Call of the Bone Ships

by Rj Barker

  The deckchilder and seaguard gathered. Many had small packs, now full of useful objects scavenged from the camp. Shorn came to hop around Joron and fuss with the gullaime on his back just as Meas came out of the hut.

  “Listen close, my girls and my boys,” she said. “Seems this island is a warren of caves, and my new friend in there” – she motioned back to the hut just as Madorra emerged – “tells me there are people hiding in them, waiting for us.”

  “All pity to them that come across Lucky Meas’s finest,” came a voice from those gathered before her. The breath of a smile passed across Meas’s face.

  “All pity indeed,” she said. “But I do not want to visit trouble on them if we can avoid it. I know where our people have been taken, and I’ll need every woman and man of you to get them back. So we go quiet, avoid trouble.” As she spoke Joron felt a movement behind him and turned, only to find Cwell coming to take her place. A shiver ran down him. If ever there was a time and a place to betray him this was it. A single shout when silence was needed was all it would take.

  “Now, come,” said Meas, “we make for the beach as quickly and quietly as possible, and if the Hag is looking the other way we may be gone before they even know we have been here.” And there was much nodding and agreement to this. Then small conversations on how wise Meas was; because every one of them had the tits for a good fight but they didn’t need to fight for no reason, and they were as sure of that as they were sure of Skearith’s Eye rising on the morran.

  Back through the dripping forest with blades bare and eyes and ears open for the slightest danger – though they found none. Joron started to believe that maybe the Hag was looking the other way today, and maybe they would simply make their way to the beach and slip away into the twilight to meet Tide Child.

  But the Maiden laughs at a deckchilder’s certainty.

  Meas held up a hand, stopping the column as it approached the edge of the wilting forest at the far end of the beach where they had left their boats. Joron looked back, seeing the crew dappled with both light and liquid. Meas motioned him forward.

  “This not good, Joron,” she whispered, keeping down among the brown leaves, and pointing at the beach. He pushed a slimy leaf aside and saw three flukeboats lay on their sides on the pink sand, and with them were well over a hundred women and men. Among them walked an officer, and though Joron could not see their face there was something familiar about their movements. He looked to his side where Cwell crouched. She was watching the officer the way a predator watches prey. He wondered if she was calculating her chances – could she get away from him before she was cut down? For he was sure if Cwell made such a move the first thing Meas would do would be to end her.

  “Narza,” said Meas, “go and check on our flukeboats.” The small dark woman nodded and it was as if the wilting vegetation simply swallowed her up. “Coughlin,” said Meas over her shoulder. The big warrior came forward, “Any ideas?”

  “We are forty in total, Shipwife,” he said. “Give me ten of yours to add to mine, I reckon Berhof and I can hold them off long enough for you to get to the boats and get them down the beach.”

  “And what will happen to you?” said Joron.

  “I serve on a ship of the dead, Deckkeeper,” he said, then grinned. “My sentence will be served.”

  Meas looked at the ground, then back at the women and men on the beach. She bit on her knuckle then shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “If I am to take Sleighthulme I will need you, Coughlin, and every hand we have.” She watched the movement on the beach in silence.

  Narza reappeared from between two crazily slanted gion. “Smashed,” she said quietly. “A thorough job done too.” Meas let out a long sigh.

  “Then we must take their boats from them,” said Coughlin. But Meas shook her head.

  “Forty against a hundred is too long odds. There must be a better way.”

  “Shipwife,” said Joron. “Even if we can take their boats it may not help.” She raised a questioning eyebrow. “The flukeboats must have come from somewhere. That means they have a ship. If we are on the open sea then . . .”

  “But we did a sweep and we were thorough about it,” she said. “And if there is a ship out there, then where is Dinyl? He should be engaging it to keep them away from us.”

  “Unless he has run—”

  “No,” she said, cutting him dead with sweep of her hand. “No, he would not. Which means there is something we have missed.” She rubbed her mouth. “Coughlin, bring me that bird.”

  “Mad Orra?”

  She nodded, and a moment later he was back with the scarred windshorn. It took a bite at Shorn, who stood by Joron, and Shorn in turn snapped back, but before the conflict could escalate Meas grabbed Madorra’s beak – a brave thing to do when it was likely to strike out with those vicious claws. Its single eye swivelled in its socket until it looked at Meas and then it blinked, twice, managing to make the action seem somehow mournful. Meas let go of its beak and it hissed, as if its anger escaped through its nostrils in a stream of steam.

  “Madorra,” she said. “These caves beneath the island. How big are they?”

  “Big, big, big.”

  “Big enough to hide a ship in? The type we came in?”

  Madorra shook its head.

  “No, no no. Smaller. Whiter. Yes, yes.”

  “Hag take me for a fool,” said Meas under her breath. “A two-ribber here, and hidden within the island itself.”

  “No one could have known that, Shipwife,” said Joron and he felt some weight left from her at that. Then she began speaking quietly and only to herself:

  “There is maybe a hundred on the beach. That leaves, say another seventy and presume my mother will have made sure they were well crewed. Maybe ten or twenty are left as guard on their ship. The rest probably roam the island, looking for us.” She rubbed her temple. “Madorra, I take it these caves can be accessed from the island?” The windshorn nodded. “Do you know where from?” It nodded again.

  “Shipwife,” said Berhof, pointing at the beach, “if their ship is in these caves, and they can easily get onto the island, why come in boats?”

  “To trap us,” she said, “in case something on the island spooks us. Or maybe to catch us between two forces.”

  “That would be bad,” said Coughlin. “We must act now, take their boats from them.” He unhooked his blade. “It is the only way. Reinforcements may turn up at any moment.”

  Meas was not paying attention. She was staring at the figures on the beach as that strangely familiar officer rallied his deckchilder, forming them into some semblance of order. The worry that had dogged her seemed to fall away.

  “Why only take their boats from them, Coughlin,” she said, and a smile grew on her face, “when we could take their ship?”

  36

  To Each a Calling

  Madorra led them from the beach and up the incline of the island toward the place where the windshorn said the island’s “big caves” could be accessed. It took them on a different, more winding path, and it felt to Joron as if the route not only twisted physically, but wrung them up within as well. Twisting the emotions of each of them into a tightness, tight like the wings of a ship under howling winds and ready to tear at any moment. When Madorra told them they were near the caves Meas took only Joron, Coughlin and Berhof forward to a place above where they could look down on them.

  The entrance to the caves punctured a crumbling cliff face about halfway up the island, it was not big; a dark hole maybe just over the height of Coughlin. The rock of the cliff face around it had been white once, now it was stained with green algae from runoff water, brown ichor where the dying canopy had dripped onto it and webbed with climbing plants and vines. The opening was guarded by two seaguard, who stood beneath a lintel of ancient-looking cured varisk, and a group of about twenty deckchilder, sat about in the circular clearing before it.

  “We can take them,” said Meas.


  “May I borrow your nearglass, shipwife,” said Coughlin. Meas nodded and passed it over. Coughlin scanned the clearing. “I do not gainsay you,” he said. “But two good fighters could hold that entrance for long enough that we would be vulnerable from the rear. Twenty will be sure to, and the noise will attract every deckchild on the island.”

  “Hag curse them all,” she spat. “Well, we must get them away from there then,” she said as Coughlin handed the nearglass to Berhof, who stared through it.

  “That entrance, Shipwife,” he said, “looks like it was designed to come down easily. It was a thing we often did with caves for Cahanny, but I think this one was done a long time ago.” He paused, still staring. “Usually you’d hammer out one end of the lintel but it looks jammed up with rock, I am not sure it could be brought down easily now.”

  “Well,” she said, “at least they cannot keep us out, ey?” Coughlin nodded and Meas pointed back to where the rest of crew waited. Once they had re-joined them she crouched down with all around her.

  “We cannot get to their ship just yet, my girls and boys, but here is what we shall do. Joron, you and half our number will take the gullaime to the windspire and hide there as long as you can. Once the gullaime is awake we have a weapon they cannot know about or prepare for. I will take the rest of our forces and we will light a fire, that should bring them all upon us, then we will double back once we have drawn them away from the cave. Joron, how long do you think the gullaime will need to lie within the spire?”

  “I do not know. It does not seem dead, like it did before, but . . .”

  “Hour,” said Madorra.

  “Not hour. Need longer,” said Shorn, and snapped at Madorra.

  “Not longer,” snapped Madorra back. “Foul lazy creature. Hour do. Not true windsick.”

  “Longer,” snapped Shorn. “Be sick again.”

  “Windshorn,” said Meas. “We will take the gullaime from here to the first island we find with a windspire, but we must live to do that.”

  The windshorn studied Meas then nodded its head.

  “Hour may do. Hour may do,” it said.

  “It will have to,” said Coughlin. “We will be lucky if we can remain undiscovered for that long.”

  “Then we leave now,” said Meas. “Coughlin, you will go with Joron and build what defences you can around the spire.”

  “Berhof is better for that,” he said. “He used to build houses.”

  “Aye,” said Berhof, “I’m more use on the land than off it.” Smiles were exchanged between the deckchilder, who no doubt agreed.

  “Very well, Berhof it is. Once the gullaime is awake, we will want to be found and I want to draw as many of them as possible to us. We’ll fall back to Berhof’s defences at the windspire. It’ll be hard and bloody work for a while but we only have to hold them. Then we break from the fight and we come back here. Kill whoever remains outside the cave and we take their ship. It’s a simple plan, and I am sure I can trust you to carry it out, ey?” All around there were nods and smiles, for if it was Lucky Meas’s plan then how could it fail? She was the witch of Keelhulme Sounding, the greatest shipwife who ever lived, and what a tale they would have to tell. Not only that they escaped a trap, but that they stole their enemy’s ship right from under them and flew away in triumph to save their people.

  There was no way of masking their tracks through the dying forest as they set off. But Meas’s group would take a longer, winding path in the hope of leading off anyone who might come across their tracks. Before leaving, Meas picked out a particularly tall and robust-looking gion stalk, made sure all memorised it as a place to meet, and one from where they could find their way back to the right cave.

  Joron led his crew up the island in a raggedy line that stretched out behind him. Though his women and men may have seemed slovenly and lackadaisical, Joron knew that each of them was as alert as it was possible to be, and twice as fierce. A good thing, as he was distracted. Ever since he had set foot on the island he had heard it singing to him, heard the sound of the island as an alien melody in his mind, already louder than he was used to. As they ascended toward the windspire the song increased in volume, and he was sure he felt the gullaime move against his back, followed by a low purr near his ear. When he turned his head the gullaime appeared asleep, though behind it Shorn was hopping from foot to foot as if impatient, and Madorra plodded on as if uninterested.

  The higher they went the louder the song became, an impossible volume contained within him, a vibration of his organs, a heat on his skin and he wanted to sing out, but it was as if his throat was blocked. As if his vocal cords, damaged by the garrotte, had been tied in a knot that restricted the flow of the music through him. The nearer they came to the windspire the more he felt like he would burst.

  Ahead of him Berhof was so covered in the brown sap of dying plants that he appeared to be part of the forest. He raised his hand and signalled them to stop. Then beckoned Joron forward.

  Before them was the windspire. Like the first one he had seen, and all others since, it sat in a clearing of its own, as if the forest had no wish to intrude upon its space. And like each windspire it followed a similar form – a wide base with a rising spine that bent forward to make a hook – and like every windspire it was subtly different from all those he had seen before. The carving was deeper on this one, the filigree of holes more pronounced, making it an intricate web of off-white bonework. He scanned the clearing.

  “Seems clear. Do you see anything?”

  Berhof shook his head. “No, but I will take Jasp and Kenrin and circle round in case they hide. Wait for me to appear over there.” He pointed toward the far edge of the clearing and then turned to gather his men. Joron waited, and as he waited the song of the spire continued within him, increasing in depth and complexity. He glanced to his left and found Shorn staring up at him through its mask. On the other side was Madorra, staring up at him with one good eye.

  “Do you hear it?” he said.

  “Hear?” said Shorn.

  Joron turned to Madorra. “Do you hear it?”

  “Hear nothing.”

  “What hear?” said Shorn. As he turned back the windshorn shrank from him.

  “The song,” Joron said, and pointed at the windspire, “of that.” Shorn made a sound, something in the gullaime’s trilling language, then shook its head. When he turned back to Madorra it was studying him, the one eye rolling.

  “Bad human,” it said. Before he could ask anything else Berhof appeared on the far side of the clearing and motioned them forward. Joron gathered his crew and led them to the windspire.

  “Help Berhof set up defences,” he said to Jennil. “Find as much solid material as you can in the forest, make us barricades.”

  “Ey Deckkeeper,” she said and drew her curnow, leading the rest of the crew out to forage as he approached the windspire. The song was even louder here, not the vicious gale of the first windspire he had approached – did this mean it was less powerful? – but more like approaching a giant tolling bell, a sound that drowned out all else to the point of pain. As he neared it he felt the gullaime stir on his back. It moved again as Shorn helped him take off the harness that held it, fussing and clicking and cooing as he lowered the gullaime to the ground.

  “Careful. Careful. Not hurt windseer.” Did Madorra, so carefully not being part of this, hear that word? Did it react? Did its one eye focus on them?

  “We must get it into the spire’s cave, Shorn,” said Joron. All around the clearing was action, women and men dragging thick, wet stalks of gion into a rough square around the spire. He knew it must all be loud and noisy, but he could not hear them until he focused on their industry. His hearing had become oddly selective. What he fixed his attention on he heard, but all else was just the song. The beautiful, ugly, climbing, melodic, screeching, ascending and falling song, and it caught in his throat, scratching and biting as if it wanted to be free, making him cough.

  “Come, Joron T
winer,” said Shorn. “Come. Make gullaime well.”

  “Lazy bad bird,” said Madorra, but when Joron picked up the gullaime, light as ever in his arms, Madorra hopped along beside him as he struggled over to the windspire’s cave – head ringing, ears throbbing, throat full of spikes – to place the windtalker within the bottom of the spine. As ever, once he had it settled, and Shorn had finished fussing and messing with the cloths and clothes it had brought, stuffed into its robes, to make the gullaime comfortable, he stood back and felt only disappointment. Always he expected some reaction, some immediate change. But that was not the way of it. Something buzzed around his ear, a fly or something similar, and he turned. Found Cwell behind him.

  “You should stay here,” she said.

  Shorn moved slightly, coming in front of him as if to protect him from her.

  “What?” he said, standing.

  “You should stay here, when they come.” She looked at the ground so as not to meet his eye. “Deckkeeper.”

  “Why, do you think I am not able to fight?”

  “You are able,” she said. “But I am to protect you. And.” She pointed at the gullaime. “We need that. It answers best to you, so it is best you stay near it. I will protect you and I will protect it.” He realised it was the most Cwell had ever said to him without there being some obvious threat. Still he searched for some trick, and though her words made sense it rankled within him to simply follow her orders.

  “We have twenty here, that is all, Cwell. Even with the defences I will be needed if they find us.”

  She stared at him, then nodded.

  “Then I will protect you wherever you are,” she said. Then added: “But you should stay here,” before she stepped away and he wondered how he should react. Should he thank her? He could not bring himself to, so instead he went to look at how the defences were going. Gion stalks had been piled, then lashed together with what varisk vines they had found that still had enough substance.

  “It is flimsy,” said Berhof, wiping brown slime from his hands onto his clothes, “but it will disrupt a charge and it will stop an arrow.”