Maxyn was still by his father’s side, where we’d left him. He was crying softly.
He didn’t seem surprised that I’d returned. “I beg you to respect my father’s . . . my father’s body,” he said when I knelt next to him. “If you could perhaps build a fire. It doesn’t have to be large. We are small creatures, after all.” He met my eyes, and it was like seeing a mirror of my own pain. “We dairnes.”
Maxyn managed to make the request without breaking down in sobs, but my own eyes spilled tears.
One more dead dairne, and with so few to spare.
Gambler, passing by, overheard Maxyn’s request. “It will be done,” he said.
I held out my hand. “Please come with us, Maxyn,” I said. “There’s nothing for you here. Not anymore. And there are so very few of . . . of us.”
He took a steadying breath and stood, refusing my hand. As he trudged toward the galley, he glanced back only once, to the spot where Gambler was gently preparing Elexor’s body.
When Maxyn and I climbed on board, Khara gave me a small nod.
It wasn’t long before Norbert and his crew were back at the galley, carrying heavy loads of weapons and armor. Renzo and the other men returned at the same time, dragging waterskins and canteens.
The oncoming galley had cut its distance from the island by half. Even without Tobble’s Far-Near, we could see that it had twenty-four oars and carried at least a dozen soldiers.
How had they come to realize what was going on here? I glanced up and saw that most innocuous of seaside sights: gulls wheeling. Perhaps one of them had carried tales? Or had a treasonous raptidon passed overhead?
“Gambler!” Khara cried. “Tobble! Are we ready to push off?”
“Yes!” Tobble confirmed from his position at the tiller.
One of the freed men came up to Khara and said, “I am called Aloish. I know these waters well.”
I nodded, confirming that this was the truth, and Aloish went to confer with Tobble.
I smelled something and turned back to the island. A small tendril of smoke rose from the trees.
“Gambler is coming,” I said, glancing at Maxyn.
“Men, to your oars! Shove off!” Khara cried, and just as we cast off, Gambler came bounding toward us. He sailed effortlessly through the air, landing with perfect nonchalance on the deck.
“Gambler,” Renzo chided, “now you’re just showing off.”
“I might deny that, if we had no truth-telling dairnes with us,” Gambler said.
Maxyn met Gambler’s eyes. “Thank you,” he said, staring back at the twirling ribbon of smoke.
Gambler nodded solemnly. “I am sorry for your loss.”
“Down oars!” Norbert commanded. He took an oar himself and yelled, “Will someone work the drum and set the pace?”
Near the stern sat a large drum covered in stretched animal skin. As I had no other job to perform, I settled on the tiny round stool next to it, lifted the mallet, and banged the drum once, producing a satisfying sound.
“Like this,” Norbert said, clapping. “Beat . . . beat . . . beat!”
I mimicked the rhythm, and the galley surged so suddenly that I nearly fell off my stool. I continued at a steady pace until Norbert called, “Double time!”
Renzo took the place temporarily left vacant by Aloish, the man who’d claimed knowledge of the waters. He was pulling hard, muscles straining, and making rueful remarks about his own relative weakness compared to the rowers near him. They were smiling now, rowing with all their might.
We raced through the water, sending up a fine bow wave. But the other galley veered to intercept us, and they were faster still. The border of Nedarra was many leagues to our south, around the mountains that ran down into the sea. We would not be safe from the Kazar’s troops until then, and to my unpracticed eye, it did not look as if we would make it.
Khara and Tobble conferred with Aloish, and after a moment, she came to me as I beat my drum. “Aloish says there’s a shoal ahead, a submerged reef. If we can reach it before the Kazar’s galley gets to us, we will clear it. The other galley, which sits lower in the water, may be stopped.”
“Let us hope,” I said, pounding away.
“Let us do more than hope,” Khara said. “Norbert? Give us the beat for full speed.”
“Beat, beat, beat, beat!” he yelled.
I copied the rhythm, and the galley, which had already seemed to me to be moving with unsafe speed, seemed to fly across the water.
Khara occupied her time carrying water to the rowers. They seemed shocked by the gesture, and I doubted they’d ever been shown such courtesy. I’d seen the whip lying on the deck near my feet.
After a while, Maxyn took over the water duties from Khara. His face betrayed no emotion, but I knew what he was feeling, and I wished there was something I could do or say.
The chase was not a matter of minutes, but of hours, as the two boats, coming from different angles, raced to an intersection that would mean our doom, if it came even a few seconds too soon.
The men were weary, but they kept rowing, sweat pouring as they grimaced at the pace. I was doing a mere fraction of their work, and I was exhausted.
Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat. The distance between us and our pursuers lessened with each stroke. We were two sides of a triangle, converging on an apex. They were near enough that I could differentiate the determined faces of the men, glaring at us from beneath their silver helmets.
I watched as one of those men stepped away from the others. He had something in his hand. Was it—?
“Arrow!” I yelled.
The arrow flew in a low arc and struck the water. But it was only twenty feet short. Soon we would be within range.
Sure enough, the next arrow hit the side of the galley with a thunk.
“Khara!” Tobble cried. “The wind has shifted. We can raise sail!”
Aloish ran to comply, but now there were two archers firing at us, and the arrows flew with terrifying speed and increasing accuracy. One of the rowers was hit in the leg. Grimacing in pain, he kept rowing, despite the shaft sticking out of him.
An arrow hit the mast, just missing Maxyn, who erupted in sudden fury. He jumped to his feet, yanked the arrow out of the mast, and threw it back toward our pursuers.
A brave gesture, but it did not stop the arrow that pierced a rower’s arm. Aloish jumped to take his place, so we lost very little speed, but we had no speed to spare.
And then came a beautiful sight. The sail Tobble had called for filled with wind and billowed to life.
Off we flew, an arrow in our own right, straight and true and deadly fast.
29
Dabyrro
The wind was our friend. The next volley of arrows struck only our wake.
“The reef is ahead!” Aloish yelled to Tobble. “Veer two degrees to port!”
We turned sharply, toward a line of troubled water flanked by two black rocks protruding from the sea. Tobble sent us straight into the trough of white foam between the rocks.
I kept up my drumbeat, while the exhausted rowers kept pushing and pulling their oars. When I glanced at the pursuing galley, I saw anxious looks. They knew these waters, too, and knew we were racing toward a submerged reef.
No doubt they were calculating their own odds. Perhaps if they caught a wave just right, they could manage the maneuver. The alternative was to sheer off and lose us.
“Oars up!” Tobble cried.
The oars rose clear of the water, but not before one oar struck a submerged rock and splintered.
My stomach dropped as we flew through the gap like a sled on an icy hill.
“Oars down!” Tobble cried. “Byx! Regular time!”
I began beating again, but more slowly. Beat. Beat. Beat.
It was painfully clear that if the other galley cleared the reef, it would catch us. All of us, even the straining rowers, watched with dread as the galley rose on a wave, surging forward.
I heard a sicke
ning crunch, a rending of timbers. The galley had come to a stop. The next wave lifted it off the reef and seemed poised to send it through, but the galley did not move quickly enough. The wave slipped away and the galley’s stern landed hard on the rocks.
“Yes!” I shouted, and cheers broke out from all of us—cheers that ceased altogether as we watched the galley come apart like a flimsy toy. Men spilled into the water, screaming with terror.
Maybe a few would find wreckage to keep them afloat. Maybe a few could swim well enough that they had a chance to reach shore. But most, we feared, would drown.
Gambler seemed to read my thoughts. “It is good to survive,” he said. “But that does not make it any easier to watch men die.”
We sailed on quietly after that. The weary oarsmen, including Renzo, rested and ate, while Khara tended to their wounds and blistered palms. Gambler settled onto a sunny spot near the bow, like a carved figurehead at the prow of a great ship. Tobble leaned against the tiller, enjoying the calm waters, his big ears fluttering in the breeze.
I joined Maxyn in the stern. He was gazing back at Tarok, now just a spot on the horizon, and stroking Dog’s head.
I passed him a waterskin. “Thank you,” he said, without meeting my eyes.
Many questions filled my head, but I knew to hold my tongue. Instead I simply said, “I’m sorry for all that’s happened.”
Maxyn took a long swig from the waterskin. “I know it’s not your fault,” he said flatly. “Not any of yours.” He looked so much like my oldest brother, Avar: same skeptical gaze, same dense, golden fur. “It’s nobody’s fault. This is what happens when there’s war.”
“There’s no war yet,” I said.
“There will be.” Maxyn turned, leaning against the polished wood rail so that we were face-to-face.
“Only fools know both the beginning and the end of the story,” I said.
Maxyn frowned. “What?”
“My father used to say that. He liked sayings and proverbs and such.”
“All I know is, I’ve spent the past year watching spies come and go. Trust me. A war is coming, and soon.”
For a few minutes, we didn’t speak, but curiosity quickly got the better of me. “Have you always lived on Tarok?” I asked.
Maxyn nodded. “I was born there. My mother died giving birth to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Again: not your fault.”
“It must have been strange, floating from place to place for all those years,” I mused. “And on a carnivorous island, no less.”
Maxyn smiled for the first time since I’d met him. “Carnivorous? Rooklets like Tarok live on seaweed. Every now and then they’ll eat baitfish like smelt.”
“But we’ve heard stories—”
“That’s all they were. Old tales. Probably started by the natites. They love their legends.” He nodded. “Impressive, you and your friends going to an island you thought might eat you.”
“My friends are loyal indeed. They knew how important it was to me to find more dairnes.”
We shared a smile, and I realized, with a sudden pang, how long it had been since I’d been able to do that with a fellow dairne.
“Were you and your father the only dairnes on the island?” I asked.
Maxyn shook his head. “Not when I was growing up. There were maybe a dozen of us. Some moved on, some died, and these past couple years, it’s just been my father”—he paused, his voice catching—“my father and me.”
“We learned a poem about a colony of dairnes that lived on an island.” I reached into my pouch and withdrew my smudged map. Shyly, I handed it to Maxyn.
“Dairneholme, yes. At the center of the island. About all that’s left of it is that barracks building you saw.” He nodded, studying the worn playa leaf. “My father told me stories about it. Many generations ago, there was a thriving colony on Tarok.” He gave a little shrug. “Sorry to disappoint you. It’s just down to me, it seems.”
I tucked the map back into my pouch. “But perhaps there are more dairnes at the Pellago River colony?”
“Perhaps.” Maxyn sighed. He looked weary, and I realized what a terrible toll this day must have taken on him.
“You should rest,” I said. “I’ll get a blanket.”
I scrounged through our supplies, tossed into the galley in haste during our frantic escape, until I located a worn blanket. By the time I returned to the stern, Maxyn was curled up in a tight ball on the deck, eyes closed. When I covered him with the blanket, his lids flickered.
“Dabyrro,” he murmured.
It took me a moment to realize what I’d heard.
Dabyrro. Thank you in Dairnish.
“Rhen eh taber,” I whispered back.
Glad to help.
And I was. So very glad.
As we wafted south on a mild breeze, with Aloish trimming the sail, I joined Tobble at the tiller. “Captain Tobble,” I said, “you did some fine sailing today.”
“Thank you,” Tobble said, eyes on the waves. Whitecaps spread before us like an endless blue meadow of snow-frosted hills. “How is Maxyn faring?”
“As well as anyone might,” I said.
“I am happy for you, Byx,” Tobble said. “Happy and relieved. I was so afraid we might not find another dairne after all we’ve been through. I know he is but one. Still, it means hope. For you. And for all dairnes.”
What had I done to deserve such a fine and loyal companion? I wondered.
“Dabyrro, Tobble,” I said softly.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I shall never be able to repay you for your friendship.”
“I know how you can repay me.”
“How?”
“Take the tiller for a moment. My paws are weary.” He stepped aside. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave your side.”
I felt the ancient pull of the sea in my hands as I gripped the tiller hard. My heart felt strangely full, as if my chest might burst, and I realized what the unfamiliar feeling was.
Joy, plain and simple.
I had a gentle wind at my back.
A dear friend at the helm.
A band of loyal companions at the ready.
And one of my own, a kindred soul, a dairne, by my side at last.
30
The Natites
By late afternoon, we’d passed the invisible line between Dreyland and Nedarra, feeling content that our worries were over for the moment.
We knew, of course, that our eventual landing would mean renewed danger.
But that was down the road. For the time being, we had good wind and calm seas.
Unfortunately, Khara’s earlier worry about the natites proved true.
The seas belonged to them.
They arrived just as the sun was dropping beneath the horizon like a gold coin tossed into the waters. I caught a flash of movement starboard: a dolphin, I assumed.
But this dolphin shot up out of the water and landed on the deck, dripping wet. Another came, and then another, and in seconds the galley was hosting half a dozen natites, all armed with deadly javelins.
Khara drew her sword, but the first natite aboard held up a hand, palm out, and said, “Before you threaten me, kindly look around you.”
Khara did—we all did—and what we saw were a dozen or more natites in the water, heads and shoulders in the air, javelins at the ready.
“If those are not enough,” the natite said confidently, “I can always summon more. You will lower your sail.”
“Take the sail in,” Khara muttered to Aloish. He did as instructed, and instantly the galley slowed.
“I am called Emecktril in the Common Tongue. I’ve come to investigate you, as this craft is not known by us to be native to these waters. Who speaks for you?”
Most eyes turned to Khara, some to Norbert. But the man deferred to Khara with a gracious nod.
“I do,” Khara said.
Emecktril was the height of a man, somewhat larger an
d stronger-looking than the first natite I had seen back on the Isle of Ursina. He had the bow-front face and head of his kind, tentacles that rose from his back, and dark green and turquoise scales. I was surprised to see his two wide, webbed feet. I’d thought Natites only used fishlike tails.
“I know that you have paid the blood tax,” Emecktril said to Khara. “But that entitled you to passage only to and from the Isle of Scholars.”
“We intended no disrespect or violation,” Khara said. “But we had no choice. We were pursued by enemies and—”
Emecktril cut her off with an impatient wave. “Yes, and those who pursued you threaten you no longer.”
None of us could hide our surprise. We all knew that natites had some means of communicating over vast distances at impossible speeds. Still, it was disturbing that Emecktril, like the terramants, knew of events that were mere hours old.
“What we do not yet know is your purpose, Kharassande of the Donatis.”
I noticed Norbert glancing sharply at Khara, but he said nothing.
Khara took a deep breath. “We have been searching for living dairnes to join with our friend, Byx.”
Emecktril looked me over and nodded. “Yes, we know of this one.” He turned his semi-opaque gaze on Maxyn. “This one we recognize from Tarok. And these humans would be the galley thralls.”
“They are free men now,” Khara said firmly.
Emecktril sniffed. “That is a land affair, and none of our concern.”
I saw the dangerous light in Khara’s eyes and knew she was becoming angry. “Yet you do concern yourselves with the affairs of land by allowing the sentient islands to move spies and traitors between Nedarra and Dreyland.”
Her words earned a natite smile, which looked almost comically like a gaping fish mouth. “Do you now wish to lecture me on political matters far above your station?” Emecktril asked with a sneer.
“War is coming.”
“A land war. Which is of no concern to us.”
Khara shot me a look. “Byx?” she asked.
I swallowed hard and said, “The natite lies.”
Emecktril didn’t seem overly upset. In fact, he laughed, a low, liquid, gargling sound. “I see the dairne talent is more than a myth. I will amend my statement. We do as we choose, when we choose, for reasons that are our own.”
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