Red Seas Under Red Skies: The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Book Two (Gentleman Bastards 2)

Jabril stood amidships, facing a frock coat (donated from Locke’s chest) nailed to a wide board and propped up against the mainmast, about thirty feet away. Both of his feet touched a crudely chalked line on the deck planks. In his right hand was a throwing knife, and in his left was a full wine bottle, by the rules of the game.

The sailor who’d been shouting encouragement burped loudly and started stomping the deck. The circle of men around Jabril picked up the rhythm and began clapping and chanting, slowly at first, then faster and faster: ‘Don’t spill a drop! Don’t spill a drop! Don’t spill a drop! Don’t spill a drop! Don’t spill a drop!’

Jabril flexed for the crowd, wound up and flung the knife. It struck the coat dead centre, and up went a cheer that quickly turned to howls. Jabril had sloshed some of the wine out of the bottle.

‘Dammit!’ he cried.

‘Wine-waster,’ shouted one of the men gathered around him, with the fervour of a priest decrying the worst sort of blasphemy. ‘Pay the penalty and put it where it belongs!’

‘Hey, at least I hit the coat,’ said Jabril with a grin. ‘You nearly killed someone on the quarterdeck with your throw.’

‘Pay the price! Pay the price! Pay the price!’ chanted the crowd.

Jabril put the bottle to his lips, tipped it all the way up and began to guzzle it in one go. The chanting rose in volume and tempo as the amount of wine in the bottle sank. Jabril’s neck and jaw muscles strained mightily, and he raised his free hand high into the air as he sucked the last of the dark-red stuff down.

The crowd applauded. Jabril pulled the bottle from his lips, lowered his head and sprayed a mouthful of wine all over the man closest to him. ‘Oh no,’ he cried, ‘I spilled a drop! Ah ha ha ha ha!’

‘My turn,’ said the drenched sailor. ‘I’m gonna lose on purpose and spill a drop right back, mate!’

Locke and Caldris watched from the starboard rail of the quarterdeck. Caldris was taking a rare break from the wheel; Jean currently had it. They were sailing along in a calm, muggy dusk just pleasant enough for Caldris to separate himself from the ship’s precious helm by half a dozen paces.

‘This was a good idea,’ said Locke.

‘Poor bastards have been under the boot for so long, they deserve a good debauch.’ Caldris was smoking a pale-blue ceramic pipe, the finest and most delicate thing Locke had ever seen in his hands, and his face was lit by the soft glow of embers.

At Caldris’s suggestion, Locke had had large quantities of wine and beer (the Red Messenger was amply provisioned with both, and for a crew twice this size) hauled up on deck, and he’d offered a choice of indulgences to every man on board. A double-ration of fresh roasted pork - courtesy of the small but well-larded pig they’d brought with them -for those who would stay sober and on watch, and a drunken party for those who wouldn’t. Caldris, Jean and Locke were sober, of course, along with four hands who’d chosen the pork.

‘It’s things like this that make a ship feel like home,’ said Caldris. ‘Help you forget what a load of tedious old shit life out here can be.’

‘It’s not so bad,’ said Locke, a bit wistfully.

‘Aye, says the captain of the fuckin’ ship, on a night sent by the gods.’ He drew smoke and blew it out over the rail. ‘Well, if we can arrange a few more nights like this, it’ll be bloody grand. Quiet moments are worth more than whips and manacles for discipline, mark my words.’

Locke gazed out across the black waves and was startled to see a pale white-green shape, glowing like an alchemical lantern, leap up from the waves and splash back down a few seconds later. The arc of its passage left an iridescent after-image when he blinked.

‘Gods,’ he said, ‘what the hell is that?’

There was a fountain of the things now, about a hundred yards from the ship. They flew silently after one another, appearing and disappearing above the surf, casting their ghostly light on black water that returned it like a mirror.

‘You really are new to these waters,’ said Caldris. ‘Those are flit-wraiths, Kosta. South of Tal Verrar, you see ’em all about. Sometimes in great schools, or arches leapin’ over the water. Over ships. They’ve been known to follow us about. But only after dark, mind you.’

‘Are they some kind of fish?’

‘Nobody rightly knows,’ said Caldris. ‘Flit-wraiths can’t be caught. They can’t be touched, as I hear it. They fly right through nets, like they was ghosts. Maybe they are.’

‘Eerie,’ said Locke.

‘You get used to ’em after a few years,’ said Caldris. He drew smoke from his pipe and the orange glow strengthened momentarily. ‘The Sea of Brass is a damned strange place, Kosta. Some say it’s haunted by the Eldren. Most say it’s just plain haunted. I’ve seen things. Saint Corella’s Fire, burnin’ blue and red up on the yardarms, scaring the piss outta the top-watch. I sailed over seas like glass and seen ... a city, once. Down below, not kidding. Walls and towers, white stone. Plain as day, right beneath our hull. In waters that our charts put at a thousand fathoms. Real as my nose, it was, then gone.’

‘Heh,’ said Locke, smiling. ‘You’re pretty good at this. You don’t have to toy with me, Caldris.’

‘I’m not toying with you one bit, Kosta.’ Caldris frowned, and his face took on a sinister cast in the pipe-light. ‘I’m telling you what to expect. Flit-wraiths is just the beginning. Hell, flit-wraiths is almost friendly. There’s things out there even I have trouble believing. And there’s places no sensible ship’s master will ever go. Places that are ... wrong, somehow. Places that wait for you.’

‘Ah,’ said Locke, recalling his desperate early years in the old and rotten places of Camorr and a thousand looming, broken buildings that had seemed to wait in darkness to swallow small children. ‘Now there I grasp your meaning.’

‘The Ghostwind Isles,’ said Caldris, ‘well, they’re the worst of all. In fact, there’s only eight or nine islands human beings have actually set foot on and come back to tell about it. But gods know how many more are hiding down there, under the fogs, or what the fuck’s on ’em.’ He paused before continuing, ‘You ever hear of the three settlements of the Ghostwinds?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Locke.

‘Well.’ Caldris took another long puff on his pipe. ‘Originally there was three. Settlers out of Tal Verrar touched there about a hundred years ago. Founded Port Prodigal, Montierre and Hope-of-Silver. Port Prodigal’s still there, of course. Only one left. Montierre was doing well until the war against the Free Armada. Prodigal’s tucked well back in a fine defensive position; Montierre wasn’t. After we did for their fleet, we paid a visit. Burned their fishing boats, poisoned their wells, sank their docks. Torched everything standing, then torched the ashes. Might as well have just rubbed the name “Montierre” off the map. Place ain’t worth resettling.’

‘And Hope-of-Silver?’

‘Hope-of-Silver,’ said Caldris, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Fifty years ago, Hope-of-Silver was larger than Port Prodigal. On a different island, farther west. Thriving. That silver wasn’t just a hope. Three hundred families, give or take. Whatever happened, happened in one night. Those three hundred families, just ... gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Gone. Vanished. Not a body to be found. Not a bone for birds to pick at. Something came down from those hills, out of that fog above the jungle, and gods know what it was, but it took ’em all.’

‘Merciful hells.’

‘If only,’ said Caldris. ‘A ship or two poked around after it happened. They found one ship from Hope-of-Silver itself, drifting offshore, like it’d put out in a real hurry. On it, they found the only bodies left from the whole mess. A few sailors. All the way up the masts, up at the very tops.’ Caldris sighed. ‘They’d lashed themselves there to escape whatever they’d seen ... and they were all found dead by their own weapons. Even where they were, they killed themselves rather than face whatever was comin’ for ’em.

‘So pay attention to this, Master Kosta.’ Caldris gestured at the circle of relaxed and rowdy sailors, drinking and throwing knives by the light of alchemical globes. ‘You sail a sea where shit like that happens, you can see the value of making your ship a happy home.’