Hexult

by Perry Aylen

  ‘Aulf’s father used to sail from Spinnyridge to Thorland in two days when he was delivering the mail,’ said Ma, rising to fetch the kettle from the stove to brew more tea.

  Jacob looked curious. ‘Why doesn’t Aulf deliver there now?’

  Ma had her back to them and didn’t answer. Ingar said, ‘Thorland’s a wild place. Nobody goes there any more. Even from a distance, it looks forbidding. Dark brooding hills on the far off horizon.’

  ‘Sounds intriguing,’ said Jacob.

  Ma turned back from the stove, kettle in hand, and spoke with unexpected vehemence. ‘No, Ingar’s right. It’s a wild place. You don’t want to have anything to do with Thorland!’

  She saw she had startled them.

  ‘I didn’t mean to sound so fierce.’ she apologised as she poured hot water into the teapot. ‘It’s just that I feel very strongly about Thorland, as Ingar knows. You see, just over a year ago, my husband was killed there.’

  After breakfast, Elya took the breakfast scraps out to the chickens. Running her hand through the still-warm bedding straw to check for new-laid eggs, she glanced up as a silent shadow blocked the light filtering through the ill-fitting planks of the hen house. Jacob or Ingar, she thought, come to lend her a hand. She rose and reached for the latch, but before she could lift it, it was wrenched from her grasp as the door was pulled back on its hinges and the frame was filled with the dark bulk of a heavy, broad-shouldered man with a gnarled face and wide, staring eyes.

  Elya couldn’t help herself. She screamed out loud. The bowl that had contained the scraps dropped to the ground with a loud clatter, and the man took a step back, startled. Seizing her chance, Elya darted past him and sprinted for the house, her heart hammering wildly.

  Nearing the door, she looked back. He hadn’t chased her. He was staring after her, his mouth open, his hands raised defensively, forefingers linked together.

  The door to the house flew open. Ingar emerged, with Jacob behind, pulling on his gloves as Elya ran into them.

  Ingar grabbed her. ‘What’s up?’

  Elya just pointed back down the path, unable to catch her breath and speak.

  Ingar looked down the path and waved. ‘Morning Ronult’ she called. ‘This is Elya and Jacob. They’ll be staying here for a while. You’ll see them about.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Elya finally managed to force out.

  ‘That’s Ronult. He helps Ma out around the farm. He’s a neighbour.’

  ‘Why’s he doing that with his hands?’

  ‘You probably need to get used to that,’ Ingar warned her. ‘It’s just a sign. For protection. People round here, they’re suspicious of strangers. We don’t get many visitors to Hexult - apart from the Horde, of course, and they’re never welcome. And you two... well, you look...’ She struggled to find an appropriate description. ‘Different,’ she finished lamely.

  After that, whenever Elya saw Ronult around the farm, he would nod in her direction politely, but, she noticed, he always made the same little movements with his fingers when he saw her, and she couldn’t shake off the uncomfortable way that made her feel.

  On the fifth morning of their stay on Jakir Chine, Ma and Elya sat together in the warm kitchen, polishing Ma’s copper saucepans until they could see their own faces clearly reflected in the burnished gleam of the fiery metal.

  ‘Who are the Horde?’ Elya asked. ‘Ingar’s mentioned them a few times. Are they like the raiders?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ma answered still polishing. Then she thought again and stopped. ‘Well, no. Raiders are lawless scavengers who skulk around between the islands. But the Horde come round every few years, like a huge band of parasites. They cause havoc and mayhem, but then they move on.’

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  Ma shook her head. ‘Nobody knows for sure. They just appear, with no warning, out of the mists.’

  ‘Like we did.’ Elya set down the final shining pan on the table and turned to Ma, her expression suddenly earnest. ‘Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me and Jacob. As soon as we can, we’ll repay you for everything, I promise.’

  ‘Don’t you trouble yourselves on that count.’ Ma’s warm smile crinkled round her bright blue eyes. ‘I don’t need any repayment. You and Jacob have worked hard these last few days and more than earned your keep. And I’ve enjoyed having your company. I’ve got Ronult and old Kurt across the island, and a few other folk for company, but it’s not the same as having young people here to chat with and cook for all the time. Aulf comes by as often as he can, but having the three of you here like this, I’ve really enjoyed it.’

  Elya smiled back at her and Ma noticed how the smile lightened the green of her eyes, like the sun shining through the leaves of a tree.

  ‘Aulf’s lucky to have you,’ Elya told her. Then her smile faded, the sun sank below the edge of the trees and the forest became dark and mysterious again. ‘Jacob and I never knew our mother. She died soon after we were born.’

  It was the first time Elya had volunteered any information about her past. Ma leant over to give her hand a gentle squeeze. ‘Well, one thing’s for sure,’ she said, with certainty, ‘she’d have been very proud of you both.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘What is it, Elya? What’s the matter?’

  Elya jerked awake, a sharp breath catching like a sob in her throat. The soft downy quilts of her bed enveloped her in the darkness. It was still night.

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  Elya stared into the blackness, momentarily confused. She hadn’t been aware that she was crying. Then her dream came back to her and she drew a deep breath.

  ‘I was just dreaming. Sorry.’

  She heard Jacob’s little sigh of relief, and realised how she must have alarmed him.

  ‘Was it about Dad?’

  Although it was too dark for Jacob to see the nod she gave, he must have understood

  because he reached out and gave her arm a gentle squeeze.

  ‘I dreamt we were running away again.’ She took another unsteady breath. ‘I wish he was here, Jacob.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Elya took a deep breath to calm the panic she still felt from the dream.

  ‘What are we going to do, Jacob? We can’t go home again.’

  ‘We’ll be all right. You know what Dad always said. If anything happened to him, we had to look after each other. As long as we stick together, we’ll be all right.’

  Even though she knew his confidence was false, Elya was still comforted by Jacob’s words, and the feel of his hand on her arm. She lay awake, staring into the darkness while Jacob’s breathing grew slower and deeper and she knew he had fallen asleep again.

  ‘Jacob!’

  He jumped awake. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Shhh! I heard the front door open. I’m sure of it.’

  They lay rigid, straining to hear whatever it was that had disturbed Elya, but there was only silence.

  ‘I can’t hear...’ began Jacob in a whisper, then stopped as he heard it. ‘There’s someone in the kitchen.’

  ‘Maybe it’s Ma or Ingar.’

  ‘What? Coming through the front door in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Who else could it be?’

  Jacob didn’t answer. He slid quietly out of bed.

  ‘Jacob! Where are you going?’

  ‘To see who’s there.’

  ‘Jacob!’

  Elya’s instinct was to dive under the bedcovers and hope whoever was in the kitchen would just go away, but with Jacob on his feet ready to confront the intruders, she had no choice but to clamber out of the safe cocoon of her bed and hurry to his side as he carefully opened the door a crack and peered out.

  There was only silent blackness in the kitchen. With the shutters closed, there was not even the faint glow of luminescent moonlight. Perhaps she had been mistaken after all. Perhaps there was nobody there.

  Then the darkness in the centre of the room seemed to shift.
Something clattered against the wood of the table and both she and Jacob jumped in alarm.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Jacob’s bold challenge startled Elya again.

  Something clattered again and gave a painful grunt. There was a rustle and a thud and silence.

  Jacob and Elya stood frozen by their door for a few more moments, but the darkness in the kitchen was now motionless and silent again. Jacob opened the door wider. Elya tried to pull him back but he shrugged her off, and all she could do was follow him, her heart hammering, as he groped his way along the kitchen wall to the shelf where he knew the tapers were kept, then to the stove.

  The stove door clanked as he lifted it open, and a warm orange glow illuminated his face briefly as he lit the taper from the glowing embers. He straightened his back and held up the light, and the room came into soft focus. Elya clutched at her brother. In unison, they drew in a sharp intake of breath.

  A man lay curled on the floor beside the table. It was a full moment before Elya recognised the creamy woollen jumper crossed with leather straps, and another to register the deep crimson stain that had soaked through the fibres in a wide, spreading circle.

  ‘Aulf!’ For some reason her voice came out in a shrill squeak.

  Jacob was already lighting the lamp on the table. ‘Elya, quick! Wake Ma and Ingar.’

  She hurried to do as he said, impressed at her brother’s cool headedness. He was already at Aulf’s side, and even as she shouted to Ma and Ingar, Elya could see that Aulf was moving, sitting up. Her knees weakened with relief.

  ‘It’s all right,’ muttered Aulf as Jacob helped him to a chair and Ma and Ingar came flying out of their rooms, wrapping their robes around them. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks. I was just a bit dizzy, that’s all.’

  Elya lit another lamp and rushed to stoke up the stove, and move the kettle back over the heat.

  ‘Aulf, what happened?’ Ma looked with dismay at the spreading bloodstain all down Aulf’s left side.

  ‘It was an arrow. But it’s just a graze, Ma. I’ll be all right.’ Aulf looked very pale and tired in the lamplight.

  ‘Let me see. Ingar, get some clean cloths from the cupboard in my room.’ Ma was already unfastening the straps from Aulf’s shoulders. Jacob came to help her peel off the blood soaked layers of Aulf’s clothing. With the wound exposed, they could all see how lucky he had been.

  The arrow had skimmed his left side, ripping a wide hole in his clothes and taking out a chunk of flesh just below his ribs. Fresh blood was still oozing from the wound. Between them, Ma and Ingar cleaned away the blood and spread liniment on a pad of cloth. Bandaged securely around his middle, Aulf was wrapped in a quilt and led unresisting to an armchair.

  Elya stirred honey into a mug of tea and put it into Aulf’s hands. He managed a smile. ‘Thanks, Elya.’

  ‘Now tell us what happened,’ said Ingar, sitting down facing him.

  ‘Raiders.’ Aulf shook his head. ‘They’re everywhere. The islands are all so busy fighting each other, no one’s paying any attention to dealing with them.’ He shifted in his seat to get more comfortable and winced with the pain from his side. ‘I was on my way back from Orking Do when they sprang me, and I got this.’ He gestured with his head at the arrow wound. But there were four of them. They cut me off from Quayven so I had to sail out onto the open ice. Took me a while to shake them off, and by then it was getting dark.’ He looked at Jacob and gave a weak grin. ‘Thanks to your lodestone, I could keep sailing though, and find my way back here.’ He leaned his head back in his chair, closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.

  ‘I should have gone with you,’ said Ingar. ‘It’s not safe to sail alone.’

  ‘You need to get some rest.’ Ma’s face looked lined with worry. ‘You can tell us the rest tomorrow. Jacob, help Aulf to bed.’

  Aulf lifted his head again, with an effort, and gave his mother a reassuring smile. ‘I don’t need any help, Ma. I can manage,’ he said, but his voice sounded as pale as his face, and Elya noticed he didn’t protest when Jacob leant him his shoulder to cross the kitchen to his bedroom.

  Aulf slept late the following day. When he finally appeared in the kitchen, he looked more like his old self. He made no fuss as Ma changed the dressing over his wound, and sat obediently in the armchair while she cooked him eggs and cut him some new bread. While he ate, he told them the news of his trip.

  ‘There’s all sorts of trouble going on at the moment.’ He took a mouthful of bread and shook his head. ‘After I left here, I sailed to Quayven. Mayor Sleetfoot sent me straight on to Orking Do with an urgent letter for Mayor Potts. And then Mayor Potts wanted replies taken straight back. I’ve been all over the place.’

  Ingar frowned. ‘What’s so urgent then?’

  ‘Oh, the usual troubles,’ Aulf told her, ‘only worse this time. All sorts of arguments going on! And more fighting on Spinnyridge. The Thorlanders attacked and Orking Do only just managed to hang onto the islands.’

  ‘That’s bad news!’ Ma looked worried.

  Aulf nodded. ‘There’s a major rift between Orking Do and the other two islands over it. Orking Do says Quayven and Pelago ignored its requests to help defend Spinnyridge and left them to do it alone. So now Quayven and Pelago are up in arms against Orking Do.’

  Ingar looked puzzled. ‘When we were last on Orking Do, all the talk was about how they didn’t need any help against the Thorlanders. How they had Spinnyridge all sewn up.’

  ‘That’s what Mayor Sleetfoot says too,’ Aulf told her. ‘He says he never received any message for help from Orking Do.’ He shook his head. ‘Well, at least I can safely say I was never given any such message from Orking Do, so if the message did go missing, it wasn’t down to me! Trouble is, there are a couple of other mail boats working from Orking Do that have both been attacked by raiders in the last few days. The crossings just aren’t safe any more. It’s quite likely, if there were messages, they simply didn’t make it across the ice.’

  Ma pursed her mouth. ‘There was a time not so long ago when you could travel anywhere between here and Spinnyridge and not have to worry about anything other than the Vajra and the cold. Now you take your life in your hands.’

  Aulf pulled a face. ‘It’s about to get worse too. Word is that Orking Do isn’t letting iron and copper from Spinnyridge pass through its ports on its way to the other islands now. And if that happens, we could end up in an all out trade war.’

  ‘What’s the matter with them all?’ Ma sighed. ‘Mayors! They’re just like bickering children sometimes!’

  ‘The last two deliveries of iron never made it from Orking Do to Quayven,’ Aulf went on. ‘Mayor Potts claims the barges were attacked by raiders, but Mayor Sleetfoot is now suspicious that they were never sent at all. He even asked me to find out if they had actually set sail from Orking Do when I delivered the mail there. So now I’m not just a mail man, I’m a spy!’

  Ma tuned to the twins, looking apologetic. ‘I don’t know what you two will think of us. Things never used to be like this on Hexult. We never used to be always at each other’s throats.’

  ‘People where we lived argued as well,’ Jacob said, with a resigned shrug.

  ‘I need to get back to Quayven,’ Aulf told them. ‘Mayor Sleetfoot is waiting to hear back from me.’

  Ma looked stern ‘Mayor or no mayor, you are not going anywhere until that side of yours has healed up. There are other mail boats the mayors can call on to deliver their snipes and accusations to each other, aren’t there?’

  Aulf swallowed a mouthful of food. ‘I’m the only one they can rely on to get through. If only I’d been there to take the message about the attack on Spinnyridge, maybe none of this would have happened.’ There was no arrogance in Aulf’s voice as he said this. It made Ingar smile, because she knew it was true. Aulf was the best sailor on Hexult, and the Aurora was the fastest skiff on all the islands. That was why she was proud to be Aulf’s crew.

  Jacob looked thoughtful. As they al
l mulled over what Aulf had told them, he said, ‘It sounds like what Hexult needs is a faster, more reliable communication system.’

  Aulf gave a little shrug. ‘The Aurora is by far the fastest mail boat there is, but she can’t be everywhere at once, and with the best will in the world, there are always going to be delays, particularly with all this raiding activity we’re seeing lately.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about boats,’ Jacob replied. ‘I was thinking about the way we did things back on our home island. We sent important messages via light towers.’

  ‘Light towers?’ Aulf’s fork stopped midway to his mouth. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Signal towers, with mirrors and shutters,’ explained Jacob. ‘On our islands we communicated with each other using flashes of sunlight to send signals from tower to tower. You could send a message to another island and they could send a reply straight back.’

  Aulf stopped eating and gave Jacob a hard look. Ingar was staring too. Even Ma was intrigued.

  ‘Would that work?’ Aulf looked dubious. ‘Would you see a flash of light from so far away?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’ Jacob’s enthusiasm was beginning to grow. ‘From the way Ingar described the geography of your islands, I think it might work. What do you think, Elya?’

  ‘It could be the perfect solution for Hexult,’ Elya agreed. ‘Not only would it speed up communication, there would be no risk from raiders intercepting important messages.’

  ‘It would take some working out, of course.’ Excitement was creeping into Jacob’s voice. ‘Where to build the towers to achieve an unbroken line of signals, heights of the towers, angles of the mirrors, that sort of thing, but it certainly wouldn’t be impossible.’

  Aulf’s gaze flicked between them, half excited, half doubtful. ‘Have you really seen this work?’

  Elya nodded. ‘It’s used every day where we come from. No one thinks twice about it there.’

  ‘It’s a brilliant idea,’ Aulf murmured, turning the possibilities over in his mind, ‘if it would really work.’