Call of the Bone Ships

by Rj Barker

  “Worthless?” said Meas.

  “Aye,” said the hagpriest. “All your warrior spirit and honour will be meaningless without ships to fly, and what do you think of that, witch of Keelhulme Sounding? You need me.”

  Meas stared at her, and it seemed she did it for an age. The only sound in the cold damp air of the cave was blood dripping from the opened neck of the corpse and into the vat.

  “And you are the only one that knows this recipe,” she pointed at the corpse, “this secret?”

  “The recipe, aye. The rudiments are known by some of my sisters. But the subtleties that will ensure success? They are mine alone.”

  Meas nodded.

  “In truth, Hagpriest, if all my honour and warrior spirit were to become worthless, I would welcome it. I long for peace, but life in the Hundred Isles has forced me to become a killer.” She smiled. “That is what I am, and I have come to accept it.”

  “Good,” sad the hagpriests, “I am glad you are able to accept that.”

  “Glad?” said Meas. “You should not be.” Her blade flicked out, flashed across the neck of the priest. Blood sprayed across them both. Meas did not flinch as the hagpriest fell back, clutching at her throat and gasping. “Yours is a quick death,” said Meas, looking down at her, “and you should be thankful, for I believe you deserve much worse.” She turned and walked away. “Come, Joron. I have seen enough. We return to the surface.”

  He followed her back into the main room and Meas walked over to the pens, using the hilt of her sword to smash the lock on the door. “Joron, open the other pen, and the cave holding the windshorn.” He did, hearing Meas speaking to Lavin. “Do what you can for your fellows, Lavin. I will send women and men with food and stretchers to get them out of the cave. We have ships to take you away from here. But I have business on the surface now.” Then they were going back up the stairs, so many, so steep.

  “What will you say to those of Sleighthulme, gathered in the bothy and waiting?” he said. Meas stopped on the stair. Turned to him.

  “Say?” she said. “I will say nothing.” She was shaking, anger held in a tight knot within her. “For what has gone on here a price must be paid. The horror of the ships bringing people here, keeping them caged. Murdered in pursuit of a poison to hunt keyshans. Every woman and man who let this happen will hang from a rope. I will make a charnel garden of them and I will start with the hagpriests. Every trace of this poison, every clue to its creation on this island must be destroyed. Whether it be in a book or a mind.” He had never heard her talk so, never seen such utter hardness but at the same time he could not argue with her. What could be said?

  They broke into the light, left the dark moistness of the cave and headed toward the Serpent Road that led to the bothy, where those who had governed Sleighthulme waited, unaware that sentence on them had already been passed. A voice stopped their passage. A shout from the towers in the harbour, loud enough to be heard across the entire town.

  “Ship rising!” Then a space. A gap. “Ships rising! A whole fleet!”

  Meas looked to him.

  “Well,” she said, “there always was the possibility this was a trap,” and she changed direction, heading toward the harbour. “Let us go and see what we have sprung.”

  53

  The Storm that Never Was

  The wind plucked at their hair, twisted it into tangles with the tails of their hats while they stared out to sea. Meas’s fifth visit to the tower that day. A cloud of white wings on the horizon, all making for Sleighthulme. Meas closed up her nearglass and placed it in her coat. Black Orris, who sat upon her shoulder, flapped his wings and shouted “Arse! Arse!” at this disturbance.

  “More ships now. I make out ten – eight two-ribbers, a four-ribber the equal of Tide Child and a ship that may be a four- or a five-ribber, I can’t quite tell.”

  “That’s overkill, four ships is enough to blockade us,” said Joron.

  “Sleighthulme is rich,” she said, “and she will not want what she was doing here to get out. She will want to make sure of the outcome.”

  “How did she know?” said Joron.

  “If she knew what I was looking for, then it would not be hard to work out where I would end up. She could have had a watcher out there” – she pointed to the sea – “well, it is almost certain. As soon as the mangonel went up I knew it would attract attention.” She shrugged. “That, or one of the spies among us managed to report back.”

  “You knew this would happen,” he said.

  “My mother is many things – ruthless, devious, but most of all she is clever.” She sucked on her teeth. “I thought we would have more time, hoped we would be able to get out before her ships came. It seems we do not.” Meas glanced back at the town. “What I would do to still have that mangonel in working order, but the Maiden plays her tricks, shows us the tools we need for the job, and lets us choose which ones we are left with.” She turned to Solemn Muffaz, stood behind her with his body rigid, eyes staring straight ahead.

  “Go down into the town, Solemn Muffaz,” said Meas. “I need to know water sources, how much food we have, and how many mouths we must feed.”

  “Ey, Shipwife,” he said, and started to turn away.

  “And Solemn Muffaz,” she added. He paused, waiting for her words. “You do not need to count the townspeople among those we must find food for. I have no pity for any of them.” He nodded and made his way down into the tower. As he left through the small door the gullaime pushed past, followed by Madorra. It hopped up onto a crenulation, splendid and glittering in robe and feather, and stared out to sea.

  “Bad ships,” it said. Meas took out her nearglass once more, annoyed Black Orris once more, and looked out to sea.

  “Can you bring up a storm, Gullaime?” said Meas. “Can you smash them all against this island?”

  It yarked, shook its head then its entire body. “No, no, no,” it said. “Gullaime on board ships. Bad gullaime.” It spat the words out. “Bad bad. Maybe wreck one. Maybe two. Then tired.”

  “Well then, hold on to your strength, Gullaime,” she said, staring at the ships as they grew in the lens, “we may need it. What of the keyshans? Can you sing us up a sea dragon, gullaime, you and Joron there?”

  “Sea sither not come,” said the gullaime. “Not like Black Orris. Not hear name, come.”

  As if to repudiate the idea that Black Orris came when called, the corpsebird shouted “Arse!” then lifted from Meas’ shoulders, launching itself into the air above the tower.

  “Well, it is bleak for us then, Joron,” said Meas. “They can stand off and resupply for as long as it takes to starve us out.”

  “Can we not run? They are a way out still.”

  She turned her nearglass on to the town, down onto the docks where a steady stream of her crews were loading the women and men from the mines onto the brownbones. They would be moved in little luxury, though in far better conditions than the ones they were brought in. Even so, many fought rather than be taken on board, many cried and the deckchilder, no matter how well they wished to treat these poor unfortunates, were forced to be rougher than Joron, and Meas, would have wished.

  “No,” said Meas. “We will not have them loaded in time, and even if we had, the brownbones are slow and the fleet ships are fast.”

  “Then we go out and fight?” he said. She shook her head. “But we have more ships.”

  “True in numbers, Joron, but our ships are small and they are mostly damaged and badly supplied. What gullaime we have, and they are few, are tired and have no access to a windspire. Those ships” – she pointed out to sea – “will be fresh and well supplied with gullaime and all else they need. Numbers will count for little, I expect. And if the shipmother of that fleet has anything about them then the moment we open the gate they will have their gullaime drive a fireship through it. Then we are ruined. Were it just us, I would take them on still.” She closed up the nearglass again and glanced into the town. “But it is not.
Those poor wretches have only just escaped captivity. I won’t put them back into it.” Meas took a deep breath. “No, fighting is our last option and I am of a mind that we pursue a more peaceful one first.”

  “You have a plan?” he said. She nodded, but did not meet his gaze. Instead she turned to Narza, standing still and forgotten, just like Cwell at his side.

  “Narza, go find me Mevans.” Narza hesitated, clearly unwilling to leave. “I am unlikely to be hurt on top of this tower,” said Meas. “I am sure Cwell there can protect me from the skeers.”

  She watched Narza go and spoke, more to herself than him. “They will not want a siege, they will want the island back. It has stone and iron, and they will want all the knowledge they can salvage of hiyl.” She stared out at the ships. “Some prizes, Joron, are worth sacrifices.”

  Mevans and Narza emerged from the tower door.

  “Shipwife?” said Mevans.

  “Put up the flags for a parlay,” she said. “Then wait here with Joron and he can escort whoever they send down into the infirmary. I’ll see them there. I want them to see as little of the town as possible.” Mevans nodded. “And also, Mevans, you can explain to me what so many of our people are doing around the bottom of that mangonel. I gave no orders to fix it.”

  He grinned at her, irrepressible as ever.

  “And it is a good job you did not, Shipwife, for it is never going to be fixed. But I reckoned you may talk to whoever comes, and if there was a parlay on the cards, I thought it may be good for us to look as though we thought that mangonel may indeed be fixable.”

  “Well,” she said, stepping forward and putting a hand on his arm in a curiously familiar gesture, “I cannot fault that. But I will also have our people build gallows along the harbour. Take down the buildings if you need the materials.” She stared out to sea once more then turned to Joron. “I will see you in the infirmary. I do not expect I will have long to wait.”

  Once Meas was gone and the flags were up Joron sat with Mevans, while Cwell stood, and they had little to do but watch the incoming ships grow bigger. One split from the main group and made for the gate, going much faster than the fleet behind it. Mevans stood on the wall, squinting down at it.

  “Flying the flags for parlay, and working his gullaime hard,” he said. “They must have brought plenty.” Joron joined him and watched as the two-ribber flew toward them, eventually coming to stop below and letting down its seastay. A flukeboat was put over the side, filled with women and men from the ship and the unmistakeable form of an officer, stood in the beak of the little boat.

  “Mevans,” said Joron, “bring up some deckchilder and a boarding chair. I doubt their officer will want to climb the outside of the tower.” Mevans nodded, returning quickly with small group of deckchilder and they used a hastily rigged crane to lower the boarding chair over the side of the tower just as the small boat was drawing up to it.

  “Take the strain,” said Mevans. And when the rope became taut he shouted, “Pull!” And they sang as they pulled on the rope.

  Hard it is the deckchild’s life

  Heave up, heave on.

  Heave up, heave on.

  Obey commands of our Shipwife

  Heave up, heave on.

  Heave up, heave on.

  Deckmother has a heavy hand

  Heave up, heave on.

  Heave up, heave on.

  We’ll know no peace till we hit land.

  Heave up, heave on.

  Heave up, heave on.

  “We could drop whoever it is they send,” said Mevans, “by accident.”

  “I suspect the shipwife would frown on that, Mevans,” said Joron.

  “Ey,” he said, “she has never been too fond of a joke, right enough.”

  But when the chair crowned the tower, and the officer, dressed in the finery of a shipwife, stood before them Joron wished, more than anything, they had dropped the woman to be smashed among the rocks far below them. He knew this elegant, louche woman. Those same elegant hands that handed over her sword and crossbows were the same ones that had locked Joron into a box, and given the order that broke his voice so he would never sing again.

  “Why, Joron Twiner,” said Gueste, “I did not expect to ever meet you again.” She glanced down at his bone spur. “Though I see you are not quite the man you once were, ey?”

  “And you have a new rank,” he said. “You have been well rewarded for your loyalty.”

  “Painful Loss is a small ship, but he is mine. More apt for you though, with a name like that.” She grinned at him. “Now, I believe I am to be taken to speak to your shipwife, ey?” Joron nodded and watched as Gueste made a show of looking over the town. The gallows that were growing along the docks, the women and men working on the mangonel. Joron’s blade came up, a hiss as it left the scabbard and he held it before Gueste’s eyes.

  “You’re here to talk, not spy,” he said.

  Gueste smiled at him then reached out, gently pushing the blade down.

  “No doubt,” she said, “but I suspect I see nothing Meas does not want me to, ey?”

  “You and I,” said Joron, “have a score to settle.”

  “We do, but on another day. Now, will you escort me or not?”

  He did, taking her down through the tower and into the infirmary where Meas had found a desk and set herself up behind it. She had provided no chair for Gueste.

  “Leave us please, Joron,” she said, and he could not help but feel slightly offended that she did not want him there. But she was the shipwife, and he the deckkeeper, so he did as he was told and waited outside the door.

  They talked for a long time.

  When they emerged from the makeshift office Meas had a deckchilder take Gueste back up the tower and bade Joron come into the office. She went to the side and pulled over a chair, putting it by the desk, motioning for him to sit. At no point did she smile, or talk or share a joke. When she sat down, she waited, as if something within her needed to give time for Gueste to leave the island.

  “A price has been struck,” she said.

  “And what is the cost?”

  “The brownbones can leave, unmolested.”

  “And what is the cost?”

  “The fleet also.”

  “And what is the cost?”

  “You are to take command of my fleet, Joron. I will speak to all the shipwives. There will be no argument.”

  And he said the words again, even though he knew what the cost must be, because she had spoken to him of sacrifice, and he had misunderstood her then.

  “And what is the cost,” he said quietly, “of all this?”

  “I am, Joron.” She smiled a sad smile. He went cold inside.

  “You knew that before Gueste set foot on Sleighthulme.”

  “I suspected it may be the case, yes.”

  “Your mother really wants you that badly? Enough that she will let the rest of us go with tales of the horrors we found here?”

  Meas laughed, though still there was little humour there.

  “No, it is not really me she wants, Joron.” She rubbed the top of the table with her palm, round and round. “It is you she wants, but she does not know it. She knows we raised a keyshan from McLean’s Rock and she wants that power. No greater weapon exists in the entire archipelago.” She sat back in her chair. “But the idea a man could be the one that raised a keyshan? Well, that is clearly too much for her.”

  “But you cannot raise keyshans for her,” he said.

  “No. And I would not if I could.”

  “You should send me, Shipwife.” He was suddenly near to panic. “You are needed. You are the one who sets the course. You are the one who knows the way.”

  “Joron.” She leaned forward. “The pain she will be prepared to inflict to get what she wants, no one could stand up to it. My mother, she does not know pity, only ambition. You have seen that, here. On this island.”

  “And you think you will bear it better?” he said. “I have be
come well used to pain.”

  She shook her head.

  “No one is immune to torture, Joron. I say I would not do what she wanted if I could.” Another smile, one that quickly fled. “That is bravado. All give in eventually, and so would you. It is no dishonour. But me? Even when I break, and I will, I have nothing to give her.”

  “You cannot do this.”

  “I have already done it.”

  “No,” he said, standing. “This is not right, this is—”

  “An order, Joron,” barked out. Then more softly, “It is an order. From me.” She stared up at him from where she sat behind this desk. “You will be allowed to leave and I have said you will return to Cassin’s Isle and Leasthaven. Gueste promises me that my mother will leave you alone. When you have arrived, you must leave the two newer warships to the Hundred Isles, but you may take their crews. That is what has been agreed.”

  “And you trust her?” He could not hide the anger he felt.

  “Of course not.” Her voice barely a whisper, then stronger, recovering her familiar shipwife tone. “Once you are out of sight of their fleet, turn our ships and head for the Gaunt Islands. They will take you in, I am sure of it.”

  “What is to stop them destroying us as soon as we leave Sleighthulme?”

  “I am, Joron,” she said. “I will stand atop the tower and watch you go. And if so much as one of their ships makes to go after you then I will throw myself into the sea. I am the prize my mother wants. They will not risk losing me.”

  “This is not right,” he said, and he wanted to beg her to change her mind. “There must be some other way.”

  “If there is, I cannot see it.”

  “I will not do it,” he said. “I cannot do it.”

  Then she stood, and he expected her to shout once more. She did not.

  “I am putting my trust in you, Joron Twiner, to look after my people. Our people. They have been treated sorely here.” She came around the desk and put a hand on his arm. “What I must do is hard enough, do not make it harder.” She looked away from him, and did her voice crack when she spoke the next words? Did the cold grey facade of the shipwife fall away? “Obey my order, Joron. Obey it, please. For it is harder to give than you know.”