Call of the Bone Ships

by Rj Barker

  The gap called to him.

  His legs would not work.

  But he had strong arms. Dragged himself forward. Women and men died. Forward. He tasted blood in his mouth. Forward. The stinging scent of hagspit in his nostrils. Forward, only forward. Crawling through a slime of mud and hagspit that had leaked from the barrels. Shadows falling round him. Nearly there. His eyes watering with pain and the acrid fumes that gathered in the small hut. There. Here. Made it. Behind him a noise. He rolled over. Pushed himself up so he sat amongst the barrels. One hand scrabbled at the pouch by his side, finding his flint and sparker. A figure silhouetted in the entrance to the hut. Coughlin held up the flint and sparker. The figure drew back their arm, ready to throw the spear they held.

  “Stop,” said Coughlin.

  The figure did.

  “You are their leader,” he said.

  Coughlin nodded.

  “My people,” said Coughlin through a mouthful of blood. “They are all dead?”

  The figure nodded in return.

  “They took all my men with them, though. They fought well.”

  “They were good, my seaguard.”

  “As were mine.” The officer hunkered down a little, getting ready to throw. “Do you think you can make the spark before I can kill you?” There was no threat in the question, only curiosity.

  “Whether I do, or do not, I will toast you at the Hag’s fire,” said Coughlin.

  “And I you,” said the seaguard commander. Coughlin gave him a small salute, drew the flint across the scratcher and the seaguard threw his spear. Coughlin felt the point pierce his chest as the shower of sparks from the sparker multiplied and changed colour, taken up by air thick with hagspit fumes, and his last thought was how very, very beautiful the flame was.

  Across the harbour, on top of a tower, watching desperately out to sea for the ships of his shipwife, Joron Twiner no longer had to worry about how to make a signal. Behind him, the giant mangonel was no more, engulfed in a huge green flame that sent up a plume of black smoke. One he was sure would be seen even by those in Bernshulme, far, far over the horizon.

  52

  The Calm Before . . .

  With the gate open, and the huge mangonel fallen, the end was quick. Sleighthulme’s army was too used to living in a town that was untakeable and had never truly expected to fight. When presented with a fleet of boneships crewed by angry deckchilder and commanded by the famed Lucky Meas, who glared about her as if she could bring the whole island down around her ears, they capitulated. There was no fight left in them after the mangonel’s destruction. Joron was returned to his shipwife, greeting her on the docks with Mevans and Farys as she alighted from Tide Child’s boat.

  “Well done, Deckkeeper,” she said. “How many did you lose?”

  “Seven deckchilder,” he said. Then looked down at the floor, avoiding the eyes of those around him. “And Coughlin. He and all his seaguard gave their lives to destroy the mangonel.” More deaths on his slate, more friends lost and he had to fight back a sudden upswell of emotion. Meas nodded, looked away from him and bitter experience let him recognise something in her he never had before; how keenly she felt her losses. How hard she worked not to show it.

  “He was a good warrior. He will be missed.” She stared over his shoulder, past the forest of ship spines and through the closed gate out to sea. She stepped closer, and spoke only for him. “Joron, I am truly sorry for your loss out there.” She put a hand on his shoulder and was about to say more, but whether she realised he was near to being overcome by the pain of his grief or was feeling it herself he did not know. She simply nodded. Smiled a small sad smile, bit on her bottom lip and changed the subject. “So, you have the island’s commander?”

  “The island was led by a hagpriest.” A pause. “She is dead.”

  “What are you not saying?”

  How to answer that?

  “She was your sither. I had to kill her. I have laid out her body and—”

  “I have no sithers.” Said just too quickly. Meas straightened the cuffs on her jacket, any trace of feeling gone from her face. “And no need to see the body. Have it thrown off the walls for the longthresh.”

  “Yes, Shipwife.”

  “Where is her next in command?”

  “In the largest of the bothies, where all those who lead this island await us.”

  “Then we will go there,” said Meas. She stared at the black hill. “But first we go to the mines.”

  “The mines?”

  “Do you think you work people to death out in the open, Joron?”

  “They could be anywhere,” he said, but she shook her head.

  “You wish to do something dark, Deckkeeper, then you do it in darkness.” She looked up the winding serpent road. “I have given this much thought while I waited out to sea. Besides, I would find my people, and know what crimes their captors are responsible for before I talk to them.” With that she strode away from the dock and he followed, after commanding Mevans and Farys to stay and make sure the ships were well cared for and the brownbones made ready to take on whoever they should find.

  If anyone.

  He followed her through the streets, Narza and Cwell behind them. It was an ugly town of blocky buildings put up quickly to house the miners. The ugliness was made worse by the stink of hagspit from the still-burning mangonel. He wondered what made Meas so sure about the mines, though he questioned her decisions less and less as they passed through the town. There were fewer people here than he would expect. Many of the buildings were plainly empty once they were away from the harbourside.

  “Where are the miners?” he asked as they walked.

  “Curious, is it not,” she said, “for a mining town to be so quiet? Almost as if they did not wish people in the mines, ey?

  “Well . . .” he began.

  “Come, Joron,” she said, and they turned the corner, the black arch of the mine entrance before them.

  “Should we bring deckchilder with us?”

  “Narza and Cwell will do for now,” she said, and strode forward, leaving him little choice but to follow.

  To enter the mines of Sleighthulme was to move into a different world: as different from the world of land as was the sea. As damp and cold as the underdecks when traversing the north – but more alien than any ship could ever be. It was so still, the air becalmed and full of moisture without the wind to whip it away. It engendered a nervousness in Joron, for he also felt becalmed, and at the same time entombed. Like he was once more locked in the box back in Bernshulme by Gueste. The panic rising within him as the darkness grew. Meas passed him a lantern, and used a wanelight to light the oil within. Then passed lanterns to Narza and Cwell. That done she touched his arm, a brief squeeze, but in that one touch was so much understanding – I know this is hard for you, I trust you to be strong. And so he followed her down into the depths and he knew that wherever she went he would always follow, for she was his shipwife.

  In the light of his lanterns he saw the scars of work on the mountain, years and years of quarrying for slate to deck the ships, and stone to build the bothies. The caves of Sleighthulme were vast, the mountain above little more than a shell and as they made their way downwards, four small lights carefully picking their way down hundreds and hundreds of stairs, he felt a sense of awe at what had been done here. That once this had been solid rock, and women and men had changed that with little more than their hands, rocks and iron tools.

  The further they descended the more oppressive the air became. He heard a sound like great lungs breathing, in and out, and remembered McLean’s Rock, torn apart as the keyshan shook itself loose. But what he heard could not be a pair of vast lungs. Sleighthulme was dead, it did not sing.

  “Pumps,” said Meas. “Mines always have pumps running.”

  Further down.

  Deeper.

  And.

  Deeper.

  Under the sound of the pumps another sound. It reminded him of win
d sighing through the ropes of a ship – it had that same mournful sound, like rigging in the darkest part of the night when even Skearith’s Blind Eye was closed. What was mournful started to become heartbreaking the louder it sounded.

  “Shipwife,” he said, and something about this vast oppressive space made him whisper, even though he was sure if he raised his voice it would still barely be heard. “It is voices.”

  “Ey,” she said. “It is voices.”

  And down.

  And down.

  And deeper.

  Until they found the pens.

  Here, in this black and dank place were pens, of the type that were used to cage the gullaime back in Bernshulme. In these pens were not windtalkers and windshorn, lit by guttering torches, but people.

  Here were those who had made the trip in the confines of the brownbones and survived: sickly looking, many missing legs and arms or sporting some other imperfection that marked them out as women and men never destined to join the Bern. Many had the marks of disease, of keyshan’s rot.

  Joron looked away.

  Felt the tops of his arms itch.

  Opposite the pens was a small cave, barred by gion. Joron walked away from the pen containing people, full of horror and revulsion at what had been done and at the raw stink of humans penned up and suffering. He stared past the gion, into the cave: inside were windshorn, huddled together as far from the entrance as they could get. He turned away.

  “Shipwife?” The voice was weak, almost broken. Then it spoke again and it was filled with joy, like Skearith’s Bright Eye breaking a horizon. “’Tis the Shipwife, I knew she would come!” And a body pressed themselves against the bars. Joron expected more to do the same but it was as if the others, so many others, in the cage had been leeched of all energy. They did not even look up. Meas crossed the space, looking at the face and in the firelight Joron could see that she struggled to find familiarity in the emaciated features.

  “I do not . . .” she said.

  “Oh, you do not know me, and I only ever saw you from afar,” they said, “I built bothies for the proud Bern of Safeharbour once. They are all gone now. They went first.”

  “What is your name, builder?” said Meas gently.

  “Lavin, Shipwife, Herat Lavin.” She looked like she was about to burst into tears. “I never dreamed I would see you before I was taken through the door.”

  “The door?”

  Lavin nodded. She had been a handsome woman, but now her hair was matted and the scars of childbirth on her belly had been obscured by dirt.

  “Over there.” She pointed at a pair of varisk doors. “Those who go through never come back. I have heard our keeper talk of the vats, but do not know what they are.”

  “The work they put them to,” said Meas, “it is harsh, from what we have discovered. Few would survive long. Now, Lavin, I must go through there. But I will come back, that is a promise.” She brought her hands up and her face close to the bars. “A promise, you understand?” Lavin nodded. “Now, brave Lavin, how many of ours remain?”

  “From Safeharbour? A hundred maybe, no more than that. We were stronger, so have survived longer than the poor wretches scoured from the streets of Bernshulme and the other islands. They take the weakest first, before the life runs out of them.” She tried to smile. “Or those who have offended them, my daughter,” said Lavin, “she could not stay quiet . . .” Her voice died away. Her grief all too plain on her face.

  Joron found himself shaking, anger and horror warring within him at what had been done here. To take those least able and use them so sorely and foully. To rip families apart. If ever he had doubted Meas’s wish for change it would have fled on seeing these people, caged and waiting to die.

  “She will be avenged,” said Meas. Then added under her breath, “This is the Hag’s work.”

  “No,” said Lavin, “The Hag, Mother and Maiden are not at work here. What is done in this place is done by the hands of women and men.”

  Meas took Lavin’s hand through the bars, grasped it tightly. Behind Lavin some of those in the cage were coming forward now, wide frightened eyes in skeletal bodies. Many others did not move and Joron felt sure, more by smell than sight, that a good few corpses lay among the unmoving. For a moment his mind was cast back to the hold of the storm-wracked boat that started all this. The stink, the foulness, the inhumanity.

  “I will return soon.” Then she let go and turned. “Come Joron, come Narza and Cwell,” she said, and he heard the tremor in her voice, how near she was to being overcome with fury. “And bare your blades. If there is anyone on this island most likely to be worthy of its edge I expect to find them in there.” She drew her own sword and pointed it the doors.

  They went through.

  It smelled like the butcher’s street back in Bernshulme, and behind that cloying scent was the choking stink of smoke and fire. The space was big, but not cavernous like the rest of the mines, more like the hollowed out inside of a grand bothy, many times the height of a tall woman. The room was filled with huge stone vats three times the height of Joron, blackened around the bottom by fire and grey at the top.

  Joron stepped forward and something cracked beneath his feet – a piece of varisk or gion, he guessed. Then he looked down. Not varisk or gion – bone. It had rolled from a huge pile of bones that had been heaped against the wall, the carelessly collected remains of hundreds: skulls, shoulder blades, thighbones.

  “Meas,” he said, “what is this? They do not even bury them?”

  “Joron,” she replied, and took him by the arm. “Come away from there. We cannot help the dead. Let us see if any living remain further in.” He did as she asked and they ventured deeper into the vat room.

  A noise.

  A voice.

  Begging for life. Suddenly silenced.

  The familiar squeak of rope and pulley.

  They came around a huge vat to find a scene of nightmare.

  A hagpriest stood before them, her robe pristine white, glowing in the darkness. She spoke under her breath, whispering the names of the three goddesses, asking for their favour as she pulled on a rope.

  “Maiden look upon my work. Mother look upon my work. Hag look upon my work.” And the squeak of the rope around the winches.

  Joron’s gaze followed that rope. From her hands, to the pulley, up to the high ceiling where it ran around another pulley and down to the end from which hung a human corpse. It was being lifted above the vat, blood dripping from a cut throat. Already hanging above the vat were two windshorn, slack, dead and dripping. By the base of the vat were stacked various herbs and plants. Some had been measured out and placed on the table, others were in sacks, sagging on the floor. Joron did not know what to do. Did not speak. Did not move. Meas similarly frozen by the scene before them. The hagpriest acted as if they did not exist. Simply kept pulling on the rope. When the corpse was fully hoisted the hagpriest turned.

  “Who are you?” she croaked, “Can you not see I am busy working? And if you come from the hagmother to tell me to work faster then I cannot. This is not mere slaughter. There is ritual, and herbs before I flense away the flesh for the hiyl. It is not some simple stew.” She turned away, bent over a book on the table, noted something down and muttered to herself.

  “Where are your workers?” said Joron.

  “There are none,” said Meas, her voice flat, dead as the corpses above the vat. “Are there?” she said, walking forward. Joron thought it obvious to any who watched her stiff-legged walk that she was furious beyond any reckoning.

  “Of course not, Reas,” said the hagpriest, squinting into the gloom. “Though I would like them, but you trust none with the recipes, do you? As if anyone could get off this island.” She stopped writing and stared at Meas, squinting her eyes as if she had difficulty seeing. She was young – from her voice Joron had expected her to be old, jaded. But she was not. “Why are you not wearing your robe, Reas?”

  “Because I am not Reas Gilbryn,�
� she said. “I am Meas Gilbryn. Sometimes called Lucky Meas, sometimes called the witch of Keelhulme Sounding. This island is mine now. I have taken it by force where no other has ever succeeded.”

  The hagpriest shrugged. “Why?” she said. “The recipe is not yet perfected, maybe five, six more trials. Though we may hit upon it sooner if the Mother smiles upon us.” She grinned, and what shone in this woman’s eyes was a bright excitement, and at the same time it was something darker than anything Joron had ever seen. “So I hope you have brought me more supplies, Lucky Meas Gilbryn, witch of Keelhulme Sounding. For if you have not, even if we do hit upon the recipe soon, then we will not have enough material to produce it in any great amount.”

  “Material?” said Meas.

  “Yes,” she said, and that dark light in her eyes, Joron realised he knew it, the same as the look in Madorra’s when it had talked of the windseer, the gleam of the fanatic. A mind that teetered on the edge of madness. “I need more of them for my work. The dregs, the worthless who through this great task will find worth, just as they did in the old days.”

  “You will die for this,” said Meas, no emotion in her voice, and the hagpriest only then realised the danger. But she did not seem afraid, more confused.

  “Why?”

  “Can you not see the horror you perform here?”

  “Horror?” The hagpriest smiled. “Every time you walk upon the deck of your ship, Shipwife, you walk upon the bones of those sacrificed by our foremothers. Did you ever wonder why we sacrifice children to our ships? Simply for corpselights to shine prettily above them? No. It is in memory of the great sacrifices made to hunt the arakeesians.” She stepped forward. “This”– she pointed at the vat – “is what the Hundred Isles’ greatness, and what the Gaunt Islanders believe is their own, is built on. Corpses.” She walked forward, standing before Meas. “It is not just our ships that are built of bones, Shipwife.” She smiled, as if everything she said was entirely reasonable. Made perfect sense. “Without my work, all we are falls. All you are becomes worthless.”