He tried to get to Meas, and found his right leg worked but his left would barely support him. Not broken though, bruised maybe, painful. He found a piece of spar to lean his weight on and joined her at the rail. It was so quiet. Faces on the other ship staring at them.
“Why stop, Shipwife?” he said. “We are a ship of the dead, we are here to die.”
“For a reason, Joron.” Her voice was harsh and he wished he had some water for her. “We die for a reason. The spines are gone and we cannot fight. The underdeck is a wreck. Look over the side if you doubt me.” He did not. “Now we try and buy time for the wakewyrm to get as far away as it can. That is the most we can do.”
“You fought well, Meas, my sither.” The call from the other ship sounded oddly unreal, distorted by distance and the movement of the waves between the two craft. Hunter’s shipwife stood on her rail, a speaking cone at her mouth to amplify her voice. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You never stood a chance really, not on that wreck. Not against me. It would be good to give Mother your account of my victory. Let all hear how I bested you and I will let your crew live.”
Meas did not reply. Only stayed there, staring at the other ship.
“She lies of course,” said Meas quietly. “She always did lie.”
“Come, Meas,” Kyrie shouted.
“You are to call me Shipwife!” Meas shouted across the sea. “You have not earned the familiarity of my name. A child could have beaten us with a ship like yours. So you will call me Shipwife. And if you wish to ignore my rank and tell our mother you truly bested me, then bring your blade over here and earn the right to do so.”
The sound of the sea against the hull. The gurgle of water moving within the stricken ship.
“Admit you are beaten by a better shipwife, Meas,” Kyrie shouted. “I’ll not let you goad me into some last-ditch fight for glory. I have my bows loaded. I have my bows aimed. I will smash your ship to shards and your story will end here and none will ever know of this brave last stand. I shall tell Mother the great Lucky Meas ran her ship aground on a reef and died.”
Joron saw Meas take a deep breath. Then she whispered:
“Get below, Joron. You may yet survive.” She turned from him and shouted, “I’ll give you nothing. So loose your bows, coward!”
“Very well. I had no wish to . . .” Kyrie’s words died away. The deckchilder arrayed along the rail of Hag’s Hunter were pointing towards Tide Child.
Why?
Joron did not understand. Then a shout went up from Hag’s Hunter. A roar.
“Keyshan!” The word was drawn out, elongated in a mixture of wonder, elation and terror. “Keyshan rising!”
Joron turned. A mountain of frothing water rose behind them, taller than Shipshulme Island, and from it came the Keyshan, mouth open – a cave of teeth – white eyes burning, skin undulating with a million colours. It called; the noise so loud it made Tide Child shake. At the moment he thought they must be dashed to pieces by it, the sea-dragon dived and Tide Child was lifted by a massive smooth hill of liquid, which pushed him up and towards the sky. Then Joron was running to the rail, despite the pain in his leg. Staring over the side as the huge body of the wakewyrm passed below them, pale skin blueing as it dived. He saw the shadows of flippers come out, beat twice, and the shape of its body changed.
Rising.
Keyshan rising.
White eyes burning in the depths.
Hearing the song, the song, the song.
So loud. Huge mouth opening.
Ship rising!
The Hag’s Hunter rising.
Rising from the sea. Clasped about his middle the mouth of the wakewyrm Tide Child had shepherded across the oceans of the Scattered Archipelago.
The beast
Massive.
Awe in form of flesh.
Women and men no doubt screamed as the Hag’s Hunter was thrust from the water, the Hunter’s hull below the waterline bright green with weed. Held in jaws longer as the massive ship. The keyshan rose, and rose, its body growing and thickening as more and more of it was propelled from the water by its tail. To Joron it seemed impossible that something so huge could rise so far. He watched deckchilder fall screaming from the ship, and then, at the height of the keyshan’s breach, it closed those huge jaws. Its teeth, each as big as a tall man, grinding through the hull of Hag’s Hunter. Joron imagined the horror and panic in the underdeck of the ship as its bones closed in on them, crushing them. Then the wakewyrm let itself fall sideways into the sea, smashing Hag’s Hunter into the water. Breaking it in two. An immense wave surged out from the site of the keyshan’s impact, swamping Tide Child, and if not for Meas screaming awed deckchilder to the pumps Joron had no doubt they would have sunk under the weight of the freezing liquid. And all was action as the water soaked him to the skin.
Washed him clean of battle.
“Joron Twiner.” He turned. The gullaime stood by him, resplendent in its feathers. “We sang, Joron Twiner,” it said. “We sang. And it heard.”
And as if in answer, the keyshan sounded, that impossibly loud sound filling Joron with fear and awe and beauty.
For he was alive.
It was good to be alive.
Tide Child lay in the water while her women and men – those who still survived or were not, like fearsome Narza and loyal Anzir, lying wounded in the hagbower – worked on his bones to try and make him seaworthy. Holes were patched under the watchful eye of Bonemaster Coxward. The wing-wrights reported one full and two half-height spines could be rigged from what they had recovered – enough to get them moving at least. And as they worked, the keyshan lay by them, unmoving, huge, its eyes blazing from the water.
Joron was in the hold, sorting out what must be kept and what could be thrown overboard to lighten the ship, when he heard a noise that – though not alien – should not be heard at this moment when all worked simply to keep Tide Child afloat. More, it was a noise that sent fear through him. The grind of moving handles, the complaining of bone arms as they were drawn back, the shiver of a tight cord.
Someone was spinning their last remaining great bow.
He ran.
Up through the ship. Jumping over wreckage, chunks of bone strewn across the dark underdeck. Bits of body. Blood making his footing treacherous. What now? What attacked now? This was unfair. They had nothing left. They were done. Finished. Spent. Had given their all.
Up a ladder, his curnow thudding against his thigh. Past smashed bowpeeks and bows. Women and men watching his flight and then, as if drawn by it, following him. Emerging into the bright, cold day above. Feeling the heat of the arakeesian to seaward on his face. At the same time hearing Meas’s voice. Loud. Furious.
“What goes on here?”
Dinyl was standing by the last remaining gallowbow with two deckchilder and the crate of poisonous hiylbolts.
“We have a duty,” he said, “to end the keyshan, end the killing.”
“To be carried out in the far north” – she stamped over to him – “and at my order. Not here. Not at your order.”
But Dinyl stood his ground.
“We cannot get to the far north,” he said. “If the arakeesian chooses to swim, we cannot keep up with it. Not with the ship how it is. All can see that.”