by Lian Tanner
Brother Thrawn sounded a bit like that Massy shark. Cruel by nature. Too big to fight. Made you want to crawl under a rock until he went away.
But he’s human, according to Fin, Sharkey told himself. And if he’s human, he can be fooled.
‘Come on,’ muttered Krill. ‘Let’s get to the quarry and find somewhere to hide for the day.’
The hill grew bigger as they approached it, until at last it squatted above them like a toadfish waiting for its prey. Moonlight touched the town’s earthen walls, and Sharkey shuddered and looked away. Scroll cooed softly into the darkness.
‘There is the Devouts’ dovecot,’ whispered Fin, pointing to a shape set well back from the road. ‘The goats are next to it, and horses next to the goats – that is, if they have not changed things.’
Sharkey turned to Rain, trusting she wouldn’t mock him for his ignorance.‘Goats?’
‘Um— a bit like horses, only smaller. And trickier.’ Rain smiled anxiously. ‘Bran likes them.’
‘Where’s the re-education camp?’
‘It is further up the road. About a mile beyond the quarry.’
They passed the mouth of the quarry and climbed its northern edge, with Mister Smoke issuing directions. ‘Straight ahead, shipmates. Now turn the wheel to starboard – no, you’ve overcorrected. Port half a degree and up the rise. That’s it, hold that bearing.’
The ground was rough, and covered in dense prickly bushes that came up to Sharkey’s chin and made it hard going, despite the moonlight. He put one foot in front of the other, wondering if he was about to tumble off the edge or get grabbed by something he couldn’t see.
‘Starboard twelve degrees,’ said Mister Smoke. ‘Past that outcrop. Now swing the wheel half a turn – and drop anchor.’
Sharkey found himself in a narrow clearing with trees and bushes on one side and the rim of the quarry on the other. He sank to his knees, with Rain beside him. Behind them, Krill sat down with a hiss of relief.
The silver child said, ‘Is your ankle hurting? Would you like me to bind it again?’
‘No, Cap’n, it’ll be all right,’ said Krill. ‘I just need to sit for a bit.’
Above their heads, Scroll flew in a wide circle, then settled onto a tree branch and tucked her head under her wing. Petrel put the sealskin bag down, slid forward to the edge of the cliff and peered over. After a while she crept back and said, ‘Fin, what are those big posts for, in the middle of the quarry?’
‘They are whipping posts,’ said Fin quietly.
‘Whipping posts?’
‘For prisoners who stop work without permission.’
Krill, Petrel and Sharkey stared at him. Rain said, ‘I told you.’
The silver child shook his head. ‘They should not whip people. It is not right.’
‘Of course it is not,’ said Fin. ‘But—’ He hunched his shoulders, as if there were things he didn’t want to remember. ‘But when you are in the middle of it, you somehow persuade yourself that it is right. That it is the best thing to do.’
‘That is why they take children so young,’ said Rain. ‘So they can twist their thinking.’
Petrel sighed.‘What time do they come to work?’
‘An hour after sunrise,’ said Fin.
‘Well, I’m gunna sleep till then,’ said Petrel. ‘Mister Smoke, will you wake me up when it’s time?’
‘I will, shipmate. I’ll stand guard, too, though I doubt if anyone but us’ll set their course in this direction.’
Like Petrel, Sharkey was used to sleeping when and where he could. But tonight he was too restless. He lay there in the darkness, thinking about friendship, the sort that Petrel and Fin had. He had never had a friendship like that. He’d been respected and obeyed, but that was all based on a lie. Petrel and Fin wouldn’t lie to each other, he was sure of it.
He wondered if he was changing, like Fin had said. He wondered if he and Rain were friends.
Maybe . . .
Beside him, Rain was singing quietly.
‘How tall the tree
The first to fall,
How wise to flee—’
She was interrupted by a flurry of movement from the silver child.‘You did not sing me that song,’ he said, his eyes fixed on Rain’s face.
‘I only just remembered it,’ said Rain. ‘It is from a circus that came to our village when I was seven. I have not sung it for years.’
‘A circus?’
‘There was a girl called Grim who could fold herself into a tiny box and slow down her heart until we all thought she was dead, and a blind boy who could hear the world breathing, and fortune-telling ducks, and that song, which the girl sang at the end.’
‘Will you sing it again?’ asked the silver child. ‘Mister Smoke, come and listen.’
The rat joined them, and Rain began to sing in a sweet, true voice.
‘How tall the tree
The first to fall,
How wise to flee,
The worst of all.
But hear the song
The singer gives,
The trunk is gone,
The root still lives.’
By the time she finished, Petrel, Fin and Krill were there too, crouched in front of her with expressions of astonishment on their faces.
‘Is that it?’ asked Krill.
‘It is,’ said the silver child.
Krill shook his head. ‘What are the chances you’d stumble on the Song and the Singer, Cap’n, just like that?’
‘Rain is a singer,’ said the silver child,‘not the Singer. She is not the one I am looking for.’
‘Many people know that song,’ said Rain, ‘not just me. They sing it secretly, where the Devouts will not hear them – or at least they used to.There was another verse, about the sun and the moon, but I cannot remember it.’
‘I have never heard it,’ said Fin.‘What does it mean?’
‘It is about hope,’ replied Rain. ‘Terrible things happen, but underneath there is still hope.’
Petrel’s eyebrows pinched together.‘I s’pose I should be glad. But to be honest, Cap’n, it’s a bit of a let-down. All that fuss for a song about hope? I thought it was gunna be something big and important. A song with teeth. Something we could use against the Devouts.’
‘The Song is not about hope,’ said the silver child. ‘It is about something else, but I do not know what, not yet. It is like a code, and I need more information before I can solve it. I must find the Singer.’
Krill nodded slowly. ‘Fair enough, Cap’n. But first we’ve gotta free the Sunkers and get the Oyster back from Albie.What d’you say to that?’
‘I agree,’ said the silver child.‘If the Sunkers are free and the Oyster is ours, we will have more resources to search for the Singer.’
‘Good,’ said Krill. He turned to the children. ‘It’s only a couple of hours till dawn, bratlings, but I suggest we all try and get some sleep.’
Sharkey lay down again, with his head on his arm. Rain sang the song quietly once more, then she lay down too, with her back to Sharkey.
I like her, he thought. She’s braver than she thinks.
And he closed his eyes and didn’t move until Mister Smoke tapped him on the shoulder, whispering, ‘Rise and shine, shipmate. Keep your head low and your voice quiet. They’re on their way, comin’ down the road from the camp.’
HOPE … AND DESPAIR
Dolph hadn’t had so much as a sip of water for two days. None of them had.And that was a serious problem.
When the food ran out, five days ago, Squid had crossed her arms and said, ‘We’re all used to going hungry. An empty belly won’t hurt us, not for a while.’
But water was a different matter. Even in the leanest winters down south, when shipfolk had died by the dozens, there’d been plenty of water.
To make it worse, for the last few days there’d been a constant rattling in the ship’s pipes – not proper messages, just nonsense to stop them communicating with the r
est of the crew. Dolph thought that a few of the Cooks were still holding out, and maybe one other lot of Officers, but she couldn’t be sure.
And now Skua had taken to mocking them from the other side of the barricade. ‘Water, sweet water,’ he shouted, every few hours.‘All you can drink! What, you don’t want any? Then I’ll have to drink it all myself.’ He made loud glugging sounds. ‘Ooooh, that is so good.’
Dolph and Squid stood firm. But for Minke and her friends, Skua’s mockery was the last straw. Hard-faced and dry-tongued, they advanced on the two young women.
‘Move aside,’ said Minke, over the rattling of the pipes.‘We’re taking the barricade down.’
‘No,’ said Dolph, though it hurt her throat to speak.
‘Krill’s not coming back,’ said Minke.‘He’s dead.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Squid.
‘The barricade stays,’ said Dolph, with as much authority as she could muster.
‘You can’t keep us here,’ said Minke.
Dolph shrugged. ‘If you want to go, then go. But Squid and I ain’t joining Albie, not for anything.’
At that, Minke and her friends backed off, whispering among themselves. But then they came forward again, their faces harder than ever.
‘You two can stay here and die,’ said Minke, ‘but we’re going. Let us through.’
Dolph and Squid looked at each other – and nodded.
They had to take part of the barricade down to let the others out. They worked quickly and silently, hoping that Albie and Skua were off somewhere else, bullying folk, and wouldn’t take this moment to launch an attack.
They had just removed one of the largest bits of driftwood, which had been braced hard up against the base of the bulkhead, when Dolph thought she heard a scraping sound, like something being dragged.
She held up her hand.‘Wait.’And despite everything, there was still enough of Orca in her to make Minke hesitate.
Next to Dolph’s foot, right where the driftwood had been jammed in place, a screw turned. A patch of bulkhead was lifted out of the way by small paws. Dolph thought she saw the flash of a tiny screwdriver, then that disappeared and Missus Slink came into sight, with a sealskin harness around her chest and a large water flask dragging behind her.
If Albie had attacked at that moment, no one would have been capable of stopping him. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t speak. They just stood there, open-mouthed and staring.
‘And about time, too,’ said Missus Slink, stepping crossly out of the harness. ‘I’ve been banging out messages to you for hours, but couldn’t make myself heard over that stupid rattling.’ She peered up at their stunned faces, then pointed to the water flask. ‘Well? I thought you were thirsty.’
Sharkey almost didn’t recognise the Sunkers. They stumbled into the quarry like sleepwalkers, a hundred or so of them, their faces as grey as the rags they wore. The babies were crying. The middies and the old salts looked as if they didn’t have a hope in the world.
‘What’s the matter with ’em?’ whispered Sharkey.
‘Don’t reckon they’re getting enough to eat, poor things,’ replied Petrel. ‘They look worse than shipfolk after a long, hard winter.’
‘Nay.’ Sharkey shook his head. ‘Sunkers don’t despair just cos they’re hungry. Sunkers are as tough as sharkskin, as strong as iron.They never give up—’
Fin interrupted him. ‘They will have been told about the attack on Claw.The guards like to gloat over such things.They probably believe that you and Cuttle and Gilly are dead.’
Sharkey must have made a noise of some sort, because Rain touched his shoulder. ‘Do not worry. We will get them out.’
But that wasn’t enough for Sharkey. He stared down into the quarry with a sick feeling in his belly. It was a mixture of anger and helplessness, and when he spotted Poddy, looking as grey and beaten as the rest of the Sunkers, it grew even worse.
He hated feeling helpless. He wanted to do something, like – like stand up, right there and then, and shout, ‘I’m here, Pod! I’m alive, and so’re Gilly and Cuttle! And Claw’s just a couple of hours away, a bit battered but still watertight. Don’t despair! Don’t despair!’
He didn’t do it, of course. There was a score of Ghosts below, most of them with cudgels. Not Ghosts. Devouts, he reminded himself. Humans.
There were beasts down there too, as big as turtles – nay, bigger. More like small dolphins, only with four legs and wicked teeth.
‘Dogs,’ whispered Rain, beside him. ‘Vicious dogs.’
Sharkey lay on the rim of the quarry, watching the dogs and the Devouts, seeing where they walked and what they did and who they took notice of. After a few minutes, he whispered, ‘Mister Smoke, you see Poddy down there? Could you sneak close to her and tell her we’re all alive still, and no serious damage to Claw?’
‘I’m not sure that’s wise, lad,’ said Krill.
Sharkey suspected that the big man was right. But he still had that desperate need to do something, so he ignored his misgivings and said to the rat, ‘Tell Poddy we’re here to get ’em out.’
‘Aye, shipmate,’ said Mister Smoke, and he dashed away.
In the sky above the Citadel, an enormous flock of pigeons wheeled and turned in silence. But down in the quarry, the noise was rising.The stronger prisoners used saws and chisels to cut blocks out of the quarry wall. The middies and the weaker adults gathered smaller bits of stone and hammered them to chips. Before long everyone was so covered in rock dust that Sharkey struggled to recognise them.
Still, he managed to pick out Poddy’s parents, and Cuttle’s and Gilly’s, and all his aunts and uncles and cousins. With a flood of relief, he realised that almost everyone had survived. The feeling of helplessness lessened.
Can’t wait to see Gilly’s face, he told himself, and Cuttle’s too, when they find out their ma and fa are alive.
He heard a gasp from Rain. ‘There is Bran! Over there!’
Rain’s brother stood beside one of the Gho—, beside one of the Devouts, wearing brown robes that were too big for him. His shoulders were hunched and his feet scuffed the dirt. As Sharkey watched, the Devout leaned over and said something, and Bran immediately stood up straight and stiff, as if he was trying to be something he wasn’t.
‘Where’s Mister Smoke?’ whispered Petrel. ‘Cap’n, can you see him?’
‘He is approaching a girl,’ said the silver child. He indicated a spot not far from Bran.‘Is that Poddy?’
‘Aye,’ said Sharkey grimly.
His cousin was pounding stones to chips, her head bowed, her spine a curve of grief. Her arm rose and fell as if it weighed a ton.
Sharkey saw the exact moment when she spotted the rat. For a split second, her hammer hesitated in midair – then it fell, exactly as it had done so many times before. Her head was still bowed. The curve of her spine looked as heartbroken as ever.
But now, beneath that heartbreak there was something else.
Hope.
She shuffled to one side, and bent her head, as if she was trying to come at the stones from a different angle. Or as if she was listening to a small, rough voice, and hearing the truth about what had happened to Claw.
And then the hammer was lying idle in her hands, and she was talking, very quickly and quietly. Sharkey could see her lips moving, and the urgency of it, and the way her eyes flickered from side to side, watching the guards, checking to see that they weren’t watching her.
Sharkey held his breath. There was something happening over the other side of the quarry. One of the Sunkers had blood running down his arm. A Devout was standing over him, ordering him back to work.
‘That is not right,’ said the silver child, half rising to his feet. ‘He is injured. He needs medical treatment—’
‘Shh, Cap’n!’ said Krill, pulling him down again.
The other guards were scanning the prisoners, in case they took this as an excuse to stop work. No one seemed to have spotted Poddy
– no one except Bran, who ducked his head and stared at the ground. Beside Sharkey, Rain was singing under her breath, her eyes fixed on her little brother.
At last Poddy raised her hammer and went back to bashing at the stone. At the same time, she whispered something to the person next to her, who passed it on to the next person and the next and the next.
It was like the turning of a tide, subtle but strong. Folk still stumbled from one rock to the other. Their shoulders still sagged. Their faces still seemed hopeless and defeated.
But Sharkey knew better.The Sunkers had woken up.
Poddy, at the centre of it, was pounding away with her hammer as if the crumbling rock was Brother Thrawn’s head. She must have thought she’d got away with that brief stoppage. No one had shouted at her. No one had dragged her to the whipping posts.
All the same, the sick feeling in Sharkey’s guts grew suddenly worse. It was a mistake, he thought, sending Mister Smoke down into the quarry. I should’ve listened to Krill.
He was right.The guard next to Bran grabbed the boy’s shoulder and said something.
Bran shook his head. No. No!
But the guard was nodding. Yes! And pointing at Poddy. He had seen her stop work; he must’ve been watching out of the corner of his eye, waiting for Bran to report her.
Except Bran hadn’t reported her. Now both he and Poddy were in trouble, and it was Sharkey’s fault.
‘No,’ he whispered.
‘No,’ breathed Rain, her eyes fixed on her little brother.
‘Steady,’ growled Krill.‘Remember the plan.’
The guard hustled Bran over to where Poddy was smashing rocks. When she saw them, her hammer faltered and her shoulders hunched, as if she was trying to hide.The guard shouted at her. His voice was carried off by the wind and the hammering, but his meaning was clear. He hauled Poddy to her feet and began to drag the two children towards the whipping posts.
Behind him, every single prisoner laid down their hammer and chisel.
The sudden silence was like a blow. Sharkey’s ears rang with it. And they rang again when the guards began yelling and lashing out with their cudgels.
