Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

"Bow chaser," a sailor said, and his machine's captain said, "Be silent for orders."

Martha watched through tangles of rigging as the burning thing went. It seemed to arc away like a rainbow, though with no color but hot fire. Then, very slowly, it fell… and fell out of sight. Men were cheering at the Mischief's bow.

The Queen unfastened her long lynx cloak, and spun the fur away, out over the ice as the Mischief skated. "To Floating Jesus," she said, then loosened her long Trapper knife in its sheath, and twirled the shaft of an assag over her fingers.

"Ma'am." Martha was breathless as if she'd been running. "Please… you should go below."

The Queen just looked at her, and smiled.

Martha sighed, unfastened her cloak, draped it over the poop's low railing, and reached over her right shoulder to lift her ax from its scabbard.

"You're a good girl." The Queen looked comfortable in her chain-mail. Comfortable leaning on a spear's shaft. Her blue eyes, narrowed in the wind, seemed to Martha a tribesman's, some warrior down from the ice-wall. Which, of course, was really so. " – A good girl," the Queen said. "I'm… fond of you."

"And so you should be! She's a wonder with that ax." Master Butter, his cloak's fur hood thrown back, climbed the last ladder rungs to the poop, and bowed. "… Just your humble postilion, Majesty – with a flatter purse after paying boatmen to follow your galley north, and a sore ass from that damn sled horse's back." Butter stood squatly massive in heavy mail, belting two straight swords, one long, one short. The wind had reddened his round cheeks.

"You. …" The Queen turned a cold look. "You have no business here. You were ordered – "

"I know. You said to keep away for a year, my dear." Master Butter glanced around the poop's deck, narrowed by the great scorpions and their warding mantelets. "But this year has proven exceptionally short, so I came to keep you company."

"Company I don't want. Stay away as you were fucking told to stay. At least… at least go elsewhere on the boat!"

"Of course, Majesty, as soon as possible." Master Butter went to the rail, leaned over, and looked toward the bow. "Dearborn's going to ram them!"

"I won't tell you again – " But the Queen said no more as Master Butter turned, caught her and Martha in his arms – left and right – lifted them, and drove them back behind a mantelet as a snake-hiss of arrows came. One cracked into the mantelet's linden, humming, its bright head just peeping through.

"A sort of punctuation," Master Butter said of the arrow, and let the Queen and Martha go as the Mischief's crew roared a cheer. The great ship seemed to leap ahead, borne by hard-gusting wind – then crashed, shuddering, driving up and into a low hill of impacts, horse screams and men's screams, the multiplied faint crackle of breaking bones.

Blood jetted onto the snow along Mischief's hull as she drove on and over, huge skate-runners slicing packed cavalry that then was knifed aside, fanning in a fur-lumped blood-red skirt as the ship sailed through them.

And as the Mischief – so every other warship of the racing line.

The scorpions began their slow-paced slamming from the poop – noise loud enough to hurt Martha's ears – and at each release of those mighty bows, five steel javelins whipped whining away over the ice, to flash like magic through drifts of mounted Kipchaks the battle-ships had shrugged aside.

The mast-head's smaller scorpions, the heavier machines along the main-deck rails, the chasers at the bow – all hurled steel, clustered stone, or molten pitch as the ship skated on, its massive blades brisk on bloody ice, then muffled, crunching where they met men and horses.

The Queen shoved clear of Master Butter and went to the rail for a better view. Kipchak arrows still came, but sighing, failing with distance.

Butter stepped to the Queen's left. Martha to her right.

"Joan – " Master Butter leaned to shield her.

"Edward, I have to see." The Queen pushed at Martha. "Girl, get behind those things." Meaning the mantelets, apparently.

"No, ma'am," Martha said, and stayed close to keep the Queen's right side safe.

A single horseman galloped past the other way, just beneath their rail. He looked up – showing a young face and black hair in several braids – drew a short bow, and shot it as Master Butter reached to hold his hand in front of the Queen's throat. But wherever that boy's arrow went, it came not to them.

"Oh, for my bow," the Queen said.

Orders were shouted amid other shouts, and the Mischief leaned, skating… leaned more, and took a wide curving course north and easterly. The long line of warships to port and starboard, each fluttering bright little signal flags, leaned as she'd leaned, and raced with her into the turn.

"Ah, my Fleet, my dear ones…" The Queen turned almost a girl's face, beaming. "Martha, do you see them?"

"Yes, ma'am," Martha said, though she winced as a crushed horse shrieked beneath them. She'd wondered about battle, found it dull… then found it dreadful. Now, she hated it – hated more than anything the slaughter of horses, who never meant harm to anyone.

"We're cutting the Khan's people off from West-bank." First Officer Neal stood just behind them; Martha hadn't noticed him come up. An arrow, or falling tackle, had cut Neal across the forehead, and blood had run down into his left eye. "These seem to be their right-wing regiments." He pointed out across the ice, where drifts of gray maneuvered in bright afternoon light. "Another pass – and they'll have to run farther east."

"And the army?" The Queen shaded her eyes to look north. "Where's Aiken – where is he?"

"West, ma'am." Neal pointed almost behind them. "West – and from the signals we're passed, doing very well."

"Then Lady Weather bless that man! – And we chase?"

"We chase," Neal said, and smiled. His left eye-socket was full of blood.

A wind gust suddenly thudded into the sails above them, rattled the tackle and gear aloft so Martha was startled, and ducked a little.

"And you," the Queen said to Neal, and raised her voice to be heard above the wind, the harsh swift sliding of the Mischief's skates, " – you've lost your young brother on that Chancy ship?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Officer Neal," the Queen said, and seemed to Martha to become even more a queen, "I will see that boy is remembered… as I will see you and all your family remembered, and favored by the Crown."

Neal bowed, and when he straightened, Martha saw tears of blood run from his eye.

A trumpet called from forward, and Neal was gone and down the ladder to the deck.

"If we can win this day," the Queen said, her breath frosting, "and Small-Sam ruins the Khan in the south, then, dear Floating Jesus, I will let the bishop come to Island and stay."

"Don't offer too much," Master Butter said, and the Queen laughed and hit his shoulder with her fist.

The Mischief lifted slightly off its starboard skates, buoyed by richer wind – and racing where distant Kipchak divisions labored to work west, passed nearly a regiment of horsemen scattered in ragged squadrons here and there, fugitives on the field of ice as the battle-line sailed on.

The scorpion crews practiced at those, cutting a number down as Mischief passed them swiftly by. But still, arrows followed, coming… then falling like weary birds to rest in deck or rigging, and sometimes in a sailor.

The ship ran quieter now, no shouts, only a single scream by someone wounded. Orders were given quietly, in speaking voices, so Mischief, though sailing so fast, seemed to Martha to be resting, taking long breaths of the cold west wind that sang in its rigging.