by D Murray
“Will see if anyone else is alive, and if there’s anything to salvage. Go on, get yourself back there.”
Werlan stood, then paused a moment, looking back at where Cookie lay between the rocks.
“Go, I said!” Kalfinar snapped. “There’s nothing to be done for the dead. Unless you want to succumb, you’ll get your arse back across the beach and get warm.”
Werlan swallowed and nodded, before making his way along the black sand of the beach.
Kalfinar looked down at the shattered remains of Cookie and felt the heavy weight of blame in his guts. There would be little respecting the dead on this beach. “Only one thing for you, Cookie. You’re fuel.”
“Any luck?” Broden called out to Kalfinar as he ran towards him along the beach.
“Some salvage. No more survivors,” Kalfinar replied, tossing the heavy makeshift knapsack, made out of torn sail, to the sand with a clatter.
“Lendal’s awake,” Broden called out.
“Good.”
“Nothing from Valus yet.”
“Not so good.” Kalfinar leapt down and landed with a spray of sand. The wind still blew in hard from the sea, and thunder crashed in the dark clouds that stretched out above them all the way to the horizon.
“Heard about Cookie from Werlan. Bastard bad luck on the rocks.”
“Aye. Shelter up?”
Broden closed the distance and came to a stop. “No need to build one.”
“What?” Kalfinar asked, instant anger flaring from his gut and into his words. “What do you mean there’s no need?”
Broden smiled and spread his palms wide. “There’s already stone huts amongst the scree. Ferdus is calling them howfs.”
“Howfs?”
“Aye. Says they’re hideaways for the local people. Used them for hiding from ships or raiders. You can’t see them from the beach. Can barely see them when standing beside them!”
Kalfinar thought a moment, then nodded. “They’ll do for now. But I want us to be on guard. No telling how friendly the locals may be.”
“Ferdus said they don’t look like they're in use anymore,” Broden added. “There’s not like to be anyone here.”
“We’re here.” Kalfinar held his cousin’s stare for a moment. “Best be on guard.”
“Fair enough. With what? All our weapons are on the seabed.” Broden folded his heavy arms and frowned. “I really loved that sword. Had a lot of good times together.”
Kalfinar smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Broden furrowed his red brows further. “What are you smirking at?”
Kalfinar nodded to his knapsack resting fat on the sand between them. “Salvage.”
Broden’s arms unfolded, his mouth opened wide and his brows shot up. “Salvage?”
“Aye. I found one of the weapons boxes.”
“Dajda, that’s lucky!” Broden hunkered down and started untying the bag. “My sword?”
“No. Sorry,” Kalfinar replied, stopping Broden dead. “A few light hatchets, a short sword and spear heads is all.”
“Fuck. You had me going there for a minute.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Still, not a bad haul, considering.”
“Any food?” Broden asked as he pulled open the sail and looked at the salvage inside.
“The bird I killed. That’s it.” Broden looked up, a sour frown flexing his moustache and beard. “Skua meat. Dajda knows that’s going to taste like shite.”
“I’ll take what I can get right now,” Kalfinar replied, then looked back over his shoulder. “Give me a hand.”
“With what?”
“Cookie.”
“What you going to do with him? Dajda, Kal, I was only joking, I’ll eat the bastarding bird!”
“I don’t mean to eat him. We need the heat. We’ll get it hot enough from the fragments of the ship, and then give the drowned to the fire. We’ll say our words for them, and then thank them for their gift of warmth.”
“Can’t see anything,” Kalfinar grumbled as he walked with awkward steps up the steep, darkening scree slope.
“That’s the trick of it,” Broden said, looking over his shoulder as he stepped backwards, Cookie’s heels in his hands. “Won’t see it until you’re right on top of it.”
“Boss!” Ferdus called out from up above.
“I’ll be damned,” Kalfinar said, coming to a halt. Broden walked on, and Cookie’s hands slipped out of Kalfinar’s grip, causing the body to drop onto the scree.
“Fuck's sake, Kal. Bit of warning.”
“Sorry.”
“Up here!” Ferdus called out again from the barely visible little howf secreted amongst the scree above them.
Kalfinar gave him a wave and then stepped up beside Broden. “Here, take an ankle each.”
“Bit undignified, isn’t it?”
“It’ll be easier, and he won’t mind.”
They ascended the final stretch of scree to the howf, rounded a high wall built up of stone in front of the squat building and dropped Cookie’s heels onto a flat area in front of the stone-fronted building. It was set halfway up the height of the scree, providing a sound view over the bay to the west that Kalfinar had searched for salvage. The building was low, at about shoulder height, and was windowless. The small door was framed with flat lengths of fractured black stone, as was laid about the scree slope.
“Home sweet home,” Ferdus said laconically. “In you go. Get warm.”
Kalfinar and Broden crouched to enter, and found a single round room of surprising size. The floor sloped down, into the scree bed, and offered standing room. Similar to the cave shelters along the way to Hardalen, there was a small hole provided for the escape of smoke, and several others, it appeared, for air to pass freely.
Around the small fire of shattered fragments of wood sat the survivors of the shipwreck. Jukster, Lendal, and Werlan sat huddled by the bright flame. Valus lay alongside, Cookie’s parka laid across her chest. She was awake, and offered him a weak smile.
Lendal looked up and smiled, taking a bloody cloth away from the wound on his forehead. “Remind me never to get on a ship with you again.” He smiled at Kalfinar.
“You feeling better?” Kalfinar asked him.
“A bit beaten up, but I’ll live.”
Kalfinar nodded and offered him a smile, before hunkering down beside Valus. “And you?” he asked in a hushed voice.
She looked up at him, her bright blue eyes peering through the semi-dry strands of short blond hair that fell from her head. “Fine. Just a little shaken and cold.”
“Good.” Kalfinar leaned a little closer to Valus and whispered, “Do you still see Evelyne?”
Valus turned her head to him.
Her voice entered his mind. I still see her. She’s full of fear, and courage. They approach the fortress. Hagra Iolach. She dreams of you.
Twenty
Odd-eyes
The skua meat tasted greasy, and a bit too much like bad fish for Kalfinar’s liking. But it was food, and it was warm. He licked the oily sheen from his grimy finger and thumb. He ducked his head under the low entrance to the howf and peered over the small wall into the dark night. It was oppressively black. Where the scree slope met the black sand beach, he did not know. Until the lightning flashed. Then, the entire world before him lit up like a brilliant purple and blue theatre, all heavy, brooding sky and lashing, crashing wave.
“Bastard of a night,” he said, receiving only grunts and the echo of greasy digits being sucked clean from inside the howf. Kalfinar turned back to face the small fire and pulled the hood of his now-dry sealskin parka up over his head, stuffing his hands into the pocket along the front. “What is this place?” he asked Ferdus as he ducked back into the shelter.
The northerner was poking the embers of the fire down. He placed a pair of dried-off fragments of wood onto the glowing coals, and sat back onto the wide flat-bottomed stone that served as his seat.
“Told you. A howf.” He smiled, his
big dark beard flexing and showing the grey skua-meat between his incisors and front teeth. He sucked at them a moment, making a squeaking noise as he did so, and then rubbed at his shining moustache with the back of his hand.
Kalfinar looked about in the dim, dancing light of the fire. Shadows warped and wove about the stone roof. Kalfinar studied it a moment; it appeared to be one large, flat, continuous slab of dark rock. Rather than placing it when building the shelter, whomever had constructed the howf appeared to have taken advantage of natural rock fall, and thus the stability of the larger, heavier rock, and hollowed out the stone beneath it. The flatness of the inside of the roof gave way to a curved circular wall, made up of countless even-faced stones, some covered in dried-out yellow moss, but most of a dark blue hue. The floor of the building was made up of a thick carpet of the black sand that had obviously been laboriously hauled up from the beach. The small fireplace was raised up from the sand, rounded by foot-tall, teeth-like pillars of stone. The wood hissed on the flame, still retaining some of the moisture it had picked up at sea. The fire crackled and sent a flare of sparks up towards the roof. Kalfinar felt comfortable, not like when he searched the bays for survivors, but he wasn’t warm.
Valus sat cross-legged. The tall Lihedan woman had discarded her usual long, blue gown for the sealskins recommended by Crene back at Grantvik’s Bay. She had taken off the mittens, leaving them dangling from the sleeves of her parka, and she fidgeted with a piece of fractured wood whilst humming a soft and beautiful song.
Kalfinar listened in, finding the song strangely hypnotic. He looked up at Broden, and saw his cousin picking at a skua leg with his teeth. Kalfinar grimaced, remembering the oily taste. Movement to his right drew his attention, and he saw Ferdus place another piece of wood onto the fire. “Do you think the people that built this could still live on these shores? Crene talked of folk living along these shores. Called them the Maracost.”
Ferdus grunted and kicked at the sand with the toe of his boot. He looked up at Kalfinar, his dark eyes seeming to stare beyond him, the flickering light from the fire shifting shadows across his face as he thought. Kalfinar made to ask the question again, not quite sure if Ferdus had heard him, when the Gerloupman spoke. “Heard it said there were different clans of folk living along these shores. Not quite Solansian, not quite like the Ravenmayne we saw attack Carte. Mixed peoples. Might be the folk he spoke of were the same people. Some said they were all run off, or even killed off. Don’t reckon much to relations with the whalers if the building of a howf is much to go by.”
“Howfs are for hiding,” Valus said, her song cutting off and her accented words echoing Ferdus’ thoughts. “In the Lihedan Isles, there are many such places as this. We were, at times, subject to raiders. My ancestors would have fled to the mountainsides at such times and hidden amongst the stone. As a child, I used to play amongst them. I’ve seen many. But I’ve never seen one as kept as this.”
“What’re you saying?” Broden raised his head from the picked-clean leg bone of the skua he had been sucking on. “You think this is in use? You think the people could still be–”
A clattering noise sounded outside.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Kalfinar hissed, his head turning to the entrance and his hand reaching for the long-hafted hatchet he had recovered from the small weapons case that had washed ashore. Broden, Jukster, and Ferdus replicated his movements, hands reaching for weapons. Lendal tried to stand, but stumbled back, and sat down.
The clatter sounded again, this time just being audible over the crash of thunder that sounded loud above.
Kalfinar looked to Broden and nodded towards the other side of the entranceway, suggesting his cousin take up position there. Broden did so, and waited with his knees bent to accommodate his height. Lightning flashed, and thunder sounded at the same time. The storm was right overhead. The clatter sounded once more, and then a voice sounded, muffled by the wind.
“Hello.”
Kalfinar looked about the party, and then to Valus. “Can you get a sense of who it is?” She shook her head.
“Nothing, no.”
“Hello.”
It was unmistakable, a woman’s voice.
“Murtagh!” Jukster said, his eyes lighting up as Kalfinar looked at him. “Must be her.” He moved fast and ducked out the door before Kalfinar could stop him.
“Fuck!” He looked to Broden, then to Ferdus, then followed Jukster out into the storm. The wind buffeted him in an instant. Freezing cold, ice particles stinging at his face. Lighting flashed above, illuminating for a split second, leaving frozen sights of movement before plunging into darkness. Kalfinar gripped the haft of the hatchet tight and crouched low behind the wall in front of the howf. “Shitting hells.” He'd forgotten the bodies of Cookie, Dernis and the young guardsman had been laid up there. He stood, his head and shoulders above the wall, and waited. The lightning flashed, and he saw the shapes of two people coming up the last few metres of scree. Then he heard them. Jukster laughing, and the voice of a woman. Murtagh. She had survived.
"Murtagh," Kalfinar greeted the bedraggled and cold woman as she ascended the remaining distance to the howf. Jukster trailed behind her, a lopsided smile on his big face.
"Boss," she replied as she stopped before him. "Washed up a few beaches down. Followed the trail of debris. Most seems to have washed up this way. Saw a faint light up here and followed it up."
"I'm happy to see you," he said, showing her to the entranceway of the howf. "Come, warm yourself. You must be frozen."
Murtagh's eyes were fixed on the rough shapes of bodies lying out by the entrance.
"I fear we've lost more than you see here," he said.
"Bitch of a storm," she replied, almost absently.
"Come on, get in and get warm," Jukster grumbled, his big hand on her shoulder, ushering her in.
Murtagh ducked and entered the howf, followed by Jukster, leaving Kalfinar out in the swirling maelstrom of the night. He turned and faced into the wind that bullied its way up the scree, lifting sea foam and sending tiny ice particles stabbing into his flesh. He peered down towards the beach, lighting flashing and exposing the black sand beach below. So many lost. We were already up against it. We were already fighting the odds. What now?
"You staying out or coming in?" Broden's voice sounded from behind. "Get inside, come on."
"Aye." Kalfinar turned and smiled to his cousin. "Just thinking."
"Well, think inside."
Kalfinar straightened up as he entered the howf, before sitting down close by the entranceway. “Did you see any other bodies?” he asked Murtagh.
“Not on the shore.” She spoke around the mouthful of skua she was eating; the last mouthful. “Saw Reflin die,” she said of another of the Pathfinders.
“When the ship went down?” Jukster asked.
“No. Something took him from the water. Looked like a big seal. Saw him get pulled under. There was a lot of blood in the water. Then nothing more. I just clung on to what wreckage I could and hoped for the best. Lost consciousness from the cold. Next I know, I’m on a black beach, aching, cold and hungry.”
“How far away is the beach you came up on?” Broden asked.
“A couple of bays east.” She sucked the grease off her fingers and looked up at the faces before her. “There are nests about the rocks on the next bay across. We could take some of the young, or eggs if there are any.”
“In the morning,” Kalfinar replied, pulling his hood tight about his head. “Get some rest now, while you can. I’ll keep watch.”
“I’ll sit with you,” Broden offered. “I’d just keep everyone awake with my snoring anyway.”
Kalfinar looked out across the bay as the first grubby rays of sun found their way to the horizon. The light turned the remaining dark clouds of the storm into a canvas as hard and cold as stone. The wind had died down, and the waves lapped at the bay with benign indifference. As far as he could see on the horizon, th
e sea was calm.
“Bad luck,” a gruff female voice sounded behind him, and he turned.
“Murtagh. You sleep well?”
“Slept well enough, in spite of that blockhead Jukster leaning on me all night. Not sure what’s worse, his drooling or the wandering hands.”
Kalfinar looked at her for a moment, his brows furrowing.
She waved a hand dismissively, and smirked. “Don’t worry about Jukster. He doesn’t know he’s doing it.”
Kalfinar regarded the woman as she spoke. Her short red hair was jutting out at all angles. Above her ears it was shaved high up her head, revealing several fat and raised pink scars. Her cheeks were high, and her chin narrow, with thin, pale lips sitting below a slightly upturned nose. Her features were fine, almost elfin, he thought. But her eyes were hard. Two flinty grey orbs with small dark pupils stared out below scar-notched red brows, set in an almost permanent furrow.
“When I first met Jukster I was only eighteen. Had a choice of joining the Carte Naval Fleet, the Infantry, or the Pathfinders. I figured, I don’t like being at sea. Like it even less now.” She smirked. “I didn’t fancy the thought of sitting around in barracks all day, or marching drills for most of the year, so figured I’d be best off joining the Pathfinders. A nice little mix of everything. Met that big lump of meat on my first day. Believe it or not, some of my fellow new recruits didn’t like having a woman in their ranks. Certainly not one who could drop them to the floor. So they ganged up on me. Had a half-dozen corner me and threaten the same predictable old shite that most teenage arseholes come out with. Jukster stepped in and broke a couple of noses and an arm. Been tight ever since.”
Kalfinar nodded and looked back out to sea.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Murtagh continued, “he’s an arse of the highest order. But you got to look past that to see the best of him.”
“I will.” Kalfinar turned and looked to the east. “What do you say we go get some breakfast?”