by Alex Paul
Arken swung his leg over the railing and placed his foot in the rope ladder. It wobbled under his weight, and he almost toppled backward into the sea, but he got his balance and lowered himself down carefully until he was safely on the platform, his body inside the safety railing.
“Watch it when you put your weight on the ladder,” he shouted up to Asher. “It moves away from your feet, so you have to hang on tight or your feet will slip off. And it waves around more than you think it would.”
“Thanks!” Asher acknowledged. All Arken could see was Asher’s pale face and a wave of a hand. It was spooky being alone on the platform because it felt like the ship was going to squash him into the sea and drown him.
Arken tied one of the safety ropes hanging from the waist-high platform railing around his waist. The ship climbed a wave, and it felt like the platform would drop into the sea. Despite his assurances to Asher, he grabbed the railing, prepared to be dipped underwater. But his fear vanished when the platform never touched the water, but instead rose in the air as the ship crested the wave and dropped down the other side.
He went from terror to enjoying the ride once he realized he was safe.
The rudder cut through the ocean directly behind him and to his right, and the hissing he had noticed on the deck was louder down here and sounded violent, as if the rudder were causing the water pain. The sound scared him, but he ignored it as he peered at a patch of sunlit water by his feet. He could see fish swimming just beneath the surface and only a few feet from the platform. They were half a leg long and flashed silver when they reflected the light.
I could kill Gart down here, Arken thought. I could lie in wait until he came to relieve himself, and then send an arrow into his heart. Even if Gart screamed, he doubted the helmsman would hear over the sound of the hissing rudder. But how would I know it was Gart in the dark, he asked himself, before dismissing the idea as impractical.
Arken reached for a fishing pole and lifted it from the rack on the railing. It was a simple pole with a line of hemp twine wrapped around it. He undid the line and reached for the hook after setting the pole back in the rack. Then he grabbed one of the live baitfish.
“Come on, Asher, it’s safe down here.”
“Is there room for me? This climbing net is hard to grab.”
“You can do it. I did.”
Asher climbed over the railing and hung above Arken. He swayed away from the hull and then smashed into it as the ship rolled.
“You have to climb down, you can’t just hang up there,” Arken yelled.
“All right!” Asher clambered down to the platform as Arken steadied the netting for him.
“Arken, we’re going under!” Asher yelled as the platform dropped. He scampered halfway back up the net.
“No we’re not!” Arken pointed at the water.
A big grin flashed across Asher’s face as the platform lifted above the water. “This is fun!” He scrambled down and tied a rope around his waist.
“Told you.” Arken ran the hook through the struggling baitfish’s head. He felt bad for hurting the small fish with his hook, but he needed to catch a bigger fish. The small fish smelled foul, and it amazed him that anything would find such a fish tasty. He dropped it into the water.
The baitfish raced to the end of the line, and then swam back and forth at the line’s full extension. A flash of silver streaked toward the hook almost immediately, and as it hit the bait, it almost jerked the pole out of his hands.
“Whoa!” Arken yelled as he pulled back hard to set the hook. “Help me, Asher!”
Arken pulled the pole backward, and then Asher grabbed the rope line and began hauling the fish in. Arken set the pole in the holding rack, and they both pulled hand over hand on the rope. The fish twisted its head from side to side and fought them with each tug on the rope.
Arken pulled too hard, and the fish suddenly flew through the air over his head, struck the netting, and dropped to the platform with the hook still in its mouth. Its tail slapped furiously as it tried to escape, and Arken couldn’t grab hold of its slippery scales.
Fortunately for them, railing bars surrounded the platform, and the netting ran from the railing down to the platform deck. The fish could not get away. They had captured their first fish!
“What do I do?” Asher screamed with delight and jumped up and down. “You caught one, Arken. You did it!” His excitement infected Arken.
“We have to use it as bait,” Arken yelled.
“Bait? It’s so huge!”
“You watch. I’m going to run a line through its top fin, so it can swim away and lure in a really big one.” Arken felt a surge of excitement rushing over him. “Now we’re going to catch a really large fish using my bow! As soon as I get the hook out of this one’s mouth.”
“Are you all right?” The helmsman peered down at them from the railing. “I heard a scream.”
“Oh, yes sir, we just caught our first fish,” Asher said. “Sorry to yell.”
“We have to get the hook out now,” Arken said as he grabbed a slotted stick hanging from a string tied to the railing. “I can try and grab it.” Asher reached forward.
“No!” Arken yelled. “You have to take care, they have sharp teeth. Here, let me use this stick.” He grabbed a slotted stick hanging from a string tied to the railing and ran the stick down the line into the fish’s mouth. He pinned the fish’s head to the platform with his foot and pushed on the stick. The hook came free.
He took his arrow and used the point to poke a hole through the top fin while the fish wiggled vigorously on the deck while snapping at the air.
“Look at those teeth!” Arken exclaimed as he grabbed the length of line they had used before to attach to the smaller live bait. The line looked too small now, but it was all he had. He tied one end of the line in a loop.
“Hold it steady, Asher.” Arken ran the line through the hole he had cut in the top fin and passed the line’s end through the loop he’d tied. Then he pulled the line tight until the fin was secured by the knot and tied the line’s loose end to the railing.
“Throw the fish overboard,” Arken yelled in excitement.
Asher lifted the fish. It clamped its mouth shut just inches from Arken’s hand, but Asher tossed it into the water before it could try again.
“Sharp teeth!” Arken exclaimed as the fish tumbled into the water and disappeared. A second later, the line went tight and began to vibrate crazily.
“I hope he doesn’t get loose.” Asher stared into the water. “Do you think the rope will tear through the fin? I can barely see him.”
“No, his fin is tough. Besides, the fish is there. Look at the rope attached to the railing. It’s shaking—the fish is still there,” Arken said.
“School of fish approaching from astern.” Arken heard a girl’s faint voice. He looked up, and it was Talya standing above them at the railing. She had climbed down from the bird’s nest to watch, grinning while holding wisps of brownish-blonde hair away from her eyes.
“What?”
“There’s a large school of fish coming toward the stern.” Talya pointed toward the sea behind the ship. “It looks like they’re deep, though we can’t see too well. But I wanted you to know.”
“Thank you! We’re ready.” Arken took the barbed arrow with a line attached to the arrowhead and put it in the bow, and then he tied the end of the line to the platform railing.
“Are you fishing with a bow?” Talya shouted.
“Yes, we have a big fish out on a line, so something even bigger is going to come eat it and, when it does, I’ll shoot it with the bow,” Arken yelled. “But I can’t talk now, I have to concentrate.”
“Oh, well... good luck,” she shouted.
“Thank you!” Asher yelled, because Arken couldn’t look up.
“Do you see anything?” Arken turned from the sea to Asher.
“There! There’s the school,” Asher whispered. A dark shape in the water drew closer, a whol
e school of fish.
Arken raised the bow and steadied himself against the railing. Someone was shouting from far away, but it was easy to ignore the sound. His mind was intent on the kill. He hoped that the fish in the school would be larger than the one they had used for bait. He drew back the bowstring as the dark shape came into focus through the clear, blue-green water. It was not a school of fish. It was a white smoker! Not as big as the one that had come after Han and Lar, but it was still close to fifty feet long.
Asher gasped and jumped to the back of the small platform, bumping Arken as he did so. But Arken stayed where he was, the bow still drawn.
The sharrk rose to the surface until it was only five legs away, and then it rolled to one side and lifted its head. One giant eye the size of a dinner plate about ten fingers in diameter rose just above the water’s surface and peered up at them.
Arken adjusted his aim downward as the giant eye advanced toward them.
“No,” Asher said in a loud voice. “Don’t do it.”
“I can kill it!” Arken stared down the length of his arrow at the approaching eye. He had the bow at full draw, and his muscles quivered with the effort of keeping the string back. The shouting above him had stopped; time seemed to stop as well.
He tracked the eye as it came closer. It was a perfect target, lit by sunshine as the water slid off either side. It was just a dinner plate, only legs away, so easy to hit.
One part of Arken told him he should let the bow go limp and not fire the arrow, because if he didn’t kill the sharrk, it might sink their ship. But another part of him that hated sharrks felt tempted to fire the arrow and at least cause the animal pain.
He felt a giddy excitement at the thought of being able to harm such a large and fearsome animal, one that had almost killed friends of his. For a second, something in him told him to take the chance, to go ahead and let the arrow fly and see what happened.
But the fear of angering something that could kill them all so easily finally triumphed. He let the bow go limp as the head of the smoker crossed into the shadow of the stern and the evil eye sank beneath the water’s surface.
Arken held the bow in his left hand, the arrow pinned to the handle by a finger. With his right hand, he clung to the railing. Both boys hung on, not saying a word, as the enormous white body slid beneath the platform.
“I hope it doesn’t smash us with its tail,” Asher whispered.
Arken’s hands quivered. The tail came close, yet disappeared under the ship’s stern without hitting anything.
“Thank Kal, you didn’t let loose an arrow. You’d have killed us all,” a voice boomed from above.
Arken looked up to see the bearded face of the lookout who had been sitting with Talya in the bird’s nest.
“Pardon?”
“I came down to warn you not to shoot after Talya told me you were using a bow. At first we thought it was a school of fish, so I sent her down to tell you, but when it drew closer, I saw it was a smoker!”
“I raced down to make sure you didn’t fire, but I was too late; by then, you had your bow drawn and aimed at the smoker’s eye.” The lookout’s face was white with fear. “I was afraid to shout at you to stop because I thought you might be startled and release accidently. It’s a good thing you didn’t hit it in the eye. We’d be dying right now. An arrow in the eye won’t kill a sharrk that big, so it would have attacked the ship.”
“Sorry,” Arken said. “I thought for a second I could kill it, but I decided not to tempt fate.”
“Well, you made the right decision!” The man wiped sweat from his brow. “Thank Kal!”
“Yes, sir.”
“But in the future, don’t put too big a fish out for bait. That draws in smokers and other large sharrks.”
“I won’t.” Arken turned and pulled on the line that ran out to the fish they’d used as bait, only to find the rope came to an end with no fish attached. Arken started to shake and suddenly felt sick to his stomach as he realized how close they had come to death.
“I don’t want to fish anymore.” Asher’s eyes darted from the rope in Arken’s hand to the sea.
“There’s probably no point, that smoker scared everything away.” Arken squinted at the ocean where the fish had been. “I hope Lar understands.”
“He will understand. He also came close to a smoker.” Asher solemnly placed his hand on Arken’s shoulder. Asher’s hand was shaking as badly as Arken’s legs.
CHAPTER 15
ORD THE RUNAWAY
I fear the lack of wind does not mean we are close to land. Instead, we are so far from land there is no hope of finding it once again. I do not reveal my concerns. Instead, I spread cheer and encouragement among the others. I worry they will fall into despair without my happy example.
—Diary of Princess Sharmane of Tolaria
Ord was patient in his recovery. He took the herbs his father gave him, ate his mother’s food, and alternated between resting and climbing the trees by the cave entrance for exercise. But when he exercised each day, he took dried meat away from the cave, hidden in his tunic. One day he took a rope he’d made from braided strips of toth hide. Another day he took two spears out but returned with one. He took out a skinning knife. He hid his supplies in a huge oak not far from the cave, high up where a large branch made a pocket against the trunk.
He had no intention of staying in the cave. He didn’t trust Jen or the twins, and he didn’t want to be the cause of a fight between Bruton and Lon. He had decided to spend his life with another tribe. He wouldn’t be the first young male to leave his tribe to find another. And he would remember never to speak the No-fur’s language once there, so he wouldn’t offend the new tribe.
Ord told no one of his plans. He worried his family would not let him go. His family would be upset and look for him, but he thought that eventually they would give up looking for him and assume a cat had taken him. It wouldn’t be the first time a Nander disappeared without a trace, for it was the way of the world of Tonlot. What he planned was cruel and would break his family’s heart, but it was better than risking the life of his family in the conflict that was sure to come if he stayed.
After recovering for many sunrises, he told his family he would test his strength by looking for herbs far from the cave. He said good-bye to his parents and family and left the cave. They thought it was just for a day, but he knew he would never return. It was so difficult to lie to them, never to return. Tears filled his eyes as he traveled through the trees and headed toward the river. His little sister, Eela, had been her usual, happy self, and it had taken all his self-control to pretend that he would soon return.
Ord traveled in the trees and headed toward the river. Excitement about his life ahead gradually overwhelmed his grief, so when nightfall approached, Ord did not feel too sad. He rested in the high limbs of a tree overlooking the large river not far from the Water Cave, the river he remembered his father had told him was called the River Zash in No-fur language. He was close enough to hear the sound of the river rushing along the tree-lined bank.
He wore his rope in a circle that draped over his right shoulder and wrapped under his left arm. He lifted it over his head and hung it on a broken limb next to him. Then he tied a knot through the hole at the end of the thick spear handle and tied the other end to a sturdy limb, so the spear would be safe during the night.
Ord turned his attention to his gnawing appetite. He chewed a piece of dried toth meat as he settled into the branches high up in the tree. A gentle breeze made the limbs sway, and he moved with them.
Soon the wind would die, and it would be the time when nightmist gathered. Later, rinfall would begin and drench the Earth. He looked up at the branches above, hoping they’d give him some measure of protection from the rin. He knew that if he stayed lower in the tree, he’d be dryer, but then he’d risk a jalag reaching him by climbing on the heavier limbs.
His plan was to follow the river inland. There was a place, a cavern be
hind the great waterfall, which Nanders used to cross the river and travel up the coast to trade with other tribes once a year. He would find another tribe of Nanders, or die looking for them. And if he did survive, he resolved that some day he would return to the water cave and kill Jen.
But that was all up to Tonlot, the god of the toth, the ton, and the Nander, thought Ord. Tonlot would decide Ord’s fate.
Loneliness made him more aware of the jungle around him. Parrots cried out at the last rays of the setting sun. The side of his head where the rock had hit him pulsed with pain from the day’s exertions. The green jungle filled with the sound of hunting cats as they roamed the jungle floor, roaring their existence to the world. The sound of the great falls upstream added to the chorus of nature with a deep bass rumbling and an occasional booming of huge rocks rolling and cracking against each other from the push of the water.
Shouts drifted through the jungle. Ord raised his head in fear, his heart pounding like a running Nander’s footsteps. No-fur slavers! The sound of their voices came from downriver. Ord left the safety of his high branches and headed out across the treeway, flying over the huge, interwoven limbs that allowed the Nanders to travel above the jungle floor. He stopped when he reached the branches at the edge of the river.
To his surprise, huge dwellings made of wood, with No-furs walking around on top, floated in the river near the bank. A tree with no branches rested on its side on the roof of each dwelling. Red hides covered most of the tree and kept the rinfall off the No-furs. They crawled over their big dwellings, shouting in Lantish, but speaking so quickly he could barely make out their words, despite his father’s efforts to teach him the language, which had made Jen hate him.
He stared, fascinated. Father had told him of wood dwellings called ships that floated on the endless water, but he had never seen one until now.
These must be slaver ships, he decided. Ord crawled closer, until he was on light branches almost directly over one of them. He settled in to watch the No-fur’s activities with the last of the fading light.
The smell of cooking meat rose from the ship. Ord was glad he had already eaten his dried meat, since the slavers’ food smelled so wonderful, he was tempted to steal some. These No-furs were not peaceful people. He could see by the flickering light of lanterns a forest of spears in racks on the deck. Round, metal discs that his father had told him about—shields, that was their name—made a ring around the ship. To be used in sword fights, he knew. Then he spied swords in the wooden racks holding the shields. After a long wait, two large No-fur bulls emerged from beneath the red hide and stood beneath him talking. For the first time in his life, Ord was grateful that his father had taught him Lantish.