by Rj Barker
“Muffaz! Cwell!” shouted Joron. “The ships will crash together again, be ready to jump!” Cwell jumped, made it just as the keyshan smashed down into the ocean, but the tentacles of the toothreach, anchored around the spines of Keyshanpike, refused to let go. With a further scream of protesting bones Keyshanpike’s for’ard spine was ripped from its mooring, the tops of the rear and mainspine also ripped from their places, and then the giant wave of the keyshan’s landing hit the side of both ships.
“Brace!” shouted Joron, “Brace for your lives!” Rigging, spars and deckchilder rained down on the deck as Tide Child’s own topspars, tangled once more with Keyshanpike’s, were ripped away. The ships pulled apart, crashed together again, and Joron saw Solemn Muffaz thrown to the deck of the stricken ship. A howling wind sprang up and battered the two ships as the waves of the keyshan hitting the sea crashed over Keyshanpike, shoving it against Tide Child. “Get up Muffaz! Mother curse you!” he shouted. Joron heard the cracking of bone, the screaming of women and men. Saw Solemn Muffaz push himself up, take his jump and Joron thought he would not make it until a huge wave rushed over Keyshanpike’s deck, picking the big man up and throwing him onto the slate of Tide Child. Behind him the keyshan twisted in the water, the currents created dragging the two ships apart again. Behind the keyshan the second toothreach’s massive body seemed to dissolve into something long and thin, elongating and stretching its tentacles out, writhing through the water at alarming speed toward the keyshan.
“Call the Gullaime!” shouted Joron. “Raise whatever wings we can, if we don’t get away we’ll be crushed as they fight.”
“Ey, D’keeper,” was shouted from a hundred throats as the ragged Tide Child was thrown around in the currents, directionless. Joron ran up the heaving slate, shouting for Barlay and the Gullaime. Finding the big steerswoman already there, fighting the steering oar with Farys, soaked to the skin by waves of freezing water. The keyshan sounded again, deafening, a hundred thousand different tones that caused the toothreach in its mouth to go limp, its tentacles to let go of Keyshanpike – though the boneship was beyond help, half below the water, leaning so crazily Joron knew it lost.
The second toothreach attacked the keyshan just as the first of Tide Child’s wings fell into position. Joron saw the tentacles open, imagined thousands of tiny pulsing mouths latching on to the keyshan at the moment the massive sea dragon was about to bite down on the toothreach in its mouth. Instead the keyshan opened its mouth and screamed, a different sound, one full of pain, or maybe outrage, that woke the toothreach held in its jaws, vicious tentacles reaching out.
“Wind,” shouted Joron, “we need wind! Where is the Gullaime?”
“Here here.” The windtalker waddled down the deck, seemingly unaware of the carnage and chaos and screeching as three vast bodies churned the water around them into froth.
“Quickly Gullaime! Wind! Our need is fierce!”
The windtalker stopped in front of Joron, the mask covering its eyes fixed on him.
“Bring wind,” it said, then yarked and croaked and whirled before shouting into the air. The wind came at its call. The familiar pressure in Joron’s ears, the heat crossing the deck and the gale following it. Tide Child’s wings caught the wind and the ship’s beak came around to face the way they had come and the mist was blown from their course.
“For’ard!” shouted Joron at Barlay and they set the steering oar. Behind them the keyshan lurched from the sea, water falling over the black ship as it shook its massive head from side to side. Two writhing black shapes wrapped around the sea dragon, one around its middle, one around the head. Blood ran from where the tentacles were locked about it. For a moment Joron thought the great beast would fall on Tide Child, killing them all, but the keyshan fell to landward of them, its huge body crashing onto on an ice island, sending up a wave that pushed Tide Child toward the ice island on the other side of the channel. The keyshan shook its head back and forth, smashing the toothreach in its jaws repeatedly against the ice so hard that more waves sprang from the bottom of the ice island and buffeted Tide Child.
“Gullaime,” shouted Joron, “blow us away from the shore!” The wind changed, counteracting the waves as the toothreach went limp in the keyshan’s mouth, though the great sea dragon continued to smash the beast against the ice until something burst and black ichor spattered over the black ship, burning where it touched skin.
“Onwards!” shouted Joron, pointing forward. “Onwards!” Tide Child shuddered and the wind renewed, howling over the deck as the massive body of the keyshan behind them rolled off the island, still wrapped in the searching, biting tentacles of the second toothreach. “Brace!” he shouted and the keyshan hit the water, the resulting wave forcing Tide Child sideways again, crashing into the ice island to landward, and the hull screamed and screeched as it scraped along the ice. “Gaffs! Push us off the ice!” he shouted, fighting to keep his feet as the ship was slammed once more against the island and he feared for the hull, feared for the underdecks. Had visions of giant holes in the boneboard, of the keel snapped in two. “Someone go below and check the hull, make sure the pumps are crewed!” Before the gaffs could push Tide Child away the backwash from the waves did the work. Crew stumbled at the erratic movement but the ship was loose, though a sorry sight: missing topmasts and all the crew that had been in them, bonerails smashed, trailing rigging and rope, but he still moved, still floated. The keyshan and the remaining toothreach were locked in an embrace as the sea dragon gulped down the remains of the first beast.
“Look to for’ard!” came the shout. Joron did, and where the two ice islands were closest a third toothreach blocked the way, venting mist and staring forward with its baleful yellow eye.
“Gullaime,” shouted Joron over the rending and screaming and howling wind, “give us as much wind as you can, the ship is the only weapon we have. We’ll ram that Hag-cursed thing.”
“But D’keeper…” began Farys.
“We have no other choice!” The Gullaime shook its head, lifted its bright crest and then made a noise so loud it hurt Joron’s ears. A harder, faster, stronger wind came. Tide Child creaked and groaned alarmingly and the beast before them vented mist and let out a low, disturbing hoom. “Ready!” shouted Joron and the toothreach loomed above the deck of the broken ship as they sped toward it. “Ready!” Then, at the last, in the second when Tide Child would have crashed into the beast, it used its tentacles to climb the walls of the ice islands to each side. Screaming and hooming it passed over the ship, a mass of writhing tentacles, each one covered in small, grasping mouths. Thinner tentacles fell from it, writhing over the decks, and there were screams as deckchilder were grabbed. Shouts of fury as others hacked at the black ropes, and then the thing was gone, ten crew with it and it dropped into the water behind them with a great splash and made a direct line for the keyshan, joining the fight between the titans behind them.
And Tide Child, broken, smashed and limping, made his escape.
The Song of Lucky Meas
She worked her way to shipwife
A child of tide and wa-ter
Hard and bold she rose
The sea it was her sither.
But her mother tret her cruel
Said, “The babe, it should have died.”
Thirteenbern called out
“Give the child to the ships!”
And the sea came to her rescue
As word left the Bern’s lips.
PART II
THE SHIPWIFE
20
Those Who Are Cursed to Know the Future
Waves as monuments. Vast and cold, brutal, and ugly. Waves washing over all sound and sight and sense. Waves leaving you breathless. Waves leaving you gasping. Unstoppable, agonising waves.
The hands coming closer and she tries to shy away, turning her head, straining the muscles in her neck, pushing her cheek against the hard wood of the chair. The desperate need to escape the coming pain meeting her own stubborn n
eed to deny this woman anything. Waves crashing in her throat, they drown any sense. The noise that comes out of her mouth is a guttural “Nnn, nnn, nnn” as she stretches and the bindings holding her tight dig into her wrists and ankles.
“Come, come, Meas,” says the hagpriest. “Do not worry, do not fear. I will not hurt you today.” Words that mean nothing.
Nothing.
How many times has she said that before, only to change her mind and bring out the wrap of tools and cast Meas into the sea of red, drowning in the agony of pincers and blades and hot metal? “Come, Meas, be good and do as I ask.” So gentle and soft and yet she cannot. Only when the last word comes, a harsh bark – “Behave!” – does she stop struggling. Give in. Let her muscles relax and her body sag in the wooden chair stained dark by what feels like a lifetime of shed blood. Her blood.
Gentle hands unwrap the bandages around her head. The woman talking all the while.
“I only wish to look at the cavity, Meas. To ensure there is no infection.” A smile. “It would not do to be losing you now, would it? When we are so close to our goal?”
“I’ve told you everything I know.” Beaten words fall from her lips. The bandage pulls away from her face, skin sticky with dried blood and the unguents they have treated her with after…
Just after.
“It’s remarkable really, how well the socket is healing. Losing an eye has killed more than one who I’ve been through it with. But they were weak. And you were not weak, were you? You were a strong woman.” The hagpriest sits back. Smiles at her. “You’ve been a real challenge.”
“I’ve told you everything I know.”
“The other eye though,” she says, “that’s where the real truth lies.” She sits up straighter on her stool. “Because you know the pain now, but you not only have the pain to fear. You have the fear of being completely blinded.” She leans forward. “You must be frightened that I will take the other eye, surely?”
Is she?
Maybe. But pain no longer holds any fear, it is her life now. Her every day and maybe it always has been. And a life of darkness? Well, what does she have to look at here? She knows the hagpriest wants her to say yes but she isn’t really frightened, not any more. Fear has passed, been burned away along with the hope of anyone taking pity or turning up to save her. She is nothing now, a husk. A dead woman without even the comfort of a black ship’s slate to stand on or the Hag’s fire to warm her.
“Yes,” she says.
“Good, that fear will save you a lot of pain.” A hand takes her hair, pulls her head back. A knife point wavers in front of her eye.
“Now, unless you want to join the gullaime, stumbling blindly about with a leaf mask over your face, then tell me the truth. How do you raise a keyshan?”
A tear runs from her one good eye.
“Joron Twiner. Joron Twiner and the Gullaime aboard Tide Child – the one they call Windseer – they have that power, not I. It is the truth, I can say nothing else. You must believe me.” A moment, the pressure on her hair increases until she expects the hagpriest to tear it out. The knife comes closer.
Then it is gone, her hair released.
“I do,” says the hagpriest, and she picks up a damp cloth, cleans her slender hands with it. “I do believe you. So we won’t be meeting quite as often.” She puts the cloth down. “We still will be meeting, don’t you worry about that.” She leans in close and puts a cold hand on Meas’s cheek.
“Just end this,” says Meas. The hagpriest’s face twists in confusion.
“End this? Now? Oh Meas, you are too important to be ended.” She leans in close, to whisper like a lover into her ear. “There are people who will do anything for you. Anything. Such loyalty, such love.” She leans back and turns, picking up some clean bandage and wadding. “And that makes you important to us. I will be taking the best care of you now. The best. And who knows, Meas, maybe soon you will have some company?”
21
No Safe Harbour for the Dead
Joron sat with Brekir on the great grey blocks of Sparehaven harbour in the Gaunt Islands, both as miserable as a pair of shipwives could be. Tide Child sat before them, propped up by bone and stone on the dry dock, and if ever a ship had looked sadder than Tide Child Joron had never seen it.
“He looks,” said Brekir, “as though you fought every ship the Hundred Isles had then found some others to fight afterwards, and came off worst in every battle.”
Joron smiled to himself beneath the cover on his face, felt the sores sting. There was both humour and truth in Brekir’s words. What she said was true; poor Tide Child had sprung bones in his hull, his three spines were cut down by half, his wings ripped. It had taken all they had to limp back to Sparehaven, leaking and wallowing, creaking and snapping, and not one member of the crew ever getting to rest for long days and longer weeks. Now the ship sat there, black paint flaking away to expose the yellowing bone below, awaiting permission from Tenbern Aileen, leader of the Gaunt Islands, for work to start on him to restore some of his glory.
“I tell you, Brekir, I would face every ship in the Thirteenbern’s fleet with my bare hands if it meant I never saw a toothreach again. I have never seen such a thing. I would rather have faced the ghosts of the dead that Farys was sure waited in the mist.”
“But now all are talking about how a keyshan saved you, Joron. So long you have tried to keep your secret but now it is out.” Joron let out a short laugh, almost a cough.
“How unfair, Brekir, that I have spent so much time guarding my secret, never singing to the keyshans when they may have helped, and now the secret is out by pure bad luck.”
“You did not call it then?” she said, and he shook his head.
“For truth, I did not even consider it. I was so scared I could barely move. I think the creature was simply hunting.”
“Or watching out for you.”
He shook his head. “No, I do not think it even knew we were there. Had it rolled a little to landward, breached and fallen a little to seaward then I would dine with the Hag now and Tide Child would lie in pieces at the bottom of the sea.” They sat a little in silence, listening to the skeers call. “But that will not matter, word will get out.”
“Well, Joron, let us put keyshans aside and look to our present predicament,” said Brekir. “Do you wish the good news or the bad news?”
“What news could be worse, than that bad luck may have doomed the shipwife?”
“Joron,” said Brekir, putting a hand on his arm, “remember, any talk of a keyshan’s rising on your word must escape Sparehaven first, then make its way across the sea to Bernshulme.”
“Ey,” said Joron and he picked a bit of grit from the stone they sat on, threw it at a scavenging kivelly which ran from them squawking its dismay, causing panic in its flock which swiftly followed it down into their burrows. “We have a little time, that is all. But I have heard nothing that will help us find Meas from those I pay, and the Tenbern will not see me. Word will get back.”
“Then,” she said, “should we not concentrate on what we can control, rather than peer into the mists of the future and worry about what we cannot?”
“Huh,” he nodded to himself. “What does it come to when gloomy Brekir must cheer me?” He stretched aching muscles. “Well if you have bad news then I would have that medicine sugared, if you will, Shipwife,” said Joron.
“The good news is we can afford to refit Tide Child, and supply our fleet.”
“And the bad news?”
“It will cost us every coin we have taken from every raid and every battle; there will be nothing left after. The Gaunt Islanders know we have nowhere else to go and charge accordingly.” Joron lifted his one-tail and scratched at his forehead where some insect had bitten him.
“We can always take more.”
“Taking has become harder and harder, Joron, you know that. Our fleet has gone from twenty to twelve in the last four raids. We must go further to find targets, and th
ose targets are better protected. Thirteenbern Gilbryn makes a ring of hard bone around what she has left. If we continue as we are, we will break upon it.”
Joron sat up a little straighter on the rock they perched upon. Let out a sigh at this unpleasant truth. He almost spoke, almost said something then realised there was little to be said and changed the subject.
“How are our people?” he asked. Brekir shrugged.
“As expected. The Gaunt Islanders treat them with suspicion, overcharge them for food and choose them last for employment. Even when they find work it is the jobs no one else wants. There have been fights between them and us, and we must be harsher with our people than they are with theirs, as we are guests. There is growing resentment on both sides.” She leaned in closer to him. “Until now, we have eased that resentment with money, but to refit our fleet and fix Tide Child, that will leave us no longer able to do so.”
“Meas once told me there are only hard choices for a shipwife.”
“Then you will finally take up the two-tail?” she asked, and he felt a sudden shock, a sudden coldness. A sudden shame at his words, that he had put himself in Meas’s place.
“No, Brekir, a figure of speech is all.” She nodded her head, but didn’t look at him. “There must be ways we can save money.”
“There is one main one.”
“What is that?”
“Tide Child,” she said.
“What of it?”
“That is where the bulk of our coin goes. We could buy a new ship for two thirds of what they will charge us to refit him.”
“There are no new ships,” he said.
“Not yet,” said Brekir, and she did not look at him. “The other option is not to fix him fully. Make him watertight, ey. But you can move your command to another ship. Take Chiver’s vessel, his crew can barely stand him and would welcome it. Then we move our people onto Tide Child and use him for transport.”
