Chapter 371
The trunk of the world tree rising out of the Current like a cliff that never ends, bark ridges like mountain ranges, cork running down it in slow pale rivers. And at its foot, on black water, the whole allied fleet, a thousand hulls, crowded against the bark like boats against a harbour wall. Far behind them, the wreck of the Order's chained blockade, broken through the middle. And at the very back of the fleet, beyond the last lantern, one ship under red sails, holding her distance, never coming closer.
A mile up the trunk, small with distance: the curved rim of an amphitheatre carved into the tree, rows of bark seats, and across the bark below it, in black square letters taller than ships:
THE FIVE. COME UP.
The two crews (one ship's worth, now that the Upp Igen is battered and lashed alongside) staring up. Vigolas with his hands on his hips.
perched on the masthead, the crimson mark on her arm glowing, looking up the bark, measuring.
eyes gold, looking up at the threads: the five's threads (his own, Vigolas's, Rougeina's, Smurjan's, Trollmage's), running up the bark toward the Arena, taut, pulled. And everyone else's, the whole fleet's, running up too, but slack, as if the tree had called only five of them.
the new fist-figurehead with its scar beside him.
at the Upp Igen's bow, one eye shut, sighting up the trunk. His boxwood rule out at arm's length, measuring the mile with it like a man measuring a mountain with a matchstick.
beside him.
lowering the rule. Looking down. At the Upp Igen's deck under his boots. At one plank in it. Crouching. Running his palm along it. Tapping it.
Jeppson tipping a lantern to it through a gap: a tiny violet tick, pencilled.
turning slowly.
pulling the Book of Works out from under his arm, opening it, running a finger down a column of entries in tiny exact numbers.
eyes gold, looking out over the fleet. And seeing them now, where he never thought to look: tiny violet glows, one in a deck here, one in a hull there, scattered across the fleet like stars, every one a plank a quiet man trued by hand.
closing the Book.
The foot of the world tree, and the allied fleet lashing itself together: a thousand hulls drawn in deck to deck, hawser to hawser, bowsprit to stern, troll longships to fishing smacks to lamp-bearer boats to the Burn's black barge, until the whole fleet is one raft-city of decks spread across the water at the foot of the trunk.
And down the middle of it, deck after deck, a table: every ship's table dragged out and set end to end across the lashed decks, a mile long, cloths and pots and bowls, and at the head of it, at a cauldron as wide as a cartwheel, a cook the size of a mountain with a ladle the size of an oar.
And running along the lashed decks between the bowls, a wiry man with a plane and a pencil behind each ear, stopping at every ship for three strokes of the plane and a violet tick, then running on.
A Brygdar troll and a Tidekant fisherman sharing a bowl.
Iskall passing bread down a line of lamp-bearer children.
Aska at a table for once, eating, Ivo beside her ladling soup for strangers.
The plateless refugees from the uncharted islands, Old Stina and little Vante, sitting between Vaka and a lamp-bearer, eating.
Amber steam rising off every bowl along the whole mile of table, drifting together over the fleet like one great tablecloth.
at the cauldron, ladling, sweating, grinning, his stomach roaring.
Jeppson running the fleet:
On a troll longship, three strokes, a tick. "Hm."
On a lamp-bearer's little boat, kneeling, a tick. "Good."
On a battered Gate City smack, a plank a hair off, his hand freezing, and then, before anyone can shout it at him: three rough strokes, a tick. "Good enough."
His hands starting to shake already: not from chalk. From hurry.
running beside him across a deck with a lantern, Tihi running the other side with his pencils.
Both crews at it, eating, the five among them. Vigolas between Kompis and Rougeina, Smurjan with Kali and the shadow of Bakasura curled under the bench, Trollmage asleep in a chalk ring at the end of it with a bowl balanced on his stomach.
looking up the trunk at the Arena's rim, a mile above, at the five taut threads running up into it.
at the table, his plain sword across his knees, looking up at the Arena too, his face very still. A judge's face.
The table eating on. And running along it, down the whole mile of lashed decks toward the trunk, a wiry man, slower now, staggering, a pencil missing from behind one ear.
the nearest to the trunk, a Brygdar longship with its bow touching the bark of the world tree itself. Jeppson climbing aboard. Kneeling. One plank. Three strokes. A tick.
sitting back on his heels on the troll ship's deck, looking back along the line of ships behind him. And in each, faint, a violet glow, one after another, a straight line of lights from the Marka's deck to the bark of the tree.
held up in front of his face. Shaking. Not from chalk yet. He hasn't drawn a line.
a hand on his shoulder.
And across the bark of the trunk, above the fleet, the black square letters changing. THE FIVE. COME UP. sliding away, and new letters writing themselves, huge, slow:
ONE HOUR.
Beside them, drawn in black, an hourglass the height of a ship, its top bulb full of grey sand, and the sand beginning to fall.
getting to his feet on the Brygdar longship's deck, goggles down, a stick of chalk in his shaking hand. Kneeling again. At the bow, where the deck meets the bark of the tree.
touching the deck. The first line of the first span. Long. Single-stroke. Not quite straight. And not rubbed out.