It was dawn when the ship came out of the sea-mist, the ropes and planks creaking as it shifted on the waves. It was a long, low sloop of war, with a dozen guns in closed ports along the sides and deck guns mounted on swivels along the rail. The sails bellied somnolently, the wind barely enough to push the craft along, and when it came in sight of land a cry went up, and men moved on the shadowed deck.
Jaya went to the prow, wanting to see. The island emerged from the hollow shade of misty dawnlight as a shadow without feature or mark. The waves turned white as they crept into the shore, and beyond that the land was a dark mass that rose up and up toward the unseen peak at the center. She saw the forest dark as night, heard the cries of the nightjars like little questions and the whooping of the monkeys as they came down to the sea to hunt crabs.
Her ship was crewed by Utani and by Ekwa she had gathered to her side. Bastar steered the ship at her order, and Dhatun was her second. She had taken this as her ship because it was the swiftest, the most agile in the water, quick as a shark or a falcon. Unjarah, she had named it – the Reaver. A name given to both hunters and killers. To those who stole and devoured and could not be stopped. So some called the Ekwa themselves, so some called the outcasts who dwelled in hidden places and came by night to rob and kill. Her ship was dark, the hull painted black, weathered skulls hanging from beneath the bowsprit.
They came closer to land, and she signaled for the anchors to be lowered, the heavy iron hooks dropped into the sea with a sound she was sure could be heard all over the island, even if she knew it was not so. She watched, seeking a flicker of a torch or a lantern, but the land remained dark, and the only sounds were those of the jungle.
Half a year since she had taken Jinan, and the fleet with it. Jaya was not the same woman she had been. Tattooed and painted with the marks of her people, as well as those of the Ekwa and the disciples of Hamau, she wore her hair in braids, some of them bleached white and set with shark teeth. She wore hard leather vambraces and a piece of steel armor over her left shoulder, a keeled breastplate guarding her heart. She wore tall sea-boots and necklaces of bones and teeth clacked around her ankles. Always at her side was her father’s sword, still keen and bright, still hungry to take heads, and she wore two pistols ready in her belt.
A boat was lowered on pulleys and she climbed down, gathered in it with a dozen of her men and Bastar at her side. She wanted Dhatun to guard the ship, and she could not leave the two of them alone, for one of them would be dead when she returned.
The men rowed, pushing the longboat across the fallow sea until the bottom scraped on the sand and they leaped out, drew the ship into the shallows. Jaya stepped out from the boat and set foot upon the land, feeling a tremor in her heart. It had been so long.
Before her was a black basalt obelisk, perhaps raised from the sea by time and waves, perhaps a remnant of the days when the island was lifted up by a mountain of fire. It was marked by hard, jagged marks carved by primitive tools, and she stepped forward and touched them as she had on a day almost three years gone. Here she had made her oath, here she had called on the gods, and they were not done with her yet, nor she with them.
She crouched down and gathered up a fistful of sand, squeezed until it crumbled from between her fingers. “Here your people came ashore to kill and despoil my home,” she said to Bastar. “Here I slew my first Mordani when I did not even know the word. Here my brother died, trying to be a warrior when he was barely a boy.”
Bastar looked away. “Raiders came when I was a child, no more than ten. They drove us from our village and killed my mother, and after that I was sworn to revenge.”
“And did you have it?” she said.
He looked at his hands. “Some. I found some of them, left them bleeding and gutted. Others vanished, died in other places, faraway lands. I became an outlaw, and I left my home and the road ended here, in strange seas.”
“Did it give you peace?” she said, letting the last of the sand fall from her fingers.
He laughed then. “Little enough.”
“Indeed,” she said. “I left this place to seek Lozonarre, the raider, and I do not know if he lives or if he died in the storm. Either course does not give back what was lost. I will take back what was taken. I will drive the Mordani from these islands and stain the seas with their blood, and I will sit on a throne of skulls as did my ancestors before me.” She looked up toward the dark mountain. “I will make the Tau’ta a race of conquerors again. We have hidden long enough.”
She brushed off her hand on her boot-top. “Come, my elder brother has dreaded this day since I escaped him. Now I shall return and take back what is mine, what was always to be mine.” She shook her head. “I did not choose this path. The gods chose it. Come and see how I do their will.” She beckoned and the other warriors fell in behind her, following as she waded into the tall grass, walking beneath the palms and acacias, retracing a path she had followed one long-ago morning when her world had transformed, and cast her upon the seas of fate.
o0o
They came upon the village in the clear morning light as the mist burned away. They met women on the path, carrying baskets to gather shellfish, and after a moment the almost naked women and girls turned and ran from them, screaming alarm. Jaya gave no heed to them, only followed the trail as it climbed between the rocks, up to the cradled flatland where the longhouses were ringed around the great firepit, and when they emerged into the light warriors were gathering, women running to escape them, men coming from the lodges with spears and swords in their hands.
Jaya came to the edge of the firepit and stood there, unmoving, watching as they came and knotted in a mass of thirty or forty warriors, all glaring at her. She saw a flicker or two of recognition, and then her brother was there, pushing through the crowd, his left hand still curled and bound, tucked in tight against his belly to hide that it was all but useless. Jaya stepped forward to meet him, held up her arms, and spoke in the sweet sound of her native dialect.
“My kindred! Brothers and sisters, children of the Tau’ta! Set aside your spears and swords! The day has come. The day we have awaited since our forefathers brought us to this land. I left here seeking vengeance, and instead I have found a path set forth by the gods. The empire that was taken from us shall be ours again. I have come to share that vision with you. To bring you to the sea and the ships I command, to join me in the conquest that is our heritage!”
She saw the uncertainty spread through them, saw them glance at one another and heard the muttering, and one by one their gazes fell upon her brother Nur, their king, the one they supposed had been chosen, but now they saw him differently.
Nur stepped forward, and though he tried to speak with a voice that rang, she heard the tremor in it, saw the way his eyes darted one way, and then another. “Begone phantom! I know you are not my sister. She flung herself into the sea and died from her grief. You are not she.”
“Cast into the sea I was,” Jaya said, stepping closer to him. “But not by my own hand. It was you, and your warriors who bound me, and lashed me to a stone, and threw it into the waters. I remember it.” She moved closer to him, and the crowd began to give back from her, leaving him stranded among them. “I went into the deep, and my lungs cried for breath, and I would have died, and none known the way of it, save that then I was favored.”
She turned, speaking to the crowd. “In the deeps I saw a shark – a shark greater than any whale, and with eyes of fire Arang the Wave-Cutter parted the vines and set me loose. I swam to the rocks and returned to the land. I came into the longhouse in the dark, and I took this!” She drew her father’s blade singing from its sheath, and she heard gasps among the people. Women had begin to creep back from their hiding places, listening to her from the shadows.
Jaya pointed the blade at her brother. “Did he not tell you who split his hand with this very blade? I would guess that he did not.” She came closer to him still. “I let you live. I promised you I would return, but you hoped I never would. I have come with fire, and steel, and with blood vengeance!” She pointed her sword over the trees to the west. “Invaders have come from the far seas. You have seen them, as have I. I have seen their power, and I have killed many of them. I will kill more. They have taken the islands our ancestors ruled for their own. They sit on alabaster thrones and dwell in towers that once belonged to us. I have begun a war to drive them from the seas and take back what was lost.”
Now Nur seemed to shake off some of his dread. “We have slain them as well. You think the day they slew our father was the last time? We have learned to hide when they come seeking more captives, and to kill those we can catch. You sailed away and left us, and now you come with boasting and with promises of war that cannot be won. The path you speak of will lead to our extermination.” He pointed his spear at Bastar. “You even bring one of the beasts with you, as if to mock us!”
“He serves me,” Jaya said. “And so will you. Hide? I spit on that! I do not hide from my enemies. The Tau’ta do not hide from those who come against them!”
He faced her now. “Will you kill me now? Is that why you have come? You, who scorned to spill family blood.” He cast his spear down in the sand. “Slay me then. I will not give you cause. You must kill me coldly, and that will be your burden.”
Jaya looked at him, feeling the weight of the sword in her hand. The same sword her father had carried, the sword he had in his hand when he fell dead. Once she had refused to take her brother’s life with it, could she do otherwise now? She was different, hardened by years and battles and wounds, and yet she did not wish to cut down the last member of her family.
A sound echoed over the jungle, and everyone looked up, startled. It was a long, low note, the blowing of a shell-horn. Nur laughed bitterly. “The giants have come again. If you have the power to repel them, then show us that power.”
Jaya turned and beckoned her warriors, pointed them back to the western shore where her ship was anchored. “I will,” she said. “You may go and hide. I will show our enemies teeth of steel.”
o0o
Jaya hurried back to her ship, racing through the trees and the tall grass. Her heart leaped within her at the thought of battle. The men were fleet at her heels, Bastar at the rear, for he was bigger and slower of foot than her Utani followers. She touched the black stone as they passed it and leaped into the longboat. She took the tiller herself and steered them toward the Unjarah. The mist had boiled away, but there was still mist on the surface of the sea, and a haze that cut visibility. The ship was a shadow, emerging as if by sorcery as they approached it.
She was first aboard and gave her orders, allowing no beating of drums nor shouts. If there was another Mordani ship here, then she wanted to take it unawares and perhaps seize it as a prize. She had fifteen ships at her command, but she knew the enemy had many more, and experienced sailors to crew them. She would need every man and every ship for her war.
There was not much wind, but the ship was low and had a shallow draft, made for maneuvering close to land, so the sails caught the slight breeze and as the anchors were dragged up the Unjarah began to turn. She stalked along the shore of Ulu’a like a hunting tigress, moving steady before the strike.
Jaya took the wheel herself and steered with the care she had begun to learn. It was not like steering a smaller craft, for the ship turned slowly to begin and then more quickly as the rudder caught. To pilot a big ship a sailor almost had to be able to see the future – looking ahead to the turn that would have to be begun before it was needed. Seeing the state of wave and wind and the angle of the shore and the shoals. She knew these waters better than anyone, and she felt her way, remembering where every rock and shallow waited to catch them.
As she steered, her men ran to arm themselves, grabbing up spears and pistols and muskets. The guns were loaded and the ports opened. Her men put on their patchwork armor and painted their faces black for death with fingers dipped in soot from the cold braziers. She had sixty men aboard, half of them needed to crew the guns on one broadside. She thought about ordering the shot heated, but decided against it. There was not enough time, and she wanted to take the enemy ship intact if she could.
They rounded the northern tip of the island, Jaya weaving carefully in between the stony shore and the volcanic rocks that stood out to sea at the rising tide. She guessed that the waters were high enough for them to slide over the shallow neck, and she was right. Ahead was the lagoon, and there she knew they would find the enemy. Already she heard the crack of gunfire and the deeper shouts of cannon. She ground her teeth and bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. They would pay with blood for firing on her home.
Soundless, sails reefed close and the men hunkered down silent behind her gunwales, the Unjarah crept around the point and Jaya could see into the harbor. Not one ship, but two, one much larger than the other. The heavier ship stood farther from shore, her cannon blasting as she rained fire on the beaches. The lighter ship was in closer, lowering boats to embark raiders. Jaya saw the racks of chains ready on the deck of the big ship and knew her for a slaver.
Neither of them was prepared for the attack as Unjarah emerged from the mist, the visibility made worse by the drifting smoke from cannon and musket fire. No one saw her until Jaya spun the wheel and put them off the stern of the slaver and gave the command to fire as one. Matches sparked touch-holes and the dozen guns on her starboard broadside fired almost as one, a concussion that felt like being kicked in the breastbone and stole the breath.
At close range, the broadside raked down the length of the ship, the solid shot punching through the afterdeck and tearing through the gun decks, some bouncing along the upper deck and splintering the mizzen. Men screamed, wooden shards sprayed into the air, and sheets of sailcloth came hurtling to the deck.
“Again!” Jaya shouted as she brought them in alongside, wagering that they would have no crew on the seaward guns. The wind was slight, and the sails all but slackened as her men reloaded the cannon and fired as quick as they were able. The fire punched holes in the gun decks, ripped through into the hold, and left the mainmast leaning at an angle, cracked below the upper deck. Now they were close, and the men began to open up with the swivel guns on the rail, hammering at the men on deck with bursts of shot that splattered the enemy ship with blood and seared flesh. Jaya saw red running from some of the holes blown in the hull, as though the ship itself were wounded.
They sailed past, the slaver ship smoking and crippled. The anchor rope had been cut by a cannonball, and now the rising tide began to drive the ship inshore. Jaya knew it would ground soon enough, now she had to cut off the smaller ship before it could try to escape her fury. The tide was coming in, pulling her toward shore, so she turned away from it, the men running to reef the sails as she howled for them to hurry. “To the port guns! Make them ready!”
She turned the ship in a long loop that took them to port and back out to sea, just evading a rock she knew was hidden just under the waves. She needed sea room, because once the smaller craft tried to run, she would see which way it meant to go. If they were wise, they would use the crippled ship for cover and try to slip out to her left as she curved back in toward land, but she meant to cross behind them as they cleared the wreck and pin them against the rocks.
The wind picked up and the sails caught, and Jaya roared as she felt the rudder bite and swing them around, pounding through the swells as they cut across the mouth of the harbor, but when she looked she saw the smaller craft was still anchored, not trying to escape, and then she saw the longboats were being swarmed by Tau’ta warriors on the beach. The crack of gunfire rose even as she heard the war-chants of her people, and she felt a fire in her belly she had never thought to feel again.
She cut the wheel hard and steered for land, cutting across the front of the foundering slave ship to almost put her bow in the sand. At the last moment she spun the wheel to keep them from beaching and bellowed for the longboats to be dropped along with the anchor. The starboard guns were almost pointed right at the lighter vessel, but they were not reloaded yet. There was not time for that now – now it was blood and steel.
Jaya sprang over the side and landed in a longboat just as it hit the water, others of her warriors raining down around her as she cast the lines off and then they all began to row hard for the seaward side of the enemy ship.
They were seen, and gunfire began to slap at the water around them, one shot punching a hole in the hull of the boat, but by then they were in the shadow, and Jaya and her men swarmed up the ladders. Above her she saw a man lean out and fire down at them, the bullet humming past her head. She drew a pistol from her sash and cocked it as she aimed, and the next man who leaned out ate a bullet through his teeth, slumped over the rail spitting blood down into the water.
At the rail she saw a raider with his sword raised to cut at her head and she threw the empty pistol in his face, giving her time to roll over the rail and draw her sword. He slashed at her and she parried, drove the heel of her other hand into his elbow to knock his blade out of line, and then she cut low and ripped open his inner thigh. He collapsed to the deck with blood pouring from his wound, and she kicked him as she leaped over, drawing her other pistol.
Her men came behind her in a wave of howling battle-lust, and then it was steel to steel under the morning sun. The sapphire sea blazed behind them as they cut and slashed and splattered blood on the hardened deck. Jaya took off a head, parried another slash, then a pistol-shot rang off her breastplate and staggered her. She saw the man with the gun, sighted down her arm, and shot him in the chest. The pistol empty, she flipped it and gripped the smoking barrel to use it as a war-club, splitting two skulls with it and then breaking a man’s arm before she hacked it off.
Caught between fanatic islanders on shore and a deadly assault on their ship, the raiders broke and tried to flee. There was nowhere for them to go, and those that returned to the ship found it was taken before they could reach the rail. Jaya saw their desperate faces as they reached the deck and found themselves facing her and two dozen men standing over their slaughtered shipmates. Those who tried to yield were cut down, those who leaped back into the sea either foundered or were dragged into the water by the Tau’ta women, their throats cut.
A longboat full of men tried to make an escape along the shore, but the Tau’ta hurled spears and wounded too many for them to keep rowing, and then they were caught and butchered to a man. Sea-birds cried as the battle ended, the waters of the cove were stained red with blood and filled with rolling corpses in the swells.
Jaya jumped into the water and waded ashore, seeing the carnage wrought on the enemy. Her people shouted and thrust their weapons skyward, chanting the old war-cries, and she saw she had fired them to battle. They were tired of hiding, tired of waiting. They were the blood of warriors, and they wanted war.
She found Nur on the beach, a great wound in his side, blood staining the white sand under him. He looked at her with pain gripped tight in his face, and he curled his lip. “I would not be less than you. I have given my life against our enemies, and that you cannot take from me.”
“I never wished to take from you,” she said. “I wish you had understood that.” She crouched down beside him and gripped his hand as he died, and he gave her nothing, no remorse nor apology. He stared at her, furious, until the light went out of him and his hand fell slack from her grasp. She closed his eyes with her fingers, smoothing away the mask of rage on his features.
The crowd grew silent, and she looked up to see Lapan there, the old one with his shadowed eyes and his skin tattooed so dark he was like a piece of old wood. His staff was hung with bones and teeth, and it rattled as he held it up for quiet. “Nur, son of the king, is dead, and now you, Jaya, are all that remains of the royal line.” He held his hands open to encompass the beach strewn with dead and wounded, the drifting smoke and the smell of death. “Now you are our queen, by right and by blood. Now the Tau’ta are yours to do with as you will.”
Jaya smiled. “My will is war,” she said. “No longer will we hide on this island, dreaming of the glories we lost. Now we will go forth in our ships with swords and spears, and we will carry fire and death to those who think to rule what was ours. I have begun already to drive out our enemies, now you will join me.”
She raised her voice. “Tend the wounded, burn the dead, and send word to every village and lagoon, every fisherman and hunter. The Tau’ta will dwell no longer in hiding. I will send word for ships to bear us all hence. We have rested long enough, now we will go forth again. Now we will be conquerors again.” She looked at her sword and rubbed the blood from it with a handful of white sand. It caught the sun and flamed like the sea. A sea of steel and fire.
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