Nearer and nearer and nearer came the gap. And already it felt like they had scored a major victory.
We can win this, thought Joron. We will win this.
“Not long now!” shouted Meas. “Oh we’ll cause some pretty chaos when we’re between them.” She ran to the top of the underdeck stairs and shouted down, “Drop the bowpeeks!” then turned. “Dinyl, get down there with Farys and get those bows ready!” Something in Joron quailed at the thought of the damage about to come to Sunfish Rising. The underdeck bows were not as big but were far more numerous. Ten to each side. Meas turned from the stairs. Glanced behind Tide Child.
Joron saw a look cross her face that he did not understand. It was not panic, not quite.
Not fear, not quite.
It was hate, and fury.
He turned.
On Cruel Water something was being pulled up into the rigging, something that fought and struggled as it rose. For a moment, Joron could not fathom what was happening. Everything in motion: Tide Child, Wavebreaker, Sunfish Rising, Cruel Water and Snarltooth. All coming together in anger and violence.
Arrin, he thought. It is Arrin. And it was a strange thought. As if all action ceased around him while he considered this odd occurence.
That is Shipwife Arrin being hung from his own rigging.
He could not for the life of him understand why that would be happening.
Then on the deck of Cruel Water he saw Arrin’s deckkeeper pointing at Tide Child. Oswire. Screaming at the crew. Wearing a two-tailed hat. And Cruel Water came about, her gallowbows armed and ready and aimed at Tide Child.
“We are betrayed,” he said, more to himself than to those about him. He nearly shouted it, but managed to hold the words in. Meas had not said a word, and she did little for no reason.
So close and broadside on to Tide Child, Cruel Water’s eight gallowbows may not be great bows like Tide Child’s, but they would cause carnage. The stern of a boneship was his weakest point with the thinnest bone and the fragile glass of the state rooms at the rump. And Joron knew why Meas said nothing. Because there was nothing to be said. To shout betrayal would only distract her bowteams, and she would rather keep them loosing, keep them working, keep them unaware that they had already lost. But she did not turn away from what was coming. Death. She knew it. Joron knew it. Cruel Water would deliver a crippling blow. And here, with three Gaunt Islands ships to fight, that was the same as death.
Time slowed. Oswire raised her hand, a smile on her face. Strangely, Joron found he did not hate her. Maybe she saw this as her way back to the deck of a boneship. Maybe she believed it was her duty.
And it was too late for hate.
He fancied that bow four on Cruel Water was the one that would do for him. He could see it, Focus on it. Then he saw nothing else, heard nothing else, just focused on that team of women and men as they finalised the aim of the bow. He got ready for his body to be smashed by the projectile.
But he had reckoned without Snarltooth.
He took for granted that the two ships would work together. Had Meas? Had she simply presumed, like him, that what was true for one was true for all? So had she also not watched Snarltooth as Oswire betrayed both Meas and her own shipwife. Had she simply thought her mistrust for Shipwife Brekir was playing out, and that she would come about and turn Snarltooth to landward as Cruel Water turned to seaward, ready to add its weight of stone and finish Tide Child.
But Brekir did no such thing.
Did not turn Snarltooth.
Did not slow her ship.
She drove it into Cruel Water.
The impact of Snarltooth’s spiked beak threw Oswire to the deck, threw gallowbow teams over the side and heeled Cruel Water over at an angle that rained women and men from the rigging into the sea. It filled the air with screeching and grinding almost as loud as the arakeesian’s call.
Sense and sensation came back to Joron. His first thought was that Brekir had been taken by surprise by Cruel Water’s abrupt manoeuvre; she had not struck him as a particularly competent shipwife.
He was soon disabused of that idea.
Snarltooth’s crew, led by the furiously snarling Brekir and Deckkeeper Mozzan, were streaming from the beak of their ship on to the decks of Cruel Water, showing no quarter and cutting down all they came across.
Meas ran back up to the rump of Tide Child.
“Ignore the traitors! Brekir will deal with them. Load the gallowbows with wingshot. Get the gullaime up here!”
But it had already emerged from the underdeck and was in its place at the centre of the deck as if it had anticipated Meas’s order. Its wings were wrapped around its body, masked head darting from side to side as it took in the carnage.
“Death, Joron Twiner!” it squawked. “It is all death!”
Then Tide Child was behind Wavebreaker almost in a position where his bows could be brought to bear on the fragile rump of the Gaunt Islands four-ribber. Sunfish Rising was stricken and starting to come round so it was side on to Tide Child, its gallowbows still tangled in rigging.
Meas smiled.
“Gullaime,” she shouted, “slow our progress!”
This a mighty roar, almost a scream, and for that second she had everyone’s attention. Joron’s ears hurt as the wind changed direction, blew back. Tide Child shuddered as he was slowed in the water.
Lucky Meas Gilbryn, shipwife of Tide Child, smiled as her bows came to bear.
“Those ships.” She pointed to either side with her drawn blade. “Kill them.”
The great bows spoke, and above the low moan of their cords loosing could be heard the higher-pitched sound of the underdeck bows loosing. No longer was Meas concentrating on the rigging of the enemy. The first broadside was all wingshot. Tide Child’s shot swept the decks of Wavebreaker and Sunfish Rising, doing so much damage that with one volley the remaining corpselights on both ships flickered and went out.
Arrows started to pepper the decks of Tide Child, loosed by archers in the spines of Wavebreaker. One hit Meas in the shoulder but was almost spent, and she pulled it from the fishskin of her coat and threw it aside without breaking stride. “Coughlin!” she shouted and pointed at Wavebreaker’s spines. “Deal with those archers!” He nodded and sent some men with bows up into the rigging.
Behind them the fighting on Cruel Water was furious, and Wavebreaker, unable to launch at Tide Child, was loosing its fury on the two tangled ships, though under the constant bombardment of Tide Child’s bows the loosing was sporadic. But despite its tattered and smashed rigging, Wavebreaker was starting to pull away.
“Bring hagspit!” shouted Meas. “Fire the stones. Don’t let that ship escape!” Joron had dreaded the order while knowing it would come. Fire on a boneship was a thing to be feared. Though bone itself did not burn easily, boneglue caught quickly. Belowdeck the barrels of oil were tapped and the oil brought up to pour into the shot.
A huge crash from seaward, and Joron turned. The third Gaunt Islands ship had smashed side on into Sunfish Rising – now to all intents and purposes a dead ship, with blood running in bright streaks from his bowpeeks down the white bone. The impact pushed Sunfish Rising into Tide Child, and the bigger ship groaned.
“Clever,” said Meas to Joron as she rushed up to the rail to look over the side. “Using the stricken ship as a shield. Coughlin!” she screamed, her voice hoarse. “Prepare to repel boarders. Get everyone who can fight up here with a curnow or wyrmpike! Protect the seaward gallowbows until Wavebreaker is burning!”