The Drowning Eyes (4 page)

“We’re early,” Tazir remarked to her. The more she watched the kid, the weirder she felt speaking to her in grunts and single words. She elaborated: “We’re
really
fuckin’ early.”

“Are we?” Shina asked. “That’s good, though.”

“I guess.” Tazir took in a deep breath. “I’d say we’ll have time to sleep in real beds tonight.”

Shina looked at her but said nothing. One corner of her mouth turned down.

“What?”

The kid opened her mouth, but then looked out to the beach again. “How do we get off the ship?” she asked.

“We jump,” Tazir said. “Just one more reason I’m keen to find somewhere I can get a bed and find a laundry.”

Shina sucked in a deep, slow breath. Her jaw tightened, but she made no other move. “Well,” she said, “if that’s the case, I guess I’d better put my clothes in a bag.”

* * *

For once, Tazir took her chance to put on port clothes that were a little nicer than the ones she’d left in a sopping pile at the inn. She wasn’t a shass set girl, but she could cut a fine figure in a pair of black silk trousers and a kidskin vest.

“Come on,” she was saying as she pushed a mug of rum and lime toward the kid. “Everybody
drinks
.” They had managed to get into a nice corner table at Bosso’s. It was a decent little rum joint on the second tier of the port, held up from the beach on long bamboo legs and walled with reed mats. A plump barmaid with her hair up in a red scarf patrolled the tables, and a pair of young men with shaven heads played quiet water drums in the corner.

“I just—I just don’t like it,” Shina said. “I don’t like the way it tastes, and—”

“You’ve been drinking goat piss liquor,” Tazir assured her. “Just try it.”

“Come on, Cap,” Chaqal said, laying a hand on her arm. “Leave her be.”

Shina smiled at Chaqal over the rim of her teacup.

Tazir rolled her eyes and took a good long swig of her own drink. “Have you ever had a day of fun in your life?” she asked, leaning back in her chair. “Or is it all—whatever you did on that sugar farm of yours that wasn’t drinking or wearing shoes?”

Shina’s eyebrows popped up; she choked on her tea for a moment behind a balled-up hand. “I—I don’t—”

“Captain!” Chaqal hissed through gritted teeth.

“It doesn’t matter to
me
where you’re from,” Tazir said. “Just doesn’t seem from looking at you that it was the best place in the world.”

Shina’s mouth hung open for a moment; her teacup hovered in mid-drink. “I—I was happy where I came from,” she said. She blinked, looking Tazir in the eye. “And I’m happy where I am now.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment.”

“Captain!”

Tazir hissed and rounded on Chaqal. “Dammit, woman,” she growled. “Would you keep—hey!” she yelled fruitlessly at a big man in heavy braids who’d bumped into her on his way out of the bar. He wasn’t the only one. Patrons were fleeing the bar like hens from a busted cage.

The kid had put her teacup down. She was staring into her lap with a weird, scared grimace on her face. She stood up, reached across the table, and clasped Tazir’s arm. “They’re here,” she said. Her other hand was thrust deep in her skirt pocket. “They’re
here—
come on!”

It took a moment for Tazir to pick up what the kid meant by
they,
but when she did she dropped her drink. “Oh,
fuck,
” she said, searching the crowd for Kodin. She spotted the top of his head above the crowd, over by the bar.

“Come on!” said the kid.

Tazir yanked her arm away and shoved forward. “Not without my first mate!”

Shina’s heart raced in her chest as Tazir disappeared into the mob of drunken sailors. “Captain?” she called after her. A pair of old women nearly bowled her over as they fled, but Chaqal steadied her on her feet.

“She’ll be out in a minute,” said the quartermaster. “Come on—this is gonna get
ugly
.”

The air in the bar crackled with fear and confusion. The barman was putting the liquor away; people yelled at him to keep serving. Shina let Chaqal lead her by the wrist, her free hand stuffed in her skirt pocket and curled tight around her compass.

Inside her stomach, Shina could feel her four remaining storms growing restless. The next one she spat out, she knew, would not be as easy on her as the breeze that had carried them from Jepjep.

The Dragon Ships are here,
she thought. The crowd in the bar surged and billowed, a strange wave she could neither understand nor control.
And they don’t believe it yet.

“Captain!” Shina called again over her shoulder. They were outside the bar now. If worst came to worst, she could dive off the dock and swim back to the
Giggling Goat
. “Captain, you have to—”

“Follow us!” Tazir came barreling out of the rush of people, Kodin on her tail. She pointed down the dock, toward the slip where they’d moored the vessel. Shina followed the three of them as they sprinted south. They were not alone. Men and women—and now, more and more children—were fleeing the city. Shina did not dare look behind her. The compass was growing hot in her grip.

It didn’t take them long to reach the end of the dock. When they did, the Captain didn’t keep going toward the ship—instead she veered left, followed some of the people from the bar toward the heavy green wall of jungle at the top of the sand.

“Where are you going?” Shina called. “What—”

“We’re getting the hell away from the harbor!” Tazir snapped. “The boat’s an easy target!”

“No!” Shina yelled. “No, you can’t!” She couldn’t keep this pace up much longer. “We have to get back to the ship!”

“Not today we don’t!” Kodin yelled. “Hurry up!”

“Come back!” Shina yelled. She was standing stock-still in the sand, her fists balled at her sides. The compass had grown so hot, it burned her hand.

“Look, sweetie,” the quartermaster said, hurrying over to Shina, “I know you want to get north, and I know you have a
fuck ton
of money, but—”

“Hold up.” The Captain stepped toward them. “You mind explaining to us
why
you want us to go back to the boat right now?”

“I can’t,” she blurted. Not here, not pressed for time like this, and certainly not while trying to hold in this storm. “I—I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you
can’t
?” Tazir barked. “You’ve got a mouth in your head, don’t you?”

“It’s—just believe me, all right?” Her belly churned and ached. To distract herself, she ran her thumb in a painful circle around the compass. “I can get us out of here, but we have to get to the boat.”

“I don’t know where you think we’re from,” said the Captain, “but it ain’t a place where we’re just gonna go take your word on it and sit in a boat while these sons of bitches burn the town down around us.”

“Let’s go!” Kodin said. “Whatever plan you have, ours is better.”

“I have to get back to the ship,” Shina pleaded. She couldn’t hold the storm in much longer—and when it came out, it was going to be awfully hard to explain herself to these frantic islanders running from the approaching raiders. “Look!” She pulled her hand from her pocket and held the compass aloft. It was glowing now, a bright sunset pink that stood out against the darkening sky.

The Captain hissed and drew back as if she’d touched it herself, her eyes wide and her teeth bared. “What the fuck is that?”

“It’s a compass,” Shina said. “Sort of.”

“Did it tell you the Dragon Ships were coming?” said the Captain.

“Yes!” Shina said. “I can—I can explain everything, I promise, but I need to be back at the ship.” A breeze—a product not of the storm in Shina’s gut, but of the nervousness pounding through her veins—was starting to whip across the beach. It wouldn’t be long now.

Kodin stepped toward her. “And why in the hell can’t you—”

Without a word, Shina turned and sprinted back toward the boat. The breeze was picking up, chilling the beach and speeding her feet. She could see them, now—two of the great longboats pulling around the northern tip of Kuhon.

“Hey, wait!” Chaqal called after her. “Ohhhhhhhh, if you wreck our boat—”

As she got closer to the water, it was easier for Shina to run. She hadn’t been planning on piloting a fifty-foot dhow by herself. She didn’t even know if she could. It certainly wasn’t something that people did because they wanted to.

“Dammit, girl,” came a voice from behind her. Was it the Captain’s? Shina was wading toward the boat’s ladder; her head was spinning. She clutched at the compass. She couldn’t lose the compass—she couldn’t fall into the water—but it was so hard to stand—

Shina reached out to balance on something before she fell, but there was nothing there. She splashed and flailed in the water, dimly aware that the storm was escaping from her gut but not at all sure of what it was becoming once it got out.

“Holy
shit—
”

“For fuck’s sake, don’t
drop
her!”

“I’m
trying—
”

“Try harder!”

Shina’s rib cage pulsed; her jaws ached as if strange hands were forcing them open.

“What do I do?”

“Here—keep her head down so it don’t flow into her lungs—”

“Holy
shit
!”

“Or you can
keep screaming—
”

“You’re not helping either. Now, step to the side—good—”

Shina began to cough and spit. She’d shut her eyes against the salt water, and couldn’t bear to open them again. Her insides burned like she’d swallowed the—
where was it?

“My compass,” she gasped. “Where is my compass?”

“Fuck—Kodin, do you see it down there?”

“I need my compass—” Shina kept fighting for air. She needed to breathe—why was it so
hard
?

“Okay, hand her up here.”

Shina tried to figure out who was hoisting her up on their shoulders—was it Chaqal? The Captain?

“Fuck!” The first mate’s voice came from somewhere below her. “This thing’s
hot
!”

The Captain grunted as she handed her off; the quartermaster hauled Shina’s quaking body over the ship’s railing and set her down on the deck.

Before Shina was aware of the faces leaning in over her, she was aware of the storm. It didn’t have any real cloud power yet—but that was building. In a way, it was like the storm got louder as it drew in the moisture from the sky around it, sucking the air dry for miles. The wind howled, sending stinging sand across the deck of the
Giggling Goat
and tugging at its sails.

“Get out,” Shina croaked at the looming faces. “Get out of the harbor.”

“We can’t,” Kodin said. “The tide isn’t in yet.”

“Push the boat out,” Shina said. She let her eyes drift shut, let her mind drift out along the water with that whipping wind. It was running high and strong and heavy with moisture. She let her breath merge with the wind, found places where she could part it and twist it, grab hold of it with her brain and nudge its course a little bit one way or another.

“Put the sail out, too,” said her mouth, somewhere else.

There were voices over her body, she could tell. People who’d never seen someone call a storm before. Something stung part of her—her hand, she recalled. Something was burning her hand.

When the sail of the
Giggling Goat
flapped open, it came as a hiccup in the very bottom of a wind. Shina focused on the boat, focused on stroking it gently with the wind, making a little almond-shaped eddy where the wind blew firmly and helpfully instead of wanton and wild.

Somewhere far away, she felt something else—kind of a burning like the one on her hand, but more like an emotion than a physical sense. As she tried to figure out what it was, it grew more intense, more discernible. She still couldn’t identify it, but she was certain of two things.

First, that second point of burning light was with the Dragon Ships at the north end of the harbor.

Second, she had to get closer to it.

Shina turned her attention back to the water that lapped around the keel of the boat. That alone wasn’t going to push it out into the harbor—but if she could create a storm surge, she might manage it.

And then what are you going to do?
said a nagging voice in her head.
Fight off all those men by yourself? Plunder the hold?
Those ships were wide and shallow, she could tell, with holds fat and hollow as clay jugs—it was in the way they thrummed against the wind. Against the wind—

She forced the words “Stay on the boat” out of her mouth, but she had no idea if anyone was there to hear them. Her thoughts were spread out over close to a square mile of ocean, and she had important work to do. That storm surge didn’t just need to be high enough to float the
Giggling Goat;
it had to drown the Dragon Ships while it was at it.

It was pointless to try to move too much of a storm at the same time. You had to work in little filaments, no bigger than the breeze that Shina had hissed out of her belly one day at a time to get them this far. It was hard work; she could barely focus when that point of burning pain was drawing so much of her attention.

If you had patience, though, then working slow was rewarding. Slowly but surely, howling all the way, the wind would twist in your grip and go where you wanted it to go.

Shina angled a sharp, water-moving breeze around until it was facing the eddy where the
Giggling Goat
lay. She realized she was groaning with effort as she pushed the wind in and down, in and down, in and—

“Hold fast!” the Captain yelled, somewhere far away. Shina felt something jerking on her body as the water rushed onto the beach. She slammed into the storm surge with every ounce of effort she had in her body—it was enough to send her into the warm, deep darkness that waited for her on the other side of a storm.

“Get the compass!” was the last thing she heard.

* * *

When Shina came to, the quartermaster was leaning over her. She had one hand on her cheek, the other clasping a leather pouch.

“Can you see me all right?” she asked.

Shina went to answer, but her voice cracked in her throat. She swallowed, coughed. “Yeah,” she said. “Did we make it out?”

“Yeah,” said Chaqal. “Did
you
do that?”

“I had to,” Shina said. Her face flushed—she felt as if a teacher had caught her bending winds without permission. “I—I have to stop those ships.” She flailed her arms for a moment, brought herself back to a sitting position.

“I’m not so sure about trying right now,” Chaqal said. “Oh, hold up—”

Shina was getting to her feet, wobbling and tripping all over herself. Her shass set was soaked and clinging to her skin; something had scraped her arm badly during the storm.

“I’ve got you,” Chaqal said, taking her by the arm that wasn’t injured. She steadied Shina and walked her to the rail of the ship.

They were about a hundred yards from the shore—Tazir and Kodin were scrambling with the strong wind, desperate to keep the boat off the harbor’s bottom. The south beach was thick with panicking villagers. They ran for their lives with their little ones and possessions bundled on their backs.

Shina’s eyes were reluctant to turn northward, but she made herself look anyway. The Dragon Ships were just about to reach the shore. Although the storm might have slowed them a little bit, it had not blown them out to sea. When they’d furled their square sails, their ships had three banks of oars to power them along.

A shriek of metal on metal came from the northern end of the harbor. A group of huts was consumed immediately in a fireball that spewed wood and sand and smoke and stone. Shina heard screams of pain join the fearful, desperate wails of Kuhon’s people.

“Was that a fucking trebuchet?” yelled the Captain. “Where in the hell did they get a trebuchet?”

“I have to sink them,” Shina said, shutting her eyes. She laid her mind down on the storm as if she were curling up in a blanket; instantly, sleep washed over her.

* * *

She woke on the deck, Chaqal cradling her head in her hands.

“Hey now,” she said, petting Shina’s hair. “I told you not to—”

“I have to sink the Dragon Ships!” Shina said.

“Sweetie, you’re gonna sink
our
ship if you try to spit a storm in the state you’re in.” The quartermaster brushed Shina’s flailing arm aside and shook her head. “You gotta—”

With a pained grunt, Shina rolled herself over and got onto her knees. Her whole body was shaking; she swayed on all fours like a drunken goat. For a moment, she thought she was going to throw up, but the feeling passed.

The thought kept repeating in her head. She crawled toward the railing, and the quartermaster followed her a couple of steps behind. When she finally got there, she grasped the slick wooden rail and panted while she tried to keep her stomach behind her throat.

The smell of smoke had begun to infect the wind. It filled Shina’s nose, and she finally had to shut her eyes and retch over the railing. “I can’t,” she groaned, clinging to the ship. “Oh,
dammit,
I
can’t—
”

“It’s okay, sweetie,” the quartermaster was saying. She had knelt beside Shina; she was rubbing her lower back and cooing in her ear. “You’ve done all you can do—the Captain’s gonna take us out.”

“No, y-you, you don’t understand,” Shina said. It was getting hard to form words, hard to keep her eyes focused. On the shores of Kuhon, flames were spreading like the wings of horrible birds. “I have to sink them—I have to stop them—”

“We’re gonna get away just fine, sweetie,” said the quartermaster. “Come on, why don’t you relax down below.”

A louder scream rose above the rest, and Shina knew that the Dragon Ships had made landfall. She began to squeak and sniffle until she found herself clutching the railing, sobbing into the wind.