Call of the Bone Ships

by Rj Barker

  “The keyshan was the storm,” said Aelerin, “the islewyrm. I knew as soon as I felt it. I have never seen something so . . .”

  “Magnificent,” said Dinyl. He looked at the stump of his wrist. “I have hated you on occasion for what you did to me, Joron, to save the wakewyrm. But when we saw that keyshan breach, any hate I had left fled.” He placed his good hand on Joron’s good leg, squeezed gently. “Who are we to take such lives? How could I not have seen that back then?”

  “The choices we make are never easy, Dinyl. You did what you believed was right,” said Joron.

  “And after the waves came the calm,” said Aelerin, “and I can tell you there was nothing natural in that. Maybe it was an effect of the keyshan’s birthing, I do not know. It felt like even the storms held their breath, to see such a creature loosed.”

  “Do you think they live in all the islands, Joron?” said Dinyl. But Joron did not know, though he suspected. He did not want to answer, and was not even sure he could. His mind was as full of clouds as the most overcast and drizzle-filled day.

  “How did you escape the calm?” he said.

  “Coxward, Mother bless him. Never has a man been more capable with scraps and spar. Given the calm, and that Aelerin felt it would last a long time, rather than replacing the tops he built flukeboats to replace the ones taken by you and the shipwife to the island. Now, you may never have seen uglier boats in your life, and I am certain that no more malformed and Berncast things have ever flown the sea. But they floated. It took us a week to put them together and make sure they would not sink. Then, as we had no gullaime, we had to tow Tide Child back towards the island, and of course it was gone. Though I found that hard to believe at the time and must apologise again, Courser, for my harsh words.” He leaned forward, “I nearly had poor Aelerin corded when they said we were at the island and nothing was there.”

  “It is understandable, Dinyl,” said the courser, “for it is not every day an island vanishes.”

  “Anyway, Joron, all who escaped McLean’s Rock owe Aelerin their lives.”

  “And Black Orris,” said the courser.

  “Ey, true. But mostly Aelerin. I was sure all must be dead. But Aelerin said you were not. Said they would feel it the same way they feel the song of the storms if Meas passed, that you were tied in with them somehow. Once I had accepted their words, and I was almost mad with grief at losing both you and the shipwife, the courser did magnificent things, things I will never understand. Worked out positions from where we had been, how far away from the island we were when the keyshan breached, and the size of the waves when they hit. They set out a grid that we should search. And we did, the whole crew taking turns in those Hag-ugly flukeboats to tow Tide Child through the sea in search of you. We would find a place, sea anchor him. Then send the boats out to cover the area. For ever it took. It was Karring said they thought they had seen the hint of spine on the horizon during their search, but he struggled to be sure of where. So I sent Black Orris up. And he flew around and around before heading off east. When he returned, he called me an arse, and headed east once more. So we towed the ship after him and that is how we found you.”

  “And I am right glad you did. I am proud of you, Dinyl, and you, Aelerin.” Joron felt his voice catch with emotion. “I thought us lost, finished. I had given up.”

  “That is the deckchild’s disease talking, Joron. You were all in a very poor state. I have heard tell of what happened on the island.” He smiled and put his hand on Joron’s. “You never gave up.”

  “So many died, Dinyl,” said Joron quietly. “And for what? I am not even sure we found anything useful.”

  “Well, let us hope you did. Coxward has rigged Tide Child back to fly and he has fixed the holes in the hull of Keyshantooth so we can tow it more easily. The wind is even picking up a little.” He grinned and stood. Took the no-tail hat from where it hung on the corner of the chair he had sat on, knocked slightly out of shape by him leaning on it. “And now I must go make my report to the shipwife.” His smile wavered a bit. “It seems she is once more on her feet.” He punched the hat back into shape and placed it firmly on his head. “Be well, Joron. I am sure you will be needed again soon.”

  Joron smiled. “I hoped to be out of my bed before the shipwife,” he said, and tried to sit up but his strength failed him and he lay back once more. “She will think I am making a habit of sickness.” The words were hard to force from his mouth in a suddenly airless room. “And you know how she hates slatelayers.”

  “Ey,” said Dinyl quietly, and he hid his face as he turned, opening the door.

  “Dinyl,” said Joron, closing his eyes as the world span around him. “I meant what I said. I am proud of you, and the shipwife – well, I cannot speak for her, but I do not see how she could find fault in your actions.”

  “She will find some,” said Dinyl quietly, “I am sure of it.”

  “Well,” said Joron, “that is her nature, but any fault will be small, for we all owe you our lives.” He took a deep breath, opened his eyes and martialled his strength. Sat up a little. As Dinyl was about to shut the door Joron saw his sword, that beautiful thing that Meas had brought him, hanging from the handle of the door. “Dinyl!” He called out once more.

  “Ey?”

  “Did we lose any more – how is . . .?”

  “Two more were lost,” said Dinyl. Then he smiled. “But do not fret, Farys survived.” Joron felt relief flood through him, because that was not the question he had been going to ask. That was a question he had been too scared to ask, as she had become dear to him.

  “And what of Cwell, Dinyl?” he said, staring at the sword.

  “Ah well, Deckkeeper,” said Dinyl, “the news there is not as good, for I am afraid she survives also.” And with that Dinyl left, puzzled by the smile he had seen on his shipfriend’s face.

  “I should go too,” said Aelerin. “Garriya said we were not to tire you, that you are yet weak.”

  “I am fine,” he said, laying back and knowing he was not. Aelerin put out a hand, touching his shoulder, then his brow – which, when touched by their icy finger, he suddenly became aware was burning, hot as hagspit, and covered with a thin film of sweat.

  “I have said I am fine many times when it was not true, Deckkeeper,” said the courser. “Rest. I will send Garriya to you.” He tried to sit up again, to tell them he did not need the healer, but the stitches in his back pulled against the skin and a shot of pain ran through him, turning his dark skin grey, as if he were fresh pulled from a freezing sea. “It is time for the dressing on your leg to be changed. Garriya said you caught some bone it, from Keyshantooth.”

  “It hurts,” he said quietly, the words coming unbidden.

  “I will tell the hagshand,” said Aelerin, and left.

  Time passed, as time is wont to do, and Joron found himself unsure of how much had passed, for time had somehow become, to him, inconstant. He felt as though he were cast adrift upon its currents. One moment he knew where he was – in his cabin, on Tide Child, while Garriya looked over him. Other times he was sure he was back in the hagbower in Bernshulme, replaying his talk with Gueste, knowing the woman would betray him but unable to do anything about it. Going through the motions like a sleepwalker until he found himself once more imprisoned in a box and it was only then, awoken by his own shouting, that he would come back to the present. Find that he was in his cabin, wrapped tightly in blankets in his hammock as the ship rocked and fought the waves.

  After his visit, events were fractured. One day he woke to find Garriya standing over him and the world moving. So much noise. His body full of pain. His mind suddenly clear. The old woman staggering from foot to foot in the small space as she tried to get some foul-tasting concoction down his throat.

  “What is wrong with me?”

  “’Tis just the deckchild’s disease.”

  “What is the noise?”

  “A storm, boy,” she said. “That is all, and the ships weat
her it well, just as you shall weather yours.”

  He pulled himself up, grabbing Garriya by the front of her filthy tunic and pulling her down to meet him. Desperate to know . . . but to know what?

  “Do not lie to me, Garriya. The deckchild’s disease passes quickly with good food. What is wrong with me?”

  She stared into his face – old and ugly maybe, but her eyes were bird bright and intelligent.

  “That shard of old bone, some broke off, remained stuck in your leg wound. It is out now, but the keyshan’s rot, Caller – it complicates everything, weakens the body.”

  “Do not tell her about it.”

  “The shipwife? I would not tell her a thing unless you wish it, but you are fool if you think she does not know everything that goes on in her ship.”

  He was fighting for breath, his body suffused with pain that ran up from his leg and along every vein and artery and muscle.

  “I am in much pain, old woman.”

  “You are very ill,” she said. “But you will not go to the bonefire yet. I will not let you.”

  “No,” he said, and felt the desperation within him, the need to live; while at the same time he felt something else, something akin to drowning, to slowly slipping away. “Do not let it take me. Do not. No matter the price.”

  “No matter the price?” she repeated, slowly.

  “The fight is not yet over.” He gasped those words out and fell back into darkness. The last thing he saw was her face, full of concern and care, and fear. “No matter the price,” he whispered as darkness once more encroached.

  44

  The Fiercest Battles Are Fought Within

  The darkness. Trapped in the box.

  Get me out of the box.

  Agony. Searing, unbearable agony.

  Hold him down!

  Strapped in.

  Unable to move.

  The darkness.

  This forever.

  This his fate.

  Mevans! Mevans! Get me out!

  Hold him down, for Hag’s sake or I’ll take the knife to you.

  Agony. Searing, unbearable agony.

  There are borebones in the box! They have put borebones in the box!

  They are eating me alive. Please, Mevans. Come for me, they are eating me alive.

  Hold him down, may the Hag take you if you can’t keep him still.

  Agony. Searing, unbearable agony.

  Shhh, shhh, Deckkeeper, I am here. It is Mevans, I am here.

  Why is it so dark, Mevans?

  Open the Hag-cursed box, I am being eaten alive.

  Agony. Searing, unbearable agony.

  Hag curse you woman, hurry!

  The Shipwife! The Shipwife is here!

  Ey, Deckkeeper, she is. She will let no harm come to you.

  The agony. The searing, unbearable agony.

  Curse you woman, get the limb off, I could have done it more quickly myself.

  Not and kept him alive, Shipwife.

  They are eating me alive. The borebones are in the box and they are eating me alive.

  Nearly done now, Caller.

  It is so dark.

  So dark and so very painful.

  Agony. Searing, unbearable agony.

  It is done now, Joron.

  Rest.

  You must rest.

  So dark. So dark and so very painful.

  Agony.

  Searing.

  Unbearable agony.

  45

  No Less of a Man for the Loss

  “Will you be putting me ashore at Leasthaven?”

  Meas looked at him as if he had sprung fully formed from the bones of Tide Child and claimed to be Skearith the godbird.

  “What in all the islands do you mean by that, Deckkeeper?”

  “You cannot have a deckkeeper with only one foot.”

  “Think before you speak, Joron,” she said, plainly irritated. “Shipwife Arrin had most of one leg missing and it did not stop him.”

  “But he was Gaunt Islands. We are Hundred Isles, it is not what we do.”

  “Hundred Isles, are we?” said Meas with a laugh. She walked over so she stood looking down at him where he lay in his hammock. “I doubt my mother would agree. And, in case you have failed to notice, we do things differently on this ship.” She stared at him a little longer and her hard, sharp face seemed to soften a little, like watching dawn light on a rock face. “Unless you wish to go ashore, Joron. There would be no shame, you have done much and—”

  “Of course I do not wish to go ashore.” He took a breath. “But I cannot walk.”

  “Well, then,” she said, and straightened the sparkling blue fishskin of her jacket, “it seems we have a problem. You do not wish to go ashore, but I cannot have an officer who cannot walk.”

  “So I must be put ashore,” he said, but she shook her head.

  “No.”

  “Shipwife, I have lost my foot, and part of my leg. I cannot walk.”

  “What nonsense, Deckkeeper. You have fought off what would kill most. Fought women and men, other ships and sickness. I am quite sure that if Arrin did it you can learn to walk also.”

  “He was born that way.”

  “So?”

  “Well . . .” He realised he did not know how to answer her.

  “Coxward!” she shouted. “Coxward! Come here!”

  A moment later the bonewright bustled into the cabin. In his bandaged arms he held a bundled shape that Joron thought at first must be a sword. Then Coxward pulled the cover from it to show Joron a thing he was evidently very impressed with, but which meant nothing to Joron. One end was what looked like a cup with straps and rigging around it, and attached to this was a curve of white bone about as long as a man’s calf.

  “This is for you,” he said.

  “What is it?” said Joron.

  Coxward’s large round face fell a little at that.

  “A leg,” he said.

  “It does not look like a leg,” said Joron.

  “Well, no,” said Coxward. “See, I did make one that looked more like a proper leg – even had a foot, it did, but it was awful heavy. I have seen other men with peg legs, and even Shipwife Arrin could not move at any great pace and he were right fond of saying his leg was one of the finest ever made. Then, I were looking, see, at the leg of the gullaime. Which ain’t like a human leg at all.” He grinned and moved around, slapping his thigh. “All the muscle in your gullaime, it’s up here, see, barely any in the lower leg, that what you have lost.” He grinned, though Joron was not sure it was a thing to grin about, but Coxward did not care, so lost in enthusiasm was he for what he held. “Bottom of their leg is all tendon and spring. So that is what I made, see. I mean, it ain’t got tendon, but it’s made of laminated bone, has plenty of spring. So when you walk, it’ll push back. Give you some feeling.”

  “You cut the ship up for me?”

  “Well, not quite,” said Coxward. “Tide Child took some damage, and I used some bone shed from there, and I used your own, from what was cut off. So it’s you and him see. Mixed.”

  “Well, Joron?” said Meas.

  He stared at the object, this strange totem that Coxward, and evidently Meas, thought may give him back mobility. This mixture of him and the ship, dead parts of Joron and dead parts of a keyshan.

  “Let me try it,” he said, and was rewarded with a huge grin from Coxward who started forward, only to be stopped by Meas.

  “Not yet,” she said. “Garriya says your stump must heal more, and that is at least a week away yet.” Joron was about to protest but she cut him off. “I did not enjoy watching you have your leg sawn off at the knee, Deckkeeper, and I command you to keep the rest of it. Leave that here, Coxward” – she pointed at the bone leg – “and bring him a crutch for now. Leave it by the door.” The bonewright grinned, passed over the leg and left. Meas put the leg down by Joron’s hammock.

  “We head back to Cassin’s Isle and Leasthaven, to pick up our fleet. From there we w
ill go and take Sleighthulme. Free our people.”

  “If they are there,” he said. She did not speak for a moment, let silence settle between them.

  “They must be,” she said, but it was hope, not surety that filled her voice.

  “Do you think they still survive?”

  “If they do not, we will avenge them,” she said, cold and hard as the ice in the north. “We will get our people, and we will destroy whatever is set up for making this poison for keyshans. Strike blows for peace.” She nodded, looking sure and strong once more, “It is maybe four weeks journey, six if the weather is against us. I need you able to use that leg by then, Joron.”

  “Sleighthulme is a fortress, Shipwife,” he said. “Our fleet is not big and even if it were, Sleighthulme has stood many a bombardment. The sea gates protect it.”

  “The sea gates will be open.”

  “How?”

  “The Keyshantooth. It is theirs, it is known. And, Joron, you saved Anopp, its deckmother, who knows the codes and the phrases and the flags. I want you to take it in. I have been to Sleighthulme, I can draw you a map. You will take the ship in and take the gatehouse that controls the sea gates. From there, you will hold them long enough for the fleet to come in.”

  “But Shipwife,” he said quietly, “I have lost half my leg. Send Dinyl, he is absolutely capable.”

  “Oh Joron,” she said, and exasperation was a dark cloud on the edge of her words. “You are right, he is utterly capable. But able to think on his feet?” She hesitated, aware of what she had said. Joron laughed, unable to stop himself.

  “He at least has feet, and he is able. He is . . .”

  “By the book, is what he is, Joron.”

  “The minute they see me, they will know I am not what I pretend to be.” He nodded down the hammock, at the space where his seaward foot should be.

  Meas seemed to deflate. She turned from him and for a moment he thought she would hammer her hand against the wall of the cabin.

  “Hag curse me for a fool, you are right,” she said. Did her voice waver? Was there some emotion there? Was her frustration rising like a wave, to break over him?