Free Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1) by Craig Schaefer Page B

hand.
    “Here. While I push down, tighten that brace as far as you can. The wood’s wet, makes it hard to get a grip.”
    The first mate put his body weight against the brace while Felix pulled hard on the wrench, hauling against the bolt until his arms ached.
    “Lots of ice in the water,” Felix said. “You don’t look worried.”
    “Because I’m not. We’ve carved our way through fields of ice thicker than a landslide. This time of year, not likely we’ll need to. It’s only autumn, too early for the nasty stuff.”
    “But we could still hit those floes.”
    Anakoni chuckled and shook his head.
    “This is the
Fairwind Muse
, brother. She’s built for cold weather, and reinforced against a head-on hit. She also has a false keel and bands of iron at the waterline to save us from nipping.”
    Felix gave the bolt another tug. “Nipping?”
    “Nipping’s the real danger. That’s when two big fields of ice squeeze against a ship from both sides at once. The pressure could crush a lesser ship like an eggshell. Not the
Muse
, though. Her hull’s rounded and shaped for leverage.”
    The first mate held out his hand lengthwise, demonstrating as he explained. “A nip would squeeze our hull and push us up and over, see? Instead of being crushed, we ride the ice and shove it down beneath us. Worst case then is that we capsize, but that hasn’t happened yet. Never will, so long as Captain Iona’s at the helm.”
    “So what are the harpoons for? Whaling for meat?”
    Anakoni patted the gun, running his palm along the frost-slicked iron curves of its firing tube.
    “No,” he said, “they’re in case the Elder comes.”
    “Who’s the Elder?” Felix said.
    Anakoni grinned, flashing dirty teeth. “Not who.
What
. The Elder’s haunted these waters for a hundred years or more, never far from the Reach. One trip in ten, it’ll come sniffing our way. We load up a skiff with whatever meat we’ve got left in the ship’s stores and set it adrift. It’ll take our offering, but we’ve got the guns just in case. Don’t think we could actually
hurt
it, but it’ll take a free load of meat over getting stung by a harpoon.”
    Felix handed him the wrench. “But what
is
it? A shark or something?”
    “Our god Ochali, he’s a storyteller. Long before man set foot on our islands, he told the stories of birds, and trees, and fish, and they came into being. Well, one day, Old Man Ochali took a nap while he was supposed to be working. Ribeda the Trickster planted a nasty dream in his head and walked away laughing. When Ochali woke up, he found out all of his nightmares had climbed right out of his head, scattering to the four winds, hiding in the dark spaces so he couldn’t snatch them back up again. There’s no place in the world that’s darker than the bottom of the ocean.”
    “So the Elder is a god’s nightmare.” Felix arched an eyebrow. “Is that a metaphor or something? I’m trying to understand.”
    Anakoni spit over the ship’s rail. “You don’t want to understand. But if the waves start to boil, and you hear the Elder scream…you’ll understand plenty.”
    Kimo slogged past, dragging a huge coil of rope wound over one bent shoulder. He paused to catch his breath and leaned on the rail.
    “Believe that,” Kimo said. “First time I heard it, I thought the Tallyman had come for me.”
    “Tallyman?” Felix said. “That’s another one of your gods, right? I read something once—”
    Both sailors burst out laughing. “He
read
something,” Anakoni snorted.
    “We tell our stories like Ochali does,” Kimo said, “mouth to ear. It’s the mainlanders who think they can lock everything up in ink and paper. Here, I’ll give you this one for free. When it’s your time to die, the Tallyman comes. He always takes the form of whatever you fear most. So when he whispers your name, looming before you, turning your piss to ice and stopping your heart dead, remember this and remember it good: you stand