by Rj Barker
“But not a good reason to throw away all we have worked for,” said Binin. “Coult’s love of a war is famed, but it does not make our little collection of ships in any better condition to fight such a force as is gathered at Safeharbour, and for no gain I can see.”
“It would be a glorious victory, Binin,” said Tussan to his deckkeeper. “Skearith knows why you must try to spoil everything.”
“I tend to agree with Binin,” said Brekir.
“Well, you would,” said Coult, and there was nothing friendly in his words.
“We should gather the rest of our fleet. We are not all in such a rush to throw our lives away, Coult,” said Brekir, and if Meas had not interjected at that moment Joron felt it would have come to drawn swords.
“Brekir is right, we cannot win a straight fight,” said Meas. “Though Coult, you are also right, in that it would be good to give my mother a bloody face over this. I plan to do that, without us facing the force camped in Safeharbour in a ship-to-ship battle, one which we would lose.”
“It is still a huge risk,” said Binin. “Why not just fly away? That is why Arrin sent warning.”
“But Arrin did not know about the brownbone we tow, Binin, or what was on it.” She met each face around the table with her gaze. “That ship, and its terrible cargo, was expected somewhere.”
“You think they hit Safeharbour because it did not turn up?” said Tussan. All turned to him. His face, momentarily serious, returned to a vacuous grin. “Was a passing fancy to say so, is all. I act upon all my whims.”
A smile touched Meas face then left, a zephyr breeze of emotion. “No,” she said. “The timing is wrong, but if the people aboard were some sort of resource then that resource will still be needed. The fisher told us they had brownbones at the island so I imagine they will be expecting more to come back and pick up those who remain there. How many did you say, Joron?”
“I saw upwards of a hundred working,” he said.
“So we can reckon there are more. They would not let all out at once, only those they thought they could control.”
“So what?” said Coult. “You plan to fly our brownbone into the harbour and simply load up our people without so much as a sword drawn in anger?”
“Oh, do not look so disappointed, Coult, of course not. There will be code signals and flags expected from any ship coming in. No, my plan involves plenty of violence, don’t you worry about that. And as for me? Well, it does not involve me at all.”
“You are too precious to be put into danger,” said Tussan, and he fanned his face. He had been an attractive man once, a favoured Kept, but excess had stolen his looks, his body, and many said his mind, from him.
“Nothing of the sort, Tussan. But I am recognisable, as is Tide Child. This is a hit and run and we cannot risk Tide Child being identified by those that will remain. We are the only ship I feel safe sending into Bernshulme.”
“You presume she does not know about you already,” said Brekir.
“I have to,” said Meas. “Something is happening with those brownbones, something I cannot countenance. If we can find out what it is, show people this horror, then it may be enough to bring my mother down. Safeharbour will be avenged, we take a step toward change.”
“And win you no fair amount of acclaim, no doubt,” Coult sneered.
“Aye, it will, Coult. And with it maybe I can ascend to some sort of power in the Isles, and bring you lot with me. No more black ships for you. No more war.”
“No more war,” he said quietly. “And what am I for then, ey, Meas?”
“War will not go away too quickly, Coult, do not worry so. There will be plenty for you to do. But first, Safeharbour.”
“And what is it you plan, Meas?” Coult’s voice was a low growl.
“Tide Child and I will remain here with Skearith’s Beak and Sharp Sither. Brekir, Snarltooth we will rig for speed – it can be done, and we will need as many flukeboats as we can get, the big ones.”
“The Sither can fight, he need not be left here,” snapped Coult.
“But the Sither must not fight, Coult. If we end up fighting ship-to-ship we have failed.” She stared around the table. “Here is my plan. Brekir, you approach under cover of night on the far side of the island, then send a force to make its way across land until you are overlooking the town. It is foolish to let prisoners work at night, the darkness makes them bold and more likely to try an escape. I am hoping that if we go in at night then those of our people Joron saw working will be imprisoned once more.”
“And if they are not?” said Brekir.
“It breaks my heart to say it,” said Meas, “but we may not be able to rescue everyone. However, we shall do our best.” She looked around the table at those gathered. Met bleak and serious faces. “When Skearith’s Blind Eye is two thirds across its journey we will fly in the brownbone loaded with all the hagspit we have aboard.”
“A fireship,” said Brekir with a shudder. “It will be hard to find crew for such an endeavour.”
“We will only fully crew it until it is near enough the harbour for the gullaime to fly it straight in.”
“That beast is our greatest asset and you would risk it on this?” said Binin. Wanelight gleamed on her dark skin.
“If needed,” said Meas. “If the winds are with us then the gullaime will leave with the majority of the crew. It will need five, maybe ten to steer the ship into the harbour and set the fires. Then they must find a way to escape in the confusion.”
“Good luck to them,” said Coult. “Every deckchild in Safeharbour will be after their blood.” He looked around the table. “What makes you so sure the brownbone will make it into Safeharbour?”
“Greed,” said Meas. “The shipwife that stole Joron’s sword, Barnt, was greedy. I reckon they will let you in, thinking to take you as a prize. Then I am counting on every deckchild wanting to find who set their harbour alight.” She grinned at them. “While the attention of Safeharbour is on the fireship, Brekir and her force will hit the Grand Bothy. There is nowhere else large enough to hold our people. Take them back to the ships on the other side of the island and make your escape.”
“It would be folly to crew that fireship, almost certain death,” said Coult. “Who would command it?”
Joron reached down to touch his sword for comfort, found it missing.
“I will do it,” he said.
What was it that crossed Meas face then – relief? Fear? Sadness? He did not quite know. He only knew that once the words were spoken he wished he had not said them, but knew he could no more have escaped saying them than he could have stopped breathing. Although, the latter had suddenly become far more likely. Coult stared at him, an odd smile on the old man’s face, while Joron felt the cold of death fall upon him.
“You cannot give an inexperienced boy a job like this, Meas,” Coult said. “I will command the fireship.”
It seemed like the life flooded back into Joron; he felt weak, giddy, alive. “But do not look so pleased, boy,” Coult added, “for I will take you with me.” And Joron’s feet were once more heavy on the deck.
“One thing, Meas,” said Coult. “The minute they see this ship only has a tiny crew they will smell it is bad, like rot on a week-old kivelly corpse, and they will throw everything they have at us. We may well not even make the harbour entrance.”
Then Meas grinned again, a terrible thing to see.
“Oh, don’t worry yourself about that, Coult, I have a crew in mind for you, and believe me when I say they will be thirsting for vengeance against my mother.”
12
A Fire in the Night
“Ship of the dead, ey?” Coult was laughing into the night mist wreathing Maiden’s Bounty. “Ship of the dead,” he said again and wandered away down the long deck to be lost in the foggy darkness.
Joron was not in quite the same jovial mood; in fact, he had never in his life been so nervous. It was not that he headed toward a desperate attack on a w
ildly superior force, it was not that he feared for his life and limb, neither was it that – horribly – Meas’s idea to make Maiden’s Bounty appear to have a full crew was to take the corpses of those who had been his cargo and tie them on all over the ship – in the rigging, at the rails, by the steering oar. A hundred of the dead feigning life in a last act of vengeance. A funeral pyre.
No, it was none of this. It was the firepots, the barrels of hagspit that were dotted about the old brownbone, waiting for the touch to set them alight. Fire was every deckchilder’s nightmare and hagspit fire the worst of it – once it caught in a ship’s boneglue nothing could put it out. Even those old and seasoned hands that had volunteered to come were jittery about it. They swaggered up and down the deck with an exaggerated nonchalance, but it was not right and real, that bravado, and that communicated itself to Joron, who felt it as if through the slate of the deck and the old bones of the ship.
The corpses did not help, though.
As he walked up and down the deck in the mist that had gathered as Skearith’s Blind Eye rose he would see figures before him and raise his voice to greet them, for there is little more comforting in the cold and the dark and mist than a human voice. But he would be met by a silent, leering corpse roped to the rail and animated only by the rocking of the waves. So he had stopped talking, and now the Maiden’s Bounty made his way to Safeharbour in a pillowy bubble of silence.
“Not want!”
Or almost silence.
The gullaime did not observe silence, nor had its wrath at the windshorn following it around lessened any. Both continued their dance – the shrieking, the leaping away, the head bobbing, the subservient return, and this going round and round and round, as eternal as the seasons.
“Joron!” shouted Coult. “Will you stop your bird making its infernal noise. If it blares so when we approach Safeharbour our trip will be a short one.”
So Joron tracked the noise of the windtalker, finding it gently pecking at a barrel of hagspit and he had to restrain himself, then, from shouting.
“Gullaime,” he said, voice as stiff as his posture, “I must ask you not to touch that less you wish to send us all to the Hag in flames.”
“Fire?” It bobbed its head twice at the barrel. “Smells bad.”
“Yes it does, and yes, it is fire. We will send this ship into Safeharbour in flames, and hopefully set the attackers alight.”
The gullaime nodded thoughtfully. “Set windshorn alight.”
“No, Gullaime. And you must try not to squawk at the windshorn so while we are on this ship.”
“No squawk. Hate.”
“You must still try. All aboard this ship must appear normal, and the voice of a gullaime will alert the guards at Safeharbour that it is not so. Please do this thing for me.”
“Not want,” it said quietly.
“I know, but I ask you this thing.”
“Sing later?”
“Ey, we will sing later.” How could he not? He heard music everywhere. Even now a song, a strange and beautiful tune, was rising within him as they approached land and something in him longed to let it loose. The gullaime preened the feathers around its wingclaws.
“Will quiet.” Then it span on the spot, hissed at the windshorn behind it and scuttled off. Joron headed down the ship, toward the rump and through the stink of death that twisted through the mist. The moist air took on ghostly forms, as if the spirits of the wronged flew with them.
At the steering oar he found Anzir and Farys. Of all those on the boat he considered Farys the bravest; she had been scarred by fire in the belly of a ship and the marks of it on her face were clear for all to see. Fire still terrified her, she would do almost anything to avoid the galleys of Tide Child where a fire always burned for the cook, and yet she had volunteered for this. Because he had, and she served him.
“Land rising!” came the call from above. He imagined being the topboy, sat above the mist – it must be like flying across the clouds, like being Skearith itself as it opened the Golden Door and flew into the archipelago from beyond the wall of storms.
“Not long now, D’keeper,” said Farys quietly.
“You can leave on the flukeboat with the rest, Farys,” he said. “There will be no shame in it, you do not need to stay as part of the skeleton crew. Join up with the flotilla on the far side of the island.” The boat creaked and Joron found it hard not to imagine this sound, as with every other creak and crack, to be the sounds of the dead moving, testing the ropes that held them in place as if hoping to escape the fire that was sure to consume them.
“I go where you go, D’keeper,” she said, and behind her Anzir nodded. “Even if it be into the fire.” And something in Joron’s heart cracked at that simple belief in him. How could she not see that he lived his life scared and unsure?
“Deckkeeper.” Shipwife Coult appeared from the mist. “When we have turned for Safeharbour I would have you ensure all those who are meant to be leaving this tub do leave it. You girl,” he said, turning to Farys, “the Deckkeeper clearly trusts you, so you can light the fires. Start below on my order.” Farys, usually so quick to answer an order, only stared at Joron, as still as any of the dead in that moment.
“Shipwife Coult,” Joron said, “I would sooner give that job to Anzir and have Farys on the steering oar.”
“She seems slight for such a job, takes muscle.” He glanced at Anzir, huge where she stood. “But you know your people so you assign them as is best. I am going up the spine to join the topboy. Be ready for my shout and hope our enemies are complacent. If they are not and send out a boneship to investigate us we are lost before we start.” With that he walked down the deck into the mist to vanish up the mainspine.
They flew on, a gentle breeze filling wings hidden by mist, pushing the boat of corpses and jittery women and men forward. Joron felt the tension growing with each creak of the ship. In his mind he saw a boneship, pristine white, pulling up its staystone and unfurling wings to intercept them. A shipwife, Joron’s sword at his side, giving the orders to untruss the gallowbows. The smile on that shipwife’s face upon realising that this brownbone was an interloper. The merciless onslaught as the boneship stood off, launching volley after volley of bolts into the defenceless brownbone.
“Do you think they’ll come see about us, D’keeper?” said Farys from the steering oar.
“No, Farys,” he said, coughed, cleared his throat. “Meas says they are greedy and will simply wait for us to fly into their trap.”
“If the shipwife says that,” said Farys, “then that is what it will be.” Somehow, her utter acceptance of Meas’s plan calmed him.
“When the fires start, Farys,” he said, “you are to ensure our gullaime is first off this tub, you understand? Listen to none of its nonsense, get it in the boat and if nothing else get it back to Meas safe.”
“As you say, D’keeper,” she said, and he was gladdened slightly to know that, whatever happened, Farys at least would escape the fires they would bring into being.
“Steer us a little to landward,” came the shout from above. Farys leaned on the steering oar and he added his own strength to hers. “Enough! Hold this course.” Together they brought the steering oar to for’ard and then Farys made a quick job of lashing it straight. Coult came striding out of the mist.
“Meas was right, they’ve seen us but they either think we’re their own boat returning or they’re greedy enough to let us come in and presume to take us then.”
“They have sent no one out? I would expect at least a curious flukeboat.”
“Ey,” said Coult, “I would do that, but they may worry that in this mist we will simply fly right over it, and we would, but not for the reasons they think.” He wiped a gnarled hand down his face. “Get those off this boat that are not staying for the fire. My girls and boys staying are Tenf, Hallisy – he’s a big one – Colfy, Duny and Garent. They’ll all fight like the Hag is sat on their shoulders and the Maiden’s promised them a
ride. You know yours that are staying, so get the rest off. Then gather all your people here for a quick speech and we’ll get your gullaime working, coast in on a gentle breeze. I’ll stand by the steering oar for the rest of the way.”
Joron nodded and did the job of gathering up the women and men who had crewed the ship this far and were now setting rigging, winding ropes and doing the myriad tasks they would do on any ship. Then he saw them quietly over the side with many whispered well-wishes of “Good luck, D’keeper,” “Mother hold you, D’keeper,” and “Hag take your enemies, D’keeper.”
That done, he returned to the rump where Coult had gathered those who remained, ten in all, including Joron and Coult. The gullaime and its shadow hovered behind them, waiting to be given orders. Coult spoke.
“My deckchilder will know I’m not one for speeches, and most on this ship wouldn’t appreciate it.” He nodded at the watching corpses. “But I’ll not lie about the danger we go into. Few, if any of us, will see the dawn, so hear me now. Get off this ship before it burns, I’ll wait around for none. When you meet the enemy, and you will, sell your life dearly. Remember the fallen.”
Those who had come with Coult echoed him: “Remember the fallen,” they said.
“Good, now, Joron here will have his gullaime take us in. You go splash paint around or do whatever will make you feel good about yourselves, then we’ve some of the Hag-cursed to kill out there, so make sure your curnows are sharp.”
That was it, the entire speech. Joron returned from there to the rump of the deck and cut away the rope, placing a callused hand on the steering oar, Farys by his side.
“Gullaime,” said Joron, “give us enough of a breeze to keep this course and this speed.”
“Wind,” said the gullaime. It crouched on the deck and brought into being whatever power it was that caused the winds to flow at its command. Joron felt pain in his ears as the air pressure changed, that strange woolly feeling in his mind as he heard echoes of the ancient songs he experienced whenever they took the gullaime to charge at a spire. At the same time it was as if heat washed across him; he felt a momentary warmth before the cold air once more bit at the end of his nose. He felt the world pause, felt a million tonnes of water run across his skin, felt himself entombed within a darkness and then with a pop he was sure must be audible to all around him the feeling vanished.