by Mike Brooks
Her shout caught the attention of the entirety of the Krayk’s Teeth, and probably carried across the water to several other ships as well. Zhanna’s mouth snapped shut, although her eyes still blazed. Saana wanted to shout at herself for losing her temper so quickly, but she felt like she’d been dancing on coals for days now. Given everything that depended on her, it was a miracle she hadn’t snapped and ordered anyone thrown overboard yet. She composed herself, straightened, and put on what she thought of as her most chiefly expression.
“If you won’t listen to your mother, listen to your chief,” she said flatly. “I do not expect the Flatlanders to step aside for us, but I won’t have a battle unless there’s no choice. How many Unblooded do we have?”
“Nineteen,” Zhanna responded immediately, “unless the Dark Father took anyone in the crossing.”
Saana nodded. She’d known the answer, but she liked to make sure her daughter was paying attention. “That’s eighteen others as eager to prove themselves as you are. I want you to take command of them.”
Zhanna’s expression slipped from defiant to stunned. “I… What?”
“I can’t ask a Blooded fighter to lead you,” Saana explained, “but this is no ordinary raid. I need the Unblooded to hold until we know a fight’s inevitable; you can’t just charge the moment we reach the shore. You’re the chief’s daughter. I need you to hold them until I give the word.”
Zhanna was doing a creditable impersonation of a freshly landed fish, judging by the way her mouth was opening and closing. “But… but what if they don’t listen to me?”
Saana snorted. “I ask myself that question every night and morning, and have done so since the witches named me chief.” She turned and sat cross-legged on the deck beside the fearsome figurehead, a likeness of the black-scaled Father Krayk himself, and beckoned Zhanna down to her. After a moment her daughter joined her, staring out towards the dark shore from the other side of their god’s carved neck.
“I remember what it’s like to be Unblooded,” Saana said, loud enough to be heard over the kiss of the waves against the hulls, but not enough to carry to the rest of the crew. “You’re full of fire on the ship, but the closer you get to shore the more your stomach starts jumping, like you’ve swallowed a live eel.”
Zhanna said nothing, but judging by the set of her mouth, she wasn’t disagreeing.
“You won’t be alone,” Saana continued. “They’ll all feel the same, near enough. Some will hide it better, and the ones who boast the loudest will probably feel it the worst, and there might be one who genuinely won’t have a drop of fear in them. Normally the one you’d least expect, at that.” She sighed. “What I’m saying is, when it comes down to it, there’s very few who want to run into a fight. They all want to be Blooded, right enough, but if there was an easier way, most would take it. And that gives you what you need to know to hold them.”
Zhanna looked at her, understanding dawning. “If they get told not to fight, it’s not their fault if they don’t fight?”
“Exactly,” Saana replied, smiling slightly as she leaned across to look her daughter in the eyes. “Yell at them to hold. Curse at them to hold. Make it obvious you think they’re on the verge of ignoring you and charging the Flatlanders. Use my name, and curse that name too. The louder you shout, the less their courage can be questioned, and the more you curse me the less yours can be.”
Zhanna nodded. “And while I’m yelling and cursing, what will you be doing?”
Saana grimaced. “I’ll be trying to talk to whoever I can talk to.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
Saana sighed. “You’ll be blooded.”
They sat there together for a time, rocked by the swell and watching the land grow larger. Saana was just about to suggest they should make their final preparations when Zhanna spoke again.
“What are they like, these Flatland fighters?”
“You’re better off asking one of the raiders,” Saana said. “You know I only came—”
“I have asked them. Now I’m asking you.” Zhanna’s voice wasn’t aggressive, merely firm.
“It depends,” Saana admitted. “There shouldn’t be many real fighters here. They’ll have metal weapons, but probably won’t know how to use them. There could be a couple of hunters with bows, perhaps. But the proper warriors, the sars…” She tasted the foreign word on her tongue and grimaced. “They’re monsters wrapped in steel and sorcery.
“Even when they’re not riding those dragons of theirs, they’re incredibly dangerous. The one time I came here, I saw one of them fighting on foot. His beast had been brought down, but he kept going. He shrugged off javelins and axe blows as though they were nothing, then swung his sword and opened a lad up, crotch to ribcage.” Her mouth twisted as images flashed up unbidden into her mind, and the salt on her lips suddenly tasted like blood instead of seawater. She’d been near the front of the charge. “They’re dangerous even if their swords are sheathed, remember that. They can draw and cut in one move, and their blades are sharp enough to take your head clean off.”
“But they’re slow?” Zhanna asked. “In all that steel?”
“Not as slow as you’d want,” Saana said grimly.
“And what about the dragons?” Zhanna asked, her voice suddenly small. “Is it true they can fly?”
Saana laughed with sudden relief. “No! Not the ones they ride, anyway. No, their dragons are huge, and terrifying, but they walk on land like us.” She pointed ahead of them. “That’s why we’re approaching through the marsh. They won’t take their dragons into the soft ground, they’re too heavy. If we have to take the town by force…” She grimaced. “Dragons at close quarters are horrific, but it’s more dangerous for them too, penned in between buildings. They can’t turn easily, can’t build up so much speed, can’t cover each other’s backs. You can get close and take them down, if you’re brave, and lucky. No, the place you don’t want to be against dragon riders is on firm ground, in the open. Then, you’re dead.”
“But—”
Saana held up a hand to forestall further questions. “Get your axe and shield. We have no more time.” She put one hand on her daughter’s shoulder as Zhanna turned to go and leaned close again, her stomach clenching, because no matter how long she’d known what this day would mean it was only now that she truly understood. “I know you’ll do yourself proud. Just remember…” She hesitated, reluctant to voice the words, then pushed them out. “Remember, that doesn’t have to include dying on a sar’s blade, or a dragon’s horn.”
Zhanna just rolled her eyes and shook Saana’s hand off, then returned to where her axe lay. All around, the Brown Eagle clan were readying their weapons and shields. Thankfully, the less experienced were taking their lead from seasoned raiders, and everyone was moving purposefully.
Saana caught the eye of Ristjaan the Cleaver, who was shrugging his barrel chest into his armour. He settled the shirt of sea leather in place and greeted her with his usual insouciant grin as she made her way to where he stood by the deckhouse. “Still can’t keep your eyes off me, eh chief?”
“Someone needs to make sure you don’t fall into the water, sheep-brain,” Saana laughed. She and Ristjaan had been friends since childhood, and she thanked the winds he’d never steered wrong since she’d been chief. She wouldn’t have enjoyed confronting him.
“Sheep-brain?” He wrinkled his nose at her, and the darkened scars on his lumpy, battered face pulled at his features. “I’ve clearly gone up in your thoughts. You called me a ‘pestilent goat-fucker’ before we set off.”
Saana nodded gravely. “I did. I was…” She paused, trying to verbalise the sheer strain of organising the migration of an entire clan; adults, children, animals and supplies, as well as dealing with the final, desperate arguments of those who wouldn’t or couldn’t accept it had come to this. “Busy,” she said finally.
Ristjaan’s ripping laugh sounded mean and mocking, even when it wasn’t. “Busy? You
were trimming the sails on the greatest damned voyage the clan’s ever taken! No one’s done anything like this, Saana, no one. Not since the Great Voyage, if that even ever happened.”
“Which means there’s uncountable ways we can still fuck it up,” Saana muttered. She slipped past him into the deckhouse where supplies were stored, and reached for her cured sealskin wrapping. The layers folded away under her hands to reveal her own sea leather jerkin, dark grey and scaled, and the precious steel sword her father had brought back from one of the great cities to the east.
“Still trusting to that dagger, eh?” Ristjaan asked from the doorway. His tone was jovial, but it held a serious note that Saana knew well. Ristjaan’s huge, straight-bladed steel axe, with a cutting edge a foot and a half in length, had given him his name. Nalon had said it reminded him of the tools his Flatland kin used to butcher meat, and Ristjaan had taken that description to heart. There were a few steel weapons scattered here and there through the clan, proceeds of trade or raids, but most used more traditional tools of war. Javelins and slings did for ranged work. Up close, the trusty blackstone axe, the flat length of wood with a deep groove around its edge into which were inserted shards of blackstone, darker than night and sharper than the dawn. However, the sword was all Saana had left of her father, Uzhan.
“How I choose to fight is none of your concern,” she told him, trying to match his tone, but she could hear her own defensiveness.
“How my friend fights may be her business,” Ristjaan conceded, lowering his voice, “but how my chief fights…” He squatted down beside her as she unfolded her sea leather. “You shouldn’t be fighting at all, but if you do, why use a sword? Swords are for people who know how to use them. With all the love I bear you, Saana, you are not one of those people.”
She glared at him. “You of all people should know better than to tell me I can’t do something.”
“Saana, this crossing is your doing,” Ristjaan said earnestly. “Every one of us is here because of you. If we reach this shore and then you fight and you die… Any clan can lose a chief, but this clan cannot afford to lose you, not now. If we lose your vision before we’ve settled, we’ll splinter like a cheap shield.”
Saana stood up, her armour in her arms. “The sars rule here, and they all use swords once they’re off their dragons; they seem to think the sword is a leader’s weapon.” She raised her arms, letting the krayk hide slide down over her. “Since women don’t rule in the Flatlands, and I have no dragon, I need something to make them think I speak for our clan.”
“The Flatlanders are mad, Saana,” Ristjaan said sadly. “Even Nalon thinks so, and he was born there.”
She snorted. “Well, I never said this was going to be easy, did I?”
JEYA
THE COURT OF the Deities on Grand Mahewa was rammed with people despite the heat, and the storm clouds brewing to the south. Stone columns carved in honour of the gods looked down from four of the court’s five sides, but today was sacred to just one: Jakahama of the Crossing, shē who’d lashed hēr boat together from the bones and tendons of the dead, and transported the first souls from the Grey Lands to the Garden, where the worthy could finally rest. Not everyone in Kiburu ce Alaba worshipped hēr, but enough did that the huge space was filled with a hundred hundreds, or so Jeya thought.
This many people clustered together would normally be perfect targets for theft, but Jeya knew better than to do such a thing where all the gods were watching. Hér chance would come later, when the celebrations finished and revellers streamed back homewards.
“Can yóu see, little one?” Nabanda asked. Hê used the low feminine tone to hér, which was the one shé usually preferred.
“Not really,” Jeya admitted, scrutinising the wall of backs in front of hér. Shé’d always been small for hér age, and it seemed shé wouldn’t be growing any taller. That came in handy for thievery, but had drawbacks, such as trying to see the temple occupying the entire fifth side of the Court.
“Up yóu get, then,” Nabanda said. Hîs tone was grudging, but Jeya knew hê wouldn’t have made the offer had hê not been genuine about it. Nabanda half-squatted and shé scrambled like a monkey onto hîs back, so when hê stood up again shé could see over hîs shoulder. Shé heard a murmur of discontent from behind, but ignored it. The Court of the Deities was no place to start a squabble, and it was very unwise to start a squabble with Nabanda in any place.
“Are yôu sure yôu’ll be able to hold mé up?” Jeya asked, hér legs around his waist and hér arms loose around hîs neck. Shé used the low masculine tone to hîm, his usual preference, which shé knew would have confused many foreigners who came to the sea docks where Nabanda worked. A lot could understand Alaban, but not the meanings behind the words: they tended to assume a certain size or body shape—or societal position—always correlated to a particular gender. They almost always thought Nabanda was high masculine, and even addressed hîm as such without permission. But that was foreigners for you. How could they think to tell someone’s gender just by looking at them?
“Yóu weigh nothing, little one,” Nabanda laughed, hîs deep voice vibrating against hér chest. “Î’ve carried heavier loads for a mile when the ships come in.”
“Yôu’re strong as an ox, Nabanda,” Jeya said in hîs ear.
“And twice as smart!” hê replied jovially. Jeya was about to make a joke in return, but a ripple of noise ran through the gathered crowd.
“Hush now!” shé told hîm. “They’re coming!”
Sure enough, there was movement on the third level of the temple’s five-tiered walls of dark stone, carved into bas-relief depictions of the deities. A bright splash of colour appeared: the High Priest of the Hundred, clad in a sky cape of shimmering feathers from the birds of the forests that cloaked the high places of the archipelago, and the mainland on either side. Following them were all seven Hierarchs, in scarlet maijhi and vivid blue karung. Jeya chewed hér lip and eyed the brilliant clothes enviously. Such colours!
And then, a respectful distance behind, came the Splinter King and hìs family.
They wore the impractical, ground-trailing robes of Naridan royalty, the tails held up by young Alabans following gracefully. Each one—the king, the queen, the adult masculine child and the younger feminine child—wore masks that caught the light even at this distance. Jeya had never seen one up close, but they were rumoured to be breathtakingly intricate silverwork inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and studded with precious stones. A few years ago shé’d hatched an idiotic plan to steal one, until Ngaiyu had pointed out the obvious flaw: no one knew who the Splinter King’s family were. If they wore those masks away from the public events, no one had ever seen them. “And do yóu think yóu could take one from their faces in front of the Court of the Deities?” Ngaiyu had asked, with a throaty laugh.
There was little hope of that. Even had Jeya not been wary of offending the deities, or of thieving in front of a hundred hundred people, the Splinter King was guarded at all times by at least four of the Hierarchs’ best warriors. They took up their positions now, and Jeya saw a hookbill axe, a pair of crutch blades and the glint of double crescent knives. It had been years since the last Naridan assassination attempt, but the Hierarchs still took the safety of their guests very seriously.
“Look at them,” Nabanda said quietly. “Foreign beggars in fancy clothes, standing next to our leaders.”
“The Naridans think the Splinter King is a god,” Jeya pointed out.
“Most Naridans think hè’s an imposter,” Nabanda retorted. “That’s why hè’s hiding here, instead of ruling there.” Hê used the high masculine tone for the Splinter King because, with typical foreign crudeness, the genders of the Naridan royals were common knowledge.
Someone made a shushing noise. The Priest of the Hundred was raising their arms, and the crowd did the same. Jeya didn’t join in, for fear of falling backwards, but Nabanda did. It wasn’t a requirement to clap, but was considered good manners. Folk
at the back of the Court would be hard-pressed to even see the priest, let alone sing in time, and the prayer to Jakahama should begin as much in unison as possible.
The priest brought their hands together, and the Court of the Deities did the same, with a reverberating boom as loud as any of the storms that regularly battered the Throat of the World. The crowd lurched into motion and song, and Jeya slid off Nabanda’s back to give hér friend greater freedom of movement. Hê plunged into the crowd, hîs hands coming together in another clap as the next great beat emerged. Jeya didn’t follow hîm. Everyone found their own way in the prayer dance for Jakahama, so shé turned and dived into the press of bodies around hér, hér voice raised in song and hér eyes searching for the path that would open for hér through the crowd.
THE STORM WASHED Grand Mahewa with sweeps of blood-warm rain. Jeya danced under the roaring sky until the god reached out from the Garden and took hold of hér, guiding hér steps, and shé was throwing hér head back to catch great fat drops on hér tongue and letting them soak hér to the skin, plastering hér maijhi to hér body.
Shé didn’t know how long it was before Jakahama released hér again, but suddenly hér calves were burning and hér voice was hoarse, and hér steps, so certain mere moments before, were clumsy and ponderous. Others kept moving and clapping and singing, either still being ridden by Jakahama or still hoping to achieve it, but Jeya knew hér dance was done. Shé wove her way to the edge of the Court on slightly unsteady legs, then out into the streets beyond.
There were plenty of people who hadn’t been worshipping, of course. Kiburu ce Alaba was the great melting pot of the world, or so Jeya had always heard it described, and more than a hundred deities had been brought here by its peoples. There were dark-skinned Morlithians from the far west beyond the Catseye Mountains, who marvelled at all the rain, and even darker-skinned Adranians from the deserts of the east who complained about it, since it washed away the colourful powders with which they painted their faces. There were the leather-skinned sailing tribes of the northern seas and the small, lithe-bodied fishing folk from the islands to the south, the kind that were highly prized as slaves by the wealthy. There were sober-faced Naridans with their coppery skin and their strange man-god, and even a few of the tall, salt-pale savages from the far south, who suffered the most when the sky was clear and the sun was fierce. People said the sea sometimes turned white, cold and hard where they came from, and the sun disappeared for days at a time, although Jeya was sure that was a spirit tale for children.
