Chapter 4: The Mad Hermit
The morning after the storm dawned bright and still, the sky scrubbed clean to a delicate, watery blue. The Sea-Nymph's Revenge rose and fell on a long, gentle swell, her rigging singing a soft, drowsy tune in the light breeze. But the green shoulder of the Durkan coast had vanished from the horizon. Nothing but grey-blue water met the eye in every direction.
In the captain's cabin, the charts spread across Nell's table were spotted with dried salt, the ink on some of them smudged by damp. Captain Nell stood with her hands braced on the map's edges, her long white braid hanging over one shoulder, her brow furrowed. Ulrika Grimquim, Durkan Governor of the cental provinces, leaned in from the other side, a brass calculating instrument in one immaculate ebon-dark hand. And Brutehilde filled the rest of the cabin with sheer bulk, her iron-balled plaits clinking as she shook her head in disbelief.
"Well?" Brutehilde demanded. "How far are we off course, then?"
Ulrika squinted at the compass rose and ran a precise finger along a pencil line. "Far enough that the coastline's a stranger to us. The storm took us north-west, hard. We're in the Spire Waters now, or close to them. There's not a chart aboard that maps them properly. Nor would you find such a chart in the naval headquarters at the capital, I'd warrant."
Nell traced a route with her finger. "But we're not lost. The stars were clear for a few hours before dawn; I marked our position then. We can make our way back by continuing west and bearing south, and regain our proper course within a week or so. We won't even be delayed more than a day if we correct our course obliquely instead of trying to retrace it. The trouble is the path it takes us."
Brutehilde leaned over, squashing her bosom against the table edge. "Trouble? What kind of trouble? Rocks?"
"Rocks," Nell said. "Uncharted islands. Currents that run contrary to every sane law of the sea. And a reputation. In every port where sailors gather, they speak of these waters in low voices. Ships go in. They don't always come out."
Ulrika sniffed. "A lot of it's superstitious twaddle, begging your pardon, Captain. But there are many mysteries in the sea. We can only hope they won't show an undue interest in us."
Brutehilde's thick arms crossed. "Lost amid who knows what. This voyage just keeps getting better."
Nell's lips quirked. "We'll hold our course through the Spire Waters. There's no other way to regain our route within the month. I'll not have us late to your capital, Brutehilde, not after the storms we've weathered."
The consultation broke up with Brutehilde's heavy clogs thumping on the deck as she left to bellow at the crew, and Ulrika returning below decks.
Ulrika descended the companionway to the passenger deck, her gown whispering against the wooden steps. The ship was still quiet, most of the passengers resting after the storm. Then she saw him, shambling along the corridor with a half-eaten ship's biscuit in one hand.
Scoffer stopped when he saw her. His eyes wandered up and down her form with the entitled arrogance of a man who believed all women existed to admire him. Ulrika fixed him with a look that could have curdled milk at fifty paces.
"Orc," she said. "Come with me."
She didn't wait for an answer, turning and pushing open the door to her VIP cabin. Inside, the small space was immaculate, a narrow bunk with grey blankets tucked tight, a writing desk bolted to the bulkhead, a full-length mirror in a brass frame.
Scoffer hovered in the doorway, brow furrowed. "You want me to follow you in here? For what, then? Because I'll have you know, I ain't cheap. I'm a divine being, a gift to womankind. If you want a taste, you'll have to worship properly."
Ulrika turned, hands on her hips. The motion did something fascinating to the chain mesh dress she wore, a fine drape of interlinked silver rings over a dark underdress that barely covered her thighs. "Your delusions are noted. Close the door, and then come here."
He hesitated, but curiosity, and the promise of a noblewoman alone in her cabin, won out. The door clicked shut behind him.
"I am the Durkan Governor for the central provinces," Ulrika said, her voice cool and measured. "I carry the weight of administration, of diplomacy, of constant negotiation. And I find that a disciplined body is required to remain poised and alert."
"Right," Scoffer said. "And?"
"And I have not been properly spanked in nearly three days." Her voice hitched, just slightly. "I am beginning to feel anxious. Unsettled. My body requires the firm correction of a strong hand, and yours is the most conveniently available."
Scoffer blinked. His mind had been called many things, but subtle was not one of them. He worked through it slowly. "You want me to spank you. But you're in charge?"
"Precisely."
"See, that don't make sense. If I'm spanking you, I'm the one in charge of the spanking. And if you're in charge, then I'm being obedient. But you said spanking you means I deserve punishment, which means you're punishing me. But I'm the one doing the punishing..." He shook his head like a dog coming out of water. "I'm getting a headache."
Ulrika sighed, but she'd expected no better. "You'll only learn if you participate. The lesson is in the experience. Now, I will tell you how hard. I will tell you when to stop. And you will obey. Understood?"
"Understood," Scoffer said, still looking like a man who'd been handed a puzzle box with no opening.
Ulrika turned and braced her hands against the edge of her writing desk, presenting her rear to him. The chain mesh dress rode up as she bent forward, revealing the dark underdress beneath, and then, as she reached back and lifted the hem herself, her buttocks. They were smooth, gleaming jet black, two perfect dark moons in the dim cabin light, unmarked by any tan or blemish. Her skin had the faint sheen of polished obsidian.
Scoffer made a low, appreciative noise in the back of his throat.
"Hard," Ulrika commanded. "Punish me. I have been lax, unfocused, distracted by the storm and its winds. I require correction."
He stepped closer, his clown shoe and one bare foot shuffling heavily on the deck boards. He was an orc of generous proportions, and his hand when he raised it was roughly the size of a ham. He brought it down on her left buttock with a solid SMACK that echoed off the cabin walls.
Ulrika gasped, arching her back. "Again."
SMACK. The right cheek now, and her whole body jolted forward against the desk.
"Harder, you pitiful excuse for a spanking instrument. I said punish me, not pat me like a delicate flower."
Scoffer frowned. Being called pitiful scratched at his divine self-image. He wound up and delivered a truly colossal smack, the kind of blow that would have felled a small tree. Ulrika cried out, a sound that was equal parts shock and pure ecstasy. A flush of dark rose spread up from her collar, suffusing her chest and throat.
"That's it," she breathed. "That's how a Governor should be disciplined. Mistress of a million souls, brought low by a strong arm."
He spanked her again. And again. His rhythm built, the smacks landing alternating cheeks with mounting enthusiasm. The noise filled the cabin, a wet slapping sound that grew slicker with each blow. Scoffer's hand came away glistening, and he realized with a jolt that Ulrika's thighs were slick with moisture. Her pussy was dripping, a steady wetness running down her inner thighs, soaking the desk beneath her.
He lifted his hand and saw the sheen of her juices on his palm. "Well, that's something, ain't it."
"Don't stop," Ulrika gasped. "Don't you dare stop, Orc. Not until I say."
The wetness changed the sound of his punishing slaps. Each blow now landed with a sharp, liquid SMACK, the sound of his hand colliding with her slick, heated flesh. Ulrika's moans grew louder, unguarded, her body shuddering with each impact. Her buttocks were turning a deep, bruise-like maroon where his hand had hammered her, and her juices were now flowing freely enough to run down her legs and puddle on the deck.
"Feel it," she moaned. "Feel the power. You've broken me, now. I'm dew, I'm spray, I'm the foam on the wave after the storm."
Scoffer was grinning now, his delusions of divinity thoroughly reasserting themselves. This was worship, wasn't it? A noblewoman bent over her desk, her glorious arse scarlet under his hand, singing his praises in a language that was mostly screams. He spanked harder, lost in the rhythm of it.
Her whole body went rigid. A high, keening cry escaped her throat, and her hips bucked forward against the desk. Her sex convulsed, squirting a hot gush of clear fluid that splashed over the desk's edge and down her thighs, wetting his hand again and making the next smack shockingly loud. She came with a cry that was part agony, part rapture, her legs trembling beneath her.
For a moment, she hung there, panting, her knuckles white on the desk's edge. Then she slowly straightened, wincing as she rose, her hands going back to smooth her dress down over her flaming buttocks. When she turned to face him, her composure was back in place, though her cheeks were flushed and her eyes still glazed with ecstasy.
"Acceptable," she said. "You'll do. I'll call on you if my discipline lapses again."
Scoffer, still admiring his work, opened his mouth to argue that he should be paid for his services, perhaps in coin or worship. Ulrika held up a finger, and the sheer force of her authority silenced him mid-breath.
"Now get out," she said. "I need to attend to my own hygiene before I meet the captain again."
He left, and the door shut behind him with a firm click. Ulrika sank onto the edge of her bunk, trembling, a slow smile spreading across her face as the ship rose and fell on the long, gentle swell.
Scathach leaned back against the galley's wooden bench, her scarred hands wrapped around a clay mug of Greta's inexplicably grey tea. The great crewwoman cut an imposing figure even at rest, a wall of muscle and road maps of old wounds, her face a patchwork of healed cuts that somehow made her grin more disarming rather than less. Across from her, Polly Panzerfaust and Tulip Pudenda sat close together on a shared bench, Tanna beside them with her own mug, the three of them listening with the wide-eyed absorption of children at a grandmother's knee.
"Aye, so there I was," Scathach said, her voice a low rumble that vibrated through the deck boards. "Fifty feet down, grappling with a kraken that had decided my leg was a snack. The beast had a tentacle wrapped around me tighter than a sailor's knot, and my blade was still in its sheath because I'd been foolish enough to dive with it strapped across my back."
"What did you do?" Tulip asked, her hand unconsciously resting on her swollen belly.
"What any sensible person would do. I bit it." Scathach grinned, showing a row of teeth that had been filed to points, probably not for aesthetic reasons. "Reached round, sank my teeth into the tentacle, and bit down hard. The thing let go, I got my blade out, and I carved myself a nice little souvenir." She pulled a thin, rubbery strip of leathery flesh from her pouch, letting it uncoil briefly before stuffing it back. "Still got it. Smells awful, but it's a conversation piece."
Polly laughed, a deep, warm sound. "You're a marvel, Scathach. We should have you telling stories every night."
"Oi, I wouldn't want t' monopolize the entertainment. I hear the dark elf's poems are a real hoot." She took another gulp of tea, then went still, her nostrils flaring.
The galley door swung open. Scoffer wandered through, looking pleased with himself in the way only a man who'd just had a noblewoman's arse turn purple could. He was absent-mindedly sniffing his fingers and licking them, a blissful expression on his broad face. And beneath his posing pouch, which did very little posing and even less covering, his cock stood at attention, thick and proud and unabashedly eager.
"Aye," Scathach said softly, her eyes tracking him. "Now there's a fine piece of work."
She rose from the bench with a motion that made the deck plates groan. Her voice dropped to a growl, low and hungry. "Ladies, if you'll pardon me. I've a sudden appetite that ain't for Greta's tea."
She followed him out of the galley without another word, her boots heavy on the steps.
Scoffer, oblivious as ever, continued down the corridor toward the forward hold, still licking his fingers. He heard the footsteps behind him and turned, his brow furrowing. "Eh? You following me, scarred one? Got a complaint about my spanking technique too?"
"No complaint." Scathach stepped closer, and she towered over him, huge though Scoffer was. Her presence was oppressive, a wall of scarred flesh and heavy muscle and what felt like three decades of violence barely restrained. "But I got a question for you, Orc."
"What's that, then?"
"I want to know whether that cock's as good as it smells." She reached out and grabbed him by the front of his posing pouch, lifting him an inch off the deck with casual ease. "Because I've been at sea a long time, and I've a mighty hunger that tea and biscuits ain't gonna satisfy."
Scoffer's eyes went wide, then gleeful. "Well now. I seem to recall tellin' a lady not half an hour ago that I'm a divine being. But I suspect you don't need much convincing."
"Not a bit of it." Scathach threw him over her shoulder like a sack of grain. He yelped, then let out a delighted laugh as she carried him to the crew quarters, kicked open the door, and tossed him onto a hammock that groaned dangerously under his weight.
"Comfortable?" she asked, unbuckling her belt.
"Gettin' there." Scoffer grinned up at her, admiring the view. "You ever done it with a divine being before?"
"Can't say I have." She pulled off her shirt, revealing a torso that was more scar tissue than skin, a topography of old battles that made her look like a living relief map. Her breasts were heavy, scarred, beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with softness. "And I've never found religion. You're about to change that, or I'm going to be very disappointed."
She straddled him, settling her weight onto his hips, and Scoffer made a sound that was half groan, half prayer. She reached down and pulled the posing pouch aside, freeing his cock fully. It sprang up, thick and veined and glistening with a bead of pre-cum.
"Now then," Scathach said, wrapping her scarred fingers around its base. "Let's see if you live up to the promise."
She lowered herself onto him in one smooth motion, and Scoffer's back arched off the hammock. Her cunt was hot and slick and tight, gripping him like a fist. She rode him hard, her hips slamming down with the same force she'd used to punch pirate faces, and the hammock swung violently with each impact.
"Oh, fuck," Scoffer gasped. "Oh, you're a beast. You're a fucking beast and I love it!"
"Quiet, or I'll gag you." She leaned forward, her scarred chest pressing against his, her mouth finding his throat. She bit down, not hard enough to break skin but hard enough to leave a mark, and Scoffer let out a whimper that was equal parts pain and pleasure.
He grabbed her hips, trying to take control, but she slapped his hands away with a snarl. "I said I'm riding. You just lie there and enjoy being the best goddamn saddle I've ever sat in."
She rode him like she was trying to break him, her thighs slapping against his hips with a wet, rhythmic sound that filled the tiny cabin. Scoffer's head fell back, his eyes rolling, his hands gripping the hammock's ropes so hard his knuckles went white. She was relentless, a marauder of the flesh, each thrust driving him deeper into the mattress of canvas and rope.
"Fuck," he managed, "I'm gonna cum. I'm gonna cum, you're gonna drown me, you're-"
"Not yet," Scathach growled, and she slowed to a grinding, torturous rhythm that made Scoffer's toes curl inside his clown shoe. "I ain't done with you. I want you to last until I've had my fill."
She leaned back, one hand braced on his chest, and reached down to rub her clit with her thumb. Her hips worked in slow, deliberate circles, grinding his cock against the deepest part of her. The shuddering in her thighs told him she was close, and he clenched his own muscles, desperate to hold off.
"Now," she breathed, and her body convulsed around him, a wave of heat and tightness that milked him so hard he saw stars. She came with a guttural cry, her sex clenching rhythmically, and Scoffer's control shattered. He bucked up into her, burying himself to the hilt, and came with a roar that echoed off the cabin walls.
She collapsed onto him, both of them slick with sweat and the smell of sex in the air. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Scathach lifted her head, a grin splitting her scarred face.
"Not bad," she said. "For a divine being, you're passable."
"Passable?" Scoffer barked a laugh. "That was the best ride I've had since I left port. You're a goddess, woman."
"I know." She rolled off him, lying on her back beside the hammock, staring at the ceiling. "But don't go spreading it around. I got a reputation to maintain."
Scoffer propped himself up on an elbow. "What, as a fearsome sailor who brings down gods with her thighs?"
"Somethin' like that." She looked at him, her eyes half-lidded. "Now get out. I need a nap."
Scoffer scrambled to his feet, straightening his posing pouch with a grin. "Best day of my life," he declared, and left the cabin whistling.
Scathach closed her eyes, a slow smile spreading across her scarred face as the ship rose and fell on the gentle swell.
Two days passed in a slow, sun-drenched crawl. The Sea-Nymph's Revenge made steady progress south-west, her sails fat with a kindly breeze, the blue of the sky deepening each day as they left the storm-carved chaos behind. Passengers dozed on deck. Greta boiled something that may once have been a chicken, and the smell drifted aft with the consistency of a wet blanket. Brutehilde bellowed occasional orders at no one in particular, mostly to remind the crew she existed. Dravion composed a poem about the beauty of the horizon, which Scoffer threatened to use as kindling.
On the morning of the third day, Honeymuff came fluttering down from the crow's nest like a drunken butterfly on a mission. She landed on Nell's shoulder, panting, her wings a blur of iridescent colour.
"Captain!" she gasped. "Rock ahead!"
Nell looked up from the wheel. "An island?"
"No! Too small. Tiny little rock, no bigger than my auntie's kitchen table. There's a hut on it, smaller than a doghouse, and a pole sticking up out of it, real tall, and there's a man sitting on top of the pole."
Nell blinked. "A man. On top of a pole."
"Skinny old man," Honeymuff said. "Beard so long it nearly touches the ground. He's waving at us."
By the time she'd finished, half the passengers had clustered at the rail, craning to see. And there it was, a dark speck on the gleaming water, growing slowly as they approached. It was a spit of rock no more than eight feet across, encrusted with barnacles and gull shit, a meagre dome of stone rising above the waves. On it sat a hut made of driftwood and tarred canvas, so low and small a grown man could not have stood upright inside it. From the hut's centre, a tall pole of weathered wood thrust up into the sky, and perched atop it, cross-legged with an astonishing regard for his own balance, sat a tiny old man.
He was as skinny as a rope, wrapped in rags that the wind whipped around him. His beard, grey and wispy as spider silk, hung down from his chin a full sixteen feet, trailing past the pole and almost brushing the roof of the hut below.
"Drop anchor!" Nell ordered. "We'll take a boat across."
Brutehilde shouldered her way to the rail, squinting. "That old coot's been sitting there waiting for us, hasn't he?"
"Or for anyone," Tanna said. "He couldn't have known we were coming."
"A man who lives on a rock that small," Ulrika said dryly, appearing at Brutehilde's elbow, "has either found enlightenment or lost his mind. Possibly both."
They launched the rowboat with a minimum of chaos, which for this crew was a triumph of seamanship. Nell took the tiller. Brutehilde sat amidships with her arms crossed, her bulk causing the little boat to sit noticeably lower in the water. Honeymuff perched on the gunwale, and Ulrika, who had insisted on coming, arranged herself in the bow with the care of a woman who did not intend to get seasick and failed to.
Scoffer had demanded to come too. He was told no. He had gone to pout in the galley.
The rowboat bumped against the rock, and they clambered out onto the slick, barnacle-crusted stone. Up close, the hut was even more absurd, a squat, toadstool-shaped construction patched with old sailcloth and sealed with tar. The pole rose from a hole in its roof, and the old man looked down at them with rheumy eyes, his beard swaying in the breeze.
"Hoy," he said. His voice was a reedy, grating croak. "Brought me company, have ye? Terrible pity. I was enjoying the quiet."
"We're travellers," Nell said, shading her eyes. "Driven off course by a storm. We mean no harm. We'd be grateful for any knowledge of these waters."
"Grateful," the old man repeated, as if tasting the word. "Grateful's a thing people say when they want something. What ye want, I expect, is to know where the dangerous places are. And what lurks in them."
"We'd appreciate that, yes," Ulrika said.
The old man cackled, a sound like gravel in a sieve. "Right then. The straits ahead, they're full of whirlpools that'll swallow a ship whole. There's a serpent that's eaten three vessels in the last fortnight, and it's got a taste for sailors now. And there's an island where the womenfolk will fuck ye senseless and then eat yer liver with a bit of salt." He paused. "The liver's the bad part."
Brutehilde frowned. "Which island is that? Asking for a friend."
The old man cackled again, his beard whipping around his face. "Ye've a rare cargo aboard, I see. I've been sat here forty years, watching ships come and go. They all ask the same questions, and they all ignore my answers, and they all sink." He leaned forward, his skinny arms wrapped around the pole. "But there's one thing I'll tell ye for free, since ye've brightened my morning with yer daft faces. Follow the gulls. When the gulls stop, turn west. When the gulls return, turn south. And don't trust anything that sings."
"Anything that sings?" Honeymuff said.
"Ye'll know it when ye hear it. Probably after it's got its teeth in ye." The old man settled back, closing his eyes. "Now bugger off. I've a kink in me arse from sitting here, and I'd like to stretch me legs."
Brutehilde looked at Nell. "Is that it? That's the great wisdom of the pole-dweller?"
"Forty years of watching ships sink," Ulrika said. "And his advice is 'follow the gulls'. I've had more useful directions from a drunk in a gutter."
"Follow the gulls," the old man repeated, without opening his eyes. "Turn west when they stop, south when they come back. And don't trust anything that sings. That's all ye need. Now go, before I decide to be insulting about yer mother's cooking."
Ulrika took a step closer to the rock's edge, her gown catching the spray. She looked up at the ancient creature perched above them, her expression caught between bureaucratic precision and genuine curiosity. "One thing before we go. You've been sitting up there for forty years, you say. What exactly do you eat?"
The old man's eyes creaked open, rheumy and amused. "Gulls," he said.
He opened his mouth and let out a belch that rolled across the water like distant thunder. A score of white feathers burst from his lips, drifting down on the breeze like a small, filthy snowstorm. They settled on the rock, on the rowboat, and one landed directly on Brutehilde's nose. She plucked it off with enormous dignity and flicked it into the sea.
Nell had been studying the old man's beard with growing distaste. Now she leaned in, squinting at the grey mass that hung from his chin like a rotting curtain. Even from the ground, she could see that it wasn't just dirty. It was matted, clumped, crusted with something that made the hairs stick together in stiff, yellowish ropes. "That beard of yours. It's horribly matted. Do you perhaps dribble a great deal when you eat?"
"Eh?" The old man blinked down at her, following her gaze. "Oh. No. That ain't drool."
"Then what is it, pray tell?"
The old man's face split into a gap-toothed grin. "Cum."
Silence fell on the little rock. Even the gulls seemed to pause in their crying.
"Beg pardon?" Ulrika said.
"Cum," the old man repeated, as if explaining something to a child. "Jizz. Spunk. Ropes of the good stuff. When you're sitting up a pole twenty-four hours a day for forty years, masturbation becomes a full-time hobby. There ain't much else to do up here, unless ye fancy counting waves. So I wank, and I wank, and I wank, and the beard catches the spray like a fine fishing net." He stroked a clump of it affectionately. "It's got a decent grip after all these years. Doesn't let anything go once it's in."
Honeymuff let out a delighted giggle, fluttering a little higher to get a better look at the beard. "That's disgusting! I love it!"
Brutehilde was already back in the rowboat, her expression a study in grim determination. "Right. We're leaving."
"Sensible choice," the old man said, nodding. "Wouldn't want to end up in the straits with that serpent. It's got a right nasty temper." He watched them scramble into the boat with a disappointed air, his rheumy eyes tracking their movements. As they shoved off, he sighed, a long, mournful sound that carried across the water.
"Forty years I've sat here. Forty years, and not a single one of ye ever offers to help me down." He shook his head, his beard swinging heavily. "No one ever does. They all come, they all ask their questions, they all leave. And I stay up here, wanking away the years."
The rowboat was pulling away smartly, Nell's arms working the oars with a rhythm that bordered on frantic.
"Not that I mind," the old man called after them. "I've got a rhythm going that'd put a drummer to shame. And the gulls, well, they're not much for conversation, but they're a captive audience, if ye take my meaning."
He watched them row, his face settling into a resigned expression. Then, with a casualness that was almost insulting, he reached down into the folds of his rags and began to pump his wrist. His voice drifted across the water, thin and reedy.
"Follow the gulls! And don't trust anything that sings! And if ye see my left testicle, do tell it I'm sorry for the names I called it!"
Ulrika kept her gaze fixed on the ship, her jaw tight. "I've made many terrible decisions in my life. Coming to this rock was one of them."
"Think of the story," Honeymuff chirped, perched on the gunwale. "No one's going to believe us."
"We're not telling anyone," Brutehilde said flatly.
They reached the Sea-Nymph's Revenge and scrambled up the rope ladder with a speed that surprised everyone, including themselves. By the time they'd gathered on deck, the old man was still visible, a tiny dot on his pole against the vast grey sky. His arm was moving with a steady, mechanical rhythm.
"That," Tulip said, having observed it all from the deck, "is the most horrifying thing I've seen in a life of horrifying things."
"He knew where the dangerous waters are," Nell said, shaking her head. "That's something, at least."
"And he knew what a man gets up to, alone on a pole," Scoffer added, wandering over with a ship's biscuit. "Which, I've got to admit, is a decent life if ye can find the post for it."
Brutehilde silenced him with a look that could have stripped paint. The Sea-Nymph's Revenge weighed anchor and sailed on, leaving the old man to his solitary rhythm on the lonely rock, his beard gleaming whitely in the sun like a monument to forty years of stubborn, unbroken self-pleasure.
The Sea-Nymph's Revenge leaned into a stiff south-westerly breeze the next morning, her sails cracked and full, white foam peeling back from her bow. The sky was clear, the air sharp with salt, and the waters ahead stretched empty to the horizon, an endless grey-blue expanse unbroken by rock or reef or island. It was the sort of morning that made a sailor feel invincible, and Captain Nell felt nothing of the sort.
She stood at the head of her cabin table, a fresh chart unrolled before her. Ulrika sat to her right, a cup of Greta's tea cooling untouched at her elbow. Brutehilde filled the opposite bench, her arms folded, her iron plaits clinking softly with every roll of the ship.
"Gulls," Nell said.
Brutehilde raised an eyebrow. "Gulls."
"I've spent the morning at the masthead with the spyglass," Nell went on. "The old hermit said to follow the gulls. Turn west when they stop, south when they return. The logic being, I assumed, that the gulls know the safe channels, the fishing grounds, the places where the currents run true and the rocks stay clear. It's not a bad system, if you can read it."
Ulrika set down her cup. "And how are the gulls today, Captain?"
"There aren't any."
Silence. Brutehilde's brow furrowed. "None at all?"
"None. I counted. Forty minutes at the masthead, and I saw a single gull, flying east, and it was moving with the desperate determination of a creature that had been chased off its home ground. There are no flocks. No circling birds over the fishing grounds. No gulls at all, except for the occasional terrified straggler heading in the opposite direction."
Ulrika's lips pressed into a thin line. "The hermit."
"The hermit," Nell confirmed. "He told us he eats them. Forty years of sitting on a pole, catching gulls and swallowing them whole, and he's decimated the local population. The birds that survived have learned to avoid these waters entirely. They've moved on, or died, or been eaten. And with them, our only reliable guide to the safe channels through the straits."
Brutehilde let out a low, frustrated growl. "So the one piece of useful information that old wanker gave us is worthless, because he ate the map."
"Effectively, yes."
"Could we find another way through?" Ulrika asked. "Sound the bottom? Take bearings from the stars?"
"We have charts of the general region," Nell said, tapping the paper. "They show the straits as a tangled knot of reefs and shallows, with a few marked channels. What they don't show is which of those channels is actually navigable. The storms shift the sandbars, the currents change the depths, and the rocks have a way of moving, or so the stories say. The hermit's gulls would have shown us the safe path. Without them, we're gambling."
Brutehilde leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble. "What about the old man himself? Could we go back and ask him to draw us a map?"
"He's been up a pole for forty years," Ulrika said dryly. "I doubt he has a pen, and I doubt he'd use it to draw charts if he did. He struck me as the sort of man who enjoys watching ships sink."
"He did seem to derive a certain satisfaction from the prospect," Nell admitted. "No. We'll have to trust to luck, and to our own seamanship. I've navigated worse waters than these, and I'm not about to let a few uncharted rocks keep us from the capital."
Brutehilde nodded slowly, a grin spreading across her broad face. "That's the spirit I like to hear, Captain. So we sail on, and if a whirlpool swallows us, at least we'll have a story to tell."
"I'd rather not be swallowed by a whirlpool," Ulrika said. "But I take your point. We proceed cautiously, then. Lookouts at the masthead, the lead line sounded regularly, and a course that favours open water over shortcuts."
"Exactly," Nell said. She began to roll up the chart. "I'll post extra lookouts, and I'll have the carpenter check the soundings at dawn and dusk. We'll make our way through the straits by careful sailing, and if the gods are kind, we'll come out the other side in one piece."
"And if they're not?" Brutehilde asked.
Nell smiled thinly. "Then we'll see what the bottom of the sea looks like."