The Bone Ship's Wake

by Rj Barker

  “Tie it off and bring out the gaffs!” said Solemn Muffaz, his voice carrying in the quiet night. Deckchilder ran ropes around tie-off points, others ran forward with the long hooked sticks to steady the ungainly pyramid dangling behind them and once the light from the rear lanterns showed it was steady he felt Jennil’s hand on his jacket.

  “Lower it, D’keeper?

  “Ey, lower it, but don’t put it in the water until I give the signal.”

  “Bring it down, my girls and boys,” said Jennil, “down till it kisses the waves soft as you kiss your shipfriends and no further.” All around him grunts and sighs as the weight was once more transferred to those holding the ropes, and he heard the shuffle of feet as they found purchase on the slate and his machine began to slowly make its way down to the sea.

  “Steady, steady,” he said. And further and further down it went, dropping below the level of the deck and Joron was leaning over the side, using the light of the rear lanterns to judge its fall. Below Mevans leaned out of one of the open windows.

  “It’s near, D’keeper,” said Mevans from below.

  “Ey, a little further though, I want as little to disturb it as possible when it drops.”

  “Ey,” said Mevans.

  “Hold fast!” hissed Joron. Then he turned to Farys at his shoulder, behind her was Cwell, a literal and lethal shadow that he had become so used to he barely even thought about. “Steady it,” he shouted as it started to swing with the motion of the ship, “or I’ll have Solemn Muffaz cord the lot of you.” The gaffs came up and the swinging stopped. “Gavith, Chadir!” he called. “Bring your lanterns.” Gavith came up with Chadir, the youngest member of the crew, both with covered lanterns. “Now listen, the both of you, when I give the order you are to uncover your lights, and not before and if you do I will feed you both to the longthresh, you understand?” They nodded. “Now get in position.” The two deckchilder were quickly over the rail and clambering over the mass of spars so that each sat at the furthest corners from the ship, leaning over as they hooked their lamps over the construction, then lashed them on.

  “Ready!” they called, almost in unison.

  “Loose its wing,” said Joron. And the two deckchilder pulled out the makeshift wing, designed to keep the thing straight and little else; he knew it would barely make headway but it did not have to. They lashed the wing in place before returning to their hooded lanterns.

  “Mevans?” shouted Joron, leaning over the side of the ship.

  “Ey, D’keeper, we’re ready.” Below, two of Mevans’ chosen were leaning out with snuffers, ready to put out the lamps on the rear of Tide Child.

  “After three,” said Joron, “all ready?” A chorus of “ey” in return. “Then one, two, three, now” And the lights on Tide Child were snuffed, just as Gavith and Chadir lifted the covers from their lanterns and those very few among Tide Child’s crew who had not worked out what their d’keeper had planned suddenly smiled in the darkness, and whispers were exchanged as Gavith and Chadir clambered back aboard the ship, grinning like children having carried out some prank. Joron wondered if on those following ships they had seen a momentary blink, and if they put it down to tired eyes, or if they were suspicious that some trick was being played. But he could not know, so he put it out of his mind. “Enough whispering!” shouted Joron. “To your places, get ready to bring us about and we do it in total darkness. I’ll not have any hurt themselves simply because of that; I’ll have you cleaning the bilges if you do, for you should all know this ship better than you know your shipfriends’ bodies. Get to it!” And all was action as Joron turned back to those at the A-frame, waiting with boarding axes. “Well then,” he said, “cut it loose.” The axes fell, the ropes were loosened and with barely a splash Joron’s makeshift recreation of Tide Child’s rear fell into the water; then the great ship started to come about in a gentle circle until his wings caught the wind conjured by the gullaime, filled out and pushed him onto his new course to the south.

  As he watched the lights of the decoy recede Farys came to stand by him.

  “How long do you think it will fool them D’keeper?” she said.

  “Until they catch it, or until it is light enough for them to see what it is. Let us hope it gives us enough time to get over the horizon.”

  “Ey,” said Farys. And Joron did not reply, lost in contemplation of the two lonely lights, slowly receding into the night.

  9

  The Open Sea

  Tide Child flew before the wind for six days, his black wings full, flags flying and hair whipping around the faces of those on the slate. And on each day, when Skearith’s Eye opened, Joron took to the deck and scanned the sea with his nearglass, and when Skearith’s Eye closed, Joron scanned the sea with his nearglass. And when the ship’s bell rang Joron scanned the sea with his nearglass and when he did not scan he walked up and down the deck and he found Aelerin and asked how they dreamed the winds and he found the answer always the same.

  “Brisk, the air clear.”

  And the air was clear, and the winds were brisk and did he imagine it or were they already becoming far colder?

  But Tide Child flew before the wind, and Joron found tasks for his eager crew, set them moving stores, the better to fly the ship. Set them with long gaffs to scraping at the hull from precarious rope swings, to remove as much weed as they could, and as they worked they sang and Joron closed his ears to the sound, concentrated on the sting of the sores on his face and shoulders, concentrated on the line between grey sea and blue sky and on how he hoped and hoped that the line would remain empty of all but lonely islands and soaring seabirds.

  On the seventh day, Joron began to believe they had done it, that they had misled their pursuers, and found enough speed to escape over the horizon and leave their enemies searching the seas in vain for Tide Child and his crew.

  But they had not.

  “Ship rising!”

  When the call was made, Joron felt it was his fault. That by starting to believe they had escaped he had somehow vexed the Sea Hag, and she had sent an errant wind to their pursuers. If it was the same ships. He did not know if it was. So he climbed the mainspine. His bone spur part of him now, the ache where it met his flesh like a familiar but unwelcome deckchild appearing on the rump. Up and up he went, around the billowing wings, feeling his ship through vibrating ropes, having his breath stolen by the wind as much as the height. Still, after so long, he felt the muscles of his thighs weaken a little when he looked own. Then he was in the tops with the topboy.

  “Where do you see him, Bearna?” She pointed behind them, and his eyes could pick out nothing, but when the horizon leapt at him through the circle of the nearglass, he found it quick enough.

  “Can’t tell his size, no I can’t for sure,” she said.

  “Four-ribber, a big one,” he replied, the words a gentle sigh. “I would wish it were the other, the smaller, but what care the Hag for wishes.” A movement caught his eye, little more than an errant dark dot upon the waves, could have been a seabird, or something of the deep coming up for food. But it was not, he knew that. It was the second ship, no doubt the smaller four-ribber that had previously been with the larger ship. He closed the long lens and placed it in his coat. “The answer, Bearna, is that the Hag cares nothing for the wishes of women and men. Keep an eye on those ships for me.”

  “Ey, D’keeper,” she said.

  With that he was down the spine, working his way through the nets of rigging until he felt the hard slate beneath him once more.

  “Jennil! Farys! Mevans! Solemn Muffaz!” he shouted, striding up the deck. “We have been making good time up until now, but not good enough. Use every trick, take every shortcut, put up every wing we have. Our ruse did not buy us the freedom we hoped for, but it did buy us time. If we can make Wilson’s Cut before we are caught then they will not follow us into Gaunt Islands territory, so we fly fast while the winds are good, ey, my crew, ey?”

  And a shout of
“Ey” returned, and if any woman or man felt the same dismay he did then they hid it well, as well as he hid it from them and each and every one resolved to keep that worry hidden deep within.

  “Farys,” he said, and she appeared at his arm, as calm and quick as if she had been expecting him to call at that exact moment.

  “Ey, D’keeper?”

  “Have Aelerin and Mevans set up the map table, let the Gullaime know I will wish to consult with it also. Try and keep Madorra and its Hag-cursed entourage away.”

  “Ey, D’keeper,” she said and was gone, leaving him on the deck to watch as his crew found new tasks to get themselves busy with, each and every one knowing their place and purpose and he did not need to call out, to say they needed every drop of speed that Tide Child had, did not need to ask for ropes tightened, for wings checked, for the hull scrapers to push themselves to reach that little bit further down to scrape off more weed. For these were the women and men of Tide Child, and they knew their ship as they knew themselves and he was naught but proud of them.

  Time passed, the bell rang and Joron paced the deck. He felt the nearglass in his pocket and fought the temptation to constantly stare through it, knowing such a thing would make him seem nervous and be unsettling for the crew. When he did once more raise it to his eye, he could not lose the feeling that the ships chasing them were gaining. Did they use their gullaime? Was that where they got this turn of speed from? For if so they could not keep it up. Their gullaime would tire, they would have to stop.

  In his heart he knew the winds favoured them the same way they favoured Tide Child and that their greater speed was simply that of well-run ships, fresh out of a port and using the advantage that gave them. He called a passing deckchild.

  “Reyan, kindly ask the courser to the rump, if you would.” And he barely heard the returned call of “Ey, D’keeper,” or saw the smile that passed on the face of Reyan, who was one of the newer crewmembers and felt a rush of pleasure not only that the d’keeper knew his name, but that he trusted him with such an important order.

  It seemed no time before the courser was by him on the deck of the rump, though enough time had passed for Joron to feel even more sure those two ships were gaining.

  “D’keeper,” said the courser. “I have left Mevans grumbling that he must set up the map table alone.” That gentle reproach at taking the courser from their beloved map brought a smile to Joron’s face, one that made the sores around his mouth sting.

  “Look at the ships chasing,” he said, passing over the nearglass, “I think they gain on us.” He waited, enjoying the play of the brisk wind around his face, the way it got under the scarf and cooled his skin.

  “I think they gain also,” said Aelerin. “It is hard to tell as they move and we move, and I need more time to take better measurements. If we change course to pass nearer that island to the east of us then that would help, a static marker is always good and—”

  “Could the wind favour them more than us?” He suppressed a smile, that the once so quiet courser now had to be stopped from talking too much.

  “Unlikely, D’keeper,” they said, “but not impossible. The storms can play strange tricks, they favour the Maiden that way, but I have dreamed no strangeness, seen only clear skies around us at this moment, so I think it safer to say we share the same winds.”

  “Mother give me a clean hull and we would vanish like the gion forest in the dying time,” he said under his breath, as he took back the nearglass and once more stared at the following ships. But the Mother did not magically make the weed fall from the bottom of Tide Child and Joron did not expect it to. Her children had disobeyed her long ago, when Hassith threw the spear that killed Skearith the godbird, and now they must help themselves. “Right.” He closed the nearglass and placed it in his jacket. “We should go and see if Mevans has your map table up yet.”

  “And that he has not damaged it.”

  “Indeed,” and again he smiled; that the courser could sound testy about anything was something he would never have believed, upon a time. He turned, two deckchilder stood, waiting their turn at scraping the hull. Each had a scraper, the wide blade on the end polished to a mirror sheen, and he caught glimpses of a figure in the shining blades: black clothes, tall, a missing leg, a masked face with many grey scars on the dark skin. He did not see Joron Twiner there, he saw his creation, the Black Pirate. We all change, he thought, but not all of us for the better.

  Down into the underdecks, the gloom lightened by open bowpeeks, the crew almost absent as all were on deck or below trying to eke a little more speed from the ship. From there into the great cabin, where the floor was dazzling white and Aelerin’s table sat on the desk and Meas’s chair sat to one side, with her hat hooked over the back.

  “D’keeper,” said Mevans, and he took a step back as Aelerin hurried forward, checking the map table was set up to their specifications.

  “Mevans,” said Joron. “if you could bring Jennil while Aelerin sets out our positions. Tell Farys she has the deck until I return.”

  “Ey, D’keeper.”

  She vanished and Aelerin set out her ships on the board, black for Tide Child, white for their pursuers. “It is not…”

  “To scale, I know, Aelerin.” He walked forward, staring down on the Scattered Archipelago as Aelerin lay a piece of string before the model of Tide Child and along the map, showing the course they intended to take toward the southern icefields and Wilson’s Cut.

  “You wanted me, D’keeper?” said Jennil as she entered.

  “Ey, Jennil. You were once a fleet officer, you and Mevans know as much about the sea as any other on the ship. Aelerin has set out our course, we are pursued by faster ships. I would hear what ideas you have to offer us.”

  Jennil stepped forward, staring down at the map with Joron, and it was clearly all Aelerin could do to not once more call out, “it is not to scale,” but the courser held back as the woman and the deckkeeper and the hatkeep studied the undulations and dark seas of the archipelago.

  “How is the weather for the next few weeks?” she said.

  “Aelerin said clear skies.”

  “Not quite, D’keeper,” said the courser, “I said that for now, regards the ship that follow. My dreams though, they have been troubled by thoughts of storms from the west coming toward us.”

  Joron’s brow furrowed. “Rare the Weststorm speaks,” he said.

  “But furious is its voice when it does,” said Jennil, parroting the words of deckchilder the sea over. “At the rate they have caught up with us so far, then I give us at least another two weeks before they are near enough to loose their bows. Will the storm be on us by then, Aelerin?”

  “It is a tricky business to predict a storm, Jennil. I think not; I think three weeks before the winds come and the waves rise. But it could come quicker, or it could veer off and go another way entirely. Such is the way of the Weststorm, it is as if it acts to frustrate my arts.” Jennil nodded as she stared at the table.

  “How near are these islands?” She pointed at a set of islands that looked only a palm’s breadth from Tide Child. As Aelerin was about to speak Farys entered the room.

  “I have come to see if I can be of any help, D’keeper,” she said. “Solemn Muffaz has the deck and there is no great need for me there.” Joron was about to chastise her but held his voice in his gullet – unlikely she could help, ey, and she knew it. But well likely she could learn, and that made her presence here worthwhile and if Solemn Muffaz had spoken to her about Gavith then maybe best she was allowed some time away from him.

  “Good choice, Farys,” he said, and he saw tension leave her like it left a gallowbow cord when it was unstrung. “Carry on, Jennil.”

  “We could turn for those islands in the night, then hide among them while these ships pass.”

  “They are numerous, these islands,” said Aelerin, “but very low.”

  “We could take down the topspines,” said Farys.

  “It
’s half a day’s work, to get them fully down,” said Mevans, “then half a day or more putting ’em back up.”

  “The crew are not afraid of work,” said Farys. Joron could hear the hurt there, at her idea being knocked back.

  “Oh no, we do not doubt it. You have fashioned them into a good crew, Farys,” said Joron. “They work as well and as hard as any, but if we were found we would not have half a day to put the spines up. That would leave us without recourse to half our wings, we would be caught immediately.”

  “Oh,” said Farys, bowing her head, “of course.”

  “But every idea is worth hearing, Farys.” He turned from her. “The islands are out, Jennil, anything else?”

  “Skearith’s Spine, D’keeper?” She looked about her. “We double back again, a black ship against the black rock? Would be terrible hard to spot from a distance.”

  “It is true,” said Mevans, “and if we can find a cove where Skearith’s Eye does not reach then there’s a chance they fly right past us.” Jennil nodded, looking at the map table. Silence while Joron considered it. First they would have to find a cove, and though Skearith’s Spine was full of such places they would be searching in the dark, and the water at the edges of the spine was full of rocks that could rip open Tide Child’s hull and end their escape there and then, sending every soul aboard down to join the Hag.

  But if they could find a place? Surely if any crew could then it was Meas’s crew. But of course, and he smiled to himself, it was also true to say that he knew no other crew at all.

  The smile fled as he imagined what it would be like, to have Tide Child and the crew moored at the staystone, to sit for days on end, all but the topboys hidden in the underdecks to ensure no movement gave the black ship away, no splash of colour. He could dot the ship with white paint as an offering to the Hag, and to make it look like guano-covered rock. All so possible. Yet, all aboard would know that it would only take one alert topboy to spot them. The tension on the ship would rise, fights would happen, not even the best crew could take such enforced idleness under stress. But still, it may be worth it.