Bernie wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, pulled a long breath into his lungs, and breathed out. A few strands of spittle still leaked from his lips. His eyes went to the window, thick glass crossed with supporting iron bars. Little could be seen outside but mist and lashing rain. “What’s it like out there?”
“Bad,” muttered Sir Lothar, miserably, pulling off his padded top. He was lean to the bone beneath it, with extremely wide shoulders and tufts of tawny hair on his chest, slicked by sweat. He had a bloodied bandage around his right shoulder where Sir Ralston had cut into his pauldron, biting into the flesh beneath. He fetched a light jerkin and put it on, wincing from the pain. “And it’s going to get worse.”
Bernie looked at him in dull-eyed dismay. “Worse? How much worse?”
“Just that,” Robbert told him. “Much worse. We’re in for a long night, Bern.”
The big man looked like he could break down and weep. “I should have just died in my duel with the Wall. At least there’d have been some honour in that.”
“There wouldn’t,” Robbert Lukar said. “There’s no honour in dying by the blade of an ally.”
“Wasn’t our ally then.”
“He was. We just didn’t know it yet.”
“Still. Better way to go, falling to the blade of a knight like him.” He looked to the window again, face twisting into a scowl. “Curse this storm. Meant to be calm this time of year, I thought.”
“It is,” Robbert said, having spoken about that to the captain already. “Bloodhound says it’s unusual, this weather. Same as the heat. Much hotter than normal, he says.”
“Better here, though,” said Lank. “We got the wind and rain at least. That march down the coast was brutal.”
And unrelenting, Robbert thought. A long hot slog down the coast under a skin-blistering sun, unbearably windless at times, parched and barren. Tukorans were not used to those sorts of conditions, and suffered worse than the Vandarians did, who basked in warm weather at certain times of year in many places across their kingdom. It wasn’t the same in Tukor. Their lands were higher, colder, gloomier, more prone to turbid skies. There were some parts of Tukor where the sun never shone down, the local people liked to say. It was an exaggeration, of course, but born of truth. And it made them entirely ill-equipped to deal with the hot summer sun.
So when the rains had started the previous day, beginning as a soft, soothing sprinkle, the men of Tukor had rejoiced. It hadn’t been so for the first two days of their voyage. No, the sun had been just as hot and baking as it had been during their march along the coast, but after two days at sea the clouds had come in and the rains had come down and there were cheers all about the decks. Robbert could hear them, ringing out from the other ships, which at that point were all sailing close in a grand armada of thirty vessels, all visible from Hammer’s decks. He had seen the men come rushing out, throwing up their arms and tearing off their tops as they felt the soothing touch of the rains. Robbert had stood at the quarterdeck, smiling at their fine fortune, at the blessed relief, but Bloodhound Burton had only scoffed.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he’d said, ominously, peering to the north with those sailor-sage eyes. “You’ll all be cursing these rains soon enough, mark my words. You’ll be wishing for that sun to return.”
His warning had proven prophetic. Only a few hours later the seas had begun to churn, the skies darkening, and half the men were at the gunwales heaving over the sides. Then the waves grew higher and higher still, the swells surging up above the bulwarks, and the ships began to disappear, one by one. Robbert could only watch on, helpless, as his fleet was broken apart, falling behind as Hammer surged on. Now only a handful of them could be seen from the decks, Shadow, Orchard, a few of the others. We’re all in this alone now, the prince thought. He just had to hope that he had a fleet left when this cursed storm finally broke.
Robbert dressed in a green linen tunic, girding his waist with a brown leather belt, slipping grippy boots over his feet. He put his swordbelt aside, right next to the cabin door, should he need to snatch it up and make a quick exit, though kept a godsteel dagger at his hip. The ship was rocking by then, shifting violently as it bucked on the waves. The knights found good places to brace themselves against the motion, listening to the roar of wind and wave, the crash of the ocean, the storm-song of the men on deck. It was common among sailors, Rasals in particular, to embrace bad weather, and sing through the storm. A form of prayer, Robbert knew. Maybe I should be praying too?
The minutes began to tick by, turning to hours, the nerves of the knights shredded down to strips. Overhead, the prince could hear the bellowing sounds of thunder now, more fearsome than he’d ever heard before. Tukor’s dying breath, he thought. That was what they called the sound of thunder up in the north of his kingdom. If that was so, he could not conceive of what god had perished here. It was an altogether more mighty sound, shaking him down to his bones.
A knock came at the door, and a sailor popped his head inside. He was a young midshipman, another of the many Rasals in the crew, drenched to the marrow, though smiling. How? How can he be smiling at a time like this?
“Captain asked that I check in on you, Prince Robbert,” he chirped. He can’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen winters worn, just starting out on a long career at sea. “How are you all faring?” He sounded not in the least concerned of the tempest. “I see some of the furniture has taken a tumble.”
“Not just the furniture,” Bernie Westermont groaned. Only a short while ago his pail of vomit had been knocked over, spilling the contents of his stomach to the floor. Some tables and chairs had also shifted position, sliding and falling with the motion of the ship, sometimes flying violently across the room when assaulted by a wrathful swell. The rest of the heavy furniture - desk, bed, the chests and trunks - were all bolted down to keep them in place during heavy weather like this. Everything else had been stored before the storm hit, locked away in cupboards and cabinets built into the cabin walls.
The young midshipman looked at the vomit. “We can’t be having that, not in here. I’ll get it cleaned up for you, Your Highness.”
Robbert shook his head. “Don’t bother. I’m sure you need all hands on deck. Isn’t that the phrase?”
“It is.” The boy smiled at him. He was a small, stocky lad, with thick curls of russet hair on his head, darkened by the rains, and a face all full of freckles. “If you’re sure, my lord.”
“We can handle the sight of a spot of vomit,” the prince said. “What’s your name?”
The midshipman sketched a bow. “Rivers, my lord. Finn Rivers.”
Rivers seemed a good name for a man of the water, Robbert supposed, though perhaps Finn Ocean would be better. “How is it out there? Are we through the worst of it yet?”
The boy almost laughed. “No, oh no, not yet. There’s more to come. Never seen a storm like it, my lord.”
“Seen many, have you?”
“Hundreds. Might sound silly to say, at my age, but when you’ve learned to walk on the decks of ships, you’ve already seen a lot of weather. Been at sea a decade already.”
Robbert raised his eyes in appreciation of that. “You started young, same as me. My father used to put a godsteel blade in my crib when my mother wasn’t looking. Sometimes he’d sneak it in there overnight, hiding it in the blankets.” He smiled at that. “I’ve been training with the blade all of my life.”
“Short life,” said Lothar Tunney. “You’re only eighteen, Robb.”
“Whereas you’re an old man, Lank?”
“Older than you.”
“You’re four and twenty. Stop trying to sound like a wise old head.” He did moan like an old maid, though, that was true.
The midshipman Finn Rivers gave a chuckle at their bickering. “Is there anything you need, my lords? Anything else I can do for you?” He stood just inside the doorway, swaying on his sea legs as the ship lurched and rocked and groaned, moving like the ocean itself, limbs like liquid. Seaborn, this one, Robbert thought. There was no doubt in that.
“We’re fine,” he said. “Thank you, Finn.”
Another smile. “Well and good, then. Let me know if you think of anything. I’ll be back down in an hour or so, to check in on you again.” He looked at the three of them, holding on for dear life, and seemed to find the sight most amusing, Robbert didn’t fail to miss. “You keep clinging on, my lords. I’m afraid it’s not going to get better for a while.” He turned and slipped through the door, shutting it tight behind him.
“Damn Seaborn,” Lothar grumbled after he’d left. “It’s unnatural, how they can walk about in this.”
Robbert looked at him. “We gain strength, speed, improved agility, and enhance our senses bearing godsteel, Lothar. I’m sure he thinks that’s unnatural too.” He rose from the bolted-down armchair he’d been sitting in, moving to the window, looking out. “We’re lucky to have them aboard. If anyone’s going to lead us through this storm, it’ll be the Seaborn. This is their battleground, Lothar, same as the open field is ours.”
“Not all battles are winnable, Robb. Maybe this is their Aram.”
