by Warhammer
Helseher stood up abruptly.
"From now on, when we come to a port, stay below. It won't do you any harm to keep out of sight."
Ariel's hands healed; she had to strap them only for the roughest work; her face and arms were no longer red and peeling and her legs, bare below her knees, were lean and brown. Without sandals, her feet hardened. She had proved to the rest of the crew that she was quick and reliable and that if she was unfamiliar with a knot or a method of splicing, she needed to be shown only once. Out on the river she drank the rough red wine with her meals like everyone else. Several days out of Cixous she had taken to wearing a cap to cover her silver-gold hair; she no longer ducked out of sight everytime the Rosamund tacked past a river boat or was overtaken by some sleek dinghy. The knife at her hip was just another eating implement.
Ariel was lying between the ribs of the ship, her head propped on the small bundle made of the clothes she had first come aboard in. It was hot. The others were either unloading on the docks or in the waterfront's two taverns, finding out if anyone had been asking questions about the Rosamund or about Ariel.
Time dragged. The ship rocked slightly at anchor; the lamp hanging from the beam above her swung from side to side. She stretched, imagining that she was lying on the sloping grass of the river bank, drying off in the sun. During the summer when she was twelve and Bel ten, they were always by the river playing with the local children. What was the game they had perfected that summer? It had no name: the only rule was to throw someone in the river, then they had to help you throw someone else in. The trick was to sweep the victim's legs out from under them while at the same time clapping your hand over their mouth and nose to stop them yelling to alert the others, then both jump in together. It had the added bonus of stopping the victim swallowing water as they plunged headfirst. Between them, she and Bel had raised the game to an art.
She fell asleep with tears running down her cheeks.
When she woke an hour later, her tears had dried leaving her face drawn and tight. She heard the hatch swing open. It did not bang; whoever had opened it was trying hard not to be heard. She eased her knife from her sheath and stood up. A step creaked: someone was coming down the stairs.
He had to duck to get through the doorway. It was the same man she had seen on the wharf at Quenelles: she recognized the cap pulled low over his ears. He was as slender as a dart.
They looked at each other. Ariel stood poised, knife drawn; the man was relaxed, still, with no weapon that she could see.
"Who are you?"
"Mademoiselle de Courtivron, I have no intention of harming you in any way. I have come to give you a warning."
She lifted the knife. "Out." Her voice was thick and tight.
"I could have that breadknife away from you and at your own throat without breaking into a sweat."
All her fear, all the uncertainty and grief of the last weeks, coalesced around a point in the middle of his breastbone. She went for him.
She dived into a roll and came to her feet under his chin, her knife striking up like a snake. It surprised him: she got close enough to see the empty earring holes in his lobes before he moved faster than she thought possible to take the knife point across his shoulder. Then, she did not know how, he had the knife at her throat and her arms pinned behind her. His body felt odd: padded in strange places. Blood, his blood, dripped on her wrists.
"You scratched me. No-one's done that in years," he said softly.
"Let me go."
"Not until you listen. I want you to leave the Rosamund.Go back upriver, go home, go anywhere. Don't stay on this ship and don't ask any more questions."
Ariel noticed that his hands were very long and slim, and calloused in the wrong places.
"Why?"
"Because you're ruining months of work with your blundering. You're alerting dangerous people. When they've killed you they'll start asking questions of their own. They might find out that other people have been interested in them for a long time. You don't know what you're dealing with."
"Let me go."
He did. She backed off, hands spread. He laughed but it was flat, like his eyes. He threw her the knife. She sheathed it.
"They killed my sister. I want to know why."
"This is about much more than the death of a young woman."
"Not to me."
"Go home before you learn too much. Or they will kill you."
"Who? Capitano Jorge Martinez Castelltort-in-disguise, or Admiral Escribano himself?" Her voice was sharp.
His face flattened into something alien. "Perhaps it is already too late for you," he said softly. Then he was gone.
When Helseher returned, Ariel went to his cabin and told him about their visitor.
"Do you think I should go back home?"
"Yes, but I'm not going to try and persuade you: you're too useful to me as crew."
"Thank you."
"I'm not sure I'm doing you a favour."
Half a day downstream from Brusse, the Brienne was joined by the fast flowing Sirthelle tributary. Where the two rivers met, their churning waters had carved out a gorge two miles long with granite cliffs a hundred yards high in places. As they approached the gorge, Helseher took the wheel himself.
Ariel worked a capstan with Uti on the starboard side. They were sweating. The ship hit white water and lurched. Spray arced over the bow and drenched Ariel. She grinned at Uti: the water was deliciously cold.
"Brace yourselves."
The Rosamund, and a skiff also taking the white water short cut, bucked and slid into the gorge. Helseher spun the wheel this way and that, then hauled it right over. With most of the canvas furled they were relying on the current. It made steering difficult.
They were thrown into the deep shadow cast by the cliffs to starboard where the thunder of water echoed and re-echoed from the granite.
"It's calmer when we get past the bend!" Uti shouted through the roar.
The bend loomed ahead: a curve to port so sharp that it looked like a dead end. Rocks, black and slick, reared through the foam. Ariel shivered. Helseher spun the wheel clockwise, held it, spun it counterclockwise and they headed straight for the biggest rock in the river. At what seemed like the last minute to Ariel, Helseher moved the wheel a fraction and the Rosamund slipped sweetly through. They glided into calm open water; sunlight glistened on the taffrail and Ariel's wet hair.
"Raise sail," Helseher called to nobody in particular. He sounded pleased with himself. He squinted at the sun. "If we get that paté to Laguiller before first light tomorrow, five hours shore leave for everyone."
Ariel scrambled for the rigging along with Rudi and Marya.
Below, the river looked beautiful: sandbars covered in stands of white-plumed cane jutted out from the bank and in the small lateral channels thickets of oak crowded behind willows whose leaves swept the water with their fingertips. Behind them, the skiff had come through unharmed.
"Why before first light?" she called across the yard arm to Marya. She swayed as she edged along the rope.
"The market starts first thing. Paté always fetches a better price if the buyers have seen it being unloaded from the hold an hour before."
"But we could have been lying at anchor for hours, days even."
"Doesn't matter. If they think it's fresh, they pay more." She laughed.
Ariel wondered if her brother or father ever paid too much for a cargo. And suddenly she missed them, missed her room with its cool white linens, missed the whisper of trees outside her window. She smiled to herself, hearing the whisper of those trees...
But it was not trees. It was the splash of six pairs of oars as two boats swung out from opposite side channels towards them, it was the soft buzz of arrow fletching cutting the air. Ariel watched, fascinated, as an arrow caught the sunlight on its downward spiral towards Helseher.
"Captain!" Marya, already halfway down the rigging, jumped the rest, knocking Helseher to the deck. The arrow thunked into
the wheel, still humming. Then the air was full of them.
The archers were on the left bank; Ariel could see them clearly as they nocked, drew, released and nocked again. She kept the mast between her and them as she shinned her way down. The skiff behind them raised sail, chopping through the water towards them. While it was still four hundred yards astern, a tall, thin figure stood in the bow and raised a bow of his own. Ariel heard each arrow he loosed at the archers on the bank: a deeper, stronger sound. More deadly, like his aim. He killed three in the time it took Ariel to draw as many breaths. The archers retreated.
The first boat drew alongside their starboard bow. Two of the six stayed sitting; the others shipped their oars. A grapple thumped onto the planking and snaked back, gripping the rail. Ariel half fell and half jumped the rest of the way down; without standing upright, she scrambled across the deck like a four-legged spider. She hacked at the rope. Everything slowed down; even the smallest movement took forever; while she hacked and sawed, a man leapt for the rail. Then he was clambering aboard and everything clicked back into real time. Ariel howled and lunged at him, stabbing without science or method. She stabbed him in the face, the neck. Blood, hot and bright, arced through the air, spattering her mouth and hair. The man screamed and screamed and Ariel stabbed him again. He would not die. His screams went on and on. She heard the grinding thump of the second boat coming alongside, Helseher bellowing, Marya singing of all things and the hatch banging as Gerber and Jean-Luc charged onto the deck armed with a meat cleaver and boat-hook - but she was crazy with revulsion for the blood clinging thick and sticky to her hair and clothes, insane with the need to rid the ship of people so she could wash herself clean again. She attacked mindlessly. A man facing her dropped with an arrow in his hip; she slashed at him anyway.
On the other side of the deck, a man lifted his short sword at Gerber but fell gurgling with an arrow in his throat. A woman hacked at Rudi, had time to swing a second time before she groaned and fell, a purple-fletched arrow in her back.
Now the attackers were outnumbered. They leapt over the rails for their boats. One missed and thrashed in the water until the stranger's arrows found him. The skiff altered course to chase the boats down. The bow hummed again and again. Soon, the Rosamund was the only thing in sight on the river.
"Ariel."
Ariel turned with bared teeth.
"Ariel," Marya said again. "It's over. Put down your knife."
Ariel blinked, looked around. Several bodies lay tumbled over the stained planking; Helseher leaned against the mainmast, holding his arm and groaning; Hugner was sitting on the chest of a man who was bleeding heavily; Gerber was being sick over the side; Jean-Luc had the wheel; Uti was checking bodies. Rudi was dead.
Her knife was clotted with blood. She dropped it.
"Are you hurt?"
"Hurt?" She looked up from her knife to Marya. "No." She took a deep breath, then another.
"You're bleeding."
"It's not mine."
"No, here. Look."
Ariel looked. Just below her left breast blood seeped through a slash in her shirt. She felt nothing.
"Let me see."
Ariel raised her arm obediently to let her unlace the shirt.
The cut was six inches long and deep enough to gape, showing pinkish bone. She swayed.
"Easy. Here, sit down." Marya lowered her to the deck.
"Why doesn't it hurt?"
"It will." She eased the shirt off and wadded it up. She pressed it against the wound. "Hold it on." She guided Ariel's hand to the makeshift pressure bandage then stood up and went to where Hugner sat on his prisoner.
"Let him up, Hugner."
He lifted his tear-stained face to hers. "They killed Rudi."
"I know. Let him up."
"He might kill someone else."
"He's dying, Uti. Look at the blood." It was pooling underneath the prisoner. "And we need you."
He hesitated, then climbed off. Marya laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you. We need this deck clearing. Push them overboard, we haven't time for niceties. Not Rudi," she added. "Uti" - he straightened - "you and I have to finish setting some sail. We need to get moving. They might be back." She crossed the deck to where the cook was still heaving dryly. "Gerber," she said gently, "there's nothing left in your stomach and Ariel and the captain both need attention. Can you see to it?" He nodded.
"See to Ariel first," Helseher said, pushing himself upright from the mast. He had some of his colour back. "It's only a broken bone." He glared at Marya.
"Better than a hole in your head," Marya said, swinging herself up the rigging.
Ariel was cold. A great deep ache began to build in her ribs. She felt sick.
"Marya?" she said. "Marya?" And fainted.
She insisted on coming on deck for Rudi's funeral. Helseher, with his arm splinted and strapped across his chest, spoke the ritual to Manann, god of the sea, in Reikspiel, the sailor's native dialect. A stiff breeze made the ropes thrum. When the captain nodded at Marya, Ariel was startled to hear the sunburned sailor offered tribute to Morr, god of death, in classical Old Worlder. She spoke of Rudi's strength, his good humour, his willingness to help anyone when he could. Her words were soothing and peaceful.
Rudi's body, wrapped with a chain, sank with a splash. They were silent for a while.
"Let's not waste this breeze." Helseher said. "Rudi would have liked us to get this cargo to market and make enough money to drink to him in style."
Ariel went below again. In the galley, she found a pair of shears.
Gerber found her five minutes later. "Sweet gods! What have you done?"
She looked up from the pile of shining hair lying around her ankles.
"It had blood on it."
They got to Laguiller in time for the market, though they were so late that they had no time to unload; Jean-Luc had to persuade the buyers to examine the cargo in the hold.
They went to a tavern and drank to Rudi. Ariel drank more than she should have, but the wine would not lessen the numbness deep inside. The others were talking about the stranger in the skiff. "Why'd he go, anyway?" Hugner demanded. He was drunk. "Only the gods know that," Jean-Luc said. "But why'd he help us then run away?" "I don't know, my friend," Marya said. "But I'll tell you this: that was an Elven bow he was using. I've heard the sound those arrows make before now."
Helseher's temper got worse as his arm itched inside its splints; Ariel's wound began to heal and she was strong enough to help Gerber in the galley so he could take the wheel now and again, freeing Jean-Luc to do her share of work topside.
The nights were quiet: now and again Uti or Hugner would stop mid-laugh, remembering how often Rudi's laugh had sounded. Ariel dreamed; again and again she pushed her knife into the man's neck and watched that impossible streak of blood arcing through the air.
She woke up sweating and went up on deck for cooler air. One moon was half full, the other only a sliver in the sky. Marya was steering.
"Here." Marya handed her a bottle. "It helps, sometimes." "Does it?" "Your choice."
Ariel lifted the bottle and drank. "I should leave this ship now." She handed the rum back.
"Can't. We need you till we get to Brionne and can hire someone else." She looked out across the water for a while. "Ariel, they won't attack the Rosamund again." "How do you know?"
"It's you they want. Helseher told me. They'll wait until you're alone. Easier for them that way. You'd be safe if you stayed with us until we got back to Quenelles." She handed over the bottle. "Ever been up the coast to Bordelaux? Worth seeing. Take us a week to get there from Brionne, a day to load the wine, week to get back to Brionne and sell it. Three weeks after that you can be back in Quenelles. With your family."
"Bel won't be there."
She sighed. "Let go, Ariel."
"I can't." She was silent for a while. "Marya, there's nothing for me in Quenelles. Unless I want to get married."
M
oonlight glinted on the upraised bottle. "What will you do when we reach Brionne?"
"I don't know yet. Ask more questions."
"And get yourself killed. Lots of people get killed in Brionne."
"Any better ideas?"
"Stay with the Rosamunds."
Ariel shook her head.
"Why not? You're good crew. And the Magrittans won't be able to strangle the life out of trade forever. Some day soon we'll be able to sail to Araby again, or right across the Great Western Ocean. I've always had a mind to see the New World."
Ariel stayed on deck until the stars began to fade, drinking rum and listening to stories of Lustrian treasure.
The Rosamund lay in Brionne harbour. The last of the cargo for Bordelaux was secured in the hold; they would be sailing in four hours. Ariel stood in Helseher's cabin.
"And you're sure you don't want to reconsider my offer?"
"I need to find out about my sister."
The captain sighed, tried to scratch inside the splint on his arm. "Marya was right." He opened a drawer, pulled out a pouch. "Here."
It clinked.
"If you still insist on following Jorge all the way to Magritta, there's enough in there, Empire coin, to buy you passage as far as Bilbali. How you manage from there is up to you. Well, pick it up," he said irritably. "You earned it." "But you said..."
"Didn't think you'd be much use, then. But you learn fast, girl. And Rudi won't be needing his share. Take it." Ariel picked it up. It was heavy. "Thank you." Helseher nodded. Halfway through the door, Ariel paused. "Where will I find Marya?" "Try the tavern nearest the Elven quarter."
Like everything in Brionne, the tavern was huge, overcrowded and noisy. Even though it was officially outside the area populated and run by trading elves, the owner had made an attempt to attract their lucrative custom: the musician in the corner was playing the light, lilting airs preferred by that race and Lustrian wine was available, at a price.
Marya was at a table by herself with a jug and two cups. She was sober.
"Thought you'd find me to say goodbye. Still going ahead with this nonsense?" Ariel nodded. "In that case, I've got news. Jorge came through here a week or more ago. He's gone. Probably to Magritta." Ariel nodded again. That much she had expected. "Also, I've found someone who'll take you as crew as far as Bilbali." She leaned over and tapped the money pouch at Ariel's belt. "That way, you can save your money to buy passage from Bilbali to Magritta."