Unbesmirched
A standalone fragment from the Southsong Cycle (fourth epoch)
“Well, cousin, what say you? Are you laying down arms, or no?” Waveborne speech, but cold and clipped like a north wind, floated to Mohla from the other side of the bulwark where she and her warriors squatted. Sand and piled stones reinforced the slowly rotting hull of a ten-oar, like those that formed the other three walls of the fort.
Calling it a fort is generous. This makeshift refuge would not hold back the Nordling armada.
“The Southron Shore is ours!” the enemy thaen called out. “There is no glory to be found dying on this worthless rock.”
Frigid little isle. So far from home.
Mohla looked upon the men and women of her bare bones crew. Theirs were Elder World faces, in all the shades of the earth. Bleached tunics and cropped hair marked them as free folk. Flesh and clothing unbesmirched by battle, excepting Crone. Even the old-timer boasted too few tattoos for her forty years. But at least she meets my gaze.
“Is it true? Has the whole coast fallen?” young Minnow asked.
“What does it matter?” Crone retorted.
Mohla stood. “Help will not come,” she said flatly. The faces around her tightened. “But Crone has the right of it. Help or no, victory or no, death or no, does not change our heading.”
She grimaced. “You have never seen the mother isles, I know. Yet your blades and shields belong to the eternal empress, as surely as any warrior born across the sea. Like southern squalls, you cannot be tamed. Like the leviathan, you do not yield.”
Every pair of eyes now met hers.
“Come on out, or we shall invite ourselves in!” The Nordling’s warning was tinged with frost.
Mohla unslung her shield, turned, and leapt onto the ship-wall. She scanned the beach full of bronze- and steel- masked faces. Scores of northern Waveborne waited in knots of fur cloaks and round shields. And those confounded spear-slings.Beyond, the water was bright blue.
Before Mohla could answer their foe’s challenge, Minnow sprang to her side and yelled, “Come and get us, flotsam! Our tunics are too clean, anyway. We require your Waveborne blood, to claim our seats on the ship of the undying!”
Mohla chortled. The rest of the crew broke into laughter in her wake. “Well said. Naught like a holy bloodbath before midday, is there? Best ready your shields.” Empress willing, we will be oar-mates again soon.