Bogran arose, wiping sand from his wet trews. ‘Ha! First!’
‘Second!’ cheered Remina Hag. Her face was a mask of grey sand and blood where she had squashed her nose into the beach. Her flaxen hair was all wrapped around her forehead. ‘That’s what you get for pushing me into a log.’
‘Third,’ muttered Mithrid. ‘And you fell into that log yourself, you tit.’
A broom-handle of a boy sprinted up to them, slapping the hull as he zipped past.
‘Fourth!’
Crisk was closely followed by Littlest. She had only seen nine winters, but as Remina’s sister, she was determined to join in their games. She barely reached up to Mithrid’s waist, and she giggled as she blackened her hands on the wreckage.
‘Fifth,’ she announced proudly.
Another boy was a large bull of a child, and the only child in Troughwake taller than Mithrid. Hence his nickname. Bogran and his father both held a strong suspicion the boy had minotaur blood in him, somewhere back in his line.
Bull lumbered up to the log and knocked charred splinters from it. ‘Er…’ he said, looking around with his sleepy eyes. ‘What’s next? Mith?’
‘Sixth, you lump,’ said Mithrid, pointing to where other groups of children were now racing down the steps of the cliffs. ‘Come on. Quickly, before the old ones realise we’re gone.’
Remina was everybody’s senior by barely a winter and eager to constantly remind everybody of it. ‘And remember! No hiding things, as per the rules!’
‘Wipe your face, Remina. You look like a sand troll.’ Mithrid flashed a smile.
There was foul muttering as the girl furiously scraped at her face with her sleeve. Mithrid shook her head and began her beachcombing. ‘Hag by name, Hag by nature,’ she whispered.
She chose to go further along the beach where a larger section of ship had survived the merciless battering of the sea. She spotted a box in the waterline, cracked but still whole, and dashed to it. There was no bolt, just a latch. Inside, the prize was waterlogged and smashed fruit. Mithrid wrinkled her lips and moved on.
Another box had fared worse, but inside there was a pair of fine shoes and some copper trinkets: bracelets and bangles and other such things. Mithrid slid a few onto her wrist, admiring them in the weak light. Holding the box under her arm, she kicked at a handful of charred planks that covered something deeper in the water.
A corpse without arms washed towards her in the flow of the waves. Mithrid retreated in a panic. Her yelp echoed against the stark cliff face that towered behind her, though it was not the first body she had seen amongst the jetsam. The Jörmunn Sea and the Coldcoal Bay were dangerous enough without ship battles and piratical rebels. Beachcombing was a game they played almost weekly. Mithrid took a breath to slow her heart, and after setting the box down, she moved back to the gruesome body. She knew what treasures pockets could hold.
Pulling a face, she delved aside the man’s broken leather armour and felt for a pocket or purse. She found the latter attached to his belt, and inside, a handful of silvers and coppers. Mithrid’s eyes widened. It may have been pittance in the empire, but it was half a year’s wage in Troughwake. Without hesitating, she plucked the coins from the purse and tucked them into the folds of her seal-hide coat, behind a gap in the stitching. It was against the rules of the game, but she would be damned if Bogran and Remina got to fatten themselves up even more while she and father went hungry.
Mithrid calmly picked up the box and moved on. Crisk came racing past her, whooping, a stringless longbow clutched in his hand. Several other boys and girls were chasing him for some unknown reason. Youth didn’t require one.
Beyond the body, there was a swathe of soaked and spoiled vittles. Apples bobbed on the waters or tumbled in the waves that washed over the shore. Mithrid picked at a few items. Most were badly burnt. She found clothing there, but no bodies. There were curiously few corpses, in fact. Perhaps the tides had dragged them out to sea, or perhaps foul magick had burnt them all to ash and charcoal.
Mithrid stumbled across wreckage that seemed at odds with the other jetsam: a section of hull complete with a broken shield still affixed. Its wood was barely charred, but deeply gouged as if it had been hacked at by a colossal axe. She moved closer, running her hands across the wet wood, where chisels had carved foreign runes into the hull. They felt cold to her touch, so much so they made Mithrid’s hand ache.
Bending to the sand, she dug at a shattered shelf. A metal plate had been nailed to it, this time displaying writing she did recognise. Commontongue.
‘Re… covered from Arfell Lib—something. Year nine, one, three,’ she read aloud in a whisper. She had never heard of such a place as Arfell.
Mithrid dug around the hull, finding more broken, empty shelves but no treasures. She was beginning to get frustrated; the warship was proving fruitless and already she could hear shouting from the buildings clinging to the cliff. The gang’s time was running out.
Mithrid cast around, pulling slimy kelp and plank shards aside. A boot, complete with a severed foot, repulsed her but she kept digging. She yelped again as a wrackle jumped from the water, its tiny jaws gnashing. The slimy eel managed to seize the meat of her thumb, but Mithrid shook it off violently. Surprise overrode sense: wrackles had hooked teeth, and it was best to drown the bastards in air so they let go without leaving deep scratches. Mithrid clenched a fist, dripping blood in the water, and searched on.
Splashing water and detritus aside, her uninjured hand closed on something square and solid. And heavy. She hauled it with both hands, and with a grunt, she claimed it back from the sea.
Mithrid clutched it close to her belly. It was a rectangular block, the width of her outstretched fingers and twice as long. It was about three inches thick, and Mithrid would have thought it a jewellery box had it not been bound in waxy leather and had some spongy give when she squeezed it. It felt more like an old book. Mithrid clutched it tighter.
‘Oi!’ came a shrill shout.
With a groan, Mithrid turned. Remina and Bogran had appeared from behind some jetsam and were aiming for Mithrid. Bogran was carting a shield and a small cage. Remina was close at heel. Bull followed her. Littlest and Crisk were busy with their own merriment. What remained of the gang gathered in close council, in a tight circle turned away from the younger children of Troughwake.
‘Show your treasures,’ announced Bogran in a low voice, like a preacher holding sermon. He was taking his role as first immensely seriously, as always.
Bogran presented a dented wooden shield, circular and painted yellow with a boar in stark black. Something had blasted a bite-mark from one edge. Mithrid could have sworn the charred edges were still steaming, ever so softly. As well as the shield, Bogran had also found a birdcage with a dead sparrow swimming in it.
Remina held out her offering: a badly dented firkin of some sloshing liquid. It had a label scratched into it. ‘Something called “slosk,” ’ she announced, shaking it to make it gurgle.
‘Slosh,’ Mithrid corrected. Remina had always been slower with letters.
The girl scowled deeply. ‘Slosh, then.’
‘Hmm. Next,’ Bogran dictated. As first, he got the pick of any item the others had found. Unlike most of the old ones, he was far from interested in grog.
‘And you, Mithrid?’