The Bone Ship's Wake

by Rj Barker

  “Good, Joron Twiner,” said the Gullaime. “Good be here. Good be here.”

  “Do you hear the song, Gullaime?” he said, and he stared at the spire. This one was huge, almost entirely straight and bright white, though it had a gentle twist to it when he looked more closely As he stared the Gullaime started to hum a gentle tune, and that tune twisted up around him, filled him. Set him feeling warm and tall and strong and he wanted to give voice to it. Did he imagine it? Or as he opened his mouth did the soil tremble beneath his feet, did the windspire sway slightly? Did he hear a voice? No. Not a human voice, not words of any description he was capable of. It was more a feeling of longing, a desperate, lonely and sad longing. Let me wake. Did he feel the itch of parasitic tunir, moving across his skin? Did he feel the weight of the rock and soil above him? The almost imperceptible sound of small creatures moving upon it? Did he long for freedom with all his heart, long to tear and rend and…

  “Gullaime, stop,” he said. Found himself on his knees before the windspire. The Gullaime before him, similarly prostrated, and he felt Cwell at his back. Saw Madorra from the corner of his eye and knew the creature to be full of delight. “Hag’s teeth,” said Joron, “I almost…”

  “Not do, not do,” said the Gullaime, and it sounded frightened, terrified. “Not Windseer.”

  “Is Windseer!” screeched Madorra. “Is Caller! Is almost end! Is almost fire and almost blood!”

  “No!” said the Gullaime. “Not yours, give back, what not yours!” It sounded so furious Joron expected the Gullaime to fly at Madorra but it did not, only sat there meekly. Joron put his hand to his waist, found the handle of his straightsword.

  “Does Madorra hold something over you, Gullaime? Have something you need? For you are a friend to me, and I would not have that.” As he finished speaking, Madorra hissed at him, spread its stubby wings apart and the fighting claws on its feet extended.

  “Not hurt!” screeched the Gullaime at the moment Joron was about to draw his blade. “Not hurt!” Joron watched Madorra, and did he see a shine of triumph in its eye when the Gullaime put itself between it and Joron? He cursed the day they had brought the creature aboard, and he was tempted, in this quiet place, to strike it down anyway. But the Gullaime was his friend, and it had asked him not to, and their ways and society were not his. So he would honour its wishes. He removed his hand from his blade.

  “Do you wish to stay a little, Gullaime?” he said.

  “Yes yes,” it said, and went to squat in the hollow at the base of the spine. Joron and Cwell sat at the edge of the clearing, which the growing gion and varisk yearned to fill, but which they could not as some strange power of the spine held the vegetation back. Joron sat, enjoying the slow encroachment of night as the Gullaime rested within the windspire, but the enjoyment did not last. He began to fancy he could feel the shifting of the great beast entombed within the rock. A horror slowly growing within him, at the thought of being stuck beneath a mountain. He remembered clawing his way through caves with Narza, the shipwife’s shadow, and the terrible feeling of rock pressing down on him. He tried to shake that thought, of the slowness of time passing while held within the island, as if in a tomb. How long had those keyshans been there? For time beyond thinking; these islands must have existed when Hassith the spearthrower had killed Skearith the godbird, and given birth to a strife that had persisted ever since. They had been witness to the Maiden, Mother and Hag, who watched over the archipelago, being gifted the gullaime. To be stuck for so long, it was beyond bearing. He took a deep breath. Distracted himself by wondering where Narza was now; she had left the ship soon after they had been forced to leave Meas. Quietly slipped away in the night and Joron had hoped, each time he docked Tide Child, that she would be there with news of the shipwife, but it had never happened. No doubt Narza was either out there now, trying to free Meas, or dead in the same endeavour.

  “Windtalker has finished its sleep,” said Cwell. Joron looked up, saw the Gullaime emerging from the windspire to the attentions of a fussy Madorra.

  “We should make our way down to the harbour, no doubt the shipwives are gathered by now and waiting on my appearance.” He stood, brushed dirt from his trousers and coat. “Let us make our way back then.” They walked down the hill, and much to his chagrin in places the slope was steep enough that Joron had to take Cwell’s arm to ensure he did not overbalance. “I can stand straight on heaving deck, Cwell,” he said, “but gravel and mud are no place for a one-legged man.”

  “Land is not our place, D’keeper,” she said. Then raised her head. “Reckon we’re not the only ones thinking it.”

  In the field that women and men had been clearing earlier was now a group, huddled together around a small fire. When they saw Joron, Cwell and the two gullaime they stood, left the field and spread out across the path. Joron counted eight. Five women, three men; the woman who stood at the fore of them was well dressed and wore a hat. In the gloom Joron was not sure if it was a one-tail or two-tail, though he was sure they were an officer.

  “May the Hag never see you, Shipwife,” said Joron, for if the officer was not a shipwife he complimented them, and if they were he was merely correct.

  “The Hag is always watching, pirate,” said their leader, and a little nearer Joron could make out they were a deckkeeper, grizzled and scarred – much older than Joron. He recognised her as a type, the type who would never rise above deckkeeper, maybe didn’t deserve the rank but had been about so long they had finished up in it. Bitter and angry, he had met those like her among the deckchilder of his small fleet. The ones who had been officers but had been too cruel, or lashed out at those above them and ended up as deckchilder on the black ships. They seldom lasted long without the uniform, and when they had the uniform they were wont to gather around them similar souls, like skeers flocking to carrion.

  “My rank is deckkeeper,” he said politely. “I would thank you to use it.”

  “Is that what tha Tenbern calls tha?”

  “She called me shipmother, though I think her too kind.” He saw how it wrong-footed the woman, how it was not the answer she expected and how this simply wound her tighter within.

  “She is one for sarcasm,” the woman said, grinning to those around her and Joron knew there was little point in civility now. This deckkeeper had set a course and meant to fly it.

  “I am surprised you have met her,” said Joron. “Few rulers invite aged deckkeepers to their table.” A stillness fell upon the woman and her group.

  “Careful with tha words, foreigner,” she said, “for tha is a guest on our island, and tha is not welcomed by all.” She took a step forward and Joron noticed she wore her sword. Those with her too were armed and he thought that strange for a group out doing farm work.

  “I am needed in the town, by the Tenbern as it happens,” he said. “So if you would kindly let us pass.” He made to walk past but two of the deckchilder, blocking their way.

  “Tha have done our islands a service,” said the deckkeeper, “is true. But tha also brought tha Hundred Isles vermin to us, and picked up the flotsam and jetsam that we would have let drown were it our way.”

  “Women and men are reborn on the black ships,” he said. “What is your name, Deckkeeper?”

  “Togir,” she said. “Deckkeeper Togir.”

  “Well, let us pass and I shall not mention your rudeness next I speak with the Tenbern. I am sure you have no wish to take up the black armband.”

  “Tha people are not wanted here,” she said. He stepped up to her.

  “Have you been ordered to tell me that?” She met his gaze, unafraid, a woman used to violence, the type to enjoy it, and Joron felt his heart racing within his chest. For he longed for the violence too, and then all the anger and the hurt within him could be released through it. But eight against four, and two of them gullaime, was poor odds.

  “There is a feeling in the town,” said Togir, “that were something unfortunate to happen to tha, it would be no
bad thing.” Joron put his hand to the hilt of his blade, slipping off the strand of kivelly leather that kept it secure as Togir’s people moved to surround them.

  “And you and your fellows, are you that unfortunate thing?”

  “We may well be,” she said, and stepped back, smiling all the while.

  “Eight of you, against four of us. And me a cripple, and two of us gullaime.” The gullaime also sensed the violence in the air, and Madorra had put itself before their gullaime, head cocked, one bright eye watching. He noticed that its fighting claws were not extended. Wondered if the creature saw this as a way to get rid of him. Though that made little sense, as it also seemed to think it needed him.

  “Tha may be crippled, and there may only be two of you, but tha are still the Black Pirate,” she said. “I do not discount tha skills, pirate. Tha are not needed, and tha people not wanted.”

  “Then why waste any more time?” said Joron, and as she drew her blade, those around her did the same. Joron brought his sword out and swept it around to his side. He did not lunge for the deckkeeper as she expected. His blade bit deep into the thigh of the deckchilder meant to take him from behind and the man fell, screaming and grasping his wound. He felt Cwell stand against his back, knew she would have her twin bone knives out. But there were too many still. Then the Gullaime lifted a foot and pushed Madorra out the way. With a screech it punched its wings forward and a blast of wind knocked the group of deckchilder from their feet. “Into them!” shouted Joron, and it was quick and filthy work. Two down before they could stand again. Now five against Joron, Cwell and the two gullaime. Madorra struck out, opening a man’s guts and his entrails looped around his feet as he stood there, watching open-mouthed, silent in his shock as agony. Cwell ran in among them. Though she held the same position as Narza she had none of that woman’s balletic skill in killing. Her fighting was dirty. She threw a handful of mud in a woman’s face and rammed a blade into her gut while she was blinded. Kicked out at a shin and when her kick missed, rather than backing out of the way of a sweeping curnow she threw herself onto her attacker, taking them both to the ground where their fight degenerated into grunting and swearing in the mud.

  Joron faced Deckkeeper Togir, their fight apart from the rest, as was often the way with officers. He was no born swordsman, and his missing leg hampered him, made him wary of his balance on the muddy ground. Swords clashed, not with great anger, not yet. Simply a test of each other. Joron practised every day, had done since the shipwife set him to learning the straightsword. He was quick enough to parry Togir’s second lunge and push his own sword into the space created. Togir parried back and they stepped away from each other, circled. Togir smiled at him. A confident smile. She had reason to be sure of herself, no doubt she had practised the straightsword from the moment she was strong enough to hold one, where Joron had only ever learnt what every Hundred Isles child learns, the rudimentary moves of the curnow, the quick and the brutal ways of the harboursides and of the deckchilder. Had this been a fencing match, Joron would no doubt have lost, but it was not. As they circled he studied Togir, saw that her straightsword was old – the blade gleamed, but the guard around the hilt was rusted, and the basket hilt broken in places. When Togir closed again, and lunged, he danced to the side, delivered a clumsy looking thrust and saw Togir smile, thinking in his panic he had thrust wide. She intercepted his attack easily.

  But that was her mistake, not his.

  The hiss of metal on metal as his blade slid down Togir’s, over where the basket would usually catch the blade and protect her thumb. Neatly slicing into the flesh there, cutting the tendon and making her drop her sword. A foul and lowborn move, no doubt. But Joron cared nothing for such things. He was the Black Pirate, he cared about winning and he cared about staying alive.

  Togir jumped back, holding her bleeding hand and saw that her entire group was down and either dead or screaming in the dirt.

  “I yield,” she said. “I yield.” Backing away from him as he came upon her, bloody sword held low.

  “I care not,” said Joron and the damage to his voicebox, done long ago, made it come out as a growl. And at that, Togir turned to run. Found Cwell stood in her way.

  “He said,” grinned Cwell, “that he cares not.” And she drove her blade through Togir’s throat and stepped back. Watched her bleed and choke to death. “Filthy business,” said Cwell. “And needless too.”

  “Ey,” said Joron, and he knelt to clean blood from his blade on the muddy ground. “Is it not often the way, though.”

  24

  Down Among the Desperate

  He sat in the great cabin aboard Snarltooth surrounded by his shipwives and wondered why any of them should answer to him. They had eaten, not well but better than most in his fleet, and now he must speak and say of the courses to be taken and the winds to be flown upon. How had this situation arisen? That he was the anointed of a woman who many of them believed was dead, and yet they did not move against him. They knew he was not Meas’s son, that he was only the child of a fisher and condemned to death like any other. Yet they hung upon his words as if the seniority was his and not theirs.

  But he could not hold that weight, not yet. He walked to the windows of Snarltooth, looked out upon the dark sea that gently lapped against the black bone of the hull. Out there, sitting beyond the confines of Sparehaven’s harbour, he could make out his fleet. The lights of nine fighting ships were reflected in the water – though no corpse light glowed above them, no children died for Meas’s fleet – with two more ships out on the seas in search of plunder and Tide Child on the dry dock for at least one more week. And two brownbones, empty now, as their people were camped on land – as unwelcome there as the ships were in the harbour.

  How strange, he thought, that a fisher’s boy should end up cradling so many lives in his hands. He had an image of his father, smiling at him. If you knew what I had done, he said to himself, you would not smile so. That thought soured him, and he turned away from his ships and the sea and back to those in the room: Brekir, standfast and serious; Coult, as vicious and angry looking as ever; Adrantchi, without his deckkeeper Black Ani, who had been lost earlier in the year, and something of Adrantchi had died that day too; Turrimore, dark skinned and all fight, waiting upon his pleasure and words.

  “A woman tried to kill me earlier,” he said. Four pairs of eyes watched him until Coult spoke.

  “As you stand afore us, I reckon they failed in that task,” he said, picking at his metal tooth with a fingernail.

  “And what was this?” said Adrantchi quietly. “Some argument over drink? Some matter of honour you settled with them?”

  “No. An ambush,” said Joron. “Had it not been for Cwell and the gullaime I would never have returned from Sparehaven’s windspire.”

  “We should tell the Tenbern,” said Brekir.

  “No,” said Joron.

  “You think she knew?” said Turrimore, her hand touching the knife at her side.

  “I do not, as it happens, but I also do not think she would be too sad were I to be killed in a brawl. We must face facts, shipwives. We are not popular here. We are not wanted.”

  “Then,” said Adrantchi, “the sooner the Tenbern helps us get Meas back the better, and we can be off her apron.”

  “The Tenbern will not help us take Bernshulme,” he said. All but Brekir looked shocked.

  “We are betrayed?” The look of anger on Coult’s face was a warning to how narrow the ledge he must walk was. These were his people now, they felt no loyalty to the Gaunt or Hundred Isles, and it would not take much more than an angry shipwife to send a crew of women and men, just as angry as those who had ambushed him, in search of a vengeance that could turn the entire Gaunt Islands against them.

  “Not betrayed, no,” he said. “Not as such.” He sat back down. “She will not attack Bernshulme directly; the defences on the isles that surround it are too strong.” He sighed. “Truthfully, I cannot disagree with her. She ma
y break most of her fleet upon Thirteenbern Gilbryn’s defences and lose all the advantage we have fought so hard to win her.”

  “Still sounds like a betrayal to me,” said Turrimore.

  “It is not,” said Joron, words hard. “She has said that if we can bring out the Hundred Isles fleet then she will take it on with her own.”

  “So we should smash our ships upon Thirteenbern Gilbryn’s defences instead of her?” said Adrantchi.

  “We cannot survive that,” said Coult. “We have barely survived our last few hit-and-runs. We have no choice now, Deckkeeper. Sing the keyshans to us and let us fly in at the head of an army of the beasts.”

  “I cannot do that, Coult, and even if I could the Thirteenbern would kill the shipwife the moment she became sure she did not need her.” He sat back down in Brekir’s chair. “And then our whole reason for attacking is wasted. We do not do this for revenge, or hatred, we do this to get her back.”

  “Ey,” said Brekir. “So what do you suggest?”

  “We take all of ours off this island,” he said. “They are not welcome here anyway. We load the brownbones with those who cannot fight; all those who can, we put on our fighting ships. We offer up everything we are as bait to bring out the Hundred Isles fleet for Tenbern Aileen.” He looked around the table, trying to read faces.

  “It will not be enough,” said Coult. “Even if Gilbryn knows we have every soul loyal to us aboard, she will not risk what is left of her fleet. The damage we have done has been too grievous and she is not foolish.”

  “You are probably right,” said Joron. “That is why we will give her something else worth chasing.”

  “And what is that, pray tell us?” said Adrantchi.

  “Meas.”

  “You said you did not know where she is,” said Turrimore.

  “And I do not,” he said. “But I know she must be in Bernshulme. So I intend to go there.” This caused such an outburst, such a shouting and braying that Joron was quite taken aback and held his hands up. “Peace, my shipwives, peace.”