Fenn Halflin and the Seaborn

by Francesca Armour-Chelu

  13

  By the time Fenn arrived on the banks of the tributary, his friends were already huddled together, shivering in the night air. The river glugged slowly past, black as tar beneath the trees. Tikki instantly jumped down from Comfort’s arms and scampered up into Fenn’s, squeaking with delight.

  Sargasson guards had dragged two coracles through the reeds to the shoreline. The boats were like huge half walnut shells, almost circular, with a broad seat spanning across the centre. They were woven from willow, covered in tarred leather, and two short-handled paddles stained by the eel blood pooling in their base. Fenn had sometimes seen Sargassons use the coracles for travelling across the marsh, where they skimmed over the waterways to collect the eels from the eel bucks. They could be used in water from a few inches to many feet deep and they were light enough to carry on the back when the water got too shallow. They would be perfect for crossing the waterlogged marshlands. As Magpie had warned him, the waters were on the rise again.

  Fenn climbed in one coracle with Gulper, while Amber and Fathom took Comfort in theirs. Tikki curled tight around Fenn’s neck and chattered; he didn’t like the smell of blood and sensed danger. Fenn opened up his rucksack and gently lowered him inside.

  “Quiet,” he whispered. Tikki twitched his nose, and curled in a ball inside.

  “Tell the world the Sargassons need help. Good luck!” the guard said as he pushed Fenn and Gulper’s coracle out into the creek. Amber, Fathom and Comfort weren’t far behind. The current was strong and soon the two coracles were speeding downriver. Apart from the odd croaks of the natterjack toads and flurries of snowflakes hitting the water like waves breaking, the night was still.

  “Could we go all the way to the sea in these things?” Fathom asked.

  Fenn put his fingers to his lips. Sounds had a knack of carrying on the night air.

  They slid in silence through the gloomy forest, only paddling when they had to get around dead trees floating in the water. Bogbean and spearwort grew in tangled clumps along the edge of the banks, like the dark shapes that lurked on the edge of all their nightmares. Whenever the water got too clogged with weed, Fenn showed them how to use their paddles as punts. The night crept damply on and finally even the toads fell quiet.

  It was hours before they eventually reached the outer edge of the petrified forest. They were already numb with cold, and without the protection of the trees, a bleak wind blew in from the east, fattening the sides of the dwindling trees with fleeces of dusty snow. It seemed like they had been paddling for ever. Fenn scanned the riverbanks for the oak tree Moray had told him to look for. He couldn’t see it but he was sure it had to be soon.

  “Keep to the left,” Fenn whispered, gesturing to the other bank. They paddled to the sides, hugging the bank and slowing the coracles. Suddenly a moorhen scuttled across the water’s surface towards them, making them all jump. Something downriver must have spooked her. Fenn signalled to Fathom to row the coracles into the dark reeds. Under their cover, Fenn raised himself up and peered downriver.

  It was dead quiet ahead and the snow clouds filled the night sky but Fenn could see how a little further ahead the river narrowed just as Moray had said it would. But there was something else; Fenn’s sharp eyes spotted a darker patch between the two banks ahead. Something was lying across the water from bank to bank.

  “What is it?” whimpered Gulper fearfully. But before Fenn could reply, a blistering beam of white light shot out from a huge searchlight, illuminating it properly. It was a temporary pontoon bridge – rolled planks floating on barrels in the water. It gently bobbed up and down as the river’s currents changed tempo. Terra guards were already stationed on it. Fenn quickly ducked down.

  “Terras!” he whispered. “The attack must have started!”

  Gulper clamped his arms around himself the way he did when he was really scared.

  “What’re we going to do?” Amber asked.

  “We’ve got to get out of the water right now. Dump the coracles!” Fenn answered, but at that moment Fathom silently pointed down the bank; lights were moving up the side of the river heading in their direction. Fathom peered over the edge of the coracle.

  “Can we swim for it?”

  “They’ll see us.” Gulper blinked fearfully. Comfort pressed even closer to Amber.

  “Not if we’re under the water,” Fenn said.

  “Underwater?” Amber hissed incredulously. “None of us can stay under as long as you. We’re not built like you Fenn! We’re not half fish!”

  Fenn fell silent, trying to think over Amber’s panic but she continued, shaking her head at the very idea of swimming.

  “You can make it. You go! It’d be better for us if you did.”

  Gulper blinked anxiously at Fenn, willing him to have an answer. He started rocking again to calm himself down, making the coracle shake.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Fenn said firmly, holding Gulper’s shoulder tight to still him.

  He desperately tried to think of some plan to save them, but couldn’t find any answer. They couldn’t retreat; there was no way they’d have the strength to paddle back up the river – the current was too strong and the river too wide to cross back to the forest without being spotted. He turned and looked at Fathom to see if he could think of something. Fathom had survived the Shanties for a long time; surely together they could work out a way. Fathom silently shook his head.

  “Can’t we just hide?” Amber asked. “In the reeds?” But even she knew that was ridiculous. She looked imploringly at Fenn to come up with something.

  “Maybe it’s time to give up?” Fathom said quietly.

  Fenn refused to do that, however impossible it seemed. There always had to be a way; Halflin would never have given up. His eyes alighted on the bulrushes; tall as bamboo, white as milk, straight as wands. He suddenly remembered a story Halflin had once told him about a prank he’d once played on a childhood friend. Fenn had the answer. He quickly slid his knife out and sliced four reeds down. They couldn’t hide in the reeds but the reeds could hide them.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Amber hissed. “What are we going to do with those?”

  “You can breathe through them!” said Fenn. His friends still looked at him blankly. “You can stay under if you breathe through them,” he explained. “Go with the current, try not to kick. Don’t break the surface.”

  “What about the bridge?” Amber cut in immediately. “How do we get past that? It’s floating on the actual water – the reeds won’t help us then!”

  “Leave it to me, all right?” Fenn whispered. “Just make sure you get in the water when the Terras get close. Once you see me go under, give me ten minutes. Then follow.”

  “Even if we get down the river, what about when we get out? We’ll freeze!” Gulper asked, already shivering pitifully.

  Fenn was already stripping off the top layers of his clothes and flattening them down in the bottom of the coracle.

  “Put them in here. They’re not going to waste time stopping an empty boat,” he said, nodding to them to put their clothes with his.

  They all knew it was a crazy plan but they had no other choice. Amber quickly unbuttoned her coat, helped Comfort pull off her outer layers, and pressed them deep in the bottom of the coracle, covering them with deerskins. Comfort lifted Tikki up to Fenn questioningly. Fenn took him and stared hard into his eyes.

  “You’ve got to go on your own, Tikki,” he whispered, sounding as firm as possible. “You’ve got to run that way!” Fenn pointed downstream, then kissed him on the head and gently gave him a nudge into the watery reeds.

  Mongeese can swim, but Tikki didn’t want to; and for a second he tried to wriggle out of Fenn’s hands and back into the coracle, looking over his shoulder at Fenn with large puzzled eyes.

  “Yes, you’ve got to go,” Fenn said. “That way!”

  He nodded in the direction he wanted Tikki to take, and this time Tikki seemed to understand and slid into the w
ater towards the bank.

  Fenn turned to the others. “When you get past the bridge, we’ll meet by the lightning tree.”

  “What are you going to do?” Fathom asked.

  “Cut the bridge in half,” Fenn explained.

  “What?” Amber said. “Have you gone completely out of your mind? That’s your plan?”

  “It’s just barrels held together with ropes – how hard can it be?”

  Fenn edged his leg over the coracle’s side and climbed into the water; it was so cold he felt like his skin was peeling off. His whole body stippled with goose pimples and he shuddered as the icy cold stabbed his muscles.

  “Ten minutes,” he reminded Amber. His teeth were already chattering until he clamped his knife between them.

  “Be careful,” Amber whispered.

  Fenn swam out into the centre of the river, taking a sharp breath as the cold slammed around his heart. There, he turned and gave his friends the thumbs up, before sliding under, out of sight.

  He felt like his bones would snap, it was so freezing, but at least there was light from the Terras’ searchlight so that he could see the muddy landscape he was swimming through. Knobbly branches of dead trees stuck up like birds’ claws and small fish glimmered as they flittered past in the murky weeds. Deep below he could just make out the shapes of thick, black eels squirming in the mud.

  Fenn swam underwater for more than two minutes, with the current speeding him along until he reached the bridge. Then he dived deeper to duck beneath the rows of barrels and came up the other side, behind the Terras, who were still patrolling back and forth – keeping watch upriver, not down. He waited for the nearest Terra guard to pass, then grabbed the first rope linking two central barrels in the chain holding the bridge together. The rope was the thickness of his arm and would take a lot of work to cut through with his little knife, blunted through weeks of use at the Shanties. He sawed as quickly and quietly as he could before the Terra guard passed back again. He was almost through the first rope when suddenly the bridge began to bounce up and down violently.

  An entire unit of Terras were tramping across. Fenn ducked down under the water again and waited for the men to cross. Finally the unit crossed, leaving just the Terra guards. Fenn resurfaced and made the last cuts before the strands fretted to nothing.

  Fenn dived under the bridge to find the second rope. This one was going to be much harder; he’d have to stay underwater or else he’d be spotted. His legs were starting to cramp and he was losing feeling in his fingers, but his friends were depending on him and the ten minutes would soon be up. He felt light-headed, and his skin felt waterlogged. He was exhausted but he couldn’t stop. He started hacking at the second rope. It was difficult underwater, but with the last of his strength he finally managed to cut through.

  He felt like his lungs were going to split open, and with the last of his breath he swam back towards the bank. His head broke the surface of the river, amongst the reeds, coughing out mouthfuls of water before gulping down the wonderful, sweet fresh air, feeling as though he had never breathed properly before. Dizzy and weak, he looked back at the pontoon bridge, waiting for something to happen. But nothing did. His heart was in his mouth; his friends must be close to it now.

  Just as he thought all his work had been for nothing, there came a grinding sound; and the two central barrels began to separate. As the river surged through, the gap widened and each side of the bridge swept back hard towards the banks. The bridge started disintegrating and the air filled with howls from the Terras losing their balance, dropping to their hands and knees as they tried to stay aboard, clinging on to the barrels like rats on a sinking ship.

  Fenn waded through the reeds and up onto the bank. Keeping to the shadows, he ran bent-backed along the edge of the river, scanning for the tree he’d told the others to meet him at. After a few minutes’ running he spotted an oak tree with dark, twisted branches and guessed it was the one Moray had meant. He flopped down in its shadow, watching the river carefully for signs of his friends. The coracle spun into view first. Fenn lunged back into the water and hauled it up onto the bank and under the tree. He rummaged under the deerskins and pulled out his dry clothes, scrambling into them before bundling his wet things into one of the skins and knotting it.

  Once he was dry, he let out a low whistle, peering into the blackness around him to catch a glimpse of Tikki. At last he spotted a movement in sedge grass that grew between the river and the tree. He whistled again and the grass trembled once more. He crawled over and fished down into the wet fronds. It was Tikki.

  “Good boy!” he whispered, picking him up and giving him a squeeze. He rubbed him dry with his own jumper, then pushed Tikki down under his shirt to get him warm, tucking in the shirt to make a sort of bag. He ran back to the shadows of the tree, beating his arms around himself to try to get his circulation going. He was so cold that the blood rang in his ears and he didn’t immediately hear the rustling in the reeds as Fathom appeared, pulling Amber up onto the bank. Gulper had Comfort on his back; she had her eyes shut and her teeth were clattering so much that Fenn could hear them from ten paces. He scrambled over to them, pulling them one by one up onto the bank, and they changed into their dry things underneath the scorched boughs of the old oak.

  “You’re the craziest person I’ve ever met,” Fathom said.

  “Any of us have ever met,” Amber corrected him, rubbing Comfort’s hair dry.

  “Crazy or not, it worked, didn’t it?” Gulper said protectively. “We got out!”

  But they weren’t out of the woods yet; Fenn glanced anxiously at the lightening sky; only a few stars remained and it would be dawn soon.

  “We’ve got to get on that ferry tonight,” he said, “or else find somewhere to hide.” Fenn sliced his knife through the coracle to sink it, and they headed off along the riverside, keeping their eyes open for the bridge. They had been running for more than half an hour, when Fenn stopped to scan the marsh, hoping to see the bridge. But he couldn’t get any sense of the geography; nothing seemed to be as Moray had described.

  Instead he saw something grey sticking up in the distance; an old concrete pipe, the type once laid in the futile effort to drain the ever-increasing water. It must have been pushed up during one of the Risings and now poked up, its end gaping like a cave.

  “In there,” he ordered. “It’s getting too light to be out.”

  Birds were starting to sing as they raced across the frost-white marsh and scrambled in. The pipe was at least ten feet wide, and there was plenty of room for all of them. Dry leaves had blown in and as the children huddled down, Amber quickly scooped them around them all, like a nest, to keep them warm.

  Once they had caught their breath, Fenn pulled out Moray’s map, trying to work out where they were, while Amber wrapped one of the furs around Comfort’s shoulders, rubbing them briskly, and laid another over Gulper. Exhausted, and in shock, Comfort laid her head in Amber’s lap and Amber started softly crooning an old song while stroking her hair.

  It was a tune she’d remembered the evening before as she was falling asleep, something she thought her mother must have sung once. She’d managed to recall the tune well: a lilting melody that sounded sad, but the few words she remembered made no sense. She’d only managed to dredge up odd snippets, so that mid-humming she’d suddenly sing random phrases. It lifted her heart to have retrieved them, like finding something precious you’d thought you’d lost for ever in the sand.

  “Hm, hmhm, hmhm, hm, cat and the fiddle, hm, hmm, hm, hm-m, the moon, the little dog laugh’d hm hm-m hm hm, hm hm hm ran away with the spoon.”

  Amber stroked Comfort’s hair slower as her eyes began to blink heavily. Even though they were in terrible danger, Comfort felt safe nuzzled against Amber, the heat of her voice batting the top of her head as she began another song. Hearing the soft singing, Tikki at last dared to peep out of Fenn’s shirt, but was now so warm he decided he’d stay there. Amber had to whistle to him to
coax him from his little nest and into Comfort’s lap. At last he ventured out and nuzzled against Comfort’s cheek, making her giggle. He settled in her lap for a long sleep and began to purr.

  “I think we’re here…” Fenn said to Fathom, but before Fathom could look, Gulper broke in.

  “When are we ever going to stop running?” he asked, closing his eyes as he rested his head on Amber’s shoulder. “I was better off on the Shanties.”

  Amber jerked her shoulder to shove him off. “Don’t you ever let me hear you say that again! Not ever!” she hissed in an angry whisper so as not to wake Comfort. “We’re free! We were never free there. Being free’s everything!”

  But their freedom was coming to an end. Without having heard a thing, the pipe suddenly flooded with a hot, white light, blinding them. It flashed into the corners at the end, making a water rat they hadn’t spied scurry back into its hole.

  “Got ourselves a decent haul here!” a voice boomed.

  14

  It was clear to Fenn that the Terras didn’t know who they’d caught. They were just lowly wardens from the Hellhulks on a standard patrol, picking up any and every stray Seaborn on the run.

  Even if they had been given direct orders to hunt for Fenn Demari, they would never have recognised him; his eye was still bloated and bloodshot, making it difficult to distinguish any colour at all. He was also wearing Sargasson clothes of eel-skin and rabbit furs, and his hair was still sewn in braids.

  The Terras pushed them up a track that ran through deep reeds bent heavy with snow. A battered old truck was already waiting and they were shoved aboard as the canvas roof was pinned down around them. Two teenage boys, ragged and rake-thin were already huddled inside, their arms around each other, shivering with the cold. Two of the Terras climbed up at the back to make sure none of them tried to jump out as it bumped along a rough track running alongside the winding river.