Steelflower at Sea Read online

  Three ships, bearing black and red pennons, one suspiciously low in the water.

  Well. “Mother’s tits.” I didn’t even have the heart to curse properly.

  “May decide we’re slim pickins,” the Shainakh adjii, his rat-nested hair hung with charms against ill-luck, offered. He did not sound exceedingly hopeful.

  “And Pesh priglets may well fly out me arse,” Hrufel snorted, a gleam behind his lips the gold tooth he was always licking. “Yer crew ready fer mixin, Iron Flower?” His heavy-accented tradetongue butchered the use-name, but at least he didn’t use the phrase that rhymed with “metal cunt” in sailor’s argot.

  “Oh, of course.” I grinned broadly, showing all my teeth, none of them gold-capped but fine enough. “You have three tested blades and one G’mai witch, and a barbarian giant to boot. We may well convince them there’s nothing to be gained for the price they’d pay in blood.”

  “Nae chance yon elvish witch can rise a storm and founder ’em?” The adjii picked at the corner of his lip with blunt fingertips.

  A spark of irritation struck itself below my breastbone, died for lack of air. Mother Moon, I hated that word. “Any storm raised might founder the Taryam as well. Surely you’re not eager for that.”

  Hrufel hissed for him to be quiet. “Well, if there’s witchery about, what can ye do?”

  “Give me a moment.” I almost saluted in the manner of the Shainakh irregulars, caught myself, and set off for the other side of the ship.

  Darik read trouble in my expression and halted; the boy almost dropped his blade. I beckoned Janaire, whose pretty face drained of color, as if she suspected trouble. “Yada’Adais. I request your assistance.” My inflection was honorific, extremely so. Teachers are held in high regard among the people of G’maihallan, and none more so than those who could school adai in the ways of Power. It takes patience, fearlessness, and firmness in almost equal measure, and heavy helpings of each.

  Janaire exchanged a glance with her s’tarei, who unfolded from Redfist’s lee and was at her side in two swift strides. He said something too low for me to hear, and I glanced at Darik, whose eyebrows rose a fraction. I do not know, K’li. His tone was intimate, the taran’adai a warmth in my head, and I no longer shuddered to hear the voice-within. Trouble?

  It was not often he spoke-within to me. Too soon to tell, I replied, soundlessly. Some adai may speak-within to beast and bird, others to other G’mai, and some very few to those not of the Moon’s children. All, however, may speak with their s’tarei or adai; it is one of the first gifts of the twinning.

  Shall I need my dotanii? As if the twin blades were not riding his shoulders, as always. Perhaps sea-travel did him well, too, for the tone held a distinct note of levity, and another of...the only word I could find was joy.

  Of course. Tis your duty to watch my back, is it not? “Janaire?” I didn’t move. She looked too pale, even for her.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Of course. Tis merely a shock, to be addressed as a Teacher.”

  I swallowed bitter impatience. Nothing moves quickly on the Lan’ai’s back; they would not catch us for some hours yet. The minstrel groaned, hanging onto a barrel, and I found Diyan next to me, pressing against my hip as if he sought comfort. “Redfist?”

  “Aye, lass?” The barbarian rose. “Methinks there’s some bandits bearing down on us.”

  “Could be. Can you take Gavrin and Diyan belowdecks?”

  He nodded. “If there is fightin’, I’ll nae be hiding below like a rat.”

  “I didn’t ask you to.” Still, the echo of D’ri’s good mood lingered; the corners of my mouth had both tilted up. “You will see plenty of trouble above, should it find us, I simply wish our young ones out of the way. If you would follow me, Yada’Adais.”

  I turned on my heel, Darik falling into step behind me. “Negotiations, or a battle?”

  Was this what other adai felt, when their twin was close and danger threatened? “Not much hope of the first.” And now I had not only my own skin to look after, but theirs as well.

  And his.

  His reply was a wash of feeling too complex for words. The accord between s’tarei and adai was growing stronger between us, the taran’adai more pronounced. If it continued, how much of that solitude I told myself I needed in order to breathe properly would remain?

  One disaster at a time, Kaia. I shook away distractions and set my jaw, waiting until Hrufel gestured us onto the captain’s deck again. “Gavridar Taryana Janaire, the captain respectfully wonders if you might be able to solve a problem for us.”

  “I am glad to assist however I may.” Very formally, her tradetongue bearing a strong sharp accent of G’mai, handling especially the Pesh loan-words gingerly, as if they might sting. She folded her hands before her, the oversleeves falling in a graceful line. The very picture of a proper adai, from the sharp tips of her ears to her low-dressed braids—much shorter than mine—and her supple, well-made G’mai traveling-boots.

  Hrufel lowered the farseer. The color had gone out of his cheeks, leaving him the uneasy shade of cheese some Pesh-mixed Shainakh sometimes get. “Fuck a dog’s mother. Red flag, two slash. It’s Scoryin.”

  Now that was interesting. A long way away, under the bruise-darkening clouds, a single glitter of lightning flashed. “I thought he would be hunting around Clau this time of year.” The habits of corsairs are changeable, though. On the Shelt, this late in the season, the risk of foundering your own small timber shelter was high enough to dissuade all but the stupid or desperate. Scoryin was not overly stupid, but a bad year could have made him perverse.

  “Either him or one bearin’ his flag.” Hrufel eyed me, both of us moving in the same moment as the ship hit a wave. “It’s said he fancies you, Iron Flower. Either tha’ or he wants y’dead.” He capped the farseer with a deft habitual motion.

  Rumor and ballad, those twin wingwyrms. “I accidentally sprang him from a gaol in Antai once, but I doubt that will earn us a reprieve.” My habit of not killing fellow prisoners outright during such exploits might need reconsidering. “Janaire, is there aught you may do to slow those ships?”

  She barely considered the notion before shaking her head, her braids swinging. “Weatherworking is difficult enough. Perhaps a simple weaving of air and sea. Perhaps you could...”

  Oh, no you don’t. “My training is unfinished. This is the Shelt.” And our first day at sea I almost set fire to the mainsail. She had agreed, after that, it would be best to wait for landfall for me resume said lessons, whether with her or with the starmetal spheres. Unused Power had swollen behind a wall of silence, the killing quiet that had descended upon me after the shock of my mother’s death, and safely draining such a lump was best attempted somewhere...else. On land.

  With none I might wound in the vicinity.

  Janaire considered the situation afresh, her top lip caught briefly in her small, perfect teeth as her dark gaze turned inward. The riverfolk of my home often look merry even while thoughtful, and she was no exception. “Practically speaking, if you failed, there would still be a fully trained adai aboard to deal with attackers.”

  A pragmatic point, and yet. “I’m worth more with a blade.” I ran a thumb over a scar on my opposite knuckles, the broken nail scraping slightly.

  “How much room, you reckon?” Hrufel licked his gold tooth, a quick flicker of pink. Freetowners do not generally have much in the way of beard, unless some Pesh creeps into their bloodline, but his cheeks were fast becoming forested.

  His adjii scowled. “Fast little bitches.” He glanced at the sky, and again at the waves. “With th’ wind, as we are...Two hours.”

  Hrufel scratched at his pitted cheek. “Fuck a dog’s mother,” he repeated, morosely. “Ready the boys for action and lay out the cloth.”

  “All ri’ ye swine!” the adjii bellowed, shoving past me. “Lay out sheet, ho there!” He began to swear in earnest, and the deck woke in a scurrying.

  Hrufel stumped away t
o take the huge ebonwood wheel from the wrightson, who hopped off nimbly to other duties. The black-bearded captain did not glance our way again. At least he considered me capable enough to direct my own. Reputation was occasionally useful.

  “Well, adai’sa?” I still used the honorific inflection, but the words took an edge between my mouth and the air, despite my intentions.

  Her cheeks were white, bloodless, but it simply made her look ethereal. Beauty is bred into the Moon’s children, and the lowlanders are not carved from stone as the mountainfolk. Their loveliness lies in a softness, and some called the lowlander features aglai’sh, the word for a child’s roundness.

  She shook her head. Her braids never came loose. “I can try.”

  “Wonderful.” I turned slightly, stared past her at the black specks bearing down on us. “My thanks, Yada’Adais.”

  Her chin came up, her braids shifting in the breeze. Atyarik, glowering, caught Darik’s gaze and held his tongue. He contented himself with moving closer to Janaire, who brushed past me with a graceful flutter of skirts.

  She was a flawless example of a G’mai adai, and I was merely a sellsword, battered by blade and bruise.

  You do not care, Kaia. You have told yourself as much for weeks, now. “Ready yourself for battle then,” I called after her. “And for the sake of every god that ever was, do not let yourself be captured. What they do to foreign witches does not bear mentioning.”

  The Rule of Shipboard

  Ruddy sunset, blood upon the sea. Sting of smoke in the throat, a heaving slipperiness underneath, wooden planks suddenly the twitching backskin of a live creature, and shouting, struggling, bleeding men mere fleas upon it. Two lean wolf-hungry corsairs with grapples, plus the low-lying brota for loading with spoil, closed for what they no doubt hoped was the kill. Arrows whistling, Hrufel screaming a sailor’s warcry, Rainak Redfist charging across the deck with his dripping axe raised—a fearsome sight indeed.

  One of the grapples held, its line curving with just a bit of slack since the brota had blundered against the leeward side of the Taryam, a fan of blood flicked from my dotani as I met a climbing pirate—a black-tooth parchment-haired Clau, burned red and scoured until he held no resemblance to Kesa of the Swallow’s Moon. Instead, he was a tar-daubed bag of bloodlust and ragged salt-crusted cloth, and his throat opened under my blade with little ado.

  Then I was past, as Darik shouted something behind me. Bare feet would have been better for what I threw myself upon—the stretching line between ships, suddenly thread-thin as I flashed along it. The faster you go, the easier to keep upright, and there was just enough slack for it to accept my weight. The battle-madness was upon me, and I did not think of falling.

  Kaia! Darik, inside my head, but I had no time to reassure him or anyone else. I landed with a jolt on the brota’s low deck, ducking under a stanchion-wielding bare-chested Hain’s blow, my balance caught in that first crucial second. I took the only avenue of escape possible, tucking and rolling, my shredded shirtsleeve flapping—one of the boarding party had caught me with a knife, and the blood smoking down my arm was a spur. My dotani sang, cleaving air and meeting a short broad shipblade wielded by another Clau, this one’s hair bleached to near-white. My foot flicked out, and my boots were useful again, one sinking into his belly, and I fish-jumped sideways with a wrenching effort. The one behind me wasn’t going to be off-balance for long—

  Splack. A black-fletched arrow bloomed in the Clau’s eye, and I rolled further aside as the Hain lunged for me, bringing the stanchion down. Above, balanced on the Taryam’s railing, Darik nocked and let another arrow loose.

  Get down! I wanted to scream as he rode the heaving with natural grace. Protect yourself!

  The second arrow buried itself in the stanchion-wielder’s back, and he howled, an animal sound lost in the chaos. Janaire was on the captain’s deck, using Power to staunch the fires; I felt her like a thunderstorm against my eardrums. A distraction I could not afford, it slowed me.

  Sideways, again, my next kick crunching against an ankle; its owner, a lean Pesh sellsword with a hooked blade and a length of rope in her clenched left fist, fell sideways and temporarily gave me a breathing space. I scrambled to my feet, and my objective—the half-covered shed in the brota’s midship—yawned. The Taryam heeled, and the line I’d danced down sang a high creaking note of strain.

  Three left, including the Pesh sellsword. She was no doubt quick and brutal, if she’d survived childhood and signing on with pirates.

  A thumping heartbeat reverberated along the deck. It was the drum in the small shed I aimed for, stroked by a lean one-eyed motherless scum with a seamed, half-bald head and rat bones tied in his dark topknot, clicking and clacking.

  A windwitch. Worth his weight in gold, and probably chained to that drum. It was how even a brota could have caught up with the Taryam in the open sea—stroking that stretched skin, probably with a mouthful of vavir-weed, shaping the waves, the poor soul inside that noisome cave probably didn’t even know where on the face of the world he was heave-drawn upon. Probably a gifted sailor who trusted the wrong shipmate and was taken, forced to the vavir and chained to a drum.

  No wonder Scoryin’s ships had been out this late upon the Shelt. Hrufel’s craft, however, had turned out to have spines, and stuck in the attackers’ throats.

  The Pesh sellsword gained her feet with a lurching lunge, and I faded aside, shuffling, my free hand suddenly full of knifehilt. My largest knife, reversed along my forearm, because the other two were a pair of Shainakh, their black hair back with hanks of red thread. Their eyes were blank, the glow of sunset painting the deck with even more crimson and turning them to ochre-dipped statues.

  A thump behind me. Another arrow flickered past, burying itself in a Shainakh’s chest. The sailor’s mouth dropped open, his proud, once-broken nose rising, and for a breathless moment he looked very much like Ammerdahl Rikyat. The second one lunged for me, and I caught a gleam at the very edge of the narrowing tunnel of battle-vision.

  Hookblade whistling down—a hopefully broken ankle would not be enough to dissuade that Pesh sellsword—and I hopped aside, my dotani striking with a clash, just enough force to batter the hook aside. I crashed into her, my largest knife sinking in, muscle suction against the blade as I twisted, and now I had only the second Shainakh to deal with if I could simply move quickly enough.

  The Pesh snarled in my face, exhaling a strange spiciness—her teeth were fine, toothpowder could be had in any port. She was young, too—the salt-crust and filth were rubbed into her skin to deter her shipmates from recreational rape. I wrenched the knife free, battlefield stink filling thick and rank in my nose, and snapped her knee with another kick. Her body fell away, my dotani flashing to open her throat on the way down as well, because that is the rule of shipboard battles.

  It pays to be certain.

  I whirled, dotani flashing up—

  —and Darik’s met it, with a slitherclash. He ran into me, driving me onto the sodden deck as something deadly whistled overhead. My head bounced, the titanic stink all over me, and he rolled aside, flowing into a crouch. The last Shainakh lay bleeding and gutsplit, moan-coughing blood as he stared at the spurting stump of his right arm.

  What in the name of—

  Another low sharp whistling sound, and a lance of pain rammed through my skull. My head snapped aside, blood flying from my nose, and I tumbled across dead and dying human tangles.

  Darik launched himself into the midship shed, and I understood—the windwitch, striking with unphysical force. I thrashed, gaining my knees with more luck than skill, and the creaking line between the brota and the Taryam was not going to hold much longer, especially with the wind veering confusedly. More screams, and a roll of thunder from the north—had the windwitch staved off the storm until now, or were the twin arms of black cloud a result of witch-whispers?

  The Lan’ai does not look upon such meddling kindly. The Taryam heeled afresh as the wind vee
red, breaking away from the windwitch’s meddling.

  Silence. Tiny droplets of crystalline salt-spray hung in midair, blood droplets too. The deck under me creaked and rose a few fingerwidths; I realized the remaining line to the merchant ship was pulling the flatter, lower craft up, and furthermore, the thrum-hop of the drum inside the cave had stopped.

  I strained against the weight of that quiet, broke free with a crunch that tossed me across the suddenly slanting deck. A crimson flower bloomed as the sun slid fully below the horizon; the line to the Taryam broke and smoke gouted upward.

  The brota slapped back onto the Lan’ai’s surface, its hull cracking with a terrific noise. A tall staggering shadow was Darik, hauling a limp, dripping body from the cave.

  Smoke. Where from?

  Flaming wreckage fell like star-seeds, those molten pieces of heaven the taih’adai were made from. The smaller high-prowed corsair had swung around us, and it was burning merrily. Sailors screamed as they plunged from its deck, and I reached Darik just as the Lan’ai, tiring of our games, cracked the brota in half and sought to swallow us whole.

  More in Common

  He heaved, a great gush of seawater foaming from mouth and nose, and I pounded his back. My own lungs burned. “You idiot!” I raged breathlessly, repeated it in G’mai, then switched to a string of obscenities to rival Gavrin’s finest moments. Darik curled, bringing his knees up, and harsh life-giving breath filled his lungs again.

  Which meant the pain in my own chest retreated. I bent over him, sea streaming from my hair and clothes, and another chorus of retching went up from the deck. Darik’s own tortured heaves were echoed by Gavrin’s, and a high-pitched nasal whine that was the yelling of the windwitch D’ri had pulled from the brota’s wreck.

  Darik sagged against my knees. My arms were afire, clamped as tightly around him as I could manage. “La’arak, cukrak dihas!” I swore, over the rising wind and lash of rain pounding the deck. It would sluice the blood away, certainly, and it was near-miraculous they had managed to haul us back onboard. “You should have told me!”