“What, exactly, was all that about?”
The voice was Geena’s. She sat suspended from the rigging of the league clipper, the Slipfin. She had one leg wrapped around the rope ladder. That was all she needed to feel secure, even though the vessel rose and fell at a rapid, wind-whipped clip. As Melio had fought his battle, she had munched dates and spit the pits out over the water. Sometimes upright, sometimes hanging upside down, she had watched the entire scene with barely contained mirth. It had taken Melio an extra measure of focus to block her out.
He lay prone for a moment, as if he had decided to make a close inspection of the deck planks. Like everything else on the outside of the vessel, the deck was coated in white skin, slicker for it. It was not the first time Melio had found himself studying it. Things had gotten a bit better since Kartholome had found a supply of gripping deck socks, but even these only seemed to work when he remembered that he was wearing them.
“A revised version of the Eighth Form,” he said, pushing up. “The Eighth Form is the combat routine that reenacts Gerimus’s battle with the guards of Tulluck’s Hold, when he fought the giants that guarded the-”
“Who’s Gerimus?”
“You don’t know who Gerimus was?”
“Not everyone sucks at the tit of Acacian lore!” Kartholome called, though from where was not immediately obvious.
“A king from the Second Candovian Kingdom.” When this did not seem to register with her, Melio wiped the sweat from his brow with his shirt, which he had taken off before he began. It was actually quite chilly, but he liked the feel of air on his skin when he trained. They were eighteen days out of Bleem, heading west with a slight edge toward the south. Clytus made that small adjustment for his own reasons, which he did not share. Around them stretched the Gray Slopes. As far as the eye could see, waves, sky. It was bleak, the sky a lighter version of the water it hung over. He took a swig from his waterskin, feeling her eyes on him all the while.
Geena flipped upside down again. Her shirt began to fall with gravity, but she pinned it to her abdomen. “Where’s Tulluck’s Hold?”
“It’s…” Melio set the waterskin’s spout in his mouth again, but pulled it away without drinking. “I don’t know, really. Candovia, I believe.”
Geena unwrapped her leg and climbed down the ladder, managing to do so without actually putting her hands or feet on the rungs very often. He had seen her do that before, but could not for the life of him figure out the technique. She landed on one of the horizontal stacks of harpoons they had bought at Bleem. Balanced at the topmost of them, Geena walked along it. “You’re guessing? You were there, weren’t you?”
“It was a long time ago,” Melio said. “There’s not a Tulluck’s Hold anymore.” She just looked at him, eyes expectant. “I mean a really long time ago. Before my time.”
“And yet you remember every move this Gerimus made?”
“Anyway, that’s only part of it. What I was doing was the revision created by Leeka Alain, an officer of the Northern Guard. It’s partly the traditional Form and partly the way he modified it when he killed the first Numrek.” Geena began to speak, but Melio carried on. “And this Leeka I actually knew. He detailed the battle, and I even worked some of it through with him. So…” He toasted her with the skin and took a drink, not sure he had won the point but keeping up appearances.
Clytus climbed down from the bridge. “Sharratt, enough playing with your sword,” he said. “On to your evening round of duties. Might as well start.”
Melio grabbed for his shirt.
“Oh, don’t do that!” Geena tossed a date pit at him.
“Geena,” Clytus said, a warning in it.
“What? I just like to watch. Melio Sharratt, my private performer.”
“Performance over,” Clytus said. “Up to the nest, girl, or I’ll get the strap out.”
“Don’t you wish?” She scaled the swaying ladder effortlessly.
Clytus stood beside Melio. The two of them watched her ascend and then tip herself into the tiny basket of the crow’s nest. “How old is she?” Melio asked, once he was confident Geena was well out of talking earshot.
“Acts just like a girl, doesn’t she? You’d think she was sixteen and had never seen an obstacle she couldn’t leap. She’s always been like that, all thirtysome years I’ve known her. Giver bless her.” The brigand set somber eyes on Melio. “It’s not true, though. She’s seen hard times, especially when she was a girl. She likes you, but don’t get the wrong idea. She’d not roll with you. It’s the dance she likes; not the wrestling.”
“I… I never thought-”
“You know why? In your case, it’s because of Mena. For a certain type of woman, the princess is… well, a person to aspire to. Like a hero if she were a man. You understand me?”
Melio thought a moment and then said, “Yes, I do. I know the feeling. About Geena, though, I wouldn’t have tried anything.”
“Good,” Clytus said. “She’d go off you in a minute if she thought you would. You’re a fine lad, but if you slighted Mena she’d likely introduce your stiffy to a blood eel’s teeth. She’s done it before.” Before Melio could configure his face in response to this, Clytus slapped his shoulder. “Now, to chores. This ship runs clean in many ways I’ve not figured out yet, but there’s still work to do.”
As he always did, Melio went to his chores without complaint. Since leaving Tivol he had learned more than he had ever wished to about nautical matters. Four was not nearly enough to crew a vessel like the Slipfin, but Clytus and Geena had enough brigand tricks up their sleeves to make hard things easier, to finesse the impossible into only improbable. He had to respect them for it, and do his part.
If these were to be his last days, Melio could not complain that they were being spent poorly. He had seen wonders at sea before. In the time before he found Mena on the docks of Ruinat, he had worked for a feeble living among the Floating Merchants. The Inner Sea was beautiful, but its teeming life had not prepared him for the things he saw riding the Gray Slopes.
O ne afternoon, a week from land, Geena had shouted from high in the rigging. He did not catch what she said, except that it was an alarm. Melio turned. He saw the movement low on the horizon. He could not make sense of it at first. Low clouds? A storm brewing? Neither. It came on fast, with a speed and swarming quality that set it apart from some phenomenon of the weather. But it did not ride the water like a fleet of boats, nor was it in the water, as aquatic life should be. It was above the surface, skimming the crests of the waves.
Geena slid down the rope at a speed akin to just plain falling. She hit the deck and sprang up with purpose.
“What is that?” Melio shouted.
“Dinner or death,” she said as she passed him. She flipped open one of the wooden deck crates and hit him in the chest with a wad of netting. She bolted away, climbed the stairs to the bridge, and disappeared inside.
“Or make it both.” Kartholome slid up to them with an uncanny grace on the skin, looking like a performer skating on ice. “Dinner and death.” He grabbed one of the nets and careened away.
Standing where Geena instructed him to, netting loose in his fingers, Melio stared at the rocking view of a seething sea atop which a great mass of something approached. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. They were innumerable. Large enough to see at a distance. They flew, but something told him they were not birds. There were no birds out here. Not so far from land. Not low-flying birds like that.
Geena, back again, grabbed him by the elbow. “Don’t get skewered, love. Stay near the cabin door.”
It was not until they were upon them that Melio understood what they were: a massive flock of flying fish, with flipper wings so wide and nimble that individuals wheeled like starlings within a vast, unstoppable torrent of momentum. The front wall of them broke over the ship. Motion engulfed them: that of the sailing ship and of the fish flying across it. Sound that textured the air with scales. A sea-deep stench of salt and life and moisture splattered Melio’s face. The air became liquid enough to swim in.