Farlander

'When next some old saltdog comes at my back in a taverna,' he said to Ash, 'do me the kindness of letting him have me. Friendship is one thing, but I'd rather a pierced liver than ever be in your debt again.'

Ash inclined his head in consent.

Nico watched the creature as it ate, both its claws holding the root as it tore off strips with quick jerks of its beak. He found himself holding his cutlery before him as though in defence.

A brilliant glow had permeated the cabin. The sun was now setting, throwing the last of its light through the stained-glass windows at the back of the room, printing diamonds of colour against the beams of wood not far above their heads, against the plank walls, the long desk with charts splayed out across its surface and kept flat with rounded stones. Nico peered over at the charts. He was close enough to discern a few oblique details: landmasses lost in symbols, notations, curving sweeps of arrows. Maps of the air, they seemed, as much as of the land surface.

That thought caused his eye to range beyond the desk. Through the lower portion of the rear windows was visible a sea made to look flat and featureless by height.

'If you don't mind me asking,' he ventured, dragging his gaze from the watery abyss, 'how long will the crossing take us?'

For a moment a shadow passed over the captain's features. Captain Trench sat forward and, with his goblet, gestured to Nico. Wine slopped out of the glass, and Berl frowned as red stains blotted the clean linen. 'It depends,' he said, in a voice more sober than before. 'Some time tonight we approach the imperial sea blockade. Maybe the wind will hold true. Maybe they don't have anything in the air here.'

'In the air?' Nico blurted. 'You mean, Mannian skyships?'

'There is always the chance, this far out.'

Again Nico glanced at Ash, but the old man was feigning interest in the bottom of his glass.

Trench registered his discomfort. 'It's unlikely, mind,' he said. 'Mostly their birds-o'-war are over in the east, preying on the Zanzahar run. That's where the main action is to be found, not here. Believe me, I know. Zanzahar's all we have left for foreign trade, so most long-traders are committed to it, the Falcon included. When the sea-fleets can't get through, or they take heavy losses, the longtraders pick up the slack. We've been flying the Zanzahar run close to four years now.' He paused to upend his goblet, draining it of the last drop. 'You have heard the stories, I'm sure.'

Indeed, Nico had heard the stories. How the Mannian skyships waited in packs like wolves along the route, ready to pounce on any longtraders that passed by. How every year the number of longtraders grew smaller and smaller. Trench hardly needed to explain as much, for it could be heard in the grim tone of his voice, a tone that had even caused the kerido to stop momentarily in its nibbling, to stare up at him.

Nico stared too. Trench no longer seemed to be present there in his chair; he was lost instead in the spots of wine on the tablecloth. For a moment, as the sun cast its final rays about him, Trench looked up, startled, as though returning from a great distance, and slowly inclined his head towards the dying light. In silhouette his nose was prominently hooked, a hint of some old Alhazii ancestry in his blood perhaps – though here, in this cabin, he was merely a ghost of the Alhazii desert, more a sick-looking Khosian, holding together his command with a sometimes trembling left hand and a slightly sturdier right, which seemed always to clutch a white, sweat-stained handkerchief of lace-bordered cotton within its fist.

Nico stabbed a potato from his plate and stuffed it into his mouth. It was cold, and his stomach was feeling queasy again, but he ate anyway. He did not like this talk. At least in Bar-Khos, the city walls still stood as a symbol of protection and life carried on. Here there was nothing but sky and, by the sounds of it, an absolute reliance on wind and good luck. It did not sound promising at all.

And, after this, what? Cheem, that notorious island of reavers and Beggar Kings where, according to Ash, they would travel into the mountainous interior to find the hidden Rshun order, and where he would train to become an assassin. The more he thought of all that was to come, the more uneasy Nico became. It had all seemed easier when he had lived in Bar-Khos, simply struggling each day to survive. At least he'd had Boon by his side.

A shout, coming from outside.

Trench and Dalas looked to one another. The shout came again. The kerido clutched the remains of the sweetroot in its beak and clambered on to the captain's shoulder. Dalas rose and, even with his back bent, the Corician's scalp brushed against the roof beams. He stomped out.

'A little earlier than I was expecting,' Trench murmured, dabbing his lips one last time. His chair scraped back as he pushed himself to his feet. 'Excuse me, please.'

He took his goblet with him, Berl and the wine bottle trailing behind.

In the sudden silence, Nico and Ash were alone.

'A ship,' Ash explained at his side.

'Mannians?' Nico asked. His voice was subdued.

'Let us go and see.'

*

In the cool twilight, Nico could not make out anything at first. He stood close to Ash and peered in the direction that everyone else, including the kerido, was looking. He could see nothing but dull water beneath a faltering sky.

Then he spotted it. To the east on the surface of the sea – a white sail.

'Can we make their colours?' the captain asked Dalas. The Corician's waist-length dreadlocks writhed as he shook his head in the negative.

'We're too far out for it to be anything but an imperial – if not a merchanter, then a picket.' Trench seemed to be talking to himself at first, but, as he scratched his pale face, he glanced up at Dalas. The big man folded his tattooed arms and shrugged.

They had gathered on the quarterdeck, next to the wheel, the highest level on of the ship. Nico shivered, his eyes watering from the constant scrub of the wind. Captain Trench took a sup from his goblet, smacked his lips. With his other hand, still holding the handkerchief, he caressed the smooth wood of the rail as though he was cleaning it of dust. He had built this vessel, Ash had said earlier, from a wreck that had been sold to him as salvage. It had taken his entire family fortune, and more, to convert it.

Trench paced four steps towards the stern rail, four steps back, scuffing the deck with his boots as he stopped.

'The colours,' he bellowed across to the lookout by the foredeck rail, one hand cupping his mouth. 'Can you see the colours yet?'

'Still too far, Captain,' the lookout shouted back.

Trench tugged at his chin. He stared up at the envelope over their heads, the dying light painting it with intense luminosity. At this time of day, to a sharp set of eyes looking in their direction, it would stand out clearly for laqs.

'Have they seen us, that's the question we should be asking,' Trench muttered as he watched the far sail.

For an instant, on the distant ship, it seemed as though the sun was rising again. A blinding yellow brilliance rose into the sky, to hang there for some moments in the gathering darkness. Beneath it the sea reflected the Sun's light as a trembling, fiery disk. From the Mannian ship, a stark shadow fell long across the water.

Trench tossed the last of his wine into his mouth and flipped the empty goblet towards Berl. 'Well, that settles it,' he declared.

The flare descended slowly, the sea dimming in a shrinking circle as it fell. It landed in the water, burning up even as it sank: a strange, ghostly descent into the depths. Nico rubbed his eyes to clear away the after-images, then he opened them in time to see another flare climbing skywards on the eastern horizon. Meaning another ship was out there, still too distant to see.

'A formation must be nearby,' said Trench. 'If they have any birds in the area, we'll have the righteous bastards down on us before dawn.'

Nico shifted uneasily.

'Be calm,' Ash cautioned him, at his side. The old Rshun stood motionless, hands buried in his sleeves, observing the fading flare.

'Orders, Captain?' asked the man at the wheel, an old ragged-ear sailor.

'Fire the tubes, Stones, and turn us west. Set us back on course when it's gone full dark.'

'Aye, Captain.'