by Simon Archer
Tabitha slipped over and settled in on the other side, and both of us put our arms around Mary. She closed her mismatched eyes and looked down again.
“We won’t be lettin’ the bastard do that,” the Ailur woman added.
“I know,” Mary murmured. “I know. ‘Tis just unsettling to be told that it is my life and my soul that Admiral Layne wanted, and not my skills as a witch.”
“Arde really fucked it up.” Tabitha laughed suddenly. “He be the one that really set this chain in motion.”
That was true. Commodore Arde had Mary under his command on The Indomitable. He’d been refused when he demanded captain’s privilege, the service of a witch’s body, and had trumped up a charge of treason against the young witch. This put her in Broward’s dungeon at the same time I came through, thwarted Arde’s and Broward’s plan to assassinate me, and freed all the poor bastards down below Insmere Keep.
Two of them, Shrike and Mary, joined up with me, which led us to our current predicament. Layne wanted Mary back, especially now that I had the Black Mirror too. I rather doubted he’d spare any effort to retrieve them both now.
That meant that we’d likely be dogged every nautical mile of our path towards the frozen sea and back. Maybe Bloody Bill would do more than just gather a fighting fleet to aid us. Maybe he’d actually harry the Admiralty forces if they ever sailed from the cordon around The Pale Horse.
At least we knew now that the city-ship wouldn’t be sailing anytime soon.
I looked down at Mary, and our gazes met. She smiled slightly and took a deep breath, which drew my eyes down for a moment to roam over the pale, unblemished swells of her half-revealed breasts. My witch wanted for something, and she needed me to attend that need. A smile crept over my lips, and I raised my gaze to see Tabitha grinning on the other side of Mary.
The Ailur nodded once. She was in, too.
“Mary,” I said, my voice low and deep.
“Yes, my Captain?” she asked softly, her breath quickening.
I answered that question with a kiss, bending down to press my parted lips against hers. Tabitha pressed in against her back, wrapping black-furred arms around Mary’s middle while I caught both of them in my own embrace.
At least we could distract Mary Night for a bit and perhaps even console her.
10
Adra Notch-Ear
I hated ships. Despite the call of the wind and water, I preferred having the earth under my feet. There was something about the distance that sailing put between myself and the elementals of the earth that disconcerted me to a slight degree. There was also a lack of other spirits, an imbalance that added to my discomfort.
The Hullbreaker, like all ships of any real history, had her own spirit, a very fierce, very powerful one at that. I would have to teach the Splitter of Skulls how to talk to her if he had not already.
My fingers trailed along the smooth, polished wood of the main deck’s railing as I padded a slow circuit around the ship, enjoying the feel of the spray-soaked wood beneath my bare feet. The ship’s spirit murmured away in my ears, happy to have someone to talk to.
She was worried about what was to come, but it was not a fear of death that The Hullbreaker spoke of. No, she was frightened that her captain sought to replace her. It wasn’t like she was unaware of what went on in the cabins and holds. The spirit was everywhere aboard, and there were no secrets from her.
Bardak’s quest for the lost dwarven vessel had the noble spirit of the old ship feeling apprehensive. Like the crew and the captain’s bedmates, The Hullbreaker loved the man. She would happily die for him, but she did not want to lose him.
I did not blame her. There was something about the Splitter of Skulls that inspired those around him. He was an orc with a light that burned bright and hot like a small sun. It warmed, illuminated, and drew in those who desired danger and adventure like moths to a candleflame. Only instead of burning off their fluttering wings, he inspired them to greater heights.
He needed more training and perhaps less rutting. Even now, he was down below with two of his women while the third swam the seas below us in search of another ally. The great Dragon Turtle with the silly name waited behind us at the stinking town of Insmere with its unhappy soul and twisted spirits. He could handle the cold of the depths, but only for a time. The persistent, freezing bite of the northern sea would sap his strength over time, and he would sink below, never again to rise.
Ligeia did not want that, so she sought another leviathan to carry her, preferring the water to the cabins of the ship. I took a deep breath and rubbed my aching jaw as I paused near the foredeck of the ship. A sailor brushed by with a muttered, “Pardon, shaman,” and I watched him go.
He was one of the young orcs, the brothers, Daka, I thought. My mind wandered for a moment, and I felt a warmth grow in my lower belly.
How long had it been since I’d taken anyone to my bed?
Too long. I cackled softly and made my way up the stairs to the foredeck. When had the desires of the flesh start to rise in me? It had been a while since I’d even cared to look at another person with a thought to bedding them, but the time I’d been around the Splitter of Skulls was slowly reawakening my desires.
It frustrated me. I leaned against the railing and closed my eyes as the wind of our passage fluttered through my shoulder-length hair. It was growing fast, which I was glad of. The captain’s women all had luxurious hair.
I opened my eyes and growled softly. Why did I care about my hair? Did I want Bardak to notice me as more than just a shaman and his teacher? I think I did. He was an impressive specimen of an orcish warrior-chief with wonderful muscles, scars of glory, and intelligent, fierce eyes. There was no arguing that he had a charisma about him, considering that he’d already claimed three lovers of different species.
I wondered what that meant to me. If the Splitter of Skulls were not interested in orcish women, then any attempt of mine to woo him was doomed to failure, and I did not do well with failure.
Perhaps I needed to do something astounding, beyond even raising a dead ship from the depths of an eye of the sea. I did not want to give The Hullbreaker voice. That was her captain’s job if he chose… but I could investigate those strange artifacts that had been retrieved from below. Most of them were little more than toys, but the skull and the mirror bore further investigation.
Of course, I would need to convince the captain that there was a need. He was wary of both objects, and rightly so. They were powerful and not the sort of thing anyone without a great deal of experience should trifle with.
I did not want to try my skills against them, but I needed to. If the Splitter of Skulls were to win his war, then he would need every weapon at his disposal, and I knew that both these items were weapons.
“Adra,” a pleasant voice said, and I looked askance to see that the first mate, Jimmy Mocker, a strange, light-hearted man for all the murder in his heart and hands. “What brings ye out this fine day?”
“A dislike of being belowdecks,” I replied as I returned his smile. He was one of the humans aboard The Hullbreaker that I liked. Most of them, I didn’t understand, but Jimmy had a very orcish outlook, for all that he was something of a dandy.
He laughed honestly. “I ain’t fond of that myself. Give me the helm, the crow’s nest, or the deck.”
I nodded to him, then turned my gaze back to the fore of the ship. “When is the captain’s watch?”
“Sundown,” he replied. “Likely he’ll be up before that, though. Ordered a bath a short time past.” Jimmy paused a moment. “Never thought ye orcs would care so much ‘bout keepin’ clean.”
“We do not,” I said with a laugh. “He does this for his women, not because he sees a true need for himself. He enjoys pleasing them.”
“I see.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I reckon there be hot springs and such in yer mountains, aye?”
“You are full of questions today, Jimmy Mocker,” I observed, then cut him off as he ma
de to apologize. “But that is correct. The Shattered Spine holds many places where the earth bleeds heat, and water flows from some of these wounds to pool, stinking of mineral salts.” My smile broadened into a grin. “Some of the wounds, though, bleed fire, much like the smoking mountains at the heart of some of the islands out here.”
“I have seen those,” Jimmy said, nodding slowly. He leaned against the rail beside me. “Pretty damn amazin’. Maybe one day I can travel the mainland a bit, visit those hot springs.”
“You may wish to travel with the Splitter of Skulls or one of the other orcs if you do,” I told him. “Orcish lands are no place for visitors.”
“Aye, I’ve heard that, but are they not more open, now?” he asked.
“When I left, the tribes had joined the Blackburn’s Empire,” I replied. “He offered much gold and glory. I have heard that this all grew sour.”
“The Cap’n said Admiral Layne an’ his Commodores wanted to purge the free towns o’ all orcs an’ non-humans.” He gave me an appraising look and twirled one end of his waxed mustache. “Bloody short-sighted if ye ask me, an’ it roused many peaceful folk to violence.”
I cackled. “Orcs are violence, Jimmy Mocker. It is what we were born for, and how we live our lives. One battle to another.”
He tilted his head and gave me a blank look. “Ye an’ the Cap’n both seem a bit less inclined to always take the fightin’ option than that implies.”
“The captain is a very intelligent orc,” I said. “He has learned to be human while not forgetting where he came from.”
Jimmy gave a slow nod, then turned and gazed out over the dark, wave-tossed sea ahead. “Lot o’ violence comin’,” he observed after a few minutes.
“There has been much before, and there will be much after,” I said with a faint shrug. “Violence begets violence unto the end of the world.”
“Kind of a depressin’ thought,” Jimmy said. “Not that I mind a scrap, but I have hopes this’ll be over, ye ken?”
“I do,” I replied. Peace was a precious thing, and I had learned enough to appreciate it. These moments of quiet between storms of blood and thunder were a treasure for me. The elementals did not understand, and the dead easily forgot. “Do you believe the Splitter of Skulls wants the war to end? Will he have a place in what comes after?”
“Aye,” Jimmy answered quickly. “Ask him about the Ironhand one day.”
“I will, I think,” I said, then lifted my eyes up to the blue sky. The usual cloud cover had broken up into scattered cotton-puffs of gray and white, a rare view out here in the Archipelago.
For a time, then, we held out positions in silence. I closed my eyes and opened my sense of the umbral world. Air and water elementals abounded, dancing on the witchwind that drove us northwards.
These witches were so frivolous with their powers. Certainly, they paid a price with their ‘singing up the wind,’ their hexes, and their enchantments, but they could accomplish monumental feats. This attachment to the physical manifestation of power and accomplishment was, I thought, their greatest weakness as well as their greatest strength.
Exposure to this also limited the Splitter of Skulls. He had power to spare and the ear of the spirits and the elementals. Each battle he fought, each life he took, was his sacrifice to the great ones, the ancestors of the orcs, and the lords of the elementals. These things flocked to the vitality he represented and drank deep of his inadvertent offerings.
But these sacrifices were ephemeral and fleeting. Soon, the entities that came to his call would demand more, and he would give, still unknowing. Blood and souls and terror would walk in his wake, and he would become the most powerful shaman that our world had ever known.
I had to teach him further. I could not let this great man, this great orc, fall prey to a destiny of hate and violence, not when he demonstrated a surprising capacity for love.
Jimmy pushed away from the rail silently and nodded respectfully to me as he went back down to the main deck and his duties. He was a strange, complicated creature. I liked him, and I liked his lover, the first mate of The Black Cat, Jenny Nettles. The entire crew of Bardak’s sailors and commanders had made me feel welcome and set me at my ease, shortly after I’d been gifted to them by William Markland.
At the ship’s aft, beneath the mizzenmast, the witch Ember Spark sang to the winds. Soon, Mary Night would come to relieve her, and she would be followed by Bardak and the strange, feline woman Tabitha Binx.
Most of all, I needed to speak with Mary, the first wife of the Splitter of Skulls, by my reckoning. In our traditions, it was her place to invite other women into her mate’s bed and her responsibility to turn away those unworthy, even if the male chose otherwise.
Did I truly wish to bed my pupil? Yes. It was not uncommon in the traditions of the shaman for the student and teacher to share their bodies. The act was both sacred and carnal, a merger of spirit and flesh that sang with power. If I shared both the Splitter of Skulls’ bed and his confidence, as the other three women did, then I could, perhaps, save him from the fate that awaited him if he continued to walk the road he now trod.
I could be satisfied as the fourth wife of Bardak Skullsplitter, if only I could save him from what I saw was a bleak future.
11
I glanced back to where Adra spoke quietly in Mary’s ear. Ember still held the witchwind with a soft song while the other two talked. Jenny Nettles had been at the helm, keeping her steady by my last reckoning, and Jimmy Mocker was up in the crow’s nest.
Tabitha Binx, though, moved among the deck crew, working as hard and as well as any sailor. The captain of The Black Cat wasn’t above performing regular crew duties with the rest of the crew, and she was as good as my own best men.
I looked up at the darkening sky. It was rare to see the stars through the clouds in the Archipelago, especially as you headed northwards. We were moving fast, too, somewhere between twenty or thirty knots under a constant witchwind. The fact that we could keep a steady, magical gale blowing in the perfect direction was a hell of an advantage. It kept us at a good, steady speed, and the reinforced masts and ship’s rigging could handle twice that over relatively short periods.
My ability to read the winds and waves gave us another advantage, as well. I could find the currents that led in the way I wanted to go and avoid those that would impede my ship’s movement. With my senses expanded by my initiation into the shamanic mysteries, I could tap into another level and petition the elementals for aid.
Overhead, myriad sizes of air spirits danced in the witchwind and lent their strength to the directed flow that filled our sails. Encouraging them to help was little more than a minor exertion of my will, and the ship picked up a little more speed. Below us, elementals of the sea frolicked like dolphins in The Hullbreaker’s wake.
Ligeia still hadn’t returned. She left the ship a day past to seek allies that would have no problems in the freezing waters we hurried towards. If she didn’t return today, then I’d order the ship to slow and damn the consequences. As capable as my siren was, she was still only one creature in the vastness of the sea.
Ember walked by, stifling a yawn as she flashed me a salute and headed below. The wind dipped for a moment as Mary took over the song, then picked up again with a slight change in timbre and feel. I made a slight adjustment to our course to account for the difference and closed my eyes for a moment.
I brought up my memory of Sturmgar’s map, rough as it was, and overlaid it upon the chart of the Archipelago and the Erdrath and Milnest coasts that I kept in my head. We were still a good week from the edge of the frozen sea, even at the rapid pace we held under the influence of the magical wind. This would be the longest I’d kept the witches at it, too. At least they showed no sign of faltering so far. Adra and I could take turns, too, if it came to that.
“There is a better way to do this, Splitter of Skulls,” the tuskless shaman said quietly, her voice carrying easily over the whistling winds.
“I think that, with proper appeasement, a greater spirit of the air might be bound to push the ship as commanded,” Adra opined. “Or if we cannot draw in a greater, then the lesser ones who already play in the rigging would suffice.”
“What sort of appeasement?” I asked. Typically, the pair of us spoke in Orgik whenever we had these conversations. Some concepts of orcish shamanism just didn’t translate so well into Erd or any of the other human tongues I knew.
“We would have to ask them,” Adra replied with a shrug.
Of course, we would, I thought. Interactions with spirits were notoriously vague, especially in my case. The elementals seemed to be happy to do what I needed, only not necessarily in the way I thought best. Mostly, they seemed to augment my own prodigious physical abilities or provide additional protection for me.
Then there was the help they gave me when I fought the lascu. It was evident to me that the elementals liked to have at least a small amount of their particular element available, hence the air and fire combination that allowed me to call down bolts of lightning. Creating something from nothing did not seem to be a gift given to shamans.
We did, however, have the elemental stones in Mary’s laboratory.
“We have to do that, then,” I said after a moment’s silence. “If we can bind an air elemental to The Hullbreaker that can take the place of our witches, it would free up our resources.”
“There is more to it than that,” Adra said, “but you are on the right path, I think.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
She huffed a sigh suddenly. “You and I must speak, Splitter of Skulls, about many things. I would prefer it to be in private, once you are free of your duties.”
Considering Adra saw my general sporting with Ligeia, Mary, and Tabitha as part of my duties along with my other work aboard ship, she wanted a chance to speak with me truly alone, which drew a sidelong glance at the shamaness from me.
