by Logan Joss
Mèlli crawled on her hands and knees, rummaging through the piles of tools that had tumbled across the deck to lie like a heap of scrap metal against the forward gunwale. She was hoping to find the carving knife, but there was no sign of it. It must have been lost overboard in the desperate bucking and tilting that Mèlli had forced upon this poor vessel. Something else would have to do then. Anything that would cut the last mooring line and allow them finally to get out of here. But nothing else would. There was an assortment of wrenches, hammers, brushes thick with grease and many things whose uses Mèlli couldn’t begin to fathom. But no knife.
She was disheartened by her lack of success but knew there was no time to waste so she hurried around the bow past the forward stateroom beneath the forecastle to where the last mooring line still held the galleon firmly in place. She tugged at the thick rope with both hands and then sat and kicked it in the hope that it would loosen. But the tension was too great and she didn’t manage to budge it one inch. She stood up and looked around, wondering where she might find a knife, dagger or any other sharp implement that would do the job, when she caught sight of Trevor high up the mizzen mast above the quarterdeck, a crewman not far behind.
With a rush of dread, she started towards him but was grabbed from behind by two thick, leathery arms. She just saw Trevor descend to the deck before she was swung around and carried towards the gunwale on the port side. She raised her legs, planted her feet firmly against the top rail of the gunwale and pushed off with all the strength she had. Her captor stumbled backward but did not fall and barely loosened his grip.
Then suddenly the great arm released her.
She turned to see Trevor hanging from the man’s back, his arms firmly around the neck of a thick-set man with black curly hair—the one whom she had imprisoned in the mess hall before. Mèlli didn’t hesitate to punch the man square on the nose. Trevor let go and the wounded man danced blindly around the deck clutching his face and grimacing in pain.
‘We need something to cut the last mooring line,’ Mèlli said, before spinning round and planting a foot firmly between the crewman’s legs. He crashed to the deck in a wail of agony.
Trevor ran back towards the stern and into the captain’s quarters. He pulled out all the drawers of the desk, emptying their contents onto its top. Just then, the sound of heavy footsteps made him look up. Ginger Beard, who had been trapped beneath the sail, had managed to free himself and now stood in the doorway, glaring at Trevor malevolently. ‘Nowhere to run this time boy,’ he sneered.
He stomped towards the desk with his arms out wide ready to grab at Trevor.
Trevor darted one way as the crewman went the other and their eyes met across the length of the desk. Trevor sidestepped left and then right with Ginger Beard mirroring his every move. He feinted a move to the right but ducked left and made a break for the main deck. The crewman, though, was faster than his bulk would suggest and ran to block the door. Trevor slammed to a halt and the man stepped towards him, forcing him back into the corner of the room.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sword mounted on the wall above him. Keeping his gaze fixed on his assailant, he reached out and felt for the handle, grabbing it and pulling it from the wall. He unsheathed the blade and swung it out in front of him, holding it there defensively.
Ginger Beard looked around for something to defend himself with. He grabbed a small wooden table and whipped it around, pointing its legs at Trevor as the lantern it held clattered to the floor, spilling its firestones across the carpet. He jabbed the legs of the table at the air, testing Trevor and measuring his worth with a blade.
Trevor had thought the threat of a sword would be enough to deter his attacker, but now he realized the weapon was useless in his hands. He slid his back along the wall until the door handle jabbed him in the side. He opened the door and backed into Sklõff’s sleeping chamber, hoping that there was another way out. But there was nothing, just a large four-poster bed and cabinets laden with expensive looking trinkets.
The crewman followed him in, jabbing at him and trying to knock the sword from his hands.
Trevor edged back, round the side of the bed and towards a large dresser. He grabbed the first thing that came to hand and hurled it at the man, who stopped for a moment to bat it away with his table. Something crunched beneath Trevor’s feet. He looked down to see that the floor was scattered with broken glass. He started to grab things from the dresser and throw them at his pursuer in an attempt to slow his progress. But it didn’t last for long. Soon he ran out of things to throw and the crewman lunged at him. The only place left to go was onto the bed, so Trevor launched himself onto it, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the charging table legs.
As the table crashed into the wall with a crack of splintering wood, Ginger Beard was distracted for a moment by the portrait of his master, which looked like it had been mauled by a wild animal.
Seizing his opportunity, Trevor leaped off the end of the bed, bolted for the door and ran out onto the main deck.
The crewman from the mess deck was still doubled up with pain, but Mèlli knew he would recover soon. She ran back to the heap of tools at the bow, selected a large wrench and crept back up behind him where he knelt. She lifted the wrench in the air and brought it down hard on the back of his head. He slumped forward, motionless but still breathing. She grabbed him by an ankle and tried to pull him towards the gangplank, but his dead weight was too much for her. Thinking for a moment, she crossed quickly to the stern companionway and slid the bolt across, listening with bated breath for any sound coming from below. There was none, so with a heave, she pulled one half of the door open. She listened again and then crept down the ladder that led to the lower decks. As she descended through the mess hall she looked along it and saw a heap of shattered furniture where before the dining table and chairs had stood. The plates and food lay strewn across the floor, the roast merabòo trickling its juices down the splintered wood. And beneath it all lay the inert body of the crewman that she had slammed over the head with the companionway hatch.
She continued down to the storeroom where she swiftly selected a coil of rope and an axe and then hurried back up to the deck. Without hesitation she fashioned a noose from the rope and slipped it over one of the crewman’s ankles, giving a sharp tug to tighten it. Then, trailing the rope behind her, she strode nonchalantly down the gangplank to the jetty below.
A crowd of onlookers had formed on the quayside nearby, but they all just stared open-mouthed as they watched her fasten the other end of the rope to a cleat. They whispered to each other as she gave them a sardonic wave. But no-one moved.
She climbed back up the gangplank and severed the last mooring line with a single swing of the axe. Wasting no time, she climbed the ladder to the forecastle controls and pushed forwards the lever once more. This time the Harpy’s Song rose gracefully into the air. Mèlli watched with satisfaction as the unconscious crewman slid across the deck towards the gangplank and disappeared over the side.
At that moment, Trevor came hurtling out of the captain’s quarters brandishing a sword. Mèlli swung her head around at the sound of the footsteps and her face broke into a beaming smile. Trevor saw her up on the forecastle and tried to smile too, but his feet slid out from beneath him as they made contact with the soapy slick and he landed flat on his bottom. Mèlli started to giggle but her face fell as she saw the crewman with the ginger beard fly out of the door in pursuit.
Trevor turned. Gone was the man’s splintered table and in its place he now held a long, gleaming blade. Trevor scrambled to his feet, grabbing his sword from the deck. No sooner had he stood than the crewman was upon him. All he could do was raise his sword and block the attacks as his assailant swung at him vigorously. But with each strike, he was forced back towards the open edge of the vessel where the gangplank still hung, half drawn. And all at once he was teetering on this too-narrow plank of wood suspended high above the harbordrome.
With a
surge of adrenaline, Trevor started to fight for his life. With both hands on its handle, he wielded his sword frantically but the crewman parried his desperate attacks with ease, waiting for his moment to strike. In a single movement, the man skipped to one side and, with a light touch of his sword, nicked Trevor’s cheek to stun him, stepped behind him and raised his sword ready for the finishing blow. But Trevor turned unexpectedly, the sudden pain galvanizing his instincts, sweeping his blade around and catching it in the knuckle guard of the man’s sword, ripping it from his hand. Both of them watched, equally surprised, as it fell in a long arc down to the waves far below.
The man stood at Trevor’s mercy, unarmed and defenseless, waiting for the fatal blow.
‘Finish it!’ Mèlli yelled from just behind them.
Trevor took a step backward and lowered his sword. ‘I can’t,’ he muttered, almost ashamed of his compassion. The man looked at him with contempt. His body weight shifted forwards and then…
Thud.
The axe hit him in the chest.
He staggered back and fell to his death.
35
True?
THE SUN WAS low in the sky by the time the Harpy’s Song was voyage-worthy. Trevor and Mèlli had spent the remainder of the afternoon undoing some of the damage they had inflicted on their new vessel. The majority of the time had been spent sorting out the wreckage on the mess deck and getting rid of its unwanted cargo.
Whilst they worked, Trevor recounted the story of what had happened to him since he was ejected from the Harpy’s Song before. ‘Obviously, I thought Selmás was a horse, but he wasn’t—he was a bayard!’
‘A bay—’
‘But that’s not even the best of it. He took me to see his friend Gráfan, and you’ll never guess what she is.’
’No I don’t suppose I will.’
‘A lamassu. You know, like that etching we saw in the cave.’
Mèlli gave him a skeptical look. ‘A lamassu, hey? I don’t suppose you ate some yellow berries with green stripes did you?’
‘No, don’t think so,’ Trevor said, undeterred. ‘Anyway, I thought it was amazing when Gýella rescued us and we flew on beams of light and I never thought we could top that. But guess what? She can teleport! That’s how I got to Aÿena and that’s why we couldn’t go back the same way.’
‘How hard did you say that bang to your head was?’ Mèlli found it difficult to believe Trevor’s story, but at the same time couldn’t fathom how else he could have got to Aÿena so quickly. She had no reason to doubt his honesty and listened intently as he told the rest of his tale.
When he had finished, Trevor insisted that Mèlli show him how to set the sails, which she did with great enthusiasm. He was surprised how a vessel of such size could be crewed by just the two of them and Mèlli had pointed out how that was not the norm; Sklõff had spared no expense making this the fastest, sleekest and most efficient galleon on all of Ëlamár. Trevor wondered if she was exaggerating slightly, but he only had the Leviathan’s Roar to compare it to and there was no comparison.
Once all the sails were set and Trevor had familiarized himself with their controls, he asked Mèlli about how to plot a course and steer the ship, but she seemed strangely reluctant to go into any detail about the workings of the instruments on the quarterdeck. Trevor was most intrigued by a device that stood beside the vessel’s wheel—he suggested it was some sort of compass. It consisted of a tall metal tube with a glass dome on top, inside which a silver sphere was suspended as if it were floating on air. Trevor looked all around it, crouching on the deck and craning his head to see what was holding it up. But there was nothing. It really was floating. He noticed that it was a globe of Ëlamár and there was a long, curved needle that stretched around its upper surface and pointed to a location on the sphere. There was a dial around the edge too, with markings on it. It certainly looked like a compass, but Mèlli just screwed her face up at the word and said matter-of-factly, ‘It’s a way-finder.’
Trevor thought that was probably the same thing.
The needle was pointing just off the coast of Aànemoy, east of Aÿena. That must be where we are, Trevor concluded. To confirm his suspicions, he stood up and looked off into the distance. There was nothing but ocean all around them. The distant coastline looked like little more than a smear of cloud on the horizon.
As he scrutinized the way-finder, he felt Mèlli watching him.
‘Let me take a look at that cut on your face,’ she said.
Trevor had forgotten about the cut. He raised a hand to his cheek and ran his fingers along the welt that had developed; it made him shudder as he recalled the fate of the man who had inflicted it on him. ‘It’s not that bad,’ he complained.
But Mèlli ignored him and pulled him closer to examine it. ‘It needs something. To be cleaned at the very least. See if you can find some ointment.’ She gestured vaguely towards the companionway.
‘Do I have to?’ Trevor groaned.
Mèlli rolled her eyes but smiled at him kindly. She gave him a playful push in the right direction. ‘Go on!’
She watched as he crossed the deck and disappeared below. Then, as soon as he was out of sight, she crouched down next to the way-finder and opened a small door in its side. Inside was a wooden tray with nine indentations, each of which held a smooth, polished pebble. Mèlli took it out and studied it for a moment before rearranging the positions of the stones and carefully sliding it back inside before closing the door. She waited for a moment as the sphere of the way-finder spun wildly in one direction and the dial in another before settling slowly. Satisfied, she took hold of the galleon’s wheel and was just about to pull on a lever beside it when Trevor’s head popped up from above the ladder onto the quarterdeck.
‘There wasn’t any in the store,’ he called across to her.
Mèlli jumped out of her skin and pulled her hands away from the wheel. ‘For the Watchers’ sake, Trevor. You made me jump!’
‘Oh sorry. I couldn’t find any—’
‘Of course not. You need to look in the infirmary,’ she snapped.
Trevor disappeared below before she could say anything else.
Mèlli waited a while until she was sure Trevor had gone before she took hold of the wheel and lever again. With a slow, smooth action she pulled the lever all the way down, then slowly turned the wheel full to starboard.
By the time Trevor returned, Mèlli was sitting high up on the poop deck, gazing off into the distance and absentmindedly touching the empty space on her chest.
‘What’s the matter?’ Trevor asked as he approached, noticing the troubled look on her face.
‘My mother’s pendant. Sklõff took it when…you know.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ He hung his head for a moment but then had a thought. ‘That reminds me.’ Without embarrassment, he wriggled out of his tunic and slid Mèlli’s pouch over his head. He held it out for her to take. ‘I kept this for you.’
Mèlli’s face lightened with relief when she saw the pouch, but she couldn’t help noticing the scars and bruises all over her friend who held it. She tried not to look, for fear of embarrassing him, and instead shot him a grateful smile and took the pouch. She emptied its contents onto the deck in front of them as Trevor slipped back into his tunic and sat down beside her. Everything was still there. The map box, her little stick doll, the lighter, the familiar, her mother’s journal.
‘How on Ëlamár did you manage to keep hold of it?’ She looked up at Trevor with wonder, as if she saw him for the first time. ‘You’re amazing, Trevor.’
Trevor blushed. His instinct was to look away, but there was something in her eyes that held his gaze. There was something different about her, and it wasn’t just that he knew the truth now.
‘By the way, Trevor, can you go and get me something sharp to cut the rope with?’ she said with a stern look on her face.
Trevor was taken aback. He stumbled for words in his confusion but nothing coherent came o
ut.
Mèlli reached down slowly into her pouch and drew out her pocket knife. She held it in front of him and her face melted into a smile.
For a moment Trevor’s confusion continued. He looked from the knife to her face and then back again until suddenly the penny dropped. He put a hand to his chest where the pouch had hung. ‘I had it all the time!’
‘Yeah, you did!’
They both laughed.
‘There was a lot going on,’ Trevor said, trying to defend himself.
‘We’re both still here. That’s all that matters.’ She turned to face him. ‘Now let me have a look at your cut.’
Mèlli took Trevor’s face in both her hands and tilted it gently to examine the wound. She opened the lid of the small wooden box that Trevor had brought and took out a yellow fluffy ball and a small bottle filled with a blue liquid. She applied a few drops of the liquid to the ball and used it to clean gently around the cut. Then she took out a tiny jar of ointment and used her finger to rub it along the wound. Trevor flinched slightly as it stung his skin. Then Mèlli took out what looked like a patch of gauze and pressed it firmly onto his cheek.
But she didn’t let go. Instead, she held his face in both hands and looked him deep in the eye. ‘Thank you for coming to rescue me.’ Slowly, she leaned in towards him and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.
They sat close together, their hands touching, and watched the setting of the sun. Its golden light spilled across the deck of the Harpy’s Song and reflected from its gleaming black hull, illuminating it against the darkening sky like a phoenix rising from the flames.
Epilogue
FOR HALF A moon, Sklõff had been confined to his quarters as he convalesced. His injuries had been severe, with his life hanging in the balance. But thanks to Záiloa, his recovery was far swifter than any physician had predicted. All that remained was the pain and the scars.