He barely had time to regret the loss of the winecasks still in storage before Hernán shoved him over the side, and he fell, hard, into the bottom of one of the boats.
There were others in the boat with him, and leather-wrapped packets and canvas bags, crowding his space until he was pressed up against the side of the narrow craft. They were dangerously overladen, even he could tell that from how low they were riding in the water. The knowledge of what might lurk nearby seemed enough to keep every man of them inside, rather than taking his chances swimming.
Not that the longboat – barely twice a man’s length – would be any defense if one of the serpents decided to attack. The beast he had seen could swallow the longboat whole without choking.
“Row, you fools!” someone shouted, and several of the crewsmen grabbed oars, and began to move the craft away from the ladysong, heading toward Harini’s ship, its sails run up but loose, awaiting the signal to go. He could see figures at the railing, calling them in, but their own longboats remained shipped. The refugees needed to reach them; help would not be coming, not while the serpents remained.
He craned his neck to see if Hernán had made it to the next boat. As Shipsmaster, he would have claim to the first seat available, surely. But he could not tell who was in the remaining boats.
Not all would fit. The longboats were for transport, not escape, and there simply weren’t enough. Even now, some sailors were leaping into the water, abandoning the ship in the most direct fashion.
And then a wedge-shaped head rose from the water; not the leader he had seen before but another one, with a smaller head and no whiskers, and-
Bradhai looked away.
There were too many men in the water now, swimming toward the other ship.Some of them ignored the longboats, while others tried to grapple with the sides, begging to be hauled up.
Looking away and hating himself for it, Bradhai saw something else not too far away, cutting through the water’s surface: triangular fins, grey as clouds and moving just as quickly
“Say nothing,” a voice said in his ear, the breath foul with onions and rotted teeth.
Bradhai nodded. It seemed immeasurably cruel, but creating more panic would save no-one. The longboat rocked uncomfortably as they rowed against the wind, and someone screamed.
He looked, unable to resist this time, and the water a distance away was murky with blood. A sour taste rose into his throat, and the taste of spellwine flooded his senses. He hugged his belongings to him more closely, terrified that someone might try to toss them overboard, to make more room.
Growspells and aetherspells were no use, here. His blood-magic could not do enough, and he dared not try for the firewine – even if he could focus long enough to recall the decantation, he had no idea how to direct it without also endangering the wooden boat he was in, far more flammable than any serpent or shark. And the other ship – they were close enough now that he could see the ropes thrown down the side, ladders dangling, if they could just get near enough to reach. Sailors hung over the rails, shouting encouragement.
Then the watchers raised their heads, distracted, pointing and shouting, and there was a noise behind them that he could not describe. Knowing he should not, Bradhai turned the upper half of his body to look back, just in time to see the rear half of the ladysong turned end-up to the sky, while the front half sank, the water’s surface littered with broken masts and sails. Someone behind him panicked then, flailing wildly and making the boat rock hard enough that water flooded over the rim, filling the bottom of the boat. Bradhai pulled his feet up, trying to balance on the narrow bit of seat he had been able to hang onto, and felt himself tip over.
He had two choices: let go of the wineskins and grab hold, or fall overboard.
The water hit him before he was aware that he had made a choice.
o0o
Harini watched the disaster unfold with an odd but familiar sense of calm, while those around her went into a panic. She was concerned for those on the Iajan ship, of course. She wished no harm to anyone, and the Vineart had seemed an interesting man, if wrongheaded about many things. But there was simply so much to see that she found herself slipping into the same sort of detachment useful when observing creatures: patient and still, with no need to actually do anything, because there was nothing to do. Nothing but wait, and watch. When the alarm sounded, she had brought a spyglass with her, and now focused the tube on the Iajan ship.
There were at least four serpents circling under the other ship: she counted the heads as they rose and dove, marking the differences in each one. Three did not have the great whiskers, one did.
“A male, and his females,” she decided. Had the fifth one they had seen before had whiskers? She thought it had. A younger male, then, still allowed to tag along with its mother? Or a junior male, not allowed to breed? There was so much she didn’t know, so much she couldn’t know, the frustration made her grind her teeth.
“Harini! Hold this!” And the solitaire shoved one end of a rope into her hands, knocking the horrifyingly expensive spyglass to the deck. Harini opened her mouth to protest even as she took the rope, then was struck speechless when the solitaire put one hand on the railing of the ship and leapt over, dropping straight down into the water with a heavy splash.
The rope in Harini’s hands played out, and she had to make a conscious decision to hold onto it as the knotted end came up, the rough fibers scraping against her palms and fingers. The weight at the other end was more than she could maintain, and she backed up, pulling until her shoulders and arms burned. It wasn’t enough, she could feel her grip loosening as her palms sweated. But the Solitaire was at the other end of that rope. She had gone into the water for some reason. Rini knew she had to hold on.
A sailor passed by, intent on some other chore, and she called to him, her voice cracking from disuse and dryness. He took the rope she offered to him without hesitation.
“Hold it!” she cried, and ran back to the railing, scanning down the length of rope until she found the solitaire. She had someone in one arm, pulling with the other hand along the rope, towing them both back to the side as the first longboat reached the ship.
Harini raced back to join the sailor, helping to hold the rope tight against the weight of two bodies climbing.
The first one to the railing was the Vineart, one hand clutching the rope, the other white-knuckled around leather thongs, dragging wineskins up against his body as he came up the side of the ship. His face was too pale, his eyes bloodshot from the salt water, his lean frame shivering as he left the water and hit cooler air. She managed to get him over the railing, another set of hands helping her move him out of the way, then she turned to pull the solitaire over.
“Is he alive?” the woman asked, before she was safely on deck herself.
Harini turned in time to see look of confusion on the Vineart’s face. Then his eyes rolled up into the sockets, and he fell over backwards, crumping as he hit the deck.
o0o
“What do you think you are doing?” Harini stood in front of the Captain, her hands fisted at her hips. At the Solitaire’s advice she had waited until he was alone to approach, but the delay had done nothing for her mood.
“I’m taking this ship and all those aboard her to safe distance. And then we are going to head for the nearest port in the Lands Vin, where we can get drop off the survivors and take on more supplies.”
“We are not going to leave.”
They were already too far away. The serpents had remained where they were, circling where the ship had gone down, but as night fell, Harini could not study them, especially with the crack in the spyglass, courtesy of it having been knocked to the ground.
The Captain’s patience was exhausted, and so was the man. “Those beasts attached and sank an Iajan merchant-ship. You do not understand the magnitude of that, Deshai Harini, but I do. They could do that to us without even blinking.”
“They won’t.”
“Yo
u cannot assure me of that.”
“They had every opportunity, and did not.”
“Then why did they attack the ladysong? What changed?”
Harini didn’t know. It near drove her mad, the not-knowing, and that, if the Captain followed through on his plans, she might never know.
“Go back.”
“Harini.” His voice was full of an annoying, frustrating understanding. “I cannot.”
“Please.” She had never asked for anything before, not like this. Not as supplicant, aware she might be refused. “Not all the way back, not for long. But enough that we can understand what happened – and how to prevent it from happening again.”
Because it would happen again, they both knew that. Once an animal learned it could destroy an enemy, it would not stop unless dissuaded. For now, to protect them, Harini had no choice but to play this the Vineart’s way. But first, the Vineart had to wake up.
o0o
In a dream, he had been home. He had taken his work-clogs off and let the night-cool soil press against the flesh of his feet, all the intelligences of touch and taste and smell carried to him, telling him that he was home, that all was well. The vines whispered in the pre-dawn air, the magic within them touching the magic within him, reassuring each other that they were safe, that they belonged, that the roots dug deep and the boundaries were secure.
Then pain woke him, and he was in a narrow bunk unlike his vinewood bed at home, the tossing of the sea below him nothing like solid stone and soil.
“What happened?”
The woman seating on the chair next to his bunk – uncomfortably cramped, in the small space, stared, as though she had been dozing in the chair.
“You’re awake. Good, good. And well? No dizziness, no need to empty your stomach?” She was older, her once-dark hair threaded with silver, but her dark eyes were sharp over a high-bridged nose, and although she had a strange accent, one he could barely follow, her worry was clear.
“I’m fine.” He was tired, and sore, and had a strange fuzzy taste in his mouth that made him think he had been working too much magic, but he couldn’t remember why-
and then, that easily, he did.
“The ladysong –“
The woman tsked. “Gone, it is. But you’re safe and well.”
He glanced around the tiny cabin, and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the flasks and skins he had taken from the ship stored carefully on a shelf.
“I went overboard…”
“You did. And the solitaire and my girl, they hauled you out. Right worried they were, while you slept. I’ll go fetch them now.”
He took advantage of her absence to find his clothes, draped over the shelf next to the wineskins. They were stiff from the seawater, but he did not want to face Harini wearing only his smalls, or a blanket. There was no dignity in that.
It was neither Harini nor the solitaire who entered the cabin, but an older man, his face creased with years and weathering, his clothing fine, but durable rather than fancy.
“Svapan, First of the Youngest Swimmer.”
“My crewmates?” They had not been his, but he knew no other way to ask after them.
“We rescued a fair number,” Svapan said. “But not all. Not enough.” There was a pause. “Your Captain stayed.”
Bradhai had not known the man well, but what he had seen, he had liked. Vinearts did not form attachments, but the loss ached, nonetheless.
“And Hernán? The Shipsmaster?”
Svapan shook his head. “We recovered only crew, and you. No other passengers, none who identified themselves as such.”
Hernán would not have been silent about his presence. And the First of this ship would have known the importance of having an Iajan Shipsmaster as guest.
Hernán was gone. Dead. Drowned or eaten by the serpents he so feared, Bradhai could never know, but gone nonetheless.
He was free to go. There was no-one on this ship, neither among the refugees nor the crew, who knew the obligation – the threat – he had been under. And by the time he returned to his Vintnery… by the time the Guilds knew what had happened, and determined if they would come after him again, well, he would be wiser than to let them in, much less go anywhere.
His spells had not failed; the danger was deeper than anything he could face, and they would have to deal with it themselves.
“A great loss,” he said to the First, his face composed to show regret. That seemed to satisfy the man.
“Captain’s plan is to bring you folk to the nearest Lands Vin port, drop you there. You’ll be fine with that?”
“Indeed. Thank your Captain for me, and for your care while I was injured.”
The First nodded curtly, then left him to finish dressing. Thoughtfully, Bradhai washed his face and hands in the basin provided, thankful for the feel of clean water on his skin, and wrapped his belt twice around his hips in proper Vineart fashion. His knife and silver tasting spoon had disappeared somewhere between ships, and Bradhai felt a pang at that: the spoon had been his master’s, handed over when the old many lay dying. The old man had been cold and harsh, but the feel of the smooth silver as it left one pair of hands for another had been all the praise – and acknowledgement – Bradhai could have wanted.
And now it was gone, sunk somewhere impossibly deep in the ocean.
Closing his eyes against the pain, Bradhai passed his hand over the wineskins and flasks; he had lost none of the ones he remembered grabbing. That was worth more than a spoon, no matter how many memories were attached to it.
The smallest skin of aetherwine, marked with the sigil of his making, and the sealed flask of firewine he had rescued he hooked to his belt, securing them carefully. After some thought, he took up the vial of spellwine he had incanted just before the attack and studied it. At home in his own study, he would have used precious glass, the better to observe the color and clarity. Shipboard, he had been reduced to fired clay – which had weathered the sea far better, without a crack or seepage to be seen.
He tucked that into the small pocket of his vest, secure and out of sight, and then left the cabin.
Despite the Captain’s plans, they did not seem to be any closer to land: from the feel of the boat, Bradhai guessed that they were still anchored, holding steady where they had been, surrounded by flat ocean below, and a flat blue sky above.
The ship – the youngest swimmer – the First had called it, was larger than the ladysong, but sleeker and now far more crowded, despite its size. Bradhai saw several crewsmen he recognized, but Po was nowhere to be seen.
The boy might have been high in the riggings of this new ship… or he, too, might not have survived. Bradhai thought of Yakop safe back home, and felt an odd surge of something bitter and sore in his heart.
Walking on, refusing to look up to check the ropes and lines, Bradhai encountered the solitaire again. She had changed out of her sodden garb and was dressed now in leather leggings and a bare-armed tunic, with low boots on her feet, and a thick leather band around her neck. The blade was at her waist, but there were two sheaths strapped to her calves as well, one the length of his hand, the other longer.
Before, she had been a bodyguard. Now, she was a warrior.
They greeted each other with solemn nods, and he took up position alongside her, away from the railing but still looking out to sea. Harini, was downrail from them, her attention focused on where the serpents slid through the waters still. She looked very young, just then, and Bradhai felt very old.
“You saved my life,” he said to the solitaire.
“Your desire to live saved your life,” she said, but seemed otherwise disinclined to disagree.
“I have been rude enough to never ask your name.”
She looked startled by that, a little. “You and I, Vineart, we are known by what we do, more than who we are. But my name is Kseniya.”
He stumbled over the pronunciation, a little, repeating it. “You are not Iajan.”
“No
more than you.”
That was true enough: the slavers had sold him to his master, but he had not been born to those lands. His memories were vague of the time before the sleephouse and slavery, and only his name now remained of the boy he had been.
Kseniya was right; but he was glad he had asked her name.
“Has she slept since all this happened?” he asked, indicating Harini.
“I do not think she will, so long as the beasts remain,” she said, clearly resigned to the fact. “Her nurse coaxed her into eating something, and draping a blanket over her at night, but…. Who am I to tell her to stop? She is in no danger here.”
“You do not think the beasts will attack us?”
“No.” She gave him a curious look. “And neither do you.”
“No.”
He didn’t want to say any more: it was too fantastical, too impossible. And yet he was no less an observer than Harini, trained from childhood to feel the flow and motion of magic. He could no more deny what he had felt before the creatures attacked than he could the devastation of insects, hail, or rot.
He was not comfortable speaking of magic to outsiders, but the nature of her own life meant that she was as restricted as he, with no way, he thought, to use his words against him – no way, and unlike Harini, a daughter of power, no need.
And also unlike Harini, she seemed disinclined to argue with him.
“Harini says that they are changing?”
“We’ve used too much magic on them,” he said. “We saw it years before with birds: for a time a spellbound marker kept birds away, but the more we used, the less the birds were affected – and the smaller animals, even less time was needed. The faster they bred, the more accustomed they became.
“It took time, and more time, but the magic….the spells used to push them away from ships, the countless spellwines used on a ship while on the ocean….”
From Whence You Came Page 8
