The Bone Ship's Wake

by Rj Barker

  “Not do,” said the Gullaime, and she hopped in front of Meas. It touched Joron, as he realised she was putting her body between Meas and Madorra. Protecting the shipwife, even when Joron knew the Gullaime must be frantic for her egg, hidden away on the ship by Madorra. Joron wished he could have told the Gullaime what he planned, that he understood her fear. But when could he have?”

  “Away go,” said Madorra. The claw pushed against Joron’s neck.

  “This is my ship,” said Meas, “I cannot leave it.” Madorra blinked at her. Looked down at Joron.

  “Bring boat,” he said. “Put man in boat. Put Madorra in boat. Put gullaime in boat. Away go.” His voice changed, became wheedling. “Let man off at island. Not hurt.” Joron felt the claw dig further into his neck, a thin line of blood ran down his skin and he knew that Madorra would never let him live. Meas nodded to herself.

  “I would like you off my deck, that is true,” she said, staring at the man and the bird. Madorra put his head down so he could whisper to Joron.

  “Kill you,” he said. “Kill you on water. Leave for big fish. Enjoy.”

  “You can’t though, can you?” Joron whispered back.

  “Can do what want,” said Madorra.

  “No you can’t. I know about the egg. You can’t leave here without it. Because without it, you can’t control the Gullaime.” Madorra hissed into his face.

  “Kill you now,” he said, and he reared back so he had room to move. As he did Joron saw a commotion on the deck and Gavith appeared.

  “Look!” he shouted. Madorra froze. Saw Gavith, saw the large bright purple egg he held in his one hand. Saw the Gullaime turn.

  “No!” shouted the windshorn. Joron readied himself for the pain. For the end, but it did not come.

  “Give boat,” Madorra said again. “Give egg. Take man. Take Gullaime. Go.” Meas stared at the windshorn.

  “I believe,” she said, “that if you will not commit to our cause, Madorra, then you are the enemy. And this is a ship of war, we know what to do with the enemy.”

  And the Gullaime hit Madorra, a ball of feather and fury knocking the windshorn backwards. Madorra managed to land on his feet. Spread his wings for balance, one foot coming up, claw extended. But the Gullaime would not be stopped, it flew at the windshorn once more. Smaller claws scratching, beak pecking. The windshorn was forced back and back until with a final furious attack the Gullaime’s clawed feet made contact with Madorra’s neck.

  The force of the blow cut straight through the wiry sinew, decapitating the creature, and its head fell overboard. The body stood for a moment, blood fountaining onto the deck, then it collapsed. The Gullaime backed away slowly. Then she let out a call, a huge shout of triumph. The feathers on her neck stuck out, and the red crest on her head raised and the air around Tide Child shivered and the masts shook and the wind came. A gale that was as sudden and as quick and as shocking as it was short.

  When the blast of air passed, Joron stood, looking about at the crew, who seemed as shocked as he felt. Barlay began to clap. She shouted out, “Well done the Gullaime!” And the cry went around the crew until they were all clapping and shouting and Joron felt the warmth of the Gullaime by him. She looked up at him.

  “Egg safe,” she said softly. “Thanking.” Then she rested her head against his side. “Thanking friend,” she said. “Friend.” And for a brief moment, his damaged body felt no pain.

  45

  A Meeting of Lovers

  “Ship rising!”

  They sighted the Hundred Isles fleet later in the morning. Thirty-six ships of it in sight now and at their head the greatest ship of the fleet, the Arakeesian Dread, the mighty five-ribber a billowing mass of white wings.

  “Topboy!” shouted Meas. “We’ll turn toward them, then when we are nearer signal the enemy fleet for parlay. Tell them to send a two-ribber only.” She came to stand by Joron and straightened her jacket, checked the small crossbows hanging from it and ran her hand across the feathers sewn into the shoulder pieces, straightening them. She paid particular attention to the two bright red feathers given to her that morning by the Gullaime, which squatted on the deck before the rumpspine. Her missing eye was covered by a patch made by one of the youngest wingwrights, and passed up the chain of command until it was in her hand.

  “You think they will talk, and not simply attack?” asked Joron.

  “Yes,” replied Meas. “Indyl will be aboard the Dread, it is too big and slow to bring in easily for rendezvous anyway.”

  “They could turn the whole fleet on us,” said Farys.

  “A fleet moves too slowly to catch one ship, he could send some smaller ships after us but he won’t.”

  “Why?” said Farys.

  “Because we are just one ship,” said Joron, standing straighter, “and he will want our whole fleet. Much easier to follow us back to it than comb the seas looking for it.”

  “He is right, in a way,” said Meas, and she stared out at the fleet of ships. “But more than that, Karrad has always been behind the scenes, never in the thick of the action. He knows the dangers of ship-to-ship fighting, the randomness of it. How no one is ever really safe. He will want to avoid it if at all possible.”

  “He is a coward then,” said Joron. Meas looked to him, and he did not know how to read her face. Not a confirmation of what he said, that he was sure of.

  “Not a coward, no,” she said. “Only a fool seeks action if it can be avoided.”

  “I have never seen you avoid it, or send another in your place.” She let out a short laugh.

  “Ey, and what does that say of me?”

  “You are no fool, Shipwife,” said Farys. Meas stared at her, and was it relief that Joron saw on her face, or some other emotion washing across her jagged features that the burned girl held no malice toward her?

  “Thank you for that, Deckholder,” she said, “but sometimes I am not so sure.” Then the day consisted of waiting, flying Tide Child toward the enemy fleet. Occasionally Joron would catch deckchilder about something, needles and thread out, but when they saw him they hid whatever they did and he let them have their secrets.

  “Signals, Shipwife!” shouted down from above. “A boat is leaving the Dread, flying flags for parlay! Making for one of their two-ribbers.”

  “Hold station!” shouted Meas. Then she turned to Joron and spoke more quietly. “We’ll make him come to us in that two-ribber. Farys, have the bowsells ready their teams and stand by their bows. Drip some paint on the spines, I want us ready to loose if we need it.”

  “You think their shipwife will try something under a flag of parlay?”

  “A shipwife would not. But Karrad is no shipwife, Joron. I want the crews ready to load our gallowbows with rocks so we can sweep their decks clean of life if they try something. Let us hope Solemn Muffaz and his friends do not need to speak today.”

  Joron lifted his nearglass and stared across the sea at the Hundred Isles fleet, saw ropes thrown from the two-ribber and caught by the crew of the flukeboat, the smaller craft pulled toward the larger and three people transferred across. Then the flukeboat was let loose and the two-ribber’s wings filled with wind, it turned in a tight circle, throwing up a wave of water.

  “They’re on their way, using their gullaime hard by the look of it.” He put away the nearglass. “Needlessly cruel, we are going nowhere.”

  “Sithers,” said the Gullaime and hopped over to stand on the bonerail.

  “He was ever cruel,” said Meas, and she shut up her nearglass, struggling a little with her damaged hands. “It just took me a long while to realise it, is all.” They watched the two-ribber drawing nearer. “It is the Painful Loss,” said Meas.

  “Gueste’s ship,” said Joron quietly.

  “He thinks to unbalance you by sending her, Joron. Do not let him.”

  “But he does not try to unbalance you by bringing himself?”

  “Of course he does,” she said, and smiled at Joron, “and I will not
let him.” She took a step forward and stood with her hands behind her back, watching the ship come in. “Untruss our gallowbows,” she shouted.

  “Is that wise?” asked Joron. “We meet under a flag of truce and it is not the fleet thing to do.”

  “No,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him. “But neither Karrad nor Gueste consider us fleet, do they? So let us do some unsettling of our own, and besides,” she held her nearglass out to her side, “look at that ship.” He stepped forward and took her nearglass, the one he had used for so long. Looked it over, the fine etching on the metal and bone of the hollow tubes, the smooth way they slid, so much better than his own more ragged instrument. He stared at the ship, saw Gueste on the rump, Indyl Karrad by her.

  “They have not untrussed their bows,” he said.

  “Look to the rear, past Gueste,” said Meas. He moved the view along, the ship bowing and twisting within the imperfections of the lens.

  “Something at the rear, covered in wingcloth.”

  “Ey, said Meas, coming to stand by him. “Gallowbows is my bet, Deckkeeper. He comes, talks to us and when he doesn’t get what he wants then he turns his ship around and looses on us from the rump as he flies away. My bet is those bows are untrussed and ready to send hagspit at us, leave us burning.”

  “Is that a fleet way to act, Shipwife?” said Farys.

  “No, Deckholder, it is not. But I think Karrad only cares about winning and staying as safe as he can.”

  “We should kill him the moment he comes aside,” said Barlay from the steering oar.

  “No, Oarturner,” said Meas. “Much as it appeals to me, we will try not to become our enemy. We have wrought enough damage already.” Joron felt a stab at that, felt a weight upon him as heavy as the corpse of a keyshan, lying in the bay of a town he had once loved.

  Painful Loss cut through the water toward them, spry and spruce as can be.

  “Joron,” said Meas, “there were more ships than those we can currently see, so send up another topboy to scan the horizon before us and to seaward. I’ll not be trapped between two fleets.” Joron nodded and continued watching the approaching ship.

  “Do you trust them?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “not at all.” She walked over to the rail. “But we must do this.” Painful Loss came closer, matching speed with Tide Child.

  “Will we go to them, or make them come to us?”

  “We will go to them,” said Meas. “Karrad will not expect it, he will expect to have to persuade us, and that he does not need to will worry him.”

  “You are not concerned he will simply try to take us?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “He may just kill us.”

  “He will probably try.” She turned, looked at the Gullaime idly pecking at a piece of rope hanging from a spar, watched by the white-robed acolytes. “But we have a powerful weapon on our side.” She nodded, then raised her voice, “Gullaime! Come to me if you will.” The windtalker ceased pecking at the rope, took two steps toward them then span around in a blur of brightly coloured robes and made a leap, catching the rope in her beak and swinging wildly backwards and forwards until Meas called out. “Gullaime! Attend your shipwife!” The windtalker let go, blinked twice, snapped once more at the rope and then waddled over.

  “Won,” she said. “Gullaime won.”

  “Concentrate, Gullaime,” said Meas.

  “Me-as Gil-bryn,” she croaked out.

  “Your egg, it is…” She let the sentence die away, unsure of how to phrase it and then, like a ship at full speed, realised it was too late to stop. “Your egg is well?”

  “Is well. Is well,” the Guillame trilled out then shuffled in a circle. “Egg is well. Safe in nest.”

  “Good, I am pleased. Now, concentrate, Gullaime.”

  “Yes yes.”

  “You see that ship coming towards us?”

  “Blow ship away,” she said, and stretched up.

  “No, Gullaime. Joron and I must go aboard that ship. And it may be they will try to play some trick, or steal us away.” The Gullaime stared at her, beak slightly open, eyes burning. She blinked once more.

  “Not steal,” it said.

  “No,” said Meas. “So when we go aboard I require your concentration; should Farys tell you it is needed. We may require wind.”

  “Big wind.”

  “If that is what it takes,” said Meas, “then yes.”

  “Gullaime can do.”

  “Good, and you will wait and watch, not be distracted.” The windtalker shook her head.

  “Watch watch,” she said. Then squawked loudly and turned on the spot. Leaping into the air and fluttering the wings beneath her robe, beak snapping out to grab the rope once more, swinging wildly about.

  “I am not sure, Joron,” said Meas softly, “your friend can be trusted not to get distracted.”

  “Farys can be trusted though, Shipwife,” he said. “And she will mind the Gullaime.”

  “Ey,” said Meas, “She can, though I am not sure I have earned her trust.” Meas looked away, at the fast approaching two-ribber. “Barlay,” she shouted, “prepare my flukeboat.” She nodded as Barlay put the order out and the boat crew assembled.

  “I do not understand,” said Joron, watching the ships, “why he talks to us. He has all the advantages, the fleet, places to refit. We have nothing.”

  “Because he still wants you, Joron, and the Gullaime and what you can do.” She rubbed the skin above her eyepatch.

  “But the message he sent Barnt,” said Joron, “he knows the keyshans rise without my help.”

  “He wants to avoid a fight as well, if he can.” Joron watched her, as she stared into the white caps of the wavelets running along the hull of Tide Child.

  “No,” he said, and looked up at Painful Loss. “I think he wants forgiveness,” said Joron. “From you.”

  “Well, let us hope so,” said Meas, “as our purpose here is to buy time for our fleet to get as near the Gaunt Islands as they can, and he will have to wait until the oceans dry up before he receives my absolution.” He laughed at that, and she looked at him with a scowl on her face before the humour of her words caught up with her and she laughed also. “Come, Joron,” she said, “if we go to him before he asks for parlay it makes it appear to be our decision, not his. I will undermine him at every opportunity I can.”

  The boat was prepared and weapons and shields loaded onto it, efficiently as on any fleet ship. As Painful Loss made its approach the flukeboat was casting off. Meas stood in the beak, Joron at the steering oar and the wing went up, catching the wind, bellying out and pulling the little ship across the water. Joron watched the sides of Painful Loss grow, white and sharp, covered with spikes and hooks. It occurred to him that his adventure could finish here. All Painful Loss would need to do was untruss a gallowbow and aim it well and that would be it. Once, he would have had to fight that thought down, been filled with fear almost to the point of breaking. But now that fear crashed upon something within, something hard and cold and accepting. He would not survive all of this, he was sure. His time upon the face of this world was drawing to a close, the danger growing too deep and black and cold to survive. He was a drowning man in a freezing sea, the longthresh gathering, circling, the odds shortening with each turn. And, just as with the sea, if those that wanted him actively dead did not get him, the rot would drown him anyway.

  He had feared death once, feared pain, but now he felt that all it brought would be respite. He thought of Solemn Muffaz and the moment he had stepped off the deck of Tide Child, how what he had seen on the deckmother’s face had puzzled him at the time. He understood it well enough now though. Solemn Muffaz had looked at peace. The pain of the world left behind.

  “Are you with us, Deckkeeper?” Hauled back into the world. The rocking ship, the salt spray, the hiss of wings being furled, the knock and swoosh of the oars.

  “Ey, Shipwife,” he said, though they both knew he had no
t been. He stooped to pick up the rope by his feet and, as they approached Painful Loss, threw it to a waiting deckchild who pulled the rope tight, the same happened at the beak, bringing the flukeboat up against the side of the boneship. A moment later a rope ladder came over the side and before it had even stilled Meas was making her way up, though not as quick and spry as she would have once. Grunting with effort as she ascended. Joron passed the steering oar to Barlay, glanced at where the ropes were tied on to the flukeboat. “Have our ends of those ropes tied slack,” he said, “we may need to make a quick getaway.” Barlay nodded. Cwell made to follow him and he shook his head.

  “Stay until you are needed,” he said. She nodded.

  Then it was Joron’s turn to climb the ladder. Not fast, but steady. When he came over the rail he saw deckchilder lined up along the deck, a whistle played to welcome him and Meas aboard as if they were true officers of the fleet. On the rump stood Gueste, in a fine coat the same blue as Meas’s. By her stood her deckkeeper and to the other side was Indyl Karrad, no longer in the leather straps and embroidered trousers of the Kept – now he wore a shipwife’s coat and a two-tail hat. He watched Meas as she looked back at him, a brief look of contempt crossing her face.

  “Let us go speak to the shipwives,” said Meas. A flash of amusement on her face, one meant only for him and then she was walking down the length of the ship. Karrad watching her all the way. Never taking his eyes from her and Joron wondered at the man, for despite all he had said and done, he clearly felt something for her.

  “Meas,” said Karrad as she came to a stop before him.

  “Shipwife,” she replied, any respect drowned by her smirk.