“Calev,” he said, “why don’t you favor us with an Old Farm dagger dance?”
My mouth popped open. Did Calev know the traditional steps? I’d never thought about it. But he’d be a perfect dagger dancer with his long limbs and enviable grace.
A blush crept over his nose and cheeks.
I smacked his arm playfully, the tatlilav doing its work to make me bold. “You do know how, don’t you?”
The man with the wooden bowl offered me another sip, but I waved him off. Oron motioned for the sailors to gather around, then threw two handfuls of salt at Calev’s feet.
Berker snorted and left for belowdecks.
We made a wide, seated circle around Calev, who didn’t appear to have a choice in this. If he knew how to do this robed-in-secrecy dance, we wanted to see it.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Oron,” Calev said as he put palms to the deck’s luminous wooden planks.
Was that the dance’s starting position? I’d heard tales about it. But even though Calev was arguing this, he at least didn’t seem haunted like he had earlier tonight.
A long-faced sailor leaned in. “We won’t tell.”
Another agreed. “This may be our only chance to see this. Would you rob us our vision of the Fire’s weapon?”
Good-natured laughs followed. Old Farms, the native people of Jakobden, claimed their dagger skills were why the Bahluk conquerors—the amir's people—permitted them to keep their lands. Today, three-hundred-sun-circles later, we knew the real reason. Silver. The Bahluk conquerors and the kyros that employed them enjoyed the silver brought in by trading Old Farm lemons and barley. None had been able to mimic Old Farm’s perfectly sweet, but achingly sour fruits. And Old Farm’s barley never wilted in the worst of droughts. Although Calev had surprised me with his speed and agility already on this voyage, his people’s strength came from wisdom and careful planning, not physical prowess. The dagger dance was ceremonial, not martial.
“I think it’s a fabulous idea.” Oron grinned. “You’ll either make us laugh at your ridiculousness, or everyone will swoon, wondering if your coordination translates to the bed.”
Whoops erupted over the deck and I went a little lightheaded.
Calev cocked an eyebrow at all of us, then looked at me. “What do you say, Kaptan Kinneret?”
A light like the sun glowed through me. Even if it was ceremonial, I wanted to see it. Their rituals tugged at me like the sea.
“Please, Calev ben Y’hoshua, son of Old Farm,” I said, “dance for us.”
With the smile that could heal all my hurts, the smile that promised we’d get Avi back and keep the amir from taking Calev’s throat-blood by making me kaptan of Old Farm’s ship, he closed his eyes and began.
With a grating sound, his palms smoothed along the deck in front of him until he was nearly lying face down, then with a movement that seemed impossible, he leaped into the air and landed in a crouch, his dagger drawn with a speed I had only seen in animals.
The group gasped, but quickly quieted as his arm arced, making an invisible line with the dagger before thrusting forward, spinning, thrusting back, and whirling one foot in a high kick that had to be more distraction than attack. Calev’s foot stomped once, hard, his eyes flashing and his hair swinging. His feet made a thousand small steps, his dagger like a minnow in the waves of his sweeping tunic.
I didn’t breathe once.
The dance took on a dreamlike quality. Wide arm movements. Dramatic slashes. Impossible kicks and defenses against imaginary conquerors.
I was no longer on a ship.
I was no longer a sailor.
I was a Jakobden native, one of Calev’s ancestors. I was leaping from trees to slice a Bahluk’s yatagan hand. I was spinning, the ties of my traditional headtie snapping and the sun on my blade blinding another bell-adorned attacker. I dug a bare foot into the ground and the scent of fertile earth and tannic, syrupy cedar rose into the air.
Calev stopped, bowed, and the spell broke. His dagger hung at his sash.
The sailors sprung into the air, feet stomping, mouths shouting.
My knees quaking, I went to him. “Calev. I…Calev.”
He bent toward me, but instead of kissing my lips, his mouth went to my forehead, to my hairline.
I couldn’t stop my hands from wrapping around his body or keep my heart from breaking with want. I was a shivering, ridiculous mess. If he could move like that, he could fight. If his stomach and mind could handle the horror.
“Kinneret, thank you,” he said. “I haven’t enjoyed a night this much ever in my life.” He pressed his lips to my head again and my eyes closed. I wished he could be with me, like this, every day. He hadn’t kissed my mouth yet, but maybe he would.
The night was still dark and heavy with promise.
IN THE MIDDLE of another trader jig, the ship halted in a way that told me the promise had nothing to do with anything as pleasant as kissing.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I broke away from the knot of sailors who’d joined me in dancing while Calev told stories near the brasier’s glowing coals. Lit orange, his face rumpled in confusion at my sudden movement.
The deck jerked under my feet. Calev and Oron flew to me.
“What is it, Kinneret?” Calev asked.
“I don’t know…but it isn’t good.”
The ship had gone still again. Maybe we were lodged on a rock.
“What is that smell?” Oron’s wide nose wrinkled.
It hit me. Stale salt water. Old fish. Blood. Swallowing, I took a struggling breath, wishing I didn’t need air.
“Why are we stopped?” Oron asked.
I ran to the side and leaned over the railing. Black rock jutted from the sea and crowded around the ship, gripping it, holding it still in the battering waves. “We’re stuck on an outcropping.”
“We’ve run aground,” a stocky sailor said.
“But our last depth reading…” The ship shuddered. This wasn’t only an unexpected reef. This was something…more.
I turned and faced my sailors. “Take up your weapons!”
Heat rose from the water, steaming against my arms and making the ends of my hair curl more tightly.
Calev pointed. “It’s boiling. Kinneret, the sea, it’s boiling.”
His eyes went wide, and the waves lashing at the ship gurgled like black stew in a cauldron.
I couldn’t speak. I’d seen many horrors on the Pass, but never this.
Fish, some small as a fist, others larger than our hull, floated to the surface with dead eyes and cooked, white flesh. The smell was overwhelming.
The stocky sailor and the rest made the Fire’s sign on their foreheads, ran hands over the Holy Fire, praying and holding tight to battle axes, bows, yatagans, and lucky frog legs.
Oron grasped my arm. “What is this?”
Calev and I looked at one another. In unison, we said, “Savta’s monster. Asag.”
“To the cannons!” I called out. “Everyone else, to port side and starboard!”
The amir’s men and women rushed belowdeck to the cannons and hurried to the sides of the ship.
“Raise your bows, your blades!” I shouted. “Get into position, then close or shield your eyes. Aim for the sound. Use the noise as your target!”
Calev nodded. “She speaks the truth! Quickly now, cover your eyes. Use your sashes, or a strip from your tunic.”
My pulse drummed in my temples.
“A demon will rise from the water,” I told them. “If you look at it, you will die. Listen to its screams and aim true, aim high. Stay side by side so we don’t injure one another. Courage, all!”
A pounding noise echoed from under the ship and we rose into the air, only to be dropped.
My stomach dipped and my breath caught.
A shrill ringing poured through the night.
Calev, Oron, and I ripped strips of cloth from our clothing and handed them out to white-faced fighting sailors. We fo
und two bows and three quivers full of green and black fletched arrows. I was glad Calev and Oron both placed in the amir’s archery competition in the past.
The quiver on my waist and the bow in my hand, I ran to the amir's room, pounding down the stairs, knowing my life was ruined if she didn’t make it through this whole and sound.
Before I could knock on the leopard carved into her door, she pulled it open, her eyes like tatlilav bowls. She held a gold tipped bow. The black fletching of her arrows stuck out from the quiver at her waist.
As I handed her a strip of cloth for her eyes, I said, “My lady, the monster Asag is rising. He controls the rock of the seabed and holds your ship. You can’t look at him.”
Berker came up behind me. “Asag is a story. The low-caste lies. We’ve run aground.”
“Then how do you explain the dead fish, the boiling water?” I spat.
A vicious smile spread over the amir’s face. “We will shoot toward its noise.” She pushed past Berker and I, and strode onto the deck, tying the cloth I’d given her over her eyes. Winding around the ropes and sailors and masts, she never took a bad step.
With Berker at my back like a malevolent shadow, I found Oron and Calev. The water collected into a bubbling mountain and two night-black horns, glossy and twisted, broached the surface.
I shut my eyes.
The demon rose, making a sound like glass breaking, roaring out a cacophony like one thousand men being flayed alive.
“It is your Salt Magic that’s brought this curse,” Berker said.
“Your mouth is the curse! Now find something to do! Cannons, fire!” I shouted over the din, my throat burning. My order was echoed, and the weapons below boomed from the ship’s windows, shaking the deck.
As I pulled the bowstring back and wished I’d spent more time practicing my aim, hot tears seeped from my eyes and hurried down my cheeks to hide under my chin. A vibration pounded in my feet.
The rocks. The rocks he controls are moving.
A sailor called out, and I tried to turn to see who had fallen, who was screaming over the scream.
So much noise.
My lungs shuddered as I sucked a foul breath of fish and death.
Someone bumped me. Calev said my name from a few steps away, and then the amir’s voice was beside me.
“I will end this demon,” she hissed as her arm moved against mine.
She fired arrow after arrow, her string whipping the air beside me.
I tried and failed to keep up with her as Asag’s rocks rolled the ship roughly to starboard, then seemed to let go. We bobbed and floated free, the deck moving beneath my feet, as the demon shrieked, rising like the moon over the boiling, deadly water.
I heard splashes and shouting. Someone, maybe more than one, had fallen from the deck.
“Fire!” I shouted and again the cannons boomed, fewer this time. It had to be frightening to reload and light them while peeking from under a blindfold.
The ship lurched.
The screaming ceased.
A rhythm like a hand drill buzzed from the center of the deck. Asag’s rocks were drumming their way into the hull. We had to end this now or we would all become wraiths.
Out of arrows, I kept my eyes to the decking as I rushed to starboard and yanked a whaling spear from the side. Careful not to look toward the creature, I spied Oron handing off arrows to fighting sailors. Calev shot the last one he had and lifted his headtie. His eyes found me.
“Take up spears!” Flashes of pain blinked through my ears. The noise was unbelievable. “Wait for my word!” I handed another spear to Calev and found the amir’s side.
My spear was heavy and slick with seawater. The clank and drag of more fighters arming themselves with spears interrupted the demon’s screaming. The grinding coming from the bottom of the ship halted.
“Now!”
I threw the harpoon.
Holding my breath, my pulse hammering in my throat, I prayed.
Asag let out another heart-shattering scream, sending me to my knees. The amir laughed, her foot dragging against my leg.
Then there was only silence.
I stood and opened my eyes.
Only a spill of what looked like oil and ashes marred the water’s smooth surface. A dead squid and a school of boiled silver fish floated beside it.
The amir tore the cloth from her eyes, her bell ringing lightly. “I killed the demon Asag.”
I could’ve argued. I knew in my gut that I’d killed it. But the amir’s pride worked to keep her on my side.
“They will sing songs about this, my lady,” I said.
She smiled, but I couldn’t smile back. The deck held five dead fighting sailors, their eyes blackened in their sockets and their skin gray, slayed by the sight of the demon. More had fallen overboard when the rocks harassed the ship. Two corpses drifted past Asag’s remains.
My eyelids shuttered closed, open. I spun to see Calev and Oron, hands clasped in victory like old friends.
Despite the loss, we had won.
BUT THAT NIGHT, while a dark-haired, mostly silent fighting sailor named Ekrem manned the wheel and a crowd of others sewed the damaged sails, cleaned, and brought our ship back to a functioning level, sleep didn’t give me rest like it should’ve.
I tossed and turned, never comfortable, drained, but strung too tight from the day. Giving up on sleep for a while, I stared at the busy sailors who moved like barley stalks blowing in the fields and took comfort in Calev sleeping sitting up beside me. Finally, my body gave out.
Avi found my dreams, and her pain turned them into nightmares.
Slender hands bloodied by work.
An empty belly.
A man’s calloused finger tracing her jaw. Her shudder.
A longing stare toward the Pass as she prayed I’d come for her.
I WOKE. Exhausted from my fitful sleep, my body trembled as the sails and the bruised light of morning came into focus. Oron, Calev, and myself had slept on benches beneath a cracked Wraith Lantern, too exhausted to fear anything anymore. I raised myself, slowly, painfully, and took a selfish moment to enjoy Calev’s sleeping form.
His eyelashes rested in two crescent moons on his cheeks, and his fine nostrils edged out as he breathed. His collarbone was a smooth line above the zigzags of his tunic collar. I clutched my fingers to resist touching the skin there.
My longing must’ve woken him. Calev’s eyes opened and I smiled.
“Good morning, Kinneret.”
The sky was purple through the stitching in the jib sail. “To you also.”
Oron snorted and rolled over as we made our way to relieve Ekrem at the wheel.
“Will you see what you can do to mend the wraith lanterns?” I asked the man, looking up, and up, into the fighter’s stern face.
His arms covered in leather braces, he made the Fire’s sign on his forehead—which I took as a yes—then he woke a handful of sailors to help him.
I claimed the wheel, my hands still shaking from the dream.
“Are you all right?” Calev asked.
An ornately carved, wooden box on a support stood next to the wheel. It held the compass and somewhat protected it from all the metal in the ship, metal that often disturbed its readings of our direction. Calev opened the compass box’s lid and peered in. He gave me a nod to indicate we were on course. I checked the fact against Zayn’s compass that I’d kept in my sash through everything so far.
My shaking stopped as I adjusted my hands on the wheel. “I’m fine. Just…nightmares.”
Three fighters, two big like Ekrem and one more my size, but with nine times the muscle, approached and held up palms to me in greeting.
“Kaptan,” the stocky one my height said. “What do you wish for us to do?”
“Loosen the mainsail. The wind wants it.”
The Salt Magic had worn itself thin and I had to wiggle us around an outcropping of algae green rock to the East. The ship took an age to lip its way to where
I wanted it to be. My boat would’ve already been around the rocks and halfway to the horizon.
“Why the frown?” Calev ran a hand lightly over a row of battle axes strapped to the wall.
Someone had cleaned the slime and blood from them. I was a weakling. After the demon’s attack, I couldn’t have cleaned one thing if the Fire Itself had asked me.
“The frown is because this ship lumbers like an old, fat man. He’s always jostling into things and listing too far.”
“Hm.” He put a hand to his mouth.
“What’s so funny?” Hands on the wheel, I widened my stance and eyed him.
He shook his head. “No. You won’t drag me into an argument, kaptan.”
Lightning snapped through me at the term. I’d never get tired of that title.
“I will drag you in and you know it,” I said, half grinning, half scowling. “Now what are you laughing at?”
The stocky sailor rushed up the stairs and showed a palm to me. “Kaptan Kinneret Raza, our amir wishes to speak with you in her cabin. Her…other kaptan is there too.” The man’s mouth pinched like he’d sipped old tatlilav.
I had a feeling he wasn’t too fond of Berker. Join the crowd.
I rubbed the tense rocks of muscle in my shoulder. “Any guess on the purpose of this meeting?” He probably wouldn’t tell me. His loyalties were with the amir.
He leaned in and whispered, “The other kaptan sees you as a Salt Witch. I’d watch yourself around him. Stick to what happened and how you saved us and the amir will dance to your tune.”
My shoulders relaxed and I couldn’t fight my smile. I glanced at Calev, who raised his eyebrows.
“Thank you, sailor. What is your name?”
He sucked a little breath. “It’s Ifran, kaptan. And I-I thank you for caring enough to ask. You know, when I passed my palm over the Holy Fire when we first boarded, the Fire gave me a thought.”
“You are blessed,” I said carefully. He seemed nice, but plenty of people claimed their ideas came from the Fire. Few really did.
“He told me you are good.”
“He did?”
The sailor nodded.
Waters of Salt and Sin: Uncommon World Book One Page 13