The Bone Ships Read online

The three remaining bowteams frantically started to wind the pulleys that tensioned the arms that tightened the cord. In the curving harbour many of the smaller boats were heading away, the appearance of a fleet ship enough to ward them off, but the four bigger flukeboats were near land and clearly had no intention of stopping. Tide Child began to turn and Joron opened his mouth. He knew this harbour, had been here with his father: there was a reef on one side, and if the ship did not head seaward before bringing its bows to bear it would not have enough room to turn. He looked for the courser, to ask them what they thought, but the courser would be below during a fight, too precious to risk. He was about to raise his voice, to tell Meas, but the words died in his mouth. She was Meas Gilbryn; who was he to gainsay her word? What if she knew something he didn’t? What a fool he would look then.

  “Spin!” shouted Meas, “Spin the bows for the Mother’s wish!” A woman struggled past Joron, holding three long bolts of varisk stalk dried and tied together and tipped with a pointed head of shaped stone. She gave one to each of the bowteams’ loaders. Joron heard the click of each cord coming to rest behind the firing hook. The bolts were placed. Bolts loaded, each team steadied the huge bone crossbow on the greased ball socket that allowed it to turn.

  “Sitting targets!” shouted Meas. “Look at those flukeboats. They barely even move, they are too close to the shore. Hurry, before they get their oars out. Loose as we come to bear.” She sounded thrilled, full of triumph.

  It was not to be.

  The three bows fired at the same time. The first, crewed by Farys, let out a deep thrum but the cord miscaught the bolt, which made it shoot almost straight up into the air, sending the bowteam scurrying away in panic to avoid the falling bolt, which smashed against the side of the ship, cracking the rail and then falling into the sea. The second and third bows fared a little better, at least getting their bolts off. One flew far over the flukeboats in the bay, and the other did little to worry its target. Meas glared at the bowteams, and if the look on a face could have sunk a ship, Tide Child would have been bound for the Hag’s embrace there and then. But it could not and he did not, though Joron half wished he had.

  “Hag’s tits,” hissed Meas, then she was striding forward. “What did you people do before I came aboard? Spin!” she shouted. “Spin the bows, Hag take you all. Bring more bolts! Bring them!”

  The bowteams obeyed while the rest of the crew stood looking lost, like they did not know what to do with themselves, though some at least had the Maiden’s grace to look ashamed and certainly Joron was one of them. The big fluke-boats had their oars out and were turning their beaks to face Tide Child – a face-on ship was a much smaller target than a side on one, and the shipwives of these boats knew one hit from a great bow would doom them. “Spin! Hag take you!” shouted Meas.

  A scream. The cord on the first bow had been overtightened by the panicked team under Hilan and snapped, the cord whipping back and cutting Hilan almost in two. A wave of blood ran across the deck. Meas ignored the death, ran to the next bow as the loader, staring in horror at the dead man, dropped his bolt and backed away from the great weapon. Farys, small and damaged Farys, spattered with her dead friend’s blood, stepped in. She lifted the bolt, grunting as she put all her strength into placing it.

  Meas sighted along the bow. “Wait, wait,” she said, more to herself than anyone else, and then she pulled the trigger rope. The bolt scudded out, skipping over the surface of the sea and smashing into the beak of a flukeboat, ripping the hull apart and scattering the crew into the water. A roar went up from Tide Child. Then Meas was back at Hilan’s bow, rethreading it. Shouting for it to be spun and the body to be put over the side, she grabbed Farys, dragged her over and pushed her against the aimer’s lean, loading the bow herself and standing behind the girl. “Watch,” she said. “You watch. See when the boat is in the notch?” Calm, as if Tide Child flew through a fine day, then Meas raised her voice: “Launch!” Another bolt streaked out, cutting through a second flukeboat, and another roar went up from the crew. Meas stood straight. “See!” she said. “That is how it is done. Now we finish the—”

  Joron was thrown, bodily, from his feet together with every other member of the crew, including Meas, and a terrible sound came from the ship – a screaming and groaning and cracking of the ship’s bones as they were put under terrible stress. Another crack and, almost in slow motion, the mainspine of the ship toppled, bringing wings and rigging with it, its stately fall only stopped by the ensnaring web of rope, leaving it leaning at a crazy angle over the deck.

  Joron’s world swam and tilted, changed, took on strange colours. He tried to stand but could not. He thought of standing, but the thought was becalmed and did not move from his mind to reach his legs or his hands. Then he was being pulled up by a large shape he could hardly make out. Barlay? Then a voice: “Bare your sword, Deckkeeper.” And he was stumbling forward, tangled in rigging, fighting his way out, the ropes and the world becoming clearer, little by little. His face was wet. He touched it, licked his finger. Blood. Had he cracked his head?. A moment of fear. How bad was it? Father’s skull bursting like overripe fruit. Then moving. On the deck before him a woman lay unmoving. Dead. Further on, a man whimpering in pain, his leg shattered, shards of grey-white bone showing through red flesh, like Meas’s hair in reverse. But he was drawn on by a voice demanding his service. Her voice.

  “Deckkeeper, to me! All of you! To me!” The ship, how badly damaged was it? Did that even matter at this moment?

  No.

  His thoughts started to come together. They were stricken. Had hit the shallows just as he had thought they would. What would the raiders do?

  Run?

  No.

  Attack.

  Of course they would. A few children to sell to the Gaunt Islanders was nothing compared to the profit to be had in a boneship, even a black one, even a wrecked one. With the arakeesians long gone boneships were a dwindling resource and the fewer of them there were the more their parts were worth. Oh, you could make a ship from gion and varisk, fair enough, but they were brittle and delicate things compared to keyshan bone, no good for war, no good for fighting and easily broken by a strong sea, by a shallow reef. All knew that the Hag favoured ships of bone upon her dark waters.

  He made it to the side of the ship, felt the deck sloping away behind him. Meas was shouting. Like him she was bloodied. She held her left arm awkwardly, as though hurt. Behind her the sea was alive. The two largest flukeboats were rowing for Tide Child with all the speed they had and pulling who they could from a sea already red with blood and thrashed to foam by hungry longthresh, feeding on the stricken. The fleeing smaller boats had turned and were making for Tide Child.

  “All of you,” she said, “pick up your blades and get ready to repel boarders.” If Joron had been quicker, braver, maybe he would have taken that moment to defy her. To shout her down. The raiders would like nothing more than to be presented with a boneship without a fight and would probably welcome him among them. But in the back of his mind was his father’s voice and a hundred stories of the glorious fleet, and he couldn’t bring himself to betray them.

  Betray her? Yes. But his father? Never.

  “Did you not hear the shipwife?” shouted Barlay from behind him. “She said prepare to repel borders.”

  There was a pause then, as if Tide Child, balanced on the reef, and could have fallen either way, stayed marooned in the bright light of Skearith’s Eye or fallen to sink into darkness.

  Then Meas jumped on to the ship’s rail. Arrows were flying from the approaching flukeboats but she acted as if they were nothing.

  “Well?” she shouted. “Are you fleet? Or are you scum?” She raised her sword. “For I am fleet!”

  As Tide Child tipped, a lone voice called out. Joron did not know whose voice it was, but it was clear enough in the moment.

  “Ey! We are fleet!”

  And with that it was decided. All those around him picked up weapons. Jo
ron glanced at the approaching boats, those aboard bare-chested, shaking spears and brandishing their bows.

  “You are hurt,” he said to Meas.

  She looked at him like he was a fool and tried to raise her left arm, grimaced.

  “Ey.” She walked to the stump of the mainspine. “A dislocation, nothing more.” And with that she drove herself into the wildly canted spine, pushing her shoulder joint back into place, and though she did not scream her knees almost buckled at the pain. The crew watched her, as if her actions gave them some sort of power. “It is better now,” she said. “It takes more than a little pain to stop a deckchild, ey?” This she said to the nearest woman, who grinned back at her, showing teeth black from chewing harsi gum. “Bring the wings down. We’ll bunch them up and use them as a shield against arrows. One along this rail, one back on the rump. Get to it.” The woman nodded and ran. Others scaled the rigging, and he heard the sound of axes cutting rigging, bringing the mainwing down to be swiftly repositioned along the front of the rumpdeck.

  And the boats came, and they came.

  Another wing was pushed against the rail on the side of the ship.

  And the boats came, and they came.

  Arrows started to hit the sides of Tide Child.

  Joron stared at the women and men on the flukeboats; there were so many. The two big boats were overflowing with raiders furious for blood, their bodies red with paint. The rowing boats – he counted eight of them – held at least six raiders in each, and he found himself mesmerised by what he was sure was his approaching death.

  Meas pulled him down as a shower of arrows fell across the decks of Tide Child.

  “Do we have bows aboard, Deckkeeper?” He did not know, looked at her blankly. “Never matter. I’ve sent crew to close the bowpeeks on the lower decks so they won’t be getting in there. All may not be over, Twiner.” She was smiling, and her breath was coming quickly. He couldn’t understand why she was smiling when they were all about to die. When everything had gone so terribly wrong. “There are no children in those boats, we got here in time.”

  “Or they were on the boats we shot out of the water.”

  “They were heading towards land when we came. We have interrupted them, and now we must crush them against our ship, broken as he is.”

  “There are so many.”

  “They are rabble, Deckkeeper. And we are fleet.” She turned to the man crouching next to her, scar-faced and gap-toothed. “Did you hear that, what are we?”

  “Fleet,” he said. But too quietly for Meas.

  “Then show some pride in it, man. Shout it.” She stood, oblivious to the arrows coming in, the light glinting from the feathers in her hair and the fishskin on her tunic. “They are rabble! Nothing! We are fleet! We are Hundred Isles and they cannot touch us!”

  And all around Joron glances were exchanged; small smiles crept on to tanned and scarred faces, and her words were repeated, becoming louder and stronger as the arrows rained down. He thought her mad, but it seemed Meas’s words were true as not one arrow found flesh.

  She leaned over, her mouth close to his ear. “We fight here to start, when they come over the rail. When it gets too much we lead the crew back to the rump.”

  All around the shouting.

  “We are fleet! We are Hundred Isles!”

  Were they all mad, was this what battle did to women and men?

  Meas straightened, held her sword aloft. Arrows fell about her, bounced off the deck, stuck in the rail, left her untouched.

  “Come to me!” she shouted at the incoming boats. “Come and die at the hand of Lucky Meas and her crew!” Joron heard the bump of a flukeboat hitting the side of the ship – his father ground between the hulls – and a roar. A hand appeared on the rail. Meas lunged and there was a scream. When she held her sword aloft again blood ran from it. More swarmed up the ship, faces in the gaps between rumpled black wing and the ornate uprights of the rail. Some were bloody already, cut by Tide Child’s spiked hull.

  Joron found he was standing close to the rail, had no memory of moving. He turned. Old Briaret. She pushed a spear into his hand.

  “Better for this work, D’keeper,” she said. A face appeared between the uprights, hands scrabbling to find purchase on the rail, leaving wet, dark smears of blood where Tide Child had claimed his price. Joron jabbed his spear at the man’s face, feeling it jar his hands as it cut through flesh and found bone. The man fell back with a cry, hands to his gaping wound.

  And that was how it was. Shouting, stabbing, screaming, confusion.

  If a face came at him from the direction of the rail then he jabbed at it. He jabbed at hands, he jabbed at bodies. He jabbed at legs and was surprised by how easy it was. How being on the slate of Tide Child gave him such an advantage over the raiders scaling the ship. He began to believe it would end here and end quickly.

  A scream from down the deck.

  He turned.

  A group of raiders had managed to get aboard at the beak of the ship and were cutting into the end of the line of defenders. Meas took a step back from the rail, pulled one of the small crossbows that hung on her blue coat from its cord and calmly loosed a bolt down the deck. Tossing the crossbow aside before the bolt took a woman in the throat, her next crossbow already in her hand.

  “Look to the beak!” she shouted. Better-trained deckchilder may have reacted more quickly, rushed to counter the attack, but this crew were not drilled; they were lost in their violence. Another bolt sang down the deck, but now raiders were swarming over the beak of the ship. Screaming in their triumph. “Twiner,” shouted Meas. “Pull them back to the rump. Come, do it!”

  Joron grabbed Old Briaret, shouting, “Retreat!” in her face. The woman was grinning, covered in blood, eyes alight with joy. In her fury she looked years younger. “Back,” he shouted. “Back!”

  Old Briaret turned and hurled her spear down the deck at the raiders and took up the call. “You’ll need your curnow now, D’keeper,” she said, and grabbed Farys, dragging her away from the rail. Joron threw his own spear, taking a man in the stomach. Hearing the calls to retreat, the attackers surged forward, as fierce and strong as a riptide. Cutting down those in their path. All around, the crew of Tide Child were fleeing down the ship, those crew at the rail peeling away. As they did, more raiders came over the rail like a froth of boiling water coming over the edge of a pan.

  Not all the deckchilder ran; some were lost in fighting and killing, unable to hear anything but the roar of blood in their ears, and the raiders hacked them apart. Some tripped on loose tangles of rigging, slipped on blood or were simply not quick enough and were caught by the furious mob of woman and men rushing up the deck. Blood spilled over the slate and into the sea, and the longthresh churned furiously in the water below. Joron ran, feeling guilty that he was thankful some had fought and fallen or been slow, that their deaths bought him time to escape.

  On the rump of the deck stood Meas; by her stood Barlay. A hasty barricade of broken spars and wingcloth had been built, and Joron realised that, while he had been thinking about keeping raiders off the rail and staying alive, Meas had sent Barlay to make this barrier. The big woman was holding a spar up so crew could run underneath. Joron ducked through, wingcloth rasping against his back, and as soon as the last of the crew were through Barlay dropped the spar. Scattered across the rump of the ship were bows. Joron was shamed by them. They were in poor condition, and he had had not even known they were aboard.

  “If you know how to shoot a bow,” shouted Meas, “get up the rumpspine” – she motioned behind her – “and take down their archers first.” She pointed at the raiders climbing the for’ard spine, and then her own crew were climbing, bows held in their teeth and arrows in their hands. Meas pushed a fishskin beaker of water into Joron’s hand. Another thing he had not even thought about: an open water barrel stood at the bottom of the paint-spattered rumpspine.

  “Drink now. You’ll be thirsty though you may not feel it.”<
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  He drank, suddenly aware how much his body needed water, and he gulped the whole beaker down, like it was the best anhir he had ever tasted.

  “Pass it on,” said Meas.

  Joron dipped it into the barrel and pushed the full beaker into Old Briaret’s hand, but the old woman passed it over to Farys and ran to get her own water as the raiders finished off those who had not made the barricade in time and massed for their assault.

  “They come!” shouted Meas.

  It was grim work under the heat of Skearith’s Eye. Curnows were slashing weapons, the weighted ends helping them bite through flesh. They required little skill but made the muscles in Joron’s arm burn. Around him deckchilder died; in front of him raiders lost their lives, and he had no sense of who was winning. He only knew the burn in his arms, the ache in his lungs as he fought against panic to breathe, the desperate need to survive.

  Meas fought with barely disguised fury. Barlay’s strength took life after life, and further away fought Cwell, her movements precise and lethal. Some remembrance of fleet discipline lurked in Meas’s line, and it held against the onslaught. She stood in the centre, not that tall, but fearless. Her straightsword a silver line, rising and falling, trailing streamers of blood as it did. Her voice a clarion call. When Joron’s arms burned, his lungs rasped and he started to feel the pain of the many cuts and bruises on his body. When he began to feel like he could go on no longer, she shouted, “One more push!” and from somewhere he found more energy. Not much, but enough – enough to kill, enough to roar at his enemy.

  And, at the moment he thought he could give no more, something changed. The raiders were leaving, streaming over the side as if the Sea Hag herself had come for them. He turned to Old Briaret, but the woman lay on the deck, her bleeding head in Farys’s lap, eyes vacant and a terrible wound in her skull.

  “Took it in the first attack, D’keeper,” Farys said quietly. “Looked after me, she did. Her and Hilan. Who will do that now, ey? Who will watch for poor Farys now?”

  And Joron knew the answer he should give but did not have the energy to speak, so he only watched as a scarred girl cried over the still body of a criminal.