by Chrys Cymri
The distance made it hard to pick out the rat. But an akhlut stood near the gunwale, head cocked, ears pricking forward, and I assumed this was the captain listening to Fenella.
‘They won’t accept.’ Sasha stood at my side. ‘Don’t worry, Penny, even without my tail, I am a good swimmer. If the battle does turn against us, we will both jump into the sea, and I’ll take us to shore.’
A small white form headed back to our ship. Fenella landed on the deck at Tarkik’s clawed feet and lifted her head to look up at him. ‘Elidh, Captain of the Safe Haven, says you can slice up your mother and eat her intestines for lunch.’
‘We have our answer,’ the captain growled. ‘Siqiniq! Broadsides.’
Our ship was brought nearer to that of the residents, and then turned so that the left side of the Lightning Strike faced the right of the Safe Haven. I hurried over to the gunwale, trying to remember the nautical terms. Something about ports and stars. Alan had so patiently tried to drill nautical terms into me during our trips on The Fancy Free.
I leaned over the barrier. As I glanced along the hull, dark hatches fell open, wood slamming against wood. All of the history programmes I’d watched led me to expect grey cannon muzzles to come into view. What actually emerged were large birds, three feet tall, their black and white plumage and upright stance reminding me of penguins. Then they spread out wide black wings.
‘Great auks,’ Morey informed me. ‘Very common around here.’
‘They’re extinct in my world,’ I said. And as they threw themselves from the ship, I added, ‘And I think, on Earth, they were flightless.’
Sunlight glinted on small metal canisters, which they held between their webbed feet. As they soared over the Safe Haven, each one dropped their burden. The objects tumbled onto the deck, and a moment later a yellow-brown haze rose into the air. A trace of an acrid smell, a mixture of pressed garlic and vinegar, reached my nostrils. ‘It’s letherum,’ I said grimly. ‘Any resident who’s been touched by that won’t be able to change into orca form.’
‘Which leaves them vulnerable in water,’ Morey replied. ‘I don’t think wolves are strong enough swimmers to reach shore from here. They’re trapped on their ship. They won’t want to jump overboard.’
The giant auks returned to the Lightning Strike, disappearing back into their hatches. Sails were adjusted, and we turned to move closer to the Safe Haven. Akhlut loped to the front of the ship. I counted around thirty well-armed wolf-orcas, and despaired for the residents.
‘I can say prayers for the dying,’ Morey said. ‘But only you can undertake the Sacrament of Reconciliation. A deacon can’t pronounce absolution.’
His matter-of-fact tone shook me. I opened my water bottle and took a quick swig. ‘We’ll see how many of them will end up needing the last rites. Or even wanting them.’
Tarkik shouted out a harsh word in, I assumed, Gaelic. Akhlut removed their sword belts and gripped the leather in their jaws. We were now only a hundred feet from the Safe Haven. Our ship rode much higher in the water, giving me a clear view of the other ship’s deck. The letherum gas had dissipated, but I could see the crew trying and failing to shift from wolf to orca. Mixed howls of anger and fear drifted over the water.
The attackers climbed onto the gunwale, their claws digging into the wood. Then, one by one, they dived into the sea, changing shape in mid-air. Orcas sped towards the other ship, leather belts now gripped in whale jaws. They split into smaller groups as they drew near their target, spreading themselves out along the wooden sides. Tarkik leapt from the ocean, returning to wolf form a moment before he reached the hull. Sharp black claws bit into the planks. He hung there for a moment while he slipped the sword belt over his head and tightened it around his body.
The rest of his crew followed suit, only one taking a tumble when she lost her grip and fell back with a snarl and a splash. The residents were leaning over their own gunwale, stabbing sharp-tipped poles at the invaders. Tarkik barked out a laugh, and his group took up the mocking tone. One female charged up the side. As the metal cut into her pelt, she whipped her head around and took the wood into her jaws. Then she deliberately allowed herself to fall, taking both herself and the pole into the water.
Several more of Tarkik’s crew allowed themselves to be injured in order to remove the residents’ defences. The rest continued their relentless climb. A tall male was the first to pull himself over the gunwale, and he paused a moment to howl his triumph. Then his short sword was in his hand, curved blade gleaming in the sun.
The Lightning Strike shuddered as she adjusted her course, pulling us ahead of the Safe Haven. I gripped the gunwale so hard that my hands began to ache. More attackers had reached the deck and drawn their weapons. The much smaller residents held knives and nets. I wanted to shout at them to be sensible, to lay down their arms and surrender, but the low ears and curled lips told me that I’d be wasting my breath. The akhlut were not going to back down now.
Fights broke out across the ship. Tarkik swung his blade at the nearest resident. She threw her net, trying to trap his arm and head in the mesh. The larger akhlut used his other hand to free himself, and then tossed the mesh to one side.
‘You might not want to watch this,’ Morey warned as Tarkik advanced on the defender.
‘What, you’re better at accepting violence?’
‘I’m a hunter,’ the gryphon said calmly. ‘My meat doesn’t come from a supermarket, all neatly wrapped in plastic. I’m used to blood.’
The female akhlut crouched, clutching a small knife in her webbed paw. I forced myself to watch as Tarkik swept his sword down. The small blade was no match for his superior weapon. Metal scraped against metal, and the knife clattered to the deck. The defender’s hand followed a moment later.
I swallowed hard, determined not to lose my breakfast. As I shifted my gaze to other parts of the ship, what met my eyes was little better. The invaders had the advantage of size, numbers, and weaponry. Very little of the blood splattering against masts and gunwale came from Tarkik’s crew. I looked down at Morey. ‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’
‘Like what?’ he asked. ‘Shout at them to stop? I can’t see that working.’
A harsh slam of wood against wood drew my attention to the middle of the ship. Abella pulled herself onto the deck, her long arms grasping at the webbing that surrounded a nearby mast. As she balanced herself on the end of her tail, her dark eyes swept across the fighting taking place all around her. ‘Stop!’ she commanded. ‘We order you to put down your weapons. Now!’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tarkik staggered as if he’d been struck a physical blow. The sword dropped from his paws. The rest of his crew followed suit, leaving only whimpers of pain to sound over the lapping of waves. ‘Abella,’ he ground out, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t use sea speak against us.’
‘What else were we to do, Regnier?’
‘And that’s not my name,’ the akhlut growled. ‘I abandoned that name when we dissolved our marriage. I am Tarkik.’
‘So it seems.’ Even from a hundred feet away, I could see the sadness which pulled at her elegant face. ‘Are you the cause of all this bloodshed?’
‘No. You are.’ Tarkik bent down to retrieve his sword. ‘These bottom-feeders captured you. And now we’ve freed you.’
‘We freed ourselves.’
‘Only because your guards were busy on deck,’ Tarkik replied. ‘And I did like you always asked. I gave this crew the chance to surrender. Just hand you over, and they could have gone on their way.’
Abella rose high on her tail. She now towered over the captain. ‘Just me? Or did you demand gold as well?’
Tarkik flicked his ears and dropped his jaws open in a grin. ‘Well, we were owed something for all our trouble.’
‘You never change.’ Abella swept a gaze around the ship. ‘Summon your medic. Time to treat the wounded. On both sides.’
For a moment, I thought Tarkik would protest. Then he stro
de away, barking orders at crew members. The Safe Haven lowered her anchor, and the Lightning Strike was brought alongside before doing the same. A gangplank was lifted over the gunwale of the larger ship.
‘Come on,’ I said to Morey. ‘We should go over as well.’
‘Because?’
‘Because I have some first-aid training.’ I sighed. ‘And as you’ve said, I can administer the last rites.’
Morning blurred into afternoon. At one point I found a clean part of the deck and ate my breakfast bar, taking care to touch only the plastic wrapper with my blood-stained hands. There were more injuries and fewer deaths than I had expected. The transients had concentrated on maiming rather than killing. The medic, who turned out to be a rather surly elf named Gilroy, spent much of her time sewing up the stumps of arms and legs. Several residents had lost eyes, but I could find no humour in the thought that they would be wearing eyepatches.
‘Better to send them back than have them die,’ Gilroy explained as we stopped for a cup of water. ‘They’ll spread word about the Lightning Strike, and the next ship will be more inclined to surrender.’
I looked at the wounded akhlut. Reddened bandages spoke of life-changing injuries. ‘Seems rather harsh.’
‘The akhlut are harsh.’
‘Then why do you work for them?’
The elf gave me a tight-lipped smile. ‘I’m married to the first mate. And it’s safer for us on the Lightning Strike. Cadw ar Wahân wouldn’t dare attack a pod of akhlut.’ She rose to his feet. ‘If you’re still willing to help, Father Penny, I’ll need more fresh water. Our next patient was hit by one of the letherum canisters, and I need to clean out his eyes and nose.’
My watch told me it was just after 3pm when I released the paw of a young akhlut. He had whimpered but held still while Gilroy sewed up a long gash on his arm. ‘You must keep this shape while you heal,’ the medic said for the twentieth time. ‘The stitches won’t stretch into the width of a flipper.’
‘Be going back to land, now,’ the resident replied. ‘No more sea for me.’
Gilroy touched his shoulder. ‘I’ve heard that before. Give it time. You’re from both land and sea. You need to feel the ocean on your skin, and the land under your paws.’
I washed my hands as best as I could in a nearby bucket. As I headed to the front of the ship, Tarkik’s voice rose in anger. ‘It’s not my fault that Elisa’s dead. And she tried to poison me, so I’ll not howl any dirges for her.’
‘Poison?’ That was Abella. As I drew near, I could see that she and Tarkik were facing each other, Sasha standing to one side. Morey gripped the gunwale nearby, a bandage fluttering in his yellow beak.
‘We, your shoal, knew that Regnier would never surrender himself to the Safe Haven,’ Sasha replied. ‘And we were determined to free you from your captor’s claws.’
‘And they failed,’ Tarkik said smugly. ‘So my crew saved you instead.’
Abella looked over at Sasha. ‘Why did you help to bring him back? You must have known that he would immediately swim for his own ship.’
‘I had another container of poison.’ Sasha scowled. ‘I’d hoped to use it. But the gryphon was keeping watch on Regnier, and I never had the chance.’
‘You must have realised Sasha would try again,’ Abella said to Tarkik. ‘Yet you still agreed to return with her.’
‘What choice did I have?’ Tarkik demanded. ‘None of the humans understood sea speech, and I couldn’t change into this form to speak to them. I had to take the risk.’
I cleared my throat and stepped forward. ‘Pardon me, but did you say, you had more of that poison? Where is it now?’
‘It was in the pocket of that strange robe you insisted I wear.’ Sasha flicked hair back from her bare shoulders. ‘I should think it’s still there.’
‘Then it needs to be collected,’ I said. ‘We don’t want someone accidentally opening it.’
‘None of my crew will go near it,’ Tarkik growled.
‘Nor our pod,’ Abella added.
‘Fine,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s time I called for Raven. We’ll look for my bathrobe, and he’ll hook it out of the water.’ Then I glared at Sasha. ‘Where’d you get that stuff from in the first place?’
‘From the captain of this ship.’
Tarkik recoiled. ‘The residents are developing poisons?’
‘They only want to protect themselves,’ Abella snapped. ‘We warned you years ago, did we not? Keep up your robbery, and your victims will find a way to fight back.’
Morey spat out the bandage. ‘And this one endangers more than just akhlut.’
‘If they only paid what they were asked,’ Tarkik said, ‘there wouldn’t be any need for this.’
I walked to the middle of the ship, too tired to once again hear the arguments about free trade. The sun beat down on my head, and I fished out my cap and placed it on my head. Then I pulled out my penknife and opened it half way.
Ten minutes later, I was able to pick out green-blue wings against the bright sky. They beat slower than usual, and I wondered if Raven were still tired from the morning’s exertions. He flew over the Safe Haven, giving me only the briefest of nods before pulled up to a hover above Abella. ‘You’re fine? No injuries?’
‘Only to our pride, our young drake,’ she assured him, her hair streaming from the force of his wing beats.
‘I couldn’t find you.’
Abella cocked her head. ‘We hid ourselves from you.’
‘Why?’ The anguish in Raven’s voice made me study Abella even more intently. What exactly was her relationship to the dragon?
‘Because we knew that you would come for us. And that you could not free us.’
‘I would’ve liked to try,’ Raven retorted. ‘Even if I had to burn this whole ship down--’
‘Which would have killed us as well.’ Abella stretched up an arm to the dragon. ‘We are safe, and we thank you for bringing Sasha back to us.’
‘So, if you’re done here, I can take you back to the shoal.’
‘We’ll make our own way,’ Abella said. ‘Penny and her companion must return to her world.’
‘And you, Sasha?’ Tarkik asked the other merwoman. ‘My offer still holds.’
‘Even though I was going to poison you?’
‘Most of my best friends have once been my enemies,’ Tarkik said grandly. ‘And now that Abella’s safe, you have no reason to harm me.’
Sasha turned her head to look at the ocean. ‘I need to leave the sea behind. I’ll go to land with the injured akhlut.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Now that you’re safe and well, Abella, I need your help. A nest of sea dinosaurs have taken something from my world, a long metal ship called a “submarine”. There are over a hundred humans on board, and I need to bring them back to my own country.’
Abella studied me for a moment, weaving slightly on her tail. ‘We will speak to our friend, Nessie. Come back to us in three mornings’ time.’
‘I’m a bit concerned,’ I said cautiously, ‘for the well-being of the humans. The submarine has been with the nessies for longer than I’d like.’
‘We’ll broadcast a message,’ Abella stated. ‘No harm will come to either the boat or the crew. A request from Abella of the Deep Seas, Pilot of Middle Ocean, carries the force of command in these seas.’
Would that be enough for Sue Harkness? Well, I had little choice but to obey the merwoman. I gave her a brief bow, then went off to find my coat.
<><><><><><>
Raven dropped down into the water to allow a net to be thrown over his spines. Once he was back into the air, hovering just beyond the deck, I clambered over to his neck. ‘I know we’re both beyond tired,’ I said to Raven as I removed the ropes and threw them back towards the ship, ‘but we need to find my TARDIS bathrobe before we fly home. There’s a canister of poison in the pocket.’
‘And what are we to do once we find it?’
‘Just pick it all up in your cla
ws. We’ll take it back with us, and I’ll ask Jen if she knows any way to safely dispose of it.’
Raven found the discarded clothing after a half hour of searching. With a short, quick dive, he snatched the bundle into his forefeet. Then he took us upwards and towards the first thin place.
Morey was already snoozing against my chest. I found my own eyes closing as the dragon took us through the crossings. Would it be possible to sneak a nap before sending a text to Sue Harkness? It would be much easier to cope with her reply if I had some rest first.
The thump of our landing jerked me from sleep. The day was much cooler in Northampton. Morey leapt to the bench, and I slid to the ground. I turned to thank the dragon, but his gaze was fixed on the grey clouds overhead. ‘She was the one who took me in,’ he said suddenly. ‘Abella. When I fell from the skies and nearly drowned, after Audrey left me. Abella taught me so much.’
‘And she’s safe now.’ I patted his warm shoulder. ‘And she wouldn’t be, at least not yet, if you hadn’t returned Tarkik to his own oceans.’
‘If she’d died...’ he muttered darkly.
‘Well, she hasn’t. And we’ll be seeing her again, the day after tomorrow.’
‘That might be just enough time for my wings to recover.’ Raven kicked the bathrobe to one side. Then, ignoring the nearby snail sharks, he curled up on the grass and lowered his head onto his forelegs. A moment later, his eyes were shut and his breathing settled into a deep rhythm.
Clyde flowed over to my feet. ‘Snoring,’ he said, sounding annoyed.
‘Not on purpose.’ I picked up the wet bathrobe in one hand and the snail in another. ‘Come on, I’ll make us both a cup of tea.’
‘Make that three,’ Morey said swooping to my shoulder. ‘Carrying bandages is thirsty work.’
Bathrobe and metal canister went into the sink in the utility room. I set the kettle boiling and liberated my iPhone. As soon as it had powered up, the Yes, Minister tune filled the kitchen. I accepted the call and propped the phone under my chin as I pulled out two mugs and a bowl. ‘I’ve only just arrived home.’