What if Dinyl did not return for them? Just ran with the ship? There were enough malcontents, and could Joron really blame the man?
“Deckkeeper!” He turned at Meas’s bark, finding her and her boat ready to leave and his crew standing about waiting for him. “Now is not the time to stare at the sky and study Skearith’s Bones! Get in the boat.”
“Ey, Shipwife,” he said and climbed over the rail.
When Joron’s turn came to board the flukeboat he felt Anzir’s steady hand at his elbow, guiding him down and to his seat in the darkness among the deckchilder: Farys, Old Briaret, Karring the swimmer, and others he could not quite make out in the darkness.
“You mind yourself, D’keeper,” said Anzir. And this was echoed by the rest of the crew as they helped him along the boat to his place at the rump, kindly hands steadying, offering support.
Although a brisk, cool wind blew across the water, within the boat it was hot, a tense heat boiling off the bodies around him from the hag-knowledge, the knowing that some who sat upon the rough benches and took up the oars would never come back; their corpses would remain on Arkannis Isle for ever and their spirits would go to the Sea Hag. But this was their duty, this was where their shipwife took them.
They talked softly as they rowed, not complaining or worrying. But of the magic they felt at seeing the arakeesian, of how Meas was wise and would only lead them to where they must go. Among these criminals and cast-offs there was a powerful feeling that they were in the right. And these women and men were not just from Meas’s old ship either; Joron had a mixed bunch around him. When they did not speak of Meas or the arakeesian they talked of the gullaime, which lay inert against Joron’s back. They talked of it with pride too, of how it had helped them fight. And, well, if they were asked to help it shake off the windsickness, that was the least they could do, and if their deckkeeper needed help they would do what they must. As they talked, Joron felt his body relax and imagined how his father would have felt had he been here, to see Joron at the head of these woman and men, to see his son leading these strong, loyal deckchilder.
And he knew that the warmth he felt on the boat came from within, and not from tension, not at all.
“Do our duty indeed,” he said to himself, echoing Dinyl’s words.
“D’keeper?” said Farys.
“’Tis nothing.” He stood. “Pull hard on those oars, my girls and boys.” He whispered into the night. “Row us to the island. Meas has a wing on her boat, but let us see if we can beat her there anyway.”
From behind they heard the rustle of cloth as Tide Child unfurled his wings and then the crack of wind filling them as the boneship began to move away. Dinyl had lit the lights on the rump and, with luck, any watcher would think the ship was leaving.
Before them Joron could just could make out the dull shape of the first flukeboat, its wing still furled and its presence more clearly marked by the rhythmic splashing of oars into water. Without the bulk of Tide Child to shelter them, the cold onshore breeze bit deeper, and Joron wrapped his fishskin coat more closely about his body.
The oars beat the water and the two boats moved towards the shadow of the island. The nearer they came the more they heard the songs of the land – no doubt comforting to Coughlin’s men of the rock on Meas’s boat, but to Joron’s ears the rush of water on sand and rock was a dangerous sound, one that conjured up thoughts of beaching, of smashed hulls and bodies thrown from the deck to drown or be ripped up by the long-thresh. Nor were the calls of the landbirds in the night welcoming to his crew: they sounded like the screams of the unworthy as the Hag tossed them into her bonefire deep beneath the sea. The chatter died away and the rowers put their backs into their work. Joron saw the whites of wide, fearful eyes among them. “I would suggest we sing,” he said quietly, “but I fear Meas would have my guts for it when we landed.” A few teeth in the darkness – smiles. “So let us row hard, and when we land we’ll rest in the forest edge until Skearith looks down upon us. Then we will bring the gullaime to the windspire and take a tower for the wakewyrm. How many can ever say they saved a life as a great as a keyshan’s, ey?” More teeth in the night. “So we will be remembered for ever. Now let us row, and if you wish to hum a shanty to yourselves, then I’ll not hold it against you. Just do it quietly so I keep my skin.” So they rowed, the flukeboat accompanied by the sound of eleven women and men humming quietly enough not to be heard, but loud enough to raise their spirits on the night before they went to fight and die.
Shortly they heard the hiss of the first boat grounding on shingle, and Joron leaned on his steering oar, bringing his boat in next to the larger one and feeling pride within at the fleet way his crew raised their oars in unison as they came in. The moment the boat stopped, his deckchilder were over the side, splashing into the water and dragging the boat up the beach towards cover at the edge of the gion jungle. He followed them, experiencing the odd feeling of the land moving beneath his feet that always came upon him when he went from sea to land.
“Hag’s tits!” A pained exclamation from further up the beach, though even that was relatively quiet.
“Quiet! What is that noise?” Meas’s voice.
“Stingplates, all over the beach, Shipwife.” The whispered reply.
“Are you poisoned?” Meas again.
“Nay, Shipwife. Just a single sting.”
“Careful down the beach.” Meas whispered.
Those pulling Joron’s boat up the shingle slowed.
“Look to your feet,” he said. Looking down he saw, as his eyes adjusted to the meagre light of Skearith’s Blind Eye, that his foot was by a stingplate. The circular, gelid body was full of air that, when stepped on, would be pushed out into its ten stinging arms, sending them up and out to inject venom into the leg of whatever stood on it. These were only the flowers of the stingplate, the plant lived beneath the beach. A full sting was enough to kill an adult human, they may stagger on a little before collapsing, but not far. Then the stingplate would send tendrils up through the sand or shingle to digest the flesh. Fortunately, a single sting would not kill, though it was still painful. “Two of you go ahead with wyrm-pikes,” said Joron. “Puncture any plates between us and the jungle edge.”
“Ey, D’keeper,” came the quiet reply, and they made their way more carefully up the beach, dragging the boat with them.
At the forest’s edge Meas and her group already had the mast of their boat down and were hiding the hull under a mass of dead foliage.
“Do we attack tonight?” said Joron to Meas. She stared into the forest, and as if in challenge a chorus of calls and songs and growls came back.
“No,” she said. “The gion forest this far south is no place to be at night. Howlers, loppers, fellscram and tunir all haunt it.”
“And they sleep in the day?”
“No, but we have more chance of seeing them at least.” In the darkness he could not tell whether she joked or not.
“What of the gullaime? It needs the windspire.”
“If it has survived this long, Twiner, I am sure it will make it through one more night.” Meas pointed towards where the crews were covering the boats. “Leave it with them. I will have the crews get what sleep they can. You and I will walk further round the headland, see if we can get a better look at the tower.”