The moon had long since chased the sun beneath the edge of the frozen sea, and clouds had risen up from the west to pass over the assembly of stars. Beyond the meager fire that Malaika had started, the world was shrouded in darkness.
They hadn’t lit fires on the ship, for obvious reasons. But as the Sandcrow had splintered apart, Bela had ordered the survivors to gather what wood they could. It meant a night or two that they wouldn’t have to use their precious stores of oil.
She hadn’t expected that there’d also be a comfort in the open flames, a comfort to the familiar crackling of the wood as they all circled close around it, chewing their hard biscuits and talking quietly.
Not that it was familiar to see the cold air freezing the snow under the fire to ice almost as soon as it melted.
“Five days’ food, then,” Oni concluded.
Bela tried not to betray what bad news that was. “What else?”
“Six wool blankets,” her maiden replied. “Three tarps, two small casks of oil to go with the lamp, one cask of frozen water, and three fifty-feet of rope.”
A skiff of wind stirred the lighter snow into a swirl that danced delicate jigs around the circle before the heat of the fire consumed it.
“Weapons?”
Oni shook her head with a sad grace. “Only the two swords and the two harpoons you and the reader salvaged, mistress. There’s a chance more stores will break through with a shift in the ice pack, but anything heavy is beneath the breakers, carried deeper by the swirl.”
Bela nodded. Their attempt to retrieve the reader’s bag from the inside of the overturned and breaking ship had nearly cost Tewrick his life. It was only the young man’s quick reflexes and sheer force of will that had kept him from being sucked into the icy depths when one of the floes punched a new breach in the hull beside him. Even then, Bela had been forced to dip into the cold waters to help pull the scholar out. The mission had nearly cost them a hand, but it was successful: the bag, with its precious ancient books, sat upon the crusted snow beside little Tewrick. He was only just beginning to cease his shivering.
Bela had refused to chance another attempt to retrieve goods, no matter how precious they might seem. Anything else in the Sandcrow would have to be consigned to the deep, along with the rest of the crew.
She stood and stared out into the darkness where the ship had gone under. It was nonsense, she knew, but she swore that she could still hear the waves moving against the ice beneath them, pumping rhythmically like the pulse of the sea itself. The same part of her still awaited the cries of the dead women.
Mother help us, she thought.
“What else?” she asked. Her voice seemed small against the night.
“Extra boots, one each,” Oni continued. “And some extra clothing. Six coats. Wool liners and such. Little to make it through a winter.”
“If it comes to that,” Malaika said, her voice gruff.
Bela turned back to her crew and the little fire. “You’ve a fine plan you’re not telling us about?”
The older sailor shrugged. “No, mistress. Was just thinking we might try to make it back to the Fair Isles before—”
Bela cut her off with a wave of her hand. “Who said anything about going back?”
Neka looked up from shifting the fire. “Well, aren’t we?”
“I don’t see why we would,” Bela said.
Neka stared, as if the reason were self-evident. Finally, she held her big hands out, as if her empty palms were proof enough. “We’ve only five days of food,” she said. “Nothing for a winter’s stay. It’s our only choice.”
“I could’ve done more to hold the ice out of the ship.” Sanyu’s voice was quiet. A short, stocky woman, she was the finest hand at repairs that Bela had ever met. She’d kept them afloat longer than they deserved—they all knew that—and yet she continued to blame herself for not doing more. Her depression, Bela thought, was a tragic reversal of her laughing disposition when they’d sailed the open waters.
“You did more than any two of us put together,” Bela corrected. “We wouldn’t have made it this far if not for you.”
“I could’ve moved more of the supplies,” she muttered.
Bela put a hand on her shoulder and gripped it hard. “No one could have known. The break was too quick. You did well to save what you did. You all did well. No one will speak ill of what anyone here did. I’m proud of you.”
“A fine crew,” Oni agreed. She didn’t say it, but Bela knew she was thinking of the ones embraced by the Mother in the depths below.
“Truly spoken,” Malaika said. “We’ve done what we could. Now we head south, dragging the outboats ’til the ice breaks on open water. Make a sighting for the Isles and keep warm with rowing, aye?”
Neka voiced her agreement, as did, more tentatively, the long-haired Eshe. Sanyu said nothing. She just stared into the fire, her face unreadable. Tewrick stared at the fire, too, trying to prevent his teeth from chattering out of his skull.
“We have a mission,” Bela said.
“Begging pardon, mistress,” Malaika said, “but we had a mission. She’s gone to embrace now. Even if we did manage to survive long enough to find Ealond—and you well know I don’t think such a place exists—and even if we did manage to find, on that island, some ancient portal”—here she looked squarely at Tewrick, who didn’t seem to be listening—“even then, we don’t have a way to get back to the Isles.”
“Malaika’s right,” Neka said. “If the High Matron still wants us to get there, she’ll outfit another ship. A bigger one, with an even stronger hull. Then we can come back and try again. In the meantime, we head south.”
“Can’t make a stronger hull than what the Sandcrow had,” Oni said. Her voice was distant with memory. “Three timbers thick on the prow, and Furywood at that.”
“Then the High Matron would at least see fit to send another weaver or two. If Onyeka was here—”
“She’s dead,” Oni interrupted. Bela could feel her maiden’s ire raising. Part of it was the natural tension between the salted and the evokers, but a greater part of it, Bela knew, was her desire to defend her shipmistress. “Talking of her won’t bring her back.”
“But if we had another weaver—” Eshe started to say, her voice pleading.
“No,” Bela said. “We lose too much time going south.”
Eshe looked up with sad, hurt eyes. She recognized her own weakness. Bela knew it, and not for the first time she wondered at what woman’s feet she’d knelt to be given salt instead of a more suitable duty on the shore. Bela couldn’t imagine her being good for much more than looking after men.
Malaika was still bristling, though. “How do we lose too much time?”
Bela turned to the chartkeeper. “How long did we drive north from landfall, Neka?”
The big woman frowned, but she knew to answer. “Two weeks and a day before the floes locked us fast.”
“Driving upwind,” Malaika pointed out.
“True enough,” Bela said, “though it was also under sail, with full-stocked larder and full strength of crew and hand. This time we’d be rowing, going only as fast as we who survive have strength to pull. I think it would be safe to think at least a three-week return trip?”
“That’s pushing it,” Oni said quietly. No one disagreed.
“We have five days of food. And should a storm rise on the open water …” Bela allowed each woman’s personal experiences over the past weeks to speak for her.
Eshe made a quiet noise in the back of her throat. “Then what do we do, shipmistress?”
“We go north. Try to complete our mission.”
Malaika opened her mouth to say something, then shut it as rank at last seemed to get the better of her. Neka, too, seemed to still herself after an initial reaction of shock. Eshe stared down at the fire, and her voice was again weak when she said, “But what if we don’t find Ealond? What if we run out of food?”
Because she couldn’t think of another response, Bela shrugged. “Then we die.”
“We die trying,” Sanyu whispered.
It wasn’t how Bela would have said it, but it was the truth. Helm to the end. “That’s right. We make it, or we die trying.”