Against the Tide

by Tui T. Sutherland

  He had a strong, sinking feeling that this mission was going to end with loss and disaster.

  “Are there any talismans that control the weather?” Rollan moaned from his hammock. The wind whistled outside, and furious waves thumped against the boards of the ship. The lanterns shook and swayed, flinging shadows jerkily around the room. Across the cabin, Abeke lay in her hammock with her arms over her face, silent. All of their animals were in passive state, even Essix.

  “No,” Meilin said from the floor, where she was calmly sharpening her knife. “Control the weather? Maybe a Great Beast could do that, but there’s no talisman that could give that kind of power to a human. Obviously.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Rollan said. “I forgot the talismans can only do normal, logical things like make a wolf the size of a house.”

  “Were you wondering if someone sent this storm to us?” Conor asked Rollan. He felt as green and seasick as the other boy looked. Their ship had been tossed and shaken and beaten and pummeled for days by hurricane-force winds and driving rain. At least they didn’t have to worry about sails, which would have been destroyed immediately. The two massive rockback whales who towed the ship kept them steady and as close to their course as they could.

  And yet the storm had still forced them from their planned path. Two days ago, during one of the few hours of calm, Conor had caught a glimpse of land off to the south. He knew it had to be Stetriol: home of the Devourer, prison of Kovo and Gerathon. That was as close as Conor ever wanted to come to that dark place.

  “No, but that’s a nice terrifying thought,” Rollan said, answering Conor’s question. He waved weakly at the dark portholes. “I just want to stop this rain already. You know, put on some albatross necklace and wave my fists at the clouds and poof, blue skies are back.”

  “There is no albatross among the Great Beasts,” Meilin informed him.

  “I know,” he said. “Well, okay, possibly my fancy tutors never got to that, but the point is, I was just being metaphysical.”

  “Metaphorical,” she corrected. “Actually, neither of those words makes sense there.”

  “Next time I throw up,” he threatened, “it’ll be into your soup bowl if you don’t stop taking advantage of my illness to kick me while I’m down.”

  “Get anywhere near my soup bowl,” Meilin said sweetly, “and you’ll find out what getting kicked really feels like.”

  Conor decided it was time to get some fresh air.

  The rocking of the ship seemed calmer than it had been for days, and the sound of the rain on the outside walls was no longer a relentless drumbeat. Perhaps the storm was finally passing.

  He rolled himself cautiously out of his hammock, taking a moment to steady his legs before stepping over Meilin and heading for the passageway and the ladder to the upper deck. The sounds of Rollan and Meilin arguing faded behind him as he climbed up into the gray morning air.

  Conor was right. The rain had slowed to a drizzly patter and the wind only tousled his hair cheerfully, as if it hadn’t spent the last several days trying to hurl him bodily into the ocean. There were even glimpses of sky between the masses of gray clouds overhead, and up ahead he could see scattered sunbeams slanting down toward the distant islands.

  Islands!

  His heartbeat quickened and he dashed to the railing at the front of the ship.

  He wasn’t dreaming. Those were definitely islands on the horizon — more than one. It had to be the Hundred Isles!

  Conor flew back down to their cabin. “We’re here!” he cried excitedly. “The Hundred Isles! Come see!”

  Rollan groaned mournfully, but Meilin sprang to her feet, and a moment later Abeke sat up to follow them.

  As they reached the deck, Conor held out his arm and released Briggan. The wolf shook himself and sniffed the damp air, then turned to nudge Conor’s hand. Conor scratched behind Briggan’s ears, grinning.

  “Almost there,” he said to the wolf.

  “But not actually there,” Meilin pointed out grumpily. She glowered at the distant islands. “Being able to see them is not the same thing as arriving. I thought you meant we’d be on land in a few minutes.”

  “It’s a relief to see land at all, though,” Abeke said with a sigh. She stretched her arms up to the sky. “And to be able to breathe out here without drowning.”

  Essix shrieked in agreement behind them as Rollan released her into the sky. The falcon soared between the masts and up until she was just a small scratch against the clouds. Rollan staggered to the railing beside Conor and took a deep breath.

  “See?” Conor said to him. “Don’t you feel better already?”

  Rollan stared out at the gray-blue sea in front of them. “Not exactly,” he said. “Not if those are what I think they are.” He pointed at a few dots far ahead on the water; Conor hadn’t even noticed them before.

  “Show-off,” Meilin said. She started tying her hair back. “All right, what do your falcon-enhanced eyes see?”

  “Tarik!” Rollan shouted urgently, whipping around. “Tarik!”

  Tarik and his otter, Lumeo, came bounding across the deck toward them. “What is it?”

  Rollan pointed at the dots. “Ships. Conquerors, I’m sure of it.”

  Tarik took out a spyglass and studied the ocean for a long moment. “Blocking our path to the Hundred Isles,” he said finally, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the telescope. “I should have expected this.”

  “Maybe that seagull . . .” Abeke started.

  “They’d have been waiting for us regardless,” Conor said. “They knew we’d have to come looking for Mulop eventually.”

  “We’ll have to fight our way past them,” Tarik said grimly.

  “Oh, hooray,” Rollan said, resting his elbows on the railing and dropping his head into his hands.

  Tarik strode off to warn the sailors, and soon the ship was bustling with activity as everyone prepared for a sea battle.

  Until the time came to fight, there was nothing Conor and his friends could do except watch the ships coming closer and closer. It felt to Conor exactly like the time a fire had raged through his village, inexorably consuming everything in its path. He’d only been three years old, but it was one of his earliest memories, particularly that feeling of helpless dread . . . knowing something awful was coming for you, and that there was nothing you could do about it.

  Conor twisted his staff in his hands and touched the ax at his belt. He wished he had a bow like Abeke’s instead. His weapons would be most useful at close range — but if the Conquerors got close enough for that, they’d be on the ship, and that . . . would be very bad.

  “Only six ships,” Meilin said. Her jaw was set and her eyes flashed as though she was assessing the distances, wind direction, and weaknesses of their attackers. “And our whales swim faster than they can sail. If we can just get past them, we should be able to escape into the islands.”

  If . . . Conor thought. The odds were six to one, and it looked like the ships were swarming with warriors and animals. He remembered their last battle and how badly they’d been outnumbered. This time there was no Maya to set all their enemies on fire.

  Abeke leaned precariously over the railing, peering down at the whales. “What are those?” she asked, pointing.

  Conor felt a stab of fear go through him as he recognized the sharp triangular fins slicing through the water. “Sharks,” he said just as Abeke gasped with recog­nition too.

  “It’s all right,” Meilin said uneasily. “They can’t hurt us as long as we don’t go in the water.”

  “Guess I’ll postpone my usual morning swim, then,” Rollan said, but even his wisecracking sounded tense, and his eyes were worried as they all watched the sharks draw closer and closer.

  The creatures were huge, with cruel teeth big and scary enough to see all the way from the deck of the shi
p. Their unblinking eyes seemed to glare up at the Greencloaks. These were clearly Bile-enhanced sharks, hideously oversized after being forced to drink the evil liquid — and horribly dangerous.

  But if they couldn’t attack the people on the ship, then surely there was nothing to worry about. . . .

  “The whales!” he cried, suddenly figuring out the plan. “They’re going to hurt the whales!”

  The first shark had already reached the long, mottled gray-and-black side of one of the rockback whales. Conor watched in horror as it attacked, ripping its fierce teeth into the innocent whale’s flesh.

  The rockback whale let out a cry of pain that echoed eerily, like a stone mountain calling out for help. Its partner called back, long and low and tragic, but there was nothing it could do to help. More sharks were already descending, at least six to each whale. Conor could see blood seeping from the first wounds. He knew the blood would attract even more sharks, regular ones. As vast as they were, the whales were not fighters, and they had no protection against the vicious predators. They couldn’t even submerge and hide in the deep; if they went under, they’d drag the ship down with them.

  “Can you shoot them?” he asked Abeke, turning to see that she already had her bow drawn. Uraza stood next to her, growling and lashing her tail.

  Abeke bit her lip, concentrating, and then fired. The arrow plunged into the nearest shark and it writhed angrily for a moment before a second arrow skewered its eye. As it sank below the water, Conor felt a weird twinge of pity for it. It had been living its normal life as a normal shark until someone came along, captured it, and forced Bile down its throat to change it into an enormous, rage-filled monster. Then again, normal sharks weren’t exactly pleasant either.

  Abeke drew her bow again, but the sharks had all moved farther away, closer to the whales’ heads, out of range. She fired anyway, but her arrow vanished harmlessly into the sea.

  She swore, brushing away tears, and reached for another arrow.

  “Maybe you should save those for the Conquerors,” Conor said softly. He nodded at the ships that were now sailing into a blockade around them.

  “But those poor whales,” Abeke said. “They don’t deserve this.”

  He agreed with her. He felt sick at the sight of the majestic, gentle rockbacks under attack. But there was nothing he could do to protect them except fight off the enemy. Boats full of Conquerors and their animals were already rowing toward them. Grappling hooks shot onto the deck of Tellun’s Pride, slithering back to catch on the railings. Conor hefted his staff and turned to join Tarik and the other sailors.

  “Meilin!” Rollan yelled suddenly from behind him. “What are you doing?”

  Conor looked back and saw that Meilin had grabbed a spear from a nearby sailor and vaulted onto the railing at the bow of the ship. With a swift, graceful movement, she crouched — and vanished over the side.

  SALT SPRAY PELTED MEILIN’S FACE AS SHE SWUNG FROM ONE of the ropes that connected the ship to the rockback whales. Dark water yawned far below her, eager to swallow her up if the sharks didn’t get her first. She heaved her feet up to the rope and wrapped them around, and then she started pulling herself down toward the whales, hand over hand. The sharp edges of the rope cut into her palms in a million places, but she kept going, ignoring the shouts of her friends back on the ship.

  Someone had to help the whales, and they certainly couldn’t do it from up there.

  The rope jounced and swung precariously as she dipped toward the restless ocean. Her heart skipped a beat as one of the shark fins sliced through the water right below her.

  Nope. Don’t even think about it. I refuse to be eaten by sharks.

  Her shoulders were yelling with agony by the time she glanced down and finally saw the rocky slope of the whale’s back below her. Taking a deep breath, she unhooked her legs and dropped into a crouch on top of the whale. The rope continued past overhead, connecting with a kind of harness near the whale’s mouth.

  Nothing to panic about. It’s like walking on a beach, she told herself. A beach strewn with rocks and boulders . . . which happened to be moving very quickly . . . and was incredibly wet and slippery underfoot . . . oh, and PS, also had deadly sharks snapping and lunging only a few feet away.

  The whale beneath her let out another mournful bellow of pain. The vibrations echoed through Meilin’s bones and made her heart ache. She placed her open hand on the whale’s back, in a clear spot between the rocks.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”

  Meilin rose, took a step, and immediately slipped, cracking her knee on one of the rocks jutting out of the whale’s back. She let out a hiss of pain and then stood again, gritting her teeth. After a moment she figured out how to balance and how to grip the slick surface with her boots. She edged forward, pulling out the spear she’d strapped to her back.

  She counted seven sharks around this whale, but it seemed like more from the way they thrashed and churned the water. Bloody froth splashed up the sides of the whale and across Meilin’s boots. The wind yanked fiercely at her cloak and hair, still heavy with rain.

  One of the sharks spotted Meilin and suddenly lunged up onto the whale, whipping its tail back and forth and smashing its teeth together only inches away from her legs. Meilin stumbled back but managed to stay upright. Do not fall. Most importantly: Do not fall into the water. She’d be ripped apart in seconds if that happened. Definitely do not think about that.

  With a yell of anger, she lifted the spear and drove it into the shark’s open mouth. A burst of energy flooded her as she did, and the point of the spear came stabbing out the top of the shark’s head. It tried once to gnash its teeth again, then flopped sideways, dead.

  Meilin yanked the spear free — it took a few tries; it was harder coming out than going in — and kicked the shark until its momentum carried it sliding down the side of the whale into the ocean. It disappeared below the surface in a flurry of red bubbles.

  Encouraged, she darted along the whale’s back to the next shark, which had its teeth firmly embedded in the side of the whale and was thrashing as if trying to rip out as big a piece as possible. Meilin paused above it, and for one chilling moment the shark’s eye stared right into hers. Then she plunged the spear straight through that eye with skillful accuracy.

  The shark convulsed powerfully, nearly jerking Meilin right into the ocean. She fell forward and had to scramble with her legs and one hand to find a grip on the rocky whale, while clutching the spear with her other hand. For a long, awful moment, she thought she was going to be dragged into that seething mass of sharks, and she nearly let go of the spear.

  But at last the shark stopped moving, and she was able to kick it off the spear point into the water.

  The whale made another wounded sound and Meilin saw three sharks circle around and head straight toward her, faster than any animal should be able to swim. Their teeth gleamed sharply, even below the water.

  She clambered back up to the middle of the whale’s back and stood up again, facing the sharks with her spear held high. From here she could see all the spots where blood was pouring from twenty different wounds. The whale was slowing down. It was vast enough that one shark bite couldn’t do too much damage — but this many injuries . . .

  Reluctantly, she held out her arm, and a moment later, Jhi appeared beside her on the whale’s back.

  The panda’s paws immediately slipped on the wet surface and she sprawled out like an ungainly puppy.

  “Hruff!” she grunted, giving Meilin a startled look.

  “I know,” Meilin said. “We’re on a whale. Sorry about that. Is there anything you can do to help it?” She pointed to the multiple injuries.

  Jhi tried to stand up, scrabbled her paws frantically for a moment, and then collapsed onto her back.

  “Hruumf,” she observed at the
sky.

  “Well, see what you can do,” Meilin said impatiently. “And don’t fall in the water.”

  She hurried away from the panda, heading for the next shark. She could feel Jhi’s energy filling her, slowing time down so that she could see every step to take and move faster than she could on her own. Filled with that dreamlike peace, she swung her spear at another shark and impaled it through the side, then flung it out into the water. A fourth shark lunged up onto the whale, snapping at her boots, and Meilin dispatched it swiftly.

  The next shark saw her coming and dove, sinking its teeth into the whale underwater, too far down for Meilin to reach it with her spear. She stopped, frustrated, and saw the next closest shark do the same thing. There was a lot of whale underwater, and no way for her to get there to protect its vulnerable underbelly.

  She looked back at Jhi. The panda was crouched low with her paws splayed out, braced against the biggest rocks she could find. Her head stretched toward the closest shark bite and her nose twitched helplessly. Her furry black-and-white rump stuck up in the air.

  Meilin rolled her eyes and sighed. Oh, Jhi. That’s what I get for bringing a panda to a shark fight. A leopard or a falcon could at least do some damage. But she also, unexpectedly, felt a stab of sympathy for the giant panda. The top of a rockback whale was clearly no place for her, and yet Jhi was trying her best to do as Meilin had asked. But how could anyone heal the whales in a situation like this, even a Great Beast?

  Beyond her, Meilin could see the Tellun’s Pride — and she could see the Conquerors swarming up its sides. On deck, Rollan and Tarik were each grappling with opponents who were bigger and burlier than they were, while Abeke leaned over the side, shooting at the ones still climbing aboard. Where’s Conor? She finally spotted him, whacking his ax into one of the ropes the Conquerors were using to shimmy over the railing.

  Maybe that’s what we have to do, she realized, looking up at the whale’s harness. If we cut the whales free, they can submerge and escape the sharks.