Call of the Bone Ships

by Rj Barker

  And on thinking of the gullaime, another thought, one that had never been far from the surface of his mind bubbled up: Windseer. A name at once new to him but also so evocative it felt like a thing he had always known. Although, he did not of course, had no idea what it was. But he had never had the opportunity to explore it with the gullaime, first because of his duties, and then because it lay exhausted and insensible. Still that name would not leave him. Windseer. He wondered at the sadness when the Gullaime had spoken of it, and he wondered whether it was haunted by that word as it slept fitfully in the throes of windsickness, tended by the windshorn.

  The windshorn.

  Of course. What a fool he had been. What an unthinking idiot. The gullaime had hated the title windseer, swayed away from it when it was said. Even fully awake he doubted it would speak to him about it now. Only bite and snap and hiss and shout “Away go! Away go!”

  But he could ask the windshorn.

  And when the next tack was done and he knew Tide Child would fly free and straight for a little, he told Dinyl there was something he must attend to and slipped below decks, bobbing beneath the overbones, dodging slumbering bodies until he arrived at the gullaime’s cabin. Inside he found it the same as always – the windshorn had been careful to preserve the nest just as it had been in the moments before the gullaime had ascended to fight the storm on deck. When he entered the windshorn was arranging the nest around the restless, unconscious body of the gullaime.

  “Sick,” it said.

  “I know,” said Joron. “There is a windspire on the island. We will make the gullaime better.”

  “Good, good.” It turned away from him, pulled a small piece of old gion from the nest with its beak and placed it on the floor. Studied it. Then it moved it with a foot before picking it up again and placing it back in the nest. Once it was pleased with how it had been done it took a step back. “Good,” it said again.

  “Windshorn,” said Joron. “I need to speak with you in my cabin.” And the windshorn shied away from him, into the corner.

  “Not hurt,” it said. “Not hurt windshorn.”

  “No,” said Joron and he put out a hand as if to take the creature by the wingclaw, and the windshorn pushed itself even further back into the corner of the cabin. He wondered what he had done to make the creature so scared of him. He looked at his hand, hard from working rope, blunt fingers, nails ingrained with dirt. Dark skin covered in nicks and scars – some shallow from working the ship, deeper ones from the swords and the knives and fights. These were the hands of a hard man, a violent man. He lowered his hand. “I will not hurt you. I only wish to speak with you.”

  “Speak,” it said. And then it hopped past Joron, stopping in the doorway. “Speak,” it said again. Joron followed it to his cabin where it stopped at the door. Waited for him to open it and go in before it followed, shutting the door behind itself then staying by it, as if ensuring an easy escape if Joron should go back on his word.

  “I think you need a name,” he said. “Do you have a name, one I could say?” It shook its head. “Then I will call you Shorn, like the crew do, if that is good to you?”

  “Shorn,” it said. Then coughed twice, “Good good.”

  Joron smiled. “Well, Shorn, I heard you say ‘windseer’ to the gullaime. What does it mean?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” The creature pushed itself back against the door.

  “I know it means something,” said Joron. He started to move toward it and the windshorn cowered and shivered, making itself as small as possible. He stopped.

  “Mistake is all. Mistake.”

  “I hear that word from you, Shorn.” Joron crouched, bringing himself down to its level. “Windseer. And Garriya tells me I am the Caller and these words . . .” He touched his chest, as if to reassure himself that what he said was real. “These words, I feel them and . . .” He searched within for a way to reach the creature which had now forced itself almost flat against the floor. “. . . And yet, I do not know why I feel them so. When they are said, it is like they echo within me. Do you understand, Shorn?”

  “Not say,” it said, but so quietly Joron could barely hear it. “Say not say.”

  “I will not tell the gullaime, I promise.” He waited but the creature said nothing, and then he remembered something Meas had done that had affected their own gullaime far more than any of them had expected. He took out his knife. The windshorn tried to vanish into itself, to make itself even smaller, curling up into a tight ball and making soft, fearful noises. “It is alright,” said Joron. “It is alright.” He took hold of one of the thick braids of his hair, one with a feather tied into the end and cut it off, holding it out to the windshorn. “For you,” he said. “Part of me for you.” He held it out and slowly, oh so very slowly, the windshorn came out of its tight ball of fear and misery.

  “For me?” it said, looked at the braid. Then it stood. “For me.” And it took the braid in its beak, tucking it away within its robes.

  “Is it because our gullaime can see that you call it windseer?”

  “See? Windshorn see. Bright eyes.”

  “Yes? But . . .”

  It yarked softly as he spoke, not as brave or as raucous as the gullaime. Then used its wingclaws to push up its mask. Brown eyes, contained in a roundel of brown feathers flecked through with black, so much less impressive and colourful than the explosion of metallic colour that was the gullaime’s feathers. Eyes far more human, less alien. And so very plainly afraid.

  “Your eyes are not like the gullaime’s.”

  “No. Not same.” It pulled the mask down and once more looked through it at the world.

  “Is it the brightness? That is what makes our gullaime special?” It nodded. “And what does a windseer do?”

  “Lead us. Bring us free. Take us free. Away go.”

  “And the Caller?” It shook its head. “You don’t know or won’t tell me?” It shook its head again and before he could press it any further he heard the shouts from above that told him Tide Child was getting ready to tack again and bring them in close in to the island, which meant Meas would be going on deck – and if Meas was on the slate then he should be also. “Thank you, Shorn,” he said. “I will keep your windseer secret, if you continue to tend the gullaime.”

  “Windseer,” it said quietly and he nodded, then opened the door so it could hop out. As he left he found the old healer, Garriya, crouched in the shadows by the door.

  “Were you listening in?”

  “Garriya just stopped here to have a bite to eat, that is all, Caller.”

  “Why do you call me that?” he said, suddenly exasperated. “You have always called me that. What does it mean?”

  She shuffled over to him. Looked up into his face and reached up, grabbing his cheek and pulling on it as if he was a child and she smiled into his face.

  “It means change, Caller. Change is coming, you will see. The circle of storms turns, the winds blow and the Golden Door glimmers. We repeat ourselves and all changes and all remains the same. Fire and death or something else? Who knows? You will see though, oh yes, you will.”

  “What does that even mean?” he said.

  “You will see,” she said again, and then she shuffled off into the darkness of the underdeck, leaving him none the wiser, or any more comfortable.

  34

  The Interloper

  He returned to the slate of the deck, to the brisk wind, to the kiss of spray and the scent of the sea. To Dinyl on the beak watching the wyrms and Meas at the rump of the ship, staring at the brown and wilting island through her nearglass. She paid Joron no attention as he approached. He waited, squinting at the island and looking for movement among the dripping gion and varisk, but if anything moved he could not see it. If anything peered back at him it was well hidden. Occasionally he saw what looked like a building, hastily made, hidden within the brown vegetation, but as the ship moved on it vanished and he wondered if he had imagined it.

  “Do y
ou see anything Joron?” She lowered the nearglass.

  “No.” He squinted again. Skearith’s Eye was rising over the island, half blinding him. “A building maybe, but no sign of any people.”

  “I saw nothing either.” She handed him the nearglass. “Keep looking as we come around. The wind is with us now and I have stared so long I begin to doubt my eyes.”

  As they passed the island Joron watched it through the glass, searching for signs of movement. Once a shiver went down him as he thought he saw a tunir, striding through the wilt, but the ship moved on and he hoped it only a shadow. He picked out the spike of a windspire on the crest of the island; silhouetted against Skearith’s shining eye it made it look like a slitted pupil. But he saw no sign of people, no sign of movement. Only the thick, decaying vegetation, and as Tide Child came back around to the inner crescent of the island he found himself humming the strange and twisting song of the windspire.

  “See anything yet, Joron?” He shook his head. Passed her the nearglass back.

  “Nothing.”

  “Ey,” she said, and folded up the nearglass, placing it carefully within her coat. “And yet . . .”

  “And yet?”

  “I feel something is wrong.”

  “Why?”

  She stared at the island, the wind twisting her hair, winding it into the fluttering tails of her hat.

  “Because there is nothing there, Joron. No caretakers on the beach, no scavengers. Nothing.”

  “There are many islands, Shipwife. Some must be empty.”

  “Ey, but activity attracts scavengers, Joron. Always.” She walked to the rail and leaned her weight on it. Staring out over the sea at the island. “Had we time I would wait in hope for Snarltooth.” She sighed, bowing her head and staring at the water rushing along the hull. “But time is a luxury we do not have. Every day we pass is a day they have our people. A day they can put them to work to make their poison.” Joron nodded, not wanting to speak in front of the crew of how short and lethal they knew that work to be.

  “Shipwife,” he said, coming to stand by her at the rail. “There is no guarantee there is anything on the island. Maybe we should take the time to wait for Snarltooth?”

  She shook her head. “I close my eyes and see the hold of that brownbone, Deckkeeper. I cannot bear the horror.” She did not look at him. Dropped her voice so her words were only shared between the two of them. “When I was young, Joron, there was little place for me in the world. So I was raised in one of the seacave houses.”

  “But they are for outcasts.” He said it too quickly, without thinking.

  “Ey, they are. For outcasts.” She did not look at him, but he thought he sensed a certain bitter humour in her voice. “The woman who raised me, she had been a hagpriest, had spoken against me being sacrificed after the raiders took me and the sea returned me. They cast her out for it – it does not do to lose an argument among the hagpriests. After the waves saved me a second time, she took me in, as a babe.”

  Joron felt lost, unsure what to say.

  “That was . . . kind of her?”

  “There was nothing kind about Mabberlin, Joron. Nothing soft. Even the other outcasts hated us so we were in the very lowest of the seacaves. Shipshulme has very little tide but there is enough that twice a day our cave was flooded and the entrance . . . Well, even on a good day you had to crawl in, through a puddle of seawater. We slept on shelves that were usually above the waves, not always, mind. During the day Mabberlin would go out and beg food for us, leave me there while the tide came in. She said it made me safe, but when the water came it covered the cave entrance and the light went. That was my childhood, Deckkeeper. Long hours alone in the darkness, no explanation, little comfort and only the sound of the sea for company.”

  “It must have been frightening.”

  “Eventually I became numb. Mabberlin said I needed to be hard, but I do not think she could tell the difference between hard and numb.” She paused, continued staring at the brown and wilting island. “When I dream of that ship hold, I hear the sound of the sea in that cave.”

  “We will find them, Shipwife.”

  She nodded. “We will.” She stood, smoothed her jacket. “But we will not take Tide Child into the harbour and drop the staystone. We will take the flukeboats. You will command a small squad and take the gullaime to the windspire. I will take Coughlin and the seaguard and we will search the buildings in the harbour for papers or charts.”

  “Berhof will be glad to be off the ship, I dare say.”

  “Ey,” said Meas quietly, but she did not laugh or smile. “Tide Child will stay out at sea under Dinyl. Solemn Muffaz is a good man, but if a ship turns up I want someone on deck who knows tactics.” She turned, a gleam in her grey eye. “Have them spatter paint upon the spines and clear the ship for action, Deckkeeper. It is best to be prepared.”

  And the call went out and the drums beat and the bells rang and the deckchilder ran to their stations. Joron walked among them, choosing his people, his special few that would accompany him. And he set them to readying boats for both him and Meas. As Tide Child slowed to let them off – a brief clasp of arms with Dinyl, the sound of the bonewrights hammering as they took down the internal walls of the smaller cabins on the underdeck – he loaded the unconscious gullaime onto the boat. The ship was still readying for action as he stood in the beak of his flukeboat and Farys sang out a chant to time the oars that bit into the water, sending a million little fish scurrying for the depths and bringing them closer to the stinking, weeping island.

  Meas’s wingfluke was first to land, she jumped off the beak, followed by her ten deckchilder and Narza. Coughlin quickly followed, and then his second, Berhof and the rest of the twenty seaguard who helped pull the boat up the beach. A moment later Joron’s boat jarred against the shallows and Farys and Cwell were over the side, quickly joined by the six rowers and four deckchilder they had squeezed in the rowboat, pulling it up past the tideline of broken shells on the wet pink sand. While their boat was dragged further away from the water, Joron pulled on the harness containing the gullaime and when he picked up the windtalker it felt dead in his arms. He was sure it was not, simply unconscious from drugs given to it by Garriya – drugs they had been forced to administer as the gullaime had fought and bit in delirium when they had tried to move it.

  The windshorn fussed and tried to assist Joron, mostly just getting in the way, but he let it feel like it was helping, and once the harness was secure he hopped over the side of the boat, feet sinking into wet sand, and jogged up the beach with the wide-legged gait of one who suddenly felt the world moving beneath him. It was not just the change, sea to land, but the song of this place, shockingly loud.

  “There are paths here, Deckkeeper,” said Meas from the edge of the gion. “One leads up the island and the other away along the beach.”

  “I will take the gullaime to the windspire.” He started to turn but she grabbed his arm.

  “No, come with me. The gullaime sleeps, and I am unsure about this place. For now I would rather we stayed together as we moved through the forest. It is a ripe place for an ambush.” She turned from him to Mekrin, one of her more seasoned deckchilder and a sturdy and sensible hand. “Stay here with ten deckchilder, keep an eye on the boats but if something happens do nothing overly brave.”

  “Ey, Shipwife.” She turned from her.

  “Coughlin, take the front with ten of yours, Berhof the rear with the rest, we proceed up the beach.” They did, foot in front of foot, the straps of the harness cutting into Joron’s shoulders and the curnow beating rhythmically against his thigh, and as he walked the song beat at his ears. Around him the gion wilted and the ground became slippery as the path wove in and out of the edge of the dying forest. He preferred to walk on the sand, the footing was easier and he had to concentrate less. A building appeared from the forest, the brown cured slats of its sides and roof difficult to see against the vegetation. Coughlin held up a hand. When eve
ryone stopped he held up three fingers and went forward with three of his men into the building. A moment later he reappeared, wiping sap from his forehead.

  “Empty, Shipwife,” he said. “But you should come and look in here.” Joron moved to the side, feet slipping on rotten vines, so he could see through the door as Meas entered. Within the building it was dark, out here bright, though a chill hung in the air. Squinting, he watched Meas in the darkness of the building as Coughlin moved with her, talking and gesturing with his hands. She crouched down, touching something on the floor and bringing it up to her face. To see it better? To sniff it? He did not know. When she came out she looked troubled.

  “Keep your eyes open,” she said. “Someone has been here recently.”

  Joron hurried to catch up with her. “What did you find?”

  “Nothing useful. The hut has been used by scavengers or to billet those trading slaves here. It is filthy and long abandoned, but there are signs that there has been someone there recently. Camping out.”

  “So not an army then?”

  “A very small one, maybe,” said Meas. “Looked like no more than one person.” Joron felt an itch in the place between his shoulder blades, the one just out of reach of his hands and currently covered by the gullaime. In turn, this set the tops of his arms itching and he wriggled a little to try and alleviate the discomfort. “I doubt they are out there with a bow ready to pick us off, Joron. All signs are that they left in a hurry.” She stopped talking, stared over his shoulder. Joron turned to see what it was that had stolen her attention. Tide Child had pulled up its staystone and begun its patrol of the waters. Wind filled black sails, and to an outsider it would have appeared they were being marooned, though Joron and Meas knew different. On the rump stood Dinyl and Joron saw him raise his good hand, as if in farewell. “I hope he takes better care of my ship than he did last time,” she said. Then turned away from Joron. “Onwards. We follow the path.”