Fenn Halflin and the Seaborn

by Francesca Armour-Chelu

  “Nothin’ beats Malmuts though. They’re what we need,” one of the men muttered.

  The captain turned sharply. “A shipment’s due tomorrow morning. You!” he bellowed, singling out the one who had spoken up. “Keep watch first.” He gestured to the Swampscrew. “Rest of you, clean her up!”

  The Terra crew knew better than to argue that it was pointless to clean a Swampscrew while they were still out in the muddy marsh. They began wetting rags to shine up the armoured plates. Meanwhile, the captain strolled idly around the machine, checking the rail, testing the blades of the cylinders for their sharpness. Then he climbed aboard again and disappeared under the tarpaulin on deck.

  The rain pattered on the woven branches of Fenn’s cape, the way it used to tap on the slate roof of the pigsty. He kept still for what seemed to be hours, until he thought the men had probably settled for the night. Then he edged his body around in the wet mud like the slow hand of a clock until he could see the night watchmen properly.

  Shivering beneath his cape, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, Fenn listened as the first watchers moaned about the marsh, the Sargassons and the weather and cursed the damp wood as their tiny fire dwindled. They were so close he could smell the smoke and hear every word. As he listened his mind raced through his options: he wouldn’t stand a chance once the Malmuts arrived, but he’d sooner die trying to escape than disappear down a sinkhole of sand. He would wait until dawn when hopefully the Terras would be asleep, then he’d try to crawl away. He wouldn’t have much of a head start on the dogs, but it was the only chance he had.

  Darkness fell quickly on the flats and the air turned icy. As the long hours passed, the night winds picked up, battering the Swampscrew’s tarpaulin like a sail. The watch changed but the Terras stayed alert, terrified of Sargasson raids and wild creatures. The darkness also brought other noises that Fenn understood but the Terras only feared: murderous barks of marsh foxes and the lonely howls of wolves. The rushes in Fenn’s cape had hardened into an icy yoke across his neck. Hearing the wolves, Tikki crawled down even further from where Fenn had pushed him into safety. He must have been hungry yet he didn’t go off hunting; instead he lay quiet and trembling under the crook of Fenn’s arm. It was as if Tikki understood the danger and the need for absolute still. Fenn managed to bend his arm back around so he could just reach Tikki. He stroked Tikki’s chest with his thumb, smoothing the dense fur down and rippling it back again, and murmured quietly reassuring sounds. Fenn was more afraid than ever, but he concentrated all his thoughts into the little patch of warmth under Tikki’s head. At last he heard Tikki begin to purr contentedly and fall asleep.

  The night tides rolled up the flats, sloshing over the banks of bladderwrack. Fenn was high enough on the sandbank to keep mainly dry, but even so the returning water swept up and down, washing over his feet. Once he thought he could hear something shifting in the sands, but the sludge of snow clouds still made it too dark to see what it was.

  As night stretched on, Fenn’s thoughts began to drift to what would happen if they captured him. They would want to find out who had helped him. They would hurt him. He knew he wasn’t strong like Halflin. He’d be in pain, he’d be afraid, he’d tell Chilstone anything to make pain stop. He held Tikki tighter, wondering if he should try to get him to run away to safety right now; wondering if he’d even go.

  To divert himself, Fenn turned his thoughts to his friends. They’d be well under way to West Isle by now. He hoped they’d get beyond its Wall. He remembered being on the Salamander that night, how they’d talked about ways to survive the floods. He closed his eyes and let his memory drift across the Salamander’s deck, watching the brazier twinkle and almost smelling the wonderful chocolate drink Comfort made. He thought of Gulper, Amber, Fathom and poor Milk, the only friends he’d ever had, apart from Tikki. For the first time since he’d waved them goodbye, Fenn let himself think of how much he missed them all. If this was to be his last night alive, he’d spend it with his friends – even if it was only in his imagination. Lost in these thoughts he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  Fenn had been dreaming of Amber’s tin mug jangling as she toasted to a better life, then the clatter became real. He realised with a jolt that he’d slept too long. The clanking sounds came from the Terra camp; the night watchman was hammering a spoon against a can for the wake-up call.

  Dawn had passed and Fenn was too late to escape unseen. In the night he had ground his head into a hollow of sand to try and flatten himself out as much as possible to avoid detection, so now he couldn’t see anything except a clump of slimy bladderwrack seaweed close to his face. He sniffed and a rank smell seeped into his nostrils. The tide was going out now but was making a soft slup-slup-slup as if it was lapping against something. Fenn slowly turned his head to look towards the Terras’ camp, making the tiniest movements so that if one of the Terras glanced his way, they might think it was just the ebb of the tide. Peering into the greying light, Fenn looked for the Swampscrew and the tents.

  But it was as if it had all disappeared under a gigantic, mouldering hill. Fenn squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again in case he was still dreaming. He wasn’t. Less than ten feet away, washed up on a ridge of mud, lay a huge whale completely blocking his sightline of the Terras – and theirs of him.

  The whale was lying twisted, its head rolled to one side so that Fenn could see the lips of its blowhole. It must have been dead for days, because the flesh was starting to sag and tear, and rips had appeared in its sides. Fenn could see one long, red-mottled rib, like a giant tooth sticking out and dozens of suction-cup scars showed that it had battled giant squids. A gaping hole revealed where the poor creature’s liver had been torn out, and Fenn remembered Halflin saying that gangs of Orcas would single out a sperm whale. Her beautiful mussel-black tail had been robbed of an entire fluke and there were serrated edges where sharks had taken bites as she drifted past. Hundreds of little holes pocked her skin like moth-nibbles in wool, where other scavengers had fed. The ocean, like land, is a great loop of life with links of death and birth. As Fenn stared, he heard shouts from behind it: cries of disgust as the Terras were woken by the stench.

  Stiff as a board, Fenn crawled over the mud to the right, to see how close the Terras were. Tikki squeaked and shifted under the flap of his coat. The captain was settled on the ledge of the Swampscrew, foaming his face for a shave while he angled the wing mirror to see. Most of the crew set about taking down the tents but several were on the ground, laughing and jostling each other towards the rotten whale, scarves wound around their faces as they lobbed stones at its bloated side, trying to puncture it. Fenn pressed himself deeper into the mud. It only needed one of them to come closer on a sightseeing tour of the whale to spot him, but luckily for Fenn, the captain was in a hurry to get going.

  “Strike camp!” he yelled, flipping open his razor and quickly scraping soap off his face. The men jumped into action and the sergeant flattened a map on the Swampscrew’s windshield for the captain to see.

  “Two more wrecks here and here, sir,” he said, jabbing a finger at two points on the map. The captain glanced over, grunting in annoyance as he cut himself. He flicked the pink-tinted foam from his razor and wiped the blade clean on his thigh. The sergeant handed him a towel.

  “The other battalions have those areas covered,” the captain muttered. “Our mission extends to the Sargasson borders. We can’t get the Swampscrew across the bigger rivers without the floating bridges anyway. They arrive in a few days. Until then we don’t enter their territory.” He laughed and clapped the sergeant’s shoulder. “Remember, one fight at a time; we’ll fight the Bog-men another day.”

  He mopped his bleeding cheek with the towel before tossing it at a young Terra nearby. “You! Got good eyesight?” he asked. Months at sea and a poor diet had wrecked the captain’s own vision, although he wasn’t much above twenty. The boy nodded uncertainly. “Then you go ahead. We’ll take it slow so you can check for quic
ksands.” He jumped back onto the deck and shouted, “Start her up!”

  As the Swampscrew shuddered into life, the last Terras jumped back on. The cylinders spun until mud began shooting from them like sleet. The boy chosen to check for quicksands tentatively stepped out onto the flats, poking the mud with a long pole. The Swampscrew slowly scythed down the slope behind him. He raised his hand for the direction the Swampscrew needed to take.

  “Bear left!” the captain shouted.

  Fenn knew he’d have to move quickly; either the boy would see him or he would be crushed as the Swampscrew ploughed past the whale. He had to take his chance now. While the captain had been talking Fenn had been weighing up his options. He realised he’d been wrong: there was one place to hide from sight. He dragged himself up, wincing at the stiffness that tightened across his body and, clutching Tikki, forced himself to run across the mud – not away from the Terras and the Swampscrew, but towards them and the whale. Within a few paces he was at the whale’s side, pressing his body tight against the grey underbelly, blistered with sulphuric-yellow barnacles. He scrambled towards the whale’s head, ripped off the cape and pushed his rucksack and mud boards under it. He heard the Swampscrew grinding closer; he had seconds left.

  Fenn wound his scarf around his head, covering his whole face, then steadying himself with one hand on the rubbery flesh, he jammed his foot in the crease of the whale’s jaw, stuck his knife in to get a purchase on the skin and quickly hauled himself up to the blowhole. He understood enough about whale anatomy to know that it wasn’t a hole at all, but actually one, single giant nostril, although it really looked more like a toothless black mouth. The blowhole was nearly two feet long – just wide enough for someone as skinny as Fenn to squeeze inside.

  He took in a huge suck of air, packing it deep down in his lungs, then put his arms close to his ears, like he was taking a dive, and pushed in, squeezing his hands, arms, head and shoulders through the rubbery lips. He wriggled and jerked his way down, until he heard a slurp as the lips of the blowhole closed behind him. He was plunged into a red-tinted dark, like when he used to pretend to be asleep but looked through his lids at the kitchen lamp.

  The blowhole led in at a slight incline, so at first it felt like he would slip deep into the whale’s skull and never get out, but he stuck his knife in further to make sure he didn’t slip too far. The wet lining bulged against him like cold jelly but by keeping his head tucked down, he found he could still breathe, taking in short breaths to add to his stored lungful. As soon as he had wriggled in he felt the blubbery skin begin to close around his legs, as if it was sucking him in. He arched his back, so he could bring his knees up into the space, then he opened up the jacket flap a little, expelling a mouthful of air towards Tikki to help him breathe. All he had to do now was sit tight for a few minutes until the Terras were out of range.

  But each second felt like an hour as he listened to the Swampscrew slowly edge out further onto the mudflats. He wasn’t sure how long he could last. The smell and the lack of oxygen were stifling and it was a battle not to be sick. He braced himself against the pressure of the blubber swelling against him in a sticky mass. Any fractional movement caused blasts of gas and bubbles to gush and pop around him. Even with his mask, it made his eyes stream. He clucked at Tikki to help keep him calm, but he could feel his little heart beating fast with panic at the strange smells around him. At last there came a roaring as the Swampscrew churned past the whale’s tail, making everything shudder. A few minutes later, Fenn was left alone in silence.

  The stench was unbearable and Fenn couldn’t breathe properly any more; the gas was making him so light-headed he was struggling not to pass out. He started trying to wriggle his way out, but he didn’t seem able to move; if anything, the suction inside the whale seemed to be pulling him in deeper. He got the strongest sense the whale was starting to absorb him; for the first time in his life he could understand how drowning felt. Tikki whimpered in fear.

  Fenn started to panic. He tried to push his hands out to get some kind of grip but it was too slippery. He kicked out but his feet just bounced back. He slid in a little more. It dawned on him that it wasn’t that different from falling into quicksand. He immediately stopped moving so roughly and remembered his knife. Using it like a hook, he picked and clawed his way around until he was facing out again, then bit by bit he tugged himself up towards the blowhole. He pushed through the mouth and tumbled out, flopping down exhausted onto the mud.

  He wiped the slime from his face and blinked into the distance. Far across the flats he could see mud frothing up from where the Swampscrew was churning towards the old wreck the captain had spotted. He watched as the Terras jumped down and disappeared inside, the Swampscrew still clanking. Fenn pulled Tikki out from his coat, grabbed his rucksack from where it was still hidden under the whale and dropped Tikki inside. Then he scrambled around the other side of the whale where he could put on his cape and mud shoes out of sight. As soon as he was ready to go, he peeped around the edge of the whale’s tail – just in time to see flames start to lick up around the old wooden wreck. It had been less than three minutes, but the Terras were already packing away their fire-hoses and boarding the Swampscrew. Tikki poked his head up out of the rucksack, twitching his nose in alarm at the unnatural scent of burning tar on the wind.

  “Bet you didn’t think being nearly caught by them was a good thing, Tikki?” Fenn whispered. “We could have been in that – still asleep! Some wake-up call that would have been!” Fenn gently pushed Tikki’s head back inside and buckled down the rucksack’s straps. Tikki would be better off in the peaceful, warm dark.

  Then he hoisted it on his back, hurrying away in the opposite direction from the Swampscrew, running up the bulldozed banks of the mudflats back towards the path Halflin had always intended him to take.

  6

  As soon as Fenn was clear of the mudflats he kicked off the wooden shoes and ran to the remains of the church tower, where he slumped against a heap of rubble, catching his breath. Once he’d recovered, he jumped up and hurtled southwards, keeping parallel to the mudflats. There was no cover save the wind-dried stumps of sedge grass and the odd scrawny tree bent to the winds, but if the Terras caught up with him, he figured he could at least take his chances in the boggy reeds.

  He ran until the sun faded behind foggy clouds and he felt dizzy with hunger. He stumbled behind a thin crop of willows by a muddy creek, refilled his flask with its stagnant water and opened the rucksack. Instantly Tikki sprang out like a jack-in-the-box, chattering with anger at his captivity, before skittering into the spit of water, where he rolled himself around to clean off the stench of the dead whale. Fenn would have copied him, but he hoped the sour-milk smell of the wax coating his clothes would mask human scent from the Malmuts. He watched Tikki splash and jump in the water while he emptied the rucksack, searching for the tin of oats. His heart sank as he realised the tin must have fallen out when he’d climbed inside the whale. There was nothing to eat but the rabbit and no way to eat it. He let it flop on the ground, wishing he could build a fire, but knowing it’d be far too dangerous. Instead he scraped up what was left of the oats that had fallen out in the bottom of the bag and was about to stuff them in his mouth, when he felt two beady eyes on him. Fenn sighed.

  “OK. You have them. I wasn’t that hungry anyway,” he said scattering them on the ground. Tikki gobbled them up. “At least you get supper,” Fenn laughed, giving Tikki a stroke.

  Fenn scouted around to see if there was anything else he might be able to eat, but it was too early for frogs to be out of hibernation and the bulrush heads would give him hardly any nourishment. Then he spotted a few leaves at their base, breaking above the waterline. Water parsnip! Halflin used to pick them to bulk out stews. They would be bitter eaten raw, but it was still food. Hungrily, he dug his hands in the mud until he felt the chunky roots deep in the ground and wrenched them out. He was about to cram them in his mouth when something – some old
memory – made him pause. The leaves were the wrong shape; too fern-like. It wasn’t water parsnip, it was water hemlock. Fenn dropped the roots like hot coals and plunged his hands in the mud, scraping at his fingers with the head of a bulrush. Even the juice was enough to blister the skin; if he’d eaten them, he’d have been dead in twenty minutes.

  He stumbled back up the bank cursing his stupidity. The bulrush heads sneezed white seeds in the air as he brushed by and he stuffed a few cottony handfuls in his mouth, crawling back to the refuge of the willows to eat. Tikki followed him, and started jumping up against one of the trunks and snapping at it.

  The bark seemed to be moving. Raft spiders, birch bugs, crickets, water boatmen; all insects that should have been hibernating were clambering up into the tree’s slender branches. Fenn watched them, puzzled; it was never a good sign when marsh life broke its own rules. Tikki at last caught something and bounded onto Fenn’s shoulder, with two spindly legs sticking out of his mouth. He gifted a half-chewed spider onto Fenn’s shoulder for him to eat.

  “Very noble of you,” Fenn said, “but I’ll stick to my tasteless fluff, thanks.” He pushed the spider back to Tikki, who didn’t hesitate to gobble it down. But as he ruffled Tikki’s fur, there came a faint but unmistakable sound: a Malmut barking.

  Instantly Tikki picked up his fear and began to growl. Fenn jumped up trying to think straight; he needed to run, but he was frozen to the spot. He remembered Milk standing terrified in the alleyway during the Shanties Sweep. This must have been what had happened to him. Fenn had been running for so long, scared for so long, that his body rebelled. Sweat broke on his neck and instantly the dogs’ barks changed to a keen yelping as they caught his scent. Where were they? Two miles away at least, and yet they could still smell Fenn. They were coming for him.