Stonewielder (46 page)

‘We will flee into the wilds,’ announced Manask. ‘Live off berries and mushrooms. Slay animals with our bare hands and wear their hides.’ Bakune and the priest both wordlessly studied the man, who looked back at them, eager. ‘Yes?’

‘I’ve a boat waiting,’ the priest growled.

Bakune felt infinite relief. ‘Where are we going?’

The priest rubbed the grey bristles at his jaw and cheeks as if surprised by the question. ‘Going? Don’t know. Maybe we’ll
just hide,’ and he shrugged. ‘Now, c’mon. We’ve wasted enough time.’

Bakune was surprised when the priest led them a different route from the way most prisoners were brought in. As Assessor he’d visited the Carceral Quarters a number of times, but always by the main way. The route the priest took brought them to narrower, winding halls. After a time he realized that they walked the passages of the old fort that the carcery had been built upon. A lifetime of enquiry and assessing prompted him to wonder about this.

At one point, while they waited for Manask to edge his huge bulk round a particularly tight corner, he murmured to the priest, ‘You know these ways well.’

The priest’s frog mouth widened even further into a tight smile that suggested he knew exactly what Bakune was up to. ‘I’ve been through here before. Long ago.’

‘In similar circumstances, perhaps?’

But the man just smiled. Gasping, Manask yanked himself free, his armour scraping the walls. ‘Free!’ he announced. ‘Slippery as an eel! Able to wriggle through the tightest of corners!’

The priest just shook his head; it seemed the pair knew each other well. Old friends. Old conspirators and criminal partners too? It seemed probable. There was something familiar there; something he could not quite recall. This couple must be well known. It also occurred to him that there was something strange about Manask’s armour: it appeared to consist of a great deal of layered padding. And he walked strangely upon his boots, which apparently comprised no more than tall heels and thick soles. While upon closer examination a significant portion of the man’s height was really nothing more than his immensely thick nest of hair.

After many twists and turns, the halls becoming ever narrower and more neglected, the priest stopped before a door. He whispered: ‘This should lead to the kitchens. From here we can make our way out, then down to the waterfront—’

Manask lurched forward. ‘I will sneak ahead!’

Like a moving wall he pushed Bakune ahead of him. ‘Wait! There’s not enough room! Please …’

The priest threw open the door and the three burst through like peas from a pod to crash into shelves of pots and hanging pans. Bakune bumped a table and stacked bowls came crashing down. ‘Quiet as mice now!’ Manask yelled.

A man – one of the prison cooks, obviously – bolted up from his cot to gape at them. Manask heaved a long oaken table on to the fellow, sending crockery flying in an explosion of shattering. ‘Let us creep right past this one’s nose!’ The giant charged on, upending tables in his path. ‘I will spy the way!’

Bakune and the priest remained standing amid the wreckage. The priest hung his head, sighing. He motioned Bakune onward. They picked their way through the broken crockery.

*    *    *

Shell was surprised that it was only a few days before she became acclimatized to the stink and the shocking lack of hygiene on board the boats of the Sea-Folk. Her gorge no longer rose. She even became rather casual about squeezing the ubiquitous fleas, all the while trying not to think about where they’d been biting her. The boats were open to the elements and so the sun roasted her during the day while the wind sucked all the warmth from her through the night. The flotilla kept to the south shore, putting in every other night at secluded coves and beaches. As they travelled the Sea-Folk caught fish and other creatures that they sometimes gutted over the sides and ate raw – a practice Shell could not bring herself to share despite their constant pressing upon her of the limp and tentacled delicacies.

Some lines should not be crossed.

These Sea-Folk also practised the revolting custom of rubbing animal fat over themselves; they lived perpetually in the same coarsely sewn hides, which they never took off or washed; their hair they never cut or washed but oiled instead into thick ropes. She felt as if all this filth were a contagion she would never rid herself of. Yet none of the huge extended family was ever obviously sick as far as she could tell.

Travelling on another of the boats, Blues and Fingers appeared to share none of her qualms. Closet barbarians, they happily rubbed fat upon themselves and ate raw things that had more eyes than was proper for any animal. Only Lazar shared her reserve; the huge fellow, taller and broader even than Skinner, his Sea-Folk hides bursting at the seams, sat with arms crossed, frowning at the family as they scampered over the boat and just shook his head as if perpetually amazed.

The young girl-mother, Ena, who seemed to have adopted her,
came to her side carrying a bowl of that rancid fat. ‘Cold, yes?’ she asked. Shell, arms crossed, shivering, shook a negative.

‘No. Fine.’

The girl got a vexed look as if she were dealing with a stubborn child. ‘You are cold. This will keep you warm.’

Some privations are better endured. If only as the lesser of two evils. ‘No. Thank you.’

Ena set a hand on her broad hip. ‘You foreign people are crazy.’ And she moved off, taking wide squatting steps over the heaped gear and belongings.

We’re not the ones rubbing animal fat on ourselves
.

Shell threw herself down next to Lazar at the pointed stern. She looked him up and down. ‘You’re dirty, but at least you’re not all greased up.’

He raised then lowered his shoulders. ‘I layered.’

‘Can you believe this? Some people are willing to live in absolute filth.’

The hazel eyes shifted to her. ‘Seems to me we coulda used some of that grease out on the ice.’

‘You think it works?’

The look he gave her echoed Ena’s. He raised his chin to the nearest of the clan, an elderly uncle on the boat’s tiller arm. ‘See that outer hide jacket, the leather pants, the boots?’

Shell studied the gleaming greasy leathers. ‘Yes. What of it? Other than they’ve never been washed for longer than I’ve been alive.’

‘You raised on the coast, Shell? I forget.’

‘No.’

Lazar grunted. ‘Ah. Well, all that oil makes his clothes practically waterproof. No spray or rain can get through that, so he’s toasty warm. I’m thinking these lot know what they’re doing.’

Fine. But there’s gotta be a cleaner way to do it
.

Later that day Shell was roused from a doze when all at once the Sea-Folk jumped into action. The men and women went to work rearranging the gear, giving tense quiet orders. Shading her eyes, she peered around and spotted a vessel closing: two-masted, long and narrow, no merchant boat.

Ena came to her and Lazar. ‘Say nothing, yes? No matter what.’

‘What is it?’ Shell asked.

‘These navy ships, they stop us whenever they wish. Steal what they like. Call it fees and taxes.’

‘What country are they from?’ Shell asked.

Ena blinked her incomprehension. ‘How does that matter?’

Lazar barked a laugh. ‘She’s got that right, Shell.’

Shell waved her reassurance. ‘We won’t interfere – unless we have to.’

‘Good. Our thanks.’

The girl waddled away, awkward in her pregnancy.

Shell and Lazar watched while the warship trimmed its sails. Boats of the flotilla were ordered to come alongside. Marines climbed down rope ladders and ‘inspected’ the cargo. Studying the worn and begrimed gear of her own boat, Shell didn’t think the pickings very rich. Something did startle her though: a gleaming brass teapot now rested amid the blackened cooking pots, and a roll of bright yellow cloth peeped from beneath a frayed and stained burlap covering. And a tall female figurehead, painted white, now graced the boat’s prow. When had that appeared? She nudged Lazar and indicated the figurehead.

He nodded. ‘Like I said.’

Two more inspections proceeded as the first: the marines ransacking the boats, tossing goods up into their ship. The afternoon waned. A cold wind blew though the sun was hot. Thankfully so far neither their boat, nor the one carrying Blues and Fingers, had been waved over. As the third inspection finished, Shell half rose from her seat: the marines were dragging someone with them. A young man or woman. Elders on board clutched at them, only to be thrust aside. ‘Lazar! Do you see that? What’re they doing?’

‘Looks like a head tax.’

Shell clambered to where Ena sat beneath a wind-rippled awning. ‘What’s this? What’s going on?’

Her gaze shaded, the girl said grimly, ‘It happens sometimes.’

‘
Happens?
What’re you going to do about it?’

The girl’s voice tightened even more. ‘What would you have us do? There is nothing we can do. The strong prey upon the weak – that is how it has always been.’

Shell spun away. If only they could get Blues or Lazar on board that ship, then these Sea-Folk would see the strong preying upon the weak! And then – she let go her held breath … and then she would only have proved Ena’s point.

And what would these Sea-Folk do with such a ship anyway? How would they explain it? They just
found
it? No. Distasteful as it was, Ena was right. There was nothing they could do. Being what she
was, Shell was used to being on the taking end of such exchanges. How much harder and galling it was to be on the giving!

The youth had been urged on board at sword-point. Sailors climbed the warship’s spars to give out more canvas. The vessel pulled away.

‘Now what?’ she snapped, unable to hide her anger and frustration.

‘Now we wait.’

‘Wait? Wait for what?’

‘We shall see.’

‘Shell!’ a voice called across the waves; it was Blues. The Sea-Folk were oaring his boat closer through the tall slate-grey waves.

‘Yes?’

‘Did you see that?’

‘Yes.’

‘A tough one to swallow.’

‘You did nothing?’

‘Almost did. Orzu and the others here begged us not to interfere.’

‘Same here. What now?’

‘Orzu says we have to wait a time.’

‘What in Hood’s name for?’

‘Don’t know. No choice.’

The boats bumped sides and the Sea-Folk lashed them together. Supplies were handed back and forth. Shell waved to Fingers, who was a miserable shape at the stern, near prostrate from seasickness. Poor fellow; she had at least found her sea-legs.

‘So who were they?’ she asked Blues.

‘Some country called Jasston.’ He pointed south. ‘That’s their shore.’

‘And the north?’ The coast to the north was dark, and not once had she seen a fire or a settlement.

‘Some land called Remnant Isle. No one lives there. Supposed to be haunted.’

Shell saw that the figurehead of the white woman was now gone, as was the gleaming brass teapot: secreted away for the next ‘inspection’. She frowned then and wiped her hands on her thighs, but the problem was her trousers were as dirty as her hands. ‘And the youth? What will happen?’

Blues’ face seemed even darker than usual. ‘Orzu says almost everyone taken prisoner in all these lands ends up on the wall, sold to the Korelri.’

The wall and its insatiable thirst for blood. And Bars was on it. Had he fallen? No. Not him. Yet they could die – all of them. They were of the Avowed, yes, but they could still drown or be hacked to pieces. Could he be dead already? Their mission a failure?

A hardening in her chest told Shell that should that be the case, these Korelri Stormguard might find themselves swept from their own Hood-damned wall.

The Sea-Folk untied the lines securing the boats. Blues waved farewell. The flotilla idled, tillers and oars used only to hold steady. Yet they were moving. She’d heard they were in a narrow stretch of water called Flow Strait. The coast to the south was crawling ever so slowly past.

The sun was approaching the horizon almost due west. Shell shaded her gaze from its glare. The wind picked up; it would be a damned cold night. Then shouts from ahead – excited yells. Everyone in her boat stood to scan the waters. Shell likewise clambered up, her feet well apart. What was this?

The lead boat was under oar, moving south with stunning speed. Shell stared. So far this journey all she’d seen was a lackadaisical nudging of the oars. Seemed these Sea-Folk could really charge when they needed to. Of course – why exert yourself unless necessary?

The lead boat back-oared now, slowing. Shell squinted, and as the intervening waves rose and fell, she thought she glimpsed a dark shape and splashing amid them. A fish?

Figures leaned over the side of the boat, gesturing, waving. Shell flinched as someone jumped overboard. Queen preserve them! They’ll drown!

She turned to Ena and was surprised to see her amid her kin, everyone hugging and kissing one another. Seeing her confusion, Ena came to her. She waved ahead, laughing. ‘It is Turo. He found us.’ She cupped her hands to her mouth, shouting, ‘Finished playing in the water, Turo?’