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In the hold in the dark, Mari spoke. “Don’t tell them anything. Anything the pirates learn about us will be used against us. Tell them nothing. Tell them you know nothing of where we had been or where we were going.”
Easy enough for Emrys. He knew nothing of where they’d been and never bothered to find out. Mari overwhelmed him. Being in her presence washed away so much else, but especially every care.
In the dak, he thought of Cerys and how she, too, had overwhelmed him. How his entire heart burst for her, because of her, and how he’d forgotten her at that first glance from Mari.
If he got free, he would write to her. Tell her everything. All that had happened since.
Fionnuala said, “Do you know this pirate?”
“No.”
“I do,” said Benoit. “Heard the name anyway.”
They waited for him to speak on but he said nothing for what seemed a long time. He cleared his throat. “She’s a pirate.” There was a shrug caught in that explanation. “She’s brutal and cruel. She does what pirates do but she does it in the air.”
Emrys dreamt of falling from a great height to land in the center of a village where his broken body was found and taken as a sign of grand importance by those living there and he watched the village twist and turn around his corpse to develop an entire theory of why and what and how and in this way and in this manner a cult formed around his rotting, broken body that they sat in a chair of honor by their well.
He slept fitfully.
In the night, from far away, he heard a baby crying. Nearer, he heard another crying.
He opened his eyes to the blackness of their cell in the bowels of Wailing. No windows and no candles in the hold but he smelled the spices they must’ve stolen from some trading vessel. Too, the sick and sour stink of unwashed clothes and foul water. The type that was once clean before it was churned by a mop used to clean filthy floors.
Rolling away from the crying, his elbow hit the iron bars imprisoning them all together. They had all staked out their own separate space in the cage until the cold of night brought them closer together, huddled like rats seeking warmth and comfort.
Emrys winced as pain jolted up from his elbow to his forearm to his fingers. He shook it out and reached across the bodies towards the one crying. There were only the still sleeping bodies of his companions who survived.
Lyosha’s caved in chest flashed before his eyes and he brought his hand back to cover his face, to cover his eyes, as if closing them would keep him from remembering.
Quiet sobs close at hand and shrieking from far away, he whispered into the dark, into the huddled bodies, “You all right?”
The crying stopped, replaced by sniffs and rough fabric on skin.
“It’s all right to cry,” said Emrys.
The crier said nothing.
After a time, the crying began again and Emrys fell asleep and dreamt of falling, of his chest bursting open, of clouds surrounding him, swallowing him, choking him.
The cooing of a baby.
A flicker of light on the otherside of his eyelids.
The clap of barefeet on wood.
A voice. Another.
Not ones he knew. New voices.
Speaking Eirish.
Emrys opened his eyes when laughter spilled down the hold towards them. The flame cast shadows on the walls from the large crates of stolen goods.
Mari’s hand fell on his arm. He turned to her and could only just make out the shape of her face in the darkness. She nodded and he nodded back and though it meant nothing at all, it gave him strength. Hope.
The others stirred awake as well. Their bodies unwrapping from one another. Emrys felt the cold of their absence. The connection of sleep, of dreams, severed by morning.
Emrys wanted to remember that. It had the touch of poetry to it.
It was Mari, he knew. She made him think of poetry, of beauty, even in the face of death and violence. Or perhaps it was that threat that made him cling to beauty, to savor it, to worship it. He turned back to her and whispered in Faroise even though it meant everyone, including Fionnuala, would hear and understand, “My heart is yours.”
Mari said nothing for a moment and then a moment more. Rather than speak, she squeezed his arm again.
The language of bodies.
He could believe in that. Could hold onto it.
He spent so much time inside of words, inside of books, wrestling with meaning, when all of it was here, in a touch, in a gesture. A caress. A squeeze.
So much more comfort than any number of words.
He wanted, then, to tell her that his body, too, belonged to her, but the pirates came into view then. Two tall women. One of them carrying a lantern that blinded Emrys for a moment and kept him from seeing her face. But the other shared a strong resemblance with Bronach and Siobhan and Sinead. They wore tight red trousers that ended just below the knee and loose white shirts under checkered vests.
They had been speaking in Eirish but switched to Graelish, which they spoke with easy fluency. The one holding the lantern said, “Sleep well?”
“They look awful,” said the other.
“Aye, well, sleepin down here’ll do that to ya. Even the best of times, this is the worst of places if sleep’s what you’re after.”
“Gran means business.”
The one holding the lantern laughed. “Come on, up with ya.” She tapped a baton against the iron bars of the cage. “Up, up, come on with ya. Stand nice and neat so I’s can see ya right.”
They did as she ordered and Mari said, “I demand to speak to your captain.”
The one holding the lantern laughed some more and the other said, “Gran says it’s time for ya to earn your keep. She’s got a whole mess of chores for yall to do.”
Mari said, “We will not work as prisoners. Free us from bondage and we can discuss this.”
The one holding the lantern spoke through her laughter, “Where you from, lil Miss?”
“Sounds right fancy,” said the other.
“You have stolen my ship and killed my friends and imprisoned me. I will do nothing that you say.”
Emrys watched her stand straighter in defiance. The wildness of her hair and her clothes all askew made her seem even more beautiful to Emrys, as if he was seeing new depths to her.
Behind her, he caught a glimpse of Yana’s sunken eyes, red from crying. Her expression chilled him and he could taste her intention. Felt it roiling beneath his skin.
Feared it. That look she gave the pirates terrified him and he knew what it meant, where it led. Yet he could do nothing to stop it. Didn’t even know if Yana knew Faroise. He’d never heard her speak it. Rarely heard her speak to anyone but Lyosha.
The woman without the lantern opened the door to the cage and demanded, once more, that they come out.
“No,” said Mari.
And they all obeyed.
The big women shook their heads as if they couldn’t believe all the trouble their captives were being. The one with the lantern said, “Mighty inconvenient, yeah?”
“Inconsiderate, aye, for real.”
“Think Gran’ll mind some new bruises?”
“You’ve a bad habit, you know that?”
“What’s that?”
“What you mean, ‘What’s that?’ I mean you’re always itchin to hit somebody. All day long, you walk round lookin like you’re just waitin to hit someone.”
They didn’t have to speak in Graelish. They did it so Emrys, Mari, Benoit, Fionnuala, and Yana would know. Making the threat plain and sustaining it, allowing them to suffer in anticipation, in terror.
“Well,” she shrugged and entered the cage, tapping her baton against the bars. A dull chime filled the darkness. She took another step. “Now, which of yall—”
Yana pushed Mari forward. Mari stumbled and collided with the pirate wielding the baton, becoming tangled in her legs and causing the pirate to trip forward to keep from falling backwards. At the same time, Yana leapt at her as she caught herself on the door, twisting her towards Benoit who was to the left of the door.
The lantern fell to the deck and tipped over but didn’t go out.
Small but with wiry, powerful hands, Yana grabbed onto the big woman and swung round onto her back, wrapping her forearm around the pirate’s neck, her legs wrapped round the pirate’s waist. Like some terrible spider, she took hold of the big woman and squeezed, choking the life out of her rapidly.
Her last gasp before Yana closed her windpipe scraped raw against Emrys.
The pirate tried to pry Yana’s arm off her throat but couldn’t get a grip. Her arms flailed uselessly, trying to get the tiny woman off her back. She reached back for Yana’s head but Yana bit her hard enough to make her bleed.
The other pirate grabbed Yana by the hair and yanked her head back, slid a knife right to her throat. She spoke without emotion. “Let my sister go or I’ll cut your head off.”
Yana kept squeezing and the choked woman made an awful, guttural noise until Mari demanded Yana stop.
She didn’t.
Benoit leapt for the knife, trying to at least knock it away, but the pirate slashed her knife through Yana’s neck before Benoit could get there.
Emrys stared at the knife, the neck, and saw how the one split open the skin to reveal a new mouth vomiting blood, howling silently for closure.
The blood sprayed out from her neck. Mouth wide open in a scream that never came, Yana’s grip went slack and the other pirate coughed and wheezed while Mari screamed and Benoit took the knife-wielding pirate down to the deck. He climbed on top of her, coated in Yana’s blood, and brought the edge of his fist down like a hammer onto the pirate’s face. He struck her like this three times. Her big hand dropped the knife at Emrys’ feet but he couldn’t look away from the horrible way her head rocked back and forth, limp, eyes unfocused. The pirate’s head bashed down into the deck with each strike until the other pirate, still trying to catch her breath, struck Benoit in the side of the head with the baton.
He went down, limp, into Yana’s pooling blood.
And Emrys had only stood there watching.
Everyone but him was covered in Yana’s blood and she twisted in agony on the deck as the blood drained from her body and she gasped for a breath she’d never catch again and Benoit lay motionless in her blood and Mari kept screaming and Fionnuala—
Gone.
Emrys closed his mouth.
The pirate got back to her feet and grabbed her knife and gave Emrys a long look. Her face already bruised and swollen with a bleeding lip and twisted nose. She spat and cursed and said, “Gran’s not gonna like this.”
“I don’t like it.”
Benoit began to stir as Yana stilled and Mari fell to her knees and touched him. She said his name and Emrys felt the faintest sliver of jealousy before he took in the whole of the scene.
Yana was dead but Benoit lived.
They were captive.
Fionnuala escaped the cell but had nowhere to go.
One of the pirates lifted the lantern from where it fell. All humor gone from her voice and her voice strained from being choked, her neck still red from where Yana held her. “Which one of yall’s the Fool?”
“I am,” said Emrys.
“The good boy,” the one without the lantern said. “Your friends’ll stay here and think about this.”
“Let me treat the body of our dead.”
The pirates looked from Emrys to Yana’s corpse to Mari and Benoit and back to Emrys. The one without the lantern said, “No.”
“She’ll stay as a reminder until we’re back. Then you can toss her overboard.”
“Come on.”
Emrys swallowed and turned to Mari who wept over Benoit, who slowly seemed to come back to his sense, and Yana who would never sense anything again. He said he’d be right back but no one listened or no one cared.
Even he didn’t care.
The pirates took him roughly by the arms and shoved him out of the cage, following after, and locked the iron barred door behind them. They steered him through the hold, pushing him whenever they deemed he went too slow or simply to alleviate their anger, their fear of what their captain would say when she found out.
Emrys walked in a daze, barely conscious of where he was going or what they said but he heard that baby crying again in the distance and wanted to know more but couldn’t bring himself to ask them a single thing. Didn’t want to hear them. Couldn’t believe that people who killed so easily and ruthlessly could also be mothers.
His own mother had been so gentle.
That’s how he remembered her.
The image of her face on that great monster returned to him. Those dull, lifeless eyes on that strange, enormous body.
He understood nothing.
The smell of frying eggs and baked bread, of oats and dried fruit. He turned to the sound of chopping and saw a young girl with ears like a fox standing on a stool beside a large wooden table and chopping an onion. Across from her stood an older woman with one leg and one eye smiling broadly.
Emrys stopped and stared at the scene made strange only by the violence he had witnessed. No thoughts came to him. It was as if his mind simply stopped and he became little more than a body wandering the holds of this great flying ship wandering the clouds like they were waves and beyond the old woman and the young girl he saw the clouds. The sky. The immense open nothingness of the skies leading him—
He didn’t know.
He swallowed.
He opened his mouth to speak to them in the kitchen, to ask them how they could smile when someone had been murdered so near, to ask them how the child came to have such ears and what magic twisted her so, but the big women behind him pushed him forward.
Tumbling over, he fell into the wall with a dull thud and saw how the girl and the old woman turned to see him lifted roughly from the deck by their crewmates.
He didn’t know what expression he made or what they took from so strange a sight but then he was past them and dropped back to his feet and pushed along.
The halls and corridors and stairways came and went and he saw a dozen women of various ages laughing and yawning and lying down on hammocks or rolling from them and more questions rose but there was no one to ask who hadn’t just killed someone so he kept his questions inside and lost track of them by the time they came to the main cabin, which reminded him of Mari’s ship.
A large room surrounded by windows. In all directions, windows.
Sky.
The sun beamed and flooded the air and scattered clouds puffed along without care.
A terrible voice called to him over the gentle cooing of a baby. “Ah, there he is.”
Emrys swallowed and turned to Bronach who held a small baby cradled in her arms. The women escorting him gave him one more rough shove. Bronach scowled and tsked but smiled down at the baby in her arms and spoke to it instead. “Your aunties are so rough and foolish that they may earn themselves a day in the brig. Yes, that’s right.” She smiled, shaking her head and pushing it towards the baby, who reached up at her and giggled. “Uh huh, your idiot aunties—”
“Gran, they—”
“Ah ah ah,” Bronach spoke to the baby, “your aunties are interrupting now.” Only then did she look up at Emrys and his escorts. “What happened to your face, Aine?”
The one to Emrys’ left said, “They attacked us.”
The one to his right said, “We had to kill one of them.”
Bronach’s pleasant demeanor flinched but she held the smile and spoke down to the baby. “I’m gonna give you back to your mommy, love.” She handed the baby to another woman. This one short and thin. The only one of the crew Emrys had yet seen who was not taller than him. Once the baby was in the woman’s hands, Bronach motioned for her to go.
“I want to stay.” She smiled, enjoying the scene playing out before her, as if some joy could be taken from an accidental death and the punishment of her companions.
“Don’t be a sadist.” Bronach spoke sweetly to the baby. “You go on and take these gentle ears away before,” her voice lost its gentle tone as she turned to the other women, “I throw your cousins out the bloody window.”
Emrys felt the two women beside him wince.
“Gran,” Aine said but Bronach simply raised a finger, silencing her.
She turned back to the one holding the baby. “Take my girl for a walk, Izzy.”
“Fine,” she sighed. Turning to her cousins, she said, “Good luck.” And as she walked away, she began laughing. Quiet and slow at first but bursting forth from her by the time she reached the door and left.
The windows rattled against the wind. Emrys couldn’t hear the engines or even the envelope from this room. It was nearly quiet. He wondered if that was due to the design. Because this airship was made to be lived in, whereas Mari’s was for travel, special consideration had been taken to make it comfortable.
The women beside Emrys shifted uncomfortably as their grandmother glared at them.
After a time, the one to his right said, “Gran—”
But Bronach spoke, silencing her granddaughter. “Which one did you kill?”
“The one who attacked Maura.”
Bronach shook her head. “What she look like?”
“Dead,” said Maura.
Bronach scowled and sucked in her lips. “You come to me with anger when I expect apologies.” She leveled her gaze on Emrys. “Which one did they kill?”
“Murder,” said Emrys.
She nodded. “Murder.”
“Yana.”
“She the captain?”
“No. She’s the one who tried to kill you yesterday.”
“Ah,” Bronach said. “She have rich family?”
“Didn’t know her. Wasn’t part of their crew.” Heat flushed through his body. He knew he shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have told her anything. But she seemed not to notice or care.
Bronach took a long breath. “This really messed up my day, girls.” She shook her head. “A real bummer, I tell ya. Was sitting up here happy as can be and then you drop this upon me because you two idiots don’t know how to handle a few caged birds.” Turning to her granddaughters, they withered beneath her glare.
Bronach paced. “I suspect they won’t work now?”
Aine nodded.
“What you do with the body?”
“Left it, ma’am.” Maura’s voice became fragile and frail.
Bronach’s mouth dropped open. “You—” She paused and took a breath. “Go get your mothers. You two are on toilets until further notice.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go on.”
The two women hurried out of the room, leaving Emrys and the pirate captain alone, surrounded by sky.
“It’s beautiful, aye? Aye.” She nodded, answering her own question as she stared out into the everness. Emrys didn’t follow her gaze but watched her.
Couldn’t tell how old she was but she was spry, seeming much younger than she looked. “Is your crew made up of your relatives?”
She nodded, not caring to keep anything from him. “My daughters and granddaughters and great granddaughters.” She lifted her hands and meshed her fingers together. “Proper for a family to remain close.”
“What of their men?”
“Got no men.” She turned to him, her gaze moving up and down his body. “Need no men once the deed is done.”
“No sons?”
“No sons.”
“How many daughters?”
She leaned into the window as she turned her body completely to him. “You asking about my fertility, lad? I had sixteen children. Seven of them remain to me. Next you’ll ask about their fathers but there was only ever one for me, though he had more than a dozen himself.” She smiled. “I was his favorite is why sixteen.” She winked at him and Emrys realized she was flirting with him. “Oh, aye,” she responded to no question. “He was a chief of his clan and he took me when I was but a girl to add to his harem. So go the days of the hard Eirish, when we fought against the Elders and overthrew them all.”
She snorted. “Some will say those days never happened, but I was there, lad. Saw the last of them throw herself from World’s End at Weeping when she understood that all was lost.”
Emrys said, “Who were the Elders?”
“Sing for me.”
“What?”
“Don’t call me what.”
“What?”
“You got a hearing problem Fool?” She stood straight and took a few steps towards him. “Go on, sing.”
“What you want me to sing?”
“What do your people sing?”
He swallowed. “Do you know of the Barrow Queen?”
She rolled her wrist, which he took to mean that he should get on with it.
The queen and her ghouls Stole the king from his bed And bound him in her bones. Yo, ho, all as one. Drink their blood and break their bones. Oh ho, ghouls and lovers. Never shall we die.
Singing reminded him of the night he nearly left home, the night he met Cerys and Rhian and the lord of bone. The night he took the wound that remained within him. That may always remain within him. A wound upon his very soul.
He sucked in a breath, ruining the song.
Bronach cocked her head. “What’s the matter?”
His mouth dry. He swallowed and his saliva turned to paste, to dust. “I—” He could not begin and he could not tell her. He needed Fionnuala or even a druid.
Berit.
He cleared his throat. “Forgive me, captain. I’m thirsty.”
She laughed. “Sure, yeah. We’ll get you a drink.” She made no movement though. Only stood across from him and watched.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Will you answer one for me?”
Emrys shrugged. “I know very little.”
“A fool, aye,” she laughed. “Well, go on. What’s on your mind?”
“Where are you taking us?”
“Ah,” her smile broadened, revealing gold teeth. “Would you like to meet Ewan?”
“Is that your question for me?”
Bronach blinked and laughed. “I like you, Fool. Come on, let’s go meet the man steering this whole operation. You can ask him yourself.” She went to the railing at the far end of the room and pulled it free and screwed a hook onto the end of it. Coming back towards Emrys, she said, “Ewan don’t get many visitors but he’s a good lad. One of the best I ever did know. Just between us, he’s the father of all these women.” With the pole, she hooked a latch in the ceiling and pulled it down, which caused a ladder to unfurl into the room.
“He lives?”
“He’s the navigator. Blessed to have him. No one has eyes like his. Come on. Up you go.”
Emrys took hold of the rope ladder and began climbing. He felt weak from the events of the last day. He’d eaten nothing. Slept poorly. His body pulsed with terror and horror and flashes of violence kept igniting behind his eyelids whenever he closed them.
He saw again Lyosha’s ruined chest. Saw Yana’s throat erupting in blood like fire. Felt the searing tear of the lord of bone’s sword. Home.
One rung at a time, he struggled and fought and slowly made his way higher and higher while Bronach giggled and asked if he’d ever used a ladder before, if he’d ever been aboard a ship.
The roar of the wind above him and the bitter cold gnawed at his bare hands as he climbed. When she got his head through the portal in the ceiling, there was no more ship. He ducked back down and said, “There’s no room up here.”
“All the room in the world, Fool.”
“No, I mean—”
“Know what you mean, dummy. Go on. Just don’t slip off. Grab hold of the next rope.
Emrys pushed his head back into the wind current and squinted to keep his eyes from drying out. Blinking rapidly through tears, he saw the thick cables holding the envelope to the ship. Pulling himself all the way through, he laid on the top of the ship and crawled inch by inch to the cable. Once he’d grabbed hold, he pulled himself to his feet.
The terror and the numbness battled within him, locking horns and twisting at one another, vying for dominance.
When Bronach made it through, she stood like they were on solid ground. She shouted in his ear to be heard over the wind. “That there’s Ewan. Come on.” She pointed ahead to a tall man with wide shoulders. His greyish green overcoat billowing behind him.
She took a few steps and turned to find Emrys still clinging to his cable. Shaking her head, she returned for him and told him to hold onto her and to do it tight.
He did.
Bronach dragged him across the top of the Wailing while the wind tore at him and the cold turned his skin papery and thin, chapped. As they got closer, Ewan seemed to grow.
Not simply a tall man, but a gargantuan one. Emrys reached, perhaps, to his navel.
A girl with fox ears. A giant standing atop the ship, withstanding the gale.
A ship of wonders. Of nightmares.
The giant had his hands on a great wheel that Emrys had seen on ships in the sea that guide the rudder. The hands were black as coal and large enough to wrap round Emrys’ skull and crush it.
When they got close enough to reach out and touch the giant, Bronach gave Emrys a shove, sending him into the giant.
Emrys lurched and he saw himself falling, plummeting down endlessly until he became paste on the earth’s skin.
But instead he grabbed onto Ewan and held him tight, just barely able to hear Bronach’s cackling laughter. “Say hello to Daddy, Fool!”
And Emrys looked up into the face of a dead man, with eyes scorched out of his skull.
He screamed.
And the wind ripped it all away.