Bones of the Empire (85 page)

High over the crew, Shortbeard stood at the rear on a raised section of the deck that gave him a view of the seas ahead and the crew below. He watched Estin as he leaned against a large wheel Estin guessed was for steering the ship. Behind it, a sturdy wooden box had been bolted to the deck to act as a step for Shortbeard.

“Oi, don’ jus’ stand around gapin’ at me crew!” Shortbeard shouted. He motioned to several sailors, and they ran off through a door on the lower deck. They returned a second later with a cage easily large enough for Estin. “Ye wanna work or ye wanna rest in yer quarters?”

Estin swallowed hard as he stared at the cage. The iron bars were rusted and made him shiver, thinking of some of the places he had been over the years. He was close enough to the side of the boat that he could likely try to swim away if he had to, but there was really nowhere to go.

Reluctantly, Estin stepped off the smaller boat and onto the ship’s main deck, trying to keep his attention on Shortbeard and not the cage. “I’ll gladly work,” he said, ignoring the snickers from a few of the sailors. “What can I do to pay my way?”

Shortbeard’s crooked smile told Estin what he already knew: there had not really been a choice in the matter. “Ye any good at climbin’? We seem to ’ve lost our best climber in an accident jus’ this last week an’ need someone to rig th’ top lines. I consider it a fair trade for not puttin’ ye in a cage. I’ll have one o’ me men show ye how to tie it off.”

Estin eyed the sails high overhead. There were no ladders or rungs built into the wooden masts, making him wonder how the others managed to climb them. “I can climb. May I ask what happened to the last man you had doing it?”

While the captain laughed, a human near Estin who was mopping salt stains from the deck moved closer and whispered, “Aye, was an accident. Th’ kind o’ accident where our man suggested we need a new captain an’ then slipped off the boat…into a bunch o’ sharks. I think he slipped when a sword poked ’im in ’is back.”

Shortbeard watched Estin with a broken smile, clearly knowing full-well what was just relayed to him.

“How much danger am I in here?” Estin asked the human, eyeing Shortbeard.

“Danger?” the man asked, appearing genuinely surprised. “How much danger ye think ye’re in on a pirate ship? We ain’ been boarded by any nation in a couple years, but doesn’ change who we work fer. Less danger than in the water wit’ sharks, and more than back on yer little isle, alone and starvin’.”

Groaning, Estin reminded himself that he had said a great many times that he would do whatever he needed to do to survive or find his family. This was just something unexpected. He could make it through if he had to. He had certainly been through worse. Only a few days and he would be back on land.

*

For almost three months, Estin labored on the ship. He tried to make himself indispensable, lest they find some reason to throw him overboard—something that had been hinted at none too subtly time and again. He quickly learned Shortbeard had made a point of talking to every member of the crew just after Estin’s arrival, instructing them to tell Estin nothing of value. At first he had thought they were honestly shy about talking with a wildling. But after a week of nervous side-glances every time he stopped to talk about anything more than the day’s work, he began to sort out what was happening, if not why. They were genuinely afraid to tell him more than their names and their duties aboard the ship. Anything beyond that got Estin frightened looks. Eventually he had given up prying for more information.

During his time on the ship, Estin watched three members of the crew die and had no way to help them. One caught ill from eating meat that had not been salted well enough to stay fresh, causing him to waste away and die in his own filth. Another slipped during a storm and was washed overboard before anyone could reach him with ropes. The third died with a knife in his chest while he slept—a reminder that the crew was discouraged from betting more than they could afford on the nightly card games below deck. All of them were pointless deaths.

Those deaths hit Estin harder than the labor or being trapped on the boat with a few dozen strangers who were more unintelligible than Yoska. Each time one of the men was wounded or sick, Estin watched as the “doctor” tried to help them with little more than whiskey and dirty bandages. Estin could have healed them more fully while napping in the days before entering the mist, but he had to dismiss those thoughts as fond memories.

Estin’s own magic had yet to return, despite spending nearly every night in his hammock trying to force it back into his life. Unlike when he had lost it after bringing Feanne back, there was nothing he could feel out at the edges of his consciousness. He had even called out to Mairlee during a particularly awful storm when he was sure the rest of the crew would not hear him, but she had neither appeared nor spoken to him. In that moment of weakness, Estin had gone so far as to pray to her, though it had gotten him nothing more than asking nicely had.

Estin went out of his way each day to stay out of everyone else’s. He knew he did not fit in, no matter how he might try to help. These people had lived their lives on the sea. Some were legitimate traders and sailors. Others—Shortbeard in particular—had been taking by force for many years. A few members had been slaves at one time, bought by Shortbeard and given a new life on the sea. They were grateful and loyal to him, despite fearing him at the same time.

Early on Estin had tried to get to know men in the hopes that having names would make him feel like he was part of their crew. Inclusion would make passing time far easier. Soon enough he had accepted that he was little more than baggage, being brought along at the whim of the captain. He was a pet, though his cage was the entire ship. Few of the crew had any interest in talking with him, and the captain had even less interest. Added to whatever vague threats Shortbeard had used to keep them from telling Estin anything, he found the life on the sea boring beyond words. Corraith had been remote and dull before he had found out about the Turessians in the area, but he would have given his tail to be back there, with or without his family.

He spent most of his days atop the mainmast, up where few of the other sailors felt comfortable. Some would climb as high as the “crow’s nest,” a seat several feet below the top of the mast. But none would ever attempt to sit at the very peak of the wooden post, where Estin found himself able to relax. He could perch there among the ropes, ready to respond in seconds if Shortbeard needed adjustments to the sails. He really only wanted to be there to watch the sea in the distance.

Shortbeard had promised more than once that Estin would be put on dry land and be allowed to leave the ship once they made port. It was not clear was how long that might be. From what Estin had figured out, the ship wandered until it managed to loot another ship or the captain decided they were too low on food and water to continue. Repeatedly they had stopped at islands little better than the one Estin had been found on to resupply. Estin had not bothered to ask if he could leave—there honestly was nowhere to go. He could wait for a real port city.

“Ye really just fell onto th’ isle?” asked a dwarven man—barely more than a child by Estin’s estimates—who sat in the crow’s nest below Estin. Had he been a wildling, Estin would not have thought him more than three years old, but his poor grasp of dwarven aging kept him from asking the boy’s real age. “Cap’n always says th’ isle is weird an’ we can find strange things there, but yer th’ first I seen.”

Estin smiled down at him, thankful someone had any interest in actually talking. Boredom was likely the dwarf’s only reason, but that was something. Given that they were far above the deck where others might not overhear likely made it easier for the boy to risk talking. “Yeah. Fell through the mists…”

“Aye,” the dwarf answered, nodding sagely. “Is th’ last place we seen ’em in a long time. Cap’n thinks mebbe th’ mists will drop some gold one o’ these days. Yer not quite gold, shame to say. We’ll keep circlin’ that bloody isle until some does drop on us, I thinkin’.”

Estin laughed and returned his attention to the seas ahead. A faint shadow along the horizon caught his eye, and he strained to make out whether it was land, another island, or a storm. Even after months on a boat, he had trouble telling them apart when they were far enough off.

“That be th’ port,” the dwarf said before Estin had figured it out for himself. “Ye gettin’ off there?”

“That’s the plan,” Estin admitted, picking his way carefully down to the wooden seat where the dwarf was. “I’ve got some traveling to do that’s long overdue.”

“Aye, I think yer right.” He climbed down the mast, while Estin remained atop it. “Long overdue.”

Estin stayed in the crow’s nest, watching the shore come ever closer. Soon he could make out a walled city on the edge of the sea, with hundreds of small docks extending far out into the water. He was so enthralled by seeing something more than a fishing village that a cry from the deck below startled him, forcing him to cling to the mast to keep from slipping.

“All hands at th’ ready! That blue-horned bastard is on th’ port side!”

Though not knowing what they were talking about, Estin picked up on the fear. The crew ran for bows, crossbows, and the lines that allowed them to raise or drop the sails. Several pulled out the strange mechanical weapons Estin had avoided being too close to, while the rest drew swords, axes, and even boards they held like clubs.

Following the gaze of the crew, Estin saw they were watching a ship far off to the left side. Several smaller vessels lay between them and the obvious enemy, scrambling to get themselves out of the way. Whatever quarrel existed between the two ships was apparently not a surprise to the people of the region.

The ship the crew was watching was easily as large as Shortbeard’s and bore signs of recent fighting. Large holes in the hull just above the water line were badly patched. Estin could make out dozens of sailors—mostly fae-kin, from what he could see—as ready for combat as those on Shortbeard’s. While the ship he rode flew a large black flag with a white skull, the other ship bore a blue flag with a nearly identical skull, though theirs had horns. Given the race of those on the ship, Estin had to assume the “blue-horned bastard” to be a fae-kin captain of the vessel.

“Prepare to turn ’em away ’gain!” Shortbeard shouted, coming up onto the deck from his quarters. “We only los’ eight las’ time! Let’s make it be less this’n! Anyone that lives gets an extra share o’ whatever we take from their ship!”

Estin looked nervously between the other vessel and the shore. He could see hundreds of people rushing to the docks to watch. None of them were nearly as frightened as those on either ship, telling him this was far more common than he would have liked. Worse still, a battle between two pirate ships was likely to keep him well away from shore. Especially if they were refused landing for fighting so close to the harbor.

Estin whimpered a little at the idea of being so close and yet so incredibly far from being able to move on with his search for his family. He hurriedly climbed down the mast and onto the deck, ready to help however he could if it meant any chance of leaving the ship soon. More importantly, it put him closer to the water, where he might be able to escape and swim for shore if Shortbeard ordered them back to sea.

“Stand ready!” Shortbeard bellowed, drawing a nicked, bent sword that had seen far better days. “Let th’ cowards ’ttack us first!”

Estin had barely gotten his paws on the deck when one of the human crew members shoved a battered sword into his hand. That answered his question of whether Shortbeard wanted him fighting. If they were giving him a weapon, things were dire indeed. The crew apparently was afraid things would go badly enough that even someone they did not trust would need to fight.

The approaching ship turned as it got close enough for Estin to see the faces of its crew more clearly. Without warning, the ship dropped a massive anchor and creaked to a halt several hundred feet away, where they would be at the limit of a decent shot with bows. Neither crew moved, all of them waiting to see what would happen and whether their captain would be the one to break the calm.

A large figure emerged on the far ship’s deck, tromping out among the fae-kin sailors. Estin had guessed wrong. The giant man was a burly ogre, who towered over the human-sized fae-kin that made up his crew. His dark grey skin and darker family markings on his arms and face contrasted with the ghastly blue paint he had painted on his ram-like horns. It also explained the comment from the sailor who had announced the arrival of the other ship.