The Forgetting Moon

by Brian Lee Durfee

  “Both strikes count!” Stefan yelled. “It’s a tie!” Everyone cheered.

  “Rotted dog shit!” The baron’s son ripped off his helm and threw down his shield. “A bastard is no equal of mine.” No sooner had his shield and helm hit the mud than Jenko leaped forward, gripping his sword in both hands now. His high swing came crashing in. The blow knocked Nail’s shield spinning away. His second blow planted Nail’s butt firmly in the mud. Instantly, Jenko loomed over him, raining blows. Nail scrambled back on his haunches, mud plowing up behind him. He kept his sword up in defense, but it was beaten back swiftly. Then it wasn’t in his hand anymore. It spun off and lit in a puddle. Then Jenko was striking him about the shoulders, arms, and chest.

  “Enough! Enough!” Stefan yelled, but Jenko’s blows were relentless. “It was a tie, you bloodsucking oghul! You’re likely to kill him behaving like that!”

  Nail felt the breath pounded from his lungs as he tried to crawl away, at the same time groping for his lost sword in the puddle, finding it, turning, holding it aloft. He would not retreat. But the blows from Jenko kept coming.

  Stefan tackled the baron’s son from behind and both dropped in the mud. In a heap, they struggled. Jenko threw Stefan off and stood, sackcloth-wrapped sword still in hand. He came at Nail again. “Stop!” Stefan bellowed. Zane was there, and with Stefan, the two wrestled Jenko to the ground a second time.

  “Get off!” Jenko snarled, eyes blazing at Nail from under dark, wet locks. Nail, kneeling in the mud, the percussion of Jenko’s crushing blows reverberating through his armor, could feel the fresh dents in the iron plate pushing in. There was a dull ache throbbing deep in his chest. He wasn’t certain he could stand if he wanted.

  “Let me up, you pox-scarred scum!” Jenko fought against Stefan and Zane.

  “The wraiths take you if you don’t stop fighting,” Stefan said, breathing heavy.

  “Turn him loose,” Nail snarled between hard-fought breaths. “I’ll still fight him! I ain’t dead yet!”

  “That’s right, lemme up! Let me finish him like he wants!” Jenko yelled.

  Zane whistled for Beer Mug. Soon the big shepherd dog was snarling and barking at the pile of struggling bodies. With the threat of the dog, the fight died in Jenko and he gave up, head hanging. “I’m done then.”

  “Let him up,” Stefan said, motioning Zane to hold his dog. “Be wary.” He released the baron’s son. Jenko stood, brushing the mud from his greaves, smiling, his teeth stark white shards in the lamplight as he walked toward Nail. Nail didn’t know whether Jenko was going to help him up or what. Either way, he wouldn’t allow himself to accept any help. He’d stand on his own no matter how much his body ached.

  Jenko plucked the sword from Nail’s hand and threw it. It sailed over the crowd and into the darkness, landing near the narrow alley between the inn and the blacksmith shop. “Fetch that, you goose-shit-eating bastard.” Jenko stepped around Nail, shoving his way through the crowd and back up onto the porch of the Grayken Spear Inn.

  Nail growled and scrambled to his feet, his mind set on tackling Jenko and ending the fight with his fists. But his foot slipped and down he went again, face-first.

  “Hold steady now,” Stefan said, grabbing him by the arm. “Don’t know what you did to piss Jenko off so, but I reckon it’s got something to do with Ava.”

  Nail’s gaze followed the baron’s son. Under the torchlight, he saw Ava Shay leaning against the porch railing. Jenko stepped up to the girl and whispered something in her ear, his hand brushing lightly over her shoulder before he entered the tavern. Nail was humiliated more by the small interaction between Jenko and Ava than any blow the baron’s son could’ve dealt with his sword.

  “Pay him no mind.” Stefan helped Nail stand. “You’ll be stiff on the morrow. Bruises for a moon or more. You put up a real fight, though. Gave us all a grand show.”

  The crowd was dispersing. Some back into the Grayken Spear, others wandering off into the darkness and home. Zane trundled back into the inn, Beer Mug bounding happily behind. Nail didn’t know how far he could walk on his own. He hunched over and clutched his stomach. Soreness blanketed his body. Despite all his hurts, he was most of all embarrassed.

  Stefan ducked under Nail’s arm, propping him up. “My pa can send word to Shawcroft if you’d like. He’ll let your master know you’re hurt.”

  “I ain’t hurt,” Nail mumbled. “Besides, Shawcroft’s never been concerned about me. Jenko’s right, his only concern is those gold mines.” He was envious of Stefan’s family and the comforts of a warm home, surrounded by loving parents and siblings. Nail lived on the outskirts of town in a small, cold, one-room cabin with his master. He put on a strong front, but deep down he knew how lonely his life really was. “I’ll sleep in the coop tonight. I’m sure your mother hasn’t the room inside.”

  “You needn’t sleep with the chickens,” Stefan said. “We’ve the room.”

  Nail had managed to hobble only a few steps when Ava’s soft voice sounded from behind. “You fought well.”

  He turned. She held his sword. It was covered in mud. Nail slid from under Stefan’s arm and took the weapon from her. Mud remained on the palm of her hand. In her other hand was the drawing Jenko had crumpled. “I’m sorry it got ruined,” she said, handing it over. “It was pretty.” Ava hesitated as if wanting to say more, then pulled a leather-thong necklace from the folds of her linen skirt. She reached up and slipped it over his head and around his neck and quickly backed away.

  “A gift,” she muttered shyly. “To make amends for the drawing Jenko ruined.”

  Hooked to the leather thong was a small carving of a turtle no bigger than the end of Nail’s thumb. He held the carving in his hand, admiring Ava’s delicate workmanship. Every display of her talents filled him with desire.

  “Thank you,” he stammered, meeting her soft gaze. That she had made this wooden trinket for him set his heart soaring. Ava kissed him lightly on the cheek and made her way back toward the Grayken Spear Inn.

  And as she stepped back up onto the inn’s porch, Nail saw it.

  At the back of the alley between the Grayken Spear and the blacksmith shop.

  A cloaked figure astride a red-eyed horse, silhouetted black and hollow against the glittering waters of Gallows Bay beyond. The glowing eyes of the horse were fixed on Nail like stark smoldering coals.

  Other than within the darkness of his own worst dreams, Nail had never seen such a demon-eyed creature. His blood ran cold. “Do you see that?” He turned to Stefan.

  But Stefan Wayland was already walking toward home. And when Nail looked back into the blackness of the alley, the cloaked horseman was gone.

  * * *

  The lost and lonely ship finally berthed in Avlonia, thousands of days adrift. What few were left stumbled ashore, the Firstlands lost to them forever. Desperate souls all, starving and weak, half-naked, garbed in animal skins, still these newcomers to the Five Isles offered up alms and blood sacrifice to the gods of their Firstlands.

  —THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  NAIL

  11TH DAY OF THE SHROUDED MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  THE MOURNING SEA SOUTH OF GALLOWS HAVEN, GUL KANA

  They had finally found the path of the grayken—two and a half days’ journey south of Gallows Haven in the great vastness of the Mourning Sea. To the south and west lay the Firstlands, storm-shattered lands beyond the farthest reaches of the seas, where humans had first sprung. The Firstlands, continents rumored to span tens of thousands of miles, were also rumored to be barren of all humankind, shrouded in gray mists, inhabited by naught but ghosts. Those who foolishly sought them never returned.

  Thick storm clouds roiled overhead. Occasionally, thin shafts of morning sun poured heedlessly through breaks in the clouds, bouncing off the waves as the Lady Kindly cut a jostling path. Nail wobbled as he hustled across the deck of the grayken-hunting ship toward Stefan Waylan
d and Zane Neville. He hadn’t stood on solid ground for days now. The ship dipped to the left as a gust of wind caught her sails, and he clutched the railing. A hundred feet up, the canvas stretched and cracked.

  Those aboard the Lady Kindly had spent the bulk of the journey trailing nets and catching salmon. Bishop Tolbret, an integral part of any hunting voyage, had spent his hours anointing various parts of the ship with vials of consecrated holy oils. Now the ship floated among a school of fifteen grayken and Tolbret prayed, offering up fervent thanks to Laijon as the monsters of the sea rolled their barrel-like bodies up out of the water and plunged beneath. They were larger than Nail had ever imagined. Most looked fifty to seventy feet in length. The closest one to the ship was gray and sleek—it skimmed the surface of the sea for a while, half-submerged. It had a long slit for a mouth, two round eyes and flat fins on either side of its head, a blowhole on top, and a tail of six long tentacles that bunched and coiled in unison, pushing through the water.

  At the first sighting of the school of grayken, Baron Jubal Bruk shouted a torrent of orders and a flood of men scurried up ratlines and over the deck. Large barrels were brought forth, the hanging skiffs uncovered. “Do your jobs!” the baron spewed forth. “Any man goes overboard fends for himself or he’s lost to the sea!”

  With nothing to do, Nail had found this spot near the starboard railing with Stefan and Zane. Before they’d set sail, the three of them had ventured into the chapel’s catacombs to visit Dokie Liddle. The musty stone room under the nave had seemed a gloomy place to keep the lightning-struck boy. Dying embers smoldered in a fireplace. Bishop Tolbret sat on a stool next to Dokie’s bearskin-covered bed and dabbed at the injured boy’s head with a warm, damp cloth. He pulled the bearskin down, revealing the boy’s chest and arms. A cloverlike pattern of red burns dotted Dokie’s skin. The boy’s chest rose and fell to the slow rhythm of his breathing. “His fingers and toes were black,” Tolbret said, “just like that frostbit man from Peddlers Point who stumbled into the Grayken Spear last winter. But the many priesthood blessings I gave the lad seem to have cured him of that.” It was too bad Nail couldn’t share the voyage with Dokie, too. To hear the others tell it, Dokie had a sharp eye and was the best grayken spotter Baron Bruk had ever seen. But now the grayken were easy to see, wallowing in the sea, spouting air and water high. Seagulls circled above them, lonesome cries sharp and harsh.

  Then the sharks came. Nail couldn’t explain it, but there churned in his gut an ominous feeling before the first shark arrived. He lost his breath as if a hush fell over the Lady Kindly. There was a boil and swell of water just before the shark’s fin broke the surface, pale as bone. Nail took a step back from the rail as the grim white creature dipped below the water and glided under the ship. Soon there were more sharks weaving just under the surface, fins ducking in and out of the water. Though considerably smaller than the grayken, these stark, graceful ghosts of the sea left a deadly aura in their wake.

  A burly sailor ran up and tossed a salmon overboard. One shark lunged straight up. Its jaws opened, lined with rows of teeth, its great bulk suspended there momentarily just above the water. The shark bit the fish in half, then slipped back into the sea and slithered away. A second shark stabbed the remaining half salmon from the water. Give these sharks red eyes and leathery, clawed wings along with serpentine tails and they would easily pass as nameless beasts of the underworld. With that thought, Nail’s mind jumped to the cloaked figure he’d seen in the alley between the Grayken Spear and the blacksmith shop. The gaze of the red-eyed steed had burned a hole in his soul, bringing back a flood of terrifying memories. Memories he’d suppressed over the years, memories that clawed their way to the forefront of his mind now.

  But he’d fight off those dreams and memories as he’d fought Jenko Bruk. Cramps still ached throughout his chest, and a knot the size of a seashell was lodged under his ribs somewhere—the lingering physical pains garnered from the drubbing at the hands of the baron’s son. But he would not let thoughts of the dark-cloaked horseman or the physical evidence of Jenko Bruk’s thrashing get him down.

  In fact, despite the brewing storm above, and the sharks below, the last few days seemed sunnier than any he’d ever known. On every place aboard the ship was the surrounding scent of heavy timber, which lightened his soul. And the ocean smelled fresh in comparison to the rocky shoals around Gallows Haven. Today Nail observed and listened more acutely than he ever had before. The very breath and whiff of the wind against his face filled him with a happiness he’d never experienced. He felt the thrill of the ship, the rhythm of its life, listened with rapt attention to each prayer of the bishop. He had wanted to know everything about the ship, the name of every sail, brace, bowline, and rope, and how each worked, even going so far as to pull out scraps of parchment from his satchel and sketch each new thing shown him.

  Things had been different at the start of the voyage, and Nail had wondered if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake by joining the crew of the Lady Kindly. That first day, he had recalled doing little else but leaning against the railing, fighting the seasickness. Jenko Bruk had noticed him against the railing and informed him that vomiting was a sure sign of weakness in a seaman, and anyone caught vomiting on deck would be pitched over the side. Zane Neville had waddled up, looking half-hazy about the eyes himself. “Pay no head to Jenko. Seasickness is nothing a cheerful disposition can’t cure. Just do like this.” Then Zane leaned over the railing, jammed his finger down his own throat, and puked a green stream over one of the canvas-covered skiffs hanging below. “You’ll feel better in a jiffy,” he said, wiping slime from his chin. “I always feel grand after a major spew. My stomach’s emptied and I can eat more later. Got to keep up one’s strength. Seasickness will dehydrate a fellow. Make your mouth feel as dry as a fat man’s titty.”

  Jenko leered at Zane. “If my father sees that skiff all covered in vomit, he’s gonna make you climb down there and lick it clean yourself.”

  “The birds will take care of it,” Zane said. Indeed, the seagulls were lighting on the white canvas, pecking at Zane’s spew.

  In the end, Nail had not puked that first day aboard the Lady Kindly and was the prouder for the accomplishment. By nightfall, his seasickness had dissipated completely. After knighthood or the clergy, grayken slaying was considered the grandest of all trades in the Five Isles. The Way and Truth of Laijon spoke of grayken hunting as a much simpler thing in ancient days, men doing nothing more than waiting for a grayken to drift ashore, dead. But that had been over a thousand years ago. The Book of the Great Hunts in The Way and Truth of Laijon told of how Laijon, as a teenager, would spear the grayken from the rocky shoals just southwest of Mont Saint Only, jumping from rock to rock, leaping over the merfolk who tried to snare him, thrusting and jabbing with his many spears until the great grayken were tired or dead, sometimes even jumping onto the backs of the leviathans themselves. Legend was, he would tie the beasts up and pull them ashore by the strength of his own arms. It wasn’t long before grayken hunting became almost a religion unto itself, the launching of voyages and ships in hundreds that would last all day and bring in two or three grayken per ship. But over time, the grayken grew scarce. Now a normal hunting voyage lasted about a week, sometimes two. Some hunters predicted, come a thousand more years, it might take a year of sailing to find but one grayken.

  For Nail’s part, to be working alongside a crew of hardy men aboard the Lady Kindly was far better than traipsing through dark mines or toiling away with the sluices and pans alongside a lonely stream high in the Autumn Range. Jenko had been right when he’d said there was freedom at sea. After scarcely a few days on the water, Nail agreed: no good ever came of gold digging with Shawcroft. Here on the ocean, Nail could be with his friends.

  And now that they were among the grayken, Nail wondered what his role would be. As if reading his mind, Stefan handed him a small dagger and said, “Let’s watch from above,” and bade him follow. Stefan, with his bow and
a quiver of yellow-fletched arrows strapped to his back, scrambled halfway up the fore-topmast rigging. Nail slipped the dagger into his belt and scurried up behind his friend. Once perched upon the slender spar, hands grasping the cold rigging, he prepared to watch the great hunt. Stefan, more sure of himself, boldly straddled the rigging and strung his bow.

  A crack of thunder boomed over the ship, and the sea became more agitated. The Lady Kindly was brought to a slow halt in the water by backing the mainsail. The canvas tarps were quickly pulled off the three white hunting skiffs tied to the side of the ship. Harpoons, killing lances, and barrels of harpoon lines were placed into the skiffs as the bishop prayed over each vessel. The skiffs were lowered into the water carefully. Men descended by rope into the skiffs, until each boat had a crew of eight, but not before every man of the fifty aboard had knelt before Tolbret and received a blessing. Once the men were blessed and safely in the hunting skiffs bobbing beneath the Lady Kindly, the three skiffs struck off, the men rowing madly out to sea. Baron Bruk was harpooner on the first boat, a man named Brutus Grove on the second boat, and Jenko Bruk was harpooner on the third. Each harpoon was fashioned from hardwood, rough-hewn to provide a solid grip.

  From his perch in the rigging, Nail watched the skiffs as they cut through the water, each with a single harpooner, a helmsman, and six rowers. The three boats swept in among the large school of grayken, the baron’s skiff leading, sneaking up on a particularly massive monster billowing blasts of air from its blowhole.