The Black Coast

by Mike Brooks

“Yes,” Jelema replied immediately. The other taughs hadn’t ventured this far along the coast, and the Naridans never came this far south, despite these being their home waters. They were poor sailors in pitiful vessels, but at least they recognised their limitations.

  “Then who are they?” Zhanna asked, pointing at the dark specks. “Those look like sails.”

  “Sails?” Jelema’s feet thudded on wood as the captain strode down the deck to see for herself. “That’s not possib—”

  Jelema stopped, frowning towards the south.

  “Zhanna,” she said, “you’ve spoken with the Flatlanders. No one lives farther south, do they?”

  “No,” Zhanna said shaking her head. “Not that they know of, anyway.”

  “Shit.” Jelema spun away and snatched up her steering paddle. “Move! Get that sail in position, and grab your paddles! We’re heading back, now!”

  “But what about the net?” someone shouted.

  “Fuck the net!” Jelema snarled. “Those are yolgus, and there’s only one place they could have come from! Unless you want to say hello to The Golden, let the fish go and grab a fucking paddle!”

  Her use of the draug’s name broke the spell of confusion, and the crew scrambled to obey. Zhanna threw herself into position, took up her paddle and dipped it into the water as the first grunt rang out down the line. Kurvodan set the pace, as the most experienced paddler, and he set a hard one. Zhanna’s arms and shoulders were soon aching, but she gritted her teeth and kept up; without even paddling on both sides the taugh would start to veer, and although Jelema could correct it to some degree, it would mean wasted effort all around.

  “Keep it up!” Jelema shouted. “They’ve seen us!”

  “How can you tell?” Zhanna called back.

  “They’re gaining! They must have started paddling too!”

  Zhanna couldn’t help herself: she broke off from one stroke to look back over her shoulder and sure enough, there past Jelema was a crowd of sails. They were still small, but larger than they had been. There were so many!

  “Zhanna Saanastutar!”

  Zhanna turned back to her paddling, fighting the burning in her shoulders. Ahead of her, Zhonda gave a cry and stepped away from her position, passing her paddle to another crew member and taking his role, dealing swiftly with the lines that ran from the great square sail. By rotating out exhausted paddlers in this way the taugh could maintain a sprint for longer, but there were only two of them who weren’t paddling at any one time, so it wasn’t viable over long distances. Besides, although the yolgus behind them were larger and heavier, they had more paddlers and larger sails, and could fly over the waves faster. The clan’s taughs had struggled to keep up with the yolgus on the voyage here, and one of Zhanna’s mother’s tasks had been to keep the fleet from getting too strung out and losing touch with each other.

  “We’re coming up on the others!” someone shouted.

  “Sing out!” Jelema called, and the crew launched into a rapid, high-pitched yipping wail. It was intended to carry far across the waves, and was the clan’s signal that enemies were coming and it was time to run for home. Zhanna looked up and saw another taugh start to shift its own sails, and the tiny shapes of people taking up their paddles. The third and final Brown Eagle vessel out today was ahead, further in towards the shoreline: they looked to have seen what was coming, and were already making good speed northwards.

  “What do we do when we reach the Flatlanders?” Zhonda asked, wincing as a gust tightened the line she was holding and wrenched her exhausted arms. “They’ll never outrun yolgus!”

  “They might be close enough to make it!” Jelema replied.

  Zhanna’s shoulders couldn’t take it any longer. She crawled away from her position and handed her paddle over to Tchakma, who gave her a curt nod and took her place. Zhanna grabbed onto the line he’d been holding and looked back again.

  She could see individual warriors now, and the wind carried the sound of their paddling grunts to her, like faint echoes of the ones made by her own crew. They weren’t sprinting, she could tell that; just a steady stroke to assist the wind in their sails, easy to keep up for a long period of time.

  “Keep going!” Jelema shouted again. She looked at Zhanna, and Zhanna could see the worry in her face.

  “How long until they catch us?” Zhanna asked, aware of how small her voice sounded.

  “Hard to say,” Jelema replied, casting another glance over her shoulder. “If they sprint, they’ll narrow the gap, and their sails will take the wind out of ours once they get close enough. We’re already losing speed slightly.”

  Zhanna looked up at the sail. It still looked strained to its full extent to her, but she didn’t have Jelema’s experience at sea.

  “But I think we can make it,” Jelema continued, checking over her shoulder once more. “It’ll be close, but if we can reach the river we have a better chance. They’ll have less advantage from their sails there, and they don’t know the channel. It’s low tide; they’ll get in each other’s way if they all try to follow us.”

  Zhanna bent low to peer under the boom. There were pale scraps ahead: the small, triangular sails of the Flatlander skiffs. There were four of them, with only a few men in each. High-sided and unsteady-looking, they cut through the waves instead of skating over the top. They were never going to make it back to Black Keep, not ahead of the yolgus.

  “We need to take them with us!” she said, pointing ahead.

  Jelema narrowed her eyes, then shook her head grimly. “We can’t do it.”

  “Jelema, I’m serious!” Zhanna urged her. “We can’t leave them out here! They’ll die!”

  “If we slow down to take them on board, we’ll die!” Jelema snapped. “And they’ll weigh us down!”

  “They could take over on the paddles!” Zhanna said. “They could help!”

  “Zhanna Saanastutar!” Jelema yelled, wrenching on her steering oar. “I love you like a daughter, and my son loves you like his sister, but if you do not shut your mouth I will throw you to the waves myself! This is my ship, and I will not have my crew talking back to me!”

  Jelema’s stare challenged her to say another word, and Zhanna felt herself wilting under it. She’d never seen Jelema’s temper break like this before, and it was a far cry from the smiling, gossiping woman who’d been there throughout Zhanna’s life.

  But she couldn’t just leave the Flatlanders to be overhauled and butchered by their pursuers. She knew that was wrong; she knew it in her bones. Her mind flashed back to the first time she’d been approaching Black Keep on a ship, and what her mother had said about holding the other Unblooded from the charge, if it came to it. She couldn’t challenge Jelema’s authority on her own ship, that was true. Not even her mother could have done that, clan chief or not; but there might be another way.

  Zhanna had seen Jelema hesitate before she’d answered the first time. She was a good-hearted soul. She wouldn’t leave people to their deaths by choice, not ones who’d done her no harm. She just needed an excuse to convince her that what she wanted to do was also the right thing.

  “Jelema,” Zhanna began.

  “Girl, I swear—”

  “Jelema, they’re going to be right behind us when we get to the town,” Zhanna said, loud enough that all the crew could hear. “The Flatlanders aren’t going to risk opening the gates for us if they can see we left their kin to die!”

  “Then the rest of the clan will open the gates!” Jelema shouted.

  “I’d rather they didn’t fight about it!” Zhanna answered her, and saw Jelema’s gaze flicker towards her. “Who’s to say the Flatlanders will even be looking close enough to realise we’re not The Golden’s warriors, until it’s too late? If we’ve got some of their folk on board with us, they’ll know who we are, they’ll have to let us in!”

  Jelema paused for a moment, the steering paddle motionless in her gloved hands and strands of her hair that had escaped her hood buffeted by the wind i
n front of her face. Even the grunts of the paddlers broke their rhythm, and Zhanna became aware of heads turning towards her, towards Jelema, waiting for a decision.

  “Fine!” Jelema snapped, abruptly wrenching on the steering paddle. “We’ll set their boats adrift, see if they’ll slow down these bastards behind us any! Kurvodan! Shout over to the Sea Axe, tell them to take the ones closest to them!”

  “Thank you, Jelema,” Zhanna said, soft enough for it to only reach the captain’s ears. Jelema’s expression didn’t change, but she gave a curt nod and held one hand out.

  “Give me that line and get up front then, girl!” she ordered. “You’re the only one of us who speaks any words of their tongue! Tell them to be ready when we come alongside, because I won’t be slowing, and I won’t go back for them!”

  RIKKUT

  “WOULD YOU LOOK at that?!” someone gasped as the Storm’s Breath cleared the headland. Rikkut’s eyes travelled over the broad, flat green of the landscape beyond, and a wash of wonder struck him. His fleet had crossed the Great Ocean, sure enough, and had found land, but until now it had all been high, dark, jagged cliffs. There’d been nowhere the yolgus could beach, nowhere the Brown Eagle clan could have gone ashore. The crews had been close to despair, for they’d near run out of fresh water. There had been ugly whispers among them that Sattistutar’s folk surely couldn’t have come here, but despite this Rikkut had ordered them to turn north.

  Then they’d sighted sails and a cheer had gone up, because ships surely meant there was accessible land with water nearby. The enthusiasm had died down briefly when they’d recognised Tjakorshi taughs. What if this was just the remnants of Sattistutar’s clan, dying of thirst as they sailed futilely up and down this forsaken coast? They’d given chase anyway, and the taughs had fled, and before long they’d come upon different boats: barely seaworthy, in Rikkut’s opinion, just lumbering scraps of wood with a sail attached. But those strange boats meant a local people, and that surely meant an end to the cliffs.

  And now, here it was.

  Rikkut had never seen land so vast. He’d heard tell of the Drylands, to the far north-east of Tjakorsha, where some of the eastern clans sailed to trade fire-gems for steel. The stories spoke of great, empty coasts of sand, fishing villages of clustered houses made from dark, twisted wood, and a mighty town at the mouth of a river, with buildings of stone the colour of his hair, rising high as a Tjakorshan tree. Rikkut had never been sure he’d believed those tales, but here was a land just as strange.

  “They’re running for the river!” Zhungaltor roared, fitting another stone to his sling. Sure enough, the three taughs they were chasing down had changed course. Rikkut had hoped to overhaul them, but it seemed desperation had lent strength to their paddlers’ arms, possibly helped by the fact they’d taken on the crews of the floundering local ships. He could see them now, wielding the paddles with the knowledge their lives depended on it. Slings were of limited use at this distance, but every hit disrupted their prey’s stroke, and Zhungaltor had managed a lucky shot that pitched one person into the water.

  “Hold!” Rikkut barked, placing one hand on his warrior’s arm. Zhungaltor tensed in response, but Rikkut pointed away inland. “Look there! That’s where they’re heading, I’d wager my axe on it! You’ll need all your stones before long.”

  It was no towering Dryland town, but a wall of shaped rock nonetheless, some way up the river. It was the only built thing Rikkut could see: it must be where the local fishers were from. Had Sattistutar conquered and enslaved these people already?

  “Ships! Ships on the shore!” That was Olja Tilistutar, pointing ahead up the shoreline. “Yolgus!”

  Rikkut frowned, looking away from the foreign town. Yes, those were yolgus, pulled high up past the strange, black mud of this coast and resting in the thick grass that grew between the shore and the deeper green of meadows beyond. He felt his heart quicken as he counted them: ten in total, only half the amount he commanded, but throw in a few taughs and it was clear Sattistutar had indeed brought her entire clan with her across the ocean. Rikkut felt a stab of admiration for her, despite himself, yet her great feat was driven only by fear of The Golden. Now Rikkut was here, as the chosen of The Golden and the instrument of its vengeance. Sattistutar must have holed up behind that wall; she would not be able to flee again.

  “Into the river!” Rikkut roared, and felt the deck lurch beneath him as Akuto shifted the yolgu’s course in response, despite nominally being captain. They all followed him now, without question. “And release the crows!”

  He pulled his axe from his belt and checked it over. He’d found it floating on the surface of the sea in the aftermath of the krayk attack, had recognised it as his own from the fire-gems set into the head: fire-gems for the Fireheart, had been the thinking there. His raid called him Krayk-Killer now, though. Rikkut knew he hadn’t killed the beast, merely wounded it badly enough to drive it off, but didn’t tell them to stop using the name. He could almost feel their awe, and bathed in it, but not for him the pathetic life of chiefs like Snowhair. He wouldn’t be hiding behind a shield-wall, leaning on his name so others fought for him. He would seek out Saana Sattistutar himself, take her life, claim her belt and bring it back to his master. Rikkut Fireheart, Rikkut Krayk-Killer, Rikkut Chief-Killer…

  The sight of the Flatlander town had given the prey new hope. They were paddling faster, and now they’d swung across the wind they were out of the lee of Rikkut’s fleet. They’d started shouting, words Rikkut couldn’t understand but were presumably intended to warn the town of approaching danger. Rikkut grinned, and tested the blackstone edge of his axe on his thumb. Sharp as the southern winds, as always. Let these people sing their songs of fear. It wouldn’t aid them.

  He frowned. The taughs were pulling towards the southern bank of the river rather than following the most direct line to the town. Did they intend to land there, on the opposite shore to the most obvious place of safety for them? That would be a strange thing…

  Abruptly, things fell into place. The river had wide, muddy shores, so the tide here was currently low, and there was a large patch of paler water ahead that the taughs were skirting.

  “Turn!” Rikkut bellowed. “Match their course, damn you! Sandbank ahead!”

  Akuto obeyed and the Storm’s Breath shifted again, turning further into the wind. Someone grabbed a pair of signalling sticks and began to pass word back—shallow water—but Rikkut could already see the problems. His fleet had come into the river too eagerly, spread out across its entire width, and the sandbank lay directly in the middle of the channel. Some of the yolgus could avoid it, but others would have nowhere to turn but into their fellows. What had been a ferocious, focused pursuit was now at risk of becoming a mess.

  “Sprint!” Zhungaltor shouted at the paddlers. “Never mind those idiots behind us, we can still catch them!”

  “No!” Rikkut snapped, turning away from the fleeing taughs. He ducked under the boom of the sail and looked back, taking stock. He was no great sailor, but he could see his fleet losing momentum. The ships on the northern side of the channel had already been losing wind to the sails of the ships on the south, and now there was confusion as everyone steered away from the danger of running aground. Tjakorshi ships rode high, skimming over the waves, but these were unfamiliar and muddy waters, and you couldn’t know for sure whether you’d clear the sandbank until you hit it. No one wanted to be stranded in the middle of the channel until the tide returned.

  “Chief?” Akuto asked. She was a crow-haired captain of somewhere over thirty summers with The Golden’s scar on her left cheek, and she’d served it for near as long as anyone else had.

  “They know this river better than we do,” Rikkut said reluctantly. “It narrows and bends ahead, where the walls are highest. If we pursue them past there, and there are defenders standing ready on the top…” He knew what he would do: rocks to crash down and break bones or smash holes in decks; perhaps a barrel of leviath
an oil and a flaming torch or two. Would the Flatlanders have such things? Best not to chance it.

  “And if we sprint now, the paddlers’ arms will have less left to swing an axe,” Akuto nodded. “What are your orders?”

  Rikkut looked over at the northern shore. There were people running for the town, shepherds leaving their animals grazing and fleeing to save themselves.

  “Put to shore there,” he said, pointing.

  “What if they have slingers?” Olja asked.

  “Then sling back,” Rikkut grinned at her. He raised his voice. “Take up your weapons, and be ready to fight!”

  The crew of the Storm’s Breath sprang into action. Most had a roundshield, a blackstone axe and a spear, although many had slings as well, and some across the raid had lost one item or another, particularly those who’d been on the Sea Spite or Red Smile when they’d foundered. Rikkut was one; he didn’t carry a sling, since he’d never been good with one, and he’d only found his axe after the krayk’s attack, not his shield as well. He didn’t fear death, but he felt half-naked without his shield, especially since he’d lost his sea leather armour too. He briefly contemplated taking someone else’s shield from them, but that didn’t sit well.

  Then his eyes lighted on the krayk harpoons on their hooks, and a smile slid across his face.

  DAIMON

  DAIMON GRABBED HIS blood-slicked longblade from the flagstones and ran for the town walls, shouting at the townsfolk to clear the way. Saana came with him, yelling in her own tongue, and between them they managed to get to the stone steps that led up onto the modest parapet only a matter of moments after they’d first heard the warning cries.

  He came to a dead halt at the sight that met his eyes. “Nari’s blood!”

  Beside him, Saana spat something violent and unpleasant-sounding in Tjakorshi, and with good reason. Three of the Brown Eagles’ smaller craft had been out fishing today, and they were now fleeing up the Blackcreek away from…