The Dagger's Path

by Glenda Larke

  “We have a lascar friend on board. Name of Ardhi. He will help Saker if he can. He was on watch last night, so he was probably sleeping this morning and missed what happened to us. Perhaps if you could talk to him…”

  He stared at her, and resisted an almost overwhelming desire to hear every detail of just how an Ardronese witan had ended up on a Lowmian ship heading for the Spicerie. “Wait here,” he said. “Finish feeding that child. I’ll do what I can.”

  Leaving the cabin, he sought out his first mate and found him up on the deck staring at the Lowmian fleet through a spyglass. “Finch,” he asked, “can you get another bumboat over at Spice Winds with our spies on board? I want them to find out what’s going on over there. I’m interested in a tall fellow, dark hair, dark eyes, slim and tough, handsome sod. Might be in trouble, and in need of rescue. Come to think of it, you know him: Saker Rampion.”

  “The witan who rescued you from falling on to the deck headfirst from the rigging?”

  “The very same.”

  “Might be difficult getting a bumboat close, cap’n. Seems Spice Winds chased them all off earlier on. The lookout in the crow’s nest just told us it looked as if they were getting ready to keel-rake someone.” He indicated the spyglass. “Been trying to make sense of what they’re up to meself.”

  “Scupper the scuts!” Saker, I’ll wager that’s you they intend to send to scrape barnacles off the ship’s bottom. What the blistering pox did you do this time? Fuck the captain’s daughter? “What d’you reckon you’re seeing?”

  “Can’t really make it out. Summat’s going on, for sure. There’s a weird hornswaggling lot o’ birds around the ship, for a start.” He sighed. “Va-damned horror, keel-raking; makes a bloodied mess of a man. Can rip his pizzle off, for starters. Maybe the blood and flesh in the water is what’s attracting them birds.”

  Fuck. “Get the sloop in the water, Finch. And make it quick.”

  “Cap’n—”

  “No. Don’t say it, Finch. I know. But that man saved my neck once, so if I can rescue his pizzle—! Tell Surgeon Barklee he’s coming with us.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!”

  “Oh, and get the bath and hot water down there into my cabin, towels, and that chest of women’s clothing? Get it brought in too.”

  Once Finch and Cranald had everything in hand, he returned to Sorrel Redwing. “My cabin is yours, mistress, for the moment. I would strongly advise a bath and some clean clothes. Choose what you will from the selection I have on board. In the meantime, I will see to the health of this wormhole-skulled witan.”

  Without waiting for her reaction, he left the cabin, already considering how best to save a man who might just have been keel-raked.

  20

  Keel-raked

  Saker knew that Ardhi, standing near the end of the spar, could dive or jump straight into the sea. Quickly he looked away, hoping no one else noticed the lascar’s presence up there. Instead he concentrated on the birds, bringing them lower and closer. Confused and unsettled, they battled against the alien nature of their subjugation to him. Worse, as a flock of mixed species, they squabbled among themselves.

  Another glance around the deck told him the rope under the keel was now in place. He turned to the sailor still clutching his arm. “How does this keel-raking work?” he asked, sounding much calmer than he felt. With his hands tied behind his back like this, there was no easy way they could pull him under the ship.

  It was the bo’sun who answered, and he spoke to the sailor, not him. “Untie his wrists and bind them in front, using that.” He was pointing at the end of the rope hanging over the bulwark; the rest of it snaked into the sea and under the ship. “Quickly now. Oh, and take off his shirt first.”

  Bile surged into his throat at the thought of his bare skin scraped over barnacles. Va save me. His fear made him merciless, and he imposed his will on the birds, yanking them onto a steep, downwards trajectory. They screamed their anger at the coercion, but came anyway, exuding a contradictory eagerness to please.

  I hate this, he thought.

  The sailor began to untie his wrists. A small porthole of opportunity was opening… He gathered himself for the sliver of time that was his chance.

  “Take care!” the bo’sun snapped at the sailor. He took a fistful of Saker’s hair and wrenched his head down to his knees. “We don’t want him jumping overboard.”

  He swore, but wasted no effort in struggling. He turned his attention to the largest bird instead, pictured the bo’sun’s bald head, and channelled the avian anger towards it. There was a rush of wings, strong beats cleaving the air, a screech and men shouting their warnings. His hands were free. The hold on his hair was gone. Blood dribbled down the side of the bo’sun’s face as he clutched his head in disbelief. Saker lunged for the ship’s bulwarks.

  And someone tripped him as he flung himself forward. Accidental or deliberate, he didn’t know, but the result was the same. He fell hard, face-down, on the deck. Someone kneed him in the back to pin him there.

  Voices yelled, an appalled chorus around him.

  “What the sweet cankers is going on?”

  “Hang me for a haggard! What the fobbing pox are the birds doing?”

  “I’ll be beggared! They’re everywhere!”

  Saker focused. Slashing beaks, clawing talons, powered wings tilting across the deck like windmill blades. Cry, he commanded. Shriek! Screech! Scratch! Lacerate!

  The pressure on his back disappeared and he scrambled to his feet.

  Men scattered, but their fear swirled around him, interwoven with the fury of the birds. Feathers floated in the air. Above it all, he heard Lustgrader shouting orders, roaring for someone to tie the factor up, to stop the leery lubber of a quill-sharpener. “It’s him doing this; it’s all his fault, the factor; seize the fobbing factor!”

  Saker dived for the bulwarks once more, and was tackled again. It was the bo’sun, his head still streaming blood as he shouldered Saker to the deck. Two sailors flung themselves into the fray, weighing him down with their bodies. He struggled, called to the birds. Someone snatched up the keel-rake rope and tied his hands in front of him. The birds came, ripping at the men, but other sailors beat them back with belaying pins.

  He saw bloodied feathers, crippled wings, broken beaks; felt their dying, their terror, their pain. His mind screamed at them, Fly!

  And those that could lifted into the sky to safety. Sickened at the carnage around him, at the pain and the confusion and terror echoing in his skull, none of it his, he had to force himself to rationality. He looked down at his pinioned hands, saw the rope snake away from his wrists, over the port bulwark and into the sea. He knew without looking that the other end was somewhere on the deck.

  There would be no going back once it was tied to his feet.

  He struggled to rise, but one of the sailors still pinned him down. Glancing sideways, he saw two pelicans lumbering about on the deck in a panic, unable to take off again from such a confined space. A sailor holding a belaying pin raised his arm, his lips pulled into a grimace as he prepared to shatter the skull of one of them.

  “No!” Saker heaved away the seaman sprawled across him, and sat up calling the two pelicans towards him. They obeyed, running, wings spread to beat the air in ineffectual attempts at flight. Va above, they were huge. Ungainly, with beaks as long and as broad as barbarian broadswords, and swinging throat pouches as large as a fat man’s beer gut… The belaying pin missed its target.

  A massive beak stabbed at the sailor trying to push Saker back down to the deck. The man back-pedalled away, aghast. Saker picked the bird up, surprised to find out how light it was, and tossed it bodily over the side of the ship. It momentarily laboured to fly, then caught the wind and was gone. The bo’sun charged at Saker, just as the second pelican lumbered up, its beak opening like a gaping vat lid. They collided, the bo’sun tripped and the bird was bowled over.

  Saker grabbed it and hugged it to his chest, soothing it wi
th his thoughts. He flung himself over the bulwarks with the bird in his arms, but released it in mid-air as they fell. The pelican opened its wings in time to skim the surface of the sea, paddling furiously at the waves with its webbed feet until it lifted into the air. Saker plunged past it into the water, the rope attached to his hands uncoiling behind him.

  Surfacing again, he bent his head to the knots on his bonds, attacking them with his teeth. He had to loose them before it occurred to someone to haul him in.

  His terror mounted as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the slack of the rope begin to disappear into the depths. Someone was already hauling on it from the other side of the ship.

  Pickle it, Ardhi, where are you?

  Someone–or something–splashed into the water beside him and disappeared beneath him, only to pop up a moment later a few paces away.

  Ah. Think of the reeky fellow, and he appears. He had the kris clamped in his teeth.

  Saker held out his hands. “Quick!”

  Too late. A sudden jerk on the rope yanked him sideways and pulled his face under the water.

  He twisted and thrust himself up, spluttering, gasping for air. Ardhi was stroking towards him, fast. Saker just had time to take another gulping breath, and then he was wrenched away, hands first, under the water. Towards the ship.

  Too fobbing fast, Va help me.

  His last glimpse was of Ardhi reaching out to grasp him–and missing.

  Helpless, his arms stretched forward, head under the surface, he was dragged down. And down.

  How can they pull me so fast? Ardhi will never be able to catch up! Logic, as chill as ice, told him they’d done the sensible thing and put the rope through a pulley and were hauling on it, a number of them. Beggar them, those bilge-crawling tars.

  The hull loomed over his head, and he slammed into it, just getting a shoulder up in time to save his skull from taking the brunt.

  The rope dipped further down. He flipped over to protect his face and stomach, allowing his back to be scraped along the hull. No bar nacles, thank Va. Yet. He was going to be ripped to pieces any time now.

  Thoughts scrambled through his mind, each a quicksilvered flash of knowledge layered on top of the last.

  He didn’t have enough air.

  If he hit his head on the underside of Spice Winds, he could be knocked unconscious.

  The only thing that could save him now would be something happening on the deck… like… birds disrupting the keel-raking.

  Blood, feathers, crippled wings. More dying terns and shearwaters and petrels, sacrificed for him,

  I am a Shenat witan. I dedicated myself to the way of the Oak.

  With a deliberate, brutal briskness, he made his decision to accept whatever happened. No more deaths, not even of birds.

  If I die, I die.

  Silver light, a sinuous gliding shape, flashed in front of him. He thought it must be a sea snake, bumping into the rope. But then his forward momentum ceased. The rope tying his wrists was no longer attached to anything.

  He was floating, trapped beneath the curve of the ship’s hull, bumping gently against the wood. No cladding, those witless Lowmian ship-builders…

  The Chenderawasi kris. It was swimming, right in front of him. It had severed the rope, stopped the keel-raking.

  Now what? It’s too late. I can’t think. Air all gone.

  The kris slipped itself between his hands to slash the bonds apart. He could swim now, and felt a frustrated grief. Flashes like tiny bursts of lightning obscured his sight. His ears were filled with a rushing sound as if the ocean was weeping against his eardrums. Sorrel, what of Sorrel. He must not die…

  She has a witchery. She’s strong and brave.

  He’d run out of air. He clamped his now free hand over his nose, refusing to take water into his lungs, but had nothing left to drive his body through the water. His last coherent sensation was the comforting grip on his arm, a hand closing around his bicep. He wasn’t alone.

  Va?

  The lights exploded in his head, his lungs ached and ached, pain was everywhere, and fear and terror and horror and…

  Peace.

  His next thought–was it immediate?–had to do with the gripping pain in his chest as he dragged in a much-needed breath. He coughed, racking coughs. He heard a voice saying in his ear in Pashali, “Can you possibly be a little quieter?”

  He opened his eyes. Gasped and heaved, sucking in precious air. Spat out saltwater. Ardhi was floating next to the ship’s planking, holding on to him. When he looked up, he saw they were on the surface, sheltered by the bowsprit. It was not much of a hiding place; if anybody looked over the bulwark at the prow, they would be seen. A temporary safety, at best.

  “Thanks.” One more breath, and then he was ready to have his question answered, the one that had been hammering at him ever since he’d been taken to the brig. “Where are they? What happened to them?”

  Ardhi was silent.

  “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know. When I came off duty, I went to my hammock. I didn’t know they’d sent you to the brig. When I woke up, one of the tars told me you were in big trouble. He also said Fels and Voster had taken Sorrel and Piper off in the dinghy. He said they were being sent ashore.”

  “But you don’t believe it.”

  Ardhi shook his head. “Not likely, is it? You know what Fels and Voster are like. Worst scum in the bilge. Lustgrader knows what they are. The only good thing was that Banstel was with them, and we know he’s besotted with Piper. Saker, we have to get out of here. Now.”

  “Have you got the kris?”

  “Of course. It swam back to me. The question is–what do we do? We can hardly wait here until nightfall, hoping no one will spot us. That’s not going to happen. Yet they’ll see us if we swim away.”

  He was silent, thinking. There would be bumboats from the shore, supplies arriving. They were sheltering directly under the ship’s heads. He and Ardhi would indeed be seen sooner or later, probably sooner. Va damn, the ship’s crew would already be looking out for his body.

  “No suggestions?” Ardhi asked neutrally.

  “Not really. Apart from saying it might be wiser for you to sneak back on board before you’re missed. Did anyone see you dive?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Look, I can start to swim away under the water, bob up every now and then to take a breath, hoping no one sees me. If someone does start a ruckus, it would at least give you an opportunity to get back on the ship.”

  He pointed to a rope, the end of which was floating in the water only an arm’s length from them. Ardhi rolled his eyes. They both knew where it began: in the heads. A piece of rope was dropped through each of the two latrine holes in the decking above them, one on either side of the bowsprit. When needed, the rope was hauled up and the wet fluffed-out tip was used to wipe a sailor’s arse.

  Saker looked at him, and his compassion stirred. “If you leave the ship now, you’ll never get back on.”

  Three plumes, still on board hidden in Ardhi’s baggage. And the fourth not far away–but only as long as the lascar stayed with Spice Winds. If the fleet sailed without him, he might lose the plumes for ever.

  Ardhi bit his lip, thinking.

  “You know that’s true. Look, I can swim to shore from here. Well, I can try anyway. I can use the birds to conceal me every time I come up for breath. Better still, I can go several hundred paces and then let them see me. That’ll give you the chance you need to climb back unseen.”

  “If they catch sight of you, they’ll send a boat after you. They can sail or row faster than you can swim. You mustn’t be seen. Saker, it’s a matter of life or death for you. You know that.”

  He did, too.

  At that moment, the decision was taken out of their hands. Above their heads, someone yelled, “He’s here! At the bow!”

  Another voice replied a moment later. “The lascar is with him. I told you I saw someone else go into the water.
Tell the captain!”

  Neither he nor Ardhi hesitated. As one, they dived and began swimming underwater. Ardhi’s instinct was to swim directly for the shore, but Saker grabbed his hand and pointed to the stern. Fortunately, Ardhi followed his lead; if they’d swum directly outwards they would have been easily visible in the clear water. Instead, they swam underwater alongside the ship where they couldn’t be seen from the overhanging deck. Neither of them surfaced until they were at the stern. There, it was easy enough to remain out of sight, next to the rudder.

  “Well, that answered your question. They know I helped you,” Ardhi whispered. Above, they could hear the sailors calling to one another, organising themselves to scan the sides of the vessel, arranging to man the pinnace, which was already in the water, and to launch the long-boat.

  “We swim together. I’ll bring the birds down onto the sea. Cormorants, gulls, pelicans. Every time we come up for breath, we come up in the middle of the floating flock. All right?”

  Ardhi nodded.

  But it wasn’t all right, he knew that. Everything the lascar had worked for, every sacrifice he had made, his years of work–they were all for nothing if he had to leave the plumes in the hands of Lowmians.

  And not so good for us Ardronese, either, he thought, his gut twisting. There’s too much power in those fobbing plumes. We’ll all suffer for this. “Ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  They dived away from the ship, side by side. While he swam, he called the birds again, gentling them down onto the water in a raft of floating bodies. When he and Ardhi surfaced in the middle of the flock of mixed seabirds, he was assailed with guilt. Because of him, so many birds had died that day. Yet they clustered around him, reaching out with their beaks, tapping him gently in affection, and his guilt doubled.

  “Let’s move on,” he said, and the ache inside him was a physical pain. Sorrel and Piper were gone; Va knew if they were even still alive. He knew Voster and Fels; everyone on board did. They were the ship’s rats. The bullies who had no moral compass. And Lustgrader, damn him to a choiceless hell, must have specifically chosen them for the job.