The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series) (3 page)

After that it was easy, if not exactly satisfying. The prisoner said his name was Colyn Belforic—information Jash hadn’t asked for—and she suspected he was trying to make them see him as a person rather than as a Denalait. Even after she was done with him, he wouldn’t be a person
.
Though he would be infinitely more valuable than a Denalait
. I swear that as well.

She told Arvius to sit down, which he did reluctantly, and questioned the prisoner about the fortress on Lastland and why he had left. He told her the fortress’s defenders had opened a postern gate for him, hoping he could take a boat and slip through the blockade. Jash considered that an act of sheer desperation, given that there were eight galleys surrounding Lastland and two thousand miles between them and the Denalait coast.

“This postern gate…” she began, but the prisoner told her the defenders did not expect relief or reinforcements to arrive from Denalay. Jash hoped that meant they were all going to commit suicide, but apparently they were building another wall instead, a granite wall within the iron-banded gates. They were sealing themselves into their fortress, turning it into their tomb.

So ramming the gates wouldn’t work. “How long can their supplies hold out?”

“Two months at the most.”

The blockade had already lasted a fortnight by then, and Jash knew she couldn’t simply wait three times as long. Even if Denalay did nothing during that time, her captains and crews would be reluctant to let their ships sit idle in the waters around Lastland. Besides, her reputation as a commander would suffer if she sat on her hands until starvation did her work for her.

She questioned him further on the few unguarded points of Lastland, but didn’t learn anything helpful. Underground passageways had been dug or carved beneath the fortress, to be used as a last resort, but they all led out through the Honeycomb, and her people had been stung there once already
.
Arvius was tapping his fingers against the arm of his chair by then, a noise that stopped when she smiled at him.

“That’s all, Keneer,” she told her aide, who had been writing down the prisoner’s answers.

“Captain?” The prisoner shifted in his chair. “You promised—”

“I know. Arvius, come here.” She went to a corner of her cabin and knelt before a large iron pot that had been brought there almost a week earlier.

Looking almost as uneasy as the prisoner did, he heaved himself out of the chair. He was taller than Jash and strong enough that the crew submitted meekly to surgery rather than risk being wrestled onto a table, but when he saw what was in the pot, his face paled. “Brain coral? Captain, I can’t—”

“Do it.”

Jash spoke quietly and without moving her lips, but the prisoner heard. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!” he cried out.

“I won’t.” Jash placed the pot in Arvius’s arms and he took it as he would have handled a nest of scorpions. “I’m just going to change your mind. Keneer, take our prisoner to the surgery. Oh, and give him poppy juice, Arvius. I did promise he wouldn’t be in pain.”

After they had gone, she sat before her desk with a cup of nettle tea, looking over a detailed map of Lastland. She wasn’t sure how brain coral could help in that regard, but then again, no one knew what brain coral was capable of once it was in a suitable host, and she wouldn’t lose anything by experimentation.

Keneer knocked at the door again. “Captain, the taileye’s returned.”

Jash didn’t particularly like their single Denalait ally, and she could never trust anyone who was not a Turean, but she vastly preferred to have him where she could see him. It would also be interesting to see what he made of the message her spy had sent. She finished her tea and climbed the stairs to
Dreadnaught
’s upper deck.

The first thing she saw, as always, was the east coast of Lastland. Beyond it the ocean stretched vast and unbroken, and sometimes Jash dreamed of taking a small swift vessel and sailing away, to search for the water’s end.

Once the war was done, when the circle banner no longer flew over the fortress. A circle was just one link in a chain, and the eight galleys surrounding Lastland all flew a broken chain on a blue field.

Eight galleys were half of her flotilla, but for once they almost matched the number of Denalait vessels. After the galleys had reached Lastland, a spy sent word that an armada of twenty warships, led by
Hawk Royal
, had sailed into the south, heading for the Archipelago.

Fear had tightened around Jash’s heart. The Turean strength was spread over five dozen islands, but the largest was the southern isle of Scorpitale, where she had been born. The Denalaits would burn the villages on Scorpitale after taking enough supplies to sail on to Lastland.

Merely praying for a miracle had seemed inadequate. So she had turned two captives over to Nion Vates, and whatever he did with them pleased the gods. A freak storm struck, smashing eighteen warships, and wreckage washed up on the shores of Crypthouse for days.
Hawk Royal
and
Tramontane
limped back to the mainland, but Jash knew her people would never be left in peace.

What bit like acid into her was that the Denalaits had so many advantages. They had all the mainland’s resources and traded for what they didn’t have, while Dagre and Bleakhaven refused to aid the Tureans because of a pact to take no hostile actions against other lands of Eden.
And Arvius complains about coral
, Jash thought. When the dice were so heavily weighted against her, what else could she do?

Now her spy—thankfully there were no obvious physical differences between Tureans and mainlanders yet—had sent word of the Denalaits’ next tactic. Jash slid her hands into the pockets of her sealskin vest and crossed the deck of
Dreadnaught
to her ally.

He was bent over a rain cask. Her crew collected that water for bathing, but Quenlin Fench cupped his hands in it and drank—further evidence, if any was needed, that it was the Tureans who belonged to the sea. Mainlanders couldn’t stomach its waters and had to drink what came from the sky or the land instead.

Quenlin dragged a sleeve across his mouth and leaned against the rail, elbows braced on it as he looked out over the water at Lastland. Five days ago, he had requested a boat and had set sail without informing anyone of his whereabouts, not that Jash had been concerned. She had known he would return. Mostly because he had nowhere else to go.

“Where were you?” she said when she stood beside him.

“Trenchtrawling.”

Jash had heard there was a chasm somewhere in the Shoreless Ocean, a trench that supposedly descended into hell or the heart of Eden. She had no idea why he would spend time searching such a thing, but then again, he was not just a mainlander but one who had been molded by the nightmarish institution called Seawatch into the bargain. A few mental defects were to be expected.

“I have news,” she said. “The warship
Daystrider
left the naval shipyards on the Greater Horseshoe five days ago. It’s bound south.”

Quenlin straightened up and nodded in acknowledgement, because obviously one ship deserved nothing further.

Jash smiled. “There’s a rumor a shark sorceress is aboard.”

He turned.

The tattoo on his face looked like the tail flukes of a whale, and his eyes narrowed to the point where she could barely see the left one in the blackness of the ink. “Do you know what she’s linked to?”

“No. But she’ll only have one shark. Can you deal with that?”

“I intend to.” His mouth tightened to a line and he turned back to look out over the sea. “
Here
,” he said, in so low a whisper that Jash would not have heard him if she had been a little farther away.

A black wedge slashed through the waves. Another fin rose behind it in a dark reflection. The third, taller but deeply notched, trailed a spray of spume, and the fourth whale leaped clear of the water, so close that Jash saw the eye just forward of the white splash on its head.

The killer whales spouted, plumes of mist filling the air, then dived again. Quenlin put his back to the rail and leaned against it, so he was facing not the fortress, but the two thousand miles of water separating them from Denalay.

“Let her come,” he said.

Chapter Two

There Is a Tide

Alyster suggested they wager on whether Yerena Fin Caller would be late again, but she knocked at Darok’s door just before the sixth bell rang. She had changed her dress, and he wondered if she owned anything that wasn’t grey.

Then again, perhaps she had to wear a uniform just as he did. He rose and held a chair out for her. She was about as expressive as a figurehead, and her shoulders didn’t touch the back of the chair when she was seated. He knew she wasn’t at ease there, and she said nothing after he had introduced her to Alyster.

Alyster was excellent at breaking the ice, but either Yerena was a thicker berg than any he’d encountered or he simply disliked her. So a silence descended on the table until a cabin boy admitted Lady Lisabe. She had dressed in vivid red silk for the occasion, and when she moved her hands, gold bracelets caught the light. The flamboyant draperies suited her, and the smile Alyster gave her had more than mere appreciation behind it. Darok thought of reminding his brother that she was a Voice of the Unity, then decided that if she had seen the Unity face to face, she could cope with a first officer trying to flirt with her.

The last person to enter was Julean Flaige, the ship’s physician, although Darok hadn’t been certain he would obey what had been, out of necessity, an order to join them for supper. Darok did not tolerate insubordination, but there was little penalty he could levy on someone who cared about nothing but his work. Julean had previously served on
other ships until every penny of his pay had been docked, and only the fact that he was the best doctor in the fleet had kept him out of the brig.

Darok had repaid a long-ago favor—one which had left him with his life and a scar longer than his handspan—by requesting that Julean be transferred to his ship, but there were times he regretted it. Julean hadn’t dressed for dinner, partly because he was indifferent to what he wore and partly because he couldn’t afford anything other than a shabby blue jacket and trousers patched at the knees. The only thing of value he wore was a silver locket on a thin chain.

He took his place at the table, acknowledging his introduction with a minute nod. Lady Lisabe’s gracious smile did not change, but her eyes did, and Darok gestured at the steward to fill their cups. The sooner they finished and went their separate ways, the happier everyone would be—which was probably true of their mission as well as their meal.

The first food of a voyage supposedly presaged the rest of it, so the cook had prepared his best that night. The steward poured wine and served a clear fish soup, a whole crab crouching at the bottom of each bowl. Alyster asked Lady Lisabe if she was accustomed to living on a ship, which Darok assumed she was, since she ate and drank with a hearty appetite.

“Not yet, but I hope to be,” she said. “Great changes are coming to the Guardian Fleet, and I’d like to see those at close quarters.”

“What changes are those?” Darok asked. One change had already come—the tragedy that had befallen the armada. Eighteen ships lost. Just thinking about it made a heavy, leaden sickness settle in his gut, and although he trusted the Unity, he didn’t see what could overcome such a setback.

Lady Lisabe cracked a claw and sucked it clean before she replied. “Better weaponry, for one. We’ve heard of powerful siege engines being developed in Dagre—cannons, they’re called—and just one or two of those could smash a galley to kindling.”

“Really,” Darok said, though his brother’s eyes had lit up. Evidently he thought the time was near for him to command his own ship, outfitted with foreign artillery.
Darok had no interest at all in such a thing, because a Denalait ship did best with Denalait weaponry.

“Oh yes,” Lady Lisabe said, as a cabin boy cleared away the bowls and the steward served shrimp in a sauce of lime and ginger. “There will be improvements to the design of ships as well. Rather than requiring sails for propulsion, they’ll use steam.”

“Steam?” Darok couldn’t imagine how a little steam was supposed to push a ship the size of
Daystrider
. He glanced at Julean Flaige, who knew a great deal more about science than he did, but got an equally blank look in return. Only Yerena didn’t react to the news, probably because she hadn’t yet been told that her shark would be replaced by some clockwork contraption.

“I’m not sure what the exact design is,” Lady Lisabe said.
Oh yes, you are
, Darok thought,
you’re just being careful not to discuss it
. “But the Admiralty has shown great interest in the construction of steamships. Those will not be at the mercy of the currents, much less in danger of becalming.”

“Where will this steam come from?” Darok said. Even in the height of summer, the ocean never grew so hot.

“Oh, the ships will carry coal to boil water.”

“I see. So they’ll sail—I mean, move—until their supplies of coal give out, is that it?” If that was the case, he’d pit
Daystrider
against one of those new constructions any day. He imagined his warship all but flying over the waves, streaking past a vessel that wallowed in her wake, its masts naked and sailless.