The Harvest Tide Project

by Oisin McGann

  ‘If I see you loose off another shot from that weapon without orders to do so, you will be back shelling ornacrids in Westermare so fast, your feet won’t touch the ground.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Understood, sir.’

  Just at that moment, the creature beat its wings and pulled out of its dive. A light, yellow rain fell on the guards, and Groach wrinkled his nose as a faint, but unmistakable odour drifted towards him.

  ‘I can’t believe you did that!’ Taya gaped to hide her smile as Lorkrin climbed back up towards her, fighting the stiff breeze.

  ‘You just can’t believe you didn’t think of it first,’ Lorkrin replied, smugly.

  Groach watched the bat, or bird, join its companion and an uneasy feeling squirmed in his gut. Memories of sewers and skacks and shape-changers flooded back to him. He was afraid that there was a reason that nobody knew what kind of creatures those were. He was afraid that that kind of creature did not exist at all. He turned his attention to the Prime Ministrate. The Noranian leader was reading a parchment, and appeared deep in thought.

  He had an aura, the Prime Ministrate. Groach knew he had been very young when he had won power in Noran, over ten years ago now. Prime Ministrates were normally middle-aged, but Namen had outwitted many people in his rise to leadership. There were stories of savagery and assassinations, treachery and the exiling of his opponents; but Groach knew that there were always people who would try and blacken the name of the leader of an empire. To him, Rak Ek Namen seemed an intelligent, warm, civilised man. The weight of his responsibilities showed in the lines of his otherwise young face, but Groach felt privileged to be in this man’s company, and was thoroughly enjoying himself.

  ‘Almost there,’ Namen said to him, nodding towards the shore, where there was another mooring further upriver. With no small skill, the reptilian man steered the huge beast into the shore, and two more crew waiting for them on the bank jumped aboard and attached the mooring chains to rings embedded in the quay. Groach doubted that these chains would hold the creature if it decided to wander off, but he supposed it would be less inclined to wander if it was well fed. He saw its keeper undo the net and let the fish slide out of it into the water. The bexemot sucked them in, and its head disappeared beneath the surface. Searching the skies, he saw that the airborne creatures had also vanished.

  Groach was ushered back aboard the coach, and the engines were restarted and revved up to power. Namen climbed in to join him, and the convoy started off. The Noranian leader broke out lunch, another hamper. This time it was a collection of quiches, pies and pasties, cold meats and salads. There was also a selection of fruit, some of which Groach had only ever read about. Namen poured them both some wine, and Groach sat back and talked with the Prime Ministrate about the future of Noran and where science was leading the world.

  They were travelling up the rocky surface of a narrow valley when the vehicles ground to a halt. Cossock swung down off the coach to talk to the convoy commander, and then came back to the door of the coach, where he explained the reason for stopping.

  ‘A footprint, Prime Ministrate. Looks like a raspidam. We’ll have to send scouts out to find it so that we don’t surprise it along the road somewhere. It could pose a serious risk if it’s not alone. Looks like a fully grown adult. Best to stop here until we’re sure.’

  Without a word, Namen got out of the coach and walked to the front of the column of vehicles. It had started to rain lightly, but the clouds above promised heavier falls before the day was out. All the engines were still running, and the soldiers were carefully scanning the slopes of the valley on either side. They were all seasoned warriors, but a raspidam was a threat that could not be treated lightly. Groach trotted along to keep up with the Prime Ministrate’s long strides, holding his bag over his head to keep the rain off, and he had to skid to a halt to avoid knocking into the tall Noranian when he stopped suddenly. The footprint was as wide as the battlewagon that stood before it. It was unmistakable, a hoof with claws; there was only one animal that could leave a mark like this.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit shallow?’ the Prime Ministrate asked. ‘You would expect such a massive creature to leave deeper footprints.’

  ‘The ground around here is bedrock beneath this dust, Prime Ministrate,’ the Whipholder informed him. ‘There’s bare stone all around us. We were lucky to see this before the rain washed it away. It’s not a good idea to be surprised by one of these beasts. I mean, they’d be unlikely to attack a convoy of this size, but you never know …’

  ‘All right,’ Namen said in a clipped tone. ‘But I don’t want to be held up longer than is necessary. Find this thing or make sure the way through is safe and get us moving. I want to be in Noran by nightfall.’

  ‘Yes, Prime Ministrate.’

  As they spoke, there was the sound of rushing air, and they saw a boy with bat’s wings and a long, beak-shaped head dropping straight down towards them. He swooped low in over the roofs of the battle wagons and seized Groach by his shoulders. With a powerful stroke of his wings, he lifted the slight man off his feet and into the air. Groach screamed. Cossock, standing behind the Prime Ministrate made a grab for his feet, but missed. A soldier went to fire his crossbow, but was knocked to the ground by a girl with similar wings. She carried through, making more soldiers duck, and then grabbed hold of Groach’s ankles, and together the two lifted him up and away.

  Another guard went to shoot them down, but the Prime Ministrate slapped the weapon down:

  ‘No, you idiot! You might hit Groach.’ The Noranian leader was absolutely livid. ‘Myunans! Well, they can’t carry him forever. Sound the alarm, spread the word across the area. When they land, I want troops down on their position before they have time to catch their breath.’

  ‘That might not be so easy, sir,’ the Whipholder warned. ‘There aren’t enough local troops to cover the area …’

  Namen moved like a striking snake, drawing the Whipholder’s own sword and embedding it with frightening force in the bonewood side of the wagon behind the commander. There was time for the Whipholder’s face to register shock at what had happened, before his head slipped from his shoulders and tumbled to the ground. Soldiers stepped back as his body followed it, the gaping neck spattering blood over their boots as it crumpled. The sword stayed jammed in the wall of the wagon.

  ‘Find them, kill the Myunans, bring him back, uninjured.’ Namen stepped over the mutilated body, and striding back to his coach, he called: ‘There is no raspidam. Get these vehicles moving.’

  Lorkrin and Taya were tiring quickly. It was hard enough work trying to stay aloft on their own, but keeping their height while carrying a thrashing, panicked gardener made it nearly impossible.

  ‘Let me go, you monsters!’ Groach shrieked, kicking and slapping as best he could while held in the grip of the two Myunans. ‘What are you doing? Are you mad?’

  ‘Stop … struggling!’ Taya protested. ‘We’re rescuing you … stop it!’

  ‘Rescuing me?’ Groach wailed in absolute disbelief. ‘Rescuing me from what? I’m going to fall and die in bits on the ground because you two think you’re helping me? What kind of twisted, demented world do you two live in? LET ME DOWN!’

  ‘I can’t hold him much longer,’ Lorkrin panted. ‘We’d better find a place to land.’

  ‘I’m looking. We need a place to hide …’

  ‘There, near the edge of the esh, those trees.’

  ‘I see it.’

  The world seemed a long way below them, and they were not flying steadily. Groach had shut up for fear of throwing up, but was still tensed up and shaking to and fro. The wind buffeted them and swirled in gusts that made it difficult to remain stable. Fields and roads could be seen beneath them, the convoy lost to sight between the hills of the valley behind them. Heavy storm clouds scudded by above and the air was becoming charged with electricity. The haze of rain around them made the ground blur.

  Whirling and bucking their way through the turbulent
air, they aimed for the sheltered spot they could see before them. Suddenly, a shaft of lightning arced down past them, so close they felt the heat of it in the air. It blinded them, causing the shape-changers to lose their bearings and plunge headlong towards the ground. In the tumbling confusion, Groach screamed until his throat ached.

  They were almost to the treetops before they regained control and spun out of their fall, both of the Myunans crying out with the strain on their shoulders and chests as they struggled to hold onto the air. Then they were up again, swooping clear of the trees and beating on towards shelter. Ignoring her pitching stomach, Taya called to Lorkrin and nodded towards a clearing visible between the trees. He saw it, and steered them in that direction.

  The two Myunans were at the end of their endurance; Groach’s weight was too much for them. They sagged, and the botanist found himself whipped by branches and smacked by leaves. In a last-ditch effort, Lorkrin flung himself through a gap in the tree line and dropped to the grass as he lost control. They crashed along the ground and rolled into a sprawling mess, where they lay still. All three were moaning in pain. Taya sat up and clutched the grass on either side of her in shock as she found her legs dangling over a cliff. They had stopped just short of going right over.

  Holding the grass with the claws on her wings, she lay back and flipped her legs over her head, rolling away from the edge. Lorkrin was standing up, sharing the view. Groach still lay curled up on the ground, groaning to himself.

  ‘Wow,’ said Lorkrin quietly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Taya replied. She was slunching, relaxing her body so that it slowly returned to its normal form. Lorkrin did the same. When she was back to her old self, Taya knelt by Groach and shook his shoulder. He grunted something that sounded rude. She looked over him for any sign of injuries, but apart from some blossoming bruises, he appeared to be unhurt.

  ‘Do you think we’re far enough away from those soldiers?’ Lorkrin asked.

  ‘The ones at the convoy, I think so. but there might be others around. If the convoy sends out pigeons or smoke signals, the whole area might be looking for us.’

  ‘Let’s have a rest and then get out of here. I’m not carrying him any further, and it’s a long walk back to Hortenz.’

  ‘Sounds fine to me.’

  They flopped to the ground, limbs splayed and heads back, gazing at the deepening storm clouds. It was still raining, but lightly, and the water was soothing, cold and light. As they lay there, it gradually grew heavier, and they were forced to sit up and seek shelter. Helping Groach to his feet, they trotted over to the dry carpet of twigs and scrub beneath a thick beech tree.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ Groach muttered. ‘It’s not safe – there’s lightning coming.’

  ‘So?’ Taya frowned.

  ‘So, lightning strikes tall things on the ground,’ he explained through a tight smile, as if she were half her age. ‘Things like trees. We need to get away from the trees and lie down, preferably somewhere out of the rain.’

  ‘Come on,’ Lorkrin pointed at a bank of earth nearby. ‘That’s out of the wind. There should be just enough shelter.’

  They made their way over to the bank, heads and shoulders now hunched against the pounding rain. The wind was rising in strength and ferocity, whipping their hair and clothes about and making their eyes water. The sky was blackening and the oppressive clouds rolled threateningly overhead. They crouched under the shadow of the bank, bowed to the spray the wind threw in at them. There was the flash of lightning in the clouds and, a second later, the dull roll of thunder.

  ‘I was in a warm, dry, luxury coach, eating wonderful food and enjoying interesting conversation with the leader of the empire,’ Groach hissed at them. ‘And as soon as this clears up, I’m going right back there.’

  ‘That’s gratitude for you,’ Lorkrin sniffed, huddling closer to his sister. ‘We risked our lives to rescue you and this is all we get. It took us ages to make that raspidam’s footprint, Taya had to walk all over me to get me into the right shape. Decided you like being a prisoner all of a sudden?’

  ‘I wasn’t a prisoner!’

  ‘So why is it that you get locked up wherever you go?’

  ‘I do not! What do you know about it? I was happy until I met you two. Since then, my life has gone from bad to worse. Then I thought it was all over. I was going back to Noran. I was being treated like a prince. And then along come you two again and suddenly I’m falling from the sky, getting lashed by branches, hitting the ground like a sack of bones and getting caught out in the open in a thunderstorm! Which bit should I be grateful for, exactly?’

  He realised he was shouting at the boy and stopped. They were both staring at him, looking hurt and confused. He shook his head and turned away. Holding his rucksack over his head to shield him from the rain that was blowing in under the bank, he found a dry bit of rock and sat down.

  Lorkrin gazed out at the dark, hazy outline of the trees, now only a shape in the grey rain-soaked air. Something caught his attention, something moving in their shadows, and he found himself looking right at a Noranian soldier. He was standing under the very beech where they had just been sheltering. The boy tugged his sister’s sleeve and nodded at the man. She gasped and went to whisper to Groach, but he had not seen the soldier. She held her tongue. The man had not seen them yet. If they stayed quiet, he might miss them. But she was not sure what Groach would do. Was he serious about wanting to go back? Lorkrin could see what she was thinking, and he too was unsure what to do next. They changed colour, becoming the grainy yellow ochre of the earth behind them, melding into the background. But they could not hide Groach.

  The soldier was joined by another. They were studying the ground at the base of the tree, moving carefully around it as if to avoid disturbing whatever lay there. The shape-shifters knew the soldiers were looking at their tracks. Only the force of the rain and the overhang of the bank was hiding them now; the soldiers knew they were here somewhere. More troops appeared, coming through the cloak of the trees and materialising out of the rain along either side, following the edge of the esh. There were eleven, no … twelve altogether. They grouped around the first two, and the Myunans could see them talking, but the rain and thunder were washing all the other sounds away.

  With stunning force, a lightning bolt struck a tree in the woods nearby and they all turned towards it. Groach raised his head and saw them; he was about to jump to his feet when two muddy, wet shape-changers flattened him, hiding him beneath their camouflage.

  ‘Get off!’ he wheezed from under them, pushing them away. He shoved them aside, but was too late to get the Noranians’ attention. They had spread out and started into the woods in search of more tracks. The rain had obliterated all those that were not sheltered by the trees. Groach staggered out into the storm, calling out to them.

  ‘Come back! I’m a friend of the Prime Ministrate’s! Hello? Hey! The Prime Ministrate is looking for me! Over here!’

  ‘Shessil, please!’ Taya begged. ‘We’re trying to help.’

  ‘I don’t want your kind of help!’ He turned on her. ‘Go home!’

  Taya stopped behind him as he continued to chase after the search party. She was upset and confused. Lorkrin came up, and scowled after Groach.

  ‘That’s it. We tried to help him. Whatever it is they want him for, they can have him. He deserves them. Let’s get out of here.’ He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Taya, come on.’

  ‘I still think he’s in real trouble, Lorkrin.’

  ‘Then he’s in it on his own. We tried. Come on.’

  As they turned to walk in the other direction, an armoured figure appeared out of the lashing rain ahead of them. She stopped when she saw them and raised a loaded crossbow.

  ‘Run!’ screamed Taya. They both sprinted in different directions, but the soldier stayed where she was. Picking her target, she aimed and pulled the trigger. Taya felt an impact in her right calf and her leg jerked clumsily. She fell, catching herself o
n her elbows and getting quickly to her feet. But her right leg had gone stiff, and when she looked down, she saw a crossbow bolt protruding from the back of her calf. She moaned as a searing pain spread up through her leg. Limping on, she heard the soldier behind her shouting and saw figures coming through the trees in front of her. She collapsed again, and before she could stand up, a hand grasped her hair and lifted her onto her feet. Taya squealed and tried to open the fingers that were holding her hair, but they held firm. A voice nearby called:

  ‘We have the man. We don’t want the others. You know your orders.’

  A knife blade appeared in front of Taya’s face.

  Lorkrin did not know that his sister had been caught. He was belting along the cliff edge, trying to see through the torrent of rain to the bushes ahead of him. If he could make it to undergrowth, he could hide, become invisible among the ground cover. He became aware of thumping footsteps behind him, and glanced back to see a soldier gaining on him. But Lorkrin was a fast runner. He increased his speed, and with it, the distance between himself and his pursuer. He would make the bushes in time.

  A crossbow bolt left a burning track across the side of his head and he yelped in pain. The man had given up trying to catch him. Another bolt struck the ground ahead of him and he jumped over it and ran on. He was almost to the bushes now… suddenly a soldier rose out of the foliage in front of him, and Lorkrin narrowly missed being caught, darting to one side and ducking under the man’s clutching arms. He turned, stumbled, lost his footing and found himself sliding down a gravelly slope towards the edge of the cliff. Lorkrin jammed his heels in and scrabbled for a grip on the stony surface, but he failed to catch onto anything. His slide quickened until he lost control of his speed altogether, and bumped and flailed down the slope, stones scraping into his legs, bottom and back. With a scream, he went over the edge.

  Groach was walking out into the clearing, with a soldier on each side. He stopped in horror when he saw another soldier, this one a woman, with a knife at Taya’s throat.