The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  We’d not faced failure, and I did not know how to ask my crew for more.

  Was the infancy of our effort the weakness? Or was the fault entirely mine? I had failed so many, and dead children were collecting around me like leaves letting go of a dying tree.

  “Are you okay? Should we go below?” Rindsfar asked.

  I’d been mumbling and leaned over the traverse board like a drunk. I stood up and my angry back told me how long I’d been hunched over, pondering defeat. “No. No, I am fine.”

  He knew I was not, but I could not retreat below like Graves had. There could be no going to my room for a cry. I was the admiral of a defeated ship, not a child who’d skinned a knee. Our task remained, and the only thing that would save the ship, would save our souls and the wounded Earth, was our success.

  The traverse board showed the same weakness that had crept into everything I was doing. The markers and strings were in shambles and the peg glass had run out. I could not with precision, look at the board and tell our recent course, speed, or heading. I wondered if I could review my logs and piece together our positions.

  I did not know where we were. This more than anything, needed to be solved. I needed to be back in charge of the mission.

  “Prepare to come about and call up Graves.”

  The crew was slow to move, and I repeated the order as though they were children ignoring their chores. They scurried about, and I left it to my boatswain to get their motion sorted. He struggled to set aside his own frustrations. The colonel arrived dressed down to his tunica and overcoat, and brought with him the stink of stale beer.

  I stiffened and would have stabbed him to the deck with reprimands, but noticed then that my trousers were not tucked into my boots and my coat was unbuttoned.

  Tayler made her way up the stair behind him like a leaping gazelle. “You have a plan, ma’am?” she asked over Graves’s shoulder.

  I should have minded her insubordination. A Yentif river barge captain would have nailed her to the deck. Their cruelty tied men to a life of loss—rendered them incapable of revolt and surrendered them to their servitude. Her enthusiasm was the first positive thing I’d seen that day.

  “I do,” I said and waved her forward. The colonel had to dodge her as she hurried around him and another burp rumbled up from his beer-soaked guts. She suffered the cloud he exhaled and learned toward me as though hoping to volunteer to run though flames. She was nursing injuries, same as Rindsfar and the rest—worse perhaps, judging by the yellowing bruises upon her jaw, cheek, and forehead.

  I hated her then for the beat of my heart, as she reminded me of the daughters I’d lost and the one I had left behind.

  She saw this and stiffened back into attention as if slapped.

  I fixed my eyes upon my disorganized traverse board for a long moment to find some measure of calm and started with Rindsfar. “I’m turning us west in search of the Wellaze Isles and a friendly coast. You have until the end of the watch to get the last of the water out of the bilge and all of the cargo shifted as far back as it will go.”

  He blanched, but spoke up before my boatswain could compound our failing discipline with an objection. “I mean to lean the Kingfisher back so that the foresail can drive the ship. You will have your best sail ready to do aloft before Rindsfar has finished shifting the cargo.”

  “Colonel,” I said and startled his drunken eyes up. “I need forty men ready below deck with longbows and short swords during every peg both day and night. I also expect to see you running boarding drills on deck every watch, and I want every member of the crew to fire a yew bow at least once a day.”

  “I don’t have enough able men.”

  “Then get yourself sober enough to sing the wounded into shape. I’ll give you until dawn to have yourself sorted, or you can swim home.”

  “And you,” I said, turning on Tayler, “We need a new nest raised atop what is left of the mainmast. Organize the smiths and carpenters upon the aft deck and get a pair of eyes up that mast. And turn in your coat to the tailor to have your dots replaced with a bar. You’ll serve as the mainmast chief until you are dead or I relieve you.”

  “Move,” I shouted. They fled me, and the thunder of their voices tore through the ship. Tayler paused near the companionway to mug one of the junior pages for her overcoat. The new one fit her much better and left the junior drowning in the hand-me-down. She smiled nonetheless for the promotion. They exchanged hurried words and a hug before Tayler rushed off, leaving the girl to face me. She touched the extra dot upon her shoulder once, and stepped briskly toward me.

  “Allow me, ma’am,” she said and worked without my leave to fix my unruly trousers and coat. I was about done with her handling when she said, “My letters are good, ma’am, but my memory is better. Fana taught me how to read and write, and Tayler has been teaching me how to keep up the log book. Please, ma’am, I’d be happy to record each watch for you, if it would ease your mind to review my work rather than draft it yourself.”

  The ardent girl finished and came to attention. Hope and terror twisted her expression. Tayler had taught her well, and she reminded me of the strong lads that thronged the Bessradi River docks desperate for the work and to be away from the bailiffs. Memories of it all flooded through me.

  I said to her, “Did you know that Bessradi barge captains keep logs as well? They recorded the river depth and the debris they encounter so they’d know the best channel to steer. They share their reports with the captains that work for the same family, and hang boards along the river with coded references.”

  “They didn’t share them with you, did they, ma’am?”

  I shook my head. “No, they did not. But you will make yourself capable of sharing our log with everyone harbormaster and ship’s captain we meet, understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said and leapt below to get the work organized.

  The spring in the girl’s step had spread and this contagion made me wonder if we stood a chance after all.

  The crew did not betray how impossible their work was either. None of them succeed that first day as I had demanded, and it took nine days to get the ship sorted and our wounded crew fit enough to fill the rotations. The work was as good for them as it was for me, and their focus turned away from the Priest’s Home and toward the hostile Yud ships we would find ahead of us. The constant bang of yew bows and Chaukai calls below deck was a heartening sound.

  It was the morning of the 5th of Winter when we sighted land to our southwest. I turn us northwest and eased slowly in. The mystery of our true location was solved the next morning when we sighted a larger island with a tall forested peak, and the log book that watch included for the first time in seventy-three days a true statement of our position—on the gulf side of the centermost of the Wellaze Isles.

  We did not see ship or structure that evening as I eased us into the shadow of that peak and dropped anchored. I called my officers together amidships beneath the new crow’s nest as the Kingfisher’s foresail came down and she settled back. The angle was uncomfortable, more like the roof of a warehouse than the deck of a great ship.

  I asked my officers for report of shore and ship.

  Tayler said, “The lookout report nothing new ashore, ma’am. No one lives here, though I do not understand why.”

  I deferred to Rindsfar, and he said, “The stiff northerly can push smaller ships out into the gulf where the waves often take them over, and when the winds turn the breakers coming south savage the seaward slopes. The locals keep themselves on the channel side.”

  Tayler gave him a sideways look, and my boatswain added, “When you interview 500 people about a coast and you’ll learn a thing or two.”

  Graves wasn’t convinced. “How can they be so different? Yuds, Havishon, Heneurans, Zoviyans—it doesn’t make any sense.”

  Rindsfar did not have an answer for this, and I was about to turn the topic correctly to the state of the ship and supplies when Tayler said, “The Kingdoms
of the East. When Sikhek led the armies of the Shadow across the Bunda-Hith into ancient Edonia, he brought people from each of the fourteen kingdoms.”

  “There cannot be a place so big that it fits fourteen kingdoms.”

  “If you believe Sikhek’s history, yes, there is. The Vesteal sailed here from somewhere and the Shadow’s priests had to cross the Bunda-Hith to find them. After we defeat Yarik and Aden, we’ll have to be content with whoever is on the far side.”

  “Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, perhaps?” I asked.

  “Sorry, ma’am. It keeps me up nights, sometimes, worrying about who my children will have to kill.”

  As quick as her dark ponderings came, she set them aside, and speaking for herself and the chief she delivered a brief of their decks and masts.

  I asked, “The foremast can take the strain of driving?”

  “She will, ma’am. She’ll take full sail for you all the way north, if you need. We’ll not manage better than three quarters speed, but we’ll match any shallow water corsairs on this coast.”

  Rindsfar followed with report of the state of the crew and our meager supplies, and Colonel Grave, though thin in the cheeks and drawn, reported that they’d managed to drill for a third morning in a row, and that the worst of the wounded had been seen to. I saluted him and he returned it.

  “Very well,” I said and addressed the group. “In the morning I’m taking us up through the channel in hopes of trading with a friendly ship or seizing a hostile one. If we were fit, I’d burn every Yud ship we encountered, but as we are, I hope nothing more than to take on fresh water and food and to get news of what lies ahead of us before we make for Sesmundi. We’ve no idea what we will see in the channel and we know little of these waters or their depths. I’ll want our very best pair of eyes aloft and soundings off both rails throughout the day. See that the crew finds good sleep tonight. We’ll make way at first light.”

  After then went I should have followed my own order. I slept no more than a wink and woke to an overeager page with my uniform ready. She’d also brought a cup of mate and a hot biscuit covered fish gravy, so I accepted her help. Once sorted, I reviewed the entries she’d made in the log.

  She spelled “Wellaze” was an “s” but her record of the all three watches were sound. I challenged her to find her error by the end of the first peg of the morning watch and went above as the night watch rotated below.

  The stern northerly tussled with the trees upon the lonely island and the only sound besides the blowing wind was the occasional rattle of the anchor chain as we bobbed in the low waves. A man from Bessradi would have cursed the chill in the air, but my crew was almost smiling. A light sheen of ice clung to the top of the rails, but the well-sanded deck was clear and dry and the sun was peaking at us over a horizon free of clouds. It almost felt like spring.

  The lookout reported all clear, and we weighed anchor at six pegs as the red ball of the sun crested above the hostile sea we’d left behind.

  The foresail went up, the deck leveled, and after we turned into the channel we turned north for the first time.

  The largest of the Wellaze islands appeared to our west as the sun lit its slopes. We sailed through the clear air of that chilly dawn and the first peg of the watch finished at the same speed and course.

  My page appeared as I turned over the peg glass. “Apologies for the bad spelling, ma’am,” she said before hurrying to her duties.

  It was a calm moment, and my crew knew to enjoy it. The call that came down next from above surprised no one.

  “Sails to port. Due west. Yud colors.”

  “Single ship?” Rindsfar asked.

  “Yes. No. It several ship. Seven. Correction nine, bearing west, correction, they’ve are turning. I think they’ve seen us.”

  “Size?”

  “Single lanteens. They look to be moving north to cut us off.”

  Rindsfar joined me in the lonely space behind my traverse board. I did not want his company, but he came anyway.

  “Don’t get angry,” he said.

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re making that face you make.”

  “What face would you have me make?” I said, louder than I wanted to and bit back the rest into a whisper. “I’d expected to find a Yud ship or two in the channel, not fleets of them setting ambush. The situation the gulf is far worse than I thought. Sesmundi could have been captured for all we know. Coming into the channel was a mistake.”

  “Perhaps you should go below for a half peg, ma’am?”

  “You’d send me to my room, would you?”

  His held stiff despite the holes I glared in him. I even reached out and tugged on his soul once, but he would not yield.

  “Very well, Boatswain, what action do you recommend?”

  “Not for me to say. I’ll hear your orders, ma’am, if you please.”

  “You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?”

  “My mum would be proud to hear it. Your orders, ma’am?”

  At this I laughed. It was not particularly funny, but it needled me all the same. He joined me for a moment, but his expression did not change. He’d see me act as a captain again whether I wanted to be or not.

  I asked him to bring up my map of the coast, which I did not need, but the moment to myself to consider was welcome. When he returned with it I glanced at it once and said, “It is too late to turn and escape into the gulf around the south side of the island. Set a course close to the island and ride the good wind along the shore until we reach the north end. If we are faster, we’ll make the turn into deeper waters and escape them.”

  If not, do we fight?”

  “No. Get everyone ready to quick tack west if the soundings shallow or they cut us off. We may be able to out dance them.”

  “We’re not as nimble as we once were.”

  “She’ll give us a tight turn or two, boatswain. Relay the word while I go up and get a look for myself.”

  He went, the lookout hurried down, and I made the long climb. I’d not gone aloft since I’d been in command of the Whittle, and up close the thin post that extended from the top of the broken mast did not look as sound. A patchwork of carpentry held it up and my route to the top was upon a series of simple crossbars nailed in place. If I’d known it, I’d have sent Rindsfar instead. Grinding my teeth, I climbed the pole and wiggled my way up into the barrel fixed at the top. I almost lost my hat to the wind as I poked my head out the top and couldn’t help but clutch at the pole as I looked down at the deck far below.

  None of the crew seemed to have seen my nervousness. Every expert sailor aboard studied the island to our right and the Yud to our left. The forested slope extended fifty ship lengths in front of us. The Yud were small, sleek ships, each with a single sail and a dozen oars working hard. It was a race to the top end of the island. I growled at them. They were no match for a fit ship of Edonia. But we were not fit, and I could almost hear them laughing at us.

  “It will be close,” I said down and no one disagreed. “Prepare to repel boarders and get every longbow we have fore and aft.”

  The Chaukai and crew were ready for the order, and all was in place when I made my way back down. I’d not be making that climb again.

  The Yud spread out in search of better wind as we raced north along the island. One took an angle parallel to ours, while the rest tried to edge northwest and northeast. I turned us a fraction as I felt the wind shift. I could ask nothing more of my ship or crew. Our speed was the best to be had.

  The constant report of soundings from the men throwing weights became as important, and I judged again and again how close to the island I dared take us.

  “Nineteen,” called the leadsman as we reached the shallows.

  The next toss of the weight came up two body lengths shorter. “Sixteen.”

  Sixteen on the next toss and then a “fifteen” earned a groan from the crew.

  The end of the island came into view,
and my heart began to pound. I worried for a long moment about Dia and almost allowed myself to get angry at our failure. We would be heading south soon enough. I set thoughts of her aside. Rindsfar began to fidget, and I sent him forward.

  “Fourteen.”

  “Thirteen, ma’am. We’ll strike the bottom at twelve!”

  Closer and closer the Yud came as they angled toward us. The ship that paralleled us was two lengths in front of us and ten ahead of the next Yud ship. They fired a volley of arrows at us then—no more than a vague warning at that range, but the number of arrows that fell was substantial. I could not count the men thronged upon her decks.

  “Chaukai, make ready,” I called. Longbows creaked, and my good crew began to pray to our White Mother.

  I judged the range and the distance to the deeper waters beyond the tip of the island. If we turned, they’d get in front of us.

  “Twelve and a half, ma’am.”

  “Fire,” I called, the yew bows barked, and I followed, “All hands, tack to port. Archers, prepare another volley.”

  The flight arched toward the lead ship, and the Yud began to waver. The Kingfisher swung northwest, angling into the gap between the leader and the next, while the Yud sailor all pointed at the arrows reaching inexplicably toward them. Two dozen of the forty shafts struck her, many landing upon the deck. All the while, their northeasterly course remained unchanged. Her captain turned his head back to us at last, and I heard him yelling for a turn. His unsettled crew was slow to the order, but their nimble ship came around fast to match our course northwest and keep between us and the open waters. The rest of Yud ships aimed straight at us.