“You know Dalcian, Captain?” she asked.
“A little. I spent a year or so in Dalcian waters before the Emergency. It’s a difficult tongue to pick up, there being so many variations between islands. But prayers to the ancestors are always spoken in the same holy language, which also serves as a common tongue for commerce.”
“I had heard, sir,” Steelfine said, “that there was much fine combat to be had in the Dalcian Emergency. I’m aggrieved to have missed it, I must say.”
“There was combat, Lieutenant,” Hilemore said, his face taking on a grim aspect. “And plenty of it, to be sure. But I wouldn’t call it fine.”
“An alliance of pirate clans attempted to seize corporate holdings,” Sigoral said. “And were soundly defeated. At least that’s what we were told.”
“Curiously the Dalcians have no word for pirate,” Hilemore replied. “Whether a vessel is to be taken, sunk or allowed on its way is determined by a complex array of clan loyalties and unsettled feuds. They call it the ‘Mehlaya,’ which roughly translates as ‘a web of many spiders.’ It’s what they have instead of written law and proved remarkably effective at keeping some semblance of order for centuries, until the corporate world came calling, of course.”
“The old will always fall to the new,” said a rarely heard voice. All eyes turned to Preacher, who finished the last of his watery soup before getting up and making for the stairs without another word.
“Seer scripture,” Braddon explained after Preacher had ascended to the upper deck. “Seems the only thing he speaks these days. If he speaks at all.”
“Silent or verbose,” Hilemore said. “I’m still grateful for his eyes.”
Scrimshine’s muttering had abated into a sibilant whisper by the time a new sound came to them, a faint whoosh and boom from outside followed by a hollering from the look-outs on deck.
“That cannon?” Braddon asked as they scrambled to their feet.
“Signal rocket,” Hilemore said. “It appears we have company and it might well be friendly.”
Clay joined the rush to the upper deck and the starboard rail where one of the look-outs was pointing into the darkness. “About thirty points off the bow, sir,” the crewman told Hilemore, who was busy scanning the gloom with his spy-glass. After a short interval there came another whoosh and Clay saw a thick stream of sparks ascend into the night sky before blossoming into a bright yellow flower followed a heart-beat later by the flat thud of combusted powder.
“Light torches!” Hilemore ordered, Clay seeing a grin play over his lips as he lowered the spy-glass. “All hands step to it. Quick as you can, lads.”
Soon every crewman had a blazing torch in their hand. Hilemore instructed them to stand along the rail and wave them high whilst shouting as loud as they could. Within moments two shapes appeared in the gloom some two hundred yards off, a narrow, sleek warship moving wraith-like through the placid waters and a markedly less elegant Blue-hunter with paddles that churned the sea white as it drew closer.
Clay heard Hilemore give a soft sigh as he murmured, “I told her not to wait.”
“You look like a drake ate you up then shat you out,” Zenida Okanas greeted Hilemore. They had rigged a gang-plank between the Superior and the Dreadfire. As was apparently custom, the captain had been the last to leave the old sailing-ship.
“Then I must look better than I feel,” Hilemore replied, before giving a formal bow and adding something in Varestian. Clay only spoke a few words of this tongue but noted a certain gravity to the exchange that followed, almost as if they were observing a ritual of some kind. Zenida said a few short lines then gave a bow and moved aside, Clay recognising the last sentence she spoke as Hilemore stepped from the gang-plank and onto the frigate’s deck: “Welcome home, sea-brother.”
Hilemore cast a glance around the Superior’s deck and upper works, nodding in approval. “Glad to see you’ve kept her in good order.”
“There wasn’t a great deal else to do,” she said before inclining her head at the Farlight, which was anchored a short distance away. “Apart from a small matter of mutiny.”
“Mutiny?”
“Seems about half the Farlight’s crew weren’t too keen on honouring our bargain once they’d blasted a channel through the Chokes. That old captain managed to save his skin thanks to your Mr. Talmant, though the lad was obliged to take a pistol to the ship’s bosun. We happened upon them when we were making our way out, persuaded Tidelow to come back with us, not that he needed a lot of persuading. I think he didn’t like the notion of sailing north alone with so many of his crew locked in the hold. I offered to cast them overboard but he wouldn’t have it.”
“I recall instructing you not to linger.”
Clay saw the woman avoid Hilemore’s gaze as she pointed at the distant glow on the southern horizon. “Took it as a sign we should wait awhile longer. Besides, Akina thought it was pretty.”
Clay saw the pirate woman’s daughter hovering near by, though her eyes weren’t fixed on the volcano but on Kriz. She had placed herself close to Clay’s side, her expression a mix of guarded uncertainty and fascination as he drank in the sight of the Superior.
“Who’s this?” Akina demanded, stabbing a finger at Kriz, small features bunched in suspicion. “She’s new, and she looks wrong.”
Clay saw the girl wasn’t alone in her fascination, several of the Superior’s crew were also staring at Kriz.
“I’d guess you didn’t find her at Kraghurst Station,” Zenida said to Hilemore.
“Her name’s Kriz,” Clay said, matching the stares of the crew. “She’s with me.” It’s different, he realised, watching the uncertainty on their faces. Mostly they displayed a basic fear of the unfamiliar mixed with a desire for this long, wearisome expedition to end. Before it hadn’t been like this, they had all followed him across miles of ocean through many perils without any real question or reluctance. Now he saw many of them were asking themselves why.
He had seen Hilemore and the others exhibit the same diminished faith in him on the Dreadfire and had put it down to the extremity of their situation, but now saw it went deeper than that. Didn’t you ever wonder why they were so willing to follow you? Silverpin’s ghost had asked, making him understand that somehow he had cast a spell over these people, just as Silverpin had cast a spell on the Longrifles during their search for the White. Now that spell was gone. Now he was just an unregistered Blood-blessed from the Blinds who had returned to them with something impossible.
The answer came to him as Hilemore stepped forward, casting out a string of orders that had the crew rushing off to their allotted tasks, albeit with many a suspicious or baffled glance at Kriz. Silverpin, Clay thought. Part of her lived on in me, the part that could compel the un-Blessed to follow me on the promise of little more than a waking dream. And I killed it when I killed what was left of her.
“Are you alright?” Kriz asked and he realised his face must have betrayed his thoughts.
“Just fine,” he lied, forcing a smile. “But I think we got us a long and trying trip ahead.”
“Krystaline Lake?” Zenida’s face betrayed a curious mix of amusement and foreboding. “That’s where we’re going?”
Hilemore had convened a meeting in the Superior’s ward-room. He stood at the map table, face scraped clean of his previously copious beard and wearing a fresh uniform. Although Clay thought the captain had weathered the depredations of the ice better than all of them, the uniform still hung loose in several places, though Hilemore stood as straight as ever. Braddon and Kriz were the only others present besides Clay and Zenida.