by Rj Barker
“You sound… oddly excited about that.” Pruett looked askance at him.
Tibeau grinned.
Home was a sharp topic for every soldier in the Balladairan Colonial Brigade. There were those like Tibeau and Pruett, who had been taken from countries throughout the broken Shālan Empire when they were old enough to already have memories of family or the lack thereof, and then there were those like Touraine, who had been too young to remember anything but Balladaire’s green fields and thick forests.
No matter where in the Shālan Empire the conscripts were originally from, they all speculated on the purpose of their new post. There was excitement on the wind, and Touraine felt it, too. The chance to prove herself. The chance to show the Balladairan officers that she deserved to be a captain. Change was coming.
Even the Balladairan princess had come with the fleet. Pruett had heard from another conscript who had it from a sailor that the princess was visiting her southern colonies for the first time, and so the conscripts took turns trying to spot the young royal on her ship.
The order came to disembark, carried by shouts on the wind. Discipline temporarily disappeared as the conscripts and their Balladairan officers hoisted their packs and tramped down to Crocodile Harbor’s thronged streets.
People shouted in Balladairan and Shālan as they loaded and unloaded ships, animals in cages and animals on leads squawked and bellowed, and Touraine walked through it all in a daze, trying to take it in. Qazāl’s dirt and grit crunched beneath her army-issued boots. Maybe she did feel a spark of awe and curiosity. And maybe that frightened her just a little.
With a wumph, Touraine walked right into an odd tan horse with a massive hump in the middle of its back. She spat and dusted coarse fur off her face. The animal glared at her with large, affronted brown eyes and a bubble of spit forming at the corner of its mouth.
The animal’s master flicked his long gray-streaked hair back off his smiling face and spoke to Touraine in Shālan.
Touraine hadn’t spoken Shālan since she was small. It wasn’t allowed when they were children in Balladaire, and now it sounded as foreign as the camel’s groan. She shook her head.
“Camel. He spit,” the man warned, this time in Balladairan. The camel continued to size her up. It didn’t look like it was coming to any good conclusion.
Touraine grimaced in disgust, but beside her, Pruett snorted. The other woman said something short to the man in Shālan before turning Touraine toward the ships.
“What did you say?” Touraine asked, looking over her shoulder at the glaring camel and the older man.
“‘Please excuse my idiot friend.’”
Touraine rolled her eyes and hefted her pack higher onto her shoulders.
“Rose Company, Gold Squad, form up on me!” She tried in vain to gather her soldiers in some kind of order, but the noise swallowed her voice. She looked warily for Captain Rogan. If Touraine didn’t get the rest of her squad in line, that bastard would take it out on all of them. “Gold Squad, form up!”
Pruett nudged Touraine in the ribs. She pointed, and Touraine saw what kept her soldiers clumped in whispering groups, out of formation.
A young woman descended the gangway of another ship with the support of a cane. She wore black trousers, a black coat, and a short black cloak lined with cloth of gold. Her blond hair, pinned in a bun behind her head, sparked like a beacon in the night. Three stone-faced royal guards accompanied her in a protective triangle, their short gold cloaks blown taut behind them. Each of them had a sword on one hip and a pistol on the other.
Touraine looked from the princess to the chaos on the ground, and a growing sense of unease raised the short hairs on the back of her neck. Suddenly, the crowd felt more claustrophobic than industrious.
The man with the camel still stood nearby, watching with interest like the other dockworkers. His warm smile deepened the lines in his face, and he guided the animal’s nose to her, as if she wanted to pat it. The camel looked as unenthusiastic at the prospect as Touraine felt.
“No.” Touraine shook her head at him again. “Move, sir. Give us this space, if you please.”
He didn’t move. Probably didn’t understand proper Balladairan. She shooed him with her hands. Instead of reacting with annoyance or confusion, he glanced fearfully over her shoulder.
She followed his gaze. Nothing there but the press of the crowd, her own soldiers either watching the princess or drowsily taking in their new surroundings in the early-morning light. Then she saw it: a young Qazāli woman weaving through the crowd, gaze fixed on one blond point.
The camel man grabbed Touraine’s arm, and she jerked away.
Touraine was a good soldier, and a good soldier would do her duty. She didn’t let herself imagine what the consequences would be if she was wrong.
“Attack!” she bellowed, fit for a battlefield. “To the princess!”
The Qazāli man muttered something in Shālan, probably a curse, before he shouted, too. A warning to his fellow. To more of them, maybe. Something glinted in his hands.
Touraine spared only half a glance toward the princess. That was what the royal guard was for. Instead, she launched toward the camel man, dropping her pack instead of swinging it at him. Stupid, stupid. Instinct alone saved her life. She lifted her arms just in time to get a slice across her left forearm instead of her throat.
She drew her baton to counterattack, but instead of running in the scant moment he had, the old man hesitated, squinting at her.
“Wait,” he said. “You look familiar.” His Balladairan was suddenly more than adequate.
Touraine shook off his words, knocked the knife from his hand, and tripped him to the ground. He struggled against her with wiry strength until she pinned the baton against his throat. That kept him from saying anything else. She held him there, her teeth bared and his eyes wide while he strained for breath. Behind her, the camel man’s companions clashed with the other soldiers. A young woman’s high-pitched cry. The princess or the assassin?
The old man rasped against the pressure of the baton. “Wait,” he started, but Touraine pressed harder until he lost the words.
Then the docks went silent. The rest of the attackers had been taken down, dead or apprehended. The man beneath her realized it, too, and all the fight sagged out of him.
When they relieved her, she stood to find herself surrounded. The three royal guards, alert, swords drawn; a handful of fancy-looking if spooked civilians; the general—her general. General Cantic. And, of course, the princess.
Heat rose to her face. Touraine knew that some part of her should be afraid of overstepping; she’d just shat on all the rules and decorum that had been drilled into the conscripts for two decades. But the highest duty was to the throne of Balladaire, and not everyone could say they had stopped an assassination. Even if Touraine was a conscript, she couldn’t be punished for that. She hoped. She settled into the strength of her broad shoulders and bowed deeply to the princess.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Your Highness,” Touraine said, her voice smooth and low.
The princess quirked an eyebrow. “Thank you”—the princess looked to the double wheat-stalk pins on Touraine’s collar—
“Lieutenant…?”
“Lieutenant Touraine, Your Highness.” Touraine bowed again. She peeked at the general out of the corner of her eye, but the older woman’s lined face was unreadable.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Touraine, for your quick thinking.”
A small shuffling to the side admitted a horse-faced man with a dark brown tail of hair under his bicorne hat. Captain Rogan sneered over Touraine before bowing to the princess.
“Your Highness, I apologize if this Sand has inconvenienced you.” Before the princess could respond, Rogan turned to Touraine and spat, “Get back to your squad. Form them up like they should have been.”
So much for taking her chance to rise. So much for duty. Touraine sucked her teeth and saluted. “Yes, sir.”
And the others? Touraine looked back for another glimpse at the princess and found the other woman meeting her gaze. Touraine tugged the bill of her field cap and nodded before turning away, attempting to appear as unruffled as she could.
When Touraine returned to her squad, Pruett looked uncertain as Rogan handed the older man off to another officer, who led him and the young woman away. “I told you to be careful about attracting attention.”
Touraine smiled, even though her arm stung and blood leaked into her palm. “Attention’s not bad if you’re the hero.”
That did make Pruett laugh. “Ha! Hero. A Sand? I guess you think the princess wants to wear my shit for perfume, too.”
Touraine laughed back, and it was tinged with the same frustration and bitterness that talk of their place in the world always was.
This time, when she called for her squad to form up, they did. Gold Squad and the others pulled down their field caps and drew close their coats. The wind was picking up. The sun was rising. The Qazāli dockworkers bent their backs into their work again, but occasionally they glanced—nervous, scared, suspicious, hateful—at the conscripts. At Rogan’s order, she and the conscripts marched to their new posts.
Change was coming. Touraine aimed to be on the right side of it.
By RJ Barker
THE TIDE CHILD TRILOGY
The Bone Ships
Call of the Bone Ships
The Bone Ship’s Wake
THE WOUNDED KINGDOM
Age of Assassins
Blood of Assassins
King of Assassins
Praise for
The Bone Ships
“A vividly realized high-seas epic that pulls you deep into its world and keeps you tangled there until the very last word.”
—Evan Winter, author of The Rage of Dragons
“The Bone Ships is excellent. Aside from the standout writing, it’s one of the most interesting and original fantasy worlds I’ve seen in years.”
—Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning author
“The novel feels like one of Patrick O’Brian’s richly detailed sagas of seamanship.… A very promising beginning.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The first in The Tide Child Trilogy presents a unique and memorable world—harsh and brutal and full of sharply realized, powerful female characters. Barker has managed to craft a story inspired by Moby Dick, Game of Thrones, and pirate lore, and readers will be drawn in and fascinated.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“I absolutely loved it. A whole lot of swashbuckling awesomeness by RJ Barker. He has crafted a fascinating world and a twisty plot, both rooted in characters I came to care about. A definite winner for me.”
—John Gwynne, author of Malice
“Simultaneously gritty and full of a sense of wonder, The Bone Ships is the perfect adventure for anyone who’s ever had dreams of the sea—or of dragons.… An excellent book for any reader in search of a fantastical journey.”
—BookPage
“A viciously exciting adventure. I loved every second of it.”
—Tasha Suri, author of Empire of Sand
“An epic tale of duty and obligation and honor, and what bravery really means. I can’t recommend it enough.”
—Peter McLean, author of Priest of Bones
