It was eight bells at the change. Midnight. We all worked in the steamy hold, hard as ever I had worked on the farm, scrubbing the floors—they called it swabbing the decks—preparing the ship for I knew not what. Come dawn—-about six bells in the dawn watch, or seven in the morning on land—I found out. We were all hurried back up to the main deck and put to work loading cattle and what I judged to be not near enough hay to feed them. What they were there for I could not even guess. For a brief while I worried that I had been fooled and that this was a trading ship, but soon there were more canvas sacks to be loaded into the hold than I had ever imagined existed. They were new and surprisingly good quality, and I eventually realised that they were waiting to be filled with lansip leaves.
My heart beat absurdly fast as I worked. The very touch of the rough canvas thrilled me. I was living my dream at last, and even the terror of the journey had no power over me.
For the next two days, with sleep snatched between watches, all I remember thinking was that if this was a dream I wouldn’t mind waking. I’d had no idea. When we weren’t scrubbing or sleeping, we were learning about the ship and its workings. I had never imagined such strange terms in my life, still less thought I would need to know them. The ship’s Master had us practicing every waking moment until the movements began to feel familiar. Surprising how quickly such things come to seem normal.
My next clear memory is of the dark before dawn—five bells in the dawn watch, so late in the year—the day we were to sail. The sky was just beginning to lighten with the promise of morning. The smell of the sea, ever present in the town, was stronger yet at the dockside. The gulls cried their eternal longing, other birds fought with them for the foul bits of fish the incoming fishermen spilled on the dock. A light breeze blew from the water, blowing away the smell of the land altogether. It was clean and sharp with salt.
We had gained steadily in numbers since I came on board, but there were still a number of empty hammocks, so we all had plenty to do. There was a lot of cursing by the Master as we raw beginners fumbled with a rope (which I was beginning to think of as a line, but could never call a sheet without giggling) and despite all our practice nearly tripped each other up trying to follow orders. He was a hard taskmaster, but even I could guess that our lives would soon depend on knowing what he wanted done and doing it as swiftly as possible. Still, I managed to glimpse the gangplank being hauled on board and the last line cast off from shore. It all went very quickly. We were madly busy as we left our anchorage and I felt the ship begin to move. We were on our way.
I will never forget the feeling of hauling on a line to help set the sail, glancing towards the quay and watching the land draw away from me. With a moment’s thought I stand even now on that deck. I can feel the gentle glow of the sunrise on my face as we set out. The air is salt and chill, with a hint of much colder to come.
I remember thinking, This ship is as unlike Joss’s riverboat as a full-blood stallion from a gelding pony; a different creature altogether. The river has its own kind of life, and all moving water a certain rhythm of its own, but a river flows only in one direction. For the first time I feel the sea rock the deck beneath my feet. It is a stronger feeling than I expected, and the sea wind is wilder, with more on it than salt. I remember my terror two days past at first seeing so much water, and shiver again with it even as I laugh at myself. I think even the bards cannot describe this feeling, this world so close to our world and yet so far. It is strange and wondrous to feel living water not dead rock beneath my feet, and the air cold and clean and other.
Thanking the Lady for my farm-hardened hands, I finished helping to set the sails, unfurling the wings of the ship to catch the breeze. It was a wondrous feeling.
Just as well. It had to last a long time.
The space we had to live in was horribly cramped. I was easily the tallest person among the Harvesters, and I realised why after my first night on board. No tall person with sense would ever go near such a craft. I could hardly stand up in the morning—which was just as well, because there wasn’t room for me to straighten there belowdecks. Once I could finally stand upright I found a free instant to ask the Master if there were a few feet of deck unused at night where I might sleep. That was where I first learned that, despite the empty berths (which by the time we left were packed with various odd items that would fit nowhere else, and securely stowed using the hammocks for netting), every inch of space was taken up by at least two things and I was lucky to have the space I had. There were so many people on the ship at that time that I never saw the half of them, especially if they were not among those of us who were working our passage.
I spent such free time as I could find with an older woman from the East Mountains. Rella was a small woman, she came not as high as my shoulder, but her strength was near the equal of mine. She was sturdily built and managed most things well enough, but she could not hide the crooked back that made many of the others shun her. I barely saw it, for to me she was a window on a world I had not yet discovered. Her accent was strange and she used words I had never heard, and she was the first person I had met from the East Mountain Kingdom. I got her to talk about her home and every word was gold to me, and she was grateful for the attention. She took to looking after me in her own gruff way. It felt good to have someone to talk to, even someone as curious as Rella.
The first week of the voyage is mostly a blur, for which I am thankful. The few clear memories I have are of badly cooked food, horrible smells and some of the hardest work I have ever done in my life. There was always too much to do, cleaning the ship constantly, tending the cattle we carried, drilling in the ways of the ship until we could all but do them blindfolded. There was more to keeping a ship in order than I had imagined, but I was glad enough for the exercise. The days were cold and growing colder and anything that kept us moving I was grateful for.
The weather grew worse the farther west and north we sailed.
At the end of the first week even the greenest of us had gained some semblance of sea legs, and the worse of the seasick had recovered. Others had taken to life at sea as if born to it. I leaned a little more to the second than the first, and thank the Lady I was not seasick, but it took me ages to find my balance on this moving creature. At first I fought the movement and lost every time. Once I started to think of it as a willful horse I seemed to manage a little better, but as the weather worsened I had to spend more and more time just staying upright. I caught a glimpse of the Captain as he passed by one afternoon to take a reckoning on the mysterious instruments he used, and as if he had shouted I heard his thoughts turning on the Storms.
That was when I began to be truly frightened.
That night things got worse. If before the ship had groaned in the wind now it cried out like a wounded man, shuddering from topsails to keel when a contrary wind fought with what I had first imagined to be masts stout as trees, but now saw as tiny wooden sticks that stood between us and a damp, mournful ending. A thin strip of sail on each mast bore us flying westward over the rough seas. I learned later that the usual practice in rough weather was to strike all sails and wait out the storm—but here the Storm never ceased, and movement was our only safety. The waves battered at the hull of our fragile home, lifting and dropping us in a wild dance, rolling and pitching until the strongest of us felt queasy. There had been no cookfires for days, and the cold food within and cold water without were as depressing as the thick blanket of grey skies all around us.
The morning of the ninth day out, I at least was convinced that I would never see land again. I cursed myself roundly for being such a fool as ever to leave solid ground, and I swore that if I came out of this alive, I would never set foot on a ship over the deep sea again.
Well, I swore a lot of things back then. I meant it at the time.
That morning, though, I committed my soul to the Lady and prayed for a painless death. It felt as though every roll would be the one that sent us belly-up. The winds whipped thr
ough the rigging, plucking at the taut lines like harp strings playing an endless dirge. I was thankful for the regular duties that gave me something to think about rather than simply worrying about staying alive. Still, if I stayed working belowdecks too long, I felt I was in a cave. Better outside than in if we went over, I reasoned. Probably wrong, but I have always hated caves. Besides, the noise was louder down there, and I was terrified. My fellow passengers were no better off than I, and some were worse. The seamen were too busy to be frightened, but they none of them looked much better than we did.
Suddenly there came a shout from the bow. This was nothing new, it had been happening about once an hour for the last day and night. I never did find out exactly what it was they shouted, but the meaning was always the same—take hold of something solid and hope you can hold on. I reached for the rail and looked up.
And up.
A solid wall of water was poised to break on top of us and send us to the bottom.
I was too terrified even to scream. I closed my eyes, whispered, “Lady, protect us,” wrapped both arms about the rail and hung on like grim death.
And the wave crashed down. There was a terrible splintering sound like a branch breaking from a vast tree. I was swept off my feet by the force of the water, flipped over the side still clinging to the rail, fluttering in the rushing water like a banner in the wind and fighting not to breathe in. I held on with all my might and blessed the pure strength of my arms and hands. As the water receded I struggled to pull myself back on deck, shaking in every limb, coughing out seawater.
The Captain said later that if our sliver of sail hadn’t caught a wild gust just before the wall fell on us, we’d never have seen the sun again. We managed to shoot out from under the worst of the terrible weight of water, but still it stove in parts of the deck. The splintering I heard was the foremast, the one carrying that sail that saved us, breaking off halfway down its length.
And with that, the sea and the Storms had done their worst. The winds dropped almost immediately. The waves grew less and less, until in a quarter of an hour we found ourselves rocking in a swell no more than five or six feet high. If I hadn’t seen it myself I would not have believed it.
I happened to look up and catch Rella’s eye. She smiled, then she grinned, then she let loose with a laugh straight from her toes. I joined her, and in moments so did every one of the crew, laughing away our terror, laughing in disbelief that we had survived, laughing until we wept for wonder that we were still alive.
We learned soon enough that we had lost almost a third of the crew in the passage—all Harvesters save for one unlucky soul of a seaman—and though we mourned them, we found ourselves marvelling that so many had survived. I wondered how with a lesser crew we would ever live through the return passage, but when I spoke with the true seamen, they were certain sure of the lore, and swore that the trip east and home would be far easier than the trip out. I hoped in my soul they were right.
That night and the next day were spent furiously repairing where we could, making shift where we could not repair. A kind of spar was jury-rigged onto the stump of the foremast to bear what canvas it would, for now we were making best speed to the northwest. The surviving mast looked to me for all the world like a washing line, spreading vast bedclothes to the sun.
The rest of the journey, for all the work, was in the nature of a sigh of relief. When I had time to think about it, I was terribly proud that mere six-foot swells seemed tame to me now. The Captain passed the word one morning, about four days after we’d survived the Storms, that by his reckoning we would make landfall by evening. That brought a cheer—and I for one wondered what if anything could ever convince me to set foot on deck for the trip home. But the cheer was loud and heartfelt. I knew well that each of us had given up our souls as lost in the Storms, and to be not only alive but arrived at a place known to no living man—it set our blood racing.
That afternoon, just before sunset, the word was passed for all hands on deck. (We truly noted then for the first time how many of us had been lost; there was far more room for us all on deck now than there had been.) The Master congratulated us on still being alive—which brought another cheer, and not a little backslapping among us—said that land was nigh and it was time we heard from our new master what our duties would be on the Island of Dragons. He stepped away from the rail of the bridge and the Merchant took his place.
It was Bors. At least, it was Bors until he opened his mouth.
“I give you greeting all, brave Harvesters. We have done with the worst, thanks to our good Master and his gallant crew,” he said, bowing slightly to the Master behind him. “Now in the name of the House of Gundar I welcome you to the place where all our fortunes will be made.” He caught my eye, then, and a terrible smile crossed his face as he said proudly, “I am Marik of Gundar, and if you work till you drop for the seven days we shall remain here, you will return to Kolmar wealthy beyond your dreams.”
Marik. My mother’s mortal enemy. And Jamie had spent years telling me how much I looked just like her, damn, damn, damn. He must have known from the moment he saw me at the White Horse that I was Maran’s daughter. Now there was no escape. I could not even hide in the crowd of Harvesters—I was a good head taller than the tallest of them. I tried out a curse that I had heard one of the seamen use during the Storms. It helped, but not much.
And whether he planned it or no, Marik had no more than announced his name and begun to speak of our duties when the lookout up aloft cried, “Land ho! Land off the port bow!”
We were there.
We did not come in full sight of the island for some while yet, and did not get near enough to it to land until twilight. It was decided that we would anchor off the coast for the night. No one mentioned a reason, but it occurred to me (and to others) that perhaps Marik was delaying his meeting with the Dragons. I remembered that he did not believe they existed, and that he meant to prove the stories of the other Merchants false. Still, even if it was a matter of fighting other humans rather than negotiating with Dragons, better to wait until daylight. It would also be easier to deny the existence of such things in broad daylight than in darkness surrounded by an unknown land.
For the last time, as I slept fitfully that night, I dreamt in part of the Dragons that had haunted my sleep for so many years, gleaming in the sun, full of delight at our meeting, courtly and kind.
In the face of truth, dreams disappear like smoke on a windy day.
For alternating with that sunlit vision was one of darkness and blood, and Jamie’s voice saying, “As nasty a son of the Hells as ever escaped the sword.” Marik, who (Lady forbid it) might be my father—and if he was, who must want me to finish his bargain for him. My dreams tossed like our storm-racked ship between those images, and I woke sick with worry and wonder.
A small boat took Marik and his two guards to land at first light. They encountered neither Dragons nor warriors, either on the beach or as they explored farther into the trees that came almost down to the water’s edge.
Once they decided it was safe enough, most of us were set to unloading the sacks and the cattle from the hold, along with tents, bedding and cookpots that could hold enough food for a village. The Master asked for volunteers to go ashore to unload the boats at that end—I tried to reason with myself that there was safety in numbers, I should stay on the ship, it was tempting fate to go ashore where there would only be me, a few Harvesters and Marik with his men.
I never did listen to reason.
The Dragon Isle
vii
The Dragon Isle
Lanen
If my memories of Corlí are as an autumn fog, my first step on the Dragon Isle is a crisp bright winter day, cold and sharp and clear as diamond.
The land seemed to rise up to meet me as I followed my comrades out of the boat and into the shallows. It may have been no more than the effect of land after twelve days at sea, but the impression remains. I walked out of the sea onto sma
ll black rocks, and thence onto the rough grass that grew nearly to the water’s edge. The scent even of the grass under my boot was like nothing I had known—it smelled like spring in the morning of the world.
Crushed grass.
I will always remember.
As I stood on the shore my heart beat fast and high, and I felt as though there were iron bands about my chest like the faithful servant in the old tale, though mine were to keep my heart from breaking for joy, not sorrow. I worked hard to draw breath, there on the edge of my dream.
I took another step forward.
The island did not disappear under my foot or sink into the sea—or fade into the darkness of my room at Hadronsstead.
I walked on the Dragon Isle under the sun. My heart sang, and despite the danger I was in I laughed aloud for heart’s ease. I beheld the world clearly, more clearly than ever before, and realised that I had walked in a fog all my life and not known it. The threat from Marik was real and could not be ignored, but joy took me for that time and would not be denied.
As I moved through the morning, working hard but taking every spare second to look around me, I met more and more that was new to me and I delighted in it all. This was the dream of the traveller made real and at its best, working and breathing in a new place. The sun shone, the air was cold and crisp and smelt of something I did not know; like cinnamon and nutmeg but wilder somehow and deeper. I soon learned that this was the smell of lansip in the autumn, as the dying leaves dried in the salt air.
Crushed grass.
I will always remember.
Kantri
I watched her as she walked and laughed in the sun. I longed to go to her. The others I had seen, more than a century past, knew only fear and greed. She was very different and I desired to know what made her the exception. I knew very well that only a certain few ever came to our isle, and for fewer reasons.