by Jen Williams
As the words left his mouth, Sebastian saw them; beasts moving at an alarming speed, their reptilian necks stretched out before them, teeth flashing in the sun. The hunger they brought with them was a crashing wave.
‘You cannot speak to them?’ asked Sebastian, knowing it was useless. He and Oster were already turning, already running. ‘As you did the other … monster?’
‘They are too new,’ said Oster. ‘The Eye brings them forth with no thought, no reason, and we share less and less blood. And I feel no urge to protect those who took the Spinner from me.’
Sebastian glanced back just before they reached the treeline. He saw the great lizards piling into the square and stopping, apparently surprised by the bounty that met them. They called to each other, strange fluting noises like birds. Sebastian saw a couple of the worshippers look up at that, finally distracted from their strange vigil, and he saw the look of horror that passed over their faces.
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ he muttered, wondering whom he spoke to.
They slipped into the trees as the first screams split the air.
33
‘It is the only way. We are simply not covering the ground fast enough.’
Sebastian looked up from the simple supper he’d prepared himself. They were now some distance from the cultists’ base – far enough to feel reasonably safe from the swarm of lizards that had overrun the camp. Oster had had no trouble picking up the Spinner’s scent, and had moved with increasing purpose, so swiftly that Sebastian had struggled to keep up.
‘It’s weird.’ Sebastian took a bite from the fruit he’d found. It tasted like an apple, but the flesh was softer. ‘I have only the faintest understanding of what you are, and I – well, I wouldn’t be comfortable with it.’
Oster turned to him too sharply, his amber eyes ablaze. ‘We must hurry! It’s not just the absence of the Spinner. It’s the island itself. The life that spawns here is growing out of control. I can feel it all around, restless and chaotic. You saw the creatures that swarmed the camp.’ He looked more closely at Sebastian. ‘And I know that you felt them, too.’
Above them the sky was violet, the edges pink with the setting sun.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
For a moment, Oster said nothing at all. Then he shook his head. ‘Is this what humans are like? Desperate to avoid the truth? Or so dense that they cannot see what is right in front of them?’ He bared his teeth in what was almost a grin. ‘Except human is not what you are. Not completely. You seek to ignore that which lifts you above warm-blooded idiot kin, because you are a fool.’
Sebastian bit his lip to keep himself from surging to his feet. To fight with this man – or whatever he was – would only end badly for him. He forced the anger down, determined not to dwell on Oster’s words. ‘You know nothing of me.’
The silence drew out between them, filled with the hoots and calls of the animals and birds that surrounded them. Was it Sebastian’s imagination, or did the very calls sound more agitated? Were there more of them? If Oster were right, and Euriale was in the grip of some sort of mass population surge, then the little town of Two-Birds could be in a lot of trouble. The pirates there were good at turning their backs on the mysteries of the island, but what if it came looking for them with tooth and claw?
‘I can make it easier for you,’ said Oster. Sebastian looked up in surprise. Oster’s voice was softer, and he was looking away into the night. ‘I will go slowly at first, until you are used to it.’
Sebastian found himself thinking of the night he had spent outside the cave with Prince Dallen. We could take it slowly, he had said. He turned away and threw the remains of the fruit into the bushes, hoping that Oster didn’t see the colouring of his cheeks.
‘All right,’ he said, standing up and wiping juice on the backs of his trousers. ‘I will try it at least.’
Oster met his eyes briefly, before nodding and looking away. He stepped back from Sebastian to give himself room, and then light began to peel off him in waves, white and cream and gold. Sebastian watched with his eyes half shut against the glare; it was extraordinary, every time he saw it. When the lights died away, there was Oster the dragon; twenty feet long and glittering with shining scales. The great reptilian head turned towards Sebastian and fixed deep amber eyes on him. It was strange, but that haughty look was becoming familiar, in both of Oster’s forms.
Cautiously, Sebastian moved to the dragon’s side. His back was ridged with spines and small, tough horns, and underneath the white and gold scales muscles clenched and unclenched. There certainly didn’t appear to be anywhere comfortable to sit.
‘Wait a moment,’ he told Oster, before walking back to the treeline. There were plants with huge fleshy green leaves, each as big as the piece of stone slate his mother had used to knead her dough on. He picked several of them, before stripping length after length of wiry vine from a tree twisted with the stuff. Finally, he took off his outer shirt and folded it up into a rough ball; it had seen better days, anyway. ‘Hold still.’
With some difficulty he put together a makeshift saddle, or at least a padded area on Oster’s back held in place with tough vines. Once seated there he could reach forward and take hold of the longer horns growing out of the dragon’s neck. He shifted in place, trying to distribute his weight evenly. It wasn’t as ungainly as he’d expected.
‘This is as good as it’s going to get, I think,’ he said aloud. After a moment, Oster lurched forward, and despite himself Sebastian yelped. The sense of strength just below him was unnerving; he was reminded of the sea wyverns of the northern lands, and how they had surged through the water like knives.
There was something else though, too. He placed his right hand flat to the scales on Oster’s side, and felt that silvery bond between them open like a flower in his mind. Oster seemed to sense it, and moved a little faster, weaving between the trees easily, his long tail curling on behind them.
‘You were born here,’ said Sebastian, his voice hoarse with wonder. Through Oster he could feel the living island, the tenuous heartbeat of all that lived here. It was obvious now that Oster was deeply connected to it all, as was everything that spawned under its trees. ‘We can go faster,’ he said, then added, ‘if you wish.’
He knew then that Oster could not stumble, could not take the wrong path or get them lost. It was unthinkable. Oster was a child of Euriale and dragon blood roared in his veins. They could not fail.
There was an answering rumble from Oster, as though he agreed, and they sprinted off through the jungle together.
34
‘I think that’s going to be tricky to travel across, even for you, Spinner.’
Frith turned – awkward in his spider-web harness – to look at Wydrin as she spoke. They hung in the branches of a tree taller than any he’d seen in the Blackwood, and her unruly hair half covered her face. The tree was perched on the edge of a cliff, and below them was a lagoon, the water a deep, rich blue. On the far side was a wide stretch of beach, the sand bone white, and lying like a great beached whale was the wreckage of a ship, the furthest tip resting on the sand and the bulk of it in the water. It was bigger even than the Poison Chalice, and though it was in pieces and had clearly been there for decades, he could tell it was of a shape and a design he had never seen. The wood was a deep, ruby red, the planks so tightly fitted that the thing almost looked like it had been carved from one single piece of wood. There were great holes in it, spoiling its beautiful shape, and here and there tall trees had grown up through it. Not just decades lost, he told himself, but centuries.
‘We could go around,’ he suggested. ‘Follow this cliff edge and find the far side.’
‘It would take too long,’ said the Spinner. ‘I can feel everything changing, even now. She grows closer to the Eye, and everything spins further and further out of balance.’ The Spinner shivered all over, shaking their cocoons so that they swung slightly back and forth. It wasn’t a pleasant sensatio
n. Wydrin reached over and squeezed Frith’s arm, although whether she meant to give support or take it he couldn’t tell. ‘If we don’t stop her, if we don’t stop Estenn and she passes through the Eye, oh …’
‘It’s all right, Spinner, we won’t let that happen. Will we, Frith?’ She squeezed his arm again.
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You can count on the Black Feather Three, Spinner. How do you propose we get across there?’
The Spinner climbed down the tree a short way and scrambled to the edge of the cliff. Wydrin and Frith hung suspended beneath his belly, the drop yawning below them. Frith squeezed his eyes shut briefly, and forced himself to look away from the blue water they were hanging above.
‘The big stick that points out of the broken boat,’ said the Spinner, pointing with one bristled claw. ‘You see that?’
‘The mast,’ said Wydrin. The enormous wreck had split into three pieces; the central part was still partially upright, the tall central mast intact and pointing almost true. Beyond it was another section of the broken ship, with another, smaller mast; this one was nearly lost in a forest of green and brown vines, and the holes in the decking and the hull looked as deep and dark as caves. ‘It looks reasonably sturdy.’
Frith looked at her again, and she gave him the tiniest shrug.
‘I can shoot web towards it,’ said the Spinner. ‘Make a line for us to cross on. Assuming the mast, as you call it, is sturdy. Then we can move over to the next mast, and from there, the far cliff.’
Frith opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again. The giant mast was not so far away from them, and the dark red wood it was carved from looked solid enough, but for the Spinner to attach his web to it and climb across would mean being flung across mid-air for a reasonable distance.
‘If we go around,’ said Wydrin quietly, ‘we may not catch up with Estenn in time. And the first we’ll know of it will be the thunder of Y’Ruen’s wings – not trapped in the Citadel after all, but free these past thousand years to do whatever she likes. I don’t know what goes on in the minds of gods, but I doubt she has any kindly feelings towards us.’
‘And that’s if Ede hasn’t already been destroyed by the gods warring with the mages and each other. If Estenn gets through before we can stop her, we will be living in the results of whatever she chooses to do to the past.’ Frith sighed, and shifted in the makeshift cocoon. ‘If you believe it is our best chance, Spinner, we will take it.’
The Spinner didn’t reply, but crawled up to the very edge of the cliff and teetered there for a moment. Just below them the wreck split the lagoon like some great carcass, and Frith forced himself to focus on the mast. It would be easy, he told himself. The Spinner would not misjudge the distance.
The fleshy abdomen behind them convulsed once, and they saw a shining bolt of web go arcing out across the water. It hit the mast head on, and then the Spinner lurched forward, swinging downwards abruptly so that his heavy body hung below the line he had cast. Next to Frith, Wydrin gave a small cry of surprise, and then laughed.
The Spinner scrambled down, legs pumping busily. Their view wobbled and changed; one moment it was the sky, dotted here and there with tiny white clouds, and then they would see the cliffs, or the still, blue water below. Sooner than he thought possible they were there, and the Spinner was scrambling up to the top of the mast. Now they were on the broken ship, it was possible to see exactly how rotten it was; ragged holes in the decking were fringed with virulent jungle weeds, thick with thorns and fleshy purple leaves. The wood itself was black in places, rotting away to a thin fibrous shell. Frith craned his neck, trying to look at what was directly below them, and was alarmed to see the same creeping black rot all around the bottom of the mast.
‘Quickly now!’ he said, raising his voice. ‘To the next part of the ship before it—’
With a deafening crack the mast snapped in two, and Frith felt his stomach trying to crawl out of his throat as they abruptly dropped towards the deck. The Spinner’s stomach muscles flexed again and suddenly they were flying along a new line, not towards the next, equally rotten mast, but speeding towards the broken prow. The angle was slightly off and they crashed awkwardly onto the deck, the Spinner rolling with his legs curled protectively around both of them, until they came to a stop at the bottom of the rotten forecastle.
‘Shit,’ said Wydrin, ‘that was a bit too close for my liking.’
Frith opened his mouth to agree with her, only to see a pair of baleful yellow eyes staring at them from the huge hole in the deck. They were joined by another pair, and another. ‘This ship is not uninhabited,’ he said, striving to keep his voice steady. ‘Spinner, if you would be so kind, I believe we should leave.’
Wydrin twisted around in her cocoon, trying to see the Spinner’s face. ‘I think he’s stunned, Frith. He took quite a smack when we landed.’
As she spoke, a monster rose up from the hole in the deck. It had leathery skin like a lizard, and finely boned wings like a bat. An elongated head filled with flat peg-like teeth turned to regard them with eyes the colour of curdled cream, and then it opened its long mouth and screeched at them. Three more identical creatures rose up behind it, all screeching and beating their wings.
‘Spinner? Spinner!’ Wydrin elbowed him in the guts, but there was no response. The winged monsters came closer, cawing and snapping their jaws like agitated crows. Some took to the air, pounding them with the wind from their wings, while others skittered towards them on awkward-looking back legs, using the stunted claws at the tips of their wings as appendages to drag their bodies forwards; these were clearly animals that spent most of their time in the air, when they weren’t nesting inside the wreckage of ancient ships.
‘We may have to make a run for it,’ said Frith. As he spoke, one of the beasts stretched out its long leathery neck and nipped at the end of one of the Spinner’s legs.
Wydrin cried out. ‘Get away, you big ugly bastard!’ She pulled Frostling from the scabbard wedged to her side, and awkwardly began to chop away at the silvery threads holding her in place. The flying beasts edged closer, their heads cocked in an expression that was both curious and predatory. Frith waved his arms at them, and shouted.
‘Come and get me, you brutes!’
The closest one, a creature with skin rippled yellow and green, turned its long head towards him and snapped its jaws together. It hopped forward on its stunted rear legs, and gave a short bark of annoyance.
‘Swiftly, Wydrin,’ Frith pulled against the bindings holding him in place, knowing it was useless.
‘I’m going as fast as I can. This stuff is bastard hard to cut.’
The last of the threads popped free and Wydrin half jumped, half fell from her cocoon, landing heavily on the deck and drawing her short-sword Glassheart in one smooth movement. She swung a wide arc at the gathered monsters, startling them so that they drew back momentarily.
‘Wydrin!’
She turned and threw Frostling towards Frith, who surprised himself by catching it easily. He turned its sharp edge on the silver threads.
‘Shit, there’s even more in the hull.’ Wydrin planted her feet, trying to look everywhere at once. ‘We’re going to be surrounded in seconds.’
‘We’ll have to make a run for it.’ The Spinner’s web was unreasonably tough, even against Frostling’s wickedly sharp edge. There were at least ten of the flying beasts now, with four of them in the air, their huge wings beating them with blasts of wind. As he watched, they began to circle round, pinning them in. He had only cut down to the middle of his stomach, and his legs were still trapped. ‘Wydrin, go! Quickly, while there’s still a way out!’
She glanced back at him over her shoulder, an outraged look on her face. ‘And leave you here? Not bloody likely.’
‘Go! I mean it!’ His hands were sweating, his grip on the blade slipping. One of the flying beasts, obviously growing bolder now, scampered forward and snapped at Wydrin, catching her on the arm. She cried out in pai
n, stumbling backwards, and Frith saw spots of blood spatter the deck. ‘NO!’
There was no boiling surge of Edenier in his chest, but for the barest second Frith felt as though he were outside himself – as though he were linked to the water and the air of this place. He could feel the rotten wood below them, holding up the remains of the ship. It was already so old, all it would need would be a little push … there was a thunderous crack from far below and the entire ship shifted slightly to the right. Wydrin stumbled and had to scramble to stop herself from falling down the hole, while several of the flying beasts took to the air, screeching with outrage.
‘What was that?’ cried Wydrin. Frith shook his head, too surprised to answer – his heart thundered in his chest as though he had just run up a hill – and then behind him came the Spinner’s voice, groggy and confused.
‘The island, she calls,’ he said.
‘Spinner! Quickly, you must let me down!’
Without questioning him, the Spinner brought his claw deftly across the remaining web holding Frith in place, and he dropped down to join Wydrin on the deck. He didn’t land as neatly as she did, and winced as his feet took the impact.
‘Spinner!’ called Wydrin without looking at him. ‘Can you move? Can you get out of here?’
‘I don’t know. I am hurt. Everything is strange.’
Around them, the winged creatures were drawing in again, snapping their beak-like jaws together. Frith edged closer to Wydrin, and they pressed their backs together.
‘We have to keep them from him,’ she said, shifting into a fighting stance. ‘Don’t lose my dagger. I’m very fond of it.’
‘Fine. Don’t get killed. I’m very fond of you.’
She glanced over her shoulder at him, grinning widely, and as if they’d been waiting for her to look away, the animals surged forward.
‘Look out!’