“Me? Uh-oh.”
“You saved her daughter.”
“She couldn’t a’ knowed that.”
“But we know. For we heard, and we watched. These forests are ours. It is because of this deed that we rescued you from Onka Din Botlay.”
So he had saved the girl. But it felt like the other way around. “Jenta, is she all right?”
“She is in the healing.”
“What’s that mean? She goin’ to live?”
“She will not die at our hands.”
Delaney relaxed. “So what was all that, with her singin’ and whatnot, and them critters lettin’ me go and climbin’ up the pole like that?”
“They are not people, the Onka Din Botlay. But they are not animals. They have spirits. Their spirits roam freely among the dead. Twisted, bent, and ancient they are. They flee from light. They flee from heart.” He put a fist to his chest. “The song of a woman in mourning…this they cannot bear.”
Delaney nodded. He understood that. Who could bear it? “Can I get her? Can we go? Her daughter’s way downstream and I know she’d like to catch her up.”
“It is done.”
“What’s done?”
“We have caught up the little girl. She awaits at the mouth of the Silver Path, where it rushes to the sea.”
“Well, that’s kind of ye. So where’s the captain, Belisar, and the rest of the crew?”
“Your chieftain is raised up. The rest have gone.”
“Raised up?” No explanation seemed to be forthcoming. “Raised up where?”
“High above, where he belongs.”
“What, in heaven?”
“I do not understand heaven.”
“Where the good dead go.”
“No. He is not where the good dead go. But he is high up.”
“I don’t take yer meanin’.”
And the chieftain pointed upward, behind Delaney.
When he turned and craned his neck, he saw the body of Belisar the Whale, stripped and painted with bones, hanging by his ankles from the treetops.
“Well,” Delaney said after a long pause. “That must a’ took some doin’.”
Then after another pause, he asked, “What happened to the gold? In the cave, I mean?”
“The trifles? Rippers of the Bone protect it, as promised to the great captain of the dark world.”
He meant the Conch. “Well, I reckon that works. No one’s going to cart it away like that. Can it be changed back?”
“Kanha roo boh,” the chieftain said. “Day ho noss.”
The translator intoned the answer. “He says, the creatures have the power to turn worthless trinkets into sunlight, and it will shine like this forever more.”
Delaney sighed. “I guess that’s a good power to have. Though folks out there in the dark world ain’t likely to see it quite that way.”
EPILOGUE
JENTA’S SCARS FADED. By the time she was reunited with Autumn at the mud huts of Sule City, they were lines barely traceable by the little girl’s finger. The healing, whatever that treatment was, had been remarkable.
They found to their relief that the Shalamon had sailed. She had pulled anchor not long after Lemmer Harps returned, waving the bare bones at the end of his arm where once a hand had been. With him was Blue Garvey, paddling for all he was worth. Lefty, as he was forever called after, muttered incoherently about ghosts and Hants and Belisar being spirited away before their eyes, raised up into the darkness of the forest above. Blue reported that Sleeve had been caught up too, but in a different way. Late that night the Hants had taken to admiring his boney limbs, and he tried to fight them off. But they carried him away, him cursing and them saying over and over, Onka Din Botlay. And in their own tongues, “the Ripper of the Bone must be satisfied.” When it became clear to all that Blue was just as spooked as Lemmer, nothing was going to keep that crew from fleeing the Hants and Sule City.
The Flying Ringby had long since sailed as well, so Jenta and Autumn and Delaney waited for the next ship, spending their time swimming and fishing and relaxing. Soon enough a ship pulled in. Her captain was known to Delaney, and though he had a cruel reputation, he claimed to have set pirating behind him since his days under Conch Imbry. He was after a greater prize than what could be found in the holds of merchant ships. He needed hands at the moment and after a brief negotiation, he agreed to take Jenta and the girl to the next port, where they could catch a ship out of the Warm Climes, back to Nearing Vast. Delaney signed on, grateful to serve a man who was not a pirate, but who would not hold a man’s pirate past against him.
Delaney’s new captain was true to his word, and at the next port, Jenta and Autumn were placed in the care of a kindly merchant captain headed north. Before she left him, though, she said her goodbyes to Smith Delaney, on the docks of a port unfamiliar to them both.
“Where will ye go?” Delaney asked, standing at the foot of the gangway. She had been called to board, she and Autumn, but Delaney wasn’t quite ready to see her depart, somehow.
“To the farm in Nearing Vast, I suppose,” Jenta answered. But her look was distant, as it had been since that night. Her thoughts seemed to be somewhere else—not distracted, precisely, for she was always present, and never missed a turn in a conversation or even a shade of meaning. But more like she was in two places at once, and the other place, wherever it was, was calm and serene and inviting and she wanted to be there fully. “Though I don’t know. A cabin up in the woods, perhaps.” She looked down at Autumn’s sweet face, and placed a hand on her daughter’s cheek.
“Well, I guess it’s goodbye then,” he said slowly. “My ship’s sailin’, too.” He hooked a thumb behind him, toward the great, sleek ship he’d signed on to sail.
“I’m glad you’ve found your friends,” she told him.
“They ain’t exactly friends.” The crew of the Shalamon, captainless again, had fought like badgers during the voyage from Sule City. When they had made port here, half of them had looked for a different ship to sail, figuring the Shalamon was cursed. Blue and Mutter and a few others had found the same opportunity Delaney had. They were now aboard the same ship under the same captain, and would be on crew with Delaney once again. “But I thank ye.” He put out his hand.
Jenta ignored it, and embraced him. He smelled her hair, his face buried into her shoulder. It was not just honeysuckle, as Ham had described it, but some other sweetness, too. Like mown grass on a summer morning, or the breeze off the ocean right before a rain. He didn’t hug her back, but stood straight up, like a board, waiting for it to end. But when it did, he wished it didn’t.
“Goodbye, Mr. Delaney,” Autumn said, and took her turn hugging him. He picked her up so she could do it more easily, and she planted a kiss on his cheek.
“It’s scratchy, Mama,” she said, still in his arms, her hand on his cheek.
“Need a shave,” he informed Jenta, running his free hand over the stubble of his face. He never did get his knife back, though he would think about it for a long time, wishing he’d been clear enough in his mind to scout along the floor of the pond while he was swimming around down there. But he hadn’t been, and nothing could be done about it now. He had to let it go. Sometimes things just had to be let go, he knew, no matter how bad you wanted them to stay. He set the little girl down.
And then he watched as Jenta and Autumn boarded the merchant vessel, bound for Mann. When Jenta turned back and waved, and he saw the sadness in her eyes, Delaney thought about Damrick. He even wished for a moment it was Damrick standing there, and not himself at all. He figured she probably wished the same. But he wasn’t Damrick, and that was that. After a while, when Jenta and Autumn were long gone, he turned and walked away.
He had work to do.
Delaney was quickly happy to have signed on, and realized with a great thankfulness just how fortunate he was. He had much to think about, much to ponder. He had gotten down to the bottom of himself and found a darkness deeper than
he knew could be. And yet he’d been raised up again—and not like Belisar was, but truly. All of that meant something, and he purposed in his heart to find out what.
But in the meantime his new duties would keep him busy. This ship was a dazzling thing, and he was thankful for that as well. Sleek and long, she looked like she was running at full speed even when standing still. Delaney’s heart had pounded from the first moment she cleared the reefs and sandbars of Sule City and he felt her under his feet on the open ocean, running with the wind. He knew he would grow to love her dearly. She was built for a singular purpose, by a singular captain, and seemed destined for greatness.
Her name was Trophy Chase, and under Captain Scatter Wilkins she was headed out to the Vast Sea in a favorable wind, leaping like a cat over and through the billows, in headlong pursuit of the legendary Firefish.
The End.
What happens next to Smith Delaney? Find out by reading the…
TROPHY CHASE TRILOGY
George Bryan Polivka
BOOK ONE: THE LEGEND OF THE FIREFISH
Packer Throme longs to bring prosperity back to his fishing village by discovering the trade secrets of Scat Wilkins, a notorious pirate who now seeks to hunt the legendary Firefish and sell its rare meat.
Packer begins his quest by stowing away aboard Scat’s ship, the Trophy Chase, bound for the open sea.
Will belief and vision be enough for Packer Throme to survive? And will Talon, the Drammune warrior woman who serves as Scat’s security officer, be Packer’s deliverance…or his death? And what of Panna Seline? In her determination not to lose Packer, she leaves home to follow the man she loves, but soon she is swept up in a perilous adventure of her own.
BOOK TWO: THE HAND THAT BEARS THE SWORD
In the midst of their joyous “honey month,” newlyweds Packer and Panna Throme are once again thrust unwillingly into high adventure.
Pirate Scat Wilkins, no longer in command of his great ship, has returned with evil intentions for Packer as the Trophy Chase sets sail for deep waters once again.
While Packer is away, Panna, his bride, faces danger at the hands of the lecherous Prince Mather.
And a deadly peril has arisen across the sea. A new Hezzan in the Kingdom of Drammun now has diabolical designs on Packer and the Firefish trade, which catapults all of Nearing Vast into the horrors of war.
BOOK THREE: THE BATTLE FOR VAST DOMINION
Packer Throme, determined to demonstrate that power comes only from above, leads his people in a war against the dreaded Drammune. The evil Hezzan of Drammun will kill without remorse for the secret of the Firefish…and so will dark forces lurking within Nearing Vast.
As army faces army, and navy faces navy, all are drawn inexorably to the source of the epic struggle…the feeding waters of the Firefish within the Achawuk Territory. One final surprise awaits Packer Throme there in the foreboding place where the struggle for the dominion of the world will be settled at last.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Bryan Polivka was raised in the Chicago area, attended Bible college in Alabama, and ventured on to Europe, where he studied under Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. He then returned to Alabama, where he enrolled at Birmingham-Southern College as an English major.
While still in school, Bryan married Jeri, his only sweetheart since high school and now his wife of more than 25 years. He also was offered a highly coveted internship at a local television station, which led him to his first career—as an award-winning television producer.
In 1986, Bryan won an Emmy for writing his documentary A Hard Road to Glory, which detailed the difficult path African-Americans traveled to achieve recognition through athletic success during times of racial prejudice and oppression.
Bryan and his family eventually moved to the Baltimore area, where he worked with Sylvan Learning Systems (now Laureate Education). In 2001 he was honored by the U.S. Distance Learning Association for the most significant achievement by an individual in corporate e-learning. He is currently responsible for developing and delivering new programs for Laureate’s online higher education division.
Bryan and Jeri live near Baltimore with their two children, Jake and Aime, where Bryan continues to work and write.
Be sure to visit his website at www.nearingvast.com.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
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To learn more about Harvest House books and to read sample chapters, log on to our website:
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
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