Song of the Current

by Sarah Tolcser

  Ma twisted one corner of her mouth, watching me with speculation. I suppose she wasn’t used to me speaking up. “We’ll attack at sunup, then.”

  Kenté froze with a forkful of pasta halfway to her lips. She gave an almost unreadable shake of her head.

  “Dawn might be cutting it too close,” I said. “Noon is when he’ll be weakest. The brightest part of the day.” At my mother’s curious look, I added, “Markos told me lots about shadowmen.”

  Markos. It was strange, daring to hope. For the first time, I started to believe I really might see him again.

  It was after sundown when we rowed back to Vix. Kenté stared out into the dark, her arm around Daria, whose head kept nodding. I pulled my right oar to turn the dinghy toward Vix’s lantern. Just two days ago we’d been on the run from that cutter, but tomorrow I would be sailing her into battle. Restless anticipation danced in my stomach.

  As I rowed under Antelope’s high stern, voices stilled my oars. Lamplight spilled out between the curtains on the windows many feet above us. I held my breath.

  “You can’t really be meaning to let her keep that ship.”

  “It’s her choice, Tamaré,” Pa said. “She were given a letter of marque from the Margravina. She’s authorized to capture a prize.”

  “She’s not of age.”

  “A letter of marque is a letter of marque.” I listened to the familiar rise and fall of Pa’s voice. Strange that I’d spent so many days wondering if I would ever see him again. “It’s her ship. Nereus’ll help her with the sailing.”

  In the excitement of the battle plans, I’d forgotten Pa’s enigmatic exchange with Nereus. You ain’t who I expected. Desperate for answers, I strained to hear more.

  “Of course you won’t tell me where you know him from.” Ma sighed. “Oh, go on with you. You’ll do as you please, just as you always have.” A wistful note crept under the stubbornness in her voice. “I know I gave you the keeping of her, but she’s still my daughter.”

  “Of course I know that,” he murmured. “You come to bed now, sweet girl.”

  I rowed hastily away from the window, because, really, who wants to hear that?

  After settling Daria in her bunk, I found Kenté sitting cross-legged on the forward hatch cover. I might have missed her in the dark, had she not been muttering out loud at a necklace. I recognized it from the chest in the cargo hold, which she’d been poking around earlier today while I sailed. Around her feet were strewn several other pendants and lockets. At least one was broken.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to put a little piece of night into this locket.” She flung aside the bauble, wiping her sweaty forehead. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  I deliberately didn’t answer that question, because it looked like she was talking to an inanimate object.

  “Kenté, why don’t you just tell your parents you want to go to the Academy in Trikkaia?”

  “They say I’m their last and only hope.” She sighed. “You know how upset they were about Toby.” Kenté’s brother was a professor of mathematics, which wasn’t a very Bollard thing to be.

  “I wonder if you’re afraid—” I halted. “I didn’t mean afraid.”

  “Of course I am. Caro—” She bit her lip, turning the locket over in her hands. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing? This magic … it’s all about darkness and trickery.” Somehow I knew she was thinking of Cleandros, who had betrayed his Emparch. “Perhaps it’s something we’re not meant to play with.”

  I remembered what Markos had said the night we met. “I think it’s what’s in a person’s heart that makes them evil. Magic is just a skill. A tool.”

  She nodded, though she didn’t look quite convinced. “This is going to sound stupid, but … I’m scared to leave home. Because if I’m not this”—she fingered the brooch that pinned her woolen wrap, which was stamped with the cask and stars—“then who am I? If I’m not this, who might I become?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that. Leaving her to her experimentation, I wandered up the deck. The sky seemed bigger out here, like a blanket draped over us. The night sounds of Vix—creaking planks, sloshing waves, the taut twang of rope—were achingly similar to Cormorant’s, yet there was an emptiness I could not place at first. Then I realized. There were no frogs or crickets. No sounds of small things.

  I leaned my elbows on the rail. Beneath me the still black water stirred.

  An eyelid popped open.

  I stumbled back. The eye was the size of my head. It shone in the lantern light, inches below the water. Something was down there, under the cutter.

  Something big. Something alive.

  “Ayah, you noticed, did you?” Nereus sat on a barrel, the lit end of his pipe glowing orange. “She’s been following you for days.”

  He couldn’t mean this was the very same drakon that had kept pace with Vix in the dark of night, during the storm—could he? Then I remembered that day on the Hanu River, when Fee had hissed at something in the water. “Her,” Fee had said over and over.

  “Why would a drakon follow me?” My mouth was dry.

  “Ah,” he said. “You are used to the river. The sea be deeper. Darker. Full of secrets. The sea, she keeps the things she takes. The deeps be littered with the bones of ships and cities. Ayah, and men. Know you the tale of Arisbe Andela?”

  “Amassia That Was Lost.” The story Markos and I had spoken of. It seemed hard to believe that was only three days ago. Then something else struck me. “Arisbe Andela?”

  “Ayah, that were her name.”

  “That’s funny,” I said. “It’s Markos and Daria’s name too.” So Markos had been telling the truth when he said the legend was based on the history of his ancestors. How odd to think of Markos, of all people, being descended from a pirate princess.

  Nereus tapped his pipe. “Arisbe had a brother called Nemros.”

  “The Marauder. Pa used to tell me that one too. The most fearsome pirate ever to sail the Inner Sea.”

  “Ayah, that’s the fellow. Old Nemros, now, there were three things he loved. Sailing, and the fire of battle.”

  “That’s two things,” I said.

  “Don’t interrupt. The third was …” Something in his voice called to mind lazy summer afternoons, long past. “Fun,” he said finally. “The dance of the fiddle. The taste of wine and rum and women.” He puffed his pipe. “On that fateful last day, the sea god told Nemros she meant to take her revenge. He heeded her warning and took to his ship, where he rode out the storm. When the sun broke through the clouds on the third morning, no sign of his family’s island was to be seen. No white towers. No pear trees. The sea had swallowed Amassia. Now what was he to do? For he were a man without a country. So Nemros, he went to her.”

  “Who?”

  “Why, she who lies beneath. Who else?” Resting his pipe on his knee, he continued. “But the ocean were a fast one, she were, for she offered him a bargain. ‘Take your sister’s place,’ she said. ‘Serve me as she should have, and I shall make you the scourge of these seas. I shall give you a ship faster than the wind itself, and greater wealth in gold than you can possibly imagine. Serve me unto death, ayah, and beyond. Then and only then shall you have your family’s city back.’ ”

  “But Amassia is lost,” I said. “It sank under the ocean. No one ever saw it again.”

  “Ah, I told you she were a fast one.” He waggled his finger at me. “She didn’t say when, now did she? The pirate Nemros became her servant. He sank ships and sacked cities on her command. And, oh yes, he became rich and famous beyond his wildest dreams.” He paused. “But he never again was free. He never again had a home.”

  “I don’t get it. What does any of that have to do with the drakon?”

  “Nothing.” He laughed, while I struggled to resist the temptation to knock him off the gods-bedamned barrel. “But there are some sailormen who say the drakon is nothing more or less than your fate coming for you.”
<
br />   There was one more thing I had to say. “Nereus.” I hesitated. “You said he served her beyond death. Do you mean—”

  He raised his hand to cut me off. “Speak no more, love. For I won’t answer.”

  I wondered if that wasn’t answer enough.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I stood on Antelope’s deck, squinting into the rising sun. Above me a square sail unrolled, and the second mate bellowed out orders, as sailors scurried to make fast the ropes. A man lugging a cart full of cannonballs pushed past me, jogging my elbow.

  “What do you mean, we’re not to fight?” I demanded.

  “Caro, be reasonable,” Ma said. “Remember, you said yourself it may be a trap. They want Daria and they want their cutter back.” With her implacable face, she had never resembled a classical bronze statue more. “And I daresay they are not so enamored of you after all this.”

  “Pa—”

  He dug his hands into his pockets. “Maybe it’s best we do as your mother says. I know you can fight, but we must think of the girl.”

  I looked across at Vix, lit up by the morning glare on the water. As Nereus hauled on the halyard, her gaff climbed to the peak. She wanted battle. It was what she was built for. She pulled at her moorings like a horse rearing against the reins.

  “Vix is faster than Antelope,” I said. “She has more guns.”

  “She is also smaller,” Ma said. “And you’re not an experienced captain.”

  She and Pa shared a glance, while I bit back my frustration. Of all times, they chose now to be in accord. Further attempts to get my way by playing them off each other were easily routed. I rowed splashily back to Vix, cursing under my breath.

  As Nereus gave me a hand up from the rope ladder, Kenté hopped off the hatch cover. “What’s wrong?” she cried. I must’ve looked particularly murderous.

  “We’re not going to be in the fight,” I spat out. “Six four-pounders, we have. That’s two more than Antelope. Gods damn me.” I paced the deck. “I mean, who do they think’s been fighting the Black Dogs this whole time? They don’t even know Markos.” Kenté opened her mouth, no doubt to point out that Ma had met him in Siscema. “It’s different. You know it’s different.”

  “An unfortunate turn of circumstance.” Nereus stared at the horizon. “For has she not canvas and powder and shot? Is she not built to blow holes in any ship that dare oppose her, and the gods damn them for trying?” He inhaled the salty air. “This is a day for battle.”

  He understood. I wanted to crash through the waves, swift as the wind itself. I wanted to ram shot into the cannons and watch that cursed Alektor explode in splinters.

  “We’re to sail around behind the island and wait at a rendezvous point for Antelope,” I said. “Ma will send up three bursts on the gun.” I curled my hands into fists. “When it’s safe.”

  I knew nothing of safe anymore.

  Just before noon we reached the island. I anchored Vix off the wooded shore, while Antelope sailed around to launch her attack on the Black Dogs’ fort. Absently I picked at my lip as I listened to the distant rumble of cannons and the occasional crack of a musket echoing across the water.

  “And five makes eleven.” Kenté surveyed the dice on the deck. “I’ve won again.”

  We had only been playing an hour, and I’d already lost two silver talents to her and one to Daria, who sat cross-legged beside Nereus. Her black hair hung in two complicated braids down her back. I suspected she liked both of them more than me, Kenté because she could plait hair and Nereus because he let her do whatever she wanted. I didn’t mind. All I cared about right now was the battle. And Markos.

  How could they game while the cannons boomed? I was too jumpy to sit. My lip began to bleed, the rusty metal taste only setting me more on edge.

  “The water’s so choppy.” Kenté glanced over her shoulder. “It’s making me nervous. It doesn’t look like a storm’s coming. The sky is perfectly clear.”

  The waves did look rough. I wondered if the drakon was weaving back and forth beneath them, her undulating body churning the water. Though I didn’t see her, I sensed she was close.

  I leaped to my feet. “I can’t bear it.” Gripping the handles of my twin pistols, I strode up and down. “What’s taking so long?”

  Just because I was angry at my parents didn’t mean I wanted anything to happen to them. The shoreline was maddeningly still. If the Black Dogs had scouts lurking in the trees, I couldn’t see them, for the island was heavily wooded. Anyhow, there was nowhere from which to launch a boat—this side of Katabata Island was a wall of rocks ten feet high, sloping straight into the ocean.

  A gun rolled like thunder, causing my shoulders to jump.

  “You need to find something to occupy yourself.” Kenté shook the dice cup. I noticed she wore three lockets of varying lengths around her neck.

  Pulling out both pistols, I decided to teach myself how to spin them, the way I’d seen rough men do to show off in taverns. I flipped the right one around on my thumb, and it dropped to the deck with a clatter.

  Kenté winced. “Something else.”

  I fumbled, dropping the pistol again. That’s when I realized. “The guns have stopped.”

  Ten minutes went by. Then twenty. Then an hour. And then I knew.

  Antelope wasn’t coming.

  I made my choice. “Run up the main and the staysail. Run out the guns.” I was fairly sure that was something people said.

  “Best be cautious,” Nereus warned as he tied off the halyards. I wondered if he knew something we didn’t.

  “All I care about right now is whether you know how to load those cannons!” I snapped.

  He grinned, showing the gap in his teeth. “Ayah, I know.”

  We sailed around the corner of the island. Kenté gasped.

  Hespera’s Watch, was all I could think, because that’s what it looked like: smoke and fire and barrels bobbing on the water. Both Alektor and Antelope listed far over on their sides, and wreckage was scattered everywhere. Alektor had a gaping hole in her hull.

  Myself, I had a gaping hole in my heart.

  We sailed closer. The Black Dogs’ fort squatted on a rocky hill above the harbor, surrounded by a wall of spiky logs. The left side was partially collapsed, but not from today’s fight, for tangled vines grew over it. A stone tower rose up on the other side, once perhaps a lighthouse or a watchtower. Sunlight reflected off a cannon at the top, but no one seemed to be manning it—and no wonder, because the tower didn’t look very stable. Part of it lay in a steaming pile.

  Daria curled into Kenté’s skirts. I let go of the tiller and drifted to the rail, everything but my parents forgotten. I squinted at the floating hulk of the Bollard ship. Her ragged sails trailed in the water and flames licked up her hull.

  Not a single person, alive or dead, was in sight.

  “We should have been in that fight!” My voice broke. “The Black Dogs didn’t have a ship that could touch Vix.”

  “Didn’t need one.” Nereus nodded at the fort. “Artillery on that tower. That be a thirty-six pounder. And mark the long nines on the palisade.”

  “They can’t have killed everybody!”

  “I think not.” He pointed to the smoking wreckage. “The boats. Look.”

  All of Antelope’s boats had been launched, and Alektor’s too. But I saw none among the bobbing flotsam, nor any pieces of them. No planks. No oars.

  I swallowed. “What does it mean?”

  Nereus spat over the rail. “Nothing good. Likely they been taken prisoner. Inside the fort.”

  “It could be the other way around,” I suggested. “Perhaps the Bollards took the men from Alektor prisoner. Perhaps they rowed ashore of their own accord to attack the fort from on land.”

  “Hear you the sounds of fighting?”

  We all fell silent. I heard the slap of waves against wood. The crackle of fire. The wind rustling the trees. “No,” I whispered, and with that word we
nt my hopes.

  “We best come about.” Nereus turned away from the smoking ships.

  “And just leave them?”

  “Alektor didn’t sink that bark. The guns on the fort did. You want to sit here in their range? That’s begging for death.”

  “I don’t care! We have to try.” Everything that mattered was on that island. We were so close. I pressed my fingers to my temples to calm the shaking inside me.

  “Sail!” a small voice cried. Daria scrambled onto the foot of the mast. “Look, there’s a sail!”

  The new vessel was sleek, with white canvas billowing before her one mast and cannons glinting shiny black in the sun. At this distance I could not read her name, but I knew her. She was the sloop Conthar.

  The wherrymen were here.

  “Quick!” I screamed. “Before they fire!”

  Kenté stopped waving her arms. “Why would they fire?”

  “They’re here for Vix, remember? Run down below and get a white flag. If you can’t find one, a bedsheet, as fast as you ever can.”

  I ran the sheet up to the crosstrees of the mast and waited, squeezing the rail so hard my bones ached.

  As Conthar drew closer, Thisbe Brixton’s voice rang clear across the water. “Hold! I said hold your fire, you cursed mangy lot! That’s Oresteia’s girl.”

  After we retreated south of the island, Conthar sent two boats across, and we met at Vix’s long table for a war council. It was strange to see all those wherrymen crammed into the belly of the cutter, after two days with just the four of us. The cabin smelled of mud and pipe smoke. My throat swelled, for that only made me miss Pa more.

  They weren’t all men. Three of them were frogmen and four were women. I knew Thisbe Brixton, and the sharp-nosed woman beside her had to be her first mate. They looked like the only fighters among the women. The others were wherrymen’s wives, I supposed, left homeless in the attack at Hespera’s Watch.

  “Wait a minute,” a man with long yellow hair said, after I explained the circumstances that had led us here. “I come to sink this ship. I come for that alone. Well?” He turned to the others. “Oresteia’s daughter has this cutter, and half of those Black Dogs must surely be dead.” He gave me a speculative look. “Though it do seem to me that a slip of a girl got no use for a smuggling cutter.”