The Sacrifice

by Joanna Orwin

  It was almost time. The tide had turned. Tongues of water were licking almost imperceptibly around Kua-the-Seeker where she waited below the high-tide line, dragged there by the entire workforce of Hara after the dawn ceremony. When the water reached ankle depth, the old moki expert bade the Travellers farewell. He spoke quietly to each of them, one at a time, words that only they could hear, then held them in a long embrace.

  When it was Taka’s turn, Maunu seemed to gaze into his very soul, and whatever the old man saw there made him solemn. His words echoed those spoken by Tete at Ra-Hou, but instead of expressing a grandmother’s faith in him, this time the words carried the full weight of prophecy.

  ‘You will make us proud. The name of Taka will live on among all our people.’

  Before a startled Taka could react, the old man grasped him by both upper arms, pulling him down with surprising strength until their faces were level. He pressed his bony nose firmly against the youth’s. As their breath mingled, Taka felt a strange calm steal over him, and with it a growing acceptance of the old man’s daunting utterance. It was a long time before Maunu gently released him and turned away.

  And then the Travellers were wading knee-deep to board the moki. The water was rising fast now. Already Taka could feel faint stirrings underneath him. The moki was coming alive. He took his place nearest one prow, in front of Kota. On the opposite hull, Kai sat in front of Piko. These were the paddling positions they had adopted when they started training at Ra-Hou all those months ago. Taka was conscious of the new paddle’s unfamiliar weight and length resting across his thighs. Behind the paddlers, he could sense Matu standing on the stern platform, ready to take charge of the big steering oar once they were afloat. On the shore at their backs, Taka was acutely aware of old Maunu and the Wise One watching, the other moki experts clustered around them. Behind them, a silent presence, stood the entire settlement of Hara, gathered to see them leave.

  Despite repeated visits to the latrine, Taka’s bowel gurgled ominously. Excitement fought trepidation when he thought about what might lie ahead and the role he would play. Unexpected longing for home and the family he’d left behind, the family he would probably never see again, obstructed his throat and made his breathing shallow. He swallowed again and again, trying to moisten his suddenly dry mouth. Across from him he could see Kai, his face pale and set, staring fixedly ahead.

  Sudden, unwelcome images flooded his mind. What if the moki didn’t float, leaving them sitting up to their necks in the water? What if the moki was unbalanced so they went around in circles — would the watching crowd give way to mocking laughter? What if the moki capsized on the bar, flinging them bodily into the surge of the sea? Would their journey end before it even began? Would the gods desert them? Would these Hara people, so openly eager to see them leave, make any attempt to rescue them? Despite the coolness of the autumn evening, his palms grew slick with sweat where they rested on the paddle. Once more, he swallowed hard, then tried to focus on the rough, rounded solidity of the prow rising in front of him, the streamers dancing in the air.

  Beneath him, Kua-the-Seeker was bumping softly on the skids as each wavelet of the incoming tide passed under her. Soon she began to tremble, a distinct vibration that rose up through the packed reeds and into Taka’s body. He could hear faint rustlings and ripplings as the craft slowly began to lift on the deepening water. Time passed. He knew the tide must be close to its full height. The moki was still bumping on the bottom, not yet fully afloat. He held his breath. Would the water reach enough depth to set her free? At last, the bumping slowed. The trembling increased. More time passed. Then, quite suddenly, between one breath and the next, they were afloat. As the moki rocked gently, cradled by the water, he heard the others let out a sigh, a deep, concerted sigh that matched his own. His apprehension faded away as Kua-the-Seeker rode the river, high and proud.

  Matu said quietly, ‘Take up your paddles.’

  As the Travellers held their paddles aloft in a silent salute, Taka heard the sonorous beat of the farewell drums. Matu gave the word and they dug their paddles into the water. Slowly, without trying for speed, they paddled out into the middle of the river. Although Taka knew intimately every reed bundle, every rope and cord, every piece of timber on board, he was acutely aware of the new strangeness of everything — the size of Kua-the-Seeker, the length of their paddles, their height above the water. But despite their inevitable tentative awkwardness, they reached the middle of the river without mishap.

  There, Matu took them upstream for some distance until they were out of sight of the watching people. While they waited for the tide to turn, they practised all the skills they had mastered with the old moki. At last, Matu took them back downstream. By the time they paddled past their launching place and the waiting crowd, the tide was on the turn.

  The drumbeat rose to a climax. Now they were leaving, the Hara crowd raised their voices in the song of farewell, a full-throated harmony that made Taka think they were at last acknowledging this sacred mission. The Travellers raised their paddles in one last salute. Then Matu leant on the steering oar and turned the moki in a wide curve towards the bar and the open sea beyond.

  Great clouds of kua rose into the evening sky, circled, then settled back onto the beach out of sight. As the Travellers paddled slowly towards the bar, further clouds of circling birds rose and fell, each time joined by more and more kua. The experts and the Wise One had read the signs accurately: the flocks were about to fly north. Taka’s spirits soared. In his mind he was swirling up there with them, his nerves forgotten. Now, as the tide started to ebb, Kua-the-Seeker came alive beneath him as she felt the pull of the ocean-going water. The song of farewell dwindled behind them. He could no longer distinguish the accompanying drumbeat from the rhythmic thump of his heart. He set his eyes firmly on the river ahead. There would be no looking back.

  The light was beginning to fade as they steadily approached the line of breaking waves that marked the bar. Already, the sun was descending into its nest of crimson-tipped grey cloud. The circling, eddying kua were small, dark shapes now, silhouettes against the glowing sky. Their shrill calls became indistinct, lost in the increasing roar of the waves. The Travellers stayed their paddles, looking ahead at their first challenge. Kua-the-Seeker moved skittishly beneath them, eager to ride the current that was carrying them closer and closer to the bar. Then Matu turned them head on to the line of breakers, and Taka felt the moki steady beneath him. This time, they let the water-demon carry them with it. This time, they would not resist its force.

  As they drew nearer the bar, he saw a gap emerging in the centre of the churning waves. He pointed it out, then shouted across to Kai, ‘We should head for there?’

  Kai turned to face Matu, standing on the stern platform, his feet planted wide apart. ‘Can you steer us through? It looks pretty narrow.’

  Matu assessed the gap, his hands relaxed on the steering oar. ‘We’ll make it if you lot follow my directions.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Kota.

  Piko nodded his agreement. ‘Once we get among those waves, we won’t be able to see much from down here.’

  ‘Right then,’ said Matu. ‘Get ready to paddle your guts out when I say the word.’

  The current carrying them picked up speed. Already, the breaking waves were thundering in Taka’s ears. The moki began to buck beneath him, and he pushed his feet further under the foot straps. Spray was spinning off the turbulent water and he lost sight of the gap they were aiming for. For a brief moment, they hovered, just short of the breakers. Then Kua-the-Seeker lifted and surged forward. He almost didn’t hear Matu’s shout above the din.

  Frantically, they drove their paddles into the seething water that now streamed past them. The moki slewed wildly from side to side as Matu fought to maintain their direction. Up ahead, an enormous wave loomed above them. Taka knew he was yelling, his voice sounding puny in his own ears. The prows lifted dizzily. The moki thrust up through the crest of
the wave just as it broke in a chaotic welter of white foam and spray. Water swept along the length of the hulls. The strong tug of its power against Taka’s legs threatened to take him with it. But the foot straps held. He plunged his paddle into the water again and again as they drove forward.

  They burst out the other side as the wave rolled on past and fell away beneath them. Kua-the-Seeker shed sheets of water as the hulls shook free. Almost before they had time to draw breath, all of them whooping with the adrenalin of their wild passage, another wave loomed. As soon as the moki lifted and started to surge forward again, they drove their paddles into the water, not needing Matu’s warning shout this time.

  Three times the waves came. Three times the moki thrust safely through, then shook herself like a dog to shed the weight of the water. At last they emerged into calmer water out beyond the breaker line. As the tumult receded behind them, Taka realized they were all still yelling, their voices hoarse now. He was soaked, wet hair plastered in long strands against his face, his eyes blurred with saltwater. He blinked to clear his sight, then turned to see how the others had fared. They all had huge grins on their faces, even Kai.

  On the stern platform, Matu was nonchalantly leaning against the H-frame, the steering oar tucked loosely under his arm, his legs relaxed, water still streaming off his body. ‘Not bad, eh?’

  Taka saluted him with his paddle. Sometimes Matu came close to being likable.

  The sun had long sunk into its nested clouds and the light was fading fast from the sky. The Travellers paddled slowly a few kilometres off the coastline, its low sand dunes glowing gold in the last of the light. They were waiting for the flocks of kua to leave on their journey, to guide their course to the north. The excitement of the ride over the bar had ebbed, and they paddled without saying much. Taka listened to the quiet, unfamiliar creakings and cracklings of ropes, reeds and timber as the hulls adjusted to their new medium. Gentle offshore swells passed regularly underneath them, rocking them in a steady, almost lazy motion. The prows lifted and swayed as each swell passed. Water chuckled softly as it flowed along the hulls. The southerly breeze breathed cool against his bare back. The first stars were brightening just above the horizon.

  ‘There they go.’ Kai pointed towards the shore.

  A dark mass lifted above the sand dunes, a swirling mass that spread like rising smoke into the sky. As Taka watched, his paddle resting across his thighs, the vast flock rose higher and higher until it was almost invisible to his straining eyes. As he watched, the birds wheeled sharply and headed north. The flock passed endlessly in front of the newly risen moon until the last, dark specks of the stragglers faded into the night.

  Wordlessly, they took up their paddles again. Once they were moving fast enough, Matu turned them until the prows were pointing north, in the direction the kua flock had taken.

  Their long journey had begun.

  Chapter 11

  On this first night, without any need for discussion, the Travellers all decided to stay awake. They paddled slowly but steadily towards the north, following the kua away from their homeland out into the Great Ocean. Unfamiliar noises kept Taka in a state of disconcerted alertness. The moki creaked and rustled; the streamers slapped monotonously against the wrapped booms. Taka could hear the voices of what had to be sea-demons murmuring and muttering under the hulls. What they would make of these intruders in their domain? He spent half the night repeating the prayer to Tanga under his breath.

  Following Maunu’s instructions, the Travellers had carefully chosen one bright star to navigate by as it rose in the east. They marked the point of its rising on the right prow, then tracked its passage across the night sky, using its position to maintain their course. When this star set in the west, they tied a corresponding mark on the opposite prow. Throughout the interminable night, they selected other bright stars in sequence to lead them further and further north. But Taka wasn’t convinced that they succeeded in following any of them accurately as they passed across the sky. There were so many bright stars, and after a while they all looked the same. His eyes ached with the effort of concentration, and he developed a crick in his neck. Anxiety frayed the edges of his belief that Tanga would guide them. All they had were these stars and the kua. No one had retained any real knowledge of star navigation, let alone the more sophisticated methods of navigation used before the Dark. As for the kua, they had long disappeared into the darkness.

  He almost cried with relief when the sky at last began to lighten. The unfamiliar motion of the moki had made them all sick, and his stomach was still queasy. Kai was worst affected: he had heard him throwing up all night. Taka could just make out his cousin in the dim light, sitting on the other hull slumped over his paddle, his face pale and sweaty.

  The rim of the sun began to emerge from the sea, spreading a dazzle of light across the water. Taka blinked in its brightness, welcoming the instant warmth on his chilled skin. Kua-the-Seeker lay rocking on a long, rolling swell as the other Travellers stretched and groaned. Like him, they would be stiff and cramped from the hours of sitting at their paddling stations. As Taka stretched, he looked around him. They were already out of sight of land. Only the just-visible, tall ash columns far to the south indicated its presence. Soon, these fire signs in the sky would also vanish from sight, the last link to their homeland.

  On all sides, as far as he could see, a vastness of grey-green, opaque water heaved in endless motion. The moki rose and fell as the water-god breathed. The swells rolled underneath them, their movement unimpeded. They were no more than a piece of flotsam, like any other scrap of kelp or bird feather he could see floating past, half-submerged. An uninterrupted bowl of pale sky arched overhead, stretching from horizon to empty horizon. The daylight he had longed for mercilessly revealed what the darkness of night had concealed. They were alone out here. The bundled reeds of Kua-the-Seeker were all that protected them from untold depths plunging away beneath them. The moki that had seemed so robust was suddenly fragile and inadequate. Old Maunu had calculated that they had three weeks to make landfall before the reed bundles disintegrated. That had seemed a long time when they were safely on shore, but now, as Taka absorbed the impersonal immensity of ocean surrounding them, he was overcome by fear. The bitter taste of bile rushed up into his throat and he turned and vomited over the side. Even after his stomach had emptied, he was left retching in dry spasms, the muscles of his belly aching with the effort.

  As he straightened, groaning, he heard Kai mutter on the other hull. ‘You, too? I’ve well and truly made my offerings to Tanga.’

  Taka didn’t Understand how his cousin could persist with such disrespectful mockery, now they were out here completely at the mercy of the water-god.

  ‘I can help.’ Kota put his paddle aside and levered himself upright. He edged awkwardly along the hull, clinging onto the shelter for support, then disappeared under its roof. When he came back he passed around some shredded bark. He waited until they were all obediently chewing, then said, with a shy grin, ‘A cure for morning sickness.’

  ‘What on earth made you bring that?’ asked Piko, his voice a drawl. ‘Did you hide a pregnant woman on board?’ He knelt up and peered underneath the thatched shelter, then looked along the length of the hulls, shading his eyes with his hand.

  Kota merely shook his head and smiled, but Piko’s antics had lightened the moment. Taka took a shaky breath, then swallowed the peppery juices released by the bark. The spasms immediately subsided.

  The sun was already lifting above the horizon. Matu adjusted their direction so the moki was heading at right-angles to the sun’s path on the water. The Wise One had told them this would be the best way of realigning themselves to the north each morning, seeing it wasn’t long since the autumn equinox. Maintaining a northerly path during daytime therefore seemed straightforward enough to Taka. He tried to relax. They just needed to get used to the moki and the unfamiliar motion of the sea.

  Piko had other concerns. He point
ed out that any of their attempts to navigate would still be hit and miss. ‘There has to be more involved. What about currents?’

  No one had any answer to that. Taka watched another strip of kelp drift past. Were they, too, drifting at the whim of unseen currents? He shifted uneasily.

  Piko continued. ‘How do we maintain our direction once the sun’s well up? What if there is no sun?’

  To Taka’s chagrin, Matu suggested Something he wouldn’t have thought of himself. ‘Keeping the same angle to these swells might work.’

  Kota nodded. ‘That makes good sense.’

  Matu tried to hide his flush of pleasure. ‘Just something I noticed while steering.’

  ‘You’re kidding yourselves if you think any of this matters,’ said Kai suddenly. It was the first time he’d spoken since Kota gave them the bark.

  Kai met Taka’s eye, his face still pale from being sick all night, his expression bleak. ‘Why are you all fussing about direction? We haven’t a clue where we’re going. We don’t even know what chance we have of finding land.’

  The others made the demon-averting sign.

  Piko said quietly, ‘It’s easy to think the worst, but it’s not helpful.’

  ‘I just knew you Repo scum would be trouble.’ Matu snorted. ‘Dancers! Where’s your backbone?’

  ‘Our instructions are to head north,’ Kota pointed out.

  Taka rallied. ‘You’re all forgetting what’s most important. We’re under the protection of Tanga. We’re doing his bidding, so he’ll guide us. Then there’s Kahu.’ He kept his voice steady, but knew he was partly trying to convince himself. ‘We’re not alone out here.’

  ‘You’re right. Just ignore me.’ Kai lightened his voice. ‘Seasickness has got me down, that’s all.’

  While they were talking, a slight breeze picked up. Sparks of light glinted on the surface of the water all around them, reassuring Taka that Tanga was indeed here, keeping an eye on them. The breeze was still coming from the south. It would continue to push them in the right direction. As it steadied and the surrounding sea brightened to blue in the sun, the tension caused by Kai’s comment eased.