by Lian Tanner
Still no one picked up their tools. They stood, ragged and stubborn, their faces as hard as the rock behind them, their eyes fixed on Poddy and the guard who held her.
Sharkey felt a moment of intense pride. But then the guard shouted again. And this time his voice carried right up to the lip of the quarry.
‘She is to be punished for stopping work. Fifteen lashes of the whip. The boy will be punished for not reporting her. He has been warned before. Five lashes of the whip.’
‘No,’ said Rain, and a sob caught in her throat.‘That is too cruel!’
The guard continued. ‘And if you lot do not get back to work, the punishment will be doubled. For both of them.’
For a long moment, no one moved.Then, down in the quarry, Adm’ral Deeps stepped forward, her voice strong. ‘She’s too young for fifteen lashes. I’ll take her punishment. I’ll take it for both of ’em.’
It just about tore the breath out of Sharkey’s lungs, to hear those words. Shook him from head to toe. Made him realise for the first time ever what being an adm’ral was about. It wasn’t just the respect and the admiration. It wasn’t just the power, either.Adm’ral Deeps was looking after her people. She was stepping in to save them.
Except it wasn’t going to work. The guard sneered at her. ‘You can be whipped as well, if that is your fancy,’ he cried, and his fellow guards laughed. ‘Or you can have this for free.’
And he raised his cudgel and knocked her down.
Sharkey was on his feet in an instant. He wasn’t the only one. Rain scrambled up too, saying, ‘We must stop them!’
Petrel and Fin pulled them down again. ‘We can’t, not till tonight! That’s the plan, remember?’
‘We cannot wait till tonight,’ cried Rain. ‘We must do something now, before they are hurt!’
‘She is right,’ said the silver captain. ‘They should not be whipped.’
‘Shh!’ said Krill.‘Keep your voices down!’
It was then that Mister Smoke returned, trotting towards them with his ragged coat covered in rock dust. ‘Poddy says there’s a secret tunnel, shipmates—’
‘She’s going to be whipped,’ said Sharkey.‘They saw her stop work. I shouldn’t have sent you.’
‘—up the road at the camp where they sleep. The prisoners’ve dug it as far as the shoreline—’
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ said Sharkey.
‘—but they can’t use it, cos the guards are out there all night and every night with their dogs.They need a diversion, something that’ll give ’em time to—’
‘A diversion,’ cried Rain.‘That is what we want now!’
Sharkey wanted to save Rain’s little brother almost as much as he wanted to save Poddy. But for all his anger and guilt, his clever mind would not stop working. ‘No, we’d be caught in an instant. And that wouldn’t do anyone any good.’
‘But we have to do something!’
‘Shhhhh!’ warned Krill.
Too late. One of the guards raised his head and stared up at the cliff top.Then he began to shout.
There was no time for discussion. Mister Smoke dived into the undergrowth, and Petrel threw the bag of masks after him. Krill leapt to his feet with amazing agility for such a big man. Sharkey grabbed Rain’s hand, and they ran for their lives.
It wasn’t until they were a hundred yards away that he realised the others weren’t with them.
CAPTURED
Krill started out strongly. But the ground between the trees was pitted with rabbit holes, and by the time they’d gone twenty yards his ankle had given way again. Petrel and Fin grabbed his elbows and tried to haul him along, but that just made things worse.
‘Leave me!’ he gasped, leaning against the base of an enormous rocky outcrop. ‘Save the cap’n! They’ll smash him if they catch him.’
Petrel could hear the Devouts crashing up the hill towards them. A dog barked, and ten more answered it. Scroll fluttered above the captain’s head in agitation.
‘They will smash you, too,’ said the captain. ‘I will not leave you here, Krill, it would not be right. A captain does not desert his crew.’
The Head Cook hissed through his teeth. ‘You must go.You’re the one who matters, not me. Get out of here!’
‘I will not,’ said the captain.
The dogs were howling now – a deep, hungry sound that made Petrel’s skin tighten. She wanted to keep running – every fibre in her body urged her to escape while she still could. But the captain was right.They couldn’t leave Krill behind.
She swallowed. ‘Looks like we’re staying. Can you fight, Krill?’
‘Reckon so, bratling, as long as it doesn’t involve walking.’
‘Fin?’ said Petrel.
Fin looked as if he wanted to run as much as she did. But he nodded at Petrel and they began snatching up good solid branches that they could use as weapons.
‘This way!’ shouted a man from in among the bushes.‘They have not got far!’
Petrel, Fin and Krill backed into a semicircle around the rock face, with the captain behind them. They were only just in time. Four men burst out of the bushes with dogs straining at their leashes. Two of them saw Sharkey and Rain disappearing into the distance, and kept running.The other two stopped and shouted over their shoulders, ‘We have them!’
The dogs drew their lips back from their teeth and snarled. Petrel shivered. Beside her, Fin gripped his branch with white knuckles.
‘We’ve fought worse than this,’ said Krill in a quiet rumble. His face was grey with pain, but his eyes were determined and the bones in his beard rattled ferociously.
‘Aye,’ whispered Petrel, though her legs trembled, and she couldn’t imagine fighting anyone. Fin’s shoulder nudged hers, and she nudged him back. Scroll’s wings churned the air above the captain’s head.
‘Here we go,’ said Krill.‘Here come the rest of ’em.’
Men and dogs milled out of the bushes, shouting and barking so loudly that Petrel could hardly hear herself think. She held her branch in both hands, copying Krill, and braced her legs as if she was on the deck of the Oyster with a storm coming.
She thought the men would rush them.That’s what she’d have done, with so many against so few. Instead, they stopped some distance away and held their dogs back.The shouting was replaced by a low murmur.
‘They are still afraid of him,’ whispered Fin.‘Listen!’
‘Demon,’ murmured the men.
‘Demon!’
‘Demon!’
Petrel drew in her breath and shouted across the gap,‘He’ll kill you if you come any closer!’
‘I will not,’ said the captain in her ear.‘I cannot.’
‘Shh!’ whispered Petrel. ‘It’s what they think that counts.’
Fin took a half-step forward. ‘It is true,’ he cried. ‘I have seen it myself. You will be dead before you can blink.’
The Devouts glowered at him. One of them, his beaky nose shining with suspicion, turned to his fellows and said,‘Who is that boy? I have seen him before.’
Someone else said, ‘Is he not the Initiate who went south with us? The one who attacked Brother Thrawn? Is he not the traitor?’
For a few seconds, the words seemed to hang in the early-morning air like icicles. Then the Devouts erupted with hatred. ‘Traitor!’ they screamed. ‘Consorter with demons! You will pay for your crimes. You and your mother!’
Petrel felt Fin go rigid beside her. His mouth opened and shut, but nothing came out.
Krill’s steady rumble broke the spell. ‘It’s words, lad, that’s all. They’re trying to divide us. It’s all part of the fight, just as much as the cudgels and the dogs. Don’t let ’em see that they’ve got to you.’
‘They have not,’ Fin said quickly. ‘They have not got to me.’ And he raised his voice again. ‘The demon will boil the blood in your veins, men and dogs. You will all die.’
To Petrel’s surprise, the captain stepped forward then. ‘If your blood boil
s, you will certainly die,’ he said, in a high, clear voice. ‘But first I think you will swell up, and leak through the skin. You might even burst from the pressure.’
He sounded horribly convincing. Petrel watched the men whisper to each other, heads nodding and shaking in argument. One of them pointed down the hill, and three men ran back the way they had come.
The man with the sharp nose turned to the small, defiant group and shouted,‘You are lying, demon. If you were going to kill us, you would have done so already.’
All the same, he and his fellows seemed in no hurry to advance. The dogs strained at their leashes, and the men held them back.
The captain whispered in Petrel’s ear. ‘I did not lie. I did not say that I would make those things happen.’
The Devouts had clearly taken it that way, however. Petrel felt a flicker of hope. This was a nasty trap, but she’d spent her whole life escaping from nasty traps. Maybe she and her friends could escape from this one.
What we need is a back door, she thought. Except we ain’t got one, not here, not unless we could climb up on top of this outcrop. But if WE could do it, so could . . .
The realisation hit her as hard as any cudgel.Those three men who had been sent away!
She swung around, shouting a warning, ‘Cap’n, watch out above!’
But she was too late. The three men were already up there, with an enormous rock in their hands. As the words left Petrel’s mouth, the rock fell, plummeting through the air like a thunderbolt.
The captain looked up . . . and the rock hit him.
He took three ungainly steps, then fell to the ground with half his beautiful face crushed. At the same time, the Devouts rushed in.
The next few minutes were among the most dreadful Petrel had ever known. Dogs and men flew at her, and she did her best to hold them off, ducking away from cudgels and teeth, then leaping back in with her branch flailing.
Beside her, Krill roared with fury and lashed out at anyone who came within reach. Two men fell under his fearsome blows, and then another. A dog yelped with pain. Another dog threw itself at Krill’s legs, and he scooped it up and tossed it away.
On Petrel’s other side, Fin was straddling the captain’s body, and smashing his branch in a wide arc that no one could get past. Scroll pecked wildly at dogs and men. And all the time, the captain lay still and silent, and Petrel’s heart was breaking.
In the end, it was a question of numbers. There were so many Devouts that even Krill’s great strength couldn’t hold them off for long. It took seven men and three dogs to bring him down, but bring him down they did. One moment he was fighting, the next he too lay silent on the ground, with blood trickling from his scalp.
With Krill gone, Petrel and Fin didn’t have a hope. They fought on, trying to protect the captain’s body, but it wasn’t long before their weapons were knocked from their hands, and they were thrown to the ground.
Scroll gave a mournful coo and flew away.
Petrel knew what was going to happen next, and had no idea how to stop it. She could see the men’s feet shuffling past as they gathered around the captain, hefting their cudgels and murmuring to each other.
‘Do you think it is still dangerous? Might it wake up and boil our blood?’
‘I do not know.’
‘We must make sure it is truly dead.’
‘Yes.We will crush it completely.Tear it apart.’
For all Petrel knew, the captain was truly dead. She had no idea how he worked, or whether he could be mended after that crushing blow to the face. She couldn’t do it, that was for sure, and neither could Fin or Krill. But maybe Mister Smoke and Missus Slink could fix him – if they could only get him back to the Oyster.
There’s still a chance, she told herself fiercely. We might still get out of this. I might be able to save my friends.
But if the Devouts tore the captain apart, if they crushed him completely, there’d be nothing left to save.
She tried to wriggle away from the man who held her. He snarled, as vicious as the dogs, and twisted her arm until she yelped. Behind her, the other Devouts were raising their cudgels—
‘Wait!’ shrieked Petrel.‘Wait or we’ll all die!’
She saw the cudgels hesitate, and ploughed on, not knowing what she was going to say until the words were out of her mouth. ‘If you smash the rest of him, a – a gas’ll come out.’
She hoped they knew what a gas was. But maybe they didn’t. After all, they had turned their back on every sort of knowledge except superstition. ‘A poisonous gas,’ she shouted.
‘A miasma,’ said Fin in a muffled voice.
‘Aye, a miasma, that’s right.A nasty one. It’ll kill everyone here and – and then it’ll spread, and kill everyone in the Citadel. Including Brother Thrawn.’
Her words were greeted by a deathly silence. The men who had been looming over the captain took a step backwards.
Someone said,‘She is lying.’
Someone else said, ‘Perhaps. We must seek Brother Thrawn’s advice.’
‘What shall we do with them in the meantime?’
‘Tie them to the whipping posts. Then, when we kill them, we can make a show of it. Let the peasants see what happens to those who defy us.’
And with no further ado, the Devouts picked up Petrel, Fin and the captain and carried them down the hill towards the quarry.
Krill they dragged.
Sharkey and Rain reached the bottom of the hill without being stopped. Sharkey wasn’t sure where they were going – he just wanted somewhere to hide for the rest of the day, somewhere safe and familiar, where he could think about what to do next.
‘The sea,’ he said.‘Set course for the sea, quick.’
And so they headed towards the coast, with Rain leading the way. It was easier in daylight than it had been in darkness, but Sharkey didn’t like it any better. Wish I had good solid metal around me, he thought as his bare feet squelched through the mud. Instead of all this – this earth.
Tower of Strength and the Citadel were behind them now, but there were people everywhere, poor, hungry-looking creatures carrying bundles of sticks, or leading scrawny animals. The two children ducked from cover to cover, until at last they left the fields and the trees behind and stood on a rise with a little crescent beach below them, and no sign of Devouts or anyone else.
And there was the sea, sighing and swelling like an old friend.
Sharkey couldn’t take his eyes off it. He wanted to dive in, right there and then. He wanted to swim and swim, until the Devouts and Brother Thrawn and the whipping posts were far behind him.
But that wouldn’t help Poddy.
He turned to Rain and said, ‘We need a good hiding pl—’
‘There they are!’
The shout, from the trees behind them, was like a blow to the belly. Sharkey grabbed Rain’s hand again and tried to drag her towards the beach, crying,‘Run!’
But instead of running, Rain dug in her heels. And when Sharkey let go of her hand, she grabbed his arm. Then, to his horror, she turned towards the approaching Devouts and shouted, ‘I have him! Come quickly! Do not let him get away!’
Sharkey was so shocked that for a moment he couldn’t move. He just stood there, staring at Rain. She shouted again,‘Come quickly!’
That was enough for Sharkey.With a cry of disgust he tore himself loose and ran. His legs pumped. His arms swung to keep his balance. His bare feet leapt over clods of earth and rocks and anything else that got in his way.
Behind him, the men egged each other on with great shouts. Sharkey couldn’t hear the dogs. They ran in silence, and so did he, heaving the salty air in and out of his lungs, thinking of Poddy, and how he had to remain free, had to save her.
When he came to the beach, he tore across the sand and into the water with gouts of spray splashing up around him. As soon as it was deep enough, he began to swim.
He’d taken no more than three strokes when the dogs were upon him, a writhi
ng mass of coarse hair and sharp teeth and paws. They bit him and pushed him under and tried to drag him back towards the shore.
But Sharkey was a Sunker, and Sunkers fought to the very end, even when they’d been betrayed. He squirmed and wriggled and punched until he was free of the teeth and the scrabbling paws. His head shot to the surface and he took a quick breath and dived under again. He couldn’t see a thing, but he knew where open water lay, he could feel it in his bones, and he dragged himself towards it, with his heart and soul bent on escape.
He thought he’d made it. He gave one last kick and thought he was free. But then a hand grabbed hold of his leg. Another hand seized his foot and hauled it upwards. Sharkey’s head hit the sand and bounced off. He took a mouthful of water – and was dragged to the surface, spluttering and choking.
Before he could catch his breath, the men had his hands tied behind his back, and he was trussed up like a crab ready for the pot.
BROTHER THRAWN
The Devouts dragged Sharkey along the beach, jerking the rope this way and that, and laughing when he fell to his knees on the sand. He tried to catch Rain’s eye, but she wouldn’t look at him.
Instead, she said, ‘He is the last of the underwater savages. I am glad you caught him. Thank you for saving me.’
One of the men, whose brown robe was hitched up over his trousers so he could run, looked down at her. ‘Brother Thrawn thought you were dead.’
Rain shuddered.‘At times I wished I was dead.’
‘Well, you are safe now and Brother Thrawn will be wanting to see you as soon as possible. He will want to see the savage too, no doubt.’ The man tipped his head towards Sharkey. ‘Is he really the last of them?’
‘Yes,’ said Rain.‘There are a couple of small children somewhere, but they will die soon enough without anyone to look after them.’
Sharkey stared at her in disbelief. I thought we were friends. How could I’ve been so stupid?
The man jerked at the rope, and Sharkey stumbled up over the rise and into the trees, with the dogs nipping at his heels. He kept his head down, trying to act as if he was beaten. But all the while, he was thinking.
