Joseph Lewis - Wren the Fox Witch

Dammit Woden, why did it have to be fog? Not aether, just fog. Here I am, thousands of leagues from your holy Ysland, lost in a strange land, the lone voice a reason in a mad world of walking corpses and metal ships, and you have to give me fog? What sort of god does this to his most loyal daughter?

Beside her, a handful of the Espani sailors lingered by the starboard rail, peering into the mist and whispering to each other. Up on the quarter deck, Captain Ortiz gave the heavy brass bell beside the wheel a single clang. A moment later, Omar trudged up the steps and stood beside her. He yawned.

“Something’s coming,” Wren said. “And I think it’s big.”

“Impossible to tell,” Omar said. “Sound bounces around in a fog like this. It carries over the water, it echoes off the walls. I’ll bet you a million darics it’s just a little fishing boat puttering past the anchorage.”

A huge dark shadow formed in the fog, and Wren backed away from the railing. “A million darics?”

The mist parted and the iron-bound prow of a Turkish gunboat slammed into the side of La Rosa. The deck shook beneath her feet and Wren stumbled to her knees, but she scrambled up and away from the starboard rail and grabbed hold of a rope lashed to the mast in the center of the deck. To her right she saw Omar running back toward the captain at the wheel, and to her left she saw the Espani sailors pouring up from their bunks below decks with clubs and knives clenched in their fists.

The starboard rail of the caravel cracked and splintered as the gunboat turned hard against it, and the Turkish ironclad swept around and crashed its side against La Rosa ‘s. Wren peered into the fog, at the dark figures running along the gunwales of the other ship, and suddenly there were men leaping from the gunboat onto the caravel with wide-mouthed pistols and single-edge swords.

The blood thundered in her ears as the Espani sailors crashed into their attackers, and Wren dashed across the deck to the port rail and then back to the quarter deck where Omar and Ortiz stood shouting orders at the crew. As she pounded up the steps, she heard a woman’s voice echoing through the mist and she turned to stare at the deck of the Turkish gunboat.

A woman stood on the iron-bound deck with one foot planted on the back of the small cannon there. She wore a pale blue tunic under a dented breastplate that looked as though it hadn’t been polished in a century. There was no helmet on her head, and a short crop of black hair fluttered over her forehead. Wren almost mistook her for a man, but the woman called out again in Eranian as she pointed her long silvery saber at the Espani ship. Wren grimaced, trying to remember her lessons in the southern tongue, but the woman spoke too quickly for Wren to understand.

What does she want? We passed their check point. This ship doesn’t even have any guns!

Wren bolted to Omar’s side and when she saw that neither he nor the captain was holding the wheel, she grabbed it with one hand as she said, “What’s going on? Who is that woman? What does she want?”

Ortiz muttered something in Espani and then jogged to the steps to fend off one of the invading sailors.

Omar glanced back at Wren. “That woman… She…”

“What? Can you tell what she said? What does she want?”

Omar’s expression hardened. “She wants me.” He gripped his seireiken tightly, but did not draw it out.

“You? Why? Do you know her?”

Omar nodded. “That’s Nadira.”

Who the devil is Nadira, you old fool? Can’t you ever just answer a question without making me ask another one?

But Omar was already jogging away to help Ortiz. Wren frowned at the wooden steering wheel before her and then gazed out over the deck of La Rosa where a dozen Espani sailors were grappling and stabbing a dozen Turkish sailors. Above the fray she peered into the mist, seeing nothing but knowing that somewhere out there was the southern shore of the Strait and the walls of Stamballa.

Well, my good lord Woden, if the Turks aren’t going to play nice, then there’s no reason to give them what they want, is there?

Wren spun the steering wheel to the left and felt the caravel lean gently to port as the combined force of the wind in the reefed sail and the momentum of the gunboat slowly spun La Rosa around her mooring. Watching the tips of the masts of the nearby ships and the walls of Stamballa, she waited for the pair of battle-locked ships to come about until they were both pointed out into the Strait and the northern shore of Constantia, and then she straightened up the wheel. For a moment the ship seemed to come to a full stop, but then she felt a ragged tremble in the deck and they began to move forward again.

Yes! We’re dragging the anchor and moving away from the Turkish shore! Now they’ll have to get back on their own ship unless they want to be dragged all the way to Constantia!

Wren looked down at the ship again and her satisfaction evaporated. On her left, a Turk shot one of the Espani in the belly and then charged up onto the quarter deck. Wren let go of the wheel and reached out for the Turk with her right hand, willing the frail aether in the fog to rise up against the man. A swirl of white rippled up from the deck and slapped the man sideways, sending him tumbling over the rail and into the water.

A second Turk in blue jogged up the steps right behind his fallen comrade, and Wren felt a cold hollowness in her arm. The aether was too thin now, too scattered. She’d barely managed to push the first man overboard. So she shook her right hand, unwinding the sling around her wrist, and yanked a stone out of the pouch on her belt as the second Turk charged across the deck with his cutlass raised to strike her down. She’d only just managed to get the stone in place when the man slashed at her.

Wren dodged back, keeping the huge wooden steering wheel between her and her attacker. She hurled her stone at him through the spokes of the wheel, only to have it glance harmlessly off the man’s armguard. “Omar? I could use some help here!”

The Turk dashed around the wheel and she dashed back toward the stairs down to the main deck, where she saw yet another man in blue waiting for her. She shouted, “Nine hells!” and threw up her right hand. The aether answered, rolling up against the man and sending him reeling back several steps. And while he kept his footing and he kept his weapon, the momentary distraction was time enough for Wren to wrap the leather strap of her sling around the man’s neck and yank him off balance and wheel him about to use as a shield against the swordsman charging down from the quarter deck behind her.

The swordsman lunged, Wren shoved her hostage into the attack, and blood spattered the deck. As her prisoner went limp in her hands and the swordsman raised his blade again, the armored woman on the gunboat shouted “Bas-ast!” and the swordsman stepped back and lowered his weapon.

I know that word. Stop? Enough?

Out of the corner of her eye, Wren saw the fighting across the deck stutter to a standstill, leaving the men bloodied and leaning and panting. She loosened her grip on her sling and the dead Turk slumped down onto the deck, and she scampered back a few steps to stand beside one of the injured Espani sailors.

Captain Ortiz shouted something as well, and his men slowly sheathed their knives and straightened up, though they continued to cast black glares at the men in blue.

Her heart was still pounding and her palms were slick with sweat, but Wren shivered and tugged her black scarf a bit more firmly forward over her forehead before she wrapped her sling back up around her wrist. Across the deck, she saw Omar talking to the armored woman, who had jumped down from her ship onto La Rosa. For a moment she hesitated, not wanting to break the semi-mystical trance that had seemingly frozen all of the Espani and Turks in place on the deck as they waited to hear whether they could truly stand down or would be called upon to resume butchering one another.