The Bone Ship's Wake

by Rj Barker

  Though what then? Run back north, hoping to slip though the line of ships and lookout towers, and maybe find themselves in the same situation but with the wind against them?

  “Call the Gullaime,” he said, and the Gullaime was called, quick to appear as Farys had already let it know it would be needed. But it was noticeably quieter and, despite Joron’s request, Madorra was in tow.

  “Why bring Gullaime,” said Madorra, its voice wheedling as it hopped into the room. “Gullaime tired. Gullaime need rest.”

  “The Gullaime is an officer of Tide Child, Madorra, which you are not, and the Gullaime can speak for itself.” The windshorn regarded Joron from its one good eye and hissed at him before hopping back to sit by the door, a pot-bellied figure squatting down, a bundle of ratty feathers, filthy robe and bare pink skin. The Gullaime, in its finery, seemed to grow a little at Madorra being put in its place, then hopped forward, predatory beak opening.

  “Jo-ron Twi-ner,” it said, and it was almost like their first days, he was struck by the alienness of that scratchy voice coming from the open beak without lip or tongue moving. “How help, Joron Twiner?”

  “I only need answer to a question, Gullaime. That is all. Be truthful when you speak and let me know where I stand.”

  “In cabin. Joron Twiner stand in cabin.” A round of gentle laughter.

  “Indeed I do, but I would know from you how much wind you, and your fellows, have. For we are chased by…”

  “Bad boats.”

  “Ey, bad boats.” It was easy to forget, with their alien ways, that the gullaime were just as attentive and understanding as any human. “I would know how long you can push us on for. It has been longer than I would like since we last visited a windspire.”

  The Gullaime crowed, opened its mouth and set up a great racket, lengthening its whole body out as if to project the noise into the cabin.

  “Bring wind for ever,” it said. “Wind and wind and wind. Push big ship.”

  Hyperbole, Joron knew, was not unusual from the creature and it was something he always tried to take into account when it spoke. It would also speak to annoy Madorra whenever possible, though why it did not simply dismiss the windshorn he had no idea.

  “Thank you, Gullaime.” He gave it a nod of respect, a thing he knew it enjoyed. “But remembering your fellows are not as strong, we want no windsickness, and must have some of your power to call on should we need it another time. So how much wind can you safely bring? Tell me lower rather than higher. I value surety above hope.”

  “Joron Twiner,” the Gullaime said, then made a dismissive sound, blowing air out through its nostrils before reaching up and touching its mask with a wingclaw. “Gullaime strong,” it said, slowly swaying from side to side. “Others not, must help yes yes yes…” It seemed to lose interest in him, fixing its masked face on the map for a moment. “Two weeks. If gullaime bring soft wind. Two watched each day. Yes. Harder wind. Less time.”

  “Thank you, Gullaime. You may return to your nest.” But there was something there, some feeling in the back of his mind that he had mis-stepped in saying that. The Gullaime nodded slowly and Joron wished he had given it leave to stay longer, for as soon as it was time to go Madorra was up once more, and the Gullaime seemed to shrink as they shuffled out of the great cabin. Inwardly, Joron swore to find out what was going on there, what strange hold the windshorn had over the Gullaime. Not the first time he had sworn it, but as commander of a ship the tasks were always piling up, and time was seldom something he had.

  He put Madorra out of his mind and stared morosely at the map. He knew, as they all did, that what the Gullaime could give was not going to be enough.

  “The shipwife,” said Mevans, “I met her first on a two-ribber called Tailor’s Cuffs and we were once in a similar situation to this, chased by two Gaunt Island ships when we’d already tangled with a four-ribber after raiding an island. Down on crew and the ship in a sorry state, we struggled to outrun them. All seemed lost to me and every other on board, but not to Meas.”

  “What did she do, Mevans?” said Joron.

  “She emptied the ship, threw everything overboard; all but water and food went down to the Hag.”

  “Even the bows?” said Jennil.

  “Ey, even the bows,” said Mevans.

  “But we’ll be defenceless,” said Joron.

  “True,” said Mevans, then he grinned. “But we’ll be fast.”

  10

  The Wait

  A cold brisk wind. A hard grey sea.

  In the time they had been in the great cabin, Joron was sure the ships pursuing them had grown, felt it was impossible. They had not been stood over the map for that long, and though he had done his rounds and various tasks it did not seem like enough time. Or did the shipwives of those beautiful, tall white ships with glowing corpselights flog the last life from some poor gullaime to catch them?

  He walked down the deck, dipped a finger in the paint pot by the mainspine and turned, leaned against the spine, his booted toes on the edge of a familiar crack in the slate as he stared back through the ropes and past the rearspine at his far away pursuers. He placed the image in his memory then returned to the rearspine, smearing blue on the bone where the nearest ship was, at what he was sure was about that ship’s current height in his nearglass. Then back to the place by the mainspine, nearglass up, studying his handiwork and finding himself pleased with it as the small blue smear of his fingerprint was almost the exact size as the ship on the horizon.

  “Now I will know,” he said to himself. “Now I will know.”

  “D’keeper?” He turned to find the purseholder. Mevans had skipped the duty given to him and handed it to a man named Hedre, who had little understanding of the sea but a good head for numbers. He waited on Joron, head bowed and with his ledger open and ink on his long thin fingers.

  “I have made a list of the goods in the hold it will cost us the least to lose as you asked.” Hedre licked the end of his quill and Joron thought how odd it was, that the features of the man should be as long and pointed as his writing tool.

  “I only need to know how much food and water we must keep to see us safely back to Sparehaven,” said Joron. He walked down the deck followed by the purseholder.

  “The Gaunt Islanders short us on all we bring them, D’keeper, and inflate their prices on all we buy from them. We are likely to find ourselves bankrupted and having to sell our ships to them if we—”

  “Hedre, as I said earlier, we are likely to find ourselves dead if we do not outrun those ships.” The purseholder’s eyes widened. “So do as I ask and I will have Mevans rope off those supplies.”

  “And the rest goes into the sea?” It was almost comical how miserable he looked, and if Joron had not been able to see the white dots of their pursuers on the horizon he may have smiled beneath his mask. But he could and he did not. The purseholder’s fondness for the material goods in Tide Child’s hold and the coin it was worth was something Joron prized as much as the crafts of the sea in his deckchilder. Hedre fought for every coin that could be saved in stocking the ship’s hold, and those coins were precious indeed for he was right and the Gaunt Islanders gave them no quarter in trade, despite they were allies. But penny-pinching served no purpose now.

  “Ey,” he said sharing the purseholder’s sense of regret, “I am sorry, Hedre, but the rest goes into the sea.” The purseholder nodded, and Joron searched for some way to soften the blow for the man. “But if you can organise goods by weight, the heaviest can go over first and we shall see how he flies then. Maybe we will not throw all over right away, ey?”

  “A wise course, D’keeper,” he said, a smile on his face. “I will make sure Mevans is aware.” He scuttled off, nose deep in his ledger and Joron went back to watching the pursuing ships. No growth against the blue smudge in the moments of that conversation. No shrinkage either. Then he folded up the nearglass, placed it in his jacket. Straightened his shoulders and tried to shed the worry the
way the gullaime shed loose feathers.

  “My women and men,” he shouted, “gather you round, for I have a task and one that you may right enjoy.” All knew that task already, for nothing but fire travels as fast as gossip on a boneship, and every woman and man aboard knew what was afoot. For the purseholder what was to come was a painful exercise full of loss, and for Joron it was a difficult but necessary task that must be carried out; for the crew it was no such thing. For them, for the dead, for the women and men whose lives were forfeit to the whims of the Scattered Archipelago’s waters, the ships behind them were easy to forget and little more worrying than clouds, for was not the d’keeper sure to get them out of this? For sure he was. So when the first objects on the list were carried up from the hold, and the crane was set up for the heaviest objects to be lifted from the hold, the atmosphere on the slate of Tide Child was almost one of carnival, of gaiety. Songs were sung and they danced and capered as if they crossed the centre line of the world and they expected deckchilder dressed in the guise of the Circle Dragon to appear and hand out rations of anhir. A deckchilder, a woman called Vara, who he had barely spoken to since she had come aboard, stopped in front of him, a shy smile on her face and a sheaf of hard varisk for mending the wings in her hands.

  “Seems wrong that we should be the ones to start this, D’keeper. On my old ship, Skeerpath, was always the shipwife’d throw over anything if we ’ad to. So I reckon’d you might be the most likely to start.” He stared at the sheaf of stiff cloth, oddly touched by this nod to a tradition he had known nothing about.

  “Thank you, Vara.” He took the cloth, aware that all eyes were suddenly trained on him. At the back of the crowd he saw Mevans, and the sheaf of varisk reminded him of something he had overlooked. “Before I throw this over, Mevans, make sure the soft varisk and warm weather clothes are safe. I would not outrun our pursuers only to have the crew freeze to death in the south.” Could they hear the smile in his voice, hidden as it was beneath a mask? He was unsure until he saw smiles and nudges, heard gentle laughter. “Now, let us start our task, and unhobble Tide Child, let us see how he really flies!” And he threw over the bale of cloth, watching it splash into the grey sea, move along the hull, bobbing and buffeted by the curling white foam of the ship’s wake as the crew cheered and the bonerails became crowded with deckchilder, excited as children as they threw the ship’s precious stores and cargo into the cold, cold sea. “The ship is yours, Farys,” he said, and retired to his cabin to study charts and the cost to his small fleet of the goods they were throwing overboard. All the while he pretended not to hear the raucous laughter above him.

  Time passed, he did not know how much. It was remarkable how easily he could vanish into charts and the filling-in of logs – a thing he did meticulously now as he knew Meas would check them when she returned – so when there was a gentle knock on his door he was surprised to find that a gloom was falling, that the long shadows of his body fell across the desk as Skearith’s Eye had dipped toward the horizon behind them.

  A coldness passed through him. Had he really been so busy time had ceased to have meaning, or was this another symptom of the keyshan’s rot that scoured his body? He shook his head.

  “Enter,” he said. Aelerin slipped into the room.

  “D’keeper,” they said. “It will soon be time to put fire to the lamps, you have been working hard.”

  “Ey,” he said. “Though I should go up on deck before full night, see if those ships still gain,” Aelerin looked away and from that small action he guessed that the ships did. He sighed. “I do not think we will be lighting our lamps tonight. I’ll keep them out, let them think they have lost us, maybe they will change course in case we do the same in the night.” Aelerin nodded.

  “It is only…” Their voice tailed away.

  “Only, courser?”

  “That I thought you should know, in a week, we will be running along the old keyshan migration routes.”

  “And?” he said, though he felt small and cruel for it, for making Aelerin ask. But the courser surprised him, did not waver or become meek, stood straighter.

  “There is talk among the crew that you steer us that way so you can sing one up, D’keeper, if it gets truly dire. I thought you should know.” He stood, let out a small laugh.

  “Thank you for telling me,” he said, and wondered at his foolishness in believing any of them thought it was Meas that raised the keyshans. How would they, when there were those in the crew that knew the truth and gossip ran quick as water along the hull aboard a boneship? “In truth, I am not surprised to hear it. But no one will be singing up a keyshan.” He made to walk past the courser and they spoke again.

  “Joron,” they said, and he stopped. He could not remember them ever using his first name before. How did he feel about that? Was it right? Should he be angry, discipline them? He did not know. So he waited, let them speak. “I know why you do not sing the keyshans to you, D’keeper,” they said. “I know you are sure our enemies will kill the shipwife if they think it is not her with this power.”

  “They will,” he said.

  “Ey, they will,” said Aelerin, “but if we die, she dies too.”

  “I know,” he said quietly, and thought it odd that this had come from Aelerin. He had expected those words from Garriya, the hagshand, not the courser. But apart from the dressing of his wounds he had not seen her for days. “I will think on it, Aelerin.”

  He waited for the courser to leave, then left the cabin himself, and was sure he saw the ragged, bent figure of Garriya recede into the darkness as he did. Despite himself, he could not help a small smile crossing his face. “Clever old hag,” he whispered into the darkness, “but bring your messages yourself next time.” No answer.

  On the slate the sky was awash with blood and the sea capped with lines of gold as Skearith’s Eye, magnificent and hazy with sleep, met the ocean. Tide Child’s path across the waves was marked with a hundred bobbing pieces of flotsam, cast aside.

  “Do we have new beakwyrms?” he asked to the air, knowing a reply would come.

  “No, D’keeper, just the six we already carried.” He did not see who replied, though he knew the voice. He tried to hide his disappointment. He found the crack in the slate by the mainspine and stood on it, took the nearglass from his coat.

  “Gavith, take a wanelight and stand by the rearspine for me,” he said, and Gavith jumped to his task and stood right in Joron’s line of sight. “Other side, if you will, Gavith,” he said and smiled to himself as the man moved across. The boy they had found on the harbourside had become a good deckchild, would make officer one day he had no doubt. If they survived of course. He put his mind back on course, found the blue paint he had placed on the rumpspine earlier, and stared at the ships so far behind them and felt a certainty within as cold as the air. Still gaining, no doubt about it. “Hedre!” he shouted.

  “Purseholder’s asleep, D’keeper,” came the shout.

  “Then wake him,” he said. “I will be on the rump waiting his pleasure.” He did not wait long, Hedre appeared, still fighting to wake from sleep, ledger held tightly in his long thin fingers.

  “D’keeper?”

  “You have done well, Hedre, I see the signs of your work drifting away behind us.” The small man bobbed his head in acknowledgement. “And, though I know it pains you, we must lose more.”

  “I have made a list,” he said, “of what is heavy, and of what is needed.” He passed over a sheet. “I thought you should look it over before any decisions are made.” Joron let his eyes scan down the list, so much that was important to the running of his ship: spars and rope, spare boneboard, sand, caulking, boneglue, nails and a hundred other things a ship could be lost for want of. He took a deep breath. He wanted to keep it all, knew its import.

  “Have the wingbolts put over the side,” he said, knowing the crew would be displeased at the loss of the feared ammunition. “That weight of stone should…” Hedre scratched his head under
his hat, caught an insect and crushed it between his fingers as Joron spoke. “No, not the wingbolts, lose all the spare spars but one, and also all boneboard but one stack. If we lose a spar to misfortune we may still stay ahead, and fix it while under way, but if we lose more than one then we will have been slowed too much, and have no choice but to fight anyway.” The purseholder nodded and Joron handed back his list. “Take this to Mevans and tell him to consult with Fogle, I had hoped one round of losses would be enough but now I see it is not. I want a further list of goods and supplies, prioritised by weight and by what use to the ship they are so we can start putting them over if we are not making headway on these ships by the morran. Then get some sleep; Mevans and Fogle are to sleep too.” He turned, found Jennil waiting patiently behind him.

  “I have the evening watch, D’keeper,” she said.

  “Good to hear it, Jennil, keep him straight and true, and throw a bit of paint that the Hag gives some misfortune to those who pursue us.” He nodded to her and headed to his cabin.

  Once in his hammock – still unable to sleep on a bed aboard ship, even after so many years – he felt the weight of the pursuit on his spirit. Brekir had been right, he had over-reached this time, taken his ships too far from safety in his desperation to weaken the forces of Thirteenbern Gilbryn. They had a long way to run before they could find safety. Sleep eluded him for a time, but the familiar rock of the ship and the ring of the bell and the soft sound of feet on the bones above him worked their spell and eventually, he slipped away into the deep.

  And dreamed.

  He was massive and weightless. He was dangerous and playful. He was hunger and fire and an internal roaring. He was awake. He was one of many. He heard the slow song of the sleepers. He heard the fast song of his people. Some songs filled with need, others with fury, others with confusion. Behind it all another song, a song so quiet and fast he could barely catch it, but it was full of promise, of rebirth, of fire, of empty seas and long migrations without the fear of death from the world above. He moved through the deeps with lazy flicks of his tail, he opened his mouth to catch the life within the water, a million specks of it washed down his gullet and through his system.