by Nhys Glover
Prior rubbed my back and Laric looked a little guilty. I reached for his hand and squeezed it, letting him know it wasn’t his fault I had experienced what I had. He’d saved us by using the nightmare magic, and it was me who insisted on going in to see what I could learn.
“So we don’t send a featherling,” Zem concluded. “And we settle in for a quarter turn of journeying to our destination. Until then we can assume we’ll be safe. That is a great deal to be grateful for.”
After that we finished up our meal and went to our beds. We lasses had been assigned the captain’s cabin and the men had joined the crew on hammocks in the lower regions of the ship. I was never so glad to be a female, though being separated from my men would be hard. But the comfort of a real bed with a soft mattress would make the loss easier.
When we were preparing for the night, Shardra sat on the big bed watching me brush out my hair. She had no need to do what I did. Keeping my wild mane manageable was an onerous task.
“You’re lucky not to have to do this,” I held out my bone, wide-toothed comb so she knew what I was talking about. “I remember when Airsha cut all my hair off. My mop had looked a lot like yours did. A playground for bugs that itched so much they drove me crazy. No way to get a comb through it. After she cut it all off my head felt so wonderfully light afterwards. I really hated letting it grow again.”
Shardra reached out and ran her fingers over my hair admiringly. “I was horrified when she did it, but I did not think to stop her, as I was... numbed by then. So much had happened that day... But I am glad I did not stop her because I know what you mean. Light and clean. It has been a long time since I have felt either.”
She grinned a little impishly. Something new for her. “Though I doubt your men mind that you grew it back. I have watched them admiring it. Such a pretty colour, and the way it curls... lovely.”
I blushed at the compliment and finished putting my hair back up into its harem knot. “Thank you. It is nice to have something that my men admire. My freckles are not so appealing.”
Shardra gave a soft laugh. “You are being modest. You are a very beautiful woman.”
In the next instant, Shardra’s eyes slid back into her head, and she flopped onto the bed.
For a moment, I panicked. What was I supposed to do? Was this the hag taking control of her again? How was that possible when Redin had been so confident he’d tricked her into believing he was Shardra? Or her energy, anyway.
For long moments I sat in panicked indecision. Then, just as I was about to go for help, Shardra’s eyes opened, and she stared blearily at me. For long moments more she just stared at me, no thoughts in her head. It wasn’t that she was blocking me. It was that she literally had no thoughts in her head. It had been the same the whole time she was out, I realised. Her body simply became an empty shell she’d left behind.
How was that possible? You couldn’t just suddenly stop thinking. Could you?
Then she cleared her throat and seemed to return fully to the room. With an embarrassed smile, she sat up again and began picking at the cotton of her nightgown.
“What happened? Was it the hag?”
“What? Is she here?” Shardra asked, her confusion apparent. “What are you doing here? Have they captured you? This st...”
Watching Shardra coming back was like watching candles being lit, one after another, until a room was glowing brightly.
“Oh... this is not a vision. You are really here?” she asked me tentatively, a little like the first time I met her.
“Aye, I am really here, and so are you. What did you see?”
The thin woman sighed heavily and rubbed at her face with her hands. I felt her dismay. Ever since the day before she’d been free of her visions. Now they were back. It must feel as if she were being captured all over again after knowing freedom for a short, precious time.
“A storm. A terrible storm. I was on the Devourer’s ship. Not this one, and I saw their mast crack. The sound was like thunder right overhead. Terrifying.” She shuddered at the memory.
“And you thought I was on that ship?” I asked, worried that I might actually end up there.
“No... I just hadn’t come back properly. I saw you, and because I had been on the ship moments before, I thought I was still back there in the storm. There is no storm here, is there? Not yet?”
I shook my head. “No, no storm. Do you think that we will be caught in this storm that will overtake the Devourers?”
For a moment she considered the question. “I heard someone say, ‘We are gaining on them. They’re craft is heavier in the water than ours. We’ll catch them by dawn’, and then the storm just blew up, seemingly from nowhere. It was already very dark, but the billowing clouds, weighed down with rain, made it pitch black. I could see nothing but what was revealed through the cabin window. It sent light onto the quarterdeck where the priests stood talking. I saw them well enough. Then it was like the world turned upside down. Though I do not think their ship capsized. It was more a feeling of disorientation. I... I cannot explain it better than that.”
“But will we have to deal with this storm, or are we far enough ahead of it, do you think? It is tonight this is happening, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes, tonight. It felt like that. Not long into the future. But the future, nonetheless. As to whether we are ahead of it... I cannot tell. I am sorry.” She looked crestfallen to not be able to provide more useful information.
I took her freezing hands into mine. “We know the Devourers won’t be following us as soon as we expected. If their mast is cracked they’ll have to turn back. And if we let the captain know there may be a storm approaching, it will help him prepare. What worries me is what will happen to the airlings in a storm. They might be blown off the deck and into the sea. They can’t swim.”
Jumping to my feet, I headed for the cabin door, determined to let the others know about the vision.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Flame, a wrap,” Shardra called just as I opened the door. I looked down at myself. I wore nothing but my smalls, my long white legs in plain sight.
“I’ll need more than a shawl with a bunch of randy crewmen to contend with.” I hastily grabbed up my breeches and pulled them on. Just for good measure, I threw on my tunic as well. That would have to do. No time for sandals.
I raced down the narrow companionway, trying to decide if I should go up and warn the crew on deck or go down and find my men, who were making ready for bed.
If the storm was coming, then the sooner I notified the crew on duty the better. The rest could follow more leisurely. I scrambled up the ladder that led onto the quarterdeck. The moon was bright and the ship and the sea looked beautiful in its calm light. For the briefest moments I paused to appreciate the glittering black ocean, the star-filled sky, the sound of the wind whistling in the rigging, and the feel of that same wind on my face. And the smell... the oh-so-familiar, oh-so-beloved smell of the briny sea.
“Lass?” a crewman strode over, noticing me poised there at the top of the ladder.
“Our seer has seen a storm approaching. If it reaches us it will come fast. You need to make preparations, just in case,” I told him.
I half-expected him to scoff at the news. The crew may know they were on a journey set by the Goddess, but that didn’t necessarily mean they’d heed predictions of the future. Most people didn’t. But fishermen—seamen of all kinds—were more open to such possibilities than most. Or more prone to caution when their lives were constantly at risk from the sea they loved.
“I’ll let the captain know,” he said with all sincerity. “Do you know when we can expect it?”
“Before dawn. Any time between now and dawn. I can’t be any more precise than that. We may well be ahead of it and miss it entirely. Or we may not. But I thought you should be made aware.”
He nodded sagely. “Advance warning is always useful to a sailor. The beastlings will need to be taken below.”
It was
as if he was talking to himself and had forgotten my existence. I watched him hurry away, head down, shoulders hunched.
I turned for one last look at the peaceful night. It gave no sign that danger might be approaching.
An airling squawked softly. My heart chittered in my chest. Stowed below? What did that even mean?
But there was no time to ask myself questions I had no answers to. I needed to finish sharing Shardra’s vision.
Within a quarter turn the quiet ship had become a bevy of activity. The hatches midway along the ship had been thrown open and a pulley system that I’d seen lowering bales of sweet grasses into the hold was being erected again, this time to lower the airlings below deck. They were to be confined to specially created stalls down there.
I need not have worried. Whoever had fitted out this craft had known what they were doing. As long as the airlings would co-operate, that was.
Being wrapped in leather and ropes and lowered into the bowels of a creaking, leaky ship would be an airling’s worst nightmare. But what choice was there? Send them back to land? We had been travelling for about six or seven turns. An airling could travel that distance without a load. But what if they ran right into the storm? And if they didn’t, how would they get back to us? We’d be leagues out of their flying range by morning.
I hurried down to where Zem was preparing the airlings. I could feel their fear and uncertainty as soon as I came within range. I reached up and put my hand on Spot’s scaly leg, sending him all my most calming thoughts. ‘It was nothing. Just a precaution. By morning you will be free to fly again. A storm is never good, even on land. Just a precaution. To keep you safe.’
I knew the words wouldn’t get through, but the images that automatically went with the words would. I’d done this before. Calun had shown me how, long ago. After a few moments of repeating my chant of calm words, the airlings did, in fact, calm down. Zem, who had been standing on a short ladder so he could reach Storm and stroke her fur through the webbing, stared down at me in gratitude.
“I suppose this was always going to be a possibility. I just would have preferred it happened once they were more accustomed to travelling this way. A few turns is hardly enough time to become used to a ship,” Zem said, back to his normal self. Back to our normal close bond.
“We just need to keep them calm, and hope this storm doesn’t actually hit us. Or, if it does, it’s over fast. I suppose if we do sustain heavy damages like the Devourers we’ll still be close enough to limp back to Eastairshan. That’s what the Devourers will have to do.”
I was looking for the silver lining. It wasn’t much of one. The most important thing to remember was that we had been given forewarning. If the storm had hit without warning we might have lost the airlings. That thought was enough to turn my stomach. Losing Spot would be as bad as losing one of my husbands. Unimaginable!
For the next turn we worked with the crew to get the airlings stowed away in their individual stalls. Stalls so snug their bodies had wooden railings pressing in on them from all sides. I understood the necessity for such confinement. And when I sent the reasoning to the airlings—namely that they would not be thrown about this way—they settled in to their tight prisons resolutely.
Once the stall doors were closed, five heads peered out over them to stare beseechingly at us.
“I’m staying down here tonight. They need me here to keep them calm,” I announced to the others.
The smell in the hold was musty, and it carried the remnant odours of whatever cargo had been regularly carried by this craft. Wines? Fabrics? Grains? It was hard to separate out the different scents. But the mustiness wasn’t connected to any of those past cargoes. It was what accumulated in spaces rarely opened to the air and where bilge water regularly collected.
None of these smells were familiar or acceptable to the airlings. They were barely acceptable to me.
“I’ll stay too. I don’t want to leave Storm,” Zem said.
“I’ll join the crew,” Laric told us. “If the storm hits they’ll need every able-bodied sailor on deck.”
“I could help–” Prior started to say.
“Sailor,” Laric interrupted, not unkindly. “What they want is men who know what to do in a crisis. Having to worry about inexperienced hands will only make the work harder.”
Prior nodded, though I could read his thoughts, which were not as accepting. Yet I agreed with Laric. My Dah would have said the same thing. The last thing you needed on a boat in a storm was someone who didn’t know how to get out of the way of a fast shifting beam, or when to tie yourself down when the deck tilts so steeply it almost becomes vertical.
“Stay with us. It won’t be comfortable or as sweet smelling as your hammock, but we could use your help keeping the airlings calm,” I told Prior.
He gave a laugh. “Comfortable and sweet smelling is not what spending the night in a hammock with a bunch of farting men could ever be described as. I think I’d prefer airling shite.”
That had everyone laughing, and I felt the airlings relaxing a little more. I clambered up on the rails and put my arm around Spot’s neck, feeling his thudding heartbeat under my ear.
“Oh, sweet man, you are safe with me,” I whispered soothingly.
I felt four men react to my words. They craved them as much as my beloved Spot did. I turned to look at them. They were all staring up at me as if I was... well... Airsha giving voice to the Goddess. It made me uncomfortable. Yet it also warmed my heart.
Redin had remained in his hammock, knowing he was no use wandering the decks. Shardra was staying in the cabin. I didn’t blame either of them. In fact, I was glad they stayed where they were. It was necessary to have these outsiders with us, but they were outsiders. The five of us... that was all I really wanted around me.
“I cannot... I can’t complain that life has proven to be dull since leaving my dark, little room. I’ve done so much and seen so much in a very short time. It is enough to last a lifetime, I imagine. But I can’t help wishing for my old cot right about now. It would be more comfortable,” Landor said with a grin.
“Real life is rarely comfortable,” I explained with a grin. “That’s half its appeal.”
“Says the lass who got the captain’s cabin,” groused Landor, good-naturedly.
We had brought lamps down with us to the lower deck, and the warm glow was reassuring. The moon would have been better, but that would have meant opening the hatches again. And the captain had decided it was better they remained in place, just in case. One less thing to have to deal with in a hurry.
Laric joined us after doing what he could to help above deck. Huddled together on hessian bags stuffed with sweet grass, we spent the next turn or so sharing silly stories about our childhoods. And it felt fitting that we were all there. All of The Five.
The only one who didn’t have pleasant childhood memories to share was Landor, but he seemed just as happy to listen to ours. And sharing our childhoods with him was like giving him a bit of ourselves. Or that was how it felt for me.
“I remember the first time I had a drink of strong spirits,” Laric was saying, as I leaned against the railings on Spot’s enclosure, my eyes heavy, my heart at peace.
“I was about eight at the time and full of myself,” he went on.
“Nothing’s changed then,” Zem piped up wryly, but without antagonism.
His joking tone must have surprised Laric, because for a moment he lost his place. He recovered quickly though, and went on with equal wryness. “I’m better looking now. But back then my Papa had a special cabinet where he kept his best spirits. Whenever his important male guests were in attendance Papa would lead them all off to his study and share his very expensive, very precious spirits with them. I thought, if my father considered them so precious, spirits must taste like the best honey rolls ever. Or almond cakes. I loved almond cakes. So I was determined to have a taste for myself.”
We were all chuckling softly, knowing where this ta
le was going. Or the likely way. With Laric it was hard to be sure.
“I had brought along several of the lads I played with. Childlings of the staff. They did what I told them, the way their fathers did what my father told them. It was the natural order of the world, as far as I could see.” His cynical tone told us what he now thought of those attitudes back then. And my heart warmed a little more for him.
“I suppose I never really saw them as friends. How can people who have to do what you tell them be friends? They weren’t there because they wanted to be. I’m not sure when that little gem of wisdom popped into my head. Maybe when one of the fisherlads I played with said as much. You see, they were not as afraid of my papa as the lads from the big house were. Their livelihoods were not as closely connected to the prince as the servants were. So the lads would tell me what they thought of me. And I got a few bloody noses fighting them for their comments. But they were more like friends...
“But I digress. This night, after everyone had gone to bed, I led the lads down to Papa’s study, just like he would do. And I took one of the cut-glass decanters down from the shelf and poured it, none too carefully, into several small glasses.
“They were very small glasses. Just right for our hands, I decided wisely. And so after slopping the fine spirits—I don’t know what sort—into those glasses, I showed them the way to drink it by throwing back the little glass and swallowing down its contents in one gulp.”
We were all sniggering now, even Zem. Tears were streaming down my face and I wiped them away with the back of my hands.
“I thought I was dying. I honestly thought I was dying. That I’d somehow swallowed fire and it was burning me from the inside out. I coughed and cried and ran around like a headless henling, which brought servants running from everywhere.
“Of course they took in what had happened and got their childlings out of there fast. All the while, assuring me that I was not dying. That I would live. And to drink plenty of water.