149 - How Many Carrons?

The Captain’s cabin in the Main was very, very crowded.  Filarias sat at his tiny desk, tucked out of the way, elbows propped against the relentless twisting wallow of the Hound in a heavy sea. The carpenter had left and the medic was tucked into the corner by the slung hammock that now held the Niah woman, in dry blankets, drinking water and remedies in careful sips.

Alfalaria and Irikaias sat to one side, the young sailor trying to look diligent and competent instead of wildly reckless. There were two midshipmen both trying to find enough space for their elbows, crowded next to the Captain’s desk, notebooks clamped to the deck with their free hands.   

Kaylebuh, sitting next to Alfalaria on her other side kept hitting his head on the ceiling balk where the wall met it, jammed as close to the wall as he could get. He wasn’t nearly as green as when this had all started, accepting remedies from the medic.

“First of all,” Captain Filarias said. “Sailor Moriren, as commendable as your heroic act of leaping into the sea to save Ayree Maekun was, I trust that you will come up with less foolhardy way of affecting her rescue.”

“Aye, Ser! Should I ever be confronted with a lone swimmer in open sea in a storm, I shall consider my options carefully, Ser.” 

There wasn’t a trace of a smile on Irikaias’s face and the Captain put his gloved fingers over his mouth for a moment, glared at the boy, then nodded abruptly. “Cheeky, lad.  And I am aware that you had the presence of mind to use two safety lines, given that the one buckle broke.  I commend you for your quick thinking an action.”  He turned to the Niah woman who swung upright in the hammock, drank her cup of water dry.  “Sera Maekun, please tell us all the whole story.”

Alfalaria had been trading Arkan with Kaylebuh around her ‘High-Town Fehinnan’ lessons and didn’t translate.  He was still Fehinnan and though he’d begun offering things he knew about Fehinna – which was why he was here – he wasn’t sworn to anyone.  He’d been round eyed at getting his first regular pay.  He hadn’t believed it up until the moment he slung the money chain around his neck.

“They caught us in the Miatara… we were trading along the Goat Coast.” She gestured at the map pinned over the desk, curved against the wall.  The Captain reached up and tapped at the wall just off the edge of his map and she nodded. “Yes. Just inside the Rock and they came into the transient village; a mix of us traders coming and going.” She looked around at them.  “We got unlucky and the Fehinnans came in and grabbed people as if we were nuts being picked from the trees. They sank the bookship and grabbed the family. One of those ship carron’s made a big bloody hole in the middle of the gathering, knocked us stupid and dazed, thrown around like whirlwind and they didn’t listen to anyone and if someone grabbed a weapon, they shot them… more like killed with those hand carron things.  They can shoot a lead pellet into someone’s chest and stop his heart fast as an arrow, reloads slower than a crossbow or seeshur… but has two shots in.”

“We understand,” the Captain said quietly.  “And once they’d showed what the big carron could do, they’d just have to grab some children, or oldsters, or anybody—“

“—and threaten them. Yes.” The Niah woman rubbed her hands over her face. “We never thought, ‘slaver’.  People have gotten used to the idea that people aren’t goods.  Once you Arkans quite doing it, it went fast.”

The midshipmen grimaced but it didn’t stop them taking notes.

“I was in the southmost barracoon—“ “—Jinnan,” Kailebuas broke in, in his rudimentary Arkan.  “Called, Jinnan.  Made by…” he waved his hands in frustration trying to explain and turned to Alfalaria.  “Please tell um, Jinnan’s built by a high-nosed Fehinnan clan… not the God-King… they’ll not fight, not military. ‘Nother clan owns Basser bar’coon. They’ll probably run tah military. Y’all have smashed the bar’coons set up by High Priest and his faction. ‘N the one set up by the coalition ‘o captains.  I’d bet y’all have two tah smash not four.”

Alfalaria had started translating not three words in and Ayree was nodding.  “I was south. I was lucky that they sent us to build ship-traps in the two ports they’re going to try and hold onto.”

“Lucky, Sera?” The Captain interjected. The Niah looked grim.

“As far as I know they gathered up everyone they could, nearly two thousand people in those pits and they sent seven hundred of us to the military, the others they crammed onto their barques and schooners and took them off across the sea.” One of the midshipman made a strangled noise and tried to cover it with a cough.

“Ah.”

“I was on the crew at the seawall,” she gestured at the map again. “That one that’s marked in blue. They have mined the whole port with ship killers. I can tell you where the ones are that I worked on, and others I could see. One of the Gilly’s… that’s what they call their slave keepers and trainers… laid a whip across my back trying to turn me away from the edge. When I was out on the seawall, so I said ‘fik the chains’ and went into the water.  They shot at me, carrons, arrows but the weather was already bad enough.”

“Sera, we’ve found that our ship is very stable in storm weather, so you’ve come to safety, but we have no way of contacting the fleet, nor warn them of this.”

She sniffed.  “Once the weather clears, you have a launch deck.  Get me a moyawa and I’ll find them, get word to them.”

“We have a courier… yes, that would work. Thank you.”

“Now there’s one more thing I know that might help you,” she said, eyes half-closed, fighting exhaustion. She lay back and the medic began to check her pulses.  “They’ve set up a trap for some magical ship that can almost fly.  I only heard rumours that they’ve armed two, or three ships to try and sink it.  It wouldn’t be this ship, would it?”

“Entirely possible, Sera. We can’t ‘nearly fly’ in this weather.”

“I’ve heard that there could be four, or eight, or even sixteen carrons on the ships they’re sending after you but those numbers were the whispers of slaves.”

Kaylebuh pursed his lips as if to whistle, but knew better on board a ship, especially in bad weather.

“Y’all could be facing forty-eight carron barrages.”

The Captain stared at the freedman, then up at the map.  “That—“ He coughed.  “That would be our worst-case scenario.  Sers, Serins, Serinas… if they intend to sink us, we’ll be able to out-run them, even if we only have the one captured.  We do not have a crew trained for this terror weapon, and limited ammunition. We will let them waste their shots, we shall be more nimble.”

The Hound seemed to hear and the heavy wallow she gave made the Niah, who had never seen the ship on her sea-legs, close her eyes, disbelieving but unwilling to contradict the Captain.

Irikaias grinned, unfazed. Kaylebuh moaned as if he wanted to be sick.

148 - A Howl of Wind, a Barrel of Spray

Alfalaria managed to be diligent for a slow count of ten, then leaped up and slung on her harness.  It was as innovative as the rest of the design of the Hound. Instead of tying a rope around one’s waist and risking injury, the canvas straps wrapped around shoulders and waist and between the legs, like a Niah flying harness and it had loops where safety lines could fix on with the snap of a thumb, and locked with a twist.  She had to see what was going on.

Kaylebuh stared at her, horrified. “Missy y’all cain’t go out there!”

“I can, Kailabuas, and I will.  If I want to be a writer… like my parents…” she sniffled a bit and snapped the harness shut and tested it. “This ‘ud be the perfect story tah send tah the Pages.”

He folded his hand over his face, miserably.  “Missy… I’ll come with y’all.”

“No, no, you’re sicker ‘n a horse in a tun o’ apples.  Um…” she corrected herself.  “Seriously ill,” she said in more proper Fehinnan.  “Stay safe.  I’ll be back soon.”

“Yessas,”

She clung to the inside of the door to the cabin, reached out to clip her safety line onto the ring by the door.  Someone was thinking. The wind caught her as she crawled out, didn’t managed to tear her loose from her two handed grip on the frame rail.  Like you said Pap, three points of contact. My line and my hands.  If I could hold on with my toes I would.

The sailors were on the Red Hull, hauling hard at a line that disappeared into the spume and then right underwater. She clawed the wet hair that had pulled free of her queue and across her face, out of her eyes, edged closer to the Red.

They were hauling… a man, two men… two people… one was naked and she wasn’t a man.  Alefalaria could see that much as they were hauled aboard.  The man had his harness on and was wrapped around the woman holding on with arms and legs. She caught images in the storm; flickers of rescue.

The sailor was the boy who’d held her chair for her, nearly exhausted, obviously, the woman… a Niah maybe? Or a Srian half-breed. They were bundled up in blankets though soaked, and heaved across to the Main Hull, straight toward the cabin where she crouched.

“Serina, if you would assist?”  The captain’s aide, still polite though he had to shout and his hat was gone and his coat ripped and flapping in the gale. “I’m sending for ship’s carpenter, medic's coming.”

She nodded and the door shut the worst of the noise out.  “Lie down… oh…” Carpenter. Of course. The Fehinnans didn’t spend on things like slave chains made out of iron.  They used the hardwood links that held people temporarily, perfectly well.  He would be able to cut her chains off, with a saw and a chisel and hammer.

The woman struggled out of the blanket, coughed and seized both Alfalaria’s hand and the boy's, her clutch frantic even through their gloves.  “Arkani!” she cried. “Arkans, yes?” Her Enchian was very rough.

As they nodded she said. “Warn them! Tell them. They’ve got traps in two of their stinking ports. Underwater, sealed, with wicks… I don’t know the words!”

The sailor laughed. “It’s a good thing I jumped in after you! I thought I saw you on a dayan’s back! You were nearly done.”

“Really?  Please… tell someone.  Thank you for jumping in after me. You swim like a flying fish!”

“Thanks.  My da calls me that.  Rest. No one is going to attack anything in this storm, and…” He looked over at Alfalaria who was sponging the woman’s salt-raw face.  “We’ll write it all down and tell the captain.”

It was enough to get her to relax, to stop her struggle to warn them.  Even in the bang, bang, thump, bang of the Main slamming through the waves, she relaxed in her wet blankets, eyes already closed. “Good.”

Alfalaria looked across at the boy.  "You're da calls you 'Flying Fish'?

"Yah, serina, Irkaianas Moriren, fessas.  Irikai's the Niah word."

"I... see." A young Arkan/Niah half-breed old enough to be an able sailor in Arko?  She shook her head. The door opened to admit the carpenter and the medic both, along with a howl of wind and a barrel of spray.

147 - This Is Your Dance, Tetzu

Admiral Inisen hissed softly through his teeth and Tetzu nudged him to be quiet.  Both of them had their glasses in their hands and in the seagrass being smashed down on them by heavy rain, it was near impossible to see the barracoon below.  Hayel, he couldn’t even see Eshen Maekun on Tetzu’s other side.

The three of them crawled backward down the back of the dune, and into the lee of the cliff beyond where his aide and one of Tetzu’s Snakes waited.  “I’m too old for this kind of thing,” he growled.  “This land-based foolery has my old knees a’quiver and this is what the young men of the rejins are for!”

“You’re not doing too badly for a retired old sea-horse,” Tetzu said solemnly, then broke into a smile. “The weather means we really should attack from the land and that is our strength.  The Niah—“ he nodded at Eshen “—are out of it for scouting…”

“No.” Eshen interrupted him.  “We cannot fly but we can swim… a dozen of my people can hold their breaths like dolphins.  We should check for nasty underwater surprises while this storm intensifies.”

Inisen and Tetzu stared at him for a moment.  “Of course.  You wouldn’t have any trained dolphins hidden away in your bag of tricks now, would you, Eshen?” Inisen was joking but blinked when Eshen sighed unhappily.

“There’s so few of them. They show up so seldom.”

“Trained… dolphins?”

“Not really trained… smarter than your average niku… the smiling ones. But no.  I’ll set my people on scouting out under water.” He walked out in the rain, back to the camp set up by the Srians.

Inisen looked at Tetzu who shrugged.  “I didn’t know about them either,” he said.  “The Niah are so used to keeping secrets they forget what they haven’t told us all, sometimes.”

“Naturally.  So, this is your dance, my friend.  I step back because this is not my kind of fight.”

“I need the solas you brought to be back-up for my lions.”

“Yes.”  His aide held a rain shade over the tiny lapdesk on the ground, even though the map on it was already wrinkled and the ink running from the gusts of water starting to blow in, sideways. “You might be able to use this weather to sneak some of your Snakes in to free our people.”

Tetzu nodded.  “I’m afraid they’re just goin to start cutting people’s throats and hiding the bodies.”

Inisen grimaced. “They won’t want to give up their profits easily,” he said. “You have to think like a slaver. They think they own those people.”

“This sea-storm is going to blow for at least another day.” He turned to his own Snake.  “Get as many people out as you can.  If you can get the gate open from inside that will be our signal. If it doesn’t happen, we’ll attack at mid-day, by the Admiral’s bead clock.”

“Understood, Lion of Sriah.” The Snake turned and was gone so fast that Inisen blinked.

“I hope Filarias has the sense to ride out this storm far enough out.  Their schooners won’t be going anywhere in this muck.”

“Indeed.”

**

“I NEVER got sick!” Kaylebuh insisted, clinging to his swaying hammock as Dimae’s Hound heaved and wallowed up another enormous wave.  His eyes were bloodshot and he clamped his teeth together against heaving. He well knew there was nothing in his stomach left to throw up.

On a calm sea, the Hound had proved that she could almost fly, and now in this wild sea was proving how stable she was.  She howled and squealed as the waves tried to twist her three hulls apart but of all the struts only one had cracks in it and the sailors had managed to splint and lash it to give it some support.

How they managed to cling as the outer hull rose up, up, right out of the water at the top of the wave before smashing over and the main hull crashed through the crest, dragging the other outrigger after, Alfalaria had no idea, but cling they did.  Like limpets.

She was on her feet still, while the freedman swung in his hammock and moaned. “This will blow out, soon.”

From outside a torn fragment of a shout.  Someone bellowing something but his words were whirled away by the wind, a trumpet sounded ‘man overboard’. Alfalaria wanted to rush up to see what was happening but as a seaman’s daughter knew better than to get in anyone’s way.  She sat down on her new sea chest that was lashed down, clinging to the straps so she didn’t get buffeted around.  My martial Goddess save that man.  Don’t let him be washed away, whoever he is.

   

146 - Mammoka Can't Vomit

“It’s true! The Spark of the Sun’s Ray is hauling bricks like the rest of them. I seen it with m’own eyes! See that's HIM, right there!”

“Shhh, them new Mahid don’ like guarding in this crowd…”

“Pish, some o’ them that’s haulin’ are new Mahid in disguise.”

Ili could hear the murmurs out of the crowd and the red of his cheeks had nothing to do with sunburn. He didn’t have to haul brick in the height of the day, nor all day, that would just have been dumb because he would have been burnt bright red and his hands would have been ruined. The hod dug into his shoulder, even empty.

It was still winter so it wasn’t as brutal as it could have been but sweat still poured down his face and stained his tunic between his shoulder blades. I had no idea it was this hard.

“Aan!” the okas foreman relished being able to yell at him like he was low caste. We played at being fessas for a long time. You think that embarrasses me?

“Yes?” But I’m going to answer him politely and in my own accent. “Does that one wish my attention?”

“Yer tah trot along to the Itzan manor. They need help with that monster of theirs.  Take these two wit yah!” He pointed out Didi and Nuni.  Nuni looked like he was about to either burst into tears or start a tantrum.  He’d never been made to do low caste work and he still thought that his sister the Imperatrix was being unjust by making him keep company with Ili in punishment as well as in party.

“I shall obey!” It’s so weird, saying that in our accent. It sounds like a command instead of an acknowledgement.

Didi grinned at him as she set down her hod, in its slot on the Master Bricklayer’s cart. “Come on, Nuni, it’ll be better at Itzan’s.  There’ll be shade and I bet Mil will send out the butler with cool drinks for us.”

Nuni just grunted and the three of them jogged up the Avenue.  Three of the new Mahid came with them.

The mammoka garden was full of stink, the grass trampled into pinkish mud. People milled around her head and she had chains on both front feet and there were empty barrels scattered around. Fluffy stood, splayed in misery, trumpeting and whimpering while the mahu and Tirchaer and a handful of servants hoisted up another barrel of milk and tried to get it into the corner of her mouth. Of course, you can’t drench a mammoka like you drench a horse.

Everyone was covered with pink-tinted milky, stinky mammoka shit and even as the butler showed Ili in, and fled, Fluffy raised her trunk, letting them pour half the barrel into her mouth, sputtered, drooled milk all down her soaked front fur, wailed and raised her tail.  The forceful jet of diarrhea hit the mound of straw behind her, splashed and she swayed, hosing the whole courtyard, adding to the general stench.

Two great strings of greenish red drool hung on either side of her mouth, tangled with her chest fur and spat out milk. Her whole hind end was muck soaked and two servants stood by with hoses of cool water, trying to start cleaning her up. She didn’t want that and backed up toward them, slowly, until they dropped their hoses and ran.

Fluffy’s fur all over was soaked with pink diarrhea and stained red in two trails down from her mouth. Her trunk was stained red and looked raw. Her ears flapped in agitation and she swayed from foot to foot in hung-over misery.

Tirchaer saw them and stamped over to Ili, grabbed him by the front of his tunic and snarled “See what you did! You poisoned her with alcohol once and nearly killed her with the pepper oil!”

Ili gagged and tried to pull away from Tirchaer and her current smell. “I didn’t mean to!”

“So you’re going to start helping!” She let him go, spun on her heel, and went back to put remedies in the next bucket of pure water they were offering Fluffy.

“It’ll be better, you said,” Nuni snorted. “Cool drinks, you said.” Then he started laughing and went over to one of the hoses and began coaxing Fluffy to let him start rinsing her belly fur. Didi shrugged, nodded at Ili, and joined him.

Ili stood, the only unsmeared, unbesmirched person in the whole courtyard. He set his shoulders and his stubborn lip came out. “Heya, Fluffy!  Drink the water now!”  He joined the barrel crew and Fluffy did drink the bucket but when she put her trunk in the milk she just pulled it out and soaked them all with it, whining as she did it.

The mahu was beginning to clip her hair short since the oil wasn’t coming out of the fibre any longer and servants were beginning to haul it away like oddly coloured, vilely smelling balks of hay.

Fluffy moaned and smacked the empty barrel of milk away from them all and it rolled over and crushed the last flowerbed. She slapped Ili, and pinched him, but then began slowly drinking the bucket he offered her.

“Come on, Fluffers,” he said softly, ignoring the milk dripping off his nose and the ends of his hair.  “You’ll feel better soon.  Let us make it up to you, sweetie, dearheart, honey, baby…” he crooned to her and got his hand onto her cheek and she didn’t jerk her head up.  Tirchaer, on the other side, held a pulse-point in the pit of her leg, also ignoring the hair falling down around her as the mahu clipped.

“She should be all right.  Her pulses are settling.”

Fluffy wailed and sent another jet of dung into the straw. My nose will get used to this. I hope. One of the servants vomited which added its own note of bile to the general stench.

“Mammoka can’t vomit up what hurts them,” Tirchaer said, primly.  “They have to pass it.”

“I’m sorry, honey bunches,” Ili urged her to drink another bucket of water.  “I’m so sorry.  My fault I was so wild. My fault, sweetness.  When you’re all better I’ll get you something that tastes really good, hmmm?”

**

I will rather die than be a slave. Those Fehinnans don’t have a clue what they’re dealing with, with us.

They had us putting in that trap at the port and that Gilly striped me with his whip because we were all working as slowly as we could.  I went over the sea-wall and under water as long as I could hold my breath.

I can swim in armour so these chains are hard but I can keep my head up.  They might think me drowned but I’m not dead yet. Only a few years ago I would just have let Him take me and gone on to another life, when they took my wings away. Lord Friend is that you in the water? That white and grey and black shape?

Ama Kalandris help me. I should try and live long enough to find Alliance forces… Huh, who would have thought that I’d be straining my eyes to see red sails?  Wanting to find Arkans. Huh.

The rain is only the beginning.  The wind will whip the Sea into foam and kill me, I won’t be able to breathe in this wild, wild sea.  Well.  Aba Tyriah, Ama Kalandris, be with me. Lord Friend look away.

I will try to make shore… I’ve swum out so far I don’t know my ass from my ears.  Dayanal… oh, Ama… help is here. Thank you, smiling friend. I wish I could tell you what I need.  Not just shore… ships.  I need red-sails ships, my friend.

Your fin tugs and you press up against my guts. I vomit a little saltwater that I swallowed. I was near done. My eyes are a little swollen and I can't see well.  I'm so hungry I'm not hungry anymore. I had fresh water before they chivied us out onto the seawall. How long ago was that? It's dark because of the storm rolling in.

Red sails… or am I dreaming? I want red sails so badly.