The Bone Ships

by R J Barker

  Joron pulled Gavith away from a grabbing arm and put a crossbow bolt into the face of its owner. She fell back in the silence of the dead, but she was only the first raider to come flooding over the rail in a wave of naked flesh painted with the Hag’s face in the hope it would keep them from harm. More hands, more faces. Joron hacked at them, joined by Gavith and Anzir and the rest of the landward bowteams, but they were not enough. More raiders swarmed over the rail, forcing Joron and those around him back. Then the underdeck bowteams appeared from below with a great shout, throwing themselves into the fray, and Joron found himself part of a wall of women and men, hacking with curnows and axes, stabbing with wyrmpikes and hooking with gaffs and poleaxes.

  All was noise and fury.

  Joron lost himself.

  He let the fear that had always been part of him take over. It erupted from him in incoherent screams. In furious blows of his sword. In a pure and burning hatred of the contorted faces before him. There was no place to escape to; he could not run. All he knew was the moment. The hoarse screaming and the rising and falling of his weighted blade. The spray of blood across his skin. There was no skill, no sense of anything but luck in who lived and who died.

  It seemed to go on for ever and it seemed to go on for no time at all.

  And then it was over, and there was space before him to see the bloodied deck. The raiders were retreating over the rail, and the the crew of Tide Child were cheering as the raiders cut the ropes to their grappling hooks and started to row away. He found himself by Meas, who was breathing hard, her face spattered with blood; her face full of joy. The strangest thing: he felt it too, that joy. Exultation at being alive. Joy as bright, and as painful, as staring into Skearith’s Eye, blocking out the moments he had nearly died, the moments his blade had opened bodies and he saw what no woman or man was meant to see as guts spilled across the deck. He was alive.

  “Should we sink the boat before it escapes, Shipwife?”

  “No, Deckkeeper,” she said. “We carry on for them.” She pointed at the four boats further away, chasing the shape in the water. “Topboy!” she shouted. “Signal Cruel Water and Snarltooth to intercept that boat. Let’s not deny them a part in our victory. Nothing brings a fleet together like a fight, ey?” At the word “victory” the women and men lining the rails and rigging fair jumped up and down, filling the air with excitement. “Hush your noise,” yelled Meas. She leaned on her bloodied sword, breathing heavily. “Clear my deck of bodies and throw some sand down to soak up the blood. We’re not finished yet.”

  The four flukeboats, painted in garish colours, were rowing with everything they had. Each boat bristled with raiders, and all held spears. Joron saw a spear held aloft, a length of rope trailing from its end.

  “They cannot think spears will hurt something so vast,” Joron turned to find the courser stood by him.

  “They obviously do,” said Joron.

  “’Twere how it were done in the old days, Caller.” This came from the old woman, Garriya, the one Mevans had insisted was brought aboard. She was hunched over, bundled up in an ill-fitting assortment of cast-offs.

  “Not even you are that old,” said Joron. Someone passed him a cup of water and he drank, suddenly aware how thirsty he was, how his throat was raw.

  “I know of the past,” she said.

  “They used poison,” said Joron. “Shot it into the arakeesian’s eye, and it died within moments.”

  “And how did they make that poison, Caller?”

  “They made it from the creatures,” Joron said.

  “Did they so?” She grinned, something mocking in it. “But one had to die first, aye?”

  “Maybe they found one washed up on a beach.”

  “Maybe, but they needed to find out about the poison, work out how to use it, Caller.”

  “My name is Joron,” he hissed, “and you should call me by my rank, which is deckkeeper.”

  She took a step closer and the scent of her – seaweed and sand, hot shells and the background reek of spoiled fish – filled his nostrils. She spoke, and her voice stopped Joron, froze him in place. Pictures filled his mind.

  A sea of ships, flukeboats by the hundred. All bristling with women and men. Below them the huge shape – somehow familiar and at the same time utterly strange. He saw the shape, and he saw the islands, and the archipelago and he saw them all at the same time like he flew above them. And everything was known – the boats, the sea, the land – and everything was also wrong – the boats, the sea, the land. The boats were not the flukeboats he knew, the islands were not the islands he knew, the sea was subtly different. None of these things were as they should be and he did not know why.

  Then they were gone. And the old woman was still talking.

  “This is how they hunted once,” she said, “though four boats is not enough. Eight boats is not enough. A hundred boats is not enough.”

  “Women and men in flukeboats could not . . .” began Joron, but his words faded away under the gaze of the old woman and thoughts of the scene that had played out in his head.

  “Hundreds of them, Caller, filled with women and men or men and women, and they speared the beasts, tied the spears to their boats. Boat after boat after boat—”

  “The keyshan would kill them.”

  “Aye, many died, so many, many died. But a million pinpricks will kill you eventually, and it is the same even for keyshans.”

  Her words revolved in his mind and the images returned, though not as strong as before; rather seen the way he had seen the stories told by his father – a shadowplay in the back of his brain.

  “A determined fleet will prevail, eventually. Those who survive become heroes. They float home the corpse and sell all those parts that can be sold. The hunters become rich, and glad they will never hunt again. And those who look on and hunger think, If that were me . . . And the next time a keyshan rises they are ready to throw themselves into boats. But now the boats are strengthened with bone and fewer are needed, though still many die. And when there is not a beast to hunt, they hunt each other’s riches instead, and they still die and the godbird laughs at our folly.”

  “So we need not worry about the four boats ahead?”

  “Every prick of the pin weakens the beast,” said the old woman, then she turned away and scurried towards the rear hatch. And before Joron could ask any more, Meas was shouting orders.

  “Be ready, for’ard bows. Gullaime, give me a breeze; I would catch those flukeboats before they catch the wakewyrm.” The gullaime lifted itself from the deck not as sprightly when it raised its wings, the gusts it brought not as fierce.

  But Joron had no time to think of the gullaime; he was hurrying to his gallowbow, already shouting commands and watching his team react. And then he was behind the bow, staring for’ard at the boats. Were they running from them? Or towards the arakeesian? Either way was the same to Joron, and he focused on the boat to his side of the ship – large, painted in bright blue with the sign of the Hag on its sails. It was overloaded and Tide Child gained rapidly.

  “Bowsells,” shouted Meas, “loose when you judge us in range.”

  Gavith leaned into the bow, staring down the shaft of the great weapon.

  “When you are ready, Gavith. The blue boat.” The boy nodded, and to Joron all seemed silent then – no sound of the sea passing the ship, no wind, nothing. He saw only the blue boat and the women and men aboard. Only the shortening gap between them. There was a bow mounted on the rear of the boat – not as large as theirs, but still a danger. He could not tell if the bow was wound or not.

  “Down!” Meas screamed, and it seemed to Joron that the rest of the crew on the deck hit the slate; only he and his bowteam remained upright. The bolt from the flukeboat crashed into the side rail of Tide Child. The sound of shattering bone filled the air, and Joron felt something pluck at his side, but he paid it no mind. Instead he stayed focused on the view down the gallowbow, stayed focused on the target.

 
“I think I can hit their bow, D’keeper,” Gavith said, as Tide Child caught up with the boat. Joron heard the anger in the boy’s voice and was surprised by it. Had he become part of the ship so quickly? He felt that same anger, that for the raiders to hit Tide Child with a bolt was an insult to him, not just the ship, and he was tempted for a moment to let Gavith take out the bow. But no, his job was to stay calm, to think.

  “Hole the boat below the water if you can, Gavith. Tempting to avenge their shot, I know that, but sinking the boat will kill those who fired the bow as sure as a bolt.”

  “Ey, D’keeper.”

  The blue boat rose and fell on the waves and Tide Child fell and rose as it came alongside. Joron could make out the bowteam on the flukeboat trying to spin the bow for another shot, but the boat was so crowded with raiders they got in each other’s way. Then Poisonous Hostir spoke, the bolt flying too fast for the eye to follow but the impact apparent: a fountain of water at the rear of the blue boat. The bolt did not simply hole the flukeboat but collapsed its entire rear, spilling the bowteam into the sea, quickly followed by those around them. The boat dragged itself to a halt, its beak rising into the air, sending more and more crew into the water. Then the screaming started. Long, white, serrated backs had appeared in the water around the stricken vessel.

  “Longthresh in the water!”

  There cannot have been a woman or man on Tide Child’s decks who did not shudder at that call. Of all the many ocean predators, longthresh were the most feared. Some grew as long as a boneship. Their flint-white skin encased bone plates that armoured the whole creature, and long, tapering wings propelled them through the water as fast as any ship. Those who encountered a longthresh wished only that it would kill them quickly, but they rarely did. Longthresh played with their food, biting off arms and legs before taking the body.

  Below Tide Child huge mouths full of needle teeth opened in the sea, biting into the women and men in the water. The sheer amount of prey drove the longthresh into a frenzy, and the lucky were swallowed whole by the creatures. The beasts bit and bit and bit, chewing through whatever they came into contact with. A group attacked the boat itself, grinding through the sinking hull and the screaming crew who begged for Tide Child to rescue them.

  But three enemy ships remained, and Tide Child flew on.

  A bow launched, and Joron heard screams in reply over the spinning of the bow as his own team worked Poisonous Hostir.

  “Down!” shouted Meas again, and Joron felt another bolt hit Tide Child, but further down the hull where the bone was thick. The smaller bows of the flukeboats lacked the power to do real damage to Tide Child’s hull. “Two points on the shadow to landward, Oarturner. Gullaime, keep the wind coming. Gallowbows, loose when ready.”

  “Ey, Shipwife,” shouted Joron in return and stared down the deck and over the bowspine of Tide Child as the ship turned and the second flukeboat slowly came into view, this one painted gaudy yellow and orange.

  “If we catch it and you can do what you did before, Gavith,” said Joron, “you’ll get my ration of eggs on the morran.”

  “I love an egg, D’keeper,” said Gavith, and he nestled forward into the bow.

  “Steady,” said Joron. “Steady now.” When the target was fully lined up he put his hand on Gavith’s shoulder. “Loose when you are ready.” And the ships moved up and down, down and up.

  Gavith loosed.

  “Hag’s tits, too late.”

  The bolt had missed the hull but, more by luck than design, hit the spine of the boat. It seemed the world paused for a second, and then the spine and the gaudy wing it held came crashing down, splashing into the sea and pulling the boat around to seaward.

  “Gallowbows,” shouted Meas, “rake them as we pass. Loose as quick as you can!” And the world was lost to Joron in a welter of shouted commands – Spin! Load! Loose! – sweat and the song of the great bows as they peppered the stricken boat with bolts, leaving it sinking amid water churned white and red by more longthresh.

  “Maiden bless ’em,” said Anzir. “No woman or man deserves to die by the longthresh.”

  “But many will today,” said Gavith.

  Joron gave the command to spin again, and the bow was primed and loaded before Meas shouted to cease loosing.

  Tide Child ploughed through the wreckage, once again ignoring all pleas for rescue. Meas had no intention of stopping.

  “Gullaime, more wind, if you will.” She said it so calmly it was difficult to believe she commanded a ship of war. “Gallowbows be ready.”

  Joron’s bow swung, and he saw the final two boats. Both were well ahead of Tide Child, but the black ship had unfurled all its wings; even the flyers, extra wings sticking out of the side of the ship, were set. The gullaime, now bent almost double, was still conjuring a steady breeze. Before them he saw the further flukeboat heel to one side. It seemed every woman and man aboard had crowded over to seaward, and above the wind he heard their voices screaming in triumph as they cast their spears into the sea below them.

  The gullaime let out an anguished screech and collapsed on the deck.

  The sea below the flukeboat bowed; a curved shell of water rose, and the boat was thrown bodily from the sea by a flipper as long as Tide Child and crusted with white shells and coral. As the flukeboat crashed back into the water, the flipper smashed through it, breaking the vessel in half and scattering its crew into the water.

  Such a display of power – together with the ships Tide Child had destroyed – was clearly too much for the surviving raiders, and the last boat veered away from the huge creature below the water.

  But it had also slowed, and Meas was shouting once more.

  “Gallowbows, loose when we close with the boat, then we’ll ram the storm-cursed thing and be done with it.”

  The boneship bore down on the flukeboat. Those who crewed it no longer screamed in fury or with thoughts of triumph. There was clearly panic aboard, both at the ease with which the arakeesian had smashed their comrades’ boat and at the closing black ship.

  “Loose!” shouted Joron, and the for’ard bows spoke, the middle bows spoke, and then the bolt from his bow’s twin on the seaward side loosed and all smashed into the flukeboat. Joron was grabbing hold of the bow once more, and every deckchild aboard was finding something to hold tight to as Meas shouted, “Brace! Brace!” and Tide Child heeled over. It was as if the ship itself felt rage. Tide Child smashed into the flukeboat amidships, shuddering and screeching as it broke the craft in two.

  Then there was only sea before them.

  The sea and the leviathan.

  And on the deck of Tide Child lay a frail and broken avian body that had given all it had.

  Joron felt that they should have been jubilant. This had been Tide Child’s first successful action, as different from the shambles at Corfynhulme as it was possible to be. The boneship had cut through his opposition like a harpoon through a kivelly.

  Yet, after the first shouts when the final flukeboat was ground under the hull of Tide Child had died away a strange silence followed. Maybe it was the screaming of the women and men in the water behind them as the longthresh went to work on their frail bodies, a reminder that they were not in their environment, that the sea welcomed no man and that the only woman it looked kindly upon was the Hag, who waited at the bottom for all those lost upon the waves. That Tide Child, strong as he seemed against the flukeboats, was simply a dot on the vast ocean that swelled beneath him. They were tolerated here. And they were here to die.

  Or maybe it was because all had witnessed the power of the arakeesian – the flipper that had risen lazily out of the sea, propelling a boat up into the air and then smashing it apart without seeming effort or care. And now Meas drove them onward towards the beast, and the frailty of their ship against such a giant was as apparent as the frailty of flesh against the jaws of the longthresh in the reddening sea.

  Every woman and man aboard watched the water, stared at the place where it was
lightened by the vast body below. An area of water that looked to be as big as Bernshulme town, which rose and fell with its own rhythm, an area quite apart from, though still in harmony with, the ocean around it. The air smelled different – no longer of ozone, of the fresh, cold freedom of the sea. There was a heat to the air behind the arakeesian, but not an obvious furnace heat like that which burned down from Skearith’s Eye. To Joron it felt like a blush, like he had stared into a fire for too long and when he walked away his skin still burned.

  But it was not that which stole the moment from Joron, it was the form on the slate of the deck, looking like a pile of sticks covered in dirty white wingcloth: the gullaime. Why did it hurt him inside that this creature – which fascinated and scared him in equal measure – lay upon the deck? That its head was bent at a strange angle, that its legs were twisted and wrong-looking, that the few feathers on its head blew in a breeze not of the gullaime’s making.

  “Topboy,” shouted Meas, “keep your eyes open for Cruel Water and Snarltooth, they should be done with their quarry soon enough. And I want to be the first to know if any other ship shows over the horizon.”

  As Joron stared at the gullaime he heard Meas approach him from behind.

  “Why did you leave them so far behind, Shipwife?”

  “Leave who, Deckkeeper?”

  “The other ships,” he said. “Do you not trust them?”

  “I trust them, Deckkeeper.” She took a pace nearer, and Dinyl joined them. His face was cut and blood darkened his coat. “Tell him why, Dinyl.”

  “This ship, this crew, they needed a victory, Joron.”

  “But we would have had one, a more sure one, with two more ships.”

  “Ey,” said Meas. “But that victory would have been shared. This victory is theirs alone, and Cruel Water and Snarltooth got their share of the action too. Look.” She pointed across the deck. “Look at them.” And he saw how the crew mixed. Before, those from the old crew and the new had stood subtly apart, now they did not. Even Coughlin’s men mixed with the deck-childer at the rail, staring forward at the water where the arakeesian swam. “Deckholder,” she said more quietly, “how many did we lose?”