys?”
“Topboys report another ship, coming for’ard of us off the seaward side.”
“Size?”
“Too far away to tell for sure, but they think another four-ribber.” Joron stared at the map.
“Well, that is decided then,” he said. “I do not rightly want to fight one ship our equal, never mind two. We will head south toward the ice, and hope the Hag favours us.”
“Ey, D’keeper,” came the call from all about the room.
“And Farys,” said Joron. “You came yourself to give me this information?”
“Thought it important, D’keeper.” She said. “Gavith has the deck.” Ah, he thought, of course he does, and he noticed a similar frown upon the face of Solemn Muffaz to the one that must be on his.
“Thank you, Farys, but Gavith is not in a place of command, you are. Next time send him to me with the message.” She nodded, her burned face flushed with the admonishment.
“Ey, D’keeper.” She swallowed. “Should I turn the ship now?”
He shook his head. “No, Aelerin must chart a course for us and I would try a little bit of cleverness out on our shadows. Steer us on a course away from the two ships for now, as though we intend to continue north and pass through their line of lookouts.