'Please help me!' The girl's voice barely penetrated the crash and hiss of the sea.
'It is one of the creatures!' The freckle-faced oarsman shouted. 'Ignore her!'
'She might be real,' Melcorka said. 'What do we all see?'
'I see a little girl looking for help!' Bradan stretched out his arm, as if he could reach across fifty feet of surging sea.
'It is a little girl,' Nicolson said, and the oarsmen agreed, nodding their heads. With everybody seeing the same thing, Melcorka thought that there was less possibility that they had been enchanted. Peering through a curtain of spray and spindrift, she strove to see the child. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted: 'Who are you?'
'I'm Alva,' the girl screamed, thin voiced. 'Don't leave me please!'
'Wait!' Melcorka ordered. 'Don't move!' She lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. 'Captain: can you keep Prancer here for a few moments?'
Nicolson glanced around at the maelstrom of breaking waves and savage rocks. He shook his head. 'No! It's not safe!'
'We cannot leave the child here,' Melcorka yelled. 'She is not one of the creatures.'
'How do you know?' Nicolson adjusted the steering oar to compensate for the sideways surge of the sea. One of the oarsmen yelled in fear when Prancer tilted to port and men slid along the rowing benches.
'I cannot sense any evil in her,' Melcorka said. 'And we all see the same; I think she is a child.' She made a rapid decision. 'Bradan! Take Defender!'
'Melcorka! Be careful!'
Poising herself on the bulwark for a second, Melcorka calculated the distance to the skerry, eyed the seething sea and jumped into the water. She was a powerful swimmer but even so felt the pull of the current and the buffeting of the waves as she struck out. Please God, she prayed, let there be no mermaids in this stretch of the sea.
The girl was about five, Melcorka thought, standing with tears streaming down her swollen face and a small pile of food and flagons of fresh water at her side. With an explosion of tangled blonde hair and clothing that clung to her in a sodden mess, she looked exactly what she was: a distressed and frightened child.
'You are safe now,' Melcorka crouched and folded her in her arms. 'We have a fine boat to take you away from here.'
'Our ship went down,' the girl sobbed, 'and horrible things came from the sea and took away my father and all the men. They kept me prisoner here…'
'I know, I know,' Melcorka soothed. 'You can tell me all later. No you must trust me. We are going to swim to that ship there…' She pointed to Prancer, half seen through a mist of spray.
'I'm scared.' When the girl shook her head, blonde hair bounced around her face, sending droplets of water flying. 'I'll drown.' Chubby little hands clung tightly to Melcorka.
'You must trust me,' Melcorka crouched at her side. 'My name is Melcorka. What did you say yours was?'
'Alva.' The girl's voice was weak; her eyes wide and blue and brimming with tears.
'Alva: daughter of the elves. That is a nice name.' Melcorka lifted her up; she was light and cold and trembling with fear. 'Now; do you see our ship?'
Alva nodded, wordless.
'She is called Prancer and she is going to take us to safety. Hold on tight and we will swim.'
Melcorka felt Alva's grip tighten around her neck.
'I'm scared!'
'It's all right, little one,' Melcorka soothed. 'Trust me.' She stepped into the water, aware of the extra drag that even such a lightweight as Alva created. She swam overhand toward Prancer, with the waves buffeting her back and forward and Alva's grip tight around her neck. Bradan stretched out a hand to help her pull herself on board, gasping for breath.
'Aye, we waited for you,' Nicolson said. 'That had better be a real child or it will be overboard as quick as I can curse, and that is damned fast!'
'This is Alva.' Melcorka ignored the threat. Any ship master that endangered his ship to wait for a strange child was a good man at heart. 'Her ship was wrecked here and the creatures took her parents so she is a castaway.' Retrieving Defender from Bradan, she buckled it across her back. 'She is also my responsibility and is under my protection.'
'Can we get away from this hellish place now?' Without waiting for an answer, Nicolson roared out: 'Pull lads! Pull hard!'
'You stay near me,' Melcorka said quietly to Alva, 'or to that man there,' she pointed to Bradan. 'You can trust him.'
'What will we do with the little one?' Bradan removed Alva's thin leine and began to dry her with his cloak. 'Look at her! She is all skin and bone and covered in bruises and cuts.'
'We will look after her,' Melcorka said. 'That is what people do with children. The hurts will heal and good food will add flesh to her bones.' She glanced at Bradan. 'I don't know how to heal what she has seen and endured.'
'Even if she is fed, she is very frail for a wandering life,' Bradan dipped into his bag and unfolded a roll of cloth. 'Here, Alva, wrap this around you until your own clothes dry.' He helped her dress herself.
'She is better with us than she would be there,' Melcorka indicated the cauldron of skerries and leaping water.
'Of that there is no doubt,' Bradan agreed. 'Sit over there, Alva, keep out of the way of the men and be good; Melcorka and I have to take our places on the rowing benches.'
'Clear water ahead!' Nicolson roared. 'One last effort, lads and we are through!'
Melcorka hauled with the others and suddenly they were beyond the cauldron of Llyr's Daughters and into the waters of the Minch with the sea-road to the Isles before them and a rising wind kicking white spume off the head of the waves. The crew gave a spontaneous cheer that came more from relief than triumph, and then fell silent when they saw the three ships waiting.
'The Caterans are still there,' Bradan pulled Alva close to him.
The three Cateran ships hovered, hull down to the south. Their black sails fouled the horizon.
Chapter Four
'Drop the sail, boys,' Nicolson ordered, 'and row like the devil was poking flaming torches into your arse.'
Nobody questioned Nicolson's order. A white sail would act like a visible target to the Caterans while the pencil thin mast might not be seen against a horizon of tossing waves. Prancer would have to rely on muscle and oar power to avoid the Caterans as she crossed the Minch, the stretch of water between the mainland of Alba and the outer islands.
'Sing lads,' Nicolson ordered, 'but keep it low. Noise carries.'
The iorram sounded again, with the men and Melcorka putting their weight behind the oars at every sixth note and Prancer surging onward across the waves. Staying close to Bradan, little Alva picked up the words and sang along with them, her thin voice piping above the rest. For a while all seemed well and they eased closer to the isles and away from the Caterans.
'They've seen us!' The freckled oarsman shouted suddenly. 'They're after us!'
Melcorka peered to the south where the black sails were now prominent and the hulls beneath also visible.
'If this wind holds we might do it,' Nicolson said. 'If it strengthens or veers to the west then they have the advantage.'
As Nicolson spoke, the wind increased, skiffing the tops off the long waves and tossing Prancer around.
'The wind's getting up! It'll be harder to row.' Alva displayed a surprising knowledge of seamanship.
'Row lads,' Nicolson shouted. 'Up the tempo and row for your lives!'
Melcorka followed the oarsmen in lifting the long oars, dipping them in the sea and pulling hard, grunting with every stroke. The curragh slid over the wild grey water, rising to each wave and diving down. A pod of dolphins broke the surface in front of them, cavorting playfully without a care for the worries of humanity, keeping pace with Prancer with no obvious effort. Yet however hard the crew of Prancer pulled, however much effort they put into their work, the three Cateran craft with their fresher crew and multiple oars were gaining on them.
'Hoist the sail,' Nicolson ordered, 'it might make a difference.'<
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'They're changing tactics,' Bradan warned, 'one is trying to head us off.'
Glancing to her right, Melcorka saw that he was correct. One of the Cateran vessels had altered course and was driving hard in front of them, trying to cut Prancer off from the isles that lay, alluringly visible, on the horizon.
By now the oarsmen were tiring. It was hours since they had left the mainland, with the attack by the mermaids a horror that had left them shaken and upset. Their strokes were weaker, despite all their efforts, and the Cateran vessels closed rapidly so that Melcorka could see the crowded hulls, the pure black sails and the eager, predatory faces that glared at them from the nearest vessel. The woman stood in the bow of the detached vessel, her dark leine pressed close to her body and her hair hanging in neat braids on either side of her face. Melcorka could have sworn that she was smiling, enjoying the chase.
The first arrow hissed toward them a few moments later, to land with an innocuous plop ten paces from their stern.
Bradan winked at Alva. 'They'll have to do a lot better than that, eh, little one?'
Alva tried to smile, failed and wiped away a tear.
'Oh God we're all going to die,' the freckle faced oarsman was equally unhappy with the situation.
'Not unless their shooting improves,' Melcorka said, smiling.
The next arrow was closer, disappearing into the sea five paces from the larboard side of Prancer, and the third ripped into the leather hull to protrude like some obscene feathered stick a handspan from the most forward oarsman.
'Their shooting's improving!' The freckled man nearly screamed.
'Enough of this,' Melcorka said. Hauling her dripping oars out of the sea, she stood up and pulled Defender from her scabbard. 'Keep rowing, boys, and leave the arrows to me.'
Standing in the stern of Prancer, Melcorka could see every detail of the closest Cateran vessel. Like its companion it was a birlinn, a timber-built galley with wooden pegs holding its strakes together and a carved serpent as a figurehead. The watchful woman stood motionless in the bow, as if she was also carved from timber, her eyes deep and strangely glowing and her dark hair tossing around her face.
An archer stood on either side of the woman, bending their bows; they released together and two arrows arced toward Prancer. One veered and wobbled in its flight, so Melcorka ignored it. As the second reached the apex of its arc and then whistled down, she stepped to where it would land, poised Defender and chopped the arrow out of the air. The two broken pieces fell harmlessly; one into the sea and the other inside the boat.
The oarsmen set up a cheer and continued to row.
'Land ahead,' Nicolson yelled. 'I can see Port-nan-loch.'
'I can see another ship,' Melcorka balanced easily with the bobbing of the curragh. 'It is pulling out of the shadow of the island.'
'Friend or foe?' Nicolson asked.
'I cannot tell,' Melcorka casually slashed another arrow out of the air. She knew that dark woman was studying her and stared back across the tossing water.
'She'll know you next time,' Bradan was holding Alva to him.
'And I will know her,' Melcorka said. 'One of the birlinns is dropping astern.'
With one of the Cateran vessels lagging, only two threatened Prancer now, the one ahead where the dark woman stood, and one closing on the larboard quarter.
'She's going to board us!' Bradan shouted as the Cateran to larboard unleashed a volley of arrows, lifted their port oars and surged alongside.
Melcorka chopped three of the arrows from the air and jumped on the thin gunwale, balancing there as the Cateran's birlinn closed. There were a dozen Caterans ready to jump on board, mouths open in obscene yells, bearded faces vicious, linen leines or padded jackets scarred and torn from long use. Rather than wait, Melcorka leaped across the gap onto their craft, slashing left and right with Defender even before she landed on the wooden deck.
'Come and fight me!' She shouted.
She sliced off a man's arm off at the elbow, chopped Defender into a rib cage and then she was slashing, hacking and thrusting, pushing the Caterans back with the fury of her attack. These men were nothing like the fierce Norse warriors she had previously fought, or the disciplined Picts of Fidach. These were predators who hoped for soft targets, outcasts who lived for the quick swoop and plunder of undefended merchant ships. They had not expected such resistance from a small curragh.
Most backed away from Melcorka's charge; others formed up in the stern and charged toward her. There was no finesse possible on this limited space, only move, duck, maim and kill as Melcorka scattered the first group of Caterans, leaving a welter of broken bodies in her wake. Somebody hacked at her with an axe and she cut his hand off; a man thrust at her with a spear and she sidestepped, caught the spear on her blade, turned it and sliced Defender into his body. Blood spurted from the wounded and dead so she moved in a haze of crimson as she stepped from the birlinn's quarterdeck to the packed rowing deck, chopping left and right at the startled, cowering oarsmen.
'Constables!' That was a new roar from astern. Melcorka had no time to look but knew that the vessel she had seen coming from behind the island had not been a Cateran. She was not alone in this fight.
A man in the birlinn's bows aimed an arrow at her; Melcorka saw Bradan lean across from Prancer and slam his staff into the archer's groin, then push him over the side. Other Caterans stared at her, or at the new vessel that was powering toward them with armed and mail-clad men straining at the oars and a tall man in the stern giving orders.
And then it was over. Men in chain mail were swarming over the birlinn from the newcomer and the second Cateran boat was fleeing. Melcorka saw the Caterans leap into the sea or throw up their hands in surrender on sigh as they saw the sail of the newcomer; the single black galley against a yellow background: the symbol of MacDonald, Lord of the Isles.
The tall man who had been at the stern of the new ship approached. He slid a bloody sword into his scabbard, smiled and held out a hand in friendship. With a drooping moustache and dancing eyes, he looked tough, humorous and capable; Melcorka liked him at once. 'Well met fellow warrior! I am Ranald MacDonald, Constable of the Isles.'
Chapter Five
Port-nan-loch in the island of Ulvust consisted of a cluster of dry-stone, heather-thatched houses scattered around a sea-loch where leaden waves washed a coast of rocks smeared with seaweed. Most cottages were long and heavy, thick-walled against the weather, smeared with peat smoke and with small deep-set windows that peered out toward the sea. Dogs ran bedside groups of children, hens roamed free and the occasional dun-coloured cow or shaggy sheep hunted the coast for anything edible. The island stretched around, with crofts and cottages crouched low under an infinity of sky.
Ranald MacDonald escorted Prancer to a shallow bay in the shelter of a rubble-built breakwater, and waited to greet Nicolson and the crew as they thankfully disembarked.
'Bad voyage?' Ranald viewed the empty rowing benches and the rips on the hull caused by arrow and skerry.
'Between Caterans and mermaids it was interesting, but we collected another friend.' Melcorka nodded to Alva.
'Lovely looking little girl,' Ranald said. 'Where did you find her?'
'Have you heard of a ship going down near Llyr's Daughters? That's where we found her. Her parents are missing.'
Ranald shook his head. 'I have not heard of any vessel sinking there recently. I will make enquiries and let you know.'
'I would like to return young Alva to her kin,' Melcorka said.
'It is always better to be with family,' Ranald agreed. 'I'll pass on the word that you rescued her.'
'I would be obliged.' Melcorka looked over the Constable's galley. 'Nice ship you have there. Ten oars a side and a young crew?' She examined Ranald's men. 'They seem a handy bunch. You should be able to curtail the Caterans with men like that.'
Ranald nodded. 'You would think so, would you not? If there was more of me I might be able to, but with one ship f
or the whole of the Lordship, and the Caterans increasing in numbers and ferocity, I am hard pressed.' He shook his auburn head. 'Now you say that the mermaids are also causing trouble?'
'They are; we had to shelter in Llyr's Haven and there were at least half a dozen of the creatures there.'
'A whole gathering of them? That's very unusual.' Ranald sighed and then smiled 'I'll take the ship over and have a look. I might be able to do some good.'
'I hope so; they took two of my men,' Nicolson said.
'They're not the only men to be taken recently,' Ranald said, grimly. 'There is something serious happening just now. I've never known peacetime seas to be so dangerous. The Caterans are raiding far and wide; I think they have some new leader organising them. If I can find who it is I'll destroy the whole nest.'
'There was a woman on the Cateran ship that attacked us,' Melcorka described her as best she could as Ranald listened.
He shook his head. 'That means nothing to me,' he said. 'I'll take my boys over and see to these mermaids first and think of the Caterans later.'
'I am sure you will be able to clean them up,' Melcorka said.
'So why are you here?' Ranald eyed Defender inquisitively. He was friendly, inquisitive but ready to be stern in the manner of law-enforcers the world over.
'We are looking for a dead man named Abaris,' Melcorka told him honestly. 'He was a druid and Bradan wishes to find his temple.'
Ranald shrugged. 'You are looking for a dead man? There are seldom many of them above ground or above water. I don't know the name Abaris though.'
'Not many people do,' Bradan said. 'If I can find his temple I may be able to find out more about him.'
Ranald nodded. 'There are plenty of temples among the Isles. Ask at Broch nan-inch. Hector MacRae is your man. His people have been here since before time.' He glanced at his ship, shouting to one of his men to check the weather braces 'and get that damned steering oar in shape; she was steering two points adrift in the westerly wind!' .
'Thank you,' Melcorka said, 'I'll ask Hector MacRae. I can see you are anxious to get back to sea so we shall not detain you any further.'
The Shining One (The Swordswoman Book 2) Page 5