by David Estes
Everything comes tumbling back: the bilge rat’s challenge; my weakness; the captain showing me to my cabin, asking if I was ready to meet my steward. I had begged off, blaming the need for sleep, although I was wide awake. Pulling the covers tight around me, I had squeezed my eyes shut and held back the tears as long as I could, but eventually they’d broken free, coating my cheeks and lips.
But eventually I must’ve fallen asleep, and then—
“It was just a nightmare,” I say, lifting my chin, rubbing at my cheeks, half-expecting them to still be wet with tears. Surprisingly, however, they’re dry, although my skin feels grainy. I hope Barney can’t see the white tear tracks.
“I know, sir,” Barney says, releasing my arms.
“I have them sometimes.”
“We all do, Lieutenant.”
“What time of day is it?” I ask. (What day is it?) I flex my arms, which have gone numb.
“It’s tomorrow,” Barney says with a grin. “Morning still. Not early, not late. Breakfast is still available. Would you like some?”
“Can you bring it to me here?” I ask, realizing right away how that sounds. Like the spoiled son of an admiral. Like the coward who’s scared to leave his cabin.
“Of course, sir,” Barney says, unblinking, although I can hear it in his voice: he heard about what happened yesterday. He knows the sort of man I am.
With a quick bow, he leaves, closing the door behind him, leaving me to my thoughts and the strained and scared face of my mother, which flashes in and out of my memory like a signal beacon from a passing ship.
Chapter Ten
Sadie
“Your father had a vision,” Mother says, and then I remember why I ran out. My interest, my curiosity piqued at the mention of the Soakers as my father started to tell us about what he’d been writing on the strips of bark. Then of course I just had to dredge up age-old memories of Paw’s death, which led to our fight and my abrupt exit into the storm. My run to the ships.
When I returned, they didn’t say anything, as if I’d never left in the first place. Mother held a blanket up so I could change my clothes, and Father prepared a warm, herbal tea. Although I could see the question in his eyes, my father didn’t ask me where I’d gone, probably because my mother had forbidden him from asking it. It’s all part of her approach to my training. She grants me a lot of independence—and based on what Remy said, more than some of the other Riders get—and I don’t abuse it, use it only to further my stamina and strength.
“A vision about the Soakers?” I say.
“Yes,” my father says solemnly. “There will be a battle.”
I roll my eyes. There’s always a battle. That’s the dramatic vision from the Man of Wisdom? I look at the tent wall.
“Sadie!” my mother snaps, and my head jerks back to her. She rarely raises her voice at me.
“What?” I say, knowing I’m about to tread over the line of insolence, but not caring. “I’ve heard this all before. His visions, scribbles on countless pieces of bark, tales of blood and bones and how the world’s ending.” Although I won’t look at him, at the edge of my vision I see my father’s head dip, his eyes close. The truth is hard to hear sometimes, but that doesn’t change that it’s the truth.
My mother’s hand flashes out so fast I don’t even have time to flinch before it snaps across my face. My head jolts to the side and I grimace, but don’t cry out. Showing pain is weakness.
Slowly—ever so slowly—I turn back to face my mother. My cheek stings and my pride feels bruised, but I don’t cry, don’t so much as let my eyes water.
There’s hurt in her eyes, but I know it’s not regret at having slapped me, because I can still see the anger in her pursed lips. Anger at me. For not thinking very much of my father, the so-called Man of Wisdom.
I pretend like I don’t see the hurt or the anger. “What sort of battle?” I ask grudgingly.
My father’s eyes flash open and he smiles thinly.
“One where…” He pauses, as if searching for the words. There’s blood, and lots of people die, and the world as we know it is destroyed, I think, regurgitating my father’s usual predictions. “…you will have a choice to make,” he finishes.
My eyes narrow. “Me?” I say. “I’ll be stuck here with you.” I don’t mean for it to sound so angry, but I guess lately that’s what I am.
Father nods, but doesn’t elaborate, which means that’s all he wants to tell me. Is it a trick? A way for him to convince me to stay in the tent the next time there’s a battle?
“Tell her the rest,” Mother urges.
Father looks down, clasps his hands in his lap, runs his thumb over his forefinger. Sighs. Slumps his shoulders. Why does he look so…is it sadness? Exhaustion? No, it’s not one or the other—it’s both. He looks defeated.
“Father?” I say, allowing a hint of compassion to creep into my voice. Just a hint.
He lifts his head but his eyes are closed and he doesn’t stop at eye-level. His chin keeps tilting until he’s facing the tent roof, and only then does he open his eyes. Almost as if he can’t look at me when he says whatever it is my mother wants him to say. And in his eyes…
There’s defeat.
And I realize he’s not looking at the tent roof. No, he’s looking well beyond it, seeing something that we can’t—the moon or the stars or the black-cloud-riddled sky. Something beyond.
“It’s time to ride against the Icers,” he says to the heavens, and for a moment I don’t comprehend any of his words, because how can I? They’re so unexpected and make so little sense that I have to close one eye to even get my brain headed in the right direction.
“This must not make much sense to you,” my mother says. It doesn’t take a Man of Wisdom to read my face. I shake my head. “Reason it out,” she says, like she has so many times before.
I used to get so excited when my mother would say those words—that she had so much confidence that I could puzzle through a problem and figure it out on my own. But now her challenge just frustrates me, because I want to know right now. Why the Riders would go to the Icers; why my mother seems more intense than she normally does, so focused on my father’s vision that she’d slap me; why my father refuses to lower his gaze from the stars, invisible behind the cloth of our tent.
From experience, however, I know: she won’t tell me the answer.
So I think about everything I know about the Icers. They live in ice country, obviously. It’s really cold there, colder than when it’s been raining in storm country for two months straight, the wind lashing the rainwater to our clothes, to our skin, chilling us to the bone. From what I’ve been told, the Icers are a private people, preferring the solitude of their strongholds in the mountains. They’ve never tried to trade with us.
And they have a secret.
Only we know about it, because our scouts witnessed something they weren’t supposed to. A band of men, pale-white skinned and heavily armored, carrying razor-sharp axes and long-hilted swords, driving a group of brown-skinned children to the sea. They were met by a landing party from the jewel of the Soakers’ fleet, The Merman’s Daughter. The children, who we assume were Heaters from fire country, were forced onto a boat and sent to the ships. We can only assume they’re being used as slaves.
In exchange, the Soakers gave the Icers large sacks that looked heavy, but which could be easily lifted and carried by the ice country soldiers. When our scouts examined the area where the trade had taken place, they found prints of heavy boots and small bare feet. The prints were littered with fragments of dried plants, the kind that sometimes wash up on our shores, green at first, but turning brown over time. Weeds of the sea.
Why would the Icers trade children for dried plants that are as readily attainable as blades of grass or leaves on trees? And how did the Icers get the Heater children in the first place? Did the Heaters sell their own offspring to the Icer King, the man they call Goff, or did the Icers steal them away?
Not even my father knows the answers to these questions, but ever since the scouts learned of the child slave-trade, the tension between us and the Soakers has escalated. Although some say the Soakers’ trade with other countries is not our concern, the majority would have us put an end to it. My mother’s voice has been one of the strongest in this regard.
“We cannot sit on our hands while great injustice is carried out on the borders of storm country,” I murmur, remembering my mother’s words from a speech she made to the camp a day after the scouts returned with their account of the Soakers’ treachery.
“Yes,” my mother says.
“It is time?” I say.
“It is,” Mother says. And suddenly I know why my mother is so serious and my father so sad:
The Riders are going to war with the Icers.
And it’s my father who’s sending them.
~~~
I rise early because I can’t sleep. My father’s still in bed, snoring, as I dress in my training gear: dark pants, my thin, light boots, and a light black shirt that will allow my skin to breathe if I sweat. Training almost always means sweat, especially when my mother’s involved.
We didn’t schedule training for today, but given the fact that my mother’s not in the tent, an impromptu early morning session is a good bet.
I step out into a dark, brooding morning, intent on finding her.
Fog rises from the ground in cloud-like waves, as if the rain from yesterday is returning to its sky masters high above the earth. There’s a chill in the air, and for a moment I stop and consider dressing in something warmer. I shake my head to myself. Regardless of the temperature or what I’m wearing, at the end of a training session with my mother I’m always hot and wishing I was wearing less.
This early, the camp is quiet. There’s activity, yes—a few cook fires glow warmly, shining off black pots hovering over them, emitting the mouthwatering smell of cooked coney; a black-robed rider strides across the camp on his way to the stables; one of the fire-tenders carries a bundle of wood to the Big Fire, which has dwindled to a few crackling flames—but it’s quiet activity. If anyone speaks, it’s in dull murmurs or low whispers. Until sunup, we respect those sleeping.
My mother will likely be one of three places: the stables; beyond the northern edge of the camp, doing her own training while she waits for me to join her; or on the seaside, waiting for the sun to rise. She says the sunrise is Mother Earth’s most beautiful gift to us.
But today it’s too foggy for a good sunrise. That leaves the stables or training grounds. I head for the stables, where I can at least see Shadow, even if Mother’s already passed through.
I move across the dark camp, careful not to step on anything that could turn my ankle, a rock or a stick or a swathe of uneven ground. Every step must be perfect. The feet are the key to a fight. Two of my mother’s favorite sayings, hammered into my skull so that even a normal walk across camp turns into training. When I realize, I groan inwardly and try to relax.
As I walk toward the Big Fire—which is growing already as the fire-tender adds sticks of wood one at a time, positioning each one carefully, delicately, like the placement is a matter of life or death—I admire the symmetry of the camp. Everything is ordered, even, mirror images of each other. From the fire, the tents radiate outward in concentric circles, each successive ring growing larger and containing more tents. The tents of the Riders and the Men of Wisdom, of whom my father is head, make up the innermost circle, while the circle furthest from the fire is for the camp watchmen, those with keen eyes and stout hearts. There are ten rings in all, over two thousand Stormers.
Neither the fire-tender nor I speak as I pass, content to let our brief eye contact convey a well-mannered good morning.
I pause as I reach the edge of the first ring of tents opposite ours, because I sense movement in one of the shelters, one I know too well, because a red flag flutters wildly above it. Gard’s tent. The Rider war leader. My leader. It’s not Gard, however, who steps out.
Remy.
His black skin’s a shadow against the brown of his tent. Through the fog I catch his smile.
Moving on.
I turn to continue on to the stables, angry at the clutch of embarrassment I feel in my gut after running from him yesterday.
His hand on my arm stops me. “Let go,” I hiss.
His hand darts back and his smile fades, but then reappears seconds later. “Heading to the stables?” he asks.
“No.” Yes. Argh. Why does he continue to follow me around? “Sorry, I really don’t have time to talk,” I say.
“Let me guess, training,” he says, the warmth of his smile quirking into a smirk.
I frown. “Yeah, so,” I say. “Riders may be born, but great Riders are made.” Another of my mother’s sayings, one I’ve always loved, have always believed in, but which now sounds ridiculous on my lips.
Remy raises an eyebrow. He thinks I’m ridiculous. “Don’t you ever stop training, you know, to just be a girl?”
My frown deepens into a scowl. “No…and I’m not a girl, I’m a Rider.”
He laughs loudly, breaking the code of morning silence just as the edge of the sun breaks the horizon, spreading pink to the east and graying the dark clouds overhead.
Instinctively, we both look up. When we drop our gaze once more, he says, “Trust me, you’re a girl, too.” I don’t like the way my hands sweat when he looks me up and down.
“I’ve got to find my mother,” I say, turning away from Remy and toward the stables, striding away quickly.
“I thought you weren’t going to the stables,” Remy says, pulling up alongside me.
Right. So much for my sharp mind. “I’m not,” I lie. “Not really. I’m just seeing if my mother’s there.”
“Well, Sadie-who’s-not-going-to-the-stables, I’ll walk with you while you don’t go to the stables,” Remy says, flashing that annoying smirk of his once more.
“Fine,” I say, “as long as you don’t speak.”
Ignoring me, he says, “What do you think about your father’s vision?”
I can’t stop myself from flinching. Was I the last to know? Probably, considering the first time my father tried to tell me, I started a fight with him and ran away.
“I’m going with them,” I say, snapping my mouth shut as soon as the words come out. Why did I say that? I don’t even have a horse yet. I haven’t finished training.
“You are?” Remy says. “But I thought your ceremony wasn’t for another few months.”
“They’ll make an exception,” I say, firming up my voice, as if I’m on my way to discuss it with Remy’s father right now.
Remy laughs, grabs my hand, stops me. “You’re so full of horse dung, Sadie. My father doesn’t make exceptions.”
I grit my teeth and wrench my hand from Remy’s grip. Anger bursts through me like a crashing wave.
Because I know Remy’s right.
Chapter Eleven
Huck
When I finally leave my cabin, full of brown gruel that tasted even worse than it looked, the sun is well beyond its peak, the sky a dark bloody red. Right away, I wish I hadn’t hidden in there for so long.
It only made things worse. Now everyone stares at me as I walk along the quarterdeck, trying to look like a leader. But no matter how high I raise my chin or how straight I keep my back, I feel like a boy pretending to be a lieutenant, all the way to the clean, blue uniform, which feels more like a costume than a sign of my position.
A test, I remember. Maybe my last chance to prove myself to my father.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hobbs watching my every move, his usual frown-smile plastered on his face.
I ignore him and look around, taking it all in. The scene is consistent with when I arrived: men and women alike, sleeping, some sipping bottles of grog, some telling jokes, laughing and slapping their knees. One woman struggles to clip wet clothes to a line strung up between two masts. A few men are working,
too, swinging the tattered sails around to catch the wind properly, but they’re struggling because the wind is swirling, changing direction so quickly that using sails is a near-impossibility. Why doesn’t anyone say something? I wonder. The captain, one of the other lieutenants, somebody…
“Where’s the captain?” I ask myself.
“In his favorite spot,” a voice says from behind.
I shudder and turn quickly.
Barney stands nearby, looking off at the far end of the quarterdeck, near where Hobbs is standing, still watching me. But my steward isn’t looking at Hobbs, his gaze is locked on a swinging bundle to the left of him. A salt-yellowed hammock rocks back and forth in the wind, wisps of smoke curling up from where the captain lays, pipe in his mouth, eyes closed, either oblivious or disinterested in the complete lack of competence on the decks of his ship.
Ignoring Hobbs’ dagger-stares, I march on up to the captain and tap him on the shoulder. He awakes with a start, his pipe falling from his lips and onto his grungy uniform. He scrabbles for it, manages to pluck it off his chest, but not before it leaves a black circle burned into his shirt.
“What in the Deep Blue?” he says, his tired eyes flashing to mine. So he was asleep, setting a good example for his men. “Something I can do for you, Lieutenant?”
“Well, I, uh, I just thought…”
“Spit it out, boy!” he says, not too nicely.
When he calls me boy, something snaps in me, something that evens my words out, allows them to flow with confidence. “We’ve fallen behind the other ships,” I say. I add, “Sir,” as an afterthought.
“And?” he says.
Dumbfounded, I gawk at the captain in his hammock, not a care in the world, except maybe not getting burned by his bloody pipe. We sail for our livelihood, to fill our nets with fish, to reach our next safe landing zone to find fresh water to sate our dry throats. We’ve done it for years, since the time that the first Soakers constructed the first ships out of driftwood, broken from homes during what everyone believed was the end of days. We sail to survive. Doesn’t he understand? Doesn’t he care?