The Black Coast

by Mike Brooks

  “That’s Chara, the corpse-painter,” Nalon said, when he voiced his question. Daimon hadn’t wanted to face Sattistutar so soon after having killed her friend, and had sent Osred to seek the man out. “The designs are supposed to appease Father Krayk and allow Ristjaan’s soul to go back into the chaos of the ocean, instead of being trapped on land.”

  “She does not seem to receive many thanks for her work,” Daimon noted quietly.

  “Her hands are stained blue,” Nalon shrugged. “Blue’s an unlucky colour for a living person to wear, because of the death paint. The corpse-painter is necessary, but not welcomed. S’man’s never understood why someone would want to become one, but Chara’s always seemed to prefer the dead to the living anyway.”

  Daimon grunted again as a thought occurred to him. “Sattistutar mentioned witches last night. Do the…” He prevented himself from saying “savages”, remembering that Nalon had married one. “Did Tjakorsha truly have such women?”

  “Not just Tjakorsha, and not just women,” Nalon replied. “The clan has four witches, three women and a man. S’man should say though,” he added hurriedly, perhaps in response to Daimon’s expression, “the word probably isn’t the right one. They use charms, read signs in the flight of birds and the like, but they’re tasked with helping to guide the chief. Naridan doesn’t have a word for what they are, really. S’man remembers tales of witches up in the hills from when he was young, and they’re nothing like that.”

  “Who are they?” Daimon asked, looking around. Naridan lore told of witches; evil, malicious women, the last remnants of the Cult of the Unmaker, the demon Nari had banished before He ascended to the throne. They could be marked in different ways, but the most common was a ravaging of their features due to the nature of the ruinous powers they wielded. Daimon had certainly seen none like that in the Tjakorshi who’d filed through “Black Keep’s gates.

  “Why? You’re not going to kill them too, are you?” Nalon asked, his face sceptical.

  Daimon gritted his teeth. Nalon’s time away from Narida had done his manner no favours, if he’d even been possessed of a good one to start with. He certainly didn’t accord Daimon the respect he deserved, but Nalon did not seem a fool, and must have realised that as one of only two people who spoke both Naridan and Tjakorshi well, he was practically invaluable. Unfortunately he seemed to have decided that meant he could speak to Daimon as an equal.

  “This lord is responsible for protecting his people,” Daimon said tightly. “He would at least know who these charm-weavers are.”

  “You’d best ask Saana,” Nalon replied, uncomfortably. “One chief doesn’t approach another chief’s witches without permission, and if s’man interferes he’ll end up on the wrong side of his chief and her witches.”

  “This lord does not think Chief Sattistutar will be introducing him to anyone any time soon,” Daimon commented. A movement on the far side of the square caught his eye, which turned out to be the woman herself. She was wearing the same furs she’d worn for the feast the previous night, and her face looked even harder now than it had when she’d been warning his father of the folly of battle.

  “Well, you did kill her friend,” Nalon pointed out. “She’ll come around. She’s not made of stone, so she’ll have taken it hard, but that’s part of the reason why she’s such a good chief. You can’t lead your people well unless you care for them.”

  Daimon opened his mouth to ask Nalon what he knew of leadership, but shut it again when it occurred to him that actually, the sentiment made sense. “How long until everyone else gets here?” he asked instead.

  “This is about it, probably,” Nalon said, looking around. “S’man wouldn’t expect anyone else. Zhanna would come, perhaps, but she’s in your castle.”

  “So few?” Daimon was confused. Less than a tenth of the Raiders had turned out for the rites to mark the passing of one of their greatest warriors.

  “Well, Ristjaan wasn’t best-liked, you see,” Nalon confided in a low voice. “A fearsome fighter, right enough. Respected, certainly, when axes were involved. But the rest of the time he was a bit… well, loud, I suppose. Boastful. Coarse. Did as he pleased without much concern what others thought. Don’t get me wrong, he could be right happy to lend a hand when needed, but he was just as likely to tell you to swallow sea water, depending on his mood. S’man didn’t much care for him. To be honest, if you had to kill someone over an honour debt, he’d have been one of the better choices, other than him being the chief’s friend.”

  “This lord does not follow,” Daimon admitted, frowning down at the shorter man.

  “S’man thinks most of the clan would be happy enough to trade the life of Ristjaan the Cleaver for safety here,” Nalon said, a little shame-faced. “Your people get to see one of the Raiders killed for past crimes, and that kind of clears the air? Now, if you’d decided that Tsolga Hornsounder needed to die”—here he nodded towards the old woman Daimon had seen leading the singing as the Tjakorshi had walked through Black Keep—“that might have been a different matter.”

  Daimon studied her. The old Raider’s long grey hair was woven into two large, tight braids that wound around the back of her head, and her face was lined enough that she looked weathered and worn even at this distance, but her back was still straight and her voice clear and loud as she greeted her chief. “She is popular, then?”

  “If there’s one person from the clan you want to get on your side, it’s Tsolga,” Nalon said, scratching his chin. “Not sure how well she’ll take to learning Naridan at her age, mind, but she’s like a grandmother to most of them. Well, a grandmother who’s buried three husbands and is on the lookout for a fourth, at least.”

  “Ah,” Daimon replied noncommittally. Lord Asrel had been very vigilant in ensuring Daimon hadn’t had any opportunity to sire a bastard on any lowborn girls, but there were precious few highborn girls to court this far south, either. Nalon’s casual discussion of the woman Tsolga’s appetites had caused Daimon to realise that with his father and brother secured in the stronghouse, he had a certain level of freedom he’d never enjoyed before. If he was the Lord of Blackcreek sufficient to imprison his kin and allow a few hundred Tjakorshi to settle, surely he was able to set about courting a woman? He tried to push the thought aside to be dealt with at another time, but it was a persistent one.

  “What happens now?” he asked Nalon.

  “Now they take the bier to a yolgu and take it out to sea, sing over him a bit, then drop him in.”

  Daimon was slightly surprised by the lack of respect in his tone. “You haven’t taken their customs to heart, then?”

  “They don’t expect s’man to,” Nalon said. “Father Krayk is their god, not his. The voyage here was the first time s’man’s been on the sea since Iro Greybeard snatched him off that ship, and he won’t be going on it again while he lives, if he has any say in the matter. Whatever god takes his spirit after he dies, it won’t be that black-scaled bastard.”

  Daimon watched Sattistutar as she stood at the side of Ristjaan’s bier, hands clasped in front of her. She was weeping: not the gasping sobs of the hysterical, but the quiet, steady tears of someone in deep pain. Despite knowing the big Raider’s death had been necessary for honour, it was still hard for Daimon to see the suffering it had brought to others, barbarians though they were. Ristjaan had accepted Daimon’s challenge and, warrior that he had been, had accepted the consequences before the combat had even started. The mourners gathered around his body had not been able to prepare themselves in the same way.

  Steeling himself, and in no way confident he was doing the right thing, Daimon stepped forward. A muffled swearword behind him indicated what Nalon thought of his decision, but Daimon wasn’t overly concerned about his opinion. Sattistutar looked up as she heard footfalls on the square’s flagstones, and when she saw him her expression shifted from sorrowful to murderous.

  “What?” she bit out. Only the lack of a weapon at her belt and Ristjaan’s b
ody between them convinced Daimon that she didn’t intend to go for his throat then and there. The other Tjakorshi muttered and stepped back slightly, but let their chief confront him.

  “This lord wishes to offer his assistance,” Daimon said, as neutrally as he could manage.

  Sattistutar’s face twisted in angry incomprehension. “Why?”

  “This lord does not like leaving something unfinished,” Daimon said, nodding in what he hoped was a respectful manner at Ristjaan’s body. “He was an honourable man. This lord took his life; he would help return his spirit to where it needs to go.”

  Sattistutar regarded him blankly for a second or so, then stepped back to speak to another woman of roughly her age, although shorter and stouter. It wasn’t until the second woman glared at Daimon that he recognised something about her eyes and nose.

  “His sister?” he hazarded a quiet guess to Nalon.

  “The same.”

  “What are they saying?” Both Tjakorshi were quite animated in their discussion, although they were keeping their voices low.

  “If the chief wants you to know that, she’ll tell you herself,” Nalon harrumphed.

  Sattistutar turned back to him and Daimon braced himself, uncertain what manner of reaction he would receive. To his surprise she stepped to the head of the makeshift bier and picked up the two ropes attached to the head of the sledge, then tossed one to him. He caught it more out of instinct than anything else. “What…?”

  “You want to help?” Sattistutar snorted, slipping her shoulder underneath the other rope. “Pull.”

  Daimon was taken aback, but she was in deadly earnest. He also realised, too late, that he had no countrymen with him. If Nalon was to be believed, these barbarians were going back to their ships, and out to sea. What had seemed like a respectful gesture now struck him as foolhardy in the extreme, should one of them decide to exact revenge.

  “In Narida, only family or close friends bear the dead,” he said, trying to buy some time. “Why do you ask this?”

  “You killed him,” Sattistutar replied shortly. “This man brought him here. It is our fault he is dead. Now pull, or go back to your house.”

  It came down to trust. Trust that the Tjakorshi would restrain themselves. Trust that they understood Daimon was their only hope of living here successfully. He’d already wagered his people’s lives and his honour on this barbarian chief’s intentions, so his own life seemed a meagre thing in comparison. But what of his position as the lord of Blackcreek? Would his father have lowered himself to haul a sled like a common farmer?

  No. But Daimon was certain his father would have shown respect at the death rites of an honourable foe defeated in single combat. This was a time of change in Blackcreek. Besides which, Daimon’s honour would be suspect again if he reneged on his offer.

  He took a firm grip on the rope. “To the sea?”

  Sattistutar nodded slightly. “To the sea.”

  It was hard work, for Ristjaan had been a huge man, and the ground was far from even. The mud of Black Keep’s streets caused both Daimon and Sattistutar to slip on occasion, although neither actually lost their footing. Once outside, the stems of the long, rough salt marsh grass bent easily beneath the sled’s weight and their burden slid more smoothly than Daimon had feared, but he was nonetheless sweating before they had travelled a bowshot from the walls. He remained respectfully silent, but beside him Sattistutar kept up a running grumble in her own language which he couldn’t help but feel was aimed at him.

  “What are you saying?” he asked finally, and somewhat breathlessly, as they were hauling the sled up the bank of a rivulet running down to the Blackcreek river. The sled was very nearly wedged, and the rest of the funeral party were pushing to shift it.

  Sattistutar didn’t even look at him. “This man is asking Ristjaan why he ate so much and became so big, then let you kill him so she has to haul him back to the ocean. She is asking your mud why… unnh… why it grips so hard, and your ground why it is not flatter. She is asking herself why she did not beach our ships on the river next to your town instead of… hnnrrgh!… where it meets the sea!”

  The sled finally came free and they both stumbled at the sudden give in the ropes. Daimon recovered first and reached out without thinking, snagging Sattistutar’s arm and keeping her from falling. He snatched his hand back immediately, but the Raider chief simply took her rope over her shoulder once more without any acknowledgement.

  “Had you brought your ships to our walls, this lord fears more than just Ristjaan may have died,” Daimon offered as they began to pull again. “You were wise to seek parley as you did.”

  “This man does not need you to tell her that, Blackcreek,” Sattistutar huffed.

  The Raiders’ huge ships were where they’d left them, pushed to the top of the black mud of the beach that gave the entire Black Coast its name. However, high tide was approaching, and the lapping waves were not far from their keels. Sattistutar directed their group to one of the largest, fronted by a fearsome visage of dark-painted wood protruding from the deck.

  “Is that… Father Krayk?” Daimon asked.

  “It is,” Sattistutar confirmed.

  Daimon studied it while the Tjakorshi busied themselves with working out how best to lift the sled bearing Ristjaan’s body onto the ship. The monstrous, blackened head had a dragon’s scales, but the head was flatter than any dragon Daimon had seen, and no dragon had Father Krayk’s spiralling horns, or the sparkling red eyes with neither pupil nor iris. As he looked closer Daimon could see the eyes were made of crudely shaped gems, or something similar.

  When Sattistutar said her people were the children of Father Krayk he’d imagined some sort of ancestor figure, perhaps similar in appearance to the marble statue of Nari that sat in Black Keep’s shrine. When Nalon had described Krayk as a “black-scaled bastard”, Daimon had thought he was using some derogatory Tjakorshi phrase.

  He’d never imagined the Raiders would worship some monster of the ocean depths like this, let alone consider themselves its children.

  “Blackcreek.”

  He surfaced from his shocked reverie to see Sattistutar looking down at him. She jerked her head at him. “Climb aboard.”

  “Do you not need to push it into the waves?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Aye, but you are no sailor. Climb aboard, if you would see this through.”

  He vaulted aboard easily enough, for there were no raised sides such as there would be on a Naridan boat. The Tjakorshi disembarked as he did so, and as they bent to the task and the ship began to slip through the mud he had a momentary image of them simply pushing him out to sea, leaving him to either float away with Ristjaan’s body, or take the humiliating swim to shore. They did no such thing, of course, and as the waves began to lap around the ship’s timbers the mourners climbed aboard with all the ease of a sar mounting a dragon.

  “What do you wish me to do?” he asked Sattistutar, as she clambered up beside him.

  “Nothing,” she replied shortly, directing her fellows to paddles with points and quick snaps of her fingers. “Stay low, and do not move.”

  Daimon was only too happy to obey, for ships were near as foreign to him as the Tjakorshi themselves. Naridans had boats, of course, but none of Black Keep‘s fishing skiffs were anywhere near this size. The cargo cogs that sometimes came south to trade may have been a little larger, but were notoriously slow and unreliable. His father had cautioned him against ever putting much faith in ships, for it seemed a source of constant debate whether their frequent disappearances were the result of pirates or simply poor crewing.

  Daimon watched the Tjakorshi settle into place, each taking up a paddle and stroking in time with Sattistutar’s shouts. Once the ship was in the open water of the Blackcreek’s mouth they ran out the huge, angular sail, and even the relatively light breeze sent the ship fairly scudding across the wave tops.

  He couldn’t help but consider the possibilities. Naridan ships were unrelia
ble, yes, but Tjakorshi ones? Sattistutar had said every ship survived the passage. If the sailing expertise of the Tjakorshi could be turned from piracy and pillaging to trade…

  The Tjakorshi were singing again. It wasn’t the boisterous melody he’d heard the day before, with raucous discords and moments of unexpected, almost beautiful harmony, but something far more workmanlike; a steady, rhythmic chant that rose and fell in time with the paddle blades, and was undoubtedly designed for that very purpose.

  Daimon couldn’t deny there was a thrill to pulling away from the land. It came with a certain fear, because even the Tjakorshi didn’t trust the sea, no matter how skilled they were, but that was what lent excitement to the whole thing. As they passed beyond the headland to the south of the Blackcreek’s mouth Daimon looked up and down the coast, and realised that this was the farthest east he had ever been.

  They kept going, of course. It was the best part of half an hour by Daimon’s guess before Sattistutar called a halt, by which point the coastline had diminished considerably. Without the singing there was nothing to hear except the wind, and the gentle splashing of waves against the ship’s timbers. Far above, Daimon could just make out a couple of dark dots against the patchy grey clouds; seabirds, presumably. There was a strange sense of peace here, even for someone unused to the ocean.

  The Tjakorshi shipped their paddles and furled the sail, and Ristjaan’s sister passed a waterskin around to everyone except Daimon as they gathered around the dead warrior. Each Tjakorshi drank deeply, then once their throats and tongues were moistened they began to sing once more; in fact, Daimon was starting to wonder if there was any event in their lives that wasn’t marked by song. This one was different again, low and slow and undoubtedly melancholy, with odd harmonies. He wondered briefly what would happen if someone died when none of their family or friends were good singers. Maybe there was just something about Tjakorshi?