Chapter 30 #2
I didn’t want to because the sea seemed to be growling beneath the creaking, swaying machine, but Fell was too eager for me to refuse.
I followed Fell. Layf clung to one of my legs, forcing me to hobble as the boy shuffled along with us.
We climbed atop another dock, and when I bent to help Layf over the edge, the moment echoed within me. The reality of a child in my arms.
Fell took him once we’d walked the full length of the greying wood planks and were far out in the open water, and it came time to climb the ship’s ladder.
The Tornado was monstrous compared to the boat that had taken me to the Land of the Northernmost Star, with room for thirty rowers on its benches.
It had three sails, a closed room atop its deck, and a cache flung open on the floor, revealing barrels and chests and linen sacks which rowers were heaving out of the floor.
Fell set Layf on the deck, and the child sped off, giggling as if he’d not felt his world was ending only moments before.
He clamoured over rowers to see what they were pulling out of the ship’s belly, making each person’s task harder.
The crew received him with gentleness—thick hands brushing him back and away patiently and repeatedly.
“Who was in my seat?” Fell shouted.
Heads turned.
“Orvir. Kjrn beside him,” someone said back.
There was something known by all except me, and perhaps Dania’s children. Some of the rowers were taking an extra breath—the kind of breath you take when you don’t know what to say, but there’s a ship on the mountain.
“Be useful or get off,” the captain said.
“Ah, Kaker, I have missed you,” Fell said, joining the flow of leather-clad rowers hefting supplies from the ship’s stomach.
I watched him work because his arms straining was a sight to see.
I listened to their teasing. They called Fell lazy and comfortable. They called him copper-less and dry. But there was love in each word. One woman even said, “We will have you back for next season?”
“I think it is possible.”
“What is the news in Aalt, then?”
“Ah, the same. Early winter expected. Raiding will be strange next season.”
“It was strange this season, we were paired with Owl’s Ghost; they are coming in just behind us.”
“How was that?” That was Fell’s voice.
“Safer with two ships, so less impressive to the gods, but more plunder so still very good?”
“Any other news?”
“I am going to Vaneurim’s temple soon,” Fell said.
There was a distinct silence.
The energy of the group rebounded almost instantly.
“Ouuu.”
“With who?”
Fell turned and nodded in my direction, his eyes meeting mine.
“Ah, thirsty bastard.”
“And what about us? The next raid? Foreign wombed beings make poor casters, everyone knows this.”
“And you have no mother to cast for you.”
“They should call you Fell the cast-less.”
“Fell-without-magic.”
“Fell-fights-alone.”
All the words were said in jest, and Fell was laughing with them, but my stomach turned. What awful things to say to him.
“Oh,” one woman said, meeting my eyes. Her face was sweet and round. “Being vaneurigk changes all, maybe she will be a great caster. You cannot say.”
The captain growled. “You would work faster with less chatter. And none of you mind that. I can cast enough for ten wombed beings.”
Dania came to collect Layf, and I felt her through her gaze—the relief, the ache, the fervent thrill of her lover’s return after a long time of not knowing how he was faring.
I set my hand on her elbow as she passed, and she pressed her forehead to my shoulder briefly, both of us knowing our friendship was restored.
“Ah, here she comes!”
“Our raiding companion!”
Another ship slid into place beside The Tornado, so close that I braced myself in terror, thinking they were to collide for a moment.
“Took you long enough!”
“Had a leisurely rest out there, did you?”
“Shut your mouths! We had more cargo, and you know it!”
“Ah, you may tell yourselves that if you need—”
Those on the recently arrived ship were painted—big black circles around their eyes, the rest of their faces ghostly white. The paint was peeling in places from splashes of the sea or sweat.
My heart stuttered, and I moved to follow Fell over The Tornado’s side, where he was beginning to roll a large barrel down the dock toward shore.
The ladder felt far less secure on the way down than it had on the way up, adding to my unease.
I also got a sharp jolt of worry because I didn’t want to fall wrongly and hurt the child within.
I kept pace with Fell along the dock, not eager to be left behind with the painted rowers.
“You will go to sea with them next time?” I said, my stomach turning with the idea or perhaps because of the door in my body. Perhaps both.
“Ah, I had thought to, but Arik… and now you being vaneurigk—”
“King Arik?”
“Yes, he had forbidden ships from taking me. You know how he is… paranoid.”
“But he sent you on a ship to fetch me so—”
“Yes, that was his test, to see if I could go on a proper raid again. You know how he speaks of the mind. ‘You must have this thought. Imagine that in your mind, again and again.’ He accused me of thinking wrong for raiding—”
I cut to the heart of my unease. “You want to steal from people?” These were raiding ships full of plunder stolen from foreign lands—exactly what I had been raised to guard against.
“Ah, I wanted—” He laughed, hefting the barrel he was rolling onto its bottom. A woman, far more owl-faced than I, was standing with a thin rod of metal and a tablet, watching the rowers bring items into the city.
“What is in it?” the woman said.
Fell shrugged. “I am only helping unload. I was not there when it was loaded.”
She huffed and pushed him, using the metal rod to pry at the lid as sea birds squawked above us.
“You will sail somewhere and play thief?” I said. “Leaving me here alone?”
“Only skael knows that.”
I was furious for three heartbeats but then he smirked and his grin was too much to bear while angry. It would seem King Arik wasn’t the only one who lost disagreements with Fell based on expression alone.
“I am trying to be angry; you must stop looking at me so—”
Fell’s eyes shot to the docks behind me, and he moved so quickly my mind had trouble following things.
In an instant, he had tucked himself between me and the docks behind us, having come several paces in the time it took me to turn around and sense the commotion.
There was a brawl, and while I was used to that, to some extent, I feared it happening so close to the water’s edge.
What if someone were to hit their head and in their dizziness swim poorly or not at all?
I had been backing up, but slowed my retreat as my mind caught on the sight. Something in the brawl wasn’t usual. My eyes tried to follow the limbs as my ears strained to separate the sounds.
One body did fall off the dock. It stood in a flash, rushing up and out of the water, by way of a different dock, but then it stopped fleeing and stared at me.
“Gentlewoman Mira?”
It was a voice I felt like I should have known. I did know it… but from where?
I stared at the bruised face.
The green eyes.
“Rowan?”
It was him. The blacksmith’s apprentice from my childhood kepen. Beaten and bloody and swollen.
“What happened to you?” I said, coming forward. Several rowers moved around us, seemingly preparing for Rowan’s next move.
“Me? What happened to you, Gentlewoman? Everyone thinks you’re dead.”
We’d never held eye contact for so long.
“Leave him!” I said to the Norsern circling us, fingering the blades on their belts. “He will listen to me. I will explain things. How did he end up on your ship?”
“Kaker’s orders,” said someone, shrugging.
I turned back to Rowan. “Are you well? You look… cold.” He looked utterly terrible, but I didn’t want to say that to him.
“Your father, Gentlewoman… I must tell you—” His eyes flicked to the rowers standing nearby, waiting. Watching. “In case they kill me quickly. I have terrible news of your father. He is no longer living.”
My blood forgot how to rush.
“Surely not.”
But I could tell by his face that it was. A flood of memories struck me. My father’s beard when only a little grey wove through it. His hands. The way the hounds would look so sad whenever he left the kepen without them…
I knew parents could be dead, but somehow I’d never believed mine would be. I tasted salt and the musk of his leather jerkin. The breeze brushed my cheeks sweetly.
“Can they understand me?” Rowan said, his eyes leaping from rower to rower.
I shook my head. “I do not think—”
He stepped close to me, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“Dayne is Grainkeeper now,” Rowan said, lowering his voice into a whisper.
“He has allied himself with Grainkeeper Loric—his father has also died. They are building a fleet. They seek vengeance, Gentlewoman, for you and the other attacks. They are coming. You need not fear. They are coming.”
I was incapable of thinking. My father was dead, and I felt dreamy. Hadn’t I just been wishing I would see Dayne again? Hadn’t I been crying for fear that I wouldn’t? “They’re coming here?”
“Yes, Gentlewoman. The sea dogs will be made to pay. Keep strong. This nightmare will be over soon.”
The world spun around me as I tried to order my feelings—which emotion should come first, which second. “Rowan… listen… you mustn’t fight. Remain calm. They will—”
“I cannot obey the heretic demons.”
“But you must obey me, yes?” There was something familiar yet novel in my voice. Was it Dayne I was mimicking? Or King Arik? “I am the closest thing to your sworn Grainkeeper, am I not?”
Rowan grimaced.
I raised my chin high. “I have been here longer than you. I understand some of it. I will cry for my father”—Already my throat seemed to be closing—“And then we will make a plan for you. If you do not hurt them, they will not hurt you. Come with me.”
Rowan did obey that, but hesitantly, his eyes flicking to those around us, to Fell, who stood far closer to me than prescription allowed.
A rower with golden hoops woven through his long braid stepped forward. “Soten, can you tell the soter to continue to calm? He needs dry clothing, a fire, and a meal.”
I nodded. “Yes, Rowan. He asks me to tell you to keep calming. He wants you to eat and wear dry clothing. To sit by a fire.”
“He is a demon,” Rowan said. “He is tricking you.”
“No, Rowan, come, here.” I turned to the Norser who’d spoken, the one with the golden hoops woven into his hair. “He does not trust your words. I will take him to eat and—”
“No, Soten, he is not safe. He cut Faerin’s arm off on the row. Chopped it right off.”
“She is not soten,” Fell said.
I frowned and turned to Rowan. “Did you cut a man’s arm off?”
“Gentlewoman, let us not speak of violence—”
“Did you?”
“They ransacked the kepen, Gentlewoman, they took me and slaughtered—”
“The kepen?”
“Yes, Gentlewoman—”
My mind fluttered like my head was full of birds.
“I must see the king,” I managed, my body struggling suddenly to keep the air in my lungs long enough to actually breathe it.
I took Rowan’s wrist, meaning to bring him with me, but the gold-hooped Norser growled.
“Soten, I will keep him. He needs to be set in a room where he can do no harm. He may strike a child or burn down a home… he is a wild one.”
“She is not soten,” Fell said again.
“He must obey me,” I said to the Norser. “It is too much to explain now. It has to do with my father and his work back in our country. He will do no harm while he is with me.”
The man shook his head. “That may be useful later, but I am his Norser. I must protect him. He could slay someone… that would make it difficult to protect—”
“He is no soter,” I said. “He does not wish to be.”
“That is not how it works,” the man said.
“I am friends with the king,” I said, my voice rounding as it had when I’d explained why Rowan must obey me.
I took a step toward the Norser, looking up at him, performing fearlessness as I had seen so many Norsern do, even though my heart pattered in my chest. Even though nausea stirred in my stomach.
“I am friends with Hallbjern the wrestler. You will regret challenging anything I say.” There was a pleasure in the words I cannot describe—to declare that I would hold firm…
regardless of what may be coming… Fell was to my side—I felt his fingers twitch as he readied himself.
The man grinned. “King Arik knows as well as any Norsern, a raider must obey their captain at sea, not their king. Kaker asked for him. As many blacksmiths, fletchers, and leatherworkers dead as possible. These were his orders. I thought it a shame to kill such a strong fellow—look at the size of his arms—so I took him as soter. Maybe one day he will thank me.”
The order of emotions changed within me. I had to speak to the king, meaning I had to leave Rowan for a little time. “Where will you keep him?”
“I live in the clay district. Faller is my name. Ask anyone Soten, and they will direct you to the house that is—”
“Not soten,” Fell said again.
“That is not important now,” I said, quite harshly.
“It is,” Fell said softly.
I turned to Rowan. “I order you. Calm yourself as best you can. Do no harm. Eat. Sit by a fire. You look terrible. And I will come and find you and sort all of this.”
I took off, hurrying toward the palace. I made it off the thin docks onto the wider, sturdier wood that ran alongside the shore before Rowan’s words echoed in my thoughts.
They are coming.
I stumbled, steadying myself on a bone-white birch tree that grew alone in a pot.
They didn’t simply mean Dayne. It meant the order.
I heaved and moaned a little, collapsing onto my knees. Terror so stark it blinded me for a moment pulsed through my entire body, my limbs shaking.
They are coming.
I vomited.