Dawn lit the far edge of the sea, and the wind came in from shore and snapped the dirty white sails taut. Jaya watched them as they bellied and swelled, and then the tide began to draw them out to sea and the heavy, ungraceful ship began to move. It did not glide over the water like a proper canoe, but seemed to wallow and dig into the waves. Every rope and beam creaked and groaned as the wind pushed it, and she shook her head at such an ungainly beast.
She watched Bastar as he steered, standing close with her hand on her sword to strike him down if he did anything she distrusted. He worked the great, spoked wheel that controlled the ship with the ease of familiarity, letting it spin this way and then that way, seeming to feel his way out of the cove. She stood closer to the rail and looked down, saw the sea-foam curl along the heavy hull as they slipped between the headlands of the anchorage and out into the wider sea.
The ship felt the waves shift and swung to the side, and Bastar turned to go with them, letting the currents guide him. There were rocks and shoals out here, and she had to trust that he knew how to evade them. She watched how he did it, his feet planted wide to brace himself. He was so tall that she had to look up at him, and she didn’t like that. He was even larger than the other giants, even if his hair was not that sickening yellow. He had so much hair on his arms and his chest that he looked like a beast himself.
The forward sail began to ruffle and her Ekwa hurried to trim it. They did not know the ways of this ship, but Bastar had shown them everything he could, and the principles were the same. The Ekwa might not trust this ship any more than she did, but they knew the sea, and sailcraft, and they learned quickly.
Bastar squinted upward, watching the pennons used to judge the wind, and he nodded, gave the wheel another spin. They were close-hauled, headed southward across the winds out of the west. Later, they were meant to turn north, tacking westward so long as the winds stayed steady.
“Four or five days,” he said, “if the winds hold. Sometimes there are storms this time of year.” He glanced at her. “You don’t know these waters.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “They do,” she said, indicating her warriors. Nine, now, including Dhatun. They had burned the two slain by the dragon and scattered their ashes to the sea. The others had not asked to return home, and she had not offered.
“The Ekwa,” he said, and shook his head. “They tell stories of them to curdle a man’s blood, how is it they obey you?”
“Perhaps they fear me,” she said. “Perhaps they should.” She gave him a meaningful look and he ducked his head, made a placating gesture with his fingers, still holding the wheel.
“Easy, easy then. You saved my life, and then spared it. I’m your man.” He shrugged. “You don’t trust me, and you shouldn’t, but I’ve no other path to me. My last crew staked me out for the devil.” He wiped his brow and nodded to the south. “Whales.”
She looked and saw the spouts of the great sea-divers as they breathed and wallowed on the surface, resting before their deep plunges into the black. “They won’t trouble us.”
“No, I just saw them.” He looked uneasy. “What do I call you? Lady? Mistress?”
“You call me chief,” she said, looking outward to the white horizons. It would be a warm day, and the shadows of clouds lurked in the north. Later there would be rain, perhaps a storm. “Tell me more about the one I seek, Lozonn – Lozonnerr.” She shook her head and spat out the ugly-sounding word.
“Lozonarre,” he said. “Damned Mordani words never sound right.” He shook his head again, mopped at his brow. ‘Well, he’s a killer. As much a pirate as I am, for all he carries a king’s mark. A slaver and a murderer and as treacherous a bastard as ever sailed the seas. When he takes captives he likes to tear out their tongues, or scalp them, sometimes he cuts them open and pulls out a bit of their guts, nails it to the mast, and then scores them with hot iron so they leap away and tear out their own lights.” He looked at her. “There’s a reason men call him ‘Destroyer,’ or sometimes ‘Exterminator.’ I only met him the once, and that was enough. Cut a girl’s nose off for a jest.”
Jaya looked away. Everything he said gave her more questions which she disdained to ask because it made her feel foolish. Everything about this ship and this man spoke of another world she didn’t understand, and it was like wading in unknown waters, not sure of what would bite.
“You swear you know where to find him,” she said, grim.
“You’ll find him aboard his ship,” he said. “And ships move around, but there are only a few places we’re likely to find it. The War Eagle prowls the islands hunting for Achenian trade ships, but this time of year they are sparse, so he takes to raiding and slaving. Short trips, and more of them, so he’ll make port every few weeks to sell off whatever he’s taken. We sail for a town called Arwan, on the island of Rau. It’s a wild place, but the closest slave market to these islands. If he’s not there, he’ll turn up soon enough.”
“War Eagle?” she said.
“Name of the ship,” he said. He spoke words in his own crude language, and she guessed it was the name. “A ship should have a name.” He spun the wheel and patted it. “You should name this one.”
“Does it not have one?” She looked at the unlovely thing and thought it unworthy of a name, as though it were alive.
“It did, but you stole it, customary to rename a ship when you take it.” He saw she didn’t smile and shrugged. “As you wish,” he said.
“Hunter,” she said, tasting the wind. “I will call it the Hunter.”
o0o
They sailed through the day as it grew hotter, the heat seeming to rise from the slow-rolling waves. Fish leaped from the water and skipped away from them, and seabirds flew overhead and called for death. At midday the clouds came in low and scattered and rain poured down, bringing welcome, cool relief, but then the sun burned away the mist and everything steamed, men and ship alike.
The waves grew deeper and longer, and Jaya wished she could put her hands in the water and feel the currents. It seemed unnatural to ride so far from the surface, to feel everything secondhand in the shifting of wind or the pitch of the deck, not feeling the touch of the sea. She sniffed the winds. It might rain after dark, but not storm. It was not the season for storms.
Bastar steered them true, using the uneven winds to the best advantage, keeping their course steadily westward as they tacked north and south and north again. The waters grew darker, and she knew they were out in the deeps here, away from any land. She saw strands of sea-growth as thick as a man’s body rising up from below, the tips of their fronds touching the surface, and in places thick mats of green-black vines floated on the waves. Bastar kept clear of them, and she could imagine that even a large ship like this might be mired in such things.
“Evil seas,” he said. “Sometimes ships vanish here, sometimes only men. I heard a tale of a whole sea-rover found with only three men aboard, and they had eaten the rest of the crew and parts of each other.”
“Then why do you take us here?” she said, wary.
He shrugged again. “This is the only way. We could sail southward around them, but then we’d be out in trackless water without an island or even a reef. North we’d have to sail weeks out of our way, and there are worse dangers there.”
She turned and looked forward at a cry from the forward lookout, and she squinted, shading her eyes from the lowering sun. It would be dark soon, and the thought of night in this haunted place was enough to make her scowl. She could barely see past the blaze of the sun through a few golden clouds, and then she saw the shadow of something upon the surface. It took her a moment to realize it was another ship.
Bastar turned them slightly, and her men rushed to trim the sails so they skimmed a little to the south. It moved the sun from behind the other vessel so they could see, and it was plain this ship was a wreck. The masts were bare, the sails hanging in blowing tatters. The ship listed to the side, down at the bow, and there was no motion on the deck. Jaya saw it was a ship of the giants, larger than the newly-named Hunter, much smaller than the one she sought. White streaks of bird shit lay down the sides, and that told her it had been here for some days.
“As I said, evil seas,” Bastar said.
“Bring us alongside,” she said, and he looked at her with one eye, startled.
“Best not to,” he said.
Jaya made her voice brittle and cold. “You are my prisoner, remember,” she said. “You do what I command.”
He swallowed whatever else he had been about to say, ducked his head. “As you say, chief.” He spun the wheel and they nosed into the wind, sliding closer to the derelict ship, carrion birds rising overhead in a cloud.
o0o
The rail of the Hunter was too low to see over the side of the other ship, and so Jaya took three men and left Dhatun in control. She climbed the ladder-holds nailed to the side of the other vessel and swung a leg over, looked at the open deck and caught the scent of rotten flesh. There was death here, had she any doubt. She drew her sword and set foot on the sun-bleached boards, watchful for any motion.
There were six dead men on the deck that she could see, but their bodies were so eaten by scavenger birds she could not have said what slew them. The deck was painted black under the corpses with dried blood, and the stink was stomach-turning. Jaya saw swords discarded in the mess, blades painted and chipped. There had been a battle here, and she wondered with who. Had another invader ship come upon this one and attacked it?
She approached the great dark square that looked down into the black hold. From beneath she heard the ripping sound of thousands of flies and she turned back, covering her face as a faint hint of the smell caught her like poison. She turned away and spat. She had thought there might be something aboard this ship worth plundering, but she would not venture into that darkness to seek it.
A thump caught her ears and she turned, looking forward, eyes narrowed. Jaya looked at the men with her and beckoned, and they crept toward the bow, watchful, straining to hear the slightest sound. The birds circled overhead, crying anger, denied their feast. The ship rolled slowly with the waves, and the creaking and groaning of the wood unnerved her.
There was another low thumping sound, and Jaya saw the small compartment under the prow. Bastar had told her it was where the powder for the fire weapons was kept, and she hesitated, wondering if this could be an ambush. One glance at the dead men told her it was not. Any who still lived aboard this ship were not victors, but survivors.
She rapped on the small hatch with the back edge of her sword. “Come out!” she shouted, and then she stepped aside, wary of what frightened survivors might do, knowing they would not understand her.
There was a cry from inside and then the door swung open and a boy who looked twelve summers old thrust his hand out, holding the smoking shape of one of the fire weapons. His eyes were so wide she could see the white of them all around. He had bright yellow hair, and his face was pale as salt.
He pointed the weapon at her face and she slapped it from his hand to clatter on the deck. He shrank back, covering his eyes with his arms, and she saw there was an old man in there with him, one arm bloody from a wound. The smell of them both trapped in the powder hold was bitter and unpleasant. Jaya stepped back and beckoned them. “Come out. Come!” She muttered under her breath and then called for Bastar.
“Barbarian! Come and speak to these men. I cannot make them understand me.” She looked around, wondering if more survivors were lurking here somewhere.
The boy stammered. “I. . . I understand you. I speak your speaking.” His voice was weak and timorous, but she could make out his heavily-accented words.
Jaya grunted and motioned the Ekwa to stand back. She picked up the weapon where it smoldered on the deck and looked at it. One end was curved and fit into her hand, the other had an iron tube. In between was a mechanism and a smoking piece of rope. She pulled that off and threw it away, not liking it.
The boy was still staring at her, and now the old man emerged into the light, cradling his left arm gingerly, looking around him as though all the devils in the sea might fall on him at any breath. Jaya wondered how only these two had survived what had happened here. The setting sun caught her eyes and she squinted. Perhaps they had spent enough time here.
“You, boy, what happened on this ship?” She beckoned him and he came closer, uneasy, glancing at her warriors. Jaya sheathed her sword and held the fire weapon in her hands, turning it over, not liking the greasy, heavy feel of the wood. “Speak.”
The boy swallowed. “We caught on weeds were, rudder tangled and broken. We tried to cut free but men were taken away.” He shook his head. “Men came from the sea. Men? Hunters from the sea. Walkers from below.” He gestured toward the darkening seas. “They came, and then they killed.” He was breathing faster, and she saw his eyes were wide and staring, as though he did not see her.
Bastar climbed over the rail and looked at her questioningly. The old man spoke to him, and he answered. Jaya didn’t like that, fixed Bastar with a glare. “What does he say?”
“He asked if I were the captain, I said no.” He shrugged. He spoke to the old man again and was answered with a torrent of words. Bastar looked uneasy. “He says they were all killed by sea-devils, and we should leave or they will come back.”
“Then we should leave,” Jaya said.
Bastar pointed into the hiding place. “The powder, you should take it.”
“No, we are going. Enough of this.” She looked at the two survivors. She would have been glad to leave them, save that the boy was not any older than Anut had been. Looking at him, even beneath that strange hair, she could see nothing but a frightened boy, and she closed her eyes and shook her head. “Tell them they come with us now. They will be my crew.” She looked to the west and saw clouds covering the setting sun. The wind blew cool and she smelled the rain.
A sound came up from below, a deep, tolling sound like wind blowing over rocks by night. It sounded like a horn, a great horn, and the two survivors went white at the sound of it. The scavenger birds overhead scattered at the sound, and Jaya saw even Bastar was unnerved.
“Cut us free!” Jaya called. “We are away from here!” Her men went to the rail and began to climb down onto the deck of the Hunter. Bastar swung his leg over and looked back at her, then looked again, and she saw him stare past her as his eyes went hollow. She heard something scrape on the rail behind her and she turned, slowly.
o0o
The last sun lit it from behind as it climbed over the side. It was shaped like a man, but was clearly something else. It was too tall, elongated, and with black, glistening skin that dripped with a noisome slime. It walked on long legs and long arms hung down before it to grasp the barbed, toothed spear it wielded. She thought the flesh was scaled and plated, but then she saw it move and realized it wore scaled armor of some golden metal, the workmanship strange and yet cunning.
As it drew itself up, Jaya saw the head, and that was the most hideous part of it. The face was almost human, with wide black eyes, a flat nose, and a wide mouth filled with glassine teeth. The skull was tall and crested, and it seemed to change shape as the thing opened its mouth and hissed at her like boiling seas.
Jaya still held the strange weapon in her hands, and she quickly threw it aside and drew her sword. “Go,” she said. “Go!” She waved her men back and stood between them and the thing from the sea, and she felt her heart speed in her chest as she gathered herself. The creature towered over her, making her feel very small as she faced it. Again the horn blew in the depths, and she felt herself go cold down in her belly. In her mind she saw the towering sea-weeds rising up from below, a forest hidden below the waves, and what might dwell there, away from the light.
The thing stepped closer and the point of that deadly spear came up. Jaya drew herself into a defensive guard, watchful, stepping back toward the rail behind her. The thing watched her, lips curling and working over the translucent teeth. It made a sound, and then another, and she realized it was speaking, though she could not make out the words.
Claws rasped on wood, and another of the things crawled over the rail to one side, and then another. She heard a cry from behind her, and she glanced back and saw more of the things clawing their way over the rail of the Hunter. There were a dozen, and surely more. The sound of the horn echoed from the deeps again, and she wondered how many more.
The thing spoke again, and she watched it reach out the tip of its spear toward her. She slapped it down with a singing note and stood defiant before it. “I am of the Tau’ta! I do not bow before you!” She slapped her shoulder with her free hand and stomped on the hard wood of the deck. “You bow before me! I am the blood of kings!”
It snarled and lunged for her, and she met the rush of the spear with her sword and steel rang in the deepening dusk. It towered over her, arms long and frilled with delicate fins, and it struck with terrible speed. She dodged side to side and parried again. It was getting hard for her to see, and when the dark was complete she would be lost. Already the rain clouds were covering the moon, and there would be no light.
“Light it!” came the cry of a voice she recognized as Bastar. There was a sound and then a lantern arced overhead and struck the deck, shattering the glass and spilling the pungent whale oil. The sea-creature flinched back from the sound, and Jaya leaped in. She struck her sword savagely against the barbed spearhead and the clash of iron struck sparks that scattered like falling stars in the dark. For a moment they vanished, but then the fire blazed up, and she had to spring back from the sudden flames.
The thing hissed and shied back from the fire, but then it came forward again, striking swift and venomous with the spear it carried, the deadly point seeking her flesh. Firelight danced on steel and on hammered scale armor, and it flickered in the blank black eyes. Jaya parried and caught the spear-haft, tried to wrench it away but the thing was too strong. It struck her with the haft and knocked her down, then lunged in to kill.
She saw the dagger point coming for her eyes and wrenched to the side, felt it strike through her hair and gouge the deck beside her head. Her hand snapped out and caught the haft, held it for the moment it took her to hack through with the keen edge of her blade. Then she rolled away before the black talons could cut her open, though she felt them trace fire along her side as she tumbled over and sprang up.
Blood dripped hot down her side as the thing swept out a blade curved like a serpent and lunged for her again. She feinted back, then danced to the right and cut at the creature’s leg. It was like trying to cut wood rather than flesh, but the thing screamed out and black blood ran down and stained the deck. It drew back and the wounded leg caused a moment of weakness, made it stumble, and Jaya hurled herself against the thing, feeling the coldness of the dark green body as she drove it back.
It stumbled into the pool of fire and shrieked, flailing at the ghostly flames, and Jaya took her moment. She kicked hard at the wounded leg and folded it, followed the creature down as it fell to the deck. She locked her legs around the sword-arm to pin it in place, and then she shoved the edge of her sword against the pulsing neck, bracing it with her free hand on the scrolled back of the steel.
The thing hissed, and Jaya suddenly went very still. She looked into the black, featureless eyes, and she made sure the thing knew her sword was at its throat. It breathed in, then out, but it made no move to provoke her. She glanced up and saw six more of the things facing her, swords and spears ready, but they did not interfere.
Jaya spoke slowly, wanting it to understand her. “Remember that you live because I granted it.” She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping she was choosing right, and then she relaxed her body and took her blade away from the black, fluttering gills. She stood very carefully, keeping her stare fixed on those depthless eyes, until she was standing over the thing, looking down. It did not move as she stepped away, backing toward the rail.
The oil flames had almost died, and the deck was lit only by the bluish glow and the scatter of stars above. The wind was cool, gusting up from the south, and the only sound was the sea, the slow, even rush of waves all around, like the breathing of the world. Jaya watched as the thing got to its feet, one hand coming up to touch the place where she had put her sword in a very human gesture. It looked at her, and the fading light reflected in its eyes like silver.
It sheathed its sword, and then it reached up and took off something that hung around its neck. It seemed to think for a moment, and then it threw the necklace to her. She caught it without thinking, turned her hand and looked, saw it was the tooth of a shark enclosed in a ring of that yellow metal on a chain of the same. It looked like gold, but it was light, like bone.
“Take,” it said, the word drawn-out and jagged. “Remember.” Then it turned away and gestured to the others, and Jaya watched as they began to drop back over the side and fall away into the waters, unseen and silent. The one she had fought paused at the rail and looked back at her once more, and then it was gone as well.
She stood for a moment and caught her breath, hearing the wind gather as the first spatters of rain came down. The flames, almost gone, caught the tattered sails and began to climb, burning brighter, and Jaya nodded, glad that the flames would take this ship of death. She turned away and climbed the rail, looked down to the deck of her own ship, and leaped into the dark.
o0o
They drew away as the wind picked up and the rain began to fall everywhere, the sound of it on the sea like a soothing voice. As if in defiance of the rainfall, flames blossomed on the derelict ship, and Jaya stood beside the wheel and watched it burn. Even as the flames curled skyward, she heard a last time that deep, rolling horn from beneath the waves, and the men all shied away and made signs against evil. Jaya looked at Bastar and saw he was not afraid, steered them with the wind as it pushed them south.
“What kind of sea-devils are they?” she said. “They carried weapons and wore armor. They were not beasts.”
He shrugged. “Devils are devils. No one knows what black things lurk beneath the waves, and no one would want to.”
“You are not afraid?” she said.
“Something will kill me one day,” he said. “Cowering won’t save me.”
She looked away, not wanting to dignify him with a word. She found herself liking him in spite of herself, and that made her wary. “How long until we reach this place we seek?”
“Six days,” he said. “Five if the winds are fair. Lucky we’re sailing ahead of the storm season.”
“Luck favors those who do the will of the gods,” she said, looking north to where the dying ship burned against the blue-black night. There was a flash, and then the sound like thunder as the powder-store exploded in the dark. Jaya sniffed the air. “Steer us true, and I shall do what is needed.” She braced her feet on the deck as the waves grew rougher, and she smelled blood on the wind.
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