by Julie Hunt
‘He’s tiring, Siltboy,’ I cried.
‘No tire,’ Siltboy replied. ‘Shadow likes to swim.’
I closed my eyes and saw the outline of Shadow’s paws paddling through the water. When I looked behind, his tail glowed and streamed behind him like a wake.
‘He’s trailing stars,’ I said.
‘And making bigger, just for us!’ Siltboy let go of Shadow’s collar. He pulled up his feet and sat cross-legged, and I found I could do the same. ‘See how he grows!’
Our ghost hound did seem to be getting larger. Somehow, he was letting himself spread as he sank into the water. Soon he was wide enough for us to sit upon side by side. He rose and fell with the swell, and we rose up and down with him.
‘Shadow is rocking, Peat,’ Siltboy said. ‘He rocks like a ship on the ocean. He is making me think of sea-voyage songs.’ Siltboy began whistling to himself. Suddenly he burst into song. His voice was high and clear.
Oh wave beat. Oh wing beat
Oh beat of the oars
Hail the hero . . .
He hummed a bit of the tune then fell silent. He looked as though he was trying to remember the words.
‘Is it an old song, Siltboy?’ I asked. ‘Did your mother sing it to you?’
‘Siltboy make it up,’ he replied, then he sang some more.
We’re riding the saltways
To seek out our fortune
In far-flung lands
Beyond the shore.
Siltboy hummed to himself some more. After a while he slumped against me and went to sleep. I held up the flower. Against the night sky it looked like a dark star.
‘Good night, everlasting daisy,’ I said, putting it into Siltboy’s bag for safety. I didn’t want to fall asleep and drop it into the water.
The wind off the river was cold but Shadow felt a little bit warm, as if the lights inside him were giving off heat. When I lay down next to Siltboy, the warmth seeped through my damp clothes and into my skin. I sighed and turned facedown, putting my arms around Shadow’s sides. I could feel his ribs, like the ribs of a boat, and when I turned my head I thought I heard a heartbeat, very faint at first but getting stronger.
How could that be? I wondered. Shadow doesn’t have a heart – he lost it when Scabbard speared him through the chest.
As I dropped off to sleep I decided it must have been my own heart I was hearing, beating in time to the rhythm of Siltboy’s song.
THE GREAT HOUND
I couldn’t have said how long that night-crossing took. It was longer than a normal night, but it didn’t seem as though a year had passed, like when I’d come to the Siltman’s country. When I woke up it was dawn, and Siltboy and I were lying on cold sand. The sleek was sitting between us, wide awake and flicking his tail from side to side as if he had been waiting for hours.
I sat up and looked about. This side of the river looked exactly the same as the other, except the sand wasn’t smooth – there were holes and trenches, and it was dug up in rough heaps.
‘Siltboy, we’ve arrived.’
Siltboy was muttering in his sleep. I hoped he wasn’t having another wit-battle.
‘Smite him,’ he called. ‘Smite the Siltman. We have fled from the darksome into the dazzle.’
‘You’re dreaming,’ I said. ‘Wake up.’
He rubbed his eyes and sat up, hugging his knees and shivering. Then he blinked and stared at his arms.
‘Look, Peat – skin of Siltboy is like skin of bird without feather.’
‘Goosepimples,’ I said. ‘You’ll warm up once we get moving.’
‘Siltboy never felt cold before.’ He jumped to his feet.
‘No matter. We is alive and on the far side!’
He gave a shrill whistle. ‘Shadow,’ he called, looking along the riverbank. He whistled again, and when nothing happened he turned to the sleek and made some strange chortling sounds that weren’t at all like the noises the sleek made. The sleek cheeped a reply and ran up the bank, stopping to look over his shoulder.
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
Siltboy shrugged, and for a moment he looked small and lost. He was shivering so much that his teeth were chattering. I took off my wool vest.
‘Put this on. You need to keep warm.’
He put the vest on over the top of his breastplate.
‘You could take off your armour,’ I suggested. ‘The metal is making you cold.’
‘Never!’ he cried. ‘Shadow will make me warm.’
He looked up and down the beach. The sun was coming up over a range of mountains in the distance, and his own shadow was clearly visible. It stretched to the water’s edge.
‘Come on,’ I said, taking his hand. ‘Shadow will be around somewhere.’ I wanted to get far away from the water as quickly as possible. Just because we had crossed the river didn’t mean we were safe from the Siltman.
Siltboy stumbled along beside me, tripping in the rough sand’s holes and hollows.
‘Hang on,’ he cried suddenly. ‘Them’s not potholes, them’s paw prints!’
He let out a whoop and ran ahead. The sleek flicked his ears in annoyance and his tail began to redden.
‘Come back!’ I yelled, but Siltboy took no notice. He followed the prints to a spot high on the riverbank, and he crouched there behind some bushes.
‘Peat, look!’ He beckoned for me to follow.
When I had caught up I found he was trembling, not with the cold but with excitement. He put his finger to his lips and urged me to keep low.
‘Behold,’ he whispered. ‘Through them leaves is a wondrous sight!’
I peered through the bushes.
‘Shadow?’ I breathed.
The creature was drinking from a small pond not far below us. His paws were the size of upturned cooking pots and his shaggy legs could have been the pillars of a great hall. He was the same colour as the Siltman’s dogs – a steely grey – but he was bigger than them, much bigger. He was the size of a draught horse, and his shadow stretched across the water and over the grasslands beyond.
We didn’t make a sound, but he raised his great head, sniffing the air; then he turned towards us and let out an ear-splitting bark. The sound must have frightened him as much as it frightened us, because he shied away and cowered for a moment before shaking his head and barking once more. He wagged his enormous tail and the movement created a wind that blew the bushes about.
Siltboy stood up. He was braver than I was.
‘Shadow? Is it you?’ he asked.
The great hound was before us in a single bound. He lowered his head and sniffed Siltboy, then he yelped with joy.
‘It is you!’ cried Siltboy. Shadow gave him a lick that sent him rolling down the bank, across the sand and splashing into the water.
‘No, Shadow. No!’ I cried as the gigantic dog bounded after him. Siltboy was laughing, but I could see how dangerous it was to play with a dog that size.
‘Drop,’ Siltboy commanded, and he smiled when the huge dog lay with his paws stretched in front of him and his head on the sand.
Even lying down, Shadow was taller than a cow. Siltboy gazed up at him as if he couldn’t believe it was true. I couldn’t believe it, either. I shut my eyes to see what his lights looked like, but there weren’t any. He simply disappeared, and when I opened my eyes he was still sitting there, huge and shaggy – a real, live dog.
‘Awe hound,’ Siltboy cried. ‘Most marvellous of mutts.’ He stretched his arms wide and hugged Shadow’s nose, and the big dog panted with a ‘Ha ha ha’ that sounded like laughter.
‘Come to him, Peat. He is gentle.’
Cautiously I made my way down the bank. I could see that Shadow was friendly, but he was too big and too much like the Siltman’s dogs for me to be easy with him. Nevertheless, I reached up and gave him a pat. Long strands of hair hung over his eyes and he smelled salty. He gave me a solemn look, and his eyes were kind. I heard his tail thumping on the ground.
‘He’s
thanking you,’ Siltboy said. ‘Shall we climb him?’
Shadow didn’t move as Siltboy went to his shoulder and, grabbing a handful of wiry hair, pulled himself up onto the dog’s broad back, where he sat with his legs stretched wide.
‘Come on, Peat.’ He leaned down and gave me a hand up.
Shadow wasn’t hard to climb – his coat was so rough and shaggy that it was like pulling yourself up with ropes.
‘Shadow, stand!’
I nearly slid off the back when the giant hound straightened his front legs. Siltboy leaned forward and put his arms around Shadow’s neck, and I held onto Siltboy, and then we were upright, high in the air.
‘Look at his diggings!’ Siltboy exclaimed, pointing to the hills and hollows in the sand.
The sleek chittered and ran towards us, staring up.
‘What’s he saying, Siltboy?’
‘Naught. Creature-sounds that make no sense.’
The sleek shook his head in frustration, then he ran behind Shadow and nipped his heels.
‘He wants us to go,’ I said. ‘He’s trying to round us up.’
The sleek jumped up onto Shadow from behind, scrambling over my shoulder and over Siltboy and settling himself at the front, sitting on the dog’s wide head. He gave three clicks and we were off, following the river.
We were a long way from the ground, but Shadow moved so smoothly that we had no fear of falling. The sleek gave a sharp cry and we left the water, bounding over the riverbank. Open country lay before us – grasslands and rolling hills. Shadow loped along with huge strides, startling birds; they rose around us, beating their wings, and settled again once we’d passed.
The grasslands stretched towards the horizon, and although the ground passed quickly beneath us, it seemed as though we were moving on the spot because the country did not change. Once or twice I looked back, but there was no sign of the Siltman or his dogs. They would have lost our scent at the river, I told myself as I gazed into the distance, pleased there was nothing to see except the pale waving grasses.
The sleek chittered and clicked, first in one of Shadow’s ears, then in the other.
‘He’s telling Shadow the way,’ I said.
After a while he left his place on Shadow’s head and curled around my neck, resting his nose on my shoulder.
‘Good little sleek.’ I turned to him as I spoke, but he looked away.
We travelled all through the day. By the time the light was fading we had reached forestland and I could see mountains ahead. Shadow moved among tall trees, and the ground underfoot was soft with leaf litter. He didn’t tire, but I was growing weary and my stomach was grumbling.
‘Let’s stop and rest.’
‘Rest not,’ said Siltboy. ‘The Siltman rides my shoulder sure as the sleek rides yours. When the flower is with the muck auntie we are safe, and not before.’
I reached into Siltboy’s bag and checked the everlasting daisy. The leaves had wilted, but the flower was still perfect.
It was almost dark by the time we reached the foothills of the mountains, and that’s when we stopped. We were in a clearing. The sleek sharpened his claws on a tree trunk, then he darted up and perched high in the tree’s branches, looking back the way we had come. Siltboy listened with his head on the side.
‘Hear anything?’ I asked.
‘Only wind in treetops,’ he said. ‘But Sleek will listen for us. He is true and noble friend. He travels far to help, and now he guards from above.’
The sleek looked down and bared his teeth.
The air smelled of moss and rotting bark. Siltboy found berries and mushrooms for our dinner, and Shadow drooled as he watched us eat.
‘I know you hunger,’ Siltboy said. ‘Tomorrow we will find food fit for a great hound.’
Siltboy rubbed Shadow behind the ears, and the dog sighed and closed his eyes. We lay down between his huge paws, and soon we were fast asleep.
The next morning we woke to a chorus of birds twittering in the trees. Siltboy cocked his head.
‘Bold brassy they sing, but their tweet to me is bird babble.’
‘You can’t understand them?’
‘Not a word,’ he said, puzzled.
‘Maybe the birds here speak a different language,’ I suggested.
Siltboy sniffed the air. ‘Smoke.’ He got up and peered through the trees. ‘Peat, look!’
Ahead of us was cleared land, a farm with crops growing – potatoes, corn and sunflowers. A hut made of rough boards stood inside a brushwood enclosure, and there were other buildings scattered about.
‘Stay,’ Siltboy commanded his hound.
We left Shadow in the clearing and walked towards the hut, accompanied by the sleek, who may have been a true and noble friend but still bit Siltboy’s foot and then glared at me as if daring me to do something about it.
‘Poor Sleek,’ Siltboy said. ‘How few winks did he sleep to make his mood so bad?’
I was suddenly aware that my clothes were dirty and that my hair was matted, with leaves and grass tangled in it. I could have had a wash when we were back at the river, but it hadn’t crossed my mind. Siltboy looked worse than I did. His face was grubby and his hair was so stiff with salt that it stood up in peaks.
An old man was sitting outside the hut, talking to himself. He had a blanket around him and he was holding a bowl.
‘Eat your breakfast, Pa,’ someone called from inside the hut.
The old man looked at the bowl as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it, then a woman came out and put a spoon in his hand.
‘Eat,’ she said. ‘I’ll be out when I’ve finished the chores.’ She disappeared into the hut.
The man looked blankly at the spoon and continued muttering to himself.
‘Fine days and fair weather,’ he said. ‘Grits and gruel. Have you planted the oats yet?’
He noticed us outside the brushwood fence and waved.
‘Mutti, there’s children here,’ he called. ‘Wild ones.’
‘Finish your breakfast, Pa,’ came the reply.
The old man watched as we let ourselves in through a gate in the brushwood fence, then he let out a gasp. ‘Strike me down! A scarlet runner!’
He set the bowl on the ground and the sleek wasted no time in polishing off its contents. ‘They’re rare, so rare,’ the man told us. ‘It’s a gift to see one these days.’
He watched the sleek lick clean the bowl, then he looked us up and down.
‘Where did you two urchins come from?’
‘The far shore,’ Siltboy said. ‘We crossed the Silver River from the Ever land.’
The old man’s eyes widened.
‘I know it,’ he said. ‘I’ll go there one day. What sort of craft did you come in?’
‘A boat without oars.’
‘Are you hungry?’
We nodded.
‘Mutti!’ the old man called. ‘They’re starvelings. They’ve come from the Far Shore. And they’ve got a runner with them.’
‘Pa, I’m busy. I’ll be out when I can.’
I could hear children inside the hut and the sound of pots and pans.
‘Grits and gruel is all you’ll get, and maybe some . . .’ The old man stopped mid-sentence. His mouth fell open, and he stared past us. ‘Strike me dead with a single blow!’ he cried. ‘A Great Hound! Mutti!’
I looked over my shoulder. Shadow had followed us. He stood outside the enclosure with his head over the fence. Perhaps he sensed how big and frightening he might seem to the old man, or maybe he was afraid he would get into trouble from Siltboy for not staying put – either way, he wore a questioning expression and his gaze was gentle. He reminded me a bit of Bella, looking down with big soft eyes.
‘Mutti! It’s one of the old breed.’
The man staggered to his feet and raised his hands. ‘A noble hound,’ he cried. ‘Mutti, Lem, Uncle, Jute, Stringer. Everybody, come at once!’
‘Stop it, Pa. You’re wandering again.’ The woman poked
her head out the door. ‘What in the halls of Hub!’ She dropped the bowl she was holding and it shattered at her feet. ‘Lem, get your da. Get Uncle. Get Jute, Marta and the others!’
The sleek was gone in a flash. Siltboy and I soon found ourselves surrounded as the yard filled up with people. Some of them had come in from the fields, carrying scythes and pitchforks. They put down their tools, and there were cries of awe and mutters of disbelief. The children huddled together and one little boy began to cry.
‘Mutti,’ he sobbed. ‘Big dog will eat us.’
His mother picked him up and quietened him.
‘I thought Pa was seeing things.’ She shook her head. ‘I never believed those old stories until now. Far tarnations!’
‘What sort of dog is it, Ma?’ a girl asked.
Siltboy stepped forward. ‘Battlehound,’ he said proudly. ‘There’s none more noble.’
‘Should we be afraid of him?’ asked a man with sandy hair.
‘Fear not!’ Siltboy told them. ‘He is a fierce enemy but loyal friend.’
‘You’ve got a strange turn of phrase there, boy,’ the man said. ‘Where do you come from?’
‘Beyond the Silver River.’
‘There’s no river around here, only the ocean, and no one has landed on this part of the coast in my lifetime. It’s too wild.’
‘He must be a throwback,’ another man said. ‘Look at his garb. He’s wearing some sort of breastplate.’
Some of the children edged towards Siltboy. They wanted to touch him to make sure he was real. Siltboy backed away.
The man with sandy hair turned his attention back to Shadow. ‘Well, I never in all my days thought I’d live to see a Great Hound.’ He shook his head. ‘Let him in.’
Someone opened the gate and Shadow stepped carefully into the yard as the people drew back. He was almost taller than the hut.
‘Sit,’ said Siltboy, and everyone gasped when the dog sat down on his haunches. ‘Drop.’ Shadow stretched his great paws out in front of him and put his head on the ground.
‘Where are you taking him?’ the mother asked.
‘Hub,’ I said.
‘You will make your fortune there. People will pay anything for a Great Hound.’
