OoOoO

As much as she had railed against going to Blue Stone, Lhara was absolutely beside herself with anticipation. One glimpse of the sleek, three-masted caravel which would sail them up the coast, and she had all but squealed. The mountainfolk had no concept of boats and sailing. The notion of trusting a collection of canvas sheets and timbers to carry them out onto that blue-green expanse was as exciting to Lhara as the suggestion of riding a dragon.

The trip from Utunma to the inlet of the Ramida River would take three days, perhaps more with the off-shore currents. According to Reyson, the waters around the port at Syrion were rocky and treacherous at this time of year. Lhara, Jath, Reyson, and Yidu would sail up the Ramida River to Blue Stone, built as it was on the shores of Aryna Lake. Kiiss' contact would be awaiting them in the city in five days time; Kiiss had managed to get at least that one messenger bird safely through Amenthere's falconers. With the caravel – stolen by Vinie's Factionists from the Bay of Torbos – the four of them would be able to travel with reasonable hope of evading notice. An Undorian ship that far up the coastline would run the risk of being intercepted at any port north of Danitesk.

Lhara had been told all this and more about their voyage, but at the moment the only thing she was interested in was the ship. Water slapped and dipped against the hull of the StormRider, bringing to mind the snorting and pawing of an impatient ram. The Undorian crew and their captain were already aboard, making final preparations to cast off. A cargo net filled with barrels of dried fruit swung overhead, scattering stray droplets of salty water onto the heads of the group standing on the dock below.

"This ship is much bigger than the one that Vinie and Gideo left on two days ago!" Yidu jostled Lhara's shoulder companionably. "Perhaps we'll even have a bunk to ourselves in the hold?"

Bakko shook his head. "Not likely I'm afraid, girls. With trade from the capital cut off right now, Undor needs to get as many goods shipped back and forth with this trip as possible. There are still merchants in Blue Stone willing to do business with the south, so long as it's done quietly. The hold will be packed full."

"Yes, and no doubt Madame Kiiss and the Regents will be scrambling to arrange similar trade with Derbesh once they reach Moaan," said Reyson. "We'll need both goods and arms, and plenty of both. Between that and shoring up the city walls, we'll be settling in for a seige in short order."

"Cheerful thought, that," muttered Tani. Bakko patted the boy on the shoulder.

"Don't you be worryin'. With Danitesk watching out by sea now and Moaan guarding the road to Amenthere, Mahir won't be reaching this far south again any time soon."

"We'll try to get a message sent to you once we reach Blue Stone," Reyson continued, undeterred. "Once we cross over into the Night Forest, I doubt we'll be able to report again until we reach Jath's contact in Hashodi."

Jath for his part stood quietly in the shade of a nearby uru, his worn grey cloak wrapped around him and his hood up even in the heat of the rising sun. Since arriving in Utunma and leaving the cool green cover of Undor's jungles, Jath had abruptly turned a rather brutal shade of red. The southern sun baked his sea-shell pale skin mercilessly, even burning his scalp straight through his hair. So, despite the heat, he had taken to covering himself completely whenever he went out. Lhara felt sorry for Jath; she was already beginning to sweat despite having long since traded her sturdy wool clothing for the light linens and vests favoured by Undorians.

"Cast off in five minutes!" the captain, a heavyset man by the name of Dagaan called out from his place on the quarterdeck. Ropes immediately began flying up the sides of the StormRider as they were loosed from the dock.

"Better get on board!" said Bakko "Best of luck to you in Blue Stone, we'll expect you back here by the autumn equinox if all goes well."

"Stay safe, granddad."

Bakko snorted at Yidu's cheek, but waved them off with a smile. Young Zaneo and Tani stood at his side, waving as well. The boys' old yellow dog jump and barked excitedly as the caravel slid out into the harbour. Lhara, Yidu, Reyson and Jath stood at the stern rail and watched as Utunma shrank smaller and smaller behind them. Soon there was only the green of the jungle and the vast, immeasurable blue of the ocean.

"Shorten the jib," Dagaan called out to his crew. "Let's put some distance between us and the coast."

Lhara watched as men hustled this way and that, untying that rope or tying this one. A wind caught the sails and stretched them overhead, taut and towering all the way up to the crow's nest.

It was as if the StormRider were a living creature, the way it creaked and crashed through the spray. Sea birds flew overhead, and the scent of salt was everywhere. So fascinated was Lhara that she was nearly knocked to one side by a sailor hurrying by.

"Time for us to either be useful or become scarce," said Reyson. With a pointed glance at Lhara and Jath, neither of whom had any sailing experience, he began shrugging out of his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. "Where would you put another rigger to work, captain?" he called up to Dagaan.

"Ebn could use another pair of hands up in the foremast, if you know what's what."

Without any hestitation, Reyson clambered up on the rail and started climbing up the shrouds. For someone whom Lhara had come to know only as a swordsman, he moved with the speed and surety of one born to the sailor's life.

"Well, I say we make ourselves scarce then," said Yidu. "He can swing around in the sails all he likes, I'm a paying passenger."

"Agreed, I feel like we're awfully underfoot right now." Even as Lhara said as much, she had to scurry out of the way of a pair of sailors carrying heavy pulleys.

"We could always go get ourselves settled below decks?" suggested Jath.

Mindful of the fiecesome ocean sun, Lhara and Yidu were quick to agree. Unfortunately, just as Bakko had predicted, the hold was well and truly stuffed to bursting. Undorian trade goods crowded every spare inch, including all three of the passenger bunks. Moving and reorganizing things gave the three of them something useful to do, and by midday they had two bunks mostly cleared. Jath wrote a small warning sign on a piece of sackcloth to nail to the door of the third. Do not open, it read, and rightly so. Yidu had managed to stuff everything inside just so, but anyone opening the door unawares was likely to get buried beneath a stack of falling banana crates.

That accomplished, Lhara was keen to get back above deck to watch the sea and sailors. Yidu went with her, while Jath retired to what they had dubbed the 'men's bunk'. Lhara tried to beg him to come with them, but the threat of the sun kept Jath stubbornly belowdecks.

Thankfully things seemed to have settled down somewhat, now that they were safely underway. Sailors went about their work with practiced ease, and Lhara and Yidu had a clear path to forecastle deck. They followed the railing as close as they could to the bowsprit. There the wind and sea were the freshest, and Lhara couldn't help but hold her arms outstretched and grin.

"It feels almost like flying!" she exclaimed.

Yidu laughed, then held out her own arms in echo of Lhara. Tilting her dark face back to the breeze, she let out a whoop.

"Catch us now, Mahir!"

A voice from almost directly above them startled a yelp out of both Lhara and Yidu. "How about let's not go inviting the Dragonling and his Obads' interest, yas?"

Craning their necks revealed a young man dangling from the rigging of the fore sail. He was young, probably somewhere between Yidu's age and Lhara's. He wore his sun-lightened hair in thick ropes, gathered and tied up by a blue kerchief. A necklace of small white shells dangled between the open sides of his vest, and he was covered in a mural of elaborate tattoos. They spiraled up and down his arms, as well as across his chest and up his neck, where they curled around his jaw like the tentacles of a deep-sea creature.

"Oh, don't be superstitous!" Yidu dismissed the young sailor with a flip of a hand. "Even Obads can't see us all the way from Amenthere."

"No?" The sailor slid down a loosened rope to the deck in front of them. "There are many that say it was magic that helped the king escape from the very harbour we just left."

Yidu remained unimpressed. "Or maybe the wind just happened to be with him."

The sailor raised his eyebrows. "A south-west wind, blowing straight and true from the shore? At this time of year? More likely the king's sorcerers watch their master from afar, and use their magic to do his bidding. For all we know, they could be watching us right now-!"

"Halwii! Stop pestering the girls and get back up there in the rigging!" Dagaan bellowed all the way from the helm.

With a lazy salute to the captain, Halwii grinned and made what looked like a warding gesture toward Lhara and Yidu before turning and slipping back up the shrouds.

"Pffft! Long-haul sailors!" Yidu rolled her eyes. "Too many trips up and down the coast and they forget how to behave around civilized folk."

"Are we really what passes for 'civilized' though?" teased Lhara. In her borrowed clothes and frizzy plaits and tall, well-muscled Yidu with her belawa, they certainly didn't look like capital dinner guests either.

Yidu let out a pealing laugh. "Alright, I'll give you that!" Suddenly she spotted something over Lhara's shoulder and spun the mountainwoman around toward the rail. "Look! Bet you've never seen hippocampi before?"

A pod of sea-horses reclined comfortably on a nearby cluster of rocks. They shimmered blue, green, silver, and every imaginable shade in between, with one small filly even showing a flash of violet in her reedy mane. Their tales flicked lazily above the sea-foam as it crashed against the rocks. Long, elegant forelegs ending in fins curled beneath the sea-horses, and their necks unfurled in graceful arcs as they turned to watch the passing ship. Then one or two of the younger hippocampi dove into the waves, and surfaced to frolick playfully in the surf off the StormRider's bow.

Lhara nearly climbed up onto the rail in her excitement to see the sea-horses at their play. She and Yidu spent a thoroughly memorable afternoon like that; watching the creatures of sea and sky as they passed and chatting with members of the crew. Yidu taught Lhara the names for all the parts of the StormRider, and Lhara told her about the journey from Trosk to Falerik. Come sunset Lhara was thoroughly over-heated and burnt, but also flush with the thrill of adventure. For even just a little while, the company of new friends and the sights of a new world had managed to drive all worry for Tarun from Lhara's mind.

OoOoO

It was not to be an endless reprieve though. Once the sun sank completely below the horizon, Captain Dagaan released most of the crew from their duties. The First Mate, Ebn, took a turn at the helm though, and with the help of a small night crew the StormRider continued it's journey to Blue Stone. They had turned northward when the land ended, and Lhara still recalled clearly just how remote that salt-sprayed spit of rock had seemed. Even so, it was not a lifeless place; hundreds of seabirds made the southernmost tip of Goran their home and nesting grounds.

StormRider had left the hatcherings behind some hours ago. Now they sailed across the Bay of Jundril, upon which the village of Danitesk was nestled. Vinie and Gideo would have come this way, although they would have remained following the coastline until they came to Danitesk's harbour. StormRider cut straight north and a little west though, headed straight for Syrion. Dagaan hoped they would pass by the famed Syrinese cliffs around daybreak tomorrow.

For now there was only starlight and the distant lamps of Danitesk to the east. The crew gathered in the galley for a dinner of rice and fish, but by and large everyone took their food above-decks to eat under the evening sky. Jath also emerged from the men's cabin as well, and sat with Lhara and Yidu cross-legged on the deck while they ate.

"Hey, Irbu, how about a tune?" Halwii called to ship's bosun, an egg-bald fellow in charge of maintaining the StormRider and all its parts.

Irbu hummed and shook his head, mouth still filled with a spoonful of rice. A good-natured chorus of demands went up from the crew, and Lhara got the feeling that this was a game they played regularly. After about a minute of increasingly vocal wheedling, the bosun gave in.

"Fine, fine! But I won't be playing alone tonight. Say, Reyson, you or any of your people good with a song?"

Reyson was quick to deflect. "Oh no, don't look to me. I couldn't carry a tune in a barrel. How about it, girls?"

"Not even to save us from sea serpents," said Yidu without missing a beat. "You've got a nice voice though Lhara, do you sing?"

Lhara could sing; she sang all the time for the various ceremonies and events held in Trosk, Halna's Croning most recently. She also whistled and hummed little ditties to herself all day when out herding the flock in The Teeth.With so many unfamiliar eyes on her she found herself inexplicably shy.

"I...yes? I mean, mostly as one voice among many and for gatherings. I don't know if I'm actually all that good a singer though..."

It was too late though. The crew of the StormRider took up the call for a song as vehemently as they had previous pestered Irbu if not moreso. The bosun in question had already gone for his flute. Lhara recognized it as such, although it was much longer than the short pipes played the villagers of Trosk. Would she and Irbu even know any of the same tunes? Flustered, Lhara tried to backpedal.

"I can play stringed instruments, if you have any."

The sudden declaration from Jath surprised everyone, including Lhara. Since their arrival in Utunma, Jath had been quiet even for his usual. He sat straight and calm on a barrel next to Lhara, seemingly unperturbed. His eerie white gaze met Lhara's own look of surprise, and when he sent her a quick, reassuring smile she understood.

Feeling a sudden rush of gratitude, Lhara smiled back.

"Do you know 'Hands-fast'?" she asked, naming the most popular song she could think of.

To her surprise, Jath nodded. "I heard it sang at a wedding in Anset a few months back."

Irbu harrumphed. "Well, I haven't heard that one. Hum us a few bars then, girl, and we'll see what we can do." He dropped a stringed instrument with a long, ribbed neck and round body into Jath's hands. "Think you can figure that one out?"

A few plucks of the strings had Jath nodding. "Give me a minute and I should be alright."

With Jath experimenting on Irbu's lute-harp and everyone else looking expectantly at her, Lhara cleared her throat. She hummed out the opening notes and then the chorus of 'Hands-fast' as clearly as she could. Irbu had her repeat it once, then hum through an entire round. When he could echo the tune back with his long flute, he nodded, satisfied.

"Whenever you're ready then?" Irbu said to Jath. He eyed how the younger man was tinkering and adjusting strings with disapproval.

Jath looked up, first to Irbu then to Lhara. "Ready."

Keenly aware of Yidu sitting next to her, Reyson leaning against the mast, Dagaan and his crew gathered all around, Lhara took a deep, steadying breath. Then she began.

"Give me your hand, I'll give you mine,

We'll ne'er then be parted.

In this wide world, so near and far

You're all I've ever wanted.

I choose you now, I'll choose you then,

If you will do the same,

And we will build a life so dear

We'd live it all again.

For you are mine and I am yours

And we shall be as one.

To you my flock and me your home,

And us beneath the sun.

And when our children grown are gone,

And we no longer young,

I'll sit beside you at our hearth

Until our days are done.

Give me your heart, I'll give you mine,

We'll ne'er then be parted.

For you're my love, my dearest wish,

Finally to be granted."*

They made a rag-tag melody, the three of them. Lhara's voice, soft at first, grew stronger and more sure as the song went on. Jath, unfamiliar as he was with the strange instrument, kept his notes simple and few. Irbu's flute was not a natural partner to the songs of the mountainfolk, but he played it well and it seemed to work.

When they finished, everyone applauded appreciatively.

"Another!" Yidu cried.

Mercifully, Dagaan volunteered himself for the next song. The captain settled himself with a last pull from his mug to wash down dinner. Irbu meanwhile was quick to reclaim his lute from Jath, and dramatically re-adjusted it before turning to await the go-ahead from Dagaan.

"O there's a star, so far away..."

Dagaan's song was about a sailor, lost at sea and far from home, who follows the stars back to the family who feared him dead. His voice was deep and rich, as steady as the tides that carried the StormRider. Lhara found herself entranced. The crew sat similarly quiet, chins propped thoughtfully on hands and a faraway look in their eyes.

...And when we meet, I know not when,

I'll sit and sleep safe at your feet."

A memory bubbled up to the surface of Lhara's mind, as sharp and clear as if it had been only yesterday. She remembered her mother's hands, weaving gently through her hair as they sat beside the fire. She remembered her da's voice - low and easy like Dagaan's – reading aloud to Tarun and Marden from one of his beloved books.

A lump jammed in her throat, and tears sprang to her eyes. Her head swam and her heart ached. It was everything she could do not to burst into tears right then and there.

Pulling herself to her feet, Lhara staggered away from where everyone remained gathered on the deck, entranced by Dagaan's song. Vaguely she was aware of Yidu calling after her, but already scalding hot tears were escaping to race down Lhara's cheeks. She only just made it below decks to the girls' bunk before an outright sob broke from her.

Orphan. Lhara had never really thought too hard about it, never really wanted to, but that was what she was. Not yet twenty years of age, and already she was alone in the world. Both her parents were dead, as was her eldest brother and her best friend. Her remaining brother was gone, as lost to her now as if he had been whisked away to where the sea meets the sky beyond Paledir's Bay. For some reason, surrounded by people and song on the deck of the StormRider, that understanding had hit her for the first time, as cruel and hard as a landslide in The Teeth.

The sound of footsteps creaking on the ladder outside reached Lhara through her sobs. A knock came at the cabin door.

"Lhara? It's Jath."

Words escaped Lhara at that moment. Unable to form a coherent answer, instead she got up off the narrow bunk and unlatched the door. Jath stood there in the dim lantern light, and Lhara saw the tears swimming in his eyes too. She remembered what he had told her about his sister. He had never mentioned where his parents were, if he even still had any. Somehow, Lhara had a sense that they both knew exactly what one another was feeling in that moment.

With a cry, Lhara threw herself headfirst into Jath, wrapping her arms around his chest and burying her face in his shoulder. She held him for all she was worth, as if he was the only thing keeping her from being swept away by her grief. He held her to him just as tightly, and the two of them stood there like that for some time, two souls in pain and finding solace in one another.

When the crew at last began to move around above-deck, no doubt about to retire for the night, they broke apart without a word. They looked long and hard at one another, red-rimmed eyes, runny noses, sunburns, and all.

Then, slowly, Jath leaned in. Lhara realized what was coming, and let her swollen eyelids flutter shut even as she angled her head to meet him. The kiss was short, soft, a gentle press of lips together before drawing back.

Then Ebn was stumping down the ladder, with Halwii and Yidu on his heels. Jath and Lhara disappeared into their respective cabins as quickly as smoke, not even pausing to look back at one another. Lhara was about to latch the door when she realized that Yidu would need to get in. Legs shaking, she sank down onto her bunk and tried to make sense of what had just happened.

When Yidu came in, concern was written all over her young face. When she asked Lhara what was wrong though, Lhara attempted a watery smile.

"Dagaan's singing was just so good is all, it made my heart go soft," she insisted.

Yidu didn't seem completely convinced, but when it was clear that Lhara didn't want to talk about it any more, she graciously let the matter lie. The two climbed into their bunks, and little by little the noise of the crew died down outside. Soon there was only the creak of the ship around them and the wash of the waves against the hull.

Lhara lay awake long into the night, even after Yidu had fallen asleep and begun sighing softly. She stared up at the bottom of Yidu's bunk, almost invisible in the darkness of the hold. She had abandoned Tarun. She had kissed Jath. She had buried Marden and Yelaina. She had left Magda. Who even was her family anymore? Who were her friends? Was she surrounded by strangers now, in the belly of the StormRider, or the beginnings of a village? A village of her own making, sailing across the midnight black waves of the sea beneath a sky full of stars.

OoOoO

*To be sung to the tune of 'For the Dancing and the Dreaming' from 'How to Train Your Dragon'