The Wreck of the Harrington
9 Autumn 218
There is a blast of cannonfire, and a torrent of splinters and nails rains down on Carter. She pulls her cape over her head and falls to a knee. She hears a soft gasp from somewhere nearby. It’s Poppy - her long pale braid twisting in the air with the momentum of the blast. Poppy’s eyes are wide, and Carter notices the blood pooling in the girl’s mouth before she realizes the cause. A piece of wood, slightly warped, piercing through the girl’s throat. Poppy staggers, and, panicking, pushes the shrapnel deeper, until it forces its way through her cheek like a fishhook.
Poppy was the daughter of Carter’s governess. After Carter’s mother had died but before the old Baric had remarried, Poppy’s family had been hired as live-in help. Carter and Poppy had become friends of necessity - the only two young girls at the estate. Of an age, though Poppy was younger. That, along with Carter’s status, meant it was Carter who chose the games - always dangerous adventures fighting dragons and witches and hordes of reanimated dead that crawled out of the sea. Poppy played along. Always.
They were rarely apart. Poppy had slept in Carter’s bed for a month after Carter’s mother had died. When Carter was fourteen, and sporting with the younger men of the household guard, Poppy had learned to deftly cover the resulting love bites, and once, when Carter’s course was late, Poppy had sat up with her while Carter drank cup after cup of silphium tea and vomited bile and flower petals onto the carpet. Poppy knew everything about Carter. Carter had always assumed the same. Yet Poppy had been a Briarbird, quietly, secretly, for weeks now. When she accompanied Carter to her first meeting, Poppy had been swept up in embraces and handclasps and, from one light-haired young man, a full kiss on the mouth.
And now Poppy was dead. She hadn’t realized it, yet, though. With her hands pawing at her throat. Choking on her blood. Her wide, pale eyes blinking, shifting in and out of focus as she falls onto the deck and now Carter can only see Poppy’s back, moving rapidly with panicked, desperate breaths. Carter wants to run to her friend - years of companionship screaming in her gut. Instead, Carter braces herself on a knee and levels her crossbow, aiming for the fold of blonde hair where the plait of Poppy’s braid begins. Carter pulls the trigger and the blonde bursts red.
She has three seconds now. Cock the bow. Grab a bolt. Reload. Run.
Carter feels a hand on hers as she braces herself against the rail of the ship. She can’t hear the voice but she can read Lark’s face - his eyes wide and lit red and yellow gold from something behind her. Carter flattens, pulling Lark down with her, feeling a gout of flame sizzle against her armor. She pushes herself to her elbows and watches Lark’s mouth.
Their hands, he seems to say, it’s coming from their hands.
Carter turns, the air around her suddenly hot and tight, the fire sucking up the oxygen, the pressure popping something in her ears. Carter’s hearing rushes back, its edges rounded, pitches ringing. She sees what Lark saw. A line of soldiers, in the unmistakable mulberry of the Swan, and each with a ball of fire forming from nothing in their hands.
“It has to be a weapon,” says Carter.
Lark shakes his head, “It’s witchcraft.”
He opens his mouth again and it’s full of light. Carter watches a spark flash from one tooth to another. Lark’s hair is on end, floating above his head in a dome like a wildflower gone to seed. The lightning cracks down through his skull, flashes of blue-white at his buttons and the clasp of his belt. The shock moves through Lark’s hand into Carter’s and Carter feels her arm light with pain as she pulls away.
It’s less than a second but Carter watches the lightning burn across Lark’s skin with a trail like a map of rivers, watches his clothing catch fire, his skin tightening pulling his lips from his teeth. Lark’s body twitches once, then falls to the deck of the ship. Carter yelps, catching her scream with her glove.
Carter doesn’t know Lark’s real name. Or what he had done that had left a scar that stretched through his hair and across an ear. She knew nothing about him that she hadn’t experienced alongside him. But he’d taught her how to steady her arm. He’d brought down her reload time, taught her trickshots with bolts he’d created himself, always grinning at her reaction. He had gifted her a bracer, once, with a press of callused fingers on her forearm and a playful comment about ladies’ summer sleeves.
She knew him, though. She knew the way he ate soup, and how his breath whistled through the break in his teeth when he was lining up a shot. She knew the feeling of those callused fingers on her thigh, too, as she knew he prayed to the torch each morning.
Carter’s fingers are pressing against Lark’s throat, now, and she feels nothing. No heartbeat. No breath. Not even a residual electrical shock that could allow Carter the grace of doubt. Carter takes a breath, herself, that tastes of ash and ozone, and then she flips Lark’s body onto its side. Lark keeps his quiver on his hip, like Carter does, and Carter unstraps it from Lark’s belt before adding it to her own. His crossbow is only a few steps away, and Carter takes this too. It’s heavy in her off-hand, but it’s undamaged and the action moves smoothly.
Now run.
Carter hits the water like a pike, dropping deep below the surface. It was easy - her clothes and leathers weighing her down. She swims down even further, trying to get away from the chunks of floating, flaming debris and the lightning cracking through the sky. There’s a heavy groan - the sound of failing steel. She looks up. A sudden splash - people falling into the river, silhouettes dark and still and trailing deepest red. Then, with a wave of force Carter can already feel, one of the canons. It sinks, rapidly. Carter’s breath explodes in a burst of bubbles as she shifts, trying to move out of the way, now half swimming, half drowning. She’s slow. The weight of the cannon pulls down everything around it, and for a moment, Carter lets herself sink, letting out the last of her breath until the toe of her boot touches against the butt of the cannon. Carter pushes herself off - away from the sinking iron - and swims toward the surface.
Carter has trained for this. But she is out of breath and the muscles in her legs scream with the same tenor as her airless lungs. She twists in the water, no longer swimming, but only fighting the urge to breathe. Carter’s hand reaches up. Breaks the surface of the water. Carter tries to grab at the water itself, trying to climb, to dig herself out.
Another blast of light and sound and Carter is struck by something thick and pale, that pushes her down but floats above her. Carter feels her way along the bottom of the object, trying to find its edge but she feels only rope and sailcloth. She kicks, pushing herself into the sail, knife in her hand, stabbing and slicing at the cloth until it tears wide enough for her to swim through. Carter reaches the surface and takes a gasping breath before being pulled back under by the sail’s weight.
Carter breaks the surface again. Another breath. A mouthful of water.
And back down.
The third time, Carter can’t reach the surface. She kicks at the sail, still wrapped around her boot, drowning her. She stretches out her hand.
As her vision starts to go dark, black spots spreading along the edges, Carter thinks, vaguely, that maybe she should pray but she can’t remember which of the three is for when you’re about to die.
Then, from nowhere, a loop of rope drops into the water above Carter’s head. She grabs hold, pulling her head and shoulder through, twisting the rope around her arm. Someone pulls the rope - the sudden force freeing Carter’s foot and lifting her clear of the water. As she breaks the surface, a hand grasps hers and Carter is pulled, bodily, onto the bulkhead door, now floating free from the bulkhead itself. Carter heaves, spitting up a bellyful of river water.
There’s a laugh, and a low voice like stone on stone, “Feeling ill, Princess?”
Carter looks up. It’s Donnel. Their smith, though he was only a farrier in Galoring. Donnel was twice Carter’s size, with one massive arm wrapped around the bulkhead’s crossbar, and the other still grasping Carter’s. He’s still half in the water, as is Carter, but the bulkhead is buoyant enough to keep them both from drowning, and for that Carter is grateful.
“You’re the one looking green,” says Carter, nodding.
Donnel laughs again. He’s smeared with soot and blood and one of his ears is burned black. The only green visible now is Donnel’s hair, vibrant where it’s been lightened by the sun.
“You’re lucky,” he says, “I was going to let you drown, but I thought maybe I could ransom you.”
“Ah, your mistake. A ransom would mean they want me back.”
Donnel laughs again, but as he takes a breath it turns into a cough. Blood sprays from his mouth, along with one long, cracked eyetooth. Carter notices that around the bulkhead door the water is warm and dark. “True. And you’d make me more money if I brought you to Ithar. Set you up with a nice Prince.” Another cough. Another spray of blood.
Carter doesn’t respond immediately. Donnel clears his throat and spits into the water. His laugh is dry now. “Isn’t that how you like to end wars? All you… rich bastards who start them? A treaty and a quick fuck?”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s true though.” His grip goes slack on Carter’s arm. Beneath a layer of sweat and grime, Carter can see the skin of Donnel’s forearm. Usually a dusky hunter’s green but paler now. Fading. “You could go over there right now. Drop your name. Pay a bribe or say you were kidnapped.”
“Don’t say that,” says Carter. Donnel is losing blood, and quickly. There’s nothing she can do, regardless of the injury. They’re shipwrecked, and she’s no physician. If he’s bleeding this quickly, the most she could do was try to keep Donnel awake until someone else came.
Donnel was still talking, but his voice was starting to slur. Losing definition. “The rest of us would all be killed. But you, hah…” Donnel says something low, under his breath, then repeats himself, louder, “You make me so fucking angry, Princess.”
“What do you want me to say?” asks Carter.
“You had food. And clothes and a warm place to live and money—”
“I’m here, same as you.”
“That’s what makes me angry. You’re here because you want to be. But you could go back. We’re fighting for our lives, for our freedom and you’re…you’re just…”
Donnel’s voice slips, and Carter can see tears forming in his black eyes.
“I’m cold,” says Donnel.
“You flirt. You only want me to share body heat,” says Carter, with a gentle scoff. “I know this line.” Still she makes her way to his side of the door, the shifting of her weight barely noticeable compared to his. She slides under Donnel’s arm, putting her head against his chest. There’s nothing she can do to warm him, but she can be with him in these last few minutes.
“I don’t hate you.” Donnel’s voice is quiet and Carter can feel his breath on her ear. His chest is rising behind her, too, his heart beating, slightly quicker now. There’s a trail of bubbles that lead down to his stomach, though, and Carter’s legs kick freely in the space where Donnel’s should be.
Carter swallows. She can feel tears in her own eyes, but she blinks them away. “We should have near-death experiences more often. Make it a regular thing, so you can admit your true feelings for me.”
“True feelings? Hah. You’re the product of everything I hate,” says Donnel, but his words are no longer harsh but the gentle banter of friends. “Beneficiary of a…a…”
“A corrupt system,” Carter finishes, “I know.”
Donnel is silent. His breath is slower now, shallow.
“Tell me about my clothes,” says Carter.
“Ah,” says Donnel. He takes another breath, but it catches and he coughs. Carter feels the blood this time, across her cheek and shoulder. “Your clothes. Utterly disgusting. The amount of time and manpower to ship silks of that quality, and the…the…”
“Embroidery,” Carter prompts.
“The embroidery. Gold thread. Just excessive. And the leatherwork. You can’t call that armor when it’s a fashion piece. All those seams and rivets…and…the lacing….”
Donnel falls silent. His last breath escapes his mouth in a low sigh, and Carter can no longer feel his heartbeat against her back. Carter carefully removes the rope from around herself and lets herself slip under the water.
Swim.
Carter has locked her arm around a piece of the ship’s rail. The scrap of decking still attached sticks out of the river at a sharp angle. It’s stable though, this last piece of the Harrington. Stuck firm against something deeper in the water.
She scans the debris around her, looking for any of the others, anyone still moving, from the Harrington or her sister ships, but there’s no one. As the fog of cannon fire starts to disperse, Carter can see the only ship still afloat is the Swan vessel. The Long Winter.
It should have been easy. Most of this crew had done this sort of thing before - though without Carter - taken a Swan ship by surprise, ousted the crew and changed the colors - the gold of the Painted Swan covered over by Briarbird black. When they had discussed it, Lark had said it wasn’t worth the risk. He wanted to continue on to Ven, to their assigned mission. Carter had disagreed - it was a larger risk now, yes, but then the Long Winter would no longer be a threat to the rest of the patchwork Briarbird fleet scattered nearby. They could take care of it on the way to Ven.
At the mention of Ven, Donnel had laughed. A soft mission, he’d called it and Carter had teased him back, saying he was just jealous that he’d have to stay on the ship, that they were much more likely to find Ven’s King of Thieves if one of them looked worth stealing from. She’d lowered her eyes, coquettishly, and then looked up and grinned. This had made Poppy laugh. Mimicking Carter’s upper class accent, Poppy had taken Donnel’s massive hand and swept him along in an exaggerated series of bows and curtseys and mi’lords. Even Lark had smiled at this, his grin wide, flashing his broken teeth.
That had only been this morning. And it was over now.
From the deck of the Long Winter, a few final crossbow bolts cut through the air and into the water. Each hits something soft.
Then, slowly, the Long Winter moves downriver, and Carter loses sight of it.
Carter’s throat is suddenly dry. There were other ships further south. More Briarbirds with no knowledge of what the Long Winter could do.
She squeezes her eyes shut, picturing the bolts of lightning that had struck their ship. That had splintered the mast and torn the deck apart and left Lark dead at her side. No one could have anticipated that.
She needs to warn them. Tell them to expect witchcraft.
Carter’s body protests though. Her arm has gone numb where she’s forced it through the gap in the ship’s railing. There’s a dull pounding in her head and a ringing in her ears and as her adrenaline crashes, so does Carter, falling unconscious like a flame snuffed out.
There is no way to tell how much time has passed, but when Carter wakes, she hears cannons again. Distant, now, though.
There’s a ship.
Not the Long Winter. Smaller than that. A merchant ship, with a hold of trade goods heading to Galoring. No… not with cannons like that. A smuggling ship, then. Or pirates come to sift through the wreckage for anything worth salvaging. The ship is flying no colors at all, but there are people on the deck.
A young dark-haired man lifts a bow, nocking an arrow, training it on Carter. The tip of the arrow shifts slightly, the archer compensating for the movement of the ship and of his target. Carter closes her eyes again, waiting, but the shot doesn’t come.
Instead there’s a splash. Someone jumping from the ship. Carter can’t see the swimmer, at first - aside from the initial splash, the water is undisturbed - but then below the surface, Carter sees movement, a stream of white and palest blue.
The woman surfaces close to Carter, pushing waves of white-blond hair away from her face, revealing a warm smile and blue eyes framed with lashes as thick as they are fair. She looks for all the world like some guardian goddess of the river, the water responding to her movement like a partner in a dance.
With a voice that is gentle and faintly melodious, the woman asks if Carter can swim.
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