Chapter 2
the body chases the flame of first creation
the name burns like tinder
the mouth still holds the song
Eventually they stop running, the crows far behind, the last gilded breath fading from the sails. They’ve both left the rail by the time the last swell subsides, sprawled around a bottle of wine in Shipwright’s cabin.
She takes a deep draw of her pipe and speaks through the smoke.
‘How long can we keep this up?’
Shroudweaver waves a hand loose with drink.
‘There’ll be gods as long as there’s corpses.’
Shipwright coughs, spits.
‘We can run a while yet then. Up to Hesper at least.’
She stretches, shoulders popping. ‘We need to do something more than just harry her though. Our luck can’t hold, not with the north locked down.’
Shroudweaver pours, marvels at the steadiness of his hands.
Amazing what a drop of something good can do.
‘Locked down? Is that what we’re calling it?
Last I talked to Fallon he said they were’ – he sips, adopts an enraged expression – ‘“Pissing over everything between hill and coast”, by which I think he meant, getting a bit more aggressive about their borders.’
‘Hard to tell with Fallon,’ Shipwright says.
‘He’s so understated.’ Shroudweaver raises an eyebrow and clinks her glass.
Shipwright leans back, crosses her legs, drinks deep.
It is good, this one. Nabbed out the hold of some unlucky merchantman a few days back.
A bit opportunistic, perhaps, but if Kisser was sinking ships, there was no reason to let the wine drown as well.
She swills it a little as she wriggles her toes to warm them up.
‘I think aggressive is putting it mildly. Some of the caravels that used to run north have given up entirely. Trade routes are all locked down from the coast on in. Heard tell there’s towns burning there that haven’t been touched by Kisser. ’
Shroudweaver’s expression is perplexed. ‘Why would they?’
‘Why do people do anything these days? Fear. There are still the remains of temples up there, still pilgrim routes that might pull people north. It’s clear they have no interest in that. Not in money, not in the war. Thell wants one thing, to be left the fuck alone.’
She sips again. ‘I can sympathise’.
After a moment, she takes her glass to the cabin window and looks out across the waves to the shore. She watches distant, small lights bob as patrols of people who want to kill her tread the coastline, waiting for any ship stupid enough to court the rocks.
‘Ah, no peace for us until we finish this.’ She reaches up with a hand, pulls the curtain against the growing chill, turns the lamplight down softer, before she sits back on the bench, arching a spine grown weary from standing.
Shroudweaver’s breath catches in his throat and he rubs his brow with tired fingers.
Shipwright sees the movement and her smile is softer than her face should allow.
‘It’s alright,’ she says. ‘I’m not quite done yet.’
‘We’re getting closer though,’ he says.
Her rough hand is heavy on his knuckles and when she leans in to kiss his forehead she smells of tar, split wood, and sweat.
‘Close isn’t done,’ she says and there’s steel in it.
She pours more wine, raises the glass.
‘Kicking and screaming?’ she says.
Shroudweaver’s smile could light lamps.