Jim Butcher - Princeps’ Fury

He got up and dressed in his warmest clothes, and found Kitai sleeping hard in the bunk beside his. Maximus was in the bunk across the room, the first time Tavi had seen him in days, in a similar state of exhaustion. Tavi added his blanket atop Kitai’s. She murmured sleepily and curled a bit more closely beneath the additional warmth. Tavi kissed her hair, and went out onto the deck of the ship.

The seas were strange.

The waters, for one, were odd. Even at their smoothest, they had always rolled gently. These seas were as flat as a sheet of glass, hardly rippled by a mild, cold breeze from the north.

Ice was everywhere.

It coated the ship in a thin layer, glistening over the spars and masts. The deck, too, was covered in a thicker film of ice, though it had been pitted and scarred by some means, making it less treacherous than it might have been. Nonetheless, Tavi walked cautiously. Lines had been strung up in several places on the ship, obviously there to provide the crew with handholds where they could not reach a railing or other portion of the ship’s superstructure to support themselves.

He went to the railing and looked out over the sea.

The fleet was spread out around them, raggedly, out into the distance. The nearest ship was too far away to make out any details, but even so, Tavi could see that its profile was wrong. It took him a moment of staring to realize that its mainmast was simply missing, snapped off in the storm. At least two more ships were close enough for him to identify similar damage, including one of the oversized Canim warships. Tavi could see no one moving on any of the ships, including his own, and it gave him the odd, uncomfortable sensation that he was the only person alive.

A gull let out a lonely-sounding cry. Ice crackled, and an icicle fell from a line to shatter on the deck.

“It’s always like this after a long blow,” came Demos’s quiet voice from behind him.

Tavi turned to find the ship’s captain emerging from belowdecks, moving calmly over the icy planks to stand beside Tavi. He looked the same as he always did-neat, calm, and dressed in black. His eyes were undershadowed with weariness, and he had several days’ growth of beard. But otherwise he showed no signs of his days-long battle with the elements.

“The men have been working as hard as a man can, without proper food or sleep for days, sometimes,” Demos continued. “Once the danger is passed, they just drop down and sleep. I practically had to beat them to get them to go to their racks first, this time. Some of them would have slept right on the ice.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping, too?” Tavi asked.

“I’m not as tired. I spent the time watching them work,” Demos drawled. Tavi didn’t believe him for a moment. “Someone has to keep his eyes open. I’ll sleep when the bosun wakes up.”

“Is everyone all right?”

“I lost three,” Demos said, his voice never wavering. Tavi didn’t mistake it for a lack of feeling. The man was simply too tired to become energetic about anything at all, be it joy or agony. “Sea took them.”

“I’m sorry,” Tavi said.

Demos nodded. “She’s a cruel mistress. But we keep coming back to her. They knew what could happen.”

“The ship?”

“My ship is fine,” Demos said. Tavi didn’t miss the very quiet note of pride in his voice. “Rest of them, I don’t know.”

“Those two look damaged,” Tavi said, nodding out to the sea.

“Aye. Storms can take masts like a waterbuck cropping reeds.” Demos shook his head. “The larger ships had it bad in this one. The fleet’s witchmen were able to keep us from getting completely separated. Seas are calm enough, we might be able to send some flyers around, gather everyone in-once folks start waking up. Give it a couple of hours.”

Tavi ground his teeth. “There must be something I can do. If you like, get some rest, and I’ll keep an eye on-”

Demos shook his head. “Not on your life, my lord. Maybe you’re a mad genius at war, but you sail like cows fly. You aren’t commanding my ship. Not even in this pond.”

Tavi grimaced at Demos but knew better than to argue with the man. Demos had certain views about the order of the universe-simply put, that upon the deck of his ship he should be the foremost policy-making entity. Given that the Slive had survived the storm in fine condition when many of the other ships seemed to have been horribly mauled, Tavi supposed Demos’s opinion was not entirely without foundation.

“I’ve been lying around like a lazy dog for days,” Tavi said.

“Like a sick dog,” Demos said. He gave Tavi a direct look. “You don’t look good, my lord. The Marat woman was worried about you. Worked herself harder than any of us, trying not to.”

“She just got sick of my bellyaching,” Tavi said.

Demos smiled faintly. “I’ll wager your work will begin shortly, my lord. Then none of us will want to be you.”

“That’s shortly. I want to do something now ,” Tavi said. He squinted around the ship. “The men are going to wake up hungry.”

“Like baby leviathans, aye.”

Tavi nodded. “Then I’ll be in the galley.”

Demos arched an eyebrow. “Set fire to my ship, and I’ll see you roasted alive before she sinks. My lord.”

Tavi started for the galley and snorted. “I grew up in a steadholt, Captain. I’ve worked in a kitchen before.”

Demos folded his arms on the ship’s railing. “If you don’t mind me saying, Octavian-you really don’t have any idea at all how to be a Princeps, do you?”

Men began stirring sooner than Tavi would have thought. Partly, that was due to the day’s growing swiftly colder, making sleep in still-damp shipboard clothing difficult. Partly, it was due to the minor injuries and strains associated with hard, dangerous labor. But it was due in large measure to their raw hunger, driving them from rest to fill their growling bellies.

The ship’s galley included a frost cabinet large enough to require a pair of coldstones, and he was surprised to see how much meat it stored. By the time the men began to rouse themselves, he’d managed to prepare a large amount of mash and sliced and fried four entire hams, in addition to the stacks of ship’s biscuit and gallons of hot, bitter tea. The mash wasn’t much clumpier than the ship’s cook normally made it, and the ham, while perhaps not of gourmet quality, was certainly in no danger of being undercooked. As Demos predicted, the crew dug in with abandon, while Tavi, just as the cook normally did, slapped food onto waiting plates as the men lined up.

He spent the time talking with each of the sailors, asking them about the storm, and thanking them for a job well done. The sailors, all of whom had become familiar with Tavi on their journey the previous year, spoke with him in familiar, friendly terms that never quite edged all the way into open disrespect.

The last people in line for food were Maximus, Kitai, and Magnus. The latter had a decidedly disapproving glare on his face.

“Not a word,” Tavi said quietly as Magnus approached. “Not a crowbegotten word, Magnus. I had to lay there like a bloody infant for more than a week. I’m in no mood to be scolded.”

“Your Highness,” Magnus said, rather stiffly and just as quietly. “I would not dream of doing so in public. For fear that it would lessen the respect due your office.”

Max stepped in front of Magnus without hesitation, seized a plate, and plunked it down on the counter next to Tavi. “Hey, cooky,” he said, yawning. “Give me a piece of ham that isn’t burned black. If you made such a thing.”

“The rats knocked these three onto the floor before they were finished cooking,” Tavi replied, loading Max’s plate. “But then the crowbegotten little things refused to eat them for some reason.”