The Bone Ships

by R J Barker

  “So,” said Coughlin, still plainly confused. “This is an old ship and ill cared for, a ship of the dead. But thank you for telling me it is unsafe. Cahanny wanted me to stay with the cargo once Cwell was off, but maybe we shall take the cargo and stay on the island.” He smiled at Meas and, to Joron’s surprise, she smiled back.

  “Bonemaster,” she said, “would you expect to find borebones on Tide Child?”

  Coxward shook his head, the flesh of his jowls wobbling.

  “No, Shipwife. I had him out the water, bilges emptied, whole thing checked well because I knew he would have to carry me back safe as well as your crew. There were no bore-bones aboard before we set sail.”

  “You must have suspected something was wrong if you were checking for them,” said Coughlin.

  “I was not expecting borebones,” said Coxward, “but a good bonemaster checks the bilges, and because I know Tide Child’s keel is not the best I have been diligent in those checks. One of my girls found this thing yesterday.” He pointed at the jaws. “She was lucky – only lost a couple of toes to it before we killed it – but where there is one this size there will be more.”

  “So?” said Coughlin. Joron could feel his discomfort. Clearly, Meas had brought him here for a reason, and it was tied to the borebone jaws before them, and to Cwell, but Coughlin could not make the link any more than Joron could. “The fat man missed something when he went over your ship.”

  “I missed nothing,” said Coxward, and there was a hardness in his voice that made Coughlin look again at the man, as if reassessing him.

  “Tell me, Coughlin,” said Meas. “What is your relationship with Cahanny like?”

  Coughlin stared at her, a muscle twitching underneath his eye.

  “We are both strong-willed men,” he said.

  “Would he remove you if he felt threatened?”

  Coughlin shook his head, but Joron could see doubt on the man’s face. Trying to understand what Meas was steering towards. Some doubt there, and worry.

  “I have been with him a long time,” he said. “Many of his men are as loyal to me as they are to him.”

  “So to move against you would split his organisation, ey?”

  “Aye,” said Coughlin. “So he would never do it.”

  “And he trusts you to smuggle arakeesian bone for him.”

  “What I do is of no—”

  “I only ask because, if you do, that is the only bone on this ship that has not been checked for borebone eggs. And you are ordered to make sure Cahanny’s niece is off the ship at the earliest opportunity. Off on dry land. Safe. Do you see the course I steer, Coughlin?”

  “I . . .”

  “Maybe your master could not move directly against you, but he would benefit, I imagine, if you vanished at sea.”

  “He . . .” Coughlin looked around the cabin – at the walls, the white floor, the heavy desk. Finally his eyes rested on the borebone jaws. “He would not.”

  “How many of those with you, Coughlin,” asked Meas, “are loyal to you? And how many to Cahanny?”

  “I only brought men loyal to me. Some of Cahanny’s finest they are, and . . .” As his mouth formed the last words his voice died away. Then he roared, “Hag-twisted bastard! He has fit me up. I will kill him for this if it is true. And his Hag-cursed niece.”

  “We do not know it is true yet,” said Meas.

  “You would know these eggs if you saw them?”

  “Oh ey,” said Coxward.

  “Come then, we shall open the boxes.”

  Coughlin led them through the ship and down into the hold where two of his men stood guard on the boxes.

  “Away,” barked Coughlin. “We let the shipwife see our cargo.”

  “But Cahanny said—”

  “Hag take Cahanny! Open the box.”

  “Wait!” said Coxward. He vanished and returned with four bonehammers, flat on one side and viciously hooked on the other. “Best to be ready,” he said, handing them out. “Just in case.”

  One of the men took a key from his belt, undid the lock on the box and then opened it, taking a step back in horror, not only at the smell – something damp and foetid and rotten – but at what he saw within. Coughlin did not move, his eyes widened as he stared at the contents of the box. Joron stepped forward. The inside of the top box was alive with borebones, small ones the size of his finger right up to ones the size of an arm, three-lobed jaws working as often on each other as the mess of brown and rotten bone that covered the bottom of the box. The slimy bodies were the same brown as the rotten bone, ribbed all the way along as they squirmed over each other in the sea of slime that oozed from pores along their length.

  “Kill them,” said Coxward and started to smash the creatures with the flat of his hammer. Coughlin did the same, and with each blow he spat, “Hag-bent! Berncast son!” punctuating the deaths of the creatures with his voice.

  Like this they worked through the rest of Coughlin’s boxes, and it did not escape Joron’s notice that the box of hiylbolts had been hidden away. The last box was empty, the borebones having eaten through its bottom.

  “He has killed me,” said Coughlin. “The Hag-cursed man has killed me. And the rest of us. Well, I shall finish his niece off – I’ll have that satisfaction at least.” He turned away.

  “No,” said Meas. “We know the borebones are here now, so Coxward can deal with them. And Cwell may have her uses.” Joron could not but feel a little disappointed that Meas intended to let Cwell live. “For now, Coughlin, enjoy her confusion when you refuse to speak to her, and her way off the ship is suddenly blocked.”

  “Ey,” said Coxward. “While you help Meas take the island, I will put double teams on the pumps. Cwell will get more than her turn and it is fierce and hard work. By the time you get back we should have emptied the bilges and found any big ones. Then we can sweep for them each day. Once you have the island, find me lime rock and bring it aboard. We shall lime the bilges, and that will kill the rest of them and any eggs.”

  “I shall murder Cahanny for this,” said Coughlin, “and I shall do it slowly.”

  “Well,” said Meas, “first we must take an island and finish our mission.”

  “I can wait,” said Coughlin. “Don’t you worry about it. You have done me a service, Meas Gilbryn, and I do not forget such things.” He paused, then added, “Shipwife.” With that he beckoned to his men and returned to the deck, no doubt to tell the rest how they had been betrayed.

  “I truly did not know borebones were such a danger to a ship,” said Joron. “My father never feared them.”

  “Well,” said Coxward, “the shipwife and I may have exaggerated the danger a little once we worked out how the beasts must have come aboard.”

  “So did Cahanny want him dead?”

  Meas shrugged.

  “Maybe. Or maybe he bought bad bones,” she said. “Either serves my purpose.”

  “If he confronts Cahanny over this, or asks Cwell,” said Joron, “he will know you lied to him about the danger.”

  Meas shrugged and gave him a small smile.

  “I do not imagine Coughlin is the type to ask questions, Joron. I think he is a man of action.”

  “Why did you stop him killing Cwell?”

  “Because then I would have had to kill him. I cannot have murder aboard. And besides, Cwell is clearly of value to Mulvan Cahanny. That may be of use to me at some point.” With that she turned and headed back up the ladder to the underdeck, followed by Coxward, who could barely hold in his laughter.

  On deck night had fallen and a wind had sprung up, stealing away the stink of the cargo hold from around Joron and replacing it with the salt tang of the sea. Behind Tide Child his two flukeboats followed obediently on their ropes, the larger one with its single wing furled and tied tightly to its spar on the spine. The smaller had its oars set out along the seats for the women and men who would crew it. Both boats bristled with weapons.

  Gathered on the deck of Tide
Child were the thirty Meas had chosen for the mission: twenty crew plus ten of Coughlin’s men. Coughlin stood at the head of his group, his face still dark with fury, and no doubt in his mind he turned over the betrayal he believed Cahanny had perpetrated on him. He was no longer bare-chested, but wore a jerkin of toughened birdleather sewn with metal strips, more to show wealth than for protection. Those with him were dressed similarly, while the deckchilder wore only their thin fishskin or woven and softened varisk, hardy and good for keeping out the cold, but no use for stopping a weapon. To Joron they looked like different beasts, the men of the rock dressed for land, where there was no fear of heavy clothing dragging you down to the Hag, the women and men of the sea more scared of the embrace of water than the thrust of the blade.

  The flukeboats were brought up, Coughlin and his men to go in the larger one together with Meas and ten crew, the rest to go in the rowed boat. Joron scurried down to the underdeck, where he placed the inert body of the gullaime in the harness he had made and then struggled into it. Thankfully, when it was on he found it did not hinder his movements, and the weight of the gullaime was so slight he barely noticed it. When he returned to the deck Coughlin’s men were still gingerly finding their way down the side of Tide Child in the dark and Meas paced impatiently up and down the deck. Joron understood why Coughlin’s men should be so careful; the ship sides were a mass of spikes and hooks, and worse, one slip would put them in the water, where they would be lost to the depths or ground between the hulls of the ship and the boat.

  His father’s hand reaching from the water.

  Joron’s hands clenched so tightly he felt his nails bite into his palms.

  “Good luck, Deckkeeper.” He turned to find Dinyl, small, earnest Dinyl, holding out his hand.

  He took it.

  “Thank you, Deckholder. I may need it.”

  “Do your duty, and come back, Joron,” he said with a smile. “That is what we must do.” He touched the black band around his arm. “It is what we all must do.” He turned away, but not before Joron saw the pain on his face. Poor Dinyl. Joron had never really given much thought to him. He had been a man with a career in the fleet and been forced to give it up for Indyl Karrad. They had all lost much to ride Tide Child’s decks but maybe Dinyl had lost the most, and the most unfairly.

  What if Dinyl did not return for them? Just ran with the ship? There were enough malcontents, and could Joron really blame the man?

  “Deckkeeper!” He turned at Meas’s bark, finding her and her boat ready to leave and his crew standing about waiting for him. “Now is not the time to stare at the sky and study Skearith’s Bones! Get in the boat.”

  “Ey, Shipwife,” he said and climbed over the rail.

  When Joron’s turn came to board the flukeboat he felt Anzir’s steady hand at his elbow, guiding him down and to his seat in the darkness among the deckchilder: Farys, Old Briaret, Karring the swimmer, and others he could not quite make out in the darkness.

  “You mind yourself, D’keeper,” said Anzir. And this was echoed by the rest of the crew as they helped him along the boat to his place at the rump, kindly hands steadying, offering support.

  Although a brisk, cool wind blew across the water, within the boat it was hot, a tense heat boiling off the bodies around him from the hag-knowledge, the knowing that some who sat upon the rough benches and took up the oars would never come back; their corpses would remain on Arkannis Isle for ever and their spirits would go to the Sea Hag. But this was their duty, this was where their shipwife took them.

  They talked softly as they rowed, not complaining or worrying. But of the magic they felt at seeing the arakeesian, of how Meas was wise and would only lead them to where they must go. Among these criminals and cast-offs there was a powerful feeling that they were in the right. And these women and men were not just from Meas’s old ship either; Joron had a mixed bunch around him. When they did not speak of Meas or the arakeesian they talked of the gullaime, which lay inert against Joron’s back. They talked of it with pride too, of how it had helped them fight. And, well, if they were asked to help it shake off the windsickness, that was the least they could do, and if their deckkeeper needed help they would do what they must. As they talked, Joron felt his body relax and imagined how his father would have felt had he been here, to see Joron at the head of these woman and men, to see his son leading these strong, loyal deckchilder.

  And he knew that the warmth he felt on the boat came from within, and not from tension, not at all.

  “Do our duty indeed,” he said to himself, echoing Dinyl’s words.

  “D’keeper?” said Farys.

  “’Tis nothing.” He stood. “Pull hard on those oars, my girls and boys.” He whispered into the night. “Row us to the island. Meas has a wing on her boat, but let us see if we can beat her there anyway.”

  From behind they heard the rustle of cloth as Tide Child unfurled his wings and then the crack of wind filling them as the boneship began to move away. Dinyl had lit the lights on the rump and, with luck, any watcher would think the ship was leaving.

  Before them Joron could just could make out the dull shape of the first flukeboat, its wing still furled and its presence more clearly marked by the rhythmic splashing of oars into water. Without the bulk of Tide Child to shelter them, the cold onshore breeze bit deeper, and Joron wrapped his fishskin coat more closely about his body.

  The oars beat the water and the two boats moved towards the shadow of the island. The nearer they came the more they heard the songs of the land – no doubt comforting to Coughlin’s men of the rock on Meas’s boat, but to Joron’s ears the rush of water on sand and rock was a dangerous sound, one that conjured up thoughts of beaching, of smashed hulls and bodies thrown from the deck to drown or be ripped up by the long-thresh. Nor were the calls of the landbirds in the night welcoming to his crew: they sounded like the screams of the unworthy as the Hag tossed them into her bonefire deep beneath the sea. The chatter died away and the rowers put their backs into their work. Joron saw the whites of wide, fearful eyes among them. “I would suggest we sing,” he said quietly, “but I fear Meas would have my guts for it when we landed.” A few teeth in the darkness – smiles. “So let us row hard, and when we land we’ll rest in the forest edge until Skearith looks down upon us. Then we will bring the gullaime to the windspire and take a tower for the wakewyrm. How many can ever say they saved a life as a great as a keyshan’s, ey?” More teeth in the night. “So we will be remembered for ever. Now let us row, and if you wish to hum a shanty to yourselves, then I’ll not hold it against you. Just do it quietly so I keep my skin.” So they rowed, the flukeboat accompanied by the sound of eleven women and men humming quietly enough not to be heard, but loud enough to raise their spirits on the night before they went to fight and die.

  Shortly they heard the hiss of the first boat grounding on shingle, and Joron leaned on his steering oar, bringing his boat in next to the larger one and feeling pride within at the fleet way his crew raised their oars in unison as they came in. The moment the boat stopped, his deckchilder were over the side, splashing into the water and dragging the boat up the beach towards cover at the edge of the gion jungle. He followed them, experiencing the odd feeling of the land moving beneath his feet that always came upon him when he went from sea to land.

  “Hag’s tits!” A pained exclamation from further up the beach, though even that was relatively quiet.

  “Quiet! What is that noise?” Meas’s voice.

  “Stingplates, all over the beach, Shipwife.” The whispered reply.

  “Are you poisoned?” Meas again.

  “Nay, Shipwife. Just a single sting.”

  “Careful down the beach.” Meas whispered.

  Those pulling Joron’s boat up the shingle slowed.

  “Look to your feet,” he said. Looking down he saw, as his eyes adjusted to the meagre light of Skearith’s Blind Eye, that his foot was by a stingplate. The circular, gelid body was full of air that, wh
en stepped on, would be pushed out into its ten stinging arms, sending them up and out to inject venom into the leg of whatever stood on it. These were only the flowers of the stingplate, the plant lived beneath the beach. A full sting was enough to kill an adult human, they may stagger on a little before collapsing, but not far. Then the stingplate would send tendrils up through the sand or shingle to digest the flesh. Fortunately, a single sting would not kill, though it was still painful. “Two of you go ahead with wyrm-pikes,” said Joron. “Puncture any plates between us and the jungle edge.”

  “Ey, D’keeper,” came the quiet reply, and they made their way more carefully up the beach, dragging the boat with them.

  At the forest’s edge Meas and her group already had the mast of their boat down and were hiding the hull under a mass of dead foliage.

  “Do we attack tonight?” said Joron to Meas. She stared into the forest, and as if in challenge a chorus of calls and songs and growls came back.

  “No,” she said. “The gion forest this far south is no place to be at night. Howlers, loppers, fellscram and tunir all haunt it.”

  “And they sleep in the day?”

  “No, but we have more chance of seeing them at least.” In the darkness he could not tell whether she joked or not.

  “What of the gullaime? It needs the windspire.”

  “If it has survived this long, Twiner, I am sure it will make it through one more night.” Meas pointed towards where the crews were covering the boats. “Leave it with them. I will have the crews get what sleep they can. You and I will walk further round the headland, see if we can get a better look at the tower.”

  “What about the tide?”

  “There is no tide down here. I do not know why, but it is one worry less for us. Just the wildlife and stingplates to look out for.”

  “A pleasant evening walk then.”

  “Ey,” said Meas, “but one on which we will take Anzir and Narza just in case.”

  They set off along the beach, leaving instructions to those behind to set no fires but get what rest they could. Anzir and Narza walked in front of Meas and Joron, occasionally stabbing at the ground to puncture stingplates.