But life went on. In the mornings they worked the great bows and the smaller underdeck bows, though without shot and with old cord as Meas did not wish a stray shot to hit the keyshan. In the afternoons they did weapons practice. Coughlin, though unpleasant, knew his work, schooling them in how to fight on land. This was not the free-for-all of fighting on a ship. They learned to hold a shield wall, how to work together. And in between, the ship still needed caring for. Wings were raised and wings were furled; clothing was mended; decks were scrubbed; ropes were replaced, and the steady cycle of watches continued under the bright light of Skearith’s Eye and the pale light of her Blind Eye. And though ships and boats were spotted rising on the horizon it seemed the Mother smiled on them and they were not engaged. The three black ships ate up the lengths and the hunths and the passages of the journey, and the head of the arakeesian drew slowly nearer.
Meas made Joron do extra practice with his curnow and also work with the straightsword, which, oddly, was curved, that she used until she pronounced him “passable”. She tried to teach him what she said was the most useful curnow skill, the “quick unhook” – a method of removing his blade from his belt and swiping it up in one movement that would gut an opponent, though it seemed he could never quite get it right, more often tangling himself up or doing something that would have sliced open his own legs if the blade were real.
One day he had spat out, “I will never master this!” He expected angry words from Meas but she simply took the practice sword from him and held it in her hand.
“When you really need it, Deckkeeper, I am sure you will get it right.” Then she gave back the practice blade. “But more practice will not hurt you.”
And between his work and the extra weapons practice Joron had to find time to feed and water the gullaime. It showed no sign of life, no sign of breathing, no pulse. Nor did it excrete – for which Joron was thankful – but at the same time it did not corrupt. Part of him thought that maybe this was simply the way of gullaime – they were unnatural after all – but another saw reason for hope. He discovered a way of cradling the windtalker like a babe against his chest while he dripped water and food into its beak, and, day by day, the hot sand smell of it and the brittle feel of the bones beneath its skin became less upsetting for him, more normal.
He was not sure when he started speaking to it. He did not think it was a conscious act, but as he sat and stroked the gullaime’s throat to make it swallow he began to tell it of his life. How he had been born Berncast because his mother died giving him life, and how the curse of that weakness had kept him in the fisher villages. How his father had held on to him so tightly when he was young that he felt he would always be safe. He told the gullaime how his mother was not weak, told it the stories his father had told him of her, of how his father’s eyes shone when he spoke of her. He told it of the fisher boat, of his youth, of his father going without food so Joron could learn to read. All these things he told to the small, brittle body of the gullaime, and it never interrupted or replied or gave so much as a nod that it understood. But the talking helped Joron feel better, just as the passage of time and the ship through water helped the crew feel better, and as both man and crew learned to work together they felt more and more like fleet, like they were worthwhile.
It was Menday when they finally caught up with the head of the arakeesian. Meas had stopped bow drill, reckoning the teams worked well enough, though they still practised with weapons and shields. As Tide Child came up on the head of the sea dragon the officers stood on the rump, lesser officers on the foredeck, the deckchilder along the rail and along the spars. All gazed at the shape beneath the water.
How big was it?
Hard to tell. The size of the creature was such that Joron had no real way to measure it. Was it near the surface or way down?
What colour was it?
The blue of the water distorted everything. Beneath the surface all was shadowed, changed. It was not the world that Joron inhabited. In the same way that he could not leap into the sky, he could not dive down into the depths – until the day his sentence was carried out and he went to greet the Hag in her black abode at the bottom of the ocean.
He could only make out the vague shimmering movement of something beyond his experience. A great thick body perhaps narrowing to what he presumed must be a neck, then swelling again. Did something shine? The heat on his skin was almost unbearable, and it was not even noon. What he felt sure was the head narrowed and lengthened into a great beak-like mouth, but he could not guess at the size of it. The beak of the skull crowning Tide Child was not much thicker at its base than Joron’s thigh, tapering to the thickness of his forearm at the end of the ram.
The wakewyrm was so much more.
“I would see it face to face if I could,” said Meas quietly. “But maybe I will have to content myself with only seeing it in the deep.”
“You could try ordering it to surface, Shipwife,” said Mevans from his place behind her.
“I may be in control of everything on the deck, Mevans,” she said, “but we look upon the high Bern of all the ocean, and I doubt she will listen to me.”
Joron shared her wish. If he were to die on the island – which as each day passed he became more sure of – he would like to see an arakeesian first. Though the creature, of course, cared as much for his wishes as it did for Meas’s. So he stood and stared and wished as it glided through the sea far, or near, below them.
“It rises.” A voice from behind them – old, scratchy. They turned to find Garriya, as raggedy and worn as old rope.
“What are you doing on the rump?” said Meas.
“Bringing good tidings, I hope.”
“Then do it from the deck,” snapped Meas. “That is your place. And, besides, you cannot even see the beast from where you stand.”
“A woman feels the sea, does she not, Meas Gilbryn?”
“Shipwife,” snapped Meas, though her admonition was not as quick or as vicious as Joron had heard her be with others who trespassed upon her territory.
“But she does, doesn’t she? Feels it. Knows what will happen before it does – a woman.”
“Get off my deck,” said Meas, “or I’ll have you corded.” The old woman nodded, backing away, but if she was worried about being whipped she showed no sign of it.
“Don’t forget to feed your charge today, Joron Twiner,” said Garriya.
“Deckkeeper.”
“Ey, that too. Don’t forget.”
Rage was building within Meas, and all could feel it. Garriya trespassed, called officers by their given names and not their ranks, ignored the rules of the ship. But any eruption was forestalled by a call from the rail.
“Old Garriya has it right. The keyshan rises!” And all propriety was forgotten as everyone ran to the rails to greet a legend.
It rose from far deeper than Joron had imagined, a great bone-white shape. Other, more familiar shapes moved above it. Long thin hissen flashed through the water like knives. Shoals of small galda fish frantically beat their tails to escape what must have seemed to them the suddenly approaching sea floor. Stinging ryulls, which wandered aimlessly on the currents, devouring whatever was unfortunate enough to come within reach of their arms, were pushed aside. Toothreaches pulsed forward, their long, clawed arms seeming to reach out and drag them through the water.