Scimitar Moon

by Chris A. Jackson

  “Bastard,” she managed before retching again. When she finished, she glanced up at Brelak. “Koybur, get him out of here. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about Brelak, lass. He’s seen ship’s sickness before, and I told him you were still workin’ on your sea legs.” He handed her the cup of water that stood next to her basin. “Here you go. Just have a little bit now.”

  She rinsed her mouth and spat, then took a small swallow. She knew it would come up later, but it eased her throat. “You know you’re fired,” she said coldly, glaring at him in sincere hatred. “Kidnap your employer and take her to sea against her wishes? I could have you strung up for this.”

  Mouse flew up to Koybur’s face and mimed being hung, fluttering there with his tongue lolling out until the salty old sailor pushed him gently out of the way. His humor unappreciated, the sprite retreated to Brelak’s shoulder and sulked.

  “Oh, I suppose you could, lass, but we both know you won’t.” He struggled to his feet, clenching his jaw against the pain, his constant companion. “Our next landfall is Rockport. Brelak and I decided to skip Snake Harbor; naught but dregs there from what he tells me. We’ll be passin’ through the north straits of the Shattered Isles in two days. After that, another four to Rockport. That ought to give you some time to get acquainted with the ocean.” He took the towel from the rack and handed it to her. “Give a yell when the bucket’s full or the glass is empty. I’ll tend you night and day, Cyn, but I’m not gonna let you coddle yourself out of this.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she growled as he turned away.

  “One day, lassie, you will thank me for this. I promise you that.” With that little quip to occupy her mind he closed the door, leaving her to her misery.

  *

  “Are ya sure she’s well enough to be left alone, Master Koybur?” Brelak asked as they ascended the companionway back to the deck.

  “She was just comin’ out of her doldrums two days out from Southaven. She’ll come around.”

  “Has she never been to sea a-fore this, then?” the big man asked, concern edging his voice.

  “Only once before,” Koybur answered eying the new man skeptically. “She was but a strap of a lass then, though. Lost her mum and dad on that trip. That was when that bastard Bloodwind put a ballista bolt through ’em both. Right in front of her, mind ye.”

  “Bloody hell and Odea preserve us!” Brelak murmured as the two men moved to the midship rail. “And how old was she then?”

  “About seven summers,” Koybur said flatly, watching the Morrgrey.

  Brelak turned back to the aft cabin door, his dark eyes soft with pity. “And she saw it? Bloody hell.”

  “Aye, and she was old enough to remember it, though I don’t think she really does.”

  The big man closed his eyes and shook his head somberly. “A wonder she ever recovered.”

  “They tell me near a year passed before she did much but sleep, cry and wake up screamin’. By that time, old Master Garrison had been lost as well, swept off the deck of Peggy’s Pride out lookin’ for Bloodwind in a damned hurricane.” He shook his head and sighed. “She had a right structured upbringin’ from her gram, which was probably best. She turned into a bit of a hell-raiser in her teens, and she’s tougher than she looks. She never was allowed to go to sea, though, which had always been her only real want. Her gram died in a fire some weeks ago, and now the business is all hers; what’s left of it that is.”

  “Which is why she’s buildin’ new ships,” Brelak said, nodding sagely. “She’s got some spunk in her fer one so young.”

  “Aye, and you don’t know the half of it, my friend.” Koybur tapped out his pipe and grinned lopsidedly. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  *

  “Feldrin Brelak…” Bloodwind seethed, pronouncing the name like a curse as he crumpled the parchment in his hand. “Another thorn in my side come back to haunt me.” His eyes focused on the cowering messenger before him. “Did my man in Scarport say exactly why the Morrgrey is still breathing?”

  “He said there was never an opportunity to strike, Captain. Brelak was always in the company of others.”

  “I must be paying my spies too much when a hundred crown bounty isn’t enough to induce them to take a little risk.”

  He walked to the edge of the balcony, a wide stone terrace that had been laboriously carved out of the living rock of the volcano. This, his favorite spot on the island, embodied both beauty and risk; the balcony had no railing, and the beach lay more than a hundred feet below. Everything he had achieved had been gained at an equally great risk.

  He turned away from the view and returned to his chair, admiring how the morning sun glittered from Camilla’s golden adornments. Yes, he thought, beauty and risk. He sat between Camilla and the balcony’s edge. If she truly hated him as much as she professed, would she not have tried just once to push him over the edge? He knew he had not completely broken her spirit, so there must be some other reason.

  Yes, there must be something more in her mind now than hatred.

  “You may go,” he told the messenger as he cut a sausage and popped a piece into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, trying to think of a way to rid himself of Feldrin Brelak. Rockport was out of the question. Yodrin lurked there, and a murder in such a small town would put the Flaxal girl on guard. But Tsing would be their next stop, and in that great city anything could happen. If a gutter thief put a knife in the big man’s back, they would probably dismiss it as bad luck and hire another officer to take his place, presenting yet another opportunity to place one of his men among the crews.

  Yes, that thought had merit. Tsing was a dangerous city, and one of the busiest ports on the continent. What better place to do business?

  *

  “Land, dead ahead!” The lookout’s call and a stampede of footfalls overhead roused Cynthia from a near-comatose slumber.

  More calls put the ship into a brief state of action. Even in her addled state, it did not take her long to comprehend the reason for the commotion: the Winter Gale had raised the Shattered Isles. This would be her one and only chance to see the inland passages, for their return trip would be a close-hauled beat to windward, and would take them well south of these shallow, treacherous cuts.

  Her knees quaked like leaves in the wind as she forced herself to her feet. She found her way onto the deck, though those seven steps seemed to have multiplied by a dozen. The steady trade winds and a bright blue sky greeted her with cheerful mockery, but this time they were accompanied by water of the deepest blue Cynthia had ever seen. The wind and midday sky she could ignore, but as her hands came to rest on the rail amidships, her eyes were drawn down into that fathomless blue, and she felt as if she were being torn limb from limb.

  How could something so beautiful, something she loved so much and wanted more than anything else in the world, torture her so?

  “’Tis a beautiful sight, is it not, Mistress Flaxal?”

  She felt the huge presence of Feldrin Brelak just behind her, but did not turn to face him. She kept her eyes on that blue-blue water.

  “It’s so blue,” she said, sniffing back the huskiness in her voice.

  “Aye, this here’s the Easting Deep.” His voice resounded with intense emotion, which surprised her. How could a sailor be so moved by just another stretch of open sea?

  “Nobody ever told me it was so blue.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and sniffed.

  “Aye, the water’s deep an’ clear here,” he said, offering her a pocket handkerchief. She took it gratefully, muttering her thanks. “The current sets east to west with the trades, and the drop-off pulls cold water up from the deep. On a clear day like this, when the swell’s down, it’s the pertiest patch of water on the sea.”

  After a short while, Cynthia realized that she did not feel as bad as she had, though her stomach remained bone dry and her head still throbbed with her heartbeat. Suddenly, something broke th
e surface near the ship—a fin and a tail.

  “Dolphin,” she said, smiling. “Good luck.”

  “Have another look, Mistress.” Brelak pointed to the roiling water where powerful flukes pushed close to the surface. “There!”

  The creature broke the surface again, and for a bare instant Cynthia saw silvery scales, a ridge of spiny dorsal fin, arms with webbed hands and bright green eyes looking up at her from beneath the surface.

  “A mer!”

  “Aye, and good luck it is, but only because there’s just one.” Brelak’s tone was jovial, but not joking. Large schools of merfolk had made war on shipping in the past for some unknown offense. For all she knew, they were trespassing right now. Conversing with the mer was impossible, but they were never dangerous except in large numbers. En masse, they were worse than a sea drake.

  The mer rolled over, looked up at her, then dove deep, its tail flapping once before vanishing into the limitless blue. Cynthia lifted her eyes from that deep clear water to the strip of white on the horizon: the low, barren shoals of the northernmost of the Shattered Isles. This would be Cynthia’s only chance to see them, but from her current position, the view would be poor. She needed to be higher.

  “Master Brelak, I’d like to make my way to the poop deck, but I doubt I have the strength.” She turned and tried to smile, though she realized she must look no better than a vaguely feminine shipwreck. “Might I ask your help up the steps?”

  “O’course, Mistress Flaxal.” He held out an arm roughly the diameter of the ship’s mainsail yard and took her hand. “You just lean on me as needs be.”

  “Thank you.” Cynthia took him at his word and leaned on him for support. His arm proved every bit as stable as the bulwark railing. Nine steps loomed up to the quarterdeck, and another dozen to the poop. She looked up grimly, determined to do this.

  Four steps up, her knees buckled. With one hand on the rail and the other on Brelak’s rock-steady arm, she did not fall, but she couldn’t continue. She gritted her teeth against the weakness pervading her limbs, and the humiliation of failing in front of professional sailors.

  “Here ye’ are, Miss Cynthia. I gotcha.” Brelak’s huge arm encircled her waist, his other hand propped up her elbow. Her feet suddenly left the step. He picked her up as easy as a sack of sailcloth and put her down as steady as a summer breeze, her feet firmly upon the quarterdeck. Before she could even protest, he braced her, supporting more than half her weight, and they walked a perfect unwavering line to the poop deck steps. These stood higher, narrower, and much steeper than the steps to the quarterdeck.

  “Brelak, I don’t know if I can—”

  “O’course ya can, Miss Cynthia. Easy as pie, and don’t you think fer a second that any of these scupper monkeys’ll give you a bit of grief fer it. Not while I’m on board.” His voice barely rose over the wind and sea, for her ears alone. “Up we go now.”

  Her feet hardly touched a step, and the next thing she knew they stood on the poop, looking down at the helmsman. Clear, clean air greeted her, with no smell of the ship and none of the close mustiness that pervaded her cabin. She gratefully accepted his help to the starboard rail and looked forward at the white line of sandy shoals.

  “Thank you, Master Brelak.” She tried another smile, and this one came more easily. “For everything.”

  “Naught to thank me for, Mistress. Nothin’ at all. ’Tis you I should be thankin’.” He tipped his cap and grinned, his teeth unnaturally white against his olive skin and dark hair. “Koybur’s been showin’ me the plans you made. Ain’t a thing I ever thought I’d see, but there’s somethin’ about that design that calls to the sea. They’ll be fine ships, Mistress Flaxal, and none’ll be sayin’ a thing bad about you once they see ’em sailin’.”

  “That’ll be months from now,” she said, keeping her eyes on the low islands ahead. “I’m sure my reputation will be tarnished enough before they’re launched.”

  He remained silent, but also kept his station close to her elbow. She felt as if she stood next to a tree, and had to resist the impulse to lean against that comforting solidity.

  “Mistress Flaxal!” Captain Uben’s booming voice caught her off guard, but her exhaustion left her unable to actually jump. “Good to see you on deck!” Mouse swooped in from nowhere and landed on the captain’s shoulder, earning a chuckle from the man.

  “It is good to be on deck, Captain. Thank you.”

  “Beautiful weather for it.” He stood facing the following trade winds, one hand on his hip, the other shading his eyes from the midday sun. “Hardly a bit of swell, and the air’s clear as a bell. This is the only way to pass the straits. I think your little sprite’s good luck for us!”

  Mouse flew crookedly from the captain’s shoulder to Cynthia’s and smiled, patting her head and tugging her ear, whispering his faerie nonsense at her. She smiled back at her little friend, thinking she might just survive.

  Yes, if this were the worst of it, she could bear it.

  They sailed on until she could hear the dull roar of surf on the reefs ahead. The water lightened to the color of burnished turquoise, and she could see the tide running past the hull. As a consequence of the tide, the ship’s progress slowed. The swell mounted slightly; not much, due to the calm winds, but she could feel the uneasiness building in her gut. She willed it down, forcing herself to concentrate on the experience she would never live again. The wind, the waves and the… smell?

  The thick stench of guano overtook the ship as the headland passed far enough astern that the shore birds’ rookery lay upwind. She gasped, coughed and heaved over the rail while Mouse yelped and fluttered away. She felt Brelak’s huge hand on her back, offering support and some measure of comfort, but deep down she wished he would just push her overboard.

  When she finished, he handed her a water flask. She took a mouthful and spat it out, then swallowed a tiny bit to ease her throat.

  “The smell,” she said, handing the flask back.

  “Aye, it’s a bit strong, ain’t it?” He rummaged at his belt and handed her a tiny vial. “Here. Put a drop o’ that on yer upper lip. You’ll ferget you ever smelt anything bad in yer life.”

  She looked at the tiny vessel skeptically. “What is it?”

  “Mint extract. I keep it handy just in case I get a bunkmate who’s, uh…”

  “Who stinks?” she asked, pulling the tiny cork from the bottle and sniffing carefully. Her head swirled with the overpowering scent of mint.

  “Right you are, right you are. Makes life aboard ship a mite more pleasant sometimes. Don’t use much, now. It’s strong.”

  She dabbed her little finger on the lip of the vial and wiped the tiny bit of moisture onto her upper lip. The stench of guano vanished in a wash of mint, settling her stomach a bit. She smiled at the mountainous Morrgrey and held out the vial.

  “Thank you.”

  “Oh, keep it, keep it, Miss Cynthia. My gift to ya.” He pressed the knuckles of his right hand to his forehead in a sailor’s salute.

  “Thank you,” she said, tucking the vial into her belt. She looked out at the bleak islands creeping past and took a careful breath. “Not so bad, if my stomach would just—”

  “Sail! Sail on the horizon!” The cry from the foremast drew every pair of eyes on the ship.

  “What bearing?” the captain bellowed, raising his own eyes to search the distance.

  “Three points, starboard bow!” came the call from above. “A single sail. Small. Mayhap a fisherman.”

  “And mayhap it’s me Aunt Perdy’s backside!” Koybur hoisted himself up the steps to the poop deck. “Gotta be one of Bloodwind’s messengers, Capt’n.”

  “Or a lookout,” Brelak said in a dark tone. It had long been suspected that the pirates of the Shattered Isles used small, quick craft to look out for prey. Smaller boats could spot the taller sails of a merchant before their own could be seen, then they would dart away to signal a lurking corsair.

  “What co
urse?” Uben yelled back to the lookout.

  A pause ensued during which not a breath was drawn on the poop deck. They were committed to their course, could not turn back, but if they had to run, knowing sooner could be the difference between escape and watery tomb.

  “Can’t say her heading, Capt’n,” the lookout’s called. “She’s hull down, on a steady bearing.”

  “Damn and blast!” Captain Uben glanced around the deck, obviously reviewing his options.

  “That could be very good, or very bad,” Koybur put in, his tone almost jovial compared to the captain’s.

  “If they’re headed northwest, they’re no threat. If they’re headed southeast, there could be a corsair behind them, just over the horizon.”

  “Exactly, lass,” Koybur said, his scar-ravaged face twisting into a hideous grin. “How lucky you feelin’?”

  “Right now I’m not feeling anything but nauseous,” she said, gripping the rail and swallowing hard.

  Uben looked at her incredulously. “This ain’t no time for jokes, Mistress Flaxal.”

  “I’m not joking, Captain.” She nodded to the spy glass in his hand. “But I’ll wager your glass is a finer instrument than the one the lookout is using. A pair of sharp eyes on the main-top with that glass could tell us more of the threat.”

  “Aye, and a good suggestion.” He handed the bronze tube to Brelak. “Care to have a look, Master Brelak?”

  “Quick as quick, Capt’n.” Brelak snatched the glass from Uben’s hand and trundled down the steps to the quarterdeck, then the main deck. He swarmed up the ratlines to the mainsail yard before Koybur could hobble across the deck to Cynthia’s side.

  “He moves well fer such a big feller,” Uben said, squinting up at the Morrgrey. In moments, Brelak stood at the topsail yard, as high as he could go without sprouting wings. He braced himself, wrapping one huge leg around the topmast, and brought the telescope up to his eye. In a few moments, his voice boomed down to the deck.