by R J Barker
“Bring hagspit!” shouted Meas. “Fire the stones. Don’t let that ship escape!” Joron had dreaded the order while knowing it would come. Fire on a boneship was a thing to be feared. Though bone itself did not burn easily, boneglue caught quickly. Belowdeck the barrels of oil were tapped and the oil brought up to pour into the shot.
A huge crash from seaward, and Joron turned. The third Gaunt Islands ship had smashed side on into Sunfish Rising – now to all intents and purposes a dead ship, with blood running in bright streaks from his bowpeeks down the white bone. The impact pushed Sunfish Rising into Tide Child, and the bigger ship groaned.
“Clever,” said Meas to Joron as she rushed up to the rail to look over the side. “Using the stricken ship as a shield. Coughlin!” she screamed, her voice hoarse. “Prepare to repel boarders. Get everyone who can fight up here with a curnow or wyrmpike! Protect the seaward gallowbows until Wavebreaker is burning!”
Below women and men from both Gaunt Islands ships prepared to board Tide Child as the ship beyond Sunfish Rising loosed at Tide Child with frightening accuracy, smashing his number two bow and sending its team sprawling. Grappling hooks came over the side. From behind him Joron heard the rush of the first fired wingshot being launched from Tide Child and the squawk of the gullaime as it guided it home. He glanced round, saw the shot hit Wavebreaker’s wings, spilling burning oil down wingcloth.
A sheet of flame across the ship.
“Hag save you all,” he said and turned away. He unhooked his curnow and pulled a primed crossbow from his jacket as the first of the boarders climbed the rail. He could hear fighting below as Gaunt Islanders tried to get in through the bowpeeks. He ran to the stairs. “Hag’s sake, you fools, close the those bowpeeks!” He turned. Found a Gaunt Islander coming at him. Shot the man in the neck with his crossbow. Behind him came another, curnow raised. Joron swept his own curnow up as hard as he could. There was no skill in it, only desperation. He smashed away the man’s blade, at the last moment realising his attacker also had a knife and he had left himself open. Anzir nearly took the man’s head off with a rope axe as she ran to Joron’s side.
Joron turned, saw the gullaime standing alone as the two-ribber’s deckkeeper ran towards it. No fool, she recognised the danger it posed and intended to end it with her slim blade. Meas lifted a crossbow to shoot the deckkeeper down but had to turn to defend herself from an attacking deckchild. The gullaime stood, stock still in the face of the advancing threat and Joron thought it must be paralysed with fear. He could not reach it, was too far away. He was only able to watch helplessly as the officer launched herself at the gullaime. The blade came around in a slash but the windtalker slid beneath her blade, riptide quick. One of its long thin legs flashed out; a curved claw cut through the woman’s throat, and she fell to the deck, her blood lost in the dark sand on the slate.
All was chaos.
Coughlin had formed a shield wall before gallowbows three and five to protect the teams as they continued to pour fired shot into Wavebreaker, while the fight on Cruel Water, between crews who until only an hour ago had been on the same side, was even more fierce and furious.
Then noise.
The loudest thing Joron had ever heard.
He turned, and not only him. Everyone turned. The fighting paused. Fire must have got into Wavebreaker’s oil store, and the resulting explosion had blown out the centre of the ship. Black smoke billowed into the sky, and bone, spars and pieces of burning wing rained down. Wavebreaker immediately began to list, to scream as the remaining bone of its hull was stressed beyond bearing. The whole ship tilted slowly to landward, the air filling with the awful stink of burning bone.
Then Joron was fighting again – no time to watch – Anzir slowly guiding him back towards the comparative safety of Coughlin’s shieldwall. Fallen spars and ropes everywhere, knots of women and men struggling to kill each other, threats from all angles. Dodge. Block. Thrust. Kill. He was cut – once, twice, three times. Thirsty. Wounds to arm and leg and face, Anzir the same, and had it not been for her he would have died many times over. He saw Old Briaret, dead on the deck, staring up into the rigging. No surprise escape from death this time, her chest hewn open. He saw the gullaime, spinning and twisting, using claws and beak as weapons. Far more dangerous than he had ever thought something so slight and brittle could be.
And Meas, alone on the rump with the shipwife of the two-ribber, fighting sword on sword. Where all else was chaos and brutish and hard and stinking and bloody, they were elegant. Slim silver swords, lithe bodies, arm and knee bent at just the correct angle. It could have been a duel on a field over a pretty Kept.
Were they both smiling?
The tails of their hats jumped as they danced forward and back. Lunge and feint. Block and twist. Then Meas had her, a lunge that went through her opponent’s defence, took her in the chest, pierced a lung. Fatal, but not quick. The stricken shipwife fell to her knees, dropped her sword, and with one fluid movement Meas swept her blade across the other shipwife’s throat, ending her suffering.
And with that it was over.
Some fought on, died. Most did not. Meas offered quarter, and those who accepted were coralled into a corner of the deck to await their fate.
Joron turned to look at Cruel Water behind them. Brekir stood on the rail and she raised her bloody sword to Meas in salute. Meas nodded and did the same, and it did not escape Joron that this was the first time he had ever seen Brekir look truly happy.
From the underdeck came Dinyl, hat missing, hair slick with blood.
“We won?” He seemed surprised.
“Ey,” said Joron. “It seems we did.”
It is said in fleet circles that any victory you walk away from is a good one. Joron doubted Meas Gilbryn would agree, although the mood on on the slate was a jubilant one, and Joron, on his way to the great cabin, had heard the women and men of Tide Child singing Meas’s praises:
“Four ships against two, and she brings us all in safe. No other shipwife could do such a thing.”
“Ey, that is right enough, and one of those four a traitor as well, a no-good backstabber. But Meas didn’t fall for it. Saw it coming the whole time, I reckon.”
“Ey, we are lucky to have her, ey?”
“I’ll throw paint to that.”
No doubt such conversations continued above him now; the ship certainly sounded like a happy one, and a busy one. Hammering and sawing filled the air as Tide Child was cut away from Sunfish Rising. The two-ribber was not only entangled in Tide Child’s rigging, but the burrs and hooks of its hull had been smashed into the black ship when the other Gaunt Islands ship – smaller than Sunfish Rising and named Sea Louse – had used it for cover. Now the crew of the black ship worked to disentangle all three ships. Similar work was taking place on Snarltooth, though there was more to do as the damage to Brekir’s ship was even worse than that to Tide Child.
But Tide Child was sorely damaged. Coxward said that the keel had not held as well as he had hoped through the turn, though how he could tell Joron had no idea. Not that he doubted the man.
The crews of Tide Child and Snarltooth were busy cannibalising the Sunfish and Cruel Water for parts and spares and shot. But every report that came in from Coxward or Solemn Muffaz or the seakeep told Meas that the damage to Tide Child was far greater than she had feared. He was holed in many places, some below the waterline, and the grind of the pumps ran counterpoint to the rasp of saws and the beat of hammers, and still the ship took on water. There was no replacing the smashed maindeck gallowbow, as only Wavebreaker had carried great bows, and that ship was gone, marked only by a growing pool of flotsam and the occasional bubble breaking the surface as it escaped the sunken hull. Gallowbow six had also taken a hit. Although not enough to destroy it, the bow would never loose again.
But the damage to Tide Child was minor compared to the that suffered by Snarltooth. Ramming Cruel Water at full speed had crippled the smaller ship. Its entire front was smash
ed in, the beak broken, and Brekir’s bonemaster reckoned they had cracked the spine of the ship too. He could fly, but barely, and would need to be nursed back to a dry dock.
So it was a dismal little council that met in Tide Child’s great cabin. The only ray of light was that, miraculously, Shipwife Arrin had survived Oswire’s treachery.
“I was sure the Hag had come for me,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, the burn of the rope a livid red ring on his neck. Mevans served him heated anhir to soothe his pain. “But it seems she is not done with me yet. When Brekir ran her ship into Cruel Water and he heeled over, I was able to grab the mainspine and climb up far enough to loosen the rope.”
“I will never, in all the days left to me,” said Brekir, “forget Oswire’s face when she turned to find you with a sword at her back.”
“Did you smile then, Brekir,” said Arrin, “or did the rope damage my eyes?”
“Me?” said the dour shipwife. “Smile? You must be drunk, Shipwife Arrin. No more anhir for you.” They laughed. And Meas laughed. And Joron laughed, and it was an infectious thing. Even Meas’s hatkeep, Mevans, who was generally a silent and serious presence when officers gathered, had to turn away to hide his amusement.
But the laughter did not last, and as it died away Meas spoke, her face stony.
“We have some serious decisions to make, Shipwives. I fear we may have won the battle but lost the war.”
“Ey,” said Brekir, and her face returned to its usual state of sad repose. “Cruel Water cannot be saved; I broke him utterly.” She glanced at Arrin. “I know you loved that ship, Arrin, and you have my apology.”
“I love my life more,” said Arrin. “You have no need to apologise.”
“It is not that we lost a ship,” said Meas “I am confident that when we have it free, Sea Louse will be able to take Cruel Water’s place.” She glanced at Arrin. “It is a newer ship – not as well made, right enough, but it mounts bows and flys the sea. That brings us to our real problem.”
“Crew,” said Arrin.
“Ey,” said Meas. “The price of our victory was high. All those on Cruel Water who sided with Oswire are dead.”
“There is no fiercer fighting than between those who feel betrayed,” said Brekir. “This morning they called those who betrayed them friend. It is a bitter meal to be served.”
“Ey,” said Arrin, staring at the table. “Though I do not mourn their passing. Those who sided with Oswire were murderous; they killed everyone they did not trust. This debacle, Meas, it is on me.” He looked up, coughing. “I was Cruel Water’s shipwife; I should have known what Oswire planned. I knew her before the black ships but did not realise the depth of her resentment.”
“You served with her how many years before the ship of the dead?”
“Eight.”
“Eight years of keeping each other alive; it is a hard wall to see past, I reckon.”
“True,” said Brekir. “But it is done now, and we must move on. The Hag has no pity for a deckchild who cries about yesterday.”
“Ey,” said Meas. “Paint that on a doorway. So, down to it. Every moment we delay, the wakewyrm draws away from us. Stay here too long and we will not be able to catch it. None remain of Cruel Water’s crew but Arrin. Brekir, how many of yours live?”
“I did not lose many in the fighting on Cruel Water, ten or twenty at most. We had the numbers and they were in shock from the ramming. But as soon as Wavebreaker’s shipwife saw we were taking the day, she swept the decks with his bows. It was good loosing too – I would be dead if not for Mozzan.”
“How is he?” said Joron.
“He is in the hagbower.” She put a hand on the table, spreading out her fingers. “He will not leave it.”
“I am sorry,” said Meas. “He was a good deckkeeper.”
“Ey,” said Brekir. “But all in all I have lost nearly half my crew.”
“And Tide Child,” said Joron, “has lost a third. Twenty are in the hagbower and will never leave. Another ten or so are unlikely to be up and about any time soon.”
“We have enough crew to fly Tide Child,” said Meas, “but not enough to fight him, and Hag’s Hunter waits in the far north.”
“Then there are the prisoners,” said Arrin.
“Ey,” said Meas. “Then there are the prisoners.”
“We could . . .” said Brekir. She took a deep breath, did not look the other shipwives in the eye. “We could load the prisoners on to Snarltooth, put my crew on Sea Louse and sink Snarltooth.”
There was quiet while her words settled. After a while, Meas shook her head.
“No. It is one thing to kill in battle, but that is murder, plain and simple, and I will not countenance it.”
“I am glad you said that,” said Arrin.
“As am I,” said Brekir. “But—”
“—someone had to suggest it so we could know we were of a mind not to do it,” finished Meas. “I know that. But it is in situations like this that we decide who we are.” She let silence settle in the cabin. “And I am glad of the people we are, the people that sit around this table.” She let the silence settle. Then changed the subject. “Joron, if you would call Aelerin . . .”
Joron dipped out of the great cabin and returned with the courser.
“Shipwife?” said the courser gently.
“You have a course for me, Aelerin?”
“Ey, Shipwife.” They handed over a chart and Meas spread it across the table. “I could only plan for the weather how it usually is, but the winds do not whisper a great blow to me – I hear no near anger from the Northstorm.”
“That is good to know, Courser,” said Meas. She turned to Brekir. “Cassin Island. It is a long way, but Aelerin has set a course that should avoid any fleet ships and follows only gentle currents.”
“That is the opposite way to the arakeesian,” said Joron. “What is there that is so important?”
Meas glanced up.
“There are many others who feel as we do around this table, Joron – did I not tell you that? And we have been stockpiling equipment and what ships we could. Sea Louse is a welcome addition and Snarltooth will be fixed, but, more important, Sea Louse and Sunfish Rising had two gullaime each aboard, and they survived. If we, at some point in the future, must fight, we will need gullaime. They are worth more than ships in their way.”
“So we abandon the arakeesian to Hag’s Hunter?”
Meas shook her head.
“No, we do not. Brekir, you will transfer your flag to Sea Louse. We’ll put the prisoners on Snarltooth and you can tow him to Cassin Island. I will need thirty crew. I appreciate that will leave you short-handed and you will have to deal with the prisoners but—”
“—if the prisoners wish to keep Snarltooth afloat they will be too busy pumping to cause trouble. But I cannot order my crew to their deaths with you, Meas,” she said. “I have never been that type of shipwife, even though they are already dead, I suppose.”
“Very well. I will take as many volunteers as will come to my deck. All my wounded I will send to you. Many can still work, so you should not be too short-handed if some choose to leave you.”
“Meas,” said Arrin, “Tide Child is in no state to fight a ship like Hag’s Hunter. Even fully crewed and fresh from the docks, it would be too much to ask.”
“I have a duty, Arrin,” said Meas. “I have made a promise.” She tapped the table with her finger. “And, after all, I am shipwife on a ship of the dead. We both know what that means.”
“Let me be the first volunteer. You take Sea Louse and then find another ship. Your expertise is invaluable to what we do. Please, let me take Tide Child north.”
Meas shook her head and reached across the table, grasping Arrin’s hand. “Snarltooth will be fixed for Brekir, and Sea Louse will need a good shipwife; those who believe in us will need a good shipwife.” She smiled, “And do not doubt me, Arrin.” She let go of his hand and sat back. “Kyrie is my sither
and was my deckkeeper before she was shipwife on Hunter. I know how she thinks; I know how she fights. I have advantages you do not.”
Arrin glanced at her then shrugged.
“If any can beat her, then it is you.”
“Ey, that is true,” said Brekir.
“Then let us get to work. Every moment spent talking here the wakewyrm makes into distance between us.”
Many turns of the glass later Tide Child left Snarltooth and Sea Louse behind him in the gathering dark, the two ships illuminated by the burning hulks of Cruel Water and Sunfish Rising. Something ached in Joron. Not because he was watching a jointweight of bone that would have made every woman and man on board Tide Child and Snarltooth rich beyond imagining go to the bottom of the sea, but because he was leaving behind people he had come to like, and though he knew Meas had spoken bravely, he also knew it was a mask. Brekir and Arrin had known it too. Tide Child was no match for Hag’s Hunter.
“We should throw the bolts overboard,” said Joron as he stood with Dinyl on the rump.
“Bolts?” said Dinyl.
“For killing the keyshan. If Hag’s Hunter takes us and finds them, the keyshan is theirs. And all we have done will be for naught.”
“We have a duty, Joron,” he said. “We can lead Hunter a pretty chase, lose it among the storm isles, then do what we must when Hunter is behind us.”
“Look to our ship, Dinyl,” he said. “You think it is possible we will lose Hunter?”
“To be fleet is not to do what is possible, it is to do what you must.” Then he walked away, wrapping his thick coat about himself against the cold.
“Joron Twiner.” He turned to find the gullaime. It was like a different beast now. Still thin, still delicate-looking, but the feathers on its head were glorious – black in the night, but in the daylight blue and gold and red.
“I am sorry they took your people away,” he said, nodding towards the ships slowly vanishing into the glow of bonefire behind them.
