The Storm Witch

by Violette Malan

  “Got good balance, man,” Malfin said, thumping Parno on the back. “Who would have thought the Crayx could catch you up without even a braid to hook you by?”

  Dhulyn raised her eyebrow in sudden comprehension. That was the purpose of the hairstyle worn by so many of the crew of the Wavetreader . It had not only cultural, but a very practical significance. If a Nomad went overboard, the Crayx could hook the person by the braid of hair that was so securely attached, to the head on one end, and around the waist at the other.

  Suddenly, she felt the shortness of her own hair, carefully oiled to keep it out of her eyes.

  “Do the Crayx always rescue anyone who falls off the ship?” She tried her best to sound merely curious, and not as though she were asking the most important question in the world.

  “Need to be able to sense you,” Darlara spoke with eyes narrowed, her gaze on the doorway of the cabin where Parno had gone to change his clothing.

  “But if they sense you?”

  The woman nodded, visibly gathered her thoughts, and turned back to Dhulyn. “Well, not during a storm, then must stay well away from the ship, in case the fury of the waves slaps them up against us.” She shrugged. “Could injure themselves, or break the ship, so of course . . .”

  “Not during a storm,” Dhulyn said. Of course.

  The wind had been freshening since sundown, and most of the middle watch were in the rigging, reefing the sails before it became too dangerous to go aloft.

  *Don’t understand it* *All this wind and the clouds still above us*

  *Mean you understand it all too well*

  Darlara Cor shrugged, knowing her brother could feel the movement, even if there wasn’t light enough to see. Even if he weren’t looking at her.

  *Know as well as I what brings this wind, and the rain those clouds tell of* Malfin said. *But didn’t come out here to look at the sky, not in the middle of my watch, you didn’t*

  *Want to talk of the Mercenary Brothers*

  *Thinking you don’t mean both of them* *It’s Parno Lionsmane’s caught your eye, not the woman*

  *He’s Pod-sensed* Darlara waited until Mal nodded. *Woman’s not* she said. *Luckier for us if she was*

  *There’s something, though,* Mal said. *She’s not an ordinary landster*

  Dar shrugged, willing to concede the point.

  *So what about the Lionsmane*

  *He should stay with us* She looked sideways at him. *I want him*

  Mal whistled, but Dar had the feeling he was not as surprised as he made out. *Nothing less* *A sworn Mercenary Brother, and Partnered*

  Darlara nodded. *Partnered, well and good, but what’s that mean* *Landsters, Mercenary or no, what do they know of real bonds* *There’s more important things* *For one, he’s Pod-sensed, his bloodline’s useful—more use to us than to himself alone, and with us, managed well, he can have young with as many as he wants*

  *No way to know he wants any*

  *Easy to find out*

  *Said “for one”*

  She turned to face her brother, leaning her right elbow on the aft rail. They were standing within sight of the wheel, but Deputy Pilot Liandro Cor was notorious for his concentration, which the gusting winds only increased.

  *For two, he’s a rare fighter, and could teach us all he knows* *And for three, he’d be more on our side in the talks with the Mortaxa, couldn’t help it*

  *Dhulyn Wolfshead would have some say there, she’s Senior*

  *Still, couldn’t hurt*

  *True.* Malfin leaned both forearms on the rail next to her. *What if Lionsmane won’t be parted from his Partner* *What then*

  *She could stay, be useful*

  But Malfin was already shaking his head. *Hard enough to have a senseless one on board for a short time, but for life, near impossible* And how would it be for her, left out, more and more alone* He shook his head again.

  *I want the Lionsmane* I’ll part him from her, you’ll see* I will, or the Crayx*

  *They agree*

  *The bloodline, the help, just as important to them*

  That wasn’t a “yes,” but Malfin nodded, as Darlara had known he would. He was her twin, after all, as well as her co-captain. What she wanted for the ship and the Pod, he would also. What she wanted for herself, he would help her to get.

  Parno Lionsmane stood with his back against the aft rail, where his playing would be less obtrusive for those trying to sleep in their hammocks belowdecks. The notes, carefully chosen to simulate the sounds made by the Crayx, seem to fall away into the dark silence beneath them like a leaf wafting slowly from a tree.

  The sound was repeated, two octaves deeper, from the depths below them.

  “Say it’s easier to hear your thoughts when you play,” Darlara said from his left.

  “But I can’t hear theirs?”

  “That will come, given time. And then, if I am sharing at the same time, can also hear mine.”

  Parno looked at her, but from the seriousness of her face, she was stating only fact. “Interesting,” he said, taking refuge in the banal from thoughts he was glad she could not hear. “Let’s see what they make of this.”

  He began playing an old tune that the years had given many flourishes and variations, though he now played the simplest. At first, he sensed nothing else, then, a soft echoing came from the sea, and a resonance in his head as well. The crew nearest them started to tap and then stamp their feet in time to the music. Soon, it seemed that everyone on deck was joining in, and people were even coming out of the hold and the deck cabins to take part, until the Wavetreader itself began to shiver in time with the stamping feet, like a huge drum.

  Parno concentrated on keeping the pipe’s air bag filled to the maximum, and began to pace across the deck, keeping time himself. To each side Crayx surfaced, their wet scales flashing brilliant colors in the morning light.

  Dhulyn sat humming in the sun, her back against the wall of the cabins on the central deck. She had a selection of weapons spread around her, like a cobbler surrounded by his tools. It was moist on shipboard, and even the air seemed to taste of salt. Like the crew working on the metal parts of the ship in rotation, Dhulyn would clean and oil some of their weapons every day, until they were on land again.

  Malfin Cor approached, nodding to her and rubbing sleep from his eyes. Parno’s piping, and the crew’s drumming, had awakened even those below. He went to the rail across from her and looked smiling out at the Crayx.

  “Did they try to kill him?” Dhulyn asked.

  Captain Malfin turned, his eyes widened in shocked astonishment. “The Crayx? Never. Never in this world.”

  “But they did cause my Partner to fall. The ship did not run against rock or reef.”

  “No. Mean, yes.”

  Dhulyn took pity on the man. She would get no valuable answers if he kept tripping over his own tongue.

  “Yes, they did cause him to fall. No, the ship did not run against anything.”

  “Well, might say that it ran against the Crayx.”

  “They’re so clumsy, then? Or are there mean spirits among them, as there are sometimes in a herd of horses?”

  His silence made her look up from her favorite wrist knife, and she paused, cleaning rag hovering in the air.

  “Horses are individuals,” he said finally. “Crayx are not . . . are not horses,” he said. He took his upper lip between his teeth. Looked toward where Parno sat on the rail next to Darlara a few spans away, his feet braced against the narrow bench that ran below it. He was back to noodling on his pipes, pausing with his head at a listening angle, and noodling some more.

  Dhulyn glanced back at Captain Mal, took up her wrist knife once more. “They are a flock, you herd them across the sea, they let you ride them. In what way are they not horses?” And not individuals?

  Malfin pressed his lips into a thin line. Dhulyn waited, bent over her polishing. Either he would tell her, or he would not.

  “They’re a Pod,” he said final
ly, shrugging. “Might’s well say they herd us, as the other way ’round.” He fixed his eyes on her face, looking for Sun and Moon only knew what reaction. Dhulyn kept her expression neutral.

  “Have their migration routes,” he said. “And we follow them.”

  “That’s how you don’t get lost crossing the Long Ocean,” Dhulyn said, glad as always to add to her store of knowledge. “But you have sails, a rudder. You do navigate on your own.”

  “It can happen we get separated, and there’re harbors where the Crayx can’t go. There isn’t always one small enough to be comfortable in the Midland Sea, for example.”

  “And you must sail to find them again.”

  “Well, yes, though they also find us.”

  “They see so well? Or can they track you through the water?” Dhulyn held up her hand. “Wait. They sense you. Your sister told me. Do you speak to them?”

  “You believe such things are possible?” Malfin’s expression was one of skepticism lightly covered with wariness.

  “Do you know the Cloud People of the Antedichas Mountains?”

  “Seen a few.”

  “Have you seen a Racha Cloud? Face tattooed with feathers.” She tapped the left side of her face to show him where. “Large bird of prey on one shoulder, or flying above them?” Captain Mal nodded. “They are bonded, the Racha and the Cloud. They hear each other’s thoughts, feel each other’s sensations. The Cloud becomes part bird, and the Racha part human.” The skepticism slowly faded from Mal’s face, but the wariness had not completely disappeared.

  “So,” she said. “Are you all bonded, or is it only those of you who wear the scaled vests?”

  The captain looked down at himself. “All of us, some more, others less. According to their potential. Those of us who wear the scales have a personal bond to the Pod, won’t exchange. The scales, the skins are shed as the Crayx grows older, and larger.”

  “But how then . . . ?” She indicated Parno with a tilt of her head.

  “Because of the music.”

  Dhulyn followed his glance to Parno. The Crayx were still surfacing and making sounds of their own, sounds her Partner was trying to match with his drones.

  “Heard the music and knew, but wanted to be sure.”

  “Of course.” Bumping into the ship—though granted, no one else on board seemed to be worried about that—dumping Parno into the water.

  Malfin mistook the nature of her silence. “Nothing to worry you. Even if hadn’t confirmed his Pod sense by touching him, could see and smell him. He wouldn’t have been lost.”

  Dhulyn smiled, consciously stopping short of letting her lips curl back in a snarl. Even if he had a way to know of her private worry, she reminded herself, this was not a completely human person. The Crayx were citizens of a country no one else belonged to, and through their connection, the Nomads would see the world at least partly through the eyes of the Crayx, with whom they had at least as much in common as they had with any human being. Nothing they said or did—or believed—could be taken for granted.

  No wonder they had trouble understanding, let alone being understood by, the landlocked Mortaxa. These negotiations would have been very interesting. Very interesting indeed. If only—She stopped that thought. No point in going down that path again.

  Dhulyn put down the wrist knife. One of Parno’s throwing rings had found its way into her pack and she picked it up, with a frown for the dull spot along one edge. She folded the oily cloth to expose a cleaner patch and glanced at the captain. “Now, what is it you want to ask me?” she said, smiling again at his startled look.

  Malfin cleared his throat, looked toward Parno again, and back at her. “My sister has a mind to bed your man,” he said finally. “If you’ve no objection.” His tone ventured on the defiant.

  Dhulyn thought she could understand that. Captain Malfin couldn’t be sure just how far she accepted what he’d told her—or how far her acceptance of the outsider extended. Dhulyn had no intention of letting him know just how familiar she was with his fears. He knew nothing of what he’d call landsters’ attitudes toward each other. He’d have no way of knowing how people looked sideways at her—not because she was a Mercenary Brother, but because her coloring marked her clearly as an Outlander. To say nothing of her other Mark, which couldn’t be seen.

  On the land, for the most part, the Marked were respected, trusted, relied upon. But there were many people who would nevertheless hesitate to welcome one into the family.

  “My objections seem an odd thing for you to be worrying about,” was what she said. “Considering how and why we find ourselves on your ship.” He found some reassurance in her tone, evidently, for the tight muscles around his lips relaxed. “Why is it you ask me? Why not your sister?”

  “To show the family agrees with her breeding plan, so I speak both as brother-and-twin, and as co-captain of the Wavetreader.”

  “Breeding?” Dhulyn was careful to keep her tone light, interested curiosity only, but she had to loosen her grip on the throwing ring before she cut herself.

  “Have to be careful about breeding,” Malfin said. “Even exchange between Pods doesn’t mix the blood as much as we’d like. When find a landster with Pod sense, it’s a good way to add a new bloodline.”

  “And if a child doesn’t have ‘Pod sense’?”

  Malfin looked at her as though measuring something. “Have havens,” he said finally. “Ashore. Different places. Where those children can be safe. Still our kin, Pod sense or no.”

  Light dawned as Dhulyn realized what Malfin meant. “Landed kin. Where your ships are built, and where you can make repairs that can’t be done at sea.”

  “They are secret, the havens.”

  Dhulyn smiled. “I will tell no one except Parno Lionsmane.”

  “Have called yourselves Partners, you and the Lionsmane. Does that mean Darlara is out of luck, or that you would claim the child, if there is one?”

  “ ‘Partners are a sword with two edges.’ ” The words from the Common Rule came easily to her lips, but she knew they wouldn’t satisfy the captain. How to explain it? Even Mercenary Brothers who weren’t Partnered found it hard to understand. She snorted. Then again, it couldn’t be harder to explain than the Crayx.

  “We are life Partners, but we’re not wed, or mated, or whatever you call that relationship here on the Long Ocean. It means . . . we live and fight together. We would always go into battle on the same side.” She paused groping after the words. “There is a ceremony. Afterward . . . when we are in the same room, or near one another, we know it; our hearts may even beat in the same rhythm.” She looked away from the captain’s eyes. “Every Mercenary hopes to die in battle, on our feet, sword in hand. The best we hope for is to die at the hand of one of our own Brothers who fights for the other side. But Partners will never die at each other’s hands.” Not by my hand, she thought. Not by my hand. “It’s something like being a twin. Impossible to explain to someone who isn’t one, and no need to explain to someone who is.”

  “Twins don’t bed with each other.” It was half a question.

  Dhulyn smiled and gave him half an answer. “I only said it was something like.”

  “I would rather give you a child.” Parno Lionsmane had never said these words aloud, but he got the reaction he expected from his Partner.

  Dhulyn smiled the smile she saved only for him and shook her head. “We’ve been Partnered, what, seven years? If you were likely to give me a child,” she pointed out, “it would have happened already.”

  “You’ve never Seen anything?” He’d never wanted to ask, but now that they were talking about it, he had to press his advantage. He might not ever have another such excuse. She had been behaving oddly the last few days, but he’d put it down to nostalgia, being at sea reminding her of the childhood she’d had on the Black Traveler once Dorian the Schooler had rescued her from the slavers.

  “Once I thought so. I Saw myself laying out a game of Tailors with a young
redheaded girl. Not so dark as I, but not so golden as you.”

  “And you thought . . .”

  “And I thought. But it turned out to be the young woman who is now Queen of Tegrian.”

  Parno laughed out loud. “You’re right. She could have been ours, if we went by coloring alone.” He frowned. “I’ve never fathered a child, that I know of.”

  “Well, I’m sure I would have noticed if I had ever quickened.” She have him such a look of wide-eyed innocence that Parno cuffed her shoulder.

  “How is it you think that it never happened?”

  “I was given enough potions and drugs in the years between the breaking of the Tribes and the time Dorian rescued me. I always assumed that had something to do with it.”

  “Shall we ask a Healer, the next time we run across one?” This time Parno thought he might have gone too far. There again was that white stiffness in Dhulyn’s face that he’d seen in the hold of the Catseye, when they had first met the Nomads. Her eyes narrowed, and she seemed to be looking within.

  “We’ll still look for a Seer to train you,” he assured her, more to break the silence than for any other reason. “That’s still our first goal. I’m just saying, if we should happen to meet with a Healer, that’s all.”

  “Yes,” she said. Then she cleared her throat and said it again, more naturally this time. “Yes, why not? The next time we run across a Healer, we’ll see what can be done.”

  “After all, you still have your woman’s time, that must mean something.”

  She nodded. “But being that you cannot give me a child,” she said. “What are your thoughts about giving Darlara one?”

  “I have no objection, in principle.” Parno cleared his own throat, half-surprised to find that he did not. “Even if you and I have a child together,” he pointed out, “we wouldn’t raise it ourselves.”

  Again, Dhulyn nodded. Most Mercenaries took steps not to produce children. Still, the Common Rule gave guidance even for things that rarely happened. Mercenaries who had children with other Mercenaries, not always Partners, never raised the children themselves. There was always one Schooler—at the present time it was Nerysa Warhammer, Parno’s own Schooler—who kept a nursery for such children, and sometimes ordinary families were found. The life of a Mercenary Brother did not allow for the rearing of children. Tough and skilled as they were, few Mercenaries lived long enough to be certain of bringing up a child. The time was sure to come when, as Dhulyn always said, the arrow would have your name on it.