the sea
~
~the ship
~
~
~departing
It’s early morning, they’ve been sailing all night. Dawn touches the tips of the waves, darkness still hangs on the coast. The walls of Luss are visible even from here, bent and slanted at unnatural angles.
Silence on the sea. The wind swells the belly of the canvas, and the boards creak as the shore rises to meet them. The chink of armour and harness as the captains prepare their crews. The ship a nose in front. Shipwright at the prow, Arissa on deck, a silver spine amid a sea of bowed heads. Fallon back in Hesper, making sure they have a home to return to. Out here, Arissa is the heart of it all. The blade on the deck, the voice at the drill. Moving from soldier to soldier, tightening straps, touching shoulders, murmuring encouragement.
It works, as far as it can, with sixty men and women crammed on to their ship. The same again on theMaiden of the Forests, theHart’s Pride,theVolante. The best on the seas. The smaller ships behind them bringing yet more men, and none of them with a clue what they are up against.
Not that it matters. Hesper marines, all of them, the city’s finest – pirates, down in the bone. They’re bound tooth and tongue to their captains, their armour marked by little flourishes of defiance. Here a sprig of Burner’s wood, there a set of teeth from the slim dreamfish that thronged the Heron Halls. Pirates dressed as soldiers; soldiers playing pirates. There was no standing army for the Grey Towers, so the whole outfit hung on personality, on alliances, on having enough people on your side at the right time.
Economically, it was incredible, practically it was a nightmare. Or it would have been, if Arissa hadn’t commanded the respectshe did. As she moves on deck, their faces turn to her like flowers to the sun. She speaks to them sparingly, firmly, co-ordinating where and when they would strike.
The whole fleet is poised for some kind of retaliation from the shore. Shields moving forwards and locking together, expecting a hot landing: arrows, catapults, magic. Something. Shroudweaver’s teeth itch, his nerves strung tight. And nothing comes.
The shoreline pulls closer; the city, distantly, smokes.
Drums boom as the ships swing into landing formation, picking up speed. The marines crowd the gunwales, lips tight with anticipation.
The sound of horns hangs in the morning air, followed by a great shout from the crews that rolls over the waves. The shore eats the sound, and opens up again to silence, the pull of the waves, the creak of the wood. A shiver runs the length of Shroudweaver’s spine.
Ballistae on the deck swing ponderously around, their crews straining at the winches. Brassy spinners hum along their spans, caging their energy like cats. Still silence. If Luss knew they were there she showed no sign. And if the Emperor waited within those ruins, Shroudweaver couldn’t sense him. He runs his mind out across the water, as he’d once been taught, letting it touch the silver thread of the sailors’ souls that skipped above the waves, seeking the echo of other souls ashore.
He senses something there. Distantly, within the city walls, but it’s far from the gleam of a human heart. Rather, something dull and fractured, spread across the bones of Luss like scum on a pond.
A shout sounds from the tiller, followed by the soft boom of anchors being dropped. TheVolante,theMaidenand theHarta beat behind the ship which rocks to a stop in the last stretch of deep water, before the coast rises to sandbar and shore. The deck lists as bodies crowd to the narrow, sharp-prowed, landing boats, slim and fast as a needle, ten men to a side.
Shroudweaver stumbles in next to Shipwright, threads catching on the rough wood, bundles of powder tucked between hisfeet. She flashes him a brief smile. Around him, there’s a swell of chatter as the marines stow their gear, check their blades, curse each other, place bets – the murmur before war.
A sickening lurch in his stomach as the long boats drop, and the surf rises to meet them. The boats rock briefly as they steady, then regular shouts sound as they scull, oars out, to shore paddle blades digging deep, picking up speed. Shipwright is at the prow of one boat, Arissa balanced lightly on another, the standard of Hesper snapping brightly in her left hand – a grey falcon above the sea.
A beat behind, the other boats follow, prow to stern with grim men and women, silent except for the bark of their skipper’s commands, their faces pulled into that tightness before battle. The pirate’s quiet, he’d heard it called.
The shoreline drew closer, barren and empty. The wrecks of a few small skiffs are visible, the odd twisted hump of driftwood presenting the only barrier to a coast which rose smooth across dunes and marram before decamping onto the plain outside of Luss.
The strokes of the paddles eat up the sea.
The boats hit the sand with force, their crews staggering. Shipwright is up and over the side before they come to rest, boots down into shallow water, into the kelp that lies thick in the soft waves. Something metal flickers in her hand and she stutters up the beach, a beat ahead of her own shadow.
Shroudweaver runs after her, head low, fingers seeking small souls to work with; dune creatures, beach crabs, sand mice. He pulls them loose, gathering them red-threaded into his right hand.
Not all weavings needed form to be powerful. He remembers the teachings at the Aestering, remembers his tutor stooping low over a pond, reaching down into the water, pulling forth life along silver threads, balling it into his hands; resting it in the wheezing chest of an old man. Watching his eyelids flicker open, even as the water blackened, and the lilies withered from the roots up.
Small gatherings could generate enough power, in a pinch.
A few more steps over scrub, stone and sand, and Luss pullsinto view. As he runs, he catches Shipwright, who has stopped at the head of the rise, her eyes scanning the horizon.
The city’s gates not opened, but listing.
Silence shrouds Luss for a moment or two more. Then slow movement from between the riven gates. Bodies, burnt and blackened. At their back, armoured soldiers, the chain at their necks and hearts swimming like fish-scale.
