“They hunt ships,” said Dinyl.
“No,” said Joron. “They have no interest in ships. They hunt other creatures by lying in wait. If they’re spotted early they are no danger, but if a ship gets too near it is no less doomed.”
“I did not know you were a naturalist,” said Dinyl, and smiled brightly.
“I was a fisher. My father told me a lot of things. You do not live long in a small boat unless you know what may kill you.”
Dinyl shrugged, staring out at the sea and the creature, which looked like a vast, wild, angry carpet.
“Is there anything in the sea that does not want to kill us, Joron?”
Joron smiled at the deckholder.
“Give the topboy an extra ration for that spot,” shouted Meas. “Truss the birds and get us under way. Deckholder, the deckkeeper has a rank and I would thank you to use it when you address him. Deckkeeper, we’ll have two turns of the glass rest, a cup of water and then we practise with straightsword, curnow and spear.” She nodded to Joron and left the deck.
The bows were trussed and tied, and the wings of Tide Child unfurled, cracking in the wind as the ship headed for the Southstorm and a rendezvous with a creature from legend.
On the next day the winds were not as kind. Salt spray crashed over Tide Child’s beak to soak the crew, but the weather was not cold enough for stinker coats, and to Joron this was nothing – simply the way of the sea. He was more bothered by the ache in his arms from practising with the curnow, wyrmpike and shield the previous day. When the crew had finished their drills he had done extra hours in Meas’s cabin with a finely made curved sword. He barely noticed that his clothes were damp or that his world heaved to and fro and up and down as the ship crashed forward through the waves. For Meas it was the same, and for many of the crew it was simply a thing they took in their stride.
“Look out for black ships,” shouted Meas, “for they are out there somewhere and eager to meet with us.” To this she added, “Deckholder Dinyl, I shall not again remind you and those others who wish to vomit to do it with the wind, for it will make the ship much easier to clean when you have to do so later.”
To some degree Joron felt for Dinyl. Though he was Karrad’s man he was not a bad soul, and did his best to attend to his work despite being green-faced with the Hag’s curse. When not vomiting over the side, he staggered about his duties like an animated corpse. Joron felt less pity for Coughlin and the others put aboard by Cahanny – those he was glad to see prostrate with sickness. But like most who flew the sea he had endured the curse himself once or twice, knew the misery it brought and had sympathy for those suffering, though he also knew it passed, eventually. There was no pity at all in Meas, not least because she was similarly afflicted, which shocked him. The greatest shipwife to ever fly the sea suffered the Hag’s curse.
However, she had no intention of letting it beat her. And if she would not be beaten then she would suffer no weakness in those below her on the slate.
And this was how they proceeded to the south until the shout was heard from the topboys:
“Ship rising to seaward, Shipwife!”
“Deckkeeper,” said Meas, “get up the mainspine and tell me what you see.”
Then Joron was climbing the ropes, his hair catching in the wind and blowing around his face as he climbed up and up the spine, carefully, oh so carefully. Oh, and there was something glorious about being so high up in the rigging, despite the danger. He’d scaled the rigging of his father’s boat many times but that was nothing compared to the height reached climbing the spine of a fleet ship. From here he could see the subtle curve of the water on the horizon. On Tide Child’s seaward side, blue pennants streaming with the wind, he saw the ships he was looking for. A pair of black ships, two-ribbers, smaller ships with two spines compared to Tide Child’s three. They did not carry great gallowbows, as they could not support the weight or cope with the recoil of such weapons, but they mounted four to six smaller gallowbows a side, which could be just as dangerous used correctly. Two-ribbers were fast ships, designed for hit and run attacks and to create interference while bigger ships, like Tide Child, slightly slower, slightly heavier, brought their greater weight of shot to bear.
“What do you see up there?”
Joron looked down. The the crew were little more than dots on the slate, and the deck looked no bigger than the sole of his boot. It appeared to move as the spine he clung to swayed. This ship, those people – such small things in the vastness of the ocean. Joron felt like he barely existed. That, if he were to fall, to have the slate smash the bones of his body and flesh of his muscles to pulp, it would make no difference to the world. Then he heard the low, familiar song of the wind, the song that had always been with him, and the moment passed. Above him the topboy looked down, waiting for Joron to speak, unsure and unsettled by her deckkeeper’s hesitance, not knowing whether she should reply to the shipwife instead.
“A pair of two-ribbers, Shipwife,” shouted Joron. “Travelling line astern of one another to the south of us.” He squinted into the light of Skearith’s Eye. “They are changing course, Shipwife. They must have seen us and are set to intercept.”
“Very well, Twiner. Come down.”
He made his careful way down. Harder down than up, checking for footholds and always aware how far he could fall. His hands developed a reluctance to let go of the ropes; his feet became unhappy about shifting along the spars. When his feet finally touched slate, Meas was there, and Joron had to place his hands behind his back to hide the shaking. “We are expecting friends, Deckkeeper,” she said, “but it does no harm to be prepared. Have the crew be ready.”
“Clear for action!” shouted Joron, and from the underdeck the crew came scurrying.
Mevens held a drum and began to beat it, and standing by him was sad-faced Solemn Muffaz, the deckmother, bellowing out Joron’s order again and again:
“Clear the ship! Clear the ship for action!”
And all was movement.
From below came the hammering of the bonewrights taking down the screens. Women and men hurried up and down the rigging, setting the wings, brought bolts and shot for the great gallowbows from the underdeck. Nets were cast across the rails of the ship to catch debris from bowstrikes and to stop crew going overboard should the ship’s manoeuvres take them by surprise. Sand was strewn across the slate of the deck to give extra grip for busy feet, and buckets of sand were placed at intervals along the deck in case of fire, for the only way to put out bonefire once boneglue caught was to smother it entirely.
Joron found himself on the slightly raised deck at the beak of the ship. Beneath him beakwyrms churned the water through ceaseless jaws, and the sight of their ugly, fierce bodies cheered him.
“Seven now, Shipwife,” he shouted. “We are getting faster.”
“Pull well now, my childer!” Joron turned to see Dinyl overseeing a group of deckchilder dragging a screen of tightly woven varisk soaked with seawater, over the main hatch that allowed access to the hold. In the spines above, only the main-wings remained to catch the wind. Farys scuttled across the deck, a cage holding squawking kivellys in each hand and though all looked like chaos, women and men running hither and thither, Lucky Meas watched the sand slip through the glass and the action on her ship with a half-smile on her face. This seeming chaos, much rehearsed over the last week at sea, was chaos with purpose, and that purpose was hers. She turned and walked to the rail, lifting her nearglass to her eye and looking out over the water.