The Bone Ships

by R J Barker

  “Meas?” it said.

  “Bring me wind, bring it strong. I want that ship to think we are running away.”

  “We leave sea sither?”

  “If the ship chases us, then yes. We will draw it away.”

  The gullaime nodded and went to the rail then started cawing and screeching at the water.

  “What is it doing, Joron?” said Dinyl.

  “Gullaime,” asked Joron. “What do you do?”

  “Tell the sea sither we go. But for it.”

  “Even though it cannot hear, as it is slow and we are quick?”

  The gullaime yarked its odd laugh.

  “Even though,” it said, then took up its place before the mainspine and became still. The pressure rose and the wind swirled around Tide Child.

  “Unfurl the mainwings,” shouted Meas. “Stop slatelaying, lazy deckchilder. Let’s find us some speed!”

  Up the spines ran the crew, and the great black sails fell from the spars to catch the wind as Barlay leaned into the steering oar. Tide Child came about, groaning and creaking as the boom crossed the deck.

  Coxward cursed and vanished below, to listen to the ship but Joron did not need to go to the bilges, ear against the hull, to know something was wrong; the sounds as Tide Child heeled over were too loud, too off key, as if the ship were an ancient complaining as they were forced to move from a comfortable seat.

  If Meas worried she gave nothing away. She strode to the bottom of the mainspine to stand next to the gullaime, who was lost in its own world, bringing the wind that powered Tide Child forward. The chest beneath its robes rose and fell as the pressure in Joron’s ears ebbed and flowed, making the sound of the sea around him pulse like waves on a shore. When Meas was happy with Tide Child’s course, she had Barlay straighten the ship, and the creaking and moaning from the ship’s bones stopped.

  Meas returned to the rump and stood by Joron.

  “Now we will see if you were right, Deckkeeper,” she said. “Aelerin!”

  “Shipwife.”

  “If Hag’s Hunter follows us, in the state we are in I do not think we can outrun them and Tide Child will not take any hard manoeuvres, so I need something else. Get to the charts and find me shallow water where Hunter cannot follow.” Meas waited for Aelerin to vanish towards the great cabin, where the charts were kept, but they did not. “Well?” said Meas.

  “Forgive me, Shipwife, but I reckoned on you wanting that or somewhere to hide. The islands here in the north are not kind to us in that way. The water is deep, the Islands low, not tall enough to hide us from Hag’s Hunter.”

  Meas nodded, her eyes unfocused as she thought.

  “Very well. And no sign of a storm. What chance of mist do you hear sung?”

  “The Northstorm is brisk now as it runs up to the time of tempers. It sings only a slow gaining of anger in the winds.”

  Meas nodded.

  “So, no mist, nowhere to hide and nowhere to play clever tricks.”

  “What do we do?” said Dinyl.

  “We string them along,” said Meas, “for as long as we can.”

  “But our mission,” said Dinyl. “The keyshan must die in the Northstorm, and—”

  “Quiet yourself, Deckholder,” she hissed.

  Dinyl stared at Meas, and Joron saw suspicion return to his face.

  “You do remember our mission?” he said quietly.

  “Do not think to remind me of what I do or do not remember,” said Meas through gritted teeth. “Ask such questions in front of the crew again and I will break you to the deck, do you understand?”

  Dinyl bowed his head, took a step back.

  “Of course, Shipwife,” he said.

  They flew on, the ship skimming across the waves, and after ten turns of the glass the call came from above.

  “It follows! Hag’s Hunter follows!”

  Meas walked to the far rear of the ship and raised her near-glass.

  “It is already larger in the glass than I would like. Kyrie must be showing her gullaime no mercy.”

  “How long?” said Joron. He had no need to give any further detail.

  Meas gazed through her nearglass, taking her time. The sea rose and fell without care.

  “Not long enough, Deckkeeper. Not long enough. Go below, Joron, find the crate with the hiylbolts and make sure they are readily accessible. And put three wingbolts in the crate with them. If it comes to it, the crate goes over the side. We will not give Kyrie more ammunition.”

  Joron glanced around, making sure no crew were near.

  “Why not just do it anyway? Now.”

  “Because Dinyl was right: we have our duty, and I have not given up all hope. I am a better shipwife than my sither. We may yet carry the day.” She raised her nearglass again. “You have work to do, Joron,” she said, and he knew himself dismissed.

  It was hard work in the hold, damp and stuffy and stinking, but the crate of hiylbolts was eventually found. As he was struggling to drag the box up the stairs, he found himself face to face with the gullaime.

  “Joron Twiner,” it said.

  “You are not needed on deck?”

  “Wind shifted,” it said. Then it sniffed twice. “Smell death, Joron Twiner.”

  “This is why Hag’s Hunter chases us, and not the arakeesian.” He nodded at the box. “It is bait.”

  The gullaime took a step closer.

  “Not lie, Joron Twiner,” it said, then touched its open beak with a wingclaw and Joron was enveloped in the smell of hot sand. “Tasted your blood.”

  A sudden shift, a scent of rain on the air, a knowledge of the currents moving around the ship that was not his, all experienced with senses he did not possess, and then he was looking at his own face. Dark skin, wiry hair escaping the one-tailed hat that clung tightly to his skull, and the lie was there on his face as bright as paint splattered on a doorway. Then he was back, staring into the painted eyes of the gullaime’s mask.

  “It is not my decision,” he said.

  “Is hers?”

  “Yes.” And he felt the gullaime deserved an explanation. “She wants to save lives.”

  “Many lives need saved,” it said, then shuffled past him him and down the narrow stairs before turning at the bottom. “Gullaime live too.” It vanished into the gloom, but its voice came sailing back, though not its voice as he had known it, not the harsh croak he was used to, something different and sweeter, something he felt sure only he could hear:

  “You know the song, but you would lose it for ever.”

  And he did know the song. The song had been growing in his mind since he had touched the windspire on Arkannis Island, but he did not know what it meant or what it was for – or if it was for anything at all.

  “Joron!” The call came from above and he returned to his shipwife. A brisk wind filled the wings of Tide Child, pushing him over the water at a speed that, if not breathtaking, was impressive.

  It was not enough.

  Behind them, Hag’s Hunter loomed. How long had be been in the hold? Ten, twenty turns of the glass? When he held up his hand and looked back, the topspines of Hag’s Hunter stuck up above his fingers.

  “Impressive, is he not?” said Meas.

  “Yes,” he replied. Because it was true. Blue corpselights burned above the ship, bone-white hull smashing through the sea, sending up great clouds of spume. Vast wings caught the wind, a tower of white cloud above the ship.

  On the rump Coxward stood by Meas.

  “We cannot outrun it, Shipwife,” he said. “Tide Child’s bones simply will not take much more.” Joron glanced up into the sky. Skearith’s Eye was well down in its journey to the horizon. “The Hunter will not catch us before night though,” the bonemaster added. “Tide Child does what he can.”

  “Will they attack at night?” said Joron.

  Meas nodded.

  “If Kyrie wants me, and to get back to the keyshan before it makes the high northern currents, then she must.”

&nb
sp; “So we run on?”

  Meas closed up her nearglass.

  “No, Joron. We are tired, and as Coxward says, the ship is tired also – we have flown across the entire Archipelago and we will only get more tired. If I thought we could run, I would run. But Kyrie will catch us.” Meas placed the nearglass inside her coat. “For as long as I have know her, Kyrie has desired our mother’s favour more than any other thing, and here she sees her chance to win it. She will show no quarter.” There was an alarming groan, and Meas put her hand on the spine, as if to comfort the ship. “Tide Child has served us well, and I had hoped to lead the Hunter on for longer. But it seems we do not have that luxury.” She glanced at Coxward, who bowed his head as if shamed at his inability to do more for the ship. “To have any chance, I fear we must turn and fight, Joron. While we still can.”

  “Do we have a chance?”

  She put a hand on her sword hilt.

  “There is always hope. We attack while it is still light so that when we go at it the bowsells can aim for Hunter’s stern, where the steering oar engages the tiller. Damage that enough it will—”

  “We have to get past the Hunter’s bows first, Shipwife,” said Dinyl. “And it has three decks of them.”

  “Bother me not with details.” She stared at the larger ship a moment longer before turning to Dinyl and Joron. “We are a ship of the dead. Sentence has been given: we only wait for it to be carried out.” She turned from them. “Now, I have told you I intend us to go into action. Why are my decks not being cleared?”

  Joron walked the slate. He wore his best, and only, fleet jacket – fishskin of dark blue, Mevans had re-dyed his hair so streaks of bright blue now ran through the black and he had braided his hair the way Mozzan of Snarltooth had shown him. Mevans had re-dyed Meas’s hair too and colourful streaks ran through the grey.

  Tide Child turned in a vast circle, nursing his cracked keel and damaged hull. The gullaime squatted in the centre of the deck, bringing the winds, gentle and sweet, that turned the ship and filled his wings – the currents the windtalker brought barely made Joron’s ears ache. As soon as they started their turn Hag’s Hunter had turned also, keeping his beak on them, a pointing finger kept on his intended prey.

  Joron did not know quite why he had chosen his best clothes to die in; it just seemed right.

  The ship was cleared for action and pristine, shot and bolt stacked on the cracked slate of the deck, teams standing to attention by their bows. All those not working were lined up on deck, neatly arrayed, dressed in their best, and Joron noticed that each and every one of them had a blue tint to their clothes, just like Meas, just like him. He passed Farys, her burned face twisted into a smile, and gave her a nod. Gavith stood by her. It felt odd to see Farys without Old Briaret, but that would not matter soon. He passed down the lines, a word here and there: the odd admonishment for a poorly turned-out bit of clothing or a mark not fully excised from the deck, but they were small things, said jokingly.

  He realised as he passed, as he studied their faces – scarred, dirty, deformed but above all familiar – that he had undersold these women and men from the start. He had thought them simple, accepting Meas as an almost magical being who would guide them through danger. He had heard them speak as such, but now, as he moved among them, he realised how wrong he had been. The old hands, the steady deckchilder, those who had roved the sea, drifted along its currents – they knew the truth. It was not unheard of for a four-ribber to take down a five. Not impossible by any means. And had the ship not been so damaged, had they not been so brittle, had they not been so undercrewed, then no doubt every woman and man among them would have backed Meas to win.

  But the ship was brittle and damaged.

  The ship was undercrewed.

  The stories he had heard from his father, that buoyant sense of self-belief that only a fleet ship knew, he understood them now. They were not real. They were just tales spun by old hands to steady those below them: to stop any wavering, to calm fears, to make the inevitable feel unlikely, to conjure hope from nothing. But in the older faces he saw the truth. They knew they went to their deaths, that Tide Child flew towards an inexorable fate. That deep below the sea the Hag opened her arms ready to welcome them. And each and every one of them, each woman and man, had accepted that. They did not wail or cry or shake. Where Joron had to put his hands behind his back, clasp them together to make sure he did not give away his fear, there was an easy jocularity among the crew – a smile for him, for the deckchilder around them. They were content. Sentence had been pronounced, and now it would be carried out.

  “My crew, my fancy crew.” The words came from the rump, and Joron turned to see Meas. Dinyl stood to landward of her, Narza behind her, and while she surveyed her crew and they looked back at her, seeming to stand a little taller as they did, he joined her. Anzir came to stand behind him and when Joron stood by Meas his hands no longer threatened to shake. The images of his body being ripped apart, pierced with bone or burned alive faded from his mind, and he found he understood how the crew did it.

  Here, at this moment, he also accepted his fate. Not because he wanted to die, but because he knew there was no other option. Dinyl had talked of duty; his father had talked of duty, and now he knew he would do his. So he stood and he listened to his shipwife speak.

  “I will not lie to any woman or man among you,” said Meas. “It looks bleak for us.” She let those words settle in. Chains in the rigging chimed, the wind whistled through the ropes and the wings cracked. “But I have been in bleak situations before, and walked away. For I am Lucky Meas, I am the witch of Keelhulme Sounding, and you are my crew. Now, my girls and my boys, I have flown bigger ships, and I have flown far more prestigious ships and I have flown newer ships.” She paused again, taking her time, letting her words sink in. “When I came aboard this ship, you were nothing. Rabble. Drunks. Fools.”

  “Some still are!” A shout from the back, and there was laughter, but Meas did not join in.

  “Calm those words!” she shouted. “For you are not those things. You are a crew now! And you are my crew. And as there is no better shipwife in the Scattered Archipelago than I, than Lucky Meas Gilbryn” – her voice was as serious, harsh and rising like the clouds of the Northstorm – “Then I say, there is no better crew than that which fly with me! And that great ship out there!” She pointed at Hag’s Hunter. “It outmatches us, most would say. And they would be right.” She looked up and down the rows of crew. “But only in size and bows. And you” – her gaze focused on Farys, roved across the crew – “and I and Dinyl and Joron, we will take that ship on, unafraid. They sent us to kill a keyshan,” she shouted, “and maybe we will not manage that, but they also sent us to stop anyone else taking that keyshan. They sent us to make our families, our children and the children of so many others safer. If I die doing that, then that is enough for me! Is it enough for you?”

  “Ey,” said Barlay. “It is enough for me.”

  “And the rest?” said Meas.

  “Ey.” Ones and twos from the deck.

  Then Mevans’ shouted.

  “Is that the best we can do? I say ey! We all say ey! ’Tis a great thing to do, to save the future! Ey?”

  A pause. Then Farys stepped forward.

  “I say ey!”

  Then the cabin boy, Gavith.

  “And I say ey!”

  Then Karring, the swimmer.

  “’Tis ey from me.”

  And Solemn Muffaz.

  “I say ey!”

  Then the whole crew were shouting, and it was deafening. “Ey! Ey! Ey!” And then from somewhere in the dense crowd on the slate came another shout: “For Lucky Meas!” And that was taken up, repeated, chanted until Meas had to quieten them, and did Joron see a glistening in her eye? Or did he fool himself?

  “We will do our best to beat that ship,” she shouted, pointing once again at Hag’s Hunter as it made its serene way forward, seeming to glide across the sea, eight bright c
orpselights in tow. “But above all we shall stop it taking the keyshan and prolonging the war that eats our people’s lives. To do that, we must destroy his tiller, and to do that, we must cross Hunter’s gallowbows. I shall not pretend that it will not be fearsome. I shall not pretend that all will walk away. The Hag will take her due today. But when we have taken out his tiller Hunter’s size will mean nothing. We shall leave that ship in no state to chase the keyshan. I would rather the beast escaped than provide its bones for more war, and I shall consider my life well spent if that is all I do.” Silence. “Now,” she said, and lifted her sword, raised her voice. “Untruss my bows! Let us go to war!”

  There should have been a cheer then, but there was not; for a moment there was only a heavy silence as what Meas had said sank in – that this was truly to be the day they died. Then a shout came from the crowd, the voice of Garriya, the woman Mevans had insisted be brought aboard as lucky, a small and unkempt presence among the deckchilder.

  “Sing for us, Joron Twiner,” she said. “Sing us to our grim work.”

  Joron had not sung since his father had died, but after a moment’s faltering hesitation the words came. He opened his mouth and he sang a song his father had sung to him as a child. But the tune was not the one his father had used. Oh it was similar, but subtly changed, familiar and yet not familiar. He sang the song of the windspire, the song he heard when he dreamed of moving, free and vast, beneath the ocean.

  I’ll not deny the Hag my love,

  Let us fly to her in pride.

  I’ll not deny the Hag my love,

  For duty have I died.

  I’ve always loved the sea, my love,

  So deep and blue and true.

  I’ve always loved the sea,

  my love, As much as I loved you.

  And when he had finished the first chorus, after they had got used to the strangeness of the tune, the crew joined with the familiar words of the deckchild’s lament.

  I’ll not deny the Maiden love,

  I’ll play her games and sport.

  I’ll not deny the Maiden love,

  I’ll die as I was taught.

  I’ve always loved the sea, my love,