But Joron found himself silently thanking the windtalker, for it had shown him Meas Gilbryn was not unassailable after all, shown him that she could be beaten. And he tucked away this fact like a child tucks a hopeful feather against their heart when their parents go to sea.
He was a ship of blood
And fifty beakwyrms chased him.
His crew were not withstood
And fifty beakwyrms chased him.
The Sea Hag well rewarded
And fifty beakwyrms chased him,
Lost women and men aboard.
Aboard ho! Aboard!
Bows to shore and sea.
Riches ho! Aboard!
Bows to shore and sea.
Aboard ho! Aboard!
Bows to shore and sea.
And all the beakwyrms chasing.
Traditional winding song
As they left the bay the Eaststorm gifted them a whisper, and the crew of Tide Child jumped into action. Women and men scaled the rope ladders of the ship’s spines and let loose the wings; others stowed and made secure the oars and sails of the flukeboats, and stacked and tied them safely in the centre of the deck. Water laughed along the sides of the ship and curled away from its smooth bones in a white line of froth and bubbles to slowly fade behind them. It should have amazed Joron that this crew of the broken and the bad could pull together efficiently enough to fly the ship across the sea, but it did not. He had seen them do this before, seen them when he first took command, if that had ever been the word for his place among them.
These were the people of the Scattered Archipelago. Hundred Islander or Gaunt Islander, all in these waters flew their ships across the sea; it was a part of them as much as breathing or walking or fighting.
And yet . . .
And yet did he sense something more? Was there a difference here? Did Barlay at the steering oar hold herself a little taller than usual? Did Kanvey watch the men he gathered around himself with a little more pride and a little less lust than was usual? Did Cwell watch the crew around her with more suspicion and resentment than was usual? Were the eyes she turned to him crueller than they had been before Meas came aboard?
Or was it simply that he watched the crew this day without alcohol between him and them, neither the stumbling fuzz of drinking nor the retching misery of its after-effects. At the thought of it, of the thick drink slithering down his throat, his mouth dried and his stomach became wet and noisome, like the sea after the killing of a skyfish, when it seemed the water wished to create a barrier between itself and the creatures who had taken one of its most beautiful lives.
Hag’s breath, he wanted to drink.
Maiden’s blessing, he wanted not to.
He felt a need to pace the deck but was afraid of the way the crew would look at him as he moved among them. Afraid that what he would see in their eyes was not what he was starting to see in their eyes when they looked at her. Not respect, not yet, and it was not fear, not that yet either. But there was some worth they found in her that they knew was lacking in him.
So he stayed where he was, by the for’ard gallowbow, and made a show of examining the weapon.
Tide Child carried four great gallowbows to seaward and four to landward on the maindeck as well as ten smaller bows a side on the underdeck. There were four in a gallowbow crew if you included the bowsell, who was there to aim and give orders, but in reality it only took three to loose the great bows or the lesser ones below. One to loose and two to spin the winch that pulled back the launching cord between the outspread bone arms and to load the bow with the huge bolts that could smash through the sides of a ship as easily as they smashed through a body, or the stone bolas designed to cut rigging – or the most feared of the gallowbows weapons, wingbolts: giant carved stones, thick in the middle and tapering out into wings. He had heard stories that a skilled shipwife and windtalker could keep one aloft over a distance further than a person could run in a day, though Joron did not believe it. But he knew the wreckage a well-aimed wingbolt could cause, especially when the centre was filled with hagspit oil. As a child he had suffered nightmares of burning to death, locked in the hold of a ship as it melted in the fierce heat of bonefire, and only his father’s strong arms had ever been able to banish that fear. An arm reaching from the bloodied sea.
A good crew could loose two shots from a gallowbow in under a minute – spinning, loading, aiming, firing – but Joron had no idea how quickly his crew could loose. A shipwife was meant to exercise the bows once a week at least, but Joron had never dared to ask his crew to untruss them. Never dared to begin the rituals of practice in case no one followed his lead. So whether this crew were as adept with the bows as they were at getting the ship under way he had no idea. He suspected that they had no great skill. He did not know what Meas expected of them, but even if she expected very little, he felt she was sure to be disappointed.
He should tell her. He did not know where they headed, but from her urgency it must be to action. She stood at the rump of the ship, staring forward past the spines, past the huge billowing wings of the ship that scooped up the air and dragged Tide Child through the water, past the sharp beak of the ship and into the distance, beyond the islands that dotted the sea around them.
But what end did she see that he did not?
She spoke, said something he could not hear as it was torn away by the breeze, and behind her Barlay leaned into the steering oar. Above Joron the weave of the wings creaked and cracked as more of the Eaststorm’s whisper was gathered into them. He felt a pang. Jealousy?
No.
Annoyance that Barlay was where he should be, on the rump, and that she still had the blues of command painted on her scalp, although he wore the one-tailed hat. Had Meas told her to keep them, just to make sure he was aware of how precarious his position was? Or had the colours simply not run from her skin and hair yet?
“Beakwyrms, Shipwife!” The call came from the front – male – but he did not see who called. Five or six crew were leaning over the for’ard rail.
He did not know their names.
“Good,” shouted Meas from the rump. There was a merry breeze now, trying to catch her voice and tumble it away, but it fought a losing battle. That hoarse cry had fought against the worst the Northstorm had to give. “We have some speed then. If I thought Deckkeeper Twiner could find it, I would ask him to throw the rock and see how fast we move.” Laughter around the ship, and he felt himself colour like it was his first laying night. “Twiner, count the beakwyrms for me. Let me know how dangerous they think my ship is.” He could feel the approval of the crew at this nod to the Sea Hag’s ways as he made his way to the beak. Those on the rail did not move for him, and knowing Meas watched he grabbed the smallest body and hauled them away so he could lean over.
Vertigo.
The sudden reeling feeling that the ship and the sea stayed still while he rushed forward. Panic clawed at him, for forward was into the sea and, if lucky, to be crushed by the beak of the ship. If unlucky, to be food for the wyrms below.
“Numbers, Deckkeeper Twiner!”
Was it a trick, to be sent forward? He expected to feel sudden hard hands, gnarled and rutted with years of hauling on ropes, grab his feet and push him up and over. It did not happen, and the rail was sturdy in his too-tight grip, his knuckles bone-white against dark skin.
“We count five, D’keeper.” This from a girl, young but terribly scarred, half her face smashed by something or someone, skin tight with old burns, the flesh around one eye drooping as she tried to smile at him.