35

Women and Men of the Rock

Madorra was one of the windshorn, but as unlike the one Joron had christened Shorn as possible: a mirror image. Where Shorn shied from them, Madorra hissed and spat. One deckchild took a nasty cut to the leg for going too near the one-eyed gullaime before it was ready. Meas then had to clamp down on her crew to stop them attacking Madorra. The crew had decided a fair while back that windshorn were not subject to the same rules as a gullaime, who could control the wind, who were useful and ship-like creatures to be born with good humour.

It took Meas and Joron and Shorn hours to gain even a little trust from the creature that called itself Madorra, or Mad Orra as the deckchilder called it when they thought none listened. Though it had accepted string from Meas it still swore at her and cursed her. Only when Meas offered food, a bag of dried fish scraps and salted kivelly meat, did Madorra finally decide to let its feathers down a little and stop trying to bite anyone who came near. From there, Joron and Meas accompanied the creature to the biggest of the huts, gave it the bag of food which it placed on the table with its beak. It sat on a stool, in a most human and very un-gullaime-like way.

“Madorra,” said Meas quietly, standing in the open doorway of the hut with her arms behind her. “We need some information about the people who brought you here.”

“All die here.”

“Everyone is dead?”

“No, foolish ship woman. All gone.”

“Who will die then?”

“You.” It tossed a sliver of meat up into the air and caught it with a snap of its beak. “Them.” It used a wingclaw to motion toward the outside. “Him.” It turned its one eye on Joron and nodded. “All die. Only Madorra live. Madorra hide best.”

“We found you,” said Joron.

Madorra made a sound, blowing air through the nostrils on its beak without opening it. Joron had no doubt it was being rude to him.

“Let you,” said Madorra.

“You did not,” said Joron.

“Did. Hungry. Smell food.”

“You were about to kill me.”

Madorra paused, a long slice of kivelly meat hanging from its beak. It slowly reeled it in a little at a time.

“Ship man smell like food.”

“It did not want to be found, Shipwife,” said Joron.

“It hardly matters now,” she said. “It is found.”

“Maybe not kill you,” said Madorra, “maybe kill that.” It nodded at Joron and for a moment he was confused by its meaning, until he realised it talked of the gullaime on his back.

“The windtalker?”

“Spoilt, cruel, windchild,” said Madorra, real venom in its voice.

“Enough,” said Meas. “You can come with us, or stay on the island. It does not matter to me, but I need information from you as Hag knows there seems to be nothing else on this island.” Madorra pitched its beak into the bag again and pulled out a whole dried fish, throwing back its head and swallowing it in a series of gulps. It turned its one good eye on Meas.

“Ask.”

“How did you get here?”

“Ship.”

“With other gullaime, and humans?”

“Stinking humans.”

“And they offloaded you here?”

“Madorra escape. Madorra kill.”

“So only you left the ship?”

“All left ship,” it screeched. “Put in cages. Madorra kill. Escape. No cage.”

“Very well,” said Meas. She walked forward, picked up one of the fallen stools and sat opposite it. “Do you know where they were taking you, after here?”

“Not told,” said Madorra, and stuck its head back in the bag. Meas closed her eyes, let out a breath. It was, to Joron, as if she breathed out disappointment, shrinking slightly as she did so.

“Madorra listen though.” Muffled words from the bag. Meas sat upright on the stool once more. The windshorn slowly removed its head from the bag, the one eye blinking. “Madorra always listen.”

“What did you hear?”

“Not matter,” it said.

Meas leaned over the table and her words came out in single, sibilant hisses: “What. Did. You. Hear?”

The windshorn blinked at Meas.

Once.

Twice.

It pulled a piece of meat from the bag and gulped it down.

“Humans. Gullaime. They go other place. Go to rock island.”

“‘Rock island’?” said Meas, sitting back down. “They never called it anything else?” The windshorn shook its head. “Joron, we will have to ask Aelerin” – disappointment rose in her voice – “but if it is truly called Rock Island, there are hundreds so named. Although they tend to be small, not big enough for the amount of people on even one brownbone. And we can be sure there is more than one transporting people. So that may narrow it . . .”

“What,” said Joron, whose understanding of the vagaries of gullaime speech was better than Meas’s, “if it is not a place named Rock Island, but the island where our rock comes from?”

Silence in the small cabin.

“Sleighthulme?” said Meas. The silence fell again while she thought it through. “Brownbones coming in and out of Sleighthulme would bring no attention. It would be perfect but . . .” She tapped her hand on the table. “You may be right, Joron, but I hope you are not. The stone mined there is valuable, Sleighthulme is a fortress.”

“Sleighthulme,” said Madorra. “Rock island. Same same. Not matter.”

“It does matter,” said Meas. “Did they use the name Sleighthulme?”

“What say? Rock island, Sleighthulme. Same,” snapped the windshorn. “Not matter.”

“But they did say Sleighthulme?” pushed Meas.

“Yes, yes! Not matter!” it spat back.

“Why doesn’t it matter, Madorra?” said Joron.

“Say.” It snapped at the air with its beak. “Madorra say. All die here.”

“No, they are taken somewhere else to die,” said Meas.

The windshorn let out a screech.

“Not there. Here.”

“They died here?” said Joron.

“No,” screeched the windshorn. “Stupid human!”

“You mean us?” said Meas. “But there is no one here. How could we die?”

“Death in ground,” said Madorra. “Waiting for ship woman. All die.”

“I think the dead in their graves are past worrying about me, Madorra,” said Meas, and she began to stand.

“Stupid ship woman,” screeched the gullaime, then it put its head back into the food bag and continued to root around.

“Shipwife,” said Joron. Something cold ran down his spine. “What if it doesn’t mean the dead? Remember on Arkannis Isle, when we stormed the tower there? We went in underneath . . .”

“Through the caves,” said Meas. “Hag’s tits, Aelerin said this place was once named Sponge Island. I was not truly thinking. An island like a sponge, full of holes.” She turned back to Madorra. “Do you mean there are people here, now, in the caves?”

“What said.” It did not look up from its bag of food.

“Gah, bind me to the stone for a fool.” She took off her hat and rubbed her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Joron, gather everyone and head back to the flukeboats. Madorra, you can come with us or stay here, it is up to you.”

“What about the gullaime?” said Joron. “It needs the windspire.”

“We will find it another. If they are waiting for us below ground then we must get away. Little use taking it to the windspire if we all die here.” She put her hat back on her head. “Well? What are you waiting for?” Joron nodded, running from the hut to bring all the deckchilder together. As he left he heard Madorra cackling to itself.

“All die. All die.”

“Everyone,” shouted Joron. “Gather here, we return to the flukeboats. Be on your guard, we may not be alone.”

The deckchilder and seaguard gathered. Many had small packs, now full of useful objects scavenged from the camp. Shorn came to hop around Joron and fuss with the gullaime on his back just as Meas came out of the hut.

“Listen close, my girls and my boys,” she said. “Seems this island is a warren of caves, and my new friend in there” – she motioned back to the hut just as Madorra emerged – “tells me there are people hiding in them, waiting for us.”

“All pity to them that come across Lucky Meas’s finest,” came a voice from those gathered before her. The breath of a smile passed across Meas’s face.

“All pity indeed,” she said. “But I do not want to visit trouble on them if we can avoid it. I know where our people have been taken, and I’ll need every woman and man of you to get them back. So we go quiet, avoid trouble.” As she spoke Joron felt a movement behind him and turned, only to find Cwell coming to take her place. A shiver ran down him. If ever there was a time and a place to betray him this was it. A single shout when silence was needed was all it would take.

“Now, come,” said Meas, “we make for the beach as quickly and quietly as possible, and if the Hag is looking the other way we may be gone before they even know we have been here.” And there was much nodding and agreement to this. Then small conversations on how wise Meas was; because every one of them had the tits for a good fight but they didn’t need to fight for no reason, and they were as sure of that as they were sure of Skearith’s Eye rising on the morran.

Back through the dripping forest with blades bare and eyes and ears open for the slightest danger – though they found none. Joron started to believe that maybe the Hag was looking the other way today, and maybe they would simply make their way to the beach and slip away into the twilight to meet Tide Child.

But the Maiden laughs at a deckchilder’s certainty.

Meas held up a hand, stopping the column as it approached the edge of the wilting forest at the far end of the beach where they had left their boats. Joron looked back, seeing the crew dappled with both light and liquid. Meas motioned him forward.

“This not good, Joron,” she whispered, keeping down among the brown leaves, and pointing at the beach. He pushed a slimy leaf aside and saw three flukeboats lay on their sides on the pink sand, and with them were well over a hundred women and men. Among them walked an officer, and though Joron could not see their face there was something familiar about their movements. He looked to his side where Cwell crouched. She was watching the officer the way a predator watches prey. He wondered if she was calculating her chances – could she get away from him before she was cut down? For he was sure if Cwell made such a move the first thing Meas would do would be to end her.

“Narza,” said Meas, “go and check on our flukeboats.” The small dark woman nodded and it was as if the wilting vegetation simply swallowed her up. “Coughlin,” said Meas over her shoulder. The big warrior came forward, “Any ideas?”

“We are forty in total, Shipwife,” he said. “Give me ten of yours to add to mine, I reckon Berhof and I can hold them off long enough for you to get to the boats and get them down the beach.”

“And what will happen to you?” said Joron.

“I serve on a ship of the dead, Deckkeeper,” he said, then grinned. “My sentence will be served.”

Meas looked at the ground, then back at the women and men on the beach. She bit on her knuckle then shook her head.

“No,” she said. “If I am to take Sleighthulme I will need you, Coughlin, and every hand we have.” She watched the movement on the beach in silence.

Narza reappeared from between two crazily slanted gion. “Smashed,” she said quietly. “A thorough job done too.” Meas let out a long sigh.

“Then we must take their boats from them,” said Coughlin. But Meas shook her head.

“Forty against a hundred is too long odds. There must be a better way.”

“Shipwife,” said Joron. “Even if we can take their boats it may not help.” She raised a questioning eyebrow. “The flukeboats must have come from somewhere. That means they have a ship. If we are on the open sea then . . .”

“But we did a sweep and we were thorough about it,” she said. “And if there is a ship out there, then where is Dinyl? He should be engaging it to keep them away from us.”

“Unless he has run—”

“No,” she said, cutting him dead with sweep of her hand. “No, he would not. Which means there is something we have missed.” She rubbed her mouth. “Coughlin, bring me that bird.”

“Mad Orra?”

She nodded, and a moment later he was back with the scarred windshorn. It took a bite at Shorn, who stood by Joron, and Shorn in turn snapped back, but before the conflict could escalate Meas grabbed Madorra’s beak – a brave thing to do when it was likely to strike out with those vicious claws. Its single eye swivelled in its socket until it looked at Meas and then it blinked, twice, managing to make the action seem somehow mournful. Meas let go of its beak and it hissed, as if its anger escaped through its nostrils in a stream of steam.

“Madorra,” she said. “These caves beneath the island. How big are they?”

“Big, big, big.”

“Big enough to hide a ship in? The type we came in?”

Madorra shook its head.

“No, no no. Smaller. Whiter. Yes, yes.”

“Hag take me for a fool,” said Meas under her breath. “A two-ribber here, and hidden within the island itself.”

“No one could have known that, Shipwife,” said Joron and he felt some weight left from her at that. Then she began speaking quietly and only to herself:

“There is maybe a hundred on the beach. That leaves, say another seventy and presume my mother will have made sure they were well crewed. Maybe ten or twenty are left as guard on their ship. The rest probably roam the island, looking for us.” She rubbed her temple. “Madorra, I take it these caves can be accessed from the island?” The windshorn nodded. “Do you know where from?” It nodded again.

“Shipwife,” said Berhof, pointing at the beach, “if their ship is in these caves, and they can easily get onto the island, why come in boats?”

“To trap us,” she said, “in case something on the island spooks us. Or maybe to catch us between two forces.”

“That would be bad,” said Coughlin. “We must act now, take their boats from them.” He unhooked his blade. “It is the only way. Reinforcements may turn up at any moment.”

Meas was not paying attention. She was staring at the figures on the beach as that strangely familiar officer rallied his deckchilder, forming them into some semblance of order. The worry that had dogged her seemed to fall away.

“Why only take their boats from them, Coughlin,” she said, and a smile grew on her face, “when we could take their ship?”