Song of the Current

by Sarah Tolcser

  “D’you want to see the letter of marque?” I pulled it out of my waistcoat, tossing it on the table.

  “Go back to Siscema,” he told me. “Gather a ransom offer. If they’re alive, the Bollards will surely pay.”

  “Nicandros Oresteia is in there too, or are you forgetting he’s one of you?” I snapped.

  “We belong to the river. I don’t like it out here.” He looked at Captain Krantor. “You know what I be speaking of. I say Nick Oresteia made his choice twenty years ago when he went and got mixed up with that woman. Them Bollards ain’t like us.” He spat on the floor. I bristled at that, but surely the Black Dogs had left worse on Vix’s planks. “Let them rescue him. Myself, I don’t want no part in this.”

  I put my hand on my pistol. I didn’t always see eye to eye with the Bollards, but I wasn’t going to let them be insulted by the likes of him.

  He leaned back in his chair. “The girl don’t look like Nick. For that matter, how do we even be knowing she’s his?”

  I lunged across the table and struck him in the face with my gun. Blood burst out of his nose, spraying everywhere. My rage pounded in my ears. Outside a wave slammed angrily against the porthole, water sluicing down the glass. Dimly I felt Nereus and Captain Krantor grab my arms and haul me back.

  Thisbe Brixton laughed. “Oh, I don’t know, Dinos. She seems plenty like Nick to me, don’t she?”

  The yellow-haired wherryman pinched his nose, muttering a steady stream of curse words.

  Perry Krantor stood, and the wherrymen fell into a respectful hush.

  “I don’t care about Akhaia’s succession,” he said. “The river, he run through Akhaia and Kynthessa and he don’t much care who rules the land. And nor do I, for I belong to the river.”

  Every eye in the room was on him. I held my breath. “But I don’t like that this new Emparch sends the Black Dogs to burn our boats.” He gestured at the crushed parchment. “I don’t like this business with the letter of marque. It was blackmail from the start.”

  The old man stroked his beard. “I reckon we’re already in this, like it or not. I don’t go with Caro because I care which man becomes Emparch of Akhaia. I go for Nick.” He nodded at me, and my eyes suddenly swelled with tears. “And for my Jolly Girl.”

  “All well and good for you,” muttered another man. “But I have a family. Those Dogs bested the Bollard ship. You want to take that fort with a couple of kids, that’s your right, Krantor. I vote we go home.”

  Thisbe Brixton folded her arms behind her head, her long braid winding down from under a knit cap. “Don’t go lumping the rest of us in with you, Hathor. You wouldn’t know a fight if it bit you in the ass.” She winked at me. “I’ll take my chances with these girls. Nick was my friend when plenty of you thought a woman got no call to captain a wherry. I remember my friends.”

  Everyone began to shout at once. My heart sank. It had been a lovely speech, but it hadn’t been enough. Pa was in that fort. Each minute we wasted out here, they might be hurting him or Ma. They might change their minds and decide to kill Markos.

  There must be something I could say to get through to the wherrymen. Something to make them listen.

  I sucked in a breath, remembering the old man from the toll boat, back at Gallos Bridge. How he’d shown me the pistol in his overcoat. We looks after our own. And then I had it.

  “Hey!” I yelled. They kept arguing. “Hey!”

  I whipped my Akhaian dagger through the air. It stuck, wobbling, in the center of the table. That got their attention. I climbed onto a chair.

  “I have something to say to the wherrymen. And women,” I called out, catching Captain Brixton’s eye. “I be Caroline Oresteia, mate of Cormorant and now captain of Victorianos.” The words felt strange in my mouth, and yet they were true. I fixed my eyes on the yellow-haired wherryman. “And anyone who thinks otherwise may try to take her if he likes.

  “I had many opportunities to speak to Markos Andela,” I went on, “him who would be rightful Emparch of Akhaia, before he were taken by the Black Dogs.” I had lapsed into riverfolk cant. I thought Pa would have approved. “He regretted that folk died on his account, but he wanted to make restitution. He meant to repay everyone who lost property at Hespera’s Watch.

  “Markos is a good man,” I said, daring to feel a trickle of hope. They were listening. “And my pa is a good man. I ain’t asking for you to do any more than he would do for you. And oh yes, he would! Didn’t he bail you out of the lockup that time, Hathor?” I spotted another man in the crowd. “And weren’t he the one who helped you scrape and paint Daisy? And of course I need not mention that Oresteias and Krantors been running together since the days of the blockades. We looks after our own. I’m going to save my pa, on Vix,” I announced, “and anyone who wishes may sail with me.”

  “Ayah!” Daisy’s captain shouted. “We may not be fighters, armed to the teeth with muskets and cannons, but we be free wherrymen. Let’s let those Dogs know we won’t be burned out!”

  “Speak for yourselves.” I raised my voice over the clamor. “Vix has enough guns for the lot of you, and we don’t mind sharing ’em.”

  With the cheer that followed, I knew I’d won.

  “Captain Krantor,” I called, rummaging in my pocket. I pulled out the key to the cargo hold and tossed it over the crew’s heads. “Open up the hold, if you please.”

  The old man caught it, throwing me a teasing salute. “Ayah, Oresteia.”

  As the wherrymen distributed and loaded the muskets, Captain Brixton beckoned me over. “Who is that?” She nodded at Nereus.

  “His name is Nereus.” I wasn’t sure what to say. “We … met him in Casteria.”

  “Hmm.” She watched him over the top of her pocket flask. “That one has the look about him, to be sure. Someone’s finger on him.”

  “You mean the god?” I asked. She’d just confirmed my suspicions.

  “Sure, and doesn’t a fish know when a shark comes to eat him?”

  Sometimes I hated the gods. Certainly everyone associated with them talked in circles in a way I found most irritating. “So he’s a shark?”

  “Is that what I said?” She grinned. “Pay me no mind.”

  Nereus joined us, leaning on the table. He inclined his head toward Thisbe Brixton. “Cousin,” he said respectfully.

  “Are you related?” I asked.

  They exchanged amused glances, while I thought some more murderous thoughts about the gods.

  “There’s something about this island,” Nereus mused, examining the chart spread on Vix’s table. “Almost, it seems familiar to me. I remember … that fort. Only it weren’t so run-down then.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  I leaned forward on my elbows. “Do you remember what you were doing? When you came to the island?”

  “I …” Eyebrows furrowed, he traced the kidney-shaped island on the chart. “I were running rum. Yes. Long ago, time out of mind. But back then, they called it—”

  “What?” Thisbe asked sharply.

  “Never mind that,” he said, eyes sparkling. “Jogged my memory, you have. Listen. In my day, there was a secret harbor on the east side of the island.” He pressed his finger on a symbol. “Here.”

  I looked at it skeptically. “That’s the marking for rocks.”

  “Looks like it, don’t it? That’s the brilliant thing about it. There’s a spot, a deep spot, where a captain might slip between those rocks and anchor in a safe hidden cove.” He grinned. “If he or she knew the place.”

  “Do you?” Kenté asked. “Know the place?”

  He winked. “What do you say? Want to rescue an Emparch?”

  As Nereus steered Vix toward his hidden harbor, I readied myself for battle. Beside me, Thisbe Brixton rammed shot down the flower-engraved gun I’d so admired, while I loaded my own dueling pistols.

  “How did you come to be here anyway?” I asked her.

  “Our tale is short enough.” She set the pistol on the t
able, uncorking her flask. “We hunted up the Kars for those Black Dogs, only to hear we missed ’em by three days. So we makes to turn around and go back south. The god in the river were with us, sure enough, for just as we rounded into Siscema, we come upon a Bollard ship. The captain said she’d seen your pa. And surprised we were too, for the last we seen of him were in the lockup in Hespera’s Watch.”

  She took a swallow. “So I ask where Nick is. ‘Gone down the coast chasing after them Black Dogs,’ says she. ‘Black Dogs!’ says I. ‘For ain’t that who we been following this whole time?’ Half a day out from Iantiporos, one of our frogmen spotted your sails. And so here we are.”

  “Is it true, what you said?” I asked. “About folk being down on you for owning your own wherry? My great-grandma captained our wherry.”

  “I expect she sailed with her husband as first mate, or her son. I got no men on my crew, see.” She grinned at her shipmate. “Ayah, and what use have I for men?”

  My cheeks burned. I hadn’t known that, though it made sense.

  “You aren’t to take any notice of Dinos. He’s a stupid man if all he can see is … Well.” She tapped the table. “You got your pa’s eyes and his reddish hair. And what’s more, you got the look of your grandma Oresteia around your face. You won’t be remembering her, but I knew her when I were a girl. She were a Callinikos of Gallos before she married, and you don’t get more riverlands than that.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t upset about what he said,” I lied. “I just didn’t like the way his face looked.” After we finished laughing, I added, “But thank you.”

  Folding a gold scarf into a headband, I tied it around my hair. Daria hugged her knees, alternately watching me and staring at the frogmen as if they might bite. Over my waistcoat and shirt I strapped a leather chestplate and gauntlets, tightening the buckle to the smallest hole.

  Kenté sat quietly, rolling her lockets between her fingertips.

  I set a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”

  “Just worried,” she said. “What if something goes wrong?”

  “It won’t.”

  Thisbe Brixton’s mate stopped sharpening her cutlass and looked up at me. “The gods do be in the habit of testing folk who say things like that.”

  The god at the bottom of the river was supposed to be the god of my ancestors. He was supposed to speak to us in the language of small things. Well, I was tired of waiting around for him to notice me. I’d been waiting my whole life.

  Maybe I was done with gods. Maybe from here on out, I was helping myself.

  I slammed my dagger into its sheath. “Let them do their worst.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Thisbe Brixton wriggled forward on her elbows. “I count three men.”

  I peered through the thick underbrush, the dampness of the earth seeping into my knees. Captain Brixton gave me a nod, and we slithered back to the wherrymen, who crouched in the forest.

  “Reckon there’s no better time than now.” Nereus leaned against a tree trunk, arms crossed. “They’ll be taking a breather after that fight. If we be lucky, they’re getting into the drink. They won’t expect us.”

  I drew a deep breath. “Right. We’ll take the back door, but no one go any farther.” Looking at my cousin, I said, “Kenté is our scout.”

  The wherryman called Dinos gave me a sour glance. “Ayah? And what makes you think that bit of skirt will be any use?” I knew he thought I was a piece of skirt too. He just didn’t want to say it to my face because I was very well armed.

  Kenté turned. “The fact that I can become invisible at will?”

  “That ‘bit of skirt’ is a shadowman.” I matched his rude tone. “Who do you think defeated the Black Dogs at Casteria and captured their cutter?”

  Kenté swallowed a laugh at that outright falsehood.

  “Current carry us,” one of the men whispered.

  Using the dense trees as cover, we crept closer to the fort. It wasn’t nearly as impressive from this side. Plants grew in the cracks between stones, and the roof was thick with moss and weeds, with many shingles missing.

  Either the Black Dogs didn’t know their island could be taken from the southeast or they thought no one else knew. Armed with muskets from Vix’s hold, the wherrymen made quick work of the guards at the back door. On a table near their crumpled bodies, a deck of cards lay fanned out between stacks of trinkets and silver coins. Broken bottles littered the ground.

  My gaze lingered on the dead men. Perhaps they had friends or family who would be watching the horizon, waiting for them to come home. I tightened my hands on my guns, hardening my heart.

  Inside the fort, a lone man stood at the end of the torch-lit corridor. Kenté’s fingers moved at her throat, and she disappeared, right in the middle of the afternoon. One of the wherrymen let out a choked gasp.

  “Do not fight,” Kenté’s voice sang out, echoing off the stone walls. “For I am an untrained shadowman. I shall do something stupid and most likely explosive if you lay hands on me. Put down your weapons.” She reappeared, pistol pressed to the pirate’s temple. “Please.”

  The man immediately dropped his gun.

  I rolled my eyes. “Please?”

  The Black Dogs’ headquarters was a mess. Never had I seen so many fine things dashed about in careless disarray: a golden goblet rolled into a corner and forgotten, a jeweled collar flung lopsided around the neck of a bottle of ale. I silently judged Captain Diric Melanos and his men for leaving their plunder scattered all over like that.

  “Well done,” I whispered to Kenté. “I didn’t know if the necklace would work.”

  “And after you made that outrageous speech about how I defeated the Black Dogs and stole their ship! I see you have little faith in me.”

  “Seems to me I have a lot of faith,” I muttered. “Since I made that speech in the first place.”

  “I knew it would work.” She twirled a locket on its chain. “I tested them last night.”

  “Someone who doesn’t want the Bollards to know her secret ought to avoid doing show-offy things like playing with magic right on the deck where anyone might see.”

  She put on an innocent look. “The sailor standing watch on Antelope fell asleep.”

  I shook my head. “You better not do that to me.”

  The sound of men’s voices ahead made Thisbe Brixton signal for quiet. Presently we came upon the source of the noise—a great round chamber one level below us. Perhaps it had once been a formal dining room, for at one end was a raised dais. Flattening myself against the staircase wall, I glimpsed Ma and Pa sitting on the floor with Antelope’s crew. A wave of relief made my insides weak. But we weren’t out of this yet. The prisoners were surrounded by Black Dogs.

  “There’s twenty men down there,” Dinos whispered.

  “More like forty.” Thisbe cuffed him on the back of the head. “Can’t you count?”

  Captain Krantor jerked his pistol toward the stairs. “Saw you the Emparch?”

  “He’s not there,” I whispered, nerves causing my pulse to hammer hot.

  “Likely they got him locked up by himself,” he said. “Leave this lot to us. You go find him.” He turned to Nereus. “Reckon you’re a man who’d be good in a fight. You with us or what?”

  Nereus’s fingers twitched on his knife. “I go with the girl.” His nostrils flared, as if he could somehow smell battle.

  “Figured as much,” the old man said, wiping sweat from his sun-spotted forehead. “Now. We surround ’em on all sides. Once I’m in position, I’ll sing out a signal. You lot sing back. Ready?”

  Kenté eyed the arched ceiling of the great room, tugging her necklaces from under her dress. “I’m going to need two for this.”

  I held my breath. But it wasn’t like what had happened when she tried the same trick in Casteria. The great room went dark, as if a giant hand in a black glove had snuffed out the lanterns. More than that, Kenté’s magic blotted the light from the windo
ws and doors. The wherrymen crept in one by one, feeling their way down the curved staircase.

  “Strike a match, you Dogs!” I thought that was Diric Melanos.

  “It’s not working!” one of his crew yelped in panic.

  “Looooooow bridge!” a voice boomed from across the room. It was Perry Krantor, calling out as the wherrymen do when they come to a bridge on the river.

  “What was that?” The Black Dogs fell into a hush. I heard the ring of steel and the rustle of clothing as they drew their weapons.

  Other voices called out in answer. “Low bridge!” The voices seemed to come from all around the room, echoing off the stone walls. “Loooow-ow-ow-ow.” A shiver ran through me. It was an eerie sound.

  “It’s that shadowman!” someone yelled.

  “No, it’s the shades of them wherrymen come to haunt us,” one of the Black Dogs cried. “Told you, I did! We shouldn’t have done it.”

  I smiled. No—they shouldn’t have.

  A man began to pray out loud, while another fired a pistol. Several men commenced to yell at the one who had shot the gun.

  Over the clamor I heard a familiar laugh. “That you, Perry?” It was Pa, who knew no one else from here to Ndanna would choose that for a war cry. No one except wherrymen.

  “Ayah. How be you, Nick?”

  “Well enough,” Pa said, “once you put a pistol in my hand.”

  Kenté’s fingers moved and the darkness whisked up, like a blanket being shaken out. It hit the ceiling and burst. All the little pieces of it flew into the nooks and crannies of the room.

  And then the fight began.

  One of the wherrymen tossed Pa a pistol and a bag of shot. He caught it. Lifting his eyes to the top of the stairs, he saw me. A long moment passed between us. He raised his hand in a salute, loaded the pistol, and jumped into the fight.

  Hesitant as I was to abandon my parents, the wherrymen’s attack was a spectacular diversion. I nodded to Nereus and Kenté, and we slipped down the corridor. As we hurried deeper into the fort, the smells of smoke and sea lay thick on the air. None of us spoke. My concern for Markos sat on my chest like a heavy stone.