Gods and Warriors

by Michelle Paver

  But here. There were fish in the rock pools, but whenever she leaned over, they vanished. She’d never expected fish to move so fast. She’d only seen them in paintings or in a dish.

  The island didn’t want her. Seabirds screamed at her, and sharp stones hurt her feet. The Sea heaved endlessly in and out of her narrow little inlet, splashing her with spray that stung her burned cheek; but she didn’t dare camp in the big bay on the other side of the headland. She had to stay hidden, in case her mother or the Crows came after her. She missed Userref, although he probably didn’t miss her, as she must have gotten him into so much trouble by running away. She hated being so helpless and so scared. She had no sandals or cloak, which meant no shade by day and no warmth at night; and no idea how to wake up a fire. Sleeping in the open was frightening, with all the noises. The sky was immense and the stars glared down at her. Alarming shadows flitted across them that might be birds or bats—or worse. There was a cave where she went to refill her waterskin, but nothing could have made her sleep down there. Caves led to the underworld. You entered at your peril.

  Shortly after the fisherman had abandoned her, a storm had blown up. Miserably, she’d sheltered under a juniper tree, getting soaked. Then she’d experienced what every Keftian dreads: The ground had begun to shake. Cowering under her tree, she’d begged the Earthshaker to stop. Was He angry because she was here, where she didn’t belong?

  The shaking hadn’t lasted long, but she’d lain awake all night, waiting for the Bull Beneath the Sea to start stamping again. At dawn she’d thrown her earrings into the shallows as an offering, uneasily aware that she should have done this earlier.

  She shouldn’t be on this island; it was all wrong. She’d told the fisherman to take her to Keftiu, but he’d said it was too far, and despite her protests he’d set her down here. He’d been scared and in a hurry to get away. She hadn’t known why until the next morning, when she’d recognized the shape of the ridge from a hundred Keftian paintings.

  The fisherman had left her on the Island of the Goddess.

  On Keftiu they told tales of the people who’d lived here in the old times. It was said that they’d grown proud, and angered the gods. Then they’d vanished, never to be seen again. Now the island was a deserted, sacred place, haunted by the ghosts of the Vanished Ones. Only priestesses came here from time to time, to make sacrifices, and perform secret rites to propitiate the Goddess…

  The Sun rose higher, and Pirra got hungrier and hungrier. At last she decided to risk a venture into the bay. When the fisherman’s boat had first drawn near the island, she’d spotted a shipwreck farther down the coast. Maybe there she would find something to eat.

  Her mind shied away from what would happen if she didn’t. Cliffs barred the way inland; as far as she could tell, she was confined to the inlet, the bay, and the point on which the ship had been wrecked.

  After a scratchy, midge-ridden climb, she reached the top of the headland. Panting and streaming sweat, she stared down at the sweeping arc of the bay.

  There was a body on the beach.

  Pirra dropped to a crouch and dodged behind a boulder.

  The body lay on its front with the foam licking at its heels. Probably some drowned sailor washed up by the storm.

  Pirra thought fast. Robbing the dead would be horrible. But… It was wearing a tunic. She could use that to keep herself warm at night. And wasn’t that a knife at its side?

  At the back of her mind lurked an even more appalling idea. She needed food. Could she eat a person? Raw?

  Summoning her courage, she took another look.

  The body was gone.

  For one dreadful moment she pictured a corpse creeping up behind her. Then she spotted it farther down the beach.

  It wasn’t a corpse; it was a boy, stumbling over the pebbles. With a jolt, she recognized him. It was the Lykonian peasant who’d stared at her the night she’d burned her cheek. His hair was oddly lighter than before, but it was definitely him: the same narrow eyes and straight nose that made an unbroken line with his forehead.

  Her heart began to pound. The Crows were after this boy. They said he’d tried to kill Thestor’s son. Pirra had a shrewd idea that that wasn’t true, just an excuse they’d told Userref to fob him off. But still. This boy was dangerous. And he was trudging straight for her end of the bay.

  Heart pounding, she shrank behind the boulder.

  The crunch of pebbles as he came nearer. Silence. He’d stopped at the foot of the headland.

  Scarcely daring to move, she peered around the boulder and down the slope.

  He was directly below her. There was seaweed in his strange, sandy hair, and his tunic was ragged and salt-stained. His wiry limbs were covered in bruises, and there was an angry wound on his upper arm. In his fist he clutched a large bronze knife. Pirra held her breath.

  The boy started to climb.

  No, she told him silently, not up here!

  He seemed to think better of it and dropped down again. He wandered back along the beach.

  Shakily, Pirra breathed out.

  She watched him go to the foot of the cliffs, where he found a stick and started digging a hole. Why? Then he left that and plodded to the shallows, where he found a plank drifting on the foam. Hauling it up the beach to a clump of boulders, he propped it against them. He fetched more driftwood. Oh, no. He was building a shelter—not twenty paces from where she hid.

  The morning wore on, and still Pirra watched. The boy finished the shelter with thorn branches laid on the driftwood. Then he found a flattish piece of wood and cut a notch in it with his knife. Now what was he up to? Puzzled, Pirra watched him sit down and steady the wood with one foot, then take a stick and stand it upright in the notch. He rubbed it rapidly between his palms. He went on doing this, working his hands up and down the stick. Suddenly Pirra spotted a wisp of smoke. Still working the stick, the boy bent over and blew softly. A flame. He added bits of dried grass, then small twigs, then whole branches. Soon he had a fire briskly blazing.

  Pirra was astonished—and annoyed. This grimy Lykonian peasant had managed something she couldn’t. She’d been outdone by a goatherd.

  In consternation she watched him whittle three sticks to points, then deftly tie them with twisted grass to one end of a piece of driftwood, to make a three-pronged spear. After that he went down to the rocks and crouched.

  He struck fast, and stood up with a small fish wriggling on the end of his spear. He ate it raw, which made Pirra feel sick. Then he speared two more fish and set them to roast over the fire.

  By now it was well into the afternoon, and she was giddy with hunger. The boy ate every scrap of roast fish except for the heads, which he placed a few paces from his shelter—she guessed that was some kind of uncouth sacrifice—and added a few peelings of skin from his sunburned shoulders, which she thought was absolutely disgusting.

  Returning to the hole he’d dug earlier, he scooped out water in his cupped hand, and greedily drank. Pirra realized that it must have seeped up from the ground, which was why he’d dug the hole. That was clever, but there didn’t seem to be much of it. At least when it came to this, she’d done better than him; he hadn’t found the underground stream in the cave.

  Having speared two more fish and put them in the embers, he dragged a mound of dried seaweed into his shelter and crawled inside.

  Dusk came on. The smell of baked fish drifted on the breeze. Pirra couldn’t bear it. She forgot the danger. She forgot everything except the smell of that fish.

  Stealthily, she crept down the slope. As she drew nearer, she heard whiffling coming from the shelter. Good. Fast asleep.

  Through the quivering heat she spotted a blackened fish tail jutting from the ashes. Silently, she picked up a stick to poke it free.

  A hand shot out of the shelter and grabbed her wrist.

  17

  Pirra kicked and scratched, but the boy was horribly strong and he wouldn’t let go. With her free hand she tore at h
is hair. He wrenched her arm behind her, forcing her down onto the stones. She clawed his face. His fist caught her an agonizing blow on her bad cheek. She screamed, startling him into slackening his grip. She wriggled loose and shot off across the pebbles.

  Quick as a snake he was after her.

  She spun around. “Stay back!” she hissed in Akean. “Or I’ll put a spell on you!”

  That stopped him.

  “I mean it!” she gasped, pointing a shaky finger. “I’ll make you cough up your guts and—spit blood and die!”

  “You couldn’t do that,” he panted.

  “Yes, I could,” she lied. “D’you want to find out?”

  He glared at her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. But he didn’t come any nearer.

  Close up, he didn’t look any older than she was, although frighteningly tough and capable of anything. Through his tangled yellow hair he watched her narrowly. It was like facing a wild animal.

  She told herself that as long as she showed no fear, he’d have to obey. He didn’t know she couldn’t do spells.

  Bracing her legs to stop them trembling, she said, “Don’t you know where you are, goatboy? This is the Island of the Goddess—and I’m the daughter of the High Priestess. That means you do what I say.”

  He glanced at the little gold axes on her tunic. “My name isn’t goatboy. It’s Hylas. And I’m a warrior.”

  She snorted. “You’re a liar, like all Akeans.”

  Ducking into his shelter, he brought out his knife and brandished it in her face. “See this? It’s a warrior’s knife.”

  It was bronze, very finely made. She pretended she wasn’t alarmed. “You stole it,” she said scornfully.

  “No I didn’t, it’s mine.”

  She hesitated. He took a step forward. She took a step back.

  “Where are the rest of them?” he demanded.

  “Who?”

  “Your people! The Crows!”

  “I’m on my own—and the Crows are not my people.”

  “Well, you can’t deny that you were camped with them. Where’s their ship?”

  “I told you, I’m on my own! I paid a fisherman to help me escape. He betrayed me and left me here.”

  “Why would I believe that? You’re mad. And you gave me away to the Crows.”

  “I’m not mad!”

  He tossed his head. “Their ships are on the other side of that headland right now, aren’t they?”

  “If they were, d’you think they’d send me to steal a fish?”

  He had no answer to that.

  “I told you,” she said, “this is the Island of the Goddess. There’s nobody here!”

  For a moment he studied her. Then he turned and went back to his fire.

  Pirra was outraged. On Keftiu, no one turned their back on her. It was the height of disrespect.

  When he continued to ignore her, she said, “That fisherman will tell my people where I am and they’ll come after me. They’ll bring the Crows. You need to get off this island just as much as I do.”

  He went on scraping ash off the baked fish. It smelled incredibly delicious.

  “I found a shipwreck,” she added. “If I show you where it is, you can make a boat from what’s left, and we’ll get away.”

  He ate swiftly, cramming the flaky white flesh into his mouth and crunching up the skin.

  “Give me some,” ordered Pirra.

  “Catch your own,” he snarled with his mouth full.

  “How dare you! Give me some!”

  “Catch your own or go hungry, I don’t care.”

  She tore one of the gold spangles off her tunic. “Here.”

  He scowled. “What’s that?”

  “It’s gold. It’s precious. You use it to buy things.”

  “Then it’s no good here, is it?”

  “Don’t you know what this is worth? You could buy whatever you want.”

  He looked around him. “From who?”

  Pirra set her teeth. “If you don’t give me some of that fish, I won’t show you where the wreck is.”

  He gave a nasty laugh. “I can find it without you.” Wiping his fingers disgustingly on his tunic, he pushed past her and sauntered down to the Sea.

  Pirra stalked after him. She was so angry she was blinking back tears, and her cheek was on fire after that blow.

  It flashed through her mind that if she stole his knife she could force him to obey; but that had occurred to him too, and he’d stuck it in his belt. There was also the fact that she’d found water and he hadn’t; could she use that? But if she told him about the cave, he’d hurt her till she said where it was.

  Out in the bay, something glinted. Then a great shining creature leaped from the Sea and splashed down in a shower of spray.

  The boy broke into a grin and ran into the shallows. He gave a piercing whistle.

  In the bay, the creature turned and swam toward him.

  Pirra’s jaw dropped.

  The dolphin was much bigger than she’d imagined, and far more beautiful than any painting in the House of the Goddess. In awe she watched it arch out of the water, then roll under the waves: in and out, in and out, in a graceful, undulating rhythm. As it came closer she heard its soft, snorting breath. She saw its sacred smile. She put her fist to her forehead and bowed.

  The boy waded waist-deep, and waited. The dolphin swam closer. It brushed against him.

  Pirra was astounded. In disbelief she watched the dolphin circle the boy, who was splashing it gently with water, which it seemed to like. He waded deeper and began to swim. The dolphin slowed as it approached him again. The boy took hold of its fin with both hands, and it pulled him along. It swam faster and he lay at full stretch, skimming the waves as if he were flying.

  Pirra stood speechless as boy and dolphin headed out into the bay. Who was this boy, that a creature of the Goddess should come to him?

  After making a wide circle, they turned back for the shore. The boy let go of the dolphin and waded into the shallows, where he stood watching it swim away. He was smiling, his bony face briefly transformed.

  He saw Pirra and his smile faded. “So,” he said brusquely, “this is how it will be. You will do what I say. Now show me that wreck.”

  18

  Hylas was almost certain that the girl was lying about the spells—but was she also lying about there being no Crows on the island? He made her go in front of him with the knife at her back, in case she was leading him into a trap.

  “Ow, ow,” she kept saying as she picked her way over the pebbles. Hadn’t she ever gone barefoot before?

  He didn’t believe her story about running away. Why would she run away? Even bedraggled and dirty, she was clearly the daughter of a leader. All that gold at her wrists and neck, and on that purple tunic. Unless she really was mad, and they’d left her here to get rid of her. The angry sickle-shaped burn on her cheek seemed to bear that out.

  Whatever the reason, she was in his way. She clearly couldn’t fend for herself, and he had enough to do keeping himself alive without having to feed her too. He decided to put up with her for long enough to build the raft, then leave her behind.

  With painful slowness, she led him to the far end of the bay, then over a rocky point. He breathed out. No Crow warriors on the other side, and no ships drawn up on the beach. There was no beach. Only the wreck, just like she’d said.

  It had been a sturdy ship with a full-bellied hull, but the Sea had smashed it as easily as if it had been made of bark. Hylas stared at the angry waves surging in and out of the gap that separated the wreck from the point. It was too wide to jump, and if he tried swimming, he’d be cut to bits or drowned; probably both.

  And even if he reached it, what then? He’d have to manhandle every scrap of timber and rope across that gap, then build a raft, then find his way back to Lykonia over the shark-infested Sea…

  “We could use the plank from your shelter,” said the girl, “to make a bridge.”

  “M
m,” he said doubtfully, although he’d just had the same idea.

  “Once you’re over there, you could throw things to me.”

  He snorted. “Too scared to risk it yourself?”

  “I’m not scared. I can’t swim.”

  “I thought Keftians worshipped the Sea.”

  “We do. But I’ve never been allowed out.”

  He blew out his cheeks. She was even more useless than he’d thought.

  They fetched the plank, but she kept dropping her end, so he shouldered it by himself. He managed to ease it over the gap and wedge it in the wreck, steadying the other end with stones; then, filled with misgiving, he crawled onto the makeshift bridge. The wood was slippery and sagged under his weight. The Sea churned beneath him, drenching him in spray. But the plank held firm, and he made it across.

  Warily, he picked his way over a dismal ruin of half-submerged timbers that lurched treacherously underfoot. He found mounds of sodden sailcloth and tangled rawhide rigging, but to his relief, no bodies, just a moldy cap and a sandal with a broken thong. He thought of the men who now lay at the bottom of the Sea, staring sightlessly at the fishes swimming through their hair.

  Who had they been? Not Keftians. With irritating confidence, the girl had declared that the ship’s nose was the wrong shape; she said it was Makedonian, whatever that was. He wasn’t sure whether to believe her. He wished the ship had been full of Crows. He wished they were the ones who now lay at the bottom of the Sea, being eaten by sharks.

  Kneeling by the sunken hold, he saw tiny fish darting in and out of huge, shattered jars. Something long and thin shot into a crevice. He drew back sharply.

  “What is it?” the girl shouted from the point.

  He peered in.

  From the crevice, something peered back. It wasn’t a snake. Hylas didn’t know what it was. “Some kind of—monster,” he called, trying not to sound alarmed.

  “What’s it look like?”

  The thing emerged, spotted him, and withdrew. “Body like a sack. Big eyes. Lots of legs, like snakes but—not.”

  “Oh, you mean an octopus. They’re sacred—but very good to eat. See if you can spear it. Don’t be scared, it won’t hurt you.”