The Broken Eye
Page 18

The foreman, Strap, had eventually used her own much more obvious namesake to shut him up.
Rowing. The pain could be catalogued, but even the catalogue was tedious. His fellows were more interesting than the chafing, the blisters, the cramps, the knots.
Fukkelot was more helpful than Orholam, and more verbal. Gavin had heard of sailors swearing constantly, but that was usually a figure of speech. Fukkelot wasn’t right in the head somehow, swearing a stream of curses without willing it, day and night.
Now he grinned at Gavin. “Battle,” he said. He grunted. His jaw and neck twitched repeatedly. “They let us know so we use our strength when we need to.” Then he went back to whispering curses, as if it were a relief.
“Do they unchain us?” Gavin asked, rowing, rowing. “You know, in case we sink?” He was joking. Mostly.
“Win or die,” Strap shouted.
“Row to hell!” the slaves shouted in response.
“Scratch the back of Shadow Jack!” she shouted.
“Row to hell!”
“Row right back!” she shouted.
They pulled faster, in tempo with the drums.
“Pull!” she shouted in time with their pulling.
“To hell and back!”
“Pull!”
In less than a minute, they were flying across the waves. The foreman ducked upstairs. She came back. “We’ve closed to a league. Wind’s bad. Twenty minutes, if they never stop running.” She chortled. “Three, Four, Five, if you don’t get that oar fully stowed before the crunch this time, it’s five stripes each.”
“You gotta give us enough warning,” Three complained.
Gavin expected him to get the strap for that, but the foreman was in a good mood.
“Kind of ship is she?” Three asked.
“Abornean galley.”
Murmurs. Bad news. “How loaded?” someone asked.
“Sitting high.”
Curses. If their captain were competent, the chase would all come down to which slaves were in better condition—or could be motivated more. The motivation came by whip, mostly. Sitting high in the water meant it would be faster than usual and that it didn’t have a full cargo to plunder if they did catch her. It was the worst of all worlds for a crew.
“Little fishies, you ready to swim?” Strap shouted out.
“Straight to hell, straight back again!” they shouted, but there was clearly less excitement in their tone.
“Pull!” she shouted. At some signal, the drummers increased the tempo.
Gavin strained against his oar. At each sweep, the rowers stood up as they pulled, sat on the backsweep and did it again. This Angari ship had added a wrinkle that one of the men who’d been a galley slave on a Ruthgari ship before said was unheard of on the Cerulean Sea—a footboard at an incline that allowed the slaves to more easily put the full strength of their legs into the sweep. Made it easier, he said. Made them faster, Gavin thought.
“They’re runners!” Strap shouted gleefully. “Let’s see if they can race us, boys!”
They maintained their speed.
Two minutes later, she came down again. “We’re gaining on ’em. No way they can lose us!”
A small cheer ran through the slaves.
“Uh, uh, two, uh measures of, uh, strong wine for the first, uh, six benches tonight!” Fukkelot said. He cursed twelve times, loudly, as if he’d been holding back the tide simply to get a full sentence out. “Or death!” He laughed.
Only for the first six benches—so the men farther back would have a reason to behave well and hope they got promoted. It was just one among many Angari traditions Gunner had kept after taking the ship and its crew. They had all sorts of ways to motivate their slaves. Gavin wondered if the Angari were more decent, more clever, or just slave-poor.
Karris, I labor among madmen and murderers.
Not so different from back home, then? she asked in his mind’s eye.
How he loved her.
Karris, could you spell me for a bit on the oar?
Wish I could, love.
He saw her face twist with pity, and it cut through him. What was he now? Dirty, sweaty, stinking, bearded, hair shorn short, serving slavers. He blinked it away. Focused on his oar.
Strap said, “Leonus, water. Don’t need anyone passing out in the stretch.”
Leonus was a twisted-back, perpetually sneering sailor with the dark black skin of an Ilytian, though he had nothing of their accent. He shaved his wiry hair at the sides of his head and let it grow in a knotted crown above. He thought the slaves hated him for his deformity, and he took it out on them at every opportunity, giving them plenty of real reasons to hate him. He moved among them with a cup on a long handle. The task actually took considerable dexterity—giving water to a man who’s constantly standing, sitting, moving moving moving, with a long oar and numerous arms intermittently in the way. Leonus took every advantage when he thought the foreman wasn’t looking to swing the cup into slaves’ faces, smashing lips and breaking teeth from time to time. They were so desperate for water, though, that they took it rather than turn away. Leonus was the kind of scum that enjoyed that most of all.
Back in Gavin’s past life, one of the biggest burdens of leadership had been finding and removing such men from every command. Any short-term results they got from the fear their men held them in was ultimately spoiled by how they ruined morale and stopped men from taking initiative.
Gavin heard the crack of a whip, and heard Leonus cry out behind him. Strap shouted, “Don’t fuck with them, Leonus! You keep my boys from rowing, and I’ll wipe your ass with hull barnacles. You hear me?”
Even Orholam grinned at that, though when Leonus made it to their bench, each slave kept his face carefully composed. Strap was as wide as the sea, foul as a latrine, and had more tattoos than any four other sailors combined, and Leonus rightly feared her. The malformed man gave them each water quietly, hatefully.
At their increased pace, the slaves sweated freely, and the always hot, always humid cabin got hotter and wetter. One slave cried out with a muscle cramp in his leg and went down. His oarmates struggled to maintain the pace without him.
In an instant, Strap was on top of him, beating him mercilessly with the whip. After six or eight strokes, she unlocked the slave’s manacles and bodily hurled the man back down the aisle. Number Two was hustled into place.
The foreman looked pleased that they hadn’t slowed their pace. She walked up and down the aisle, checking the men for signs of exhaustion, then walked to the back. Gavin heard the slave’s cries and the snapping of leather, the thudding of fists and feet on flesh. It was insanity to beat a man for what he couldn’t control—and for a few long strokes of the oars, Gavin wondered why the otherwise sensible woman would do it.
Ah, preventative brutality. Beat the man who can’t help his cramp so that others don’t fake a cramp to get a rest.
Unjust, but probably effective. Gavin wasn’t sure if he admired or hated Strap more for it.
The door to the main deck two flights up cracked open, letting midday light down the sweat-slick stairs. The foreman went up the steps, and Leonus took her place at the bottom to repeat any orders she might shout.
“One hundred paces! Ain’t turning!” the foreman shouted.
“One hundred paces!” Leonus shouted. “Drummers, places!”